Happy Halloween! :D

And I have to say, I have had a very pleasant Halloween! As will be made clear by my Not-Exactly-A-To-Do-List:

-->Civic Duty: Yes, as stated last night, Mom and I went out to vote this morning, and fortunately it was a largely painless process. Went up to the town hall, located the voting room (which did take a bit), signed in, filled out our ballots, fed them to the machine, got our stickers, and headed back home! All done in under an hour. :D I was very pleased.

-->Tumblr: Didn’t do much here today, though I made an effort to try and keep up with my Victor Luvs Alice dash at least – and of course I made a post showing off my costume. Did end up going for the “BTTF: The Ride Employee” closet cosplay in the end with my Doc Brown shirt, with a homemade ID badge Mom and I made by finding a picture of one someone had made to sell on e-Bay and printing it out before adding a bit of color to the logo and background. :) You can see the pictures here: Happy Halloween!

-->Sims 4: Got THIS done right after voting, when my parents went off to the post office – I was like “If I get it done now, before lunch, it’ll be easier on everyone and this won’t be hanging over my damn head.” And I was right – I was able to get in a full hour and a half of play without any issue whatsoever. :D Here’s how it went down –

A) Picked up with the gang in the greenhouse, where I left them on Saturday – having accomplished everything I wanted to accomplish at home, I promptly had Alice use her phone so she, Victor, and Smiler could spend the day in the Bramblewood! Specifically the Isle of Volpe National Park. :) They arrived at one of the little picnic areas, and I had Alice start scavenging the ground for goodies (she picked up some Ozinold, nice) while Victor chilled out at a picnic table and Smiler made burgers because – well, “BBQ” is a tradition on SimCity Founding, but as Smiler can’t eat, making the stuff is what counts for them. Victor and Alice both enjoyed a burger, then Victor and Smiler did a little bit of flirting –

B) And Alice, after doing some more scavenging, was overcome with FURY! Yes, our girl’s Fury orb had maxed out, and she transformed uncontrollably into her most vicious self. Fortunately, she was reasonably far away from Victor and Smiler at the time, and I had her run off and do some more scavenging (picking up some Flamingoium) and some howling while I sent the boy to look at and listen to the wild birds and the not-boy to get a new frog from the frog log and practice their singing (attracting the attention of the local birds in the process and becoming a Disney Princess XD). With some more rampaging werewolf XP got, I had Alice attempt to transform back by regaining control –

C) Success! She was once again her lovely unangry self. :) Though she was feeling a bit down from transforming uncontrollably again. . .don’t worry, Alice, you didn’t hurt anybody. And I knew the best way to cheer her up too – some “Water Fun!” Which was very easily achieved as Henford-on-Bagley has swimmable rivers. :) I had the gang (after some futzing with Sims going the wrong way over the little log bridge for some reason) go for a swim together in the Bagley, with Victor and Alice sharing a few splashes and some kisses while Smiler shared some SimCity Founding spirit with fellow swimmer Cecilia. :) Nice!

D) Once I’d decided they’d all swum enough, I started looking for other activities – I was quite pleased to find a fully-grown chocoberry out in the wild by the ruins, so I had Victor fly over and get that. (Also pleased to see a bathroom nearby, as he needed it.) From there I decided the trio should go and visit Sophie the Snail in the middle of her spiral! Victor searched the shrubs around her and got some bell peppers – I had him hide a pear in return. :) Everybody took some photos too – Alice got a few of Sophie herself; Smiler took a couple of selfies with the statue, and Victor got a picture of Alice and Smiler in the spiral. :) Hooray for mementos of your trip!

E) From there, it was into the town center of Finchwick! Mostly so Alice could use the bathroom at the Gnome’s Arms and give herself a pep talk in the mirror (the Sad was getting to her, unfortunately). Smiler did some window shopping at the stores while Victor met Kim at the grocery stall and agreed to get her some fresh eggs from their chickens, then sold her some of his spare produce before going and buying some oversized seeds (all varieties, from eggplant to pumpkin) at the garden stall from Agatha. After having Victor cheer up Alice a bit, I decided they all needed another swim to help finish off “Water Fun” and sent them into the river behind the pub to float and splash around. . .

F) And then, once it got adequately dark out, I got everyone to go to the village green and had Smiler light off some fireworks! Technically they were Victor’s fireworks – two roman candles, one regular and one from the Romance festival – but I figured Smiler should be the one to light them. They went off nicely, and everyone enjoyed the fountain of sparks. This didn’t QUITE fulfill the “Fireworks” tradition for Alice, though – and as she ignores “BBQ” and “Party Spirit” from being a loner, she needed to have some more fun with those. So I had Smiler give her their sparkler from the Humor and Hijinks festival so she could play with it. :) That did the trick! Or it did it enough, anyway.

G) And with that, there was only one last thing to do – have their “picnic” on a nearby picnic table and eat some cake! Alice unpacked the two slices for her and Victor, and after eating, Victor gave a nice toast to round out the day. :)

H) And then they had to drag themselves home because the two people with proper energy needs were TIRED, y’all. XD Victor used the bathroom and went to bed while Alice just plopped down outside for a wolf nap (and she is SO close to leveling up!), and I had Smiler go upstairs to make a few drinks just because they could. :) Holiday ended as very successful for them all! Next time – I’m thinking a vacation! Granite Falls seems like a nice place to go camping for a few days, right?

-->Writing: Didn’t do a LOT with this today, but I DID take a few minutes to put a few “worldbuilding” notes in my Valicer Blades in the Dark doc – mostly about holidays the world should have, and how – inspired by Cab-Con from the Oxventurer take on the game – I want my world to have Con-Dola for the gondoliers. XD Like I said, not much, but it’s better than zilch!

-->Beanbags: Went out after lunch today because it has been getting steadily darker in the afternoons (plus a small chance of rain later on), and I had an even better day than yesterday, replacing my one third with a second. :) Mom had a slightly worse day with three losses instead of two, but still managed a win in the end, while Dad had a great early game and then kinda fell apart. Final scores were me 2-2-W-W-2; Dad W-W-3-2-3; Mom 3-3-2-3-W. :)

-->YouTube: Well, it’s a good thing that I didn’t specify keeping up on my Subs, as I did not watch a single Subs video today – though on the flip side of that, Gray never uploaded today (or at least not at the time I’m writing this particular blurb, which is 10:21 PM), so. . . Instead I caught up some Halloween-themed stuff from the Watch Later and Recommendeds –

A) Started this afternoon with the two latest Ashock The Fourth Wall videos –

I. “The Ring, vol. 3: Spiral!” A manga adaptation of the sequel to Ringu – the ORIGINAL sequel from the NOVEL series, meaning it barely has any connection to the movies (in particular, the main character of the original Ringu novel is male, but in the movies said character is FEMALE, meaning anyone who picked this up after watching the movies was gonna be SUPER confused when they referenced a guy with the female lead’s last name and apparent plotline) and involves less “ghost girl attacks anyone who watches her video tape after seven days unless they make a copy to share” and more “ghost girl somehow manages to warp a tape to MUTATE PEOPLE’S DNA so that they develop a weird version of a SMALLPOX-LIKE VIRUS that KILLS THEM VIA HEART ATTACK – unless they are an OVULATING WOMAN, in which case Sadako uses them to birth a CLONE of herself (as what happens to the one important female character in the story, Mai).” And the main character of this one is a guy who was suicidal after losing his son, and ends up taking a deal with Sadako to help her spread her weird-ass psychic virus to the world via the tape AND reports on the tape (because apparently writing down a good description is enough to spread the not-smallpox), killing people and making more clones of herself, in order to get a clone-copy of his son and his dead friend back. Because that all makes sense, doesn’t it? *facepalm* Linkara loathed this story with its absolutely bugfuck-bonkers “science” and terrible character arcs (or lack of same – our lead was a VERY bland dude who didn’t even get the pathos given to him by the movie adaptation of Spiral), and I don’t blame him. It was absolutely horrible, and I’m surprised I was able to follow any of it. Sheesh!

Oh, also, storyline – the mirror universe version of the magic gun and its Margaret has returned (having gone missing after Moarte dealt with Mirrorkara), and she’s eager to get her Linkara torture on.

II. “The Ring, vol. 4: Birthday!” Not an adaptation of any of the movies or novels this time, but instead an anthology consisting of a pair of linked prequels about Sadako and her life (showing how her mother apparently gained her psychic powers after deep-sea diving naked to find a Buddha statue; the failed psychic demonstration that wrecked her father’s career and caused her mother to throw herself into a volcano; young Sadako’s vow to get revenge on those who drove her mother to that fate; her brief time in the acting troupe Hisho when she grew up and how she fell in love with the sound guy (said sound guy getting his own POV story where he’s interviewed about Sadako’s time there and how she had a creepy fascination with living forever and spreading her genes somehow), before being forced to leave after offering her intersex self to the director (whom she was also having a flirtation with) and him – reacting poorly; and her death after the doctor tending her ill father tried to assault her, was horrified by her intersex body, and threw her in the well – where she suddenly began PSYCHICALLY COMMUNICATING WITH A SMALLPOX VIRUS SHE HAD BEEN INFECTED WITH and came up with her weird I WILL INFECT ALL WHO WATCH THIS TAPE WITH THE VIRUS plan), and a sidequel to Spiral showing what happened to the female character who was “infected” with a Sadako clone in that story (which had some genuinely creepy imagery about her DNA being “overwritten” by Sadako but was otherwise just kinda there). Better than the Spiral bullshit, but Linkara disliked how it made Sadako such a creepy little shit, when the whole point is that she’s supposed to be at least somewhat sympathetic and mostly just angry about what happened to her mother. At least this one was easier to follow in comparison to Spiral!

Oh, also, storyline – Linkara and the ghost of his magic gun (who has transitioned from “Margaret” to “Mark,” BTW) attempted to reason with the Mirror Gun’s ghost (still Margaret) and express sympathy for what happened to her (since her childhood should have been identical to Mark’s) – looked like Mark was getting through for a bit, since even if Margaret “volunteered” for being sacrificed to power the weapon, it still must have been painful and scary, but then Margaret furiously rejected their pity and prepared to try and kill Mark. *wince* I guess we’ll see the end of it when he releases his yearly Clone Saga review!

B) Then, after trick-or-treaters and Halloween Wars, I watched a video that had been recommended to me over on YouTube a couple of days ago: “The Style of American McGee's Alice Games,” by eurothug4000! Euro took us through all of the various influences behind the specific art style of AMA and A:MR, touching upon not only the general themes, but specific environments, Alice’s toy-and-kitchen-implement weapon sets, and her iconic dresses. It was a pretty nice video – I’m always ready to hear someone gush over how pretty these games are. :)

C) Then it was over to OXBox for a video I’ve been meaning to watch for a while now: “Ghostbusters Spirits Unleashed FIRST GAMEPLAY - Does Bustin' Make Us Feel Good?” A quick video on the new Ghostbusters Spirits Unleashed game, with Mike showing Andy some pre-official-release footage of him and some fellow testers taking on a ghost. The game is actually by the same people who made the Friday the 13th game, and features the same asymmetrical multiplayer – you have a team of four ‘Busters working together against one ghost (funded by Winston, apparently as per his role in the new Ghostbusters: Afterlife movie). The ‘Busters must work together to close the rifts that serve as ghostly respawn points (allowing the ghost to escape being trapped) and bust the ghost, preferably causing as little property damage as possible; the ghost, meanwhile, can slime the ‘Busters to stop them (it can’t kill them, only slime), and has the goal of haunting the building as much as possible. If the ghost manages to haunt the entire building – spreading slime, possessing objects, and terrifying civilians – it wins unless the ‘Busters pull off a last-second bust. Which is actually what happened in Mike’s game – the team managed to very quickly find and close all the rifts the ghost could have used to respawn, but had a HELL of a time getting the ghost into the trap, and only managed it in the last sixty “grace” seconds after the ghost had managed to haunt the entire building and send some civilians fleeing. It looks like a good, fun, chaotic time for people who like the asymmetrical multiplayer stuff, and has a little bit of everything for people who like Ghostbusters. Nice! :)

D) After that, I figured I couldn’t have an AMA video without a Corpse Bride video to match it, so I went looking – and it turns out that the official Warner Bros channel uploaded the “Moon Dance” scene! Actually, what they uploaded was straight from Emily and Victor coming to Elder Gutknecht’s tower, to them returning to the Land of the Living, to Victor meeting back up with Victoria, to Emily catching him there and dragging him back to the Land of the Dead, to his infamous “I would never marry you!” line. So a pretty decent chunk, given this movie is so short! Quite enjoyed it – I haven’t really gotten a chance to watch much CB lately, so it was a good injection of original canon. :)

E) And after that, I decided I ought to round out the day with some Smiler stuff, so I rewatched the whole four-part “Smile Always” series they used to promote it, as that’s pretty Halloweeny in its themes (given it features that creep Kelman and his Sanctuary). Good spoopy times~

Fairly busy day, but a good one. :) I'm pleased with how it went -- especially with my costume, and getting to finally play the rest of my Valicer SimCity Founding. And now I have one more day off to enjoy! Still not gonna make a "formal" to-do list, but I do need to get my tumblr update for my Sims sessions this weekend sorted, watch a few more videos (maybe finally watch that super-long Gray one?), and get in a workout, as I have skipped that most of this weekend. Oh, and play Fallout 4 -- or possibly Sims 4, to try and get some buffer back? We'll see. . .night all!