crossover_chick | Decent Wednesday

It was another nice day weather-wise, and as you will see in the below write-up, I had a reasonably productive day --

Work – Today was mostly “working on credit card stuff” day for me at the office – I caught up with the credit card transaction and deposit total reports for Fiscal; I went through the failed credit card reports to see who had already resolved their issues and who needed an e-mail; I updated someone’s credit card over the phone (and helped another lady figure out her balance on her non-credit-card related pledge, because for some reason my Talky Coworker thought it was a credit card thing); and I e-mailed all the people with failed credit card gifts that came back in the latest batch of exceptions. *nods* Made the day go by – though the day ending an hour earlier also helped in that regard. :p Ah, what I wouldn’t give for seven-hour workdays being the standard...but that’s not happening anytime soon. *sigh* Just gotta enjoy it when it does!

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, pedaling my way through:

A) The end of “World Wide Wrestling RPG | Oxventure Plays Pro Wrestling RPG with Daniel J Layton of No Rolls Barred” by Oxventure! The final half-hour of this ridiculous and ridiculously awesome one-shot featured:

I. Chip and Flex commenting on the ad break, with Flex saying that he might give Chessington Stu a call – cue Dan saying how much he wanted them to do a travelogue show together where they go around visiting various apiaries (places where they keep bees) and sausage spots and whatnot XD

II. The big finale “handicap” match, which featured Fabian Fantastic (Andy) having to fight both The Funeral Director (Mike) and Matt Finish (Dan) at once! Should have guessed that it would be a match that would allow all three to fight together. Fabian started in control, and managed to get the crowd riled by hopping outside the ropes (only ducking back in briefly to stop the referee, Brian Chinwag (as Dan dubbed him) from counting him out) and then disappearing under the ring itself; The Funeral Director tried to drag him back out, but a botched roll meant that he got Herringford instead, who punched him out. Fabian, meanwhile, emerged from the other side of the ring and hopped back into put the hurt on Matt, giving him a “backstabber” with his knees before attempting to put him into a submission hold –

But then a combination of a botched roll and Andy planning to cede control of the match to Dan anyway meant that Matt got out of the hold and managed to put some hurt on Fabian instead, flipping him over his head onto the mat! The Funeral Director then used one of his special abilities to turn this into one of his “signature” matches, getting a bunch of extras dressed as pallbearers to bring out a gold casket to put beside the ring. Whoever got shut into that casket was the loser! Matt thus threw Fabian over to FD, who gave him a nasty elbow drop before preparing for the funeral –

Aaand then Andy spent some momentum to yank control back and have Fabian sneakily punch FD in the junk with some brass knuckles. XD (Flex commented that that had happened to him once in his own wrestling days, and that everyone assumes that’s why he sounds like Kermit – no, he just talks like this, and he finds the assumption a bit hurtful, actually. XD) He then made some amazing rolls to wail on the poor Funeral Director for a while, and Johnny, as Creative, decided that – in order to set up an amazing grudge between the two – they were going to “book” Fabian to win the match. Unless anyone had any special abilities that would change things...cue Dan cackling for some reason...anyway, as the booked winner, Fabian was allowed to use his special finishing move, and thus decided to grab Matt (who’d attempted to jump on him to save The Funeral Director, but had unfortunately missed), do a nasty “brainbreaker” move (apparently a vertical headslam – well – shoulder slam) on the concrete, then drop Matt in the casket to end things –

EXCEPT. The reason Dan had cackled was because MATT had a special ability called “Hungry” that allows him to go “fuck Creative telling me I have to lose, I want to win” and try to take the match anyway! Cue Matt dragging Fabian into the casket with him (shocking the announcers), then – after a struggle, and a botched roll that everyone encouraged Dan to spend momentum on so it became a great success (Dan was like “but would it be more entertaining if Matt didn’t pull it off,” but everybody else was like “spend it!”) – Matt got free and SLAMMED the lid down on Fabian, ending the match and taking the win! Granted, he also got a fucked-up shoulder, and the announcers made clear that he probably had made some enemies of Fabian AND Graham Graham, the big boss, but Matt clearly thought it was worth it. Cue the episode ending with The Funeral Director giving Matt a solemn “you have indeed impressed me” handshake, and Matt celebrating by smashing two jars of that honey FD was promoting and dumping it all over himself. XD

III. And, as things wrapped up, me finally learning why Dan was part of this one-shot – turns out a large part of his online presence involves him talking about wrestling stuff. XD I figured he had to watch it as he kept explaining some of the wrestling moves Andy kept describing to Johnny (who was constantly like “ouch, wrestling is mean”), but I didn’t realize he did podcasts on it and such. Neat! XD I’m glad he came by – this was a fun One Shot Wonder! I do enjoy watching this lot play tabletop games – they get so into everything they do, it’s really great.

B) The entirety of “Finding the Hidden Netherstone Fail-safes in Baldur's Gate 3” by Proxy Gate Tactician! A short little video about the various ways the game will attempt to stop you from losing the Netherstones – the three rocks that are kind of key to being able to stop the Absolute from enacting its grand “let’s turn everyone into mind flayers or thralls” plan upon Faerun. Now, the game WILL allow you to take them out of your inventory and drop them various places (and it even has a special “game over” cutscene where you get found by the Absolute and turned into a mind flayer if you ignore your Dream Guardian/The Emperor telling you to pick them back up), but it has a number of failsafes that stop you losing them permanently:

I. Drop Ketheric’s Netherstone in the mind flayer colony after defeating him in his boss fight near the end of Act II? The Dream Guardian won’t let you leave until you retrieve it, or until you turn mind flayer

II. Drop it in the Astral Prism after exposing the Emperor and fighting all the githyanki trying to kill him? The Emperor will scold you for your carelessness once you’re back in the real world and say he send it back to your camp

III. Drop it (and any other Netherstones you may have picked up) in the Iron Throne, a location you can only visit once in Act III because it explodes right after you leave? The Emperor will scold you again and tell you to look by the beach to see if the precious stones can be found. And they can – either as loot on some fishy enemies who always pop up near some specific docks; as part of a trader called Troutman’s merchandise (costing only three gold each) if you’ve killed those enemies beforehand; or in the belly of a fish lying dead on the shore if you’ve taken care of the encounter AND poor Troutman

IV. Drop the stones in the Steel Watch Foundry, ANOTHER Act III location you can visit only once because it blows up after you leave? The Emperor will yell at you some more and tell you to search the rubble, where you will encounter a trio of kobolds (who only appear in this one specific instance) who have looted the Netherstones from the debris. From there, it’s your choice to kill them in the world’s easiest fight to get the stones back, or let them flee and get the “you got turned into a mind flayer” cutscene

V. Drop the stones in the dinosaur-infested Chult Jungle that the djinn who runs the crooked prize wheel in the local circus sends you to if you manage to cheat yourself and actually win his game? ...okay, here you are actually screwed, as I think the devs assumed you’d be more interested in not becoming dino chow over dropping the stones. There’s no voice line from the Emperor scolding you for dropping them, and if you leave the area without picking them up, they are lost forever as you cannot get back to the jungle after you’ve been once. Congratulations, you’ve found the one way you can softlock your game with the Netherstones! XD

But yes – four times out of five, when it comes to the Netherstones, the devs have planned for your chicanery. Good stuff! It is nice to see these videos that emphasize just how much care Larian put into these little edge cases. :) One day I may even get to see them myself! :P

2. Continue editing “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – Alice made a little more progress through Grout’s bizarre house today, walking down some stairs and encountering the corpse of a heavily-clawed orderly (and wondering if the staff here actually work for pay, or are just more victims of Grout’s madness – her money’s on the latter); turning a corner and finding another sitting room, with a picture of Grout’s wife and a recording of him complaining about how his studies are growing nowhere and how he’s been wasting time wandering the tower walk in a “black depression” (Alice was like “well, at least this one didn’t send me into another murderous rage, but I hope with all my heart a bunch of your test subjects escaped while you were sulking”); and ascending the nearby winding staircase up onto the tower walk itself, taking a moment to look at LA from above and give Venture Tower the traditional English two-finger salute (and sharing a moment with Cheshire about how she hopes LaCroix falls out of a window and goes splat before she has to report back). Nothing too taxing for her today – she can spend the rest of the week enjoying the night air before I make her get a move on next Monday. :P

3. Keep up with YouTube “Subs”: Check – no regular subs, so I went straight to “CaFae Latte Season 53 - TikTok Compilation” by C. M. Alongi! This collection featured:

A) JC introducing Nicole to their younger sister Kelly – a green-haired community college student (theater and marketing double-major, photography minor) who is a “sugar baby,” accepting gifts and cash from rich men to pay the bills. She’d expected Nicole to be judgy, but actually Nicole was just surprised she didn’t do pornos (Kelly: “tried it, but the money is shit and the directors are assholes”). And then, when Kelly started asking about their financial situation and talking about how being a teacher is a pretty poorly-paid job, Nicole was able to hit her with a “you sound just like my dad.” XD Overall, they got along very well (probably helped that Kelly started things off by complimenting Nicole’s art), so that was a good start to Nicole meeting JC’s family!

B) A satyr visiting CaFae Latte and – after he’d left – Drek admitting that he hadn’t thought satyrs were real, because mortal myths don’t always get things right (citing “drakes,” wingless dragons, as evidence). Cyrus confirmed for him that angels, trolls, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and Japanese Oni were all genuine things – but when Drek started talking about making snacks for Bigfoot, said that the Sasquatch was just an urban myth. I am half-hoping one now shows up in the cafe at some point. XD

C) Bob, Cyrus, Rethu, JC, and Drek all having a bit of a bitch session after a busy day at the cafe (with JC asking both Drek and Rethu to stomp on their back to knock out the knots – Rethu eventually offered to go dragon and let everyone use them as a heated mattress after the place got cleaned up), and Bob making the decision that they really did more staff, so it was time to start hiring again, bad memories of Erik be damned. Also featured Bob telling JC (and the viewers at home) that CaFae Latte would be releasing a cookbook, w000! This must have come just after that short I watched about C. M. complaining about how she doesn’t know how to write a cookbook, only for her mom to chime in “well, I do, you want some help?” XD

D) Bob calling Lindsey the next day to get her help with the staffing issues (figuring if she helps someone from the food shelf/homeless shelter Lindsey volunteers at, she’ll scratch the “be altruistic” itch AND get someone who feels like they owe her and are thus less likely to betray her – Lindsey was like “cold but I understand”), with Lindsey saying she’ll talk to a few people who she thinks will fit in at the cafe and get them to apply; meanwhile, in the background, Rethu had to deal with a Starbucks manager criticizing how he served the ER nurse regular, accusing him of not giving it enough of a “personal touch” (Rethu was like “she doesn’t WANT chit-chat, she wants to get her coffee and GO most days,” but the Starbucks manager was persistent – fortunately, Bob noticed by the end of the episode, so it’s very likely they left cursed)

E) And JC introducing Nicole to their older brother John (the other sibling they still have contact with, as their other sister is a TERF), a construction guy with a love of booze and casual fucking! Things were a little more tense between him and JC than they were between JC and Kelly – probably because JC thinks John is an alcoholic, while John insists he can function without booze, he’s just not fun without it – but the group got on well enough, and the episode ended with John devolving into a rambling story about how he and JC used to go fishing up at their grandparents’ place in the summers. XD So yeah, so far, so good when it comes to Nicole meeting JC’s family! We’ll see what happens if and when she meets their parents later...

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – just Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) to worry about tonight, and after poking through my “#the smiler” tag on my blog for a while, I found something for Smiler’s Birthday Song Saturday – the 2013 Alton Towers fireworks show! Yeah, I originally posted this back in 2022, when I was first getting into The Smiler, and I figured it was the perfect video to bring back for Smiler’s birthday this year. 2013 WAS the year The Smiler opened, after all, and The Smiler’s attempted takeover at the end of the show helped inspire something about my OWN Smiler – namely, their voice! If you’ve ever wondered why I describe my Smiler as having a deep voice, this show and what we hear of The Smiler’s voice in it is the reason why. *nods* So yeah, that finishes off my queue for the week, yay! Now I just have to get a birthday picture of Smileon to post on the day itself. :)

Other: Despite the clouds building up this afternoon, we still got outside for beanbags – and unfortunately, today was a day where I just could not get it together and make any decent throws. The only reason I took second in the third game was because Mom and Dad kind of fell apart too, and Dad’s final throw slid off the board, leaving him one point behind me. *shakehead* Final scores were me 3-3-2; Dad W-W-3; Mom 2-2-W. We’ll see if I can do better the next time we play!

And there we have it! Nothing too special, but I did appreciate the extra hour or so to catch up on computer stuff before beanbags. And now it is time for me to head to bed so I can get through another day. Night all!