Feeling Better Thursday
Feb. 15th, 2024 11:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickPast the first-day-of-period gloom and doom just in time for my long weekend, which I am glad of (though admittedly I also saw a lot less depressing news today). And my productivity is picking up some too, yay --
Work – Okay day, though my period did mean that I was a little grumpy about stuff – fortunately there wasn’t a lot for me to be grumpy about, as the phones were pretty quiet (just a couple of credit card calls, and one of them was one I prompted with an e-mail about a failed payment). I did my usual stuff – running reports, checking failed payments, working on address updates, etc. *shrug* I’ve had worse days at work! And now I have four days off, yaaaay~
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with Oxventure: Deadlands, “The Town That Dreaded Justice, Part II!” We picked up with the group preparing to fight a “Glom,” a horrible demon-possessed zombie creature that makes itself more powerful by fusing with other corpses. It’s exactly as terrible as it sounds – so terrible that, after establishing turn order, Andy told everyone to make a Fear roll. Silas managed to pass, but poor Nate and Garnet failed, picking up some fun conditions as per a second dice roll – Nate rolled very high and developed a major phobia of gloms, reducing the effectiveness of his rolls, while Garnet rolled mid-range and became Hesitant like Nate, which meant that in future rounds of combat, she’d always get the lower of two action cards. (Johnny joked, “That’s awful, you’re not exactly like Johnny” and then realized they were being mean to themselves. :p)
However, there was still a fight to get through even with two of the combatants afeared, so combat commenced! Silas started off by trying to shoot the damn Glom – while he was able to inflict a little damage, he wasn’t able to beat the creature’s Toughness to properly wound it. Garnet, who wasn’t YET hesitant, vaulted over a gurney to show the creature a “card trick” – namely, casting Burst right in its nasty face. That DID wound it, and take out the body that was stuck half-onto its back. The angry Glom yanked out a gun and, flailing, attempted to shoot Silas. . .
And rolled snake eyes, meaning it instead managed to throw its gun across the room. Nate decided to press their advantage despite his new phobia of the thing and launched one of the oil lanterns lighting the space at it –
Only to ALSO miss and instead set the back of the room on fire. XD Beans! Hilariously, though, despite his Hesitant hindrance, he still got the highest card in the next initiative round, allowing him to make up for this mistake – he collected the thrown gun and tried to shoot the creature, but wasn’t successful. He just couldn’t stop thinking about how he and the Glom were kind of cousins, in a “demon-possessed corpse” kind of way. . . Fortunately, Garnet was quicker on her feet – quick enough to grab some alcohol-based disinfectant and lob it onto the Glom, dousing it in flammable liquid and causing it to become shaken. And it did NOT manage to “unshake” itself on its turn, allowing Silas to grab a gurney and slam one end into center mass, knocking it into the flames. The Glom and the two corpses attached to it (it managed to absorb one during the fight) soon burned to death, and Nate was able to go collect the second Evidence Locker key from the smoldering corpse, only ending up lightly singed in the process. Along with some more bottles of alcohol-based embalming fluid from the cupboard where Garnet had grabbed her bottle, chugging them down to properly pickle himself. XD
Having thus achieved their goal (and being fine with letting the fire burn out in the stone basement – the Glom dying had smothered a lot of it anyway), the group went up and found the Evidence Locker room, where they were able to first reclaim their guns, and – after a good Notice roll from Silas – all their other stuff too. Plus some extra goodies – out-of-universe, Mike got a benny from Andy for joking that there was a square of extra-short turf there as evidence against Sirius; in-universe, a good notice roll from Garnet allowed her to find a creepy six-fingered hand radiating magic energy only she could feel – she promptly grabbed it and stowed it in a pocket, and Andy revealed it was a cool magical artifact that allowed her to recharge her power points six times for free (one for each finger). Jane was pleased, though I think Johnny was more excited than she was. XD Or possibly worried, as this IS probably some manner of demon-possessed object. . .
But that was something to worry about later! For now, it was judge-killing time! The trio headed up back through the courthouse (where the gallows had been refitted with basically a barbed-wire noose for the morning’s hangings), and – very carefully – through the doors that led to Judge Boudreau’s chambers. This put them in a hallway filled with artwork, with some handle-less doors at the far end, with a picture of Boudreau to one side, and a statue of Lady Justice to the other. A Notice roll allowed Garnet and Nate (Silas was a bit distracted by the ants still following Nate around) to spy a Latin phrase above the door – something like “Justitia ruat caelum.” Silas took this to mean that the statue might be cake and tried licking it – no dice. XD Garnet examined the statue – it was a pretty typical statue of Justice, holding scales. . .and staring at the doors for some reason. Garnet tried moving the scales (nope), tried moving the head (nope), then tried to see if the statue had eyelids –
Nope, but there was SOME sort of give to the eyes. She advanced the theory that they had to somehow blind justice (as per the saying “Justice is blind”) to open the doors. Nate tried an ant blindfold, but that didn’t work, so Silas just went in with his thumbs to gouge the eyes out –
Success! The eyes clicked in, and the doors opened! (Johnny was like “that sums your character up in a nutshell” to Mike, though I think it says more about Boudreau that he feels justice should have its eyes literally torn out.) Revealing a well-appointed study behind – and Boudreau himself seated at a desk, working on something. (Silas, who already had to deal with this sort of thing with Daisy Ducrow: “Don’t these people ever sleep?!”) Fortunately, he was so wrapped up in his work that he hadn’t heard the group come in – and on an excellent couple of rolls, Nate was able to silently close the doors behind him and blast the guy with his shotgun.
Which – destroyed the papers Boudreau was reading, but didn’t seem to do much to the judge himself. He was more nonplussed than anything, recognizing the group as the former prisoners and demanding that they go back to their cells to await hanging. The group were obviously unwilling to do that, so the judge pulled out some Army revolvers with little sickles underneath the barrels –
And battle commenced! Garnet managed to go first and attempted a called shot at the guy’s head – she did NOT have the shooting skills to back this up, unfortunately, and shot the wall next to him. Nate unloaded some more buckshot into the guy, but it still seemed to have no effect – the clothes were torn, but the guy wasn’t even bleeding. Boudreau thus shed his judicial robes, revealing he was wearing green robes with studded armbands underneath, which for some reason caused the group to again have to do a Fear roll. Apparently Garnet and Nate had used up all their fear on the Glom, however, because this time Silas was the only one to fail – and he rolled low on his D20 “decide your fate” die, meaning he was just shaken and would have the opportunity to “unshake” on his go. I left it with Andy commenting that the judge now needed to do something cool – I am very worried as to what this cool thing might be, because Johnny seems to know what Boudreau is and is VERY freaked out by it. O.o We’ll find out tomorrow as we wrap this bounty up, I guess!
2. Edit Marie’s birthday fic: Check – gave this fic (about Madeline going out to a club to see a band, only to encounter the bass guitarist after their set and realize she has a crush) another pass tonight, and ended up rewriting a good chunk of it to include some Wonderland characters (notably the Queen of Hearts and Cheshire), since Marie headcanons Madeline can see/interact with them too. Made the whole thing feel a little more interesting, you know? Hopefully Marie will agree when I post it on the 23rd!
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – got in a couple of videos tonight, in fact –
A) First up, from the Watch Later, we had “8 Creative Park Ideas To Improve Your Game | The Sims 4 Guide” from Petey Plays It! This was a simple video about different park ideas to spice up your game, featuring stuff like a moonlight cinema (complete with outdoor TV screen – just make sure it can’t break in the rain!), a campground, a festival park (Petey showed off a special “Winter Wonderland” park he made, complete with weather machine so he could make it snow whenever he wanted), a water park, a meditation park (with meditation stools, yoga mats, and a little gym), a wedding venue, a stray sanctuary (for pets of all types), and a community garden (for those people WITHOUT Eco Lifestyle’s handy Community Spaces). Plus some encouragement to use basketball courts and the Wishing Well. :) Nice stuff – puts me in a bit of a building mood for the morrow!
B) And second up, from the Subs, we had “SCREEN TIME: American Fiction Review” by Josh Way! Another movie review, Josh watched this one after learning it had been nominated for Best Picture (and its lead for Best Actor), and was delighted with it. What he thought might be a one-note comedy about a black author who, just to blow off steam, writes a book where he talks like a stereotypical “from the hood” guy, only to have it take off thanks to his agent and throw him into a weird double life, actually has a lot more depth and nuance to it, apparently. The people are all depicted as just PEOPLE, and a lot of the movie focuses on the author’s personal life and his interaction with his mother and siblings and such. Josh admitted that maybe the ending could have been better (though, as per his policy, he didn’t spoil), but that the meat of the movie was great and he wasn’t surprised it got nominated. And apparently the guy behind it is one of the people behind “The Good Place,” so if you liked that show, maybe check this out. :)
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – nothing happening over on Valice Multiverse, so I didn’t bother with anything there, but I took some time tonight to get all the pictures for the next Chill Valicer Save update sorted – eighty in all, yeeps. O.O But then again, this includes store AND Magic Realm shenanigans, plus Alice sparring with Rory last-minute. . .
Aaand then I recalled last-minute that I had to reset the queue speed to one for Friday’s post and pick a Song Saturday – went back through that tag and decided to reblog “Into You” by Ariana Grande, since it’s been a bit and I like it as a Valicer song. *nods* So that’s all set, yay!
*nods* Not too shabby, yes. And now I should go ahead and head to bed. . . Plans for tomorrow include catching up on tumblr stuff and getting the Chill Valicer Save drafts started; playing some Sims 4 and doing a bit of building; editing some more "Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland;" catching up on some YouTube stuff and keeping up with GrayStillPlays; and getting in a workout and finishing off "The Town That Dreaded Justice, Part II!" All doable, I think. :) Night all!
Work – Okay day, though my period did mean that I was a little grumpy about stuff – fortunately there wasn’t a lot for me to be grumpy about, as the phones were pretty quiet (just a couple of credit card calls, and one of them was one I prompted with an e-mail about a failed payment). I did my usual stuff – running reports, checking failed payments, working on address updates, etc. *shrug* I’ve had worse days at work! And now I have four days off, yaaaay~
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with Oxventure: Deadlands, “The Town That Dreaded Justice, Part II!” We picked up with the group preparing to fight a “Glom,” a horrible demon-possessed zombie creature that makes itself more powerful by fusing with other corpses. It’s exactly as terrible as it sounds – so terrible that, after establishing turn order, Andy told everyone to make a Fear roll. Silas managed to pass, but poor Nate and Garnet failed, picking up some fun conditions as per a second dice roll – Nate rolled very high and developed a major phobia of gloms, reducing the effectiveness of his rolls, while Garnet rolled mid-range and became Hesitant like Nate, which meant that in future rounds of combat, she’d always get the lower of two action cards. (Johnny joked, “That’s awful, you’re not exactly like Johnny” and then realized they were being mean to themselves. :p)
However, there was still a fight to get through even with two of the combatants afeared, so combat commenced! Silas started off by trying to shoot the damn Glom – while he was able to inflict a little damage, he wasn’t able to beat the creature’s Toughness to properly wound it. Garnet, who wasn’t YET hesitant, vaulted over a gurney to show the creature a “card trick” – namely, casting Burst right in its nasty face. That DID wound it, and take out the body that was stuck half-onto its back. The angry Glom yanked out a gun and, flailing, attempted to shoot Silas. . .
And rolled snake eyes, meaning it instead managed to throw its gun across the room. Nate decided to press their advantage despite his new phobia of the thing and launched one of the oil lanterns lighting the space at it –
Only to ALSO miss and instead set the back of the room on fire. XD Beans! Hilariously, though, despite his Hesitant hindrance, he still got the highest card in the next initiative round, allowing him to make up for this mistake – he collected the thrown gun and tried to shoot the creature, but wasn’t successful. He just couldn’t stop thinking about how he and the Glom were kind of cousins, in a “demon-possessed corpse” kind of way. . . Fortunately, Garnet was quicker on her feet – quick enough to grab some alcohol-based disinfectant and lob it onto the Glom, dousing it in flammable liquid and causing it to become shaken. And it did NOT manage to “unshake” itself on its turn, allowing Silas to grab a gurney and slam one end into center mass, knocking it into the flames. The Glom and the two corpses attached to it (it managed to absorb one during the fight) soon burned to death, and Nate was able to go collect the second Evidence Locker key from the smoldering corpse, only ending up lightly singed in the process. Along with some more bottles of alcohol-based embalming fluid from the cupboard where Garnet had grabbed her bottle, chugging them down to properly pickle himself. XD
Having thus achieved their goal (and being fine with letting the fire burn out in the stone basement – the Glom dying had smothered a lot of it anyway), the group went up and found the Evidence Locker room, where they were able to first reclaim their guns, and – after a good Notice roll from Silas – all their other stuff too. Plus some extra goodies – out-of-universe, Mike got a benny from Andy for joking that there was a square of extra-short turf there as evidence against Sirius; in-universe, a good notice roll from Garnet allowed her to find a creepy six-fingered hand radiating magic energy only she could feel – she promptly grabbed it and stowed it in a pocket, and Andy revealed it was a cool magical artifact that allowed her to recharge her power points six times for free (one for each finger). Jane was pleased, though I think Johnny was more excited than she was. XD Or possibly worried, as this IS probably some manner of demon-possessed object. . .
But that was something to worry about later! For now, it was judge-killing time! The trio headed up back through the courthouse (where the gallows had been refitted with basically a barbed-wire noose for the morning’s hangings), and – very carefully – through the doors that led to Judge Boudreau’s chambers. This put them in a hallway filled with artwork, with some handle-less doors at the far end, with a picture of Boudreau to one side, and a statue of Lady Justice to the other. A Notice roll allowed Garnet and Nate (Silas was a bit distracted by the ants still following Nate around) to spy a Latin phrase above the door – something like “Justitia ruat caelum.” Silas took this to mean that the statue might be cake and tried licking it – no dice. XD Garnet examined the statue – it was a pretty typical statue of Justice, holding scales. . .and staring at the doors for some reason. Garnet tried moving the scales (nope), tried moving the head (nope), then tried to see if the statue had eyelids –
Nope, but there was SOME sort of give to the eyes. She advanced the theory that they had to somehow blind justice (as per the saying “Justice is blind”) to open the doors. Nate tried an ant blindfold, but that didn’t work, so Silas just went in with his thumbs to gouge the eyes out –
Success! The eyes clicked in, and the doors opened! (Johnny was like “that sums your character up in a nutshell” to Mike, though I think it says more about Boudreau that he feels justice should have its eyes literally torn out.) Revealing a well-appointed study behind – and Boudreau himself seated at a desk, working on something. (Silas, who already had to deal with this sort of thing with Daisy Ducrow: “Don’t these people ever sleep?!”) Fortunately, he was so wrapped up in his work that he hadn’t heard the group come in – and on an excellent couple of rolls, Nate was able to silently close the doors behind him and blast the guy with his shotgun.
Which – destroyed the papers Boudreau was reading, but didn’t seem to do much to the judge himself. He was more nonplussed than anything, recognizing the group as the former prisoners and demanding that they go back to their cells to await hanging. The group were obviously unwilling to do that, so the judge pulled out some Army revolvers with little sickles underneath the barrels –
And battle commenced! Garnet managed to go first and attempted a called shot at the guy’s head – she did NOT have the shooting skills to back this up, unfortunately, and shot the wall next to him. Nate unloaded some more buckshot into the guy, but it still seemed to have no effect – the clothes were torn, but the guy wasn’t even bleeding. Boudreau thus shed his judicial robes, revealing he was wearing green robes with studded armbands underneath, which for some reason caused the group to again have to do a Fear roll. Apparently Garnet and Nate had used up all their fear on the Glom, however, because this time Silas was the only one to fail – and he rolled low on his D20 “decide your fate” die, meaning he was just shaken and would have the opportunity to “unshake” on his go. I left it with Andy commenting that the judge now needed to do something cool – I am very worried as to what this cool thing might be, because Johnny seems to know what Boudreau is and is VERY freaked out by it. O.o We’ll find out tomorrow as we wrap this bounty up, I guess!
2. Edit Marie’s birthday fic: Check – gave this fic (about Madeline going out to a club to see a band, only to encounter the bass guitarist after their set and realize she has a crush) another pass tonight, and ended up rewriting a good chunk of it to include some Wonderland characters (notably the Queen of Hearts and Cheshire), since Marie headcanons Madeline can see/interact with them too. Made the whole thing feel a little more interesting, you know? Hopefully Marie will agree when I post it on the 23rd!
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – got in a couple of videos tonight, in fact –
A) First up, from the Watch Later, we had “8 Creative Park Ideas To Improve Your Game | The Sims 4 Guide” from Petey Plays It! This was a simple video about different park ideas to spice up your game, featuring stuff like a moonlight cinema (complete with outdoor TV screen – just make sure it can’t break in the rain!), a campground, a festival park (Petey showed off a special “Winter Wonderland” park he made, complete with weather machine so he could make it snow whenever he wanted), a water park, a meditation park (with meditation stools, yoga mats, and a little gym), a wedding venue, a stray sanctuary (for pets of all types), and a community garden (for those people WITHOUT Eco Lifestyle’s handy Community Spaces). Plus some encouragement to use basketball courts and the Wishing Well. :) Nice stuff – puts me in a bit of a building mood for the morrow!
B) And second up, from the Subs, we had “SCREEN TIME: American Fiction Review” by Josh Way! Another movie review, Josh watched this one after learning it had been nominated for Best Picture (and its lead for Best Actor), and was delighted with it. What he thought might be a one-note comedy about a black author who, just to blow off steam, writes a book where he talks like a stereotypical “from the hood” guy, only to have it take off thanks to his agent and throw him into a weird double life, actually has a lot more depth and nuance to it, apparently. The people are all depicted as just PEOPLE, and a lot of the movie focuses on the author’s personal life and his interaction with his mother and siblings and such. Josh admitted that maybe the ending could have been better (though, as per his policy, he didn’t spoil), but that the meat of the movie was great and he wasn’t surprised it got nominated. And apparently the guy behind it is one of the people behind “The Good Place,” so if you liked that show, maybe check this out. :)
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – nothing happening over on Valice Multiverse, so I didn’t bother with anything there, but I took some time tonight to get all the pictures for the next Chill Valicer Save update sorted – eighty in all, yeeps. O.O But then again, this includes store AND Magic Realm shenanigans, plus Alice sparring with Rory last-minute. . .
Aaand then I recalled last-minute that I had to reset the queue speed to one for Friday’s post and pick a Song Saturday – went back through that tag and decided to reblog “Into You” by Ariana Grande, since it’s been a bit and I like it as a Valicer song. *nods* So that’s all set, yay!
*nods* Not too shabby, yes. And now I should go ahead and head to bed. . . Plans for tomorrow include catching up on tumblr stuff and getting the Chill Valicer Save drafts started; playing some Sims 4 and doing a bit of building; editing some more "Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland;" catching up on some YouTube stuff and keeping up with GrayStillPlays; and getting in a workout and finishing off "The Town That Dreaded Justice, Part II!" All doable, I think. :) Night all!
