Beautiful Weather Saturday

Like, it was really gorgeous today -- warm without being too hot, not humid, really sunny...my parents spent most of the day outside doing stuff like making a little walkway of sorts out of the back patio and tending to the plants, while I did spend most of the day inside, but I had at least one window open all day. Always nice to be able to get some fresh air. :) Also nice is getting things off the to-do list:

Tumblr: Had a pretty productive day over here, all things considered –

Victor Luvs Alice – Got all five posts of this week’s upcoming Chill Valicer Save update (covering the Windenburg food sale) done with main text AND tags before lunch today! So now all I have to do is add the image alt text! :D Hooray, we are officially Ahead Of The Game!

Valice Multiverse – Not much happened over here, but I did have one anon ask this evening talking about how gym clothes are a weird concept because the word “gym” comes from a Greek word that apparently means “nude” – Victor, Alice, and Smiler were not keen on ditching THEIR gym clothes just because of that. XD

Sims 4: As foretold, after doing a quick mod check (updating anything that I knew needed updating) and making some backups, we had the triumphant return to the Chill Valicer Save today! And not a moment too soon, as I was almost through my update buffer. XD Here’s how the gang’s Summer Thursday went –

A) Started the day around 2 AM, with Smiler jamming on their guitar, and Victor and Alice snoozing in bed despite being at full energy (because, you know, their awesome bed is awesome). After stealing some sacred candles from Victor’s inventory to put around the séance table in the séance room (one behind each chair – it’s an idea that I came up with while working on the Chill Valicer Save update on Victor Luvs Alice earlier, and it did look REALLY cool), I woke Victor and Alice up and started deciding on tasks for everyone –

Victor of course had to Repairio one of the wind turbines (because at least one is always broken), then Transportalated himself down to Toothy’s pen to feed it once I noticed the cowplant had its cake tongue out. Once that was sorted, it was time for breakfast – leftover banana split waffles, om nom – and a trip to the bathroom! All in his underwear, because for some reason Victor is allergic to dressing himself half the time. XD

Alice had to use the bathroom first, then got sent outside to take out a twisted tendril, clean up various dog poops, and put away Shadow’s chewed-up bird ball (which – she put in the box with Smiler’s herbalism ingredients, for some reason). Hey, her werewolf instincts were demanding she go outside anyway! Alice then got her own waffles out of the greenhouse minifridge (pumpkin spice in her case) – and took them into the bathroom so she could talk to Victor while she ate. *facepalm* Guys, I love that you two are comfortable enough to do that, but – really? At least I made sure Victor remembered to wash his hands mid-conversation!

And Smiler had it easiest – after a quick break to play with Shadow (who had seemed spooked about something and thus needed some cheering up), they just played guitar until they maxed out their Guitar skill! :D So now they are the best at guitar and can play avant-garde songs. We’ll have to figure out what one of those sounds like later. XD

B) With everyone more or less settled into their morning routine, I took a moment to save (under a new save branch – like to do that every so often, just in case), cleared some of the alien fruits out of their inventories (I got just over $11,000 from just the quill fruits! O.O), then bought the trio a jewelry-making bench and a nectar-making tub! Because I bought Horse Ranch and Crystal Creations and I’m determined to use activities from them, damn it. I had Smiler head out and start smashing up grapes to make grape nectar (they took a few tumbles, but ultimately found the process rewarding enough they developed a like for it) while Victor and Alice finished up their conversation in the bathroom. Victor then took a moment to Scruberoo the grill (while I put some nearly-spoiled food that was sitting out there in the fridge), then I forced him to put on actual clothes before sending him to go tend his greenhouse. XD Alice ran off to watch a movie while I wasn’t looking, but her attempts at entertainment were stymied by a creepy doll appearing in front of the TV – fortunately, Alice knows very well how to deal with creepy dolls and just kicked it apart. I then had her clean up all the plates around the place (including the one she’d left in the bathroom – sink slots officially have a dark side) –

C) And then get cooking! Because I decided that what I really wanted to do today was another food sale in Oasis Springs, and that meant making some fresh treats. :) Some fresh, unusual treats, because I saw the “Curious Pizza” option on the pizza oven and realized that we had the alien fruits it demanded. :D Alice thus went and grabbed some glow orbs before returning to the kitchen to get the Curious Pizza and some mushroom waffles going, along with prepping some seafood for a seafood pizza. She then settled in for a brief wolf nap (instincts again) while Smiler finished up their nectar and went to give the chickens a bit of feed before wandering into the study to do some painting on Alice’s easel (a “realistic” painting that was anything but). Alice woke from her nap, got her ingredients and her food, then got some more dough going in the stand mixer before heading out to give poor dirty Moory a clean, a bit of conversation, and a prairie grass treat. Smiler finished their painting and headed back to the chicken coop to give it a clean, then sorted out the trash to get all the recyclables from it while Alice returned to the kitchen to get her dough and start making a seafood pizza and some sweet batter for more waffles. Around this time, Victor FINALLY finished all the weeding, watering, and bug-spraying in the greenhouse, so he wandered into the kitchen to keep Alice company for a bit while Smiler headed out to get their plasma fruit, poison fireleaf, and noxious elderberries before evolving a bunch of plants and super-selling the rest. Victor and Alice had a nice chat that left Alice feeling very playful, so she ran off to shape the bonsai into something funny, leaving Victor to grab the batter and box up the seafood pizza. I decided he should get to do something for the sale and had him make some blueberry bagels in the oven –

And while he was doing that, I popped into build mode and got the gang an ice cream machine. Which I then put in his inventory. I’ve been meaning to get them one for a while, and this seemed like a prime opportunity. Granted, I have no place to put it in the kitchen at present, but I knew it could be useful somewhere else. . .

D) Anyway – while Victor was getting his bagel on, I had Smiler chat with the chickens so they’d have sufficient attention and gather the eggs (three normal eggs, which went in the fridge, and two hatchable ones, which got sold), before sending them to the porch to call the cats back from their off-lot adventures and to the séance room to put out the candles before they burned down to nothing. Need to have them ready for any future seances! Alice, meanwhile, had given up on the bonsai partway through, so I had her turn the thermostat down to “cooler” as it was a little warm outside before sending her to the greenhouse to talk with a plant as per her wants. Victor got his bagels, then – as he wanted to up his Handiness skill anyway – upgraded the waffle maker with a “speedy bake” option (which, waffles ALREADY don’t take much time, so this should make cooking them damn near instantaneous). Alice came in to make a bit of cookie dough, then she and Victor had their Forbidden Candies with Energizing Ghost Sugar while Smiler came into the kitchen and grabbed the completed dough for her. Everybody then took a moment to hang out around the table and chat (with Victor spontaneously asking Smiler if they had any other partners – nope, Victor, you would have met any potential metamours) –

E) And then it was off to Oasis Springs! Where, to my delight, it was actually NOT FUCKING THUNDERSTORMING. (Yeah, doing the Chill Valicer Update on the Windenburg food sale made me bitter all over again about how I had to buy a weather machine to actually DO the sale.) Also to my delight, I discovered that the gang could hang around together and draw pictures in the sand – I had Smiler do a smiley face while Victor and Alice watched, then had Alice do a star while Smiler looked for the perfect spot to set up the food stand. I had them set up nice and close to the central plaza, by the chess tables, then dropped all the food Victor and Alice had made into the table’s inventory –

And set up the ice cream machine on one of the side slots! Because that is what I wanted it for – adding another treat option to the food stand! I set about having Smiler make some chocolate ice cream (after accidentally canceling the interaction once by moving the food stand slightly out of place – these “live drag” objects can be dangerous sometimes) –

F) And while that was going on, I set about having Victor and Alice wander around the neighborhood and gather metals and crystals from the collectible rocks! Because that was one of my main aims of coming here – to get materials for future jewelry-making! Alice found some citrine, a time capsule (I forgot to open it up, though, so have no idea which MySim is inside) and some silver (ironic for a werewolf), while Victor got death metal, alabaster, orange topaz, and another citrine from his wanderings. Not too shabby.

While they were occupied with that, Smiler finished their ice cream – I had them set the garnish as banana slices and the topping as whipped cream, then added it to the stocked food and started their food sale! As usual, things were slow to start, though their buddy Presley did show up to help cheer them on. Victor, done with his collecting and apparently eager to meet her, started over to do a “Howdy Greeting” (must be from Horse Ranch), but she left before he could get the chance. Aw. I instead had him summon his familiar Darkwing, give himself a quick Scruberoo, then sent him to ponder moves at the chess board while Alice ran down from where she’d gotten the silver to make some BBQ ribs at one of the many available BBQs. Smiler, for their part, had finally gotten a customer and was doing their best to convince said customer, Roxana, to buy something –

G) And Roxana did, going straight for a $3 cone of ice cream! Which, to my surprise and delight, prompted Smiler to gain a special Confident moodlet about selling ice cream on an extremely hot day, “The Coolest Vendor In Town!” XD Plus a separate moodlet for selling excellent-quality food. :) And, as usual, once one Sim had bought something, all the others in the area were eager to check things out! Notable sales included:

I. A guy named Asa trying out the mushroom waffles

II. Someone named Finley also going for a cone of chocolate ice cream

III. Roxana coming back for something more filling and also trying the mushroom waffles

IV. A guy named Mitchell taking a chance on the seafood pizza

V. Someone named Desmond deciding to go for a BOWL of ice cream, because why settle for a cone

VI. Don Lothario showing up and being convinced to buy a slice of Curious Pizza because I thought it was funny

VII. And my very first Sim ever made, Geeker McTest (in this save file a minor celebrity), showing up and also grabbing a bowl of ice cream. :)

Not bad at all, huh? The day’s profits weren’t amazing – $233 for five ice creams, four waffles, one slice of seafood pizza, and one slice of Curious pizza – but the gang doesn’t need the money, they just do this so people have good things to eat that they might not be able to get in their home worlds. :) Plus it’s just fun!

Ah, but what were Victor and Alice doing while Smiler was getting their sale on? Well, Victor ended up helping Alice with the ribs (by standing around and chatting with her, because he couldn’t do much else), then they each had a plate (chowing down with Roxana as she enjoyed her waffles) before heading over to the chess tables to play a game! As they both had a want to do so, you see. They spent their time chatting and flirting while Smiler worked the crowd, with Alice ultimately winning the match. All that time spent in Looking-Glass Land must have really made her a chess queen! (Literally – she does indeed get a fancy crown and everything at the end of that book. XD)

H) Once the food sale was over, it was time to wrap things up and start taking care of everyone’s needs. Smiler, who was thirsty, went over and chatted with Roxana (who was their closest friend in the area at the time), learning a bit more about her (“she/her” pronouns, dislikes pop music and fitness) before convincing her to let them have a drink. Victor and Alice, meanwhile, both used the toilet (with Victor nearly getting walked in on by KATRINA! Caliente – decorum, woman!), then Alice had a brief cloudgaze while Victor went around the side of the building to privately practice Untamed Magic, getting the “Necrocall” spell (which lets you summon ghosts from their gravestones) in the process (and a cute little message from Darkwing saying “New spells are fun!” :) ). I then tried to have Alice and Victor build a sand sculpture together. . .only for Victor to just stand around supervising while Alice and SMILER ended up building a sand cowplant out the front of the park. O.o Well, I guess that’s one way for them all to participate? It was starting to get a little late, though, and I didn’t want the food in Smiler’s inventory to go bad. . .

I) So it was back home for the trio, where Victor fed Toothy AGAIN (hungry hungry cowplant), while Smiler went to sell the painting they’d made earlier and Alice sniffed around and had a scavenge, finding some literalite (a rare, very-cool-looking purple metal) –

Before heading to the jewelry-making bench to make her first set of jewelry! I decided to keep things basic for her first piece – quite literally, in fact, as the simplest set of jewelry you can make is the “Basic” set. XD I thus had her make a Basic metal bracelet out of the silver she’d picked up on her travels – I didn’t want to mess with anything that could be charged with a crystal, in case it ended up botched. Fortunately it didn’t, and she ended up with both an excellent-quality metal-wrap bracelet and Gemology skill 2. :D Maybe next time we’ll try something with a crystal in it!

J) As for Victor and Smiler – well, Smiler was feeling rather flirty after getting a message from a friend about a successful date she’d had, and Victor was full of confidence from having his familiar and getting a new spell. So, while Alice was making her jewelry, I had Victor go give Smiler a suave kiss, and sent them upstairs to Victor and Alice’s bedroom. . .

For a pillow fight! XD Okay, I was looking for the “Bed Makeout” interaction you get with my Cute Romance mod, but when I saw that I was like “I have never tried that and it seems like the kind of thing Smiler at least would do.” XD So yes, they went upstairs and promptly started thwapping each other with pillows until Victor ended up yielding to Smiler’s superior pillow skills. THEN they went ahead and had a bed makeout session (the interaction’s actually under the “romance” category when you click on a Sim – “Physical Affection,” natch). XD Once they’d had their fun, Smiler went to have a bath in their nice tub, while Victor dismissed Darkwing before heading down to his cauldron to do some experimenting. Alice finished up her bracelet while he was doing that and headed upstairs to resume writing her latest book, “Who Stole The Tarts” (on Smiler’s computer, of course), while Smiler headed downstairs to fix a wind turbine before going to chat with Victor and see how his experimenting was coming.

And that is where I left them, as it was getting a bit late and it was officially past midnight in the game. XD Whew – busy day, but a fun one! I am getting into them traveling around the various worlds in the game with their food stand and selling various treats – it’s good gameplay, and makes sure I get them out of the house on the regular. XD Though speaking of their house, I’m starting to wonder if it’s time to revamp their lot. . .or perhaps move altogether. I like their little farm, but I don’t know if it really has the space for everything I want to do there. At the very least, it would be nice to add a basement for the nectar-making and aging. . .I’ll have to think about this some more!

Writing: Got a good long chunk of “Start At The Beginning...Sort Of” Chapter 2 edited today, with Victor getting his soup and explaining his situation to Alice and Smiler – namely, after being kicked out of his own wedding rehearsal for making one too many mistakes, he finally got his vows right in the wrong spot and got dragged into the ghost field by a ghost bride. Leading him to become trapped for a while until he was able to convince her to let him go off alone to find his parents and “prepare them” for the big news. Except that the funny thing is, he actually feels sorry for poor Emily, given the terrible circumstances of her death and the fact that she does still act like a person. . .mostly. (The piano duet in THIS universe, I’m afraid, nearly ended in a soul-sucking incident. Emily did say she was sorry.) He knows she’s got to be taken care of, he just doesn’t know if he can be the one to do it. I left off with Smiler offering Advocate help – only to be cut off by the arrival of Emily herself. Because of course that would happen. :p Next time, we see how the Mermaid deals with the presence of ghost!

YouTube: Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get into the Watch Later due to getting on the Tubes late again (there’s always something else I gotta do), but I was able to at least catch up on the latest from GrayStillPlays –

A) First, yesterday’s video – “I played 1 star mobile games!” Which was – well, exactly what it said on the tin. XD Specifically, Gray sought out six of the worst-rated games on the App Store and played them, showing off what other people had rated them, figuring out his personal Pro and Con for each, and then giving his own rating. The games of agony were:

I. Mutant Reptile Komodo Dragon – 1.4 stars on the app store! This is a game where you play as – well, guess. Gray got through “character creation” (picking a color for your mutant reptile komodo dragon – technically you can be green, yellow, or red, but the in-game model was green) and the first level, where the komodo defeated a wolf by shooting it with nuclear blasts from its mouth. XD His Pro was that the DRAGON was the one who made the howling wolf sounds during a certain attack; his Con was that the dragon walked at an absurdly slow walking speed. Final Verdict: 1.3 (with a tenth of a point being solely because he could howl).

II. One Star App: Lowest Rated App – Another one with 1.4 stars, this one’s actually a troll game where the creators WANT you to rate it low and thus are constantly rude to you. The actual game is all about looking at a slowly-scrolling list of colored bars with labels, and selecting each one that is correctly labeled (like a bar called “Sky Blue” that is actually sky blue) to earn points. No matter how many points you earn, though, you are a loser. XD Gray really liked that it belittled the player, but felt like it didn’t go far enough, or have enough variety – it was the same message every time. So this game also got a 1.3 from him.

III. Military Code – The third one from the 1.4 stars section, this tame was all about recruiting people into your little military unit. Like, literally, that was it – a series of people who were previously all smushed together approached your table with their “idetification cards” and said a line, you stamped them “Approved,” and they got into military fatigues and smushed up together beside your table. Rinse and repeat indefinitely. And no, you couldn’t reject them – Gray tried, and the game approved them anyway. They literally did not program in rejection. XD Gray’s Pro was that he liked how they’d ripped off a photograph of John Cena for the face of one of their recruits, and his Con was literally everything else about the game. XD Final Verdict: 1.2 (and I feel like that was generous)

IV. Ant Simulator Jungle Insect 3d – We had a jump up to 1.7 stars here, with a game that simulated life as an ant in a jungle colony – wandering around locating the home mound (helpfully marked with a little sign), finding food to eat personally, finding food to bring back to the mound, etc, etc. Gray was extremely pleased that it was the most functional of all the games he’d played (like, some minimal amount of EFFORT had gone into this one), but disliked that the combat mechanics were horrible (no feedback, and the ability to vomit ant juice at people did nothing TO them). But he still enjoyed it, so it got a 1.9!

V. Zombie Makeover – All the way up to 1.9 stars for this one! This game was all about giving zombies cures in the form of makeovers – like, one would stumble in, and you would inject a new eye color into their eyes, a new skin color into their cheeks, a new nose into their nose cavity, etc. The VIP zombies even had mushroom-like growths to remove! Unfortunately, the whole “inject the body parts” gameplay kind of went by the wayside after the first couple of levels, and after that you just ended up picking color swatches for the different body parts to fix. Gray’s Pro was that it was super cheap (it did not give you ANY ads, and the VIP level was just given to you for free, no real-life money needed); his Con was the gameplay switch from “weirdass injected skin color” to “pick a paint swatch.” But he still loved the absolute goofy madness of it all. Final Verdict: 1.99, as close to 2 as he was allowing himself to get!

VI. Dodgeball Run – And for the final game, we dropped down to the 1.1 stars level with a runner game themed around dodgeball (with the character throwing his ball to knock down NPCs of lower levels and power up gates that did things like grant him better range on his ball) that was so bad you couldn’t get past the TUTORIAL LEVEL. Like, seriously, there was no way to gain enough power from the gates and such for the character to get himself past the finish line. This thing was such a clusterfuck that Gray’s Pro was that he could CLOSE IT without causing a horrible The Ring situation where the game tried to crawl out of his phone, and his Con was that it existed in the first place. XD 1 star, and that’s only because Gray was not allowing himself to go to zero! Sheesh, the things you find on the App Store sometimes...

B) And second, today’s video – “DIY cars in GTA 5!” Though it really should have been called “DIY Cars And Minecraft In GTA 5,” because that’s what most of the video was themed around. XD Today’s GTA Torture Board saw Gray presented with four challenges, and four awful DIY vehicles for him to complete them with –

I. Burning Minecraft – AKA, Gray was forced to play “the floor is lava” with a bunch of giant Minecraft blocks while driving a tractor made out of matchsticks. XD The idea was that Gray had to use the tractor’s weird floaty jump ability to make up and around the mountain of blocks to the cage at the top with the checkpoint, with the blocks slowly but surely turning from dirt blocks to lava blocks as he went. If he got stuck on a lava block, he caught on fire, with his tires popping before the whole shebang exploded. As you might imagine, he exploded a LOT while figuring out the route he was supposed to take. Getting distracted by the demonic Reginald that occasionally flashed into existence to glare menacing down at him didn’t help either. XD

II. Minecraft Flying School – Gray was forced to pilot a plane made out of Colgate boxes through a bunch of thumbnail holes guarded by various Minecraft weapons – starting with axes, then moving onto swords of various materials, before finally presenting him with a windmill of pickaxes right before the final checkpoint. And if Gray missed any thumbnails on the way, the checkpoint wouldn’t spawn. Did I mention this plane flew INCREDIBLY BADLY? Like, Gray really struggled with getting it to respond when he wanted it to respond. Its only saving grace was that it could take a bit of a beating before giving up and exploding, and given how derped the tail and wings got, I’m not sure Gray saw that as a positive. XD

III. Reginald Parkour – Gray was forced to ride a Pink Reginald through a parkour course made up of his gigantic white brethren – first bouncing from the back of one to the other (occasionally avoiding dirt blocks and having to time jumps when the Reginalds started spinning), then bouncing from the BEAK of one to the other, then finally having to dodge the legs of the Reginalds standing on the tongue of I guess the Prime Reginald to reach the teleporter in his mouth. Oh, and that last one had a time limit – Gray had 33 seconds to make it to the beak before a sword sliced the tongue in half. And trust me, he needed EVERY ONE of those seconds. Reginald is an unforgiving chicken, Gray learned today. (But what else do you expect of a chicken who bathes in lava?)

IV. Killer Merch – the only challenge not related to Gray’s days in Minecraft, this one forced him to drive a truck made out of Colgate boxes through a course of his own deadly coffee cups. Seriously, every cup he faced was apparently of his own design (sort of; there were a couple of mutant two-handled cups that he said they didn’t sell. I wonder if there was a silent “yet” at the end of that sentence XD). He had to dodge around cups, avoid spinning cups, leap through thumbnail-hole cup handles, and get over speedbump cups. All within a 50-second time limit to reach the mid-course checkpoint! And after that, he had as many tries as he wanted to get over a spouting coffee cup and then up a ramp at EXACTLY the right speed for him to dunk himself in a coffee cup and finally get teleported to the win (the truck had the ability to tell him exactly how fast it was going just for this purpose). Gray suffered a lot on this particular course, but as he said, at least it forced him to promote his merch a little more! At least, the coffee cup side of it. :p Oh, his videos are just getting weirder and weirder. . .

Other: The beanbags dried out in all the sun today, so we did indeed play our usual weekend five rounds – and while Dad was the definite champion of the day, we all managed to win a game, so that was good. :) Final scores were me 2-2-3-2-W; Dad 3-W-W-W-3; Mom W-3-3-2-2. Might be our only shot at beanbags depending on the weather for the next two days, so glad we all won at least once!

And there we are! And now I have to get to bed. Tomorrow is Fallout Sunday, which means getting as much of the image alt text done on my Chill Valicer Save post drafts as possible; playing Fallout 4 and having the conversation with Virgil; updating the FO4 Playthrough Progression appropriately; getting in a workout; and keeping up with GrayStillPlays and Jon (which -- might be a little more difficult, as he posted a Fallout: New Vegas video today, and the LAST time he did Saturday Fallout, he was actually doing DOUBLE Fallout... honestly, just glad this is happening on a three-day weekend where, if I wish, I can dedicate a day to just catching up!). We'll see what happens with all that -- night all!