Accidentally Distracted Monday
Jul. 24th, 2023 11:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickAnd now I'm running late, so I'd better just let my to-do list do the talking for me --
Work – Busy day, but in a good way – we were finally allowed to start processing gifts again! So the entire day was spent working on the many, many checks we had in the safe and clearing out the backlog, with me personally also clearing up the few online gifts that I had waiting in the queue, so to speak. Definitely made the day go by, with minimal stress no less. :) So hooray for that!
We also had beanbags this afternoon when I got home, but that went LESS well for me – I was COMPLETELY off my game today, for whatever reason. Mom and Dad also weren’t throwing great, but they (especially Dad) were throwing better than I was – I lost the first two games, and only barely scraped by Mom for second in the third. :( Final scores were me 3-3-2; Dad W-W-W; Mom 2-2-3. I dunno if I’ll have a chance to redeem myself tomorrow or not, with the heat and humidity growing by the day – we’ll see, I suppose!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike right after beanbags, and back to Oxventure Presents Blades In The Dark, with episode three of Season Two – “To The Depths!” Which is an Edvard and Barnaby adventure, to my delight – I love all of the Hobbyhorses/Bladeventurers, of course, but these two chaotic assholes rank high in my esteem. XD The pair had spent some time relieving stress (Edvard having found himself a monkey’s paw to play with to satisfy his “Weird” vice) and reducing the gang’s heat (Edvard by going around and defacing a bunch of “Wanted” posters of the gang – adding mustaches to everyone but himself, and erasing his own mustache; Barnaby by, upon learning that reducing their Wanted level would require someone to go to prison, bribing a rich posh idiot friend into committing a crime and then claiming to be the mastermind behind the gang – took two Coin and both of his downtime actions, but the gang is now back down to just one Wanted level) over the past few days, and started the score proper in the library of Eleanor’s townhouse, talking about Edvard’s failed cough syrup innovention (it was mostly just cocaine, to the point where he legally had to classify it as “cocaine wine” – naturally Barnaby was mad for it and was trying to get out of Edvard if he had any left; Edvard kept telling him that he’d been forced to dispose of it in a local pond, so maybe drink the water there if he really needed a fix) and Edvard’s righteous fury over discovering Amadeus Astor was involved with the Brightstone Society for Analytical Alchemy (their enemies in solving the “gap in the world” problem, as discovered by Kasimir and Zillah in their attempt to fake the death of Cornelius Bagshot). A knock at the door made Edvard panic about being roughed up by ruffians (especially since the others were out of the house on their own offscreen adventures), causing him to hide as Barnaby annoyedly went to answer said door –
And perhaps he was right to do that, as it turned out the man at the door was Roth, one of Astor’s henchmen, accompanied by a couple of big burly bodyguards. Edvard attempt to line up a shot on them with a special extendable boxing glove with laser sight while they talked to Barnaby about seeing Edvard, then ended up just concealing himself in a pile of books while Barnaby, already bored with the conversation, wandered back to the library, allowing Roth to let himself in. Roth kicking apart one of the decoy book piles caused Edvard to finally reveal himself, and Roth revealed the nature of his visit – to invite Edvard to speak with Astor on neutral ground, about certain matters of interest to them both. Barnaby was welcome to come as well, since he expressed a deep interest in meeting the man that Edvard hated so much. Edvard initially was like “why would I ever come to see Astor anywhere, I loathe the man, I keep his picture in locket around my neck to remind myself how much I loathe him” (Barnaby: “To steal his innoventions?” Edvard: “Those are all already all stolen!”) but as it turned out, Roth had incentive for him to come – somehow, he had acquired the arm of Edvard’s previous Mechanical Man, the one who got sacrificed to stop the Dimmer Sisters getting to them during their big heist at the mansion. Edvard, furious that was now in Astor’s possession, agreed to the meeting, but insisted on taking two big cases full of weapons and various poisons. Roth, apparently, expected nothing less, because the bodyguards helped carry them out. XD
And so Edvard and Barnaby proceeded to the meeting spot – an upscale coffee shop across from Astor Innoventions itself, situated overlooking the Volis river. Edvard’s cases were confiscated (because they weren’t actually going to let him USE anything inside, they’re not dumb), and the pair were ushered into the empty coffee shop to meet Astor. Barnaby insisted he wasn’t going to sit down before he got a cup of coffee – Astor waved some over. Barnaby then said he needed his coffee “Irished up” – Astor got someone to bring over some fine whiskey to pour in his cup. Barnaby then insisted he also needed the coffee “Cubaned up” – the puzzled shopkeep brought over both fine cigars and rum, and when Barnaby pointed to both, tipped some rum and dunked a lit cigar in the coffee. All the while, Edvard kept insisting the damn stuff must be poisoned and demanding to know if Astor intended to steal the coat off his back like he’d stolen all his inventions, to the point of stripping it off and throwing it in Astor’s face. XD This is why I love these two, seriously.
Anyway – once the coffee was to Barnaby’s liking (and the question of “where the hell are Ireland and Cuba in G’eth” passed on to Johnny) and Astor managed to calm down Edvard with a little condescending praise, Astor got to the point of the meeting – having received the remains of the Wonderful Mechanical Man from Kelly of the Dimmer Sisters, gotten proof that Edvard and Barnaby were at the opera where the Mistmire Ruby was stolen, and discovered that Cornelius Bagshot had gone missing, he was reasonably certain that they were part of the now-infamous Hobbyhorses (Edvard tried to deny it, but apparently he raises his eyebrows when he lies – he promptly started waggling his brows as much as possible to confuse Astor), and that they were looking for the Brightstone Society for Analytical Alchemy and information about their activities. Astor insisted, as his factory nearby was evacuated as part of a “gas leak” drill, that he didn’t care about the criminal element of their activities – crime is just an accepted part of doing business in Volisport, after all. But he wanted to warn them off this particular course, since it was going to lead to nowhere good – why, it could possibly destroy the world. He especially wanted to let them know how they weren’t going to get anywhere without some of the potentially-incriminating secrets hidden in the safe in his office in his factory –
Cue his factory getting exploded, and the remains dumped into the nearby Volis river. My initial thought was that he wanted to frame them for its destruction, but apparently he just wanted to rub it in their faces that the information they desperately needed had been in his office, and was now lying at the bottom of the river. He reiterated that they needed to stop what they were doing and that he really didn’t want to actually hurt them, and left with his goons, leaving the Bluecoats to usher the pair out of the coffee shop while the area was evacuated in the wake of the “gas leak explosion” in Astor’s factory. Edvard tried two last times to get one over on Astor as he told his employees how glad he was they were all okay – firing a paralyzing blowdart at him out of his blow pipe (rolling a three meant he hit one of his bodyguards instead), and then flashing back to coat his shoulder in paralytic poison when Astor came over to warn him one last time with a hand on the shoulder to stop it – Luke made sure Astor was wearing gloves, amid all the giggling over how ridiculous Edvard was getting – but to no avail. Which just left Edvard and Barnaby with one course of action – retrieve the safe from the bottom of the river! Which Barnaby was rather “eh” about until Edvard reminded him that Astor has stolen every invention of his, meaning that he probably had one bottle of “cocaine wine” cough syrup. Then Barnaby was like “THINK UP AN INNOVENTION NOW.” XD That’s where I left it – tomorrow, we see the boys plan their expedition to the bottom of the Volis! I am sure it will be quite the ridiculous trip.
2. Continue writing “The Joker And The Queen”: Check – after rereading the beginning of the fic (and getting a little too into it, as you will see in the next item), I have skipped ahead again to write a quick scene near the end – namely, Alice confirming with Smiler and Victor that they have feelings for each other (and with Victor that he has some lingering feelings for Victoria and Emily too)...and then suggesting they all get together in a polycule. I’ve gotten past the first awkward confessions from Victor and Smiler to Alice actually suggesting it not be just her and Victor, but all of them – next time, I write Victor’s brain breaking a bit as he goes “wait, what, I could genuinely have all of you?” XD And of course this is gonna end with a big damn kiss from a certain humanized roller coaster. :D Yeah, I wonder why I wanted to skip ahead to this bit... XD
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Substitution – okay, so, two things happened tonight that prevented me from doing any YouTube stuff at all –
A) The GrayStillPlays upload of the day was one of his compilation videos of him testing cars in GTA V – and given his compilations are always about an hour and a half (this one is specifically an hour and 37 minutes), there was no way I could watch that tonight
B) Remember how I said in the previous entry that I started rereading my “The Joker And The Queen” fic from the beginning and got a little too into it? Yeah, that was a half-hour’s worth of “too into it,” meaning by the time I actually did my summaries and other writing, I had to choose between YouTube and properly reading Chapter 5 of “Beneath A Broken Sky.”
And I picked the fanfic. So yes, I’ve finally properly completed that chapter and have started on my comment. Did not get a chance to FINISH said comment, mind – it’s a long chapter and I have plenty to cover – but at least I have Made An Effort. *sigh* Hopefully I can get myself back on track a bit more tomorrow with YouTube AND AO3!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Three-quarter’s check, let’s say – I completed another post for this week’s Chill Valicer Save update, and got most of the way through the last one. Just gotta wrap up the final few paragraphs and the tags! I probably would have gotten it done if I wasn’t determined to finish reading that chapter of “Beneath A Broken Sky” – but I was, and I think it was worth it. That last post should be easy to finish up tomorrow, provided I don’t get distracted again. *grumbles*
Yeah, not my most productive night by a longshot -- I gotta be more careful when rereading my own work for inspiration. *grumbles* But at least I made progress in a few things. . .and now it's time to head to bed and see how Tuesday turns out. Night all!
Work – Busy day, but in a good way – we were finally allowed to start processing gifts again! So the entire day was spent working on the many, many checks we had in the safe and clearing out the backlog, with me personally also clearing up the few online gifts that I had waiting in the queue, so to speak. Definitely made the day go by, with minimal stress no less. :) So hooray for that!
We also had beanbags this afternoon when I got home, but that went LESS well for me – I was COMPLETELY off my game today, for whatever reason. Mom and Dad also weren’t throwing great, but they (especially Dad) were throwing better than I was – I lost the first two games, and only barely scraped by Mom for second in the third. :( Final scores were me 3-3-2; Dad W-W-W; Mom 2-2-3. I dunno if I’ll have a chance to redeem myself tomorrow or not, with the heat and humidity growing by the day – we’ll see, I suppose!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike right after beanbags, and back to Oxventure Presents Blades In The Dark, with episode three of Season Two – “To The Depths!” Which is an Edvard and Barnaby adventure, to my delight – I love all of the Hobbyhorses/Bladeventurers, of course, but these two chaotic assholes rank high in my esteem. XD The pair had spent some time relieving stress (Edvard having found himself a monkey’s paw to play with to satisfy his “Weird” vice) and reducing the gang’s heat (Edvard by going around and defacing a bunch of “Wanted” posters of the gang – adding mustaches to everyone but himself, and erasing his own mustache; Barnaby by, upon learning that reducing their Wanted level would require someone to go to prison, bribing a rich posh idiot friend into committing a crime and then claiming to be the mastermind behind the gang – took two Coin and both of his downtime actions, but the gang is now back down to just one Wanted level) over the past few days, and started the score proper in the library of Eleanor’s townhouse, talking about Edvard’s failed cough syrup innovention (it was mostly just cocaine, to the point where he legally had to classify it as “cocaine wine” – naturally Barnaby was mad for it and was trying to get out of Edvard if he had any left; Edvard kept telling him that he’d been forced to dispose of it in a local pond, so maybe drink the water there if he really needed a fix) and Edvard’s righteous fury over discovering Amadeus Astor was involved with the Brightstone Society for Analytical Alchemy (their enemies in solving the “gap in the world” problem, as discovered by Kasimir and Zillah in their attempt to fake the death of Cornelius Bagshot). A knock at the door made Edvard panic about being roughed up by ruffians (especially since the others were out of the house on their own offscreen adventures), causing him to hide as Barnaby annoyedly went to answer said door –
And perhaps he was right to do that, as it turned out the man at the door was Roth, one of Astor’s henchmen, accompanied by a couple of big burly bodyguards. Edvard attempt to line up a shot on them with a special extendable boxing glove with laser sight while they talked to Barnaby about seeing Edvard, then ended up just concealing himself in a pile of books while Barnaby, already bored with the conversation, wandered back to the library, allowing Roth to let himself in. Roth kicking apart one of the decoy book piles caused Edvard to finally reveal himself, and Roth revealed the nature of his visit – to invite Edvard to speak with Astor on neutral ground, about certain matters of interest to them both. Barnaby was welcome to come as well, since he expressed a deep interest in meeting the man that Edvard hated so much. Edvard initially was like “why would I ever come to see Astor anywhere, I loathe the man, I keep his picture in locket around my neck to remind myself how much I loathe him” (Barnaby: “To steal his innoventions?” Edvard: “Those are all already all stolen!”) but as it turned out, Roth had incentive for him to come – somehow, he had acquired the arm of Edvard’s previous Mechanical Man, the one who got sacrificed to stop the Dimmer Sisters getting to them during their big heist at the mansion. Edvard, furious that was now in Astor’s possession, agreed to the meeting, but insisted on taking two big cases full of weapons and various poisons. Roth, apparently, expected nothing less, because the bodyguards helped carry them out. XD
And so Edvard and Barnaby proceeded to the meeting spot – an upscale coffee shop across from Astor Innoventions itself, situated overlooking the Volis river. Edvard’s cases were confiscated (because they weren’t actually going to let him USE anything inside, they’re not dumb), and the pair were ushered into the empty coffee shop to meet Astor. Barnaby insisted he wasn’t going to sit down before he got a cup of coffee – Astor waved some over. Barnaby then said he needed his coffee “Irished up” – Astor got someone to bring over some fine whiskey to pour in his cup. Barnaby then insisted he also needed the coffee “Cubaned up” – the puzzled shopkeep brought over both fine cigars and rum, and when Barnaby pointed to both, tipped some rum and dunked a lit cigar in the coffee. All the while, Edvard kept insisting the damn stuff must be poisoned and demanding to know if Astor intended to steal the coat off his back like he’d stolen all his inventions, to the point of stripping it off and throwing it in Astor’s face. XD This is why I love these two, seriously.
Anyway – once the coffee was to Barnaby’s liking (and the question of “where the hell are Ireland and Cuba in G’eth” passed on to Johnny) and Astor managed to calm down Edvard with a little condescending praise, Astor got to the point of the meeting – having received the remains of the Wonderful Mechanical Man from Kelly of the Dimmer Sisters, gotten proof that Edvard and Barnaby were at the opera where the Mistmire Ruby was stolen, and discovered that Cornelius Bagshot had gone missing, he was reasonably certain that they were part of the now-infamous Hobbyhorses (Edvard tried to deny it, but apparently he raises his eyebrows when he lies – he promptly started waggling his brows as much as possible to confuse Astor), and that they were looking for the Brightstone Society for Analytical Alchemy and information about their activities. Astor insisted, as his factory nearby was evacuated as part of a “gas leak” drill, that he didn’t care about the criminal element of their activities – crime is just an accepted part of doing business in Volisport, after all. But he wanted to warn them off this particular course, since it was going to lead to nowhere good – why, it could possibly destroy the world. He especially wanted to let them know how they weren’t going to get anywhere without some of the potentially-incriminating secrets hidden in the safe in his office in his factory –
Cue his factory getting exploded, and the remains dumped into the nearby Volis river. My initial thought was that he wanted to frame them for its destruction, but apparently he just wanted to rub it in their faces that the information they desperately needed had been in his office, and was now lying at the bottom of the river. He reiterated that they needed to stop what they were doing and that he really didn’t want to actually hurt them, and left with his goons, leaving the Bluecoats to usher the pair out of the coffee shop while the area was evacuated in the wake of the “gas leak explosion” in Astor’s factory. Edvard tried two last times to get one over on Astor as he told his employees how glad he was they were all okay – firing a paralyzing blowdart at him out of his blow pipe (rolling a three meant he hit one of his bodyguards instead), and then flashing back to coat his shoulder in paralytic poison when Astor came over to warn him one last time with a hand on the shoulder to stop it – Luke made sure Astor was wearing gloves, amid all the giggling over how ridiculous Edvard was getting – but to no avail. Which just left Edvard and Barnaby with one course of action – retrieve the safe from the bottom of the river! Which Barnaby was rather “eh” about until Edvard reminded him that Astor has stolen every invention of his, meaning that he probably had one bottle of “cocaine wine” cough syrup. Then Barnaby was like “THINK UP AN INNOVENTION NOW.” XD That’s where I left it – tomorrow, we see the boys plan their expedition to the bottom of the Volis! I am sure it will be quite the ridiculous trip.
2. Continue writing “The Joker And The Queen”: Check – after rereading the beginning of the fic (and getting a little too into it, as you will see in the next item), I have skipped ahead again to write a quick scene near the end – namely, Alice confirming with Smiler and Victor that they have feelings for each other (and with Victor that he has some lingering feelings for Victoria and Emily too)...and then suggesting they all get together in a polycule. I’ve gotten past the first awkward confessions from Victor and Smiler to Alice actually suggesting it not be just her and Victor, but all of them – next time, I write Victor’s brain breaking a bit as he goes “wait, what, I could genuinely have all of you?” XD And of course this is gonna end with a big damn kiss from a certain humanized roller coaster. :D Yeah, I wonder why I wanted to skip ahead to this bit... XD
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Substitution – okay, so, two things happened tonight that prevented me from doing any YouTube stuff at all –
A) The GrayStillPlays upload of the day was one of his compilation videos of him testing cars in GTA V – and given his compilations are always about an hour and a half (this one is specifically an hour and 37 minutes), there was no way I could watch that tonight
B) Remember how I said in the previous entry that I started rereading my “The Joker And The Queen” fic from the beginning and got a little too into it? Yeah, that was a half-hour’s worth of “too into it,” meaning by the time I actually did my summaries and other writing, I had to choose between YouTube and properly reading Chapter 5 of “Beneath A Broken Sky.”
And I picked the fanfic. So yes, I’ve finally properly completed that chapter and have started on my comment. Did not get a chance to FINISH said comment, mind – it’s a long chapter and I have plenty to cover – but at least I have Made An Effort. *sigh* Hopefully I can get myself back on track a bit more tomorrow with YouTube AND AO3!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Three-quarter’s check, let’s say – I completed another post for this week’s Chill Valicer Save update, and got most of the way through the last one. Just gotta wrap up the final few paragraphs and the tags! I probably would have gotten it done if I wasn’t determined to finish reading that chapter of “Beneath A Broken Sky” – but I was, and I think it was worth it. That last post should be easy to finish up tomorrow, provided I don’t get distracted again. *grumbles*
Yeah, not my most productive night by a longshot -- I gotta be more careful when rereading my own work for inspiration. *grumbles* But at least I made progress in a few things. . .and now it's time to head to bed and see how Tuesday turns out. Night all!
