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Yeah, I've been fairly grumpy for -- well, mostly hormonal reasons. The "Work" section of the to-do list should give you more detail --
Work – Another quiet day of mostly roster maintenance (obituaries and such), with a couple of credit card calls (I have passed the 1,000 mark!) and trying to clear up some more credit card bullshit. I just wish getting to work and leaving it hadn’t been full of little annoyances apparently designed to frustrate someone PMSing pretty hard. >( Fortunately the damn red curse itself showed up after supper, so hopefully my moodiness shall abate somewhat in the near future.
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with Oxventure Presents: Blades In The Dark – “First Flight Of The Sparrowhawk!” With Barnaby and Hicks thoroughly puzzled by the balloon, Kasimir went over to chat with the Railjacks and ask them about what these races were actually like. Fairly lawless, apparently, though this particular race has a “no firearms” rule attached (Kasimir was pretty dismissive about that one being followed, as was the Railjack he was talking to) – which only meant that people had to be more inventive with their traps! The Railjack was only too happy to show off their barbed netting (great for bumping into other balloons and deflating them) to Kasimir as an example. Kasimir praised it as a good job, then quietly admitted that he and his crew needed help actually GETTING their balloon together because it wasn’t their strong point. Would the fellow be willing to lend a hand in exchange for not being targeted once in the air? The Railjack loudly and theatrically scoffed, then quietly bargained for a Coin’s worth of cash – Kasimir got him down to a half, and the dude came over to “mock” their efforts while rapidly giving Kasimir the instructions needed to actually get the balloon up and ready for action. Kasimir passed these along to Barnaby and Hicks once the Railjack had returned to his fellows (Barnaby actually doing his best to follow instructions despite his natural inclinations), and they got the balloon up, inflated, and ready to go with its special little propeller for actually, you know, making it race. Luke even let them choose the color for it – dark turquoise with copper banding, as per Barnaby/Mike. :) Barnaby pulled Kasimir aside during the process and mentioned that this would be the perfect getaway vehicle from the Dimmer Sisters’ place – why didn’t they, when they won the race (because obviously they were going to WIN), offer to trade their share of the winnings for the balloon? Kasimir’s plan had been to just steer the balloon away from the race course and steal it outright, but he agreed with Barnaby that Hicks being in the balloon with them at the time would make that difficult and agreed to the “win the race, keep the balloon” plan instead. :p
And then, courtesy of a time skip, Percy showed up! Barnaby went out to meet him and told him about how he and Kasimir would be joining him for the race, and a delighted Percy pulled out his team uniforms – white jackets with “The Aeronaughty Boys” embroidered in gold on the back. Even BARNABY was like “cripes.” XD Hicks was immediately like “I am neither of those things and will not wear this;” Barnaby said “Oh, I’ll put mine on once we’re in the air, I promise I won’t ‘forget’;” and Kasimir was like “look, these are my father’s jeans, I promised him I’d wear them racing and this jacket really clashes” – cue Percy pulling out matching, very tight trousers. XD Fortunately said trousers were no match for Kasimir’s leg brace, and he did promise to wear the jacket at the finish line. You know, under his own jacket. XD Fortunately, Percy didn’t seem to catch that part.
With everyone present and accounted for, Hank gathered up the various gangs to go over the course and the rules. The course was basically a big old upside-down U over the upper portion of the city, with the important waypoints being a specific tower in Brightstone that they HAD to pass on the right (otherwise, it’s immediate disqualification), the Lord Mayor’s residence in Whitecrown (show the mayor what you think of him, but beware the guards!), the lighthouse on the lower part of Whitecrown (again, pass it on the right, and it’s tradition to have someone slap it on the way past), and then over Silkshore to the finish line by the spark tower in Barrowcleft. The balloons must always have a crew of four – a navigator atop the balloon, a pilot in charge of actually steering the propeller screw, a burner to work the, well, burner for altitude, and a bouncer in charge of fending off the other balloons with a long pole – though nobody’s roles had to be fixed, and the loss of a person meant you either couldn’t take off at all or were disqualified. The “no firearms” rule was repeated, but beyond that, anything went! With that sorted, Hank said that the race would begin in about twenty minutes, and for everyone to get ready.
And Barnaby and Kasimir did indeed get ready – to do some sabotage! Kasimir said he had some ideas in mind, but as JOHNNY was blanking, he turned the floor over to Barnaby – who actually had some good ideas, to Kasimir’s pleased surprise! Namely, he could sneakily pour some of his overproofed rum into someone’s balloon burner to cause some truly awful things to happen with their flame when they got it hot enough; they could sabotage the long poles used to bounce the other balloons away so they’d break once they were used; and they could find a way to flip at least one of the barbs on the Railjack’s netting over so it was wearing away at their own balloon as they flew. Kasimir admitted his major plan had been to just knock a guy out on one of the other teams and get them disqualified right away, which Barnaby assured him was still good. XD They split up to accomplish their sabotages – Barnaby going around offering rum to everyone in the spirit of camaraderie and such, seeing who would let him get close to their balloon, while Kasimir went off to “inspect” the poles. With the help of a hidden razorblade between his fingers, Kasimir was able to score four of the poles subtly enough that they’d probably snap after a proper poking – though given his Prowl roll (to keep the blade hidden from a watching Hank) was only a 4, he took longer than he wanted doing it and thus couldn’t ground any of the other teams by taking out a member. Shame.
As for Barnaby – well, he couldn’t get near the Red Sashes or the Lampblacks (though he took comfort in the fact they also didn’t consider him a threat), but the Billhooks were interested in his drink – he managed to convince them all to do a cheer in the basket of their balloon (the “Bloody Murder,” painted appropriately), and with a 4 on a Finesse roll, managed to empty what was left in his bottle of overproofed rum into the burner. Though the complication meant that he straight-up dropped the bottle itself in there too. XD Undaunted, he pulled out some more booze (Mike called his character a “walking drinks cabinet,” bemoaning that he’d ALREADY spent two of his light load on alcohol) and went over to the Railjacks to see if they were interested in drink – the navigator, the most no-nonsense woman in the entire world, intercepted him and told him to keep his flammable spirits away from her open flame. Barnaby convinced her to have a tipple and tell him a bit about the race, and she obliged him. . .then he decided to push his luck and get her to drink more. Luke told him that he could try to Sway her, but it was from a desperate position because she was obviously no party girl –
Cue Barnaby getting double 6s, aka a CRIT. XD Cue Barnaby managing to get the navigator drunk (not that you’d know it from her demeanor), get her to show him her job in action atop the balloon, and sneakily flip a few barbs over while she was distracted pretending to navigate. Excellent time for a crit there, Barnaby! And, hilariously, the score hasn’t even started yet – I left it with Luke about to make the engagement roll to determine their place in the race. XD I guess we’ll see how things go now that the proper action is kicking off!
2. Continue writing “The Joker And The Queen”: Check – everyone’s been musing about their childhoods and how they found out about their powers, and I realized that I’d forgotten to include Air at ALL during this nonsense, so I quickly made sure she had a speaking role again. XD Talking about how her parents found her on the ceiling of her room after a particularly enthusiastic game of “Airplane.” XD It’s fun to gradually flesh everyone out more over the course of this rough draft! I gotta design them all in Sims 4 too so I know for sure what they look like. . .maybe post-patch!
Oh, and on a related note, got the request from Newt for his gift fic coming up at the end of the month – he’s gotten heavily into Lockwood and Co., the new series on Netflix which is about a trio of teen ghost hunters in an alternate Britain plagued by the damn things, so he’s wanting ghosts and ghost hunting if possible. I’ll have to see what inspiration strikes me!
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check, but only just – mostly because GrayStillPlays uploaded LATE today! I guess the video took a while to process and edit. . .which is unsurprising, as it was another GTA V Alex Torture Board. XD “Testing Cars vs the HEAVIEST objects in GTA 5,” to be precise! The conceit of this one was that Gray had to drag a heavy container across a course consisting of the Up-And-Down Pulls (up and down increasingly steep and tall hills), the Snow Pulls (a curving stretch of snowy road where he had to go across two sharp sideways turns without falling off), the Ohio Road Pulls (a bunch of extremely uneven road sections layered onto top of each other which literally dropped into a fake train derailment (complete with explosive barrels), which finally ended in an extremely glitchy horror train car being repeatedly flung at him – oh, and there were a couple of wind turbines too), the I’m Not Even Sure Pulls (an upside-down helicopter that you had to knock the tail off of, a bunch of people’s heads embedded in the road, some stadium seating with spectators to plow over, and a strange ramp that glitched and out of existence), the “Stay A Little Longa” Pull (featuring the world’s glitchiest mob of Satans), the Popping Pulls (more those exploding balloons, this time made big and embedded into the road to try and throw him off), the Resistance Pulls (where Gray had to force Mom’s minivan and Fiddler the Clown’s car out of his way down a narrow gap while they pushed back with extra force), the Floating Pull (where Gray had to BOOK IT over a bridge of floating cars), the YEET Pull (where Gray had to jump a gap with the provided ramp – or, alternatively, wallride his way around the gap and out the other side), and the Magnet Pull (the last one at the end, where Gray had to fight the pull of giant magnets to reach the winning ramp). He could use a car until it blew up, and to get them all back, he had to fully reset the board. He tried out a variety of pick-up trucks and military vehicles, and even discovered a few work-arounds (for example, Alex hadn’t put invisible walls around the snowy section, so if Gray wanted, he could circumvent the entire first part of the board by driving around it, then drive onto the second sideways arc of the snowy bit and proceed from there), but in the end, only one yellow military transport had the power to make it all the way. Where Gray discovered that Alex had lied about needing the container to win. He is going to send him a strongly-worded letter. XD
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – decided to go ahead and post my other set of Valicer Not-Incorrect Quotes (this one clothing-themed) for Friday, so I reset the Victor Luvs Alice queue speed to one and chucked that and the “Contagious” Song Saturday post into the queue behind the “Valicer In The Dark” one. :) Hooray for keeping it simple!
And in non-tumblr news, got Ace’s latest FF.net PM answered and answered a comment from the author of “Beneath A Broken Sky,” so those two things are out of the inbox! I should be able to get to you tomorrow, Moose!
And that's about it! Mostly because I don't have the mental energy for anything more. Time to stumble off to bed and drag myself through my two remaining work days. Bleh. Night all!
Work – Another quiet day of mostly roster maintenance (obituaries and such), with a couple of credit card calls (I have passed the 1,000 mark!) and trying to clear up some more credit card bullshit. I just wish getting to work and leaving it hadn’t been full of little annoyances apparently designed to frustrate someone PMSing pretty hard. >( Fortunately the damn red curse itself showed up after supper, so hopefully my moodiness shall abate somewhat in the near future.
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with Oxventure Presents: Blades In The Dark – “First Flight Of The Sparrowhawk!” With Barnaby and Hicks thoroughly puzzled by the balloon, Kasimir went over to chat with the Railjacks and ask them about what these races were actually like. Fairly lawless, apparently, though this particular race has a “no firearms” rule attached (Kasimir was pretty dismissive about that one being followed, as was the Railjack he was talking to) – which only meant that people had to be more inventive with their traps! The Railjack was only too happy to show off their barbed netting (great for bumping into other balloons and deflating them) to Kasimir as an example. Kasimir praised it as a good job, then quietly admitted that he and his crew needed help actually GETTING their balloon together because it wasn’t their strong point. Would the fellow be willing to lend a hand in exchange for not being targeted once in the air? The Railjack loudly and theatrically scoffed, then quietly bargained for a Coin’s worth of cash – Kasimir got him down to a half, and the dude came over to “mock” their efforts while rapidly giving Kasimir the instructions needed to actually get the balloon up and ready for action. Kasimir passed these along to Barnaby and Hicks once the Railjack had returned to his fellows (Barnaby actually doing his best to follow instructions despite his natural inclinations), and they got the balloon up, inflated, and ready to go with its special little propeller for actually, you know, making it race. Luke even let them choose the color for it – dark turquoise with copper banding, as per Barnaby/Mike. :) Barnaby pulled Kasimir aside during the process and mentioned that this would be the perfect getaway vehicle from the Dimmer Sisters’ place – why didn’t they, when they won the race (because obviously they were going to WIN), offer to trade their share of the winnings for the balloon? Kasimir’s plan had been to just steer the balloon away from the race course and steal it outright, but he agreed with Barnaby that Hicks being in the balloon with them at the time would make that difficult and agreed to the “win the race, keep the balloon” plan instead. :p
And then, courtesy of a time skip, Percy showed up! Barnaby went out to meet him and told him about how he and Kasimir would be joining him for the race, and a delighted Percy pulled out his team uniforms – white jackets with “The Aeronaughty Boys” embroidered in gold on the back. Even BARNABY was like “cripes.” XD Hicks was immediately like “I am neither of those things and will not wear this;” Barnaby said “Oh, I’ll put mine on once we’re in the air, I promise I won’t ‘forget’;” and Kasimir was like “look, these are my father’s jeans, I promised him I’d wear them racing and this jacket really clashes” – cue Percy pulling out matching, very tight trousers. XD Fortunately said trousers were no match for Kasimir’s leg brace, and he did promise to wear the jacket at the finish line. You know, under his own jacket. XD Fortunately, Percy didn’t seem to catch that part.
With everyone present and accounted for, Hank gathered up the various gangs to go over the course and the rules. The course was basically a big old upside-down U over the upper portion of the city, with the important waypoints being a specific tower in Brightstone that they HAD to pass on the right (otherwise, it’s immediate disqualification), the Lord Mayor’s residence in Whitecrown (show the mayor what you think of him, but beware the guards!), the lighthouse on the lower part of Whitecrown (again, pass it on the right, and it’s tradition to have someone slap it on the way past), and then over Silkshore to the finish line by the spark tower in Barrowcleft. The balloons must always have a crew of four – a navigator atop the balloon, a pilot in charge of actually steering the propeller screw, a burner to work the, well, burner for altitude, and a bouncer in charge of fending off the other balloons with a long pole – though nobody’s roles had to be fixed, and the loss of a person meant you either couldn’t take off at all or were disqualified. The “no firearms” rule was repeated, but beyond that, anything went! With that sorted, Hank said that the race would begin in about twenty minutes, and for everyone to get ready.
And Barnaby and Kasimir did indeed get ready – to do some sabotage! Kasimir said he had some ideas in mind, but as JOHNNY was blanking, he turned the floor over to Barnaby – who actually had some good ideas, to Kasimir’s pleased surprise! Namely, he could sneakily pour some of his overproofed rum into someone’s balloon burner to cause some truly awful things to happen with their flame when they got it hot enough; they could sabotage the long poles used to bounce the other balloons away so they’d break once they were used; and they could find a way to flip at least one of the barbs on the Railjack’s netting over so it was wearing away at their own balloon as they flew. Kasimir admitted his major plan had been to just knock a guy out on one of the other teams and get them disqualified right away, which Barnaby assured him was still good. XD They split up to accomplish their sabotages – Barnaby going around offering rum to everyone in the spirit of camaraderie and such, seeing who would let him get close to their balloon, while Kasimir went off to “inspect” the poles. With the help of a hidden razorblade between his fingers, Kasimir was able to score four of the poles subtly enough that they’d probably snap after a proper poking – though given his Prowl roll (to keep the blade hidden from a watching Hank) was only a 4, he took longer than he wanted doing it and thus couldn’t ground any of the other teams by taking out a member. Shame.
As for Barnaby – well, he couldn’t get near the Red Sashes or the Lampblacks (though he took comfort in the fact they also didn’t consider him a threat), but the Billhooks were interested in his drink – he managed to convince them all to do a cheer in the basket of their balloon (the “Bloody Murder,” painted appropriately), and with a 4 on a Finesse roll, managed to empty what was left in his bottle of overproofed rum into the burner. Though the complication meant that he straight-up dropped the bottle itself in there too. XD Undaunted, he pulled out some more booze (Mike called his character a “walking drinks cabinet,” bemoaning that he’d ALREADY spent two of his light load on alcohol) and went over to the Railjacks to see if they were interested in drink – the navigator, the most no-nonsense woman in the entire world, intercepted him and told him to keep his flammable spirits away from her open flame. Barnaby convinced her to have a tipple and tell him a bit about the race, and she obliged him. . .then he decided to push his luck and get her to drink more. Luke told him that he could try to Sway her, but it was from a desperate position because she was obviously no party girl –
Cue Barnaby getting double 6s, aka a CRIT. XD Cue Barnaby managing to get the navigator drunk (not that you’d know it from her demeanor), get her to show him her job in action atop the balloon, and sneakily flip a few barbs over while she was distracted pretending to navigate. Excellent time for a crit there, Barnaby! And, hilariously, the score hasn’t even started yet – I left it with Luke about to make the engagement roll to determine their place in the race. XD I guess we’ll see how things go now that the proper action is kicking off!
2. Continue writing “The Joker And The Queen”: Check – everyone’s been musing about their childhoods and how they found out about their powers, and I realized that I’d forgotten to include Air at ALL during this nonsense, so I quickly made sure she had a speaking role again. XD Talking about how her parents found her on the ceiling of her room after a particularly enthusiastic game of “Airplane.” XD It’s fun to gradually flesh everyone out more over the course of this rough draft! I gotta design them all in Sims 4 too so I know for sure what they look like. . .maybe post-patch!
Oh, and on a related note, got the request from Newt for his gift fic coming up at the end of the month – he’s gotten heavily into Lockwood and Co., the new series on Netflix which is about a trio of teen ghost hunters in an alternate Britain plagued by the damn things, so he’s wanting ghosts and ghost hunting if possible. I’ll have to see what inspiration strikes me!
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check, but only just – mostly because GrayStillPlays uploaded LATE today! I guess the video took a while to process and edit. . .which is unsurprising, as it was another GTA V Alex Torture Board. XD “Testing Cars vs the HEAVIEST objects in GTA 5,” to be precise! The conceit of this one was that Gray had to drag a heavy container across a course consisting of the Up-And-Down Pulls (up and down increasingly steep and tall hills), the Snow Pulls (a curving stretch of snowy road where he had to go across two sharp sideways turns without falling off), the Ohio Road Pulls (a bunch of extremely uneven road sections layered onto top of each other which literally dropped into a fake train derailment (complete with explosive barrels), which finally ended in an extremely glitchy horror train car being repeatedly flung at him – oh, and there were a couple of wind turbines too), the I’m Not Even Sure Pulls (an upside-down helicopter that you had to knock the tail off of, a bunch of people’s heads embedded in the road, some stadium seating with spectators to plow over, and a strange ramp that glitched and out of existence), the “Stay A Little Longa” Pull (featuring the world’s glitchiest mob of Satans), the Popping Pulls (more those exploding balloons, this time made big and embedded into the road to try and throw him off), the Resistance Pulls (where Gray had to force Mom’s minivan and Fiddler the Clown’s car out of his way down a narrow gap while they pushed back with extra force), the Floating Pull (where Gray had to BOOK IT over a bridge of floating cars), the YEET Pull (where Gray had to jump a gap with the provided ramp – or, alternatively, wallride his way around the gap and out the other side), and the Magnet Pull (the last one at the end, where Gray had to fight the pull of giant magnets to reach the winning ramp). He could use a car until it blew up, and to get them all back, he had to fully reset the board. He tried out a variety of pick-up trucks and military vehicles, and even discovered a few work-arounds (for example, Alex hadn’t put invisible walls around the snowy section, so if Gray wanted, he could circumvent the entire first part of the board by driving around it, then drive onto the second sideways arc of the snowy bit and proceed from there), but in the end, only one yellow military transport had the power to make it all the way. Where Gray discovered that Alex had lied about needing the container to win. He is going to send him a strongly-worded letter. XD
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – decided to go ahead and post my other set of Valicer Not-Incorrect Quotes (this one clothing-themed) for Friday, so I reset the Victor Luvs Alice queue speed to one and chucked that and the “Contagious” Song Saturday post into the queue behind the “Valicer In The Dark” one. :) Hooray for keeping it simple!
And in non-tumblr news, got Ace’s latest FF.net PM answered and answered a comment from the author of “Beneath A Broken Sky,” so those two things are out of the inbox! I should be able to get to you tomorrow, Moose!
And that's about it! Mostly because I don't have the mental energy for anything more. Time to stumble off to bed and drag myself through my two remaining work days. Bleh. Night all!
