Bit Late Again
But I'm still much calmer than I was on Sunday, so that's good. Actually had a few gaps in my schedule where I could just listen to music and stuff like that, which was nice. :) And I did quite well on the old to-do list --
Work – Quieter day, though possibly that had something to do with me not having to do the GL today. XD But yeah, most of the day was a couple more QC files, looking up something for Fiscal, and then doing some obits – nothing special! I’ll take “quiet” over “stressed” any day!
Beanbags – No again, and I suspect we’re not gonna play most of this week given we’re starting a heatwave here, with temperatures in the 90s (and high humidity, meaning it’ll FEEL even HOTTER). We’ll see if anything improves as the week goes on!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with the Oxventure Stream “Court In The Act!” We picked up with Corazon and Dob deciding that, even if they were playing to a whole audience of criminals (and there were a LOT of criminals out there), they were going to do something cool and artsy, damn it. So they strode confidently onto the stage (after Mikey Smashthings insisted that Corazon NOT go out there shirtless, thank you), where they were introduced as – Giovanni and Giamarco, strangely enough. Hmmm. Everyone (including Prudence, Egbert, and Merilwen in their balcony seats) were a little puzzled by this, but Dob and Corazon decided to run with it!
By doing awful arrhythmic beat poetry. XD Seriously, this was hilariously bad. Egbert tried booing, but was loudly shushed by the criminals – and while they were clearly puzzled as to what the two on stage were even doing, the various mobsters were at least willing to put on a show of enjoying it. Dob and Corazon promptly launched into another set, heartened by the applause –
And that’s when the cops burst in. Turns out that my previous night’s guess was completely right – this was a frame-up, with Dob and Corazon standing in for two extremely wanted criminals. With their previously-deeply-appreciative audience and head of security (BIG Mikey Smashthings, an ogre) not doing a damn thing, Dob and Corazon attempted to escape on their own, with Corazon struggling into a Beeples costume (oh, did you think that running gag was done? Nope! The Beeples jokes recommenced the moment Corazon realized he had a chance to make music) before Dob kicked in a big drum, told him to get in, and tried to roll his friend out the door. A poor roll meant that the drum didn’t go far before it flopped over, trapping Corazon inside – Dob tried to fling a cymbal at the oncoming mob of guards, but ANOTHER poor roll meant that it hit the rafters and instead landed on his friends' table, leaving him to get dogpiled by at least 18 lawmen. Corazon stood up while still in the drum and tried to run for it, and thanks to a decent roll actually did a pretty good job, bouncing around on top of guards’ heads like he was playing the theme to Eastenders – but alas, plot gotta plot, and he slipped on an over-zealously polished helmet and was dogpiled and dragged away as well. Oh no! How did the other three react to this?
For starters, Merilwen vaulted off the balcony, turned into a bear, and started dancing all over the stage to ruin their original hardwood floors. And when Big Mikey showed up to stop her, she turned into a cat and lured him in with her soft tummy, with a nat one on Big Mikey’s side meaning he reached right in and got savaged. XD While all that was going on, Prudence made her way over to Mikey at the bar, made sure to get their 70% cut (Mikey already had a strongbox full of gold for her, further cementing that this was all preplanned) and ask about what the hell happened. Mikey explained that Giovanni and Giamarco were two of the most wanted criminals in all of Otherway, and the guards had been looking for them for AGES – so rather brazen of them to perform in The Billy Club, wasn’t it? Prudence agreed, took the money, and promised to return (sotto voice: to burn the place to the ground) before she and Egbert headed out the door and Merilwen was literally thrown out by Big Mikey.
Only to encounter a girl standing outside, who promptly offered herself up as Corazon and Dob’s legal counsel. Egbert said no thanks, he’d represent them, having done a “community course college.” XD Prudence, fortunately, managed to talk him into taking on the friendly stranger as his legal aide, and he said that he’d be the star lawyer while the girl, Alice aka Allie, actually did all the legal things. The girl was just fine with this –
Possibly because she was explicitly ten years old. With a nice folder of legal things and a well-turned-out suit, but still ten. I guess Johnny decided that, instead of having their NPC quietly deaged over the course of an adventure like Alfred Strangertide, they’d just beat them to the punch. XD She had been doing law most of her life, though, and she was well-acquainted with how things work in Otherway – namely, that Dob and Corazon were just the latest victims of the mayor’s attempt to keep his job by putting on a show trial of capturing the two biggest criminals in the town. Giovanni and Giamarco basically run all of the organized crime in Otherway, and when things get too hot, they find a couple of patsies that could pass for them, have the police catch THEM, have them tried and hung, then come back again in a few months under new names and do it all again. Poor Allie is actually the town-mandated defense attorney, and she is not happy with how often she loses cases, so she was DETERMINED to either a) get Dob and Corazon acquitted or b) help them escape. Prudence, Egbert, and Merilwen were of course on board with that, so they went to see Dob and Corazon in prison to see how they were getting on.
Corazon had already gotten too used to prison life to live on the outside, and he and Dob were working on a truly terrible prison song about how they weren’t the right guys. XD And also Dob though “Alice” was an “Alex,” so you know, not a great start. Some ideas on how they could work the case were thrown around – namely, bringing in character witnesses like Bismuth to vouch for Dob and Corazon not being Giovanni and Giamarco – but Allie wasn’t sure how well that would work, so it may be an escape is their only option. Which is gonna be tricky, as apparently they’re going to be tried DIRECTLY ON THE GALLOWS. . .
2. Continue writing “As Long As You Love Me”: Check – I have started Chapter 5, with the snippet that named the story itself – Victor and Alice hearing the Backstreet Boys’ “As Long As You Love Me” on the radio while tooling along, and Victor surprising Alice by knowing all the words. And Victor being surprised that Alice doesn’t until he’s reminded what a shit childhood she had and that she’s probably never heard this song in full. The bonding has recommenced, with Victor being inspired to do a little “carpool karaoke” next time I pick up the story. . .
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – two in, two out, plus one quick bonus vid –
A) First up, the latest Sims 4: High School Years trailer. . .which is basically all of their previous Instagram posts focusing on the “core four” hero Sims from the first trailer (Molly, Sidney, Ash, and Kevin) covering things like wants and fears, after-school activities, and thrifting, sewn together into one video. *shrug* Gets the point across, I suppose!
B) Then it was over to my Subs for Call Me Kevin and “Red Dead Redemption 2 but it's ruined by mods!” Specifically, it’s ruined by – THE CHAOS MOD! Yes, there is one for Red Dead Redemption 2, and yes, it is just as unhinged as the one for GTA V. XD Arthur tries to read a letter from his wife? Game plops a revolver in his hand, and Kevin just runs with it. Arthur tries to save someone from a life within a strange cult? Well, first he has to deal with the angry skeleton who followed him there; THEN he has to deal with that angry skeleton clinging to the back of his horse; THEN he has to deal with that angry skeleton turning into Lenny; THEN he has to watch the kid he’s trying to save just randomly get set on fire by Total Chaos. XD And THEN he had to deal with a dude trying to lasso him constantly and an upside-down world while trying to take the kid home once he finally disarmed him properly. XD Honestly, being attacked by the undead ended up becoming sort of the theme of the episode, with Kevin having to deal with a random angry corpse, a random VAMPIRE (in the classic Nosferatu mold), and an invisible person Kevin decided was a ghost during the mission where he breaks his friend Micah out of jail, which really did not make that mission any easier! Though a sudden Doomsday outbreak at least swept the vampire into the river. XD Even trying to go on a simple fishing mission with a little kid who was at the camp for some reason ended up with the kid turning giant for a while and Arthur having to fight an angry caveman. XD It was amazing and delightful, is what I’m saying, and I am SOO hoping for more.
C) And finally we had GrayStillPlays versus Money Run 3-D – a terrible mobile game in roughly the same vein as yesterday’s Muscle Run, except instead of picking up power and becoming swole, you pick up money and become rich. Though STAYING rich is a bit tricky, as – as Gray learned at the beginning of the video – you must use your money to build stairs over the various obstacles that can suck money out of you, like booze, cigarettes, and any semblance of a social life. XD It took Gray a few tries to get the hang of the game – squashing his usual urge to do things that are actively detrimental to his player character, like alcoholism instead of work and hitting the casino instead of the books – and his first few runs ended with him either in a terrible run-down shack or a modest family home with a motor scooter, but after a few more tries, he started getting the hang of it. Even ended at the vaulted Billionaire status a few times (where your character is running around in a big pretty princess dress and purple hair), where he spent all of his ill-gotten gains on a FULL-LIQUOR BAR. XD Pretty simple stuff, but his commentary always makes it a joy (especially when he’s bitching about how useless college degrees, and in particular his college degree, are).
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – got the four-part Chill Save update for Wednesday and a thought on the most appropriate Tim-Burton-Movie-AU for Alton Towers Coasters fandom for Thursday (it’s The Nightmare Before Christmas because I think most of the secret weapon coasters fit the Halloween Town aesthetic beautifully) into the queue on VictorLuvsAlice; and one ask reply referencing a recent XKCD strip in the queue on Valice Multiverse!
*nods* Not bad at all. Just gotta answer one last comment now, and I'm set. Midpoint of the week tomorrow -- night all!
Work – Quieter day, though possibly that had something to do with me not having to do the GL today. XD But yeah, most of the day was a couple more QC files, looking up something for Fiscal, and then doing some obits – nothing special! I’ll take “quiet” over “stressed” any day!
Beanbags – No again, and I suspect we’re not gonna play most of this week given we’re starting a heatwave here, with temperatures in the 90s (and high humidity, meaning it’ll FEEL even HOTTER). We’ll see if anything improves as the week goes on!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with the Oxventure Stream “Court In The Act!” We picked up with Corazon and Dob deciding that, even if they were playing to a whole audience of criminals (and there were a LOT of criminals out there), they were going to do something cool and artsy, damn it. So they strode confidently onto the stage (after Mikey Smashthings insisted that Corazon NOT go out there shirtless, thank you), where they were introduced as – Giovanni and Giamarco, strangely enough. Hmmm. Everyone (including Prudence, Egbert, and Merilwen in their balcony seats) were a little puzzled by this, but Dob and Corazon decided to run with it!
By doing awful arrhythmic beat poetry. XD Seriously, this was hilariously bad. Egbert tried booing, but was loudly shushed by the criminals – and while they were clearly puzzled as to what the two on stage were even doing, the various mobsters were at least willing to put on a show of enjoying it. Dob and Corazon promptly launched into another set, heartened by the applause –
And that’s when the cops burst in. Turns out that my previous night’s guess was completely right – this was a frame-up, with Dob and Corazon standing in for two extremely wanted criminals. With their previously-deeply-appreciative audience and head of security (BIG Mikey Smashthings, an ogre) not doing a damn thing, Dob and Corazon attempted to escape on their own, with Corazon struggling into a Beeples costume (oh, did you think that running gag was done? Nope! The Beeples jokes recommenced the moment Corazon realized he had a chance to make music) before Dob kicked in a big drum, told him to get in, and tried to roll his friend out the door. A poor roll meant that the drum didn’t go far before it flopped over, trapping Corazon inside – Dob tried to fling a cymbal at the oncoming mob of guards, but ANOTHER poor roll meant that it hit the rafters and instead landed on his friends' table, leaving him to get dogpiled by at least 18 lawmen. Corazon stood up while still in the drum and tried to run for it, and thanks to a decent roll actually did a pretty good job, bouncing around on top of guards’ heads like he was playing the theme to Eastenders – but alas, plot gotta plot, and he slipped on an over-zealously polished helmet and was dogpiled and dragged away as well. Oh no! How did the other three react to this?
For starters, Merilwen vaulted off the balcony, turned into a bear, and started dancing all over the stage to ruin their original hardwood floors. And when Big Mikey showed up to stop her, she turned into a cat and lured him in with her soft tummy, with a nat one on Big Mikey’s side meaning he reached right in and got savaged. XD While all that was going on, Prudence made her way over to Mikey at the bar, made sure to get their 70% cut (Mikey already had a strongbox full of gold for her, further cementing that this was all preplanned) and ask about what the hell happened. Mikey explained that Giovanni and Giamarco were two of the most wanted criminals in all of Otherway, and the guards had been looking for them for AGES – so rather brazen of them to perform in The Billy Club, wasn’t it? Prudence agreed, took the money, and promised to return (sotto voice: to burn the place to the ground) before she and Egbert headed out the door and Merilwen was literally thrown out by Big Mikey.
Only to encounter a girl standing outside, who promptly offered herself up as Corazon and Dob’s legal counsel. Egbert said no thanks, he’d represent them, having done a “community course college.” XD Prudence, fortunately, managed to talk him into taking on the friendly stranger as his legal aide, and he said that he’d be the star lawyer while the girl, Alice aka Allie, actually did all the legal things. The girl was just fine with this –
Possibly because she was explicitly ten years old. With a nice folder of legal things and a well-turned-out suit, but still ten. I guess Johnny decided that, instead of having their NPC quietly deaged over the course of an adventure like Alfred Strangertide, they’d just beat them to the punch. XD She had been doing law most of her life, though, and she was well-acquainted with how things work in Otherway – namely, that Dob and Corazon were just the latest victims of the mayor’s attempt to keep his job by putting on a show trial of capturing the two biggest criminals in the town. Giovanni and Giamarco basically run all of the organized crime in Otherway, and when things get too hot, they find a couple of patsies that could pass for them, have the police catch THEM, have them tried and hung, then come back again in a few months under new names and do it all again. Poor Allie is actually the town-mandated defense attorney, and she is not happy with how often she loses cases, so she was DETERMINED to either a) get Dob and Corazon acquitted or b) help them escape. Prudence, Egbert, and Merilwen were of course on board with that, so they went to see Dob and Corazon in prison to see how they were getting on.
Corazon had already gotten too used to prison life to live on the outside, and he and Dob were working on a truly terrible prison song about how they weren’t the right guys. XD And also Dob though “Alice” was an “Alex,” so you know, not a great start. Some ideas on how they could work the case were thrown around – namely, bringing in character witnesses like Bismuth to vouch for Dob and Corazon not being Giovanni and Giamarco – but Allie wasn’t sure how well that would work, so it may be an escape is their only option. Which is gonna be tricky, as apparently they’re going to be tried DIRECTLY ON THE GALLOWS. . .
2. Continue writing “As Long As You Love Me”: Check – I have started Chapter 5, with the snippet that named the story itself – Victor and Alice hearing the Backstreet Boys’ “As Long As You Love Me” on the radio while tooling along, and Victor surprising Alice by knowing all the words. And Victor being surprised that Alice doesn’t until he’s reminded what a shit childhood she had and that she’s probably never heard this song in full. The bonding has recommenced, with Victor being inspired to do a little “carpool karaoke” next time I pick up the story. . .
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – two in, two out, plus one quick bonus vid –
A) First up, the latest Sims 4: High School Years trailer. . .which is basically all of their previous Instagram posts focusing on the “core four” hero Sims from the first trailer (Molly, Sidney, Ash, and Kevin) covering things like wants and fears, after-school activities, and thrifting, sewn together into one video. *shrug* Gets the point across, I suppose!
B) Then it was over to my Subs for Call Me Kevin and “Red Dead Redemption 2 but it's ruined by mods!” Specifically, it’s ruined by – THE CHAOS MOD! Yes, there is one for Red Dead Redemption 2, and yes, it is just as unhinged as the one for GTA V. XD Arthur tries to read a letter from his wife? Game plops a revolver in his hand, and Kevin just runs with it. Arthur tries to save someone from a life within a strange cult? Well, first he has to deal with the angry skeleton who followed him there; THEN he has to deal with that angry skeleton clinging to the back of his horse; THEN he has to deal with that angry skeleton turning into Lenny; THEN he has to watch the kid he’s trying to save just randomly get set on fire by Total Chaos. XD And THEN he had to deal with a dude trying to lasso him constantly and an upside-down world while trying to take the kid home once he finally disarmed him properly. XD Honestly, being attacked by the undead ended up becoming sort of the theme of the episode, with Kevin having to deal with a random angry corpse, a random VAMPIRE (in the classic Nosferatu mold), and an invisible person Kevin decided was a ghost during the mission where he breaks his friend Micah out of jail, which really did not make that mission any easier! Though a sudden Doomsday outbreak at least swept the vampire into the river. XD Even trying to go on a simple fishing mission with a little kid who was at the camp for some reason ended up with the kid turning giant for a while and Arthur having to fight an angry caveman. XD It was amazing and delightful, is what I’m saying, and I am SOO hoping for more.
C) And finally we had GrayStillPlays versus Money Run 3-D – a terrible mobile game in roughly the same vein as yesterday’s Muscle Run, except instead of picking up power and becoming swole, you pick up money and become rich. Though STAYING rich is a bit tricky, as – as Gray learned at the beginning of the video – you must use your money to build stairs over the various obstacles that can suck money out of you, like booze, cigarettes, and any semblance of a social life. XD It took Gray a few tries to get the hang of the game – squashing his usual urge to do things that are actively detrimental to his player character, like alcoholism instead of work and hitting the casino instead of the books – and his first few runs ended with him either in a terrible run-down shack or a modest family home with a motor scooter, but after a few more tries, he started getting the hang of it. Even ended at the vaulted Billionaire status a few times (where your character is running around in a big pretty princess dress and purple hair), where he spent all of his ill-gotten gains on a FULL-LIQUOR BAR. XD Pretty simple stuff, but his commentary always makes it a joy (especially when he’s bitching about how useless college degrees, and in particular his college degree, are).
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – got the four-part Chill Save update for Wednesday and a thought on the most appropriate Tim-Burton-Movie-AU for Alton Towers Coasters fandom for Thursday (it’s The Nightmare Before Christmas because I think most of the secret weapon coasters fit the Halloween Town aesthetic beautifully) into the queue on VictorLuvsAlice; and one ask reply referencing a recent XKCD strip in the queue on Valice Multiverse!
*nods* Not bad at all. Just gotta answer one last comment now, and I'm set. Midpoint of the week tomorrow -- night all!