Pretty Decent Saturday

I mean, I woke up earlier than I wanted and couldn't go back to sleep, but that did at least give me some extra time in the morning to work with. Meaning I got pretty much everything I wanted to get done, done --

Tumblr: Pretty productive on here, I’m happy to say –

Victor Luvs Alice – Caught up on my dash, then drafted out the three VITD-inspired Sims 4 lookbook posts, all before lunch! One each for Victor, Alice, and Smiler, each with six outfits. :) The main text still needs some tweaking, and I have to finish all the image alt text and tags, but I should be able to get most if not all of that done tomorrow morning. :)

Valice Multiverse – Nothing happening over here tonight, so I ended up reblogging all of my recent Baldur’s Gate III-related posts (about my Tav!Smiler, and the “VITD meets BG3” stuff) into my queue as context should my RP partner Marie create a BG3 universe for us to play with. XD Also added an A:MR gifset and a CB gifset to the drafts for later, so I’m prepared for another quiet night!

Sims 4: Whew – bit of a difficult session today over in the old Chill Valicer Save, but I successfully got my OT3 through two Love Day dates (allowing Victor to spend time with Alice and Smiler one-on-one, since that is important). Let me take you through it –

A) First off, I spent some of my tumblr catch-up time this morning also catching up on Scarlet’s Mod List, checking my mods for any known updates. Once that was done, I made backups of my “saves” and “Tray” folders, as always, then – after lunch – moved out the Mods folder, cleared my cache, did my mod updates (two to redownload and one to remove as obsolete – oh, and the London Alice dress CC I picked up earlier in the week added), opened the EA App and let that update, opened Sims 4 and let THAT update, launched the game once to make sure it was running okay, then shut everything down, added, my updated Mods folder back in, relaunched the game, and returned to the Chill Valicer Save!

B) But I didn’t immediately return to the Chill Valicer household, because first I wanted to see something. I knew where I wanted to send Victor and Smiler on their date – my custom Freezer Bunny Arcade lot. But figuring out where to send Victor and Alice was a bit trickier. I first headed to Windenburg and South Square Coffee – but while checking to see if there were any better cafes to plop down on that lot, I immediately spotted a lot that had been sitting in my Library for a while – the Steampunk Cafe by patnactt3! I was like, “have I ever actually USED that? I should use that – oh, but it looks like they built it in Oasis Springs. Would it look too weird here in Windenburg? Fuck it, let’s go to Oasis Springs and set it up there.”

And so I did, heading to Pebble Burrow and replacing that lot with the Steampunk Cafe. :) It was a pretty neat place, to my delight, with a central cafe, some outdoor activities (mainly chess and the steampunk rocket), and a whole hidden underground lab area. It just needed a little tweaking to be perfect – first, by replacing the toilets and the computers downstairs with more Victorian/steampunky versions (specifically, the pull-chain toilets with the ones from Vampires, and the computers with the typewriter ones from Cottage Living), and second, by adding a couple more things to do – like putting a small telescope up on the roof to go with the big observatory there, and sticking in a little splash pad area in the back for when it gets hot. :) “Perfect,” I thought –

C) And finally headed over to the Valicer household! Everyone was just milling around where I’d left them earlier – I promptly had Smiler fly out to the barn to tune up Party Time and Elmer (the party bot and gardening bot respectively), while Alice discussed what it was like to be a werewolf with Victor (in order to get a little XP to knock herself closer to getting that next ability point), before they both headed into the study as they were feeling very inspired – Alice to paint (and mold some clay at the same time), Victor to work on that song that’s been sitting in his inventory for ages. Once Smiler completed their bot tune-ups, they headed inside to grab the completed laundry (ignoring the way the lights were flickering because at this point they’re all used to ghosts) –

D) And then I happened to pan up to their room and saw Surprise in there eating and playing in the trash pile that resulted from that one guest fixing Smiler’s video creation station at the party the other day! I promptly had Smiler fly up there to lecture the cat (who, hilariously, IMMEDIATELY fled the room as Smiler appeared, as if she knew what was coming). Fortunately the cat responded well to the lecturing – no kitty talkback, AND she now knows not to play in trash! (We, uh, still need to work on not EATING trash.) Smiler then hopped on the station to promote their old videos, study the latest trends, and release “Standing And Sculpting” (their Charisma video about them building a sand sculpture) while Victor got sent to bed for a bit to top up his energy and Alice curled up for a nap on the floor of the study once she finished her painting. XD My poor Sims, I make them keep such odd hours. . .

E) Anyway – Smiler played with Shock until their compatriots’ energy was back in the green – and then, it was Chore Time! Victor of course got sent back into the greenhouse to clear some creepy hands, replant all his oversized crops, and then tend the rest of his garden; Smiler got put on chicken duty, spreading the feed and cleaning the coop; and Alice got put on cow duty, harvesting all the prairie grass (and getting a huckleberry out of it) before cleaning off a very dirty and cranky Moory. Smiler cleaned up the rest of the garbage around the house before returning to the chicken coop to collect the eggs, tell Shock off for eating the chicken feed (cats, please) and try to entertain the chickens, who were NOT having it today; Alice, meanwhile, tried to milk Moory, only for the cow to kick the pail over while I wasn’t looking. Again. *shakehead* I instead had Alice clean the shed and refill her feed (though I forgot to use the prairie grass to do it, dang) before taking care of a twisted tendril and licking herself clean. Smiler, meanwhile, got all the recyclables out of the garbage out the front of the house and recycled all those before heading to the greenhouse to pick some more noxious elderberries, poison fireleaf, and plasma fruit (as they frankly have ENOUGH of all their other herbalism ingredients) –

And that’s when I noticed that Victor seemed stuck in a perpetual weeding loop. Yes, while the ORIGINAL two plants that had bugged weeds were fine now, it seems two OTHER plants were resisting being weeded. *grumbles* I managed to knock him out of it and go weed some other areas while Smiler started helping with the watering and Alice came in to fertilize the daisies with some trash she’d picked up and grab the honey out of the bee box. Once all the plants OTHER than the bugged ones were set, I then had Victor super-sell the greenhouse in a few distinct chunks, before managing to stop him from going to eat Toothy’s cake tongue and instead just feed the darn cowplant. *shakehead* You’d think the guy who GREW the darn thing would know better. . .

F) Fortunately, that was the end of Chore Time, and so we could get onto the meat of the playsession – namely, the Love Day dates! Alice went and asked Victor on the first date while Smiler headed upstairs to play some video games, and, naturally, I sent them to the Steampunk Cafe! :D I had them change into more appropriate clothes for the weather/situation, started them off with a few flirts, then sent them inside to talk to the barista and order some food – namely, a cannoli for Victor and a cup of mocha coffee for Alice.

Which is where I started running into problems. First off, the barista (who wasn’t very good at her job) kept acting like she couldn’t get to Victor and Alice for some reason, and put Victor’s plate down randomly on one of the tables; second off, when I hopped into build mode to move the plate to another table that Katrina Caliente wasn’t sitting at, I discovered that the decorative woodworks that the creator had placed on the tables were all too big to ALLOW plates on them. I tried to find something else to display them on, but the biggest spikiest one didn’t fit on a lot of things, so I ended up just deleting them to make room. I then put the cannoli on another table and sent Victor over there to wait as Alice tried to get her coffee –

Aaaand another wandering townie came over, picked up the plate, and took it for herself. Before Victor could even take a bite. *sigh* This game, I swear. . .

G) Well, at least Victor and Alice could more than afford to redo their orders! I had them both order again and sit down at the recently-vacated-by-Katrina table nearest the counter – once again, the barista acted like she couldn’t get to them, but with them being closer, at least she put down the stuff where they were actually SITTING! I had Victor promptly start eating his cannoli this time as the plate was put in front of him, listening to Alice tell him a story and sharing some deep conversations with her, along with a bit of flirting. Alice eventually got her coffee, and the socialization train continued – though not without random townies trying to join in the conversation, as always. *grumble* Including the one who stole Victor’s original order! I also saw Alice get blown a kiss at one point, but I wasn’t sure if Victor had done it or one of the other townies. . .I figured it HAD to be Victor because I was pretty sure I’d disallowed autonomous flirting in my game. . .

H) Anyway – Victor finished his food and headed to the bathroom while I had Alice go to the corner and listen to the classical music on the speakers to get away from the townies. I then sent Victor over there and had him initiate a slow dance, aww. :) I had them dance for a minute, then tried to initiate a dip kiss –

Cue MC Command Center dropping an error on me (though it looks like that was actually the result of Alice’s attempt to wait for her coffee going bad in the background – game, keep up, she got her coffee a while ago) and the glitchiest mess in the world resulting as another Sim, named Joaquin, came over to butt in on their conversation. *facepalm* I was annoyed enough about the broken dip kiss, but figured I could work with it as Victor and Alice continued chatting and joking –

I) And then JOAQUIN STRAIGHT UP FLIRTED WITH ALICE IN FRONT OF VICTOR. LIKE, GRABBED HER FACE LOVINGLY AND EVERYTHING. I had no idea WHAT the fuck was going on there, especially since Alice didn’t even KNOW this idiot! Pissed off, I cleared all conversations, had Victor go outside to play some chess, had Alice officially introduce herself to Joaquin –

And then had her insult his feeble nature before straight up SNARLING at him. That fucking ended his interest in her fast. >( But what the fucking hell, game?! I know I have it set up so Victor and Alice are poly and don’t get jealous, so this won’t actually be an issue for their relationship, but that still doesn’t mean I want random Sims coming up to my Sims and just flirting with them out of the blue! *sigh* Gonna have to check my MC Command Center and Wonderful Whims settings, I think. . .

J) Anyway – with THAT sorted, I had Alice use the bathroom, then join Victor outside to chat with him some more and get this date sorted. Victor handed Alice a rose as a Love Day gift, which she gave a thumbs down to (seriously, game?) before making up for her fickleness by hitting him with a passionate kiss. Further cuteness followed as they talked about dreams, did a little more flirting, and ended the date on a fake romantic selfie. Despite everything, the date DID end up as a Gold-tier date – just took a lot longer than I expected to get there! *facepalm*

K) With that sorted, I had the pair head back home so Victor could prepare for his date with Smiler – I had him settle in and watch a bit of romantic TV while Smiler played some chess and Alice transformed into her werewolf form (finally picking up that ability point – I had her take “Immortal Wolf” so she’s truly immortal. Perhaps one day we will be able to turn aging back on!) to go hunting. Smiler eventually got up from their chess game to take a bath – I had Victor hit them with Scruberoo instead (though they did still insist on going all the way up the stairs -.-), then sent them back downstairs to give Victor a chrysanthemum. Victor was fortunately in favor of being given this flower, and they shared a tender moment as Alice came back from her hunt. I made sure she was good, wolfing down on her meat –

L) And then it was Victor and Smiler date time at the Freezer Bunny Arcade in Newcrest! Haven’t been here in a while, but the arcade was on my mind after onlyabidoang’s “functional objects” video featuring all the arcade stuff Cepzid created. It was raining when they arrived (and soon ramped up to a major thunderstorm, yikes), so I sent them inside into the cafe area at the back right away, to sit and chat together. Smiler told Victor an engaging story as some random sat down at their table with his coffee – fortunately, he didn’t try to join their conversation, and I was able to get the pair to move to another table once Victor ordered some pain au chocolat from the barista (which went a LOT fucking smoother than it did at the other cafe – Steampunk Cafe LOOKS nice, but it doesn’t play very well, unfortunately). They continued having a very pleasant, occasionally flirty chat, sharing the spirit of the day and officially developing a “Close” family dynamic, awww. :) Randos did keep coming to sit at their table, but again, nobody actually tried to TALK to them – they just let the pair get on with their date. Sheesh, wonder why everyone kept bothering Victor and Alice. . .

M) Anyway – Victor finished his snack, then donated some plasma to Smiler’s cause before grabbing some sleep replacement potion from the aspiration rewards store (which he ended up drinking next to, of all people, JOAQUIN, who’d showed up here too. Fortunately I was able to keep him from trying to talk to Victor). Smiler wandered over to the skeeball machines, and Victor joined them once he was all Energy-ed up, both of them playing a Level 1 game and winning a child’s toy apiece. XD Smiler then went over to the pinball machines while Victor played some Whack-A-Gnome poorly. I had him go get a gumball to make himself feel better after that –

And then heard a weird musical sting, and looked over at Smiler to realize they were absolutely Hysterical. O.o AKA, DANGEROUSLY amused. I quickly got them away from the games to chat with Victor, who laid a Heat Of The Moment kiss on them as a distraction. XD Once they’d gotten their flirt on a bit, I had Smiler go calm themselves down in the bathroom mirrors (never mind they have no reflection) – once they were safely just Very Inspired, I then let them hop on the DDR machine while Victor shot some hoops at the basketball machine. And my game threw out ANOTHER barista-related error. *grumbles* I don’t know if that’s the game, one of my mods, or what, but seems I’m gonna have to be careful playing for a while. . .

N) And then I looked at the timer and saw that they only had thirty minutes left on their date and was like “crap, finish socializing, do more cute things together!” XD Fortunately they were amenable to kissing and flirting some more, and the date ended with Victor blowing a kiss to Smiler and them successfully having a Gold-level date as well, yay! Not like I need those VIP buckets, but fuck it, we can recycle them or something. I just wanted my boy and my enby to have a good time.

O) With that date done, it was time to send the pair home, where I found Alice on the couch, watching some TV classics. Which gave me an idea – VICTOR had already fulfilled the “watch Romantic TV” tradition I slapped on the holiday a while back, but Alice and Smiler hadn’t. And despite the fact it was past midnight, the holiday wasn’t quite over yet (they don’t end until 2 AM the next morning). So I had Alice turn off the classics, let out a somber howl to keep the Fury down, change back into her human form, then put on the Romance channel before sending Victor and Smiler over to join her on the couch. Holiday ended with the three of them hanging out for a while, watching goofy medical dramas and doing a little bit of flirting, before Smiler got up and left Alice and Victor to it while they made a drink over at their bar in the party barn. XD At least they all had an extremely successful Love Day!

*whew* Yeah, that was a bit more chaotic than I wanted – at least for Victor and Alice, at any rate! Seriously – I can get that the problems with them getting their food was because the cafe’s probably a little too small and was built with form over function in mind, but the FUCK was with townies just randomly flirting with Alice?! Like I said, that didn’t happen on Victor and Smiler’s date – everyone just left them alone! Does Alice have some sort of setting on her that makes townies think it’s okay to get up close and personal on her, because I have GOT to turn that off if so. Talk about the most unAlice thing ever. . . But at least I got my two good dates, and did get some cute pictures of each pair being flirty and smoochy. :) Very important with Valicertine’s Day on the horizon! Gotta get on making my Valicertines for this year. . .

Writing: Got another healthy chunk done on “Start At The Beginning. . .Sort Of” – the group has successfully confronted Barkis and freed Victoria (mostly via the medium of Victor threatening Barkis, Smiler throwing stones at Barkis’s head the minute he lowered the knife from Victoria’s throat to threaten Victor in turn, and Victoria kicking him in the ankle to get free and then BOOKING IT), and after a brief scuffle with Victor trying to tackle the guy, Smiler throwing more rocks, and Alice threatening Barkis with her own knife, Emily has managed to get a hand on him and possess the guy. Which Barkis not enjoying, as you might expect. >:D Strap in, asshole, you’re shortly about to enjoy it even less. . .

YouTube: Ran a little late this evening, but I did get three things out of my Watch Later (I mean, I did add two videos, but still a net loss of videos!) and keep up with the GrayStillPlays in the Subs –

A) First up, from onlyabidoang, we had “Analyzing the Unused Animations in The Sims 4!” This was a very interesting video showcasing a bunch of the unused animations for Sims still lurking in the Sims 4’s code, using Andrew’s Pose Player mod and a list of animation codes gotten with the help of thePancake1 (co-creator of one of my personal favorite mods, Cute Romance). The animations ranged from static poses created for a pre-release showcase (where you could test out CAS, then see your Sim in a “photo” in a silly pose afterward – a lot of these were tweaked for use as photography poses), to largely unfinished animations for stuff that got cut early (like a “ringing doorbell” animation that had the Sim more or less just stand there), to prototype animations for certain features (like a set of rough, choppy animations for various stages of the lightsaber duels that came with Journey To Batuu), to largely finished animations that are just not implemented for some reason (there’s a whole set of animations for Sims to do romantic stuff while relaxing on beds! What the hell!). It was pretty fascinating to see Abi go through them and talk about them – even if some of them were broken due to the limits of the Pose Player (for example, in the romantic bed animations, every animation that would have seen one Sim touch the other – for a massage, a tickle, etc – instead saw that Sim’s arms deform so they could touch themselves in the right spot instead – like, you know how sometimes a Sim will glitch out and put their arms behind their own head while massaging a partner? That sort of thing). I suppose we can keep our fingers crossed that some of these will eventually be cleaned up and make it into the game in a future pack. . .or that modders will find a way to get these animations working for mods. Probably the latter. :p

B) Then it was time for some OXBox content –

I. “7 DLCs That Went Off the Rails, Became Entire New Games” – OXtra’s Luke and Ellen taking us through those sequel games that started life as mere DLC packs! The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom? Was going to be Breath Of The Wild DLC! Grand Theft Auto: Vice City? Was going to be GTA III DLC (and only changed over into being a “real” game halfway through production)! Saints Row IV? Okay, this one gets complicated because it STARTED life as an April Fool’s joke from the studio (where it was called Enter The Dominatrix and had a jokey BDSM theme, as you might imagine), then the studio decided to make it for real, then the DLC got merged into their plans for a sequel, which became Saints Row IV, and finally THAT game got a DLC called Enter The Dominatrix presumably based off some of the ideas in the original April Fool’s joke that didn’t make it into the actual sequel as released. Confused yet? I am! XD

II. “7 Needlessly Ambitious Multiplayer Modes That Nobody Asked For” – OXBox’s Andy, Mike, and Jane taking us through those multiplayer modes added to games that nobody asked to be created. . .but which proved to be incredible in their own right. BioShock 2’s “Fall of Rapture” multiplayer mode actually added to the story by showcasing the civil war between the splicers of Ryan and Atlas – and ended with the plane crash that started off the first game! Call Of Duty: World At War’s Nazi zombie-themed multiplayer map spawned a whole spin-off zombie series for the Black Ops subseries of the franchise! And hell, a fairly crappy EA game from the NINETIES – Future Cop LAPD – had a multiplayer strategy game, “Precinct Assault,” which basically predicted and inspired the MOBA genre of games, leading to League of Legends filling fucking stadiums with its competitive matches. Seriously, I thought this was going to be a video making fun of unwanted multiplayer, and instead it was a showcase of surprise, unasked-for greatness. Kudos to these needlessly ambitious developers!

C) And finally, a bit late, we had GrayStillPlays and “Which car has the best acceleration in GTA 5?” Another simple, ranked Alex Torture board where Gray had to test a variety of cars against five different kooky acceleration challenges to see which one was the best. The results were –

I. Which Car Can Outrn The Glass – Gray had to find the car that could make it across a decently-long stretch of glass without ANY run-up and without falling through short of the checkpoint. Most cars barely got a few inches onto the glass, but “Iris Violence” – a bright pink car sporting a license plate reading “SAD” (which Gray now wants in real life) managed to make it over the entire length by spinning its tires a little bit before racing off.

II. Ascending 40 Degrees Acceleration Test Off The Line – Gray had to find the car that could ascend a 40-degree incline straight up from the wall at the bottom of the hill (aka the “line” – again, no run-up allowed) fast enough to make it over the gigantic gap to the next checkpoint Alex had put on the other side of said hill (which also had a windmill in it, because, of course). Poor Iris Violence couldn’t even climb it, and a lot of other cars couldn’t either – one, a tan car with a “MAYBE” plate, made it up there, but nowhere near fast enough to jump the gap. The winner this time was a black racing car dubbed “#14” as it had a 14 in pink on its side, with a “FLASH” plate that seemed very appropriate under the circumstances!

III. Mid-Range Acceleration On Wet Ice – Gray had to find the car that could make it across a damp icy platform (covered in slowdown circles he had to dodge no less) in thirteen seconds – the trick being finding a car that could go fast enough to get across in the time limit, but not so fast that it constantly spun out. #14 was a slippy-slidey-spinning mess, and most of the other cars didn’t far much better (though one white car with an “L” license plate managed to hit the wall that popped up at the end hard enough to send Gray flying through the windshield and OVER said wall, so, technical win? XD) THIS challenge proved to be tan Maybe’s time to shine, as it had the weight and handling to get across the ice without too much trouble (a little wiggly back end, but not TOO much). And even then it took a couple of tries to make it across!

IV. Push Test With Amplified Acceleration – Gray had to find the car that, when it’s acceleration was boosted by one of Alex’s scripts, could get a huge, heavy pile of presents down a narrow corridor and into the ramp-making present hole in a mere nine seconds. Maybe did okay, but not fast enough to get it to the end – neither did the arena car with the “JUICING” plate or our friend the white L. No, the winner this time was Neon – a gray car named after its license plate (and, presumably, the bright blue tracks it left on the road). This car had the pick up to shove those presents to the end and turn them into the ramp leading to the teleporter Gray had to leap into to unlock the final challenge! Which left Gray with an unheard-of FOUR WAY TIE. So, what was the challenge that would determine who was the best of the best?

V. Best Acceleration In Water – Gray had to find the car that could accelerate fast enough through a water-covered road to reach the ramp to the winning circle (once again, with a windmill beside it) in seven-and-a-half seconds. All of the contenders were tried, and while Iris Violence, #14, and Maybe all did their best –

It was Neon that had the oomph and took the win! Which made Gray happy, as it was the car that matched his name. XD Maybe not as flashy as some of Alex’s proper Torture Boards, but there’s something to be said for keeping it simple sometimes! Besides, it’s not like Gray didn’t suffer at least a LITTLE. Especially on that first glass run, HOO boy. XD

*nods* Not too shabby! Though I would have appreciated more sleep. . .meaning it's about time I hit the sheets here, I think. Tomorrow, we'll see if I can complete those Lookbook posts in the Victor Luvs Alice tumblr drafts; play either Fallout 4 and find that chem stash or Baldur's Gate III and get into the chapel WITHOUT nearly dying ten times; either update the FO4 progression or do some more VITD worldbuilding; keep up on GrayStillPlays and Many A True Nerd; and get in a workout. Hopefully all achievable goals again. . .night all!