HAAAAPPPPY HALLOOOOOWEEEEEEN

[clockwork_doc]

You know what time it is?

Time for a HALLOWEEN PARTY! Yes, the fabled Inkwell Bash hasn't shown up for a few years, but it's back now, baby! The residents have gone all out with fake cobwebs stretched across every corner, plastic spiders lurking on the bartop, foam tombstones in the front yard, funny ghosts and witches clinging to the window, rubber bats dangling from the ceiling, and a whole row of jack-o-lanterns, from happy to spooky, along the front of the building. Candy dishes line the bar, and pumpkin pie and blood-red punch are readily available from the back. The jukebox is blaring "Spooky Scary Skeletons," and the lights have been dimmed to provide just the right atmosphere.

"Ow! Damn it. . ."

And if Doc can get the fog machine working, then we'll be all set! In the meantime, door's open for anyone who wants to drop by for a treat! (Or maybe even a trick.)

Comments

[alienlisa]

Fashionably late, as always, AL and the guys make their entrance. The alter ego is too lazy to think up costumes for them, but is entertaining the thought of AL, Luke, and Twelve being dressed as a three-headed monster (AL's in the middle) so she can keep them both close to her - she's still reeling a little about the fact that Twelve plus one is a woman, and Luke's fate is still up in the air since the trailers are more trolls than teasers.

The Doctors spot Doc tinkering with the fog machine. "You let us know when you want a hand, okay?" says Ten by way of greeting.

[clockwork_doc]

"Frankly, I could use one right now, if you don't mind," Doc says, looking up. He's clad in a lime-green labcoat, and has a fake mustache on with a strip of white through it -- if you're an MST3K fan, you'll be able to tell he's supposed to be Dr. Forrester, one of the original Mads from the show. "There's something somewhere that simply isn't fitting correctly, but damned if I can tell what it is."

[alienlisa]

Ten and Eleven crouch down to buzz their sonic screwdrivers at the fog machine. Tommy looks a little worried. "Uh...are you sure you both should be doing that?"

"Don't be silly," says Ten, waving his free hand dismissively.

"Yes," adds Eleven. "We have everything under control." He nudges his future self. "Reverse the polarity!" The sonics buzz for a long couple of seconds. "...it's not working."

"We're both reversing the polarity," says Ten.

"Yes," responds Eleven, annoyed, "I know that."

Ten sighs. "There's two of us - I'm reversing it, and you're reversing it back again! We're confusing the polarity." Beat. "Haven't we gone through this before?"

"It's fine. As long as it doesn't - "

Zzzap!

" - short out."

A little plume of smoke rises out of the fog machine. Eleven scratches the back of his head. "Well that shouldn't have happened..."

"Oh good grief," laments Ten as he sonics the machine again and proceeds to "un-short" it out. "Let's try again, shall we?"

"Maybe you both better leave well enough alone?" suggests Adam.

[clockwork_doc]

Doc steps away, allowing them to sonic the little fog machine -- and then facepalms as they short it out. "This doesn't seem an improvement on what I was doing."

"I dunno, Doc," Marty comments, arriving on the scene with an amused look. He's gone for a blast from the past and is in his old Ghostbusters gear. "They keep shorting it out enough times, we could get enough smoke to pass for fog."

Doc levels a look at him. "Do you want to be the one to tell Alice why the Inkwell is suddenly full of smoke?"

". . .Good point."

[alienlisa]

"Would you expect any less from those two, though?" asks Jesse.

The two Doctors stop their sonicing at Doc's words. "We didn't think of that," admits Eleven, looking down. He then blinks and peers closer, pulling a magnifying glass out from his coat. He sticks his fingers into the machine, fiddles a bit, then the fog machine starts spitting out fog like it's supposed to.

"What did you do?" asks Ten.

"Loose wire. Wasn't making the connection properly." He grins. "Good as new!"

"Well, how do you like that?" says Tommy. "They actually fixed something."

The Time Lords give him a dirty look.

[clockwork_doc]

"Given that Vic only usually watches short clips of the show, and hasn't even done that in a while, I have no idea where my expectations should be," Doc tells Jesse.

Of course, the moment he says that, they actually do manage to fix the machine -- and of course, it turned out to be one of those nothing problems that slips under the radar. He groans. "Are you serious. . .well, thank you for getting it working," he says, shaking his head.

"Everything all right over here?" Alice asks, wandering over with Victor. They're in matching costumes -- Japanese high school uniforms. Alice's, though, has a few interesting red stains splashed across the blazer and skirt. "We heard the usual 'this thing isn't working' swearing before."

[alienlisa]

((I DID NOT SEE THE EMAIL DAMN YOU GMAIL!!))

The Doctors shrug. "Sometimes you need another set of eyes to see the problem," says Eleven.

"Things are fine," says Ten to the arriving Alice. "I think Doc just needed someone with longer, thinner fingers and Victor wasn't available."

"Speaking of," says Tommy, eying the couple, "are you two something from a video game or anime?"

[save_us_alice]

((*pats*))

"I know, but still. . ." Give him leave to be a little grumpy that it was just a loose wire.

Victor chuckles, rubbing the back of his head. "I see. Sorry, Alice and I just changed into our costumes."

"Sort of both, actually," Alice says. "It's a video-game-in-progress Victoria follows called 'Yandere Simulator,' and the setting is an anime-style high school. The protagonist is a girl obsessed with a boy, and the goal of the game is to eliminate rivals for his affection by any means possible. I'm the main character, Ayano, and Victor's my Senpai." She hugs him for emphasis.

[alienlisa]

There's a collective "Ohh" from the guys, and Luke adds to AL, "Didn't one of the Let's Players that the other Lisa follows do that game?"

She's distracted but since it's Luke talking right beside her she hears him fine and nods. "Markiplier, yeah, but he did it two years ago and the alter ego hasn't watched a lot of his older stuff. She still has over a thousand videos in the 'Watch Later' queue to get through."

"One thousand, two hundred thirty as of this moment," says Data in what he probably thinks is a helpful way.

"Yeah, case in point. She's probably mentioned the big queue to you," she says to V.

[save_us_alice]

Doc, Marty, Victor, and Alice can't help but stare. "One thousand, two hundred, and -- Vic, I hope this puts your occasional complaints of how many videos you might have to watch on any given weekend into perspective," Doc has to say.

"Yeah, yeah," Vic says, shaking her head. "That's -- wow, I didn't even know you could HAVE that many videos in the queue. I sympathize with her time crunch issues, though. Like I told her, this is why I'm subscribed to exactly one person -- with the others, I pick and choose what I want to watch."

"She's rather fond of a fellow called Jay from the Kubz Scouts channel these days," Alice tells the others. "He does regular Yandere Simulator videos. Along with something called 60 Seconds, which is about surviving the apocalypse."

[alienlisa]

"She's subscribed to...well, lots," says AL. "Let's Players, networks, celebrities, singers...but she'll pick and choose what to add to Watch Later, so it's not everything they do, just what she finds or thinks she'll find interesting."

"It's the long episodes from the Let's Players," she continues, "plus she has a tendency to add what's supposed to be 'preview scenes' from shows she watches but by the time she gets to those videos she's seen that particular show already, so technically she should just remove those kinds of videos."

Data does some calculations. "That would bring the total to one thousand, one hundred fifty-one. A decrease of seventy-nine."

"That's...still a lot." AL shrugs in defeat.

[clockwork_doc]

"That's what I do with anyone not named Helloween," Vic says, before sighing. "Ah, yes -- I sympathize with that too. Helloween's sets tend to be around 40 minutes -- split across two parts -- these days. And some of his Saturday stuff has gone even LONGER -- Zelda and Secret of Mana both had hour and a half long-sets! Kubz Scouts -- depends on the game and the challenge, but a fair whack of the 60 Seconds videos are half an hour long. Same with The Sim Supply's latest LP. At least the 'list' videos I like to watch don't tend to go above 15 minutes -- I can sneak those into weekday evenings."

Marty shakes his head. "I'd suggest just take a day off and marathon the heck out of some stuff, but -- kinda hard to do with a kid, isn't it?"

"Perhaps the solution is to see if she can find the time to watch one a day, starting with the oldest -- or the shortest, given temporal constraints," Doc considers. "While resisting the urge to add more for the time being. Which I fully understand is easier said than done." He smiles. "I was already starting that massive clock collection from the movie when. . .well, when I was prevented from acquiring more, let's say."

[alienlisa]

AL agrees with Marty. "She's got a half day of work coming up - her job does Paid Time Off, or PTO, that lumps sick and vacation time together. She's required to take a certain amount before the end of the year - a 'use it or lose it' type of thing - and can bank the rest. So as long as she doesn't succumb to the 'I think I'll take a nap' urge and as long as nothing else is going on on that half day, hopefully a chunk can get taken out. Plus the upcoming holidays."

"The problem with that," she says to Doc, "is that there's the risk of the newer videos getting lost as they get added. At least if she adds them to the queue, she'll get to them eventually even if it keeps bringing the number up."

They all blink with the mention of the clock collection. "Why?" asks Tommy. "What happened?"

[clockwork_doc]

"Aw -- that kind of sucks," Marty says sympathetically. "But I guess a half-day is better than nothing at all. And yeah, Thanksgiving and Christmas should be good for getting a few things watched. We'll keep our fingers crossed." He demonstrates with a hand, Victor doing the same.

"Ahh -- right, I'm used to Victoria's sole subscription who doesn't post daily," Doc says. "Still, hopefully she can find some way to push down the numbers. Removing the previews she doesn't need to watch anymore is a good start. Even if it isn't a lot, it's something."

Doc arches an eyebrow as, right on cue, steam hisses from his elbows. "I ended up in Arcadia in the 60s, remember? I couldn't amass the same amount of clocks as my counterpart from canon to made it to 1985. Andrew wasn't about to let me go back for that," he adds in bitter tones.

[alienlisa]

The entire group looks properly ((I want to say 'chastised' but I don't think that's the right word but we'll go with it)) chastised.

"Sorry," Tommy says. "I forgot." The rest nod and the alter ego facepalms because she forgot, too.

"So let's change the subject, then!" says Ten brightly. "Alice, are those bloodstains from the game or your own flair?"

((Chastised I think works))

[clockwork_doc]

Doc looks about ready to ask how they could forget, he's the living embodiment of steampunk, but Marty puts a hand on his arm. "Cut 'em a break, Doc," he says quietly. "Not like the Changeling part comes up that much anymore, especially with these guys."

"I know, I know. . .but still," Doc grumps.

Alice, fortunately, is willing to go along with the subject change, though Ten garners himself a bit of a look for his overly-cheery (in her opinion) demeanor. "From the game -- if you decide to go around slaughtering people, your clothes are going to end up quite the mess. As one might expect."