Happy Birthday Smiler!
May. 31st, 2025 11:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickAnd the reason I'm a little late in saying that is attached to this post -- occurred to me last minute that I might want an icon of Smiler just by themselves for this sort of thing. :) So now I have one, featuring one of my favorite pictures of them. Look at that big old smile! Aren't they cute~
Anyway -- I ended up having a very nice, very chill Saturday for the most part, I'm pleased to say -- spending my time celebrating Smiler's birthday and getting stuff done:
Tumblr: Had a reasonably productive day over here –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Accomplishments over on this blog today included:
A) Getting the “plushy celebration” photo post for Smiler’s birthday up before lunch, featuring Smileon the bear holding birthday court over Victor Plush and Alice Dolly from atop both Us AND my desk chair, while Victor Plush and Alice Dolly – propped up by Dougie the dragon on my blankets – waited to hear their royal birthday decrees. Yeah, I didn’t want to do another race, like I did on Alice’s birthday, and I thought Smileon playfully “lording it over” Victor Plush and Alice Dolly with Us’s help might be fun. And it was! :) Though mainly I’m glad that getting the photo onto my computer from my phone was NOT an absolute shitshow this time – I was genuinely worried. But a lack of phone updates meant a lack of trouble, so yay.
B) And going through my two Mega Ghostbusters AU posts and doing some some last edits – rewording some clunky bits (including some unclear tags in the first post) and finishing off the second post with a proper concluding paragraph and proper tags. So those should be done and dusted now! :) Might drop them in the queue for this upcoming week, in fact – we’ll see how I feel!
Valice Multiverse – Had one anon ask pop up over here late tonight (which I technically answered after midnight, but I regularly count things that happened after midnight while updating this thing on weekends, because in my brain it’s still Saturday until I go to bed :P), commenting on how “I can’t be assed” doesn’t sound quite as good as “I can’t be arsed.” The Cuddlepile!Valicer trio agreed, with Victor positing that the “r” sound in “arsed” just adds a certain something that makes the second phrase sound more dismissive. *shrug* I mean, it makes sense to me, but then again it’s late and I am rather tired, so… :P
Sims 4: Yes, I ended up popping in here to create the Teen Valicer trio and do a little bit of dress-up with them over trying to do anything directly in Baldur’s Gate III today – because while I definitely WANT to get Tav!Smiler off the ground sooner rather than later, I know that getting that set up will be something of a time sink (what with figuring out my final modlist, clearing out old save files and mods, and possibly doing a straight-up uninstall and reinstall of the game to make sure everything is in tip-top shape before I restart for what is hopefully the last time), and I wanted to leave room for other activities today. Plus I just wanted to see my original Sims 4 Smiler again. :) So here’s how my mini-CAS session went:
A) Started by readding some of my custom content clothing to the game – namely NightmarePoison’s Smiler set; all the Crypt-O-Club stuff I’ve downloaded (“Angsty Adolescence,” “Creepy Creations,” “DIY Or Die,” and “Punk Pride”); Nucrest’s underwear set; Plumbella’s CC (for the hat with the cherries I like to give Alice); and Saurus’s “Rainbow Collection” – along with the “More Columns In CAS” mod (4 columns version, freshly downloaded so I was sure I had the latest one). I wanted to have the option to play around with my CC stuff if I so chose, and the “More Columns In CAS” mod just makes life so much EASIER when you’re playing dress-up with your Sims! Seriously, why is the ability to change up how many columns display in CAS not just in the game already? We have SO MANY CLOTHES from all these packs they keep releasing! Come on EA!
B) Anyway – with that sorted, my game updated, and my mods re-enabled after said update, it was time to get teenifying! I thus popped into my current building save, went to the “create a new household to move in” button, then grabbed the latest Valicer trio I’d saved into my Library – the one where Smiler is a spellcaster – and plopped them down in CAS, overwriting the random Sim provided (sorry random Sim!). We all then said a sad goodbye to Dogmeat (who was part of this Valicer trio, and most of the other ones currently saved in my Library, by virtue of them all being “cloned” off the version that lives in my Building Save – the Victor there was originally a Fallout 4-esque Victor living on his own, you see, so I gave him a Dogmeat so he wouldn’t be lonely) as I deleted him from the family –
And then it was just a matter of a few simple clicks to turn the trio into teenagers! Though those few simple clicks actually introduced me to two interesting facts about teenage Sims that I’d never really noticed before, having pretty much always played with young adults –
I. The Sims community likes to make a big deal about how teenagers are the same size as adults in this game (and how that can get confusing sometimes) – but having just changed Sims I’m intimately familiar with as young adults into teenagers, I think teenagers are slightly shorter than adult Sims! Like, I would swear Victor in particular shrunk a tiiiiny bit when I deaged him down to teenager (I thought he’d somehow gotten thinner, in fact). It’s BARELY noticeable, admittedly – teens could stand to be a little smaller just so we can distinguish them better from adults – but they are definitely not QUITE the same size as adults.
II. Teenagers naturally have higher-pitched voices than adult Sims. I didn’t notice this so much when I changed Victor, but when I de-aged Smiler, I was extremely thrown by their deep voice suddenly being much higher-pitched! I was actually worried something had gone wrong with my game, in fact – I kept swapping them back and forth, listening to the voice change, fiddling with the slider a bit to try and “fix” things, and wondering what the hell was going on –
And then I deaged Alice, heard the same thing happen to her voice, and went “oh, okay, it’s probably a teenager thing.” Which, on the one hand, hooray, my game isn’t fucking up – but on the other hand, now my trio are going to sound weird to me because I didn’t know that before and I’m used to their adult voices. XD Particularly Smiler’s – come on, game, I gave them a deep voice for a reason! (The reason being The Smiler coaster’s voice in the 2013 firework’s show is very deep, and that just became my headcanon for Smiler’s voice.)
C) Anyway – after getting past those two “???” moments, it was time to get the teens settled in some teen-appropriate outfits! I didn’t do a full wardrobe update today (that would take ages, and I got to the Simming a bit later than I wanted today), but I did make sure to do one “everyday” outfit for all three. I also checked their teen traits and updated them as necessary to properly reflect their personalities. Here’s what I ended up with:
Victor was first in the “new clothes” line-up, and while my original intention was to give him a nice top with a vest (as he pretty much always looks good in a vest), I wasn’t finding any that really screamed “teenager” to me. And the ones that did seem appropriate to a younger Victor often highlighted his kind-of-wonky proportions in a weird way (he has a really thin waist, and some tops just emphasized the narrow-but-present V between that and his shoulders a little too much. Which is weird, because when you look at his puppet model, he doesn’t really have shoulders, but I can’t really do that in Sims 4. Much like how I can’t make his neck absurdly thin – trust me, I tried, but it’s already as thin as it’ll go!). Fortunately, switching gears and filtering everything to see all the stuff specific to High School Years caused me to stumble across that blue sweater with the red trim – and when I put that on Victor, I was like “YES, GOOD, THAT’S MY TEENAGE VICTOR.” *nods* I paired it with a pair of HSY belted black pants (the slightly higher-waisted version, as I thought that looked better), some base-game blue-and-purple argyle socks, and some black sneakers that I think were added into the game in one of the recent patches, and he was good to go! His current traits are “Music Lover,” carried over from adult him, and “Socially Awkward,” which replaced “Clumsy” because, while he is both, I felt like “Socially Awkward” was the more relevant trait for his high school years. Not married to this combination, but it feels right for now!
Alice was up next, and after going through a bunch of outfits, and thinking I might make her go full “goth” in a Life & Death dress (as she wore the look VERY well), I stumbled across the above “checkered jumper dress over a long-sleeve shirt” full-body outfit from Crystal Creations and went “hang on, I’ve put her in this dress before – and didn’t I say at the time that, while I liked it, it would suit a teenager version of her better than an adult one? Well, she’s a teenager now, so…” XD So yeah – went with the dress in the “black shirt under blue jumper” version, matching Crystal Creations thigh-high diamond-patterned socks (I bounced between those and some proper stockings for a while, but felt the socks looked best with the dress), and a pair of Life & Death fancy patterned low boots, because they looked really cool (the picture does not do them justice). Oh, and of course her Realm of Magic key necklace, as that’s a key Alice accessory now. :) Pun not actually intended. XD Her traits are currently “Erratic” and “Gloomy,” carried over from her adult self – again, not married to this combination (especially since all I can see is Alice showering in the rain again constantly if I keep “Erratic”), but it works for now!
And we ended on the birthday enby themselves, Smiler! Who got an almost-entirely CC outfit because, well, they’re the ones who suited the style of the CC I had downloaded the most. XD Specifically, while I fiddled around with a couple different shirt options, I couldn’t resist sticking them in NightmarePoison’s The Smiler hoodie – nor could I resist the siren call of the Crypt-O-Club “Angsty Adolescence” pants with the one black leg and the one yellow-and-black-checked leg. :) Not a fan of the two different blacks on display, but eh – Smiler wouldn’t care. :P I finished off the outfit with those neat High School Years socks with the fancy multicolored leaf patterns; the Crypt-O-Club “Angsty Adolescence” high-top sneakers with all the doodles; the Get Together “chevron” bracelet in yellow, black, and white –
And some nonbinary nail polish! Yeah, I’ve never bothered giving my Sims nail polish before, but I figured if any of the trio were likely to try it out, it would be Smiler. (Well, okay, Alice might do it too, but we’ll start with Smiler. :p) Kept the nails short, though – I didn’t like the way the slightly-longer set looked on them. Their current traits are “Cheerful” and “Outgoing,” both carried over from their adult self – though I had to swap out “Geek” to get “Outgoing” because of the way Sims 4 trimmed down their traits upon age-down. This combination I may be married to – we will see. :p
D) With that sorted, I saved the teenaged trio to my Library, then lied to the game that I wanted to move them into a house (prompting the game to be like “okay, great, just click this button to save them to your Library before we take you to the map screen!” – I ALWAYS forget that happens when I make a new family) so I could answer a very important question – namely, would the trio, with the funds the game gives them at the start, be able to afford the version of “Town Square Terrace” that I made for them for the upcoming Teen Valicer Save file? I thus got to the map screen; noted that their current funds were $24,000; headed over to Copperdale; and hovered over Town Square Terrace –
And saw that it would cost them $23,960. So the answer was “yes, but just BARELY.” The poor kids would have $40 to their names upon purchase. XD Good thing I plan for them all to get part-time jobs! With that settled, I canceled the move-in, swung by the lot to make absolutely sure I couldn’t add any finishing touches (no – even a roll of toilet paper is $50!), then saved it to my Library for later and prepared to head out –
E) And then paused. Because, well, in addition to starting preparations for the Teen Valicer Save file, this playsession was supposed to be about celebrating Smiler’s birthday. And I couldn’t help but wonder – had I really done that by doing a dress-up session for the entire trio? I waffled for a moment, wondering if I wanted to pop back to CAS really quickly and do another outfit for Smiler or not –
And then I thought, “hang on a second – I’ve had problems with the game giving them the wrong teeth before. I better go double-check this Smiler and make sure they have the right chompers. And if I’m doing THAT, I might as well give them a second outfit. It is their birthday, after all.”
So yeah – ran back to CAS, double-checked Smiler’s teeth (pleased to report they had the correct set – the buck teeth in the front without the weird canines), then quickly rustled them up a second everyday look! And I knew pretty much exactly what I wanted – the nonbinary striped shirt from Saurus’s Rainbow Collection paired with the black rolled-up jeans from Crypt-O-Club’s “Punk Pride” set! Because they looked good together and I’m always for Smiler showing their nonbinary pride. :) I completed the look with some black-and-yellow sneakers from Outdoor Retreat (gotta get that yellow in), and some “Punk Pride” purple eye shadow! You can see the full outfit and a close-up of the eye shadow below:
Nice! I tried adding a hat to the outfit too, but I couldn’t find one I liked that went with it. *shrug* Maybe for a different outfit – I am very tempted to give them their Valicer In The Dark fit as another look. :p
And that wrapped up the playsession! Which was nice and chill and puts me that one little step closer to being able to start my new save file. :) Granted, I’m still bothered by the fact that Smiler’s eyes aren’t properly glowing anymore, but – still not sure how to fix that. Only thing I can think of to do is make a post asking for help on tumblr and see if anyone responds...maybe I can do that tomorrow. We’ll see!
YouTube: Well, I definitely listened to plenty of Smiler-themed stuff today – I made my bed to the 2013 Alton Towers fireworks show (which featured The Smiler in a key role at the end...as the villain, granted, but we all know the coaster is much eviler than my OC), the ad for the original “Festival of Thrills,” and the footage from the Roller Coaster Cafe (which has one of my favorite versions of The Smiler’s theme in it), and did my morning tumblring (above) to multiple videos of The Smiler’s official soundtrack, including one of my favorite longer remixes of it. But in terms of the Official Evening Video list, I tackled three –
A) “7 Biggest Red Flags for Game Reveals That Guarantee It’s Going to Suck” by OXtra – Ellen talking in the Purple Glowy Room (where she told us about that game with all the terrible deaths that haunted her childhood) about the stuff she sees as “red flags” whenever a game is revealed, whether it’s a new IP or a continuation of an old one. Game touts a huge “open world” map? Red flag – too many of these titles have huge maps with nothing interesting in them. Game shows off a flashy cinematic but no actual gameplay? Red flag – the game might look nothing like the short movie they made to promote it, and you can’t tell if the game is going to be in a genre you like or not. The executives insist “oh, we’re not doing ‘pay-to-win’ or anything of the ‘bad’ microtransactions?” RED FUCKING FLAG BECAUSE NOT ONLY DOES THAT MEAN THE GAME HAS MICROTRANSACTIONS, THEY ARE ALMOST CERTAINLY LYING. (Incidentally, did you know that the The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion remake/remaster includes the original horse armor that they originally sold as extra...but also has a deluxe edition with FUCKING EXTRA HORSE ARMOR?) Ellen has been a gamer most of her life, and has had an inside look into the industry for a little while now – heed her words or pay the price! Of an overpriced, buggy, awful game you don’t actually want.
B) “CaFae Latte Season 56 - TikTok Compilation” by C. M. Alongi – the next compilation video of CaFae Latte content I had to catch up on! Featuring:
I. The gang getting their paychecks – and Bob taking Oscar into the back to offer him a choice between an overtime check or a magical blessing, specifically one to get him properly housed by the end of the month; after confirming it didn’t matter that he’d had to declare bankruptcy previously to clear his medical bills, that house would still be coming his way, he took that blessing, as you might expect!
II. Oscar encountering a fellow homeless friend of his, Roger, who came into the coffee shop looking for someone to sneak him a snack, and giving him a coffee and a muffin using the cafe’s “Neighbor Account” (a special account people can pay into so people like this dude Roger can get some food without needing to pay) – only for a true bitch of a Karen to approach the counter afterward to demand to see the manager...and then tell Bob to fire Oscar simply for being homeless. Bob was extremely unimpressed, especially when the customer kept saying things like “this is the affluent part of town, I come here to get away from…” [waves at Oscar] “that,” and ended up banning the woman for a year and a day AND cursing her so everyone would assume the worst of her during that time, like she assumed the worst of Oscar. And that’s only because Oscar talked her out of cursing the woman with homelessness herself (Oscar thought it would be too mean – you’re too kind, angel guy).
III. Nicole at her job meeting the mom of one of her students, Jason, when she came back in to get his noise-canceling headphones, and said mom asking her for help – because her OTHER son, Henry, is ALSO autistic, but she can’t get a proper diagnosis for him because he can make and keep eye contact, which is unfortunately the symptom everyone thinks is inherent to autism (it’s not, it’s just the most famous one). She’d tried to set up screenings for him at a local university, but she wanted to see if Nicole knew of any other resources she could use, because she was afraid that, without the official label, he wouldn’t get the help he truly needed to thrive. Nicole said she knew of a few places that she could go to for screenings, then recommended the mom visit the Stoughton Street Witches to see what they could do for her – whether it was spells and charms to help with stuff like meltdowns and overstimulation, or good luck charms to help Henry find someone who could get him properly diagnosed. As you might imagine, the mom was VERY grateful. Nice to see a parent trying their best to look out for their kid!
IV. And finally, JC serving what initially LOOKED like a human customer absolutely desperate for caffeine (ordering the Arcane Rush, which keeps you awake for AGES, and a caffeine packet with it) – but then he proved to know Cyrus, and they started chatting about the old coffee cart Cyrus and Bob used to run back in the 1880s, and how the physical location is much better but oh DAMN did the lemon drop candies peak back then. For some reason, JC thought the weirdest part of this whole thing was the fact that the customer called Cyrus “Blue” – when, you know, Cyrus has canonically not always been “Cyrus” (he was nicknamed that early in the series) and is, you know, supposed to be blue. XD I THINK this was meant to be the eldritch customer mentioned on the thumbnail (the comments seem to indicate it was, with the guy being based on a tumblr post)...and unfortunately, that means I’m a little disappointed, because I was expecting something a touch more Lovecraftian, not an unspecified nonhuman with a love of caffeine. Ah well – I guess that means that I can make up whatever rules I like for eldritch beings and those touched by their powers in my mental Valicer CaFae Latte AU fanfic. :p
C) And finally, to give The Smiler an “official entry” on this list, I watched “The Smiler On-ride POV #AltonTowersTogether” by Alton Towers – a first-person front-seat trip around the coaster! With a certain middle bit cut out because it showed that this particular footage was recorded before a certain crash and thus showed the old “Halfway Corrected” sign right before the second lift hill. *shakehead* Oh Alton Towers...hopefully one day I’ll be able to ride the ride in person. Fingers crossed!
Writing: Got to this quite late in the day – note to self, always do writing before watching YouTube, because your videos WILL find a way to expand to fill all the available time – but I did get to it! Specifically, I did another editing pass on “Blessing” – a short Valicer In The Dark fic I wrote about when Smiler got their blessing, and their iconic yellow glowing eyes, from Mar-Mal! Covering Smiler waking up late the morning after the party where they presented Joy Serum to the other Advocates, trying to figure out why they’re so groggy and remembering a weird-but-pleasant dream they had; going to the bathroom and getting very distracted by their new eye color; then arriving at breakfast and learning from their stunned-and-overjoyed parents what must have happened last night in their sleep. And then reassuring said parents that Mar-Mal didn’t overdo it and that they do still want to eat breakfast. XD I didn’t do too much to it – tweaked some word choices here and there, expanded a paragraph or two by a few sentences – but it was nice to revisit in honor of Smiler’s birthday. :) Suppose I should actually post it somewhere at some point, of course...we’ll see what happens!
So yeah -- hit pretty much everything I wanted to hit when it came to Smiler birthday celebrations! Apart from finding a fanfic to read, but I've been bad at that for ages, so... And now I should wrap things up and hit the sheets! Tomorrow, goals include continuing to work on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) drafts; starting the process of getting my Tav!Smiler sorted in Baldur's Gate III (because I DO want to get that done, as previously mentioned); getting in a workout; and keeping up with the latest from Jon on Fallout: London! I believe those are all achievable goals -- we shall see! Night all!
Anyway -- I ended up having a very nice, very chill Saturday for the most part, I'm pleased to say -- spending my time celebrating Smiler's birthday and getting stuff done:
Tumblr: Had a reasonably productive day over here –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Accomplishments over on this blog today included:
A) Getting the “plushy celebration” photo post for Smiler’s birthday up before lunch, featuring Smileon the bear holding birthday court over Victor Plush and Alice Dolly from atop both Us AND my desk chair, while Victor Plush and Alice Dolly – propped up by Dougie the dragon on my blankets – waited to hear their royal birthday decrees. Yeah, I didn’t want to do another race, like I did on Alice’s birthday, and I thought Smileon playfully “lording it over” Victor Plush and Alice Dolly with Us’s help might be fun. And it was! :) Though mainly I’m glad that getting the photo onto my computer from my phone was NOT an absolute shitshow this time – I was genuinely worried. But a lack of phone updates meant a lack of trouble, so yay.
B) And going through my two Mega Ghostbusters AU posts and doing some some last edits – rewording some clunky bits (including some unclear tags in the first post) and finishing off the second post with a proper concluding paragraph and proper tags. So those should be done and dusted now! :) Might drop them in the queue for this upcoming week, in fact – we’ll see how I feel!
Valice Multiverse – Had one anon ask pop up over here late tonight (which I technically answered after midnight, but I regularly count things that happened after midnight while updating this thing on weekends, because in my brain it’s still Saturday until I go to bed :P), commenting on how “I can’t be assed” doesn’t sound quite as good as “I can’t be arsed.” The Cuddlepile!Valicer trio agreed, with Victor positing that the “r” sound in “arsed” just adds a certain something that makes the second phrase sound more dismissive. *shrug* I mean, it makes sense to me, but then again it’s late and I am rather tired, so… :P
Sims 4: Yes, I ended up popping in here to create the Teen Valicer trio and do a little bit of dress-up with them over trying to do anything directly in Baldur’s Gate III today – because while I definitely WANT to get Tav!Smiler off the ground sooner rather than later, I know that getting that set up will be something of a time sink (what with figuring out my final modlist, clearing out old save files and mods, and possibly doing a straight-up uninstall and reinstall of the game to make sure everything is in tip-top shape before I restart for what is hopefully the last time), and I wanted to leave room for other activities today. Plus I just wanted to see my original Sims 4 Smiler again. :) So here’s how my mini-CAS session went:
A) Started by readding some of my custom content clothing to the game – namely NightmarePoison’s Smiler set; all the Crypt-O-Club stuff I’ve downloaded (“Angsty Adolescence,” “Creepy Creations,” “DIY Or Die,” and “Punk Pride”); Nucrest’s underwear set; Plumbella’s CC (for the hat with the cherries I like to give Alice); and Saurus’s “Rainbow Collection” – along with the “More Columns In CAS” mod (4 columns version, freshly downloaded so I was sure I had the latest one). I wanted to have the option to play around with my CC stuff if I so chose, and the “More Columns In CAS” mod just makes life so much EASIER when you’re playing dress-up with your Sims! Seriously, why is the ability to change up how many columns display in CAS not just in the game already? We have SO MANY CLOTHES from all these packs they keep releasing! Come on EA!
B) Anyway – with that sorted, my game updated, and my mods re-enabled after said update, it was time to get teenifying! I thus popped into my current building save, went to the “create a new household to move in” button, then grabbed the latest Valicer trio I’d saved into my Library – the one where Smiler is a spellcaster – and plopped them down in CAS, overwriting the random Sim provided (sorry random Sim!). We all then said a sad goodbye to Dogmeat (who was part of this Valicer trio, and most of the other ones currently saved in my Library, by virtue of them all being “cloned” off the version that lives in my Building Save – the Victor there was originally a Fallout 4-esque Victor living on his own, you see, so I gave him a Dogmeat so he wouldn’t be lonely) as I deleted him from the family –
And then it was just a matter of a few simple clicks to turn the trio into teenagers! Though those few simple clicks actually introduced me to two interesting facts about teenage Sims that I’d never really noticed before, having pretty much always played with young adults –
I. The Sims community likes to make a big deal about how teenagers are the same size as adults in this game (and how that can get confusing sometimes) – but having just changed Sims I’m intimately familiar with as young adults into teenagers, I think teenagers are slightly shorter than adult Sims! Like, I would swear Victor in particular shrunk a tiiiiny bit when I deaged him down to teenager (I thought he’d somehow gotten thinner, in fact). It’s BARELY noticeable, admittedly – teens could stand to be a little smaller just so we can distinguish them better from adults – but they are definitely not QUITE the same size as adults.
II. Teenagers naturally have higher-pitched voices than adult Sims. I didn’t notice this so much when I changed Victor, but when I de-aged Smiler, I was extremely thrown by their deep voice suddenly being much higher-pitched! I was actually worried something had gone wrong with my game, in fact – I kept swapping them back and forth, listening to the voice change, fiddling with the slider a bit to try and “fix” things, and wondering what the hell was going on –
And then I deaged Alice, heard the same thing happen to her voice, and went “oh, okay, it’s probably a teenager thing.” Which, on the one hand, hooray, my game isn’t fucking up – but on the other hand, now my trio are going to sound weird to me because I didn’t know that before and I’m used to their adult voices. XD Particularly Smiler’s – come on, game, I gave them a deep voice for a reason! (The reason being The Smiler coaster’s voice in the 2013 firework’s show is very deep, and that just became my headcanon for Smiler’s voice.)
C) Anyway – after getting past those two “???” moments, it was time to get the teens settled in some teen-appropriate outfits! I didn’t do a full wardrobe update today (that would take ages, and I got to the Simming a bit later than I wanted today), but I did make sure to do one “everyday” outfit for all three. I also checked their teen traits and updated them as necessary to properly reflect their personalities. Here’s what I ended up with:
Victor was first in the “new clothes” line-up, and while my original intention was to give him a nice top with a vest (as he pretty much always looks good in a vest), I wasn’t finding any that really screamed “teenager” to me. And the ones that did seem appropriate to a younger Victor often highlighted his kind-of-wonky proportions in a weird way (he has a really thin waist, and some tops just emphasized the narrow-but-present V between that and his shoulders a little too much. Which is weird, because when you look at his puppet model, he doesn’t really have shoulders, but I can’t really do that in Sims 4. Much like how I can’t make his neck absurdly thin – trust me, I tried, but it’s already as thin as it’ll go!). Fortunately, switching gears and filtering everything to see all the stuff specific to High School Years caused me to stumble across that blue sweater with the red trim – and when I put that on Victor, I was like “YES, GOOD, THAT’S MY TEENAGE VICTOR.” *nods* I paired it with a pair of HSY belted black pants (the slightly higher-waisted version, as I thought that looked better), some base-game blue-and-purple argyle socks, and some black sneakers that I think were added into the game in one of the recent patches, and he was good to go! His current traits are “Music Lover,” carried over from adult him, and “Socially Awkward,” which replaced “Clumsy” because, while he is both, I felt like “Socially Awkward” was the more relevant trait for his high school years. Not married to this combination, but it feels right for now!
Alice was up next, and after going through a bunch of outfits, and thinking I might make her go full “goth” in a Life & Death dress (as she wore the look VERY well), I stumbled across the above “checkered jumper dress over a long-sleeve shirt” full-body outfit from Crystal Creations and went “hang on, I’ve put her in this dress before – and didn’t I say at the time that, while I liked it, it would suit a teenager version of her better than an adult one? Well, she’s a teenager now, so…” XD So yeah – went with the dress in the “black shirt under blue jumper” version, matching Crystal Creations thigh-high diamond-patterned socks (I bounced between those and some proper stockings for a while, but felt the socks looked best with the dress), and a pair of Life & Death fancy patterned low boots, because they looked really cool (the picture does not do them justice). Oh, and of course her Realm of Magic key necklace, as that’s a key Alice accessory now. :) Pun not actually intended. XD Her traits are currently “Erratic” and “Gloomy,” carried over from her adult self – again, not married to this combination (especially since all I can see is Alice showering in the rain again constantly if I keep “Erratic”), but it works for now!
And we ended on the birthday enby themselves, Smiler! Who got an almost-entirely CC outfit because, well, they’re the ones who suited the style of the CC I had downloaded the most. XD Specifically, while I fiddled around with a couple different shirt options, I couldn’t resist sticking them in NightmarePoison’s The Smiler hoodie – nor could I resist the siren call of the Crypt-O-Club “Angsty Adolescence” pants with the one black leg and the one yellow-and-black-checked leg. :) Not a fan of the two different blacks on display, but eh – Smiler wouldn’t care. :P I finished off the outfit with those neat High School Years socks with the fancy multicolored leaf patterns; the Crypt-O-Club “Angsty Adolescence” high-top sneakers with all the doodles; the Get Together “chevron” bracelet in yellow, black, and white –
And some nonbinary nail polish! Yeah, I’ve never bothered giving my Sims nail polish before, but I figured if any of the trio were likely to try it out, it would be Smiler. (Well, okay, Alice might do it too, but we’ll start with Smiler. :p) Kept the nails short, though – I didn’t like the way the slightly-longer set looked on them. Their current traits are “Cheerful” and “Outgoing,” both carried over from their adult self – though I had to swap out “Geek” to get “Outgoing” because of the way Sims 4 trimmed down their traits upon age-down. This combination I may be married to – we will see. :p
D) With that sorted, I saved the teenaged trio to my Library, then lied to the game that I wanted to move them into a house (prompting the game to be like “okay, great, just click this button to save them to your Library before we take you to the map screen!” – I ALWAYS forget that happens when I make a new family) so I could answer a very important question – namely, would the trio, with the funds the game gives them at the start, be able to afford the version of “Town Square Terrace” that I made for them for the upcoming Teen Valicer Save file? I thus got to the map screen; noted that their current funds were $24,000; headed over to Copperdale; and hovered over Town Square Terrace –
And saw that it would cost them $23,960. So the answer was “yes, but just BARELY.” The poor kids would have $40 to their names upon purchase. XD Good thing I plan for them all to get part-time jobs! With that settled, I canceled the move-in, swung by the lot to make absolutely sure I couldn’t add any finishing touches (no – even a roll of toilet paper is $50!), then saved it to my Library for later and prepared to head out –
E) And then paused. Because, well, in addition to starting preparations for the Teen Valicer Save file, this playsession was supposed to be about celebrating Smiler’s birthday. And I couldn’t help but wonder – had I really done that by doing a dress-up session for the entire trio? I waffled for a moment, wondering if I wanted to pop back to CAS really quickly and do another outfit for Smiler or not –
And then I thought, “hang on a second – I’ve had problems with the game giving them the wrong teeth before. I better go double-check this Smiler and make sure they have the right chompers. And if I’m doing THAT, I might as well give them a second outfit. It is their birthday, after all.”
So yeah – ran back to CAS, double-checked Smiler’s teeth (pleased to report they had the correct set – the buck teeth in the front without the weird canines), then quickly rustled them up a second everyday look! And I knew pretty much exactly what I wanted – the nonbinary striped shirt from Saurus’s Rainbow Collection paired with the black rolled-up jeans from Crypt-O-Club’s “Punk Pride” set! Because they looked good together and I’m always for Smiler showing their nonbinary pride. :) I completed the look with some black-and-yellow sneakers from Outdoor Retreat (gotta get that yellow in), and some “Punk Pride” purple eye shadow! You can see the full outfit and a close-up of the eye shadow below:
Nice! I tried adding a hat to the outfit too, but I couldn’t find one I liked that went with it. *shrug* Maybe for a different outfit – I am very tempted to give them their Valicer In The Dark fit as another look. :p
And that wrapped up the playsession! Which was nice and chill and puts me that one little step closer to being able to start my new save file. :) Granted, I’m still bothered by the fact that Smiler’s eyes aren’t properly glowing anymore, but – still not sure how to fix that. Only thing I can think of to do is make a post asking for help on tumblr and see if anyone responds...maybe I can do that tomorrow. We’ll see!
YouTube: Well, I definitely listened to plenty of Smiler-themed stuff today – I made my bed to the 2013 Alton Towers fireworks show (which featured The Smiler in a key role at the end...as the villain, granted, but we all know the coaster is much eviler than my OC), the ad for the original “Festival of Thrills,” and the footage from the Roller Coaster Cafe (which has one of my favorite versions of The Smiler’s theme in it), and did my morning tumblring (above) to multiple videos of The Smiler’s official soundtrack, including one of my favorite longer remixes of it. But in terms of the Official Evening Video list, I tackled three –
A) “7 Biggest Red Flags for Game Reveals That Guarantee It’s Going to Suck” by OXtra – Ellen talking in the Purple Glowy Room (where she told us about that game with all the terrible deaths that haunted her childhood) about the stuff she sees as “red flags” whenever a game is revealed, whether it’s a new IP or a continuation of an old one. Game touts a huge “open world” map? Red flag – too many of these titles have huge maps with nothing interesting in them. Game shows off a flashy cinematic but no actual gameplay? Red flag – the game might look nothing like the short movie they made to promote it, and you can’t tell if the game is going to be in a genre you like or not. The executives insist “oh, we’re not doing ‘pay-to-win’ or anything of the ‘bad’ microtransactions?” RED FUCKING FLAG BECAUSE NOT ONLY DOES THAT MEAN THE GAME HAS MICROTRANSACTIONS, THEY ARE ALMOST CERTAINLY LYING. (Incidentally, did you know that the The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion remake/remaster includes the original horse armor that they originally sold as extra...but also has a deluxe edition with FUCKING EXTRA HORSE ARMOR?) Ellen has been a gamer most of her life, and has had an inside look into the industry for a little while now – heed her words or pay the price! Of an overpriced, buggy, awful game you don’t actually want.
B) “CaFae Latte Season 56 - TikTok Compilation” by C. M. Alongi – the next compilation video of CaFae Latte content I had to catch up on! Featuring:
I. The gang getting their paychecks – and Bob taking Oscar into the back to offer him a choice between an overtime check or a magical blessing, specifically one to get him properly housed by the end of the month; after confirming it didn’t matter that he’d had to declare bankruptcy previously to clear his medical bills, that house would still be coming his way, he took that blessing, as you might expect!
II. Oscar encountering a fellow homeless friend of his, Roger, who came into the coffee shop looking for someone to sneak him a snack, and giving him a coffee and a muffin using the cafe’s “Neighbor Account” (a special account people can pay into so people like this dude Roger can get some food without needing to pay) – only for a true bitch of a Karen to approach the counter afterward to demand to see the manager...and then tell Bob to fire Oscar simply for being homeless. Bob was extremely unimpressed, especially when the customer kept saying things like “this is the affluent part of town, I come here to get away from…” [waves at Oscar] “that,” and ended up banning the woman for a year and a day AND cursing her so everyone would assume the worst of her during that time, like she assumed the worst of Oscar. And that’s only because Oscar talked her out of cursing the woman with homelessness herself (Oscar thought it would be too mean – you’re too kind, angel guy).
III. Nicole at her job meeting the mom of one of her students, Jason, when she came back in to get his noise-canceling headphones, and said mom asking her for help – because her OTHER son, Henry, is ALSO autistic, but she can’t get a proper diagnosis for him because he can make and keep eye contact, which is unfortunately the symptom everyone thinks is inherent to autism (it’s not, it’s just the most famous one). She’d tried to set up screenings for him at a local university, but she wanted to see if Nicole knew of any other resources she could use, because she was afraid that, without the official label, he wouldn’t get the help he truly needed to thrive. Nicole said she knew of a few places that she could go to for screenings, then recommended the mom visit the Stoughton Street Witches to see what they could do for her – whether it was spells and charms to help with stuff like meltdowns and overstimulation, or good luck charms to help Henry find someone who could get him properly diagnosed. As you might imagine, the mom was VERY grateful. Nice to see a parent trying their best to look out for their kid!
IV. And finally, JC serving what initially LOOKED like a human customer absolutely desperate for caffeine (ordering the Arcane Rush, which keeps you awake for AGES, and a caffeine packet with it) – but then he proved to know Cyrus, and they started chatting about the old coffee cart Cyrus and Bob used to run back in the 1880s, and how the physical location is much better but oh DAMN did the lemon drop candies peak back then. For some reason, JC thought the weirdest part of this whole thing was the fact that the customer called Cyrus “Blue” – when, you know, Cyrus has canonically not always been “Cyrus” (he was nicknamed that early in the series) and is, you know, supposed to be blue. XD I THINK this was meant to be the eldritch customer mentioned on the thumbnail (the comments seem to indicate it was, with the guy being based on a tumblr post)...and unfortunately, that means I’m a little disappointed, because I was expecting something a touch more Lovecraftian, not an unspecified nonhuman with a love of caffeine. Ah well – I guess that means that I can make up whatever rules I like for eldritch beings and those touched by their powers in my mental Valicer CaFae Latte AU fanfic. :p
C) And finally, to give The Smiler an “official entry” on this list, I watched “The Smiler On-ride POV #AltonTowersTogether” by Alton Towers – a first-person front-seat trip around the coaster! With a certain middle bit cut out because it showed that this particular footage was recorded before a certain crash and thus showed the old “Halfway Corrected” sign right before the second lift hill. *shakehead* Oh Alton Towers...hopefully one day I’ll be able to ride the ride in person. Fingers crossed!
Writing: Got to this quite late in the day – note to self, always do writing before watching YouTube, because your videos WILL find a way to expand to fill all the available time – but I did get to it! Specifically, I did another editing pass on “Blessing” – a short Valicer In The Dark fic I wrote about when Smiler got their blessing, and their iconic yellow glowing eyes, from Mar-Mal! Covering Smiler waking up late the morning after the party where they presented Joy Serum to the other Advocates, trying to figure out why they’re so groggy and remembering a weird-but-pleasant dream they had; going to the bathroom and getting very distracted by their new eye color; then arriving at breakfast and learning from their stunned-and-overjoyed parents what must have happened last night in their sleep. And then reassuring said parents that Mar-Mal didn’t overdo it and that they do still want to eat breakfast. XD I didn’t do too much to it – tweaked some word choices here and there, expanded a paragraph or two by a few sentences – but it was nice to revisit in honor of Smiler’s birthday. :) Suppose I should actually post it somewhere at some point, of course...we’ll see what happens!
So yeah -- hit pretty much everything I wanted to hit when it came to Smiler birthday celebrations! Apart from finding a fanfic to read, but I've been bad at that for ages, so... And now I should wrap things up and hit the sheets! Tomorrow, goals include continuing to work on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) drafts; starting the process of getting my Tav!Smiler sorted in Baldur's Gate III (because I DO want to get that done, as previously mentioned); getting in a workout; and keeping up with the latest from Jon on Fallout: London! I believe those are all achievable goals -- we shall see! Night all!
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Date: 2025-06-01 10:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-06-02 03:49 am (UTC)