Hasty Tuesday Update

As answering Moose's PMs means less time for writing the entry -- this is why I have a form ready to go:

Work – Busy morning with four credit-card-related calls basically on top of each other, which led to me checking on the online stuff and making sure that it was all good (and finding half the time it wasn’t); then the afternoon was mainly doing QC stuff and having a chat with one of our credit card provider’s support people about merging accounts and changing usernames and whatnot so I’d know how to do that on my own, without relying on the company (which, as we all know, I loathe). And then typing up those instructions for my coworker so she’ll understand how to do it all. So that’s something, and hopefully will let me solve a few problems that have popped up recently. Small victories!

Beanbags – Yes, despite the coming on of evening getting closer and closer to when I actually get home. Just warm enough and bright enough to play some games, and I had a perfectly midrange day while Dad did well in the first two and Mom came back in the third. Final scores were me 2-2-2; Dad W-W-3; Mom 3-3-W. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be back on it enough to win one!

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike, back to the Oxventure Orbpocalypse episode “Twin It To Win It!” Having successfully convinced the guards to lay down their weapons by using Fakey Pearlhead’s pearl head as an eldritch plasma ball, Prudence had her compatriots disarm the guards and tie them up while she planted Fakey on the throne, stole her swords, and had Corazon tie her in place. They began interrogating Fakey as to what happened with Katy – Fakey was like “I dunno, she told me to tell you that she was going to throw the artifact into a volcano!” Prudence was like “fine, where the hell is the nearest volcano?” but then Corazon latched onto something – namely, Fakey said that “she told me to tell you.” That didn’t sound like to him like Katy was necessarily going to a volcano. What if it was just an extra bit of misdirection to make sure they went in the wrong direction should they escape the guards? He got Fakey to tell him where Katy’s quarters were (in the room behind the throne room) and went to investigate while Prudence unsuccessfully tried to get Egbert to cast Zone of Truth (he pointed out that the spell compels truth, but not SPEECH – Fakey just had to refuse to answer questions) and decided instead to spend her time kicking the guards. XD He got past the few traps with a good roll, and then a dirty twenty scored him the good stuff – Katy’s diary, hidden under his mattress. He began reading through it for clues –

And mainly got a lot of how much Katy HATED DOB for the stupid pearl incident, self-servingly blaming him for her deciding to slaughter all those people in the Nightmarket and starting on the path to becoming the Thief Queen. XD However, near the end, he found a detailed drawing of the shard (which she apparently stole on a whim from some temple) and some notes on it – explaining how she hoped to sell it, but figured it would get a better price as part of a set. . .and looky here, there’s some weird monks with their weird treasure in a temple at the mouth of the river that runs through the Tangle, who seem to have the other one in accordance with some sort of prophecy! So she was making plans to steal that. Corazon immediately decided she’d probably gone to THEM to get the other one so she could quietly sell both instead of chucking one in a volcano, rejoined the others, and got them to leave the throne room without further violence (leaving everyone tied up and Fakey’s fake pearl head in her lap so she could try and shove it on as she saw fit, as she wasn’t sure if it would be worse for her to be discovered as the Queen’s fake, or if the Queen looked like she’d been overpowered by these randos). He led them out into the jungle near the city and told them what he’d found, and it was agreed that they should try to find the temple and see if they could find either Katy or the other shard. The issue of “where the hell is Dob” was brought up, but they all figured that either a) Dob had miraculously found his way to Katy, in which case he’d be waiting for them at the temple or b) he was up a volcano, and they HAD gotten the location of the nearest one to here from Fakey (Lake District, outside the Tangle), so they could track him down later. That is if he hadn’t dove INTO the volcano, Dob being Dob. XD (AKA Luke apparently couldn’t make this one, as I have not seen hide nor hair of him this episode.)

So! After finding the boats (using “Locate Object,” ANOTHER spell that it turned out Merilwen and Egbert had in common – though I’d like to point out in this instance Egbert had that one FIRST, since I remember him specifically picking it up during a level-up to find his damn kidney that Liliana stole for the Cloneberts), the gang set out along the river, lazily meandering their way along (Corazon mixing Prudence a coconut cocktail as they went). After a short rest’s amount of time, they came across another couple of canoes floating along, with a quartet of people singing very badly about how they were “Geth’s true heroes” and all that. Prudence wanted to ram them, but they were spotted before then, and unwillingly lashed into the other adventurers’ flotilla. The other group happily told them that they were heroes, going to see some monks to retrieve an ancient artifact in accordance with a prophecy! The Oxventurers were like “huh, weird, we’re doing much the same” –

And then the group told them about the prophecy, and it came out that this new group of adventurers were the MIRROR Oxventurers – we have an elven warlock who has a fluffy patron and wants to spread goodness and light; a human rogue who hates adventuring and would rather sit around and read all day; a gnome paladin who is EXCEPTIONALLY timid; and a dwarven druid who can’t cast Moonbeam. XD The Mirror Oxventurers seemed pretty certain that they’d get their artifact just for showing up, so Corazon called an Oxventurer huddle and (after some confusion with unhooking the boats and such) got the team together to suggest that they somehow impersonate their mirror selves so they could get the shard no fuss. When I left it, Egbert was suggesting somehow getting them to do the things the prophecy said they couldn’t do (like the “paladin of no booms” had to somehow explode something), while Prudence was just all for drowning them and being done with it. XD Tomorrow I guess we’ll see what plan they settle on, and move onto the next episode, “Monky Business!” Should be fun.

2. Continue writing “As Long As You Love Me”: Check – we’re almost done with the final chapter, with me having gotten into the “Never Go Out Of Style” snippet! After a quick trip to the fabled vending machine (which just so happens to sell giant-size chocolate bars and big bags of sour candies), Victor and Alice are looking for their way out of the hospital – or, rather, Victor is, as Alice just got called to do a last-minute assassination by Wonderland. Victor is currently looking for either his way back to the parking lot or toward the hospital’s garage. . .and he’s just about to run into someone who is going to be accidentally helpful in that regard. . .

3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – only Gray uploaded today, so I was able to get in a bonus video too –

A) Started with a video from OXtra I’ve been meaning to watch for a while: “8 Horror Games Ranked By A Massive Scaredy Cat | Ellen’s Fear Academy Ranked So Far!” Now, weirdly enough, I’ve never actually WATCHED any of Ellen’s Fear Academy stream videos, but I was interested to see what she’d played and what she thought of them. Turns out The Evil Within ranked low because it was more actiony horror and also Jane was eating popcorn while watching her play, which kind of took the fear out of it, and P. T. also ranked low mostly because Ellen had already seen a playthrough of it and hated how fiddly actually COMPLETING the demo was. By contrast, she was terrified of Dead Space despite it being more actiony because so many monsters, so much atmosphere – and the top spots were taken up by Resident Evil Village and Resident Evil Biohazard as two and one respectively, because she just found them the freakiest (particularly the baby section in the creepy doll mansion, and running from Jack Baker at the begging of RE7). Good times, and makes me think one day I should carve out some time to watch a Fear Academy or two. :p

B) And then it was over to the actual Subs for GrayStillPlays and “When you go from NOOB to GIGACHAD in 5 minutes,” aka Gym or Jail! Which is a HORROR GAME set in a GYM. Yes. It’s a jumpscare game, basically, where you play as this schlub who signs up for a gym, goes to get swole, gets the attention of this weird overmuscled guy Chaddicus the Mighty, and stupidly accepts drugs from him, leading to him being locked in the back rooms of the gym and having to chop his way out with a fire axe, lest he be murdered by Chaddicus, who now looks like a demented mouse person with glowing eyes. It COULD be scary, perhaps, but the production values are not exactly top notch – and also, it’s Gray playing, who basically absolutely refuses to be scared. XD This is a man who cheerfully waltzes left into the insta-death room because he has a reputation to keep up that involves turning left and having something horrible happen to him in a video game. XD Fantastic and I love it. (Oh, and the “jail” part is because the FBI arrests you at the end for lightly smacking the monster with a fly swatter. XD)

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check! Got the four-part Chill Save update (featuring Victor learning more magic, Smiler’s Spirit Squad bar night, and Alice’s first full moon), some nice A:MR fanart, and a cool CB gifset in the queue for Victor Luvs Alice, and one thread reply from a partner (introducing her Victor/Victoria kid, Lily, to my Cuddlepile Victor) on Valice Multiverse. All sorted for a bit!

*nods* Productive! And now it's time for bed. XD Night all!