Crossover Chick

Yes, today I didn't go out because it was too hot -- in fact, it barely hit 70F outside -- but because it was too rainy! It was at least drizzling most of the day, and we're currently under a flood watch because it's supposed to start raining heavier overnight into tomorrow. And then we might get one nice day on Wednesday before it ends up hot and humid again on Thursday. *sigh* New England weather, people! Though despite the coolness of the day, I ended up having to turn my AC on tonight because it was a little too warm and a little too humid in my room earlier. Probably retaining heat from the heat wave... *shrug* What can you do? Well, the following, for a start --

Tumblr: As today was Monday, I only had to worry about keeping up on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) today tumblr-wise (though, really, given how little activity Valice Multiverse gets, I only have to worry about VLA(NS) most days) – ended up accomplishing two things of note over there –

A) First, since I got a late start this morning (slept in until almost 10 AM), I decided the best thing to do before lunch was to go through my tracked tags and find if there was anything I wanted to reblog! Ended up sticking the following into my drafts –

I. A piece of VTMB fanart by sionskaia showing the wrecked basement of the abandoned hospital, Pisha advancing on one of the unfortunate crew members while an abandoned camcorder in the corner showed her face looming in the preview screen (very well done, and I loved Pisha’s face on the abandoned camcorder...along with the little notification saying something was “FINE” at the top XD No it isn’t, camcorder!)

II. A piece of Blades In The Dark OC art by overdeaths of his character Shrike, “a bastard with perhapsss a little demon problem” as per his own description, wielding a strange and terrifying blade with SOMETHING ethereal with lots of eyes coming out of him (it was made for “Artfight,” a fun little event where artists “attack” each other by drawing their OCs, and it was really cool – I hope he gets some fun attacks :D)

III. Another piece of BITD OC art by ouliarts of their character Canori – a woman with bright green feathers around her red eyes, marking her as from Tycheros – in a portrait with her late husband and kid (who inherited some of the feathers) (another nice piece that was quite well drawn – made me sad that Canori had lost her family as per the tags)

IV. A piece of The Smiler OC art by phoenixthefurb of their updated design for their Smiler/Marmaliser character, which is basically a somewhat humanoid torso sporting the iconic Smiler face and pointy antenna “ears” atop the big old legs from the ride’s Marmaliser (which were rendered very well – I found it fascinating and thus had to save for later)

V. Another piece of The Smiler OC art by novafloattv of fellow Smiler lover protohay’s Smiler OC for artfight, featuring a rather cute lady with the iconic Smiler face, a fun black-and-yellow-striped hat and a jacket that I think looks a little straitjacket-esque with the belts on the arms and across the front (I just thought it was cute! As did protohay, fortunately :) )

VI. And an A:MR gifset by xcybervampx of Alice getting into the teapot cable car at the end of the crockery and heading off to Hatter’s Domain (very smooth and pretty gifs, and I do like that moment as I like the teapot cable car in general – it’s just a good design!)

So yay, now I have a bunch of new stuff I can toss into future queues. :)

B) And second, this evening, I abruptly remembered “Oh yeah, Valicer Anniversary tomorrow!” and tossed the completed VITD Wedding post into the queue so I didn’t have to worry about posting it manually. *nods* So THAT’S all sorted for tomorrow, hooray~

Paralives: Played a little over an hour of everyone’s favorite Early Access life sim today, working some more on my randomized Para Lilliana’s alleyway house today – and despite a few hiccups, I both had fun and made progress! :) Not a hell of a LOT of progress, mind, a decent portion of my playsession today focused around recoloring items, but still. XD Let me tell you about it –

A) After the long opening loading screen (I suppose this is the price we pay for having a fully-open-world game), I picked up outside Lilliana’s little three-story abode tucked in between the pharmacy and – er, whoever lives next door, I don’t actually know who that is. XD I thus attempted to rotate the camera so I could get a better look at her front hallway and figure out what I wanted to do with it once I hopped into Build/Buy Mode –

Only to suddenly find myself IN Build/Buy Mode. I had a moment of “???” – then realized that, instead of hitting [Q] to spin the camera, I’d hit [TAB] instead. And apparently that’s the shortcut key between Build/Buy and Live Mode! Okay, glad I made that mistake, honestly – that’s a handy shortcut to know! (And before you say anything about “didn’t you look at the key bindings the last time you played?” – said last time I played was June 8th, which was nearly a month ago, so cut me some slack. :P)

B) Having established how to quickly swap between Build/Buy and Live Mode, and changed the time of day in B/B to 12 PM so I could better see what I was doing (as it was the middle of the night in Live Mode), I set about examining the front hall. The last time I played, I made the paint in there a really bright, almost Day-Glo green to help set off the dark green front door...but the more I looked at it, the more I was like “Mmmm – do I really want the front hall to be that color? Maybe something darker would be better...and then I could lighten the door instead?” I thus redid the hallway in a darker green swatch of the same paint, then – after grabbing a new version of the door because I’d forgotten you could just click on the existing item to change the color swatch (haven’t played in a month!) – changed the wood frame of the door to match the color of the baseboards and the door itself to a nice bright (but not too bright) green…

Then looked it again and was like “No, I don’t think I like that either.” The brighter greens just didn’t seem to suit the build, or the character I was building for – Lilliana was dressed in much darker greens and browns, after all. So I decided to go all dark greens and just made the door dark enough that I was satisfied it would still stand out against the hallway instead of blending in. After that, all I had to do was write down the hex codes for the frame and door colors, and apply them to the window frames and shutters respectively, and voila – perfectly matching windows and doors! Guys, I think I may be sold on having a color wheel. :p (I also did experiment a little with changing the wood textures on both the door and the window shutters, but nothing looked good, so I kept the basic default stuff. Something we can play with later!)

( I extend a hallway, figure out stairs, help Lilliana enter her own house, and build a bathroom )

Writing: Well, I got to it a bit later than I was hoping due to various factors (the Paralives write-up above taking longer than anticipated; supper being a bit later than usual thanks to Mom having to come home from the hospital first and cook some sausage to go with yesterday’s leftovers; Dad FaceTiming us right after supper (he’s doing fine, don’t worry); me getting a little distracted by rereading bits of the Blades In The Dark source book while double-checking a certain step in creating a crew for chapter title purposes – see item B below; and FF.net absolutely REFUSING to accept the Chapter 7 .odt doc for AGES – I don’t know what it’s problem is, but eventually I forced the upload through), but I did start final edits on Chapter 7 of “The Van Dort Vacancy” tonight! Which involved –

A) Watching my “reference videos” – the first three and a half minutes of “Percy, Rum, Balloons and Mooning - The OX Crew Play BITD” by CaitlinRC, with some best bits from the Barnaby and Kasimir balloon race score (including Kasimir attempting to be passive-aggressive when Barnaby asked him to get get him a drink, as he didn’t want to stand up, and Barnaby completely missing it), and the first minute and a half of “Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride | Remains of the Day | Movie Clip | Warner Bros. Entertainment” by Warner Bros. Entertainment, which showed Victor waking up in the Ball & Socket post Emily-kiss, being spooked by the residents, and finally trying to grab the sword out of Bonesaparte to fend them off with – only to grab the whole guy (left off right before the song, which I’m sure most Corpse Bride fans would call blasphemy, but I didn’t need to listen to “Remains Of The Day, I just needed a Victor clip!)

B) Coming up with a chapter title for Chapter 7 – “Two Coin Would Have Gotten Them Plus One Status, But Oh Well” – this is a reference to how, when you first make your crew in Blades In the Dark, you inevitably find yourself intruding on someone else’s turf when it comes to where you do your jobs and have to figure out how to deal with them. You can pay the other crew one Coin to mollify them and prove you respect their claim, as Alice did when Nessa and the Gray Cloaks showed up to ask the trio what their deal was, or you can pay them two Coin and make them actually friendly to you. Or you can ignore them and make them mildly hostile, if you’re willing to take a risk. :p If you’re wondering, I only had Alice give Nessa one Coin because the gang needed the rest for their own personal expenses – namely, those expensive presents Victor will be giving his partners-in-crime in the epilogue. :p They may become more friendly with the Gray Cloaks by other means later!

C) And, you know, actually editing the chapter. XD I got through about half the chapter today, from Barnaby complaining about his ruined smoky coat to the trio preparing to head back to Elder Gutknecht’s place and talk to him about staying for good. Probably could have done the whole thing in one go if I’d had the time (it’s only slightly longer than Chapter 6), but alas, it was not to be. We’ll finish it up tomorrow instead – and maybe celebrate the Valicer Anniversary with a new chapter of one of my Valicer stories going up on AO3. :p

Workout: Hopped back on the stationary bike for another ride this evening – and, because I played Paralives today, I decided to watch the first half of “Rags to Riches continues in Paralives! (Part 4)” by James Turner with it! This chunk of the adventures of Person Pennypile and Semaj Renrut included –

A) James having Semaj call over Bianca for another try at that first kiss, and attempting to send Percy to paint – only to discover they didn’t have enough money for him to pay for the canvas (it seems to cost more to start painting the more skilled you become); Percy thus got sent on one of the duo’s patented Collecting Sprees to gather items that could be sold or donated for cash while Semaj waited for Bianca to show up –

Before realizing that, instead of going to what James thought of as the front door on the first floor of the build, she’d gone to what the Paras seemed to consider the front door at the top of the build – the one that connects to the sitting area above the train tracks. Fortunately, Semaj was able to run over and engage her in conversation before she got tired of waiting to be greeted and left. XD One Together Card later, Semaj bit the bullet and decided to suggest being in an official romantic relationship – Bianca agreed, making them officially Lovers (much like Semaj and Percy – James was a little surprised that he could just be in multiple relationships, but this IS a game that has the option to make your Sims polyamorous right off the bat) –

And opening up the option for them to kiss passionately! :D FINALLY fulfilling Semaj’s want to have a first kiss with Bianca! Granted, we didn’t get a great view of said first kiss as James’s camera kept bouncing all over the place (he wasn’t sure if it was the game or his “Sims 3-style camera” mod), and when he tried to make it happen in Photo Mode it didn’t come out looking quite right, but it happened! w00t!

( The Boys donate paintings for money, try to slice up some cakes, FINALLY get a bathroom sink, and complete some more quests )

*nods* Not too shabby, I suppose! It was fun to finally get to start properly designing and decorating the house in Paralives -- and I'm very glad that I'm so close to uploading another chapter of "The Van Dort Vacancy." Means I can start the next story in the series, "They Would Have Done It For An Ottoman," that much sooner... :p But now I should really get to bed, as it is pretty late and I'd kind of like to wake up in time to say bye to Mom before she goes to spend some more time with Dad in the hospital (he won't be coming home until later in the afternoon). Tomorrow is the Valicer Anniversary, as I have said -- plans include working on my Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) drafts and updating the Master Anniversary Post; finishing edits on Chapter 7 of "The Van Dort Vacancy" and getting it up on AO3; and getting in a workout. I MAY also play some more Paralives, as per my write-up above, or I may skip gaming altogether in favor of just watching some videos pertaining to the three members of my OT3. We'll see. *shrug* Night all!

Dad wasn't doing well today, partly because it was so freaking noisy thanks to the fireworks last night that he got like no sleep, and Mom was all stressed out this morning because of laundry stuff -- she had to wash one load twice because everything ended up covered in lint from the bath mats, and a bunch of the white stuff ended up stained from the special soap Dad had to use before going in for his biopsy on the 2nd. Oh, and Dad didn't eat much because his stomach was bothering him and he didn't want to throw up. :( Did not exactly make for ideal holiday conditions! Especially since, again, we were all pretty much trapped in the house because of the miserably hot weather... *sigh* Just -- not good. But I persevered, and I did manage to have some fun times and get a few things done:

Tumblr: Once again, there was nothing going on over on Valice Multiverse, and I didn’t get a whole heck of a lot done over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) thanks to a late start (all the aforementioned laundry stuff this morning, plus having to change my own sheets). But I did at least finish turning the VITD Valicer Wedding Post into a proper post with subheadings and everything, getting through:

A) The wedding guests section (remembering to make sure that Smiler invited their uncle Felix, and deciding that the gang solved the problem of bringing Elder Gutknecht to the wedding by transporting him to the venue in a spirit bottle, opening it up so he could watch the ceremony invisibly, then having him go back into the spirit bottle until they could take him home (he himself was fine with this, not wanting to cause a panic either))

B) The wedding rings section (establishing that they use the same simple rings that they used for their drunken ceremony for the real one, and that the trio probably wouldn’t want to give each other traditional engagement rings because they are scoundrels and wouldn’t want to give the other scoundrels they interact with something to steal off them. I suggested that they might get each other different little presents to formalize the engagement, but I haven’t figured out what they should be yet)

C) The last name section (a new one I added after recalling that I wanted them to take the “Van Liddelton” last name my Sims trio had in the Chill Valicer Save, covering how they came to decide on that last name – basically, Victor was fine giving up “Van Dort” entirely, but while Smiler assured Alice they didn’t mind being Smiler Liddell, Alice felt a bit bad about depriving them of their “Alton” last name, as she figured it was important to them (given their adoption backstory) and started wondering if they could do two last names. And her suggestion of “Liddell Alton” caused Smiler to try smushing them together into “Liddelton,” and then to add “Van” in front of it so Victor wouldn’t be left out. The trio all admitted they liked it, and so became the “Van Liddeltons” while filling out the wedding paperwork. :) )

D) And the honeymoon section (confirming that honeymoon trips aren’t really a thing in Duskwall thanks to travel being difficult, and that the trio just heads home for a few days of “staycation” once the reception is over...and also confirming that Victor gets a blue collar from Alice and Smiler for said honeymoon, for they are kinda kinky XD)

*nods* So that’s mostly sorted – tomorrow I’ll give it a little more editing and see if I can get the tags done so it’ll be ready to go on Tuesday. :)

Writing: Watched “Victor van dort Scenes [logoless+720p] (corpse bride)” by PACKS LOGOLESS again for a bit of quick reference, then finished off Chapter 7 of “The Van Dort Vacancy” after lunch today! The final page of which covered –

A) Nessa appreciating Smiler getting right to the point and telling them that the Gray Cloaks’ business with the Three Pillars was simple – they just wanted to make it clear to the newbies that, if they wanted to set up business in Six Towers, they had better respect that the Gray Cloaks were there first. Smiler assured her that shouldn’t be an issue as they were not looking to step on any toes, with Alice agreeing –

And then, after sizing Nessa up, asking if “respect” was monetary in nature. Nessa informed her that it could be, and that it would go a long way toward making them more friendly neighbors –

Cuing Alice to pull out the purse she stole from Bumby’s office and ask if a Coin was enough respect for her. Nessa declared it suited her just fine. XD (This is actually something that you do during crew creation in the main Blades In The Dark book, by the by – when you pick a turf, the GM informs you of which gang already holds the area, and you have the option of giving them a Coin’s worth of cash to keep them neutral, two Coin’s worth to make them friendly, or ignoring them and making them a little bit hostile. I decided to go with the gang giving just the one Coin to the Gray Cloaks so they’d have enough money for Victor to buy his presents for Alice and Smiler in the epilogue!)

B) Nessa taking the purse (after counting the money inside, of course) and telling the trio it was a pleasure to meet them, and that she wouldn’t ask where they were setting up, as it was better that she didn’t know. She then added that the Gray Cloaks would do their best to stay out of their way, and they hoped the Three Pillars would do the same –

Before shifting to reveal the dagger on her hip and telling them that if she found out they were working with Strangford...well. She wouldn’t kill them but that was just because she didn’t want their ghosts haunting her. Smiler assured her they had no affiliation with Strangford, and repeated they were there to get in anyone’s way, with Alice adding that they barely had a way of their own right now, so staying out of the Gray Cloaks’ way shouldn’t be hard. She and Nessa then shook hands, with Nessa offering the trio a final bit of advice – “And try to stay out of sight of Lord Rowan if you can – he’s a real arse” – before heading back into the nearest alleyway with her crew. Smiler commented after they had left that that had gone well, and it was nice to see a reasonable crew leader, with Alice agreeing and admitting she’d been a little worried that things would get violent early on. She was only too happy to give up a Coin’s worth of cash to ensure she didn’t get into a knife fight with a bunch of opponents who were probably better at it than she was! Smiler pointed out that she’d taken on all the Bluecoats and won back when they were accused of murdering a Spirit Warden – Alice in turn reminded them that she’d taken that lot by surprise, and there had been fewer of them. *nods* “Not To Be Trifled With” only covers groups up to six, after all! The eight Gray Cloaks would have definitely been more difficult for her.

C) Alice then turning to Victor and going “So – the Three Pillars?” causing an embarrassed Victor to admit he’d panicked, explaining that he’d thought having a proper crew name would make the Gray Cloaks take them more seriously – and since they were in Six Towers, his brain had latched onto the idea that it had to be architectural in nature. And since they were three of them, well… (Exactly my thought process when I came up with the name, Victor!) He assured Alice and Smiler that they didn’t have to keep it –

Only for Smiler to say that they liked it – it was easy to remember, and did suit the fact that they were living in Six Towers. And saved them from having to come up with a different name later. Alice agreed and said that she was quite happy being one of the Three Pillars, and Victor felt a little warm glow inside as he thought about how lucky he’d been to meet them, and how they were the best friends he could have. :) Awww…

D) And the trio continuing onward into Six Towers, with Smiler declaring that, after they talked to Elder Gutknecht and got their current clothes soaking, they should go and have a nice meal somewhere, as they more than deserved it. Alice teased that they were just hungry after working in the Van Dort kitchen – Smiler retorted “so what if I am?” and pointed out that one of the best restaurants in the whole city was in Six Towers. A puzzled Alice was like “it is?” and Victor explained that Smiler meant the Golden Plum, a fancy place run by the Roselle siblings, who’d refused to move once the richer sorts started abandoning the neighborhood for Brightstone. He confirmed that the food was delicious (having been a couple of times with his parents) –

But also that it was expensive, telling Smiler that they might want to set their sights lower for this particular meal. Smiler promised him they were fine with just hitting up some ordinary tavern and ordering a meal – they just felt they should treat themselves somehow, as a reward for a job well done. Alice admitted she couldn’t argue that, as they had been through a lot the last few days, and it would be nice to have a bit of normality before they started figuring out how to make their house a little more suitable for living people. And before Victor started messing with things man was not meant to know. XD Victor promised not to unleash any cataclysms in the house, and the chapter ended with him thinking about lightning arcing down from a dark sky, a symbol lighting up on the floor, and the mask still tucked away in his bag. :)

Hooray! Feels good to get that sorted! And with the Valicer Anniversary coming up, I think I should dedicate at least the beginning of next week to getting this chapter up on AO3...

Baldur’s Gate III: I entered Faerûn a little later than I intended today, but enter it I did – and this afternoon’s playsession saw Smiler and company battle a bunch of gnolls just past the bridge leading to the Risen Road Toll House! Because I wanted to investigate what was on the other side, and what was on the other side were a bunch of gnolls. :p Let me give you all the details –

A) Upon booting up the game and letting all the textures pop in, my first order of business was to see if I could find that “burrow hole” that Gale spotted with his surprise Perception check behind the toll house at the end of my last session. However, while I was able to use the mini-map in the corner to guide Smiler to where the hole was supposed to be, I sure as hell couldn’t actually see it anywhere. Was it in the little gap behind one of the trees? Hidden in a bush? Tucked into a crack between rocks? *shrug* Don’t ask me – I could NOT find the thing. I gave up after a minute or two of searching, figuring it wasn’t actually that important – it’s not like any of the party members could fit down there, and nobody had any familiars that could slip in the hole (though I made sure to double-check Gale’s spell list, just in case I had given him the “Find Familiar” spell – I had not). Maybe we’ll come back once he or one of the others can summon a rat and see if we can find it and figure out where it leads! (I suspect into the vault, as Wyll spotted SOMETHING down there with his own surprise Perception check that I was never able to find either…)

B) With the burrow hole left for another day’s adventures, I sent the party over to the ancient sigil that served as the location’s fast travel waypoint, then looked around the area to see where I wanted to send them next. Did I hop up the nearby convenient stone “steps” to see what was happening above? Did I follow the path leading down under the bridge? Or did I cross the bridge and see what was going on with the wrecked carts I spotted on the other side earlier? I was very curious to see where all three paths led –

But, well, I nearly abandoned looting the toll house vault in favor of investigating those carts before, so it was a pretty easy choice to make in the end. :P I thus had Smiler and company head over to the bridge, expecting them to go back across the middle of the area by the big tree there –

But to my surprise, they actually began running down the path leading under the bridge. For a moment, I was like “??? Did my game glitch out? Did I click the wrong place?” –

And then Smiler turned and climbed up a little stone “ladder” cut into the rock just to the left of the bridge before heading to the point I’d originally clicked. Oh – didn’t even see that before! Just for fun, I took a picture as the rest of the party climbed up and followed them:



I kinda like that Wyll was the first one to climb up and follow Smiler, given I plan on romancing him. :) Warlock solidarity!

( Smiler and friends versus the big bad gnolls! )

YouTube: Well, no CaFae Latte compilation again this week – I’m starting to think I should just start watching the shorts individually, maybe one per day. Be less to recap in one go! But I did fit in two short videos after finish my BG3 write-up above –

A) First up was the YouTube Short “This is why you should always save this Hyena in Baldur's Gate 3 #shorts” by DragonsDream! Which felt appropriate given that I’d just spent a bunch of time fighting hyenas and creatures spawned from them in my playsession today. :p However, this short featured a much different hyena who appears in Act 2, in the Shadow-Cursed Lands. This one is in a goblin camp, and you first encounter him when you come across a goblin trying to get him to play fetch. After interrupting the game, if you have Speak With Animals, you can talk to the hyena –

And discover that he is a shy, scared thing who admits he doesn’t know your smell and asks timidly if you’re a friend. And if you inform him that the goblin with the bone tried to kill him (presumably by making him run into the Shadow Curse, away from the safe torchlight), the hyena sadly says that he must have been bad, and reveals that they beat him for being weak and soft, even though he does try his best. :( Fortunately, you can convince the hyena to flee the camp with a couple of Persuasion checks, getting him to overcome his fears of being cut and killed and run for safety, and he thanks you as his “new friend.” :) Better yet, the comments confirmed that, if you do this, the hyena actually gets out alive! Turns out the camp is close enough to an exit from the Shadow-Cursed Lands that he can safely escape the shadows and return to the wild. AND, if you want to keep the guy as a pet, there’s a mod for that, apparently – “Ed The Hyena” on NexusMods. Yay! We love a happy ending.

B) And second up was the regular YouTube video “Paralives Just Got a BIG New Update! (July 2026)” by onlyabidoang! This featured Abi going through all the various new stuff that got added to Paralives in the July 2nd patch, which included –

I. Four new bathroom towels in the bathroom clutter – two big towels and two little ones, in both “folded neatly on a rack” and “hanging from a hook” versions

II. The ability to change a Para’s appearance using a mirror or by going to the hospital – you can change pretty much anything except their age and most of their personality (apart from “Lifestyles” – you can turn them into vegetarians and the like if you want, for example)

III. The ability to reset pre-built lots to their original state if you bulldoze the original house, only to find you don’t like what you attempted to build yourself – just zoom out to the map screen and pick the option after clicking on the lot icon (be aware, you can’t undo it – except, presumably, by bulldozing it again XD)

IV. A couple of adjustments to the Paramaker, namely changing the music to a softer, calmer version whenever you zoom in close to a Para’s face, and adding many more baby presets to the randomizer

V. A bunch more images to pick from when you put up customizable art, including fun new food-themed posters, classic paintings by Van Gogh and Monet, and even parody film posters for things like “Joe King” (AKA Joker), “Nightfall” (AKA Twilight), and “Pippin” (AKA Jaws, but with a cow) XD

VI. A whole bunch more objects that you can slap custom artwork on – a Polaroid picture! A new round cushion! A coffee mug! Curtains! A decorative skateboard! A decorative flag! And, best of all, rugs! Why is that best of all? Well, because you can slap a blueprint downloaded from the internet on them and use them to build a house if you are so inclined! Previously the community was using pictures that they’d rotated to lay flat on the ground with the advanced rotation tools, so I imagine this is going to be BIG among the builders.

VII. Improvements to save files, including allow you to transfer saves between devices using the Steam Cloud; reducing the average size of save files from 500mb to 30mb; and adjusting the autosave feature so you can choose from the last three autosaves if you need to revert a save for any reason (James Turner probably would have appreciated that when he accidentally wiped Percy and Semaj’s lot at the beginning of his Rags To Riches series!

VIII. The ability to mass disable and enable all mods that you currently have enabled in the mod manager (though you can’t turn on EVERY mod you have installed at once – if a mod was disabled before you hit the master switch, it’ll stay disabled even if you enable mods again)

IX. And various bug fixes, such as correcting some missing eating animations, making sure stuff like solar panels and water recyclers actually reduce your bills if you have them on-lot, and making sure if you buy a lot while your Para is sleeping or sitting that they won’t spawn onto the lot still in that sleeping or sitting position (Abi had a bit of trouble parsing that one until someone explained it to him in the comments)

So yeah – pretty big update full of cool stuff! :D Yeah, there’s some issues in the game that the developers are looking into (the most amusing one being Paras getting jealous when kissing their own partner), but it seems like they’re really doing their best to keep on top of the bugs, and add in fun new bits and pieces here when they can. :) Will definitely be taking some time to pop into the game and play for a while this long weekend!

...and once again, it's just about 2 AM, and I can hear fireworks. >( Though, admitted, they're much QUIETER fireworks than last night -- we lucked out in that it rained earlier, meaning the pyromaniac idiots around here couldn't let off most of the big boy stuff. *nods* I'll take the more muffled shots we're getting now! As it stands, though, I'd better get to bed, fireworks or no -- tomorrow is Dad's birthday, and I can't sleep through it. I don't know if we'll be doing anything or not (depends on how he feels and the weather), but I should be able to get that VITD Wedding Post sorted and keep up with the latest episode of "The Worst Wanderer" if nothing else -- and, if time permits, I will also play some Fallout: New Vegas so we can have some Courier!Victor to go with Tav!Smiler. *nods* Night all!

We had temperatures of about 105F this afternoon if my car's temperature reading was accurate (and I suspect it was), with humidity so thick you could cut it with a knife. *pulls a face* VERY glad that my car, my office, and my house are all adequately air conditioned! Though my office was a bit hot this morning, not gonna lie. Big windows letting in the sun without any proper shades will do that. *grimace* But I made it through, and I have completed TODAY'S write-up all in one go, hooray:

Work – Well, my final day at work for the week was actually not that bad, all things considered:

A) I did the morning reports, check scan, and GL, as you do

B) I took a call from a guy who had gotten a notice that his latest Capital Campaign payment had failed due to a bad credit card – as it was his very last payment, we just did it over the phone with his new card to cap off his pledge

C) I finished off the thank-you QC file from yesterday...discovering in the process a SECOND Capital Campaign gift that had been put on as an Appeal gift in error. *sigh* However, complicating matters for THIS particular donor was me discovering that he’d also OVERPAID his Capital Campaign gift (looks like he had automatic bill pay set up with his bank and forgot to shut it off when his pledge was fulfilled). I ended up calling him at the end of the day to let him know – he asked if we could instead direct the money to the Appeal, or another fund by the bishop, and I told him that I’d talk to my supervisor and we’d get back to him. I think we can, but it is a bit of a pain in the ass to do. We’ll see!

D) I went through some returned mail slips brought down by the newspaper office – she had three address updates and an “Unable To Forward,” but when I actually looked at the donors, I found that one of the people with an “address update” was actually deceased (passed in January), and that the husband of the couple on the “Unable To Forward” slip had also passed (back in 2024!). So yeah, ended up e-mailing her at the end of the day to bring her up to speed on those updates!

E) I put on the two whole checks we received in the mail today – one of which was ALSO an overpayment on a pledge (some dude’s Appeal pledge this time). Fortunately, when I called him, he was very nice and said we could keep it as an extra donation, so on it went

F) I e-mailed my coworker and supervisor to tell them the most important events of the day (specifically about that Capital Campaign guy who wants his overpayments to go to the Appeal)

G) ...and I made up a birthday card for Dad because his birthday is this Sunday and I needed a card for him. :p

So yeah – busy, but in a low-key, not overly stressful way. Which I appreciate. *nods* And now I am free for the next five days, yay~ Shame that it’s supposed to be hot and miserable for most of them, but still!

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – tonight’s pedal session took me through –

A) The end of “Our new house in Rags to Riches Paralives” by James Turner! The last few minutes of which featured –

I. James continuing to work on the house, adding a nice ground-level front door and leveling out the terrain in front of it (as best he could, anyway, with the giant terrain-editing brush), creating a nice recessed entrance to and from the seating area above the train tracks up top (which forced him to repurchase his top roof section, unfortunately, as it got deleted during his fiddling), and seeing if he could stack some stairs to allow easy access between floors (he most certainly could, as Semaj demonstrated)! Sure, Percy came in near the end of the stair test and started going down a stairwell that didn’t exist anymore because it DID exist when James told him to come home, but that’s just because the game is Early Access and thus has Moments. XD

II. James figuring out the house’s layout, designating the little box of the third floor as the “home office” area with Percy’s easel and Semaj’s laptop, the second floor as the main living area, with a little U-shaped kitchen tucked up against what would be the second-floor bathroom, and the first floor as the bedroom area, giving the boys a room that would become a walk-in wardrobe and another bathroom. Maybe a bit of an odd layout, especially with the bedroom being on the first floor, but that’s what James wanted, and so that’s what James got! Though it did cost him the half-roof piece tucked up next to the balcony on the second floor – note to all Paralives builders, always do your roof last!

( James finishes a house, Barnaby has makeouts, and Astarion steals a ledger )

2. Continue editing “The Van Dort Vacancy”: Check – got another page edited tonight on the penultimate chapter of this story, featuring –

A) Alice responding to Smiler’s “Well – they were interesting, weren’t they?” by saying that Kasimir was interesting – Barnaby was mostly an annoyance. XD Though she had to allow that the guy did do a good job of charming Nell when she caught them, noting that if Mavis hadn’t shown up yelling about the guards, they might have made it out free and clear. Victor admitted that they probably should have found a place to hide Steve and Alan’s unconscious bodies, but – well. Like Alice had said when they initially drugged them, there was no convenient place to put them, and trying to find one probably would have taken too long. Shame!

B) Victor saying that at least they did all make it out, and reiterating that Nell and William are likely to hush this up to avoid losing status from their own son robbing them – before awkwardly adding that they would probably want to avoid the Bluecoats for a while regardless. Smiler was like “oh, we were doing that anyway” and agreed that the important thing is that they escaped both with their money and with Victor, confessing they’d been a little worried when Nell grabbed his arm – they’d thought she was going to tow him back into the house. Victor said she was probably too much in shock to do that, then thanked the gods that she was, because he never wanted to set foot in the Van Dort house again if he didn’t have to. Alice assured him that was unlikely, as his parents would almost certainly never want to see him again after this – Victor told her that suited him fine, as they had never really wanted to see him before, either. That “what ghost would marry our Victor” line proved that. :(

C) Smiler reminding Victor that he was away from his awful parents now and never had to see them again if he didn’t want, and that he was free to live the life he wanted to live now. Causing Victor to agree –

And then burst out laughing as it finally sunk in and start going on about how he NEVER had to go to that awful stinking cannery again, or help William with the ledgers, or attend a horrible society party, or a dinner full of strange rich people, or have a surprise marriage foisted upon him over tea! And about how he can now read all the slug stories he wants, draw all the butterflies he wants, play whatever he wants on the piano – and of course, learn magic from Elder Gutknecht! He was particularly excited to learn what you could do if you knew the right words in Meta… An amused Alice noted that was probably the longest speech they’d ever heard out of him, causing him to get embarrassed and apologize for being excited –

Only for Smiler to firmly go “don’t apologize for being happy” and assure him that they LIKED that he was excited. Alice seconded the point, explaining that it was just a change from how repressed he usually was – Victor laughed and admitted that had all been pent up for a while, as he’d never before had the chance to decide what he wanted to do in his life.

D) And Smiler telling him that now he could start deciding for himself – before getting another whiff of their smoky clothes and admitting that maybe he should start by doing laundry. XD Victor agreed, then saw the torn shoulder on his jacket and added “mending” to that list, saying he was sorry Widow Black’s stitchwork got torn so quickly – Smiler assured him they could get it re-repaired and that a torn coat was better than him being stuck in that house. Victor agreed and asked the others “Shall we go home?” –

Causing Alice to go “yes, so we can confirm it IS home – we still need to run all this by Elder Gutknecht, you know.” XD Smiler was like “oh, we know he’ll be fine with it” – I left off with them leading the others back toward Six Towers. Tomorrow, the gang returns to their “home turf” – only to find themselves confronted by a gang who already considers it theirs...

3. Watch something on YouTube: Another Technical Check thanks to watching a quick reference video before starting my TVDV edits – tonight’s was “Victor and victoria Scenes [logoless+720p] (corpse bride)” by PACKS LOGOLESS! One minute and 45 seconds of various moments of Victor and Victoria together, including:

A) Her surprising him at the piano during his solo

B) Victor attempting to be suave after she admits to her childhood dreams of marrying someone she was deeply in love with before calling them silly – and just knocking the flower on the piano over XD

C) Victor taking her hand while practicing their vows together...and then walking into the table because he’s so distracted

D) Victoria letting Victor into her bedroom after he climbed up to her balcony to see her again

E) The pair nearly kissing – right before Emily shows up on aforesaid balcony and spooks Victor

F) Emily reuniting Victor and Victoria after seeing Victoria behind the pillar and stopping Victor from drinking the Wine of Ages

G) And the pair standing in the doorway of the church, watching Emily dissolve into butterflies and fly up to the moon after she threw her bouquet to Victoria

Cute – and a nice change of pace from my usual Victor videos. :)

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: N/A – I had nothing to do on either Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) (queue complete straight through Saturday) or Valice Multiverse (nothing going on there), so… *shrug* What can one do? I’ll be definitely doing some stuff over on VLA(NS) over the long weekend, though – gotta get that wedding post ready for Tuesday, for a start!

Ah, it's nice to be able to stay up late and make sure I get every section done in one go. *nods* But now I should probably see about hitting the sheets -- plans tomorrow include working on my Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) drafts (primarily the VITD wedding post); working some more on "The Van Dort Vacancy;" watching the latest OXBox list video; and maybe playing some more "Little Corners" (as I feel like that game would sync best with me working out AND having Game Night tomorrow -- we're playing Monopoly, for the curious). We'll see how this all goes! Night all!

Dad's home from the hospital and feeling decent (he was tired and cold this evening, admittedly, but he ate his supper without any problems beyond some hiccups, so that's good), and the weather today wasn't too bad -- though when I left the office, I could feel the humidity rising as the sky clouded up. *grimace* Tomorrow starts the predicted heat wave -- fortunate we have good air conditioners in both bedrooms AND the living room! We're gonna need 'em... Anyway, here's the daily write-up:

Work – Twas another quiet day at work for the most part:

A) I did the morning reports and the check scan for the GL

B) I went on a funeral home site to look through the obituaries, see who we had who needed to be marked deceased, and do any other roster maintenance along the way

C) I fooled around a bit with a list of all the stuff I do in the office because our supervisor wanted us to make one up for cross-training purposes (fortunately I already had one written up from when my old supervisor wanted a similar list, so I just have to edit that one)

D) Speaking of which, I looked over my coworker’s shoulder (literally) to see how she did parish assignments, and helped her through updating someone’s credit card and rescheduling a missed payment (with a promise to show her how I’d do a larger payment to cover multiple missed payments if and when it came up)

E) And I took a few credit card calls from people – mostly credit card updates (annoyingly, I had two calls come in almost right on top of each other, and another at the end of the day – fortunately I was able to handle all of them and leave on time)

Still nothing particularly exciting, as you can see! Guess we’ll find out if anything more happens on Wednesday...

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – today’s basement pedal session took me through –

A) The last twenty-odd minutes of “Fallout: New Vegas - Dust - Part 7 - The Secret of Lake Mead!” This final bit of “Post-Post-Post-Apocalyptic Doc Mitchell explores what was ONCE Lake Mead” featured –

I. Doc Mitchell, having teleported back to Ranger Camp Alpha thanks to a known “if you try to exit The Tomb the game just crashes constantly” bug (he would have gone to the closer Destroyed NCR Camp, but Jon could only get the console command to work on a location that is also present in the base game), deciding his next target would be Camp Golf and Lake Las Vegas so he could get a drink without wasting his own water supplies...but first taking a little side trip back over to the railway tracks that led to the remains of Boulder City so he could have another shot at killing the little pack of dogs that attacked him in one of his previous lives. Sadly, while he was quite easily able to get back over to said tracks, the game decided to be mean to him and not spawn in the dogs this time. :( No delicious dog steak for Doc M!

II. Doc Mitchell then going back the way he came and heading northwest to reach Camp Golf and the lake...and stumbling across an old picnic area up in the rocky hills around the main road. One that had a few bits of junk food scattered around on the tables! Doc M thus was able to grab and eat some potato crisps, a box of Fancy Lads Snack Cakes, and a can of Pork N’ Beans, washed down with a couple of bottles of wine as the crisps and the pork and beans both made him thirstier. None of them did much to relieve his hunger need, mind, but they at least kept him from getting much hungrier!

( Doc Mitchell levels up, only to die, and Person and Semaj continue trying to earn cashola )

2. Continue writing “Londerland Bloodlines: Hollywood’s Deluded Depths”: Check – got through another page of vampiric shenanigans today, covering –

A) Alice arriving at Isaac’s office again, and Isaac cheerfully noting she made good time before asking her to “hand me the item” – Alice proceeded to demurely tell him that she didn’t have the tape, so the best she could do was the “hand” part, before plopping the poor would-be tape guy’s severed hand on Isaac’s desk. The look on the baron’s face made all the off-screen time she spent hacking it off the rest of the limb, probably blunting her knife and ruining her dress, all worth it. XD

B) Isaac informing her that he needed her to start talking, starting with telling him why she ripped the hand off his contact – Alice explained that she hadn’t, something else had, and filled him in on the whole sorry “met the guy behind the Fast Buck, learned that the tape had freaked him out to the point that he’d stashed it somewhere else rather than carry it with him, watched him freak out over something in the shadows and run away – then heard him get attacked, gave chase only to find just a severed arm in the local manhole” situation. Followed by “oh, and he let slip that the tape is a snuff film, so you start talking and tell me why the hell you want it.” Because she considered that a very important question, damn it.

C) Isaac explaining that he wanted to see what all the hype was about with that tape...and why the Nosferatu went missing around the same time it appeared on the scene – a startled Alice was like “they’ve disappeared?” and Isaac confirmed that he hadn’t been able to get ahold of them to track down the origins of the tape for him (first time he’s ever been upset by them NOT being around). Alice noted that the whole reason she was in Hollywood was because their Primogen Gary had pissed off LaCroix, and wondered if he’d told his fellow Nossies to hide until that heat died down and the whole issue with the tape appearing at the same time was just a big coincidence – Isaac, however, found that very unlikely, as he didn’t think Gary would be afraid of any prince. If the Nosferatu had gone to ground, it was because of something much more serious, and Isaac was sure it had something to do with the tape. Especially since, given what he’d heard about it, he had a nasty suspicion about what was behind the creatures supposedly featured in it. Alice allowed that she’d already guessed that something supernatural was involved and asked if it was a particularly nasty vampire – Isaac was like “you could say that,” but that he’d need to see the tape to be sure. (Probably is like “let’s not throw around the word ‘Tzimisce’ prematurely...” in his head.)

D) Isaac admitting that he actually believed Alice when she said she didn’t kill the tape guy, if only because the reports he’d already gotten about her didn’t indicate that was her style, then asking her to cut out the theatrics in the future, as he’d heard she was supposed to be one of the less annoying Malkavians. XD Alice assured him that getting the hand to make that atrocious pun at the beginning of their convo had taken long enough she didn’t want to repeat the experience, and that she’d just been in a mood when she learned she was looking for a snuff film. But now that she knew tracking it down would benefit both of them, she was much more on-board with finding it. Isaac agreed and asked what the guy told her about where he stashed it, noting that if he’d given her a proper address, she’d already have the tape – Alice confirmed that all he’d said was she needed to look for “Ginger Swan’s” something, with me leaving off with her asking Isaac if he knew who that was, as she was pretty sure it was not a red-headed bird. XD Next time, Isaac informs her that Ginger was a classic Hollywood starlet who died in the 50s, making Alice realize it’s time to head to the local cemetery...fortunately she won’t run into Romero or any zombies on this first trip. The second time she needs to visit, however...

3. Watch something on YouTube: No check – this one was down to the usual “took too long to do the Workout Video Write-Up” issue. Though, admittedly, I did keep getting distracted while I did that by looking at other stuff, which, uh, probably doesn’t help matters, does it? Meeeh...one day I will have proper focus again!

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: No check – there was nothing to do on Valice Multiverse, and – well, I’m trying to get to bed earlier tonight, so I don’t really have the time to do the Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) one right now. Which, yes, is a bit of a problem, as my queued posts are supposed to start tomorrow… I should be able to do this in the morning before work, though! I mean, I’m pretty sure I know exactly what I’ll be posting this week...

Other: In case you missed it, Gigs’s birthday gift fic went up earlier today – please enjoy if you haven’t already!

There -- and now I'm getting off the computer at a slightly more reasonable time. ^^; Better go now if I want any decent sleep though -- night all!

Yeah, while today wasn't too bad when it came to the temperature, it's supposed to get hotter as the week goes on, culminating in a proper heat wave to end the week, with temps WELL into the 90s, and maybe even hitting 101F! O.O Not looking forward to that -- I mean, we're lucky in that we have pretty damn good air conditioners in the house, and I have good AC at work, but still! It's just not something you anticipate with pleasure! *grimace* Damn climate change... Anyway, here's the write-up for today:

Work – It was a very quiet start to the work week today, I gotta say:

A) I did the GL, which took a LITTLE longer than I expected by virtue of a bunch of credit card gifts having been posted after we left on Friday

B) I took a call from a lady looking for her lost pledge – sadly, I had no idea where it was, and neither did my coworker, so the donor just decided to redo it online and call us if she saw any “double dipping”

C) I took a call from Fiscal and helped them track down a gift to the Communications Office on one of our reports (everything online tends to get filtered through us)

D) I did a reversal to remove a gift from a pledge it wasn’t supposed to be attached to (overpayment) that I’ve been meaning to do for a couple of days but kept forgetting about

E) And the rest of the time I was going through the obituaries from Saturday’s paper and doing whatever roster maintenance popped up as a result

Yeah, not exactly the most exciting of Mondays! But the day didn’t drag on TOO much, so I will accept it. *nods* We’ll see what tomorrow brings!

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – hopped back on the bike this evening and returned to the Post-Post-Post-Apocalyptic Mojave with “Fallout: New Vegas - Dust - Part 7 - The Secret of Lake Mead!” The first 35-odd minutes of which included –

A) Doc Mitchell warping time and space briefly to return to the timeline where he found the Kings’ old hideout in Boulder City (AKA Jon reloaded an old save) to take a look at the two “Evacuation” notes in there he missed before, as per the comments on the last episode! Written by an unnamed King, they told the story of how the Kings, with the help of the Garret siblings at the Atomic Wrangler getting them a whole bunch of C4, did their best to blow a hole through the gate separating Freeside from The Strip and pull a few “high-rollers” out, only for the NCR to sweep in and for it all to go to hell. The Kings did their best to hold off the troopers so the civilians could escape, but there were just too many of them, and they were forced to retreat – covered by the Garrets and their group, who volunteered to stay behind so they could escape. As per the end of the second note, the Garrets managed to escape into the sewers themselves after that to continue the fight via guerrilla warfare, with the unknown writer indicating they were going to ask the King for permission to bring their boys and join them. Very interesting look at what was going on in Freeside – and good for the Garrets, who while shady sorts have definitely proved their love for their neighborhood! Though it did make Jon wonder how Doc M was supposed to get into The Strip if the Freeside gate was sealed up, as he didn’t think getting to the McCarran Monorail was going to be any easier...

( Doc Mitchell explores a mined-up lake bed...and encounters an old patient )

2. Continue writing “Londerland Bloodlines: Hollywood’s Deluded Depths”: Check – got through roughly another page today, covering –

A) The horror tape courier telling Alice that he didn’t know why Isaac might want a snuff film, then telling her that he didn’t want to ask questions as he was sure something was after him – a puzzled Alice was like “someone else who wants the tape?” causing the guy to admit he didn’t know – he just kept seeing things in shadows and getting weird phone calls full of creepy breathing. Meaning he wanted out of this whole mess. Alice was like “well then, hand over the tape so whatever’s stalking you will stalk me instead” –

Only for him to reveal he didn’t have it. Cue the Queen of Hearts declaring she was done with this idiot and ordering “off with his head.” XD

B) The courier revealing to Alice in response to her “you don’t have the tape after all this?!” that he stashed it someplace as he didn’t want it near him, and telling her that she needed to look for “Ginger Swan’s” –

Only to stop dead, eyes fixed on something over her shoulder, before demanding to know what the hell “that” was. Alice turned around to see, but only saw Hatter, March, and Dormy having a tea party, which she was pretty sure wasn’t what the guy was referring to. She thus told him that there was nothing there –

Only for him to start pointing at a different shadow in a panic, asking if she’d seen that, then deciding he was done and getting the fuck out of dodge. Cue him running away and around the corner into the alley between Fast Buck and Vesuvius, with Alice chasing him to try and get him to tell her at least who “Ginger Swan” was –

Only to freeze when she heard a snarl, and an “Oh Christ!” ahead of her. Uh-oh…

C) And Alice rounding the corner – just in time to see the manhole cover in the center of the alley slide back into place. She promptly went over and opened it, wondering if what had gotten him was an angry Nosferatu or something else – Cheshire told her “Seek and ye shall find...though what you find may not be what you expect,” which she took as a vote for the latter. At any rate, she descended the latter into the sewer (making sure to hitch up her nice dress as she did), and found a little chamber with a narrow tunnel leading into the sewers proper –

And a healthy amount of blood on the wall, above a severed arm. The Queen was like “well, not his head, but it’ll do.” XD Alice told her “fuck you” and noted that somebody did not want this tape found, leading her to believe that whoever made it was supernatural in nature, and the killing depicted in it thus some sort of Masquerade violation. I left off on her preparing to report back to Isaac and see if he was more talkative once she told him about what happened to his courier...or showed him… I haven’t 100% decided if she’s taking the severed arm with her to freak Isaac out with it or not. XD I guess we’ll find out tomorrow, won’t we?

3. Watch something on YouTube: No check – in addition to the usual reasons, Dad had to stay in the hospital overnight tonight (they’re trying him on a new immunotherapy medication and have to see how he reacts to it), so a good portion of my evening was taken up having a late supper with Mom and then Facetiming him. *nods* He seemed to be doing pretty well when we checked in, laughing and joking with us – here’s hoping that it lasts! I’m just waiting for the inevitable crash when the steroids they gave him along with the new medication wears off...

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: N/A – it was Monday, I only had Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) to worry about, and I didn’t have anything pressing on there. We’ll see what I’m presented with tomorrow!

And I have officially stayed up too late, so I have to get to bed. Night all!

It was supposed to rain in the morning, then dry out and be nice in the afternoon. Instead we got a nice, if kinda hot, morning, and a rain shower in the afternoon. Rather annoying, especially since my parents wanted us to play beanbags, and the rain meant we didn't get the chance! Though, admittedly, Dad was not feeling great today, so it's possible we wouldn't have played even if the weather had cooperated... *sigh* Anyway, today was not my most focused day, but I did manage to get a few things done:

Cleaning: As stated at the end of yesterday’s entry, today was a Cleaning Only Saturday – I didn’t need to do any laundry (beyond pop my sheets and current set of pajamas in the hamper for later), and I didn’t have to make any granola, yay~ That being said, the cleaning did manage to take up a significant portion of my day, as it always does –

A) I started the dusting at around 11 AM (I got up a little later than I expected this morning, so it took me a bit to eat my breakfast and brush my teeth and all that) and finished it around 1:25 PM, right before we had lunch (my parents were out and about this morning, so lunch was a little delayed. Worked out for me!)

B) After we finished lunch and all the dishes were done and whatnot, I did the Swiffering, which took roughly from 2:15 PM to 2:30 PM (there’s not a lot of bare floor in my room)

C) And then I finished off with the vacuuming, which took from roughly 2:30 PM to 2:50 PM – it would have been done a bit earlier than that, but just as I was finishing up, part of the underside (a plastic cover bit with small wheels attached) fell off. Mom managed to tape it back into place long enough for me to complete the last pass over my rug, but as you might imagine, when she and Dad went out again this afternoon, she bought a new vacuum cleaner!

So yeah – if I gotta clean, it’s gonna take most of my day. Just a fact of life. *shrug* As for what I listened for entertainment during the big dusting slog, it was mostly lists about people’s favorite RPGs and what they considered the best ones of all time and whatnot – specifically –

I. “The TOP 30 RPGs Of ALL TIME…” by Retro Rebound (which was fun right up until the end where he was like “it’s amazing that they wrote such good scripts for these RPGs without the help of AI,” causing my respect for him to drop through the floor)

II. And “My Top 10 Favorite CRPGs,” “Best CRPGs for Beginners & Where To Go From There,” and “My Fifteeen Must Play CRPGs,” all by MortismalGaming (who seems to really favor old school, fairly complicated, isometric CRPGs over the more modern ones – though the latter two videos both mentioned Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines as a favorite, and he ranked Baldur’s Gate III highly on the first list).

*shrug* All interesting enough fare to keep the dusting from feeling too much like a chore! That being said, very glad I don’t have to do it next week during my extra-long 4th of July weekend. :p

Little Corners: Yup, I managed to squeeze in a little bit of video-gaming time after I finished up my cleaning and caught up on everything online, and my game of choice was this sticker book game I haven’t touched since March! Because the studio behind it never did tell me if they were ever able to recreate the weird glitch I keep getting where the stickers go all screwy and end up on the wrong pages and disappear randomly from the corner. *sigh* Granted, I wasn’t expecting much of a response, given how hard it was to get a hold of them in the first place… Anyway, I was in the mood for something simple, so I decided to give the game another go. The problems generally don’t start until like the third decorating session anyway. *shrug* I thus loaded it up (after letting Paralives and, surprisingly, Portal 2 update – looks like the latter had a couple of weird little bugs in the ending), then – after a bit of pondering – picked the “Cottage Kitchen” corner to start working on, since it looked cute and interesting. And after looking through all the stickers, checking out the “hidden stickers” section to see if I could suss out the requirements from the descriptions, and fiddling with the corner’s layout for about an hour –

I didn’t make much progress on it at all. Both because I was interrupted a couple of times by my parents (once to say goodbye as they went out to get some groceries and the new vacuum cleaner, and once by my Mom texting me to ask if I could find her forgotten list of items they needed – unfortunately, I couldn’t find it in the kitchen (turns out she’d left it in her car); fortunately, she ended up remembering everything we needed on her own) and because getting the layout I wanted proved to be a lot more fiddly than I expected. Like, I was able to set up a doorway leading out to a cute little garden path, complete with a nice little mat to wipe your feet on in front of it, on the far left side of the left-hand wall without any trouble, and put a bookcase full of various books (some full-shelf stickers, others individual book stickers “held up” by a little pot) next to it with little fuss (just had to change which layer the door was on once or twice), but the rest of it –

A) My original plan to have a window on each wall, complete with curtains, was scuppered when I discovered that the only “oven” in the cottage sticker set was a giant built-in stone oven (think a classic pizza oven) that had to go on the right-hand wall (to suggest a built-in piece), meaning I had to remove the window there

B) I wanted to include a big stone counter (with cupboard storage underneath) sticker in the room, but I couldn’t figure out where the hell to put it – it’s one of those things that looks best against a wall, but I didn’t really have the wall space for it! Shoving the big stone oven closer to the window and putting the counter next to it on the right just looked kind of weird to me; doing it the other way around put the counter in the way of the window and its curtain, making it look like curtain was trapped behind the counter. Meaning it would be a bitch for the hypothetical witch who lives in this house (and it is a witch; there’s a hat and a broomstick and a few more magical-looking items) to get to that curtain to tie and untie it, meaning the counter really couldn’t go there. (Yes, I know none of it is real and the counter could go there just fine, but I did NOT like the look of it.) And trying to put it under the window required me to raise the window way up so, again, there was no overlap with the curtain...which meant that the window wasn’t in line with the door anymore, which I didn’t approve of either. *sigh* So yeah, ended up NOT including the counter in the build. I suppose I could have put it against one of the “invisible walls” on the front of the corner, but since I can’t spin the counter around ALL the way to suggest we’re seeing it from behind...if they ever update this game again, I think being able to properly rotate the stickers rather than just mirror-flip them would be a good idea!

C) After that, I wanted to include a nice big cupboard/pantry thing I’d seen on an earlier page with multiple drawers and stuff, just so my hypothetical witchy cook would have some actual storage – BUT I also wanted to include a cute cat tapestry I’d seen on a DIFFERENT sticker page on the wall to brighten up the place with a bit of artwork. For a while, I was pretty certain I couldn’t have both, and tried to resign myself to working with just the smaller, three-drawer side table I’d seen on the same page of the pantry cupboard...but fortunately I decided to try again, shuffling the position of the stone oven back toward the window on the opposite wall until I had just enough room to fit both pantry-cupboard and tapestry on the wall. Yay for small victories!

D) And I was hoping to unlock the “spooky for Halloween” secret sticker, which judging by the silhouette was a jack-o-lantern – but, unfortunately, putting a witch hat or a candle on any of the pumpkin stickers available in the game didn’t yield any results. :( I was thinking maybe I had to put a knife on the pumpkin, but I couldn’t find a proper carving knife – just little dinner knives. Meh. I did at least unlock the “Sleepy Dog” sticker, since that one was easy – just grab the regular dog sticker and put the “big serving platter of roasted chicken” on top of it. Boom – a sticker showing a very well-sated dog with the few remaining bones. (Which, actually, you should avoid giving your dogs because I believe they can splinter and cause problems internally. It’s okay in Sticker World though.)

So yeah – not my best, most productive day in the game! But I got a few bits done – the doorway, the bookcase, the window, the oven, the pantry/cupboard thing, the tapestry, and a table and a rug for the middle of the room or thereabouts. Here’s what I’ve got so far:



Yeah, I left the pumpkin I was trying to turn into a jack-o-lantern on the table, and let the dog have its chicken in the front there. XD Just a bit of extra fun, you know? Anyway, perhaps I’ll go back tomorrow and see if I can start whipping this corner into shape! Before it inevitably starts glitching out...

Writing: I did get Gigs’s upcoming birthday gift fic edited tonight, I’m happy to say! It hasn’t changed substantially in content (still “Smiler wows the tea party group with their amazing tea-making skills, to the point where Richard and Christopher both offer them a room if they ever get sick of staying with Victor and Alice; Doc asks when Smiler got interested in chemistry, and Smiler reveals it was while growing up in X-Sector – causing Marty to go “the place with Dr. Kelman?!”; Marty and Doc explaining what a monster Kelman was to a puzzled Victor and Alice, and how the townsfolk eventually raided his Sanctuary and killed everyone inside, including his patients and his son Marmaduke; and Victor noticing Smiler looking uncomfortable...leading to the revelation that Smiler IS Marmaduke, having survived thanks to being contacted by an interdimensional being of joy”), but I did the usual fixing of typos and cleaning up of awkward wording and whatnot. Ended up being almost twice the length of my usual gift fic by the time it was done – not that I mind, as I enjoy writing these fics. Hopefully you enjoy reading it, Gigs!

YouTube: Welp, still no CaFae Latte compilation – but I did find two other things to keep me occupied after I finished my writing tonight –

A) The final few minutes of “Lead Poisoning, Mechanical Men and Nose Trimmers - The OX Crew Play BITD” by CaitlinRC! Because I’ve been meaning to watch said last few minutes for a week now! I backed it up a bit so I could rewatch my favorite bit of “Barnaby reveals that he put lead pipes in Astor’s new headquarters so he’s been giving himself lead poisoning,” then finished it off with, among other moments:

I. Kasimir having a very cool skidding-across-the-floor-brace-throwing-up-sparks moment after taking out the Worrisome Maniacal Mech’s knee, followed by Edvard running up the side to flip the kill switch – which was accompanied by him going “sorry, Frankenstein, did you want to just stay a bunch of dead bodies? Didn’t think so” XD

II. Edvard absolutely LOVING having Astor humbled before him, to the point of ticking off a box of load to produce a camera he invented to commemorate the moment

III. Astor’s attempts to sway Barnaby into not dropping the barricade being met with Barnaby going “yes, it would feel wrong to let just anyone get magic because they won’t have earned it by being born into wealth like me, but on the other hand I’m too lazy to stop this lot, so…” XD

IV. Kasimir noting at the end of Astor’s pleas that he hasn’t done everyone and telling him to tell Zillah there’ll be nothing left to punch

V. Kelly getting to go into the mysterious hole, and giving Edvard one last look as if to say “Coming” – only for Edvard to go “I’m good” XD

VI. And the gang preparing to leave the facility via handcarts since their locomotive no longer works...only for Barnaby to be like “nope, that won’t do;” the others responded to this with “well bye then” and left him behind XD

Excellent stuff, as always. XD I do love Oxventure Presents: Blades In The Dark – it’s so good.

B) And the entirety of “Nuka Cola from Fallout! | Nuka Syrup, Quantum and Dark Recipes | How To Make with SinCityBartender” by, well, SinCityBartender! This is the video I was looking for when I stumbled across MisoHungrie making the Nuka-Cola recipes you can find in the Fallout cookbook – my friend WeirdKev shared it with me on tumblr a little while ago, and I never got a chance to watch the entire thing before. SinCityBartender’s take on Nuka-Cola was very different to the cookbook’s (in fact, he considered the cookbook just a cash grab, which...honestly, fair) – here’s how he made:

I. Nuka-Cola – he created the syrup by combining a full can of Coca-Cola (8 ounces) for the cola base, a half a can of Dr. Pepper (4 ounces) for the fruit flavors (Dr. Pepper apparently has 23 of them! Which is 6 more than Nuka-Cola’s standard 17), and a half a can of Red Bull (4 ounces) for the caffeine, then bringing the resultant concoction to a simmer, adding 2 cups of sugar, and letting it cool overnight (he also offered the alternative of reducing the liquid down to half if you didn’t want to add all that sugar and possibly give yourself diabetes). The cool syrup was then added to ice and club soda before being poured into a rocket Nuka-Cola bottle (which made me happy, as I do love the rocket bottle design from Fallout 4) – he started with 4 ounces of syrup to 8 ounces of club soda, but after that only filled up the bottle about halfway, he added another 5 ounce of syrup to 8 ounces of club soda to get a full bottle. He described the resultant concoction as tasting quite nice, with all the added sugar actually enhancing the fruit flavors of the Dr. Pepper while softening the impact of the Red Bull. Yes, it was sweet, but he claimed that it was less sweet than your average cream soda. Surprising, but I have no way to verify or contradict his claim, so…

II. Nuka-Dark – or, more accurately, a Rum & Nuka, since the only solid thing he knew about Nuka-Dark was that it was the alcoholic Nuka-Cola. He assumed Nuka-Dark was like a pre-mixed version of a Rum & Nuka, though! The actual drink was 2 ounces of a dark rum (“Bungo’s XO” I think he said) in a tall glass, with the rest Nuka-Cola, given a quick stir with a swizzle stick. He was very impressed with the end result, noting it was a very sweet take on a rum & coke.

III. Nuka-Quantum – which was probably more alcoholic than the Rum & Nuka, the way he made it. XD This soda was made with 1 ounce of Nuka-Cola syrup, 2 ounces of vodka, 2 ounces of blue curacao (for the blue color), and ½ ounce of pomegranate liquor (because adding pomegranate to the other 17 fruit flavors is how Quantum is different from Nuka-Cola taste-wise), all shaken together before being poured into the rocket bottle and topped up with about 5 ounces of tonic water with quinine. Why quinine?

Because it glows under a black light! And since SinCityBartender wasn’t about to get his hands on the actual radioactive material that makes the soda glow in the game, quinine was the best he could do to get it to glow even a little. XD Taste-wise, he said that the flavor of the Nuka-Quantum mix itself was great, but that the tonic water made it very bitter, so if he was doing it as just a regular drink, he’d probably mix it with club soda or sugar-free Sprite instead. *nods* Good to know.

So yeah, that was fun. :) Always interesting to see different people’s takes on making the iconic Fallout soda!

*shrugs* Not too shabby, I suppose! And now it is definitely time for me to hit the sack and get some sleep. Tomorrow, goals include getting something ready for the Valicer Wedding Anniversary coming up on July 7th in my Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) drafts; maybe playing some more Little Corners, or maybe some Paralives; and keeping up with the latest episode of "The Worst Wanderer," which will HOPEFULLY be up in time for me to watch with my workout. Fingers crossed, folks! And if I can slip it in, maybe some more "Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland." We'll see. *nods* Night all!

It wasn't a perfect day -- had to deal with some annoying traffic; Dad was feeling dizzy when I got home, so we didn't play beanbags; my parents are getting screwed over by the postal system not delivering a package to a buyer; and it looked for a bit like my dad had lost one of his hearing aids (fortunately he found it in the couch) -- but it was less weird and I was less wound-up than yesterday, so that was a plus. Still, I'm running behind on the write-up again, so let me try to get it all sorted tonight so I don't have to finish it off tomorrow again:

Work – Fortunately, today was a much quieter and less weird day at work – my activities for the day consisted of:

A) Doing the usual morning reports and check scan

B) Doing the obituaries and all related roster maintenance tasks

C) Taking a handful of credit card calls with my coworker (with admittedly one coming in shortly before close, which was kind of annoying)

Nice, simple, and pretty quiet. I’ll take that for a Thursday!

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with “After starting from $0 we built this in Paralives” by James Turner! Today’s chunk of The Adventures Of Person “Percy” Pennypile And Semaj Renrut included –

A) Percy and Semaj having a good long chat well into the night, becoming official Romantic Interests and sitting on the bench beside the train tracks together after Percy had some pizza (because sadly they couldn’t seem to eat together – Paras actually doing things together in a group seems to be rather buggy for the moment), before finally Percy said goodnight so he could actually tend to his needs. He may be an Energetic Para, but he doesn’t have INFINITE energy reserves! (Though they are pretty good-sized.)

B) Percy having a nice long snooze (during which James picked his story card for the day, which gave him a +3 to learning all skills if he was in a group – it was literally the only one available in the “Social” pack!) – then, after waking up, getting the want to improve three different skills for 30 minutes each. James promptly had him start his first medium-sized contemporary-style painting in response, which leveled up both his Art and Painting skills and brought the want to two-thirds completed almost right away. :) He sold the resultant colorful canvas for $250 (making a $150 profit), then James checked to see if the General Store had anything useful on sale –

Only to discover that, no, they just had another fridge. A lesser fridge, no less. Disappointed, he loaded in the Antiques Store to see if they had anything better (getting Percy to start a new landscape painting as he did) – and discovered that, while they still had a decorative barrel for 75% off, they had replaced the suitcase with a nice upright lamp, so that was something. Better yet, Semaj was hanging out in the store! :D As such, Percy dropped the painting to run over, buy the lamp, then chat with Semaj –

Only for their hangout to be interrupted by James noticing an old lady with a quest nearby and sending Percy to go talk to her instead, causing Semaj to leave because apparently Percy couldn’t chat to them both at the same time. Which is a bit odd, as that’s SUPPOSED to be a thing in this game...I guess they officially have to be in a group before that can happen! *shrug*

( Percy piles on the quests and also finally scores a Semaj )

2. Continue writing “Londerland Bloodlines: Hollywood’s Deluded Depths”: Check, though it took longer than I wanted – mostly because I was trying to find pictures of the posters inside the “Ground 0” internet cafe so I could properly describe them in my fic and kept coming up short. *grumbles* Fortunately Helloween’s LP came through for me in the end. Anyway, today’s page covered –

A) Alice entering Ground 0...and finding it rather depressing, as it was very gray inside. Gray floor, gray walls, gray ceiling, gray doors, gray little computer cubicles in the middle...the only things that weren’t gray were the “Ground 0” banner on the wall, the soda machines by the front door, and the aforementioned game posters on the walls. Which were instead rather weird – Alice was kind of charmed by “Need To Read,” a driving game which seemed an interesting take on the edutainment genre, but was completely confused by “Extreme Hoop And Stick 3.” Mostly because it was apparently the third in a series – she had trouble fathoming there was enough entertainment value in the classic Victorian child’s toy for three games in a row. Hatter suggested that the poster might be a clever ruse, sending up popular games of the time – Alice said that, in that case, it had failed at its purpose, as she had no idea what it was mocking. Me either, Alice. XD (Though I guess it might not be sending up anything – the developers could have just gone “Hey, you know what would be hilarious…?”)

B) Alice going to pay for an hour’s worth of computer time at the back window, complaining about how it was a bit of a rip as she didn’t expect to spend an hour going through all the computers there looking for the right one...only for Rabbit to ask why she would want to do that when the computer she needed was right next to her. Alice was like “wait, seriously?!” and assured Rabbit that she had no intention of going around the other computers if that was the case, before complaining that it really made having to give the people here five dollars for what for her would be like a minute sting all the more –

And then she realized there was no one behind the window. Or anywhere in the employee office beyond. She briefly wondered where they’d gone (as the presence of other customers suggested someone had been available to collect the cash previously) – Rabbit informed her that they were busy with their second job, and that she should take the opportunity to speed things up by just logging into the computer. Cheshire concurred, noting that Alice might not need to be so frugal with Victor’s money on her side, but she might as well save where she could, and that the employees wouldn’t miss the few moments she took from them. Alice was like “well, as long as they won’t get in trouble,” then decided to go ahead and split the difference by shoving a few quarters through the slot to pay for her brief log in. XD

C) And Alice logging into the “Josef K” computer without a hitch and discovering an e-mail from the mysterious video tape seller, who told her to meet them in the alley behind the Fast Buck. Alice noted that sounded very much up Rabbit’s alley – quite literally – and asked him to lead her there; Rabbit let out a sarcastic laugh and told her to come on and not waste any more time making smart remarks. Causing Alice to retort that she always had time for smart remarks. :p

Not bad, I think! Even if it took more time than I really wanted. Tomorrow, we’ll finish things up by having Alice venture behind the Fast Buck and meet her contact...only for something dreadful to happen to the poor guy...

3. Watch something on YouTube: No check, you know why. I swear, I have to get a handle on my Workout Video Write-Ups, they’re taking up WAAAAY too much of my day.

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check and check, surprisingly enough –

Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Over here, I took a moment to look through the depths of my Song Saturday tag to see if there was anything I wanted to reblog for this Song Saturday – ended up deciding to reblog into the queue the post for Fergie’s “Clumsy” because it’s a fun little song, and because I associate it with any ship Victor’s in, including all the poly ones, so it felt appropriate for Pride Month. :p So yeah, that means I’m all set for Saturday, yay~

Valice Multiverse – And over here, I queued up an ask from thesatiricaldemon, who quoted a tumblr post about how vampires shouldn’t be so snooty and talk about how they consider humanity mere “livestock,” because they don’t actually take care of humans like one would livestock – instead, they just attack them in the middle of the night like parasite bottom-feeders. Naturally, I had to have Londerland Bloodlines Alice respond to that one. XD She responded that not all vampires fed like that, and that most did at least have an interest in keeping their “herd” healthy...but she agreed that most were stuck-up shits. And commented that there might not be a need for the Masquerade if vampires actually DID take care of humans, noting that most people probably wouldn’t mind donating a bit of blood in exchange for free food. Especially given how ecstatic the Kiss is… Really, more vampires need to be more community-minded. They would reap ALL the damn rewards if they just put in a little effort to relate to the unwashed masses!

Okay, entry done, but I HAVE officially stayed up too late, so...night all!

We had some very icky weather today, as it was rainy, humid, AND not very warm, meaning it was hard to combat the humidity. >( I mean, we did need the rain (we've been in a drought for a while now), but I feel like we didn't need the horrible stickiness AND chillier weather on top of it! Bleh... At least the day itself wasn't too bad --

Work – Twas a Tuesday full of little tasks to take up my time at work today –

A) I ran the morning reports and did the morning check scan, as usual

B) I tried contacting a donor about a duplicate gift via phone – had to leave a message, and didn’t hear back from them. We’ll see if they return the call tomorrow!

C) I went through the obituaries in the paper and did a lot of related roster maintenance on people with similar names (had to write off one guy’s Capital Campaign pledge as he died in 2021)

D) I did another credit card report for Fiscal at their quest (the Amex stuff often shows up weird, so they occasionally need a second report to properly reconcile things)

E) I took a phone call from a guy trying to log into the credit card system to set up his CCA giving and tried to help him by telling him the username we had on file from his Capital Campaign days – sadly, it didn’t work, so he decided to just set up a new profile instead (*shrug* What can you do)

F) I called a guy who e-mailed my old supervisor about needing to update his credit card on his pledge and did that over the phone with him

G) I took a call from another lady who wanted to check on her giving – and then, after learning she hadn’t given anything to the current campaign, wanted to make a gift; I thought she was doing a credit card or ACH gift, but in fact she just wanted to know who to make the check out to (we got it sorted in the end)

H) I let some people who had been asking about missing gifts know that their checks had been processed (though one guy’s second check was still in limbo, sadly – hopefully it shows up soon!)

I) And I put on some last-minute endowments at my supervisor’s request

*shrugs* Kept me busy enough! We’ll see how Wednesday goes!

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike another night with “Fallout: New Vegas - Dust - Part 6 - The Spectre at the Feast!” Today’s chunk of The Adventures Of Post-Post-Post-Apocalyptic Doc Mitchell included –

A) Jon indeed having Doc Mitchell redo that fight with the NCR Heavy Trooper over at the 188 Trading Post (or, well, to give it its proper name in the mod, the 188 Overpass), and having it go a LOT better this time around, thanks to –

I. The survivors on the road being friendly again and not giving Doc M any grief (hooray!)

II. Doc M managing to avoid the feral ghouls roaming around by heading to the left so he wouldn’t be so easily spotted

III. The feral ghouls taking an interest in the Heavy Trooper earlier and thus managing to do a little damage to her before Doc M tried engaging (though he learned that at least some of them were actually taken down by a tribal in the area)

IV. Doc M managing to lure the Heavy Trooper and her incinerator into the Fat Mine again, which did a lot more damage to her this time around, then running off to the left to try and bait her into attacking the tribal and getting him to help kill her – unfortunately, that guy saw a woman in power armor with a flamethrower coming at him and was immediately “fuck this shit I’m out”

V. And Doc M, upon realizing that he was going to have to fight the Heavy Trooper alone, doing what he probably should have done in those first couple of versions of the fight and pulling out his battle rifle – cue him blasting her in the head and killing her JUST as she was raising the Super Sledge to hammer him!

End result – one dead Heavy Trooper, and one Doc Mitchell with all his limbs intact! Not even a scratch on him! Hooray!

( Not that Jon was done throwing Doc Mitchell into the fire and then reloading... )

2. Continue writing “Londerland Bloodlines: Hollywood’s Deluded Depths”: Check – got through another page today, covering –

A) Victoria being appropriately horrified by Victor being hit by a car and saying it must have been terrifying for poor Victor, who admitted it had been...but then followed up with “but it all worked out for the best,” because he was able to track down Alice afterward and become friends. Alice concurred, telling Victoria that she supported herself doing “odd jobs for a variety of assholes” and that Victor’s presence made it all a lot more bearable. (She hasn’t yet figured out just HOW bearable...that’ll come when an idiot vampire hunter makes the mistake of threatening his life in front of her.)

B) Alice noting that she had another one of those asshole errands to run and saying that she’d leave Victor and Victoria to catch up as they seemed to have a lot to say to each other – Victoria agreed and took the opportunity to apologize to Victor for not trying to write him again after the letter that went awry, explaining that she had been busy getting settled; she hadn’t know when the letter would reach him, given how far apart they were; and she hadn’t managed to get her hands on her own computer yet, so she hadn’t had the option of e-mailing him either. Victor allowed that the terrible connection in Burtonsville meant that he probably wouldn’t have received an e-mail anyway, and confessed that any letter Victoria might have sent probably wouldn’t have reached him, as he left Burtonsville not long after getting her mother’s letter. Victoria guessed he probably hadn’t been in California much longer than her then and asked how he was finding it –

Causing Victor to admit “hot.” XD He said that it hadn’t been too bad so far, given he’d gone nocturnal to match Alice’s schedule, but it was still an adjustment – Alice agreed and said that while the extra warmth was nice, she was rather glad she’d ended up in California in October and not June. Victoria heartily agreed with that sentiment!

C) Victoria telling Alice that she didn’t have to run off if she didn’t really want to, as she would like to get to know Alice as well, and Alice regretfully telling her that she really should get the task she’d been assigned over and done with, but that she’d try to catch up with them later if she could. Victor suggested to Victoria that they visit the Red Spot then to buy some snacks before finding a nice place to sit nearby so Alice could easily find them later – Victoria noted that finding a “nice” place in this part of Hollywood was a bit difficult, but was fine with that plan. Alice was as well, and said that she’d see them later so long as nothing went wrong – and if it did, well, she’d just get Victor to fill her in later and see if they could arrange another meeting so she and Victoria could get to know each other.

D) And Victor and Victoria wishing Alice luck with her delivery, and Alice thanking them and setting off (walking fast since, well, she was actually going in the same direction as them and didn’t want to make it TOO awkward). She commented that that was an odd coincidence once they were far away enough – with Hatter calculating that it was less odd than almost everyone at the Skyeline being someone Alice had to visit for a quest, but more odd than her finding another English expat in Santa Monica randomly – then admitted that it had to be odder for poor Victor, who had always acted like he never expected to see Victoria again when he spoke of her. And then allowed that, while it was a bit interesting that they’d both chosen California as their ultimate destination, given what she’d heard of both their parents from Victor, it wasn’t surprising that both of them would want to put as much distance between themselves and those jerks as possible. :P Causing Cheshire to comment that the world was a very curious place –

And Victoria a very curious person, who would probably want some details about Alice eventually. Which Alice said could be a problem – though, given Victoria already had some experience with the walking dead thanks to Emily, she was probably one of the safer people for Alice to tell the truth to. She just had to make sure the woman could keep a secret, as “Victor would probably be put out with me if I got her killed after he only just found her again.” XD

And that is where I left it! *nods* Tomorrow, we get back on track with the actual game stuff, as Alice finds her way to Ground Zer0, and starts trying to get the terrible take to Isaac! Which will be more complicated than she first expects...

3. Watch something on YouTube: No check – again, Workout Video Write-Up took too long, and my focus isn’t quite back to what it should be despite my period starting to fuck off. Maybe tomorrow, we’ll see.

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: N/A – nothing to do on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) for the moment, and it was dead quiet over on Valice Multiverse. *shrug* How it goes sometimes!

*nods* Not bad -- and I'm not up QUITE as stupid late as I was last night, which I will take as a win. Still need to go to bed though, so -- night all!

Why was it sort of lazy? Well, let me explain by starting off with what happened at 3 AM this morning --

Me: *finally goes to bed after staying up too late reading stuff on TV Tropes*

Me: *remembers that I forgot to put Dad's Father's Day card on the kitchen table* Shit, let me do that right now.

Me: *gets up and puts the card on the table, then goes back to bed and tries to snuggle in and get some sleep*

My Body: Hey, uh, you should go to the bathroom now.

Me: What, seriously?? I just went before going to bed! It has not been that long!

My Body: You still need to go to the bathroom now.

Me: *attempts to ignore the feeling because it's 3 AM and I should be asleep, damn it*

My Body: HEY. USE THE BATHROOM.

Me: Oh fucking -- FINE. *goes to the bathroom*

Me: *sees the beginning of faint blood spots as I wipe afterward*

Me: ...oh.

My Body: I TOLD YOU!

So yeah, got my period at Ass O'Clock in the morning! I had an inkling it was coming, but I seriously thought it would be at the END of the week, not the beginning! Stupid thing...at least I was awake at Stupid O'Clock to catch it and put a pad in, I suppose! But it did mean that I didn't get to sleep until MUCH later than I'd intended...and then I woke up at 8:30 AM because I needed to go to the bathroom again. And I didn't QUITE get back to sleep afterward (I went and laid down again until like 9:45 AM, but my brain was just active enough that I didn't really fall asleep again. Meeeh). So yeah, between getting like five hours of sleep and the general feeling of "tired" that always comes with the beginning of my period, I didn't accomplish everything on my to-do list today.

...That being said, I accomplished a fair bit that wasn't on my to-do list. Let me tell you about what I did do --

Tumblr: While there wasn’t anything for me to do on Valice Multiverse today, I ended up getting quite a lot done over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) over the course of the day – to whit –

A) I completed the “Valicer Not-Incorrect Quotes, Pride Edition” post I wrote up yesterday (which involved cleaning up typos and some awkward wording; adding links to the “Victor encounters a gatekeeping asshole at Pride” fic I wrote for Polyship Week 2024 and this year’s Not-Incorrect Valentine’s quotes to explain where Victor got his blue tie collar; and writing up all the tags to explain where all the various scenes came from)

B) I also completed the “Valicer Eats God” post I’ve been working on off and on for six months now, by:

I. FINALLY completing the write-up for everyone’s Creed (the reason why they want to eat God in the first place – they all have variants of the “Fundamentalist Theophagy” Creed, which holds God is a tyrant who must be hunted down and eaten for creating a world in which the good suffer, with Victor specifically wanting to take God out because he feels God is picking on him personally; Alice because she hates that God apparently willed that a human friend of hers, Lizzie Liddell, had to die and die horribly thanks to one Angus Bumby; and Smiler because they were made to increase happiness, and God is doing a shit job of making people happy)

II. Assigning everyone two quirks (Victor seems to be targeted by various mishaps and environmental dangers that shouldn’t actually target anyone in particular, and can interact with immaterial beings, such as ghosts, as if they were solid; Alice has an improbably large number of knives on her person at all times, and sometimes blames the things that happen in her vicinity on an unseen friend, whose existence cannot actually be disproven; and Smiler has very firm opinions on the correct way to make coffee and a fascination with all things yellow)

III. And giving everyone three items as their “starting inventory” (Victor has a tallow candle, a gilded chalice he stole from a church, and a juicy femur; Alice has the improbably large number of knives, a stuffed rabbit doll, and a sentimental locket from Lizzie; and Smiler has a fulminant elixir which can either be drunk or thrown for interesting results, a weather mandolin to play, and a bag full of coffee beans)

Hooray for THAT finally being done!

C) And I set up my queue for the next five days (as I figured I might as well post something on Tuesday this week) over here, featuring:

I. Nebby’s birthday gift fic (with William and Nell Van Dort getting a shock at the Iron Slugger vs Dankenstein fight when they see both walking dead and their son on Dan’s side) for tomorrow

II. That post from allthingswhumpyandangsty about how you should never stop talking about your underrated ship not just because you can convert people into it, but because it makes you happy (as that should always be your first priority in shipping, and fandom in general) for Tuesday

III. A reblog of the aforementioned “Victor encounters a gatekeeping asshole at Pride” fic I wrote for Polyship Week 2024 for Wednesday

IV. The “Valicer Not-Incorrect Quotes, Pride Edition” post for Thursday

V. And the “Valicer Eats God” post for Friday!

So yeah – that takes care of almost my entire queue for the week in one fell swoop! Still gotta come up with something for Song Saturday, but I think that can wait until later. *nods*

Beanbags: Thanks to the period malaise and my desire to get that damn “Valicer Eats God” post sorted, I did not play any video games today – but I did play a real life game because Mom finally finished repainting the beanbag boards! (They were out in all sorts of weather all winter, so they REALLY needed it.) We played five rounds this afternoon, and – rather appropriately – Dad was the ultimate champ of the day, winning three games and coming in second in the other two. I managed to snag the other two wins, while Mom...well, she tried. XD Final scores were me W-3-3-2-W; Dad 2-W-W-W-2; and Mom 3-2-2-3-3. We won’t be able to play tomorrow (supposed to rain), but we’ll probably manage a session or two later in the week – we’ll see what happens then!

Workout: Jon uploaded a little late again today, sadly, so I ended up watching three things during my workout instead of just the one –

A) “The most wholesome thing you can do in BG3” by SuNStereO – A YouTube Short showing off some dialogue from one of the zombies in Thisobald Thorm’s pub in the shadow-cursed lands, where he reveals that he was on his way to Baldur’s Gate: “Where the streets sparkle with silver! And the actors have jobs.” XD He then revealed that he was actually specifically going there to see the circus –

Causing SuNStereO to decide to take him there! Though, uh, it’s not as wholesome as you might think – what happened is the party had to kill him (because the zombies go hostile if you fight Thisobold – though apparently they stay neutral if you just outdrink the guy), then Karlach picked up his corpse and stowed it in her inventory, before plopping it on the ground when she and the rest of the company arrived at the Circus Of The Last Days in Rivington. XD I mean – she tried? XD

B) “Is the TOY STORY Cookbook any good?” by MisoHungrie – An eleven-minute video featuring Miso taking a look at the officially licensed Toy Story cookbook – or, to be more accurate, the officially licensed Pizza Planet cookbook. Because when it came time to write a cookbook for the franchise, the author decided to focus on the most iconic eatery in said franchise. The book is written like it’s an in-universe employee handbook/recipe book, with some stuff about the toys sprinkled in here and there (focusing mostly on Buzz Lightyear and the little green three-eyed aliens, as you might imagine), and naturally features mostly recipes for pizza and other types of foods you might find in such a Chuck-E-Cheese-esque family fun center. Miso made the Official Pizza Planet Pie pizza (which features green peppers, mushrooms, and pepperoni), the Green Alien Pie pizza (which features baby spinach, yellow onions, cherry tomatoes, basil, and oregano), and the Translunar Peanut Butter Pie (a deep dish sweet pie with chocolate chips and honey roasted peanuts on top) as the tester recipes, and found them all – pretty good. He thought the pizza crusts were a little chewy, and the peanut butter pie perhaps a little too rich for his tastes, but said that they fit the aesthetic the book was going for, and it was all tasty enough. His favorite was the Green Alien Pie as he enjoyed the freshness of the greens and the pop of the cherry tomatoes in his mouth. All in all, he said this was a pretty solid cookbook, especially if you have kids, but nothing particularly special. Just be careful of the matte cover – he seemed convinced it would stain easily.

C) And finally “Fallout 3: The Worst Wanderer - Part 6 - Death And Taxes” by Jon of Many A True Nerd! Because the video finally popped up once I was done with MisoHungrie, yay~ The first half of this week’s installment of The Adventures Of Useless Steve (Unofficial Prequel Edition) included:

I. Useless Steve taking a moment to swing by Paradise Falls before setting out on his next adventure to get his payment for enslaving that raider trying to kill him and a new slave collar, then demonstrating how, as per Fallout 3’s ridiculous Karma system, he could literally cancel out the 100 points of bad karma he got from enslaving someone by donating 100 caps to the Church of Atom worshipers in Megaton! (Which, as a Fallout 4 player, I initially thought should just give Steve MORE bad karma, but then I remembered that the Church of Atom is just “some goofy people who worship a bomb” in this game, and not “a genuinely dangerous cult who shoot at you with microwave guns half the time” like they are in FO4.) He didn’t even have to use his whole payout from the slavers to do it! Moral of the story, just pay your “church tax” and all your sins will be forgiven!

( It’s Useless Steve! Doing terrible things in the knowledge he can just literally pay off the karmic debt! )

Other:

-->While I didn’t do any writing myself (period brain troubles), I did do some reading – namely, while looking for one of my friend Newt’s fics where Dirk Gently and Todd Brotzmann from Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency make rainbow cupcakes for a Pride picnic (because I wanted to mention the fic in the tags of the “Valicer Not-Incorrect Quotes, Pride Edition” post because it inspired the “flag cupcakes” scene), I stumbled across a different one, “Pistachi-Oh, Dear…” which featured Dirk going out to get a muffin while stuck on a bird-smuggling case, getting a pistachio one as per the will of the universe, and then having to use that muffin in multiple different ways to get himself out of a scrape when he was kidnapped by the bird smugglers after finding one of their birds on the street. It was a very funny story –

Inspired by a prompt that I myself gave Newt ages ago. So I was stunned to discover I’d never actually reviewed it on AO3! I quickly rectified that once I realized – hopefully Newt enjoys the surprise comment!

-->And, most importantly, when I realized that I would rather keep working on my tumblr posts than play any video games today (as I didn’t feel in the mood for even some simple house furnishing in Paralives or Little Corners), I took the opportunity to make some fucking backups. Because I’ve been meaning to do that for a WHILE now. So now all the most important stuff on my computer is backed up again. *nods* Maybe that’s how I get into the habit of doing regular backups – tie doing them to my period. It always comes around once a month!

So yeah -- I might not have been productive in all the USUAL ways, but I was productive nonetheless! Very happy to get all that tumblr stuff sorted -- and those backups. They needed doing. *nods* And now it is time for me to go to bed and try to get some sleep -- my last full week of work of the summer looms before me (as next week has a long weekend thanks to the 4th of July, and after that we have half-day Fridays for two months). Hopefully it won't drag on too much. Night all!

Yes, our trip to see the recycled-wood trolls that artist Thomas Dambo has set up in various parks around the state ended up taking up the vast majority of the day -- we left around 11 AM, and didn't get back until about 6 PM, having driven pretty much all over the entire state going to visit four of the five (the fifth is in East Providence and required either going over the nightmare that is the Washington Bridge or finding some other long convoluted route, so we elected to leave that one for another time). I didn't realize that most of the trolls were so far away from where we lived! But it was a good day to be out and about -- the weather was partly sunny and not too warm (I kept myself, and Dad, well-sunscreened with my Banana Boat Kids Sports Stick -- seriously, love that thing), the roads were mostly quiet (though we did have to deal with a few assholes and some construction here and there), and we enjoyed tooling around looking at all the natural beauty in the Ocean State. :) Wasn't a perfect day, but I still had a good time! Let me give you the highlights:

Young Boulder: The first troll we saw, which required us to drive all the way over to The Arcadia Management Area in Richmond! ...and then figure out where the hell he was in the Management Area, because the directions on how to find him weren’t clear. *sigh* We ended up going to the complete wrong place up by the Tomquaq Museum at first – fortunately, a nice lady gardening near the museum was able to point us in the right direction, toward Browning Mill Pond. We eventually found the parking lot, and from there were able to hike through the park and over a couple of bridges overlooking the pond (which was pretty damn big when it comes to ponds, and had lots of blooming lilypads, which Mom liked) before reaching the troll. He was a big bearded boy sitting cross-legged on a rock looking out across the water, holding a big stick with a birdhouse on the top (I originally thought it was some sort of instrument because we came up on him on the side, and was a little disappointed it was just a staff). Unfortunately, there was a family already there taking pictures when we arrived, and the mother was doing a terrible job corralling her kids (one in particular was being a brat), so we had to wait quite a while to get a chance to properly look at Young Boulder! My mom ended up taking a picture of me in front of him, but she hasn’t sent it to me yet, so you’ll have to wait until later to see it!

( Rest under here, because, as usual, the write-up got long )

*nods* Pretty cool, right? I certainly thought so. :) And it WAS nice to get out and about for a change. (Well, get out and about when it was MY idea, and not my work's. *grumbles*) However, despite spending very little time on the computer, I still got a few things done on there as well:

Tumblr: There was nothing of interest over on Valicer Multiverse again when I checked, but I did end up doing a few things on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) this evening –

A) I answered an ask from cashandmurdergames inquiring “Have you heard of Deadlock? It's a new game by valve with occult blue aesthetics” – I informed them I had not and went to look it up on Wikipedia. Turns out it’s a new (currently in invite-only alpha) multiplayer shooter set in an alternate urban fantasy New York City, in a world where a “Maelstrom” revealed the supernatural and brought magic and the undead and all sorts of things to Earth 50 years ago. A second Maelstrom is now predicted to happen, and the players are trying to prepare for it by summoning a god to this plane of existence, because said god has promised them a wish. The problem is, there’s two teams of six players each, meaning there’s two gods in play – and each can only be summoned if the other is destroyed… I thus told cashandmurdergames in my reply that I was intrigued by the premise – I do enjoy a bit of “something dumps magic and other such ridiculousness on humans and they must adapt” sometimes – but the gameplay was not up my alley at all. I am NOT a multiplayer games person, and that is not likely to ever change! Nice of them to think of me, but – yeah. Not going to actually play this!

B) And I reblogged a post by uncleromeo (via my friend thesatiricaldemon) talking about how, on Juneteenth, you should take a moment to remember those people who were killed instead of freed when emancipation came, and all the records and houses destroyed to hide the continued existence of enslaved people, and all those who lost their lives seeking freedom across the border, or in the north or west. With some further recommendations for Black people to write to the past recording all they’ve accomplished despite still dealing with racism and inequality, and talking to their children (if they have any) about the oldest black people they know and their history. Because this is a holiday all about the end of slavery and how society still has a ways to go. *nod* Important stuff.

YouTube: I ended up skipping my regular workout because of how long it took us to go see all the trolls (and because I did do a fair bit of walking around the various parks with my parents to see them, so you can’t say I didn’t get any exercise), but I didn’t want to leave my latest workout video half-completed. So, after Game Night (one very long game of Scrabble, using our new turntable board – Dad ended up winning with a few clever plays), I finished off “I tried Rags to Riches in Paralives…” by James Turner! The second half of which featured –

A) James learning that no, Paras cannot use a laptop that’s just laying on the ground when he sent Semaj back home to The Triangle Lot he and Percy called home – they need a desk and chair. James thus directed Semaj to instead repair the busted trash can on the little train platform next to the lot (as it was their “backyard,” after all), then sent him to collect a bunch of stuff (including some gold, damn) while Percy continued painting and leveled up his painting skill again (yay) and he checked how expensive desks and dining tables were. Turns out the cheapest gaming desk, even with an RGB LED line around the edge, is cheaper than a dining table. *shrug* Who knew?

B) Percy selling another couple of paintings for $50 a pop (making a $30 profit each time – seems like painting prices are fixed rather than variable depending on talent, at least for the moment) while Semaj returned from his collecting adventures and headed up to the little patio area above the tracks to repair the busted vending machine up there! Reason being, the boys needed food, and James had heard that the barbecues out in the world didn’t actually WORK yet (which he confirmed when he found one later in the episode and was unable to interact with it). And he didn’t know that you can just steal snacks from broken vending machines. XD Anyway, Semaj, thanks to having a decently high Repair skill, managed to fix the busted machine, and he had a dinner of chips and chocolate before he and Percy both went to fulfill their sleep need by snoozing in loungers on the nearby beach (because, for some reason, they couldn’t nap on the benches right near their lot. Feels like an oversight, that!).

( Things gradually get more chaotic, which we probably should have all expected )

Writing: Happily, I did indeed manage to find the time to edit Nebby’s birthday gift fic after watching the second half of The Glitchy Adventures Of Percy and Semaj! I didn’t make any changes to the basic premise (which, as a refresher, features William and Nell at the “Iron Slugger Vs Dankenstein” fight in Chapter 13 of Nebby’s MediEvil Resurrection II fanfic, being first shocked by the appearance of the various walking dead characters (Kiya the mummy, Winston the ghost, and Dan the skeleton – or, well, everything from the neck down, as Dan’s head was currently on the Dankenstein monster) near the ring, then being shocked by the appearance of their disowned son there...and Victor seeing them and, after his own moment of shock, getting Winston to steal his father’s wallet) – I just cleaned up and reworked the wording on a few bits, and added in a couple more flashback lines to the part where William sees Kiya, Winston, and Dan’s headless body to better show how he didn’t believe any of Victor’s stories about Emily and the Land of the Dead, and how it led to him kicking Victor out of his house. I think it ended up turning out pretty well – hopefully Nebby agrees on Monday!

*nods* At least I accomplished the stuff I was most hoping to accomplish! However, it is after 2 AM here now, so I'd better get to bed. Tomorrow should be a much more typical Saturday for me -- plans include working on my Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) tumblr drafts (I want to do a Pride-themed Not-Incorrect Quote collection before the end of June); playing either Baldur's Gate III (and getting into the tollhouse vault) or Paralives (and continuing getting used to the game); and watching the OXBox list video. And the latest CaFae Latte compilation, if it pops up -- we'll see. Night all!