![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Decent Saturday, If Bad Focus
Jun. 10th, 2023 11:54 pmYeah, tonight in particular has not been a great night for focusing on stuff -- possibly because I know I have extra time off coming up and thus I think I can save my focus for then. I don't think that's how it works, brain. *shakehead* BUT I did pretty well on getting stuff done regardless --
Tumblr: I didn’t do much on Victor Luvs Alice beyond keep up with the main dash, but it proved to be a reasonably busy night on Valice Multiverse – mostly because I got three asks referencing Victor’s recent birthday (one from Lily with a Kermit tie for him; one from Dr. Dan of that eldritch horror Valice fic I like so much, giving Victor a copy of a crystal butterfly from his world – this one had a follow-up because Secundus!Victor naturally wants to make his own version and Dan/author SatiricalDemon was like “you really shouldn’t but if you do make them less aggressive;” and one from a random passing blog with a “Hap Birt” sign XD). So that was nice! And I DID just finish up getting all the pictures for the next Chill Valicer Save update sorted – sixty this time, for Summer Monday, with them working on their garden and heading to the store for more shelf-filling fun. :) So that’s good!
Sims 4: Well, thanks to some glitchiness, I didn’t have quite as good a playsession as I wanted today in the game, but we did get through Summer Tuesday and Smiler’s weenie roast, so let me give you the details –
A) Obviously, since a patch came out recently, had to start with the usual round of game maintenance – namely, backing up my “saves” and “Tray” folders (which prompted actually a lot MORE backing up, as you will see in the “Other” section), and going through all my mods and checking statuses (a few updates, most compatible or no news – as it was a fairly small patch, I decided to risk it with those I couldn’t get confirmation for). Let me tell you, Lot51’s new website is AWFUL. *wince* I really like your “All Bugged Out” mod, sir, but ugh.
B) Anyway, once game was patched, started up once without mods, then had its mods put back in and all its caches cleared and whatnot, it was time to jump into the Chill Valicer Save! And first things first – when I left it off LAST time, Temperance had summoned some angry specters into the séance room, so I had Smiler and Victor go and try to take care of those via gifts – Smiler with a fresh glass of merlot, Victor with a delicious jar of honey. Smiler’s gift was a hit, Victor’s gift was a miss. Bit of a shame, that – at least Smiler got the family more wraith wax for more candles!
B) Around this time I spotted Elmer the gardening bot roaming the yard and was like “SHIT HE’S PROBABLY ABOUT TO EXPLODE.” So I had Smiler fly down there and quickly deactivate the bot, put him on the workstation, and give him a tune up (after some brief distraction with a specter). Victor, for his part, took a moment to sense the spiritual volatility of the house (still good, fortunately), and then headed into the barn himself to talk to specters before getting distracted by Smiler – I had him instead draw a small illustrative painting on his sketchpad and present it to the specter in the barn. And despite it being a MASTERPIECE, the specter still said it was a bad gift. >( What, do these little blobs only like booze?
C) Alice, for her part, woke up from her wolf nap out in the yard, changed back to normal, and did some recycling before going inside for a short dance and a talk with Guidry. A passing specter sprinkled her and left her feeling playful – and I was like “you know what, we’ve actually got some power now – how about we get you back to writing books?” So I sent her upstairs to try a playful book – “The Puns of the Gnat,” to reference an oft-forgotten character from Through The Looking Glass. XD (Oh, and I discovered around this time that the dragon dragonfly that Victor caught in Granite Falls actually breathes fire from time to time! Hopefully it doesn’t do that in front of Alice.)
D) Speaking of “we’ve got power now, so let’s do some electronics-related stuff,” I decided Smiler might as well get back into making SimsTube videos, so after having them fix up a broken water collector, I sent them upstairs to check the latest trends. Those included both gardening AND herbalism, and so I decided to have Smiler take advantage of their new love of herbal concoctions by getting a drone to film themselves cooking up a pot of something on the greenhouse grill! :D The nice expensive one in yellow, of course. :p (Also made sure to pick up a campfire while I was in Build/Buy for the weenie roast later – have to be prepared!) The drone went into Smiler’s inventory, and I sent them down to join Victor in the greenhouse (who, after researching his chocoberries, was dutifully tending his garden) –
E) Ah, but gotta take care of the farm animals first! And so Smiler went around and fed the chickens, collected the eggs (one regular, two hatchable – I gotta get rid of some of these roosters, especially since one of the chicks grew up recently), and cleaned off a poor dirty Moory before milking her. THEN it was into the greenhouse to set up the drone and record a brief video of Smiler making a soothing skin balm for the herbalism crowd. :p Hey, they make pretty decent cash off their other videos – might as well expand their channel’s reach!
F) As for Victor and Alice – Alice hit Writing level 9 while working on her book (she can now write mysteries, and submit books to the Literary Digest) and had a BLT before doing a little light socializing with the chickens (actually went pretty well!), while Victor finished up his gardening and evolved a bunch of plants, had some fruit pie, and Repairioed some broken wind turbines before cleaning up all the dishes around the lot. There are reasons that is the only spell of his that I NEVER forget he has – it’s the most useful one he’s got in this save!
G) Anyway – Smiler refilled Moory’s feed and cleaned out her shed (ending up pretty stinky in the process – fortunately Victor was on hand to help with a Scruberoo), then headed upstairs to transfer their new video into the video station for editing, while Victor and Alice caught up by the chrysanthemum bush by the path to the barn (Alice had been dancing, but needed to get outside to calm her inner beast) and had a nice chat and a kiss. Alice then got sent to play with Shadow, while Victor got sent to make some eco upgrade parts (since, again, we actually have POWER on this lot), which resulted in him getting sprayed with dye. XD Poor guy! I decided to have him take a break and meet Moory the cow officially before trying again, and things seemed to be going well –
H) And then I saw Alice in the kitchen. Idling in place, phone stuck to her hand, with an indication that she wanted to grab a juice from the fridge in her interaction queue but – just not moving. I tried to cancel out the actions and have her go do laundry instead – nope. I tried resetting her via MC Command Center – nope. I tried having Victor talk to her to see what would happen – he went to the wrong spot (in front of the laundry hamper), and while she did react to him, she immediately started officially t-posing afterward. And I couldn’t click on her. And then VICTOR started acting like he was stuck idling, and – yeah, cue me having to quit the game without saving. >.<
I) HOWEVER – thank any and all gods you want, but I had the good sense to save JUST MINUTES before this happened, while Smiler was editing their video and Victor was making his eco upgrade parts. THIS time around, I made sure to keep a proper eye on Alice – and happily, this time around, she successfully played with Shadow in the kitchen, and then fed the dog after asking “what’s wrong?” prompted a pop-up that the dog was hungry. I then saved again before sending her outside to shoo away a lurking Phantom the fox (stay away from my chickens!) and have a chat with Moory (improving their relationship). And then directed her to successfully trim the bonsai bush in the front room. Whew – seems like things are good again!
J) While that was going on, Smiler edited their video successfully, uploaded it, and hyped it, before browsing the web for a while (and telling a visiting Jameson that no, they did NOT want to be best friends – I have to get the mod that stops these pop-ups, it gets annoying for a Sim as popularly charismatic as Smiler), and Victor – successfully made three eco upgrade parts! I was fully expecting (and kinda hoping) he’d be covered in dye again, but nope, the game cut him a break today. And hey, now he HAS eco upgrade parts that he can use for upgrading the fridge and suchlike. . .and it occurs to me that I have to see if those can be Copypastoed. . . Anyway, I still sent him out to say hi to Moory – THIS time, his first impression didn’t go so well, but he was able to pull it back and successfully milk her. :) As long as the cow and the chickens don’t HATE any of you, that’s all that matters!
K) And then – weenie roast time! The game informed me I needed a cooler, so I picked up one of those, and I sent Smiler down to light the campfire after they finished spraying for bugs on their Sixam mosquito trap Snappy. (Which, you think would be able to take care of its own bug problems. XD) Victor caught some locusts on the path as the guests trickled in and Repairioed another broken water collector before I decided to have him play unofficial grillmaster and sent him to make choripán, a sandwich made with chorizo beef or pork sausage and crusty bread. I have to say, it looked really good when he finished it! :D I quickly added all of Smiler’s guests (Heath, Grace, Cecilia, Nalani, and Aleah) to a group so they wouldn’t wander around trying to use the grill and such and got them and Alice to hang out by the fire. The game then prompted me to have Smiler tell them a group story, so I tried for an adventurous one. . .
Action never completed. Though the GOAL did, for some reason – as did the goal for hanging out by the campfire for three hours, even though it wasn’t anywhere near that. O.o Ugh, weenie roasts, my old nemesis. . .
L) Still – I couldn’t actually complain about the game glitching in a way that completed party goals, so instead I just had Smiler start working on the next one, playing with the fire, while Alice had some juice from the cooler (another goal), the other guests started getting food (Victor and Cecilia both having some choripán, while Grace went inside for some fruit pie), and some random lady got spooked by the specters on the porch and insisted on coming around and cowering on the back patio couch. O.o Ooookay. . . Smiler then had a chat with Nalani before asking for a drink, as they were feeling quite thirsty, while Heath added logs to the fire and Aleah started making a herbal concoction on the grill (ugh – but then again, she IS the Hermit over in Granite Falls, I guess it’s kind of her thing) –
M) And then – FIRE! Of fucking course! My first instinct was to check the campfire and see what had gone wrong – but as far as I could tell, everything was fine with the little pit. So I went back to the porch – and it was ALEAH who was on fire, having set the grill alight with her herbalism. Fortunately both Victor and Smiler were on the case with extinguishers, and she and the grill were both put out in pretty good time. Victor even Scruberooed Aleah to keep her from stinking up the joint – though I deliberately left the grill wrecked for the time being to stop anyone ELSE from nearly causing a major incident. *sigh*
N) With the guests calmed, I had Smiler gather everyone around the campfire again to hang out, and then – after a change of clothes for them, Alice, and Victor because it was actually kind of hot out and they WERE standing around open flame – had them try again to tell a story. The first attempt, to tell an adventure story to the whole group, once again failed, but when I had Smiler pick a few specific guests and canceled the “hang out” interaction, THEN it worked. Only to not count toward the goal. *sigh* AND, when I tried to click on the campfire to get them to roast a hot dog, as the MAIN GOAL of the party indicated, guess what they couldn’t do? Literally the only option that came up was “marshmallows.” Like, what the ever-loving fuck? I had them play again with the fire to try and clear THAT goal once more, and had Victor and Alice grab some drinks from the cooler to complete that goal –
O) And fortunately, that proved to be enough to get the party to silver, which was as far as I needed it to go for the Party Animal aspiration, which I’d just switched Smiler back to for this. Smiler earned a new chair, and Victor and Alice dragged themselves off to bed while I had Smiler clean up the plates –
And then, when I went to get the new chair OUT, I discovered that, oh hey, that bug where the plants auto-harvest themselves into the household inventory? Yeah, that doesn’t just happen when you go out and about without harvesting the garden – it apparently also happens if you get something new in your household inventory while on the lot with an unharvested garden. *sigh* Cue me painstakingly pulling all the produce that ended up in there out of there, laying it around the lot, and giving it to Victor (edibles and flowers) and Smiler (herbalism stuff and plasma fruits). Note to self, GREENHOUSE MUST BE FULLY HARVESTED EVERY SINGLE DAY.
And so the playsession ended with the new chair out and around the fire pit, Victor and Alice in bed and Smiler making mechanisms on the robotics bench so they could start work on another gardening bot. Like I said, not as good as I WANTED, but it went pretty reasonably well. I’m just worried that this save file might be on its way out, either from age or mod glitching or something. I do have ideas for two other save files I could potentially do, but I’d like to keep this one going for a little while longer – I mean, I want to open the grocery store at SOME point! Not next time, though – next time, it’s SimCity Founding, and the gang takes a trip to San Sequoia! Hopefully that’ll be fun. :)
Writing: Did end up working on my latest personal Valicer piece again (where Victor is fake-kidnapped and maramalized by Smiler and Alice (it’s a consensual thing, Victor agreed to it before getting hit with the post-hypnotics)), and the sex is still happening. XD Today had Smiler take their turn with Victor, and I’ve left it off with Alice and Smiler about to give Victor a good time. Look, I enjoy writing them having fun together like this, even if I’m probably never going to share this with another human being – I’m allowed to write stuff that’s just for me!
YouTube: Well, I did get some OXBox watched, even if it wasn’t the RE4 Remake stuff – just didn’t have enough time! But it was a good day on the Tubes nonetheless –
A) First up, something I watched while puttering around and backing up all my files (see below) – “The opening monologue scene: Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)” from Film Studies Fundamentals! Because the “Smiler Alton’s Day Off” AU isn’t yet leaving me alone, and it’s been a while since I’ve seen the movie, so I figured I’d check a bit out. Fun stuff!
B) Then, this evening, we started with the latest OXBox list – “7 Creepiest Ways Games Messed With Your Mind!” Mike and Jane leading us on a trail of terror through games that really liked to mess with you, the player, and not just your character. You leave any of the first three Fatal Frame games paused or idle for too long? Enjoy bloody handprints or ghostly faces (depending on the game) on your screen! Decide to check out the “run” option on the fake JRPG that makes up the app for using your Game Boy Camera one too many time? Enjoy a creepy face asking what you’re running from! Encounter this one spooky ghost girl in a red dress in the Wii game Calling? Enjoy getting messages from her on your actual Wii board outside of the game – and if you collect them all. . .let’s just say she wants to get even closer. XD I may have spent a lot of time watching only a tiny bit of the video – me and horror have a complicated relationship. (I am definitely going to look up more about Calling later, though – I am intrigued.)
C) And finally, we had GrayStillPlays and “GTA 5 but you can't Touch Blue!” A particularly fiendish Alex Torture Board, where Gray had to complete four challenges in a skyscraper of pain that Alex had constructed, all without touching the color blue on pain of insta-death – a rather long wall ride with various chunklets of blue in it (including platforms that moved and random blue arrows) where he had to land in the middle of a “road” lined with blue and then go up a ramp to land on a pink platform in a sea of blue; a board where he had to drive around on a moving black disc as it went around a blue board, dodging all of the various obstacles (both killer blue and just mean – a windmill was indeed involved) – oh, and he had to do this multiple times to get close enough to the winning platform; a survival arena full of madly-rolling bowling balls where he had to survive for a minute without getting hit by – well, presumably ANY of the balls, but especially not the blue ones (tough, as one was heat-seeking – fortunately there was a way to trap it and a safe corner to sit in); and finally a maze of shipping containers where Gray had to avoid blue containers in the floor, blue containers making up the walls, and blue containers dropping from the sky to find the correct path that would give him enough speed to make the jump to the win. Along the way, he did unlock better and better cars to do these challenges, but they were all still tough as hell, and Gray openly declared that stuff like blueberry waffles and blue raspberry slushies are lost to him. XD Good times, though it now makes me want a similar challenge where the color Gray has to avoid is his signature bright pink. . .
Other: Realized that if I was making back-ups of my Sims 4 saves anyway, it would be a good idea to back up everything else, so spent the morning puttering around while I did that! So I’ve got a copy of everything important stored away, yay~
So yeah, hardly a BAD day -- I had fun, and I'm glad I thought to get my backups done. I even fit in some Merge Dragons time without too much issue! Just wish Sims 4 had gone a bit smoother. . .maybe during my upcoming days off! But for now, I must prepare to head to bed and concentrate on my Sunday. Goals there are to get the Chill Valicer Save update drafts started on Victor Luvs Alice; have Victor and Ada at least get back to Goodneighbor in Fallout 4 and update the Playthrough Progression appropriately; keep up with Gray and Jon and try to fit in RE4 Remake OXBox if I can; and work out, maybe watching the next episode of James Turner's High School Years series. We shall see how it all goes! Night all!
Tumblr: I didn’t do much on Victor Luvs Alice beyond keep up with the main dash, but it proved to be a reasonably busy night on Valice Multiverse – mostly because I got three asks referencing Victor’s recent birthday (one from Lily with a Kermit tie for him; one from Dr. Dan of that eldritch horror Valice fic I like so much, giving Victor a copy of a crystal butterfly from his world – this one had a follow-up because Secundus!Victor naturally wants to make his own version and Dan/author SatiricalDemon was like “you really shouldn’t but if you do make them less aggressive;” and one from a random passing blog with a “Hap Birt” sign XD). So that was nice! And I DID just finish up getting all the pictures for the next Chill Valicer Save update sorted – sixty this time, for Summer Monday, with them working on their garden and heading to the store for more shelf-filling fun. :) So that’s good!
Sims 4: Well, thanks to some glitchiness, I didn’t have quite as good a playsession as I wanted today in the game, but we did get through Summer Tuesday and Smiler’s weenie roast, so let me give you the details –
A) Obviously, since a patch came out recently, had to start with the usual round of game maintenance – namely, backing up my “saves” and “Tray” folders (which prompted actually a lot MORE backing up, as you will see in the “Other” section), and going through all my mods and checking statuses (a few updates, most compatible or no news – as it was a fairly small patch, I decided to risk it with those I couldn’t get confirmation for). Let me tell you, Lot51’s new website is AWFUL. *wince* I really like your “All Bugged Out” mod, sir, but ugh.
B) Anyway, once game was patched, started up once without mods, then had its mods put back in and all its caches cleared and whatnot, it was time to jump into the Chill Valicer Save! And first things first – when I left it off LAST time, Temperance had summoned some angry specters into the séance room, so I had Smiler and Victor go and try to take care of those via gifts – Smiler with a fresh glass of merlot, Victor with a delicious jar of honey. Smiler’s gift was a hit, Victor’s gift was a miss. Bit of a shame, that – at least Smiler got the family more wraith wax for more candles!
B) Around this time I spotted Elmer the gardening bot roaming the yard and was like “SHIT HE’S PROBABLY ABOUT TO EXPLODE.” So I had Smiler fly down there and quickly deactivate the bot, put him on the workstation, and give him a tune up (after some brief distraction with a specter). Victor, for his part, took a moment to sense the spiritual volatility of the house (still good, fortunately), and then headed into the barn himself to talk to specters before getting distracted by Smiler – I had him instead draw a small illustrative painting on his sketchpad and present it to the specter in the barn. And despite it being a MASTERPIECE, the specter still said it was a bad gift. >( What, do these little blobs only like booze?
C) Alice, for her part, woke up from her wolf nap out in the yard, changed back to normal, and did some recycling before going inside for a short dance and a talk with Guidry. A passing specter sprinkled her and left her feeling playful – and I was like “you know what, we’ve actually got some power now – how about we get you back to writing books?” So I sent her upstairs to try a playful book – “The Puns of the Gnat,” to reference an oft-forgotten character from Through The Looking Glass. XD (Oh, and I discovered around this time that the dragon dragonfly that Victor caught in Granite Falls actually breathes fire from time to time! Hopefully it doesn’t do that in front of Alice.)
D) Speaking of “we’ve got power now, so let’s do some electronics-related stuff,” I decided Smiler might as well get back into making SimsTube videos, so after having them fix up a broken water collector, I sent them upstairs to check the latest trends. Those included both gardening AND herbalism, and so I decided to have Smiler take advantage of their new love of herbal concoctions by getting a drone to film themselves cooking up a pot of something on the greenhouse grill! :D The nice expensive one in yellow, of course. :p (Also made sure to pick up a campfire while I was in Build/Buy for the weenie roast later – have to be prepared!) The drone went into Smiler’s inventory, and I sent them down to join Victor in the greenhouse (who, after researching his chocoberries, was dutifully tending his garden) –
E) Ah, but gotta take care of the farm animals first! And so Smiler went around and fed the chickens, collected the eggs (one regular, two hatchable – I gotta get rid of some of these roosters, especially since one of the chicks grew up recently), and cleaned off a poor dirty Moory before milking her. THEN it was into the greenhouse to set up the drone and record a brief video of Smiler making a soothing skin balm for the herbalism crowd. :p Hey, they make pretty decent cash off their other videos – might as well expand their channel’s reach!
F) As for Victor and Alice – Alice hit Writing level 9 while working on her book (she can now write mysteries, and submit books to the Literary Digest) and had a BLT before doing a little light socializing with the chickens (actually went pretty well!), while Victor finished up his gardening and evolved a bunch of plants, had some fruit pie, and Repairioed some broken wind turbines before cleaning up all the dishes around the lot. There are reasons that is the only spell of his that I NEVER forget he has – it’s the most useful one he’s got in this save!
G) Anyway – Smiler refilled Moory’s feed and cleaned out her shed (ending up pretty stinky in the process – fortunately Victor was on hand to help with a Scruberoo), then headed upstairs to transfer their new video into the video station for editing, while Victor and Alice caught up by the chrysanthemum bush by the path to the barn (Alice had been dancing, but needed to get outside to calm her inner beast) and had a nice chat and a kiss. Alice then got sent to play with Shadow, while Victor got sent to make some eco upgrade parts (since, again, we actually have POWER on this lot), which resulted in him getting sprayed with dye. XD Poor guy! I decided to have him take a break and meet Moory the cow officially before trying again, and things seemed to be going well –
H) And then I saw Alice in the kitchen. Idling in place, phone stuck to her hand, with an indication that she wanted to grab a juice from the fridge in her interaction queue but – just not moving. I tried to cancel out the actions and have her go do laundry instead – nope. I tried resetting her via MC Command Center – nope. I tried having Victor talk to her to see what would happen – he went to the wrong spot (in front of the laundry hamper), and while she did react to him, she immediately started officially t-posing afterward. And I couldn’t click on her. And then VICTOR started acting like he was stuck idling, and – yeah, cue me having to quit the game without saving. >.<
I) HOWEVER – thank any and all gods you want, but I had the good sense to save JUST MINUTES before this happened, while Smiler was editing their video and Victor was making his eco upgrade parts. THIS time around, I made sure to keep a proper eye on Alice – and happily, this time around, she successfully played with Shadow in the kitchen, and then fed the dog after asking “what’s wrong?” prompted a pop-up that the dog was hungry. I then saved again before sending her outside to shoo away a lurking Phantom the fox (stay away from my chickens!) and have a chat with Moory (improving their relationship). And then directed her to successfully trim the bonsai bush in the front room. Whew – seems like things are good again!
J) While that was going on, Smiler edited their video successfully, uploaded it, and hyped it, before browsing the web for a while (and telling a visiting Jameson that no, they did NOT want to be best friends – I have to get the mod that stops these pop-ups, it gets annoying for a Sim as popularly charismatic as Smiler), and Victor – successfully made three eco upgrade parts! I was fully expecting (and kinda hoping) he’d be covered in dye again, but nope, the game cut him a break today. And hey, now he HAS eco upgrade parts that he can use for upgrading the fridge and suchlike. . .and it occurs to me that I have to see if those can be Copypastoed. . . Anyway, I still sent him out to say hi to Moory – THIS time, his first impression didn’t go so well, but he was able to pull it back and successfully milk her. :) As long as the cow and the chickens don’t HATE any of you, that’s all that matters!
K) And then – weenie roast time! The game informed me I needed a cooler, so I picked up one of those, and I sent Smiler down to light the campfire after they finished spraying for bugs on their Sixam mosquito trap Snappy. (Which, you think would be able to take care of its own bug problems. XD) Victor caught some locusts on the path as the guests trickled in and Repairioed another broken water collector before I decided to have him play unofficial grillmaster and sent him to make choripán, a sandwich made with chorizo beef or pork sausage and crusty bread. I have to say, it looked really good when he finished it! :D I quickly added all of Smiler’s guests (Heath, Grace, Cecilia, Nalani, and Aleah) to a group so they wouldn’t wander around trying to use the grill and such and got them and Alice to hang out by the fire. The game then prompted me to have Smiler tell them a group story, so I tried for an adventurous one. . .
Action never completed. Though the GOAL did, for some reason – as did the goal for hanging out by the campfire for three hours, even though it wasn’t anywhere near that. O.o Ugh, weenie roasts, my old nemesis. . .
L) Still – I couldn’t actually complain about the game glitching in a way that completed party goals, so instead I just had Smiler start working on the next one, playing with the fire, while Alice had some juice from the cooler (another goal), the other guests started getting food (Victor and Cecilia both having some choripán, while Grace went inside for some fruit pie), and some random lady got spooked by the specters on the porch and insisted on coming around and cowering on the back patio couch. O.o Ooookay. . . Smiler then had a chat with Nalani before asking for a drink, as they were feeling quite thirsty, while Heath added logs to the fire and Aleah started making a herbal concoction on the grill (ugh – but then again, she IS the Hermit over in Granite Falls, I guess it’s kind of her thing) –
M) And then – FIRE! Of fucking course! My first instinct was to check the campfire and see what had gone wrong – but as far as I could tell, everything was fine with the little pit. So I went back to the porch – and it was ALEAH who was on fire, having set the grill alight with her herbalism. Fortunately both Victor and Smiler were on the case with extinguishers, and she and the grill were both put out in pretty good time. Victor even Scruberooed Aleah to keep her from stinking up the joint – though I deliberately left the grill wrecked for the time being to stop anyone ELSE from nearly causing a major incident. *sigh*
N) With the guests calmed, I had Smiler gather everyone around the campfire again to hang out, and then – after a change of clothes for them, Alice, and Victor because it was actually kind of hot out and they WERE standing around open flame – had them try again to tell a story. The first attempt, to tell an adventure story to the whole group, once again failed, but when I had Smiler pick a few specific guests and canceled the “hang out” interaction, THEN it worked. Only to not count toward the goal. *sigh* AND, when I tried to click on the campfire to get them to roast a hot dog, as the MAIN GOAL of the party indicated, guess what they couldn’t do? Literally the only option that came up was “marshmallows.” Like, what the ever-loving fuck? I had them play again with the fire to try and clear THAT goal once more, and had Victor and Alice grab some drinks from the cooler to complete that goal –
O) And fortunately, that proved to be enough to get the party to silver, which was as far as I needed it to go for the Party Animal aspiration, which I’d just switched Smiler back to for this. Smiler earned a new chair, and Victor and Alice dragged themselves off to bed while I had Smiler clean up the plates –
And then, when I went to get the new chair OUT, I discovered that, oh hey, that bug where the plants auto-harvest themselves into the household inventory? Yeah, that doesn’t just happen when you go out and about without harvesting the garden – it apparently also happens if you get something new in your household inventory while on the lot with an unharvested garden. *sigh* Cue me painstakingly pulling all the produce that ended up in there out of there, laying it around the lot, and giving it to Victor (edibles and flowers) and Smiler (herbalism stuff and plasma fruits). Note to self, GREENHOUSE MUST BE FULLY HARVESTED EVERY SINGLE DAY.
And so the playsession ended with the new chair out and around the fire pit, Victor and Alice in bed and Smiler making mechanisms on the robotics bench so they could start work on another gardening bot. Like I said, not as good as I WANTED, but it went pretty reasonably well. I’m just worried that this save file might be on its way out, either from age or mod glitching or something. I do have ideas for two other save files I could potentially do, but I’d like to keep this one going for a little while longer – I mean, I want to open the grocery store at SOME point! Not next time, though – next time, it’s SimCity Founding, and the gang takes a trip to San Sequoia! Hopefully that’ll be fun. :)
Writing: Did end up working on my latest personal Valicer piece again (where Victor is fake-kidnapped and maramalized by Smiler and Alice (it’s a consensual thing, Victor agreed to it before getting hit with the post-hypnotics)), and the sex is still happening. XD Today had Smiler take their turn with Victor, and I’ve left it off with Alice and Smiler about to give Victor a good time. Look, I enjoy writing them having fun together like this, even if I’m probably never going to share this with another human being – I’m allowed to write stuff that’s just for me!
YouTube: Well, I did get some OXBox watched, even if it wasn’t the RE4 Remake stuff – just didn’t have enough time! But it was a good day on the Tubes nonetheless –
A) First up, something I watched while puttering around and backing up all my files (see below) – “The opening monologue scene: Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)” from Film Studies Fundamentals! Because the “Smiler Alton’s Day Off” AU isn’t yet leaving me alone, and it’s been a while since I’ve seen the movie, so I figured I’d check a bit out. Fun stuff!
B) Then, this evening, we started with the latest OXBox list – “7 Creepiest Ways Games Messed With Your Mind!” Mike and Jane leading us on a trail of terror through games that really liked to mess with you, the player, and not just your character. You leave any of the first three Fatal Frame games paused or idle for too long? Enjoy bloody handprints or ghostly faces (depending on the game) on your screen! Decide to check out the “run” option on the fake JRPG that makes up the app for using your Game Boy Camera one too many time? Enjoy a creepy face asking what you’re running from! Encounter this one spooky ghost girl in a red dress in the Wii game Calling? Enjoy getting messages from her on your actual Wii board outside of the game – and if you collect them all. . .let’s just say she wants to get even closer. XD I may have spent a lot of time watching only a tiny bit of the video – me and horror have a complicated relationship. (I am definitely going to look up more about Calling later, though – I am intrigued.)
C) And finally, we had GrayStillPlays and “GTA 5 but you can't Touch Blue!” A particularly fiendish Alex Torture Board, where Gray had to complete four challenges in a skyscraper of pain that Alex had constructed, all without touching the color blue on pain of insta-death – a rather long wall ride with various chunklets of blue in it (including platforms that moved and random blue arrows) where he had to land in the middle of a “road” lined with blue and then go up a ramp to land on a pink platform in a sea of blue; a board where he had to drive around on a moving black disc as it went around a blue board, dodging all of the various obstacles (both killer blue and just mean – a windmill was indeed involved) – oh, and he had to do this multiple times to get close enough to the winning platform; a survival arena full of madly-rolling bowling balls where he had to survive for a minute without getting hit by – well, presumably ANY of the balls, but especially not the blue ones (tough, as one was heat-seeking – fortunately there was a way to trap it and a safe corner to sit in); and finally a maze of shipping containers where Gray had to avoid blue containers in the floor, blue containers making up the walls, and blue containers dropping from the sky to find the correct path that would give him enough speed to make the jump to the win. Along the way, he did unlock better and better cars to do these challenges, but they were all still tough as hell, and Gray openly declared that stuff like blueberry waffles and blue raspberry slushies are lost to him. XD Good times, though it now makes me want a similar challenge where the color Gray has to avoid is his signature bright pink. . .
Other: Realized that if I was making back-ups of my Sims 4 saves anyway, it would be a good idea to back up everything else, so spent the morning puttering around while I did that! So I’ve got a copy of everything important stored away, yay~
So yeah, hardly a BAD day -- I had fun, and I'm glad I thought to get my backups done. I even fit in some Merge Dragons time without too much issue! Just wish Sims 4 had gone a bit smoother. . .maybe during my upcoming days off! But for now, I must prepare to head to bed and concentrate on my Sunday. Goals there are to get the Chill Valicer Save update drafts started on Victor Luvs Alice; have Victor and Ada at least get back to Goodneighbor in Fallout 4 and update the Playthrough Progression appropriately; keep up with Gray and Jon and try to fit in RE4 Remake OXBox if I can; and work out, maybe watching the next episode of James Turner's High School Years series. We shall see how it all goes! Night all!
