Rainy Dull Thursday
May. 14th, 2026 11:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickWeather was pretty miserable today, though fortunately both my commutes were during breaks in the weather -- still caught some horrible traffic on the main drag, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been! Anyway, I'm trying to get to bed a little sooner, so let me jump straight into the write-up:
Work – VERY dull day at work today – after running the morning reports, I really didn’t have anything else to do. Most of my day was thus spent going through an old spreadsheet of previous year Appeal pledges, seeing which ones were now paid off and which ones still had balances, while completing all the puzzles out of a page of the newspaper I grabbed a couple of days ago. There were a few interruptions – a few Easter Collection gifts to post this morning; my coworker needing my help refunding a payment she’d done in error; somebody calling in from one of the parishes to update us on a new parishioner in the afternoon – but other than that...yeah. *grimace* We’ll see what tomorrow is like – I have stolen more puzzles from one of the papers to help fill the time as necessary!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – my penultimate night on the bike saw me pedal my way through –
A) The end of “Let's Play Resident Evil Requiem: FINAL EPISODE | Episode 9!” The final twelve minutes of which featured:
I. Leon, having just defeated Nemesis!Gideon (and coolly spun Requiem around his finger – Andy was certain he’d broken it because that gun is HEAVY) finding Grace in the rubble around the boss fight arena and picking her up to get the hell out of there...only for both them to realize that there was no way for them to get out. Certainly no handy diagonal elevator, like the OXBoxers hoped! And with them finally having landed in an area where Leon couldn’t get in contact with Sherry...yeah. Leon thus told Grace that he’d sit with her til the end, and they prepared for death as the lights went out around them. The OXBoxers were insistent that SOME other beloved RE character, like Chris Redfield or Barry Burton (age 70) would show up to rescue them, however –
And moments later, they were mostly proven right as a bright light hit both Leon and Grace right in the face, followed by Chris Redfield’s personal BSAA team rappelling in! However, despite the gang’s hopes, Chris himself did not make an appearance – we just got one of his guys talking to Chris over his earpiece, then telling Leon he had a message from “Captain Redfield.” Mike was like “he’s still only a captain?” while Jane was like “why didn’t he come himself, does he have something more important on?” – to be fair, he might still be in Mold Land over in RE8, girl. :p (And honestly, if they were going to throw a Redfield in at the end, it should have been Claire! She was Leon’s co-protagonist in RE2, after all!)
II. A cut to Leon and Grace having been officially rescued by the team, with Leon swaggering through the camp and telling Sherry all about Elpis the antiviral, promising her that he had a vial with her name on it – then adding that everything “Would have been a lot smoother if Chris hadn’t been so late to the party,” causing the OXBox trio to cackle. XD The SHADE – but then again, Leon’s been through a lot in this game. Sherry inquired as to where Chris even was, and Leon admitted he had no idea – Andy added “We’ll find out in the DLC” (which – yeah, most probably). He then spotted Grace sitting on the side of a nearby chopper and went to chat with her – Grace commenting that Elpis really HAD been their last hope, while Leon just hoped there were no more nasty surprises from Umbrella. Grace then added that she just wished they could have saved Emily –
Causing Leon to go “I didn’t hit any of her vitals. She might still be alive.” Which the OXBoxers immediately called bullshit on, noting that they’d shot her a bunch of times (though I think they got her confused with The Girl, as Jane then said she’d melted into a fleshy sludge and I don’t recall THAT happening to Emily’s monster form). They eventually decided that, in-universe, Leon was lying to Grace to make her feel better, and, out-of-universe, that bit of the script was written before they came up with Emily’s death scene. XD
III. Things wrapping up with a bunch of news reports about the incident, including the discovery of the Umbrella lab and how it was a focal point for the “worldwide spread of bio-organic weapons;” speculation that the “extended lockdown” and all the mysterious deaths recently were linked to the Raccoon City incident all those years ago; the Justice Department reopening their investigation into Ozwell Spencer and Umbrella (Mike was incredulous that they’d ever CLOSED it); Alyssa Ashcroft getting posthumous credit for “cracking” the Spencer story, with conspiracy theorists already guessing she’d been killed in a cover-up by the shadowy forces behind the government; the president making an official statement saying there had been no official government involvement since the Raccoon City Incident (Andy: “The president is expected to reject allegations that secret puppet masters control the world”) –
And a raid on Rhodes Hill Care Center...where it was revealed that somehowPalpatine had returned Emily was STILL INSIDE the monster Leon had shot and was apparently STILL ALIVE. ...okay then!
IV. The OXBoxers listening to a bit of the credits song (noting with amusement the fancy product-placement watch that got a close-up in the end credits), and then skipping to the post-credits scene to see if Chris Redfield was in it. He was not – instead, it featured Grace back in her FBI cubicle, chatting with Leon on the phone! Confirming with him that Sherry was okay and telling him that Emily (whom she had apparently adopted) was doing great and that she was teaching her how to read (which – okay, I thought she already knew how to DO that, but a close-up of the pictures on Grace’s desk at the end showed Emily apparently lost her cataracts post-transformation, so I guess she’s teaching her to read non-Braille literature), before being interrupted by her asshole boss asking for a report. Grace assured him she’d get right to it, and hung up feeling great about life –
And then, after a fade-to-black, we got a second post-credits scene of the big old crater in the middle of Raccoon City...where we were shown two mysterious agents coming up to a dead BSAA agent, commenting about how all the BSAA personnel had been neutralized and that they were now retrieving the objective before they sent in the “wolves.” Cue one of the mystery guys reaching for the camera –
And the game ending with Andy’s playtime stats! Andy and Jane: “Guess we’ll find out in the DLC~” XD
V. And a final quick trip into the “Destroy Elpis” timeline, as Jane was very eager to see how that ending played out! In that timeline, when it came time to put in the password, Grace recalled Spencer’s feeling wracked by guilt and Leon making her promise to end this and typed in “Destruction” to destroy the supposed mind-control virus and bring the facility down. Naturally, Zeno was not happy about that and tried to grab her – but fortunately, Leon was on hand to hatchet him in the shoulder and get him to let her go. He then urged Grace to run to a nearby catwalk before the central platform fell, assuring her that he was right behind her and boosting her up –
Only to stop once she got up there, because, well, this was the bad ending, meaning both characters couldn’t survive. Cue Leon facing off against Zeno in a final fight as the platform continued slowly collapsing –
And getting his ass kicked because, you know, dying of T-virus infection. Ending with him looking up at a horrified Grace and saying that “at least I saved you” –
Right before Zeno blew his head off with his ridiculous gun. D: (Though it was still less gruesome than the chainsaw death that they had to blur out before.) Cue Zeno riding the collapsing platform down into a big explosion; Grace taking an elevator back to the surface and regretfully stating that she wished she could have saved Leon; Dr. Gideon apparently getting a memo saying “hey, the guy who was supposed to kill you died, the boss fight is canceled” and just never showing up; a sad silent credit crawl; and Jane regretting everything while Andy and Mike teased her about this being the ending she’d wanted. :p Yeah, uh, turns out releasing Elpis was definitely the right idea! Though I can’t fault Jane for arguing “who is going to take Spencer at his word?” given – everything Umbrella has ever done.
And that was Resident Evil Requiem! Which was a fun ride overall, but...okay, I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this, as the write-up itself has taken long enough, but I do I want to say one thing:
This should have been either a Leon game (preferably with a different dual protagonist – as I said earlier, perfect time to bring back Claire) or a Grace game (with no second protagonist at all). Because while the game is good, I feel like Grace was absolutely screwed by having to share the spotlight with Leon. She has almost NO agency throughout most of the game, instead sort of just stumbling from place to place looking vaguely confused when the player isn’t in control of her, and no character arc. Having someone around who acts like a real person would under these circumstances is just ANNOYING when compared to roundhouse-kicking quip-throwing actually-competent Leon. If Capcom wanted her to be in a game, she needed to be a solo protagonist who actually grew as a person and became less wishy-washy. And if not – well, I think Leon and Claire both having to face the ghosts of Resident Evil 2 would have been a lot more interesting. *shrug* Just my opinion!
B) And the entirety of “Arachnophobia Modes Rated by a Major Arachnophobe!” Ellen’s follow-up to the video that she and Luke did years ago – where Luke showed her video game spiders (at her request!) and she freaked out over them – with her this time looking at a handful of games that purported to protect gamers from the horrors of the spider enemies within with special “arachnophobia modes!” How did they all stack up? Well:
I. Grounded, the sandbox survival game about being a tiny kid in a giant backyard full of bugs and, yes, spiders, got a 10/10 for having a very customizable arachnophobia slider – at one end was realistic spiders, at the other was vague blobs with eyes, and in the middle were all sorts of vaguely-spider-like creatures for people who were okay so long as the creature just had fewer legs or something. Ellen always used the “vague blobs with eyes” setting, but she appreciated that there were options!
II. Satisfactory, the building game about making factories on an alien planet that also included creatures, including spider-like aliens, to fight and kill for resources, got a 9/10 for having a very amusing arachnophobia mode that replaced all of those aliens with static glitchy PNGs of cats that mewed at you when they attacked. Sure, it made her feel a little bad to beat up cats for their resources, and yes, it could make it kind of hard to tell when an enemy had died because the PNG didn’t change, but it was still better than having to face spiders! (And fun fact: this mode came about because one of the DEVS was arachnophobic and couldn’t work on the game otherwise! So they know where people like Ellen are coming from, good.)
III. Dragon Age: The Veilguard, latest in the Dragon Age series of RPGs about the world of Thedas and its troubles with magic and racism and magic racism, got an 8/10 for not actually having any spider-based enemies in it in the first place (negating the need for an arachnophobia mode at all)…because they cut them all during the tumultuous development cycle to finally get the games on shelves. Ellen was thrilled to have a fantasy game that just straight-up had no spiders in it (10/10), but recognized that she had to dock some points for the spiders being cut content and DA fans missing out on fighting an iconic enemy in the series (6/10) – hence the final score being an average of those two.
IV. Lethal Company, the co-op game where you explore monster-invested industrial ruins looking for scrap for The Company, got a 7/10 for an arachnophobia mode that was objectively hilarious – turn it on and all the spiders become the word SPIDER in big red letters – BUT which still included a pair of spidery fangs on the word, which Ellen did NOT approve of! She also didn’t approve of the webs everywhere, as they made her want to shower muchly, so – yeah. Three points off for that!
V. Webbed, an adorable platformer where you played as a spider swinging around, got a 10/10 for their arachnophobia mode turning their spider (and all other spiders) into an adorable blob of googly-eyed fluff – AND for making sure every unlockable spider skin you could collect having a matching blob skin! Given this is a game where you are meant to play as a spider, Ellen REALLY appreciated them doing this so people like her who love web-slinging but not the creatures who make the webs could still play their game. Very sweet of them!
VI. Star Wars: Jedi Survivor, the sequel to Fallen Order that sees Jedi Cal doing Jedi things across the galaxy, got a 4/10 for having a pretty shit arachnophobia mode – though, ironically, they don’t actually have spiders in their game. Instead, they have scorpion-type enemies, and their fix for making them less scary to people? Lowering their polygons so they looked like something out of Runescape. Ellen got that the gameplay prevented the developers from changing the look of the enemies too much (players had to see when they were telegraphing their next attack), but said that just making the scorpion low-poly didn’t really help her fears. Hilariously, what DID was giving the scorpion monster a mouth full of pointy teeth instead of the usual arachnid mouth parts – and the arachnophobia mode actually RUINED that by removing the teeth! So yeah – points for trying, but she wasn’t impressed.
VII. And Devour: Banish Evil Together, a co-op game about surviving a spooky haunted house occupied by a terrible spider and its children, got an 8/10 for having an arachnophobia mode which turned the main spider enemies into spooky-woman-faced tic-tacs and the lesser spiders into blobs that were easily handled by Ellen’s flashlight. She still didn’t like the spooky-woman-face’s spider-possessed eyes (hence the docking of some points), but she enjoyed that it mostly took the phobia terror away while keeping the regular video game terror and allowing her to play with her friends during Hallowstream.
So yeah – if you are not a fan of spiders, maybe check some of those games out! Well, except Star Wars: Jedi Survivor obviously. That one is not going to help you.
2. Continue editing Chapter 5 of “The Van Dort Vacancy”: Check – after watching my “keeping character voices consistent” videos (see below), I dove back into this and cleared another page-and-a-bit! Which included:
A) Victor noting that being a criminal seems harder than he first thought, and Kasimir confirming that it was, no matter what “Barney the tourist” thought – cue Barnaby countering that they were having fun, and indicating for them to ask Smiler – before admitting he didn’t know Smiler’s name. Cue Smiler telling him, and Barnaby immediately forgetting their name and saying to just ask “him.” Fortunately, he took Smiler’s correction of “them” in good grace. Barnaby may be a jerk, but I won’t make him a MISGENDERING jerk. Bridge too far, that.
B) Barnaby then following that up by saying this was one of their better heists – Kasimir grumbled that he was only saying that because he got to go to the party, and Barnaby pretty much concurred, noting that he’d had delicious canapes and more than acceptable drink, and got to listen to the guests slag off the hostess behind her back. XD Naturally, Alice was interested in hearing Nell getting slagged off, and Barnaby happily shared some choice comments with her and Victor – “she can put her nose in the air all she likes – she’ll never stop stinking of fish” from Lord Goth; “she puts on so many airs, it’s a wonder she isn’t blown all the way to Tycheros” from Lady Kingsleigh; and “she’s more likely to find a way to holiday on the moon than ever have tea with the Immortal Emperor” from none other than future Three Pillars enemy Lord Rowan! I thought it would be funny to give him a mention here. :D Anyway, Victor and Alice thoroughly enjoyed these jibes, with Victor noting that the guests should be glad they never had to live with Nell Van Dort, as it was not fun –
And then Barnaby went ahead and ruined the bonding moment by talking about how those in trade should know their place better. Kasimir asked “don’t YOU own a shipping company?” but Barnaby explained that he let the lower classes run it, and that made all the difference. XD Oh Barnaby, you asshole.
C) Kasimir deciding he was tired of Barnaby’s bullshit and asking Smiler how the lock was coming, and Smiler letting him know it was almost sorted...and then, a moment later, tapping in the final tumbler and getting the door open! Kasimir asked Victor to confirm there were no traps or funny business waiting for them, and Victor assured him there wasn’t – just a combination lock on the safe, and he knew how to open that. Mostly, the vault was just over the top, according to him. Alice teased him by asking if the walls were solid gold, and Victor let her know that Nell would have totally done that if William had let her. All about the conspicuous consumption, Nell!
D) And the gang finally entering the vault and getting a look at what was inside! Which, so far, has included a massive iron safe with the money they want inside; a set of gold cutlery, Iruvian crystal glasses, and gold plates (Kasimir noting that was an expensive meal even before you got to the food); and a set of fancy chairs made of Dagger Isle wood covered in gold, with fancy embroidered cushions (Victor said that only his parents and the Everglots had ever sat on them – Smiler commented that was a shame, as they looked comfortable, but Alice pointed out that they’d be a BITCH to clean if you ever spilled something on them). I left off with Smiler wandering toward the far wall, asking Victor what the big discs all over it were...tomorrow, Victor gives an answer that rocks everyone’s worlds, albeit in different ways...
3. Watch something on YouTube: Technical check, in that I watched the second half of “Debt, Death, Ghosts and Crime - The OX crew play BITD” by CaitlinRC (showing off the best moments of the first episode of Oxventure Presents: Blades In The Dark) and all of “Victor van dort Scenes [logoless+720p] (corpse bride)” by PACKS LOGOLESS (showing off a bunch of little Victor clips in under a minute) as “research” for working on “The Van Dort Vacancy.” Would have liked to have watched something new to go along with these, but at least I got to laugh at the Hobbyhorses stumbling through their first score again!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Partial check – there was nothing happening on Valice Multiverse again, but on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), I made a point of at least throwing a draft of Squid’s birthday fic post in the queue for Saturday! I’ll properly clean it up and see if I want to do a Song Saturday with it tomorrow.
Not too shabby, I suppose, though as usual the Workout Video Write-Up devoured a good portion of my night... Meh. At least I was able to get Squid's story into the queue, even if I do have to finish off the actual post tomorrow! For now, though, I gotta head to bed -- night all!
Work – VERY dull day at work today – after running the morning reports, I really didn’t have anything else to do. Most of my day was thus spent going through an old spreadsheet of previous year Appeal pledges, seeing which ones were now paid off and which ones still had balances, while completing all the puzzles out of a page of the newspaper I grabbed a couple of days ago. There were a few interruptions – a few Easter Collection gifts to post this morning; my coworker needing my help refunding a payment she’d done in error; somebody calling in from one of the parishes to update us on a new parishioner in the afternoon – but other than that...yeah. *grimace* We’ll see what tomorrow is like – I have stolen more puzzles from one of the papers to help fill the time as necessary!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – my penultimate night on the bike saw me pedal my way through –
A) The end of “Let's Play Resident Evil Requiem: FINAL EPISODE | Episode 9!” The final twelve minutes of which featured:
I. Leon, having just defeated Nemesis!Gideon (and coolly spun Requiem around his finger – Andy was certain he’d broken it because that gun is HEAVY) finding Grace in the rubble around the boss fight arena and picking her up to get the hell out of there...only for both them to realize that there was no way for them to get out. Certainly no handy diagonal elevator, like the OXBoxers hoped! And with them finally having landed in an area where Leon couldn’t get in contact with Sherry...yeah. Leon thus told Grace that he’d sit with her til the end, and they prepared for death as the lights went out around them. The OXBoxers were insistent that SOME other beloved RE character, like Chris Redfield or Barry Burton (age 70) would show up to rescue them, however –
And moments later, they were mostly proven right as a bright light hit both Leon and Grace right in the face, followed by Chris Redfield’s personal BSAA team rappelling in! However, despite the gang’s hopes, Chris himself did not make an appearance – we just got one of his guys talking to Chris over his earpiece, then telling Leon he had a message from “Captain Redfield.” Mike was like “he’s still only a captain?” while Jane was like “why didn’t he come himself, does he have something more important on?” – to be fair, he might still be in Mold Land over in RE8, girl. :p (And honestly, if they were going to throw a Redfield in at the end, it should have been Claire! She was Leon’s co-protagonist in RE2, after all!)
II. A cut to Leon and Grace having been officially rescued by the team, with Leon swaggering through the camp and telling Sherry all about Elpis the antiviral, promising her that he had a vial with her name on it – then adding that everything “Would have been a lot smoother if Chris hadn’t been so late to the party,” causing the OXBox trio to cackle. XD The SHADE – but then again, Leon’s been through a lot in this game. Sherry inquired as to where Chris even was, and Leon admitted he had no idea – Andy added “We’ll find out in the DLC” (which – yeah, most probably). He then spotted Grace sitting on the side of a nearby chopper and went to chat with her – Grace commenting that Elpis really HAD been their last hope, while Leon just hoped there were no more nasty surprises from Umbrella. Grace then added that she just wished they could have saved Emily –
Causing Leon to go “I didn’t hit any of her vitals. She might still be alive.” Which the OXBoxers immediately called bullshit on, noting that they’d shot her a bunch of times (though I think they got her confused with The Girl, as Jane then said she’d melted into a fleshy sludge and I don’t recall THAT happening to Emily’s monster form). They eventually decided that, in-universe, Leon was lying to Grace to make her feel better, and, out-of-universe, that bit of the script was written before they came up with Emily’s death scene. XD
III. Things wrapping up with a bunch of news reports about the incident, including the discovery of the Umbrella lab and how it was a focal point for the “worldwide spread of bio-organic weapons;” speculation that the “extended lockdown” and all the mysterious deaths recently were linked to the Raccoon City incident all those years ago; the Justice Department reopening their investigation into Ozwell Spencer and Umbrella (Mike was incredulous that they’d ever CLOSED it); Alyssa Ashcroft getting posthumous credit for “cracking” the Spencer story, with conspiracy theorists already guessing she’d been killed in a cover-up by the shadowy forces behind the government; the president making an official statement saying there had been no official government involvement since the Raccoon City Incident (Andy: “The president is expected to reject allegations that secret puppet masters control the world”) –
And a raid on Rhodes Hill Care Center...where it was revealed that somehow
IV. The OXBoxers listening to a bit of the credits song (noting with amusement the fancy product-placement watch that got a close-up in the end credits), and then skipping to the post-credits scene to see if Chris Redfield was in it. He was not – instead, it featured Grace back in her FBI cubicle, chatting with Leon on the phone! Confirming with him that Sherry was okay and telling him that Emily (whom she had apparently adopted) was doing great and that she was teaching her how to read (which – okay, I thought she already knew how to DO that, but a close-up of the pictures on Grace’s desk at the end showed Emily apparently lost her cataracts post-transformation, so I guess she’s teaching her to read non-Braille literature), before being interrupted by her asshole boss asking for a report. Grace assured him she’d get right to it, and hung up feeling great about life –
And then, after a fade-to-black, we got a second post-credits scene of the big old crater in the middle of Raccoon City...where we were shown two mysterious agents coming up to a dead BSAA agent, commenting about how all the BSAA personnel had been neutralized and that they were now retrieving the objective before they sent in the “wolves.” Cue one of the mystery guys reaching for the camera –
And the game ending with Andy’s playtime stats! Andy and Jane: “Guess we’ll find out in the DLC~” XD
V. And a final quick trip into the “Destroy Elpis” timeline, as Jane was very eager to see how that ending played out! In that timeline, when it came time to put in the password, Grace recalled Spencer’s feeling wracked by guilt and Leon making her promise to end this and typed in “Destruction” to destroy the supposed mind-control virus and bring the facility down. Naturally, Zeno was not happy about that and tried to grab her – but fortunately, Leon was on hand to hatchet him in the shoulder and get him to let her go. He then urged Grace to run to a nearby catwalk before the central platform fell, assuring her that he was right behind her and boosting her up –
Only to stop once she got up there, because, well, this was the bad ending, meaning both characters couldn’t survive. Cue Leon facing off against Zeno in a final fight as the platform continued slowly collapsing –
And getting his ass kicked because, you know, dying of T-virus infection. Ending with him looking up at a horrified Grace and saying that “at least I saved you” –
Right before Zeno blew his head off with his ridiculous gun. D: (Though it was still less gruesome than the chainsaw death that they had to blur out before.) Cue Zeno riding the collapsing platform down into a big explosion; Grace taking an elevator back to the surface and regretfully stating that she wished she could have saved Leon; Dr. Gideon apparently getting a memo saying “hey, the guy who was supposed to kill you died, the boss fight is canceled” and just never showing up; a sad silent credit crawl; and Jane regretting everything while Andy and Mike teased her about this being the ending she’d wanted. :p Yeah, uh, turns out releasing Elpis was definitely the right idea! Though I can’t fault Jane for arguing “who is going to take Spencer at his word?” given – everything Umbrella has ever done.
And that was Resident Evil Requiem! Which was a fun ride overall, but...okay, I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this, as the write-up itself has taken long enough, but I do I want to say one thing:
This should have been either a Leon game (preferably with a different dual protagonist – as I said earlier, perfect time to bring back Claire) or a Grace game (with no second protagonist at all). Because while the game is good, I feel like Grace was absolutely screwed by having to share the spotlight with Leon. She has almost NO agency throughout most of the game, instead sort of just stumbling from place to place looking vaguely confused when the player isn’t in control of her, and no character arc. Having someone around who acts like a real person would under these circumstances is just ANNOYING when compared to roundhouse-kicking quip-throwing actually-competent Leon. If Capcom wanted her to be in a game, she needed to be a solo protagonist who actually grew as a person and became less wishy-washy. And if not – well, I think Leon and Claire both having to face the ghosts of Resident Evil 2 would have been a lot more interesting. *shrug* Just my opinion!
B) And the entirety of “Arachnophobia Modes Rated by a Major Arachnophobe!” Ellen’s follow-up to the video that she and Luke did years ago – where Luke showed her video game spiders (at her request!) and she freaked out over them – with her this time looking at a handful of games that purported to protect gamers from the horrors of the spider enemies within with special “arachnophobia modes!” How did they all stack up? Well:
I. Grounded, the sandbox survival game about being a tiny kid in a giant backyard full of bugs and, yes, spiders, got a 10/10 for having a very customizable arachnophobia slider – at one end was realistic spiders, at the other was vague blobs with eyes, and in the middle were all sorts of vaguely-spider-like creatures for people who were okay so long as the creature just had fewer legs or something. Ellen always used the “vague blobs with eyes” setting, but she appreciated that there were options!
II. Satisfactory, the building game about making factories on an alien planet that also included creatures, including spider-like aliens, to fight and kill for resources, got a 9/10 for having a very amusing arachnophobia mode that replaced all of those aliens with static glitchy PNGs of cats that mewed at you when they attacked. Sure, it made her feel a little bad to beat up cats for their resources, and yes, it could make it kind of hard to tell when an enemy had died because the PNG didn’t change, but it was still better than having to face spiders! (And fun fact: this mode came about because one of the DEVS was arachnophobic and couldn’t work on the game otherwise! So they know where people like Ellen are coming from, good.)
III. Dragon Age: The Veilguard, latest in the Dragon Age series of RPGs about the world of Thedas and its troubles with magic and racism and magic racism, got an 8/10 for not actually having any spider-based enemies in it in the first place (negating the need for an arachnophobia mode at all)…because they cut them all during the tumultuous development cycle to finally get the games on shelves. Ellen was thrilled to have a fantasy game that just straight-up had no spiders in it (10/10), but recognized that she had to dock some points for the spiders being cut content and DA fans missing out on fighting an iconic enemy in the series (6/10) – hence the final score being an average of those two.
IV. Lethal Company, the co-op game where you explore monster-invested industrial ruins looking for scrap for The Company, got a 7/10 for an arachnophobia mode that was objectively hilarious – turn it on and all the spiders become the word SPIDER in big red letters – BUT which still included a pair of spidery fangs on the word, which Ellen did NOT approve of! She also didn’t approve of the webs everywhere, as they made her want to shower muchly, so – yeah. Three points off for that!
V. Webbed, an adorable platformer where you played as a spider swinging around, got a 10/10 for their arachnophobia mode turning their spider (and all other spiders) into an adorable blob of googly-eyed fluff – AND for making sure every unlockable spider skin you could collect having a matching blob skin! Given this is a game where you are meant to play as a spider, Ellen REALLY appreciated them doing this so people like her who love web-slinging but not the creatures who make the webs could still play their game. Very sweet of them!
VI. Star Wars: Jedi Survivor, the sequel to Fallen Order that sees Jedi Cal doing Jedi things across the galaxy, got a 4/10 for having a pretty shit arachnophobia mode – though, ironically, they don’t actually have spiders in their game. Instead, they have scorpion-type enemies, and their fix for making them less scary to people? Lowering their polygons so they looked like something out of Runescape. Ellen got that the gameplay prevented the developers from changing the look of the enemies too much (players had to see when they were telegraphing their next attack), but said that just making the scorpion low-poly didn’t really help her fears. Hilariously, what DID was giving the scorpion monster a mouth full of pointy teeth instead of the usual arachnid mouth parts – and the arachnophobia mode actually RUINED that by removing the teeth! So yeah – points for trying, but she wasn’t impressed.
VII. And Devour: Banish Evil Together, a co-op game about surviving a spooky haunted house occupied by a terrible spider and its children, got an 8/10 for having an arachnophobia mode which turned the main spider enemies into spooky-woman-faced tic-tacs and the lesser spiders into blobs that were easily handled by Ellen’s flashlight. She still didn’t like the spooky-woman-face’s spider-possessed eyes (hence the docking of some points), but she enjoyed that it mostly took the phobia terror away while keeping the regular video game terror and allowing her to play with her friends during Hallowstream.
So yeah – if you are not a fan of spiders, maybe check some of those games out! Well, except Star Wars: Jedi Survivor obviously. That one is not going to help you.
2. Continue editing Chapter 5 of “The Van Dort Vacancy”: Check – after watching my “keeping character voices consistent” videos (see below), I dove back into this and cleared another page-and-a-bit! Which included:
A) Victor noting that being a criminal seems harder than he first thought, and Kasimir confirming that it was, no matter what “Barney the tourist” thought – cue Barnaby countering that they were having fun, and indicating for them to ask Smiler – before admitting he didn’t know Smiler’s name. Cue Smiler telling him, and Barnaby immediately forgetting their name and saying to just ask “him.” Fortunately, he took Smiler’s correction of “them” in good grace. Barnaby may be a jerk, but I won’t make him a MISGENDERING jerk. Bridge too far, that.
B) Barnaby then following that up by saying this was one of their better heists – Kasimir grumbled that he was only saying that because he got to go to the party, and Barnaby pretty much concurred, noting that he’d had delicious canapes and more than acceptable drink, and got to listen to the guests slag off the hostess behind her back. XD Naturally, Alice was interested in hearing Nell getting slagged off, and Barnaby happily shared some choice comments with her and Victor – “she can put her nose in the air all she likes – she’ll never stop stinking of fish” from Lord Goth; “she puts on so many airs, it’s a wonder she isn’t blown all the way to Tycheros” from Lady Kingsleigh; and “she’s more likely to find a way to holiday on the moon than ever have tea with the Immortal Emperor” from none other than future Three Pillars enemy Lord Rowan! I thought it would be funny to give him a mention here. :D Anyway, Victor and Alice thoroughly enjoyed these jibes, with Victor noting that the guests should be glad they never had to live with Nell Van Dort, as it was not fun –
And then Barnaby went ahead and ruined the bonding moment by talking about how those in trade should know their place better. Kasimir asked “don’t YOU own a shipping company?” but Barnaby explained that he let the lower classes run it, and that made all the difference. XD Oh Barnaby, you asshole.
C) Kasimir deciding he was tired of Barnaby’s bullshit and asking Smiler how the lock was coming, and Smiler letting him know it was almost sorted...and then, a moment later, tapping in the final tumbler and getting the door open! Kasimir asked Victor to confirm there were no traps or funny business waiting for them, and Victor assured him there wasn’t – just a combination lock on the safe, and he knew how to open that. Mostly, the vault was just over the top, according to him. Alice teased him by asking if the walls were solid gold, and Victor let her know that Nell would have totally done that if William had let her. All about the conspicuous consumption, Nell!
D) And the gang finally entering the vault and getting a look at what was inside! Which, so far, has included a massive iron safe with the money they want inside; a set of gold cutlery, Iruvian crystal glasses, and gold plates (Kasimir noting that was an expensive meal even before you got to the food); and a set of fancy chairs made of Dagger Isle wood covered in gold, with fancy embroidered cushions (Victor said that only his parents and the Everglots had ever sat on them – Smiler commented that was a shame, as they looked comfortable, but Alice pointed out that they’d be a BITCH to clean if you ever spilled something on them). I left off with Smiler wandering toward the far wall, asking Victor what the big discs all over it were...tomorrow, Victor gives an answer that rocks everyone’s worlds, albeit in different ways...
3. Watch something on YouTube: Technical check, in that I watched the second half of “Debt, Death, Ghosts and Crime - The OX crew play BITD” by CaitlinRC (showing off the best moments of the first episode of Oxventure Presents: Blades In The Dark) and all of “Victor van dort Scenes [logoless+720p] (corpse bride)” by PACKS LOGOLESS (showing off a bunch of little Victor clips in under a minute) as “research” for working on “The Van Dort Vacancy.” Would have liked to have watched something new to go along with these, but at least I got to laugh at the Hobbyhorses stumbling through their first score again!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Partial check – there was nothing happening on Valice Multiverse again, but on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), I made a point of at least throwing a draft of Squid’s birthday fic post in the queue for Saturday! I’ll properly clean it up and see if I want to do a Song Saturday with it tomorrow.
Not too shabby, I suppose, though as usual the Workout Video Write-Up devoured a good portion of my night... Meh. At least I was able to get Squid's story into the queue, even if I do have to finish off the actual post tomorrow! For now, though, I gotta head to bed -- night all!
