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Mostly Productive Sunday
Mar. 23rd, 2025 11:45 pmI didn't end up getting to Sims 4 and the Polyheart OT3 house, sadly (got caught up in a project with Mom, coloring in stuff), but I did end up hitting everything else on my to-do list in one way or another --
Tumblr: Another day with nothing happening on Valice Multiverse (I’m gonna have to think of SOMETHING to reblog or post over there soon, it has been dead silent for a while), but over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), I was able to get the posts for “Day 24: Trans characters,” “Day 25: Family Feud,” and “Day 26: Scars” into the queue before lunch. *nods* Took me longer than I thought it would – I was having trouble with the wording on some of them – but at least they’re all in there and ready to fire off! Now I just have to get the next two sorted tomorrow so I’ll be good for the rest of the week – at least when it comes to Multiamory March prompts. Still got that extra fic to sort out for Wednesday!
YouTube: Got in the Sunday THREE this afternoon, helped by the fact that skipping video games meant I could watch the GSP stuff before my workout –
A) First up, we had the double dose of GrayStillPlays, with –
I. “What pickaxe car climbs the best?” – Yup, it was time for another point-based challenge featuring ridiculous custom cars in GTA V! This time, we had three vehicles who all had pickaxes for wheels – a BMW with three-pickaxe wheels; a sports car with four-pickaxe wheels; and a dump truck with two layers of multi-pickaxe wheels (so many that they did form actual wheels, unlike the others). Gray had to take these vehicles and see which one was the best by seeing which one earned the most points across five challenges –
a. Climbing up a huge tree – the BMW gave it its best shot, and did okay, but the sports car with its extra pickaxe on each wheel was the one to make it to the teleporter at the top and thus got the point
b. Doing a Minecraft-pickaxe-themed tightrope challenge in 41 seconds – this time, the sports car came very close to conquering all the various twists and turns in time, but the BMW proved to have the better acceleration and thus snagged the point
c. Getting across an extremely destructible cactus bridge – the sports car looked like it was going to do well (unlike the dump truck, who immediately just smashed through), but in the end it was the BMW that had the speed and handling to make it across, picking up its second point
d. Smashing through various layers, including plywood, more cacti, trees, boxes, and increasingly numerous sheets of breakaway sign wood in 30 seconds – the BMW did okay, the sports car did terribly, and the dump truck SMASHED it – quite literally. XD Took a few tries to get it to stay on the road the whole time, but it did manage it and accepted its one point
e. Climbing up a sheer mountainside with a rock slide tumbling down upon him – the dump truck got a bit farther than Gray expected, but as you might have guessed, it was the sports car with its ultra-climby pickaxes that made it to the top and the win. And since the final challenge was worth two points, that meant it ended up with a total of three and thus became the winner! *nods* So yes, now we know that if you want climbing, you want four-pickaxe wheels; speed, three-pickaxe-wheels; and sheer destructive power, a dump truck. XD
II. And “When you last longer than 5 seconds” – AKA the Sunday Happy Wheels episode! With the usual complement of excellent GSP torture – best boards this time around were:
a. “Bottle Flip...decent,” the opening bottle flip with an amusing name and a very deadly secret area (Gray got that and the win at the same time – also got the GSP ledge without even trying)
b. “Neon Ball Throw 4,” a ball throw that leveled up as you got balls into the area (making the gap smaller, higher, and then moving it up and down – Gray quite liked the increasing amount of challenge)
c. “Steal The Diamond,” a pogo harpoon-dodge board by DodgeChallenger_R1 full of lasers and harpoons (that Gray did FIRST FUCKING TRY XD)
d. “Virus Infection,” a pogo challenge themed around escaping homing mine viruses by MAXIMPIG (this one Gray very much did NOT do first try – in fact, he needed multiple tries to get through the very first gap away from the first mine)
e. And “Pogo Extreme Sports,” a pogo-themed cave dive into a mountain climb by Dylan Snider (featuring Gray having to do a parachute drift down a chasm of spikes, avoid falling stalactites (not that he could remember the name of them), climb a bunch of tiny ledges, and finally leap over an angry bull to get the win)
Good stuff, as always! I’m glad to see more boards from MAXIMPIG and DodgeChallenger_R1 – they do good work!
B) And then, this evening, we had the latest from Jon of Many A True Nerd – “Fallout: London - Part 35 - Sink Or Swim!” The continuing adventures of Lady Aria as she –
I. Headed to the London Aquarium to check out the data transmission coming out of the decommissioned Angel lab hidden down there! After swapping Pendragon out for good old Arthur Mountbatten again, because Jon had learned from the comments on the last episode that Pendragon unfortunately has no approval ratings, personal quest, or companion perk. Shame – the robot companions so often deserve better, both here and in main Fallout 4! Anyway, Pendragon ran off to hang out at the Wandsworth Pindar for some reason (Jon was confused too), and Aria and Mountbatten headed into the aquarium lab to seek out the source of that transmission that was so bothering Smythe –
And, after murdering a few ghouls and mittenlurks and poking around the place, stumbled across Reggie – a giant glowing Mittenlurk with a human brain in a big old tank! Because, as per the nearby terminal, that was the kind of inadvisable science they were doing here before all the scientists died. And yes, he was the source of the mysterious data transmission – he found a control panel he could hack with his mandibles and claws and sent out the signal to attract attention. Aria was initially worried he had been forced into this state, but Reggie revealed he was perfectly happy as a giant mittenlurk – happier than he’d ever been as a human, anyway. All he wanted was freedom from his tank because he was bored as hell. Aria was fine with freeing him, but decided to check in with Smythe via the nearby telephone terminal first to see what her instructions were now that she’d found the source of the transmission –
And Smythe immediately told her to kill him and blow up the lab to make sure no one found either. >( In fact, when Aria asked her how she was supposed to blow up the lab, she remotely started the self-destruct for her and told her not to get incinerated on her way out. Aria fortunately was able to shut down the self-destruct manually from the nearby terminal, allowing her to try and work things so that she could both free Reggie and destroy the lab. Because murdering her new mittenlurk friend was NOT an option, damn it. Her first attempt didn’t go very well – with Jon learning that turning the valve to open up the pipe that Reggie can escape through both removes the ability to manually start the self-destruct system AND starts flooding the lab rapidly with radioactive water, and Aria learning that trying to use a computer while underwater can get you stuck on the scenery long enough so that you drown almost the minute you free yourself – but the second one went a little better, with Aria trying setting off the manual self-destruct FIRST and freeing Reggie SECOND. Turns out that freeing Reggie just straight-up freezes the self-destruct timer, so there’s no way to destroy the lab that way, but at least this time she was able to outrun the rising waters and make it out alive! And get Reggie out, which was the main thing. Even if it meant getting yelled at by Smythe later.
II. Attempted to declare her allegiance to Angel – as Jon had been won over to doing more Angel missions by the star that was Reggie – only to run into Shenanigans! You see, when Aria left the aquarium post-flooding, she was presented with a ringing telephone in a nearby phone box. One that warned her that answering it would irrevocably lock her into the Angel path. As Jon had already made his choice, Aria went ahead and picked up the receiver, getting an “okay, releasing the damn crab was very much against orders, but I actually like that you flooded the place, more inconspicuous, so good job there” from Smythe before receiving her next missions – covertly assassinate Eve Varney, leader of the 5th Column, and Arthur, leader of Camelot. Simple enough, right?
Except – oddly enough, accepting those missions did not automatically fail the Camelot mission that Aria completed last week but hadn’t yet turned in to Merlin. Jon was like “oh hey, I can keep working with Camelot for a bit and then murder Arthur when I’m good and ready? Sweet!” and promptly sent Aria back to Camelot to tell Merlin all about how she’d whipped the people at the Red Rocket base into shape. Merlin and Arthur were glad to hear the news (while Jon looked at the very nice library they were in and was like “I am starting to regret my choice”) –
But then Percival rocked up with a report about an explosion at Charing Cross Station, and how nearby Eastminster was blaming Camelot because apparently two knights had been seen setting the charges. And just hearing that suddenly insta-failed both assassination missions, because apparently Aria left off with the Camelot missions JUST before the point of no return for swearing allegiance to them. Which presented her with a real problem, because if she wanted to keep working for Angel, she had to kill Arthur without turning in her Camelot mission...but Arthur was standing right next to Merlin in a VERY busy library. Not exactly the best spot for a covert assassination! What was a girl trying to have her cake and eat it too to do?
Why, rewind time to the point where she left the aquarium, and simply NOT answer the ringing telephone! Because, Jon figured, if she never answered the ringing telephone, the aquarium mission would stay in technically-uncompleted limbo. Allowing Aria to do a few more missions for Camelot, get Arthur into a better position for assassination, and THEN declare her allegiance to Angel! A perfect plan, if Jon did say so himself. :p
III. Went ahead and investigated the Charing Cross Station explosion now that she was in the timeline where she was still technically “undecided” in her allegiance! After talking to Merlin and learning that the people who exploded the station could be zealots trying to force Arthur to take a “firmer hand in certain matters” (which I guess means “crush our enemies already”), Aria headed over to the station (after taking a moment to swing by the local Eastminster pub and get the Intelligence coaster she hadn’t yet picked up in this timeline – she originally got it during her brief foray into the 5th Column timeline, remember?) to see what was what. Fortunately, the Tommy guarding the place was someone she already knew, George Major, and was a reasonable chap, saying that he’d already noticed that this sort of thing wasn’t Camelot’s usual MO and guessing that Arthur hadn’t signed off on this one. He suggested that Aria speak to Lance Corporal Briggs, as he was the one who saw what happened. Aria thus went and found the guy –
And found a man who was badly injured and very badly rattled by the whole experience, constantly babbling on about booms and blood. *grimace* Fortunately, Aria was able to piece together from his ramblings that he’d seen the culprits run into the underground tunnels after the charges started going off, and thus headed down there herself to track them down. She fought her way through the local ghouls and wildlife (including using a crit to take down a radger lurking down there) and out the other side to find two Camelot knights at the other end – none other than Iseult and Tristan, the pair she met at the tournament! They confessed to setting the charges and blowing up the station once confronted, but quickly revealed that it had been under duress – the 5th Column had demanded they do it, and had taken Tristan’s family (mother and brother) to ensure their cooperation. Tristan begged Aria to help his family because he was too injured from their slapdash escape to go report to their captors himself – Aria agreed, and made her way over to a nearby 5th Column camp, EXPECTING to talk with the leader and hopefully negotiate the release of the prisoners.
Instead, the leader revealed that he’d been planning on murdering Tristan when he showed up anyway, and was only too happy to murder Aria in his steed. Fortunately Aria was able to take down him and his buddies no problem – but in the process, learned an interesting fact. Namely, that the leader knew Tristan’s real name. And he knew that because there was a spy in the Camelot ranks, one who had sent him and some other cells a letter listing the real names of ALL the ranking members in Camelot, including that of Arthur himself! D: Aria tucked that information away for later, freed Tristan’s family from the cage they were in, then headed back to Iseult and Tristan to tell them the news. Tristan was grateful for her help, and he and Iseult decided the best thing they could do right now would be to strip off their knightly gear, resign from Camelot, and head to Eastminster to try and start their lives over. Aria was like “I mean, that’s REALLY near Charing Cross, guys, it’s pretty likely you’re going to be recognized and raked over the coals, but good luck to you” and accepted Tristan’s resignation letter to deliver to Arthur –
And then discovered that, oh, her Angel quest was missing from her list. Turns out Smythe does NOT keep trying to call you forever, and once she gives up, the quest fails, and you get locked into the Camelot ending. Meaning Jon’s perfect plan was not so perfect. He tried a little bit more time twisting to try turning in the Camelot quest BEFORE even going to the aquarium to see if that would help – but no. Turning in the Camelot quest auto-started the next one, and that caused any Angel quests hanging around in the quest log to fail. Meaning that Aria doesn’t have a choice about the matter – if Jon wants to go for the Angel ending, she has to kill Arthur in that library.
And because that looked like it was going to be a horrible mess that would see Aria have to slaughter a whole bunch of Camelot knights, Jon decided, “You know what, we’ll do that next episode.” XD So next week, we see Aria’s attempts to murder Arthur “covertly” so she can officially become an Angel operative! That should be – interesting. XD Though I did suggest to Jon in the comments that he seemed AWFULLY keen on still doing Camelot missions even after deciding to side with Angel, so maybe he should rethink his position? I don’t think he will, but – *shrug* We’ll see next Sunday!
Writing: Thanks to spending most of my afternoon either coloring in stuff or watching videos, I didn’t get as much done over here as I would have liked – but I did make it a point to get one thing written before the day ended, and that one thing was the rough draft of Multiamory March “Day 29: Vampire AU!” Which, naturally, was another fic for Londerland Bloodlines, with Victor thinking about how lucky it is that he not only got Alice, a kind person who really loves him, as his vampire domitor when he got ghouled, but that later on he got Smiler, another kind person who really loves him, as a sort of secondary domitor (not officially – a person can only be blood-bonded to one vampire at a time, I believe – but Victor sees them as in a similar role). Most ghouls are NOT that fortunate at all. So yeah, managed to keep on-track to have the last three stories done and ready to be queued up by the end of this week!
Workout: Back on the bike for another week, and back to Tiny Town with “Boho build in Tiny Town Challenge! - Part 26” by James Turner! AKA the second half of Silas’s second episode, where Silas has to earn another $20K so James can fix the “McDonald’s next to an IKEA” vibes of his current house. James defended his previous ridiculous design decisions by saying “when you’ve been recording an episode for four hours, you get a little punchy.” XD But he’s certain he can fix it, mostly because he thinks the SHAPE of the house is fine – he just has to change up the colors and then get a proper interior layout going. But to do that, he needs simoleons, and to get that, Silas needs to complete fashion photography gigs and live his life. Accordingly, the first half of this episode featured –
A) Silas completing a new gig to photograph Sims in Everyday wear by getting Krystoff to show off some of the new Life & Death clothing (a slightly spooky outfit with a red coat that REALLY suited the eldest sibling, not gonna lie) – getting the approved photos BACK required James to sell all the other mailboxes on the lot (as they seemed to be bugged) and get a new community mailbox, but it DID work, and Silas did not have to give up a $7K payday because of bugs!
B) Silas getting a start on his Soul’s Journey, because Life & Death was brand new when James recorded this episode and he wanted to play around with it a little bit! So far, Silas’s bucket list goals have included “woohooing under a waterfall” (which he accomplished by bringing Other Silas to Sulani for a bit of hot-and-heavy time) and “cleaning up 20 times because I am Neat” (still in progress, but there’s always at least one stinky plate of food around Tiny Town thanks to the public barbecue), and working on those along with his Chief of Mischief aspiration have gotten him to the second stage of the journey, meaning he earns more satisfaction points from wants and aspiration goals, AND builds skills faster! :) Good work, Silas!
C) Silas making some good progress on said Chief of Mischief aspiration too – fulfilling the “pull ten pranks” milestone on a random stranger wandering by in Sulani once he finished woohooing Other Silas there, and getting his Mischief skill up to level 6 by being mischievous with his half-brother Pablo and a random paparazzi at Orchid A Go-Go (one of the lounge lots in Del Sol Valley) after Pablo invited him there to hang out. Granted, that has come with the side effect of the game constantly trying to insist he should take on “Mean” as a Discovery Trait, but I guess that’ll happen when you prank people for hours without end! At least Silas only has one last level of that aspiration to go now...
D) Silas going with the other Tiny Towners to have a party at the Windenburg Ruins after Scarlet invited him there – which James found kind of lame because there was nothing there but a water balloon bucket (and a bonfire, but he didn’t see that). So he added swings, a game table, a hot tub, a second bonfire (Werewolves version), and a small pool to the little portion of the lot you can actually build on; had Silas take control of the club from Reuben; then started a gathering and set the club activities to swim and play games (while specifically DISALLOWING the hot tub because he’d realized it was hot and didn’t want any of them to overheat). So that was a nice trip out for the whole family! :) Though it did kind of mess up Silas’s latest gig a bit...you see, Silas had been in the process of preparing to talk to style influencer Izzy Fabulous on the computer about his next photoshoot (for formal wear) when Scarlet invited him out, which interrupted that action. But James didn’t realize that when he went, and the game still let him invite Izzy to the lot after Silas was done hanging out with his siblings to chat and show off photos. That Silas technically hadn’t taken yet. XD Bottom line, Silas managed to complete the LAST task of his newest gig FIRST, and while he was able to then chat with Izzy over the computer when he got home, he still hasn’t actually taken the photos for the photoshoot. XD I left it with him looking for a model – the visiting property owner is in contention, but James just spotted Judith Ward, Sonny’s fiance, nearby… Tomorrow, we’ll see which one gets the job! And see what happens with Silas and Other Silas, because James ALSO accepted that phone call where, if you get married in seven days, you get a random amount of cashola...
Not too bad, I suppose -- definitely a good thing to be caught up with all my videos, and to have my Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) queue set for a few days! But I do wish that I had gotten to do a little more. And that I hadn't torn up part of my finger trying to get the caps off markers. *grumbles* As it stands now, though, I'm gonna try and get to bed -- goals for tomorrow include putting Days 27 and 28 of Mulitamory March in the Victor Luvs Alice queue; editing Newt's gift fic for Wednesday and seeing about getting another of the final three Mulitamory March fics written; playing Sims 4 and working on the Polyheart OT3 house; getting in a workout; keeping up with my YouTube Subs; and answering Moose's messages because those darn things keep slipping out of my head. *grumble* Keep your fingers crossed I can cross all these things off my list! Night all!
Tumblr: Another day with nothing happening on Valice Multiverse (I’m gonna have to think of SOMETHING to reblog or post over there soon, it has been dead silent for a while), but over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), I was able to get the posts for “Day 24: Trans characters,” “Day 25: Family Feud,” and “Day 26: Scars” into the queue before lunch. *nods* Took me longer than I thought it would – I was having trouble with the wording on some of them – but at least they’re all in there and ready to fire off! Now I just have to get the next two sorted tomorrow so I’ll be good for the rest of the week – at least when it comes to Multiamory March prompts. Still got that extra fic to sort out for Wednesday!
YouTube: Got in the Sunday THREE this afternoon, helped by the fact that skipping video games meant I could watch the GSP stuff before my workout –
A) First up, we had the double dose of GrayStillPlays, with –
I. “What pickaxe car climbs the best?” – Yup, it was time for another point-based challenge featuring ridiculous custom cars in GTA V! This time, we had three vehicles who all had pickaxes for wheels – a BMW with three-pickaxe wheels; a sports car with four-pickaxe wheels; and a dump truck with two layers of multi-pickaxe wheels (so many that they did form actual wheels, unlike the others). Gray had to take these vehicles and see which one was the best by seeing which one earned the most points across five challenges –
a. Climbing up a huge tree – the BMW gave it its best shot, and did okay, but the sports car with its extra pickaxe on each wheel was the one to make it to the teleporter at the top and thus got the point
b. Doing a Minecraft-pickaxe-themed tightrope challenge in 41 seconds – this time, the sports car came very close to conquering all the various twists and turns in time, but the BMW proved to have the better acceleration and thus snagged the point
c. Getting across an extremely destructible cactus bridge – the sports car looked like it was going to do well (unlike the dump truck, who immediately just smashed through), but in the end it was the BMW that had the speed and handling to make it across, picking up its second point
d. Smashing through various layers, including plywood, more cacti, trees, boxes, and increasingly numerous sheets of breakaway sign wood in 30 seconds – the BMW did okay, the sports car did terribly, and the dump truck SMASHED it – quite literally. XD Took a few tries to get it to stay on the road the whole time, but it did manage it and accepted its one point
e. Climbing up a sheer mountainside with a rock slide tumbling down upon him – the dump truck got a bit farther than Gray expected, but as you might have guessed, it was the sports car with its ultra-climby pickaxes that made it to the top and the win. And since the final challenge was worth two points, that meant it ended up with a total of three and thus became the winner! *nods* So yes, now we know that if you want climbing, you want four-pickaxe wheels; speed, three-pickaxe-wheels; and sheer destructive power, a dump truck. XD
II. And “When you last longer than 5 seconds” – AKA the Sunday Happy Wheels episode! With the usual complement of excellent GSP torture – best boards this time around were:
a. “Bottle Flip...decent,” the opening bottle flip with an amusing name and a very deadly secret area (Gray got that and the win at the same time – also got the GSP ledge without even trying)
b. “Neon Ball Throw 4,” a ball throw that leveled up as you got balls into the area (making the gap smaller, higher, and then moving it up and down – Gray quite liked the increasing amount of challenge)
c. “Steal The Diamond,” a pogo harpoon-dodge board by DodgeChallenger_R1 full of lasers and harpoons (that Gray did FIRST FUCKING TRY XD)
d. “Virus Infection,” a pogo challenge themed around escaping homing mine viruses by MAXIMPIG (this one Gray very much did NOT do first try – in fact, he needed multiple tries to get through the very first gap away from the first mine)
e. And “Pogo Extreme Sports,” a pogo-themed cave dive into a mountain climb by Dylan Snider (featuring Gray having to do a parachute drift down a chasm of spikes, avoid falling stalactites (not that he could remember the name of them), climb a bunch of tiny ledges, and finally leap over an angry bull to get the win)
Good stuff, as always! I’m glad to see more boards from MAXIMPIG and DodgeChallenger_R1 – they do good work!
B) And then, this evening, we had the latest from Jon of Many A True Nerd – “Fallout: London - Part 35 - Sink Or Swim!” The continuing adventures of Lady Aria as she –
I. Headed to the London Aquarium to check out the data transmission coming out of the decommissioned Angel lab hidden down there! After swapping Pendragon out for good old Arthur Mountbatten again, because Jon had learned from the comments on the last episode that Pendragon unfortunately has no approval ratings, personal quest, or companion perk. Shame – the robot companions so often deserve better, both here and in main Fallout 4! Anyway, Pendragon ran off to hang out at the Wandsworth Pindar for some reason (Jon was confused too), and Aria and Mountbatten headed into the aquarium lab to seek out the source of that transmission that was so bothering Smythe –
And, after murdering a few ghouls and mittenlurks and poking around the place, stumbled across Reggie – a giant glowing Mittenlurk with a human brain in a big old tank! Because, as per the nearby terminal, that was the kind of inadvisable science they were doing here before all the scientists died. And yes, he was the source of the mysterious data transmission – he found a control panel he could hack with his mandibles and claws and sent out the signal to attract attention. Aria was initially worried he had been forced into this state, but Reggie revealed he was perfectly happy as a giant mittenlurk – happier than he’d ever been as a human, anyway. All he wanted was freedom from his tank because he was bored as hell. Aria was fine with freeing him, but decided to check in with Smythe via the nearby telephone terminal first to see what her instructions were now that she’d found the source of the transmission –
And Smythe immediately told her to kill him and blow up the lab to make sure no one found either. >( In fact, when Aria asked her how she was supposed to blow up the lab, she remotely started the self-destruct for her and told her not to get incinerated on her way out. Aria fortunately was able to shut down the self-destruct manually from the nearby terminal, allowing her to try and work things so that she could both free Reggie and destroy the lab. Because murdering her new mittenlurk friend was NOT an option, damn it. Her first attempt didn’t go very well – with Jon learning that turning the valve to open up the pipe that Reggie can escape through both removes the ability to manually start the self-destruct system AND starts flooding the lab rapidly with radioactive water, and Aria learning that trying to use a computer while underwater can get you stuck on the scenery long enough so that you drown almost the minute you free yourself – but the second one went a little better, with Aria trying setting off the manual self-destruct FIRST and freeing Reggie SECOND. Turns out that freeing Reggie just straight-up freezes the self-destruct timer, so there’s no way to destroy the lab that way, but at least this time she was able to outrun the rising waters and make it out alive! And get Reggie out, which was the main thing. Even if it meant getting yelled at by Smythe later.
II. Attempted to declare her allegiance to Angel – as Jon had been won over to doing more Angel missions by the star that was Reggie – only to run into Shenanigans! You see, when Aria left the aquarium post-flooding, she was presented with a ringing telephone in a nearby phone box. One that warned her that answering it would irrevocably lock her into the Angel path. As Jon had already made his choice, Aria went ahead and picked up the receiver, getting an “okay, releasing the damn crab was very much against orders, but I actually like that you flooded the place, more inconspicuous, so good job there” from Smythe before receiving her next missions – covertly assassinate Eve Varney, leader of the 5th Column, and Arthur, leader of Camelot. Simple enough, right?
Except – oddly enough, accepting those missions did not automatically fail the Camelot mission that Aria completed last week but hadn’t yet turned in to Merlin. Jon was like “oh hey, I can keep working with Camelot for a bit and then murder Arthur when I’m good and ready? Sweet!” and promptly sent Aria back to Camelot to tell Merlin all about how she’d whipped the people at the Red Rocket base into shape. Merlin and Arthur were glad to hear the news (while Jon looked at the very nice library they were in and was like “I am starting to regret my choice”) –
But then Percival rocked up with a report about an explosion at Charing Cross Station, and how nearby Eastminster was blaming Camelot because apparently two knights had been seen setting the charges. And just hearing that suddenly insta-failed both assassination missions, because apparently Aria left off with the Camelot missions JUST before the point of no return for swearing allegiance to them. Which presented her with a real problem, because if she wanted to keep working for Angel, she had to kill Arthur without turning in her Camelot mission...but Arthur was standing right next to Merlin in a VERY busy library. Not exactly the best spot for a covert assassination! What was a girl trying to have her cake and eat it too to do?
Why, rewind time to the point where she left the aquarium, and simply NOT answer the ringing telephone! Because, Jon figured, if she never answered the ringing telephone, the aquarium mission would stay in technically-uncompleted limbo. Allowing Aria to do a few more missions for Camelot, get Arthur into a better position for assassination, and THEN declare her allegiance to Angel! A perfect plan, if Jon did say so himself. :p
III. Went ahead and investigated the Charing Cross Station explosion now that she was in the timeline where she was still technically “undecided” in her allegiance! After talking to Merlin and learning that the people who exploded the station could be zealots trying to force Arthur to take a “firmer hand in certain matters” (which I guess means “crush our enemies already”), Aria headed over to the station (after taking a moment to swing by the local Eastminster pub and get the Intelligence coaster she hadn’t yet picked up in this timeline – she originally got it during her brief foray into the 5th Column timeline, remember?) to see what was what. Fortunately, the Tommy guarding the place was someone she already knew, George Major, and was a reasonable chap, saying that he’d already noticed that this sort of thing wasn’t Camelot’s usual MO and guessing that Arthur hadn’t signed off on this one. He suggested that Aria speak to Lance Corporal Briggs, as he was the one who saw what happened. Aria thus went and found the guy –
And found a man who was badly injured and very badly rattled by the whole experience, constantly babbling on about booms and blood. *grimace* Fortunately, Aria was able to piece together from his ramblings that he’d seen the culprits run into the underground tunnels after the charges started going off, and thus headed down there herself to track them down. She fought her way through the local ghouls and wildlife (including using a crit to take down a radger lurking down there) and out the other side to find two Camelot knights at the other end – none other than Iseult and Tristan, the pair she met at the tournament! They confessed to setting the charges and blowing up the station once confronted, but quickly revealed that it had been under duress – the 5th Column had demanded they do it, and had taken Tristan’s family (mother and brother) to ensure their cooperation. Tristan begged Aria to help his family because he was too injured from their slapdash escape to go report to their captors himself – Aria agreed, and made her way over to a nearby 5th Column camp, EXPECTING to talk with the leader and hopefully negotiate the release of the prisoners.
Instead, the leader revealed that he’d been planning on murdering Tristan when he showed up anyway, and was only too happy to murder Aria in his steed. Fortunately Aria was able to take down him and his buddies no problem – but in the process, learned an interesting fact. Namely, that the leader knew Tristan’s real name. And he knew that because there was a spy in the Camelot ranks, one who had sent him and some other cells a letter listing the real names of ALL the ranking members in Camelot, including that of Arthur himself! D: Aria tucked that information away for later, freed Tristan’s family from the cage they were in, then headed back to Iseult and Tristan to tell them the news. Tristan was grateful for her help, and he and Iseult decided the best thing they could do right now would be to strip off their knightly gear, resign from Camelot, and head to Eastminster to try and start their lives over. Aria was like “I mean, that’s REALLY near Charing Cross, guys, it’s pretty likely you’re going to be recognized and raked over the coals, but good luck to you” and accepted Tristan’s resignation letter to deliver to Arthur –
And then discovered that, oh, her Angel quest was missing from her list. Turns out Smythe does NOT keep trying to call you forever, and once she gives up, the quest fails, and you get locked into the Camelot ending. Meaning Jon’s perfect plan was not so perfect. He tried a little bit more time twisting to try turning in the Camelot quest BEFORE even going to the aquarium to see if that would help – but no. Turning in the Camelot quest auto-started the next one, and that caused any Angel quests hanging around in the quest log to fail. Meaning that Aria doesn’t have a choice about the matter – if Jon wants to go for the Angel ending, she has to kill Arthur in that library.
And because that looked like it was going to be a horrible mess that would see Aria have to slaughter a whole bunch of Camelot knights, Jon decided, “You know what, we’ll do that next episode.” XD So next week, we see Aria’s attempts to murder Arthur “covertly” so she can officially become an Angel operative! That should be – interesting. XD Though I did suggest to Jon in the comments that he seemed AWFULLY keen on still doing Camelot missions even after deciding to side with Angel, so maybe he should rethink his position? I don’t think he will, but – *shrug* We’ll see next Sunday!
Writing: Thanks to spending most of my afternoon either coloring in stuff or watching videos, I didn’t get as much done over here as I would have liked – but I did make it a point to get one thing written before the day ended, and that one thing was the rough draft of Multiamory March “Day 29: Vampire AU!” Which, naturally, was another fic for Londerland Bloodlines, with Victor thinking about how lucky it is that he not only got Alice, a kind person who really loves him, as his vampire domitor when he got ghouled, but that later on he got Smiler, another kind person who really loves him, as a sort of secondary domitor (not officially – a person can only be blood-bonded to one vampire at a time, I believe – but Victor sees them as in a similar role). Most ghouls are NOT that fortunate at all. So yeah, managed to keep on-track to have the last three stories done and ready to be queued up by the end of this week!
Workout: Back on the bike for another week, and back to Tiny Town with “Boho build in Tiny Town Challenge! - Part 26” by James Turner! AKA the second half of Silas’s second episode, where Silas has to earn another $20K so James can fix the “McDonald’s next to an IKEA” vibes of his current house. James defended his previous ridiculous design decisions by saying “when you’ve been recording an episode for four hours, you get a little punchy.” XD But he’s certain he can fix it, mostly because he thinks the SHAPE of the house is fine – he just has to change up the colors and then get a proper interior layout going. But to do that, he needs simoleons, and to get that, Silas needs to complete fashion photography gigs and live his life. Accordingly, the first half of this episode featured –
A) Silas completing a new gig to photograph Sims in Everyday wear by getting Krystoff to show off some of the new Life & Death clothing (a slightly spooky outfit with a red coat that REALLY suited the eldest sibling, not gonna lie) – getting the approved photos BACK required James to sell all the other mailboxes on the lot (as they seemed to be bugged) and get a new community mailbox, but it DID work, and Silas did not have to give up a $7K payday because of bugs!
B) Silas getting a start on his Soul’s Journey, because Life & Death was brand new when James recorded this episode and he wanted to play around with it a little bit! So far, Silas’s bucket list goals have included “woohooing under a waterfall” (which he accomplished by bringing Other Silas to Sulani for a bit of hot-and-heavy time) and “cleaning up 20 times because I am Neat” (still in progress, but there’s always at least one stinky plate of food around Tiny Town thanks to the public barbecue), and working on those along with his Chief of Mischief aspiration have gotten him to the second stage of the journey, meaning he earns more satisfaction points from wants and aspiration goals, AND builds skills faster! :) Good work, Silas!
C) Silas making some good progress on said Chief of Mischief aspiration too – fulfilling the “pull ten pranks” milestone on a random stranger wandering by in Sulani once he finished woohooing Other Silas there, and getting his Mischief skill up to level 6 by being mischievous with his half-brother Pablo and a random paparazzi at Orchid A Go-Go (one of the lounge lots in Del Sol Valley) after Pablo invited him there to hang out. Granted, that has come with the side effect of the game constantly trying to insist he should take on “Mean” as a Discovery Trait, but I guess that’ll happen when you prank people for hours without end! At least Silas only has one last level of that aspiration to go now...
D) Silas going with the other Tiny Towners to have a party at the Windenburg Ruins after Scarlet invited him there – which James found kind of lame because there was nothing there but a water balloon bucket (and a bonfire, but he didn’t see that). So he added swings, a game table, a hot tub, a second bonfire (Werewolves version), and a small pool to the little portion of the lot you can actually build on; had Silas take control of the club from Reuben; then started a gathering and set the club activities to swim and play games (while specifically DISALLOWING the hot tub because he’d realized it was hot and didn’t want any of them to overheat). So that was a nice trip out for the whole family! :) Though it did kind of mess up Silas’s latest gig a bit...you see, Silas had been in the process of preparing to talk to style influencer Izzy Fabulous on the computer about his next photoshoot (for formal wear) when Scarlet invited him out, which interrupted that action. But James didn’t realize that when he went, and the game still let him invite Izzy to the lot after Silas was done hanging out with his siblings to chat and show off photos. That Silas technically hadn’t taken yet. XD Bottom line, Silas managed to complete the LAST task of his newest gig FIRST, and while he was able to then chat with Izzy over the computer when he got home, he still hasn’t actually taken the photos for the photoshoot. XD I left it with him looking for a model – the visiting property owner is in contention, but James just spotted Judith Ward, Sonny’s fiance, nearby… Tomorrow, we’ll see which one gets the job! And see what happens with Silas and Other Silas, because James ALSO accepted that phone call where, if you get married in seven days, you get a random amount of cashola...
Not too bad, I suppose -- definitely a good thing to be caught up with all my videos, and to have my Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) queue set for a few days! But I do wish that I had gotten to do a little more. And that I hadn't torn up part of my finger trying to get the caps off markers. *grumbles* As it stands now, though, I'm gonna try and get to bed -- goals for tomorrow include putting Days 27 and 28 of Mulitamory March in the Victor Luvs Alice queue; editing Newt's gift fic for Wednesday and seeing about getting another of the final three Mulitamory March fics written; playing Sims 4 and working on the Polyheart OT3 house; getting in a workout; keeping up with my YouTube Subs; and answering Moose's messages because those darn things keep slipping out of my head. *grumble* Keep your fingers crossed I can cross all these things off my list! Night all!
