A Fortunately Not So Manic Monday
Apr. 4th, 2022 11:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickMostly because I did NOT sleep well last night -- my CD player stopped working three songs into the CD I was listening to, and since I couldn't have silence, I had to put it on the radio on really low volume, which was -- less than relaxing. Add to that my brain trying to obsess over creepy stuff, and -- ugh. Not a great night at all. :( At least the day itself wasn't too bad. . .
Work – Reasonably quiet Monday – I spent most of my time doing the GL, catching up on credit card nonsense, updating some stuff, and generally just making sure I had my ducks in a row. Nothing too special. We’ll see where the week goes from here!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike again tonight, and back with my next Oxventure Stream, “Sect Appeal!” Previously, the Oxventurers got drunk, Prudence’s Eldritch Object Babies (her two grimoires and the orb of mystery) ran off into some caves, and the Oxventurers ended up joining a cult to the Blessed Lady while looking for them while drunk. Also Dob stayed up all night on watch only for nothing to happen. Something definitely happened when morning came, though –
FRAT BOY JOCKS! Yes, apparently this cult is NOT all sunshine and roses, as those Oxventurers who were asleep were rudely awoken by Davey and Chet, two bros who appointed themselves in charge of the newbie hazing in the cult. They promptly started bullying the Oxventurers, giving Dob a noogie, making fun of Corazon’s rings, and generally implying that they found the Oxventurers intensely uncool, which – well, the Oxventurers tend to have fragile self-esteem at the best of time, so. . . After some failed attempts to look cool at breakfast (key among which was Dob playing with his tomato slices – pretending to have exploded eyes and such – and just getting tomato all over himself and Egbert), the group was brought over to the laundry area to scrub up the soiled robes. Dob tried to show off with Prestidigitation, cleaning up himself and the two bros (and flavoring Davey with sea salt), but Davey just threw a cup of coffee on him, dodged Dob’s attempt to sweep his leg, and noogie-walked him over to the tubs. It was looking like it was going to be a pretty awful morning for the Oxventurers –
And then Merilwen turned into a giant octopus and, with Dob’s help in holding the grater boards, started doing all the laundry with her tentacles. Even Davey and Chet had to quietly admit that was kinda cool. XD Corazon Minor Illusioned up some clean laundry for his tub and went scouting, finding a pretty extensive cave system, with some alchemy going on (grinding herbs and such) and a back tunnel guarded by some guys in full plate. The others, meanwhile, attempted to bond with Chet and Davey (Dob is convinced that Davey is going to be their “Steve Harrington,” which I’m pretty sure is a reference to Stranger Things), Prudence turning some light “negging” on Chet (and making him reflexively ask her out), while Egbert started pulling out pamphlets about his Purple Cow god – only for the now-genuinely-worried bros to warn him to put that shit away, they serve the Blessed Lady here. So not completely evil, just jerks.
After they swanned off, Corazon came back from his adventures (getting glared at by Octowen, who’d tried to scoop him up with a tentacle and failed) and reported in. The general consensus was that they needed to get into that guarded back room – especially after Prudence tried to Detect Magic and found faint traces on the robes and in the washwater of SOMETHING going on. No sign of her book or orb babies, though. :( They decided that maybe they could use Davey (either via genuinely befriending him or using Charm) to get them through, and headed to the common area to see what they were dealing with. There they found Davey, Chet, and their boys lounging around, and taking credit for THEIR hard work with the laundry when the Head Acolyte Lady asked them about it. Merilwen couldn’t stop herself from glaring, but the others tried to play it cool, pretending that Davey and Chet had actually been helpful and showed them around. Though they overplayed it a little bit – Dob first made them sound nicer than they actually were, then Corazon laid the blame on Davey for him knowing about the back room, and THEN Egbert just blurted out that he was in love with Chet, which Dob turned into a love triangle with him being in love with Egbert and Chet being in love with Dob. High Charisma rolls meant the Head Acolyte actually BOUGHT all of this. XD Davey and Chet were very confused.
And the Head Acolyte asked if they would like to do the group a big favor, in service of their Great Work for the Blessed Lady. As it turns out, their alchemists need a special ingredient, “Black Sorrel” (that’s what it sounded like to me anyway), for their latest concoctions – but the cave it grows in happens to be guarded by something rather, uh, feral. Having noticed that Merilwen can shapeshift into animals and guessing that she was a druid, and that the group were adventurers, she thought that maybe they could get it and be of service. Chet and Davey were visibly envious. The gang huddled, chatted, and came to a decision – yes, they would go and get the Black Sorrel, on the chance that maybe Frisky, The Darkness, and the Puzzle Palantir had gone into that cave.
And they’d be taking Chet and Davey with them. Chet and Davey’s enthusiasm about being added to the party as guest members quickly died as they realized they would probably be expected to do work. And that the people they’d been bullying were probably looking for a bit of revenge. Corazon was already talking about Chet coming back changed – notably, with a bunch of knife wounds in him. . . I don’t think this adoption is as sweet as some of the other NPC adoptions, guys. XD I guess we’ll see if it gets better on the trip to gather this Black Sorrel! And incidentally, I’m starting to think I might know who this “Blessed Lady” is. . .they DO have a villain who’s due for a comeback. . .
2. Continue writing “Learn To Love Again”: Check – I am taking the next couple of weeks to try and finish up this story! Even if it’s not a high priority right at the moment, I’d still like to see it done. And I am pretty close to the end – picked back up with Victor and Alice Downstairs, catching up with Alice’s family and learning about their magic from Elder Gutknecht. After a demonstration of Lizzie’s Simple Repulsion shield and Bonejangles’s reveal about his Musicshaping, Gutknecht’s taking a look at what else Victor and Alice have in their “kit” – and look at that, Victor’s got Musicshaping too! So it’s gonna be off to the Liddell’s piano in a minute to see what his version looks like. . .
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – started a bit late, but got through all three –
A) Started with James Turner doing another Sims 4 challenge – “I try the 7 Toddler Challenge as fast as possible!” Yes, after his success with the “Too Many Toddlers” scenario (get three toddlers up to level three in three skills before they age up), James decided to take a crack at the meatier “7 Toddler Challenge” – take care of seven toddlers and max all their skills. He made his Semaj and his seven toddler clones, built them a daycare, and set to work! Everyone spent most of the first day just watching each other because that is the fastest way to build Thinking skill, and then it was onto a grind of playing in the Dream Home Decorator play tent for Imagination skill, babbling to the line of giant stuffed animals for Communication skill, getting potty trained by Semaj the Adult for Potty skill (or, well, to level TWO Potty – then they were on their own to max it out at level three), and then sliding down the slides for Movement skill! Everyone’s needs were kind of a mess (the kids were always lacking attention, and the bathroom kept glitching out and trapping Sims when Semaj tried to bathe anyone for a while), and the house itself turned into kind of a potty horrorshow (especially after James bought some more potties to speed up the potty-training process), but his brutal methods worked – in just under three days (Sunday at 8 AM to Wednesday at 5:45 AM), he got every toddler skill maxed out. Go James! I am duly impressed. XD (And taking notes in case any of my Sims end up with toddlers again.)
B) Then it was over to Call Me Kevin to answer an important question – “Can you play Sea Of Thieves without using your ship?” Yes, Kevin decided to see if he could treasure hunt in Sea Of Thieves without his own ship, so he set it free in the middle of the ocean and started swimming to where he needed to go!
He was promptly eaten by sharks. XD His second attempt worked a little better (took him two days and nights, but he got the drop on the shark), but it quickly became apparent that he was going to need a ship, if not necessarily his ship. And lo and behold, the next time he respawned, he respawned randomly on someone’s ship!
Said someone promptly murdered him. Even after Kevin said he was a friendly stowaway. *sigh* Next time, Kevin tried ASKING to hang out on someone’s ship, and got a bunch of French pirates who were willing to let a guy who could sing ride with them. Kevin – well, Kevin can fuckin’ sing. He had them all MESMERIZED with his performance of the Wellerman song. They managed to successfully get him to where he was going (even managing to cotton on that he was Kevin along the way, though Kevin denied it) and even dig up the treasure, though there was a bit of a polite “oh, YOU should take it” disagreement over the gold (the captain ended up throwing it over the side, leading to one of his crew FINALLY taking the gold and Kevin being like “but I was just trying to be nice!”).
And then Kevin was struck by lightning TWICE and died. XD He tried again with another guy, Gabriel, who apparently didn’t have voice chat – the guy took him to where he needed to go, and they got the booty, but then they got attacked by a kraken, and Kevin ended up dying while screaming Gabriel’s name with his makeshift megaphone. XD He tried again with a guy who only had text chat, but he just pretended to be nice long enough to get Kevin on the boat before murdering him. XD Fortunately, the final crew, another text chat one, was able to get Kevin to his location, back to the outpost, and to the trader, where Kevin was able to finally SELL his treasures and break the “curse.” XD A very fun episode, especially the bit with Kevin hanging out with the French pirates. And seriously, the dude put his ALL into the Wellerman song in that bit – great stuff. :)
C) And finally we had GrayStillPlays and Pong Master, a mobile game all about making ping pong ball trick shots in strange situations. You have a couple of different types of board – the pure trick shot, where the goal is to get the ball into the cup, bouncing off various obstacles (a variety of shapes, some spinning platforms, portals you can launch yourself through) and avoiding various hazards (mainly spikes and saw blades), and the “story” board, where you have to knock over a glass of water, which somehow stops someone from doing something mean or annoying (it makes sense when you’re shorting out electronics to stop someone loudly singing or dancing in public, or waking someone up when they’ve fallen asleep cooking or the like, but to stop a dog from pooping? Summon the police to a burglary?). Gray got pretty good at some of the boards, once managing to drop his ball straight in between two saw blades into his faux-Starbucks cup – and THEN pull off a perfect fling across three MOVING saw blades into said cup. Other ones. . .well, the plinko-style boards made him suffer a little bit. XD Good fun, and a nice simple puzzle game for us all to enjoy!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: N/A for today at least – I’m pretty much set for most of my queueing, except for Song Saturday. Still gotta decide what that’s gonna be. . . *shrug* Figure it out tomorrow!
Yeah, not too shabby. Now I just have to hope my CD player actually works tonight, and I can get a better night's sleep. . .fingers crossed everyone! Night all!
Work – Reasonably quiet Monday – I spent most of my time doing the GL, catching up on credit card nonsense, updating some stuff, and generally just making sure I had my ducks in a row. Nothing too special. We’ll see where the week goes from here!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike again tonight, and back with my next Oxventure Stream, “Sect Appeal!” Previously, the Oxventurers got drunk, Prudence’s Eldritch Object Babies (her two grimoires and the orb of mystery) ran off into some caves, and the Oxventurers ended up joining a cult to the Blessed Lady while looking for them while drunk. Also Dob stayed up all night on watch only for nothing to happen. Something definitely happened when morning came, though –
FRAT BOY JOCKS! Yes, apparently this cult is NOT all sunshine and roses, as those Oxventurers who were asleep were rudely awoken by Davey and Chet, two bros who appointed themselves in charge of the newbie hazing in the cult. They promptly started bullying the Oxventurers, giving Dob a noogie, making fun of Corazon’s rings, and generally implying that they found the Oxventurers intensely uncool, which – well, the Oxventurers tend to have fragile self-esteem at the best of time, so. . . After some failed attempts to look cool at breakfast (key among which was Dob playing with his tomato slices – pretending to have exploded eyes and such – and just getting tomato all over himself and Egbert), the group was brought over to the laundry area to scrub up the soiled robes. Dob tried to show off with Prestidigitation, cleaning up himself and the two bros (and flavoring Davey with sea salt), but Davey just threw a cup of coffee on him, dodged Dob’s attempt to sweep his leg, and noogie-walked him over to the tubs. It was looking like it was going to be a pretty awful morning for the Oxventurers –
And then Merilwen turned into a giant octopus and, with Dob’s help in holding the grater boards, started doing all the laundry with her tentacles. Even Davey and Chet had to quietly admit that was kinda cool. XD Corazon Minor Illusioned up some clean laundry for his tub and went scouting, finding a pretty extensive cave system, with some alchemy going on (grinding herbs and such) and a back tunnel guarded by some guys in full plate. The others, meanwhile, attempted to bond with Chet and Davey (Dob is convinced that Davey is going to be their “Steve Harrington,” which I’m pretty sure is a reference to Stranger Things), Prudence turning some light “negging” on Chet (and making him reflexively ask her out), while Egbert started pulling out pamphlets about his Purple Cow god – only for the now-genuinely-worried bros to warn him to put that shit away, they serve the Blessed Lady here. So not completely evil, just jerks.
After they swanned off, Corazon came back from his adventures (getting glared at by Octowen, who’d tried to scoop him up with a tentacle and failed) and reported in. The general consensus was that they needed to get into that guarded back room – especially after Prudence tried to Detect Magic and found faint traces on the robes and in the washwater of SOMETHING going on. No sign of her book or orb babies, though. :( They decided that maybe they could use Davey (either via genuinely befriending him or using Charm) to get them through, and headed to the common area to see what they were dealing with. There they found Davey, Chet, and their boys lounging around, and taking credit for THEIR hard work with the laundry when the Head Acolyte Lady asked them about it. Merilwen couldn’t stop herself from glaring, but the others tried to play it cool, pretending that Davey and Chet had actually been helpful and showed them around. Though they overplayed it a little bit – Dob first made them sound nicer than they actually were, then Corazon laid the blame on Davey for him knowing about the back room, and THEN Egbert just blurted out that he was in love with Chet, which Dob turned into a love triangle with him being in love with Egbert and Chet being in love with Dob. High Charisma rolls meant the Head Acolyte actually BOUGHT all of this. XD Davey and Chet were very confused.
And the Head Acolyte asked if they would like to do the group a big favor, in service of their Great Work for the Blessed Lady. As it turns out, their alchemists need a special ingredient, “Black Sorrel” (that’s what it sounded like to me anyway), for their latest concoctions – but the cave it grows in happens to be guarded by something rather, uh, feral. Having noticed that Merilwen can shapeshift into animals and guessing that she was a druid, and that the group were adventurers, she thought that maybe they could get it and be of service. Chet and Davey were visibly envious. The gang huddled, chatted, and came to a decision – yes, they would go and get the Black Sorrel, on the chance that maybe Frisky, The Darkness, and the Puzzle Palantir had gone into that cave.
And they’d be taking Chet and Davey with them. Chet and Davey’s enthusiasm about being added to the party as guest members quickly died as they realized they would probably be expected to do work. And that the people they’d been bullying were probably looking for a bit of revenge. Corazon was already talking about Chet coming back changed – notably, with a bunch of knife wounds in him. . . I don’t think this adoption is as sweet as some of the other NPC adoptions, guys. XD I guess we’ll see if it gets better on the trip to gather this Black Sorrel! And incidentally, I’m starting to think I might know who this “Blessed Lady” is. . .they DO have a villain who’s due for a comeback. . .
2. Continue writing “Learn To Love Again”: Check – I am taking the next couple of weeks to try and finish up this story! Even if it’s not a high priority right at the moment, I’d still like to see it done. And I am pretty close to the end – picked back up with Victor and Alice Downstairs, catching up with Alice’s family and learning about their magic from Elder Gutknecht. After a demonstration of Lizzie’s Simple Repulsion shield and Bonejangles’s reveal about his Musicshaping, Gutknecht’s taking a look at what else Victor and Alice have in their “kit” – and look at that, Victor’s got Musicshaping too! So it’s gonna be off to the Liddell’s piano in a minute to see what his version looks like. . .
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – started a bit late, but got through all three –
A) Started with James Turner doing another Sims 4 challenge – “I try the 7 Toddler Challenge as fast as possible!” Yes, after his success with the “Too Many Toddlers” scenario (get three toddlers up to level three in three skills before they age up), James decided to take a crack at the meatier “7 Toddler Challenge” – take care of seven toddlers and max all their skills. He made his Semaj and his seven toddler clones, built them a daycare, and set to work! Everyone spent most of the first day just watching each other because that is the fastest way to build Thinking skill, and then it was onto a grind of playing in the Dream Home Decorator play tent for Imagination skill, babbling to the line of giant stuffed animals for Communication skill, getting potty trained by Semaj the Adult for Potty skill (or, well, to level TWO Potty – then they were on their own to max it out at level three), and then sliding down the slides for Movement skill! Everyone’s needs were kind of a mess (the kids were always lacking attention, and the bathroom kept glitching out and trapping Sims when Semaj tried to bathe anyone for a while), and the house itself turned into kind of a potty horrorshow (especially after James bought some more potties to speed up the potty-training process), but his brutal methods worked – in just under three days (Sunday at 8 AM to Wednesday at 5:45 AM), he got every toddler skill maxed out. Go James! I am duly impressed. XD (And taking notes in case any of my Sims end up with toddlers again.)
B) Then it was over to Call Me Kevin to answer an important question – “Can you play Sea Of Thieves without using your ship?” Yes, Kevin decided to see if he could treasure hunt in Sea Of Thieves without his own ship, so he set it free in the middle of the ocean and started swimming to where he needed to go!
He was promptly eaten by sharks. XD His second attempt worked a little better (took him two days and nights, but he got the drop on the shark), but it quickly became apparent that he was going to need a ship, if not necessarily his ship. And lo and behold, the next time he respawned, he respawned randomly on someone’s ship!
Said someone promptly murdered him. Even after Kevin said he was a friendly stowaway. *sigh* Next time, Kevin tried ASKING to hang out on someone’s ship, and got a bunch of French pirates who were willing to let a guy who could sing ride with them. Kevin – well, Kevin can fuckin’ sing. He had them all MESMERIZED with his performance of the Wellerman song. They managed to successfully get him to where he was going (even managing to cotton on that he was Kevin along the way, though Kevin denied it) and even dig up the treasure, though there was a bit of a polite “oh, YOU should take it” disagreement over the gold (the captain ended up throwing it over the side, leading to one of his crew FINALLY taking the gold and Kevin being like “but I was just trying to be nice!”).
And then Kevin was struck by lightning TWICE and died. XD He tried again with another guy, Gabriel, who apparently didn’t have voice chat – the guy took him to where he needed to go, and they got the booty, but then they got attacked by a kraken, and Kevin ended up dying while screaming Gabriel’s name with his makeshift megaphone. XD He tried again with a guy who only had text chat, but he just pretended to be nice long enough to get Kevin on the boat before murdering him. XD Fortunately, the final crew, another text chat one, was able to get Kevin to his location, back to the outpost, and to the trader, where Kevin was able to finally SELL his treasures and break the “curse.” XD A very fun episode, especially the bit with Kevin hanging out with the French pirates. And seriously, the dude put his ALL into the Wellerman song in that bit – great stuff. :)
C) And finally we had GrayStillPlays and Pong Master, a mobile game all about making ping pong ball trick shots in strange situations. You have a couple of different types of board – the pure trick shot, where the goal is to get the ball into the cup, bouncing off various obstacles (a variety of shapes, some spinning platforms, portals you can launch yourself through) and avoiding various hazards (mainly spikes and saw blades), and the “story” board, where you have to knock over a glass of water, which somehow stops someone from doing something mean or annoying (it makes sense when you’re shorting out electronics to stop someone loudly singing or dancing in public, or waking someone up when they’ve fallen asleep cooking or the like, but to stop a dog from pooping? Summon the police to a burglary?). Gray got pretty good at some of the boards, once managing to drop his ball straight in between two saw blades into his faux-Starbucks cup – and THEN pull off a perfect fling across three MOVING saw blades into said cup. Other ones. . .well, the plinko-style boards made him suffer a little bit. XD Good fun, and a nice simple puzzle game for us all to enjoy!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: N/A for today at least – I’m pretty much set for most of my queueing, except for Song Saturday. Still gotta decide what that’s gonna be. . . *shrug* Figure it out tomorrow!
Yeah, not too shabby. Now I just have to hope my CD player actually works tonight, and I can get a better night's sleep. . .fingers crossed everyone! Night all!
