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Grumbly Tuesday
Apr. 2nd, 2024 11:53 pmYeah, it wasn't a great day today -- made even worse by the fact that I'm suspecting I'm starting to get PMS. My period HAS been trending earlier and earlier in the month, after all. . . I guess we'll see what happens on that front. In the meantime, here's the summary:
Work – Pretty shitty first day back on the job, unfortunately – while the phones weren’t too busy, I had a lot to catch up on, and I had to constantly help my coworker catch up on the GLs because our processing company made some very interesting decisions on how to process a few checks, and – yeah. It was a bit of a struggle to make sure we knew where everything was and if it had all been deposited or not. *heavy sigh* But we got through it, I helped her get some gifts on, tried to keep up with all my e-mails, and managed to get in all my break time (even if my lunch ended up being late). We’ll see what happens tomorrow!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with the Oxventure One-Shot “BATTLE ROYALE!” We picked up in Round Two of combat, with Dob preparing to Thunderwave both Merilwen (now in the form of a Fathomer) and Egbert, as they were both close to him on account of Dob having mind-controlled Egbert into attacking Merilwen (turning her into the Fathomer with his cursed mace), who’d been attacking him as a bear. He geared up to do some serious damage –
Aaaand both Fathomwen and Egbert made their saving throws, meaning they took half damage and weren’t pushed away by the concussive force. Dob was like “this fight is not going how I expected at all.” XD And then Fathomwen, on her turn, turned invisible, pushed him down, and ran away. XD That brought things around to Prudence, who (after mugging for the Clairvoyance orb “camera” some more) decided to do an Eldritch Blast trick shot and hit Egbert and Dob with crossed arms. As per usual, one hit and one miss, with Egbert getting blasted pretty good and Dob escaping because he was prone on the ground. Egbert, quite irritated at this point, decided to grab a bomb, cast Divine Smite on it, and shove it in Dob’s pocket before leaping away. Johnny initially ruled against Egbert putting Divine Smite on the bomb (it’s normally reserved for melee weapons), but Mike reminded them that they’d allowed it in the live show where he accidentally murdered the very person they were meant to protect (the “Play Fight” episode, if you’re curious), and Johnny had to bow to the power of “past me allowed it because it was funny.” XD And it didn’t actually end up making that much difference anyway, as a poor roll (which Johnny and Luke interpreted as Dob having very TIGHT pockets) and Dob more than making his Dex save to throw himself away from the bomb meant he only took half damage from the bomb. Basically, this fight is just a comedy of errors for poor Dob and Egbert. XD
Round Three: The suffering Dob called upon Corazon to honor their alliance, and Corazon actually did pop out of his hidey-hole and attempt to stab Egbert – only to miss because Egbert has a pretty sweet 17 AC. And THEN he rolled poorly on his attempt to hide again and everyone ended up spotting him trying to hide in a gopher hole. XD Dob spend his turn Curing his Wounds (and getting back a hefty 25 hit points), standing up, and hurrying away from Egbert (going for the middle of the arena), while Fathomwen spent hers getting up nice and close to Corazon and using Vampiric Touch on him, inflicting a nice blast of necrotic damage and healing some of the damage she took from the mace. This took us back to Prudence, who continued posing for the camera –
Then cast Hungry Hungry Hadar centered on Corazon, catching both Merilwen AND Egbert in the “blast zone” of outer darkness and milky tentacles. I might remind you at this point that Prudence hadn’t fucking moved – she was still on her starting plinth. XD She happily ended her turn, declaring she had no use for bonus actions, and poor Egbert started his by taking some cold damage before he got out of the sphere of evil (fortunately he was near the edge of it). He, like Dob, decided defense was the better offense and focused on Curing his Wounds, which, fair. People have been putting the pain on him. He also attempted to shove Dob over, only to fail the roll and just slap Dob’s chest. XD The comedy of errors continued!
Round Four: Corazon was naturally not keen at remaining in the big cold sphere of Hadary doom, being Vampirically Touched by Fathomwen so after taking his cold damage, he attacked Fathomwen to get her off him (doing about 16 damage), then dashed out of the sphere so he’d have the oomph he needed to make it through the edge. Dob gave him a thumbs-up as he watched him escape the sphere, then asked Johnny what Fathomwen was wearing. After learning it was mostly leather, he chose to instead cast Heat Metal on Egbert – but then remembered “wait, dragonborn, fire resistant” and instead chose to Shatter Egbert. Putting his hand right above the poor guy’s heart as he cast the spell. Egbert took a hefty load of damage from the blast of high-pitched concussive force – then, just to add insult to injury, Dob shoved him over before running toward Prudence (again, who hadn’t moved). This brought things around to Fathomwen, who followed Corazon in dashing out of the horrible Hunger of Hadar area –
And then hit him with an Eldritch Blast, as that was something she could do now. XD One hit, one miss, but the hit was pretty solid –
At least, until Corazon Uncanny Dodged it, because Rogues are broken. XD He still took eight points of damage, but he was only LIGHTLY singed instead of heartily blasted, as Fathomwen had hoped. Prudence took one look at this, went “okay folks, HERE’S an Eldritch Blast” and managed to hit Fathomwen full-force with both beams –
Taking her out of the fight. O.O Yeah, turns out that was the end of her hit points, leaving her unconscious on the floor. Jane was slightly horrified because she’d EXPECTED Fathomwen to just turn back into Merilwen if she emptied her hit points (as that’s how it works with Wildshape), but nope, the fact that the cursed mace inflicts a permanent transformation meant that Merilwen was just done. First “fatality” everyone! Egbert, seeing this, immediately went, “healing myself again, thank you” while Dob wondered if this was worth all the free meat. Especially since Dob’s a vegetarian. XD Anyway, Egbert finished healing himself and dragged himself to his feet to get farther away from Dob. . .
Round Five: Only to find out that hadn’t done him any good, because Corazon immediately ran up and sabered him for a good twenty points of damage. And then successfully hid from him (if no one else) via throwing up a sheet and running. XD Dob decided to keep on the “destroying Egbert” train, but found himself vacillating between another Shatter and Sleep (so he could try to roll Egbert off the mountain) – he ended up going for Sleep as the softer, vaguely more whimsical option (Luke was getting a little desperate for those). I left it with Prudence sweeping up Fathomwen’s unconscious body and demanding of the invisible audience “are you not entertained?!” (to which the reply was a hearty “yup!”) – we’ll see if she takes care of Egbert or tries to take out another target tomorrow! We’re actually pretty close to the end of this one – soon a hot dog champion shall be crowned. . .
2. Continue writing “Start At The Beginning. . .Sort Of”: Check – got another page or so on the trio exploring their future lair, with Alice discovering a very fancy four-poster bed with a stained glass canopy (that is very much inspired by the ones that come with The Sims 4: Realm Of Magic XD), which led to a brief discussion about how Victor’s parents weren’t very active in his life because William always loved the cannery first and foremost, and Nell was concentrating on her social standing. And implicitly driving away all of Victor’s nannies before he could really bond with any of them. :( The depressing moment is over, though, as Alice is checking out the final room on the first floor, which happens to feature an instrument Victor is very much into. . .
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – easy two-in, two-out today –
A) First up, the latest from Josh Way – “SCREEN TIME: May December Review!” Josh’s thoughts on a Netflix movie about a woman who goes to stay with a couple infamous for their age difference relationship to learn about the female half (Gracie) in order to be able to accurately portray her in a film. According to Josh, the movie loves hanging around in the melodrama of this actress coming in and seeing what their lives are like now that the fervor over their relationship has died down, what the townspeople are like, etc, etc. It doesn’t really have a lot to SAY, but the acting is apparently excellent. For me, though, him revealing that this movie was inspired by the Mary Kay Letourneau incident (that teacher who got involved with a sixth-grader, went to prison, then married him upon getting out once he was of legal age – the couple in this film met in a pet shop, but the influence is clear) immediately turned me off it. Too many bad vibes! (And we don’t even have Netflix anyway.)
B) And second up, the latest from GrayStillPlays – “I made teaching 1000000000% more dangerous,” aka Gray plays Happy Wheels! We started with the traditional bottle flip (with Gray actually going for the win for once, since it was a very long tube that was hard to get a bottle down – he also got a bottle perfectly on the tiny “Florida Man” ledge), then moved on through Segway Nixon taking a trip to the store for beer (which resulted in him finding a secret button, falling into a sewer, and discovering a bunch of beer kegs past a few mossy tendrils); Segway Nixon getting exploded defeating the pigs in an “Angry Birds” level (like, he won, but he was definitely in no condition to enjoy it); Pogo Man having a pogo fight out in nature, with enemies like a wizard-hobo summoning a rain of bottles, murder children with cleavers, a bodybuilding woman lifting an entire car, and King Arthur as the final boss (he summoned a giant version of Excalibur, it was quite impressive); an orange-headed shapes man taking a drive from his farm though the city to his friend Happy’s place (the one instruction Gray was given was not to flip the car as it would kill him – guess what Gray kept doing because he has no patience and refused to go slow); an impossible rainbow rope swing down a long spike hole to the win (Gray got this on the SECOND TRY, shockingly enough); the Motorcycle Couple taking on some kid’s first bike jump level (jumping cars, a spike pit with a harpoon, and a huge pit to make it to the win); Segway Nixon getting to destroy a city with ball-throwing, nukes, and summoning the worm, among other things (clearly based off all those city destruction games Gray likes to play); Pogo Man parkouring through a Portal-themed puzzle level (like, it wasn’t EXPLICITLY Portal, as all the portals were different colors, but the influence was clear!); Bike Dad and Tom Hardy doing a “usual” bottle run (which involved a bottle run, a glass break with no glass, “dodge the falling platforms,” and getting dropped down a pit through an ACTUAL glass break into the win – also a secret death area with a fake win); and Bike Dad taking Tom Hardy to Hell Squared Academy and having to deal with the dangers within, like a pool under a bookcase, evil robots, a full liquor bar, and cages full of explodey mines and spikes (the Dylan Snider board of the video, which was explicitly based off one of Grays old Sims 4 videos! That was clever). Good stuff, as always – Happy Wheels Gray Torture is always a different flavor to GTA V Gray Torture, but it’s still welcome. :P
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check and check, I’m happy to say –
Victor Luvs Alice – I have my latest Chill Valicer Save update, the first of the Smiler’s Otherland posts (Domains), and the Valicer OT3 Week master post in my queue – still need to pick a Song Saturday, but we can do that tomorrow.
Valice Multiverse – One ask from Satirical Demon for the queue, featuring something he adapted from a series called “Hunter: The Parenting” with a vampire in a wizard hat arguing about how he can just walk off the forked road to hell the hunter tried to set up for him. LB!Alice is convinced this is two Malkavians just being Malkavians. XD
Other: And I did indeed answer all of Moose’s messages this evening, hooray! Sorry it took so long, Moose!
Whew -- bit of a rough day, yes, but at least I was productive and caught up on at least some of the things I needed to catch up on. And now it is time to go to bed and repeat the whole process tomorrow -- hopefully things will be less frustrating and confusing at work. *sigh* Night all!
Work – Pretty shitty first day back on the job, unfortunately – while the phones weren’t too busy, I had a lot to catch up on, and I had to constantly help my coworker catch up on the GLs because our processing company made some very interesting decisions on how to process a few checks, and – yeah. It was a bit of a struggle to make sure we knew where everything was and if it had all been deposited or not. *heavy sigh* But we got through it, I helped her get some gifts on, tried to keep up with all my e-mails, and managed to get in all my break time (even if my lunch ended up being late). We’ll see what happens tomorrow!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with the Oxventure One-Shot “BATTLE ROYALE!” We picked up in Round Two of combat, with Dob preparing to Thunderwave both Merilwen (now in the form of a Fathomer) and Egbert, as they were both close to him on account of Dob having mind-controlled Egbert into attacking Merilwen (turning her into the Fathomer with his cursed mace), who’d been attacking him as a bear. He geared up to do some serious damage –
Aaaand both Fathomwen and Egbert made their saving throws, meaning they took half damage and weren’t pushed away by the concussive force. Dob was like “this fight is not going how I expected at all.” XD And then Fathomwen, on her turn, turned invisible, pushed him down, and ran away. XD That brought things around to Prudence, who (after mugging for the Clairvoyance orb “camera” some more) decided to do an Eldritch Blast trick shot and hit Egbert and Dob with crossed arms. As per usual, one hit and one miss, with Egbert getting blasted pretty good and Dob escaping because he was prone on the ground. Egbert, quite irritated at this point, decided to grab a bomb, cast Divine Smite on it, and shove it in Dob’s pocket before leaping away. Johnny initially ruled against Egbert putting Divine Smite on the bomb (it’s normally reserved for melee weapons), but Mike reminded them that they’d allowed it in the live show where he accidentally murdered the very person they were meant to protect (the “Play Fight” episode, if you’re curious), and Johnny had to bow to the power of “past me allowed it because it was funny.” XD And it didn’t actually end up making that much difference anyway, as a poor roll (which Johnny and Luke interpreted as Dob having very TIGHT pockets) and Dob more than making his Dex save to throw himself away from the bomb meant he only took half damage from the bomb. Basically, this fight is just a comedy of errors for poor Dob and Egbert. XD
Round Three: The suffering Dob called upon Corazon to honor their alliance, and Corazon actually did pop out of his hidey-hole and attempt to stab Egbert – only to miss because Egbert has a pretty sweet 17 AC. And THEN he rolled poorly on his attempt to hide again and everyone ended up spotting him trying to hide in a gopher hole. XD Dob spend his turn Curing his Wounds (and getting back a hefty 25 hit points), standing up, and hurrying away from Egbert (going for the middle of the arena), while Fathomwen spent hers getting up nice and close to Corazon and using Vampiric Touch on him, inflicting a nice blast of necrotic damage and healing some of the damage she took from the mace. This took us back to Prudence, who continued posing for the camera –
Then cast Hungry Hungry Hadar centered on Corazon, catching both Merilwen AND Egbert in the “blast zone” of outer darkness and milky tentacles. I might remind you at this point that Prudence hadn’t fucking moved – she was still on her starting plinth. XD She happily ended her turn, declaring she had no use for bonus actions, and poor Egbert started his by taking some cold damage before he got out of the sphere of evil (fortunately he was near the edge of it). He, like Dob, decided defense was the better offense and focused on Curing his Wounds, which, fair. People have been putting the pain on him. He also attempted to shove Dob over, only to fail the roll and just slap Dob’s chest. XD The comedy of errors continued!
Round Four: Corazon was naturally not keen at remaining in the big cold sphere of Hadary doom, being Vampirically Touched by Fathomwen so after taking his cold damage, he attacked Fathomwen to get her off him (doing about 16 damage), then dashed out of the sphere so he’d have the oomph he needed to make it through the edge. Dob gave him a thumbs-up as he watched him escape the sphere, then asked Johnny what Fathomwen was wearing. After learning it was mostly leather, he chose to instead cast Heat Metal on Egbert – but then remembered “wait, dragonborn, fire resistant” and instead chose to Shatter Egbert. Putting his hand right above the poor guy’s heart as he cast the spell. Egbert took a hefty load of damage from the blast of high-pitched concussive force – then, just to add insult to injury, Dob shoved him over before running toward Prudence (again, who hadn’t moved). This brought things around to Fathomwen, who followed Corazon in dashing out of the horrible Hunger of Hadar area –
And then hit him with an Eldritch Blast, as that was something she could do now. XD One hit, one miss, but the hit was pretty solid –
At least, until Corazon Uncanny Dodged it, because Rogues are broken. XD He still took eight points of damage, but he was only LIGHTLY singed instead of heartily blasted, as Fathomwen had hoped. Prudence took one look at this, went “okay folks, HERE’S an Eldritch Blast” and managed to hit Fathomwen full-force with both beams –
Taking her out of the fight. O.O Yeah, turns out that was the end of her hit points, leaving her unconscious on the floor. Jane was slightly horrified because she’d EXPECTED Fathomwen to just turn back into Merilwen if she emptied her hit points (as that’s how it works with Wildshape), but nope, the fact that the cursed mace inflicts a permanent transformation meant that Merilwen was just done. First “fatality” everyone! Egbert, seeing this, immediately went, “healing myself again, thank you” while Dob wondered if this was worth all the free meat. Especially since Dob’s a vegetarian. XD Anyway, Egbert finished healing himself and dragged himself to his feet to get farther away from Dob. . .
Round Five: Only to find out that hadn’t done him any good, because Corazon immediately ran up and sabered him for a good twenty points of damage. And then successfully hid from him (if no one else) via throwing up a sheet and running. XD Dob decided to keep on the “destroying Egbert” train, but found himself vacillating between another Shatter and Sleep (so he could try to roll Egbert off the mountain) – he ended up going for Sleep as the softer, vaguely more whimsical option (Luke was getting a little desperate for those). I left it with Prudence sweeping up Fathomwen’s unconscious body and demanding of the invisible audience “are you not entertained?!” (to which the reply was a hearty “yup!”) – we’ll see if she takes care of Egbert or tries to take out another target tomorrow! We’re actually pretty close to the end of this one – soon a hot dog champion shall be crowned. . .
2. Continue writing “Start At The Beginning. . .Sort Of”: Check – got another page or so on the trio exploring their future lair, with Alice discovering a very fancy four-poster bed with a stained glass canopy (that is very much inspired by the ones that come with The Sims 4: Realm Of Magic XD), which led to a brief discussion about how Victor’s parents weren’t very active in his life because William always loved the cannery first and foremost, and Nell was concentrating on her social standing. And implicitly driving away all of Victor’s nannies before he could really bond with any of them. :( The depressing moment is over, though, as Alice is checking out the final room on the first floor, which happens to feature an instrument Victor is very much into. . .
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – easy two-in, two-out today –
A) First up, the latest from Josh Way – “SCREEN TIME: May December Review!” Josh’s thoughts on a Netflix movie about a woman who goes to stay with a couple infamous for their age difference relationship to learn about the female half (Gracie) in order to be able to accurately portray her in a film. According to Josh, the movie loves hanging around in the melodrama of this actress coming in and seeing what their lives are like now that the fervor over their relationship has died down, what the townspeople are like, etc, etc. It doesn’t really have a lot to SAY, but the acting is apparently excellent. For me, though, him revealing that this movie was inspired by the Mary Kay Letourneau incident (that teacher who got involved with a sixth-grader, went to prison, then married him upon getting out once he was of legal age – the couple in this film met in a pet shop, but the influence is clear) immediately turned me off it. Too many bad vibes! (And we don’t even have Netflix anyway.)
B) And second up, the latest from GrayStillPlays – “I made teaching 1000000000% more dangerous,” aka Gray plays Happy Wheels! We started with the traditional bottle flip (with Gray actually going for the win for once, since it was a very long tube that was hard to get a bottle down – he also got a bottle perfectly on the tiny “Florida Man” ledge), then moved on through Segway Nixon taking a trip to the store for beer (which resulted in him finding a secret button, falling into a sewer, and discovering a bunch of beer kegs past a few mossy tendrils); Segway Nixon getting exploded defeating the pigs in an “Angry Birds” level (like, he won, but he was definitely in no condition to enjoy it); Pogo Man having a pogo fight out in nature, with enemies like a wizard-hobo summoning a rain of bottles, murder children with cleavers, a bodybuilding woman lifting an entire car, and King Arthur as the final boss (he summoned a giant version of Excalibur, it was quite impressive); an orange-headed shapes man taking a drive from his farm though the city to his friend Happy’s place (the one instruction Gray was given was not to flip the car as it would kill him – guess what Gray kept doing because he has no patience and refused to go slow); an impossible rainbow rope swing down a long spike hole to the win (Gray got this on the SECOND TRY, shockingly enough); the Motorcycle Couple taking on some kid’s first bike jump level (jumping cars, a spike pit with a harpoon, and a huge pit to make it to the win); Segway Nixon getting to destroy a city with ball-throwing, nukes, and summoning the worm, among other things (clearly based off all those city destruction games Gray likes to play); Pogo Man parkouring through a Portal-themed puzzle level (like, it wasn’t EXPLICITLY Portal, as all the portals were different colors, but the influence was clear!); Bike Dad and Tom Hardy doing a “usual” bottle run (which involved a bottle run, a glass break with no glass, “dodge the falling platforms,” and getting dropped down a pit through an ACTUAL glass break into the win – also a secret death area with a fake win); and Bike Dad taking Tom Hardy to Hell Squared Academy and having to deal with the dangers within, like a pool under a bookcase, evil robots, a full liquor bar, and cages full of explodey mines and spikes (the Dylan Snider board of the video, which was explicitly based off one of Grays old Sims 4 videos! That was clever). Good stuff, as always – Happy Wheels Gray Torture is always a different flavor to GTA V Gray Torture, but it’s still welcome. :P
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check and check, I’m happy to say –
Victor Luvs Alice – I have my latest Chill Valicer Save update, the first of the Smiler’s Otherland posts (Domains), and the Valicer OT3 Week master post in my queue – still need to pick a Song Saturday, but we can do that tomorrow.
Valice Multiverse – One ask from Satirical Demon for the queue, featuring something he adapted from a series called “Hunter: The Parenting” with a vampire in a wizard hat arguing about how he can just walk off the forked road to hell the hunter tried to set up for him. LB!Alice is convinced this is two Malkavians just being Malkavians. XD
Other: And I did indeed answer all of Moose’s messages this evening, hooray! Sorry it took so long, Moose!
Whew -- bit of a rough day, yes, but at least I was productive and caught up on at least some of the things I needed to catch up on. And now it is time to go to bed and repeat the whole process tomorrow -- hopefully things will be less frustrating and confusing at work. *sigh* Night all!
