Not According To Plan Saturday
Jun. 24th, 2023 11:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickMostly because I went to bed too late last night. . .and end up waking up at 10:30 this morning. *sigh* I haven't woken up that late in a while, so it threw me off. . .and THEN, while making my breakfast smoothie (as it was a hot sticky day today), I opened the yogurt to discover it was going moldy. So that had to be chucked (fortunately Mom showed me how to substitute some of Dad's half-and-half into the smoothie, and it came out all right). And then Mom surprised me by coming in to put in the air conditioner while I was still getting myself together (and clean out my window in the process, dripping Windex all over the floor), and -- yeah. Couple that with me being REALLY slow to get going this morning after the late start, and the generally ick weather, and it hasn't been the greatest Saturday. Though I did manage, with some effort, to get most of what I wanted to get done today done --
Tumblr: Well, I wasn’t sure if I was gonna do it, given my late start and how distracted I’ve been by other stuff today, but I DID actually catch up on all of my tracked tags! Took me a while, as I’ve been neglecting them for a bit, but I did it! So that’s something, yay.
Sims 4: Had a productive day here, at least, placing and renovating two lots in the Chill Valicer Save to prepare for the upcoming Valicer Wedding/Vow Renewal –
A) First up, had to plop in the wedding venue itself – after some thought, I chose to replace the rental lot in Henford-On-Bagley itself (in the “Bramblewood” neighborhood) with the “Micro Wedding” wedding venue made by TrimbleTwist! This is a very cute, base game compatible tiny wedding chapel with a little back patio area for the wedding reception (complete with bar and piano) and a hidden basement area with a kitchen and two full-fledged bathrooms for the bride, groom, and their guests. It’s designed to be put on one of the smallest lots in the game, a 20x15 – buuut, as the rental lot footprint was roughly twice that size, I ended up having a lot more room to play with. And play I did –
I. I changed out a couple of the lot traits – the lot came with Natural Light, Homey, and Great Acoustics; I changed the latter two to Romantic Aura and Party Place instead. Because, well, it’s a wedding venue – your only reason to come here would be to get married, and if you do so then you’re almost certainly throwing a party! :p
II. I rotated the lot to face the “road” in the greater neighborhood, as that felt like the “right” way for it to face, and expanded out the back “patio” area to be a big bigger – a task that took a lot of fiddling, as this lot has a LOT of plants on it (including some debug ones, as I learned when I tried to copy a few of them with the eyedropper). It took some time for me to get the placement of everything JUST right, but with some careful shifting, use of low fences to delineate where I felt the “patio” should stop and the greenery begin, and adding in some extra plants (including some Cottage Living topiaries just for fun) to help fill in some of the gaps caused by me shifting everything around, I eventually ended up with an outdoor space I was happy with! I mean, I did end up shifting everything back way too much at first and then have to bring it back in a bit, and play around a LOT with the terrain paints, but it all worked in the end! :)
III. As for the “patio” itself, I replaced the regular fancy piano with the even fancier unlockable one you get from going through the Musician branch of the Entertainer career and put some nice plants on it; added a dance floor between that and the tiny bar; rearranged the tables a bit and added both another “regular” guest table and a “head” table (only three chairs and a different color to the others – while the others are white tables and chairs with either pale yellow umbrellas or purple ones, the “head” table is black with a bright yellow umbrella – I mean, that is Smiler’s color scheme); and changed out the regular table by the stairs going into the little basement area for a fancier buffet table and drink fountain, and a small fancy circular dining table for the cake. I also added a small “photo op” area in the back corner by plopping down the Moschino Stuff tripod and photo drape. It looks pretty good, if I do say so myself!
IV. I didn’t really touch the actual building itself – I was happy enough with the chapel as it was for the most part. I did, however, add a couple more lights into the main chapel hall; recolor the wedding arch to have the more rainbow-y theme; and add a couple of custom content pride flags to the exterior that I’d downloaded this morning for just that purpose – Eli’s Sims Stuff True Colors Pride Flags! :D I got these because one of the swatches they included was one of the polyamorous flag designs, and since this is a polyamorous wedding. . . I also put the “Progress” pride flag out there (the one that has the main rainbow design and the triangle with the trans and POC pride colors on the side), as it felt the most inclusive. :) And stuck the 15th anniversary gnome into the nearby shubbery, as that felt appropriate. XD
B) With the wedding venue itself sorted, it was time to figure out the honeymoon location! I decided that a nice trip to Sulani for a couple of days would be just the thing for my trio, and that the best location for them to stay at would be the Key Point lot, as that’s on its own little private island. I already had a Sulani beach house in my Gallery from when I sent my Newcrest Adventures Victor & Alice to this spot on a family vacation ages ago, but I decided I wanted something different and went searching on the Gallery for something that I felt would be nice. After a little poking around, I came across “Beach Cottage Rental” by SprattyWasHere, a build they’d made for a Sim who visited Sulani on a working vacation to catch all the fish. XD The lot was built with just Cottage Living and Island Living, which I felt was appropriate, and after deciding I liked the look of the place, I plopped it on the lot and started doing a few renovations –
I. I recolored a few things in and around the house – I updated the kitchen, dining table and chairs, and living room couches and side table to be a bit more colorful, along with the bedroom rugs and the boat outside (though, interestingly, the recoloring did NOT actually show up until I put the boat in the water O.o).
II. I replaced the beds in the bedrooms with Island Living ones – the nicer of the two single beds and the fancier of the two double beds – and gave them appropriately nice color schemes. (And removed the toybox from the smaller bedroom, as no children will be staying with them on this vacation.) I also updated the bathroom to feature Island Living walls, floors, and plumbing (learning in the process IL does NOT have a dedicated toilet to go with its sink, tub, and shower – I still changed out the toilet for a slightly nicer generic one, as the one currently placed was “uncomfortable”), though I ran into a problem when the bathroom proved to be a little too small for both the tub and the shower. . .
III. So I made the whole house a tiny bit bigger! A tile’s extra space on each side, plus I made the back porch a little longer. That gave me the room I needed to fit in all the bathroom furnishings, gave me a tiny bit of extra space in the bedrooms to make sure the beds and end tables and all that fitted well, and allowed me to fit a bookcase (and a thermostat!) into the main living area. And, on the newly-expanded back porch, I swapped out the outdoor dining table for a games table, because why not?
IV. I rearranged the exterior – while I left the included plant life alone, I got rid of all the fish traps (because becoming fishing royalty is not why my trio will be staying there) and the bonfire (not exactly an Alice-friendly activity!), moved the boat from the right side of the island to the left, added in some beach towels in fun patterns and an island barbecue pit, and moved the little pavilion sitting area from up front on the left side of the island to the back right corner and changed out the sitting area for a proper outdoor dining table and chairs. Oh, and added a couple of fun floaties to the water just off their shore. :p
And with that, the location prep for Victor and Smiler’s wedding, Victor and Alice’s vow renewal, and the gang’s mass honeymoon is pretty much complete! :D Now we just have to hope it doesn’t pour with rain during the end of summer and beginning of fall in-game. . .
Writing: I did do some proper writing today – after the YouTubery below, I started another snippet for my “Valicer In The Dark” AU! This one covers the bit right after Barkis gets murdered by Emily (possessing him and forcing him to use one of his own electroplasm bombs on himself – this burned her up too, but she was okay with that so long as she got to take him out in the process) and the Bluecoats (the local police) show up to investigate the scene. And one of them finds a Spirit Warden mask on Barkis. . .cue the guy in charge, Sargent Tannen (I had to), deciding that what ACTUALLY happened is that Alice and Smiler collaborated to kidnap Victor on the eve of his wedding, then, upon not getting a ransom before Victoria got married off, decided to kill her new husband. Alice and Smiler were naturally like “WHAT” – as was Victor, who furiously told the guy he couldn’t just make up stories to make his job easier. Unfortunately, he couldn’t back up his speech with a bribe (I’d previously established he doesn’t have his wallet on him), leading Tannen to decide that Victor must have conspired with his “kidnappers” and that they’d better bring them ALL in. . . That’s where I left it for now, but next time I pick this bit up, Alice is going show everyone just how good she’s gotten with a knife. . .
YouTube: Only got to half of my intended YouTube for the day – fortunately, it was the longer half, meaning it’ll be a little bit easier tomorrow to catch up. Said half, of course, was “Resident Evil 4 Remake: WORST ZOMBIES IN RESI HISTORY | Let's Play Resident Evil 4 Chapter 13” by OXBox! :D Featuring Leon being taken to the abandoned military base island by Ada in her speedboat, with her abandoning him via grappling hook once they were close enough, Leon having to fight his way through the outside (including facing off against a cow-headed man with a machine gun strapped to his arm that fired fiery tracer bullets) and avoid all the various laser turret guns by turning them in different directions so he could continue on, Leon working his way through the base-turned-evil-science lab and finding Ashley behind a level-three keycard door, Leon working his way through more of the base to get a level-three keycard, facing off against loads of vaguely military-style enemies with shock batons and spiky bats along with a couple of horrible, horrible regeneradors once he found the appropriate lab and its horrible art installation, and Leon finally getting that keycard, locating a few missing treasures, and taking out the regeneradors with his new bioscope toy before returning to Ashley, suppressant-ing her up, and then doing a cool check of his newly-upgraded handgun before slumping down beside her gurney to wait for her to wake up. Also featuring the gang comparing Leon and Ada’s arrival by speedboat to a beer commercial (though with no fun edit like with Luis and Leon on the mine cart ride); Andy making fun of Ada for her steampunk-like grappling-hook gun; Andy not being thrilled at ALL to be on the island (he considered it the worst part of the original game); Mike “Stealthmaster” Channell pointing out to Andy that it should be possible to shoot out the spotlights at the very start (Andy pointed out that it really didn’t make any DIFFERENCE, he was gonna have to kill everyone ANYWAY, but. . .); everyone being like “can’t you just turn the horrible laser turrets OFF, or at least aim them at the FLOOR” every time Leon turned one slightly to the left or something; the gang reasoning that the cow-headed guy with the machine gun probably needed the fiery tracer bullets because he couldn’t SEE in that cow head; Andy having real trouble getting all the gems he needed to fit into his various treasures to sell them for top cash (at one point finding ANOTHER elegant crown when he still needed one more gem to fill the FIRST one!); Andy drooling over the new fancy magnum on sale in the Merchant’s store; Jane being baffled about a guy being in one of the ovens in the kitchen and Andy being like “he lives there, we can’t all afford fancy apartments, Jane;” everyone wondering why the Merchant would set up his in-base shop in the kitchen right beside some rotting hunks of beef; Andy MASTERFULLY solving power puzzles, MASTERFULLY, ignore any cuts in the footage that’s a glitch; everyone going “do not like” over the horrible art installation of a dude being attached by a plagas bug in the regenerador lab; everyone having a good laugh over the fact that so many RE scientist diaries are “day one: fucked around, day two: found out;” jokes about “hot parasites in your area” when Andy explained how you had to kill regeneradors (by using the bioscope to find the parasites, which show up with a brighter heat signature); NOBODY liking it when the regenerador in the cryo lab both grabbed Leon by the head with its stretchy stretchy arms and then wriggled around on the floor (though it DID make it much easier to shoot the other two parasites); Andy whining to the Merchant about how everything was so scary every time he ran past him again; and everyone having to admit that Leon’s one-handed check of his gun’s chamber was very cool when the chapter ended. :) Only three more chapters remain – I look forward to seeing how the gang handles them!
Other: Answered my friend Ace’s latest FF.net PM – after learning it existed the other day. *sigh* FF.net, could you maybe be CONSISTENT when it comes to sending the e-mails? But it’s all sorted now, at least.
So, yeah, wasn't a complete wash of a day by any means, but I would have preferred to have had more time this morning to get stuff done. And not have to skip my GrayStillPlays this evening. :( *sighs* Just gotta remember not to stay up so late so I don't sleep so late. . .granted, I think part of the reason I slept in like that was my period making me more tired than normal, but still. *grumbles*
Anyway -- gonna wrap this up and then wrap up everything else potentially on my plate. Tomorrow, plans are to figure out what I'm doing queue-wise on Victor Luvs Alice next week; finish off General Atomics in Fallout 4 and update the Playthrough Progression accordingly; try to watch at least one GrayStillPlays video along with Jon's latest "Tale of Two Wastelands" video; and get in a workout (with another James Turner building video, I think). Hopefully my Sunday starts better than my Saturday! Just gotta remember, next weekend is a long holiday weekend. . .night all!
Tumblr: Well, I wasn’t sure if I was gonna do it, given my late start and how distracted I’ve been by other stuff today, but I DID actually catch up on all of my tracked tags! Took me a while, as I’ve been neglecting them for a bit, but I did it! So that’s something, yay.
Sims 4: Had a productive day here, at least, placing and renovating two lots in the Chill Valicer Save to prepare for the upcoming Valicer Wedding/Vow Renewal –
A) First up, had to plop in the wedding venue itself – after some thought, I chose to replace the rental lot in Henford-On-Bagley itself (in the “Bramblewood” neighborhood) with the “Micro Wedding” wedding venue made by TrimbleTwist! This is a very cute, base game compatible tiny wedding chapel with a little back patio area for the wedding reception (complete with bar and piano) and a hidden basement area with a kitchen and two full-fledged bathrooms for the bride, groom, and their guests. It’s designed to be put on one of the smallest lots in the game, a 20x15 – buuut, as the rental lot footprint was roughly twice that size, I ended up having a lot more room to play with. And play I did –
I. I changed out a couple of the lot traits – the lot came with Natural Light, Homey, and Great Acoustics; I changed the latter two to Romantic Aura and Party Place instead. Because, well, it’s a wedding venue – your only reason to come here would be to get married, and if you do so then you’re almost certainly throwing a party! :p
II. I rotated the lot to face the “road” in the greater neighborhood, as that felt like the “right” way for it to face, and expanded out the back “patio” area to be a big bigger – a task that took a lot of fiddling, as this lot has a LOT of plants on it (including some debug ones, as I learned when I tried to copy a few of them with the eyedropper). It took some time for me to get the placement of everything JUST right, but with some careful shifting, use of low fences to delineate where I felt the “patio” should stop and the greenery begin, and adding in some extra plants (including some Cottage Living topiaries just for fun) to help fill in some of the gaps caused by me shifting everything around, I eventually ended up with an outdoor space I was happy with! I mean, I did end up shifting everything back way too much at first and then have to bring it back in a bit, and play around a LOT with the terrain paints, but it all worked in the end! :)
III. As for the “patio” itself, I replaced the regular fancy piano with the even fancier unlockable one you get from going through the Musician branch of the Entertainer career and put some nice plants on it; added a dance floor between that and the tiny bar; rearranged the tables a bit and added both another “regular” guest table and a “head” table (only three chairs and a different color to the others – while the others are white tables and chairs with either pale yellow umbrellas or purple ones, the “head” table is black with a bright yellow umbrella – I mean, that is Smiler’s color scheme); and changed out the regular table by the stairs going into the little basement area for a fancier buffet table and drink fountain, and a small fancy circular dining table for the cake. I also added a small “photo op” area in the back corner by plopping down the Moschino Stuff tripod and photo drape. It looks pretty good, if I do say so myself!
IV. I didn’t really touch the actual building itself – I was happy enough with the chapel as it was for the most part. I did, however, add a couple more lights into the main chapel hall; recolor the wedding arch to have the more rainbow-y theme; and add a couple of custom content pride flags to the exterior that I’d downloaded this morning for just that purpose – Eli’s Sims Stuff True Colors Pride Flags! :D I got these because one of the swatches they included was one of the polyamorous flag designs, and since this is a polyamorous wedding. . . I also put the “Progress” pride flag out there (the one that has the main rainbow design and the triangle with the trans and POC pride colors on the side), as it felt the most inclusive. :) And stuck the 15th anniversary gnome into the nearby shubbery, as that felt appropriate. XD
B) With the wedding venue itself sorted, it was time to figure out the honeymoon location! I decided that a nice trip to Sulani for a couple of days would be just the thing for my trio, and that the best location for them to stay at would be the Key Point lot, as that’s on its own little private island. I already had a Sulani beach house in my Gallery from when I sent my Newcrest Adventures Victor & Alice to this spot on a family vacation ages ago, but I decided I wanted something different and went searching on the Gallery for something that I felt would be nice. After a little poking around, I came across “Beach Cottage Rental” by SprattyWasHere, a build they’d made for a Sim who visited Sulani on a working vacation to catch all the fish. XD The lot was built with just Cottage Living and Island Living, which I felt was appropriate, and after deciding I liked the look of the place, I plopped it on the lot and started doing a few renovations –
I. I recolored a few things in and around the house – I updated the kitchen, dining table and chairs, and living room couches and side table to be a bit more colorful, along with the bedroom rugs and the boat outside (though, interestingly, the recoloring did NOT actually show up until I put the boat in the water O.o).
II. I replaced the beds in the bedrooms with Island Living ones – the nicer of the two single beds and the fancier of the two double beds – and gave them appropriately nice color schemes. (And removed the toybox from the smaller bedroom, as no children will be staying with them on this vacation.) I also updated the bathroom to feature Island Living walls, floors, and plumbing (learning in the process IL does NOT have a dedicated toilet to go with its sink, tub, and shower – I still changed out the toilet for a slightly nicer generic one, as the one currently placed was “uncomfortable”), though I ran into a problem when the bathroom proved to be a little too small for both the tub and the shower. . .
III. So I made the whole house a tiny bit bigger! A tile’s extra space on each side, plus I made the back porch a little longer. That gave me the room I needed to fit in all the bathroom furnishings, gave me a tiny bit of extra space in the bedrooms to make sure the beds and end tables and all that fitted well, and allowed me to fit a bookcase (and a thermostat!) into the main living area. And, on the newly-expanded back porch, I swapped out the outdoor dining table for a games table, because why not?
IV. I rearranged the exterior – while I left the included plant life alone, I got rid of all the fish traps (because becoming fishing royalty is not why my trio will be staying there) and the bonfire (not exactly an Alice-friendly activity!), moved the boat from the right side of the island to the left, added in some beach towels in fun patterns and an island barbecue pit, and moved the little pavilion sitting area from up front on the left side of the island to the back right corner and changed out the sitting area for a proper outdoor dining table and chairs. Oh, and added a couple of fun floaties to the water just off their shore. :p
And with that, the location prep for Victor and Smiler’s wedding, Victor and Alice’s vow renewal, and the gang’s mass honeymoon is pretty much complete! :D Now we just have to hope it doesn’t pour with rain during the end of summer and beginning of fall in-game. . .
Writing: I did do some proper writing today – after the YouTubery below, I started another snippet for my “Valicer In The Dark” AU! This one covers the bit right after Barkis gets murdered by Emily (possessing him and forcing him to use one of his own electroplasm bombs on himself – this burned her up too, but she was okay with that so long as she got to take him out in the process) and the Bluecoats (the local police) show up to investigate the scene. And one of them finds a Spirit Warden mask on Barkis. . .cue the guy in charge, Sargent Tannen (I had to), deciding that what ACTUALLY happened is that Alice and Smiler collaborated to kidnap Victor on the eve of his wedding, then, upon not getting a ransom before Victoria got married off, decided to kill her new husband. Alice and Smiler were naturally like “WHAT” – as was Victor, who furiously told the guy he couldn’t just make up stories to make his job easier. Unfortunately, he couldn’t back up his speech with a bribe (I’d previously established he doesn’t have his wallet on him), leading Tannen to decide that Victor must have conspired with his “kidnappers” and that they’d better bring them ALL in. . . That’s where I left it for now, but next time I pick this bit up, Alice is going show everyone just how good she’s gotten with a knife. . .
YouTube: Only got to half of my intended YouTube for the day – fortunately, it was the longer half, meaning it’ll be a little bit easier tomorrow to catch up. Said half, of course, was “Resident Evil 4 Remake: WORST ZOMBIES IN RESI HISTORY | Let's Play Resident Evil 4 Chapter 13” by OXBox! :D Featuring Leon being taken to the abandoned military base island by Ada in her speedboat, with her abandoning him via grappling hook once they were close enough, Leon having to fight his way through the outside (including facing off against a cow-headed man with a machine gun strapped to his arm that fired fiery tracer bullets) and avoid all the various laser turret guns by turning them in different directions so he could continue on, Leon working his way through the base-turned-evil-science lab and finding Ashley behind a level-three keycard door, Leon working his way through more of the base to get a level-three keycard, facing off against loads of vaguely military-style enemies with shock batons and spiky bats along with a couple of horrible, horrible regeneradors once he found the appropriate lab and its horrible art installation, and Leon finally getting that keycard, locating a few missing treasures, and taking out the regeneradors with his new bioscope toy before returning to Ashley, suppressant-ing her up, and then doing a cool check of his newly-upgraded handgun before slumping down beside her gurney to wait for her to wake up. Also featuring the gang comparing Leon and Ada’s arrival by speedboat to a beer commercial (though with no fun edit like with Luis and Leon on the mine cart ride); Andy making fun of Ada for her steampunk-like grappling-hook gun; Andy not being thrilled at ALL to be on the island (he considered it the worst part of the original game); Mike “Stealthmaster” Channell pointing out to Andy that it should be possible to shoot out the spotlights at the very start (Andy pointed out that it really didn’t make any DIFFERENCE, he was gonna have to kill everyone ANYWAY, but. . .); everyone being like “can’t you just turn the horrible laser turrets OFF, or at least aim them at the FLOOR” every time Leon turned one slightly to the left or something; the gang reasoning that the cow-headed guy with the machine gun probably needed the fiery tracer bullets because he couldn’t SEE in that cow head; Andy having real trouble getting all the gems he needed to fit into his various treasures to sell them for top cash (at one point finding ANOTHER elegant crown when he still needed one more gem to fill the FIRST one!); Andy drooling over the new fancy magnum on sale in the Merchant’s store; Jane being baffled about a guy being in one of the ovens in the kitchen and Andy being like “he lives there, we can’t all afford fancy apartments, Jane;” everyone wondering why the Merchant would set up his in-base shop in the kitchen right beside some rotting hunks of beef; Andy MASTERFULLY solving power puzzles, MASTERFULLY, ignore any cuts in the footage that’s a glitch; everyone going “do not like” over the horrible art installation of a dude being attached by a plagas bug in the regenerador lab; everyone having a good laugh over the fact that so many RE scientist diaries are “day one: fucked around, day two: found out;” jokes about “hot parasites in your area” when Andy explained how you had to kill regeneradors (by using the bioscope to find the parasites, which show up with a brighter heat signature); NOBODY liking it when the regenerador in the cryo lab both grabbed Leon by the head with its stretchy stretchy arms and then wriggled around on the floor (though it DID make it much easier to shoot the other two parasites); Andy whining to the Merchant about how everything was so scary every time he ran past him again; and everyone having to admit that Leon’s one-handed check of his gun’s chamber was very cool when the chapter ended. :) Only three more chapters remain – I look forward to seeing how the gang handles them!
Other: Answered my friend Ace’s latest FF.net PM – after learning it existed the other day. *sigh* FF.net, could you maybe be CONSISTENT when it comes to sending the e-mails? But it’s all sorted now, at least.
So, yeah, wasn't a complete wash of a day by any means, but I would have preferred to have had more time this morning to get stuff done. And not have to skip my GrayStillPlays this evening. :( *sighs* Just gotta remember not to stay up so late so I don't sleep so late. . .granted, I think part of the reason I slept in like that was my period making me more tired than normal, but still. *grumbles*
Anyway -- gonna wrap this up and then wrap up everything else potentially on my plate. Tomorrow, plans are to figure out what I'm doing queue-wise on Victor Luvs Alice next week; finish off General Atomics in Fallout 4 and update the Playthrough Progression accordingly; try to watch at least one GrayStillPlays video along with Jon's latest "Tale of Two Wastelands" video; and get in a workout (with another James Turner building video, I think). Hopefully my Sunday starts better than my Saturday! Just gotta remember, next weekend is a long holiday weekend. . .night all!
