#max loves being an npc in the kitchen

[oddeyecadia]

another set of pricefield headcanons "i love you i want us both to eat well" edition aka how they eat/cook together !!

- whenever max and chloe would eat or share food together i just know chloe's acts of service ass ALWAYS cuts and put food on max's plate first before she does literally anything else like this is just second nature to her. she always gives max the bigger half of the food too even tho max gets full easily, chloe would just eat it if ever max has any left overs anyway.

- max always make sure she orders a different drink from what chloe orders whenever they're at a cafe or something just so they could exchange orders if ever chloe doesn't end up liking hers. doesn't matter if max likes her original order better, she'll give chloe the better drink/food every single time. (i've written a scene inspired by some of these on ch. 2 of my pricefield tatbilb au fic here so go check it out if y'all want !! <33)

- max doesn't like eating the little white strings on cuties/oranges for texture reasons so chloe always removes them for her whenever they share one

- the olive theory!!! chloe loves olives while max hates them so whenever they go for pizza max would just automatically remove the olives on her slice and put it on chloe's without a word and chloe would just let her

- max feeding fries in chloe's mouth whenever she's driving!!!! she'd sometimes tease her and put way too much in her mouth so chloe could shut up

- i feel like max isn't necessarily a picky eater but there are a lot food textures she doesn't enjoy and u bet chloe memorized each and every one of that shit

- (slight nsfw) "i love you i want us both to eat well" chloe would say this whenever she wants to 69 and max absolutely hate and adore it at the same time

- idc what anyone says chloe is the "who tf is burning my kitchen?" wife and max is the "making breakfast for the love of my life 😍😍😍" wife

- they're both messy cooks max knows how to follow some recipes but sometimes she couldn't help but add some unheard of spice in there out of curiosity and completely ruin the dish, chloe "measurements are for cowards" price just eyeballs every ingredient and would somehow manage to create a dish u could find at five star hotels

- their usual setup while cooking together is basically just chloe doing all the work while max just stands there being her favorite emotional support sous chef giving her kisses every 2 minutes. sometimes chloe would make max do some silly little tasks "treat it like a side quest" she said and max suddenly is all for it (she's mixing something that's already been mixed) but then would get distracted and 5 minuets later she's opening all the drawers to stare at different utensils like the natural wanderer she is

#u bet chloe's a fuckin good cook with a mom like joyce #also baking reminds chloe a lil bit of chemistry so #max loves being an npc in the kitchen #fanfic promo again bc damn read my fics bro #pricefield #max caulfield #chloe price #life is strange #headcanons #headcanon #hcs

[the-emeralds-incorrect]

modern au emeralds playing stardew valley (I’m playing sv i love this game I’m almost on year two of my new save that I made after 1.6 came out)

[creative liberties are maybe taken. I’ve never played multiplayer (btw if someone wants to play w me hit me up) so I don’t know what’s different. I’m relying on google searches]

They do the community center, obviously. Fuck Morris and Joja Corp.

Dorcas and Pandora were the first ones to find the game like, a year before 1.6. They have a few saves together, but mainly play on the hilltop farm on one that is in sixth year currently. It’s beautifully decorated, mainly by Dorcas. Dorcas first married Leah, and Pandora first Penny (for the decor, she chose strawberry but heavily debated the forest and moon one as well) and Hazel, before finally they got their shit together and confessing irl and immediately marrying each other.

Dorcas loves fishing and it’s always her first skill mastered fully. She always does that part of community center insanely fast. She also knows all the secret fishing spots that give you presents with decorations for the house.

Pandora’s favourite part is maxing out friendship with everyone, she likes doing tasks. She also loves collecting artifacts. She made the mistake of giving up their first prismatic shard to Gunther before they knew about the desert sword thingy. Dorcas likes both farming and animals, Pandora fucking loves the latter.

When 1.6 comes out and multiplayer up to eight people becomes awailable, they nag Evan, Barty, and Regulus to buy the game and start playing. They choose the meadowlands farm, ofc (“No, we’re not getting wilderness, Barty, Pandora wants chickens from day one!”).

Barty is actually the only one of the boys to have any knowledge how to play beforehand. He spent like a week straight watching YouTubers so he has a decent grasp on the basics of the game. He did not get to the Ginger Island part.

Regulus has the wiki open for the entire time. He also buys the book that shows you prices of things the first time bookseller comes (he saw the event on the calendar, checked what it means, and saved some gold up). He finds out on a solo save that he loves cooking, so they update the house as quickly as possible.

Evan’s very much winging it. He gives random gifts to NPCs and refuses to check wiki to see what they like, just relying on their reaction to see which ones he shouldn’t give them. He remembers Pandora rant about a few of them and makes a point of giving Louis, Pierre, and Clint gifts they hate. His sister finds that hilarious. He’s also the one doing the farming; he doesn’t focus on how much money it will give them, but what Regulus needs in the kitchen.

Evan is also insanely good at Journey of the Praire King. “What the fuck how did you beat it second try.” “What, like it’s hard?” (The only hard/annoying part were the hoards of ogres from stage 1, after he beat that, it was easy. He doesn’t even play these types of games often.)

Barty absolutely loves the Mines and Skull Cavern and is in charge of everything fighting-related. He makes sure they always have enough coal.

I don’t see any of them being interested in minmaxxing it. Weirdly enough, maybe Barty, on like one solo save, but it’s not a priority whatsoever. They’re just here to have fun

#hope you enjoyed #marauders #harry potter #hp #marauders era #slytherin skittles #the emeralds #regulus black #dead gay wizards #barty crouch jr #pandora rosier #dorcas meadowes #evan rosier

[emizzzleblur]

I asked my friend her opinion of the 2023 f1 drivers:

apologies for the very long post but there are 20 of these bitches and I’m not doing a part 2 so hope you enjoy her unhinged thoughts <3

MAX:

I love Max I don’t care abt his racing like I don’t care abt anyones racing to be fair

I think I used to hate his guts in the beginning which is a true testament to our relationship being the strongest

I want to put him in a ball like a hamster and let him run across my kitchen floor

CHECOOOOOO:

I love Checo sm like i would gladly be a home wrecker if he gave me half a chance

He seems like if we met irl he probably wouldn’t like me but that’s ok I like him 🫶🏻

Charles:

Charles is just dumb and I’m kinda indifferent abt him because I feel like our brains work at the same frequency

Like we cancel each other out because we’re both from the south of france and we’re both bimbos

CARLOS:

CARLOSSSSSSSS

I don’t Even have to say anything we already know I’m obsessed with him like he’s def top 3 for me probably top 2 now that Nicky is gone I adore him sm

Lewis:

Im also indifferent abt Lewis i don’t hate him as much as I used to but I think we could talk abt fashion

George:

My opinion is exactly the same

I hate him with a passion and I would straight up LOVE TO FIGHT HIM but I wanna fuck him so bad it makes me look stupid

Lando:

I like Lando he’s so cute in the way where if I pinched him he’d probably make a noise like the pillsbury dough boy

He needs to stop calling himself daddy tho he’s not fooling anyone

I would rly enjoy pushing him into a shrub to bully him and watch him struggle to get up

Oscar:

I’m indifferent abt Oscar but his lack of personality makes me giggle

He reminds me of a saltine cracker or like pretzels

VAL:

MY DADDDYYYYYY!! I love Val with my whole heart he’s actually the best he’s so unbothered and just enjoying himself he’s the king fr

Zhou:

He’s an actual NPC I don’t think I’ve ever even acknowledged his existence outside of that one pic of him and Fleep like legitimately who is this man

Pierre:

I hate him but like in a way where I don’t ACTUALLY hate him like if he was drowning I’d probably throw him a life preserver

but am I the reason he’s drowning in the first place? Probably

ESTEBAN:

idk I’ve got a soft spot for esteban maybe it’s because we both struggle to say squirrel

He’s cute if he wasn’t French I’d fuck him (maybe if I’m drunk enough to forget he’s French)

YUUUKKKIIIII:

I don’t know when or why this happened but I am so in love w Yuki like he’s in my top 3

he’s so adorable and rly grew on me

I’d like to give him a marshmallow and a little kiss on the forehead

Nyck:

I don’t dislike Nyck but I don’t like him either

I’m indifferent he’s just kinda there but I will think about that video of him exercising for the rest of my life (dis)respectfully

KEVIN:

I rly like Kevin idk why

I don’t know much about him but he’s funny and he seems nice and kinda just chill idk he exists and he’s cool

Nico:

I know nothing about Nico and I don’t like him

I don’t know why I have a hate campaign against him but his face gets on my nerves and that’s good enough reason for me

Lance:

…I don’t wanna say it but he’s growing on me emmie like this is the worst possible outcome but I can’t stop it

Fernando

I do not like Fernando but as i said Before hes Fun like It’s fun to watch the world burn but I don’t like the bitch that threw the match

ALEX:

I love Alex he’s cute and he seems nice and his blonde hair rly fucks

I’d like to meet his cats we could be besties I’d kiss his cheek and pat his head

LOGAN:

I want him to fuck my brains out and honestly, that’s the only opinion I have on him like I have no other thoughts

#i asked my friend: f1 edition #these are so #all of them are so #I have no words and she has no brain cells #formula 1: 2023 #f1blr #f1 2023 #max verstappen #checo perez #charles lecrelc #carlos sainz jr #lewis hamilton #george russell #lando norris #oscar piastri #valtteri bottas #zhou guanyu #pierre gasly #esteban ocon #yuki tsunoda #nyck de vries #kevin magnussen #nico hulkenberg #lance stroll #fernando alonso #alex albon #logan sargeant #long post

[dancingkirby]

The Sim(p)s GX Part 2: Manjoume can't catch a break

I apologize for not getting screencaps of all the important events; this was because things happened really quickly and I have the reaction time of an elderly three-toed sloth and/or I didn't realize how important the event was at the time.

Will I ever quit this and go back to writing Volatile Elements again after I got sick of it, like I'm supposed to? Who knows??

WARNINGS: Sexual situations and mpreg.

The adults tried to throw a birthday party for Rachel. It didn't go that well, because I'm new to the game still trying to find out where all the different commands are. But she aged up into Child, and soon Lydia became a toddler. Unlike her older sister, who can be a little prickly, Lydia was a sweetheart and got along with everyone.

Rachel is also prone to having nightmares, although those appear to have decreased since I figured out how to put a roof over her bedroom.

Now more on Casa Tenjoume (as I call it)! The original plan was for Manjoume to be in a relationship with both Asuka and Fubuki, but the game didn't let me do that, so he's engaged to Asuka only. Manjoume started off doing office work, Asuka joined Amon in the blogosphere, and Fubuki is an entertainer, specifically a standup comedian.

Fubuki went on an outing with Taniya to the park. He's shown here flirting with both Taniya and an NPC simultaneously, and clearly having the time of his life.

After being turned down by Asuka once, Manjoume thought he finally got lucky.

...Only for Fubuki to wake up in the middle of everything and walk in on them! Sigh.

After a somewhat slow start to their own relationship, Taniya and Misawa started fucking like rabbits, although they got their own share of interruptions from the Garam kids wandering into the vicinity. They went out on another date, this time to a nightclub, and got so horny that they had sex on a nearby park bench. Probably they're having more sex than the other two couples combined.

It became clear that certain Sims had anger management problems. Asuka didn't get along with Fubuki (although I can't blame her), and Taniya had some kind of beef with Amon. Plans started to be made for some household changes...

...Only to be accelerated when tragedy struck the OG House. Lydia was very hungry, and Amon was making dinner for her when he started a kitchen fire. In the resulting confusion, Lydia's hunger maxed out and CPS removed her from the home! There was no getting her back, and I was pretty devastated. I HC that's when Taniya got fed up and decided that she and Misawa needed to move out on their own.

They bought another vacant lot, but after building a tiny room with nothing but one bed in it, they realized that they didn't have enough funds to complete the house. They (and their room) had to move in with Manjoume and Asuka. Fortunately, the latter couple had vacant space because Fubuki had moved into the OG House after he and Asuka got into a physical fight and maxed out their dislike.

One night, Manjoume was standing innocently outside his house when he was ABDUCTED BY ALIENS! They returned him a few hours later, dazed but (seemingly) unharmed.

I downloaded Back to Work, and Manjoume and Misawa got to change careers, to detective (I had to) and scientist respectively. Manjoume's first day on the job doesn't go too hot; he was supposed to be investigating a crime scene, but he spent most of his time either chatting and/or flirting with Fubuki (who was randomly at the crime scene...suspicious):

...Or sulking in the bathroom when everyone else was hanging out together.

Thankfully, his second day went better, and he got promoted to Officer. In a very surprising turn of events, Fubuki started regularly calling him asking for love advice!

One time when I switched households, Fubuki was nowhere to be found. I finally located him in an entirely different world, grilling meat at some park at 2 AM. No explanation was offered for this behavior.

Asuka started wanting a baby, and the tentative plan was for her to keep taking her birth control until the pack ran out, and try then. However, this was temporarily shelved when some weird things started happening to Manjoume. He started looking a little off, and it kept showing notifications that he had a stomachache. But then, I remembered about the alien abduction, aaannnd...

Folks, we have our mpreg.

It took me an embarassingly long time to put two and two together, although in my defense I had no idea that this was a game mechanic, much less one in the base game. But this whole subplot was awesome, and most of the next part will be devoted to it.

#yugioh gx #the sims 4 #valentineshipping #tigershipping

[grisdidthis]

The Glenn Legacy: G1, Entry #1

START HERE | 

Let’s see what about this legacy challenge thing, then.

The Challenge: Make a family the strongest it can be over 10 generations.

‘kay. Gotcha.

The Rules: Start with a single adult sim made with the create-a-sim or bodyshop, male or female. 

Mmm. So. This here is our founder, Bimby. Her surname will be Glenn, because the hood she’ll be moving into was called Glennupon Bridges before it got cleaned out and resurrected. 

The rules also tell me I should pick an aspiration - any aspiration! We’ll go with Family, since she’s supposed to be the first of a Strong Dynasty and that won’t work too well for her if her lifetime goal is to have 20 lovers at once. Personality points can be assigned at will, so our girl Bimby is going to be painfully shy, very nice but not too nice, and average in all other areas. This, it seems, makes her a cancer.  *snerk*

Below you see Kleinestad City, the place Bimby is moving to. Kleinestad was ground zero of the zombie apocalypse, but since then the Undead have moved on and people have started moving back in. Just, not very many of them, because I haven’t gotten around to repopulating it after the Great Purge. They’ll come. Until then, we’re stuck with Bimby and the handful of NPCs that the game brute forces through the mods which are meant to prevent them from spawning.  

Start the family on an empty 5X5 Lot. 

Okie dookie!

As you can see, it’s not a very fancy part of town that Bimby is moving into, but since it was the only one with the required amount of empty space to place a 5x5 lot, it’s what she’s getting. She seems happy with it, though? Jumping rope, getting some exercise in. She probably shouldn’t be doing it in those tall ass heels, but it’s not like the game will let her break a leg, so. You do yours, girl.

While Bimby is busy building up that body skill, let’s get started on the house!

We’re down to $790 from her initial 20k, but the essentials are all there and I’ve laid a foundation - which is important, because if we’re working up to a mansion we don’t want to start at ground level and have to tear shit down later on. Bimby is, of course, unemployed - let’s grab that newspaper the nice NPC just left and find her a job. 

Bimby is going into politics! AND managed to gain 1 body skill from jumping rope! She also wishes for a bookcase (good, good, we want our sims educated and well-read) and to gain creativity points. Hmm. Selling some art on the side seems like it may help her get the funds to put a roof over her head, so let’s get her an easel. 

Bimby loves painting, it turns out! Perhaps because it’s the only thing fun there is to do on this lot other than jumping rope, eating, sleeping, pooping, taking bubble baths and leaving a thousand butterflies-in-jars around the place. Also, since she doesn’t have the money for a kitchen yet, she’ll will be living on instant meals for the foreseeable future.

Since the only other humans in this hood are the mail & newspaper delivery NPCs, Bimby’s social life consists of writing in her diary. (I’m fairly sure that it’s a mod that allows her to do this.) It’s kind of sad. I’ll need to find a way to get her some friends and, down the line, suitable romantic interests. (She has 600 days left until elderdom and we are only on Day 5, so there is no sense of urgency in getting her hitched and making babies. She can live a little and sort out her shit before she settles down.)

Yay, I finally got her circadian rhythm to resemble that of a normal human!

...or not. Who wakes up at the ass crack of dawn to paint honestly pretty creepy faces? Bimby Glenn, apparently. Wow. Girl REALLY loves her some art.

REALLY LOVES ART. 

BIMBY. IT’S RAINING. GET INSIDE, YOU’LL CATCH A COLD IN THIS - oh. Wait. You don’t have a ceiling, that’s right. There is no such thing as an “inside the house” for you yet because you suffer from a severe lack of walls. Mmright. Don’t worry, we’ll fix it. At this rate you’ll max out your creativity skill in a couple of days. By then your paintings may be selling well enough to put a roof over your head at last, even if you don’t get promoted in the meantime because you always show up hungry/sleepy/smelling of armpit. 

Sooo Bimby’s first week in Kleinestad didn’t go swimmingly. Hopefully the next one will see her perk up a bit? (Her aspiration meter hit red two days ago and has only gone further down, I really need to work on fulfilling some of her wants rather than simply ensuring her basic needs are taken care of.) But heeeeeyyyy she just maxed out her creativity skill and her art is starting to rack up some actual money, so if she can smash out some more in her free time, exciting new things may be headed her way. Like ceilings!

In the meantime, interesting things are happening at work! Which, I’ve noticed, has yet to pay her. Must be some mod that’s causing it BUT POLITICIANS AMIRITE!

No, Bimby, you ARE getting that assistant. You’re not self-assured enough to answer questions yourself and furthermore, that shit is more likely than not to get your ass fired. Be smart about this.

See? Yay, moar charisma! Let’s put it to use and ambush that cute newspaper delivery girl, so that you can have a social interaction with another human being and perhaps even your first girlfriend! I mean, I was intending to make you a huge lesbo either way, but the fact that the only two other people around are female kind of seals your fate. 

This is Nancy Pasang! She has red eyes, which would normally disqualify her as a potential mate, but pickings are slim around these parts, so we take what we can get. And Bimby seems to hit it off with her! She definitely looks less morose than usual while hanging out. 

Sometime later, it becomes clear to both her and me (because look what her aspiration meter is at and what all her wants revolve around) that we need to get this woman laid forthwith. Since I don’t want to deal with the Matchmaker, we are using the Find-a-Mate crystal ball, and holyfuckingshit I didn’t realize how expensive that thing is, YOU BETTER BE WORTH THE MONEY AND GIVE ME SOMEONE QUALITY!

Yes, yes, we are indeed desperate. Give our Bimby some sugar, you overpriced bowling ball!

Oooohhh, look who popped up, what a coincidence! Unfortunately, Bimby didn’t time her request well. She had to run off to pee and eat, and Nance peaced out because she got tired of waiting for her date to finish her third instant meal. But they managed to build up their relationship to FRIENDS, and isn’t friendship (with potential benefits!) a wonderful thing?

Meanwhile, Bimby continues to not draw a salary (I really need to find out what mod is causing this) and not getting promoted despite her jobmeter being maxed out. Go figure. And now they’re asking for volunteers to do MORE free work, and because she’s nice by design and seemingly incapable of standing up for herself, the following bullshit ensues:

BOO, BIMBY’S CO-WORKER! BOOOOOOO!

Bimby comes home and goes straight to bed, exhausted, I’m guessing, by all the nonsense she had to put up with. Then we both think better of it and decide that before taking care of anything else, we’re having her quit the damn job. She has 0 interest in politics anyway and has made more money so far selling her weird abstract paintings. Because they weren’t paying her either way and the only benefit she got from wasting hours of her life there was not having to fork out money for lunch. So. 

YES!  BYE FELICIA!

Now our girl can use her new free time in more productive (and hopefully profitable) ways.

#ts2 #theglennlegacy

[theluasystem]

Could you answer 6, 7, and/or 8?

6. describe your innerworld(s)/headspace!

Oh, so, our headspace can be enormous, or just a house, depending of who you ask, so, I'm going to describe the part I know the most, and where most things happen, The House, and The Forest.

The place we go to front it's basically a house made almost all of wood, in the middle of a dead forest. It's almost always dark here, but, inside the house it's surprising warm n comfy.

The House has two floors, the lower one having the living room, kitchen, stairs and a windows, and, usually, where we stay while in the front. Normally, who it's more used to be in the body stays on the couch, or in the carpet/floor close to the chimney.

The second floor it's mostly the physical protector's (aka Jade, Greg, and Norwell) rooms, and nobody it's aloud there.

The attic became the room of one of the teens, and the roof it's the kid's place, apparently.

We also have Pietra's (caretaker of the protectors) house, that can work like The House, but it's more like, as a second opinion, for when we accidentally destroy the first one (yes, that was happened once, we hope to never do that again).

7.

Uhn, I already said my favourite, so now, I can talk about someone's else favourite!

I heard that our Ocean it's pretty cool, and a lot of us love there. It's for sure Max's and Leo's favourite.

We don't have exactly a beach there, most of the time it's just a really high cliff, that ends directly in the ocean. It's also aways night there, and seems to be really cold and calming. When Max it's having panic attacks, he always end ups there.

Another place that I don't know, but seems super cool, it's Lali's Garden. Lali it's our ex-co-host/host, that was dorment for over a year, and seems to be awaking up this month.

She lives in a completely white garden, with just her royalty big bed in the middle of it.

Seems like she was just sleeping there in this whole time, and the plants just keep growing, which some going as far as wrapping around her.

Karma says it's as beautiful as it's sad to be there.

8. do you have npcs in your inner world? what kind of relationships do you have with them?

Uhn, good question, that I don't know how to respond properly.

I don't know any npcs, but I can remember that Lidy used to create some when bored. It's probable that she kept some.

And, I assume some of our oldest OCs could have being NPC's too, it's a big possiblity.

Anyway, I think that, if we still have any, our relationship with they go as far as it would with a toy.

It's fun, until it's not. But we probably kept them somewhere safe and comfy, just as a memory, a good reminder of the time we spent with them.

So, ye, we hope we did a good job answering your questions!

We sure did the best we could, at least

Well, anyway, thanks for the ask! We had so much fun answering this!

- Rodrigo, and a bunch of disassociated messes in the background.

[ciathyzareposts]

The Black Gate: A Microcosm

Pride goeth before the fall.

                      Lord British wasn’t quite as bad as I suggested in the last entry, although I might have expected a warmer greeting (and an explanation) from someone I haven’t seen in 200 years. It occurs to me that Lord British and the Avatar aren’t really “friends,” as such, and come to think of it, he probably would prefer that I weren’t there. I mean, let’s look at the evidence. First–and this blew my mind when I realized it–Lord British has never actually summoned the Avatar to Britannia. When the Avatar comes in Ultima IV, it’s because moonstones and lore books were scattered throughout the multiverse in hopes that someone who could become the Avatar would find one. Lord British didn’t know that the person who became the Avatar, specifically, would find it.

      Dupre, Iolo, and Shamino were responsible for the Avatar’s arrival in Ultima V, and they weren’t acting on Lord British’s orders because he’d been kidnapped. The gargoyles summoned the Avatar in Ultima VI to kill him. It’s not clear who opened the moongate in this game except that Lord British specifically denies doing it. Note, too, how quickly Lord British sends the Avatar back to Earth after each game. There’s absolutely no denouement–the Avatar gets shoved through a portal the very moment he completes the main quest.

     The reason becomes clear when you think about it: The Avatar is a threat to Lord British’s own power. The Avatar is a spiritual figure who enjoys almost universal love, admiration, and recognition. He’s shown himself wise and courageous enough to save Britannia from destruction several times over. He’s built and re-built himself from Level 1 to Level 8 half a dozen times. He’s mastered the arts of war and magic. He knows everyone important in the kingdom. And by Lord British’s own standards, the Avatar the only person virtuous enough to bear his title. Would you want him around if you were a monarch? 

         The conversation starts out well.

        But he’s not dumb enough to recognize the Avatar’s utility, and he’s aware that a few things are clearly wrong. The most obvious concerns magic. It’s been going wonky lately. Spells don’t work. Mages, including his long advisor Nystul and Rudyom in Cove, are going insane. Rudyom had been studying something called “blackrock.”

Almost immediately, he wants to know if I brought my Orb of the Moons. I thought the backstory had me grabbing it, but it’s not in my possession, so I say no. This concerns Lord British. He worries that I’ll be trapped in Britannia. He gives me his Orb so I won’t have to stay, suggesting that it might work better for me because I’m freshly arrived.

           “Feel free to try it right now.”

          As we saw last time, Lord British is a bit naive about the Fellowship and Batlin, but he is aware that something is going on. In addition to the trouble with magic and the ominous rumbling, he says, “there is something wrong in Britannia.” He’s not sure exactly what, but: “Something is hanging over the heads of the Britannian people. They are unhappy. One can see it in their eyes. There is nothing that is unifying the population, since there has been peace for so long.” He wants me to go hang out with them and see what I can find out.     He is horrified to hear about the murder in Trinsic. He remembers a similar one from four years ago in Britain, and he suggests I talk with the mayor, Patterson, about it.               

I ask him about the earthquake, and he’s 100% up-to-speed on that. He says that for some reason, the Isle of Fire where I defeated Exodus has recently risen from the ocean. He warns me to watch out for the remains of Exodus and to make use of the shrines of virtue that I might find there. “Shrines of virtue?” I reply, confused. Yes, he says. In addition to the shrines to each individual virtue that I visited repeatedly in Ultimas IV through VI, Lord British also had built three shrines to the three principles of virtue: truth, love, and courage. These were on the Isle of Fire when it sank.           

You lose more credibility with every word you speak.

                I’m not sure how much I buy this little retcon, which not only suggests that Lord British conceived of the Quest of the Avatar before Sosaria became Britannia, but that first three shrines he had built were coincidentally unneeded during the actual quest. He goes on to say that the shrines are “meant for the use of an Avatar only,” so not only had he planned the quest before building any of the other shrines, he was so sure that it would succeed that the first three he built presumed the quest would be completed. Uh-huh. Anyway, he gave me a deed to a shop, docked near Vesper (Vesper’s back!) if I wanted to visit the island.      Beyond that, we make a little small talk. The castle has been renovated. He likes it but is annoyed by the nursery, which the Great Council talked him into implementing for his staff. (I’m 100% sure this reflects something happening at ORIGIN at the same time.) He’s kept my stuff, including a spellbook, in a chest for 200 years; I’ll find it in the west side of the castle; the key is in Lord British’s study.           

Indeed.

                  A couple of entries ago, in relation to Trinsic, I noted that the increased realism of the simulation and graphics made it increasingly hard to regard the small number of buildings and people in the city as a representative sample, leading us to the uncomfortable conclusion that a major city houses only 10 people. Ultima VII, like the Elder Scrolls games but unlike, say, Baldur’s Gate, has chosen not to fill the streets with generic NPCs or provide matte backgrounds suggesting untold miles of city blocks beyond the few that we can walk and experience for ourselves. Nonetheless, many of you argued that we should still regard the few buildings we see and the few NPCs we meet as a small representative sample of a much bigger world. While I have logical problems with this, I noted more and more signs of the truth of this view as I explored the tiny Castle Britannia.             

A) It’s kind of weird to denigrate your own sister as “prudish.” B) You’re so very, very wrong.

          The fortress is a single story, except for a roof with four corner rooms. The main floor has a courtyard in the middle with Lord British’s throne room north of the courtyard. When he’s on the throne, it’s just him and four guards–no advisors or courtiers or anything. The guards are all generically named “guard” (an exception with the “no generic NPC” rule), and they all call me an idiot for asking about their jobs.              

The Avatar’s eye twitches. His hand floats towards the hilt of his sword . . .

           Moving clockwise around the castle from Lord British’s throne room, we first come to the dining room and kitchen. A woman named Boots (it’s been her nickname since she was a child) runs the kitchen and cooks for the entire castle. She turns out to be the matriarch of a family that is all in service to Lord British. Boots’s husband, Benny, is the head butler. Her son, Charles, is a servant in love with a bartender at the Blue Boar named Jeannette. Her daughter, Nell, is a chambermaid. More on Nell in a minute. Anyway, Boots tells me that her husband is going absent-minded and forgot to order a bunch of mutton from Paws; if I go there and pick it up, she’ll pay me 3 gold pieces per loin or chop or whatever mutton is divided by. Surely there’s some kid who could do this?             I guess being the Avatar doesn’t qualify me to eat whatever I want from the kitchen, because the first time I grabbed a piece of bread, every NPC in the area screamed bloody murder and the guards came running.           

Great. Lord British’s own guards are open to bribery.

                  Lord British’s hated nursery comes next. It’s run by an old woman named Nanna. While she loves her job, she complains about the class system in Britannia and the crushing level of taxes imposed by the Britannian Tax Council. (I’m not sure that we ever meet these people, which is more evidence for the idea that the NPCs we do meet are just supposed to be a representative sample. Clearly, the Tax Council exists somewhere). Nanna has recently joined the Fellowship.          

Oh, right. Somehow Sherry the Mouse is still alive, too. I don’t believe any explanation for the ability of the mouse to talk is ever given, let alone its longevity.

            Nanna’s charges are three toddlers, and the weird thing is that only one of them is a child of an employee. What Nanna is really running is an orphanage. Max is the son of Miranda, who serves on the Great Council. A toddler named Kristy was found in an abandoned building in Paws. (The fact that there are no abandoned buildings in Paws is a perhaps evidence for the idea that the buildings we see are just supposed to be a representative sample.) Nicholas, the youngest, was left at the castle gates one night. He can’t even really speak. Sometimes, the kids are sleeping in cradles, which you can rock by double-clicking on them.           

If this was a modern console game, getting them to rock all at once would probably be an “achievement.”

           It’s a point of amusement that the Avatar’s script–NAME, JOB, BYE–never wavers even when he’s talking with children, who are particularly confused about the idea of a “job.” This is particularly funny for me because ever since I read this XKCD comic, my default reaction to being presented with a friend’s new baby is, “I hope it does a good job.”          

The Avatar’s dialogue options don’t change even when the subject is pre-verbal.

             We learn that Nicholas’s “job” is to try not to wet his diaper. At this, he has apparently recently failed, and the Avatar has the opportunity–this is not only a “first” in CRPG history but likely an “only”–to replace it with a fresh one by double-clicking on the clean diaper and then double-clicking on Nicholas. You want to get this right because there’s also a dirty diaper in the room, and if the Avatar uses that one, Nicholas’s vocabulary develops real quick.          

“Nurture” wins the old “Nature/Nurture” debate.

               While we’re on the subject of diapers, Spark complains at one point about the smell of them. You wouldn’t think three children, two of them almost too old for diapers, would produce enough to really ruin a room, particularly in an age that didn’t otherwise have actual toilets. Here again is some evidence that we’re supposed to imagine more children, perhaps even more staff members, in this area.

Continuing on, we pass a servant’s bedroom on the way to the Royal Council Chamber, which has only three seats despite having at least five members. I say this because the one member present, Miranda, mentions that she’s one of three women on the Council, and the gargoyle in the chamber, Inwisloklem (doesn’t that would like it would be an Ultima V spell? IN WIS LO KLEM!), says he’s one of two gargoyles. Miranda suggests that three women is in fact a small minority. I’m not sure we ever get an actual number of people on the Great Council, but let’s assume it’s at least 12. This provides us quantifiable evidence that the real size of the world, its buildings, and its people is supposed to be about four times what we actually see.              

Miranda will learn that such things must be possible for any free speech to be possible.

         My friend Corey, who is black, once told me that the true test of whether a white man is free of racism and prejudice is not whether he has black friends or whether he generally gets along with black people, but how he feels when he finds out that a black man is dating his sister. (“Daughter” also works well.) The CRPG version of this, for me, was finding a couple of gargoyles occupying prominent positions in Lord British’s castle. I confess I actually had a bit of a reaction to it when I first played this game back in the 1990s. I mean, it’s one thing to not want to see them victims of genocide, but to put them on the Council? What was Lord British thinking? That sort of thing. Naturally, I was expecting it this time, but I thought it was still an amusing example of art reflecting life.     Anyway, Inwisloklem reports that there’s a lot of tension between Britannians and the gargoyles, starting with the relatively inhospitable island, Terfin (which one had Lord Blackthorn’s palace), that they were given to settle. He’s considering joining the Fellowship, apparently unaware of their involvement with the Britannian Purity League. A second gargoyle named Wislem is lurking around the castle, claiming to be Lord British’s advisor. He reports that Lord Draxinusom is still alive, and he suggests that I visit him to report on the death of Inamo. Draxinusom will know if he has family.             

You would have thought 200 years was enough.

            Miranda, who’s something of a feminist, wants to see more women in government positions and would like to ban fantasy depictions of women in revealing armor. At the time, they’re working on a bill to outlaw the pollution of Lock Lake, and Miranda wants me to take a copy to Lord Heather, Cove’s mayor, for his signature.     Continuing onward, we find the quarters of Lord British’s personal bodyguard, Geoffrey, who despite his title spends all of his time training in his quarters. The quarters are notably spartan; Geoffrey appears to sleep on a bare mattress. I’ve always found Geoffrey to be the least interesting and most useless of my old Ultima IV companions–enough so that I generally play a fighter in that game so I don’t even get him in the party. He has nothing important to say here.          

For your sake, I’m going to forget you said that.

                Chuckles stands in the entry hall to the castle at the far south. Chuckles is perhaps the worst NPC in RPG history–and yes, I’m including the Adoring Fan. The classic jester character in fantasy–think Wit from Brandon Sanderson’s The Stormlight Archive or Robin Hobb’s Fool–is funny and witty but also somewhat deep and tragic. He has wisdom when it’s called for. Chuckles has none of that. He’s just a jackass. His jokes aren’t even funny. And you know what? Lord British doesn’t even seem to like him. I’m not even sure he really works for Lord British. He’s never in the throne room. He’s always hanging around the entryway to the castle, as if he’s some Britannian version of Mister Myxlplyx, and Lord British found it easier to just ignore him than deal with him. I mean, he’s been keeping up his shtick for 200 years now. What kind of sociopath does that?   Here, he wants to play The Game. It takes a few attempts at dialogue to understand what The Game is. I didn’t remember it from last time, but I picked it up fairly quickly: It’s to speak only in single syllables. A few lines of inane dialogue later, and I had a CLUE to consult the fortune-teller in Minoc. I’m sure the CLUE will turn out to be something about saving the gargoyles in Ultima VI (I don’t actually remember), so I’m not going to hustle off to Minoc real soon.           

Why couldn’t the first option have used “kill”?

         The west side of the castle goes quickly. Nystul’s quarters are next, followed by a random servant’s quarters, Lord British’s study, and two more servants’ quarters. Nystul has gone senile from whatever is happening to magic, but he still sells spells and reagents. There isn’t otherwise much to say about these rooms except for the books. This entry is already getting so long that I’m going to offer some book commentary as a separate bonus posting.

I’ll also note here that the Avatar can sleep in any of the beds, even Lord British’s, as long as he beats the true occupants to them. Another party member asks what time he wants to be awakened, and the Avatar specifies a time between 0 and 12 hours. I have no idea where the other party members go during this period, only that they’re back when it’s time to get up, and almost certainly they’re complaining about hunger. They’re really just like my cats in that regard. As I sleep the first night in the castle, the Guardian’s voice taunts me: “Yes, my friend, rest and heal, so you are strong and able to face the perils before you. Pleasant dreams.” It’s amazing how well the voice actor is able to turn such pleasant words into menacing threats.

In the northwest part of the castle, we have Lord British’s quarters. I note first of all that his “king” bed is just two double beds pushed together. It’s surrounded by bedcurtains that can be double-clicked to open and close. I’m slightly disappointed that the mirrors don’t reflect anything. (Even in 2020, have we seen any games with realistic mirror behavior?) You can also double-click the candles on his end tables to light them. How were 50 more games not created with this engine!?!

An astute explorer has noted a ring of servants’ corridors or guards’ corridors surrounding all of the rooms to the castle. Lord British’s changing room is the only place that offers access from this side, via a partly-hidden lever in the north. In general, secret doors in Ultima VII are denoted with barely-visible square stones in the middle of the wall textures. Sometimes, you can just double-click on them to open them, but other times they require a switch or lever. Here, almost every room in the castle has them, but they require a lever on the other side. This would make me uncomfortable, frankly, if I had one of these bedrooms.             

The arrow points to the lever. The wall to the northwest has one of the “secret door” symbols.

            Once you have access to the outer ring of walls, you can go up a flight of stairs to the castle roof. There, you can access a pair of cannons pointed down the drawbridge, although to no real purpose. I violated my “no theft” rule only once this session by “pocketing” one of the barrels of gunpowder next to one of the cannons; they’re just too damned useful to ignore. Incidentally, you mistake regular barrels for gunpowder barrels–which light and explode in response to double-clicks–exactly once.      Each of the four turrets has a corner room at the top. In the northwest room, I find the gear that Lord British was talking about: A shield, a bedroll (allowing me to sleep almost anywhere), a two-handed sword, some gold, some magic boots, some food, and my old spellbook It comes with a full set of Level 0 spells–basic cantrips like “Awaken,” “Weather,” “Douse,” and “Ignite”–and a few other scattered spells from the first through the third level: “Cure,” “Light,” “Fire Blast,” and “Heal.”           

The Avatar claims his spellbook.

         The northeast room has some armor, but I can’t figure out how to open the secret door to get in there. The southeast room is an empty jail cell. The southwest room holds Weston, husband of Alina, who I met back at the homeless shelter in Paws. Weston confirms that he stole apples from the Royal Orchid after the overseer, Figg, quoted an absurd rate. (He also reported that Figg has been giving free apples to the Fellowship.) Weston offers no excuse for his “crime” other than the poverty inflicted by an unjust class system. Every one of his lines is mocked by a nearby guard whose entire job must be to stand outside this one cell, because he continues doing it after Weston is freed. The guard is a satire of the modern cable-news-watching, talk-radio-listening observer whose political views are entirely devoid of nuance. Right and wrong are defined by rigid adherence to the law and those in power. Any attempt to excuse or mitigate crime is saying, “Boo-hoo; it’s society’s fault.” His father was poor and yet somehow managed to get by without committing crimes, so that anecdote should apply to everyone.           

Do you think the official term is “Paviaphobia?”

          I return to Lord British, who expresses horror at Weston’s story, searches the records, concludes that someone had “usurped mine authority,” promises a full investigation into Figg, and orders Weston released at once. This happens so quickly that the cell is empty when I return.            

I half-expected him to next say, “I usually execute people for that!”

         Before we wrap up, let’s return to Nell and her family. Nell is the castle’s chambermaid. She is pregnant and engaged to Carrocio, an entertainer who runs the “Punch & Judy” show out in Britain. When questioned about her child, she says that Carrocio is probably the father. She muses: “Then again, it could be . . . no, probably not him. Or could it be? Hmmm, that would be interesting.”                

Given your situation, I think you might waive that requirement.

            I don’t know if it’s possible to solve this mystery without killing Lord British, but–after taking a save, of course–that’s what I did. A few times a day, Lord British stands at the doorway between his throne room and the courtyard, looking into the latter with satisfaction. If at that moment you double-click on the plaque above his throne room door, it falls off and embeds himself in his head, supposedly a joke based on an incident in which a piece of metal fell off the ORIGIN building and hit Richard Garriott in the head, sending him to the hospital. To drive the joke home, the Avatar nonsensically yells, “Yancey-Hausman will pay!” This is the name of a still-extant commercial real estate firm that owned ORIGIN’s building.          

The Guardian is pleased with this turn of events. Note: To avoid the discussion, I have speech turned on, but if you just HEAR the Guardian, it doesn’t really help in a screenshot.

          Lord British’s corpse–for which the graphic artists designed a gruesome imagine of the plaque stuck in his head–holds only one object: His will.             

Being of sound mind and body, I hereby bequeath all of my belongings to . . . Nell, my beloved chambermaid. She has kept me warm so many nights, which is more than I can say for most of my bloody subjects! And to our unborn child I bequeath my crown. Long live the king. Or queen, whichever it shall be!

                 There’s so much to unpack in this letter, and a huge question is whether we’re to regard it as canonical. If it is, wow. No one would begrudge Lord British a love interest, of course, but it’s a little troubling that he keeps her and her entire family in servitude instead of recognizing her and at least elevating her to queen-consort or something. More important, he’s willing to let another man raise his unborn child, only recognizing the child if he dies, at which point he won’t be around to see the havoc that this causes for Nell and Carrocio’s marriage. Even worse, the letter shows a secret contempt for his subjects that we’ve never heard from his mouth, and he clearly expects that his government will continue as a hereditary monarchy.         

I didn’t do anything. I was just reading a plaque.

       You could argue that the letter is just supposed to be an Easter egg, an in-joke, accessible only by doing something that breaks the game, but that’s hard to countenance because it’s the second half of the mystery that Nell introduces in regular dialogue. Either way, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: If some ORIGIN employee is responsible for this note (and the general portrayal of Lord British in this and the next game) without consulting Richard Garriott, it was a pretty mean thing to do to one’s boss. If Richard Garriott was aware, or if it was his idea, then it’s a pretty weird thing to do to your alter-ego.            Oddly, no one in the castle has any reaction to Lord British’s demise, so perhaps he wasn’t all that beloved after all. Suspecting that his death makes the game unwinnable, I of course reloaded. 

             She said loudly and clearly while looking around her nervously.

             But we can’t go without finding out how Lord British reacts to being changed with a dirty diaper. I gave it a try while he was sitting down to dinner. The answer is: he screamed, fled to the corner, and then turned around and killed everyone in the entire room with fireballs.

        A diaper brings out the king’s true nature.

           I’m definitely saving one of those for Batlin.

Wow. Over 4,000 words on the castle alone. This is a very content-rich game. Shall I continue with this level of detail, or is it getting to be too much?      Time so far: 7 hours        Edit: I woke up in the middle of the night realizing that someone would ask what happens when you attempt to put a clean diaper on Lord British. I was mildly terrified by the possibilities but I knew I had to try it. Thankfully, he (and any adult) just says, “Those are for babies.” Nothing else happens. Whew.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/the-black-gate-a-microcosm/

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