Rainy Icky Tuesday

It didn't rain ALL day, but it rained enough, with periods of really heavy rain here and there that of course makes everything even soggier than it was before and increases the chance of river flooding. *sigh* And of course my work day was pretty miserable too, though at least the afternoon was a little better than yesterday (I didn't lose pretty much all of my before-workout chill-out time to bullshit, for starters) --

Work – Another lousy day, I’m annoyed to say – I got in and almost immediately got swamped by e-mails asking me to look up potential duplicate donors in the caging batches from the credit card company (like, seriously, these things just came in in a huge wave), then my boss e-mailed me about a double charge on the site that needed to be refunded, then I was taking a bunch of phone calls about IRA distributions and setting up pledges and of course the credit card stuff, and THEN a guy called about his automatic payments still coming out on his pledge despite him having paid it off, only I couldn’t call him back because for whatever reason whenever I dialed his number the phone refused to ring. . . Basically it was a day where everyone seemed to want me for something all the time and it was just very irritating. Plus I had a bad ride home because of the weather (traffic just always gets exponentially worse whenever it rains around here), and came home to discover the front step on the porch had started coming away from the house, so Dad was all upset about having to fix that. And then the kitchen sink started leaking after we did the dinner dishes, though fortunately THAT was a quick fix. But yeah – not a great day at all. I do not have high hopes for the rest of the week. >(

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with Oxventure: Deadlands – “Amat Victoria Curam!” We picked up right after Nate and Delacy had earned bennies for joking about what they would have pretended destroying if they’d accepted the rings (Nate: “Ohio!” Delacy: “Oh hi too Nate, now what continent did you destroy?” XD), with the room they were in suddenly going pitch black and everyone getting frozen in place. Everyone, that is, except Silas, who heard a voice calling him out into the yard. Silas happily answered the call –

And found himself facing none other than Benjamin Bellows, former Horseman of War, now a rotting, Harrowed wreck of himself under Victoria’s control. He informed Silas that they were going to have a duel, and asked if Silas had anything to say – Silas replied that Bellows’s teeth made him look awful horsey. XD And we know what Silas thinks of horses. . .anyway, Andy explained how dueling worked to Mike (three rounds, action card each round, on the final turn they each reveal their best card), and he started dealing while the pair began posturing – Silas introducing Bellows to his guns Justice and More Justice (Bellows: “Pleased to meet them – this is a gun”); while Bellows attempted to shake Silas by pointing out how easily he murdered his friend Nate (Silas, passing the spirit roll: “I don’t have any friends!” Edie was like “Ouch” despite being frozen). And then the clock tower on the nearby barn struck noon, and the pair revealed their cards –

And Silas won with a King! He pulled both his guns (being a Two-Gun Kid) and fired into – well. Silas INITIALLY aimed for the heart, but when Andy asked him to confirm that, Ellen decided to show Mike the injury table so he knew all the different places you could aim for. Mike took a look, went “oh!” –

And Silas immediately ended up shooting Bellows in the dick. XD Because, yes, you CAN in fact shoot someone in the unmentionables in this game. Nate attempted to joke to Delacy about how Bellows wouldn’t be feeling anything there in the morning (much like Nate himself most mornings), but because they were still frozen, it ended up just being internal monologue. XD

Now, being shot in the dick hurt Bellows, certainly, but unfortunately Harrowed are only vulnerable to being shot in the head, so he was still in the fight – and managed, despite falling to the ground, to get off a good shot on Silas and inflict a Wound in his shoulder. Silas chose to Soak the Wound with a benny, and then retaliated, aiming for the throat to try and sever Bellows’s head from his body (as Johnny desperately tried tapping the decorative skull near them to get Mike’s attention, and Luke remarked that Bellows hadn’t liked getting shot in the throat the first time either XD). The first gun misfired, but the SECOND got a success with two raises on its shot, and it indeed removed Bellows’s head from the rest of him. Silas promptly went up and booted it, because, well, it looked fun when Garnet had kicked that tumbleweed. XD The head ended up slamming into the invisible barrier across the entrance to Victoria’s ranch and exploded in a shower of gore – and back in the main room, the ring for War on Victoria’s finger cracked! One down!

Speaking of Garnet, it was her turn next, with Victoria stranding her in a featureless black plane with a ghoul – and a distinct LACK of power points, leaving her feeling horribly famished as her magic drained away. Victoria was like “we’ll see how you do without your tricks” as the ghoul shambled up to Garnet –

Aaand cue Garnet pulling out her Colt Peacemaker, because she’s not dumb enough not to carry a gun along with her cards. XD The resultant fight did not go well for the ghoul – they managed to get in one attack with their claws, Wounding Garnet – but not only did she successfully Soak the wound, she ALSO passed the Vigor check necessary to avoid getting poisoned with its paralytic poison. Andy was very grumpy about not getting to look it up. XD She, on the other hand, managed to overcome her fear of both the creature and her lack of power and just keep blasting it, ending with a shot right between the eyes that exploded its head (covering her in white ichor, but a small price to pay to look totally badass). And back in the ranch house, the Famine ring cracked as well. . .

But Victoria was far from done – and for her next trick, she freed both Nate AND Delacy in one go. And then snuck into Nate’s head and had a little chat with his manitou, before informing Nate that she’d learned he’d let the devil out recently. . .which led to the devil coming out AGAIN as the manitou managed to wrest control of Nate’s body from him (Johnny spent ONE benny to try and prevent this from happening, because while they didn’t want Nate to attack his adopted nephew-figure, they also didn’t want to risk ALL their bennies on it) –

And went to attack Delacy with Nate’s special gun. D: Delacy, for his part, sat down on the floor, pulled out some jerky, and informed Victoria that there was NO WAY he was going to attack Nate. A decision he stuck by even as the Manitou slashed him with the big old scythe under the gun’s barrel for a nasty wound. Instead, as Nate struggled with his manitou (losing Dominion, the thing that allowed Nate to stay in control and, well, NATE, each round), Delacy told Victoria that if she was capable of ending the world all by herself, she would have done it by now, and that she must need them. So he was willing to accept her surrender. XD Victoria of course refused to surrender, but a good Persuasion roll on Delacy’s part (helped along by a few bennies) introduced a bit of doubt into her, and into the manitou –

Which allowed Nate to seize back control, because that doubt removed the nasty minus four penalty from his spirit rolls that Andy had inflicted on him! (Not a moment too soon either, as he’d JUST rolled snake eyes, and with his Hindrance “Trouble Magnet: Major,” that would have caused some chaos.) He thus proceeded to point his gun AT HIS OWN HEAD and told the manitou that he was aware that it wanted control, and it would probably get it eventually, but not if he didn’t have a head any more. Andy had him roll Persuasion, but waived the normal minus two penalty because he was talking to his own manitou, and of course devils aren’t put off by Harrowed, they love ‘em –

And succeeded! :D The manitou drew back (promising “soon”), and Nate dropped his gun and gave Delacy a hug, patting him down and trying to bandage his wound with meat rope while Delacy, embarrassed, said he was fine. XD I ended with Death’s ring having just cracked – tomorrow, we wrap things up with Edie’s Pestilence fight, and see what happens between the gang and Victoria once they’ve broken all the rings!

2. Work on the OT3 Week Valicer prompts: Check – as I hinted at last week, I ended up completely redoing the “childhood friends” story I wrote (where Victor, Alice, and Smiler all meet as small children at a party held by Dean Liddell’s university), changing it so that the whole thing was from SMILER’S POV instead of Victor’s. And trust me, it was the right call – the story worked a HELL of a lot better as a look into a little Smiler’s head as they went to get snacks for themselves and their new friend Alice (camping out under one of the banquet tables and planning on building a card castle), only to stumble upon Victor being scolded by his mother for basically existing, be reminded of their own lousy relationship with their father, and decide to bring Victor into their new friend group. :) Sometimes you just gotta switch things up in a major way to make a story work! Case in point, tomorrow I’ll be rewriting the “cool kid, jock, nerd” High School AU prompt that was originally from Smiler’s perspective from Victor’s. . .we’ll see if that helps that one too!

3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – even managed to get in a bonus video –

A) First up, something I spotted in my Recommendeds while putting my laundry away before my workout – “We Need to Talk About Oxventure…” on the official Oxventure channel. My first thought, as it had been such a shit day, was “Great, they’re announcing the end of Oxventure.” And indeed, Johnny’s first reveal in the video was that the next season of Oxventure was “The Oxventurer’s Guild: The Final Season. . .”

Which was immediately qualified by “but we’re not stopping playing D&D because we have spent FAR too much on dice; we’re just wrapping up the main plot arc of these characters and this setting.” Yes, while this WILL be the end for the Oxventurer’s Guild we’ve come to know and love (hopefully in the sense of “they get to retire” instead of “they all die”), the gang is preparing a NEW campaign in a new setting (one made by Johnny themselves). AND they’ve got some new One-Shot Wonders coming up, including one debuting this Friday, where Luke DMs an all-kobold game. XD So yes, sad news for those of us who love Egbert, Dob, Merilwen, Prudence, and Corazon, but not as sad as it COULD have been. And just in time for me to wrap up the Deadlands stuff too. . .

B) Then, tonight, we had from the Subs “SCREEN TIME: Drive-Away Dolls Review” by Josh Way! This was Josh talking about Ethan Coen’s latest movie (made WITHOUT his brother Joel but WITH his wife Tricia Cooke), which is apparently about two lesbian friends (as in, they are out lesbians but they themselves are not a couple, they’re just buds) in 1999 who decide to take a trip down to Tallahassee, Florida, for reasons, and end up accidentally taking a “drive-away” car – that is, a car that was SUPPOSED to be picked up by these criminal types and taken down to Tallahassee to drop off whatever is inside it. Shenanigans, of course, ensue. Josh’s review was – mixed, as he did enjoy the movie (it was fun and wacky and had a lot of the marks of the Coen Brothers – though it was also very ribald, to the point where an elderly couple left early on in the screening he was attending) but he felt it was weirdly amateurish for such a famous and acclaimed director. Certain things don’t seem to hang together as well as they could, certain transitions seem a little weird – stuff like that. Again, Josh liked it, but he doesn’t know how much he can recommend it. But then again, he often qualifies that the movies he sees are “you’ll know if you like it from the description” sorts, so – if you liked that description up there, maybe check it out! *shrug*

C) And finally, after my writing (and, once again, later than I would have liked), we had GrayStillPlays and “When you put 100 kids on a deserted island,” aka another episode of Happy Wheels Tuesday! :D We started with the traditional bottle flip (which had things like “hacker with paid hacks” and “extreme+” and the “hole of gods,” and which also put the tiny “win” ledge right above the larger “death” ledge), then moved on through a Minecraft parkour course (with Pogo Guy having to ascend from underground to the winning flat atop some floating chunks of earth, avoiding lava, a crossbow-wielding skeleton, a creeper, and a crossbow-wielding witch); the Random Ramp (a big-ass log ramp to launch you over a field of explosives – there was also a “secret win” consisting of trying to get two coins without being blown up, which Gray spent a LOT of time getting blown up to get); a blue-themed rope swing with very short ropes and a secret death area (which Gray lost no time in investigating, because he is a slut for secrets, even deadly ones); a Coke & Mentos ball throw in which you throw a Mentos into a can of Coke in hopes of a soda fountain (it was a bit of a delayed reaction, but it came through in the end); a “don’t move” board that was basically all just loop-de-loops (Gray joked that kids today don’t do loop-de-loops like they used to on account of all the cell phones); an “eight-bit” laser dodge box with poor Pogo Guy having to dodge ALL the harpoons (and the lasers were VERY unforgiving – this one took Gray more than a few tries); a really intense Harpoon Course that Bike Dad had to pedal through at like Mach 10 to survive (Gray was VERY impressed, exclaiming about how cool it was as he got the coin and promptly smashed to pieces against the back wall), a “new” bottle run where Bike Dad and Tom had to make it across the bottles – and somehow NOT get murdered by the spikes and various weaponry at the very end (Gray did win it, but he had no idea HOW – I’m not sure either O.o); a hard ball fall which Gray didn’t find very hard at all (though he was pleased to discover on a second go a secret tunnel that let you circumvent the entire board); a 9e14% Impossible board, with a secret DOUBLE impossible area beneath (where you had to get the coin in the middle of a box of crossbows all firing at you – Gray took a few tries to snag that, then got exploded a few times before working out how to get himself minced in such a way that he was still alive when he hit the spiky win); a short demo of a zombie survival board (where everyone throwing themselves at Bike Dad only managed to murder themselves via ax and acid pit full of butcher’s cleavers respectively); a multi-ending green madness board where Gray had to do things like outrun homing mines and a meteor to get the “outrun” ending, or go up to the top of the board, crawl over a bunch of TVs topped by spikes, and get yeeted by a fan to get the “sky high” ending (Gray delighted in finding every ending, no matter how deadly); and a Lord Of The Flies-inspired board by Dylan Snider, who made Bike Dad and Tom pedal from one end of the island to another, avoiding spear-wielding children and outrunning a volcanic eruption to make it to the escape raft (well, BIKE DAD made it, Tom got, uh, speared rather painfully. And then run over). :D I do love when Gray ventures into the chaotic nonsense of Happy Wheels – hopefully we’ll get regular episodes again soon!

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check –

Victor Luvs Alice – Put my two Chill Valicer Save House Upgrade posts, a A:MR gifset featuring Alice in Hatter’s Domain, and a Corpse Bride photoset of various shots throughout the movie for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday respectively. Will figure out Song Saturday tomorrow, when I have to reset the queue speed from two to one again!

Valice Multiverse – One anon ask from someone saying they don’t like hospitality because it’s the domain of Noted Sex Pest God Zeus, with Cuddlepile!Alice being like “surely he wasn’t in charge of that” and Victor having to confirm that yes, he was. XD I agree with Alice, though, the better choice for the job would have definitely been Hestia. Much less sex pesting there.

So yeah, at least I was fairly more productive tonight than yesterday, which I'm glad about. And now it is time for me to go to bed and prepare for another day at work. . .maybe, because I've started to get stuffed up tonight, and I'm not sure if it's because of the weather shitting on my sinuses or something else. O.o We'll have to see how I feel in the morning, I suppose. . .night all!