Sad Times Monday
Sep. 9th, 2024 11:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickSo -- I had a bit of a shitty Monday morning. I woke up already in a bad mood from having trouble sleeping the night before (which isn't a surprise, since I pretty much never sleep well, and I'm sure I'm PMSing which isn't helping), and all throughout the morning I kept thinking about something one of my coworkers said about hoping I wasn't bringing in COVID with me last week (because my parents kept testing positive, even if I was testing negative). So, after breakfast, I went "if they really don't want me there, I won't come in" and texted my coworkers saying I was taking the day off because my parents were still positive. I then went to wash my breakfast dish and encountered my dad (both of us masked and Dad trying to stay on the other side of the room from me) and let him know what I'd done --
Cue him yelling at me for letting my coworkers control what I do. I get that what he was pissed off about was that my coworker made that comment in the first place, but the way he put it -- well, it made me feel like I couldn't win no matter what I did, because somebody was going to be angry with me. Cue me retreating to my room (after letting Mom know what was going on) and then later having a crying jag that lasted a good portion of the morning because everything has been so fucking much lately (and I'm not even the one with the fucking health problems). *heavy sigh* So that was -- fun. I'm feeling better now, fortunately (mostly from managing to get some shit done and doing some actually fun things), but that sure as hell taught me not to make decisions like that anymore. Tomorrow I'm just going to test, and as long as I'm still negative, head to work.
Anyway -- despite the heavy morning sads, I did get some stuff accomplished --
Tumblr: Spent the day on Victor Luvs Alice, like most Mondays, doing the following –
A) I went through my tracked tags before lunch and added someone’s really beautiful drawing of a robo-deathclaw, somebody’s sketch of a Smiler OC (I’m not sure if it was THEIR OC or not, there’s a lot of drawing others’ OCs in this fandom), a video by the same person using all their speakers to blast The Smiler’s music loud enough to make the room vibrate (fortunately the video itself wasn’t particularly loud – it was fun, though, and it actually featured one of my favorite parts in the soundtrack, so), and someone’s post of a bunch of key pendants (along with a keyhole heart and a butterfly) in a heart box tagged with “alice madness returns” (I mean, it DOES fit the aesthetic) to my drafts for later reblogging. Was hoping for a little more stuff (including something from the “corpse bride” tag), but this will do to bulk up the drafts a little bit.
B) I drafted out my “here’s the tiny town lot I built – so to speak – and uploaded to the Gallery” post right after lunch – put up a couple of pictures of the whole lot and a close-up of what you get on each of the sub-lots, and explained where it was, all the Lot Traits and Lot Challenges, and how it’s a sub-$20K lot so any Sim could buy this straight from the Gallery if that’s what you want. We’ll see what people think on Wednesday!
C) I reblogged Satirical’s take on the WIP tag game I did the other day this evening, with my word TIMES – he naturally did “Beneath A Broken Sky” snippets, and included both a little sneak peek at an upcoming chapter (featuring poor Victor being horrified when worm-vampire man Dommik told him he had to change and then started peeling off his human skin) and one of my favorite passages from the fic (the first time Victor saw Alice’s eyes, and how gorgeous he found them). So that was nice. :)
D) And I went through the “blades in the dark” tag tonight and added someone’s very cool and spooky “guy being haunted” fanart, someone else’s depiction of a cult leader NPC they’re using in their campaign, and a third someone’s very-well-done sketches of their Hound character and his trials and tribulations to my drafts.
So yeah – at least I have plenty of shit to reblog now, should I so choose!
Sims 4: Once I finally got past the morning sads after lunch, I ended up hopping into the Chill Valicer Save again – this time for some food sale funtimes –
A) Started with everyone where I’d left them on Saturday – Alice sleeping, Victor working on his new song, Smiler editing their latest SimsTube video (“Karaoke Til Spooky,” the singing video they were working on when they got interrupted by the house making weird noises), and Marm playing chess while his durability slowly degraded. I had Smiler finish their edits on the video (just had to add some fancy transitions), hype it up to their followers, then upload it, while I sent Marm out to feed Toothy the cowplant –
And while the game informed me “hey, pop-up holiday today, it’s Night On The Town” by flashing that little “there’s something new on the calendar” light on the, well, calendar. XD I made a mental note of that for later and sent Smiler down to meet Marm once Toothy was fed and give him a little bit of a repair so he didn’t suffer any catastrophic explosions –
B) And then I looked over at the wind farm and was like “is every fucking turbine broken AGAIN?!” *shakehead* I promptly sent Smiler and Marm over to go repair them (as Victor was still busy with his song) – then remembered “oh wait, Marm’s ready to get an enhancement level – I should have Smiler make a mechanism so they can upgrade him” and sent Smiler to the robotics bench to do that while Marm kept repairing. Because hey, he does need to learn some skills, and Handiness is always a good one! I’d planned for him to get them all while I pushed Victor to complete his song –
But then, midway through Marm’s repair efforts, I realized that poor Victor was starting to really have to go to the bathroom. So I reluctantly stopped progress on his classical piece and let him use the toilet, then had him cast Repairio on a handful of the turbines (and one busted water collector) to speed up the repair process once he was done washing his hands. Because I wanted that damn wind farm working again FASTER, damn it. (Seriously, why do the turbines break so often?? It’s annoying.)
C) Anyway – with all the water collectors and wind turbines back in functional condition, I had Victor go kick a creepy doll by the laundry nook, then prepared to have him start the laundry before heading into the greenhouse...but before I could, I noticed a few things. Namely, that the minifridge in the greenhouse was broken (thanks to the angry gnomes from Harvestfest); both fridges were stinking (thanks to the spoiled food within, as no one in this family has to eat often enough to take care of all the leftovers); AND that the back porch umbrella table was a scorched mess (thanks to a lightning strike I must have missed on Harvestfest). I quickly had Victor Repairio the table and the minifridge, then clean the spoiled food out of the kitchen fridge before putting the laundry into the washer with a bluebell to keep it floral fresh. Glad something is fresh in this house!
While all that was happening, Smiler finished up their mechanism, and Marm finished repairing the final turbines and scavenging all the trash piles for parts before sticking them in his inventory – I thus had Smiler start properly enhancing Marm while Victor took a moment to Scruberoo the puddles in the greenhouse before going to rummage through the trash pile left behind by the gnomes and get that cleared. I myself took a moment to clear up the gnome population while he did that – moving one of the gnomes standing on a rock and the gnome sitting on a rock over to the corners of the greenhouse; sticking the ordinary gnome in the little wheelbarrow out front of the greenhouse; putting the reaper gnome and the alien gnome outside of Toothy’s pen; and just straight up selling the duplicate “standing on a rock” gnome and the two pool gnomes. So these little fuckers are all set until the next Harvestfest. :p
D) Once all the gnomes were back in position, I had Alice get up, clean more spoiled food out of the fridge (while I remembered “Smiler’s cheese!” and quickly put that IN the fridge – fortunately it still had like a day to go before it went off, but still), then go kick a creepy doll in the greenhouse before going to harvest the prairie grass in Moory’s pen (just found one turquoise crystal hiding in there today). Victor, meanwhile, finished clearing up the gnome mess and opening all the remaining seed packets I could find around the house (looked like a haul of mainly lemons and spinach), and got to his tending – vacuuming weeds, spraying bugs, the lot. Smiler finished up Marm’s enhancements, and – now that he was feeling a little more durable (durability apparently decays about 10% slower now, which is nice) – I had him hover over to the living room to put out the fireplace (which somebody had lit yesterday, or possibly the day before, in-game) and get to know Shadow while I had Smiler clean the chicken coop. The two got along quite well, so I had Marm go and take Shadow on a short walk while Smiler recycled everyone’s accumulated trash piles (and I fixed the basement alchemy display AGAIN, as that corner shelf with the Potion of Emotional Stability had popped out AGAIN). I then set Smiler to rake up all the leaves around the yard –
And went “you know what, we haven’t done any fun animal treat stuff in a bit” and had Alice take the Fishy Protein Treat and the Pumpkin Treat from Victor’s inventory to feed one of the brown hens and Moory the cow respectively! Alice unfortunately didn’t do a great job of giving the Fishy Protein Treat to the chickens, pouring it OUTSIDE their pen – I moved the treat pile into the pecking area in the hopes that SOMEBODY would eat it. Happily, after a short break to brush Surprise, she did much better in giving Moory her Pumpkin Treat, and – after a quick pet to keep the cow happy – got herself a nice bottle of pumpkin spice milk along with the regular milk. :) She also grabbed the eggs, since she was in the neighborhood – two regular, one hatchable. Not too shabby!
E) And with THAT done, it was time to make some stuff for the upcoming food sale! I already knew I wanted the gang to take the batch of blueberry bagels Victor had made earlier from the fridge – however, when I checked out the plate of banana split waffles in there, I found that they were very close to going off. I thus set them on the counter so they could just spoil and Alice could just clean them up already, and had Alice get a batch of pumpkin spice waffles and some more batches of dough started. Annoyingly, the stand mixer broke right after it was finished mixing up the dough – and after Alice repaired it, she suddenly got an inexplicable fear of death, despite the fact that, as far as I could see, she didn’t get shocked by the damn thing at all. O.o Well, it’s all right, being afraid of death is just a natural part of existence. I’ll figure out how to help her work through her fear later! (Too bad The Sims 4 doesn’t offer the “go on a mental trip through Wonderland to confront your worries” option. :p)
While that was going on, Victor finished his tending and super-sold the greenhouse – I tried then to have him go in and make an apple pie for the sale, but he couldn’t do so until Alice finished fixing the mixer so he could get the dough out of it (an apple pie needs two batches, and we only had one available). I thus had him eat some forbidden candy first to keep his energy up for the trip – can’t have him falling asleep in the middle of things. I also got a notice that Shadow (still on her walk with Marm) was getting pretty hungry, so I had the pair come back to the house and stop under the tree in the front yard so I could get Marm to call her to eat at one of the pet food bowls –
F) Except that Marm wouldn’t do it. The action just lingered uselessly just outside their queue. Puzzled, I had Alice try to call the dog over instead – but Shadow wouldn’t come, instead wandering over to the obstacle course. Frustrated, I sent Alice out there (after taking a moment to start the laundry washing again, since the game was still telling me the laundry inside was in a “Used” state) to give the dog a treat while I tried to have Marm read a book for his aspiration –
And still no go. This robot WOULD NOT move. I could not figure out why – he wasn’t FROZEN frozen, as he kept doing various idle animations and his charge continued to decay, but he just wouldn’t do anything I told him to do. *shakehead* Save file is not doing good, man...
G) Anyway – once Victor retrieved his dough and successfully baked his apple pie, I checked over everyone’s inventory, then gave Smiler the blueberry bagels from the fridge, the apple pie, Alice’s pumpkin spice waffles, and the pumpkin spice milk she’d gotten before from Moory. This was a pretty good spread, all told, but I wanted to have one more thing available for potential customers to eat, so I had Victor make a loaf of cheesy bread with some of the remaining dough while Smiler and Alice bantered and chatted about various under the front yard tree and Marm continued to idle uselessly. Thanks to the power of prepped ingredients, the loaf didn’t take long to bake at all, and once it was done, I moved it to Smiler’s inventory, then had Smiler make the call to have all the humanoid Sims hit up Copperdale’s Lakeview Library!
Where, of course, it was RAINING. *sigh* Figures... I immediately hopped into build mode to get the weather control machine and stick it around the back of the building, then had Alice go and clear the skies while everyone (including Marm, thankfully) headed inside, away from the rain. Marm settled in to recharge their flagging battery (waking up once to try and read a book before I said “no, come on, you’re robot exhausted here”) while Victor and Smiler each grabbed something to read – I had Alice join them once the weather was successfully changed, and they all enjoyed their books while the clouds drifted away and the weather warmed up. *shakehead* I swear, I wouldn’t be able to do half the things I do in this save file if I couldn’t use that weather-changing machine…
H) Anyway, once everything outside was sufficiently nice, I started properly preparing for the food sale! Starting with dragging the pumpkin spice milk out of Smiler’s inventory and having Victor make three copies of the bottle so Smiler would have plenty to sell to customers looking for a delicious way to cool off. Once Victor was done, I had him just chill for a second while Smiler drank some plasma fruit and Alice a glass of water, then attempted to send him over to the grilling area beside the nearby river so he and Alice could have lunch while Smiler set up their food stand. For some reason, he wouldn’t transportalate over there (that ability is fussy sometimes), so I let him be while I looked for the perfect spot to set up Smiler’s food stand –
And then noticed something. Over on the right side of ThrifTea, atop a little wood platform, mixed in with all the fake buildings that make the neighborhood feel more filled out, right above a little eating area, there was one of the NPC-run food stalls. I was like “hang on, it’s Night On The Town – if I have Victor and Alice order something from here, will it be free?”
It sure would! :D Nice easy way to fulfill that holiday! After an exploratory check of the menu, I had Victor fly over on his broom (since he still wouldn’t transportalate), then had Alice run over and join him once she was done having a feral poo as a result of all her water. :p I had them (and Smiler) change into something a little cooler to better reflect the warm weather (Victor and Alice got their Sim Sessions t-shirts, while Smiler rocked their non-binary tee), then had Victor order a fruit cobbler and Alice a lobster roll.
The vendor, Aleah, immediately left the stall and closed up shop. O.o I was like “what the fuck? Did I get here JUST as her shift ended? Well, that sucks!” The only silver lining was that attempting to order the food, even if they didn’t get it, fulfilled the tradition for the holiday (leaving Victor and Alice celebrating in front of the blind, amusingly). I thus resolved to wait until the next vendor showed up and instead had Alice take a wolf nap on the boards while Victor practiced practical magic nearby –
And then Aleah went back in the stall and opened it back up. I was like “…” Wondering what the hell was going on, I thus had Victor stop his practicing and try to order his fruit cobbler again –
Aaaand Aleah turned around and shut the stall. Guys, I don’t think the stall that spawns in that area actually works. >( Done with dealing with the vendor’s shit, I had Victor instead magically summon some garlic noodles for himself and some mac & cheese for Alice, and the pair headed down into the little sitting area to have their food. *shakehead* Good thing Victor has Delicioso as a spell, huh?
I) ANYWAY – while poor Victor and Alice were very much not getting any of the free food and drink they were promised for the day, Smiler had gotten their stall set up right on the main drag in front of the archway into the park, stocked it up with the apple pie, the pumpkin spice waffles, the blueberry bagels, the cheesy bread, and the pumpkin spice milk, and started hawking their wares! As per usual, it took a little bit for the customers to appear (and I guess on a day where the local restaurants are all offering free food and drinks, it WOULD be harder to find people willing to PAY for snacks), but after a little while, two lovely ladies named Janae and Judy rocked up, along with a guy named Lucha. Smiler greeted and insta-friended them, as is their way, and started handing out sales pitches –
And Janae was quickly convinced and gave Smiler their first sale of the day, grabbing a bottle of pumpkin spice milk to down! And once she got the ball rolling, other Sims proved reasonably eager to buy – Savannah Price showed up soon after for some bagels, while Mei Prescott and a dude named Tai Lum both got a slice of apple pie. :) Janae then came back for some more milk, while a lady named Ava tried the cheesy bread and a dude named Anjelo gave the waffles a whirl. Molly Prescott appeared on the scene to try the bagels (maybe she saw her mom over there earlier?), while Janae returned AGAIN to sample the pie and some guy whose name I didn’t get got some waffles. Smiler just kept hanging out the food and making friends, and by the time the sale wrapped up around 6:30 PM, they had sold all four bottles of pumpkin spice milk, two plates of bagels, three servings of pie, one plate of cheesy bread, and two servings of waffles, for a total profit of $319! :D Nice – they were MADE to sell stuff at the food stand, I swear.
J) But what was happening with the others while Smiler got their salesperson on? Well, Victor and Alice ended up having a nice meal together in the end, despite their previous troubles, with Victor getting flirty with Alice over their respective pasta dishes, and Alice happily reciprocating. :D They ended their lunch together on a kiss and a story, then Victor flew back to the library to use the toilet while Alice hung out playing on her phone. I had her head back to the park to keep her in sight and maybe see if she could do any scavenging –
And then, to my surprise and delight, found that there was a metal stone and a crystal stone right nearby to where I’d sent her! I promptly had her go and collect those – the metal stone gave her some silver (and a couple of robot salvage parts, for – some reason), while the crystal stone gave her an emerald. :) She then proceeded to play Blicblock on her phone, which I let her do for a while, then – noticing that she was Energized from the new moon – sent her on a little jog to get in a bit of exercise. Because that’s important, everyone!
Marm, meanwhile, was sufficiently charged enough that I felt I could wake him up and get him to read some books while they were at the library, with Victor joining him once he was out of the bathroom. Marm thus submerged himself in the tale of “Orbital Pudding” while Victor read a book of his own choosing for a bit, then headed upstairs to play “Road Rage Alpha” on the library computer. XD I don’t think that’s particularly respectful of the patrons, Victor!
K) Anyway – once Smiler was done with their sale, I had them pack up the stand and the food, all while Janae – our Customer Of The Day – kept chatting with them. I realized that they’d probably had enough good interactions for a thirsty Smiler to get a drink off her –
But then I thought, “Wait, it’s Night On The Town. And I don’t want Smiler to have a bad holiday – maybe I should have the gang hit a bar real quick so they can order a Plasma Jane? Aw, but that doesn’t help poor Marm – really, he should ignore this holiday, he doesn’t freaking eat–
“...hold on a second. I learned earlier with Victor and Alice that it doesn’t matter if you GET the food, only that you ORDER it.” Pause. “Oh, ALEAH~”
XD Yes, in a twist move, that stupid glitchy food stall proved to be the key to making sure ALL of my Sims successfully completed the holiday, not just the ones capable of eating normal human food! I had Smiler go ahead and hit up Janae for the drink (which she gave willingly) while directing Marm to fly over to the stall to order a carrot cupcake (he took his book with him, amusingly – the library’s going to want that back, Marm!). Sure enough, Aleah closed up shop the moment he ordered, and he successfully fulfilled the tradition – I then just let him hang out until Smiler could fly over and unsuccessfully order a drink to successfully complete the holiday. XD This game is fucking bizarre sometimes… But yeah, I was pretty happy to have turned the glitch to my advantage, and resolved to just let everyone hang out until Alice finished her jog up to the Prescott house…
L) And then it started raining again. And when I tried to get Marm to fly back inside the library, he wouldn’t do it, instead just standing in the rain and losing durability at an alarming rate (at least until he remembered to put up his umbrella). Okay, time to head home then! I had Smiler make the call and get them back to the farm (where it was fortunately still dry), then had them give poor Marm a tune-up by the sign while Alice went to feed Toothy and Victor went back to the piano to keep working on his song. Alice then published both of the books sitting in her inventory (the “Tarts” book got sold to a regular publisher, while “Nicer Stories of Wonderland” got submitted to the literary digest) before heading upstairs to start a new one – a romance book called “Polyam-For-Me.” XD What can I say, I like a pun! While she wrote about her experiences as one side of the “hinge” between Victor, Smiler, and herself, Smiler finished Marm’s tune-ups, then went to put the laundry in the dryer while Marm flew off to practice some Simbles. *nods* Important party skill, that. :p I then noticed that both the radio in Smiler’s own room and in the party barn were broken, so I had Smiler fix both, then decided to keep them busy by having them upgrade the party barn stereo with “Super Reception” to get more stations and “Firaxium Wiring” to make it unbreakable. *shrug* They had the parts! Marm finished up their solo Simbles game, so I sent them to the living room to read the Herbalism skill book we got at some point (more skills, more enhancement data), then checked in on Alice –
M) And found her werewolf Fury getting worryingly high because I hadn’t realized her “I have to go outside” instincts had triggered. Whooops. I decided “okay, at this point, it’s just easier to knock you over than calm you down,” had her run out into the backyard, then had her transform, howl, scavenge, and mark her territory until she pushed herself into a RAMPAGE! Where I had her keep scavenging for a little bit (she picked up a ruby, which was nice), before having her regain control of herself and return to normal. XD Yeah, rampages are – really not a threat to her and her friends anymore – they’re more just a good opportunity to get werewolf XP. With her Fury cleared, I had her run back upstairs to get back to work on her book –
Aaaand she almost immediately finished it. XD Leaving her in a very focused mood where she felt capable of accomplishing great things (thanks to the book apparently being a masterpiece, nice). I thus sent her downstairs to paint –
And the session came to an end with Victor working on his song, Alice painting something impressionistic, Marm reading more books, and Smiler finishing up their radio upgrades. And all of them having had a successful Night On The Town! *whew* Another long session, but definitely a good one – I’m glad I played, honestly. Getting to do another fun food sale really did make me feel better. :)
Writing: Got another good chunk done on “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” Chapter 3 – Alice has made it out of Confession and into the Empire Arms without drawing the suspicion of the guards outside the hotel, or the notice of the front desk man within (who would have recognized her from her stint as “Delilah Locke” – fortunately a certain cranky elderly woman from a certain simulation franchise was there and ready to distract the hell out of him by complaining about people kissing in the hotel bar XD). She’s in the elevator right now, preparing to see how far she can penetrate the penthouse suites with pure sneaking skills alone – we’ll see how that goes for her tomorrow!
YouTube: Just watched the GrayStillPlays video of the night – “When you say only "yes" to every question,” aka Gray plays Sort The Court! This is a game where you play as the king of a very small kingdom, with your goal being to increase its population, happiness, and wealth. You do this by greeting petitioners and saying either “Yes” or “No” to their petitions. People coming to visit you can include jesters wanting to put on a shoooooow; a wizard wanting to try some magic on you; a shady woman offering to rob people and give you the money; a witch looking to beat up goblins; a skeleton named Skelly that ends up serving as a detective (with a slime partner named Molder); a little fellow called Yet Yet who wants permission to go on adventures; a devil named Georgie who can offer you a chance to flip a coin to either gain money or have your citizen’s souls stolen – or can get you to participate in a demonic ritual to sacrifice a bunch of people for loads of cash; a vampire who wants you to gaze into his magical crystal; and a chicken. For some reason. After saying “no” a couple of times at the beginning of the playthrough just to fuck with his advisor a bit and to see what else one could do to the visiting chicken, Gray decided that for the rest of the game he was just going to say “yes” to every demand and see what happened.
What happened was peace, prosperity, and a truckload of cash! No, seriously – Gray saying “yes” to everyone not only ended up increasing his population dramatically and making everyone much happier, it also got him TONS of money. Yes, okay, some of it was devil money from Georgie after he temporarily decimated the town, but the village bounced back REALLY easily, and by the time Gray stopped, the population was over 1,000; the happiness score was at a solid 326, and his treasury contained 3,513 gold coins. Gray was like “I think I discovered a cheat code for this game.” XD It’s weird to see him making pixel people’s lives BETTER for a change, but it was still very funny. XD
Workout: Another night on the bike, another night with the GrayStillPlays compilation “Horror games to keep you up at night!” Got through a couple of Jank Horror Games tonight, with Gray’s videos on The Man At The Window (at least, I think that’s what the game is called – it involves playing as a giant rabbit mom trying to find a way to keep a creepy dude from a storybook from snatching her rabbit son; Gray failed many, MANY times to keep the kid safe before realizing he had to actually READ THE STORY to figure out what to do) and Five Nights At Shrek’s Hotel 2 (where you play as Lord Farquaad staying for five nights at Shrek’s creepy hotel; Gray’s version didn’t have the textures load in properly so everyone was a weird dark silhouette, which did make things a little creepier – unfortunately for the developers, Gray laughing over the ridiculous door opening/closing sound effects completely destroyed the mood XD). I believe what comes next is some of Gray’s adventures with The Baby In Yellow – looking forward to ‘em!
So at least that's all right then, and I've now got two more Chill Valicer Save updates as a little buffer in anticipation of future patch nonsense. *nods* And now I'm going to bed, where hopefully I will get some halfway decent sleep, and be able to get up in the morning not hating life. *sigh* Night all!
Cue him yelling at me for letting my coworkers control what I do. I get that what he was pissed off about was that my coworker made that comment in the first place, but the way he put it -- well, it made me feel like I couldn't win no matter what I did, because somebody was going to be angry with me. Cue me retreating to my room (after letting Mom know what was going on) and then later having a crying jag that lasted a good portion of the morning because everything has been so fucking much lately (and I'm not even the one with the fucking health problems). *heavy sigh* So that was -- fun. I'm feeling better now, fortunately (mostly from managing to get some shit done and doing some actually fun things), but that sure as hell taught me not to make decisions like that anymore. Tomorrow I'm just going to test, and as long as I'm still negative, head to work.
Anyway -- despite the heavy morning sads, I did get some stuff accomplished --
Tumblr: Spent the day on Victor Luvs Alice, like most Mondays, doing the following –
A) I went through my tracked tags before lunch and added someone’s really beautiful drawing of a robo-deathclaw, somebody’s sketch of a Smiler OC (I’m not sure if it was THEIR OC or not, there’s a lot of drawing others’ OCs in this fandom), a video by the same person using all their speakers to blast The Smiler’s music loud enough to make the room vibrate (fortunately the video itself wasn’t particularly loud – it was fun, though, and it actually featured one of my favorite parts in the soundtrack, so), and someone’s post of a bunch of key pendants (along with a keyhole heart and a butterfly) in a heart box tagged with “alice madness returns” (I mean, it DOES fit the aesthetic) to my drafts for later reblogging. Was hoping for a little more stuff (including something from the “corpse bride” tag), but this will do to bulk up the drafts a little bit.
B) I drafted out my “here’s the tiny town lot I built – so to speak – and uploaded to the Gallery” post right after lunch – put up a couple of pictures of the whole lot and a close-up of what you get on each of the sub-lots, and explained where it was, all the Lot Traits and Lot Challenges, and how it’s a sub-$20K lot so any Sim could buy this straight from the Gallery if that’s what you want. We’ll see what people think on Wednesday!
C) I reblogged Satirical’s take on the WIP tag game I did the other day this evening, with my word TIMES – he naturally did “Beneath A Broken Sky” snippets, and included both a little sneak peek at an upcoming chapter (featuring poor Victor being horrified when worm-vampire man Dommik told him he had to change and then started peeling off his human skin) and one of my favorite passages from the fic (the first time Victor saw Alice’s eyes, and how gorgeous he found them). So that was nice. :)
D) And I went through the “blades in the dark” tag tonight and added someone’s very cool and spooky “guy being haunted” fanart, someone else’s depiction of a cult leader NPC they’re using in their campaign, and a third someone’s very-well-done sketches of their Hound character and his trials and tribulations to my drafts.
So yeah – at least I have plenty of shit to reblog now, should I so choose!
Sims 4: Once I finally got past the morning sads after lunch, I ended up hopping into the Chill Valicer Save again – this time for some food sale funtimes –
A) Started with everyone where I’d left them on Saturday – Alice sleeping, Victor working on his new song, Smiler editing their latest SimsTube video (“Karaoke Til Spooky,” the singing video they were working on when they got interrupted by the house making weird noises), and Marm playing chess while his durability slowly degraded. I had Smiler finish their edits on the video (just had to add some fancy transitions), hype it up to their followers, then upload it, while I sent Marm out to feed Toothy the cowplant –
And while the game informed me “hey, pop-up holiday today, it’s Night On The Town” by flashing that little “there’s something new on the calendar” light on the, well, calendar. XD I made a mental note of that for later and sent Smiler down to meet Marm once Toothy was fed and give him a little bit of a repair so he didn’t suffer any catastrophic explosions –
B) And then I looked over at the wind farm and was like “is every fucking turbine broken AGAIN?!” *shakehead* I promptly sent Smiler and Marm over to go repair them (as Victor was still busy with his song) – then remembered “oh wait, Marm’s ready to get an enhancement level – I should have Smiler make a mechanism so they can upgrade him” and sent Smiler to the robotics bench to do that while Marm kept repairing. Because hey, he does need to learn some skills, and Handiness is always a good one! I’d planned for him to get them all while I pushed Victor to complete his song –
But then, midway through Marm’s repair efforts, I realized that poor Victor was starting to really have to go to the bathroom. So I reluctantly stopped progress on his classical piece and let him use the toilet, then had him cast Repairio on a handful of the turbines (and one busted water collector) to speed up the repair process once he was done washing his hands. Because I wanted that damn wind farm working again FASTER, damn it. (Seriously, why do the turbines break so often?? It’s annoying.)
C) Anyway – with all the water collectors and wind turbines back in functional condition, I had Victor go kick a creepy doll by the laundry nook, then prepared to have him start the laundry before heading into the greenhouse...but before I could, I noticed a few things. Namely, that the minifridge in the greenhouse was broken (thanks to the angry gnomes from Harvestfest); both fridges were stinking (thanks to the spoiled food within, as no one in this family has to eat often enough to take care of all the leftovers); AND that the back porch umbrella table was a scorched mess (thanks to a lightning strike I must have missed on Harvestfest). I quickly had Victor Repairio the table and the minifridge, then clean the spoiled food out of the kitchen fridge before putting the laundry into the washer with a bluebell to keep it floral fresh. Glad something is fresh in this house!
While all that was happening, Smiler finished up their mechanism, and Marm finished repairing the final turbines and scavenging all the trash piles for parts before sticking them in his inventory – I thus had Smiler start properly enhancing Marm while Victor took a moment to Scruberoo the puddles in the greenhouse before going to rummage through the trash pile left behind by the gnomes and get that cleared. I myself took a moment to clear up the gnome population while he did that – moving one of the gnomes standing on a rock and the gnome sitting on a rock over to the corners of the greenhouse; sticking the ordinary gnome in the little wheelbarrow out front of the greenhouse; putting the reaper gnome and the alien gnome outside of Toothy’s pen; and just straight up selling the duplicate “standing on a rock” gnome and the two pool gnomes. So these little fuckers are all set until the next Harvestfest. :p
D) Once all the gnomes were back in position, I had Alice get up, clean more spoiled food out of the fridge (while I remembered “Smiler’s cheese!” and quickly put that IN the fridge – fortunately it still had like a day to go before it went off, but still), then go kick a creepy doll in the greenhouse before going to harvest the prairie grass in Moory’s pen (just found one turquoise crystal hiding in there today). Victor, meanwhile, finished clearing up the gnome mess and opening all the remaining seed packets I could find around the house (looked like a haul of mainly lemons and spinach), and got to his tending – vacuuming weeds, spraying bugs, the lot. Smiler finished up Marm’s enhancements, and – now that he was feeling a little more durable (durability apparently decays about 10% slower now, which is nice) – I had him hover over to the living room to put out the fireplace (which somebody had lit yesterday, or possibly the day before, in-game) and get to know Shadow while I had Smiler clean the chicken coop. The two got along quite well, so I had Marm go and take Shadow on a short walk while Smiler recycled everyone’s accumulated trash piles (and I fixed the basement alchemy display AGAIN, as that corner shelf with the Potion of Emotional Stability had popped out AGAIN). I then set Smiler to rake up all the leaves around the yard –
And went “you know what, we haven’t done any fun animal treat stuff in a bit” and had Alice take the Fishy Protein Treat and the Pumpkin Treat from Victor’s inventory to feed one of the brown hens and Moory the cow respectively! Alice unfortunately didn’t do a great job of giving the Fishy Protein Treat to the chickens, pouring it OUTSIDE their pen – I moved the treat pile into the pecking area in the hopes that SOMEBODY would eat it. Happily, after a short break to brush Surprise, she did much better in giving Moory her Pumpkin Treat, and – after a quick pet to keep the cow happy – got herself a nice bottle of pumpkin spice milk along with the regular milk. :) She also grabbed the eggs, since she was in the neighborhood – two regular, one hatchable. Not too shabby!
E) And with THAT done, it was time to make some stuff for the upcoming food sale! I already knew I wanted the gang to take the batch of blueberry bagels Victor had made earlier from the fridge – however, when I checked out the plate of banana split waffles in there, I found that they were very close to going off. I thus set them on the counter so they could just spoil and Alice could just clean them up already, and had Alice get a batch of pumpkin spice waffles and some more batches of dough started. Annoyingly, the stand mixer broke right after it was finished mixing up the dough – and after Alice repaired it, she suddenly got an inexplicable fear of death, despite the fact that, as far as I could see, she didn’t get shocked by the damn thing at all. O.o Well, it’s all right, being afraid of death is just a natural part of existence. I’ll figure out how to help her work through her fear later! (Too bad The Sims 4 doesn’t offer the “go on a mental trip through Wonderland to confront your worries” option. :p)
While that was going on, Victor finished his tending and super-sold the greenhouse – I tried then to have him go in and make an apple pie for the sale, but he couldn’t do so until Alice finished fixing the mixer so he could get the dough out of it (an apple pie needs two batches, and we only had one available). I thus had him eat some forbidden candy first to keep his energy up for the trip – can’t have him falling asleep in the middle of things. I also got a notice that Shadow (still on her walk with Marm) was getting pretty hungry, so I had the pair come back to the house and stop under the tree in the front yard so I could get Marm to call her to eat at one of the pet food bowls –
F) Except that Marm wouldn’t do it. The action just lingered uselessly just outside their queue. Puzzled, I had Alice try to call the dog over instead – but Shadow wouldn’t come, instead wandering over to the obstacle course. Frustrated, I sent Alice out there (after taking a moment to start the laundry washing again, since the game was still telling me the laundry inside was in a “Used” state) to give the dog a treat while I tried to have Marm read a book for his aspiration –
And still no go. This robot WOULD NOT move. I could not figure out why – he wasn’t FROZEN frozen, as he kept doing various idle animations and his charge continued to decay, but he just wouldn’t do anything I told him to do. *shakehead* Save file is not doing good, man...
G) Anyway – once Victor retrieved his dough and successfully baked his apple pie, I checked over everyone’s inventory, then gave Smiler the blueberry bagels from the fridge, the apple pie, Alice’s pumpkin spice waffles, and the pumpkin spice milk she’d gotten before from Moory. This was a pretty good spread, all told, but I wanted to have one more thing available for potential customers to eat, so I had Victor make a loaf of cheesy bread with some of the remaining dough while Smiler and Alice bantered and chatted about various under the front yard tree and Marm continued to idle uselessly. Thanks to the power of prepped ingredients, the loaf didn’t take long to bake at all, and once it was done, I moved it to Smiler’s inventory, then had Smiler make the call to have all the humanoid Sims hit up Copperdale’s Lakeview Library!
Where, of course, it was RAINING. *sigh* Figures... I immediately hopped into build mode to get the weather control machine and stick it around the back of the building, then had Alice go and clear the skies while everyone (including Marm, thankfully) headed inside, away from the rain. Marm settled in to recharge their flagging battery (waking up once to try and read a book before I said “no, come on, you’re robot exhausted here”) while Victor and Smiler each grabbed something to read – I had Alice join them once the weather was successfully changed, and they all enjoyed their books while the clouds drifted away and the weather warmed up. *shakehead* I swear, I wouldn’t be able to do half the things I do in this save file if I couldn’t use that weather-changing machine…
H) Anyway, once everything outside was sufficiently nice, I started properly preparing for the food sale! Starting with dragging the pumpkin spice milk out of Smiler’s inventory and having Victor make three copies of the bottle so Smiler would have plenty to sell to customers looking for a delicious way to cool off. Once Victor was done, I had him just chill for a second while Smiler drank some plasma fruit and Alice a glass of water, then attempted to send him over to the grilling area beside the nearby river so he and Alice could have lunch while Smiler set up their food stand. For some reason, he wouldn’t transportalate over there (that ability is fussy sometimes), so I let him be while I looked for the perfect spot to set up Smiler’s food stand –
And then noticed something. Over on the right side of ThrifTea, atop a little wood platform, mixed in with all the fake buildings that make the neighborhood feel more filled out, right above a little eating area, there was one of the NPC-run food stalls. I was like “hang on, it’s Night On The Town – if I have Victor and Alice order something from here, will it be free?”
It sure would! :D Nice easy way to fulfill that holiday! After an exploratory check of the menu, I had Victor fly over on his broom (since he still wouldn’t transportalate), then had Alice run over and join him once she was done having a feral poo as a result of all her water. :p I had them (and Smiler) change into something a little cooler to better reflect the warm weather (Victor and Alice got their Sim Sessions t-shirts, while Smiler rocked their non-binary tee), then had Victor order a fruit cobbler and Alice a lobster roll.
The vendor, Aleah, immediately left the stall and closed up shop. O.o I was like “what the fuck? Did I get here JUST as her shift ended? Well, that sucks!” The only silver lining was that attempting to order the food, even if they didn’t get it, fulfilled the tradition for the holiday (leaving Victor and Alice celebrating in front of the blind, amusingly). I thus resolved to wait until the next vendor showed up and instead had Alice take a wolf nap on the boards while Victor practiced practical magic nearby –
And then Aleah went back in the stall and opened it back up. I was like “…” Wondering what the hell was going on, I thus had Victor stop his practicing and try to order his fruit cobbler again –
Aaaand Aleah turned around and shut the stall. Guys, I don’t think the stall that spawns in that area actually works. >( Done with dealing with the vendor’s shit, I had Victor instead magically summon some garlic noodles for himself and some mac & cheese for Alice, and the pair headed down into the little sitting area to have their food. *shakehead* Good thing Victor has Delicioso as a spell, huh?
I) ANYWAY – while poor Victor and Alice were very much not getting any of the free food and drink they were promised for the day, Smiler had gotten their stall set up right on the main drag in front of the archway into the park, stocked it up with the apple pie, the pumpkin spice waffles, the blueberry bagels, the cheesy bread, and the pumpkin spice milk, and started hawking their wares! As per usual, it took a little bit for the customers to appear (and I guess on a day where the local restaurants are all offering free food and drinks, it WOULD be harder to find people willing to PAY for snacks), but after a little while, two lovely ladies named Janae and Judy rocked up, along with a guy named Lucha. Smiler greeted and insta-friended them, as is their way, and started handing out sales pitches –
And Janae was quickly convinced and gave Smiler their first sale of the day, grabbing a bottle of pumpkin spice milk to down! And once she got the ball rolling, other Sims proved reasonably eager to buy – Savannah Price showed up soon after for some bagels, while Mei Prescott and a dude named Tai Lum both got a slice of apple pie. :) Janae then came back for some more milk, while a lady named Ava tried the cheesy bread and a dude named Anjelo gave the waffles a whirl. Molly Prescott appeared on the scene to try the bagels (maybe she saw her mom over there earlier?), while Janae returned AGAIN to sample the pie and some guy whose name I didn’t get got some waffles. Smiler just kept hanging out the food and making friends, and by the time the sale wrapped up around 6:30 PM, they had sold all four bottles of pumpkin spice milk, two plates of bagels, three servings of pie, one plate of cheesy bread, and two servings of waffles, for a total profit of $319! :D Nice – they were MADE to sell stuff at the food stand, I swear.
J) But what was happening with the others while Smiler got their salesperson on? Well, Victor and Alice ended up having a nice meal together in the end, despite their previous troubles, with Victor getting flirty with Alice over their respective pasta dishes, and Alice happily reciprocating. :D They ended their lunch together on a kiss and a story, then Victor flew back to the library to use the toilet while Alice hung out playing on her phone. I had her head back to the park to keep her in sight and maybe see if she could do any scavenging –
And then, to my surprise and delight, found that there was a metal stone and a crystal stone right nearby to where I’d sent her! I promptly had her go and collect those – the metal stone gave her some silver (and a couple of robot salvage parts, for – some reason), while the crystal stone gave her an emerald. :) She then proceeded to play Blicblock on her phone, which I let her do for a while, then – noticing that she was Energized from the new moon – sent her on a little jog to get in a bit of exercise. Because that’s important, everyone!
Marm, meanwhile, was sufficiently charged enough that I felt I could wake him up and get him to read some books while they were at the library, with Victor joining him once he was out of the bathroom. Marm thus submerged himself in the tale of “Orbital Pudding” while Victor read a book of his own choosing for a bit, then headed upstairs to play “Road Rage Alpha” on the library computer. XD I don’t think that’s particularly respectful of the patrons, Victor!
K) Anyway – once Smiler was done with their sale, I had them pack up the stand and the food, all while Janae – our Customer Of The Day – kept chatting with them. I realized that they’d probably had enough good interactions for a thirsty Smiler to get a drink off her –
But then I thought, “Wait, it’s Night On The Town. And I don’t want Smiler to have a bad holiday – maybe I should have the gang hit a bar real quick so they can order a Plasma Jane? Aw, but that doesn’t help poor Marm – really, he should ignore this holiday, he doesn’t freaking eat–
“...hold on a second. I learned earlier with Victor and Alice that it doesn’t matter if you GET the food, only that you ORDER it.” Pause. “Oh, ALEAH~”
XD Yes, in a twist move, that stupid glitchy food stall proved to be the key to making sure ALL of my Sims successfully completed the holiday, not just the ones capable of eating normal human food! I had Smiler go ahead and hit up Janae for the drink (which she gave willingly) while directing Marm to fly over to the stall to order a carrot cupcake (he took his book with him, amusingly – the library’s going to want that back, Marm!). Sure enough, Aleah closed up shop the moment he ordered, and he successfully fulfilled the tradition – I then just let him hang out until Smiler could fly over and unsuccessfully order a drink to successfully complete the holiday. XD This game is fucking bizarre sometimes… But yeah, I was pretty happy to have turned the glitch to my advantage, and resolved to just let everyone hang out until Alice finished her jog up to the Prescott house…
L) And then it started raining again. And when I tried to get Marm to fly back inside the library, he wouldn’t do it, instead just standing in the rain and losing durability at an alarming rate (at least until he remembered to put up his umbrella). Okay, time to head home then! I had Smiler make the call and get them back to the farm (where it was fortunately still dry), then had them give poor Marm a tune-up by the sign while Alice went to feed Toothy and Victor went back to the piano to keep working on his song. Alice then published both of the books sitting in her inventory (the “Tarts” book got sold to a regular publisher, while “Nicer Stories of Wonderland” got submitted to the literary digest) before heading upstairs to start a new one – a romance book called “Polyam-For-Me.” XD What can I say, I like a pun! While she wrote about her experiences as one side of the “hinge” between Victor, Smiler, and herself, Smiler finished Marm’s tune-ups, then went to put the laundry in the dryer while Marm flew off to practice some Simbles. *nods* Important party skill, that. :p I then noticed that both the radio in Smiler’s own room and in the party barn were broken, so I had Smiler fix both, then decided to keep them busy by having them upgrade the party barn stereo with “Super Reception” to get more stations and “Firaxium Wiring” to make it unbreakable. *shrug* They had the parts! Marm finished up their solo Simbles game, so I sent them to the living room to read the Herbalism skill book we got at some point (more skills, more enhancement data), then checked in on Alice –
M) And found her werewolf Fury getting worryingly high because I hadn’t realized her “I have to go outside” instincts had triggered. Whooops. I decided “okay, at this point, it’s just easier to knock you over than calm you down,” had her run out into the backyard, then had her transform, howl, scavenge, and mark her territory until she pushed herself into a RAMPAGE! Where I had her keep scavenging for a little bit (she picked up a ruby, which was nice), before having her regain control of herself and return to normal. XD Yeah, rampages are – really not a threat to her and her friends anymore – they’re more just a good opportunity to get werewolf XP. With her Fury cleared, I had her run back upstairs to get back to work on her book –
Aaaand she almost immediately finished it. XD Leaving her in a very focused mood where she felt capable of accomplishing great things (thanks to the book apparently being a masterpiece, nice). I thus sent her downstairs to paint –
And the session came to an end with Victor working on his song, Alice painting something impressionistic, Marm reading more books, and Smiler finishing up their radio upgrades. And all of them having had a successful Night On The Town! *whew* Another long session, but definitely a good one – I’m glad I played, honestly. Getting to do another fun food sale really did make me feel better. :)
Writing: Got another good chunk done on “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” Chapter 3 – Alice has made it out of Confession and into the Empire Arms without drawing the suspicion of the guards outside the hotel, or the notice of the front desk man within (who would have recognized her from her stint as “Delilah Locke” – fortunately a certain cranky elderly woman from a certain simulation franchise was there and ready to distract the hell out of him by complaining about people kissing in the hotel bar XD). She’s in the elevator right now, preparing to see how far she can penetrate the penthouse suites with pure sneaking skills alone – we’ll see how that goes for her tomorrow!
YouTube: Just watched the GrayStillPlays video of the night – “When you say only "yes" to every question,” aka Gray plays Sort The Court! This is a game where you play as the king of a very small kingdom, with your goal being to increase its population, happiness, and wealth. You do this by greeting petitioners and saying either “Yes” or “No” to their petitions. People coming to visit you can include jesters wanting to put on a shoooooow; a wizard wanting to try some magic on you; a shady woman offering to rob people and give you the money; a witch looking to beat up goblins; a skeleton named Skelly that ends up serving as a detective (with a slime partner named Molder); a little fellow called Yet Yet who wants permission to go on adventures; a devil named Georgie who can offer you a chance to flip a coin to either gain money or have your citizen’s souls stolen – or can get you to participate in a demonic ritual to sacrifice a bunch of people for loads of cash; a vampire who wants you to gaze into his magical crystal; and a chicken. For some reason. After saying “no” a couple of times at the beginning of the playthrough just to fuck with his advisor a bit and to see what else one could do to the visiting chicken, Gray decided that for the rest of the game he was just going to say “yes” to every demand and see what happened.
What happened was peace, prosperity, and a truckload of cash! No, seriously – Gray saying “yes” to everyone not only ended up increasing his population dramatically and making everyone much happier, it also got him TONS of money. Yes, okay, some of it was devil money from Georgie after he temporarily decimated the town, but the village bounced back REALLY easily, and by the time Gray stopped, the population was over 1,000; the happiness score was at a solid 326, and his treasury contained 3,513 gold coins. Gray was like “I think I discovered a cheat code for this game.” XD It’s weird to see him making pixel people’s lives BETTER for a change, but it was still very funny. XD
Workout: Another night on the bike, another night with the GrayStillPlays compilation “Horror games to keep you up at night!” Got through a couple of Jank Horror Games tonight, with Gray’s videos on The Man At The Window (at least, I think that’s what the game is called – it involves playing as a giant rabbit mom trying to find a way to keep a creepy dude from a storybook from snatching her rabbit son; Gray failed many, MANY times to keep the kid safe before realizing he had to actually READ THE STORY to figure out what to do) and Five Nights At Shrek’s Hotel 2 (where you play as Lord Farquaad staying for five nights at Shrek’s creepy hotel; Gray’s version didn’t have the textures load in properly so everyone was a weird dark silhouette, which did make things a little creepier – unfortunately for the developers, Gray laughing over the ridiculous door opening/closing sound effects completely destroyed the mood XD). I believe what comes next is some of Gray’s adventures with The Baby In Yellow – looking forward to ‘em!
So at least that's all right then, and I've now got two more Chill Valicer Save updates as a little buffer in anticipation of future patch nonsense. *nods* And now I'm going to bed, where hopefully I will get some halfway decent sleep, and be able to get up in the morning not hating life. *sigh* Night all!
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Date: 2024-09-11 01:26 am (UTC)Did I tell you I fractured my foot? I fell outside and fractured my right foot (and took a layer of skin off my left knee) on the 18th of August and have been in a boot since. Since it's my right foot, I can't drive, so I've been working from home. When I went to my follow up and told them my doctor wanted me to stay in the boot for another 2 weeks, I had this conversation. In hindsight I should have taken my doctor's suggestion that I stay in the boot for a month rather than 2 weeks. Shitty coworkers are everywhere.
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Date: 2024-09-11 11:58 pm (UTC)You did tell me about that! Back on your last art post I believe. Damn bones, taking so long to heal -- and damn coworkers, being so shitty about the fact that you have a BONE FRACTURE. Cripes on a cheesecake, it's not your fault bones take that long to heal and you can't drive! *pats* Shitty coworkers really ARE everywhere. Sorry you have to deal with them too!
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Date: 2024-09-12 12:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-12 12:26 am (UTC)