Quiet Tuesday Home

Mostly because the weather was pretty shitty today -- it rained heavily this morning, and then it cooled down but remained fairly sticky, meaning it was hard to keep the house cool and dry, because it was almost too cool outside to run the AC. *grumble* But tomorrow and Thursday at least are supposed to be a little better, with it only raining in the morning tomorrow and Thursday just being cloudy. We'll see soon if that's really the case or not! As it stands, I spent the day at home noodling around on the computer, and I got some stuff accomplished --

Tumblr: Didn’t get quite as much done here as I might have liked, but I still accomplished a decent amount –

Victor Luvs Alice – Spent my pre-lunch time catching up on my dash and all my tracked tags – unfortunately, I didn’t find much to add to my drafts from the latter, beyond one piece of fun A:MR fanart of Alice using the Vorpal Blade to help her apply eyeliner (using it as a guide to give herself the right sharp edge XD). Still, I AM caught up and can now start moving forward on my own stuff! I also wrote up a very rough draft of a second VITD “scores & story ideas” post focusing on things based off of other properties (like the two Fallout 4 quests I’d like to adapt, or the one stealing Radcliffe’s daughter from the old Alice: Asylum ideas). And, of course, this evening I got the Wednesday Chill Valicer Save update set up in the queue. So I’m good there at least!

Valice Multiverse – Had three anonymous asks in my inbox to fill out tomorrow’s queue tonight – one with Hare asking Hatter the time, and then being pleased that the clock’s hands hadn’t moved, since it meant the clock wasn’t “changing its mind” about what time it is (Forgotten Vows!Alice noted that a clock that didn’t move did suit them, since they were stuck at 6 PM tea for ages, but then urged Hatter to make sure he’d WOUND the clock); one with a Lasombra doing the “ghost cup in the mirror” thing from the What We Do In The Shadows movie (Londerland Bloodlines!Alice was initially dismissive – until she realized the Lasombra actually didn’t have a reflection (it’s their curse) and was like “WTF?!”); and one with two people wondering if vampires getting hit by cars backing up because people didn’t see them in their mirrors was a real problem (Londerland Bloodlines!Alice, having just learned about Lasombra in the last ask, said that it was probably only a problem for certain vampires, and that they’d make their displeasure known FAST). So that’s nice!

Sims 4: After some initial weirdness with the EA App not opening correctly (it would OPEN, but only onto a blank gray window – it took me three tries to get it to populate correctly and allow me access to my game, meh), I was able to get into the Wiped Windenburg save and continue working on the Ministry of Joy nightclub –

A) Started by pondering outdoor lighting ideas for the rooftop party area – I ended up switching out the pole-and-string lights I picked last time to form an “entrance” to the hot tub spot with a different set that had the same purple-and-yellow pole design but bigger paper lamps in more Smilery-colors (purple and yellow to match the pole), then added a second set right by the hot tub itself to light up that area a little better. I then started experimenting with other options to light the rest of the balcony space (like the cool double-giant-lightbulb streetlamps from Discover University that I’m quite fond of – unfortunately they looked rather silly up on a rooftop), and eventually settled on putting a cool little robot light on the counter with the lemonade pitcher by the hot tub loungers; a couple of yellow lava lamps on black-and-yellow accent tables between the loungers; some of those geometric “Exposed Filament” lights from City Living on the side and back of the two upstairs rooms, by the benches I had for people to sit on there; and a few medium-sized bar lights from Dine Out on the front of the building, near the spiral loungers on the front balcony and on either side of the front door (though I made sure to leave the area with the telescope dark, since you’d want as little artificial light around as possible when you’re stargazing!) Oh, and while I was picking lights, I replaced the “Simple Saucers” in the arcade and karaoke rooms with the spiral-esque rec center lights I used downstairs. :) So I feel like the place is adequately lit for any nighttime shenanigans that may happen there!

B) While I was doing that, I also made a few tweaks and added a few more finishing touches to the build –

I. I put little yellow bath mats all around the hot tub so people would have something nice to step on while getting in and out

II. I moved the popcorn maker in the karaoke from beside the door between it and the arcade room into the back left corner, so it wouldn’t be in the way of anyone coming in

III. I added one of those DIY wall murals from City Living (you know, the rectangle marked out with blue tape) to the back wall of the bubble blower room on the first floor – felt like a good thing to have

IV. After spotting a cool Moschino Stuff martini glass wall lamp while looking for wall decorations, I put that up on the wall near the tables beside the bar area – I’m still debating whether I should switch it with the “glass of nectar” picture I put behind the bar or not (might be too much glowing stuff in one area, as the bar and the nectar displays behind it both glow)

V. And, after trying to figure out more activities to put up on the roof for people to do, I settled for adding another counter between the spiral loungers on the front balcony and putting a Spa Day drinks tray there, because anyone hanging out there wouldn’t have easy access to the Backyard Stuff lemonade pitcher. Drinks for everyone!

C) Okay – I had what felt like a proper amount of lighting for both inside and outside; I had plenty of activities for Sims to do; and I was pretty happy with the amount of decoration I’d added to the build. Time to wrap this up, save it to my Library, then throw it on the Gallery, right? And I was almost ready to do just that –

Except. I kept looking at the club on its 30x40 lot by the water. And as I looked, all I could think was one thing: “This looks awfully small on this lot.”

It was true. The nightclub DID look rather small on its lot, with a frankly huge amount of unfilled space behind it. The problem was, while I was tempted to do so, I quickly realized I couldn’t move it to another lot – because while it was short (as in, it didn’t take up a lot of the lot’s 30-tile vertical space), it was also wide (as in it took up plenty of the lot’s 40-tile horizontal space). Meaning if I tried to move it to a smaller lot, something (most probably part of the bubble-blower-based chill-out space) would get cut off. And I didn’t want that, so I was left with three options:

1. Get over myself, acknowledge that the Sims would be coming in to do stuff inside the lot, and save it as-is

2. Put something around the back as an extra fun thing to do (a coffee cart? A roller-skating rink?)

3. Make the build bigger to better fill the space, with all the annoying tweaking that would entail as I moved stuff around

D) ...So I picked up the chill-out room and moved that farther toward the back of the lot; used a wall to cut off the rooftop hot-tub party area from the rest of the roof and turn it into its own room (unpainting the half walls I’d JUST painted with the correct tiles, meh) so I could move that back atop the chill-out room; moved the bathroom back since I didn’t want to change anything about that; then used the “room extend” arrows to extend the main dance floor/bar area room to link back up with the chill-out room and the bathrooms properly. Which, of course, moved the stairs leading upward, so then I had to carefully move back the arcade room so that the stairs went back in there again (inside the fenced-off area I’d already made around the stairwell). Which ended up separating it from the wall that served as the front facade of the second story, with its pipes and twisty Moschino Stuff sign (the one that cuts off the small front balcony from the rest of the build), so I went to move that back to match up with the back (well, FRONT, I suppose) of the arcade room again –

And then was like “wait. I like that wall there. If I move it farther back, it’s going to not look right.” So, after a moment’s thought, I ended up making both the arcade room and the karaoke room longer to accommodate both the new position of the stairs and the old position of the front facade. So now the dance floor/bar area, the arcade room, and the karaoke room are all bigger! Great, right?

E) Well – maybe. Because while I’m happier with the DOWNSTAIRS being bigger (it looks better on the lot, and now I have more room for more tables around the bar and maybe some other stuff downstairs), the UPSTAIRS rooms now look weird because they’re longer but not any wider – meaning right now everything in those rooms is a lot farther apart. I moved the couches back to the back of the karaoke room after stretching it, and now they look like they’re miles away from the karaoke machine they’re supposed to be in front of. The arcade room is a little better (since all the games are supposed to be separate things anyway), but it still feels like there’s a lot of blank vertical space there. I have considered dividing up the upstairs into more, smaller rooms (even cut the arcade room in half to see how it might look), but I think what I might end up doing is moving the stairs back a little (they’re currently nestled up to the bathrooms with the photo booth in front of them – I’m thinking I move them back and fit the photo booth and maybe a vending machine next to them inside), then make the rooms up top a bit smaller again. I don’t mind them being a BIT bigger, but they feel rather overstretched now. This does give me more balcony space to fill, but hell with it, maybe I’ll put some chess tables up there. Everybody likes chess, right? (Oh shit, and it just occurred to me that I really ought to check if the ACTUAL roof on the second floor moved with the rest of the build – at least moving that will be easier!)

F) Anyway – that’s a problem for a different build session. I finished off THIS one fixing up all the stripes in the wallpaper that got ruined when I stretched out some of the rooms; making sure I replaced the cool neon lights around the dance floor that I’d lost moving stuff around (and adding a couple others, though now I have to figure out how to light that area without totally washing them out); and adding a couple of Discover University “sine wave” kooky end tables in black and yellow to the chill-out room so I could put yellow and black flower incense holders on them, as I realized that might be a fun thing to add in there. XD Hey, it’s a chill-out room, and what’s more chill than some nice incense to go with your bubble-blowing and meditating?

So – yeah. Nearly finished my MOJ club build, then decided to make the whole thing bigger because it looked too weenie on the lot, necessitating that I spend more time with it rejiggering and re-filling-out the newly-expanded space. I guess there are worse problems to have. XD But it’s coming along, and I still hope to share it with you all soon!

Writing: Got another good chunk done on “Start At The Beginning...Sort Of,” with Alice telling Victor and Smiler her life history to explain why she talks to invisible imaginary cats sometimes. She made it through the creation of Wonderland today, telling them how she came up with it on a family picnic to Unity Park on her seventh birthday – Smiler was all in favor of her description of the place until she mentioned the Queen of Hearts and her penchant for ordering heads removed. XD Sadly, though, we’ve come up to the actual fire, meaning things are about to take a turn for the truly awful for poor little Alice…

YouTube: No OX list today (it’s in my Watch Later), but I did get through both my Subs videos plus a bonus I picked up earlier today –

A) First up, from my Watch Later, we had “The Sims 4 Lovestruck: 10+ NEW FEATURES You Might Not Know” by onlyabidoang! Highlighting, as you might guess, ten features in the new pack that might not be immediately obvious to Simmers. Such as how the new sweetheart boxes work (turns out they are a thing you can buy, not something that just pops into existence when you do a certain romantic interaction, and you can just eat them on your own if you don’t have a sweetheart – in fact, if you’re sad or embarrassed, you can use them to eat away your feelings! Just be wary if you eat them while feeling miserable from romantic rejections, as you may choke on the sweets); some of the new romantic interactions in the pack and how you access them (if your relationship dynamic is Wholesome, you can do a “Silly Smooch” and “Goose” your partner, while Strained Sims have a “Tease” interaction); the “Ring Bear” quest (where you learn about a lost ring from a dude in a sad bear costume, and have to go on a quest around the new Cuidad Enamorada world to find the ring and figure out its mystical powers); and the platonic equivalent of the new customizable date, the hangout (where you can invite one main Sim and a few friends and do friendship stuff together). Oh, and Father Winter (or another random Sim) may call you and say that he’s just bought both Cupid’s Corner and Social Bunny and wants to meet you at the woohoo motel to give you some gifts. It’s as weird as it sounds! XD Abi’s always a good source of information on this kind of thing, and it is fun to see some of the stuff available in the new pack – I’m not FULLY sold on it as of yet, but maybe once it goes on sale, I’ll pick it up. We’ll see.

B) Then, over in the Subs, we had Josh Way’s latest – “RAW TAKE: Trap Review!” With Josh giving his thoughts on M. Night Shyamalan’s latest (that guy is still making movies??) right after seeing it! This is apparently a movie about a guy who goes with his daughter to a big-top pop star’s concert (said pop star played by MNS’s own daughter – Josh insisted she was good in the role, but admitted he expected people to be mean about the nepotism) and discovers that the police are trying to catch a serial killer there, and the story just gets twistier from there. Josh said that he had fun with the movie and that he was glad that MNS is still out there, swinging for the fences with his films – but something about the way he kept pausing and making faces at the camera as he summed up his thoughts, the way he described people laughing at moments that weren’t meant to be funny, the way he kept qualifying that he thought the performances were good… Part of me can’t help but think he was REALLY trying to avoid saying “this is a bad movie, but it’s an enjoyably bad movie” because he doesn’t want to be an MNS hater. I mean, I could be reading it entirely wrong – it looked like he filmed the video fairly late at night, he’d just come out of the theater, and it’s not the first time he’s stumbled over his words in a review – but the vibes… *waggles hand* On the plus side, I’d say either way it’s a recommendation to check out the movie – either as an MNS fan OR hater. XD

C) And finally, also in the Subs, we had the latest from GrayStillPlays – “I made FIFA 1000x more dangerous,” aka Gray plays Happy Wheels! This was an episode of fun and elaborate boards – we had our usual bottle flip, with Gray having to unlock the back, then unlock the win before he could actually get the win (which he got in a rain of Timmys and alcohol while plummeting to his doom in the death box), then moved on through a Saw-based board (where Nixon had to repeatedly press buttons to murder people to open doors, with the only consequence being his legs fell off at one point); a very long very green spike fall; an extreme waterslide (where the board creator spent a LOT of time creating the waterslide and the surrounding area – Gray crawled through it all just because he wanted to see everything that was going on in it before even doing the waterslide); a 9999% impossible pogo jump (as usual, Gray found that fraction of a percent and made it in to the win); a Giant Bottle Run (where Bike Dad had to go over giant bottles – Gray gave it 5 stars for creativity); a “defend your castle” level where a dude had to throw katanas into the heads of invading Nixons (Gray was very bad at getting those headshots); a combined sword throw and ball through where doing the sword throw correctly got you bonuses in the ball throw (like having all the “death” areas locked off); a level where you just rampage over everything as a huge tank, calling down airstikes on people (and having trouble climbing over vans); a “tryhard” pogo level where you had to wriggle through a tiny gap before enjoying a long climb up; a board where you had to collect all the coins as a hobo in a jet-propelled wheelchair (or force your way onto the win behind you through the crap piled up there); and of course Dylan’s latest level, where Moped Guy and his wife had to make it to the latest FIFA soccer game and get past killer coconuts, killer stairs, a long line, and a bunch of bouncing defenders to score a goal (the stairs proved to be the toughest part). Good stuff, as always! :D I was especially impressed by the waterslide and FIFA levels – some people put so much love into their level design, I swear.

Workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with the GSP Happy Wheels compilation “When you live a life of constant suffering!” Today’s chunklet included Gray having to get Bike Dad and Tom Hardy across a “snake” of spike floors being constantly propelled upward by bouncers while being boosted to ridiculous levels; Gray cheating “Ball Throw Grey” after Segway Nixon glitched out of his little cubby hole by having him crawl his way to the win area; Gray desperately trying to make sure Bike Dad and Tom survived a trip to Los Angeles (and its famous pirate ships) as everyone tried to kill them; Gray having to help Pogo Guy bounce through some very painful Minecraft parkour without getting stabbed too much; Gray helping Bike Dad and Tom take on the world’s most ludicrous ramp (which included trying to survive to collect the second of two coins for a secret ending); Gray trying to keep Pogo Guy un-harpooned in an 8-bit harpoon box dodge; and Gray taking on “GSP Green Insanity” with Segway Nixon and going around nearly getting blown up, stabbed, and spiked until he found all six endings. XD You know, just a typical day in Happy Wheels!

Not too shabby, not too shabby -- and now I need to head to bed to continue not completely wrecking my sleep schedule! Tomorrow -- MAY be a minigolf day, it depends. Both on the weather and how my dad is feeling, as he's been dealing with some severe constipation and ended up having some dry heaves earlier. Soooo -- yeah. Keep your fingers crossed for no actual medical emergencies around here, okay? *grimace* Only solid plans I will make now are to continue working on my VLA tumblr drafts; watch the OXtra list and keep up with my YouTube Subs; work some more on "Start At The Beginning...Sort Of;" and get in a workout. Which should be achievable no matter what we do. *nods* Night all!