Busy Busy Saturday Night

Yeah, uh, one of my tumblr RP partners being unexpectedly around for a while has thrown me off my groove for a bit as I try to juggle a few different things at once -- give me a second, and I'll get up my to-do list for you all --

Cleaning: Pretty typical cleaning Saturday, all told – started with the bed-strip around 10:40 AM, finished with the final vacuuming around 1:10 PM, right before lunch. Just sheets and my pajamas in the wash today, which got folded into Mom’s final load around 11:40 PM (when I’d finished making my bed and getting dress), and came out after supper because we just plain forgot about them after they went in the dryer. *shrug* Nothing too groundbreaking.

Tumblr: Yes, as indicated at the start of this post, I ended up having a busier night than anticipated because Brynlee happened to be ON this Saturday and surprised me by answering threads on Valice Multiverse after I finished up Gray. I managed to keep up as best I could, but it was kind of a struggle. *sigh* As it stands right now, I DID manage to get the six “starter drafts” for this week’s Chill Valicer Save update on Victor Luvs Alice sorted with the pictures, and I DID keep up with the threads and get a couple of things in my Valice Multiverse queue (a cute video Brynlee linked me and an ask I didn’t get to during the “active RP” period. Whew – welp, it’s something.

Sims 4: Had my usual roughly three-hours-long playsession today after lunch, with my trio having a busy and very social Saturday in my quest to get them more frames that hold multiple pictures –

A) But FIRST – after getting into the EA app (which involved having to log back in again because the stupid thing forgot how to connect to our wifi) and getting past the SDX download (though I approve of backpacks, lunchboxes, and new facilities signs – might use those in the store, in fact), I entered the Valicer house, dropped a save after letting Victor listen to a bit of music to fulfill a want, then had him use the bathroom mirror’s “Change Sim” option to see something. Specifically, if names could be edited from this option on the mirror, or if that was something I’d have to do in “Manage Households” instead. Turns out, yes, you CAN change Sims’ names through the mirror! I promptly gave everyone in the household (including the pets) the last name “Van Liddelton” to match the store and to reflect the polyamorous marriage of the trio. :) I also updated a party outfit for Alice and Smiler each – Alice got a cute blue dress with a sweater over it, and Smiler got the “Joytide”-style half-black, half-yellow-and-black plaid pants, long rings of yellow and black bracelets, and yellow sneakers with scribbled rainbows and happy faces on them from my recent Crypt O’Club downloads to go with their Bot Savant shirt from Foxbury. :p Might as well change things up now that I’ve got all these new clothes, right? (Victor didn’t get anything because I was pretty happy with all his party outfits – he was stylin’. XD)

B) With THAT sorted, I then had Smiler access the calendar and plan a new social event – specifically, a “family reunion!” Because the game devs were nice and allowed close family friends to also count as guests for this thing. Smiler set the whole thing up for 2 PM and invited over their own best buddy Nalani; Alice’s werewolf creator Rory; Victor’s old friend Felipe; and their mutual friend Clement Frost, aka Father Christmas. Oh, and the party would be happening on the same day as Talk Like a Pirate Day, because the holiday had just so happened to appear on the calendar for today. So yeah – fun! XD

C) Anyway – with all THAT out of the way, it was time for middle-of-the-night crafting and pet loving! Smiler had just finished a chatterbot, so they switched gears for a minute to make a bit of sadness alleviation lotion before returning to the robot bench to give Bugs and Elmer tune-ups. Victor made a couple of candles in red and orange, and Alice played a little bit with Kelly and gave her a nice treat before heading back to her and Victor’s room to write another book – a playful book called “What’s One And One And One And” that I said was a treatise on Wonderland math. Think those “Wayside School” puzzle books. XD Smiler finished up their tune-ups and headed to their room to play a bit of Sim Scuffle before INSISTING on talking to a specter in the attic – I decided “well, if you’re gonna be up there, try giving the specter that vase of yellow tulips you made the other day.” Unfortunately, the gift didn’t go down well, and Smiler fled to instead give some pets to little Shock the kitten. Victor, meanwhile, finished up his candles to find a sad-looking Shadow beside him – he gave her some hugs and then resumed their Play Dead training – took a little while and more than a few fake deaths on his part, but she got it in the end! She unfortunately also got a worryingly red glowing nose midway through, though – fortunate Alice bought all those vet treats when they went and got Shadow spayed! (Which, remind me to have KELLY spayed at the first opportunity next time I play. . .) Victor gave her one once she’d learned the trick, and she was right as rain, yay. :)

D) And then it was morning chore times, as always! Smiler put Elmer and Bugs in the greenhouse and powered them up to help with the watering, before fertilizing the aubergines, evolving a few plants, and harvesting all their herbalism ingredients and plasma fruit (having one for breakfast). Victor and Alice, meanwhile, each took a bathroom break before grabbing some breakfast from the fridge (fish dinner for Alice, chicken for Victor), then Alice gave Toothy the cowplant breakfast before going for an energized jog in the rain and Victor headed into the greenhouse to help with the tending. Smiler, of course, got put on livestock duty – spreading feed for the chickens, collecting the eggs, and cleaning the coop, then (after a brief break to chat with the annoyed attic specter and make it friendly again) flying over to Moory’s shed, giving her a quick feed, then milking her. Her shed was dirty too, but it’s much easier to have Victor Scruberoo that then have Smiler clean it manually. :p Victor then moved onto harvesting all the things, and I decided Smiler deserved a guitar break and had them strum for fun. :) Getting easier to take care of all this stuff now, I’m happy to say!

E) Alice arrived back from her jog feeling quite good, if kind of wet and sweaty – I had her head upstairs, take a nice shower, then resume her book. It didn’t take long for her to finish it, though, so instead I had her head downstairs to do a painting from reference – specifically, of Smiler playing the guitar! Ended up being a shot from the side because of how they were positioned, but that’s okay. XD She had to stop midway through thanks to her werewolf instincts demanding she get outside RIGHT NOW, admittedly, but it didn’t take long for them to calm down once she WAS outside, and I took the opportunity to have her publish her latest book. Victor joined them to work some more on that song that’s been sitting in his inventory for AGES because SONGS TAKE TOO LONG TO WRITE IN THIS GAME, and everyone had a good time hanging out together being creative in the studio for a while. :)

F) Eventually, though, I figured Smiler had probably done enough guitar – and after looking at the upgrade options for the TV and what they required, decided they too should get into Fabrication and had them make an eco-upgrade part at the fabricator. As they were doing that, Cecilia Kang arrived to do the neighborly thing and help them with their busted wind turbines (because there are always busted wind turbines) – I had Victor welcome her in, but the specters on the porch proved a sufficient distraction to them both that she never actually did any repairs, instead trying to do some painting on the front porch easel. And then both little fuckers disappeared before Victor could try to appease either of them with some of Alice’s freshly-made meat substitute. *shakehead* On the other hand, she wasn’t really NEEDED for repairs – Victor was on the case with his Repairio spell, and followed that up with using his own eco-upgrade parts to make the oven more energy-efficient – and as she’s one of Smiler’s friends, I had them go out and catch up with her once the part was done and get a snack from her wrist. . .

G) Just as the family reunion started! To my delight, Smiler and Alice both changed into their new outfits for the party (Victor getting into his Smiler-hoodie outfit) – and to my even further delight, Felipe showed up IN A FUCKING CLOWN OUTFIT. I’m serious – he didn’t have the makeup or hat, but the outfit was DEFINITELY a clown outfit. It was horrifically delightful. XD He headed inside, fortunately ignoring Toothy’s cake tongue, and I had Victor catch up with him while Alice went out and fed the cowplant before it could get any designs on the OTHER arriving guests. She then went to chat with Rory while Smiler sent Cecilia on her way and greeted Nalani (Clement heading inside to apparently give himself a pep talk in the mirror and then wander upstairs). Everyone had a good chat as I tried to mix in both Family Reunion goal interactions and Talk Like A Pirate Day interactions –

H) And then – photo time! :D Because guess, what, the main goal of a Family Reunion party is to TAKE PICTURES. Specifically, you gotta take TWENTY of them. Not a problem for me and my love of taking in-game pictures with this lot! XD Having Alice take some selfies with Rory, Smiler with Nalani, and Victor with Felipe (post a Scruberoo so he wasn’t stinky) got them to fifteen out of twenty without issue – and I already knew what I wanted to do for the final five, and it involved a certain object in Alice’s inventory. . .

I) But first – chicken saltimbocca! Because another goal for the party was “call to meal,” and I figured Alice could cook some fine grub for their guests. Not that this went particularly smoothly – Alice’s first few attempts to actually get to the fridge were curtailed by the guests trying to get other stuff OUT of said fridge (in fact, I got a Last Exception around that time, which is a little worrying), and THEN she got distracted by showering in the rain, because Erratic Sims be Erratic. *sigh* Though I will admit, it was raining most of the day, and THIS was the first time she did that – Smiler would have been out there like five times before retraiting. This is why she gets to remain Erratic and they didn’t. :p Anyway, I EVENTUALLY got her to start the nice meal (though, uh, she DID start cooking while still naked – got her to swap back into her party outfit midway through), while Victor took a bit of time to play with Shadow and Smiler tracked down various party guests to chat with them (Clement for some reason was hanging out in the séance room – Smiler goofed around with them, then distracted Rory from having some cereal from the cooler outside). Alice finished the meal (slower than I would have liked, though she DID start telling stories to herself right at the end, which probably accounts for it – and to be fair, she got Level 5 Gourmet Cooking skill out of it) and managed to call everybody to it, and I took the opportunity to add all the guests to Smiler’s group and try to have them tell everyone a group story about a castaway or a pirate captain. Their attempts both ended early from what I could see, which didn’t fulfill the goal, but everyone seemed to enjoy them nonetheless, so – win?

J) By this time, though, the weather was starting to get a little worse, and Victor and Alice kind of tired – Alice was okay to keep going for a bit more (having had a bit of coffee earlier), but Victor was really starting to fade, poor guy. Fortunately, he still had a Potion of Plentiful Needs in his inventory, so after having him hit up the weather machine and clear up the skies, I had him drink that so he’d be good. Alice had a bathroom break and Smiler cleaned up the dishes while the rain faded away, then I had the trio head to the porch while their guests continued enjoying various leftovers and some passing asshole named Jaclyn kicked over their garbage can. >( Alice set up her tripod and camera; I adjusted it so it was facing the right way (toward the sitting area); I got everyone into position for pictures –

. . .and then the first shot showed Victor had tiger stripes. Welp – uh, how about one quick snap in case something goes wrong and then we get some medicine in his system, okay? XD I had Alice chill out for a second while Smiler passed over a bottle (and grabbed one for themselves, as I thought I’d seen them clutching their head earlier, and a look at their moodlets confirmed they were sick too), and the pair downed their drinks and cleared their colds. Alice reset the camera, and THEN the trio were allowed to have their cute “family reunion” pictures on the porch. Not even ruined by a passing Rory going to play in the spilled trash by the kicked-over bin. XD I took a bunch of shots – mostly small with a handful of mediums – which handily fulfilled the main goal of the reunion and guaranteed it would be a success!

K) However – Talk Like A Pirate Day was not QUITE a success yet, at least not for Alice and Victor (Smiler had already fulfilled their goal at the dinner table). So I had Victor and Alice do a little dancing with some of their guests by the A:MR gramophone and chat a bit more about pirate stuff to get enough to fulfill the singular tradition (Smiler also joined in the dancing, and looked very cool doing it). A bit of pirate-related flirting fulfilled the tradition for Victor, but Alice didn’t QUITE get there before the reunion wrapped up. Though I was surprised to see “holding hands” counted toward the tradition – who knew? *shrug* Anyway, the guests said their goodbyes, Alice went upstairs for some much-needed sleep (which, hilariously, ended up fulfilling the holiday tradition for her, as both the “nap” and “sleep” options were rewritten in pirate-speak and thus counted as “speaking like a pirate” – okay game XD), Victor and Smiler squeed over the kittens being cute before going their separate ways – Smiler to deactivate Bugs and Elmer (who’d been running all day and were DEFINITELY looking worse for wear – sorry bots!), Victor to play with Surprise a bit before going to make more eco-upgrade parts of his own –

L) And I exulted in my prize – all three sets of multi-picture frames that unlock once you complete this event! They’re different from the Moschino stuff one in that they’re basically sets of separate frames that work as one object, but they’re pretty cool – you have a vertical set of three small landscape frames; a square set of four small frames, two landscape and two portrait, and another square set of one large landscape frame with three small landscape frames underneath. I already knew what was going in that last one – the big wedding picture of the trio behind the phonograph, and the three wedding dual selfies. :) Though finding a place for it proved a bit difficult, as there wasn’t really any good spots in the living room. . . I eventually ended up just straight-up selling a picture of piano keys that was above the phonograph (one of the in-game “ode to jazz” paintings) and moving Alice’s surreal artwork of the llama with an apple for a face upstairs into the attic next to the bubble blower to make a spot on the wall next to the phonograph that I could wiggle the whole thing into. The vertical set of three ended up being for the selfies the gang took with their besties and went into that little column of wall between the two windows beside the big wedding collage, and the set of four small pictures went between the TV and the fireplace, with me putting my favorite small shots from the trio’s personal porch set in there. And then picking my favorite of the medium-sized pictures and framing that on the other side of the TV. XD Ah, wall space is always at a premium in this house. . .but I do seriously enjoy being able to put up all their various pictures and paintings around the place. Really makes the house feel like a home. :)

M) And so the playsession ended with all the pictures in their chosen spots; Smiler giving the chickens some more feed, collecting some more eggs (two more hatchable ones – I stuck those back in there to see what will become of them – the previous one just hatched into a rooster, so that’ll be traded away later), and cleaning out their coop again; and Victor kicking apart some creepy hands that grew behind him while he was fabricating stuff. :p Next time I play, I’ll be starting in-game winter with One Great Push to finish off the store’s inventory and get it ready for the grand opening! :)

Writing: Finished off Chapter 5 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland!” With some very soft Valice content as Alice explained her horrible night to Victor (as much as she could, anyway, given she couldn’t actually tell him about seeing Nines there thanks to LaCroix – she also apologized AGAIN for Dementing him after ghouling him in the clinic, with him assuring her that she is long forgiven) and ended up taking his hand after his genuine concern and horror for her ended up gaining him touch privileges. Chapter ended on Victor agreeing to stay with Alice until sunrise, so she didn’t have to go to sleep alone, and Alice mostly-jokingly asking him to steal the Ankaran Sarcophagus for her, or at least figure out where it is in the museum. . .next chapter opens with Victor giving her a map and all his notes on what he found out on a trip there. XD He’s an eager little ghoul, what can I say?

YouTube: Got both of the videos I wanted to watch today watched, w000 –

A) First up, from my Watch Later, OXBox’s “7 Most Disturbing Items in Collector’s Editions That Haunt Our Dreams and Shelves!” Featuring things like that infamous dismembered bikini statue from the Dead Island Riptide Collector’s Edition (you know, the one, the gory torso with the boobs barely covered by a string bikini), a lifelike statue of the blob of flesh that is The Huddle from the Inside Collector’s Edition (made by a SEX TOY MANUFACTURER, so – yeah), and a statue of naked pregnant Alma with a glow-in-the-dark fetus inside her baby bump from the F.3.A.R Collector’s Edition (Mike basically spent the entire segment kinkshaming whoever on the development team has a fetish for pregnant ghosts). So, um, maybe it’s for the best that physical media is going by the wayside and thus collector’s editions are a whole lot rarer. O.O

B) And second up, from my Subs, GrayStillPlay’s “Cars vs Bridges but the Floor is Lava in GTA 5!” Another Alex Torture Board, and this one went from zero to sixty faster than fucking Rita (who, for context, does it in 2.5 seconds). This was a bridge challenge above Alex’s custom lava seas, and STARTED with a plane crashing onto the board and knocking one of the cars off it. Gray punched a bird to relieve his feelings, then set about finding the car that could get across the Gap Lava Bridge (a bridge made up of panels with chunks missing from it, and firetrucks at awkward spots, forcing Gray to maneuver around them or just jump the gaps entirely), the Catching On Fire Bridge (a bridge that had teleporting patches of fire going over it as it looped back around and went under itself, dipped briefly in the lava water, then forced Gray to jump a gap at the very end), the Burning FPS Bridge (timed) (a bridge of grates with (purely decorative) fire coming through them, winding its way through a sky full of fire (mostly decorative?), which Gray had to get across in seventeen seconds lest he get beaten by the WINDMILLS that appeared all over the track once time was up (DEFINITELY not decorative)), and finally the Floating, Uneven, Wooden with Stalking Inferno Fire Bridge (as stated, a floating wooden bridge that was VERY uneven – with elevated and lowered chunks all over the place, practically forming stairs Gray had to descend and ascend at points – with a huge column of flame that just chased Gray relentlessly over this hell bridge. Did I mention his tires got set on fire the moment he rolled onto the board?). A lot of cars didn’t even make it past the first Gap Bridge – the Shrewsbury truck made it, but then got stuck under the Catching On Fire Bridge when it looped under itself because it was too tall. A smaller space-marine-branded sedan with a spoiler made it to the FPS bridge, but didn’t have the speed or handling to make it around the curves – and neither did the super-cars. The winner was an iridescent multicolored monstrosity that had enough ground clearance to survive dips in the lava, enough speed and handling to take on gaps and curves, and enough raw hit points to survive getting hit by the fire column on the final board a few times. In the end, the damn thing limped to the finish line with no tires and barely any engine, but it GOT there, and Gray once again beat the evil Alex. *whistles* Not sure how he’s going to top this one, but damn.

Whew. . .okay, now that that's done, I'm going to bed. Tomorrow is of course Fallout Sunday -- gonna get as much done on the drafts for the Chill Valicer Save update as possible; clear Hubris Comics and claim the Silver Shroud costume in Fallout 4; update the Playthrough Progression appropriately; keep up with Gray and Jon as best I can; and get in a workout. We'll see how well all of that goes tomorrow. Night all!