Partially "Eeeh" Saturday
Jun. 15th, 2024 11:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickThe weather was gorgeous today, and I did end up getting just about everything I wanted to get done, done, but the morning vibes were rather spoiled by Dad being in a bad mood (I assume due to mail order reasons), meaning I can't say this was a particularly great Saturday. At least the humidity cleared out! And we still had brownies available, meaning I could have one with ice cream for dessert. :) Anyway, here's what I got through today --
Cleaning: Well, thanks to waking up a little earlier than usual, I got an early start on this today and managed to finish all the dusting, Swiffering, and vacuuming before lunchtime – started right before 10 AM, finished right after 1 PM! I mean, granted, lunch was actually a little late today (my parents were out running errands this morning), and us getting caught up in watching the first episode of Season 3 of New Zealand Taskmaster (which is now being uploaded on the official Taskmaster YouTube Channel) meant that I got on the computer pretty much the same time I always do on a Cleaning Saturday anyway, but at least I’m all done with all that nonsense for another couple of weeks!
Tumblr: Well, I didn’t expect to do much here because, you know, Cleaning Saturday, but I got a couple of things done –
Victor Luvs Alice – Managed to get a rough draft of the “Tiny Town Challenge” post I want to put up this upcoming Wednesday into the Drafts, talking about how I want to do it but I’m having a bit of trouble deciding on the residents besides Victor, Alice, and Smiler, and a specific money-making skill for Smiler (as their thing is chemistry but you don’t really have that as a SKILL in Sims 4). I just wanted to get the basic points in there before I hit the sheets – I’ll polish it all up tomorrow!
Valice Multiverse – Had a reply-convo with Satirical Demon on his ask about the Paranoia Core (which apparently is a REAL core – though it’s only semi-canonical as it didn’t appear in an Official Portal game, but instead as one of the things GLaDOS bets in Poker Night At The Inventory 2. Where it has a unique voice but reuses Wheatley’s model. You couldn’t even recolor the eye, devs?), which was fun. I kinda want to ask if he’s up for a real thread at some point (I already have a scene in mind), but – just too fucking tired tonight, unfortunately. Maybe I’ll get my brain together tomorrow. . .
Sims 4: Popped into the Building Save for a little bit to work on my Ministry of Joy nightclub build, and managed to make at least a bit of decent progress concerning the layout, if nothing else –
A) First things first, though – once I got to the lot, I saved a copy of it in its current state to my Library so I’d have the basic shell (and one fancy bathroom) to work with in case I wanted to make something else out of it – like a residential lot to represent more of how the place is supposed to look in the “Valicer In The Dark” verse! I mean, my original intention was to put this thing in a potential future VITD-themed save file. . .I haven’t really stuck to the correct Victorian-esque aesthetics in the current iteration, though. XD What can I say – there’s just not a lot of good yellow-and-black Victorian stuff in this game! But yeah, got a spare now in case I want to redo the MOJ as a different lot type. Only makes sense!
B) Anyway, with that sorted, I took a moment to go through the “Paintings/Posters” section in the game with the “yellow” color filter turned on to see if there were any wall decorations I wanted to put in the bathroom – as it turns out, no, but I found a number of decorations I wanted to hang onto just in general. Such as a couple of posters in yellow and black of party-themed stuff (I think they’re meant for Sims to put up for New Year’s); some black-and yellow twisty streamers (ditto); a couple of rainbow-colored streamer-type wall hangings (for a bit of extra color); the non-binary pride flag (because Smiler colors) and the “pretty much every identity we can think of” pride flag (because inclusive); the fire extinguisher in the yellow box (safety first!); and the Moschino black-and-yellow wall-art squiggle that I want to use as a sign of sorts (that’s, naturally, on the outside). So now I’ve got some décor options to liven up the place as I pull it all together!
C) After that (and a trip to the bathroom), I decided that the main thing that I had to figure out today was the layout. Fortunately, that proved a bit easier than expected – I quickly decided that the larger rectangle with the big front doors and the pipes out front would be the main nightclub (with dance floor, bar, seating, and the bathroom), and the smaller rectangle attached to it by the corner would be a secret worship room for Mar-Mal. Because, again, VITD influence. XD I thus stuck a placeholder black door in the corner where the “worship” space adjoins the “nightclub” space (it’s a placeholder because I’ve decided this is definitely a build that needs my CC – I have a very cool SPIRAL door that would be absolutely perfect for this space in my Mods folder, courtesy of Crypt O’Club on tumblr, so I’ll have to come back at some point and jazz it up with all my extra content), then began looking through the “Sculpture” section to see if there was anything appropriately twisty-turny to stand in as a representation of The Unending Smile. Turns out, there was – a neat looped Get Together sculpture that even came in a yellow and black swatch! I had to size it down a couple of times to fit it in the room, but I figured it would do the job. :) Though I did find another neat more geometric twisted-up sculpture on a pedestal along the way that I wanted to use along the way (only came in a black-and-gray swatch, so it couldn’t be the “main” sculpture), so I put four of those in the room as well, one at each corner. (There was also a cool globe-style sundial thing that is currently hanging out in the front yard for now, because neat.) I then checked out my flooring options, going with a black-and-gray spotted carpet because it looked kind of like faux stone to me while also being comfy for Sims –
And then ran into a bit of a problem trying to select a wallpaper. I mean, the obvious thing would be to do the black-and-yellow stripes that I’ve done in Smiler-related spaces before, but I felt like that was a little too simplistic? I found a neat “fantasy sunrise” wallpaper that was black and purple that made it feel like there was a glow coming up from the bottom of the room, but while I like it and want to use it SOMEWHERE, I dunno if it’s right for this room. . .and, after stumbling upon it a bit later, a very evil part of me wants to use the bright glowing “wallpaper” from Spa Day to just flood the room with yellow light. There’s even a matching flooring! XD I dunno if that would be too much, though. . .maybe on one or two walls? I’ll figure it out eventually!
D) With the worship space currently in “how do I want to decorate this shit” limbo, I turned my attention back to the main club! I slapped the matching glowing railing on my glowing stairs (though I have also found a different yellow-and-black stair railing that I will have to remember to use somewhere else, because it is very Smiler), then grabbed my “grande” yellow-and-black-check dance floor, sized it up to “enormous,” and put it in the building in front of the main entrance, with a little bit of space around it for Sims to access things like the worship room door. I then plopped the fanciest DJ booth (the one with the animated screen on the front – in the black swatch, of course) on it, facing in toward the front door from the back wall, before covering the rest of the floor in the black swatch of the City Living shale tiles (I often find that having a plain black floor in these builds helps make the space not look TOO busy while still keeping with the color scheme) and painting said back wall with the Moschino “spotlight” wallpaper (because it looked VERY APPROPRIATE behind the DJ booth). Main dance floor section – not done, but at least I know where it is and have an idea of what I want to do with it!
E) With the main dance area defined, it was time to figure out the bar section – which naturally would be in the “corridor” between the bathrooms and the front wall, leading toward the stairs. After considering my bar options, I went with the Luxury Party “Shine” bar (whose glowing yellow bar had the best color scheme) with some glowing bottle shelves behind it for a backdrop (which for some reason refuse to snap together despite looking like they should), then probably spent WAAAY too long trying to pick a decent-looking bar stool in the right colors. *shakehead* I just wanted the RIGHT combination of yellow and black, you know? Anyway, I ended up going with the Get Together bar stools – the metal frame is a little paler yellow than I would like, but I felt it suited the bar a bit better than the darker gold of the fanciest Get Famous bar stools. Anyway, I put two of those in front of the Shine bar, tucked all of that in the bump-out corner beside the notch where the front doors are, and went to delete all the other bar stool options I’d been considering off the lot. . .
And then I looked at how many bar stools I actually needed on the lot, saw that the minimum was three, and promptly bought a second Shine bar and two more bar stools to put next to the original. XD Gotta be compliant with Sims 4 nightclub requirements if I don’t want the game to yell at me! Anyway, I made sure there was a bottle display behind each bar, then considered putting a poster of a singer with a microphone in-between them before deciding maybe that was better behind the DJ booth –
F) And then I thought, “Hold on. That would be even better in a KARAOKE room!” And so one of the two upstairs rooms has now gained a karaoke machine. XD Because fuck, why not? Might as well have as much fun stuff for my Sims to do on this lot as possible, right? And my own personal Smiler Sim loves karaoke, so. . . Though, for some reason, when I go “walls cutaway” up there, it cuts away ALL of the walls, not showing any of them up no matter how I rotate the camera. . .so I might be putting the poster behind the DJ booth after all. *shrug*
And so my session ended with me considering dining table and dining chair options again (because I have to have some of those on the build, as per the requirements – but while I’ve found a decent CHAIR, I’m not really feeling any of the tables. Again, think I really need my CC for this build!) and putting a fancy colorful bench up on the roof of the first story, on the “balcony” formed by the half-walls I used as an edger, because I’m still thinking that would make a good upstairs outdoor party space. :) The build is coming together, slowly but surely! And I’ve got an additional day off coming up next week (Juneteenth), so maybe I can do some more work on it then. . . At the very least, I’m thinking I need to add a bubble blower to this lot, even if most Sims react to them weirdly. Just for the vibes, you know? Probably be good in the worship room, in fact. . .or maybe as part of the upstairs? Or maybe I put some arcade stuff up there. . .this is going to be a very multi-purpose nightclub. XD
Writing: Had a nice meaty writing session after beanbags (see below), getting just about two whole pages edited on Chapter 3 of “Start At The Beginning...Sort Of!” :D We’ve gotten through the gang reflecting on how this is not how they expected to spend their Names (aka the equivalent of “night” in Duskwall); Smiler telling Victor and Alice about their god Mar-Mal and how they want everyone to be happy – and how the Advocates are working on stopping people from dying to help facilitate that; the trio and Emily coming up with a plan that right now mainly consists of “look in all of the windows of the Everglot house and see if we can spot them celebrating the wedding reception so we can confirm Barkis is Emily’s ‘Eddie;’” and Smiler wondering if they could find a new body for Emily so she could be a vampire instead of a ghost (and Alice being like “PLEASE don’t tell me that you’re willing to murder someone to do that” XD). I left off with the group arriving at the Everglot house – when we next pick up, it’s time to confirm that Emily’s old bastard fiance is the same person about to make Victoria’s life hellish – and a lot fucking shorter. . .
YouTube: Well, uh, GrayStillPlays didn’t upload today (not sure why, there was no indication that he’d be skipping), so my entire YouTubery this evening consisted of an OXBoxtra List Video Marathon! Designed to get as many videos out of the Watch Later as possible – and I got through four out of the five in there, so go me! Here’s the videos I watched –
A) “7 Idiot Heroes Who Created Their Own Villains Through Sheer Stupidity: Commenter Edition” – Mike, Jane, and Andy talking about more video game protagonists who managed to create their own villains! From Travis Touchdown of No More Heroes killing a bunch of “Pizza Butt” CEOs (a father and his two sons), leading to the final boss of the sequel being their furious and wronged final family member Jasper, ready to kick Travis’s ass in his rocket car; to The Courier of Fallout: New Vegas inadvertently delivering a device to The Divide that caused a bunch of the nuclear bombs there to blow up and devastate the community pre-game, leading to fellow courier Ulysses (who lived there) to try to kill them both by indirect means (making sure The Courier got the “platinum chip” delivery) and direct ones (luring them to the remains of The Divide for a proper showdown) in the Lonesome Road DLC; to Sketch Turner of Comix Zone LITERALLY DRAWING his own rogues gallery because he was working on a comic book that happened to be hit by lightning, bringing all the characters within to life and leading to the main villain, Mortus, trapping HIM in the comic and forcing him to battle his own creations, these protagonists are ultimately responsible for their own misery! So don’t kill any pizza chain franchise CEOs, don’t deliver any unknown packages to mysterious communities in the Nevada desert, and don’t draw comic books in the middle of lightning storms, and you should be fine. XD
B) “7 Villains Who Worked WAY Too Hard Just to Mess With You” – Andy and Ellen talking about those villains who went to great lengths to mess with the protagonists of their games, when they really should have been putting that energy into their evil plans. From The Riddler trying to prove his intellectual superiority over Batman by making him do elaborate races in the Batmobile in Batman: Arkham Knight, to the G-Man being unable to resist using his special “outside time and space” powers to constantly show up in spots to weird out Gordon Freeman (currently dealing with an alien invasion the G-Man apparently set up) in the original Half-Life, to Wesker always succumbing to the urge to monologue at Chris or Jill or whoever has to fight him in this installment instead of just killing them in the Resident Evil games, these villains really need to learn how to find their kicks elsewhere. Messing with the person being controlled by the being on the other side of the screen just isn’t going to go well for you, guys!
C) “7 'Funny' Characters We Want to Fire Into the Heart of the Sun” – Andy, Mike, and Jane talking about those comic characters who overshot funny and landed straight in “so fucking annoying please make it stop.” From classics like Roman from Grand Theft Auto IV (your PC Niko’s idiot cousin, the one who insists on you guys going bowling or drinking or whatnot all the time), to more modern annoyances like Barry Wheeler from Alan Wake (Alan’s agent, who drags around an Alan standee and does annoying impressions of him – though his defenders in the comments point out that Alan himself is an asshole, so maybe Barry’s been driven to this by having to deal with his butt), to the one actual protagonist on the list, Matt Hazard from Eat Lead: The Return Of Matt Hazard (a parody of shooters starring bald space-marine-type guys, he is unfortunately not funny despite being voiced by Will Arnett), these characters will make you want to eat your controller to stop dealing with them. Or, I guess in the case of Matt, constantly get Game Overs to punish him. Shame.
D) “7 Ridiculous Games That Make You Go Full Chaotic Evil” – Mike and Ellen talking about those games where it’s not a question of IF you’re going to be evil, it’s just how evil you’re going to be. In a funny way, because almost all of these games are comedy titles (with the exception of Dead By Daylight, where the reason you’re going full chaotic evil is to mess with your friends). Want to do some low-stakes bothering of people in a sleepy English village as a large, loud bird? Untitled Goose Game has got you covered! Want to play as an alien taking out a spoof of 1950s B-movie America? Pick up Destroy All Humans! Want to experience the pleasure of being a vicious shark launching itself out of the water to devour all its way? Maneater is the game for you! Whatever your brand of darkly-comedic evil, video games have your back. *thumbs up*
Other: Had a lovely forty minutes or so throwing beanbags back and forth this afternoon around 5 PM, as is our wont – I had a good start but ended up slowing down for the last couple of games, while Dad threw pretty solidly after a loss in the first game and Mom – well, tried, but just couldn’t get a win to save herself. Shame. Final scores were me W-2-W-3-3; Dad 3-W-2-W-W; and Mom 2-3-3-2-2. At least she got second more often than not – and she WAS distracted checking on a pineapple upside-down cake she was making for Dad during the games, so that couldn’t have helped. We’ll see how it all shakes out tomorrow!
So yeah, not a bad day in the end, just -- could have been better. And now I should head to bed -- tomorrow is Father's Day, after all, and I don't want to sleep through it! (Plus I just need more sleep in general, as I woke up earlier than I wanted today, meh.) Depending on what happens, tomorrow's goals should include getting some draft stuff done on Victor Luvs Alice; playing Fallout 4 and getting Jezebel the robobrain out of Rust Devil headquarters; updating the FO4 Playthrough Progression appropriately; getting in a workout; and watching Gray (if he uploads) and Jon on YouTube. We will see how much of this I manage to get through -- night all!
Cleaning: Well, thanks to waking up a little earlier than usual, I got an early start on this today and managed to finish all the dusting, Swiffering, and vacuuming before lunchtime – started right before 10 AM, finished right after 1 PM! I mean, granted, lunch was actually a little late today (my parents were out running errands this morning), and us getting caught up in watching the first episode of Season 3 of New Zealand Taskmaster (which is now being uploaded on the official Taskmaster YouTube Channel) meant that I got on the computer pretty much the same time I always do on a Cleaning Saturday anyway, but at least I’m all done with all that nonsense for another couple of weeks!
Tumblr: Well, I didn’t expect to do much here because, you know, Cleaning Saturday, but I got a couple of things done –
Victor Luvs Alice – Managed to get a rough draft of the “Tiny Town Challenge” post I want to put up this upcoming Wednesday into the Drafts, talking about how I want to do it but I’m having a bit of trouble deciding on the residents besides Victor, Alice, and Smiler, and a specific money-making skill for Smiler (as their thing is chemistry but you don’t really have that as a SKILL in Sims 4). I just wanted to get the basic points in there before I hit the sheets – I’ll polish it all up tomorrow!
Valice Multiverse – Had a reply-convo with Satirical Demon on his ask about the Paranoia Core (which apparently is a REAL core – though it’s only semi-canonical as it didn’t appear in an Official Portal game, but instead as one of the things GLaDOS bets in Poker Night At The Inventory 2. Where it has a unique voice but reuses Wheatley’s model. You couldn’t even recolor the eye, devs?), which was fun. I kinda want to ask if he’s up for a real thread at some point (I already have a scene in mind), but – just too fucking tired tonight, unfortunately. Maybe I’ll get my brain together tomorrow. . .
Sims 4: Popped into the Building Save for a little bit to work on my Ministry of Joy nightclub build, and managed to make at least a bit of decent progress concerning the layout, if nothing else –
A) First things first, though – once I got to the lot, I saved a copy of it in its current state to my Library so I’d have the basic shell (and one fancy bathroom) to work with in case I wanted to make something else out of it – like a residential lot to represent more of how the place is supposed to look in the “Valicer In The Dark” verse! I mean, my original intention was to put this thing in a potential future VITD-themed save file. . .I haven’t really stuck to the correct Victorian-esque aesthetics in the current iteration, though. XD What can I say – there’s just not a lot of good yellow-and-black Victorian stuff in this game! But yeah, got a spare now in case I want to redo the MOJ as a different lot type. Only makes sense!
B) Anyway, with that sorted, I took a moment to go through the “Paintings/Posters” section in the game with the “yellow” color filter turned on to see if there were any wall decorations I wanted to put in the bathroom – as it turns out, no, but I found a number of decorations I wanted to hang onto just in general. Such as a couple of posters in yellow and black of party-themed stuff (I think they’re meant for Sims to put up for New Year’s); some black-and yellow twisty streamers (ditto); a couple of rainbow-colored streamer-type wall hangings (for a bit of extra color); the non-binary pride flag (because Smiler colors) and the “pretty much every identity we can think of” pride flag (because inclusive); the fire extinguisher in the yellow box (safety first!); and the Moschino black-and-yellow wall-art squiggle that I want to use as a sign of sorts (that’s, naturally, on the outside). So now I’ve got some décor options to liven up the place as I pull it all together!
C) After that (and a trip to the bathroom), I decided that the main thing that I had to figure out today was the layout. Fortunately, that proved a bit easier than expected – I quickly decided that the larger rectangle with the big front doors and the pipes out front would be the main nightclub (with dance floor, bar, seating, and the bathroom), and the smaller rectangle attached to it by the corner would be a secret worship room for Mar-Mal. Because, again, VITD influence. XD I thus stuck a placeholder black door in the corner where the “worship” space adjoins the “nightclub” space (it’s a placeholder because I’ve decided this is definitely a build that needs my CC – I have a very cool SPIRAL door that would be absolutely perfect for this space in my Mods folder, courtesy of Crypt O’Club on tumblr, so I’ll have to come back at some point and jazz it up with all my extra content), then began looking through the “Sculpture” section to see if there was anything appropriately twisty-turny to stand in as a representation of The Unending Smile. Turns out, there was – a neat looped Get Together sculpture that even came in a yellow and black swatch! I had to size it down a couple of times to fit it in the room, but I figured it would do the job. :) Though I did find another neat more geometric twisted-up sculpture on a pedestal along the way that I wanted to use along the way (only came in a black-and-gray swatch, so it couldn’t be the “main” sculpture), so I put four of those in the room as well, one at each corner. (There was also a cool globe-style sundial thing that is currently hanging out in the front yard for now, because neat.) I then checked out my flooring options, going with a black-and-gray spotted carpet because it looked kind of like faux stone to me while also being comfy for Sims –
And then ran into a bit of a problem trying to select a wallpaper. I mean, the obvious thing would be to do the black-and-yellow stripes that I’ve done in Smiler-related spaces before, but I felt like that was a little too simplistic? I found a neat “fantasy sunrise” wallpaper that was black and purple that made it feel like there was a glow coming up from the bottom of the room, but while I like it and want to use it SOMEWHERE, I dunno if it’s right for this room. . .and, after stumbling upon it a bit later, a very evil part of me wants to use the bright glowing “wallpaper” from Spa Day to just flood the room with yellow light. There’s even a matching flooring! XD I dunno if that would be too much, though. . .maybe on one or two walls? I’ll figure it out eventually!
D) With the worship space currently in “how do I want to decorate this shit” limbo, I turned my attention back to the main club! I slapped the matching glowing railing on my glowing stairs (though I have also found a different yellow-and-black stair railing that I will have to remember to use somewhere else, because it is very Smiler), then grabbed my “grande” yellow-and-black-check dance floor, sized it up to “enormous,” and put it in the building in front of the main entrance, with a little bit of space around it for Sims to access things like the worship room door. I then plopped the fanciest DJ booth (the one with the animated screen on the front – in the black swatch, of course) on it, facing in toward the front door from the back wall, before covering the rest of the floor in the black swatch of the City Living shale tiles (I often find that having a plain black floor in these builds helps make the space not look TOO busy while still keeping with the color scheme) and painting said back wall with the Moschino “spotlight” wallpaper (because it looked VERY APPROPRIATE behind the DJ booth). Main dance floor section – not done, but at least I know where it is and have an idea of what I want to do with it!
E) With the main dance area defined, it was time to figure out the bar section – which naturally would be in the “corridor” between the bathrooms and the front wall, leading toward the stairs. After considering my bar options, I went with the Luxury Party “Shine” bar (whose glowing yellow bar had the best color scheme) with some glowing bottle shelves behind it for a backdrop (which for some reason refuse to snap together despite looking like they should), then probably spent WAAAY too long trying to pick a decent-looking bar stool in the right colors. *shakehead* I just wanted the RIGHT combination of yellow and black, you know? Anyway, I ended up going with the Get Together bar stools – the metal frame is a little paler yellow than I would like, but I felt it suited the bar a bit better than the darker gold of the fanciest Get Famous bar stools. Anyway, I put two of those in front of the Shine bar, tucked all of that in the bump-out corner beside the notch where the front doors are, and went to delete all the other bar stool options I’d been considering off the lot. . .
And then I looked at how many bar stools I actually needed on the lot, saw that the minimum was three, and promptly bought a second Shine bar and two more bar stools to put next to the original. XD Gotta be compliant with Sims 4 nightclub requirements if I don’t want the game to yell at me! Anyway, I made sure there was a bottle display behind each bar, then considered putting a poster of a singer with a microphone in-between them before deciding maybe that was better behind the DJ booth –
F) And then I thought, “Hold on. That would be even better in a KARAOKE room!” And so one of the two upstairs rooms has now gained a karaoke machine. XD Because fuck, why not? Might as well have as much fun stuff for my Sims to do on this lot as possible, right? And my own personal Smiler Sim loves karaoke, so. . . Though, for some reason, when I go “walls cutaway” up there, it cuts away ALL of the walls, not showing any of them up no matter how I rotate the camera. . .so I might be putting the poster behind the DJ booth after all. *shrug*
And so my session ended with me considering dining table and dining chair options again (because I have to have some of those on the build, as per the requirements – but while I’ve found a decent CHAIR, I’m not really feeling any of the tables. Again, think I really need my CC for this build!) and putting a fancy colorful bench up on the roof of the first story, on the “balcony” formed by the half-walls I used as an edger, because I’m still thinking that would make a good upstairs outdoor party space. :) The build is coming together, slowly but surely! And I’ve got an additional day off coming up next week (Juneteenth), so maybe I can do some more work on it then. . . At the very least, I’m thinking I need to add a bubble blower to this lot, even if most Sims react to them weirdly. Just for the vibes, you know? Probably be good in the worship room, in fact. . .or maybe as part of the upstairs? Or maybe I put some arcade stuff up there. . .this is going to be a very multi-purpose nightclub. XD
Writing: Had a nice meaty writing session after beanbags (see below), getting just about two whole pages edited on Chapter 3 of “Start At The Beginning...Sort Of!” :D We’ve gotten through the gang reflecting on how this is not how they expected to spend their Names (aka the equivalent of “night” in Duskwall); Smiler telling Victor and Alice about their god Mar-Mal and how they want everyone to be happy – and how the Advocates are working on stopping people from dying to help facilitate that; the trio and Emily coming up with a plan that right now mainly consists of “look in all of the windows of the Everglot house and see if we can spot them celebrating the wedding reception so we can confirm Barkis is Emily’s ‘Eddie;’” and Smiler wondering if they could find a new body for Emily so she could be a vampire instead of a ghost (and Alice being like “PLEASE don’t tell me that you’re willing to murder someone to do that” XD). I left off with the group arriving at the Everglot house – when we next pick up, it’s time to confirm that Emily’s old bastard fiance is the same person about to make Victoria’s life hellish – and a lot fucking shorter. . .
YouTube: Well, uh, GrayStillPlays didn’t upload today (not sure why, there was no indication that he’d be skipping), so my entire YouTubery this evening consisted of an OXBoxtra List Video Marathon! Designed to get as many videos out of the Watch Later as possible – and I got through four out of the five in there, so go me! Here’s the videos I watched –
A) “7 Idiot Heroes Who Created Their Own Villains Through Sheer Stupidity: Commenter Edition” – Mike, Jane, and Andy talking about more video game protagonists who managed to create their own villains! From Travis Touchdown of No More Heroes killing a bunch of “Pizza Butt” CEOs (a father and his two sons), leading to the final boss of the sequel being their furious and wronged final family member Jasper, ready to kick Travis’s ass in his rocket car; to The Courier of Fallout: New Vegas inadvertently delivering a device to The Divide that caused a bunch of the nuclear bombs there to blow up and devastate the community pre-game, leading to fellow courier Ulysses (who lived there) to try to kill them both by indirect means (making sure The Courier got the “platinum chip” delivery) and direct ones (luring them to the remains of The Divide for a proper showdown) in the Lonesome Road DLC; to Sketch Turner of Comix Zone LITERALLY DRAWING his own rogues gallery because he was working on a comic book that happened to be hit by lightning, bringing all the characters within to life and leading to the main villain, Mortus, trapping HIM in the comic and forcing him to battle his own creations, these protagonists are ultimately responsible for their own misery! So don’t kill any pizza chain franchise CEOs, don’t deliver any unknown packages to mysterious communities in the Nevada desert, and don’t draw comic books in the middle of lightning storms, and you should be fine. XD
B) “7 Villains Who Worked WAY Too Hard Just to Mess With You” – Andy and Ellen talking about those villains who went to great lengths to mess with the protagonists of their games, when they really should have been putting that energy into their evil plans. From The Riddler trying to prove his intellectual superiority over Batman by making him do elaborate races in the Batmobile in Batman: Arkham Knight, to the G-Man being unable to resist using his special “outside time and space” powers to constantly show up in spots to weird out Gordon Freeman (currently dealing with an alien invasion the G-Man apparently set up) in the original Half-Life, to Wesker always succumbing to the urge to monologue at Chris or Jill or whoever has to fight him in this installment instead of just killing them in the Resident Evil games, these villains really need to learn how to find their kicks elsewhere. Messing with the person being controlled by the being on the other side of the screen just isn’t going to go well for you, guys!
C) “7 'Funny' Characters We Want to Fire Into the Heart of the Sun” – Andy, Mike, and Jane talking about those comic characters who overshot funny and landed straight in “so fucking annoying please make it stop.” From classics like Roman from Grand Theft Auto IV (your PC Niko’s idiot cousin, the one who insists on you guys going bowling or drinking or whatnot all the time), to more modern annoyances like Barry Wheeler from Alan Wake (Alan’s agent, who drags around an Alan standee and does annoying impressions of him – though his defenders in the comments point out that Alan himself is an asshole, so maybe Barry’s been driven to this by having to deal with his butt), to the one actual protagonist on the list, Matt Hazard from Eat Lead: The Return Of Matt Hazard (a parody of shooters starring bald space-marine-type guys, he is unfortunately not funny despite being voiced by Will Arnett), these characters will make you want to eat your controller to stop dealing with them. Or, I guess in the case of Matt, constantly get Game Overs to punish him. Shame.
D) “7 Ridiculous Games That Make You Go Full Chaotic Evil” – Mike and Ellen talking about those games where it’s not a question of IF you’re going to be evil, it’s just how evil you’re going to be. In a funny way, because almost all of these games are comedy titles (with the exception of Dead By Daylight, where the reason you’re going full chaotic evil is to mess with your friends). Want to do some low-stakes bothering of people in a sleepy English village as a large, loud bird? Untitled Goose Game has got you covered! Want to play as an alien taking out a spoof of 1950s B-movie America? Pick up Destroy All Humans! Want to experience the pleasure of being a vicious shark launching itself out of the water to devour all its way? Maneater is the game for you! Whatever your brand of darkly-comedic evil, video games have your back. *thumbs up*
Other: Had a lovely forty minutes or so throwing beanbags back and forth this afternoon around 5 PM, as is our wont – I had a good start but ended up slowing down for the last couple of games, while Dad threw pretty solidly after a loss in the first game and Mom – well, tried, but just couldn’t get a win to save herself. Shame. Final scores were me W-2-W-3-3; Dad 3-W-2-W-W; and Mom 2-3-3-2-2. At least she got second more often than not – and she WAS distracted checking on a pineapple upside-down cake she was making for Dad during the games, so that couldn’t have helped. We’ll see how it all shakes out tomorrow!
So yeah, not a bad day in the end, just -- could have been better. And now I should head to bed -- tomorrow is Father's Day, after all, and I don't want to sleep through it! (Plus I just need more sleep in general, as I woke up earlier than I wanted today, meh.) Depending on what happens, tomorrow's goals should include getting some draft stuff done on Victor Luvs Alice; playing Fallout 4 and getting Jezebel the robobrain out of Rust Devil headquarters; updating the FO4 Playthrough Progression appropriately; getting in a workout; and watching Gray (if he uploads) and Jon on YouTube. We will see how much of this I manage to get through -- night all!
