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April Foolsed Myself
Apr. 1st, 2024 11:48 pmWelp, getting up earlier did not happen -- while I managed to get to bed at a little after 1:30 AM (which WAS earlier compared to the 2 AM minimum I'd been averaging most of the weekend), I didn't get up properly until 9:30 AM (I did wake up around 6:30 AM-ish, but only because I had to use the bathroom). And then getting up and moving for the day took longer than anticipated, and while I was pretty on-track this morning, this afternoon. . .well, just look at the to-do list --
Tumblr: Only had to worry about Victor Luvs Alice today, which is REALLY good as having to check in on Valice Multiverse would have cost me precious time this evening. And I had a good productive morning on here, spending the time before lunch –
A) Finishing putting all the image alt text on the three unfinished Chill Valicer Save update post drafts (meaning all five are done and will be ready to go this Wednesday, yay)
B) And tweaking a few things in the “Smiler’s Otherland: Outfits” post, as I was a bit inspired after watching a bit of the 2022 Alton Towers fireworks show and getting a better look at Sir Al’s current outfit for inspiration. Namely, Smiler’s “Minister” suit is now called “Ministry” because it sounded a bit better to me (and avoids any confusion with Dr. Minister, the person in charge of the Sanctuary domain which that suit is associated with); Smiler’s “Splashdown” outfit for Alice’s Deluded Depths now has a proper full write-up (and I added a straw boater hat to it just for fun – after all, Victor’s “Sunken” bathing suit comes with a waistcoat and seaweed tie); And I created an “In Progress” section for the post and moved my thoughts on what Smiler’s Hatter’s Domain outfit should look like there. Things are slowly but surely coming together here, yay~
Sims 4: Had a pretty busy day in the Chill Valicer Save today, sending the gang out and about again to have another food sale with their new Van Liddelton Snacks stand! Which took a little doing, as you will learn –
A) Started where I left off on Saturday, with Smiler finishing fixing up the wind turbines and combing through the resultant trash piles for parts; Alice gaming on her and Victor’s computer; and Victor snoozing in bed. Victor’s energy was basically full, though, so he ended up waking up while I was getting Smiler to clean up all the trash. Having spotted a specter in the crafting barn, I had him transportalate down to give it a present (a spare Potion of Good Fortune) he had on him –
Just in time for Temperance to show up. Like, she appeared just as he transportalated away. And then she got glared at by one of the cats who’d just jumped up on the bed. XD I grabbed Victor’s bizarre idol from his inventory and slapped it on the floor next to her as per usual, and let her get banished while I focused on Victor’s specter-present giving. Fortunately, it went well, and the specter gave him another lump of wraith wax in return! We do love our wraith wax around here – though Victor DOES have a lot of it at this point. Might be time to start selling them to oddity collectors. . .
B) Anyway – I had Victor collect his wraith wax (along with another spare lump of it I found on the floor) and go outside to play with Shadow while Smiler collected all the trash piles, got the trash Victor and Alice were carrying in THEIR inventories, then trucked it all over to the recycler to be, well, recycled. Along with some items that I didn’t see any point in keeping, like the Tentacle Tom they won at the arcade, the extra stereo they won at their house party, the VIP buckets from the Love Date dates, some used-up sacred candles, and a poop. XD Though, once they were done recycling, they got a little over $3,000 along with all their bits and pieces. O.o I – really don’t know where that money came from? I’ve never seen them get a cash payout when they recycle anything, but I really don’t know where else it could have come from. . .maybe from them recycling some higher-ticket items instead of just trash piles? *shrug* Mystery for the ages!
C) With that sorted, I decided that the best thing to do would be to have Smiler make mechanisms (as I still want them to make a Servo at one point, and they still needed loads of those), and Victor make eco-upgrade parts (as I wanted him to do some eco-upgrading on some of the stuff on the lot – notably the recycler). They plugged away on that, making two each (Victor reaching Fabrication skill 5 in the process, good for him), while Alice got Video Gaming skill 4 from her Sim Scuffle session before I sent her to grab a little more sleep. She refreshed her energy quickly in her and Victor’s amazing bed, and after just about an in-game hour she was ready to get up –
But before I woke her up, I looked inside of her inventory and realized “oh yeah, you have a load of photos in here that need to be cleaned out, don’t you?” So I pulled them all out and looked them over to see which ones I wanted to keep and which would have to be sold. I ended up hanging the two medium-sized pictures of Smiler doing their first food sale in Brindleton Bay (when they got Shock and Surprise spayed) in the kitchen, above the pet bowls (there was room there, and it felt appropriate to have these pictures in the kitchen); moved two of the pictures from the Valicertine’s photoshoot into the digital photo frame to join the parade of changing pictures there; and put a cute picture Alice had snapped of a cat poster in the vet’s office on her and Victor’s desk, since she’s the one who uses it the most, before selling all the rest. *nods* I also took a moment to put the fossilized egg in her inventory on the display shelf with the other fossils outside the séance room, and did a little “move objects on” in build mode to put her new emerald crystal in with another small crystal in the crystal shelves inside the séance room. *dusts hands* Collectibles sorted!
D) With Alice’s inventory looking a bit less crowded, I got her up and decided to check if she could prep anything in the stand mixer, as I wanted to make some fresh treats for today’s food sale. As it turned out, though, her ability to make various batters and doughs was limited, as there was a distinct lack of flour in the house. Fortunately, this group can just MAKE their own flour thanks to Simsonian Library’s bulk food processor, so I had her join Victor and Smiler in the barn to make a big bag of soybean-based flour (as that’s what she had in her inventory). They all ended up finishing up their tasks around the same time – I had Victor go and take care of a tendril that had popped up outside, then sent him to use some of his eco parts to give the recycler some hardened gears (I think this gets you more bits and pieces from non-organic stuff?), and was preparing to have Alice collect her flour (which she’d insisted on taking upstairs to put on Smiler’s bar for some reason) –
When I spotted a trash plant growing in the pet obstacle course! O.o When did that sprout?! I thought I’d cleared up any trash that might be over there. . . Confused, I had Smiler got over and uproot it, then scavenge parts from the resultant trash pile before bagging it up and throwing it away. Normally, after this, I would have them dig any recyclables out of the trash can to make sure it didn’t overflow, but as Victor was still upgrading, I had Smiler instead take the trash and head out to the rabbithole dump. *shrug* Kept them busy and kept the roach and fly situation from getting any worse!
E) After that, the true chores of the day could begin – starting with Alice getting her bake on! I had her start by using the sweet batter she already had on hand to make strawberry fizz cupcakes, then had her make some more sweet batter in the stand mixer before using some leftover dough on a blueberry pie. While she was cooking, Smiler came back from the dump and Victor finished up his upgrade, so I sent them both to tend to the greenhouse – unfortunately, that one dahlia flower was still glitched-weedy, and Smiler kept getting stuck in a weeding loop every time they went near it. >( Meeh. I had them and Victor do what they could for the other plants (just a bit of watering and weeding of those plants that COULD be cleared) – Victor ended up finishing first, and I decided he could be the one to feed the chickens and clean the coop today. I know he’s usually the plant guy, but it does everyone good to switch things around sometimes! Alice, for her part, finished up her first batch of food and got sent to clean Moory’s shed and poor dirty Moory herself – though I had to stop her trying to eat Toothy the cowplant’s cake midway through. *sigh* One of these days I’m going to LET one of you get eaten, and then you’ll learn. . . Anyway, she fed the cowplant, then went and cleaned Moory and refilled her feed with prairie grass hay. Along the way, she indicated she wanted to cook some waffles (a picture of the waffle iron appeared in her activity queue anyway), so I looked through the options and decided she should cook some pumpkin spice ones – something different, and it would use up the pumpkin in the fridge! While she finished in the shed, Victor finished cleaning the chicken coop and decided he wanted pineapple pizza for breakfast, which I allowed because it amused me. I then checked in on Smiler, broke them out of another perma-weeding loop, then had them go around and get a few key crops (soybeans, black beans, plasma fruit, pineapples, poison fireleaves, noxious elderberries), then had them snag a bottle of fizzy plasma from the greenhouse fridge to drink while they worked on super-selling the rest of the produce. Though I did end up having them also snag some taro root and garlic first, because taro root is also good for making flour, and I didn’t think they’d ever actually HARVESTED any of the garlic they’d planted. Might as well, right? That’s what it’s there for! Happily, all this harvesting and super-selling actually maxed out their gardening skill, which is cool. :D Now the house has two super-gardeners to take care of all the plants!
F) Anyway – they got sent upstairs to go play a little Sim Scuffle (I think it’s everyone’s favorite game in this household), while Alice finished up her chores with Moory and went in to make her pumpkin spice waffles as Victor finished breakfast. And then immediately had to go OUT again because her werewolf temperaments made her feel like the walls were closing in on her. *sigh* I thought about having her indulge in some zoomies, but as the waffles were going to be done very soon, I figured it wasn’t worth it it (you never know how long zoomies are going to take, and the interaction can’t be canceled, sooo). Instead, I had her dig around in the yard for a bit (she snagged a sample of utranium for her efforts – pretty sure she already has that in her little collection, but always nice to get something while scavenging!), while Victor took advantage of the oven being free to bake some everything bagels (as I figured it would be nice to have something from him in the stand too). Once I was sure she was okay to come back in, I had her go back to the kitchen to collect her waffles and have some artful foccacia for breakfast (as Victor knee-walked to the bathroom, poor guy) –
And then, made sure both she and Victor had a piece of forbidden candy from the jar in the kitchen! Reason being, I learned from one of onlyabidoang’s videos in the past that having one piece will give Sims an energized moodlet and actually REFILL THEIR ENERGY NEED AND KEEP IT FULL while the moodlet is active. As Victor and Alice are always getting tired at odd times because of the weird hours they keep, this seemed like a great way to keep them happy and awake while they were out and about! :D Once they were officially Energized by ghost sugar, I had Alice head to the porch to grab the painting Felipe Sisson recently made on the easel out there (he visited during the party Smiler had a little while ago and painted something before he left – it was actually a really nice painting, I’ll have to give it back to him at some point) before sending her to the downstairs bathroom to use the toilet then lick herself clean. Victor, for his part, was kept busy by using the various pet poops he had in his inventory to fertilize a few plants close to evolution. XD Look, I had to get them out of the poor guy’s pockets! He came back as Alice somber-howled her way to lower Fury (didn’t want any inconvenient rampages while they were out and about) – and with everyone sorted, it was time to hit Hare Square in Windenburg with the Van Liddelton Snacks stand!
G) They immediately arrived in the middle of a thunderstorm! *facepalm* I SWEAR, every time I travel. . . I promptly got the weather machine out of Build/Buy, stuck it on the right side of the lot (where it seemed least likely to block Sim traffic), and had Smiler set it to “clear skies” while Victor and Alice amused themselves with some chess (Alice won, to Victor’s slight annoyance XD). Smiler was successful and went to chat with them as the weather slowly but surely cleared up; then – once the skies were blue and everyone was out of their wet clothes and into nice dry warm weather outfits – I had Victor challenge Smiler to a match while I sent Alice off to a nearby easel in the world to paint some of the benches and trees in the frankly very pretty cherry-blossom tree park behind her. :) Victor managed to win the game against Smiler – guess he was determined to make up for his loss to Alice. Once I was sure they were done, I had Smiler head to the front of the park and drink a plasma fruit to make sure they weren’t thirsty, then had Victor hit them with the old Scruberoo to make sure they were clean –
H) And then had Smiler set up the snack stand and start a food sale! Featuring Alice’s strawberry fizz cupcakes, pumpkin spice waffles, blueberry pie, and remaining banana split waffles from the last sale (which – I THOUGHT the game said they were spoiled when I first looked in Smiler’s inventory, but then they said they were fine again after I started moving items into the stand? O.o Game, what – actually, I won’t complain about you unspoiling my food, carry on) and Victor’s everything bagels. Things were a bit slow at first, so I left Smiler tending the table and instead focused on keeping Victor busy with collecting insects (a couple of locusts fluttering around the park) and making a digital painting of a bench by the big circle fountain a little ways away (which ended up being a masterpiece, nice). I then checked in on Smiler, but only one potential customer had shown up – dude named Patrick who I recognized from Saturday’s update at the grocery store. I had Smiler give him a sales pitch, which didn’t seem to do much unfortunately –
Then realized Victor was already done with his painting, whoops. Forgot the ones on the digital sketchpad go WAAAY faster than the ones on the easel! I had him come back and plant a bluebell in the public planters in the park, then tend the plants while I went back to Smiler. A few more people had shown up by this point, including Marcus Flex and L. Faba from the Magic Realm. Smiler greeted and made insta-friends with Marcus Flex, as is their wont, picking up a new like for High-Energy Sims in the process (seems legit). I kept an eye on them and tried to have them hit as many Sims with sales pitches as they could –
I) And then – success! L. Faba bought the first item of the day by getting a strawberry fizz cupcake! :D And with her leading the way, the sales started pouring in – Victor, who had been busy cloudgazing after finishing with the plants, came over to chat with customers Dominic and Clara as they bought an everything bagel (Dominic) and some pumpkin spice waffles Clara), then Alice showed up (having finally finished her painting – also a masterpiece – and unsuccessfully scavenged in the park) just in time to see a few more plates of pumpkin spice waffles and banana split waffles, along with another cupcake and a bagel (L. Faba, returning for another go) get sold. I decided it would be nice to have her commemorate the occasion and had her take a couple of pictures from a couple of different angles of Smiler and the crowd. :) And then had her grab some leftover pumpkin spice waffles someone had dropped and gobble them down so they wouldn’t go to waste. XD She started cloudgazing behind the crowd while I sent Victor (who wanted to level up his Handiness anyway) to upgrade the weather machine with a “moisture vaporator” so it would be even better at producing clear skies in the future –
J) And then I got an MCCC Error as Clara came back and got a slice of blueberry pie. *sigh* Oh, Sims 4, why you gotta be this way. . .I looked at it after the fact, and I think Alice was trying to say goodbye to her, but the interaction didn’t go off the way it was supposed to. *shakehead* I soldiered on though (not the first time I’ve gotten an error) and had Alice hang out with Victor as he finished up his upgrades, having them talk about her lycanthropy and Victor’s magical status and getting in a little kissing while Smiler finished up their food sale. The whole kit-and-kaboodle finally ended at around 6:30 PM in-game, with Smiler making an even $400 in profit (from two cupcakes, three pumpkin spice waffles, five bagels, four banana split waffles, and three slices of blueberry pie), getting level three of the Enterpeneur skill (meaning they can now research business plans if they want) –
And causing their number of thrown “social events” in their Party Animal aspiration to tick up a notch! Apparently food sales count! O.O Well, that’s good to know. . . Anyway, I had them clean up the food and pack away the stall, then sent them over to go get their flirt on with Victor –
Only for the skies to darken, and the rain to start falling again. Oops – thunderstorms are back! Time to get home before the lighting starts flying!
K) And so the group returned home, where the weather was actually halfway decent. I had Smiler and Victor resume their interrupted flirting, with Smiler getting frisky and going in for the kiss before getting a drink from Victor’s wrist (as they were QUITE thirsty at this point). Alice went and collected some of the wild chrysanthemums growing by the path to the barn while I pulled her photos and her and Victor’s paintings out of their inventories – the paintings went up into the attic rec room, to be framed and put on the wall next to the couch and the microphone; while ended up selling most of the pictures, keeping just one small one to put in the digital picture frame. Seriously, that thing is useful when it comes to picture storage. . . Anyway, I sent her upstairs to look at her own painting while Smiler finished their dinner and Victor went to have his (some more pumpkin spice waffles, as I’d shoved all the food back in the fridge once they got home) –
And then I looked at the back porch, and saw NPC Ericka Wada heading to the grill to do some herbalism. O.o Uh – when did you get here and why are you using the grill? I quickly had Victor send her home, then had him clean up the herbalism pot with his own dishes once he was done with his dinner. The fuck, game – at least require me to invite people in before they start using my grill and nearly burning my house down again!
L) Anyway – Smiler ended up heading to the attic to have a chat with Alice, and I figured while they were up there, that they could practice their comedy and tell a few jokes on the microphone. I had Victor transportalate up there to join them, and he and Alice watched and enjoyed Smiler’s performance (they both got the moodlet “Briefly Amused,” so it wasn’t a real WINNER, but they did laugh, so. . .). I ended the impromptu comedy hour around 10 PM, after which Smiler went back to their robotics station in the barn to make a computer chip; Alice went to the kitchen to have some more focaccia for dinner; amd Victor went to the second floor blue-and-white bathroom to mop a slime creature before using the toilet. I happened to notice at this point Victor was VERY close to getting a Talent Point from his magic usage, so I had him transportalate down to the greenhouse and cast Floralorial on that troublesome dahlia plant. Which – did actually seem to finally clear the glitch-weeds, when not even shift-clicking would. O.o Fingers crossed people! It also got him the Talent Point, which I promptly spent on “Hexproof” to protect him from all curses. :) I then pulled all of Alice’s super-vitality fertilizers out of her inventory and put them into Victor’s so he could sprinkle them on all the oversized crops (or, well, looks like they’re all gonna be normal-sized crops this time), before noticing another specter outside the greenhouse and sending him over to give them a Potion of Good Fortune. They appreciated it and left Victor a forbidden candy jar, but as we already have three (one in the kitchen, one on the back porch, and Alice has the third in her inventory), I had Victor just straight-up sell that to an oddity collector. Shadow showed up at this point whining about a ball – I figured “okay, let’s play fetch with the dog, I already have Alice playing laser pointer with the cats” (I sent her to play with Kelly in the back entrance once she was done with her meal, and then I think Shock on the front porch) and had Victor grab the ball in his inventory –
Only for Shadow to run away as another NPC showed upon the front porch for no good reason. *sigh* I had Alice send the person on the porch (Maya, I think her name was) away once she was done with the laser pointer, and waited for Shadow to finish her business so I could try to get the game of fetch back on. She headed upstairs and into Smiler’s room and approached their desk –
And then did that horrific glitch thing where pets try to stand up like Sims but their legs get all thin and distorted and their heads end up going backwards. O.o It only lasted for a moment, but as you might imagine, it triggered another MCCC error. (I think the dog was trying to play with one of the chatterbots on Smiler’s desk – maybe the NPC wanted to do that and the game got confused?) And kind of killed my desire for fetch. XD Fortunately, at that point I realized that it was actually after midnight in the game and decided it was a good time to wrap things up with the trio, saving and closing.
Whew! That took longer than I expected. . .I love my Chill Save, but it takes a WHILE to sum up every play session. A lot happens even on a quiet day, and this certainly was not one of those! Played for two and a half hours, after all. . . But hey, I’m glad to see that their snack business is doing pretty well – and I have to admit, it’s a little more fun to take the food stand around all the different worlds than just do the same thing over and over at the grocery store. But I still want to sell everything in their store before I do anything different with it. :p Next time we hit this save, though, we’ll be heading to Chestnut Ridge for SimCity Founding! Don’t know when that’ll be, but it should be a good time!
Writing: I nearly didn’t get to this today, between my Chill Valicer Save write-up above taking longer than anticipated, my workout write-ups taking longer than anticipated (see the Workout section below), and being absolutely DETERMINED not to fall behind on my Subs (see the YouTube section below) – but I was also absolutely DETERMINED to do some writing today, and so I carved out a little time to start Chapter 2 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland!” Granted, I didn’t do as much as I normally do – only about half a page, 422 words – but I DID IT and that’s what counts. *nods* Onward and upward.
YouTube: Well, I straight up ran out of time to watch the video in my Watch Later, so I had to content myself with GrayStillPlays and “Boat Cars vs Tsunami in GTA 5!” One of the Ranked Challenge Alex Torture Boards, this one saw Gray having to take four boat cars – the Sludgemobile (a bright green fusion between a convertible and a powerboat), the Bulbousmobile (a bright red oversized car shell with big old side fins and a yellow boat bottom that looked more like a toy than an actual vehicle), the Letdownmobile (the only “legitimate” boat car in the lot, a blue and green car that looked a bit like an off-brand Deluxo that could transform into a submarine-like vehicle – I believe the comments named it the Ocelot Ardent), and the unnamed fusion between a bright pink boat and the Sherp (the latter’s giant floaty wheels being off-kilter from its little horrible semi-transparent boat body) – and see which one gained the most points over the following four challenges:
I. Which Boat Car Can Do A Tsunami Tightrope Faster? – Gray had 40 seconds to get his chosen boat-car down a thin strip of choppy water, avoiding two windmills along the way (because there are ALWAYS windmills in these boards) and trying not to fall out the sides into the empty space where there used to be ocean. The Letdownmobile was far too slow to make it (though Gray did learn that it actually DROVE reasonably well underwater when he forgot to transform it immediately on the first jump – more on that later); the BoatSherp floated pretty well but didn’t have the speed; the Bulbousmobile ALMOST made it but wasn’t QUITE fast enough – leaving the winner as the Sludgemobile, which had the speed and the agility to make it down the strip without getting smacked on the second try.
II. Which Boat Car Can Get Through A Tsunami Traffic Jam Faster? – Gray had 50 seconds to get his chosen boat-car through a narrow lane of choppy water jam-packed with various boats, buoys, and other marine transportation – some of which was bouncing up and down or actively charging him. The BoatSherp got stuck early on and had a real hard time muscling through the other boats, while the Bulbousmobile was better at going over stuff, but didn’t have the speed. But then Gray had a thought – namely, was there anything blocking you from going UNDER the whole mess? There was not, and thus the submarine-like Letdownmobile got a point for just avoiding everything and going under the water until it fell out and onto the next challenge. XD
III. Which Boat Car Can Resurface Better During A Tsunami? Gray had 20 seconds to get his chosen boat-car up to the surface of Alex’s chosen section of water, dodging the various sunken boats along the way and trying to beat the cap being put on the top. The Letdownmobile drove well, but didn’t rise well, while the BoatSherp rose decently well, but didn’t drive well – or fast enough. The Sludgemobile also didn’t get up fast enough, leaving the win to the Bulbousmobile, which proved JUST fast and agile enough to get to the surface before the yellow wall covered it. This left Gray with a three-way tie going into the fourth challenge –
IV. Which Boat Car Can Get Through Tsunami Walls Faster? – Gray had 29 seconds to complete a tightrope course with a series of four water walls across it, each of a different thickness – starting at 9 meters and moving through 13, 20, 30, and 35. He also had to dodge wind turbines (of course), surprise barriers in the middle of the road (forcing him to go left or right), and in the final wall, a bouncing murder-boat. Gray tried the Sludgemobile and the Bulbousmobile, but the first simply wasn’t fast enough, and the second was fast, but didn’t drive well enough on the land sections (though it got awesome air). That meant that it was up to the Letdownmobile to beat the course –
And remember how I said that Gray discovered in the first challenge that the Letdownmobile actually DROVE through water pretty well? Yeah, that was the car’s secret talent that let Gray win the challenge – he didn’t need to transform it to get through the water walls. He could just stay a car and keep all the speed he had while on the dry land sections. And so the Letdownmobile made it to the end, up the ramp, and through the win! w00 – we love seeing a car overcome its license plate. XD
Workout: Another night on the bike, pedaling through the following –
A) Finishing off “I completed the Every Lot Challenge Again! (Part 10)” by James Turner! With the last twelve or so minutes consisting of Semaj flirting with a couple of aliens, then James sending him back home so he could make the house look at least a little nicer (just a little, though, as James enjoyed the house being a bit of a goofy wreck – and also he was on a budget). He ended up removing the last of the cracks and stains; repainting the outside a nice white (and making the two extensions look a little less rickety) and putting a nicer front door; cleaning up the yard and putting in a new, healthier tree; putting up nice new wallpaper inside; giving the living room and dining area a nice Paranormal Stuff-themed makeover (which makes sense, it WAS a haunted house); redoing the kitchen so it was a little pokier but had WAY more counter space and looked nicer overall; and updating all the bedrooms (Semaj got a nicer bed, new end tables, and his desk moved to a different corner so he could, you know, actually WALK INTO his bedroom; the kids got a desk of their own, a bookcase, a dresser, and their giant bat plush moved into their room out of the living room – unfortunately Patchy came in and broke their dollhouse AGAIN, forcing James to lock the room for everyone BUT the kids, then have Semaj teleport into the room to fix it; and Pelham and the butler both got some end tables and a dresser). The series ended with Semaj and family only having $5 to their name and a bunch of only-partially grown crystal trees in the yard, but with a nicer house AND some Copypastoed alien crystal spawners along the side of the house (yes, apparently you can copy the SPAWNERS. Game changer for anyone looking for collectibles as a spellcaster!). And a completed list of challenges, yay. :) Very fun miniseries, I have to say – and I’m even more pleased to see that James has already started another one, focusing on getting a household of all occult Sims. . .
B) Starting a rather curious Oxventure One-Shot: “BATTLE ROYALE 🔥 | The Oxventurers Guild D&D!” Occupying the weird liminal space between “One Shot Wonder” and “Proper Oxventure Episode,” this saw the five Oxventurers participating in The Hungry Games – an epic battle royale to determine, once and for all, which one of them would win in a fight. The winner got a lifetime supply of “hot dogs by any other weird-ass name we can think of” from a famous Geth meat supplier. Andy was rather concerned that Johnny at no point specified this was non-canon. XD (My personal headcanon is that it was previously stipulated when they signed up that there would be someone on-hand to resurrect and restore to their original condition all the losers, though I would also accept “this is what happens after the Oxventurers finally retire at the end of The Final Season and thus are no longer fighting OUTSIDE threats” XD) At any rate, they were all gathered atop a flat-topped mountain, standing in a circle on little plinths (in the order they’re usually sat in: Egbert – Prudence – Corazon – Merilwen – Dob), watched over by giant scrying orbs cast by high-level wizards, kitted out with the sponsor’s jerseys, and ready to rumble. Johnny had everyone roll initiative, and once turn order was established (Corazon, Dob, Merilwen, Prudence, Egbert), combat began!
Round One: Corazon started off extremely strong by sprinting over at Merilwen and using the broken mechanics of rogues to sneak attack her in plain sight (Ellen explaining it as Merilwen not thinking he’d really do it), hitting her so hard with his special saber he knocked off a full two-thirds of her health in one go. He then rolled a nat 20 on hiding and turned himself into a tree with various paints. XD Dob, seeing which way the wind was blowing, immediately called out to Corazon that he wanted an alliance – Corazon agreed (as best he could without giving away his position), and Dob then asked Merilwen if SHE wanted to join the alliance. Merilwen was like “HE JUST STABBED ME” so Dob instead turned his attentions on Egbert –
And cast upon him Crown Of Madness. As it requires a Wisdom saving throw, and we know what Egbert is like about Wisdom. XD Egbert failed the throw, causing the crown to appear – but then Mike, who had finally started reading the sourcebook (XD), said that paladins had a special aura that kept them from being Charmed, and as the Crown was a Charm effect. . .he asked if he could keep the snazzy headwear though. XD Dob, annoyed, started wondering if he could use his bonus action to shove Egbert over (he wanted off the mountain, but Johnny said that wouldn’t be possible in one turn) –
And then it turned out Mike hadn’t realized that aura only applied to ONE particular set of paladins and didn’t apply to his Oath Of The Ancients Egbert. XD So yes, Egbert, after initially going “ha, I can’t be Charmed” was indeed mind-controlled into attacking anyone Dob wanted. Dob, now pleased, tried to get Merilwen to join his and Corazon’s alliance one more time – she was unwilling, stating that she wanted to remain “neutral” toward him, so Dob turned his back on her.
This proved to be a bad idea, as it was Merilwen’s turn next. XD She initially tried to find Corazon using her keen wood-elf senses, but unfortunately Corazon’s sneakiness was better, and she failed. So instead she just turned into a bear and straight-up mauled Dob for over twenty points of damage. This is neutral, eh, Merilwen? XD Prudence was up next, and after blowing a kiss to the magical “cameras,” tried to blast both Bearilwen and Dob with Eldritch Blast – as per usual, she managed one hit and one miss, shocking Bearilwen but missing Dob completely (as he was probably hidden by Bearilwen). The turn then passed to Egbert –
Or, rather, to Dob USING Egbert, because Crown of Madness and all. Dob immediately told Egbert to attack Merilwen with his cursed mace, and he did so, inflicting eight points of damage – but also turning Merilwen into a Fathomer, a cool blue humanoid who looks like a ninja dude. Which gave her +2 to Strength and basically refreshed her hit points. This plan of using Egbert to attack his enemies did NOT go the way Dob had planned, is what I’m saying. XD
Round Two: With Fathomwen now back in the game, it was time for Corazon to act – he popped out of cover to try and stab the creepy blue ninja version of Merilwen, only to miss. Fortunately his stealth remained on point and he was able to pop back into cover easily. Dob, for his part, noticed that he had two of his fellow Oxventurers right next to him, chose to discontinue Crown of Madness (turning Egbert’s headwear into a sad wet cardboard Crown of Sadness) –
And instead use his old classic Thunderwave. Which, as I remind you, in this canon is ELECTRIC as well as boomy. This is where I stopped for the night, so tomorrow, we’ll see how well that worked for him! I mean, generally, when he pulls out the Thunderwave, he does a pretty good amount of damage. . .
*whew* Okay, yeah, kind of managed to overload myself today -- I put the blame squarely on my Sims session, since it ran long, and then the write-up ran longer. I love my Chill Save, but I think I need to limit myself to playing it on days where I'm not going to have work the next day. . .as it stands, I have to get to bed and prepare myself for whatever awaits on Tuesday. Hopefully it's not too big a mess. Moose, I'll answer all your messages tomorrow, I promise. *sigh* Night all!
Tumblr: Only had to worry about Victor Luvs Alice today, which is REALLY good as having to check in on Valice Multiverse would have cost me precious time this evening. And I had a good productive morning on here, spending the time before lunch –
A) Finishing putting all the image alt text on the three unfinished Chill Valicer Save update post drafts (meaning all five are done and will be ready to go this Wednesday, yay)
B) And tweaking a few things in the “Smiler’s Otherland: Outfits” post, as I was a bit inspired after watching a bit of the 2022 Alton Towers fireworks show and getting a better look at Sir Al’s current outfit for inspiration. Namely, Smiler’s “Minister” suit is now called “Ministry” because it sounded a bit better to me (and avoids any confusion with Dr. Minister, the person in charge of the Sanctuary domain which that suit is associated with); Smiler’s “Splashdown” outfit for Alice’s Deluded Depths now has a proper full write-up (and I added a straw boater hat to it just for fun – after all, Victor’s “Sunken” bathing suit comes with a waistcoat and seaweed tie); And I created an “In Progress” section for the post and moved my thoughts on what Smiler’s Hatter’s Domain outfit should look like there. Things are slowly but surely coming together here, yay~
Sims 4: Had a pretty busy day in the Chill Valicer Save today, sending the gang out and about again to have another food sale with their new Van Liddelton Snacks stand! Which took a little doing, as you will learn –
A) Started where I left off on Saturday, with Smiler finishing fixing up the wind turbines and combing through the resultant trash piles for parts; Alice gaming on her and Victor’s computer; and Victor snoozing in bed. Victor’s energy was basically full, though, so he ended up waking up while I was getting Smiler to clean up all the trash. Having spotted a specter in the crafting barn, I had him transportalate down to give it a present (a spare Potion of Good Fortune) he had on him –
Just in time for Temperance to show up. Like, she appeared just as he transportalated away. And then she got glared at by one of the cats who’d just jumped up on the bed. XD I grabbed Victor’s bizarre idol from his inventory and slapped it on the floor next to her as per usual, and let her get banished while I focused on Victor’s specter-present giving. Fortunately, it went well, and the specter gave him another lump of wraith wax in return! We do love our wraith wax around here – though Victor DOES have a lot of it at this point. Might be time to start selling them to oddity collectors. . .
B) Anyway – I had Victor collect his wraith wax (along with another spare lump of it I found on the floor) and go outside to play with Shadow while Smiler collected all the trash piles, got the trash Victor and Alice were carrying in THEIR inventories, then trucked it all over to the recycler to be, well, recycled. Along with some items that I didn’t see any point in keeping, like the Tentacle Tom they won at the arcade, the extra stereo they won at their house party, the VIP buckets from the Love Date dates, some used-up sacred candles, and a poop. XD Though, once they were done recycling, they got a little over $3,000 along with all their bits and pieces. O.o I – really don’t know where that money came from? I’ve never seen them get a cash payout when they recycle anything, but I really don’t know where else it could have come from. . .maybe from them recycling some higher-ticket items instead of just trash piles? *shrug* Mystery for the ages!
C) With that sorted, I decided that the best thing to do would be to have Smiler make mechanisms (as I still want them to make a Servo at one point, and they still needed loads of those), and Victor make eco-upgrade parts (as I wanted him to do some eco-upgrading on some of the stuff on the lot – notably the recycler). They plugged away on that, making two each (Victor reaching Fabrication skill 5 in the process, good for him), while Alice got Video Gaming skill 4 from her Sim Scuffle session before I sent her to grab a little more sleep. She refreshed her energy quickly in her and Victor’s amazing bed, and after just about an in-game hour she was ready to get up –
But before I woke her up, I looked inside of her inventory and realized “oh yeah, you have a load of photos in here that need to be cleaned out, don’t you?” So I pulled them all out and looked them over to see which ones I wanted to keep and which would have to be sold. I ended up hanging the two medium-sized pictures of Smiler doing their first food sale in Brindleton Bay (when they got Shock and Surprise spayed) in the kitchen, above the pet bowls (there was room there, and it felt appropriate to have these pictures in the kitchen); moved two of the pictures from the Valicertine’s photoshoot into the digital photo frame to join the parade of changing pictures there; and put a cute picture Alice had snapped of a cat poster in the vet’s office on her and Victor’s desk, since she’s the one who uses it the most, before selling all the rest. *nods* I also took a moment to put the fossilized egg in her inventory on the display shelf with the other fossils outside the séance room, and did a little “move objects on” in build mode to put her new emerald crystal in with another small crystal in the crystal shelves inside the séance room. *dusts hands* Collectibles sorted!
D) With Alice’s inventory looking a bit less crowded, I got her up and decided to check if she could prep anything in the stand mixer, as I wanted to make some fresh treats for today’s food sale. As it turned out, though, her ability to make various batters and doughs was limited, as there was a distinct lack of flour in the house. Fortunately, this group can just MAKE their own flour thanks to Simsonian Library’s bulk food processor, so I had her join Victor and Smiler in the barn to make a big bag of soybean-based flour (as that’s what she had in her inventory). They all ended up finishing up their tasks around the same time – I had Victor go and take care of a tendril that had popped up outside, then sent him to use some of his eco parts to give the recycler some hardened gears (I think this gets you more bits and pieces from non-organic stuff?), and was preparing to have Alice collect her flour (which she’d insisted on taking upstairs to put on Smiler’s bar for some reason) –
When I spotted a trash plant growing in the pet obstacle course! O.o When did that sprout?! I thought I’d cleared up any trash that might be over there. . . Confused, I had Smiler got over and uproot it, then scavenge parts from the resultant trash pile before bagging it up and throwing it away. Normally, after this, I would have them dig any recyclables out of the trash can to make sure it didn’t overflow, but as Victor was still upgrading, I had Smiler instead take the trash and head out to the rabbithole dump. *shrug* Kept them busy and kept the roach and fly situation from getting any worse!
E) After that, the true chores of the day could begin – starting with Alice getting her bake on! I had her start by using the sweet batter she already had on hand to make strawberry fizz cupcakes, then had her make some more sweet batter in the stand mixer before using some leftover dough on a blueberry pie. While she was cooking, Smiler came back from the dump and Victor finished up his upgrade, so I sent them both to tend to the greenhouse – unfortunately, that one dahlia flower was still glitched-weedy, and Smiler kept getting stuck in a weeding loop every time they went near it. >( Meeh. I had them and Victor do what they could for the other plants (just a bit of watering and weeding of those plants that COULD be cleared) – Victor ended up finishing first, and I decided he could be the one to feed the chickens and clean the coop today. I know he’s usually the plant guy, but it does everyone good to switch things around sometimes! Alice, for her part, finished up her first batch of food and got sent to clean Moory’s shed and poor dirty Moory herself – though I had to stop her trying to eat Toothy the cowplant’s cake midway through. *sigh* One of these days I’m going to LET one of you get eaten, and then you’ll learn. . . Anyway, she fed the cowplant, then went and cleaned Moory and refilled her feed with prairie grass hay. Along the way, she indicated she wanted to cook some waffles (a picture of the waffle iron appeared in her activity queue anyway), so I looked through the options and decided she should cook some pumpkin spice ones – something different, and it would use up the pumpkin in the fridge! While she finished in the shed, Victor finished cleaning the chicken coop and decided he wanted pineapple pizza for breakfast, which I allowed because it amused me. I then checked in on Smiler, broke them out of another perma-weeding loop, then had them go around and get a few key crops (soybeans, black beans, plasma fruit, pineapples, poison fireleaves, noxious elderberries), then had them snag a bottle of fizzy plasma from the greenhouse fridge to drink while they worked on super-selling the rest of the produce. Though I did end up having them also snag some taro root and garlic first, because taro root is also good for making flour, and I didn’t think they’d ever actually HARVESTED any of the garlic they’d planted. Might as well, right? That’s what it’s there for! Happily, all this harvesting and super-selling actually maxed out their gardening skill, which is cool. :D Now the house has two super-gardeners to take care of all the plants!
F) Anyway – they got sent upstairs to go play a little Sim Scuffle (I think it’s everyone’s favorite game in this household), while Alice finished up her chores with Moory and went in to make her pumpkin spice waffles as Victor finished breakfast. And then immediately had to go OUT again because her werewolf temperaments made her feel like the walls were closing in on her. *sigh* I thought about having her indulge in some zoomies, but as the waffles were going to be done very soon, I figured it wasn’t worth it it (you never know how long zoomies are going to take, and the interaction can’t be canceled, sooo). Instead, I had her dig around in the yard for a bit (she snagged a sample of utranium for her efforts – pretty sure she already has that in her little collection, but always nice to get something while scavenging!), while Victor took advantage of the oven being free to bake some everything bagels (as I figured it would be nice to have something from him in the stand too). Once I was sure she was okay to come back in, I had her go back to the kitchen to collect her waffles and have some artful foccacia for breakfast (as Victor knee-walked to the bathroom, poor guy) –
And then, made sure both she and Victor had a piece of forbidden candy from the jar in the kitchen! Reason being, I learned from one of onlyabidoang’s videos in the past that having one piece will give Sims an energized moodlet and actually REFILL THEIR ENERGY NEED AND KEEP IT FULL while the moodlet is active. As Victor and Alice are always getting tired at odd times because of the weird hours they keep, this seemed like a great way to keep them happy and awake while they were out and about! :D Once they were officially Energized by ghost sugar, I had Alice head to the porch to grab the painting Felipe Sisson recently made on the easel out there (he visited during the party Smiler had a little while ago and painted something before he left – it was actually a really nice painting, I’ll have to give it back to him at some point) before sending her to the downstairs bathroom to use the toilet then lick herself clean. Victor, for his part, was kept busy by using the various pet poops he had in his inventory to fertilize a few plants close to evolution. XD Look, I had to get them out of the poor guy’s pockets! He came back as Alice somber-howled her way to lower Fury (didn’t want any inconvenient rampages while they were out and about) – and with everyone sorted, it was time to hit Hare Square in Windenburg with the Van Liddelton Snacks stand!
G) They immediately arrived in the middle of a thunderstorm! *facepalm* I SWEAR, every time I travel. . . I promptly got the weather machine out of Build/Buy, stuck it on the right side of the lot (where it seemed least likely to block Sim traffic), and had Smiler set it to “clear skies” while Victor and Alice amused themselves with some chess (Alice won, to Victor’s slight annoyance XD). Smiler was successful and went to chat with them as the weather slowly but surely cleared up; then – once the skies were blue and everyone was out of their wet clothes and into nice dry warm weather outfits – I had Victor challenge Smiler to a match while I sent Alice off to a nearby easel in the world to paint some of the benches and trees in the frankly very pretty cherry-blossom tree park behind her. :) Victor managed to win the game against Smiler – guess he was determined to make up for his loss to Alice. Once I was sure they were done, I had Smiler head to the front of the park and drink a plasma fruit to make sure they weren’t thirsty, then had Victor hit them with the old Scruberoo to make sure they were clean –
H) And then had Smiler set up the snack stand and start a food sale! Featuring Alice’s strawberry fizz cupcakes, pumpkin spice waffles, blueberry pie, and remaining banana split waffles from the last sale (which – I THOUGHT the game said they were spoiled when I first looked in Smiler’s inventory, but then they said they were fine again after I started moving items into the stand? O.o Game, what – actually, I won’t complain about you unspoiling my food, carry on) and Victor’s everything bagels. Things were a bit slow at first, so I left Smiler tending the table and instead focused on keeping Victor busy with collecting insects (a couple of locusts fluttering around the park) and making a digital painting of a bench by the big circle fountain a little ways away (which ended up being a masterpiece, nice). I then checked in on Smiler, but only one potential customer had shown up – dude named Patrick who I recognized from Saturday’s update at the grocery store. I had Smiler give him a sales pitch, which didn’t seem to do much unfortunately –
Then realized Victor was already done with his painting, whoops. Forgot the ones on the digital sketchpad go WAAAY faster than the ones on the easel! I had him come back and plant a bluebell in the public planters in the park, then tend the plants while I went back to Smiler. A few more people had shown up by this point, including Marcus Flex and L. Faba from the Magic Realm. Smiler greeted and made insta-friends with Marcus Flex, as is their wont, picking up a new like for High-Energy Sims in the process (seems legit). I kept an eye on them and tried to have them hit as many Sims with sales pitches as they could –
I) And then – success! L. Faba bought the first item of the day by getting a strawberry fizz cupcake! :D And with her leading the way, the sales started pouring in – Victor, who had been busy cloudgazing after finishing with the plants, came over to chat with customers Dominic and Clara as they bought an everything bagel (Dominic) and some pumpkin spice waffles Clara), then Alice showed up (having finally finished her painting – also a masterpiece – and unsuccessfully scavenged in the park) just in time to see a few more plates of pumpkin spice waffles and banana split waffles, along with another cupcake and a bagel (L. Faba, returning for another go) get sold. I decided it would be nice to have her commemorate the occasion and had her take a couple of pictures from a couple of different angles of Smiler and the crowd. :) And then had her grab some leftover pumpkin spice waffles someone had dropped and gobble them down so they wouldn’t go to waste. XD She started cloudgazing behind the crowd while I sent Victor (who wanted to level up his Handiness anyway) to upgrade the weather machine with a “moisture vaporator” so it would be even better at producing clear skies in the future –
J) And then I got an MCCC Error as Clara came back and got a slice of blueberry pie. *sigh* Oh, Sims 4, why you gotta be this way. . .I looked at it after the fact, and I think Alice was trying to say goodbye to her, but the interaction didn’t go off the way it was supposed to. *shakehead* I soldiered on though (not the first time I’ve gotten an error) and had Alice hang out with Victor as he finished up his upgrades, having them talk about her lycanthropy and Victor’s magical status and getting in a little kissing while Smiler finished up their food sale. The whole kit-and-kaboodle finally ended at around 6:30 PM in-game, with Smiler making an even $400 in profit (from two cupcakes, three pumpkin spice waffles, five bagels, four banana split waffles, and three slices of blueberry pie), getting level three of the Enterpeneur skill (meaning they can now research business plans if they want) –
And causing their number of thrown “social events” in their Party Animal aspiration to tick up a notch! Apparently food sales count! O.O Well, that’s good to know. . . Anyway, I had them clean up the food and pack away the stall, then sent them over to go get their flirt on with Victor –
Only for the skies to darken, and the rain to start falling again. Oops – thunderstorms are back! Time to get home before the lighting starts flying!
K) And so the group returned home, where the weather was actually halfway decent. I had Smiler and Victor resume their interrupted flirting, with Smiler getting frisky and going in for the kiss before getting a drink from Victor’s wrist (as they were QUITE thirsty at this point). Alice went and collected some of the wild chrysanthemums growing by the path to the barn while I pulled her photos and her and Victor’s paintings out of their inventories – the paintings went up into the attic rec room, to be framed and put on the wall next to the couch and the microphone; while ended up selling most of the pictures, keeping just one small one to put in the digital picture frame. Seriously, that thing is useful when it comes to picture storage. . . Anyway, I sent her upstairs to look at her own painting while Smiler finished their dinner and Victor went to have his (some more pumpkin spice waffles, as I’d shoved all the food back in the fridge once they got home) –
And then I looked at the back porch, and saw NPC Ericka Wada heading to the grill to do some herbalism. O.o Uh – when did you get here and why are you using the grill? I quickly had Victor send her home, then had him clean up the herbalism pot with his own dishes once he was done with his dinner. The fuck, game – at least require me to invite people in before they start using my grill and nearly burning my house down again!
L) Anyway – Smiler ended up heading to the attic to have a chat with Alice, and I figured while they were up there, that they could practice their comedy and tell a few jokes on the microphone. I had Victor transportalate up there to join them, and he and Alice watched and enjoyed Smiler’s performance (they both got the moodlet “Briefly Amused,” so it wasn’t a real WINNER, but they did laugh, so. . .). I ended the impromptu comedy hour around 10 PM, after which Smiler went back to their robotics station in the barn to make a computer chip; Alice went to the kitchen to have some more focaccia for dinner; amd Victor went to the second floor blue-and-white bathroom to mop a slime creature before using the toilet. I happened to notice at this point Victor was VERY close to getting a Talent Point from his magic usage, so I had him transportalate down to the greenhouse and cast Floralorial on that troublesome dahlia plant. Which – did actually seem to finally clear the glitch-weeds, when not even shift-clicking would. O.o Fingers crossed people! It also got him the Talent Point, which I promptly spent on “Hexproof” to protect him from all curses. :) I then pulled all of Alice’s super-vitality fertilizers out of her inventory and put them into Victor’s so he could sprinkle them on all the oversized crops (or, well, looks like they’re all gonna be normal-sized crops this time), before noticing another specter outside the greenhouse and sending him over to give them a Potion of Good Fortune. They appreciated it and left Victor a forbidden candy jar, but as we already have three (one in the kitchen, one on the back porch, and Alice has the third in her inventory), I had Victor just straight-up sell that to an oddity collector. Shadow showed up at this point whining about a ball – I figured “okay, let’s play fetch with the dog, I already have Alice playing laser pointer with the cats” (I sent her to play with Kelly in the back entrance once she was done with her meal, and then I think Shock on the front porch) and had Victor grab the ball in his inventory –
Only for Shadow to run away as another NPC showed upon the front porch for no good reason. *sigh* I had Alice send the person on the porch (Maya, I think her name was) away once she was done with the laser pointer, and waited for Shadow to finish her business so I could try to get the game of fetch back on. She headed upstairs and into Smiler’s room and approached their desk –
And then did that horrific glitch thing where pets try to stand up like Sims but their legs get all thin and distorted and their heads end up going backwards. O.o It only lasted for a moment, but as you might imagine, it triggered another MCCC error. (I think the dog was trying to play with one of the chatterbots on Smiler’s desk – maybe the NPC wanted to do that and the game got confused?) And kind of killed my desire for fetch. XD Fortunately, at that point I realized that it was actually after midnight in the game and decided it was a good time to wrap things up with the trio, saving and closing.
Whew! That took longer than I expected. . .I love my Chill Save, but it takes a WHILE to sum up every play session. A lot happens even on a quiet day, and this certainly was not one of those! Played for two and a half hours, after all. . . But hey, I’m glad to see that their snack business is doing pretty well – and I have to admit, it’s a little more fun to take the food stand around all the different worlds than just do the same thing over and over at the grocery store. But I still want to sell everything in their store before I do anything different with it. :p Next time we hit this save, though, we’ll be heading to Chestnut Ridge for SimCity Founding! Don’t know when that’ll be, but it should be a good time!
Writing: I nearly didn’t get to this today, between my Chill Valicer Save write-up above taking longer than anticipated, my workout write-ups taking longer than anticipated (see the Workout section below), and being absolutely DETERMINED not to fall behind on my Subs (see the YouTube section below) – but I was also absolutely DETERMINED to do some writing today, and so I carved out a little time to start Chapter 2 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland!” Granted, I didn’t do as much as I normally do – only about half a page, 422 words – but I DID IT and that’s what counts. *nods* Onward and upward.
YouTube: Well, I straight up ran out of time to watch the video in my Watch Later, so I had to content myself with GrayStillPlays and “Boat Cars vs Tsunami in GTA 5!” One of the Ranked Challenge Alex Torture Boards, this one saw Gray having to take four boat cars – the Sludgemobile (a bright green fusion between a convertible and a powerboat), the Bulbousmobile (a bright red oversized car shell with big old side fins and a yellow boat bottom that looked more like a toy than an actual vehicle), the Letdownmobile (the only “legitimate” boat car in the lot, a blue and green car that looked a bit like an off-brand Deluxo that could transform into a submarine-like vehicle – I believe the comments named it the Ocelot Ardent), and the unnamed fusion between a bright pink boat and the Sherp (the latter’s giant floaty wheels being off-kilter from its little horrible semi-transparent boat body) – and see which one gained the most points over the following four challenges:
I. Which Boat Car Can Do A Tsunami Tightrope Faster? – Gray had 40 seconds to get his chosen boat-car down a thin strip of choppy water, avoiding two windmills along the way (because there are ALWAYS windmills in these boards) and trying not to fall out the sides into the empty space where there used to be ocean. The Letdownmobile was far too slow to make it (though Gray did learn that it actually DROVE reasonably well underwater when he forgot to transform it immediately on the first jump – more on that later); the BoatSherp floated pretty well but didn’t have the speed; the Bulbousmobile ALMOST made it but wasn’t QUITE fast enough – leaving the winner as the Sludgemobile, which had the speed and the agility to make it down the strip without getting smacked on the second try.
II. Which Boat Car Can Get Through A Tsunami Traffic Jam Faster? – Gray had 50 seconds to get his chosen boat-car through a narrow lane of choppy water jam-packed with various boats, buoys, and other marine transportation – some of which was bouncing up and down or actively charging him. The BoatSherp got stuck early on and had a real hard time muscling through the other boats, while the Bulbousmobile was better at going over stuff, but didn’t have the speed. But then Gray had a thought – namely, was there anything blocking you from going UNDER the whole mess? There was not, and thus the submarine-like Letdownmobile got a point for just avoiding everything and going under the water until it fell out and onto the next challenge. XD
III. Which Boat Car Can Resurface Better During A Tsunami? Gray had 20 seconds to get his chosen boat-car up to the surface of Alex’s chosen section of water, dodging the various sunken boats along the way and trying to beat the cap being put on the top. The Letdownmobile drove well, but didn’t rise well, while the BoatSherp rose decently well, but didn’t drive well – or fast enough. The Sludgemobile also didn’t get up fast enough, leaving the win to the Bulbousmobile, which proved JUST fast and agile enough to get to the surface before the yellow wall covered it. This left Gray with a three-way tie going into the fourth challenge –
IV. Which Boat Car Can Get Through Tsunami Walls Faster? – Gray had 29 seconds to complete a tightrope course with a series of four water walls across it, each of a different thickness – starting at 9 meters and moving through 13, 20, 30, and 35. He also had to dodge wind turbines (of course), surprise barriers in the middle of the road (forcing him to go left or right), and in the final wall, a bouncing murder-boat. Gray tried the Sludgemobile and the Bulbousmobile, but the first simply wasn’t fast enough, and the second was fast, but didn’t drive well enough on the land sections (though it got awesome air). That meant that it was up to the Letdownmobile to beat the course –
And remember how I said that Gray discovered in the first challenge that the Letdownmobile actually DROVE through water pretty well? Yeah, that was the car’s secret talent that let Gray win the challenge – he didn’t need to transform it to get through the water walls. He could just stay a car and keep all the speed he had while on the dry land sections. And so the Letdownmobile made it to the end, up the ramp, and through the win! w00 – we love seeing a car overcome its license plate. XD
Workout: Another night on the bike, pedaling through the following –
A) Finishing off “I completed the Every Lot Challenge Again! (Part 10)” by James Turner! With the last twelve or so minutes consisting of Semaj flirting with a couple of aliens, then James sending him back home so he could make the house look at least a little nicer (just a little, though, as James enjoyed the house being a bit of a goofy wreck – and also he was on a budget). He ended up removing the last of the cracks and stains; repainting the outside a nice white (and making the two extensions look a little less rickety) and putting a nicer front door; cleaning up the yard and putting in a new, healthier tree; putting up nice new wallpaper inside; giving the living room and dining area a nice Paranormal Stuff-themed makeover (which makes sense, it WAS a haunted house); redoing the kitchen so it was a little pokier but had WAY more counter space and looked nicer overall; and updating all the bedrooms (Semaj got a nicer bed, new end tables, and his desk moved to a different corner so he could, you know, actually WALK INTO his bedroom; the kids got a desk of their own, a bookcase, a dresser, and their giant bat plush moved into their room out of the living room – unfortunately Patchy came in and broke their dollhouse AGAIN, forcing James to lock the room for everyone BUT the kids, then have Semaj teleport into the room to fix it; and Pelham and the butler both got some end tables and a dresser). The series ended with Semaj and family only having $5 to their name and a bunch of only-partially grown crystal trees in the yard, but with a nicer house AND some Copypastoed alien crystal spawners along the side of the house (yes, apparently you can copy the SPAWNERS. Game changer for anyone looking for collectibles as a spellcaster!). And a completed list of challenges, yay. :) Very fun miniseries, I have to say – and I’m even more pleased to see that James has already started another one, focusing on getting a household of all occult Sims. . .
B) Starting a rather curious Oxventure One-Shot: “BATTLE ROYALE 🔥 | The Oxventurers Guild D&D!” Occupying the weird liminal space between “One Shot Wonder” and “Proper Oxventure Episode,” this saw the five Oxventurers participating in The Hungry Games – an epic battle royale to determine, once and for all, which one of them would win in a fight. The winner got a lifetime supply of “hot dogs by any other weird-ass name we can think of” from a famous Geth meat supplier. Andy was rather concerned that Johnny at no point specified this was non-canon. XD (My personal headcanon is that it was previously stipulated when they signed up that there would be someone on-hand to resurrect and restore to their original condition all the losers, though I would also accept “this is what happens after the Oxventurers finally retire at the end of The Final Season and thus are no longer fighting OUTSIDE threats” XD) At any rate, they were all gathered atop a flat-topped mountain, standing in a circle on little plinths (in the order they’re usually sat in: Egbert – Prudence – Corazon – Merilwen – Dob), watched over by giant scrying orbs cast by high-level wizards, kitted out with the sponsor’s jerseys, and ready to rumble. Johnny had everyone roll initiative, and once turn order was established (Corazon, Dob, Merilwen, Prudence, Egbert), combat began!
Round One: Corazon started off extremely strong by sprinting over at Merilwen and using the broken mechanics of rogues to sneak attack her in plain sight (Ellen explaining it as Merilwen not thinking he’d really do it), hitting her so hard with his special saber he knocked off a full two-thirds of her health in one go. He then rolled a nat 20 on hiding and turned himself into a tree with various paints. XD Dob, seeing which way the wind was blowing, immediately called out to Corazon that he wanted an alliance – Corazon agreed (as best he could without giving away his position), and Dob then asked Merilwen if SHE wanted to join the alliance. Merilwen was like “HE JUST STABBED ME” so Dob instead turned his attentions on Egbert –
And cast upon him Crown Of Madness. As it requires a Wisdom saving throw, and we know what Egbert is like about Wisdom. XD Egbert failed the throw, causing the crown to appear – but then Mike, who had finally started reading the sourcebook (XD), said that paladins had a special aura that kept them from being Charmed, and as the Crown was a Charm effect. . .he asked if he could keep the snazzy headwear though. XD Dob, annoyed, started wondering if he could use his bonus action to shove Egbert over (he wanted off the mountain, but Johnny said that wouldn’t be possible in one turn) –
And then it turned out Mike hadn’t realized that aura only applied to ONE particular set of paladins and didn’t apply to his Oath Of The Ancients Egbert. XD So yes, Egbert, after initially going “ha, I can’t be Charmed” was indeed mind-controlled into attacking anyone Dob wanted. Dob, now pleased, tried to get Merilwen to join his and Corazon’s alliance one more time – she was unwilling, stating that she wanted to remain “neutral” toward him, so Dob turned his back on her.
This proved to be a bad idea, as it was Merilwen’s turn next. XD She initially tried to find Corazon using her keen wood-elf senses, but unfortunately Corazon’s sneakiness was better, and she failed. So instead she just turned into a bear and straight-up mauled Dob for over twenty points of damage. This is neutral, eh, Merilwen? XD Prudence was up next, and after blowing a kiss to the magical “cameras,” tried to blast both Bearilwen and Dob with Eldritch Blast – as per usual, she managed one hit and one miss, shocking Bearilwen but missing Dob completely (as he was probably hidden by Bearilwen). The turn then passed to Egbert –
Or, rather, to Dob USING Egbert, because Crown of Madness and all. Dob immediately told Egbert to attack Merilwen with his cursed mace, and he did so, inflicting eight points of damage – but also turning Merilwen into a Fathomer, a cool blue humanoid who looks like a ninja dude. Which gave her +2 to Strength and basically refreshed her hit points. This plan of using Egbert to attack his enemies did NOT go the way Dob had planned, is what I’m saying. XD
Round Two: With Fathomwen now back in the game, it was time for Corazon to act – he popped out of cover to try and stab the creepy blue ninja version of Merilwen, only to miss. Fortunately his stealth remained on point and he was able to pop back into cover easily. Dob, for his part, noticed that he had two of his fellow Oxventurers right next to him, chose to discontinue Crown of Madness (turning Egbert’s headwear into a sad wet cardboard Crown of Sadness) –
And instead use his old classic Thunderwave. Which, as I remind you, in this canon is ELECTRIC as well as boomy. This is where I stopped for the night, so tomorrow, we’ll see how well that worked for him! I mean, generally, when he pulls out the Thunderwave, he does a pretty good amount of damage. . .
*whew* Okay, yeah, kind of managed to overload myself today -- I put the blame squarely on my Sims session, since it ran long, and then the write-up ran longer. I love my Chill Save, but I think I need to limit myself to playing it on days where I'm not going to have work the next day. . .as it stands, I have to get to bed and prepare myself for whatever awaits on Tuesday. Hopefully it's not too big a mess. Moose, I'll answer all your messages tomorrow, I promise. *sigh* Night all!
