Slowly Heating Up Saturday
Jul. 5th, 2025 11:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickWhile yesterday was a perfectly pleasant temperature (to the point where I had my window open for a little while), today was definitely on the hotter side -- and you could feel the humidity starting to creep up as the day went on. And tomorrow the heat index is supposed to be in the 90s, so I may be hiding in my room with the AC on. ...Which isn't really much different from any other given Sunday in summer, but still. :p Despite the growing heat, though, I still had a pretty decent Saturday:
Cleaning: Cleaning went pretty well today, I’m happy to say – I started dusting around 10:25 AM, and managed to wrap everything up with the vacuuming at 1:15 PM, right before lunch! Still took a touch longer than I really wanted, but at least I didn’t have to worry about doing my laundry on top of it all this time around. And I got through not only the entirety of Oxventure Presents: Blades In The Dark “Foundry #12” (the penultimate episode, with Zillah, Kasimir, and Edvard having to avoid being murdered in the titular foundry by Lord Strangford and his Red Sash mercenaries – Edvard really carried this one with a lot of lucky sixes, leading to him successfully getting Strangford and his goons to stand down via threatening them with a LIVE FRAG GRENADE – and then palming it into Strangford’s hand so he and his friends could get away at the end), but the first 40-odd minutes of the big finale, “Magic, Ghosts, Danger & Death” (where the entire gang went to finally take down the Barricade preventing ghosts from moving on and magic from coming in – I got up to the point where Edvard had dumped his latest Wonderful Mechanical Man down a vent venting all sorts of poisonous gasses out of the facility where The Barricade was located to scout ahead and see if it could get them in while he kept tabs on what it saw through a new spark-craft tablet he’d worked up...only to discover at the other end a room full of WMMs with the Astor logo. He was NOT HAPPY, as you might expect!). Good stuff! :) Even as it highlights that I’m almost to the end of the series… At least the final episode is over two hours long, so I’ll still have plenty to listen to next Cleaning Saturday!
Superliminal: Yup, this game again! While I’d intended to play some more Sims 4 and do some more work on the “Smiler’s Potion-Selling Caravan” build I started last week (or maybe even start working on getting the Teen Valicer Save off the ground), the following two things made me change my mind and return to the weird-ass puzzle game:
1. Between all my cleaning this morning, lunch being a little late, and us having cake right after lunch to celebrate Dad’s birthday (happy birthday Dad!), I didn’t get on my computer until 2:20 PM – and given my Sims 4 sessions ALWAYS run longer than anticipated, I didn’t think it a smart idea to start one of those after 2 PM (especially since I still had to catch up on all my online stuff). Contrariwise, Superliminal levels usually go pretty fast if you know what you’re doing – I can finish most in less than an hour
2. I abruptly remembered right before firing up the computer that, oh yeah, there was a big old patch for Sims 4 on July 1st...and my latest build uses at least one item of custom content. Meaning that I wasn’t in a great position to work on that build anyway! Meanwhile, Superliminal is in a completed state and I don’t have any mods for it at all, meaning I can always just play it.
So yeah – Sims 4 building session rejected in favor of another Superliminal Collectible Run! Today’s level was “Clone,” where clicking on things creates clones of them instead of allowing you to pick them up (though you can still resize the clones and stack them to create staircases and things like that). Interestingly, this level doesn’t have that much in the way of collectibles – two chess pieces, one constellation room, and no blueprints at all! Dunno why they decided that this level didn’t deserve any blueprints, but… *shrug* Anyway, the items I picked up today while running around cloning things were:
A) A blue pawn chess piece atop the ventilation duct in the “backstage” room right before you have an encounter with an extremely annoying clone-able alarm clock (basically the damn thing beeps for ages for NO reason at all – have no idea why the designers thought that was a good idea!), where the game teaches you that right-clicking will merge all cloned objects back with the original. The duct is REALLY high up, so you have to build a staircase up to it with cloned alarm clocks – which is a very tricky proposition, given you can’t reposition any of them once you set them down! My initial attempt didn’t work out at all, and while I was able to make a good-enough staircase to get onto the pipe that runs around the walls on my second go, allowing me a new perspective on my target and a fresh start on a third pile underneath the duct I was trying to get to, what actually got me up there was accidentally launching myself up onto the duct via the power of glitch physics (pretty sure what happened is that I cloned a clock inside my invisible body, and the game didn’t like that). *shrug* Whatever works! Hell, given the person who wrote the guide I’m using admitted that that’s how they got the chess piece, maybe glitch-launching yourself up there is the INTENDED method. :p
B) A pink knight chess piece that was atop another ventilation duct in another backroom area between the “red apple and fan” room and the “Somnasculpt Gallery” room – fortunately, this one didn’t require any manipulation of objects to reach, only some careful parkour! Basically, there’s a chair hidden in the shadows next to the door into the “gallery” room – you can jump on that, then jump onto the door or the light just above it, then jump onto the speaker next to it, then turn around and jump from there onto the duct, where a few steps will take you to the knight. Nice and easy peasy after that mess with the alarm clocks!
C) And a constellation of the Dream Soda vending machine in the constellation room, which – fittingly – was tucked into the shadows next to a vending machine in the backstage area right after the “Somnasculpt Gallery” room (the one that vends a smaller vending machine if you try to get a soda). This one was a little tricky to get, I admit – I quickly identified the patch of stars that made up the constellation, but it took me a minute or two to find the right angle to view it from to make the object appear so I could collect it. Admittedly, I was slightly distracted from this task by finding, of all things, two cloneable apples right at the entrance to the room. O.o I’m not sure if they were supposed to be there, or if they somehow glitched their way in there due to some of my previous shenanigans (I cloned a bunch of apples in the “red apple and fan” room so I could have the fun of watching them get blown into the abyss on the far side of the room by said fan). It was just – bizarre. But then again, most things about this game are bizarre, I think you’ll agree.
*nods* Another lovely bunch of items retrieved! And don’t worry, I do have my usual list of Fun Facts, Observations, And Oddities for the level for you right here:
I. When you wake up in your bedroom for this particular level, in keeping with the level’s theme, there’s a pile of six alarm clocks by your bed instead of the standard one – you only have to click the one in front to shut off the beeping, but all six are clickable, if you so choose (though one’s buried under all the others, so you may have a little trouble clicking it). You don’t get anything for it but a vague sense of accomplishment, though
II. Fun thing I noticed about the bed’s bedspread right before I left – it’s covered in avocados! XD Dunno why, but I like it
III. There’s a paper labeled “How To Start It” in the little window of the Reception room, at least in this level (I don’t know if it’s true of all levels with a reception) – it looked like there was more written on it, but I wasn’t able to read the text, sadly – too small!
IV. However, I was able to read in full a sign that appeared in the “red apple and fan” room, next to one of the doors on the far left side – which, for some reason, was all about the kinds of things that you could put in the skips on the property (no “hard fill,” like stones or gravel or dirt), and how the people renting the skips were responsible for them, and if they got graffitied or damaged, the company providing the skips would fine the renter the cost of the repairs. ...Odd thing to have in that room, but – okay! (Then again, the gimmick of the room is that if you just try to clone apples across it, they’ll be blown away by the fan before reaching the stairs up to the button you have to press – maybe the abyss counts as a “skip?” Are apples “hard fill?” So many questions…)
V. I also found a paper about “neuromorality” featuring scans of a brain in the backstage area with the vending machine constellation room – love to know what that was all about, but there was no text, just pictures. Feels like some interesting psuedoscience on par with phrenology!
VI. There’s a couple of radio alarm clocks in the level that, when clicked, change the background music to something peppier, if you’d like a change from the usual – you can identify them by noting they don’t have proper times displayed on them, just “01” to indicate they’re on the first track. There’s at least three tracks to choose from, including “02” (a more jazzy track) and “03” (a more electronic track) – however, the new tracks only play for a short time before fuzzing out. Shame – would be neat if you could permanently change the music in the level!
VII. In the gallery hallway immediately after the alarm clock room, for some reason, the dot that indicates where you’re looking turns into a smiley face temporarily. Not sure why – they may have mentioned the reason in the developer’s commentary, but it’s been ages since I listened to that! (And the reason might very well be “to fuck with you,” since that’s this game’s favorite activity.)
VIII. In the “Somnasculpt Gallery” room, you’re expected to clone the “Somnasculpt Gallery” signs to make a staircase to climb up to the third level and drop through a hole in the floor up there to continue with your your journey. However, if you choose to explore the upper floor before dropping through the floor, you will find a potted plant on either side of the U-shaped little “balcony” area...and the one on the right-hand side has a pickable banana! You can grab and resize this thing as normal, as it doesn’t clone...but it DOES mysteriously spin every time you put it down (like, if the inside of the curve was facing you before, when you next put it down it’ll spin so the outside of the curve is facing you). And the game allows you to carry it with you straight to the end of the level – I even brought it into the elevator with me! Obviously it was gone when the next level loaded, but – still. I have NO idea what the deal with the banana is, but it feels like it must be tied to SOME achievement...I’ll have to look it up later.
IX. Oh, speaking of achievements, I got a new one in this level! Admittedly after looking up how you’re supposed to get it, but still. XD Basically, there’s an achievement on the list called “Son Of Man” with the description “An apple for a head,” referencing that famous painting where a guy has an apple for a face. I knew I had to get it in this level, as it’s the only one that features apples, but I wasn’t sure what to do, given there’s no pictures or anything in the level where you can give someone an apple for a head using perspective tricks. So I looked up another guide specifically for achievements to see what you’re supposed to do –
And it turns out that, to get this achievement, you have to go to the “green apple” room (where you have to use the power of cloning to knock an apple off the switch that’s holding the door shut), clone it, then pick up the clone (because, in this ONE ROOM, the clones are normal objects you can hold and manipulate) hoist it up above you, then drop it so it lands on your invisible head. XD Not exactly intuitive, game! But then again, most of this game isn’t very intuitive – why I need a guide to find all these damn collectibles!
And there we have it – that is “Clone” officially cleared! Well, for collectibles, anyway – I will have to come back to it via the power of level select at some point to get an achievement I missed there (to clone an object too many times – apparently it’s triggered by cloning one specific exit door a lot). Next time, we find the goodies in the “Dollhouse” level – and let me tell you, just from my initial poke-around, I’ve already found a surprise extra room I’ve never seen before in the hallway to Reception, and a corkboard with miniature versions of all the blueprints I’ve found so far stuck to it! So yeah, looking like there’ll be some neat stuff to report on after my next Collectibles Run. :D
Writing: Got back to “The Van Dort Vacancy” today after supper, writing more about Alice and Smiler’s undercover adventures in the Van Dort kitchen! Today’s chunklet featured:
A) Mrs. Pemberly, impressed with Smiler’s soup-fixing skills, instructing them to make a cream sauce for a chicken dish, then coming over to Alice’s chopping station and being impressed with her potato-chopping – to the point where she actually apologized for misjudging her and “Simon” (even as she admitted it still felt weird to her that Mrs. Van Dort hadn’t told her about the new hires, as Nell is generally pretty good about that...if only because she has to hire people so often)
B) Alice quickly catching up with Smiler at the sink as she washed her knife in preparation for slicing tomatoes and Smiler rinsed out a bottle, letting them know that Mrs. Pemberly was now feeling more kindly to them and admitting she would have never thought of putting honey in the soup – Smiler explained that the sweetness helps balance out the acid flavor of the tomatoes, saying that adding milk, cream, or baking soda would have done the job too (guess who’s been researching “how to fix an acidic soup” :p)
C) And Alice getting to slicing up those tomatoes for frying...only to overhear someone behind her complaining that she’d run out of berries for her tarts – and a familiar voice say that he could go to the greenhouse to get some more. Cue Alice turning around just in time to see the mystery man she and Smiler were tracking, aka Kasimir Jones, being given a basket and directions to the greenhouse, before disappearing through a door at the back of the kitchen.
Good stuff! :D I’m really enjoying writing this one – it’s so much fun to put my crime trio into situations. Tomorrow, Smiler and Alice slip out of the kitchen and after Kasimir – and hopefully, I’ll be able to show off the Van Dort greenhouse. Because let me tell you, it’s a hell of a sight.
YouTube: Well, I was hoping to get to the two OXBox list videos in my Watch Later today, but thanks to a combination of getting to YouTube late and Gigs telling me about a certain other video that just uploaded today, I ended up going with a different pair of videos for my nightly watching –
A) First, we had “The Sims 4: GLASS WALLS, GARDENING IMPROVEMENTS, & MORE! (July 2025 Patch Update)” by onlyabidoang! One of his many videos going over what’s new after a big Sims 4 patch, this time focusing on the July 1st patch that stopped me from Simming today! Among the new stuff we got in this patch was:
I. Glass walls to match our glass roofs – great for creating greenhouses, but they’re a little glitchy right at the moment (the sunlight coming through them doesn’t properly light up Sims, and Sims and objects will mysteriously vanish if you view a glass-walled room from certain angles)
II. The ability to place certain plants on roofs – most of the ones available are now listed as part of the “roof sculptures” category in Build/Buy, but some are only listed in the “outdoor plants” section with the new “roof compatible” tag – and Abi found one that didn’t even have that. So yeah – if you want to place a plant on a roof, might be easiest to just grab it and see if the game lets you
III. UI updates and improvements to Household Collections, Sim inventories, and Sim notebooks (the latter now looks like a proper notebook, and even has a space where you can write a brief bio for your Sim)
IV. Occult physical features – like the special eyes vampires, aliens, and mermaids get for their alternate forms, pointy ears, and the Vampires-specific facial features like heavy brows and facial scars – being unlocked for ALL Sims in CAS (though apparently they’ve been excluded from the pool of stuff that can be used to generate random townies, hooray). I knew about this from Sims Community, but I wasn’t sure if it was an INTENDED new feature or a mistake made while prepping the game for Enchanted By Nature and its new occult, and Abi feels the same way as per his commentary. Me, I just want proof the glowing vampire eyes are glowing again…
V. Some improvements to gardening, such as the ability to “evolve all” and “fertilize all” plants, and a plant’s “water” and “fertilizer” status being added to the tooltips (Simmer gardeners all over rejoiced)
VI. The “snow and rain effects” indoor bug FINALLY getting fixed, yay
VII. Aaaand some fun new bugs, like custom tattoos causing Sims to turn pitch black, and the inability to drag dirty dishes to the sink or garbage to the garbage can (Sims bemoaned having to do all by themselves now)
He also briefly covered the Nature’s Calling event and the rewards you get (with the help of an unlocker mod to show off all said rewards, as we’re only in week 2 and not all of them have dropped yet) and the little patches that came before this one (including the Pride SDX drop). It was all very thorough and very informative – I love how he takes the time to show off all the stuff that’s changed or been fixed if he can. Why he’s one of my favorite Sim video creators! :)
B) And second up, we had the video Gigs told me about – “CaFae Latte Season 70 - TikTok Compilation” by C. M. Alongi! The latest season is now up on YouTube, and includes:
I. JC, Rethu, Husniya, and Lindsey discussing Father’s Day (including Lindsey revealing she spent hers with a mysterious new friend, and Rethu admitting dragons don’t really get it because, well, they’re mostly genderfluid); Husniya revealing JC’s still kind of mad at her for the “hiding I was with the CIA” thing; Rethu revealing their mother’s 800th birthday was coming up and that they were in charge of decorations (and of course they were going pirate-themed); and Kelly calling JC to tell them how badly Father’s Day went with the folks (their dad was calling for Trump to enact martial law, criticizing her career choices again, and cheated on their mother again)
II. The reveal that Lindsey’s new friend is – you guessed it – Erik, and them talking about their relationship with their shitty fathers before Lindsey distracted Erik with a women’s basketball game on her phone; and Husniya learning from Nicole (after calling her because they couldn’t find JC’s latest batch of cookie dough, and they weren’t picking up their phone) that JC was spending the day at a rage room run by a local fairy, and correctly guessing that part of what they were mad about was the CIA thing – she promptly headed over, and after a short argument, convinced JC to box her to punch out their problems. Annoyed the owner (“I’m not running a gym!”), but got them back on good terms, so yay
III. A trio of plus-sized customers coming in and ordering a bunch of brownies in honor of a one-year anniversary – only to be shamed by a skinny customer complaining that Bob should have never sold them snacks when they’re obviously so “unhealthy;” cue one revealing they have medical issues (and are actually UNDER the weight she pegged them as), the second revealing she’s 240 pounds of muscle and the local heavyweight champion, and the third revealing she had an eating disorder and thus has seen the issue from both sides of the scale – the anniversary they’re celebrating is her being one year out of the hospital. The skinny customer, stupidly, decided to double down on fat being unhealthy after hearing all that, and got bodily tossed out of the cafe by the weightlifter. Which caused Cyrus to ask how much she could lift (315 as of that day – the other thing they were celebrating) –
Which led to a viral video of her lifting him that JC and Nicole watched. And JC admitting to Nicole that, if they were stupidly in love with her, they’d be asking Cyrus for that lady’s number, because damn. XD
IV. Cyrus showing up at the cafe to ask Bob for as much caffeine as she could pour into a cup as he worked his latest cases...and then Nicole showing up to ask for Bob’s help with a spell to improve the mental health of her students, as one of the kids at her school, Emily, had just killed herself. :( Cue Bob and Cyrus doing their best to comfort her, and saying that they were sure the coven would help, only for Nicole to say she wanted them to focus on the public schools that didn’t have the resources her private academy did…
And Drek revealing why they should by saying that they’d had two suicides at his school in his senior year. And that nobody really did anything significant about it, despite going on about how things need to change and mental health needed to be prioritized. Bob was appropriately shocked, and the episode ended with various crisis line numbers across the world being put up on the screen :(
V. Rethu, Bob, and Oscar dealing with a customer trying to scam a “VIP discount” on a muffin by claiming they knew the owner – they bailed the minute Bob revealed she was the owner XD
VI. Husniya serving a jerkass dude who tried to flirt with her, then reacted to her saying “I’m married” by asking why she came on to him – he did not take it well when she said “I DIDN’T, I was being polite to a customer,” though fortunately he merely said “fuck you” and left once he had his food instead of doing anything dangerous (always a risk with these sorts)
VII. Bob being asked for help by a teenager with rheumatoid arthritis – only for another customer to come in and say that no teenager could have arthritis, just stop cracking your knuckles or – well, Bob silenced her before she could say either “masturbating” or “jerking people off,” but one of them was implied, eewwww. >( Fortunately a quick “mirror curse” forcing her to feeling the poor girl’s symptoms for as long as she was in the cafe set the second customer straight, and Bob ended up recommending the girl go to the Stoughton St coven because, unlike Bob, they were more willing to give away a “good luck and good health” charm, or at least sell it at a steep discount (Bob, being a fairy, always needs payment). The second customer confirmed that the curse wasn’t going to activate EVERY time they stepped into the cafe, then asked where the other fairy and the dragon that were supposed to work there were –
Cut to Rethu’s mom’s 800th birthday party, with Cyrus marveling over the cake Amyth’s spouse made; Rethu introducing Rabbi Rabbit to their mom, explaining the connection to one of her old shipmates; and Rethu giving Cyrus tips to get in good with their “godfather” the kraken, otherwise known as Uncle Dave. XD Yeah, hell of a birthday party, that!
VIII. And Rethu catching JC and Oscar up on what happened at the party – only for the seraph priest of a new church in town, Gabriel, to show up handing out pamphlets and talking about how seraphs are God’s chosen. JC and Rethu were immediately turned off, but Oscar tried to give him a chance –
Only for Gabriel to start going on about how “God helps those who help themselves” and how you can’t do things like food shelves, otherwise people start leeching off you. Which, as you might imagine, rather upset the previously homeless Oscar. The two shared some rather pointed words about how one should follow the word of God before Gabriel left, and Oscar lamented how Caroline (Yarn Granny) had been going to cook some apple crisp for the opening of this guy’s church, but once she heard about this… Cue Rethu and JC going “oh, she can still make the apple crisp, we’ll be happy to take it off her hands.” XD
So yeah, that was fun! A little heavy in spots, because you know, C. M. never shies away from including current events in these things, but still. At least we know the main cast is working toward making a better world. And we got some fun simple “dealing with Karens” videos in the middle too, which helped – sometimes, it’s just nice to see the cast take down an asshole customer. We’ll see when the next one comes out!
Other:
-->Forgot to mention this yesterday in my write-up on my Fallout 4 playsession – I got a new achievement over there too! “All The Toys,” for building ten robot mods – obviously triggered during my end-of-session upgrade of Ada. Happy to get it, though, I would have sworn I’d built more than ten robot mods before that upgrade spree...then again, I’ve been trying to make sure that Ada still looks like ADA during this quest line, so I haven’t done any mods that change her appearance too drastically; I haven’t built any other robots beyond Jezebel’s new body; I have been using a lot of pre-built robot bits I’ve scavenged off the ones I’ve killed; and the game likely does NOT count the plot-necessary mods you stick on Ada during the questline. So yeah, maybe it is possible it took me this long to properly build ten robot mods. *shrug* Either way, I have the achievement now, and that makes me happy. Yay achievements!
-->We played another round of beanbags today, as it was hot but not overly humid this afternoon – and I’m pleased to say we all had a decent time of it, with each of us winning a game! Though Dad won three, which only feels right and fair since it was his birthday today. XD But yeah, even Mom did well enough to score a win today, which was nice. :) Final scores were me 3-2-2-W-2; Dad 2-W-W-3-W; and Mom W-3-3-2-3. Dunno if we’ll be playing tomorrow or not (supposed to get a lot hotter and much more humid) – if we don’t, at least that’s a halfway-decent note to leave things on until we can play again!
Yeah, didn't get as much done as I'd hoped (mostly because my brain had another "I have to get the wording JUST RIGHT" moment with the "Cleaning" and "Superliminal" sections this afternoon, so I spent more time on those write-ups than I'd planned), but overall, a pretty good day. :) And now I need to get to bed and try and get some sleep. Plans for tomorrow include working some more on my Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) drafts; writing some more on "The Van Dort Vacancy;" getting in a workout; keeping up with Jon's latest Fallout: London episode if at all possible (depends on length and/or if it's uploaded before I go downstairs to work out) -- and I'd like to do SOMETHING with Baldur's Gate III, though whether that'll just be curating a list of mods I'd like to use or actually playing the game remains to be seen. We'll figure it out tomorrow. Night all!
Cleaning: Cleaning went pretty well today, I’m happy to say – I started dusting around 10:25 AM, and managed to wrap everything up with the vacuuming at 1:15 PM, right before lunch! Still took a touch longer than I really wanted, but at least I didn’t have to worry about doing my laundry on top of it all this time around. And I got through not only the entirety of Oxventure Presents: Blades In The Dark “Foundry #12” (the penultimate episode, with Zillah, Kasimir, and Edvard having to avoid being murdered in the titular foundry by Lord Strangford and his Red Sash mercenaries – Edvard really carried this one with a lot of lucky sixes, leading to him successfully getting Strangford and his goons to stand down via threatening them with a LIVE FRAG GRENADE – and then palming it into Strangford’s hand so he and his friends could get away at the end), but the first 40-odd minutes of the big finale, “Magic, Ghosts, Danger & Death” (where the entire gang went to finally take down the Barricade preventing ghosts from moving on and magic from coming in – I got up to the point where Edvard had dumped his latest Wonderful Mechanical Man down a vent venting all sorts of poisonous gasses out of the facility where The Barricade was located to scout ahead and see if it could get them in while he kept tabs on what it saw through a new spark-craft tablet he’d worked up...only to discover at the other end a room full of WMMs with the Astor logo. He was NOT HAPPY, as you might expect!). Good stuff! :) Even as it highlights that I’m almost to the end of the series… At least the final episode is over two hours long, so I’ll still have plenty to listen to next Cleaning Saturday!
Superliminal: Yup, this game again! While I’d intended to play some more Sims 4 and do some more work on the “Smiler’s Potion-Selling Caravan” build I started last week (or maybe even start working on getting the Teen Valicer Save off the ground), the following two things made me change my mind and return to the weird-ass puzzle game:
1. Between all my cleaning this morning, lunch being a little late, and us having cake right after lunch to celebrate Dad’s birthday (happy birthday Dad!), I didn’t get on my computer until 2:20 PM – and given my Sims 4 sessions ALWAYS run longer than anticipated, I didn’t think it a smart idea to start one of those after 2 PM (especially since I still had to catch up on all my online stuff). Contrariwise, Superliminal levels usually go pretty fast if you know what you’re doing – I can finish most in less than an hour
2. I abruptly remembered right before firing up the computer that, oh yeah, there was a big old patch for Sims 4 on July 1st...and my latest build uses at least one item of custom content. Meaning that I wasn’t in a great position to work on that build anyway! Meanwhile, Superliminal is in a completed state and I don’t have any mods for it at all, meaning I can always just play it.
So yeah – Sims 4 building session rejected in favor of another Superliminal Collectible Run! Today’s level was “Clone,” where clicking on things creates clones of them instead of allowing you to pick them up (though you can still resize the clones and stack them to create staircases and things like that). Interestingly, this level doesn’t have that much in the way of collectibles – two chess pieces, one constellation room, and no blueprints at all! Dunno why they decided that this level didn’t deserve any blueprints, but… *shrug* Anyway, the items I picked up today while running around cloning things were:
A) A blue pawn chess piece atop the ventilation duct in the “backstage” room right before you have an encounter with an extremely annoying clone-able alarm clock (basically the damn thing beeps for ages for NO reason at all – have no idea why the designers thought that was a good idea!), where the game teaches you that right-clicking will merge all cloned objects back with the original. The duct is REALLY high up, so you have to build a staircase up to it with cloned alarm clocks – which is a very tricky proposition, given you can’t reposition any of them once you set them down! My initial attempt didn’t work out at all, and while I was able to make a good-enough staircase to get onto the pipe that runs around the walls on my second go, allowing me a new perspective on my target and a fresh start on a third pile underneath the duct I was trying to get to, what actually got me up there was accidentally launching myself up onto the duct via the power of glitch physics (pretty sure what happened is that I cloned a clock inside my invisible body, and the game didn’t like that). *shrug* Whatever works! Hell, given the person who wrote the guide I’m using admitted that that’s how they got the chess piece, maybe glitch-launching yourself up there is the INTENDED method. :p
B) A pink knight chess piece that was atop another ventilation duct in another backroom area between the “red apple and fan” room and the “Somnasculpt Gallery” room – fortunately, this one didn’t require any manipulation of objects to reach, only some careful parkour! Basically, there’s a chair hidden in the shadows next to the door into the “gallery” room – you can jump on that, then jump onto the door or the light just above it, then jump onto the speaker next to it, then turn around and jump from there onto the duct, where a few steps will take you to the knight. Nice and easy peasy after that mess with the alarm clocks!
C) And a constellation of the Dream Soda vending machine in the constellation room, which – fittingly – was tucked into the shadows next to a vending machine in the backstage area right after the “Somnasculpt Gallery” room (the one that vends a smaller vending machine if you try to get a soda). This one was a little tricky to get, I admit – I quickly identified the patch of stars that made up the constellation, but it took me a minute or two to find the right angle to view it from to make the object appear so I could collect it. Admittedly, I was slightly distracted from this task by finding, of all things, two cloneable apples right at the entrance to the room. O.o I’m not sure if they were supposed to be there, or if they somehow glitched their way in there due to some of my previous shenanigans (I cloned a bunch of apples in the “red apple and fan” room so I could have the fun of watching them get blown into the abyss on the far side of the room by said fan). It was just – bizarre. But then again, most things about this game are bizarre, I think you’ll agree.
*nods* Another lovely bunch of items retrieved! And don’t worry, I do have my usual list of Fun Facts, Observations, And Oddities for the level for you right here:
I. When you wake up in your bedroom for this particular level, in keeping with the level’s theme, there’s a pile of six alarm clocks by your bed instead of the standard one – you only have to click the one in front to shut off the beeping, but all six are clickable, if you so choose (though one’s buried under all the others, so you may have a little trouble clicking it). You don’t get anything for it but a vague sense of accomplishment, though
II. Fun thing I noticed about the bed’s bedspread right before I left – it’s covered in avocados! XD Dunno why, but I like it
III. There’s a paper labeled “How To Start It” in the little window of the Reception room, at least in this level (I don’t know if it’s true of all levels with a reception) – it looked like there was more written on it, but I wasn’t able to read the text, sadly – too small!
IV. However, I was able to read in full a sign that appeared in the “red apple and fan” room, next to one of the doors on the far left side – which, for some reason, was all about the kinds of things that you could put in the skips on the property (no “hard fill,” like stones or gravel or dirt), and how the people renting the skips were responsible for them, and if they got graffitied or damaged, the company providing the skips would fine the renter the cost of the repairs. ...Odd thing to have in that room, but – okay! (Then again, the gimmick of the room is that if you just try to clone apples across it, they’ll be blown away by the fan before reaching the stairs up to the button you have to press – maybe the abyss counts as a “skip?” Are apples “hard fill?” So many questions…)
V. I also found a paper about “neuromorality” featuring scans of a brain in the backstage area with the vending machine constellation room – love to know what that was all about, but there was no text, just pictures. Feels like some interesting psuedoscience on par with phrenology!
VI. There’s a couple of radio alarm clocks in the level that, when clicked, change the background music to something peppier, if you’d like a change from the usual – you can identify them by noting they don’t have proper times displayed on them, just “01” to indicate they’re on the first track. There’s at least three tracks to choose from, including “02” (a more jazzy track) and “03” (a more electronic track) – however, the new tracks only play for a short time before fuzzing out. Shame – would be neat if you could permanently change the music in the level!
VII. In the gallery hallway immediately after the alarm clock room, for some reason, the dot that indicates where you’re looking turns into a smiley face temporarily. Not sure why – they may have mentioned the reason in the developer’s commentary, but it’s been ages since I listened to that! (And the reason might very well be “to fuck with you,” since that’s this game’s favorite activity.)
VIII. In the “Somnasculpt Gallery” room, you’re expected to clone the “Somnasculpt Gallery” signs to make a staircase to climb up to the third level and drop through a hole in the floor up there to continue with your your journey. However, if you choose to explore the upper floor before dropping through the floor, you will find a potted plant on either side of the U-shaped little “balcony” area...and the one on the right-hand side has a pickable banana! You can grab and resize this thing as normal, as it doesn’t clone...but it DOES mysteriously spin every time you put it down (like, if the inside of the curve was facing you before, when you next put it down it’ll spin so the outside of the curve is facing you). And the game allows you to carry it with you straight to the end of the level – I even brought it into the elevator with me! Obviously it was gone when the next level loaded, but – still. I have NO idea what the deal with the banana is, but it feels like it must be tied to SOME achievement...I’ll have to look it up later.
IX. Oh, speaking of achievements, I got a new one in this level! Admittedly after looking up how you’re supposed to get it, but still. XD Basically, there’s an achievement on the list called “Son Of Man” with the description “An apple for a head,” referencing that famous painting where a guy has an apple for a face. I knew I had to get it in this level, as it’s the only one that features apples, but I wasn’t sure what to do, given there’s no pictures or anything in the level where you can give someone an apple for a head using perspective tricks. So I looked up another guide specifically for achievements to see what you’re supposed to do –
And it turns out that, to get this achievement, you have to go to the “green apple” room (where you have to use the power of cloning to knock an apple off the switch that’s holding the door shut), clone it, then pick up the clone (because, in this ONE ROOM, the clones are normal objects you can hold and manipulate) hoist it up above you, then drop it so it lands on your invisible head. XD Not exactly intuitive, game! But then again, most of this game isn’t very intuitive – why I need a guide to find all these damn collectibles!
And there we have it – that is “Clone” officially cleared! Well, for collectibles, anyway – I will have to come back to it via the power of level select at some point to get an achievement I missed there (to clone an object too many times – apparently it’s triggered by cloning one specific exit door a lot). Next time, we find the goodies in the “Dollhouse” level – and let me tell you, just from my initial poke-around, I’ve already found a surprise extra room I’ve never seen before in the hallway to Reception, and a corkboard with miniature versions of all the blueprints I’ve found so far stuck to it! So yeah, looking like there’ll be some neat stuff to report on after my next Collectibles Run. :D
Writing: Got back to “The Van Dort Vacancy” today after supper, writing more about Alice and Smiler’s undercover adventures in the Van Dort kitchen! Today’s chunklet featured:
A) Mrs. Pemberly, impressed with Smiler’s soup-fixing skills, instructing them to make a cream sauce for a chicken dish, then coming over to Alice’s chopping station and being impressed with her potato-chopping – to the point where she actually apologized for misjudging her and “Simon” (even as she admitted it still felt weird to her that Mrs. Van Dort hadn’t told her about the new hires, as Nell is generally pretty good about that...if only because she has to hire people so often)
B) Alice quickly catching up with Smiler at the sink as she washed her knife in preparation for slicing tomatoes and Smiler rinsed out a bottle, letting them know that Mrs. Pemberly was now feeling more kindly to them and admitting she would have never thought of putting honey in the soup – Smiler explained that the sweetness helps balance out the acid flavor of the tomatoes, saying that adding milk, cream, or baking soda would have done the job too (guess who’s been researching “how to fix an acidic soup” :p)
C) And Alice getting to slicing up those tomatoes for frying...only to overhear someone behind her complaining that she’d run out of berries for her tarts – and a familiar voice say that he could go to the greenhouse to get some more. Cue Alice turning around just in time to see the mystery man she and Smiler were tracking, aka Kasimir Jones, being given a basket and directions to the greenhouse, before disappearing through a door at the back of the kitchen.
Good stuff! :D I’m really enjoying writing this one – it’s so much fun to put my crime trio into situations. Tomorrow, Smiler and Alice slip out of the kitchen and after Kasimir – and hopefully, I’ll be able to show off the Van Dort greenhouse. Because let me tell you, it’s a hell of a sight.
YouTube: Well, I was hoping to get to the two OXBox list videos in my Watch Later today, but thanks to a combination of getting to YouTube late and Gigs telling me about a certain other video that just uploaded today, I ended up going with a different pair of videos for my nightly watching –
A) First, we had “The Sims 4: GLASS WALLS, GARDENING IMPROVEMENTS, & MORE! (July 2025 Patch Update)” by onlyabidoang! One of his many videos going over what’s new after a big Sims 4 patch, this time focusing on the July 1st patch that stopped me from Simming today! Among the new stuff we got in this patch was:
I. Glass walls to match our glass roofs – great for creating greenhouses, but they’re a little glitchy right at the moment (the sunlight coming through them doesn’t properly light up Sims, and Sims and objects will mysteriously vanish if you view a glass-walled room from certain angles)
II. The ability to place certain plants on roofs – most of the ones available are now listed as part of the “roof sculptures” category in Build/Buy, but some are only listed in the “outdoor plants” section with the new “roof compatible” tag – and Abi found one that didn’t even have that. So yeah – if you want to place a plant on a roof, might be easiest to just grab it and see if the game lets you
III. UI updates and improvements to Household Collections, Sim inventories, and Sim notebooks (the latter now looks like a proper notebook, and even has a space where you can write a brief bio for your Sim)
IV. Occult physical features – like the special eyes vampires, aliens, and mermaids get for their alternate forms, pointy ears, and the Vampires-specific facial features like heavy brows and facial scars – being unlocked for ALL Sims in CAS (though apparently they’ve been excluded from the pool of stuff that can be used to generate random townies, hooray). I knew about this from Sims Community, but I wasn’t sure if it was an INTENDED new feature or a mistake made while prepping the game for Enchanted By Nature and its new occult, and Abi feels the same way as per his commentary. Me, I just want proof the glowing vampire eyes are glowing again…
V. Some improvements to gardening, such as the ability to “evolve all” and “fertilize all” plants, and a plant’s “water” and “fertilizer” status being added to the tooltips (Simmer gardeners all over rejoiced)
VI. The “snow and rain effects” indoor bug FINALLY getting fixed, yay
VII. Aaaand some fun new bugs, like custom tattoos causing Sims to turn pitch black, and the inability to drag dirty dishes to the sink or garbage to the garbage can (Sims bemoaned having to do all by themselves now)
He also briefly covered the Nature’s Calling event and the rewards you get (with the help of an unlocker mod to show off all said rewards, as we’re only in week 2 and not all of them have dropped yet) and the little patches that came before this one (including the Pride SDX drop). It was all very thorough and very informative – I love how he takes the time to show off all the stuff that’s changed or been fixed if he can. Why he’s one of my favorite Sim video creators! :)
B) And second up, we had the video Gigs told me about – “CaFae Latte Season 70 - TikTok Compilation” by C. M. Alongi! The latest season is now up on YouTube, and includes:
I. JC, Rethu, Husniya, and Lindsey discussing Father’s Day (including Lindsey revealing she spent hers with a mysterious new friend, and Rethu admitting dragons don’t really get it because, well, they’re mostly genderfluid); Husniya revealing JC’s still kind of mad at her for the “hiding I was with the CIA” thing; Rethu revealing their mother’s 800th birthday was coming up and that they were in charge of decorations (and of course they were going pirate-themed); and Kelly calling JC to tell them how badly Father’s Day went with the folks (their dad was calling for Trump to enact martial law, criticizing her career choices again, and cheated on their mother again)
II. The reveal that Lindsey’s new friend is – you guessed it – Erik, and them talking about their relationship with their shitty fathers before Lindsey distracted Erik with a women’s basketball game on her phone; and Husniya learning from Nicole (after calling her because they couldn’t find JC’s latest batch of cookie dough, and they weren’t picking up their phone) that JC was spending the day at a rage room run by a local fairy, and correctly guessing that part of what they were mad about was the CIA thing – she promptly headed over, and after a short argument, convinced JC to box her to punch out their problems. Annoyed the owner (“I’m not running a gym!”), but got them back on good terms, so yay
III. A trio of plus-sized customers coming in and ordering a bunch of brownies in honor of a one-year anniversary – only to be shamed by a skinny customer complaining that Bob should have never sold them snacks when they’re obviously so “unhealthy;” cue one revealing they have medical issues (and are actually UNDER the weight she pegged them as), the second revealing she’s 240 pounds of muscle and the local heavyweight champion, and the third revealing she had an eating disorder and thus has seen the issue from both sides of the scale – the anniversary they’re celebrating is her being one year out of the hospital. The skinny customer, stupidly, decided to double down on fat being unhealthy after hearing all that, and got bodily tossed out of the cafe by the weightlifter. Which caused Cyrus to ask how much she could lift (315 as of that day – the other thing they were celebrating) –
Which led to a viral video of her lifting him that JC and Nicole watched. And JC admitting to Nicole that, if they were stupidly in love with her, they’d be asking Cyrus for that lady’s number, because damn. XD
IV. Cyrus showing up at the cafe to ask Bob for as much caffeine as she could pour into a cup as he worked his latest cases...and then Nicole showing up to ask for Bob’s help with a spell to improve the mental health of her students, as one of the kids at her school, Emily, had just killed herself. :( Cue Bob and Cyrus doing their best to comfort her, and saying that they were sure the coven would help, only for Nicole to say she wanted them to focus on the public schools that didn’t have the resources her private academy did…
And Drek revealing why they should by saying that they’d had two suicides at his school in his senior year. And that nobody really did anything significant about it, despite going on about how things need to change and mental health needed to be prioritized. Bob was appropriately shocked, and the episode ended with various crisis line numbers across the world being put up on the screen :(
V. Rethu, Bob, and Oscar dealing with a customer trying to scam a “VIP discount” on a muffin by claiming they knew the owner – they bailed the minute Bob revealed she was the owner XD
VI. Husniya serving a jerkass dude who tried to flirt with her, then reacted to her saying “I’m married” by asking why she came on to him – he did not take it well when she said “I DIDN’T, I was being polite to a customer,” though fortunately he merely said “fuck you” and left once he had his food instead of doing anything dangerous (always a risk with these sorts)
VII. Bob being asked for help by a teenager with rheumatoid arthritis – only for another customer to come in and say that no teenager could have arthritis, just stop cracking your knuckles or – well, Bob silenced her before she could say either “masturbating” or “jerking people off,” but one of them was implied, eewwww. >( Fortunately a quick “mirror curse” forcing her to feeling the poor girl’s symptoms for as long as she was in the cafe set the second customer straight, and Bob ended up recommending the girl go to the Stoughton St coven because, unlike Bob, they were more willing to give away a “good luck and good health” charm, or at least sell it at a steep discount (Bob, being a fairy, always needs payment). The second customer confirmed that the curse wasn’t going to activate EVERY time they stepped into the cafe, then asked where the other fairy and the dragon that were supposed to work there were –
Cut to Rethu’s mom’s 800th birthday party, with Cyrus marveling over the cake Amyth’s spouse made; Rethu introducing Rabbi Rabbit to their mom, explaining the connection to one of her old shipmates; and Rethu giving Cyrus tips to get in good with their “godfather” the kraken, otherwise known as Uncle Dave. XD Yeah, hell of a birthday party, that!
VIII. And Rethu catching JC and Oscar up on what happened at the party – only for the seraph priest of a new church in town, Gabriel, to show up handing out pamphlets and talking about how seraphs are God’s chosen. JC and Rethu were immediately turned off, but Oscar tried to give him a chance –
Only for Gabriel to start going on about how “God helps those who help themselves” and how you can’t do things like food shelves, otherwise people start leeching off you. Which, as you might imagine, rather upset the previously homeless Oscar. The two shared some rather pointed words about how one should follow the word of God before Gabriel left, and Oscar lamented how Caroline (Yarn Granny) had been going to cook some apple crisp for the opening of this guy’s church, but once she heard about this… Cue Rethu and JC going “oh, she can still make the apple crisp, we’ll be happy to take it off her hands.” XD
So yeah, that was fun! A little heavy in spots, because you know, C. M. never shies away from including current events in these things, but still. At least we know the main cast is working toward making a better world. And we got some fun simple “dealing with Karens” videos in the middle too, which helped – sometimes, it’s just nice to see the cast take down an asshole customer. We’ll see when the next one comes out!
Other:
-->Forgot to mention this yesterday in my write-up on my Fallout 4 playsession – I got a new achievement over there too! “All The Toys,” for building ten robot mods – obviously triggered during my end-of-session upgrade of Ada. Happy to get it, though, I would have sworn I’d built more than ten robot mods before that upgrade spree...then again, I’ve been trying to make sure that Ada still looks like ADA during this quest line, so I haven’t done any mods that change her appearance too drastically; I haven’t built any other robots beyond Jezebel’s new body; I have been using a lot of pre-built robot bits I’ve scavenged off the ones I’ve killed; and the game likely does NOT count the plot-necessary mods you stick on Ada during the questline. So yeah, maybe it is possible it took me this long to properly build ten robot mods. *shrug* Either way, I have the achievement now, and that makes me happy. Yay achievements!
-->We played another round of beanbags today, as it was hot but not overly humid this afternoon – and I’m pleased to say we all had a decent time of it, with each of us winning a game! Though Dad won three, which only feels right and fair since it was his birthday today. XD But yeah, even Mom did well enough to score a win today, which was nice. :) Final scores were me 3-2-2-W-2; Dad 2-W-W-3-W; and Mom W-3-3-2-3. Dunno if we’ll be playing tomorrow or not (supposed to get a lot hotter and much more humid) – if we don’t, at least that’s a halfway-decent note to leave things on until we can play again!
Yeah, didn't get as much done as I'd hoped (mostly because my brain had another "I have to get the wording JUST RIGHT" moment with the "Cleaning" and "Superliminal" sections this afternoon, so I spent more time on those write-ups than I'd planned), but overall, a pretty good day. :) And now I need to get to bed and try and get some sleep. Plans for tomorrow include working some more on my Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) drafts; writing some more on "The Van Dort Vacancy;" getting in a workout; keeping up with Jon's latest Fallout: London episode if at all possible (depends on length and/or if it's uploaded before I go downstairs to work out) -- and I'd like to do SOMETHING with Baldur's Gate III, though whether that'll just be curating a list of mods I'd like to use or actually playing the game remains to be seen. We'll figure it out tomorrow. Night all!
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Date: 2025-07-07 02:31 am (UTC)For the record, the black eye was a TikTok filter but the fake blood was bought on Amazon and washed off, Chris said, surprisingly well. Video Editor Nic said in the comments that he had fun with the sound design and some visual effects of that one. "One Hollywood-worthy fight scene later..." indeed rofl.
I was desperately wondering what the rest of the shirt the body builder customer said. All I can read is "Why fall in love when you". A Google search suggests it's "Why fall in love when you can fall asleep" and, honestly, now I want it. Again, Video Editor Nic commented that he he hoped we liked the sound design and fun captions "especially with Cyrus".
Nicole: "Cyrus is going viral."
Nearly everyone in the comments, myself included: "Again?"
So the video of Rethu asking for Monday off for his mom's 800th was posted on Thursday 6/26. So naturally I was like "Do me and Rethu's mom share a birthday???" (people wished me happy birthday in the comments) :D My other comment was "If I were Bob once the customer said they'd call the owner I would've pulled out my phone and said 'Okay, go ahead. I'll wait'." And of course Video Editor Nic was all "Surprised people haven't figured out the new change I did" and that's when I said GDI Nic and he said it should be on a shirt. It's something specific to Oscar. If you want me to tell you, let me know. Or let me know that you noticed because I sure didn't at first.
But the actual birthday episode was posted on Sunday but my headcanon is me and Rethu's mom share a birthday until Chris says different lol. The TikTok description of that episode said that Chris had ordered a set of silver horns for Rethu's mom weeks ago but they're not getting delivered until mid-July. And yeah, Uncle Dave. David Jones. I asked if he looked like a tentacle-y Bill Nighy (Pirates of the Caribbean yanno...).
As for Gabriel, Video Editor Nic said he wanted to put wings on him but ran out of time (and no he hasn't answered me yet on how much that would cost). However, he did do the, as he called it, The Angel Glow Wars lol. And then he goes "I did add a new power to Oscar tho" and naturally I had to give him grief in the comments about it and read through other comments to figure out wtf he was talking about. Again, lmk if you want me to tell you what it was. Speaking of Oscar, him referring to Yarn Granny and Vet Grandpa (yes I know they have names and I do know they're Caroline and Andy but it just feels weird to use them haha!) as his partners was just so sweet.
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Date: 2025-07-07 03:55 am (UTC)Interesting -- I'm glad the fake blood didn't give her any grief! And LOL, I'm happy that he had fun with that bit. XD It's important to enjoy your job!
*snork* That is a good shirt, yes -- I am in favor of that sentiment. XD And yes, I have been enjoying the fun captions he's been adding. Most amusing! XD
LOL, I know, really? Cyrus is very good at going viral!
Awww -- would be cool if you did! (And nice of the other views to wish you a happy birthday in the comments. :) ) And yeah, that would have been delightful -- I was kind of waiting for her to do that! And I confess, I didn't notice any particular changes to Oscar, so yeah, if you want to just tell me, go right ahead. O.o
LOL -- that feels fair, yes. At the very least, your birthdays are really close together, it seems! Better than nothing? :P And aww, that's too bad -- hopefully they show up the next time Nightfire appears! And oh cripes, how did I not catch that joke... *facepalm*
Awww, too bad -- I guess we'll just have to assume Gabriel hides them in a similar way to Oscar. And trust me, I noticed -- Oscar was getting pretty bright with anger near the end, and I did not blame him! And did he? Again, I noticed nothing, so please bring me into the loop. And yes, yes it was -- I think he's falling despite himself. :) (And LOL, yeah, I hear you -- they've been Yarn Granny and Vet Grandpa for so long at this point, other names are just -- off. :P)
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Date: 2025-07-08 04:12 pm (UTC)21:40 when Oscar starts quoting...scripture? idk I'm not religious. Anyways, listen carefully (or put on headphones). There's, as one comment put it, "a heavenly choir underscore". More like humming, but still. I told Nic that I was too busy staring at Oscar to realize this addition was auditory. He just replied "Hehehe".
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Date: 2025-07-09 03:50 am (UTC)Yeah, should be scripture -- and ahh, I see! Emphasizing that he knows his shit, I'm guessing. :P And LOL, Nic really does love being a troll, doesn't he? :P