Thursday, Cloudy Thursday
Aug. 10th, 2023 11:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickThough it wasn't nearly as rainy as they said it would be, nor did we get any of the fabled thunderstorms. Just kinda cloudy and meh and more humid than I would have liked. *shakehead* Ah well, what can you do. . .
The things on your to-do list, obviously! XD Here's what I accomplished today --
Tumblr: Had a good day, though my experiences on my two blogs were sharply different –
Victor Luvs Alice – Had a lovely productive day on here:
A) Managed to catch up on my dash and tracked tags before lunch
B) Updated the new Valicer Incorrect Quotes post that’s been hanging around in my drafts with a proper intro and tags, also before lunch
C) Thought up a handful more Valicer In The Dark Not-Incorrect Quotes (including a new “running joke” where Smiler introduces the three to a gang, one of the members is derisive that one of the Pillars is an effective Cutter/Whisper/Slide & Leech, only for said Pillar to prove them wrong) and got THAT post draft finished, ALSO before lunch
D) Got the queue sorted with that Valicer In The Dark Not-Incorrect Quotes post and a new Song Saturday (“The Unlucky Ones,” by Admiral King – the song was in my old “favorites” list, and after listening to it again, I could easily picture the Three Pillars having adventures to the lyrics) before my workout (though admittedly I ended up completing the Song Saturday post after dinner)
E) And FINALLY remembered to reblog a tumblr mutual’s “commissions” post (I’ve been meaning to all week)!
Valice Multiverse – in contrast, nothing was happening over here, and I struggled for a minute to find something to put up before deciding to reblog a photo set of the Santa Monica haven in VTMB to go along with my “Londerland Bloodlines” verse over there. :p It’s something!
Writing: I did indeed decide to swap my “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” for more Valicer In The Dark today – what can I say, I have been very heavily inspired to write on that AU lately! Continued editing the “Accused” snippet – with Alice having just demonstrated The Devil’s Footsteps by unknowingly pushing herself to jump atop a carriage much like she might quad-jump in Wonderland, the trio fled down a nearby alley next to a jewelry store – only for another Bluecoat, Donovan, to explode out a side door in said store and collar Smiler. Victor and Alice were more than prepared to assault the guy to save their friend –
But, well, Smiler is an Alchemist, and didn’t actually need saving. Mostly because they had a spare syringe of Joy Serum to stick in the guy’s neck. :p Donovan ended up a smiley, giggly mess behind them as Victor took point to try and get them to Shimmer Canal – only to abruptly panic and shove Smiler and Alice away from his chosen route. Why, you ask? Well, that’ll be made clear when things wrap up next time, and a certain Sargent Tannen ends up meeting a very nasty ghost indeed. . .
Oh, and I may as well put this here – if you’re interested in reading one of my first snippets for this verse, it went up on my tumblr today – First(ish) Meetings, where Alice encounters Smiler on her way to tell Nan Sharpe about Bumby, and then the two of them meet Victor when he suddenly falls out of a wall behind them. . .
YouTube: As you may notice, the “Sims 4/Fallout 4” section is missing from this particular to-do list – with the threat of thunderstorms today (even if it was never actually realized) over our heads, and an early game of beanbags (see below) meaning I got onto the computer later than usual after lunch, I decided to make this day another “YouTube Catch-Up” day instead – and boy did I catch up –
A) First up, finally got to that video that’s been sitting in my Watch Later for ages – “How the RE4 Remake Deepened the Lore” by Gaming Harry! A little explanation of how certain elements in the original game got updated and expanded on in the remake – for example, giving more backstory to a lot of characters (Mendez, the creepy giant guy Leon has to fight in the first third of the game, used to be the village chief, and was actually a really decent guy who worked very hard to help improve literacy and open up the village more to outsiders! A shame those outsiders included Los Illuminados; the Saddler family line has been part of the Los Illuminados cult for CENTURIES if you believe some of the tombstones you can find around; and of course Luis is revealed to have grown up in the village (only to leave when his grandfather died to a parasite-infected wolf and the villagers burned his cabin to contain it), gotten his biology degree, worked for Umbrella on the Nemesis project, and then left them to work for Los Illuminados before realizing “wait, no, these guys are the same if not worse, shit”); adding a few interesting things to the lore (like the “black water” in Salazar’s castle that apparently helps plagas bond with their hosts faster – nothing like that in the original – and Saddler being able to control people through the plagas from a distance, instead of needing them in his immediate vicinity); and tying the whole thing together better with future games (notably, in the epilogue scene where Ada contacts Wesker, Wesker is seen looking at images of the flowers in the African temple from the next game in the series, RE5, along with a shot of one of his collaborators there). Interesting stuff, and a great expansion on what we got in the original game! Even if I do miss some of the cheesy dialogue that the original provided. XD (Come on, guys, you couldn’t think of a way to have included “I have sent my left hand against you!” “Your left hand comes off?” XD)
B) Then it was time for some OXBoxtra lists –
I. “7 Horror Game Openings That Didn't Eff Around” by OXtra! Luke and Ellen taking us through those video games that declined to ease you into anything and instead went straight for the scares. Such as Dead Space 2’s opening, where you have to run from necromorphs bursting out of rooms and hallways and attacking you from behind while in a freaking STRAITJACKET. Or Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem’s opening, which drops you straight into a nightmare of the protagonist Alex Rovias, where you have to shoot zombies (without having learned the controls, mind) until your ammo runs out and the game deigns to wake her up. Or Outlast 2’s opening, where you have to go through a helicopter crash, then wander around in the dark countryside with your night vision camera, only to find the flayed corpse of your pilot and villagers whispering creepy things as they stalk you with their glowing eyes. Basically, if you’re looking for 0 to 60, these are your horror games.
II. “7 Impossible Puzzles You Had No Chance of Solving Alone” by OXBox! Mike, Jane, and Andy taking us through a bunch of super-hard puzzles that they have a hard time believing anyone could figure out without help. You had your classic adventure game bullshit, of course, such as figuring out the name of the gnome who could give you magic beanstalk beans in King’s Quest (it’s Rumplestilskin backwards, but in the sense that you INVERT THE ALPHABET instead of just spelling it backwards – oh, AND the game designers thought it was “Rumpelstilskin,” so you deliberately have to misspell your cipher), but you also had more modern nonsense, like figuring out the red door shipwreck puzzle in The Witness (involving tracing a line through a maze on the door while listening for audio clues about what dots you were supposed to hit in which order – also, there’s an invisible symmetrical line from the other side trying to hit ITS dots in the same order, AND the red light shining on the door is actually CHANGING THE COLOR OF THE PUZZLE to make it harder) and the monolith puzzle from Fez (where the community figured out that, once you got the monolith to appear in its section of the map, you then had to move to a different portion of that map in first-person and do some sort of button press combo to get it to spawn the red cube they needed – and then just MASS BRUTE-FORCED FIGURING OUT THE BUTTON COMBO YOU NEEDED TO PRESS WHILE THERE. Like, if your community is doing THAT because they can’t figure out the combo any other way, I think you need to step back and take a serious look at your puzzle design). Puzzles like these is why walkthroughs exist, is what they’re saying, and aren’t we glad they do.
C) Then, tonight, we had a surprise return to Atop The Fourth Wall, with “Back to the Future: Who is Marty McFly?” Yeah, I pretty much dropped Linkara from my regular line-up of videos to watch when he started posting the ultra-long videos of the Sandman retrospective, but when I learned that he’d reviewed this arc of the modern-day BTTF comics, I had to pop back in again and take a look. :) “Who Is Marty McFly?” is the story arc that introduced Professor Irving, a fellow temporal researcher, into the comics – the story itself involving Marty being confronted with the fact that his memories don’t match the timeline he finds himself in and having a bit of an existential crisis about who he is and if he replaced another Marty McFly (not helped by Irving getting in touch with him and playing on those fears by saying he’s going to be overwritten by the Marty McFly of the better 1980s he created in the first film to get him to summon Doc). . .and then that storyline being kind of derailed when he does summon Doc from the 1880s to talk to him (via a communications system they set up in the previous storyline), Irving steals the flux capacitor, and we get evil!Future!Irving sending “Martynator” robots to the past to try and take out Doc and Marty. And then trying to kill them by stranding them in Earth’s ancient past, then trying to kill them with MORE robots that look just like them (and is it ever explained WHY all his robots look like them?) in his lab in the future, and then the whole thing being resolved by Marty realizing that Irving is like this because he became a total shut-in when he got access to time travel (in an attempt to be responsible and not totally fuck up time) and Doc and Marty going back in time to when Irving first stole the flux capacitor so he can see what a jackass he turns into in the future, and Irving changing his ways to save some innocent bystanders, a mother and her daughter, from getting caught up in the whole mess, and ending up having a thing with the mom. Linkara thought it was a mostly-good story, hitting some interesting philosophical questions about the trilogy and how the time travel works and Marty’s place in the timeline and whatnot, but felt like the pacing was off and that the ending (Marty deciding that all of his various lived experiences – even the ones that don’t really “exist” anymore thanks to timeline changes – are what make him “him” and that he should be grateful he’s gotten to live two lives) was kind of pat, which I agree with. As you might have guessed by me calling the stuff with Dr. Irving “derailing.” I would have much preferred a shorter arc with Doc reassuring Marty and helping him come to that conclusion without the drama of Martynators. And I normally LIKE it when the BTTF “expanded universe” stuff gets weird. :p But it was a fun review, with Linkara making a lot of good jokes and breaking out a deeply amusing Doc impression – and fortunately, it was a stand-alone without any hint of ongoing plot in the background, so I could just enjoy it without worrying about THAT stuff. Dunno if I’ll start watching this on the regular again, but I probably will pop back in from time to time to watch the reviews that really interest me. :)
D) And finally, it was back over to the Subs for the latest from Josh Way – “SKETCHY: Lady and the Tramp!” Josh drawing the titular doggy duo from that movie, having a bit of trouble in the initial rough sketch but managing to pull it all together for inking and coloring. :) Along the way, he talked about how he considers this movie a classic and that it’s beautifully done with very expressive characters and whatnot. . .though we must acknowledge that super-racist bit with the Siamese cats. Because wow, yeah, the 50s were not good when it came to that sort of thing. *nods* But it was a lovely bit of art – he really does the Disney style well. :)
Workout: Back on the bike, as per usual, finishing up one video and starting another –
A) First up, the last ten or so minutes of Oxventure Presents Blades In The Dark – “The Horrors of Castle Wisenshire!” Zillah, super-charged on the accidentally-sacrificed Sirus’s soul energy, beat Lord Ixis’s head in with a candelabra and forced him to retreat, then called for Barnaby to jump down so she could catch him. Barnaby was initially reluctant, but jumped anyway because he trusted Zillah (despite all his instincts telling him he couldn’t trust anyone poorer than him XD). Zillah then rushed them both out of the castle as Uncle Monty despaired behind them (picking up and carrying Barnaby when he just couldn’t keep up with her super-charged self), smashing through the front doors and leaping onto the carriage with the goats (who were VERY SURPRISED by this turn of events). The pair made good their escape (with Barnaby being like “did I – did I just do something nice for the servant class?!” and everyone joking that he had to take the “Haunted” trauma as a result) –
Cut to them back at Eleanor’s house, hanging out in one of the bathrooms, Barnaby reading his uncle’s diary while Eleanor sluiced the blood-covered Zillah down in the tub. XD And, in said diary, Barnaby found a Crim’s Night speech to the Brightstone Society of Analytical Alchemy (here called the “Brighteners”), in which his uncle detailed how the society was indeed the reason that magic was fading away and ghosts were everywhere, seeking to use harvested spectral energy to replace all of the things that magic could do with ghost-powered technology, and ending with a toast to “the Barricade.” So it seems like the lightning barriers, rather than being a protective shield for the city (or at least on TOP of being same), could actually be part of the reason that the dead are no longer passing on. Interesting. . . Anyway, Luke totted up Heat (they got a decent amount, though they were able to talk Luke out of the point for a “well-connected or important target” by reminding him that Uncle Monty had deliberately retired from society; on the other hand, they definitely got the Heat for Sirus dying, and it was pointed out that Barnaby is actually living up to his self-chosen “The Butcher” nickname, as he may in fact have the greatest body count of the lot thanks to his and Kasimir’s balloon adventures) and rolled entanglements, getting a choice of “Gang Trouble” or “Questioning” (by the Bluecoats). Zillah and Barnaby were like “ha, sucks to be the next group on the list, dealing with that” –
Cue Luke informing them that the next episode in fact features EVERYBODY, and them going “Oh no, we’re the next group on the list, dealing with that.” XD On the plus side, though, Barnaby WAS able to talk Luke into healing all of his harm because he DID get the rejuvenation from Sirus’s accidental sacrifice (and to be fair, Luke DID describe Barnaby’s ankle feeling better, so it would have been cruel not to at least REDUCE the harm). So yes, everything was coming up Barnaby. XD Next time, “Into The Deathlands” with the entire crew!
B) And second up, the first twenty-two or so minutes of “We somehow have -$57… Dine Out (Part 2),” AKA the second half of Addison’s “Dine Out Reloaded” LP! After some initial problems with getting the game to actually unpause (for whatever reason, the Dine Out placemats that kids can get to color on screw up how the game functions even if they’re cleaned up, forcing James to remove and replace all the tables and restart the whole game – the “Reloaded” mod now disables them to avoid this, but obviously that wasn’t a thing at time of filming) and Addison up to their living quarters (this was simply James forgetting he’d locked the door to said quarters to stop Addison going up there during work hours), James was actually able to start playing and figure out how to actually make $58 dollars to cover the deficit in the business funds and actually open the restaurant again. His initial thought was to find a way to use Addison’s plants to pay off the debt (preferably without selling all the produce, he wanted that for the restaurant). . .
But then Summerfest happened, the new Father Winter visited, and after asking politely for a present and getting folded laundry (literally – a pile of folded shirts), Addison fought Father Winter for more presents and ended up getting two coffee makers and a tea brewer. And as the restaurant didn’t need two coffee makers, James just sold the spare. Money problems solved! XD So, the next morning (after rehiring all his staff since, for some reason, they’d all been chucked out of their jobs, and getting the tables all sorted), the Bigwallet Cafe reopened for business!
And had a – middling day. Mostly because a lot of diners didn’t like the ambiance so much (James was almost insulted, honestly, given how much love and care he’d put into building that restaurant) and the waiters, being new and thus a bit clumsy, were annoying customers. Addison ran around welcoming diners and apologizing for waits and offering free desserts to the visiting Price family in particular (anything for their girlfriend’s family), and was able to score mostly three-star reviews from everybody, which was good (especially as a critic had come in, and Addison needed the promotion!). Though, hilariously, the offering of free dessert coupled with the waiters not being the best meant that Hilary ended up waiting for HOURS for her free cupcake to go with her coffee. She got it in the end, but – yeah, there’s a reason James dumped pretty much all of the profit on the day into training Addison’s employees! We’ll see how that goes tomorrow. . .
Other: We played beanbags early today, after lunch because of the incoming rain and thunderstorms (we thought) – I was back to my now-usual scores with a single win, while Dad did pretty well and Mom ended up coming out best of all, in a great turnaround from yesterday. Final scores were me 2-2-W-3-3; Dad W-3-3-2-W; and Mom 3-W-2-W-2. *shrug* We all won once, and that’s what matters to me, so. . .
*nods* Not bad -- my Watch Later is now empty, hooray! And I'm pretty well caught up on everything that I need to be caught up on at this current point in time. However, I have to go to bed now, as tomorrow is the trip to the Blithewold Gardens, and we're leaving between 9 and 10 AM, so I have to get up a bit earlier to have my breakfast in good time. *nods* Hopefully it'll be a fun day out -- dunno how much time I'll have for other stuff, especially given it is also Game Night, but I do need to at least do some writing (either "Londerland Bloodlines" or finishing up the "Accused" snippet), keep up with the Subs on YouTube, and get in a workout. If I'm lucky, maybe I can fit in some Sims building time, or some other quick gaming. *shrug* We'll see! Night all!
The things on your to-do list, obviously! XD Here's what I accomplished today --
Tumblr: Had a good day, though my experiences on my two blogs were sharply different –
Victor Luvs Alice – Had a lovely productive day on here:
A) Managed to catch up on my dash and tracked tags before lunch
B) Updated the new Valicer Incorrect Quotes post that’s been hanging around in my drafts with a proper intro and tags, also before lunch
C) Thought up a handful more Valicer In The Dark Not-Incorrect Quotes (including a new “running joke” where Smiler introduces the three to a gang, one of the members is derisive that one of the Pillars is an effective Cutter/Whisper/Slide & Leech, only for said Pillar to prove them wrong) and got THAT post draft finished, ALSO before lunch
D) Got the queue sorted with that Valicer In The Dark Not-Incorrect Quotes post and a new Song Saturday (“The Unlucky Ones,” by Admiral King – the song was in my old “favorites” list, and after listening to it again, I could easily picture the Three Pillars having adventures to the lyrics) before my workout (though admittedly I ended up completing the Song Saturday post after dinner)
E) And FINALLY remembered to reblog a tumblr mutual’s “commissions” post (I’ve been meaning to all week)!
Valice Multiverse – in contrast, nothing was happening over here, and I struggled for a minute to find something to put up before deciding to reblog a photo set of the Santa Monica haven in VTMB to go along with my “Londerland Bloodlines” verse over there. :p It’s something!
Writing: I did indeed decide to swap my “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” for more Valicer In The Dark today – what can I say, I have been very heavily inspired to write on that AU lately! Continued editing the “Accused” snippet – with Alice having just demonstrated The Devil’s Footsteps by unknowingly pushing herself to jump atop a carriage much like she might quad-jump in Wonderland, the trio fled down a nearby alley next to a jewelry store – only for another Bluecoat, Donovan, to explode out a side door in said store and collar Smiler. Victor and Alice were more than prepared to assault the guy to save their friend –
But, well, Smiler is an Alchemist, and didn’t actually need saving. Mostly because they had a spare syringe of Joy Serum to stick in the guy’s neck. :p Donovan ended up a smiley, giggly mess behind them as Victor took point to try and get them to Shimmer Canal – only to abruptly panic and shove Smiler and Alice away from his chosen route. Why, you ask? Well, that’ll be made clear when things wrap up next time, and a certain Sargent Tannen ends up meeting a very nasty ghost indeed. . .
Oh, and I may as well put this here – if you’re interested in reading one of my first snippets for this verse, it went up on my tumblr today – First(ish) Meetings, where Alice encounters Smiler on her way to tell Nan Sharpe about Bumby, and then the two of them meet Victor when he suddenly falls out of a wall behind them. . .
YouTube: As you may notice, the “Sims 4/Fallout 4” section is missing from this particular to-do list – with the threat of thunderstorms today (even if it was never actually realized) over our heads, and an early game of beanbags (see below) meaning I got onto the computer later than usual after lunch, I decided to make this day another “YouTube Catch-Up” day instead – and boy did I catch up –
A) First up, finally got to that video that’s been sitting in my Watch Later for ages – “How the RE4 Remake Deepened the Lore” by Gaming Harry! A little explanation of how certain elements in the original game got updated and expanded on in the remake – for example, giving more backstory to a lot of characters (Mendez, the creepy giant guy Leon has to fight in the first third of the game, used to be the village chief, and was actually a really decent guy who worked very hard to help improve literacy and open up the village more to outsiders! A shame those outsiders included Los Illuminados; the Saddler family line has been part of the Los Illuminados cult for CENTURIES if you believe some of the tombstones you can find around; and of course Luis is revealed to have grown up in the village (only to leave when his grandfather died to a parasite-infected wolf and the villagers burned his cabin to contain it), gotten his biology degree, worked for Umbrella on the Nemesis project, and then left them to work for Los Illuminados before realizing “wait, no, these guys are the same if not worse, shit”); adding a few interesting things to the lore (like the “black water” in Salazar’s castle that apparently helps plagas bond with their hosts faster – nothing like that in the original – and Saddler being able to control people through the plagas from a distance, instead of needing them in his immediate vicinity); and tying the whole thing together better with future games (notably, in the epilogue scene where Ada contacts Wesker, Wesker is seen looking at images of the flowers in the African temple from the next game in the series, RE5, along with a shot of one of his collaborators there). Interesting stuff, and a great expansion on what we got in the original game! Even if I do miss some of the cheesy dialogue that the original provided. XD (Come on, guys, you couldn’t think of a way to have included “I have sent my left hand against you!” “Your left hand comes off?” XD)
B) Then it was time for some OXBoxtra lists –
I. “7 Horror Game Openings That Didn't Eff Around” by OXtra! Luke and Ellen taking us through those video games that declined to ease you into anything and instead went straight for the scares. Such as Dead Space 2’s opening, where you have to run from necromorphs bursting out of rooms and hallways and attacking you from behind while in a freaking STRAITJACKET. Or Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem’s opening, which drops you straight into a nightmare of the protagonist Alex Rovias, where you have to shoot zombies (without having learned the controls, mind) until your ammo runs out and the game deigns to wake her up. Or Outlast 2’s opening, where you have to go through a helicopter crash, then wander around in the dark countryside with your night vision camera, only to find the flayed corpse of your pilot and villagers whispering creepy things as they stalk you with their glowing eyes. Basically, if you’re looking for 0 to 60, these are your horror games.
II. “7 Impossible Puzzles You Had No Chance of Solving Alone” by OXBox! Mike, Jane, and Andy taking us through a bunch of super-hard puzzles that they have a hard time believing anyone could figure out without help. You had your classic adventure game bullshit, of course, such as figuring out the name of the gnome who could give you magic beanstalk beans in King’s Quest (it’s Rumplestilskin backwards, but in the sense that you INVERT THE ALPHABET instead of just spelling it backwards – oh, AND the game designers thought it was “Rumpelstilskin,” so you deliberately have to misspell your cipher), but you also had more modern nonsense, like figuring out the red door shipwreck puzzle in The Witness (involving tracing a line through a maze on the door while listening for audio clues about what dots you were supposed to hit in which order – also, there’s an invisible symmetrical line from the other side trying to hit ITS dots in the same order, AND the red light shining on the door is actually CHANGING THE COLOR OF THE PUZZLE to make it harder) and the monolith puzzle from Fez (where the community figured out that, once you got the monolith to appear in its section of the map, you then had to move to a different portion of that map in first-person and do some sort of button press combo to get it to spawn the red cube they needed – and then just MASS BRUTE-FORCED FIGURING OUT THE BUTTON COMBO YOU NEEDED TO PRESS WHILE THERE. Like, if your community is doing THAT because they can’t figure out the combo any other way, I think you need to step back and take a serious look at your puzzle design). Puzzles like these is why walkthroughs exist, is what they’re saying, and aren’t we glad they do.
C) Then, tonight, we had a surprise return to Atop The Fourth Wall, with “Back to the Future: Who is Marty McFly?” Yeah, I pretty much dropped Linkara from my regular line-up of videos to watch when he started posting the ultra-long videos of the Sandman retrospective, but when I learned that he’d reviewed this arc of the modern-day BTTF comics, I had to pop back in again and take a look. :) “Who Is Marty McFly?” is the story arc that introduced Professor Irving, a fellow temporal researcher, into the comics – the story itself involving Marty being confronted with the fact that his memories don’t match the timeline he finds himself in and having a bit of an existential crisis about who he is and if he replaced another Marty McFly (not helped by Irving getting in touch with him and playing on those fears by saying he’s going to be overwritten by the Marty McFly of the better 1980s he created in the first film to get him to summon Doc). . .and then that storyline being kind of derailed when he does summon Doc from the 1880s to talk to him (via a communications system they set up in the previous storyline), Irving steals the flux capacitor, and we get evil!Future!Irving sending “Martynator” robots to the past to try and take out Doc and Marty. And then trying to kill them by stranding them in Earth’s ancient past, then trying to kill them with MORE robots that look just like them (and is it ever explained WHY all his robots look like them?) in his lab in the future, and then the whole thing being resolved by Marty realizing that Irving is like this because he became a total shut-in when he got access to time travel (in an attempt to be responsible and not totally fuck up time) and Doc and Marty going back in time to when Irving first stole the flux capacitor so he can see what a jackass he turns into in the future, and Irving changing his ways to save some innocent bystanders, a mother and her daughter, from getting caught up in the whole mess, and ending up having a thing with the mom. Linkara thought it was a mostly-good story, hitting some interesting philosophical questions about the trilogy and how the time travel works and Marty’s place in the timeline and whatnot, but felt like the pacing was off and that the ending (Marty deciding that all of his various lived experiences – even the ones that don’t really “exist” anymore thanks to timeline changes – are what make him “him” and that he should be grateful he’s gotten to live two lives) was kind of pat, which I agree with. As you might have guessed by me calling the stuff with Dr. Irving “derailing.” I would have much preferred a shorter arc with Doc reassuring Marty and helping him come to that conclusion without the drama of Martynators. And I normally LIKE it when the BTTF “expanded universe” stuff gets weird. :p But it was a fun review, with Linkara making a lot of good jokes and breaking out a deeply amusing Doc impression – and fortunately, it was a stand-alone without any hint of ongoing plot in the background, so I could just enjoy it without worrying about THAT stuff. Dunno if I’ll start watching this on the regular again, but I probably will pop back in from time to time to watch the reviews that really interest me. :)
D) And finally, it was back over to the Subs for the latest from Josh Way – “SKETCHY: Lady and the Tramp!” Josh drawing the titular doggy duo from that movie, having a bit of trouble in the initial rough sketch but managing to pull it all together for inking and coloring. :) Along the way, he talked about how he considers this movie a classic and that it’s beautifully done with very expressive characters and whatnot. . .though we must acknowledge that super-racist bit with the Siamese cats. Because wow, yeah, the 50s were not good when it came to that sort of thing. *nods* But it was a lovely bit of art – he really does the Disney style well. :)
Workout: Back on the bike, as per usual, finishing up one video and starting another –
A) First up, the last ten or so minutes of Oxventure Presents Blades In The Dark – “The Horrors of Castle Wisenshire!” Zillah, super-charged on the accidentally-sacrificed Sirus’s soul energy, beat Lord Ixis’s head in with a candelabra and forced him to retreat, then called for Barnaby to jump down so she could catch him. Barnaby was initially reluctant, but jumped anyway because he trusted Zillah (despite all his instincts telling him he couldn’t trust anyone poorer than him XD). Zillah then rushed them both out of the castle as Uncle Monty despaired behind them (picking up and carrying Barnaby when he just couldn’t keep up with her super-charged self), smashing through the front doors and leaping onto the carriage with the goats (who were VERY SURPRISED by this turn of events). The pair made good their escape (with Barnaby being like “did I – did I just do something nice for the servant class?!” and everyone joking that he had to take the “Haunted” trauma as a result) –
Cut to them back at Eleanor’s house, hanging out in one of the bathrooms, Barnaby reading his uncle’s diary while Eleanor sluiced the blood-covered Zillah down in the tub. XD And, in said diary, Barnaby found a Crim’s Night speech to the Brightstone Society of Analytical Alchemy (here called the “Brighteners”), in which his uncle detailed how the society was indeed the reason that magic was fading away and ghosts were everywhere, seeking to use harvested spectral energy to replace all of the things that magic could do with ghost-powered technology, and ending with a toast to “the Barricade.” So it seems like the lightning barriers, rather than being a protective shield for the city (or at least on TOP of being same), could actually be part of the reason that the dead are no longer passing on. Interesting. . . Anyway, Luke totted up Heat (they got a decent amount, though they were able to talk Luke out of the point for a “well-connected or important target” by reminding him that Uncle Monty had deliberately retired from society; on the other hand, they definitely got the Heat for Sirus dying, and it was pointed out that Barnaby is actually living up to his self-chosen “The Butcher” nickname, as he may in fact have the greatest body count of the lot thanks to his and Kasimir’s balloon adventures) and rolled entanglements, getting a choice of “Gang Trouble” or “Questioning” (by the Bluecoats). Zillah and Barnaby were like “ha, sucks to be the next group on the list, dealing with that” –
Cue Luke informing them that the next episode in fact features EVERYBODY, and them going “Oh no, we’re the next group on the list, dealing with that.” XD On the plus side, though, Barnaby WAS able to talk Luke into healing all of his harm because he DID get the rejuvenation from Sirus’s accidental sacrifice (and to be fair, Luke DID describe Barnaby’s ankle feeling better, so it would have been cruel not to at least REDUCE the harm). So yes, everything was coming up Barnaby. XD Next time, “Into The Deathlands” with the entire crew!
B) And second up, the first twenty-two or so minutes of “We somehow have -$57… Dine Out (Part 2),” AKA the second half of Addison’s “Dine Out Reloaded” LP! After some initial problems with getting the game to actually unpause (for whatever reason, the Dine Out placemats that kids can get to color on screw up how the game functions even if they’re cleaned up, forcing James to remove and replace all the tables and restart the whole game – the “Reloaded” mod now disables them to avoid this, but obviously that wasn’t a thing at time of filming) and Addison up to their living quarters (this was simply James forgetting he’d locked the door to said quarters to stop Addison going up there during work hours), James was actually able to start playing and figure out how to actually make $58 dollars to cover the deficit in the business funds and actually open the restaurant again. His initial thought was to find a way to use Addison’s plants to pay off the debt (preferably without selling all the produce, he wanted that for the restaurant). . .
But then Summerfest happened, the new Father Winter visited, and after asking politely for a present and getting folded laundry (literally – a pile of folded shirts), Addison fought Father Winter for more presents and ended up getting two coffee makers and a tea brewer. And as the restaurant didn’t need two coffee makers, James just sold the spare. Money problems solved! XD So, the next morning (after rehiring all his staff since, for some reason, they’d all been chucked out of their jobs, and getting the tables all sorted), the Bigwallet Cafe reopened for business!
And had a – middling day. Mostly because a lot of diners didn’t like the ambiance so much (James was almost insulted, honestly, given how much love and care he’d put into building that restaurant) and the waiters, being new and thus a bit clumsy, were annoying customers. Addison ran around welcoming diners and apologizing for waits and offering free desserts to the visiting Price family in particular (anything for their girlfriend’s family), and was able to score mostly three-star reviews from everybody, which was good (especially as a critic had come in, and Addison needed the promotion!). Though, hilariously, the offering of free dessert coupled with the waiters not being the best meant that Hilary ended up waiting for HOURS for her free cupcake to go with her coffee. She got it in the end, but – yeah, there’s a reason James dumped pretty much all of the profit on the day into training Addison’s employees! We’ll see how that goes tomorrow. . .
Other: We played beanbags early today, after lunch because of the incoming rain and thunderstorms (we thought) – I was back to my now-usual scores with a single win, while Dad did pretty well and Mom ended up coming out best of all, in a great turnaround from yesterday. Final scores were me 2-2-W-3-3; Dad W-3-3-2-W; and Mom 3-W-2-W-2. *shrug* We all won once, and that’s what matters to me, so. . .
*nods* Not bad -- my Watch Later is now empty, hooray! And I'm pretty well caught up on everything that I need to be caught up on at this current point in time. However, I have to go to bed now, as tomorrow is the trip to the Blithewold Gardens, and we're leaving between 9 and 10 AM, so I have to get up a bit earlier to have my breakfast in good time. *nods* Hopefully it'll be a fun day out -- dunno how much time I'll have for other stuff, especially given it is also Game Night, but I do need to at least do some writing (either "Londerland Bloodlines" or finishing up the "Accused" snippet), keep up with the Subs on YouTube, and get in a workout. If I'm lucky, maybe I can fit in some Sims building time, or some other quick gaming. *shrug* We'll see! Night all!
