Mostly Pleasant Weather Saturday
Jul. 26th, 2025 11:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Yeah, it was nice for most of the day -- I even cracked my window open for a while! But right near the end of the day, everything started getting sticky again, which was unpleasant. >( Stupid humidity -- I am so over it, I swear. But summer's not over yet, so all I can do is crank up the AC whenever it appears. *shakehead* In the meantime, here's the summation of my Saturday --
Tumblr: Had a very productive day over here, I am happy to announce –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – I spent the time before lunch over here, working on:
A) Bulking up my drafts by going through my tracked tags again for stuff to save in there for later reblogging – and unlike last time, I found a veritable bounty of things I enjoyed and wanted to add to my blog at some point! :D Including –
I. Two pieces of VTMB fanart by “benmix98” – Beckett looking at something offscreen while wiping blood from his lip (which was just cool); and the masc and fem Malkavian fledglings...genderswapped in EACH OTHER’S outfits (that is, the masc!Malk was wearing the slutty cheerleader outfit everyone knows from his fem counterpart, while the fem!Malk had his mostly-shaved hairstyle, bright yellow glasses, and trousers with no shirt (though in her case she had a bra) – Ben was like “I’m tired of oversexualized women!” in his tags, while I was just impressed at how good they looked in each other’s outfits)
II. A Smiler OC drawing by “steam-powered-chaos” – a Black person (it/its pronouns as per the side label) with yellow and white streaks in its black hair (including its goatee), a black-and-yellow clawed mechanical hand, a “necklace” that I think is a tube of Joy Serum sewn into its throat, a blood-spattered labcoat, a belt with canisters of what I believe is Giggler Gas, and bright yellow boots (we love a good Smiler OC, and it’s nice to see one a little different from the norm)
III. A screenshot of A:MR by “ovcvlt” – Alice standing in the street by Radcliffe’s, looking at the camera in her London form while burning mushrooms sprout from the ground behind her (the caption was “my new hobby is taking pictures of beautiful women” and I agreed in my tags she was very beautiful :) )
IV. A pair of posts featuring transparent pngs of stuff from the A:MR game by “roachpng” – specifically, the eye fish from the Deluded Depths (which is a big old eyeball in fish form – I said in the tags that I was tempted to make that a real fish in VITD because the fish caught there are said to be the dreams of the leviathans that swim in the starry waters); and a pair of lightbulb-flies from Hatter’s Domain paired with a nutterfly (a nut with butterfly wings) from the Vale of Tears (I just thought these were cute – and the wings on the nutterfly were more detailed than I thought, damn)
V. And a pair of posts from “atimburtonfan” – one of behind-the-scenes stuff featuring Elder Gutknecht, including Victor and Emily’s wedding with him presiding, his big Land of the Dead library room, and most notably some maquettes featuring his earlier design with big bushy eyebrows instead of glasses (which I felt compelled to add to my drafts because, well, that early design is what inspired the look of my ghost!Gutknecht from the Valicer In The Dark verse); and a gifset of Victor dropping the ring during his and Victoria’s rehearsal at the beginning of the movie, diving under Maudeline’s skirt to get it, and then forgetting his lit candle on her dress, setting her on fire, with the caption “Let's all be grateful that Victor van Dort didn't inherit the one ring from Bilbo” (which was just plain funny XD Poor Victor XD)
So yeah – I now have some more stuff I can just drop into the queue if I have nothing of my own to add to it! Nice to have a buffer while I work on new posts. :)
B) Finishing up the “Not-Incorrect Valicer Quotes, Valicer In The Dark Edition, Volume V” post with a scene featuring Sooty trying to steal a mixing rod from Smiler’s alchemy bench – and when that didn’t work, stealing their hat (poor Smiler was trying to keep an eye on a concoction they were making, and of course the MOMENT they looked away because of hat theft, it started boiling); and a scene featuring Guide, Dogmeat, Sooty, and Benny coming in to bug Victor, Alice, and Smiler while they ate dinner (Victor was like “remember when we could just eat dinner?” while Alice pointed out he and Smiler had often begged her for food in the past while given Guide some chicken XD). So that post is pretty much done now – just have to finish off the tags, and I’ll be set to post it when I so choose!
Valice Multiverse – And while I didn’t have anything to answer over here, thread-or-ask-wise, tonight, since the dashboard wasn’t bugging out, I was able to reblog the VITD fic snippet, “Blessing,” that I posted over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) the other day into the queue for tomorrow! And it occurs to me that you guys would probably like to read it too, so here’s the link for the original VLA(NS) version: Blessing Hope you enjoy!
Sims 4: Welp, I went offline again to try working some more on Smiler’s Potion Caravan today – but, unfortunately, I did not have a very productive playsession. Mostly because:
A) I spent the majority of the session attempting to start over on the whole build by making a room that could rest atop those debug “plow wheels” (two wheels attached by their axle to a bunch of plow spikes) that I found in the Cottage Living section of the debug-and-live-edit items, as per a video I found on my phone while trying to look up “Sims 4 fantasy caravans” for inspiration about where I wanted to take the build. The person in the video grabbed those wheels, used the TOOL mod to resize them slightly, then did the “build a room on top of a room, delete the first story room, then lower the second story room until it’s actually about first story height so you can put it atop the object of your choice” trick to put the body of the caravan atop the wheels, which I thought was very clever. However, when I tried doing that in my game –
I. Well, first of all, I don’t have the TOOL mod, so I couldn’t resize the wheels any way other than the usual in-game cheats, which made them waaaay too big. However, I was determined not to worry about that, figuring I’d just make a caravan that fit the size of the wheels as they already were. And I admittedly managed to make a room that fit perfectly between the wheels –
II. But when I tried to do the “lower a second story room to first story height” trick with said room, I quickly realized that – I had no idea how to do that. ^^; I’ve never tried it before – I’ve only ever seen builders in videos use it! I eventually found out that I could more or less move a room around freely (at least, with “move objects” on – I have no idea if you can do that without good old MOO) just by grabbing it and dragging it around, but that didn’t end up helping much either, because…
III. Whenever I tried to attach the wheels to the room – either by trying to get the room to float atop them (which I never managed), or by putting the room on the ground, raising it up a bit, and trying to merge the wheels into the foundation – either the wheels snapped onto the bottom of the room itself, dangling ABOVE any foundation, or they just turned invisible entirely except for their shadow for some reason. O.o I eventually learned that the latter happened if I put them too far inside the room – they could go right on the very edge of the front or back of the room, with about half the wheel overlapping the wall (which changed the lighting on them from “outdoor” to “indoor” for unknown reasons), but if I tried to shove them in any further, BAM! Invisible wheels. No idea what the fuck is up with that, but then again, they are debug objects… After a lot of fussing and trying to get everything the way I wanted, I did eventually manage to get the room flat on the ground (after my initial attempt to lower it managed to put the whole kit-and-kaboodle into a pit in the “front yard” of the build – no idea how I managed that) with the wheels properly attached to it, visible and everything, looking actually somewhat like a boxy caravan –
But because the room was flat on the ground, the whole thing just looked rather – weird. Like it was just a box with some wheels pasted to the sides. And as I already knew that I couldn’t use a foundation to raise the room off the ground...yeah, that’s when I finally decided I should really just try and work with what I’ve already built and deleted the whole lot. *sigh* A shame – I like those “plow wheels” a lot better than the broken Horse Ranch wheels I’m currently using on the build! But if I don’t have the skills (or mods) to make them work...
B) And then I spent most of the rest of the session playing around with making the original build look a little more like a “fantasy” caravan by replacing the all the Crypt-O-Club “Spoopy Portal” doors with a Cottage Living one that looked more old-timey, removing the Snowy Escape mailbox on the side (though that was more because I tried to move it into a better position beside the new door, only to see it mysteriously keep going further and further up the wall and onto the roof every time I tried to interact with it o.O), and repainting Crypt-O-Club-wallpapered insides with the same chipped yellow planks I used on the outside –
And then reverting all the changes because it looked less Smilery like that. >( Yeah, one of the problems with this build is the constant tug-of-war between my desire to make the build look like something appropriate to a fantasy setting like, say, Faerun in Baldur’s Gate III, and my desire to make the build look like somewhere Smiler would live – because, unfortunately, all the most Smilery CC I have right now is the Crypt-O-Club stuff, and the Build/Buy stuff in those sets does NOT suit a fantasy aesthetic. For example, those “Spoopy Portal” doors from I believe “Creepy Creations” – the ones with a yellow-and black swirl on them? PERFECT for Smiler, fits their aesthetic BEAUTIFULLY – but they’re very clearly a MODERN door, complete with a modern round doorknob and keyhole. The yellow-and-black wallpapers and paneling? Really nice, love to use them, great for any Smiler-related build – except possibly this one, because fantasy those wall coverings are NOT. How do I justify the inside of the caravan looking so different from the outside? I’m just barely justifying the purple flooring I’m using, and that’s at least wood! *facepalm* I just – I dunno. I want the build to look right for the setting I’m picturing, but I also want it to look like it’s Smiler’s, and given the depressing dearth of good yellow-and-black stuff in this game, especially in the right rustic aesthetic… *sigh* I suddenly understand perfectly why the Sims 3 people were so saddened by the lack of Create A Style in The Sims 4 – if I could just paint the yellow and black swirls onto the walls MYSELF, I’d be fine! Uuuugh…
So yeah – today was mostly all about fiddling around with stuff that I decided didn’t work and had to be changed back. I did manage to make a tiny bit of progress, though:
a. I changed the foundation to the Minimal Modern stilt style from Snowy Escape, because I liked the thinner stilts on that one – made the caravan look a little less rooted to the ground
b. I added a dining table to the front room with the kitchen – a high-top table in black with a fancy pattern on top from Realm of Magic, paired with two yellow barstools/dining chairs from Cats & Dogs – a bit mismatched, but I feel like it goes with the vibe of the caravan
c. I put the Laundry Day broom and dustpan wall decoration on the wall by the front door (Smiler’s gotta have a way to clean up inside the caravan after all!)
d. And I added the City Living Chest of Secrets to the kitchen area, because it looked a bit like a cupboard full of dishes and I liked the look of it with the kitchen stuff. :)
So that was nice, at least. Still, I wish I’d managed to get more done. This is turning out to be a surprisingly-vexing build! *sigh* Maybe I need to let it sit for a while and work on something else. I did want to turn the library in Copperdale into a full-blown community center for the Teen Valicer Save file...
Writing: Got another page written on “The Van Dort Vacancy” today! Which featured –
A) Victor managing to successfully bluff Mrs. Pemberly into believing he was just taking Alice and Smiler to put their things in the servant’s quarters (faking that he’d been banned from the party for arriving late) – Mrs. Pemberly noted that it was a bit odd for one of the masters of the house to do that sort of thing DIRECTLY (instead of leaving it to another servant), but admitted that she really did need all hands on deck in the kitchen and thus couldn’t do it herself. So she simply told Alice to get her bag out of the changing room; asked that her wayward servants be returned to her as soon as possible; and thanked Victor for helping and requested he let Nell know that they were filling shoes full of caviar as fast as they could if he saw her again, before heading back to the kitchen to help control the chaos there. Smiler subsequently asked if anyone else felt a bit guilty about the fact that they would NOT be returning to the kitchen, and would probably get her in trouble once the robbery was discovered – Barnaby and Kasimir were immediately like “no” XD Barnaby was in fact a bit insulted that she didn’t immediately take on the job of showing Alice and Smiler the servants’ quarters – Kasimir had to remind him that would have been a bad thing :P
B) And Kasimir taking a moment to ask what the hell the “filling shoes full of caviar” thing was, because he assumed that it meant something like having the rich folks walk around in shoes full of caviar to cure something on their feet. Victor explained that no, these were tiny decorative shoes that were being used as caviar bowls – only for Alice to point out that that was weird too and ask how it even came about as a fad. Victor was like “I don’t know” –
Cuing Barnaby to say that it was probably someone in Brightstone just having a laugh, and telling them all about the time his friend Squiffy started a fashion for wearing your gloves inside-out for a short while! Naturally, he and Barnaby were very drunk when this happened. XD I left it with Kasimir deciding they needed to get this show on the road and asking Victor again about the defenses they’ll be facing – tomorrow, Victor leads the group to the vault, and they take on their first obstacle: Steven and Alan, the guards waiting for them by the door into the trapped hallway! Looking forward to writing that out properly… :)
YouTube: Well, I was thinking of trying to catch up a bit on my OXBoxtra list videos tonight – but then Gigs told me that the next season of CaFae Latte was up, and thus my plans shifted to instead catch up on some C. M. Alongi videos instead! Specifically –
A) “Cafae Latte Q & A” – a video from four months ago, where C. M. answered a bunch of questions about CaFae Latte, as submitted to her Discord channel! Queries included:
I. “What are the favorite colors of the cast?” – As per C. M.’s musings, Bob likes purple, Cyrus orange, Nicole jewel tones, JC gold, Rethu gold and silver (stereotypical, yes, but still), Husniya pink (like her hijab), and Drek – doesn’t know yet :P
II. “Does the Tooth Fairy exist in the Heart of Iron continuity (since it’s a different animal to the web series, even if it features roughly the same cast), and if so what does she look like?” – C. M. told us all that Toothie does exist in the book series, though she won’t be showing up until maybe book 3 – and that she hasn’t figured out what she looks like. XD Apparently names and descriptions are a bit of a weak spot for old C. M.! They are tough sometimes, I agree… *looks over at the paragraph describing Smiler that I had to add to “Start At The Beginning...Sort Of” after the fact*
III. “Is ‘equivalent exchange’ a cultural thing for fairies, or a biological thing?” – C. M. said it was a cultural thing from the kingdom Bob and Cyrus come from, though taken VERY seriously. Well, usually – Cyrus takes it a bit more casually, having spent most of his life on Earth and thus only learning about it through Bob (though I’m not sure if this was specific to book!Cyrus or not). And she considered the idea of another fairy kingdom NOT working by those rules to be very interesting and something she might have to ponder more later…
IV. “As an autistic person, I love the representation you’ve put in regarding stuff like stimming, but are we ever going to see a meltdown on screen? It’s okay if you’re worried about triggering sympathetic ones in your audience, I’m just curious” – C. M. immediately went “hard no,” explaining that it wasn’t just that she was worried about triggering sympathetic meltdowns, but that she didn’t think her acting skills were up to the job. She has successfully WRITTEN a few into her books, but acting them out? Not her jam. Which is fair
V. “As a poly person, I have this big long suggestion about Yarn Granny and Vet Grampa showing up with a big old hairy bear of a man in their 40s who loves knitting and fixing things and introducing him as their third and the cast being like ????” – C. M. was amused by the thought put into the suggestion, and said that she’d heard a LOT about including poly rep in the series from people. She was just reluctant to add YET ANOTHER character to the cast. XD But she assured everyone that, once the series came back from the hiatus she’d put it on at the time, she’d see what she could do to get in that rep!
...As you might expect, this Q&A was filmed not long before the compilation where we saw Yarn Granny and Vet Grampa, aka Caroline and Andy, get together with Oscar. XD I hope that poly suggester was okay with a feathery Minnesotan sweetheart as their third instead! XD
B) And “CaFae Latte Season 72 - TikTok Compilation” – the latest video collecting all the TikTok shorts that make up the latest season of CaFae Latte! This one dealt with the fallout of Drek learning his crush, Conner, was a nasty little homophobe, and featured –
I. JC checking in on Drek to make sure he was okay after the rejection (Drek said he cried into some ice cream, and half-joked that at least Conner got him looking at trade schools) – only for Bob to pop in and reveal that they had a situation outside – namely, a load of protesters outside the cafe! She went outside to see what was up – and found Gabriel (the seraph preacher who was an asshole to Oscar in an earlier episode; thinks charity encourages “social leeches”) and Conner, both of whom claimed Drek was a sexual predator who’d harassed the underage Conner (barely – his 18th birthday was next week)…
II. Bob coming in and explaining the situation to a dumbfounded Drek (assuring him that she knew their reasons for protesting were bullshit) while JC called Cyrus to get his legal opinion – unfortunately, Cyrus had to tell them that, since the protesters were technically protesting Bob’s business for HIRING Drek, their nonsense was covered by free speech. And that while what they were saying was technically defamatory, until it caused Drek actual harm (like being fired, or involved in a fight), they’d have a hard time proving it in court. JC was NOT impressed. Drek then went out and braved the protesters to try and prove his innocence, saying that he’d take a truth potion or let them look at the security camera footage (and pointing out he was BARELY A YEAR OLDER than Conner) – Gabriel, however, refused to consider witchcraft and claimed all the footage would be doctored, saying this didn’t end until Drek left town. And that’s when Janine showed up…
III. Janine calmly and coldly giving Gabriel the business for being a horrible homophobe slinging around nasty words to discredit anyone he doesn’t like – and then, when Gabriel tried to repel her with a cross, grabbing it and letting it burn her before licking the blood off her hand. That shut everyone up RIGHT fast. She and Drek then headed inside, where Bob treated Janine’s wound and scolded both her and Drek for doing something so dangerous (while JC was like “I thought holy objects didn’t burn you?” Janine: “they do if the person REALLY believes”). JC was like “so what do we do about this, the law isn’t going to help us,” but Bob said she would make some calls and get some back-up…
IV. Drek heading to work the next day (over the protests of his mother, and getting a ride from JC and Nicole just to be safe – the latter gave him a good-luck charm for good measure)...to find that the back-up Bob had summoned was a whole crowd of counter-protesters! Michael and his coven, Vet Grampa Andy’s volunteer fire department, Rethu on the roof in dragon form, and – notably – Vet Grampa and Yarn Granny’s lesbian granddaughter, Abby! Who admitted she had never heard of Drek or Bob before yesterday – she just wanted to tell some homophones to fuck off. Which she did, delightfully, pointing out to Gabriel when he warned her that she was talking to a “predator” that she had a lot more chance of being abused by someone in HIS profession than by Drek. Drek was like “I gotta introduce you to our baker.” XD
V. Abby complaining that the other protesters left pretty fast after the massive amount of counter-protesters showed up – Janine reminded her that a fight you win without having to throw a punch is a good fight, then headed over to the first aid tent to help with a few people over there (not sure if any fights broke out or if it was just people suffering from heat exhaustion – apparently it was super hot in CaFae Latte’s Minnesota while all this was happening). Drek then showed up to see how Abby was going, and Abby asked who the gorgeous redhead was, causing Drek to tell her all about Janine – including that she was dating Patrick – and chatting with her about how Patrick was his gay awakening. And then Oscar showed up and introduced himself to Abby, who realized he was her grandpa’s Bisexual Awakening (as the only other out queer person in the family, they naturally called her when they realized they were developing a poly thing for the cute angel). And went “...sure” when Oscar described their situation as merely “friends with benefits, and the benefits is mainly your grandma’s cooking.” XD Unfortunately, Nicole then interrupted the good times by reporting that she’d just gotten a text from Lindsey, saying the protesters had moved on to her food shelf, where Drek’s dad also works, to demand Drek’s dad be fired from there…
VI. Lindsey and Drek’s dad facing down the protesters, with Lindsey worrying about potential violence breaking out because lunch was coming up and a LOT of the homeless folk they feed are queer; Gabriel was like “you feed DEGENERATES?!” and Lindsey was like “if I get just ONE feather off you I am cursing spiders to find their way into your asshole!” Which led to the reveal that she learned that kind of thing from her kind-of-sort-of-boyfriend, who happens to be in jail… Yeah, oh man, JC’s gonna FLIP when they finally learn about Erik and Lindsey. O.O But, fortunately, that did not come up here – instead, they called in the cavalry (aka Lindsey sent the text to Nicole), causing Husniya and Rethu (still in dragon form) to show up at the food shelf to scare away the protesters, and Bob and the others to head to Drek’s mom’s work to make sure Gabriel and his mob didn’t show up THERE next. Unfortunately, Asif then got into the congregation’s Facebook group and revealed the protesters intended to set up outside Drek’s house (since they could protest there as long as they were on the public part of the street), and everyone started talking about how it might be easier for Drek and his family to go to a relative’s house until this blows over…
And Drek was like “no, I’m not doing that – if Mom and Dad want to go, that’s fine, but I am sticking this out.” Everyone was like O.o over that, as you might imagine.
VII. JC and Cyrus discussing the fact that Drek was facing down the protesters outside of his house and deciding to go check on him aboard Rethu with Bob (staying invisible until they were needed) – only to find that Drek had called in his OWN back-up – his friends from the house party where they accidentally got drunk off Mike’s Hard Lemonade, Xander and Melody, along with Logan, Ethan, and Ben! And Abby, of course, who was more than happy to come along and fuck over some more homophobes. And what were the gang of young adults and teenagers doing?
Pelting their tormentors with water balloons! Melody had even built a trebuchet for the attack. :D Gabriel attempted to blind them with seraph light, but the gang were all wearing enchanted sunglasses Bob had made for the counterprotesters just in case this very thing happened. So the attack continued until the protesters were finally driven off –
VIII. And finally, JC, Cyrus, Rethu, and Bob revealing themselves – Drek was a little annoyed, telling them that he’d said he’d had this, but they said they just wanted to make sure and that’s why they stayed invisible and let him and his friends do their thing. Bob even agreed that it was better that he fought his own battles. :) Drek thus introduced them to the gang he’d rounded up, then said that while they were here, they could help clean up all the water balloon remains. JC and Cyrus were like “damn it” while Xander tried to soften the blow by saying Drek’s dad was making waffles. XD
And there we had it! I’m really sorry that poor Drek had to go through all that, but I’m glad that he stuck to his guns and didn’t let the protesters intimidate him into leaving. Our little dishwasher is growing up so fast! :D The one thing I was a little sad about was not seeing the Sphynx, as I do like her friendship with Drek, but I imagine she was busy protecting her stream and her forest. And it was still fantastic to see all the rest of the extended cast of the series come together to protect Drek from Gabriel and his congregation of assholes. And to finally meet Abby, Yarn Granny and Vet Grampa’s granddaughter! Funny how C. M. keeps complaining about how large the cast has grown and yet keeps adding new people. XD Looking forward to the next one, whenever it comes out!
Other: As it was nice out for most of the day, we did get out this afternoon to play beanbags (though unfortunately, thanks to my parents running around doing errands most of the day, we accidentally timed it so we ended up playing during the late afternoon, just as it was getting humid again, bleh) – and poor Mom jinxed herself by saying she’d win all five rounds, before proceeding to lose the first four and come second in the last one. XD On the other hand, I had a FANTASTIC day, with three wins and only one straight-up loss, while Dad did very well too and got the other two wins and a bunch of seconds. Final scores were me W-W-2-W-3; Dad 2-2-W-2-W; and Mom 3-3-3-3-2. XD Dunno when we’ll play next – tomorrow’s supposed to be miserable – but hopefully Mom will do better then!
Not too shabby! Very glad that I got that much done on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) this morning, though that bad Sims 4 session kinda took the wind out of my sails right afterward. I really gotta figure out just what the hell I want to do with that caravan already...at least I had a good day at beanbags, and got some writing done and some stuff cleared out of the old Watch Later! That's always good! :)
And now it's bedtime, because it is LATE, bleh. Tomorrow -- well, what I accomplish tomorrow kind of depends on the weather, since we're supposed to be getting more thunderstorms again. *heavy sigh* But ideally I will work some more on my Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) tumblr drafts (finishing off that VITD Not-Incorrect Quotes collection at the least); playing either Sims 4 (to make up for today's meh session) or Superliminal (to track down that last fire extinguisher I need in "Optical," along with some other stuff); working some more on "The Van Dort Vacancy;" and keeping up with the latest episode in Jon's F:NV YOLO Remastered series (via watching as much of it as I can with my workout). HOPEFULLY this will all be possible! Night all!
Tumblr: Had a very productive day over here, I am happy to announce –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – I spent the time before lunch over here, working on:
A) Bulking up my drafts by going through my tracked tags again for stuff to save in there for later reblogging – and unlike last time, I found a veritable bounty of things I enjoyed and wanted to add to my blog at some point! :D Including –
I. Two pieces of VTMB fanart by “benmix98” – Beckett looking at something offscreen while wiping blood from his lip (which was just cool); and the masc and fem Malkavian fledglings...genderswapped in EACH OTHER’S outfits (that is, the masc!Malk was wearing the slutty cheerleader outfit everyone knows from his fem counterpart, while the fem!Malk had his mostly-shaved hairstyle, bright yellow glasses, and trousers with no shirt (though in her case she had a bra) – Ben was like “I’m tired of oversexualized women!” in his tags, while I was just impressed at how good they looked in each other’s outfits)
II. A Smiler OC drawing by “steam-powered-chaos” – a Black person (it/its pronouns as per the side label) with yellow and white streaks in its black hair (including its goatee), a black-and-yellow clawed mechanical hand, a “necklace” that I think is a tube of Joy Serum sewn into its throat, a blood-spattered labcoat, a belt with canisters of what I believe is Giggler Gas, and bright yellow boots (we love a good Smiler OC, and it’s nice to see one a little different from the norm)
III. A screenshot of A:MR by “ovcvlt” – Alice standing in the street by Radcliffe’s, looking at the camera in her London form while burning mushrooms sprout from the ground behind her (the caption was “my new hobby is taking pictures of beautiful women” and I agreed in my tags she was very beautiful :) )
IV. A pair of posts featuring transparent pngs of stuff from the A:MR game by “roachpng” – specifically, the eye fish from the Deluded Depths (which is a big old eyeball in fish form – I said in the tags that I was tempted to make that a real fish in VITD because the fish caught there are said to be the dreams of the leviathans that swim in the starry waters); and a pair of lightbulb-flies from Hatter’s Domain paired with a nutterfly (a nut with butterfly wings) from the Vale of Tears (I just thought these were cute – and the wings on the nutterfly were more detailed than I thought, damn)
V. And a pair of posts from “atimburtonfan” – one of behind-the-scenes stuff featuring Elder Gutknecht, including Victor and Emily’s wedding with him presiding, his big Land of the Dead library room, and most notably some maquettes featuring his earlier design with big bushy eyebrows instead of glasses (which I felt compelled to add to my drafts because, well, that early design is what inspired the look of my ghost!Gutknecht from the Valicer In The Dark verse); and a gifset of Victor dropping the ring during his and Victoria’s rehearsal at the beginning of the movie, diving under Maudeline’s skirt to get it, and then forgetting his lit candle on her dress, setting her on fire, with the caption “Let's all be grateful that Victor van Dort didn't inherit the one ring from Bilbo” (which was just plain funny XD Poor Victor XD)
So yeah – I now have some more stuff I can just drop into the queue if I have nothing of my own to add to it! Nice to have a buffer while I work on new posts. :)
B) Finishing up the “Not-Incorrect Valicer Quotes, Valicer In The Dark Edition, Volume V” post with a scene featuring Sooty trying to steal a mixing rod from Smiler’s alchemy bench – and when that didn’t work, stealing their hat (poor Smiler was trying to keep an eye on a concoction they were making, and of course the MOMENT they looked away because of hat theft, it started boiling); and a scene featuring Guide, Dogmeat, Sooty, and Benny coming in to bug Victor, Alice, and Smiler while they ate dinner (Victor was like “remember when we could just eat dinner?” while Alice pointed out he and Smiler had often begged her for food in the past while given Guide some chicken XD). So that post is pretty much done now – just have to finish off the tags, and I’ll be set to post it when I so choose!
Valice Multiverse – And while I didn’t have anything to answer over here, thread-or-ask-wise, tonight, since the dashboard wasn’t bugging out, I was able to reblog the VITD fic snippet, “Blessing,” that I posted over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) the other day into the queue for tomorrow! And it occurs to me that you guys would probably like to read it too, so here’s the link for the original VLA(NS) version: Blessing Hope you enjoy!
Sims 4: Welp, I went offline again to try working some more on Smiler’s Potion Caravan today – but, unfortunately, I did not have a very productive playsession. Mostly because:
A) I spent the majority of the session attempting to start over on the whole build by making a room that could rest atop those debug “plow wheels” (two wheels attached by their axle to a bunch of plow spikes) that I found in the Cottage Living section of the debug-and-live-edit items, as per a video I found on my phone while trying to look up “Sims 4 fantasy caravans” for inspiration about where I wanted to take the build. The person in the video grabbed those wheels, used the TOOL mod to resize them slightly, then did the “build a room on top of a room, delete the first story room, then lower the second story room until it’s actually about first story height so you can put it atop the object of your choice” trick to put the body of the caravan atop the wheels, which I thought was very clever. However, when I tried doing that in my game –
I. Well, first of all, I don’t have the TOOL mod, so I couldn’t resize the wheels any way other than the usual in-game cheats, which made them waaaay too big. However, I was determined not to worry about that, figuring I’d just make a caravan that fit the size of the wheels as they already were. And I admittedly managed to make a room that fit perfectly between the wheels –
II. But when I tried to do the “lower a second story room to first story height” trick with said room, I quickly realized that – I had no idea how to do that. ^^; I’ve never tried it before – I’ve only ever seen builders in videos use it! I eventually found out that I could more or less move a room around freely (at least, with “move objects” on – I have no idea if you can do that without good old MOO) just by grabbing it and dragging it around, but that didn’t end up helping much either, because…
III. Whenever I tried to attach the wheels to the room – either by trying to get the room to float atop them (which I never managed), or by putting the room on the ground, raising it up a bit, and trying to merge the wheels into the foundation – either the wheels snapped onto the bottom of the room itself, dangling ABOVE any foundation, or they just turned invisible entirely except for their shadow for some reason. O.o I eventually learned that the latter happened if I put them too far inside the room – they could go right on the very edge of the front or back of the room, with about half the wheel overlapping the wall (which changed the lighting on them from “outdoor” to “indoor” for unknown reasons), but if I tried to shove them in any further, BAM! Invisible wheels. No idea what the fuck is up with that, but then again, they are debug objects… After a lot of fussing and trying to get everything the way I wanted, I did eventually manage to get the room flat on the ground (after my initial attempt to lower it managed to put the whole kit-and-kaboodle into a pit in the “front yard” of the build – no idea how I managed that) with the wheels properly attached to it, visible and everything, looking actually somewhat like a boxy caravan –
But because the room was flat on the ground, the whole thing just looked rather – weird. Like it was just a box with some wheels pasted to the sides. And as I already knew that I couldn’t use a foundation to raise the room off the ground...yeah, that’s when I finally decided I should really just try and work with what I’ve already built and deleted the whole lot. *sigh* A shame – I like those “plow wheels” a lot better than the broken Horse Ranch wheels I’m currently using on the build! But if I don’t have the skills (or mods) to make them work...
B) And then I spent most of the rest of the session playing around with making the original build look a little more like a “fantasy” caravan by replacing the all the Crypt-O-Club “Spoopy Portal” doors with a Cottage Living one that looked more old-timey, removing the Snowy Escape mailbox on the side (though that was more because I tried to move it into a better position beside the new door, only to see it mysteriously keep going further and further up the wall and onto the roof every time I tried to interact with it o.O), and repainting Crypt-O-Club-wallpapered insides with the same chipped yellow planks I used on the outside –
And then reverting all the changes because it looked less Smilery like that. >( Yeah, one of the problems with this build is the constant tug-of-war between my desire to make the build look like something appropriate to a fantasy setting like, say, Faerun in Baldur’s Gate III, and my desire to make the build look like somewhere Smiler would live – because, unfortunately, all the most Smilery CC I have right now is the Crypt-O-Club stuff, and the Build/Buy stuff in those sets does NOT suit a fantasy aesthetic. For example, those “Spoopy Portal” doors from I believe “Creepy Creations” – the ones with a yellow-and black swirl on them? PERFECT for Smiler, fits their aesthetic BEAUTIFULLY – but they’re very clearly a MODERN door, complete with a modern round doorknob and keyhole. The yellow-and-black wallpapers and paneling? Really nice, love to use them, great for any Smiler-related build – except possibly this one, because fantasy those wall coverings are NOT. How do I justify the inside of the caravan looking so different from the outside? I’m just barely justifying the purple flooring I’m using, and that’s at least wood! *facepalm* I just – I dunno. I want the build to look right for the setting I’m picturing, but I also want it to look like it’s Smiler’s, and given the depressing dearth of good yellow-and-black stuff in this game, especially in the right rustic aesthetic… *sigh* I suddenly understand perfectly why the Sims 3 people were so saddened by the lack of Create A Style in The Sims 4 – if I could just paint the yellow and black swirls onto the walls MYSELF, I’d be fine! Uuuugh…
So yeah – today was mostly all about fiddling around with stuff that I decided didn’t work and had to be changed back. I did manage to make a tiny bit of progress, though:
a. I changed the foundation to the Minimal Modern stilt style from Snowy Escape, because I liked the thinner stilts on that one – made the caravan look a little less rooted to the ground
b. I added a dining table to the front room with the kitchen – a high-top table in black with a fancy pattern on top from Realm of Magic, paired with two yellow barstools/dining chairs from Cats & Dogs – a bit mismatched, but I feel like it goes with the vibe of the caravan
c. I put the Laundry Day broom and dustpan wall decoration on the wall by the front door (Smiler’s gotta have a way to clean up inside the caravan after all!)
d. And I added the City Living Chest of Secrets to the kitchen area, because it looked a bit like a cupboard full of dishes and I liked the look of it with the kitchen stuff. :)
So that was nice, at least. Still, I wish I’d managed to get more done. This is turning out to be a surprisingly-vexing build! *sigh* Maybe I need to let it sit for a while and work on something else. I did want to turn the library in Copperdale into a full-blown community center for the Teen Valicer Save file...
Writing: Got another page written on “The Van Dort Vacancy” today! Which featured –
A) Victor managing to successfully bluff Mrs. Pemberly into believing he was just taking Alice and Smiler to put their things in the servant’s quarters (faking that he’d been banned from the party for arriving late) – Mrs. Pemberly noted that it was a bit odd for one of the masters of the house to do that sort of thing DIRECTLY (instead of leaving it to another servant), but admitted that she really did need all hands on deck in the kitchen and thus couldn’t do it herself. So she simply told Alice to get her bag out of the changing room; asked that her wayward servants be returned to her as soon as possible; and thanked Victor for helping and requested he let Nell know that they were filling shoes full of caviar as fast as they could if he saw her again, before heading back to the kitchen to help control the chaos there. Smiler subsequently asked if anyone else felt a bit guilty about the fact that they would NOT be returning to the kitchen, and would probably get her in trouble once the robbery was discovered – Barnaby and Kasimir were immediately like “no” XD Barnaby was in fact a bit insulted that she didn’t immediately take on the job of showing Alice and Smiler the servants’ quarters – Kasimir had to remind him that would have been a bad thing :P
B) And Kasimir taking a moment to ask what the hell the “filling shoes full of caviar” thing was, because he assumed that it meant something like having the rich folks walk around in shoes full of caviar to cure something on their feet. Victor explained that no, these were tiny decorative shoes that were being used as caviar bowls – only for Alice to point out that that was weird too and ask how it even came about as a fad. Victor was like “I don’t know” –
Cuing Barnaby to say that it was probably someone in Brightstone just having a laugh, and telling them all about the time his friend Squiffy started a fashion for wearing your gloves inside-out for a short while! Naturally, he and Barnaby were very drunk when this happened. XD I left it with Kasimir deciding they needed to get this show on the road and asking Victor again about the defenses they’ll be facing – tomorrow, Victor leads the group to the vault, and they take on their first obstacle: Steven and Alan, the guards waiting for them by the door into the trapped hallway! Looking forward to writing that out properly… :)
YouTube: Well, I was thinking of trying to catch up a bit on my OXBoxtra list videos tonight – but then Gigs told me that the next season of CaFae Latte was up, and thus my plans shifted to instead catch up on some C. M. Alongi videos instead! Specifically –
A) “Cafae Latte Q & A” – a video from four months ago, where C. M. answered a bunch of questions about CaFae Latte, as submitted to her Discord channel! Queries included:
I. “What are the favorite colors of the cast?” – As per C. M.’s musings, Bob likes purple, Cyrus orange, Nicole jewel tones, JC gold, Rethu gold and silver (stereotypical, yes, but still), Husniya pink (like her hijab), and Drek – doesn’t know yet :P
II. “Does the Tooth Fairy exist in the Heart of Iron continuity (since it’s a different animal to the web series, even if it features roughly the same cast), and if so what does she look like?” – C. M. told us all that Toothie does exist in the book series, though she won’t be showing up until maybe book 3 – and that she hasn’t figured out what she looks like. XD Apparently names and descriptions are a bit of a weak spot for old C. M.! They are tough sometimes, I agree… *looks over at the paragraph describing Smiler that I had to add to “Start At The Beginning...Sort Of” after the fact*
III. “Is ‘equivalent exchange’ a cultural thing for fairies, or a biological thing?” – C. M. said it was a cultural thing from the kingdom Bob and Cyrus come from, though taken VERY seriously. Well, usually – Cyrus takes it a bit more casually, having spent most of his life on Earth and thus only learning about it through Bob (though I’m not sure if this was specific to book!Cyrus or not). And she considered the idea of another fairy kingdom NOT working by those rules to be very interesting and something she might have to ponder more later…
IV. “As an autistic person, I love the representation you’ve put in regarding stuff like stimming, but are we ever going to see a meltdown on screen? It’s okay if you’re worried about triggering sympathetic ones in your audience, I’m just curious” – C. M. immediately went “hard no,” explaining that it wasn’t just that she was worried about triggering sympathetic meltdowns, but that she didn’t think her acting skills were up to the job. She has successfully WRITTEN a few into her books, but acting them out? Not her jam. Which is fair
V. “As a poly person, I have this big long suggestion about Yarn Granny and Vet Grampa showing up with a big old hairy bear of a man in their 40s who loves knitting and fixing things and introducing him as their third and the cast being like ????” – C. M. was amused by the thought put into the suggestion, and said that she’d heard a LOT about including poly rep in the series from people. She was just reluctant to add YET ANOTHER character to the cast. XD But she assured everyone that, once the series came back from the hiatus she’d put it on at the time, she’d see what she could do to get in that rep!
...As you might expect, this Q&A was filmed not long before the compilation where we saw Yarn Granny and Vet Grampa, aka Caroline and Andy, get together with Oscar. XD I hope that poly suggester was okay with a feathery Minnesotan sweetheart as their third instead! XD
B) And “CaFae Latte Season 72 - TikTok Compilation” – the latest video collecting all the TikTok shorts that make up the latest season of CaFae Latte! This one dealt with the fallout of Drek learning his crush, Conner, was a nasty little homophobe, and featured –
I. JC checking in on Drek to make sure he was okay after the rejection (Drek said he cried into some ice cream, and half-joked that at least Conner got him looking at trade schools) – only for Bob to pop in and reveal that they had a situation outside – namely, a load of protesters outside the cafe! She went outside to see what was up – and found Gabriel (the seraph preacher who was an asshole to Oscar in an earlier episode; thinks charity encourages “social leeches”) and Conner, both of whom claimed Drek was a sexual predator who’d harassed the underage Conner (barely – his 18th birthday was next week)…
II. Bob coming in and explaining the situation to a dumbfounded Drek (assuring him that she knew their reasons for protesting were bullshit) while JC called Cyrus to get his legal opinion – unfortunately, Cyrus had to tell them that, since the protesters were technically protesting Bob’s business for HIRING Drek, their nonsense was covered by free speech. And that while what they were saying was technically defamatory, until it caused Drek actual harm (like being fired, or involved in a fight), they’d have a hard time proving it in court. JC was NOT impressed. Drek then went out and braved the protesters to try and prove his innocence, saying that he’d take a truth potion or let them look at the security camera footage (and pointing out he was BARELY A YEAR OLDER than Conner) – Gabriel, however, refused to consider witchcraft and claimed all the footage would be doctored, saying this didn’t end until Drek left town. And that’s when Janine showed up…
III. Janine calmly and coldly giving Gabriel the business for being a horrible homophobe slinging around nasty words to discredit anyone he doesn’t like – and then, when Gabriel tried to repel her with a cross, grabbing it and letting it burn her before licking the blood off her hand. That shut everyone up RIGHT fast. She and Drek then headed inside, where Bob treated Janine’s wound and scolded both her and Drek for doing something so dangerous (while JC was like “I thought holy objects didn’t burn you?” Janine: “they do if the person REALLY believes”). JC was like “so what do we do about this, the law isn’t going to help us,” but Bob said she would make some calls and get some back-up…
IV. Drek heading to work the next day (over the protests of his mother, and getting a ride from JC and Nicole just to be safe – the latter gave him a good-luck charm for good measure)...to find that the back-up Bob had summoned was a whole crowd of counter-protesters! Michael and his coven, Vet Grampa Andy’s volunteer fire department, Rethu on the roof in dragon form, and – notably – Vet Grampa and Yarn Granny’s lesbian granddaughter, Abby! Who admitted she had never heard of Drek or Bob before yesterday – she just wanted to tell some homophones to fuck off. Which she did, delightfully, pointing out to Gabriel when he warned her that she was talking to a “predator” that she had a lot more chance of being abused by someone in HIS profession than by Drek. Drek was like “I gotta introduce you to our baker.” XD
V. Abby complaining that the other protesters left pretty fast after the massive amount of counter-protesters showed up – Janine reminded her that a fight you win without having to throw a punch is a good fight, then headed over to the first aid tent to help with a few people over there (not sure if any fights broke out or if it was just people suffering from heat exhaustion – apparently it was super hot in CaFae Latte’s Minnesota while all this was happening). Drek then showed up to see how Abby was going, and Abby asked who the gorgeous redhead was, causing Drek to tell her all about Janine – including that she was dating Patrick – and chatting with her about how Patrick was his gay awakening. And then Oscar showed up and introduced himself to Abby, who realized he was her grandpa’s Bisexual Awakening (as the only other out queer person in the family, they naturally called her when they realized they were developing a poly thing for the cute angel). And went “...sure” when Oscar described their situation as merely “friends with benefits, and the benefits is mainly your grandma’s cooking.” XD Unfortunately, Nicole then interrupted the good times by reporting that she’d just gotten a text from Lindsey, saying the protesters had moved on to her food shelf, where Drek’s dad also works, to demand Drek’s dad be fired from there…
VI. Lindsey and Drek’s dad facing down the protesters, with Lindsey worrying about potential violence breaking out because lunch was coming up and a LOT of the homeless folk they feed are queer; Gabriel was like “you feed DEGENERATES?!” and Lindsey was like “if I get just ONE feather off you I am cursing spiders to find their way into your asshole!” Which led to the reveal that she learned that kind of thing from her kind-of-sort-of-boyfriend, who happens to be in jail… Yeah, oh man, JC’s gonna FLIP when they finally learn about Erik and Lindsey. O.O But, fortunately, that did not come up here – instead, they called in the cavalry (aka Lindsey sent the text to Nicole), causing Husniya and Rethu (still in dragon form) to show up at the food shelf to scare away the protesters, and Bob and the others to head to Drek’s mom’s work to make sure Gabriel and his mob didn’t show up THERE next. Unfortunately, Asif then got into the congregation’s Facebook group and revealed the protesters intended to set up outside Drek’s house (since they could protest there as long as they were on the public part of the street), and everyone started talking about how it might be easier for Drek and his family to go to a relative’s house until this blows over…
And Drek was like “no, I’m not doing that – if Mom and Dad want to go, that’s fine, but I am sticking this out.” Everyone was like O.o over that, as you might imagine.
VII. JC and Cyrus discussing the fact that Drek was facing down the protesters outside of his house and deciding to go check on him aboard Rethu with Bob (staying invisible until they were needed) – only to find that Drek had called in his OWN back-up – his friends from the house party where they accidentally got drunk off Mike’s Hard Lemonade, Xander and Melody, along with Logan, Ethan, and Ben! And Abby, of course, who was more than happy to come along and fuck over some more homophobes. And what were the gang of young adults and teenagers doing?
Pelting their tormentors with water balloons! Melody had even built a trebuchet for the attack. :D Gabriel attempted to blind them with seraph light, but the gang were all wearing enchanted sunglasses Bob had made for the counterprotesters just in case this very thing happened. So the attack continued until the protesters were finally driven off –
VIII. And finally, JC, Cyrus, Rethu, and Bob revealing themselves – Drek was a little annoyed, telling them that he’d said he’d had this, but they said they just wanted to make sure and that’s why they stayed invisible and let him and his friends do their thing. Bob even agreed that it was better that he fought his own battles. :) Drek thus introduced them to the gang he’d rounded up, then said that while they were here, they could help clean up all the water balloon remains. JC and Cyrus were like “damn it” while Xander tried to soften the blow by saying Drek’s dad was making waffles. XD
And there we had it! I’m really sorry that poor Drek had to go through all that, but I’m glad that he stuck to his guns and didn’t let the protesters intimidate him into leaving. Our little dishwasher is growing up so fast! :D The one thing I was a little sad about was not seeing the Sphynx, as I do like her friendship with Drek, but I imagine she was busy protecting her stream and her forest. And it was still fantastic to see all the rest of the extended cast of the series come together to protect Drek from Gabriel and his congregation of assholes. And to finally meet Abby, Yarn Granny and Vet Grampa’s granddaughter! Funny how C. M. keeps complaining about how large the cast has grown and yet keeps adding new people. XD Looking forward to the next one, whenever it comes out!
Other: As it was nice out for most of the day, we did get out this afternoon to play beanbags (though unfortunately, thanks to my parents running around doing errands most of the day, we accidentally timed it so we ended up playing during the late afternoon, just as it was getting humid again, bleh) – and poor Mom jinxed herself by saying she’d win all five rounds, before proceeding to lose the first four and come second in the last one. XD On the other hand, I had a FANTASTIC day, with three wins and only one straight-up loss, while Dad did very well too and got the other two wins and a bunch of seconds. Final scores were me W-W-2-W-3; Dad 2-2-W-2-W; and Mom 3-3-3-3-2. XD Dunno when we’ll play next – tomorrow’s supposed to be miserable – but hopefully Mom will do better then!
Not too shabby! Very glad that I got that much done on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) this morning, though that bad Sims 4 session kinda took the wind out of my sails right afterward. I really gotta figure out just what the hell I want to do with that caravan already...at least I had a good day at beanbags, and got some writing done and some stuff cleared out of the old Watch Later! That's always good! :)
And now it's bedtime, because it is LATE, bleh. Tomorrow -- well, what I accomplish tomorrow kind of depends on the weather, since we're supposed to be getting more thunderstorms again. *heavy sigh* But ideally I will work some more on my Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) tumblr drafts (finishing off that VITD Not-Incorrect Quotes collection at the least); playing either Sims 4 (to make up for today's meh session) or Superliminal (to track down that last fire extinguisher I need in "Optical," along with some other stuff); working some more on "The Van Dort Vacancy;" and keeping up with the latest episode in Jon's F:NV YOLO Remastered series (via watching as much of it as I can with my workout). HOPEFULLY this will all be possible! Night all!