Ael

As in, guess who just got hers. *grumbles* I mean, it's currently basically barely there (tiny bit of blood earlier), but it still counts, darn it. I guess I'm glad it showed up so I'm not being tormented with PMS, but -- meeeh. Freaking biology -- it is a pain. *sigh* Anyway, I'd better get the write-up of my day posted before the period distraction gets too tight a hold on my brain:

Work – I must unfortunately report that today was a rather more annoying day at work, thanks to the following:

A) Me not really having anything to do again (my coworker grabbed the obits from the paper before I could again, meh!) and having to come up with bits of busywork to keep myself occupied

B) The one thing that did happen – a woman calling to initially update her credit card on her pledge, only to decide to pay off the balance instead when I told her what it was – happening right before I was planning on taking my lunch break, meaning I ate my lunch later than I wanted (didn’t help that I had to do the payment twice because the lady had two residences and had to give me the other address for the card to go through)

C) My old Talky Coworker coming by for a visit near the end of lunch and being her usual talky annoying self (uuuugh) – fortunately she didn’t have much to say to me, but it was still irritating, especially given I was in Full PMS Mode at that time

So yeah – not a great Tuesday at work! But I got through it, and now it is behind me. *nods* Hopefully tomorrow will be a bit better – I’m planning to look at all the failed credit card payments through the end of September, so that should at least keep me busy for a little while!

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with the 2007 comedy action film Hot Fuzz! Today’s chunklet took me through our hero Nick having a crisis about himself and his abilities after his prime suspect proved he couldn’t have committed all the murders; nearly getting murdered himself after realizing there might be more than one killer in play; discovering the REAL group behind everything, and the ridiculous petty reasons why they kept murdering people; managing to JUST avoid getting murdered by them thanks to Danny; once again having a crisis as he drove back to London in Danny’s car after Danny told him there was no point in trying to expose the town, his dad would just make it all go away –

And then stopping in a gas station, seeing the two action movies he watched with Danny in a DVD display, and deciding that if he couldn’t expose the town... Cue him heading back to Sandford, and cue the movie starting a delightfully massive action sequence for its final act. :D Complete with SO many guns being cocked, and so many bullets flying without ever hitting their targets. XD I left it with Nick having taken care of most of his enemies (non-lethally, he’s not a monster), teamed back up with Danny and gotten the rest of the local police on board, and started a raid on the local supermarket to get to one of the final conspirators – tomorrow, we wrap things up with the grand finale! :D Should be lots of fun.

2. Continue editing “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – the conversation in Victor and Alice’s apartment continued today, featuring:

A) Victor commenting on how he’d originally moved to California just to get away from Nell’s bitching about his lost chance with Victoria, and that he was already wondering if he’d been rash after just a couple of days in the hotel – but now he’s very glad of the distance, as he can see better how bad it was for him at home, and he can finally figure out who he is as just “Victor,” not “Master Van Dort.” Alice wished him all the best with that – before letting her guilt add that she hoped their “circumstances” (aka Victor’s tiny blood bond) wouldn’t get in the way of that; cue Victor saying that he’s fine (even as his hands tightened in his lap), then jokingly noting that Alice is almost always either unconscious or out of the apartment anyway, so… :P

B) Alice saying that she should really be off for her trip to the museum, and commenting that she’s glad that this mission is a stealth one, as it means she should be able to one, pack light, and two, avoid ruining another set of clothes – cue the Queen of Hearts commenting on how blood is a great accessory, and how if she wants more outfits, she should just get Victor to buy her some (Alice said she was NOT about to abuse Victor’s kindness like that, especially without knowing if his willingness to aid her was all him or not – the Insane Children were all for her raiding the museum gift shop for t-shirts instead XD), and Victor saying he tried to wash last night’s outfit, but that smoke smell is just not coming out (Alice assured him it was fine and he shouldn’t be afraid to chuck the clothes if he didn’t think they were salvageable)

C) And Alice going over what she needed for the trip (Victor’s maps, knife, gun, bit of spare ammo for the gun, her padded jacket), only for Cheshire to point out she might want to top up on blood as well, since she ended up losing a decent amount to her crying jag the previous night. And while Alice was prepared to try and find some rando who would want to “neck” with her in an alley, I ended the chunklet with Victor noting she could always just ask him too… Tomorrow, we should get to Alice drinking Victor’s blood for the first time – and getting a very pleasant surprise regarding how it tastes...

3. Watch something on FreeTube/Invidious: No check today – between finishing the writing late (meaning I couldn’t watch any of my usual channels because all their videos were just too long) and having period brain distraction going on (meaning I couldn’t focus enough to try and find something else to watch), finding a video just didn’t happen tonight. *shrug* Hopefully tomorrow I’ll have more time and can watch an OXBoxtra list or a Proxy Gate Tactician challenge run!

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check and check – I may not have gotten to any videos, but I sure as hell covered my tumblr obligations –

Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Over here, I managed to get my entire queue done for the week in one shot, with:

A) Some lovely fanart of Alice in her Dollhouse dress, Misstitched, by omenilled for Wednesday

B) Some fun fanart of artist velsby’s Smiler OC Miser meeting friend nebulagooms’s Smiler/FNAF OC Marmaliser, with the pair shaking hands and grinning at each other while holding bombs behind their backs, for Thursday

C) An amusing gif set of Victor fumbling the ring during the rehearsal, losing it under Maudeline’s dress, then retrieving it, only to set her on fire by leaving his candle on her skirt, by atimburtonfan for Friday

D) And the music video for “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back),” featuring the Backstreet Boys dressing up as famous Universal Studios monsters, uploaded by bebemoon in honor of the start of October (and which I just saw on my dash courtesy of my friend Newt) for Saturday!

So yes, I am happy with that. :)

Valice Multiverse – And over here, I had one anon ask to toss into my queue, which was – well, here, you can read it for yourself: “Why do they call it oven when you of in the cold food of out hot eat the food?” ...no, I have no idea what that means. O.o And neither did the Inevitable High School version of my Valicer trio – Victor was like “what??”, Alice was like “are you trying to make a joke, or…” and Smiler was like “now you’ve got me curious about where the word ‘oven’ actually comes from, so let me look it up on my phone.” Apparently the word’s been around since before the 12th century, which is interesting. :) But yeah, hopefully they’re happy with that as a reply, because I do NOT know what they were aiming for there. At all. O.o

Other: Another pretty nice day meant another trip out to the backyard after I got home from work for beanbags – and this day wasn’t quite as equal as yesterday, as after a strong start in the first round, I ended up straight-up losing the other two. Dad meanwhile came second twice before getting a win, while Mom covered the entire spectrum of scores. *shrugs* How it goes sometimes – and again, we all won once, so I can’t really complain. Final scores were me W-3-3; Dad 2-2-W; Mom 3-W-2. We’ll see if we play tomorrow – it’s supposed to be in the 60s and WINDY, so that might stop even Mom. Guess I’ll find out!

Not too bad -- I mean, work was annoying, and of course the period is being a little shit, but at least I'm getting back into a rhythm with my fanfics, and I'm pleased I'm all set for this week's queue already on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler). It's the little things! But now I really do need to go to bed and get some sleep -- night all!

I still woke up earlier than I wanted (had to use the bathroom, then couldn't get back to sleep because my parents were talking very loudly about whether or not to put a laundry chute in the bathroom -- Mom wants one, but Dad was trying to impress upon her that he could wreck the bathroom floor trying to do it, so...), and was fairly grumpy this morning from PMS -- but I got a lot more fun stuff done today, which made me happy:

Tumblr: Well, there was the usual nothing happening over at Valice Multiverse, but I did get a few things done over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) today –

A) First, I went through my tracked tags and dropped the following in my drafts for later:

I. Some fanart of Therese and Jeannette Voerman from VTMB by feyspeaker, showing our two body-sharing twins next to each other, with their respective headshots connected by rough stitches – it was very cool, and very well-done (the eyes of the two ladies especially), so I definitely wanted to save it

II. Some fanart of Vault Boy and Nuka-Girl from Fallout 4 by phoneyotc, showing the two cuddling, Nuka-Girl holding Vault Boy’s head as he looks up at her with heart eyes – I just thought it was weirdly cute! I support this ship featuring mascots of evil Fallout-verse corporations XD

III. And a gifset of Victor running away from Emily after his accidental proposal in Corpse Bride by atomic-chronoscaph, covering him falling down the hill and crashing into that gravestone to Emily catching up with him on the bridge and kissing him – it was a very nicely-done gifset showing off one of my favorite bits in the film, and I never have enough CB stuff to reblog in my drafts, so in it went!

B) And second, I first liked, then (after lunch) straight-up reblogged a post by fricketyfrackingsilly jokingly talking about how a lot of Smiler OCs have the same “bones” when it comes to how they’re designed – lots of trauma, mad scientist, trans or queer in some other way, weird hair, is either brainwashed or brainwashes others, and dating Oblivion. Because, well… XD Specifically, as per the tags I added to the post, my own Smiler:

I. May or may not have lots of trauma – it’s dependent on the AU (for example, Modern AU Smiler is well-adjusted; Valicer In The Dark is – less so)

II. Is an excellent chemist/alchemist, and often dabbles things in robotics or web design

III. Has at least somewhat weird hair with their long purple-tipped bangs

IV. Is a panromantic pansexual nonbinary person

V. Is very good at brainwashing others (their exact methods depend on the AU – and also they’re waaaaay more ethical about it than most other Smilers due to my desire to not see them stabbed by Alice)

VI. And is not currently dating Oblivion because they’re part of the Valicer OT3 and other related polycules, but I could see such a relationship happening in the past (I do have a vague headcanon that Smiler’s fucked pretty much all of their coaster friends, it just never developed into anything romantic)

So yeah – most boxes ticked in some way or another! I guess that makes them a good Smiler OC? XD

Baldur’s Gate III: Yes, I got to play a video game today! In fact, I played for longer than I intended because I got wrapped up in a fight that took some time to finish...but you know what, fuck it, no regrets. I enjoyed myself. *nods* Anyway, let me tell you all about Smiler, Astarion, Gale, and Shadowheart having fun storming the castle ruined chapel:

A) I started things off with the gang hanging out in the little courtyard, right outside the door into the dining room sort of area that Andorn (one of the merry band raiding the chapel) guards. I had Smiler approach the locked door, which prompted Andorn to ask if they were Gimblebock – Smiler promptly pretended to be the halfling, and – with a little help from their high Charisma and Shadowheart’s Guidance, easily passed the DC 10 to fool poor Andorn into letting them in, Inspiring Astarion (who, thanks to his Charlatan background, is into this sort of thing) in the process. Andorn thus opened the door –

And was very surprised when four people he very much did not know came swarming in! So surprised, in fact, that despite initiating combat with these strangers, he was not allowed to take any actions (regular, bonus, or reaction) during the first round. Here’s how the resultant fight went:

Round One – Astarion started things off by trying to stab Andorn, but missed. He used one of his Cunning Actions to Disengage (which I only realized after the fact he didn’t need to do, but better to get into the habit early), then ran around behind him to get out of his line of sight. Shadowheart then whacked Andorn with her mace for 8 damage, before following Astarion and running behind her foe. Gale then hit the guy with a Ray of Frost (which both does cold damage AND cuts +10 feet off the enemy’s movement for a turn or two) – only did 1 damage, but it was something! He joined the line of people standing behind Andorn before passing things over to Smiler, who tried hitting Andorn with a Mind Sliver – sadly, Andorn managed to save. Smiler then retreated over to the stairs, trying to get into a slightly better position for a Gilded Eldritch Blast for the next round.

Round Two – Astarion, now safely out of Andorn’s cone of vision, used a Cunning Action to Hide, then sneak attacked Andorn, taking him down to a mere 2 HP! Unfortunately, though, he couldn’t get away (trying to retreat would have provoked an attack of opportunity), so I had him sit tight and waited for Andorn to attack him now that he had a turn –

But for some reason, the badly-wounded Andorn instead apparently decided to try and attack Smiler. Maybe in retaliation for the attempt at a really bad psychic headache? However, as he limped toward Smiler by the stairs, he of course had to go past Astarion, Shadowheart, and Gale –

ALL of whom were allowed to make an attack of opportunity against him. Unfortunately, Astarion and Shadowheart both missed their attacks (I expect that from Shadowheart, but Astarion, come on) – fortunately, Gale did not, and took down Andorn with a critical smack over the head with his staff. :D Yay! Smiler then looted the body, and found a Bandit’s Key, a spare bottle, some leather armor, a torch, and a shortsword – most of the stuff went into their inventory, but the torch they kindly handed over to Gale if he needed it, as – being the only full-human in the group – Gale doesn’t have darkvision, poor guy.

( Decided to add a cut to spare everyone's reading pages )

Yeah – you see why that made me run over my “allotted time,” right? XD But it was a good fight, and the only version of it where nobody in my little party of misfits actually got downed! I think I am finally learning how this game works. :p I ended things with Gale using his Arcane Recovery charge to get one of his spell slots back for later; the party taking their second short rest of the day, putting them all back at full HP; and me going into Gale’s spellbook and making sure Magic Missile was one of his prepared spells, because THAT probably would have made the fight go a lot quicker, that’s for sure! *shakehead* Well, he’s got it ready now...next time, we loot the rest of the chapel and the bodies of the fallen, and figure out how to get down to the basement! Looking forward to what I might find in there. :)

Workout: Hopped back on the bike this evening to get my exercise in and start this week’s movie – Hot Fuzz! Which, if you haven’t seen it, is about a workaholic cop who gets sent to the countryside village of Sandford because he’s making all his colleagues in London look bad with his exceptionalism, and ends up uncovering a sinister (and frankly silly) conspiracy behind the village’s perfect reputation. It’s a fun comedy-action romp that, even after all the bullshit real world cops have done, I still enjoy. (I like to imagine protagonist Nick Angel would have quite a lot to say to those asshole cops, in fact.) I got a little over a half-hour into it tonight, leaving off with Nick (who at the moment is just doing country cop stuff, like meeting with the Neighborhood Watch Alliance, chasing down escaped swans, and arresting shoplifters – though that latter DID involve a fairly epic chase) having finished his latest shift with Danny (the Chief Inspector’s son, who is obsessed with cop movies and the like – Nick has a prickly relationship with him at this point in the film), having earlier caught one of the local amdram performers going 48 in a 30 MPH zone trying to get to a dress rehearsal for the Romeo & Juliet homage he’s starring in – tomorrow, Nick is forced to attend the opening night performance of said homage by his boss (because the guy sent tickets as an apology), and things start getting more interesting – and murdery – from there...

FreeTube Invidious: Yes, while FreeTube remains out of commission, I am pleased to say that a different YouTube front end, the in-browser Invidious, was up and running! Meaning that I was indeed able to watch “Fallout New Vegas: You Only Live Once Remastered - Part 11 - Tread Lightly” by Jon of Many A True Nerd tonight! :D I was quite worried I would miss out – good to know I can pop on Invidious while FreeTube works on its updates! Anyway, the latest adventures of P. D. Shoot, melee courier extraordinaire, involved:

A) Jon taking a moment at the beginning of the video to explain why he boosted P. D.’s Survival skill up to 50 last time (as he forgot to explain then, distracted by perks). What the Survival skill does is modify the expects of all food and drink items in the game, boosting their effects the higher it goes. With most food and drink, that means it boosts the healing qualities, which is useless to P. D. –

But with booze, it boosts the amount of Strength and Charisma you get while drunk (bringing both from +1 to +2), while NOT touching the -1 it takes from Intelligence. So for a few points invested in Survival, P. D. now gets an even bigger benefit from being absolutely drunk off her ass all the time! Jon had to wait for her previous bender to wear off before he could take advantage of it, mind (as the booze she drank a few episodes ago, before the change, was still in play), and it made him realize that he’d overprioritized giving her Strength when initially designing her (especially since he hasn’t even gotten the New Vegas medical clinic implant, or the cool robot spine from Old World Blues) when he could have given her more Agility and Luck instead, but still. Talk about a nice boost for old boozehound P. D.!

B) P. D. heading to Red Rock Canyon to meet up with the Great Khans and help them with their drug-running ways for great rewards! Her method for getting there went like so:

I. First, she hit Camp McCarran and got the Fiend bounty-hunting quest from Major Dhatri, “Three-Card Bounty,” choosing to go after Driver Nephi. Dharti warned her the guy was a tough old S.O.B. and suggested she get some help from Lt. Gorobets and his snipers in Alpha Team, 1st Recon (promising her that, even if they technically made the kill, if P. D. brought him the head, she’d get the bounty). P. D. was only too happy to do that and went and met up with Gorobets and his crew, who were only too happy to help. Once they were all done getting stuck behind the couch, they led the way to Nephi’s headquarters in an old rock-crushing plant near the ruins of South Vegas, escorting P. D. safely over the highway and taking care of a few Fiends in their path with military precision. Though poor Gorobets did step on a land mine on the highway (as per Jon, he has done this every time Jon’s played this mission. Poor guy XD). Anyway, once they were at the right location, the snipers got into position, waiting for P. D. to wander close to Nephi’s base and draw him out using herself as bait…

II. Except, yeah, P. D. wasn’t about to do that – she might get shot! With guns! And while Jon was aware that Nephi’s unique weapon was a golf club (aka something P. D. could actually USE) that did more damage than P. D.’s 9 Iron, it wasn’t actually any better at knocking down people, so – yeah, he was happy to leave it behind. So instead, she abandoned Alpha Team, 1st Recon, waited 15 hours until midnight, then very carefully snuck her way through the nearby desert plain – threading her way between two big rad barrel dumping grounds; looping and weaving her way past the camps of Nephi and the other two Fiends on the bounty list (Violet, who has nasty dogs, and Cook-Cook, who has a favorite brahmin you do NOT mess with); and head for the mountains past the local gas station, making sure to steer very clear of the local fire geckos! Fortunately, she managed to accomplish all this without needing to use up one of her remaining Stealth Boys, and even discovered a new location, Chance’s Map, along the way! Plus, as she was climbing up into the canyon, she finally sobered up from her last bender (which was an in-game WEEK ago), allowing Jon to start planning the next one. XD

III. And finally, once over the hills, P. D. proceeded carefully into the canyon itself, hugging the little mountains on the side to stay clear of the mantis-infested park and other such danger zones. Her destination was a wrecked house near the edge of the canyon, which had a secret cellar that served as the Khans’ armory. And as the Khans accepted her thanks to her work with Jessop and making sure the NCR didn’t kill them, the people down there were willing to trade! They didn’t have any weapons P. D. was interested in, though, so she just sold them a bunch of medicine and ammo in exchange for a pile of caps, then raided their nearby ammo boxes –

Where she found a Stealth Boy. :D Jon was absolutely gleeful, as you might imagine! I’m so happy that he keeps getting lucky and finding more of these. :)

C) P. D. proceeding deeper into Khan territory in the canyon, heading over to the main camp above the fighting arena to steal drugs from the tents above (Turbo, Med-X, and Jet, mainly) before making her way down the narrow side path to the dedicated drug lab area, where she – you guessed it – stole more of the drugs they had sitting around. Along with a radscorpion poison gland, as apparently that will be important later. *shrug* However, her true goal was not to steal the Khans blind, but rather do some legitimate work for them – specifically, complete the quest “Aba Daba Honeymoon” for the drug running couple Jack and Diane! (Yes, I am pretty damn sure it’s a reference to that one song – you may groan now.) Though she had to complete it in a very specific order to make damn sure the quest didn’t break, as Jon warned it’s one of those where things get buggy fast if you do things before you’re “meant” to. And P. D. did not want to miss out on any of the rewards from this quest! So, following the path New Vegas wished for her to take, P. D.:

I. Talked to Diane and asked if she had any work for her – Diane tasked her with going and finding one of her best runners, Anders, who was two days late checking in after heading southeast to try to find a route to Arizona to open up some new markets for the Khans. P. D. thus went to Cottonwood Cove, as that was the most southeasterly location in the game –

Aaand found Anders strung up on a cross, because the Legion is NOT about the chem trade. Fortunately, his cross was very close to the fast travel point, AND far enough away from the main camp that P. D. could let him down without upsetting her new Legion friends. He ran off back to Red Rock, and P. D. fast-traveled back to the drug lab to receive her reward from Diane –

THE RECIPE FOR TURBO. The super-speed drug that Jon believes may be key to keeping P. D. alive! Unfortunately, it’s not exactly feasible for P. D. to make it herself right now, as one of the necessary ingredients is a cazador poison gland, and she ain’t going anywhere NEAR those horrors if she can help it. But Jon indicated that, if things went right in the future, she SHOULD be able to make plenty of this wonder drug for herself. We’ll see what happens!

II. Agreed to deliver some drugs to Don Hostetler, the Khans’ contact in the Crimson Caravan Company, so he could sell them out in the East – P. D. popped over via fast travel, gave Don the slightly-suspicious package, then got out of dodge before anyone saw the illicit handover. XD She also took a moment to swing by the clinic to talk implants with Dr. Usanagi – after seeing what was on offer, she decided to save up for the sub-dermal armor implant that would increase her DT rather than getting anything to boost her Perception or Agility just yet.

III. Agreed to deliver a bunch of Jet and Psycho to Motor Runner – the leader of the Fiends living in Vault 3 in the South Vegas ruins. This one was a little harder than the others because while the Fiends INSIDE the vault were willing to hold their fire if they thought P. D. was a Khan come to give them their drugs, the ones OUTSIDE were apparently ready to fight anyone and anything. Fortunately, P. D. had a plan – fast travel back to the rock-crushing where Alpha Team was eternally waiting for her to be bait to lure out Nephi (and gunning down the occasional fiend who walks too close); wait until night and work her way around to the big double doors into the South Vegas Ruins she passed on her previous trick into Red Rock; put on the Great Khan simple armor Diane loaned her for the trip to make the Fiends think she was a Khan too; then activate one of her Stealth Boys and try to get into and out of Vault 3 all on one “charge.” Did she succeed?

...you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out, as finishing off this write-up now would mean staying up too late on a work night. ^^; I promise I’ll edit this tomorrow with the last bit!

EDIT 9/29/2025: Hi, yes, I’m back with the last bit! So, WAS P. D. able to complete this quest using only a single Stealth Boy?

YES. Unless the disaster at Helios One, this time Jon was able to get his timings right and get P. D. into and out of the danger zone well before time ran out! I think it helped that there weren’t actually that many Fiends wandering around the front of Vault 3 – I counted like three, tops. P. D. was thus easily able to wind her way past them and get into the vault, where – after getting past the Fiend at the front trying to hit her up for Psycho (asking “would your boss like that you’re asking me for freebies?” which made the woman back off REAAAAL quick) – she took a bit of time to wander around, opening some locked doors for the free XP and collecting a Stealth skill book (very important to her build!). She then headed over to Motor Runner (unlocking another door along the way) to give him his Highly Suspicious package of chems and learn what had happened to the original residents of the vault (apparently they just let the Fiends in, no trouble, and the Fiends shrugged and killed them. Motor Runner was most nonchalant about it). She then snagged a Reverse Pulse Cleaner from one of the lockers nearby (just in case she needs it in the future, should she choose to do some work for the Brotherhood of Steel); got briefly lost in the recreation area looking for some bathrooms to loot (found some Fiends playing pool and another door to unlock); located the bathrooms she was looking for and looted their medicine boxes (getting only stimpacks, Rad-X, and purified water, meh); found a storage room and nabbed the Wonderglue from it (because apparently she’d need that soon – girl, you ALWAYS need adhesive in my humble opinion); and finally made it back to the front door, exited in crouch mode, and slipped back around the Khans outside before finally making it back to Outer Vegas and safety. Job cocking done, as Jon put it. :D

IV. Returned to Diane, got 300 caps for her trouble, and was informed that while there were no remaining drug delivery jobs, good old Jack was always looking for new chem recipes, so if P. D. wanted to teach him any… P. D. was like “I most certainly do,” whacked on her Follower’s lab coat to boost her Science up to the correct level, then went and visited the very groovy Jack (who says things like “Groodilicious” every time you finish teaching him a new recipe) to show him how to make Slasher (a blend of – well, Jon thought it was Psycho and Med-X as the drug gives the effects of both (Damage +25%, Damage Resistance +25) but the actual recipe calls for Psycho and STIMPACKS); Party-Time Mentats (Mentats that, like the regular version, boost Perception and Intelligence by +2, but also boost Charisma by +5 instead of the usual +1); and Rocket (basically just “better Jet” – it restores 30 AP instead of just 15). Doing so netted her a bunch of XP for each teaching session; got her some Psycho and Jet from Jack as a thank-you for each new recipe; completed “Aba Daba Honeymoon,” which meant even more XP; taught her the “Khan Trick” special unarmed move (where you use a Power Attack while moving left or right to distract an enemy by throwing dirt in their face – Jon didn’t consider it very impressive as it only results in a momentary stagger and can only be used on humanoids, so…) –

And, after waiting until the next morning, the chance to buy all the drugs she’d just taught Jack because now they spawned in his inventory! And while she wasn’t that interested in Rocket, she was very interested in Party-Time Mentats and Slasher. The former because, combined with her boozehound ways, the Naughty Nightwear, and the Meeting People skill magazine, she could boost her speech up by 30 whole points whenever she wanted; the latter because the Damage Resistance effect stacks with that of Med-X, meaning that she can use both to get a Damage Resistance of 50 whenever she’s in trouble! Meaning, as per Jon, any incoming damage gets immediately halved – before the Damage Threshold (a different stat that just straight-up subtracts a flat number from the damage) kicks in! Basically, with these drugs, she now can pass just about any speech check and severely reduce any damage she might take if she has sufficient warning. Both very important to her particular run and build! And better yet, she doesn’t have to rely on hitting up Jack for the drugs –

Because, so long as she has her labcoat on, she can make them herself at any campfire! Granted, making them required her to pick up two specific fruits – Banana Yucca Fruits for Slasher, and Honey Mesquite Pods for Party-Time Mentats – but P. D. fortunately knew exactly where to find those, leading to her final adventure being:

D) P. D. revealing why she made sure to tag Westside’s entrance in an earlier video by stopping by the town and visiting the local farm to get a bunch of banana yucca fruits and honey mesquite pods! Meaning she was well-stocked for making her new excellent drugs. She also swung by the liquor store to see what they had in stock – and when it proved to be “lots,” bought every bottle of booze she could and basically ended the episode by downing it all in Bender Numero Dos. XD

Fun episode – I am very much enjoying seeing Jon play Fallout: New Vegas properly, instead of with a randomizer mod (though that chaos was hilarious) or just dipping in during what is essentially a Fallout 3 LP (hi Tale of Two Wastelands!). Even if it is making me think a little bit I should be playing F:NV instead of FO4… Next week, though, things may get even more chaotic, as Jon wants to talk about DLCs – specifically, when he wants to start doing them, and what P. D. will have to do to prepare. I am on the edge of my seat!

Other: It was a warm and sunny day today, which meant we all took a trip out to the yard (after spraying it to ward off the worst of the bugs) to play beanbags! And I’m pleased to report that all three of us won a game again – though Dad was the definite champ, winning three games out of five. But Mom and I did all right, and I’ll never complain so long as I get one win. *nods* Final scores were me 2-W-3-2-3; Dad W-3-2-W-W; Mom 3-2-W-3-2. We’ll see how things work out the next time we play!

Whew! And now I absolutely have to go to bed. Night all!

No rain today, and while it was hotter, it was a little less humid -- my room doesn't feel as stifling tonight, which is a good thing. And I get to run my window fan without fear, which helps as well. Hopefully it will be a better night than last night, sleep-wise! *fingers crossed* As for how my day went -- well:

Work – Had a very boring end to my work week this Friday – the GL took an hour to put together, if that, and after getting that lady’s pledge billing from yesterday in the mail (finally got the envelope to print on the almost-exclusively-for-envelopes-and-labels printer, though it took me fiddling with the printer a bit), and taking a call from another woman about one of her checks apparently being sent back for having the wrong address (I was as confused as her – she’s gonna try again and we’re gonna see if it’s the post office being stupid or what), there was nothing else really to occupy my time (my coworker got to the obituaries in the paper first). So I updated my notes on the latest credit card problems in the document I use to track them, then reviewed them until it got too depressing to see how long we’ve been dealing with shit from the credit card company; looked up a couple more dead people; did my puzzle calendar pages; and finished off another Giant Sudoku and a word search. And started a crossword. *shakehead* I mean, I will always say that “bored is better than stressed,” but it really tests your patience to be bored on a Friday! And then, of course, I had to deal with some shitty traffic on the way home...meh. At least now it is the weekend! Even if it’s a cleaning weekend...meeeeh!

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike one last time this week, and back to the Ghostbusters II DVD to watch the two episodes of The Real Ghostbusters animated series that were included on it! ...well, one and a half, given they were both a little over twenty minutes along, so I wasn’t able to watch the second one in full. *shrug* The episodes, if you are curious, are:

I. “Citizen Ghost,” which sees a reporter come to interview Peter for her news station, and asking why the heck Slimer is living – so to speak – in the firehouse with the four men known for TRAPPING ghosts – cue a flashback episode explaining just that, featuring the Ghostbusters’ old uniforms coming to life and turning into ghost versions of them, who want to replace them, and Slimer – who’s been hanging around the fire station making friends with Egon, Ray, and Winston – helping the four defeat them. Yes, it is very silly. XD (Though I give them credit for trying to make it plausible, with Egon commenting that the uniforms are FULL of psychokinetic energy from their fight with Gozer, which – you know what, I’ll buy that.)

II. “Partners In Slime,” which sees Louis and Janine, post GBII, get kidnapped by a ghost mafia boss, Poso, looking to become the Ghostfather by taking control of the Ghostbusters’ business and using their stuff to force other ghosts to do his bidding. The ‘Busters are forced to team up with his recently-captured sidekick, Shifter (forcing him to do their bidding via means of a collar that they can use to stop him flying off somewhere after release) to get Louis and Janine back – which involves a visit to “Ghost Town” in New Jersey, and Peter having to masquerade as a ghost under a heavy coat of charged mood slime that gives him limited ghostly powers, like flight. I got up to Shifter tricking Peter into sticking himself to a wall after getting him to fly, only for Peter to use his collar to pull him back and force him to unstick him. As I recall, things end with Peter and Shifter actually becoming friendly, and Shifter genuinely helping the ‘Busters after being freed from the collar.

Very silly stuff, but good enough for a workout! Even if things like Lorenzo Music, aka Garfield, voicing Peter in the first episode, and Egon being a freaking blond for some reason, was very distracting. XD Have to figure out what movie I’m watching next week now!

2. Continue writing “The Van Dort Vacancy”: Check – and I am very pleased to announce that I have officially finished the first draft! :D Mostly because I was really enjoying writing the epilogue, and I really wanted to get it all done today if I could. Thus, tonight’s extra-long writing session covered:

A) The end of the “Victor gives Smiler and Alice their gifts” scene, with Smiler giving Victor a big hug and telling him he’s the best friend after getting their traveling alchemy kit; Alice telling Victor she loves her knife too and wondering if she could turn her stolen Van Dort livery into a copy of her main Wonderland dress to go with it; Alice and Smiler both assuring Victor that they considered the two Coin he spent on the presents worth it, and reiterating that they do like him even without the gifts (though Alice admitted they helped XD); and Victor joining in the hide-and-seek game they were playing before, starting to count as Smiler and Alice went to put their gifts away and then hide from him

B) And the final scene of Victor making his spirit mask under Elder Gutknecht’s guidance – a process that involved covering it with butterfly and moth wings (sourced from the insects Sooty and his fellow ravens ate and the dead ones Victor found outside); painting the inside with electroplasm to charge it (donated by Elder Gutknecht himself); then putting it on and attuning to it to bond it to him and turn it into a way to view the ghost field and everything in it in greater detail. Took Victor a moment to get it to take, but once it did – oh, he was THRILLED. :D I really wanted to end things on that happy note of him taking those first steps toward becoming a proper Whisper – poor guy has EARNED it. *nods*

And that’s that for the first draft of this story! Next week, we’ll concentrate on getting back into the swing of things with “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” (as I’m pretty sure everyone would like me to, you know, actually edit the final chapter), then the week after that we’ll figure out how I’m going to balance that, “The Van Dort Vacancy” edit, any FO4 Playthrough Progression updates I do, and the stories I’ll be writing for the upcoming 2025 Polyship Week (which isn’t until mid-November but I would like to plan ahead). Wish me luck with that! XD

3. Watch something on FreeTube: No check today – FreeTube’s still out of commission because of bugs caused by YouTube trying to disable it, and honestly I didn’t really have time to watch anything tonight anyway. Both because it was Game Night, which always means less computer time (game of choice was The 80s Game – and once again, nobody got to the end despite us allowing clues to help each other guess the answers :P), and because I got really into finishing up “The Van Dort Vacancy” and didn’t stop writing until after 10 PM. No regrets! Though I really do hope the team finds a way around the [BAD_HTTP_STATUS: 403] bug and all the others this weekend, as I do have shit I’d like to watch!

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: N/A – didn’t have anything to queue up on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), and there was nothing going on over on Valice Multiverse. *shrug* It happens!

Yeaaaah -- not that much to report, honestly! Guess some days are just like that. But somehow I have stayed up way late anyway, looking up things like different SPECIAL configurations in various Fallout games and random tumblr posts and whatnot. XD Time to hit the sack I think -- tomorrow is a Cleaning Saturday, so I expect that to take up most of my day (especially since I have to do laundry AND figure out which of the tires on my car is underinflated). I do hope to get in some gaming, though -- be nice to hop back into either Fallout 4 or Baldur's Gate III! And then update either the FO4 Playthrough Progression or the BG3 Master Doc. And HOPEFULLY I'll get to watch something too, but that's entirely dependent on the FreeTube team...we'll see what happens. Night all!

Like, the weather wasn't great (rainy and a little chilly while ALSO being humid, so you couldn't really bundle up -- very blah indeed), and nothing particularly spectacular happened, but it was also not particularly horrible in any way, so -- yeah, I'll take it. :p Here's the write-up with more detail:

Work – Got over the hump of the work week today, and I’m happy to say it was an okay Wednesday, at least –

A) I updated someone’s card on their Capital Campaign pledge and did a catch-up payment, and helped someone else do a final payment on THEIR Capital Campaign pledge

B) I looked at the spreadsheet of overpayments and contacted all the donors who needed contacting (with the help of my coworker, who was able to find an e-mail for the one donor I couldn’t get on the phone) – all said “keep the money,” so I made the necessary adjustments on our system

C) I pulled the latest set of obituaries out of the paper and started working on those, traveling down the various rabbit holes of roster maintenance that they always provoke

D) And I had the biweekly Useless Check-In call with the credit card people – did at least get a chance to tell our contact about the latest nonsense, I suppose, but I doubt anything is going to come of it, because she doesn’t know how the system works with our database system, and the guy who does is never fucking there *shakehead*

*shrug* Nothing life-changing, but it at least made the day go by. We’ll see how things go tomorrow!

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, and another night with Ghostbusters: Answer The Call! Tonight saw me get through:

A) The big climax of the movie, with the girls sacrificing their Ecto-1 to the other side to turn the vortex Rowan opened up from “blow” to “suck;” the ladies then making damn sure that Rowan got sucked into said vortex by nailing him in the crotch to stop him clinging to the nearby buildings XD; Rowan scooping up Abby as one final act of revenge, and Erin diving into the portal to save her; Patty and Holtzmann managing to pull the pair out just in time; Kevin showing up with a sandwich because he’s Kevin; the mayor and his cronies STILL claiming that all the ghostly activity was just hallucinations or something on the news (and nobody buying it); and the girls finally getting their firehouse because the mayor isn’t dumb enough not to give them all the funding they need now that they’ve saved the city and probably the world – he just insists on doing it secretly. Hooray!

B) The credits and all the little scenes within, including the girls getting settled in the firehouse and Holtzmann building SOO much more dangerous tech (with the help of Sigorney Weaver’s cameo); New York making sure the Ghostbusters know that they are loved; the “Rowan-as-Kevin forces the army and the two Homeland Security guys to dance” sequence; and the post-credits scene with Patty hearing the name “Zuul” in a recording the girls are studying…

C) And a couple of the special features – specifically, the “Slime Time” feature about how they made the slime for the movie (there were a few different grades of the stuff depending on if it was supposed to be oozing out of the floor, covering the poor actresses, or being stepped on and sticking to shoes), and maybe about half of the “Visual Effects” feature about how they did the effects in the film, and how they mixed a bit of practical stuff with the CGI to get the right look (for example, all the proton packs had little LED “gun muzzles” on the wands so the ladies’ faces would be properly lit by their beams; the cab that the giant Rowan smashes was a real cab flattened by a giant-foot-sized steel plate; and they built a bit of Times Square in a giant parking lot, mixing a few real facades with green screen to add in more and taller CGI buildings). I left off with that when they were talking about how they did the possessed Macy’s Day Parade balloons (all of them, apart from obviously Stay-Puft, being actual old-timey balloons they saw while doing research and was like “well, those are creepy” XD) – I might go ahead and watch the rest of that, along with the other special features, tomorrow. Might as well, right? They’re fun and it’ll kill another day. :)

2. Continue writing “The Van Dort Vacancy”: Check – I have moved into the second scene of the Epilogue now, featuring Victor coming home from a very important shopping trip (and struggling a little to get inside thanks to some awkward boxes) to find Alice and Smiler playing hide-and-seek in the new “gym” room (or, rather, “hunt-and-prowl,” as those were the skills they were training). He gave them a pretty good scare when he announced his presence, that’s for sure. XD Anyway, once they explained what they were doing, Smiler noted the boxes and asked if they were presents for them and Alice –

And Victor went “yes they are.” XD Alice teased him a little about still thinking they needed a reward after helping him with Emily, but Victor said it’s for everything they’d done for him, including getting him away from his parents and the life they were trying to shove him into. Smiler did point out that a life without them might NOT have been miserable – at least, if Victor had gotten to marry Victoria – but while Victor said he’d like to think being with Victoria would have made having to deal with both his parents and hers worth it...yeah, he’s quite happy with how things turned out. :p (Trust me, Victor – in the realities where Victoria is also part of the polycule, she is MORE than happy to avoid her parents as much as possible!) Anyway, I left off with him preparing to hand out the gifts – tomorrow, we get to see Alice’s reaction to a real-life Vorpal Blade! Should be good. :)

3. Watch something on FreeTube: Substitution check – I quickly visited FreeTube’s section of GitHub this evening, and while the team thinks they’ve found the source of the [BAD_HTTP_STATUS: 403] error I and a bunch of other people were running into last night, they’re still working on how to fix it. So I decided to forgo the video-watching entirely tonight, and instead work on answering Moose’s latest set of messages! Because they were sent over a week ago, and while I had the excuse of being on/recovering from my vacation last week, I genuinely didn’t want to leave them too long. So those are all set now, yay. :) Ball’s back in your court, Moose! Enjoy the tumblr posts about the vacay!

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – I just had Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler)’s “Song Saturday” post to worry about tonight – and lucky me, my lunchtime tumblr wanderings revealed that one marlynnofmany had reblogged an awesome mashup between Imagine Dragon’s “Radioactive” and Fallout Boy’s “My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light ‘Em Up)” earlier in the day! You may listen to it here if you are so inclined. Anyway, after getting a chance to actually hear it this evening, I decided it was as awesome as all the rebloggers were saying it was and went ahead and chucked it in my queue for Saturday. Nice and easy queue completion, yay~

*nods* What did I tell you -- perfectly adequate. And now it is time for me to hit the sack. Night all!

Like, yeah, as you will see in the weekday write-up below (making its grand return after a long absence), today was pretty calm, all things considered --

Work – You can officially color me surprised, because it was a shockingly quiet first day back at work for me today! O.O Apparently not that much happened while I was out – the only things I had to double-check were the three credit card calls that my coworker took (which she did mostly right – and the one mistake she made was fixed pretty quickly), and an e-mail alerting me to a potential duplicate record on the system (after looking, though, I’m pretty sure the records are for a father and a son with the same name – you get a LOOOOT of those in RI). I mean, I had a lot of other e-mails to get through too, of course, but most of them were easily filed away once I’d had a gander at them. And the GL this morning was pretty damn simple as a grand total of two things were processed on Friday – though it still took me longer than anticipated, as I got interrupted by a call to update some guy’s credit card halfway through. Which involved me having to go on the credit card site directly because of course I ran into an error. *sigh* Always something...but it could have been worse. After getting all the above done, I spent the rest of the day looking at failed credit cards and sending out e-mails to people to let them know about failed payments. *shrug* Not really any different from any other Monday at work, really! We’ll see if things get more exciting/irritating on Tuesday...

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with Ghostbusters: Answer The Call! Got to about the halfway point of the movie today, I think, with Erin, Abby, and Holtz interviewing Kevin and discovering he is the dumbass of dumbasses (but they have NO other options for receptionists, sooo Erin gets her eye candy); the trio meeting Patty, investigating the ghost in the subway, and testing the very first proton pack against it (which did not go well but the ladies were pleased with the results regardless, especially Holtz); Patty joining the group by pointing out that they need her as an authority on New York; the first tests of the newly mobile proton pack and Abby accidentally learning how to fly; the gals busting the ghost Rowan, our main villain, summoned at the rock festival (which was apparently supposed to be the bat Ozzy Osbourne bit the head off of); the ladies accidentally killing debunker Martin Heiss, aka Bill Murray, when he showed up at their office and insulted them, and a furious Erin released the recently-captured ghost right into his face; and the girls being dragged off to meet the mayor and discovering that he and his Homeland Security buddies know about the paranormal and are investigating the upsurge of ghostly activity in the area themselves – and they’re going to be actively calling the girls frauds to keep the wolf of mass hysteria from the door. Which the ladies didn’t exactly like, but Erin liked least of all, because her whole thing is wanting recognition and acknowledgment from the community at large… I left off right after the quartet got dismissed from the meeting – tomorrow, we start working our way through the second half of the film! Which you can tell was made for IMAX, as the special effects keep spilling out past the letterboxing on the DVD. XD I like it, though – reminds me of seeing it in the theater almost ten years ago. ...excuse me while I crumble to dust.

2. Continue writing “The Van Dort Vacancy”: Check – I have officially started the Epilogue, starting with Alice running into June Thatcher in one of Nightmarket’s many food markets! Or, perhaps, June running into Alice, as she recognized Alice first – Alice was too busy complaining about the state of the greens on sale. :p Anyway, they’re currently in the middle of an awkward meeting, with Alice apologizing for accidentally subjecting June to Bumby burning, and June saying it does still give her nightmares, but now that she’s learned what Bumby was doing – well, she understands why Alice wanted Bumby so very dead. *nods* She also assured Alice that the Bluecoats did not think she had anything to do with Bumby’s murder (and aren’t really investigating it anymore now that certain things have come to light), and that she is indeed still at Houndsditch taking care of the children, with a little help from her Charhollow neighbors. :) Tomorrow I should be able to wrap this scene up with June letting Alice know that, bad first impressions aside, she’s more than welcome to stop by Houndsditch and check on the children when she wants – which will greatly reduce Alice’s stress. As per the outline/downtime rolls I did earlier. :p

3. Watch something on FreeTube: Check – I got to this very late (who is surprised), so I went with a very quick video from good old Petey Plays It: “5 Business & Hobbies Objects You Need To Start Using | The Sims 4 Guide!” A look at five objects from that pack that Petey feels are the best in the pack, along with a handful of honorable mentions. Unsurprisingly, the main five objects were the pottery wheel (and associated kiln for glazing), the whiteboard for holding lectures and classes, the tattooing table, the candy maker (though he did call out the jellybeans for looking more like bowls of vomit – texture issues strike again!), and the coffee bar – you know, some of the main selling points of the pack, as noted in the comments. XD His honorable mentions included the ticket kiosks, the selling table, the fancy wicker cooler (seriously, that thing looks nice), the special retail shelves, the new guitar and piano, and the two new collections of Trashley’s art and bike parts. Which, dude, you might as well have done a proper “10 items you need to start using” list and highlighted a couple of the honorable mentions as “overlooked” items. But then again, maybe he just wasn’t very impressed by Businesses & Hobbies and didn’t feel it worth it to make a longer list… *shrug* Still a nice way to fill a few minutes – even as it reminded me that I really have to catch up on his latest “Super Sim” episode at some point. Which, at 36 minutes, is gonna take some doing...

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Substitution check – while I didn’t have anything to put into the queue over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), as my queue over on that blog generally starts on Wednesday anyway, I did make sure to reblog some MediEvil Resurrection screenshot redraws my friend nebbychan did! Featuring Canny Tim getting ready to offer his buddy (and player character) Dan his trusty crossbow, and main villain Zarok declaring something to be “a traditional, but FACTUALLY inaccurate statement!” Trust me, they look much better in Nebby’s artwork than they do in the actual screenshots. XD She really is a good artist!

Other: Played three rounds of beanbags this afternoon after I got home from work – and today Mom and I creamed Dad, with Mom getting one win and me getting two! :D Though, admittedly, Mom proceed to get two threes after her win, and I never came lower than second, so I did a better job of creaming him than she did. :p Final scores were me 2-W-W; Dad 3-2-2; and Mom W-3-3. We’ll see if things even out again the next time we play!

Yeah, see? Very chill indeed. *shrug* I'm not complaining, just mildly surprised. :P And now I should go to bed and try to get a bit more sleep than I did last night, because sleep is a good thing. We'll see what happens when tomorrow comes! Night all!

Well, sort of -- I shall explain in the write-up:

Tumblr: Was a busy day on both of the old tumbls today, let me tell you –

Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – I spent most of my day over here, drafting out and then posting the five photo posts covering my vacation times – and while I was able to more or less completely copy the main text for each post from the “travel diary” I wrote up yesterday here on Dreamwidth (with a few little revisions and a new intro and outro on the first and last posts), doing the alt text on each batch of photos and the tags on each post took much longer than I’d hoped. Especially since I had a much later start than I wanted, thanks to sleeping in a bit, having a late breakfast, and needing to change the sheets on my bed this morning. *grumbles* But the posts got done, and you can view them here – I even put them in chronological order for you! :) I hope you enjoy the pictures! I had fun taking them! :)

Valice Multiverse – And over here, I actually had three anon asks to answer from my week off – ended up stuffing them all in the queue, since I got on the blog late tonight thanks to catching up on a bunch of videos (see the “FreeTube” section) and just didn’t feel like doing “active” RP –

A) The first ask proposed a concept of a fantasy series where the court wizard was functionally an IT guy, doing things like asking the Queen if she’d “cleansed and reapplied the runes” on her broken magic mirror, then fixing it and finding out she was basically looking for nymph and witch porn. XD I queued up a response from the Cuddlepile!Valicer trio, with Smiler saying they liked the idea and wondering what a computer virus would look like in that world; Alice proposing that it would be an ACTUAL virus that made people sick, with the person spreading the virus then pretending to be a doctor and taking people’s money to cure them of the disease they themselves inflicted; and Victor offering up a scenario where the royal family gets turned into toads because one of them insisted on keeping a piece of paper with the warding rune for the door next to the door itself (like someone having a sticky note with their passwords on their computer) – Smiler liked that one. :P (Me, I just swear I’ve seen the proposed scenario of “court wizard as IT tech” somewhere on tumblr before…)

B) The second asked my muses in general “I was just wondering if you wanted to HANG OUT with me and smoke WEED and fill our bellies with DIET SODA and play Burnout Revenge for the PS2” – no, I’m not sure why certain words were capitalized. Probably some sort of video game reference I’m not getting...anyway, I had Inevitable High School!Smiler respond, since they would be the one most open to such a request – they said that they’d probably need more than diet coke if weed was involved and offered to bring snacks, before asking what Burnout Revenge was, as they’d never heard of it. (*quickly looks it up* Okay, it’s a racing game – sounds fun! Hopefully the anon is neither a sore winner or sore loser…)

C) And the third featured a scenario of a guy offering free samples of British food to passerby...which unfortunately resulted in him asking someone “Would you like to taste my spotted dick?” and getting punched. XD I had Cuddlepile!Alice facepalm and say that he could have phrased that better, before offering both first aid and some tips with his presentation (I added in the tags she’d probably tell him to call it “spotted dog” instead, as that’s a legit alternate name for the foodstuff – it’s a sort of suet “cake” (I’m not sure how else to describe it to the Americans, as it’s not what WE think of as pudding) with dried fruit in it (usually currants or raisins) to create the spots, if you’re wondering). Because she can be snarky, but she’s also nice sometimes. :p

FreeTube: After spending most of the day on tumblr doing the vacation write-ups, I decided that, since I didn’t have time for video games, I’d instead make sure I was a little more caught up on my videos over here. And so this afternoon and evening, I worked my way through –

A) “Starting My New Life” by Josh Way! A little life update video he did for all of us who follow him on YouTube (or YouTube frontends, like in my particular case these days), letting us know that he’s gotten a new job (frozen foods sales rep, driving between a bunch of grocery stores promoting the Brand and merchandising and things like that) and he’s signed the lease on a new apartment (in a cheaper part of New York in the Hudson Valley), yay! Granted, he doesn’t move into the new apartment until October 1st, meaning he’s got to coordinate moving with working his new job (and wait for whoever’s buying his new home to close on the deal), and his financial situation is still a little dicey, meaning he’s got to really step it up with his various side hustles (“Fun With Shorts” and its related Patreon, “Sylvan Thatch” – his new webcomic – and its related Patreon, and starting proper art commissions too), but at least he has an income and a (future) roof over his head. And the place has space for his cats and his kid (when she visits on the weekend), so that’s all he can really ask for. :) I’m glad it at least seems like he’s landing on his feet here – the past couple of years have clearly been pretty rough for him, what with ending up out of work twice and getting a divorce. And given I rather like his art style, I am intrigued by the thought of him offering commissions… We’ll see what might come of that!

B) “CaFae Latte Season 75 - TikTok Compilation” by C. M. Alongi! Yup, a new season of our favorite Minnesotan fairy shenanigans, featuring –

I. Nicole arriving at the cafe and finding Janine hanging out there (up early thanks to an officers’ meeting) – Janine offered to give up her chair, but Nicole said it was fine, she wasn’t staying as school was back in session. Causing Janine to comment that she’d forgotten Nicole was an art teacher –

And another customer nearby to snort derisively and – when Nicole and Janine gave them questioning looks – tell Nicole to enjoy the job while it lasts, because AI was going to put her and her brethren out of work. Nicole told the customer that generative AI was soulless and talentless and that creativity would ALWAYS need to be taught, no matter the technology situation – the customer countered that AI was plenty creative, since you have to come up with the prompt, and accused Nicole of just being upset she wasn’t “the special kid” anymore. Janine coldly noted that, despite not being a professional herself, she could see that generative AI slop was just mediocre, and that real art could only come from the hard work of humans (and human-adjacent beings, I suppose). The customer was unconvinced and left, insisting they were just going to get left behind by modern technology – Janine and Nicole promptly resumed their previous conversation, with Nicole asking Janine what she was reading and Janine revealing The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee saying she wanted to educate herself on Native American perspectives given her boyfriend (Patrick being half-Lakota). And then letting Nicole know that another Native memoir she wanted to read was Bury My Heart At Chuck-E-Cheese. Nicole snorted and said AI could never. XD

II. JC serving none other than Old Jack, Erik’s prison buddy, who was recently released and wanted to celebrate with two coffees (one for himself, one for his sister) and the “fattest blueberry muffin” they had. He asked if this was the place that had to deal with the homophobic angel, explaining he’d heard about it from a former employee, and blissfully went on about how angry his buddy had been about Gabriel going after a kid, and how happy he was that the guy ended up in their block so he could beat him up, not noticing how stiff and quiet JC had gone. He also revealed that while a few of the other inmates thought Gabriel was okay, most of the others, including most of the paras, didn’t like him – and a lot of them were REALLY pissed off about the whole “stealing money from his own parishioners” thing. Apparently there are a lot of devout people in prison, and they do NOT like a bad priest. *nods* Interesting… Anyway, Cyrus finished up the guy’s order, since JC was in their feelings, and Old Jack left to meet back up with his sister, never noticing JC’s state (which, honestly, is a good thing). JC muttered shortly afterward that Erik was still a backstabbing asshole, which Cyrus agreed with, but said it was good to hear that the guy was on the right-ish path – and when JC protested that Erik was never a homophobe and didn’t deserve a medal for it, said that he just hoped that when Erik inevitably got out, he was the kind of person who had principles strong enough to fight for, rather than selling them – and the people he cared about – out for personal gain. JC was just like “I just hope he’s the kind of person who stays the fuck away from us.” *grimace* Oh boy – given the way they nurse grudges, when they learn about Erik and Lindsey, it’s gonna be bad…

III. Bob dealing with a customer who complained about the service being horribly slow, trying to explain that the cafe was short-staffed, they’d JUST finished the morning rush, and that she’d just gone in the back to restock the flavor the woman wanted – only for the customer to say “no excuse” and demand to speak to the manager. In a playful mood, Bob called in a confused JC, who confirmed they were the kitchen manager –

And then responded to the customer’s demands that they fire Bob with “she’s the owner.” XD Bob promptly followed that up with cursing the customer to never remember her internet passwords and to have to constantly reset them to new ones until she learned to be nicer to customer service people. The customer stormed off, and JC noted that Bob was clearly feeling petty today before asking why she dragged them in (emphasizing they were not complaining) – Bob cheerfully replied, “Variety is the spice of life.” XD

IV. Oscar and Drek serving another customer who came in for both coffee and free WiFi to do her paperwork on (Oscar providing the drink, Drek the WiFi password), then chatting about how things were going. Drek told Oscar how he’d added Abby, Logan, Ben, and Ethan to his, Xander, and Melody’s Discord group, and how they were planning to start an online D&D campaign together (getting in a little sneaky promo for Divergent Realms along the way when Oscar asked if that was for his new job GMing games), while Oscar told Drek about how he was volunteering at the local Unitarian church’s food shelf during his time off (noting how weird it was to be on the other side of the counter, so to speak), and how he’d gotten a new coffee table that actually matched some of his furniture! Drek noted that being homeless sounded like it really sucked, and Oscar agreed, but – ever the optimist – noted that it made him appreciate his apartment more. Especially since he could host Andy and Caroline in it. Drek noted that they were still together, and Oscar admitted that the relationship had gone on for longer than he’d thought, and that they were thinking about possibly –

Aaaand cue the sudden appearance of a very confused demon! Summoned by the customer trying to get her paperwork done – by complete accident, because, in her own words, “You were supposed to be a spreadsheet!” XD

V. Continuing from the previous video, Bob coming in to see what was going on and being like “...in 12 centuries, I have never heard of anyone summoning a demon accidentally, especially through Excel.” XD The customer protested that it was a complicated program, okay, with the demon being like “if you have it in DEMONIC” – the customer shot back that calculus was very similar! XD The customer then asked if the demon was after her soul, and the demon said “no, those haven’t been legal tender for centuries.” Causing Drek to be like “wait a minute, you guys used to actually buy and sell souls?!” –

And Oscar to let him know that seraphim used to do it too. Apparently the trade was how Christianity got the idea, according to Bob, who noted that souls could be used for very powerful magic and thus were very tightly regulated – they apparently go for a fortune on the black market. Poor Drek was very O.o about it all. XD Anyway, the demon said that he traded in cash and Pokemon cards – when Drek asked for what, he explained he was a mathematician and helped humans with calculations they didn’t want to do. The customer was like “...so how much to help me with this spreadsheet,” and a deal was struck for $20 an hour and a coffee. Yay! XD

VI. A blind customer walking in after everything in the previous videos was settled and asking why the place smelled like sulfur – Oscar explained about the accidental demon visitor and assured her that he’d gotten home safe and sound, just that Bob had had to reopen the accidental summoning circle to send him back quicker, leaving a smell and exhausting her in the process. He then asked what she wanted, only for the woman to ask if he could read out the menu, as she was 95% blind –

And then the customer behind her was promptly like “Don’t do that, she’s faking.” With his evidence being that the woman didn’t have a seeing-eye dog, and was able to look directly at Oscar and him when they spoke. Oscar was like “how dare you,” while the woman explained that seeing-eye dogs were prohibitively expensive (and she’d have to fight her asshole landlord about it if she tried to get one anyway), and that blindness was a spectrum, and she had a TINY pinhole of vision that allowed her to see like the tip of their noses. The asshole was like “bullshit, you’re either blind or you’re not–”

And then Oscar said that Bob COULD solve the issue by giving the asshole a mirror curse to see how the blind lady saw, but that she’d probably be annoyed and throw something extra on top, and the asshole backed off. Though unfortunately for him, he chose to add in “if you want to let her fake, fine” as he did, prompting Oscar to inform him that he wouldn’t be served and to continue explaining the menu to the blind lady. Cue the asshole storming off while the blind lady explained her allergies (peanut, not life-threatening). Hah. :p

VI. And a customer wandering in to get an iced coffee and blueberry scone, and to stick $5 in the Neighbor’s Account – only to be revealed as the ER Nurse regular when JC noted she looked familiar! She was out of scrubs due to being on vacation (saying that she got paid double if they worked the holidays everyone else took off), and said it was fine that JC forgot to give her the “Protector of the Realm” discount due to not recognizing her – Bob insisted she get a coupon to make up for it, though. She and JC chatted a bit about what she planned to do on her vacation (sleep, read, and get laid – JC recommended the local vampire bar as a prime lesbian hot spot, but the ER nurse said that she was straight as an arrow – she’d keep it in mind for a girls’ night out, though) –

And then the asshole customer next in line interrupted them with a repeated “Sir.” Because as it happened, ER Nurse was wearing a “Trans Lives Matter More Than Ever Before” shirt, and the customer assumed it meant she was trans. The asshole insisted he wasn’t a transphobe, he just didn’t think anyone should be supporting “mental illness and assaulting women” – Bob tried to step in with the old “silence” trick, but ER Nurse told her to hold off and let him speak. The asshole THEN told the ER Nurse that he ought to bring her outside and “beat some sense” into her –

And cue the ER Nurse going, in essence, “One, I’m a cis female – assigned female at birth, have all the female equipment, etc; two, I’m actually well-versed in counseling rape victims and doing rape kits at my job, and I have NEVER had anyone assaulted by a trans woman or a man pretending to be one – in fact, trans women are more likely to be VICTIMS; three, being trans is NOT a mental illness, they’re just more prone to mental illnesses thanks to assholes like you” – and when he protested “they’re sick in the head, and so are you” – “and four, you want to fight me on that? Outside, two minutes – I just have to finish my order and ask these nice people to stow my sunglasses and purse.” XD A delighted JC began taking bets from the other customers, and the ER Nurse prepped for the battle –

And of course the guy bailed. The crowd was very disappointed – especially JC, who’d lost twenty bucks. Though at least the two people who’d correctly guessed he wouldn’t actually show up got to split the pot. :p Good stuff as always – this series and Jon’s Fallout videos are the exact reason I got FreeTube so I wouldn’t have to give up YouTube entirely.

C) And “Fallout New Vegas: You Only Live Once Remastered - Part 9 - Live Fast, Die Young” by Jon of Many A True Nerd! Speaking of which, I had a whole episode’s worth of the adventures of our beloved melee-only courier P. D. Shoot to catch up on, and I figured today was the day to do it! Because doubling up on episodes tomorrow seemed like a bad idea, given how long it takes me to summarize these things –

Except, hilariously, I kept getting distracted by stuff on the net after watching the video and thus never finished tonight's summary. *sigh* I think my brain was just like "we have done ENOUGH" after all the vacation recap stuff. I have all my notes, it's just a matter of organizing them, so I will complete the recap tomorrow and give you a double dose of F:NV YOLO Remastered then!

Other: Had a five-round-long game of beanbags today at 5 PM (with less bug bites because it was cooler today and thus we were wearing long sleeves and long pants), and I’m happy to say that – while Dad was the ultimate winner – we each won a round, with me scoring a 12 at the end of the first game to take it home in four throws. :D Nice when that happens, let me tell you! And while Mom had her struggles, she caught a break in the fourth round, with me and Dad throwing like shit while she just steadily increased her lead two points at a time. :p Final scores were me W-2-2-3-2; Dad 3-W-W-2-W; and Mom 2-3-3-W-3. We’ll see if we each manage to win a game again tomorrow!

Yeaaaah -- I was again hoping to do some other stuff, like play some video games, but once again it took ages to get all that "here's how my vacation went" stuff done, so... *shakehead* And now it's 2 AM and I am REALLY tired and have to go to bed. Tomorrow -- okay, I'm going to finish the recap of the F:NV YOLO Remastered episode I watched tonight; do one thing in my Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) drafts (a response to a "talk about your WIP" post I was tagged in by my friend Newt while I was away); get in a workout and start rewatching Ghostbusters: Answer The Call (the 2016 reboot movie with the ladies); and of course watch and recap the newest F:NV YOLO Remastered episode to come out tomorrow. Other than that, everything is up in the air, because I do not know what I will actually have time for. *nods* We'll see what happens -- night all!