Very Chill (Yet Warm) Tuesday
Jun. 13th, 2023 11:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickYes, after some overnight rain and early cloudiness, it ended up being a lovely, summery day today, and I had a very good time hanging around the house on my own! :) Let me tell you all about it --
Tumblr: Had a nice, productive day on the old tumblr blogs today, I’m happy to say –
Victor Luvs Alice – After finishing breakfast and some Merge Dragons stuff, spent the time before lunch catching up on my dashboard and my tracked tags (putting a few items from the “alice madness returns” tag into my drafts for later), then hit said drafts and finished off a post of “Valicer In The Dark”-themed Not Incorrect Valicer quotes and started on a post for the “Smiler Alton’s Day Off” AU that’s been kicking around in my head. Finished that after lunch (and after watching some clips of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off for inspiration, see the “YouTube” section), and this evening added it to my queue for this week’s “AU Thursday” post, along with the Chill Valicer Save update and a reblog of a poll for which Alice design you like better (original AMA brown-haired Alice or A:MR black-haired Alice) for Wednesday, and a reblog of a post about relating things back to your ship that really resonated with me for Friday. Especially after the “Smiler Alton’s Day Off” thing. XD
Valice Multiverse – Checked on this this evening – had one ask reply (a follow-up to the question about things you can say both at a family dinner and during sex), and one new thread from my partner Brynlee Marie (a “characters texting each other” thread where Maddie got Rick Rolled by Smiler at 3 AM XD). Simple, but good stuff!
Sims 4: Had a very long but VERY productive day in the game – though for a second I thought I wasn’t going to be able to play at all, as a quick trip to Sims Community revealed that EA had dropped a new patch today. It proved to be a tiny hotfix patch focused pretty much solely on the Gallery, though (which they are slowly revamping a bit), whew. So, after letting that update quickly and then restoring all my mods and such –
A) Picked up around midnight on Summer Wednesday, aka SimCity Founding! Everyone was up really early thanks to Victor and Alice having the world’s most amazing bed and Guidry being a distraction, so I decided to just have everyone find something to do instead of forcing Victor and Alice to sleep – Smiler continued making mechanisms until they got zapped; Victor gave Snappy the Sixam Mosquito trap a quick Floralorial zap before going to make another eco upgrade part; and Alice gave herself a tongue-washing before starting another book – a mystery entitled “The Corruption of Wonderland” (basically supposed to be her retelling of A:MR). However, her werewolf instincts first made her too tense to be inside, then – after a somber howl to keep the Fury down – too angry to do anything but take a wolf nap and sleep it off. So much for not forcing her to sleep! XD
B) Victor, after successfully making his upgrade part, headed inside to give Kelly a hug – I approved of this because one, it was adorable, and two, because Kelly was in the kitchen and that’s where I wanted Victor to be anyway, since I wanted him to use those eco upgrade parts to upgrade the fridge to be more energy efficient! It now has a green eco footprint, which is nice. :) Smiler, having been recently zapped and needing a break from electronics, came in to say hi and do a little flirting and kissing, which was sweet. :) I then had them swap out of their dark form back to their regular one (for some reason they never changed back after getting a drink from Jameson two “episodes” ago), then start the laundry, adding a daisy to the washing machine’s additive tray to give this load a nice fresh floral scent. :) Victor got sent to listen to classical music for a bit to fulfill a want, while I directed Alice to wake up and paint a sad picture for the sad specters in the greenhouse. By the time she finished, though, they had actually despawned, so I had her just put it in her inventory for later. Never hurts to have a gift or two ready to go! Even if the specters can be very picky about what they like. . .
C) With morning properly here, though, it was time to get started on the daily chores! Alice removed a twisted tendril and gave the chickens a bit of initial feed before talking to Guidry (using their grill for more herbalism *sigh*), getting sad (they do NOT get on well), and then cleaning the coop before going upstairs to cry it out and have a comforting hug with Kelly. And then submitted her “The Puns of the Gnat” book to the literary digest, as she can do that now. :) Smiler mopped up a slime creature, then set Elmer loose to help Victor in the greenhouse before giving the chickens a bit more feed and playing with one of the rooster chicks. And Victor –
Well, I TOLD him to “tend garden,” but for some reason he kept canceling it out and getting distracted by various things like fruit pie. *grumbles* On the plus side, though, Alice submitting her book to the digest by a bunch of bugs made me suddenly remember “oh yeah, the ‘All Bugged Out’ mod lets you set ‘Bugs’ as a preference! I should have Victor officially like them! And Smiler too, as they have caught their fair share.” And so that’s what I did, popping into CAS briefly to set the preference. :) Nice!
D) With that sorted, everyone insisted on gathering in the greenhouse and distracting Victor further – I allowed it on the basis of some of it was fulfilling the Party Spirit tradition of SimCity Founding, and, well, I do just like seeing them all hanging out together. Eventually, though, I was like “okay, I know it’s fun kissing Alice, Victor, but you DO gotta at least harvest your greenhouse--”
And found there was nothing to harvest. O.o That and a message I got about Wonderful Whims 46 being successfully installed after exiting CAS makes me wonder if popping into CAS with these guys somehow served as a bit of a game reset? I mean, I checked the household inventory, and all that was in there was four glow orbs (and the spare planter). Well, it’s not like we don’t still have tons of produce and other products both at home and at the store, so – not gonna worry about it. And just be grateful I didn’t have fifty million things cluttering up the inventory.
E) Okay, so, Victor didn’t have any plants to gather – how about instead I have him prepare a nice lunch for everyone? After all, it was SimCity Founding, and I had plans for the gang to go out and visit San Sequoia! So, after attending to his bees (and getting their honey), he got on the grill and made some nice chicken chimichurri skewers, while Alice tended Moory (cleaning her off, telling her a joke, and milking her), while Smiler checked on the chickens, got the eggs, caught some fire ants, and tried again to finish their mechanism (only to be zapped again – game, please). Once the skewers were done, I had Victor pick up two plates, put the rest in the fridge, then directed him to pack both them and a plasma fruit into the picnic basket before putting it into his inventory. From there, it was just a matter of keeping the gang occupied so they didn’t try to get food or anything before the picnic (I had Alice bond some more with Kelly and Victor put away the completed laundry), and then – once they were all ready – sent them off to the Celebration Center in Gilbert Gardens!
F) THEY ARRIVED IN THE MIDDLE OF A THUNDERSTORM. *heavy sigh* Damn weather! I quickly directed everyone inside, then – hoping to wait out the storm – had Victor make a bunny sculpture, Alice paint a surreal picture, and Smiler sing some songs on the guitar. However, I quickly tired of waiting for the weather to fix itself (especially when a lightning strike nearly took out a nearby bench), so I popped into Build/Buy to grab a weather machine and had Smiler set the weather to both “Hot” and “Clear Skies.” This worked perfectly, I’m glad to say – AND got them up to Handiness level 8 in the process! (Victor got Handiness 9 from his bunny sculpture – good for the both of them!) After that, it was just a matter of keeping Victor and Smiler occupied with some chatting and flirting while Alice sloooowly finished her painting –
G) And then, FINALLY, everyone got to have their picnic at one of the tables outside! Smiler actually started drinking a plasma pack before I could stop them/get the whole picnic unpacked, but after a moment of “nooo” I was like “wait, no, plasma packs and fruit both are kinda shit at fulfilling thirst, it’s fine if they have both.” XD So yeah, they finished off their plasma pack, then had a plasma fruit while Victor and Alice scarfed down their chicken chimichurri skewers. Along the way, Nalani came along and asked Smiler if they wanted to be best friends – while normally this behavior from the NPCs annoys me, I was actually more okay with this one because Nalani and Smiler have known each other for a WHILE – she was one of their first friends! So I said yes to this one, and fortunately Smiler’s best friendship status with Victor and Alice was not affected. Nice. :) She hung out with them for a bit while they finished their picnic, chatting with Smiler and sharing the SimCity spirit before heading inside to do recreation center stuff –
H) And with their meal done (fulfilling the BBQ tradition for the two who could eat), it was time for the gang to head over to the Gilbert Gardens splash pads for some water fun! :D Which, uh, was a bit more difficult than I expected – while Smiler and Victor were able to fly over no problem (via bat and broom), Alice’s tunneling teleport refused to work. AND she refused to use her super speed to get over there faster. *grumbles* So I had Victor and Smiler hang out on the lounge chairs while she made her way over, then sent them all to play in the water emitters. They had a lovely time splashing around, and to my delight playing with the emitters does correctly fulfill the Water Fun tradition – sometimes when they release new packs, they forget backwards compatibility in a few areas for the old ones! But nope, this was coded correctly, allowing them to all fulfill the tradition with no problem and a lot of splashing. :D
I) Once everyone was good on that tradition (and Victor and Alice had both used the facilities), I decided a good final activity would be for everyone to take a walk on one of the walking trails around this area of San Sequoia – specifically, by the arboretum! Unfortunately, when I directed them all over there, Alice and Smiler started jogging, while Victor just used his broom and ended up canceling the interaction to consider going on his own reflective walk by the time they reached him. Should have used the teleports to get them all there together! Fortunately, it was just the work of a moment to reset up the group walk, and the trio set out –
Just as the thunderstorms, held at bay for the whole afternoon, rolled back in. *grumbles* Couple that with Victor and Alice starting to feel quite tired, and I figured the best thing to do now was to send everybody home.
J) However, the day wasn’t quite over yet – the gang had one tradition left to fulfill, and there was something that I really, really wanted Victor to do today. So once they arrived back at the house, I had them all use their various teleports to head over to the little abandoned mill and water wheel near their farm. I had Victor and Smiler do a little flirting as Alice tried scavenging the ground (Victor fulfilling the Party Spirit tradition in the process) –
And then, with the scene set, I had Victor propose to Smiler. Because at the very least, Wonderful Whims allows for Victor to be married to multiple people. :D Smiler said yes, and they shared a tender moment as Alice looked on. :D Though I did have Victor immediately give Alice a suave kiss to remind her that he adores her too!
K) And then, of course, what better way to celebrate an engagement than fireworks! I’d had Smiler grab three of the bunch they’d all won at the Humor & Hijinks festival a little while back earlier out of the box at home, and I had them set them up around the area and light the first mortar shot! That one went off without a hitch, filling the sky with brilliant green and blue light, so I had Victor turn his attention to the second –
And like an idiot, I was like “hey, can I use Inferniate to light these? I should try it!”
Cue the firework just plain catching on fire and Alice going into a panic. Fortunately a combination of Smiler stepping in with an extinguisher and Victor with Chillio prevented disaster, but yeeps. Lesson learned, I just had Victor normally light the sole remaining one –
And it exploded, scorching him and poor Smiler. >.< Fortunately, it also went off like a proper firework, and they were all able to watch it and fulfill the tradition, and Victor used Scruberoo to clean up Smiler and himself (and Alice, as her hygiene was starting to decay normally) right afterward, but sheesh! Fireworks and this lot did not mix today.
L) Still, that was all the traditions fulfilled, and poor Victor and Alice were looking exhausted, so I had them all head back to the farm proper at this point. Victor and Alice slumped off to bed, while Smiler shut off Elmer (still puttering around in the greenhouse), then took it upon themselves to spray for bugs and water some plants before fixing some broken wind turbines and finishing up their final mechanism as the “SimCity Founding was Awesome!” dialogue boxes came off. And that is where I left it, with everyone having had a very nice day – though damn, I just realized I didn’t have any of them take any in-game pictures. Whoops. Hmmm. Well, there will be other opportunities, and I don’t think getting the camera out near all that water was a good idea. XD Must make a note, though – DEFINITELY have to get some in-game pics at Victor and Smiler’s wedding! Especially since I plan for Victor and Alice to also renew their vows that same day. . .now I just have to decide where it’s happening (when should be Summer Saturday in-game). Hmmm. . .
Writing: Wrote a little more on “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” – Alice made it back through the front foyer into the staircase room, and was able to open up the trap door at the top of the staircase using the candle lever thanks to Obfuscate and some good sneaking. Unfortunately, just as she did so, she got the attention of all the other ghouls in the room – fortunately, her shotgun took quick care of the two who attacked her (the clawed man and one of the knife ladies), and the others decided they weren’t interested in being shot. And it turns out the lady at the top of the stairs is much more interested in poking a dead body than upsetting Alice – too bad her clawed companion didn’t feel the same. . .but we’ll see how THAT fight goes later.
YouTube: Well, I didn’t get to everything in my Subs today, but on the other hand, I DID get to the OXBox RE4 episode I wanted to watch, and a few other videos over lunch, so yeah, pretty solid day on the YouTubes as well –
A) Watched some more Ferris Bueller’s Day Off clips with lunch, as I was working on the “Smiler Alton’s Day Off” AU post in my Victor Luvs Alice tumblr drafts at the time (as previously stated) – the parade scene, Ferris calling Cameron and telling him to come over so they can skip class together, the boring economics lesson, and Cameron’s breakdown and topple into the pool. Good stuff, and certainly gave me a lot of ideas for that post!
B) Then, this evening, we had the latest episode of the OXBox RE4 Remake LP – “Resident Evil 4 Remake: YOU TALK TOO MUCH | Let's Play Resident Evil 4 Chapter 12!” Where Leon arrives back at the castle and – after a brief side trip to egg Ramon Salazar’s portrait in the throne room for the Merchant – goes up to the clock tower and fights his way up past many plagas dudes and dudettes, plus a statue of Salazar with a flamethrower in his mouth and a bunch of spiked balls tumbling from the ceiling, then has to work his way around some dodgy scaffolding to the spot where Ashley is being dropped off to Krauser (just too late to stop her being taken by him), and then finally – after shooting Salazar for talking too much – has to defeat him in a very gooey boss battle before heading down and finding a speedboat to chase Krauser across the sea – only for Ada to show up with the key he needs. Also features Andy trying to justify his constant mispronunciation of Luis’s name (“Louis” instead “Loo-is”) as an adorable in-joke between friends; the gang being astonished that they’re still in the castle despite all the mine cart riding they did last episode; Andy having trouble with cubic puzzles and chickens in the throne room; Mike and Jane insisting Andy also egg another Salazar portrait despite the fact you only need to do Ramon’s (and it DOES properly show the splat!); Mike pointing out how weird it is that Leon can carry so many guns and such in a briefcase and getting gently teased for apparently not understanding video game inventories (he MEANT that actually SEEING it in Leon’s briefcase makes it weirder); Mike switching loyalties in the clock tower after being impressed by the rotating flamethrower statue head and pointing out the plagas zombies certainly seem happier than he is; everyone having a lot of fun sending the spiked balls back after their pursuers and Mike affirming he’d join up with the cult for this; everyone getting mad at Leon for not using his sniper rifle when he saw Salazar and his goons taking Ashley through the door below with his binoculars; Andy unfortunately missing with the golden egg during the Salazar boss fight and having to use up all his precious magnum ammo; and Andy ATTEMPTING to dome Krauser when he saw him going off in his speedboat, but the game not letting him, and Mike saying how awesome it would be if you COULD do that. It would be, Mike, it would be. But still a very fun, if surprisingly short episode. :) Only four more to go after this!
C) And finally – later than I usually watch videos but damn it I have tomorrow off and I really wanted to watch this – we had GrayStillPlays and “Taking climate change to unrealistic extremes,” aka Gray plays Happy Wheels! We started with the customary bottle flip (this one blue with an eye on it, and a shoutout area Gray really struggled to get because it involved some complex bottle banking), then moved on through a simple obstacle course (which was – actually exactly what it said on the tin, just careful biking over some funny shapes and a loop-de-loop at the end); an advanced pogo jump course (with various thumbnail holes, tunnels, and tunnel thumbnail holes for Gray to work his way through); a “get in the box” board with a bunch of secret endings (hilariously, the ending Gray had the most trouble with was the actual GETTING IN THE BOX – he found all the secret ones by falling off into the spikes below, and even survived to win a couple of them); a jet fall themed in red (which was pretty legit – though there was a secret passage you could use to win if you needed it! By the time Gray found it, though, he was already on the ledge right over the bottom, so); a deeply impossible dark blue “jump the pogo man into the killer win box” board (you know the type, they have harpoons and crossbows and mines in them – this one also had a ceiling of spikes, so Gray couldn’t jump too high – after many attempts, he managed to win via lucky accidental dodge of the harpoons); a very stiff rope swing with two endings (one where you collect the coins after being shot out of a cannon – Gray won this while sliced in half – and one where you swing over the cannon and into another stiff rope through a spiky thumbnail hole onto the win – Gray needed a few tries not to take a spike to the head or the butt); a “don’t move” board that ended with the hobo guy kicking another guy off his dinner table (Gray didn’t understand it either); a trip down between two buildings bouncing between the various balconies on either side (which involved things like Gray ripping up someone’s laundry line, smashing through some glass, and ending up in a dirty alley in front of McDunnal’s); and finally the Dylan Snider board of the episode, “The Thneed for Speed,” where Gray played a dude driving a Truffula Tree cutting machine, going around and deforesting the Truffula forest over the Lorax’s protests before being told by the Onceler (here played by an Among Us space creature) that he’d get an $8,000 bonus for taking out the Lorax (Gray was torn between laughing and apologizing the whole time). A delightful set of boards, as always – you see why I wanted to be sure to watch it? :p
Workout: Another night on the bike, another night with the Live Oxventure “Grad Attitude!” Corazon’s first attempt at kicking the owner of the fish market in the balls did not go well – the kick connected, but it just wasn’t powerful enough. The owner declared that Corazon would have to try again to boot his yarbles – so Corazon did indeed try again, and this time got a seventeen, dropping the guy to his knees. However, with no eel-handling gloves to be found, Corazon was in a bit of a pickle when it came to actually getting the eels they came in for. He attempted to use his boots as makeshift gloves, but only ended up sloshing around in the water –
Fortunately, Merilwen was on-hand to snatch a couple, as – being a wood elf – she doesn’t conduct electricity. Johnny was like “is that really canon?” and the crowd was like “YES.” XD (To be fair, this was jokingly established early on, but at the same time, it was established during one of the campaign’s most iconic moments – Dob using Thunderwave on the mechanical beetle, forgetting Merilwen was on top, only for Merilwen to make her saving throw). She got her hands on the eels, and cast Speak With Animals to try and calm them down –
Only for the panicking eels, realizing she was a wood elf and thus couldn’t be shocked, to decide to bite her HARD on the face. Prudence attempted to help by throwing a decorative net over both Merilwen and eels, and then ordered Egbert, who had turned up, to go in and “extract the eels from Merilwen.” Egbert did so, and took twenty-one points of lightning damage, as these eels weren’t kidding around. And then, when he emerged with the eels, Prudence was like “no, I mean get the eels off Merilwen and get HER out of the net!” Egbert was like “WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY THAT” and went back in to drop off the eels and get Merilwen, taking an additional twelve points of damage. And then Corazon ended up in the net because that seemed to be the thing to do. XD Who knew stealing a couple of eels would be the hardest thing any of them have ever tried to accomplish?
As for what Dob was doing during all this nonsense – after having had enough of the skeletons recapping his horribly failed wedding in vivid detail, he decided to assign them a job. That job being to search the nearby woods for crystal quaggoths. The skeletons were all too happy to do this, marched up to the edge of the forest (established as the edges of the jungle The Tangle they’d previously ventured into during the Orbpocalypse), yanked out giant bone blades, and began deforesting with a vengeance. XD Whoops. The other Oxventurers appeared while this was happening, on the run with their net of eels and being chased by the angry shop owner – Dob fortunately cast Sleep on the owner, and the gang were able to get to a safe distance away and let Jonathan defeat the eels. He actually ended up taking less damage than Egbert thanks to a bonus on his saving throws, and after a while, managed to hack them all up and get the fangs. (With poor Merilwen able to hear everything the dying eels were saying, because Speak With Animals lasts for ten minutes no matter what. Ooof.)
Anyway – with that sorted, and Merilwen having cured Egbert’s electric damage a bit, the decision was made to look for the crystal quaggoth! Dob cast his mind back to his time in the woods to see if he could remember what their tracks or anything looked like, and got a middling roll. . .enough to remind him that quaggoths live in caves, not forests. XD Corazon decided it was worth checking for any caves in the cleared bit of The Tangle anyway (Andy’s played Elden Ring, he knows sometimes you get caves in forests), but a dirty twenty told him that no, there were no caves anywhere to be seen. All the caves were in fact back the way they’d come, on the way into the Lake District. Corazon suggested they backtrack to there, and Dob attempted to call the skeletons back by saying there had been some “crossed wires.”
The skeletons heard this as “cause fires” (or possibly “forest fires”) and promptly set all the stuff they’d cleared alight. Merilwen was NOT HAPPY, even as Dob attempted to comfort her by saying sometimes the strongest trees grow back after such a massive ecological disaster. XD Fortunately, Egbert reminded him that he could summon the skeletons back via the hammer, which Dob did, causing them to start walking back. They didn’t do anything about the fires on the way, but at least they weren’t causing any MORE damage?
Anyway – with that sorted, the group headed back to the cave area, where Merilwen used her tracking abilities (on a 19) to find a cave with quaggoth tracks outside, and a crystalline scale-like object next to a rock nearby. Corazon twirled that into his hair for later and had Prudence use her “eyeball on a stick” (aka Clairvoyance) to take a peek inside. There was indeed a sleeping quaggoth in there, and talk commenced on how to get its precious corneas (aka the clear, protective outer layer of the eye). Dob was like “well, we’re definitely going to have to do this in one fell swoop,” but nobody could figure out how to actually, you know, pry off the corneas without actually disturbing it. While trying to come up with ideas on how to trap it, though, the question came up about what quaggoths eat, and Johnny revealed that one of the answers was “other quaggoths.” And that there was indeed, more than one crystal quaggoth in the area. A plan was made to try and get the two quaggoths to fight, hopefully allowing them to pick off the weakened victor, and Dob ended up scooping all the eel meat off Jonathan and using it to make a trail from one quaggoth cave to the other. The first quaggoth immediately picked up the scent and came out to start sclorping it down, while the other rolled a critical one and nearly slipped into a coma from the scent instead. Johnny said that maybe it was remember how its mother used to make eel, prompting Dob to say “don’t make it endearing and give it a mother,” and Merilwen to go “since the ones you kill don’t usually have mums?” :O (And then Corazon/Andy had to clarify to Johnny that she was talking about the infamous orphan-mortar orphanage. XD) The second quaggoth did eventually wake up and start eating, and the two started coming toward each other, with Johnny describing it like being a bit like the spaghetti scene from Lady And The Tramp –
Only for Dob to say “only they don’t stop and just keep eating” and Johnny to decide that was brilliant. Cue the late-waking quaggoth just eating the other like a freaking eating machine. XD Everyone was like “oh, shit, THAT didn’t work” as the quaggoth turned to them and started roaring, but then Corazon had a plan – figuring the eyes of the eaten quaggoth must have come loose during the eating process, he decided to use Mage Hand to try and root around in the living quaggoths innards to retrieve them. Johnny allowed him to try this at Disadvantage –
Only for Corazon to roll, in order, a twenty-one and a twenty-two. Yeah, he got those eyes, quite upsetting the living quaggoth in the process, and Johnny called for initiative, admitting it would probably go down easily. Dob went first, and I left it with him trying to using Prestidigitation to slap the last bits of eaten quaggoth with the flavor of earwax, hoping the living quaggoth would hurt itself horking up its meal. XD We’ll see how THAT goes tomorrow! Jonathan is not getting a kind view of what adventuring entails, THAT’S for sure. . .
And that plus getting the mail, wandering around the back yard and picking up some trash that found its way there, and having my meals was my day! Very nice, relaxing day off, I have to say. :) Parental units come back tomorrow (in time for dinner, Mom indicated), but I still have a good chunk of the day to myself -- plans include more tumblr drafting on Victor Luvs Alice; writing some more on "The Joker And The Queen;" playing some more Sims 4 -- not the Chill Valicer save file, though, I'm planning on either doing some building or saving a specific variation of the Valicer trio to my Library -- or both! -- and keeping up with YouTube Subs and hopefully this one Resident Evil OXBox quiz from a couple of years ago my friend Squid recommended I watch. We'll see how it all goes! Night all!
Tumblr: Had a nice, productive day on the old tumblr blogs today, I’m happy to say –
Victor Luvs Alice – After finishing breakfast and some Merge Dragons stuff, spent the time before lunch catching up on my dashboard and my tracked tags (putting a few items from the “alice madness returns” tag into my drafts for later), then hit said drafts and finished off a post of “Valicer In The Dark”-themed Not Incorrect Valicer quotes and started on a post for the “Smiler Alton’s Day Off” AU that’s been kicking around in my head. Finished that after lunch (and after watching some clips of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off for inspiration, see the “YouTube” section), and this evening added it to my queue for this week’s “AU Thursday” post, along with the Chill Valicer Save update and a reblog of a poll for which Alice design you like better (original AMA brown-haired Alice or A:MR black-haired Alice) for Wednesday, and a reblog of a post about relating things back to your ship that really resonated with me for Friday. Especially after the “Smiler Alton’s Day Off” thing. XD
Valice Multiverse – Checked on this this evening – had one ask reply (a follow-up to the question about things you can say both at a family dinner and during sex), and one new thread from my partner Brynlee Marie (a “characters texting each other” thread where Maddie got Rick Rolled by Smiler at 3 AM XD). Simple, but good stuff!
Sims 4: Had a very long but VERY productive day in the game – though for a second I thought I wasn’t going to be able to play at all, as a quick trip to Sims Community revealed that EA had dropped a new patch today. It proved to be a tiny hotfix patch focused pretty much solely on the Gallery, though (which they are slowly revamping a bit), whew. So, after letting that update quickly and then restoring all my mods and such –
A) Picked up around midnight on Summer Wednesday, aka SimCity Founding! Everyone was up really early thanks to Victor and Alice having the world’s most amazing bed and Guidry being a distraction, so I decided to just have everyone find something to do instead of forcing Victor and Alice to sleep – Smiler continued making mechanisms until they got zapped; Victor gave Snappy the Sixam Mosquito trap a quick Floralorial zap before going to make another eco upgrade part; and Alice gave herself a tongue-washing before starting another book – a mystery entitled “The Corruption of Wonderland” (basically supposed to be her retelling of A:MR). However, her werewolf instincts first made her too tense to be inside, then – after a somber howl to keep the Fury down – too angry to do anything but take a wolf nap and sleep it off. So much for not forcing her to sleep! XD
B) Victor, after successfully making his upgrade part, headed inside to give Kelly a hug – I approved of this because one, it was adorable, and two, because Kelly was in the kitchen and that’s where I wanted Victor to be anyway, since I wanted him to use those eco upgrade parts to upgrade the fridge to be more energy efficient! It now has a green eco footprint, which is nice. :) Smiler, having been recently zapped and needing a break from electronics, came in to say hi and do a little flirting and kissing, which was sweet. :) I then had them swap out of their dark form back to their regular one (for some reason they never changed back after getting a drink from Jameson two “episodes” ago), then start the laundry, adding a daisy to the washing machine’s additive tray to give this load a nice fresh floral scent. :) Victor got sent to listen to classical music for a bit to fulfill a want, while I directed Alice to wake up and paint a sad picture for the sad specters in the greenhouse. By the time she finished, though, they had actually despawned, so I had her just put it in her inventory for later. Never hurts to have a gift or two ready to go! Even if the specters can be very picky about what they like. . .
C) With morning properly here, though, it was time to get started on the daily chores! Alice removed a twisted tendril and gave the chickens a bit of initial feed before talking to Guidry (using their grill for more herbalism *sigh*), getting sad (they do NOT get on well), and then cleaning the coop before going upstairs to cry it out and have a comforting hug with Kelly. And then submitted her “The Puns of the Gnat” book to the literary digest, as she can do that now. :) Smiler mopped up a slime creature, then set Elmer loose to help Victor in the greenhouse before giving the chickens a bit more feed and playing with one of the rooster chicks. And Victor –
Well, I TOLD him to “tend garden,” but for some reason he kept canceling it out and getting distracted by various things like fruit pie. *grumbles* On the plus side, though, Alice submitting her book to the digest by a bunch of bugs made me suddenly remember “oh yeah, the ‘All Bugged Out’ mod lets you set ‘Bugs’ as a preference! I should have Victor officially like them! And Smiler too, as they have caught their fair share.” And so that’s what I did, popping into CAS briefly to set the preference. :) Nice!
D) With that sorted, everyone insisted on gathering in the greenhouse and distracting Victor further – I allowed it on the basis of some of it was fulfilling the Party Spirit tradition of SimCity Founding, and, well, I do just like seeing them all hanging out together. Eventually, though, I was like “okay, I know it’s fun kissing Alice, Victor, but you DO gotta at least harvest your greenhouse--”
And found there was nothing to harvest. O.o That and a message I got about Wonderful Whims 46 being successfully installed after exiting CAS makes me wonder if popping into CAS with these guys somehow served as a bit of a game reset? I mean, I checked the household inventory, and all that was in there was four glow orbs (and the spare planter). Well, it’s not like we don’t still have tons of produce and other products both at home and at the store, so – not gonna worry about it. And just be grateful I didn’t have fifty million things cluttering up the inventory.
E) Okay, so, Victor didn’t have any plants to gather – how about instead I have him prepare a nice lunch for everyone? After all, it was SimCity Founding, and I had plans for the gang to go out and visit San Sequoia! So, after attending to his bees (and getting their honey), he got on the grill and made some nice chicken chimichurri skewers, while Alice tended Moory (cleaning her off, telling her a joke, and milking her), while Smiler checked on the chickens, got the eggs, caught some fire ants, and tried again to finish their mechanism (only to be zapped again – game, please). Once the skewers were done, I had Victor pick up two plates, put the rest in the fridge, then directed him to pack both them and a plasma fruit into the picnic basket before putting it into his inventory. From there, it was just a matter of keeping the gang occupied so they didn’t try to get food or anything before the picnic (I had Alice bond some more with Kelly and Victor put away the completed laundry), and then – once they were all ready – sent them off to the Celebration Center in Gilbert Gardens!
F) THEY ARRIVED IN THE MIDDLE OF A THUNDERSTORM. *heavy sigh* Damn weather! I quickly directed everyone inside, then – hoping to wait out the storm – had Victor make a bunny sculpture, Alice paint a surreal picture, and Smiler sing some songs on the guitar. However, I quickly tired of waiting for the weather to fix itself (especially when a lightning strike nearly took out a nearby bench), so I popped into Build/Buy to grab a weather machine and had Smiler set the weather to both “Hot” and “Clear Skies.” This worked perfectly, I’m glad to say – AND got them up to Handiness level 8 in the process! (Victor got Handiness 9 from his bunny sculpture – good for the both of them!) After that, it was just a matter of keeping Victor and Smiler occupied with some chatting and flirting while Alice sloooowly finished her painting –
G) And then, FINALLY, everyone got to have their picnic at one of the tables outside! Smiler actually started drinking a plasma pack before I could stop them/get the whole picnic unpacked, but after a moment of “nooo” I was like “wait, no, plasma packs and fruit both are kinda shit at fulfilling thirst, it’s fine if they have both.” XD So yeah, they finished off their plasma pack, then had a plasma fruit while Victor and Alice scarfed down their chicken chimichurri skewers. Along the way, Nalani came along and asked Smiler if they wanted to be best friends – while normally this behavior from the NPCs annoys me, I was actually more okay with this one because Nalani and Smiler have known each other for a WHILE – she was one of their first friends! So I said yes to this one, and fortunately Smiler’s best friendship status with Victor and Alice was not affected. Nice. :) She hung out with them for a bit while they finished their picnic, chatting with Smiler and sharing the SimCity spirit before heading inside to do recreation center stuff –
H) And with their meal done (fulfilling the BBQ tradition for the two who could eat), it was time for the gang to head over to the Gilbert Gardens splash pads for some water fun! :D Which, uh, was a bit more difficult than I expected – while Smiler and Victor were able to fly over no problem (via bat and broom), Alice’s tunneling teleport refused to work. AND she refused to use her super speed to get over there faster. *grumbles* So I had Victor and Smiler hang out on the lounge chairs while she made her way over, then sent them all to play in the water emitters. They had a lovely time splashing around, and to my delight playing with the emitters does correctly fulfill the Water Fun tradition – sometimes when they release new packs, they forget backwards compatibility in a few areas for the old ones! But nope, this was coded correctly, allowing them to all fulfill the tradition with no problem and a lot of splashing. :D
I) Once everyone was good on that tradition (and Victor and Alice had both used the facilities), I decided a good final activity would be for everyone to take a walk on one of the walking trails around this area of San Sequoia – specifically, by the arboretum! Unfortunately, when I directed them all over there, Alice and Smiler started jogging, while Victor just used his broom and ended up canceling the interaction to consider going on his own reflective walk by the time they reached him. Should have used the teleports to get them all there together! Fortunately, it was just the work of a moment to reset up the group walk, and the trio set out –
Just as the thunderstorms, held at bay for the whole afternoon, rolled back in. *grumbles* Couple that with Victor and Alice starting to feel quite tired, and I figured the best thing to do now was to send everybody home.
J) However, the day wasn’t quite over yet – the gang had one tradition left to fulfill, and there was something that I really, really wanted Victor to do today. So once they arrived back at the house, I had them all use their various teleports to head over to the little abandoned mill and water wheel near their farm. I had Victor and Smiler do a little flirting as Alice tried scavenging the ground (Victor fulfilling the Party Spirit tradition in the process) –
And then, with the scene set, I had Victor propose to Smiler. Because at the very least, Wonderful Whims allows for Victor to be married to multiple people. :D Smiler said yes, and they shared a tender moment as Alice looked on. :D Though I did have Victor immediately give Alice a suave kiss to remind her that he adores her too!
K) And then, of course, what better way to celebrate an engagement than fireworks! I’d had Smiler grab three of the bunch they’d all won at the Humor & Hijinks festival a little while back earlier out of the box at home, and I had them set them up around the area and light the first mortar shot! That one went off without a hitch, filling the sky with brilliant green and blue light, so I had Victor turn his attention to the second –
And like an idiot, I was like “hey, can I use Inferniate to light these? I should try it!”
Cue the firework just plain catching on fire and Alice going into a panic. Fortunately a combination of Smiler stepping in with an extinguisher and Victor with Chillio prevented disaster, but yeeps. Lesson learned, I just had Victor normally light the sole remaining one –
And it exploded, scorching him and poor Smiler. >.< Fortunately, it also went off like a proper firework, and they were all able to watch it and fulfill the tradition, and Victor used Scruberoo to clean up Smiler and himself (and Alice, as her hygiene was starting to decay normally) right afterward, but sheesh! Fireworks and this lot did not mix today.
L) Still, that was all the traditions fulfilled, and poor Victor and Alice were looking exhausted, so I had them all head back to the farm proper at this point. Victor and Alice slumped off to bed, while Smiler shut off Elmer (still puttering around in the greenhouse), then took it upon themselves to spray for bugs and water some plants before fixing some broken wind turbines and finishing up their final mechanism as the “SimCity Founding was Awesome!” dialogue boxes came off. And that is where I left it, with everyone having had a very nice day – though damn, I just realized I didn’t have any of them take any in-game pictures. Whoops. Hmmm. Well, there will be other opportunities, and I don’t think getting the camera out near all that water was a good idea. XD Must make a note, though – DEFINITELY have to get some in-game pics at Victor and Smiler’s wedding! Especially since I plan for Victor and Alice to also renew their vows that same day. . .now I just have to decide where it’s happening (when should be Summer Saturday in-game). Hmmm. . .
Writing: Wrote a little more on “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” – Alice made it back through the front foyer into the staircase room, and was able to open up the trap door at the top of the staircase using the candle lever thanks to Obfuscate and some good sneaking. Unfortunately, just as she did so, she got the attention of all the other ghouls in the room – fortunately, her shotgun took quick care of the two who attacked her (the clawed man and one of the knife ladies), and the others decided they weren’t interested in being shot. And it turns out the lady at the top of the stairs is much more interested in poking a dead body than upsetting Alice – too bad her clawed companion didn’t feel the same. . .but we’ll see how THAT fight goes later.
YouTube: Well, I didn’t get to everything in my Subs today, but on the other hand, I DID get to the OXBox RE4 episode I wanted to watch, and a few other videos over lunch, so yeah, pretty solid day on the YouTubes as well –
A) Watched some more Ferris Bueller’s Day Off clips with lunch, as I was working on the “Smiler Alton’s Day Off” AU post in my Victor Luvs Alice tumblr drafts at the time (as previously stated) – the parade scene, Ferris calling Cameron and telling him to come over so they can skip class together, the boring economics lesson, and Cameron’s breakdown and topple into the pool. Good stuff, and certainly gave me a lot of ideas for that post!
B) Then, this evening, we had the latest episode of the OXBox RE4 Remake LP – “Resident Evil 4 Remake: YOU TALK TOO MUCH | Let's Play Resident Evil 4 Chapter 12!” Where Leon arrives back at the castle and – after a brief side trip to egg Ramon Salazar’s portrait in the throne room for the Merchant – goes up to the clock tower and fights his way up past many plagas dudes and dudettes, plus a statue of Salazar with a flamethrower in his mouth and a bunch of spiked balls tumbling from the ceiling, then has to work his way around some dodgy scaffolding to the spot where Ashley is being dropped off to Krauser (just too late to stop her being taken by him), and then finally – after shooting Salazar for talking too much – has to defeat him in a very gooey boss battle before heading down and finding a speedboat to chase Krauser across the sea – only for Ada to show up with the key he needs. Also features Andy trying to justify his constant mispronunciation of Luis’s name (“Louis” instead “Loo-is”) as an adorable in-joke between friends; the gang being astonished that they’re still in the castle despite all the mine cart riding they did last episode; Andy having trouble with cubic puzzles and chickens in the throne room; Mike and Jane insisting Andy also egg another Salazar portrait despite the fact you only need to do Ramon’s (and it DOES properly show the splat!); Mike pointing out how weird it is that Leon can carry so many guns and such in a briefcase and getting gently teased for apparently not understanding video game inventories (he MEANT that actually SEEING it in Leon’s briefcase makes it weirder); Mike switching loyalties in the clock tower after being impressed by the rotating flamethrower statue head and pointing out the plagas zombies certainly seem happier than he is; everyone having a lot of fun sending the spiked balls back after their pursuers and Mike affirming he’d join up with the cult for this; everyone getting mad at Leon for not using his sniper rifle when he saw Salazar and his goons taking Ashley through the door below with his binoculars; Andy unfortunately missing with the golden egg during the Salazar boss fight and having to use up all his precious magnum ammo; and Andy ATTEMPTING to dome Krauser when he saw him going off in his speedboat, but the game not letting him, and Mike saying how awesome it would be if you COULD do that. It would be, Mike, it would be. But still a very fun, if surprisingly short episode. :) Only four more to go after this!
C) And finally – later than I usually watch videos but damn it I have tomorrow off and I really wanted to watch this – we had GrayStillPlays and “Taking climate change to unrealistic extremes,” aka Gray plays Happy Wheels! We started with the customary bottle flip (this one blue with an eye on it, and a shoutout area Gray really struggled to get because it involved some complex bottle banking), then moved on through a simple obstacle course (which was – actually exactly what it said on the tin, just careful biking over some funny shapes and a loop-de-loop at the end); an advanced pogo jump course (with various thumbnail holes, tunnels, and tunnel thumbnail holes for Gray to work his way through); a “get in the box” board with a bunch of secret endings (hilariously, the ending Gray had the most trouble with was the actual GETTING IN THE BOX – he found all the secret ones by falling off into the spikes below, and even survived to win a couple of them); a jet fall themed in red (which was pretty legit – though there was a secret passage you could use to win if you needed it! By the time Gray found it, though, he was already on the ledge right over the bottom, so); a deeply impossible dark blue “jump the pogo man into the killer win box” board (you know the type, they have harpoons and crossbows and mines in them – this one also had a ceiling of spikes, so Gray couldn’t jump too high – after many attempts, he managed to win via lucky accidental dodge of the harpoons); a very stiff rope swing with two endings (one where you collect the coins after being shot out of a cannon – Gray won this while sliced in half – and one where you swing over the cannon and into another stiff rope through a spiky thumbnail hole onto the win – Gray needed a few tries not to take a spike to the head or the butt); a “don’t move” board that ended with the hobo guy kicking another guy off his dinner table (Gray didn’t understand it either); a trip down between two buildings bouncing between the various balconies on either side (which involved things like Gray ripping up someone’s laundry line, smashing through some glass, and ending up in a dirty alley in front of McDunnal’s); and finally the Dylan Snider board of the episode, “The Thneed for Speed,” where Gray played a dude driving a Truffula Tree cutting machine, going around and deforesting the Truffula forest over the Lorax’s protests before being told by the Onceler (here played by an Among Us space creature) that he’d get an $8,000 bonus for taking out the Lorax (Gray was torn between laughing and apologizing the whole time). A delightful set of boards, as always – you see why I wanted to be sure to watch it? :p
Workout: Another night on the bike, another night with the Live Oxventure “Grad Attitude!” Corazon’s first attempt at kicking the owner of the fish market in the balls did not go well – the kick connected, but it just wasn’t powerful enough. The owner declared that Corazon would have to try again to boot his yarbles – so Corazon did indeed try again, and this time got a seventeen, dropping the guy to his knees. However, with no eel-handling gloves to be found, Corazon was in a bit of a pickle when it came to actually getting the eels they came in for. He attempted to use his boots as makeshift gloves, but only ended up sloshing around in the water –
Fortunately, Merilwen was on-hand to snatch a couple, as – being a wood elf – she doesn’t conduct electricity. Johnny was like “is that really canon?” and the crowd was like “YES.” XD (To be fair, this was jokingly established early on, but at the same time, it was established during one of the campaign’s most iconic moments – Dob using Thunderwave on the mechanical beetle, forgetting Merilwen was on top, only for Merilwen to make her saving throw). She got her hands on the eels, and cast Speak With Animals to try and calm them down –
Only for the panicking eels, realizing she was a wood elf and thus couldn’t be shocked, to decide to bite her HARD on the face. Prudence attempted to help by throwing a decorative net over both Merilwen and eels, and then ordered Egbert, who had turned up, to go in and “extract the eels from Merilwen.” Egbert did so, and took twenty-one points of lightning damage, as these eels weren’t kidding around. And then, when he emerged with the eels, Prudence was like “no, I mean get the eels off Merilwen and get HER out of the net!” Egbert was like “WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY THAT” and went back in to drop off the eels and get Merilwen, taking an additional twelve points of damage. And then Corazon ended up in the net because that seemed to be the thing to do. XD Who knew stealing a couple of eels would be the hardest thing any of them have ever tried to accomplish?
As for what Dob was doing during all this nonsense – after having had enough of the skeletons recapping his horribly failed wedding in vivid detail, he decided to assign them a job. That job being to search the nearby woods for crystal quaggoths. The skeletons were all too happy to do this, marched up to the edge of the forest (established as the edges of the jungle The Tangle they’d previously ventured into during the Orbpocalypse), yanked out giant bone blades, and began deforesting with a vengeance. XD Whoops. The other Oxventurers appeared while this was happening, on the run with their net of eels and being chased by the angry shop owner – Dob fortunately cast Sleep on the owner, and the gang were able to get to a safe distance away and let Jonathan defeat the eels. He actually ended up taking less damage than Egbert thanks to a bonus on his saving throws, and after a while, managed to hack them all up and get the fangs. (With poor Merilwen able to hear everything the dying eels were saying, because Speak With Animals lasts for ten minutes no matter what. Ooof.)
Anyway – with that sorted, and Merilwen having cured Egbert’s electric damage a bit, the decision was made to look for the crystal quaggoth! Dob cast his mind back to his time in the woods to see if he could remember what their tracks or anything looked like, and got a middling roll. . .enough to remind him that quaggoths live in caves, not forests. XD Corazon decided it was worth checking for any caves in the cleared bit of The Tangle anyway (Andy’s played Elden Ring, he knows sometimes you get caves in forests), but a dirty twenty told him that no, there were no caves anywhere to be seen. All the caves were in fact back the way they’d come, on the way into the Lake District. Corazon suggested they backtrack to there, and Dob attempted to call the skeletons back by saying there had been some “crossed wires.”
The skeletons heard this as “cause fires” (or possibly “forest fires”) and promptly set all the stuff they’d cleared alight. Merilwen was NOT HAPPY, even as Dob attempted to comfort her by saying sometimes the strongest trees grow back after such a massive ecological disaster. XD Fortunately, Egbert reminded him that he could summon the skeletons back via the hammer, which Dob did, causing them to start walking back. They didn’t do anything about the fires on the way, but at least they weren’t causing any MORE damage?
Anyway – with that sorted, the group headed back to the cave area, where Merilwen used her tracking abilities (on a 19) to find a cave with quaggoth tracks outside, and a crystalline scale-like object next to a rock nearby. Corazon twirled that into his hair for later and had Prudence use her “eyeball on a stick” (aka Clairvoyance) to take a peek inside. There was indeed a sleeping quaggoth in there, and talk commenced on how to get its precious corneas (aka the clear, protective outer layer of the eye). Dob was like “well, we’re definitely going to have to do this in one fell swoop,” but nobody could figure out how to actually, you know, pry off the corneas without actually disturbing it. While trying to come up with ideas on how to trap it, though, the question came up about what quaggoths eat, and Johnny revealed that one of the answers was “other quaggoths.” And that there was indeed, more than one crystal quaggoth in the area. A plan was made to try and get the two quaggoths to fight, hopefully allowing them to pick off the weakened victor, and Dob ended up scooping all the eel meat off Jonathan and using it to make a trail from one quaggoth cave to the other. The first quaggoth immediately picked up the scent and came out to start sclorping it down, while the other rolled a critical one and nearly slipped into a coma from the scent instead. Johnny said that maybe it was remember how its mother used to make eel, prompting Dob to say “don’t make it endearing and give it a mother,” and Merilwen to go “since the ones you kill don’t usually have mums?” :O (And then Corazon/Andy had to clarify to Johnny that she was talking about the infamous orphan-mortar orphanage. XD) The second quaggoth did eventually wake up and start eating, and the two started coming toward each other, with Johnny describing it like being a bit like the spaghetti scene from Lady And The Tramp –
Only for Dob to say “only they don’t stop and just keep eating” and Johnny to decide that was brilliant. Cue the late-waking quaggoth just eating the other like a freaking eating machine. XD Everyone was like “oh, shit, THAT didn’t work” as the quaggoth turned to them and started roaring, but then Corazon had a plan – figuring the eyes of the eaten quaggoth must have come loose during the eating process, he decided to use Mage Hand to try and root around in the living quaggoths innards to retrieve them. Johnny allowed him to try this at Disadvantage –
Only for Corazon to roll, in order, a twenty-one and a twenty-two. Yeah, he got those eyes, quite upsetting the living quaggoth in the process, and Johnny called for initiative, admitting it would probably go down easily. Dob went first, and I left it with him trying to using Prestidigitation to slap the last bits of eaten quaggoth with the flavor of earwax, hoping the living quaggoth would hurt itself horking up its meal. XD We’ll see how THAT goes tomorrow! Jonathan is not getting a kind view of what adventuring entails, THAT’S for sure. . .
And that plus getting the mail, wandering around the back yard and picking up some trash that found its way there, and having my meals was my day! Very nice, relaxing day off, I have to say. :) Parental units come back tomorrow (in time for dinner, Mom indicated), but I still have a good chunk of the day to myself -- plans include more tumblr drafting on Victor Luvs Alice; writing some more on "The Joker And The Queen;" playing some more Sims 4 -- not the Chill Valicer save file, though, I'm planning on either doing some building or saving a specific variation of the Valicer trio to my Library -- or both! -- and keeping up with YouTube Subs and hopefully this one Resident Evil OXBox quiz from a couple of years ago my friend Squid recommended I watch. We'll see how it all goes! Night all!
