Running Late Tuesday
Aug. 16th, 2022 11:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickI dunno what it was about today, but running at least a little late for things seemed to be the norm today. . .and as I'm running late for this update, I'd better just get the to-do list up and get going:
Work – Another “quietly busy” day, though there were a few more phone calls and credit card things today. Plus a QC file that took way longer than I thought it would because I kept running into little bits of credit card nonsense. *sigh* Basically it was a day where the time went by, but I was also a bit grumpy because of various little interruptions and the like. Meh. We’ll see how tomorrow goes!
Beanbags – Yes, despite clouds and a bit of wind – and poor Mom had the exact opposite of her killer day yesterday, losing every game. Whereas Dad and I had some really good games – the third one was neck and neck right up until the end! Final scores were me W-2-2; Dad 2-W-W; Mom 3-3-3. Again, perhaps it’ll even out the next time we play!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with the Oxventure Stream “Chart of Darkness!” We caught up with the Oxventurers (and Panniers, though he isn’t doing much) starting their escape room adventures! First room was fairly simple, featuring three ropes on a plinth. The doors locked behind them as they were ushered in, and began to fill with gas – Corazon immediately turned into a drama llama, flailing all around the room and demanding that Dob stop breathing “his” air (causing Dob to hold his breath until he physically couldn’t anymore). XD Prudence kept her head and examined the ropes, and Wally/the “spirit” declared their task – demonstrate an adequate knowledge of ship’s knots to get their reward and passage into the next room! Naturally, this was a task almost tailor-made for Corazon – once he was done being dramatic, “Charles” claimed that he’d learned a bunch of these knots in the “Boy Scouts” and did a few favorite knots in the ropes.
And managed to get a perfect spread on the dice rolls Johnny called for said knots – first was a nat 20, second was a crit 1, and the third with modifiers added up to 10! What are the odds? Johnny ruled that Corazon tied all the knots perfectly and opened the way for the group – BUT. While Corazon was doing that, Johnny had had Merilwen make a Nature check, and she’d done well enough to realize something.
The poison gas ACTUALLY WAS POISON GAS. This got extra concerning when a bored Dob and Prudence started doing vape tricks with it (Dob pretending to be a dragon, Prudence doing fun smoke rings). And especially concerning when it transpired that Corazon’s crit 1 meant that he’d tied himself to the plinth (apparently one of the knots he’d demonstrated was his favorite knot for lashing himself to the wheel in case of vampires (a la Dracula) and/or sirens (a la The Odyssey). Fortunately, Merilwen was able to get the others to not do fun vape tricks with the smoke (claiming it was just full of irritating particles to avoid panic), Dob and Prudence passed their Constitution checks and just ended up feeling a touch queasy (I guess it helps that they didn’t fully inhale?), and Dob actually rolled well enough to untie Corazon without issue (apparently Corazon had taught him knots in an effort not to have the “where do baby bards come from?” discussion XD). Corazon collected the envelope that contained their prize (noting it was labeled they were going to need it), and the group headed into the next room!
Next room did not have any poison gas, but instead three large statues of animals – a snake, a boar, and a shark, all poised to attack with mouths agape! Prudence and Corazon did the best on the Wis/Per check and, upon looking into those mouths, realized that all of the animals had two teeth missing. Corazon also spotted a sneaky message on the ceiling to look inside their reward envelope, and discovered it contained two golden teeth! Two teeth that were vaguely shaped enough that they could fit in any of the animal’s mouths. Everyone quickly decided that the puzzle here was figuring out what animal the teeth belonged to – and figured that if they got it wrong, the animal would come to life and they’d have to fight it. Prudence confirmed this with some Detect Magic (Johnny was like “damn it, I forgot you had that”), and the group huddled to discuss things, with Merilwen dropping the bombshell that the poison gas last room was real. Everyone took a few moments to try and figure out if Wally was a serial killer and this was his schtick (Corazon admitting he’d known Wally to be pretty murdery back in the day, and Panniers HAD said he’d given up the old murderous grudges mostly because he’d committed all the murders) or if he was just that bad at escape rooms (Merilwen’s theory being that Wally didn’t quite get that they’re not supposed to be ACTUALLY DEADLY), then figured that the point was academic and they just needed to be careful about how they went about this. Egbert pointed out that snake teeth were typically hollow because of the venom – everyone was very impressed by him overcoming his -1 Wisdom modifier to make this observation, and he was allowed to examine the teeth while Corazon checked the room for more clues. Unfortunately, what Egbert discovered was that the teeth were deliberately as generic as possible, so they could fit into any mouth; Corazon, meanwhile, found a sort of cave painting on the wall depicting all the animals apparently living in a harmonious cycle.
Dob took this to mean that they should stop the animals looking so aggressive and levered all the rest of the teeth out of their mouths. Despite Wally trying to stop him via the spooky spirit voice. XD Though as Egbert pointed out, if they DID have to fight something in the room, HE’D rather it only have the two teeth! Dob also propped all the mouths open with firewood (not perfectly, but should hold for a moment), while Merilwen decided to try tussing up the boar, thinking it would be the best animal to test things on –
And got a crit 1, meaning she tied herself to one side. And was too embarrassed/proud to accept help. XD It really does seem to be “Oxventurers tying themselves to things” day! Anyway, out of ideas, the gang put the teeth in the boar’s mouth as tusks. The boar’s eyes lit up red –
And Wally revealed that this room's "puzzle" was trial by combat – the whole thing with the teeth was just to choose what animal you were going to fight! Everyone was immediately annoyed they hadn’t gone for the shark, which wouldn’t have fared as well out of an aquatic environment (and Wally did admit that, normally, the shark is a popular choice). But they’d chosen a mechanical boar instead, so it was time to roll initiative! Which, fortunately, the boar did very badly on, allowing the Oxventurers a proper shake at hitting it. Egbert went first and, apparently deciding he should really do more paladin things, cast his protection spell on him and his friends, giving them a boost to all their saving throws so long as he remained conscious. (This was thought to be their Charisma modifiers, which did not help Merilwen much as she has a zero for that particular modifier – fortunately Mike looked it up during the fight and revealed it was based on EGBERT’S Charisma modifier, so everyone got plus three to their rolls.) Corazon followed up by Greasing up the boar and the area right in front of it before running to hide behind the shark, hoping that when it charged, it would slip and smash into the wall.
This brought us around to Merilwen, who’d rolled pretty damn well despite being tied to the thing – after confirming what the boar was made out of (a sort of stone carpace over mechanical bits), she decided to use Stoneshape to open up the boar’s sides like a beetle’s wings, since she could use the ability to make hinged doors and whatnot. Johnny was super impressed, gave her inspiration, and rolled a d4 to see how much she’d lowered its AC – three whole points! Nice. :) But they did also remind her that she’d just started talking about mechanical beetles while strapped to one, and she knew what had nearly happened to her the last time she was atop a mechanical bug. . .
Speaking of which, Dob’s turn! XD Fortunately Dob did NOT immediately try to Thunderwave the damn thing – instead, he first cast Bardic Inspiration on Prudence to help with her go next, then – decided to use Major Illusion to cast the image of them fighting the mechanical shark in front of the boar. Everyone was like “wtF, Dob.” XD He explained that he was either trying to reset or crash the boar – confuse its little clockwork brain by seeing them fight another animal despite it being the one that was active. I have no idea if or how this is going to work, but we’ll see how it pans out tomorrow! (Prudence, seriously, warm up the Eldritch Blast.)
2. Continue writing “As Long As You Love Me”: Check – while I decided to end the previous scene with the touching moment of Victor telling Alice, “I’m still here” as they talk through the bathroom door, as I did in the snippet, I’ve decided the actual chapter I’m on will end with the “No Slowing Me Down” snippet, with Victor waking after a good night’s sleep to find Alice missing – and as it turns out, she’s gone out in a bathrobe to go commit yet another murder. Victor is mostly annoyed that she hasn’t yet had breakfast. XD Thursday, Chapter 6 ends with Alice showing Victor how she can pull off a quick assassination without even – well, she lifts one finger. . .
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check plus – as I had just one in the Subs, I went ahead and watched a couple other videos as well –
A) First, a bit of OXBoxtra from the Watch Later –
I. “Nintendo DIDN'T Create Waluigi! | Oxplain” – a short video from Andy explaining the origins of Waluigi, Wario’s partner in crime and Luigi’s evil opposite! As it turns out, he did not debut with Wario, but rather eight years later in the first Mario Tennis game, which was developed by an outside studio, Camelot Software Planning! And the reason for his existence? Simply because they needed another humanoid character capable of holding a tennis racket. XD Apparently Nintendo liked his design enough to approve him, and he’s been a fan favorite ever since. Nice!
II. “7 Tragedies You Couldn't Prevent Because They Happened Behind Glass, Dammit: The Return” – Luke and Ellen detail seven more times you, as the player character, were forced to watch someone die or otherwise suffer because there was an unbreakable window in the way! Whether you’re the badass Optimus Prime watching Starscream slaughter Autobot soldiers through energy-field-enhanced windows in Transformers: Fall of Cyberton, the implacable DoomGuy seeing Olivia Pearce attempting to open portals to hell through special cutscene glass in DOOM (2016), or the tragic Big Daddy Subject Delta – watching Eleanor drown her mother Sophia in the two darker endings to BioShock 2? Wait, that can’t be right. . .consensus in the comments is that the commenter who suggested the moment accidentally swapped the names of mother and daughter and meant that moment where SOPHIA smothers ELEANOR with a pillow right before you reach her bedside, when you’re stuck in the decontamination chamber behind, you guessed it, glass. (Though it’s worth noting Ellen’s joke about HAVING A DRILL FOR A HAND still works. . .and one of the commenters pointed out that Eleanor drowning Sophia happens in the worst ending, where Eleanor’s ready to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting world, so. . .)
B) And then it was over to the Subs for the GrayStillPlays video of the day, “GTA 5 but it's randomized every minute!” No, apparently it’s NOT the chaos mod – Alex and Danny created their own thing instead. :p Specifically, they created the world’s worst wall ride course, and then created two wheels – one, the unlucky wheel, added different obstacles onto the course (like more windmills, children to get in Gray’s way, various breakable walls and thumbnail holes, and even a METEOR SHOWER); the other, the lucky wheel, either gave Gray encouragement (in the form of more hims on the starting platform) or actually did something genuinely nice and took obstacles away (like “you are not the father!” removing the children spawns). And he only had three minutes to try and complete the course before the wall blocking it reset and he had to spin again. And items persisted between attempts. Gray struggled, oh HOW he struggled. Not only did he have to deal with the various shocking twists and turns of the wall ride (which included 90 DEGREE ANGLE TRANSFERS and various curling ribbons to follow), he also had to deal with an increasing number of windmills, a fist punching through the “D” in the VINEWOOD sign part of the course, jets soaring through some of the gaps he needed to jump, and a MAGNETIZED windmill bouncing along on the second to last wall. And a fake ending where he chose the wrong teleporter because he couldn’t read Alex’s message on the way there. XD But he persevered, occasionally got some nice stuff (like getting the kids to despawn and the removal of a thumbnail hole or two), and finally completed the board going through the right teleporter in the middle of a meteor shower. The GrayStillPlays GTA V experience, everyone!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check! As today is Tuesday, this was a twofold process –
Victor Luvs Alice – Pretty simple here – just plop the Sunny Brews build post, a nice Corpse Bride gif set reblog, and the Alice puppet that was shared with me the other day into the queue! I’ll worry about Song Saturday (or Wyrd Sisters Saturday, as the case may be) tomorrow.
Valice Multiverse – Also fairly simple – one thread reply for my new AU with my friend Marie, and two ask replies of Alice being a bit of a troll. XD Good stuff!
Well, at least I'm all caught up on that stuff. And now it's time to head to bed and get some sleep before starting the whole process over again tomorrow! Hopefully with somewhat better time management. Night all!
Work – Another “quietly busy” day, though there were a few more phone calls and credit card things today. Plus a QC file that took way longer than I thought it would because I kept running into little bits of credit card nonsense. *sigh* Basically it was a day where the time went by, but I was also a bit grumpy because of various little interruptions and the like. Meh. We’ll see how tomorrow goes!
Beanbags – Yes, despite clouds and a bit of wind – and poor Mom had the exact opposite of her killer day yesterday, losing every game. Whereas Dad and I had some really good games – the third one was neck and neck right up until the end! Final scores were me W-2-2; Dad 2-W-W; Mom 3-3-3. Again, perhaps it’ll even out the next time we play!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with the Oxventure Stream “Chart of Darkness!” We caught up with the Oxventurers (and Panniers, though he isn’t doing much) starting their escape room adventures! First room was fairly simple, featuring three ropes on a plinth. The doors locked behind them as they were ushered in, and began to fill with gas – Corazon immediately turned into a drama llama, flailing all around the room and demanding that Dob stop breathing “his” air (causing Dob to hold his breath until he physically couldn’t anymore). XD Prudence kept her head and examined the ropes, and Wally/the “spirit” declared their task – demonstrate an adequate knowledge of ship’s knots to get their reward and passage into the next room! Naturally, this was a task almost tailor-made for Corazon – once he was done being dramatic, “Charles” claimed that he’d learned a bunch of these knots in the “Boy Scouts” and did a few favorite knots in the ropes.
And managed to get a perfect spread on the dice rolls Johnny called for said knots – first was a nat 20, second was a crit 1, and the third with modifiers added up to 10! What are the odds? Johnny ruled that Corazon tied all the knots perfectly and opened the way for the group – BUT. While Corazon was doing that, Johnny had had Merilwen make a Nature check, and she’d done well enough to realize something.
The poison gas ACTUALLY WAS POISON GAS. This got extra concerning when a bored Dob and Prudence started doing vape tricks with it (Dob pretending to be a dragon, Prudence doing fun smoke rings). And especially concerning when it transpired that Corazon’s crit 1 meant that he’d tied himself to the plinth (apparently one of the knots he’d demonstrated was his favorite knot for lashing himself to the wheel in case of vampires (a la Dracula) and/or sirens (a la The Odyssey). Fortunately, Merilwen was able to get the others to not do fun vape tricks with the smoke (claiming it was just full of irritating particles to avoid panic), Dob and Prudence passed their Constitution checks and just ended up feeling a touch queasy (I guess it helps that they didn’t fully inhale?), and Dob actually rolled well enough to untie Corazon without issue (apparently Corazon had taught him knots in an effort not to have the “where do baby bards come from?” discussion XD). Corazon collected the envelope that contained their prize (noting it was labeled they were going to need it), and the group headed into the next room!
Next room did not have any poison gas, but instead three large statues of animals – a snake, a boar, and a shark, all poised to attack with mouths agape! Prudence and Corazon did the best on the Wis/Per check and, upon looking into those mouths, realized that all of the animals had two teeth missing. Corazon also spotted a sneaky message on the ceiling to look inside their reward envelope, and discovered it contained two golden teeth! Two teeth that were vaguely shaped enough that they could fit in any of the animal’s mouths. Everyone quickly decided that the puzzle here was figuring out what animal the teeth belonged to – and figured that if they got it wrong, the animal would come to life and they’d have to fight it. Prudence confirmed this with some Detect Magic (Johnny was like “damn it, I forgot you had that”), and the group huddled to discuss things, with Merilwen dropping the bombshell that the poison gas last room was real. Everyone took a few moments to try and figure out if Wally was a serial killer and this was his schtick (Corazon admitting he’d known Wally to be pretty murdery back in the day, and Panniers HAD said he’d given up the old murderous grudges mostly because he’d committed all the murders) or if he was just that bad at escape rooms (Merilwen’s theory being that Wally didn’t quite get that they’re not supposed to be ACTUALLY DEADLY), then figured that the point was academic and they just needed to be careful about how they went about this. Egbert pointed out that snake teeth were typically hollow because of the venom – everyone was very impressed by him overcoming his -1 Wisdom modifier to make this observation, and he was allowed to examine the teeth while Corazon checked the room for more clues. Unfortunately, what Egbert discovered was that the teeth were deliberately as generic as possible, so they could fit into any mouth; Corazon, meanwhile, found a sort of cave painting on the wall depicting all the animals apparently living in a harmonious cycle.
Dob took this to mean that they should stop the animals looking so aggressive and levered all the rest of the teeth out of their mouths. Despite Wally trying to stop him via the spooky spirit voice. XD Though as Egbert pointed out, if they DID have to fight something in the room, HE’D rather it only have the two teeth! Dob also propped all the mouths open with firewood (not perfectly, but should hold for a moment), while Merilwen decided to try tussing up the boar, thinking it would be the best animal to test things on –
And got a crit 1, meaning she tied herself to one side. And was too embarrassed/proud to accept help. XD It really does seem to be “Oxventurers tying themselves to things” day! Anyway, out of ideas, the gang put the teeth in the boar’s mouth as tusks. The boar’s eyes lit up red –
And Wally revealed that this room's "puzzle" was trial by combat – the whole thing with the teeth was just to choose what animal you were going to fight! Everyone was immediately annoyed they hadn’t gone for the shark, which wouldn’t have fared as well out of an aquatic environment (and Wally did admit that, normally, the shark is a popular choice). But they’d chosen a mechanical boar instead, so it was time to roll initiative! Which, fortunately, the boar did very badly on, allowing the Oxventurers a proper shake at hitting it. Egbert went first and, apparently deciding he should really do more paladin things, cast his protection spell on him and his friends, giving them a boost to all their saving throws so long as he remained conscious. (This was thought to be their Charisma modifiers, which did not help Merilwen much as she has a zero for that particular modifier – fortunately Mike looked it up during the fight and revealed it was based on EGBERT’S Charisma modifier, so everyone got plus three to their rolls.) Corazon followed up by Greasing up the boar and the area right in front of it before running to hide behind the shark, hoping that when it charged, it would slip and smash into the wall.
This brought us around to Merilwen, who’d rolled pretty damn well despite being tied to the thing – after confirming what the boar was made out of (a sort of stone carpace over mechanical bits), she decided to use Stoneshape to open up the boar’s sides like a beetle’s wings, since she could use the ability to make hinged doors and whatnot. Johnny was super impressed, gave her inspiration, and rolled a d4 to see how much she’d lowered its AC – three whole points! Nice. :) But they did also remind her that she’d just started talking about mechanical beetles while strapped to one, and she knew what had nearly happened to her the last time she was atop a mechanical bug. . .
Speaking of which, Dob’s turn! XD Fortunately Dob did NOT immediately try to Thunderwave the damn thing – instead, he first cast Bardic Inspiration on Prudence to help with her go next, then – decided to use Major Illusion to cast the image of them fighting the mechanical shark in front of the boar. Everyone was like “wtF, Dob.” XD He explained that he was either trying to reset or crash the boar – confuse its little clockwork brain by seeing them fight another animal despite it being the one that was active. I have no idea if or how this is going to work, but we’ll see how it pans out tomorrow! (Prudence, seriously, warm up the Eldritch Blast.)
2. Continue writing “As Long As You Love Me”: Check – while I decided to end the previous scene with the touching moment of Victor telling Alice, “I’m still here” as they talk through the bathroom door, as I did in the snippet, I’ve decided the actual chapter I’m on will end with the “No Slowing Me Down” snippet, with Victor waking after a good night’s sleep to find Alice missing – and as it turns out, she’s gone out in a bathrobe to go commit yet another murder. Victor is mostly annoyed that she hasn’t yet had breakfast. XD Thursday, Chapter 6 ends with Alice showing Victor how she can pull off a quick assassination without even – well, she lifts one finger. . .
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check plus – as I had just one in the Subs, I went ahead and watched a couple other videos as well –
A) First, a bit of OXBoxtra from the Watch Later –
I. “Nintendo DIDN'T Create Waluigi! | Oxplain” – a short video from Andy explaining the origins of Waluigi, Wario’s partner in crime and Luigi’s evil opposite! As it turns out, he did not debut with Wario, but rather eight years later in the first Mario Tennis game, which was developed by an outside studio, Camelot Software Planning! And the reason for his existence? Simply because they needed another humanoid character capable of holding a tennis racket. XD Apparently Nintendo liked his design enough to approve him, and he’s been a fan favorite ever since. Nice!
II. “7 Tragedies You Couldn't Prevent Because They Happened Behind Glass, Dammit: The Return” – Luke and Ellen detail seven more times you, as the player character, were forced to watch someone die or otherwise suffer because there was an unbreakable window in the way! Whether you’re the badass Optimus Prime watching Starscream slaughter Autobot soldiers through energy-field-enhanced windows in Transformers: Fall of Cyberton, the implacable DoomGuy seeing Olivia Pearce attempting to open portals to hell through special cutscene glass in DOOM (2016), or the tragic Big Daddy Subject Delta – watching Eleanor drown her mother Sophia in the two darker endings to BioShock 2? Wait, that can’t be right. . .consensus in the comments is that the commenter who suggested the moment accidentally swapped the names of mother and daughter and meant that moment where SOPHIA smothers ELEANOR with a pillow right before you reach her bedside, when you’re stuck in the decontamination chamber behind, you guessed it, glass. (Though it’s worth noting Ellen’s joke about HAVING A DRILL FOR A HAND still works. . .and one of the commenters pointed out that Eleanor drowning Sophia happens in the worst ending, where Eleanor’s ready to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting world, so. . .)
B) And then it was over to the Subs for the GrayStillPlays video of the day, “GTA 5 but it's randomized every minute!” No, apparently it’s NOT the chaos mod – Alex and Danny created their own thing instead. :p Specifically, they created the world’s worst wall ride course, and then created two wheels – one, the unlucky wheel, added different obstacles onto the course (like more windmills, children to get in Gray’s way, various breakable walls and thumbnail holes, and even a METEOR SHOWER); the other, the lucky wheel, either gave Gray encouragement (in the form of more hims on the starting platform) or actually did something genuinely nice and took obstacles away (like “you are not the father!” removing the children spawns). And he only had three minutes to try and complete the course before the wall blocking it reset and he had to spin again. And items persisted between attempts. Gray struggled, oh HOW he struggled. Not only did he have to deal with the various shocking twists and turns of the wall ride (which included 90 DEGREE ANGLE TRANSFERS and various curling ribbons to follow), he also had to deal with an increasing number of windmills, a fist punching through the “D” in the VINEWOOD sign part of the course, jets soaring through some of the gaps he needed to jump, and a MAGNETIZED windmill bouncing along on the second to last wall. And a fake ending where he chose the wrong teleporter because he couldn’t read Alex’s message on the way there. XD But he persevered, occasionally got some nice stuff (like getting the kids to despawn and the removal of a thumbnail hole or two), and finally completed the board going through the right teleporter in the middle of a meteor shower. The GrayStillPlays GTA V experience, everyone!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check! As today is Tuesday, this was a twofold process –
Victor Luvs Alice – Pretty simple here – just plop the Sunny Brews build post, a nice Corpse Bride gif set reblog, and the Alice puppet that was shared with me the other day into the queue! I’ll worry about Song Saturday (or Wyrd Sisters Saturday, as the case may be) tomorrow.
Valice Multiverse – Also fairly simple – one thread reply for my new AU with my friend Marie, and two ask replies of Alice being a bit of a troll. XD Good stuff!
Well, at least I'm all caught up on that stuff. And now it's time to head to bed and get some sleep before starting the whole process over again tomorrow! Hopefully with somewhat better time management. Night all!
