Satisfactory Monday

(yes, I did originally forget which day of the week it was) Well, not weather-wise -- it was cold and rainy and miserable all day. But I had nowhere to be, so I was able to stay home and get through my to-do list without any problems:

Tumblr: Just Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) to worry about today, and I didn’t have much to do on it – just got “Day 27: Kink Negotiation” queued up before lunch, and “Day 28: Magic” queued up after lunch! So now my queue is good til the end of the week, at which point I should be good to queue up the remaining three Multiamory March stories. :) Yay! (We will not talk about how my dash personally victimized me today via the people I follow posting Severance stuff when I still haven’t figured out a good way to watch the show.)

Sims 4: Finally got back to the Polyheart OT3 house today, and spent a good hour and a half getting the mini heart-shaped greenhouse I built for the place last time I played all kitted out and in shape! Here’s what I accomplished, top to bottom:

A) I somehow got a roof on the building! Yeah, I realized early on in the session that “fuck, this is a greenhouse – I’m going to have to put some sort of proper roof on this damn thing if I want to use the glass roof textures, aren’t I?” I’d managed to avoid trying to figure out how one roofs a heart on the main house by just using the standard flat roof (all the better for making sure the place looked like the polyamory flag from above), but no such luck here! Cue me fiddling around with the conical roofs, octagonal roofs, and both regular and diagonal hipped roofs to try and find a combo that looked halfway decent. I eventually managed to make something that kind-of-sort-of worked by combining two diagonal hipped roofs running along each side, joined at the point; a regular hipped roof running across the middle lengthwise; and a pair of octagonal roofs, one for each bump; and then smoothing out the points of the octagonal roofs into domes and lowering the roof pitch of all the sections a lot until they all combined at least semi-nicely. I mean, it’s not PERFECT, but it’s functional – though I quickly learned that I had to use the plainest glass roof texture on everything, lest it all look like a horrible jumbled mess. (Well – even more of a horrible jumbled mess, anyway.) I also discovered that when I added a roof trim (because it absolutely needed one – went with the black beveled out trim as that worked the best for my purposes), I could see it criss-crossing under the glass as it followed the lines of every little roof bit, but I decided that wasn’t a big deal, as I could pretend they were “support beams” or something. And in fact, that little fiction came in handy later, as you will see… Anyway, here’s a picture of what I ended up with:



And yes, I finally figured out/remembered that pressing “G” turns the grid on and off, so you get a nice grid-free picture! Didn’t need THAT complicating what the roof looked like even further!

B) I got the walls sorted nice and quick, happily – after poking around in the wall covering section for a minute thinking about what I wanted and filtering by the trio’s colors (red for Alice, blue for Victor, yellow for Smiler), I settled on using the Horse Ranch “Lived-In Vertical Planking” in stripes of red, blue, and yellow – kind of like what I’d done in the living room. And, because this is a greenhouse, I figured I could do the same thing on the inside as on the outside. *nods* Easy peasy!

C) I used terrain paint to give the place a nice floor! Because the more I thought about it, the more I thought “this place probably should have a floor instead of just being on the grass” – but when I went to try and put in some floor tiles (having stumbled across the Lovestruck vine floor tiles and thought “ooh, these could be fun in here”), I discovered that, for whatever reason, I couldn’t tile the bumps of the heart correctly – there was always a bit of flooring sticking out. I was initially very confused by that, as I’d been able to floor the bumps of the main heart house fine (with the game auto-filling in the awkward areas around the curves)...but thinking about it now, it’s probably because I removed the initial floor when I first built the greenhouse, isn’t it? I should have clicked on the room, told the game to rebuild the floor, then tiled THAT. Whoops.

Ah well – hindsight! While I was actually playing the game, I decided that if I couldn’t put a real floor down, I would just fake it with some terrain paint! I thus found my way to the terrain tools and started spraying down some various options to see how I liked them. My initial reaction was to go with the Black Grassy Pavers paint, as I liked the look of it – but after painting the inside of the building, I thought “eh, the floor looks a touch too busy with all those white lines in a criss-cross pattern.” So I instead ended up using the Flagstone Pavers paint instead, as I liked the stone texture and though it looked very appropriate as a greenhouse flooring. Plus it was a little lighter than the black pavers, and I wasn’t sure I wanted a black floor with all the black windows and such. Took a little doing to get the inside sorted, then neaten up the outside so all the stonework was in the building, but I’m pretty happy with the end result! I did try to use those Lovestruck vine tiles by the front doors, though, since I really wanted to put them SOMEWHERE in the build – unfortunately, since said doors are on a diagonal wall, I wasn’t able to make the sort of cute little “entrance patio” thing I wanted, instead ending up with two big weird triangles on either side of the door. *grumbles* Perhaps the next thing I should look up is how you get quarter tile placement in this game...

D) And I got the interior more or less sorted! After playing around with the layout a bit, this is what I decided worked best:

I. Three vertical planters in the right bump, recolored to a very light wood swatch, a medium-dark wood swatch, and a gray wood swatch, as I liked the variety instead of making them all the same thing

II. One big Werewolves square floor planter in the left bump, recolored to the rough green paint wood swatch

III. And three small plant pots – one red, one yellow, and one blue – along the diagonal wall across from the door (well, as across as two diagonal walls that meet at a point can be)

I really wanted a combination of different planters, and I felt like this is the one that worked best to maximize the growing potential of the space. :) As for everything else I added:

IV. After realizing that the space really needed a light for late night plant check-ups, and discovering that I didn’t like any of the wall-mounted “outdoor light” options, I ended up going with the Cottage Living “Dark And Stormy Night” ceiling lantern (shortest variant) – and using “moveobjects on” to raise it up slightly so it looked like it was hanging from the roof trim “support beams” I noticed earlier! :D Had to do it twice, mind, because the first time I raised it too high, but hey – glad I was able to get my messed-up roof to work for me!

V. I put a light switch on one side of the doors (for our new lantern, of course), and the Laundry Day dust pan and brush wall décor in the green swatch on the other (for sweeping up spilled dirt). I also briefly added the hose wall decoration under the light switch, but decided it didn’t look quite right for the small space and got rid of it. Perhaps I can put it on the side of the house by the pool instead?

VII. I wanted to put the Cottage Living shelf with the watering can and canvas bag and whatnot somewhere, as I feel that’s a good item to have in greenhouses, but unfortunately it was too big to go by the door, and I didn’t want to put it on one of the windows. So instead I grabbed the “Thrifted Tall Cabinet” from High School Years in the “green and pink with little heart vines painted on the front” swatch (figuring that if they had one of these cabinets in their living room for their “games cabinet,” they could have another out here for gardening supplies) and put the little base game “Florist’s Dream” carry-case with the gardening tools on top; the “Florist’s Dream” rake, gloves, and spade clutter on the first shelf (in the most colorful swatch, of course); and the Werewolves “Lunar Folio” book clutter on the second shelf (recolored green – I dunno, I just liked the look of it in there. Pretend it’s a really old gardening book they consult from time to time!). So at least Victor has a place to keep all his stuff when he gardens!

VIII. And I really liked the Growing Together “Vacker Sot Floral Cart” décor (a little wooden flat wheelbarrow-esque thing with some flowers on it), but it was too big for the inside, so I stuck it just outside, by the left-hand bump. Probably see about adding some other decorations like this around the outside later!

And yeah, that was my day in Sims 4! Little trickier than I anticipated to bring it all together, but it all worked out in the end. Couple more pictures of what it looks like right now for you:





I hope you agree with me when I say, not bad, huh? :) I’m pretty happy with how it ended up. Especially for a tiny greenhouse in the world’s most awkward shape. XD Next time, we’ll keep working on the exterior – I still gotta add in the barbecue area near the pool, and the picnic space! Perhaps next Saturday, after I do my cleaning...

YouTube: Welp, hilariously, I didn’t get to the GrayStillPlays video of the day – though I’m not worrying overmuch about that, because tomorrow is Tuesday and, given that he seems to be taking that day straight up off now, I should be able to catch up with it then. But I did watch some other fun things –

A) First up, I watched some Dead Boys Detectives stuff to research the main characters’ voices for a gift fic (see the “Writing” section below) – “Dead Boy Detectives | Official Teaser | Netflix” (Netflix), the first few minutes of “dead boy detectives on crack (im aliveeeee)” (eliminateolives) and roughly the first half of “edwin and charles being an old married couple for 14 minutes” (MariGold), I thank you for your service to my writing.

B) And second – well, I couldn’t resist the siren song of the one video remaining in my Watch Later – “CaFae Latte Season 33 - TikTok Compilation” by C. M. Alongi! It’s a favorite series and I wanted to get back to it. :) Today’s compilation included JC taking on their pastry finals (complete with the snobbiest judge, who’d told them their tart was a little too sweet, getting told “their fairy boss pays them more than you’d ever be willing to” when he made some noises about wanting to hire JC afterward); Rethu and their sister Amyth visiting the cafe post Hannukah and Husniya and Amyth bonding over scarves and babies (JC was like “we’ve lost them for a while, haven’t we” once the baby pictures came out XD); Bob having to curse an asshole who didn’t believe another customer had a peppermint allergy and was a dick about it (and THEN the guy ordered a peppermint mocha AFTER being told he now had the woman’s allergy – fortunately the woman carried MULTIPLE epipens); Rethu having to deal with an antisemitic AND anti-dragon bitch of a customer (“I stand with Palestine” is no reason to be a cunt); JC handling the shop on Yule (Bob and Cyrus having taking the night off to celebrate and attend the local coven’s party), selling a coffee to Santa before having to deal with the mysterious Herla, who rather bitchily warned them of a ghost horde forming nearby (we also learned that Lindsey has been let back into Mike’s coven on probation, which is good for her); and Bob giving JC the lore on Herla – a former king of the pre-Anglo-Saxo British Isles, who attended the wedding of a dwarf friend...without either realizing that a couple of days in the Fae realm meant a couple HUNDRED YEARS in the human world. His dwarf king friend made him immortal in apology, and now he leads a Wild Hunt specializing in ghost hordes (and is otherwise a bitter asshole – understandably so, but still). Lovely stuff, as always – and I’m looking forward to the next episode, which is all about Herla and the Wild Hunt! Maybe I can sneak that in tomorrow...

Writing: Got two things written tonight, I’m pleased to report:

A) First, after hitting up the YouTubes and watching my research videos, I quickly edited the not-quite-a-double-drabble I whipped up for my tumblr friend Newt’s birthday on Wednesday – a dialogue-only fic of Edwin Payne and Charles Rowland from Dead Boy Detectives watching Pacific Rim and talking about how they’d do piloting a Jaeger. Ending on Charles making a terrible pun on what he’d call their personal giant mech – Sherlocked-And-Loaded. XD Hoping Newt finds it funny too!

B) And second, I then wrote up the first draft of the story for my penultimate Multiamory March prompt – “Day 30: Kard Hola Hola MV!” A Modern AU story based on the band Kard’s “Hola Hola” music video, featuring a surprise return to the Valicer Road Trip of Polyship Week 2023 and the trio playing cards on a beach on a beautiful sunny day, enjoying one last moment of freedom before they have to drive their rented caravan back to the rental place and return to their normal lives as college students. So now that’s all set, and I just have one more to go! w00!

Workout: Well, I got to my workout a little later than intended (had to move the load of laundry Mom was doing from the washer to the dryer), but I did get on the bike and watch some more of “Boho build in Tiny Town Challenge! - Part 26” by James Turner! Today’s chunklet featured –

A) Silas managing to find Judith Ward on the lot and use her as his model for not one, but TWO gigs – first, for finishing up the “Sims in formalwear” one that he was already working on, then for a “Sims in athletic wear” one that he started immediately after to both get some more money for house renovations and max out his Freelance career performance. Why did he care about maxing out his performance? Well, that not only got him more money on future gigs, it also got him a free new fancy camera, so he could finally replace the old cheap one he was using! :D So now he looks like a proper professional photographer, yay! James was very happy (especially with the fact that he didn’t have to pay for the new fancy camera XD).

B) James fixing up Silas’s house to get rid of the “McDonald’s next to an IKEA” vibes! As James though the structures themselves were good, this mainly consisted of changing up the color scheme on the exteriors – swapping out the bright clowncore yellow and red on the main house for more muted tones, and making the photo studio/gallery a more sandstoney color (he kept the blue stairs and a bit of blue wallpaper on the connecting “bridge” bit, though). Once the outside was more chill and “earthy,” he then turned his attention to the interior of the house, slapping up some nice patterned stucco around the place and getting the layout sorted. By the time I finished, he’d gotten both the downstairs and upstairs divided up in a way he liked, and fully furnished the kitchen, the dining room, both the downstairs and upstairs bathrooms, and a good portion of the bedroom. The rest of it – including the living room, the office space he made for Silas near the connection to the photo studio, and the photo studio and gallery – will have to wait for Silas’s Grand Finale! But he’s made a good start, and it looks a HELL of a lot better than it did before. :)

C) And James trying to set up a nice, quick wedding for Silas and Other Silas so they could get the mysterious inheritance money Silas was apparently due as per the phone call he accepted earlier – only to speed through the process a little too quickly and realize that he’d forgotten to invite any guests. XD Fortunately, he’d saved right before setting up the event, so when I left off, he’d corrected the mistake, and the whole of Tiny Town had gathered at the Tartosa lounge to see Silas wed. Granted, Krystoff was in a towel and fancy gold-tone boots for some reason, but… XD We’ll finish this off with the Silas Squared wedding tomorrow, then move on to Sonny’s Grand Finale!

Other: Spent an hour or so at the beginning of my day getting through all of Moose’s messages, hooray! As I said to her in said messages, it’s not that it takes that long to answer them, it’s finding the time to block out that hour that’s the issue. I always seem to have something else that needs doing! *grumble* But anyway, ball’s back in your court, Moose! :)

*nods* Not a bad way to end the long weekend, I must say. But now I must away to bed, because tomorrow I head back into work again. *sigh* Ah well -- at least it's another four-day week. Hopefully I don't come in to any disasters...night all!