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Productive Pre-Halloween Saturday
Oct. 30th, 2021 11:37 pmWith a few annoyances here and there (mainly related to the room clean, see below), but otherwise not too bad for such a rainy and icky Saturday. At least it made it up into the 60s! But yes, as per the list --
1. Clean my room and do my laundry pile: Check – cleaning my room took a little longer than I wanted thanks to me dropping something behind my bed and having to get something to knock it out after I vacuumed away some of the dust and the spider that had taken up residence there, though. Dusting and Swiffering I managed to get done before lunch, then the vacuuming afterward (along with helping with some of the more general laundry), so I was done by that by roughly 2:30 PM. Laundry was done a couple of hours later. At least it’s good for the next two weeks!
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs and watch at least the AT4W in my Watch Later: Check! In fact, I got through more Linkara than anticipated –
A) Started with the AT4W episode I was saving – Ringu 2, the manga adaptation of the sequel movie of the same name! Which is – disjointed, to say the least. Apparently this is technically the SECOND sequel to the original movie, after the first – which had a totally different plot – flopped, and it was rushed into production to keep the franchise alive. As a result, the script isn’t really totally finished, and a lot of stuff is either completely unexplained (like Reiko and Yoishi, the mother and son from the first film, going into hiding after Reiko successfully convinces her father to watch the tape and let the curse take him to save his grandson) or is given a very stupid explanation (the reason Sadako’s curse is so strong? She apparently survived in that well for THIRTY YEARS, which Linkara called total bullshit on). Most of the main plot revolves around Mai, who was Ryuji’s (Yoishi’s father and Reiko’s ex-husband) assistant, who gets embroiled in a weird situation where it seems that passing on the curse didn’t exactly free Reiko and Yoishi, and now she has to figure out a way to stop Yoishi surrendering to “the darkness in his heart” and turning into another Sadako because he has psychic powers too. As does Mai (she at least has some explicit telepathy, telling Yoishi through a mind message at one point to run from the police investigating all this weirdness). There’s a lot of scientific “trying to explain the supernatural” stuff involving hooking people up to machines, and it’s all just – hard to follow and a bit goofy. Linkara personally preferred the very small subplot of Reiko’s assistant from the first movie (did I ever say they were part of a news reporting team? They are) continuing her investigation into the teens sharing copies of the cursed tape, ending up getting a copy from a student, Kanae, who asks him to watch it within a week to save her life, not doing so and explicitly lying to her about it, and then discovering while he’s trying to edit a portion of the interview that it keeps looping on Kanae telling him that the only way to survive is to copy and pass the tape on. . .apparently the movie follows this up with him getting haunted by a very angry Kanae ghost while in a mental hospital, which is good stuff. But Japan apparently prefers the psychic stuff, so. . . *shrug*
Oh, and Linksano’s going to be helping Linkara with his fight against Billy Tor the slasher by doing some reconnaissance in Tor’s own universe to see if he can give Linkara any hints or an edge. *shrugs again* Guess we’ll see how that goes.
B) Then, after supper, moved onto the Late Night Double Feature that Linkara managed to post today (keeping all the Ring-themed stuff in October, yay!) – which this month was actually a triple-feature covering all three American-made Ring movies – The Ring, The Ring 2, and Rings. Clive’s verdict on the three: good with some minor flaws and some interesting changes from the Japanese original; bad with some really stupid writing choices; bad in a different way with some other stupid writing choices. He also noted that a common theme in bad Ring franchise movies, no matter where they’re made, is “Sadako/Samara wanting to be resurrected” – apparently any plot that makes her want to possess someone for a second chance at life is just gonna completely fail at grasping what makes the original movie frightening (and as the ending blurbs pointed out, actually ENDS the curse – if she’s not a ghost, she can’t haunt the videotape, now can she?). A good follow-up to Linkara’s manga stuff, especially since I feel like I understand a bit more about these movies and what makes them tick. Still, looking forward to the return of Clone Saga shenanigans next week! XD
C) Then, after all that, we had Call Me Kevin and One Hand Clapping, a game that is voice-controlled – specifically through singing! Yes, you must sing your way through various puzzles in the levels, powering up objects, turning gears and pushing buttons, and avoiding obstacles with the power of your voice! . . .Kevin mostly sang the very beginning of Smash Mouth’s “All Star” over and over again, with occasional dips into the theme song to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and The Simpsons, a few Disney tunes, a variety of random noises, just complaining about how he couldn’t solve a puzzle (which ended up doing the magic thing he needed to push the button), and – near the end – a Rickroll. I mean, it WORKED, he made it all the way through the first level and most of the way through the second one, but – I’m not entirely sure it’s what the developers intended. XD
D) And then it was over to GrayStillPlays and Move People – aka back to those mobile games that force you to manipulate people in certain ways, and involve quite a lot of disturbing stretching and bending. AKA Gray’s favorite kind of mobile game! This one repeated a few levels that I’ve seen before (making the girl cuddle and kiss her boyfriend, send a cute selfie to a guy), but there was also some new stuff – notably, the “challenges” included dodging lasers in a knock-off Squid Game parody (complete with terrifying squirrel (?) mascot) and walking over milk crate towers (Gray apparently found this version harder than the game that made a whole THING out of this, simply because these people wobble and fall over in entirely different physics-defying ways), and some of the regular levels included going over the monkey bars with VERY glitchy string-limbs (Gray dubbed the woman in said level “Slenderina” because of it), doing some pretty epic dance moves (which in Gray’s case included scratching her ass on her partner’s chest), and dueling a man with a sword (ending with the guy tripping over the girl’s sword because Gray had it so low she dropped it when she “won”). XD Good silly fun!
3. Play Bloodlines and get Crystal to Chinatown: Check! Caught back up with my Tremere in her haven and, after swinging by Pisha’s quickly to give her the severed arm Crystal’s been carrying around since Gimble’s (and get ten bucks in return), headed over to Hollywood to finish up Imalia’s stuff – namely, getting the news about Tawni killing herself after being exposed with some kinky sex shit in the tabloids and collecting payment to clear out that quest, then grabbing her “Cover Girl” magazine quest and popping over to the Sin Bin to get that. Shitty quest in terms of monetary rewards, but more experience is always good – Crystal invested it into the third (and for her, final) level of Dominate, “Sleep,” since my friend Squid mentioned that’s great for more sneaky missions. And then, FINALLY, it was over to Chinatown, where I had her stop in at Ming Xiao’s first to pay her respects, learn more about the Kuei-Jin, and learn that Wong Ho should be her next stop for finding the missing Barbarus, then head over to the Red Dragon to find Wong Ho in a tizzy thanks to the recent kidnapping of his daughter. Crystal naturally offered her help, and after a phone call from his friend Zhao, Wong Ho was able to direct her to the local massage parlor. Crystal promptly made her way over there, where she and I learned that “Sleep” IS an actually useful Dominate power (I’ve had so much trouble with the first two levels in the past, but this one genuinely just makes them pass out, which – I should have taken this AGES ago) and quickly took out the few Tong who showed up to shoot at her with the “Blood Theft” power, which is VERY good on humans. Took a bit to get Kiki actually OUT of the parlor (after freeing her from her closet, she got stuck in the doorway of the room itself, and Crystal had to go back up and get her unstuck), but we managed it, and Crystal reported back to Wong Ho, learned the Tong started picking up strength again around the same time Ming Xiao appeared, and was directed to Zhao to maybe learn where Barbarus is. Though naturally we’re not going there right away – first actual stop? Tseng’s “herbal remedies” for a look at “diplomatic remedies” for Tong gangsters. :p Sold a couple of old guns, and picked up a nice Colt Anaconda (though no ammo yet) and the final outfit for Crystal – an epic black coat with feathery sleeves. :D Her wallet is empty, but she is gonna be styling as she starts working on the Chinatown sidequests!
4. Work some more on my "Worst Lot In The World" challenge: Check – slowly but surely refining the rules! I’ve got most of the ones for my own version of the challenge sorted – still struggling with “Creepy Crawlies” (it came with Jungle Adventure, but I keep wanting to assign the Outdoor Retreat aspiration to it), “Volcanic Activity” (I THINK this should involve befriending an Island Elemental in Sulani), “Filthy” and “Grody” (I’ve already decided you have to clear the first to clear the second, but I’m not sure what you can actually DO to clear “Filthy”), “Quake Zone” (currently the one you clear for completing the “StrangerVille Mystery” aspiration, but should that be a separate goal?), and “On A Dark Ley Line” (feel like this one might simply take too long, as it’s the only multi-generational one – could be fixed by not requiring the vampire kid to complete the “Good Vampire” aspiration). I think it’s coming together, though, slowly but surely!
Additionally:
-->We have jack-o-lanterns! Mom carved them out today – a werewolf for her and Dad’s pumpkin, and Vault Boy from the Fallout series for mine. :) I still need to get the pictures off my iPad, where she sent them, but I’ll have those and me in my costume for you tomorrow!
Not too shabby at all, huh? And finally getting into the Halloween mood with all that Ring stuff. And with Mom setting out the bowl of candy a bit early so we can all pick at it a little before the trick-or-treaters come. XD As it stands, time to set up the to-do list for tomorrow and head out:
1. Work some more on "Worst Lot In The World" OR something "Fallout of Darkness"-related
2. Watch the OXBox/OXtra stuff in my Watch Later, keep up on YouTube Subs, and watch Jon's FO4 YOLO episode
3. Play some more Fallout 4, get Victor out of Vault 111
4. Work on tumblr queues
Not even gonna bother adding a workout to this list -- it's Halloween, I'm gonna be in costume, and we'll be getting kids during the time I normally WOULD work out. Same with keeping the writing simple -- well, that and I will have another gift fic to write shortly (and then the holiday season happens, and. . .there may be significant pauses in my projects, let's just say). Trying to keep things reasonable! Which includes going to bed at a somewhat-decent time so I have time for all of this. . .so yeah, night all!
1. Clean my room and do my laundry pile: Check – cleaning my room took a little longer than I wanted thanks to me dropping something behind my bed and having to get something to knock it out after I vacuumed away some of the dust and the spider that had taken up residence there, though. Dusting and Swiffering I managed to get done before lunch, then the vacuuming afterward (along with helping with some of the more general laundry), so I was done by that by roughly 2:30 PM. Laundry was done a couple of hours later. At least it’s good for the next two weeks!
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs and watch at least the AT4W in my Watch Later: Check! In fact, I got through more Linkara than anticipated –
A) Started with the AT4W episode I was saving – Ringu 2, the manga adaptation of the sequel movie of the same name! Which is – disjointed, to say the least. Apparently this is technically the SECOND sequel to the original movie, after the first – which had a totally different plot – flopped, and it was rushed into production to keep the franchise alive. As a result, the script isn’t really totally finished, and a lot of stuff is either completely unexplained (like Reiko and Yoishi, the mother and son from the first film, going into hiding after Reiko successfully convinces her father to watch the tape and let the curse take him to save his grandson) or is given a very stupid explanation (the reason Sadako’s curse is so strong? She apparently survived in that well for THIRTY YEARS, which Linkara called total bullshit on). Most of the main plot revolves around Mai, who was Ryuji’s (Yoishi’s father and Reiko’s ex-husband) assistant, who gets embroiled in a weird situation where it seems that passing on the curse didn’t exactly free Reiko and Yoishi, and now she has to figure out a way to stop Yoishi surrendering to “the darkness in his heart” and turning into another Sadako because he has psychic powers too. As does Mai (she at least has some explicit telepathy, telling Yoishi through a mind message at one point to run from the police investigating all this weirdness). There’s a lot of scientific “trying to explain the supernatural” stuff involving hooking people up to machines, and it’s all just – hard to follow and a bit goofy. Linkara personally preferred the very small subplot of Reiko’s assistant from the first movie (did I ever say they were part of a news reporting team? They are) continuing her investigation into the teens sharing copies of the cursed tape, ending up getting a copy from a student, Kanae, who asks him to watch it within a week to save her life, not doing so and explicitly lying to her about it, and then discovering while he’s trying to edit a portion of the interview that it keeps looping on Kanae telling him that the only way to survive is to copy and pass the tape on. . .apparently the movie follows this up with him getting haunted by a very angry Kanae ghost while in a mental hospital, which is good stuff. But Japan apparently prefers the psychic stuff, so. . . *shrug*
Oh, and Linksano’s going to be helping Linkara with his fight against Billy Tor the slasher by doing some reconnaissance in Tor’s own universe to see if he can give Linkara any hints or an edge. *shrugs again* Guess we’ll see how that goes.
B) Then, after supper, moved onto the Late Night Double Feature that Linkara managed to post today (keeping all the Ring-themed stuff in October, yay!) – which this month was actually a triple-feature covering all three American-made Ring movies – The Ring, The Ring 2, and Rings. Clive’s verdict on the three: good with some minor flaws and some interesting changes from the Japanese original; bad with some really stupid writing choices; bad in a different way with some other stupid writing choices. He also noted that a common theme in bad Ring franchise movies, no matter where they’re made, is “Sadako/Samara wanting to be resurrected” – apparently any plot that makes her want to possess someone for a second chance at life is just gonna completely fail at grasping what makes the original movie frightening (and as the ending blurbs pointed out, actually ENDS the curse – if she’s not a ghost, she can’t haunt the videotape, now can she?). A good follow-up to Linkara’s manga stuff, especially since I feel like I understand a bit more about these movies and what makes them tick. Still, looking forward to the return of Clone Saga shenanigans next week! XD
C) Then, after all that, we had Call Me Kevin and One Hand Clapping, a game that is voice-controlled – specifically through singing! Yes, you must sing your way through various puzzles in the levels, powering up objects, turning gears and pushing buttons, and avoiding obstacles with the power of your voice! . . .Kevin mostly sang the very beginning of Smash Mouth’s “All Star” over and over again, with occasional dips into the theme song to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and The Simpsons, a few Disney tunes, a variety of random noises, just complaining about how he couldn’t solve a puzzle (which ended up doing the magic thing he needed to push the button), and – near the end – a Rickroll. I mean, it WORKED, he made it all the way through the first level and most of the way through the second one, but – I’m not entirely sure it’s what the developers intended. XD
D) And then it was over to GrayStillPlays and Move People – aka back to those mobile games that force you to manipulate people in certain ways, and involve quite a lot of disturbing stretching and bending. AKA Gray’s favorite kind of mobile game! This one repeated a few levels that I’ve seen before (making the girl cuddle and kiss her boyfriend, send a cute selfie to a guy), but there was also some new stuff – notably, the “challenges” included dodging lasers in a knock-off Squid Game parody (complete with terrifying squirrel (?) mascot) and walking over milk crate towers (Gray apparently found this version harder than the game that made a whole THING out of this, simply because these people wobble and fall over in entirely different physics-defying ways), and some of the regular levels included going over the monkey bars with VERY glitchy string-limbs (Gray dubbed the woman in said level “Slenderina” because of it), doing some pretty epic dance moves (which in Gray’s case included scratching her ass on her partner’s chest), and dueling a man with a sword (ending with the guy tripping over the girl’s sword because Gray had it so low she dropped it when she “won”). XD Good silly fun!
3. Play Bloodlines and get Crystal to Chinatown: Check! Caught back up with my Tremere in her haven and, after swinging by Pisha’s quickly to give her the severed arm Crystal’s been carrying around since Gimble’s (and get ten bucks in return), headed over to Hollywood to finish up Imalia’s stuff – namely, getting the news about Tawni killing herself after being exposed with some kinky sex shit in the tabloids and collecting payment to clear out that quest, then grabbing her “Cover Girl” magazine quest and popping over to the Sin Bin to get that. Shitty quest in terms of monetary rewards, but more experience is always good – Crystal invested it into the third (and for her, final) level of Dominate, “Sleep,” since my friend Squid mentioned that’s great for more sneaky missions. And then, FINALLY, it was over to Chinatown, where I had her stop in at Ming Xiao’s first to pay her respects, learn more about the Kuei-Jin, and learn that Wong Ho should be her next stop for finding the missing Barbarus, then head over to the Red Dragon to find Wong Ho in a tizzy thanks to the recent kidnapping of his daughter. Crystal naturally offered her help, and after a phone call from his friend Zhao, Wong Ho was able to direct her to the local massage parlor. Crystal promptly made her way over there, where she and I learned that “Sleep” IS an actually useful Dominate power (I’ve had so much trouble with the first two levels in the past, but this one genuinely just makes them pass out, which – I should have taken this AGES ago) and quickly took out the few Tong who showed up to shoot at her with the “Blood Theft” power, which is VERY good on humans. Took a bit to get Kiki actually OUT of the parlor (after freeing her from her closet, she got stuck in the doorway of the room itself, and Crystal had to go back up and get her unstuck), but we managed it, and Crystal reported back to Wong Ho, learned the Tong started picking up strength again around the same time Ming Xiao appeared, and was directed to Zhao to maybe learn where Barbarus is. Though naturally we’re not going there right away – first actual stop? Tseng’s “herbal remedies” for a look at “diplomatic remedies” for Tong gangsters. :p Sold a couple of old guns, and picked up a nice Colt Anaconda (though no ammo yet) and the final outfit for Crystal – an epic black coat with feathery sleeves. :D Her wallet is empty, but she is gonna be styling as she starts working on the Chinatown sidequests!
4. Work some more on my "Worst Lot In The World" challenge: Check – slowly but surely refining the rules! I’ve got most of the ones for my own version of the challenge sorted – still struggling with “Creepy Crawlies” (it came with Jungle Adventure, but I keep wanting to assign the Outdoor Retreat aspiration to it), “Volcanic Activity” (I THINK this should involve befriending an Island Elemental in Sulani), “Filthy” and “Grody” (I’ve already decided you have to clear the first to clear the second, but I’m not sure what you can actually DO to clear “Filthy”), “Quake Zone” (currently the one you clear for completing the “StrangerVille Mystery” aspiration, but should that be a separate goal?), and “On A Dark Ley Line” (feel like this one might simply take too long, as it’s the only multi-generational one – could be fixed by not requiring the vampire kid to complete the “Good Vampire” aspiration). I think it’s coming together, though, slowly but surely!
Additionally:
-->We have jack-o-lanterns! Mom carved them out today – a werewolf for her and Dad’s pumpkin, and Vault Boy from the Fallout series for mine. :) I still need to get the pictures off my iPad, where she sent them, but I’ll have those and me in my costume for you tomorrow!
Not too shabby at all, huh? And finally getting into the Halloween mood with all that Ring stuff. And with Mom setting out the bowl of candy a bit early so we can all pick at it a little before the trick-or-treaters come. XD As it stands, time to set up the to-do list for tomorrow and head out:
1. Work some more on "Worst Lot In The World" OR something "Fallout of Darkness"-related
2. Watch the OXBox/OXtra stuff in my Watch Later, keep up on YouTube Subs, and watch Jon's FO4 YOLO episode
3. Play some more Fallout 4, get Victor out of Vault 111
4. Work on tumblr queues
Not even gonna bother adding a workout to this list -- it's Halloween, I'm gonna be in costume, and we'll be getting kids during the time I normally WOULD work out. Same with keeping the writing simple -- well, that and I will have another gift fic to write shortly (and then the holiday season happens, and. . .there may be significant pauses in my projects, let's just say). Trying to keep things reasonable! Which includes going to bed at a somewhat-decent time so I have time for all of this. . .so yeah, night all!
