Happy Memorial Day!
May. 30th, 2022 11:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickAnd the unofficial start of summer definitely felt like it today -- got up to at least 88 F, though fortunately it wasn't too humid. We ended up shutting the windows and the shades for a good part of the afternoon to keep all the hot air out. Still pretty warm in here right now, but it's not as bad as that one night a little while ago when my fan was forcing all the hot air DOWN. . .
Even with the summer heat hitting hard, though, I was more than able to make the most of my final day off:
1. Continue working on "Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland": Check! Back in the saddle on my big project for the rest of 2022, with Alice finally continuing her conversation with Jack and Skelter! Jack has told her that pretty much all of vampire politics is like dealing with the Voermans in one way or another, while Skelter has dropped his “the ancient vampires of the world can control you like a puppet on a string and there’s nothing you can do” theory on her, which naturally isn’t doing great things for her state of mind. Next time, she should meet Nines, for a conversation that – isn’t going to go as well as either of them had hoped. . .
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs and at least the Plumbella in the Watch Later: Check! I am once again fully caught up on my Subs, and on my Plumbella, yay –
A) Started early this afternoon to catch up on my James Turner episode from yesterday – Part 45 of the Cottage Living LP! With things wrapping up with the current generation of the Bigwallet family, James has set himself the goal of finishing off the vault beneath the house before ending things. (Well, also Nina’s gotta age up, but that’s gonna happen no matter what.) And that means Hazel needed to do some stealing! And some gigs, to, you know, earn money, because James keeps spending all of the non-money-tree money on the vault. XD He had her take a Fabulous Living Room Renovation over in Oasis Springs for one of the two families now living there (yes, as James later discovered, his worlds are a bit – depopulated, these days), where she spontaneously stole a laptop before doing the renovation (giving them a red feature wall, a violin, a plant for their kitchen, and some nice green cushions – also a rug and a dresser in one of the bedrooms), then bought a bust after everything was sorted only to steal it right away. XD Hey, she DID leave a bunch of her paintings in the house, one of which is a masterpiece, so! Once the clients paid up and she’d dropped off her new items in the vault, she then went over to the art museum in San Myshuno, nabbing the grand piano from the music room and another bust from the woodworking room. Not bad!
Of course, to make this vault look nice, they needed money, and Hazel’s gigs only paid so much, so the next step of the plan was to gather up the remaining aubergines and chicken eggs, then send Trenton over to Kim’s market stall in Finchwick to sell it all for a very tidy profit. This unfortunately meant that Hazel went to her next gig alone – James never got the pop-up to follow her there – but eh, at least he had enough money to continue renovating the vault! He updated the lava pool with those fun glowing walls and floors from Spa Day, some bubblers, and a couple of crocodiles (and a fence to stop people like Nina from swimming in it); rearranged the stolen items a bit so they had a music room (organs and grand piano), a fine arts room (the busts), and a tech room (the stolen computers, and a TV Trenton picked up from a stop at her old house); readded the hallway to the shed link-up and did the shed’s basement storage area to look appropriately grody to keep out looky-loos; and started adding a bathroom, only to run out of money. Again. Along the way he also made sure to have the Sims actually take care of themselves and their pets for a change. XD And as Nina is on the verge of aging up, the next episode might be the last! Depends on how far he gets on the vault, perhaps. . . Then it’s just a matter of waiting until the next pack! And hoping it works on arrival. Fingers crossed!
B) Then, quickly between beanbags and my workout, I managed to sneak in a video of someone playing Beat Saber (a VR rhythm game where you use faux lightsabers to break cubes flying at you to the beat of various songs, while avoiding walls and mines) to The Smiler’s theme tune! And doing very well too, passing the level with an A score. Nice work, Imagineer! :)
C) Then, this evening after writing, we started with said Plumbella in the Watch Later – “Removing the pool ladder in every Sims game!” Or, more accurately, seeing how long it takes a Sim to drown in each game, as per a suggestion on her Discord channel! As per usual, she did the games in reverse order of release to see how long it took a Sim trapped in the pool to drown:
Sims 4 – Gave randomized Sim Constance Hutchinson a big pool in Newcrest, then walled her in with a glass roof and lots of windows so she couldn’t escape. Constance swam around for just under 24 hours in-game before exhaustion finally took her and she died. Pretty standard for the very forgiving Sims 4!
Sims 3 – Went to Adventureland and grabbed one of her self-Sims, Me ME, plopping her on a lot, giving her a pool, letting her slide in via a cool whale slide, then surrounding her with a fence to stop her from escaping. Thanks to the fact that fatigue moodlets trump energy need in this game (at least as per the comments), Me Me actually only lasted FOUR hours before she died – and, hilariously, right before she passed, she managed to glitch out and start swimming in the grass next to the pool. Plumbella was like “I expected this game to surprise me, but not like THIS.” XD
Sims 2 – Hopped over to Pleasantview and decided, in a fit of true cruelty, to drown Brandi Broke just like her late husband Skip (after getting briefly distracted by seeing a family with “Sim Supply” in their name in the neighborhood and being like “James??”). She got dropped in the tiny pool, the ladder was removed, and she spent her time paddling around, complaining about her growing hunger, and back-floating before finally drowning (and clipping into the pool wall). This one was again based on energy need, so Brandi lasted longer than Me ME, dying at the nine hour mark. Plumbella immediately felt bad and made sure to back out without saving.
Sims 1 – Into the standard Neighborhood 1, grabbed Michael Bachelor from the family bin and dropped him into a house, then directed him into the new pool and removed the ladder. We didn’t get an exact hour count for his death, but apparently it was quick – and apparently happened JUST after he got his second Body skill point. Like, the two pop-ups appeared in immediate succession. XD Plumbella didn’t even get to see the guy drown! That’s something.
So yes, as expected, Sims 4 proved the hardest game to drown someone in, Sims 1 the easiest. Nice to have it proved semi-scientifically, I suppose? :p
D) From there it was over to the Subs for Call Me Kevin and – WTF KEVIN WHEN DID YOU BLEACH YOUR HAIR BLOND?? O.O Er, anyway, it was time for more hyper-realistic Minecraft shenanigans to torture his computer. Kevin spent most of his time either forgetting that gravity is a thing in this mod-pack (meaning that he kept destroying blocks that were helping to hold up other blocks and exposing giant holes in the ground to fall into, or smashing open his own roof, or dropping the ceiling of a cave on himself in search of coal), or trying to make nice waterfalls out of local rivers and instead just flooding the land. XD He also went sailing in search of a village across the ocean, only to find one dinky little sand island and – well, loads of ocean. Enough ocean that he had to turn back. And then there turned out to be TWO villages for him to raid within ten minutes of his ugly little house – one on a grass biome, one in a desert biome. Though weirdly enough, the desert biome actually had more wheat and trees available for Kevin to steal than the grass biome one. No, he didn’t understand it either. XD Also, that one boar still has it out for him and is actually willing to swim to try and get to him – not far, though, which made Kevin’s life at least a LITTLE bit easier. XD By the end of the video, he’d managed to set up his own little farm at last, with crops growing by his little saltwater trough, and a goat that he just barely managed to lure into his pen. Plus he’d scored some leather armor, a golden sword, and a load of pumpkins! Yes, life in hyper-realistic Minecraft is – well, “good” is probably an overstatement, but it’s okay at least!
E) And finally we had GrayStillPlays and Become A Queen, one of those terrible mobile games where you must take an unpopular girl and make her Prom Queen. And you can do it in some pretty nasty ways – Gray had his girl, Yeetila, constantly insult her only friend Max (except when she wanted something from him); crash into multiple cars driving to the gym; throw Max’s sister Sandra’s birthday cake in the popular bully girl Rachel’s face (and get cheered for it); get a makeover and start day-drinking at the party; snub her crush and then force him to kiss her in exchange for helping him with a test; steal Rachel’s phone with Max in the dead of the night and tear apart her teddy bear for good measure; unlock the phone and text Rachel’s friend to tell her the prom dress she picked out is garbage, prompting said friend to give it to Yeetila; completely snub Max, who helped her do all these illegal activities, at the prom in favor of Tom, Rachel’s boyfriend; and then get Rachel straight-up EXPELLED for bullying her. Now, granted, I’m sure at least some of that is a power fantasy for a lot of bullied girls, but the way Gray was baying for Rachel’s blood throughout the game just added that bit of extra spice, you know? XD
3. Play Sims 4 and either do another day with Smileror do some more building: Check to the first – couldn’t resist revisiting my favorite coaster vampire. :) And they had a very productive Fall Saturday, that’s for certain – they started off by reading the Ultimate Vampire Compendium and maxing their Vampire Lore Skill, then did most of their homework while I used their accumulated satisfaction points to get them the traits “Gym Rat” (increased fun gain, decreased/no hygiene loss while working out), “Always Welcome” (can do more things at a person’s home without upsetting them, like bathe and cook), “Great Storyteller” (tells better and more interesting stories), “Shameless” (never gets Embarrassed), and “Carefree” (never gets Tense). They had the points, and all of these seem appropriate for my Smiler, sooo. . .
Once all that was done, they gathered up their garden produce and went to take a shower – and promptly got fined under the Water Conservation Plan. Apparently the neighborhood thinks the amount of times Smiler should bathe is “0.” *grumbles* I had them start the repeal process for that NAP, then it was off to campus for School Spirit Day! As a Spirit Squad member, Smiler has to attend that. XD They made insta-Good Friends with visiting Heath, then got a nice drink from him before encouraging everyone to dance and doing high-fives and selfies with Lilith Pleasant as the Larry the Lobster mascot. XD Then it was time for juice pong with Desmond, who basically completely wrecked poor Smiler’s shit. XD Smiler could not get a ball into the cups for the life of them! Hell, they DROPPED the ball at one point, which I didn’t think was possible. XD Better luck next time, Smiler!
As Spirit Day wrapped up, Smiler went over to the Commons to start their “Pondering Personalities” homework – I let them complete that up to the point where they managed to max out their Charisma skill (w00), then had them call up Victor and Alice and sent them all to the Romance Festival! They had a pretty nice time – Victor kept wandering off and getting distracted by visiting celebrities, but Smiler reaffirmed their friendship with Alice and their romance with Victor. They also made sure to drink some of the Sakura Tea, chat with the Relationship Guru (who, rudely, said that their and Victor’s flaws were well-matched), and grab some swag – a pretty snowglobe, a sparkler, and some bubbles. Plus pictures of themselves with Victor and Alice. :) Oh, and some dragonfruit, because might as well get one of the most expensive items in the game early! XD Victor and Alice ended up leaving a bit early, so Smiler swung by the karaoke bar for a quick song before heading home themselves, where I cleared out their inventory a bit more by putting more things out for display. :) Pretty nice day for them overall!
4. Work on tumblr drafts: Check – did the usual check-up on Victor Luvs Alice this morning, and then spent the time just before and just after lunch getting the Wednesday Chill Save update posts sorted (Smiler doing robot things on-campus at Foxbury, then taking Victor out on a date to the Freezer Bunny Arcade – did the pictures late last night), and a special bonus “Happy Birthday Smiler” post for tomorrow (because May 31st is when The Smiler coaster finally officially opened back in 2013, and thus it’s my own Smiler’s birthday). :D And then, this evening, after YouTube, I queued up everything from Tuesday through Friday (I’m waiting to see if Wyrd Sisters Podcast uploads the Snuff episode onto their tumblr before I do anything for Saturday). Gotta adjust the queue speed a couple of times through the week, but it’s nice to have most of it taken care of already!
5. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with the Oxventure Stream “Watch Out!” Prudence’s comments about Egbert liking the bracers led to Hengist asking who or what an “Egbert” is, and some panicked lying on Corazon’s part about Egbert being dead, because he was worried about agents of Lady Liliana. They did manage to convey that he was a dragonborn and not here at the moment (Merilwen tried to say he was at a “spa” with Dob, which Hengist took as a “spar” with Dob (which, if he’s feeling better, might be the case)), and after some talk about if the bracers were for sale (making Gus the staff person regret ever bringing them on this tour), they eventually moved on to the office of Professor Shoelacey! Guy proved to be a bit of a messy vaguely mad-scientisty type, with an office full of various papers and chemical testing kits and whatnot, and a refined-but-untidy look about him. He twigged quickly that the group were the adventurers he sought and said that they could proceed on to “Simes’s shop” and they’d discuss payment when they got back – the baffled group was like “hang on a second, the landlady of the tavern only told us that there was gold and beyond gold on offer, we’re not sure what you want us to do yet.” Shoelacey was quite put out that the landlady hadn’t given them a proper run-down of the job, but was willing to explain – it seems that, recently, he tried to acquire at auction a pocket watch of immense magical potential and value for the museum, only for the item to go missing at the end of said auction before he could take it. He immediately suspected the local shady antiques dealer, Simes, and feels that the watch is somewhere in the man’s shop. He wants it back, and he made it clear he did not really care how the group chose to retrieve it (Prudence and Corazon naturally jumping to roughing up or outright murdering Simes), though he didn’t want details for “plausible deniability” purposes. Corazon being Corazon, he actually managed to successfully sell the guy one of his own gift shop watches for ten gold during the negotiations (said watch being melted in one of the testing kits, proving it was extremely unmagical). XD As for the reward on offer, “beyond gold” proved to mean a load of rubies – Shoelacey was willing to pay 500 gold PLUS the gold’s weight in rubies for the retrieval of the watch, and upped it to 600 gold plus its weight in rubies when Corazon indicated that wasn’t enough. AND he was willing to throw in a bonus of 200 gold if they got it back within the next couple of hours. Corazon was beyond pleased, though that didn’t stop him from trying to get some cash up-front for “expenses” – on that, though, Shoelacey did not budge, insisting that if they brought back receipts, he’d recompense them. Dang – you tried, Corazon!
With task in hand and reward dangled temptingly in front of them, the gang set out! Hengist took Merilwen aside during their walk out of the museum and to the shop and was like “um, your friends are making me nervous – would you describe them as bloodthirsty?” and Merilwen had to scramble for a way to describe said friends that didn’t make them sound like terrible murderers. Prudence did not help things by insisting they leave through the museum’s exhibit on torture devices and pointing and laughing at all of them. XD She managed to convince him they just get excited and they don’t GENERALLY go straight to murder once they reach the job, and that when the killing starts its generally self-defense, but I don’t think Hengist was much comforted by that. Especially with Prudence being, well, Prudence. XD They reached the shop shortly before sunset, and found it still open – it was decided that a few of them would case the joint, with at least one person staying outside so that they weren’t all familiar to the shop owner. Merilwen volunteered to go in looking for elven stuff, but accidentally insulted Corazon’s thievery skills in the process, causing him to stride in full of determination to find this watch. XD Merilwen followed him in, and Hengist decided to head in too after being left alone with Prudence for a few minutes. XD The shop proved to be a pretty cruddy and awful place, with a few elderly customers looking at things and Simes himself being all crabby and grimy behind his desk. There was also SOMETHING walking around in the room above, with footsteps so heavy that the entire room was shaking. Corazon took a look around, but discovered no pocket watches, and Simes was less than helpful when he inquired; Merilwen tried her “looking for elven jewelry” idea to warm him up, and Simes showed her a brooch he had – though she noticed him spitting on it to shine it up first. Hengist, meanwhile, had been enjoying the rain of masonry dust from the ceiling as seasoning to his saved pie, but quickly became concerned as he realized that the roof was in danger of collapsing, at least within the next couple of days. When he tried to point this out to Simes, however, the guy seemed to just plain old not care, more concerned with making sure Hengist didn’t investigate the source of the noise. He also blew off Merilwen’s insistence that the brooch he had was cursed, and just hustled them out of the shop – though not before Corazon was able to see from the papers spread on his desk that he’d made some recent purchases that were more expensive than the norm. Hmmm. They caught Prudence up as Simes closed for the night, and she decided to use her Clairvoyance spell to take a look inside the upstairs room. It proved to be a large attic full of storage (boxes and whatnot) – including one safe at the far end that looked newer than the rest of the items. Big stompy thing then chose this moment to step in front of her invisible sensor eye – she didn’t get a particularly good look at it, but she could tell it was big and stompy!
And then the sun dipped below the horizon, and – big stompy thing just stopped dead. Everyone was very confused by this, especially as Simes had described it as a new security system – what kind of security system stops working at night?? They weren’t sure what was going on, but they knew they had to investigate. (Also, there was a short interlude where Johnny joked about Hengist turning into a werewolf as the sun went down, prompting Corazon to try and transform into a werewolf himself – he managed to pop out a few new chest hairs, at least?) I left it with them looking for ways of ingress into the top floor – there is one obvious window, sealed with a chain, but Corazon feels like that might be too obvious and wants to entertain other ideas first. So far so good when it comes to a Luke adventure! We’ll see how things progress on the morrow!
Additionally:
-->Despite the heat, once the shade by the house was deep enough we ventured out to do beanbags – and let me tell you, I had a fantastic game today! Won three times and was official champ, yay~ :D Poor Dad in particular was really off, but he managed to pull out a win in the end, as did Mom – final scores were me W-W-3-W-2; Dad 2-3-2-2-W, Mom 3-2-W-3-3. I’ll definitely take that for my final day off. :D
So yeah, good end to a good five-day weekend. :) Of course, now I have the rest of the work-week to catch up on what we missed while we were gone, and a dentist appointment next Saturday. At least that overrules the normal cleaning I'd do? *sigh* Ah well, nothing for it. . . At least my time management's a little better tonight! Hopefully I can hold onto THAT at least as I get through the work week. Night all!
Even with the summer heat hitting hard, though, I was more than able to make the most of my final day off:
1. Continue working on "Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland": Check! Back in the saddle on my big project for the rest of 2022, with Alice finally continuing her conversation with Jack and Skelter! Jack has told her that pretty much all of vampire politics is like dealing with the Voermans in one way or another, while Skelter has dropped his “the ancient vampires of the world can control you like a puppet on a string and there’s nothing you can do” theory on her, which naturally isn’t doing great things for her state of mind. Next time, she should meet Nines, for a conversation that – isn’t going to go as well as either of them had hoped. . .
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs and at least the Plumbella in the Watch Later: Check! I am once again fully caught up on my Subs, and on my Plumbella, yay –
A) Started early this afternoon to catch up on my James Turner episode from yesterday – Part 45 of the Cottage Living LP! With things wrapping up with the current generation of the Bigwallet family, James has set himself the goal of finishing off the vault beneath the house before ending things. (Well, also Nina’s gotta age up, but that’s gonna happen no matter what.) And that means Hazel needed to do some stealing! And some gigs, to, you know, earn money, because James keeps spending all of the non-money-tree money on the vault. XD He had her take a Fabulous Living Room Renovation over in Oasis Springs for one of the two families now living there (yes, as James later discovered, his worlds are a bit – depopulated, these days), where she spontaneously stole a laptop before doing the renovation (giving them a red feature wall, a violin, a plant for their kitchen, and some nice green cushions – also a rug and a dresser in one of the bedrooms), then bought a bust after everything was sorted only to steal it right away. XD Hey, she DID leave a bunch of her paintings in the house, one of which is a masterpiece, so! Once the clients paid up and she’d dropped off her new items in the vault, she then went over to the art museum in San Myshuno, nabbing the grand piano from the music room and another bust from the woodworking room. Not bad!
Of course, to make this vault look nice, they needed money, and Hazel’s gigs only paid so much, so the next step of the plan was to gather up the remaining aubergines and chicken eggs, then send Trenton over to Kim’s market stall in Finchwick to sell it all for a very tidy profit. This unfortunately meant that Hazel went to her next gig alone – James never got the pop-up to follow her there – but eh, at least he had enough money to continue renovating the vault! He updated the lava pool with those fun glowing walls and floors from Spa Day, some bubblers, and a couple of crocodiles (and a fence to stop people like Nina from swimming in it); rearranged the stolen items a bit so they had a music room (organs and grand piano), a fine arts room (the busts), and a tech room (the stolen computers, and a TV Trenton picked up from a stop at her old house); readded the hallway to the shed link-up and did the shed’s basement storage area to look appropriately grody to keep out looky-loos; and started adding a bathroom, only to run out of money. Again. Along the way he also made sure to have the Sims actually take care of themselves and their pets for a change. XD And as Nina is on the verge of aging up, the next episode might be the last! Depends on how far he gets on the vault, perhaps. . . Then it’s just a matter of waiting until the next pack! And hoping it works on arrival. Fingers crossed!
B) Then, quickly between beanbags and my workout, I managed to sneak in a video of someone playing Beat Saber (a VR rhythm game where you use faux lightsabers to break cubes flying at you to the beat of various songs, while avoiding walls and mines) to The Smiler’s theme tune! And doing very well too, passing the level with an A score. Nice work, Imagineer! :)
C) Then, this evening after writing, we started with said Plumbella in the Watch Later – “Removing the pool ladder in every Sims game!” Or, more accurately, seeing how long it takes a Sim to drown in each game, as per a suggestion on her Discord channel! As per usual, she did the games in reverse order of release to see how long it took a Sim trapped in the pool to drown:
Sims 4 – Gave randomized Sim Constance Hutchinson a big pool in Newcrest, then walled her in with a glass roof and lots of windows so she couldn’t escape. Constance swam around for just under 24 hours in-game before exhaustion finally took her and she died. Pretty standard for the very forgiving Sims 4!
Sims 3 – Went to Adventureland and grabbed one of her self-Sims, Me ME, plopping her on a lot, giving her a pool, letting her slide in via a cool whale slide, then surrounding her with a fence to stop her from escaping. Thanks to the fact that fatigue moodlets trump energy need in this game (at least as per the comments), Me Me actually only lasted FOUR hours before she died – and, hilariously, right before she passed, she managed to glitch out and start swimming in the grass next to the pool. Plumbella was like “I expected this game to surprise me, but not like THIS.” XD
Sims 2 – Hopped over to Pleasantview and decided, in a fit of true cruelty, to drown Brandi Broke just like her late husband Skip (after getting briefly distracted by seeing a family with “Sim Supply” in their name in the neighborhood and being like “James??”). She got dropped in the tiny pool, the ladder was removed, and she spent her time paddling around, complaining about her growing hunger, and back-floating before finally drowning (and clipping into the pool wall). This one was again based on energy need, so Brandi lasted longer than Me ME, dying at the nine hour mark. Plumbella immediately felt bad and made sure to back out without saving.
Sims 1 – Into the standard Neighborhood 1, grabbed Michael Bachelor from the family bin and dropped him into a house, then directed him into the new pool and removed the ladder. We didn’t get an exact hour count for his death, but apparently it was quick – and apparently happened JUST after he got his second Body skill point. Like, the two pop-ups appeared in immediate succession. XD Plumbella didn’t even get to see the guy drown! That’s something.
So yes, as expected, Sims 4 proved the hardest game to drown someone in, Sims 1 the easiest. Nice to have it proved semi-scientifically, I suppose? :p
D) From there it was over to the Subs for Call Me Kevin and – WTF KEVIN WHEN DID YOU BLEACH YOUR HAIR BLOND?? O.O Er, anyway, it was time for more hyper-realistic Minecraft shenanigans to torture his computer. Kevin spent most of his time either forgetting that gravity is a thing in this mod-pack (meaning that he kept destroying blocks that were helping to hold up other blocks and exposing giant holes in the ground to fall into, or smashing open his own roof, or dropping the ceiling of a cave on himself in search of coal), or trying to make nice waterfalls out of local rivers and instead just flooding the land. XD He also went sailing in search of a village across the ocean, only to find one dinky little sand island and – well, loads of ocean. Enough ocean that he had to turn back. And then there turned out to be TWO villages for him to raid within ten minutes of his ugly little house – one on a grass biome, one in a desert biome. Though weirdly enough, the desert biome actually had more wheat and trees available for Kevin to steal than the grass biome one. No, he didn’t understand it either. XD Also, that one boar still has it out for him and is actually willing to swim to try and get to him – not far, though, which made Kevin’s life at least a LITTLE bit easier. XD By the end of the video, he’d managed to set up his own little farm at last, with crops growing by his little saltwater trough, and a goat that he just barely managed to lure into his pen. Plus he’d scored some leather armor, a golden sword, and a load of pumpkins! Yes, life in hyper-realistic Minecraft is – well, “good” is probably an overstatement, but it’s okay at least!
E) And finally we had GrayStillPlays and Become A Queen, one of those terrible mobile games where you must take an unpopular girl and make her Prom Queen. And you can do it in some pretty nasty ways – Gray had his girl, Yeetila, constantly insult her only friend Max (except when she wanted something from him); crash into multiple cars driving to the gym; throw Max’s sister Sandra’s birthday cake in the popular bully girl Rachel’s face (and get cheered for it); get a makeover and start day-drinking at the party; snub her crush and then force him to kiss her in exchange for helping him with a test; steal Rachel’s phone with Max in the dead of the night and tear apart her teddy bear for good measure; unlock the phone and text Rachel’s friend to tell her the prom dress she picked out is garbage, prompting said friend to give it to Yeetila; completely snub Max, who helped her do all these illegal activities, at the prom in favor of Tom, Rachel’s boyfriend; and then get Rachel straight-up EXPELLED for bullying her. Now, granted, I’m sure at least some of that is a power fantasy for a lot of bullied girls, but the way Gray was baying for Rachel’s blood throughout the game just added that bit of extra spice, you know? XD
3. Play Sims 4 and either do another day with Smiler
Once all that was done, they gathered up their garden produce and went to take a shower – and promptly got fined under the Water Conservation Plan. Apparently the neighborhood thinks the amount of times Smiler should bathe is “0.” *grumbles* I had them start the repeal process for that NAP, then it was off to campus for School Spirit Day! As a Spirit Squad member, Smiler has to attend that. XD They made insta-Good Friends with visiting Heath, then got a nice drink from him before encouraging everyone to dance and doing high-fives and selfies with Lilith Pleasant as the Larry the Lobster mascot. XD Then it was time for juice pong with Desmond, who basically completely wrecked poor Smiler’s shit. XD Smiler could not get a ball into the cups for the life of them! Hell, they DROPPED the ball at one point, which I didn’t think was possible. XD Better luck next time, Smiler!
As Spirit Day wrapped up, Smiler went over to the Commons to start their “Pondering Personalities” homework – I let them complete that up to the point where they managed to max out their Charisma skill (w00), then had them call up Victor and Alice and sent them all to the Romance Festival! They had a pretty nice time – Victor kept wandering off and getting distracted by visiting celebrities, but Smiler reaffirmed their friendship with Alice and their romance with Victor. They also made sure to drink some of the Sakura Tea, chat with the Relationship Guru (who, rudely, said that their and Victor’s flaws were well-matched), and grab some swag – a pretty snowglobe, a sparkler, and some bubbles. Plus pictures of themselves with Victor and Alice. :) Oh, and some dragonfruit, because might as well get one of the most expensive items in the game early! XD Victor and Alice ended up leaving a bit early, so Smiler swung by the karaoke bar for a quick song before heading home themselves, where I cleared out their inventory a bit more by putting more things out for display. :) Pretty nice day for them overall!
4. Work on tumblr drafts: Check – did the usual check-up on Victor Luvs Alice this morning, and then spent the time just before and just after lunch getting the Wednesday Chill Save update posts sorted (Smiler doing robot things on-campus at Foxbury, then taking Victor out on a date to the Freezer Bunny Arcade – did the pictures late last night), and a special bonus “Happy Birthday Smiler” post for tomorrow (because May 31st is when The Smiler coaster finally officially opened back in 2013, and thus it’s my own Smiler’s birthday). :D And then, this evening, after YouTube, I queued up everything from Tuesday through Friday (I’m waiting to see if Wyrd Sisters Podcast uploads the Snuff episode onto their tumblr before I do anything for Saturday). Gotta adjust the queue speed a couple of times through the week, but it’s nice to have most of it taken care of already!
5. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with the Oxventure Stream “Watch Out!” Prudence’s comments about Egbert liking the bracers led to Hengist asking who or what an “Egbert” is, and some panicked lying on Corazon’s part about Egbert being dead, because he was worried about agents of Lady Liliana. They did manage to convey that he was a dragonborn and not here at the moment (Merilwen tried to say he was at a “spa” with Dob, which Hengist took as a “spar” with Dob (which, if he’s feeling better, might be the case)), and after some talk about if the bracers were for sale (making Gus the staff person regret ever bringing them on this tour), they eventually moved on to the office of Professor Shoelacey! Guy proved to be a bit of a messy vaguely mad-scientisty type, with an office full of various papers and chemical testing kits and whatnot, and a refined-but-untidy look about him. He twigged quickly that the group were the adventurers he sought and said that they could proceed on to “Simes’s shop” and they’d discuss payment when they got back – the baffled group was like “hang on a second, the landlady of the tavern only told us that there was gold and beyond gold on offer, we’re not sure what you want us to do yet.” Shoelacey was quite put out that the landlady hadn’t given them a proper run-down of the job, but was willing to explain – it seems that, recently, he tried to acquire at auction a pocket watch of immense magical potential and value for the museum, only for the item to go missing at the end of said auction before he could take it. He immediately suspected the local shady antiques dealer, Simes, and feels that the watch is somewhere in the man’s shop. He wants it back, and he made it clear he did not really care how the group chose to retrieve it (Prudence and Corazon naturally jumping to roughing up or outright murdering Simes), though he didn’t want details for “plausible deniability” purposes. Corazon being Corazon, he actually managed to successfully sell the guy one of his own gift shop watches for ten gold during the negotiations (said watch being melted in one of the testing kits, proving it was extremely unmagical). XD As for the reward on offer, “beyond gold” proved to mean a load of rubies – Shoelacey was willing to pay 500 gold PLUS the gold’s weight in rubies for the retrieval of the watch, and upped it to 600 gold plus its weight in rubies when Corazon indicated that wasn’t enough. AND he was willing to throw in a bonus of 200 gold if they got it back within the next couple of hours. Corazon was beyond pleased, though that didn’t stop him from trying to get some cash up-front for “expenses” – on that, though, Shoelacey did not budge, insisting that if they brought back receipts, he’d recompense them. Dang – you tried, Corazon!
With task in hand and reward dangled temptingly in front of them, the gang set out! Hengist took Merilwen aside during their walk out of the museum and to the shop and was like “um, your friends are making me nervous – would you describe them as bloodthirsty?” and Merilwen had to scramble for a way to describe said friends that didn’t make them sound like terrible murderers. Prudence did not help things by insisting they leave through the museum’s exhibit on torture devices and pointing and laughing at all of them. XD She managed to convince him they just get excited and they don’t GENERALLY go straight to murder once they reach the job, and that when the killing starts its generally self-defense, but I don’t think Hengist was much comforted by that. Especially with Prudence being, well, Prudence. XD They reached the shop shortly before sunset, and found it still open – it was decided that a few of them would case the joint, with at least one person staying outside so that they weren’t all familiar to the shop owner. Merilwen volunteered to go in looking for elven stuff, but accidentally insulted Corazon’s thievery skills in the process, causing him to stride in full of determination to find this watch. XD Merilwen followed him in, and Hengist decided to head in too after being left alone with Prudence for a few minutes. XD The shop proved to be a pretty cruddy and awful place, with a few elderly customers looking at things and Simes himself being all crabby and grimy behind his desk. There was also SOMETHING walking around in the room above, with footsteps so heavy that the entire room was shaking. Corazon took a look around, but discovered no pocket watches, and Simes was less than helpful when he inquired; Merilwen tried her “looking for elven jewelry” idea to warm him up, and Simes showed her a brooch he had – though she noticed him spitting on it to shine it up first. Hengist, meanwhile, had been enjoying the rain of masonry dust from the ceiling as seasoning to his saved pie, but quickly became concerned as he realized that the roof was in danger of collapsing, at least within the next couple of days. When he tried to point this out to Simes, however, the guy seemed to just plain old not care, more concerned with making sure Hengist didn’t investigate the source of the noise. He also blew off Merilwen’s insistence that the brooch he had was cursed, and just hustled them out of the shop – though not before Corazon was able to see from the papers spread on his desk that he’d made some recent purchases that were more expensive than the norm. Hmmm. They caught Prudence up as Simes closed for the night, and she decided to use her Clairvoyance spell to take a look inside the upstairs room. It proved to be a large attic full of storage (boxes and whatnot) – including one safe at the far end that looked newer than the rest of the items. Big stompy thing then chose this moment to step in front of her invisible sensor eye – she didn’t get a particularly good look at it, but she could tell it was big and stompy!
And then the sun dipped below the horizon, and – big stompy thing just stopped dead. Everyone was very confused by this, especially as Simes had described it as a new security system – what kind of security system stops working at night?? They weren’t sure what was going on, but they knew they had to investigate. (Also, there was a short interlude where Johnny joked about Hengist turning into a werewolf as the sun went down, prompting Corazon to try and transform into a werewolf himself – he managed to pop out a few new chest hairs, at least?) I left it with them looking for ways of ingress into the top floor – there is one obvious window, sealed with a chain, but Corazon feels like that might be too obvious and wants to entertain other ideas first. So far so good when it comes to a Luke adventure! We’ll see how things progress on the morrow!
Additionally:
-->Despite the heat, once the shade by the house was deep enough we ventured out to do beanbags – and let me tell you, I had a fantastic game today! Won three times and was official champ, yay~ :D Poor Dad in particular was really off, but he managed to pull out a win in the end, as did Mom – final scores were me W-W-3-W-2; Dad 2-3-2-2-W, Mom 3-2-W-3-3. I’ll definitely take that for my final day off. :D
So yeah, good end to a good five-day weekend. :) Of course, now I have the rest of the work-week to catch up on what we missed while we were gone, and a dentist appointment next Saturday. At least that overrules the normal cleaning I'd do? *sigh* Ah well, nothing for it. . . At least my time management's a little better tonight! Hopefully I can hold onto THAT at least as I get through the work week. Night all!
