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Thwarted By The Weather This Sunday
May. 25th, 2025 11:44 pmBy which I mean we did NOT go out and play mini-golf because it refused to actually get nice outside -- like, there were a few moments of sunshine throughout the day, and it was definitely warmer than it was on Thursday and Friday, but for the most part it kept looking like it was going to start raining any second, with occasional bursts of wind. And because we didn't know what it was going to do, either here or at the course we were planning on visiting -- yeah. Ended up staying home. We're going to try again tomorrow, as it's supposed to be 70 and sunny, but -- well, at this point I have NO idea if the weather's going to cooperate. I swear, this is the shittiest run of bad weather I've had during some time off in a while. Not that I had much in the way of plans, admittedly, but -- still! It's nearly June, I want it to be nice already!
Tumblr: Had a productive day on half the tumbls – while there was nothing happening again on Valice Multiverse, I accomplished two major things of note over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), and learned one important fact:
A) Accomplishment #1: I spent my pre-lunch “working on drafts” time going over and updating the “How To Write Smiler Alton: A Guide” post that will be going out for public consumption later this week, because I wanted to make sure I’d covered everything and that it was in the best possible condition (also because, thanks to the PMS brain, I was having trouble concentrating this morning and felt it best to work on something I’d already pretty much finished). Specifically –
I. I went through and updated my phrasing in a few spots, because I can never pass up a chance to tinker with my wording
II. I added links to my tags for some of the AUs I mentioned in the “Cheerful” section (where I went through the three levels of cheer any given Smiler can have depending on their situation in their given AU)
III. I updated the section on Mar-Mal (the eldritch god of happiness OC I have that goes along with Smiler) to further clarify that they’re not usually the same person as Smiler – and that, when they are, they’ve generally been traumatized by having accidentally killed people by trying to make them supernaturally happy (generally in a case of “the outer god did not realize that humans needed hunger to know when to eat and accidentally caused their followers to starve by taking it away”), so they’re not as happy as you’d think they’d be (because I imagine most people would assume the Literal God Of Happiness would be the Ultimate High Cheerful Smiler, but – yeah, not really the case!)
IV. I added a whole paragraph about how you shouldn’t “disrespect their craft” (chemistry/alchemy/general drink-making) to the “Intelligent” section – mostly because I couldn’t resist the urge to write about how VITD hates the BG3 alchemy system because it’s one specific ingredient and one more generic one (“that’s not how it works!”) XD Though I do think all Smilers get annoyed at sloppy chemistry/alchemy, and being told they don’t know what they’re doing when they KNOW they do, so it’s justified
V. I added a bit to the end of “Kind” section saying that, while Smiler is a nice person and will do a lot to help people be happier, taking advantage of them is NOT a good idea because they DO have limits – and their own Charismatic nature means they’re better at sniffing out when they’re being manipulated
VI. And I updated the “Universal Headcanons” section by noting that I WILL find ways to make sure they have their signature glowing yellow eyes and purple-tipped black hair at least part of the time (like in Wonderland for a Victorian-era AU), even if it doesn’t necessarily make sense for the AU (because I can’t imagine them with normal eye and hair colors, damn it)
So NOW this post should be fully done and dusted and I can stick it into my queue for – let’s say Friday, since Smiler’s birthday is Saturday – a little later this week!
B) Accomplishment #2: I reblogged Songthursh and Stupidlynx’s beautiful “Glorious 25th of May” Discworld fan art tonight, because, well, 25th of May (it’s a very important date in everyone’s favorite Discworld book, Night Watch – they did the meeting in the cemetery between Vimes and Vetinari at the end, and it is lovely)
C) Important Fact Learned: the results of my “what do I do with Tav!Smiler” poll! I never did get more than the two votes, but again, I was really worried the poll would be ignored ENTIRELY, so I will take two people wanting to give me their opinion! And those two people ALMOST agreed on what I should do, as both of them voted for one of the “Bardlock, Just Do A Lot Of Alchemy” options –
But one (my friend Squid) voted for the Entertainer background, and the other (unknown) voted for the Guild Artisan background. Hmmm. So it seems I still have a decision to make! I shall have to check the “inspiring events” list for each background and decide which I feel is more Smiler! A project for tomorrow, perhaps...
Sims 4: So, no mini-golf today meant that I actually had time for some gaming this afternoon – but, since I’d mentally prepared to be out and about today, it took me a while to figure out exactly what the hell I wanted to play. I didn’t want to break out Fallout 4 because I wanted to keep working on “The Van Dort Vacancy” (and playing FO4 always leads to me having to update the FO4 Playthrough Progression doc); I didn’t want to do anything with Baldur’s Gate III because I felt I needed more time to design my Hopefully Final Tav!Smiler (for example, figuring out their background, as per the above) and lock down the mods I wanted for my Hopefully Final Attempt At A Playthrough; and I didn’t feel like firing up Unpacking or Untitled Goose Game because I’ve played through both twice and feel like I’ve done everything possible in them. And while I was briefly tempted by Superliminal, because I haven’t found all the secrets in that game yet (there’s apparently tons of collectibles to hunt down in there), I eventually decided, “You know what? I want to fire up my building save in Sims 4 and do a little more work on Town Square Terrace – see if I can put that idea I had about adding hallways and a proper stairwell into the house into action.” So that’s what I did! How did it go?
Pretty well, actually! I didn’t even have to fiddle around with it that much – I just loaded up the lot, dumped all the downstairs furniture outside, removed all the downstairs internal walls, made the entire first floor the same wooden planking throughout (after my first attempt to build the hallway ended up in me just automatically following the dividing line between the living room planking and the kitchen tile without any regard for whether or not that was a good place to put the wall), and started building! While moving windows around to try and stop them getting deleted, and adding lights to I could see what the hell I was doing. XD Ended up with a two-wide central hallway running the width of the house downstairs, with the front entrance and the living room at the front of the house (natch) on one side, and the kitchen, downstairs bathroom, and one-tile-wide stairwell running up the left wall at the back of the house on the other. And then, upstairs, after fencing off the hole for the stairs, I created a simple landing area/hallway with three 4x5 (or 5x4? not sure which number should come first) bedrooms running along it on the right, and the old upstairs bathroom at the end. *nods* It’s probably not the world’s most perfect layout, but it’s functional – and it means Alice, Victor, and Smiler all get their own equally-sized bedroom upstairs! I even made sure each one had two windows for adequate natural light (though admittedly, this did make the window placement in the middle bedroom, where they had to go the same wall, look a little weird from the outside – we shall roll with it, though).
So yeah – basic layout of the “Teen Valicer Boarding House” is pretty much done now, yay! I’ve got all the furniture back in the house; added all the necessary archways and doors around the place; painted some walls in the living room and front foyer (have to decide on the color scheme for the rest of the house – not really digging the orange that was in the kitchen before); and laid down some tile in the downstairs bathroom (“Sparking Speckled Tile,” to match the upstairs bathroom) and linoleum in the kitchen (“Basic Beige” to reinforce how old and cheap this house is). So there’s not much else that needs to be done before I save the lot and put it into the upcoming Teen Valicer save file. Though I do have one last semi-major issue to fix before then...you see, when I was building the downstairs bathroom, in order to not make it absurdly long and thin, I had to build a 2x2 room directly behind it, off the kitchen. And, well, I don’t want to waste the space, but I’m really not sure what to use it for. My initial thought was to make it into a pantry of some kind, but that would be making the house more expensive while making that room purely decorative. But what else could I put in –
LAUNDRY. TURN IT INTO A LAUNDRY ROOM, VIC. IT TOTALLY MAKES SENSE FOR IT TO BE A LAUNDRY ROOM IF IT’S BEHIND THE DOWNSTAIRS BATHROOM BECAUSE THEY COULD SHARE INTERNAL PLUMBING. *facepalm* Again, I ask why I don’t have these thoughts in the moment! Hang on, I should probably write this down for the next time I play...
(Oh, and very quickly, I swung by the Valicer House in this save briefly at the start of my session to test something I vaguely remembered reading while researching the “vampire eyes no longer glowing” bug that’s affecting Smiler’s eyes – namely, that lowering the detail on Sims slightly might fix the issue. So I dropped the graphics on Sims from “Very High” to “High,” saved, reloaded, and visited their house. Sadly, this little tweak did NOT fix anything, meh. *shrug* I had to try! And I was at least able to take advantage of the opportunity to get Alice to feed poor Dogmeat a treat so he wasn’t starving anymore, poor pup. :p I may not play this family, but I don’t want them to be uncomfortable while they’re hanging out in the world!)
Writing: Got another chunk written on “The Van Dort Vacancy” this afternoon, right after my Sims 4 session! :) Covering Smiler reminding Alice that she won’t be alone after she moves to Elder Gutknecht’s – not only will Gutknecht himself be there, both they and Victor should be visiting plenty – Victor in particular because he’ll be training to be a Whisper; Victor revealing that he’s not taking Elder Gutknecht up on his offer to train him; Smiler and Alice both being like “??? Wait, we thought you were getting into this, what happened?”; Victor internally being like “oh God I am into this I want so much to learn magic and how to wrangle ghosts – but my parents, especially my mother, will never let me” and externally claiming that he just wants a normal life again; Smiler not buying this but reluctantly accepting it after a warning from Alice and some extra pleading from Victor; and Victor assuring them that he’ll still be coming over to visit so they can argue about his parents some more, which does get a laugh out of them. This page flowed pretty well for the most part, I’m pleased to say – I enjoyed writing Victor’s internal monologue about his eagerness to learn about magic and ghosts...and then the resultant rant from his internal Nell about how he can’t be seen as “weird” and how Whispers are barely better than tradesmen anyway, so no son of hers is going to become one! Poor guy, he’s been so beaten down by his parents’ expectations...good thing this story is all about freeing him from them once and for all!
YouTube: Well, the Sunday Two is down to a Sunday One now – which should make my life a tiny bit easier when it comes to recapping what I watched on Sunday night, at least. :p Anyway, tonight we had Jon of Many A True Nerd and “Fallout: London - Part 44 - Pure Cinema!” The continuing adventures of Lady Aria and Mad Jack as they –
I. Got involved in the election of the new Prime Minister! Because Aria had some very important paperwork on her person that couldn’t be delivered until someone got the job, damn it. She thus found her way to St. James Park and Bernie, the guy handing out the posters for the three major political parties: The Traditionalists, The Pragmatists, and The Reformists (aka the Tories, the Lib Dems, and Labor). He told Aria about each (the Traditionalists being dull as dishwater and terrified of change; the Pragmatists being pro a few reforms, but with a leader who was a bit of a nutter; and the Reformists being the underdogs who never ever win, bless them), and Aria decided to take the Pragmatist’s side, on the basis of they were both willing to enact at least a few changes and actually had a shot at winning. Bernie thus handed her a stack of yellow posters, and Aria went around London hanging them up in support of her new party – all while the local Cavaliers decided to shoot at her whenever she neared a poster-placement site. Jon wasn’t quite sure why they were so driven to murder by the analogue of the LIB DEMS of all parties. XD She also stopped at one point to talk to car salesman Moe, who offered her his tiny roadster Betsy for the low low price of 1,000 tickets! Aria, intrigued, managed to talk him down to 700 tickets (though he actually only took 600), received the keys –
Aaand discovered the car had an art installation instead of an engine. Forcing her to run after the fleeing Moe, confront him, and then shoot him when he pulled out a gun. Meaning that she didn’t get a new car, but she did at least get her tickets back off his corpse. And a radish. Everybody likes a radish. :p
Anyway – once that was over with, and all the posters were hung up, Aria returned to Bernie and discovered that the election results were already being broadcast (because of course only the Gentry were allowed to vote). St. James was of course counted for the Pragmatists, and that gave them the majority in Parliament and made their leader, Lynne Moors, Prime Minister! Which Mad Jack disliked, much to Jon’s surprise – though, given that Lynne, upon calling into the radio to accept the position, immediately said her first acts would be to reduce the prison population and increase the meat ration...yeah, I think Mad Jack might have legitimate reasons to dislike this woman. XD
II. Got Smythe installed as Lord Chancellor! A process that involved heading to 10 Downing St and giving the signed, sealed, and authenticated appointment to new PM Moors – who was utterly horrified by the small print that seemed to indicate that her job would soon be useless (“I won the sham election, not her!”); heading back to Smythe’s office – only to be met outside the main building by a courier with an invitation to Smythe’s swearing-in ceremony (though Aria was informed that she would be standing in the courtyard listening to the broadcast with all the other plebs instead of actually entering the building); and going to said courtyard and standing with all the other plebs to listen to Smythe officially become Lord Chancellor –
And promptly use the excuse of “there’s horrible gang warfare in the streets” (which, admittedly, there is, but still) to dissolve Parliament and declare martial law, saying that the power would return to the people only when the crisis was over. Jon was like “yup, we just murdered democracy!” Well, you’re the one who wanted to throw your hat in with the evil asshole scientists, Jon! It’s the Institute all over again!
III. Headed back to Angel and got their next assignment from Smythe (via telephone call, of course) – namely, to kick out General Asquith of the Tommies and replace him with the newly-promoted Colonel George Major. Seemed like, in the wake of Smythe’s swearing-in, Asquith decided he wasn’t going to be supporting the Gentry anymore and declared he’d only be taking orders from the Queen herself (who, if I remember some comments on an older video correctly, is a potentially non-sapient Glowing One ghoul, so – that’s a problem), so Smythe decided it was time to get someone more reliable. And who better to deliver the good news to Major and the bad news to Asquith than Aria? Aria of course accepted and took the orders promoting Major, but Jon is pretty sure that getting him charge of the Tommies is going to be a lot more difficult than delivering one piece of paper...
IV. Decided they were done with Angel business for the time being and that it was time to steal a supply train from the Syndicate for the Vagabonds! Because Jon REALLY wanted to do the train job, damn it. XD It proved to be a less-complicated-than-he-thought job, though – all Aria had to do was make her way over to the Dockland Light Rail bunker (killing some Syndicate members right outside, as word had spread she was not officially a Vagabond); take the little moving platform along the line and around to the back of Poplar station; kill the terrifying malfunctioning Robo-Margo that was roaming around (who reduced Aria’s health to such a low point that all you could see on her health bar were her RADS – it was freaky); get into the station (where she discovered that the Syndicate member in there had already been murdered by Robo-Margo) and use the terminal to stop the train; kill the Syndicate members on and around the train; then hop on the train and redirect it to the station where some waiting vagabonds were ready to unload it. Easy peasy lemon squeezy, really! Jon was like “wow, that wasn’t hard at all – guess it really goes to show how far Gaunt’s gone if he’s willing to blow up a train that is SURPRISINGLY easy to steal for the same amount of effort.”
V. Deciding they had time for at least one more job for the Vagabonds and going to tackle stealing some guns from the Syndicate arms depot before blowing it sky-high! This proved to be a slightly-more complicated job, involving Aria meeting up with Bullettooth Anthony’s old friend/probably lover Frosty Valentina (she and Aria flirted a bit via baked good puns, which Mad Jack ALSO disliked, to Jon’s deep confusion) and telling her the plan; Frosty getting Aria to gather the materials she needed to make her an access card for the depot that would shut off the automated security for a few minutes and get her inside (though it wouldn’t open any interior locks, and tripping any alarms would promptly reset it, so Aria still had to be very careful); Aria heading for the depot, set up inside an old Kinoworld Cinema, and using the access card to get in –
And finding herself face to face with a LOT of Syndicate members. Because, well, the real danger here wasn’t the security system, but all the people inside. XD Aria and Jack managed to kill the lot, though (with Aria stopping briefly to check the front desk terminal – turned out to have a list of Fallout-themed James Bond movie titles, like “Radiation Is Forever,” which amused Jon, even as he disagreed with the choice to make “Mr. Yes” the top-selling faux-Bond flick), and let in the Vagabonds waiting outside; then, when everybody had had a chance to grab what they could, they planted the bomb Gaunt gave them and fought their way out the front doors before the cinema exploded in suitably dramatic fashion. *nods* Jon was very impressed.
And that is where the episode ended, because it appears roughly 40 minutes for these is now Jon’s standard. :p Next time, Aria and Jack take on the final Vagabond task they need to complete – doing a prison break on the HMS Dredge! And, hopefully, sending it to the bottom of the Thames. *nods* Should be a fun one!
Workout: Back on the bike today, and since I’m taking a break from GrayStillPlays, I instead watched two more videos from Proxy Gate Tactician:
A) “What Happens in Baldur's Gate 3 Without A Player?” – Proxy exploring what he thinks would happen in the game world if there’s no player character to wrangle all the companions and advance all the quests – no Tav, no Durge, and nobody in charge of any of the Origin characters’ decisions. His conclusion is, in short, “Shadowheart evil path speedrun with Minthara.” XD Basically, he believes that:
I. Shadowheart would be the only Origin character to survive to the end game because she possesses the Astral Prism that grants Main Character Status (the others perishing in sad and terrible ways based on what happens to them if you don’t collect them as companions)
II. The only non-Origin companion she would get would be Minthara because she has a canonical voice line saying that it might be a good idea to save the drow when she’s sentenced to death in Moonrise Towers in Act II for her failure to take the Emerald Grove (here spared because she can’t find it before the druids’ ritual to seal it is complete if you don’t tell her where it is)
III. She would be so focused on finding a healer to cure the tadpole infection and (especially after learning she’s actually protected by the dream visitor from being turned into a mind flayer) completing her original mission to get the Prism to Baldur’s Gate that she would skip most of the sidequests along the path
IV. Without a player to get her to start questioning her faith, she’d stay loyal to Shar, slay the Nightsong, become a Dark Justicar, and take control of the cult upon arriving at Baldur’s Gate, thus becoming the evilest version of herself.
V. Even despite all this, she would still save the world from the Absolute (teaming up with the Emperor to do so), but it would be a very near victory thanks to her lack of allies (and let me tell you, the only reason she isn’t totally underleveled for the fight is the wealth of XP one gets in Act III of the game) – AND, of course, since she goes the most evil path, Baldur’s Gate starts slowly but surely becoming a Sharran cult stronghold after her victory. Oh, and because all of the Origin characters are extremely horny all the time, she’d end up in a loving evil relationship with Minthara. XD Sounds legit, if fairly sad, to me!
B) “Busting Myths In Baldur's Gate 3” – Proxy testing out some popular myths about the game to see if they’re true or false! In order, we had:
I. Does destroying a chest destroy the loot inside? Nope – you can smash them open to your heart’s content, and as long as there’s no explosive traps, your loot will be there waiting for you on the ground.
II. Are Mage Hands incapable of picking up items? MOSTLY – there’s a few special weapons that a Mage Hand can pick up and even use, but they’ll be lost forever if the Mage Hand dies or disappears while wielding them, so it’s not really worth it.
III. Is the Everburn Blade you can get if you can beat the devil using it on the Nautiloid an OP weapon for Act I? Not really – if you have a greatsword, you can just dip it in any burning substance to get the same effect, and – if you’re really good at getting people to drop their weapons via Command – you can get an even BETTER greatsword off the githyanki Voss not too long into Act I.
IV. Do you get more XP from passing a dialogue check to avoid a fight, then killing the targets anyway, than from just a straight-up fight? Most of the time no (killing the enemies after passing the check yields no XP from the kills), but there’s a couple of encounters (like saving Barcus Wroot from the goblins who have him tied to a windmill) which will yield a bit more XP – and at the time Proxy recorded this, there was a bug where you could do the dialogue check, save the game, reload the game, then kill the NPCs and get full XP. Hell, you could get even MORE XP by knocking the enemies out, saving and reloading the game again, and then killing them! (This exploit has since been patched though).
V. And can your attacks hit an invisible target if you know roughly where they are? Mostly – ranged attacks, spells, and certain special melee attacks can hit, but regular melee attacks always miss.
*nods* Interesting stuff! I look forward to watching his other mythbusting videos. :)
Aaaand PMS brain distraction means that all took WAY longer than it should have and it's nearly 2 AM and I should REALLY go to bed. *facepalm* We'll see what happens tomorrow with mini-golf -- MY only plans are to work some more on some of my other Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) drafts, keep editing Chapter 5 of "Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland," watch some more CaFae Latte, and get in a workout. Night all!
Tumblr: Had a productive day on half the tumbls – while there was nothing happening again on Valice Multiverse, I accomplished two major things of note over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), and learned one important fact:
A) Accomplishment #1: I spent my pre-lunch “working on drafts” time going over and updating the “How To Write Smiler Alton: A Guide” post that will be going out for public consumption later this week, because I wanted to make sure I’d covered everything and that it was in the best possible condition (also because, thanks to the PMS brain, I was having trouble concentrating this morning and felt it best to work on something I’d already pretty much finished). Specifically –
I. I went through and updated my phrasing in a few spots, because I can never pass up a chance to tinker with my wording
II. I added links to my tags for some of the AUs I mentioned in the “Cheerful” section (where I went through the three levels of cheer any given Smiler can have depending on their situation in their given AU)
III. I updated the section on Mar-Mal (the eldritch god of happiness OC I have that goes along with Smiler) to further clarify that they’re not usually the same person as Smiler – and that, when they are, they’ve generally been traumatized by having accidentally killed people by trying to make them supernaturally happy (generally in a case of “the outer god did not realize that humans needed hunger to know when to eat and accidentally caused their followers to starve by taking it away”), so they’re not as happy as you’d think they’d be (because I imagine most people would assume the Literal God Of Happiness would be the Ultimate High Cheerful Smiler, but – yeah, not really the case!)
IV. I added a whole paragraph about how you shouldn’t “disrespect their craft” (chemistry/alchemy/general drink-making) to the “Intelligent” section – mostly because I couldn’t resist the urge to write about how VITD hates the BG3 alchemy system because it’s one specific ingredient and one more generic one (“that’s not how it works!”) XD Though I do think all Smilers get annoyed at sloppy chemistry/alchemy, and being told they don’t know what they’re doing when they KNOW they do, so it’s justified
V. I added a bit to the end of “Kind” section saying that, while Smiler is a nice person and will do a lot to help people be happier, taking advantage of them is NOT a good idea because they DO have limits – and their own Charismatic nature means they’re better at sniffing out when they’re being manipulated
VI. And I updated the “Universal Headcanons” section by noting that I WILL find ways to make sure they have their signature glowing yellow eyes and purple-tipped black hair at least part of the time (like in Wonderland for a Victorian-era AU), even if it doesn’t necessarily make sense for the AU (because I can’t imagine them with normal eye and hair colors, damn it)
So NOW this post should be fully done and dusted and I can stick it into my queue for – let’s say Friday, since Smiler’s birthday is Saturday – a little later this week!
B) Accomplishment #2: I reblogged Songthursh and Stupidlynx’s beautiful “Glorious 25th of May” Discworld fan art tonight, because, well, 25th of May (it’s a very important date in everyone’s favorite Discworld book, Night Watch – they did the meeting in the cemetery between Vimes and Vetinari at the end, and it is lovely)
C) Important Fact Learned: the results of my “what do I do with Tav!Smiler” poll! I never did get more than the two votes, but again, I was really worried the poll would be ignored ENTIRELY, so I will take two people wanting to give me their opinion! And those two people ALMOST agreed on what I should do, as both of them voted for one of the “Bardlock, Just Do A Lot Of Alchemy” options –
But one (my friend Squid) voted for the Entertainer background, and the other (unknown) voted for the Guild Artisan background. Hmmm. So it seems I still have a decision to make! I shall have to check the “inspiring events” list for each background and decide which I feel is more Smiler! A project for tomorrow, perhaps...
Sims 4: So, no mini-golf today meant that I actually had time for some gaming this afternoon – but, since I’d mentally prepared to be out and about today, it took me a while to figure out exactly what the hell I wanted to play. I didn’t want to break out Fallout 4 because I wanted to keep working on “The Van Dort Vacancy” (and playing FO4 always leads to me having to update the FO4 Playthrough Progression doc); I didn’t want to do anything with Baldur’s Gate III because I felt I needed more time to design my Hopefully Final Tav!Smiler (for example, figuring out their background, as per the above) and lock down the mods I wanted for my Hopefully Final Attempt At A Playthrough; and I didn’t feel like firing up Unpacking or Untitled Goose Game because I’ve played through both twice and feel like I’ve done everything possible in them. And while I was briefly tempted by Superliminal, because I haven’t found all the secrets in that game yet (there’s apparently tons of collectibles to hunt down in there), I eventually decided, “You know what? I want to fire up my building save in Sims 4 and do a little more work on Town Square Terrace – see if I can put that idea I had about adding hallways and a proper stairwell into the house into action.” So that’s what I did! How did it go?
Pretty well, actually! I didn’t even have to fiddle around with it that much – I just loaded up the lot, dumped all the downstairs furniture outside, removed all the downstairs internal walls, made the entire first floor the same wooden planking throughout (after my first attempt to build the hallway ended up in me just automatically following the dividing line between the living room planking and the kitchen tile without any regard for whether or not that was a good place to put the wall), and started building! While moving windows around to try and stop them getting deleted, and adding lights to I could see what the hell I was doing. XD Ended up with a two-wide central hallway running the width of the house downstairs, with the front entrance and the living room at the front of the house (natch) on one side, and the kitchen, downstairs bathroom, and one-tile-wide stairwell running up the left wall at the back of the house on the other. And then, upstairs, after fencing off the hole for the stairs, I created a simple landing area/hallway with three 4x5 (or 5x4? not sure which number should come first) bedrooms running along it on the right, and the old upstairs bathroom at the end. *nods* It’s probably not the world’s most perfect layout, but it’s functional – and it means Alice, Victor, and Smiler all get their own equally-sized bedroom upstairs! I even made sure each one had two windows for adequate natural light (though admittedly, this did make the window placement in the middle bedroom, where they had to go the same wall, look a little weird from the outside – we shall roll with it, though).
So yeah – basic layout of the “Teen Valicer Boarding House” is pretty much done now, yay! I’ve got all the furniture back in the house; added all the necessary archways and doors around the place; painted some walls in the living room and front foyer (have to decide on the color scheme for the rest of the house – not really digging the orange that was in the kitchen before); and laid down some tile in the downstairs bathroom (“Sparking Speckled Tile,” to match the upstairs bathroom) and linoleum in the kitchen (“Basic Beige” to reinforce how old and cheap this house is). So there’s not much else that needs to be done before I save the lot and put it into the upcoming Teen Valicer save file. Though I do have one last semi-major issue to fix before then...you see, when I was building the downstairs bathroom, in order to not make it absurdly long and thin, I had to build a 2x2 room directly behind it, off the kitchen. And, well, I don’t want to waste the space, but I’m really not sure what to use it for. My initial thought was to make it into a pantry of some kind, but that would be making the house more expensive while making that room purely decorative. But what else could I put in –
LAUNDRY. TURN IT INTO A LAUNDRY ROOM, VIC. IT TOTALLY MAKES SENSE FOR IT TO BE A LAUNDRY ROOM IF IT’S BEHIND THE DOWNSTAIRS BATHROOM BECAUSE THEY COULD SHARE INTERNAL PLUMBING. *facepalm* Again, I ask why I don’t have these thoughts in the moment! Hang on, I should probably write this down for the next time I play...
(Oh, and very quickly, I swung by the Valicer House in this save briefly at the start of my session to test something I vaguely remembered reading while researching the “vampire eyes no longer glowing” bug that’s affecting Smiler’s eyes – namely, that lowering the detail on Sims slightly might fix the issue. So I dropped the graphics on Sims from “Very High” to “High,” saved, reloaded, and visited their house. Sadly, this little tweak did NOT fix anything, meh. *shrug* I had to try! And I was at least able to take advantage of the opportunity to get Alice to feed poor Dogmeat a treat so he wasn’t starving anymore, poor pup. :p I may not play this family, but I don’t want them to be uncomfortable while they’re hanging out in the world!)
Writing: Got another chunk written on “The Van Dort Vacancy” this afternoon, right after my Sims 4 session! :) Covering Smiler reminding Alice that she won’t be alone after she moves to Elder Gutknecht’s – not only will Gutknecht himself be there, both they and Victor should be visiting plenty – Victor in particular because he’ll be training to be a Whisper; Victor revealing that he’s not taking Elder Gutknecht up on his offer to train him; Smiler and Alice both being like “??? Wait, we thought you were getting into this, what happened?”; Victor internally being like “oh God I am into this I want so much to learn magic and how to wrangle ghosts – but my parents, especially my mother, will never let me” and externally claiming that he just wants a normal life again; Smiler not buying this but reluctantly accepting it after a warning from Alice and some extra pleading from Victor; and Victor assuring them that he’ll still be coming over to visit so they can argue about his parents some more, which does get a laugh out of them. This page flowed pretty well for the most part, I’m pleased to say – I enjoyed writing Victor’s internal monologue about his eagerness to learn about magic and ghosts...and then the resultant rant from his internal Nell about how he can’t be seen as “weird” and how Whispers are barely better than tradesmen anyway, so no son of hers is going to become one! Poor guy, he’s been so beaten down by his parents’ expectations...good thing this story is all about freeing him from them once and for all!
YouTube: Well, the Sunday Two is down to a Sunday One now – which should make my life a tiny bit easier when it comes to recapping what I watched on Sunday night, at least. :p Anyway, tonight we had Jon of Many A True Nerd and “Fallout: London - Part 44 - Pure Cinema!” The continuing adventures of Lady Aria and Mad Jack as they –
I. Got involved in the election of the new Prime Minister! Because Aria had some very important paperwork on her person that couldn’t be delivered until someone got the job, damn it. She thus found her way to St. James Park and Bernie, the guy handing out the posters for the three major political parties: The Traditionalists, The Pragmatists, and The Reformists (aka the Tories, the Lib Dems, and Labor). He told Aria about each (the Traditionalists being dull as dishwater and terrified of change; the Pragmatists being pro a few reforms, but with a leader who was a bit of a nutter; and the Reformists being the underdogs who never ever win, bless them), and Aria decided to take the Pragmatist’s side, on the basis of they were both willing to enact at least a few changes and actually had a shot at winning. Bernie thus handed her a stack of yellow posters, and Aria went around London hanging them up in support of her new party – all while the local Cavaliers decided to shoot at her whenever she neared a poster-placement site. Jon wasn’t quite sure why they were so driven to murder by the analogue of the LIB DEMS of all parties. XD She also stopped at one point to talk to car salesman Moe, who offered her his tiny roadster Betsy for the low low price of 1,000 tickets! Aria, intrigued, managed to talk him down to 700 tickets (though he actually only took 600), received the keys –
Aaand discovered the car had an art installation instead of an engine. Forcing her to run after the fleeing Moe, confront him, and then shoot him when he pulled out a gun. Meaning that she didn’t get a new car, but she did at least get her tickets back off his corpse. And a radish. Everybody likes a radish. :p
Anyway – once that was over with, and all the posters were hung up, Aria returned to Bernie and discovered that the election results were already being broadcast (because of course only the Gentry were allowed to vote). St. James was of course counted for the Pragmatists, and that gave them the majority in Parliament and made their leader, Lynne Moors, Prime Minister! Which Mad Jack disliked, much to Jon’s surprise – though, given that Lynne, upon calling into the radio to accept the position, immediately said her first acts would be to reduce the prison population and increase the meat ration...yeah, I think Mad Jack might have legitimate reasons to dislike this woman. XD
II. Got Smythe installed as Lord Chancellor! A process that involved heading to 10 Downing St and giving the signed, sealed, and authenticated appointment to new PM Moors – who was utterly horrified by the small print that seemed to indicate that her job would soon be useless (“I won the sham election, not her!”); heading back to Smythe’s office – only to be met outside the main building by a courier with an invitation to Smythe’s swearing-in ceremony (though Aria was informed that she would be standing in the courtyard listening to the broadcast with all the other plebs instead of actually entering the building); and going to said courtyard and standing with all the other plebs to listen to Smythe officially become Lord Chancellor –
And promptly use the excuse of “there’s horrible gang warfare in the streets” (which, admittedly, there is, but still) to dissolve Parliament and declare martial law, saying that the power would return to the people only when the crisis was over. Jon was like “yup, we just murdered democracy!” Well, you’re the one who wanted to throw your hat in with the evil asshole scientists, Jon! It’s the Institute all over again!
III. Headed back to Angel and got their next assignment from Smythe (via telephone call, of course) – namely, to kick out General Asquith of the Tommies and replace him with the newly-promoted Colonel George Major. Seemed like, in the wake of Smythe’s swearing-in, Asquith decided he wasn’t going to be supporting the Gentry anymore and declared he’d only be taking orders from the Queen herself (who, if I remember some comments on an older video correctly, is a potentially non-sapient Glowing One ghoul, so – that’s a problem), so Smythe decided it was time to get someone more reliable. And who better to deliver the good news to Major and the bad news to Asquith than Aria? Aria of course accepted and took the orders promoting Major, but Jon is pretty sure that getting him charge of the Tommies is going to be a lot more difficult than delivering one piece of paper...
IV. Decided they were done with Angel business for the time being and that it was time to steal a supply train from the Syndicate for the Vagabonds! Because Jon REALLY wanted to do the train job, damn it. XD It proved to be a less-complicated-than-he-thought job, though – all Aria had to do was make her way over to the Dockland Light Rail bunker (killing some Syndicate members right outside, as word had spread she was not officially a Vagabond); take the little moving platform along the line and around to the back of Poplar station; kill the terrifying malfunctioning Robo-Margo that was roaming around (who reduced Aria’s health to such a low point that all you could see on her health bar were her RADS – it was freaky); get into the station (where she discovered that the Syndicate member in there had already been murdered by Robo-Margo) and use the terminal to stop the train; kill the Syndicate members on and around the train; then hop on the train and redirect it to the station where some waiting vagabonds were ready to unload it. Easy peasy lemon squeezy, really! Jon was like “wow, that wasn’t hard at all – guess it really goes to show how far Gaunt’s gone if he’s willing to blow up a train that is SURPRISINGLY easy to steal for the same amount of effort.”
V. Deciding they had time for at least one more job for the Vagabonds and going to tackle stealing some guns from the Syndicate arms depot before blowing it sky-high! This proved to be a slightly-more complicated job, involving Aria meeting up with Bullettooth Anthony’s old friend/probably lover Frosty Valentina (she and Aria flirted a bit via baked good puns, which Mad Jack ALSO disliked, to Jon’s deep confusion) and telling her the plan; Frosty getting Aria to gather the materials she needed to make her an access card for the depot that would shut off the automated security for a few minutes and get her inside (though it wouldn’t open any interior locks, and tripping any alarms would promptly reset it, so Aria still had to be very careful); Aria heading for the depot, set up inside an old Kinoworld Cinema, and using the access card to get in –
And finding herself face to face with a LOT of Syndicate members. Because, well, the real danger here wasn’t the security system, but all the people inside. XD Aria and Jack managed to kill the lot, though (with Aria stopping briefly to check the front desk terminal – turned out to have a list of Fallout-themed James Bond movie titles, like “Radiation Is Forever,” which amused Jon, even as he disagreed with the choice to make “Mr. Yes” the top-selling faux-Bond flick), and let in the Vagabonds waiting outside; then, when everybody had had a chance to grab what they could, they planted the bomb Gaunt gave them and fought their way out the front doors before the cinema exploded in suitably dramatic fashion. *nods* Jon was very impressed.
And that is where the episode ended, because it appears roughly 40 minutes for these is now Jon’s standard. :p Next time, Aria and Jack take on the final Vagabond task they need to complete – doing a prison break on the HMS Dredge! And, hopefully, sending it to the bottom of the Thames. *nods* Should be a fun one!
Workout: Back on the bike today, and since I’m taking a break from GrayStillPlays, I instead watched two more videos from Proxy Gate Tactician:
A) “What Happens in Baldur's Gate 3 Without A Player?” – Proxy exploring what he thinks would happen in the game world if there’s no player character to wrangle all the companions and advance all the quests – no Tav, no Durge, and nobody in charge of any of the Origin characters’ decisions. His conclusion is, in short, “Shadowheart evil path speedrun with Minthara.” XD Basically, he believes that:
I. Shadowheart would be the only Origin character to survive to the end game because she possesses the Astral Prism that grants Main Character Status (the others perishing in sad and terrible ways based on what happens to them if you don’t collect them as companions)
II. The only non-Origin companion she would get would be Minthara because she has a canonical voice line saying that it might be a good idea to save the drow when she’s sentenced to death in Moonrise Towers in Act II for her failure to take the Emerald Grove (here spared because she can’t find it before the druids’ ritual to seal it is complete if you don’t tell her where it is)
III. She would be so focused on finding a healer to cure the tadpole infection and (especially after learning she’s actually protected by the dream visitor from being turned into a mind flayer) completing her original mission to get the Prism to Baldur’s Gate that she would skip most of the sidequests along the path
IV. Without a player to get her to start questioning her faith, she’d stay loyal to Shar, slay the Nightsong, become a Dark Justicar, and take control of the cult upon arriving at Baldur’s Gate, thus becoming the evilest version of herself.
V. Even despite all this, she would still save the world from the Absolute (teaming up with the Emperor to do so), but it would be a very near victory thanks to her lack of allies (and let me tell you, the only reason she isn’t totally underleveled for the fight is the wealth of XP one gets in Act III of the game) – AND, of course, since she goes the most evil path, Baldur’s Gate starts slowly but surely becoming a Sharran cult stronghold after her victory. Oh, and because all of the Origin characters are extremely horny all the time, she’d end up in a loving evil relationship with Minthara. XD Sounds legit, if fairly sad, to me!
B) “Busting Myths In Baldur's Gate 3” – Proxy testing out some popular myths about the game to see if they’re true or false! In order, we had:
I. Does destroying a chest destroy the loot inside? Nope – you can smash them open to your heart’s content, and as long as there’s no explosive traps, your loot will be there waiting for you on the ground.
II. Are Mage Hands incapable of picking up items? MOSTLY – there’s a few special weapons that a Mage Hand can pick up and even use, but they’ll be lost forever if the Mage Hand dies or disappears while wielding them, so it’s not really worth it.
III. Is the Everburn Blade you can get if you can beat the devil using it on the Nautiloid an OP weapon for Act I? Not really – if you have a greatsword, you can just dip it in any burning substance to get the same effect, and – if you’re really good at getting people to drop their weapons via Command – you can get an even BETTER greatsword off the githyanki Voss not too long into Act I.
IV. Do you get more XP from passing a dialogue check to avoid a fight, then killing the targets anyway, than from just a straight-up fight? Most of the time no (killing the enemies after passing the check yields no XP from the kills), but there’s a couple of encounters (like saving Barcus Wroot from the goblins who have him tied to a windmill) which will yield a bit more XP – and at the time Proxy recorded this, there was a bug where you could do the dialogue check, save the game, reload the game, then kill the NPCs and get full XP. Hell, you could get even MORE XP by knocking the enemies out, saving and reloading the game again, and then killing them! (This exploit has since been patched though).
V. And can your attacks hit an invisible target if you know roughly where they are? Mostly – ranged attacks, spells, and certain special melee attacks can hit, but regular melee attacks always miss.
*nods* Interesting stuff! I look forward to watching his other mythbusting videos. :)
Aaaand PMS brain distraction means that all took WAY longer than it should have and it's nearly 2 AM and I should REALLY go to bed. *facepalm* We'll see what happens tomorrow with mini-golf -- MY only plans are to work some more on some of my other Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) drafts, keep editing Chapter 5 of "Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland," watch some more CaFae Latte, and get in a workout. Night all!
