Not Quite As Bad As Yesterday
Jul. 14th, 2022 11:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickBut still a pretty late update, so let's get this up as quick as I can --
Work – Another quiet day, though the processing freeze is over, so that’s something, I guess! My coworker spent most of the day going through the backlog of gifts, while I spent most of my working on obituaries, cleaning up some duplicates, doing some roster maintenance, a handful of reversals, and updating a credit card and taking a payment I couldn’t before. *shrug* Day went by! And now that the GL is going to be a little meatier again, I should have plenty to do tomorrow morning. . . Just hope the traffic is better, I had some real assholes on the road today.
Beanbags – Not today – a combination of “are we due to get thunderstorms?” (as it turns out, no, they were going all AROUND us) and some absolutely wretched humidity had Mom ask if I wanted to spend some time just hiding out in my AC, and – well, yes. Should be drier tomorrow, and we can get five rounds in! Weekend – we’ll see, because the humidity’s supposed to come back then. *waggles hand*
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another evening on the bike, another half-hour or so with the Oxventure Hallowstream “Unreal Estate!” We picked back up with Corazon, who was indeed being menaced by an evil and poorly-painted clown (it stalked its way out of the less-detailed background characters). Fortunately, Corazon thought fast on his feet, unhooked his hip flask, and doused the evil clown with the strong alcohol within, figuring it should work as paint thinner. And with a good Dex check, indeed it did, causing the clown to start melting down into a sort of sentient paint amoeba. Corazon promptly used his bonus action to get OUT of the painting – and good thing too, as the paint amoeba managed to devour the friendly rat-wolf with its lunge before they both melted away. Oooooh. *wince* Everyone was appropriately disturbed by that as the remaining rat-wolves began their attack –
And once again, all they were able to do was give their targets a good gumming, as their painted teeth couldn’t find purchase. Even the one that managed to leap up to the ceiling to grab Prudence by the neck wasn’t able to do more than massage her jugular. Turns out Dob’s crappy attempt to turn them into “big sweet mice” actually sort of worked out – these creatures are relatively harmless! Combat thus ended with Dob helping Cecilia out of the painting with one of his patented backflips, while the others just shoved the wolves back in, leaving them frozen against a snowy landscape that was somehow also burning. Dob TRIED to turn the painting around to cover the carnage, only to find the horrible potato-faced hunter man on the back, so instead he grabbed the evil clown fete painting and put that one facing it so nobody had to look at either. XD There was a BRIEF moment when it looked like the others would talk Johnny into having a clown on the back of the other canvas, but fortunately they demurred. :p
And with that, well, Cecilia was ready to make her offer! Said offer was “let me go now and I won’t tell anyone you’re here.” XD Everyone agreed that was probably fair, but the besotted Egbert couldn’t help but ask if she was up for coffee later anyway. He rolled about an eleven on the old Charisma, so she didn’t agree, but she was nice about it, letting him down gently and giving him the helmet to remember her by. And so she actually made it out the front door in one piece –
And then Bismuth tried to kill her with a crossbow. XD FORTUNATELY she only got Cecilia in the shoulder (and actually, thinking about it, Cecilia didn’t take off the chain mail, so that must have helped!), and Cecilia managed to book it away before Bismuth could actually land a lethal shot. Everyone was like “wtf Bismuth” – turns out she was somewhat confused as to how house showings actually work, as, well, before if anyone saw the house but didn’t claim it, they died thanks to the terrible hauntings and curse. So she figured anyone who didn’t buy the house had to die. Prudence was of course for this, but the others were very firm that she STOP trying to kill the potential buyers. XD
And so we came to what should be the final potential buyers of the episode – the French Family! Claude, Julia, and their two children Paul and Sofie. Bismuth was sent ahead to stall them (which she accomplished by humming at them) while the Oxventurers debated plans – it was agreed to ASK them what room they wanted to see first, so they could go on ahead and try to prepare it so it wasn’t immediately deadly. They grabbed their snacks and went to meet them, and the kids promptly dug into the food! Specifically, all that shellfish that Merilwen picked up that smells just fine. XD Dob immediately attempted to convince the parents that they needed to leave the children outside for this particular viewing, but a roll of four on his Charisma just left said parents bewildered as to why he would request this –
Fortunately, Corazon was much more successful at just rolling the children up in a heavy rug to keep them safe. And the kids were actually all for being in the rug when their parents asked them about it, sooo. . . XD Anyway, naturally, Claude wanted to see the nursery first, so the group went on ahead to prepare it (telling them to enjoy Bismuth’s musical stylings in the meantime as she literally snapped her fingers to pieces), finding – well, basically, Wednesday and Pugsley would have loved the place. XD There was an indoor swing with bear trap seats; a selection of iron maidens for children of all sizes, and a sandpit with a cat poo in it. (Merilwen, a touch suspiciously, immediately denied it was hers.) Their grand plan for making all this nonsense safe?
CORKS! As Merilwen cleaned up the cat poo, Dob went down to the cellar and pulled the corks out of a bunch of the wine bottles, then everyone set to corkin’ every spiky bit there was. Most of them rolled well enough to cork without a problem, but Merilwen’s nine meant that, just as they finished up the bear trap swings, she accidentally fell into one and became stuck (though she did at least prove it was safe!). As Claude was already on the stairs, the gang told her just to grin and bear it (pun not intended and only on my end), and the family was allowed in. Claude and the kids (when Dob lifted up the rug and rotated them slowly so they could see) thought it was great, even with the room not even TRYING to hide what it really was, but Julia was naturally a little “is this safe??” Dob promptly demonstrated the corked iron maidens with Prudence’s help while Corazon bullshitted about how it helped teach numbers and shapes, and Julia went around carefully testing all the corks and asking Merilwen what she thought of the swings (Merilwen: “Be more fun if I had a CHOICE about being on it!”) She was satisfied that they done their best to make it safe, but insisted the children be given a chance to try it, so Dob rolled them from the rug.
By kicking it so it unrolled on its own. Spinning the kids and – yeah, they just started vomiting EVERYWHERE. Julia was like “this house is cursed!” but everyone else was like “no, that’s just the shellfish, look how happy they are otherwise.” XD The kids did indeed love it, and Claude was ready to start the negotiating process –
And then the kids noticed the toy chest. Which the Oxventurers hadn’t noticed before. Dob promptly did an awesome backflip to quickly sit himself upon it before the children could open it – and good thing too, because yup, toy chest is actually a mimic! So Dob is now sat bucking-bronco style on a mimic while the children laugh at the weird bouncy chest that’s trying to eat them, Julia’s screaming, and Corazon is desperately trying to save the sale. XD We’ll see how this wraps up tomorrow – personally, Claude being a bit of a dick to his wife before (telling her to be quiet because “Claude is speaking”) means I don’t think anyone will be particularly upset if HE bites it, but perhaps save the kids if you can, guys? XD
2. Continue writing “As Long As You Love Me”: Check – Alice has just finished killing Tannen, and Victor’s been treated to a demonstration of how the universe keeps her safe against her targets. Said demonstration consisting of Alice showing how the gun won’t fire if it’s against her head, but will fire if she points it into the woods. As you might imagine, he’s still pretty rattled. :p Should wrap up this chapter on Saturday, w000!
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: One-half check – no, not because Kevin spontaneously uploaded another sponsored video, but because James Turner uploaded ANOTHER HOUR-LONG “RAGE TO RICHES” EPISODE. Dude – dude, you know High School Years doesn’t come out TOMORROW, right? It’s just the livestream? *shakehead* Anyway, made it through yesterday’s episode, which was all about Nina and Angus taking control of their respective packs! James decided the best way for them to do this would be to get swole as hell, using the gym equipment over at the library, then challenge each leader to an honorable brawl – Nina facing Rory by the official sparring grounds, Angus Kristopher by the Moonwood Collective tree. Both gave it their absolute all!
Both lost. Hmmm. Welp, only one thing to do, and that is work on both gaining werewolf ability points and fitness skill before challenging them again! And what better way to do that than to use the Bodybuilder aspiration to grab a bunch of free points for traits like earning skills quicker and whatnot? Nina and Angus then proceeded to spend most of their time exercising (usually at home or the Moonwood Mill library, though they popped over to San MyShuno briefly to use the public gym there for the aspiration), marking their territory, and going on the occasional rampage (with James forcing them into their little panic room when they couldn’t regain control, leaving them to pee all over the floor). There was also a fun little interlude where they went over to Vlad’s place and just ate a good chunk of his house for ability points – and DESPITE THAT, and Vlad not even LIKING him, Angus was able to get him on-side as a Werewolf Ally. XD This is absolutely ridiculous and I respect that. But anyway, Angus and Nina both got super-fit and gained a bunch of abilities (such as faster healing, immortality, and the ability to lead hunting parties – which is actually kinda disappointing in-game, as it doesn’t really seem to function differently than the regular hunting rabbit hole), and both challenged their respective alphas again!
Angus lost – Nina won! :D She officially became Alpha of the Wildfangs on her second go! :D She promptly demoted Rory all the way down to Omega, promoted Lou to Beta, then went to Henford-on-Bagley and convinced both Agnes and Agatha Crumplebottom to join the pack. XD So now they occasionally hang out by the much more intimidating trailer doing fire dances. XD Nina was of course very happy with this, and having fulfilled the Wildfang Renegade aspiration, turned her attention to the Lone Wolf one – and, namely, figuring out how to beat Greg in a brawl. Then befriend him. And maybe have his child. We’ll see. XD (Actually, that seems to be the focus of the episode James uploaded today. . .)
Angus, meanwhile, hit the gym again, giving it his all until he maxed out his fitness, then challenged Kristopher to another fight – aaand lost again. A frustrated James had Nina try to befriend Greg until he finally just fell asleep, then decided to have Angus just attempt the Epic Tug-of-War to earn the pack leadership.
Won first time. Angus is now leader of the Moonwood Collective. XD I guess all that fighting just was so against his nature, he couldn’t pull out the win! Anyway, he’s leaving things friendly with his pack, even apologizing to Kristopher and assuring him they’re cool. XD Next time – as stated, it seems like Nina is working on her relationship with Greg, and the pair finally start getting money, as James has allowed a money tree for the simple reason of “it’s very hard to fulfill the ‘riches’ part of the LP while being a werewolf.” XD Also we’ll have to check how many siblings they have, as Hazel keeps phoning them (well, Angus specifically I think) to ask if she and Trenton should have more kids, and Angus keeps saying yes. . .well, if nothing else, we have plenty of potential new Bigwallets/Monets to take on the upcoming High School Years expansion?
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – got up that “somebody did a cover of ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ in the style of Blink 182” video I think I told you about before as the song Saturday in the Victor Luvs Alice queue, and two ask replies and my friend Marie’s Tik-Tok about Malk!Alice “adopting” Malk!Maddie away from the Voermans and all the drama that entails in the Valice Multiverse queue!
Oh, and I fixed my mouse -- there's two switches on the bottom of it, and fiddling with both got it glowing again. :) So that's good. And now I have to wrap up here and head to bed -- night all!
Work – Another quiet day, though the processing freeze is over, so that’s something, I guess! My coworker spent most of the day going through the backlog of gifts, while I spent most of my working on obituaries, cleaning up some duplicates, doing some roster maintenance, a handful of reversals, and updating a credit card and taking a payment I couldn’t before. *shrug* Day went by! And now that the GL is going to be a little meatier again, I should have plenty to do tomorrow morning. . . Just hope the traffic is better, I had some real assholes on the road today.
Beanbags – Not today – a combination of “are we due to get thunderstorms?” (as it turns out, no, they were going all AROUND us) and some absolutely wretched humidity had Mom ask if I wanted to spend some time just hiding out in my AC, and – well, yes. Should be drier tomorrow, and we can get five rounds in! Weekend – we’ll see, because the humidity’s supposed to come back then. *waggles hand*
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another evening on the bike, another half-hour or so with the Oxventure Hallowstream “Unreal Estate!” We picked back up with Corazon, who was indeed being menaced by an evil and poorly-painted clown (it stalked its way out of the less-detailed background characters). Fortunately, Corazon thought fast on his feet, unhooked his hip flask, and doused the evil clown with the strong alcohol within, figuring it should work as paint thinner. And with a good Dex check, indeed it did, causing the clown to start melting down into a sort of sentient paint amoeba. Corazon promptly used his bonus action to get OUT of the painting – and good thing too, as the paint amoeba managed to devour the friendly rat-wolf with its lunge before they both melted away. Oooooh. *wince* Everyone was appropriately disturbed by that as the remaining rat-wolves began their attack –
And once again, all they were able to do was give their targets a good gumming, as their painted teeth couldn’t find purchase. Even the one that managed to leap up to the ceiling to grab Prudence by the neck wasn’t able to do more than massage her jugular. Turns out Dob’s crappy attempt to turn them into “big sweet mice” actually sort of worked out – these creatures are relatively harmless! Combat thus ended with Dob helping Cecilia out of the painting with one of his patented backflips, while the others just shoved the wolves back in, leaving them frozen against a snowy landscape that was somehow also burning. Dob TRIED to turn the painting around to cover the carnage, only to find the horrible potato-faced hunter man on the back, so instead he grabbed the evil clown fete painting and put that one facing it so nobody had to look at either. XD There was a BRIEF moment when it looked like the others would talk Johnny into having a clown on the back of the other canvas, but fortunately they demurred. :p
And with that, well, Cecilia was ready to make her offer! Said offer was “let me go now and I won’t tell anyone you’re here.” XD Everyone agreed that was probably fair, but the besotted Egbert couldn’t help but ask if she was up for coffee later anyway. He rolled about an eleven on the old Charisma, so she didn’t agree, but she was nice about it, letting him down gently and giving him the helmet to remember her by. And so she actually made it out the front door in one piece –
And then Bismuth tried to kill her with a crossbow. XD FORTUNATELY she only got Cecilia in the shoulder (and actually, thinking about it, Cecilia didn’t take off the chain mail, so that must have helped!), and Cecilia managed to book it away before Bismuth could actually land a lethal shot. Everyone was like “wtf Bismuth” – turns out she was somewhat confused as to how house showings actually work, as, well, before if anyone saw the house but didn’t claim it, they died thanks to the terrible hauntings and curse. So she figured anyone who didn’t buy the house had to die. Prudence was of course for this, but the others were very firm that she STOP trying to kill the potential buyers. XD
And so we came to what should be the final potential buyers of the episode – the French Family! Claude, Julia, and their two children Paul and Sofie. Bismuth was sent ahead to stall them (which she accomplished by humming at them) while the Oxventurers debated plans – it was agreed to ASK them what room they wanted to see first, so they could go on ahead and try to prepare it so it wasn’t immediately deadly. They grabbed their snacks and went to meet them, and the kids promptly dug into the food! Specifically, all that shellfish that Merilwen picked up that smells just fine. XD Dob immediately attempted to convince the parents that they needed to leave the children outside for this particular viewing, but a roll of four on his Charisma just left said parents bewildered as to why he would request this –
Fortunately, Corazon was much more successful at just rolling the children up in a heavy rug to keep them safe. And the kids were actually all for being in the rug when their parents asked them about it, sooo. . . XD Anyway, naturally, Claude wanted to see the nursery first, so the group went on ahead to prepare it (telling them to enjoy Bismuth’s musical stylings in the meantime as she literally snapped her fingers to pieces), finding – well, basically, Wednesday and Pugsley would have loved the place. XD There was an indoor swing with bear trap seats; a selection of iron maidens for children of all sizes, and a sandpit with a cat poo in it. (Merilwen, a touch suspiciously, immediately denied it was hers.) Their grand plan for making all this nonsense safe?
CORKS! As Merilwen cleaned up the cat poo, Dob went down to the cellar and pulled the corks out of a bunch of the wine bottles, then everyone set to corkin’ every spiky bit there was. Most of them rolled well enough to cork without a problem, but Merilwen’s nine meant that, just as they finished up the bear trap swings, she accidentally fell into one and became stuck (though she did at least prove it was safe!). As Claude was already on the stairs, the gang told her just to grin and bear it (pun not intended and only on my end), and the family was allowed in. Claude and the kids (when Dob lifted up the rug and rotated them slowly so they could see) thought it was great, even with the room not even TRYING to hide what it really was, but Julia was naturally a little “is this safe??” Dob promptly demonstrated the corked iron maidens with Prudence’s help while Corazon bullshitted about how it helped teach numbers and shapes, and Julia went around carefully testing all the corks and asking Merilwen what she thought of the swings (Merilwen: “Be more fun if I had a CHOICE about being on it!”) She was satisfied that they done their best to make it safe, but insisted the children be given a chance to try it, so Dob rolled them from the rug.
By kicking it so it unrolled on its own. Spinning the kids and – yeah, they just started vomiting EVERYWHERE. Julia was like “this house is cursed!” but everyone else was like “no, that’s just the shellfish, look how happy they are otherwise.” XD The kids did indeed love it, and Claude was ready to start the negotiating process –
And then the kids noticed the toy chest. Which the Oxventurers hadn’t noticed before. Dob promptly did an awesome backflip to quickly sit himself upon it before the children could open it – and good thing too, because yup, toy chest is actually a mimic! So Dob is now sat bucking-bronco style on a mimic while the children laugh at the weird bouncy chest that’s trying to eat them, Julia’s screaming, and Corazon is desperately trying to save the sale. XD We’ll see how this wraps up tomorrow – personally, Claude being a bit of a dick to his wife before (telling her to be quiet because “Claude is speaking”) means I don’t think anyone will be particularly upset if HE bites it, but perhaps save the kids if you can, guys? XD
2. Continue writing “As Long As You Love Me”: Check – Alice has just finished killing Tannen, and Victor’s been treated to a demonstration of how the universe keeps her safe against her targets. Said demonstration consisting of Alice showing how the gun won’t fire if it’s against her head, but will fire if she points it into the woods. As you might imagine, he’s still pretty rattled. :p Should wrap up this chapter on Saturday, w000!
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: One-half check – no, not because Kevin spontaneously uploaded another sponsored video, but because James Turner uploaded ANOTHER HOUR-LONG “RAGE TO RICHES” EPISODE. Dude – dude, you know High School Years doesn’t come out TOMORROW, right? It’s just the livestream? *shakehead* Anyway, made it through yesterday’s episode, which was all about Nina and Angus taking control of their respective packs! James decided the best way for them to do this would be to get swole as hell, using the gym equipment over at the library, then challenge each leader to an honorable brawl – Nina facing Rory by the official sparring grounds, Angus Kristopher by the Moonwood Collective tree. Both gave it their absolute all!
Both lost. Hmmm. Welp, only one thing to do, and that is work on both gaining werewolf ability points and fitness skill before challenging them again! And what better way to do that than to use the Bodybuilder aspiration to grab a bunch of free points for traits like earning skills quicker and whatnot? Nina and Angus then proceeded to spend most of their time exercising (usually at home or the Moonwood Mill library, though they popped over to San MyShuno briefly to use the public gym there for the aspiration), marking their territory, and going on the occasional rampage (with James forcing them into their little panic room when they couldn’t regain control, leaving them to pee all over the floor). There was also a fun little interlude where they went over to Vlad’s place and just ate a good chunk of his house for ability points – and DESPITE THAT, and Vlad not even LIKING him, Angus was able to get him on-side as a Werewolf Ally. XD This is absolutely ridiculous and I respect that. But anyway, Angus and Nina both got super-fit and gained a bunch of abilities (such as faster healing, immortality, and the ability to lead hunting parties – which is actually kinda disappointing in-game, as it doesn’t really seem to function differently than the regular hunting rabbit hole), and both challenged their respective alphas again!
Angus lost – Nina won! :D She officially became Alpha of the Wildfangs on her second go! :D She promptly demoted Rory all the way down to Omega, promoted Lou to Beta, then went to Henford-on-Bagley and convinced both Agnes and Agatha Crumplebottom to join the pack. XD So now they occasionally hang out by the much more intimidating trailer doing fire dances. XD Nina was of course very happy with this, and having fulfilled the Wildfang Renegade aspiration, turned her attention to the Lone Wolf one – and, namely, figuring out how to beat Greg in a brawl. Then befriend him. And maybe have his child. We’ll see. XD (Actually, that seems to be the focus of the episode James uploaded today. . .)
Angus, meanwhile, hit the gym again, giving it his all until he maxed out his fitness, then challenged Kristopher to another fight – aaand lost again. A frustrated James had Nina try to befriend Greg until he finally just fell asleep, then decided to have Angus just attempt the Epic Tug-of-War to earn the pack leadership.
Won first time. Angus is now leader of the Moonwood Collective. XD I guess all that fighting just was so against his nature, he couldn’t pull out the win! Anyway, he’s leaving things friendly with his pack, even apologizing to Kristopher and assuring him they’re cool. XD Next time – as stated, it seems like Nina is working on her relationship with Greg, and the pair finally start getting money, as James has allowed a money tree for the simple reason of “it’s very hard to fulfill the ‘riches’ part of the LP while being a werewolf.” XD Also we’ll have to check how many siblings they have, as Hazel keeps phoning them (well, Angus specifically I think) to ask if she and Trenton should have more kids, and Angus keeps saying yes. . .well, if nothing else, we have plenty of potential new Bigwallets/Monets to take on the upcoming High School Years expansion?
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – got up that “somebody did a cover of ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ in the style of Blink 182” video I think I told you about before as the song Saturday in the Victor Luvs Alice queue, and two ask replies and my friend Marie’s Tik-Tok about Malk!Alice “adopting” Malk!Maddie away from the Voermans and all the drama that entails in the Valice Multiverse queue!
Oh, and I fixed my mouse -- there's two switches on the bottom of it, and fiddling with both got it glowing again. :) So that's good. And now I have to wrap up here and head to bed -- night all!
