Improvement Friday

Dad's doing a lot better today -- he was able to get up and walk, and even do a few stairs up and down, and he's eating! Granted, it's things like black coffee, chicken broth, lemon ice, orange jello, and Bomb Pops (red-white-and-blue popsicles), but that is still good progress! However, he is stuck in the hospital until Monday because they want to be absolutely sure he's doing all right. *shrug* Not great news, but you can only roll with the punches. We just want him to keep improving day by day so hopefully we can eventually put this whole business behind us.

As for the day itself, I had a pretty good Friday on my own (though it felt a little weird not to have a game night -- first one we've missed since the tradition started a year and a half ago) --

Tumblr: Had a pretty solid day over here, I’m happy to say –

Victor Luvs Alice – In addition to keeping up on my dash as best I can (aka “the standard”), I also got most of the way through a VITD “special abilities” post for the trio (got through all of Alice and pretty much all of Victor before lunch; Smiler’s section still needs to be completed, though I did at least properly list out all their special abilities before going to game) and made a couple of starter drafts for a VITD “crew abilities and upgrades” post (since I thought putting the crew stuff into the “special abilities” post I was working on would make it too long) and my thoughts on the occult status of my future Multifandom Tiny Town residents (Smiler and Victor will be spellcasters; Alice a mermaid; Mal a vampire; Wheatley a Servo; Preston maybe a werewolf; and Emmett/Doc will be a normal human with the power of MAD SCIENCE). So that’s all good!

Valice Multiverse – One anonymous ask for the queue tonight, with said anon claiming the entire multiverse is contained within a holographic trading card owned by a kid named Dennis, who occasionally offers to trade it to his brother Kyle for string cheese. Cuddlepile!Alice said “that’s unique, but I would have considered the multiverse better represented by a PACK of trading cards,” while Smiler was pleased that they at least got to be holographic. XD

Portal Reloaded: Decided to keep going with this game for the time being as a change from the constant Simming-and-Fallouting (if you’re wondering why I don’t just play Baldur’s Gate III, the mod support patch, #7, is coming out sometime in September, so I’ll wait until that’s out, update all my shit, then try again to do Bard/Artificer Smiler). I worked my way through Chambers 11 through 15 – and while I did have to use a walkthrough for 11, 14, and 15, 12 and 13 I managed to solve on my own, yay. XD And I did TRY to figure out the puzzles in the other three without help before looking them up (and feel I came pretty close to where I needed to be in Chamber 14) – just sometimes I really have NO idea where some of the portals are supposed to go (particularly the time portal). We’ll see if I choose to keep straining my brain tomorrow!

Writing: Another solid day of Valicer In The Dark-related writing –

A) Got another page or so done on “Start At The Beginning...Sort Of,” with the gang looking for a place to rest after their long run from the police (since getting back to Advocate Headquarters – otherwise known as the MOJ, or Ministry of Joy, as Smiler had to explain to Alice briefly while commenting that they needed to talk to someone there about a bench-building initiative for Six Towers – is currently off the table) – and stumbling across a most peculiar building. A building that Victor wasn’t entirely sure was there before… However, Wonderland has stated it might be a good place for them to stay for the moment, so Alice is leading the charge to take a look inside. Tomorrow, we’ll start to see what they make of the place!

B) Added a few thoughts on what various groups in the city might think of queerness (people being gay, trans, etc) to the master doc – the main religion, The Church Of The Ecstasy Of The Flesh, is heteronormative, but the Advocates are very accepting (whatever makes people happy), for example. Definitely needs more fleshing out, but I wanted to get the initial thoughts I was having down before I forgot!

YouTube: As usual, this ran longer than anticipated this evening, but I got through everything I wanted to watch –

A) Started with Petey Plays It and “Complete Guide To Every Uni Organization | The Sims 4 Discover University!” This was an overview of all the student organizations at both Foxbury and UBrite, plus the Secret Society open to members from both schools – how you join, what the events for each one are, how you rank up in each society, and what kind of rewards you can expect. The Foxbury Spirit Squad and University Of Britechester Spirit Corps arguably have the most fun events, with school spirit days and bar nights that encourage socialization, playing games, and starting cheers, but the other organizations are worth checking out too – quite a few offer at least some minor increase to your skill-building, and others offer handy free objects, like a new type of easel or a fancy gold research machine. And the boosts you can get from the sprites if you join the Secret Society are DEFINITELY worth – it’s just a shame the magic goes away once you graduate! All in all, joining at least one society is definitely a good way to enhance your university life!

B) Then we moved onto The Red Plumbob and “♦️ LOVE ♦️ Sims 1 vs Sims 2 vs Sims 3 vs Sims 4!” Yes, in honor of the release of the Lovestruck pack, we had a half-hour video from them all about love across the series! From how you build romance, to specific romantic hugs and kisses, to interactions you can do while sitting, to the old woo and hoo in the bed, this video basically had it all – or at least enough to make a good comparison between the games. What I got from this is that Sims 4 has a lot of repeated animations for interactions, but does have some cute stuff (I’d rank their “blow a kiss” animation as the best, and I have to admit the new dip kiss from Lovestruck is nice), and Sims 1 and Sims 3 were decent – but Sims 2 definitely had the best chaotic romantic energy. So many of their interactions were delightfully over the top – especially the serenade, the “first woohoo” cutscene, and the couch makeout. Holy shit, the couch makeout. The sims went on like gangbusters for AGES, making poor Red Plumbob feel like a pervert for filming them. XD Just more proof that the series may have peaked back in 2004!

C) And finally we headed over to the Subs for GrayStillPlays and “I played the best secret google games so you don't have to!” Which featured Gray playing a variety of Google Doodle games from across the years, because why the hell not. Featured games included:

I. the Pac-Man Doodle (which I remember quite enjoying at the time – Gray was just delighted to get some revenge for all those quarters he lost as a kid)

II. the Pony Express Doodle (Gray forced his horses to run into all the obstacles so he entered town with zero letters, getting himself a VERY disappointed look from his pony)

III. the Celebrating Pizza Doodle (which saw Gray trying to cut pizzas in the least-intuitive ways possible while still filling everyone’s topping requirements)

IV. the Celebrating Garden Gnomes Doodle (which saw Gray launching various gnomes ridiculous distances – before managing to glitch one gnome backwards by spamming a certain button too much)

V. the Jerry Lawson 82nd Birthday Doodle (which celebrated one of the pioneers of the whole video game industry, and featured a bunch of mini-games like Copyright-Free Breakout and various side-scrollers and platformers – Gray admitted he preferred racing games when he went “classic”)

VI. the Champion Island Doodle (which I believe was made for the Tokyo Olympic Games? At any rate, this thing is almost a full-on fucking anime with full-animated intros and win cutscenes and everything – Gray was ASTOUNDED by the production values)

VII. the 2020 Halloween Doodle (where you are a cat who dives underwater to fight ghosts and must draw the symbols above their head to fight them – as Gray is fairly terrible at drawing, this was more complicated than it needed to be for him XD)

VIII. the Earth Day 2020 Doodle (celebrating the bee and presenting a cozy game where you flew around as a bee collecting colored pollen to pollinate same-colored flowers and help them bloom – Gray said he could feel his blood pressure dropping as he played)

IX. the Celebrating Loteria Doodle (which is a Mexican card game where you have to line up beans in specific patterns by placing them on the cards on your grid that match the cards being drawn from the main pile – Gray got very competitive after he lost the first couple of games)

X. and the Dinosaur Runner “Chrome Is Offline” game (where you run a T-Rex through a desert landscape dodging pterosaurs and cacti until the game gets too fast and you crash into something; Gray was aiming for a high score of 500 and tripled that)

So yeah, that was fun. I sincerely didn’t know there were that many Google Doodle games! But on the other hand, I’m aware of at least one that Gray DIDN’T try, so maybe there will be a follow-up episode with more games later…

Workout: Last night on the bike this week, finishing up “I have no time to myself in the Every Life Stage Challenge! - Part 3” by James Turner! Having completed another gig (developing a dislike for his own career in the process) and built a separate room for Krystoff using the money from it, Semaj proceeded in this update to –

A) Sell bottles and diapers via the money-giving trash can until he could afford a vacuum and actually clean up his filthy house (which, amusingly, made him flirty once it was clean – then again, I seem to recall that his traits this time include “Neat,” so maybe that’s to be expected)

B) Take Krystoff and his mother/Semaj’s stalker Bernice to Plumbite Pier on a nice day out after buying himself some Moodlet Solver from the aspiration rewards store to fix his needs (Bernice completely disappeared on Semaj early on, and Semaj couldn’t do anything WITH Krystoff down at the pier – James TRIED to have them ride the Ferris wheel together, but Semaj nearly put him down right outside the ride in the queue line XD)

C) Romance his director/producer Alice from work (because she fit his type – black hair, brown clothes) and – after earning the necessary cash running around Brindleton Bay looking for collectibles and dumping diapers, bottles, and rotten food from the fridge in the trash-making trashcan AND actually making proper friends with her – ask her if she wanted to have a science baby together! She agreed, and they headed off to the rabbit hole –

And came back with TWINS. Vivienne and Sunny respectively as per the randomizer. James was horrified because holy shit, two newborns, an infant, and a toddler, yikes. XD Though he did quickly find a bright side as, with more Sims in the house, the trash can now spits out more money when he drags stuff into it. Very necessary as Semaj had like no money after funding the creation of the twins!

D) Age up Krystoff into a toddler (he is Angelic, fortunately) and Pablo into an infant (he is Wiggly, which I guess isn’t the worst), putting them together in Krystoff’s red French Country painting-themed room for the moment until Semaj had the funds to build Pablo’s brown Cosmolux fitness-themed room (the twins are in the Green Martini Light nursery, as is probably now tradition).

So yes, very busy update! And things are only going to get busier, given that Semaj is dealing with twin newborns now. I think I understand why the episodes get much, much longer from this point forward. XD I anticipate the chaos with delight!

Not too shabby -- easier to concentrate when I'm not worrying about Dad so much, that's for sure. And now it is time to wrap things up -- tomorrow is a cleaning Saturday, though hopefully that will go quicker with the help of the ostrich feather duster. (And I'm pretty sure this isn't a full laundry Saturday either, which also helps.) Plans include playing either Sims 4 or more Portal Reloaded; working some more on "Start At The Beginning...Sort Of;" and keeping up with the latest from Gray and Jon. Pretty standard Saturday stuff. *nods* Night all!