Scalyfreak clears a boss fight

[Scaly Freak]

 

 

Something is different. Something is… weird. Scalyfreak stops and cautiously looks around, while her free hand slowly goes towards the hilt of her sword and begins to loosen it from its sheath. Something is wrong.

 

Not only is one of her perpetual Demon Twin Companions missing, the one that is not missing is sullen and silent. Instead of whispering, the demon glares quietly, and hisses every now and then. Something is very wrong. Where is the other Demon Twin? Since the absence of one of the Twins is deeply disconcerting to her, Scalyfreak draws her sword and raises her shield, and slowly advances on the remaining half of the Terrible Twosome.

 

“Where is she?”

 

The demon huffs and glares, her body language and her vicious snarl suggesting she fully blames Scalyfreak for whatever has happened. After hesitating a few moments she begins backing away, still accusatory.

 

Scalyfreak’s eyes narrow in suspicion, and she move closer, only to have Procrastination run away from her, for the first time ever. That would have been very gratifying, if it wasn’t so strange and unexpected. Scalyfreak shrugs, sheaths her sword, and goes back to reclaim the backpack she dropped on the ground when she thought she was about to fight a demon. To her great surprise, a small imp-like creature is sitting on the backpack. And to her great dismay, the imp creature has opened a pocket on the side of the backpack and is playing with the contents!

 

“Hey! Get away from those!”

 

Scalyfreak rushes at the little imp, brandishing her sword in the hopes the creature will become frightened and leave. Those jars and bottles were quest rewards and they're valuable! As expected, the imp-creature bolts, but not far. It stops, looks longingly back towards the bottles that are scattered on the ground around the backpack, and then slowly begins to creep closer again. When Scalyfreak begins packing away the bottles and jars, the little creature actually whimpers in the most heartbreaking puppy-like manner and reaches a small clawed hand towards one of the jars.

 

Scalyfreak hesitates, sensing that the creature is curious but not malicious, and turns towards the little imp-like thing. “Can I have that bottle back now?”

 

The little imp-creature hesitates and clutches the bottle closer, and even pats it in an almost loving gesture, and slowly begins to back away again. “Okay, okay.. how about this? You give me back that boring brown glass bottle, and I will give you this bottle with the pretty bright red cap. Trade?” Scalyfreak holds out the offered (cheaper!) bottle to the little imp and waits, hoping the creature will accept the trade. An after a moment, the little imp-creature does... it comes closer, drops the brown glass bottle and snatches the bottle with the red cap, then dances out of reach.

 

And it looks so familiar... Scalyfreak blinks, looks again, then blinks again and looks one more time.

 

“Holy shit. Self-Indulgence?!?”

 

 

I won?

 

I won...

 

I won!

 

 

Self-Indulgence has not technically been defeated. She has been bribed and coerced to stop attacking me for as long as I feed her skin care products, hair care products, and colorful makeup. But it still counts as a big win, because as long as I keep feeding her these things, the threat she used to present is gone. Gone, gone, gone!

 

 

My current challenge will focus on establishing a pattern that will keep Self-Indulgence contained in her current non-threatening and distracted form, while keeping up with my lifting and meditation.

 

1. Physical Stress Management

1a. Walk with Happy Sidekick every day. Because HS has arthritis and this is important to keep her happy and pain free, and because walking for 15-20 minutes is good for me and makes a big difference for keeping a positive and anxiety-free mindset for me.

1b. Go to the gym when I am scheduled to go to the gym. If something comes up that legitimately prevents me from going to the gym that evening, I will rearrange my workouts and make every effort to still get there three times that week.

 

2. Mental Stress Management

2a. Mediate every morning. I am good at doing this Monday through Friday, and I suck at doing this on weekends. Weekends will be the focus of this challenge.

2b. Continue working towards improving sleep habits. This means continuing to respect my bed time, to use meditation techniques to help me fall asleep sooner rather than later, to continue to avoid coffee in the afternoons, and to get out of bed and get going when the alarm goes off in the morning.

 

3. Happiness factor: Continue with the side quests that carried over from the last challenge

3.a Declutter and tidy the desk in my dragon cave. Completing this quest unlocks 3c.

3b. Read Harder 2019. Pick books and start reading.

3c. Spec out and pick parts for the new computer build. Not available until 3a is complete.

[farflight]

Following for demon slaying tips!

 

Fellow adventurer's note, keep an eye out and make sure self-indulgence stays away from the treasure goblins from the greed clan...the corrupt any demon they meet even further....it's some sort of evil multiplier they apply to the demon's base stats....imagine a gremlin x10....*shiver*

 

Congrats on conquering the little bastard for now!

 

[CourtnieMarie]

here for this!

[Harriet]

8 hours ago, scalyfreak said:

 

Scalyfreak rushes at the little imp, brandishing her sword in the hopes the creature will become frightened and leave. Those jars and bottles were quest rewards and they're valuable! 

 

Your story reminded me of the good old days:

 

You will do well. It is foretold.

[Scaly Freak]

2 hours ago, farflight said:

Following for demon slaying tips!

 

Scalyfreak does not slay demons. She bends them to her will with powerful Charm spells.

 

2 hours ago, farflight said:

Fellow adventurer's note, keep an eye out and make sure self-indulgence stays away from the treasure goblins from the greed clan...the corrupt any demon they meet even further....it's some sort of evil multiplier they apply to the demon's base stats....imagine a gremlin x10....*shiver*

 

Noted. Thanks for the warning.

 

1 hour ago, Harriet said:

You will do well. It is foretold.

 

Gee, no pressure or anything, right?

[Scaly Freak]

I hate people. I especially hate loud, self-centered, inconsiderate people.

 

My gym has three of these along the edge of the free weights area:

 

See how the barbell rack part is all yellow? It's on hinges so you can tilt it forward and unrack straight up, instead of up and forward if you want. I don't, because I like unracking the way my lifting form videos on YouTube have shown me (I'm weird like that).

 

On the bench next to mine two loud and obnoxious gym bros of the worst kind are taking turns. They talk loudly and walk around near the benches between sets, and fail to realize they are distracting everyone, and occasionally getting in the way of someone doing walking lunges, or in the way of the guy on the third bench behind them, who is trying to focus on his own chest press.

 

So. I'm just about to start my second working set. I've set my feet, I've set my shoulders, gripped the bar firmly and I am just bracing to push the bar upwards when it happens.The third dumb-bro has arrived and they are so happy to see each other that their enthusiastic bro-hug greetings bump the end of my barbell. Hard. The only reason I didn't end up with 80 pounds of weighted barbell on my chest or throat was that hinge-thingie on the bench. The entire yellow part followed the bar and fell forward (clanking very loudly!) and thankfully held on to the barbell the entire time. 

 

They made some token attempt to apologize and I glared and refused to say a word, and avoided them and refused to let a pretty scary event ruin my workout. And now I'm home and no longer focusing on working out, and as a result I have thoroughly freaked myself out about what could have happened if they had bumped into the bar even one second later than they did.

 

Did I mention I hate people? Especially these kinds of people.

[farflight]

 

9 hours ago, scalyfreak said:

Did I mention I hate people?

 ....but....but...we're people....

those guys weren't people...they were ascotholes....fixed gym spawn, +10 stealth to appear as friendly NPC, they have high stealth damage...

 

 

You should totally go hulk on them next time....or calmly ask them to tone it down a little bit (e.g. "Sorry to interrupt...but could you kindly shut the hell up?").

 

I'm always extremely cautious around moving weights, its actually a big fear of mine to mess somebody up, I'll actually wait for someone to finish squats before I got weights off the rack attached to the powerrack just out of

[Grumble]

9 hours ago, scalyfreak said:

Did I mention I hate people? Especially these kinds of people.

They're not people. They're BROS. Completely different species. They're the group that believes that Dom Mazzeti is a real person and not a youtube character. Bros believe that curls must be in every workout and every lift should be accompanied by grunts and obnoxious shouts of encouragement, even on warmups. Bros are not people. Bros are idiots. I once was a Bro, for like a week after a head injury. It was a dark time.

[Scaly Freak]

20 minutes ago, farflight said:

 

 ....but....but...we're people....

 

No, you're not. People are annoying, loud, inconsiderate, and generally a nuisance, not to mention that they frequently are stupid. Obviously the term does not reply to anyone here. We're proud Nerds and Warriors. Not to mention, friends.

 

20 minutes ago, farflight said:

I'm always extremely cautious around moving weights, its actually a big fear of mine to mess somebody up,

 

Me too! I am almost paranoid about what could happen if I bump into someone who is in the middle of an OHP set. Not to mention, to me it's common sense to be respectful of the personal space and workout space of another person. It irritates me when others don;t return the favor.

[Scaly Freak]

2 minutes ago, Grumble said:

They're not people. They're BROS. Completely different species. They're the group that believes that Dom Mazzeti is a real person and not a youtube character. Bros believe that curls must be in every workout and every lift should be accompanied by grunts and obnoxious shouts of encouragement, even on warmups. Bros are not people. Bros are idiots.

 

These are excellent points, and I think you may be right.

 

@farflight, I take all of it back!

[farflight]

Just now, scalyfreak said:

to me it's common sense

AH HAH! There is the error in judgement.

 

Common sense is...sadly not common at all...it makes me sad!

1 minute ago, scalyfreak said:

We're proud Nerds and Warriors. Not to mention, friends.

[Harriet]

10 hours ago, scalyfreak said:

The third dumb-bro has arrived and they are so happy to see each other that their enthusiastic bro-hug greetings bump the end of my barbell. Hard. The only reason I didn't end up with 80 pounds of weighted barbell on my chest or throat was that hinge-thingie on the bench. The entire yellow part followed the bar and fell forward (clanking very loudly!) and thankfully held on to the barbell the entire time. 

Oof. That's scary. Glad you're okay. 

Yesterday I was doing my rows behind a guy who was squatting outside the rack - he was lifting off from the hooks that I usually use for the OHP.  The gym is big, but full, and it's normal for people doing rows or deadlifts to set up one or two feet behind the rack. Squatter had just enough space and knew I was there. As the squatter was backing out with his heavy weight, another guy walked in between me and the squatter to get to the water fountain. He got really close to the squatter who was still walking backwards. I said "Oh for God's sake" (an automatism, no offence to the spirits) and although he had earphones I think he saw my face. He walked behind me on his way back. But had he been earphone-free and had I not had my hands full I would have given him a short lecture. I find that people actually respond really well to a firm but gentle explanation of how what they're doing negatively affects me/others. Whereas if I just get angry then people get defensive and become motivated to justify/deny their behaviour.

 

[JustCallMeAmber]

Glad you didn't get hurt and didn't let it ruin the rest of your session! I would hope dude bro learned something about spacial awareness, but I fear it is a fool's hope.

[Mike Wazowski]

Gah, I'm angry on your behalf!! And absolutely hoping that those bros learned something about being considerate (even if they didn't show it in the moment).

 

Also, hear for this challenge!

 

Also also, thanks for the skincare tips last challenge - I'm seriously happy with the changes I've made so far and the effects that using serum and moisturizer twice a day appear to be having.

[Scaly Freak]

9 minutes ago, Mike Wazowski said:

Also also, thanks for the skincare tips last challenge - I'm seriously happy with the changes I've made so far and the effects that using serum and moisturizer twice a day appear to be having.

 

You're welcome! I'm glad the changes you made are helping. And serums are awesome

[Harriet]

Skin! I have a question about your e-derm powder sunscreen. How strong is the tint? From experience, products that only have one variation and say it will suit everyone are in fact too dark on me. But it would be nice to have a powder sunscreen.

[Scaly Freak]

19 minutes ago, Harriet said:

Skin! I have a question about your e-derm powder sunscreen. How strong is the tint? From experience, products that only have one variation and say it will suit everyone are in fact too dark on me. But it would be nice to have a powder sunscreen.

 

On my skin it acts like a translucent powder. When I apply, with a hand mirror at my desk, I cannot tell where on my face I have already applied the powder and where I still need to go with the brush. I am only speculating here, but if you're not wearing any makeup at all, this particular powder sunscreen will probably be visible. However, on top of makeup, it just acts as if you're applying a coat of powder.

 

And I often have the same problem you do, with "one shade fits all"- solutions. Side-effect of being from a long, long, line of north-Scandinavians, and of wearing sunscreen every day.

[Mike Wazowski]

1 hour ago, scalyfreak said:

You're welcome! I'm glad the changes you made are helping. And serums are awesome

I've still got some leveling up to do - like having sunscreen with me so I can reapply it, but it's definitely helpful!

[Scaly Freak]

6 minutes ago, Mike Wazowski said:

I've still got some leveling up to do - like having sunscreen with me so I can reapply it, but it's definitely helpful!

 

This is one of the many advantages of carrying a purse

[Mike Wazowski]

42 minutes ago, scalyfreak said:

This is one of the many advantages of carrying a purse

I have an everyday bag that I lug my laptop to and from work in - I think it's basically the manly(ish) equivalent of a purse! I.e. it's got hand lotion, computer glasses, phone charger, earbuds, and probably some other miscellany I can't remember off the top of my head in there at all times. But sunscreen...not yet.

[Scaly Freak]

7 minutes ago, Mike Wazowski said:

I have an everyday bag that I lug my laptop to and from work in - I think it's basically the manly(ish) equivalent of a purse! I.e. it's got hand lotion, computer glasses, phone charger, earbuds, and probably some other miscellany I can't remember off the top of my head in there at all times. But sunscreen...not yet.

 

Yep. Remove the laptop, and include your wallet and keys, and that fills the exact same purpose as a purse.

[Mike Wazowski]

59 minutes ago, scalyfreak said:

Yep. Remove the laptop, and include your wallet and keys, and that fills the exact same purpose as a purse.

Wallet and keys are usually in there too! it is super convenient to have a holder for all the things (and bonus, it prevents wear lines forming on my pants)

[WhiteGhost]

On 2/7/2019 at 2:01 PM, scalyfreak said:

their enthusiastic bro-hug greetings bump the end of my barbell. Hard.

The obliviousness of some people is mind boggling.

 

Also, following 

 

[Harriet]

22 hours ago, scalyfreak said:

And I often have the same problem you do, with "one shade fits all"- solutions. Side-effect of being from a long, long, line of north-Scandinavians, and of wearing sunscreen every day.

Excellent. I think scandinavians are even paler than the ancestors who gave me their milk colour. I will give the powder a try. 

[Scaly Freak]

18 minutes ago, Harriet said:

I think scandinavians are even paler than the ancestors who gave me their milk colour.

 

It's also a matter of skin tone, not just pale or dark shades. I'm pale with cool undertones (Look at the veins in your wrist in good light. Blue = cool toned skin.Greenish = warm toned skin)So any powder or cream with a golden or bronze undertone looks yellow or orange on me.