A Little Distracted Saturday

Nothing too major, but I did keep rereading parts of "Start At The Beginning...Sort Of" today, just because I love it so much. XD I really, really hope other people like my "Valicer In The Dark" stuff when I finally start posting it, because there's not gonna be any getting away from it. XD Anyway, here's what ELSE I managed to accomplish today --

Tumblr: A reasonably productive day over here –

Victor Luvs Alice – Kept up with my dash as best I could, then got all five posts for this week’s Chill Valicer Save update drafted, with the first two finished with image alt text and tags before lunch! :) I should be able to wrap up the other three tomorrow.

Valice Multiverse – Not much happening over here, but I had one anon ask this evening – from an anon saying that their best idea for a haunted house would be to lock all the guests in a room and set the place on fire, because what’s scarier than that? A very pissed off Londerland Bloodlines!Alice suggested being stalked by an invisible vampire ready to rip your head off. XD I mean, you brought that answer on yourself, anon!

Sims 4: Well, I didn’t go back to my Chill Valicer Save today (I started checking mods, noticed that BrazenLotus had no (visible to me) updates on the status of her stuff after the March patch, and was like “fuck it, I’ll wait until after the next patch to check for updates, hopefully by then she’ll have some proper updates”), but I did end up purchasing Crystal Creations ($8.55 with the sale, not bad), figuring I could at least look at all the objects and clothes and stuff in it via the medium of my building save, and the Victor Van Dort Sim who lives in it! And so that’s exactly what I did. :) How did it all go? Well –

A) CAS – I hit the CAS catalog first, using “Manage Households” to bring my Building Save Victor (and his pet Dogmeat – he was originally a “Sole Survivor” Victor whose house I was renovating with Fallout-themed CC before the save became my building save) into CAS so I could look at some of the various items on offer. However, Victor was best-suited for looking at all the “masculine”-tagged clothes, and there was plenty of “feminine”-tagged stuff in the pack. . .so I ended up combining his household with one of my “Valicer” trio households (getting rid of the spare Victor) so I could go through even more of the catalog with Alice and Smiler! And I have to say, I like the new clothes – “dark academia” is a cool style, and I think it suits Victor and Alice in particular well. :) Plus I found some other neat new stuff while puttering around – here, have some screenshots:



This is Victor in the outfit I most wanted to put him in ever since I saw the previews for the clothing you got with the pack – that vest and shirt combo is PERFECT for a slightly more casual Victor. :) The black pants aren’t bad either, and I rather like the little boots. Another Valicer In The Dark look, I think!



While normally I’m all about the blue with Alice, I really liked the forest-green swatch for this particular dress, so here it is. :) It’s a very pretty outfit (though looking at it, I can understand why some people were like “this looks like it should have been part of Realm Of Magic”), and I like it in combination with the patterned tights, and the other new set of boots.



Back to traditional blue swatches with Alice here – I had to try this dress on for size as well, and I think it looks pretty on her. Though I suspect this is something I’d be more likely to give a “teen” Alice over a “young adult” one. . . Maybe if I ever do that save file where I have Alice, Victor, Victoria, Emily, and Smiler all grow up together. :p As I had this outfit replace one of her formals (hence the fancy necklace and bright white stockings), I decided to pair it with the fancy crystalline shoes you get with the pack too – VERY cool-looking. :)



Okay, this is an amusing one – I was using Smiler to hunt down new clothes that I hadn’t clicked on yet from any pack, having thrown them in one of the comfy sweaters that you get from Crystal Creations (in the black swatch, because obviously it doesn’t have a good yellow one – dark academia is not know for its bold colors, after all) – and I stumbled across a pair of ripped leggings from Werewolves that I had apparently never properly clicked on. A pair of leggings –

That came in a “one yellow leg one black leg” swatch that was perfectly Smilerish! :D So yeah, I had to show them off – with a quick pair of mini-shorts thrown on to help hide Smiler’s, uh, bulge a bit better. XD But yeah, don’t those look very them? I’ll have to find a “real” outfit to use them in, instead of this monstrosity. :p



I also used Smiler to clear out some of the stuff in the “head” section of CAS (including all the new hairstyles from all my new packs that I hadn’t looked at yet – let me tell you, Smiler does NOT look like themselves if they don’t have this specific haircut), which meant that Smiler is the one who gets to show off this cute little necklace that came with the pack! This is one of the CAS pieces made in conjunction with Simmer arethabee, and I rather like it – and not just because it comes in Smiler-appropriate colors. XD It’s simple without being TOO simple, you know? And it does look like something Smiler might wear. Or Alice, come to think of it. I’ll have to play around with it a bit more.

B) Build/Buy – Having finished my adventures in CAS (and saved the family so my Building Save Victor is 1. no longer mostly-nekkid every time I load up this save and 2. no longer only has Dogmeat for company in his house), I decided to head over to Nightmarket Squarish to go through the Build/Buy catalog and check out the various objects within. Again, I quite liked what I saw – the new wallpaper is very cool (though, again, feels very Realm Of Magic – I guess this pack DOES pair very well with that pack in terms of “magical stuff”), the new furniture and décor objects are neat (and all well-matched when it comes to swatches, I’m pleased to say – and there are loads of shelves and display items! Tempted to use the glass-fronted display cabinet in the garden store, in fact. . .), and I really love the red wood swatch for the gemology table. I’m looking forward to using that and getting to grips with the gameplay later –

But for now, I ended up using some of this new Crystal Creations stuff in my Nightmarket cafe! Because I used that space to test out the wallpaper, ended up liking it, and decided to run with it. Here’s how it’s looking so far:



Obviously the cafe counter with the espresso station is from Get Together, the chandeliers are from Horse Ranch, the tables are from Paranormal Stuff, and the floor is from Realm Of Magic – but all the rest of it, from the potted plant to the dining chairs to the candles on the tables to the loveseat to the rug to the bookshelf to the crystal terrarium on the bookshelf to the mirror to the print to the wallpaper, is from Crystal Creations! Doesn’t it look neat? :) I really like the pattern of the wallpaper, and I felt the orange swatch suited the space. And the bookshelf was nice for making a little reading area off to the side. :) Good stuff!

C) Extra Fiddling – And once I was done with the cafe, I figured I might as well do a little extra fiddling with the lot – namely, I did indeed replace the Selvadoradan selling table outside the cafe with another food selling table from Home Chef Hustle (just in a different swatch); I recolored the stone picnic tables and benches to be a slightly darker color (though I kept them on one of the “mossy” swatches, as I liked that look for them); and I rearranged the square a little bit so that the picnic tables were out in front of the cafe and its associated selling table, with the busking station in front of them, and the benches were on either side of the square, between each store in the “shop blocks.” Also moved the chess table and the monkey bars around a bit, but there’s no great place to put them – as I’ve said before, the lot’s a bit small. I guess I could just change it from a park to something else (cafe would more than work). . .we’ll see what I decide on the next time I visit!

Writing: Got another chunk on “Start At The Beginning...Sort Of” Chapter One sorted after lunch, with Alice running into Smiler on her journey to Nanny’s, and Wonderland (through the medium of one of the Origami Ant Elders) suggesting that hey, they’re the closest thing you have to a friend over here, why not tell them about the horrors Dr. Bumby’s been perpetrating? Unfortunately, before Alice could do so, she and Smiler were interrupted by a mysterious figure falling out of the fog beside them. . .one that looks disturbingly like a ghost. . .I mean, we know it’s just the absurdly pale Victor, but she doesn’t – not until the next chunklet. XD Coming along pretty smoothly, even if I did spend a lot of today reworking the “should I tell Smiler” bit to make it a little more logical (in that distinctly Wonderland way) – should easily be able to finish up this chapter next week!

YouTube: Ran a little late this evening due to me looking up a movie my parents rented from the library on TV Tropes (Hardcore Henry, a weird gory action movie shot entirely in first person), but I did get through all the videos I wanted to watch –

A) First up, we had “I Forced My Teen Sim To Cause Chaos | Super Sim Series 6” from Petey Plays It! The latest entry in the life of his Super Sim Tina, this episode was all about the drama, with Tina abandoning her studious ways to become a lycanthropic force of terror in her school (while still becoming the perfect scout, because she needed to max that out). She became an apex werewolf; broke up with her boyfriend Marz after an apathetic date because her aspiration demanded it; joined and eventually took over the Wildfangs pack; started a mischief-and-meanness-based club in her school (which included the principal, of all people); ate everyone’s lockers on a whim; met fellow teenage werewolf Dakota and got an inkling that he was her Fated Mate – only to be cruelly rejected when she tried to ask him on a date later; summoned urban myths with her friend Wolfgang; turned her former friend Malcolm into her hated enemy so she could beat him up as necessary; joined the football team after maxing out scouts; turned a bunch of other Sims into werewolves after accidentally outing herself at her school as one; got rejected by a bunch of guys for dates; and managed one post-breakup date with Marz which she ruined by succumbing to werewolf instincts and peeing in the onsen they were visiting. Among many other things. XD Oh, and Petey had to cheat his way past two aspiration goals because one, “Sneak Out To A Party,” relies on a phone call that is so rare you might not even get it (and then the goal might not even complete anyway), and the other, “Start A Fight,” refused to complete despite Tina beating up Malcolm Landgraab multiple times (Petey suspected it was because she auto-transformed into a werewolf beforehand). The Sims 4, everyone! But yes, this episode was all about Tina ruining the lives of everyone around her – and also ruining her own life a bit, as she’d become the school bully, and who wants that? And as her only remaining teen aspiration is Admired Icon, I think next episode will see her start to turn things around and become a better person again. While probably keeping the chaos levels high, because that’s just how Petey rolls. XD

B) Then it was time for the OXBox list of the week – “7 NPCs Who Should Be in Jail: Commenter Edition!” Andy, Jane, and Mike talking about more NPCs doing illegal shit that is illegal, or at least SHOULD be illegal, based on the comments of the previous video. Notable entries included Doc Crocker, facial reconstruction surgeon from Fallout 4, whom you learn murdered a patient if you help Nick with one of his cases; Donald Love, ruthless businessman from GTA: Liberty City Stories, who appears in other games, but whom you learn in THAT particular one is a fucking CANNIBAL who has “morgue parties” to kill and eat people; and Mindy, Pokemon Trainer from Pokemon: Diamond & Pearl, who offers you a trade that should get you a Haunter that evolves into a Gengar – but who gives you a Haunter clutching an Everstone, which stops it from evolving. And as Haunters ONLY evolve when traded, well. . .safe to say, I think Mindy is the most-hated NPC on that list. At least the other ones are only screwing over people in their own game world!

C) And finally, we had the GrayStillPlays video of the day – “Testing real life stunts vs GTA 5 stunts!” Or, more accurately, “Gray’s board creators looking at real-life stunts, deciding they are not mean enough, and designing extra-nasty versions for Gray to complete. In the big boxy Power Metal Rallysport Bus.” Yeah, Gray didn’t even get a super car to complete these challenges – instead, he had to take on the following two challenges in one of the bulkiest vehicles in the game –

I. The Starter Stunt – A boosted ramp down into a wall ride with multiple obstacles to weave around (including giant cylinders, multiple posts, a spinning thingus, and a “!” sign) that led into a final jump into a teleporter between two palm trees. Probably trivial if you have the right car, but, as stated, Gray was driving a big bulky BUS, so – yeah. A looooot of falling off the edge ensued. Accompanied by a lot of angrish and “this is the WARM-UP?!” XD

II. The Mega Stunt – Oh man. This board started with Gray having to tip his bus onto two wheels, balancing on the edge of the platform to avoid two sets of tire-popping blades. Then he had to repeat the two-wheel trick to get himself up and onto a small wall ride spiral, and land on a very thin platform. Then he had to drive down that platform and do a short chassis slide on a narrow tightrope platform. THEN he had to hit a couple of boosters before a ramp and do an epic jump through a ring of fire, avoiding the blades of the wind turbine that had been positioned right in front of it. THEN he had to go down, turn around, and do another, much LONGER chassis slide. THEN he had to two-wheel his way onto ANOTHER wall ride spiral, which straightened out into a regular wall ride, which made him jump into a half-pipe. And THEN he had to do the half-pipe jump onto a platform hanging in the air, where – if he lined himself up right, he could FINALLY drive through the win and end his agony. As you might imagine, Gray spent a looot of time figuring out how to do all this nonsense (and making sure he couldn’t cheat it – nope, invisible roof in place to make sure he couldn’t just drop down into the final area). The bit that gave him the most grief? That really long chassis slide right before the second wall ride. It took him SO many tries to actually get down it without his horrible huge bus tipping either left or right and falling off. It’s a wonder the man had any wherewithal to complete the challenge left after finally getting past that part. . .and then he fell off the platform and had to do it AGAIN. XD But he managed it, and finally completed the challenge after a couple more tries on the final wall-ridey bits. GrayStillPlays – the undisputed king of GTA Pain Tolerance!

Yeah, pretty standard non-cleaning Saturday, honestly. I will take it. :) As for tomorrow -- well, it's Mother's Day, so if Mom wants to do anything special, then we shall indulge her, of course. But if not (and she seems pretty intent on working on her patio), plans include finishing up the Chill Valicer Save drafts on Victor Luvs Alice; playing Fallout 4 and trying to get Victor and Ada to the Children of Atom's crater in the Glowing Sea; updating the FO4 Playthrough Progression appropriately; getting in a workout; and keeping up with GrayStillPlays and Jon of Many A True Nerd. Usual Sunday stuff! :) Now I have to go write something nice in Mom's Mother's Day card -- night all!