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Not Too Smoky Wednesday
Jun. 4th, 2025 11:48 pmWhich is good, because I heard some places got really whacked by the smoke, to the point where people were encouraged to stay indoors with the windows closed. But yeah, it was just a little hazy here, which I appreciated. Got to break out the sandals for the first time today too, which was fun. Gotta get myself used to them again! XD But they are comfy, and I'm glad they've lasted this long. *nods* Anyway -- to the write-up!
Work – Another semi-quiet day – I had a fair number of calls from people getting back to me about stuff I’d originally called them about (mostly credit card related, as you might expect – generally either fixing people’s wonky pledges or shutting them down entirely), and a few reversals to get through near the end of the day. There wasn’t much else to it, though – I did find myself puttering around looking for something to do a few times in the afternoon. Got a bunch of Easter Collection cards from Fiscal at the end of the day, though, so I know I’ll have THAT to do tomorrow. Hopefully other activities will also present themselves!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with the Oxventure channel, skipping forward in the one-shot videos to find one that would fit at least semi-neatly into my remaining three days of working out this week! And I did indeed find one that fit the bill: “D&D But... It's Cluedo | Oxventure!” “Cluedo” being the British name for everyone’s favorite murder mystery board game (and 1980s comedy movie starring Tim Curry and Christopher Lloyd), Clue! Yes, for some reason, Johnny and company decided to kitbash together a murder mystery one-shot based on the classic board game using D&D stats and rules, instead of perhaps finding another RPG that might have worked better for such a premise – but then again, this just so happens to be a live show, so maybe they didn’t want to explain a whole new RPG to an entire audience of people at a con. *shrug* At any rate, just like in any good game of Clue, we started things off with a mansion, a staircase, a dead Mr. Boddy at the bottom of said staircase, and four potential suspects milling around the place:
I. Colonel Mustard, played by Mike, an old military man turned writer – Mr. Boddy enjoyed his books and invited him to dinner, though Mustard didn’t find very good company. He was milling around in the library examining the paintings when the body was discovered
II. Reverend Green, played by Luke, a man of what turned out to be a very hellish faith, as Luke’s only green shirt was a DOOM sweatshirt and one of the first things Reverend Green did when he tried to examine the body was stick his thumb in its eye on a nat 1, leading to him slurping it down when Professor Plum pointed out it was still stuck there. XD He was there to show Mr. Boddy the script for the next Nativity play, as Boddy had been so critical of the last one, and had been amusing himself in the billiards room when the maid screamed
III. Professor Plum, played by Andy, who was a professor of anime – but not a very good one, as Andy does not know anime. XD He was in the mansion preparing to give Mr. Boddy a piece of his mind for being so critical of his many papers like “Is This Anime?” and “I Went To Japan, Is That Anime?” XD The room he was in at the time of the murder has yet to be specified, but I’m sure we’ll visit it at some point!
IV. And Miss Scarlet, played by pinch hitter Emily from RPGeeks (as neither Jane or Ellen could make the show), who was the former owner of the house – she and her husband had had to sell it to Mr. Boddy after some bad deals. She was visiting to take in the state of the place, and was not particularly impressed – especially not with the conservatory, where she had been casting her critical eye on the garden when Boddy’s body was discovered
So yes, four people with motive and opportunity – and a distinct need to pin the deed on SOMEONE, because the police officer who showed up to investigate told them that they had to decide among themselves who was the killer, and if there was no consensus, they’d ALL be tried and convicted, and given some extra sentencing for wasting police time. Everyone agreed that was fair. XD And so the murder mystery started, with everyone trying to figure out who dun it, and with what, and where! So far, the highlights of the first chunklet have included:
A) Johnny realizing repeatedly just how hard running a Clue-based session of D&D is going to be, given the characters are capable of doing things like examining the corpse and the murder weapons for clues, instead of relying on straight-up elimination logic XD They also forgot to tell everyone to open their character envelopes at the start (so, you know, the murderer would know who the hell they are), only doing so when Andy kindly pointed it out to them XD
B) Reverend Green touching and poking EVERYTHING (not just Mr. Boddy’s poor eye), rendering all the evidence kind of useless with his fingerprints all over the shop (clumsiness or a clever ruse?)
C) The quartet visiting the library first to verify Colonel Mustard’s alibi, and Professor Plum spotting an odd, three-dimensional shape on the fancy carpet – he immediately yanked it up to expose whatever was underneath, only for a laughing Johnny to clarify that the rope he’d just found was on TOP of the rug, and had just gone flying. XD And then, when Reverend Green examined it, Johnny had to admit it had no blood on it, but that they couldn’t just rule it out for reasons unknown. XD Also Professor Plum decided to steal a painting of Mr. Boddy fighting a lion while shirtless for unknown reasons (though he did previously seem very interested in Mr. Boddy’s abs – man had an eight-pack), and rolled a nat 20 on cutting the painting from its frame. Everyone was very confused. XD
D) The quartet then going to the billiards room to test Reverend Green’s alibi, and finding the balls arranged into a Satanic symbol – apparently, when Reverend Green gets nervous at parties, he slips off and summons a demon to get his confidence back. XD And then Professor Plum managed to “Identify” something in the table (not MAGICALLY, of course, he just looked really hard) and insisted on kicking it apart to find a red-topped spanner, which Colonel Mustard declared was the bloodiest he’d seen (but his Perception roll was really poor, so don’t trust him that). And then Miss Scarlet took Reverend Green aside and tried to charm him with her wiles into saying if he was the murderer, using “Friends” for advantage on the Charisma check and getting a 21 –
Only for Reverend Green, with his enormous Wisdom, getting a 22 on the counter-check and letting her know that he wasn’t telling her anything. And that if he’d done it, it would be a mortal sin, and he’d already be bragging about it. XD I left off with an annoyed Miss Scarlet declaring herself bored of the conversation and flouncing off – tomorrow, we’ll continue this chaotic nonsensical mess of a oneshot and see how goofy it gets from here! My guess is “lots.” XD
2. Continue editing “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – Alice got through Grout’s latest tape today, featuring him discovering the greater vampiric society of the Camarilla and deciding to accept the title of Malkavian Primogen to keep an eye on all these weirdos as part of his studies, and was thoroughly disgusted with the Camarilla’s handling of this torturing maniac consisting of “he’s capable of making full sentences? Give this man a high and important position!” Especially since she’s just as erudite and is being treated like scum on everyone’s boots. *pats her* Sorry the other vampires are almost all assholes, Alice! At any rate, she got through that nonsense (and pointed out that the Camarilla elevating Grout was a talking point the Anarchs should be using to get people to their side); learned from Cheshire that the mirrors on either side of the fireplace were in fact windows into a mirror-reflected room on the other side; and confirmed with 6768 and 6789 that they were not interested in escape before preparing to move on to the next room. Through a ridiculous trick door hidden in the back of the fireplace, because this IS Grout’s mansion, after all. I left it with her saying her final goodbyes to her new ghoul friends – next time, we’ll continue our jaunt through this horrible house! I’m not even sure we’re halfway through yet, yeeks. O.o Long chapter gonna be long again...
3. Keep up with YouTube “Subs”: Check – another night with no Subs meant another night with C. M. Alongi, moving onto “CaFae Latte Season 58 - TikTok Compilation!” This compilation featured:
A) Kelly and her friend Chelsea visiting the cafe to celebrate Chelsea getting out of the sugar baby lifestyle (having graduated college with a computer programming degree and gotten into a great job), and the pair of them thirsting briefly over Oscar (sitting in the corner on his phone on his break), until JC and Husniya told them “not rich.” XD
B) Oscar getting the good news that he now had an apartment! Friend of a friend willing to overlook his bankruptcy-ravaged credit! :D JC, Husniya, Kelly, and Chelsea were all very happy for him, with Chelsea talking about how it kind of sucks to walk into your first apartment with nothing (since, you know, Oscar’s homeless), but how it’s also so satisfying; JC telling him that thrift stores and Facebook Marketplace are his friends for furniture; and Oscar explaining his seraphim nature to Kelly when she asked why he was glowing (happy!). And then explaining how his spouse passed back in the 80s when Chelsea mentioned they would be happy too – outliving a mortal lover is always a risk with seraphim and other long-lived beings, but he got 98 good years with his wife, so he considers himself very lucky. Kelly and Chelsea definitely joined the Oscar Stans after that. XD
C) Bob and Husniya serving a customer, who was very understanding of Husniya needing to emergency-text her husband about kid pick-ups from daycare, and even sympathized with Husniya’s busy-mom-with-young children lifestyle (being a mother of four herself)...and then started talking about how Husniya’s husband deserved a son after learning all of their kids were girls. Fortunately Husniya was able to shut her down pretty quick, and she left without much of a fight (which, lucky for her, spared her a curse). And then Husniya shared a horror story with Bob about how one of her CIA coworkers tried to get Asif to divorce her because she wasn’t pumping out as many sons as daughters for her – fortunately, Asif is a hacker, and was more than happy to spread that asshole’s private message objectifying and slagging off other coworkers around the office. XD
D) Nicole and Lindsey at the Stoughton Street Witches’ coven, organizing things and talking about Oscar’s new apartment (in a bad part of town, so protection charms are a must), when a guy came in and started asking about if it was possible to talk to ghosts. Turns out his father died recently (cancer, they saw it coming), and when he saw a psychic working near him, he decided to see if she could contact his dad. Unfortunately, while real psychics are of course a thing in this universe, they have to be certified, and this one wasn’t (the poor customer didn’t even know they could GET certification), and Nicole pretty much confirmed for him that the woman was using cold readings (guessing at answers based on body language) and hot readings (researching things beforehand on social media) to scam him. Fortunately, Lindsey knew JUST the man to take care of this grifter non-psychic bitch…
E) And Ghost Hunter John showing up at the fake psychic’s place, giving her a bracelet and suffering through a fake reading (based off the fake social media accounts he directed her to), before revealing his con of her, blasting her for hindering people getting over their grief and scamming them, and – after she tried to bribe him to make him go away – revealing that the bracelet had a wire and the police had heard everything. Cue the cops showing up at her door to take her away. XD Nice work, John. And nice work Chris – still very much enjoying these!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – just had Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) to worry about tonight, and while I got to it late, I did finish off my queued-up reblog on “Chasing Cars” by Snow Patrol for my Song Saturday! Mostly gushing about how I can totally see it as a Valicer song now – and not just for one universe, but in general! Because I do write a lot of Valicer AUs where it’s them against the world. I might give it another look-over tomorrow, just because I DID get to it late and thus am not entirely sure of my word choice, but it SHOULD be good. I think.
Other: While it was a little hazy and slightly humid this afternoon, it was still nice enough for beanbags when I got home – and I am pleased to report that our games were a lot more even today, with each of us winning, coming second, and coming third! And the games we won were all very decisive wins – Dad won his in three throws, and Mom and I won ours in four each. :) Final scores were me 2-W-3; Dad W-3-2; and Mom 3-2-W. Dunno if tomorrow will be good beanbag weather – it’s supposed to be REALLY hot and humid – but hopefully this trend will continue if we play!
*nods* Not too bad. But now I must head off to bed, for it is late and I am tired and not keeping a decent bedtime. *shakes head* Night all!
Work – Another semi-quiet day – I had a fair number of calls from people getting back to me about stuff I’d originally called them about (mostly credit card related, as you might expect – generally either fixing people’s wonky pledges or shutting them down entirely), and a few reversals to get through near the end of the day. There wasn’t much else to it, though – I did find myself puttering around looking for something to do a few times in the afternoon. Got a bunch of Easter Collection cards from Fiscal at the end of the day, though, so I know I’ll have THAT to do tomorrow. Hopefully other activities will also present themselves!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with the Oxventure channel, skipping forward in the one-shot videos to find one that would fit at least semi-neatly into my remaining three days of working out this week! And I did indeed find one that fit the bill: “D&D But... It's Cluedo | Oxventure!” “Cluedo” being the British name for everyone’s favorite murder mystery board game (and 1980s comedy movie starring Tim Curry and Christopher Lloyd), Clue! Yes, for some reason, Johnny and company decided to kitbash together a murder mystery one-shot based on the classic board game using D&D stats and rules, instead of perhaps finding another RPG that might have worked better for such a premise – but then again, this just so happens to be a live show, so maybe they didn’t want to explain a whole new RPG to an entire audience of people at a con. *shrug* At any rate, just like in any good game of Clue, we started things off with a mansion, a staircase, a dead Mr. Boddy at the bottom of said staircase, and four potential suspects milling around the place:
I. Colonel Mustard, played by Mike, an old military man turned writer – Mr. Boddy enjoyed his books and invited him to dinner, though Mustard didn’t find very good company. He was milling around in the library examining the paintings when the body was discovered
II. Reverend Green, played by Luke, a man of what turned out to be a very hellish faith, as Luke’s only green shirt was a DOOM sweatshirt and one of the first things Reverend Green did when he tried to examine the body was stick his thumb in its eye on a nat 1, leading to him slurping it down when Professor Plum pointed out it was still stuck there. XD He was there to show Mr. Boddy the script for the next Nativity play, as Boddy had been so critical of the last one, and had been amusing himself in the billiards room when the maid screamed
III. Professor Plum, played by Andy, who was a professor of anime – but not a very good one, as Andy does not know anime. XD He was in the mansion preparing to give Mr. Boddy a piece of his mind for being so critical of his many papers like “Is This Anime?” and “I Went To Japan, Is That Anime?” XD The room he was in at the time of the murder has yet to be specified, but I’m sure we’ll visit it at some point!
IV. And Miss Scarlet, played by pinch hitter Emily from RPGeeks (as neither Jane or Ellen could make the show), who was the former owner of the house – she and her husband had had to sell it to Mr. Boddy after some bad deals. She was visiting to take in the state of the place, and was not particularly impressed – especially not with the conservatory, where she had been casting her critical eye on the garden when Boddy’s body was discovered
So yes, four people with motive and opportunity – and a distinct need to pin the deed on SOMEONE, because the police officer who showed up to investigate told them that they had to decide among themselves who was the killer, and if there was no consensus, they’d ALL be tried and convicted, and given some extra sentencing for wasting police time. Everyone agreed that was fair. XD And so the murder mystery started, with everyone trying to figure out who dun it, and with what, and where! So far, the highlights of the first chunklet have included:
A) Johnny realizing repeatedly just how hard running a Clue-based session of D&D is going to be, given the characters are capable of doing things like examining the corpse and the murder weapons for clues, instead of relying on straight-up elimination logic XD They also forgot to tell everyone to open their character envelopes at the start (so, you know, the murderer would know who the hell they are), only doing so when Andy kindly pointed it out to them XD
B) Reverend Green touching and poking EVERYTHING (not just Mr. Boddy’s poor eye), rendering all the evidence kind of useless with his fingerprints all over the shop (clumsiness or a clever ruse?)
C) The quartet visiting the library first to verify Colonel Mustard’s alibi, and Professor Plum spotting an odd, three-dimensional shape on the fancy carpet – he immediately yanked it up to expose whatever was underneath, only for a laughing Johnny to clarify that the rope he’d just found was on TOP of the rug, and had just gone flying. XD And then, when Reverend Green examined it, Johnny had to admit it had no blood on it, but that they couldn’t just rule it out for reasons unknown. XD Also Professor Plum decided to steal a painting of Mr. Boddy fighting a lion while shirtless for unknown reasons (though he did previously seem very interested in Mr. Boddy’s abs – man had an eight-pack), and rolled a nat 20 on cutting the painting from its frame. Everyone was very confused. XD
D) The quartet then going to the billiards room to test Reverend Green’s alibi, and finding the balls arranged into a Satanic symbol – apparently, when Reverend Green gets nervous at parties, he slips off and summons a demon to get his confidence back. XD And then Professor Plum managed to “Identify” something in the table (not MAGICALLY, of course, he just looked really hard) and insisted on kicking it apart to find a red-topped spanner, which Colonel Mustard declared was the bloodiest he’d seen (but his Perception roll was really poor, so don’t trust him that). And then Miss Scarlet took Reverend Green aside and tried to charm him with her wiles into saying if he was the murderer, using “Friends” for advantage on the Charisma check and getting a 21 –
Only for Reverend Green, with his enormous Wisdom, getting a 22 on the counter-check and letting her know that he wasn’t telling her anything. And that if he’d done it, it would be a mortal sin, and he’d already be bragging about it. XD I left off with an annoyed Miss Scarlet declaring herself bored of the conversation and flouncing off – tomorrow, we’ll continue this chaotic nonsensical mess of a oneshot and see how goofy it gets from here! My guess is “lots.” XD
2. Continue editing “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – Alice got through Grout’s latest tape today, featuring him discovering the greater vampiric society of the Camarilla and deciding to accept the title of Malkavian Primogen to keep an eye on all these weirdos as part of his studies, and was thoroughly disgusted with the Camarilla’s handling of this torturing maniac consisting of “he’s capable of making full sentences? Give this man a high and important position!” Especially since she’s just as erudite and is being treated like scum on everyone’s boots. *pats her* Sorry the other vampires are almost all assholes, Alice! At any rate, she got through that nonsense (and pointed out that the Camarilla elevating Grout was a talking point the Anarchs should be using to get people to their side); learned from Cheshire that the mirrors on either side of the fireplace were in fact windows into a mirror-reflected room on the other side; and confirmed with 6768 and 6789 that they were not interested in escape before preparing to move on to the next room. Through a ridiculous trick door hidden in the back of the fireplace, because this IS Grout’s mansion, after all. I left it with her saying her final goodbyes to her new ghoul friends – next time, we’ll continue our jaunt through this horrible house! I’m not even sure we’re halfway through yet, yeeks. O.o Long chapter gonna be long again...
3. Keep up with YouTube “Subs”: Check – another night with no Subs meant another night with C. M. Alongi, moving onto “CaFae Latte Season 58 - TikTok Compilation!” This compilation featured:
A) Kelly and her friend Chelsea visiting the cafe to celebrate Chelsea getting out of the sugar baby lifestyle (having graduated college with a computer programming degree and gotten into a great job), and the pair of them thirsting briefly over Oscar (sitting in the corner on his phone on his break), until JC and Husniya told them “not rich.” XD
B) Oscar getting the good news that he now had an apartment! Friend of a friend willing to overlook his bankruptcy-ravaged credit! :D JC, Husniya, Kelly, and Chelsea were all very happy for him, with Chelsea talking about how it kind of sucks to walk into your first apartment with nothing (since, you know, Oscar’s homeless), but how it’s also so satisfying; JC telling him that thrift stores and Facebook Marketplace are his friends for furniture; and Oscar explaining his seraphim nature to Kelly when she asked why he was glowing (happy!). And then explaining how his spouse passed back in the 80s when Chelsea mentioned they would be happy too – outliving a mortal lover is always a risk with seraphim and other long-lived beings, but he got 98 good years with his wife, so he considers himself very lucky. Kelly and Chelsea definitely joined the Oscar Stans after that. XD
C) Bob and Husniya serving a customer, who was very understanding of Husniya needing to emergency-text her husband about kid pick-ups from daycare, and even sympathized with Husniya’s busy-mom-with-young children lifestyle (being a mother of four herself)...and then started talking about how Husniya’s husband deserved a son after learning all of their kids were girls. Fortunately Husniya was able to shut her down pretty quick, and she left without much of a fight (which, lucky for her, spared her a curse). And then Husniya shared a horror story with Bob about how one of her CIA coworkers tried to get Asif to divorce her because she wasn’t pumping out as many sons as daughters for her – fortunately, Asif is a hacker, and was more than happy to spread that asshole’s private message objectifying and slagging off other coworkers around the office. XD
D) Nicole and Lindsey at the Stoughton Street Witches’ coven, organizing things and talking about Oscar’s new apartment (in a bad part of town, so protection charms are a must), when a guy came in and started asking about if it was possible to talk to ghosts. Turns out his father died recently (cancer, they saw it coming), and when he saw a psychic working near him, he decided to see if she could contact his dad. Unfortunately, while real psychics are of course a thing in this universe, they have to be certified, and this one wasn’t (the poor customer didn’t even know they could GET certification), and Nicole pretty much confirmed for him that the woman was using cold readings (guessing at answers based on body language) and hot readings (researching things beforehand on social media) to scam him. Fortunately, Lindsey knew JUST the man to take care of this grifter non-psychic bitch…
E) And Ghost Hunter John showing up at the fake psychic’s place, giving her a bracelet and suffering through a fake reading (based off the fake social media accounts he directed her to), before revealing his con of her, blasting her for hindering people getting over their grief and scamming them, and – after she tried to bribe him to make him go away – revealing that the bracelet had a wire and the police had heard everything. Cue the cops showing up at her door to take her away. XD Nice work, John. And nice work Chris – still very much enjoying these!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – just had Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) to worry about tonight, and while I got to it late, I did finish off my queued-up reblog on “Chasing Cars” by Snow Patrol for my Song Saturday! Mostly gushing about how I can totally see it as a Valicer song now – and not just for one universe, but in general! Because I do write a lot of Valicer AUs where it’s them against the world. I might give it another look-over tomorrow, just because I DID get to it late and thus am not entirely sure of my word choice, but it SHOULD be good. I think.
Other: While it was a little hazy and slightly humid this afternoon, it was still nice enough for beanbags when I got home – and I am pleased to report that our games were a lot more even today, with each of us winning, coming second, and coming third! And the games we won were all very decisive wins – Dad won his in three throws, and Mom and I won ours in four each. :) Final scores were me 2-W-3; Dad W-3-2; and Mom 3-2-W. Dunno if tomorrow will be good beanbag weather – it’s supposed to be REALLY hot and humid – but hopefully this trend will continue if we play!
*nods* Not too bad. But now I must head off to bed, for it is late and I am tired and not keeping a decent bedtime. *shakes head* Night all!
