Productive Tuesday
Jan. 30th, 2024 11:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickI mean, not so much at work, but this evening's been pretty good on that front --
Work – Quiet day – just the one credit card call, and nothing to report on any of the outstanding credit card nonsense. I have resorted to looking at listings of obituaries online and seeing if any of the people are in our database (and I have indeed found a decent amount of recently-dead folk to clean up). *shrug* Also boxed up some old GLs and got a nasty paper cut for my trouble. >( Stupid sharp-edged paper!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with Oxventure: Deadlands – “Dead Man’s Worth, Part II!” We picked up with Delacy and Slim preparing for their duel – Delacy chose to try and get into Slim’s head and taunt him with ideas of miracle cures to throw him off his game, while Garnet stood at the sidelines and again bespelled Delacy with extra power, earning him some extra action cards. After another taunt in which it took Delacy probably a good minute to think of a slow thing to compare the dead Hattie’s draw to (he settled on “molasses”), the duel happened, and the pair revealed their cards –
Delacy Jack, Slim nine. Delacy once again went for the throat. XD Slim took it like a champ, though, giving Delacy a final smile and a salute as he fell to the ground, and Delacy was nice enough to salute back. The doctor came out, declared Slim officially dead, and got him off the field, and Bellows and Rosa squared up. Delacy and Garnet hoped for a “we don’t have to kill this guy” miracle –
Nope. Bellows first shot the gun out of Rosa’s hand, and while she was going “fair play,” shot her in the chest. And then walked up and shot her one more time to stop the screaming. D: And then demanded applause from the crowd, which gave it, not wanting to upset him. Thus appeased, Bellows headed back to his house with his henchmen, with one circling back to let Delacy (and Garnet) know that Bellows would see them at 5:30 PM, right before the final duel, up outside his manor. Garnet and Delacy were like “why not now?” but the henchman just walked away (Garnet persisted in calling after him “why not now?” just to annoy him XD). Delacy then tried to reason that Bellows was down to just one bullet (having been counting his shots – or more accurately, miscounting them, as Bellows had only fired FOUR bullets, not five), and thus if he could get him to shoot one more time before the duel, he’d be fine! Garnet gently reminded him that people reloading their guns is a thing. XD
So yeah – with two more people dead, Delacy and Garnet decided their next best option was to go back to the Jewel and speak with the bartender – Garnet getting some whiskey (and pouring her first shot out for Nate), while Delacy claimed he’d already had loads of whiskey and would like some milk instead. XD Garnet asked the bartender what usually happened at the end of the contest – like, was there a ceremony or anything – and the bartender informed her that it generally just ended with Bellows yelling at them about how he owned the town and owned them before heading back up to his manor with his money. Nothing special, and certainly no funerals for the deceased – after all, everyone coming into Dead Man’s Worth to kill Bellows is a stranger. All the citizens of the town care about is stripping the corpses for valuables. Good thing they didn’t try faking Delacy’s death and filling the coffin with dynamite, then! Still struggling for ideas and getting increasingly angry with what a dick Bellows was (apparently the only thing he likes is yelling at people) and how he’d killed their friend, Delacy and Garnet discussed dynamiting Bellows’s statue out in the street in an attempt to make him angry and throw him off his game (and just to relieve their feelings) –
And then began to wonder if he was somehow cheating in his duels. Garnet was all for investigating the train whistle that signaled the draw and seeing if there was something about that, but first, Delacy decided to head out to the dueling area and see what he could see from Bellows’s spot – like, if there was something that would help signal him to draw that tiny bit earlier. A good Notice roll had Delacy spot the train sitting in the nearby siding – a train with a person in it! Because yes, obviously the whistle-blowing process wouldn’t be automated. Garnet and Delacy went over to the train to have a talk with said person, a young fellow named Ned barely older than Delacy. He was a bright and cheerful sort, pretty much obsessed with the train whistle and thrilled to have the job of pulling it. Garnet and Delacy asked him if there was anything special to it, and Ned revealed that Bellows had instructed him to pull it four seconds before the hour before suddenly realizing that maybe Bellows didn’t want him actually TELLING people that and clamming up. Delacy and Garnet immediately honed in on that four seconds being important. . .
But for the life of them could not figure out WHY. Mostly because they couldn’t see how it would give Bellows an advantage, other than MAYBE seeing Ned’s arm move to pull the whistle. Their attempt to intimidate answers out of Ned did not go well (the dice were being VERY mean to Garnet in particular – on the other hand, she was ready to KILL poor Ned, so maybe that’s good), and their attempt to figure out a way to sneakily disable the whistle by having Delacy shoot it while Garnet pushed the piano in the saloon over didn’t get off the ground because of the synchronization that would have to be involved, reducing Delacy to looking to see if Bellows had secret improvised sundials set up in the square (as there wasn’t a town clock) to let him know when to draw like a fraction of a second earlier than his opponent (he did not). XD They argued a bit longer about what they could do (Delacy bemoaning Bellows as a witch and wishing they had someone to ask about all that magic stuff as Garnet – who hadn’t yet told him she was a Huckster – sweated), before Delacy hit upon the idea of at least trying to get Bellows to switch positions during their duel to see if that would do anything. *shrug* It was a start! He also gave Garnet his dynamite, telling her that if it looked like things were going pear-shaped, to just rig the statue (which they’d determined would be right behind Bellows if he stood in his usual place) with a few sticks and he’d do the rest with Rooster. Garnet wasn’t SUPER keen on this plan, as it sounded like something that would happen if poor Delacy got shot, but as they had nothing better. . .
And that brought them to 5:30 PM, and the meeting with Bellows! The henchmen arrived to take their weapons prior to the meeting – Delacey refused to part with Rooster, however (stating that he’d see Bellows in hell), but Garnet gave up her rarely-used Colt and the dynamite, and was escorted up. I left it with her meeting Bellows on his wrap-around balcony – we’ll see how that goes, and how things progress duel-wise, tomorrow!
2. Continue writing “Start At The Beginning. . .Sort Of”: Check – got another page, with the group locating Barkis and the rest of the wedding party having dinner in the main hall. A furious Emily went in to clear the room while Victor, Alice, and Smiler kept watch outside – she hasn’t done anything yet, but Barkis’s little speech post-the arrival of the cake has just been interrupted by the fireplace flaring up oddly. . . Time to cause a little ghostly havoc! The dogs of war are loose!
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – another GrayStillPlays-only day, and the return of Happy Wheels Tuesday with “Playing banned school levels in Happy Wheels!” :D We started once more with the traditional bottle flip (with Gray making it rain people and turning himself into fresh jam while trying to get the “gray will find a way” sideways bit UNDERNEATH his throwing area – he did get there, though the bottle was practically levitating in place XD), then moved on through a jungle-themed rope swing (with faux-Indiana having to swing past all the coconuts and avoid the wild spikes on his way to the win); a prison break pogo board (where Pogo Guy had to escape his cell and traverse a prison full of people shooting very big bullets at him – this included a trip to the printer room and a final escape in a very janky car); a surprisingly-nonviolent glass break (Gray managed to break all the glass without losing a single limb – it was when he fell into the cheat section that he got mulched XD); a ride in a very well-drawn tank (causing chaos through the power of violent pelvic thrusts – at least, that’s what Gray’s guy ended up doing); a tank race using assets from some other game (the suspension on the tank from another game was amazing, though – Gray barely felt it when he crashed face-first into a bunch of spikes); a simple “don’t move” board that sent Gray on a bike adventure (which, naturally, started with him losing his son and ended with him losing all of his limbs); a game of “Angry Fowl” (where Gray had to throw orb-shaped birds at a tower until he accidentally found the win – Legally Distinct!); a “paddle run” where Nixon had to make it past a bunch of paddles throwing him backward AND a bunch of other HW characters wielding weapons (Gray won by prioritizing height over keeping all of his limbs); a trip down “Cliff Street” (a horrible place full of garbage, smashable cars, a short stretch of desert, and meteors); and finally the Dylan Snider Board of the week, Gray having to bring Young Tom Hardy to school after he slept in – and discovering the school was full of rotating spikes, failed-paper-freeze-walls, murder books, students who were still in the fourth grade after thirty-two tries, murder pencils, and slowly-floating glass (and a sign telling you “go to college, experience debt at age 22” which made Gray laugh VERY hard XD). Ahh, I’ve missed the creative chaos of Happy Wheels – glad to see it back for a little bit!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check –
Victor Luvs Alice – Got my “Tav!Smiler in BG3” post finished off and in the queue for tomorrow, AND started a post detailing my thoughts on my VITD crew getting thrown into the world of BG3 and having to deal with the plot while also figuring out how to get home that I might be able to get done tomorrow to post on Thursday! Plus I now have a separate post with my ideas for “not-incorrect quotes” scenes, so if I can get a jump on THAT tomorrow too. . . we’ll see what happens!
Valice Multiverse – One anon ask for the “love life questions” meme, asking what the Valicer OT3 uses for pet names – if you’re curious, Alice calls Victor “darling” and Victor calls Alice “love;” Alice calls Smiler “goofball” and Smiler calls Alice “bestie;” and Victor calls Smiler “sunshine” and Smiler, after panicking over the fact that they only ever used deliberately-goofy “pet names” with Victor, now calls him “sweetheart.” XD Most of these were established in an earlier ship meme I did with the trio, though “sunshine” is new – my original idea from Victor to Smiler was “honey.” I like “sunshine” a lot better, though.
*nods* Not bad -- and I'm very happy to have gotten that burst of inspiration for my tumblr queue stuff. :) Hopefully I can keep up the good work tomorrow -- as it stands right now, though, I've gotta hit the sheets. Night all!
Work – Quiet day – just the one credit card call, and nothing to report on any of the outstanding credit card nonsense. I have resorted to looking at listings of obituaries online and seeing if any of the people are in our database (and I have indeed found a decent amount of recently-dead folk to clean up). *shrug* Also boxed up some old GLs and got a nasty paper cut for my trouble. >( Stupid sharp-edged paper!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with Oxventure: Deadlands – “Dead Man’s Worth, Part II!” We picked up with Delacy and Slim preparing for their duel – Delacy chose to try and get into Slim’s head and taunt him with ideas of miracle cures to throw him off his game, while Garnet stood at the sidelines and again bespelled Delacy with extra power, earning him some extra action cards. After another taunt in which it took Delacy probably a good minute to think of a slow thing to compare the dead Hattie’s draw to (he settled on “molasses”), the duel happened, and the pair revealed their cards –
Delacy Jack, Slim nine. Delacy once again went for the throat. XD Slim took it like a champ, though, giving Delacy a final smile and a salute as he fell to the ground, and Delacy was nice enough to salute back. The doctor came out, declared Slim officially dead, and got him off the field, and Bellows and Rosa squared up. Delacy and Garnet hoped for a “we don’t have to kill this guy” miracle –
Nope. Bellows first shot the gun out of Rosa’s hand, and while she was going “fair play,” shot her in the chest. And then walked up and shot her one more time to stop the screaming. D: And then demanded applause from the crowd, which gave it, not wanting to upset him. Thus appeased, Bellows headed back to his house with his henchmen, with one circling back to let Delacy (and Garnet) know that Bellows would see them at 5:30 PM, right before the final duel, up outside his manor. Garnet and Delacy were like “why not now?” but the henchman just walked away (Garnet persisted in calling after him “why not now?” just to annoy him XD). Delacy then tried to reason that Bellows was down to just one bullet (having been counting his shots – or more accurately, miscounting them, as Bellows had only fired FOUR bullets, not five), and thus if he could get him to shoot one more time before the duel, he’d be fine! Garnet gently reminded him that people reloading their guns is a thing. XD
So yeah – with two more people dead, Delacy and Garnet decided their next best option was to go back to the Jewel and speak with the bartender – Garnet getting some whiskey (and pouring her first shot out for Nate), while Delacy claimed he’d already had loads of whiskey and would like some milk instead. XD Garnet asked the bartender what usually happened at the end of the contest – like, was there a ceremony or anything – and the bartender informed her that it generally just ended with Bellows yelling at them about how he owned the town and owned them before heading back up to his manor with his money. Nothing special, and certainly no funerals for the deceased – after all, everyone coming into Dead Man’s Worth to kill Bellows is a stranger. All the citizens of the town care about is stripping the corpses for valuables. Good thing they didn’t try faking Delacy’s death and filling the coffin with dynamite, then! Still struggling for ideas and getting increasingly angry with what a dick Bellows was (apparently the only thing he likes is yelling at people) and how he’d killed their friend, Delacy and Garnet discussed dynamiting Bellows’s statue out in the street in an attempt to make him angry and throw him off his game (and just to relieve their feelings) –
And then began to wonder if he was somehow cheating in his duels. Garnet was all for investigating the train whistle that signaled the draw and seeing if there was something about that, but first, Delacy decided to head out to the dueling area and see what he could see from Bellows’s spot – like, if there was something that would help signal him to draw that tiny bit earlier. A good Notice roll had Delacy spot the train sitting in the nearby siding – a train with a person in it! Because yes, obviously the whistle-blowing process wouldn’t be automated. Garnet and Delacy went over to the train to have a talk with said person, a young fellow named Ned barely older than Delacy. He was a bright and cheerful sort, pretty much obsessed with the train whistle and thrilled to have the job of pulling it. Garnet and Delacy asked him if there was anything special to it, and Ned revealed that Bellows had instructed him to pull it four seconds before the hour before suddenly realizing that maybe Bellows didn’t want him actually TELLING people that and clamming up. Delacy and Garnet immediately honed in on that four seconds being important. . .
But for the life of them could not figure out WHY. Mostly because they couldn’t see how it would give Bellows an advantage, other than MAYBE seeing Ned’s arm move to pull the whistle. Their attempt to intimidate answers out of Ned did not go well (the dice were being VERY mean to Garnet in particular – on the other hand, she was ready to KILL poor Ned, so maybe that’s good), and their attempt to figure out a way to sneakily disable the whistle by having Delacy shoot it while Garnet pushed the piano in the saloon over didn’t get off the ground because of the synchronization that would have to be involved, reducing Delacy to looking to see if Bellows had secret improvised sundials set up in the square (as there wasn’t a town clock) to let him know when to draw like a fraction of a second earlier than his opponent (he did not). XD They argued a bit longer about what they could do (Delacy bemoaning Bellows as a witch and wishing they had someone to ask about all that magic stuff as Garnet – who hadn’t yet told him she was a Huckster – sweated), before Delacy hit upon the idea of at least trying to get Bellows to switch positions during their duel to see if that would do anything. *shrug* It was a start! He also gave Garnet his dynamite, telling her that if it looked like things were going pear-shaped, to just rig the statue (which they’d determined would be right behind Bellows if he stood in his usual place) with a few sticks and he’d do the rest with Rooster. Garnet wasn’t SUPER keen on this plan, as it sounded like something that would happen if poor Delacy got shot, but as they had nothing better. . .
And that brought them to 5:30 PM, and the meeting with Bellows! The henchmen arrived to take their weapons prior to the meeting – Delacey refused to part with Rooster, however (stating that he’d see Bellows in hell), but Garnet gave up her rarely-used Colt and the dynamite, and was escorted up. I left it with her meeting Bellows on his wrap-around balcony – we’ll see how that goes, and how things progress duel-wise, tomorrow!
2. Continue writing “Start At The Beginning. . .Sort Of”: Check – got another page, with the group locating Barkis and the rest of the wedding party having dinner in the main hall. A furious Emily went in to clear the room while Victor, Alice, and Smiler kept watch outside – she hasn’t done anything yet, but Barkis’s little speech post-the arrival of the cake has just been interrupted by the fireplace flaring up oddly. . . Time to cause a little ghostly havoc! The dogs of war are loose!
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – another GrayStillPlays-only day, and the return of Happy Wheels Tuesday with “Playing banned school levels in Happy Wheels!” :D We started once more with the traditional bottle flip (with Gray making it rain people and turning himself into fresh jam while trying to get the “gray will find a way” sideways bit UNDERNEATH his throwing area – he did get there, though the bottle was practically levitating in place XD), then moved on through a jungle-themed rope swing (with faux-Indiana having to swing past all the coconuts and avoid the wild spikes on his way to the win); a prison break pogo board (where Pogo Guy had to escape his cell and traverse a prison full of people shooting very big bullets at him – this included a trip to the printer room and a final escape in a very janky car); a surprisingly-nonviolent glass break (Gray managed to break all the glass without losing a single limb – it was when he fell into the cheat section that he got mulched XD); a ride in a very well-drawn tank (causing chaos through the power of violent pelvic thrusts – at least, that’s what Gray’s guy ended up doing); a tank race using assets from some other game (the suspension on the tank from another game was amazing, though – Gray barely felt it when he crashed face-first into a bunch of spikes); a simple “don’t move” board that sent Gray on a bike adventure (which, naturally, started with him losing his son and ended with him losing all of his limbs); a game of “Angry Fowl” (where Gray had to throw orb-shaped birds at a tower until he accidentally found the win – Legally Distinct!); a “paddle run” where Nixon had to make it past a bunch of paddles throwing him backward AND a bunch of other HW characters wielding weapons (Gray won by prioritizing height over keeping all of his limbs); a trip down “Cliff Street” (a horrible place full of garbage, smashable cars, a short stretch of desert, and meteors); and finally the Dylan Snider Board of the week, Gray having to bring Young Tom Hardy to school after he slept in – and discovering the school was full of rotating spikes, failed-paper-freeze-walls, murder books, students who were still in the fourth grade after thirty-two tries, murder pencils, and slowly-floating glass (and a sign telling you “go to college, experience debt at age 22” which made Gray laugh VERY hard XD). Ahh, I’ve missed the creative chaos of Happy Wheels – glad to see it back for a little bit!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check –
Victor Luvs Alice – Got my “Tav!Smiler in BG3” post finished off and in the queue for tomorrow, AND started a post detailing my thoughts on my VITD crew getting thrown into the world of BG3 and having to deal with the plot while also figuring out how to get home that I might be able to get done tomorrow to post on Thursday! Plus I now have a separate post with my ideas for “not-incorrect quotes” scenes, so if I can get a jump on THAT tomorrow too. . . we’ll see what happens!
Valice Multiverse – One anon ask for the “love life questions” meme, asking what the Valicer OT3 uses for pet names – if you’re curious, Alice calls Victor “darling” and Victor calls Alice “love;” Alice calls Smiler “goofball” and Smiler calls Alice “bestie;” and Victor calls Smiler “sunshine” and Smiler, after panicking over the fact that they only ever used deliberately-goofy “pet names” with Victor, now calls him “sweetheart.” XD Most of these were established in an earlier ship meme I did with the trio, though “sunshine” is new – my original idea from Victor to Smiler was “honey.” I like “sunshine” a lot better, though.
*nods* Not bad -- and I'm very happy to have gotten that burst of inspiration for my tumblr queue stuff. :) Hopefully I can keep up the good work tomorrow -- as it stands right now, though, I've gotta hit the sheets. Night all!
