Quieter Wednesday
Mar. 16th, 2022 11:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickBy a little bit, anyway, especially on the work side:
Work – Less busy than yesterday, at least – no QC file mania (though I did have to resend one after it was blocked the night before). Spent the day checking on all the things that our credit card processor hasn’t fixed, fixing what I could of some other stuff, and taking a couple of end-of-day credit card calls. Not nearly as harried, which was good, but still frustrating in its own way with all these annoying problems that just linger for ages. *sigh* Meh. Two more days!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, finishing up Part II of the Oxventure “Peak Performance!” Egbert, being a good friend, got Dob out of the pit – mainly by pulling the stake he was impaled on out and carrying them BOTH out of it. The others were appropriately worried by their friend’s state (even Prudence!) and worked together as a team to get the stake out of him and the wound healed (Prudence yanking, Merilwen providing a stick to bite on, Corazon applying pressure to the wound, and Egbert doing the actual healing). The impalement did close up – but as it did, Prudence was able to see that a bit of the strange purple-and-black magic in the spike pit ended up going INTO Dob. Dob was – not exactly pleased by this information, but as he felt okay for the moment. . .well, nothing to do but set up camp! Bismuth had gotten the mausoleum tent all set up, and Corazon volunteered for first watch (disguising himself as a gun turret and nearly making Johnny choke with laughter XD), so they all settled in for a few hours!
Corazon, of course, rolled low on his Constitution check and ended up falling asleep mid-watch. And when Merilwen came out to relieve him (needing less rest time than the others thanks to being an elf who trances instead), he first claimed to have scared off a whole band of goblins, THEN rolled a one on a wisdom/perception check and freaked out about a non-existent bear. Merilwen sent him inside with some patronizing chatter and some eye-rolling –
And that’s when SHE noticed the footprints. Coming out of the woods where Corazon thought he saw the bear, circling the pit, stopping at the tent, and then continuing on. Meaning someone had BEEN IN THEIR CAMP. She freaked, woke up Dob, which woke up the others (except Egbert, initially), and had them all come out to look at the tracks. Dob attempted to smell them to pick up the scent, but was hampered by Prudence’s puppy grimoires Frisky and the Darkness trying to “help,” while Corazon whipped out his magnifying glass to play detective and follow them – and, thanks to ANOTHER one, ended up running straight into a tree and dealing himself six points of damage. Good thing Dob had rested and could heal him again! Fortunately, the incident seemed to give Merilwen an idea and she went up and used a new spell to actually SPEAK to the tree! The tree was some sort of weird combination of Italian and Transylvanian, but it gave her some information – a hunter in the woods, who’d chopped down some of the tree’s friends to build a cabin and has been setting out lots and lots of traps. Turns out he lives nearby too. The tree also demanded that, in exchange for the info, she kill a woodpecker that’s been using it to hide acorns – Merilwen was reluctant, but Corazon just skewered the thing with a crossbow bolt (and then cooked it and shared it with Bismuth, so Merilwen couldn’t complain about waste). And the Merilwen managed to upset the tree by asking it about its mulch. XD But hey, they at least had a vague idea of where to go, so Part II ended with them making preparations to head out!
Part III picked up with the gang heading out into the woods – Dob had insisted on going up into the trees for a better vantage point (and to annoy Corazon, who was yelling at him for not walking like a normal person) and thanks to his amazing acrobatics skills plus an excellent roll, was basically walking along the branches like they were solid ground. From up there, he managed to spot a plume of smoke that suggested where the cabin was – but on the ground, Corazon found something else – a snare, with a dead rabbit in it.
A snare that magically reset itself, and a rabbit that lurched back to life and started heading toward the smoke. A freaked out Corazon kicked it and didn’t even get scolded by Merilwen. XD Prudence confirmed that the snare had the same magical energies in it that the spike pit had, and the group started wondering if the snares were being set by a lazy necromancer who makes their food walk back to them. Some woodpecker abuse (Corazon killing one, then grievously wounding another to put in the snare and see what happened) proved that the snare had to kill the animal to bring it back (Egbert was all for throwing his coat in, but the others talked him down. He also punted the resurrected woodpecker because he thought that was part of the “science experiment”). The others checked on Dob, who doesn’t really feel any different YET, and then the group headed toward the smoke and the cabin. I’ve stopped it with their arrival at said cabin – we will see who or what is inside tomorrow!
2. Keep editing Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Santa Monica’s Vale Of Tears”: Check – Alice’s plan of “kick the pipe, go invisible, sneak over to the catwalk and drop while everyone’s distracted” worked out pretty well! Mostly because the thugs were too busy arguing to pay much attention – and when they DID hear her drop onto the catwalk, they misinterpreted it as maybe a Sabbat vampire keeping tabs on them. Which also allowed Alice the time she needed to pick the lock on the office door and get in without being seen. :) Now she just needs to lay down that Astrolite and get the hell out of dodge!
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – two in, two out today –
A) First up, James Turner plays the new “Unlucky Cook” Scenario in The Sims 4, and the challenge is summed up by the title: “I can't cook without catching fire in The Sims 4!” XD Yes, basically the game makes it so the Sim you make for the challenge sets things on fire a LOT while cooking, and your goal is to either get them to become a Celebrity Chef despite the danger, or change gears and go for Celebrity Mixologist. James wanted to go for the former, and so Semaj was dusted off, given the Master Chef aspiration, the Foodie, Ambitious, and Loner traits, and a preference for Cooking, Painting, and Gardening, before being sent to live in Tartosa! What followed was a twenty-seven-day-long grind of cooking and fires! XD Semaj basically cooked his little heart out whenever possible, and spent almost as long putting out fires and replacing his stove – when he could afford it. XD Key takeaways from this scenario are as follows:
I. If doing it, make sure to get the Chef’s Kitchen and Homey lot traits right away, as both of those help you level up your cooking faster.
II. The stove will NOT get set alight EVERY time your Sim tries to cook – James in fact had a long fireless period which lulled him into a false sense of security and made him think buying the super-ultra-fancy stove on Rebate Day was a good idea. Even unbreakable objects can be scorched all to hell, and they cost a LOT more to replace! (Someone in the comments mentioned that becoming a spellcaster and using Repairio in these situations would probably be the best strategy.)
III. It does make sense to do the Master Chef aspiration along with this scenario, as the goals align nicely – even if you do have to randomly ask a Sim off the street to your dinner party. XD
IV. Leveling up at the highest levels is the biggest pain because of the long gaps between workdays – James nearly melted when he realized he had to wait FOUR DAYS to get his final promotion.
V. The best side hustle for making money, other than completely destroying your house to sell all the nice decorative bits someone worked really hard on? Woodworking! The moment you get to the point of being able to make nice bathtubs, you will be earning cash hand over fist. And James commented that he was pretty sure he could use this for the “Makin’ Money” scenario. . .
So yeah, there are your tips if you wish to try this challenge. XD James seemed to have fun, at any rate! And it seems like he’s interested in doing the supervillain challenge as well. . .
B) And second, we had GrayStillPlays and more Happy Wheels! We started with a color-coded-by-difficulty yeet-tastic bottle flip (where Gray wasn’t happy until he hit one of the gray “sus” areas), then moved onto a bicycle speed course (where you need all the speed to get past all the harpoons, up and down – but then need to slow DOWN enough to actually touch the win, as Gray discovered when he rocketed right past it); Rope Swing Green (which actually had a secret spike-fall-into-a-jet-fall win, plus an actual rope swing – leading to another spike fall); a “don’t move” board that fully dismembered Bike Dad and brought him on a journey before dumping him in his grave (Gray was like “how many Don’t Move boards now end in my funeral?”); a “block fall” where increasing speed plus smaller and more numerous blocks equals MANY exploding limbs (Gray had to struggle for quite a while to find the right angle to fall at to survive the trip down); and finally “Gray’s Happy Hell,” which involved both a pogo run through exploding smiley faces (you had to avoid the winking ones – plus the ones the game just randomly threw at you), and a secret deadly rope swing where you had to get through a thumbnail hole AND figure out how to survive the faces crushing you on a false floor before you could get the win (Gray got smushed and IMMEDIATELY started taking everything personally). As usual, very amusing and very weird. XD
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – since my “Humanized Modern AU Smiler” post isn’t gonna be ready for tomorrow, I put one of the other random reblogs I’d drafted in the Victor Luvs Alice queue for Thursday, then followed up with that post about Valice being just ahead of the Alice/Bumby ship on AO3 for works written for Friday, then that Valice playlist I found for Saturday! Reset the queue speed to one post per day, and I was set, yay~
So yeah, that's all good at least. And now it's time to go to bed and see what tomorrow brings. Night all!
Work – Less busy than yesterday, at least – no QC file mania (though I did have to resend one after it was blocked the night before). Spent the day checking on all the things that our credit card processor hasn’t fixed, fixing what I could of some other stuff, and taking a couple of end-of-day credit card calls. Not nearly as harried, which was good, but still frustrating in its own way with all these annoying problems that just linger for ages. *sigh* Meh. Two more days!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, finishing up Part II of the Oxventure “Peak Performance!” Egbert, being a good friend, got Dob out of the pit – mainly by pulling the stake he was impaled on out and carrying them BOTH out of it. The others were appropriately worried by their friend’s state (even Prudence!) and worked together as a team to get the stake out of him and the wound healed (Prudence yanking, Merilwen providing a stick to bite on, Corazon applying pressure to the wound, and Egbert doing the actual healing). The impalement did close up – but as it did, Prudence was able to see that a bit of the strange purple-and-black magic in the spike pit ended up going INTO Dob. Dob was – not exactly pleased by this information, but as he felt okay for the moment. . .well, nothing to do but set up camp! Bismuth had gotten the mausoleum tent all set up, and Corazon volunteered for first watch (disguising himself as a gun turret and nearly making Johnny choke with laughter XD), so they all settled in for a few hours!
Corazon, of course, rolled low on his Constitution check and ended up falling asleep mid-watch. And when Merilwen came out to relieve him (needing less rest time than the others thanks to being an elf who trances instead), he first claimed to have scared off a whole band of goblins, THEN rolled a one on a wisdom/perception check and freaked out about a non-existent bear. Merilwen sent him inside with some patronizing chatter and some eye-rolling –
And that’s when SHE noticed the footprints. Coming out of the woods where Corazon thought he saw the bear, circling the pit, stopping at the tent, and then continuing on. Meaning someone had BEEN IN THEIR CAMP. She freaked, woke up Dob, which woke up the others (except Egbert, initially), and had them all come out to look at the tracks. Dob attempted to smell them to pick up the scent, but was hampered by Prudence’s puppy grimoires Frisky and the Darkness trying to “help,” while Corazon whipped out his magnifying glass to play detective and follow them – and, thanks to ANOTHER one, ended up running straight into a tree and dealing himself six points of damage. Good thing Dob had rested and could heal him again! Fortunately, the incident seemed to give Merilwen an idea and she went up and used a new spell to actually SPEAK to the tree! The tree was some sort of weird combination of Italian and Transylvanian, but it gave her some information – a hunter in the woods, who’d chopped down some of the tree’s friends to build a cabin and has been setting out lots and lots of traps. Turns out he lives nearby too. The tree also demanded that, in exchange for the info, she kill a woodpecker that’s been using it to hide acorns – Merilwen was reluctant, but Corazon just skewered the thing with a crossbow bolt (and then cooked it and shared it with Bismuth, so Merilwen couldn’t complain about waste). And the Merilwen managed to upset the tree by asking it about its mulch. XD But hey, they at least had a vague idea of where to go, so Part II ended with them making preparations to head out!
Part III picked up with the gang heading out into the woods – Dob had insisted on going up into the trees for a better vantage point (and to annoy Corazon, who was yelling at him for not walking like a normal person) and thanks to his amazing acrobatics skills plus an excellent roll, was basically walking along the branches like they were solid ground. From up there, he managed to spot a plume of smoke that suggested where the cabin was – but on the ground, Corazon found something else – a snare, with a dead rabbit in it.
A snare that magically reset itself, and a rabbit that lurched back to life and started heading toward the smoke. A freaked out Corazon kicked it and didn’t even get scolded by Merilwen. XD Prudence confirmed that the snare had the same magical energies in it that the spike pit had, and the group started wondering if the snares were being set by a lazy necromancer who makes their food walk back to them. Some woodpecker abuse (Corazon killing one, then grievously wounding another to put in the snare and see what happened) proved that the snare had to kill the animal to bring it back (Egbert was all for throwing his coat in, but the others talked him down. He also punted the resurrected woodpecker because he thought that was part of the “science experiment”). The others checked on Dob, who doesn’t really feel any different YET, and then the group headed toward the smoke and the cabin. I’ve stopped it with their arrival at said cabin – we will see who or what is inside tomorrow!
2. Keep editing Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Santa Monica’s Vale Of Tears”: Check – Alice’s plan of “kick the pipe, go invisible, sneak over to the catwalk and drop while everyone’s distracted” worked out pretty well! Mostly because the thugs were too busy arguing to pay much attention – and when they DID hear her drop onto the catwalk, they misinterpreted it as maybe a Sabbat vampire keeping tabs on them. Which also allowed Alice the time she needed to pick the lock on the office door and get in without being seen. :) Now she just needs to lay down that Astrolite and get the hell out of dodge!
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – two in, two out today –
A) First up, James Turner plays the new “Unlucky Cook” Scenario in The Sims 4, and the challenge is summed up by the title: “I can't cook without catching fire in The Sims 4!” XD Yes, basically the game makes it so the Sim you make for the challenge sets things on fire a LOT while cooking, and your goal is to either get them to become a Celebrity Chef despite the danger, or change gears and go for Celebrity Mixologist. James wanted to go for the former, and so Semaj was dusted off, given the Master Chef aspiration, the Foodie, Ambitious, and Loner traits, and a preference for Cooking, Painting, and Gardening, before being sent to live in Tartosa! What followed was a twenty-seven-day-long grind of cooking and fires! XD Semaj basically cooked his little heart out whenever possible, and spent almost as long putting out fires and replacing his stove – when he could afford it. XD Key takeaways from this scenario are as follows:
I. If doing it, make sure to get the Chef’s Kitchen and Homey lot traits right away, as both of those help you level up your cooking faster.
II. The stove will NOT get set alight EVERY time your Sim tries to cook – James in fact had a long fireless period which lulled him into a false sense of security and made him think buying the super-ultra-fancy stove on Rebate Day was a good idea. Even unbreakable objects can be scorched all to hell, and they cost a LOT more to replace! (Someone in the comments mentioned that becoming a spellcaster and using Repairio in these situations would probably be the best strategy.)
III. It does make sense to do the Master Chef aspiration along with this scenario, as the goals align nicely – even if you do have to randomly ask a Sim off the street to your dinner party. XD
IV. Leveling up at the highest levels is the biggest pain because of the long gaps between workdays – James nearly melted when he realized he had to wait FOUR DAYS to get his final promotion.
V. The best side hustle for making money, other than completely destroying your house to sell all the nice decorative bits someone worked really hard on? Woodworking! The moment you get to the point of being able to make nice bathtubs, you will be earning cash hand over fist. And James commented that he was pretty sure he could use this for the “Makin’ Money” scenario. . .
So yeah, there are your tips if you wish to try this challenge. XD James seemed to have fun, at any rate! And it seems like he’s interested in doing the supervillain challenge as well. . .
B) And second, we had GrayStillPlays and more Happy Wheels! We started with a color-coded-by-difficulty yeet-tastic bottle flip (where Gray wasn’t happy until he hit one of the gray “sus” areas), then moved onto a bicycle speed course (where you need all the speed to get past all the harpoons, up and down – but then need to slow DOWN enough to actually touch the win, as Gray discovered when he rocketed right past it); Rope Swing Green (which actually had a secret spike-fall-into-a-jet-fall win, plus an actual rope swing – leading to another spike fall); a “don’t move” board that fully dismembered Bike Dad and brought him on a journey before dumping him in his grave (Gray was like “how many Don’t Move boards now end in my funeral?”); a “block fall” where increasing speed plus smaller and more numerous blocks equals MANY exploding limbs (Gray had to struggle for quite a while to find the right angle to fall at to survive the trip down); and finally “Gray’s Happy Hell,” which involved both a pogo run through exploding smiley faces (you had to avoid the winking ones – plus the ones the game just randomly threw at you), and a secret deadly rope swing where you had to get through a thumbnail hole AND figure out how to survive the faces crushing you on a false floor before you could get the win (Gray got smushed and IMMEDIATELY started taking everything personally). As usual, very amusing and very weird. XD
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – since my “Humanized Modern AU Smiler” post isn’t gonna be ready for tomorrow, I put one of the other random reblogs I’d drafted in the Victor Luvs Alice queue for Thursday, then followed up with that post about Valice being just ahead of the Alice/Bumby ship on AO3 for works written for Friday, then that Valice playlist I found for Saturday! Reset the queue speed to one post per day, and I was set, yay~
So yeah, that's all good at least. And now it's time to go to bed and see what tomorrow brings. Night all!
