Well, That Works For A Wednesday
Dec. 14th, 2022 11:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickNot too bad a day, though I am very tired (I've been waking up early for no particular reason other than possible PMS -- if you ever wondered when 92 PRO FM played Christmas music, it's 6 AM) and the traffic both going into work and coming home from work was miserable, bleh. But the rest of the day went pretty all right:
Work – VERY quiet day – pretty much spent the entire thing doing duplicates, with occasional breaks to help my coworkers with some questions prompted by phone calls they’d gotten. And at the very end of the day, I got an e-mail suggesting one of the damn credit card company issues might be fixed, amazing. We’ll see how that pans out tomorrow!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike, and back to the Live Oxventure “Tome Sweet Tome!” Merilwen did indeed get Dob’s supplements without him noticing her rooting through his bag – but he did notice the (very evil-looking) supplements in her hand, grabbed them, and downed a bunch before Merilwen could get them back and toss them. XD Also, the fish in his lung paid the ultimate price for constantly stealing his food and died when it failed a Constitution save against the pills. Merilwen was noticeably horrified.
ANYWAY, Katy was able to give them a bit of pertinent information – the kids in this area seem to gather around a particular tree and throw rocks at it for fun. Dob misheard “clocks” somewhere in there and made a Tik-Tok joke, causing Katy to once again wonder if he’d taken his vitamins, and Merilwen countered with a joke about how he was confusing it with Vine, causing Johnny to immediately kill the tree and have it fall over. XD Dob thanked her for the info and brought the rest of the gang up to speed, and they began wondering how to get close to the kids and ask them which of them might have the book. And – okay. I accidentally spoiled myself on the next bit, which was Corazon and Dob bringing back the Beeples to try and impress the children, by reading ahead a little too far on the "Your Mileage May Vary" for the Oxventure on TV Tropes.
What the bit I read did not mention is that THERE WERE COSTUMES INVOLVED. Seriously, Andy and Luke showed up with bee costumes (complete with wings and headband antennae) and PUT THEM ON when Corazon said he was already dressing up as a Beeple. Not even COMPETENTLY, Luke put his head through the ARM HOLE of his little bee suit. I – this had to be planned in some way. I don’t care that Johnny acted so horrified over the return of the Beeples and said this was a worse derailment than Dob dragging everyone down to the docks and disguising Corazon as a chair in “Bad Chair Day,” THEY HAD THE COSTUMES READY TO GO. FOR EITHER THEIR FIRST OR SECOND LIVE SHOW IN WHO KNOWS HOW LONG. There was COLLABORATION, I say! By whom, I don’t know, but STILL.
ANYWAY – Dob and Corazon found the children, now sitting on the dead tree, and tried to charm them with their Beepley antics (claiming that their tour bus had broken down nearby because it was full of bees, for example), asking them for help in writing a new song about a magic book and where one would hide it after stealing it off a drunk wizard. And because Dob rolled a 19 on the Charisma/Performance check before modifiers, the kids were only too happy to sing along to their (very short because of copyright) songs. Through the singalong, the boys managed to get out of the kids that a child named Sprat had probably gotten their hands on the magic book, as he’d been seen recently in oversized shoes, spending a ton of money on candy in the shops and bragging about he had a “rawrsome” plan. They didn’t know where Sprat actually WAS – he’s super good at hiding, you see – but they had heard him say that he had a cool new hiding spot underground (and specifying that it’s NOT because he’s dead). The Beeples returned to the others with this information, and Merilwen basically immediately climbed down the nearest sewer hole to get away from them. XD This, of course, did not work for long, as Dob climbed in after her and began testing the acoustics in the sewer. (Well, after he and Corazon got stuck briefly at the entrance because of their wings and got confronted by the now-returned T-Rex. They managed to placate it by singing “Eleanor Rig-Bee” – “Eleanor Rigbee lives in a hive because she’s a bee~” The T-Rex was much more impressed than Johnny.) However, a good Wis/Per roll regarding said tests had Dob notice that the echo wasn’t quite right, and realize that it was in fact someone singing along. He followed the voice to a wall deeper in the sewer, and – after Corazon said that it was probably illusory – rushed it.
Wall was NOT illusory. Fortunately Dob didn’t take much in the way of damage, AND the impact dislodged the dead fish from his lung! Partially – Merilwen had to reach in and tug the rest of the skeleton free (she was like “Dob, you NEED TO SEE A DOCTOR” afterward). And then Dob ran at the wall AGAIN because he assumed Merilwen would Stone Shape it, despite her earlier saying she didn’t have that spell ready at the moment. XD And after he collided with it again, Egbert decided it was “breach and clear” time, shoved a bomb into the wall, and lit the fuse, over Corazon’s protests. XD Johnny had the gang roll to avoid the debris and the sewage from the explosion – Corazon and Egbert both got dirty 20s and struck cool poses; Merilwen got 14 and struck a less-cool pose; Prudence got 10 and just cowered behind Egbert’s shield –
Dob got a crit 1. Johnny took GREAT PLEASURE in nearly drowning him in sewage. XD Dob asked if the costume was ruined, and Johnny had to admit that was up to Dob. XD The breach-and-clear did work, though, revealing a secret chamber in which a child with a ton of sweets was hiding. The kid was quickly confirmed to be Sprat, and the gang began questioning him about the book – very incompetently. XD Not that the kid was much better at keeping it a secret. . . Eventually, the book was revealed to be under Sprat’s pillow in his hammock – he managed to beat Corazon to it (EVERYONE is rolling really horribly this episode) and write in it that he didn’t say anything incriminating and that they couldn’t use the spell that banished his T-Rex briefly any more. Dob tried to lure the kid into giving up the book by saying they were looking around for the person who had it to give them the cool cheat codes for the book, but once Corazon mentioned the “nude” cheat code, Sprat was squicked out and retconned Corazon telling him about that. XD Corazon and Merilwen then switched tactics, saying that the book made people age up really really fast (Egbert chipped in that the wizard Trashsack was really fourteen), and also made their butts fall off in public so people pointed and laughed – and even if the wizard COULD just write that “that never happened” in the book, they’d know it had. XD The kid seemed convinced by the possibility of losing his butt and asked to just write one last thing in it. The gang decided to allow this, and Sprat got himself a crayon –
And drew himself a terrible ankylosaurus steed to fight them, which burst through the wall (out of a nearby cave after Merilwen asked how it fit in the sewers and Johnny pointed out that she’d OFFICIATED A WEDDING as a CHICKEN) on its four wobbly legs. A triumphant Sprat leapt atop it to ride, and initiative was rolled. Prudence, having gotten a nat 20, went first, and took from Johnny’s eyes that they hoped she would NOT kill the child. She initially tried to Banish Sprat instead, treating it as the Ultimate Naughty Step, but Sprat’s earlier scribblings prevented her from doing so. This is about the time when the CROWD began baying for the child’s blood. XD When I left it, Corazon was noting that that meant the only spell Prudence might have left was HUNGER OF HADAR, but surely that wasn’t appropriate to use around a child. . . XD We’ll see what happens with, you know, the CONFIRMED EVIL MEMBER OF THE TEAM tomorrow!
2. Continue writing gift fics: Check – did THIS early because I didn’t have time to watch the OXBoxtra Oxmas episode before my workout today, so I figured I’d fill the time another way. And happily, Ace got back to me today, confirming the prompt they picked at the end of last year – Klaus and their fem!Leo from their stories about Blood Blockade Battlefront (an anime they enjoy, and are getting back into) meeting the rest of Secundus!Victor and Alice’s found family at one of Richard’s tea parties (having met Victor and Alice themselves in the previous two Christmas stories I wrote them). So I bashed out a rough draft of that, focusing on how Klaus and Leo feel like they shouldn’t be weirded out by Secundus, and the others assuring them that Secundus IS weird, it’s natural – and even if they come from a weird place themselves, it is a DIFFERENT weird, so. . . XD Hopefully they’ll find it fun! :) That’s all the prompts rough drafted now, yay! Just gotta clean them all up over the next few days, and I’m golden!
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Two-thirds check – I got in OXmas and Gray, but due to getting to the YouTubes late, had to skip Kevin. But on the other hand, tomorrow should be minimal uploads, and he only did a half-hour video, so I should be able to catch up with him pretty easily then. :) In the meantime –
A) First up, the daily dose of OXmas – “XMAS CHALLENGE DAY 5! Mario Golf Xmas Invitational Challenge | Tournament of Champions 2022!” Today was Jane versus Luke, battling in Mario Golf: Super Rush as Mayor Pauline versus Princess Peach! (Or, as they put it toward the end of the video, the divine right of kings (snobs) versus democratically elected officials (slobs). XD) The challenge was simple – they played a short round of six holes of golf on the Blustery Basin course (as it was snow-and-ice-themed and thus the most Christmassy), both using standard clubs and with each hole in turn chosen randomly by the game, and whoever had the lowest score at the end, as in regular golf, won!
. . .it’s worth mentioning at this point that Luke has played a lot of Mario Golf: Super Rush (“worst game I love playing,” he called it) while Jane is essentially a complete newb. XD She tried her best, and Andy and Mike did a LOT of backseat golfing to try and help teach her how to compensate for the wind and the terrain and which clubs to use and whatnot (Luke even pitched in to help her figure out how to add topspin and backspin to affect where the ball rolled when it landed), but some really unlucky shots, including getting stuck in a couple of “bunkers” (you know, the sand traps) and having her ball stop at the VERY EDGE of the hole TWICE, meant that she was constantly going over par (the number of shots that it should take to get the ball in the hole), often by about four shots. She did get one exactly at par, and a birdie at the end (one under par), but it wasn’t enough to save her from Luke’s superior knowledge and better skill – he only got one bogey (one over par) and got a birdie on the same hole she did, meaning he finished with a score of 0 and she finished with a score of 10. So the divine right of kings, as represented by Luke, takes the Christmas point! Meaning the scores currently stand at Andy 2, Ellen 2, Luke 1, Jane 0, Mike Has Not Been Allowed To Participate Yet So 0. XD Maybe tomorrow, Mike!
B) And second up, the latest from GrayStillPlays – “Which ramps gives you the longest jump in GTA 5?” Gray was given a selection of ramps based around various classical elements to choose from, and tasked with finding out which one would send him the farthest, completing challenges at the end of them to be allowed to go back and try another ramp. He completed four out of the five (for whatever reason, we never saw him tackle the Earth ramp), and let me tell you, three of them were fairly diabolical. XD We had, in order:
Water – Featuring the return of Danny, with a challenge he called “IQ Islands.” XD Gray had to launch himself off a blue ramp under the water, fly all the way to a lake in the middle of the map, and then land on a target (which took a few tries and him having to hit one of his own previously-abandoned cars to actually curb his momentum enough). From there, he swapped to a motorcycle, and had to jump from target to target around the lake, the aforementioned “IQ Islands,” as they got taller and taller. Most of them involved using the spinning barriers around them as ramps to get up higher, though a couple also added in extra platform strips so Gray could use the extra distance to pick up speed and go farther, and the last one was actually a thumbnail hole challenge, as Gray had to jump DOWN and through the gaps in the rotating cylinder surrounding the last platform. And then he had to go out through another of the thumbnail holes (getting himself plastered against the moving wall in his first attempt like a fly on a windshield), drive along a platform to a teleporter, miss it because it was a total troll, then go under the fake water and take the final ramp up there into the teleporter so he could select his next elemental ramp. Danny has been doing well in his GTA V Torture classes, I see. XD
Fire – Back to Alex, with a ramp that led to a flaming loop-de-loop over one of the main highways, which then led to a platform that led into a flaming wall ride, which then launched and flipped Gray into a SECOND flaming wall ride curving the other way, and that flipped and launched him into a THIRD flaming wall ride – with STOP STICKS hidden at the top, so Gray had to go high for the launch and then immediately go low for the ride. Also, because everything was orange and on fire, he had a LOT of trouble seeing where he was going. It all LOOKED amazing, but he had a hell of a time making it around the loop and across all those various wall rides – hell, first time he fell off, he fell on the train tracks and promptly got hit by a train. XD But through sheer bloody-minded perseverance, he made it around the loop and past all the wall rides to the teleporter. :D
Air – Another Alex challenge, this one had a BIG ramp and sent Gray sailing far over the mountains. . .to a course made almost entirely of wind turbines. Alex somehow managed to layer up a bunch of wind turbines into wall rides. Gray was absolutely baffled as to how he hadn’t broken the game. XD Specifically, from the starting platform, Gray had to launch himself onto a bunch of layered wind turbines with their blades on the top and wall ride along them until they transitioned into a thin ribbon platform with a launch; then flip himself onto ANOTHER ribbon which led to ANOTHER set of layered wind turbines (this time with the blades on the bottom, meaning that if (when) Gray fell, he’d be dancing on the blades), into a CHASSIS SLIDE on a wind turbine shaft, into a final bit of ribbon that launched him into the teleporter. SO MUCH GRAY PAIN ON THIS ONE. XD You could hear the horror in his voice when he saw the course and realized what Alex had done. Fantastic stuff. XD
Lightning – And a simple one to end the video, with a flashing platform, a really fancy car, and a deceptively short ramp that nonetheless launched Gray off the side of the map with its lightning powers. XD I guess that’s why Gray never did the Earth ramp – he couldn’t get back down to it!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check, though only in the sense that I reset the queue speed on Victor Luvs Alice from five to one for my Thursday and Friday posts. I also wanted to sort out my Song Saturday, but – well, there’s a post on Straight No Chaser and their original take on “The 12 Days Of Christmas” that’s circulating around tumblr, and I wanted to reblog a specific version of it to bring their later song “The Christmas Can-Can” into it, but I can’t find the exact reblog chain I want that talks about how the group came back together after the original YouTube video went viral. . .ugh. Maybe I can find it tomorrow.
Not perfect, but not horrible either. And now it's off to bed, because I need the sleep. Two more days this week. . .night all!
Work – VERY quiet day – pretty much spent the entire thing doing duplicates, with occasional breaks to help my coworkers with some questions prompted by phone calls they’d gotten. And at the very end of the day, I got an e-mail suggesting one of the damn credit card company issues might be fixed, amazing. We’ll see how that pans out tomorrow!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike, and back to the Live Oxventure “Tome Sweet Tome!” Merilwen did indeed get Dob’s supplements without him noticing her rooting through his bag – but he did notice the (very evil-looking) supplements in her hand, grabbed them, and downed a bunch before Merilwen could get them back and toss them. XD Also, the fish in his lung paid the ultimate price for constantly stealing his food and died when it failed a Constitution save against the pills. Merilwen was noticeably horrified.
ANYWAY, Katy was able to give them a bit of pertinent information – the kids in this area seem to gather around a particular tree and throw rocks at it for fun. Dob misheard “clocks” somewhere in there and made a Tik-Tok joke, causing Katy to once again wonder if he’d taken his vitamins, and Merilwen countered with a joke about how he was confusing it with Vine, causing Johnny to immediately kill the tree and have it fall over. XD Dob thanked her for the info and brought the rest of the gang up to speed, and they began wondering how to get close to the kids and ask them which of them might have the book. And – okay. I accidentally spoiled myself on the next bit, which was Corazon and Dob bringing back the Beeples to try and impress the children, by reading ahead a little too far on the "Your Mileage May Vary" for the Oxventure on TV Tropes.
What the bit I read did not mention is that THERE WERE COSTUMES INVOLVED. Seriously, Andy and Luke showed up with bee costumes (complete with wings and headband antennae) and PUT THEM ON when Corazon said he was already dressing up as a Beeple. Not even COMPETENTLY, Luke put his head through the ARM HOLE of his little bee suit. I – this had to be planned in some way. I don’t care that Johnny acted so horrified over the return of the Beeples and said this was a worse derailment than Dob dragging everyone down to the docks and disguising Corazon as a chair in “Bad Chair Day,” THEY HAD THE COSTUMES READY TO GO. FOR EITHER THEIR FIRST OR SECOND LIVE SHOW IN WHO KNOWS HOW LONG. There was COLLABORATION, I say! By whom, I don’t know, but STILL.
ANYWAY – Dob and Corazon found the children, now sitting on the dead tree, and tried to charm them with their Beepley antics (claiming that their tour bus had broken down nearby because it was full of bees, for example), asking them for help in writing a new song about a magic book and where one would hide it after stealing it off a drunk wizard. And because Dob rolled a 19 on the Charisma/Performance check before modifiers, the kids were only too happy to sing along to their (very short because of copyright) songs. Through the singalong, the boys managed to get out of the kids that a child named Sprat had probably gotten their hands on the magic book, as he’d been seen recently in oversized shoes, spending a ton of money on candy in the shops and bragging about he had a “rawrsome” plan. They didn’t know where Sprat actually WAS – he’s super good at hiding, you see – but they had heard him say that he had a cool new hiding spot underground (and specifying that it’s NOT because he’s dead). The Beeples returned to the others with this information, and Merilwen basically immediately climbed down the nearest sewer hole to get away from them. XD This, of course, did not work for long, as Dob climbed in after her and began testing the acoustics in the sewer. (Well, after he and Corazon got stuck briefly at the entrance because of their wings and got confronted by the now-returned T-Rex. They managed to placate it by singing “Eleanor Rig-Bee” – “Eleanor Rigbee lives in a hive because she’s a bee~” The T-Rex was much more impressed than Johnny.) However, a good Wis/Per roll regarding said tests had Dob notice that the echo wasn’t quite right, and realize that it was in fact someone singing along. He followed the voice to a wall deeper in the sewer, and – after Corazon said that it was probably illusory – rushed it.
Wall was NOT illusory. Fortunately Dob didn’t take much in the way of damage, AND the impact dislodged the dead fish from his lung! Partially – Merilwen had to reach in and tug the rest of the skeleton free (she was like “Dob, you NEED TO SEE A DOCTOR” afterward). And then Dob ran at the wall AGAIN because he assumed Merilwen would Stone Shape it, despite her earlier saying she didn’t have that spell ready at the moment. XD And after he collided with it again, Egbert decided it was “breach and clear” time, shoved a bomb into the wall, and lit the fuse, over Corazon’s protests. XD Johnny had the gang roll to avoid the debris and the sewage from the explosion – Corazon and Egbert both got dirty 20s and struck cool poses; Merilwen got 14 and struck a less-cool pose; Prudence got 10 and just cowered behind Egbert’s shield –
Dob got a crit 1. Johnny took GREAT PLEASURE in nearly drowning him in sewage. XD Dob asked if the costume was ruined, and Johnny had to admit that was up to Dob. XD The breach-and-clear did work, though, revealing a secret chamber in which a child with a ton of sweets was hiding. The kid was quickly confirmed to be Sprat, and the gang began questioning him about the book – very incompetently. XD Not that the kid was much better at keeping it a secret. . . Eventually, the book was revealed to be under Sprat’s pillow in his hammock – he managed to beat Corazon to it (EVERYONE is rolling really horribly this episode) and write in it that he didn’t say anything incriminating and that they couldn’t use the spell that banished his T-Rex briefly any more. Dob tried to lure the kid into giving up the book by saying they were looking around for the person who had it to give them the cool cheat codes for the book, but once Corazon mentioned the “nude” cheat code, Sprat was squicked out and retconned Corazon telling him about that. XD Corazon and Merilwen then switched tactics, saying that the book made people age up really really fast (Egbert chipped in that the wizard Trashsack was really fourteen), and also made their butts fall off in public so people pointed and laughed – and even if the wizard COULD just write that “that never happened” in the book, they’d know it had. XD The kid seemed convinced by the possibility of losing his butt and asked to just write one last thing in it. The gang decided to allow this, and Sprat got himself a crayon –
And drew himself a terrible ankylosaurus steed to fight them, which burst through the wall (out of a nearby cave after Merilwen asked how it fit in the sewers and Johnny pointed out that she’d OFFICIATED A WEDDING as a CHICKEN) on its four wobbly legs. A triumphant Sprat leapt atop it to ride, and initiative was rolled. Prudence, having gotten a nat 20, went first, and took from Johnny’s eyes that they hoped she would NOT kill the child. She initially tried to Banish Sprat instead, treating it as the Ultimate Naughty Step, but Sprat’s earlier scribblings prevented her from doing so. This is about the time when the CROWD began baying for the child’s blood. XD When I left it, Corazon was noting that that meant the only spell Prudence might have left was HUNGER OF HADAR, but surely that wasn’t appropriate to use around a child. . . XD We’ll see what happens with, you know, the CONFIRMED EVIL MEMBER OF THE TEAM tomorrow!
2. Continue writing gift fics: Check – did THIS early because I didn’t have time to watch the OXBoxtra Oxmas episode before my workout today, so I figured I’d fill the time another way. And happily, Ace got back to me today, confirming the prompt they picked at the end of last year – Klaus and their fem!Leo from their stories about Blood Blockade Battlefront (an anime they enjoy, and are getting back into) meeting the rest of Secundus!Victor and Alice’s found family at one of Richard’s tea parties (having met Victor and Alice themselves in the previous two Christmas stories I wrote them). So I bashed out a rough draft of that, focusing on how Klaus and Leo feel like they shouldn’t be weirded out by Secundus, and the others assuring them that Secundus IS weird, it’s natural – and even if they come from a weird place themselves, it is a DIFFERENT weird, so. . . XD Hopefully they’ll find it fun! :) That’s all the prompts rough drafted now, yay! Just gotta clean them all up over the next few days, and I’m golden!
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Two-thirds check – I got in OXmas and Gray, but due to getting to the YouTubes late, had to skip Kevin. But on the other hand, tomorrow should be minimal uploads, and he only did a half-hour video, so I should be able to catch up with him pretty easily then. :) In the meantime –
A) First up, the daily dose of OXmas – “XMAS CHALLENGE DAY 5! Mario Golf Xmas Invitational Challenge | Tournament of Champions 2022!” Today was Jane versus Luke, battling in Mario Golf: Super Rush as Mayor Pauline versus Princess Peach! (Or, as they put it toward the end of the video, the divine right of kings (snobs) versus democratically elected officials (slobs). XD) The challenge was simple – they played a short round of six holes of golf on the Blustery Basin course (as it was snow-and-ice-themed and thus the most Christmassy), both using standard clubs and with each hole in turn chosen randomly by the game, and whoever had the lowest score at the end, as in regular golf, won!
. . .it’s worth mentioning at this point that Luke has played a lot of Mario Golf: Super Rush (“worst game I love playing,” he called it) while Jane is essentially a complete newb. XD She tried her best, and Andy and Mike did a LOT of backseat golfing to try and help teach her how to compensate for the wind and the terrain and which clubs to use and whatnot (Luke even pitched in to help her figure out how to add topspin and backspin to affect where the ball rolled when it landed), but some really unlucky shots, including getting stuck in a couple of “bunkers” (you know, the sand traps) and having her ball stop at the VERY EDGE of the hole TWICE, meant that she was constantly going over par (the number of shots that it should take to get the ball in the hole), often by about four shots. She did get one exactly at par, and a birdie at the end (one under par), but it wasn’t enough to save her from Luke’s superior knowledge and better skill – he only got one bogey (one over par) and got a birdie on the same hole she did, meaning he finished with a score of 0 and she finished with a score of 10. So the divine right of kings, as represented by Luke, takes the Christmas point! Meaning the scores currently stand at Andy 2, Ellen 2, Luke 1, Jane 0, Mike Has Not Been Allowed To Participate Yet So 0. XD Maybe tomorrow, Mike!
B) And second up, the latest from GrayStillPlays – “Which ramps gives you the longest jump in GTA 5?” Gray was given a selection of ramps based around various classical elements to choose from, and tasked with finding out which one would send him the farthest, completing challenges at the end of them to be allowed to go back and try another ramp. He completed four out of the five (for whatever reason, we never saw him tackle the Earth ramp), and let me tell you, three of them were fairly diabolical. XD We had, in order:
Water – Featuring the return of Danny, with a challenge he called “IQ Islands.” XD Gray had to launch himself off a blue ramp under the water, fly all the way to a lake in the middle of the map, and then land on a target (which took a few tries and him having to hit one of his own previously-abandoned cars to actually curb his momentum enough). From there, he swapped to a motorcycle, and had to jump from target to target around the lake, the aforementioned “IQ Islands,” as they got taller and taller. Most of them involved using the spinning barriers around them as ramps to get up higher, though a couple also added in extra platform strips so Gray could use the extra distance to pick up speed and go farther, and the last one was actually a thumbnail hole challenge, as Gray had to jump DOWN and through the gaps in the rotating cylinder surrounding the last platform. And then he had to go out through another of the thumbnail holes (getting himself plastered against the moving wall in his first attempt like a fly on a windshield), drive along a platform to a teleporter, miss it because it was a total troll, then go under the fake water and take the final ramp up there into the teleporter so he could select his next elemental ramp. Danny has been doing well in his GTA V Torture classes, I see. XD
Fire – Back to Alex, with a ramp that led to a flaming loop-de-loop over one of the main highways, which then led to a platform that led into a flaming wall ride, which then launched and flipped Gray into a SECOND flaming wall ride curving the other way, and that flipped and launched him into a THIRD flaming wall ride – with STOP STICKS hidden at the top, so Gray had to go high for the launch and then immediately go low for the ride. Also, because everything was orange and on fire, he had a LOT of trouble seeing where he was going. It all LOOKED amazing, but he had a hell of a time making it around the loop and across all those various wall rides – hell, first time he fell off, he fell on the train tracks and promptly got hit by a train. XD But through sheer bloody-minded perseverance, he made it around the loop and past all the wall rides to the teleporter. :D
Air – Another Alex challenge, this one had a BIG ramp and sent Gray sailing far over the mountains. . .to a course made almost entirely of wind turbines. Alex somehow managed to layer up a bunch of wind turbines into wall rides. Gray was absolutely baffled as to how he hadn’t broken the game. XD Specifically, from the starting platform, Gray had to launch himself onto a bunch of layered wind turbines with their blades on the top and wall ride along them until they transitioned into a thin ribbon platform with a launch; then flip himself onto ANOTHER ribbon which led to ANOTHER set of layered wind turbines (this time with the blades on the bottom, meaning that if (when) Gray fell, he’d be dancing on the blades), into a CHASSIS SLIDE on a wind turbine shaft, into a final bit of ribbon that launched him into the teleporter. SO MUCH GRAY PAIN ON THIS ONE. XD You could hear the horror in his voice when he saw the course and realized what Alex had done. Fantastic stuff. XD
Lightning – And a simple one to end the video, with a flashing platform, a really fancy car, and a deceptively short ramp that nonetheless launched Gray off the side of the map with its lightning powers. XD I guess that’s why Gray never did the Earth ramp – he couldn’t get back down to it!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check, though only in the sense that I reset the queue speed on Victor Luvs Alice from five to one for my Thursday and Friday posts. I also wanted to sort out my Song Saturday, but – well, there’s a post on Straight No Chaser and their original take on “The 12 Days Of Christmas” that’s circulating around tumblr, and I wanted to reblog a specific version of it to bring their later song “The Christmas Can-Can” into it, but I can’t find the exact reblog chain I want that talks about how the group came back together after the original YouTube video went viral. . .ugh. Maybe I can find it tomorrow.
Not perfect, but not horrible either. And now it's off to bed, because I need the sleep. Two more days this week. . .night all!
