Another Dose of FREAKING COLD

Sub-zero temperatures with the windchill -- EXTREMELY glad that the most I had to stay out in it was going between car and door! And that I didn't have to go in very early -- the ten AM start time meant the roads weren't quite so busy. Which is good, because RI plow drivers do a pretty shitty job. There's intersections blocked, lanes not fully plowed, and on our street the truck came back up and blocked our driveway in AGAIN. *facepalm* They're really lucky this is light, fluffy snow that it is fairly easy to clear (even with the wind). I can only imagine the nightmares that would result if this was thick, heavy snow.

Work was relatively uneventful. Put on a stock gift, updated some more e-mails, then spent most of the rest of the day updating queries to pull from the right campaign years and suchlike so when we start running reports for parishes, everything is accurate. Snuck in direct debit payments and confirmation e-mails at the last moment. Fairly productive, even with the shortened day. Quiet too -- a couple of coworkers were out because of snow-related issues. Again, very glad I also now live much closer to work and don't have to worry about a long commute (and waiting out in the cold for the bus) on top of everything else.

Evening has been spent in a fair bit of writing:

-->Finished off the "Fixing You" Mysterious East section -- just two more to go until the next chapter! And one of those is a relatively short battle scene because I wanted to show a bit of Victor and Alice fighting side by side before things heat up in Victor's mind.

-->Refined an AU Thursday idea I had for the "Lovecraft Jazz" AU -- basically, I want the Van Dorts to have some sort of connection with Innsmouth, because of the whole cannery/fishing town thing. I think William would be keen to have a cannery in the place, and I'm working out just how far he'd go to get it. . .

-->Came up with my own "Alice: Asylum" idea after seeing some more updates on it (including an ash-and-fire-themed Hysteria mode which gives Alice hair that I THINK is supposed to be fiery but instead makes her look like a classic 80s troll -- you know the ones) and starting to think, "Okay, this is looking more and more like a sequel to A:MR and not a prequel to AMA." My idea is that the game should be more survival horror style, with an emphasis on hiding from enemies, and later using your environment to trap them -- Alice can't fight back until the very last level, where she finally gets the carving knife that will become the Vorpal Blade. It also shouldn't feature Wonderland as a location, but rather a twisted version of Rutledge Asylum (sort of like the hallucination we get in A:MR). Alice has to run from monsters that represent staff and treatments, and something that looks a bit like fiery Queen tentacles (or, perhaps occasionally, a fiery Dollmaker hand). Early levels are simple hiding affairs with a young Alice, and gradually get more complex and introduce the "manipulate your environment to trap your foes" mechanic as she gets older. Finally, a teenage Alice gets the knife and is able to stab the fiery beast and repel it -- and then the ending cutscene loops back around to the beginning of AMA, with Alice being called into Wonderland as she's proven ready to actually take on the dangers, instead of running from her memories and guilt. *shrug* I dunno, I thought it was good.

And of course I've been answering PMs and RP stuff, and setting up my Valice Multiverse queue. Along with watching a Kubz Scouts video (a return to Doki Doki Literature Club -- Jay messes with the game files and gets another bad ending, and the good ending that you really have to grind for, and tries some stuff that just doesn't work right) and an OXBox video (predictions for this year from video games of the past). Typical Friday night stuff.

I still need to finish up that Valice Multiverse queue, though, so I'd better get back to that. Night all!