*rushes in*
Jul. 25th, 2023 11:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickWell, I'm here fairly late, but fortunately this time I can also say that I had a pretty productive afternoon --
Work – Busy in a somewhat-more-annoying way – while I was expecting it to take a while to scan all the checks we put on yesterday, I didn’t expect having to go through them multiple times checking for scanning errors, which was a bit of a pain. We also had another instance of a payment for one campaign being put on as another (the fun never ends with the credit card company), and me continually being pulled to do other stuff (credit card updates and looking things up for people) while I was trying to get on some checks myself. *shrug* At least the day went by relatively quickly, I suppose! (And no beanbags today – too much storm risk this afternoon! Probably won’t be able to play again until this weekend at the earliest due to the upcoming heat wave, meh.)
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike, back to Oxventure Presents Blades In The Dark – “To The Depths!” In the wake of Astor exploding his own factory to keep them from getting at the important items in his office safe, Barnaby and Astor had a clear mission to retrieve the contents of said safe. How to accomplish that mission, however, was less clear, as Luke informed them that the Volis River was not a fun place to go diving – it’s a very strong, very deep river, with tidal waves and a glut of carnivorous eels. Edvard began considering things like making a diving bell or a new water-going Wonderful Mechanical Man (a Submersible Mechanical Man, or Wonderful Mechanical Frog-Man), while Barnaby was all for just paying a load of poor people to jump in until one came out with the stuff they needed. Eventually, the plan became to use both a diving bell AND a Submersible Mechanical Frog-Man (hereby abbreviated SMFM), allowing the boys to find the safe themselves and then send the SMFM to actually retrieve it. Barnaby was all for this plan because it was pretty much all mechanical and thus didn’t require him to actually do any work. XD He did eventually say that he probably had a shipping business among his family holdings and that he could procure a warehouse for Edvard to work in, and that he’d do his part by going to a charity ball, buttering up the head of the Volisport police, and seeing what kind of patrols and such were going to be out there. His buttering-up of the chief proved to be so good that Luke just roleplayed it out with him (confirming that the crash zone would be cordoned off and that there would be some patrols there, but since Barnaby was such a rich fellow, he could have said patrols let his boats through to do a little bit of loading and unloading – after all, the aim of the Volisport police is to make life easier for the rich), but Luke did have him roll to see if he actually owned a shipping company. XD Fortunately he did, complete with a warehouse managed by an old peg-legged, hook-handed salvage diver. Edvard took that over for his projects, using flashbacks to establish that he’d already had a prototype diving bell in the works from an old “diving for sunken pirate treasure” craze that had gripped him briefly some time ago, and getting a top-of-the-line Astor safe for his new SMFM to practice cracking.
And so, on the eve of their adventure, Barnaby walked into the warehouse fresh out of the charity ball to see Edvard timing a mechanical man with weird spinning arms and giant frog-like feet as it cracked a safe (and he rolled a six on the associated Tinker roll, so it was doing a good job), and his warehouse worker examining a diving bell with Jolly Rogers plastered all over it. XD Barnaby relayed the good news that the would be able to get into the area that they thought had the best chance of containing the wreckage of Astor’s office, then – very, VERY delicately – suggested to Edvard that they MIGHT want to paint Astor’s logo on the diving bell and the SMFM to help fool any passersby that this was an official Astor salvage operation. Edvard had some very choice and very weird epithets for this idea and Astor himself, but consented to making light-up versions of the logo that could be flashed on should they need them for any reason. He did insist on putting a butt in the logo, though. XD (Only if you look at it from up close! XD) The warehouse worker chose this moment to speak up and chat to Edvard a bit about the bell and salvage-diving (warning the pair that the pressure can do funny things to a man, and that they need to kill any eel they come across, but not in a way that spills blood, because when they get the blood frenzy on them, it’s not a pretty sight – it was eventually decided this meant hitting them in the butt with a blunt object) – and Edvard decided an experienced hand at this might be a good thing to have and insisted “Billy Bell” come with them. So, you know, they could keep listening to Luke do his stupid pirate voice. XD Billy consented, and after hashing out the details of the descent (going down at the “golden hour” to the river on their little expedition), Luke rolled three dice for the engagement roll –
And got TWO SIXES AND A FIVE. I’m sure the moment Ellen, Johnny, and Jane heard about that, they were like “what?!” XD The critical success meant that the boys had the perfect, sturdy boat from which to launch their diving bell; that Barnaby expertly hoisted the signal flags asking for the patrolling Bluecoats in their little rowboats to move (it was noted that this wasn’t exactly the most “Barnaby” thing for him to do, but the group justified it by stating Barnaby was probably made to be in the Cadets (possibly the local equivalent of the Boy Scouts?) as a child); and that the diving bell had lovely plush leather seating and a drinks cabinet inside (in fact, it was all Tiki-themed, which Barnaby most approved of). Barnaby rolled to pour himself a tiki drink, and got a success with a complication – he made a good drink, but Billy also got into the drinks cabinet. Whoops. XD Barnaby also did a little Surveying of the area to find out when and where it would be best to sink their diving bell, and rolled well enough to spot a good window of time where the one patrol boat that was still rowing around would be out of sight of their boat and thus unable to see them heading down. With that sorted, there was a quick discussion of who, if anyone, should stay up top to keep an eye out for trouble – Barnaby wanted more Tiki Bell Bar time, so Billy got volunteered to stay up top, being told to use the speaking tube if he saw anything that needed their attention. Billy promised to do so and even tried to breathe down the breathing tube for them, to which both Edvard and Barnaby were like “please don’t, you smell so strongly of fish.” XD But yes, with lookout established, SMFM on Edvard’s back like the world’s heaviest backpack, and Barnaby appropriately drunk, the pair were ready to head down! Edvard lead a group Finesse roll to lower the bell into the water, and both he and Barnaby got successes, so it looks like the bell is descending into the depths without issue. :) I look forward to seeing the adventures in the depths of the Volis tomorrow!
2. Continue writing “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – did this FIRST for a change so I’d have it done and out of the way with the least chance of distraction! Alice, having successfully yanked a lever in a beam of sunlight via the method of the improvised lasso, found her way into the creepy mannequin house with all its creepy mannequins. . .and having found the bedroom tableau and picked up the pill bottle there, she has just turned around to discover said mannequins MOVE. She is – naturally not happy about this. XD Yeah, Alice, welcome to my personal “creepiest part of VTMB” spot. Don’t worry, you’ll be allowed to leave shortly, I promise. Just – after a bit more creepiness. Because Malkavian.
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Half-check – as I had plenty of other shit to do tonight, I chose to just watch today’s GrayStillPlays video – “Taking contortion to dangerous extremes,” aka Gray plays more Happy Wheels! :D Today’s offering included a more outdoorsy bottle flip, complete with a palm tree (where you could get a bottle sideways on the coconuts, and flip a bottle onto a boombox); a spike fall into the depths of the earth (where you had to be precision-perfect to get to the bottom, though it didn’t matter if you exploded on the win); a reasonably difficult jet fall with a small weakness (that weakness being that the creator didn’t put the jets all the way down to the floor on the final wall, allowing Gray to crawl under it to the win); a nicely-elaborate “don’t move” board (complete with a few fun trolls along the way to the win); a possibly-impossible pogo jump with hidden harpoons (however, they had such a long delay on their fire, Gray was easily able to clear them); a two-level pan throw (like a sword throw, but with pans – still just as deadly, especially to people who abuse Gray’s dog); a reasonably-impossible “hobo prevents a bunch of people from rescuing some guy’s daughter” danger-dodging board (featuring Gray having to maneuver the hobo’s wheelchair through a WHOLE lot of harpoons and spikes – also the “secret” win at the beginning was the only win); a “Nixon dodges death” course featuring spikes and homing mines (which Gray won on the first try – dude has good reflexes, what can we say); a “troll level” board with both loads of fake wins and loads of fake dangers (like harpoons that didn’t fire, and a spike ceiling with no actual bumps underneath); and Dylan Snider’s latest, a parkour board where Gray had to use a series of different characters to actually complete the board (because the first part of the course, only Pogo Man could complete with his jumping; then Gray had to restart the board and learn how to use the skip he’d learned about to get Mom to the point where she could yeetus her baby to push a button and get through a tight squeeze of spikes; then use the skip SHE discovered to get the hobo in his wheelchair through some Flappy Birds-style bullshit and through an even TIGHTER spike squeeze halfway up a wall, before finding the final skip to bring back Pogo Man to do the final jump – also, this board was apparently in honor of Dylan’s birthday and this genius of HW pain is TWENTY YEARS OLD THE FUCK). Good stuff, as always! :)
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – while I didn’t get on Valice Multiverse (I do need to get back to that, once I find a way to a) have both that and Victor Luvs Alice open at the same time and b) get something to fix the dashboard update, bleh), I got my main tumblr blog sorted, plus a bunch of other stuff –
Victor Luvs Alice – I finished off that final Chill Valicer Save post regarding the first day of their honeymoon, then popped all five posts making up that update, plus a reblog of a cool Rage!Alice cosplay and a cute little clay-sculpted Victor, into the queue! That just leaves me with Song Saturday to settle this week, and I can get that sorted tomorrow.
AO3 – Answered all the comments in my inbox that had been sitting there for a bit, AND finally left my comment on “Beneath A Broken Sky” Chapter 5, yay! So that’s off my plate, w000~
DW – And I just finished off answering Moose’s messages, clearing out my inbox, yaaaay!
So yeah, e-mail, AO3, and DW inboxes are all sorted, leaving me with no messages for five seconds. Time to run off to bed before anyone else can catch me for something. XD Night all!
Work – Busy in a somewhat-more-annoying way – while I was expecting it to take a while to scan all the checks we put on yesterday, I didn’t expect having to go through them multiple times checking for scanning errors, which was a bit of a pain. We also had another instance of a payment for one campaign being put on as another (the fun never ends with the credit card company), and me continually being pulled to do other stuff (credit card updates and looking things up for people) while I was trying to get on some checks myself. *shrug* At least the day went by relatively quickly, I suppose! (And no beanbags today – too much storm risk this afternoon! Probably won’t be able to play again until this weekend at the earliest due to the upcoming heat wave, meh.)
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike, back to Oxventure Presents Blades In The Dark – “To The Depths!” In the wake of Astor exploding his own factory to keep them from getting at the important items in his office safe, Barnaby and Astor had a clear mission to retrieve the contents of said safe. How to accomplish that mission, however, was less clear, as Luke informed them that the Volis River was not a fun place to go diving – it’s a very strong, very deep river, with tidal waves and a glut of carnivorous eels. Edvard began considering things like making a diving bell or a new water-going Wonderful Mechanical Man (a Submersible Mechanical Man, or Wonderful Mechanical Frog-Man), while Barnaby was all for just paying a load of poor people to jump in until one came out with the stuff they needed. Eventually, the plan became to use both a diving bell AND a Submersible Mechanical Frog-Man (hereby abbreviated SMFM), allowing the boys to find the safe themselves and then send the SMFM to actually retrieve it. Barnaby was all for this plan because it was pretty much all mechanical and thus didn’t require him to actually do any work. XD He did eventually say that he probably had a shipping business among his family holdings and that he could procure a warehouse for Edvard to work in, and that he’d do his part by going to a charity ball, buttering up the head of the Volisport police, and seeing what kind of patrols and such were going to be out there. His buttering-up of the chief proved to be so good that Luke just roleplayed it out with him (confirming that the crash zone would be cordoned off and that there would be some patrols there, but since Barnaby was such a rich fellow, he could have said patrols let his boats through to do a little bit of loading and unloading – after all, the aim of the Volisport police is to make life easier for the rich), but Luke did have him roll to see if he actually owned a shipping company. XD Fortunately he did, complete with a warehouse managed by an old peg-legged, hook-handed salvage diver. Edvard took that over for his projects, using flashbacks to establish that he’d already had a prototype diving bell in the works from an old “diving for sunken pirate treasure” craze that had gripped him briefly some time ago, and getting a top-of-the-line Astor safe for his new SMFM to practice cracking.
And so, on the eve of their adventure, Barnaby walked into the warehouse fresh out of the charity ball to see Edvard timing a mechanical man with weird spinning arms and giant frog-like feet as it cracked a safe (and he rolled a six on the associated Tinker roll, so it was doing a good job), and his warehouse worker examining a diving bell with Jolly Rogers plastered all over it. XD Barnaby relayed the good news that the would be able to get into the area that they thought had the best chance of containing the wreckage of Astor’s office, then – very, VERY delicately – suggested to Edvard that they MIGHT want to paint Astor’s logo on the diving bell and the SMFM to help fool any passersby that this was an official Astor salvage operation. Edvard had some very choice and very weird epithets for this idea and Astor himself, but consented to making light-up versions of the logo that could be flashed on should they need them for any reason. He did insist on putting a butt in the logo, though. XD (Only if you look at it from up close! XD) The warehouse worker chose this moment to speak up and chat to Edvard a bit about the bell and salvage-diving (warning the pair that the pressure can do funny things to a man, and that they need to kill any eel they come across, but not in a way that spills blood, because when they get the blood frenzy on them, it’s not a pretty sight – it was eventually decided this meant hitting them in the butt with a blunt object) – and Edvard decided an experienced hand at this might be a good thing to have and insisted “Billy Bell” come with them. So, you know, they could keep listening to Luke do his stupid pirate voice. XD Billy consented, and after hashing out the details of the descent (going down at the “golden hour” to the river on their little expedition), Luke rolled three dice for the engagement roll –
And got TWO SIXES AND A FIVE. I’m sure the moment Ellen, Johnny, and Jane heard about that, they were like “what?!” XD The critical success meant that the boys had the perfect, sturdy boat from which to launch their diving bell; that Barnaby expertly hoisted the signal flags asking for the patrolling Bluecoats in their little rowboats to move (it was noted that this wasn’t exactly the most “Barnaby” thing for him to do, but the group justified it by stating Barnaby was probably made to be in the Cadets (possibly the local equivalent of the Boy Scouts?) as a child); and that the diving bell had lovely plush leather seating and a drinks cabinet inside (in fact, it was all Tiki-themed, which Barnaby most approved of). Barnaby rolled to pour himself a tiki drink, and got a success with a complication – he made a good drink, but Billy also got into the drinks cabinet. Whoops. XD Barnaby also did a little Surveying of the area to find out when and where it would be best to sink their diving bell, and rolled well enough to spot a good window of time where the one patrol boat that was still rowing around would be out of sight of their boat and thus unable to see them heading down. With that sorted, there was a quick discussion of who, if anyone, should stay up top to keep an eye out for trouble – Barnaby wanted more Tiki Bell Bar time, so Billy got volunteered to stay up top, being told to use the speaking tube if he saw anything that needed their attention. Billy promised to do so and even tried to breathe down the breathing tube for them, to which both Edvard and Barnaby were like “please don’t, you smell so strongly of fish.” XD But yes, with lookout established, SMFM on Edvard’s back like the world’s heaviest backpack, and Barnaby appropriately drunk, the pair were ready to head down! Edvard lead a group Finesse roll to lower the bell into the water, and both he and Barnaby got successes, so it looks like the bell is descending into the depths without issue. :) I look forward to seeing the adventures in the depths of the Volis tomorrow!
2. Continue writing “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – did this FIRST for a change so I’d have it done and out of the way with the least chance of distraction! Alice, having successfully yanked a lever in a beam of sunlight via the method of the improvised lasso, found her way into the creepy mannequin house with all its creepy mannequins. . .and having found the bedroom tableau and picked up the pill bottle there, she has just turned around to discover said mannequins MOVE. She is – naturally not happy about this. XD Yeah, Alice, welcome to my personal “creepiest part of VTMB” spot. Don’t worry, you’ll be allowed to leave shortly, I promise. Just – after a bit more creepiness. Because Malkavian.
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Half-check – as I had plenty of other shit to do tonight, I chose to just watch today’s GrayStillPlays video – “Taking contortion to dangerous extremes,” aka Gray plays more Happy Wheels! :D Today’s offering included a more outdoorsy bottle flip, complete with a palm tree (where you could get a bottle sideways on the coconuts, and flip a bottle onto a boombox); a spike fall into the depths of the earth (where you had to be precision-perfect to get to the bottom, though it didn’t matter if you exploded on the win); a reasonably difficult jet fall with a small weakness (that weakness being that the creator didn’t put the jets all the way down to the floor on the final wall, allowing Gray to crawl under it to the win); a nicely-elaborate “don’t move” board (complete with a few fun trolls along the way to the win); a possibly-impossible pogo jump with hidden harpoons (however, they had such a long delay on their fire, Gray was easily able to clear them); a two-level pan throw (like a sword throw, but with pans – still just as deadly, especially to people who abuse Gray’s dog); a reasonably-impossible “hobo prevents a bunch of people from rescuing some guy’s daughter” danger-dodging board (featuring Gray having to maneuver the hobo’s wheelchair through a WHOLE lot of harpoons and spikes – also the “secret” win at the beginning was the only win); a “Nixon dodges death” course featuring spikes and homing mines (which Gray won on the first try – dude has good reflexes, what can we say); a “troll level” board with both loads of fake wins and loads of fake dangers (like harpoons that didn’t fire, and a spike ceiling with no actual bumps underneath); and Dylan Snider’s latest, a parkour board where Gray had to use a series of different characters to actually complete the board (because the first part of the course, only Pogo Man could complete with his jumping; then Gray had to restart the board and learn how to use the skip he’d learned about to get Mom to the point where she could yeetus her baby to push a button and get through a tight squeeze of spikes; then use the skip SHE discovered to get the hobo in his wheelchair through some Flappy Birds-style bullshit and through an even TIGHTER spike squeeze halfway up a wall, before finding the final skip to bring back Pogo Man to do the final jump – also, this board was apparently in honor of Dylan’s birthday and this genius of HW pain is TWENTY YEARS OLD THE FUCK). Good stuff, as always! :)
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – while I didn’t get on Valice Multiverse (I do need to get back to that, once I find a way to a) have both that and Victor Luvs Alice open at the same time and b) get something to fix the dashboard update, bleh), I got my main tumblr blog sorted, plus a bunch of other stuff –
Victor Luvs Alice – I finished off that final Chill Valicer Save post regarding the first day of their honeymoon, then popped all five posts making up that update, plus a reblog of a cool Rage!Alice cosplay and a cute little clay-sculpted Victor, into the queue! That just leaves me with Song Saturday to settle this week, and I can get that sorted tomorrow.
AO3 – Answered all the comments in my inbox that had been sitting there for a bit, AND finally left my comment on “Beneath A Broken Sky” Chapter 5, yay! So that’s off my plate, w000~
DW – And I just finished off answering Moose’s messages, clearing out my inbox, yaaaay!
So yeah, e-mail, AO3, and DW inboxes are all sorted, leaving me with no messages for five seconds. Time to run off to bed before anyone else can catch me for something. XD Night all!
