Month: January 2021

Grim Tales: The Legacy Session 3

My protagonist continues to be an agent of chaos and destruction.

I want it to be clear, for the upcoming pictures, that my goal was to scare away a wolf. Okay. Just scare away a wolf.

Grim Tales the Legacy screenshot where the protagonist decides to destroy a chunk of road
You might think: Did I have any reason to suspect that this would help me achieve my goals in any way? The answer is no. I had absolutely no reason to destroy that beyond ‘agent of destruction’

 

So I do eventually scare away the wolf after destroying a small town (at some point I cut a hole in a display case because that was less destructive than just smashing it?) and etc etc I’m not giving away the plot any further but my next obstacle:

Grim Tales The Legacy screenshot of a blow torch being held up to cobwebs
I thought ‘well I could get a stick or I could use a rake’ and the game said ‘use a blowtorch and let this motherfucker burn’
Grim Tales The Legacy screenshot of cobwebs on fire
Did this backfire in any way? No. Not actually.

 

And now I am taking a break because I have solved enough puzzles and burnt enough things down for today.

Toys! Barbie Fashionistas 2021

Toys are a form of media! I should put up my vinyl toys sometime with glamour shots. To at least remember their line names.

The 2021 Fashionistas are pretty great. I’ve already gotten most of what I want in the wave, with just Kens 167, 163, and 162 left that are on their way. Mostly I use them as stand-in action figures for the stories I write because for some weird reason a lot of the fashionistas look a lot like characters I’ve created and I don’t really object, you know? It’s fun.

Anyway, here’s what I got of this wave so far:

Barbie Fashionista 156 with blue lipstick and an afro
156! She was going to be my new Molly Blackwell (blue lipstick!) but turned out to be too tall. Long will reign original Molly Blackwell.
Two Barbie Fashionistas, which are 157 and one with a catprint t-shirt and freckles
The first one to arrive and already secluded off to a safe place to stand and a previous wave fashionista who’s just adorable. I really like the purple hair on 157. It’s really pleasing in person.
Barbie Fashionista 161 with orange hair and a plaid outfit
161! I don’t really have anyone in mind for her, but I find her pleasing.
Barbie Ken Fashionista 164 has brushed back hair and a malibu 61 shirt
164 looks so guileless. It’s not present in this photo but he has these really great sweat pants with stars on them I want in real life. He stands like a champ.
Barbie Fashionista 166 with long wavy hair and rainbow clothes
I HAD to have this one when I saw her hair. What a beauty! 166 is probably my favourite of the ones I’ll be getting of this line.
Barbie Fashionistas 166, 156, 161, and 164 pose in groupshot
The whole gang! 166, 156, 161, and 164 are really lovely. My dad made fun of their fashion but the man wears a boater hat when he thinks he’s getting away with it.

 

Also, pleasingly, these Barbies have some neat new packaging! They come in basically really big pencil cases which I will definitely be getting more use out of in the future.

Pink plastic zipper cases that held 2021 Barbie Fashionistas
Zippers! Good sizes too.

Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 16: Shadow of Evil

“As the Turtles try to find pieces of a strange metal Baron Draxum is looking for, Splinter intents(sic) to get to the bottom of these odd activities at April’s new job at the Foot Shack. He soon learns that the Foot plan to resurrect their ancient master the Shredder by reassembling the Kuroi Yoroi armor. As the parties clash, the secrets of Splinter’s past finally come to light.”

Thanks, Wikipedia.

So! This is many things: A plot episode, an April episode, a Splinter episode, and a ‘randomly terrible things happen to Donnie’ episode. All of which please me. I was sad the Foot Recruit was not in this episode, as that would have been the perfect cherry.

There was a great bit at the start with two punks and a rhino and a warthog and the Turtles going that if they (the punks) were mutated they would be unstoppable! and I chuckled knowingly and said ‘I got that reference’. It also makes me miss my two cats that were named Bebop and Rocksteady. Bebop could really take a petting like a champ.

I enjoyed the Splinter backstory and him being more fatherly. And for some reason Mikey going ‘You cute little guy!’ as he raced into attack was the best.

Future self, you enjoyed this episode when you have inevitably forgotten everything and look back at this.

Planet Zoo Session 4

I got land and began to set up my second zoo (Filename: Baby’s Second Zoo) which was going to be an all tortoise spectacular (today I found out terrapin only refers to a specific type of turtle which the dictionary was quick to tell me was edible before it told me anything else) and then I found out there weren’t, exactly, any blueprints to what I wanted in the blueprint area of the game and I’d have to go to the steam workshop to download them.

Well, welcome to Sims hell, I guess.

I got some pretty ones but spent more time on window-shopping than playing.

Grim Tales: The Legacy Session 2

Screencap from Grim Tales The Legacy about the Gray family's tendency to get locked in dungeons
This is a brutal and unnecessary burn on John Gray and I am pleased.

 

So I’m playing another session of Grim Tales: The Legacy where I spend my time backtracking back and forth across yet another property with a torture chamber inside. Incidentally, a lot of chaos gremlin energy in this session. At one point I decided to just start using the guns/boomerangs on any animal in my way and it turned out that was, in fact, the answer the game wanted me to do.

Then the fires began.

Screencap of Grim Tales The Legacy telling me to burn hay to search inside of it
You know what makes hay easy to search in? FIRE. I respect this choice from the game.
Screencap of Grim Tales The Legacy telling me to burn a stuffed bird for the sake of it.
There turned out to be tweezers inside. There is actually no reason given to why I wanted to burn that bird, just that it was there and I think the protagonist is losing it a bit. I respect this.

 

It wasn’t just fire.

Screencap of Grim Tales The Legacy showing dynamite on a gate mechanism.
It’s direct.

 

This is somewhat out of sequence, the petty destruction of the bird was third in order. Anyway, I had been given three items to burn things at this point. Flint, matches, and a hunk of burning coal. I hope, eventually, to take down the entire castle.

Screencap of Grim Tales The Legacy of an empty picture frame and text indicating the protagonist of the game wants this to end.
I don’t know about you, protagonist, I’m having a lovely time.

 

And I think by this point, the protagonist wants me to as well.

World of Warcraft

Realized I had enough misc. Darkmoon tickets on various characters to acquire the Noble(wo)man cosmetic set from Darkmoon Faire.

I learned something important while doing this – while the time for a cosmetic set’s ‘sell back’ cooldown is now real time, not game time, you need to log back into the character holding the cosmetic set once the trade-in has expired before it’ll be added to your transmog options. Had a bit of a startle there!

I dressed up my guild bank toon, Keeton, as he is a mage of leisure these days:

World of Warcraft character in the Darkmoon Nobleman cosmetic set facing the camera
Iiiit’s Keeton! Isn’t he handsome?
World of Warcraft character in the Darkmoon Nobleman cosmetic set facing the camera
It’s Keeton from the side!

Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 15a and 15b

15a: Mind Meld

A classic plot of ‘smart character makes other characters smart, regrets it and changes them back’ which was very by the numbers except the brothers weren’t actually doing anything except ignoring Donatello that required them to be turned back and the macguffin was that they were rescuing stolen equipment from the Purple Dragons to… keep for themselves. Ah, the fucking around levels are off the chart in this series. I appreciated these aspects of the episode, but otherwise I think I was more focused on the apple I was eating. Which is a shame because you’d think I’d be more excited about a Donatello episode. I DID like how he kept complimenting everything they were doing instead of them being destructive forces while he was freaking out.

15b: Nothing But Truffle

Todd is confirmed as capybara. Mikey episode. Meat Sweats episode. …were-tree episode?

“You ditched me? I thought you were kidnapped!”

Todd gave me the creeps previously but he was really funny in this episode. And I’m really enjoying a TMNT where I don’t keep going ‘ugh’ at Mikey’s very existence*.

 

*I don’t like wacky/zany characters. I used to like them well enough, but Pinkie Pie was so awful she retroactively poisoned me on the character type. I can’t even look at Wakko Warner now. And I think I’d use a shoe on the other Pinky.

Planet Zoo Session 3

Turns out the solution to my problem with the keepers was ‘turn it off and on again’ which meant it was fixed when I turned the game back on the other night. Yaaay. Also turns out the ‘hard shelter’ was NOT the size of the exhibit but actual shelters which for some reason didn’t show up the first time I searched for what the tortoise needed in its exhibit but appeared the next time I looked?

Well I guess the point s my tortoises keep fucking like maniacs and I have so many tortoises now. So it’s good I expanded the exhibit anyway!

I also added two sets of wolves, timber and arctic. For some reason TWO of my timber wolves arrived injured! Someone is targeting my wolves.

I found out other players could come visit my zoo. I hope they liked my bear exhibit, aka ‘the one that looks good’.

I released my first aardvark to the wild, thus preserving the species for generations to come. No, don’t thank me, I do it because it’s the right thing.

I found out there’s more than one species of tortoise so I think when I finally begin my file name ‘baby’s second zoo’, I’ll make an all terrapin zoo. Party city. Party city.

Next thing I need to do: Fix the fence at the arctic wolves habitat, as I accidentally put the one-sided side of the mirror on… the wrong side.

World of Warcraft – Maldraxxus and Makeovers

Well, it’s uhhh some time into the new expansion and I took a little break early on to have a teensy weensy nervous breakdown about other unrelated stuff and so I’m finally starting actively playing again besides the two hours I do each week with my guild where we fuck around in old content (Currently doing Draenor’s Shadowmoon Valley! WHERE ARE THE SPOREGGONS?) and it’s interesting! It’s hard on my eyes, unlike Bastion, everything in Maldraxxus is basically kinda the same colour and I keep being surprised when there’s another npc there that I just couldn’t see before.

The voice actors for the House of Plagues is great, by the way. And I love the design of their Margrave. And I got a cute lil’ plagueborn slime pet for helping this nice zombie who thinks I’m his apprentice and I’m sure that isn’t a sign of something to come.

There’s a chest near the questing area and I can’t figure out how to get to it (Plaguefallen Chest) and it SEEMED like I climb the giant spinal cord? Anyway after two tries I said ‘not today, Satan’ and went to go kill a lich which is concrete action.

I ended the night on collecting images of the makeovers of my dwarf rogue Hildsgarde and my human paladin Pennielope.

World of Warcraft dwarf rogue poses for the camera with a floating ghost skull behind her
The skull behind Hildsgarde is named Malcolm: She says he’s the spirit of her first kill who torments her for her crimes but that’s just to sound goth. Actually she was fucking around in a cave practicing her sweet backflips and one-liners and she tripped over a skeleton that was haunted and now the angry ghost follows her around

 

World of Warcraft human paladin stands in class hall
This is Pennielope Tillerman aka Pennie the Pally! She’s the granddaughter of my mage Grizellia Tillerman and started out as the squire in the Wrath of the Lich King content. Now she is tol. She’d be a Kul Tiran if they’d been able to be rolled as paladins! But they weren’t. So she remains regular flavour. But I think of her as taller and beefier.