Happy Birthday To Meeee~
Dec. 27th, 2022 11:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickI'm 36 now and that is a weird thing to think about. XD But I had a good, very low-key birthday, just hanging around the house and chilling. Got a good haul too --
From My Parents:
-->An OUTATIME license plate necklace from the BTTF.com store (I wanted either that or the clock pendant, but the latter was sold out -- this one's cool, though)
-->A Doc Brown KidRobot plushie also from the BTTF.com store (found by accident while looking up the above)
-->A BTTF face mask also from the BTTF.com store (apparently this is a free gift they send out with other purchases; I will happily accept)
-->A Doc Brown hoodie from the Chris Lloyd/Michael J. Fox BTTF store (it's big but it's nice and soft and cozy)
-->$100 "Steam Gift Card" (aka a piece of paper saying they'll give me $100 to use on Steam for games because they didn't have any luck finding a gift card for that amount; we'll figure out the details later)
-->A "The Smiler" t-shirt in purple (not an official one, but Mom said she didn't make it herself -- not sure WHERE she got it from, but the t-shirt brand is the same as a couple of my other shirts, so I suspect there is a person somewhere who just puts images on shirts for people)
From My Aunt:
-->A GrayStillPlays "We don't need physics where we're going" sweatshirt from his merch store (also big but cozy; I wanted that specific phrase because it's also vaguely BTTFy)
-->A GrayStillPlays "Reginald Von Cluckington" plush (aka his pet chicken from his Minecraft stuff) also from his merch store
Basically I got all the practical/"standard" gifts at Christmas, and all the slightly-weirder stuff I asked for on my birthday today. XD I am perfectly happy with this set-up. And my tumblr friend Newt will be delivering a drawing in the near future, so that's nice too. :) Anyway, here's how I spent my day --
Tumblr: I didn’t do the full dash-and-tags catch-up on Victor Luvs Alice today, but I did make a point of checking out the “alice madness returns,” “the smiler,” and “corpse bride” tags for my OT3. :p I also reblogged the Valicer snippet I posted on there (of Smiler hypnotizing Victor in person for the first time), and did a post showing off all my birthday presents, so if you would like some visuals of the above list. . . Plus slapped all the Wednesday Chill Save updates into the queue. And over on Valice Multiverse, got four ask replies and two reblogs in the queue, w00. Doing good there as well! Though I hope to be more productive on this front tomorrow.
Sims 4: Because after we finished lunch and I was left on my own again, I realized that, for my birthday, what I really wanted to do was play my Valicer family. :) And let me tell you, did THAT ever work out, as I had a VERY good day with my OT3 in there! Let me give you the skinny –
A) Started with deciding Victor needed a bit of Medium skill and sent him to do a ceremony at the séance table to keep everything hunky-dory while Alice did some scavenging outside and chatted a little with Guidry and Smiler worked on editing and updating their gadget review video on the future cube with transitions and fancy effects. It went well, as a quick check of the house’s spiritual volatility confirmed, and Victor officially made Medium skill level 3, nice. :D I rewarded him by letting him eat the rest of his ectocake (after removing some hands that had popped up in front of the washer and dryer), which actually completely filled up his hunger for a few hours, nice. :D
B) With the house’s spirits well in hand, Victor went out to tend his garden, which needed some serious weeding and watering. This went well enough gardening-skill wise, but – well. Not only did Victor suffer a bee attack (fortunately giving them some mite treatment calmed them back down), for no apparent reason almost all his plants abruptly reverted to dirt piles while he was finishing up watering and spraying for bugs! For fuck’s sake. . .fortunately I think I already know where to find a mod to fix this – I think I’m gonna make a list of the mods I really want, then download them all after the next patch to the game once I’m sure they’ve been deemed compatible/updated so I’ll just have them all and can play with everything I want going forward. *grumbles*
C) Anyway, while that was going on, Smiler uploaded their video, mopped some slime creatures, had a shower, and then flew out to the barn to make another mechanism. Alice, for her part, used her Somber Howl to keep her Fury low, then wolfed-up and headed out to hunt for some fresh meat as she was feeling peckish. This got her experience past the midpoint and earned her another ability point – after a look at what was available, I grabbed “Tunneler” – the werewolf equivalent of the teleport. Only works outside, but it’s still useful! She turned back to normal and cleaned all the spoiled food out of the fridge while Smiler went to the mailbox to vote on the latest NAP for Old New Henford – had them vote repeatedly for “Fun-Loving Community,” as it seemed in-line with their personality AND would stop that stupid “Water Conservation” NAP from getting passed. (I don’t need any more useless fines, game!) They then both went to get their creativity on (Alice with some painting, Smiler with some guitar jamming) while Victor scavenged parts out of a trash pile and then scruberooed it out of existence. . .
D) And that’s when I spotted the plant packets in the living room and went “oh, hey, where the hell are the gnomes? Haven’t seen them since Harvestfest ended.” Checked around the lot for the little buggers –
Up in Smiler’s party area. Surrounded by DOZENS of seasonal plant packets. @.@ Well, at least Victor had plenty of spare produce when he went up there and picked them all up! Even got some begonias and daisies out of it, which he didn’t have before. *nods* I also put the gnomes around the lot again – alien and one of the normal ones in the greenhouse; bunny in the wheelbarrow; and the pool gnome and other cute normal gnome in front of the chicken pen, because why not? :p
E) Anyway, this all took us to around midday, with Victor needing the toilet and a nap – I let him use the former, but replaced the latter with some sleep replacement, because I’d actually wanted the trio to head out and about today. And so, with a quick call on the phone, the trio headed off to the first location on their list – Finchwick, so Victor could drop off his eggs to Kim Goldbloom at the grocery stall! (Yeah, finally remembered to do that!) Victor got Kim’s thanks, a coupon for free groceries, the fruity treat recipe, a friendly treat, and an animal shed upgrade part – not a bad deal! And, since they were in the area and everyone wanted to get drinks and/or dance to the radio, I had the trio go in for drinks and dancing – Alice got a rootbeer float, Victor a Fruity Fizzy drink, and Smiler of course a Plasma Jane. And I must say, they were all in fine super-cute form today, ESPECIALLY when I turned on the Cottagecore on the pub’s speakers and had them all dance to it. They all looked like they were having such fun, and the spontaneous flirting between Victor and his partners. . .well, I got some very good shots, including one I think is GUARANTEED to be a Valicertine. :D I am VERY happy with that – some good OT3 times was exactly why I wanted to play them today. :) In fact, hang on, I want to show you the picture I like the most (sorry it's such a small thumbnail, but the actual picture is pretty big! Click on it for the full experience):
Cute, huh? :)
F) But there was another reason I wanted to play them today, and that was pet adoption! So once they’d fulfilled their drinking and dancing wants (and Alice had hit the toilet), it was back to Pupperstone Park in Brindleton Bay to see if their stray friends would show up! As I knew it was likely to take a bit, though, I had everyone head over to one of the little peninsulas nearby to do some fishing (via all their various teleports – Smiler turned into a bat, Victor hopped on his broom, and Alice tunneled her way over). They had a very solid few hours there – Alice got up to level three and caught an electronic upgrade part, a bass, and a trout; Victor got a guppy, a tilapia, and a cichild; and Smiler got a tilapia, a goldfish, and a trout. Pretty much all of these were given to Smiler so they could turn them into plasma packs, of course – and it also fulfilled their milestone of getting 20 different kinds of fish! Now they just have to max out the Fishing skill and they’ll have completed Angling Ace as an aspiration. . .
G) Anyway, I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of the strays I wanted around the world as they fished – in fact, I hadn’t seen much in the way of strays, period. But then it occurred to me that I could MANIPULATE that – cue me sneaking into Build Mode and slapping the “Cat Hangout” and “Dog Hangout” traits on the park to attract more stray animals. The traits still needed some time to work, though, so I kept the gang occupied in other ways – Alice did some cloudgazing, scavenged up some pyrite, then tunneled her way back to the park to play chess and fill the food bowl there; Victor practiced both Untamed (learning Minionize) and Mischief magic before doing some cloudgazing himself; and Smiler – well, went back to fishing, mentored by passerby Presley into level 9. :D So that was handy. Smiler made official friends with her and detected her personality to boot – she’s a Kleptomaniac Child of the Ocean. XD Victor and Smiler eventually returned to the park as well, though, with Victor doing some more cloudgazing (to beat that stupid “fear of the dark” moodlet that won’t go away) and Alice and Smiler playing some chess and Smiler letting off a happiness “bomb” once they won. XD Smiler also made sure to take a vacation day from work – I mean, they’ve got EIGHT of them saved up, might as well! But the day was really starting to wear on, and I was starting to think that I was going to miss out on seeing the strays –
H) And then I checked Alice’s relationship panel, wondering if I should just invite Kelly over for relationship-building purposes, and realized that the “focus camera” option was available, meaning she was in the world! Turns out the kitty was at the little peninsula they were at before! Alice tunneled over there and went to say hello, getting to know Kelly a little better – her third personality trait is “Frisky,” if you were curious – before giving her pets and more laser pointer playtime. Smiler, for their part, took some time to detect a bunch of personalities (new moon means it’s easy to use vampire powers!) before heading over to the other fishing spot to fish up a few more “plasma packs,” and Victor played a bit of chess before using the public toilets and making himself a plate of spaghetti with Delicioso. And for some reason rather rudely greeting one of the local cats – I guess it was eyeing his food? *shrug* But yeah, my focus was on Alice and Kelly and getting their relationship up – and to my delight, it wasn’t long before they were friends and Kelly could be adopted! :D “All right,” I thought, going back to Victor, “at least I’ve got ONE of the pets, now we can head home–”
G) And there was Shadow, the dog Victor had almost befriended, RIGHT BEHIND HIS CHAIR. Welp! I had the tired Alice take a wolf nap as Victor quickly worked on Shadow, finding out the rest of her personality traits (Jumpy yet Adventurous) and playing with and talking to her. Another hour in, and they were friends as well, and Victor successfully adopted her (though not before I had to get a litter box for poor Kelly to use in the park!).
And so the playsession ended with everyone heading home with their new animal friends – the game helpfully gave everyone some relationship with Shadow and Kelly when they were adopted, so they’re all good with each other. :) Gonna be building if I go into Sims again during the rest of my time off, but next time I play them, I’ll probably do some CAS updates and figure out what breeds Kelly and Shadow even ARE. As well as giving them some collars and suchlike. :) Should be fun!
Writing: Check! Yeah, I found the time to fit in a bit of writing in between supper and cake – working on a bit more of a different Valicer snippet, this one from my original “Modern AU, all human college students” idea – Victor, Alice, and Smiler having a talk after Smiler hypnotized Victor in person (aka the snippet linked above) and they all had some revelations about how they feel about each other and Victor getting hypnotized. I’d already covered “Alice has realized Victor and Smiler have feelings for each other, but that’s okay because she’s cool with going poly, much to their surprise” – today’s page covered “also Alice has discovered that she has a thing for seeing Victor getting hypnotized and that is baffling both her and Victor.” XD Basically it’s a lot of “why are we wired like this” from the three of them and it’s very amusing. They work it out in the end!
YouTube: Bit of an unusual day on the YouTubes, given I only had one Subs video – but I still found some stuff to fill the time that wasn’t spent writing, tumblring, or Simming –
A) Started the day by rewatching/relistening to every Smiler section in every Alton Towers fireworks show in which The Smiler has been featured – which is easier than you might think, as The Smiler has only been in three: the 2013 show after the ride first opened (in which it had the longest section due to it “taking over the park” briefly); the 2021 show in a surprise appearance (shortest segment, and it actually shares it with Wickerman due to the way the bit works); and the 2022 show as part of the celebration of the top seven coasters of the park (its own three-minute segment just like the others, with arguably the best light show yet). Fun stuff! I also made sure to listen to The Smiler theme collection I found on YouTube as well (while writing the Sims 4 summary above, in fact!).
B) GrayStillPlays with “Which loop gives you the strongest G-Force in GTA 5?” Yes, it was time for more painful Alex parkour with Gray, as he did three different loop-de-loops and three different challenges to unlock the final ultimate loop-de-loop of pain. First orange loop-de-loop sent him sailing into the “One Punch Challenge” (inspired by the anime of the same name) – Alex had Gray go along a wavy wall ribbon, then get punched onto another platform, then have to do ANOTHER wall ride through some gears he’d made up, then 180 the car so he could get punched around and wall ride the OTHER way into a cylinder, transfer onto another wall ride and avoid a final gear prong before flying through the teleporter. Second yellow loop-de-loop sent him into an Attack on Titans-themed wall ride, where he had to do a wall ride around various stone people statues (the titans), dodging through a bunch of tiny gaps and avoiding giant holes with arms coming through them, before leaping ONTO a titan, wall-riding along a bunch of titan arms (while avoiding one titan trying to smack him off), zipping through a wind turbine, doing another titan bodies wall ride, then going atop one last titan before smacking into a wall to wait for the train – and then he had to get on the RIGHT part of the train (as in, one of the higher cars instead of a regular one) so he didn’t smack into the wall the train was going through and instead got carried to the teleporter. And the third red-and-blue loop-de-loop sent him (after a few attempts to land the car) into an IQ test board, where he had to navigate a twisty path in forty seconds, following the rule “blue is left, red is right”, meaning that whenever he came across a block of those colors, he had to assume the right path was on the left or the right depending and make the correct turns before he ended up in a wall that didn’t really exist (this one Gray ended up just drawing himself a map after figuring it out through trial and error XD). With his usual teeth-gritted perseverance (and a lot of hilarious noises), Gray managed to make it through all the challenges, and thus unlocked the fourth loop – a monster made solely of boosts, which could only be completed with the monster truck (as it was the only one that didn’t have a mocking license plate). Delightful amount of Gray pain here! XD
C) And finished off with some videos from my “Clip Mania” YouTube playlist – Victor dropping the ring under Maudeline’s skirt and accidentally setting her on fire at the end of the wedding rehearsal in Corpse Bride; Alice confronting Bumby and learning the truth about what happened to Lizzie the night of the fire from the Queen of Hearts in Alice: Madness Returns; and two short 30-second commercials for The Smiler – one for National Roller Coaster Day, one just advertising the Smiler when it first opened. :)
Workout: Another night on the bike, another night with the Call Me Kevin “Rewind 2022” video! I finished up Kevin’s personal favorites with a quick look at “Slippy,” his monstrous horror from the WWE game, and then moved through Multiplayer Madness (featuring clips from Kevin playing Farming Simulator 2022 with the other Irish Lads and turning it into a demolition derby with farming equipment; Kevin playing Wii Sports with the Lads and doing miserably in volleyball before dominating bowling; and Kevin defusing bombs with the help of his streaming chat in Keeping Talking And No One Explodes, among other things) and into Evil Kevin (starting with his “how evil can you be in BitLife?” video). Fun times – I’d forgotten how funny him bouncing off the other Irish Lads was. XD
Not bad, not bad at all. Add in me trawling TV Tropes and the "One True Threesome" section for most of the morning, and I have to say I had a very fun day. XD But now it is time to head to bed and leave my birthday behind -- tomorrow, time to draft out more tumblr posts, play some more Developer's Commentary Superliminal, and keep up with YouTube Subs and clear the last stuff out of my Watch Later if possible. *nods* Night all!
From My Parents:
-->An OUTATIME license plate necklace from the BTTF.com store (I wanted either that or the clock pendant, but the latter was sold out -- this one's cool, though)
-->A Doc Brown KidRobot plushie also from the BTTF.com store (found by accident while looking up the above)
-->A BTTF face mask also from the BTTF.com store (apparently this is a free gift they send out with other purchases; I will happily accept)
-->A Doc Brown hoodie from the Chris Lloyd/Michael J. Fox BTTF store (it's big but it's nice and soft and cozy)
-->$100 "Steam Gift Card" (aka a piece of paper saying they'll give me $100 to use on Steam for games because they didn't have any luck finding a gift card for that amount; we'll figure out the details later)
-->A "The Smiler" t-shirt in purple (not an official one, but Mom said she didn't make it herself -- not sure WHERE she got it from, but the t-shirt brand is the same as a couple of my other shirts, so I suspect there is a person somewhere who just puts images on shirts for people)
From My Aunt:
-->A GrayStillPlays "We don't need physics where we're going" sweatshirt from his merch store (also big but cozy; I wanted that specific phrase because it's also vaguely BTTFy)
-->A GrayStillPlays "Reginald Von Cluckington" plush (aka his pet chicken from his Minecraft stuff) also from his merch store
Basically I got all the practical/"standard" gifts at Christmas, and all the slightly-weirder stuff I asked for on my birthday today. XD I am perfectly happy with this set-up. And my tumblr friend Newt will be delivering a drawing in the near future, so that's nice too. :) Anyway, here's how I spent my day --
Tumblr: I didn’t do the full dash-and-tags catch-up on Victor Luvs Alice today, but I did make a point of checking out the “alice madness returns,” “the smiler,” and “corpse bride” tags for my OT3. :p I also reblogged the Valicer snippet I posted on there (of Smiler hypnotizing Victor in person for the first time), and did a post showing off all my birthday presents, so if you would like some visuals of the above list. . . Plus slapped all the Wednesday Chill Save updates into the queue. And over on Valice Multiverse, got four ask replies and two reblogs in the queue, w00. Doing good there as well! Though I hope to be more productive on this front tomorrow.
Sims 4: Because after we finished lunch and I was left on my own again, I realized that, for my birthday, what I really wanted to do was play my Valicer family. :) And let me tell you, did THAT ever work out, as I had a VERY good day with my OT3 in there! Let me give you the skinny –
A) Started with deciding Victor needed a bit of Medium skill and sent him to do a ceremony at the séance table to keep everything hunky-dory while Alice did some scavenging outside and chatted a little with Guidry and Smiler worked on editing and updating their gadget review video on the future cube with transitions and fancy effects. It went well, as a quick check of the house’s spiritual volatility confirmed, and Victor officially made Medium skill level 3, nice. :D I rewarded him by letting him eat the rest of his ectocake (after removing some hands that had popped up in front of the washer and dryer), which actually completely filled up his hunger for a few hours, nice. :D
B) With the house’s spirits well in hand, Victor went out to tend his garden, which needed some serious weeding and watering. This went well enough gardening-skill wise, but – well. Not only did Victor suffer a bee attack (fortunately giving them some mite treatment calmed them back down), for no apparent reason almost all his plants abruptly reverted to dirt piles while he was finishing up watering and spraying for bugs! For fuck’s sake. . .fortunately I think I already know where to find a mod to fix this – I think I’m gonna make a list of the mods I really want, then download them all after the next patch to the game once I’m sure they’ve been deemed compatible/updated so I’ll just have them all and can play with everything I want going forward. *grumbles*
C) Anyway, while that was going on, Smiler uploaded their video, mopped some slime creatures, had a shower, and then flew out to the barn to make another mechanism. Alice, for her part, used her Somber Howl to keep her Fury low, then wolfed-up and headed out to hunt for some fresh meat as she was feeling peckish. This got her experience past the midpoint and earned her another ability point – after a look at what was available, I grabbed “Tunneler” – the werewolf equivalent of the teleport. Only works outside, but it’s still useful! She turned back to normal and cleaned all the spoiled food out of the fridge while Smiler went to the mailbox to vote on the latest NAP for Old New Henford – had them vote repeatedly for “Fun-Loving Community,” as it seemed in-line with their personality AND would stop that stupid “Water Conservation” NAP from getting passed. (I don’t need any more useless fines, game!) They then both went to get their creativity on (Alice with some painting, Smiler with some guitar jamming) while Victor scavenged parts out of a trash pile and then scruberooed it out of existence. . .
D) And that’s when I spotted the plant packets in the living room and went “oh, hey, where the hell are the gnomes? Haven’t seen them since Harvestfest ended.” Checked around the lot for the little buggers –
Up in Smiler’s party area. Surrounded by DOZENS of seasonal plant packets. @.@ Well, at least Victor had plenty of spare produce when he went up there and picked them all up! Even got some begonias and daisies out of it, which he didn’t have before. *nods* I also put the gnomes around the lot again – alien and one of the normal ones in the greenhouse; bunny in the wheelbarrow; and the pool gnome and other cute normal gnome in front of the chicken pen, because why not? :p
E) Anyway, this all took us to around midday, with Victor needing the toilet and a nap – I let him use the former, but replaced the latter with some sleep replacement, because I’d actually wanted the trio to head out and about today. And so, with a quick call on the phone, the trio headed off to the first location on their list – Finchwick, so Victor could drop off his eggs to Kim Goldbloom at the grocery stall! (Yeah, finally remembered to do that!) Victor got Kim’s thanks, a coupon for free groceries, the fruity treat recipe, a friendly treat, and an animal shed upgrade part – not a bad deal! And, since they were in the area and everyone wanted to get drinks and/or dance to the radio, I had the trio go in for drinks and dancing – Alice got a rootbeer float, Victor a Fruity Fizzy drink, and Smiler of course a Plasma Jane. And I must say, they were all in fine super-cute form today, ESPECIALLY when I turned on the Cottagecore on the pub’s speakers and had them all dance to it. They all looked like they were having such fun, and the spontaneous flirting between Victor and his partners. . .well, I got some very good shots, including one I think is GUARANTEED to be a Valicertine. :D I am VERY happy with that – some good OT3 times was exactly why I wanted to play them today. :) In fact, hang on, I want to show you the picture I like the most (sorry it's such a small thumbnail, but the actual picture is pretty big! Click on it for the full experience):
Cute, huh? :)
F) But there was another reason I wanted to play them today, and that was pet adoption! So once they’d fulfilled their drinking and dancing wants (and Alice had hit the toilet), it was back to Pupperstone Park in Brindleton Bay to see if their stray friends would show up! As I knew it was likely to take a bit, though, I had everyone head over to one of the little peninsulas nearby to do some fishing (via all their various teleports – Smiler turned into a bat, Victor hopped on his broom, and Alice tunneled her way over). They had a very solid few hours there – Alice got up to level three and caught an electronic upgrade part, a bass, and a trout; Victor got a guppy, a tilapia, and a cichild; and Smiler got a tilapia, a goldfish, and a trout. Pretty much all of these were given to Smiler so they could turn them into plasma packs, of course – and it also fulfilled their milestone of getting 20 different kinds of fish! Now they just have to max out the Fishing skill and they’ll have completed Angling Ace as an aspiration. . .
G) Anyway, I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of the strays I wanted around the world as they fished – in fact, I hadn’t seen much in the way of strays, period. But then it occurred to me that I could MANIPULATE that – cue me sneaking into Build Mode and slapping the “Cat Hangout” and “Dog Hangout” traits on the park to attract more stray animals. The traits still needed some time to work, though, so I kept the gang occupied in other ways – Alice did some cloudgazing, scavenged up some pyrite, then tunneled her way back to the park to play chess and fill the food bowl there; Victor practiced both Untamed (learning Minionize) and Mischief magic before doing some cloudgazing himself; and Smiler – well, went back to fishing, mentored by passerby Presley into level 9. :D So that was handy. Smiler made official friends with her and detected her personality to boot – she’s a Kleptomaniac Child of the Ocean. XD Victor and Smiler eventually returned to the park as well, though, with Victor doing some more cloudgazing (to beat that stupid “fear of the dark” moodlet that won’t go away) and Alice and Smiler playing some chess and Smiler letting off a happiness “bomb” once they won. XD Smiler also made sure to take a vacation day from work – I mean, they’ve got EIGHT of them saved up, might as well! But the day was really starting to wear on, and I was starting to think that I was going to miss out on seeing the strays –
H) And then I checked Alice’s relationship panel, wondering if I should just invite Kelly over for relationship-building purposes, and realized that the “focus camera” option was available, meaning she was in the world! Turns out the kitty was at the little peninsula they were at before! Alice tunneled over there and went to say hello, getting to know Kelly a little better – her third personality trait is “Frisky,” if you were curious – before giving her pets and more laser pointer playtime. Smiler, for their part, took some time to detect a bunch of personalities (new moon means it’s easy to use vampire powers!) before heading over to the other fishing spot to fish up a few more “plasma packs,” and Victor played a bit of chess before using the public toilets and making himself a plate of spaghetti with Delicioso. And for some reason rather rudely greeting one of the local cats – I guess it was eyeing his food? *shrug* But yeah, my focus was on Alice and Kelly and getting their relationship up – and to my delight, it wasn’t long before they were friends and Kelly could be adopted! :D “All right,” I thought, going back to Victor, “at least I’ve got ONE of the pets, now we can head home–”
G) And there was Shadow, the dog Victor had almost befriended, RIGHT BEHIND HIS CHAIR. Welp! I had the tired Alice take a wolf nap as Victor quickly worked on Shadow, finding out the rest of her personality traits (Jumpy yet Adventurous) and playing with and talking to her. Another hour in, and they were friends as well, and Victor successfully adopted her (though not before I had to get a litter box for poor Kelly to use in the park!).
And so the playsession ended with everyone heading home with their new animal friends – the game helpfully gave everyone some relationship with Shadow and Kelly when they were adopted, so they’re all good with each other. :) Gonna be building if I go into Sims again during the rest of my time off, but next time I play them, I’ll probably do some CAS updates and figure out what breeds Kelly and Shadow even ARE. As well as giving them some collars and suchlike. :) Should be fun!
Writing: Check! Yeah, I found the time to fit in a bit of writing in between supper and cake – working on a bit more of a different Valicer snippet, this one from my original “Modern AU, all human college students” idea – Victor, Alice, and Smiler having a talk after Smiler hypnotized Victor in person (aka the snippet linked above) and they all had some revelations about how they feel about each other and Victor getting hypnotized. I’d already covered “Alice has realized Victor and Smiler have feelings for each other, but that’s okay because she’s cool with going poly, much to their surprise” – today’s page covered “also Alice has discovered that she has a thing for seeing Victor getting hypnotized and that is baffling both her and Victor.” XD Basically it’s a lot of “why are we wired like this” from the three of them and it’s very amusing. They work it out in the end!
YouTube: Bit of an unusual day on the YouTubes, given I only had one Subs video – but I still found some stuff to fill the time that wasn’t spent writing, tumblring, or Simming –
A) Started the day by rewatching/relistening to every Smiler section in every Alton Towers fireworks show in which The Smiler has been featured – which is easier than you might think, as The Smiler has only been in three: the 2013 show after the ride first opened (in which it had the longest section due to it “taking over the park” briefly); the 2021 show in a surprise appearance (shortest segment, and it actually shares it with Wickerman due to the way the bit works); and the 2022 show as part of the celebration of the top seven coasters of the park (its own three-minute segment just like the others, with arguably the best light show yet). Fun stuff! I also made sure to listen to The Smiler theme collection I found on YouTube as well (while writing the Sims 4 summary above, in fact!).
B) GrayStillPlays with “Which loop gives you the strongest G-Force in GTA 5?” Yes, it was time for more painful Alex parkour with Gray, as he did three different loop-de-loops and three different challenges to unlock the final ultimate loop-de-loop of pain. First orange loop-de-loop sent him sailing into the “One Punch Challenge” (inspired by the anime of the same name) – Alex had Gray go along a wavy wall ribbon, then get punched onto another platform, then have to do ANOTHER wall ride through some gears he’d made up, then 180 the car so he could get punched around and wall ride the OTHER way into a cylinder, transfer onto another wall ride and avoid a final gear prong before flying through the teleporter. Second yellow loop-de-loop sent him into an Attack on Titans-themed wall ride, where he had to do a wall ride around various stone people statues (the titans), dodging through a bunch of tiny gaps and avoiding giant holes with arms coming through them, before leaping ONTO a titan, wall-riding along a bunch of titan arms (while avoiding one titan trying to smack him off), zipping through a wind turbine, doing another titan bodies wall ride, then going atop one last titan before smacking into a wall to wait for the train – and then he had to get on the RIGHT part of the train (as in, one of the higher cars instead of a regular one) so he didn’t smack into the wall the train was going through and instead got carried to the teleporter. And the third red-and-blue loop-de-loop sent him (after a few attempts to land the car) into an IQ test board, where he had to navigate a twisty path in forty seconds, following the rule “blue is left, red is right”, meaning that whenever he came across a block of those colors, he had to assume the right path was on the left or the right depending and make the correct turns before he ended up in a wall that didn’t really exist (this one Gray ended up just drawing himself a map after figuring it out through trial and error XD). With his usual teeth-gritted perseverance (and a lot of hilarious noises), Gray managed to make it through all the challenges, and thus unlocked the fourth loop – a monster made solely of boosts, which could only be completed with the monster truck (as it was the only one that didn’t have a mocking license plate). Delightful amount of Gray pain here! XD
C) And finished off with some videos from my “Clip Mania” YouTube playlist – Victor dropping the ring under Maudeline’s skirt and accidentally setting her on fire at the end of the wedding rehearsal in Corpse Bride; Alice confronting Bumby and learning the truth about what happened to Lizzie the night of the fire from the Queen of Hearts in Alice: Madness Returns; and two short 30-second commercials for The Smiler – one for National Roller Coaster Day, one just advertising the Smiler when it first opened. :)
Workout: Another night on the bike, another night with the Call Me Kevin “Rewind 2022” video! I finished up Kevin’s personal favorites with a quick look at “Slippy,” his monstrous horror from the WWE game, and then moved through Multiplayer Madness (featuring clips from Kevin playing Farming Simulator 2022 with the other Irish Lads and turning it into a demolition derby with farming equipment; Kevin playing Wii Sports with the Lads and doing miserably in volleyball before dominating bowling; and Kevin defusing bombs with the help of his streaming chat in Keeping Talking And No One Explodes, among other things) and into Evil Kevin (starting with his “how evil can you be in BitLife?” video). Fun times – I’d forgotten how funny him bouncing off the other Irish Lads was. XD
Not bad, not bad at all. Add in me trawling TV Tropes and the "One True Threesome" section for most of the morning, and I have to say I had a very fun day. XD But now it is time to head to bed and leave my birthday behind -- tomorrow, time to draft out more tumblr posts, play some more Developer's Commentary Superliminal, and keep up with YouTube Subs and clear the last stuff out of my Watch Later if possible. *nods* Night all!
