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Feb. 28th, 2026 07:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lea_hazelNormally when I need to quote a song to describe a mood it's either "You Can't Always Get What You Want" or one other one.
lea_hazelTiring Friday
Feb. 27th, 2026 11:49 pmcrossover_chickAs my write-up will show very effectively, I feel:
Work – I am sorry to report that it turned to be a very busy and rather rough Friday at work:
A) I discovered that, while the credit card people DID put up all the missing 2026 payments that I told them about (and seemed to put up all the missing 2025 payments this afternoon), there were still a bunch missing that I could see from pledges put on a little later in the month – I will have to go through all those and figure out what’s missing
B) I was continually interrupted in this task by various phone calls (which only seemed to happen whenever my coworker got up from her desk and thus wasn’t available to take them) – a mix of credit card calls and more general maintenance stuff
C) One of the parish priests showed up shortly after lunch and dropped off some gifts (which he wasn’t supposed to do, they’re supposed to be mailed to our PO Box) – and of course, they were mostly cash gifts from his parishioners, along with a few credit card gifts (which we aren’t allowed to process – we can only take card numbers over the phone, nothing written down). The credit card stuff got sent off to our processors (who CAN process that sort of thing), and my coworker and I counted up the cash and got it posted, but hmph.
D) My old supervisor, who now works for a different department (handling bequests and endowments and stuff) dropped off two batches of checks made out to a specific endowment that he needed us to put on for him – now, this was a more reasonable request than you think because the gifts for that department DO live our database, and he’s actually currently the only one IN that department (his coworker has left for a new position). But we do still have to look up all the donors and make records for the ones not currently in the system, so it is a lot of work
E) I got a call from the guy whose pledge wouldn’t go through yesterday, checking up on it – unfortunately I had to tell him that his pledge still wouldn’t go through and that I hadn’t heard back from the credit card people yet. He was very understanding, but it still frustrated me
F) And after I did my time card for this week using the “building closed” code to cover the hours that the building was closed Wednesday and Thursday (since we had delayed starts those two days – 10 AM instead of 8:30 AM), we got an e-mail from HR saying that we weren’t allowed to use the “building closed” code when doing our hours for those two days. Meaning I had to use a full 8 hours of vacation time to cover the day off I took on Wednesday instead of 6.5 – you know, the actual hours THE BUILDING WAS OPEN THAT DAY. Which – I know it’s only 1.5 hours, but tracking our hours has NEVER worked like that in the past! You always got to save the time that the building was fucking closed! Fortunately my supervisor agreed this was bullshit and said she’d try to get us that bit of time back however she could, but still. *huffs* That really pissed me off.
Yeah – as you might imagine, I was very glad to come home and have pizza and play Scrabble after all that! And now it’s the weekend again already, so I don’t have to think about this bullshit for two more days. Small mercies.
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – my final night on the bike this week saw me pedaling through:
A) The second half of “Reacting to YOUR Greek Myth Hot Takes” by C. M. Alongi! Said reactions included:
I. As I said yesterday, responding to someone’s take on how Medusa was unfairly killed and how her “curse” was supposed to be protection from rapey men with a long chat about the Medusa myth – explaining how in the earliest versions, she was just always a monster; how the more modern “tragic backstory” interpretation was the result of Ovid, a Roman, giving her one when he recorded the tale; and how the Greeks were very victim-blamey when it came to rape because women were more property than people back then (with the only way for an assault victim to regain her honor being to kill herself), so Medusa being punished by Athena for being assaulted by Poseidon in her temple by being turned into a monster would made made sense to them – it’s the modern audience who played around and made it Athena giving Medusa a way to fend off future attackers. (Though she admitted she’d heard SOMETHING about the Ancient Greek equivalent of domestic abuse shelters using Medusa’s head as a symbol and protective charm...but that she had no idea of the validity of it because, well, why would the Ancient Greeks have anything like domestic abuse shelters)
II. Responding to someone commenting on how God Of The Forge and Craftsmen, Hephaestus, is a nice example of disability representation in the myths by going over the origin story of the god (born so ugly Hera tossed him off Mount Olympus, which broke at least one of his legs; raised by nymphs in the ocean; turned out to be incredible at making jewelry, which led to Hera reclaiming him and making him an Olympian after seeing the nymphs showing off their necklaces and whatnot) and saying that he’s not great representation as he’s more of a background character in most myths (having made the magical sword or shield or whatnot the hero may be using), but agreeing it was nice to see a disabled god in ANY role back then
III. Responding to someone’s claim that Apollo was “very problematic” when it came to all his lovers by explaining that she had to push back against the inclusion of Hyacinthus (a handsome Spartan warrior) on the list, because what happened to him wasn’t Apollo’s fault – they had a perfectly nice relationship that only ended because Hyacinthus took a discus to the head while they were throwing it around, and THAT was either an accident or the god Zephyr, jealous of Apollo having gotten the cute guy, killing him under “if I can’t have him no one can” rules – but that in every other case...yeah, calling him problematic was VALID
IV. Responding to someone saying that the “incest ‘issue’ in mythology is overblown, it doesn’t matter with supernatural godly beings, the real problem is a lack of consent whenever the gods mess around with mortals and demigods” with admitting that she KIND OF sees where the commenter is coming from with the incest thing but also it’s still ew and she can’t help but side-eye people who try to downplay it, but totally agreeing that consent between gods and mortals/demigods was a real issue, since no mortal or demigod had any REAL ability to safely say no
V. And responding to someone going “Nyx, Primordial Goddess of Night, is the only god Zeus fears, though I don’t remember where I read that” by saying she too had read that somewhere and explaining some of the Greek hierarchy of greater beings (which goes Primordials – Titans – Gods) and how Chaos formed the first Primordials, which included Nyx...before noting that EROS was also said to be a Primordial (being the personification of love) when he wasn’t Aphrodite’s son (or even when he was, sometimes, apparently the Greeks were good at that sort of double-think), which veered off into a tangent about how much she LOATHES the “ancient creature falls in love with teenage girl” trope, which is why Eros is not only Aphrodite’s son in Monstrous, but also only about twenty years old at the start (while Psyche was aged up to about seventeen at the start of the book, using the excuse that her parents put off her marriage for an unusually-long time to keep getting offerings from the citizens worshiping their gorgeous daughter). Girl is fixing creepy and illegal age gaps in her literature! :p
Interesting stuff, to be sure – and I’m sure she enjoyed getting to flex her knowledge of Greek myths. :)
B) And a series of shorts by DragonsDream, because I had some time to kill at the end of the workout and I couldn’t find a full-length video that would fit the time I had (or, rather, I was looking for one I’d seen in my Recommends earlier, but it took me so long to fail to find it that I instead went to their channel and just watched some shorts), including:
I. “The most wholesome friendship in Baldur's Gate 3” – DD showing off Gale and Tara (his tressym, aka winged cat, friend) hanging out together at the epilogue party and bantering, with Tara claiming the party spot doesn’t compare to Gale’s mother’s sitting room and asking him if all his friends were always so ugly. XD Cute – but also a surprise to me, because Tara’s voice is a LOT different than I thought it would be! I was expecting something younger and maybe higher-pitched, but no – pure middle-aged woman. Okay then. XD
II. “The developers knew someone would try this” – DD using Shadowheart to show off what happens if you follow Meli after he steals the locket from Barth and then steal it off him before Barth can follow him up the ladder and confront him! Basically, Meli protests that he doesn’t have the locket as usual...then, when Shadowheart asks him why he stole it, is very surprised to find that, no, he actually doesn’t have it. Shadowheart then told Barth that Meli may be good, but she’s better, and handed the locket over to Barth – Meli was a little embarrassed, but also rather impressed by Shadowheart’s skills, while Barth was appropriately grateful. He then warned Meli to stay out of his pockets, causing Meli to taunt him with a silly face –
And Barth to backhand him across said face. D: Jerk! And I really don’t like that many of the comments were approving of him doing that. Meli may be a little shit, but he’s a KID, possibly an orphan – cut him a break!
III. “What if you tried to romance both Shadowheart and Minthara” – DD showing off Minthara’s pretty contemptuous reaction to discovering that you were romancing Shadowheart along with her – wondering if their character wasn’t worried “the little amnesiac” wouldn’t forget them in the morning; responding to “I was hoping I could have a relationship with both of you” with accusations of Shadowheart being needy under her cold exterior and declarations that she doesn’t share what she desires, and – after the character said they didn’t want to give up their relationship with Minthara – informing them that they’d have to tell Shadowheart, but not to worry, as the pain of the loss would probably be a religious experience for her. XD God, Minthara is such a bitch and it’s great.
IV. And “When annoyed companions breaks the fourth wall” – DD showing off various annoyed lines the companions will spout if you spam-click their portraits during a fight! My favorites were Astarion’s pissed grunt and “I’m trying to focus on murder!”, Halsin’s irritated “Battle is afoot – you can poke me once we are safe. Perhaps try attacking the enemy?”, and Minsc’s very Minsc “I am armed! Armored! And entirely sick of your foolishness!” XD
Very fun stuff! Now I just have to figure out what I’m watching next week...
2. Continue editing Chapter 4 of “The Van Dort Vacancy”: Check – got just under a page edited today, featuring:
A) Smiler assuring Victor that eventually he wouldn’t feel like he was flaunting his wealth at them with his very existence, if only because they and Alice were willing to keep reminding him that wasn’t the case, with Alice adding that Victor had to remember that she too actually grew up rich – her father was a dean at Doskvol Academy, after all, and owned six suits (with one just for special occasions, no less). Her comfortable childhood was just cut short. Victor confirmed he remembered her telling them about that and explained that the issue was mainly that he was a Van Dort, and, thanks to his parents, being one of those comes with – connotations...
B) Smiler immediately being like “and those connotations should apply to your parents alone – don’t punish yourself for their sins,” and Alice backing them up with telling Victor he shouldn’t have to apologize for what his parents do – especially since he’s so unlike them, wanting to hide in the background rather than shove his wealth in everyone’s faces. Victor confirmed he’s the type who prefers a quiet night in to a loud party, and grumbled that Nell never understood that, because she was so obsessed with yelling about how much better she and her family was than everyone else. Despite being the daughter of a Coalridge factory worker herself, and having married a man who was solidly middle-class before starting the cannery.
C) Smiler noting that some people are just not happy unless others are unhappy, and while it’s terrible, there’s not much they can do about it – stating they preferred to live a life that focused on making themselves and their loved ones as happy as possible, and minimizing the unhappiness they caused others. Victor said he liked the idea behind that, but didn’t know how good he was it – Smiler promptly informed him that he’d made them much happier by being their friend. :) And they were sure the same was true of Alice, who confirmed that she’d enjoyed getting to know Victor – before teasing him that he wasn’t nearly as annoying as she’d feared. Victor laughed and did his best to shoot back by saying she wasn’t as terrifying as he’d thought someone from a madhouse would be – she was startled for a moment, then laughed herself, admitting that she hadn’t thought he had it him...but he ought to work on his delivery. XD Victor said he’d probably have more opportunities to practice, living with her, and she confirmed that she expected him to give as good as he got. :P
Not too shabby, I feel. I ended with the group preparing to get back to packing (again), with Victor stowing his sketchbook and sketches in his carpet bag – next time, the rest of Victor’s things will get packed up! Well, almost – he still needs to look under his bed for something...
3. Watch something on FreeTube: No check, but that’s not a surprise at this point – especially considering it was Game Night (as previously stated, we played Scrabble – and thanks to some lucky letter draws and some fruitful searching on Merriam-Webster’s Scrabble word finder site, I ended up winning). I do have some plans to clear the rest of the OXBoxtra stuff I want to watch tomorrow, if I can – we’ll see what happens!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Again, N/A as Valice Multiverse was quiet and I didn’t have anything pressing on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler). *shrug* We’ll see if I get anything done over here this weekend.
Yeah, that work day really took it out of me. Which is sad, as it's the only full day of work I've worked this week... *sigh* Anyway. I've stayed up later than I should have reading TV Tropes, so I'm off to bed. Tomorrow is a Cleaning & Laundry Saturday -- I hope to also play some Little Corners, and watch at least one of the OXBox videos still waiting around in my FreeTube Subs. Hopefully that is an achievable to-do list -- night all!
Work – I am sorry to report that it turned to be a very busy and rather rough Friday at work:
A) I discovered that, while the credit card people DID put up all the missing 2026 payments that I told them about (and seemed to put up all the missing 2025 payments this afternoon), there were still a bunch missing that I could see from pledges put on a little later in the month – I will have to go through all those and figure out what’s missing
B) I was continually interrupted in this task by various phone calls (which only seemed to happen whenever my coworker got up from her desk and thus wasn’t available to take them) – a mix of credit card calls and more general maintenance stuff
C) One of the parish priests showed up shortly after lunch and dropped off some gifts (which he wasn’t supposed to do, they’re supposed to be mailed to our PO Box) – and of course, they were mostly cash gifts from his parishioners, along with a few credit card gifts (which we aren’t allowed to process – we can only take card numbers over the phone, nothing written down). The credit card stuff got sent off to our processors (who CAN process that sort of thing), and my coworker and I counted up the cash and got it posted, but hmph.
D) My old supervisor, who now works for a different department (handling bequests and endowments and stuff) dropped off two batches of checks made out to a specific endowment that he needed us to put on for him – now, this was a more reasonable request than you think because the gifts for that department DO live our database, and he’s actually currently the only one IN that department (his coworker has left for a new position). But we do still have to look up all the donors and make records for the ones not currently in the system, so it is a lot of work
E) I got a call from the guy whose pledge wouldn’t go through yesterday, checking up on it – unfortunately I had to tell him that his pledge still wouldn’t go through and that I hadn’t heard back from the credit card people yet. He was very understanding, but it still frustrated me
F) And after I did my time card for this week using the “building closed” code to cover the hours that the building was closed Wednesday and Thursday (since we had delayed starts those two days – 10 AM instead of 8:30 AM), we got an e-mail from HR saying that we weren’t allowed to use the “building closed” code when doing our hours for those two days. Meaning I had to use a full 8 hours of vacation time to cover the day off I took on Wednesday instead of 6.5 – you know, the actual hours THE BUILDING WAS OPEN THAT DAY. Which – I know it’s only 1.5 hours, but tracking our hours has NEVER worked like that in the past! You always got to save the time that the building was fucking closed! Fortunately my supervisor agreed this was bullshit and said she’d try to get us that bit of time back however she could, but still. *huffs* That really pissed me off.
Yeah – as you might imagine, I was very glad to come home and have pizza and play Scrabble after all that! And now it’s the weekend again already, so I don’t have to think about this bullshit for two more days. Small mercies.
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – my final night on the bike this week saw me pedaling through:
A) The second half of “Reacting to YOUR Greek Myth Hot Takes” by C. M. Alongi! Said reactions included:
I. As I said yesterday, responding to someone’s take on how Medusa was unfairly killed and how her “curse” was supposed to be protection from rapey men with a long chat about the Medusa myth – explaining how in the earliest versions, she was just always a monster; how the more modern “tragic backstory” interpretation was the result of Ovid, a Roman, giving her one when he recorded the tale; and how the Greeks were very victim-blamey when it came to rape because women were more property than people back then (with the only way for an assault victim to regain her honor being to kill herself), so Medusa being punished by Athena for being assaulted by Poseidon in her temple by being turned into a monster would made made sense to them – it’s the modern audience who played around and made it Athena giving Medusa a way to fend off future attackers. (Though she admitted she’d heard SOMETHING about the Ancient Greek equivalent of domestic abuse shelters using Medusa’s head as a symbol and protective charm...but that she had no idea of the validity of it because, well, why would the Ancient Greeks have anything like domestic abuse shelters)
II. Responding to someone commenting on how God Of The Forge and Craftsmen, Hephaestus, is a nice example of disability representation in the myths by going over the origin story of the god (born so ugly Hera tossed him off Mount Olympus, which broke at least one of his legs; raised by nymphs in the ocean; turned out to be incredible at making jewelry, which led to Hera reclaiming him and making him an Olympian after seeing the nymphs showing off their necklaces and whatnot) and saying that he’s not great representation as he’s more of a background character in most myths (having made the magical sword or shield or whatnot the hero may be using), but agreeing it was nice to see a disabled god in ANY role back then
III. Responding to someone’s claim that Apollo was “very problematic” when it came to all his lovers by explaining that she had to push back against the inclusion of Hyacinthus (a handsome Spartan warrior) on the list, because what happened to him wasn’t Apollo’s fault – they had a perfectly nice relationship that only ended because Hyacinthus took a discus to the head while they were throwing it around, and THAT was either an accident or the god Zephyr, jealous of Apollo having gotten the cute guy, killing him under “if I can’t have him no one can” rules – but that in every other case...yeah, calling him problematic was VALID
IV. Responding to someone saying that the “incest ‘issue’ in mythology is overblown, it doesn’t matter with supernatural godly beings, the real problem is a lack of consent whenever the gods mess around with mortals and demigods” with admitting that she KIND OF sees where the commenter is coming from with the incest thing but also it’s still ew and she can’t help but side-eye people who try to downplay it, but totally agreeing that consent between gods and mortals/demigods was a real issue, since no mortal or demigod had any REAL ability to safely say no
V. And responding to someone going “Nyx, Primordial Goddess of Night, is the only god Zeus fears, though I don’t remember where I read that” by saying she too had read that somewhere and explaining some of the Greek hierarchy of greater beings (which goes Primordials – Titans – Gods) and how Chaos formed the first Primordials, which included Nyx...before noting that EROS was also said to be a Primordial (being the personification of love) when he wasn’t Aphrodite’s son (or even when he was, sometimes, apparently the Greeks were good at that sort of double-think), which veered off into a tangent about how much she LOATHES the “ancient creature falls in love with teenage girl” trope, which is why Eros is not only Aphrodite’s son in Monstrous, but also only about twenty years old at the start (while Psyche was aged up to about seventeen at the start of the book, using the excuse that her parents put off her marriage for an unusually-long time to keep getting offerings from the citizens worshiping their gorgeous daughter). Girl is fixing creepy and illegal age gaps in her literature! :p
Interesting stuff, to be sure – and I’m sure she enjoyed getting to flex her knowledge of Greek myths. :)
B) And a series of shorts by DragonsDream, because I had some time to kill at the end of the workout and I couldn’t find a full-length video that would fit the time I had (or, rather, I was looking for one I’d seen in my Recommends earlier, but it took me so long to fail to find it that I instead went to their channel and just watched some shorts), including:
I. “The most wholesome friendship in Baldur's Gate 3” – DD showing off Gale and Tara (his tressym, aka winged cat, friend) hanging out together at the epilogue party and bantering, with Tara claiming the party spot doesn’t compare to Gale’s mother’s sitting room and asking him if all his friends were always so ugly. XD Cute – but also a surprise to me, because Tara’s voice is a LOT different than I thought it would be! I was expecting something younger and maybe higher-pitched, but no – pure middle-aged woman. Okay then. XD
II. “The developers knew someone would try this” – DD using Shadowheart to show off what happens if you follow Meli after he steals the locket from Barth and then steal it off him before Barth can follow him up the ladder and confront him! Basically, Meli protests that he doesn’t have the locket as usual...then, when Shadowheart asks him why he stole it, is very surprised to find that, no, he actually doesn’t have it. Shadowheart then told Barth that Meli may be good, but she’s better, and handed the locket over to Barth – Meli was a little embarrassed, but also rather impressed by Shadowheart’s skills, while Barth was appropriately grateful. He then warned Meli to stay out of his pockets, causing Meli to taunt him with a silly face –
And Barth to backhand him across said face. D: Jerk! And I really don’t like that many of the comments were approving of him doing that. Meli may be a little shit, but he’s a KID, possibly an orphan – cut him a break!
III. “What if you tried to romance both Shadowheart and Minthara” – DD showing off Minthara’s pretty contemptuous reaction to discovering that you were romancing Shadowheart along with her – wondering if their character wasn’t worried “the little amnesiac” wouldn’t forget them in the morning; responding to “I was hoping I could have a relationship with both of you” with accusations of Shadowheart being needy under her cold exterior and declarations that she doesn’t share what she desires, and – after the character said they didn’t want to give up their relationship with Minthara – informing them that they’d have to tell Shadowheart, but not to worry, as the pain of the loss would probably be a religious experience for her. XD God, Minthara is such a bitch and it’s great.
IV. And “When annoyed companions breaks the fourth wall” – DD showing off various annoyed lines the companions will spout if you spam-click their portraits during a fight! My favorites were Astarion’s pissed grunt and “I’m trying to focus on murder!”, Halsin’s irritated “Battle is afoot – you can poke me once we are safe. Perhaps try attacking the enemy?”, and Minsc’s very Minsc “I am armed! Armored! And entirely sick of your foolishness!” XD
Very fun stuff! Now I just have to figure out what I’m watching next week...
2. Continue editing Chapter 4 of “The Van Dort Vacancy”: Check – got just under a page edited today, featuring:
A) Smiler assuring Victor that eventually he wouldn’t feel like he was flaunting his wealth at them with his very existence, if only because they and Alice were willing to keep reminding him that wasn’t the case, with Alice adding that Victor had to remember that she too actually grew up rich – her father was a dean at Doskvol Academy, after all, and owned six suits (with one just for special occasions, no less). Her comfortable childhood was just cut short. Victor confirmed he remembered her telling them about that and explained that the issue was mainly that he was a Van Dort, and, thanks to his parents, being one of those comes with – connotations...
B) Smiler immediately being like “and those connotations should apply to your parents alone – don’t punish yourself for their sins,” and Alice backing them up with telling Victor he shouldn’t have to apologize for what his parents do – especially since he’s so unlike them, wanting to hide in the background rather than shove his wealth in everyone’s faces. Victor confirmed he’s the type who prefers a quiet night in to a loud party, and grumbled that Nell never understood that, because she was so obsessed with yelling about how much better she and her family was than everyone else. Despite being the daughter of a Coalridge factory worker herself, and having married a man who was solidly middle-class before starting the cannery.
C) Smiler noting that some people are just not happy unless others are unhappy, and while it’s terrible, there’s not much they can do about it – stating they preferred to live a life that focused on making themselves and their loved ones as happy as possible, and minimizing the unhappiness they caused others. Victor said he liked the idea behind that, but didn’t know how good he was it – Smiler promptly informed him that he’d made them much happier by being their friend. :) And they were sure the same was true of Alice, who confirmed that she’d enjoyed getting to know Victor – before teasing him that he wasn’t nearly as annoying as she’d feared. Victor laughed and did his best to shoot back by saying she wasn’t as terrifying as he’d thought someone from a madhouse would be – she was startled for a moment, then laughed herself, admitting that she hadn’t thought he had it him...but he ought to work on his delivery. XD Victor said he’d probably have more opportunities to practice, living with her, and she confirmed that she expected him to give as good as he got. :P
Not too shabby, I feel. I ended with the group preparing to get back to packing (again), with Victor stowing his sketchbook and sketches in his carpet bag – next time, the rest of Victor’s things will get packed up! Well, almost – he still needs to look under his bed for something...
3. Watch something on FreeTube: No check, but that’s not a surprise at this point – especially considering it was Game Night (as previously stated, we played Scrabble – and thanks to some lucky letter draws and some fruitful searching on Merriam-Webster’s Scrabble word finder site, I ended up winning). I do have some plans to clear the rest of the OXBoxtra stuff I want to watch tomorrow, if I can – we’ll see what happens!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Again, N/A as Valice Multiverse was quiet and I didn’t have anything pressing on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler). *shrug* We’ll see if I get anything done over here this weekend.
Yeah, that work day really took it out of me. Which is sad, as it's the only full day of work I've worked this week... *sigh* Anyway. I've stayed up later than I should have reading TV Tropes, so I'm off to bed. Tomorrow is a Cleaning & Laundry Saturday -- I hope to also play some Little Corners, and watch at least one of the OXBox videos still waiting around in my FreeTube Subs. Hopefully that is an achievable to-do list -- night all!
Busy Working Thursday
Feb. 26th, 2026 11:50 pmcrossover_chickVery busy, in fact, so let's get straight into the write-up:
Work – Finally went back to work at 10 AM this morning and proceeded to have a very busy day – while my coworker handled the GLs and returned most of the messages left on the phone during our long absence, I found myself juggling:
A) Depositing the checks from the safe and doing the morning reports (as usual)
B) Going through my e-mails and answering those that needed answering (prioritizing the ones from my boss, of course)
C) Taking a bunch of credit card calls (including playing phone tag with one particular guy who was trying to do a pledge – we FINALLY connected at the end of the day), along with answering a few donor questions (including one from a lady who didn’t speak much English asking about her credit card gift – I’m pretty sure I managed to explain to her that her card hadn’t gone through, and she said she’d sent a check instead)
D) MAKING a few phone calls to set up credit card stuff (one went through fine, the other ran afoul of an error that keeps popping up from time to time which just says there was “a problem” with setting up a gift/pledge – the donor was fortunately understanding and admitted he’d had trouble on the website too, which was interesting)
E) Sending more e-mails to the credit card company to thank them for finally posting the missing payments for the 2026 CCA pledges, and asking them to get on posting the missing payments for the 2025 CCA pledges, and to keep looking into that weird nonspecific error
F) Checking the credit card company’s work on posting all those 2026 CCA pledge payments, because I don’t trust them
G) Checking on a few issues our regular check processors brought to light (had to fix someone’s payment schedule and move a gift from the account of someone who’d recently died to the new account we made for his son, who happens to have the same name and live at the same address – this is an annoying fact of life in Rhode Island)
H) And helping my coworker with some GL weirdness (some gifts got split up weird on the reconciliation report, no idea why)
Whew! Quite a lot to get through, as I think you’ll agree! But I did the best I could to handle it all. Tomorrow’s going to be a full-length day – not sure if that will make things less busy (because we’ll be able to spread the work out across more hours) or more busy (because more time for donors to call us and nonsense to happen). We’ll find out when I go in!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night on C. M. Alongi’s channel, pedaling my way through:
A) The end of “Creating CaFae Latte: Behind the Scenes!” Which featured:
I. C. M. showing off a bit more of the kind of “detail editing” work she does (clipping out awkward moments, adjusting how quickly the next line of dialogue starts after the previous one, overlapping one scene’s audio onto another scene’s video so she could show a nice facial expression without any awkward pauses, etc) and talking about how, after she’s done with all that, she sends everything back to Video Editor Nic so he can clean it up and add any necessary special effects and whatnot (like the blue filter and blizzard effects in the “kids escaping from the Yule Troll” videos – adorably, she said that she often had to rein him in on the amount of stuff to add because he was so eager to make the videos look good)
II. C. M. showing off the Google Drive where she and Video Editor Nic exchange videos, and being very pleased to see the video intended for January 8th was ready for her to download and post, yay (though she had to change the title as the date in it was wrong – January 7th)
III. And everything ending with a look at the final product – which, in this case, was the skit where Mark comes to the cafe and meets JC, and JC checks in on how he and Drek are doing (and Drek jokingly gets dramatic about being a gay teenager)
Cool stuff! It is nice to see exactly what goes into making these videos – it looks like a lot of work! But it seems C. M. and Nic have a system down. :)
B) And the first half of “Reacting to YOUR Greek Myth Hot Takes!” A video that C. M. did when she needed a break from doing “CaFae Tales,” as apparently those are a lot of work, and which doubled as an advertisement for her Monstrous Kickstarter (which is fully funded and then some as of this writing, yay). Much like her “reacting to your ‘CaFae Latte’ hot takes” videos, this involved her having I presume Video Editor Nic gather up a bunch of people’s opinions about various Greek myths that she could scroll through and react to. Hot takes so far have included:
I. “Hades and Persephone is too romanticized as a myth; he DID kidnap her” – C. M. allowed that Hades did kidnap Persephone (though she did note that in some of the earliest versions of the myth, Zeus basically SOLD Persephone to Hades, and was treated as the actual villain of the piece as a result), but argued that the reason this myth gets so romanticized is because, after the initial kidnapping, Hades and Persephone have probably the most functional relationship out of all the Greek Gods. And us modern folks see that and are like “it’s really a shame that this surprisingly loving marriage starts in such a not-good way – let’s rewrite things so she wants to go with Hades of her own free will instead!” Basically, it may be too romanticized, but it’s not going to STOP being romanticized anytime soon!
II. “Dionysus is so much more than just The Drunk Guy in Greek mythology” – C. M. hard agreed with this one, noting that he was much more than the God of Wine (specifically, that he was also the God of Insanity), and recommending the Overly Sarcastic Production’s video on the guy so people could learn more. And then talked about how one of her favorite experiences as a theater kid was starring in a play about the Bacchanalia that the scriptwriter had turned into a musical of sorts, which she thought really beautifully highlighted all the fucked-up bits in that play.
III. “Hercules is so over-rated, and Sisyphus is underrated” – C. M. mostly agreed with that one, admitting that she herself was pretty “meh” about Hercules (he just had the good fortune of being popular among the Greeks, meaning he got a lot of stories) and explaining the Sisyphus myth for all of us in more detail. Basically, Sisyphus kept killing people who stayed at his house (a HUGE no-no in Ancient Greek society, where being a good host was MANDATED BY THE GODS), then trapped Thanatos, God of Death – the Greek Grim Reaper, separate from Hades – a box when he came from, then got yanked into the Underworld, THEN managed to pull a fast one on Persephone by saying he needed to go up to the living world to put his affairs in order for just three days, then running away and living to a ripe old age. You see why he eventually ended up rolling that rock up a hill over and over and over again. XD
IV. “Jason shouldn’t be considered a hero, he didn’t even DO anything, all his deeds are the result of his wife Medea helping him” – C. M. argued that Jason did manage to successfully wrangle all the heroes who were part of the Argonauts, which did indicate he had some skills...but then allowed that, yeah, no, him getting the Golden Fleece was all Medea. And that he should have thought twice about fucking her over and trying to officially marry someone else after promising himself to her.
V. “I don’t care what Percy Jackson says, Ares was NOT a dick to his daughters” – C. M. hard agreed with this one too, telling us all about a myth where Ares murders Poseidon’s son after he rapes one of his daughters, and when Poseidon took him to court, Zeus ruled in favor of Ares as he didn’t want to upset the other goddesses (including his own wife, who was very much on Ares’s side). Apparently Ares is also POSSIBLY the only god who didn’t rape anyone himself, which – good for the God of War, I must say.
Interesting stuff – C. M. knows a lot about this kind of thing. :) I left off with her talking about the Medusa myth (and how the Greeks were very victim-blamey when it came to rape most of the time) – we’ll finish this off tomorrow and see what other myths and what other hot takes come up!
2. Continue editing Chapter 4 of “The Van Dort Vacancy”: Check – I did in fact manage to fit in an editing session before work today, yay! One of the benefits of going in late. :) Today’s page featured:
A) Victor telling Alice (who’d noted yesterday that the Van Dort servants dressed very well, and she wouldn’t mind taking the outfit she was wearing) that the nice dress was just another way for his parents to show off their money, and that if she wanted it, she could have it, as they had plenty of spares, before adding she’d probably want to resew it to make it less obvious it was one of theirs. Alice assured him that she’d already planned to take up the skirt, as anything that touched her shoes bugged her (made her feel like she could trip at any moment), and mused about moving the lace around the collar to the hem...before admitting she might have to pay someone to do that, as she was much more versed in practical mending than decorative sewing (confessing she’d never had any patience for samplers as a child). Smiler said that Widow Black could help, with Victor confirming she’d done an excellent job on his jacket, while Victor said he could get her into Dundridge & Sons if she wanted, as he was sure Amelia Dundridge would find her a better customer than Nell.
B) Alice telling Smiler and Victor that she’d consider her options dress-wise later, and that they’d better get a move on – because even if Barnaby and Kasimir didn’t object to being left in the wine cellar, there was always the risk that Mrs. Pemberly would notice them missing and go on the hunt. Victor allowed that was a good point and started picking out suits while noting he was surprised that they had convinced her they were new employees – Smiler confessed they hadn’t, really, she’d just decided she needed the help in the kitchen more than figuring out who they were, with Alice confirming they’d only been saved by an incident with a cheese tray. And that it was lucky she knew her way around a cutting board, and Smiler around soup – “Cooking is just another form of alchemy!” Smiler cheerfully proclaimed. :P
C) Smiler asking Victor if he wanted help folding up his clothes, and Victor saying that he could handle the suits, but if Smiler wanted to get some shirts out of the chest of drawers nearby, that would be useful – before promising them that he had fewer shirts than suits with an awkward chuckle. Smiler laughed along but assured him that he really shouldn’t feel guilty about having so many clothes – Victor said he knew, but he’d just had it shoved in his face just how lucky he really was to grow up rich, and he didn’t want either them or Alice to feel like he was somehow flaunting his wealth. Cue Alice telling him that he apologized for being a “spoiled rich boy” way too often already, and given the way his parents treated him, she’d consider him at most a little off. Before telling him he’d have to get one particularly-high-up-the-wall sketch himself, as she couldn’t reach it. XD
And so I ended on Victor fetching the sketch and saying he was glad she felt that way – it was just getting him to feel that way that was the trick. *nods* We’ll continue this conversation tomorrow, and see if Alice and Smiler can’t boost his self-esteem a little.
3. Watch something on FreeTube: Check – managed to fit in the latest from C. M. Alongi tonight – “CaFae Latte Season 83 - TikTok Compilation!” This one was all about the characters dealing with the ICE threat in Minnesota, and featured:
A) Bob checking in with the Stoughton Street Coven on how they were doing with protection charms – after checking in with Lindsey to see how many she’d need (less than last week, as most of the people she and the food shelf have been delivering to already have one now) and Nicole to see if she needed any for her students (already taken care of), Mike declared that ten more on top of the thirty they already had would do the job. Nicole was a little worried about supplies at first, as they’d been going through a lot of unicorn blood, but Bob told her that she and Cyrus had each donated a pint of their blood to the cause. Mike was a little startled, going “this is YOUR blood?” before Bob explained that Fae blood has plenty of magical properties, and it was only a pint –
And cue Ghost Hunter John coming in going “what’s this about blood?” XD Nicole explained about how, since humans aren’t inherently magical, they have to rely on magical ingredients – animal parts and plants – and that Bob and Cyrus had just donated some Fae blood to them as it was excellent for protection and good luck charms, with Mike chiming in that this is why some covens just straight-up kill paranormal people – to harvest their bits. John admitted he’d helped solve some of those cold cases, then asked about the homemade journals in the shop (made by Mike’s wife, as per Lindsey and Mike). Mike was like “didn’t you just get one?” but John explained that he’d been doing a LOT of archiving of what was happening in the Twin Cities – both hard copies locked in his safe and digital ones anyone could access (“Historians will thank you,” Nicole informed him). And then revealed that he’d actually struck up a friendship with fellow archivist Rabbi Rabbit (who Bob confirmed was now friends with Rethu and Cyrus), with the video ending on him praising the guy for doing the archiving, running his synagogue, and getting drivers to help with food deliveries. Though that latter wasn’t too hard, as – well. A not-inconsiderable number of people he knows are related to Holocaust survivors, so…yeah.
( These Always Get Long )
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: N/A – I didn’t have anything I had to do over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), and it was all quiet again over on Valice Multiverse. *shrug* How it goes sometimes!
...yeah, properly-spaced-out-version is going to have to come tomorrow too -- it's a normal workday, so I HAVE to get to bed now. Night all! EDIT 2/27/2026: Okay, everything's good now, please enjoy the fully-completed and fully-spaced update!
Work – Finally went back to work at 10 AM this morning and proceeded to have a very busy day – while my coworker handled the GLs and returned most of the messages left on the phone during our long absence, I found myself juggling:
A) Depositing the checks from the safe and doing the morning reports (as usual)
B) Going through my e-mails and answering those that needed answering (prioritizing the ones from my boss, of course)
C) Taking a bunch of credit card calls (including playing phone tag with one particular guy who was trying to do a pledge – we FINALLY connected at the end of the day), along with answering a few donor questions (including one from a lady who didn’t speak much English asking about her credit card gift – I’m pretty sure I managed to explain to her that her card hadn’t gone through, and she said she’d sent a check instead)
D) MAKING a few phone calls to set up credit card stuff (one went through fine, the other ran afoul of an error that keeps popping up from time to time which just says there was “a problem” with setting up a gift/pledge – the donor was fortunately understanding and admitted he’d had trouble on the website too, which was interesting)
E) Sending more e-mails to the credit card company to thank them for finally posting the missing payments for the 2026 CCA pledges, and asking them to get on posting the missing payments for the 2025 CCA pledges, and to keep looking into that weird nonspecific error
F) Checking the credit card company’s work on posting all those 2026 CCA pledge payments, because I don’t trust them
G) Checking on a few issues our regular check processors brought to light (had to fix someone’s payment schedule and move a gift from the account of someone who’d recently died to the new account we made for his son, who happens to have the same name and live at the same address – this is an annoying fact of life in Rhode Island)
H) And helping my coworker with some GL weirdness (some gifts got split up weird on the reconciliation report, no idea why)
Whew! Quite a lot to get through, as I think you’ll agree! But I did the best I could to handle it all. Tomorrow’s going to be a full-length day – not sure if that will make things less busy (because we’ll be able to spread the work out across more hours) or more busy (because more time for donors to call us and nonsense to happen). We’ll find out when I go in!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night on C. M. Alongi’s channel, pedaling my way through:
A) The end of “Creating CaFae Latte: Behind the Scenes!” Which featured:
I. C. M. showing off a bit more of the kind of “detail editing” work she does (clipping out awkward moments, adjusting how quickly the next line of dialogue starts after the previous one, overlapping one scene’s audio onto another scene’s video so she could show a nice facial expression without any awkward pauses, etc) and talking about how, after she’s done with all that, she sends everything back to Video Editor Nic so he can clean it up and add any necessary special effects and whatnot (like the blue filter and blizzard effects in the “kids escaping from the Yule Troll” videos – adorably, she said that she often had to rein him in on the amount of stuff to add because he was so eager to make the videos look good)
II. C. M. showing off the Google Drive where she and Video Editor Nic exchange videos, and being very pleased to see the video intended for January 8th was ready for her to download and post, yay (though she had to change the title as the date in it was wrong – January 7th)
III. And everything ending with a look at the final product – which, in this case, was the skit where Mark comes to the cafe and meets JC, and JC checks in on how he and Drek are doing (and Drek jokingly gets dramatic about being a gay teenager)
Cool stuff! It is nice to see exactly what goes into making these videos – it looks like a lot of work! But it seems C. M. and Nic have a system down. :)
B) And the first half of “Reacting to YOUR Greek Myth Hot Takes!” A video that C. M. did when she needed a break from doing “CaFae Tales,” as apparently those are a lot of work, and which doubled as an advertisement for her Monstrous Kickstarter (which is fully funded and then some as of this writing, yay). Much like her “reacting to your ‘CaFae Latte’ hot takes” videos, this involved her having I presume Video Editor Nic gather up a bunch of people’s opinions about various Greek myths that she could scroll through and react to. Hot takes so far have included:
I. “Hades and Persephone is too romanticized as a myth; he DID kidnap her” – C. M. allowed that Hades did kidnap Persephone (though she did note that in some of the earliest versions of the myth, Zeus basically SOLD Persephone to Hades, and was treated as the actual villain of the piece as a result), but argued that the reason this myth gets so romanticized is because, after the initial kidnapping, Hades and Persephone have probably the most functional relationship out of all the Greek Gods. And us modern folks see that and are like “it’s really a shame that this surprisingly loving marriage starts in such a not-good way – let’s rewrite things so she wants to go with Hades of her own free will instead!” Basically, it may be too romanticized, but it’s not going to STOP being romanticized anytime soon!
II. “Dionysus is so much more than just The Drunk Guy in Greek mythology” – C. M. hard agreed with this one, noting that he was much more than the God of Wine (specifically, that he was also the God of Insanity), and recommending the Overly Sarcastic Production’s video on the guy so people could learn more. And then talked about how one of her favorite experiences as a theater kid was starring in a play about the Bacchanalia that the scriptwriter had turned into a musical of sorts, which she thought really beautifully highlighted all the fucked-up bits in that play.
III. “Hercules is so over-rated, and Sisyphus is underrated” – C. M. mostly agreed with that one, admitting that she herself was pretty “meh” about Hercules (he just had the good fortune of being popular among the Greeks, meaning he got a lot of stories) and explaining the Sisyphus myth for all of us in more detail. Basically, Sisyphus kept killing people who stayed at his house (a HUGE no-no in Ancient Greek society, where being a good host was MANDATED BY THE GODS), then trapped Thanatos, God of Death – the Greek Grim Reaper, separate from Hades – a box when he came from, then got yanked into the Underworld, THEN managed to pull a fast one on Persephone by saying he needed to go up to the living world to put his affairs in order for just three days, then running away and living to a ripe old age. You see why he eventually ended up rolling that rock up a hill over and over and over again. XD
IV. “Jason shouldn’t be considered a hero, he didn’t even DO anything, all his deeds are the result of his wife Medea helping him” – C. M. argued that Jason did manage to successfully wrangle all the heroes who were part of the Argonauts, which did indicate he had some skills...but then allowed that, yeah, no, him getting the Golden Fleece was all Medea. And that he should have thought twice about fucking her over and trying to officially marry someone else after promising himself to her.
V. “I don’t care what Percy Jackson says, Ares was NOT a dick to his daughters” – C. M. hard agreed with this one too, telling us all about a myth where Ares murders Poseidon’s son after he rapes one of his daughters, and when Poseidon took him to court, Zeus ruled in favor of Ares as he didn’t want to upset the other goddesses (including his own wife, who was very much on Ares’s side). Apparently Ares is also POSSIBLY the only god who didn’t rape anyone himself, which – good for the God of War, I must say.
Interesting stuff – C. M. knows a lot about this kind of thing. :) I left off with her talking about the Medusa myth (and how the Greeks were very victim-blamey when it came to rape most of the time) – we’ll finish this off tomorrow and see what other myths and what other hot takes come up!
2. Continue editing Chapter 4 of “The Van Dort Vacancy”: Check – I did in fact manage to fit in an editing session before work today, yay! One of the benefits of going in late. :) Today’s page featured:
A) Victor telling Alice (who’d noted yesterday that the Van Dort servants dressed very well, and she wouldn’t mind taking the outfit she was wearing) that the nice dress was just another way for his parents to show off their money, and that if she wanted it, she could have it, as they had plenty of spares, before adding she’d probably want to resew it to make it less obvious it was one of theirs. Alice assured him that she’d already planned to take up the skirt, as anything that touched her shoes bugged her (made her feel like she could trip at any moment), and mused about moving the lace around the collar to the hem...before admitting she might have to pay someone to do that, as she was much more versed in practical mending than decorative sewing (confessing she’d never had any patience for samplers as a child). Smiler said that Widow Black could help, with Victor confirming she’d done an excellent job on his jacket, while Victor said he could get her into Dundridge & Sons if she wanted, as he was sure Amelia Dundridge would find her a better customer than Nell.
B) Alice telling Smiler and Victor that she’d consider her options dress-wise later, and that they’d better get a move on – because even if Barnaby and Kasimir didn’t object to being left in the wine cellar, there was always the risk that Mrs. Pemberly would notice them missing and go on the hunt. Victor allowed that was a good point and started picking out suits while noting he was surprised that they had convinced her they were new employees – Smiler confessed they hadn’t, really, she’d just decided she needed the help in the kitchen more than figuring out who they were, with Alice confirming they’d only been saved by an incident with a cheese tray. And that it was lucky she knew her way around a cutting board, and Smiler around soup – “Cooking is just another form of alchemy!” Smiler cheerfully proclaimed. :P
C) Smiler asking Victor if he wanted help folding up his clothes, and Victor saying that he could handle the suits, but if Smiler wanted to get some shirts out of the chest of drawers nearby, that would be useful – before promising them that he had fewer shirts than suits with an awkward chuckle. Smiler laughed along but assured him that he really shouldn’t feel guilty about having so many clothes – Victor said he knew, but he’d just had it shoved in his face just how lucky he really was to grow up rich, and he didn’t want either them or Alice to feel like he was somehow flaunting his wealth. Cue Alice telling him that he apologized for being a “spoiled rich boy” way too often already, and given the way his parents treated him, she’d consider him at most a little off. Before telling him he’d have to get one particularly-high-up-the-wall sketch himself, as she couldn’t reach it. XD
And so I ended on Victor fetching the sketch and saying he was glad she felt that way – it was just getting him to feel that way that was the trick. *nods* We’ll continue this conversation tomorrow, and see if Alice and Smiler can’t boost his self-esteem a little.
3. Watch something on FreeTube: Check – managed to fit in the latest from C. M. Alongi tonight – “CaFae Latte Season 83 - TikTok Compilation!” This one was all about the characters dealing with the ICE threat in Minnesota, and featured:
A) Bob checking in with the Stoughton Street Coven on how they were doing with protection charms – after checking in with Lindsey to see how many she’d need (less than last week, as most of the people she and the food shelf have been delivering to already have one now) and Nicole to see if she needed any for her students (already taken care of), Mike declared that ten more on top of the thirty they already had would do the job. Nicole was a little worried about supplies at first, as they’d been going through a lot of unicorn blood, but Bob told her that she and Cyrus had each donated a pint of their blood to the cause. Mike was a little startled, going “this is YOUR blood?” before Bob explained that Fae blood has plenty of magical properties, and it was only a pint –
And cue Ghost Hunter John coming in going “what’s this about blood?” XD Nicole explained about how, since humans aren’t inherently magical, they have to rely on magical ingredients – animal parts and plants – and that Bob and Cyrus had just donated some Fae blood to them as it was excellent for protection and good luck charms, with Mike chiming in that this is why some covens just straight-up kill paranormal people – to harvest their bits. John admitted he’d helped solve some of those cold cases, then asked about the homemade journals in the shop (made by Mike’s wife, as per Lindsey and Mike). Mike was like “didn’t you just get one?” but John explained that he’d been doing a LOT of archiving of what was happening in the Twin Cities – both hard copies locked in his safe and digital ones anyone could access (“Historians will thank you,” Nicole informed him). And then revealed that he’d actually struck up a friendship with fellow archivist Rabbi Rabbit (who Bob confirmed was now friends with Rethu and Cyrus), with the video ending on him praising the guy for doing the archiving, running his synagogue, and getting drivers to help with food deliveries. Though that latter wasn’t too hard, as – well. A not-inconsiderable number of people he knows are related to Holocaust survivors, so…yeah.
( These Always Get Long )
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: N/A – I didn’t have anything I had to do over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), and it was all quiet again over on Valice Multiverse. *shrug* How it goes sometimes!
...yeah, properly-spaced-out-version is going to have to come tomorrow too -- it's a normal workday, so I HAVE to get to bed now. Night all! EDIT 2/27/2026: Okay, everything's good now, please enjoy the fully-completed and fully-spaced update!
games games games
Feb. 26th, 2026 04:29 pmlea_hazelSteam is doing a whole event centered around upcoming games, so I had a little browse and downloaded a few demos.
The first demo was a bust, despite a promising concept. The interface was difficult and I just wasn't enjoying myself.
The second game was much better. A mystery puzzle game called Secrets of Suburbia, it features an amateur teen detective in a late 90s setting, focuses on teens' online lives, and captures the spirit of the late 90s internet to a downright alarming degree. I haven't gotten far enough in the mystery to comment on that aspect, but its subject is a girl who went missing. The game is physically very dark, as in, even when the lights are turned on (there are light switches in every room) the light is still very low and washed out. There is also spooky music, so the low light is probably meant to enhance the horror/mystery vibes. It even starts with the teen protagonist home alone while the rest of the family is out.
I've also downloaded a demo for a game called I'm Making a Monster, but I haven't tried it yet.
Then there's Islantiles, a kind of deck-builder/city-builder type game, but I've been playing that demo for a while, so it's not new. The game is due out Q2 2026, so possibly soonish, and the demo just updated, too.
The first demo was a bust, despite a promising concept. The interface was difficult and I just wasn't enjoying myself.
The second game was much better. A mystery puzzle game called Secrets of Suburbia, it features an amateur teen detective in a late 90s setting, focuses on teens' online lives, and captures the spirit of the late 90s internet to a downright alarming degree. I haven't gotten far enough in the mystery to comment on that aspect, but its subject is a girl who went missing. The game is physically very dark, as in, even when the lights are turned on (there are light switches in every room) the light is still very low and washed out. There is also spooky music, so the low light is probably meant to enhance the horror/mystery vibes. It even starts with the teen protagonist home alone while the rest of the family is out.
I've also downloaded a demo for a game called I'm Making a Monster, but I haven't tried it yet.
Then there's Islantiles, a kind of deck-builder/city-builder type game, but I've been playing that demo for a while, so it's not new. The game is due out Q2 2026, so possibly soonish, and the demo just updated, too.
Helping Out Mom Wednesday
Feb. 25th, 2026 11:49 pmcrossover_chickYeah, it was a pretty stressful day for my mother (Dad ended up in the bathroom early this morning both throwing up and having diarrhea -- ended up waking me up -- and then was in a bad mood a good portion of the day thanks to that and his computer not working correctly), so I ended up spending a lot of it helping her out with various chores (like helping to clean the kitchen and do the laundry) and errands (going out with her to help bring the mail order to the post office and pick up Dad's prescriptions and whatnot). Meaning I didn't have as much time on the computer as I originally anticipated. No Little Corners today, that's for sure! But I still accomplished a few things on the old interwebs:
Tumblr: Only had Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) to worry about today, it being a Wednesday – and while I didn’t get as much done as I would have liked thanks to the interruptions to help Mom and the bad vibes, I did do a few important things –
A) First, I made sure to get my queue for the week sorted this morning, with:
I. A couple of drawings of Alice from Alice: Madness Returns by jmppromise (a bust sketch of her looking askance at something with a little smirk, and a full-body sketch of her walking with the Hobby Horse, skirt floofed) for today, Wednesday
II. The “Smiler in something pretty” drawing by shenanigansz (featuring their Smiler OC in a lovely off-the-shoulder yellow blouse, black-and-white-striped waist cincher, and bow tie choker) I picked up yesterday for Thursday
III. The “Emily recognizes Barkis” Corpse Bride gif set by ghiblin (featuring Emily revealing Barkis was her fiancee who left her for dead, and Alfred the skeleton finding that literally jaw-dropping) I picked up yesterday for Friday
IV. And a video by gemini-serpentis featuring footage of the fem!Malkavian fledgling dancing on The Asylum’s dance floor set to “Cotton-Eye Joe” by...huh. I don’t actually know. *looks it up* Okay, so the song’s been around since at least the late nineteenth century, but it looks like the version in the video was done by a band named “Rednex” – good to know! *edits the tags on the post before queuing* Anyway, yeah, that video for Song Saturday
So that’s out of my hair, at least – and gets a couple of older things (those Alice drawings and the VTMB “Cotton-Eye Joe” video) out of my drafts. Yay!
B) And second, I managed to make one small update to my “creating a timeline of Valicer In The Dark stories” post draft – namely, deciding that the second “greenhouse” story – where the trio actually gets plants for their greenhouse in Barrowcleft – should have them dealing with another organization based off an Alton Towers ride during the score. Currently I haven’t made up my mind if that organization should be a cult worshiping the Nemesis monster, or the Beornen lead by Wickerman, but at least I have an idea of who should be the antagonist in that story now! Now I just have to flesh out some of my other ideas a bit more...
Writing: Got another page of Chapter 4 of “The Van Dort Vacancy” edited today before my workout – this one featuring:
A) Victor taking Alice’s suggestion to prioritize what clothes he wanted to bring with him to his new home under advisement (and thanking her and Smiler for helping him by taking down his butterfly sketches; Smiler assured him it was what friends did, and besides, he’d already helped Alice pack before, so) and fetching his carpet bag out of his closet to see if it would be big enough for everything he wanted to take. Cue Smiler looking over their shoulder to reassure him it would almost certainly be fine and let him know they needed to get Alice’s bag before they left – only to get distracted by the sheer number of suits that Victor had in his closet
B) Smiler apologizing to Victor for staring when Victor asked “what is it,” explaining that they’d never seen that many suits in one closet before; Alice was initially like “really?” and started explaining how her father had had a fair few suits for his work in Doskvol Academy – only to turn and see Victor’s overstuffed closet for herself and be like “oh, wait, no, I get it now.” Cue her guessing there were twelve suits in there, and a deeply embarrassed Victor confessing it was actually fifteen, with him wearing the sixteenth. Smiler was like “didn’t know you were so into fashion,” causing Victor to retort that he wasn’t, Nell was, because she knew that having lots of trendy clothes was the best way to show off their wealth (“you should see her hat collection”)
C) Victor, now riddled with guilt over how many clothes he owned, spontaneously offering some to Alice and Smiler, explaining that they could take them apart and get a tailor to turn them into clothes for them instead; Alice cut him off with an “is that a genuine offer or one made because you feel bad about having grown up rich,” to which Victor replied “It can’t be both?” XD Smiler comforted him and said it was a very kind offer, but he didn’t have to make up for being well-off to them, and Alice agreed that if they were judging anyone for the amount of clothes Victor had, it was his parents, since they were the ones who bought them and made him wear them
D) And Victor allowing that, yes, okay, him having so many suits was his parents’ fault (with a side complaint about the sort of things his mother dressed him up in as a kid, and how they tended to make his bullies “creative”), but he genuinely was all right giving them a suit or two to repurpose because they deserved nice things – cue Smiler offering a compromise, telling Victor to take his three favorite suits and one he wouldn’t mind being cut up, and if they wanted they wanted to repurpose that one, they could. Or, rather, if Alice wanted to repurpose it, she could, as they had enough clothes. XD Alice allowed that she was rather lacking in things to wear and that if she could trade one of her dresses for one of Joytide’s, then she could accept a suit-turned-into-a-dress from Victor as payment for letting him join her at Elder Gutknecht’s. Though, admittedly, she had already intended to tell him how much she liked the kitchen maid outfit she already had one…
And that is where I left it! Tomorrow, Victor will let her know she’s welcome to the dress and start picking out what suits he wants to take, and the packing shall continue! Hopefully with less “rich boy guilt” on Victor’s part. :P
Workout: Hopped back on the bike this evening to watch another chunk of “Creating CaFae Latte: Behind the Scenes” by C. M. Alongi! Tonight’s section focused largely on her filming every character’s individual scenes for the next few sets of videos, and featured stuff like:
A) Chris revealing that, when she does a script, she makes sure to highlight all swear words or anything else that TikTok might censor to let Video Editor Nic know what needs to be expressed with emojis in the captions (seriously, it always weirds me out that she can say “fuck” in the audio but it has to be a duck emoji in the captions)
B) Chris getting through filming JC’s section and realizing too late that she forgot to bring the fake goatee that identifies Drek’s Dad in videos, and choosing instead to just tie some of her hair under her nose because that was easier than renting out the space again later to do his bits
C) Chris talking about where she got Herla’s costume – basically, his black piratey shirt was one she already owned; his black-and-cold leafy crown was from Amazon; and his iconic bird skull necklace was one she made at a “make your own necklace” place
D) Chris getting all excited to show off Wendy The Wraith’s costume (which was just a “spooky ghost” costume she got at Spirit Halloween) – only to realize before she started filming that she had to do the scenes for John and Mark first, whoops
E) Chris revealing that Drek’s protection charm necklace was actually a gift sent in by a fan, which was sweet – somebody also sent her in a bunch of different sunglasses, which have come in handy for various videos
F) On the flip side, Chris revealing that Oscar’s original shirt, along with the vest for her BookTok version of Citadel, were both stolen from the building after she (she admits stupidly) hung them on the outside of her filing cabinet – she was much more pissed about losing the vest, as that had been a custom job from a friend using material donated by a fan
G) After finally filming all the other characters (including having to go BACK to Drek to film some more bits after filming all of Oscar’s scenes for a skit and realizing that she’d forgotten Drek was in it; she ended up doing some severe squats to get his height right XD), Chris FINALLY getting to show off the Wendy costume...only to put it on backward at first XD And then have to magnify her script 250% so she could actually read it through the mesh face covering
H) Chris admitting that one of the big reasons she doesn’t have an assistant is that she gets really self-conscious recording around other people, especially with the way she films everything – though apparently she’s absolutely fine with public speaking, so good for her there
I) And Chris treating herself to some lovely Vietnamese food after a long day of filming :)
Very cool to learn all this stuff, I have to admit! Though I am sorry someone straight up stole some of her costumes...anyway, I left off with her showing off how the editing process works (with her cleaning up Nic’s rough cuts of her videos) – tomorrow, we’ll finish that off, then see if we can start the “Greek Myths Hot Takes” video! Would be nice to get THAT one watched too...
FreeTube: I didn’t get to do a “full” video catch-up day thanks to helping Mom with all those various chores and errands, but I did manage to knock three videos out of my unofficial “to watch” list tonight –
A) First, I managed to get through the two OXBox lists I had waiting for me:
I. “7 Scariest Theme Parks Ranked from Creepy to Nightmare Fuel” – Mike, Jane, and Andy talking about the spookiest theme parks in video games (that players did not build themselves)! Ranging from the caffeine-fueled Coffee World from Alan Wake II (where the rides are no longer working because the operators have all been taken over by the Dark Presence, making them even MORE inclined to painfully murder tourists), to the fizzy fun of Nuka-World from Fallout 4’s “Nuka-World” DLC (where the rides are no longer working because of the end of the world, and also the place is now home to raiders, gatorclaws, and colorfully-painted feral ghouls), to the silent horrors of Lakeside Amusement Park from Silent Hill 3 (where the rides are working – but given the carousel features flayed poison-spewing horses and the roller coaster tries to run you over, you’ll wish they weren’t). The moral of the story? It’s a lot more fun to be the one designing the killer haunted theme park than it is to be the one attending it. Think of that the next time you play Planet Coaster! (And then promptly ignore it so you can drop your guests into a ravine.)
II. And “7 Bosses So Hard They Had to Be Patched” – Jane, Mike, and Andy talking about those bosses (or, in one case, extremely difficult racing minigame) that proved to be much too much for the average player and had to be patched! Like Promised Consort Radahn from Elden Ring’s “Shadow of the Erd Tree” DLC, whose range attacks were so bad that they had to both lower the damage and shorten their range so players had a chance! Or “Fairplay,” the aforementioned racing minigame from Mafia: City Of Lost Heaven, where it proved so difficult to actually win the race and progress in the game that they had to adjust the AI so the other drivers didn’t go quite so fast (and then rejigger it entirely when they remade the game eighteen years later in 2020). Or Childe from Genshin Impact, whose ultra-powerful and nearly-unavoidable attacks were so nasty that they had to lower his damage multiplers and his HP to give new players a chance! ...in the “Story Mode,” anyway. Apparently there’s a weekly “bonus boss” version of him that still functions like he did pre-patch. Given how controversial nerfing some of the earlier bosses on the list proved to be for the player base (with people who managed to beat them pre-patch being pissed that the developers were “bowing to peer pressure” and other such nonsense) that was probably the right call – best of both worlds!
B) And second, I managed to squeeze in a video uploaded today – “Fun With Shorts: Education in America - 17th and 18the [sic] Centuries (Part 1)” by Josh Way! Eight minutes of a Coronet short about – well, look at the title. XD Specifically, it covered how the Puritans educated their children, with the focus being on “everyone needs to be able to read so they can read the Bible and understand its text as law.” Girls learned sewing and cooking and not much else; boys, meanwhile, went to schools where they could memorize the Bible and related literature. Not exactly a thorough curriculum for growing minds! Josh was appropriately disdainful of the short and everything in it – snarking about Super Cuts being available in the 17th century in response to a kid’s hairdo; making repeated pointed comments about Puritan Christianity and how oppressive and grim it was; and laughing over the name of the law that made it compulsory for towns and villages to have schools to educate their children in Massachusetts (the “Old Deluded Satan Law” – you can see why he laughed). Fun stuff, even if I wish he’d stop splitting up shorts into two pieces like this – oftentimes the second half comes out so long after the first one that I’ve forgotten what the short was originally about!
So that's not nothing -- and I'm glad I was able to help out Mom, even if it was kind of stressful at times. Seriously, the vibes are ending up absolutely rancid in this house more and more often... *sigh* Anyway, I need to head to bed -- since going out with Mom proved the roads are in mostly-good condition, I WILL be going to work tomorrow. Though we do have another late start, at least, so I'll have a bit more time to hang out and relax in the morning, at least. Might try to get my writing done early -- we'll see how that shakes out, though. Night all!
Tumblr: Only had Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) to worry about today, it being a Wednesday – and while I didn’t get as much done as I would have liked thanks to the interruptions to help Mom and the bad vibes, I did do a few important things –
A) First, I made sure to get my queue for the week sorted this morning, with:
I. A couple of drawings of Alice from Alice: Madness Returns by jmppromise (a bust sketch of her looking askance at something with a little smirk, and a full-body sketch of her walking with the Hobby Horse, skirt floofed) for today, Wednesday
II. The “Smiler in something pretty” drawing by shenanigansz (featuring their Smiler OC in a lovely off-the-shoulder yellow blouse, black-and-white-striped waist cincher, and bow tie choker) I picked up yesterday for Thursday
III. The “Emily recognizes Barkis” Corpse Bride gif set by ghiblin (featuring Emily revealing Barkis was her fiancee who left her for dead, and Alfred the skeleton finding that literally jaw-dropping) I picked up yesterday for Friday
IV. And a video by gemini-serpentis featuring footage of the fem!Malkavian fledgling dancing on The Asylum’s dance floor set to “Cotton-Eye Joe” by...huh. I don’t actually know. *looks it up* Okay, so the song’s been around since at least the late nineteenth century, but it looks like the version in the video was done by a band named “Rednex” – good to know! *edits the tags on the post before queuing* Anyway, yeah, that video for Song Saturday
So that’s out of my hair, at least – and gets a couple of older things (those Alice drawings and the VTMB “Cotton-Eye Joe” video) out of my drafts. Yay!
B) And second, I managed to make one small update to my “creating a timeline of Valicer In The Dark stories” post draft – namely, deciding that the second “greenhouse” story – where the trio actually gets plants for their greenhouse in Barrowcleft – should have them dealing with another organization based off an Alton Towers ride during the score. Currently I haven’t made up my mind if that organization should be a cult worshiping the Nemesis monster, or the Beornen lead by Wickerman, but at least I have an idea of who should be the antagonist in that story now! Now I just have to flesh out some of my other ideas a bit more...
Writing: Got another page of Chapter 4 of “The Van Dort Vacancy” edited today before my workout – this one featuring:
A) Victor taking Alice’s suggestion to prioritize what clothes he wanted to bring with him to his new home under advisement (and thanking her and Smiler for helping him by taking down his butterfly sketches; Smiler assured him it was what friends did, and besides, he’d already helped Alice pack before, so) and fetching his carpet bag out of his closet to see if it would be big enough for everything he wanted to take. Cue Smiler looking over their shoulder to reassure him it would almost certainly be fine and let him know they needed to get Alice’s bag before they left – only to get distracted by the sheer number of suits that Victor had in his closet
B) Smiler apologizing to Victor for staring when Victor asked “what is it,” explaining that they’d never seen that many suits in one closet before; Alice was initially like “really?” and started explaining how her father had had a fair few suits for his work in Doskvol Academy – only to turn and see Victor’s overstuffed closet for herself and be like “oh, wait, no, I get it now.” Cue her guessing there were twelve suits in there, and a deeply embarrassed Victor confessing it was actually fifteen, with him wearing the sixteenth. Smiler was like “didn’t know you were so into fashion,” causing Victor to retort that he wasn’t, Nell was, because she knew that having lots of trendy clothes was the best way to show off their wealth (“you should see her hat collection”)
C) Victor, now riddled with guilt over how many clothes he owned, spontaneously offering some to Alice and Smiler, explaining that they could take them apart and get a tailor to turn them into clothes for them instead; Alice cut him off with an “is that a genuine offer or one made because you feel bad about having grown up rich,” to which Victor replied “It can’t be both?” XD Smiler comforted him and said it was a very kind offer, but he didn’t have to make up for being well-off to them, and Alice agreed that if they were judging anyone for the amount of clothes Victor had, it was his parents, since they were the ones who bought them and made him wear them
D) And Victor allowing that, yes, okay, him having so many suits was his parents’ fault (with a side complaint about the sort of things his mother dressed him up in as a kid, and how they tended to make his bullies “creative”), but he genuinely was all right giving them a suit or two to repurpose because they deserved nice things – cue Smiler offering a compromise, telling Victor to take his three favorite suits and one he wouldn’t mind being cut up, and if they wanted they wanted to repurpose that one, they could. Or, rather, if Alice wanted to repurpose it, she could, as they had enough clothes. XD Alice allowed that she was rather lacking in things to wear and that if she could trade one of her dresses for one of Joytide’s, then she could accept a suit-turned-into-a-dress from Victor as payment for letting him join her at Elder Gutknecht’s. Though, admittedly, she had already intended to tell him how much she liked the kitchen maid outfit she already had one…
And that is where I left it! Tomorrow, Victor will let her know she’s welcome to the dress and start picking out what suits he wants to take, and the packing shall continue! Hopefully with less “rich boy guilt” on Victor’s part. :P
Workout: Hopped back on the bike this evening to watch another chunk of “Creating CaFae Latte: Behind the Scenes” by C. M. Alongi! Tonight’s section focused largely on her filming every character’s individual scenes for the next few sets of videos, and featured stuff like:
A) Chris revealing that, when she does a script, she makes sure to highlight all swear words or anything else that TikTok might censor to let Video Editor Nic know what needs to be expressed with emojis in the captions (seriously, it always weirds me out that she can say “fuck” in the audio but it has to be a duck emoji in the captions)
B) Chris getting through filming JC’s section and realizing too late that she forgot to bring the fake goatee that identifies Drek’s Dad in videos, and choosing instead to just tie some of her hair under her nose because that was easier than renting out the space again later to do his bits
C) Chris talking about where she got Herla’s costume – basically, his black piratey shirt was one she already owned; his black-and-cold leafy crown was from Amazon; and his iconic bird skull necklace was one she made at a “make your own necklace” place
D) Chris getting all excited to show off Wendy The Wraith’s costume (which was just a “spooky ghost” costume she got at Spirit Halloween) – only to realize before she started filming that she had to do the scenes for John and Mark first, whoops
E) Chris revealing that Drek’s protection charm necklace was actually a gift sent in by a fan, which was sweet – somebody also sent her in a bunch of different sunglasses, which have come in handy for various videos
F) On the flip side, Chris revealing that Oscar’s original shirt, along with the vest for her BookTok version of Citadel, were both stolen from the building after she (she admits stupidly) hung them on the outside of her filing cabinet – she was much more pissed about losing the vest, as that had been a custom job from a friend using material donated by a fan
G) After finally filming all the other characters (including having to go BACK to Drek to film some more bits after filming all of Oscar’s scenes for a skit and realizing that she’d forgotten Drek was in it; she ended up doing some severe squats to get his height right XD), Chris FINALLY getting to show off the Wendy costume...only to put it on backward at first XD And then have to magnify her script 250% so she could actually read it through the mesh face covering
H) Chris admitting that one of the big reasons she doesn’t have an assistant is that she gets really self-conscious recording around other people, especially with the way she films everything – though apparently she’s absolutely fine with public speaking, so good for her there
I) And Chris treating herself to some lovely Vietnamese food after a long day of filming :)
Very cool to learn all this stuff, I have to admit! Though I am sorry someone straight up stole some of her costumes...anyway, I left off with her showing off how the editing process works (with her cleaning up Nic’s rough cuts of her videos) – tomorrow, we’ll finish that off, then see if we can start the “Greek Myths Hot Takes” video! Would be nice to get THAT one watched too...
FreeTube: I didn’t get to do a “full” video catch-up day thanks to helping Mom with all those various chores and errands, but I did manage to knock three videos out of my unofficial “to watch” list tonight –
A) First, I managed to get through the two OXBox lists I had waiting for me:
I. “7 Scariest Theme Parks Ranked from Creepy to Nightmare Fuel” – Mike, Jane, and Andy talking about the spookiest theme parks in video games (that players did not build themselves)! Ranging from the caffeine-fueled Coffee World from Alan Wake II (where the rides are no longer working because the operators have all been taken over by the Dark Presence, making them even MORE inclined to painfully murder tourists), to the fizzy fun of Nuka-World from Fallout 4’s “Nuka-World” DLC (where the rides are no longer working because of the end of the world, and also the place is now home to raiders, gatorclaws, and colorfully-painted feral ghouls), to the silent horrors of Lakeside Amusement Park from Silent Hill 3 (where the rides are working – but given the carousel features flayed poison-spewing horses and the roller coaster tries to run you over, you’ll wish they weren’t). The moral of the story? It’s a lot more fun to be the one designing the killer haunted theme park than it is to be the one attending it. Think of that the next time you play Planet Coaster! (And then promptly ignore it so you can drop your guests into a ravine.)
II. And “7 Bosses So Hard They Had to Be Patched” – Jane, Mike, and Andy talking about those bosses (or, in one case, extremely difficult racing minigame) that proved to be much too much for the average player and had to be patched! Like Promised Consort Radahn from Elden Ring’s “Shadow of the Erd Tree” DLC, whose range attacks were so bad that they had to both lower the damage and shorten their range so players had a chance! Or “Fairplay,” the aforementioned racing minigame from Mafia: City Of Lost Heaven, where it proved so difficult to actually win the race and progress in the game that they had to adjust the AI so the other drivers didn’t go quite so fast (and then rejigger it entirely when they remade the game eighteen years later in 2020). Or Childe from Genshin Impact, whose ultra-powerful and nearly-unavoidable attacks were so nasty that they had to lower his damage multiplers and his HP to give new players a chance! ...in the “Story Mode,” anyway. Apparently there’s a weekly “bonus boss” version of him that still functions like he did pre-patch. Given how controversial nerfing some of the earlier bosses on the list proved to be for the player base (with people who managed to beat them pre-patch being pissed that the developers were “bowing to peer pressure” and other such nonsense) that was probably the right call – best of both worlds!
B) And second, I managed to squeeze in a video uploaded today – “Fun With Shorts: Education in America - 17th and 18the [sic] Centuries (Part 1)” by Josh Way! Eight minutes of a Coronet short about – well, look at the title. XD Specifically, it covered how the Puritans educated their children, with the focus being on “everyone needs to be able to read so they can read the Bible and understand its text as law.” Girls learned sewing and cooking and not much else; boys, meanwhile, went to schools where they could memorize the Bible and related literature. Not exactly a thorough curriculum for growing minds! Josh was appropriately disdainful of the short and everything in it – snarking about Super Cuts being available in the 17th century in response to a kid’s hairdo; making repeated pointed comments about Puritan Christianity and how oppressive and grim it was; and laughing over the name of the law that made it compulsory for towns and villages to have schools to educate their children in Massachusetts (the “Old Deluded Satan Law” – you can see why he laughed). Fun stuff, even if I wish he’d stop splitting up shorts into two pieces like this – oftentimes the second half comes out so long after the first one that I’ve forgotten what the short was originally about!
So that's not nothing -- and I'm glad I was able to help out Mom, even if it was kind of stressful at times. Seriously, the vibes are ending up absolutely rancid in this house more and more often... *sigh* Anyway, I need to head to bed -- since going out with Mom proved the roads are in mostly-good condition, I WILL be going to work tomorrow. Though we do have another late start, at least, so I'll have a bit more time to hang out and relax in the morning, at least. Might try to get my writing done early -- we'll see how that shakes out, though. Night all!
A Grumpy Snow-Covered Tuesday
Feb. 24th, 2026 11:52 pmcrossover_chickYeah, it was kind of a frustrating day, I'm sad to report:
-->I got woken up early by the sound of my Mom starting to shovel out the front path without me (which annoyed me because I'd promised to help her with that and I was worried Dad would get annoyed with me over her starting on her own)
-->When I did go out to help Mom with the rest of the path after breakfast, she was annoyed because with Dad thinking he was sicker than he was (and with him complaining that shoveling the walk and stuff was "his job") -- and it didn't help that I ended up not having much to do, as the shoveling was really a one-person job given the narrowness of the path
-->After lunch, it came out that Mom had twisted her knee a bit taking off her boot, which didn't improve her mood, and thus didn't improve mine any
-->I had a bit of a frustrating gaming session, as you will see below (productive, in its own way, but frustrating)
-->And I got word from my director right at the end of said session that the Diocese is merely opening late tomorrow (at 10 AM) rather than staying closed another day. Which is a bit of a problem, because -- while our driveway is now plowed out (thanks to some guys we hired to come clear it), our street is not fully plowed. There's only one lane surrounded by walls of snow -- and if you're wondering why that's a problem, our road is a two-way street, meaning that trying to go up it could be tricky if someone else is trying to come down it the other way! Add in that my parents basically decided that they were going to take my car tomorrow to run some of THEIR errands, and -- yeah. Looks like I'm going to have to use a vacation day to stay home one more day and hope they plow us out properly! (Though, to be fair, my coworker sounded like she was in a similar predicament when she responded to my director's text...and my director admitted that I might not have to use any time at all given a lot of people seemed to still be snowed in. Add in that it's supposed to snow AGAIN tomorrow morning, and -- well. We'll see what happens with that late opening!)
*shakehead* Just -- not the best Tuesday. Not made any better by the massive amount of snow outside -- seriously, it's a wonder anybody can get anywhere. But at least I managed to get in some fun stuff too --
Tumblr: As per usual, there was nothing going on over on Valice Multiverse today – but over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), I had a very productive morning looking through my tracked tags and adding things to my drafts! Because I definitely needed some more stuff to queue up for later. Today’s haul was quite meaty too, including –
A) A set of The Smiler-themed “stamps” by m0-th, featuring both still images (like The Ministry Of Joy logo and “You Belong To The Smiler” from the ride’s central screen) and animated gifs (like the coaster itself going around the track, and a yellow-black-and-white spiral transforming with a few flashes into the ride’s logo)
B) A picture by shenanigansz of their Smiler OC, this time featuring him in an off-the-shoulder ruffled-collar yellow blouse (with some sort of black-and-yellow tank top thing under it), a black-and-white-striped waist cincher with hearts, and a little bow tie choker
C) Another picture by shenanigansz of their Smiler OC, this time featuring him in his standard outfit (yellow shirt, black waistcoat, yellow-purple-black-striped tie, fluffy yellow fur coat collar around their upper arms), smirking at the viewer while sitting under a bright light that makes their usually-black hair look purple – the caption indicates this has to do with the Phalanx interrogating Smiler about something, so I presume this is the view of the interrogator
D) A very nice light box display depicting Alice falling down the rabbit hole into Wonderland (complete with stuff like an actual little mirror reflecting Alice as she falls past, a picture of the Queen of Hearts on the wall, a tiny teapot pouring out tea, and a tiny chess board tumbling with Alice) tucked onto a bookshelf posted by ariesmoonscorpiorising – I’m not sure why they posted it in the “#alice madness returns” tag, admittedly, as it depicts a BLOND Alice falling, and while it doesn’t EXPLICITLY depict the scene from the original animated Disney movie, it does feel INSPIRED by it at least, but it was still cool
E) Also found on ariesmoonscorpiorising’s blog, a post by jetix showing off some gorgeous butterfly-themed artwork by lonesomehoboglass on Instagram – specifically, a little corner piece for a window with all sorts of different butterfly and moth wings captured in glass and metal in a fancy design, along with a few flowers for good measure
F) Some art by gurepujuice of her Alice: Madness Returns and Psychonauts crossover, depicting Alice and Raz fighting together (Raz jumping up and over Alice as she prepares to attack with her knife, and Raz perching on Alice’s shoulder sending out psychic blasts while she fires on something else with her Pepper Grinder), Raz pushing Alice away from Cheshire while sticking his tongue out at the grinning Cat (“my friend”), and Alice and Raz sitting together, Alice leaning on Raz’s head while wearing his goggles (aww)
G) A Corpse Bride gifset by ghiblin, covering Emily realizing exactly who Barkis is (“YOU!”), Barkis protesting that he left her, Emily finishing his sentence with “...for dead,” and the audience gasping – with Alfred the skeleton finding it literally jaw-dropping XD
H) A little CB video by jmaticedits to a snippet of the song “How Deep Is Your Love” by Mitski, showing various scenes of Victor being cute with Victoria, Victor being cute with Emily, Victoria going to Pastor Galswells to get help for Victor, Victor battling Lord Barkis to keep Victoria safe, and Emily setting Victor free at the end of the movie paired with appropriate lyrics (with most of the more romantic/heartfelt moments getting the “how deep is your love?” line)
I) And a CB gifset by jasonstodds of good Victoria Everglot moments – from encountering Victor at the piano, to pleading with Pastor Galswells to share what he might know about the living marrying the dead, to telling off Lord Barkis during their wedding dinner
*nods* All good stuff! Granted, I didn’t actually figure out if I wanted to put any of it in my queue for this week yet, but I’ll have time to do that in the morning. We’ll figure it out one way or another!
Fallout: New Vegas: As you probably expected, I succumbed to the siren call of the Mojave Wasteland today, continuing the adventures of Courier Victor – which, in this session, mostly consisted of being attacked by geckos, the little fuckers. >( Let me tell you all about his gecko-themed trials and tribulations –
A) I picked up right where I left off last time – with Victor standing outside of Victortron’s shack after a solid night’s sleep, ready to hit the road and try to make it to Primm! However, as his limbs were looking just a little shabby after his encounter with the ridge geckos and Barton the fink last time, I decided that Victor should visit Doc Mitchell to make sure he was in perfect health before he bid Goodsprings adieu. He accordingly walked down into town and over to Doc M’s house, where – after a little wandering around looking for the guy – he finally encountered the good doctor in the hallway between his bedroom and kitchen, examining something on a shelf. Approaching him caused him to ask how Victor was holding up – Victor admitted, “I'm hurt. I need help, Doc,” prompting Doc M to give him a quick once-over. He declared the damage to be “nothing too serious” (not surprising, as Victor was technically at full health), and, for 50 caps, patched up Victor’s limbs so everything was at full condition. *nods* Very important that Victor not end up limping into the next quest location with a broken leg or anything! I think we can all agree that would be bad.
( The Traditional Cut To Save Reading Pages )
Workout: Got back on the bike again tonight, as I tend to do, and pedaled my way through:
A) The last twenty-five-ish minutes of “Fallout: New Vegas - Old World Blues - Grand Finale - The Power of Science!” The Adventures Of Useless Steve, Science Edition ended with the following:
I. Useless Steve leveling up to Level 12 – he brought Melee Weapons up to 46 and took the “Gunslinger” perk because he didn’t actually need any skill points or perks at this point in the series
II. Useless Steve having a final talk with Mobius about how to handle the Think Tank wanting to escape and if it was possible to resolve things peacefully – Mobius was initially dismissive of the idea of appealing to their humanity (noting that they hadn’t been very good humans back before becoming floating brains in tanks), but when Steve insisted, he admitted that helping them remember some of the things they’d forgotten during their time as brains in tanks – “Friendship. The thrill of discovery. Love. Masturbation.” – might do the trick. Before adding that Steve could also just try to subdue them through fear, like Mobius himself had. Unfortunately, that route involved Steve having to pass some very hard Speech and Science checks (because I believe that’s the route where you pretend to be Dr. Mobius’s brain piloting your body), and Steve had already done the little sidequests to help remind some of the scientists of the pleasures of being alive, so – appealing to their humanity it was!
III. Useless Steve taking a little side trip to show off the legendary bloatfly that lives in the Mysterious Cave near Dr. Mobius’s Forbidden Dome – and to reveal why Jon had basically never shown it off before (except in his run of the JSawyer Mod, apparently): because it was an ultra-tough bloatfly that spits plasma. Not even a Stealth Boy saved poor Steve from its wrath, and he fled the cave after dying twice without trying to kill it. (That honor ended up reserved for the “Tale of Two Wastelands” protagonist, who’s time in the Mojave was basically limited to conducting experiments to figure out just how fast she could walk and big game hunting.)
IV. Useless Steve arriving back at the Sink and taking a moment to upgrade his Sonic Emitter to the most powerful setting (“Robo-Scorpion,” natch) and plug his original heart and spine back into his body before confronting the Think Tank (your brain only gets re-added AFTER you confront them, apparently – until then it just lives in your inventory, probably making sarcastic comments) – Jon took the opportunity to discuss how, in his opinion, the “Reinforced Spine” perk is a definite upgrade over the “Spineless” perk (as you get +2 Strength and +2 DT instead of +1, at the cost of your torso being able to be crippled again), but the “Cardiac Arrest” perk is about the same usefulness-wise as “Heartless,” so you may want to think about what effect you want more (total poison immunity and robots 50% less able to score a critical hit against you vs a 50% resistance to poison and robots only being 25% less able to score a critical hit against you, but healing items and chems being 50% more effective). Definitely something I’ll be considering once Victor gets whisked away to Big MT in his playthrough!
V. Useless Steve confronting the Think Tank and refusing to hand over his brain to Dr. Klein to be interrogated about the Mojave, instead suggesting the man confer with his colleagues...which, despite Dr. Klein attempting to reject such a notion, led to Dr. Dala stating that she could not bear to see Steve stop breathing and that he needed to be kept alive for study – “Slow study” (oh Dala XD); Dr. Borous claiming that Steve was actually a lot like them and that they should prolong his suffering for Science, like what happened with Gabe, Finest of Lab Specimens (Jon explained this rather callous speech was because Gabe died and if they’d saved the dog, they would have gotten a kinder one, but I like to think Dr. Borous was just trying to put “let’s keep Steve alive” in terms that Dr. Klein might accept); and Dr. 8 simply protesting that Steve was his friend and he didn’t want him to get hurt (because apparently 8 is the nicest one in the group – Dr. Klein suggested using chems to free himself of those icky feelings XD). Dr. 0 also spoke up, but only to ask Klein if he’d really considered all the combat probabilities, pointing out they hadn’t done drills in ages – aka, his interest in avoiding a fight was purely pragmatic, not because he held any actual affection for Steve (mostly because the skill check to get him on side is an EXTREMELY high Intelligence check, and while Steve IS good at boosting his stats, he can only do so much). Dr. Klein was very pissed off by all this and threatened to overrule them all, noting that Big MT was not a democracy –
Only for Steve to point out that no, it was a research facility, and Klein’s colleagues were disputing his findings. Klein was even more pissed off to have Steve (STEVE) use logic against him, protesting that there was a whole world beyond the crater and that they could have gone and tested it and made it squirm –
But Steve said, “You can still do that here, quietly, for me,” and Klein was like “...that’s odd. I feel like I would like that.” He thus backed down, declaring Steve the Think Tank’s partner and saying they were at his disposal so long as he did not destroy them. Cue Steve winning the day without a single skill check needed. Hooray!
VI. Useless Steve getting the official ending slides for all of his various adventures in Big MT, and scoring pretty much all happy ones, as Jon had hoped – stand-out endings included the Book Chute nearly choking on a paper clip while processing seditious material, and insisting it had been a Chinese paper clip trying to assassinate him; the Auto-Doc finding a way to finally turn off the Y-17 Trauma Harnesses to release the skeletons that had been held captive in them all these years; the AI behind the X-13 facility sending out robobrains to find the Aural Stealth Suit post-upgrades, finding REPCONN, and setting up a new lab there testing out things on the unfortunate Fiends who kept raiding the place; Light Switch 01 and Light Switch 02 continuing to be catty with one another – until Steve finally brought a flashlight into the Sink, causing the pair to unite in their hatred of the “showboat;” Blind Diode Jefferson saving Big MT from a sonic attack – and having an affair with both Light Switches until he forgot their names once too often and got left in the dark; and Roxie indeed finding Rex in the Mojave and having puppies with him – which Jon had to tell us about because, uh, all of the ending slides are narrated by the character featured in them...and Roxie is a dog. Meaning her “narration” consisted of barks. XD It’s not so bad when you remember to turn the subtitles on, but guess what Jon forgot to do! XD
VII. And Useless Steve putting his brain back in his head (getting the “Big Brained” perk, which is pretty decent (head can’t be crippled, only 10% addiction resistance but 10% more DT)) and getting a final cheer from all the electronic denizens of the Sink before using the Transportalponder to return to the Mojave Drive-In...where he faced off against a Jackal and got half his health taken off before he blew the guy’s head off with Elijah’s Advanced LAER. Because once a Useless Steve, always a Useless Steve. XD
Fun times – I’m very glad that I went ahead and gave The Worst Courier and its follow-up series here a try! Shame I don’t think Steve ever did come back after these two series...well, unless he was part of a Fallout 3 or Fallout 4 playthrough, since Jon DID hint at the end that he wouldn’t mind taking Steve to the East Coast of post-War America. But I feel like I would have seen the latter, so… *shrug* Just glad we got what we did!
B) And the first ten minutes of “Creating CaFae Latte: Behind the Scenes” by C. M. Alongi! Because I’ve been meaning to watch it, but as it’s a nearly-hour-long video, I never really had a proper chance to before. But I’m watching it now, and so far it’s been really interesting, with C. M. revealing such tidbits like:
I. She balances her laptop on a couple of chairs on a table when she films so she can look at her script without looking down toward the floor – helps keep the illusion of her characters talking to other people
II. The building where she rents her studio also allows her to rent a filing cabinet for her to keep costumes and props in, which she really appreciates as it means she doesn’t have to keep lugging them to and from her apartment
III. She used to wear make-up in the earliest CaFae Latte videos, but gave it up around the time she introduced Nicole, for multiple reasons (not all the characters wear make-up, the foundation kept coming off on the CaFae Latte hat, she hates how make-up feels on her face, and she didn’t feel like she should have to wear make-up for her videos anyway)
IV. She only ever wears contacts while filming CaFae Latte as she prefers her glasses, but contacts allow her to put different glasses and other related headwear on her characters as needed
V. And while she used to film each individual script as one unit, she quickly found that she was losing lots of time to constantly having to change costumes (plus all those changes tended to defloof her hair, which she didn’t like), so these days she films all the lines for one particular character in one batch, all the lines for another in another, and so on, then has Video Editor Nic chop them up and turn them into actual skits
Fun stuff! I look forward to seeing more of the behind-the-scenes goodness during tomorrow’s workout. :)
Writing: Edited another page of Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” tonight after finishing my workout video write-ups above – this one featuring:
A) Hatter telling Alice that it was good her current obstacle – getting across an array of lasers – didn’t require her to use Obfuscate, as she’d nearly used up all the blood Victor had gifted her earlier; Alice sadly noted that it had been well-used, at least
B) Alice asking Hatter if he had any tips on how to disable the lasers – and Hatter, after suggesting disrupting the lens array or changing the wavelength of the light, pointing out the black control panel on the wall and saying she could “tap” it; cue Alice complaining that “that book in the Skool library needed that solid kick and you all know it!” before checking the panel and confirming that, yes, it probably would be faster to smash it than to try to either find or figure out the code she needed to turn off the lasers properly
C) Alice smashing the panel (with her jacket sleeve pulled over her fist to muffle the noise) and thinking she’d managed to turn off all the lasers but two – only for the entire array to start winking on and off at random; Alice was like “well that’s not so good,” but decided it was still better than having to deal with all of them being on all the time
D) Alice studying the timings, then managing to make it past all the lasers by taking her time and pausing to make sure the ones that were off were really off – she nearly got caught by the seventh one in the line when it turned on unexpectedly in front of her, but luckily she managed to stop in time and scrambled past once it turned off again; she rewarded herself for a good job by doing an unnecessary combat roll in the junction past them, because who doesn’t enjoy those :p
E) And Alice checking the junction for where she should go next, and spotting a keycard door down one end that she suspected was the workshop whose key she had recently picked up – though she was briefly thrown by the lack of a camera above it; she quickly decided, though, that they’d probably thought it wasn’t worth the bother given that only authorized personnel would be in this section...then thought “oh, this theft of mine is going to cost a lot of people their jobs, isn’t it?” XD
And I left it with Cheshire telling her not to worry about the fates of the security guards, but her own, and Alice going “yes, yes, I know, mustn’t keep LaCroix waiting” and trying her keycard in the door’s lock! Next time, Alice gets into the workshop area and finally tracks down where the sarcophagus should be! ...emphasis on should, there...
Whew! At least I accomplished a good amount of stuff online...though yeah, once again my videos ended up neglected. I think tomorrow is going to HAVE to be a video catch-up day just so I don't have a bunch of them hanging over my head! With perhaps a short round of Little Corners if I can get the update to download and install. *nods* As it stands, though, I really have to get to bed, as I'm going to be trying to get up a little earlier tomorrow just to see what's going on outside and to let my boss know about the whole "have to stay home one more day" thing. Night all!
-->I got woken up early by the sound of my Mom starting to shovel out the front path without me (which annoyed me because I'd promised to help her with that and I was worried Dad would get annoyed with me over her starting on her own)
-->When I did go out to help Mom with the rest of the path after breakfast, she was annoyed because with Dad thinking he was sicker than he was (and with him complaining that shoveling the walk and stuff was "his job") -- and it didn't help that I ended up not having much to do, as the shoveling was really a one-person job given the narrowness of the path
-->After lunch, it came out that Mom had twisted her knee a bit taking off her boot, which didn't improve her mood, and thus didn't improve mine any
-->I had a bit of a frustrating gaming session, as you will see below (productive, in its own way, but frustrating)
-->And I got word from my director right at the end of said session that the Diocese is merely opening late tomorrow (at 10 AM) rather than staying closed another day. Which is a bit of a problem, because -- while our driveway is now plowed out (thanks to some guys we hired to come clear it), our street is not fully plowed. There's only one lane surrounded by walls of snow -- and if you're wondering why that's a problem, our road is a two-way street, meaning that trying to go up it could be tricky if someone else is trying to come down it the other way! Add in that my parents basically decided that they were going to take my car tomorrow to run some of THEIR errands, and -- yeah. Looks like I'm going to have to use a vacation day to stay home one more day and hope they plow us out properly! (Though, to be fair, my coworker sounded like she was in a similar predicament when she responded to my director's text...and my director admitted that I might not have to use any time at all given a lot of people seemed to still be snowed in. Add in that it's supposed to snow AGAIN tomorrow morning, and -- well. We'll see what happens with that late opening!)
*shakehead* Just -- not the best Tuesday. Not made any better by the massive amount of snow outside -- seriously, it's a wonder anybody can get anywhere. But at least I managed to get in some fun stuff too --
Tumblr: As per usual, there was nothing going on over on Valice Multiverse today – but over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), I had a very productive morning looking through my tracked tags and adding things to my drafts! Because I definitely needed some more stuff to queue up for later. Today’s haul was quite meaty too, including –
A) A set of The Smiler-themed “stamps” by m0-th, featuring both still images (like The Ministry Of Joy logo and “You Belong To The Smiler” from the ride’s central screen) and animated gifs (like the coaster itself going around the track, and a yellow-black-and-white spiral transforming with a few flashes into the ride’s logo)
B) A picture by shenanigansz of their Smiler OC, this time featuring him in an off-the-shoulder ruffled-collar yellow blouse (with some sort of black-and-yellow tank top thing under it), a black-and-white-striped waist cincher with hearts, and a little bow tie choker
C) Another picture by shenanigansz of their Smiler OC, this time featuring him in his standard outfit (yellow shirt, black waistcoat, yellow-purple-black-striped tie, fluffy yellow fur coat collar around their upper arms), smirking at the viewer while sitting under a bright light that makes their usually-black hair look purple – the caption indicates this has to do with the Phalanx interrogating Smiler about something, so I presume this is the view of the interrogator
D) A very nice light box display depicting Alice falling down the rabbit hole into Wonderland (complete with stuff like an actual little mirror reflecting Alice as she falls past, a picture of the Queen of Hearts on the wall, a tiny teapot pouring out tea, and a tiny chess board tumbling with Alice) tucked onto a bookshelf posted by ariesmoonscorpiorising – I’m not sure why they posted it in the “#alice madness returns” tag, admittedly, as it depicts a BLOND Alice falling, and while it doesn’t EXPLICITLY depict the scene from the original animated Disney movie, it does feel INSPIRED by it at least, but it was still cool
E) Also found on ariesmoonscorpiorising’s blog, a post by jetix showing off some gorgeous butterfly-themed artwork by lonesomehoboglass on Instagram – specifically, a little corner piece for a window with all sorts of different butterfly and moth wings captured in glass and metal in a fancy design, along with a few flowers for good measure
F) Some art by gurepujuice of her Alice: Madness Returns and Psychonauts crossover, depicting Alice and Raz fighting together (Raz jumping up and over Alice as she prepares to attack with her knife, and Raz perching on Alice’s shoulder sending out psychic blasts while she fires on something else with her Pepper Grinder), Raz pushing Alice away from Cheshire while sticking his tongue out at the grinning Cat (“my friend”), and Alice and Raz sitting together, Alice leaning on Raz’s head while wearing his goggles (aww)
G) A Corpse Bride gifset by ghiblin, covering Emily realizing exactly who Barkis is (“YOU!”), Barkis protesting that he left her, Emily finishing his sentence with “...for dead,” and the audience gasping – with Alfred the skeleton finding it literally jaw-dropping XD
H) A little CB video by jmaticedits to a snippet of the song “How Deep Is Your Love” by Mitski, showing various scenes of Victor being cute with Victoria, Victor being cute with Emily, Victoria going to Pastor Galswells to get help for Victor, Victor battling Lord Barkis to keep Victoria safe, and Emily setting Victor free at the end of the movie paired with appropriate lyrics (with most of the more romantic/heartfelt moments getting the “how deep is your love?” line)
I) And a CB gifset by jasonstodds of good Victoria Everglot moments – from encountering Victor at the piano, to pleading with Pastor Galswells to share what he might know about the living marrying the dead, to telling off Lord Barkis during their wedding dinner
*nods* All good stuff! Granted, I didn’t actually figure out if I wanted to put any of it in my queue for this week yet, but I’ll have time to do that in the morning. We’ll figure it out one way or another!
Fallout: New Vegas: As you probably expected, I succumbed to the siren call of the Mojave Wasteland today, continuing the adventures of Courier Victor – which, in this session, mostly consisted of being attacked by geckos, the little fuckers. >( Let me tell you all about his gecko-themed trials and tribulations –
A) I picked up right where I left off last time – with Victor standing outside of Victortron’s shack after a solid night’s sleep, ready to hit the road and try to make it to Primm! However, as his limbs were looking just a little shabby after his encounter with the ridge geckos and Barton the fink last time, I decided that Victor should visit Doc Mitchell to make sure he was in perfect health before he bid Goodsprings adieu. He accordingly walked down into town and over to Doc M’s house, where – after a little wandering around looking for the guy – he finally encountered the good doctor in the hallway between his bedroom and kitchen, examining something on a shelf. Approaching him caused him to ask how Victor was holding up – Victor admitted, “I'm hurt. I need help, Doc,” prompting Doc M to give him a quick once-over. He declared the damage to be “nothing too serious” (not surprising, as Victor was technically at full health), and, for 50 caps, patched up Victor’s limbs so everything was at full condition. *nods* Very important that Victor not end up limping into the next quest location with a broken leg or anything! I think we can all agree that would be bad.
( The Traditional Cut To Save Reading Pages )
Workout: Got back on the bike again tonight, as I tend to do, and pedaled my way through:
A) The last twenty-five-ish minutes of “Fallout: New Vegas - Old World Blues - Grand Finale - The Power of Science!” The Adventures Of Useless Steve, Science Edition ended with the following:
I. Useless Steve leveling up to Level 12 – he brought Melee Weapons up to 46 and took the “Gunslinger” perk because he didn’t actually need any skill points or perks at this point in the series
II. Useless Steve having a final talk with Mobius about how to handle the Think Tank wanting to escape and if it was possible to resolve things peacefully – Mobius was initially dismissive of the idea of appealing to their humanity (noting that they hadn’t been very good humans back before becoming floating brains in tanks), but when Steve insisted, he admitted that helping them remember some of the things they’d forgotten during their time as brains in tanks – “Friendship. The thrill of discovery. Love. Masturbation.” – might do the trick. Before adding that Steve could also just try to subdue them through fear, like Mobius himself had. Unfortunately, that route involved Steve having to pass some very hard Speech and Science checks (because I believe that’s the route where you pretend to be Dr. Mobius’s brain piloting your body), and Steve had already done the little sidequests to help remind some of the scientists of the pleasures of being alive, so – appealing to their humanity it was!
III. Useless Steve taking a little side trip to show off the legendary bloatfly that lives in the Mysterious Cave near Dr. Mobius’s Forbidden Dome – and to reveal why Jon had basically never shown it off before (except in his run of the JSawyer Mod, apparently): because it was an ultra-tough bloatfly that spits plasma. Not even a Stealth Boy saved poor Steve from its wrath, and he fled the cave after dying twice without trying to kill it. (That honor ended up reserved for the “Tale of Two Wastelands” protagonist, who’s time in the Mojave was basically limited to conducting experiments to figure out just how fast she could walk and big game hunting.)
IV. Useless Steve arriving back at the Sink and taking a moment to upgrade his Sonic Emitter to the most powerful setting (“Robo-Scorpion,” natch) and plug his original heart and spine back into his body before confronting the Think Tank (your brain only gets re-added AFTER you confront them, apparently – until then it just lives in your inventory, probably making sarcastic comments) – Jon took the opportunity to discuss how, in his opinion, the “Reinforced Spine” perk is a definite upgrade over the “Spineless” perk (as you get +2 Strength and +2 DT instead of +1, at the cost of your torso being able to be crippled again), but the “Cardiac Arrest” perk is about the same usefulness-wise as “Heartless,” so you may want to think about what effect you want more (total poison immunity and robots 50% less able to score a critical hit against you vs a 50% resistance to poison and robots only being 25% less able to score a critical hit against you, but healing items and chems being 50% more effective). Definitely something I’ll be considering once Victor gets whisked away to Big MT in his playthrough!
V. Useless Steve confronting the Think Tank and refusing to hand over his brain to Dr. Klein to be interrogated about the Mojave, instead suggesting the man confer with his colleagues...which, despite Dr. Klein attempting to reject such a notion, led to Dr. Dala stating that she could not bear to see Steve stop breathing and that he needed to be kept alive for study – “Slow study” (oh Dala XD); Dr. Borous claiming that Steve was actually a lot like them and that they should prolong his suffering for Science, like what happened with Gabe, Finest of Lab Specimens (Jon explained this rather callous speech was because Gabe died and if they’d saved the dog, they would have gotten a kinder one, but I like to think Dr. Borous was just trying to put “let’s keep Steve alive” in terms that Dr. Klein might accept); and Dr. 8 simply protesting that Steve was his friend and he didn’t want him to get hurt (because apparently 8 is the nicest one in the group – Dr. Klein suggested using chems to free himself of those icky feelings XD). Dr. 0 also spoke up, but only to ask Klein if he’d really considered all the combat probabilities, pointing out they hadn’t done drills in ages – aka, his interest in avoiding a fight was purely pragmatic, not because he held any actual affection for Steve (mostly because the skill check to get him on side is an EXTREMELY high Intelligence check, and while Steve IS good at boosting his stats, he can only do so much). Dr. Klein was very pissed off by all this and threatened to overrule them all, noting that Big MT was not a democracy –
Only for Steve to point out that no, it was a research facility, and Klein’s colleagues were disputing his findings. Klein was even more pissed off to have Steve (STEVE) use logic against him, protesting that there was a whole world beyond the crater and that they could have gone and tested it and made it squirm –
But Steve said, “You can still do that here, quietly, for me,” and Klein was like “...that’s odd. I feel like I would like that.” He thus backed down, declaring Steve the Think Tank’s partner and saying they were at his disposal so long as he did not destroy them. Cue Steve winning the day without a single skill check needed. Hooray!
VI. Useless Steve getting the official ending slides for all of his various adventures in Big MT, and scoring pretty much all happy ones, as Jon had hoped – stand-out endings included the Book Chute nearly choking on a paper clip while processing seditious material, and insisting it had been a Chinese paper clip trying to assassinate him; the Auto-Doc finding a way to finally turn off the Y-17 Trauma Harnesses to release the skeletons that had been held captive in them all these years; the AI behind the X-13 facility sending out robobrains to find the Aural Stealth Suit post-upgrades, finding REPCONN, and setting up a new lab there testing out things on the unfortunate Fiends who kept raiding the place; Light Switch 01 and Light Switch 02 continuing to be catty with one another – until Steve finally brought a flashlight into the Sink, causing the pair to unite in their hatred of the “showboat;” Blind Diode Jefferson saving Big MT from a sonic attack – and having an affair with both Light Switches until he forgot their names once too often and got left in the dark; and Roxie indeed finding Rex in the Mojave and having puppies with him – which Jon had to tell us about because, uh, all of the ending slides are narrated by the character featured in them...and Roxie is a dog. Meaning her “narration” consisted of barks. XD It’s not so bad when you remember to turn the subtitles on, but guess what Jon forgot to do! XD
VII. And Useless Steve putting his brain back in his head (getting the “Big Brained” perk, which is pretty decent (head can’t be crippled, only 10% addiction resistance but 10% more DT)) and getting a final cheer from all the electronic denizens of the Sink before using the Transportalponder to return to the Mojave Drive-In...where he faced off against a Jackal and got half his health taken off before he blew the guy’s head off with Elijah’s Advanced LAER. Because once a Useless Steve, always a Useless Steve. XD
Fun times – I’m very glad that I went ahead and gave The Worst Courier and its follow-up series here a try! Shame I don’t think Steve ever did come back after these two series...well, unless he was part of a Fallout 3 or Fallout 4 playthrough, since Jon DID hint at the end that he wouldn’t mind taking Steve to the East Coast of post-War America. But I feel like I would have seen the latter, so… *shrug* Just glad we got what we did!
B) And the first ten minutes of “Creating CaFae Latte: Behind the Scenes” by C. M. Alongi! Because I’ve been meaning to watch it, but as it’s a nearly-hour-long video, I never really had a proper chance to before. But I’m watching it now, and so far it’s been really interesting, with C. M. revealing such tidbits like:
I. She balances her laptop on a couple of chairs on a table when she films so she can look at her script without looking down toward the floor – helps keep the illusion of her characters talking to other people
II. The building where she rents her studio also allows her to rent a filing cabinet for her to keep costumes and props in, which she really appreciates as it means she doesn’t have to keep lugging them to and from her apartment
III. She used to wear make-up in the earliest CaFae Latte videos, but gave it up around the time she introduced Nicole, for multiple reasons (not all the characters wear make-up, the foundation kept coming off on the CaFae Latte hat, she hates how make-up feels on her face, and she didn’t feel like she should have to wear make-up for her videos anyway)
IV. She only ever wears contacts while filming CaFae Latte as she prefers her glasses, but contacts allow her to put different glasses and other related headwear on her characters as needed
V. And while she used to film each individual script as one unit, she quickly found that she was losing lots of time to constantly having to change costumes (plus all those changes tended to defloof her hair, which she didn’t like), so these days she films all the lines for one particular character in one batch, all the lines for another in another, and so on, then has Video Editor Nic chop them up and turn them into actual skits
Fun stuff! I look forward to seeing more of the behind-the-scenes goodness during tomorrow’s workout. :)
Writing: Edited another page of Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” tonight after finishing my workout video write-ups above – this one featuring:
A) Hatter telling Alice that it was good her current obstacle – getting across an array of lasers – didn’t require her to use Obfuscate, as she’d nearly used up all the blood Victor had gifted her earlier; Alice sadly noted that it had been well-used, at least
B) Alice asking Hatter if he had any tips on how to disable the lasers – and Hatter, after suggesting disrupting the lens array or changing the wavelength of the light, pointing out the black control panel on the wall and saying she could “tap” it; cue Alice complaining that “that book in the Skool library needed that solid kick and you all know it!” before checking the panel and confirming that, yes, it probably would be faster to smash it than to try to either find or figure out the code she needed to turn off the lasers properly
C) Alice smashing the panel (with her jacket sleeve pulled over her fist to muffle the noise) and thinking she’d managed to turn off all the lasers but two – only for the entire array to start winking on and off at random; Alice was like “well that’s not so good,” but decided it was still better than having to deal with all of them being on all the time
D) Alice studying the timings, then managing to make it past all the lasers by taking her time and pausing to make sure the ones that were off were really off – she nearly got caught by the seventh one in the line when it turned on unexpectedly in front of her, but luckily she managed to stop in time and scrambled past once it turned off again; she rewarded herself for a good job by doing an unnecessary combat roll in the junction past them, because who doesn’t enjoy those :p
E) And Alice checking the junction for where she should go next, and spotting a keycard door down one end that she suspected was the workshop whose key she had recently picked up – though she was briefly thrown by the lack of a camera above it; she quickly decided, though, that they’d probably thought it wasn’t worth the bother given that only authorized personnel would be in this section...then thought “oh, this theft of mine is going to cost a lot of people their jobs, isn’t it?” XD
And I left it with Cheshire telling her not to worry about the fates of the security guards, but her own, and Alice going “yes, yes, I know, mustn’t keep LaCroix waiting” and trying her keycard in the door’s lock! Next time, Alice gets into the workshop area and finally tracks down where the sarcophagus should be! ...emphasis on should, there...
Whew! At least I accomplished a good amount of stuff online...though yeah, once again my videos ended up neglected. I think tomorrow is going to HAVE to be a video catch-up day just so I don't have a bunch of them hanging over my head! With perhaps a short round of Little Corners if I can get the update to download and install. *nods* As it stands, though, I really have to get to bed, as I'm going to be trying to get up a little earlier tomorrow just to see what's going on outside and to let my boss know about the whole "have to stay home one more day" thing. Night all!
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