crossover_chick | Helping Out Mom Wednesday

Yeah, it was a pretty stressful day for my mother (Dad ended up in the bathroom early this morning both throwing up and having diarrhea -- ended up waking me up -- and then was in a bad mood a good portion of the day thanks to that and his computer not working correctly), so I ended up spending a lot of it helping her out with various chores (like helping to clean the kitchen and do the laundry) and errands (going out with her to help bring the mail order to the post office and pick up Dad's prescriptions and whatnot). Meaning I didn't have as much time on the computer as I originally anticipated. No Little Corners today, that's for sure! But I still accomplished a few things on the old interwebs:

Tumblr: Only had Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) to worry about today, it being a Wednesday – and while I didn’t get as much done as I would have liked thanks to the interruptions to help Mom and the bad vibes, I did do a few important things –

A) First, I made sure to get my queue for the week sorted this morning, with:

I. A couple of drawings of Alice from Alice: Madness Returns by jmppromise (a bust sketch of her looking askance at something with a little smirk, and a full-body sketch of her walking with the Hobby Horse, skirt floofed) for today, Wednesday

II. The “Smiler in something pretty” drawing by shenanigansz (featuring their Smiler OC in a lovely off-the-shoulder yellow blouse, black-and-white-striped waist cincher, and bow tie choker) I picked up yesterday for Thursday

III. The “Emily recognizes Barkis” Corpse Bride gif set by ghiblin (featuring Emily revealing Barkis was her fiancee who left her for dead, and Alfred the skeleton finding that literally jaw-dropping) I picked up yesterday for Friday

IV. And a video by gemini-serpentis featuring footage of the fem!Malkavian fledgling dancing on The Asylum’s dance floor set to “Cotton-Eye Joe” by...huh. I don’t actually know. *looks it up* Okay, so the song’s been around since at least the late nineteenth century, but it looks like the version in the video was done by a band named “Rednex” – good to know! *edits the tags on the post before queuing* Anyway, yeah, that video for Song Saturday

So that’s out of my hair, at least – and gets a couple of older things (those Alice drawings and the VTMB “Cotton-Eye Joe” video) out of my drafts. Yay!

B) And second, I managed to make one small update to my “creating a timeline of Valicer In The Dark stories” post draft – namely, deciding that the second “greenhouse” story – where the trio actually gets plants for their greenhouse in Barrowcleft – should have them dealing with another organization based off an Alton Towers ride during the score. Currently I haven’t made up my mind if that organization should be a cult worshiping the Nemesis monster, or the Beornen lead by Wickerman, but at least I have an idea of who should be the antagonist in that story now! Now I just have to flesh out some of my other ideas a bit more...

Writing: Got another page of Chapter 4 of “The Van Dort Vacancy” edited today before my workout – this one featuring:

A) Victor taking Alice’s suggestion to prioritize what clothes he wanted to bring with him to his new home under advisement (and thanking her and Smiler for helping him by taking down his butterfly sketches; Smiler assured him it was what friends did, and besides, he’d already helped Alice pack before, so) and fetching his carpet bag out of his closet to see if it would be big enough for everything he wanted to take. Cue Smiler looking over their shoulder to reassure him it would almost certainly be fine and let him know they needed to get Alice’s bag before they left – only to get distracted by the sheer number of suits that Victor had in his closet

B) Smiler apologizing to Victor for staring when Victor asked “what is it,” explaining that they’d never seen that many suits in one closet before; Alice was initially like “really?” and started explaining how her father had had a fair few suits for his work in Doskvol Academy – only to turn and see Victor’s overstuffed closet for herself and be like “oh, wait, no, I get it now.” Cue her guessing there were twelve suits in there, and a deeply embarrassed Victor confessing it was actually fifteen, with him wearing the sixteenth. Smiler was like “didn’t know you were so into fashion,” causing Victor to retort that he wasn’t, Nell was, because she knew that having lots of trendy clothes was the best way to show off their wealth (“you should see her hat collection”)

C) Victor, now riddled with guilt over how many clothes he owned, spontaneously offering some to Alice and Smiler, explaining that they could take them apart and get a tailor to turn them into clothes for them instead; Alice cut him off with an “is that a genuine offer or one made because you feel bad about having grown up rich,” to which Victor replied “It can’t be both?” XD Smiler comforted him and said it was a very kind offer, but he didn’t have to make up for being well-off to them, and Alice agreed that if they were judging anyone for the amount of clothes Victor had, it was his parents, since they were the ones who bought them and made him wear them

D) And Victor allowing that, yes, okay, him having so many suits was his parents’ fault (with a side complaint about the sort of things his mother dressed him up in as a kid, and how they tended to make his bullies “creative”), but he genuinely was all right giving them a suit or two to repurpose because they deserved nice things – cue Smiler offering a compromise, telling Victor to take his three favorite suits and one he wouldn’t mind being cut up, and if they wanted they wanted to repurpose that one, they could. Or, rather, if Alice wanted to repurpose it, she could, as they had enough clothes. XD Alice allowed that she was rather lacking in things to wear and that if she could trade one of her dresses for one of Joytide’s, then she could accept a suit-turned-into-a-dress from Victor as payment for letting him join her at Elder Gutknecht’s. Though, admittedly, she had already intended to tell him how much she liked the kitchen maid outfit she already had one…

And that is where I left it! Tomorrow, Victor will let her know she’s welcome to the dress and start picking out what suits he wants to take, and the packing shall continue! Hopefully with less “rich boy guilt” on Victor’s part. :P

Workout: Hopped back on the bike this evening to watch another chunk of “Creating CaFae Latte: Behind the Scenes” by C. M. Alongi! Tonight’s section focused largely on her filming every character’s individual scenes for the next few sets of videos, and featured stuff like:

A) Chris revealing that, when she does a script, she makes sure to highlight all swear words or anything else that TikTok might censor to let Video Editor Nic know what needs to be expressed with emojis in the captions (seriously, it always weirds me out that she can say “fuck” in the audio but it has to be a duck emoji in the captions)

B) Chris getting through filming JC’s section and realizing too late that she forgot to bring the fake goatee that identifies Drek’s Dad in videos, and choosing instead to just tie some of her hair under her nose because that was easier than renting out the space again later to do his bits

C) Chris talking about where she got Herla’s costume – basically, his black piratey shirt was one she already owned; his black-and-cold leafy crown was from Amazon; and his iconic bird skull necklace was one she made at a “make your own necklace” place

D) Chris getting all excited to show off Wendy The Wraith’s costume (which was just a “spooky ghost” costume she got at Spirit Halloween) – only to realize before she started filming that she had to do the scenes for John and Mark first, whoops

E) Chris revealing that Drek’s protection charm necklace was actually a gift sent in by a fan, which was sweet – somebody also sent her in a bunch of different sunglasses, which have come in handy for various videos

F) On the flip side, Chris revealing that Oscar’s original shirt, along with the vest for her BookTok version of Citadel, were both stolen from the building after she (she admits stupidly) hung them on the outside of her filing cabinet – she was much more pissed about losing the vest, as that had been a custom job from a friend using material donated by a fan

G) After finally filming all the other characters (including having to go BACK to Drek to film some more bits after filming all of Oscar’s scenes for a skit and realizing that she’d forgotten Drek was in it; she ended up doing some severe squats to get his height right XD), Chris FINALLY getting to show off the Wendy costume...only to put it on backward at first XD And then have to magnify her script 250% so she could actually read it through the mesh face covering

H) Chris admitting that one of the big reasons she doesn’t have an assistant is that she gets really self-conscious recording around other people, especially with the way she films everything – though apparently she’s absolutely fine with public speaking, so good for her there

I) And Chris treating herself to some lovely Vietnamese food after a long day of filming :)

Very cool to learn all this stuff, I have to admit! Though I am sorry someone straight up stole some of her costumes...anyway, I left off with her showing off how the editing process works (with her cleaning up Nic’s rough cuts of her videos) – tomorrow, we’ll finish that off, then see if we can start the “Greek Myths Hot Takes” video! Would be nice to get THAT one watched too...

FreeTube: I didn’t get to do a “full” video catch-up day thanks to helping Mom with all those various chores and errands, but I did manage to knock three videos out of my unofficial “to watch” list tonight –

A) First, I managed to get through the two OXBox lists I had waiting for me:

I. “7 Scariest Theme Parks Ranked from Creepy to Nightmare Fuel” – Mike, Jane, and Andy talking about the spookiest theme parks in video games (that players did not build themselves)! Ranging from the caffeine-fueled Coffee World from Alan Wake II (where the rides are no longer working because the operators have all been taken over by the Dark Presence, making them even MORE inclined to painfully murder tourists), to the fizzy fun of Nuka-World from Fallout 4’s “Nuka-World” DLC (where the rides are no longer working because of the end of the world, and also the place is now home to raiders, gatorclaws, and colorfully-painted feral ghouls), to the silent horrors of Lakeside Amusement Park from Silent Hill 3 (where the rides are working – but given the carousel features flayed poison-spewing horses and the roller coaster tries to run you over, you’ll wish they weren’t). The moral of the story? It’s a lot more fun to be the one designing the killer haunted theme park than it is to be the one attending it. Think of that the next time you play Planet Coaster! (And then promptly ignore it so you can drop your guests into a ravine.)

II. And “7 Bosses So Hard They Had to Be Patched” – Jane, Mike, and Andy talking about those bosses (or, in one case, extremely difficult racing minigame) that proved to be much too much for the average player and had to be patched! Like Promised Consort Radahn from Elden Ring’s “Shadow of the Erd Tree” DLC, whose range attacks were so bad that they had to both lower the damage and shorten their range so players had a chance! Or “Fairplay,” the aforementioned racing minigame from Mafia: City Of Lost Heaven, where it proved so difficult to actually win the race and progress in the game that they had to adjust the AI so the other drivers didn’t go quite so fast (and then rejigger it entirely when they remade the game eighteen years later in 2020). Or Childe from Genshin Impact, whose ultra-powerful and nearly-unavoidable attacks were so nasty that they had to lower his damage multiplers and his HP to give new players a chance! ...in the “Story Mode,” anyway. Apparently there’s a weekly “bonus boss” version of him that still functions like he did pre-patch. Given how controversial nerfing some of the earlier bosses on the list proved to be for the player base (with people who managed to beat them pre-patch being pissed that the developers were “bowing to peer pressure” and other such nonsense) that was probably the right call – best of both worlds!

B) And second, I managed to squeeze in a video uploaded today – “Fun With Shorts: Education in America - 17th and 18the [sic] Centuries (Part 1)” by Josh Way! Eight minutes of a Coronet short about – well, look at the title. XD Specifically, it covered how the Puritans educated their children, with the focus being on “everyone needs to be able to read so they can read the Bible and understand its text as law.” Girls learned sewing and cooking and not much else; boys, meanwhile, went to schools where they could memorize the Bible and related literature. Not exactly a thorough curriculum for growing minds! Josh was appropriately disdainful of the short and everything in it – snarking about Super Cuts being available in the 17th century in response to a kid’s hairdo; making repeated pointed comments about Puritan Christianity and how oppressive and grim it was; and laughing over the name of the law that made it compulsory for towns and villages to have schools to educate their children in Massachusetts (the “Old Deluded Satan Law” – you can see why he laughed). Fun stuff, even if I wish he’d stop splitting up shorts into two pieces like this – oftentimes the second half comes out so long after the first one that I’ve forgotten what the short was originally about!

So that's not nothing -- and I'm glad I was able to help out Mom, even if it was kind of stressful at times. Seriously, the vibes are ending up absolutely rancid in this house more and more often... *sigh* Anyway, I need to head to bed -- since going out with Mom proved the roads are in mostly-good condition, I WILL be going to work tomorrow. Though we do have another late start, at least, so I'll have a bit more time to hang out and relax in the morning, at least. Might try to get my writing done early -- we'll see how that shakes out, though. Night all!