Rainy And Bleedy Monday
Sep. 5th, 2022 11:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickPeriod FINALLY showed up shortly before I went to bed around 1:30 AM (it's earlier than 2 AM!), which was a RELIEF. I would have preferred it to show up yesterday so I could have gotten past the two worst days of my period while at home, but at least I got one day to relax with it. Though, depending on the weather, I might get two -- we have gotten SO MUCH RAIN today it isn't even funny. Dad thinks it was at LEAST five and a half inches earlier, and it just has NOT let up. We're on a bit of a slope, so it's not so bad for us, but the road farther down is looking a bit, uh, flooded, and the highway was flooded earlier. There's a nonzero chance that either work will have to close due to flooding, or I'll have to call in because I won't be able to get there. O.o We'll have to see what it's like in the morning. . .
Anyway -- even with the torrential rain and the red curse, I had a very productive Monday off:
1. Work on the Blades in the Dark Valicer doc: Check – I cleaned up Smiler’s history in this world (child of one Dr. Kelman, who runs The Sanctuary in Charterhall; Smiler objected to Kelman constantly operating on people’s brains and ran away from home, falling in with the Advocate cult in Silkshore and becoming a drug dealer for them with their Joy Serum) and got their special item list sorted (it’s mostly Slide stuff with a couple of things from the Leech loadout substituted in, because Smiler’s kind of a combination of the two playbooks). Nothing too exciting, but it’s nice to have everyone’s history properly spelled out and know what items they’re supposed to have and whatnot. :)
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs and watch the 700th AT4W Episode: Check, whew – some long stuff in here, but I got through it all –
A) First up, between Simming and my workout (and delaying the latter a bit more than I would have liked – should have split it up around my workout I think) was the 700th episode of Atop The Fourth Wall – “Superman: Year One!” A Frank Miller-penned Superman story that – well, here is the weird thing about it. The first half is flawed, but actually pretty decent. Yes, it’s got a few of Frank Miller’s weird hallmarks (repeating stuff, weird emphasis on certain words, a lack of female characters that aren’t there for the protagonist to bone), and the artwork is – questionable, at times (the artist has apparently never seen a baby before and essentially shoved an adult head onto little Clark – it got better once he finally became school-age, but the proportions were never quite right), and there was a really WEIRD iffy bit where it was implied baby Kal-El/Clark mind-controlled Jonathan Kent into taking him home, but for the most part, the tone was right. It was pretty upbeat, it told an interesting story of Clark’s early years and his struggle to find out how to help people (as his initial attempt to stop some bullies picking on his friends ended up with him in trouble as well and the bullies doubling down), his initial relationship with Lana Lang, and his brief stint in the Navy SEALS trying to find his way, which came to an end when he saved his recruit team (pressed into service to take out some pirates that had captured an oil tanker, which – given the way they were drawn – Linkara was PRETTY sure were meant to look like Islamic terrorists, because Frank Miller has some really bigoted tendencies) by absorbing the impact of a grenade one guy tried to pull, but was then washed out with an honorable discharge because of insubordination (dude had grown increasingly uncomfortable with his superior officers urging him to “kill” during training and refused to do it for real on the ship). There was evidence of a good story there – of a Clark slowly but surely creating his “Superman” persona and learning his personal limits and whatnot.
AND THEN FRANK THREW IT ALL AWAY SO SUPERMAN COULD BANG A MERMAID. No, seriously – Frank brought back old Silver Age potential love interest Lori the mermaid in the second issue of the three-issue miniseries, and her introduction signaled the end of everything good in the series. There was ALMOST some good stuff in there – Clark discovering a version of Atlantis off the coast of California in trouble and helping the merpeople there out, and gaining Lori’s gratitude in the process – but at the exact halfway point, when he gets thrown out of the SEALS, he goes down there IN HIS SUPERMAN OUTFIT to ask Lori’s father Poseidon permission to romance her, and things take a turn for the absolute ridiculous. Poseidon proves to be a father in line with those old fairy tales where a princess must run away for fear of her father turning out to want to commit incest with her; Clark defeats his various monsters, gets Poseidon to fuck off, and becomes KING OF ATLANTIS for a while; then the THIRD issue just abandons all of that so Clark can save Lois from an attack on her submarine by the Atlanteans, beat up some SEALS on a beach, return to the surface world and get a degree in journalism, join the Daily Planet, FINALLY start on his career as Superman (stopping some bank robbers, an abusive husband, etc) – only for his heroics to be co-opted by Lex Luthor. . .
Who TRICKS HIM INTO FIGHTING – GUESS WHO? BATMAN! Frank couldn’t go ONE mini-series without bringing back his awful Crazy Steve version of Batman. And then at the VERY end throws WONDER WOMAN completely randomly into the mix so she can use her lasso of truth on Lex, who then spills the beans about Brainiac and the bottle city of Kandor, and the series ends with Superman flying off to go beat up Brainiac. It’s just – it’s sad, it really is. He aaaaalmost had it. . .and then he lost it. Linkara mentioned that it wasn’t a bad metaphor for the guy’s entire career, really. At least Linkara’s rants about Miller’s stupider choices (like claiming “Clark Kent” is a mask for Superman, when the rest of the story indicated it was DEFINITELY the other way around) were amusing, and the framing story (a future Linkara attempting to retcon/smooth out his own timeline to attract new viewers on an interview, with the interviewer getting increasingly exasperated with the way his revisions are piling up – played by Linkara’s own mom and dad, I believe!) was pretty funny (though I detected a note of bitterness when it came to the effort he put into his storylines – look, I know it sucks that “Contest of Champions” got screwed over repeatedly by stuff going on in the real world, but you had plenty of opportunities to cut your losses and end it early). Good stuff, just loooong.
B) And then, this evening, it was time to catch up on the Subs and GrayStillPlays with a double dose of GTA V stuff –
I. “I found this impossible 2000 IQ challenge in GTA 5” – yeah, sure, Gray, “found” – it’s another Alex board, this one with a series of terrible parkour puzzles for him to solve in order to earn “keywords to figure out how to win the board. Gray started with a wall ride into an upside-down ramp into another wall ride with two twisting paths that went INVISIBLE every so often; then went to an infinity symbol board where he had to drive around and get the timing JUST RIGHT to drive up a ramp and into a teleporter that kept changing position (and then escape the infinity trap troll Alex put on the teleporter); then went to a series of constantly rotating chunks of road that he had to drive over to get to the ending platform without getting confused and going the wrong way (the bits actually spelled out the word he got, “MOVE”); then went to a perpetually rotating road with a wind turbine embedded into it that he had to bounce his way along; then went to a board where he had to put the numbered cars into the right holes to form a tightrope he could run across (that one he openly hated the most because it was SO HARD to move the cars using his gravity gun); then went to a board where he had to choose the right car and the right path to make it to the teleporter checkpoint in the middle of a board full of twisty-turny roads before it was blocked off (right car was the fastest, right path was amost all right turns and all gray). In the end, it turns out the trick to winning the board was the infinity trap – turns out it was on a platform that could be moved, meaning Gray just had to shove it under the winning platform and then redo the infinity board so he’d fall on said platform and actually win. 2000 IQ indeed – whew!
II. “$1 vs $1,000,000 Rainbow Friends in GTA 5” – *puts on “Here Comes The Next Contestant” by Nickelback* Everyone, we have a new board creator throwing his hat into the ring! His name is Joe and he went up against Alex today in a “$100 bounty ($1 board) vs $1,000,000 bounty ($1,000 board)” Gray torture head-to-head. Both involved Gray parkouring with the help/hindrance of a movement mod, and then going up against a “Rainbow Friend” (apparently it’s something from Roblox?) to collect his bounty. And oh man, was it wild:
Joe – gave Gray the Super Run, then set up a course where Gray had to speed past a windmill onto a platform without smacking into the invisible wall, then speed his way over and across the NEXT platform under a sideways windmill into a teleporter – and then, when the teleporter dropped him in the correct spot, tightope over a SPINNING WINDMILL so he could climb the protruding back end of the props and get into the teleporter. And THEN that took him to ANOTHER windmill tightrope where he had to first make his way across to the blades, then TIGHTROPE ACROSS THE BLADES, WORKING HIS WAY TO THE VERY TIP TO ACTUALLY MAKE INTO THE FINAL TELEPORTER. Not helped by the fact that he had to walk FASTER AND FASTER the farther out he got. . . And then, when he FINALLY got past that, he was presented with a spindly orange gecko guy with a RPG launcher who could one-shot him. Fortunately it didn’t take Gray long to learn his teleporting pattern and roll into him enough times to defeat him and claim the launcher for himself. DAMN, now THAT is a solid first showing for a GTA V board!
Alex – had Gray run across a bunch of tightrope platforms while having to dodge half-sized copies of himself being flung back and forth across the board – oh, and he somehow found a way to mess with the game speed so the further Gray got along, the slower everything, including him, went, meaning he kept messing up his jumps to get from tightrope to tightrope because he wasn’t used to things being slow. He eventually made it across and unlocked the Super Jump, which allowed him to leap into the teleporter and face his bounty in the arena – a blue dude with a crown, a fireworks launcher, and a Green-Goblin-esque glider with two blue bowling balls hovering under it that he periodically flung at Gray. Gray’s task was to knock him off the glider with the Up-N-Atomizer, which – took a bit of doing! Though it helped when Gray found a few bits of scenery in the world that the balls couldn’t get past. Eventually he leapt and shot his way to victory and claimed the fireworks launcher as his prize. :p
So yeah – some truly torturous boards over the past couple of days! I am so looking forward to whatever the hell Joe comes up with next. XD
3. Play Sims 4 and get Alice werewolfed already: Check! Very pleased with today’s progress indeed. :D Though the day in Sims didn’t exactly have an auspicious start – while I did get some cute Victor/Smiler flirting in the greenhouse, I also got Alice and Smiler obsessed with showering in the rain again (damn Erratic trait!), and Victor discovering that he couldn’t “Repairio” the broken washing machine – and when he tried to do the same to the broken dryer, he suffered a failure and SET IT ON FIRE. O.o Fortunately I was able to get him to put it out without it spreading or anyone else noticing, and a second attempt worked correctly. Got him up to Neophyte rank too – I promptly chose the “Discharge” perk so he immediately had a way to clear charge when he starts getting into this magic thing more seriously.
However, today really was all about Alice:
A) She finished her second book (with a little inspirational boost from Smiler) – and it turned out bestseller quality right off the bat! :D I had her go and sell it to a publisher, and it was promptly nominated for an award, so maybe Sunday in-game they’ll all spend the day in Del Sol Valley before attending the ceremony.
B) She also got back the Omiscian mask she sent out for authentication – real deal! That went into the display case.
C) Once Smiler was off to class and Victor in bed to get some energy back, she went off to Moonwood Mill to seek her werewolf fortune! First attempt was exploring the underground through the sewer tunnel near the Grimtooth bar – all she got from that was a creepy feeling of being watched and a spoiled steak a bunch of rats were eating, though. I guess the latter will be good for the recycler?
D) She had, however, passed Rory Oaklow on the way over there, and the Wildfangs hangout was pretty close by, so I had her go over and befriend Rory instead to get her cursed bite! Took a little bit of getting to know (Rory is Ambitious and Likes the violin and the color blue, for anyone curious) and a few pictures (because I think Alice should be into photography anyway, and it helping make friends is just a bonus :p), but Rory agreed to chomp Alice, and they parted on good terms (with a custom sentiment too! And suddenly I wish we had these for vampires who change others. . .damn do we need some proper pack refreshes).
E) Once back home, she joined her boyfriend and his themfriend to watch the Season Premiere of “Game of Llamas!” Because it was the TV Premiere pop-up holiday, though this is the first time I think I’ve seen a specific show name attached to the interaction. She had a nice conversation with them while watching the show, including a bit of flirting with Victor because cuteness. :D Though it did kind of highlight their need for a three-seater couch, as she was stuck in one of the seats in front of the fireplace. . .I also took a moment to reset her umbrella to the watermelon print one, so everyone has a nice umbrella now.
F) After that was a cycle of Alice snatching what sleep she could, then loading up on ham dinners – seriously, if you want to keep your transforming werewolf properly fed, grand dinners are the way to go. Alice just needed like one and a half plates to keep the hunger at bay. Smiler did their homework, took care of the chickens (though they’re having a hard time bonding with the rooster), and regained their passion for their fishing job to help overcome their fear of a dead-end career, while Victor tended his bees and the garden and met Guidry, who’d shown up to help with any paranormal problems. Not that the gang are having much in the way of that – the specters around here seem to be very friendly indeed, yay. :)
G) And then, a little before midnight, Alice went through her first transformation and rampage! She actually doesn’t have a bad starting wolf form – I do plan to customize it (namely, I want to make it look a bit like she does when she’s wearing her Cheshire-themed dress), but it’s a nice black and gray wolf pelt. And even better, she had a pretty damn controlled rampage – scratching up exactly ONE chair and scaring NO Sims (though I did have to stop her trying to snarl at Guidry). I think I can thank the fact that it was raining most of the day in Henford-on-Bagley for that – I was able to distract her by sending her places “ferociously,” and she insisted on using her umbrella, meaning it took longer. XD Also helped that Victor slept through the entire thing and Smiler was at work for most of it – when they got home, I had them work on clearing cursed objects and doing a bit of yoga. :p Alice transformed back having already learned how to take on her wolfish form at will, and with two ability points – I got “Scavenger” for the goodies and “Wolf Nap” so she could just refresh her energy right there on the porch. XD
And that’s that – all three of my Sims are now supernatural creatures, yay! :) And next time – well, next time might be mostly me in CAS customizing Alice’s werewolf form, but if we’re lucky, it’s also Love Day! XD And Victor’s got TWO dates to go on. . .
4. Work on tumblr drafts: Check – actually felt halfway AWAKE this morning after making my bed and whatnot, so went straight in on the Victor Luvs Alice drafts! Finished up all the text for the Wednesday Chill Save update featuring Victor being turned into a spellcaster, then caught up on some tag games I’d been mentioned in by my friend Newt (one for WIPs, one for just general “what did you last listen to/watch/read” stuff) that I plan to queue for Thursday and Friday. AND reblogged Moose’s latest BTTF fic over there. Hooray for getting all that done before lunch!
5. Get in a workout: Check, even if it was later than I wanted – another thirty-five minutes on the bike, clearing out the second half of James Turner’s High School Years Rags To Riches, Part 7! Despite having just complained about the bugginess of the Trendi fashion looks, once Reginald got back from his barista job, James immediately sent him off to ThrifTea to design five more. XD Dude’s gotta make money somehow! Reginald also had his first proper day at school, which did go much smoother thanks to the way James designed the place (he stayed mostly in his little area, straying only to wash his hands in a different sink after going to the bathroom, an irritation I know all too well), though once again, even with doing all of his tasks, he was unable to pull himself up from a “C” student! A frustrated James had him do his cheer practice, sent off those outfits that had actually sold (first one was, hilariously, “Awww, Batuu!”), then had him get some sleep –
And then attend the next day’s classes alone! Because apparently that’s the only way around this bug – and yup, it did indeed work for him, allowing Reginald to finally advance to “B” student. He also had a good day at work (creating a special latte for the big boss that they loved), and an okay day at Cheer (though I think he got a performance loss from a chance card; James kinda sped through it). He also got a visit from his mother, Column, and was FINALLY able to clear his fear of unfulfilled dreams by talking to her about his fear and actually fulfilling a want, yay! Though she left before he could get any advice on his social life. XD Next time, we see if any of his newest Trendi looks sell, if he can expand his house further (he was able to buy a bin and a mirror this episode!), and (thanks to being back at the beginning of the week) if he will risk another promposal to Sidney, ooooo~
That didn’t fill up my entire workout, though, so I also threw in another video from Petey Plays It – a guide to being a Paranormal Investigator! Which will eventually be relevant to my own gameplay. It was a nice, short little video featuring some tips and tricks you can use to become a successful investigator, like the best gift to give specters (booze. Make tons of simple drinks and pass them out) and how to avoid becoming too scared to do your own job (overload yourself with another mood before work that the scared moodlets can’t overpower; Petey used the Energized mood). Good stuff that I will hopefully remember once Victor becomes a serious medium in his own haunted house!
Additionally:
-->Made sure to answer my friend Ace’s FF.net PM, yay~ Trying my best to keep up with that!
-->And similarly, made sure to catch up with Moose's messages on here, w00~
And that is that, and now I have to get to bed. Because it is likely that I shall still have work, even with all this rain. *nods* Night all! Keep your fingers crossed I don't float away!
Anyway -- even with the torrential rain and the red curse, I had a very productive Monday off:
1. Work on the Blades in the Dark Valicer doc: Check – I cleaned up Smiler’s history in this world (child of one Dr. Kelman, who runs The Sanctuary in Charterhall; Smiler objected to Kelman constantly operating on people’s brains and ran away from home, falling in with the Advocate cult in Silkshore and becoming a drug dealer for them with their Joy Serum) and got their special item list sorted (it’s mostly Slide stuff with a couple of things from the Leech loadout substituted in, because Smiler’s kind of a combination of the two playbooks). Nothing too exciting, but it’s nice to have everyone’s history properly spelled out and know what items they’re supposed to have and whatnot. :)
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs and watch the 700th AT4W Episode: Check, whew – some long stuff in here, but I got through it all –
A) First up, between Simming and my workout (and delaying the latter a bit more than I would have liked – should have split it up around my workout I think) was the 700th episode of Atop The Fourth Wall – “Superman: Year One!” A Frank Miller-penned Superman story that – well, here is the weird thing about it. The first half is flawed, but actually pretty decent. Yes, it’s got a few of Frank Miller’s weird hallmarks (repeating stuff, weird emphasis on certain words, a lack of female characters that aren’t there for the protagonist to bone), and the artwork is – questionable, at times (the artist has apparently never seen a baby before and essentially shoved an adult head onto little Clark – it got better once he finally became school-age, but the proportions were never quite right), and there was a really WEIRD iffy bit where it was implied baby Kal-El/Clark mind-controlled Jonathan Kent into taking him home, but for the most part, the tone was right. It was pretty upbeat, it told an interesting story of Clark’s early years and his struggle to find out how to help people (as his initial attempt to stop some bullies picking on his friends ended up with him in trouble as well and the bullies doubling down), his initial relationship with Lana Lang, and his brief stint in the Navy SEALS trying to find his way, which came to an end when he saved his recruit team (pressed into service to take out some pirates that had captured an oil tanker, which – given the way they were drawn – Linkara was PRETTY sure were meant to look like Islamic terrorists, because Frank Miller has some really bigoted tendencies) by absorbing the impact of a grenade one guy tried to pull, but was then washed out with an honorable discharge because of insubordination (dude had grown increasingly uncomfortable with his superior officers urging him to “kill” during training and refused to do it for real on the ship). There was evidence of a good story there – of a Clark slowly but surely creating his “Superman” persona and learning his personal limits and whatnot.
AND THEN FRANK THREW IT ALL AWAY SO SUPERMAN COULD BANG A MERMAID. No, seriously – Frank brought back old Silver Age potential love interest Lori the mermaid in the second issue of the three-issue miniseries, and her introduction signaled the end of everything good in the series. There was ALMOST some good stuff in there – Clark discovering a version of Atlantis off the coast of California in trouble and helping the merpeople there out, and gaining Lori’s gratitude in the process – but at the exact halfway point, when he gets thrown out of the SEALS, he goes down there IN HIS SUPERMAN OUTFIT to ask Lori’s father Poseidon permission to romance her, and things take a turn for the absolute ridiculous. Poseidon proves to be a father in line with those old fairy tales where a princess must run away for fear of her father turning out to want to commit incest with her; Clark defeats his various monsters, gets Poseidon to fuck off, and becomes KING OF ATLANTIS for a while; then the THIRD issue just abandons all of that so Clark can save Lois from an attack on her submarine by the Atlanteans, beat up some SEALS on a beach, return to the surface world and get a degree in journalism, join the Daily Planet, FINALLY start on his career as Superman (stopping some bank robbers, an abusive husband, etc) – only for his heroics to be co-opted by Lex Luthor. . .
Who TRICKS HIM INTO FIGHTING – GUESS WHO? BATMAN! Frank couldn’t go ONE mini-series without bringing back his awful Crazy Steve version of Batman. And then at the VERY end throws WONDER WOMAN completely randomly into the mix so she can use her lasso of truth on Lex, who then spills the beans about Brainiac and the bottle city of Kandor, and the series ends with Superman flying off to go beat up Brainiac. It’s just – it’s sad, it really is. He aaaaalmost had it. . .and then he lost it. Linkara mentioned that it wasn’t a bad metaphor for the guy’s entire career, really. At least Linkara’s rants about Miller’s stupider choices (like claiming “Clark Kent” is a mask for Superman, when the rest of the story indicated it was DEFINITELY the other way around) were amusing, and the framing story (a future Linkara attempting to retcon/smooth out his own timeline to attract new viewers on an interview, with the interviewer getting increasingly exasperated with the way his revisions are piling up – played by Linkara’s own mom and dad, I believe!) was pretty funny (though I detected a note of bitterness when it came to the effort he put into his storylines – look, I know it sucks that “Contest of Champions” got screwed over repeatedly by stuff going on in the real world, but you had plenty of opportunities to cut your losses and end it early). Good stuff, just loooong.
B) And then, this evening, it was time to catch up on the Subs and GrayStillPlays with a double dose of GTA V stuff –
I. “I found this impossible 2000 IQ challenge in GTA 5” – yeah, sure, Gray, “found” – it’s another Alex board, this one with a series of terrible parkour puzzles for him to solve in order to earn “keywords to figure out how to win the board. Gray started with a wall ride into an upside-down ramp into another wall ride with two twisting paths that went INVISIBLE every so often; then went to an infinity symbol board where he had to drive around and get the timing JUST RIGHT to drive up a ramp and into a teleporter that kept changing position (and then escape the infinity trap troll Alex put on the teleporter); then went to a series of constantly rotating chunks of road that he had to drive over to get to the ending platform without getting confused and going the wrong way (the bits actually spelled out the word he got, “MOVE”); then went to a perpetually rotating road with a wind turbine embedded into it that he had to bounce his way along; then went to a board where he had to put the numbered cars into the right holes to form a tightrope he could run across (that one he openly hated the most because it was SO HARD to move the cars using his gravity gun); then went to a board where he had to choose the right car and the right path to make it to the teleporter checkpoint in the middle of a board full of twisty-turny roads before it was blocked off (right car was the fastest, right path was amost all right turns and all gray). In the end, it turns out the trick to winning the board was the infinity trap – turns out it was on a platform that could be moved, meaning Gray just had to shove it under the winning platform and then redo the infinity board so he’d fall on said platform and actually win. 2000 IQ indeed – whew!
II. “$1 vs $1,000,000 Rainbow Friends in GTA 5” – *puts on “Here Comes The Next Contestant” by Nickelback* Everyone, we have a new board creator throwing his hat into the ring! His name is Joe and he went up against Alex today in a “$100 bounty ($1 board) vs $1,000,000 bounty ($1,000 board)” Gray torture head-to-head. Both involved Gray parkouring with the help/hindrance of a movement mod, and then going up against a “Rainbow Friend” (apparently it’s something from Roblox?) to collect his bounty. And oh man, was it wild:
Joe – gave Gray the Super Run, then set up a course where Gray had to speed past a windmill onto a platform without smacking into the invisible wall, then speed his way over and across the NEXT platform under a sideways windmill into a teleporter – and then, when the teleporter dropped him in the correct spot, tightope over a SPINNING WINDMILL so he could climb the protruding back end of the props and get into the teleporter. And THEN that took him to ANOTHER windmill tightrope where he had to first make his way across to the blades, then TIGHTROPE ACROSS THE BLADES, WORKING HIS WAY TO THE VERY TIP TO ACTUALLY MAKE INTO THE FINAL TELEPORTER. Not helped by the fact that he had to walk FASTER AND FASTER the farther out he got. . . And then, when he FINALLY got past that, he was presented with a spindly orange gecko guy with a RPG launcher who could one-shot him. Fortunately it didn’t take Gray long to learn his teleporting pattern and roll into him enough times to defeat him and claim the launcher for himself. DAMN, now THAT is a solid first showing for a GTA V board!
Alex – had Gray run across a bunch of tightrope platforms while having to dodge half-sized copies of himself being flung back and forth across the board – oh, and he somehow found a way to mess with the game speed so the further Gray got along, the slower everything, including him, went, meaning he kept messing up his jumps to get from tightrope to tightrope because he wasn’t used to things being slow. He eventually made it across and unlocked the Super Jump, which allowed him to leap into the teleporter and face his bounty in the arena – a blue dude with a crown, a fireworks launcher, and a Green-Goblin-esque glider with two blue bowling balls hovering under it that he periodically flung at Gray. Gray’s task was to knock him off the glider with the Up-N-Atomizer, which – took a bit of doing! Though it helped when Gray found a few bits of scenery in the world that the balls couldn’t get past. Eventually he leapt and shot his way to victory and claimed the fireworks launcher as his prize. :p
So yeah – some truly torturous boards over the past couple of days! I am so looking forward to whatever the hell Joe comes up with next. XD
3. Play Sims 4 and get Alice werewolfed already: Check! Very pleased with today’s progress indeed. :D Though the day in Sims didn’t exactly have an auspicious start – while I did get some cute Victor/Smiler flirting in the greenhouse, I also got Alice and Smiler obsessed with showering in the rain again (damn Erratic trait!), and Victor discovering that he couldn’t “Repairio” the broken washing machine – and when he tried to do the same to the broken dryer, he suffered a failure and SET IT ON FIRE. O.o Fortunately I was able to get him to put it out without it spreading or anyone else noticing, and a second attempt worked correctly. Got him up to Neophyte rank too – I promptly chose the “Discharge” perk so he immediately had a way to clear charge when he starts getting into this magic thing more seriously.
However, today really was all about Alice:
A) She finished her second book (with a little inspirational boost from Smiler) – and it turned out bestseller quality right off the bat! :D I had her go and sell it to a publisher, and it was promptly nominated for an award, so maybe Sunday in-game they’ll all spend the day in Del Sol Valley before attending the ceremony.
B) She also got back the Omiscian mask she sent out for authentication – real deal! That went into the display case.
C) Once Smiler was off to class and Victor in bed to get some energy back, she went off to Moonwood Mill to seek her werewolf fortune! First attempt was exploring the underground through the sewer tunnel near the Grimtooth bar – all she got from that was a creepy feeling of being watched and a spoiled steak a bunch of rats were eating, though. I guess the latter will be good for the recycler?
D) She had, however, passed Rory Oaklow on the way over there, and the Wildfangs hangout was pretty close by, so I had her go over and befriend Rory instead to get her cursed bite! Took a little bit of getting to know (Rory is Ambitious and Likes the violin and the color blue, for anyone curious) and a few pictures (because I think Alice should be into photography anyway, and it helping make friends is just a bonus :p), but Rory agreed to chomp Alice, and they parted on good terms (with a custom sentiment too! And suddenly I wish we had these for vampires who change others. . .damn do we need some proper pack refreshes).
E) Once back home, she joined her boyfriend and his themfriend to watch the Season Premiere of “Game of Llamas!” Because it was the TV Premiere pop-up holiday, though this is the first time I think I’ve seen a specific show name attached to the interaction. She had a nice conversation with them while watching the show, including a bit of flirting with Victor because cuteness. :D Though it did kind of highlight their need for a three-seater couch, as she was stuck in one of the seats in front of the fireplace. . .I also took a moment to reset her umbrella to the watermelon print one, so everyone has a nice umbrella now.
F) After that was a cycle of Alice snatching what sleep she could, then loading up on ham dinners – seriously, if you want to keep your transforming werewolf properly fed, grand dinners are the way to go. Alice just needed like one and a half plates to keep the hunger at bay. Smiler did their homework, took care of the chickens (though they’re having a hard time bonding with the rooster), and regained their passion for their fishing job to help overcome their fear of a dead-end career, while Victor tended his bees and the garden and met Guidry, who’d shown up to help with any paranormal problems. Not that the gang are having much in the way of that – the specters around here seem to be very friendly indeed, yay. :)
G) And then, a little before midnight, Alice went through her first transformation and rampage! She actually doesn’t have a bad starting wolf form – I do plan to customize it (namely, I want to make it look a bit like she does when she’s wearing her Cheshire-themed dress), but it’s a nice black and gray wolf pelt. And even better, she had a pretty damn controlled rampage – scratching up exactly ONE chair and scaring NO Sims (though I did have to stop her trying to snarl at Guidry). I think I can thank the fact that it was raining most of the day in Henford-on-Bagley for that – I was able to distract her by sending her places “ferociously,” and she insisted on using her umbrella, meaning it took longer. XD Also helped that Victor slept through the entire thing and Smiler was at work for most of it – when they got home, I had them work on clearing cursed objects and doing a bit of yoga. :p Alice transformed back having already learned how to take on her wolfish form at will, and with two ability points – I got “Scavenger” for the goodies and “Wolf Nap” so she could just refresh her energy right there on the porch. XD
And that’s that – all three of my Sims are now supernatural creatures, yay! :) And next time – well, next time might be mostly me in CAS customizing Alice’s werewolf form, but if we’re lucky, it’s also Love Day! XD And Victor’s got TWO dates to go on. . .
4. Work on tumblr drafts: Check – actually felt halfway AWAKE this morning after making my bed and whatnot, so went straight in on the Victor Luvs Alice drafts! Finished up all the text for the Wednesday Chill Save update featuring Victor being turned into a spellcaster, then caught up on some tag games I’d been mentioned in by my friend Newt (one for WIPs, one for just general “what did you last listen to/watch/read” stuff) that I plan to queue for Thursday and Friday. AND reblogged Moose’s latest BTTF fic over there. Hooray for getting all that done before lunch!
5. Get in a workout: Check, even if it was later than I wanted – another thirty-five minutes on the bike, clearing out the second half of James Turner’s High School Years Rags To Riches, Part 7! Despite having just complained about the bugginess of the Trendi fashion looks, once Reginald got back from his barista job, James immediately sent him off to ThrifTea to design five more. XD Dude’s gotta make money somehow! Reginald also had his first proper day at school, which did go much smoother thanks to the way James designed the place (he stayed mostly in his little area, straying only to wash his hands in a different sink after going to the bathroom, an irritation I know all too well), though once again, even with doing all of his tasks, he was unable to pull himself up from a “C” student! A frustrated James had him do his cheer practice, sent off those outfits that had actually sold (first one was, hilariously, “Awww, Batuu!”), then had him get some sleep –
And then attend the next day’s classes alone! Because apparently that’s the only way around this bug – and yup, it did indeed work for him, allowing Reginald to finally advance to “B” student. He also had a good day at work (creating a special latte for the big boss that they loved), and an okay day at Cheer (though I think he got a performance loss from a chance card; James kinda sped through it). He also got a visit from his mother, Column, and was FINALLY able to clear his fear of unfulfilled dreams by talking to her about his fear and actually fulfilling a want, yay! Though she left before he could get any advice on his social life. XD Next time, we see if any of his newest Trendi looks sell, if he can expand his house further (he was able to buy a bin and a mirror this episode!), and (thanks to being back at the beginning of the week) if he will risk another promposal to Sidney, ooooo~
That didn’t fill up my entire workout, though, so I also threw in another video from Petey Plays It – a guide to being a Paranormal Investigator! Which will eventually be relevant to my own gameplay. It was a nice, short little video featuring some tips and tricks you can use to become a successful investigator, like the best gift to give specters (booze. Make tons of simple drinks and pass them out) and how to avoid becoming too scared to do your own job (overload yourself with another mood before work that the scared moodlets can’t overpower; Petey used the Energized mood). Good stuff that I will hopefully remember once Victor becomes a serious medium in his own haunted house!
Additionally:
-->Made sure to answer my friend Ace’s FF.net PM, yay~ Trying my best to keep up with that!
-->And similarly, made sure to catch up with Moose's messages on here, w00~
And that is that, and now I have to get to bed. Because it is likely that I shall still have work, even with all this rain. *nods* Night all! Keep your fingers crossed I don't float away!
