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Back To The Late Updates It Seems
Oct. 18th, 2022 11:52 pmAt least I've got this one all sorted out for you lot in advance:
Work – More time spent looking up duplicates (and driving myself mildly mad trying to locate obituaries for dead people), finding a few pledge cards and whatnot for our auditors, and sending another e-mail to the credit card people regarding something they fucked up. *sigh* And the talky coworker is apparently coming back tomorrow. Meeeh, I say, meeeeh.
Beanbags – Nope – while the day started out kind of gray and drizzly and then got better, Mom figured it was still probably too wet and buggy outside today to play. We will see if conditions improve tomorrow.
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike, and onto Oxventure Orbpocalypse Episode 8, “No Way Rosé!” Having determined at the end of last episode that they needed to get all these partying Port Fairwind people off the magical wine, the gang (plus Poor Dunnican, Vile Dunnican) went over to the nearest cauldron to see if they could tell if it was being refilled by a means other than magic. The sight of all that nice fruity blackberry wine started getting to Corazon’s head again, though – fortunately Prudence was there to smack the goblet out of his hand again. XD Not seeing any obvious non-magical refilling mechanisms, Egbert said they should just try knocking it over – a plan Prudence was all for. She gave the cauldron a big old kick with her werebear strength, successfully knocking it to the ground –
Cue Johnny going “roll initiative.” XD Because not only did they do this in front of a drunk mob that is VERY FIXATED on that wine, ALSO the spilled wine formed itself into three wine golem things because apparently Vocatus does nothing by halves. XD In fact, he really REALLY doesn’t, because the golems got to go first on top of everything! Two of them promptly attacked Prudence with wine-powered rocket fists – one connected for nine damage, but fortunately that hit knocked her out of the way of the other one. The third attempted to spray more wine into Corazon’s mouth, but came up just shy of his armor class and so he was able to duck under it. Corazon promptly tried to retaliate with his cutlasses, slashing one in twain –
Only for the two halves to collapse into separate puddles, then rise into SMALLER wine golems! It’s a The Sorcerer’s Apprentice broom situation, everyone! Corazon immediately hid with his bonus action, doing a cool slide into an artisanal meats-and-cheeses stall and taking the time to make himself a platter. (And managing to resist the urge to cut up the cheese or sausage with his wine-covered cutlass, good boy.) XD Johnny then turned to Prudence –
Cue Ellen going “wow, everyone rolled REALLY well, I got a twenty-one and I’m going last?” As it turns out, her mic had cut out at a bad moment and all anyone had heard of her twenty-one was the “one” part. After a little bantering between Andy and Johnny where Andy pretended his mic had cut out and Corazon had already coolly defeated all the wine golems and Johnny said their mic had cut out and they’d all ducked, Johnny promptly handed the initiative reins to Merilwen, who equally promptly Called Lightning! This is a spell that creates a VERY SPECIFIC cylindrical cloud in the sky that basically acts as an orbital strike lightning “laser,” hitting a user-directed point and forcing everything within five feet of that point to make a Dex save or suffer. Merilwen figured that, as the wine golems are liquid, they should be extra vulnerable to this – AND, as it’s a concentration-based spell, she can keep casting it on each turn if she maintains her concentration. Johnny was VERY impressed. :D One golem rolled a nat 20, but the others did not fare so well, and she hit them for 21 damage (or 11 on the one that succeeded on its save). Nice work Merilwen!
And then it was Prudence’s turn, and she decided to bring the RAGE. Mostly because it was finally time to reveal what her new temporary character class was while she was cut off from Cthulhu – BARBARIAN. Corazon’s little “wait what” as this was revealed was fantastic. XD I personally choose to see this as her werebear side taking a bit more control now that her regular source of magic has been removed – she mentioned feeling the rage before he first transformation, after all! Anyway, she tapped into her Rage Mode powers and just SLAMMED the cauldron over one of the littler ones, causing a decent amount of damage and trapping the unfortunate thing. The townsfolk attempted to restrain her, but half of them tripped over each other in their drunken stupor and started arguing, and the ones who DID reach her basically just ended up hanging from her arms as she posed. XD I approve.
And then it was Egbert’s turn – and Egbert, having had some time to plan while all this was going on, promptly went to the artisanal meats-and-cheeses stall where Corazon was hiding, grabbed the barrel of salt, and threw it at the remaining golems, because salt is apparently great for getting wine stains out of carpet! Everyone was very impressed and confused by Egbert’s ability to plan ahead. (Corazon did point out Egbert could probably evaporate them with his flame breath, but Egbert said it would likely take too long and this was easier.) His throw was a bit iffy, but Johnny allowed it and had it cover a 15 foot cone, easily getting the unfortunate wine golems, who got crusted over and melted into horrible “salty wine amoeba boys” as Merilwen put it. This put them at a disadvantage and prevented them from attacking again –
Allowing Merilwen to BRING THE LIGHTNING again. Though not before Dunnican ran in to smash the cauldron with something he’d found. . .and thus get caught in the blast, getting thrown into the artisanal meats-and-cheeses stall. An irritated Corazon said he had better have brought crackers. XD But it was more than enough to finish off all the wine golems (the crusted ones just breaking apart, the one trapped under the cauldron getting evaporated). Hooray! One cauldron down!
Dozens more to go! It was quickly noted by the gang that this was NOT the best way to go about destroying all the cauldrons – Merilwen offered to just start zapping them all with her spell, but Johnny told her that there was no way she could do so without killing a good number of the people clustered around them. And as that was what Merilwen was trying to AVOID, that was a no go. Corazon came back from his snack break and suggested they try to just lure Vocatus out of hiding by partying harder than anyone else around – Dunnican said that was a plan but perhaps they should try to smash up the cauldrons while doing that? Then again, that nearly brought an angry mob on them last time. . . After noting that you COULD damage the cauldrons, he told the others he had an idea, but they had to promise not to strangle him first. The group was reluctant – Dunnican looks VERY strangleable – but eventually agreed, and he led them back to the ruined warehouse and showed them a pile of wood.
A pile of VERY cursed wood. Egbert asked if he was on the cursed wood again, but Dunnican said it was simply all that had survived the fire. And he had enough to build ONE evil butt-eating chair, which would at least take care of ONE cauldron without putting themselves at risk. The gang decided it was worth a shot, so Dunnican got to building. Prudence found an evil chair that was almost out of juice to sit on (all it could do was snarl in a rather flatulent way), and Corazon, in an attempt to cheer her up, tried to help her pretend she could still cast Eldritch Blast using Minor Illusion to mimic the effect. It wasn’t really the same, but it was good enough that Prudence appreciated the effort. XD That’s where I left it – next time, we see how the chair plan goes!
2. Start writing “The Joker And The Queen”: Check – yes, as I have finished “As Long As You Love Me,” I’ve decided I might as well start on the sequel! Because it’s been on my mind a lot, and it’s a good excuse to write more of my Smiler, once they show up. XD Starting off with Victor and Alice having a lunch break on the hood of their current car (Ethiopian food, as per I believe Bart and Ken’s last appearance in the first season of Dirk Gently), talking about how it’s the one-year anniversary of when they first met. :) So far, it’s a very nice day, and they’re having fun reminiscing. . .but I’m soon to introduce a certain organization that’s stalking them. . .
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – easier than I thought today, as Call Me Kevin was feeling under the weather (as per his Twitter) and thus will be uploading tomorrow. So there was only Gray in the Subs, giving me an opportunity to get a bit out of my Watch Later as well –
A) First up, the first of the two AT4Ws that I need to catch up on – “Legion of Superheroes #0 and Legionnaires #0!” The two issues re-introducing the Legion of Superheroes (DC’s far-in-the-future superhero team) in the wake of the Zeroth Hour reboot, setting up the core three of the cast (Live Wire, Cosmic Boy, and Saturn Girl) and how they all met and became the Legion. Basically, they were a runaway with lightning powers (Live Wire), a dude who did some sort of ring fights with magnetic powers (Cosmic Boy) and a telepath working on becoming a Science Cop (Saturn Girl) who ended up spontaneously banding together to help foil an assassination attempt on the richest guy in the galaxy, who then decided to have them become super heroes because super heroes cool and it would be good for planet unity. Their first appearance nearly saw them blown up, but they managed to take care of the bomb and – with the help of the rich guy’s assistant, who could triple herself, and another girl with the ability to become intangible – took care of the terrorists behind it, and ended up having the Not-Kitty-Pryde and the triplicate girl join up with the team, slowly but steadily recruiting a bunch of others at the end of the next issue. Linkara thought they were both decent issues, with good artwork and likable takes on the characters – he just mainly wished the rest of the new members hadn’t been shoved into a montage at the end, basically. But still, plenty of fun, and he thinks this version of the team probably deserves more love. :)
B) And then it was over to the Subs and GrayStillPlays for “When you make $1,198,635 in 5 seconds” and Cheat Master 3D! This is a game where you have to be a “cheater” and do missions for your shady boss and his levitating cat. Missions can range from “trying to kiss your boyfriend when your father isn’t looking (lest he be chased out of the house at shotgun-point)” to “forge the signature on this ten million dollar check” to “irritate this guy who tripped you on the way into the elevator” to “sneak poop into the chips of the woman who stole your boyfriend” to “steal a car in front of the police” to “escape the police in a car chase” to “SHOOT THE POLICE WITH YOUR LASER-GUIDED RIFLE.” Yeah, it’s – it’s a roller coaster ride, as Gray said. A very poorly written roller coaster ride. XD
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – on Victor Luvs Alice, put the four-part Chill Save update, a Fallout 4 reblog (when you see Kellogg taking baby Shaun in his memories), and a VTMB reblog (Beckett fanart) in the queue there to cover Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday respectively after doing my writing; then on Valice Multiverse, put one ask reply and two thread replies in the queue to cover tomorrow after YouTube! So that’s all set again, yay~
At least it was a productive evening, even if it was late. I gotta start getting to this earlier again...just hard to juggle stuff sometimes! *sigh* Ah well -- night all!
Work – More time spent looking up duplicates (and driving myself mildly mad trying to locate obituaries for dead people), finding a few pledge cards and whatnot for our auditors, and sending another e-mail to the credit card people regarding something they fucked up. *sigh* And the talky coworker is apparently coming back tomorrow. Meeeh, I say, meeeeh.
Beanbags – Nope – while the day started out kind of gray and drizzly and then got better, Mom figured it was still probably too wet and buggy outside today to play. We will see if conditions improve tomorrow.
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike, and onto Oxventure Orbpocalypse Episode 8, “No Way Rosé!” Having determined at the end of last episode that they needed to get all these partying Port Fairwind people off the magical wine, the gang (plus Poor Dunnican, Vile Dunnican) went over to the nearest cauldron to see if they could tell if it was being refilled by a means other than magic. The sight of all that nice fruity blackberry wine started getting to Corazon’s head again, though – fortunately Prudence was there to smack the goblet out of his hand again. XD Not seeing any obvious non-magical refilling mechanisms, Egbert said they should just try knocking it over – a plan Prudence was all for. She gave the cauldron a big old kick with her werebear strength, successfully knocking it to the ground –
Cue Johnny going “roll initiative.” XD Because not only did they do this in front of a drunk mob that is VERY FIXATED on that wine, ALSO the spilled wine formed itself into three wine golem things because apparently Vocatus does nothing by halves. XD In fact, he really REALLY doesn’t, because the golems got to go first on top of everything! Two of them promptly attacked Prudence with wine-powered rocket fists – one connected for nine damage, but fortunately that hit knocked her out of the way of the other one. The third attempted to spray more wine into Corazon’s mouth, but came up just shy of his armor class and so he was able to duck under it. Corazon promptly tried to retaliate with his cutlasses, slashing one in twain –
Only for the two halves to collapse into separate puddles, then rise into SMALLER wine golems! It’s a The Sorcerer’s Apprentice broom situation, everyone! Corazon immediately hid with his bonus action, doing a cool slide into an artisanal meats-and-cheeses stall and taking the time to make himself a platter. (And managing to resist the urge to cut up the cheese or sausage with his wine-covered cutlass, good boy.) XD Johnny then turned to Prudence –
Cue Ellen going “wow, everyone rolled REALLY well, I got a twenty-one and I’m going last?” As it turns out, her mic had cut out at a bad moment and all anyone had heard of her twenty-one was the “one” part. After a little bantering between Andy and Johnny where Andy pretended his mic had cut out and Corazon had already coolly defeated all the wine golems and Johnny said their mic had cut out and they’d all ducked, Johnny promptly handed the initiative reins to Merilwen, who equally promptly Called Lightning! This is a spell that creates a VERY SPECIFIC cylindrical cloud in the sky that basically acts as an orbital strike lightning “laser,” hitting a user-directed point and forcing everything within five feet of that point to make a Dex save or suffer. Merilwen figured that, as the wine golems are liquid, they should be extra vulnerable to this – AND, as it’s a concentration-based spell, she can keep casting it on each turn if she maintains her concentration. Johnny was VERY impressed. :D One golem rolled a nat 20, but the others did not fare so well, and she hit them for 21 damage (or 11 on the one that succeeded on its save). Nice work Merilwen!
And then it was Prudence’s turn, and she decided to bring the RAGE. Mostly because it was finally time to reveal what her new temporary character class was while she was cut off from Cthulhu – BARBARIAN. Corazon’s little “wait what” as this was revealed was fantastic. XD I personally choose to see this as her werebear side taking a bit more control now that her regular source of magic has been removed – she mentioned feeling the rage before he first transformation, after all! Anyway, she tapped into her Rage Mode powers and just SLAMMED the cauldron over one of the littler ones, causing a decent amount of damage and trapping the unfortunate thing. The townsfolk attempted to restrain her, but half of them tripped over each other in their drunken stupor and started arguing, and the ones who DID reach her basically just ended up hanging from her arms as she posed. XD I approve.
And then it was Egbert’s turn – and Egbert, having had some time to plan while all this was going on, promptly went to the artisanal meats-and-cheeses stall where Corazon was hiding, grabbed the barrel of salt, and threw it at the remaining golems, because salt is apparently great for getting wine stains out of carpet! Everyone was very impressed and confused by Egbert’s ability to plan ahead. (Corazon did point out Egbert could probably evaporate them with his flame breath, but Egbert said it would likely take too long and this was easier.) His throw was a bit iffy, but Johnny allowed it and had it cover a 15 foot cone, easily getting the unfortunate wine golems, who got crusted over and melted into horrible “salty wine amoeba boys” as Merilwen put it. This put them at a disadvantage and prevented them from attacking again –
Allowing Merilwen to BRING THE LIGHTNING again. Though not before Dunnican ran in to smash the cauldron with something he’d found. . .and thus get caught in the blast, getting thrown into the artisanal meats-and-cheeses stall. An irritated Corazon said he had better have brought crackers. XD But it was more than enough to finish off all the wine golems (the crusted ones just breaking apart, the one trapped under the cauldron getting evaporated). Hooray! One cauldron down!
Dozens more to go! It was quickly noted by the gang that this was NOT the best way to go about destroying all the cauldrons – Merilwen offered to just start zapping them all with her spell, but Johnny told her that there was no way she could do so without killing a good number of the people clustered around them. And as that was what Merilwen was trying to AVOID, that was a no go. Corazon came back from his snack break and suggested they try to just lure Vocatus out of hiding by partying harder than anyone else around – Dunnican said that was a plan but perhaps they should try to smash up the cauldrons while doing that? Then again, that nearly brought an angry mob on them last time. . . After noting that you COULD damage the cauldrons, he told the others he had an idea, but they had to promise not to strangle him first. The group was reluctant – Dunnican looks VERY strangleable – but eventually agreed, and he led them back to the ruined warehouse and showed them a pile of wood.
A pile of VERY cursed wood. Egbert asked if he was on the cursed wood again, but Dunnican said it was simply all that had survived the fire. And he had enough to build ONE evil butt-eating chair, which would at least take care of ONE cauldron without putting themselves at risk. The gang decided it was worth a shot, so Dunnican got to building. Prudence found an evil chair that was almost out of juice to sit on (all it could do was snarl in a rather flatulent way), and Corazon, in an attempt to cheer her up, tried to help her pretend she could still cast Eldritch Blast using Minor Illusion to mimic the effect. It wasn’t really the same, but it was good enough that Prudence appreciated the effort. XD That’s where I left it – next time, we see how the chair plan goes!
2. Start writing “The Joker And The Queen”: Check – yes, as I have finished “As Long As You Love Me,” I’ve decided I might as well start on the sequel! Because it’s been on my mind a lot, and it’s a good excuse to write more of my Smiler, once they show up. XD Starting off with Victor and Alice having a lunch break on the hood of their current car (Ethiopian food, as per I believe Bart and Ken’s last appearance in the first season of Dirk Gently), talking about how it’s the one-year anniversary of when they first met. :) So far, it’s a very nice day, and they’re having fun reminiscing. . .but I’m soon to introduce a certain organization that’s stalking them. . .
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – easier than I thought today, as Call Me Kevin was feeling under the weather (as per his Twitter) and thus will be uploading tomorrow. So there was only Gray in the Subs, giving me an opportunity to get a bit out of my Watch Later as well –
A) First up, the first of the two AT4Ws that I need to catch up on – “Legion of Superheroes #0 and Legionnaires #0!” The two issues re-introducing the Legion of Superheroes (DC’s far-in-the-future superhero team) in the wake of the Zeroth Hour reboot, setting up the core three of the cast (Live Wire, Cosmic Boy, and Saturn Girl) and how they all met and became the Legion. Basically, they were a runaway with lightning powers (Live Wire), a dude who did some sort of ring fights with magnetic powers (Cosmic Boy) and a telepath working on becoming a Science Cop (Saturn Girl) who ended up spontaneously banding together to help foil an assassination attempt on the richest guy in the galaxy, who then decided to have them become super heroes because super heroes cool and it would be good for planet unity. Their first appearance nearly saw them blown up, but they managed to take care of the bomb and – with the help of the rich guy’s assistant, who could triple herself, and another girl with the ability to become intangible – took care of the terrorists behind it, and ended up having the Not-Kitty-Pryde and the triplicate girl join up with the team, slowly but steadily recruiting a bunch of others at the end of the next issue. Linkara thought they were both decent issues, with good artwork and likable takes on the characters – he just mainly wished the rest of the new members hadn’t been shoved into a montage at the end, basically. But still, plenty of fun, and he thinks this version of the team probably deserves more love. :)
B) And then it was over to the Subs and GrayStillPlays for “When you make $1,198,635 in 5 seconds” and Cheat Master 3D! This is a game where you have to be a “cheater” and do missions for your shady boss and his levitating cat. Missions can range from “trying to kiss your boyfriend when your father isn’t looking (lest he be chased out of the house at shotgun-point)” to “forge the signature on this ten million dollar check” to “irritate this guy who tripped you on the way into the elevator” to “sneak poop into the chips of the woman who stole your boyfriend” to “steal a car in front of the police” to “escape the police in a car chase” to “SHOOT THE POLICE WITH YOUR LASER-GUIDED RIFLE.” Yeah, it’s – it’s a roller coaster ride, as Gray said. A very poorly written roller coaster ride. XD
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – on Victor Luvs Alice, put the four-part Chill Save update, a Fallout 4 reblog (when you see Kellogg taking baby Shaun in his memories), and a VTMB reblog (Beckett fanart) in the queue there to cover Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday respectively after doing my writing; then on Valice Multiverse, put one ask reply and two thread replies in the queue to cover tomorrow after YouTube! So that’s all set again, yay~
At least it was a productive evening, even if it was late. I gotta start getting to this earlier again...just hard to juggle stuff sometimes! *sigh* Ah well -- night all!
