Best Kind Of Snow Day
Feb. 6th, 2025 11:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickThe kind where we get the day off, but the storm turns out to be not as bad as expected. I mean, we had some pretty good snow early in the day, but it soon switched over to freezing rain, and looking outside now, the road looks pretty clear. Might be icy in the morning, but I don't think I'll have THAT much trouble getting to work. Which is good, because the worst part of a snow day is having to deal with all the snow afterward! Though, on the other hand, apparently we have more storms incoming on Saturday night and Monday night...we'll just have to wait and see how those turn out! Might end up with more days off than expected...
Anyway, here's how my day off went --
Tumblr: Had a decently productive day over here –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Made some really good progress on getting stuff ready for Valicertine’s Week next week today, I’m happy to say –
A) First, I created my third Valicertine – one featuring Alice and Victor watching Smiler playing guitar, with the text “Love Is… Supporting your partner/metamour when they break out ‘Wonderwall’ at the party.” If that kind of Valicertine seems kind of familiar, it’s because I did a quartet of plain old Valicetines following that exact same “Love Is…” theme –
In 2017. XD Yeah, I don’t know what prompted me to think about THOSE – just that I was trying to find out exactly how I wanted do the “Victor and Alice supporting Smiler playing ‘Wonderwall’” thing as a Valicertine, and I happened to remember the “Love Is” Valicetines, and – yeah. I mean, the other two Valicertines I did were also “sequels” to previous Valicertines I’d done, so – why not? *shrug* XD Took me a while to get things just right (I kept accidentally deleting the first line while making sure the text was the right size, and then I had to do the middle paragraph as three separate lines so I could put a space in front of each line and not have the words crammed too tightly against the side of the text box), but eventually the Valicertine was finished! Yay~
B) Then I started thinking about the fact that, for the past couple of years, I’ve also done at least one “bonus image” to go with my Valicertines (like the “bitches will say ‘this is my OT3’” picture, or the “Alice: Madness Returns X Corpse Bride X The Smiler = My OT3” picture). However, I really wasn’t sure what I wanted to do for said bonus image. Stumped, I thought, “maybe I can do a fourth Valicertine instead this year – what about something with the three of them at the table, with a joke about kitchen table polyamory?” So I started looking through the Chill Valicer Save screenshots for a good shot of the three of them eating together –
And then thought – “wait a minute. I have multiple pictures of them hanging out at the kitchen table together. Hmmmm.”
Cue me finding four good pics of them sitting at a dining table in the kitchen (three showing off the dining table at various points during their stay in the Henford-On-Bagley haunted house, one from their trip to Sulani for their trio honeymoon), and putting them together to make a bonus image, with the text reading “Valicer Is Kitchen Table Polyamory. Quite Literally.” XD I got a kick out of it! Hopefully others will too.
C) Then, I went into my Drafts and drafted out the Valicertine’s day post with all three Valicertines, complete with alt text and tags! So that’s all ready to post on Friday, w000!
D) And finally, I did a quick draft of the “Kitchen Table Polyamory” bonus image post before coming over here – it’s not done, but I’ve got the actual picture uploaded and the first sentence done. We’ll see about getting the rest of it done this weekend!
Valice Multiverse – Well, there was nothing going on here tonight again, so I looked up the “#blades in the dark” tag and put someone’s art of some PCs for the game into my queue. Because I wanted to do SOMETHING over here and it was good art, damn it. So that’s sorted. *nods*
Sims 4: Whew – had a long session today in my building save, working tirelessly to try and complete as much of my Polyheart OT3 house as possible before the weekend so I could start drafting out the post/posts about it on Saturday! And it paid off –
Even if, uh, I did end up neglecting my notes on what I was doing in favor of just getting as much done as possible. ^^; Look, writing down where every decoration or item I was using came from and how I was arranging it around the room was taking too much time! And I’m sure most of you are probably not that interested in the minutiae anyway. Or maybe you are, in which case, sorry! But I do have plenty of screenshots to reference, so I shall take you through what I did to finish off the house, at least enough to share it as part of Valicertine’s Week next Wednesday –
A) While I didn’t plan to do anything to the living room – I considered that, the front foyer, the guest bathroom, the en-suite bathroom, and the kitchen done – I ended up adding one thing to it after stumbling across it looking for more ways to decorate everyone’s spaces: the magazine and remote holder from Parenthood! It’s supposed to go next to the couch, but I ended up putting it next to the TV stand so it helped balance out the games console on the other side. Found out it also came in fun colors too, so I made sure to pick one of those swatches. :) Nice little finishing detail!
B) I added some art to the halls (moving the “cherry blossom branch” picture out of the big bathroom into the right-hand hallway across from Victor’s room, along with adding the Backyard Stuff trio of pictures in the “colorful trees” swatch by Smiler’s door and a Dine Out “set table abstract” on the other wall near the kitchen; and adding a big picture of a woman with wild blue hair against a yellow background into the left-hand hall to help balance out the giant abstract on the other side, between Alice’s door and the bedroom door) – AND I added a little laundry nook to the end of the hall by Alice’s room! Because it looked very blank there (especially given there’s a grandfather clock from Life & Dead at the end of the other hall by Victor’s room), and I thought it would be fun to add laundry to the house. We have a stacked blue and yellow washer and dryer combo, with some red laundry detergent up top and a blue ironing board on the diagonal nearby. And I made sure to add hampers to the big bathroom (red swatch) and the bedroom (blue swatch). *nods* Think it adds a nice touch of realism to the place!
C) As for Alice’s room next door, I rearranged the paintings and artwork a little bit (putting the framed keys next to her desk and moving the cake picture to the other side of her door); added a few new pieces, like a red abstract, the spookier painting of the Magic Realm arch from Life & Death, and some white bunny decals because, well, White Rabbit XD; found the cool plant wall from Eco Lifestyle and paired it with a “mossy rock” rug from Snowy Escape to create that “photo backdrop” on the little bit of straight wall near the curved window that I was trying to figure out the other day; cluttered up her desk a bit more with some Werewolves papers and a new pen holder (as I didn’t like the more modern on in her room); and gave her a nice little sitting area behind her camera with a fancy red Cordelia couch, matching end table, and the Cottage Living “rabbit with a flower in its mouth” statue atop said end table. Again in the white swatch, because – well. XD The seating area kind of came about because she had a big gap behind her tripod and I had no idea how to fill it, but I’m quite happy with it, really! :)
D) Victor’s room, meanwhile, was almost all about getting the walls decorated the way I wanted – I ended up putting the Life & Death fancy painting in the “blue roses, white frame” swatch beside his door near his desk; the picture of a guy playing piano on the curved wall between his desk and the window; a light-up bare tree from Dine Out paired with some of the light-up butterflies from Kid’s Room Stuff in the more blue swatch on the strip of wall behind his piano, on the corner next to the crochet and cross-stitch stuff I’m pretending was from Victoria; the fancy piano keys picture on the wall next to the cross-stitch collection; one of the High School Years “arty stuff” pictures in the “four pieces of paper taped together forming a sketch of a tree” swatch by his easel on one side; and the unlockable body studies from the Artist career on the other. “bb.moveobjects on” was used liberally to get all this to fit, I assure you. XD I also stuck a sized-down version of the “paint splotches” City Living rug that looks like a tarp you’d lay down under an easel – well, under the easel XD; added the unlockable Artist taboret (paints cabinet) and some blank canvases next to said easel; that little picture of butterflies and the rose you can get by getting Silver on a date (in a fancy multicolored swatch I didn’t know existed) onto his piano; and cluttered up his desk with book stacks from base game and High School Years because Victor’s desk in Corpse Bride is liberally covered in books as I recall. Oh, and sized down the Spooky Stuff cartoony skull rug and stuck it under his desk chair. It felt on brand. XD I very like the final effect!
E) As for Smiler’s room, I made sure to get them the fancy “gamer” High School Years desk, matching desk chair (in black, as the yellow swatch was covered in flowers, and that didn’t feel appropriately Smiler), and fancy big computer (the widescreen curved monitor one with the RGB glowing keyboard), and stuck that all in the corner next to the chemistry bench corner. And then resized the yellow-and-black-striped rug a little and turned it around so it was only under the desk and not anywhere near the chemistry bench because I figured Smiler wouldn’t want to ruin their rug. XD After that, I spent most of my time organizing their wall art and decorations – putting the “Stride With Pride” picture and non-binary pride flag above their desk on either side of the corner; putting their yellow “lightbulb” poster and purple frog decal on the black stripe between the desk and the chemistry bench; putting a big Get To Work sciencey decal on the wall next to the chemistry bench because it looked like a giant flask; putting another science poster showing off an atom behind the chemistry bench because it looked good there; and putting the Lovestruck wall-mounted fan on the wall over their yoga mat (I intended it to help blow away chemistry bench fumes, but I guess it actually keeps them cool while they’re doing yoga). Oh, and put their cool Moschino art collection on the far wall facing the yoga mat. I still feel their room looks a tiny bit empty, but I’m not sure what else to stick in there, as I don’t think a bar or a karaoke machine would properly fit. Though – comparing it to pictures of Victor and Alice’s rooms, maybe it’s just fine? Victor’s room looks more cluttered, but that’s probably because he has more wall decorations. I did go a little overboard in there, I admit. :p
F) As for their shared bedroom, I ended up leaning heavily on the High School Years poster collections with all different swatches and the “painted vinyl” collections with all different swatches to fill up their wall space a little – they now have fun colorful posters of stuff like a cat in a box and a rainbow “man-woman-peace” symbol, plus some painted records featuring stuff like dripping mushrooms, colorful sunsets, and little monsters. I also stuck a rubber tree plant in a yellow pot by the window just to fill in the space between the en-suite bathroom door and the window a bit better – putting a hamper next to the door helped, but it just needed that little extra something, you know? At any rate, the room looks better and more colorful than it did!
G) And in the big bathroom, in addition to adding in the hamper in the corner by the towels and the bathrobes, I also changed up the art a little, adding a cool unlockable ocean scene painting you can get in the “Tech Guru” career for some reason over the bath caddy, along with one of the fanciest of the Cordelia paintings, depicting I believe her old kingdom, where the “cherry blossom branch” painting was over the tub. I also removed the small red circle rug from under the towels because I decided I didn’t like it – and then forgot to replace it. XD Sorry, guys! I was very distracted!
And that should be this house pretty much done! *slaps hands together* Whew. Might pop back in for a tiny bit on Saturday to add a couple last-minute finishing touches (like replacing that bathroom rug I just mentioned), but other than that, we are golden. Now I just have to figure out how to do the photo post for Wednesday...which is going to be interesting, as I want to show off all the cool stuff in the house, but a lot of it is only visible with walls up. And it is VERY HARD to get pictures of all these fairly cramped rooms with walls up! Someone want to teach me how the hell to use the “free cam” already? I’ve never been able to master it, and I suspect it would help in a house like this.
Writing: Got another page on “A Murder Shared Is A Murder Thirded” tonight! Featuring Victor and Smiler getting a look at Alice’s room and noting that it’s rather small (allowing me to slip in that quote from A:MR where Alice compares it to her room at Rutledge – Smiler was not happy to hear that); Victor noting Alice’s resemblance to Lizzie in the portrait, and Smiler commenting that they looked like a happy family (Alice said that they were, at least until the fire – both Victor and Smiler were very sympathetic); and Alice getting her diary out of a secret compartment out of the bottom of her bookcase to go with her clothes, blanket, and family portrait in the bag (because she’s not leaving THAT behind to get found and read!). I left off with them getting down the pictures of Wonderland the children drew her from over her bed so she could take those along as well, and Victor bringing up an important question – what happens after they expose and/or kill Bumby? We’ll hear Alice’s answer tomorrow...and possibly finish off the chapter, because holy shit, there’s only about a page and a half to go. O.o I’m not used to short chapters anymore after “Londerland Bloodlines!”
YouTube: Welp, thanks to starting my nightly YouTubery late, I didn’t actually get to the video in my Subs – fortunately, it is a six-minute “Fun With Shorts” video by Josh Way and thus easier to catch up on. And I did get to all the other stuff I wanted to get to today –
A) First up, a surprise video I caught this morning – the premiere of “The Sims™ 4 Businesses & Hobbies Expansion Pack | Official Reveal Trailer!” Yes, thanks to me being home today because of the snow and doing a quick search earlier to see if the trailer had been released, I was actually able to watch the trailer AS IT WAS RELEASED. Which was kind of neat! As for the trailer itself, it focused around a family living whatever new world is being released with the pack, with the mother being a tattoo artist and the father being a potter, showing off how the new tattooing and pottery skills work (the former introduces Paint Mode for ordinary, non-furry Sims, at least when it comes to adding body art), how your Sims can teach others their skills (and apparently physically pass on knowledge from themselves to others), and how you can now run a business that you also live in! By setting certain areas as residential, others as public, and others as employees only!
...using a system that looks very much like the one in For Rent! *strained smile* Yeah, uh – I am intrigued by some of the stuff on display here, but the minute they showed that, I was like “this is another pack that’s going to be released broken, isn’t it?” Because as far as I know, For Rent STILL doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to, and if they’re using the same system for ANOTHER pack… I dunno. I’ll keep abreast of what’s out there just out of curiosity, but I suspect any home businesses my Sims run are just going to use the simple awesomeness of the Home Chef Hustle selling table.
B) Then, tonight, we had the OXBoxtra lists of the week –
I. “7 Cutest Creatures That Tried to Murder You Immediately” – Andy and Ellen talking about the cute creatures in games that proved to actually be vicious murder machines! From the deadly boss Great Gray Sif in Dark Souls (who is so floofy but will cut a bitch to protect her former master’s grave...even if you helped save her in the past via DLC time-travel shenanigans), to the Fat Chocobo in Final Fantasy VII Remake (who is adorably obese but not afraid to roll over you and crush you flat – and then throw bombs at you), to Mira the Shiba Inu from Silent Hill 2 and its famous Dog Ending (who isn’t directly murderous to James Sunderland, but who HAS been controlling the horrors of Silent Hill all this time, sooo), these fluffy creatures prove you can’t always judge a video game animal by its cuteness. (Though, uh, don’t go thinking the ugly ones are any safer, trust me.)
II. “7 Surprisingly Dark Easter Eggs in Non-Horror Games” – Andy and Jane talking about those surprisingly dark moments in games that shouldn’t contain them (or, at least shouldn’t contain dark moments like THESE). From the disembodied screaming you can hear in various locked-off areas in Saints Row 3 and Saints Row The Fourth (suggesting someone is getting violently murdered – and for once you’re not to blame), to the creepy haunted mannequin in the Miami aquarium of Hitman (which, after you zoom in on it with your scope and get a good look at it in its red-lit room, suddenly disappears and reappears RIGHT BEHIND YOU WITH ARMS OUTSTRETCHED), to the sudden discovery of a DEAD GOLFER lying in a pool of his own blood in some trees in ARCADE GOLF GAME Golden Tee Golf 99 (...I’m here for finding Bigfoot watching me when I miss a shot, not this!), these games had some pretty dark hidden content for their players to stumble across. I mean – at least it’s not a weird chained-up heart right in the middle of the faux-Statue Of Liberty, like in one of the GTA games?
Workout: Back on the bike again tonight, pedaling my way through –
A) The end of “Building with the Free game update! 70+ new items!” by James Turner! The final ten or so minutes of his refresh of Crick Cabana in Willow Creek with the new base game update items saw him adjust some of the flooring (extending the hardwood into the master bedroom and making sure the porch was properly floored); attempt to get more natural light into the back bedroom, only to realize the wall he added the window onto was pretty much always facing away from the sun; use debug bushes and shrubs to add free landscaping; and realize at the last minute “shit, I forgot an outdoor bin!” XD And a mailbox, but that wasn’t so big a deal, as those don’t cost money, but bins do. Fortunately he was able to hide a cheap not-exactly-appropriate-for-residential outdoor bin in the flowers outside, and a test with Semaj confirmed that it worked, yay. (Though then James ran into an issue where, for some reason, he couldn’t SAVE after moving Semaj in...he’s not sure if this is an in-game bug or again the result of him not fully taking out his mods. JAMES PLS) So the house is now much nicer than it was, if SLIGHTLY more expensive – he was aiming for a house value of roughly $11,700, and when he finished the renovations, he was at roughly $12,000. Which still isn’t bad for a starter home! And it’s a hell of an improvement on the original, that’s for damn sure. Go seek it out on the Gallery for all your base game neighborhood refresh needs!
B) The first twenty-odd minutes of “I'm trying Rags to Riches in The Sims 2,” also by James Turner! Yes, having gotten the recent re-release of the famous and beloved second entry in the franchise, James has decided to do a Rags To Riches with a Sims 2 version of Semaj! This version of Semaj did get a house to live in at the start (a very empty Midcentury Modern place in the middle of Veronaville XD), unlike his Sims 4 brethren, but seeing as buying it, a phone, and a fire alarm left him with sixteen simoleons, I think we can safely say he is pretty “Rags” right now. XD Anyway, in these first twenty minutes, James got through making Semaj in CAS (cripes, we were so limited back in the early 2000s when it came to designing Sims); settling him in his house and getting him a job in the Business career from the paper for aspiration points; selling the computer that Rod Humble gave him for free for capital; and starting up his own little home business selling cheap sandwiches on a couple of cheap tables outside on his driveway. XD He’s made one sale so far, but it was tricky – both because he’s currently shit at selling stuff, and because one of his customers pondering a sandwich was blocking the register for the other customer trying to BUY a sandwich. She eventually moved, but – yeah. It was a time. XD Now, I admit – I clicked on this mainly because I wanted to fill the twenty-odd minutes I had left after finishing off the Crick Cabana refresh, and it didn’t really register in my head until I was already watching that this video is an hour and twenty minutes. AKA, too long to fit into the rest of the week. So I don’t know if I’ll be continuing this or not, because I was HOPING to double up on Tiny Town shenanigans next week for my workouts. Though I suppose I could watch the next half-hour tomorrow during my bike ride, then see if I can fit in whatever’s left on Saturday? *shrug* Might be a plan. And I am kind of curious to see what happens with Sims 2 Semaj on his business journey – James has talked about how he used to love running car dealerships, and while I don’t think we’ll get to THERE over the course of this episode, maybe we’ll see him start working on the old junker car? *shrug* Inquiring minds!
Aaand I've accidentally lost track of time and stayed up a bit too late, so it's time for me to hurry off and hit the sheets! We'll see how things go tomorrow at work -- at least it's only the one day! Night all!
Anyway, here's how my day off went --
Tumblr: Had a decently productive day over here –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Made some really good progress on getting stuff ready for Valicertine’s Week next week today, I’m happy to say –
A) First, I created my third Valicertine – one featuring Alice and Victor watching Smiler playing guitar, with the text “Love Is… Supporting your partner/metamour when they break out ‘Wonderwall’ at the party.” If that kind of Valicertine seems kind of familiar, it’s because I did a quartet of plain old Valicetines following that exact same “Love Is…” theme –
In 2017. XD Yeah, I don’t know what prompted me to think about THOSE – just that I was trying to find out exactly how I wanted do the “Victor and Alice supporting Smiler playing ‘Wonderwall’” thing as a Valicertine, and I happened to remember the “Love Is” Valicetines, and – yeah. I mean, the other two Valicertines I did were also “sequels” to previous Valicertines I’d done, so – why not? *shrug* XD Took me a while to get things just right (I kept accidentally deleting the first line while making sure the text was the right size, and then I had to do the middle paragraph as three separate lines so I could put a space in front of each line and not have the words crammed too tightly against the side of the text box), but eventually the Valicertine was finished! Yay~
B) Then I started thinking about the fact that, for the past couple of years, I’ve also done at least one “bonus image” to go with my Valicertines (like the “bitches will say ‘this is my OT3’” picture, or the “Alice: Madness Returns X Corpse Bride X The Smiler = My OT3” picture). However, I really wasn’t sure what I wanted to do for said bonus image. Stumped, I thought, “maybe I can do a fourth Valicertine instead this year – what about something with the three of them at the table, with a joke about kitchen table polyamory?” So I started looking through the Chill Valicer Save screenshots for a good shot of the three of them eating together –
And then thought – “wait a minute. I have multiple pictures of them hanging out at the kitchen table together. Hmmmm.”
Cue me finding four good pics of them sitting at a dining table in the kitchen (three showing off the dining table at various points during their stay in the Henford-On-Bagley haunted house, one from their trip to Sulani for their trio honeymoon), and putting them together to make a bonus image, with the text reading “Valicer Is Kitchen Table Polyamory. Quite Literally.” XD I got a kick out of it! Hopefully others will too.
C) Then, I went into my Drafts and drafted out the Valicertine’s day post with all three Valicertines, complete with alt text and tags! So that’s all ready to post on Friday, w000!
D) And finally, I did a quick draft of the “Kitchen Table Polyamory” bonus image post before coming over here – it’s not done, but I’ve got the actual picture uploaded and the first sentence done. We’ll see about getting the rest of it done this weekend!
Valice Multiverse – Well, there was nothing going on here tonight again, so I looked up the “#blades in the dark” tag and put someone’s art of some PCs for the game into my queue. Because I wanted to do SOMETHING over here and it was good art, damn it. So that’s sorted. *nods*
Sims 4: Whew – had a long session today in my building save, working tirelessly to try and complete as much of my Polyheart OT3 house as possible before the weekend so I could start drafting out the post/posts about it on Saturday! And it paid off –
Even if, uh, I did end up neglecting my notes on what I was doing in favor of just getting as much done as possible. ^^; Look, writing down where every decoration or item I was using came from and how I was arranging it around the room was taking too much time! And I’m sure most of you are probably not that interested in the minutiae anyway. Or maybe you are, in which case, sorry! But I do have plenty of screenshots to reference, so I shall take you through what I did to finish off the house, at least enough to share it as part of Valicertine’s Week next Wednesday –
A) While I didn’t plan to do anything to the living room – I considered that, the front foyer, the guest bathroom, the en-suite bathroom, and the kitchen done – I ended up adding one thing to it after stumbling across it looking for more ways to decorate everyone’s spaces: the magazine and remote holder from Parenthood! It’s supposed to go next to the couch, but I ended up putting it next to the TV stand so it helped balance out the games console on the other side. Found out it also came in fun colors too, so I made sure to pick one of those swatches. :) Nice little finishing detail!
B) I added some art to the halls (moving the “cherry blossom branch” picture out of the big bathroom into the right-hand hallway across from Victor’s room, along with adding the Backyard Stuff trio of pictures in the “colorful trees” swatch by Smiler’s door and a Dine Out “set table abstract” on the other wall near the kitchen; and adding a big picture of a woman with wild blue hair against a yellow background into the left-hand hall to help balance out the giant abstract on the other side, between Alice’s door and the bedroom door) – AND I added a little laundry nook to the end of the hall by Alice’s room! Because it looked very blank there (especially given there’s a grandfather clock from Life & Dead at the end of the other hall by Victor’s room), and I thought it would be fun to add laundry to the house. We have a stacked blue and yellow washer and dryer combo, with some red laundry detergent up top and a blue ironing board on the diagonal nearby. And I made sure to add hampers to the big bathroom (red swatch) and the bedroom (blue swatch). *nods* Think it adds a nice touch of realism to the place!
C) As for Alice’s room next door, I rearranged the paintings and artwork a little bit (putting the framed keys next to her desk and moving the cake picture to the other side of her door); added a few new pieces, like a red abstract, the spookier painting of the Magic Realm arch from Life & Death, and some white bunny decals because, well, White Rabbit XD; found the cool plant wall from Eco Lifestyle and paired it with a “mossy rock” rug from Snowy Escape to create that “photo backdrop” on the little bit of straight wall near the curved window that I was trying to figure out the other day; cluttered up her desk a bit more with some Werewolves papers and a new pen holder (as I didn’t like the more modern on in her room); and gave her a nice little sitting area behind her camera with a fancy red Cordelia couch, matching end table, and the Cottage Living “rabbit with a flower in its mouth” statue atop said end table. Again in the white swatch, because – well. XD The seating area kind of came about because she had a big gap behind her tripod and I had no idea how to fill it, but I’m quite happy with it, really! :)
D) Victor’s room, meanwhile, was almost all about getting the walls decorated the way I wanted – I ended up putting the Life & Death fancy painting in the “blue roses, white frame” swatch beside his door near his desk; the picture of a guy playing piano on the curved wall between his desk and the window; a light-up bare tree from Dine Out paired with some of the light-up butterflies from Kid’s Room Stuff in the more blue swatch on the strip of wall behind his piano, on the corner next to the crochet and cross-stitch stuff I’m pretending was from Victoria; the fancy piano keys picture on the wall next to the cross-stitch collection; one of the High School Years “arty stuff” pictures in the “four pieces of paper taped together forming a sketch of a tree” swatch by his easel on one side; and the unlockable body studies from the Artist career on the other. “bb.moveobjects on” was used liberally to get all this to fit, I assure you. XD I also stuck a sized-down version of the “paint splotches” City Living rug that looks like a tarp you’d lay down under an easel – well, under the easel XD; added the unlockable Artist taboret (paints cabinet) and some blank canvases next to said easel; that little picture of butterflies and the rose you can get by getting Silver on a date (in a fancy multicolored swatch I didn’t know existed) onto his piano; and cluttered up his desk with book stacks from base game and High School Years because Victor’s desk in Corpse Bride is liberally covered in books as I recall. Oh, and sized down the Spooky Stuff cartoony skull rug and stuck it under his desk chair. It felt on brand. XD I very like the final effect!
E) As for Smiler’s room, I made sure to get them the fancy “gamer” High School Years desk, matching desk chair (in black, as the yellow swatch was covered in flowers, and that didn’t feel appropriately Smiler), and fancy big computer (the widescreen curved monitor one with the RGB glowing keyboard), and stuck that all in the corner next to the chemistry bench corner. And then resized the yellow-and-black-striped rug a little and turned it around so it was only under the desk and not anywhere near the chemistry bench because I figured Smiler wouldn’t want to ruin their rug. XD After that, I spent most of my time organizing their wall art and decorations – putting the “Stride With Pride” picture and non-binary pride flag above their desk on either side of the corner; putting their yellow “lightbulb” poster and purple frog decal on the black stripe between the desk and the chemistry bench; putting a big Get To Work sciencey decal on the wall next to the chemistry bench because it looked like a giant flask; putting another science poster showing off an atom behind the chemistry bench because it looked good there; and putting the Lovestruck wall-mounted fan on the wall over their yoga mat (I intended it to help blow away chemistry bench fumes, but I guess it actually keeps them cool while they’re doing yoga). Oh, and put their cool Moschino art collection on the far wall facing the yoga mat. I still feel their room looks a tiny bit empty, but I’m not sure what else to stick in there, as I don’t think a bar or a karaoke machine would properly fit. Though – comparing it to pictures of Victor and Alice’s rooms, maybe it’s just fine? Victor’s room looks more cluttered, but that’s probably because he has more wall decorations. I did go a little overboard in there, I admit. :p
F) As for their shared bedroom, I ended up leaning heavily on the High School Years poster collections with all different swatches and the “painted vinyl” collections with all different swatches to fill up their wall space a little – they now have fun colorful posters of stuff like a cat in a box and a rainbow “man-woman-peace” symbol, plus some painted records featuring stuff like dripping mushrooms, colorful sunsets, and little monsters. I also stuck a rubber tree plant in a yellow pot by the window just to fill in the space between the en-suite bathroom door and the window a bit better – putting a hamper next to the door helped, but it just needed that little extra something, you know? At any rate, the room looks better and more colorful than it did!
G) And in the big bathroom, in addition to adding in the hamper in the corner by the towels and the bathrobes, I also changed up the art a little, adding a cool unlockable ocean scene painting you can get in the “Tech Guru” career for some reason over the bath caddy, along with one of the fanciest of the Cordelia paintings, depicting I believe her old kingdom, where the “cherry blossom branch” painting was over the tub. I also removed the small red circle rug from under the towels because I decided I didn’t like it – and then forgot to replace it. XD Sorry, guys! I was very distracted!
And that should be this house pretty much done! *slaps hands together* Whew. Might pop back in for a tiny bit on Saturday to add a couple last-minute finishing touches (like replacing that bathroom rug I just mentioned), but other than that, we are golden. Now I just have to figure out how to do the photo post for Wednesday...which is going to be interesting, as I want to show off all the cool stuff in the house, but a lot of it is only visible with walls up. And it is VERY HARD to get pictures of all these fairly cramped rooms with walls up! Someone want to teach me how the hell to use the “free cam” already? I’ve never been able to master it, and I suspect it would help in a house like this.
Writing: Got another page on “A Murder Shared Is A Murder Thirded” tonight! Featuring Victor and Smiler getting a look at Alice’s room and noting that it’s rather small (allowing me to slip in that quote from A:MR where Alice compares it to her room at Rutledge – Smiler was not happy to hear that); Victor noting Alice’s resemblance to Lizzie in the portrait, and Smiler commenting that they looked like a happy family (Alice said that they were, at least until the fire – both Victor and Smiler were very sympathetic); and Alice getting her diary out of a secret compartment out of the bottom of her bookcase to go with her clothes, blanket, and family portrait in the bag (because she’s not leaving THAT behind to get found and read!). I left off with them getting down the pictures of Wonderland the children drew her from over her bed so she could take those along as well, and Victor bringing up an important question – what happens after they expose and/or kill Bumby? We’ll hear Alice’s answer tomorrow...and possibly finish off the chapter, because holy shit, there’s only about a page and a half to go. O.o I’m not used to short chapters anymore after “Londerland Bloodlines!”
YouTube: Welp, thanks to starting my nightly YouTubery late, I didn’t actually get to the video in my Subs – fortunately, it is a six-minute “Fun With Shorts” video by Josh Way and thus easier to catch up on. And I did get to all the other stuff I wanted to get to today –
A) First up, a surprise video I caught this morning – the premiere of “The Sims™ 4 Businesses & Hobbies Expansion Pack | Official Reveal Trailer!” Yes, thanks to me being home today because of the snow and doing a quick search earlier to see if the trailer had been released, I was actually able to watch the trailer AS IT WAS RELEASED. Which was kind of neat! As for the trailer itself, it focused around a family living whatever new world is being released with the pack, with the mother being a tattoo artist and the father being a potter, showing off how the new tattooing and pottery skills work (the former introduces Paint Mode for ordinary, non-furry Sims, at least when it comes to adding body art), how your Sims can teach others their skills (and apparently physically pass on knowledge from themselves to others), and how you can now run a business that you also live in! By setting certain areas as residential, others as public, and others as employees only!
...using a system that looks very much like the one in For Rent! *strained smile* Yeah, uh – I am intrigued by some of the stuff on display here, but the minute they showed that, I was like “this is another pack that’s going to be released broken, isn’t it?” Because as far as I know, For Rent STILL doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to, and if they’re using the same system for ANOTHER pack… I dunno. I’ll keep abreast of what’s out there just out of curiosity, but I suspect any home businesses my Sims run are just going to use the simple awesomeness of the Home Chef Hustle selling table.
B) Then, tonight, we had the OXBoxtra lists of the week –
I. “7 Cutest Creatures That Tried to Murder You Immediately” – Andy and Ellen talking about the cute creatures in games that proved to actually be vicious murder machines! From the deadly boss Great Gray Sif in Dark Souls (who is so floofy but will cut a bitch to protect her former master’s grave...even if you helped save her in the past via DLC time-travel shenanigans), to the Fat Chocobo in Final Fantasy VII Remake (who is adorably obese but not afraid to roll over you and crush you flat – and then throw bombs at you), to Mira the Shiba Inu from Silent Hill 2 and its famous Dog Ending (who isn’t directly murderous to James Sunderland, but who HAS been controlling the horrors of Silent Hill all this time, sooo), these fluffy creatures prove you can’t always judge a video game animal by its cuteness. (Though, uh, don’t go thinking the ugly ones are any safer, trust me.)
II. “7 Surprisingly Dark Easter Eggs in Non-Horror Games” – Andy and Jane talking about those surprisingly dark moments in games that shouldn’t contain them (or, at least shouldn’t contain dark moments like THESE). From the disembodied screaming you can hear in various locked-off areas in Saints Row 3 and Saints Row The Fourth (suggesting someone is getting violently murdered – and for once you’re not to blame), to the creepy haunted mannequin in the Miami aquarium of Hitman (which, after you zoom in on it with your scope and get a good look at it in its red-lit room, suddenly disappears and reappears RIGHT BEHIND YOU WITH ARMS OUTSTRETCHED), to the sudden discovery of a DEAD GOLFER lying in a pool of his own blood in some trees in ARCADE GOLF GAME Golden Tee Golf 99 (...I’m here for finding Bigfoot watching me when I miss a shot, not this!), these games had some pretty dark hidden content for their players to stumble across. I mean – at least it’s not a weird chained-up heart right in the middle of the faux-Statue Of Liberty, like in one of the GTA games?
Workout: Back on the bike again tonight, pedaling my way through –
A) The end of “Building with the Free game update! 70+ new items!” by James Turner! The final ten or so minutes of his refresh of Crick Cabana in Willow Creek with the new base game update items saw him adjust some of the flooring (extending the hardwood into the master bedroom and making sure the porch was properly floored); attempt to get more natural light into the back bedroom, only to realize the wall he added the window onto was pretty much always facing away from the sun; use debug bushes and shrubs to add free landscaping; and realize at the last minute “shit, I forgot an outdoor bin!” XD And a mailbox, but that wasn’t so big a deal, as those don’t cost money, but bins do. Fortunately he was able to hide a cheap not-exactly-appropriate-for-residential outdoor bin in the flowers outside, and a test with Semaj confirmed that it worked, yay. (Though then James ran into an issue where, for some reason, he couldn’t SAVE after moving Semaj in...he’s not sure if this is an in-game bug or again the result of him not fully taking out his mods. JAMES PLS) So the house is now much nicer than it was, if SLIGHTLY more expensive – he was aiming for a house value of roughly $11,700, and when he finished the renovations, he was at roughly $12,000. Which still isn’t bad for a starter home! And it’s a hell of an improvement on the original, that’s for damn sure. Go seek it out on the Gallery for all your base game neighborhood refresh needs!
B) The first twenty-odd minutes of “I'm trying Rags to Riches in The Sims 2,” also by James Turner! Yes, having gotten the recent re-release of the famous and beloved second entry in the franchise, James has decided to do a Rags To Riches with a Sims 2 version of Semaj! This version of Semaj did get a house to live in at the start (a very empty Midcentury Modern place in the middle of Veronaville XD), unlike his Sims 4 brethren, but seeing as buying it, a phone, and a fire alarm left him with sixteen simoleons, I think we can safely say he is pretty “Rags” right now. XD Anyway, in these first twenty minutes, James got through making Semaj in CAS (cripes, we were so limited back in the early 2000s when it came to designing Sims); settling him in his house and getting him a job in the Business career from the paper for aspiration points; selling the computer that Rod Humble gave him for free for capital; and starting up his own little home business selling cheap sandwiches on a couple of cheap tables outside on his driveway. XD He’s made one sale so far, but it was tricky – both because he’s currently shit at selling stuff, and because one of his customers pondering a sandwich was blocking the register for the other customer trying to BUY a sandwich. She eventually moved, but – yeah. It was a time. XD Now, I admit – I clicked on this mainly because I wanted to fill the twenty-odd minutes I had left after finishing off the Crick Cabana refresh, and it didn’t really register in my head until I was already watching that this video is an hour and twenty minutes. AKA, too long to fit into the rest of the week. So I don’t know if I’ll be continuing this or not, because I was HOPING to double up on Tiny Town shenanigans next week for my workouts. Though I suppose I could watch the next half-hour tomorrow during my bike ride, then see if I can fit in whatever’s left on Saturday? *shrug* Might be a plan. And I am kind of curious to see what happens with Sims 2 Semaj on his business journey – James has talked about how he used to love running car dealerships, and while I don’t think we’ll get to THERE over the course of this episode, maybe we’ll see him start working on the old junker car? *shrug* Inquiring minds!
Aaand I've accidentally lost track of time and stayed up a bit too late, so it's time for me to hurry off and hit the sheets! We'll see how things go tomorrow at work -- at least it's only the one day! Night all!
