Slightly Less Busy Thursday
May. 5th, 2022 11:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickAs indicated by the work section:
Work – Somewhat less busy day, at least when it came to phone calls, but still plenty to do – worked on some exceptions, took some payments, called back some people looking for answers on pledges, talked to the credit card company about a weird fucked-up thing. A little less stressful, but not by much. Meh. Tomorrow’s Friday!
Beanbags – Absolutely lovely day today (the only one of the week), so yes, it was out into the backyard for beanbags after work! And we had a nice fair distribution of wins, thanks to me finally pulling out some good throws in the last game – end scores were me 3-3-W; Dad W-2-3; Mom 2-W-2. Not bad (and certainly makes up for Mom’s straight losses last time we played)!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, finishing off the Oxventure Stream “Elf Hazard!” Corazon had just discovered that non-magical piercing (and indeed many other types of damage) did not work particularly well against banshees and gone back into hiding. This did not end up deterring Dob’s efforts to injure the banshee closest to him and Prudence, however, running in with his pointy stick and leaping atop it to stab at its clavicle! After some confusion about whether or not the attack had even hit (Luke may have rolled damage before actually making the attack roll) and what the damage was (maths!), Dob ended up doing about nine points of damage to it. Not GREAT, but the banshee was not having a good day, that’s for sure.
And then Prudence whipped out the Eldritch Blast and the banshee proceeded to have a worse day as it was hit by a double Agonizing beam attack – didn’t quite kill it, but it did pretty well mess it up. This brought us to Erawen’s turn! Erawen, who tried to flee to the north. Erawen, still Entangled in Merilwen’s vines.
Erawen, who used the brooches to summon banshees from the four cardinal directions.
Yeah, Northward Banshee got its kill. And with him now very very dead, Merilwen stopped focusing her brain on keeping him Entangled and went, “Anyway, here’s Wind Wall.” XD Everyone was appropriately annoyed at the pun, but Merilwen certainly proved she was a master of the elements, cushioning herself, her friends, and her parents in a little circle surrounded by a foot of bludgeoning winds. The injured banshee basically got blown apart, while its friend got a little wispy, but managed to escape total discorporation. It began skirting the edges of the wall, looking for a way in. . .
And that’s when Egbert grabbed his crowbar and just levered the brooch right off Merilwen. Completely ignoring Corazon/Andy trying to remind him that he’s a paladin and that his holy magic could probably do something about these banshees. XD To be fair, though, finally popping off the brooch meant that the two remaining banshees – the one coming in from the south, and the sole survivor of the current combat round – immediately lost interest and started off again. Dob TRIED to pick up the brooch to take with them later, thinking it would be useful to sic on an enemy, but the moment it was in his pocket, the surviving banshee immediately honed in on him again. He couldn’t resist teasing it for a bit, but as Merilwen began to tire, he finally dropped it for good and melted it with Heat Metal. Merilwen’s father admitted that Erawen had dozens of the damn things, but thanked him for the effort regardless. XD
With the fight finally over, Merilwen reconnected with her folks, who admitted Erawen had definitely taken things too far and made the naming ceremony all about the banshees and whatnot (Merilwen’s mother even using a nasty Elven swear to refer to him) and said that she was free to use whatever name she liked and she’d be welcome in their home anytime. And that they’d send for her if any other power-hungry maniacs appeared (via eagle this time). Merilwen thanked them and admitted she didn’t have anything against the naming ceremony per say, she just personally likes being Merilwen – but she DOES have an “adult” name if they want to use it – Merilgraw! Meaning “Cat-Bear.” Her parents were – accepting. XD And so the adventure ended with the Oxventurers getting the party restarted (with the help of the acorn wine waiter, having woken from his drunken stupor, raiding Erawen’s secret stash of goodies), Corazon insisting on doing more singing, and Adarel dragging Egbert off into the woods for hunky dragonborn time. XD Good stuff!
That actually left me with about ten minutes to go in my workout, though (there’s always like this weird six-minute buffer at the end of their streams that’s just the logo floating in a void), so I ended up also watching another mod video about some possible overlooked mods that the creator had just tried. Like a box of chalk that lets your kids doodle on sidewalks! Functional kites and barbells! Rabbit-hole events for your Sims to attend, either by buying bus passes or getting a driver’s license! And other such things. Always nice to check these out, see if there’s anything that catches my eye. . .
2. Continue writing “As Long As You Love Me”: Check! I’ve actually finished Chapter One already – though, admittedly, that’s because most of it was Alice showing up to kill Victor’s kidnappers and un-kidnap him, and I had that written already. :p But yes, she and Victor are now on the road! And moving into Chapter Two, in which Victor learns what this version of Alice’s deal is. (It’s the universe using her to kill people.)
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: N/A technically, as nobody uploaded! But I found stuff to watch nonetheless –
A) First up was the latest OXBox list – “7 Times You Doomed Yourself Without Realising!” A look at those games that have small decisions with big consequences. Like, swim up too fast to investigate your brother exploding a barbecue and then have a beer in the aftermath as Julia in Man of Medan? Say hello to dying of decompression sickness AFTER THE CREDITS. Don’t pick up the mysterious liquid off the hospital floor in the original Silent Hill? Say goodbye to the best ending, where you can save Sybil from her demonic parasite, and instead have to kill her. Fail to be a good father by having a fun snowball fight with your daughter Ciri in The Witcher III: Wild Hunt? That and some other “bad dad” moments lead to her dying off-screen in a horrible snowy hellscape. Eat the custard pie everyone is telling you is SOOO delicious in King’s Quest V? . . .okay, yes, now you can’t stop the Yeti you encounter later on, but considering this is a Sierra game, you should probably be praised for coming this far anyway. XD
B) And then a quick video from EnglishSimmer – “How to unlock these secret sims 4 create a sim items!” Going over some of the “secret” clothing in CAS that you can unlock by going through careers, or knitting items. . .or by typing “cas unlock” into the Gallery’s search function and finding some random Sims to quietly merge into your family and gain access to all the unlocked clothes. English Simmer was THRILLED to learn about this sort of thing and showed off some of her favorite pieces, like a tight turtleneck, the various business suits (including a cool “blueprint suit” from Eco Lifestyle), and the regency costumes from Get Famous. There are a LOT of cool clothes hidden behind CAS unlocks, it appears! Kind of a shame, really, since who knows how many your average Simmer will unlock just by playing. . . Good thing we have dedicated cheaters! XD And mods too, if you’re on PC.
C) And then I rewatched Call Me Kevin’s April Fool’s video from last year, because damn it, I like his take on “Chug Jug.” XD Don’t judge me!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – just a single ask reply over on Valice Multiverse tonight; nothing special!
So yeah, the trend of blah workdays continues (not helped by a shitty commute this morning), but at least the evening was reasonably chill! And tomorrow is supposed to be at least semi-nice? We'll see. . .night all!
Work – Somewhat less busy day, at least when it came to phone calls, but still plenty to do – worked on some exceptions, took some payments, called back some people looking for answers on pledges, talked to the credit card company about a weird fucked-up thing. A little less stressful, but not by much. Meh. Tomorrow’s Friday!
Beanbags – Absolutely lovely day today (the only one of the week), so yes, it was out into the backyard for beanbags after work! And we had a nice fair distribution of wins, thanks to me finally pulling out some good throws in the last game – end scores were me 3-3-W; Dad W-2-3; Mom 2-W-2. Not bad (and certainly makes up for Mom’s straight losses last time we played)!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, finishing off the Oxventure Stream “Elf Hazard!” Corazon had just discovered that non-magical piercing (and indeed many other types of damage) did not work particularly well against banshees and gone back into hiding. This did not end up deterring Dob’s efforts to injure the banshee closest to him and Prudence, however, running in with his pointy stick and leaping atop it to stab at its clavicle! After some confusion about whether or not the attack had even hit (Luke may have rolled damage before actually making the attack roll) and what the damage was (maths!), Dob ended up doing about nine points of damage to it. Not GREAT, but the banshee was not having a good day, that’s for sure.
And then Prudence whipped out the Eldritch Blast and the banshee proceeded to have a worse day as it was hit by a double Agonizing beam attack – didn’t quite kill it, but it did pretty well mess it up. This brought us to Erawen’s turn! Erawen, who tried to flee to the north. Erawen, still Entangled in Merilwen’s vines.
Erawen, who used the brooches to summon banshees from the four cardinal directions.
Yeah, Northward Banshee got its kill. And with him now very very dead, Merilwen stopped focusing her brain on keeping him Entangled and went, “Anyway, here’s Wind Wall.” XD Everyone was appropriately annoyed at the pun, but Merilwen certainly proved she was a master of the elements, cushioning herself, her friends, and her parents in a little circle surrounded by a foot of bludgeoning winds. The injured banshee basically got blown apart, while its friend got a little wispy, but managed to escape total discorporation. It began skirting the edges of the wall, looking for a way in. . .
And that’s when Egbert grabbed his crowbar and just levered the brooch right off Merilwen. Completely ignoring Corazon/Andy trying to remind him that he’s a paladin and that his holy magic could probably do something about these banshees. XD To be fair, though, finally popping off the brooch meant that the two remaining banshees – the one coming in from the south, and the sole survivor of the current combat round – immediately lost interest and started off again. Dob TRIED to pick up the brooch to take with them later, thinking it would be useful to sic on an enemy, but the moment it was in his pocket, the surviving banshee immediately honed in on him again. He couldn’t resist teasing it for a bit, but as Merilwen began to tire, he finally dropped it for good and melted it with Heat Metal. Merilwen’s father admitted that Erawen had dozens of the damn things, but thanked him for the effort regardless. XD
With the fight finally over, Merilwen reconnected with her folks, who admitted Erawen had definitely taken things too far and made the naming ceremony all about the banshees and whatnot (Merilwen’s mother even using a nasty Elven swear to refer to him) and said that she was free to use whatever name she liked and she’d be welcome in their home anytime. And that they’d send for her if any other power-hungry maniacs appeared (via eagle this time). Merilwen thanked them and admitted she didn’t have anything against the naming ceremony per say, she just personally likes being Merilwen – but she DOES have an “adult” name if they want to use it – Merilgraw! Meaning “Cat-Bear.” Her parents were – accepting. XD And so the adventure ended with the Oxventurers getting the party restarted (with the help of the acorn wine waiter, having woken from his drunken stupor, raiding Erawen’s secret stash of goodies), Corazon insisting on doing more singing, and Adarel dragging Egbert off into the woods for hunky dragonborn time. XD Good stuff!
That actually left me with about ten minutes to go in my workout, though (there’s always like this weird six-minute buffer at the end of their streams that’s just the logo floating in a void), so I ended up also watching another mod video about some possible overlooked mods that the creator had just tried. Like a box of chalk that lets your kids doodle on sidewalks! Functional kites and barbells! Rabbit-hole events for your Sims to attend, either by buying bus passes or getting a driver’s license! And other such things. Always nice to check these out, see if there’s anything that catches my eye. . .
2. Continue writing “As Long As You Love Me”: Check! I’ve actually finished Chapter One already – though, admittedly, that’s because most of it was Alice showing up to kill Victor’s kidnappers and un-kidnap him, and I had that written already. :p But yes, she and Victor are now on the road! And moving into Chapter Two, in which Victor learns what this version of Alice’s deal is. (It’s the universe using her to kill people.)
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: N/A technically, as nobody uploaded! But I found stuff to watch nonetheless –
A) First up was the latest OXBox list – “7 Times You Doomed Yourself Without Realising!” A look at those games that have small decisions with big consequences. Like, swim up too fast to investigate your brother exploding a barbecue and then have a beer in the aftermath as Julia in Man of Medan? Say hello to dying of decompression sickness AFTER THE CREDITS. Don’t pick up the mysterious liquid off the hospital floor in the original Silent Hill? Say goodbye to the best ending, where you can save Sybil from her demonic parasite, and instead have to kill her. Fail to be a good father by having a fun snowball fight with your daughter Ciri in The Witcher III: Wild Hunt? That and some other “bad dad” moments lead to her dying off-screen in a horrible snowy hellscape. Eat the custard pie everyone is telling you is SOOO delicious in King’s Quest V? . . .okay, yes, now you can’t stop the Yeti you encounter later on, but considering this is a Sierra game, you should probably be praised for coming this far anyway. XD
B) And then a quick video from EnglishSimmer – “How to unlock these secret sims 4 create a sim items!” Going over some of the “secret” clothing in CAS that you can unlock by going through careers, or knitting items. . .or by typing “cas unlock” into the Gallery’s search function and finding some random Sims to quietly merge into your family and gain access to all the unlocked clothes. English Simmer was THRILLED to learn about this sort of thing and showed off some of her favorite pieces, like a tight turtleneck, the various business suits (including a cool “blueprint suit” from Eco Lifestyle), and the regency costumes from Get Famous. There are a LOT of cool clothes hidden behind CAS unlocks, it appears! Kind of a shame, really, since who knows how many your average Simmer will unlock just by playing. . . Good thing we have dedicated cheaters! XD And mods too, if you’re on PC.
C) And then I rewatched Call Me Kevin’s April Fool’s video from last year, because damn it, I like his take on “Chug Jug.” XD Don’t judge me!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – just a single ask reply over on Valice Multiverse tonight; nothing special!
So yeah, the trend of blah workdays continues (not helped by a shitty commute this morning), but at least the evening was reasonably chill! And tomorrow is supposed to be at least semi-nice? We'll see. . .night all!
