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A Somewhat Chill Saturday
Aug. 13th, 2022 11:42 pmBoth in terms of how I handled the day AND in terms of temperature -- it was actually a long pants day! A LIGHT long pants and a t-shirt day, yes, but still! Felt almost fall-like out, especially with the dry air and the increasing clouds! It's actually comfortable enough in my room right now for me to sit with the window open and no AC! O.o That hasn't been common lately. . . Granted, I don't know if I'll have to put the AC on before I go to bed, I generally sleep better the colder it is, but it would be nice not to have to use it.
As for the day itself:
1. Continue writing "As Long As You Love Me": Check – finished off the rewrite of the “Still Here” section, with Victor and Alice having a nice conversation through the bathroom door as Alice wonders what the hell is up with hotel bathroom soaps and shampoos and asks Victor why he didn’t run when he had the chance – and Victor tells her that he gets it now, and he’s not scared anymore. So he’s still there. :) Surprisingly soft moment after the mass murder in the last chapter! I’m not sure if this is where this chapter is gonna end or not. . .it feels like it could be a decent ending point, but I could probably go a bit longer. . . Figure it out in a bit. But next up – more murder! XD Because this is a “holistic assassin and assistant” AU.
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs, plus the Plumbella and James Turner videos in my Watch Later: Check! Two Sims vids, two Subs vids, all nice and taken care of –
A) Started this afternoon after lunch with the Plumbella – “Reacting to your abhorrently unpopular Sims opinions!” She had some unpopular Sims opinions curated for her on her Discord, and then reacted to a handful, such as “I don’t mind babies being objects” (she disagreed; I’m on the fence – I’m not a family Simmer, as you know, but I WOULD like to be able to take them around the house at least); “Sims 4 is good for shell building but Sims 2 had better furnishings” (she sort of agreed, but felt that opinion is influenced by the fact the styles of the era Sims 2 came out in are back in fashion; I’m roughly the same – I like Sims 4 building, but I do miss some of the wackier objects from Sims 2); “Seasons is such a weak game pack” (Plumbella was like “I agree even if I think it’s a pack you need to get just for the weather;” my opinion is “this pack FORCES me to engage with it and that’s why I like it”); “Batuu is my favorite DLC” (she disagreed strongly; I made a joke in my comment about the person responsible for that being secretly James Turner XD); and “I wouldn’t mind if Sims 5 had multiplayer as long as single-player was still the main focus” (Plumbella agreed; I disagree because I don’t do multiplayer ANYTHING and I think that it would destroy the series – remember, The Sims 4 is the way it is because it was originally intended to be a multiplayer entry/spinoff). All in all, an interesting video, especially to see what some people like and don’t like about the game!
B) And then this evening, we continued with the James Turner video I wanted to watch – “Aliens stole my Sim's parents in this Sims 4 Update!” Yes, the latest SDX Drop included a new scenario with just that premise, so I figured I could watch James’s take on that. XD He made a family of Renruts – Semaj as the father, naturally, Bobby (his variant from his Eco Lifestyle early access stuff) as the teenager, and Wade (another aged-down Semaj) as the child, and had them buy a house in StrangerVille just for some added silliness. Upon arrival at their new place, Semaj immediately disappeared, and the children were set their goals – have $15,000 simoleons in the bank, both have A grades in school, the child must complete an aspiration, the teen must get a part-time job, the teen must hire a nanny, and they must cook together once. All stuff designed to make the average Simmer go “okay, how best can I juggle all these elements to win the challenge?”
Semaj just straight-up bulldozed the house and got the $15,000 right away. XD And then used the funds to build them a new tiny home (Tier 2) because once the goal is ticked, it cannot be unticked! XD It actually came out quite nice – we had a bedroom each for the two kids and their missing dad, a bathroom, and a communal kitchen/living area. And, because it was a Tier 2 tiny home, it meant the kids would build skills faster. Slap on the “Child’s Play” and “Good Schools” lot traits, and James was ready to power these kids through their goals to save their father! How’d he do?
I. Have $15,000 – accomplished above, with demolishing the old house and building a new one
II. Teen Must Get A Part-Time Job – more rules-lawyering here, as it said the teen must get a job, not keep a job. Bobby promptly entered and exited in one go the Barista part-time career. :p
II. Teen Must Hire A Nanny – same rules-lawyering – Bobby hired a nanny, let them arrive, then dismissed them. Cost them $64 bucks this time, but they got the tick!
III. The Teen And The Child Must Cook Together – pretty simple to accomplish – first night alone in the house, Bobby and Wade made brownies together! Or, more accurately, Bobby made brownies while letting Wade knead a random piece of dough to feel like they were helping. XD
IV. The Child Must Complete An Aspiration – after reviewing the four child aspirations, James decided that the “Artistic Prodigy” aspiration would be the easiest to complete in the shortest amount of time, as it could all be done on-lot. He made sure that Wade had an activity table and a child’s violin, then used the power of cloudgazing, thoughtful showers, and that one inspirational plumbob lamp you could get if you had The Sims 3 before buying this generation of games to power through the aspiration as quick as he could – drawing pictures while inspired, practicing his violin for hours, and using the accumulated aspiration points to buy moodlet solvers so Wade didn’t have to even eat or sleep. XD Took him about three days, but with a final streak of drawing all five picture types before school after using the violin to max out the Creativity skill, he did it!
V. Both The Child And The Teen Must Have A Grades – this one ended up taking the longest – first off, they started on a Sunday (hiding in the house from the possessed StrangerVille townies), so there was no school the first day (though James made sure they both had their homework done). Second day, Monday, they both headed off to school (alone, James wasn’t going to juggle this with High School Years), did quite well, and that plus the “Good Schools” lot trait got them both up to B students. They also brought home school projects, which they did in Semaj’s bedroom (once James had moved the bed). Third day, Tuesday, all the bonuses from the project, the lot trait, and their homework got Wade up to an A grade –
But Bobby, despite getting the “promotion” tick, didn’t get past B. James was confused until he realized that Bobby hadn’t yet gotten a skill up to level 3, which he needed to get his A grade. So while Wade powered through the end of his aspiration, Bobby got another level in his video gaming skill. XD Hey, it didn’t say the skill had to be an academic one! And with that sorted, and Wade’s aspiration sorted the next morning, the two went to school on Wednesday –
And both came home A students, prompting the return of Semaj and the reunion of the family in just four days, awww. :D The boys also got a reward trait each for free – Bobby got the “Mentor” reward trait, allowing him to mentor other Sims in any skill he had a ten in, while Wade got the “Speed Reader” trait, which just lets you read books faster. :p And Semaj got a new house, some very skilled kids, and his freedom from the aliens. XD Fun little scenario! Always good to see James’s take on these challenges.
C) From there we moved to the Subs, and a surprise Call Me Kevin upload for the day – “Can you play Minecraft as a villager?” Yes, apparently Kevin is willing to break his new upload schedule to answer that question. The actual video is about a challenge he found where you become the leader of a new village in Minecraft – it’s a multi-step process of finding a place to settle, building huts for everyone, and slowly improving your circumstances by building your own stone mine, making a farm, and growing your village population. Kevin started out with six villager eggs and – after wandering around avoiding other villages so his unfortunate “children” wouldn’t be able to see anyone having a better life – found a nice spot near the sea (or possibly a river, it was unclear) where he could knock down a few trees and start buildng horrible huts. After hunting down a few sheep for beds (he actually LITERALLY wasn’t allowed to shear them, he had to hunt them – but this is Kevin, we know he would have done that anyway), he was able to spawn in his villagers and start doing things like cutting paths out of the grass; starting his own mine (which was actually an underwater cave near his village – he did find iron and coal down there, though!); trying to make friends with the local wolves (no go); starting up a farm with random seeds; luring a couple of chickens into one of the most animal-friendly pens he’s ever made so he could force them to BREED; building a large barn as a “granary” (he described it as looking like a building wearing a hat; I thought it looked pretty good myself); filling a box half-full with food (including both raw and cooked porkchops, chicken, and fish – rules-lawyering is still following the rules!); exploring a nearby shipwreck (getting loads of wood from the wreck itself and iron from the chests inside); luring in sheep to a much LESS animal-friendly pen in the barn (only to lose one because he literally couldn’t force it into the small space); cooking pumpkin pies by the beach while watching over his sugar cane; and making plans to breed his villagers using that known aphrodisac – bread (hey, it works in THIS game). All while the villagers hung around grunting at each other. XD (Okay, fine, ONE got a job as a fisherman, but still. . .) It was all very amusing, and very interesting – I’m quite eager to see more of this. (Oh cripes, can you imagine if you combined this challenge with the “zombie apocalypse” mod. . .)
D) And finally we had GrayStillPlays and “Upgrading dumb cars into smart cars in GTA 5” – aka, driving-themed parkour fun with Alex and Danny! Apparently Alex just got his license recently (good for you Alex) and he and Danny decided to make some driving-themed challenges for Gray, at $1, $10, $100, and $1,000 levels to help fund the purchase of a car for Alex. Gray is always willing to give money to his favorite GTA V Sith Lords, and so he attempted the following challenges:
I. $1 – The “loop-de-loop reverse parking challenge” from Alex! Gray had to drive a real junker up and around a loop-de-loop ramp, sail backwards over to another thin platform and land on that, and then stop rapidly to park in the indicated space. Took Gray a few tries (mostly because he had trouble lining up to stay on both the ramp and the ending platform), but he did it in the end!
II. $10 – The “donut through the crosswalk over a timed platform challenge” from Danny! This one provided a less-rusty car (with a full case of beer in the back), and had Gray racing down a platform road in the sky toward the checkpoint. Along the way though, he had to cross a crosswalk with a cop and a pedestrian which was flanked by slow-down sticks, and get across a red platform right after that that was timed to drop to street level after a certain amount of time had passed. Gray had to basically whip around Vin Diesel-style, go through the crosswalk BACKWARDS to avoid the slow-down sticks, then turn it back around and make it over the platform before it dropped out from under him. Also took a few tries – mostly from Gray trying not to lose control and kill one of the pedestrians – but with a little luck, he managed to get to the checkpoint!
III. $100 – The “parallel parking jump between explosive barrels challenge” from Alex! Gray got a nice sports car that he had to whip down a narrow lane between two walls and launch onto a purple platform, “parallel parking” against a trio of gas pumps while avoiding crashing into the nearby fiery explosive barrels to his doom. Again, took a few tries – Gray had a tendency to either undershoot the platform or ram right into the barrels – but he actually ended up doing it TWICE. First time was a lucky landing on top of the barrels that didn’t result in an explosion; second time was a proper “slam up against the gas pumps neatly between the barrels” win. :D
IV. $1,000 – The “wall ride of ultimate doom” challenge from Alex! Gray got a very nice smart car, but that was the only nice thing he got – he had to do one of Alex’s most complicated wall rides (narrow walls, multiple transfers, the works), he had to do it all in one shot –
And he had to do it with the chaos mod on.
Yeah, this one took a good HALF THE VIDEO from Gray to complete. Hell, I think it took him a good five minutes just to get past the initial wall ride! From getting hit with 0.5 engine speed right when he needed to make a jump, to getting ended by Extreme Griefer Jesus, to having all his tires popped mid-ride, to getting the credits rolling as he handled a curve, to having the camera spinning at one point – oh, Gray craved the sweet release of death by the end. But – thanks to a lucky break in which he got a stuff like “Fireworks!” and “5 Wanted Stars,” neither of which really affected him – he FINALLY managed to complete it and dump himself in the ocean. XD Damn – the driving test in GTA V is tough! XD
3. Play Sims 4 and actually play the Valicer trio in their new house: Check! Well, after I took out the “All Bugged Out” mod briefly, popped into my building save, uploaded the now-unmodded “Sunny Brews” lot to the Gallery, and then popped back out to reinstall the newly-updated mod. :p But yeah, actually had a playsession with Victor, Alice, and Smiler in their new place today! And one of the first things I discovered?
Oh, they’re gonna need a LOT more stuff for generating power and water. XD This is a big house, it has lots of lights, and those lights kept going on and off periodically as their wind turbines struggled to keep up with demand. Turning all the rooms to “auto-lights” seems to have helped a little (as did just buying a couple more turbines) but I think the big thing to do is to change out all the lights for ones that work “off the grid” so that power can be saved for stuff like computers, stereos, fridges, and stoves. Water production seems to be okay for the moment, but we’ll have to keep an eye on that too. Damn, and the haunted house stuff hasn’t even kicked in yet. . .
As for the actual day, it went reasonably well for the trio –
-->Alice was able to find a job with her phone once the power kicked on for the first time, and as I intended, she grabbed a high-level job in the “Artist” career – she’s already up to level 8, Patron of the Arts! She doesn’t actually start work until Tuesday, but as her work task is to create paintings, she’s already made the house a bit of money. Plus her signing bonus paid for a couple of extra wind turbines, so that’s good. :P
-->Victor finally maxed his piano skill working on a song! That’s quite satisfying, AND fulfilled his New Year’s resolution! Now I just have to get Alice to write a book. . .
-->Smiler also earned some skills – they’re up to level 4 in Mixology, and level 2 on the guitar! :)
-->As is typical for Sims in a new house, they had some visitors – Thomas and Rahmi Watson, Cecilia Kang, and Erika Wada dropped by as the welcome wagon. I remembered Smiler having already friended Cecilia in a semi-recent update, but to my surprise, Alice and Thomas were already friendly too. I invited them all in and had them do welcome wagon stuff, getting to know each other and whatnot – though Victor insisting on flirting with Alice and Smiler made things a bit awkward. XD As did Erika SOMEHOW – for some reason she spent most of her visit Embarrassed. I don’t know why, other than she was the one to bring the fruitcake. . . :p Besides this, though, and the power constantly going on and off, everyone got along decently well, and Smiler helped out by throwing down a Burst of Happiness for everybody early on. :) Erika was even nice enough to give Smiler a free drink. :) (From her wrist, as my “change the ‘permission drink’ animation to the ‘compel drink’ one” mod is currently out. . .maybe I’ll slot it in again next week? I’m just nervous as the mod creator isn’t really around anymore. . .)
And, then, as the welcome wagon ended (with Victor and Alice already having gone upstairs for a quick shower/bath and some sleep), Sara Scott the pub owner showed up as well to say hello! Smiler invited her in for a bit – and detecting her personality helped them finally get enough power points to upgrade their “Alter Emotions” power all the way up to “Control Emotions!” Nice! Plus one left over, so I spent that on “Garlic Immunity.” :p They had a nice chat until Alice sent everybody home.
-->Victor and Smiler went through the greenhouse to get that sorted, with Smiler planting ALMOST everything (something went wrong on the very last plant, a green pea – ah well!) and Victor following behind watering it all after calming down the bees and getting some honey. Alice, while that was all going on, grabbed some more water for the household from the local fishing pond and managed to save a Sim fishing there in naught but a wrap-around tropical skirt from freezing to death by saying hello and asking to see his cold-weather outfit. XD
-->Day ended with Victor and Alice retiring for another sleep and Smiler finishing up their homework and having a bath. . .but I wasn’t QUITE ready for the session to end there, so instead I had them pop into CAS through the bathroom mirror for me so I could review and tweak everyone’s outfits. Victor has now “stolen” Smiler’s "The Smiler" hoodie for one of his party outfits. XD I also updated Victor and Alice’s underwear options and swimwear options a bit, changed up one of Alice’s formal dresses, gave Smiler another hot weather wear option and tweaked some of their outfits (both regular and dark form) – oh, and officially set Victor and Alice’s pronouns as well, because why not? :)
And so the playsession actually ended with Victor and Alice still sleeping and Smiler having just finished some dark mediation as they chatted with their pet Sixam Mosquito Trap plant Snappy. XD Nothing too strenuous today, but tomorrow – well. We’ve got Egg Day, Smiler’s final exams, and I fully intend for Victor and Alice to start their own occult journeys. Things are ramping up here, folks!
4. Work on tumblr drafts: Late check, but check all the same – caught up as much as I could on dash and tags this morning on Victor Luvs Alice, and just did a quick draft of my ideas for other Alton Towers coaster OCs to go with Smiler (names, pronouns, quick personality sketches). Plus I did catch up on tags and do my first reply on the new thread my RP partner and I have going on Valice Multiverse, so that’s gotta count for something too!
Additionally:
-->Despite some worrying-looking clouds, we did indeed get outside for beanbags, this time for the traditional weekend five rounds. And while I didn’t have a great day, I managed to pull it back enough to win once, which makes me happy. :) Final scores were me 2-3-3-W-3; Dad W-2-W-3-2; Mom 3-W-2-2-W. Hey, happy to see Mom doing better than she has been, and we all won at least once, so yay there. :)
Not too bad! I even got to start the day with a nice parfait, which isn't something I've had for a while. :) And now it's time to sort through the to-dos for tomorrow:
1. Keep up with the FO4 Playthrough Progression
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs, second episode of Jon's Fallout: The Board Game miniseries, and the latest "Legendary Roulette" video
3. Play Fallout 4 and start the Finch Farm quest in earnest
4. Work on tumblr drafts
5. Get in a workout
Typical Sunday stuff, all about the Fallout. :p The toughest one will probably be item 2, given that F:TBG episode is an hour and a half long. . .we'll have to carefully plan our time management tomorrow! Either that or be prepared to double up on some stuff on Monday. . . We'll see how it goes! Night all!
As for the day itself:
1. Continue writing "As Long As You Love Me": Check – finished off the rewrite of the “Still Here” section, with Victor and Alice having a nice conversation through the bathroom door as Alice wonders what the hell is up with hotel bathroom soaps and shampoos and asks Victor why he didn’t run when he had the chance – and Victor tells her that he gets it now, and he’s not scared anymore. So he’s still there. :) Surprisingly soft moment after the mass murder in the last chapter! I’m not sure if this is where this chapter is gonna end or not. . .it feels like it could be a decent ending point, but I could probably go a bit longer. . . Figure it out in a bit. But next up – more murder! XD Because this is a “holistic assassin and assistant” AU.
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs, plus the Plumbella and James Turner videos in my Watch Later: Check! Two Sims vids, two Subs vids, all nice and taken care of –
A) Started this afternoon after lunch with the Plumbella – “Reacting to your abhorrently unpopular Sims opinions!” She had some unpopular Sims opinions curated for her on her Discord, and then reacted to a handful, such as “I don’t mind babies being objects” (she disagreed; I’m on the fence – I’m not a family Simmer, as you know, but I WOULD like to be able to take them around the house at least); “Sims 4 is good for shell building but Sims 2 had better furnishings” (she sort of agreed, but felt that opinion is influenced by the fact the styles of the era Sims 2 came out in are back in fashion; I’m roughly the same – I like Sims 4 building, but I do miss some of the wackier objects from Sims 2); “Seasons is such a weak game pack” (Plumbella was like “I agree even if I think it’s a pack you need to get just for the weather;” my opinion is “this pack FORCES me to engage with it and that’s why I like it”); “Batuu is my favorite DLC” (she disagreed strongly; I made a joke in my comment about the person responsible for that being secretly James Turner XD); and “I wouldn’t mind if Sims 5 had multiplayer as long as single-player was still the main focus” (Plumbella agreed; I disagree because I don’t do multiplayer ANYTHING and I think that it would destroy the series – remember, The Sims 4 is the way it is because it was originally intended to be a multiplayer entry/spinoff). All in all, an interesting video, especially to see what some people like and don’t like about the game!
B) And then this evening, we continued with the James Turner video I wanted to watch – “Aliens stole my Sim's parents in this Sims 4 Update!” Yes, the latest SDX Drop included a new scenario with just that premise, so I figured I could watch James’s take on that. XD He made a family of Renruts – Semaj as the father, naturally, Bobby (his variant from his Eco Lifestyle early access stuff) as the teenager, and Wade (another aged-down Semaj) as the child, and had them buy a house in StrangerVille just for some added silliness. Upon arrival at their new place, Semaj immediately disappeared, and the children were set their goals – have $15,000 simoleons in the bank, both have A grades in school, the child must complete an aspiration, the teen must get a part-time job, the teen must hire a nanny, and they must cook together once. All stuff designed to make the average Simmer go “okay, how best can I juggle all these elements to win the challenge?”
Semaj just straight-up bulldozed the house and got the $15,000 right away. XD And then used the funds to build them a new tiny home (Tier 2) because once the goal is ticked, it cannot be unticked! XD It actually came out quite nice – we had a bedroom each for the two kids and their missing dad, a bathroom, and a communal kitchen/living area. And, because it was a Tier 2 tiny home, it meant the kids would build skills faster. Slap on the “Child’s Play” and “Good Schools” lot traits, and James was ready to power these kids through their goals to save their father! How’d he do?
I. Have $15,000 – accomplished above, with demolishing the old house and building a new one
II. Teen Must Get A Part-Time Job – more rules-lawyering here, as it said the teen must get a job, not keep a job. Bobby promptly entered and exited in one go the Barista part-time career. :p
II. Teen Must Hire A Nanny – same rules-lawyering – Bobby hired a nanny, let them arrive, then dismissed them. Cost them $64 bucks this time, but they got the tick!
III. The Teen And The Child Must Cook Together – pretty simple to accomplish – first night alone in the house, Bobby and Wade made brownies together! Or, more accurately, Bobby made brownies while letting Wade knead a random piece of dough to feel like they were helping. XD
IV. The Child Must Complete An Aspiration – after reviewing the four child aspirations, James decided that the “Artistic Prodigy” aspiration would be the easiest to complete in the shortest amount of time, as it could all be done on-lot. He made sure that Wade had an activity table and a child’s violin, then used the power of cloudgazing, thoughtful showers, and that one inspirational plumbob lamp you could get if you had The Sims 3 before buying this generation of games to power through the aspiration as quick as he could – drawing pictures while inspired, practicing his violin for hours, and using the accumulated aspiration points to buy moodlet solvers so Wade didn’t have to even eat or sleep. XD Took him about three days, but with a final streak of drawing all five picture types before school after using the violin to max out the Creativity skill, he did it!
V. Both The Child And The Teen Must Have A Grades – this one ended up taking the longest – first off, they started on a Sunday (hiding in the house from the possessed StrangerVille townies), so there was no school the first day (though James made sure they both had their homework done). Second day, Monday, they both headed off to school (alone, James wasn’t going to juggle this with High School Years), did quite well, and that plus the “Good Schools” lot trait got them both up to B students. They also brought home school projects, which they did in Semaj’s bedroom (once James had moved the bed). Third day, Tuesday, all the bonuses from the project, the lot trait, and their homework got Wade up to an A grade –
But Bobby, despite getting the “promotion” tick, didn’t get past B. James was confused until he realized that Bobby hadn’t yet gotten a skill up to level 3, which he needed to get his A grade. So while Wade powered through the end of his aspiration, Bobby got another level in his video gaming skill. XD Hey, it didn’t say the skill had to be an academic one! And with that sorted, and Wade’s aspiration sorted the next morning, the two went to school on Wednesday –
And both came home A students, prompting the return of Semaj and the reunion of the family in just four days, awww. :D The boys also got a reward trait each for free – Bobby got the “Mentor” reward trait, allowing him to mentor other Sims in any skill he had a ten in, while Wade got the “Speed Reader” trait, which just lets you read books faster. :p And Semaj got a new house, some very skilled kids, and his freedom from the aliens. XD Fun little scenario! Always good to see James’s take on these challenges.
C) From there we moved to the Subs, and a surprise Call Me Kevin upload for the day – “Can you play Minecraft as a villager?” Yes, apparently Kevin is willing to break his new upload schedule to answer that question. The actual video is about a challenge he found where you become the leader of a new village in Minecraft – it’s a multi-step process of finding a place to settle, building huts for everyone, and slowly improving your circumstances by building your own stone mine, making a farm, and growing your village population. Kevin started out with six villager eggs and – after wandering around avoiding other villages so his unfortunate “children” wouldn’t be able to see anyone having a better life – found a nice spot near the sea (or possibly a river, it was unclear) where he could knock down a few trees and start buildng horrible huts. After hunting down a few sheep for beds (he actually LITERALLY wasn’t allowed to shear them, he had to hunt them – but this is Kevin, we know he would have done that anyway), he was able to spawn in his villagers and start doing things like cutting paths out of the grass; starting his own mine (which was actually an underwater cave near his village – he did find iron and coal down there, though!); trying to make friends with the local wolves (no go); starting up a farm with random seeds; luring a couple of chickens into one of the most animal-friendly pens he’s ever made so he could force them to BREED; building a large barn as a “granary” (he described it as looking like a building wearing a hat; I thought it looked pretty good myself); filling a box half-full with food (including both raw and cooked porkchops, chicken, and fish – rules-lawyering is still following the rules!); exploring a nearby shipwreck (getting loads of wood from the wreck itself and iron from the chests inside); luring in sheep to a much LESS animal-friendly pen in the barn (only to lose one because he literally couldn’t force it into the small space); cooking pumpkin pies by the beach while watching over his sugar cane; and making plans to breed his villagers using that known aphrodisac – bread (hey, it works in THIS game). All while the villagers hung around grunting at each other. XD (Okay, fine, ONE got a job as a fisherman, but still. . .) It was all very amusing, and very interesting – I’m quite eager to see more of this. (Oh cripes, can you imagine if you combined this challenge with the “zombie apocalypse” mod. . .)
D) And finally we had GrayStillPlays and “Upgrading dumb cars into smart cars in GTA 5” – aka, driving-themed parkour fun with Alex and Danny! Apparently Alex just got his license recently (good for you Alex) and he and Danny decided to make some driving-themed challenges for Gray, at $1, $10, $100, and $1,000 levels to help fund the purchase of a car for Alex. Gray is always willing to give money to his favorite GTA V Sith Lords, and so he attempted the following challenges:
I. $1 – The “loop-de-loop reverse parking challenge” from Alex! Gray had to drive a real junker up and around a loop-de-loop ramp, sail backwards over to another thin platform and land on that, and then stop rapidly to park in the indicated space. Took Gray a few tries (mostly because he had trouble lining up to stay on both the ramp and the ending platform), but he did it in the end!
II. $10 – The “donut through the crosswalk over a timed platform challenge” from Danny! This one provided a less-rusty car (with a full case of beer in the back), and had Gray racing down a platform road in the sky toward the checkpoint. Along the way though, he had to cross a crosswalk with a cop and a pedestrian which was flanked by slow-down sticks, and get across a red platform right after that that was timed to drop to street level after a certain amount of time had passed. Gray had to basically whip around Vin Diesel-style, go through the crosswalk BACKWARDS to avoid the slow-down sticks, then turn it back around and make it over the platform before it dropped out from under him. Also took a few tries – mostly from Gray trying not to lose control and kill one of the pedestrians – but with a little luck, he managed to get to the checkpoint!
III. $100 – The “parallel parking jump between explosive barrels challenge” from Alex! Gray got a nice sports car that he had to whip down a narrow lane between two walls and launch onto a purple platform, “parallel parking” against a trio of gas pumps while avoiding crashing into the nearby fiery explosive barrels to his doom. Again, took a few tries – Gray had a tendency to either undershoot the platform or ram right into the barrels – but he actually ended up doing it TWICE. First time was a lucky landing on top of the barrels that didn’t result in an explosion; second time was a proper “slam up against the gas pumps neatly between the barrels” win. :D
IV. $1,000 – The “wall ride of ultimate doom” challenge from Alex! Gray got a very nice smart car, but that was the only nice thing he got – he had to do one of Alex’s most complicated wall rides (narrow walls, multiple transfers, the works), he had to do it all in one shot –
And he had to do it with the chaos mod on.
Yeah, this one took a good HALF THE VIDEO from Gray to complete. Hell, I think it took him a good five minutes just to get past the initial wall ride! From getting hit with 0.5 engine speed right when he needed to make a jump, to getting ended by Extreme Griefer Jesus, to having all his tires popped mid-ride, to getting the credits rolling as he handled a curve, to having the camera spinning at one point – oh, Gray craved the sweet release of death by the end. But – thanks to a lucky break in which he got a stuff like “Fireworks!” and “5 Wanted Stars,” neither of which really affected him – he FINALLY managed to complete it and dump himself in the ocean. XD Damn – the driving test in GTA V is tough! XD
3. Play Sims 4 and actually play the Valicer trio in their new house: Check! Well, after I took out the “All Bugged Out” mod briefly, popped into my building save, uploaded the now-unmodded “Sunny Brews” lot to the Gallery, and then popped back out to reinstall the newly-updated mod. :p But yeah, actually had a playsession with Victor, Alice, and Smiler in their new place today! And one of the first things I discovered?
Oh, they’re gonna need a LOT more stuff for generating power and water. XD This is a big house, it has lots of lights, and those lights kept going on and off periodically as their wind turbines struggled to keep up with demand. Turning all the rooms to “auto-lights” seems to have helped a little (as did just buying a couple more turbines) but I think the big thing to do is to change out all the lights for ones that work “off the grid” so that power can be saved for stuff like computers, stereos, fridges, and stoves. Water production seems to be okay for the moment, but we’ll have to keep an eye on that too. Damn, and the haunted house stuff hasn’t even kicked in yet. . .
As for the actual day, it went reasonably well for the trio –
-->Alice was able to find a job with her phone once the power kicked on for the first time, and as I intended, she grabbed a high-level job in the “Artist” career – she’s already up to level 8, Patron of the Arts! She doesn’t actually start work until Tuesday, but as her work task is to create paintings, she’s already made the house a bit of money. Plus her signing bonus paid for a couple of extra wind turbines, so that’s good. :P
-->Victor finally maxed his piano skill working on a song! That’s quite satisfying, AND fulfilled his New Year’s resolution! Now I just have to get Alice to write a book. . .
-->Smiler also earned some skills – they’re up to level 4 in Mixology, and level 2 on the guitar! :)
-->As is typical for Sims in a new house, they had some visitors – Thomas and Rahmi Watson, Cecilia Kang, and Erika Wada dropped by as the welcome wagon. I remembered Smiler having already friended Cecilia in a semi-recent update, but to my surprise, Alice and Thomas were already friendly too. I invited them all in and had them do welcome wagon stuff, getting to know each other and whatnot – though Victor insisting on flirting with Alice and Smiler made things a bit awkward. XD As did Erika SOMEHOW – for some reason she spent most of her visit Embarrassed. I don’t know why, other than she was the one to bring the fruitcake. . . :p Besides this, though, and the power constantly going on and off, everyone got along decently well, and Smiler helped out by throwing down a Burst of Happiness for everybody early on. :) Erika was even nice enough to give Smiler a free drink. :) (From her wrist, as my “change the ‘permission drink’ animation to the ‘compel drink’ one” mod is currently out. . .maybe I’ll slot it in again next week? I’m just nervous as the mod creator isn’t really around anymore. . .)
And, then, as the welcome wagon ended (with Victor and Alice already having gone upstairs for a quick shower/bath and some sleep), Sara Scott the pub owner showed up as well to say hello! Smiler invited her in for a bit – and detecting her personality helped them finally get enough power points to upgrade their “Alter Emotions” power all the way up to “Control Emotions!” Nice! Plus one left over, so I spent that on “Garlic Immunity.” :p They had a nice chat until Alice sent everybody home.
-->Victor and Smiler went through the greenhouse to get that sorted, with Smiler planting ALMOST everything (something went wrong on the very last plant, a green pea – ah well!) and Victor following behind watering it all after calming down the bees and getting some honey. Alice, while that was all going on, grabbed some more water for the household from the local fishing pond and managed to save a Sim fishing there in naught but a wrap-around tropical skirt from freezing to death by saying hello and asking to see his cold-weather outfit. XD
-->Day ended with Victor and Alice retiring for another sleep and Smiler finishing up their homework and having a bath. . .but I wasn’t QUITE ready for the session to end there, so instead I had them pop into CAS through the bathroom mirror for me so I could review and tweak everyone’s outfits. Victor has now “stolen” Smiler’s "The Smiler" hoodie for one of his party outfits. XD I also updated Victor and Alice’s underwear options and swimwear options a bit, changed up one of Alice’s formal dresses, gave Smiler another hot weather wear option and tweaked some of their outfits (both regular and dark form) – oh, and officially set Victor and Alice’s pronouns as well, because why not? :)
And so the playsession actually ended with Victor and Alice still sleeping and Smiler having just finished some dark mediation as they chatted with their pet Sixam Mosquito Trap plant Snappy. XD Nothing too strenuous today, but tomorrow – well. We’ve got Egg Day, Smiler’s final exams, and I fully intend for Victor and Alice to start their own occult journeys. Things are ramping up here, folks!
4. Work on tumblr drafts: Late check, but check all the same – caught up as much as I could on dash and tags this morning on Victor Luvs Alice, and just did a quick draft of my ideas for other Alton Towers coaster OCs to go with Smiler (names, pronouns, quick personality sketches). Plus I did catch up on tags and do my first reply on the new thread my RP partner and I have going on Valice Multiverse, so that’s gotta count for something too!
Additionally:
-->Despite some worrying-looking clouds, we did indeed get outside for beanbags, this time for the traditional weekend five rounds. And while I didn’t have a great day, I managed to pull it back enough to win once, which makes me happy. :) Final scores were me 2-3-3-W-3; Dad W-2-W-3-2; Mom 3-W-2-2-W. Hey, happy to see Mom doing better than she has been, and we all won at least once, so yay there. :)
Not too bad! I even got to start the day with a nice parfait, which isn't something I've had for a while. :) And now it's time to sort through the to-dos for tomorrow:
1. Keep up with the FO4 Playthrough Progression
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs, second episode of Jon's Fallout: The Board Game miniseries, and the latest "Legendary Roulette" video
3. Play Fallout 4 and start the Finch Farm quest in earnest
4. Work on tumblr drafts
5. Get in a workout
Typical Sunday stuff, all about the Fallout. :p The toughest one will probably be item 2, given that F:TBG episode is an hour and a half long. . .we'll have to carefully plan our time management tomorrow! Either that or be prepared to double up on some stuff on Monday. . . We'll see how it goes! Night all!
