Bleeh Wednesday
Feb. 28th, 2024 11:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickYou know a day is not going to be great when you wake up with some nasty neck pain from sleeping on a lumpy pillow (I swear, it's either too high or too low with no in-between), and the only thing an ibuprofen seems to do is give you heartburn. >( Plus we had kind of icky weather all day, though the real storm stuff (heavy rain and high winds) ended up holding off until tonight. Still, even with all that, I managed to get everything done on the to-do list --
Work – Another pretty quiet day at work today (though Talky Coworker was back, which wasn’t exactly fun) – we had some problems with setting things up for two-factor authentication on the app we use to see pledge cards and such scanned in by our processors, but on the other hand, I discovered that I CAN take some payments for last year’s pledges without credit card nonsense happening, so, yay. But yeah, not much else happening – I cleaned up some duplicates and some deceased people and kept myself busy (or at least looking busy) any way I could. Two more days to get through!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, finishing off Oxventure Deadlands, “More Wonders Than There Are In The Heavens, Part II!” I picked up with Billie intimidating the hell out of the cow-costumed guy who was previously firing on them with a Maxim machine gun – the cow-guy insisted that he hadn’t WANTED to do it, but apparently when you sign on with Aunt Hildy’s company, there’s a LOT of fine print in the contract. So you should always read your contract. (Billie initially agreed until Delacy started making noises about reading contracts and then was like “no, no, son, you’re fine.” XD) Billie got out of cow-guy that when the stage rotated around again, the doors would open once more and there would be access to the auditorium where Aunt Hildy was doing her tech rehearsal, along with her two suited goons, Jessop and Wexler, and rewarded him by sparing his life. Though he DID make sure to blast the guy in the collarbone in the same place where he shot Edie. “Eye for an eye” and all that – WAIT NO DELACY DON’T SHOOT HIM IN THE EYE. XD Fortunately Edie and Billie were able to talk Delacy down, with Billie muttering to himself that he needed to watch the metaphors. XD
With cow-guy thoroughly subdued, talk turned to how they were doing to confront Aunt Hildy. Billie was all for the original plan of calling her out, but was very tempted by that Maxim gun. It didn’t have a lot of rounds left, and it was probably too heavy to drag into the auditorium where Hildy was, but Billie WAS able to lift it off its stand and balance it on some of the seats, calling it a good backup plan if they needed to retreat to this space. They waited for the stage to rotate back to the original curtained area once more, and – once Delacy had shot out the narrator’s speaker (again without even looking) – they proceeded onward, Billie kicking open the door and loudly asking Hildy if she remembered him –
Only to find himself in an antechamber filled with various crates of “Aunt Hildy’s Old Fashioned All-Purpose Vittles,” with the tagline “It’s Real Food” on the cans. XD An embarrassed Billie knocked over some of the crates, then continued on through the second door with Edie and Delacy, hoping to find his quarry –
And indeed he did, with the trio emerging into a dance-hall-like auditorium on a small mezzanine level, overlooking a stage where Aunt Hildy, with her goons, was rehearsing her presentation for the Vittles tomorrow. Which did not seem to be going particularly well, as Jessop and Wexler, upon eating the stuff, seemed to get awfully sick. . . Billie encouraged Delacy and Edie to sneak into the auditorium proper while he got her attention and proceed to call her out, mocking her food – Hildy gave as good as she got, asking Billie if he was looking to get his other leg mangled and calling him a dinosaur over his Wild West show antics. She was focused on PROGRESS, damn it! She was solving world hunger with her amazing canned food –
That, uh, seemed to be turning her two henchmen into terrible twisted emaciated monsters behind her. O.o Hildy was like “sure, there’s a few side effects, but come on!” XD Even with that, though, Billie refused to back down, and Delacy and Edie could see things were about to kick off, so combat began! Edie got the Joker in the draw, meaning that everyone got a benny AND she got plus two to all her rolls (which actually turned out to be a plus one because she was also Wounded) AND she could go anytime she wanted in the turn order. Just as soon as everyone made a spirit roll to see how terrified they were of these horrible monsters (“Faminites,” Andy called them) now stalking around –
Cue Ellen having to spend her last two bennies to avoid having to take any Fear Table penalties on TOP of her Wound penalty. XD But she succeeded, and combat actually started with Delacy – NOT plugging any convenient chandeliers hanging above Hildy’s head (Andy was very firm on the fact that the building was lit by all those electric lightbulbs she’d picked up at great expense), but just plugging Aunt Hildy herself. He got her, rendering her shaken and throwing her back –
And causing her to also transform into a giant twisted emaciated monster, with her rib cage splitting open to reveal a second chattering skull-like head within. As you might imagine, everyone had to make ANOTHER Fear roll after seeing that, but fortunately they all just barely passed. (Billie was like “shit, is THIS why you said we might have to kill her twice?!” XD) Unfortunately, that allowed Aunt Hildy to enter the initiative order with a queen! Edie (using Ellen’s joker) managed to get in a pretty good shot on her with her Winchester, properly Wounding her, but Aunt Hildy ignored her, let out an ear-splitting scream (once again, everyone JUST made their rolls to avoid the consequences) and tackled poor Delacy on her turn, scratching and clawing him as he tried to hold her off. Jessop then went after Bison Billie, and managed to scratch him with his claws – and while Billie didn’t take much damage from the hit, he did find himself feeling mysteriously hungry. . . Wexler then made the same attack on Edie, for the opposite result – wounding her, but not making her feel famished in any way. A lucky escape, given she had no more bennies! The turn order thus went around to Bison Billie –
Who decided to use his rodeo skills to grab Wexler, hoist himself up atop the monster, and ride it like an unruly horse toward Aunt Hildy. Barreling into her and wounding her pretty good with her own bodyguard-turned-monster! A new initiative round was thus dealt out – a furious Edie got to go first, and – apparently remembering how her little brother died to a monster, and not wanting Delacy to suffer the same fate – used her Winchester to take out Wexler, who was officially Too Close To The Boy. (Billie: “My steed :( ”) Jessop attempted to attack Delacy, but completely whiffed his lunge, sailing overhead (with Delacy giving him a rude hand gesture as he went past), and the turn order passed over to Billie again –
Who was slowly but noticeably starting to transform into a Faminite himself, thanks to that scratch. Billie could feel the hunger upon him as he looked at Aunt Hildy, and decided the least he could do was run over there, get her ring, and then tell the others to run before it was too late. So he ran over with the intent of biting her finger off, which was nice and poetic, I felt.
One extremely exploded die later and a final roll of fucking twenty-one, he successfully chomped off her finger (spitting the ring dramatically on the floor) – and most of the rest of her, ripping into her until she was so much cooling meat on the floor. Fortunately for everyone involved, Hildy’s death lifted whatever magic was turning Billie and Jessop into Faminites, meaning there was no need for any tearful goodbyes from Edie as she locked the doors to the theater. Or for Delacy to put Billie out of his misery before he fully turned, forcing him to quickly hide his gun behind his back as Billie noticed him standing directly behind him. XD The adventure ended with Billie declaring to Jessop that there was a new sheriff in town and that they were getting rid of those damn cans of Vittles, with Jessop going along with this as, well, he’s had a day, what with turning into a horrible monster for a bit. XD So that’s all four bounties down and all four rings collected! :D Next week, we wrap things up with the final episode of the campaign, and the post-arc Q&A!
2. Work on the OT3 Week Valicer prompts: Check – got the “No one wants to leave the cuddle pile” prompt done today, with a Modern!AU Valicer trio hanging out in a pillow nest cuddling – that is, until Victor decided he had to get up and answer one of his mother’s e-mails. Prompting Smiler and Alice to try and convince him to wait until after supper, at least – and then, when that didn’t work, Smiler to hit him with his trance trigger so he’d have to say in the pillow nest. XD (It’s all consensual, I promise.) So that was nice. Just the “Free Day” prompt to go before we start revising these things!
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – just a GrayStillPlays video tonight, featuring another Alex Torture Board – “Cars vs Splitting Roads in GTA 5!” Yes, tonight Gray was up against a challenge we haven’t actually seen that much of – dealing with roads that split in a variety of ways! Specifically, he had to deal with –
I. 3 Way Spinning, Splitting Roads – A trio of what amounted to half-completed roundabouts, with the road forking into dead ends on either side of a central spinning pole, and a curved road piece doing donuts between the forks, completing the roundabout on either side as it went around. Gray had to figure out the timing and find a car fast enough to stay on each road chunklet as he rode it around the faux roundabout, with each chunk going faster and faster. . .or he could attempt to jump the gap using the ramp atop each spinning pole. Which arguably required even BETTER timing to get it into a usable position. Still, nice to have choices when it comes to your torture! XD
II. Splitting Tightrope Road – A tightrope road that split into two slightly thinner tightropes twice – once around an empty oval, and once around a spinning windmill that could indeed wreck Gray’s day if he got hit by it. Oh, and there was a slow-down stick placed on a road chunk between the two splits. Oh, and the whole thing was timed, but Alex didn’t actually tell Gray how long he had. As you might imagine, finding a car that could make the turns and keep its speed was pretty painful.
III. Left Or Right Split Road – A road with four instances where it split and formed a circle in the middle of the road – with each half of the circle alternately rising and dropping, so one side was level with the rest of the course and the other was beneath it, allowing for some fun instances of Gray accidentally clipping through the level. The trick here was to anticipate which side was going to be up by the time you got around the curve (not when you ARRIVED at the curve, when you were already driving on it) and pick that one to avoid any crashes or clipping. Oh, and to figure out a way to do that four times in seventeen seconds, because, yup, timed board. XD Alex was mean with those today.
IV. Splitting Road But It Splits As You Drive On It – Speaking of Alex being mean, the last challenge was a real doozy – a “road” made up of red and blue platforms that regularly swung together, then apart in such a way that Gray had to basically drive both forwards and sideways constantly to stay on one half of the road or the other. And there were walls stretching across the road that Gray had to go around, making sure to pick the right side each time. And the road halves started vibrating the closer he got to the end. And he also had to go around a helicopter suspended over the water near the ending platform. And also there was a windmill under the very end of the road. And also the whole thing was timed again, with Alex allowing a mere 46 seconds to make it across this nonsense. *shakehead* MEAN.
So, what car actually conquered the splitting road? Well, Gray got the meme cars of “DAD’S CAR” (a sort of jeep-truck) and “69 FTW” (a hot pink Beetle) out of the way quickly, that’s for sure. XD Of the more legit options, the classic “CHILL” sports car got to the Splitting Tightrope, and the black faux-Mercedes called “BEST” made it almost to the end – but it was the open-wheel racer that ended up taking the day, due to its ability to stick to the roads AND turn on a dime while keeping decent speed. And even THEN, it took a lot of tries and a lot of losing various car parts to make it to the win. XD Prime Gray suffering – you love to see it. :p
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – just Victor Luvs Alice to worry about, and all I had to do for today was pick a Song Saturday! So I went through some of the earlier pages in my tag, stumbled across “Pocketful of Sunshine” by Natasha Bedingfield, listened to it again, and was like, “You know what, sure – I’ve never reblogged this, and it’s a nice cheery song. Think we could all use that.” So into the queue it went. *nods* Like it when it’s nice and easy!
Not too shabby, I suppose -- and I've switched the pillows on my bed, so hopefully I won't wake up with my neck yelling at me tomorrow. Only one way to find out, though, so. . .night all!
Work – Another pretty quiet day at work today (though Talky Coworker was back, which wasn’t exactly fun) – we had some problems with setting things up for two-factor authentication on the app we use to see pledge cards and such scanned in by our processors, but on the other hand, I discovered that I CAN take some payments for last year’s pledges without credit card nonsense happening, so, yay. But yeah, not much else happening – I cleaned up some duplicates and some deceased people and kept myself busy (or at least looking busy) any way I could. Two more days to get through!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, finishing off Oxventure Deadlands, “More Wonders Than There Are In The Heavens, Part II!” I picked up with Billie intimidating the hell out of the cow-costumed guy who was previously firing on them with a Maxim machine gun – the cow-guy insisted that he hadn’t WANTED to do it, but apparently when you sign on with Aunt Hildy’s company, there’s a LOT of fine print in the contract. So you should always read your contract. (Billie initially agreed until Delacy started making noises about reading contracts and then was like “no, no, son, you’re fine.” XD) Billie got out of cow-guy that when the stage rotated around again, the doors would open once more and there would be access to the auditorium where Aunt Hildy was doing her tech rehearsal, along with her two suited goons, Jessop and Wexler, and rewarded him by sparing his life. Though he DID make sure to blast the guy in the collarbone in the same place where he shot Edie. “Eye for an eye” and all that – WAIT NO DELACY DON’T SHOOT HIM IN THE EYE. XD Fortunately Edie and Billie were able to talk Delacy down, with Billie muttering to himself that he needed to watch the metaphors. XD
With cow-guy thoroughly subdued, talk turned to how they were doing to confront Aunt Hildy. Billie was all for the original plan of calling her out, but was very tempted by that Maxim gun. It didn’t have a lot of rounds left, and it was probably too heavy to drag into the auditorium where Hildy was, but Billie WAS able to lift it off its stand and balance it on some of the seats, calling it a good backup plan if they needed to retreat to this space. They waited for the stage to rotate back to the original curtained area once more, and – once Delacy had shot out the narrator’s speaker (again without even looking) – they proceeded onward, Billie kicking open the door and loudly asking Hildy if she remembered him –
Only to find himself in an antechamber filled with various crates of “Aunt Hildy’s Old Fashioned All-Purpose Vittles,” with the tagline “It’s Real Food” on the cans. XD An embarrassed Billie knocked over some of the crates, then continued on through the second door with Edie and Delacy, hoping to find his quarry –
And indeed he did, with the trio emerging into a dance-hall-like auditorium on a small mezzanine level, overlooking a stage where Aunt Hildy, with her goons, was rehearsing her presentation for the Vittles tomorrow. Which did not seem to be going particularly well, as Jessop and Wexler, upon eating the stuff, seemed to get awfully sick. . . Billie encouraged Delacy and Edie to sneak into the auditorium proper while he got her attention and proceed to call her out, mocking her food – Hildy gave as good as she got, asking Billie if he was looking to get his other leg mangled and calling him a dinosaur over his Wild West show antics. She was focused on PROGRESS, damn it! She was solving world hunger with her amazing canned food –
That, uh, seemed to be turning her two henchmen into terrible twisted emaciated monsters behind her. O.o Hildy was like “sure, there’s a few side effects, but come on!” XD Even with that, though, Billie refused to back down, and Delacy and Edie could see things were about to kick off, so combat began! Edie got the Joker in the draw, meaning that everyone got a benny AND she got plus two to all her rolls (which actually turned out to be a plus one because she was also Wounded) AND she could go anytime she wanted in the turn order. Just as soon as everyone made a spirit roll to see how terrified they were of these horrible monsters (“Faminites,” Andy called them) now stalking around –
Cue Ellen having to spend her last two bennies to avoid having to take any Fear Table penalties on TOP of her Wound penalty. XD But she succeeded, and combat actually started with Delacy – NOT plugging any convenient chandeliers hanging above Hildy’s head (Andy was very firm on the fact that the building was lit by all those electric lightbulbs she’d picked up at great expense), but just plugging Aunt Hildy herself. He got her, rendering her shaken and throwing her back –
And causing her to also transform into a giant twisted emaciated monster, with her rib cage splitting open to reveal a second chattering skull-like head within. As you might imagine, everyone had to make ANOTHER Fear roll after seeing that, but fortunately they all just barely passed. (Billie was like “shit, is THIS why you said we might have to kill her twice?!” XD) Unfortunately, that allowed Aunt Hildy to enter the initiative order with a queen! Edie (using Ellen’s joker) managed to get in a pretty good shot on her with her Winchester, properly Wounding her, but Aunt Hildy ignored her, let out an ear-splitting scream (once again, everyone JUST made their rolls to avoid the consequences) and tackled poor Delacy on her turn, scratching and clawing him as he tried to hold her off. Jessop then went after Bison Billie, and managed to scratch him with his claws – and while Billie didn’t take much damage from the hit, he did find himself feeling mysteriously hungry. . . Wexler then made the same attack on Edie, for the opposite result – wounding her, but not making her feel famished in any way. A lucky escape, given she had no more bennies! The turn order thus went around to Bison Billie –
Who decided to use his rodeo skills to grab Wexler, hoist himself up atop the monster, and ride it like an unruly horse toward Aunt Hildy. Barreling into her and wounding her pretty good with her own bodyguard-turned-monster! A new initiative round was thus dealt out – a furious Edie got to go first, and – apparently remembering how her little brother died to a monster, and not wanting Delacy to suffer the same fate – used her Winchester to take out Wexler, who was officially Too Close To The Boy. (Billie: “My steed :( ”) Jessop attempted to attack Delacy, but completely whiffed his lunge, sailing overhead (with Delacy giving him a rude hand gesture as he went past), and the turn order passed over to Billie again –
Who was slowly but noticeably starting to transform into a Faminite himself, thanks to that scratch. Billie could feel the hunger upon him as he looked at Aunt Hildy, and decided the least he could do was run over there, get her ring, and then tell the others to run before it was too late. So he ran over with the intent of biting her finger off, which was nice and poetic, I felt.
One extremely exploded die later and a final roll of fucking twenty-one, he successfully chomped off her finger (spitting the ring dramatically on the floor) – and most of the rest of her, ripping into her until she was so much cooling meat on the floor. Fortunately for everyone involved, Hildy’s death lifted whatever magic was turning Billie and Jessop into Faminites, meaning there was no need for any tearful goodbyes from Edie as she locked the doors to the theater. Or for Delacy to put Billie out of his misery before he fully turned, forcing him to quickly hide his gun behind his back as Billie noticed him standing directly behind him. XD The adventure ended with Billie declaring to Jessop that there was a new sheriff in town and that they were getting rid of those damn cans of Vittles, with Jessop going along with this as, well, he’s had a day, what with turning into a horrible monster for a bit. XD So that’s all four bounties down and all four rings collected! :D Next week, we wrap things up with the final episode of the campaign, and the post-arc Q&A!
2. Work on the OT3 Week Valicer prompts: Check – got the “No one wants to leave the cuddle pile” prompt done today, with a Modern!AU Valicer trio hanging out in a pillow nest cuddling – that is, until Victor decided he had to get up and answer one of his mother’s e-mails. Prompting Smiler and Alice to try and convince him to wait until after supper, at least – and then, when that didn’t work, Smiler to hit him with his trance trigger so he’d have to say in the pillow nest. XD (It’s all consensual, I promise.) So that was nice. Just the “Free Day” prompt to go before we start revising these things!
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – just a GrayStillPlays video tonight, featuring another Alex Torture Board – “Cars vs Splitting Roads in GTA 5!” Yes, tonight Gray was up against a challenge we haven’t actually seen that much of – dealing with roads that split in a variety of ways! Specifically, he had to deal with –
I. 3 Way Spinning, Splitting Roads – A trio of what amounted to half-completed roundabouts, with the road forking into dead ends on either side of a central spinning pole, and a curved road piece doing donuts between the forks, completing the roundabout on either side as it went around. Gray had to figure out the timing and find a car fast enough to stay on each road chunklet as he rode it around the faux roundabout, with each chunk going faster and faster. . .or he could attempt to jump the gap using the ramp atop each spinning pole. Which arguably required even BETTER timing to get it into a usable position. Still, nice to have choices when it comes to your torture! XD
II. Splitting Tightrope Road – A tightrope road that split into two slightly thinner tightropes twice – once around an empty oval, and once around a spinning windmill that could indeed wreck Gray’s day if he got hit by it. Oh, and there was a slow-down stick placed on a road chunk between the two splits. Oh, and the whole thing was timed, but Alex didn’t actually tell Gray how long he had. As you might imagine, finding a car that could make the turns and keep its speed was pretty painful.
III. Left Or Right Split Road – A road with four instances where it split and formed a circle in the middle of the road – with each half of the circle alternately rising and dropping, so one side was level with the rest of the course and the other was beneath it, allowing for some fun instances of Gray accidentally clipping through the level. The trick here was to anticipate which side was going to be up by the time you got around the curve (not when you ARRIVED at the curve, when you were already driving on it) and pick that one to avoid any crashes or clipping. Oh, and to figure out a way to do that four times in seventeen seconds, because, yup, timed board. XD Alex was mean with those today.
IV. Splitting Road But It Splits As You Drive On It – Speaking of Alex being mean, the last challenge was a real doozy – a “road” made up of red and blue platforms that regularly swung together, then apart in such a way that Gray had to basically drive both forwards and sideways constantly to stay on one half of the road or the other. And there were walls stretching across the road that Gray had to go around, making sure to pick the right side each time. And the road halves started vibrating the closer he got to the end. And he also had to go around a helicopter suspended over the water near the ending platform. And also there was a windmill under the very end of the road. And also the whole thing was timed again, with Alex allowing a mere 46 seconds to make it across this nonsense. *shakehead* MEAN.
So, what car actually conquered the splitting road? Well, Gray got the meme cars of “DAD’S CAR” (a sort of jeep-truck) and “69 FTW” (a hot pink Beetle) out of the way quickly, that’s for sure. XD Of the more legit options, the classic “CHILL” sports car got to the Splitting Tightrope, and the black faux-Mercedes called “BEST” made it almost to the end – but it was the open-wheel racer that ended up taking the day, due to its ability to stick to the roads AND turn on a dime while keeping decent speed. And even THEN, it took a lot of tries and a lot of losing various car parts to make it to the win. XD Prime Gray suffering – you love to see it. :p
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – just Victor Luvs Alice to worry about, and all I had to do for today was pick a Song Saturday! So I went through some of the earlier pages in my tag, stumbled across “Pocketful of Sunshine” by Natasha Bedingfield, listened to it again, and was like, “You know what, sure – I’ve never reblogged this, and it’s a nice cheery song. Think we could all use that.” So into the queue it went. *nods* Like it when it’s nice and easy!
Not too shabby, I suppose -- and I've switched the pillows on my bed, so hopefully I won't wake up with my neck yelling at me tomorrow. Only one way to find out, though, so. . .night all!
