Distracted Saturday Night
Sep. 21st, 2024 11:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickI should be focusing on finishing up all my various write-ups for this particular entry, but I've had my attention pulled in a couple of different directions -- asks on my RP tumblr (you'll see more about them below), chatting to my friend Squid, coming up with various ridiculous fanfic scenarios in my head, etc, etc. But I AM going to tell you about my day even if I have to temporarily glue myself to my chair or something --
Cleaning & Laundry: Pretty typical Cleaning Saturday, all told – I started dusting around 10:25 AM and got that and the Swiffering done by the time we had lunch around 1 PM (was hoping to be ALL done before lunch, but thanks to having my windows open a lot this week, my room was a little dustier than normal), then did the vacuuming after helping dry the dishes after lunch, meaning I was done with cleaning by roughly 1:50 PM. Laundry (sheets, blankets, bathrobe, PJs, one sports bra) went in the washing machine around 11:20 AM, and came out of the dryer around 3:30 PM – though it took me a little longer to fold it all because I was in the middle of messing around in Sims 4 at the time (see below). So yeah – nothing too special to report here! Just glad it’s all done and over with for another couple of weeks!
Tumblr: Didn’t really do anything on Victor Luvs Alice today beyond keep up with the dash, but over on Valice Multiverse, I got two anon asks regarding my “ask my various Valice Multiverse universes about my other various Valice Multiverse universes” ask game I shucked into the queue last night – the first being “What does Forgotten Vows think about Catch Us If You Can?” (the Forgotten Vows Victor and Alice pair are very glad that they haven’t suffered some of the shit the Catch Us pair did (as a reminder, “Catch Us If You Can” is the dark end AU for the Forgotten Vows verse where Victor ended up in Rutledge for a time after Bumby, and after Alice broke him out, they ended up becoming vigilantes, murdering people who prey on children like Bumby and his clientele), but are glad that the pair are trying to keep the kids of London safe, while the Catch Us Victor and Alice are glad their counterparts get to live a normal life (even if they’re a little envious too), and the second being “Londerland Bloodlines meets Fallout of Darkness” (LB!Alice was very startled to learn that FoD!Alice didn’t meet her Victor until over two hundred years after the end of the world, and indicated that she was sorry FoD!Alice didn’t get to meet Victoria or Emily (as they both died in the FoD world); FoD!Alice agreed it sucked, but she was glad she at least got Victor – even if he is a junk hoarder XD). So that was fun, at least. :) We’ll see if anything else pops up for that later!
Sims 4: After backing up my “saves” and “Tray” folder, removing my mods, and applying the latest update, I jumped into my “Wiped Windenburg” building save this afternoon to mess around some more with creating potential Tiny Fandom Town community lots! Specifically, I wanted to nail down what I wanted the lot associated with Alice and her game to be, since everyone else’s themed community lot is more or less set (Smiler’s got their Ministry Of Joy nightclub; Emmett the Hill Valley Courthouse museum; Mal the Confession nightclub; Preston the Red Rocket “national park” – and while they’re not built yet, I know I’m doing a Ball & Socket Pub bar for Victor and an Aperture Science testing chamber gym for Wheatley). I decided pretty quickly that I wanted to do a Vale Of Tears-themed park (since I was sure Alice would like that the best if she was given a choice), but looking on the Gallery didn’t really give me much of anything to start with – the #alicemadnessreturns tag is mostly filled with people trying to recreate Alice’s house when you filter by “lots.” (Which, hey, I myself want to do a tiny version of that for her home on the Tiny Fandom Town lot itself, so having some examples to look at later on is a good thing! Just not what I was looking for right then.) So instead I just went over to the former location of the VITD “Gutknecht Bend” starter house; renamed it “Vale Of Tears Park;” changed the lot type and quickly picked up some very basic park stuff to stick on the side of the lot so the game wouldn’t yell at me; and cleared the old terrain paint so I’d have a relatively fresh canvas to start with. My initial idea was to try and make it look like the area Alice lands in when she first arrives back in Wonderland, with a waterfall and such, but after an initial attempt to raise the terrain around the edges of the lot just ended up looking weird, I decided I ought to do some research on my phone to get a better idea of what I wanted. Which led me to the wiki entry for the Vale of Tears for both AMA and A:MR –
Which, in turn, led me to the entry for A:MR’s Radula Rooms when I scrolled down looking for pictures and saw a short description of how the Quiz Radula Room that Cheshire lives in appears to be a small section of the Vale at night. And poking around on that page eventually netted me a picture of the entire area from the game! :D I immediately decided, “okay, scrap regular Vale of Tears, we’re doing THAT” and started working on the build –
Aaaand quickly realized that, uh, this is just NOT going to come together fully until I get my CC back. Like, getting the absolute basics done wasn’t really a problem, but until I have my fifty million tons of A:MR-themed statues and decorations and whatnot, it’s never going to look right – AND I’m not going to know how much room I have for activities and seating and whatnot. *shrug* Some stuff just cannot be built without my beloved mods and custom content, what can I say! But, as indicated, I did get the basics sorted out –
A) I turned most of the lot into a big, fairly shallow pond! Because, well, that is essentially what the Quiz Radula Room is – a big old pond surrounded by Wonderlandian plants that Alice wades into to get a riddle from Cheshire. Obviously I couldn’t make the ENTIRE lot a pond, because then Sims wouldn’t be able to do anything there beyond some very basic wading (and I ended up playing with the size a couple of times, making it a little smaller and rounder as I looked for spots to put stuff around the edges), but I wanted it to take up a decent portion of the lot. So far, it’s basically the entire middle of the lot – I may decide to make it a little smaller still just to make sure there’s enough room for activities around the edges, but so far, so good! And I think I made it shallow enough that Sims can wade into it wherever they want, which fits what Alice does in the game.
B) I added some greenery and marked out where some key CC pieces will have to go in the future! You see, one side of the pond is dominated by two trees growing on snail shells and one of those crying bust statues of Alice in the middle – in order to get a sense of where those needed to go, I got two big old Outdoor Retreat hawthorn trees and a Romantic Garden Stuff statue of a woman to put in what I felt would be the right spots on the lot. So now I have an easy guide for when I get my CC back! :) I also put a bunch of Island Living naupaka bushes around the edges of the pond (since their leaves looked the closest to the greenery growing around the pond in the picture), along with a bunch of various flowers and some rocks for interest. Again, I need my CC to make all of this actually look closer to what’s in the actual game (Wonderland plants look WAAAY different than standard Sims 4 plants, unsurprisingly), but this at least gives the place some visual interest in the meantime, and allows me to figure out the basics of what I want where!
Oh, and lest you think I neglected the pond, it too got some greenery, along with some other items of interest – I made sure to add a bog log for turtles to sit on; some firefly spawners and the reeds you can click on to have fireflies cluster around them at night; a bunch of lily pads, including the one you can specifically click on to summon a frog; and some “unidentified submerged object” spawners for a bit of extra fun. USOs feel like something that should be in a Wonderlandian pond!
C) I added some activities and basic furniture to the lot! Because you can’t have a community lot without something for Sims to actually do there, after all. :p More specifically –
I. I made sure that all bathroom needs would be met by adding the Horse Ranch little public toilet building to the back left corner of the lot (normally I build my own public toilets, but I just didn’t have the room here). I also got a woohoo bush when I first reassigned the lot, and that’s currently living next to the flowers on the far right side of the pond. You know, for any Sims who may really need it. XD
II. I created a little public eating and play area on the left side of the lot – my initial thought was to put the eating and play areas on opposite sides of the lot, but then I figured that any parents would want their kids to be close to both where the food was being prepared and the bathroom should they need it, so I stuck ‘em together. XD After pondering a few different options for picnic tables, I eventually went for the fancy City Living ones that come in a few different colorful designs, since they seemed to be fun and fit the Wonderland vibes (though the Cats & Dogs one with the umbrella WAS tempting) and put them near the edge of the pond, next to the basic public grill and a Get Together outdoor bin (gotta have a place to dispose of trash!). Then, in the front left corner of the lot, I arranged the fun Growing Together swingset with the colorful flags, a toddler slide, and those flower-covered monkey bars (I forget if they’re specific to Romantic Garden Stuff or not) to create a little play area. :) I’ll probably be mucking around with the placement of everything later and seeing if I want to do anything more interesting with the eating area later (as I recall, I have the Duchess’s stove as a functional object – maybe I’ll do a mini version of her kitchen as a place to eat?), but this will do for now!
III. Parks have to have benches, so I replaced the two bog-standard ones I bought at the beginning with two colorful City Living wooden benches and a mossy Romantic Garden Stuff stone bench and put them around the front of the pond, looking at the water. Don’t know which style I like more yet, but either way, we are benched up!
IV. Oh, and speaking of the pond, I added in a little fishing sign so Sims can fish there! Admittedly, I’m not sure if any visitors will be able to immediately start fishing, or if I’m going to have to have someone come in and stock the pond first, but either way, you WILL be able to fish in the pond! Eventually. :p
V. And on the right side of the lot, I put the chess table I’d bought previously, then added a water balloon bucket by the pond (it feels right to have something that makes Sims playfully fight on the lot :p); a telescope in the back right corner (a nod to this space being always seen at night in the game); a wishing well in the front right corner (feels appropriately Wonderlandian, especially given how many ways wishes can go entertainingly wrong – or right); and a classic “Don’t Wake The Llama” games table with chairs from Get Together (because it occurred to me that it might be fun to have more game options than just chess on the lot). So yeah, plenty of stuff to do, even if there’s not a HECK of a lot of room to do it in!
And that’s where I made myself stop for the day, because I really needed to get my laundry folded. XD But yeah, at least now I know for sure what Alice is getting for her community lot if and when the Tiny Town save file gets off the ground! And I’m looking forward to CC-ing it up once I know mods and custom content are cleared. It’s probably not going to be anywhere NEAR as elaborate as my “Wonderland Park” build for my old Newcrest Adventures save, but it should still be pretty cool. At least, I certainly hope so!
Writing: Finished off editing “Blessing” in my Valicer In The Dark master doc! Took me a bit to actually get going and figure out what I wanted to do with the edit for this last chunk, but I got there in the end, yay. :) Anyway, the scene ended with Smiler realizing that their weird dream last night was Mar-Mal contacting them in their sleep, putting them through another marmalisation to give them their blessing and being thrilled – and then reassuring their parents that, oh yeah, they still want breakfast, Mar-Mal didn’t bless them so much that they forgot how to be hungry. Like some of the people Mar-Mal personally marmalised in the past. ^^; Yeah, the Advocates and their god are a little fucked up… But things ended on a happy note for Smiler and their parents, and that’s what’s important. :) Now I need to start moving onto the next main story, “A Murder Shared Is A Murder Thirded...”
YouTube: Well, as per usual, it took longer than I really wanted, but I got in my now-usual Saturday Two –
A) First up, we had GrayStillPlays and “Level 1 vs 1,000 Tanks in GTA 5!” This particular board saw Gray take a sextet of tanks – the RC Tank, a custom-made miniature Cardboard Tank, the futuristic Interstellar Tank, the Classic Original Tank, the gold-plated Moneymobile Tank, and the chrome-wheeled tank whose name I will reveal shortly – through four torturous challenges to see which tank would reign supreme! Each tank that won a challenge got a point, and the tank that got the most points at the end would reign supreme! So what were the challenges, and which tank won the day? Well –
I. Tanks Vs Descending Stairs With Targets – Gray had to get a tank down a winding downward staircase, shooting out the plywood targets in his way and avoiding fake walls and slowdown sticks, in sixty seconds! Which was tough, because tanks are not exactly known for their speed. Gray tried out the chrome-wheeled tank first, because he’d heard all of the tanks had some sort of special ability and he wanted to see what it could do –
And discovered that it was the Submarine Shooter. As in, when he fired the cannon, a nuclear submarine came out. Gray was utterly delighted, but his obsession with spraying subs over the landscape put him waaaay over time. He tried more seriously with the Classic Original tank and the RC tank, but while they both had no problem with the targets, they were both too slow to beat the time limit. So Gray went “well, I have to try it sometime” and climbed into the Cardboard Tank –
And discovered that it was genuinely the fastest and most agile tank, easily getting to the bottom of the stairs in the time limit. So yeah, $1 Jank Tank got the first point! Who would have guessed THAT?
II. Which Tank Can Shoot The Most Targtes [sic] While Falling – Gray had to shoot various balloon targets while falling through the air after getting teleported over to the checkpoint area. Each balloon hit moved a LEGO block out of the way of the path to the checkpoint, meaning Gray had to hit all four to make it to the end. He immediately tried the Cardboard Tank, but it could only reliably hit two out of the four. The Submarine Shooter could hit all four (simply because its submarines were so large), but couldn’t stop falling off the platform, while neither the Classic Original nor the Moneymobile could get lined up fast enough (though Gray did discover in the process that the Moneymobile’s ability was the Midas Touch – anything it bonked with its turret either got gold-plated or turned into a sack of cash. This will be important shortly). As it turned out, the winner was the Interstellar Tank, which lined up its cannon with the targtes really fast and thus was best able to shoo them all – Gray just had to keep trying until IT stopped sliding off the end platform too. XD But it got there in the end, and earned a point!
III. From The Creator of “Which Car Can Plow Through The Cows Faster” Comes A: “Which Tank Can Plow Through The Whales Faster” – Gray had to get through a narrow corridor of dead whales in a tank before a wall popped up on the other side! A difficult challenge even for a vehicle as bulky and sturdy as a tank, no?
Except Gray had just learned that the Moneymobile turned organic matter into bags of money. He promptly hopped inside, headed into the corridor, and turned about half the whales into cold hard cash, one-timing the challenge to his immense relief. XD Point for the Midas Touch Tank!
IV. Which Tank Can Capture Ford Zankudo’s Outpost? – Gray had to invade the military base in his chosen tank, get to a specific area marked out with red squares, then hold that area against all opposition for two minutes. If he went outside the area, his tank just straight-up despawned, failing the challenge. Oh, and there was SOMETHING that would cause him to get a six-star wanted rating and call more dangerous vehicles to his location, though Gray wasn’t sure what – he THOUGHT it was something that triggered during the final thirty seconds or so, but then on his final run it ended up happening way early, so he figured maybe it was tied to the damage he was doing. *shrug* Anyway, Gray gave the Cardboard Tank, the Interstellar Tank, the Submarine Shooter, and the Moneymobile all their fair due against the might of the base, and the winner was –
The Moneymobile! Yes, seriously – somehow, THAT was the tank with both the fire power AND the staying power to last against all comers and defend the outpost! Probably helped that Gray managed to build up a “wall” of destroyed tanks on one side to help hinder the opposition. XD But yes, it seems that if you want a tank, go with the gold-plated one, it’s better than you think. And will pay for itself a lot quicker than the others. XD
B) And second up, we had Jon of Many A True Nerd and “Fallout: London - Part 9 - Perfect Execution!” Featuring the continuing adventures of Lady Aria and Archie doing missions for the Vagabonds – namely, heading to Millville to meet up with Yvette there and stop her from doing anything too stupid regarding a Vagabond prisoner due to be executed there! Their trip there and then back around to Tower Bridge consisted of the following –
I. A trip through a foot tunnel near Greenwich to reach the Isle of Dogs (where Millville was located), which turned out to involve a lot of radioactive barrels, sparking electricity, radioactive water, sparking electricity IN radioactive water, Drowned Ghouls, having to dive under the water past an obstruction at one point (which Jon was thrilled about because he was already having trouble seeing), and a weird cutscene that seemed to suggest the pair being swept away by the water at one point. O.o Oh, and some mittenlurk nests at the very end. But they did make it through, with Jon declaring that he’d be avoiding the tunnels as much as possible from now on. Which, fair. XD
II. A trip to the Cow’s Lick Milk Factory on the way to find Yvette, because Aria was nosy and milk is genuinely one of the best healing items in this mod, so Jon was all about finding the sexy milk. Unfortunately, instead of finding sexy milk (well, okay, she did get some skimmed and semi-skimmed outside), Aria found a couple of weird and creepy-looking Famished monsters lurking outside (apparently they’re heavily-mutated dogs that attack a bit like deathclaws); a factory flooded with milk but containing mainly ammo and empty milk bottles; a fuckton of bloatflies, including multiple Glowing Bloatflies and a Legendary Festering Bloatfly which nearly killed her from poison damage (and only had a Ghoul Slayer’s Crude Rifle on its corpse, which Jon didn’t consider worth it); a LEGENDARY RADSCORPION in one side room (whose appearance was apparently a bug – didn’t stop her from fucking running as far as she could from it); and a bloatmother in another room that was, fortunately, WEIRDLY chill with her presence as she looked for goodies. The only reason that whole trip was worth it for her was because she found a Legendary Radroach during her initial clamber about the outside of the place, and that dropped an Instigating Crude Rifle (which does double damage if the target is at full health) – Jon was VERY pleased and immediately decided that had to become her new sniper rifle. We’ll see what happens the next time she does some gun upgrades!
III. A trip to The Mariner And Albatross, a pub on the way – Aria ducked in looking for Cutethulhus, and found instead a whole bunch of Hooligans that she had to kill. And then, after they were all dead, she discovered a death arena that they were making traders fight in – and a faux mini-arena nearby where someone had set up a toy alien and a teddy bear fighting with butterknives. XD Darkly cute!
IV. A stop in at a local brothel, which Aria stumbled across right after Jon said that he had to stop getting distracted on his way to find Yvette because it had already been like three days since he heard that radio message about the prisoner getting executed. XD Nothing too explicit in there, fortunately (Jon was ready to break out the hedgehogs if there were, which, uh, I guess he uses to censor stuff), but Jon was amused to find that the women there acted liked vendors (apart from one who seemed to be in the middle of waiting for someone?), selling things like bobby pins, handcuffs, and “jimmy hats” (that IS what you think it is, and it gives you rad resistance if you use it, apparently XD). Very confusing little side trip there for poor Aria – and poor Jon too, frankly!
V. Finally finding Yvette hanging out where the Syndicate were planning on executing the prisoner! Yvette immediately began pretending that they were strangers that had just met – and Aria actually had to do some Perception-boosting drugs to choose the dialogue option that would allow her to play along with the ruse. XD They were able to drop the charade once the guard Yvette was worried about was out of earshot, though, and after a bit of “why are you here, do you know the danger we’re in,” said that she WAS glad to see Aria, as she needed some help breaking her friend Uma out of the nearby holding cells before she could be executed. Aria was glad to help, but decided that she should do the breaking out as she’d gotten decent at lockpicking – Yvette was fine with that and ran off to set off an air raid siren to keep the Syndicate busy while Aria ducked inside the nearby jailhouse, killed the guards there (after having TRIED to sneak past them – no one can say she didn’t try!), got Uma out, and brought her out around through the back door (which, uh, just led onto the execution square, but again, points for trying). Aria then handed Uma off to Yvette, and the ladies said that they’d meet Aria at the nearby safehouse (which was FINALLY marked on her map – Jon had been wondering where it was!). So despite all the distractions, Aria completed her mission, yay!
VI. A trip north to see if they could head straight back to the general area of Tower Bridge instead of braving that damn foot tunnel again (or going to the safehouse) – which brought Aria and Archie to One Canada Square, a super-clean and lovely building surrounded by lovely greenery that had a large indoor market inside! Aria happily stopped by the gun shop and got herself a ridiculous 9mm pistol that someone had added a fucking STOCK to. Like, it was attached to the very bottom of the hand grip. XD Hey, she had the ammo for it! However, while she was wandering, she found a mysteriously-locked lift, which she cracked open to find a rather bizarre back room with weird sciency bits, which made Jon go “okay, that feels like a secret Angel lab…” And once they were out of the market, Jon admitted that he just didn’t trust the place because it was too clean and nice – a place being genuinely CLEAN in the Fallout games basically means it’s secretly evil. And indeed, the Canary Wharf Underground station nearby not only has a sign outside saying that it’s a restricted area, it was mysteriously inaccessible to Lady Aria. Jon has determined he will come back and discover why and all the evil secrets this place is inevitably hiding later. XD
VII. Archie initiating an affinity talk with Lady Aria while they were bumming around the secretly-evil market, asking her about “home” (she claimed to have a place in London, but he said he meant like where she was “from,” and she had to admit she didn’t know) and saying that he wasn’t sure what it meant for him – like, he knows he must have had parents and a place living with them at SOME point, but he doesn’t recall them, so that can’t be his home...and what if he forgets all the other places he’s lived? Would any of them be “home” to him even then? Basically, he wanted Aria’s help in figuring out the question, by doing a little tour of all the places he’s hung his hat, starting with his old aeroplane base – which started the companion quest “Stranger In A Strange Land!” Aria was like “glad to help you out, kiddo, but it’s gonna have to wait a bit, I’m busy looting.” XD
VIII. The pair finding the Tower Hamlets Pindar as they continued their trip back around to Tower Bridge (shooting Hooligans and weird pig rats along the way – VATS does NOT like the pig rats, by the by, it literally will only target the left legs) and dipping in to see if any weird Vault-esque experiments were being run inside. Turns out, very much YES – this particular Pindar had a secret extra bunker hidden behind a bookcase door, which explicitly said this was a human testing facility. Though, despite Aria poking around on the still-working computer, she wasn’t able to figure out exactly what they were doing to the people here – just that they were doing cutting-edge experiments for a secret classified agency in the government. There were some feral ghouls around, along with a LOOOT of glowing and brain fungus growing over everything, so – proooobably radiation-focused? Or perhaps mushroom-focused…either way, good to know that even in London, the tradition of running experiments on hapless people just trying to survive the experiments was going strong! :p
IX. And the pair indeed making it back to Tower Bridge, killing a bunch more Hooligans and desperately avoiding any Dryads along the way! Aria ended the episode by the bridge, taking “Gun Nut 2” as her level 13 perk while Jon squeed about all the improvements he was going to make to her arsenal. XD Oh, and despite coming very close to death multiple times this episode, Jon decided he was good enough at Fallout: London to bump the difficulty up to “Very Hard.” XD I think that’s going to come back to bite you, Jon!
And that was that! Plan next week is to find a workbench to improve all the guns, then go meet back up with Yvette and Uma in the safehouse at last so Aria can continue that questline! Hopefully with minimal distractions along the way, but – we all know Jon at this point. XD Should be fun!
Whew -- and there we have it! And I really should go to bed -- I woke up earlier than I wanted yesterday morning (had a brief brainfart that it was a workday), and I really want to try and get more sleep tonight. Plans for tomorrow include doing some drafting over on Victor Luvs Alice; playing Fallout 4 and continuing Victor and Ada's adventures in Vault 75; updating the Playthrough Progression doc appropriately; getting in a workout; and doing my Sunday two of Gray and Jon. Hopefully that is all achievable -- we shall see! Night all!
Cleaning & Laundry: Pretty typical Cleaning Saturday, all told – I started dusting around 10:25 AM and got that and the Swiffering done by the time we had lunch around 1 PM (was hoping to be ALL done before lunch, but thanks to having my windows open a lot this week, my room was a little dustier than normal), then did the vacuuming after helping dry the dishes after lunch, meaning I was done with cleaning by roughly 1:50 PM. Laundry (sheets, blankets, bathrobe, PJs, one sports bra) went in the washing machine around 11:20 AM, and came out of the dryer around 3:30 PM – though it took me a little longer to fold it all because I was in the middle of messing around in Sims 4 at the time (see below). So yeah – nothing too special to report here! Just glad it’s all done and over with for another couple of weeks!
Tumblr: Didn’t really do anything on Victor Luvs Alice today beyond keep up with the dash, but over on Valice Multiverse, I got two anon asks regarding my “ask my various Valice Multiverse universes about my other various Valice Multiverse universes” ask game I shucked into the queue last night – the first being “What does Forgotten Vows think about Catch Us If You Can?” (the Forgotten Vows Victor and Alice pair are very glad that they haven’t suffered some of the shit the Catch Us pair did (as a reminder, “Catch Us If You Can” is the dark end AU for the Forgotten Vows verse where Victor ended up in Rutledge for a time after Bumby, and after Alice broke him out, they ended up becoming vigilantes, murdering people who prey on children like Bumby and his clientele), but are glad that the pair are trying to keep the kids of London safe, while the Catch Us Victor and Alice are glad their counterparts get to live a normal life (even if they’re a little envious too), and the second being “Londerland Bloodlines meets Fallout of Darkness” (LB!Alice was very startled to learn that FoD!Alice didn’t meet her Victor until over two hundred years after the end of the world, and indicated that she was sorry FoD!Alice didn’t get to meet Victoria or Emily (as they both died in the FoD world); FoD!Alice agreed it sucked, but she was glad she at least got Victor – even if he is a junk hoarder XD). So that was fun, at least. :) We’ll see if anything else pops up for that later!
Sims 4: After backing up my “saves” and “Tray” folder, removing my mods, and applying the latest update, I jumped into my “Wiped Windenburg” building save this afternoon to mess around some more with creating potential Tiny Fandom Town community lots! Specifically, I wanted to nail down what I wanted the lot associated with Alice and her game to be, since everyone else’s themed community lot is more or less set (Smiler’s got their Ministry Of Joy nightclub; Emmett the Hill Valley Courthouse museum; Mal the Confession nightclub; Preston the Red Rocket “national park” – and while they’re not built yet, I know I’m doing a Ball & Socket Pub bar for Victor and an Aperture Science testing chamber gym for Wheatley). I decided pretty quickly that I wanted to do a Vale Of Tears-themed park (since I was sure Alice would like that the best if she was given a choice), but looking on the Gallery didn’t really give me much of anything to start with – the #alicemadnessreturns tag is mostly filled with people trying to recreate Alice’s house when you filter by “lots.” (Which, hey, I myself want to do a tiny version of that for her home on the Tiny Fandom Town lot itself, so having some examples to look at later on is a good thing! Just not what I was looking for right then.) So instead I just went over to the former location of the VITD “Gutknecht Bend” starter house; renamed it “Vale Of Tears Park;” changed the lot type and quickly picked up some very basic park stuff to stick on the side of the lot so the game wouldn’t yell at me; and cleared the old terrain paint so I’d have a relatively fresh canvas to start with. My initial idea was to try and make it look like the area Alice lands in when she first arrives back in Wonderland, with a waterfall and such, but after an initial attempt to raise the terrain around the edges of the lot just ended up looking weird, I decided I ought to do some research on my phone to get a better idea of what I wanted. Which led me to the wiki entry for the Vale of Tears for both AMA and A:MR –
Which, in turn, led me to the entry for A:MR’s Radula Rooms when I scrolled down looking for pictures and saw a short description of how the Quiz Radula Room that Cheshire lives in appears to be a small section of the Vale at night. And poking around on that page eventually netted me a picture of the entire area from the game! :D I immediately decided, “okay, scrap regular Vale of Tears, we’re doing THAT” and started working on the build –
Aaaand quickly realized that, uh, this is just NOT going to come together fully until I get my CC back. Like, getting the absolute basics done wasn’t really a problem, but until I have my fifty million tons of A:MR-themed statues and decorations and whatnot, it’s never going to look right – AND I’m not going to know how much room I have for activities and seating and whatnot. *shrug* Some stuff just cannot be built without my beloved mods and custom content, what can I say! But, as indicated, I did get the basics sorted out –
A) I turned most of the lot into a big, fairly shallow pond! Because, well, that is essentially what the Quiz Radula Room is – a big old pond surrounded by Wonderlandian plants that Alice wades into to get a riddle from Cheshire. Obviously I couldn’t make the ENTIRE lot a pond, because then Sims wouldn’t be able to do anything there beyond some very basic wading (and I ended up playing with the size a couple of times, making it a little smaller and rounder as I looked for spots to put stuff around the edges), but I wanted it to take up a decent portion of the lot. So far, it’s basically the entire middle of the lot – I may decide to make it a little smaller still just to make sure there’s enough room for activities around the edges, but so far, so good! And I think I made it shallow enough that Sims can wade into it wherever they want, which fits what Alice does in the game.
B) I added some greenery and marked out where some key CC pieces will have to go in the future! You see, one side of the pond is dominated by two trees growing on snail shells and one of those crying bust statues of Alice in the middle – in order to get a sense of where those needed to go, I got two big old Outdoor Retreat hawthorn trees and a Romantic Garden Stuff statue of a woman to put in what I felt would be the right spots on the lot. So now I have an easy guide for when I get my CC back! :) I also put a bunch of Island Living naupaka bushes around the edges of the pond (since their leaves looked the closest to the greenery growing around the pond in the picture), along with a bunch of various flowers and some rocks for interest. Again, I need my CC to make all of this actually look closer to what’s in the actual game (Wonderland plants look WAAAY different than standard Sims 4 plants, unsurprisingly), but this at least gives the place some visual interest in the meantime, and allows me to figure out the basics of what I want where!
Oh, and lest you think I neglected the pond, it too got some greenery, along with some other items of interest – I made sure to add a bog log for turtles to sit on; some firefly spawners and the reeds you can click on to have fireflies cluster around them at night; a bunch of lily pads, including the one you can specifically click on to summon a frog; and some “unidentified submerged object” spawners for a bit of extra fun. USOs feel like something that should be in a Wonderlandian pond!
C) I added some activities and basic furniture to the lot! Because you can’t have a community lot without something for Sims to actually do there, after all. :p More specifically –
I. I made sure that all bathroom needs would be met by adding the Horse Ranch little public toilet building to the back left corner of the lot (normally I build my own public toilets, but I just didn’t have the room here). I also got a woohoo bush when I first reassigned the lot, and that’s currently living next to the flowers on the far right side of the pond. You know, for any Sims who may really need it. XD
II. I created a little public eating and play area on the left side of the lot – my initial thought was to put the eating and play areas on opposite sides of the lot, but then I figured that any parents would want their kids to be close to both where the food was being prepared and the bathroom should they need it, so I stuck ‘em together. XD After pondering a few different options for picnic tables, I eventually went for the fancy City Living ones that come in a few different colorful designs, since they seemed to be fun and fit the Wonderland vibes (though the Cats & Dogs one with the umbrella WAS tempting) and put them near the edge of the pond, next to the basic public grill and a Get Together outdoor bin (gotta have a place to dispose of trash!). Then, in the front left corner of the lot, I arranged the fun Growing Together swingset with the colorful flags, a toddler slide, and those flower-covered monkey bars (I forget if they’re specific to Romantic Garden Stuff or not) to create a little play area. :) I’ll probably be mucking around with the placement of everything later and seeing if I want to do anything more interesting with the eating area later (as I recall, I have the Duchess’s stove as a functional object – maybe I’ll do a mini version of her kitchen as a place to eat?), but this will do for now!
III. Parks have to have benches, so I replaced the two bog-standard ones I bought at the beginning with two colorful City Living wooden benches and a mossy Romantic Garden Stuff stone bench and put them around the front of the pond, looking at the water. Don’t know which style I like more yet, but either way, we are benched up!
IV. Oh, and speaking of the pond, I added in a little fishing sign so Sims can fish there! Admittedly, I’m not sure if any visitors will be able to immediately start fishing, or if I’m going to have to have someone come in and stock the pond first, but either way, you WILL be able to fish in the pond! Eventually. :p
V. And on the right side of the lot, I put the chess table I’d bought previously, then added a water balloon bucket by the pond (it feels right to have something that makes Sims playfully fight on the lot :p); a telescope in the back right corner (a nod to this space being always seen at night in the game); a wishing well in the front right corner (feels appropriately Wonderlandian, especially given how many ways wishes can go entertainingly wrong – or right); and a classic “Don’t Wake The Llama” games table with chairs from Get Together (because it occurred to me that it might be fun to have more game options than just chess on the lot). So yeah, plenty of stuff to do, even if there’s not a HECK of a lot of room to do it in!
And that’s where I made myself stop for the day, because I really needed to get my laundry folded. XD But yeah, at least now I know for sure what Alice is getting for her community lot if and when the Tiny Town save file gets off the ground! And I’m looking forward to CC-ing it up once I know mods and custom content are cleared. It’s probably not going to be anywhere NEAR as elaborate as my “Wonderland Park” build for my old Newcrest Adventures save, but it should still be pretty cool. At least, I certainly hope so!
Writing: Finished off editing “Blessing” in my Valicer In The Dark master doc! Took me a bit to actually get going and figure out what I wanted to do with the edit for this last chunk, but I got there in the end, yay. :) Anyway, the scene ended with Smiler realizing that their weird dream last night was Mar-Mal contacting them in their sleep, putting them through another marmalisation to give them their blessing and being thrilled – and then reassuring their parents that, oh yeah, they still want breakfast, Mar-Mal didn’t bless them so much that they forgot how to be hungry. Like some of the people Mar-Mal personally marmalised in the past. ^^; Yeah, the Advocates and their god are a little fucked up… But things ended on a happy note for Smiler and their parents, and that’s what’s important. :) Now I need to start moving onto the next main story, “A Murder Shared Is A Murder Thirded...”
YouTube: Well, as per usual, it took longer than I really wanted, but I got in my now-usual Saturday Two –
A) First up, we had GrayStillPlays and “Level 1 vs 1,000 Tanks in GTA 5!” This particular board saw Gray take a sextet of tanks – the RC Tank, a custom-made miniature Cardboard Tank, the futuristic Interstellar Tank, the Classic Original Tank, the gold-plated Moneymobile Tank, and the chrome-wheeled tank whose name I will reveal shortly – through four torturous challenges to see which tank would reign supreme! Each tank that won a challenge got a point, and the tank that got the most points at the end would reign supreme! So what were the challenges, and which tank won the day? Well –
I. Tanks Vs Descending Stairs With Targets – Gray had to get a tank down a winding downward staircase, shooting out the plywood targets in his way and avoiding fake walls and slowdown sticks, in sixty seconds! Which was tough, because tanks are not exactly known for their speed. Gray tried out the chrome-wheeled tank first, because he’d heard all of the tanks had some sort of special ability and he wanted to see what it could do –
And discovered that it was the Submarine Shooter. As in, when he fired the cannon, a nuclear submarine came out. Gray was utterly delighted, but his obsession with spraying subs over the landscape put him waaaay over time. He tried more seriously with the Classic Original tank and the RC tank, but while they both had no problem with the targets, they were both too slow to beat the time limit. So Gray went “well, I have to try it sometime” and climbed into the Cardboard Tank –
And discovered that it was genuinely the fastest and most agile tank, easily getting to the bottom of the stairs in the time limit. So yeah, $1 Jank Tank got the first point! Who would have guessed THAT?
II. Which Tank Can Shoot The Most Targtes [sic] While Falling – Gray had to shoot various balloon targets while falling through the air after getting teleported over to the checkpoint area. Each balloon hit moved a LEGO block out of the way of the path to the checkpoint, meaning Gray had to hit all four to make it to the end. He immediately tried the Cardboard Tank, but it could only reliably hit two out of the four. The Submarine Shooter could hit all four (simply because its submarines were so large), but couldn’t stop falling off the platform, while neither the Classic Original nor the Moneymobile could get lined up fast enough (though Gray did discover in the process that the Moneymobile’s ability was the Midas Touch – anything it bonked with its turret either got gold-plated or turned into a sack of cash. This will be important shortly). As it turned out, the winner was the Interstellar Tank, which lined up its cannon with the targtes really fast and thus was best able to shoo them all – Gray just had to keep trying until IT stopped sliding off the end platform too. XD But it got there in the end, and earned a point!
III. From The Creator of “Which Car Can Plow Through The Cows Faster” Comes A: “Which Tank Can Plow Through The Whales Faster” – Gray had to get through a narrow corridor of dead whales in a tank before a wall popped up on the other side! A difficult challenge even for a vehicle as bulky and sturdy as a tank, no?
Except Gray had just learned that the Moneymobile turned organic matter into bags of money. He promptly hopped inside, headed into the corridor, and turned about half the whales into cold hard cash, one-timing the challenge to his immense relief. XD Point for the Midas Touch Tank!
IV. Which Tank Can Capture Ford Zankudo’s Outpost? – Gray had to invade the military base in his chosen tank, get to a specific area marked out with red squares, then hold that area against all opposition for two minutes. If he went outside the area, his tank just straight-up despawned, failing the challenge. Oh, and there was SOMETHING that would cause him to get a six-star wanted rating and call more dangerous vehicles to his location, though Gray wasn’t sure what – he THOUGHT it was something that triggered during the final thirty seconds or so, but then on his final run it ended up happening way early, so he figured maybe it was tied to the damage he was doing. *shrug* Anyway, Gray gave the Cardboard Tank, the Interstellar Tank, the Submarine Shooter, and the Moneymobile all their fair due against the might of the base, and the winner was –
The Moneymobile! Yes, seriously – somehow, THAT was the tank with both the fire power AND the staying power to last against all comers and defend the outpost! Probably helped that Gray managed to build up a “wall” of destroyed tanks on one side to help hinder the opposition. XD But yes, it seems that if you want a tank, go with the gold-plated one, it’s better than you think. And will pay for itself a lot quicker than the others. XD
B) And second up, we had Jon of Many A True Nerd and “Fallout: London - Part 9 - Perfect Execution!” Featuring the continuing adventures of Lady Aria and Archie doing missions for the Vagabonds – namely, heading to Millville to meet up with Yvette there and stop her from doing anything too stupid regarding a Vagabond prisoner due to be executed there! Their trip there and then back around to Tower Bridge consisted of the following –
I. A trip through a foot tunnel near Greenwich to reach the Isle of Dogs (where Millville was located), which turned out to involve a lot of radioactive barrels, sparking electricity, radioactive water, sparking electricity IN radioactive water, Drowned Ghouls, having to dive under the water past an obstruction at one point (which Jon was thrilled about because he was already having trouble seeing), and a weird cutscene that seemed to suggest the pair being swept away by the water at one point. O.o Oh, and some mittenlurk nests at the very end. But they did make it through, with Jon declaring that he’d be avoiding the tunnels as much as possible from now on. Which, fair. XD
II. A trip to the Cow’s Lick Milk Factory on the way to find Yvette, because Aria was nosy and milk is genuinely one of the best healing items in this mod, so Jon was all about finding the sexy milk. Unfortunately, instead of finding sexy milk (well, okay, she did get some skimmed and semi-skimmed outside), Aria found a couple of weird and creepy-looking Famished monsters lurking outside (apparently they’re heavily-mutated dogs that attack a bit like deathclaws); a factory flooded with milk but containing mainly ammo and empty milk bottles; a fuckton of bloatflies, including multiple Glowing Bloatflies and a Legendary Festering Bloatfly which nearly killed her from poison damage (and only had a Ghoul Slayer’s Crude Rifle on its corpse, which Jon didn’t consider worth it); a LEGENDARY RADSCORPION in one side room (whose appearance was apparently a bug – didn’t stop her from fucking running as far as she could from it); and a bloatmother in another room that was, fortunately, WEIRDLY chill with her presence as she looked for goodies. The only reason that whole trip was worth it for her was because she found a Legendary Radroach during her initial clamber about the outside of the place, and that dropped an Instigating Crude Rifle (which does double damage if the target is at full health) – Jon was VERY pleased and immediately decided that had to become her new sniper rifle. We’ll see what happens the next time she does some gun upgrades!
III. A trip to The Mariner And Albatross, a pub on the way – Aria ducked in looking for Cutethulhus, and found instead a whole bunch of Hooligans that she had to kill. And then, after they were all dead, she discovered a death arena that they were making traders fight in – and a faux mini-arena nearby where someone had set up a toy alien and a teddy bear fighting with butterknives. XD Darkly cute!
IV. A stop in at a local brothel, which Aria stumbled across right after Jon said that he had to stop getting distracted on his way to find Yvette because it had already been like three days since he heard that radio message about the prisoner getting executed. XD Nothing too explicit in there, fortunately (Jon was ready to break out the hedgehogs if there were, which, uh, I guess he uses to censor stuff), but Jon was amused to find that the women there acted liked vendors (apart from one who seemed to be in the middle of waiting for someone?), selling things like bobby pins, handcuffs, and “jimmy hats” (that IS what you think it is, and it gives you rad resistance if you use it, apparently XD). Very confusing little side trip there for poor Aria – and poor Jon too, frankly!
V. Finally finding Yvette hanging out where the Syndicate were planning on executing the prisoner! Yvette immediately began pretending that they were strangers that had just met – and Aria actually had to do some Perception-boosting drugs to choose the dialogue option that would allow her to play along with the ruse. XD They were able to drop the charade once the guard Yvette was worried about was out of earshot, though, and after a bit of “why are you here, do you know the danger we’re in,” said that she WAS glad to see Aria, as she needed some help breaking her friend Uma out of the nearby holding cells before she could be executed. Aria was glad to help, but decided that she should do the breaking out as she’d gotten decent at lockpicking – Yvette was fine with that and ran off to set off an air raid siren to keep the Syndicate busy while Aria ducked inside the nearby jailhouse, killed the guards there (after having TRIED to sneak past them – no one can say she didn’t try!), got Uma out, and brought her out around through the back door (which, uh, just led onto the execution square, but again, points for trying). Aria then handed Uma off to Yvette, and the ladies said that they’d meet Aria at the nearby safehouse (which was FINALLY marked on her map – Jon had been wondering where it was!). So despite all the distractions, Aria completed her mission, yay!
VI. A trip north to see if they could head straight back to the general area of Tower Bridge instead of braving that damn foot tunnel again (or going to the safehouse) – which brought Aria and Archie to One Canada Square, a super-clean and lovely building surrounded by lovely greenery that had a large indoor market inside! Aria happily stopped by the gun shop and got herself a ridiculous 9mm pistol that someone had added a fucking STOCK to. Like, it was attached to the very bottom of the hand grip. XD Hey, she had the ammo for it! However, while she was wandering, she found a mysteriously-locked lift, which she cracked open to find a rather bizarre back room with weird sciency bits, which made Jon go “okay, that feels like a secret Angel lab…” And once they were out of the market, Jon admitted that he just didn’t trust the place because it was too clean and nice – a place being genuinely CLEAN in the Fallout games basically means it’s secretly evil. And indeed, the Canary Wharf Underground station nearby not only has a sign outside saying that it’s a restricted area, it was mysteriously inaccessible to Lady Aria. Jon has determined he will come back and discover why and all the evil secrets this place is inevitably hiding later. XD
VII. Archie initiating an affinity talk with Lady Aria while they were bumming around the secretly-evil market, asking her about “home” (she claimed to have a place in London, but he said he meant like where she was “from,” and she had to admit she didn’t know) and saying that he wasn’t sure what it meant for him – like, he knows he must have had parents and a place living with them at SOME point, but he doesn’t recall them, so that can’t be his home...and what if he forgets all the other places he’s lived? Would any of them be “home” to him even then? Basically, he wanted Aria’s help in figuring out the question, by doing a little tour of all the places he’s hung his hat, starting with his old aeroplane base – which started the companion quest “Stranger In A Strange Land!” Aria was like “glad to help you out, kiddo, but it’s gonna have to wait a bit, I’m busy looting.” XD
VIII. The pair finding the Tower Hamlets Pindar as they continued their trip back around to Tower Bridge (shooting Hooligans and weird pig rats along the way – VATS does NOT like the pig rats, by the by, it literally will only target the left legs) and dipping in to see if any weird Vault-esque experiments were being run inside. Turns out, very much YES – this particular Pindar had a secret extra bunker hidden behind a bookcase door, which explicitly said this was a human testing facility. Though, despite Aria poking around on the still-working computer, she wasn’t able to figure out exactly what they were doing to the people here – just that they were doing cutting-edge experiments for a secret classified agency in the government. There were some feral ghouls around, along with a LOOOT of glowing and brain fungus growing over everything, so – proooobably radiation-focused? Or perhaps mushroom-focused…either way, good to know that even in London, the tradition of running experiments on hapless people just trying to survive the experiments was going strong! :p
IX. And the pair indeed making it back to Tower Bridge, killing a bunch more Hooligans and desperately avoiding any Dryads along the way! Aria ended the episode by the bridge, taking “Gun Nut 2” as her level 13 perk while Jon squeed about all the improvements he was going to make to her arsenal. XD Oh, and despite coming very close to death multiple times this episode, Jon decided he was good enough at Fallout: London to bump the difficulty up to “Very Hard.” XD I think that’s going to come back to bite you, Jon!
And that was that! Plan next week is to find a workbench to improve all the guns, then go meet back up with Yvette and Uma in the safehouse at last so Aria can continue that questline! Hopefully with minimal distractions along the way, but – we all know Jon at this point. XD Should be fun!
Whew -- and there we have it! And I really should go to bed -- I woke up earlier than I wanted yesterday morning (had a brief brainfart that it was a workday), and I really want to try and get more sleep tonight. Plans for tomorrow include doing some drafting over on Victor Luvs Alice; playing Fallout 4 and continuing Victor and Ada's adventures in Vault 75; updating the Playthrough Progression doc appropriately; getting in a workout; and doing my Sunday two of Gray and Jon. Hopefully that is all achievable -- we shall see! Night all!
