crossover_chick: picture of Alice (Wonderland) in front of the swirling purple Wonderland tunnel (AMA: Alice down the rabbit hole)
[personal profile] crossover_chick
Like, I'd say I was pretty productive OFFLINE, as per the "Cleaning" section of my write-up below, but when it comes to stuff I'd hoped to get done on the computer...yeah, I was hoping to accomplish more. But time constraints forbid. *sigh* Well, at least it's a long weekend and I can have a day like this without it throwing off everything I'd hoped to do. Let's get into the nitty-gritty --

Cleaning: Reasonably typical Cleaning Saturday – I started the whole process around 10:50 AM, got done with the dusting and Swiffering by the time lunch was ready shortly before 1:15 PM, then finished up with the vacuuming after, completing everything around 2 PM! ...Granted, immediately afterwards I had to help my parents with a project of theirs (along with the laundry Mom was doing), so I didn’t actually get on the computer until after 4 PM, but – still. At least the cleaning went nice and smoothly, right? XD And I enjoyed relistening to “Murder At Volisport Academy” from Oxventure Presents: Blades In The Dark today – that series is the best. :)

Tumblr: Didn’t get anything done over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), as is typical for a Cleaning Saturday, but I did have some activity over on Valice Multiverse:

A) A reply and a reblog (yes, those are different things – a reply is more like a message to the creator of the post and doesn’t put the post on your blog, while a reblog is more public and DOES put the post on your blog) from TheCovenWars’s Charlotte on the ask she sent where she was like “I’m totally not trying to read your minds” and Forgotten Vows!Alice was like “Good because that can lead to bad things [picturing her shoving Bumby into a train]” –

I. The reply was Charlotte being like “woah, hold on, I’ve already learned my lesson about messing with people’s brains too much – no, won’t give you details” – Alice replied in turn “that’s fine, I just wanted the assurance you weren’t about to mess with MY brain”

II. And the reblog was Charlotte following up with a serious question – if you had a dear friend with really bad trauma, and you had the ability to remove the trauma, but doing so would fundamentally change the foundations of who they are...would you do it? Alice told her in my reblog that she certainly understood the temptation, as she would love to be able to just make the people she loved better (while thinking about Victor, because, well, Forgotten Vows Verse) – but if it came with the price of changing who they were, making them not the people she loved anymore, she couldn’t do it. Which is understandable, especially after everything she and Victor went through with Bumby.

B) And a “messing with the trio” ask where Toonsisters had the power go out while Victor was drawing (fortunately giving him a flashlight close at hand), followed by a creepy butterfly monster appearing on his ceiling expressing its desire to eat his skin. Cuddlepile!Victor was initially like “uh, could someone come in here and confirm this thing is real, and maybe do something about the power outage” –

Then Toonsisters reblogged the ask with her character leaping through the door in a Scream mask to scare him – only to get spooked herself when she saw the butterfly monster, because nope, she is NOT responsible for that thing. Poor Victor nearly brained her with his flashlight – and then, when she confirmed the thing WAS real, started desperately trying to herd out the door so they could escape from it. We’ll see if there’s any further follow-up on this one tomorrow!

Writing: Annoyingly, between the long time I spent offline doing cleaning and other stuff (above), and how long it took me to get through all the YouTube videos I wanted to watch (below), I didn’t do any actual writing today. However, I was determined to somehow make some progress – so I pulled up the list of Multiamory March prompts I copied into my “Valicer Poly Prompts” doc (where I keep all the fic I’ve written for the two Polyship Weeks and one OT3 week I’ve participated in, along with the one drabble I whipped up for one of PolyamShip’s “Polyam Shipping Days”) and started making notes for what I wanted to do for which prompts, so I’d have an idea of where to start when it came time to write! For example, the prompt “The polycule taking care of a child or pet” is going to be about the Valicer In The Dark gang hanging out with their pets, while “First date as a polycule” is going to be the Modern Human Smiler AU’s trio going rollerblading for their first date all together, and “Outsider POV” is going to be about my “all the fairytales” AU that puts together Victor, Alice, Emily, Victoria, and Smiler, and features other kingdoms reacting to Prince Victor of Dort marrying four people. XD I haven’t matched up every prompt with an AU yet (and there’s some prompts that I may be changing out for alternates – already swapped out “team as polycule” for “always room for one more” because I did the former semi-recently as part of the latest Polyship Week last November), but I have the first four days sorted, so hopefully I can whip up some stuff for those soon!

YouTube: As indicated above in the “Cleaning” section, I got on the computer quite late today – so when it came time to choose between “playing Baldur’s Gate III or doing a YouTube Marathon day,” the latter ended up winning by default. :p I thus spent the late afternoon and evening getting through all the videos in my Watch Later and my Subs, clearing them out so I wouldn’t have to worry about them later –

A) Starting with “A Villain In Training [And Sally's Spellcaster Life] | Super Sim Series 18” by Petey Plays It! As per the end of the last episode (where she’d focused on causing loads of romantic drama), Tina was fully embracing the villainous side of being a Super Sim now, and spent this episode making some excellent progress toward becoming a truly despicable person. Which included:

I. Getting a Distinguished Degree With Honors in Villainy from Foxbury (which she did while living in her bunker as there were no student organizations she had to join this time around – in fact, this degree marked the last time she’d ever have to attend Foxbury at all, because it was the last one she had to earn from that university. For all future degrees, we’ll be hitting up Ubrite instead! Nice!)

II. Completing the Chief of Mischief aspiration by tormenting and pranking people, in particular Nancy Landgraab (who never seemed as annoyed by Tina’s actions as Tina hoped)

III. Making decent progress on the Public Enemy, Seeker of Secrets, and Villainous Valentine aspirations by getting Sims to dislike her (despite all of her friendship-boosting traits); snooping around the Landgraab mansion for secrets (Nancy apparently took a trip to space as a toddler, and Geoffrey has a thing for the Grim Reaper); and breaking up two more couples (Clara and Bjorn Bjergsen, which was quite difficult, and Bob and Eliza Pancakes, which was quite easy)

IV. Using a Ghastly Ritual to get herself ghost form for a few hours to rank up in her Ghost Mastery and get some more evil ghostly powers (such as the ability to levitate people and tip them outside down to grab the stuff in their pockets)

V. And temporarily joining the Scientist career to get herself a Sim Ray with mind control settings (not sure why she didn’t just stick it out for a few promotions and check another career off her list, but eh, she’s immortal, she has time to work on these things)

So yeah – she’s definitely doing well in getting her evil on! Plus, along the way, she made some massive upgrades to both the objects in the bunker and her new Servo buddy Wheelo; built herself a couple of robot gardeners (as the first one broke down and decayed into rubble when Tina neglected to repair it in time); reached the top of the part-time Handyperson career just by joining it (getting the special trait it grants before quitting after going to her first shift late XD); and completed the snowglobe collection by buying all the ones she still needed from the flea market! *nods* Solid stuff. But things may not stay going Tina’s way for too much longer – for you see, we had a side adventure with her spellcaster mother Sally during this episode. Who managed to tick off another super-powerful evil vampire, Rhiannon, with her spells. And Rhiannon was NOT satisfied with just using her own vampire powers to cause trouble for Sally in turn – no, it seems like she might be a bigger threat than we first thought. Or, perhaps, a bigger friend? Because, well, Tina was born a werewolf, and spent some time as a spellcaster – but she hasn’t done anything as a vampire yet…

B) Then it was time for the OXBoxtra lists of the week:

I. “7 Bosses You Could Only Hide From: The Return” – Andy and Ellen talking about those bosses who you can’t fight (at least at first), only keep out of their line of sight and pray they don’t spot you! From the Neighbor (who actually has a name, Theodore Peterson) in Hello Neighbor determined to throw you out of his house so you don’t discover his secrets, to the shadowy Queen Vanessa in A Hat In Time determined to track you down in her mansion and turn you into shadow as well, to every freaking inmate (but especially Chris Walker) in Outlast determined to do SOMETHING nasty to you should they find you lurking in the dark of the asylum, these bosses will make you grateful that Video Game Law requires that sections like these demand that you be given cupboards to hide in. Those video game carpenters make BANK on horror stealth sections in games.

II. “7 Crucial Game Mechanics the Game Doesn’t Tell You About” – Jane and Ellen talking about those very useful game mechanics that, for SOME reason, the game doesn’t see fit to include in any proper tutorials! Such as the fact that you get “fortitude,” aka extra health and the ability for Indy to heal himself by grabbing his hat when he’s knocked to the ground by an enemy, when Indy’s in his classic “leather jacket and fedora” get-up in Indiana Jones And The Great Circle! Or the fact that camping kits in Dragon Dogma’s 2 AREN’T consumable items – they’re actually reusable until an enemy attack destroys one! Or the fact that, in order to wait around for a period of time in Fallout 4, you need to find a spot to sit down, instead of just doing it whenever like in Fallout 3! That last one particularly amused me because, until I saw it on this list, I realized I’d never seen the game explain it – I only knew about it from people playing it on YouTube. Ah, the unexpected benefits of picking up a game late. XD But yeah, games, if you could please explain ALL of your mechanics, that would be GREAT, thanks.

C) Then, to finish out the Watch Later, we had “CaFae Latte Season 25 - TikTok Compilation” by C. M. Alongi! Complete with a new intro sequence showing the shop sign, neat. Anyway, this season saw JC’s old buddy Erik – quarter-demon and fellow ex-con – show up in the cafe looking for work and get hired on as a barista after JC vouched for them to Bob; Erik getting a little burned learning how to use the espresso machine from Rethu and learning about the concept of a “boo-boo bunny” from Husniya (it’s basically a kiddy ice pack in a soft bunny – Erik and Rethu were both like “we SHOULD have one of those”); Erik, Rethu, Cyrus, and Mike all talking tattoos and getting briefly shamed by another customer for the ink being “unprofessional” – only for a lawyer to show up and show off their own ink; Husniya having to deal with an asshole who thought she should “glam herself up” for tips, who somehow completely missed she was Muslim despite the hijab (and then got silenced by Bob when he wouldn’t stop being an asshole when it was explained); and Cyrus, Bob, JC, and Erik talking about the new “cafe latte” Monster Energy drink, with Bob explaining that it wasn’t copyright infringement as they’re CaFAE latte – and then getting annoyed when JC insisted on bringing a gas station latte back to the shop for the others to try. XD Fun stuff, as always – I do enjoy this series.

D) From there it was into the Subs to catch up with the Josh Way video I missed last night – “Heart Eyes Movie Review!” His quick review of the new rom com slasher movie featuring the Heart Eyes killer going after two people he THINKS are a couple but aren’t really. Josh’s thoughts can be summed up as “I really liked the first half, but thought the second half slowed down too much and got too bogged into the lore and such – it’s actually really similar to Scream, in fact. So if you like that, you’ll probably like this, but it wasn’t quite for me.” So yeah – if you just want to see a new slasher, you could do worse than this – just know that it’s not exactly groundbreaking cinema!

E) And finally, we had the GrayStillPlays video of the day – “Sawblade wheel truck vs logs!” Though this challenge would have been more accurately described as “sawblade wheel trucks vs regular cars vs logs,” as in addition to the three sawblade-wheeled-monstrosities Alex and team had cooked up, there were also a selection of regular vehicles – well, regular-ISH, the tank and the Phantom Wedge made the list. XD But of this group, Gray had to figure out which one could get past all four log-based challenges – a bunch of growing log piles (complete with handy rulers to show how high they were getting); a double-barreled log cannon shooting logs down a tightrope (which hit him harder and harder the closer he got to the cannon); a “memory foam” log bridge where the logs all spun independently and could be manipulated into new positions, and which got more and more widely spaced the further he went (PLUS there was a balloon floating above it near the end that he had to hit to remove a barrier); and a “stalking log carousel” where two rotating logs tried their best to murder him while he tried to get to the end in under 30 seconds. Of the cars that actually managed to make it all the way to the murdery log carousel, the Insurgent and the monster truck were just like immediately slapped off the course by the violent logs; the sawblade bus was defeated less by the logs and more by its own ridiculously bouncy suspension; and the Sherp was able to avoid death by log, but simply didn’t have the speed to get to the end in time. Meaning the winner was the sawblade dump truck, which had the speed, the grip, and the sheer presence to force its way past every obstacle! Sending up a spray of woodchips in its wake, which was a nice touch by Alex and company. :)

Yeah, as you can see, perhaps not my best work. But it IS nice to have the Watch Later and Subs cleared, and at least I was able to do some good prepwork for future writing! But now I really want to get to bed sooner rather than later, because I genuinely DON'T want to stay up until 2:30 AM again. Goals for tomorrow include -- well, it's a toss-up between "play Fallout 4, clear out Hardware Town, and get that paint for Abbot, then update the FO4 Playthrough Progression appropriately" or "play Baldur's Gate III, see about getting my party closer to where Withers is in his sarcophagus, then work on some of these Multiamory March prompts." We'll see which one I lean closer to tomorrow! But no matter what, I'm working on more of my Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) drafts; getting in a workout; and keeping up with the usual Sunday Two -- Happy Wheels from GrayStillPlays and Fallout: London from Jon of Many A True Nerd! Wish me luck with that. :p Night all!
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