Ael

Which makes me quite happy -- it's nice to get things done! Especially on a Sunday, which is often a lazy day for me. Here's what I accomplished:

Tumblr: A pretty decent day on the tumbls – nothing happening on Valice Multiverse again, granted, and I suffered a little bit from lack of inspiration this morning while working on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), but I still got a few good things done over on my main blog before lunch –

A) First, I hit my drafts and edited my “Moist von Lipwig from Discworld snuck into my characterization of Smiler” post just a tiny bit to reflect that Moist IS often flailing around in the background during Going Postal, and Smiler themselves is not immune to that being a thing XD (honestly, I find the idea of poor Smiler flailing in the background while presenting a very composed, cheerful face to the world to be very funny – and good for OT3 shenanigans)

B) Then, I reblogged a post by emiko-matsui (original) and galacticmermaid (addition) from my friend Squid, aka gaydragonwizards, all about YouTube’s upcoming new AI-powered “age estimation model” to track users’ watching habits to determine if they’re minors or not! Explaining why it is a bad thing (the AI is stupid, so it will be VERY easy to determine someone’s age wrong; YouTube will be demanding that anyone who wants to prove they’re not a minor, they just like cartoons, provide their government ID or credit card number, which is problematic even before you consider the fact Google was recently hacked and got a lot of user data stolen; we all know that this is going to just lead to them selling more user data to advertisers in the long run; and YouTube is refusing to take any criticism about it, refusing to post comments that say this is an incredibly bad thing by claiming they violate their “community policy” while letting through obvious nonsense comments reading things like “lovedeep bawa bawa”), and what to do about it (complain to Google as much as you can, online or over the phone; file complaints with the Better Business Bureau; talk to your representatives and try to get them in your corner; try to find alternatives to Google products – which is admittedly pretty damn hard for YOUTUBE, but still). Because important information is important, damn it.

C) After that, I returned to my drafts and wrote up a post showing off the outline I made for “The Van Dort Vacancy!” Since I did a post showing off the one for “A Murder Shared Is A Murder Thirded” back when I was working on that story, and I thought it would be fun to share the “Van Dort Vacancy” one too. :) Formatting admittedly always goes a little weird when I make these posts, as Tumblr doesn’t support sub-lists, but that’s not gonna stop me from sharing!

D) And finally, while trying to figure out if there were any other posts that I wanted to put in the drafts for later (“share the ‘Make You Smile’ snippet when VITD Alice and Smiler first met? Nah, I want to edit that first, it’s one of the first Smiler POV stories I wrote and I want to make sure their voice is right...do a masterpost of all my Not-Incorrect Quotes posts, at least for the Modern Valicer AU stuff? Eh, that is an intimidating prospect…”), I decided “you know what, I’m working on getting Baldur’s Gate III back up, and I keep having thoughts about my VITD trio getting sucked into that world – why not do a Not-Incorrect Quotes/Shitposts collection about it? After all, I’ve already done one...” :P So I started a draft for that, with ideas including “the companions talking about how dark the Underdark is and how depressing it must be to live there...only for the VITD crew to be like ‘…’ because, well, they live in a world with NO SUN” and “Smiler trying to get the Kuo-toa (fish people) of the Festering Grotto to worship Mar-Mal, only to run into some problems because what these little fuckers like is violence.” XD Need at least two more to make a proper Not-Incorrect quotes collection – we’ll see what I can come up with! Hopefully continuing to work on Tav!Smiler will provide some inspiration...

Writing: I wrote another page on “The Van Dort Vacancy” right after lunch – mostly because I already had the doc open from copying-and-pasting all the “outline” stuff at the top into that post I drafted on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) earlier. :P And while our gang of thieves managed to successfully sneak past all three “pressure plate” tiles hidden in the mosaic on the floor (with Victor spotting the third one near the end of the section and – after confirming Smiler saw it too – pointing it out to Kasimir, who led the way around it), poor Kasimir caught his toe in one of the cracks between the tiles and landed heavily on his bad knee, despite Smiler’s efforts to catch him. Poor guy was in quite a bit of pain, as you might imagine! *grimace* Barnaby of course immediately offered him the bottle of gin, because to Barnaby alcohol is the solution to all of life’s problems. XD While he was bantering with Alice about his drinking habits, though, Victor warned everyone that they might want to keep it down. Barnaby was like “those guards aren’t waking up anytime soon,” with Kasimir adding they hadn’t heard anyone discover them either, but Victor explained that it wasn’t the guards outside he was worried about –

Just in time for a hull (steampunk robot powered by a ghost) carrying two slugger rifles (from the preview to the Deep Cuts expansion – guns that shoot blasts of concussive force designed to bust bones, not directly kill) to emerge from a hidden compartment in the wall further down the hallway, declaring “intruuuders...deteeeected…” So yeah, now the group has to figure out a way past Slugs, the Van Dorts’ mechanical vault guard! Fortunately, as Smiler will quickly realize tomorrow, they have an advantage in that they have a Van Dort with them, and Slugs should take orders from Victor...

BG3 Tav!Smiler Master Doc Updates: I didn’t actually make any updates to the doc today – busy doing other things, like working on “The Van Dort Vacancy” – but I did make some progress on actually getting back to Baldur’s Gate III itself today! Namely, I did a clean uninstall and reinstall of the game (following some instructions I found online) to make sure I was starting from a clean slate – no leftover nonsense from mods or any of that. Verified the game files, popped open the launcher and made sure I was logged into my Larian account, and booted up the game to make sure everything was running correctly this evening – so far, everything seems to be golden. So tomorrow, hopefully I can install my chosen mods and at least get through character creation to bring my new BardLock Smiler to life! Be nice to actually play the game again!

Workout/YouTube: Sunday has rolled around again, and with it, the latest episode of F:NV YOLO Remastered from Jon of Many A True Nerd: “Fallout New Vegas: You Only Live Once Remastered - Part 5 - Flight Risk!” Featuring the continuing adventures of P. D. Shoot, our favorite baseball-bat-wielding courier, as she wandered the area around Novac and:

A) Took a moment to do Boone’s companion quest, “One For My Baby!” Not because she wanted him as a companion – she’s actually not allowed to have any regular companions under YOLO rules, only quest-necessary ones like ED-E – but because she wanted the reward he would give her for it. So she headed up to his dinosaur statue perch to hear his tale of woe regarding his wife, Carla, who was kidnapped by the Legion when he was on watch one night, and how he wanted revenge against the person who set it all up; promised to help him and headed straight into the nearby hotel that gives Novac its name (from the lit letters on a broken “No Vacancy” sign, get it?) to look for evidence as to who the guilty party was; cracked open a floor safe behind the front counter to find a bill of sale stating that one of the workers there, Jeannie May Crawford had sold Carla and her unborn child to the Legion for thousands of caps; ran over to Jeannie’s house, woke her up, and said she had something to show her in front of the dinosaur, signaling to Boone once Jeannie was in position so he could shoot her straight through the head; then reported back to Boone to tell him what she’d found and receive in return his gratitude, 100 caps, some XP –

And, most importantly, the 1st Recon Beret! A fancy hat much like Boone’s own special headgear that not only adds +1 to Perception, but also +5 to crit chance! Which P. D., who specializes in sneak attack Grand Slams on her enemies, could use. So yeah – all the love to the awesome cowboy vibes of the Desperado hat, but the 1st Recon Beret will probably be P. D.’s day-to-day headwear going forward!

B) Prepared to visit the REPCONN Facility to the west to complete the quest “Come Fly With Me!” Which mainly involved using Jon’s knowledge of what items she’d actually need to complete said quest to get the necessary components early and stop her having to go back and forth from REPCONN to Novac and back again through ghoul territory. Because no one wants a repeat of the Clown Ghoul Ass Slap incident from the Fallout 4 YOLO. XD And thus, before setting out on her journey, she made sure to pick up:

I. Five rocket souvenir toys out of a closet in the “souvenir shop” area of the hotel, right inside the T-Rex statue (after making sure to put on her anti-rads breathing mask and do some Rad-X to better resist the radiation in there, and after Jon rambled on a bit about how he was pretty sure dipping into “Lonesome Road” earlier was supposed to clear his rads, but apparently had not (which, why are you complaining, Jon, you didn’t WANT it to clear your rads in the first place, that’s not how YOLO runs work)), along with That Gun to sell later – she nearly got caught by Boone coming in, having just ended his watch shift, but fortunately the rockets and the gun were already in her possession before he phased through the door

II. And a set of “thrust control modules” stolen from Gibson Scrap Yard, owned by Old Lady Gibson – P. D. did actually try to buy them from her first, but – given the quest hadn’t actually been started yet – they weren’t in her inventory. So P. D. instead wandered into her house, slipped past her guard dogs, and busted open the box they were in to claim them before quietly wandering out again. Very lucky that Old Lady Gibson didn’t object to her going into her home to have a look around – and that her guard dogs were too busy getting stuck on furniture to raise the alarm! XD

C) Sneaked her way over and into the REPCONN Facility with the help of one of her precious Stealth Boys (John using the in-game clock to time how long the stealth field lasted), managing to get past the Glowing One in the checkpoint and the regular ferals milling around the front entrance without any trouble, and through the few ferals inside that she had to kill with only minor issues (there was one instance where it looked like a feral had sort of made her – at least, it had figured out SOMETHING had killed its fellow feral nearby – but it lost interest right as she was pulling out the 9 Iron to knock it over, allowing her to invisibly Grand Slam its ass like all the others XD)

D) Worked her way up to the top of the facility, where she met with Chris Haversam, a grumpy, raspy-voiced human who called her incredibly ugly (gee, thanks, you’re no looker yourself Chris), and Jason Bright, a sane(ish) Glowing One who wanted to take his fellow ghouls (and Chris) to the “Far Beyond” in a rocket. (What the “Far Beyond” was was never explained – presumably space? As per Jon later, one of the Novac citizens thinks the group was trying to get to the Moon…) He asked for P. D.’s help in getting them started on their “Great Journey,” which started a bit of a “chain of deals” for P. D. to complete:

I. First, Jason asked P. D. to clear the “demons” – aka Nightkin, a variant on Super Mutants who have blue-grey skin and who like wandering around invisibly with Stealth Boys – out of the basement so he and his could get back down there and continue their preparations. P. D. said “sure,” took the basement key, and headed downstairs, popping another of her own Stealth Boys to sneak past any Nightkin wandering around invisibly themselves before finding their leader, Davison (and his imaginary friend “Antler”) to see if they could be convinced to leave peacefully.

II. Then, after confirming to Davison she was not an assassin, and had been sent on behalf of the ghouls upstairs, Davison sent her to deal with a ghoul named Harland, who was holed up in the subbasement and giving them trouble (as per the wiki, they were looking for Stealth Boys on the premises, as apparently a large shipment came there at one point, and Harland was preventing them searching the room). P. D. said “sure,” took the subbasement key, and headed over to Harland’s door to see if he could be convinced to leave peacefully, keeping a close eye on her Stealth Boy timer all the while.

III. Then, after surprising Harland up on his sniping spot by NOT being a Nightkin come to kill him, Harland asked P. D. (off-screen, Jon quickly summarized what his quest entailed for us) to find a friend of his and confirm if they were still alive or not – once he got the news, he’d leave. P. D. said “sure” –

And then, because going to find Harland’s friend involves a difficult and dangerous trek through the basement around all the invisible Nightkin, she instead very carefully made her way over to the stairs up to Harland, waited until he calmed down from hearing footsteps nearby, then Grand Slammed him all the way to the Great Beyond (not to be confused with the “Far Beyond”). Sorry Harland – there were only so many deals she was prepared to accept in this chain! XD

IV. Then, after taking care of Harland, she looted his corpse and checked the computer upstairs to find some entries detailing how a shipment of Stealth Boys was sent to REPCONN...and then shipped back because they weren’t supposed to have them. P. D. promptly brought this news back to Davison, who, after a quick chat with Antler, said that he and his Nightkin would leave to find the Stealth Boys elsewhere. Making P. D. very happy because she knew through Jon that there were a few hidden in the building by employees who had been very reluctant to give up their new toys, and now she could steal them all. XD (Hell, she was able to straight up grab one lying on a table in the canteen area right after telling Davison there were none around! Though maybe that was one of the Nightkin’s own ones – either way, it’s P. D.’s now!)

V. And finally, she returned to Jason and let him know that the “demons” in the basement were gone, causing him and his friends (the “Bright Brotherhood” as per the wiki/the name on their outfits) to rush down there to prepare for their launch! Yay! Everyone got what they wanted except for Harland! XD

E) Followed Jason, Chris, and the other “Bright Brotherhood” members deep into the basement, through the many inexplicable long corridors down there (Jon noted that apparently this location and quest were some of the first worked on for New Vegas, so I guess it makes sense that the level design is a bit janky), where picked up her first reward for doing this quest – the Space Suit and Space Suit Helmet sitting on some nearby shelves! Why did she want this outfit so much? Well, because the Space Suit not only had +40 rad resistance, but it also had a great DT-to-weight ratio – giving her 10 points of Damage Threshold (aka damage straight up removed from any attack coming her way) for only seven pounds of weight (meaning it was perfect for sneaking around in). Plus it was the same red as the 1st Recon Beret she received from Boone, meaning it was absolutely perfect to become her day-to-day armor! :D Meanwhile, the helmet, despite being a big glass bubble with a spike at the top, had a solid 4 DT, meaning that when paired with the Riot Gear, she was very well protected with a DT of about 23! Granted, the combination looked absolutely ridiculous, unlike the Beret and Space Suit, but P. D. can’t be that picky about her fashion choices here. XD

F) Helped the Bright Brotherhood finally get on their way by giving Chris, who was in charge of getting the rockets working, the rocket souvenir toys (which contained Isotope-239, aka the exact isotope the rockets needed for their fuel) and the thrust control modules, then heading up to the balcony with the navigation and launch controls and pulling the lever to open up the silo and launch the rockets! One of them went off a little crooked, but they all launched successfully in the end, sending the Bright Brotherhood on their way to the Far Beyond –

And sending P. D. to level 6! She promptly upped her Unarmed, Speech, and Melee skills with her 17 skill points, and grabbed the “Toughness” perk to give herself a permanent +3 to her Damage Threshold. Anything that reduces any incoming damage is something she has to have!

G) Looted the facility once everyone was gone, taking weapons and ammo off dead ghouls to sell later (Jon was very pleased to find a few of them carrying valuable plasma weaponry), and making sure to get up to the CEO’s office to crack his safe and get the two hidden Stealth Boys out of there. And let me tell you, this was a very productive trip for her when it came to snagging Stealth Boys – she started out with four, spent two to safely get to and around the facility – and ended up finding eight on her travels (including three on Nightkin corpses), bringing her total spare Stealth Boys up to ten! Jon was absolutely thrilled – the whole reason he sent P. D. here was to get some more Stealth Boys (figuring she needed them after popping one at during the trip to Novac probably saved her life from the Nightstalkers that were running around), and she got even more than he was hoping for! So now she is WELL equipped for any future dangerous missions!

And so the episode ended with P. D., flush with victory, sneaking out the side door to a spot where the ghouls wandering around couldn’t see her and fast-traveling back to Novac before she was spotted. Because she wasn’t wasting one of her hard-won Stealth Boys on THOSE assholes. XD Next week, she may be going to check out Helios One (because she now has enough spare Stealth Boys to survive that dangerous place), and will be tracking down a certain minor character in Novac (because Jon says that whoever they are, they may be critical for the run continuing). Looking forward to that! :)

Other: Deciding that today was the day to uninstall and reinstall BG3 also made me realize that I should do make some back-ups beforehand – so that’s exactly what I did, getting out the old portable hard drive and backing up everything that’s most important to me. :) I was definitely due for one, so I’m glad trying to get Tav!Smiler back up and running is what kicked my ass into doing it!

Not bad, not bad. Certainly glad to have made a start on actually playing Baldur's Gate III again, yay~ But now it is time for me to go to bed and hopefully get some decent sleep (managed six hours last night, which is better than five, at least). Tomorrow's plans include working some more on my Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) drafts; working some more on "The Van Dort Vacancy;" seeing if I can at least get through character creation in BG3 for my new BardLock Smiler, as previously stated; and getting in a workout, starting the final episode of Oxventure Wyrdwood Season One! Hopefully all achievable goals -- night all!

Yes, despite getting almost eight full hours of sleep last night for a change, I still had a few moments of fairly unpleasant tiredness -- mostly during the afternoon as I struggled a bit with figuring out how to word things in the old write-up. I blame PMS, which is now in full swing -- body keeps giving me fake-outs regarding my period starting, and I am quite annoyed by them. >( Just -- I wish the stupid thing would come already and get it over with. I know it would be early, but that means it would be early NEXT month too, and I wouldn't have to worry about it on vacation...

Well, despite the PMS and the brain-foggy moments, I still had a pretty decent day -- no croquet (my parents never got a chance to set it up, and it ended up being too hot this afternoon anyway), but I got plenty of stuff done online --

Tumblr: Managed to get some stuff done on both blogs, go me –

Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – I got a few very important things done over here during the course of the day –

A) Started things off by figuring out my Song Saturday post – a reblog of my post featuring Rachel Platten’s “Stand By You!” A very nice, hopeful song about how the singer is gonna stand by their loved one no matter what, as per this bit in the chorus: “Even if we can’t find Heaven/I’ll walk through Hell with you/Looooove you’re not alone/‘Cause I’m gonna stand by you” :) I found it while looking through my “#song saturday” tag for inspiration, and after relistening to it, said to myself, “Yeah, I can see this having Valicer vibes – especially the stuff about ‘and love if your wings are broken/borrow mine so yours can open too,’ since that definitely seems to be the mood Smiler brings to the OT3!” So I reblogged it into my queue for tomorrow. Yay! :) (Granted, I did also get a “passage of time” gut-punch from realizing the original post was nine years old, and the song itself almost ten – it released 9/11/2015 – but that’s just the way of things these days.)

B) Then I headed into my drafts and wrote up a post about a recent revelation I had after going through tumblr user thestuffedalligator’s “#discworld” tag on my lunch break at work recently and seeing some stuff about my favorite Discworld book, Going Postal, and my favorite Discworld character, Moist von Lipwig – namely, that I think some of Moist’s personality – in particular, his ability to make himself charming and likable to just about everyone he meets, and to take charge of a situation with a smile – ended up in Smiler. XD Look, it’s been a while since I READ Going Postal, so it’s not surprising that it took me a while to make the connection! Even if Moist is the man in the golden suit. But yes, it seems that my beloved Smiler has a little bit of Moist in them. At least I’ve made them a bit more ethical than Moist was at the beginning of his first book!

C) And then I realized that, having noted thestuffedalligator’s “#discworld” tag as the catalyst to me figuring out the Moist von Lipwig-Smiler Alton connection, I should probably, you know, reblog some of the Going Postal-related stuff on their blog. XD So that’s what I did, adding to my drafts:

I. A piece of thestuffedalligator’s own Moist fanart, a watercolor piece depicting him from the waist-up in the famous golden suit and winged hat, running out of what looked to be a cloud of smoke and flame with a letter in his hand, with “Always move fast” written under it in gold (it was done really well and I liked it a lot)

II. Some Moist fanart originally drawn and posted by littlesmartart, featuring Moist either saying or being subject to a bunch of famous John Mulaney quotes – like declaring “my wife is a bitch and I like her so much” about Adora Belle Dearheart, or being told by Vetinari “you have the moral backbone of a chocolate eclair” (John Mulaney may now no longer be a tumblr darling, but those quotes are still gold and they all fit Moist so well XD – plus the art style was great, littlesmartart NAILED all the character designs :D)

III. And a more serious post originally by joaniam, talking about how important Going Postal is, because it’s a book whose plot analyzes and showcases the problems of modern capitalism in its ongoing struggle between Moist (Postmaster, very successful small-time conman) and Reacher Gilt (owner of the Grand Trunk clacks system, THE conman, who is the distilled essence of a business owner who does not care about the business, only what it can bring him), specifically citing how, 16 years after publication (the post was originally written in 2020), you can read the book and look at all the problems with the Grand Trunk clacks company (towers being run literally into the ground, a board of directors quietly embezzling everything they can, and an owner who can double-talk his way out of anything) and be like “I can name at least one real-world company that was run/is being run the same way” (because yes, while I understand why everyone on tumblr loves Night Watch in particular, Going Postal needs more love as it is so fucking relevant to our modern world – I took the opportunity to ramble on in the tags about the scene where Reacher Gilt double-talks the head of maintenance for the towers into working with about a quarter of what he asked for to keep everything up and running (when it what it really needs is a total shutdown and refurbish), then chats with his Igor about his plans and how everyone around him must be mad because he SHOWS them what he does and they just smile and nudge each other...all while Igor thinks about quitting and going back to the mountains, because there the monsters had the decency to LOOK like monsters. Tell me that sort of thing does NOT feel relevant in the Age of Enshittification!)

So yeah – feeling good about what I accomplished here! ...even if there was an extra-long break near the end where I reread a few good chunks of Going Postal looking for exactly what happened in the scene I was rambling about in the tags in that last drafted reblog. XD What can I say, it’s a really good book and I should reread it properly.

Valice Multiverse – And then, over here, I managed to stick in my queue tonight an answer to that ask that came in last-minute yesterday and that I was too tired to answer then – which was an anon stating simply “The only World Peace we will truly get is the kind you Rest In.” :( I had my Valicer In The Dark!Smiler respond, telling the anon not to be so negative and that humans could be as kind and loving as they were nasty and cruel, and that they knew peace was possible if everyone kept working toward maximum happiness –

And then VITD!Alice popped her head in to say “Or let your god turn everyone into smiling vegetables?” XD Poor Smiler was like “I have told you multiple times we’re working on that!” XD I dunno – while my cynical ass agrees that the anon’s probably right, I just really wanted to do something that might get a chuckle out of them. I’m glad Smiler’s still capable of being optimistic about human nature, even if I’m not!

BG3 Tav!Smiler Master Doc Updates: While I spent more of the afternoon dealing with PMS-induced brain-haze than I’d like, I did actually get something done over here – mainly, make some serious progress getting my list of mods that I’ll be using in my This Is It Hopefully For Real playthrough sorted! The “Appearance” and “Bugfixing” sections are both complete, and the “Utility” section almost complete – though I did discover while checking on all the mods from my previous list that “Better Inventory UI” and “Better Tooltips” still require “ImpUI” be installed...and since that mod is no longer maintained, I didn’t really want it in my game. So I’ve had to dump both of those from the list, meeh. They were useful! >( Fortunately, I found a mod for “smart containers” (aka containers that automatically store things of a particular type in them when you pick those things up) during my search for the other mods that should do some of the work that “Better Inventory UI” did (by sorting everything into the correct container automatically and thus letting me see what’s what by what container it’s in), so that’s all right. Nothing I can do about the tooltips, though. :( Ah well. Tomorrow, hopefully I can get the remaining mods I have in my list sorted out, and then MAYBE figure out the damn “what should Smiler’s background be” question once and for all! Fingers crossed!

Workout: My final night on the bike this week saw me pedaling through the following:

A) “10 Times The Sims 4 Sparked CONTROVERSY!” by onlyabidoang! Which released earlier today as per my Recommendeds, and which I immediately added to my Watch Later for workout purposes, since I don’t want to start the Oxventure Wyrdwood Season 1 finale until next week. XD Anyway, this video featured Abi talking about ten controversies that have popped up over the eleven years that The Sims 4 has existed, and included incidents like:

I. The base game’s feature-poor release, which didn’t include ghosts, swimming pools, toddlers, burglars, or a color wheel, but did include a weird monochrome map screen with the neighborhoods only appearing in color if you hovered your mouse over them (most of these things have been fixed over the years, if very slowly in some cases (we only JUST got burglars back) – and we STILL don’t have a color wheel that you can use with hair, clothes, or furniture)

II. Eco Lifestyle’s first trailer getting a pretty poor reception, as people didn’t think it looked like it would make a good expansion, or thought was too similar in theme to Island Living’s conservation aspect, or – as per the comments – were pretty disappointed it wasn’t a farming pack (it ended up winning back at least some of the crowd with some interesting gameplay ideas, though I think we can all agree Neighborhood Action Plans should have been implemented differently – and I’m still not sure why, for this one pack, they went with Lifestyle over Living. Just weird!)

III. Their attempt to get us to buy DLC for a DLC by releasing My First Pet Stuff not long after Cats & Dogs, and including in that pack not only a whole bunch of pet clothes for cats and dogs (which didn’t even appear if you didn’t own the pack, naturally) but furniture items that clearly went with the sets included in C&D (people were rightfully livid, and the trailer apparently got so many nasty comments EA set it to “private” on their channel – also, this is the one pack that James Turner REFUSES to even have in his game unless he’s doing a challenge where he HAS to, and, as per the next entry, he can be pretty forgiving regarding a pack’s flaws)

IV. The reveal of Star Wars: Journey To Batuu, the infamous branded pack that nobody asked for and nobody, Sims 4 fans and Star Wars fans alike, wanted – especially after it was released and those who did try it found it to be an incredibly shallow experience (I have joked in the past that exactly one person likes this pack – James Turner – and even he is more into it for the Build/Buy stuff than the actual gameplay)

V. And, of course, the even more infamous release of My Wedding Stories, aka The Pack That Was Released Broken and basically ruined weddings in the game (we all knew it was going to be bad when the Gurus couldn’t get it to function properly during their own livestream right before release! This disaster nearly put me off buying Sims 4 packs for good, honestly – only the fact that Werewolves was an actual good pack released in workable condition kept me willing to try their products!)

Yeaaah – been some pretty bad moments over The Sims 4’s history! And the comments on the video were already filling up with suggestions for a Part 2, like how poorly certain occults (namely aliens, mermaids, and PlantSims) have been treated; the poor reception to the Moschino Stuff pack when it was first announced/released (everyone was very confused when it actually had some good stuff included); and – from my own comment – how Island Living was eagerly anticipated, only to prove one of the emptier expansion packs. We’ll see what happens, but Abi DEFINITELY should have enough material for a sequel!

B) “INSANE COMBO! Warlock Class Guide For Baldur's Gate 3! - (Baldurs Gate 3 Warlock Build Guide)” by NorZZa! A guide on how to play a Warlock in BG3 that I mainly watched just to fill in the time I had left after Abi’s video. Featured:

I. A very amusing beginning where NorZZa essentially said “just spam Eldritch Blast and Hex people occasionally, okay bye” XD

II. Some basics on how a warlock works as a spellcaster (very few spell slots, but they refresh on a short rest, so you definitely want to make sure you get those in after your battles to get the most out of the pact magic)

III. Recommendations on what to pick regarding subclasses (Fiend for temporary hit points whenever you kill something, or Great Old One for terrifying nearby enemies if you score a critical hit on one of them), pact boons (Pact of the Tome just for access to the Guidance spell, which lets you add a D4 to any ability check roll), and eldritch invocations (Agonizing Blast to add your Charisma modifier to your Eldritch Blast’s damage; Repelling Blast to make it push enemies away; and Devil’s Sight to give yourself the ability to see in all darkness regular and magical)

IV. And the best spells and cantrips to pick for your warlock (Eldritch Blast, Hex, and Misty Step, okay bye XD)

Nothing too groundbreaking, but it was fun to watch and got me through the end of my workout. :)

YouTube: I got to it late, but I got to it – tonight I finished off catching up on my OXBoxtra lists with “7 Murdery Games You Can Complete Without Killing Anyone: Commenter Edition!” Mike, Jane, and Andy talking about more games that, despite pushing you toward murdering all those in your path, CAN be completed without you personally getting your hands dirty, as inspired by the top comments on the last video they did on this subject! Ranging from the Hitman: World of Assassination series’ letting you engineer accident kills or manipulate other people into doing the killing for you (which does feel like you’re putting a rather big asterisk next to the “Pacifist” in “Pacifist Run”); to Watch Dogs 2 making a nonlethal run possible, just very very difficult (thanks to the guards waking up on their own after a set amount of time rather than just staying knocked out – WD2, don’t you know that’s illegal in a stealth game?), to Postal 2 not actually requiring you to engage in any violence whatsoever during the game’s missions, meaning this game famous for being breathtakingly violent can be completed without harming anyone at all (though, given that it is Postal 2, the achievement you get for it is called “Anustart”). Bottom line, more games than you think can be completed without murdering a single person! You may not want to complete them like that, given how hard it is for some of them, but the option is there. XD

And because my brain is having trouble concentrating, I have officially stayed up too late. :P To be fair, I was looking at old Chill Valicer Save posts and reminiscing...I miss my Valicer trio on that game. :( I gotta get the Teen Valicer save up and running sooner rather than later, meeh. But for now, I gotta get to bed -- tomorrow I hope to answer all of Moose's messages; see what I can do on tumblr; keep working on the Tav!Smiler stuff; and maybe watch one of Proxy Gate Tactician's other videos -- still behind on all of his challenge runs, after all! We'll see how much of this I actually accomplish -- night all!

As my write-up for the day should make abundantly clear --

Work – Very quiet day to end out my short work week – my director was out sick today, and with the assistant director out on vacation this week, that meant it was just me and my coworker there today. We ended up working on a spreadsheet together once she’d done the GL and I’d pulled the morning credit card reports and done some obituaries, looking at donors who were potential duplicates on the system and determining if they needed to be merged or not. Only phone call I took all day was from a donor I called yesterday about a failing credit card, and after a bit of struggle I was able to update her card and stop it constantly throwing “Security Denials” (turned out the expiration date was wrong). *shrug* Honestly, I’ll take it – after Monday and Tuesday were so annoying, it was nice to have a quiet day! And now I have a five-day weekend, yay~ Looking forward to it!

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – after confirming with Mom that, yes, tomorrow’s adventures should constitute a workout in and of themselves, so I shouldn’t worry about doing an “official” one, tonight’s stationary-bike-riding videos consisted of:

A) The last twelve or so minutes of “Oxventure D&D: Wyrdwood | Chapter 7: Friends & Falsehoods - Part 1!” Which featured:

I. Happen managing, after a false start, to clamber up and out of the hole he made in The Superior’s roof, slip back down unnoticed, get his hood back into place, and finally rejoin the others with his hand tucked into his robes Napoleon-style because his encounter with Beatrice made him realize, oh yeah, that tattoo makes him highly identifiable. XD Better late than never?

II. The gang heading to the dining hall (with Morven dispelling her Minor Illusion on her hood and returning it to the initiate blue once no one was looking – Johnny had a very “damn it, I was hoping Andy would forget” look on their face XD), and discovering that, one, all of the tables were arranged so everyone sat in concentric rings around a central table for The Superior, with everyone sitting on the inside edge so they would be facing the next ring’s backs and thus avoid seeing their faces, meaning everyone could eat together while maintaining the cult’s rules (Luke was like “why have real restaurants not implemented this?!” XD) –

And two, as the initiates, it was their job to serve everyone the evening meal. Which was, you guessed it, stew and bread. XD Cressida was fuming, both because she had to call everyone “superior” as she served them and because she already hated soup and here was yet more of it. (Well, STEW technically, but I don’t think she particularly cared about the distinction. XD) Jokes were made about how before now the only ladle she’d ever touched was a punch ladle, with Johnny teasing that that was the thing she used to beat people who were behind on their payments. XD But she did her duty (very grumpily), and so did the others, and eventually everyone was served, yay. Leading to –

III. Johnny having everyone roll Charisma/Performance to eat their meals and saying “just don’t biff it” – only for everyone but Morven to totally biff it. XD Johnny described it as the others having real trouble figuring out how to get the food to their mouths given the tunnel of stiffened cloth protruding from their faces, and thus getting food all over themselves. Not a great look in front of the others – especially not The Superior, who we learned was NOT Beatrice! Beatrice’s black hood actually marked her as a SECOND-in-command – the actual The Superior’s hood, when they showed up, was white. Fortunately they didn’t notice the messy initiates – instead, the job of scolding our heroes for getting food all over themselves went to the red-hooded woman who met them at the gate. Willowfine attempted to bow her head in shame, only for stew to start pouring out of her woven faceplate. XD The woman then informed them that they had one last duty before they could retire – to clean the sacrificial chamber and prepare it for a sacrifice tomorrow. Lug was like “a sacrifice? Right after we showed up?” causing Happen to nudge him in a desperate “quit the backtalk” kind of way, then skitter away as the woman scolded our poor barbarian on how the work of the cult doesn’t stop for mere initiates. First time Happen’s want to get AWAY from Lug and his poor luck, I’m sure. XD

IV. The red-hooded woman thus leading everyone down to a secret room underneath one of the storage sheds, full of the scent of dried blood and decay, with strange arcane symbols on the wall and five plinths stretching up from the floor – plinths with corpses on them. Corpses that looked like they’d died in absolutely horrific pain. And as Lug quickly counted to make sure that the number of plinths exactly matched the number of people in their little party, Johnny revealed that some of the corpses looked at least vaguely familiar to the others – and confirmed, once Jane/Willowfine asked, that one was missing a hand… Yeaaaaah – think we found North Team. And the people who axed their copestone. D:

V. And the episode ending on the Rolling Rite, with Cressida picking up her first envelope, and poor Happen his second (the result of Luke rolling the die away from the edge of the tray when it initially stopped cocked – I don’t know how you TELL that on a D100, but okay then!).

So yeah – seems like the reason that red-hooded woman might have been happy to see them was because the cult needed fresh blood to SPILL, not take in. We’ll see how this all wraps up next week with the big season finale! SOMEONE is probably gonna get Sorcerous Bursted, that’s all I’m saying. :P

B) The entirety of “7 Incredibly Stressful Situations in Games That Will Take Years Off Your Life” by OXtra! Because I figured, if I couldn’t watch more Oxventure, I could at least work on getting yet more OXBoxtra list videos out of my Watch Later. :P This one featured Ellen and Jane talking about those ultra-stressful situations in video games that feel like they’re shortening your actual real-world lifespan, and featured such things like:

I. Trying to get all the loot you’ve collected over to the relevant quest-giver in Sea Of Thieves so you can level up and get all the fun bonuses, without falling victim to the other players in the game or to the various horrible tentacle monsters in the sea

II. Hiding from the Alien in Alien Isolation, which, thanks to various AI tricks, knows EXACTLY where you are and how best to terrify you as you hide under a desk sobbing

III. And, worst of all – TRYING TO WRANGLE YOUR FELLOW PLAYERS IN THE OVERCOOKED GAMES. Because at least in the other two cases, you were facing off against enemies – in THIS one, you’re being fucked over in the stressful cooperative cooking game by your supposed friends. As Ellen can attest to, it is rage-inducing. XD

So yeah – long story short, if you’re looking for stress relief, maybe don’t turn to video games. Or, at least, don’t turn to these video games in particular. :P

2. Continue editing “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – I wrapped up Alice’s meeting with LaCroix tonight, with –

A) LaCroix setting Alice the task of going to the Museum of Natural History and retrieving the Ankaran Sarcophagus for him so it would be safe under Camarilla protection! ...Tomorrow evening, because – as Alice pointed out when he started going on about how she needed to get it as soon as possible – it was almost dawn by the time she made it back to see him. XD He gave Alice the keys to the front door, told her that Mercurio would be waiting for her in the nearby parking garage with a truck to bring it back, and warned her not to kill the security staff – Alice was like “do I seem like the sort of person who just wants to randomly murder anyone in front of them?” and LaCroix was like “right now you do, yes.” XD (Alice quietly noted in her head “that’s because you’re in front of me” XD)

B) And Alice shaking down LaCroix for some cash after the hell she’d gone through, as she is his employee and he just said she was indispensable – and, to her mild surprise, getting it, as LaCroix handed over $300. Without even putting up much of a fuss. She really wasn’t expecting that, as she will elaborate on in tomorrow’s editing session!

Not bad, not bad at all. I left it on Alice walking out of LaCroix’s office, having stunk it up enough (probably literally). Tomorrow, the poor girl FINALLY makes it back to her apartment in Skyeline – and to a certain deeply-worried ghoul of hers...

3. Keep up with YouTube “Subs”: Check – as I watched my OXBoxtra list with my workout, I decided that my “official” YouTubery tonight would be another one of Proxy Gate Tactician’s videos instead – specifically, “Can you level 1-12 Without Leaving Baldur's Gate?” Yes, after seeing how much there is to do in Baldur’s Gate Lower City in Act 3, Proxy started wondering if it was possible to go from level 1 to level 12 (the normal max level in the game) in just that area. So, with the help of mods, he transported his level 1 ranger (and his pet cat summon) to the city, got rid of all his starting gear to accurately roleplay as a homeless fellow seeking his fortune, and began looking for ways to earn XP without ever leaving the region! Which involved:

I. Ranger (I don’t think we ever learned this character’s name) starting out slaying level 1 rats in the basement of the Elfsong Tavern

II. Ranger attempting to parley this money into becoming a thief, breaking into people’s houses to steal their shit – only to get near-immediately caught by the guards and thrown in jail. Lucky that he had a cat buddy to help distract them while he escaped

III. Ranger embarking on a quest to steal everything he could get his hands on and lie (well, “lie,” given he genuinely had no idea what most of these NPCs talking about “the Nightsong” and “the Absolute” were yammering on about) to a bunch of different NPCs to gain as much XP as he could

IV. Ranger getting some fancy threads from clothing merchant Figaro and then attempting a bank heist on the counting house – only to find that Minsc and his handlers had already beaten him to it, forcing him to pick off the assassins the guards couldn’t handle. Fortunately he got some extra-sneaky leather armor out of it, allowing him to be a Stealth Archer, the most broken of builds

V. Ranger realizing that the only truly viable career path in Baldur’s Gate was as a murderer for hire and thus making his bid to join the Unholy Assassins of Bhaal – after saving the life of Figaro because that guy really helped him clean himself up, you know? But he happily killed two of the other targets on the list he found (including his former boss the chef at the Elfsong), presented their hands to the tribunal, killed the weird flying elephant they presented to him as his final test, and officially became an Unholy Assassin

VI. Ranger then having second thoughts about the life he’d chosen and going to the House of Grief for counseling…only to find it was a front for a brainwashy cult and murdering everyone with the help of some barrels to create an impenetrable barrier in front of the door he kept hiding behind XD

VII. Ranger deciding that he might as well try to find those rapscallions who got away with the bank’s money before he could and tracking them down in the sewers, before finding a note on them that led him to the guild headquarters of the Thieves’ Guild, where he helped leader Nine-Fingers take down a potential usurper because Nine-Fingers had never tried to take his job or kill him

VIII. Ranger taking a moment to save poor Volo from being blown up, before heading to the Water Queen’s temple to see what was up there, leading to him avenging a recently-killed member by tracking down the asshole who ran her over with his submersible for the head priestess. Because, well, he is an assassin for hire :p

IX. Ranger taking a stroll through the park to enjoy the statuary – only to find a bunch of his fellow assassins hanging out and talking about killing civilians, prompting Ranger to kill them because he’s not into the murder hobo lifestyle

X. Ranger deciding to take out the Steel Watch Factory to destroy the emo lord Gortash’s mechanical guards and make it easier for him and his fellow criminals to exist on the streets – he was planning on saving the enslaved Gondians inside, but a fun new bug meant that he couldn’t turn off the “motivator” controlling their collars, and all their heads blew up. Ranger considered this an acceptable loss XD

XI. Ranger invading Cazador’s house and deciding to make up for not being able to save the Gondians by killing Cazador (after stealing Astarion’s corpse to shut down his ascension ritual) and setting free all the bloodthirsty vampire spawn trapped within, yay~

XII. Ranger tracking down a thief for a mummy trader in the city...only to learn that the “thief” was in fact an innocent man and instead taking out the trader and his mummy spawn (while the citizenry walked by like “ho hum, just another day”)

XIII. And finally, Ranger deciding that he wasn’t impressed with his fellow assassins and heading down into the depths of the Bhaal temple hidden under the city to slay them all, ending with Orin

All of which, yes, did indeed get him to level 12. XD Kind of by the skin of his teeth, but he did it! Proxy was very impressed – ESPECIALLY since it didn’t involve him having to resort to doing any murder hoboing! Just following as many quests as he could did the trick. Great stuff! I do like his challenge runs, he has very interesting ideas and makes playing them out VERY amusing. :P

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – just Victor Luvs Alice to worry about tonight, and I did figure out what I wanted to stick in my queue for Friday at least: Deals And Revelry! A story by “shady-tavern” about a woman who, after discovering a plot against herself and her parents by her future mother-in-law and escaping after being drugged, goes to the leader of the Revelry (a party street in her city), Quin, to make a devil’s deal with him because all she wants is to live...and ends up falling in love with him once he takes care of her little problem. It’s a somewhat dark fantasy romance, as Quin is a dangerous person who made a deal with an ancient god that turned him into something not exactly human that puts off most people...but the protagonist (never named because it’s a second-person story) doesn’t care. She loves him not despite his sharp edges, but BECAUSE of them. It’s sweet, in a faintly-twisted way. XD I quite like it, so I figured it was about time it got put on my blog! Now I just have to figure out Saturday, and I am set...

Yeah -- not a lot of stressful stuff happening today! I am very pleased. And now I should wrap things up and see about getting to bed, as while I don't have to get up SUPER early tomorrow, I do need to get up early enough to have breakfast and get dressed before we head out to the zoo and the botanical gardens and all that. I'll tell you all how that goes tomorrow! Night all!

Ended up having a stress dream/nightmare this morning about getting to work late (don't remember all of it, but I do remember looking at the clock and seeing it was 8:43 AM and realizing with a jolt I was supposed to be at work already), then got up to find Mom taking everything out of the pantry because, yup, THERE WERE MORE FUCKING ANTS. She then proceeded to spend most of the day cleaning, spraying, repainting, and putting down fresh contact paper in there in a desperate attempt to clear them out --

Only for another two to appear tonight. *heavy sigh* I just -- I don't know WHAT is going on with these fucking bugs. I've floated the idea of calling an exterminator, but Mom's certain that they wouldn't do anything to help, and I have no idea how to convince her otherwise. Just -- I am SO SICK of dealing with these little fuckers. They have cost me TWO boxes of cereal at this point, and all of our peace of mind. Just -- I'd really love to have TWO nice days in a row for once!

*shakehead* Anyway -- here's the daily write-up:

Work – Kind of an annoying day, though I suspect that was largely due to my own very cranky mood thanks to the one-two punch of the nightmare and the ants this morning. Basically, after the GL, it was all about catching up on the failed credit cards and taking calls from people trying to update their cards and make gifts and whatnot. With me playing phone tag with two callers in particular who called on Friday after we left, and then insisted on calling me back during my lunch break after I called them back. *sigh* Plus one lady deciding to call in and finish off her Capital Campaign pledge at the very end of the day...and a surprise thank-you QC file for me to do in the afternoon (fortunately it wasn’t too big, so I got through it pretty fast). Just – irritating, given the mood I was in. We’ll see if it’s any better tomorrow!

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with Oxventure as I started “Oxventure D&D: Wyrdwood | Chapter 7: Friends & Falsehoods - Part 1!” Today’s chunklet featured:

A) Morven immediately confronting the Poor Man about what the hell happened to her to put her into Robin’s body and what he knew about it – turned out he was not responsible for it, he’d just gotten an inkling that something interesting was going to happen at her burning and showed up to see what it was. He found the whole thing both quite amusing and quite fascinating, even if he didn’t know exactly what had happened! Morven was like “well, you want to know what happened, I want to know what happened, maybe we could work together and you could help me take over this idiot’s body or something.” The Poor Man was like, “we have to get Robin’s opinion on that first” and brought Robin out quickly with a snap of his fingers – Robin, naturally, objected to the plan during his brief moment conscious (earning his IMDB credit for the episode, as Luke joked), and Morven said “okay fine I’m willing to work with that – maybe we find a new body for me. Or for him! Let’s stick him in a sheep, they do all the same things he does – wander around, eat, and argue with dogs.” XD Poor Robin, Morven is so mean to him…

B) While all this was going on, Happen cast a spell to try and determine what exactly the Poor Man was. He was able to get that the man was fey, but also a placeholder of some kind? Johnny refused to elaborate beyond that. O.o Happen didn’t get much chance to mull on it, though, as casting a spell meant Luke had to open the envelope he got from last week’s Rolling Rite, and the effect this time was painfully and immediately negative – twenty points of radiant damage from the spell going off explosively in Happen’s face! D: Happen was of course knocked over – Morven looked at him on the ground and was like “you see what I’m working with here.” XD

C) The Poor Man revealing to the group that, if he’d done his “job” properly, they’d all be dead by now – Willowfine being like “what?!” before Lug reminded her that he’d been the one to save them from the dullahan just before they’d met the Green Man. The Poor Man explained that he found them all so interesting that he just had to save their skins – and that, despite warning Morven earlier that she was assuming a lot thinking he’d help (Morven protesting that that was why she was asking if he would), he was willing to aid them in their current quest, at least. If only because he really wanted to see what happened next! He thus cut them a deal – he would tell them where they needed to go next and provide some aid in the form of the costumes they needed to get around said place, and they would retrieve for him a certain amulet from the pile of “confiscated items” the people of said place had. There was a little bit of trouble with Happen, panicking over hearing a prophecy of the future, covering his ears so he wouldn’t know his fate and thus be tempted to change it (as that is VERY much against the teachings of Cadence), but once the others had heard what the Poor Man had to say and assured him it wasn’t a prophecy so much as just a task for them to accomplish, they all agreed to this bargain.

D) The Poor Man thus providing everyone with mysterious beekeeper-like outfits (Johnny had a miniature and everything – Luke commented that it looked like a Midsommer Big Daddy XD), the garb of the people who lived in the encampment they’d be coming across in about two miles. They were well-worn, with blue hoods and weird wicker meshing in front of their faces – the Poor Man warned them not to take them off, as seeing each other’s faces would be forbidden, and delightedly added that he’d gotten them the lowest-ranking hood color, so they’d better address everyone else as “Superior!” They were also quite dirty and smelled weird inside (Jane comparing them to the inside of a Disney mascot costume). Oh, and as Johnny explained a little bit later, they also came with magic-suppressing iron torque collars, only the Poor Man had made sure they were fake so they’d still have access to their spells. He took quite a lot of pleasure in watching Morven squirm about putting one on until that fact was revealed! Lug was like “could you at least pretend not to enjoy all this so much?” with Morven replying “I don’t think he could.” XD Anyway, Happen said that they should maybe try to undo the wicker a little bit on one side to help make sure they could spot members of the group in a crowd, which evolved into everyone making a mark on their mask somehow in a clockwise pattern so they could try and identify each other individually too (Cressida insisting she get the one o’clock position because she was the best XD). The group thus altered their masks, put on their costumes (Cressida only after hitting the inside with Prestidigitation, naturally), said farewell to the Poor Man (who was still deeply amused by everything), and set off!

E) Willowfine informing Morven as they set off that she hadn’t wanted to say anything in front of the Poor Man, but she and the others rather liked Robin and didn’t want to see Morven take over his body. After all, Robin was a lot kinder and didn’t ridicule them constantly! Morven protested that “I’m not RIDICULING, I’m pointing out your shortcomings so you can do something about them.” XD Happen backed Willowfine up about Robin being a good man, though, and Willowfine insisted they wouldn’t let Morven hijack his body. Morven was like “I’d like to see you stop me” (and as she has thirty freaking spells at her disposal, including the famous Sorcerous Burst, it probably would be a tough fight) but said that they could table the issue for now as currently their goals aligned, and the group agreed.

F) The group traveling along the road for a bit before seeing a sort of town in the distance, with simple mud-and-thatch houses surrounded by a big wooden gate – Cressida, with her half-elf eyes, could just about spot people in there, and something that MIGHT be a beehive, but she wasn’t sure. Morven used Gaseous Form to scout out the place while Cressida sat and thought about her life choices and Willowfine attempted to find bees they could bring to the camp as a cover story, only to be interrupted by Happen politely asking her help healing his shattered face. She accordingly yanked up his hood and fired Cure Wounds in there for 15 points of healing damage. XD Morven then came back and drew them all a crude map of the encampment (provided by Johnny), stating that she’d seen about a dozen people in brown and red robes milling about (though she hadn’t been able to determine which of the two were higher-ranked in the society they were entering, putting a damper on Lug’s plan to try and use mud to change the color of at least one of their hoods) and that there was indeed at least one beehive in the middle of the whole thing. This reignited Willowfine’s desire to find some bees, and she cast Locate Object to find some. The magical ping led her to a hive dangling from a tree, which Happen offered to shoot down – it was pointed out that this might anger the bees, but Happen said that was going to happen anyway, and Morven offered to cast Feather Fall on it so it didn’t come smashing down and make things worse. And so one excellent shot (from an inspiration-fueled reroll, because why not use your free point of inspiration per long rest on the bee-gathering sidequest? XD) and one well-cast spell later, the group had acquired a beehive with less-than-angry bees! And the players had acquired a cute story from Andy about how honey was Robin’s favorite food, after a harvest festival where he managed to get a taste finishing off someone else’s discarded honeycomb. It was honestly very sweet! Uh, no pun intended. XD

G) And, finally for this chunklet, the group approaching the encampment with beehive in tow (Plan B, as Morven called it, with Plan Other B being to start blasting since they still had their magic XD), and Lug calling as politely as he could for the “superiors” on the other side to open the gate. Which did happen, but only after a worryingly-long pause… I left it with the group being met at the newly-opened gate by a woman (or, at least, someone who had a feminine voice), one of the red-hooded members of the encampment, who called them “fresh blood” – tomorrow, we see what the deal is with the creepy beekeepers, and if Morven can keep herself from Sorcerous Bursting everyone and calling it a day. XD

2. Continue writing “The Van Dort Vacancy”: Check – today’s page was all about the group following Kasimir as he showed them how best to sneak down the hallway and avoid those tricksy little pressure plate tiles they’d found! Poor Victor was very nervous about doing it right, and almost took an unfortunate tumble when the toe of his shoe caught in a crack between two tiles – but fortunately Smiler was right at his back to catch him before he could topple over. And even more fortunately, after a check-in with Barnaby (who was like “this is murder on my thighs”) and Alice (who reported that Cheshire was making a game out of only stepping on the fish in the mosaic...and abusing his power to become merely eyes and smile to get over large gaps), Victor turned back to the front – and spotted a little black tile poking up a tiny bit above the best. I left it with him getting Smiler’s opinion on if they thought that might be the final tile – next time, he warns Kasimir to avoid it, and the group makes it through the danger zone! ...though, again, not without Kasimir tripping and falling over. Because the poor bastard rolled a 3 as his highest result on the Prowl group action and thus must suffer the consequences. :P

3. Keep up with YouTube “Subs”: Check – managed to get in one video and one Short tonight –

A) First, I continued my quest to chip away at the OXBoxtra lists sitting in my Watch Later tonight by viewing “7 Stupidest Armour Sets That Could in No Way Protect You!” Ellen and Jane going through a set of ridiculous armor sets and outfits that should make it very easy for the enemy to murder you, NOT offer amazing bonuses! The Mushroom Set from Elden Ring, that makes you appear as a walking pile of fungus? Best immunity in the game to poisons and the dreaded Scarlet Rot! The Bare Chested And Oiled legendary torso armor from Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey that basically gives you a couple of pieces of cloth to wrap around your naughty bits and a bucket of baby oil? +9% “warrior damage,” whatever that is, and +10% elemental build-up! AND if you get covered in black oil from smashing pots while wearing it, that’s a +500% damage boost! The Chicken Hat from Resident Evil 4 Remake that plops a rubbery chicken head on Leon’s head? Significantly reduces all damage from enemies! At least that one has the metatextual excuse that the game is calling you a chicken...which is undercut by the fact that the hat is only unlocked once you complete a Hardcore game in under five-and-a-half hours while getting S+ rank. Mixed messages, RE4R! But yes, video games do love making absolutely ridiculous things absolutely amazing armor. I am looking forward to the commenter’s edition of this one. XD

B) And second, I couldn’t resist checking out this Short that was sitting in the sidebar next to the video: “How to Save Squire And Have Him Join You in #bg3 #baldursgate3 #baldursgate” by Toyhouze! A clip out of one of his longer videos that details how to avoid having to fight Squire, Ketheric Thorm’s loyal skeletal warhound and one of the many good boys in BG3. Basically, Squire will show up as part of the initial battle against Ketheric atop his tower UNLESS you find him earlier during your explorations (he’s hanging out in Ketheric’s room, unsurprisingly), chat with him (either figuratively or literally, depending on if you’ve got Speak With Animals), and pass one of three checks to make him friendly and thus disinclined to hurt you. If you do this, he won’t show up during the fight. And, if you’re an Oathbreaker Paladin and at least Level 6, you can also use Control Undead on him to get him to fight on YOUR side! Turns out he has an extra attack and a nasty bite, but – unsurprisingly – pretty low hit points. So yeah – if you want to save the undead pupper, make sure you find him BEFORE any boss battles kick off!

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Usual Monday N/A – had no idea what I wanted to do, if anything, on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) tonight. Like, I know I need a Friday post for my queue, but I’m not sure what it should be. Meeeh – maybe tomorrow I’ll have some inspiration. (And if not, I’ve got plenty of one-off shit in my drafts.)

Yeah, pretty typical Monday, all told. And now it's time for me to head to bed. Fingers crossed I don't wake up having had another stress nightmare...night all!

I went to bed at around 1:40 AM this morning, expecting to wake up at like 9 AM or so as I usually do...only to open my eyes this morning, look at the clock, and see it was 9:55 AM. *facepalm* Of course -- on the Cleaning Saturday, when I don't really want to sleep in, I of course sleep in. And then a lot of the rest of the rest of the day was kind of stressful for one reason or another --

A) My eye was still tender and sore this morning from whatever was irritating it (though it's gotten a lot better since then, fortunately)

B) Mom spent most of the morning pulling apart the kitchen, cleaning everything and spraying behind the fridge and whatnot, because we keep finding ants in there AND WE DON’T KNOW WHY. We CANNOT figure out where the fuck they’re coming from. And even WITH everything she did today, when she and Dad went off to get rid of some old books and pick up some groceries this afternoon, right after they left, I saw an ant on the frame of the back door. *heavy sigh* Just the one, but fucking hell. Every bit of food at this point is in a sealed plastic container or can, so – I don’t even know. Ugh. Absolutely fucking ridiculous.

C) We had a scare this afternoon with my parents' printer (which they need for their online business) not working -- turns out that at some point during the morning cleaning, a circuit breaker got tripped for the outlet it was plugged into. No, none of us could figure out how or why. It is working now, but it was a Bad Moment.

D) During all this, Mom did some laundry, which meant I kept getting interrupted in what I was doing by laundry-based tasks. Like, I'm happy to help, but it was kind of annoying to walk into the kitchen looking for a snack this afternoon and get immediately asked "hey, can you go move the colored load from the washer to the dryer, I totally forgot." Meh

E) And of course there was the usual amount of "hey, look at all this absolute bullshit happening in the news" on tumblr, which -- yeah. Never helps my mood.

Yeaaaah -- not the worst Saturday, but definitely NOT one of the best. *sigh* Despite that, though, I still managed to accomplish some stuff --

Cleaning: Welp, as stated above, I woke up later than I intended, so I got to this later than I intended, starting just before 11 AM – and despite listening to an indie/alternative rock playlist rather than an Oxventure episode of any description, I STILL didn’t finish the whole round of dusting, Swiffering, and vacuuming until 2 PM. Granted, I did end up taking a little extra time to dust behind some stuff I hadn’t dusted behind in a while, and did get slightly distracted at one point when the playlist strung three songs I really like together in a row, but – still. I’m thinking that cleaning’s just gonna take roughly three hours (give or take a half-hour, especially if laundry is involved – no blankets or bathrobe this week, but I did throw my sheets and pajamas into the family load) and I’m just going to have to live with that. Though, hilariously, despite my late start and late finish, I still ended up finishing before lunch because of Mom's efforts to rid the kitchen of ants. Figures, right? Meeeh.

Sims 4: Despite my long cleaning session and subsequent late lunch, I did pop in here for another Offline Building Session on Smiler’s Potion Caravan. And I even managed to make some progress on it! Here’s what I accomplished today:

( Under here because this entry's long enough )

Writing: Got another page done on “The Van Dort Vacancy” – Steven and Alan were successfully drugged, but unfortunately Steven – who worked on the equivalent of the drug squad in the Bluecoats before taking the Van Dort guard job – recognized the taste of slumber essence in the gin and started calling for help while Alan tried to stumble off. Smiler managed to shut Steven up with a hand over his mouth, and both men collapsed unconscious soon after, but – not the neatest start to the heist! No matter what Barnaby said. XD There was some talk about trying to hide them, but Kasimir didn’t think they had the time – and Victor backed him up, explaining that they weren’t quite at the vault yet, but instead about to enter the trap-filled hallway that led to the vault. And no, he didn’t know how to turn off the traps – he’d never been down here except when the traps had already been turned off – but he knew what and where they were, at least. As Kasimir said, “Good enough.” XD Tomorrow, Victor gets them past the first trap – a tripwire in front of the door – and then gets Smiler’s help identifying the second – pressure plate tiles in the floor! Should be fun – for me, anyway. :P

(Oh, and if you’re wondering about how Victor and company reacted to the whole “Steven and Alan saying that Victor should have hopped a train out of town rather than face his mother’s wrath, and that she would have only been happy if he’d returned as ashes in an urn” thing from the last writing session – Smiler did offer Victor a hug, but he said he’d take it later, as he really just wanted to get into that vault and show his parents that their traps WEREN’T impenetrable. *nods* Best revenge is embarrassing the fuck out of your awful relatives, after all!)

YouTube: Well, I didn’t get to anything in my Watch Later, but I at least managed to catch up on my Subs tonight by watching “Fun With Shorts: Responsibility” by Josh Way! Featuring a short all about the trials and tribulations of one Hank Evans, student at Lincoln High, as he struggled with being responsible – presented in such a way that I kind of ended up on Hank’s side. Like, yes, fine, the kid probably should have double-checked better what homework he was supposed to do for English class – but on the flip side, the teacher that assigned that homework did so at the VERY END of class, when everybody was too busy trying to get to their next class, and it looked like that poor kid had too much homework anyway. And yes, he should have prepared better for the debate against Wilson School, instead of relying on his “gift of gab,” but the way it was phrased, it was like all of Lincoln High’s hopes and dreams were riding on that one debate tournament, which I’m sure they were not! Add in that it was made very clear that Hank was struggling with being compared to his perfect-straight-A sister Vera, who’d attended the year before and who all the teachers loved, and – yeah. I feel for the teenager in this situation! Josh, meanwhile, felt for no one, and mocked everything and everyone equally – from calling Bev Anderson a “kiss-ass” for going to the English teacher for the assignment and then repeating it as she wrote it down, to saying that Hank getting stage fright “couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.” XD Good stuff – and nice to see him take on one of these shorts all in one go, rather than chopping it up into multiple videos! Hopefully that shall now be the norm.

So yeah -- not as much as I'd hoped to get done, but I hit all the important stuff -- and it was nice to work more on both the Potion Caravan and "The Van Dort Vacancy." Little bright spots in a very annoying day!

And now I should really get to bed, before it gets too late. Tomorrow, plans include working on my Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) drafts (again, hoping to clean up that post on the teen versions of the Valicer trio so I can get it posted sooner rather than later); playing Superliminal and replaying "Optical" and "Labyrinth" to find my missing fire extinguisher and fire alarm and get a few last achievements; working more on "The Van Dort Vacancy;" and combining my workout and YouTubery as usual to get through the next installment of Jon's F:NV YOLO Remastered: No Guns LP! Hopefully these are all achievable, and hopefully they will not be derailed by fucking ants. Night all.

Mostly because I didn't get to bed until nearly 1 AM because I ended up in a battle with a bug that was flying around the bathroom (which Dad says was a fly, but sure as hell looked a lot more like a bee or wasp to me!). A battle I lost, by the way -- I couldn't suck it up with the vacuum cleaner because it kept flying away too fast, so eventually I said "screw it," retrieved my bathrobe, and closed the door to trap it in there. And then a lot of today was just a procession of things annoying me -- from the weather being crappier than they said (it was still pretty warm and sticky this morning, though it HAD cooled down nicely by the afternoon), to various things at work getting under my skin (I'll go into more detail on THAT below), to having to stop for gas on my way home (up to $3 a gallon), to -- despite the cool weather and me opening my windows this afternoon a couple of times -- my room staying unpleasantly warm to the point where I had to turn on the AC to cool it down. *sigh* It's just -- it wasn't the WORST day, but it was definitely not a fun one. Hmph.

Well, anyway -- here's the typical nightly write-up:

Work – A somewhat-annoying day at work, I must admit – though that’s probably at least partly because I arrived in a bad mood thanks to the lack of sleep from the bug shenanigans. But yeah, it was a day full of things that irritated me, such as:

A) Looking over the report of one-time gifts that had to be moved to the new Appeal year and pledge overpayments that had to be fixed with my coworker and listening to her go on about how the recurring gifts were hard to spot when they didn’t have the recurring gift source code (which was a legit complaint, but she kept going on about it in a way that suggested she expected me to have all the answers, which, I don’t)

B) Trying to call one of our database people to answer some questions about the report and the call not connecting for unknown reasons, then e-mailing her to let her know we had some questions, only for her to call back right before lunch (fortunately it wasn’t a LONG call, and it gave us the answers we needed, but still)

C) Having to e-mail our credit card people after lunch to get them to sort out the source codes on their end (who knows when THAT will fucking happen, because they’re useless idiots)

D) Having to coach my coworker through the reversals on the one-time gifts because for some reason she couldn’t figure out which gifts should get which updated source codes (hint: only the RECURRING GIFTS get the RECURRING SOURCE CODE)

E) Having to send an e-mail to my supervisor to ask his opinion on what I should do about some partial overpayments on credit cards (which are a pain in the ass to deal with)

F) And contacting a guy to let him know that we couldn’t process his credit card information to update his capital campaign pledge because of an error (known one on our end), but I could take it for him over the phone (since I could do a work-around to get around the error)...and him not calling back until RIGHT BEFORE IT WAS TIME TO GO (fortunately he did NOT make me leave late, but still)

Yeaaaah, it was a bitchy day. I mean, some very important stuff got done, but not without me being in a very bad mood throughout. *sigh* At least tomorrow’s only a half day...

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with “Oxventure D&D: Wyrdwood | Chapter 6: Shapes in the Mist!” Tonight’s chunklet featured:

A) Lug, having guessed that the magical melody on the air was the cause of all their woes, and seeing that Morven was paralyzed and unable to cover her ears, getting some moss and plugging up her ears (and his, as Johnny assumed – Willowfine just covered hers) to save her from the tune’s effects. This rendered Morven able to move again –

Just in time, as the fey creatures making the creepy folk music – a pair of satyr-like beings covered in bark, with legs hairy with lichen, one of which was carrying pan pipes – appeared from behind some trees, looking very annoyed that Lug had spoilt all of Johnny’s plans to whisk the group away one by one. XD Morven promptly got out the Sorcerous Blast and straight-up incinerated the one with the pan pipes, reducing it to ashes. Like, this thing just WENT UP. Naturally, the other one was like “oh fuck this” and BOOKED it away, and the remaining three members of our team gave chase, hoping to capture it or at least see where it was going!

“But wait,” I hear you cry, “what about magic’s due?” Well, as it turned out, magic didn’t have it fully out for Morven today – when Andy opened the envelope he’d gotten from the last rolling rite, he found that the spell had warped Morven’s (and by extension Robin’s) bones, making them sturdier but also older and more weary. So Morven/Robin now has +2 to their normal AC – except when it rains, where – even indoors – they have -2 instead. Basically, the joints be achy in bad weather now! Andy didn’t seem to consider that much of a minus. :P

B) Lug, Willowfine, and Morven chasing the – Johnny has not given them an official name yet, so I’m going to call them “barksatyrs” for now – barksatyr to a clearing! Where they found dozens more barksatyrs going about their business (under the orders of a superior one with more ornate bark and a bad temper – he smacked around the one who ran in and presumably gave him the bad news about his companion being ashed) – and a giant pit in the midst of it all –

Into which was dumped Cressida! Yes, Cressida and Happen were back (Ellen and Luke having been welcomed back into the room), and they were at the bottom of a fifty-foot pit, which was surrounded on all sides by a strange woven thing of vines and panels of bark. They both had a look around, and, on a good Perception check, they were able to find a small note tucked into the bark by the author of the journal they were given before, Edie (not Etta, as I misremembered – Ellen was very pleased with the name, and Johnny and I both went “oh yeah” as we remembered that’s the name of her character from Oxventure: Deadlands XD)! The note explained that the North Team had been reunited in the pit, and questioned by the barksatyrs, who were apparently trying to figure out what had happened to the “Shimmering Lady,” the spirit who looks after the river that feeds this part of the forest. They were convinced that North Team had something to do with her disappearance, and weren’t pleased by the fact that the team couldn’t answer their questions. Edie then explained that they hoped to escape the pit and send a message to the Northwest Team using the one copestone the first team member to vanish, Kole, had managed to keep a hold of. Given what we know happened to the copestone later, seems like that escape didn’t go as well as they’d hoped. :( But it did make Cressida and Happen note that, despite the kidnappings and the being thrown into a pit, the barksatyrs and them might not actually be enemies, as they too wanted to figure out what was going on with the river…

C) The barksatyrs haltingly questioning Cressida and Happen about the whereabouts of the Shimmering Lady (while Lug, Willowfine, and Morven tried to figure out how to send a message to them – Morven said she could communicate telepathically with them if she was within 30 feet, but then Lug pointed out they were in a deep pit, and things just got more complicated from there XD)! The pair tried to communicate that they hadn’t done anything with the Shimmering Lady, and that they were seeking her themselves – and fortunately, Cressida putting on her best customer service smile as she explained this at least convinced the guy who initially questioned them to go and get their superior. Unfortunately, despite Cressida’s best efforts to explain that they didn’t really know the people who were here before, and that she didn’t know where their current companions were as she’d been, you know, paralyzed, kidnapped, and thrown down a pit, but they were willing to help find the Shimmering Lady if they’d just let them out (aka rolling a 19 when the DC to beat was a 20), the superior was unimpressed. He smacked his underling upside the head, turned to go, and made a mysterious signal with his hand to something –

Cue Happen yelling, “we have the Shimmering Lady, release us if you ever want to see her alive again!” Cressida and Johnny were both like “…” XD However, it was too little, too late, as the strange vine-and-bark covering surrounding them suddenly began to move, pulling itself off the walls and reconfiguring itself into a giant displacer-beast-like bark-and-vine bear! Which, let’s face it, is a pretty epic monster. :D Good work on that, Johnny!

D) The gang rolling initiative as they prepared to fight the bear (Happen and Cressida) and head toward their friends to help them (Morven, Willowfine, and Lug)! Here’s how that’s going so far:

I. In the pit, Happen opened strong by rolling a twenty on the Cadence die, which resulted in him shooting the bear, his sprites zooming in and basically throwing the bear into the air, Happen hitting it with ANOTHER arrow, and then the bear crashing to the ground, taking five extra points of bludgeoning damage and ending up prone. Luke tried to negotiate for a little extra damage from an arrow getting shoved deeper in, but Johnny wouldn’t let him have it. XD

II. This was followed up by Morven running toward the pit and then attempting to Reduce its size with her magic to make it shallower and easier to get out of – and when Johnny vetoed that because Reduce only works on people and objects, and a hole is more a lack of an object, switched plans to instead Enlarge the soil at the bottom of the hole to get the same effect. Johnny allowed it, knowing they would regret it (XD), and stated that this halved the depth of the hole, meaning it was now 25 feet deep instead of 50. Cressida and Happen naturally got a bit of a jolt from the ground suddenly rising beneath their feet, and Luke tried AGAIN to get some extra damage on the bear from the enlarged soil pushing the arrow in. (Johnny: “No! This is no longer G’eth!” XD)

III. And, when I left off, Willowfine had sprinted toward the edge of the hole and cast Spirit Guardians on herself, surrounding herself with orbs of light that could do radiant damage and slowed any enemies nearby! Which, there were sure to be a lot of soon, as the other barksatyrs, hearing the sounds of combat, were rushing toward the hole to get a good view of the show. XD (Though they wouldn’t arrive until the end of the round, thanks to their shitty initiative roll.) However, as you might have noticed, Spirit Guardians is MAGIC, and that means it’s time for Jane to open her envelope… Tomorrow, we see what effect Willowfine gets from magic taking its due, and finish off the episode! And now I’m wondering if the mystery woman who was so tormenting North Team was in fact the Shimmering Lady everyone’s seeking...

2. Continue editing “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – and hey, happily I was able to channel my annoyance at everything into writing Alice being annoyed at everything! Specifically, the scene where she arrives back at Venture Tower and reports in about Grout, snapping at LaCroix that he’s dead, was dead before she got there, is really dead now that someone’s blown up his house, and who the fuck is this Bach asshole who tried to set her on fire? XD LaCroix tried to lecture her about her tone, but Alice brushed him off with a “this is as polite as I can be right now; throw me out if you must, but this is as good as you’re getting for now” and he let it go with a “I guess I appreciate your honesty.” XD Anyway, he told her about his and Bach’s beef (namely, that he killed Bach’s grandfather and father) and the Society of Leopold (bunch of super-pious hunter jerks), while also implying that Bach must have killed Grout to draw him out. Except Alice knows what she saw and heard in the mansion, and Bach was very surprised to learn Grout was dead… Next time, Alice gets pissy all over again about what was going on in the mansion with the ghouls – causing her to slip up and mention a name she REALLY shouldn’t have...

3. Keep up with YouTube “Subs”: Check – continued chipping away at my collected OXBoxtra list videos tonight with “7 Annoying Sentient Weapons That Made Us Pacifists!” Andy, Mike, and Jane taking the viewers through a bunch of chatty weapons that will very rapidly get on your last nerve. Such as Skippy, the gun with its own bullet-shaped version of Clippy installed, from Cyberpunk 2077 – which, despite its annoying chatter, looks useful because it has an auto-aim feature that always targets the head...except if you choose THAT mode over its “go for the legs” mode, once you hit fifty kills it’ll switch permanently into “go for the legs” mode, thus robbing it of its main utility (basically, you HAVE to choose the more “pacifist” mode first so it’ll swap instead into all headshots all the time). Or Lilacror, a talking sword from Baldur’s Gate II, which is either possessed by the spirit of a notorious village idiot or simply acts just like him, and whose hobbies include encouraging to you to hack and slash your way to fortune by killing richer and richer people. Or every weapon in High On Life, as they’re all sentient, very chatty aliens, and whether or not you’ll be able to stand them depends a LOT on if you like Rick and Morty and its style of humor. Me, I do not, and thus I wanted to slap all the weapons in this clip. *shakehead* Give me a nice weapon that does NOT have a mind of its own any day of the week! I do not need my Two-Shot Combat Sniper from Fallout 4 to talk in order to love it.

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – as I finished up everything on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler)’s queue last night, I just had Valice Multiverse to worry about today – and that had one anon ask that consisted of the following: “You can't spell advertisements without putting semen between tits.” Which – interesting observation. I had Cuddlepile!Alice respond with a raised eyebrow, then a groan as she looked at the word again and realized the anon was technically right. More reason to call them ads, I suppose!

And there we have it -- the end of July being very annoying. I'm going to go hit the sack, HOPEFULLY without having to deal with any insect shit in the bathroom. *sigh* Night all.

We broke a record today, with the Official Actual Temp in RI being 96F, and the feel-like temperature being well in the 100s, bleeeh. >( I am very glad that I work in a place with decent air conditioning and that we now have three ACs at home to keep the house cool. That little bit of time I spent outside today was fairly brutal! And we've still got one more day of this to go before the rain sweeps in and the temperatures improve...this has been a truly brutal summer weather-wise, I swear. *shakehead* Anyway, here's how my day went:

Work – Very quiet day at work – the only two calls I got all day were from a parish secretary letting us know about a check she was sending our way (apparently it got lost in the postal system and was only just returned), and a telemarketer. The rest of the day was spent doing the usual morning reports, finishing off my obituaries, then keeping myself busy going through a particular last name and cleaning up a lot of deceased people who happened to share it while also doing what puzzles I could sneak out of the paper. *shrug* Boring day, but not horrible. We’ll see what happens tomorrow!

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with “Oxventure D&D: Wyrdwood | Chapter 5: Ironclad!” Today’s chunklet featured:

A) Edmond leading the group back to Elmsteader, a large town built entirely in the branches of a GINORMOUS elm tree (bigger than a giant redwood!), and taking them to I presume his house, where he sat them down, offered them some water, and provided the following pertinent information:

I. The iron collars they all wore were gifts from some anti-magic pilgrims from Robin’s neck of the woods (he recognized the clothes Edmond described them wearing as being the “uniform” of the local inquisitors), who passed through the area and lectured them on how they were walking the path of damnation about five years ago. The community had sort of tossed them aside with some vague ideas of melting them down, but when magic went wonky, they went “actually wait these might be useful” and put ‘em on. *shrug* I mean, fair enough – if magic’s gone bad, then maybe you do want to start wearing magic suppressors! At least until someone’s figured out what’s going on.

II. Yes, the North Team had stopped at their settlement – and badly fucked things up for Elmsteader. You see, the community had told them what was going on in their neck of the woods, including that they seemed to be suffering from a drought of sorts – in addition to the strange, unseasonable heat, the river that fed this place and made it so lush had apparently lost its ability to nourish the plants. Which was a problem for the giant elm, because obviously a tree that size needs a FUCKTON of water, and while the citizenry were trying to keep the roots wet... Anyway, someone in the North Team offered to try and stabilize the tree with their magic, and went to enchant it –

Aaaand their hand exploded. Moments later, all the magic came roaring out of the tree in a giant swirling purple vortex of energy and shot off northwest. The tree promptly sickened even worse, and the angry citizenry chased the North Team out of town, even further north. Robin argued that he couldn’t believe anyone on the team had done that DELIBERATELY, and while Edmond allowed that, he was said that what was done was done, and as a result he didn’t want any of THEM getting near the tree, which the others allowed was fair. Also, they could only stay one night, and he’d be taking their weapons for said night – which rankled a little, but everyone turned their stuff over without much complaint. (Robin handed over his stale baguette, which Edmond just looked at briefly before handing it back. XD) Willowfine also got a timeline out of Edmond during this discussion – namely, that the disastrous visit by the North Team had happened roughly five or so days ago. Meaning that the villagers here were NOT responsible for whatever had happened to the North Team to split their copestone in two. Interesting…

B) The team discussing what to do once all their weapons were locked up and Edmond had headed off back on watch – Happen noted that there were a few mysteries in play here, namely what was going on with the river; what happened to North Team; and what happened with the purple magic that got yanked out of the tree. Robin was all for going after the magic and bringing it back to put in the tree to help the town (or just putting some of their own magic in the tree if necessary), but Willowfine pointed out that the town had made it pretty clear that they did not want their help. Happen was much more interested in figuring out what was going on with the river, figuring that if they sought that out, they might find North Team along the way – Willowfine agreed, saying that everything seemed pretty interconnected! Robin too was all for killing two birds with one stone (promptly apologizing for using such an idiom as he was still kinda stuck on the bird thing – Lug was like “how the HELL do YOU know the word idiom??” XD Turns out Robin attended one day of school and that was the day they learned idioms) and suggested they head out immediately, despite the others pointing out they didn’t have their weapons and could use a rest –

And then Happen realized “oh, right – Robin doesn’t want to rest because that would mean Morven coming out.” The others insisted they needed their sleep (especially Cressida), and said they could strike out first thing in the morning – Robin relented and said he’d just stick himself in the thigh with a fork to stay awake. As the others went to sleep, Johnny had Robin roll for sticking himself –

Aaand Robin promptly got a three, meaning he went to stab himself, completely missed his leg, and passed out. XD Thus both ensuring that Morven would be present for the latter half of this adventure, and answering a question of mine in the process – namely, do Robin/Morven ever actually SLEEP as they always swap consciousnesses when one goes unconscious? Turns out they do, good. I was getting worried about the shared meat shell for a bit there!

C) Everyone being woken up in the middle of the night by a massive CRACK from the tree, and seeing the damn thing starting to split and collapse in on itself, indicating the tree did NOT have long to last! The community promptly started rushing around in a panic, trying to get away from the tree before it either imploded or exploded. Happen sought out Edmond to tell him that they hoped to help and that they wanted to seek the river – however, it quickly became apparent even to No Social Skills Happen that Edmond was in no mood to chat, as he told them that they COULDN’T help, the river was north and two days away, did they want him to guide them or what?! Happen quickly apologized for bothering him and stopped Lug from asking the guy where the key to the chest with all their weapons was.

Morven, meanwhile, woke up and INSTANTLY felt the horrible, gaping void at the center of the tree where its magic should be and was like “the fuck?” The others quickly filled her in on the situation, and she was like “well, we HAVE to put some magic in this tree, I don’t care what the townspeople say, it’s already dying so we’re going to save them from themselves.” First, though, the gang had to retrieve their weapons, with Luke describing Happen trying to smack open the padlock with the butt of one of his shortswords –

Only for Andy, Mike, and Jane to be like, “Uh, Luke, the swords are weapons, and thus would be in the chest.” The look on Luke’s face as they explained this was hilarious. XD Morven ended up using a tiny Magic Missile on it instead, breaking it into four pieces and allowing everyone to get their stuff back. Happen promptly smacked the remains of the padlock with the butt of one of his shortswords, presumably because he was annoyed he couldn’t before. XD

D) And the gang, realizing there was no talking Morven out of her plan to pour magic into the tree, instead deciding to join her in sneaking past the panicking villagers to fire as much magic power into the dying tree as they could! Johnny had them all roll initiative (with both Andy and Ellen getting nat 20s – Ellen tried to get a high-five from Andy, who left her hanging until it was clarified she was doing so OOC XD), then explained that how this was going to work was that they didn’t need to specify what spells they were firing, but rather what level spell slot they were using for said spells, as that would determine how many D20s they could roll to see how many “magic points” they put into the tree – one D20 for a Level 1 spell slot, two for a Level 2, and so on. Johnny, meanwhile, would be checking to see if the villagers noticed what the group was doing on their turn, and if the tree exploded on ITS turn (and noting that they’d already got a crit 1 on the initiative roll for it...). The five promptly got to firing magic into the tree, with Morven, Cressida, and Willowfine each using up a Level 3 spell slot on their turns; Happen a Level 2 slot (as he’s a ranger and thus only a “half” caster who gets weaker spells); and Lug a pseudo-Level 1 slot (as he only has a TINY bit of magic from the “Magic Initiate” feat, which includes one level 1 spell he can cast once per long rest and a couple of cantrips). Their combined efforts poured 132 points of magic back into the tree, which was pretty damn solid! Johnny then rolled for the villagers noticing (getting a four, meaning they were much more concerned with stabilizing someone who’d previously fallen out of the tree when it initially started collapsing), and for the tree imploding, stating that if they got another crit 1, it was going boom –

And getting a two. XD Talk about avoiding disaster by the skin of their teeth… I left it with everyone preparing for round two of “pour magic into the tree,” with Johnny warning that if they rolled a 1 or a 2 this time, the tree would go boom. Eeep. O.o We’ll see what happens tomorrow! Hopefully it’s not a tree explosion!

2. Continue editing “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – and today officially started The Worst Moment Of Alice’s Unlife! Because, right after she found the pile of ash that was Grout’s staked-and-chained-up corpse, the whole room shook with an absolutely massive BOOM. Causing Alice to rush out the door on the other side at Carpenter’s direction to see what the fuck that was –

Only to find herself overlooking A GIANT PIT OF FLAMES. Followed immediately by one Grünfeld Bach screaming at her to lay low and be cleansed. Alice proceeded to scream back at him that she wasn’t Grout and that she had no idea who he was, but he just told her that all people like her would be “washed from the earth,” and that this whole fiery display was a promise to everyone who served the “archfiend LaCroix” before running off. Leaving poor, panicking Alice trapped in the middle of the raging conflagration. D: I left off with the Queen of Hearts shoving her toward the balcony and pointing out a safe spot where she could drop down – tomorrow, Alice gets to relive the burning of her childhood home as she rushes through the flaming wreck of Grout’s mansion! Yaaaay...

3. Keep up with YouTube “Subs”: Check – and I actually did keep up with my Subs today, watching the latest from Josh Way – “Fun With Shorts: Crimes of Carelessness!” A fire safety short all about scaring people with statistics about how many people get killed and injured and how much property is lost from fires, before yelling at them for doing dumb things like extinguishing their cigarettes in the wastebasket beside their chair with the faux-wood cover (seriously), letting their kids play with matches, and using gasoline to get out stains while an open flame burns merrily on the stove nearby. It was over the top and ridiculous, and Josh got some in some good riffs against it (like accusing the narrator of being like J.J. Abrams – able to start a story but not finish it – when he kept talking about how fires start; commenting “wow, that sounds really nice” when the narrator talked about people going to sleep forever thanks to smoking in bed; and claiming at the end he was going to do his part to stop fires by REMOVING ALL THE OXYGEN FROM THE AIR, MWAHAHA). All in all, another quality bit of cinema from my current favorite riffer!

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – I in fact was quite busy on tumblr this eve, as the below shall show –

Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Over here, I both set up my queue and straight-up reblogged some stuff that intrigued me:

A) On the queue side, I got three things in for the next three days:

I. A reblog of that transparent png of the eye fish from A:MR by “roachpng” for Wednesday

II. A reblog of the behind-the-scenes Corpse Bride stuff featuring the bushy-eyebrowed Elder Gutknecht maquette by “atimburtonfan” for Thursday

III. And my latest set of Valicer In The Dark-related Not-Incorrect Quotes (featuring the gang’s pets) for Friday! Because the previous two reblogs were both tagged “#valicer in the dark au” thanks to me thinking the eye fish would be fun to add as a creepy real fish to the setting, and taking direct inspiration from the bushy-eyebrowed Elder Gutknecht for my ghostly one. :)

Now I just have to figure out a matching VITD-related Song Saturday, and I will be all set! :)

B) And on the “straight-up reblog” side, I reblogged onto my dash tonight:

I. A post by “prokopetz” talking about an idea for a “Backrooms”-inspired game where the local fire department has to go and rescue any pets or people that clip through reality into the titular backrooms, and this is just treated as a mundane part of the job (with “goodbyenorthernlights” adding his tag about being allowed to blast shadow monsters with the hose XD) – I reblogged this with a tag for my pal Satirical Demon (author of “Beneath A Broken Sky,” the Eldritch Hellworld Valice story) saying that this sounded like his jam (as he loves this kind of thing). Sure enough, he reblogged it from me saying he was scribbling down notes furiously XD

II. A post by “deadn0w” consisting simply of “your son is a pleasure to have on his knees for me” – this just IMMEDIATELY hit me as something Smiler or Alice would think while having to deal with Nell, and I tagged it as such (along with noting that Victor would either die of embarrassment or kill them if they ever said it out loud XD)

III. And a post from “firestormmaidenanddragon” talking about how Discord has implemented an age verification system for UK users in early compliance with a new bullshit “online safety” law that was recently passed, to prepare themselves for other sites doing this bullshit (including tumblr), and asking people to spread the word about a petition to get this stupid law repealed (with another user, “mankillercalledbunny,” noting that it would require you to upload your government ID to use these sites, and asking people who stood up to KOSA in the US to help with this) – I’m pretty sure all my own UK friends already know about this, but I figured I should signal boost it anyway, because fucking hell >(

*nods* Busy night over here, to be sure! But I am trying to be a little more generally active, so I guess that’s a good thing.

Valice Multiverse – And over here, I had three anon asks to slot into my queue for tomorrow:

A) One just singing the “Orange Orange Bo Borange” song – I had the Inevitable High School version of the Valicer trio respond, with Alice being bemused and asking if they were just making up words that rhyme with orange; Victor saying he’s sure he’s heard the “Banana Fanana” thing in another song; and Smiler trying to come up with another lyric, submitting “Kiwi Diwi Do Dorange” because it was the first thing that popped into my head XD

B) Another asserting that “There is an inanimate object which has a capacity to exasperate which no human being will ever attain: a piano” – Cuddlepile!Smiler and Victor answered that one, with Smiler asking Victor if he agreed with that, and Victor saying he didn’t know about using it to exasperate other people (he generally doesn’t play for crowds), but tuning one could be a pain sometimes :P

C) And a third asking “Do you think Pavlov ever got the urge to feed his dogs every time he heard a bell?” – I returned to the Inevitable High School kids for this one, with Alice going to answer, only to pause, close her mouth, and get really thoughtful instead, and Smiler saying “I don’t know but it would have been really funny” XD

Busy night over here too, as you can see! But at least I don’t have to worry about content for a change. :P

Yeah -- lot to do over here this eve! And now I should head to bed and try to get some sleep. Wish me luck with the heat again tomorrow! Night all!