![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Concentration Levels: Low
Dec. 15th, 2022 11:49 pmRed curse showed up today -- I was expecting it, so it didn't catch me TOTALLY by surprise (i.e., without access to a pad), but it was still annoying, as it showed up mid-morning, meaning while I was at work. I hate when it does that, because I'm always worried about missing something and staining my work clothes. . .no accidents today, but meeeh. And, of course, I'm now extra-tired and grouchy, so let's just get that to-do list up here, shall we?
Work – All right – I ended up lugging my coworker gifts in, only to be told we WEREN’T doing the gift exchange today (apparently my coworker texted my OLD phone # and never noticed it didn’t go through *sigh*), but the day was fairly quiet, with mostly duplicates again and letting someone know that their pledge was fully paid so don’t worry about your credit card just yet; and having that phone call with the credit card people. Seems like one of the big issues may be FINALLY fixed, hooray. *sigh* Now we just need to get to all the others. . . On the real plus side, though, they let us all out early so the ones going to the Christmas Party could get there on time, so I had some extra time to myself this afternoon, yay. Every little bit helps, especially on my period.
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, finishing off the Live Oxventure “Tome Sweet Tome!” Something I forgot to mention when Sprat created his ankylosaurus was that Dob told Merilwen to use Stone Shape to seal it inside the cave it busted out of, and Merilwen, done with his bullshit and refusal to listen, used a spell she DID have prepared to Polymorph him into an actual bee. There was a brief discussion of what the hell his hit points were in this form, resolved when Johnny found the stats for a giant wasp (13 HP, apparently). XD
Anyway, I picked it up with Prudence, under time pressure from Johnny, choosing to cast Hunger of Hadar on Sprat and his dino. XD To be fair, she tried to sell it as sort-of banishing Sprat to another horrible dimension – then Dob saved her by pointing out ankylosaurs were really big, so she just cast the spell on the dinosaur. It only took five points of cold damage, though, and managed to whip its club-like tail at Corazon – Uncanny Dodge halved the damage he took, but it was still eleven points off the old health bar. Egbert then asked Merilwen if she minded if he went first (they’d tied in their initiative order), and when she said no –
Did exactly what I thought he would do and whipped out Command, the one spell he actually uses properly! XD And his one-word command to Sprat? “BEHAVE!” Sprat, unfortunately, rolled a six, and thus was forced to do just that. Corazon got him to hand over the book as he cried, and he and Egbert were very firm that he couldn’t keep the ankylosaurus. And when Sprat started arguing, Corazon wrote in the book that Sprat’s butt fell off. XD He did reattach it, but only after getting a promise from Sprat he’d be good – and he said the kid could keep the sweets, apparently because he didn’t want to be seen as TOO responsible or anything. Dob, still as a bee, lectured Sprat on stealing, and Sprat said that he’d only stolen the book because the wizard was drunk and he never used the book for anything fun. Corazon ended up AGREEING with the kid, though Dob told him they shouldn’t argue in front of Sprat. So they turned around and argued instead. XD Corazon, of course, didn’t even want to give the book back, which Prudence agreed with – however, one look at the absolute TERROR on Johnny’s face made some of the more moral members of the group go “it’s kind of overpowered” and convince the others to give it back to the wizard. Sprat asked if they could at least make a ladder to the surface so they didn’t have to tromp through the sewage, as they ruined his way in – Corazon wrote in that a golden jewel-encrusted elevator appeared. Sprat called it “gaudy” and was threatened with butt-removal. XD Dob got de-Polymorphed and asked if Merilwen could create some sort of cool Stone Shape doorway for them to leave through, and Corazon wrote in that she could cast the spell so she could just do it already. XD
Anyway, everyone ended up back on the surface, and the Oxventurers returned the book to Trashsack (already at least slightly drunk), pretending that they’d been cleaning it for him. They also ended up covering for Sprat, probably because he WAS just a bored kid, saying that they’d found it in the sewer and maybe he’d just lost it down there. Trashsack was very grateful (if not fond of the smell), and so allowed everyone to make their one written wish and one drawn wish. Egbert asked for the dowager widow to be revived (as she HAD been eaten by the T-Rex), and for the love of her life to exist, because he genuinely felt bad about what had happened to her. And then he asked for the wizard to draw a giant burrito, because he was really hungry. XD Prudence got herself a nice new umbrella drink, and – when the wizard refused to draw Cthulhu climbing out of the ocean to enact the end of days – a giant squid burrito. Corazon asked for a million doubloons (despite already having written that in the book after getting it away from Sprat), and his drawing was of a rocking Beeples concert that everyone was having fun at (Johnny was just like “really?”). Merilwen merely asked for a new animal friend in a future adventure for her written wish, and got the wizard to draw her that awesome bow that was SUPPOSED to be her good loot from “Silent Knight,” hooray! :D And Dob asked the wizard to write “dream wedding” for him and his fiancee in the book (whether this would be an actual “dream wedding” or just a dream OF a wedding was for the book to decide), and – at Egbert’s suggestion – had the wizard draw up an 80-tier wedding burrito-cake, to be delivered the day of the actual nuptials. Pretty typical Oxventurer stuff.
And then everyone had to run for cover as Corazon’s gold began raining down. XD And so the adventure ended with the town covered in gold pieces, the opening act of the Beeples concert playing, and a random ankylosaurus in the sewers. XD Just a typical day for our favorite Oxventurers!
That still left me with about twelve minutes to kill, though, so I watched something else that YouTube has been recommending to me every so often when I go on a Smiler binge – an old Blue Peter segment on The Smiler, showing the host coming around as it was built and occasionally helping in a TV-friendly way (holding the tube for the concrete, being allowed to put in one small section of track via crane with a trained operator, that sort of thing), then taking one of the first rides on it with his co-host! Said co-host enjoyed it much more than he did, and that was proven scientifically by recording their faces – apparently the main host showed a lot of anxiety on the ride, while his co-host was smiling almost all the way. XD Fun little segment, and filled the time nicely!
2. Continue writing gift fics: Check – did this before my workout again, editing up SlyCooper’s fic featuring the Ventrue version of their Ducktales OC Phillianne Trophy having a good long rant about certain sidequests (namely the ones featuring the Brotherhood of the Ninth Circle) over the phone with her “ghoulfriend” Zan, and Zan noting with amusement how it’s only fair she listen to Philli’s bitching after Philli listened to all her bitching about her awful old boss Glomgold. Took a little poking to get to the word count I wanted, but I think it came out nicely. :)
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check, though it was a bit close, as I didn’t start the YouTubes until a bit late (despite the extra time I had this afternoon – I spent that on something else, as you shall see below). But I did get both Subs and OXmas in, yay –
A) First up, today’s OXmas – “XMAS CHALLENGE DAY 6! NHL 22 What the Heck is Hockey Challenge | Tournament of Champions 2022!” Mike finally gets to participate in the Christmas Challenges! :D And he and Jane went head to head in NHL 22, basically just – playing a game of hockey against each other! The challenge here was that neither of them knew anything about playing hockey. They were both eagerly looking for the buttons to fight each other the whole game. XD Andy and Luke played the spectator roles, and – being slightly more versed in the minutia of the game – gave Mike and Jane useful tidbits of information. Such as the reason for the game being stopped in its tracks so often being that everyone had to buy beer and watch Chevy commercials. XD Admittedly, some actual hockey knowledge was passed on as well, such as the definition of “icing” (it’s a foul where you shoot from over the middle dividing line without anyone else touching the puck – it’s okay so long as you score a goal, but if you don’t, then it’s a face off). Anyway, Mike took the Boston Bruins and Jane took the Toronto Maple Leafs, and the two of them battled it out for Christmas supremacy! Who won?
Mike! :D With two goals to Jane’s one. Though I think Jane actually had the puck more – his goalie was just DOING THE WORK, let me tell you. But yes, despite much trial, two players being sent to the “sin bin” (aka the penalty box), and Andy and Luke OPENLY FAVORING Jane and her team, Mike was able to persevere and cause enough chaos on the ice for a Christmas point. w00! Glad to see one of my favorite OXBoxers on the board. :D
B) Then it was over to the Subs for yesterday’s Call Me Kevin – “This game completely changes as you play it,” AKA Kevin plays Pony Island! This is a very bizarre game where – I guess you’re a soul trapped in a Hell Arcade, constantly playing variations on the Pony Island game that Satan has made to try to steal your soul. Satan is constantly trying to make the game too hard for you to play so you’ll give him your soul to win, while another trapped soul is trying to help guide you to the core files so you can delete them, hack Satan’s system, and free everyone trapped in the soul arcade. Via various hacking puzzle minigames where you have to fit the right symbols to the right boxes. It’s – very bizarre, to say the least. XD And Kevin didn’t make things easier by being his usual troll self to the AIs, including accidentally naming himself “Itwouldtakefartoolongtotellyou” when he was trying to be mysterious to the helpful soul, and using his own YouTube name as an example of something vile – only to get fake-messaged by a Steam friend in the game as a result. He was genuinely freaked out by that. XD After playing through many variations of Pony Island within Pony Island (including hacking a laser and wings into the original variation; finding a nice color version with a little helpful devil tutorial character; a “3-D” version that was in first person; and a text adventure version), though, he was able to delete all the core files and lead most of the souls trapped in the arcade to freedom as ponies charging their way through the final level, blasting Satan with lasers as they did a core system dump. And then uninstalling the game because it was the only way to free his lost soul friend. Said it was the best game he played that he immediately uninstalled. XD Very weird game (and with lots of flashing thanks to all the fake pixelly corruption in it), but it was a fun time, and makes me want to watch him play more weird indie games. Wonder how he’d react to Doki Doki Literature Club. . .
C) And just managed to squeeze in the latest little short video from Josh – “SKETCHY: Daisy Duck!” Specifically Daisy playing Belle in Mickey’s Christmas Carol, as tis the Season. :p Josh loves the short but is quite sour he can’t find a non-cleaned-up version (he hates when animation studios use “noise reduction” on old cartoons to try and clean up pencil lines for HD versions – it never looks good to him, and he LOVES those old more pencil-y cartoons, so – yeah). Poor guy – at least his drawing came out well!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Super-check – I ended up spending my extra free time this afternoon doing a proper dash-and-tags catch-up on Victor Luvs Alice so I wouldn’t have that hanging over my head so much this weekend, yay! :) And I went ahead and just queued up my original post on Straight No Chaser’s “Christmas Can-Can” song for Song Saturday right before my workout, because a) I never did find the version of the thread on SNC I was talking about yesterday that I wanted to reblog and b) I FINALLY HEARD “CHRISTMAS CAN-CAN” ON THE RADIO TODAY. Now THAT was a shocker! A good one, though.
As for Valice Multiverse, not much happening over there – just one ask reply to launch into the queue. *shrug* Fine by me!
And now I have spent too long searching a tumblr friend's blog for some posts with Valicery gifs I saw a while back and must go to bed. XD One more day of work to get through. . .hopefully the period won't make it too much of a slog. Night all!
Work – All right – I ended up lugging my coworker gifts in, only to be told we WEREN’T doing the gift exchange today (apparently my coworker texted my OLD phone # and never noticed it didn’t go through *sigh*), but the day was fairly quiet, with mostly duplicates again and letting someone know that their pledge was fully paid so don’t worry about your credit card just yet; and having that phone call with the credit card people. Seems like one of the big issues may be FINALLY fixed, hooray. *sigh* Now we just need to get to all the others. . . On the real plus side, though, they let us all out early so the ones going to the Christmas Party could get there on time, so I had some extra time to myself this afternoon, yay. Every little bit helps, especially on my period.
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, finishing off the Live Oxventure “Tome Sweet Tome!” Something I forgot to mention when Sprat created his ankylosaurus was that Dob told Merilwen to use Stone Shape to seal it inside the cave it busted out of, and Merilwen, done with his bullshit and refusal to listen, used a spell she DID have prepared to Polymorph him into an actual bee. There was a brief discussion of what the hell his hit points were in this form, resolved when Johnny found the stats for a giant wasp (13 HP, apparently). XD
Anyway, I picked it up with Prudence, under time pressure from Johnny, choosing to cast Hunger of Hadar on Sprat and his dino. XD To be fair, she tried to sell it as sort-of banishing Sprat to another horrible dimension – then Dob saved her by pointing out ankylosaurs were really big, so she just cast the spell on the dinosaur. It only took five points of cold damage, though, and managed to whip its club-like tail at Corazon – Uncanny Dodge halved the damage he took, but it was still eleven points off the old health bar. Egbert then asked Merilwen if she minded if he went first (they’d tied in their initiative order), and when she said no –
Did exactly what I thought he would do and whipped out Command, the one spell he actually uses properly! XD And his one-word command to Sprat? “BEHAVE!” Sprat, unfortunately, rolled a six, and thus was forced to do just that. Corazon got him to hand over the book as he cried, and he and Egbert were very firm that he couldn’t keep the ankylosaurus. And when Sprat started arguing, Corazon wrote in the book that Sprat’s butt fell off. XD He did reattach it, but only after getting a promise from Sprat he’d be good – and he said the kid could keep the sweets, apparently because he didn’t want to be seen as TOO responsible or anything. Dob, still as a bee, lectured Sprat on stealing, and Sprat said that he’d only stolen the book because the wizard was drunk and he never used the book for anything fun. Corazon ended up AGREEING with the kid, though Dob told him they shouldn’t argue in front of Sprat. So they turned around and argued instead. XD Corazon, of course, didn’t even want to give the book back, which Prudence agreed with – however, one look at the absolute TERROR on Johnny’s face made some of the more moral members of the group go “it’s kind of overpowered” and convince the others to give it back to the wizard. Sprat asked if they could at least make a ladder to the surface so they didn’t have to tromp through the sewage, as they ruined his way in – Corazon wrote in that a golden jewel-encrusted elevator appeared. Sprat called it “gaudy” and was threatened with butt-removal. XD Dob got de-Polymorphed and asked if Merilwen could create some sort of cool Stone Shape doorway for them to leave through, and Corazon wrote in that she could cast the spell so she could just do it already. XD
Anyway, everyone ended up back on the surface, and the Oxventurers returned the book to Trashsack (already at least slightly drunk), pretending that they’d been cleaning it for him. They also ended up covering for Sprat, probably because he WAS just a bored kid, saying that they’d found it in the sewer and maybe he’d just lost it down there. Trashsack was very grateful (if not fond of the smell), and so allowed everyone to make their one written wish and one drawn wish. Egbert asked for the dowager widow to be revived (as she HAD been eaten by the T-Rex), and for the love of her life to exist, because he genuinely felt bad about what had happened to her. And then he asked for the wizard to draw a giant burrito, because he was really hungry. XD Prudence got herself a nice new umbrella drink, and – when the wizard refused to draw Cthulhu climbing out of the ocean to enact the end of days – a giant squid burrito. Corazon asked for a million doubloons (despite already having written that in the book after getting it away from Sprat), and his drawing was of a rocking Beeples concert that everyone was having fun at (Johnny was just like “really?”). Merilwen merely asked for a new animal friend in a future adventure for her written wish, and got the wizard to draw her that awesome bow that was SUPPOSED to be her good loot from “Silent Knight,” hooray! :D And Dob asked the wizard to write “dream wedding” for him and his fiancee in the book (whether this would be an actual “dream wedding” or just a dream OF a wedding was for the book to decide), and – at Egbert’s suggestion – had the wizard draw up an 80-tier wedding burrito-cake, to be delivered the day of the actual nuptials. Pretty typical Oxventurer stuff.
And then everyone had to run for cover as Corazon’s gold began raining down. XD And so the adventure ended with the town covered in gold pieces, the opening act of the Beeples concert playing, and a random ankylosaurus in the sewers. XD Just a typical day for our favorite Oxventurers!
That still left me with about twelve minutes to kill, though, so I watched something else that YouTube has been recommending to me every so often when I go on a Smiler binge – an old Blue Peter segment on The Smiler, showing the host coming around as it was built and occasionally helping in a TV-friendly way (holding the tube for the concrete, being allowed to put in one small section of track via crane with a trained operator, that sort of thing), then taking one of the first rides on it with his co-host! Said co-host enjoyed it much more than he did, and that was proven scientifically by recording their faces – apparently the main host showed a lot of anxiety on the ride, while his co-host was smiling almost all the way. XD Fun little segment, and filled the time nicely!
2. Continue writing gift fics: Check – did this before my workout again, editing up SlyCooper’s fic featuring the Ventrue version of their Ducktales OC Phillianne Trophy having a good long rant about certain sidequests (namely the ones featuring the Brotherhood of the Ninth Circle) over the phone with her “ghoulfriend” Zan, and Zan noting with amusement how it’s only fair she listen to Philli’s bitching after Philli listened to all her bitching about her awful old boss Glomgold. Took a little poking to get to the word count I wanted, but I think it came out nicely. :)
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check, though it was a bit close, as I didn’t start the YouTubes until a bit late (despite the extra time I had this afternoon – I spent that on something else, as you shall see below). But I did get both Subs and OXmas in, yay –
A) First up, today’s OXmas – “XMAS CHALLENGE DAY 6! NHL 22 What the Heck is Hockey Challenge | Tournament of Champions 2022!” Mike finally gets to participate in the Christmas Challenges! :D And he and Jane went head to head in NHL 22, basically just – playing a game of hockey against each other! The challenge here was that neither of them knew anything about playing hockey. They were both eagerly looking for the buttons to fight each other the whole game. XD Andy and Luke played the spectator roles, and – being slightly more versed in the minutia of the game – gave Mike and Jane useful tidbits of information. Such as the reason for the game being stopped in its tracks so often being that everyone had to buy beer and watch Chevy commercials. XD Admittedly, some actual hockey knowledge was passed on as well, such as the definition of “icing” (it’s a foul where you shoot from over the middle dividing line without anyone else touching the puck – it’s okay so long as you score a goal, but if you don’t, then it’s a face off). Anyway, Mike took the Boston Bruins and Jane took the Toronto Maple Leafs, and the two of them battled it out for Christmas supremacy! Who won?
Mike! :D With two goals to Jane’s one. Though I think Jane actually had the puck more – his goalie was just DOING THE WORK, let me tell you. But yes, despite much trial, two players being sent to the “sin bin” (aka the penalty box), and Andy and Luke OPENLY FAVORING Jane and her team, Mike was able to persevere and cause enough chaos on the ice for a Christmas point. w00! Glad to see one of my favorite OXBoxers on the board. :D
B) Then it was over to the Subs for yesterday’s Call Me Kevin – “This game completely changes as you play it,” AKA Kevin plays Pony Island! This is a very bizarre game where – I guess you’re a soul trapped in a Hell Arcade, constantly playing variations on the Pony Island game that Satan has made to try to steal your soul. Satan is constantly trying to make the game too hard for you to play so you’ll give him your soul to win, while another trapped soul is trying to help guide you to the core files so you can delete them, hack Satan’s system, and free everyone trapped in the soul arcade. Via various hacking puzzle minigames where you have to fit the right symbols to the right boxes. It’s – very bizarre, to say the least. XD And Kevin didn’t make things easier by being his usual troll self to the AIs, including accidentally naming himself “Itwouldtakefartoolongtotellyou” when he was trying to be mysterious to the helpful soul, and using his own YouTube name as an example of something vile – only to get fake-messaged by a Steam friend in the game as a result. He was genuinely freaked out by that. XD After playing through many variations of Pony Island within Pony Island (including hacking a laser and wings into the original variation; finding a nice color version with a little helpful devil tutorial character; a “3-D” version that was in first person; and a text adventure version), though, he was able to delete all the core files and lead most of the souls trapped in the arcade to freedom as ponies charging their way through the final level, blasting Satan with lasers as they did a core system dump. And then uninstalling the game because it was the only way to free his lost soul friend. Said it was the best game he played that he immediately uninstalled. XD Very weird game (and with lots of flashing thanks to all the fake pixelly corruption in it), but it was a fun time, and makes me want to watch him play more weird indie games. Wonder how he’d react to Doki Doki Literature Club. . .
C) And just managed to squeeze in the latest little short video from Josh – “SKETCHY: Daisy Duck!” Specifically Daisy playing Belle in Mickey’s Christmas Carol, as tis the Season. :p Josh loves the short but is quite sour he can’t find a non-cleaned-up version (he hates when animation studios use “noise reduction” on old cartoons to try and clean up pencil lines for HD versions – it never looks good to him, and he LOVES those old more pencil-y cartoons, so – yeah). Poor guy – at least his drawing came out well!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Super-check – I ended up spending my extra free time this afternoon doing a proper dash-and-tags catch-up on Victor Luvs Alice so I wouldn’t have that hanging over my head so much this weekend, yay! :) And I went ahead and just queued up my original post on Straight No Chaser’s “Christmas Can-Can” song for Song Saturday right before my workout, because a) I never did find the version of the thread on SNC I was talking about yesterday that I wanted to reblog and b) I FINALLY HEARD “CHRISTMAS CAN-CAN” ON THE RADIO TODAY. Now THAT was a shocker! A good one, though.
As for Valice Multiverse, not much happening over there – just one ask reply to launch into the queue. *shrug* Fine by me!
And now I have spent too long searching a tumblr friend's blog for some posts with Valicery gifs I saw a while back and must go to bed. XD One more day of work to get through. . .hopefully the period won't make it too much of a slog. Night all!
