Rainy Wednesday
Jan. 25th, 2023 11:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickIt was supposed to be a SNOWY and rainy Wednesday, but it looks like most of the snow missed us, except for a little band a bit earlier. It's been a weird winter when it comes to the icky white stuff, that's for certain -- it always seems to warm up JUST as we would get some snow. I don't really MIND -- I don't like snow, it makes everything depressing -- but it's just -- weird. *shrug*
Anyway -- despite the odd weather, had a reasonably productive day --
Work – Pretty quiet day of mostly obituaries and duplicates and the like – except for the last five minutes, where I got a call from a donor looking to make a credit card gift RIGHT after I’d logged out of the computer (fortunately he understood when I explained the situation and said he could call back Monday), THEN had to look up somebody’s credit card gift for a coworker, THEN have to sign a last-minute birthday card. And also grab the printout for my final batch of the day. *grumbles* And after holding off all afternoon, it finally started snowing right as I got out into the parking lot. Fortunately it didn’t really screw up my commute too much, but it wasn’t exactly fun. At least the Social Thing tomorrow is not a full eight-hour day and I get the morning to myself!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, pedaling my way through –
A) The end of Oxventure Presents: Blades in the Dark – “The Gut Cutter Bargain!” Kasimir was in favor of the plan of “let Marge and Timothy rip open a tear to the spectral realm and let something horrible out,” and let Lilith know that this whole place was about to go up in flames and then explode thanks to his own work (with Luke filling in a bit more of the “Explosion” clock for this conversation). Lilith promptly popped the two spirit bottles down and uncorked them, thanking Timothy and Marge for their help and telling them that they could haunt the shit out of this place – Marge thanked her in return, but admitted she’d actually like to travel if she could. . .and if Timothy wanted to come with her. . . ;) Ellen/Lilith promptly declared she shipped it both metaphorically and literally, as she intended to help the two ghosts get on a ship at some point. XD
But first – tearing apart the fabric of reality! The two ghosts each grabbed a side and pulled, and a good roll on Lilith’s part had them release a horrible spiky lizard-thing with eight legs – a basilisk, as Lilith would later find out thanks to a quick Luke fast-forward. Having successfully gotten a monstrous ghost on the premises, the gang legged it – two fours from Kasimir and Lilith and a five from Mumbles allowed them to pretty much avoid the guards and all the rich folk and get back to the shipping container, leaping dramatically off it and over the fence as the tank exploded behind them. Complete with Kasimir having a celebratory sip of whiskey. XD Mumbles was super excited about it all and called it the best day ever, even if she didn’t get to stab more than one person. XD
And so the score ended with the pair having MORE than kept up their end of the bargain – nobody’s going to want to go NEAR that train yard with a ghostly basilisk prowling around! All that remained was the post-score upkeep. Luke decided to be nice and rule that unleashing the basilisk counted as enough warning for the guards and the posh folk of the Hive to leg it and not get murdered, so no extra Heat from deaths, but they did pick up a little just from tangling with the Hive – plus Kasimir’s lost tinkerer’s tools. Ouch, but it could have been a lot worse. Kasimir spent his downtime tending his leg (clearing two stress) and – after a bit of dithering on Johnny’s part – working a bit on his new cane, perhaps writing down ideas for Edvard to consider later (getting two sections of the eight-part clock filled). Lilith, meanwhile, attempted to clear some Heat by getting the Gut-Cutters to spread some rumors that the Gondoliers were in fact responsible for some of their scores – this brought the crew’s relationship with them down to Neutral – and only cleared one Heat because of a bad roll. Similarly, Lilith tried researching where the crew could find a better doctor (as Luke suggested to speed up those damn healing rolls), and once again only rolled a one, not even advancing the clock. Seems like she used up all the magic sixes in her dice. :( Luke assured her that at least she was only rolling the ones on downtime stuff! XD So yeah, solid score, and I’m looking forwards to their next adventure. :D
B) Another Petey Plays It video, this time going over Wants and how they work (basically not that differently from the old Whims, just with more input from your Sim’s personality and their current location), plus Fears and how THEY work (doing all twelve of the base game Fears and how to clear them). Fairly interesting stuff, mostly because I have not gotten most of these fears and thus wasn’t sure how they worked. A shame that the damn Fear of the Dark is bugged and that moodlet doesn’t go away once you cure the fear. . .
C) And a few minutes of a video of someone filming The Smiler in action as it got dark, interspersed with some still images for some reason. Kinda cool to see the Marmaliser all lit up against the night sky!
2. Continue writing “The Joker And The Queen:” Check, though the chapter didn’t go quite the way I expected – while Oblivion did ask “how do you influence someone’s life to get a holistic assassin?” and Victor answered with Alice’s horrific backstory, instead of then cutting over to her, Victoria, and Emily, Smiler insisted on doing a dance scene with Victor first – specifically, the first scene of them bonding to an Ed Sheeran song (“Shape Of You”). XD So yeah, now we’re having most of the coasters (Oblivion and Wickerman are sitting this one out) dancing to the song, with Smiler coaxing Victor out of his seat. This makes me wonder if Chapter 4 should just focus on this, and Alice, Victoria, and Emily’s next bit should be Chapter 5. . .hmmm. I’ll figure it out!
Oh, and I had to do some “housekeeping” by changing a character’s name – I forgot that I’d picked “Broome” to be Air/Galatica’s last name when picking a moniker for the one semi-friendly agent who hangs around in these scenes, and I didn’t want them to share. So, after a little reading into Alton Towers’ history on Wikipedia, Agent Broome is now Agent Bagshaw, after John Broome’s wife’s maiden name (John Broome is the guy who started turning Alton Towers into a theme park in the first place, btw). Felt appropriate!
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – back to being fully caught up now, w000!
A) Started with the latest from Josh Way – “SKETCHY: Indiana Jones!” With Josh doing a full-body, more cartoony shot of Indy in his more modern form (aka, he looks older because Harrison Ford is not immune to the aging process), and a more realistic portrait of Indy in his classic 80s look (while complaining that Harrison, while a handsome man, doesn’t have any great features to latch onto when it comes to caricature and the like). They both came out quite nice, though Josh admitted to preferring the sketch he did of the portrait to the finished product. Isn’t that always the way.
B) And then we had a double dose of GrayStillPlays –
I. “I drew ridiculous cars that came to life” – Gray plays Draw & Break It! This is one of those games where you draw your own vehicle, then race it against an opponent to see who wins and who gets the most coins. Gray, of course, took this as seriously as a Florida Man can take this – that is to say, not at all. I mean, the dude STARTED with a car that was literally the word “YEET” and went from there. However, his baffling designs – from a Pac-Man circle, to an angry punk face, to a George-Jetson-style-snow plow, to just a freaking stick figure – pretty much all the did the job of winning the race! Hell, his final car, which was his dude suspended on a tiny stem underneath a “brain” ended up just ROCKETING to the win at glitched-out lightspeed when the car touched ground. Not even Gray understood that one. XD Gray, none of us understand you OR the games you play.
II. “When airlines take safety to unreasonable extremes” – Gray plays Hyper Hostess! A truly terrible mobile game about being an airline hostess named Emma, whose sole purpose in life is to torture her passengers – at least, when Gray is playing her. XD This included such things as spoiling the end of a movie a kid was watching to get him to turn off his electronic device; stealing a cat from a passenger who snuck one onto a plane; saving the life of the pilot (despite Gray trying very hard to fail the minigame) and then totally blowing off his attempts to be romantic afterward; giving a kid who needed to pee a bottle from her trolley instead of moving said trolley (though she at least gave him a bigger bottle when he said the first was too small); agreeing to smuggle diamonds for a shady character – and then just keeping them and telling him “do what you will” when he demanded them back; DUCT TAPING SHUT THE MOUTH OF A PASSENGER WHO WAS GOING TO VOMIT; TYING A PASSENGER TRYING TO CHANGE SEATS TO HER OWN SEAT; and agreeing to randomly marry some billionaire who propositioned her. XD All in a glitchy hell where characters randomly floated in place, were missing parts of their body, and could look out the window and see a random unused skin texture just floating in mid-air next to them. It was all very disturbing and weird – just perfect for good old Gray! XD
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – reset the queue speed on Victor Luvs Alice to one per day and put in a Corpse Bride gifset for Thursday (as I counted and I realized I had more of those than Alice-related stuff to reblog); a link to the AO3 version of my first Valice fanfic, “Suffocating,” for Friday; and a reblog of the OK Go song I was gonna reblog last week, “Obsession” (before I got distracted by the video for “The One Moment”). So THAT’S all set at last, yay. :)
*nods* Yeah, glad to have most of that out of the way. I do intend to stay up for a BIT longer, but not more than an hour -- tomorrow may not be a CLASSIC work day, but it still a day where I have to do Work Stuff by attending the Social Function to welcome in the new Bishop, and I don't want to sleep in too late. Want the morning to work on stuff, like messages, ship memes, and Valicetines. *nods* Right now, though, I'm off to find an e-card for Mom for her birthday -- night all!
Anyway -- despite the odd weather, had a reasonably productive day --
Work – Pretty quiet day of mostly obituaries and duplicates and the like – except for the last five minutes, where I got a call from a donor looking to make a credit card gift RIGHT after I’d logged out of the computer (fortunately he understood when I explained the situation and said he could call back Monday), THEN had to look up somebody’s credit card gift for a coworker, THEN have to sign a last-minute birthday card. And also grab the printout for my final batch of the day. *grumbles* And after holding off all afternoon, it finally started snowing right as I got out into the parking lot. Fortunately it didn’t really screw up my commute too much, but it wasn’t exactly fun. At least the Social Thing tomorrow is not a full eight-hour day and I get the morning to myself!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, pedaling my way through –
A) The end of Oxventure Presents: Blades in the Dark – “The Gut Cutter Bargain!” Kasimir was in favor of the plan of “let Marge and Timothy rip open a tear to the spectral realm and let something horrible out,” and let Lilith know that this whole place was about to go up in flames and then explode thanks to his own work (with Luke filling in a bit more of the “Explosion” clock for this conversation). Lilith promptly popped the two spirit bottles down and uncorked them, thanking Timothy and Marge for their help and telling them that they could haunt the shit out of this place – Marge thanked her in return, but admitted she’d actually like to travel if she could. . .and if Timothy wanted to come with her. . . ;) Ellen/Lilith promptly declared she shipped it both metaphorically and literally, as she intended to help the two ghosts get on a ship at some point. XD
But first – tearing apart the fabric of reality! The two ghosts each grabbed a side and pulled, and a good roll on Lilith’s part had them release a horrible spiky lizard-thing with eight legs – a basilisk, as Lilith would later find out thanks to a quick Luke fast-forward. Having successfully gotten a monstrous ghost on the premises, the gang legged it – two fours from Kasimir and Lilith and a five from Mumbles allowed them to pretty much avoid the guards and all the rich folk and get back to the shipping container, leaping dramatically off it and over the fence as the tank exploded behind them. Complete with Kasimir having a celebratory sip of whiskey. XD Mumbles was super excited about it all and called it the best day ever, even if she didn’t get to stab more than one person. XD
And so the score ended with the pair having MORE than kept up their end of the bargain – nobody’s going to want to go NEAR that train yard with a ghostly basilisk prowling around! All that remained was the post-score upkeep. Luke decided to be nice and rule that unleashing the basilisk counted as enough warning for the guards and the posh folk of the Hive to leg it and not get murdered, so no extra Heat from deaths, but they did pick up a little just from tangling with the Hive – plus Kasimir’s lost tinkerer’s tools. Ouch, but it could have been a lot worse. Kasimir spent his downtime tending his leg (clearing two stress) and – after a bit of dithering on Johnny’s part – working a bit on his new cane, perhaps writing down ideas for Edvard to consider later (getting two sections of the eight-part clock filled). Lilith, meanwhile, attempted to clear some Heat by getting the Gut-Cutters to spread some rumors that the Gondoliers were in fact responsible for some of their scores – this brought the crew’s relationship with them down to Neutral – and only cleared one Heat because of a bad roll. Similarly, Lilith tried researching where the crew could find a better doctor (as Luke suggested to speed up those damn healing rolls), and once again only rolled a one, not even advancing the clock. Seems like she used up all the magic sixes in her dice. :( Luke assured her that at least she was only rolling the ones on downtime stuff! XD So yeah, solid score, and I’m looking forwards to their next adventure. :D
B) Another Petey Plays It video, this time going over Wants and how they work (basically not that differently from the old Whims, just with more input from your Sim’s personality and their current location), plus Fears and how THEY work (doing all twelve of the base game Fears and how to clear them). Fairly interesting stuff, mostly because I have not gotten most of these fears and thus wasn’t sure how they worked. A shame that the damn Fear of the Dark is bugged and that moodlet doesn’t go away once you cure the fear. . .
C) And a few minutes of a video of someone filming The Smiler in action as it got dark, interspersed with some still images for some reason. Kinda cool to see the Marmaliser all lit up against the night sky!
2. Continue writing “The Joker And The Queen:” Check, though the chapter didn’t go quite the way I expected – while Oblivion did ask “how do you influence someone’s life to get a holistic assassin?” and Victor answered with Alice’s horrific backstory, instead of then cutting over to her, Victoria, and Emily, Smiler insisted on doing a dance scene with Victor first – specifically, the first scene of them bonding to an Ed Sheeran song (“Shape Of You”). XD So yeah, now we’re having most of the coasters (Oblivion and Wickerman are sitting this one out) dancing to the song, with Smiler coaxing Victor out of his seat. This makes me wonder if Chapter 4 should just focus on this, and Alice, Victoria, and Emily’s next bit should be Chapter 5. . .hmmm. I’ll figure it out!
Oh, and I had to do some “housekeeping” by changing a character’s name – I forgot that I’d picked “Broome” to be Air/Galatica’s last name when picking a moniker for the one semi-friendly agent who hangs around in these scenes, and I didn’t want them to share. So, after a little reading into Alton Towers’ history on Wikipedia, Agent Broome is now Agent Bagshaw, after John Broome’s wife’s maiden name (John Broome is the guy who started turning Alton Towers into a theme park in the first place, btw). Felt appropriate!
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – back to being fully caught up now, w000!
A) Started with the latest from Josh Way – “SKETCHY: Indiana Jones!” With Josh doing a full-body, more cartoony shot of Indy in his more modern form (aka, he looks older because Harrison Ford is not immune to the aging process), and a more realistic portrait of Indy in his classic 80s look (while complaining that Harrison, while a handsome man, doesn’t have any great features to latch onto when it comes to caricature and the like). They both came out quite nice, though Josh admitted to preferring the sketch he did of the portrait to the finished product. Isn’t that always the way.
B) And then we had a double dose of GrayStillPlays –
I. “I drew ridiculous cars that came to life” – Gray plays Draw & Break It! This is one of those games where you draw your own vehicle, then race it against an opponent to see who wins and who gets the most coins. Gray, of course, took this as seriously as a Florida Man can take this – that is to say, not at all. I mean, the dude STARTED with a car that was literally the word “YEET” and went from there. However, his baffling designs – from a Pac-Man circle, to an angry punk face, to a George-Jetson-style-snow plow, to just a freaking stick figure – pretty much all the did the job of winning the race! Hell, his final car, which was his dude suspended on a tiny stem underneath a “brain” ended up just ROCKETING to the win at glitched-out lightspeed when the car touched ground. Not even Gray understood that one. XD Gray, none of us understand you OR the games you play.
II. “When airlines take safety to unreasonable extremes” – Gray plays Hyper Hostess! A truly terrible mobile game about being an airline hostess named Emma, whose sole purpose in life is to torture her passengers – at least, when Gray is playing her. XD This included such things as spoiling the end of a movie a kid was watching to get him to turn off his electronic device; stealing a cat from a passenger who snuck one onto a plane; saving the life of the pilot (despite Gray trying very hard to fail the minigame) and then totally blowing off his attempts to be romantic afterward; giving a kid who needed to pee a bottle from her trolley instead of moving said trolley (though she at least gave him a bigger bottle when he said the first was too small); agreeing to smuggle diamonds for a shady character – and then just keeping them and telling him “do what you will” when he demanded them back; DUCT TAPING SHUT THE MOUTH OF A PASSENGER WHO WAS GOING TO VOMIT; TYING A PASSENGER TRYING TO CHANGE SEATS TO HER OWN SEAT; and agreeing to randomly marry some billionaire who propositioned her. XD All in a glitchy hell where characters randomly floated in place, were missing parts of their body, and could look out the window and see a random unused skin texture just floating in mid-air next to them. It was all very disturbing and weird – just perfect for good old Gray! XD
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – reset the queue speed on Victor Luvs Alice to one per day and put in a Corpse Bride gifset for Thursday (as I counted and I realized I had more of those than Alice-related stuff to reblog); a link to the AO3 version of my first Valice fanfic, “Suffocating,” for Friday; and a reblog of the OK Go song I was gonna reblog last week, “Obsession” (before I got distracted by the video for “The One Moment”). So THAT’S all set at last, yay. :)
*nods* Yeah, glad to have most of that out of the way. I do intend to stay up for a BIT longer, but not more than an hour -- tomorrow may not be a CLASSIC work day, but it still a day where I have to do Work Stuff by attending the Social Function to welcome in the new Bishop, and I don't want to sleep in too late. Want the morning to work on stuff, like messages, ship memes, and Valicetines. *nods* Right now, though, I'm off to find an e-card for Mom for her birthday -- night all!
