Decent Enough Friday
Aug. 22nd, 2025 11:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickThe weather was decently nice -- back up into the 80s today, but with low humidity so the heat didn't feel too oppressive. And I got a decent amount done over the course of the day, as will become obvious in the write-up:
Work – A reasonably-busy half-day at work to end the week – though that was partially because my coworker took the day off and thus I was in the front alone. But I handled everything pretty well:
A) I ran the morning reports and got through the GL without any trouble
B) I looked at the failed credit cards and sent out a few e-mails to let people know “hey, your payment failed, here’s what to do about it”
C) I took the mail when the assistant supervisor gave it to me, put on the handful of checks that were for us, and delivered the others to the newspaper office (as we sometimes get their checks, and vice-versa)
D) I finally got confirmation that a missing gift had been included in another check that it shouldn’t have been in (Easter Collection is supposed to be SEPARATE from regular Appeal gifts!) and did a reversal to separate out the gift and put it on the correct record
E) I got a call-back about one of the overpayments, with the donor saying to put it toward the next Appeal year, so that’s good
F) And I helped out someone who called about a money order that had been rejected as a “stale item” – that looked like it was from four years ago. No, I have no fucking clue how that got processed either O.o
So yeah – at the very least, the day went by! And even better, we got an e-mail today saying they’re just giving us next Friday – what would have been the last half-day Friday – off completely, so now I have a four-day weekend to look forward to next week. :) Yay! I like nice surprises like that.
Baldur’s Gate III – Took a short trip to Faerun after work today, where I managed to accomplish the following:
A) Install yet another mod – this one “Rynny’s Homebrew Collection,” which adds a bunch of various home-grown magical items to the game. ^^; Look, I’ve seen it a couple of times on the “Mods” page on the official BG3 site, and it has some neat stuff in it that I think Smiler and company could benefit from – specifically, an early-game staff that should boost the damage of Smiler’s spells, and a late-game amulet that increases their “glibness” while reducing combat prowess, but also allows them to cast a “Pacification Bolt” to calm their enemies that feels VERY Smiler (who I have often said, at least over on tumblr, is excellent at chatting, not so great in a fight). I’m weak for a fun mod, what can I say! But hopefully this should be the last one. (...she says, possibly like a liar.)
B) Have Smiler officially recruit Shadowheart once I was back on the beach (and once everything had actually loaded in – on my poor computer, it takes a moment for the scenery to all pop into existence)! They found her lying unconscious on the beach amongst the wreckage and – ignoring the temptation to poke at the mysterious object in her hand – carefully shook her awake to make sure she was okay. The subsequent conversation went roughly (very roughly) like so –
Shadowheart: “You’re alive. I’m alive. How???”
Smiler: “I was kind of hoping YOU knew the answer to that question.”
Shadowheart: “Sorry – I remember the crash, and falling, and then – nothing.”
Smiler: “Do you know what happened to our gith friend?” (since Lae’zel never actually told them her name on the Nautiloid)
Shadowheart: “You might want to rethink calling her a friend – looks to me like she ran off.”
Smiler: “We should search for her – what if she’s hurt or worse?”
Shadowheart: “You clearly care about her much more than she cares about you. We need to look after ourselves first. Which means finding shelter, supplies, and – most importantly – a healer. The tadpole is a problem that isn’t going to go away on its own.”
Smiler: “‘We?’ You want us to stick together?”
Shadowheart: “We need each other. I can’t think of better company.”
Smiler: “All right! Let’s go then.”
Shadowheart: “Before we go – thank you again for rescuing me. You could have just walked past my pod on the Nautiloid, but you didn’t. I’ll remember that. Now lead on.”
:) Hooray for Smiler making friends! Especially friends with better strength than they have who can carry more stuff. XD
C) Have Smiler and Shadowheart level up! A process that took MUCH longer than I anticipated, at least on Smiler’s end, because I got interrupted by my parents coming home from a trip to the grocery store (juice was on sale and they wanted to stock up for Dad), and because I really agonized over picking one of Smiler’s Eldritch Invocations. Because I often have difficulty making decisions, damn it. *sigh* But I got them both leveled up in the end –
Smiler, as per the advice of my friend Squid, just went straight into Level 2 of Warlock (I think I’ll have them multiclass into Bard once they hit Level 3). This involved:
-->Their health increasing to 15 (yay)
-->Them earning a second “pact magic” slot (aka one of their special “refreshes on short rest” purple spell slots)
-->Them learning a new spell – I went with “Id Insinuation” from the Mystra’s Spells mod, which – in addition to causing Psychic damage – overwhelms a target with conflicting desires and leaves them incapacitated for however long the caster can maintain concentration (felt like a Smilery spell)
-->Them getting access to two Eldritch Invocations, which provide a variety of fun spells or other bonuses to Warlocks – I knew immediately that I wanted “Agonizing Blast,” because that adds your Charisma modifier to the “Eldritch Blast” cantrip, making it more powerful (and as “Eldritch Blast” is a Warlock’s main damage dealer, you want it as strong as possible!), but – as stated above – it took me ages to figure out their second one. “Beguiling Influence” seemed like the obvious one on the face of it, as it allows the warlock to channel their patron’s “bewitching charm” – but what it does is give your character proficiency in Deception and Persuasion. And as Smiler already HAS proficiency in the latter thanks to their “Guild Artisan” background, it felt like a waste of an Invocation. I probably would have gone with it if I’d picked the “Entertainer” background for them (as that gives Performance and Acrobatics proficiencies instead), but as it stood, I wanted something more interesting and potentially useful. So, after much though and bouncing through the various options, I ultimately went with “Fiendish Vigor!” Which allows Smiler to cast “False Life” (a level 1 Necromancy spell) on themselves at will without expending a spell slot (which is great, as they only have two). The spell provides 7 temporary hit points when you cast it, so I figured it would be good for, you know, keeping Smiler alive. They are a bit fragile right now, after all!
-->And – thanks to my Initiate Feats mod – them getting a feat! And, as you might expect, I went with the “Alchemist” feat provided by my Experimental Alchemy As A Feat mod, which gave them +1 to Wisdom (raising that to 15), proficiency in the Medicine skill, and the ability to brew two alchemical solutions instead of just one should they pass a DC 15 Medicine check while brewing. :) Yay! We’ll have them alchemizing stuff soon, hopefully!
Meanwhile, Shadowheart went straight into Level 2 of Cleric, which resulted in:
-->Her health going to 17 (yay)
-->Her gaining a Level 1 spell slot (also yay)
-->Her gaining a “Channel Divinity” charge, which allows her to either “Turn Undead” (aka make all undead near her flee from her) or “Invoke Duplicity” (distract enemies with an illusion)
-->And her also getting a feat – I went with “Ability Improvement” for her, as I previously said I would, and knocked both her Strength and Dex up from 13 to 14. So she’s a bit stronger and a bit more dexterous, nice. :)
I also took a moment after leveling up to update her prepared spells in her spellbook, swapping out “Command” for “Sanctuary” – which stops enemies attacking a person unless they attack them first. Hopefully this will help keep her, Smiler, and the other members of their motley crew alive should things go south in a fight!
D) And have Smiler loot the Ravaged Beach for goodies! Because checking every nook and cranny of an area for useful stuff is a time-honored video game pastime. :P Here’s what they found:
-->4 gold on a mangled fisher (obtained right before waking up Shadowheart)
-->3 gold in a random barrel
-->A healing potion in a pouch (handy)
-->A “Brimmed Hat” in a backpack (that’ll be going on Gale’s head soon enough)
-->A fish and a random bottle on another mangled fisher
-->3 gold on another dead fisher
-->A fish, a fish head, and a headless fish body in a couple of fish buckets on the nearby little dock
-->“Shanties For The Bitch Queen” (a book praising the evil goddess who controls the water) beside a backpack on the dock
-->5 gold, a bottle of fresh water, and 2 red apples in the backpack
-->A “perfumed letter” on another dead fisher nearby – I remember this, it’s the one from his love asking him to run away with them :(
-->7 gold in a barrel
-->A set of Thieves’ Tools in the barrel next to that one (Astarion will like those)
-->3 gold and a fish on yet another dead fisher
-->Another bottle of fresh water in a barrel
-->Three bits of mergrass growing in the water at the edge of the beach, which Smiler combined into a suspension
-->Some daggerroot growing near the Ancient Door into Withers’s chapel
-->And two belladonna plants growing by the waypoint near the door and some rocks in the middle of the beach!
Pretty good haul, all things considered. :) And I got accidental confirmation that my “smart containers” are working as intended, because the book and the letter both went into the “book storage” container, which was itself still inside the “chest of smart containers.” XD I’ll have to get those properly sorted at some point in the future – my party members will need their own smart containers, after all!
And so the playsession ended with me making sure the healing potions were evenly distributed amongst the party members (so Smiler and Shadowheart both had four to hand), and moving the pair over to where the fight against the weakened intellect devourers is likely to kick off! Next time I play, we’ll fight those beasties, then go around and get Astarion and Gale so we have a proper four-person party for exploring Withers’s chapel. *nods* Sounds like a plan to me!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – my final night on the bike this week saw me pedal my way through the last 31 minutes of “Can I build a house with only 5 packs?” by James Turner! And let me tell you, he built a pretty great seedy motel for only being able to use five packs and the base game (though he did liberally use whatever debug items were available to him too):
A) He themed five of the six rooms at the motel around the packs he had, making:
I. A “fixer-upper eco room” with all the most grody, cheap stuff from Eco Lifestyle (including a dumpster dive bed and that tiny little rabbit-eared TV)
II. A “bunker room” with some of the military and DIY objects from Strangerville (for example, the beds in THIS room were a pair of military cots, and the shower/tub combo was that weird DIY one that is clearly a hose suspended above an old tub
III. A “romantic garden” room with a terrible floral “headboard” for the bed, lots of green and pink, and some stone benches for seating around the place (and big old flowerboxes over the windows, because he wasn’t sure where else to put them)
IV. A “backyard deck” room where half the floor was wood and half the floor was carpet, using the special chairs that came with the pack and a bunch of different decorations (though not the glass-topped side table – James THOUGHT it was a dining table until the chairs refused to slot onto it, and was a bit disappointed)
V. And a “castle estate” room that mostly consisted of fancy-looking furniture at awkward angles to each other on a fancy stone floor (because the kit doesn’t come with a lot of “Buy,” stuff, just a lot of “Build” stuff)
The sixth one was basically just “the Eco Lifestyle room but even worse.” XD And yes, James was very liberal in adding stains and such everywhere on the floors!
B) He essentially turned the lobby into a big bar by having one masquerade as a check-in desk, also adding some corkboards on the wall (as you do) and a jukebox once he saw the one from Strangerville and was like “yeah, that fits the aesthetic”
C) He turned the room that he was going to make a public bathroom into the owner’s room – and put in a listening device and another one of those military cots from Strangerville. Guess we know what that creep does with his spare time!
D) And he jazzed up the outside with some messily-painted concrete to suggest the native desert had started encroaching on it again; a fake car for one of the fake parking spots; a dried-out pool full of junk around the back; and a busted-up sign perfect advertising what a shithole this is. XD Along with whatever trash he could find in debug.
All in all, it was a very fun build! James certainly seemed to enjoy making it as grody and seedy as he possibly could. And sometimes it’s just fun to make something that isn’t supposed to be perfect and nice. Adds some variety to life, you know?
2. Continue final edits on “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” Chapter 5: Check – got to this a little late again, but I made some headway and got up to page 36 out of 54! With Alice braving Grout’s maze (and accidentally falling through a door in the floor once), figuring out how to pull the lever in the scary magical light room without getting seared like poor Kent Alan Ryan, and heading into the guest house in the back and going “...that’s a lot of mannequins;” and me going “why the FUCK do I keep writing her name over and over, why have I forgotten PRONOUNS EXIST.” *facepalm* I really gotta take another look at the start of the chapter and make sure there aren’t extra Alices there too – I wasn’t really looking for it before, so it’s quite possible my brain skimmed over them. One day I will get this chapter edited and posted!
3. Keep up with YouTube “Subs”: Check – mostly because I made sure to watch the video I wanted to watch before diving back into that editing mess up there. And what was the video I wanted to watch? None other than “Resident Evil Requiem: THE MOST STRESSFUL RESIDENT EVIL EVER | Resident Evil 9 Gameplay” by OXBox! As you might expect, this featured Andy (on the controls) and Mike (as moral support) taking on the Resident Evil Requiem demo, which starts with main character Grace Ashcroft waking up hanging upside-down with her blood being drained and does not get any better for her from there. Notable moments from the (admittedly quite short – only eleven minutes) video included:
A) Grace having to yank on the IV line draining her blood to smash open the jar it’s being collected in and use the broken glass to cut open her bonds and allow her to rock over the surgical bed she was on (all things that made my medical squicks go AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH)
B) Andy offering Mike the choice of going down the red-lit murder hallway or the nicer potted plant hallway – Mike was like “potted plant, please” XD
C) Mike and Andy being constantly spooked by a big rearing horse statue at the end of one of the halls, because, well, in the poorly-lit house, it keeps looking like something trying to get them – Andy was quite cross with it constantly scaring him XD
D) Grace investigating a dark storage cupboard (Iooking for a screwdriver to get a fuse to put into an electrical box to open a door) with a lighter she found, only to get jumpscared by a dead zombie...and then jumpscared again by a giant monstrosity (who may in fact be Lisa Trevor from the very first fucking game – its design was similar) BITING ITS HEAD OFF WITH HER MASSIVE TEETH
E) Andy moving a corpse out of the way to investigate a drawer – and getting VERY cross when said drawer turned out to be empty
F) Andy essentially having to play Alien Isolation with Possibly Lisa by flicking off Grace’s lighter and having her hide under desks whenever she was around – the woman even stalked around like the Alien! A much slower version, mind, but still.
G) And Andy having to survive multiple chase sequences – including, yes, one in the horsie corridor when Possibly Lisa essentially slithered down from the ceiling in front of Grace
Yeah, as you might imagine, this was a creepy and stressful eleven minutes! Andy and Mike certainly thought so. Andy said that it’s definitely in-line with the more recent Resident Evil games (like RE7 and RE8), and that he expects it’ll be uncomfortable and stressful but a lot of fun. I look forward to the channel’s eventual LP! Because I’m sure as fuck not playing this. XD
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – nothing to do over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) tonight, but over on Valice Multiverse I did have one anon ask to queue up! Not a response to the meme I queued up yesterday, mind – no, instead it was a conversation between two anonymous people, with someone welcoming someone else to the “Fuck The Voerman Sisters” club...only for it to be revealed the second person was covered in black and red lipstick before they admitted sheepishly they may have misunderstood the group’s name. XD I queued up my Londerland Bloodlines!Alice responding that hate sex is a thing, so it would be possible to fuck the Voermans in both senses of the word...and then asking “but how the hell did you get Therese to have sex with you, that does not seem like her thing.” XD So that’s all set!
Other: A nice day means that we did go out and play beanbags – and despite my best efforts, Dad once again dominated, winning all three games, while I constantly came second and Mom constantly came third. *shakehead* We really did try! At least when we played Yahtzee for Game Night, things were a little more egalitarian, with each of us winning a game, and Mom winning two. So she’s champ at SOMETHING, at least!
Aaaand I have officially stayed up Way Too Late because it, as usual, took me longer to complete these write-ups than I thought it would. *facepalm* I gotta go to bed -- tomorrow, goals include working the "Tav!Smiler" post in my Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) tumblr drafts; playing Fallout 4 and continuing the trek through the Mechanist's Lair; updating the FO4 Playthrough Progression appropriately; and hopefully getting that other video out of my Watch Later already. We'll see what happens -- night all!
Work – A reasonably-busy half-day at work to end the week – though that was partially because my coworker took the day off and thus I was in the front alone. But I handled everything pretty well:
A) I ran the morning reports and got through the GL without any trouble
B) I looked at the failed credit cards and sent out a few e-mails to let people know “hey, your payment failed, here’s what to do about it”
C) I took the mail when the assistant supervisor gave it to me, put on the handful of checks that were for us, and delivered the others to the newspaper office (as we sometimes get their checks, and vice-versa)
D) I finally got confirmation that a missing gift had been included in another check that it shouldn’t have been in (Easter Collection is supposed to be SEPARATE from regular Appeal gifts!) and did a reversal to separate out the gift and put it on the correct record
E) I got a call-back about one of the overpayments, with the donor saying to put it toward the next Appeal year, so that’s good
F) And I helped out someone who called about a money order that had been rejected as a “stale item” – that looked like it was from four years ago. No, I have no fucking clue how that got processed either O.o
So yeah – at the very least, the day went by! And even better, we got an e-mail today saying they’re just giving us next Friday – what would have been the last half-day Friday – off completely, so now I have a four-day weekend to look forward to next week. :) Yay! I like nice surprises like that.
Baldur’s Gate III – Took a short trip to Faerun after work today, where I managed to accomplish the following:
A) Install yet another mod – this one “Rynny’s Homebrew Collection,” which adds a bunch of various home-grown magical items to the game. ^^; Look, I’ve seen it a couple of times on the “Mods” page on the official BG3 site, and it has some neat stuff in it that I think Smiler and company could benefit from – specifically, an early-game staff that should boost the damage of Smiler’s spells, and a late-game amulet that increases their “glibness” while reducing combat prowess, but also allows them to cast a “Pacification Bolt” to calm their enemies that feels VERY Smiler (who I have often said, at least over on tumblr, is excellent at chatting, not so great in a fight). I’m weak for a fun mod, what can I say! But hopefully this should be the last one. (...she says, possibly like a liar.)
B) Have Smiler officially recruit Shadowheart once I was back on the beach (and once everything had actually loaded in – on my poor computer, it takes a moment for the scenery to all pop into existence)! They found her lying unconscious on the beach amongst the wreckage and – ignoring the temptation to poke at the mysterious object in her hand – carefully shook her awake to make sure she was okay. The subsequent conversation went roughly (very roughly) like so –
Shadowheart: “You’re alive. I’m alive. How???”
Smiler: “I was kind of hoping YOU knew the answer to that question.”
Shadowheart: “Sorry – I remember the crash, and falling, and then – nothing.”
Smiler: “Do you know what happened to our gith friend?” (since Lae’zel never actually told them her name on the Nautiloid)
Shadowheart: “You might want to rethink calling her a friend – looks to me like she ran off.”
Smiler: “We should search for her – what if she’s hurt or worse?”
Shadowheart: “You clearly care about her much more than she cares about you. We need to look after ourselves first. Which means finding shelter, supplies, and – most importantly – a healer. The tadpole is a problem that isn’t going to go away on its own.”
Smiler: “‘We?’ You want us to stick together?”
Shadowheart: “We need each other. I can’t think of better company.”
Smiler: “All right! Let’s go then.”
Shadowheart: “Before we go – thank you again for rescuing me. You could have just walked past my pod on the Nautiloid, but you didn’t. I’ll remember that. Now lead on.”
:) Hooray for Smiler making friends! Especially friends with better strength than they have who can carry more stuff. XD
C) Have Smiler and Shadowheart level up! A process that took MUCH longer than I anticipated, at least on Smiler’s end, because I got interrupted by my parents coming home from a trip to the grocery store (juice was on sale and they wanted to stock up for Dad), and because I really agonized over picking one of Smiler’s Eldritch Invocations. Because I often have difficulty making decisions, damn it. *sigh* But I got them both leveled up in the end –
Smiler, as per the advice of my friend Squid, just went straight into Level 2 of Warlock (I think I’ll have them multiclass into Bard once they hit Level 3). This involved:
-->Their health increasing to 15 (yay)
-->Them earning a second “pact magic” slot (aka one of their special “refreshes on short rest” purple spell slots)
-->Them learning a new spell – I went with “Id Insinuation” from the Mystra’s Spells mod, which – in addition to causing Psychic damage – overwhelms a target with conflicting desires and leaves them incapacitated for however long the caster can maintain concentration (felt like a Smilery spell)
-->Them getting access to two Eldritch Invocations, which provide a variety of fun spells or other bonuses to Warlocks – I knew immediately that I wanted “Agonizing Blast,” because that adds your Charisma modifier to the “Eldritch Blast” cantrip, making it more powerful (and as “Eldritch Blast” is a Warlock’s main damage dealer, you want it as strong as possible!), but – as stated above – it took me ages to figure out their second one. “Beguiling Influence” seemed like the obvious one on the face of it, as it allows the warlock to channel their patron’s “bewitching charm” – but what it does is give your character proficiency in Deception and Persuasion. And as Smiler already HAS proficiency in the latter thanks to their “Guild Artisan” background, it felt like a waste of an Invocation. I probably would have gone with it if I’d picked the “Entertainer” background for them (as that gives Performance and Acrobatics proficiencies instead), but as it stood, I wanted something more interesting and potentially useful. So, after much though and bouncing through the various options, I ultimately went with “Fiendish Vigor!” Which allows Smiler to cast “False Life” (a level 1 Necromancy spell) on themselves at will without expending a spell slot (which is great, as they only have two). The spell provides 7 temporary hit points when you cast it, so I figured it would be good for, you know, keeping Smiler alive. They are a bit fragile right now, after all!
-->And – thanks to my Initiate Feats mod – them getting a feat! And, as you might expect, I went with the “Alchemist” feat provided by my Experimental Alchemy As A Feat mod, which gave them +1 to Wisdom (raising that to 15), proficiency in the Medicine skill, and the ability to brew two alchemical solutions instead of just one should they pass a DC 15 Medicine check while brewing. :) Yay! We’ll have them alchemizing stuff soon, hopefully!
Meanwhile, Shadowheart went straight into Level 2 of Cleric, which resulted in:
-->Her health going to 17 (yay)
-->Her gaining a Level 1 spell slot (also yay)
-->Her gaining a “Channel Divinity” charge, which allows her to either “Turn Undead” (aka make all undead near her flee from her) or “Invoke Duplicity” (distract enemies with an illusion)
-->And her also getting a feat – I went with “Ability Improvement” for her, as I previously said I would, and knocked both her Strength and Dex up from 13 to 14. So she’s a bit stronger and a bit more dexterous, nice. :)
I also took a moment after leveling up to update her prepared spells in her spellbook, swapping out “Command” for “Sanctuary” – which stops enemies attacking a person unless they attack them first. Hopefully this will help keep her, Smiler, and the other members of their motley crew alive should things go south in a fight!
D) And have Smiler loot the Ravaged Beach for goodies! Because checking every nook and cranny of an area for useful stuff is a time-honored video game pastime. :P Here’s what they found:
-->4 gold on a mangled fisher (obtained right before waking up Shadowheart)
-->3 gold in a random barrel
-->A healing potion in a pouch (handy)
-->A “Brimmed Hat” in a backpack (that’ll be going on Gale’s head soon enough)
-->A fish and a random bottle on another mangled fisher
-->3 gold on another dead fisher
-->A fish, a fish head, and a headless fish body in a couple of fish buckets on the nearby little dock
-->“Shanties For The Bitch Queen” (a book praising the evil goddess who controls the water) beside a backpack on the dock
-->5 gold, a bottle of fresh water, and 2 red apples in the backpack
-->A “perfumed letter” on another dead fisher nearby – I remember this, it’s the one from his love asking him to run away with them :(
-->7 gold in a barrel
-->A set of Thieves’ Tools in the barrel next to that one (Astarion will like those)
-->3 gold and a fish on yet another dead fisher
-->Another bottle of fresh water in a barrel
-->Three bits of mergrass growing in the water at the edge of the beach, which Smiler combined into a suspension
-->Some daggerroot growing near the Ancient Door into Withers’s chapel
-->And two belladonna plants growing by the waypoint near the door and some rocks in the middle of the beach!
Pretty good haul, all things considered. :) And I got accidental confirmation that my “smart containers” are working as intended, because the book and the letter both went into the “book storage” container, which was itself still inside the “chest of smart containers.” XD I’ll have to get those properly sorted at some point in the future – my party members will need their own smart containers, after all!
And so the playsession ended with me making sure the healing potions were evenly distributed amongst the party members (so Smiler and Shadowheart both had four to hand), and moving the pair over to where the fight against the weakened intellect devourers is likely to kick off! Next time I play, we’ll fight those beasties, then go around and get Astarion and Gale so we have a proper four-person party for exploring Withers’s chapel. *nods* Sounds like a plan to me!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – my final night on the bike this week saw me pedal my way through the last 31 minutes of “Can I build a house with only 5 packs?” by James Turner! And let me tell you, he built a pretty great seedy motel for only being able to use five packs and the base game (though he did liberally use whatever debug items were available to him too):
A) He themed five of the six rooms at the motel around the packs he had, making:
I. A “fixer-upper eco room” with all the most grody, cheap stuff from Eco Lifestyle (including a dumpster dive bed and that tiny little rabbit-eared TV)
II. A “bunker room” with some of the military and DIY objects from Strangerville (for example, the beds in THIS room were a pair of military cots, and the shower/tub combo was that weird DIY one that is clearly a hose suspended above an old tub
III. A “romantic garden” room with a terrible floral “headboard” for the bed, lots of green and pink, and some stone benches for seating around the place (and big old flowerboxes over the windows, because he wasn’t sure where else to put them)
IV. A “backyard deck” room where half the floor was wood and half the floor was carpet, using the special chairs that came with the pack and a bunch of different decorations (though not the glass-topped side table – James THOUGHT it was a dining table until the chairs refused to slot onto it, and was a bit disappointed)
V. And a “castle estate” room that mostly consisted of fancy-looking furniture at awkward angles to each other on a fancy stone floor (because the kit doesn’t come with a lot of “Buy,” stuff, just a lot of “Build” stuff)
The sixth one was basically just “the Eco Lifestyle room but even worse.” XD And yes, James was very liberal in adding stains and such everywhere on the floors!
B) He essentially turned the lobby into a big bar by having one masquerade as a check-in desk, also adding some corkboards on the wall (as you do) and a jukebox once he saw the one from Strangerville and was like “yeah, that fits the aesthetic”
C) He turned the room that he was going to make a public bathroom into the owner’s room – and put in a listening device and another one of those military cots from Strangerville. Guess we know what that creep does with his spare time!
D) And he jazzed up the outside with some messily-painted concrete to suggest the native desert had started encroaching on it again; a fake car for one of the fake parking spots; a dried-out pool full of junk around the back; and a busted-up sign perfect advertising what a shithole this is. XD Along with whatever trash he could find in debug.
All in all, it was a very fun build! James certainly seemed to enjoy making it as grody and seedy as he possibly could. And sometimes it’s just fun to make something that isn’t supposed to be perfect and nice. Adds some variety to life, you know?
2. Continue final edits on “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” Chapter 5: Check – got to this a little late again, but I made some headway and got up to page 36 out of 54! With Alice braving Grout’s maze (and accidentally falling through a door in the floor once), figuring out how to pull the lever in the scary magical light room without getting seared like poor Kent Alan Ryan, and heading into the guest house in the back and going “...that’s a lot of mannequins;” and me going “why the FUCK do I keep writing her name over and over, why have I forgotten PRONOUNS EXIST.” *facepalm* I really gotta take another look at the start of the chapter and make sure there aren’t extra Alices there too – I wasn’t really looking for it before, so it’s quite possible my brain skimmed over them. One day I will get this chapter edited and posted!
3. Keep up with YouTube “Subs”: Check – mostly because I made sure to watch the video I wanted to watch before diving back into that editing mess up there. And what was the video I wanted to watch? None other than “Resident Evil Requiem: THE MOST STRESSFUL RESIDENT EVIL EVER | Resident Evil 9 Gameplay” by OXBox! As you might expect, this featured Andy (on the controls) and Mike (as moral support) taking on the Resident Evil Requiem demo, which starts with main character Grace Ashcroft waking up hanging upside-down with her blood being drained and does not get any better for her from there. Notable moments from the (admittedly quite short – only eleven minutes) video included:
A) Grace having to yank on the IV line draining her blood to smash open the jar it’s being collected in and use the broken glass to cut open her bonds and allow her to rock over the surgical bed she was on (all things that made my medical squicks go AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH)
B) Andy offering Mike the choice of going down the red-lit murder hallway or the nicer potted plant hallway – Mike was like “potted plant, please” XD
C) Mike and Andy being constantly spooked by a big rearing horse statue at the end of one of the halls, because, well, in the poorly-lit house, it keeps looking like something trying to get them – Andy was quite cross with it constantly scaring him XD
D) Grace investigating a dark storage cupboard (Iooking for a screwdriver to get a fuse to put into an electrical box to open a door) with a lighter she found, only to get jumpscared by a dead zombie...and then jumpscared again by a giant monstrosity (who may in fact be Lisa Trevor from the very first fucking game – its design was similar) BITING ITS HEAD OFF WITH HER MASSIVE TEETH
E) Andy moving a corpse out of the way to investigate a drawer – and getting VERY cross when said drawer turned out to be empty
F) Andy essentially having to play Alien Isolation with Possibly Lisa by flicking off Grace’s lighter and having her hide under desks whenever she was around – the woman even stalked around like the Alien! A much slower version, mind, but still.
G) And Andy having to survive multiple chase sequences – including, yes, one in the horsie corridor when Possibly Lisa essentially slithered down from the ceiling in front of Grace
Yeah, as you might imagine, this was a creepy and stressful eleven minutes! Andy and Mike certainly thought so. Andy said that it’s definitely in-line with the more recent Resident Evil games (like RE7 and RE8), and that he expects it’ll be uncomfortable and stressful but a lot of fun. I look forward to the channel’s eventual LP! Because I’m sure as fuck not playing this. XD
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – nothing to do over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) tonight, but over on Valice Multiverse I did have one anon ask to queue up! Not a response to the meme I queued up yesterday, mind – no, instead it was a conversation between two anonymous people, with someone welcoming someone else to the “Fuck The Voerman Sisters” club...only for it to be revealed the second person was covered in black and red lipstick before they admitted sheepishly they may have misunderstood the group’s name. XD I queued up my Londerland Bloodlines!Alice responding that hate sex is a thing, so it would be possible to fuck the Voermans in both senses of the word...and then asking “but how the hell did you get Therese to have sex with you, that does not seem like her thing.” XD So that’s all set!
Other: A nice day means that we did go out and play beanbags – and despite my best efforts, Dad once again dominated, winning all three games, while I constantly came second and Mom constantly came third. *shakehead* We really did try! At least when we played Yahtzee for Game Night, things were a little more egalitarian, with each of us winning a game, and Mom winning two. So she’s champ at SOMETHING, at least!
Aaaand I have officially stayed up Way Too Late because it, as usual, took me longer to complete these write-ups than I thought it would. *facepalm* I gotta go to bed -- tomorrow, goals include working the "Tav!Smiler" post in my Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) tumblr drafts; playing Fallout 4 and continuing the trek through the Mechanist's Lair; updating the FO4 Playthrough Progression appropriately; and hopefully getting that other video out of my Watch Later already. We'll see what happens -- night all!
