Busyish Saturday
Jun. 28th, 2025 11:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickAt the very least, I had a very busy night, completing the write-up of the day AND keeping up with conversations with two people, so...yeah. But I got it all done, and am ready to share with you my accomplishments:
Tumblr: Had a pretty productive day on both tumblrs, I’m happy to report –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – I spent the time before lunch (and a bit of the time afterward, mostly because lunch was earlier than I expected today) in the drafts over here, writing up a new Not-Incorrect Valicer Quotes collection for the Modern Valicer AU, featuring a bunch of scenes revolving around the trio deciding to move in together! Specifically, it featured:
I. Victor bringing up the idea of moving in together while the trio were hanging out at his apartment, and Smiler and Alice agreeing they were ready too – and then Victor saying he had the perfect place for them to live picked out already and showing them a listing for a cottage in rural Lithuania on his phone (referencing an earlier set of scenes where he was charmed by Matt’s pictures of a vacation the Altons took there, and Smiler told their dad not to sell him too much on it as they wanted them all to live in a place with decent internet), causing Alice to crack up and Smiler to thwap him with a pillow
II. The gang actually searching for places to live on Victor’s computer, with Smiler and Alice discussing price points and how they were probably not going to be able to afford anywhere too expensive...and then Victor going “EXCUSE ME” and reminding them that he’s a member of one of the richest families in the country and that he could buy them EACH a house if he wanted XD
III. The gang shopping for stuff for their new house at HomeSense (the European version of the Home Goods store), and Smiler discovering a horrible hand chair covered with mirrors and summoning Victor and Alice to behold the horrors via text (this is actually one I’ve had lurking in my docs for a while, inspired by my mom telling me about seeing such a monstrosity at a Home Goods months ago – just wish I could have found a picture to link to!)
IV. The gang shopping for groceries for the new place, and Smiler coming across a box of Hostess Meltamors and showing it to Alice and Victor, with both of them being amused by the name but Alice sure they could make their own, better lava cakes (another prewritten one, inspired by the FIRST post I reblogged about that snack (the one I ended up deleting after the original blogger deleted their original post after my reblog, making me feel weird about keeping it up) – I thought this particular scene would have to remain a private thing for me, but when I spotted that NEW post about the snack on PolyamorousMood’s blog (the one I reblogged earlier this week), I realized I could both reblog THAT without fear of it going walkabout AND finally post this bit :D)
V. And the gang settling in on their couch after a long day of moving into their new place, with Smiler commenting to Victor that marriage must be the next step, only for Victor to admit he doesn’t want to marry either unless he can marry both – cue Alice and Smiler reassuring him that “hey, if you choose to marry one of us, we will not take it as you deciding you love that person more, we’re secure in our feelings here” –
And Victor responding, “that’s very sweet of you, but I’m actually worried about my parents being able to cut whichever one of you isn’t my spouse out of our lives should something happen to me.” Which they had to agree was logical. :( At least an unofficial group wedding is still on the table!
So yeah, that was fun. :D Hoping to post that sucker up maybe Thursday or Friday, so I can link to it when I reblog a certain “weddings masterpost” next Monday...
Valice Multiverse – And then, tonight, while juggling my convos and write-ups and all that, I got an anon ask over here asking if they cut a Kindred’s hair or nail, could it grow back on its own, or would the Kindred have to spend blood to “heal” it. As I got to it pretty late, I ended up throwing it in the queue with an answer from Londerland Bloodlines!Alice saying, in essence, “I have no idea if we could heal such an ‘injury’ with blood, as I’ve never tried, but I do know that our bodies always revert back to the form we were Embraced in when we enter daysleep, so I guess it would grow back on its own, but not before then.” That’s the lore as I (and she) understand it, anyway – we’ll see if I get any corrections later!
Sims 4: I popped back into my current Building Save for about an hour or so today to work on a new project that’s been flitting around my head for the past couple of weeks – designing a tiny caravan home for a traveling potion-selling Smiler, like my Tav!Smiler from Baldur’s Gate III! Because I’ve been thinking a lot about that Smiler lately, and other Smilers like them, and I really wanted to get a handle on what I think their mobile home and selling station would actually look like. The build’s still in the early stages yet, but I made some decent progress bringing the idea to life:
A) I started off by heading over to Newcrest in the save and picking one of the tiny 20x15 lots to build on – might as well use a tiny lot for a tiny house, right? I then changed the lot type from a regular residential to a Tiny House Residential because – well, again, building a tiny house here. Might as well see how small I could reasonably make it and how many bonuses I could get for Smiler on this lot! XD
B) With that sorted, I made a list of things that Smiler definitely needed in the build – namely, a space to sell their various potions and elixirs from; a space to actually live in; and enough room in one of those areas to fit the big Realm Of Magic cauldron (kind of necessary for any alchemists in this game). I thus bought the fancier of the two cauldrons (mostly because it had the right yellow-and-black color scheme, but also why SHOULDN’T Smiler get a fancy cauldron) and the food selling table from Home Chef Hustle (I probably could have gotten any selling table, but I really like that one in particular – went with the “rainbow” color swatch, as I did back in the Chill Valicer Save), then built a big old rectangle –
And quickly realized, “yeah, a micro home isn’t happening here.” XD Smiler needed the space of a Tier 2 “Tiny Home” in order to fit both the selling table and the cauldron! I decided that was fine (you still get some good bonuses with a “Tiny Home,” including lower bills and faster skill gain) and made a decently-sized rectangle, rotating it so the long end faced the street and bringing it up on some foundation…
C) And then went “Hmmm – should I put curved walls on either end to soften the edges? Or is that going to fuck things up with the foundation, given I know these things are prone to glitches?” I thus got a small curved-wall room and tried raising it up on the foundation to see what would happen –
And to my relief, no, there seemed to be no glitches, visual or otherwise! I thus attached two curved rooms to each end of my rectangle, turning it into a sort of a pill shape, and removed the interior walls they brought along with them so I could decide on my own layout later. Once that was done, I considered the shape for a moment, trying to decide if I really liked it or not…
D) Then went “eh, I’ll figure it out in a minute” and moved on to trying to find a good stilt foundation (because I wanted something that looked like it could potentially have wheels attached to it). XD Because figuring out shapes is hard than it seems, damn it! Anyway, I settled on a base game foundation with round posts (thought that looked better than the square-post ones – there’s way too many posts under the house, admittedly, but it gets the idea across), then grabbed the black-and-yellow spiral door from the Crypt-O-Club “Creepy Creations” CC I currently have in my game to use as an entrance (because what other door COULD I possibly use for Smiler?), before attempting to figure out both the internal layout (where I wanted the cauldron, the selling table, and any other items of interest) and which of the wooden slatted stair options I wanted to attach to the side of the caravan. After considering the three on offer, I again went “I will figure this out in a moment” and headed up to the top of the caravan to try and roof it and get that out of the way, at least –
And realized – oh fuck. If I have curved wall sections in my build, I have to roof them. D: And a flat roof, like I did on the main Polyheart OT3 house, would NOT work for this build. I spent roughly three seconds trying to see if I could get a round roof to work on the ends of the build –
E) And then went “nope, I wasn’t 100% sold on the shape anyway, let’s go back to a rectangle!” XD So I moved the food stall and the cauldron back to the back of the lot, added a bit of wall so I could stick the front door on there, then deleted my pill-shaped caravan and redid it as a 55-tile rectangle instead. I then proceeded to raise it up and redo my stilt foundation – this time in a kicky black, as it occurred to me to check the color options this time around –
Then began looking at how best to open up a chunk of the side of the caravan to create the selling area! Because the caravan in my head had a big old window on the side with a counter, from which Smiler sold their wares (...kind of like an ice cream truck, now that I’m thinking about it), so the Sims 4 version needed a section open to the outside so I could put the selling table in there. I initially played around with some of the big arches near the bottom of the “doors and doorways” section, but quickly realized that none of them would be big enough to show off the whole food stand and allow Sims proper access to it. So instead I turned to columns and spandrels, grabbing a couple of Life & Death old weathered columns in black and sticking them on the side of the caravan on either side of where I wanted the selling area to be, then grabbing the matching spandrel –
Aaand then discovered that, when I tried to place the spandrel, the game replaced the entire wall with spandrels, instead of just one section. O.o Uh, game, Smiler does need SOME actual walls on that side… Fortunately, I quickly realized that the issue was probably because I needed to divide the caravan into distinct rooms to make the spandrel only take out a specific chunk of the side, so I put some walls behind the columns, and voila! Only the space between the two columns was cut out by the spandrel! :D I ended up going with the fancy Realm Of Magic spandrel over the Life & Death spandrel in the end, because it again had the right color scheme – but I’m not entirely sure it matches the rest of the build, honestly. I’m keeping it for now as a placeholder, but I do intend to try out other spandrels to see what they look like and if I prefer any of them.
F) With THAT section done, I turned my attention to figuring out what I wanted the exterior of the caravan to look like. I plopped a nice simple hipped roof on the top of the rectangle (puffing it out slightly so it formed a nice curve over the top), then sorted the “paneling” and “siding” options by yellow and black swatches to see what I liked for a nice wood exterior. Ended up deciding that the worn bright yellow “Walk The Plank” siding from Island Living was the right vibe and painted all the remaining exterior walls with that, then applied the same color filters to my roof options to see what might look nice. There weren’t a lot of good options, I admit – most things looked too modern, especially all the metal roofs – but the Werewolves “Pig #2’s Mossy Wood Shingles” in black actually looked quite cute as a roof texture! So naturally I went with that. :) It really needed a roof trim to bring the whole thing together, though, so I went into that section and considered my options for a while –
And, surprisingly enough, settled on the really big and chonky “beveled” roof trim, because it genuinely looked the best to me. All the other ones seemed too thin for this particular build! Who woulda thunk… Anyway, I applied that to the sides of the roof, made the roof itself a little higher to better fit with the trim –
G) And with that, it was time to adjust the position of the house on the lot (I wanted it a little further back on the grass) and figure out the damn stair situation! Because I knew what kind of stairs I wanted – wooden slatted ones, since those to me looked the most like the kind of stairs that might fold up into a caravan (as opposed to, you know, a bunch of stone ones), but I couldn’t pick between the Seasons, base game, or Island Living ones on offer. I thus sorted them by color (no good yellow swatches, but fortunately they all had good black ones), then put an example of each on the side of the caravan. After looking at them all, I decided that the Seasons “Simple Slatted Stairway” looked the most like fold-up caravan stairs to me, and put one set in front of the door and a trio of three on the side of the selling area so Sims could climb up and actually buy things from the stand. *nods* Everything was coming together at last!
H) ...And then I remembered that Smiler actually has to live in this caravan too and went “damn, do I have enough room for them to do so?” I thus went over the essentials in my head – place to sleep, place to cook food, place to do alchemy, place to use the toilet – and started checking out my options (of course starting with the stuff that actually came with the Tiny Living pack, because why wouldn’t I? :P) I ended up buying the “Burst of Pride” single bed for them to sleep in (non-binary swatch, of course – might be too modern for this particular build, but I like it); the Realm of Magic fridge and matching stove and one of the Snowy Escape counters (the ones with all the shelves underneath, as I figured that would maximize storage space) for the kitchen area; the Cottage Living short ceiling lantern (the one that has a description that’s a story by “Bagatha Cripstea”) to light the interiors so I could see what I was doing; and the Realm Of Magic “Portal Potty” toilet for the bathroom (because when you’re in a mobile home, having a toilet that flushes your waste straight into another dimension would be fucking useful). I was easily able to stick the toilet in the really small and thin room on the right side of the selling area, and set up the kitchen stuff and Smiler’s bed in the little square room on the left side, next to the front door –
But then I ran into a problem – namely, that there was no room anywhere to stick Smiler’s alchemy cauldron. Mainly because this thing be fucking BIG, yo. The footprint is a nine-by-nine square, and that means it’s hard to shove it into a small space! I did temporarily think of just replacing the kitchen stuff with the cauldron – after all, Sims can cook in it – but decided against it, because Smiler is a professional when it comes to their alchemy and wouldn’t want to use their potion-making cauldron to make food. (Besides, you can literally only make chili or mac-and-cheese in it if I remember right.) I also tried to make the caravan a little wider – but that brought it over the 64-tile-limit for “Tiny” houses and made a “Small” house, which I didn’t really want. And so I was left feeling rather stuck…
I) And then I noticed just how loud my poor computer’s fan was getting and decided “okay, that’s probably enough Simming for today anyway.” XD Yeah, the poor thing’s been running a little hot whenever I play this game lately (probably because I’ve added a bunch more packs since I got the computer, and also the computer is almost five years old at this point), and I didn’t want to overstress it. So I saved my progress and closed the game. My ORIGINAL intention with that was to let my computer calm down and cool off a bit, then pop back into the game really quickly to get a screenshot (to reference and maybe share with all of you) –
But when I went to open up the game again, I was startled to see that it told me that there was an update required! When had that happened? Well, as it turns out, June 17th – there was a small bugfix patch released on that date. I’m not sure why the game didn’t prompt me to patch when I first loaded in – but then again, when I started up the EA App today, IT had to update too, so maybe it didn’t immediately realize that the game had to update as well. (Hell, maybe that’s why my computer’s fan started to whine like it did – the game suddenly realizing “hey, there’s a patch waiting” and trying to download it/get my attention.) *shrug* Either way, I didn’t feel like taking my CC out to do the update – not with another, much bigger update coming on Tuesday – so I decide I could leave things as they were and get pictures of the build later. There’s not really much to see yet anyway.
And there you have it! Start of a new build! Dunno how long I’m going to be working on it, I admit – I do really want to start my Teen Valicer Save file already – but it’s there whenever I want to poke at it. Just be nice to be able to make something that I could use as a reference for any Smilers I write who might need that kind of caravan! Plus it should be a fun build – making a tiny home is always a challenge for me, and I’m eager to see if I can keep this one under 64 tiles! Maybe if I make it a little wider but also a little shorter...hmmm...
Writing: Got another good chunk done on “The Van Dort Vacancy” today, with Smiler and Alice discovering the chaotic kitchen of the Van Dort mansion! Run by head chef Mrs. Pemberly – call her “ma’am.” XD She spotted the pair pretty quickly and rushed over to demand who they were and say if they were guests they had to get out – Smiler promptly turned on the charm and told her that they were new hires, sent down by Mrs. Van Dort to assist!
...Mrs. Pemberly was promptly like “hang on, if you’re new kitchen staff, I would have had a hand in hiring you, and I don’t recognize either of you at all.” Smiler quickly claimed that they were just general dogsbodies, not specifically kitchen staff, but Mrs. Pemberly remained suspicious –
And then one of the actual kitchen staff knocked over another person’s cheese tray, and she was like “oh fuck it, we need the help, we’ll discuss if you’re actual staff or not later, go throw on some uniforms.” XD I left off with Alice and Smiler heading over to the staff changing room across the hall, preparing to put on the Van Dort livery – tomorrow, they head back into the kitchen freshly changed and ready to help, if only to keep their cover!
YouTube: Didn’t get to everything I hoped to watch today, but I got the three longest videos out of the Watch Later tonight, so that was good –
A) First up, we had the OXBoxtra lists of the week:
I. “7 Times GTA Annoyed People More than the GTA 6 Delay” – Ellen and Jane talking about the various controversies the GTA franchise has weathered during its lifetime, in honor of GTA VI being delayed until May 2026 and people being furious about it! This list of course included the infamous “Hot Coffee” debacle (where a modder revealing that GTA San Andreas had unused playable sex scenes in it caused the media blow-up of the decade and got Hilary Clinton to investigate the company) and Jack Thompson’s repeated rages against the series (to the point where he apparently sent a letter to the mother of one of the publisher’s top executives, berating her for her son releasing “pornography and violence” on other mother’s sons), but it also included GTA V releasing an expansion that essentially allowed people to gamble with real money in a virtual casino (as you could pay for the chips with real cash), which gave fans the ick; GTA IV allowing the protagonist to drive drunk, which Mothers Against Drunk Driving found despicable (to be fair, though, the protagonist himself says you shouldn’t do it, and the cops WILL chase you down for doing it); and the infamous torture scene from GTA V, which was long, graphic, and horrified pretty much everyone who wasn’t Rockstar (with some fans saying that they wouldn’t have bought the game if they’d known about the scene’s inclusion). Basically, the GTA VI delay is probably the least controversial brouhaha that Rockstar’s stirred up in its time making the franchise! Enjoy it while it lasts, because I’m sure something worse will pop up once the game is actually released!
II. “7 Side Quests That Let You Be an Evil B*stard” – Mike, Andy, and Jane talking about those side quests in games that let you indulge your most evil impulses, should you be so inclined! From framing an innocent party for the capture of Boone’s pregnant wife Carla by Caesar’s Legion and tricking Boone into blowing their head off in Fallout: New Vegas (and then, if you’re so inclined and think you can beat him in a fight, telling him what you did), to setting up a lovely date for your mechanic Parvati and her crush in The Outer Worlds – only to kill the crush in the middle of said date because the game doesn’t stop you from pulling your weapon (and THEN intimidating poor Parvati into continuing to work on your ship for extra evil points), to dumping plague-infected rat viscera into a still designed to create a cure for the disease it’s spreading to please the horrible bitch Granny Rags in Dishonored (and then – nothing, because how do you get more fucked up), these sidequests really let you show off just how much of a bastard you can be! Jack Thompson would be appalled. :P
B) And then it was back over to C. M. Alongi to watch “CaFae Latte Season 67 - TikTok Compilation!” This entry in the series featured:
I. JC and Cyrus catching poor Drek up on all the horrible things in the world after he had to take a month off to help his aunt after she had surgery for cancer – when he asked if there was any GOOD news, though, they were at least able to tell him that Husniya was now working full-time, which he was very pleased about (also Cyrus found his missing pins, JC had date night with Nicole to look forward to, and Bob did a little fourth-wall break to let the audience know that new chibi merch was in the store)
II. Cyrus showing up at the cafe to pick up some Palestinian shawls for Rethu, Amyth, and little Xaytha to give to the dragons at the Beltane festival he was attending with Bob at the coven – the ER nurse regular there was somewhat puzzled, given Rethu is Jewish, and asked if that wasn’t inappropriate in some way, but Cryus said it was not, as Rethu (and many other Jewish folks) did not approve of Israel’s bullshit and were firmly pro-Palestine. And when the nurse brought up Hamas, pointed out that THEY didn’t speak for all of Palestine – after all, it’s not like MAGA speaks for all of America. The nurse was like “...guh, good point, go enjoy your holiday.”
III. Related to the above, another customer coming in on a day when Cyrus and Rethu were manning the counter with JC (and cuddling so Cyrus could beat the cold), seeing Rethu’s Star of David and Palestinian shawl, and informing him (it was an “Uncle” day as per the pin) that wearing the shawl was cultural appropriation – Cyrus quickly corrected her, saying it was only that if you took the symbol without learning anything about it, while Palestinians were encouraging allies to wear the shawl; the customer was like “even Israelis?” forcing Rethu to explain that he’s not Israeli, his family is actually from the Spanish Peninsula – and that his mother actually became a pirate attacking Spanish slaver ships and making friends with the local kraken after the Inquisition kicked them out. The customer was like “…” while Cyrus asked if Rethu’s kraken godfather could visit through the Great Lakes next Beltane. XD
IV. JC asking for next Wednesday off for both a dental appointment and Nicole’s birthday, sharing the cute stuffed llama they got Nicole with Bob and Husniya and talking about their plans (brunch and a trip to see Sinners with Nicole and her parents, as her dad has a birthday around the same time, and then JC cooking them a nice private dinner) – then a mother and her kid, Jamie, showing up to get snacks since Jamie aced a quiz. Jamie got a brownie and the gladiator dates, asking what gladiators were – and then, when JC explained “it’s like wrestlers with swords,” spotted their pin and called them “non-berry.” XD Turns out the kid’s teacher, Mrs. Rivers, has a kid who’s non-binary and thus has the flag up in her room. Jamie happily told them that Mrs. Rivers had said that “non-berry” people were not men or women, that they had the special flag, and they all believe in ghosts...or ARE ghosts? Nobody was sure what that meant until Husniya realized “deadnames” XD
V. JC calling Nicole at a gas station between their dentist and her parents’ house to let her know that they’d be there in about half an hour – cut to the cafe, where Bob and Cyrus had to deal with a vegan personally insulted that Cyrus happens to eat meat (granted, most fairies are also vegan, or at least vegetarian, themselves, but as Bob pointed out, that’s a cultural thing, not biological, and there are always exceptions). Bob ended up cursing the annoyance with silence until she learned not to force her moral code on others, while Cyrus gave a free cookie to a different, more sensible vegan who was like “that idiot does NOT speak for all of us, I swear” – and then Bob answered her phone and learned from Nicole that JC never showed up to brunch…
VI. Bob getting the facts out of Nicole – divination hasn’t turned up anything; she hasn’t heard from them in three hours; phone location share is not working; they don’t know where they were when they last spoke but she can at least give them where their dentist office is and where her parents’ house is so they can search the area – then summoning the troops, getting Husniya to call Rethu and Drek to call Oscar for aerial reconnaissance and Cyrus to call Patrick for tracking any scents on the ground while Nicole called Kelly (JC’s sister), John (JC’s brother), and Pamela (JC’s friend) and learned they didn’t know what had happened to them either. Drek brought up the idea that JC might have crashed and broken their phone, but Bob dismissed that on the basis of they would have been taken to the hospital by now, and their emergency contacts notified; Cyrus then brought up the idea that JC might have been snatched by ICE for being non-binary – Drek and Husniya pointed out that they weren’t an immigrant and were white, respectively, but Cyrus was like “do you REALLY think that would matter?” Causing him to call some of his own contacts – and Husniya to call some of hers, revealing to the others that she was former CIA. Drek was shocked, Cyrus was like “fuck, I could have sworn you were FBI” XD
VII. The search for JC not going well – Cyrus didn’t get any new info on JC (though he did get three new clients as a lawyer, causing him to decide to transition to part-time work at the cafe after this was resolved); Husniya was able to confirm that neither the CIA or Homeland Security had JC (and that she’d happily take Cyrus’s hours); Drek reported Rethu hadn’t seen anything on the route they took, and that Oscar and Patrick were still scouring their path. The group theorized about who could have done this – the Stone Oaks seemed more likely to go after Cyrus in Bob’s opinion, and horrible Bob ex-boyfriend Vlad would have been much less subtle. Cyrus pointed out it could be a horrible ex of JC’s, or even a rando who just wanted to pick a fight with a non-binary person, but Bob thought that if THAT were the case, they would have heard something through official channels, like the hospital or the police, by now. Drek asked if Nicole had seen anything from the future, and Bob said that she’d ask after Nicole’s meeting –
VIII. Cue scene switch to Nicole visiting the prison...and Erik. Who, upon hearing about JC’s disappearance, immediately assumed the worst and that JC had fallen off the wagon again and disappeared to get high. Nicole refused to believe this, insisting that JC had managed to change, even when Erik pointed out “yeah, you guys thought the same thing of me,” but Erik held firm, and offered to give her a list of their old hideouts and dealers. And THEN said that he wouldn’t be surprised if JC had fled to another Realm altogether to avoid Bob’s wrath. Causing Nicole to have a revelation –
And the scene to cut to the Fae Realm, where the Captain of the Guard did indeed have JC in handcuffs –awaiting an audience with the king. Meeeep.
...cue Patreon roll, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!! Oh cripes, C. M., really?! Well, looks like I’m going to have to watch Season 68 sooner rather than later – hopefully tomorrow, Monday at the latest! Eeeeeep...
So yeah -- as you might imagine, that last bit was what took the longest. Damn cliffhangers! And long video write-ups...anyway, I really gotta get to bed. Tomorrow, goals include working more on my Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) drafts; finding more collectibles in the next level of Superliminal; answering Moose's messages; working some more on "The Van Dort Vacancy;" and keeping up with the latest from Jon's Fallout: London playthrough. And, as stated, seeing if I can sneak in the next compilation video of CaFae Latte, because damn. O.o We'll see what I manage -- night all!
Tumblr: Had a pretty productive day on both tumblrs, I’m happy to report –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – I spent the time before lunch (and a bit of the time afterward, mostly because lunch was earlier than I expected today) in the drafts over here, writing up a new Not-Incorrect Valicer Quotes collection for the Modern Valicer AU, featuring a bunch of scenes revolving around the trio deciding to move in together! Specifically, it featured:
I. Victor bringing up the idea of moving in together while the trio were hanging out at his apartment, and Smiler and Alice agreeing they were ready too – and then Victor saying he had the perfect place for them to live picked out already and showing them a listing for a cottage in rural Lithuania on his phone (referencing an earlier set of scenes where he was charmed by Matt’s pictures of a vacation the Altons took there, and Smiler told their dad not to sell him too much on it as they wanted them all to live in a place with decent internet), causing Alice to crack up and Smiler to thwap him with a pillow
II. The gang actually searching for places to live on Victor’s computer, with Smiler and Alice discussing price points and how they were probably not going to be able to afford anywhere too expensive...and then Victor going “EXCUSE ME” and reminding them that he’s a member of one of the richest families in the country and that he could buy them EACH a house if he wanted XD
III. The gang shopping for stuff for their new house at HomeSense (the European version of the Home Goods store), and Smiler discovering a horrible hand chair covered with mirrors and summoning Victor and Alice to behold the horrors via text (this is actually one I’ve had lurking in my docs for a while, inspired by my mom telling me about seeing such a monstrosity at a Home Goods months ago – just wish I could have found a picture to link to!)
IV. The gang shopping for groceries for the new place, and Smiler coming across a box of Hostess Meltamors and showing it to Alice and Victor, with both of them being amused by the name but Alice sure they could make their own, better lava cakes (another prewritten one, inspired by the FIRST post I reblogged about that snack (the one I ended up deleting after the original blogger deleted their original post after my reblog, making me feel weird about keeping it up) – I thought this particular scene would have to remain a private thing for me, but when I spotted that NEW post about the snack on PolyamorousMood’s blog (the one I reblogged earlier this week), I realized I could both reblog THAT without fear of it going walkabout AND finally post this bit :D)
V. And the gang settling in on their couch after a long day of moving into their new place, with Smiler commenting to Victor that marriage must be the next step, only for Victor to admit he doesn’t want to marry either unless he can marry both – cue Alice and Smiler reassuring him that “hey, if you choose to marry one of us, we will not take it as you deciding you love that person more, we’re secure in our feelings here” –
And Victor responding, “that’s very sweet of you, but I’m actually worried about my parents being able to cut whichever one of you isn’t my spouse out of our lives should something happen to me.” Which they had to agree was logical. :( At least an unofficial group wedding is still on the table!
So yeah, that was fun. :D Hoping to post that sucker up maybe Thursday or Friday, so I can link to it when I reblog a certain “weddings masterpost” next Monday...
Valice Multiverse – And then, tonight, while juggling my convos and write-ups and all that, I got an anon ask over here asking if they cut a Kindred’s hair or nail, could it grow back on its own, or would the Kindred have to spend blood to “heal” it. As I got to it pretty late, I ended up throwing it in the queue with an answer from Londerland Bloodlines!Alice saying, in essence, “I have no idea if we could heal such an ‘injury’ with blood, as I’ve never tried, but I do know that our bodies always revert back to the form we were Embraced in when we enter daysleep, so I guess it would grow back on its own, but not before then.” That’s the lore as I (and she) understand it, anyway – we’ll see if I get any corrections later!
Sims 4: I popped back into my current Building Save for about an hour or so today to work on a new project that’s been flitting around my head for the past couple of weeks – designing a tiny caravan home for a traveling potion-selling Smiler, like my Tav!Smiler from Baldur’s Gate III! Because I’ve been thinking a lot about that Smiler lately, and other Smilers like them, and I really wanted to get a handle on what I think their mobile home and selling station would actually look like. The build’s still in the early stages yet, but I made some decent progress bringing the idea to life:
A) I started off by heading over to Newcrest in the save and picking one of the tiny 20x15 lots to build on – might as well use a tiny lot for a tiny house, right? I then changed the lot type from a regular residential to a Tiny House Residential because – well, again, building a tiny house here. Might as well see how small I could reasonably make it and how many bonuses I could get for Smiler on this lot! XD
B) With that sorted, I made a list of things that Smiler definitely needed in the build – namely, a space to sell their various potions and elixirs from; a space to actually live in; and enough room in one of those areas to fit the big Realm Of Magic cauldron (kind of necessary for any alchemists in this game). I thus bought the fancier of the two cauldrons (mostly because it had the right yellow-and-black color scheme, but also why SHOULDN’T Smiler get a fancy cauldron) and the food selling table from Home Chef Hustle (I probably could have gotten any selling table, but I really like that one in particular – went with the “rainbow” color swatch, as I did back in the Chill Valicer Save), then built a big old rectangle –
And quickly realized, “yeah, a micro home isn’t happening here.” XD Smiler needed the space of a Tier 2 “Tiny Home” in order to fit both the selling table and the cauldron! I decided that was fine (you still get some good bonuses with a “Tiny Home,” including lower bills and faster skill gain) and made a decently-sized rectangle, rotating it so the long end faced the street and bringing it up on some foundation…
C) And then went “Hmmm – should I put curved walls on either end to soften the edges? Or is that going to fuck things up with the foundation, given I know these things are prone to glitches?” I thus got a small curved-wall room and tried raising it up on the foundation to see what would happen –
And to my relief, no, there seemed to be no glitches, visual or otherwise! I thus attached two curved rooms to each end of my rectangle, turning it into a sort of a pill shape, and removed the interior walls they brought along with them so I could decide on my own layout later. Once that was done, I considered the shape for a moment, trying to decide if I really liked it or not…
D) Then went “eh, I’ll figure it out in a minute” and moved on to trying to find a good stilt foundation (because I wanted something that looked like it could potentially have wheels attached to it). XD Because figuring out shapes is hard than it seems, damn it! Anyway, I settled on a base game foundation with round posts (thought that looked better than the square-post ones – there’s way too many posts under the house, admittedly, but it gets the idea across), then grabbed the black-and-yellow spiral door from the Crypt-O-Club “Creepy Creations” CC I currently have in my game to use as an entrance (because what other door COULD I possibly use for Smiler?), before attempting to figure out both the internal layout (where I wanted the cauldron, the selling table, and any other items of interest) and which of the wooden slatted stair options I wanted to attach to the side of the caravan. After considering the three on offer, I again went “I will figure this out in a moment” and headed up to the top of the caravan to try and roof it and get that out of the way, at least –
And realized – oh fuck. If I have curved wall sections in my build, I have to roof them. D: And a flat roof, like I did on the main Polyheart OT3 house, would NOT work for this build. I spent roughly three seconds trying to see if I could get a round roof to work on the ends of the build –
E) And then went “nope, I wasn’t 100% sold on the shape anyway, let’s go back to a rectangle!” XD So I moved the food stall and the cauldron back to the back of the lot, added a bit of wall so I could stick the front door on there, then deleted my pill-shaped caravan and redid it as a 55-tile rectangle instead. I then proceeded to raise it up and redo my stilt foundation – this time in a kicky black, as it occurred to me to check the color options this time around –
Then began looking at how best to open up a chunk of the side of the caravan to create the selling area! Because the caravan in my head had a big old window on the side with a counter, from which Smiler sold their wares (...kind of like an ice cream truck, now that I’m thinking about it), so the Sims 4 version needed a section open to the outside so I could put the selling table in there. I initially played around with some of the big arches near the bottom of the “doors and doorways” section, but quickly realized that none of them would be big enough to show off the whole food stand and allow Sims proper access to it. So instead I turned to columns and spandrels, grabbing a couple of Life & Death old weathered columns in black and sticking them on the side of the caravan on either side of where I wanted the selling area to be, then grabbing the matching spandrel –
Aaand then discovered that, when I tried to place the spandrel, the game replaced the entire wall with spandrels, instead of just one section. O.o Uh, game, Smiler does need SOME actual walls on that side… Fortunately, I quickly realized that the issue was probably because I needed to divide the caravan into distinct rooms to make the spandrel only take out a specific chunk of the side, so I put some walls behind the columns, and voila! Only the space between the two columns was cut out by the spandrel! :D I ended up going with the fancy Realm Of Magic spandrel over the Life & Death spandrel in the end, because it again had the right color scheme – but I’m not entirely sure it matches the rest of the build, honestly. I’m keeping it for now as a placeholder, but I do intend to try out other spandrels to see what they look like and if I prefer any of them.
F) With THAT section done, I turned my attention to figuring out what I wanted the exterior of the caravan to look like. I plopped a nice simple hipped roof on the top of the rectangle (puffing it out slightly so it formed a nice curve over the top), then sorted the “paneling” and “siding” options by yellow and black swatches to see what I liked for a nice wood exterior. Ended up deciding that the worn bright yellow “Walk The Plank” siding from Island Living was the right vibe and painted all the remaining exterior walls with that, then applied the same color filters to my roof options to see what might look nice. There weren’t a lot of good options, I admit – most things looked too modern, especially all the metal roofs – but the Werewolves “Pig #2’s Mossy Wood Shingles” in black actually looked quite cute as a roof texture! So naturally I went with that. :) It really needed a roof trim to bring the whole thing together, though, so I went into that section and considered my options for a while –
And, surprisingly enough, settled on the really big and chonky “beveled” roof trim, because it genuinely looked the best to me. All the other ones seemed too thin for this particular build! Who woulda thunk… Anyway, I applied that to the sides of the roof, made the roof itself a little higher to better fit with the trim –
G) And with that, it was time to adjust the position of the house on the lot (I wanted it a little further back on the grass) and figure out the damn stair situation! Because I knew what kind of stairs I wanted – wooden slatted ones, since those to me looked the most like the kind of stairs that might fold up into a caravan (as opposed to, you know, a bunch of stone ones), but I couldn’t pick between the Seasons, base game, or Island Living ones on offer. I thus sorted them by color (no good yellow swatches, but fortunately they all had good black ones), then put an example of each on the side of the caravan. After looking at them all, I decided that the Seasons “Simple Slatted Stairway” looked the most like fold-up caravan stairs to me, and put one set in front of the door and a trio of three on the side of the selling area so Sims could climb up and actually buy things from the stand. *nods* Everything was coming together at last!
H) ...And then I remembered that Smiler actually has to live in this caravan too and went “damn, do I have enough room for them to do so?” I thus went over the essentials in my head – place to sleep, place to cook food, place to do alchemy, place to use the toilet – and started checking out my options (of course starting with the stuff that actually came with the Tiny Living pack, because why wouldn’t I? :P) I ended up buying the “Burst of Pride” single bed for them to sleep in (non-binary swatch, of course – might be too modern for this particular build, but I like it); the Realm of Magic fridge and matching stove and one of the Snowy Escape counters (the ones with all the shelves underneath, as I figured that would maximize storage space) for the kitchen area; the Cottage Living short ceiling lantern (the one that has a description that’s a story by “Bagatha Cripstea”) to light the interiors so I could see what I was doing; and the Realm Of Magic “Portal Potty” toilet for the bathroom (because when you’re in a mobile home, having a toilet that flushes your waste straight into another dimension would be fucking useful). I was easily able to stick the toilet in the really small and thin room on the right side of the selling area, and set up the kitchen stuff and Smiler’s bed in the little square room on the left side, next to the front door –
But then I ran into a problem – namely, that there was no room anywhere to stick Smiler’s alchemy cauldron. Mainly because this thing be fucking BIG, yo. The footprint is a nine-by-nine square, and that means it’s hard to shove it into a small space! I did temporarily think of just replacing the kitchen stuff with the cauldron – after all, Sims can cook in it – but decided against it, because Smiler is a professional when it comes to their alchemy and wouldn’t want to use their potion-making cauldron to make food. (Besides, you can literally only make chili or mac-and-cheese in it if I remember right.) I also tried to make the caravan a little wider – but that brought it over the 64-tile-limit for “Tiny” houses and made a “Small” house, which I didn’t really want. And so I was left feeling rather stuck…
I) And then I noticed just how loud my poor computer’s fan was getting and decided “okay, that’s probably enough Simming for today anyway.” XD Yeah, the poor thing’s been running a little hot whenever I play this game lately (probably because I’ve added a bunch more packs since I got the computer, and also the computer is almost five years old at this point), and I didn’t want to overstress it. So I saved my progress and closed the game. My ORIGINAL intention with that was to let my computer calm down and cool off a bit, then pop back into the game really quickly to get a screenshot (to reference and maybe share with all of you) –
But when I went to open up the game again, I was startled to see that it told me that there was an update required! When had that happened? Well, as it turns out, June 17th – there was a small bugfix patch released on that date. I’m not sure why the game didn’t prompt me to patch when I first loaded in – but then again, when I started up the EA App today, IT had to update too, so maybe it didn’t immediately realize that the game had to update as well. (Hell, maybe that’s why my computer’s fan started to whine like it did – the game suddenly realizing “hey, there’s a patch waiting” and trying to download it/get my attention.) *shrug* Either way, I didn’t feel like taking my CC out to do the update – not with another, much bigger update coming on Tuesday – so I decide I could leave things as they were and get pictures of the build later. There’s not really much to see yet anyway.
And there you have it! Start of a new build! Dunno how long I’m going to be working on it, I admit – I do really want to start my Teen Valicer Save file already – but it’s there whenever I want to poke at it. Just be nice to be able to make something that I could use as a reference for any Smilers I write who might need that kind of caravan! Plus it should be a fun build – making a tiny home is always a challenge for me, and I’m eager to see if I can keep this one under 64 tiles! Maybe if I make it a little wider but also a little shorter...hmmm...
Writing: Got another good chunk done on “The Van Dort Vacancy” today, with Smiler and Alice discovering the chaotic kitchen of the Van Dort mansion! Run by head chef Mrs. Pemberly – call her “ma’am.” XD She spotted the pair pretty quickly and rushed over to demand who they were and say if they were guests they had to get out – Smiler promptly turned on the charm and told her that they were new hires, sent down by Mrs. Van Dort to assist!
...Mrs. Pemberly was promptly like “hang on, if you’re new kitchen staff, I would have had a hand in hiring you, and I don’t recognize either of you at all.” Smiler quickly claimed that they were just general dogsbodies, not specifically kitchen staff, but Mrs. Pemberly remained suspicious –
And then one of the actual kitchen staff knocked over another person’s cheese tray, and she was like “oh fuck it, we need the help, we’ll discuss if you’re actual staff or not later, go throw on some uniforms.” XD I left off with Alice and Smiler heading over to the staff changing room across the hall, preparing to put on the Van Dort livery – tomorrow, they head back into the kitchen freshly changed and ready to help, if only to keep their cover!
YouTube: Didn’t get to everything I hoped to watch today, but I got the three longest videos out of the Watch Later tonight, so that was good –
A) First up, we had the OXBoxtra lists of the week:
I. “7 Times GTA Annoyed People More than the GTA 6 Delay” – Ellen and Jane talking about the various controversies the GTA franchise has weathered during its lifetime, in honor of GTA VI being delayed until May 2026 and people being furious about it! This list of course included the infamous “Hot Coffee” debacle (where a modder revealing that GTA San Andreas had unused playable sex scenes in it caused the media blow-up of the decade and got Hilary Clinton to investigate the company) and Jack Thompson’s repeated rages against the series (to the point where he apparently sent a letter to the mother of one of the publisher’s top executives, berating her for her son releasing “pornography and violence” on other mother’s sons), but it also included GTA V releasing an expansion that essentially allowed people to gamble with real money in a virtual casino (as you could pay for the chips with real cash), which gave fans the ick; GTA IV allowing the protagonist to drive drunk, which Mothers Against Drunk Driving found despicable (to be fair, though, the protagonist himself says you shouldn’t do it, and the cops WILL chase you down for doing it); and the infamous torture scene from GTA V, which was long, graphic, and horrified pretty much everyone who wasn’t Rockstar (with some fans saying that they wouldn’t have bought the game if they’d known about the scene’s inclusion). Basically, the GTA VI delay is probably the least controversial brouhaha that Rockstar’s stirred up in its time making the franchise! Enjoy it while it lasts, because I’m sure something worse will pop up once the game is actually released!
II. “7 Side Quests That Let You Be an Evil B*stard” – Mike, Andy, and Jane talking about those side quests in games that let you indulge your most evil impulses, should you be so inclined! From framing an innocent party for the capture of Boone’s pregnant wife Carla by Caesar’s Legion and tricking Boone into blowing their head off in Fallout: New Vegas (and then, if you’re so inclined and think you can beat him in a fight, telling him what you did), to setting up a lovely date for your mechanic Parvati and her crush in The Outer Worlds – only to kill the crush in the middle of said date because the game doesn’t stop you from pulling your weapon (and THEN intimidating poor Parvati into continuing to work on your ship for extra evil points), to dumping plague-infected rat viscera into a still designed to create a cure for the disease it’s spreading to please the horrible bitch Granny Rags in Dishonored (and then – nothing, because how do you get more fucked up), these sidequests really let you show off just how much of a bastard you can be! Jack Thompson would be appalled. :P
B) And then it was back over to C. M. Alongi to watch “CaFae Latte Season 67 - TikTok Compilation!” This entry in the series featured:
I. JC and Cyrus catching poor Drek up on all the horrible things in the world after he had to take a month off to help his aunt after she had surgery for cancer – when he asked if there was any GOOD news, though, they were at least able to tell him that Husniya was now working full-time, which he was very pleased about (also Cyrus found his missing pins, JC had date night with Nicole to look forward to, and Bob did a little fourth-wall break to let the audience know that new chibi merch was in the store)
II. Cyrus showing up at the cafe to pick up some Palestinian shawls for Rethu, Amyth, and little Xaytha to give to the dragons at the Beltane festival he was attending with Bob at the coven – the ER nurse regular there was somewhat puzzled, given Rethu is Jewish, and asked if that wasn’t inappropriate in some way, but Cryus said it was not, as Rethu (and many other Jewish folks) did not approve of Israel’s bullshit and were firmly pro-Palestine. And when the nurse brought up Hamas, pointed out that THEY didn’t speak for all of Palestine – after all, it’s not like MAGA speaks for all of America. The nurse was like “...guh, good point, go enjoy your holiday.”
III. Related to the above, another customer coming in on a day when Cyrus and Rethu were manning the counter with JC (and cuddling so Cyrus could beat the cold), seeing Rethu’s Star of David and Palestinian shawl, and informing him (it was an “Uncle” day as per the pin) that wearing the shawl was cultural appropriation – Cyrus quickly corrected her, saying it was only that if you took the symbol without learning anything about it, while Palestinians were encouraging allies to wear the shawl; the customer was like “even Israelis?” forcing Rethu to explain that he’s not Israeli, his family is actually from the Spanish Peninsula – and that his mother actually became a pirate attacking Spanish slaver ships and making friends with the local kraken after the Inquisition kicked them out. The customer was like “…” while Cyrus asked if Rethu’s kraken godfather could visit through the Great Lakes next Beltane. XD
IV. JC asking for next Wednesday off for both a dental appointment and Nicole’s birthday, sharing the cute stuffed llama they got Nicole with Bob and Husniya and talking about their plans (brunch and a trip to see Sinners with Nicole and her parents, as her dad has a birthday around the same time, and then JC cooking them a nice private dinner) – then a mother and her kid, Jamie, showing up to get snacks since Jamie aced a quiz. Jamie got a brownie and the gladiator dates, asking what gladiators were – and then, when JC explained “it’s like wrestlers with swords,” spotted their pin and called them “non-berry.” XD Turns out the kid’s teacher, Mrs. Rivers, has a kid who’s non-binary and thus has the flag up in her room. Jamie happily told them that Mrs. Rivers had said that “non-berry” people were not men or women, that they had the special flag, and they all believe in ghosts...or ARE ghosts? Nobody was sure what that meant until Husniya realized “deadnames” XD
V. JC calling Nicole at a gas station between their dentist and her parents’ house to let her know that they’d be there in about half an hour – cut to the cafe, where Bob and Cyrus had to deal with a vegan personally insulted that Cyrus happens to eat meat (granted, most fairies are also vegan, or at least vegetarian, themselves, but as Bob pointed out, that’s a cultural thing, not biological, and there are always exceptions). Bob ended up cursing the annoyance with silence until she learned not to force her moral code on others, while Cyrus gave a free cookie to a different, more sensible vegan who was like “that idiot does NOT speak for all of us, I swear” – and then Bob answered her phone and learned from Nicole that JC never showed up to brunch…
VI. Bob getting the facts out of Nicole – divination hasn’t turned up anything; she hasn’t heard from them in three hours; phone location share is not working; they don’t know where they were when they last spoke but she can at least give them where their dentist office is and where her parents’ house is so they can search the area – then summoning the troops, getting Husniya to call Rethu and Drek to call Oscar for aerial reconnaissance and Cyrus to call Patrick for tracking any scents on the ground while Nicole called Kelly (JC’s sister), John (JC’s brother), and Pamela (JC’s friend) and learned they didn’t know what had happened to them either. Drek brought up the idea that JC might have crashed and broken their phone, but Bob dismissed that on the basis of they would have been taken to the hospital by now, and their emergency contacts notified; Cyrus then brought up the idea that JC might have been snatched by ICE for being non-binary – Drek and Husniya pointed out that they weren’t an immigrant and were white, respectively, but Cyrus was like “do you REALLY think that would matter?” Causing him to call some of his own contacts – and Husniya to call some of hers, revealing to the others that she was former CIA. Drek was shocked, Cyrus was like “fuck, I could have sworn you were FBI” XD
VII. The search for JC not going well – Cyrus didn’t get any new info on JC (though he did get three new clients as a lawyer, causing him to decide to transition to part-time work at the cafe after this was resolved); Husniya was able to confirm that neither the CIA or Homeland Security had JC (and that she’d happily take Cyrus’s hours); Drek reported Rethu hadn’t seen anything on the route they took, and that Oscar and Patrick were still scouring their path. The group theorized about who could have done this – the Stone Oaks seemed more likely to go after Cyrus in Bob’s opinion, and horrible Bob ex-boyfriend Vlad would have been much less subtle. Cyrus pointed out it could be a horrible ex of JC’s, or even a rando who just wanted to pick a fight with a non-binary person, but Bob thought that if THAT were the case, they would have heard something through official channels, like the hospital or the police, by now. Drek asked if Nicole had seen anything from the future, and Bob said that she’d ask after Nicole’s meeting –
VIII. Cue scene switch to Nicole visiting the prison...and Erik. Who, upon hearing about JC’s disappearance, immediately assumed the worst and that JC had fallen off the wagon again and disappeared to get high. Nicole refused to believe this, insisting that JC had managed to change, even when Erik pointed out “yeah, you guys thought the same thing of me,” but Erik held firm, and offered to give her a list of their old hideouts and dealers. And THEN said that he wouldn’t be surprised if JC had fled to another Realm altogether to avoid Bob’s wrath. Causing Nicole to have a revelation –
And the scene to cut to the Fae Realm, where the Captain of the Guard did indeed have JC in handcuffs –awaiting an audience with the king. Meeeep.
...cue Patreon roll, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!! Oh cripes, C. M., really?! Well, looks like I’m going to have to watch Season 68 sooner rather than later – hopefully tomorrow, Monday at the latest! Eeeeeep...
So yeah -- as you might imagine, that last bit was what took the longest. Damn cliffhangers! And long video write-ups...anyway, I really gotta get to bed. Tomorrow, goals include working more on my Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) drafts; finding more collectibles in the next level of Superliminal; answering Moose's messages; working some more on "The Van Dort Vacancy;" and keeping up with the latest from Jon's Fallout: London playthrough. And, as stated, seeing if I can sneak in the next compilation video of CaFae Latte, because damn. O.o We'll see what I manage -- night all!
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Date: 2025-06-29 11:03 pm (UTC)The "non-berry" kid was adorable. And I agree with Cyrus. Roasted flesh is delicious.
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Date: 2025-06-30 03:50 am (UTC)Jamie certainly was, yeah. :D And it is indeed! You'll never get me to give up my carnivore ways. XD