Usual Running Out Of Time Update
Dec. 20th, 2022 11:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickSo let's just get straight into the to-do list, shall we?
Work – Meh – kind of frustrating in little ways. I had more calls about credit card stuff than I was expecting (people making last-minute gifts and updates); there was a retirement party I had to put in a brief appearance at (masked and staying FAR at the back away from people); the gift exchange I THOUGHT was happening today was pushed back to tomorrow because that’s when the boss rescheduled the Christmas lunch. *sigh* I mean, I have to admit I had a better day than my mother, who went out to dinner with a friend and got caught in between what sounds like three accidents trying to get home, but still. Here’s hoping the final day of work is better!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another day on the bike, and back to the Oxventure with another live show, “Wedded Redemption!” Which is NOT about Dob and Katy Pearlhead finally getting married, as I thought – in fact, Dob’s not even in this one! For whatever reason, Luke wasn’t available for this one, so the gang have a guest character – Harry McEntire, an English actor playing the tabaxi (aka cat-person) Aubrey! The explanation for Aubrey being there instead of Dob is that Dob was chosen to be part of a foreign exchange program – he goes off and adventures in a curious land, and Aubrey comes here to check out G’eth to foster understanding between the worlds. The adventure in fact started with the gang picking up Aubrey from the (horse-drawn) bus, with Corazon assuming he was the guy they “sold” Dob to. XD Aubrey also came with Norman, the boring man in charge of this exchange, who informed them of the quest they were going to do with their temporary teammate – attend the wedding reception of Michaela Fortescue and her bride – fuck, I can’t remember the full name, but I know it began with an A, so we’ll just call her A Featherby right now. Anyway, the wedding is being celebrated at the Featherby estate, but it’s likely to be ruined by the murder of Viscount Featherby, father of the bride. The Oxventurers and Aubrey have been contracted to stop said murder, or they won’t get their deposit back. XD Faced with this conundrum, the gang began asking the hard questions – is it a cash bar (not for wine, the Featherbys are famous vinters), buffet or sit-down dinner (sit-down dinner, to Egbert’s sadness), do we have to bring a present (you ARE saving one of the fathers’ lives, so. . .), does anyone have feline allergies (Johnny quickly ruled that tabaxi are all hypoallergenic in G’eth). Prudence finally cracked and asked Norman WHY someone would want to kill Viscount Featherby, and he explained that there’s multiple reasons – Lord Fortescue doesn’t really approve of the marriage, and might try to kill his fellow father before doing some disinheriting; Featherby has wronged a business partner or two who might take advantage of the occasion; and Featherby’s staff are regularly disgruntled. Simply put, danger is all around, so the Oxventurers had to get cracking!
But first they had to get there. After questioning Norman if they were meant to walk to the reception (an hour away) and him not responding (having moved from Exposition Guy to Disinterested Observer), Johnny ruled that the bus was still there, and after a briefly considering just stealing it, the gang decided to ask the driver nicely for a lift. A couple of really good Charisma rolls later, the driver was only too happy to speed them to the reception (though a bad roll from Merilwen meant she had to stay off the seats). They arrived at a grand estate with one of those fancy circular drives, a grand house with colorful windows, a sign pointing to a menagerie, and a hedge maze!
Egbert IMMEDIATELY decided “screw the quest, hedge maze!” and went to go wander it. Johnny forced him to make Wisdom/Perception rolls periodically to see how he was getting on, all the while hinting that he could back out at any time. Egbert’s first roll was bad enough that he couldn’t find the entrance. XD But he persisted and found a way inside. Johnny had him then roll to see if he became immediately lost, and he rolled a dirty 1 (a two, minus one for his Wisdom modifier). After some discussion about whether or not this meant he DID immediately become lost, or if he FAILED to become lost immediately and instead took a long time about it, Johnny ruled that Egbert managed to CLIP INTO THE WALL OF THE HEDGE MAZE and Bethesda-ed about in there for a bit. XD A couple of better rolls got Egbert back into reality as he knew it and closer to the center, but damn. XD
While all this was going on, the other Oxventurers and Aubrey took stock of the situation and decided to just go ahead and try to get in the main entrance, where Viscount Featherby and a footman were greeting guests. Corazon was very reluctant to give his name at first when the footman asked for it, and Aubrey tried to impress him with a fake signet ring. Unfortunately he rolled an eight while the footman got a nat 20, and thus the footman ended up complimenting him on his glass ring. XD Fortunately when Corazon DID finally give his name, the footman recognized them as the people who would be doing their quest here and let Viscount Featherby know to let them in. Featherby promptly began going on about how he always lets “paupers” into these events to help them feel like they’re better than they really are, and Corazon promptly began wondering if they really wanted to keep this asshole alive. XD But this got them into the party, which had all the accouterments of a fancy fantasy wedding – servants going around with canapes; an ice sculpture; a string quartet; a “photo booth” with a portrait artist working in oils. XD Corazon tried to find anyone holding a knife and cackling and was unsuccessful; Prudence – after scoping out the two brides, who at least seemed to be having a great day – looked for Lord Fortescue and was SLIGHTLY more successful, locating four men who could all be reasonable candidates. She pointed them out as potential suspects, and suggestions for how to get close were floated. . .
And of course Aubrey, being a cat-person, said that in his culture, people often presented half-dead animals as tokens of esteem. Corazon was immediately “you do that and I’ll watch.” XD Aubrey thus went off to the menagerie to see what was available – the animals on display were far too dangerous to tangle with, but there was a dude feeding them various other animals from a bucket. Spotting that he had water rats, and thinking those would be nice gifts, Aubrey successfully distracted the guy with conversation and pilfered a rat –
A very alive, very cute rat. Aubrey wasn’t sure if he could kill it in cold blood. Fortunately, Corazon has EIP – Extra Insensitive Perception – and went and stamped on it for him, turning it into a water-flat. XD Aubrey took the flattened rat into the party and presented it to the man he thought looked the most esteemed among the group that Prudence had identified – by sheer luck, he got the actual lord, who was, um, “pleased” with the gift. XD With the father of the other bride identified, Corazon looked for a servant with roughly his build (gotta have those sweet dancers’ legs), and found one very poorly handing out canapes. He came up to the guy and told him the boss had told him he had to go isolate himself in the isolating corridor, claiming to be from the agency – and when the guy said they weren’t agency workers, from the not-agency. XD Incredibly, he won the contested Charisma roll to get this guy alone down a corridor (a ten to Johnny’s nine) – but when I left it off, his attempt to knock the guy out via strangulation had resulted in a CRIT 1. So THAT’LL be fun! XD
2. Continue writing gift fics: Check – edited my tumblr friend Marie’s today, about her Valice fan-kid Madeline and Alice coming back from a shopping trip, and Victor poking a little gentle fun at Madeline’s monochrome tastes – only to be reminded which parent she probably gets it from, Mr. Pale Skin In Black Suit. XD Took me a minute to get it as long as I wanted, but it all worked out in the end. Hopefully she finds it fun!
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Two-thirds check – I very much did not have time for Kevin’s offering today either. I’m thinking Thursday might be “Catch Up On Call Me Kevin” day at this rate. . .but I did get two in –
A) Early OXmas today as it was short – “XMAS CHALLENGE DAY 11! Stray Paw-fect Football Challenge | Tournament of Champions 2022!” It was Luke versus Andy today in Stray, controlling the “weird dog” of the title in robot Momo’s apartment. The challenge was to take the ball that the cat can play with in the room from the rug in the center, around the couch and table where Momo is working in a circle, then hit it against the back wall to “score a goal.” Luke, who has some experience with the game, did reasonably well – ran into some problems where he accidentally directed the cat to start scratching the floor, and briefly caused the ball to disappear from existence by batting it into a place where it wasn’t supposed to be (I believe in Momo), but after it teleported back and he got it around the couch, he hit the back wall at the one minute, 29 second mark.
Andy, who has NOT played this game, had a reasonably strong start, but then fell prey to the rage as the cat kept batting the ball the wrong way and getting it stuck in corners, shoved into the kitcheny-type area, and – thanks to a poorly-timed button press – stuck its head in a bag, resulting in the controls being reversed for a bit. End result was Andy rage-quitting the challenge at two minutes 16 seconds and pretending to uninstall the game. XD Luke and Ellen found his misery VERY funny, and rightfully so. But yes, Luke gets another challenge, and another point! And so we edge closer to finding out who will be Christmas Champion of Champions. . .
B) And then with dessert we had GrayStillPlays and “Evolving cats that can end humanity,” aka Gray Plays Cat Evolution! Back to the silly constantly-running mobile games today, with Gray controlling a tiny orange kitten that, through the power of raw steaks, sausages, hot dogs, hamburgers, and baby bottles full of milk (??), can evolve through the ranks of lioness, cheetah, black panther, neon orange Tron panther, orange tiger, blue-and-black tiger, and white tiger, smashing through obstacles and avoiding all vegetables along the way. And also periodically battling other animals, including a stag, a zebra, a crocodile, a bear, a lion, a hippo, and an elephant, so some rando could put them in their zoo and make money from them. One of those games that’s a total time-waster to play, but a hilarious thrill when Gray’s doing commentary for it. XD
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – got the two-part Chill Save Valicer House Upgrades update and the Valicer Christmas Headcanons post into my Victor Luvs Alice queue, and the one ask reply I had into my Valice Multiverse one. Pretty simple stuff, at least at the moment. (Let’s not talk about how long it took me to get the Chill Save update done this week.)
AND I just answered all of Moose's messages, so I'm good there, at least. And now it is time for bed. One more day tomorrow. . .hopefully it isn't too bad! Night all!
Work – Meh – kind of frustrating in little ways. I had more calls about credit card stuff than I was expecting (people making last-minute gifts and updates); there was a retirement party I had to put in a brief appearance at (masked and staying FAR at the back away from people); the gift exchange I THOUGHT was happening today was pushed back to tomorrow because that’s when the boss rescheduled the Christmas lunch. *sigh* I mean, I have to admit I had a better day than my mother, who went out to dinner with a friend and got caught in between what sounds like three accidents trying to get home, but still. Here’s hoping the final day of work is better!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another day on the bike, and back to the Oxventure with another live show, “Wedded Redemption!” Which is NOT about Dob and Katy Pearlhead finally getting married, as I thought – in fact, Dob’s not even in this one! For whatever reason, Luke wasn’t available for this one, so the gang have a guest character – Harry McEntire, an English actor playing the tabaxi (aka cat-person) Aubrey! The explanation for Aubrey being there instead of Dob is that Dob was chosen to be part of a foreign exchange program – he goes off and adventures in a curious land, and Aubrey comes here to check out G’eth to foster understanding between the worlds. The adventure in fact started with the gang picking up Aubrey from the (horse-drawn) bus, with Corazon assuming he was the guy they “sold” Dob to. XD Aubrey also came with Norman, the boring man in charge of this exchange, who informed them of the quest they were going to do with their temporary teammate – attend the wedding reception of Michaela Fortescue and her bride – fuck, I can’t remember the full name, but I know it began with an A, so we’ll just call her A Featherby right now. Anyway, the wedding is being celebrated at the Featherby estate, but it’s likely to be ruined by the murder of Viscount Featherby, father of the bride. The Oxventurers and Aubrey have been contracted to stop said murder, or they won’t get their deposit back. XD Faced with this conundrum, the gang began asking the hard questions – is it a cash bar (not for wine, the Featherbys are famous vinters), buffet or sit-down dinner (sit-down dinner, to Egbert’s sadness), do we have to bring a present (you ARE saving one of the fathers’ lives, so. . .), does anyone have feline allergies (Johnny quickly ruled that tabaxi are all hypoallergenic in G’eth). Prudence finally cracked and asked Norman WHY someone would want to kill Viscount Featherby, and he explained that there’s multiple reasons – Lord Fortescue doesn’t really approve of the marriage, and might try to kill his fellow father before doing some disinheriting; Featherby has wronged a business partner or two who might take advantage of the occasion; and Featherby’s staff are regularly disgruntled. Simply put, danger is all around, so the Oxventurers had to get cracking!
But first they had to get there. After questioning Norman if they were meant to walk to the reception (an hour away) and him not responding (having moved from Exposition Guy to Disinterested Observer), Johnny ruled that the bus was still there, and after a briefly considering just stealing it, the gang decided to ask the driver nicely for a lift. A couple of really good Charisma rolls later, the driver was only too happy to speed them to the reception (though a bad roll from Merilwen meant she had to stay off the seats). They arrived at a grand estate with one of those fancy circular drives, a grand house with colorful windows, a sign pointing to a menagerie, and a hedge maze!
Egbert IMMEDIATELY decided “screw the quest, hedge maze!” and went to go wander it. Johnny forced him to make Wisdom/Perception rolls periodically to see how he was getting on, all the while hinting that he could back out at any time. Egbert’s first roll was bad enough that he couldn’t find the entrance. XD But he persisted and found a way inside. Johnny had him then roll to see if he became immediately lost, and he rolled a dirty 1 (a two, minus one for his Wisdom modifier). After some discussion about whether or not this meant he DID immediately become lost, or if he FAILED to become lost immediately and instead took a long time about it, Johnny ruled that Egbert managed to CLIP INTO THE WALL OF THE HEDGE MAZE and Bethesda-ed about in there for a bit. XD A couple of better rolls got Egbert back into reality as he knew it and closer to the center, but damn. XD
While all this was going on, the other Oxventurers and Aubrey took stock of the situation and decided to just go ahead and try to get in the main entrance, where Viscount Featherby and a footman were greeting guests. Corazon was very reluctant to give his name at first when the footman asked for it, and Aubrey tried to impress him with a fake signet ring. Unfortunately he rolled an eight while the footman got a nat 20, and thus the footman ended up complimenting him on his glass ring. XD Fortunately when Corazon DID finally give his name, the footman recognized them as the people who would be doing their quest here and let Viscount Featherby know to let them in. Featherby promptly began going on about how he always lets “paupers” into these events to help them feel like they’re better than they really are, and Corazon promptly began wondering if they really wanted to keep this asshole alive. XD But this got them into the party, which had all the accouterments of a fancy fantasy wedding – servants going around with canapes; an ice sculpture; a string quartet; a “photo booth” with a portrait artist working in oils. XD Corazon tried to find anyone holding a knife and cackling and was unsuccessful; Prudence – after scoping out the two brides, who at least seemed to be having a great day – looked for Lord Fortescue and was SLIGHTLY more successful, locating four men who could all be reasonable candidates. She pointed them out as potential suspects, and suggestions for how to get close were floated. . .
And of course Aubrey, being a cat-person, said that in his culture, people often presented half-dead animals as tokens of esteem. Corazon was immediately “you do that and I’ll watch.” XD Aubrey thus went off to the menagerie to see what was available – the animals on display were far too dangerous to tangle with, but there was a dude feeding them various other animals from a bucket. Spotting that he had water rats, and thinking those would be nice gifts, Aubrey successfully distracted the guy with conversation and pilfered a rat –
A very alive, very cute rat. Aubrey wasn’t sure if he could kill it in cold blood. Fortunately, Corazon has EIP – Extra Insensitive Perception – and went and stamped on it for him, turning it into a water-flat. XD Aubrey took the flattened rat into the party and presented it to the man he thought looked the most esteemed among the group that Prudence had identified – by sheer luck, he got the actual lord, who was, um, “pleased” with the gift. XD With the father of the other bride identified, Corazon looked for a servant with roughly his build (gotta have those sweet dancers’ legs), and found one very poorly handing out canapes. He came up to the guy and told him the boss had told him he had to go isolate himself in the isolating corridor, claiming to be from the agency – and when the guy said they weren’t agency workers, from the not-agency. XD Incredibly, he won the contested Charisma roll to get this guy alone down a corridor (a ten to Johnny’s nine) – but when I left it off, his attempt to knock the guy out via strangulation had resulted in a CRIT 1. So THAT’LL be fun! XD
2. Continue writing gift fics: Check – edited my tumblr friend Marie’s today, about her Valice fan-kid Madeline and Alice coming back from a shopping trip, and Victor poking a little gentle fun at Madeline’s monochrome tastes – only to be reminded which parent she probably gets it from, Mr. Pale Skin In Black Suit. XD Took me a minute to get it as long as I wanted, but it all worked out in the end. Hopefully she finds it fun!
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Two-thirds check – I very much did not have time for Kevin’s offering today either. I’m thinking Thursday might be “Catch Up On Call Me Kevin” day at this rate. . .but I did get two in –
A) Early OXmas today as it was short – “XMAS CHALLENGE DAY 11! Stray Paw-fect Football Challenge | Tournament of Champions 2022!” It was Luke versus Andy today in Stray, controlling the “weird dog” of the title in robot Momo’s apartment. The challenge was to take the ball that the cat can play with in the room from the rug in the center, around the couch and table where Momo is working in a circle, then hit it against the back wall to “score a goal.” Luke, who has some experience with the game, did reasonably well – ran into some problems where he accidentally directed the cat to start scratching the floor, and briefly caused the ball to disappear from existence by batting it into a place where it wasn’t supposed to be (I believe in Momo), but after it teleported back and he got it around the couch, he hit the back wall at the one minute, 29 second mark.
Andy, who has NOT played this game, had a reasonably strong start, but then fell prey to the rage as the cat kept batting the ball the wrong way and getting it stuck in corners, shoved into the kitcheny-type area, and – thanks to a poorly-timed button press – stuck its head in a bag, resulting in the controls being reversed for a bit. End result was Andy rage-quitting the challenge at two minutes 16 seconds and pretending to uninstall the game. XD Luke and Ellen found his misery VERY funny, and rightfully so. But yes, Luke gets another challenge, and another point! And so we edge closer to finding out who will be Christmas Champion of Champions. . .
B) And then with dessert we had GrayStillPlays and “Evolving cats that can end humanity,” aka Gray Plays Cat Evolution! Back to the silly constantly-running mobile games today, with Gray controlling a tiny orange kitten that, through the power of raw steaks, sausages, hot dogs, hamburgers, and baby bottles full of milk (??), can evolve through the ranks of lioness, cheetah, black panther, neon orange Tron panther, orange tiger, blue-and-black tiger, and white tiger, smashing through obstacles and avoiding all vegetables along the way. And also periodically battling other animals, including a stag, a zebra, a crocodile, a bear, a lion, a hippo, and an elephant, so some rando could put them in their zoo and make money from them. One of those games that’s a total time-waster to play, but a hilarious thrill when Gray’s doing commentary for it. XD
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – got the two-part Chill Save Valicer House Upgrades update and the Valicer Christmas Headcanons post into my Victor Luvs Alice queue, and the one ask reply I had into my Valice Multiverse one. Pretty simple stuff, at least at the moment. (Let’s not talk about how long it took me to get the Chill Save update done this week.)
AND I just answered all of Moose's messages, so I'm good there, at least. And now it is time for bed. One more day tomorrow. . .hopefully it isn't too bad! Night all!
