Productive Non-Cleaning Saturday

Yeah, despite the weather being absolute SHIT outside most of the day (wind, rain, slush, the whole nine yards), I had a pretty nice day, I gotta say! Good breakfast of cereal and chocolate granola with banana; Mom found out how to make her own puff pastry and made more cheese sticks; and I got a good amount done --

Tumblr: Had a reasonably productive day on here –

A) Got started on my day a little too late to get through the dash-and-tags update on Victor Luvs Alice – but right after changing my sheets and getting dressed and all that, I had a sudden shocking flash of inspiration about what I should put up today for Song Saturday on Victor Luvs Alice – since Stretch-Time and I had been discussing a “Phantom of the Opera” AU for Valicer for a good portion of the week, naturally I had to reblog the old “Phantom Anaconda” post from my Song Saturday tag! (AKA this surprisingly good mash-up of Nikki Minaj’s “Anaconda” and the titular “Phantom Of The Opera” song.) So I hastily found that and reblogged it, preempting my ACTUAL queued-up post (“Contagious” by Trapt, if you were wondering), and moved that to my drafts for a later date. XD I’m just glad I caught it in time and thus have a pre-prepped Song Saturday for next week!

B) And then, after that but before actually playing Sims 4, below, I took some time to get through all the pictures for this week’s Chill Valicer Save update, featuring the gang hanging out after Winterfest and the trip to Moonwood Mill (and Guidry nearly setting the greenhouse on fire with herbalism). It’s only sixty pictures this time, it’s fine. :p I’m getting them in the drafts with starter text right now so I’ll have them ready for tomorrow.

C) And on Valice Multiverse, it’s quiet just for the moment – replied to two asks, and that’s been about it for the moment. I do have another fandom reblog for VTMB waiting in my drafts if I need it!

Sims 4: Well, I MEANT to actually play the Valicer family, but it ended up turning into another building day. On the plus side, barring maybe one or two last tweaks when I next play (like getting another outdoor couch, or moving a shelf around), I should finally be DONE with upgrading the house! Here’s the final touches I put in –

A) Started by making the crafting/party barn SLIGHTLY bigger – that is, a tile wider on each side. This allowed me to get some extra room, particularly up top, and now the ping-pong table doesn’t feel so much like it’s crowding the stereo and cutting into the dance floor. So yes, the ping-pong table now lives in Smiler’s party loft! As for the downstairs crafting area, I put in a couple more columns as “support” for the upstairs loft and centered the alchemy cauldron and its stone circle between them and the original two. Feel like I should put more down in there, but we’ll leave that for a future renovation!

B) I did indeed move Victor’s oversized pumpkin selfie to the shelf in the greenhouse – it felt appropriate!

C) I finished off the rec room! I ended up moving Smiler’s special golden party keg into the storage room (since that’s really something that they’ll only pull out for keg parties or other summer fun parties), and then (after futzing with where I wanted certain displays and side tables; more below) set up the rec room with the Paranormal Stuff couch in front of the microphone (both in the yellow/gold swatches) with a colorful hall table behind that, then the bubble blower partly in the corner on the other side, next to the big display of frogs (thank you Somecreative CC’s tumblr!). Almost all of Smiler’s unique frogs are in the display now, barring the Hypnofrog they keep as a pet. They also still have two duplicate frogs in their inventory to breed for plasma pack purposes. It occurs to me that I probably should slap some rugs down up there, but other than that it’s as finished as it’ll get for now!

D) I did a LOT of futzing around with displays! Mainly because, along with getting the frog display from Somecreative CC, I also got their crystal, metal, and fossil displays and started playing around with those and the existing shelves I already had to see what I liked best and what fit well where. Plus I decided to get some new hallway tables and the like. . . In the end –

I. I decided I liked the fossil display and put the four fossils the gang currently has on it, and put that by the cat tree and the entrance to the séance room

II. I discovered Alice’s crystal collection fit quite well into the Tetris-inspired shelves from Cepzid’s “Arcade Stuff” collection and moved those into the séance room (recoloring them to the white swatch)

III. Staying in the séance room, got the Paranormal Stuff hallway table to put below the matching shelf from the pack so I could display the Soul Scrap and Specter Sip Smiler got from the specters there

IV. I put Alice’s metal collection on the white wooden shelves that used to house the crystals and put those by her and Victor’s door

V. I got a new hallway table (the Cottage Living one in blue) for outside Victor and Alice’s room for their little special flower vase collection (including flowers Alice unlocked as an artist and a single rose from a Silver date at some point)

VI. I got them a new dresser (the Princess Cordelia one in the white swatch – they can afford it, trust me!) and (after fiddling around with items at the end of their bed and never being happy with how it looked) a side table for Victor’s sacred candles (the only one that I could find that roughly matched the wood swatches in the rest of the room)

VII. Got the picnic basket out of Victor’s inventory and changed out the little side table in the kitchen for a longer one that was literally called a “buffet” by the game to hold both the basket and their VIP ice bucket.

E) And I added a couple of activities to the house – namely, I got Alice the nicest camera in the catalog (which didn’t require an unlock) and put it on her and Victor’s desk, and I put a knitting basket in the séance room by the rocking chair – mostly because I found a swatch that had the one-eyed bunny toy that’s tucked in all between the balls of yarn in white. :) So that’s mainly for decorative purposes, but if any of my Sims WANT to try knitting, well, there it is. XD I also deleted one activity – yeah, finally faced facts about the Valicer trio owning large livestock and sold the cow/llama shed. Have compensated by making the chicken coop enclosure bigger – let’s see if they can take somewhat better care of their chickens going forward, and THEN we’ll work on finding a way to fit larger animals!

And that’s pretty much about it! Okay, yes, I have to throw a couple of rugs into the rec room; possibly get some more outdoor seating for the new back patio; and I ALSO downloaded a “family portrait” photo frame from Somecreative CC that I meant to put up but forgot in the face of all my OTHER fiddling (and find more stuff to put on all my shelves), but those are simple tweaks and can be done before an actual PLAY SESSION. And I do want to play again, as I was hoping to get the family to New Year’s before the Infants Patch (which is looking like a truly MASSIVE update) came along and probably left me building stuff for a while. . .fortunately, I did take a day off Monday after next, the 13th, so I should be able to JUST squeeze that in! And in a lovely upgraded house too. :)

Writing: Got another page done on “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland,” with Alice making her way to Kanker’s little watery “chapel” and getting through all his dialogue about the Ninth Circle and how giving homeless people terrible diseases gives them new purpose. Alice accused him of being a worse version of Carpenter and shot him in the shoulder. XD And so we begin the boss fight, and I intend for Alice to get some use out of the meat hooks Kanker insisted on hanging up all over the place. . .

YouTube: Oh, had a good day on here, mostly because I got five videos out of the old Watch Later, PLUS an extra bonus video on top of the daily Sub vid. :D Ahh, I love a non-cleaning Saturday for getting on top of things a bit –

A) Post Sims 4, I decided to binge some OXBoxtra lists –

I. “7 ‘Live Service’ Games that Died Extremely Fast, RIP” – Luke and Ellen talk about a bunch of “live service” games (online games that get things like season passes and regular updates with new maps and suchlike) that died pretty damn fast. For reasons like “being a buggy, almost unplayable mess at launch with a premise that alienated people who already liked the franchise it was based off of and also they put NFTs in it” (Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint), “being a repetitive asymmetrical monster-hunting game that was SO HEAVILY MONETIZED at launch the Day One DLC added up to THE SAME PRICE AS THE GAME, putting people off” (Evolve), and “being an incredibly good game that got so popular so quickly that the developers admitted they couldn’t keep up – so they’re going to work on a new free shooter in the same universe, and oh here’s an infinite battle pass that’s free for everyone so you can all keep playing and unlocking the stuff that already exists even if we aren’t doing new updates” (Splitgate, the only happy story on this list). Yeah, the only people I feel even slightly sorry for are the folks who made Splitgate, and they at least knew when to fold them and how best to keep their userbase happy! (Except when it comes to stopping Luke from getting murderlated so much.)

II. “The 7 Cheapest Tricks Pulled By Fighting Game Bosses” – Andy, back on his fighting game bullshit, ranting about bosses in these games and the horrible tricks they play on you, the poor innocent player. From being able to regenerate their health, to having special attacks you can’t dodge or block, to having instant-kill moves you can only hope to avoid, these bosses make fighting them cruel and unusual punishment. Though, as Andy pointed out, the CRUELEST trick comes when you unlock them, and suddenly all their super-powerful cheaty moves vanish into the ether. Fuck game balance – I EARNED those unlimited supers, damn it! XD

III. “7 Videogame Workarounds That Will Blow Your Mind” – Andy, Mike, and Jane talk about those weird video game workarounds that make players go :O! From the isometric Unpacking actually being made in 3-D (the assets are apparently force-perspectived into looking like they’re isometric!), to the skybox in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time actually being a tiny cube sitting beside Link positioned JUST RIGHT to fill the black void around him (because skyboxes be tricky, yo), to the famous Fallout 3: Broken Steel “the Presidential Metro is an NPC wearing a train car as a hat” deal (and also apparently YOUR CHARACTER gets a train car as a hat at some point to help simulate you’re in a moving train while you’re in fact just sprinting along the tracks), games contain a lot of weird workarounds and secrets in them! It does indeed blow your mind :O

IV. “Elden Ring DLC: Boss Replay, Seamless Co-op and 5 More Features We Want to See” – Luke, back on his Elden Ring bullshit, chatting about the features he’d like to see come along with the eventual Shadow of the Erdtree DLC! From the ability to replay bosses somehow so you can try out different techniques, to having a bunch of new and interesting lore that isn’t just item descriptions, to LETTING US DRESS UP TORRENT, DAMN IT, HE’S OUR GOOD HORSIE CREATURE. XD I guess we’ll see if any of his dreams come true whenever this DLC comes out!

V. “Resident Evil 4 Remake Comparison: 7 Changes to the Original” – Mike, back on his Resident Evil 4 Remake bullshit (taking over from Andy, who did the last list of this type), showing off more changes they’ve noticed from the original in the newly-released gameplay footage leading up to launch later this month! Most of them are good – you can now manually fire a cannon in the “storming the castle battlements” sequence to wreck cultists; the knife fight with Krauser is now user-controlled while keeping some of the same key choreography; and Ashley is a little less annoying and a little better dressed – some are weird – antagonist Ramon now looks like a small Margaret Thatcher instead of a kid playing dress-up – and some I don’t approve of – they changed the Merchant’s voice by getting rid of the gravel and now he’s just kind of vaguely Cockney. :( But overall it looks like the REmake is gonna be a good time. If only because Leon still does ridiculous suplexes to his enemies. XD

B) Then, this evening, I dropped by Simmer Erin’s channel for “Growing Together Livestream was SOMETHING (Recap & Review Sims 4 2023)!” The Livestream for the upcoming Infants Update and the Growing Together EP happened yesterday, and I am eager for information, damn it! And while I’ve been getting a steady trickle of short articles from Sims Community, Erin here actually had some proper deets – showing off clips from the Livestream about how infants work (they have their own set of six traits, and can actually develop attachment with their caretakers) and some of the key features from the new pack, like the various archetypes now present in the Preferences categories (for example if a Sim Likes Pet Enthusiast Sims, they like Sims who have any of the traits “Love Cats,” “Love Dogs,” or “Animal Enthusiast”); what social compatibility looks like in Live Mode (there’s a few different levels, and it affects how fast Sims can actually become friends); new cross-generational interactions (like elder Sims reminiscing to younger ones about the good old days); new child activities (learn how to ride a bike!); Milestones (infants have lots tied to motor skills, meeting people, and other firsts, while older Sims have ones tied to the first time they did something somewhere – like, if a Sim goes back to the place they got married, they’ll remember that and get an appropriate moodlet); and the world of San Sequoia (it is basically San Francisco XD). Oh, and there are new social events too (baby shower, sleepover, and family reunion, plus the special “overnight guest” one), but they didn’t have time to show them off much in the Livestream (though Kyle did come to stay over with a test family). Erin is largely impressed with what she saw, but remains cautious, as she feels this is all complex stuff, and it would be pretty easy for it not to work as advertised. Plus, as usual, emotions are a big part of them, and we all know how fiddly THAT can be. . . But it FEELS like a good, solid step forward, so – yeah, fingers crossed, everyone!

C) And finally it was over to the Subs for GrayStillPlays and “Testing Tanks vs Satisfying Car Dominos in GTA 5!” Alex had come up with some “satisfying” challenge boards for Gray to complete, themed around using various vehicles as dominoes! All were elevated courses, forcing Gray to reset should he fall off, but he was allowed to use all provided vehicles as much as he liked. And he had to knock over EVERY “domino,” because Alex put some teleporters in his way to shoot him back to the beginning if he didn’t. The first one was a simple straight shot for the most part, with Gray knocking over regular orange sedans (size doesn’t matter), followed by blue limos (size DOES matter), followed by red sports cars with some guy I don’t know but apparently Gray and Alex do in them shouting about FAMILY! (FAMILY!) Gray had a bit of trouble because of choosing unsuitable cars (turns out the rust bucket Wastelander climbs cars better than the damn Liberator MONSTER TRUCK), but he got there in the end – and learned that the dominoes still functioned as actual vehicles, which was important information to have for the second board! Why? Because in THAT one, he was knocking down FIGHTER JETS and TANKS – and he had to commandeer one of each to knock off or otherwise kill people standing in inconvenient spots (in tiny gaps behind walls or on top of high narrow platforms) who were also linked to teleporters keeping him from making his way through the board. And then carefully walk down the turret of a tank to actually get on the platform WITH the checkpoint. XD And in the THIRD one, he had to do a DOUBLE split domino run with buses, fire trucks, and SWAT trucks with water cannons – the fire trucks were to the left, and the SWAT trucks to the right, and each had a dude standing on a platform nearby that could be sprayed with water. Gray had to make sure he knocked over both lines so he could use a car from each and figure out which guy was linked to the teleporter blocking the winning platform. He – had a lot of trouble doing this (not in the least because he INSISTED on using the BMX bike at first to try and knock everything over, and – no), but he eventually got both sides down and discovered it was the firefighter truck guy who had to be sprayed off his platform for Gray to get his win. A bizarre set of boards to be sure, but very satisfying indeed!

Yeah, I am satisfied with my progress for today. :) Especially since I just finished answering Moose's messages too, w000. :)

Okay, time to go back to doing the social thing and getting those upcoming Chill Valicer Save update posts drafted. Tomorrow is Fallout Sunday, which means doing Fallout 4 stuff (giving the Warwicks a proper bathroom, at least!) and then writing about it in the Progression Playthrough; keeping up with Gray and Jon's "Tale of Two Wastelands" videos-wise (though I have a Hitman: Freelancer video from Jon in the WL -- should I try to double up? We'll see. . .); catching up on dash-and-tags with Victor Luvs Alice; and in this case also rereading the latest chapter of "Beneath a Broken Sky" (the eldritch hellworld Valice fic) so I can give it a proper review. *nods* We'll see how much of this I manage to do! Night all!