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Relaxing Saturday
Dec. 4th, 2021 11:41 pmDespite my mom having to fight with her new countertop oven (it likes to reset itself for everything you bake, unlike the last one) -- we seriously need to get on the kitchen remodel. But yeah, had a pretty chill day, spending a good chunk of time just chillin' on TV Tropes. And getting a decent amount done on my to-do list as well:
1. Either draft out another gift ficor have a Free Writing Day: Check to the former – since I was in a Bloodlines mood after gaming, I went ahead and did the prompt for a friend who wanted his OC in the VTMB verse, visiting the Last Round – and not having a great time of it, as she’s a Camarilla prince in Anarch territory. Think I whipped up something he’d like, with her confusing a furious Damsel by being reasonable (like saying that she’d given an overworked Alice a night off – and that she doesn’t like LaCroix either). XD Fun to write, at any rate!
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs, including Wyrd Sisters Podcast, and the stuff in the Watch Later: Check – sadly helped by the fact that James Turner STILL isn’t uploading (growing slightly concerned), and Call Me Kevin also didn’t upload today (checked his tweets and he said he’d gotten a throat infection after a bad flu :( ). So yeah. . .at least I did get everything on my list?
A) Started with the Late Night Double Feature in the WL, which was hosting “Exorcist Prequel Night” – featuring technically the same movie twice. You see, for The Exorcist: The Beginning, the film switched directors near the end, and the movie was totally reshot with the new guy. . .but when it tanked, they finished off the old director’s version (as it was mostly done when they brought in the new blood) and released it as Dominion: Prequel To The Exorcist. So both movies have roughly the same plot – it’s a prequel focusing on the old priest from the original film, Father Merrin, and his first encounter with Pazuzu, the demon that possessed Regan, in the late 1940s on an archaeological dig in Kenya that’s uncovering a strangely intact church from a time before Christianity should have entered the region. He’s suffering with his faith after being forced to pick people to execute when Nazis invaded his village, but regains it as he helps defeat Pazuzu as it helps spark off conflict between the native tribesmen and the British military. The details vary between versions – in one, it LOOKS like it’s possessing the son of one of the natives, but it turns out the demon’s actually chosen the local doctor (Sarah); in the other, the demon goes for an outcast boy Merrin and the doctor (now Rachel) have chosen to help. Both of them are just okay movies, and not great prequels to The Exorcist, but Clive thinks that between The Beginning having better horror and Dominion having better side characters, pacing, and narrative tension, there’s a decent movie and prequel lurking there SOMEWHERE. A few commenters have expressed interest in seeing a fan cut that combines the best of the two films, which probably would be interesting. (Also, apparently The Exorcist 3 is Linkara’s favorite horror movie. Who knew?)
B) Then, in a case of total mood whiplash, we had The Red Plumbob doing a Sims franchise-wide comparison of how the games handle Christmas! We’ve gone from pretty simple to reasonably complex as the games have gone on – and weirdly enough, out of the four mainline games, Sims 3 is the only one where there’s no official “Santa” figure! You only get an outfit you can buy from the Store. O.o Granted, it also has a party specifically for giving gifts AND the Winter Festival, so it’s not exactly lagging behind in things to do, but it does feel a bit weird. And it is nice to see that Sims 4 made some nice additions to the holiday with a tree Sims can decorate themselves, and a Father Winter you can really interact with. :) Though I do kind of miss Sims 2 Santa leaving coal just for having substandard cookies. XD
C) Then it was over to the Subs for the only video there – GrayStillPlays and more Happy Wheels! Featuring a bottle flip in stages (as in you had to flip the bottle into green areas each time – Gray actually struggled the most on the very first flip thanks to breaking the bottle and having unerring aim for the one red area XD); a glass break with “stabbing: yeet” and a wall of bottles (nothing too difficult, though Gray did save a hobo from being smashed by a meteor – the second time); a bottle run with the added complications of Poppy from “Poppy’s Playtime” chasing you, loop-de-loops between each bottle section, and increasing gaps within each bottle section (plus a secret win half-spike fall at the beginning – Gray never even saw Poppy in the end, he was zooming through his loop-de-loops so fast); a visit to the Hell Baby Planet, where babies from hell were trying to kill him (Gray actually tried to spare the final baby its fate of being speared on a trident the first time – and got stabbed in the head for his effort); “Flappy Wheels” with Florida Man and his personal helicopter (Gray’s noted lack of patience killed him quite a few times here); a trip in the death car, mowing down various inanimate objects and people (Gray lost his arms but managed to keep Nixon in the driver’s seat til the win); an impossible parkour level that was over so fast Gray didn’t even know what the hell he was parkouring (those arrows going up his ass?); a fight against an ax murderer that Gray had to do quite a few times because Nixon wouldn’t grab his katana (got there in the end, though!); a Greek-themed pogo fight with some extra parkour thrown in for flavor (Pogo Man completed the course with a katana in his crotch, but he did complete it); and a trip to the gym with the hobo in a wheelchair, where escaping supplement-enhanced Santa often ended with Gray’s head ripped off (turned out to be a case of EXTREMELY careful timing and angles to get through the yeeters to the winning area). Always good to see the community being plenty creative :D
D) And finally, this evening, we finally had the latest episode of the Wyrd Sisters Podcast, and its take on Going Postal! Which is easily my personal favorite of the Discworld series. :D I love Moist, I love Adora Belle, I love the whole (sadly incredibly topical these days) plot. . .and to my delight, Manning and Liz really liked it too. They pointed out a couple of iffy moments (Moist describing Sachrissa Cripslock being a woman with “Views” because she has a wedding ring but is still referring to herself as a “Miss;” Stanley’s violent moments being linked to his mental illness; the weird dissonance of Vetinari being a dictator in a book where one of the main themes is you gotta really watch people with that amount of power (though they did acknowledge that Vetinari does at least constantly focus on the common good)), but overall found it a solid entry with plenty to like about it. :) And next month is Thud!, which is one of THE Discworld books, so that should be pretty interesting. . .
3. Play Bloodlines and prep to save a professor from the Society of Leopold: Check! After popping back into the game and checking to see if Strauss had any new dialogue (from what I could see, he did not), I had Crystal take a cab over to the Society of Leopold to invade it! Her first attempt did not go particularly well (turns out Blood Boiling an enemy to try and get ranged damage off his explosion means everyone in the world starts shooting at you), but the second try, with copious amounts of hitting people with Sleep and some quick lockpicking and sneaking, worked a hell of a lot better. She got into the society itself, snuck around and reprogrammed a bunch of their laser tripwires to kill humans instead of vampires, shot and drank a bunch of people, made her way into the lower sanctums, wasted probably more time than necessary killing two guards from up high in the caves, went and saved Ash (always good to pick up a little more experience), and then used Blood Theft and a broadsword to take out most of the remaining guards. And past them, it was time for Bach!
Which – took longer than expected, because I’d forgotten what a pain-in-the-ass he is as a boss. Any boss that has a sniper rifle, a shield he can pull up whenever you score a hit on him, and the ability to teleport if you get too close, is a real asshole. Fortunately, I found a few places that gave me good cover and let me heal up in between taking shots at him, but I still died once, and it got to be a pretty near thing at the end, what with all the blood I was using to activate Fortitude and Blood Healing. But I eventually downed the bastard, found Johansen, and listened to him go on about the Ankaran Sarcophagus over cookies. :p And then ran out of the cave just ahead of Bach’s self-destruct charges. Arrived back in the city to see the evidence of the Sabbat attack, but decided to swing by Crystal’s haven first – and found Heather, who told Crystal about the creepy dream she’d had where she’d been left all alone. And who gave Crystal the body armor.
Which I’m pretty sure is the last thing she gives you before she’s kidnapped by the Sabbat and murdered. I have opted to reload, redo my run to the boat much better, and save before entering the chantry, because – damn it, I don’t want poor Heather to die. I don’t characterize Crystal as a very nice person, but I have it as she genuinely likes Heather, so – I think her ghoul’s gotta go next time I play. Ah well. . .
4. Work on tumblr queues: No check, unfortunately – you can probably blame the aforementioned TV Tropes for that one! But I do have the Screenshots folder for my Sims game open now, so I can at least attempt to get the pictures for my next Chill Save update done before I go to bed! And I did get another prompt from a tumblr friend for gift fic, so that's good. :)
And that's about it, barring some RP stuff with tumblr peeps. Trust me, I'm glad to have a fairly unstressful Saturday just hanging out for the most part! Hopefully Sunday is more of the same. . .here's my to-do list for tomorrow!
1. Either draft out another gift fic or have a Free Writing Day
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs and Jon's final FO4 YOLO episode (the epi-yolo-gue, if you will)
3. Play Fallout 4 and brave Concord at last
4. Work on tumblr queues
5. Get in a workout
You know, standard Sunday stuff. *nods* We'll see how it goes! Night all!
1. Either draft out another gift fic
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs, including Wyrd Sisters Podcast, and the stuff in the Watch Later: Check – sadly helped by the fact that James Turner STILL isn’t uploading (growing slightly concerned), and Call Me Kevin also didn’t upload today (checked his tweets and he said he’d gotten a throat infection after a bad flu :( ). So yeah. . .at least I did get everything on my list?
A) Started with the Late Night Double Feature in the WL, which was hosting “Exorcist Prequel Night” – featuring technically the same movie twice. You see, for The Exorcist: The Beginning, the film switched directors near the end, and the movie was totally reshot with the new guy. . .but when it tanked, they finished off the old director’s version (as it was mostly done when they brought in the new blood) and released it as Dominion: Prequel To The Exorcist. So both movies have roughly the same plot – it’s a prequel focusing on the old priest from the original film, Father Merrin, and his first encounter with Pazuzu, the demon that possessed Regan, in the late 1940s on an archaeological dig in Kenya that’s uncovering a strangely intact church from a time before Christianity should have entered the region. He’s suffering with his faith after being forced to pick people to execute when Nazis invaded his village, but regains it as he helps defeat Pazuzu as it helps spark off conflict between the native tribesmen and the British military. The details vary between versions – in one, it LOOKS like it’s possessing the son of one of the natives, but it turns out the demon’s actually chosen the local doctor (Sarah); in the other, the demon goes for an outcast boy Merrin and the doctor (now Rachel) have chosen to help. Both of them are just okay movies, and not great prequels to The Exorcist, but Clive thinks that between The Beginning having better horror and Dominion having better side characters, pacing, and narrative tension, there’s a decent movie and prequel lurking there SOMEWHERE. A few commenters have expressed interest in seeing a fan cut that combines the best of the two films, which probably would be interesting. (Also, apparently The Exorcist 3 is Linkara’s favorite horror movie. Who knew?)
B) Then, in a case of total mood whiplash, we had The Red Plumbob doing a Sims franchise-wide comparison of how the games handle Christmas! We’ve gone from pretty simple to reasonably complex as the games have gone on – and weirdly enough, out of the four mainline games, Sims 3 is the only one where there’s no official “Santa” figure! You only get an outfit you can buy from the Store. O.o Granted, it also has a party specifically for giving gifts AND the Winter Festival, so it’s not exactly lagging behind in things to do, but it does feel a bit weird. And it is nice to see that Sims 4 made some nice additions to the holiday with a tree Sims can decorate themselves, and a Father Winter you can really interact with. :) Though I do kind of miss Sims 2 Santa leaving coal just for having substandard cookies. XD
C) Then it was over to the Subs for the only video there – GrayStillPlays and more Happy Wheels! Featuring a bottle flip in stages (as in you had to flip the bottle into green areas each time – Gray actually struggled the most on the very first flip thanks to breaking the bottle and having unerring aim for the one red area XD); a glass break with “stabbing: yeet” and a wall of bottles (nothing too difficult, though Gray did save a hobo from being smashed by a meteor – the second time); a bottle run with the added complications of Poppy from “Poppy’s Playtime” chasing you, loop-de-loops between each bottle section, and increasing gaps within each bottle section (plus a secret win half-spike fall at the beginning – Gray never even saw Poppy in the end, he was zooming through his loop-de-loops so fast); a visit to the Hell Baby Planet, where babies from hell were trying to kill him (Gray actually tried to spare the final baby its fate of being speared on a trident the first time – and got stabbed in the head for his effort); “Flappy Wheels” with Florida Man and his personal helicopter (Gray’s noted lack of patience killed him quite a few times here); a trip in the death car, mowing down various inanimate objects and people (Gray lost his arms but managed to keep Nixon in the driver’s seat til the win); an impossible parkour level that was over so fast Gray didn’t even know what the hell he was parkouring (those arrows going up his ass?); a fight against an ax murderer that Gray had to do quite a few times because Nixon wouldn’t grab his katana (got there in the end, though!); a Greek-themed pogo fight with some extra parkour thrown in for flavor (Pogo Man completed the course with a katana in his crotch, but he did complete it); and a trip to the gym with the hobo in a wheelchair, where escaping supplement-enhanced Santa often ended with Gray’s head ripped off (turned out to be a case of EXTREMELY careful timing and angles to get through the yeeters to the winning area). Always good to see the community being plenty creative :D
D) And finally, this evening, we finally had the latest episode of the Wyrd Sisters Podcast, and its take on Going Postal! Which is easily my personal favorite of the Discworld series. :D I love Moist, I love Adora Belle, I love the whole (sadly incredibly topical these days) plot. . .and to my delight, Manning and Liz really liked it too. They pointed out a couple of iffy moments (Moist describing Sachrissa Cripslock being a woman with “Views” because she has a wedding ring but is still referring to herself as a “Miss;” Stanley’s violent moments being linked to his mental illness; the weird dissonance of Vetinari being a dictator in a book where one of the main themes is you gotta really watch people with that amount of power (though they did acknowledge that Vetinari does at least constantly focus on the common good)), but overall found it a solid entry with plenty to like about it. :) And next month is Thud!, which is one of THE Discworld books, so that should be pretty interesting. . .
3. Play Bloodlines and prep to save a professor from the Society of Leopold: Check! After popping back into the game and checking to see if Strauss had any new dialogue (from what I could see, he did not), I had Crystal take a cab over to the Society of Leopold to invade it! Her first attempt did not go particularly well (turns out Blood Boiling an enemy to try and get ranged damage off his explosion means everyone in the world starts shooting at you), but the second try, with copious amounts of hitting people with Sleep and some quick lockpicking and sneaking, worked a hell of a lot better. She got into the society itself, snuck around and reprogrammed a bunch of their laser tripwires to kill humans instead of vampires, shot and drank a bunch of people, made her way into the lower sanctums, wasted probably more time than necessary killing two guards from up high in the caves, went and saved Ash (always good to pick up a little more experience), and then used Blood Theft and a broadsword to take out most of the remaining guards. And past them, it was time for Bach!
Which – took longer than expected, because I’d forgotten what a pain-in-the-ass he is as a boss. Any boss that has a sniper rifle, a shield he can pull up whenever you score a hit on him, and the ability to teleport if you get too close, is a real asshole. Fortunately, I found a few places that gave me good cover and let me heal up in between taking shots at him, but I still died once, and it got to be a pretty near thing at the end, what with all the blood I was using to activate Fortitude and Blood Healing. But I eventually downed the bastard, found Johansen, and listened to him go on about the Ankaran Sarcophagus over cookies. :p And then ran out of the cave just ahead of Bach’s self-destruct charges. Arrived back in the city to see the evidence of the Sabbat attack, but decided to swing by Crystal’s haven first – and found Heather, who told Crystal about the creepy dream she’d had where she’d been left all alone. And who gave Crystal the body armor.
Which I’m pretty sure is the last thing she gives you before she’s kidnapped by the Sabbat and murdered. I have opted to reload, redo my run to the boat much better, and save before entering the chantry, because – damn it, I don’t want poor Heather to die. I don’t characterize Crystal as a very nice person, but I have it as she genuinely likes Heather, so – I think her ghoul’s gotta go next time I play. Ah well. . .
4. Work on tumblr queues: No check, unfortunately – you can probably blame the aforementioned TV Tropes for that one! But I do have the Screenshots folder for my Sims game open now, so I can at least attempt to get the pictures for my next Chill Save update done before I go to bed! And I did get another prompt from a tumblr friend for gift fic, so that's good. :)
And that's about it, barring some RP stuff with tumblr peeps. Trust me, I'm glad to have a fairly unstressful Saturday just hanging out for the most part! Hopefully Sunday is more of the same. . .here's my to-do list for tomorrow!
1. Either draft out another gift fic or have a Free Writing Day
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs and Jon's final FO4 YOLO episode (the epi-yolo-gue, if you will)
3. Play Fallout 4 and brave Concord at last
4. Work on tumblr queues
5. Get in a workout
You know, standard Sunday stuff. *nods* We'll see how it goes! Night all!
