The Overcow Has Arrived

It’s an Echo Bazaar joke, actually. One of the companions you can buy in the Bazaar in Fallen London is an Overgoat. He or she looks like this.

(You can get hired by a similar-looking specimen in Ladybones Road, but I don’t know if they’re an Overgoat.)

The Overgoat costs an ungodly amount of cash in the game, so one is unlikely to get one, but that’s never stopped me from wanting one, because you get +10 Watchful with it. And it has pretty awesome flavor text.

Anyways, as I often suffer from not just nightmares, but also an aching loneliness in the night, Abi suggested I get a stuffed animal to cuddle with. Apparently various people have stuffed animals even when they’re adults. Maybe both 43!Bush and Obama have teddies, I don’t know, isn’t it fun to think about?

I haven’t had a stuffed animal in a very long time, but hey. I’ll try anything.

Appropriate dimensions for most stuffed animals to sleep with are apparently in the 12″ range, maybe bigger if you want more cuddle.

Amazon sells no Gund Goats, so I got the Gund Mooly Cow.

Pictures below the cut:

So the Overcow arrived today, but she doesn’t actually look like the picture at Amazon; she looks like this cow, which I found out is actually the new 2010 version of Mooly. Some previous versions of Mooly had her head turned to the side, and I’m glad I got the new 2010 version.

However, the Amazon Mooly picture is actually a 2007 Mooly, and I kind of still want it, so I bought the specific 2007 version on eBay, because that’s where you go to buy everything off-model.

And right now, sitting here with the OVERCOW-2010, I’m already fond of her. The oddest thing is—well, okay, the absolute oddest thing would be the exquisite detail they gave to making a plush cow udder, you would not believe me, okay, here’s a picture:

The second oddest thing is that her front legs aren’t straight, but curved slightly, convexly so if you put her on her stomach. I didn’t know why, until I cuddled her: when you do so, the front legs kind of lightly snuggle your forearm. Damn. I don’t know if OVERCOW-2007 will have such a thing.

Another thing I’ve noticed with her under my arm is that, while her body is rather bulldoggish from the side, this makes her fit under your arm while providing extra snuggliness next to your chest. This shape is extra nice when you are cuddling her tight when the random stray hellish thought wanders into your head. Truly, she is a Gund engineering wonder.

Anyways, I think I’ll just carry her around for a while. She doesn’t give me +10 Watchful in Echo Bazaar, but hopefully she has some attribute that’s useful versus my real life nightmares.

10 thoughts on “The Overcow Has Arrived”

  1. When I went away to college, every girl in my dorm had at least one stuffed animal with her. They are comforting. You could consider scenting yours (with tea, maybe?) if that would raise her attributes against nightmares.

  2. Interestin’, my father did away with mine. I ended up with a lot of collectible beanie babies instead (which I didn’t realize were… sort of weird bribes from my mother, like the My Little Ponies), which rarely did anything for me, and were too small and floppy to cuddle well.

    (They are gone. Good riddance.)

    I thought about lavender for the Overcow, as it’s a scent I like (supposedly it’s relaxing as well, but I don’t notice that effect…).

  3. Ursula from my side of the bed, and Orson from Martin’s welcome Overcow to the Soft Cuddly Defenders’ League!

    Looks like a srsly good cow, there.

  4. Russell the Extremely Cuddly Wombat welcomes the Overcow! NONE SHALL ESCAPE HER GAZE!!!!!1!!ONE1!! ;)

    I hope she gives you at least a -4 on Nightmares and a good bonus on PTSD saves. Russell certainly has done more for me than quite a few meds, with no side effects. Cuddly toys should have a fixed place in anyone’s PTSD treatment plan.

    Oh yeah, and I’m supposed to be a 23-year-old grown-up professional… ohwell! ^_^

  6. Bearbear waves in Overcow’s direction!

    Cuddle toys are excellent for driving off night demons. Or travel demons. (They’ll insist on reading the map. They have no map-reading skills. That’s a pro-tip, that is.)

  7. Travel demons too? Definitely something to contemplate. I hate travel very much, and something to hang onto seems like it would help when waiting for the @#$@ delayed flights in an unfamiliar airport.

    My ferry commute could be improved by a toy animal too, I suppose… which may or may not be overdoing it. Hm.

  8. Oliver Alexander Mackenzie Bear (he’s Canadian) has been with me for over 26 years. We have pictures of him at Stonehenge and Little Round Top, on the beach at Provincetown, and most recently in the Farnese Gardens in Rome. I wouldn’t travel without him. Narcoleptics are prone to nightmares and disturbed sleep, and no one is a grownup when they wake up scared or miserable in the middle of the night.

    Oliver started invading my dreams early on, expertly ripping out the throat of the monster in one of my formerly recurrent nightmares. The monster was never seen again. These days he mostly turns up to show me the way home in dreams where I’ve repeatedly taken the wrong bus connection, though there’ve been a couple of times lately when aliens have used him as an intermediary communications node.

    As with Arachne, my folks got rid of my few dolls and stuffies. I didn’t let myself be conscious of the loss. Then, in 1983, I was guinea-pigging for a new narcolepsy drug, one side effect of which was a brief period of rather cheerful delirium before falling asleep. Patrick used this as an opportunity to ask what I really wanted for Christmas. I have no memory of the conversation, but he says I told him I wanted a bear, and specified that it had to be a good hug, and have a wise and understanding expression. Later that week he went out and solemnly hug-tested and scrutinized the expressions of stuffed bears at the Eatons Mall, and thus found Oliver. The rest is history.

  9. Teresa,

    Oh my goodness. The origin story of Oliver is so cute. Eeee!

    I don’t know if the Overcow will show up in my dreams; I’ll be glad if she’s simply there for me in the morning.

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