Happy Juneteenth
Jun. 19th, 2024 11:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickIt's been a pretty solid day off for me, all things considered -- my AC problem is solved, through the medium of switching ACs with my parents (they didn't really want to spend the money on a new one, and they figured they'd be less annoyed by a noisier AC because they don't spend as much time in their bedroom as I do in mine), and I spent most of the day bumming around in said AC because, you know, heat wave (though Mom was of the opinion it didn't get as hot outside as it did yesterday -- said heat wave may have been overhyped. We shall see!). And I accomplished pretty much everything I hoped to on the old to-do list:
Tumblr: Just worked on Victor Luvs Alice stuff today, it being Wednesday and all – and while I didn’t get quite as much done as I’d hoped (partly due to the timing of the AC switch), I still accomplished a decent amount –
A) Caught up with the dash in the morning, then added Nebby’s birthday fic to the queue (well, I put it in my drafts FIRST, then added it to the queue later on), so that’s all set to fire on Saturday
B) Once Nebby’s fic was set, I worked on my Valicer In The Dark “here are some of the stories I’m planning” post –
I. Cleaning up the entries on the first five stories in the series
II. Adding in the official Greenhouse Arc (where the trio work to clean up an old conservatory Victor found and turn it into a public greenhouse)
III. Talking about how I plan to have the gang go on a score to get Alice’s rabbit doll back from Radcliffe – only to learn that he’s dumped his daughter Angela somewhere dangerous while fleeing the city and having to pivot to go rescue her (Angela being a character from the canceled Alice: Asylum that I am rescuing from the heap – she just so happens to have Mr. Bunny on her when they save her, but Alice is happy to let her keep him)
IV. Expanding on the “stop Dr. Kelman from trying to make us socially compliant” score (mainly noting that it’s going to be an interesting and sad look into Smiler’s childhood pre-Advocates)
V. Talking about “And There Was Only One Bed,” aka the story where the trio goes from “friends” to “polycule”
VI. Talking about the score where Lord E.A. Bethesda hires them for a job – and then tries to kill them instead of paying them, leading them to end up stuck in the deathlands and having to kill a Jabberwock there (which is how Alice gets the real-life version of the Jabberwock Eyestaff for her “scary weapon”)
VII. Mentioning the “saving Smiler from hypothermia” story (and how it’s the first time Smiler cries in front of their partner and metamour)
VIII. Mentioning a score I have in mind with the trio helping the Rail Jacks expose unsafe practices in the train company running all the freight trains (inspired by a “Last Week Tonight” story on freight trains and all the unsafe practices surrounding them)
IX. And finally talking about the story where the gang get invited to a fancy party by one of the top criminal lords. . .only to end up hunted for the bounties on their head
And that is still NOT EVERY STORY I have planned for this lot – that’s just where I’m drawing the line on that particular post. XD Fortunately I think all of the others have the common thread of “ripped from something else I enjoy,” so I can do a follow-up post just for those. (Perhaps I’ll move the Rail Jack score to that one too. . .we’ll see!)
C) And I picked my Song Saturday for this week – “Yellow” by Coldplay, which I see as a “Van Alton” song (aka it has specifically Victor/Smiler vibes). Hey, Victor and Alice have all sorts of songs to themselves, despite my brain’s best efforts to Valicer a lot of them up – Victor and Smiler can have one for themselves too. :P It’s not actually in the queue yet – I haven’t done my write-up for the song – but it’s in the drafts!
. . .Okay, I did more than I thought, especially on that one post. XD But that’s good, since I’m gonna be spending the weekend working on the next Chill Valicer Save update. Gotta get in work on the OTHER stuff I want to post when I can!
Sims 4: Ended up being in a building mood today, so today was (almost) all about working on the Ministry of Joy nightclub –
A) But first, when I got into the game (and got past the various pop-ups – no, seriously, game, I’m actually not that interested in the log-in rewards), I hit the Gallery to see if I could download some potential citizens and lots for my potential Tiny Town Challenge save! Because I was thinking, if I do the multi-fandom version of the challenge (where it’s Smiler Alton, Alice Liddell, Victor Van Dort, Emmett Brown, Mal Kavian (aka the fem Malkavian Fledgling), Preston Garvey, and Wheatley), it might be nice to put some lots in the world representing all their different fandoms too. While I didn’t have any luck finding a Wheatley (I was hoping to find a Servo version, but no dice – and looking for a Servo I could turn INTO Wheatley didn’t yield any results because most of the Servos available for download already had maxed skills, which I did not want, because WHEATLEY), I did find a very nice Preston Garvey by Jenapher11 to add to my Library, along with an awesome-looking Hill Valley Courthouse from Eowyn2707! And as it turns out, looking through my Library revealed I already downloaded a Club Confession and a Red Rocket ages ago, so I’m good there. *nods* I’ll keep looking/poking at things!
B) All right, with my little Gallery trawl done, I moved on into my Building Save so I could get back to work on the Ministry Of Joy! First thing to do – finish covering all the walls downstairs! I thus proceeded to fill the main room with yellow-and-black stripes (excepting behind the DJ booth, which already had its yellow-and-black “spotlight” wallpaper, and the wall behind the bar area, which got yellow and black stripes but in the “bubble” wallpaper instead of just plain paint – led to a bit of trickiness when it transpired that I was going to have a corner over in that area where black touched black, ruining the pattern, but I fixed it by changing the stripe pattern behind the stairs), then – after a bit of thought – did stripes of that glowing Spa Day wall cover in yellow in the “worship” room off to the side, just so I COULD use it without the whole room being overwhelmingly bright glowing yellow. Ended up pairing it with the black swatch of a nice “wavestone” wall covering from Fitness Day, as that was nice and plain and went well with the glowing bits. I also ended up redoing the floor in the worship room by looking at my black flooring options and spotting a REALLY cool Get Famous marble floor that has lots of veins in it that made it look like to me like there was loads of energy flowing through the floor or something. :D What can I say, I just thought it was neat! And better than the carpet.
C) With the walls properly painted/wallpapered/what-have-you, I then did a bit of decorating –
I. Putting the yellow-black-and-white twisty streamers up behind the DJ booth, flanked on either side by those wooden slat “stripes” wall decoration you get with Eco Lifestyle (because I couldn’t get the streamers to go fully across the wall – the one next to the door into the worship room wouldn’t place), then putting up a couple of copies of that “Sim with a microphone in yellow and black” poster (that I WOULD have put up upstairs if the karaoke room walls didn’t go completely down in “walls cutaway” mode; still not sure what’s up with that) and the big decal of yellow and black and white party balloons underneath the streamers. I also put up a few of those neon lights you get with High School Years on some of the black stripes on the walls on either side of the dance floor – purple sunglasses and a yellow lightning bolt on one wall, a purple bow and a yellow star on the other. You know, to really bring the party vibes. XD
II. Putting a couple of “man” and “woman” decals up on either side of the bathroom door, along with arrows pointing to the door, just so all incoming Sims would know where the bathroom was
III. Putting some more yellow pipes on the exterior – I wish they came in more varying shapes, or at least horizontal variants! But I did the best I could with what I had. Stuff like this really makes me wonder if I shouldn’t invest in that T.O.O.L. mod, just to rotate things I can’t normally rotate. . .
D) With that sorted, I took the time to acquire a few needed objects – a yellow bubble blower; a thermostat by the front door; a big arcade machine; and a photo booth – then turned my attention to something very important – namely, getting the lighting situation sorted, since I currently just had a lot of those “Simple Saucer” lights and a couple of other random pretty-looking lights scattered around everywhere that wasn’t the bathroom. XD I thus deleted all the lights from the corner by the stairs (nearly deleting the entire ROOM in the process – good thing it is easy to undo in this game!), then started going through my various ceiling light options, as I always prefer those to other lights. I was really struggling trying to find a light that I thought looked good that didn’t actually hang down too low and actually lit the space (why are some of these lights so dim?!) –
And then I stumbled across something I wouldn’t have considered normally – the Growing Together recreation center lobby lights. Two paired partial-circle lights (one a larger half-circle, one a smaller almost-a-half-circle) that came in a good black-and-white swatch and lit the room well – and which, when I looked at them, kind of looked like an unfinished spiral.
Yup, those were my lights! :D I promptly plomped a bunch of them in the main room and a couple in the worship room, carefully deleting out all of the other lights. I thought, “well, they’re kind of big, but they will definitely do the job – and oh hey, that section of blank wall by the stairs, next to the bathroom door, would probably be perfect for the photo booth! Let’s put that over – wait, why can’t I place – oh. It’s intersecting with the light.”
Fortunately, this is exactly the situation for which the size-down feature in the game was invented. :p I thus smallified the offending light in order to fit in the photo booth in the spot where I wanted it, then smallified all the others too so it didn’t look weird. Now they take up less space on the ceiling while still giving off plenty of light. *nods* I approve.
E) With that taken care of, I decided the next step was to set up the tables and chairs by the bar – after considering my options again, I chose the small circular base game table with the long yellow tablecloth (part of the Princess Cordelia collection) and paired it with the yellow-and-black Vintage Glamour dining chairs I’d already decided on. I then put two four-seater tables next to the bar, along the back wall, and a two-seater table (for Sims who want some more privacy) in the back corner near the stairs. All of this is subject to change once I get my CC back into the game, but it’s about as good as I can get for yellow-and-black dining for now!
F) Okay, main room is almost done (just gotta figure out a few more decorations and such) – time to go back to the worship room and set up some chairs in a circle so that Sims can properly contemplate the curvy statue there that’s supposed to represent Mar-Mal. :p I thus hopped into the “Living Chairs” section of the catalog and started looking for good yellow seats. I was about to settle on the living version of the same Vintage Glamour dining chairs I’d gotten for the main room –
And then I spotted a very cool yellow-and-black living chair from City Living that was apparently inspired by origami AND had a much better comfort rating. :D I’d never even SEEN this chair before, damn! So into the worship room it went, and around the bubble blower too. :) I wanted to put the bubble blower in the worship room too, so Sims had something to do there other than just sit in contemplation of the statue, but while it did FIT, I wasn’t sure how accessible it was. So currently it’s just chilling out upstairs. I will find the proper place for it eventually!
G) Speaking of the upstairs, right, yes, I was trying to get THAT sorted, wasn’t I? Let’s see –
I. I stuck the cool globe-arrow-sundial thing I found on the roof, since I really did want to use it somewhere and that was as good a place as any for it
II. I put in a few placeholder doors so Sims would be able to access the roof “balcony” sections from the two upstairs rooms – I’m not currently sold on their placement, but at least they’re up there! Also a door to connect the two rooms, as I nearly forgot that XD
III. I threw a hot tub and a performance space onto the section of the roof right above the worship room – I mean, why not? Gotta have things for Sims to do up there, and a cool hot tub and a place to perform your own jams feels legit
IV. Looking for more activities, I stumbled across the meditation stools and puffs from Spa Day and its update, and realized “actually, wait – making Sims meditate around the statue might be a better idea and sell the whole ‘worship’ thing, wouldn’t it?” So I threw a couple of those in that room for later consideration
V. And back on the roof, I found that the new small telescope has a good yellow and black swatch, so I put that on the corner of the front balcony, and I put a couple of those loungers with the spiral pattern nearby to the bench I’d already put up there.
H) Oh, and I also moved the entire build forward on the lot, because I wasn’t happy with how far away it was from what I considered the “front” of the lot. *nods* So that’s all good now.
Whew – busy day! But I made some good progress, and I’m pretty happy with how the build is coming together. :) Just gotta finish decorating the downstairs, decide on some activities for the Worship Room (maybe Spa Day stuff if I’m doing the meditation thing there?), and figure out what exactly I’m doing with the upstairs portion. :) Oh, and then give it a lovely little once-over with my CC, once that’s back in the game. :) Good times, good times~
Writing: Got another chunk done on “Londerland Bloodlines – Downtown Queensland,” with Alice finding Hannah’s appointment book (and discovering that both Arthur from the bounty hunter place and Vandal Cleaver are in it, to her disgust and annoyance) and discovering that Jezebel Locke is apparently in the Brooklyn Suite at the Empire Arms Hotel. So she’s off to kill herself a bitch, while Victor calls the CDC to let them know about Hannah and Paul and get himself checked out. *nods* We’re about ten pages from the end here now – Alice just has to kill Jezebel, report to the Anarchs, and then meet back up with Victor at their newly-shared apartment. So yeah, I think you can expect Chapter Two of this monster around the end of June/beginning of July!
YouTube: Watched almost everything I wanted to watch this evening, I’m glad to say, with just one video outstanding now –
A) First up, from the Watch Later, we had some OXBoxtra lists –
I. “7 Terrifying Games That Never Stopped Hunting You” – Jane and Mike talking about those games with a signature enemy that was ALWAYS on your ass! Who could forget Mr. X from Resident Evil 2 and its remake? The Xenomorph from Alien: Isolation? And EVERYONE EVER from Haunting Ground (as they rightly said, that is “Enemies Hunting You: The Game”)? Only people who’d never heard about them before, that’s who! And if you are one of those people, congratulations on probably having fewer game-related nightmares than the rest of us. At least until you saw the video. :p
II. “7 D&D Parodies That Prove You Can’t Escape Dungeons & Dragons Anywhere” – Jane and Ellen (it was going to be Mike and Ellen but Mike was taken away for sharing a name with a D&D monster in 3rd Edition XD) talking about the D&D parodies that keep popping up in video games that should have nothing to do with The World’s Most Famous Tabletop Roleplaying Game! Parodies that range from just fun little Easter Eggs (the unnamed tabletop gaming set up you can find exploring some Seattle apartments in The Last Of Us Part II), to full in-universe games that not only secretly reference the game studio’s very first game, but also can net you goodies as part of a side mission to do the late DM’s treasure hunt (the “Fatal Fortress” game set-up you can encounter in Prey), to full-on DLC that eventually spawned not only its own stand-alone game later on, but also a real life source book (“Bunkers & Badasses” from the Borderlands series – and yes, they DID defictionalize it!). And, of course, Mike managed to sneak back at the end to plug their own largely-D&D-focused tabletop gaming channel. XD I mean, personally, my heart currently belongs to Blades In The Dark, but still – I can respect the granddaddy of them all. XD
B) And then, from the Subs, we had the latest from GrayStillPlays – “Every time I crash, I add one wheel in GTA 5!” This is a Torture Board somewhat in line with that one he did a while back where, if he crashed or hit something during a challenge, his car was automatically replaced with a longer one. In THIS one, Gray started out with a modded one-tire vehicle (which was, rather literally, a single tire Gray got in and drove around) and had to complete a series of four challenges with it. If he hit or got hit by an obstacle on a challenge, though, his car would vanish, and he’d have to reset and return to the starting line, where another vehicle with more tires would be waiting for him. (He could also deliberately destroy his vehicle to get a new one to spawn if he thought the current one sucked.) The script started out by spawning vehicles with one extra tire up to the spawn of the six-wheeled truck, then went to adding two tires until Gray finally maxed everything out at about the sixteen/eighteen tire mark and got a ridiculously long caterpillar of an arena truck (even painted green!). And what where the challenges that he had to complete with increasing numbers of tires? Well –
I. How Many Wheels Is Better For Jumps? – Gray had to drive down a simple straight yellow road making three YEET jumps along the way – Gray wasn’t sure if they got longer or not, and I wasn’t sure if the ramp got steeper or not, but PRESUMABLY the jumps got tougher the farther he went. This was a “safe” challenge because crashing into the wall after a failed jump or going off the board didn’t count as a vehicle-despawning hit, and indeed, Gray got through it with the driveable single tire (after many, MANY attempts as the damn thing loved to go off the road).
II. Minecraft Mining – Gray had to survive 69 seconds (of course) on the Giant Minecraft Block Of Pain, driving around another, smaller Minecraft block that was actively being mined by two pickaxes, with little grass cubes flying all over the place. Oh, and of course there was a sword rotating around the larger block like a giant clock hand of doom, ready to smack into Gray and absolutely ruin his day. Now, the board creators were nice and gave Gray a one-time Repel power-up (though they bound it to the most annoying key for him to hit, F7), but what Gray REALLY appreciated is that they hadn’t made the sword longer – because he found out that there was one corner of the board where the sword couldn’t reach and where grass blocks never landed. Meaning he could just sit there to wait out the timer and not have to worry about anything. XD Gray – if you give him the opportunity to cheat. . .
III. Down The Twisty Rainbow You Go – Gray had 27 seconds to make it down a snaking shallow rainbow staircase in the sky before the wall came up again. Another “safe” challenge, this one was tricky mostly because, thanks to his experiences with many, MANY stair challenges, Gray knew that keeping traction on a staircase going downward was TOUGH. The eternal struggle was to find a way to Tokyo drift down without going off the sides – though, again, thanks to all the stair challenges he’s done, it wasn’t as hard as it first seemed.
IV. Yeet Bowling But You Are The Pin – Gray had to get across a horrible long rectangular box of bowling balls being shoved around by hydraulic press Yeeters on all sides in order to make it to the ramp on the other side and to the win. This one was bad because, well, unless you had the PERFECT vehicle, dodging was just not going to happen – Gray just straight-up had to cross his fingers and hope he got lucky! Though once again, he got one instance of Repel if he needed it, because the creators want him to have the ILLUSION of hope, if not hope itself. :p
So – what made it in the end? Well, as stated, Gray actually got past the first challenge with the one-tire vehicle, but then couldn’t even make it past the first jump on the two-wheeled scooter they provided him, leading him to discover that he could straight-up destroy bad cars if they failed him. The three-wheeled and four-wheeled vehicles both fell to Minecraft, while the five-wheeled monstrosity they cobbled together again couldn’t make it past the jumps (it could do a sick flip at the end of the first one to make it onto the platform, but not the second). The six-wheeled truck looked like it might be the winner at first, thanks to it easily making the jumps, finding the Cheat Corner on the Minecraft block, and making it down the Twisty Rainbow with the minimum amount of drifting, but it was bested by Yeet Bowling. And THEN he started getting things like the rocket truck, various tractor trailers, and massive sports team trucks, before finally landing on the Ultra Mega Caterpillar Truck. Some of which were able to make the jumps (including Ultra Mega Caterpillar Truck, surprisingly), but none of which were able to get past the Mining just because they were too big of targets. But how could Gray progress if he’d hit the Ultra Mega Caterpillar Truck?
Simple – the board creators reset him back at the beginning with a one-tire vehicle! Except THIS one was faster than the one-tire vehicle Gray was driving before. Yes, as it turned out, the trick behind this particular board was that, when you circled back around, you got DIFFERENT vehicles than you did the first time – and while the second one-tire vehicle was again taken out by Minecraft, the second MOTORCYCLE was an actually LEGIT motorcycle (instead of a lousy slow scooter) and proved to have the speed, agility, and sheer luck to make it past all four challenges to the end! So I guess the ideal number of tires, at least when trapped in a nightmarish video game by Alex and his minions, is two. Good to know. XD
Workout: Another night on the bike, another night with the GrayStillPlays compilation “6 Dangerous Experiments You Should NEVER Try…” Today, I finished off the Help Me section (where Gray had to do such things as shave an armpit, pull a cat out of a snake’s intestines, and make civet poop coffee); pedaled my way through the “smash this wooden pose dummy in various ways” section (I don’t recall the name of the game, but it featured Gray hitting the dummy with a bowling ball, making it ride a shopping cart down a ramp, and bungee jump into spikes – when he wasn’t accidentally glitching out the game by throwing the dummy out of bounds); and started the Room Smash section (which features Gray using his infamous Hax to turn circular saws into room-destroying death machines, smashing up science labs and atomizing bars). Good stuff – I look forward to the next two days of it. :)
Whew! That was a lot, but I'm glad I got it all done. And now I really have to get to bed, because I do have work tomorrow and doing this write-up took longer than anticipated. ^^; Night all!
Tumblr: Just worked on Victor Luvs Alice stuff today, it being Wednesday and all – and while I didn’t get quite as much done as I’d hoped (partly due to the timing of the AC switch), I still accomplished a decent amount –
A) Caught up with the dash in the morning, then added Nebby’s birthday fic to the queue (well, I put it in my drafts FIRST, then added it to the queue later on), so that’s all set to fire on Saturday
B) Once Nebby’s fic was set, I worked on my Valicer In The Dark “here are some of the stories I’m planning” post –
I. Cleaning up the entries on the first five stories in the series
II. Adding in the official Greenhouse Arc (where the trio work to clean up an old conservatory Victor found and turn it into a public greenhouse)
III. Talking about how I plan to have the gang go on a score to get Alice’s rabbit doll back from Radcliffe – only to learn that he’s dumped his daughter Angela somewhere dangerous while fleeing the city and having to pivot to go rescue her (Angela being a character from the canceled Alice: Asylum that I am rescuing from the heap – she just so happens to have Mr. Bunny on her when they save her, but Alice is happy to let her keep him)
IV. Expanding on the “stop Dr. Kelman from trying to make us socially compliant” score (mainly noting that it’s going to be an interesting and sad look into Smiler’s childhood pre-Advocates)
V. Talking about “And There Was Only One Bed,” aka the story where the trio goes from “friends” to “polycule”
VI. Talking about the score where Lord E.A. Bethesda hires them for a job – and then tries to kill them instead of paying them, leading them to end up stuck in the deathlands and having to kill a Jabberwock there (which is how Alice gets the real-life version of the Jabberwock Eyestaff for her “scary weapon”)
VII. Mentioning the “saving Smiler from hypothermia” story (and how it’s the first time Smiler cries in front of their partner and metamour)
VIII. Mentioning a score I have in mind with the trio helping the Rail Jacks expose unsafe practices in the train company running all the freight trains (inspired by a “Last Week Tonight” story on freight trains and all the unsafe practices surrounding them)
IX. And finally talking about the story where the gang get invited to a fancy party by one of the top criminal lords. . .only to end up hunted for the bounties on their head
And that is still NOT EVERY STORY I have planned for this lot – that’s just where I’m drawing the line on that particular post. XD Fortunately I think all of the others have the common thread of “ripped from something else I enjoy,” so I can do a follow-up post just for those. (Perhaps I’ll move the Rail Jack score to that one too. . .we’ll see!)
C) And I picked my Song Saturday for this week – “Yellow” by Coldplay, which I see as a “Van Alton” song (aka it has specifically Victor/Smiler vibes). Hey, Victor and Alice have all sorts of songs to themselves, despite my brain’s best efforts to Valicer a lot of them up – Victor and Smiler can have one for themselves too. :P It’s not actually in the queue yet – I haven’t done my write-up for the song – but it’s in the drafts!
. . .Okay, I did more than I thought, especially on that one post. XD But that’s good, since I’m gonna be spending the weekend working on the next Chill Valicer Save update. Gotta get in work on the OTHER stuff I want to post when I can!
Sims 4: Ended up being in a building mood today, so today was (almost) all about working on the Ministry of Joy nightclub –
A) But first, when I got into the game (and got past the various pop-ups – no, seriously, game, I’m actually not that interested in the log-in rewards), I hit the Gallery to see if I could download some potential citizens and lots for my potential Tiny Town Challenge save! Because I was thinking, if I do the multi-fandom version of the challenge (where it’s Smiler Alton, Alice Liddell, Victor Van Dort, Emmett Brown, Mal Kavian (aka the fem Malkavian Fledgling), Preston Garvey, and Wheatley), it might be nice to put some lots in the world representing all their different fandoms too. While I didn’t have any luck finding a Wheatley (I was hoping to find a Servo version, but no dice – and looking for a Servo I could turn INTO Wheatley didn’t yield any results because most of the Servos available for download already had maxed skills, which I did not want, because WHEATLEY), I did find a very nice Preston Garvey by Jenapher11 to add to my Library, along with an awesome-looking Hill Valley Courthouse from Eowyn2707! And as it turns out, looking through my Library revealed I already downloaded a Club Confession and a Red Rocket ages ago, so I’m good there. *nods* I’ll keep looking/poking at things!
B) All right, with my little Gallery trawl done, I moved on into my Building Save so I could get back to work on the Ministry Of Joy! First thing to do – finish covering all the walls downstairs! I thus proceeded to fill the main room with yellow-and-black stripes (excepting behind the DJ booth, which already had its yellow-and-black “spotlight” wallpaper, and the wall behind the bar area, which got yellow and black stripes but in the “bubble” wallpaper instead of just plain paint – led to a bit of trickiness when it transpired that I was going to have a corner over in that area where black touched black, ruining the pattern, but I fixed it by changing the stripe pattern behind the stairs), then – after a bit of thought – did stripes of that glowing Spa Day wall cover in yellow in the “worship” room off to the side, just so I COULD use it without the whole room being overwhelmingly bright glowing yellow. Ended up pairing it with the black swatch of a nice “wavestone” wall covering from Fitness Day, as that was nice and plain and went well with the glowing bits. I also ended up redoing the floor in the worship room by looking at my black flooring options and spotting a REALLY cool Get Famous marble floor that has lots of veins in it that made it look like to me like there was loads of energy flowing through the floor or something. :D What can I say, I just thought it was neat! And better than the carpet.
C) With the walls properly painted/wallpapered/what-have-you, I then did a bit of decorating –
I. Putting the yellow-black-and-white twisty streamers up behind the DJ booth, flanked on either side by those wooden slat “stripes” wall decoration you get with Eco Lifestyle (because I couldn’t get the streamers to go fully across the wall – the one next to the door into the worship room wouldn’t place), then putting up a couple of copies of that “Sim with a microphone in yellow and black” poster (that I WOULD have put up upstairs if the karaoke room walls didn’t go completely down in “walls cutaway” mode; still not sure what’s up with that) and the big decal of yellow and black and white party balloons underneath the streamers. I also put up a few of those neon lights you get with High School Years on some of the black stripes on the walls on either side of the dance floor – purple sunglasses and a yellow lightning bolt on one wall, a purple bow and a yellow star on the other. You know, to really bring the party vibes. XD
II. Putting a couple of “man” and “woman” decals up on either side of the bathroom door, along with arrows pointing to the door, just so all incoming Sims would know where the bathroom was
III. Putting some more yellow pipes on the exterior – I wish they came in more varying shapes, or at least horizontal variants! But I did the best I could with what I had. Stuff like this really makes me wonder if I shouldn’t invest in that T.O.O.L. mod, just to rotate things I can’t normally rotate. . .
D) With that sorted, I took the time to acquire a few needed objects – a yellow bubble blower; a thermostat by the front door; a big arcade machine; and a photo booth – then turned my attention to something very important – namely, getting the lighting situation sorted, since I currently just had a lot of those “Simple Saucer” lights and a couple of other random pretty-looking lights scattered around everywhere that wasn’t the bathroom. XD I thus deleted all the lights from the corner by the stairs (nearly deleting the entire ROOM in the process – good thing it is easy to undo in this game!), then started going through my various ceiling light options, as I always prefer those to other lights. I was really struggling trying to find a light that I thought looked good that didn’t actually hang down too low and actually lit the space (why are some of these lights so dim?!) –
And then I stumbled across something I wouldn’t have considered normally – the Growing Together recreation center lobby lights. Two paired partial-circle lights (one a larger half-circle, one a smaller almost-a-half-circle) that came in a good black-and-white swatch and lit the room well – and which, when I looked at them, kind of looked like an unfinished spiral.
Yup, those were my lights! :D I promptly plomped a bunch of them in the main room and a couple in the worship room, carefully deleting out all of the other lights. I thought, “well, they’re kind of big, but they will definitely do the job – and oh hey, that section of blank wall by the stairs, next to the bathroom door, would probably be perfect for the photo booth! Let’s put that over – wait, why can’t I place – oh. It’s intersecting with the light.”
Fortunately, this is exactly the situation for which the size-down feature in the game was invented. :p I thus smallified the offending light in order to fit in the photo booth in the spot where I wanted it, then smallified all the others too so it didn’t look weird. Now they take up less space on the ceiling while still giving off plenty of light. *nods* I approve.
E) With that taken care of, I decided the next step was to set up the tables and chairs by the bar – after considering my options again, I chose the small circular base game table with the long yellow tablecloth (part of the Princess Cordelia collection) and paired it with the yellow-and-black Vintage Glamour dining chairs I’d already decided on. I then put two four-seater tables next to the bar, along the back wall, and a two-seater table (for Sims who want some more privacy) in the back corner near the stairs. All of this is subject to change once I get my CC back into the game, but it’s about as good as I can get for yellow-and-black dining for now!
F) Okay, main room is almost done (just gotta figure out a few more decorations and such) – time to go back to the worship room and set up some chairs in a circle so that Sims can properly contemplate the curvy statue there that’s supposed to represent Mar-Mal. :p I thus hopped into the “Living Chairs” section of the catalog and started looking for good yellow seats. I was about to settle on the living version of the same Vintage Glamour dining chairs I’d gotten for the main room –
And then I spotted a very cool yellow-and-black living chair from City Living that was apparently inspired by origami AND had a much better comfort rating. :D I’d never even SEEN this chair before, damn! So into the worship room it went, and around the bubble blower too. :) I wanted to put the bubble blower in the worship room too, so Sims had something to do there other than just sit in contemplation of the statue, but while it did FIT, I wasn’t sure how accessible it was. So currently it’s just chilling out upstairs. I will find the proper place for it eventually!
G) Speaking of the upstairs, right, yes, I was trying to get THAT sorted, wasn’t I? Let’s see –
I. I stuck the cool globe-arrow-sundial thing I found on the roof, since I really did want to use it somewhere and that was as good a place as any for it
II. I put in a few placeholder doors so Sims would be able to access the roof “balcony” sections from the two upstairs rooms – I’m not currently sold on their placement, but at least they’re up there! Also a door to connect the two rooms, as I nearly forgot that XD
III. I threw a hot tub and a performance space onto the section of the roof right above the worship room – I mean, why not? Gotta have things for Sims to do up there, and a cool hot tub and a place to perform your own jams feels legit
IV. Looking for more activities, I stumbled across the meditation stools and puffs from Spa Day and its update, and realized “actually, wait – making Sims meditate around the statue might be a better idea and sell the whole ‘worship’ thing, wouldn’t it?” So I threw a couple of those in that room for later consideration
V. And back on the roof, I found that the new small telescope has a good yellow and black swatch, so I put that on the corner of the front balcony, and I put a couple of those loungers with the spiral pattern nearby to the bench I’d already put up there.
H) Oh, and I also moved the entire build forward on the lot, because I wasn’t happy with how far away it was from what I considered the “front” of the lot. *nods* So that’s all good now.
Whew – busy day! But I made some good progress, and I’m pretty happy with how the build is coming together. :) Just gotta finish decorating the downstairs, decide on some activities for the Worship Room (maybe Spa Day stuff if I’m doing the meditation thing there?), and figure out what exactly I’m doing with the upstairs portion. :) Oh, and then give it a lovely little once-over with my CC, once that’s back in the game. :) Good times, good times~
Writing: Got another chunk done on “Londerland Bloodlines – Downtown Queensland,” with Alice finding Hannah’s appointment book (and discovering that both Arthur from the bounty hunter place and Vandal Cleaver are in it, to her disgust and annoyance) and discovering that Jezebel Locke is apparently in the Brooklyn Suite at the Empire Arms Hotel. So she’s off to kill herself a bitch, while Victor calls the CDC to let them know about Hannah and Paul and get himself checked out. *nods* We’re about ten pages from the end here now – Alice just has to kill Jezebel, report to the Anarchs, and then meet back up with Victor at their newly-shared apartment. So yeah, I think you can expect Chapter Two of this monster around the end of June/beginning of July!
YouTube: Watched almost everything I wanted to watch this evening, I’m glad to say, with just one video outstanding now –
A) First up, from the Watch Later, we had some OXBoxtra lists –
I. “7 Terrifying Games That Never Stopped Hunting You” – Jane and Mike talking about those games with a signature enemy that was ALWAYS on your ass! Who could forget Mr. X from Resident Evil 2 and its remake? The Xenomorph from Alien: Isolation? And EVERYONE EVER from Haunting Ground (as they rightly said, that is “Enemies Hunting You: The Game”)? Only people who’d never heard about them before, that’s who! And if you are one of those people, congratulations on probably having fewer game-related nightmares than the rest of us. At least until you saw the video. :p
II. “7 D&D Parodies That Prove You Can’t Escape Dungeons & Dragons Anywhere” – Jane and Ellen (it was going to be Mike and Ellen but Mike was taken away for sharing a name with a D&D monster in 3rd Edition XD) talking about the D&D parodies that keep popping up in video games that should have nothing to do with The World’s Most Famous Tabletop Roleplaying Game! Parodies that range from just fun little Easter Eggs (the unnamed tabletop gaming set up you can find exploring some Seattle apartments in The Last Of Us Part II), to full in-universe games that not only secretly reference the game studio’s very first game, but also can net you goodies as part of a side mission to do the late DM’s treasure hunt (the “Fatal Fortress” game set-up you can encounter in Prey), to full-on DLC that eventually spawned not only its own stand-alone game later on, but also a real life source book (“Bunkers & Badasses” from the Borderlands series – and yes, they DID defictionalize it!). And, of course, Mike managed to sneak back at the end to plug their own largely-D&D-focused tabletop gaming channel. XD I mean, personally, my heart currently belongs to Blades In The Dark, but still – I can respect the granddaddy of them all. XD
B) And then, from the Subs, we had the latest from GrayStillPlays – “Every time I crash, I add one wheel in GTA 5!” This is a Torture Board somewhat in line with that one he did a while back where, if he crashed or hit something during a challenge, his car was automatically replaced with a longer one. In THIS one, Gray started out with a modded one-tire vehicle (which was, rather literally, a single tire Gray got in and drove around) and had to complete a series of four challenges with it. If he hit or got hit by an obstacle on a challenge, though, his car would vanish, and he’d have to reset and return to the starting line, where another vehicle with more tires would be waiting for him. (He could also deliberately destroy his vehicle to get a new one to spawn if he thought the current one sucked.) The script started out by spawning vehicles with one extra tire up to the spawn of the six-wheeled truck, then went to adding two tires until Gray finally maxed everything out at about the sixteen/eighteen tire mark and got a ridiculously long caterpillar of an arena truck (even painted green!). And what where the challenges that he had to complete with increasing numbers of tires? Well –
I. How Many Wheels Is Better For Jumps? – Gray had to drive down a simple straight yellow road making three YEET jumps along the way – Gray wasn’t sure if they got longer or not, and I wasn’t sure if the ramp got steeper or not, but PRESUMABLY the jumps got tougher the farther he went. This was a “safe” challenge because crashing into the wall after a failed jump or going off the board didn’t count as a vehicle-despawning hit, and indeed, Gray got through it with the driveable single tire (after many, MANY attempts as the damn thing loved to go off the road).
II. Minecraft Mining – Gray had to survive 69 seconds (of course) on the Giant Minecraft Block Of Pain, driving around another, smaller Minecraft block that was actively being mined by two pickaxes, with little grass cubes flying all over the place. Oh, and of course there was a sword rotating around the larger block like a giant clock hand of doom, ready to smack into Gray and absolutely ruin his day. Now, the board creators were nice and gave Gray a one-time Repel power-up (though they bound it to the most annoying key for him to hit, F7), but what Gray REALLY appreciated is that they hadn’t made the sword longer – because he found out that there was one corner of the board where the sword couldn’t reach and where grass blocks never landed. Meaning he could just sit there to wait out the timer and not have to worry about anything. XD Gray – if you give him the opportunity to cheat. . .
III. Down The Twisty Rainbow You Go – Gray had 27 seconds to make it down a snaking shallow rainbow staircase in the sky before the wall came up again. Another “safe” challenge, this one was tricky mostly because, thanks to his experiences with many, MANY stair challenges, Gray knew that keeping traction on a staircase going downward was TOUGH. The eternal struggle was to find a way to Tokyo drift down without going off the sides – though, again, thanks to all the stair challenges he’s done, it wasn’t as hard as it first seemed.
IV. Yeet Bowling But You Are The Pin – Gray had to get across a horrible long rectangular box of bowling balls being shoved around by hydraulic press Yeeters on all sides in order to make it to the ramp on the other side and to the win. This one was bad because, well, unless you had the PERFECT vehicle, dodging was just not going to happen – Gray just straight-up had to cross his fingers and hope he got lucky! Though once again, he got one instance of Repel if he needed it, because the creators want him to have the ILLUSION of hope, if not hope itself. :p
So – what made it in the end? Well, as stated, Gray actually got past the first challenge with the one-tire vehicle, but then couldn’t even make it past the first jump on the two-wheeled scooter they provided him, leading him to discover that he could straight-up destroy bad cars if they failed him. The three-wheeled and four-wheeled vehicles both fell to Minecraft, while the five-wheeled monstrosity they cobbled together again couldn’t make it past the jumps (it could do a sick flip at the end of the first one to make it onto the platform, but not the second). The six-wheeled truck looked like it might be the winner at first, thanks to it easily making the jumps, finding the Cheat Corner on the Minecraft block, and making it down the Twisty Rainbow with the minimum amount of drifting, but it was bested by Yeet Bowling. And THEN he started getting things like the rocket truck, various tractor trailers, and massive sports team trucks, before finally landing on the Ultra Mega Caterpillar Truck. Some of which were able to make the jumps (including Ultra Mega Caterpillar Truck, surprisingly), but none of which were able to get past the Mining just because they were too big of targets. But how could Gray progress if he’d hit the Ultra Mega Caterpillar Truck?
Simple – the board creators reset him back at the beginning with a one-tire vehicle! Except THIS one was faster than the one-tire vehicle Gray was driving before. Yes, as it turned out, the trick behind this particular board was that, when you circled back around, you got DIFFERENT vehicles than you did the first time – and while the second one-tire vehicle was again taken out by Minecraft, the second MOTORCYCLE was an actually LEGIT motorcycle (instead of a lousy slow scooter) and proved to have the speed, agility, and sheer luck to make it past all four challenges to the end! So I guess the ideal number of tires, at least when trapped in a nightmarish video game by Alex and his minions, is two. Good to know. XD
Workout: Another night on the bike, another night with the GrayStillPlays compilation “6 Dangerous Experiments You Should NEVER Try…” Today, I finished off the Help Me section (where Gray had to do such things as shave an armpit, pull a cat out of a snake’s intestines, and make civet poop coffee); pedaled my way through the “smash this wooden pose dummy in various ways” section (I don’t recall the name of the game, but it featured Gray hitting the dummy with a bowling ball, making it ride a shopping cart down a ramp, and bungee jump into spikes – when he wasn’t accidentally glitching out the game by throwing the dummy out of bounds); and started the Room Smash section (which features Gray using his infamous Hax to turn circular saws into room-destroying death machines, smashing up science labs and atomizing bars). Good stuff – I look forward to the next two days of it. :)
Whew! That was a lot, but I'm glad I got it all done. And now I really have to get to bed, because I do have work tomorrow and doing this write-up took longer than anticipated. ^^; Night all!
