![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Everything Is Late Today
May. 10th, 2022 11:49 pmExcept me waking up, which was annoyingly early and left me feeling tired, which is probably why everything is late today. *sigh* Just -- a lot of the day has been bad, from the day still being annoyingly windy (if a bit warmer), to Dad dealing with a bad stomachache (doesn't seem to be anything contagious, though), to everything noted down in the "work" section for me. . . I'm just glad Oxventure was so good, as I needed that laugh:
Work – Fuckin’ AWFUL. I mean, when your day starts with a crawl of a commute (and having to worry about big trucks not saying in their lane when you get on the highway) and then having your usual way into the parking lot blocked by the water people, forcing you to take the long way around to get into the other entrance, you already know it’s not going to be good. But today was pretty much just one thing after the other when it came to credit card calls, new gifts coming in, various exceptions, all that stuff. There WAS a little break around lunchtime, so I at least got that, but – UGH. Too much falling on our heads, my head in particular, and I DON’T FUCKIN’ LIKE IT.
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another half-hour of the Oxventure Stream “Bone To Pick!” As it turns out, the corn field was bigger than the maximum length of Merilwen’s Wind Wall, so the fire cyclone was instead traded for a popcorn cyclone as she instead scooped up all the popped corn to pile in the middle of the field. XD The skeletons called time around this point and asked the gang to come over and “take a knee” (meaning literal kneecaps, which they did put some popcorn into for snacks). Their notes were that it was a good first effort – they like that the crops are burned, but that the Oxventurers managed to save the animals and turn the corn into popcorn. Their major criticism was that it was a bit too “stagey” – that is, there was a discussion of what to do, then they cleared out the animals, then they greased and flavored the corn, etc. They wanted something a little closer to them building the orphanage, which was done via montage and had the horrible surprise reveal of the orphan mortar at the end. Everyone was like “Yeah, okay, fair, we’ll work on that” (with Dob openly asking the skeletons what THEY would have done in this situation, and they admitted "round up the animals and burn the field twice" – they are EVIL, you know).
From there the lot trekked into the village, which was – not as surprised to see a group of adventures, sixty skeletons and one flaming skull as you might have thought. But then again, the villagers were distracted, as it was summer fete time! Specifically, it was “vegetable contest” time. The skeletons explained that they were having the great veggie-off in there (with all of the contests sounding vaguely suggestive) and they wanted the Oxventurers to ruin the fete, preferably in a way that meant it never happened again. They were given a couple of minutes to plan, though Dob had something right off the bat – ruin the fete in a way that highlights how horrible the actual competition part of it is. The people shouldn’t be fighting amongst each other about who has the best marrow – they should be coming together, to chase away the outsiders who brought one of their own in dressed as a marrow to win! XD Specifically, Dob wanted to dress Egbert up as a marrow, have him win first prize, then have him reveal himself to enrage the townspeople and have them work as a team to drive them out of the village. Corazon built on this idea by saying that he could use Disguise Self to pretend to be a harvest god – specifically, Green Geoffrey, King of the Marrows! Who has a marrow head and marrow legs and marrow fingers, but weirdly human arms, eyes, and ears. XD And so the plan was settled on to fake-win the competition, then have “Green Geoffrey” show up and denounce the competition as “worshiping false idols” or the like.
And so the gang set to work! Dob disguised Egbert incredibly well as a marrow (incorporating his snout into the stalk and everything), and got Merilwen and Prudence to help him carry it into the judging tent. He and Prudence then went around being general jackasses while Corazon Disguised Self and hid to prepare for his big entrance, and Merilwen cast Speak with Plants and immediately realized this was bad as she heard all the vegetables complaining. XD To the point where she gave one poor pumpkin a hug because it kept asking for one. This led to her meeting the lady who was showing the pumpkin, which led to Dob meeting her and getting the names of last year’s winner (Bryce) and second-placer (her own husband, Arthur). Dob promptly went to the ale hall to meet with Arthur and sow some discord – namely, he went to Arthur and claimed that Bryce was bragging about how he won thanks to the help of growth spells last year, then went to BRYCE and claimed that Arthur had bragged about how he’d used growth spells THIS year to “put some pep in his marrow.” XD He ALMOST flubbed the Charisma check on Arthur with an eight, but poor Johnny rolled a four, so he was JUST convincing enough. And then he smashed it against Bryce, who also rolled a four. Everyone promptly claimed “simple farming folk, it makes sense.” XD
Anyway, the judges showed up and prodded Egbert for a while, approving of his marrowness – and then Bryce found Arthur and a brawl broke out which smashed the marrow table and released every pent-up microaggression everyone had against each other. (Prudence critted to avoid getting squashed by flying villagers and was allowed to save lower-rolling Egbert from that fate as well.) Corazon decided this was as good a time as any for his entrance, climbed to the top of the tent, then used Feather Fall and Dancing Lights (and an excellent Charisma check) to stun everyone into prostrating themselves before him (helped by Merilwen urging any local plants who could move to do so, and Egbert rolling around and around in his marrow costume). He berated the villagers for getting too caught up in their competition, singling out Bryce (who foolishly let people call him “The Prince of Marrows”) for particular scorn. I left it with him asking how they should appease him, and Prudence calling out “human sacrifice!” at the same time as Dob yelling that an outsider was responsible for all this mess. We’ll see how this all goes and if anyone gets stuffed in a wicker marrow tomorrow!
2. Continue writing “As Long As You Love Me”: Check – we have moved into Chapter 2, which will probably be titled the same thing as the snippet that makes up at least the first half of it, “What’s Your Deal.” The radio has just informed Alice who Victor is, at least in part – and now a puzzled Victor, trying to understand why the murder lady is being nice to him, is going to start hearing her life story! At least, in the context of this universe. . .
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – pretty easy today with only two videos to catch up on (though, as you will see, Gray’s took me a bit) –
A) First up was Call Me Kevin and “I Tried To Beat The Oldest Version of Minecraft!” Or, rather, the oldest version of Minecraft that had actual gameplay other than “place and remove blocks.” Specifically, his goal was to reach the Nether in the oldest version of the game that had it. This took a while, mainly because Kevin wasn’t used to the way the old Alpha Minecrafts played anymore. For example, opening your inventory with “I” instead of “E” (he got so annoyed with that he actually changed it). There were also loads more bouncy animals; the ability to punch wool off sheep (but no way to turn it into a bed); randomly-spawning cliffs and mobs all over the place; the inability to craft the weirdest stuff (see again BEDS not being a part of this build); and lots of terrifying mobs at night that required different fighting tactics than Kevin was used to. He persevered, however, building a nice wooden box house (despite the cows constantly trying to invade); getting coal and learning how to make torches; working his way through a system crash that deleted many of his “food sources” and a bunch of his stuff; braving a variety of caves and using the “coward’s formation” to smash up spawners; locating iron, diamond, and color-changing lava; and finally assembling an obsidian portal to enter the Nether – after setting the entire world on fire just because he could. XD Simple but silly video – always good to set yourself the occasional challenge!
B) Then it was over to GrayStillPlays and “$1 vs $1,000 Bicycles in GTA 5!” Gray is confusing and annoying his accountant again by paying for parkour boards – this time, to help one of our favorite board creators, Danny, buy a BMX bicycle! Which prompted Gray to ask for boards about biking, so – let’s do it:
$1 – Gets you a broken-down bike with two flat tires, but a decent bike race over the rooftops with a few ramps and jumps, and even a couple of thumbnails holes through a parking garage! Nice work, Daryll-with-two-Ls.
$10 – Gets you a timed mountain bike ride, because apparently Alex is mentoring ALL the $10 creators these days. XD Gray started in a box atop a mountain, and had to rapidly bike down it, across the terrain, and over to the other box that contained the win, all within a minute. It took a few tries, not in the least because Gray kept crashing into the rocks at first, but once he figured out the trick to staying on your bike (land sideways after jumps) and found the shortcuts, he got it! w00!
$50 – Gets you Danny’s BMX Park of Pain! Danny (with help from Alex) designed a parkour course of agony for Gray that just – kept going and going and GOING. XD From doing an actual half-pipe jump in the BMX park, to riding hard over a series of ramps that either have a bit of platform or NOTHING between them, to riding across a series of half-pipes dodging wind turbines, to doing mini-tightrope-style-hops BETWEEN wind turbines, to having to navigate a half-pipe MAZE, to doing a final tightrope with surprise jumps and gaps – Gray suffered so much he actually lost part of his voice! He promptly informed Danny this was not a $50 board, but a $500 one, and skipped STRAIGHT to the $1,000 board! XD As he said, get yourself a nice bike, Danny.
$1,000 – Gets you Alex’s $1,000 Pain Train! Alex went for a TRON-style bike on a transforming board (using his usual tricks, such as putting everything technically underwater), which went from fancy grids to a yellow landscape where you had to avoid poles that either made you crash or teleported you back to the start, to another grid landscape where you had to avoid the inevitable sideways wind turbines (including one in an enclosed tunnel!), to the purple platforms where you had to shoot your way through smaller and smaller destructible thumbnail holes, to the green board with the appearing-and-disappearing walls trying to shoot you off to the side, to the pink area with the guys shooting missiles at you, to the red where you just had to avoid getting yeeted by surprise bumps to the win – oh, and did I mention the board just got narrower and narrower as it went? Alex, as usual, earning his paycheck here. XD Poor Gray – even with cutting out the $100 board, he SUFFERED today. It was great. XD
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – got the week’s posts done for Victor Luvs Alice (three-part Smiler Always Chill Save update for Wednesday; discussion of all the times Alice is menaced by fire in “Londerland Bloodlines” for Thursday; gifs of Grout’s Mansion (aka The Worst For Alice) on Friday; latest Wyrd Sisters Podcast on Saturday), and two ask replies done for Valice Multiverse (one short one with a terrible pun; one long one that served as a sort of sequel to the long one from a few days ago, about what the anon would like to see for Victor). Progress!
Yeah, YouTube definitely did not let me down today, and I am glad of it. Now to go to bed and hope that tomorrow turns out better. Night all!
Work – Fuckin’ AWFUL. I mean, when your day starts with a crawl of a commute (and having to worry about big trucks not saying in their lane when you get on the highway) and then having your usual way into the parking lot blocked by the water people, forcing you to take the long way around to get into the other entrance, you already know it’s not going to be good. But today was pretty much just one thing after the other when it came to credit card calls, new gifts coming in, various exceptions, all that stuff. There WAS a little break around lunchtime, so I at least got that, but – UGH. Too much falling on our heads, my head in particular, and I DON’T FUCKIN’ LIKE IT.
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another half-hour of the Oxventure Stream “Bone To Pick!” As it turns out, the corn field was bigger than the maximum length of Merilwen’s Wind Wall, so the fire cyclone was instead traded for a popcorn cyclone as she instead scooped up all the popped corn to pile in the middle of the field. XD The skeletons called time around this point and asked the gang to come over and “take a knee” (meaning literal kneecaps, which they did put some popcorn into for snacks). Their notes were that it was a good first effort – they like that the crops are burned, but that the Oxventurers managed to save the animals and turn the corn into popcorn. Their major criticism was that it was a bit too “stagey” – that is, there was a discussion of what to do, then they cleared out the animals, then they greased and flavored the corn, etc. They wanted something a little closer to them building the orphanage, which was done via montage and had the horrible surprise reveal of the orphan mortar at the end. Everyone was like “Yeah, okay, fair, we’ll work on that” (with Dob openly asking the skeletons what THEY would have done in this situation, and they admitted "round up the animals and burn the field twice" – they are EVIL, you know).
From there the lot trekked into the village, which was – not as surprised to see a group of adventures, sixty skeletons and one flaming skull as you might have thought. But then again, the villagers were distracted, as it was summer fete time! Specifically, it was “vegetable contest” time. The skeletons explained that they were having the great veggie-off in there (with all of the contests sounding vaguely suggestive) and they wanted the Oxventurers to ruin the fete, preferably in a way that meant it never happened again. They were given a couple of minutes to plan, though Dob had something right off the bat – ruin the fete in a way that highlights how horrible the actual competition part of it is. The people shouldn’t be fighting amongst each other about who has the best marrow – they should be coming together, to chase away the outsiders who brought one of their own in dressed as a marrow to win! XD Specifically, Dob wanted to dress Egbert up as a marrow, have him win first prize, then have him reveal himself to enrage the townspeople and have them work as a team to drive them out of the village. Corazon built on this idea by saying that he could use Disguise Self to pretend to be a harvest god – specifically, Green Geoffrey, King of the Marrows! Who has a marrow head and marrow legs and marrow fingers, but weirdly human arms, eyes, and ears. XD And so the plan was settled on to fake-win the competition, then have “Green Geoffrey” show up and denounce the competition as “worshiping false idols” or the like.
And so the gang set to work! Dob disguised Egbert incredibly well as a marrow (incorporating his snout into the stalk and everything), and got Merilwen and Prudence to help him carry it into the judging tent. He and Prudence then went around being general jackasses while Corazon Disguised Self and hid to prepare for his big entrance, and Merilwen cast Speak with Plants and immediately realized this was bad as she heard all the vegetables complaining. XD To the point where she gave one poor pumpkin a hug because it kept asking for one. This led to her meeting the lady who was showing the pumpkin, which led to Dob meeting her and getting the names of last year’s winner (Bryce) and second-placer (her own husband, Arthur). Dob promptly went to the ale hall to meet with Arthur and sow some discord – namely, he went to Arthur and claimed that Bryce was bragging about how he won thanks to the help of growth spells last year, then went to BRYCE and claimed that Arthur had bragged about how he’d used growth spells THIS year to “put some pep in his marrow.” XD He ALMOST flubbed the Charisma check on Arthur with an eight, but poor Johnny rolled a four, so he was JUST convincing enough. And then he smashed it against Bryce, who also rolled a four. Everyone promptly claimed “simple farming folk, it makes sense.” XD
Anyway, the judges showed up and prodded Egbert for a while, approving of his marrowness – and then Bryce found Arthur and a brawl broke out which smashed the marrow table and released every pent-up microaggression everyone had against each other. (Prudence critted to avoid getting squashed by flying villagers and was allowed to save lower-rolling Egbert from that fate as well.) Corazon decided this was as good a time as any for his entrance, climbed to the top of the tent, then used Feather Fall and Dancing Lights (and an excellent Charisma check) to stun everyone into prostrating themselves before him (helped by Merilwen urging any local plants who could move to do so, and Egbert rolling around and around in his marrow costume). He berated the villagers for getting too caught up in their competition, singling out Bryce (who foolishly let people call him “The Prince of Marrows”) for particular scorn. I left it with him asking how they should appease him, and Prudence calling out “human sacrifice!” at the same time as Dob yelling that an outsider was responsible for all this mess. We’ll see how this all goes and if anyone gets stuffed in a wicker marrow tomorrow!
2. Continue writing “As Long As You Love Me”: Check – we have moved into Chapter 2, which will probably be titled the same thing as the snippet that makes up at least the first half of it, “What’s Your Deal.” The radio has just informed Alice who Victor is, at least in part – and now a puzzled Victor, trying to understand why the murder lady is being nice to him, is going to start hearing her life story! At least, in the context of this universe. . .
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – pretty easy today with only two videos to catch up on (though, as you will see, Gray’s took me a bit) –
A) First up was Call Me Kevin and “I Tried To Beat The Oldest Version of Minecraft!” Or, rather, the oldest version of Minecraft that had actual gameplay other than “place and remove blocks.” Specifically, his goal was to reach the Nether in the oldest version of the game that had it. This took a while, mainly because Kevin wasn’t used to the way the old Alpha Minecrafts played anymore. For example, opening your inventory with “I” instead of “E” (he got so annoyed with that he actually changed it). There were also loads more bouncy animals; the ability to punch wool off sheep (but no way to turn it into a bed); randomly-spawning cliffs and mobs all over the place; the inability to craft the weirdest stuff (see again BEDS not being a part of this build); and lots of terrifying mobs at night that required different fighting tactics than Kevin was used to. He persevered, however, building a nice wooden box house (despite the cows constantly trying to invade); getting coal and learning how to make torches; working his way through a system crash that deleted many of his “food sources” and a bunch of his stuff; braving a variety of caves and using the “coward’s formation” to smash up spawners; locating iron, diamond, and color-changing lava; and finally assembling an obsidian portal to enter the Nether – after setting the entire world on fire just because he could. XD Simple but silly video – always good to set yourself the occasional challenge!
B) Then it was over to GrayStillPlays and “$1 vs $1,000 Bicycles in GTA 5!” Gray is confusing and annoying his accountant again by paying for parkour boards – this time, to help one of our favorite board creators, Danny, buy a BMX bicycle! Which prompted Gray to ask for boards about biking, so – let’s do it:
$1 – Gets you a broken-down bike with two flat tires, but a decent bike race over the rooftops with a few ramps and jumps, and even a couple of thumbnails holes through a parking garage! Nice work, Daryll-with-two-Ls.
$10 – Gets you a timed mountain bike ride, because apparently Alex is mentoring ALL the $10 creators these days. XD Gray started in a box atop a mountain, and had to rapidly bike down it, across the terrain, and over to the other box that contained the win, all within a minute. It took a few tries, not in the least because Gray kept crashing into the rocks at first, but once he figured out the trick to staying on your bike (land sideways after jumps) and found the shortcuts, he got it! w00!
$50 – Gets you Danny’s BMX Park of Pain! Danny (with help from Alex) designed a parkour course of agony for Gray that just – kept going and going and GOING. XD From doing an actual half-pipe jump in the BMX park, to riding hard over a series of ramps that either have a bit of platform or NOTHING between them, to riding across a series of half-pipes dodging wind turbines, to doing mini-tightrope-style-hops BETWEEN wind turbines, to having to navigate a half-pipe MAZE, to doing a final tightrope with surprise jumps and gaps – Gray suffered so much he actually lost part of his voice! He promptly informed Danny this was not a $50 board, but a $500 one, and skipped STRAIGHT to the $1,000 board! XD As he said, get yourself a nice bike, Danny.
$1,000 – Gets you Alex’s $1,000 Pain Train! Alex went for a TRON-style bike on a transforming board (using his usual tricks, such as putting everything technically underwater), which went from fancy grids to a yellow landscape where you had to avoid poles that either made you crash or teleported you back to the start, to another grid landscape where you had to avoid the inevitable sideways wind turbines (including one in an enclosed tunnel!), to the purple platforms where you had to shoot your way through smaller and smaller destructible thumbnail holes, to the green board with the appearing-and-disappearing walls trying to shoot you off to the side, to the pink area with the guys shooting missiles at you, to the red where you just had to avoid getting yeeted by surprise bumps to the win – oh, and did I mention the board just got narrower and narrower as it went? Alex, as usual, earning his paycheck here. XD Poor Gray – even with cutting out the $100 board, he SUFFERED today. It was great. XD
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – got the week’s posts done for Victor Luvs Alice (three-part Smiler Always Chill Save update for Wednesday; discussion of all the times Alice is menaced by fire in “Londerland Bloodlines” for Thursday; gifs of Grout’s Mansion (aka The Worst For Alice) on Friday; latest Wyrd Sisters Podcast on Saturday), and two ask replies done for Valice Multiverse (one short one with a terrible pun; one long one that served as a sort of sequel to the long one from a few days ago, about what the anon would like to see for Victor). Progress!
Yeah, YouTube definitely did not let me down today, and I am glad of it. Now to go to bed and hope that tomorrow turns out better. Night all!
