hudebnik

As you shall see once I present to you today's write-up:

Tumblr: Decently productive day over on the tumbls –

Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Over here, I spent the time before lunch working on the “Teen Valicer Save” post, just like I wanted! Specifically, I made it my mission to finish off the sections covering the individual goals I had for each member of the trio through their teenhood, college years, and adulthood (updating the “general overview” section to match as I went – for example, I took out the line in there about Smiler definitely going to Foxbury for college because I saw some Britechester degrees – Communications and Drama – that might suit them better). I’m pleased to say I mostly succeeded – everyone now has line items talking about what part-time jobs they might get in high school, and what after-school activities they might join; what I’m considering having them study in college, and what organizations they might join; what their occult status will be; what aspirations they’ll be tackling; and what they’ll be doing vis-a-vis careers as once they have their degrees. I just need to finish off Victor and Alice’s sections on their aspirations a bit (I listed four for Smiler to tackle, and I want to make sure Victor and Alice have the same number listed for theirs) and write a concluding paragraph or two (covering the main reasons I haven’t started the file yet – bugs, yo). We’ll see if I can get to that tomorrow!

Valice Multiverse – And over here, I spent some time tonight:

A) Answering an anon ask about how, even if your father embarrasses you, at least he’s never done what Vince McMahon did once and referred to you as “the product of his semen” on TV – I had the Inevitable High School version of the Valicer trio answer, with Victor and Smiler being grateful their dads have never done that, and Alice being like “same – I mean, mine’s dead, but I still don’t think he would have done that if he were alive” XD

B) Having a brief DM conversation with WeirdKev about whether or not it was a good idea for a Kindred to donate blood – my initial thought was “no, because that’s a good way to accidentally ghoul someone” (as I believe you can become a ghoul through injecting the blood, not just drinking it); Kev countered that vitae has some major health benefits, and anyway, doesn’t vitae lose the ability to ghoul/enslave people the longer it’s out of the vampire? I admitted I had heard that and did some research –

Aaand discovered, as per this wiki article (which, warning, has a kind of gory picture front and center), that not only does vampire vitae lose the ability to ghoul within a few minutes of leaving the vampire’s body and being exposed to air, it ALSO stops being vitae and becomes a mix of ordinary blood from multiple different sources. Meaning that, while it wouldn’t be a ghouling risk, it would also be absolutely useless for transfusions. So no, still not a good idea for Kindred to donate blood!

Sims 4: Well – after spending most of the week watching Sims-related videos with my workouts, and spending my pre-lunch time today working on the “Teen Valicer Save” post in the Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) drafts, how could I not jump back into this game for a little more building action? :) Though I forewent downloading any patches in favor of playing offline again – I wanted to keep using the little bit of CC I’d put back into my Mods folder. Mostly because the current build I’m working on is that “Smiler’s Potion Caravan” lot, and I wanted to keep the Crypt-O-Club wallpapers and doors and all that with their bright yellow and blacks in there. They’re just so very Smiler! Even if they aren’t particularly “fantasy,” like the build is supposed to be...eh, I have so little yellow-and-black stuff in this game that really suits them, I think I can forgive these items for not being quite on theme. ;P Anyway – here’s what I accomplished today:

A) First things first – I took out all the furniture currently in the build, then went ahead and removed the columns and spandrel I put in last time to open up the “selling room” bit of the caravan to the outside, replacing them with a regular wall (though I did have to move the roof temporarily to fix a visual glitch that then popped up on the top of said wall). Reason? Well, my original plan for that room was to have the columns and spandrel create a “doorway” into said room, then see what decorations I could use to fake having a pair of big double doors on either side that could theoretically swing shut to cover the gap. But right as I was loading into the game today, it occurred to me that I could, you know, just use a pair of double doors there. XD I needed just the right pair of double doors, though, so (after a brief moment taken to see if I liked the bright yellow Growing Together shingles better on the walls – that was a big fat “No”) I spent some time considering my options and playing around a bit with the wall heights (as for some reason all the Realm of Magic double doors only come in “Medium” or higher, meh). In the end, I decided that the best fit for this particular build was the Horse Ranch Crossbuck Sliding Doors in black (as the yellow swatch was a little pale for my liking). Mostly because they looked like the kind of doors you’d have on a caravan like this, that could be easily slid open and shut depending on the circumstances. There was just one problem with them –

They wouldn’t get along with the stairs. I had to delete the stairs I’d placed for people to walk into the little “shop” room previously to get the doors on the wall, and after I placed them, I couldn’t replace the stairs without deleting the doors. Which, uh, kinda confused me, because the stairs were playing nicely with the OTHER door in the build! Then again, that door is a normal “swing” door, while the Crossbuck doors are sliding, as per the name – maybe the game thinks the doors couldn’t slide over the stair bit? The landing DOES have a bit of a lip on it… Still, I wanted Sims to at least be able to theoretically access the “shop” area (I may want to actually use this build one day, after all!), so since I couldn’t have stairs, I experimented a bit with lowering the foundation instead to make it possible for Sims to step inside without needing the extra help. However, after dropping the caravan down a few notches, I couldn’t help but think that it looked a bit silly on such a low foundation...plus I couldn’t remember if that “if only one step up, Sims don’t need stairs” rule held true for foundations, or only platforms. Like, I was PRETTY sure it works with foundations, since those came first, but I wasn’t one hundred percent sure. So I decided to abandon that problem for a while and turn my attention to the next item on my list –

B) Wheels! Because it’s not really a caravan if it doesn’t have a way to travel around, does it? And I’d recently discovered where I could get some wheels, thanks to this lovely article by Sims Community about cool fantasy builds perfect for the Enchanted By Nature pack! Specifically, the second build on the list, which was the “Tiny Fantasy Wagon” by Devon Bumpkin! As you might imagine, such a build was VERY relevant to my interests, and I’d made sure a few days earlier to pop into the included build video, just long enough to see where he’d gotten the wheels for his wagon. Turned out they were a debug item (the back ones being sized up with the help of the TOOL mod), which meant I could track them down in my own game once I got the debug stuff to show up in Build/Buy! So, after a quick save (because the last time I tried to use cheats in the offline version of Sims 4, the damn game crashed), I opened up the cheat bar, typed in both “bb.showhiddenobjects” and “bb.showliveeditobjects” and began searching! It took me a while to find them, though, and along the way, I came across a couple of contenders from Cottage Living that nearly took the intended wheels’ place – a big old rusty metal wheel with treads, and a pair of wheels attached to a plow-thing that I thought I could hide in the foundation. However, the plow-thing ended up being too narrow to fit properly on my build – and when I put on “bb.moveobjects” so I could resize it, I discovered that trying to size it up made it HUGE. Like, WAAAY too build to use on this build! And while the rusty metal wheels kinda looked cool, I couldn’t get them close enough to the foundation to make them look like they were actually ATTACHED, even with the power of the ALT key. So I ended up going with the original debug wheels I’d seen in Devon’s build/video (a Horse Ranch item, as I’d guessed) – grabbing a set of four once I found them in the rows of items; raising the caravan’s foundation back up a little so the “axle” portion of the wheels would line up properly with the bottom lip of the foundation; then carefully placing them with the help of the ALT key until they were nice and close to the foundation, and all lined up with each other. Had to move the “front door” and attached stairs over a bit to accommodate the first front wheel, and fiddle around with getting them lined up on one of the grid lines so I could mirror them properly on each side, but I got it all to work in the end! And then immediately saved again so I wouldn’t have to do it again. XD So now the caravan has (admittedly small and slightly broken) wheels, yay!

Oh, and as a side note – while I was placing the wheels, I decided to see if having the “move objects” cheat on would allow me to place stairs going into the sliding doors…and it totally did! :) So now I have a set of stairs going into the “shop” room again, yay~ Dunno how functional they are, of course, but we’re not worrying about that right now. XD

C) With THAT done, I turned my attention to another matter – namely, Smiler’s bed. I’d originally gone ahead and thrown the single version of the “Burst of Pride” bed in the nonbinary swatch into the build because, well, they’re nonbinary and it’s very them – but I saw in that “Tiny Fantasy Wagon” build that Devon had chosen to use a loft bed in his wagon build. And I couldn’t help but think that one of the more “rustic” loft beds from Horse Ranch or Werewolves might suit the build a little better AND give Smiler a tad more floor space, if necessary. So I went and looked at my options for both beds. The Werewolves loft bed I quickly eliminated, as it had no good swatches, but I did find a reasonably acceptable yellow bed from Horse Ranch that I thought might work. I stuck that in the room that had previously been the long and thin bathroom (as I was rethinking Smiler having a bathroom in the caravan anyway – make more sense to have to use whatever nature provided outside, right?) to see how I liked it. So far, I’m thinking it’s okay, and I’ve put the “Burst of Pride” bed aside for the moment (along with the Realm of Magic toilet I was using before). I just wish that we could choose the bed frame and bed covers colors separately, like we could in Sims 2 – it would look a lot better if it was a yellow bed with a black wood frame! Meeeh…

D) Speaking of replacing things, right afterward I ended up replacing the Home Chef Hustle food stand with the Jungle Adventures selling table in the build – while I do love the HCH stand, the JA selling table had a smaller footprint, AND a more rustic look that fit the aesthetic of the build better. AND a nice color swatch with a yellow table and a purple blanket over it. :D To my annoyance, though, I still could not fit both the Realm of Magic cauldron and the selling table in the “shop” room, despite the new table being smaller! I mean, yes, I suppose I could have kept “bb.moveobjects on” and placed them like that, but I really wanted to place them without the cheat so I could be at least reasonably sure they were functional. I even tried making the middle room a little bit bigger at one point to see if that helped them coexist – nope, nothing doing. *grumbles* In the end, I decided that maybe the middle room should just be the “alchemy” area – aka where Smiler does all the brewing – and they then take the selling table out and about to sell the results. So the current state of affairs is the cauldron is in the middle room, and the selling table is out near the front of the lot. Loaded up with various potions because, hell, I had the “show debug items” cheat on, and thus they were visible in Build/Buy for the taking. :p Might as well give Smiler some freebies for the aesthetic!

E) While I was trying to figure out the cauldron/selling table situation, I realized that Smiler also needed a mailbox for this to be a functional house. However, since this is supposed to be a “mobile” home, I didn’t want to put down a mailbox on a post, so I went looking for a wall-mounted mailbox that I could stick on the side of the caravan. I stumbled across the one from Snowy Escape first – the Snailbox Mailbox – and took a look at the swatches, looking to see if there was a good yellow or black one –
And stumbled across one that had been painted to look like it had a face! :D I was utterly charmed and – convinced this was a thing Smiler would do – happily put it on the caravan by the front door. I love when I stumble across stuff like that in this game!

F) I also realized that the inside of the caravan needed doors (so you could, you know, move from one room to another) and lights, so I slapped in the “Spoopy Portals Zigzag” and “Spoopy Portals Stripes” doors from Crypt-O-Club’s “Creepy Creations” collab in yellow and black to connect the rooms, and put up some of those Realm Of Magic Totally Lit Buglights (in the purple-winged/yellow-bodied swatch) to help light the place. Though the bug lights ended up being rather too dim to light the areas properly, so I ended up also hanging a Horse Ranch chandelier in each room to PROPERLY light them up. Though I don’t know how smart it is to have OPEN FLAME in a WOODEN caravan like this...on the other hand, the one Realm of Magic chandelier is RIDICULOUSLY big and does NOT size down well, so what is a girl to do? *shrug* If I want to change it later, I can!

G) After finally deciding to just put the selling table outside with all the potions, I decided to get a bunch of items that I thought Smiler would need/want while I got their caravan back in order, including:

I. The Lovestruck acoustic guitar, since that one has the best yellow swatch – it’s currently in the corner of their little bedroom area, ready to be played whenever they feel the urge

II. The Horse Ranch variant of the pee/woohoo bush, for them to do their business out-of-doors (because, again, I’m rethinking them having a toilet inside)

III. The Laundry Day clothesline and washtub, put in the corner of the lot, so they can wash their clothes (I do love inflicting laundry on my Sims)

IV. The “ring of stones” Outdoor Retreat campfire (because I realized this was starting to look a bit like a campsite, and figured they should have a campfire in that case – good way to cook food too, even if I’m letting them keep their kitchen for the moment)

V. And the Life & Death Crowskin journal in the yellow swatch (for writing down their thoughts/alchemy recipes – it’s sitting on their selling table for the time being until I figure out if I can get them a desk)

H) And finally, I decided that I really need to get the floors and walls INSIDE the caravan sorted before I quit for the day. So I went into the wooden flooring section to see what was good there –

Forgetting that I’d previously set up some color filters to look specifically for things that were yellow, black, or purple. Meaning one of the first floorings I saw was the City Living Basketball planks in bright purple. Just for funsies, I picked it and tried it out in one of the rooms –

And was like “shit, I kind of like this. And think it’s in character.” So, uh, yeah, I put it in the entire caravan. XD I’m not ENTIRELY sure I’ll keep it, but for now it was fun, in a very “oh no, why would they do this (but they would totally do this)” kind of way. XD

As for the walls – well, there’s a reason I mentioned wanting to keep Crypt-O-Club’s wallpapers in the game, as I ended up using them here! Specifically, I used the Blank Planked wall – with a yellow paint top half, and a black wood lower half – in the “alchemy” room, the bedroom, and MOST of the kitchen, and the Checkered Planked wall – with a yellow-and-black checkerboard pattern above the planks – behind the actual kitchen stuff. I thought the latter looked good as a “backsplash.” XD Again, I’m not CONVINCED I’m going to go with this for the “final” design (as previously mentioned, it’s not very fantasy), but again, it’s fun for now.

And there I left things! Build is far from finished, but I think it’s starting to come together, at least in a small way. Maybe next time I’ll have a fully-patched game and be able to look at the Gallery again for more inspiration. We shall see!

Writing: Started Chapter 4 of “The Van Dort Vacancy” today, switching back to Victor’s POV as he led Alice and Smiler over to his room so they could pack up his things before starting their assault on the Van Dort vault! Alice and Smiler were like “we knew this place was big, but that was still quite the hike.” XD Anyway, after a bit of banter about the pair being surprised Nell let Victor paint his door blue (instead of sticking with the largely-green color scheme of the rest of the house – Victor figures his father convinced her it would be fine, who would see it), the trio headed inside, with Alice noting with some puzzlement how minimal Victor’s room was (he admitted he was not a collector like his mother); Smiler admiring Victor’s collection of butterfly pictures (Victor told them he’s been drawing them since he was small, so that’s why he’s such a good artist); and Victor IMMEDIATELY reclaiming the wallet and spirit bane charm he accidentally left behind when he left for the fateful wedding rehearsal (he won’t be making THAT mistake again...even if that mistake has had some pretty good consequences for him). I left it with Alice and Smiler taking down his pictures for him while Victor got a bag and figured out exactly what he wanted to pack – tomorrow, Victor goes in his closet to get his bag and some changes of clothes, and Alice and Smiler get to be O.o about how many suits he has. :P Fun!

YouTube: I am happy to report that, despite getting to it a little later than I wanted, I was still able to clear out my Watch Later without issue, yay~

A) First up were our OXBoxtra lists of the week:

I. “7 Annoying Side Quests that Locked You Out of the Main Game” – Ellen and Mike talking about those quests that lock you out of the rest of the main game until they’re done, and sometimes even screw up your carefully-curated build! Examples ranged from genuine side quests (“An Unexpected Journey” in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, triggered by sleeping on the Bloated Float, an inn built into a docked sailing ship – you wake up to find the ship has been taken over by pirates, and have to kill them all and free the crew before you can go back to land and continue your adventures; not a long quest, but apparently a bit of a slog), to DLC quests (“Dead Money” in Fallout: New Vegas, triggered by following a certain radio signal down a bunker – you end up trapped in the very toxic Sierra Madre Casino, forced to obey the whims of Father Elijah or get your head blown off; points to this one for warning you right before you start that it’s going to lock you into a new area until the DLC is completed, though), to actual main quests that apparently had “side quest vibes” and still stuck you in a new location that you couldn’t escape until you completed everything there (the “Guerra” part of Red Dead Redemption 2 – you find yourself stranded with Arthur’s gang on a Caribbean island, far away from the American West, and have to help the people there before you’re allowed to leave; Mike’s main complaints seemed to be “questline is too linear and they won’t let us explore more of the pretty island”). The moral? Be careful when accepting quests – you may find yourself locked into some nonsense you very much don’t like but have to see through to the end! Also, be careful visiting Mike’s friend Martin, the lock on his bathroom might be broken – apparently Mike had to climb out the window at a party once. XD

II. “7 Worst Perks You Must NEVER Take: Commenter Edition” – Andy, Mike, and Jane going through more useless or actively harmful “perks” that you are strongly advised not to take in video games, based on the suggestions from the comments in their last video on the subject! Enjoying having an extra +2 to Intelligence and Perception from “Night Person” in Fallout 4 and think taking Rank 2 would be a good idea? BAM, you’re hit with the fact that crouching gives you “night vision” now, which makes everything look washed out and blurry around the edges, and activates not only in the darkness of the great outdoors, but also WELL-LIT BUILDINGS. Think having the spell “Spontaneous Combustion” will help you against the horrors in Fear And Hunger 2: Termina? BAM, the moment you cast it, you discover all it does is burn you to death. Think the “Poisoned Chalice” trinket in Deathloop is worth taking a risk on, despite it being a gift from the woman trying constantly to murder you? BAM, you – apparently can’t read or are trying a masochistic death run, as it says RIGHT IN THE DESCRIPTION that the only thing it does is drain your health. *shakehead* Sometimes these horrible perks are self-inflicted, I gotta say. But I suppose somebody’s gotta do the challenge runs!

B) And second, fresh off C. M. Alongi’s virtual video presses, we had “CaFae Latte Season 71 - TikTok Compilation!” Gigs warned me this one was going to make me mad, and – well, let me tell you what this one involved:

I. Oscar chatting with Andy/Vet Grampa during his break about the new pastor who visited at the end of last episode (Oscar hoping that he’ll soon get moved or his congregation won’t get big enough to support the church; Vet Grampa not being so sure), which – after Drek took their plates – led to Vet Grampa revealing a pet peeve of his: the younger generation saying “no problem” in response to a “thank you” instead of “you’re welcome.” Nicole, who happened to overhear, took it upon herself to explain “it’s because we’re all riddled with anxiety over being a burden and want to assure others that helping them is not a problem so they don’t feel the guilt over asking us to help” – Vet Grampa was like “awful way to live, but makes sense; thanks for explaining” (Nicole: “No problem.” XD)

II. The ER Nurse discovering that the cafe was closed for Independence Day, and a sign asking customers to donate what they would have spent to the ACLU, or Planned Parenthood, or 180 Degrees, or a local food shelf – she chose Planned Parenthood and headed off to Vet Grampa’s firehouse to see if she could get coffee there, and C. M. put up some text slides asking what everyone’s favorite color is and revealing hers is red (which everyone is surprised by) to make sure the video reached 60 seconds so she could get paid for it :p

III. JC ranting to Cyrus about how they’ll never go back to using the men’s bathroom (because, as they discovered the first time they used it to avoid a line at the men’s during a sports game, the women’s bathroom is cleaner, and the women in it much friendlier and unlikely to give them shit about wearing a skirt or dress than men in the men’s bathroom) as a customer listened in, looking rather confused; JC then asked Cyrus about the knitted flower he was wearing, with Cyrus revealing it was from Yarn Granny and that he got it during the last day of pride. The customer said “makes you look like a girl” – cue Cyrus fluttering his eyelashes and asking if he was a pretty girl, and Rethu showing up, assuring him he was gorgeous, kissing him, then telling the customer in their no-nonsense voice to get out. Customer fled, and JC said “you should really wait until AFTER they give us money to do that” XD

IV. Drek dealing with a very indecisive customer at the counter, who was finally interrupted by the guy behind her being like “let the people who can make a decision go first – I’ll have an Italian Soda, $5, keep the change” and causing her to flounce off to Starbucks; the guy, Conner, sympathized with Drek having to deal with those idiots (Drek revealing that normally he gets to hide in the back, but someone called out sick – cut to Husniya trying to insist she can work and Asif telling her “you have a 104 fever, SIT DOWN”), then asked Drek what was cool in town since he and his dad had just moved here. Drek happily told him about the car shows that turn into riverside concerts, and the game shop down the street that’s an excellent place to play both Magic: The Gathering and D&D – Conner was like “oh, I love Magic, I asked for cards for graduation and now I gotta try ‘em out!” They exchanged names, and Conner promised he’d be back around, leaving Drek to grin after him, awww~

V. Drek approaching JC to ask how you know someone’s into men, and then how to ask them out – JC guessed he was talking about Conner, then asked if the kid had ever dyed his hair or worn Pride stuff that Drek knew of. Drek admitted he hadn’t seen anything like that so far and showed JC Conner’s Instagram… and JC noticed a Bible verse in his bio and went “bad sign.” Drek countered that Oscar, Husniya, and Asif were all religious and queer, but JC said that, in their experience, that was usually an exception, not the rule. Drek replied that Conner was a regular and nobody was hiding anything about themselves, so… JC allowed that, then told Drek that he was probably just going to have to bite the bullet and ask, stressful as that was, pointing out that being blunt was the best way because he’d know right away if he was dealing with a homophobe; a straight guy or someone just not into him; or a potential date.

VI. And Drek lingering near the front counter near the end of his shift to talk to Conner when he came in (with JC starting the dishes for him) – Conner showed up for his usual and a scone for his dad; they talked about the fact that he was applying for a job at Wulver’s Seafood; Conner asked if Bob could put in a good for him, and Drek was like “she’s not a fan of nepotism and also super scary;” Conner admitted he found women who could kill you more terrifying than men who could kill you, maybe because of their beauty; a saddened Drek was like “you prefer women” and revealed he was gay and planning to ask Conner out when Conner was like “you don’t?” –

And Conner revealed he was a major homophobe who was utterly disgusted by the fact that Drek was gay – and by the entire cafe when Drek revealed everyone there was queer. Drek told him he should probably get out until he learned to be nice to his friends, and Conner eagerly left, causing the episode to end on poor Drek crying before going back to tell JC he had the dishes. :( Awww, Drek – he needs all the hugs from his friends! And as the commenters said, it’s worrying that Conner has a name, meaning he might be back for more bullshit...fortunately, the commenters are ALSO mounting an army to take down Conner for making Drek cry, so I think Drek will be fine. :P

So yeah -- some nice Simmy vibes this Saturday! It was fun getting back to the Caravan build, and working on the "Teen Valicer Save" post. :) And now I have to hit the sack -- tomorrow, goals include finishing off that "Teen Valicer Save" post in Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler)'s drafts if I can; either playing some Superliminal or working on getting Baldur's Gate III in shape for my "this is my final attempt at starting a new game I swear" run; working more on Chapter 4 of "The Van Dort Vacancy;" getting in a workout; and keeping up with Jon of Many A True Nerd (he posted what the new series is going to be -- a You Only Live Once (aka no healing) run through Fallout: New Vegas! Which is something he's done before, but apparently this is the "remastered" version, which intrigues me...) We'll see what I achieve! Night all!