Not The Most Productive Sunday
Feb. 2nd, 2025 11:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickI mean, it was a REASONABLY productive Sunday -- I got some good work done on tumblr, played my new game, and kept up with my workout and my YouTubery -- but I didn't get any writing done, nor did I get a start on Moose's messages. *grimace* Sorry Moose! Tomorrow for sure! In the meantime, though, here's the lowdown on what I did accomplish --
Tumblr: Well, it was another day of nothing happening on Valice Multiverse, but I’m very pleased to report I made some good progress over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) in regards to the upcoming Valicertine’s Day stuff –
A) First of all, I managed to finish off my “Valicer Not-Incorrect Quotes Valentine’s Day Edition” post – updating some wording here and there; tweaking the scene where Alice gives Victor a stuffed dragon so instead of giving him the “Faust” silver dragon from Douglas Toys that I own, she gives him the “Aragon” blue variant instead, since I’d already established that Victor’s fantasies of having a dragon friend as a kid revolved around the legendary dragon “Blue Ben” from Klive; and writing up the final scene where Smiler and Alice, talking about Victor’s gifts to them and how they’d like a touch of extra reassurance he liked their much-less-expensive gifts to him, catch him putting his new dragon friend “Benny” on his desk in such a way that it looks like it’s playing his piano-phone, beaming all the while. :) So that’s all sorted now, yay!
B) And second, I redid my first Valicertine for this year (as I wasn’t quite happy with the original version and wanted it to match the 2024 Valicertine it’s a sequel to a little better – it’s the same picture, just tweaked text) AND made up a second – a sequel to one of the original 2023 Valicertines, with Victor, Alice, and Smiler dancing and the caption “Yup – two years on, and you two still give me…ideas.” XD So now I’ve got two out of three – and looking at my collected screenshots from the Chill Valicer Save, I might already have an idea for the third...
Baldur’s Gate III: Got back to Faerun today, with Smiler doing a little more exploring, finding a new party member, and visiting their new camp for the first time –
A) Started with Smiler hanging out with Shadowheart and Astarion where I’d left them – after exploring the general area for a bit, looking for anything of interest (and wondering if I wanted to do anything with the scared boar that Astarion had pretended was an intellect devourer – with no way to cast “Speak With Animals” yet, though, I decided to hold off), I had them head back inside the wreckage of the Nautiloid to search for corpses with goodies, and that one hurt mind flayer that’s looking for a brain to eat. A little searching turned up a dead mind flayer a little up and to the left of the “arena” area where Smiler and Shadowheart had fought the intellect devourers, with a couple of spiked bulbs and a Potion of Healing on it, which Smiler happily took. I then saw that mind flayer up on the ledge over the arena that I didn’t think I could access before, and tried to come up on it from the new angle –
And discovered in the process that Smiler can climb onto ledges! They were able to hoist themselves up onto the platform no problem once they got close enough. Which – seems obvious now that I think about (I already knew Smiler could climb ladders and other makeshift climbing walls), but I’m so used to games now where my character can JUMP, but not grab a ledge and pull themselves onto it, that it just didn’t occur to me that Smiler might be able to do that. XD Anyway, they were able to get a nice caustic bulb (full of acidy acid stuff) off that corpse, then headed back the way they’d come to a big open area just past the other dead mind flayer –
B) Where they did indeed find that one hurt mind flayer that I was looking for! I did a quicksave for safety, then had Smiler approach. To their confusion, when they looked at the wretched beast, instead of fury, they felt compassion for it. Examining their feelings allowed them to realize that the mind flayer was in their head, trying to compel them into obedience. Smiler resisted the false compassion, then attempted to probe its thoughts in turn when its attention slipped a little (maybe trying to access Shadowheart’s or Astarion’s brains too?). They just barely made the DC 10 Intelligence check (thanks to some help from Shadowheart’s “Guidance” cantrip), but didn’t actually learn much, only that it was desperate for something – right before it turned its attention back on Smiler and tried to force them back into obedience. Specifically, into bowing their head so it could snack on their brain to stay alive. Smiler resisted with all they had, and got a 21 on the DC 5 Wisdom check (again, with Shadowheart’s help), easily breaking free of the compulsion before stomping on the mind flayer’s head to end its life. And then they searched its pockets and relieved it of a Potion of Speed and two more void bulbs. XD Well, you did try to lure Smiler into a nonstandard game over, monster!
C) With the mind flayer taken care of, Smiler and their companions headed out of the Nautiloid through the hole at the top of the room, and around the side, following a little path. They stopped to loot some dead goblins along the way (picking up ANOTHER Potion of Healing, a random bone, and a supply pack with food for the night), then came across a strangely unstable magical sigil on a rock, with what looked like some sort of portal within. A curious Smiler poked the portal and got zapped – then started as a hand came out of it, with a voice asking Smiler if they could give him a hand.
...naturally I had to pick the “slap hand” option. :D The owner of the hand was like “sorry, should have clarified, a HELPING HAND.” XD Smiler asked who he was, and he replied that he was just “your average traveler stuck between realms” and that he’d explain more once Smiler got him out. Smiler thus called upon their magical skill as a bard to try and attune to the sigil and get it to calm down – and with a little more help from Shadowheart’s “Guidance,” they were able to get a 13 on the resultant DC 7 Charisma check, chill out the magical energies –
And yank out of the portal none other than Gale of Waterdeep! He introduced himself and apologized, saying he was normally better at this – Smiler was like “at introductions?” XD Gale clarified “at magic,” then commented that he recognized Smiler as a fellow abductee from the Nautiloid. Smiler was like “never mind about that, how did you noclip out of reality,” and Gale explained that it was an accident – he felt the sigil’s magic while he was falling from the crashing ship, reached out with a “Weaving of words,” and – well, the spell didn’t go quite the way he expected. XD He asked Smiler how they had survived the crash – and while I was tempted to have Smiler go “oh, I took control of the ship, landed it safely, and saved everyone,” I decided to submit to the reality burning all around them and had them admit they had no clue. XD Gale then brought up the whole “you know we’re all infected with mind flayer parasites that will transform us sooner rather than later” problem and asked if Smiler might be one of the few who could solve the issue – Smiler said that they knew basic first aid from their career as a bard (no, seriously, the dialogue option was labeled as “Bard”), but alien parasites were beyond them, sadly. They were only too happy to let Gale join the party when he suggested teaming up to deal with the problem together, though, with Gale cheerfully proclaiming that “a parasite shared is a parasite halved” – aka the line that inspired the title of “A Murder Shared Is A Murder Thirded.” XD
And so we picked up a fourth member for our little band of heroes! And of course, upon joining, Gale got a nice little level up. For the curious, Gale is a Wizard of the Evocation subclass, with the “Evocation Savant” (meaning he learns those kinds of spells from scrolls for less (only having to pay 25 gold instead of 50)) and “Sculpt Spells” (meaning his allies automatically make their saving throws if they end up in the path of any of his spells) features. Leveling up got him two new spells to add to his spellbook – after going through the options, I chose to have him pick up “Magic Missile” (good solid attack spell, never misses...unlike the “Jim’s” variant that was also available, which can apparently literally blow up in your face and whose description of the missiles being “gluten-free” made me laugh) and “Chromatic Orb” (which looks like it can do some serious damage if you’re lucky on the attack rolls) as his new spells. They’ll be good in a fight AND they’re from his chosen favored class of magic, so yay! Once he was all sorted, I returned to the wilderness, made sure the spells were “prepared” (so Gale would be ready to cast them when necessary) –
C) And then headed to camp, since I figured everyone would be ready for a little rest around this point! And I was ready to get the nice Digital Deluxe goodies out of the Traveler’s Chest there. :) After checking out the little lean-to near where Smiler had spawned into camp (as player characters don’t get their own proper tent, for some reason, I decided this must be Smiler’s sad little home away from home) and determining that a stack of books inside it that acted like a container had nothing interesting in it, I had Smiler head over to Shadowheart’s tent on the way over to the Traveler’s Chest to say hello and ask her a bit about herself. She was cagey, asking why they couldn’t have a bit of mystery – Smiler responded “okay, if you don’t want to talk about it, I won’t press,” which she appreciated. They then asked what she thought about the tadpoles stuck in their heads – she was like “must I have thoughts on them? We just need to get them out of our skulls,” which, fair enough! They then asked what she planned to do once they did get rid of them, and she explained she’d head home to Baldur’s Gate, as she had someone to meet there – a “very personal, very private acquaintance,” as she put it when Smiler was like “Friend? Family? Lover?” (Which really does make it sound like the latter, Shadowheart.) They then tried to ask about the artefact she carried, but she shut that line of questioning down quickly too, going “nope, you’re not entitled to that story, try to forget you ever saw it.” Sorry, Shadowheart, but as that artefact is basically the most plot-important thing in the game, nothing doing. XD
D) However, Smiler was happy enough to leave her be for now, as the big old yellow Traveler’s Chest was right beside her! They promptly popped it open and beheld the goodies within – even MORE Faerun Dyes from that one mod; a Mask Of The Shapeshifter (a special helmet that allows you to cast an Illusion spell); a clothing chest with the Cape of the Red Prince, the Lute of the Merryweather Bard, the Bicorn of the Sea Beast, and the Needle (aka fancy dagger) of the Outlaw Rogue; a Bewildering Adventurer’s Pack with loads of food, an Elixir of Giant Strength, and Potions of Animal Speaking, Flying, Mind Reading, and Feather Fall; and five Drake General dyes. Very nice selection of stuff! I took the Mask, the stuff in the clothing chest, the supplies in the Bewildering Pack, and – after taking a moment to figure it out – the Bewildering Pack itself, as I’m considering that Smiler’s “personal backpack.” :) I mean, they’re the main character, they may as well get the fun backpack!
With goodies thus fetched, I then had Smiler go and chat with Astarion and Gale to see what they had to say for themselves. Astarion didn’t chat much – just commenting that he wasn’t particularly impressed with Gale’s first impression as “a wizard who got stuck in his own portal” and telling Smiler that he was a magistrate back in the city, it was all rather boring, when Smiler asked him about himself – but Gale immediately was like “I know that touch of magic in your fingertips – you’re a fellow wizard, aren’t you?” I was like “technically an artificer, but that’s a custom class with no dialogue options of its own, so yeah, Smiler’s a wizard.” XD Gale then asked how well-read Smiler was – Smiler was like “I’m no slouch, but I’m no Khelben Blackstaff either,” to which Gale replied derisively “don’t compare yourself to that idiot, he’s always dying.” XD At any rate, he confirmed with Smiler that an appropriately-powerful sage could help them a lot, and that if they found any elder wizards, to tell him, as he had a matter of importance that he needed advice on. I think you’ll find the elder wizards will find YOU later, Gale. :p Anyway, Smiler then took a moment to check around the campsite for any last-minute goodies (including near the ruin that holds the appearance-altering Magic Mirror) –
E) And then I…attempted to transfer a few things between everyone’s inventories. Which did not go particularly smoothly, as I kept trying to drag stuff between people, only for the wrong thing to get dragged, or something to get equipped on the wrong person, or things to get used that I didn’t want used – Smiler I think drank two healing potions when I didn’t intend them to. (I mean, they WERE slightly hurt, but the first potion took care of that easily, so the second potion was just a total waste, sadly.) I eventually figured out how to do what I wanted to do, though, and distributed around the health potions (with Smiler, Astarion, and Gale each getting three, and Shadowheart two – to be fair, she’s the one with the healing spells right now, so…), along with handing the Needle of the Outlaw Rogue, a couple of void bulbs, and the ignoble hat over to Astarion. He’s the party rogue, so he should have the nicest dagger – and the hat looks better on him than it did on Smiler, that’s for sure. XD (Though I think I want to dye it, if possible – the green doesn’t really suit Astarion’s look.)
Anyway, once I finally had the party’s inventories sorted, it was time to clean up Smiler’s own personal inventory! I started by putting the perfumed letter and the Shanties of the Bitch Queen book into the stack of books in the lean-to, then had Smiler equip their new fancy Lute of the Merryweather Bard and head over to the Traveler’s Chest to drop off the stuff that wasn’t reading material. They took a moment to put all their potions and elixirs, along with a couple of bottles of water, their thieves’ tools, and their gold into their new Bewildering Adventurer’s Pack, then dropped the camp supplies pack, a skull, a bone, the two minds they’d picked up on the Natuloid, their spare lute and drum, and the dyes from the Nautiloid’s “tutorial chest” into the Traveler’s Chest. *thumbs up* That’ll save on some weight!
F) However – when I was moving over the dyes, I realized something. I had been a little nervous to use the yellow-and-black “Amaunator” dye that I got this whole pack of custom dyes for when I picked it up in the tutorial chest, for fear of using it up on a piece of armor that Smiler would probably soon be trading out. But with the second set of dyes in the Traveler’s Chest, I now had a spare bottle. So, after a little bit of fumbling around (and getting annoyed with how opening up sub-windows to do things like dyeing clothing can get hidden when you open up a character’s inventory to, you know, GET THE THING THAT NEEDS DYEING), I figured out how to dye Smiler’s bard jerkin –
And was very pleased with the results! :D The bard jerkin looks a lot better in yellow and black, let me tell you – in fact, let me SHOW you:
Not bad, eh? Certainly on-brand for The Smiler’s theme. :) Though I guess I need to dye the boots as well to match...which is something I can do, because it looks like these dyes are NOT used up when you initially dye something! :D Hooray! Dyed clothes for everybody! XD
Next time, that is, because it was around that time that I realized I had to get off if I had any hope of getting this write-up done before my workout. XD But yes, Smiler now has a full party of new friends; a nice new backpack to store their stuff in; and some clothes that properly fit their theme. :) Next time – well, if I DON’T just spend all my time dyeing everyone’s clothes, I’ll see if I can at least get to where I ended up quitting last time – past the initial fight in the ruins where you find Withers, the party resurrectionist/secret god. Really like to see if I can get past that and to the rest of the game this time around! (Though I guess this might depend a BIT on when the upcoming Patch 8 actually arrives...)
YouTube: Got to it late again, but I did successfully keep up with my usual Sunday Two –
A) First up, we had GrayStillPlays and “When fake news ruins America,” aka the Sunday Happy Wheels video! Best boards of the night were the opening bottle flip, which saw Gray bottle-flipping the AXES he kept spawning into the area, winning via the Ball Fall of Dismemberment, and finally Touching Grass (barely – his bottle was only JUST in the slot); a very nice recreation of the Google Dinosaur game by MAXIMPIG (controlled by a floating Nixon); a pretty damn difficult snowball dodge (Gray died a lot of times in that box, and even when he won he lost a leg); a bike ride in the sky that involved knowing just how to come off the big hill to win, and where to sneak through the floor to get the secret win (made by “Graysenemy,” which deeply amused Gray); a fairly involved prison break that involved a lot of clicking to get the items he needed to escape (not helped by the art style being a littttle jank); and the Dylan Snider board of the week, featuring Florida Man needing to fly Trump to the White House without letting him drown in a flood or get stabbed by a giant colon of needles in the sky (there was the option to let him die and head off by yourself, but unfortunately that led to the “going to prison” ending instead of the “getting a medal” ending). Good stuff, as always – these Happy Wheels folks are a creative lot, as I have said before and will say again!
B) And second up, we had Jon of Many A True Nerd and “Fallout: London - Part 28 - The Glitch's Prophecy!” The continuing adventures of Lady Aria and Kiera in Hackney as they attempted to sort out the very Shakespearean mess that was the “Prince Pete Problem” (aka “the leader of the Roundels is too hopped up on drugs and grieving his brother to sign Aria’s petition to get into Parliament”). Unfortunately, things did not go smoothly at all in this regard –
I. First, Aria went to see Manchester Mike, the dude supplying Pete with his chems, at his little base in Maab House to see what his plan was for fixing the Problem (even though she didn’t trust him as, again, he was the one supplying the chems). Turns out, though, Mike actually felt bad about dosing up Pete (even as he argued that he at least was making sure Pete wasn’t overdosing) and wanted to get him clean again! He even had a plan on how to do it – spirit Pete away and hide him in a safehouse for a while while they helped him detox. He’d found an appropriate safehouse up the road, but needed Aria to scope it out and make sure it was safe and had the stuff they needed – namely, a sturdy door to keep Pete from escaping, a cooler for storing all the detox stuff, and a bed for Pete to rest in that was appropriate for a Prince. Aria was very iffy about this whole plan (especially about how long they could hide the detoxing Pete from the Roundels, as getting a person clean is no easy business), but said she’d check out the safehouse just to keep Mike happy and believing she was on his side. She then headed straight over to the Oberon to meet up with Dennis…
II. And found him with Joan, who was going on about how he needed to take over leadership of the Roundels already. Dennis was like “I can’t just KILL Pete, everyone will turn against me,” which Aria agreed with, but Joan argued that they didn’t need to KILL Pete – just, uh, make him comatose by overdosing him with Calmex. Dennis was like “...actually, yeah, if anyone figures out what happens they’ll blame Rosie and Guy, or Mike, not me – but I can’t be seen buying the stuff,” causing Joan to turn to Aria and ask her to get the necessary needles and then meet them at the Shoppe to do the dirty deed. Aria agreed just to keep her happy –
III. But the minute the conversation ended, Jon was like “welp, those two are LITERALLY MacBeth and his wife there, and we know how that play ends, so we’re siding with Manchester Mike, Captain of Bad Ideas!” XD So rather than getting any Calmex, Aria instead went to the safehouse, clearing out the cannibalistic Beefeaters who had set up residence there (and getting a Poisoner’s chest piece off a Legendary Mongrel...which Jon actually TOOK because the actual chest piece was better than what she had on, despite him thinking Poisoner’s is one of the worst Legendary effects), then gathering the resources to clean up one of the butchering rooms, reinforce the doors there so Pete couldn’t escape, fix up the bed so he’d have somewhere nice to lie, and fix up the fridge for the detox materials (a process that Jon likened to an exam about remembering what junk items contained which components, and included a sneaky trip back to one of the local bars to steal cigarettes for cloth). Once all that was done (and she’d officially failed Dennis and Joan’s quest, so there was no turning back), she went to meet up with Mike and collect him and Pete for the trip –
IV. Only for Mike to inform her for another problem – Hooligans, blocking the route. Someone had to clear them out, and that someone was Aria. Aria agreed (because dead Hooligans are a good source of XP/goodies) –
And officially got very confused because the group of Hooligans marked on her map? They were nowhere NEAR the route to the safehouse! Like, yes, they were roughly in the same general area of Hackney, but they posed no threat to getting Pete to his recovery room! But the quest said to kill them, so Aria went and killed them. *shrug* At least she got a level-up out of it! She then headed to the safehouse to meet up with Mike –
Only to learn that moving Pete had turned out to be a bit of a bad idea, as he was NOT doing good after so much time on the chems. Basically, his immune system was very much not working, and thus he was too sick and weak for a straight detox. Mike thus tasked Aria with getting them three doses of antibiotics and some Morph-X to see him through before they ended with the Sober. And while Morph-X Aria had in SPADES, antibiotics? Yeah, not so much.
V. And so started The Quest To Get Antibiotics! Aria first attempted to find them out in the wild, heading to the nearby Vintage Market Shoreditch and killing the Hooligans there to see if they had any (with Jon guessing that this group was the one that the quest SHOULD have tagged for the mission, as they actually ARE close to the route and could have caused a problem), but there was no dice. So instead she headed up to Pete’s room to see if she could mix them up on his chem bench –
And she could! So long as she had enough stimpacks, purified water, acid, and glowing fungus. Now, she definitely had enough stimpacks on her, and purified water and acid she had back at her main base in Thameshaven – but glowing fungus? That was going to be tricky. So she started poking around the area, trying to guess where it might be growing. A poke into a more woody area only got her a fight with some cultists living in the area (including one with a rocket launcher, which was fun), while a check of an old laundromat got her a few mushrooms in the basement – and also a door with a phone-based terminal next to it, like an old Pindar. Unfortunately, it was Expert-locked – and even more unfortunately, when using his level-up to try and increase Aria’s perks, Jon went for giving her Expert LOCKPICKING instead of HACKING. XD And then apparently forgot that Kiera can hack things and just gave up on it. XD Well, hopefully one day he’ll remember and return! At any rate, Aria continued searching Hackney for the glowing fungus for a while, always coming up short –
And then finally remembered, “wait a minute – my hometown is Thameshaven. WHICH IS AN UNDERWATER CITY WITH TUNNELS FULL OF GLOWING FUNGUS.” XD So she headed back there and picked up as much as she could carry, along with the other ingredients she needed. XD -1 Perception Jon strikes once again! (Though, really, I didn’t remember Thameshaven would have loads of the stuff either, so who am I to judge?)
VI. Anyway – with antibiotics made, Aria returned to the safehouse to help Mike administer them and the Morph-X. Unfortunately, right as that happened, Dennis, Joan, Patrick, and a ghoul named Roger Moon all showed up, apparently having noticed the suspicious activity around here, and – based on what they could see – immediately leapt to the conclusion that Mike was trying to kill Pete so he could take control of the gang. A conclusion Joan mercilessly egged on, by the by, the two-faced witch. Aria did her best to talk everyone down, desperately assuring them that they were trying to help Pete – but while Roger was a bit swayed, noting she was the most neutral person in the room, Dennis refused to listen, saying he could see what the fuck they were up to. And, very unfortunately, when it came time to try and talk him down one last time, Aria didn’t have the stats to pass any of the checks – and also couldn’t leave the conversation to do any of her stat-boosting drugs to change that (which, Jon admitted, would have looked VERY hypocritical of her, so…). So she could only choose the one option that didn’t deescalate the situation –
Which led to her having to kill Dennis when he came at her with his knife. Of course, Aria has Scaramanga on her side, so it wasn’t much of a fight. XD However, the moment he went down, Pete suddenly took a turn for the worse – seems his body was rejecting the antibiotics and Morph-X, and he needed the Sober detox chem RIGHT THEN. However, Mike had SOMEHOW broken the original vial in the fight (guessing he dropped it when Dennis started coming at them?), so he needed Aria to run to his office and get the extra dose in the safe. Aria was like “we are SURE this is a good idea?” but Mike was VERY INSISTENT, so she ran and grabbed the Sober. And then Mike insisted SHE be the one to inject it VERY CAREFULLY into Pete’s carotid artery – fortunately, this was a conversation where Aria could look away and do drugs to up her stats, so she did some Wonderland to boost her Luck and thus successfully made the jab! A few minutes later, Pete managed to get to his feet and thank everyone for their help and loyalty, promising to be a better leader. :) Of course, the minute he said that, another Roundel, Wrench, showed up shouting that Miller’s Men were here –
VII. And then – well. Because this is a very ambitious mod for a Bethesda game, things went – wrong. Essentially, everyone ended up idling in place, with Aria unable to advance the quest, fight the enemies, and get Pete’s signature. :( Jon had been warned about this in advance, at least, and told that he could try reloading or try console commands to force the quest to advance...but neither worked when he tried them. Which left him only with option three – find a piece of Pete’s handwriting and get the forger in Westminster to fake it for her petition. Aria thus apologized to Pete –
AND PULLED OUT HER SHOTGUN AND KILLED HIM, INSTANTLY MAKING AN ENEMY OF EVERY ROUNDEL IN THE ROOM. Why did she do this, you ask? Because Jon was under the impression that the handwriting sample he needed was on Pete. She managed to slaughter everyone in the room with the help of her Instigating Shotgun to stop herself immediately dying, then checked the dead prince’s pockets...but while she was able to loot his snazzy Union Jack suit, and his special unique gun, she did not find anything that could provide a handwriting sample. Baffled, she took to the streets, battling her way through all the furious Roundels out there –
And discovered a letter containing some of Pete’s ramblings post-his brother Keith’s death tucked away on his wardrobe. In a spot that DEFINITELY did not require her to kill anyone to retrieve it. An embarrassed and remorseful Jon promptly turned back time, told Pete “okay, you get to live her perma-glitched now,” then went and got the letter before heading to Westminster and paying Clifford the forger 100 tickets to fake Pete’s signature. *shakehead* Oh Jon...you do bring the chaos with you when you play. XD
But with that, Aria did FINALLY get all the signatures she needed to access Parliament, so next week, she’s heading in and having that damn meeting with Smythe, damn it! Jon does not expect it to go well, of course, but since when does anything Aria’s life go smoothly? XD Looking forward to seeing it!
Workout: Back on the bike today, and back with James Turner for “Building a modern house in Tiny Town Challenge! - Part 18!” AKA Reuben’s house renovation episode, since James wasn’t able to fit updating his home into the actual episode where he earned all the money to renovate it. And, as usual for a second-episode house renovation, Reuben ended up with a lovely exterior (done in the “modern” architectural style, which means a 1930s-esque blocky house with cutouts and whatnot for interest – think stuff like Frank Lloyd Wright built)...and a pretty awful, extremely empty interior, because James spent all the money for good furniture and wallpaper and all that on other stuff. XD Though in this case, ONE part of Reuben’s house got some nice interior decoration – the integrated cafe! Yes, inspired by the comments and a photo he saw of a South Korean house and cafe connected by a rooftop bridge, James decided that a chunk of the lower floor of Reuben’s house would be done up as a cafe for everyone to visit, with a little hill hiding the rest of the lower floor from view from the front. James even managed to make the selling table look like an integrated cafe counter through clever use of half walls, and used the TOOL mod to shrink down a PROPER cafe counter so he could fake having an espresso machine on the back counters (since the big machine can only be placed on the Get Together cafe counter). XD Though now it likes to glitchily pop off the shrunken counter whenever he tries to paint or set up a stair railing or whatever. Ah, The Sims 4… But yeah, the cafe is looking pretty good (with some plants and fun shelves and outdoor seating), and the rest of the house is looking EXTREMELY sad (poor Reuben didn’t even get a chance to upgrade his kitchen appliances!). But it’s livable, so it should hold him over until his final episode. *pats him* Sorry Reuben! At least it’s not a shoebox?
*shrug* I guess that's acceptable for a Sunday -- especially the Valicertine stuff, as that was starting to worry me. :) But yeah, hopefully I can get back on track with writing and answering messages tomorrow. We're getting some snow overnight, so maybe I'll get a delay or something to make that a little easier? We shall see...in the meantime, I gotta get to bed. Night all!
Tumblr: Well, it was another day of nothing happening on Valice Multiverse, but I’m very pleased to report I made some good progress over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) in regards to the upcoming Valicertine’s Day stuff –
A) First of all, I managed to finish off my “Valicer Not-Incorrect Quotes Valentine’s Day Edition” post – updating some wording here and there; tweaking the scene where Alice gives Victor a stuffed dragon so instead of giving him the “Faust” silver dragon from Douglas Toys that I own, she gives him the “Aragon” blue variant instead, since I’d already established that Victor’s fantasies of having a dragon friend as a kid revolved around the legendary dragon “Blue Ben” from Klive; and writing up the final scene where Smiler and Alice, talking about Victor’s gifts to them and how they’d like a touch of extra reassurance he liked their much-less-expensive gifts to him, catch him putting his new dragon friend “Benny” on his desk in such a way that it looks like it’s playing his piano-phone, beaming all the while. :) So that’s all sorted now, yay!
B) And second, I redid my first Valicertine for this year (as I wasn’t quite happy with the original version and wanted it to match the 2024 Valicertine it’s a sequel to a little better – it’s the same picture, just tweaked text) AND made up a second – a sequel to one of the original 2023 Valicertines, with Victor, Alice, and Smiler dancing and the caption “Yup – two years on, and you two still give me…ideas.” XD So now I’ve got two out of three – and looking at my collected screenshots from the Chill Valicer Save, I might already have an idea for the third...
Baldur’s Gate III: Got back to Faerun today, with Smiler doing a little more exploring, finding a new party member, and visiting their new camp for the first time –
A) Started with Smiler hanging out with Shadowheart and Astarion where I’d left them – after exploring the general area for a bit, looking for anything of interest (and wondering if I wanted to do anything with the scared boar that Astarion had pretended was an intellect devourer – with no way to cast “Speak With Animals” yet, though, I decided to hold off), I had them head back inside the wreckage of the Nautiloid to search for corpses with goodies, and that one hurt mind flayer that’s looking for a brain to eat. A little searching turned up a dead mind flayer a little up and to the left of the “arena” area where Smiler and Shadowheart had fought the intellect devourers, with a couple of spiked bulbs and a Potion of Healing on it, which Smiler happily took. I then saw that mind flayer up on the ledge over the arena that I didn’t think I could access before, and tried to come up on it from the new angle –
And discovered in the process that Smiler can climb onto ledges! They were able to hoist themselves up onto the platform no problem once they got close enough. Which – seems obvious now that I think about (I already knew Smiler could climb ladders and other makeshift climbing walls), but I’m so used to games now where my character can JUMP, but not grab a ledge and pull themselves onto it, that it just didn’t occur to me that Smiler might be able to do that. XD Anyway, they were able to get a nice caustic bulb (full of acidy acid stuff) off that corpse, then headed back the way they’d come to a big open area just past the other dead mind flayer –
B) Where they did indeed find that one hurt mind flayer that I was looking for! I did a quicksave for safety, then had Smiler approach. To their confusion, when they looked at the wretched beast, instead of fury, they felt compassion for it. Examining their feelings allowed them to realize that the mind flayer was in their head, trying to compel them into obedience. Smiler resisted the false compassion, then attempted to probe its thoughts in turn when its attention slipped a little (maybe trying to access Shadowheart’s or Astarion’s brains too?). They just barely made the DC 10 Intelligence check (thanks to some help from Shadowheart’s “Guidance” cantrip), but didn’t actually learn much, only that it was desperate for something – right before it turned its attention back on Smiler and tried to force them back into obedience. Specifically, into bowing their head so it could snack on their brain to stay alive. Smiler resisted with all they had, and got a 21 on the DC 5 Wisdom check (again, with Shadowheart’s help), easily breaking free of the compulsion before stomping on the mind flayer’s head to end its life. And then they searched its pockets and relieved it of a Potion of Speed and two more void bulbs. XD Well, you did try to lure Smiler into a nonstandard game over, monster!
C) With the mind flayer taken care of, Smiler and their companions headed out of the Nautiloid through the hole at the top of the room, and around the side, following a little path. They stopped to loot some dead goblins along the way (picking up ANOTHER Potion of Healing, a random bone, and a supply pack with food for the night), then came across a strangely unstable magical sigil on a rock, with what looked like some sort of portal within. A curious Smiler poked the portal and got zapped – then started as a hand came out of it, with a voice asking Smiler if they could give him a hand.
...naturally I had to pick the “slap hand” option. :D The owner of the hand was like “sorry, should have clarified, a HELPING HAND.” XD Smiler asked who he was, and he replied that he was just “your average traveler stuck between realms” and that he’d explain more once Smiler got him out. Smiler thus called upon their magical skill as a bard to try and attune to the sigil and get it to calm down – and with a little more help from Shadowheart’s “Guidance,” they were able to get a 13 on the resultant DC 7 Charisma check, chill out the magical energies –
And yank out of the portal none other than Gale of Waterdeep! He introduced himself and apologized, saying he was normally better at this – Smiler was like “at introductions?” XD Gale clarified “at magic,” then commented that he recognized Smiler as a fellow abductee from the Nautiloid. Smiler was like “never mind about that, how did you noclip out of reality,” and Gale explained that it was an accident – he felt the sigil’s magic while he was falling from the crashing ship, reached out with a “Weaving of words,” and – well, the spell didn’t go quite the way he expected. XD He asked Smiler how they had survived the crash – and while I was tempted to have Smiler go “oh, I took control of the ship, landed it safely, and saved everyone,” I decided to submit to the reality burning all around them and had them admit they had no clue. XD Gale then brought up the whole “you know we’re all infected with mind flayer parasites that will transform us sooner rather than later” problem and asked if Smiler might be one of the few who could solve the issue – Smiler said that they knew basic first aid from their career as a bard (no, seriously, the dialogue option was labeled as “Bard”), but alien parasites were beyond them, sadly. They were only too happy to let Gale join the party when he suggested teaming up to deal with the problem together, though, with Gale cheerfully proclaiming that “a parasite shared is a parasite halved” – aka the line that inspired the title of “A Murder Shared Is A Murder Thirded.” XD
And so we picked up a fourth member for our little band of heroes! And of course, upon joining, Gale got a nice little level up. For the curious, Gale is a Wizard of the Evocation subclass, with the “Evocation Savant” (meaning he learns those kinds of spells from scrolls for less (only having to pay 25 gold instead of 50)) and “Sculpt Spells” (meaning his allies automatically make their saving throws if they end up in the path of any of his spells) features. Leveling up got him two new spells to add to his spellbook – after going through the options, I chose to have him pick up “Magic Missile” (good solid attack spell, never misses...unlike the “Jim’s” variant that was also available, which can apparently literally blow up in your face and whose description of the missiles being “gluten-free” made me laugh) and “Chromatic Orb” (which looks like it can do some serious damage if you’re lucky on the attack rolls) as his new spells. They’ll be good in a fight AND they’re from his chosen favored class of magic, so yay! Once he was all sorted, I returned to the wilderness, made sure the spells were “prepared” (so Gale would be ready to cast them when necessary) –
C) And then headed to camp, since I figured everyone would be ready for a little rest around this point! And I was ready to get the nice Digital Deluxe goodies out of the Traveler’s Chest there. :) After checking out the little lean-to near where Smiler had spawned into camp (as player characters don’t get their own proper tent, for some reason, I decided this must be Smiler’s sad little home away from home) and determining that a stack of books inside it that acted like a container had nothing interesting in it, I had Smiler head over to Shadowheart’s tent on the way over to the Traveler’s Chest to say hello and ask her a bit about herself. She was cagey, asking why they couldn’t have a bit of mystery – Smiler responded “okay, if you don’t want to talk about it, I won’t press,” which she appreciated. They then asked what she thought about the tadpoles stuck in their heads – she was like “must I have thoughts on them? We just need to get them out of our skulls,” which, fair enough! They then asked what she planned to do once they did get rid of them, and she explained she’d head home to Baldur’s Gate, as she had someone to meet there – a “very personal, very private acquaintance,” as she put it when Smiler was like “Friend? Family? Lover?” (Which really does make it sound like the latter, Shadowheart.) They then tried to ask about the artefact she carried, but she shut that line of questioning down quickly too, going “nope, you’re not entitled to that story, try to forget you ever saw it.” Sorry, Shadowheart, but as that artefact is basically the most plot-important thing in the game, nothing doing. XD
D) However, Smiler was happy enough to leave her be for now, as the big old yellow Traveler’s Chest was right beside her! They promptly popped it open and beheld the goodies within – even MORE Faerun Dyes from that one mod; a Mask Of The Shapeshifter (a special helmet that allows you to cast an Illusion spell); a clothing chest with the Cape of the Red Prince, the Lute of the Merryweather Bard, the Bicorn of the Sea Beast, and the Needle (aka fancy dagger) of the Outlaw Rogue; a Bewildering Adventurer’s Pack with loads of food, an Elixir of Giant Strength, and Potions of Animal Speaking, Flying, Mind Reading, and Feather Fall; and five Drake General dyes. Very nice selection of stuff! I took the Mask, the stuff in the clothing chest, the supplies in the Bewildering Pack, and – after taking a moment to figure it out – the Bewildering Pack itself, as I’m considering that Smiler’s “personal backpack.” :) I mean, they’re the main character, they may as well get the fun backpack!
With goodies thus fetched, I then had Smiler go and chat with Astarion and Gale to see what they had to say for themselves. Astarion didn’t chat much – just commenting that he wasn’t particularly impressed with Gale’s first impression as “a wizard who got stuck in his own portal” and telling Smiler that he was a magistrate back in the city, it was all rather boring, when Smiler asked him about himself – but Gale immediately was like “I know that touch of magic in your fingertips – you’re a fellow wizard, aren’t you?” I was like “technically an artificer, but that’s a custom class with no dialogue options of its own, so yeah, Smiler’s a wizard.” XD Gale then asked how well-read Smiler was – Smiler was like “I’m no slouch, but I’m no Khelben Blackstaff either,” to which Gale replied derisively “don’t compare yourself to that idiot, he’s always dying.” XD At any rate, he confirmed with Smiler that an appropriately-powerful sage could help them a lot, and that if they found any elder wizards, to tell him, as he had a matter of importance that he needed advice on. I think you’ll find the elder wizards will find YOU later, Gale. :p Anyway, Smiler then took a moment to check around the campsite for any last-minute goodies (including near the ruin that holds the appearance-altering Magic Mirror) –
E) And then I…attempted to transfer a few things between everyone’s inventories. Which did not go particularly smoothly, as I kept trying to drag stuff between people, only for the wrong thing to get dragged, or something to get equipped on the wrong person, or things to get used that I didn’t want used – Smiler I think drank two healing potions when I didn’t intend them to. (I mean, they WERE slightly hurt, but the first potion took care of that easily, so the second potion was just a total waste, sadly.) I eventually figured out how to do what I wanted to do, though, and distributed around the health potions (with Smiler, Astarion, and Gale each getting three, and Shadowheart two – to be fair, she’s the one with the healing spells right now, so…), along with handing the Needle of the Outlaw Rogue, a couple of void bulbs, and the ignoble hat over to Astarion. He’s the party rogue, so he should have the nicest dagger – and the hat looks better on him than it did on Smiler, that’s for sure. XD (Though I think I want to dye it, if possible – the green doesn’t really suit Astarion’s look.)
Anyway, once I finally had the party’s inventories sorted, it was time to clean up Smiler’s own personal inventory! I started by putting the perfumed letter and the Shanties of the Bitch Queen book into the stack of books in the lean-to, then had Smiler equip their new fancy Lute of the Merryweather Bard and head over to the Traveler’s Chest to drop off the stuff that wasn’t reading material. They took a moment to put all their potions and elixirs, along with a couple of bottles of water, their thieves’ tools, and their gold into their new Bewildering Adventurer’s Pack, then dropped the camp supplies pack, a skull, a bone, the two minds they’d picked up on the Natuloid, their spare lute and drum, and the dyes from the Nautiloid’s “tutorial chest” into the Traveler’s Chest. *thumbs up* That’ll save on some weight!
F) However – when I was moving over the dyes, I realized something. I had been a little nervous to use the yellow-and-black “Amaunator” dye that I got this whole pack of custom dyes for when I picked it up in the tutorial chest, for fear of using it up on a piece of armor that Smiler would probably soon be trading out. But with the second set of dyes in the Traveler’s Chest, I now had a spare bottle. So, after a little bit of fumbling around (and getting annoyed with how opening up sub-windows to do things like dyeing clothing can get hidden when you open up a character’s inventory to, you know, GET THE THING THAT NEEDS DYEING), I figured out how to dye Smiler’s bard jerkin –
And was very pleased with the results! :D The bard jerkin looks a lot better in yellow and black, let me tell you – in fact, let me SHOW you:
Not bad, eh? Certainly on-brand for The Smiler’s theme. :) Though I guess I need to dye the boots as well to match...which is something I can do, because it looks like these dyes are NOT used up when you initially dye something! :D Hooray! Dyed clothes for everybody! XD
Next time, that is, because it was around that time that I realized I had to get off if I had any hope of getting this write-up done before my workout. XD But yes, Smiler now has a full party of new friends; a nice new backpack to store their stuff in; and some clothes that properly fit their theme. :) Next time – well, if I DON’T just spend all my time dyeing everyone’s clothes, I’ll see if I can at least get to where I ended up quitting last time – past the initial fight in the ruins where you find Withers, the party resurrectionist/secret god. Really like to see if I can get past that and to the rest of the game this time around! (Though I guess this might depend a BIT on when the upcoming Patch 8 actually arrives...)
YouTube: Got to it late again, but I did successfully keep up with my usual Sunday Two –
A) First up, we had GrayStillPlays and “When fake news ruins America,” aka the Sunday Happy Wheels video! Best boards of the night were the opening bottle flip, which saw Gray bottle-flipping the AXES he kept spawning into the area, winning via the Ball Fall of Dismemberment, and finally Touching Grass (barely – his bottle was only JUST in the slot); a very nice recreation of the Google Dinosaur game by MAXIMPIG (controlled by a floating Nixon); a pretty damn difficult snowball dodge (Gray died a lot of times in that box, and even when he won he lost a leg); a bike ride in the sky that involved knowing just how to come off the big hill to win, and where to sneak through the floor to get the secret win (made by “Graysenemy,” which deeply amused Gray); a fairly involved prison break that involved a lot of clicking to get the items he needed to escape (not helped by the art style being a littttle jank); and the Dylan Snider board of the week, featuring Florida Man needing to fly Trump to the White House without letting him drown in a flood or get stabbed by a giant colon of needles in the sky (there was the option to let him die and head off by yourself, but unfortunately that led to the “going to prison” ending instead of the “getting a medal” ending). Good stuff, as always – these Happy Wheels folks are a creative lot, as I have said before and will say again!
B) And second up, we had Jon of Many A True Nerd and “Fallout: London - Part 28 - The Glitch's Prophecy!” The continuing adventures of Lady Aria and Kiera in Hackney as they attempted to sort out the very Shakespearean mess that was the “Prince Pete Problem” (aka “the leader of the Roundels is too hopped up on drugs and grieving his brother to sign Aria’s petition to get into Parliament”). Unfortunately, things did not go smoothly at all in this regard –
I. First, Aria went to see Manchester Mike, the dude supplying Pete with his chems, at his little base in Maab House to see what his plan was for fixing the Problem (even though she didn’t trust him as, again, he was the one supplying the chems). Turns out, though, Mike actually felt bad about dosing up Pete (even as he argued that he at least was making sure Pete wasn’t overdosing) and wanted to get him clean again! He even had a plan on how to do it – spirit Pete away and hide him in a safehouse for a while while they helped him detox. He’d found an appropriate safehouse up the road, but needed Aria to scope it out and make sure it was safe and had the stuff they needed – namely, a sturdy door to keep Pete from escaping, a cooler for storing all the detox stuff, and a bed for Pete to rest in that was appropriate for a Prince. Aria was very iffy about this whole plan (especially about how long they could hide the detoxing Pete from the Roundels, as getting a person clean is no easy business), but said she’d check out the safehouse just to keep Mike happy and believing she was on his side. She then headed straight over to the Oberon to meet up with Dennis…
II. And found him with Joan, who was going on about how he needed to take over leadership of the Roundels already. Dennis was like “I can’t just KILL Pete, everyone will turn against me,” which Aria agreed with, but Joan argued that they didn’t need to KILL Pete – just, uh, make him comatose by overdosing him with Calmex. Dennis was like “...actually, yeah, if anyone figures out what happens they’ll blame Rosie and Guy, or Mike, not me – but I can’t be seen buying the stuff,” causing Joan to turn to Aria and ask her to get the necessary needles and then meet them at the Shoppe to do the dirty deed. Aria agreed just to keep her happy –
III. But the minute the conversation ended, Jon was like “welp, those two are LITERALLY MacBeth and his wife there, and we know how that play ends, so we’re siding with Manchester Mike, Captain of Bad Ideas!” XD So rather than getting any Calmex, Aria instead went to the safehouse, clearing out the cannibalistic Beefeaters who had set up residence there (and getting a Poisoner’s chest piece off a Legendary Mongrel...which Jon actually TOOK because the actual chest piece was better than what she had on, despite him thinking Poisoner’s is one of the worst Legendary effects), then gathering the resources to clean up one of the butchering rooms, reinforce the doors there so Pete couldn’t escape, fix up the bed so he’d have somewhere nice to lie, and fix up the fridge for the detox materials (a process that Jon likened to an exam about remembering what junk items contained which components, and included a sneaky trip back to one of the local bars to steal cigarettes for cloth). Once all that was done (and she’d officially failed Dennis and Joan’s quest, so there was no turning back), she went to meet up with Mike and collect him and Pete for the trip –
IV. Only for Mike to inform her for another problem – Hooligans, blocking the route. Someone had to clear them out, and that someone was Aria. Aria agreed (because dead Hooligans are a good source of XP/goodies) –
And officially got very confused because the group of Hooligans marked on her map? They were nowhere NEAR the route to the safehouse! Like, yes, they were roughly in the same general area of Hackney, but they posed no threat to getting Pete to his recovery room! But the quest said to kill them, so Aria went and killed them. *shrug* At least she got a level-up out of it! She then headed to the safehouse to meet up with Mike –
Only to learn that moving Pete had turned out to be a bit of a bad idea, as he was NOT doing good after so much time on the chems. Basically, his immune system was very much not working, and thus he was too sick and weak for a straight detox. Mike thus tasked Aria with getting them three doses of antibiotics and some Morph-X to see him through before they ended with the Sober. And while Morph-X Aria had in SPADES, antibiotics? Yeah, not so much.
V. And so started The Quest To Get Antibiotics! Aria first attempted to find them out in the wild, heading to the nearby Vintage Market Shoreditch and killing the Hooligans there to see if they had any (with Jon guessing that this group was the one that the quest SHOULD have tagged for the mission, as they actually ARE close to the route and could have caused a problem), but there was no dice. So instead she headed up to Pete’s room to see if she could mix them up on his chem bench –
And she could! So long as she had enough stimpacks, purified water, acid, and glowing fungus. Now, she definitely had enough stimpacks on her, and purified water and acid she had back at her main base in Thameshaven – but glowing fungus? That was going to be tricky. So she started poking around the area, trying to guess where it might be growing. A poke into a more woody area only got her a fight with some cultists living in the area (including one with a rocket launcher, which was fun), while a check of an old laundromat got her a few mushrooms in the basement – and also a door with a phone-based terminal next to it, like an old Pindar. Unfortunately, it was Expert-locked – and even more unfortunately, when using his level-up to try and increase Aria’s perks, Jon went for giving her Expert LOCKPICKING instead of HACKING. XD And then apparently forgot that Kiera can hack things and just gave up on it. XD Well, hopefully one day he’ll remember and return! At any rate, Aria continued searching Hackney for the glowing fungus for a while, always coming up short –
And then finally remembered, “wait a minute – my hometown is Thameshaven. WHICH IS AN UNDERWATER CITY WITH TUNNELS FULL OF GLOWING FUNGUS.” XD So she headed back there and picked up as much as she could carry, along with the other ingredients she needed. XD -1 Perception Jon strikes once again! (Though, really, I didn’t remember Thameshaven would have loads of the stuff either, so who am I to judge?)
VI. Anyway – with antibiotics made, Aria returned to the safehouse to help Mike administer them and the Morph-X. Unfortunately, right as that happened, Dennis, Joan, Patrick, and a ghoul named Roger Moon all showed up, apparently having noticed the suspicious activity around here, and – based on what they could see – immediately leapt to the conclusion that Mike was trying to kill Pete so he could take control of the gang. A conclusion Joan mercilessly egged on, by the by, the two-faced witch. Aria did her best to talk everyone down, desperately assuring them that they were trying to help Pete – but while Roger was a bit swayed, noting she was the most neutral person in the room, Dennis refused to listen, saying he could see what the fuck they were up to. And, very unfortunately, when it came time to try and talk him down one last time, Aria didn’t have the stats to pass any of the checks – and also couldn’t leave the conversation to do any of her stat-boosting drugs to change that (which, Jon admitted, would have looked VERY hypocritical of her, so…). So she could only choose the one option that didn’t deescalate the situation –
Which led to her having to kill Dennis when he came at her with his knife. Of course, Aria has Scaramanga on her side, so it wasn’t much of a fight. XD However, the moment he went down, Pete suddenly took a turn for the worse – seems his body was rejecting the antibiotics and Morph-X, and he needed the Sober detox chem RIGHT THEN. However, Mike had SOMEHOW broken the original vial in the fight (guessing he dropped it when Dennis started coming at them?), so he needed Aria to run to his office and get the extra dose in the safe. Aria was like “we are SURE this is a good idea?” but Mike was VERY INSISTENT, so she ran and grabbed the Sober. And then Mike insisted SHE be the one to inject it VERY CAREFULLY into Pete’s carotid artery – fortunately, this was a conversation where Aria could look away and do drugs to up her stats, so she did some Wonderland to boost her Luck and thus successfully made the jab! A few minutes later, Pete managed to get to his feet and thank everyone for their help and loyalty, promising to be a better leader. :) Of course, the minute he said that, another Roundel, Wrench, showed up shouting that Miller’s Men were here –
VII. And then – well. Because this is a very ambitious mod for a Bethesda game, things went – wrong. Essentially, everyone ended up idling in place, with Aria unable to advance the quest, fight the enemies, and get Pete’s signature. :( Jon had been warned about this in advance, at least, and told that he could try reloading or try console commands to force the quest to advance...but neither worked when he tried them. Which left him only with option three – find a piece of Pete’s handwriting and get the forger in Westminster to fake it for her petition. Aria thus apologized to Pete –
AND PULLED OUT HER SHOTGUN AND KILLED HIM, INSTANTLY MAKING AN ENEMY OF EVERY ROUNDEL IN THE ROOM. Why did she do this, you ask? Because Jon was under the impression that the handwriting sample he needed was on Pete. She managed to slaughter everyone in the room with the help of her Instigating Shotgun to stop herself immediately dying, then checked the dead prince’s pockets...but while she was able to loot his snazzy Union Jack suit, and his special unique gun, she did not find anything that could provide a handwriting sample. Baffled, she took to the streets, battling her way through all the furious Roundels out there –
And discovered a letter containing some of Pete’s ramblings post-his brother Keith’s death tucked away on his wardrobe. In a spot that DEFINITELY did not require her to kill anyone to retrieve it. An embarrassed and remorseful Jon promptly turned back time, told Pete “okay, you get to live her perma-glitched now,” then went and got the letter before heading to Westminster and paying Clifford the forger 100 tickets to fake Pete’s signature. *shakehead* Oh Jon...you do bring the chaos with you when you play. XD
But with that, Aria did FINALLY get all the signatures she needed to access Parliament, so next week, she’s heading in and having that damn meeting with Smythe, damn it! Jon does not expect it to go well, of course, but since when does anything Aria’s life go smoothly? XD Looking forward to seeing it!
Workout: Back on the bike today, and back with James Turner for “Building a modern house in Tiny Town Challenge! - Part 18!” AKA Reuben’s house renovation episode, since James wasn’t able to fit updating his home into the actual episode where he earned all the money to renovate it. And, as usual for a second-episode house renovation, Reuben ended up with a lovely exterior (done in the “modern” architectural style, which means a 1930s-esque blocky house with cutouts and whatnot for interest – think stuff like Frank Lloyd Wright built)...and a pretty awful, extremely empty interior, because James spent all the money for good furniture and wallpaper and all that on other stuff. XD Though in this case, ONE part of Reuben’s house got some nice interior decoration – the integrated cafe! Yes, inspired by the comments and a photo he saw of a South Korean house and cafe connected by a rooftop bridge, James decided that a chunk of the lower floor of Reuben’s house would be done up as a cafe for everyone to visit, with a little hill hiding the rest of the lower floor from view from the front. James even managed to make the selling table look like an integrated cafe counter through clever use of half walls, and used the TOOL mod to shrink down a PROPER cafe counter so he could fake having an espresso machine on the back counters (since the big machine can only be placed on the Get Together cafe counter). XD Though now it likes to glitchily pop off the shrunken counter whenever he tries to paint or set up a stair railing or whatever. Ah, The Sims 4… But yeah, the cafe is looking pretty good (with some plants and fun shelves and outdoor seating), and the rest of the house is looking EXTREMELY sad (poor Reuben didn’t even get a chance to upgrade his kitchen appliances!). But it’s livable, so it should hold him over until his final episode. *pats him* Sorry Reuben! At least it’s not a shoebox?
*shrug* I guess that's acceptable for a Sunday -- especially the Valicertine stuff, as that was starting to worry me. :) But yeah, hopefully I can get back on track with writing and answering messages tomorrow. We're getting some snow overnight, so maybe I'll get a delay or something to make that a little easier? We shall see...in the meantime, I gotta get to bed. Night all!
