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Cold And Rainy Sunday
May. 30th, 2021 11:15 pmMaybe a TOUCH warmer than it was yesterday, but for the most part still just as chilly, still just as wet. Meeeh. At least tomorrow it's expected to a) not be raining all day and b) actually break 60F, so that's something. I could take all this rain a lot better (we do need it) if it was at least warmer! It's the end of May, and I feel like we've either skipped back to mid-March or forward to late October. *grumps*
At least it wasn't a bad day, at least when it came to activities involving hanging around the house:
1. Continue working on the Hypnokink Verse Notes: Check – did some work on the magic section, like I indicated I would. Slowly clarifying how it works in this universe – while it’s still something technically available to all people, it needs to be “awakened” by some major life-changing event, and rather than having universal spells, people get specific abilities, at least loosely tied to whatever caused the awakening. I’ve decided on one “major” ability and two minor ones for my mains – Alice, naturally has a dreamwalking ability that allows her to visit other people’s dreams, or pull people into hers, though she can only do one at a time (visit one other person or have one visitor); I’ve also given her some minor illusion spells (aka the ability to change her appearance a la the end of A:MR) – and minor pyrokinesis, because I’ve decided the inciting event for her magic is her going back to Wonderland after years in Rutledge, and the years in Rutledge were caused by the fire. Also I can’t resist the irony/minor angst. Though, in a way, it’s actually a good thing – she can’t START fires, but she can put them out, so. . . I already know Victor’s major ability is crossing the veil into the Land of the Dead – I’m still ironing out the details, though I know he can do himself, or himself and one passenger. I’m also trying to decide on his minor abilities – his magic was naturally awakened by the “marriage” to Emily, so it’s gotta be related to what happened in the movie, essentially. (Elder Gutknecht, meanwhile, has a more powerful version of the veil-breaking ability to explain the whole ‘village of the dead coming to the Land of the Living for the wedding’ thing – I’m keeping people having varying power levels in this verse. I mean, I’ve got to keep it consistent with what we saw on-screen in CB!) It’s coming along, though, again – an awful lot of backstory for a verse that is basically all hypnokink after the first installment. I should maybe think up some more “vanilla” stories for this verse. . .also a name. Really gotta do a name. (Can’t use “Portal Verse” because – well, that sounds like a DIFFERENT crossover.)
2. Watch the two OXBox RE8 episodes in my Watch Later, and Jon's Fallout 4 YOLO episode -- if possible, fit in Subs: Check! Longplay horror Sunday here on YouTube, with the three hour-long videos and two shorter ones from my Subs – got one left to watch tomorrow, but that’s no big deal.
A) FINALLY got around to the OXBox RE8 episodes in my Watch Later! We had –
I. “TALL VAMPIRE LADY CASTLE” – aka the one part everyone knows because it features Lady D, the tall vampire lady everyone adores. No Jane though – apparently she was too busy for this part as well! She missed some wild shit, though, like the revelation that all of the “daughter” vampires are apparently just giant swarms of bugs mimicking being human (SUUUURE, RE8, suuuure). Or Lady D herself transforming into a strange multi-mouthed dragon centaur thing (it looked kind of like a combination of the spider-ladies and the Gaping Dragon from Dark Souls – actually, a LOT about the lower castle areas, especially with the lesser zombie enemies, reminds one of DS). Or Ethan getting AN ENTIRE HAND CUT OFF (and then putting it back on with chem fluid – I would argue that he really needs to regrow his fingers if he can still DO that, but Andy pointed out that Ethan’s regeneration seems to mainly include REATTACHING lost parts, and his missing fingers got swallowed, so, fair enough). Or the Duke applauding Ethan for taking potshots at Lady D through the “safe room” door (Lady D managed later to get her revenge by slicing him through it). Or the Keeping Up Appearances reference less than a minute into the episode, which tickled me probably more than it should have. XD All that and Ethan didn’t even find Rose. Come on, dude, are you a latent biological weapon or aren’t ya?
II. “TERRIFYING DOLL HOUSE NIGHTMARE” – aka the creepy horror puppet section that, according to a post I saw on tumblr, the Japanese developers didn’t realize would be QUITE so creepy to us Americans. XD Oh, and Jane’s finally here! Just in time for stuff like The Duke forcing Ethan to travel through a bunch of Lycans to get the other half of a key to find the rest of his child’s crystallized remains! (Yes, this is – this is a thing. Rose is currently in crystal form in four flasks. Okay then.) A trip up to the creepy Tim Burton haunted doll house! Carefully extracting necessary puzzle elements from a super-creepy Mia mannequin! A well of horrors straight out of The Ring! And, of course, the piece de resistance – THE FUCKING GIANT FETUS MONSTER IN THE BASEMENT. No, seriously – while we do get some haunted doll action near the end, this particular part of the game focuses on a horrible fetus monster that you have to hide from in cupboards. Andy was – very “pleased” about the entire situation. XD Seriously, if you’d heard the length of his swear beeps in this section. . . But they made it through, stabbed Angie and thus her Lord to death, grabbed Rose’s legs and Angie herself (I assume she’s saleable?), and pipe-bombed the house. Next time (by which I mean tomorrow), I assume we take on the Lord of the reservoir! Fuuuun. . .
B) Then this evening we started with Call Me Kevin and reacting to another minisode of Extreme Cheapskates from TLC! The episode this time centered around a cheap multi-millionaire who did things like have her ex-husband come around to clean the house for free (saying it was “good exercise”), refusing to get her car serviced because it’s a piece of crap and she doesn’t want to spend $1,000 on it, scamming her way into a free flight to L.A. for a business meeting, and apparently feeding people who come over cat food. And I know this stuff is probably played up for the cameras, but CRIPES. Kevin was horrified and considered her worse than the last guy we saw on this show, the one who only flushed his toilet once a week. Yeesh! Some people. . .
C) After that we needed a palate cleanser – how about GrayStillPlays turning horses into horrific overpowered overzeroed beasts in Minecraft? Giant overpowered overzeroed beasts at that – max level, one jump leaves massive craters in the earth, and it can run faster than the world can generate! Gray also made magical wands that allowed him to do things like dump water and lava over innocent animals and villagers, and spawn massive amounts of various mobs (there was a very telling shot of him fleeing his own destruction). Defeating the Ender Dragon took just coating all her regen crystals in lava and then having the horse jump once. Gray was unsatisfied and so spawned all the Withers to battle with his horse, because if there is one thing this channel does right, it is ridiculousness. XD Ahhh, good times as always. . .
D) And then it was time for our usual Sunday nonsense – Jon’s Fallout 4 YOLO episode! We picked up with Finalley in Dunwich Borers, getting ready to take on the jumpscare ghouls! Which, interestingly enough, are not triggered by going into dark areas, but rather by LIGHTING UP dark areas – yeah, if you don’t want occasional surprise ghouls, DON’T HIT THE CIRCUIT BREAKERS IN HERE. Finalley proceeded slowly and cautiously, making her way through the waves of ghouls and the hallucinations with gritted teeth, picking up her Sneak Bobblehead –
And NOT picking up Kremvh’s Tooth. The special machete that she came all this way for. Because Jon read his comment section, and the comment section pointed out that, while the Tooth is not TECHNICALLY a Legendary – just a machete with a special mod – that mod cannot be crafted by any means. It’s a unique mod you only get on this machete. Meaning it basically FUNCTIONS as a guaranteed Legendary spawn. And one of the rules of You Only Live Once is – no guaranteed Legendary spawns.
Well, piss. Poor Jon and poor Finalley – all that way and they can’t even get everything they came for. Though it wasn’t completely pointless – they did get the magazine and the bobblehead, and thanks to some timely Idiot Savant triggers, Finalley got a whole bunch of XP and was able to level up and max out the “Armorer” perk to upgrade her hat and fatigues to the best ballistic weave. Plus there were a few Legendaries – most of them didn’t have anything useful, sadly, but one did drop an Acrobat’s Synth Right Leg! Finalley took it because it was light, and she couldn’t recall which leg her other Acrobat’s piece was on – happily, once she did get back to base, it proved to be a Metal Left Leg. So now she has that for emergencies. (Sadly, the piece of Unyielding gear she picked up proved to be a duplicate – Left Leg for both. Ah well.)
Anyway, with the ghouls cleared out and no other goodies to be found, Finalley climbed out of the quarry and teleported home via a stop at the Institute. She briefly went down the road to check out some gunfire – turned out to be raiders fighting at least one of another pair of Arts (the human-vs-replacement-synth random encounter – seriously, shouldn’t that be UNIQUE?), so Finalley decided not to get involved. Instead, it was back to base to drop off and pick up some stuff, then off to Diamond City to upgrade her armor (a process that took a few purchases and a couple of runs back to Hangman’s Alley) and to purchase the “welp, can’t use the fancy machete” back-up weapon – one of Moe’s Swatters! A variant of baseball bats which deal good damage – especially when they come with blades. Minnie can attest to those being useful in Nuka-World, Finalley!
Speaking of which, after finishing up her business in Diamond City, cowering away from a raider attack right at the front gates (which ended up resulting in a car explosion that a security guard just stood in front of like a BADASS), rejiggering her loadout at Hangman’s Alley, finally getting a good night’s sleep (and paying for it with the “Weakness” illness – more damage taken, just what she needs right now), and getting all sorted with food and water – Finalley made her way over to Nuka-World. It was a relatively quiet trip, though she was spooked by a vertibird firing on a synth near the end of it – LOOKED like Brotherhood, but who knows these days, huh? But she made it to the Nuka-World Transit Center unscathed!
Of course, at the Transit Center, there was the little matter of the Gunners and their Assaultron to deal with. . . Fortunately Finalley came prepared with a Fat Man and professionalism. She snuck around the outer edge of the center, sniped off the guards on the roof, then waited on a nearby cliff until the Assaultron was bunched up with the remaining Gunners and hit them with a critical Fat Man mini-nuke. For once, everything was textbook perfect for old Finalley – took out the lot with not a scratch. (Though someone in the comments did point out the named character, Kaylor, has not yet been IDed. . .) So next time, it’s FINALLY into the Gauntlet, and the start of Nuka-World! Very curious to see where this one goes!
3. Play Alice: Madness Returns and finish up Chapter 5 of the game: Check! Got through the final three “dollhead” sequences (which – I’d forgotten how fiddly the middle one is at the end; if you don’t hit those boosts JUST RIGHT. . .), the final big fight (also annoying – trying to get into a position to remove the Menacing Ruin’s guarding arms is tough when you have two Doll Girls to deal with too!), and the confrontation with the Dollmaker (he remains a creepy fucking bastard). Left off at the very beginning of Chapter 6, aka the “cutscenes and final boss fight” chapter – with everything collected except that ONE freaking snout from the Deluded Depths. However, finding that (and watching all the theatricals and listening to all the memories) is for next week. Just a fortnight to go until the big 1-0!
4. Get in a workout: No check – between the long videos of the day, quickly finishing up Chapter 5 of A:MR, and getting distracted by other stuff, I never made it downstairs. (Okay, and the basement where we keep the exercise equipment is cold and I didn’t feel like it.) Ah well, I’ve done weekends with two skips before, it’s not a huge deal. Maybe I’ll do some treadmill time tomorrow to help “make up” for it.
5. Prep for tumblr queues: Check – got an early start last night by getting the pictures ready for Eric’s next Newcrest Adventures update (the first half of my “double day” session last weekend); then did some quick drafting this morning before lunch. And this evening, three asks and one thread reply for Valice Multiverse into the queue! Glad to be staying on top of this stuff!
So yeah -- not a bad day for activities involving me sitting down. XD I do hope to do better with the workout one tomorrow, but I DID watch three hour-long videos today, and my motivation is not good on rainy days. Really hoping tomorrow is nicer!
Speaking of tomorrow -- I've got an extra night of Writing Thing, plus a comment to answer, so let's set up the to-do list and get moving:
1. Either edit some more on "Londerland Bloodlines" or work some more on the HypnoKink magic system
2. Keep up on YouTube Subs and the latest OXBox RE8 video which should post tomorrow; see if I can also take care of the list videos in the Watch Later
3. Play Sims 4 and either work some more on the Ice Cream Conery or start the Brown-Kosperov cycle of Newcrest Adventures
4. Get in a workout
5. Work on tumblr queues
Yes, allowing myself options because holiday weekend, I may want to do things other than what I'm "supposed" to. :p Ideally I might be able to get BOTH of the first item done. . .we'll see! For now, I'm off -- night all!
At least it wasn't a bad day, at least when it came to activities involving hanging around the house:
1. Continue working on the Hypnokink Verse Notes: Check – did some work on the magic section, like I indicated I would. Slowly clarifying how it works in this universe – while it’s still something technically available to all people, it needs to be “awakened” by some major life-changing event, and rather than having universal spells, people get specific abilities, at least loosely tied to whatever caused the awakening. I’ve decided on one “major” ability and two minor ones for my mains – Alice, naturally has a dreamwalking ability that allows her to visit other people’s dreams, or pull people into hers, though she can only do one at a time (visit one other person or have one visitor); I’ve also given her some minor illusion spells (aka the ability to change her appearance a la the end of A:MR) – and minor pyrokinesis, because I’ve decided the inciting event for her magic is her going back to Wonderland after years in Rutledge, and the years in Rutledge were caused by the fire. Also I can’t resist the irony/minor angst. Though, in a way, it’s actually a good thing – she can’t START fires, but she can put them out, so. . . I already know Victor’s major ability is crossing the veil into the Land of the Dead – I’m still ironing out the details, though I know he can do himself, or himself and one passenger. I’m also trying to decide on his minor abilities – his magic was naturally awakened by the “marriage” to Emily, so it’s gotta be related to what happened in the movie, essentially. (Elder Gutknecht, meanwhile, has a more powerful version of the veil-breaking ability to explain the whole ‘village of the dead coming to the Land of the Living for the wedding’ thing – I’m keeping people having varying power levels in this verse. I mean, I’ve got to keep it consistent with what we saw on-screen in CB!) It’s coming along, though, again – an awful lot of backstory for a verse that is basically all hypnokink after the first installment. I should maybe think up some more “vanilla” stories for this verse. . .also a name. Really gotta do a name. (Can’t use “Portal Verse” because – well, that sounds like a DIFFERENT crossover.)
2. Watch the two OXBox RE8 episodes in my Watch Later, and Jon's Fallout 4 YOLO episode -- if possible, fit in Subs: Check! Longplay horror Sunday here on YouTube, with the three hour-long videos and two shorter ones from my Subs – got one left to watch tomorrow, but that’s no big deal.
A) FINALLY got around to the OXBox RE8 episodes in my Watch Later! We had –
I. “TALL VAMPIRE LADY CASTLE” – aka the one part everyone knows because it features Lady D, the tall vampire lady everyone adores. No Jane though – apparently she was too busy for this part as well! She missed some wild shit, though, like the revelation that all of the “daughter” vampires are apparently just giant swarms of bugs mimicking being human (SUUUURE, RE8, suuuure). Or Lady D herself transforming into a strange multi-mouthed dragon centaur thing (it looked kind of like a combination of the spider-ladies and the Gaping Dragon from Dark Souls – actually, a LOT about the lower castle areas, especially with the lesser zombie enemies, reminds one of DS). Or Ethan getting AN ENTIRE HAND CUT OFF (and then putting it back on with chem fluid – I would argue that he really needs to regrow his fingers if he can still DO that, but Andy pointed out that Ethan’s regeneration seems to mainly include REATTACHING lost parts, and his missing fingers got swallowed, so, fair enough). Or the Duke applauding Ethan for taking potshots at Lady D through the “safe room” door (Lady D managed later to get her revenge by slicing him through it). Or the Keeping Up Appearances reference less than a minute into the episode, which tickled me probably more than it should have. XD All that and Ethan didn’t even find Rose. Come on, dude, are you a latent biological weapon or aren’t ya?
II. “TERRIFYING DOLL HOUSE NIGHTMARE” – aka the creepy horror puppet section that, according to a post I saw on tumblr, the Japanese developers didn’t realize would be QUITE so creepy to us Americans. XD Oh, and Jane’s finally here! Just in time for stuff like The Duke forcing Ethan to travel through a bunch of Lycans to get the other half of a key to find the rest of his child’s crystallized remains! (Yes, this is – this is a thing. Rose is currently in crystal form in four flasks. Okay then.) A trip up to the creepy Tim Burton haunted doll house! Carefully extracting necessary puzzle elements from a super-creepy Mia mannequin! A well of horrors straight out of The Ring! And, of course, the piece de resistance – THE FUCKING GIANT FETUS MONSTER IN THE BASEMENT. No, seriously – while we do get some haunted doll action near the end, this particular part of the game focuses on a horrible fetus monster that you have to hide from in cupboards. Andy was – very “pleased” about the entire situation. XD Seriously, if you’d heard the length of his swear beeps in this section. . . But they made it through, stabbed Angie and thus her Lord to death, grabbed Rose’s legs and Angie herself (I assume she’s saleable?), and pipe-bombed the house. Next time (by which I mean tomorrow), I assume we take on the Lord of the reservoir! Fuuuun. . .
B) Then this evening we started with Call Me Kevin and reacting to another minisode of Extreme Cheapskates from TLC! The episode this time centered around a cheap multi-millionaire who did things like have her ex-husband come around to clean the house for free (saying it was “good exercise”), refusing to get her car serviced because it’s a piece of crap and she doesn’t want to spend $1,000 on it, scamming her way into a free flight to L.A. for a business meeting, and apparently feeding people who come over cat food. And I know this stuff is probably played up for the cameras, but CRIPES. Kevin was horrified and considered her worse than the last guy we saw on this show, the one who only flushed his toilet once a week. Yeesh! Some people. . .
C) After that we needed a palate cleanser – how about GrayStillPlays turning horses into horrific overpowered overzeroed beasts in Minecraft? Giant overpowered overzeroed beasts at that – max level, one jump leaves massive craters in the earth, and it can run faster than the world can generate! Gray also made magical wands that allowed him to do things like dump water and lava over innocent animals and villagers, and spawn massive amounts of various mobs (there was a very telling shot of him fleeing his own destruction). Defeating the Ender Dragon took just coating all her regen crystals in lava and then having the horse jump once. Gray was unsatisfied and so spawned all the Withers to battle with his horse, because if there is one thing this channel does right, it is ridiculousness. XD Ahhh, good times as always. . .
D) And then it was time for our usual Sunday nonsense – Jon’s Fallout 4 YOLO episode! We picked up with Finalley in Dunwich Borers, getting ready to take on the jumpscare ghouls! Which, interestingly enough, are not triggered by going into dark areas, but rather by LIGHTING UP dark areas – yeah, if you don’t want occasional surprise ghouls, DON’T HIT THE CIRCUIT BREAKERS IN HERE. Finalley proceeded slowly and cautiously, making her way through the waves of ghouls and the hallucinations with gritted teeth, picking up her Sneak Bobblehead –
And NOT picking up Kremvh’s Tooth. The special machete that she came all this way for. Because Jon read his comment section, and the comment section pointed out that, while the Tooth is not TECHNICALLY a Legendary – just a machete with a special mod – that mod cannot be crafted by any means. It’s a unique mod you only get on this machete. Meaning it basically FUNCTIONS as a guaranteed Legendary spawn. And one of the rules of You Only Live Once is – no guaranteed Legendary spawns.
Well, piss. Poor Jon and poor Finalley – all that way and they can’t even get everything they came for. Though it wasn’t completely pointless – they did get the magazine and the bobblehead, and thanks to some timely Idiot Savant triggers, Finalley got a whole bunch of XP and was able to level up and max out the “Armorer” perk to upgrade her hat and fatigues to the best ballistic weave. Plus there were a few Legendaries – most of them didn’t have anything useful, sadly, but one did drop an Acrobat’s Synth Right Leg! Finalley took it because it was light, and she couldn’t recall which leg her other Acrobat’s piece was on – happily, once she did get back to base, it proved to be a Metal Left Leg. So now she has that for emergencies. (Sadly, the piece of Unyielding gear she picked up proved to be a duplicate – Left Leg for both. Ah well.)
Anyway, with the ghouls cleared out and no other goodies to be found, Finalley climbed out of the quarry and teleported home via a stop at the Institute. She briefly went down the road to check out some gunfire – turned out to be raiders fighting at least one of another pair of Arts (the human-vs-replacement-synth random encounter – seriously, shouldn’t that be UNIQUE?), so Finalley decided not to get involved. Instead, it was back to base to drop off and pick up some stuff, then off to Diamond City to upgrade her armor (a process that took a few purchases and a couple of runs back to Hangman’s Alley) and to purchase the “welp, can’t use the fancy machete” back-up weapon – one of Moe’s Swatters! A variant of baseball bats which deal good damage – especially when they come with blades. Minnie can attest to those being useful in Nuka-World, Finalley!
Speaking of which, after finishing up her business in Diamond City, cowering away from a raider attack right at the front gates (which ended up resulting in a car explosion that a security guard just stood in front of like a BADASS), rejiggering her loadout at Hangman’s Alley, finally getting a good night’s sleep (and paying for it with the “Weakness” illness – more damage taken, just what she needs right now), and getting all sorted with food and water – Finalley made her way over to Nuka-World. It was a relatively quiet trip, though she was spooked by a vertibird firing on a synth near the end of it – LOOKED like Brotherhood, but who knows these days, huh? But she made it to the Nuka-World Transit Center unscathed!
Of course, at the Transit Center, there was the little matter of the Gunners and their Assaultron to deal with. . . Fortunately Finalley came prepared with a Fat Man and professionalism. She snuck around the outer edge of the center, sniped off the guards on the roof, then waited on a nearby cliff until the Assaultron was bunched up with the remaining Gunners and hit them with a critical Fat Man mini-nuke. For once, everything was textbook perfect for old Finalley – took out the lot with not a scratch. (Though someone in the comments did point out the named character, Kaylor, has not yet been IDed. . .) So next time, it’s FINALLY into the Gauntlet, and the start of Nuka-World! Very curious to see where this one goes!
3. Play Alice: Madness Returns and finish up Chapter 5 of the game: Check! Got through the final three “dollhead” sequences (which – I’d forgotten how fiddly the middle one is at the end; if you don’t hit those boosts JUST RIGHT. . .), the final big fight (also annoying – trying to get into a position to remove the Menacing Ruin’s guarding arms is tough when you have two Doll Girls to deal with too!), and the confrontation with the Dollmaker (he remains a creepy fucking bastard). Left off at the very beginning of Chapter 6, aka the “cutscenes and final boss fight” chapter – with everything collected except that ONE freaking snout from the Deluded Depths. However, finding that (and watching all the theatricals and listening to all the memories) is for next week. Just a fortnight to go until the big 1-0!
4. Get in a workout: No check – between the long videos of the day, quickly finishing up Chapter 5 of A:MR, and getting distracted by other stuff, I never made it downstairs. (Okay, and the basement where we keep the exercise equipment is cold and I didn’t feel like it.) Ah well, I’ve done weekends with two skips before, it’s not a huge deal. Maybe I’ll do some treadmill time tomorrow to help “make up” for it.
5. Prep for tumblr queues: Check – got an early start last night by getting the pictures ready for Eric’s next Newcrest Adventures update (the first half of my “double day” session last weekend); then did some quick drafting this morning before lunch. And this evening, three asks and one thread reply for Valice Multiverse into the queue! Glad to be staying on top of this stuff!
So yeah -- not a bad day for activities involving me sitting down. XD I do hope to do better with the workout one tomorrow, but I DID watch three hour-long videos today, and my motivation is not good on rainy days. Really hoping tomorrow is nicer!
Speaking of tomorrow -- I've got an extra night of Writing Thing, plus a comment to answer, so let's set up the to-do list and get moving:
1. Either edit some more on "Londerland Bloodlines" or work some more on the HypnoKink magic system
2. Keep up on YouTube Subs and the latest OXBox RE8 video which should post tomorrow; see if I can also take care of the list videos in the Watch Later
3. Play Sims 4 and either work some more on the Ice Cream Conery or start the Brown-Kosperov cycle of Newcrest Adventures
4. Get in a workout
5. Work on tumblr queues
Yes, allowing myself options because holiday weekend, I may want to do things other than what I'm "supposed" to. :p Ideally I might be able to get BOTH of the first item done. . .we'll see! For now, I'm off -- night all!
