Period Monday
Jul. 17th, 2023 11:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickYes, guess what showed up this morning -- fortunately, this was a period I was actively on the lookout for, AND it didn't stain my clothes (it must have just started when I woke up), so it's already better than last month's period. Still, meant that I've been feeling kinda tired and "eh" all day -- and that, combined with some long write-ups of today's Sims 4 session and what I watched on my workout, means I never got to any writing. *sigh* I suppose skipping it when I'm dealing with period brain isn't the worst, but -- bleh. I always think these long weekends are gonna be way more productive than they turn out to be. Maybe my upcoming vacation will be a little better simply because it's gonna be a little over a week...
In the meantime, though, here's what I DID manage to accomplish today --
Tumblr: Managed to complete three of the six Chill Valicer Save Wedding Update posts today (two before lunch, the third after lunch), and got a bit of a start on the fourth this evening – I was really hoping to get farther, but period brain and a long Sims session (below) kinda forbid. Just have to get caught up tomorrow before I chuck it all in the queue!
Sims 4: As per usual, a very busy day in my Chill Valicer Save (why do I still include the “Chill” part? I don’t know, it’s been grandfathered in), finishing off the Valicer Honeymoon and playing through Spookfest –
A) Started with the gang still on vacation in Sulani this Fall Monday – except that it was absolutely pouring out, so the trio couldn’t really DO anything. Victor and Alice decided to spontaneously slow dance in the kitchen while Smiler checked their new social media timeline, which was cute. :) I had Smiler go and cuddle Victor from behind after, then Victor and Alice moved into the living room for more flirting while Smiler went and showered in the rain (*sigh*) – which was cut short when Alice’s werewolf instincts hit her and demanded a nap. Victor quickly got a picture of her (scratching herself) and did a painting from reference while she went and calmed herself down in the mirror before curling up for a wolf nap on the rug in the master bedroom. The instincts will not be denied, but at least the various werewolf powers make ‘em easier to deal with!
B) As for Smiler – well, I’ve been having the gang do puzzles all throughout this vacation because of the miserable weather, so why stop now? I had Smiler go and start a new, 250-piece sci-fi puzzle – then had them stop and put some damn clothes on because they insisted on starting it nekkid. *shakehead* Victor, once he finished his painting, decided to practice some Untamed Magic, and immediately learned the Dedeathify spell (to restore ghosts to human form), nice. :D I also had him buy a new book (“Broomies,” about two spellcasters with different magical focuses roomin together) and read it because I remembered that also helps get him magical XP these days. Alice woke up from her nap and got sent to help Smiler with the puzzle, and once Victor was done with his book, he too joined the party. The group had a nice, if slightly glitchy, time putting together the puzzle – I had a bit of trouble with certain interactions that wouldn’t complete, and romantic interactions with no text in them popping up. O.o Game, game please – I may be having thoughts about a new save file, but I don’t want to give up the old one JUST yet! But they did successfully complete the puzzle (of aliens having a good time together), and Alice even got level 5 Logic out of the deal, nice. And also a nice picture of the island in the rain (I was TRYING to get a nice picture of Victor and Smiler doing the puzzle, but she tried to shower in the rain right before I had her get her camera out, and thus the bottom half of THAT attempted snap was all pixelated thanks to her being naked *sigh*).
C) With that, it was time for more “what can we do with ourselves while it’s raining” activities – Alice got out her travel easel and started painting again; Smiler got on their laptop to start modding Blicblock; and Victor did a little Mischief Magic practice (almost immediately acquiring Burgliate, which allows you to steal stuff), then – because I wasn’t sure what else to do with him – upgraded the toilet and sink in the bathroom after a pee break. *shrug* It’ll be nice for the next people to rent the place, and kept him out of the storm – the lightning was NASTY, as one poor passing snorkler found out! O.o After finishing his upgrades, Victor grabbed another fish dinner out of the fridge to snack on, while Alice produced a flirty masterpiece on her easel (only worth just under $5K, though) –
D) When who should show up again but Leila! Who ONCE AGAIN wanted to be Smiler’s best friend. Despite being told no YESTERDAY in-game. Like, lady, you are getting WORRYINGLY clingy. O.o I had Smiler say “no way” again and send her home. Space, Leila, you gotta give ‘em some space!
E) With that settled, Alice had her breakfast (a buttered crumpet), and after a bit more flirting and general pleasant banter, Smiler got their breakfast from Victor, before dragging him off to the bedroom for another round of woohoo. XD What, it WAS their honeymoon! Alice amused herself by drinking some water and taking a shower in the rain, coming back just in time to join Victor in the bedroom for a little bit of making out while Smiler hopped back on their laptop to play their newly-modded Blicblock game. Victor then settled in for a nap while Alice went out to dance – and once he was sufficiently energized, I looked at the miserable weather (it had not stopped raining once all day) and went “right, let’s end this vacation and head home for Spookfest!” And so I did once Victor woke up –
F) Only to realize, the moment they landed back home, that, oh, yeah, they’d left a bunch of stuff in the fridge at the rental place. *facepalm* Fortunately, I’d thought to save shortly before they left, so I was able to quickly reload without losing any progress and grabbed everything I wanted them to keep – Victor and Smiler’s non-cooked caught fish, the leftovers of the buttered crumpets and fish dinner, and the milk they ended up bringing with them on vacation by accident. :p THEN it was time to go back home and prepare for Spookfest –
G) But first, the real reason why playing this particular day took me just over three hours – getting the latest batch of in-game pictures sorted! XD Granted, I didn’t go NEARLY as overboard as I did during the actual wedding episode, but there were still a fair few snaps to sort through – PLUS I had to figure out what to do with the other souvenirs they’d picked up, like the fish and the shells. So, after quickly getting the Spookfest decorations and pumpkin-carving stations out of the attic and onto the front yard/front of the house, I spent some time sorting through it all:
I. Pictures – three of the snaps from Ohan’ali Beach got put into that special collage picture frame that came with Moschino Stuff (I’ve been meaning to use that for AGES – I wish it came in a few different variants for the kinds of pictures you could put in it, though!) and stuck up on the wall by the kitchen archway, over one of their potted plants. The best three of the “dual selfies” (one each of Victor and Alice, Victor and Smiler, and Smiler and Alice) got put up by the bubble blower in the “chill out” room – but a spare cute Victor and Alice selfie I couldn’t bear to delete got put on their desk in their room. Victor’s painting of Alice from his sketchpad went in the “studio” room (where Alice’s nicest easel, Victor’s piano, and Smiler’s guitar live), surrounded by the three snaps of the view from their little private island at sunset and Alice’s rainy day snap (unfortunately the snaps of Victor and Alice napping on the floaties didn’t come out great and had to be deleted). A particularly silly picture of the trio at the beach went in Smiler’s room, on the wall by their desk (I figured the goofy poses would be their personal favorites). The two largest of the trio pictures, along with two medium-sized ones, got put together in a bit of a collage in Smiler’s party barn by the ping-pong table (I shuffled Victor’s observatory sky print over to over the stairwell), and I threw Alice’s latest flirty masterpiece on the wall by the games table, joining all her other cool paintings in another collage. Lot of fiddling to find good wall space, but I made it all work! :)
II. Fish – Smiler’s guppy, minnow, and perch all got turned into plasma packs, because honestly, who wants to mount a minnow? I DID want to mount their cool swordfish, though – only to find when I went to the “fish wall” in the kitchen that there was ALREADY a swordfish there! However, that particular swordfish didn’t have any special information linked to it (like who caught it or how much it weighed), so I decided to delete it and replace it with Smiler’s new swordfish (there’s a salmon there that has the same problem, and thus will probably be replaced at some point). I also wanted to mount their celestial grouper, but there wasn’t really any more room for fish in the kitchen –
So I moved them all to the barn! Yes, the fish collection is now available to be viewed on either side of the insect collection, simply because there’s more space for them there. With the extra room, I was able to add Smiler’s celestial grouper AND Victor’s gorgeous parrotfish to the bunch. :) That just left the fighting plakat in Victor’s inventory – and that, I decided, was best suited for Victor and Alice’s aquarium! So in “Punchy” went to join Chewy the gummy fish and Overthe the rainbow fish. :)
III. Other – after getting all of the shells out of everyone’s inventory, I ended up selling two of the spare scallop shells (as Smiler already had one from earlier adventures) and getting a nice Island Living shelf by the ladder to the attic to display the remaining scallop shell, small conch, abalone, and sea urchin shell they’d picked up. This did require me to move the shelf holding Victor’s first few woodworking sculptures, though – I ended up putting it in the barn near the woodworking bench. :) Smiler’s spare “Eyes of Sulani” went in their room to join the other one and the “Heart of Sulani” necklace – I could have sold it, but it was a different color variation, and they really don’t need the money, so. . . Oh, and all the spare food of course went in the fridge – though not before Kelly had gotten a nibble on the fish dinner! XD (I had trouble dragging it in there, so I’d left it on the counter, and she beelined right to it. Thought about having Victor lecture her for it, decided it wasn’t worth it.)
H) With that finally all taken care of, it was time for the gang to get settled back in and start celebrating Spookfest! Alice went and got some eggs out of the chicken coop (one non-hatchable, two hatchable, all decent quality – don’t think that will save you from the reckoning, roosters), while Smiler put up some more decorations from the box (orange and purple hanging lights on the eaves and ghostly banners on the fences) and Victor reconnected with Shadow, giving her some playtime and a bath. Once the eggs were sorted, I sent Alice to carve the first pumpkin, a pale orange kitty-cat – turned out to be a masterpiece, good for her. :) She then chose her costume, a nice simple space ranger get-up, and greeted the first trick-or-treater to knock on their door with a nice treat. :) Smiler, for their part, did a little herbalism, making a soothing skin balm that got them up to level 6, then headed over to the pumpkin carving station to carve a grinning white pumpkin. I was just setting up Victor (fresh off Scruberooing all the things post dog-bath) carving a bright orange owl pumpkin –
I) When, upon sending Alice to go play with Kelly, I saw “change outfit” under the “Pet Care” menu and was like “Oh, hey, I gave Kelly a taco outfit – she should wear that tonight! Does Shadow have a costume too?” A quick check of her available outfits proved she did not, so I had Alice quickly hop into CAS to get her one – a “super-llama” get-up, as that was really the only one available. XD This did unfortunately throw off Victor and Smiler’s pumpkin-carving efforts, though – in Victor’s case, I just had to reset him actually going to the carving station, but Smiler had to scrap their first pumpkin and start again as they just wouldn’t resume it. :( Still, they both managed to complete their pumpkins in the end, and at excellent quality too! I had them both chose a costume – Victor an astronaut get-up, while Smiler picked a cheerleader outfit – and sent them to do some musical stuff (Victor working on his latest piano composition, Smiler singing some songs on their guitar) while Alice gave Kelly some love before coming back downstairs to paint…
J) And then a mysterious levitating waif appeared at the door. o.O More accurately, a child not marked as a trick-or-treater wandered onto the porch, pulled out a digitalistic sketchpad, and did that weird stretched-leg levitating thing child Sims do when they’re doing something only grown-up Sims should be able to do. And then she got specter sprinkled by a specter. Unsure what to do about the child, I decided instead to have Smiler gift a soothing skin balm to the specter. This did not go down well, unfortunately – maybe it reminded the specter it didn’t have skin. Smiler fled the angry blob to instead watch a movie with Victor and Alice – “Moonlight Massacre III!” Hey, it’s Spookfest, a horror movie is only appropriate – though none of them seemed to think much of it. (Hell, Victor and Alice refused to actually SIT DOWN and watch it until I told them to!) The levitating waif wandered off, and the family received one more trick-or-treater (whom Smiler took care of) before the movie ended. Victor and Alice by this point were both looking very tired and hungry, so I let them each have a slice of the wedding cake before sending them up to bed, and sending Smiler to jam on their guitar (they’re level 9 now!) and play a little chess with Guidry –
K) But oh, what’s this? Alice woke up just before the end of the holiday at 2 AM, with her Fury super-close to the breaking point, despite an earlier somber howl (and the fact that it was a new moon). I decided it was one of those situations where it was better to just let her have the rampage, so I sent her outside with her super speed, had her transform into her beastly form, and let off a few howls and do a bit of scavenging to push her over the edge. As per usual, her rampage lasted all of five minutes and consisted of a single additional scavenging before I got her to regain control. XD
And so the playsession ended with everyone in good spirits and having had a successful Spookfest! A great place to leave them before a patch, I think. :) Next couple of playsessions will probably be building (including finishing off the Tranquil Circle Spa), but when I get back to them. . .well, that’ll be more building, as it’s time to take another look at that store and see revamping the interior layout will get it open quicker. XD We’ll see what happens with this upcoming Horse Ranch patch and how bad it is!
YouTube: I remain one Gray video behind, but at least I was able to keep up with two out of three things in my Subs –
A) First up, yesterday’s GrayStillPlays – “I became the principal and this happened,” aka Gray plays The Principal! This is a (I believe mobile) game where a recently-graduated student gets to take over the principal’s seat in his school for a year and make as many terrible choices as possible – except in THIS game, terrible choices are the way to go to get happier students and teachers! I mean, the very first freaking choice was a bunch of male students asking Gray to let the girls attend school in bikinis – not only did the girls not object, they did a little dance upon entering the school, and Gray got a bunch of money and thumbs up on his progress for making that choice! (To be fair, Gray did later let the girls kick boys who harassed them in the junk, because VIOLENCE.) Other terrible choices that worked out great for Gray were allowing kids to have their pets in class (made a teacher quit, but that’s just more profit for the school), allowing students to throw paper balls at their boring teachers, allowing students to have make-up corners in classrooms, changing out their desks for napping recliners, hiring masseuses for exams (which made their grades go up!), and putting slides to the school pool into classrooms for kids to use whenever they wanted. Lest you think Gray was shorting the teaching staff – well, he was, rejecting most of their proposals by firing them (which involved his character FIRING A GUN INTO THE AIR), but he DID give all the teachers BMW convertibles, and he DID let the janitorial staff slap students who dirtied just-mopped floors. That counts for something, right? And he did end up installing a proper massage parlor, a candy store, a dance floor, and a YouTuber class with all the diamonds he earned making all these horrible decisions. Basically, this school was custom-made for someone like Gray, and now he is the best principal in the world. XD
B) And second, today’s Josh Way – “SKETCHY: Ariel from The Little Mermaid!” Specifically, Ariel from the original 1989 animated The Little Mermaid by Disney, and even more specifically that moment where she’s just recently gotten her legs, made herself a dress out of a sail, and is trying to learn walking with Eric – only to stumble and fall in a rather wild pose. XD Josh really loved that little moment and decided he had to capture it the way he recalled it, with extra-wild hair and whatnot. XD He also talked about how this movie, and the Disney Renaissance that followed it, came around at just the right time for him to discover who he was as an artist and get obsessed all over again with Disney animation, which was very cute. Good stuff as always!
Workout: It was on the treadmill today for a change after yesterday’s skip, resuming my workouts and starting the next episode of Season 2 of Oxventure Presents: Blades In The Dark – “The Dead of Cornelius Bagshot!” This particular adventure involved Kasimir and Zillah, who during their downtime between the opera house score and this one, had bonded thanks to Zillah taking Kasimir down to her underground fighting club one night and getting the doctor there to give his knee a nice sports massage while she went a few rounds in the ring, training her wrecking capabilities (aka Johnny and Jane worked out a way to take advantage of Johnny’s new ability to have characters indulge their vices together and adjust the results as necessary despite having very different vices, and Jane decided to take advantage of the ability to actually train up some of her attributes, only to learn that no, earning XP did NOT meant she just got a free dot in Wreck, it was more complicated than that). Eleanor had asked them to go and make sure there was no incriminating evidence left at their old antiques shop headquarters (the extremely high-profile opera heist meant that it was only a matter of time before it came under scrutiny), and Kasimir was trying to convince Zillah that the easiest way to do that was to put this new bomb he’d acquired through the letterbox (a quite inferior Acme-style bomb that Kasimir was convinced was great) and let it go off when there was a clanging from nearby and a voice asking them to let him leave first. The pair investigated, and found in the Victorian steampunk dumpster with cogs on (Luke wasn’t sure what the hell Victorian dumpsters looked like; I choose to believe this is in fact an Edvard invention) a man hiding among the refuse. Kasimir initially thought the fellow was Edvard’s latest Wonderful Mechanical Man, but the fellow explained he was Cornelius Bagshot, and that he was in a bit of trouble, and might they be thieves by any chance?
Zillah was immediately like, “what kind of question is that? Are you a cop? You have to tell us if you’re a cop.” XD Cornelius said no, he was an accountant in some trouble, and might they talk about this somewhere else? The pair were willing to hear this weird trash-man out, and so took him to the nearest quiet pub, where in a back booth he explained his story – he is indeed an accountant, and semi-recently took on some work for a very mysterious organization that only worked through intermediaries using code names and secret notes and such. He was making some good money with them, but unfortunately, he likes a “flutter” – aka, he’s a gambler, and he’s built up some pretty extensive debt. Not only that, but the group he was working with didn’t approve of his vices, and after being warned twice, this third time saw them “fire” him in a worryingly nice way. He was now convinced that the group are going to have him killed for being a loose end, and needed someone to help him fake his death and get out of the city. Kasimir was like “why shouldn’t we just kill you for real” and Cornelius offered to share everything he knew on the mysterious group, as he was pretty sure they are after the Hobbyhorses too – he heard the gang’s name mentioned during the last meeting, and not in a good way. After a bit of debate (and some confusion over whether or not they were being targeted because they didn’t empty their bins often enough), Kasimir decided to make a deal with the guy – help him out with faking his death and getting him out of the city, and in return he tells them all he knows about the group and doesn’t tell anyone ELSE about the Hobbyhorses (physical descriptions, names, locations, any of that). Cornelius was amendable, and the deal was struck, with a little help from Kasimir’s “Ghost Contract” ability leaving a leafy tattoo on Cornelius as a reminder of his vow (if he breaks it, he ends up cursed all to hell).
With magical contract in place, the planning could begin! After some discussion of where Cornelius usually hung out (his house, his club, the goat-racing track, the food market in Nightmarket), the decision was made to have him host a fake auction to sell off his belongings and estate to pay his gambling debts, and have one of them pretend to murder him during it. The initial plan was to fake him being shot with a pig’s bladder full of blood and a blank in the pistol – but then Kasimir was like “wait, how do we fake the bell at the crematorium that rings every time someone dies in this city?” As Cornelius did not have access to a bell that could be rung to fake it, Kasimir THEN came up with the idea of using a body double and actually killing that guy – Cornelius was a little squeamish, but desperate enough to go along with it if that was their best shot, while Zillah was okay with the idea as long as they got someone who at least somewhat deserved it. The issue of finding someone who looked enough like Cornelius was a bit of a sticking point – and then Zillah reminded Kasimir he had a brand-new bomb to use, and so as long as they blew up the body well enough. . . XD The two were very happy with this idea, joking that it was great to have such a nice, straightfoward plan for a change, instead of dealing with “the kids” and their ridiculous inventions and whatnot (though Kasimir DID have to admit that a “wonderful mechanical dying man” would have been useful in this instance).
And so the plan was made! Kasimir and Zillah wheeled Cornelius back to his house in the bin, where he started writing out invitations for the auction the next day, and Kasimir and Zillah started acquiring assets. Kasimir was easily able to get them a horse and trap to use as a getaway vehicle, but finding a scumbag to be the body double proved to be rather trickier. Zillah was half-ready to try and break into the prison to find someone appropriate, but figured that might be too complicated – Luke also pointed out that all of the worst criminals were still at large, and Zillah was not interested in becoming a vigilante (which Luke and Kasimir teased her for). Kasimir was like “let’s just find some drunk at the docks who is probably gonna get himself killed anyway,” but Zillah reminded him that she had family who worked down there. Eventually, the plan resolved itself into “we go out, pretend we’re rich people, get jumped by someone in an alley, and use whoever jumped us as the double” – and when Luke said that this reminded him a bit of what happened to Batman’s parents, Zillah immediately went for a frilly dress and a string of pearls that could be dramatically broken. XD Kasimir, for his part, “borrowed” one of Barnaby’s tuxedos and tore the seams on the sleeves with some flexing so he could actually move his arms in it – as TV Tropes put it, Barnaby has managed to lose a coat in a score he’s NOT EVEN IN. XD I left it there, with the pair on the hunt for someone to rob them – we’ll see how well that works out tomorrow!
Other:
-->Answered all the comments in my AO3 inbox, yay~ Keeping up on those is a good way to also keep up on my owed reviews!
-->And I did indeed answer Moose’s messages, as I’m sure she can attest to XD
So yeah, at least my inbox is looking a little cleaner and I'm caught up on various messages and all that. And now it's very much time to go to bed and get some damn sleep in preparation for work tomorrow -- night all!
In the meantime, though, here's what I DID manage to accomplish today --
Tumblr: Managed to complete three of the six Chill Valicer Save Wedding Update posts today (two before lunch, the third after lunch), and got a bit of a start on the fourth this evening – I was really hoping to get farther, but period brain and a long Sims session (below) kinda forbid. Just have to get caught up tomorrow before I chuck it all in the queue!
Sims 4: As per usual, a very busy day in my Chill Valicer Save (why do I still include the “Chill” part? I don’t know, it’s been grandfathered in), finishing off the Valicer Honeymoon and playing through Spookfest –
A) Started with the gang still on vacation in Sulani this Fall Monday – except that it was absolutely pouring out, so the trio couldn’t really DO anything. Victor and Alice decided to spontaneously slow dance in the kitchen while Smiler checked their new social media timeline, which was cute. :) I had Smiler go and cuddle Victor from behind after, then Victor and Alice moved into the living room for more flirting while Smiler went and showered in the rain (*sigh*) – which was cut short when Alice’s werewolf instincts hit her and demanded a nap. Victor quickly got a picture of her (scratching herself) and did a painting from reference while she went and calmed herself down in the mirror before curling up for a wolf nap on the rug in the master bedroom. The instincts will not be denied, but at least the various werewolf powers make ‘em easier to deal with!
B) As for Smiler – well, I’ve been having the gang do puzzles all throughout this vacation because of the miserable weather, so why stop now? I had Smiler go and start a new, 250-piece sci-fi puzzle – then had them stop and put some damn clothes on because they insisted on starting it nekkid. *shakehead* Victor, once he finished his painting, decided to practice some Untamed Magic, and immediately learned the Dedeathify spell (to restore ghosts to human form), nice. :D I also had him buy a new book (“Broomies,” about two spellcasters with different magical focuses roomin together) and read it because I remembered that also helps get him magical XP these days. Alice woke up from her nap and got sent to help Smiler with the puzzle, and once Victor was done with his book, he too joined the party. The group had a nice, if slightly glitchy, time putting together the puzzle – I had a bit of trouble with certain interactions that wouldn’t complete, and romantic interactions with no text in them popping up. O.o Game, game please – I may be having thoughts about a new save file, but I don’t want to give up the old one JUST yet! But they did successfully complete the puzzle (of aliens having a good time together), and Alice even got level 5 Logic out of the deal, nice. And also a nice picture of the island in the rain (I was TRYING to get a nice picture of Victor and Smiler doing the puzzle, but she tried to shower in the rain right before I had her get her camera out, and thus the bottom half of THAT attempted snap was all pixelated thanks to her being naked *sigh*).
C) With that, it was time for more “what can we do with ourselves while it’s raining” activities – Alice got out her travel easel and started painting again; Smiler got on their laptop to start modding Blicblock; and Victor did a little Mischief Magic practice (almost immediately acquiring Burgliate, which allows you to steal stuff), then – because I wasn’t sure what else to do with him – upgraded the toilet and sink in the bathroom after a pee break. *shrug* It’ll be nice for the next people to rent the place, and kept him out of the storm – the lightning was NASTY, as one poor passing snorkler found out! O.o After finishing his upgrades, Victor grabbed another fish dinner out of the fridge to snack on, while Alice produced a flirty masterpiece on her easel (only worth just under $5K, though) –
D) When who should show up again but Leila! Who ONCE AGAIN wanted to be Smiler’s best friend. Despite being told no YESTERDAY in-game. Like, lady, you are getting WORRYINGLY clingy. O.o I had Smiler say “no way” again and send her home. Space, Leila, you gotta give ‘em some space!
E) With that settled, Alice had her breakfast (a buttered crumpet), and after a bit more flirting and general pleasant banter, Smiler got their breakfast from Victor, before dragging him off to the bedroom for another round of woohoo. XD What, it WAS their honeymoon! Alice amused herself by drinking some water and taking a shower in the rain, coming back just in time to join Victor in the bedroom for a little bit of making out while Smiler hopped back on their laptop to play their newly-modded Blicblock game. Victor then settled in for a nap while Alice went out to dance – and once he was sufficiently energized, I looked at the miserable weather (it had not stopped raining once all day) and went “right, let’s end this vacation and head home for Spookfest!” And so I did once Victor woke up –
F) Only to realize, the moment they landed back home, that, oh, yeah, they’d left a bunch of stuff in the fridge at the rental place. *facepalm* Fortunately, I’d thought to save shortly before they left, so I was able to quickly reload without losing any progress and grabbed everything I wanted them to keep – Victor and Smiler’s non-cooked caught fish, the leftovers of the buttered crumpets and fish dinner, and the milk they ended up bringing with them on vacation by accident. :p THEN it was time to go back home and prepare for Spookfest –
G) But first, the real reason why playing this particular day took me just over three hours – getting the latest batch of in-game pictures sorted! XD Granted, I didn’t go NEARLY as overboard as I did during the actual wedding episode, but there were still a fair few snaps to sort through – PLUS I had to figure out what to do with the other souvenirs they’d picked up, like the fish and the shells. So, after quickly getting the Spookfest decorations and pumpkin-carving stations out of the attic and onto the front yard/front of the house, I spent some time sorting through it all:
I. Pictures – three of the snaps from Ohan’ali Beach got put into that special collage picture frame that came with Moschino Stuff (I’ve been meaning to use that for AGES – I wish it came in a few different variants for the kinds of pictures you could put in it, though!) and stuck up on the wall by the kitchen archway, over one of their potted plants. The best three of the “dual selfies” (one each of Victor and Alice, Victor and Smiler, and Smiler and Alice) got put up by the bubble blower in the “chill out” room – but a spare cute Victor and Alice selfie I couldn’t bear to delete got put on their desk in their room. Victor’s painting of Alice from his sketchpad went in the “studio” room (where Alice’s nicest easel, Victor’s piano, and Smiler’s guitar live), surrounded by the three snaps of the view from their little private island at sunset and Alice’s rainy day snap (unfortunately the snaps of Victor and Alice napping on the floaties didn’t come out great and had to be deleted). A particularly silly picture of the trio at the beach went in Smiler’s room, on the wall by their desk (I figured the goofy poses would be their personal favorites). The two largest of the trio pictures, along with two medium-sized ones, got put together in a bit of a collage in Smiler’s party barn by the ping-pong table (I shuffled Victor’s observatory sky print over to over the stairwell), and I threw Alice’s latest flirty masterpiece on the wall by the games table, joining all her other cool paintings in another collage. Lot of fiddling to find good wall space, but I made it all work! :)
II. Fish – Smiler’s guppy, minnow, and perch all got turned into plasma packs, because honestly, who wants to mount a minnow? I DID want to mount their cool swordfish, though – only to find when I went to the “fish wall” in the kitchen that there was ALREADY a swordfish there! However, that particular swordfish didn’t have any special information linked to it (like who caught it or how much it weighed), so I decided to delete it and replace it with Smiler’s new swordfish (there’s a salmon there that has the same problem, and thus will probably be replaced at some point). I also wanted to mount their celestial grouper, but there wasn’t really any more room for fish in the kitchen –
So I moved them all to the barn! Yes, the fish collection is now available to be viewed on either side of the insect collection, simply because there’s more space for them there. With the extra room, I was able to add Smiler’s celestial grouper AND Victor’s gorgeous parrotfish to the bunch. :) That just left the fighting plakat in Victor’s inventory – and that, I decided, was best suited for Victor and Alice’s aquarium! So in “Punchy” went to join Chewy the gummy fish and Overthe the rainbow fish. :)
III. Other – after getting all of the shells out of everyone’s inventory, I ended up selling two of the spare scallop shells (as Smiler already had one from earlier adventures) and getting a nice Island Living shelf by the ladder to the attic to display the remaining scallop shell, small conch, abalone, and sea urchin shell they’d picked up. This did require me to move the shelf holding Victor’s first few woodworking sculptures, though – I ended up putting it in the barn near the woodworking bench. :) Smiler’s spare “Eyes of Sulani” went in their room to join the other one and the “Heart of Sulani” necklace – I could have sold it, but it was a different color variation, and they really don’t need the money, so. . . Oh, and all the spare food of course went in the fridge – though not before Kelly had gotten a nibble on the fish dinner! XD (I had trouble dragging it in there, so I’d left it on the counter, and she beelined right to it. Thought about having Victor lecture her for it, decided it wasn’t worth it.)
H) With that finally all taken care of, it was time for the gang to get settled back in and start celebrating Spookfest! Alice went and got some eggs out of the chicken coop (one non-hatchable, two hatchable, all decent quality – don’t think that will save you from the reckoning, roosters), while Smiler put up some more decorations from the box (orange and purple hanging lights on the eaves and ghostly banners on the fences) and Victor reconnected with Shadow, giving her some playtime and a bath. Once the eggs were sorted, I sent Alice to carve the first pumpkin, a pale orange kitty-cat – turned out to be a masterpiece, good for her. :) She then chose her costume, a nice simple space ranger get-up, and greeted the first trick-or-treater to knock on their door with a nice treat. :) Smiler, for their part, did a little herbalism, making a soothing skin balm that got them up to level 6, then headed over to the pumpkin carving station to carve a grinning white pumpkin. I was just setting up Victor (fresh off Scruberooing all the things post dog-bath) carving a bright orange owl pumpkin –
I) When, upon sending Alice to go play with Kelly, I saw “change outfit” under the “Pet Care” menu and was like “Oh, hey, I gave Kelly a taco outfit – she should wear that tonight! Does Shadow have a costume too?” A quick check of her available outfits proved she did not, so I had Alice quickly hop into CAS to get her one – a “super-llama” get-up, as that was really the only one available. XD This did unfortunately throw off Victor and Smiler’s pumpkin-carving efforts, though – in Victor’s case, I just had to reset him actually going to the carving station, but Smiler had to scrap their first pumpkin and start again as they just wouldn’t resume it. :( Still, they both managed to complete their pumpkins in the end, and at excellent quality too! I had them both chose a costume – Victor an astronaut get-up, while Smiler picked a cheerleader outfit – and sent them to do some musical stuff (Victor working on his latest piano composition, Smiler singing some songs on their guitar) while Alice gave Kelly some love before coming back downstairs to paint…
J) And then a mysterious levitating waif appeared at the door. o.O More accurately, a child not marked as a trick-or-treater wandered onto the porch, pulled out a digitalistic sketchpad, and did that weird stretched-leg levitating thing child Sims do when they’re doing something only grown-up Sims should be able to do. And then she got specter sprinkled by a specter. Unsure what to do about the child, I decided instead to have Smiler gift a soothing skin balm to the specter. This did not go down well, unfortunately – maybe it reminded the specter it didn’t have skin. Smiler fled the angry blob to instead watch a movie with Victor and Alice – “Moonlight Massacre III!” Hey, it’s Spookfest, a horror movie is only appropriate – though none of them seemed to think much of it. (Hell, Victor and Alice refused to actually SIT DOWN and watch it until I told them to!) The levitating waif wandered off, and the family received one more trick-or-treater (whom Smiler took care of) before the movie ended. Victor and Alice by this point were both looking very tired and hungry, so I let them each have a slice of the wedding cake before sending them up to bed, and sending Smiler to jam on their guitar (they’re level 9 now!) and play a little chess with Guidry –
K) But oh, what’s this? Alice woke up just before the end of the holiday at 2 AM, with her Fury super-close to the breaking point, despite an earlier somber howl (and the fact that it was a new moon). I decided it was one of those situations where it was better to just let her have the rampage, so I sent her outside with her super speed, had her transform into her beastly form, and let off a few howls and do a bit of scavenging to push her over the edge. As per usual, her rampage lasted all of five minutes and consisted of a single additional scavenging before I got her to regain control. XD
And so the playsession ended with everyone in good spirits and having had a successful Spookfest! A great place to leave them before a patch, I think. :) Next couple of playsessions will probably be building (including finishing off the Tranquil Circle Spa), but when I get back to them. . .well, that’ll be more building, as it’s time to take another look at that store and see revamping the interior layout will get it open quicker. XD We’ll see what happens with this upcoming Horse Ranch patch and how bad it is!
YouTube: I remain one Gray video behind, but at least I was able to keep up with two out of three things in my Subs –
A) First up, yesterday’s GrayStillPlays – “I became the principal and this happened,” aka Gray plays The Principal! This is a (I believe mobile) game where a recently-graduated student gets to take over the principal’s seat in his school for a year and make as many terrible choices as possible – except in THIS game, terrible choices are the way to go to get happier students and teachers! I mean, the very first freaking choice was a bunch of male students asking Gray to let the girls attend school in bikinis – not only did the girls not object, they did a little dance upon entering the school, and Gray got a bunch of money and thumbs up on his progress for making that choice! (To be fair, Gray did later let the girls kick boys who harassed them in the junk, because VIOLENCE.) Other terrible choices that worked out great for Gray were allowing kids to have their pets in class (made a teacher quit, but that’s just more profit for the school), allowing students to throw paper balls at their boring teachers, allowing students to have make-up corners in classrooms, changing out their desks for napping recliners, hiring masseuses for exams (which made their grades go up!), and putting slides to the school pool into classrooms for kids to use whenever they wanted. Lest you think Gray was shorting the teaching staff – well, he was, rejecting most of their proposals by firing them (which involved his character FIRING A GUN INTO THE AIR), but he DID give all the teachers BMW convertibles, and he DID let the janitorial staff slap students who dirtied just-mopped floors. That counts for something, right? And he did end up installing a proper massage parlor, a candy store, a dance floor, and a YouTuber class with all the diamonds he earned making all these horrible decisions. Basically, this school was custom-made for someone like Gray, and now he is the best principal in the world. XD
B) And second, today’s Josh Way – “SKETCHY: Ariel from The Little Mermaid!” Specifically, Ariel from the original 1989 animated The Little Mermaid by Disney, and even more specifically that moment where she’s just recently gotten her legs, made herself a dress out of a sail, and is trying to learn walking with Eric – only to stumble and fall in a rather wild pose. XD Josh really loved that little moment and decided he had to capture it the way he recalled it, with extra-wild hair and whatnot. XD He also talked about how this movie, and the Disney Renaissance that followed it, came around at just the right time for him to discover who he was as an artist and get obsessed all over again with Disney animation, which was very cute. Good stuff as always!
Workout: It was on the treadmill today for a change after yesterday’s skip, resuming my workouts and starting the next episode of Season 2 of Oxventure Presents: Blades In The Dark – “The Dead of Cornelius Bagshot!” This particular adventure involved Kasimir and Zillah, who during their downtime between the opera house score and this one, had bonded thanks to Zillah taking Kasimir down to her underground fighting club one night and getting the doctor there to give his knee a nice sports massage while she went a few rounds in the ring, training her wrecking capabilities (aka Johnny and Jane worked out a way to take advantage of Johnny’s new ability to have characters indulge their vices together and adjust the results as necessary despite having very different vices, and Jane decided to take advantage of the ability to actually train up some of her attributes, only to learn that no, earning XP did NOT meant she just got a free dot in Wreck, it was more complicated than that). Eleanor had asked them to go and make sure there was no incriminating evidence left at their old antiques shop headquarters (the extremely high-profile opera heist meant that it was only a matter of time before it came under scrutiny), and Kasimir was trying to convince Zillah that the easiest way to do that was to put this new bomb he’d acquired through the letterbox (a quite inferior Acme-style bomb that Kasimir was convinced was great) and let it go off when there was a clanging from nearby and a voice asking them to let him leave first. The pair investigated, and found in the Victorian steampunk dumpster with cogs on (Luke wasn’t sure what the hell Victorian dumpsters looked like; I choose to believe this is in fact an Edvard invention) a man hiding among the refuse. Kasimir initially thought the fellow was Edvard’s latest Wonderful Mechanical Man, but the fellow explained he was Cornelius Bagshot, and that he was in a bit of trouble, and might they be thieves by any chance?
Zillah was immediately like, “what kind of question is that? Are you a cop? You have to tell us if you’re a cop.” XD Cornelius said no, he was an accountant in some trouble, and might they talk about this somewhere else? The pair were willing to hear this weird trash-man out, and so took him to the nearest quiet pub, where in a back booth he explained his story – he is indeed an accountant, and semi-recently took on some work for a very mysterious organization that only worked through intermediaries using code names and secret notes and such. He was making some good money with them, but unfortunately, he likes a “flutter” – aka, he’s a gambler, and he’s built up some pretty extensive debt. Not only that, but the group he was working with didn’t approve of his vices, and after being warned twice, this third time saw them “fire” him in a worryingly nice way. He was now convinced that the group are going to have him killed for being a loose end, and needed someone to help him fake his death and get out of the city. Kasimir was like “why shouldn’t we just kill you for real” and Cornelius offered to share everything he knew on the mysterious group, as he was pretty sure they are after the Hobbyhorses too – he heard the gang’s name mentioned during the last meeting, and not in a good way. After a bit of debate (and some confusion over whether or not they were being targeted because they didn’t empty their bins often enough), Kasimir decided to make a deal with the guy – help him out with faking his death and getting him out of the city, and in return he tells them all he knows about the group and doesn’t tell anyone ELSE about the Hobbyhorses (physical descriptions, names, locations, any of that). Cornelius was amendable, and the deal was struck, with a little help from Kasimir’s “Ghost Contract” ability leaving a leafy tattoo on Cornelius as a reminder of his vow (if he breaks it, he ends up cursed all to hell).
With magical contract in place, the planning could begin! After some discussion of where Cornelius usually hung out (his house, his club, the goat-racing track, the food market in Nightmarket), the decision was made to have him host a fake auction to sell off his belongings and estate to pay his gambling debts, and have one of them pretend to murder him during it. The initial plan was to fake him being shot with a pig’s bladder full of blood and a blank in the pistol – but then Kasimir was like “wait, how do we fake the bell at the crematorium that rings every time someone dies in this city?” As Cornelius did not have access to a bell that could be rung to fake it, Kasimir THEN came up with the idea of using a body double and actually killing that guy – Cornelius was a little squeamish, but desperate enough to go along with it if that was their best shot, while Zillah was okay with the idea as long as they got someone who at least somewhat deserved it. The issue of finding someone who looked enough like Cornelius was a bit of a sticking point – and then Zillah reminded Kasimir he had a brand-new bomb to use, and so as long as they blew up the body well enough. . . XD The two were very happy with this idea, joking that it was great to have such a nice, straightfoward plan for a change, instead of dealing with “the kids” and their ridiculous inventions and whatnot (though Kasimir DID have to admit that a “wonderful mechanical dying man” would have been useful in this instance).
And so the plan was made! Kasimir and Zillah wheeled Cornelius back to his house in the bin, where he started writing out invitations for the auction the next day, and Kasimir and Zillah started acquiring assets. Kasimir was easily able to get them a horse and trap to use as a getaway vehicle, but finding a scumbag to be the body double proved to be rather trickier. Zillah was half-ready to try and break into the prison to find someone appropriate, but figured that might be too complicated – Luke also pointed out that all of the worst criminals were still at large, and Zillah was not interested in becoming a vigilante (which Luke and Kasimir teased her for). Kasimir was like “let’s just find some drunk at the docks who is probably gonna get himself killed anyway,” but Zillah reminded him that she had family who worked down there. Eventually, the plan resolved itself into “we go out, pretend we’re rich people, get jumped by someone in an alley, and use whoever jumped us as the double” – and when Luke said that this reminded him a bit of what happened to Batman’s parents, Zillah immediately went for a frilly dress and a string of pearls that could be dramatically broken. XD Kasimir, for his part, “borrowed” one of Barnaby’s tuxedos and tore the seams on the sleeves with some flexing so he could actually move his arms in it – as TV Tropes put it, Barnaby has managed to lose a coat in a score he’s NOT EVEN IN. XD I left it there, with the pair on the hunt for someone to rob them – we’ll see how well that works out tomorrow!
Other:
-->Answered all the comments in my AO3 inbox, yay~ Keeping up on those is a good way to also keep up on my owed reviews!
-->And I did indeed answer Moose’s messages, as I’m sure she can attest to XD
So yeah, at least my inbox is looking a little cleaner and I'm caught up on various messages and all that. And now it's very much time to go to bed and get some damn sleep in preparation for work tomorrow -- night all!
