Final Rainy Day Off
Sep. 25th, 2023 11:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickYeah, another day of lousy weather here -- like, it wasn't like I was PLANNING to go anywhere, but by GOD am I sick of the rain. Apparently since about mid-June we've gotten nearly TWICE of our average rainfall for this time of the year -- 16 inches versus the usual 9-something. O.o It is getting quite worrying! Not sure how much more the ground can take. . .but I did manage to have a pretty good day on the interwebs, at least --
Tumblr: Mondays are Victor Luvs Alice Only days, and I’m pleased to say that I got all six of my Chill Valicer Save posts for this week fully updated with alt image text and tags! :D Four around lunchtime, before I played Sims 4, and then the other two this evening, around and after watching Gray. :) So that’s all sorted, at least! Still have to figure out what I’m doing for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, but hopefully inspiration will whack me over the head soon.
Sims 4: Well, uh, the trio ended up having a rather more CHAOTIC Winterfest than I’d hoped today – here’s how the whole thing went down –
A) Started early in the morning, with Victor and Alice sound asleep and Smiler keeping busy – they hyped their next SimsTube video on the media creation station; went and hatched another new chick at the chicken coop; tried to clear the flies from the trash bin – they were successful at this, but ended up swarmed briefly before the flies departed, meaning they’d better avoid interacting with flies for a little while; recycled all the family’s trash piles at the recycler; repaired all the busted wind turbines in the wind farm; and finally scavenged all THOSE trash piles for parts and recycled THEM as well. Oh, and paid the bills at the mailbox. Whew! I’m tired just writing that. :p
B) Near the end of this, Victor and Alice woke up – Alice VERY briefly, as I had to put her back to bed because she wanted to go play in trash piles while her instincts were yelling at her to sleep some more. *shakehead* Werewolves sometimes. . . Once she’d gotten a little more sleep, I let her groom herself before sending her to meditate some of her Fury away – gotta keep her from rampaging on Winterfest! Victor, meanwhile, practiced his practical magic in hopes of getting a new spell – and got Transportalate! The teleportation spell! :D So now he has a proper teleport in addition to the outside-only broom flight! Hooray! About freaking time!
C) With THAT in hand, it was the work of a moment for Victor to pop himself down into his greenhouse (well, after playing with Kelly for a bit), where he replanted all his oversized crops and checked to see if any of his plants needed tending. Interestingly enough, they did not, so I just had him do a bit of fertilizing before heading over to Moory’s pen to refill the feed, chat with Moory (his attempt at a joke unfortunately fell quite flat), and milk her. Smiler, as per usual, took care of the chickens, spreading feed, cleaning the coop, and chatting with them to keep their attention levels high – though Victor was the one who ended up getting the eggs (three normal ones, yay). Farm chores completed in record time, w00!
D) And with that out of the way – it was time to decorate the house! Smiler did some nice blue waterfall icicle lights on the eaves and pretty red and yellow garlands on the fences, while I put out – most of the decorations in the attic. I couldn’t be bothered to take out EVERY strand of paper garland that they own. XD And let me tell you, getting the damn door garlands to actually go over the archways downstairs was a hell of a pain. . .but we got most everything out, including the tree to decorate for later! The final product looked pretty good, if I do say so. :p
E) With the decorating done, I checked on Alice and her attempts to lower her Fury via meditating – they weren’t going particularly great. I wondered if the problem was the fact that she was still in her werewolf form and had her go back to normal to see if that made a difference –
Then I spotted Victor trying to eat fruit pie when my INTENTION was for the gang to have the leftover grand breakfast in the fridge later, and went “right, for your crimes you can take the dog for a walk – and if he’s doing that, you can go have some zoomies, Alice, that might work better for keeping the old Fury low.” And so Victor and Alice set out into the snow, wandering over hill and dale – I just got why a certain neighborhood in Hill Valley is called HILLDALE *facepalm* – while Smiler upgraded the shower upstairs to reduce shower times, took a shower, then turned on their drone and recorded themselves playing Sim Scuffle, since video gaming was a hot trend on SimsTube last time they checked. Shame they can’t just stream games directly, but this will do for now!
F) Alice was the first to get home from her wanderings, with indeed much lower Fury than before. She took a moment to feed Toothy, then took a moment to empty the outside trash bin (a process that saw her disappear into a rabbit hole dump for a while) before cleaning out the spoiled food in the fridge. I directed Victor and Shadow to come home while getting the grand breakfast out of the fridge, then distracted Alice by having her play laser pointer with Shock and distracted Victor by having him check the pockets of all the clothes in the hamper so I could get everyone into the same place without any issues. (Trust me, soooo much of playing Sims 4 is successfully distracting Sims so they don’t wander off or do something forbidden while you set up what you REALLY want them to do.)
G) And then – grand breakfast time! At 1 PM in the afternoon! XD Hey, it’s a grand meal, and none of them HAD had breakfast yet, so. . . Of course, Smiler couldn’t partake in the actual food, but I had them sit at the table and drink a plasma fruit with their husband and metamour, as per usual. :) Everyone shared some holiday spirit and compliments and whatnot while I moved all the produce and such from Victor’s inventory into the fridge, and Smiler even got up near the end of the meal to give Kelly the cat a big old hug. :) It was all very cute and wholesome. . .
And then Kelly hopped up on the counter and began eating the now-spoiled grand breakfast. XD Cat, can’t you see the giant green stink lines coming off it? I had both Victor AND Alice lecture her about doing that – Victor’s attempt didn’t really sink up, but Alice’s seemed to have some effect. Good – Kelly shouldn’t be eating human food in the first place, especially not the spoiled stuff!
H) With the meal completed for everyone who could eat, Alice took care of the dishes, and then everyone got sent outside to make snow pals! Everyone made their own (since, as far as I know, only two Sims can work on a snow pal together, not three), with Smiler making a three-ball monocled fellow with a necktie; Alice making a three-ball traditional smiling snowperson with a fuzzy hat and mittens; and Victor making a two-ball punk with an icicle spike mohawk, sunglasses, and a kicky purple bandanna. XD And after THAT, it was time to decorate the tree – and to my delight, I found that I could get everyone working together on this if I had two Sims work on one decoration category, and the other Sim work on another at the same time! :D So Alice and Smiler took care of the tree skirt (red and gold) while Victor did the garland (blue and white), then Victor and Smiler put up the ornaments (white and gold) while Alice did the topper (red and gold modern). The end result was – well, it’s not what I would have picked for my tree, but it was nice enough. XD Victor and Smiler even got to share a mistletoe kiss while Alice was finishing up the topper. :) I then thought, “you know what, let’s have Alice light it up” –
I) AND THE FUCKING TREE IMMEDIATELY CAUGHT ON FIRE. Cue immediate Sim panic and Alice and Smiler bolting outside while Victor got his Chillio on. He did get the fire out – but not before it consumed not only the tree, but the big old rug underneath it! Like, holy SHIT, that’s – that’s SOMETHING, isn’t it? O.O Alice and Smiler stayed outside for a bit while Victor Scruberooed the stain on the floor and the ash piles (Alice distracting herself with stretches and push-ups, which, got her to level 7 Fitness, so not complaining), and I ended up replacing the tree with just the big present pile. I’ll get them another tree to decorate later, for next year – I didn’t feel like doing it all over again this time.
J) With THAT excitement over with, I sent Victor to go harvest his greenhouse while we waited for Clement Frost to appear – Alice decided to shovel some of the snow around while Smiler fed the chickens, then I both had them make snow angels, just for fun. They needed some fun! Clement did appear around 8 PM from the fireplace and bulked up the present pile before heading out to hang by the front steps with a lump of clay – I sent Smiler to go chat with him while Victor and Alice got their mistletoe kiss in the greenhouse. :) Smiler was able to successfully ask for a present as well, which proved to be –
YET ANOTHER KARAOKE MACHINE. Uh, Clement? Smiler has other interests, you know. *facepalm* I then sent Victor and Alice over to Clement to ask for presents as well –
But while the start of the interaction completed, and the tradition fulfilled, Clement didn’t actually give either of them a present. I’m not entirely sure WHAT broke the interaction, but I think it might be related to Clement being at the bottom of the stairs up to the porch while Victor and Alice were up at the top. I tried to have Alice ask Clement to “chat here” while she requested another present, but that didn’t get him to budge. “Fine,” I decided, “I’ll just have everyone, including Clement, go gather around the big present pile downstairs and pick presents from that–”
Except, the minute I tried to do THAT, suddenly Alice went back to Clement to get her present! WTF game! *facepalm* I had Victor go queue up to get an actual present while Alice opened hers – Alice ended up with the giant microscope for some reason, while Victor got a fancy Crisponix fridge. Neither items we can actually use, thanks Clement. *sigh* Also, I tried to have Alice and Smiler chat on the porch while they were waiting for all the gift-giving to complete, but for some reason they insisted on going upstairs to Smiler’s room to have a deep conversation. And Alice glitching out as she ran up the stairs at super speed finally convinced me to turn it off. Cripes, this game. . .
K) After THAT, despite Victor’s growing exhaustion, I wrangled everyone together for one final opening of gifts at the present pile – a task that proved shockingly daunting, as Alice kept trying to wander off to play with her lump of clay. >( I did get them all to open a present, though – Smiler got a bowl of fruit; Alice a new element, alcineat, and Victor –
No clue. No pop-up came up for him, and he looked pretty sad after opening his gift, so I’m not entirely sure the poor guy didn’t get an empty box. :( I have to say, this ended up being not the best Winterfest! I mean, it’s already not great when your tree catches on fire and takes your rug with it, but who knew trying to get PRESENTS would be so stressful?
L) I was DETERMINED to end the holiday on a good note, though – and I knew just the way to do it, too. Mainly, by having Victor and Smiler make out, then have Alice cuddle Victor from behind. OT3 feels help everything. :) By then, though, it was midnight, and as Clement headed off up the chimney (first time I’ve caught him as he left!), I let Victor and Alice head to bed, having Smiler amuse themselves by ending more or less where they began – namely, working on their videos on their media production station! They edited the Bunnypad review and transferred the Sim Scuffle video into the station’s inventory, then cuddled Shadow before trying to start some yoga. Though when I left it off, the house had woken EVERYONE up in the middle of the night with creepy noises. . .at least they all had a successful Winterfest!
So, uh, yeah. Not exactly what I was expecting out of this Winterfest update for my OT3 trio! O.o At least MOST of the day was pretty good? They did get to have some cute moments doing stuff like having a grand meal and making snowpals and decorating the tree together? If only the stupid thing hadn’t caught on fire. . .don’t worry, guys, I’ll replace your rug later! I’ve been thinking I want to update your house a little bit anyway. . .but that’ll have to wait until after the patch that is almost certainly coming tomorrow. Hopefully it doesn’t full-on break all the things!
Writing: Got another good chunk written on “Home Sweet Lair” – Alice has finally dropped the bombshells about Bumby (confirming that he was the “suitor” who raped her sister and burned her house down, and then revealing he’s been wiping the children of Houndsditch’s minds and selling them to pedophiles), and Victor and Smiler were appropriately horrified – and in Victor’s case, guilty that he dragged her into his problems with a ghost bride when clearly she had much bigger fish to fry. Alice assured him that she has no regrets about helping him or Emily (Barkis dying was still getting a monster off the street, just not the one she was originally targeting), but Victor is still insistent they help her now. And Smiler has just pointed out that they’re already accused of murder. . .yeah. Soon we’ll wrap this up with a plan to kill a Bumby! (Or maybe just steal any proof he has of his activities from his office, but – we all know this is gonna end up in murder. Because Bumby.)
YouTube: Just GrayStillPlays today with another Alex Torture Board – “Cars vs secret tunnels in GTA 5!” Alex decided to present Gray of three tunnels of pain today, each with a different theme –
I. The Stalking Tunnel (a tunnel that chased Gray while he went along the road, and which moved from left to right along with his car, allowing him to weave around the various obstacles (discs sticking out of the ground, thumbnail holes, a fun combination of boosts and slow-down circles) as he chased the checkpoint attached to the end – he had to get that checkpoint before he ran out of road underneath him)
II. The Mirrored Tunnel (a long turning tube which had walls that were half-visible, half-invisible, and the visible side had patterns in various blue and red platforms showing Gray where the holes were in the invisible section so he could get through them (adding ramps and breakable walls as he went – oh, AND the whole thing was timed, though it was a generous one minute twenty seconds) – he just had to remember the patterns were mirrored, and also pick a car that could either get under some of the tighter thumbnail holes or straight up over some of the invisible walls)
III. And The Satisfying Inception Tunnel (a tunnel with a checkerboard roof that started twisting a la the hallway in the movie, meaning Gray had to go from driving on the floor to driving on the ceiling, that then forced him to do a wall ride jump into ANOTHER tunnel with a trippy yellow-and-green checkerboard pattern with the win at the end)
Unusually for Alex challenges as of late, each tunnel has a specific car that could beat it, rather than Gray having to find the right car for all three challenges. After eliminating the forklift early on (it couldn’t even fit in the Stalking Tunnel), Gray started trying out cars to see which one did best where (without eliminating too much of his sanity). The winner of the Stalking Tunnel proved to be the armored fuchsia arena car, thanks to having a really good boost that recharged really fast (and even THEN he had to use the curb-boosting trick at the very end of the course to get the speed to hit the checkpoint); the winner of the Mirrored Tunnel was the pink arena bug, thanks to being small enough to fit through a lot of the holes, jumpy enough to leap over the ones it couldn’t get through, and fast enough with its boost to complete the course in time; and the winner of the Satisfying Inception Tunnel ended up being the F1 race car, due to it being able to go pretty much upside-down whenever it needed to and get loads of speed (which is good, as Gray discovered at the very end of the video that Alex put the winning circle just a little too far away from the second tube for him to reach it if he drove along the bottom – he had to wall-ride his way up the side of the tube and launch himself from the ceiling instead). Some premium Gray pain here – and it’s something different from the standard challenge, which is nice too! Good to mix it up a bit. :)
Workout: Back on the bike today – but after looking between the Oxventure and James Turner channels on YouTube and seeing what’s what, I have elected to finish off James’s High School Years and “Dine Out Reloaded” LPs before starting the “Extinction” arc of Oxventure – mostly because I’m REALLY close to the end of each one, and the episodes aren’t particularly long. So, today with my ride I went ahead and watched “I built the most amazing thing ever. High School Years (Part 47)” This was the next episode in Breanne’s series, and it could be summed up like so:
A) James created Breanne’s first outdoor set! Yes, taking inspiration from the comments, James cleaned up the outside of the lot (and even was able to replace the shipping container back there with a proper “shipping container” room that Breanne could use for storage – this involved building the room on the SECOND floor and then lowering it down to the first floor (because Build Mode in Sims lets you do that for some reason) so it’s only visible from the second floor and needs stairs for Breanne to access it, but it is a functional room to shove props in when not needed), then after a few false starts, built a simple “ship” set in the back corner of the lot using a raised triangle floor and some fencing and props from Get Famous. He’s very pleased with it, and to his delight, when he got Breanne’s friend Kenji up there to stand on the mark and test it out for photo-taking purposes, Kenji did the perfect “arms spread in delight” pose that invokes that famous scene from Titanic. XD He’s hoping to build even more sets outside in the future, plus update the interior of the build so there’s changing rooms for incoming models and all that. We’ll see what happens in the next couple of episodes!
B) Breanne got a new roommate! After inviting Kenji over to get his help with a gig (taking pictures of him in goofy poses in his party wear), James noticed her old roommate Kirk in the world and once again tried to figure out if he was still her roommate or not. And this time, he discovered the problem – namely, that Kirk’s bed was still assigned to him, even if he wasn’t actually living there. Unassigning the bed (by having Breanne briefly claim it before claiming back her own bed) reopened the option to ask him to be her roommate – but James thought Kenji, being Breanne’s latest BFF, would be a better choice and had her ask him to move in. Kenji immediately proved to be an awesome roommate by bringing a plate of black-and-white cookies back with him when he brought his stuff over, and taking over cleaning duties. Breanne is very satisfied with this new arrangement, as you might think!
C) Breanne continued to strike out romantically! XD Yeah, uh, James’s attempts to find her some sort of life partner are NOT going well. His first thought was to just make Kenji her boyfriend – but as it turns out, Kenji doesn’t swing that way. James then tried to hook Breanne up with Eula, the yoga instructor at the local gym (after having her do some rock climbing on the climbing walls – she’s gotten up to level 2, and she officially Likes the activity) – their first interactions were a little glitchy, but looked pretty positive. . .and then James invited Eula over the next day, and she started talking to the furniture. Some very thorough digging into her personality finally revealed she was Paranoid. An annoyed James bought Breanne the Observant reward trait so she’d immediately learn all of a Sim’s traits and sent her to the romance festival to scope the room. . .but even there, she kept running into people with traits that James didn’t think were a good fit for poor Breanne. Or her own family members. XD He was WILLING to give it a try with the bartender, despite his Hot-Headed nature – but then the dude started thinking about one of the TEENAGERS hanging around the festival and talking to them, and James went “okay, shit, creepy, let’s go.” At the very end of the episode, Breanne met one final guy, Ravanche, whose facial hair is a bit off but who has a decent personality – this MIGHT be the dude who we see cuddling her in the final thumbnail, but we shall see! So far, though, it is not looking good for poor Breanne as she plays the field. At least she got Eula and Kirk to consider dating? :p
So yeah -- not too shabby, especially when it comes to getting my Chill Valicer Save stuff sorted on tumblr. Might actually have a few minutes later this week to work on that "Smiler's Otherland Domains" post some more. . .we'll see! For now, though, I really do have to go to bed, as, you know, work tomorrow. *grumbles* We'll see what I missed and if anything major came up. Night all!
Tumblr: Mondays are Victor Luvs Alice Only days, and I’m pleased to say that I got all six of my Chill Valicer Save posts for this week fully updated with alt image text and tags! :D Four around lunchtime, before I played Sims 4, and then the other two this evening, around and after watching Gray. :) So that’s all sorted, at least! Still have to figure out what I’m doing for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, but hopefully inspiration will whack me over the head soon.
Sims 4: Well, uh, the trio ended up having a rather more CHAOTIC Winterfest than I’d hoped today – here’s how the whole thing went down –
A) Started early in the morning, with Victor and Alice sound asleep and Smiler keeping busy – they hyped their next SimsTube video on the media creation station; went and hatched another new chick at the chicken coop; tried to clear the flies from the trash bin – they were successful at this, but ended up swarmed briefly before the flies departed, meaning they’d better avoid interacting with flies for a little while; recycled all the family’s trash piles at the recycler; repaired all the busted wind turbines in the wind farm; and finally scavenged all THOSE trash piles for parts and recycled THEM as well. Oh, and paid the bills at the mailbox. Whew! I’m tired just writing that. :p
B) Near the end of this, Victor and Alice woke up – Alice VERY briefly, as I had to put her back to bed because she wanted to go play in trash piles while her instincts were yelling at her to sleep some more. *shakehead* Werewolves sometimes. . . Once she’d gotten a little more sleep, I let her groom herself before sending her to meditate some of her Fury away – gotta keep her from rampaging on Winterfest! Victor, meanwhile, practiced his practical magic in hopes of getting a new spell – and got Transportalate! The teleportation spell! :D So now he has a proper teleport in addition to the outside-only broom flight! Hooray! About freaking time!
C) With THAT in hand, it was the work of a moment for Victor to pop himself down into his greenhouse (well, after playing with Kelly for a bit), where he replanted all his oversized crops and checked to see if any of his plants needed tending. Interestingly enough, they did not, so I just had him do a bit of fertilizing before heading over to Moory’s pen to refill the feed, chat with Moory (his attempt at a joke unfortunately fell quite flat), and milk her. Smiler, as per usual, took care of the chickens, spreading feed, cleaning the coop, and chatting with them to keep their attention levels high – though Victor was the one who ended up getting the eggs (three normal ones, yay). Farm chores completed in record time, w00!
D) And with that out of the way – it was time to decorate the house! Smiler did some nice blue waterfall icicle lights on the eaves and pretty red and yellow garlands on the fences, while I put out – most of the decorations in the attic. I couldn’t be bothered to take out EVERY strand of paper garland that they own. XD And let me tell you, getting the damn door garlands to actually go over the archways downstairs was a hell of a pain. . .but we got most everything out, including the tree to decorate for later! The final product looked pretty good, if I do say so. :p
E) With the decorating done, I checked on Alice and her attempts to lower her Fury via meditating – they weren’t going particularly great. I wondered if the problem was the fact that she was still in her werewolf form and had her go back to normal to see if that made a difference –
Then I spotted Victor trying to eat fruit pie when my INTENTION was for the gang to have the leftover grand breakfast in the fridge later, and went “right, for your crimes you can take the dog for a walk – and if he’s doing that, you can go have some zoomies, Alice, that might work better for keeping the old Fury low.” And so Victor and Alice set out into the snow, wandering over hill and dale – I just got why a certain neighborhood in Hill Valley is called HILLDALE *facepalm* – while Smiler upgraded the shower upstairs to reduce shower times, took a shower, then turned on their drone and recorded themselves playing Sim Scuffle, since video gaming was a hot trend on SimsTube last time they checked. Shame they can’t just stream games directly, but this will do for now!
F) Alice was the first to get home from her wanderings, with indeed much lower Fury than before. She took a moment to feed Toothy, then took a moment to empty the outside trash bin (a process that saw her disappear into a rabbit hole dump for a while) before cleaning out the spoiled food in the fridge. I directed Victor and Shadow to come home while getting the grand breakfast out of the fridge, then distracted Alice by having her play laser pointer with Shock and distracted Victor by having him check the pockets of all the clothes in the hamper so I could get everyone into the same place without any issues. (Trust me, soooo much of playing Sims 4 is successfully distracting Sims so they don’t wander off or do something forbidden while you set up what you REALLY want them to do.)
G) And then – grand breakfast time! At 1 PM in the afternoon! XD Hey, it’s a grand meal, and none of them HAD had breakfast yet, so. . . Of course, Smiler couldn’t partake in the actual food, but I had them sit at the table and drink a plasma fruit with their husband and metamour, as per usual. :) Everyone shared some holiday spirit and compliments and whatnot while I moved all the produce and such from Victor’s inventory into the fridge, and Smiler even got up near the end of the meal to give Kelly the cat a big old hug. :) It was all very cute and wholesome. . .
And then Kelly hopped up on the counter and began eating the now-spoiled grand breakfast. XD Cat, can’t you see the giant green stink lines coming off it? I had both Victor AND Alice lecture her about doing that – Victor’s attempt didn’t really sink up, but Alice’s seemed to have some effect. Good – Kelly shouldn’t be eating human food in the first place, especially not the spoiled stuff!
H) With the meal completed for everyone who could eat, Alice took care of the dishes, and then everyone got sent outside to make snow pals! Everyone made their own (since, as far as I know, only two Sims can work on a snow pal together, not three), with Smiler making a three-ball monocled fellow with a necktie; Alice making a three-ball traditional smiling snowperson with a fuzzy hat and mittens; and Victor making a two-ball punk with an icicle spike mohawk, sunglasses, and a kicky purple bandanna. XD And after THAT, it was time to decorate the tree – and to my delight, I found that I could get everyone working together on this if I had two Sims work on one decoration category, and the other Sim work on another at the same time! :D So Alice and Smiler took care of the tree skirt (red and gold) while Victor did the garland (blue and white), then Victor and Smiler put up the ornaments (white and gold) while Alice did the topper (red and gold modern). The end result was – well, it’s not what I would have picked for my tree, but it was nice enough. XD Victor and Smiler even got to share a mistletoe kiss while Alice was finishing up the topper. :) I then thought, “you know what, let’s have Alice light it up” –
I) AND THE FUCKING TREE IMMEDIATELY CAUGHT ON FIRE. Cue immediate Sim panic and Alice and Smiler bolting outside while Victor got his Chillio on. He did get the fire out – but not before it consumed not only the tree, but the big old rug underneath it! Like, holy SHIT, that’s – that’s SOMETHING, isn’t it? O.O Alice and Smiler stayed outside for a bit while Victor Scruberooed the stain on the floor and the ash piles (Alice distracting herself with stretches and push-ups, which, got her to level 7 Fitness, so not complaining), and I ended up replacing the tree with just the big present pile. I’ll get them another tree to decorate later, for next year – I didn’t feel like doing it all over again this time.
J) With THAT excitement over with, I sent Victor to go harvest his greenhouse while we waited for Clement Frost to appear – Alice decided to shovel some of the snow around while Smiler fed the chickens, then I both had them make snow angels, just for fun. They needed some fun! Clement did appear around 8 PM from the fireplace and bulked up the present pile before heading out to hang by the front steps with a lump of clay – I sent Smiler to go chat with him while Victor and Alice got their mistletoe kiss in the greenhouse. :) Smiler was able to successfully ask for a present as well, which proved to be –
YET ANOTHER KARAOKE MACHINE. Uh, Clement? Smiler has other interests, you know. *facepalm* I then sent Victor and Alice over to Clement to ask for presents as well –
But while the start of the interaction completed, and the tradition fulfilled, Clement didn’t actually give either of them a present. I’m not entirely sure WHAT broke the interaction, but I think it might be related to Clement being at the bottom of the stairs up to the porch while Victor and Alice were up at the top. I tried to have Alice ask Clement to “chat here” while she requested another present, but that didn’t get him to budge. “Fine,” I decided, “I’ll just have everyone, including Clement, go gather around the big present pile downstairs and pick presents from that–”
Except, the minute I tried to do THAT, suddenly Alice went back to Clement to get her present! WTF game! *facepalm* I had Victor go queue up to get an actual present while Alice opened hers – Alice ended up with the giant microscope for some reason, while Victor got a fancy Crisponix fridge. Neither items we can actually use, thanks Clement. *sigh* Also, I tried to have Alice and Smiler chat on the porch while they were waiting for all the gift-giving to complete, but for some reason they insisted on going upstairs to Smiler’s room to have a deep conversation. And Alice glitching out as she ran up the stairs at super speed finally convinced me to turn it off. Cripes, this game. . .
K) After THAT, despite Victor’s growing exhaustion, I wrangled everyone together for one final opening of gifts at the present pile – a task that proved shockingly daunting, as Alice kept trying to wander off to play with her lump of clay. >( I did get them all to open a present, though – Smiler got a bowl of fruit; Alice a new element, alcineat, and Victor –
No clue. No pop-up came up for him, and he looked pretty sad after opening his gift, so I’m not entirely sure the poor guy didn’t get an empty box. :( I have to say, this ended up being not the best Winterfest! I mean, it’s already not great when your tree catches on fire and takes your rug with it, but who knew trying to get PRESENTS would be so stressful?
L) I was DETERMINED to end the holiday on a good note, though – and I knew just the way to do it, too. Mainly, by having Victor and Smiler make out, then have Alice cuddle Victor from behind. OT3 feels help everything. :) By then, though, it was midnight, and as Clement headed off up the chimney (first time I’ve caught him as he left!), I let Victor and Alice head to bed, having Smiler amuse themselves by ending more or less where they began – namely, working on their videos on their media production station! They edited the Bunnypad review and transferred the Sim Scuffle video into the station’s inventory, then cuddled Shadow before trying to start some yoga. Though when I left it off, the house had woken EVERYONE up in the middle of the night with creepy noises. . .at least they all had a successful Winterfest!
So, uh, yeah. Not exactly what I was expecting out of this Winterfest update for my OT3 trio! O.o At least MOST of the day was pretty good? They did get to have some cute moments doing stuff like having a grand meal and making snowpals and decorating the tree together? If only the stupid thing hadn’t caught on fire. . .don’t worry, guys, I’ll replace your rug later! I’ve been thinking I want to update your house a little bit anyway. . .but that’ll have to wait until after the patch that is almost certainly coming tomorrow. Hopefully it doesn’t full-on break all the things!
Writing: Got another good chunk written on “Home Sweet Lair” – Alice has finally dropped the bombshells about Bumby (confirming that he was the “suitor” who raped her sister and burned her house down, and then revealing he’s been wiping the children of Houndsditch’s minds and selling them to pedophiles), and Victor and Smiler were appropriately horrified – and in Victor’s case, guilty that he dragged her into his problems with a ghost bride when clearly she had much bigger fish to fry. Alice assured him that she has no regrets about helping him or Emily (Barkis dying was still getting a monster off the street, just not the one she was originally targeting), but Victor is still insistent they help her now. And Smiler has just pointed out that they’re already accused of murder. . .yeah. Soon we’ll wrap this up with a plan to kill a Bumby! (Or maybe just steal any proof he has of his activities from his office, but – we all know this is gonna end up in murder. Because Bumby.)
YouTube: Just GrayStillPlays today with another Alex Torture Board – “Cars vs secret tunnels in GTA 5!” Alex decided to present Gray of three tunnels of pain today, each with a different theme –
I. The Stalking Tunnel (a tunnel that chased Gray while he went along the road, and which moved from left to right along with his car, allowing him to weave around the various obstacles (discs sticking out of the ground, thumbnail holes, a fun combination of boosts and slow-down circles) as he chased the checkpoint attached to the end – he had to get that checkpoint before he ran out of road underneath him)
II. The Mirrored Tunnel (a long turning tube which had walls that were half-visible, half-invisible, and the visible side had patterns in various blue and red platforms showing Gray where the holes were in the invisible section so he could get through them (adding ramps and breakable walls as he went – oh, AND the whole thing was timed, though it was a generous one minute twenty seconds) – he just had to remember the patterns were mirrored, and also pick a car that could either get under some of the tighter thumbnail holes or straight up over some of the invisible walls)
III. And The Satisfying Inception Tunnel (a tunnel with a checkerboard roof that started twisting a la the hallway in the movie, meaning Gray had to go from driving on the floor to driving on the ceiling, that then forced him to do a wall ride jump into ANOTHER tunnel with a trippy yellow-and-green checkerboard pattern with the win at the end)
Unusually for Alex challenges as of late, each tunnel has a specific car that could beat it, rather than Gray having to find the right car for all three challenges. After eliminating the forklift early on (it couldn’t even fit in the Stalking Tunnel), Gray started trying out cars to see which one did best where (without eliminating too much of his sanity). The winner of the Stalking Tunnel proved to be the armored fuchsia arena car, thanks to having a really good boost that recharged really fast (and even THEN he had to use the curb-boosting trick at the very end of the course to get the speed to hit the checkpoint); the winner of the Mirrored Tunnel was the pink arena bug, thanks to being small enough to fit through a lot of the holes, jumpy enough to leap over the ones it couldn’t get through, and fast enough with its boost to complete the course in time; and the winner of the Satisfying Inception Tunnel ended up being the F1 race car, due to it being able to go pretty much upside-down whenever it needed to and get loads of speed (which is good, as Gray discovered at the very end of the video that Alex put the winning circle just a little too far away from the second tube for him to reach it if he drove along the bottom – he had to wall-ride his way up the side of the tube and launch himself from the ceiling instead). Some premium Gray pain here – and it’s something different from the standard challenge, which is nice too! Good to mix it up a bit. :)
Workout: Back on the bike today – but after looking between the Oxventure and James Turner channels on YouTube and seeing what’s what, I have elected to finish off James’s High School Years and “Dine Out Reloaded” LPs before starting the “Extinction” arc of Oxventure – mostly because I’m REALLY close to the end of each one, and the episodes aren’t particularly long. So, today with my ride I went ahead and watched “I built the most amazing thing ever. High School Years (Part 47)” This was the next episode in Breanne’s series, and it could be summed up like so:
A) James created Breanne’s first outdoor set! Yes, taking inspiration from the comments, James cleaned up the outside of the lot (and even was able to replace the shipping container back there with a proper “shipping container” room that Breanne could use for storage – this involved building the room on the SECOND floor and then lowering it down to the first floor (because Build Mode in Sims lets you do that for some reason) so it’s only visible from the second floor and needs stairs for Breanne to access it, but it is a functional room to shove props in when not needed), then after a few false starts, built a simple “ship” set in the back corner of the lot using a raised triangle floor and some fencing and props from Get Famous. He’s very pleased with it, and to his delight, when he got Breanne’s friend Kenji up there to stand on the mark and test it out for photo-taking purposes, Kenji did the perfect “arms spread in delight” pose that invokes that famous scene from Titanic. XD He’s hoping to build even more sets outside in the future, plus update the interior of the build so there’s changing rooms for incoming models and all that. We’ll see what happens in the next couple of episodes!
B) Breanne got a new roommate! After inviting Kenji over to get his help with a gig (taking pictures of him in goofy poses in his party wear), James noticed her old roommate Kirk in the world and once again tried to figure out if he was still her roommate or not. And this time, he discovered the problem – namely, that Kirk’s bed was still assigned to him, even if he wasn’t actually living there. Unassigning the bed (by having Breanne briefly claim it before claiming back her own bed) reopened the option to ask him to be her roommate – but James thought Kenji, being Breanne’s latest BFF, would be a better choice and had her ask him to move in. Kenji immediately proved to be an awesome roommate by bringing a plate of black-and-white cookies back with him when he brought his stuff over, and taking over cleaning duties. Breanne is very satisfied with this new arrangement, as you might think!
C) Breanne continued to strike out romantically! XD Yeah, uh, James’s attempts to find her some sort of life partner are NOT going well. His first thought was to just make Kenji her boyfriend – but as it turns out, Kenji doesn’t swing that way. James then tried to hook Breanne up with Eula, the yoga instructor at the local gym (after having her do some rock climbing on the climbing walls – she’s gotten up to level 2, and she officially Likes the activity) – their first interactions were a little glitchy, but looked pretty positive. . .and then James invited Eula over the next day, and she started talking to the furniture. Some very thorough digging into her personality finally revealed she was Paranoid. An annoyed James bought Breanne the Observant reward trait so she’d immediately learn all of a Sim’s traits and sent her to the romance festival to scope the room. . .but even there, she kept running into people with traits that James didn’t think were a good fit for poor Breanne. Or her own family members. XD He was WILLING to give it a try with the bartender, despite his Hot-Headed nature – but then the dude started thinking about one of the TEENAGERS hanging around the festival and talking to them, and James went “okay, shit, creepy, let’s go.” At the very end of the episode, Breanne met one final guy, Ravanche, whose facial hair is a bit off but who has a decent personality – this MIGHT be the dude who we see cuddling her in the final thumbnail, but we shall see! So far, though, it is not looking good for poor Breanne as she plays the field. At least she got Eula and Kirk to consider dating? :p
So yeah -- not too shabby, especially when it comes to getting my Chill Valicer Save stuff sorted on tumblr. Might actually have a few minutes later this week to work on that "Smiler's Otherland Domains" post some more. . .we'll see! For now, though, I really do have to go to bed, as, you know, work tomorrow. *grumbles* We'll see what I missed and if anything major came up. Night all!
