Somewhat Better Thursday
Aug. 17th, 2023 11:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickThe weather still wasn't great, and there were some annoying bits to the day, but I managed to get more done tonight than I did last night -- and earlier too --
Work – Decent enough day at work – I got through the last of the phone calls I had to make (well, that I COULD make – one guy’s phone was just a constant busy signal when I tried to call), that stupid mistake that happened before my vacation was FINALLY fixed (amazing, incredible, halle-freaking-lujah), and I got on all the checks that had come in for the past few days with the help of my coworker (there wasn’t much, but it was enough to keep us occupied). Add in a couple of credit card calls and some obits, and the day went by reasonably well. *shrug* And tomorrow is only a half day – though it’s supposed to be scattered showers and thunderstorms, sooo we’ll see how that goes. :p
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike, back with Oxventure Presents Blades In The Dark – “Into The Deathlands!” The “Barnaby rejected the goggles and now he is being blinded by the ash in the air and the screaming is distracting” problem was solved by Zillah using some spare cloth to blindfold him and Thistle and Frog clambering up to help lead him over the roofs of the carriages. :p Lilith then volunteered to lead a group Finesse action to get them all across the various roofs toward the locomotive – there were a few failures, but a six I believe from Zillah got them across the carriages all the way to the first one in the line, in sight of the locomotive and on top of their dangerous canister of distillate (as Barnaby had flashbacked in asking the Gut-Cutters to store it there for later). The group could just about see through the ash and the smoke and whatnot that they were coming up rapidly on a bridge over a ginormous chasm – perfect for faking their train accident! Lilith asked what precisely the plan was, and after some discussion about sidelines (apparently a little stretch of track off to the side of bridges that trains can pull onto if the bridge is being worked on) and how many carriages they needed to keep and whatnot, it was decided that what they needed to do was stop the train, move the leviathan distillate to the second carriage and set a VERY long fuse for it, have someone man the switchtrack up ahead, CAREFULLY drive the train onto the sideline while having someone else uncouple the last five or so carriages, switch the track BACK so the carriages continued on over the bridge, and then just wait for them to blow up. Edvard set up his pylons to create the makeshift ghost field (technically in flashback, as Luke had to keep reminding the group that they should be using the cool invention Edvard made XD), and Kasimir set about creating a fake emergency for the driver and the stoker to react to – mainly, by getting a smoke bomb made out of a clapping cymbals monkey down one of the smokestacks to simulate a problem with said smokestack.
Unfortunately, he rolled a pair of threes on actually getting the bomb down a smokestack, so Luke ruled that, while Kasimir set things up nicely for the monkey to rattle its way down a stack, Ticktock was so charmed by the toy that he climbed over to pick it up – just as it went off. Cue the ENTIRE gang being blinded by the smoke, and Kasimir eating his babysitting license (TV Tropes said out of shame, I think possibly so he would feel justified in kicking the kid if he wanted XD). Luke warned the gang that the bridge was coming up fast, so they’d better act NOW –
Cue Edvard deciding to use his vast knowledge of trains to climb forward and try to get into the cab of the locomotive, and BARNABY of all people deciding to join him, claiming that now that EVERYTHING was horrible and smoky, he could somehow see BETTER, or at least that all his other senses were heightened. Luke rolled, saying that if he got a four, five, or six, this was true, while on one, two, or three, Barnaby just THOUGHT it was true –
Four. Barnaby promptly smugly said that he’d been in a LOT of smoky bars and thus knew his way around a smoky area. XD Anyway, Edvard ended up leading a group action with Barnaby and Zillah, who spontaneously decided to tag along, and a couple of fives meant that the whole thing went off very well – Edvard managed to swing himself inside the cab and nail the driver with his feet; Barnaby followed and clobbered the stoker with the whiskey bottle he’d picked up after Walter’s death in flashback; and Zillah, bringing up the rear, spotted the driver reaching for a pistol on the wall, and – on a successful Skirmish roll – kicked it straight out of his hands and out onto the front of the locomotive, where it sat rattling. A quick fortune roll determined the driver was NOT in this for the love of freight, and he and the stoker quickly surrendered, asking what the gang wanted as Edvard stopped the train (calling out a warning to Lilith and Kasimir, and “IT’S ALIVE” in his head as he yanked the big brake lever). The group informed them that they were stealing the train, and Barnaby assured them that if they behaved themselves, they’d be brought back to Volisport alive. The driver and the stoker were keen on this, and as Zillah tied them up with her fifty feet of hempen rope, remarked that this was probably the politest hijacking they’d ever experienced – Barnaby insisted they had to have STANDARDS, damn it. XD However, the stopping of the train HAD gotten the attention of those Rail Jacks that were still conscious, and they came out, walking up to the front of the train demanding to know what was going on. Barnaby yelled back that the bridge was out, rolled his Sway –
DOUBLE SIXES – CRIT! XD The Rail Jacks were promptly like “aw nice, a chance to eat some biscuits and do our puzzle books while we wait” and made an about-face back to their carriage. Zillah said that they should PROBABLY not kill them either, and Edvard used a sleeping-gas bomb to knock them out and make sure they and the Rail Jack they knocked out earlier were in the first carriage (I think everyone kind of forgot there was one other Rail Jack who was already asleep in the fifth carriage. . .) With all the various train “staff” neutralized and the train stopped in a good position, it was then time to run the big group action that represented their plan. Zillah offered to lead it as she had the most room to take on more stress, and it was decided that, despite being a multi-step plan with lots of moving parts, the ultimate aim was to Wreck the bridge and five carriages, so that’s what they rolled, Kasimir once again using his Foresight to give Barnaby a helping hand –
And it’s a good thing he did, because Barnaby was the one to roll the critical six that ensured the plan succeeded. :D As it panned out in-game, Edvard took on the task of actually driving the train (pretending it was an imposition before promptly putting on a hat and putting Mumbles and Thistle on his knees so they could pull the whistle-cord); Lilith manned the switchtrack as she was the most well-equipped to deal with any horrors that might pop up while they did this; Kasimir uncoupled the cars with a little boop of his cane; and Zillah and Barnaby moved and prepped the distillate, setting the fuse and then getting the hell out of dodge. Everything went well, with the gang hanging out in the ghost-fielded train and watching the carriages as they rolled out onto the bridge, then – after a bit of a wait – exploded, plunging into the depths. Edvard promptly put the train in reverse to get them and the one carriage of freight for the Gut-Cutters back to Volisport –
But! As the train slowly began to pick up speed, Lilith noticed an odd rustling in the bushes nearby – and then, from hidden trapdoors, out popped a gang of deathlands scavengers, armed with rusty swords and ready to kill them all for their sweet loot! Not just any scavengers, though – Luke’s attempts to find a voice for them ended up in him using the voice Johnny always uses for the “Ethelfrit’s Chosen” cursed skeletons the Oxventure gang has in their employ thanks to holding Ethelfrit’s Hammer. So now, in my head, the scavengers ARE the skeletons, trying a new line of work centuries after the Oxventurers died. XD At any rate, Edvard and the kids hadn’t yet noticed the group, too busy singing a train song, so Kasimir readied a repeater rifle just in case while Barnaby attempted to reason with them. Specifically, he tried to lie to them and say that, if the gang left them alone, he’d point out where they “stashed” the other carriages off the train they were stealing. A five meant that the leader was at least willing to hear him out, demanding that Barnaby mark the location on a map as he walked along the slowly-accelerating train. We’ll see how that goes, and how this adventure wraps up, tomorrow! :D
2. Continue writing Valicer In The Dark, “Home Sweet Lair”: Check – got to it rather late, but I did get to it, with Alice continuing to tell Victor and Smiler her history – and getting a bit weirded out by them being indignant on her behalf that she got committed to an asylum at nine years old. Because she’s not used to people thinking that was a horrible thing that happened to her. She did explain that she genuinely had nowhere else to go (no relatives, and Nanny herself was homeless before pivoting straight into sex work), and that being a child in Rutledge actually saved her from the Hollowing that happens to most mental patients in this world, but. . .yeah. I don’t think Smiler and Victor are going to STOP feeling bad for her anytime soon. Especially now that they know she was stuck in there for TEN YEARS. . .
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: CHECK – I decided to watch these FIRST this evening for a change because I was hoping it would mean I would be done with them before prime Internet Throttling hours or whatever the hell is going on with YouTube. Still ran into some buffering issues, and those and my attempts to avoid said issues by pausing and backtracking a bit a lot to encourage buffering meant that watching both videos took about an hour and a half (the videos themselves were 18 minutes and 27 minutes respectively, so. . .), but I DID manage to watch both things in my Subs –
A) Started with today’s Josh Way – “What I'm Playing: Disney Illusion Island, Double Dragon Gaiden, Pikmin 4!” Which was Josh going into some detail about the games he was playing in the title (all Switch releases, if you’re curious), and occasionally branching off into rants about how he doesn’t like the term “Metroidvania” (not in the least because it’s a bad portmanteau), how important accessibility and easy modes and the like are to him (he has a LOT of games and limited time, and he does NOT want to spend it frustrated), and how games can tempt him with something he doesn’t like if they’re really good in another way (for example, he loved other elements of Cuphead and Hollow Knight so much that he pushed himself through the punishing gameplay to 100% both). His opinions on the games in question were “Disney Illusion Island is so far fun to look at and fun to play, and I appreciate getting to play as Donald Duck, but I’m only a few hours in, so take that with a grain of salt,” “Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons has a dumb title and didn’t need any ‘roguelike’ elements in the gameplay, but is still an enjoyable short beat-em-up title,” and “Pikmin 4 is so amazing and fun it’s actually inspiring me to go try the older, harder games despite the fact that they don’t have the same safety nets, probably my game of the year, I love it so much.” XD So yeah, if you need some recommendations for your Switch, he can at least kind of recommend the first two games and REALLY recommend the last one. :)
B) And second, yesterday’s GrayStillPlays – “Testing Cars vs Rockslides in GTA 5!” Another Alex Torture Board, and one that he himself admitted was absolutely brutal. Gray had to somehow make it through the Sideways Rockslide (a rockslide that was coming down a slope Alex had build on the left side of the road that very much wanted to shove Gray and all his vehicles off said road), the Rockslide Jump (a rain of rocks over a jump that Gray had to make to get to the next part of the challenge – getting past this was more luck than skill), the Carousel Rockslide (the FIRST of the stalking rockslides, where a circle of bouncing rocks attached to a circular platform with a stop stick embedded in it chased Gray down a length of road with little sections cut out of it, circling him and stomping on him at every opportunity), the Ascend Rockslide (which was actually a PAIR of traditional rockslides tumbling down hills that Gray had to climb, with the second being at least twice as tall, at least twice as steep, and just a little bit narrower), and the Stalking Rockslide (the SECOND of the stalking rockslides, despite the name, which functioned a bit like the stalking laser from the “Lazars” board – a sliding platform of rocks that chased Gray as he drove to the finish circle, raining rocks on him all the way). A lot of cars couldn’t even get past the starting rock slide (the bus sure as hell couldn’t), with the quad just making it to the jump, a blue-pill two-tires-in-back race car making it to the carousel, the mirror-finish armored car making it all the way to the ascensions – and a pink racing sedan with the license plate “NIMBLE” FINALLY managing to outrun the Stalking Rockslide and take the win. *pumps fist* Oh, and midway through Gray discovered you can literally punch birds out of midair because he did just that out of frustration over all the wrecked cars. XD Torture AND mythbusting – Gray is so kind to us. :p
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – just had to get something up for Valice Multiverse, and as I didn’t have any thread or ask replies, I instead reblogged another “Valicer In The Dark AU” post (the one detailing the gang’s initial playbooks), since Marie expressed interest in the AU. Nothing too difficult!
Not too shabby, no. I mean, I wish fighting with YouTube hadn't taken up such a significant chunk of my night, but at least this time I WON the fight. I really did not want to have to wait another day for that GrayStillPlays video! *shakehead* Well, hopefully tomorrow I will experience less buffering agony. . .as it is, I have to head to bed and get some sleep, as I do still have a morning of work tomorrow. Night all!
Work – Decent enough day at work – I got through the last of the phone calls I had to make (well, that I COULD make – one guy’s phone was just a constant busy signal when I tried to call), that stupid mistake that happened before my vacation was FINALLY fixed (amazing, incredible, halle-freaking-lujah), and I got on all the checks that had come in for the past few days with the help of my coworker (there wasn’t much, but it was enough to keep us occupied). Add in a couple of credit card calls and some obits, and the day went by reasonably well. *shrug* And tomorrow is only a half day – though it’s supposed to be scattered showers and thunderstorms, sooo we’ll see how that goes. :p
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike, back with Oxventure Presents Blades In The Dark – “Into The Deathlands!” The “Barnaby rejected the goggles and now he is being blinded by the ash in the air and the screaming is distracting” problem was solved by Zillah using some spare cloth to blindfold him and Thistle and Frog clambering up to help lead him over the roofs of the carriages. :p Lilith then volunteered to lead a group Finesse action to get them all across the various roofs toward the locomotive – there were a few failures, but a six I believe from Zillah got them across the carriages all the way to the first one in the line, in sight of the locomotive and on top of their dangerous canister of distillate (as Barnaby had flashbacked in asking the Gut-Cutters to store it there for later). The group could just about see through the ash and the smoke and whatnot that they were coming up rapidly on a bridge over a ginormous chasm – perfect for faking their train accident! Lilith asked what precisely the plan was, and after some discussion about sidelines (apparently a little stretch of track off to the side of bridges that trains can pull onto if the bridge is being worked on) and how many carriages they needed to keep and whatnot, it was decided that what they needed to do was stop the train, move the leviathan distillate to the second carriage and set a VERY long fuse for it, have someone man the switchtrack up ahead, CAREFULLY drive the train onto the sideline while having someone else uncouple the last five or so carriages, switch the track BACK so the carriages continued on over the bridge, and then just wait for them to blow up. Edvard set up his pylons to create the makeshift ghost field (technically in flashback, as Luke had to keep reminding the group that they should be using the cool invention Edvard made XD), and Kasimir set about creating a fake emergency for the driver and the stoker to react to – mainly, by getting a smoke bomb made out of a clapping cymbals monkey down one of the smokestacks to simulate a problem with said smokestack.
Unfortunately, he rolled a pair of threes on actually getting the bomb down a smokestack, so Luke ruled that, while Kasimir set things up nicely for the monkey to rattle its way down a stack, Ticktock was so charmed by the toy that he climbed over to pick it up – just as it went off. Cue the ENTIRE gang being blinded by the smoke, and Kasimir eating his babysitting license (TV Tropes said out of shame, I think possibly so he would feel justified in kicking the kid if he wanted XD). Luke warned the gang that the bridge was coming up fast, so they’d better act NOW –
Cue Edvard deciding to use his vast knowledge of trains to climb forward and try to get into the cab of the locomotive, and BARNABY of all people deciding to join him, claiming that now that EVERYTHING was horrible and smoky, he could somehow see BETTER, or at least that all his other senses were heightened. Luke rolled, saying that if he got a four, five, or six, this was true, while on one, two, or three, Barnaby just THOUGHT it was true –
Four. Barnaby promptly smugly said that he’d been in a LOT of smoky bars and thus knew his way around a smoky area. XD Anyway, Edvard ended up leading a group action with Barnaby and Zillah, who spontaneously decided to tag along, and a couple of fives meant that the whole thing went off very well – Edvard managed to swing himself inside the cab and nail the driver with his feet; Barnaby followed and clobbered the stoker with the whiskey bottle he’d picked up after Walter’s death in flashback; and Zillah, bringing up the rear, spotted the driver reaching for a pistol on the wall, and – on a successful Skirmish roll – kicked it straight out of his hands and out onto the front of the locomotive, where it sat rattling. A quick fortune roll determined the driver was NOT in this for the love of freight, and he and the stoker quickly surrendered, asking what the gang wanted as Edvard stopped the train (calling out a warning to Lilith and Kasimir, and “IT’S ALIVE” in his head as he yanked the big brake lever). The group informed them that they were stealing the train, and Barnaby assured them that if they behaved themselves, they’d be brought back to Volisport alive. The driver and the stoker were keen on this, and as Zillah tied them up with her fifty feet of hempen rope, remarked that this was probably the politest hijacking they’d ever experienced – Barnaby insisted they had to have STANDARDS, damn it. XD However, the stopping of the train HAD gotten the attention of those Rail Jacks that were still conscious, and they came out, walking up to the front of the train demanding to know what was going on. Barnaby yelled back that the bridge was out, rolled his Sway –
DOUBLE SIXES – CRIT! XD The Rail Jacks were promptly like “aw nice, a chance to eat some biscuits and do our puzzle books while we wait” and made an about-face back to their carriage. Zillah said that they should PROBABLY not kill them either, and Edvard used a sleeping-gas bomb to knock them out and make sure they and the Rail Jack they knocked out earlier were in the first carriage (I think everyone kind of forgot there was one other Rail Jack who was already asleep in the fifth carriage. . .) With all the various train “staff” neutralized and the train stopped in a good position, it was then time to run the big group action that represented their plan. Zillah offered to lead it as she had the most room to take on more stress, and it was decided that, despite being a multi-step plan with lots of moving parts, the ultimate aim was to Wreck the bridge and five carriages, so that’s what they rolled, Kasimir once again using his Foresight to give Barnaby a helping hand –
And it’s a good thing he did, because Barnaby was the one to roll the critical six that ensured the plan succeeded. :D As it panned out in-game, Edvard took on the task of actually driving the train (pretending it was an imposition before promptly putting on a hat and putting Mumbles and Thistle on his knees so they could pull the whistle-cord); Lilith manned the switchtrack as she was the most well-equipped to deal with any horrors that might pop up while they did this; Kasimir uncoupled the cars with a little boop of his cane; and Zillah and Barnaby moved and prepped the distillate, setting the fuse and then getting the hell out of dodge. Everything went well, with the gang hanging out in the ghost-fielded train and watching the carriages as they rolled out onto the bridge, then – after a bit of a wait – exploded, plunging into the depths. Edvard promptly put the train in reverse to get them and the one carriage of freight for the Gut-Cutters back to Volisport –
But! As the train slowly began to pick up speed, Lilith noticed an odd rustling in the bushes nearby – and then, from hidden trapdoors, out popped a gang of deathlands scavengers, armed with rusty swords and ready to kill them all for their sweet loot! Not just any scavengers, though – Luke’s attempts to find a voice for them ended up in him using the voice Johnny always uses for the “Ethelfrit’s Chosen” cursed skeletons the Oxventure gang has in their employ thanks to holding Ethelfrit’s Hammer. So now, in my head, the scavengers ARE the skeletons, trying a new line of work centuries after the Oxventurers died. XD At any rate, Edvard and the kids hadn’t yet noticed the group, too busy singing a train song, so Kasimir readied a repeater rifle just in case while Barnaby attempted to reason with them. Specifically, he tried to lie to them and say that, if the gang left them alone, he’d point out where they “stashed” the other carriages off the train they were stealing. A five meant that the leader was at least willing to hear him out, demanding that Barnaby mark the location on a map as he walked along the slowly-accelerating train. We’ll see how that goes, and how this adventure wraps up, tomorrow! :D
2. Continue writing Valicer In The Dark, “Home Sweet Lair”: Check – got to it rather late, but I did get to it, with Alice continuing to tell Victor and Smiler her history – and getting a bit weirded out by them being indignant on her behalf that she got committed to an asylum at nine years old. Because she’s not used to people thinking that was a horrible thing that happened to her. She did explain that she genuinely had nowhere else to go (no relatives, and Nanny herself was homeless before pivoting straight into sex work), and that being a child in Rutledge actually saved her from the Hollowing that happens to most mental patients in this world, but. . .yeah. I don’t think Smiler and Victor are going to STOP feeling bad for her anytime soon. Especially now that they know she was stuck in there for TEN YEARS. . .
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: CHECK – I decided to watch these FIRST this evening for a change because I was hoping it would mean I would be done with them before prime Internet Throttling hours or whatever the hell is going on with YouTube. Still ran into some buffering issues, and those and my attempts to avoid said issues by pausing and backtracking a bit a lot to encourage buffering meant that watching both videos took about an hour and a half (the videos themselves were 18 minutes and 27 minutes respectively, so. . .), but I DID manage to watch both things in my Subs –
A) Started with today’s Josh Way – “What I'm Playing: Disney Illusion Island, Double Dragon Gaiden, Pikmin 4!” Which was Josh going into some detail about the games he was playing in the title (all Switch releases, if you’re curious), and occasionally branching off into rants about how he doesn’t like the term “Metroidvania” (not in the least because it’s a bad portmanteau), how important accessibility and easy modes and the like are to him (he has a LOT of games and limited time, and he does NOT want to spend it frustrated), and how games can tempt him with something he doesn’t like if they’re really good in another way (for example, he loved other elements of Cuphead and Hollow Knight so much that he pushed himself through the punishing gameplay to 100% both). His opinions on the games in question were “Disney Illusion Island is so far fun to look at and fun to play, and I appreciate getting to play as Donald Duck, but I’m only a few hours in, so take that with a grain of salt,” “Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons has a dumb title and didn’t need any ‘roguelike’ elements in the gameplay, but is still an enjoyable short beat-em-up title,” and “Pikmin 4 is so amazing and fun it’s actually inspiring me to go try the older, harder games despite the fact that they don’t have the same safety nets, probably my game of the year, I love it so much.” XD So yeah, if you need some recommendations for your Switch, he can at least kind of recommend the first two games and REALLY recommend the last one. :)
B) And second, yesterday’s GrayStillPlays – “Testing Cars vs Rockslides in GTA 5!” Another Alex Torture Board, and one that he himself admitted was absolutely brutal. Gray had to somehow make it through the Sideways Rockslide (a rockslide that was coming down a slope Alex had build on the left side of the road that very much wanted to shove Gray and all his vehicles off said road), the Rockslide Jump (a rain of rocks over a jump that Gray had to make to get to the next part of the challenge – getting past this was more luck than skill), the Carousel Rockslide (the FIRST of the stalking rockslides, where a circle of bouncing rocks attached to a circular platform with a stop stick embedded in it chased Gray down a length of road with little sections cut out of it, circling him and stomping on him at every opportunity), the Ascend Rockslide (which was actually a PAIR of traditional rockslides tumbling down hills that Gray had to climb, with the second being at least twice as tall, at least twice as steep, and just a little bit narrower), and the Stalking Rockslide (the SECOND of the stalking rockslides, despite the name, which functioned a bit like the stalking laser from the “Lazars” board – a sliding platform of rocks that chased Gray as he drove to the finish circle, raining rocks on him all the way). A lot of cars couldn’t even get past the starting rock slide (the bus sure as hell couldn’t), with the quad just making it to the jump, a blue-pill two-tires-in-back race car making it to the carousel, the mirror-finish armored car making it all the way to the ascensions – and a pink racing sedan with the license plate “NIMBLE” FINALLY managing to outrun the Stalking Rockslide and take the win. *pumps fist* Oh, and midway through Gray discovered you can literally punch birds out of midair because he did just that out of frustration over all the wrecked cars. XD Torture AND mythbusting – Gray is so kind to us. :p
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – just had to get something up for Valice Multiverse, and as I didn’t have any thread or ask replies, I instead reblogged another “Valicer In The Dark AU” post (the one detailing the gang’s initial playbooks), since Marie expressed interest in the AU. Nothing too difficult!
Not too shabby, no. I mean, I wish fighting with YouTube hadn't taken up such a significant chunk of my night, but at least this time I WON the fight. I really did not want to have to wait another day for that GrayStillPlays video! *shakehead* Well, hopefully tomorrow I will experience less buffering agony. . .as it is, I have to head to bed and get some sleep, as I do still have a morning of work tomorrow. Night all!
