Reasonably Good Monday
Jul. 31st, 2023 11:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickThe weather was lovely -- back to "not humid in the day and we only need AC at night because the house gets hot with the sun coming in" -- and the day itself not too stressful. My major point of contention today was my commute -- going to work wasn't too bad, but coming back home was definitely busier than I would have liked. *grumbles* Well, just three and a half more days of this. . .let's check on the old to-do list --
Work – Reasonably quiet day at work – one GL, one online payment update call, one QC file, a handful of duplicates. *shrug* Day didn’t go by quite as fast as I might have liked, but it didn’t full-on drag either. Still no sign of half our online payments yet, though – apparently the credit card company needed to sort out the newest source codes. Hopefully they get on it soon!
Oh, and as the weather was lovely, the fam did end up playing beanbags once I got home! Dad and I had about the same kind of day as we had yesterday (I did terribly except for one game, while Dad ruled the roost), while poor Mom ended up doing slightly worse simply because we didn’t play as many games. Final scores were me 3-W-3; Dad W-2-W; Mom 2-3-2. *shrug* We’ll see how things change, or not, tomorrow!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike, and back to Oxventure Presents Blades In The Dark for the next episode in line – “The Wardens of Bellweather Crematorium!” This one is a Lilith and Kasimir adventure, and we opened with them having actually spent some time together off-screen, as per their downtime actions – namely, Lilith, in an effort to destress, went to a performance at the theater, and Kasimir tagged along and quietly tinkered with his leg brace while the play was going on because he’s now good at helping those around him relieve stress more efficiently (aka, Johnny offered to send Kasimir along because they’ve picked up that ability that allows them and anyone they indulge a vice with to adjust their roll to prevent overindulging). The two had a lovely time and managed NOT to buy too much overpriced ice cream during the interval. :p They also both went to their doctor-vet to try and heal their various wounds – some progress was made on Lilith’s many, many bruises from her misadventures at the opera, while Kasimir, who walked in with curse damage assuming the vet had seen it before on goats, got deworming medication and a bag of oats. On the plus side, he has no worms and his beard has never been glossier! XD
ANYWAY, the adventure proper started with Kasimir relaxing with his leg up at Eleanor’s townhouse, when someone came knocking at the door looking for him. That someone proved to be Erin, the senior Billhook that Kasimir and Zillah managed to annoy by depriving her of the chance to murder Cornelius Bagshot or at least get him to pay off his debts, and by wiping one of her compatriots, Ziggy, off their carriage by smashing him against a wall. Oh, and surprise, turns out Erin is Kasimir’s FORMER BOSS, or something akin to that – the Billhooks were Kasimir’s gang until he hurt his leg. Kasimir warmly greeted Erin by putting his cane across his lap in such a way he could shoot her with the hidden gun if necessary. XD Erin said hello back and got straight to the point – Kasimir had wronged the Billhooks, they had a favor in mind so he could right that wrong, and he could come along to their shop at noon tomorrow to hear about it – and bring “the spooky one,” aka Lilith. Kasimir agreed, and Erin let herself out again, leaving naught but her muddy bootprints behind. Eleanor was NOT happy of the mess made of the rug when she came to investigate, and neither was Lilith, who’d just cleaned it with one of Edvard’s new inventions, a “Hoover.” Which did a lovely job sucking up dirt, but DID scream and beg for death, like most of Edvard’s inventions. XD Kasimir informed her of what had happened and awkwardly asked for her help – Lilith assured him she’d be happy to assist, aw.
And so flash forward to noon the next day, and the two going to meet Erin at the Billhooks’ butcher shop headquarters, “Meat Etc.” XD Kasimir complimented Erin on the Billhooks’ dedication to getting tetanus on the job from all the less-than-hygienic hooks, and Erin said they were all boosted and showed him the syringes of PROBABLY tetanus-related medicine they’d managed to pilfer. XD With pleasantries out of the way, she informed them of her desired favor – it seems that the Billhooks had, through much planning, expense, and luck, managed to sneak an agent into the ranks of the Spirit Wardens of Bellweather Crematorium – those anonymous people in long cloaks and masks that take care of dead bodies in the city so they can’t turn into yet more ghosts. The only one anyone knows the name of is Bakoros, the leader, who occasionally gives lectures at the university, and might not even be the same person every time. (Though he must be SOMEONE, because that name happened to be on the list of Brightstone Society of Analytical Alchemy members that Edvard and Barnaby found last time. . .) Word on the street was that he had started acting weird, and the Billhooks wanted to know why, so they sent in their agent, Taryn. Problem is, Taryn had missed two check-ins, and now the Billhooks wanted her exfiled. Kasimir pointed out that it was very likely Taryn had been caught and killed, but Erin insisted that, in that case, she wanted proof, in order to close any potential loose ends. And she wanted Kasimir and Lilith to do it to wipe Kasimir’s debt to the gang, pointing out the other option was total war between them and the Hobbyhorses, and she was good with either. Lilith gave Kasimir a little pep talk to help encourage him, and with Kasimir sure that they could not survive a war with the Billhooks, they agreed to do it. Erin asked them their time frame, warning them she would dramatically halve it at least – Kasimir attempted to get them four weeks, but Erin gave them twenty-four hours before dismissing them so she could “boost” herself further against tetanus. XD
With their task in hand, the pair began discussing strategies to actually get into the crematorium – only for Lilith to reveal to Kasimir that she wasn’t just here in Volisport for her studies. No, she was actually a ghost assassin, here to eliminate a ghost that had slipped past the very Wardens themselves. Kasimir was like “is that a good-paying job, do you get dental?” and Lilith was like, “well, it’s a family business, and we are very rich back home, so. . .” XD And she was more than willing to lean on those family connections to get an “in” into Bellweather – as an intern, perhaps, doing some work-study stuff. She was open to letting Kasimir shadow her in turn, with the explanation of he wanted to know the business due to all the enemies he’d made around the city, but Kasimir decided that a simpler solution would be for him to just hang around Crow’s Foot, wait for someone to get offed, and hide in the carriage that came to pick up the body. That way she could come in the front, he could come in the back, and they could hopefully rendezvous inside and cause distractions for each other if necessary. Lilith talked to her professors and filled a pack with both real and fake books, Kasimir went to hang around possible murder sites, and Luke made the engagement roll!
Highest result was a four – mediocre! XD On Lilith’s side, she was able to secure an internship and get inside the crematorium – but, as an intern, she got the worst job, which was loading bodies onto a conveyor belt so they could be taken away for further processing/burning. AND, worse yet, her guide, an unnamed Warden, insisted on taking her bag and searching it, and Lilith couldn’t do anything except say yes (and curse the fact that every time she gets a bag to go in with Heavy Load, someone insists on searching it or taking it away XD). I left it with the Warden having not YET located any of her fake books, and with the action cutting to Kasimir, who had just witnessed a very grisly murder and was just waiting for the Spirit Warden carriage to catch up with the deathseeker crow who had found the body. I actually know what’s going to happen next thanks to a “best of 2022” video on OXtra, and I’m looking forward to seeing it in context. XD
2. Continue writing “The Joker And The Queen”: Check – I have started working on one of the ending scenes I had in mind for this fic – the reunion of all the escaped Coaster Crew with their families. :) It’s actually from the POV of Matt and Carol Alton, Smiler’s parents – they’re on a trip somewhere, trying not to think about how they haven’t seen their child in month, and they just stopped for snacks at a gas station with a rather interesting cast of characters – a former musician turned DJ buying some snacks of his own; an elderly couple who just pulled in; a family on a road trip with a young son running around the parking lot; and a bored lady pumping gas. Guess which one belongs to which coaster! XD But yeah, the van containing the crew (plus, obviously, Victor, Alice, Victoria, and Emily) is due to pull up shortly, and then I get to write everyone getting reunited, aww. :)
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Half check – I remain a day behind on my GrayStillPlays with yesterday’s offering, “Upgrading battleships to end humanity” aka Gray plays Free Fred! This is an old flash game where you play as an old man who has had a weird dolphin-shark-creature (the titular Fred) as a friend his whole life – but near the end of his life, he sees Free captured by some bad guys and so loads up his battle-boat to, well, free Fred. :p Cue the old guy fighting basically EVERYTHING IN EXISTENCE to save his friend via the power of violence. XD The game is just all about shooting everything on the screen and upgrading your boat so you can face the final mega-boss boat – your initial boat just has a gun that fires abnormally large bullets, but as you pass the lighthouse checkpoints, you gain new boats with more violence options, such as rockets, torpedoes, and a cannon that fires an enormous bullet (or pizza roll if you’re Gray, who kept comparing everything to food as he admitted he was hungry). And Gray had fun with all those violence options, delighting in murdering half the population of the unnamed country the old guy lived in in his quest to save his weird dolphin-shark creature friend! The more Uzi-wielding jet skiers, bomb-riding criminals, explosive rubber-ducky-dropping helicopters, and rocket-shooting submarines to kill, the better!
That is, until the FIRST Flash emulator he was using bugged out and wouldn’t load in the final boss boat for whatever reason, trapping him in an infinite loop and forcing him to find ANOTHER Flash emulator and play the ENTIRE GAME over again so he could actually do the final boss battle and actually free Fred. By that point he was a little annoyed. XD But in typical Gray fashion, he persevered and freed Fred, yay! His weird dolphin-shark-creature is free to roam again! Welcome to the family, Fred, please don’t eat Meaty Bits, Reginald, or Spleens. Random GTA NPCs are fine. XD
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – got another two Chill Valicer Save posts sorted in the Victor Luvs Alice drafts, and started on a third. Should be able to finish this up without issue tomorrow and get it in the queue for Wednesday, yay~
*nods* Not too shabby -- and now it's time to head to bed and try and get some sleep so I can do this all again tomorrow, with variations. :p Night all!
Work – Reasonably quiet day at work – one GL, one online payment update call, one QC file, a handful of duplicates. *shrug* Day didn’t go by quite as fast as I might have liked, but it didn’t full-on drag either. Still no sign of half our online payments yet, though – apparently the credit card company needed to sort out the newest source codes. Hopefully they get on it soon!
Oh, and as the weather was lovely, the fam did end up playing beanbags once I got home! Dad and I had about the same kind of day as we had yesterday (I did terribly except for one game, while Dad ruled the roost), while poor Mom ended up doing slightly worse simply because we didn’t play as many games. Final scores were me 3-W-3; Dad W-2-W; Mom 2-3-2. *shrug* We’ll see how things change, or not, tomorrow!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike, and back to Oxventure Presents Blades In The Dark for the next episode in line – “The Wardens of Bellweather Crematorium!” This one is a Lilith and Kasimir adventure, and we opened with them having actually spent some time together off-screen, as per their downtime actions – namely, Lilith, in an effort to destress, went to a performance at the theater, and Kasimir tagged along and quietly tinkered with his leg brace while the play was going on because he’s now good at helping those around him relieve stress more efficiently (aka, Johnny offered to send Kasimir along because they’ve picked up that ability that allows them and anyone they indulge a vice with to adjust their roll to prevent overindulging). The two had a lovely time and managed NOT to buy too much overpriced ice cream during the interval. :p They also both went to their doctor-vet to try and heal their various wounds – some progress was made on Lilith’s many, many bruises from her misadventures at the opera, while Kasimir, who walked in with curse damage assuming the vet had seen it before on goats, got deworming medication and a bag of oats. On the plus side, he has no worms and his beard has never been glossier! XD
ANYWAY, the adventure proper started with Kasimir relaxing with his leg up at Eleanor’s townhouse, when someone came knocking at the door looking for him. That someone proved to be Erin, the senior Billhook that Kasimir and Zillah managed to annoy by depriving her of the chance to murder Cornelius Bagshot or at least get him to pay off his debts, and by wiping one of her compatriots, Ziggy, off their carriage by smashing him against a wall. Oh, and surprise, turns out Erin is Kasimir’s FORMER BOSS, or something akin to that – the Billhooks were Kasimir’s gang until he hurt his leg. Kasimir warmly greeted Erin by putting his cane across his lap in such a way he could shoot her with the hidden gun if necessary. XD Erin said hello back and got straight to the point – Kasimir had wronged the Billhooks, they had a favor in mind so he could right that wrong, and he could come along to their shop at noon tomorrow to hear about it – and bring “the spooky one,” aka Lilith. Kasimir agreed, and Erin let herself out again, leaving naught but her muddy bootprints behind. Eleanor was NOT happy of the mess made of the rug when she came to investigate, and neither was Lilith, who’d just cleaned it with one of Edvard’s new inventions, a “Hoover.” Which did a lovely job sucking up dirt, but DID scream and beg for death, like most of Edvard’s inventions. XD Kasimir informed her of what had happened and awkwardly asked for her help – Lilith assured him she’d be happy to assist, aw.
And so flash forward to noon the next day, and the two going to meet Erin at the Billhooks’ butcher shop headquarters, “Meat Etc.” XD Kasimir complimented Erin on the Billhooks’ dedication to getting tetanus on the job from all the less-than-hygienic hooks, and Erin said they were all boosted and showed him the syringes of PROBABLY tetanus-related medicine they’d managed to pilfer. XD With pleasantries out of the way, she informed them of her desired favor – it seems that the Billhooks had, through much planning, expense, and luck, managed to sneak an agent into the ranks of the Spirit Wardens of Bellweather Crematorium – those anonymous people in long cloaks and masks that take care of dead bodies in the city so they can’t turn into yet more ghosts. The only one anyone knows the name of is Bakoros, the leader, who occasionally gives lectures at the university, and might not even be the same person every time. (Though he must be SOMEONE, because that name happened to be on the list of Brightstone Society of Analytical Alchemy members that Edvard and Barnaby found last time. . .) Word on the street was that he had started acting weird, and the Billhooks wanted to know why, so they sent in their agent, Taryn. Problem is, Taryn had missed two check-ins, and now the Billhooks wanted her exfiled. Kasimir pointed out that it was very likely Taryn had been caught and killed, but Erin insisted that, in that case, she wanted proof, in order to close any potential loose ends. And she wanted Kasimir and Lilith to do it to wipe Kasimir’s debt to the gang, pointing out the other option was total war between them and the Hobbyhorses, and she was good with either. Lilith gave Kasimir a little pep talk to help encourage him, and with Kasimir sure that they could not survive a war with the Billhooks, they agreed to do it. Erin asked them their time frame, warning them she would dramatically halve it at least – Kasimir attempted to get them four weeks, but Erin gave them twenty-four hours before dismissing them so she could “boost” herself further against tetanus. XD
With their task in hand, the pair began discussing strategies to actually get into the crematorium – only for Lilith to reveal to Kasimir that she wasn’t just here in Volisport for her studies. No, she was actually a ghost assassin, here to eliminate a ghost that had slipped past the very Wardens themselves. Kasimir was like “is that a good-paying job, do you get dental?” and Lilith was like, “well, it’s a family business, and we are very rich back home, so. . .” XD And she was more than willing to lean on those family connections to get an “in” into Bellweather – as an intern, perhaps, doing some work-study stuff. She was open to letting Kasimir shadow her in turn, with the explanation of he wanted to know the business due to all the enemies he’d made around the city, but Kasimir decided that a simpler solution would be for him to just hang around Crow’s Foot, wait for someone to get offed, and hide in the carriage that came to pick up the body. That way she could come in the front, he could come in the back, and they could hopefully rendezvous inside and cause distractions for each other if necessary. Lilith talked to her professors and filled a pack with both real and fake books, Kasimir went to hang around possible murder sites, and Luke made the engagement roll!
Highest result was a four – mediocre! XD On Lilith’s side, she was able to secure an internship and get inside the crematorium – but, as an intern, she got the worst job, which was loading bodies onto a conveyor belt so they could be taken away for further processing/burning. AND, worse yet, her guide, an unnamed Warden, insisted on taking her bag and searching it, and Lilith couldn’t do anything except say yes (and curse the fact that every time she gets a bag to go in with Heavy Load, someone insists on searching it or taking it away XD). I left it with the Warden having not YET located any of her fake books, and with the action cutting to Kasimir, who had just witnessed a very grisly murder and was just waiting for the Spirit Warden carriage to catch up with the deathseeker crow who had found the body. I actually know what’s going to happen next thanks to a “best of 2022” video on OXtra, and I’m looking forward to seeing it in context. XD
2. Continue writing “The Joker And The Queen”: Check – I have started working on one of the ending scenes I had in mind for this fic – the reunion of all the escaped Coaster Crew with their families. :) It’s actually from the POV of Matt and Carol Alton, Smiler’s parents – they’re on a trip somewhere, trying not to think about how they haven’t seen their child in month, and they just stopped for snacks at a gas station with a rather interesting cast of characters – a former musician turned DJ buying some snacks of his own; an elderly couple who just pulled in; a family on a road trip with a young son running around the parking lot; and a bored lady pumping gas. Guess which one belongs to which coaster! XD But yeah, the van containing the crew (plus, obviously, Victor, Alice, Victoria, and Emily) is due to pull up shortly, and then I get to write everyone getting reunited, aww. :)
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Half check – I remain a day behind on my GrayStillPlays with yesterday’s offering, “Upgrading battleships to end humanity” aka Gray plays Free Fred! This is an old flash game where you play as an old man who has had a weird dolphin-shark-creature (the titular Fred) as a friend his whole life – but near the end of his life, he sees Free captured by some bad guys and so loads up his battle-boat to, well, free Fred. :p Cue the old guy fighting basically EVERYTHING IN EXISTENCE to save his friend via the power of violence. XD The game is just all about shooting everything on the screen and upgrading your boat so you can face the final mega-boss boat – your initial boat just has a gun that fires abnormally large bullets, but as you pass the lighthouse checkpoints, you gain new boats with more violence options, such as rockets, torpedoes, and a cannon that fires an enormous bullet (or pizza roll if you’re Gray, who kept comparing everything to food as he admitted he was hungry). And Gray had fun with all those violence options, delighting in murdering half the population of the unnamed country the old guy lived in in his quest to save his weird dolphin-shark creature friend! The more Uzi-wielding jet skiers, bomb-riding criminals, explosive rubber-ducky-dropping helicopters, and rocket-shooting submarines to kill, the better!
That is, until the FIRST Flash emulator he was using bugged out and wouldn’t load in the final boss boat for whatever reason, trapping him in an infinite loop and forcing him to find ANOTHER Flash emulator and play the ENTIRE GAME over again so he could actually do the final boss battle and actually free Fred. By that point he was a little annoyed. XD But in typical Gray fashion, he persevered and freed Fred, yay! His weird dolphin-shark-creature is free to roam again! Welcome to the family, Fred, please don’t eat Meaty Bits, Reginald, or Spleens. Random GTA NPCs are fine. XD
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – got another two Chill Valicer Save posts sorted in the Victor Luvs Alice drafts, and started on a third. Should be able to finish this up without issue tomorrow and get it in the queue for Wednesday, yay~
*nods* Not too shabby -- and now it's time to head to bed and try and get some sleep so I can do this all again tomorrow, with variations. :p Night all!
