Monday The 13th! . . .was not that bad
Feb. 13th, 2023 11:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickI mean, it had its fair share of annoyances, but I have genuinely had worse Mondays. And I did well on the old to-do list as well --
Work – This is where it being Monday the 13th came in, as it was a day that started and ended with small annoyances – traffic was bad coming in, and I had to park very carefully to squeeze next to a car in my usual spot; I was regularly interrupted trying to do the GL (either by requests to look stuff up on the credit card site or by people not coming and taking care of their print jobs); at the end of the day I had a last-minute credit card call that resulted in me leaving slightly late; and the sun was out for most of the drive home, meaning I had to deal with The Glare. In between was obituaries and merges and such. *shrug* Could have been worse, but could have been better too.
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike today, and back with the regular Oxventure, with their first adventure in 2022 – “Battle for Bardcon!” This adventure saw the gang (sans Merilwen – Ellen was recovering from an illness at the time, as covered in the opening announcements, so she is mysteriously off doing her own thing this episode) at the titular Bardcon, a massive multi-day bardic festival full of bards doing bard things. Right off the bat, it was established that Corazon had wheels put on the Joyful Damnation so they could have it towed there as their accommodations (and promptly took advantage of the fact that bards kept mistaking it for some kind of theme bar by overcharging them for cheap rum); Corazon ALSO spent a load of money on a bunch of tearaway outfits, which he was wearing all on top of one another so he could do dramatic tear-aways whenever he liked (he’d already done like three when Johnny made him roll to see how many layers he had left – seven, as it turned out XD); Dob was looking around for a new lute while Katie Pearlhead was trying to find a band for the wedding; and Egbert discovered that the bathroom situation was better than any other festival he’d been to simply because there were a bunch of bards there CONSTANTLY casting Prestidigitation to keep the smell under control. XD
However, they weren’t just here to have fun – turns out Dob had gotten them all the VIP treatment because he was in fact PERFORMING! Specifically, he’d scored a sweet gig as the opening act for Copperspine, the renowned band playing everyone out on the final day, led by giant humanoid toad Chadsworth Croaker, who had literally put copper plates on his back to sell his dedication to his band. (If you’re wondering – Nickelback. Whole thing is a joke on Nickelback, and I am embarrassed that it took me looking at the TV Tropes page for me to catch that, because I’m actually a FAN of Nickelback. Though admittedly I haven’t listened to some of their songs in a while.) Corazon naturally assumed that this meant that he and Dob would be performing together, possibly as the Beeples, and had even picked up a cheap banjo, figuring that if they played it loud enough, no one would mind that it couldn’t hold a tune. Dob quickly told Corazon that he should go and play in a separate area, away from the stage, because if the G’ethian record companies got their paws on his sound, they would commercialize the hell out of it, and he’d lose creative control of his music. Corazon was fine with all this, so Dob had to resort to “I’m contractually obligated to play solo.” XD And even THAT didn’t fully put off Corazon, him being Corazon.
It was around this time that the toad himself showed up, with bards pretending to swoon all around him (Corazon joined in by tearing off another layer of clothing). He and Dob had a nice chat, with Dob thanking him for the opportunity and trying to weedle his way into playing with the band itself, saying he could play any instrument – including the amphibian glass harmonica, which he could very much not. XD Chadworth took it well and said that it Dob did good enough, they might even take him on tour with them, where he wouldn’t have to hear any comments about where the money is or why does he smell like that. XD He then literally leapt onto the stage to announce the time of the performance and introduce Dob as his opening act –
Only to suddenly start screaming and rolling around on the ground in a very “yes there is something actually wrong with me” way. Concerned (both for Chadworth’s own well-being and Dob’s musical career), the Oxventurers charged forward through the crowd – Dob getting Egbert to pretend he was going to be sick and using that as an excuse to push through; Corazon jumping up and running across the tops of people’s heads with acrobatic skill; and Prudence just ramming her way through with her horns and putting eight people in the medical tent. XD They managed to reach the stage, where Prudence, Dob, and Egbert actually attended to Chadworth, with Dob trying to climb into the toad’s mouth to heal him from the inside while Egbert did the outside, and Corazon snatched up the toad’s instrument and started playing “The Ballad Of Corazon.” XD Hilariously, despite rolling his Charisma/Performance check at disadvantage (meaning he had to take the worst result of two die rolls), he STILL pulled off a twelve – and Johnny rolled a TWO on the crowd’s Wisdom/Insight check, meaning that – while no one was really DIGGING it – the crowd was willing to wait and listen to Corazon’s narcissist nonsense because they thought he was just a way to keep the crowd calm while others attended to the actual medical emergency. As Johnny themselves said, “I can’t believe that worked.” XD
Back with Chadworth, Dob got Prudence to Detect Magic on him – and found a lot of magic coming from a strange small woman over by the Meat Discs In Doughy Pillows (aka hamburger) stand! She promptly jumped into the crowd and began intimidating people into crowdsurfing her over to this mysterious person. Meanwhile, Corazon, glancing over, did brilliantly on a Wisdom check and spotted the actual source of the problem with the singer – SOMEONE was superheating the metal plates on Chadworth’s back! Dob and Egbert noticed it too, and I left it off with Egbert (at Dob’s instruction) pulling off the plates while Corazon transitioned to a spoken-word performance of his adventures on the high seas to further “entertain” the crowd. XD Oh dear, things are already chaotic as hell, and we’re only about a half-hour in. XD I’m looking forward to seeing where this goes from here!
2. Continue writing “The Joker And The Queen:” Check – Alice has managed to explain the whole “the universe bends around me to facilitate my kills – and that sometimes means using others” thing to Victoria and Emily, comparing Victoria managing to throw a sewing needle into a man’s eye from an impossible distance away to a baseball bouncing off Victor’s head at just the right angle to hit a supporting pole on the fence they were tied to and knock it over, allowing her to get a hand free. She also pointed out that Victor suffered no ill effects from that, being tied to a hot metal fence on a very sunny day, or having a shotgun fired multiple times right next to his head, so even if the universe might occasionally need to do something mean to them, they should also get plenty of good luck to balance it out. As you might imagine, Victoria and Emily need a bit of time to digest all this. XD But at least they’re on board with it all! Imagine I should be able to finish up this scene in just another page or two, then it’s back to X-Sector in the next chapter for some outdoor shenanigans with Victor and the coasters!
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – very easy now that I just have the two to keep up with –
A) First up, from Josh Way – “SKETCHY: The Royal Tenenbaums!” Josh showing off a few pictures he drew of characters from that film, in his more cartoony, “what if this was an animated feature” style. Featuring Bill Murray and Owen Wilson, the latter of whom Josh says has a good face that does well with being caricatured. :p Always fun to watch his various videos on his drawing, even when I’m not familiar with the subject matter (which I’m not in this case – I have a vague memory of seeing a commercial for this film, but that’s about it).
B) And second up, from GrayStillPlays – “I had 10 minutes to ruin my life,” aka Gray plays Yes or No?! - Food Pranks! Another terrible mobile game from the terrible mobile game mines, this one puts you in the role of an awful boyfriend to a horrible girlfriend (who has a variety of skins you may dress her in, including hot dog and banana costumes), and you do things such as alternate attempts to get the other to turn down delicious food and eat horrible food instead by hiding it behind a screen (Gray of course said yes to everything – good thing he likes chili peppers as much as cupcakes!); make killer smoothies for the boyfriend (including such ingredients as caterpillars and BITCOIN); go on awful dates together to the movies, the park, and the bar (where Gray had the guy be such an ass to the girl it’s a wonder she didn’t defy her programming and break up with him); draw on the girlfriend’s face while she’s asleep (Gray would not rest until he could write “YEET” on her forehead); and play Spin The Bottle with ridiculous dares (Gray ended the video with the boyfriend repeatedly slapping himself and saying “I’m a silly boy”). Total bottom-of-the-app-store stuff – meaning it was perfect for Gray! XD
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – got the two Valicertine’s Day/Polyam Shipping Day posts in the queue for Tuesday, and the “Slip 42 Camper” build post in for Wednesday! Still deciding what I’ll be posting the rest of the week, though I DO already have a Song Saturday candidate in mind. . .just gotta figure out Thursday and Friday. Hmmm. . .
Not too shabby, no! And I found an e-card to send to my parents for Valentine's Day, which is nice too. :) And now it is time to prepare to head to bed so I can do this all again tomorrow! With only a few variations -- oh, and it being Valicertine's Day. :p Night all!
Work – This is where it being Monday the 13th came in, as it was a day that started and ended with small annoyances – traffic was bad coming in, and I had to park very carefully to squeeze next to a car in my usual spot; I was regularly interrupted trying to do the GL (either by requests to look stuff up on the credit card site or by people not coming and taking care of their print jobs); at the end of the day I had a last-minute credit card call that resulted in me leaving slightly late; and the sun was out for most of the drive home, meaning I had to deal with The Glare. In between was obituaries and merges and such. *shrug* Could have been worse, but could have been better too.
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike today, and back with the regular Oxventure, with their first adventure in 2022 – “Battle for Bardcon!” This adventure saw the gang (sans Merilwen – Ellen was recovering from an illness at the time, as covered in the opening announcements, so she is mysteriously off doing her own thing this episode) at the titular Bardcon, a massive multi-day bardic festival full of bards doing bard things. Right off the bat, it was established that Corazon had wheels put on the Joyful Damnation so they could have it towed there as their accommodations (and promptly took advantage of the fact that bards kept mistaking it for some kind of theme bar by overcharging them for cheap rum); Corazon ALSO spent a load of money on a bunch of tearaway outfits, which he was wearing all on top of one another so he could do dramatic tear-aways whenever he liked (he’d already done like three when Johnny made him roll to see how many layers he had left – seven, as it turned out XD); Dob was looking around for a new lute while Katie Pearlhead was trying to find a band for the wedding; and Egbert discovered that the bathroom situation was better than any other festival he’d been to simply because there were a bunch of bards there CONSTANTLY casting Prestidigitation to keep the smell under control. XD
However, they weren’t just here to have fun – turns out Dob had gotten them all the VIP treatment because he was in fact PERFORMING! Specifically, he’d scored a sweet gig as the opening act for Copperspine, the renowned band playing everyone out on the final day, led by giant humanoid toad Chadsworth Croaker, who had literally put copper plates on his back to sell his dedication to his band. (If you’re wondering – Nickelback. Whole thing is a joke on Nickelback, and I am embarrassed that it took me looking at the TV Tropes page for me to catch that, because I’m actually a FAN of Nickelback. Though admittedly I haven’t listened to some of their songs in a while.) Corazon naturally assumed that this meant that he and Dob would be performing together, possibly as the Beeples, and had even picked up a cheap banjo, figuring that if they played it loud enough, no one would mind that it couldn’t hold a tune. Dob quickly told Corazon that he should go and play in a separate area, away from the stage, because if the G’ethian record companies got their paws on his sound, they would commercialize the hell out of it, and he’d lose creative control of his music. Corazon was fine with all this, so Dob had to resort to “I’m contractually obligated to play solo.” XD And even THAT didn’t fully put off Corazon, him being Corazon.
It was around this time that the toad himself showed up, with bards pretending to swoon all around him (Corazon joined in by tearing off another layer of clothing). He and Dob had a nice chat, with Dob thanking him for the opportunity and trying to weedle his way into playing with the band itself, saying he could play any instrument – including the amphibian glass harmonica, which he could very much not. XD Chadworth took it well and said that it Dob did good enough, they might even take him on tour with them, where he wouldn’t have to hear any comments about where the money is or why does he smell like that. XD He then literally leapt onto the stage to announce the time of the performance and introduce Dob as his opening act –
Only to suddenly start screaming and rolling around on the ground in a very “yes there is something actually wrong with me” way. Concerned (both for Chadworth’s own well-being and Dob’s musical career), the Oxventurers charged forward through the crowd – Dob getting Egbert to pretend he was going to be sick and using that as an excuse to push through; Corazon jumping up and running across the tops of people’s heads with acrobatic skill; and Prudence just ramming her way through with her horns and putting eight people in the medical tent. XD They managed to reach the stage, where Prudence, Dob, and Egbert actually attended to Chadworth, with Dob trying to climb into the toad’s mouth to heal him from the inside while Egbert did the outside, and Corazon snatched up the toad’s instrument and started playing “The Ballad Of Corazon.” XD Hilariously, despite rolling his Charisma/Performance check at disadvantage (meaning he had to take the worst result of two die rolls), he STILL pulled off a twelve – and Johnny rolled a TWO on the crowd’s Wisdom/Insight check, meaning that – while no one was really DIGGING it – the crowd was willing to wait and listen to Corazon’s narcissist nonsense because they thought he was just a way to keep the crowd calm while others attended to the actual medical emergency. As Johnny themselves said, “I can’t believe that worked.” XD
Back with Chadworth, Dob got Prudence to Detect Magic on him – and found a lot of magic coming from a strange small woman over by the Meat Discs In Doughy Pillows (aka hamburger) stand! She promptly jumped into the crowd and began intimidating people into crowdsurfing her over to this mysterious person. Meanwhile, Corazon, glancing over, did brilliantly on a Wisdom check and spotted the actual source of the problem with the singer – SOMEONE was superheating the metal plates on Chadworth’s back! Dob and Egbert noticed it too, and I left it off with Egbert (at Dob’s instruction) pulling off the plates while Corazon transitioned to a spoken-word performance of his adventures on the high seas to further “entertain” the crowd. XD Oh dear, things are already chaotic as hell, and we’re only about a half-hour in. XD I’m looking forward to seeing where this goes from here!
2. Continue writing “The Joker And The Queen:” Check – Alice has managed to explain the whole “the universe bends around me to facilitate my kills – and that sometimes means using others” thing to Victoria and Emily, comparing Victoria managing to throw a sewing needle into a man’s eye from an impossible distance away to a baseball bouncing off Victor’s head at just the right angle to hit a supporting pole on the fence they were tied to and knock it over, allowing her to get a hand free. She also pointed out that Victor suffered no ill effects from that, being tied to a hot metal fence on a very sunny day, or having a shotgun fired multiple times right next to his head, so even if the universe might occasionally need to do something mean to them, they should also get plenty of good luck to balance it out. As you might imagine, Victoria and Emily need a bit of time to digest all this. XD But at least they’re on board with it all! Imagine I should be able to finish up this scene in just another page or two, then it’s back to X-Sector in the next chapter for some outdoor shenanigans with Victor and the coasters!
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – very easy now that I just have the two to keep up with –
A) First up, from Josh Way – “SKETCHY: The Royal Tenenbaums!” Josh showing off a few pictures he drew of characters from that film, in his more cartoony, “what if this was an animated feature” style. Featuring Bill Murray and Owen Wilson, the latter of whom Josh says has a good face that does well with being caricatured. :p Always fun to watch his various videos on his drawing, even when I’m not familiar with the subject matter (which I’m not in this case – I have a vague memory of seeing a commercial for this film, but that’s about it).
B) And second up, from GrayStillPlays – “I had 10 minutes to ruin my life,” aka Gray plays Yes or No?! - Food Pranks! Another terrible mobile game from the terrible mobile game mines, this one puts you in the role of an awful boyfriend to a horrible girlfriend (who has a variety of skins you may dress her in, including hot dog and banana costumes), and you do things such as alternate attempts to get the other to turn down delicious food and eat horrible food instead by hiding it behind a screen (Gray of course said yes to everything – good thing he likes chili peppers as much as cupcakes!); make killer smoothies for the boyfriend (including such ingredients as caterpillars and BITCOIN); go on awful dates together to the movies, the park, and the bar (where Gray had the guy be such an ass to the girl it’s a wonder she didn’t defy her programming and break up with him); draw on the girlfriend’s face while she’s asleep (Gray would not rest until he could write “YEET” on her forehead); and play Spin The Bottle with ridiculous dares (Gray ended the video with the boyfriend repeatedly slapping himself and saying “I’m a silly boy”). Total bottom-of-the-app-store stuff – meaning it was perfect for Gray! XD
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – got the two Valicertine’s Day/Polyam Shipping Day posts in the queue for Tuesday, and the “Slip 42 Camper” build post in for Wednesday! Still deciding what I’ll be posting the rest of the week, though I DO already have a Song Saturday candidate in mind. . .just gotta figure out Thursday and Friday. Hmmm. . .
Not too shabby, no! And I found an e-card to send to my parents for Valentine's Day, which is nice too. :) And now it is time to prepare to head to bed so I can do this all again tomorrow! With only a few variations -- oh, and it being Valicertine's Day. :p Night all!
