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Stuffiness Update: Not Good
Mar. 6th, 2024 11:49 pmWeirdly enough, it cleared up RIGHT before I went to bed last night -- but then today it started getting worse again, to the point where I took an Advil to help with the congestion tonight before dessert. The annoying thing is that it isn't even PROPER stuffiness, really -- it's a build-up of that really watery mucus. >( Part of me is wondering if it's related to the weather, or if I caught that weird mini-cold Mom got over the weekend, or. . . *sigh* We'll see how I feel in the morning! As it stands, here's the to-do list:
Work – A bit of a better day today – Talky Coworker had to leave early for a doctor’s appointment, meaning I got to hear less of her yapping on, and there were fewer demands on my time (still some, but they were a little more spaced out, which I appreciated). AND some of the credit card bullshit got resolved, which was nice. The big problem today was my commutes – there was an accident JUST past my exit on the way in, meaning I got hung up on the highway and ended up being a little late; then on the way home the traffic was, again, bad because of rain – AND I had to stop for gas, which made me even later. Meh. And I don’t expect Thursday to be better, because the weather’s supposed to be utterly miserable tomorrow. . .we’ll see what happens!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike, finishing the last proper episode of Oxventure: Deadlands, “Amat Victoria Curam!” With four out of the five in the gang having successfully beaten their particular challenges, it was time for Edie to face whatever Victoria had for her Pestilence-wise. And what Victoria had for her was the reliving of a traumatic memory –
Specifically, she dropped Edie (now feeling quite ill, like the horrible disease Dr. Harker had managed to inflict on her briefly was back) into her childhood home, to relive the death of her brother Eddie. D: Edie, hearing his screams upstairs, ran to help him, and found him lying on the floor bleeding, with a weird, somewhat indistinct monster standing over him with dripping fangs and claws. A furious Edie passed her fear roll (declaring she wasn’t scared anymore), pulled out her “Mare’s Leg” (aka the sawed-off Winchester), went up to it, and blasted the damn thing.
Cue Andy asking “Garnet, what’s your toughness?” D: Yes, as it turned out, Victoria had decided that if she couldn’t kill these idiots, maybe Edie could, and was using the memory to make Edie attack Garnet (thinking that she was, of course, trying to defend her brother). Garnet took a NASTY wound to the chest, and Andy allowed Edie a Notice roll – she rolled well enough to realize that her brother looked more like her memory of him than an actual flesh-and-blood person, but that didn’t stop her from continuing to battle the monster. The creature got her down with a terrible swipe and smacked her hard in the chest, inflicting a wound – Edie retaliated with a nasty kick –
On which she kept getting sixes on her wild dice, to Ellen’s absolute horror. Cue poor Garnet getting FLUNG across the room and taking TWO Wounds, taking her total up to three and putting her right at the threshold for getting incapacitated or worse. Fortunately Johnny, who knows the game better, told Jane that she could spend a benny to Soak Wounds even if it wasn’t “her turn,” and at the cost of a couple of bennies, she managed to soak one, making her a little less horribly maimed. Even more fortunately, Edie chose on her next turn to focus on getting her brother out of there before the monster could get her again, grabbing his ankle and trying to pull him to safety –
And in the “real world,” the others saw Victoria’s leg jerk as Edie did that. Delacy decided to try and reach out to her as best he could, and on a frankly amazing Performance check (amazing because he didn’t have that skill and was rolling at a penalty – the dice were VERY kind), told her to keep doing what she did last! (Silas was like “Maybe also tell her she’s attacking Garnet?” XD) Edie was only too happy to try and get her brother to safety, telling him she could get him out of there –
Only for her “brother” to start insisting that she had to kill the monster and to get off him. Edie realized that wasn’t her brother – and on a good Notice roll, managed to spot Victoria’s face behind his insubstantial form. Furious and sobbing (as you might expect – I was just as angry as she was!), she grabbed her Winchester and shot him –
Breaking the Pestilence ring and bringing them all back into the real world – most of them Wounded (except, hilariously, Nate), but still ready and willing to fight. Victoria too was ready to fight, still wielding the power of her Conquest ring, and thus the final battle begun! With Delacy getting dealt the JOKER in his initiative, scoring everyone a benny and giving himself plus two to all his rolls. :D He promptly decided, now that he could actually DRAW the damn gun again, to aim a shot straight at Victoria’s ring – a called shot whose penalty was overriden by the plus two. He thus rolled –
And got a total of fucking twenty-six. Basically a success with seven raises. O.O So he NAILED the shot, but unfortunately his damage was only ten (since you only ever get ONE additional D6 to roll for damage). It was enough to shake Victoria – and reveal that she very much did NOT want that ring broken, given her reaction. Unfortunately, no one got to act on that information as she got to go next, summoning in a blinding white horse, pulling out a flaming sword –
And going for Silas. Who’d already only JUST passed a Fear check to deal with the presence of the horse. XD Fortunately, Victoria’s attack wasn’t great, and she only just grazed his arm, leaving him shaken – and with blood-covered palms, which was creepy. O.o (Though, as Mike noted, this did explain the whole deal of the Red Hand Gang’s name.) Happily for everyone, the next person up in the turn order was Edie, who was naturally still VERY pissed at Victoria for using her dead brother’s face to manipulate her. So she copied Delacy’s action of taking a shot at Victoria’s ring to see if she could bust it –
And rolled well enough to put a crack in it! It wasn’t fully shattered, but she’d definitely done some damage. The turn order then passed to Nate, who took a look at what was happening, and what was going on with the ring –
And decided to let the devil out in order to get plus six to all his rolls. Which, he wasn’t sure what was going to happen if he did that in the damn Deadlands, but fortunately all that happened was him losing a point of Dominon. (Well, I say “Fortunately,” that brought him down to five, meaning his control over his own body was slowly slipping away even more, but it could have been worse.) He thus fired on the ring with his special fancy Harrowed gun (twice, in fact) –
And did so much damage with his bonuses he just SHATTERED the fucking thing. Victoria’s horse vanished into the ether (well, to everyone but Silas, who failed a Notice roll to make sure it was truly gone and kept seeing afterimages of it on the back of his eyelids XD), and she collapsed to the ground, disbelieving, horrified, and dejected as she tried to scrabble up the remains of the rings. Delacy was just about ready to walk up and shoot her in the head to put her out of all of their misery –
When Nate intervened, saying that while he totally understood the sentiment – he too wanted to shoot her in the head – if it was PUNISHMENT that Delacy wanted to inflict, maybe the best way to go about it would be to leave her alive to live in this ranch – ruined, alone, and penniless. Delacy considered it for a moment, then said that Nate made a good case, put away Rooster, and began looking around to find the money. As it turned out, there was a safe in the corner, and despite Victoria saying it wasn’t locked, Nate went ahead and ripped the door off it anyway, just because he could. XD Delacy gathered up all the money, and Garnet demanded to know how they were going to get out of the Deadlands – Victoria revealed she had been the one sealing the portal, and that they could now pass through it freely. Edie TRIED to stomp one last time on the rings because, again, how dare Victoria use her dead brother’s face (Silas: “I’m glad that we haven’t become vindictive after all of this”), but ended up just sort of kicking them around on a failed Athletics roll, and Garnet ended up scooping up the remains to take with them just in case they could be reforged or something (especially after seeing how Victoria’s eyes lit up with hope on the word “reforged.”) The group thus took their leave, back into the real world of Croyt’s Wrath, where Delacy started handing out the money. . .
And then, realizing that once he did, the gang didn’t really have any reason to stay together, started going, “you know, I could sort of be everyone’s bank. . .” Fortunately, Edie had a better plan – having the group join her on her monster hunts! Delacy of course would be the perfect apprentice for her with his already-amazing shooting skills; Garnet could work with her in the saloons when not doing magic; she traveled mostly by rail, which would be perfect for keeping Silas away from horses; and Nate, as a Harrowed, would be a good way to lure monsters into a false sense of security during hunts (Nate: “I was prepared to stick around just to keep Delacy company, but I’m also open to being bait.” XD) And so the campaign ended with the group walking off into the night, presumably to go bully a doctor into healing them (especially Garnet). XD An excellent little series, though I was genuinely infuriated by Edie getting tricked into attacking Garnet – good thing she and Nate got to share taking her down! Now I just have to watch the Q&A episode, and I’ll be all caught up on Oxventure – just in time for the next One-Shot Wonder. XD Though first I have to watch Gray’s latest compilation. . .
2. Work on the OT3 Week Valicer prompts: Check – redid the “cool kid, jock, nerd” High School AU Valicer prompt, swapping the POV of the piece from Smiler to Victor – and, just like yesterday’s offering, the change in perspective really helped the story, letting me focus more on Victor’s anxieties over why someone as cool as Smiler would hang out with him, while also revealing that he’d just had a dream about them (and Alice) last night that was making the conversation even more awkward in his head. :p Once again, had a bit near the beginning that gave me trouble until I was able to make it word right, but overall, a vast improvement over what I had before. :) Yaaay!
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – another GrayStillPlays-only day, with “Barely possible stunts in GTA 5!” This was – well, I PRESUME an Alex Torture Board, though Gray kept referring to “they” when he talked about the board creators. . .on the other hand, Gray generally lets us know if someone else other than Alex is making things, so maybe he meant something like Alex and Petey. . .anyway, it was a torture board – one focused making Gray perform a series of nearly-impossible stunts! Specifically, the stunts were –
I. Sticky Bomb On A Windmill – Gray had to take a motorcycle, drive it across an elevated road, jump between the spinning blades of TWO wind turbines, throw a sticky bomb onto one of the blades, then detonate it to kill or at least maim a woman standing on a tiny platform behind the turbines to remove the wall on the other half of the course preventing him from reaching the checkpoint. This took a LOT of tries, and in the end I think Gray actually landed the bomb on the pole of the turbine rather than a blade – but it did the job regardless when he detonated it, and he was able to claim his first checkpoint!
II. Barely Possible Wall Ride – Gray had to choose a car and do an ABSURDLY long wall ride made up of tug boat walls attached to various bridges around the dock area, wall-riding on fences and I-beams and such while winding his way around the area and shooting though multiple shipping container thumbnail holes before kissing the water and leaping onto the ending platform. After some initial failures with the pink-and-orange super-car, Gray went for the pinkest super-car and started driving – took him a GOOD long while to get through the entire course, particularly the water part with its sharp turn right at the end. But as he always says, the best super power is a high pain tolerance, and he was able to fight through his own mental agony to make it through!
III. Impossible Osiris Stunt Course – Gray had an Osiris super-car with which to complete a frankly terrifying stunt course, consisting of multiple controlled falls and fake crashes; a variety of wall ride spirals, loops, and ribbons, often featuring thumbnail holes; a few wall grinds, ALSO featuring thumbnail holes; and a fake crash onto a wall ride IMMEDIATELY into a thumbnail hole, and then almost immediately followed by him having to shoot a TINY gap at the end to make the ending platform with the next checkpoint. I just – this whole course was a lesson in madness and muscle memory, with Gray having to try over and over to make all the various loops and twists and turns without fucking up (the first time he came within sight of the end, only to not make the platform, he made some very concerning noises). But he did it in the end, and it all looked VERY cool. :)
IV. Barely Possible T-20 Stunt – And finally, Gray had a green T-20 with which to complete – well, kind of a similar course to the above one, only a bit more focused on wall riding (though there were some grinds and a couple of controlled falls through some posts, which Gray liked very much). A bit anticlimatic after the lunacy that was the previous stunt course, but it was still good, and Gray was still thrilled to see the actual END after making the ending platform. XD
*nods approvingly* Good stuff! Much as I like the challenge boards, it’s always nice to see something new, like the chaos boards and these stunt boards. Hopefully more will be forthcoming!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – just had Victor Luvs Alice to worry about tonight, and all I really had to do was reset the queue speed to one and find a Song Saturday. Trawling through the depths of my tag brought up “Mad About You” by Belinda Carlisle, which I decided I liked still on a relisten, so that got thrown into the queue. :) All set here! Now I just have to find some time to finish up some of the stuff in my drafts. . .
Not too bad -- glad my day at work was SOMEWHAT less stressful, and I'm keeping up with my writing and suchlike. :) And now it's time to go to bed and hope I genuinely feel better in the morning. I mean, I have sick time to burn if necessary, but I'd rather not deal with this stupid watery stuffiness any longer than I have to. *sigh* Night all!
Work – A bit of a better day today – Talky Coworker had to leave early for a doctor’s appointment, meaning I got to hear less of her yapping on, and there were fewer demands on my time (still some, but they were a little more spaced out, which I appreciated). AND some of the credit card bullshit got resolved, which was nice. The big problem today was my commutes – there was an accident JUST past my exit on the way in, meaning I got hung up on the highway and ended up being a little late; then on the way home the traffic was, again, bad because of rain – AND I had to stop for gas, which made me even later. Meh. And I don’t expect Thursday to be better, because the weather’s supposed to be utterly miserable tomorrow. . .we’ll see what happens!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike, finishing the last proper episode of Oxventure: Deadlands, “Amat Victoria Curam!” With four out of the five in the gang having successfully beaten their particular challenges, it was time for Edie to face whatever Victoria had for her Pestilence-wise. And what Victoria had for her was the reliving of a traumatic memory –
Specifically, she dropped Edie (now feeling quite ill, like the horrible disease Dr. Harker had managed to inflict on her briefly was back) into her childhood home, to relive the death of her brother Eddie. D: Edie, hearing his screams upstairs, ran to help him, and found him lying on the floor bleeding, with a weird, somewhat indistinct monster standing over him with dripping fangs and claws. A furious Edie passed her fear roll (declaring she wasn’t scared anymore), pulled out her “Mare’s Leg” (aka the sawed-off Winchester), went up to it, and blasted the damn thing.
Cue Andy asking “Garnet, what’s your toughness?” D: Yes, as it turned out, Victoria had decided that if she couldn’t kill these idiots, maybe Edie could, and was using the memory to make Edie attack Garnet (thinking that she was, of course, trying to defend her brother). Garnet took a NASTY wound to the chest, and Andy allowed Edie a Notice roll – she rolled well enough to realize that her brother looked more like her memory of him than an actual flesh-and-blood person, but that didn’t stop her from continuing to battle the monster. The creature got her down with a terrible swipe and smacked her hard in the chest, inflicting a wound – Edie retaliated with a nasty kick –
On which she kept getting sixes on her wild dice, to Ellen’s absolute horror. Cue poor Garnet getting FLUNG across the room and taking TWO Wounds, taking her total up to three and putting her right at the threshold for getting incapacitated or worse. Fortunately Johnny, who knows the game better, told Jane that she could spend a benny to Soak Wounds even if it wasn’t “her turn,” and at the cost of a couple of bennies, she managed to soak one, making her a little less horribly maimed. Even more fortunately, Edie chose on her next turn to focus on getting her brother out of there before the monster could get her again, grabbing his ankle and trying to pull him to safety –
And in the “real world,” the others saw Victoria’s leg jerk as Edie did that. Delacy decided to try and reach out to her as best he could, and on a frankly amazing Performance check (amazing because he didn’t have that skill and was rolling at a penalty – the dice were VERY kind), told her to keep doing what she did last! (Silas was like “Maybe also tell her she’s attacking Garnet?” XD) Edie was only too happy to try and get her brother to safety, telling him she could get him out of there –
Only for her “brother” to start insisting that she had to kill the monster and to get off him. Edie realized that wasn’t her brother – and on a good Notice roll, managed to spot Victoria’s face behind his insubstantial form. Furious and sobbing (as you might expect – I was just as angry as she was!), she grabbed her Winchester and shot him –
Breaking the Pestilence ring and bringing them all back into the real world – most of them Wounded (except, hilariously, Nate), but still ready and willing to fight. Victoria too was ready to fight, still wielding the power of her Conquest ring, and thus the final battle begun! With Delacy getting dealt the JOKER in his initiative, scoring everyone a benny and giving himself plus two to all his rolls. :D He promptly decided, now that he could actually DRAW the damn gun again, to aim a shot straight at Victoria’s ring – a called shot whose penalty was overriden by the plus two. He thus rolled –
And got a total of fucking twenty-six. Basically a success with seven raises. O.O So he NAILED the shot, but unfortunately his damage was only ten (since you only ever get ONE additional D6 to roll for damage). It was enough to shake Victoria – and reveal that she very much did NOT want that ring broken, given her reaction. Unfortunately, no one got to act on that information as she got to go next, summoning in a blinding white horse, pulling out a flaming sword –
And going for Silas. Who’d already only JUST passed a Fear check to deal with the presence of the horse. XD Fortunately, Victoria’s attack wasn’t great, and she only just grazed his arm, leaving him shaken – and with blood-covered palms, which was creepy. O.o (Though, as Mike noted, this did explain the whole deal of the Red Hand Gang’s name.) Happily for everyone, the next person up in the turn order was Edie, who was naturally still VERY pissed at Victoria for using her dead brother’s face to manipulate her. So she copied Delacy’s action of taking a shot at Victoria’s ring to see if she could bust it –
And rolled well enough to put a crack in it! It wasn’t fully shattered, but she’d definitely done some damage. The turn order then passed to Nate, who took a look at what was happening, and what was going on with the ring –
And decided to let the devil out in order to get plus six to all his rolls. Which, he wasn’t sure what was going to happen if he did that in the damn Deadlands, but fortunately all that happened was him losing a point of Dominon. (Well, I say “Fortunately,” that brought him down to five, meaning his control over his own body was slowly slipping away even more, but it could have been worse.) He thus fired on the ring with his special fancy Harrowed gun (twice, in fact) –
And did so much damage with his bonuses he just SHATTERED the fucking thing. Victoria’s horse vanished into the ether (well, to everyone but Silas, who failed a Notice roll to make sure it was truly gone and kept seeing afterimages of it on the back of his eyelids XD), and she collapsed to the ground, disbelieving, horrified, and dejected as she tried to scrabble up the remains of the rings. Delacy was just about ready to walk up and shoot her in the head to put her out of all of their misery –
When Nate intervened, saying that while he totally understood the sentiment – he too wanted to shoot her in the head – if it was PUNISHMENT that Delacy wanted to inflict, maybe the best way to go about it would be to leave her alive to live in this ranch – ruined, alone, and penniless. Delacy considered it for a moment, then said that Nate made a good case, put away Rooster, and began looking around to find the money. As it turned out, there was a safe in the corner, and despite Victoria saying it wasn’t locked, Nate went ahead and ripped the door off it anyway, just because he could. XD Delacy gathered up all the money, and Garnet demanded to know how they were going to get out of the Deadlands – Victoria revealed she had been the one sealing the portal, and that they could now pass through it freely. Edie TRIED to stomp one last time on the rings because, again, how dare Victoria use her dead brother’s face (Silas: “I’m glad that we haven’t become vindictive after all of this”), but ended up just sort of kicking them around on a failed Athletics roll, and Garnet ended up scooping up the remains to take with them just in case they could be reforged or something (especially after seeing how Victoria’s eyes lit up with hope on the word “reforged.”) The group thus took their leave, back into the real world of Croyt’s Wrath, where Delacy started handing out the money. . .
And then, realizing that once he did, the gang didn’t really have any reason to stay together, started going, “you know, I could sort of be everyone’s bank. . .” Fortunately, Edie had a better plan – having the group join her on her monster hunts! Delacy of course would be the perfect apprentice for her with his already-amazing shooting skills; Garnet could work with her in the saloons when not doing magic; she traveled mostly by rail, which would be perfect for keeping Silas away from horses; and Nate, as a Harrowed, would be a good way to lure monsters into a false sense of security during hunts (Nate: “I was prepared to stick around just to keep Delacy company, but I’m also open to being bait.” XD) And so the campaign ended with the group walking off into the night, presumably to go bully a doctor into healing them (especially Garnet). XD An excellent little series, though I was genuinely infuriated by Edie getting tricked into attacking Garnet – good thing she and Nate got to share taking her down! Now I just have to watch the Q&A episode, and I’ll be all caught up on Oxventure – just in time for the next One-Shot Wonder. XD Though first I have to watch Gray’s latest compilation. . .
2. Work on the OT3 Week Valicer prompts: Check – redid the “cool kid, jock, nerd” High School AU Valicer prompt, swapping the POV of the piece from Smiler to Victor – and, just like yesterday’s offering, the change in perspective really helped the story, letting me focus more on Victor’s anxieties over why someone as cool as Smiler would hang out with him, while also revealing that he’d just had a dream about them (and Alice) last night that was making the conversation even more awkward in his head. :p Once again, had a bit near the beginning that gave me trouble until I was able to make it word right, but overall, a vast improvement over what I had before. :) Yaaay!
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – another GrayStillPlays-only day, with “Barely possible stunts in GTA 5!” This was – well, I PRESUME an Alex Torture Board, though Gray kept referring to “they” when he talked about the board creators. . .on the other hand, Gray generally lets us know if someone else other than Alex is making things, so maybe he meant something like Alex and Petey. . .anyway, it was a torture board – one focused making Gray perform a series of nearly-impossible stunts! Specifically, the stunts were –
I. Sticky Bomb On A Windmill – Gray had to take a motorcycle, drive it across an elevated road, jump between the spinning blades of TWO wind turbines, throw a sticky bomb onto one of the blades, then detonate it to kill or at least maim a woman standing on a tiny platform behind the turbines to remove the wall on the other half of the course preventing him from reaching the checkpoint. This took a LOT of tries, and in the end I think Gray actually landed the bomb on the pole of the turbine rather than a blade – but it did the job regardless when he detonated it, and he was able to claim his first checkpoint!
II. Barely Possible Wall Ride – Gray had to choose a car and do an ABSURDLY long wall ride made up of tug boat walls attached to various bridges around the dock area, wall-riding on fences and I-beams and such while winding his way around the area and shooting though multiple shipping container thumbnail holes before kissing the water and leaping onto the ending platform. After some initial failures with the pink-and-orange super-car, Gray went for the pinkest super-car and started driving – took him a GOOD long while to get through the entire course, particularly the water part with its sharp turn right at the end. But as he always says, the best super power is a high pain tolerance, and he was able to fight through his own mental agony to make it through!
III. Impossible Osiris Stunt Course – Gray had an Osiris super-car with which to complete a frankly terrifying stunt course, consisting of multiple controlled falls and fake crashes; a variety of wall ride spirals, loops, and ribbons, often featuring thumbnail holes; a few wall grinds, ALSO featuring thumbnail holes; and a fake crash onto a wall ride IMMEDIATELY into a thumbnail hole, and then almost immediately followed by him having to shoot a TINY gap at the end to make the ending platform with the next checkpoint. I just – this whole course was a lesson in madness and muscle memory, with Gray having to try over and over to make all the various loops and twists and turns without fucking up (the first time he came within sight of the end, only to not make the platform, he made some very concerning noises). But he did it in the end, and it all looked VERY cool. :)
IV. Barely Possible T-20 Stunt – And finally, Gray had a green T-20 with which to complete – well, kind of a similar course to the above one, only a bit more focused on wall riding (though there were some grinds and a couple of controlled falls through some posts, which Gray liked very much). A bit anticlimatic after the lunacy that was the previous stunt course, but it was still good, and Gray was still thrilled to see the actual END after making the ending platform. XD
*nods approvingly* Good stuff! Much as I like the challenge boards, it’s always nice to see something new, like the chaos boards and these stunt boards. Hopefully more will be forthcoming!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – just had Victor Luvs Alice to worry about tonight, and all I really had to do was reset the queue speed to one and find a Song Saturday. Trawling through the depths of my tag brought up “Mad About You” by Belinda Carlisle, which I decided I liked still on a relisten, so that got thrown into the queue. :) All set here! Now I just have to find some time to finish up some of the stuff in my drafts. . .
Not too bad -- glad my day at work was SOMEWHAT less stressful, and I'm keeping up with my writing and suchlike. :) And now it's time to go to bed and hope I genuinely feel better in the morning. I mean, I have sick time to burn if necessary, but I'd rather not deal with this stupid watery stuffiness any longer than I have to. *sigh* Night all!
