Crossover Chick (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
crossover_chick) wrote2025-05-09 11:53 pm
crossover_chick) wrote2025-05-09 11:53 pm
Busy Friday Night
Attention's being pulled a few different directions right now (as I try to catch up on some stuff and keep up a conversation with Squid), but hopefully I SHOULD be able to get it together enough to tell you about my day sooner rather than later --
Work – Another relatively quiet day to end the week – the morning was a bit busy, with me doing the GL and trying to put some “endowment” gifts on while also taking credit card calls from people (two people updating cards, one asking about when his gift was going to go on), but the afternoon was relatively chill, with me focusing on checking on people’s failed credit cards, putting on some Easter gifts, and doing some roster maintenance. Nothing particularly difficult!
...my ride home, on the other hand... *wince* Yeah, it was pouring rain this afternoon when I got out of work, and I ended up crawling home thanks to heavy traffic and a decent amount of water on the roads. Like, it wasn’t “oh fuck am I going to flood out my car in some of these puddles” levels, like that one terrifying ride home – PRETTY sure year before last, 2023 was pretty fucking wet – but you had to take things carefully so you didn’t hydroplane. Got home in one piece, but ugh. Very glad I’m home for the weekend – and that the rain will be ending tomorrow!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – last night on the bike this week, pedaling my way through –
A) The end of “Oxventure in BALDUR'S GATE 3 | Co-op Multiplayer Baldur's Gate with Oxventure Characters” by Outside XBox! Egbert did indeed manage to convince Kagha with his wise words that allying with the Shadow Druids was a stupid idea (though it took him burning a few points of Inspiration, and he only JUST made the second check thanks to have a +2 bonus to Religion that canceled out his -1 debuff to Intelligence checks XD), and she joined the fight against the Shadow Druids on the side of Egbert, Corazon, and Prudence! The battle that followed was pretty tough (with Olodan, nominal head of the local Shadow Druids, starting things off by turning into a giant fuck-off badger and Lae’zel getting trapped in a bad spot and going down near the end), but the forces of good prevailed! Mostly because Rath set off something with his Plant Growth spell that trapped all of the bad guys in a burning area, and then Prudence broke out the Cloud of Daggers again to make their lives even more painful. XD Kagha was extremely contrite afterwards, and promised to stop the rite, put herself up on trial (once Halsin got back), and – most importantly – allow the tieflings to stay freely in the grove until they were ready to move on. Andy and Mike were very pleased with this outcome and decided that was the best note to end the stream on. Well, that and Corazon pickpocketing poor Egbert yet AGAIN. XD But yeah, that was fun! Nice to see one of the ways you can resolve that whole situation, along with some different dialogue options for paladins and whatnot. :) And, if I want, I can keep this train going next week by watching Luke and Ellen playing the game and deliberately making all the worst choices possible… We’ll see!
B) The entirety of “All Permanent Buffs in Baldurs Gate 3 (And How to Get Them)” by Toyhouze! A list of all the permanent (or at least mostly permanent; I know one of them actually goes away if you die and have to be resurrected) buffs and goodies you can get in the game if you know what you’re doing. Unfortunately, while the list was somewhat informative, I think the creator could have done a much better job with it – noting when buffs were mutually exclusive (for example, you can’t get eye surgery from both Auntie Ethel AND Volo to get both the “Paid The Price” +1 to Intimidation checks and the “See Invisible” that Volo’s fake eye grants), or when they weren’t available to certain characters (for example, if you’re playing Wyll, he can’t take EITHER deal from Ethel or Volo because, well, he’s ALREADY down an eye). Still, it was a decent list of buffs, and I’d never actually SEEN what Ethel’s surgery does to a character’s face, so that was nice. Creepy, but nice. :P
C) And the entirety of “Baldur’s Gate 3 - 9 Mistakes that Will RUIN Your Playthrough” by Big Dan Gaming! A list of nine rookie mistakes that players might make, ranging from “don’t stay grouped too close together in fights, it’ll make it easier for you to get hit with AOE nonsense” and “seriously, don’t be afraid to long rest, you’ll want the heals and spell slot refreshes” to “don’t forget to talk to NPCs, a lot of sidequests can be gotten this way” and “don’t forget to talk to your companions, they’re cool and make the game more lively.” Though that second one was qualified at the end with “but for God’s sake remember these characters all want to fuck you REALLY BAD so be careful when it comes to choosing dialogue options so you don’t accidentally lead anyone on!” XD Which, honestly, is fair – it is VERY easy to start flirting with people in this game. I can see why polyamory mods to make them all chill with you romancing multiple people are popular. :p
2. Continue outlining “The Van Dort Vacancy”: Check – made some good progress on it too, I’m happy to say:
A) I tweaked a few things in the “must-happen moments” portion of the outline – most importantly:
I. I added a 3d fortune roll for Alice and Smiler helping out in the kitchen to see how much of a help they actually were (3 dice because Alice has actually cooked and Smiler is a brilliant chemist, which I figure DOES translate to some skill in cooking – they got a 6 as the highest, so they were genuinely helpful)
II. I came up with a list of obstacles for the group to face during the actual assault on the vault (including getting past the cook Smiler accidentally made suspicious; finding a way past a pair of guards on the first door into the vault; getting down a hallway with a handful of anti-thief traps; unlocking the door into the vault itself – technically the safe they need to get into is also locked, but I figured Victor would know the combination)
III. And I added in the gang seeing a bunch of Coin in actual coin form on the walls of the vault (1 Coin is equivalent to a week’s wages, remember, and the big showy actual coins aren’t really minted anymore – the Van Dorts having like ten or so up on their wall for DECORATION just shows off how wealthy they are) – Victor has to warn Kasimir off stealing any, as Nell WILL notice, while Barnaby is like “I can’t have these middle-class peons showing me up, I’m going to do something similar with my vault at home” XD
B) I decided on the plan type (Stealth – I was considering “Social” because of the need to potentially talk their way past some people, but then decided the main thrust of the score was getting into the vault and back out unnoticed), the point of infiltration (the hallway past the kitchen and the wine cellar), and everyone’s load (Victor and Smiler were still Light, but Alice got to go all the way up to Normal thanks to carrying the bag with her things during the score – oh, wait – *goes and makes a note to mention them getting that bag out of the changing room off the kitchen so she has it for the actual score*)
C) And I totaled up the dice for the Engagement Roll – they ended up getting a total of 4 thanks to such factors as “they’re robbing the richest family in Nightmarket, of course it’s bold” and “while Victor’s parents are prepared for thieves, they weren’t prepared for THEIR OWN SON robbing them” and “the guest stars will of course be offering help!” – and rolled ‘em. And to my shock and delight, the trio got the double 6 for a CRIT! :D Meaning that they automatically conquer the first obstacle in their path – the cook, who is easily swayed into believing Alice and Smiler ARE new hires by seeing them with Victor (and by their good performance in the kitchen) – and can move straight onto the next! Which would be those guards, after picking up Barnaby and Kasimir from the wine cellar… We’ll roll out the actual score next time! :D Oh, this is so much fun...
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Half check – a combination of it being Game Night (with us playing a VERY drawn-out game of Scrabble – Mom won, but I put down some good words if I do say so) and me choosing to focus on the outline for “The Van Dort Vacancy” above meant that I had extremely limited time for the old YouTube tonight. So I watched the shorter of the two videos in my Subs – Josh Way’s “The Surfer Movie Review!” His thoughts on the new horror-comedy-unraveling nightmare thing that has appeared in theaters, starring Nicolas Cage as a surfer who does no actual surfing because he’s too busy being bullied by the local Australians on the beach where he’s chosen to settle down with his kid. Josh quickly admitted that he wasn’t sure HOW he felt about this one, because he had a hard time wrapping his head around it – it’s apparently an EXTREMELY weird movie (one of those “you never know what’s real and what’s not” deals), and Josh was never truly able to come to grips with what it was doing and saying. He’s glad it was made (as he likes weird indie movies existing and making people rethink their relationship with cinema) and he’s glad he saw it, just – he’s not sure if he can RECOMMEND it or not, given he’s not sure what he truly felt about it. (Other than the ending not being particularly satisfying.) So yeah – fair warning if you want to see it! Though, admittedly, if you already knew Nic Cage was in it, you probably already knew it was weird, so… :P
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – nothing for Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) tonight, but over on Valice Multiverse, I had a reblog from The Coven Wars on the new thread they started yesterday with Forgotten Vows Alice to drop in the queue! As I suspected, turns out the reason Seth was so anxious to see Alice was because Richard’s wandered off, and Seth can’t find him. D: And he was hoping Alice had seen the kid. Alice was sorry to report that she had not, but promptly offered to help find him – and then got a bit startled by Victor coming in, asking what’s this about someone being missing. :p Ended my portion of the thread with Alice hastily introducing Seth to Victor – don’t worry, Seth, he’s more than happy to help look for your missing brother too, I assure you!
Aaand that was definitely later, given it's just past 1 AM now. XD But hey, at least I got the entry done. And now it is time to try and drag myself to bed, for tomorrow is a Cleaning Saturday, and I should at least make an ATTEMPT at getting up at a decent time so I can try to get my cleaning done before lunch. As for the rest of the day -- probably gonna go ahead and have a bit of a YouTube marathon because I've got two OXBoxtra list videos, a new Petey Super Sim video, and an extra GrayStillPlays video to watch now. Also gonna revise Squid's gift fic and MAKE SOME DAMN BACK-UPS. Because I keep meaning to do that and I keep slipping up and not doing it. >( Those are important, Vic! But yeah, that's my plan for tomorrow -- hopefully I can accomplish it without any issues! Night all!
Work – Another relatively quiet day to end the week – the morning was a bit busy, with me doing the GL and trying to put some “endowment” gifts on while also taking credit card calls from people (two people updating cards, one asking about when his gift was going to go on), but the afternoon was relatively chill, with me focusing on checking on people’s failed credit cards, putting on some Easter gifts, and doing some roster maintenance. Nothing particularly difficult!
...my ride home, on the other hand... *wince* Yeah, it was pouring rain this afternoon when I got out of work, and I ended up crawling home thanks to heavy traffic and a decent amount of water on the roads. Like, it wasn’t “oh fuck am I going to flood out my car in some of these puddles” levels, like that one terrifying ride home – PRETTY sure year before last, 2023 was pretty fucking wet – but you had to take things carefully so you didn’t hydroplane. Got home in one piece, but ugh. Very glad I’m home for the weekend – and that the rain will be ending tomorrow!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – last night on the bike this week, pedaling my way through –
A) The end of “Oxventure in BALDUR'S GATE 3 | Co-op Multiplayer Baldur's Gate with Oxventure Characters” by Outside XBox! Egbert did indeed manage to convince Kagha with his wise words that allying with the Shadow Druids was a stupid idea (though it took him burning a few points of Inspiration, and he only JUST made the second check thanks to have a +2 bonus to Religion that canceled out his -1 debuff to Intelligence checks XD), and she joined the fight against the Shadow Druids on the side of Egbert, Corazon, and Prudence! The battle that followed was pretty tough (with Olodan, nominal head of the local Shadow Druids, starting things off by turning into a giant fuck-off badger and Lae’zel getting trapped in a bad spot and going down near the end), but the forces of good prevailed! Mostly because Rath set off something with his Plant Growth spell that trapped all of the bad guys in a burning area, and then Prudence broke out the Cloud of Daggers again to make their lives even more painful. XD Kagha was extremely contrite afterwards, and promised to stop the rite, put herself up on trial (once Halsin got back), and – most importantly – allow the tieflings to stay freely in the grove until they were ready to move on. Andy and Mike were very pleased with this outcome and decided that was the best note to end the stream on. Well, that and Corazon pickpocketing poor Egbert yet AGAIN. XD But yeah, that was fun! Nice to see one of the ways you can resolve that whole situation, along with some different dialogue options for paladins and whatnot. :) And, if I want, I can keep this train going next week by watching Luke and Ellen playing the game and deliberately making all the worst choices possible… We’ll see!
B) The entirety of “All Permanent Buffs in Baldurs Gate 3 (And How to Get Them)” by Toyhouze! A list of all the permanent (or at least mostly permanent; I know one of them actually goes away if you die and have to be resurrected) buffs and goodies you can get in the game if you know what you’re doing. Unfortunately, while the list was somewhat informative, I think the creator could have done a much better job with it – noting when buffs were mutually exclusive (for example, you can’t get eye surgery from both Auntie Ethel AND Volo to get both the “Paid The Price” +1 to Intimidation checks and the “See Invisible” that Volo’s fake eye grants), or when they weren’t available to certain characters (for example, if you’re playing Wyll, he can’t take EITHER deal from Ethel or Volo because, well, he’s ALREADY down an eye). Still, it was a decent list of buffs, and I’d never actually SEEN what Ethel’s surgery does to a character’s face, so that was nice. Creepy, but nice. :P
C) And the entirety of “Baldur’s Gate 3 - 9 Mistakes that Will RUIN Your Playthrough” by Big Dan Gaming! A list of nine rookie mistakes that players might make, ranging from “don’t stay grouped too close together in fights, it’ll make it easier for you to get hit with AOE nonsense” and “seriously, don’t be afraid to long rest, you’ll want the heals and spell slot refreshes” to “don’t forget to talk to NPCs, a lot of sidequests can be gotten this way” and “don’t forget to talk to your companions, they’re cool and make the game more lively.” Though that second one was qualified at the end with “but for God’s sake remember these characters all want to fuck you REALLY BAD so be careful when it comes to choosing dialogue options so you don’t accidentally lead anyone on!” XD Which, honestly, is fair – it is VERY easy to start flirting with people in this game. I can see why polyamory mods to make them all chill with you romancing multiple people are popular. :p
2. Continue outlining “The Van Dort Vacancy”: Check – made some good progress on it too, I’m happy to say:
A) I tweaked a few things in the “must-happen moments” portion of the outline – most importantly:
I. I added a 3d fortune roll for Alice and Smiler helping out in the kitchen to see how much of a help they actually were (3 dice because Alice has actually cooked and Smiler is a brilliant chemist, which I figure DOES translate to some skill in cooking – they got a 6 as the highest, so they were genuinely helpful)
II. I came up with a list of obstacles for the group to face during the actual assault on the vault (including getting past the cook Smiler accidentally made suspicious; finding a way past a pair of guards on the first door into the vault; getting down a hallway with a handful of anti-thief traps; unlocking the door into the vault itself – technically the safe they need to get into is also locked, but I figured Victor would know the combination)
III. And I added in the gang seeing a bunch of Coin in actual coin form on the walls of the vault (1 Coin is equivalent to a week’s wages, remember, and the big showy actual coins aren’t really minted anymore – the Van Dorts having like ten or so up on their wall for DECORATION just shows off how wealthy they are) – Victor has to warn Kasimir off stealing any, as Nell WILL notice, while Barnaby is like “I can’t have these middle-class peons showing me up, I’m going to do something similar with my vault at home” XD
B) I decided on the plan type (Stealth – I was considering “Social” because of the need to potentially talk their way past some people, but then decided the main thrust of the score was getting into the vault and back out unnoticed), the point of infiltration (the hallway past the kitchen and the wine cellar), and everyone’s load (Victor and Smiler were still Light, but Alice got to go all the way up to Normal thanks to carrying the bag with her things during the score – oh, wait – *goes and makes a note to mention them getting that bag out of the changing room off the kitchen so she has it for the actual score*)
C) And I totaled up the dice for the Engagement Roll – they ended up getting a total of 4 thanks to such factors as “they’re robbing the richest family in Nightmarket, of course it’s bold” and “while Victor’s parents are prepared for thieves, they weren’t prepared for THEIR OWN SON robbing them” and “the guest stars will of course be offering help!” – and rolled ‘em. And to my shock and delight, the trio got the double 6 for a CRIT! :D Meaning that they automatically conquer the first obstacle in their path – the cook, who is easily swayed into believing Alice and Smiler ARE new hires by seeing them with Victor (and by their good performance in the kitchen) – and can move straight onto the next! Which would be those guards, after picking up Barnaby and Kasimir from the wine cellar… We’ll roll out the actual score next time! :D Oh, this is so much fun...
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Half check – a combination of it being Game Night (with us playing a VERY drawn-out game of Scrabble – Mom won, but I put down some good words if I do say so) and me choosing to focus on the outline for “The Van Dort Vacancy” above meant that I had extremely limited time for the old YouTube tonight. So I watched the shorter of the two videos in my Subs – Josh Way’s “The Surfer Movie Review!” His thoughts on the new horror-comedy-unraveling nightmare thing that has appeared in theaters, starring Nicolas Cage as a surfer who does no actual surfing because he’s too busy being bullied by the local Australians on the beach where he’s chosen to settle down with his kid. Josh quickly admitted that he wasn’t sure HOW he felt about this one, because he had a hard time wrapping his head around it – it’s apparently an EXTREMELY weird movie (one of those “you never know what’s real and what’s not” deals), and Josh was never truly able to come to grips with what it was doing and saying. He’s glad it was made (as he likes weird indie movies existing and making people rethink their relationship with cinema) and he’s glad he saw it, just – he’s not sure if he can RECOMMEND it or not, given he’s not sure what he truly felt about it. (Other than the ending not being particularly satisfying.) So yeah – fair warning if you want to see it! Though, admittedly, if you already knew Nic Cage was in it, you probably already knew it was weird, so… :P
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – nothing for Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) tonight, but over on Valice Multiverse, I had a reblog from The Coven Wars on the new thread they started yesterday with Forgotten Vows Alice to drop in the queue! As I suspected, turns out the reason Seth was so anxious to see Alice was because Richard’s wandered off, and Seth can’t find him. D: And he was hoping Alice had seen the kid. Alice was sorry to report that she had not, but promptly offered to help find him – and then got a bit startled by Victor coming in, asking what’s this about someone being missing. :p Ended my portion of the thread with Alice hastily introducing Seth to Victor – don’t worry, Seth, he’s more than happy to help look for your missing brother too, I assure you!
Aaand that was definitely later, given it's just past 1 AM now. XD But hey, at least I got the entry done. And now it is time to try and drag myself to bed, for tomorrow is a Cleaning Saturday, and I should at least make an ATTEMPT at getting up at a decent time so I can try to get my cleaning done before lunch. As for the rest of the day -- probably gonna go ahead and have a bit of a YouTube marathon because I've got two OXBoxtra list videos, a new Petey Super Sim video, and an extra GrayStillPlays video to watch now. Also gonna revise Squid's gift fic and MAKE SOME DAMN BACK-UPS. Because I keep meaning to do that and I keep slipping up and not doing it. >( Those are important, Vic! But yeah, that's my plan for tomorrow -- hopefully I can accomplish it without any issues! Night all!