Posse and Chain Gang

As will be made apparent in my write-up below -- though I will say that at least the frustrations have a happy ending, so far:

Tumblr: We were back to nothing happening over on Valice Multiverse – but that’s okay, because I got plenty done on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) before lunch –

A) First, I posted my pick for my Song Sunday (if still tagged “#song saturday” for consistency) “it’s around New Year’s so let’s have some Poets Of The Fall” song – “Children Of The Elder God!” Which is one of the songs they did for the original Alan Wake game as the fictional band “Old Gods of Asgard,” features in a really cool action sequence in said game where you have to fight off shadow monsters on a big old stage with a dragon animatronic and the very bright stage lights, and is generally just extremely kick-ass. :D I figured we could use something uplifting that encourages us to fight back against all our enemies at the beginning of 2026! (Not to mention, I was shocked to go through my “#poets of the fall” tag and discover that I’d apparently never posted it before, so I had to right THAT wrong! It’s genuinely one of my favorite songs of theirs!)

B) Then, I did my “Fic Resolutions For 2026” post – said resolutions consisting of:

I. Finish “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” and start “Londerland Bloodlines: Hollywood’s Deluded Depths”

II. Finish “The Van Dort Vacancy” and start “They Would Have Done It For An Ottoman”

III. Get more of my fics on tumblr (plus the Secundus drabbles) posted to Archive Of Our Own

The first two goals should be pretty easy to accomplish – I’m most of the way through editing the final chapter of “Downtown Queensland,” and while I’m only two chapters into edits on “The Van Dort Vacancy” that story is a lot shorter and thus should go faster – while the third...well, it’s just a matter of figuring out how I want to post all those prompt fics and whatnot. Especially the ones that need some more explanation for what’s going on, or that I see as small chunks of a larger Hypothetical Full Story, as I said in the tags of the post. *shakehead* We’ll see what happens as the year goes on!

C) And then I reblogged a couple of posts from castielsprostate with links to organizations you can donate to if you want to help the victims of the recent Venezuelan bombings (because the world remains an absolutely awful place to live) – here’s the posts with the links for your own perusal, if you are interested.

A pretty productive morning, all things considered! I will take it.

Fallout: New Vegas: Well – after much stress, annoyance, and worry, I am pleased to report that, for the moment, Fallout: New Vegas lives! Took me most of the afternoon to finish setting everything up, though...let me give you a run-down of what happened:

A) I picked up after lunch where I left off yesterday – namely, with the issue that the Modding Linked guide I was using to set up my Wabbajack install of Mod Organizer 2 and the Viva New Vegas modlist was telling me that I had to exclude the entire “Installation Folder” (where all the files and MO2 itself lived) from my antivirus...but McAfee wouldn’t allow me to exclude an entire folder, just individual files. Presented with this conundrum afresh, l ended up spending about an hour and a half (at LEAST) researching the issue – googling both the main MO2 page on NexusMods and other modlist sites had similar “here’s how you install the list with MO2 and Wabbajack” guides to see what they said about the issue (it often boiled down to “disable your antivirus and rely on Windows Security,” which – not sure I wanted to do); invisibly wandering the Modding Linked Discord to see what those behind the guide had to say about it (usually “fuck McAfee” – which is probably fair – and “just use Windows Defender” – which, not so much); and looking up whatever Reddit posts I could find on the subject that might be able to help me (which were few and far between, to my annoyance). I then took a break to chill, clear my head, and browse tumblr for a while so I could digest all I’d learned…

And then, inspired by the one Reddit post I found where someone actually using McAfee replied to someone else talking about how a virus scan had fucked up MO2 and mentioned excluding some specific files to make sure everything worked correctly, I went “okay, let’s try this” and simply excluded every file related to MO2 within the folder they were telling me to exclude. With special care taken to get the ones mentioned in the Reddit post, of course. I’m hoping this will be sufficient to keep McAfee from throwing itself at my game and trying to eat it in a haze of “oh, it’s making changes, it must be malware” – we’ll see what happens going forward, I suppose!

B) With that taken care of, it was time to continue on through the guide! I thus completed the “Root Mods” section (copying everything from the “requires manual installation” folder to the “Root” folder of the game before running the included patcher app) and the “BSA Decompressor” section (running the BSA Decompressor app to decompress all the .bsa files to improve performance and fix some sound issues in the vanilla game), before moving onto the “Mod Organizer 2 Setup” section. As per the instructions, I launched the Mod Organizer 2 app from the installation folder and said “yes” when the “register?” pop-up popped up (twice) –

And then it asked me if I was interested in completing the tutorial. Since I was new to MO2 and all. “Sure,” I thought, and agreed to check it out –

Aaand MO2 proceeded to glitch out, with the tutorial just refusing to work after it gave me the prompt to click on the “help” button, followed shortly thereafter by the whole program just shutting down entirely. Startled and a little concerned, I reopened it and tried the tutorial again – only for the same thing to happen. Now frustrated, I reopened it again and this time chose to skip the tutorial –

Aaand the program opened correctly! *shakehead* Figures... Resigning myself to not being able to do the tutorial, I instead looked at the app, familiarizing myself with all the different panes and looking through the list of mods in the right-hand one…

And discovering that three of them were marked with a little “caution” sign, which – when I hovered over it – indicated that those mods were “missing info” and had to be re-retrieved. After reading the included instructions in the mouse-over, I right-clicked on one of the “caution” mods and tired having it “query info” to find what it needed…

Only for the mod in question to get stuck “fetching info” endlessly, from what I could see. And while trying to figure out if this was a known issue and what I could do about it, I happened to look in the left-hand pane, which had the actual mod load order for everything – and that indicated that the mod “fetching info” wasn’t even active. Leading me to wonder if I’d totally screwed everything up right at the last second. *heavy sigh* Gotta say, I really did not have a lot of faith in my choices regarding how to mod New Vegas in that moment…

C) Anyway – after waiting for a while to see if the mod would finish “fetching info” (it did not), confirming that it did not seem to be active (maybe it was just included because another active mod built upon it?), and confirming through some more research and another lurk in the Modding Links discord that it should be okay for me to continue with the guide even with the mod endlessly checking for info, I went ahead and used MO2 to open the New Vegas launcher to make sure I was using the Ultra preset and that the resolution matched that of my monitor (which I had to double-check in my settings, just to be sure I picked the right one), then started the game itself to make sure all the Utilities had installed. Which, fortunately, they had, according to the pop-up that presented itself a few seconds after I hit the main menu screen –

But, to my horror and fury, when I tried to click on it, I discovered that the game was apparently not detecting my mouse. Extremely irritated by this point, I used “Enter” to get out of the pop-up, and the arrow keys to navigate the menu so I could quit out and disable the “check Utilities” mod as per the guide. I then reopened the game to see what the hell was going on –

And then, upon arriving at the main menu again, had a thought: “Wait a minute – is it expecting me to use my controller?” I thus picked up said controller and started using that –

And sure enough, I was able to navigate just fine through all the menus and such. Well, mostly fine – the left stick controls for moving through menu options is a little sensitive. But it functioned, so after poking around through the settings and seeing what was what (and eventually discovering via looking at various tweaks and what they did that “oh, wait – the mouse DOES work, it just doesn’t work in the menu screen itself – rude”), I decided to run with it –

D) And so began my initial foray into Fallout: New Vegas itself! Which consisted of:

I. Watching the opening cinematic, with the NCR and various other people walking the streets of New Vegas itself; a sniper on the New Vegas sign taking out a raider hiding behind a car on the road leading into the strip, and – much further away from the lights of the city – a certain asshole named Benny standing with some Great Khans over an unconscious courier (face covered with a hat, because obviously this is supposed to be your player character) while some other Khans nearby dug a grave… It was actually REALLY well done, I was quite impressed. :)

II. Watching the second opening cinematic, starting with some narration about the situation at the start of the game – how the New California Republic was lured to the Mojave by their scouts telling them of the city untouched by the warheads, and the great bulk of Hoover Dam; how Caesar’s Legion marched on the Dam from the east with their troops made of conquered tribes, and how the NCR just barely held them off; and how, throughout their battles, the New Vegas Strip remained open for business, under the watchful gaze of one Mr. House – before explaining that the player character was a courier, contracted by the Mojave Express to deliver a package to the Strip...only for the “simple” job to go extremely wrong. Cue the Courier waking up bound before the Khans and Benny, and the player getting to watch in first person as Benny told them that they’d made their last delivery and that, while they might think they’d run into a streak of super bad luck, “the truth is – the game was rigged from the start” before shooting them in the head. Again, excellent stuff –

Though I suspect that it would have been better if I’d known to turn the background music down before the cinematic started playing. It didn’t quite drown out all the voices, but it came pretty damn close sometimes! *facepalm* Gotta love 15-year-old games where they didn’t know how to properly balance the sound levels of the music versus the sound levels of the NPCs… (And yes, F:NV is 15 years old – came out in 2010.)

III. Watching as my player character woke up under the loving care of Doc Mitchell of Goodsprings, and starting character creation! And, because I am me, I decided that my Courier was also going to be Victor Van Dort. XD What, you guys know what I’m like – both with video games AND with AUs! Admittedly, getting my Courier to look anything like Victor was a bit of a trick – though I will have to say, character creation in this game is more involved than I first thought! There’s all sorts of sliders to adjust general face shape, forehead height, brow shape, nose shape, how far apart the eyes are, how shallow or puffy the cheeks were...everything to make someone who at least vaguely resembled my favorite Victorian noodle was in the “Reflectron” Doc Mitchell handed him. XD After choosing my initial preset, fiddling around with a variety of sliders, and figuring out which hair looked the least worst, I eventually landed on this:



...again, game made in 2010, there’s only so much I could do. He’s got the right vibes, I’d say! And I’m pretty sure there’s an option to mess with your appearance again right before you leave Goodsprings, so if I want to tweak him before leaving Tutorial Town, I should be able to. (Because I did admittedly look up hair mods for the game after quitting for the day. XD)

IV. And – after a quick walk to the Vit-O-Matic to learn the movement controls – entering the menu, adjusting the sound, and using the Mod Configuration Menu to tweak a few mod settings (namely, making sure Victor could hit the vanilla game cap of 50 levels instead of the Agua Fria mod’s cap of 35), before realizing “okay, I really can’t spend any more time in here,” saving, and closing. Because while I would have liked to fully finish Victor’s character creation – choosing his SPECIAL stats, figuring out his tagged skills, choosing his traits – I knew that summing it all up afterward would just take too much time. Shame, but that’s the way it goes!

And there we have it – the start of my F:NV adventures! I fully intend to return to the Mojave this Saturday if I can and finish up choosing Victor’s stats and everything – hopefully everything continues to run smoothly and I won’t run into any major problems! I got really lucky with my Fallout 4 install being pretty stable, after all...fingers crossed!

Writing: I got to it late, but I did write a little bit more on my latest self-indulgent scene of “Smiler’s present for the Moorgate Confrontation and that screws up everything even more for Bumby,” including:

A) Poor Victor getting a headache as he hugged Smiler, and nearly slipping back into Thirteen-mode – fortunately Alice and Smiler were able to keep him out of it

B) Smiler saying Alice’s name, and Victor finally recognizing her and trying to apologize for not finding her and for falling to Bumby’s predations :(

C) Bumby telling Victor that the headache was punishment for not obeying and trying to order him to kill Alice again – only for Victor to punch him, just like in the original “Forgetting You;” Alice squealed with glee, and Smiler cackled and pointed out it was three-against-one

D) Bumby nearly reasserting control over Victor by threatening him with the dark – only for Smiler to step in and use their old trigger on Victor, causing him to slip into a trance where he didn’t respond to anyone else – Alice noted he didn’t look quite as blank as he had before, but it was still creepy

E) And Bumby asking what the hell Smiler did to Victor, and Smiler coldly asking if Bumby didn’t recognize a post-hypnotic suggestion when he saw one, with Alice saying he probably didn’t, as he was a bad psychiatrist; a furious Bumby lunged at her, intending to kill her himself, but she got out of his way and told Smiler (ready to join the fight) to get Victor out of there and see if they could undo whatever Bumby did to him – her view shifting to Wonderland and the Dollmaker boss fight as she declared she could handle the bastard

*nods* Not bad! Very rough, to be sure, but self-indulgent fic’s allowed to be. Back to “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” tomorrow, though – I have to finish off that damn Chapter 6 sooner rather than later!

Workout: Hopped back on the bike tonight – but I did not watch the next episode of Jon of Many A True Nerd’s F:NV YOLO Remastered series! Why? Well, because there straight up wasn’t one – Jon and his girlfriend Claire both got sick around New Year’s, and while Jon managed to put up a couple of videos this week (a pre-recorded episode of his new Baldur’s Gate III Let’s Play and a one-off video about a weird skating game), he apparently wasn’t feeling up to YOLO antics this Sunday. I mean, fair enough – I don’t think I would be either if I was suffering from a nasty cold! So instead I watched:

A) A bit of the livestream Jon and Claire did instead of F:NV YOLO Remastered: “Fallout 3: Jon & Claire Are Still Sick So We're Speedrunning Fallout Live Special!” AKA how I found out about the change of plans. XD Specifically, Jon attempted to do a glitchless speedrun Fallout 3 – I popped in while Jon was running around the Project Purity site, trying to clear out all the remaining super mutants (and their horrific centaur abominations) so his Lone Wanderer’s dad could attempt to turn the giant water purifier on (this does not go well, just FYI). For once, Jon was actually salty about the lack of quest markers in a Fallout quest (as per Claire, normally he bitches that there’s too many), as it forced him to go running all over the shop hunting down the remaining mutants. Which does not do good things for your time in a speedrun! I left around the time he finally got the last one – looks like the final time of the livestream in full was about 2 hours and 22 minutes, meaning it’s likely Jon did the whole game in roughly 2 hours (with the extra time for intros and outros). Which I personally think isn’t bad for getting through an entire Fallout game! Likely isn’t a world record or anything, but still – respectable. Especially for someone playing with a really nasty cold. Still, hoping he’s better enough next week to YOLO it up!

B) And the first twenty-five or so minutes of “KIDS ON BIKES – A Twixtmas Disappearance | Oxventure Holiday Special” by Oxventure! Their most recent one-shot, I decided to watch this one before going back to catch up on everything else on the channel simply because, as per the title, it was a holiday special! And I’d rather watch one of those now, when Christmas was a mere week-and-a-half ago, then sometime around Easter, or even at the beginning of summer (as it will probably take me a while to get through all the remaining Oxventure videos). Ellen was the lovely GM; Mike, Andy, and Jane the players; and the system Kids On Bikes, an RPG about kids (on bikes, naturally) investigating weird occurrences around their towns. If I remember correctly, it’s made by the same people who made Teens In Space, and uses the same sort of dice-rolling system (you choose a type of die to represent your stat in something – for example, Mike has a ten-sided die for the “Brainy” stat – and you roll that die in an attempt to meet or beat a target number when faced with a challenge. Roll the highest number, and your die “explodes” and you can roll again. If you roll under the target number, you can spend “adversity tokens” to improve your result – or gain them for later for choosing to simply fail the roll.) The OXBoxers were playing a trio of thirteen-year-olds (Mike: “Ignore the harrowed face,” Andy: “Ignore the salt-and-pepper beard” XD) – Mike the shy and mysterious transfer student Keegan, Andy the mystery-obsessed Corey, and Jane Corey’s conspiracy-theory-obsessed twin sister Tori – living in the seaside town of Milton-on-Keys, a former Victorian resort town that has seen MUCH better days, and the first part of their session involved:

I. Tori and Corey arriving at Milton-on-Keys’s model village with their dog, a Yorkshire terrier called Clive Barker (Ellen approved) on Boxing Day (hence why it’s a Twixtmas disappearance – this all takes place during that weird liminal time between Christmas and New Year’s, where you feel like anything could happen, but nothing does), prepared to meet the fellow kids who responded to the ad in Tori’s conspiracy theory zine so they could hang out and find mysteries to solve and conspiracies to bring to light – Tori assured Corey that tens of people read her zine, so they were sure to get someone XD

II. Keegan showing up and shyly asking if this is where the meet-up was, and Corey and Tori initially welcoming him before Corey went, “hang on, you’ve got to give the password” – Keegan admitted he hadn’t seen a password in the ad, and Corey was like “how could you not put in a password?” to Tori. (Tori, meanwhile, was more concerned if Keegan was a real teen or not. XD) Corey thus had Keegan guess the password – Keegan tried “Mystery,” and Corey was like “oh God, he’s right.” XD To be fair, that’s what I would have guessed too!

III. Keegan asking Corey and Tori the name of the group – Corey immediately went “Mystery Club” while Tori went “Conspiracy Crew.” After a bit of discussion, they compromised and went with “Mystery Conspiracy Club Crew,” or MCCC for short. (Somewhere, the creator of MC Command Center for Sims 4 sneezed and didn’t know why. XD)

IV. Keegan telling Corey and Tori a little about himself – namely, that his parents are marine biologists obsessed with their work, who move around a lot to study whatever marine animal they’re so obsessed with (Keegan doesn’t know). Tori promptly declared that “fish are government drones” while Corey attempted to get her to chill out a little XD

V.Corey and Tori informing Keegan they were twins (doing the creepy synchronized smile), and Keegan asking if they had any special twin powers – Tori promptly said “telepathy” and went on about how she yaps in her head all day to Corey while he ignores her, while Corey insisted that wasn’t real and they were just normal kids. Poor Keegan seemed very confused by it all!

VI. The group talking about mysteries they could try to solve or conspiracies they could try to unearth now that they were all together – Corey, after hearing Keegan’s description of his home life and how he wasn’t sure if his parents loved him or their work more (and going “sounds like the latter, buddy”), suggested that they find the definitive answer to that question, only for Keegan to say he wasn’t sure he wanted to know; Tori, meanwhile, asked Keegan if he’d watched the Queen’s speech, which morphed into a discussion of how she thought the Queen was an insectoid alien (Keegan admitting that her article in her zine had convinced him that insect aliens walked among them, while Corey insisted that the reason the Queen had looked like she had mandibles during the speech was because they owned a shitty 90s TV set whose quality was equivalent to that of 240 peas XD)

VII. Corey and Tori realizing that, wait a minute, they already had a mystery to solve – the third card-carrying member of their group had never shown up for the meet-up! Said kid was supposed to be called “Christopher Williams,” but – thanks to Andy blurting out a name first when Ellen started to describe their tardy mate – he became “Rollo Fiarucci.” XD Andy eventually magnanimously said that “Rollo” was Corey’s nickname for Christopher, and it was later decided that his family was the Williams-Fiarucci family, with his mom being Williams and his dad Fiarucci. *nods* Teamwork!

VIII. Corey deciding Rollo must have been abducted (as normally he’s a very punctual kid) and comparing the whole situation to a mystery novel he read in his favorite series, where a clue was hidden in a creamer jug shaped like a cow; cue the very first roll of the game being Ellen deciding whether or not he spotted a cow-shaped creamer in a bric-a-brac shop when the group pedaled out to find their missing buddy (he did not) XD

IX. The group heading over to Rollo’s house (which was down the most over-decorated street in the village, as every town has one) and discovering a cop car outside, and a cop talking to Rollo’s mum! Everyone promptly slowed down to hear what was being said – Corey and Tori passed the roll and managed to pick up that, apparently, Rollo had gone missing after leaving the house to pick up the paper that morning, while Keegan failed it and proved more interested in concentrating on his bike riding and impressing his new friends. And then Rollo’s mum spotted them and waved, and he fell over trying to wave back. XD Awww, poor Keegan...

X. The kids being summoned into the conversation by Rollo’s anxious mother, confirming that they hadn’t seen Rollo – then coming up with their own bizarre theories as to what had happened: Tori was convinced that Rollo had been abducted by aliens (asking if they’d seen any lights in the sky that WEREN’T Christmas lights), while Corey suggested that maybe Santa had kidnapped him to be a helper – Keegan pointed out that Santa wouldn’t imprison a kid, but Corey insisted it was a busy time of year for him, and maybe he just hadn’t brought Rollo back yet. And then Tori stepped in with “Santa isn’t real, he’s a government drone.” Mrs. Williams-Fiarucci and the cop were very nonplussed by these weird children XD

XI. The kids promising to solve the mystery (with the cop giving them his card so they could contact him or the station if they saw anything) and heading out on their bikes, doing wheelies for dramatic effect – only for Tori and Corey to see a strange black shape dart across the road ahead of them. Tori smartly grabbed Barker’s collar (as the dog was riding in the milk crate on the front of her bike) so he wouldn’t try to go after it, while Corey wondered “what shape was Rollo?” XD Tori pointed out Rollo would be boy-shaped, which the shape they just saw most certainly hadn’t been, and Corey commented on how this reminded him of another entry in his favorite book series, “The Case of the Boy-Shaped Boy.” Which led to an argument between him and Tori when she was like “what” and it was revealed she was just letting the books he kept lending her pile up in her room. XD Once again, excellent sibling dynamics at play in Oxventure!

Fun stuff so far, as you can see – I already love these bizarre siblings and their shy new friend. :) I left off with the twins asking Keegan if he’d seen the shape (no, he’d missed it thanks to another failed roll), then, noticing how sad he seemed, asking if he was all right (yes, he was enjoying this) and what he got for Christmas (a tube of Rolos candy...that he found in the house because his parents were busy working – the twins were rightfully upset by this). We’ll see where this conversation goes, and if the kids can find the mysterious shape, tomorrow!

So yeah -- getting that modlist to work was a pain in the ass, but it seems that I WILL have my Courier Victor, and that makes me happy. But for now, I really have to get to bed, as I do have work tomorrow. *sigh* Hopefully it won't be too terrible...we shall see. Night all!

As it turns out, the reason Dad's been feeling bad is because he has a cracked rib (fortunately, after some X-rays, they were able to confirm it hadn't separated -- though apparently that does mean he kind of just has to tough it out until it heals, which, bleh), and Mom had some fun stomach issues this eve (she was pretty sure lunch disagreed with her). And even I woke up earlier than I intended and couldn't get back to sleep -- though, uh, that doesn't seem to have worked out so badly, as I didn't feel particularly tired today. *shrug* I mean, I'll take it! Especially since it allowed me to accomplish the following:

Tumblr: ...I just realized that I never even looked at Valice Multiverse today. *shrug* Ah well – if there’s anything there, it will have to wait until tomorrow. I had a very busy day on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), which saw me:

A) Complete and post this 2025 Writing Wrapped/Writer Wrap-Up meme that my buddy Newt tagged me in...which took most of the damn day because ye GODS I wrote a lot of fic in 2025. 61 fucking full pieces (admittedly most of them pretty short pieces for Multiamory March and Polyship Week 2025) and five chapters of larger works (including two updates to Not-Incorrect Quote collections)! Yeah, there are reasons I straight-up skipped answering the “word count” questions – collecting all the fics was tiring enough, even WITH the ability to link to two “masterposts” to cut down on the number of links I had to do! *shakehead* I am never thinking I don’t do enough writing ever again...anyway, please go read that just to justify the time I spent on it.

B) After finishing up my BG3 session today (see below), adding two new ideas for scenes to my upcoming “Valicer In The Dark Meets Baldur’s Gate III Not-Incorrect Quotes/Shitpost Collection Volume 3” post –

I. The trio talking to Timber the squirrel and saying that they have NO PROBLEM staying away from her tree and that they’re kind of terrified she lives in it...and then, seeing everyone else’s puzzled looks, going “...trees like that aren’t lethally poisonous to the touch here, are they?” (Everyone: “No, and again, what is wrong with your world”)

II. And Smiler, post-inadvisable-Volo-operation, sidling up to Wyll to get some tips on caring for a false eye (Wyll: “ALWAYS have some clean water that you can rinse it with, because grit WILL get in there and it WILL drive you mad”)

So that’s good – brings that collection one step closer to done! :)

Baldur’s Gate III: After the absurdly-long tumblr write-up, I was in the mood to hit Faerun this afternoon – so today I offer you the further adventures of Tav!Smiler and all their friends in the tiefling refugee camp! Which included:

A) Smiler and company heading back to the entrance of the Emerald Grove so I could have Smiler chat with Timber the squirrel (now that they were actually capable of doing that, thank you mod-added Amulet Of Lost Voices) via the high wooden walkway, stopping just a moment to chat with the guard up there, Ikaron (who simply said “We’ve known enough grief this tenday, traveller. Don’t be the cause of more.” *salutes* I will endeavor not to be, good sir! Smiler’s whole thing is encouraging happiness, after all!), and check out some of the other crates and the backpack scattered along the path to see if there was anything interesting in them. Turns out they were all empty – except, of course, for the Unusually Cold Crate with all its goodies I found earlier. I waffled for a moment again on whether or not I wanted to take the items – on the one hand, good items; on the other, tiefling stuff – then decided to resolve the conundrum later and continued on, past Arron’s shop and the statue of Silvanus, to the gate –

Where Lae’zel chose to comment that “These tieflings prove fragile. I’ve a mind to end their misery myself.” :O Lae’zel! And then Wyll replied, “Harsh. Remind me to stay on your good side,” only for Lae’zel to shoot back “You were never on my good side.” *shakehead* Girl is a real bitch sometimes during this early part of the game, it must be said! But it was nice to get some more intra-party banter...and it gave me an idea regarding that Unusually Cold Crate and its contents for later…

( Usual Cut To Save Reading Pages )

Workout: Took my last ride on the stationary bike tonight, getting through:

A) The end of “Blades in the Dark RETURNS! 🎁 | Oxventure Holiday Special - The Effugium Contract” by Oxventure! The grand finale chunk of the special featured:

I. Troy responding to his older brother demonstrating his magical powers by flavoring his sinuses with, essentially, chili powder, with a “magic spell” of his own – a kick in the crotch. Johnny happily accepted the Level 1 harm that resulted, and Luke noted this was probably one of the most accurate sibling dynamics any of them had ever seen played out in an RPG. XD

II. Barnaby encountering Oswin Fry racing up to the deck of the ship and finding himself utterly ignored when he tried to get the guy’s attention; undeterred, he followed Oswin up (against the flow of terrified rich people trying to get below-decks) and found a bunch of other terrified rich people clinging to whatever they could grab as – judging by the description – an adolescent dragon “played” with the airship – swooping in and grabbing it, then launching itself off the side to do it all again. Barnaby being Barnaby, he promptly grabbed hold of something with the hand NOT holding his drink. Because, you know, he wasn’t about to drop THAT. XD Cue Luke asking him to roll to keep his balance and his grip, Mike being like “shame the Sway roll doesn’t cover this kind of swaying” –

And Luke loving the play on words so much he let Mike roll it as Sway anyway. XD Though I would like to point out that Barnaby, as per the end of original series, does have the special ability “Rook’s Gambit,” which allows you to use your highest-ranked action for any roll so long as you can justify it – and this being Oxventure, I think a pun is more than enough justification. So this was supported mechanically as well! I just think that’s neat. :D

III. The Crawford Quartet arriving on the deck to see the chaos (including the fact that the guards, who have been firing everything they’ve got at the dragon under the command of Oswin, had managed to wound the creature enough to start genuinely angering it), and having to make their own roll to stay steady and find something to grab hold of – and everyone making the roll except for poor Gabriel, who ended up sliding down the deck and smashing into something metal very painfully, ouch. He was able to use his “special armor” to absorb some of the damage (calling it a padded doublet), but still. *shakehead* That’s what you get for spicing your sibling’s nose, dude!

IV. Troy using a flashback to acquire a jar of clarified butter from the Bacchanalatorium from their previous visit and launching it at Oswin as the deck shook – he scored a direct hit on the guy’s back, making him nice and slippery and sending him flying down the deck. Gabe, seeing his chance, stuck out a hand and used his “Savage” special ability to intimidate Oswin into grabbing it (as Oswin was hesitating due to Gabe being, well, a musician) –

Then pulled him close and hissed “Uncle Merton says hello” into the guy’s ear before sending him sliding toward the side. Admittedly, the effect was somewhat ruined by Luke establishing that Oswin had no memory of who Uncle Merton was (forcing Gabriel to quickly explain “the meat guy” while throwing Oswin to his death) AND by Johnny only rolling a success with a complication, meaning Oswin managed to stab poor Gabe with a knife in the ribs before being flung away. But a success with a complication is still a success, so Oswin got caught up in a capstan, flung around (“like a Catherine wheel,” as Johnny moaned XD), and smashed head-first against the railing before going off the side. And, as a bonus, his falling buttery corpse got the young dragon’s attention, and it gave up its attack on the ship to go snatch the tasty treat out of the air and fly off. Hooray!

V. Our heroes reconvening and Barnaby asking the Quartet if they found out anything (as, obviously, he could no longer ask Oswin what the hell was going on) – cue Troy saying “Big blue hands,” and Barnaby being nonplussed. XD Winnie fortunately was able to explain the situation in more detail – ecological anarchists being forced to use their magic powers (aka the big blue hands) to hold the airship up and move it about and whatnot – and Barnaby admitted they should probably free them...at least, that’s what his friends would say. XD Gabe proposed a mutiny, the others agreed, and they headed back down to the “engine room” and the boxes of concentrating people –

Well, after Troy took a little detour through the upper-class cabins to grab all the good loot he could and stuff it into a sack with a big dollar sign on the side. And then went and put a few things back after Barnaby asked him to avoid room 103, please. XD Well, I guess they ARE petty thieves – might as well get while the getting is good!

VI. Everyone arriving in the “engine room” and taking a gander at the boxes of ecological anarchists – where, after some discussion about how they were going to get these folks to set them down gently so they could free them without, you know, dying horribly, the group found a navigator at the very end of the farthest box, who apparently directed operations via a complex system of levers and speaking tubes. The guy was desperately still trying to do his job despite all the chaos, but the moment the group explained that they were doing a mutiny, he was all too willing to switch sides to the mutineers. If only to keep himself alive – he swore that he’d “probably” fight back if they tried to kill him (Winnie: “Awww.” Navigator: “Don’t you ‘awww’ me.” XD). They got him to explain what was going on – apparently the Minister had noticed the useful powers of the ecological anarchists and tricked them into helping power the airship with false promises of a place in his “new utopia”… except that there was no new utopia, as the navigator revealed that they were just going around in circles, with the idea being that they’d stay on the airship forever enjoying themselves (with the occasional landing, or perhaps bucket-lowering, to gather supplies, like more clarified butter). Troy was disgusted and demanded they bring the airship back to Elessia so they could make the ruling elite like the Minister actually do their damn jobs, and the navigator agreed after getting a promise from Gabe that nobody would be coming to kill him should he do so (I think it also helped that Barnaby told him Oswin Fry was dead, having “got rather too into the butter” – the navigator was very sad to learn there had been another death in the Bacchanalatorium XD).

VII. The adventure ending with the airship returning to Elessia and the rich folks forced to deal with its problems (and the ecological anarchists presumably freed); the Quartet plus Barnaby returning to The Setting Scene to let Merton know the deed was done (and to hear about his latest engagement); Troy deciding that what the city really needed was a new government and deciding to run for office to help change things (Barnaby remarked it was much easier to just own all the newspapers, and Troy telling him “well that’s where you come in!”); and Gabe burning his last two stress boxes to spice Eliza and Winnie’s noses for funsies – then going ahead and taking a Trauma to spice Barnaby’s margarita at his request. Said Trauma was “Obsessed,” and what Gabriel was obsessed with was spicing people’s noses. XD The perfect way to end the latest BITD Oxventure, in my opinion! So glad I realized it existed. Now to catch up with the REST of the various campaigns and one-shots I’ve missed…

B) And the entirety of “Top 10 Minthara's Biggest Roasts in Baldur's Gate 3” by DragonsDream! A compilation of excellent roasts from your potential drow companion Minthara, ranging from asking if the player character will be “bringing dead rats and birds to my tent now that we share a camp” if you tell her you were trying to impress her by helping her kill all the tieflings in the grove, to telling the player character that if they can’t see the charm in bloodshed, perhaps they should retire to farm root vegetables when they comment that she has a different definition of “charming” than they do (hers includes a city having murders, oppression, and conspiracies), to her famous companion banter utterly DECIMATING poor Gale (telling him that in her home city, all sons after the second are killed at birth as they have no use in the intensely evilly-matriarchal drow society – then saying he has the aura of a third son about him). XD You know what, the player being able to get her as a companion even on a good-aligned run (she used to be exclusive to people taking the evil route through the game) may be the result of Larian deciding to bend to fan opinion to look “cool” and “relatable,” but god damn if she isn’t well-written and very funny. XD Meaning that, yes, I’ll be taking advantage of the ability to recruit her on Smiler’s run. I just want those pithy one-liners, damn it!

Writing: Squeezed in writing the rough draft of Moose’s birthday gift fic tonight, right before I started chatting with my friend Squid! Because I had to get on that, as her birthday is next week, don’t you know. :p I won’t say too much here because, you know, spoilers, but I will say that it involves your new favorite Weird Video Game Triangle, Moose. :p Hopefully you enjoy it when I post the finished version next Saturday!

YouTube: Didn’t have much time to watch videos tonight, between finishing off all my write-ups above and Game Night (Yahtzee – I won the first game with a lucky Yahtzee, then Dad proceeded to cream Mom and me in the next three games. Well, mostly – the third game he won by a single point over me. But he still won!), but I was able to fit in one Short that intrigued me when I saw it recommended: “Here's Why Karlach Isn't on the BG3 Poster” by Fall Damage! Featuring Karlach’s voice actor, Samantha Béart, reacting to a comment angrily going on about how Karlach isn’t featured on the Baldur’s Gate III poster/splash screen but Wyll’s horrible patron Mizora IS (they also complained about that “twink vampire” being front and center but – well, there was no way Astarion wasn’t getting the prime spot on that screen!). Samantha’s thoughts on the matter consisted of:

A) Reminding the commenter that Mizora is Wyll’s warlock patron, and maybe that poster was from a timeline where Karlach ended up killed by Wyll (because that IS a thing that can happen – as you may remember from my Smiler playthrough, when you first meet Wyll, he’s been tricked into thinking Karlach is a dangerous devil, not a tiefling on the run, and is determined to kill her – you have to talk him out of it when you meet her)

B) Saying that when she’s in a diplomatic mood, she says that Karlach was the one taking the picture of everyone

C) Wondering aloud if the issue is they just used the Early Access version of the poster and never bothered to try and update it (which is what I think, and what some of the other commenters indicated may be the case)

D) Admitting there were no discussions to update the poster that she can talk about, but that she goes “justice restored” whenever she sees a splash screen modded to have Karlach in it

*nods* Yeah – it is pretty unfair that her character doesn’t get to be on the splash screen! Like, I get that her status as a companion is supposed to be a bit of a twist...but the game’s been out two years, most people know she can be recruited, update the damn splash screen. *shakehead* Meeeeh. Larian disappointing us again!

And there we have it! Not a bad final Friday off, I suppose. Though yeah, that wrap-up post took absolute AGES. I seriously didn't realize I'd written THAT MUCH. Yikes. *shakehead* Anyway, I really do need to hit the sheets now -- tomorrow's a Cleaning Saturday, and I'm HOPING I can get most of it done before lunch. We'll see what happens, of course...other goals of the day include finally getting Fallout: New Vegas and the "Viva New Vegas" modlist installed; writing something self-indulgent just for me to help finish out my time off; and probably keeping up with the latest CaFae Latte compilation video! And doing a list of fanfic New Year's Resolutions on tumblr, if I have time. We'll see. Night all!

Like it was near 50 degrees F today, but it was also absolutely MISERABLE, with lots of fairly heavy rain. I was very grateful for my Monterey Bay windbreaker when Mom and I ventured outside on our shopping trip, let me tell you! But despite the lousy weather and a slight case of the tireds, I did manage to get a fair bit done today:

Tumblr: It being a Monday, I didn’t even visit Valice Multiverse – instead, I just focused on getting the following done on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) –

A) I made a minor update to the draft of the next volume of Valicer In The Dark Not-Incorrect quotes, adding a link to the post that inspired the “the gang learns to their shock that Sooty is capable of imitating Smiler’s voice” quote (about how ravens are in fact better mimics of human voices than parrots) in Elder Gutknecht’s dialogue at the end of said quote – gotta give credit where credit is due!

B) I wrote up two rough drafts for new posts to work on later:

( This section got surprisingly long, so... )

C) And, this afternoon, I went ahead and reblogged from Newt (aka dont-offend-the-bees) the “AO3 Wrapped” ask game, with thirty questions for people to ask me about my writing this year, if they are so inclined. *shrug* We’ll see if I get anything!

Post Lunch Shopping Trip: Mom and I ventured out into the rain this afternoon to visit one of the local shopping centers and get me a few more items off my Christmas list – namely, some new work shoes, some slippers (since the ones Mom & Dad originally got me were too narrow), and some new tops if we found anything that I liked. And, after a browse around Kohl’s, we were able to find two out of the three – category-wise, anyway; we ended up purchasing three items. XD Namely:

A) A new chunky beige button up sweater that is nice and warm and soft, and should look good over one of the new shirts I got for my birthday

B) A new lighter green sweater that is also nice and soft, and should be good for spring (I wasn’t sure about the weird “seam” detail going down the front, but Mom assured me it looked nice on me)

C) And a new pair of MukLuk slippers – which are basically little slipper boots, complete with study rubber soles, memory foam insoles, fun knitted patterns, and big fuffy light purple cuffs! :) They’re very comfy, I’m pleased to say

*nods* Not a bad haul – and we were able to knock $25 off the price with that gift card my coworker gave me, so that was all right too. The one thing we weren’t able to find were new work shoes – we looked both in Kohl’s and Famous Footwear, but we couldn’t find anything in my preferred brand, Clark’s – especially nothing in a wide, which is the kind I need. Regular shoes are unfortunately too pinchy for my big feet! We’re planning another trip another day to a DSW to see what they have – hopefully there I should be able to find something that fits!

Fallout: New Vegas: I didn’t actually start playing (or even install) this game yet, but I did spend some time looking up how I should set up the game online today – and it appears that my best bet, as a newbie who wants the easiest modding experience possible, will be to use a program called Wabbajack to automatically install a modlist named “Viva New Vegas,” which contains a variety of mods to improve performance, help prevent crashes, and – in the extended section – add new gameplay and better textures and whatnot. However, this involves a bit of set-up, including downloading and installing some new programs, so rather than jump on that this afternoon, I spent some time instead making some back-ups of all the most important stuff on my computer. You know, just in case anything goes drastically wrong. *nods* (Plus, I really just needed to make a back-up anyway.) We’ll see if I’m feeling brave enough to start the process tomorrow!

Writing: Despite some issues with The Tired striking tonight, I did start the final editing pass on Chapter 2 of “The Van Dort Vacancy” this evening, getting through the trio arriving in the fancy part of Nightmarket to the trio discovering all the carriages around the Van Dort estate and making their way to the house to figure out what the hell was going on. I don’t know exactly when this chapter will be ready to post, but it SHOULD be sometime this week – we’ll see how long it takes me to do the rest of the final edits!

Workout: Got back on the bike tonight and – as I previously said I would – returned to YouTube to start this week’s workout video: “Blades in the Dark RETURNS! 🎁 | Oxventure Holiday Special - The Effugium Contract” by Oxventure! Because like fuck was I not watching that after discovering it existed. However, upon starting the video, I was surprised to learn that it wasn’t exactly what I thought it was going to be – namely, it’s NOT an adventure starring the Hobbyhorses of Volisport from the previous two seasons of Oxventure Presents: Blades In The Dark! Or, well, not all of them anyway… Instead, this holiday special moves the action to the neighboring city of Elessia, and the timeline to roughly a year and a half after the grand finale of the second season, when the Hobbyhorses shut down the Barrier, allowing the spirits of the dead to pass on properly again and bringing magic back into the world. What was the result of that, you might ask?

( More length, more cuts! )

FreeTube: Managed to sneak in the latest list video from OXtra at the end of the day: “Oops! 7 Great Games We Forgot to Cover in 2025!” Ellen and Mike quickly covering some excellent games that Outside Xtra simply didn’t have time to discuss in detail during the course of the year, ranging from blockbusters like Death Stranding 2: On The Beach (which, to Mike’s bafflement, seems to make trudging across dangerous landscapes engaging and fun) and Hollow Knight: Silksong (the long-awaited hard-as-nails metroidvania that, as per a previous list video, caused every other indie game releasing at the same time to announce “uh, yeah, we’re gonna hold off for a bit”) to lesser-known titles like South Of Midnight (a game set in the rural American Deep South, and starring Hazel, an African-American woman who must battle folkloric monsters and clear “Haints,” monstrous creatures born from long-held traumas, after her hometown is ravaged by a hurricane – Ellen described it as having some Alice: Madness Returns vibes, which is cool) and Peak (a cooperative game (though you can play it alone, as Moose can attest to) where your player characters are stranded on an island post a plane crash and must climb the mountain on it, presumably to get help/find things to help you survive – Ellen REALLY wants to play with with the OXBoxers, but they’ve never had the time to coordinate a session). Just a fun little look at some games that deserved a little more love from the channel than they got! Good way to end out the year, I feel.

Not too shabby! Though I wish I could have made a bit more progress on installing Fallout: New Vegas, but still -- best to have the back-ups done first! And now I should really head to bed -- tomorrow, I will continue working on potential posts in the drafts section of Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler); continue doing the final edits on Chapter 2 of "The Van Dort Vacancy;" continue watching "The Effugium Contract" with my workout; and either continue working on F:NV installation funtimes or play some more Baldur's Gate III -- either/or. Hopefully these are all achievable goals -- night all!

Though I have to admit it was a very low-key birthday -- we ended up getting four or so inches of snow last night, so going anywhere was off the table (not that I really wanted to go anywhere), and Dad in particular didn't seem to be doing so hot (I think his side was bothering him more than he let on -- especially since he insisted on shoveling. We're very lucky that the snow turned out to be pretty light and powdery), so the vibes around the place were not so good. But despite that, I still managed to have a pretty decent day -- here are the deets:

Present Haul: Didn’t get a lot for my birthday this year, but I got a few nice things, both from my parents and for myself (if you’re wondering where my aunt’s presents are, she’s been sick, so we haven’t been able to see her; I’ll get whatever she got me for Christmas and my birthday when she and my uncle are feeling better):

From My Parents –
-->Three long-sleeved shirts in pink, white, and purple that are appropriate for me to wear to work under my various sweaters (I specifically requested this as most of my “winter” work shirts were button-up blouses with three-quarters-length sleeves, and those bunch up horribly at the elbows when I try to wear them under sweaters)

-->A Valicer hoodie! :D Yeah, uh, I finally told them about the whole “Valicer” thing because I desperately wanted something Valicer to wear (to go with my Valice t-shirts), and it finally overrode my “how the FUCK do I explain this” embarrassment earlier this month – fortunately, Mom took the whole “I have an OC based on the Smiler coaster and they’re in a relationship with Victor and Alice” thing in stride (hell, she actually likes Smiler’s design, especially their hair), and got the help of Custom Ink (a place that prints images on shirts and hoodies and whatnot) to make me a hoodie featuring my OT3 Math picture from Valicertine’s Day 2024 (it was one of the images I sent her as an example of what I’d like to see). Here’s a picture of the completed product:



Nice, huh? :) I am admittedly a little terrified of staining it, but that’s just how getting these things goes, honestly. It’s nice and soft and warm and I love it a lot. :)

( Okay, this got longer than I anticipated )

...and, okay, it's 2 AM here, so I think everything else is going to have to wait until the morning. *shakehead* I just -- couldn't get myself to get moving on the write-ups this afternoon, unfortunately. I'll finish this entry up tomorrow. And hopefully get to Moose's messages too -- sorry to keep you waiting! Night all.

EDIT 12/28/2025: It's the next morning -- let's finish the write-up of what I did yesterday:

Tumblr: There was nothing again to do over on Valice Multiverse, and again that was good, as I had plenty to do over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – specifically –

A) I traded a couple more reblogs with Satirical Demon over the course of the day about his “Mortasheen Valicer” concepts – both on the original write-up on what he thought they’d be like in the fucked-up-body-horror-loving world of Mortasheen, and on a new post he made talking about their YGOREs (aka “Your Go-To Option Regarding Endeavors,” aka their main, most loyal monster friends – Alice has a Carerazor, essentially a shadow creature that goes around as a living, perpetually-happy bunny plush, named Beth; Victor a Twileye, a vampire fish with sparkling scales, that goes by Sir Rhodes Glitterfin; and Smiler a Madcap, a living jester’s cap creature with a vicious sense of humor and a love of skull handpuppets, named Marmally) and other potential monsters they might pick up to round out their “teams” (because, hilariously, Mortasheen works a bit like POKEMON in that respect – your characters befriend various monstrous creatures, who then help them out in tight spots; examples included Alice picking up a cat-like monster called a Snickerscratch – I approved mightily of the name – Victor a moth creature called Mothstrous, who is nice and fluffy, and Smiler getting what is essentially a living TV signal that can influence minds called a Psychodrome). I still don’t quite understand everything he’s going on about, simply because I don’t have the book and thus can’t look up shit, but it’s clear he’s having loads of fun, and I rather like hearing about these twisted takes on my beloved OT3. I love a good fucked-up world for them to live in, even if it’s not exactly my flavor of fucked up (as previously stated, some of the monster designs and whatnot are a little too gross for me)! And it’s just nice to see people taking an interest in them. :)

B) I reblogged “Parachute” as my Song Saturday song of choice, as it’s a favorite Valicer song of mine and I wanted to have one of those on my blog for my birthday

C) And I did a photo post showing off my new hoodie for the tumblr peeps. :) It’s here if you want to see it – has an extra close-up pic of the image on the front.

I know it doesn’t LOOK like I was that busy, but trust me, those convos with Satirical took a while! Not complaining, just extremely aware of how much time in the day they eat up. *shakehead* One day I will learn time management again.

Little Corners: I may have just bought New Vegas, but as previously stated, I have to figure out the mod situation before I start playing it. And I suspected that was going to take a while (as these things often do), so instead I decided to fire up this, my other new end-of-2025 game, and instead keep working on my Alchemist’s Tower corner! And I’m pleased to say I had a very productive session, including:

A) Unlocking all three hidden stickers – the “burning fireplace interior” sticker (which I actually did by accident – I thought you had to put the log sticker in the fireplace, then put a torch or something in there, but it as it turned out, putting the logs on top of the fireplace and then accidentally moving the fireplace was enough), the “poison bottle” sticker (the hint was you had to put something in the big cauldron full of green liquid – after a bit of experimentation, I found that dropping in a green mushroom did the trick; the poison bottle itself was a cool green skull-shape, but I couldn’t find a good place for it in the room), and the “happy mouse” sticker (the hint was “say cheese, mouse” so I gave both mice stickers the cheese sticker – giving it to the one standing up unlocked the sticker, which was a very full mouse sitting among some half-eaten cheese chunks XD)

B) Cluttering up the work table with everything I thought my hypothetical Smiler alchemist would need – which took some doing, let me tell you! Not only did I have to move the little table-sized cauldron over to its own little table pushed up next to the main one just so I’d have space for everything else I wanted, I also had to keep adjusting the layering of my stickers to make sure everything was overlapping everything else correctly every time I added something or decided I wanted to move an element! And let me tell you, that shit ain’t always easy, especially when you’re dealing with the really small stickers, like some of the piles of colorful ingredients you can put on the scales. *shakehead* I got there in the end, but man. I’m glad that moving stuff behind or in front of other stickers only involves a combination of SHIFT + the mouse’s scroll wheel – otherwise it would get a lot more complicated a lot faster!

C) And adding more decorations to the place to add a bit more color – like colorful banners on the fireplace and the wall by the door; boxes of potions ready to be sent out near the edge of the floor on the right-hand side of the corner; a box of yellow flowers between the standing desk and the fireplace; a blue circular rug under the standing desk; hanging herbs on the window above the standing desk; and a little frog on the chair next to the desk, along with the happy cheese-filled house near a hole in the wall by the bookcase. *nods* Just some stuff to liven the place up a bit! I still wish we could at least choose from a few different color swatches from our stickers, but I will take what decorations I am given in the meantime.

*nods* Fun times! Well, mostly, some of the layering stickers shit was a little frustrating. XD But I’m pretty happy with what is currently the final product – take a look:



Nice, huh? :) I’m pretty proud of it. Not sure I want to add anything else just at the moment – you don’t want to overclutter your rooms, after all – but we’ll see how I feel the next time I play. Plenty of other corners to try if I want to move onto a new one, after all!

FreeTube/Invidious: Ended up watching two things over here today –

A) “Trapdoors, Cart On The Road and Insider Trading - The OX Crew Play BITD” by CaitlinRC – basically a collection of “best of” moments from “Fate Of The Dimmer Sisters,” the Lilith and Barnaby adventure where they had to save Rosie & Josie from being burned at the stake to get some vital information out of the head of the Dimmer Sisters, Kelly! I watched this mostly for the Barnaby moments to get a reminder of how he talks and conducts himself (so I could write him correctly in “The Van Dort Vacancy”), but it was very fun on its own merits too – Caitlin chose a lot of good moments, including Ellen saving Luke from having to do a really scratchy voice for Kelly by having Lilith offer her a throat sweet; Barnaby NOT being subtle in indicating to Rosie and Josie that they needed to go “through the floor” of their carriage to escape their fate; and of course Barnaby’s infamous “pump and dump” of his shares in Darnell’s security firm, right before the reveal that his high profile prisoners had mysteriously disappeared. XD Ahh, I do love “Oxventure Presents: Blades In The Dark…”

B) And “CaFae Latte Season 80 - TikTok Compilation” by C. M. Alongi – the TikTok compilation videos of my favorite webseries are back, right in time for my birthday! :D And today’s was a fun one, covering:

I. Kelly showing up at the cafe to confirm that JC was good to be her and her friends’ designated driver tonight – and shoving her hand in Cyrus’s face to make sure he didn’t see anything when Husniya showed up with her scarf slipping and a bit of her hair exposed; Kelly explaining that she and her friends were going to Bloody Mary’s, the vampire bar that was also an unofficial lesbian bar (unofficial because it’s run by a guy who intended to just make a bar – it turned lesbian thanks to the guy’s lesbian daughter or niece constantly bringing her friends there, as Kelly explained to Drek), to have some fun and celebrate some life events; and Drek revealing that he was still DMing for people at Divergent Realms, the TTRPG community made by and for neurodivergent people – allowing Bob to slip in a fourth-wall-breaking plug for the CaFae Latte game over there and C. M.’s discount code XD

( This got long too )

Writing: Well, I started later than I might have liked, and I did struggle a bit with getting started, but I did manage to successfully edit another page of “The Van Dort Vacancy” today – specifically, the page where Victor first meets Barnaby “The Butcher” Fortescue III! Hence why I watched that “best of” video by CaitlinRC today. XD Our page today featured:

A) Barnaby accepting Victor’s apology by saying that he knew the middle classes were often too busy with whatever it is they did to look where they were going, and at least Victor didn’t spill his drink – Victor was immediately like “oh no, why him” XD

B) Barnaby talking about how he couldn’t miss a Van Dort soiree, because while they were obviously upstarts trying to buy their way into high society, they always threw a hell of a party – proving it wasn’t who you knew or what you did that was important, but how rich you were XD

C) Victor going over everything he knew about Barnaby in the narration for the benefit of the audience – specifically that Barnaby was roughly a decade older than him; extremely rich thanks to his family having their fingers in all the pies; charming to his equals and a bit of a boor to his inferiors (since he had enough money to not worry about “the little people” making problems for him); and pretty much ALWAYS drunk XD

D) And Victor hoping that Barnaby wasn’t in the mood for a long conversation – only for Barnaby to dash those hopes the minute he realized who Victor was and start nattering on about the whole thing with Barkis, telling Victor that life was nothing without a little risk and that he needed to get out there and taste danger when Victor commented that living the events of the last few days was much less entertaining than reading about them. And then qualifying that with “well, not enough danger so you die or bring shame on your family name.” XD

Good stuff! I think I’ve got Barnaby’s voice down, but I’m gonna keep watching clips of him just to be sure. Tomorrow, I’m gonna see if I can finish this chapter off, since I’ve only got about a page left – then we can move into the final editing pass, and maybe get this sucker posted in the first few days of 2026...

And there we have it -- the COMPLETE recounting of what I did on the 27th! Please enjoy while I try to figure out time management skills again.

"Somewhat" because my parents didn't have the best time -- Mom ended up with some stomach upset after lunch (well, intestinal upset according to her), and Dad, who is still recovering from tearing a muscle in his back, complained that his side was starting to hurt during dinner, so that wasn't great. And even I had to deal with a bit of a stiff neck much of the day (didn't bother me TOO much, but -- it made itself known). But we had a nice time opening presents in the morning once I got up for the day; lunch was good, with all our Chinese leftovers; and I had a pretty chill, relaxing day overall, so I'm going to count it as at least a decently good Christmas. I've had worse ones, that's for sure! Let me share with you all the most important stuff of the day:

Present Haul: It isn’t Christmas without presents, and I had a pretty decent haul this year, including:

-->A 2026 “Mensa Brain Teasers” page-a-day calendar (it’s basically a calendar full of various daily puzzles; I got one last year for 2025 and have really enjoyed it, so I requested another one)

-->A box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates (one of the “standard” gifts I get every year)

-->A bag of Ghirardelli hot chocolate mix (another “standard” gift)

-->A third sports bra of the same kind I got last year (I got two in last year’s present haul, and I figured having a third would be a good thing – would make sure I always had one ready to go if the others needed washing!)

-->New winter gloves with special leather padding on the forefinger and thumb to facilitate touchscreen use and keep them from wearing out too fast (my old pair, while still good, were starting to wear out, with holes developing on the thumbs, so this was a nice surprise)

-->A white mushroom-shaped battery-powered desk lamp (I asked for one of these because it can get very dark at my desk sometimes thanks to its position relative to the ceiling light, and I wanted to brighten it up a bit – the lamp does the job, but for some reason it came with a USB charging cable when it runs on batteries AND doesn’t actually have a slot for the charging cable to plug into – like, there’s a hole the right side on the white outer ring of the base, but there’s no actual socket behind it. O.o We’re not sure what to make of it. Keeping the cord as a free extra phone charging cable if I need it!)

-->A Shaun the Sheep pin (from Wallace & Gromit – it’s very cute, shows him chewing a newspaper while wearing the sweater from A Close Shave

-->Two pairs of soft Christmas-themed socks (one blue pair with candy canes, one white pair with reindeer – they were technically a gift for my mother from a friend of hers, but she gave them to me because she doesn’t really wear socks and I do)

-->A mini Ghostbusters ghost trap that opens and closes, and lights up and plays different noises depending on if it’s open or closed, and which came with a mini sticker book (made by the same people who made my new mini flux capacitor, RP Minis – it’s really well done!)

-->A mini magnetic BTTF Part II hoverboard that came with a stand to balance it on (so it looks like it’s floating), and two magnetized mini-power-lacing Nikes that you can put on your fingers and then attach to the hoverboard (and finger-hoverboard your way around the room), along with a fridge magnet of the DeLorean traveling through time (which I stuck on my big flux capacitor replica – this is also an RP Minis creation, and it’s very cute)

-->A pair of $20 Steam gift cards (which I originally asked for so I could purchase Paralives with them – however, that game’s been delayed til May, so they might get spent on something else beforehand. Though, admittedly, I have to use up the $22 bucks I had left over from buying Baldur’s Gate III first, so there’s a bit of a buffer :P)

-->The game Little Corners (which I actually purchased for myself with some of that $22 bucks of buffer money – it’s a cute little sticker book game where you pick a room “corner” to decorate – with options ranging through a cottage kitchen to an adventurer’s tavern, from overgrown ruins to an emperor’s chambers – and select what you want to put inside it from sheets of virtual stickers! I’m currently in the process of decorating an alchemist’s tower, which I will describe in a bit more detail below)

-->And technically I got a new pair of slippers (as my old ones are giving up the ghost) – but, unfortunately, while they’re long enough, they’re not wide enough, especially with the socks I like to wear (Mom’s going to see if she can get me a wider pair of the same kind, and if not we’ll see what else we can get)

Not too shabby, I feel! My favorite presents of the lot were the three RP Minis prop replicas – here, have a picture of them all lined up:



Cute, huh? I’m very happy with them. :) Just have to find a good place to put them now – they’re currently on my nightstand as my desk is taken up with all my chocolate. XD

Little Corners: As stated above, I bought this cute little “sticker book” game today with some of my Steam gift card money – I’d seen it being promoted on tumblr by a friend of one of the creators, and it looked like an adorable, low-key game that I could play when I wasn’t in the mood for anything complicated. And I’m pleased to say it is just that! The controls are simple (left click to pick up a sticker; right click to flip it; scroll the mouse wheel to change what “layer” the sticker is on, and scroll the wheel and hit SHIFT to determine if a particular sticker ends up on top of or underneath another sticker (like if you want to put a pillow under a cat)); there’s a decent number of corners to customize, and a good amount of virtual stickers to use in each room; there’s a customizable background to make working more fun (like you can put your corner on the beach if you are so inclined, or on a cheeseboard – I’ve gone with a bright yellow “Moroccan” background because I’m working on an alchemist’s room, and of course when I think of alchemy, I think of Smiler); you can zoom in to get a closer look at your room, which is great for placing stickers much more precisely; the soundtrack is pleasant to listen to; and there’s even hidden stickers to unlock if you want a goal other than “decorate this room to look pretty.” My one complaint so far is that there’s no way to customize the color of your stickers – what you see is what you get, and while all the stickers are cute, I would have liked to at least have had a few different color swatches for each one! My alchemist’s tower is currently VERY brown. *shakehead* Ah well – it’s still a fun little game, and it’s easy to get sucked into decorating your room JUST right. I spent about an hour today working on the alchemy room, setting up –

A) The main entrance on the left-hand wall, with a torch right next to it for light

B) A bookcase and a storage cabinet (built from a couple of stacked cabinet stickers) on the wall next to it – the bookcase is full of colorful books, while the storage cabinet has spare glassware, jars of ingredients, and some scrolls inside, along with a little cobweb and spider on top, where it meets the corner

C) A big stone fireplace in the middle of the right-hand wall, flanked by two stained glass windows, with a pile of logs and a bellows next to it on the left (originally on the right, but I decided I wanted that space for other things)

D) A small standing desk underneath the right-most window on the right-hand wall, with a book of various illustrations of alchemical ingredients on it and a chair next to it

E) And a big work table in the middle of the room in front of the fireplace on a plain brown rug, with a cutting board (with knife and mushroom atop it), a mortar and pestle, a set of scales, and a metal gripping arm holding a tube of something being heated by a little burner (took me a while to get this all set up, let me tell you – hopefully I don’t have to move any of it!)

*nods* It’s all coming along nicely, I feel! Here, have a screenshot of it in progress – er, ignore the bunch of potion bottles on the floor, and the glassware kind of floating/sitting next to the table, I forgot to move them out of the shot ^^; –



I like it so far, anyway! I’ll keep poking at it and keep you apprised of what happens. :P

Tumblr: Well, in addition to getting and answering a bunch of “thank you, this was great” comments and reblogs regarding all the gift fics that went up today (nice to be appreciated, I must say), I did end up posting one thing on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) (Valice Multiverse, as usual, was completely dead) – a video post showcasing my three RP Mini replica presents mentioned above! Because I very much wanted to share how cool they were with everyone. :D So, if you want to see the mini flux capacitor, the mini ghost trap, and the mini hoverboard in action, I encourage you to click that link and watch my hand fumbling around with all of them. XD

FreeTube/Invidious: Welp, I finally got to it today before supper – the hour-long OXBox video that’s been taunting me for a few weeks now: “We Guess the Game from 1 SECOND OF MUSIC!” This was a video featuring Mike presenting a quiz created by The Video Game Professors (another YouTube channel that apparently has a variety of interesting video game quizzes) to Jane, Ellen, and Andy, where they had to guess what game a song came from based on one second of music from said song (generally from the very beginning, though I think a few seconds were sampled from later on)! Though Mike was generous and gave out points for getting the general franchise name right if they couldn’t get the specific game (for example, putting Grand Theft Auto for a song specifically from GTA: San Andreas), which really helped me as I played along. XD Notable moments from the video included:

( In case you want to track down the video and play yourself, I’ll put these behind a spoiler cut )

Writing: I started rather later than I might have liked – a consequence of watching the OXBox video during the afternoon, I’m sure – but I did manage to do a bit of editing on “The Van Dort Vacancy” today, just like I wanted. :) Just got through the one page today, but what a page it was, covering:

A) Victor overhearing his parents talking about his “ghost bride” story through the door, with Nell being like “he actually expected us to believe all that?” and William being like “well, I don’t know, it’s pretty fantastical but ghosts are very unstable, one could have kidnapped him after hearing him recite his vows…”

And Nell replying, “Oh, don’t be ridiculous, William. What ghost would marry our Victor?” Causing poor Victor to feel like he’d been punched in the gut, because while he’d already known she didn’t believe him, to hear her say that in tones of such derision was – something else. :(

B) Victor miserably realizing that his mother doesn’t believe anyone could ever love him, and that his father will never go against her because he’s not the perfect heir to the cannery he wanted...and then becoming furious as it hits him that Alice and Smiler, who he’s known for four days, have treated him better than William and Nell ever did for a lifetime. And THEN the thought of being separated from them thanks to his parents not approving of their friendship making him realize further that he basically just does not want to be a Van Dort anymore. That he’d rather be in Elder Gutknecht’s unheated house, eating surprise loaf for breakfast with Alice and Smiler, than the gilded prison of the Van Dort mansion because at least at Gutknecht’s he’s around people who actually care about him! And now that he knows what it feels like to be wanted...well. He is NOT giving it up.

C) And Victor storming off across the ballroom, thinking about how long it’ll take him to reach his bedroom, and what he should pack, and if it would be prudent to go talk to Alice and Smiler first, before his parents find out about them waiting at the servants’ entrance...only to be abruptly jerked back into the here and now when he runs into someone, because sometimes it’s better to actually pay attention where you’re going even if you’re in a snit.

Good stuff! I admit, I struggled to get going at first, but I’m happy with how the edits came out in the end – especially Victor realizing just how little he wants to be a Van Dort anymore. *nods* I left off with Victor apologizing to the guy he bumped into – tomorrow, we get to learn exactly who that guy is, and I probably get to watch some Oxventure Presents: Blades In The Dark to make sure I’ve got his voice right. :P Somebody’s gotta have a collection of “best Barnaby moments” from that series, right?

And there you have it -- a merry enough Christmas for me! However, as of this writing, it's actually 2 AM on Boxing Day, so I really ought to get to sleep. XD Goals for tomorrow: finish off that "Valicer In The Dark" masterpost I started in my Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) (because why not, I already put in most of the work); work some more on "The Van Dort Vacancy" (I'm actually fairly close to finishing off Chapter 2 -- be nice to post it sometime around the beginning of 2026!); play some Baldur's Gate III (it's been a fucking while and I miss it); watch the OXmas tiebreaker episode (gotta see if Ellen or Andy gets the crown!); and get in a workout (gotta finish off my time with the festive Bake-Offs). Hopefully these are all achievable goals -- night all! Merry Christmas!

Yes, while it wasn't a PERFECT Christmas Eve -- mostly because I ended up having to rewash a few dishes and wipe off all the kitchen counters and wash the spinning plate inside the microwave after lunch because my parents were busy playing cribbage, which ended up really annoying me because I had other shit I wanted to do, damn it, which mean that when I did get back to my room I had to spend some time calming myself down -- I did at least check off everything that I put on my must-do list last night:

1. Get all the posts for the Christmas gift fics going up on tumblr sorted and into the queue for Christmas – Check! I spent the time before lunch in the “drafts” section of Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), reviewing the posts I’d already completed for Marie and Squid’s gift fics, finishing off the one I previously started for Nebby’s fic, then creating the ones for WeirdKev, Nattie, Ace, and SatiricalDemon’s fics (had to finish the tags on the last one after lunch, but to be fair I was nattering on a bit about how much I liked doing the research for that fic and how I felt Omega Mart was Smiler-coded). Then, this afternoon, I slotted them all into the queue to post throughout the day tomorrow! :) So Tumblr Christmas is set at least. As a bonus, I also reblogged:

A) My friend Newt’s “art vs artist 2025” post (a showcase of himself and the art he created this year, which consisted mostly of Dead Boys Detective Agency fanart along with a few other pieces like various felt friends, and an adorable cat pumpkin) because they are a good artist and, even if we’re in very different fandoms now, it felt like the right thing to do :)

B) And a photoset by sheikonfleek (via my friend SatiricalDemon) of one of the scenes from Hogfather – specifically, the one where DEATH says that humans need fantasy to BE human, and that Hogfathers and Tooth Fairies are little lies for children to practice believing in so, as adults, they can believe the big lies like Justice and Mercy. Because humans have to believe in things that aren’t real – how else can they become? As you might expect, the rest of the attached reblog chain was all “it’s seasonal again!” and talking about how this is the kind of wisdom that weighs on your chest for the rest of your life – there are reasons this scene is one of the most quoted out of the books/adaptations. *nods*

2. Watch the 12th Day of OXmas, which may or may not be the grand finale (we will see) – Check! I got to it a little later than intended, but I did get to it, watching “XMAS CHALLENGE Day 12: CHAOS MODE 2 | Mario Kart World Knockout Tour Challenge! 🏎️💨” on OXtra tonight! This challenge saw the four go into Mario Kart World, the latest in the Mario Kart series, and participate in a “Knockout Tour” – a long race through six different courses where players are periodically eliminated if they haven’t placed high enough in the rankings. The group chose to do the Spiny Rally because it had some good “festive” (aka snowy) sections, picked their racers – Monty Mole for Mike, Sombero Waluigi for Ellen (though he seemed to switch the hat for a helmet midway through), Random Penguin for Jane, and Baby Luigi for Andy – declared that whoever got the farthest in the tour got the precious Christmas point, then revved their engines and started their tour! How did it go?

Chaotically! Everyone kept changing places super-fast as they encountered various power-ups and hazards, and it was hard to keep track of everything that was going on thanks to the four-person split-screen view. I never knew who to watch! But I can do a basic breakdown of what happened per stage for you –

( Under a cut because this is a big spoiler )

3. Work some more on "The Van Dort Vacancy" – Check! I did that this afternoon after calming down from my grumpy fit, getting roughly about two-and-a-half pages edited in Chapter 2. :) And what did those two-and-a-half pages cover?

...pretty much just “Victor gets yelled at by his mother as he attempts to explain where he’s been and what happened over the past four days.” *nods* I mean, if you need more specifics, we had:

A) Victor arriving at the doors of the main ballroom, hoping to slip in quietly and without much notice so he could find his parents and take them aside to explain where’s he been – only for Nell to open one of the doors right in his face, see him, and immediately start berating him for being gone for so long, for coming back now, and for causing so much scandal

B) Victor attempting to apologize and pleading that he’s had a few very odd days, only for Nell to be like “we’ve had worse” and launch into a litany of all the indignities they’ve suffered recently, including Mayhew dropping dead and William being forced to drive their own carriage back to Brightstone; the Everglots breaking their engagement to marry Victoria off to Lord Barkis; Lord Barkis ending up dead and the Bluecoats claiming he was a Spirit Warden and that Victor helped murder him (saying it was very fortunate the Spirit Wardens put paid to that quickly); the Everglots refusing to re-engage Victoria to Victor because she stumbled across an Imperial guardsman on her flight from Barkis’s clutches and they decided he was a much better prospect for her; and having to quickly plan and execute this party to salvage their reputation with their son still missing

C) Victor finally being allowed to talk and attempting to explain about his “ghost bride” – only for Nell and William to get hung up on his claim that he got dragged into the ghost field by her (which neither of them thinks could have actually happened, as the ghost field is for ghosts, not people), and then for Nell to go ballistic when Victor mentioned escaping into Silkshore and immediately assume that her son went off to sow some wild oats (or “fish for silverflake in the canals” as per the Duskwallian version of the phrase) with a couple of wastrels (aka Alice and Smiler)

D) Victor desperately apologizing some more to his parents and saying that he wants to put things right, and being told by Nell to go into the party, find a girl, and start courting, as he’d just proven he could talk to women – cue Victor heading inside and awkwardly asking his parents if he’d see them later, and Nell rolling her eyes, shoving him into the room, and closing the door on him

Yeaaah – not a fun few pages for our boy Victor! And things are going to get worse before they get better, sadly… Anyway, I left off with him leaning against the doors, thinking about how his parents think he’s a fool and a rake and muttering how “this day couldn’t get any worse” – tomorrow, he overhears a conversation that makes it worse. But also makes it better, as it is going to inspire him to finally ditch some dead weight, so to speak...

4. Get in a workout – Check! Another night on the bike, another night with The Great British Baking Show Holidays! Because there’s really not much else I want to watch on Netflix! Trust me, I checked. *shakehead* But yeah, tonight’s pedal session took me through:

A) The end of Episode 2 of the collection, with Rav, Rob, Benjamina, and Sandy presenting their “magical ice cakes” to the judges! Paul and Prue liked Rob’s flavors, but noted that he’d completely missed the brief with his focus on his little pastries (though at least he did have some dry ice that he used to create a misty effect underneath the cake); liked Sandy’s ambition with her mousse cake surrounded by Swiss Rolls, but felt that it wasn’t executed as well as it could have been; thought Benjamina’s cake filled the brief and tasted delicious –

But felt that Rav’s cake with its little pine trees to go with the colorful ice shards and lovely spun sugar “skirt” and delicious almond sponge with passionfruit filling edged her out. And so the cake stand went to Rav, who was extremely pleased with his win! And as well he should be. *nods*

B) And – after confirming that there really wasn’t anything else I could think of to watch – the beginning of Episode 3! Featuring Liam, Flo, Jane, and Andrew as our bakers – the latter two were on the same regular season together and apparently have a friendly rivalry, which is cute. I got all the way through the Signature Bake, which was cookies decorated with the bakers’ personal interpretations of the 12 Days Of Christmas (Paul and Prue liked the taste of everyone’s cookies, but felt the fondant covering on Flo’s was just waaay too thick, and the icing work on Liam and Andrew’s a little bit messy (and a little bit confusing, as the boys went for more personalized “this is what I like to do at Christmas” cookies over the ladies’ more generically Christmassy designs) – Jane’s work was judged the best, though she sadly didn’t qualify for a Hollywood Handshake), and I’m currently partway through the Technical Bake, which is Laufabrauð – a really thin Icelandic fried flatbread decorated with intricate cut designs, kind of like a poppadom (everyone so far has managed to successfully make the dough and roll out the pieces to be the correct thinness – nearly transparent – but they all seem to be struggling a bit with getting the snowflake pattern Paul wants on them just right. They have a cutting tool to help them make the design, but the trick is knowing where to roll it…). We’ll finish this off on Friday, I think – hopefully somebody will figure out how to make a successful snowflake by then!

Other: As per tradition, I was allowed to open one of my presents early – I chose the first one in my stocking, which turned out to be a mini flux capacitor! :) It’s a tiny, quite nicely done replica that lights up AND plays sounds – though if you just want the fluxing, it has a “lights only” mode too. Plus it comes with a tiny booklet talking about Doc’s invention of the time machine, the particulars of how it works, and all the trouble Doc and Marty had while going back and forth in time. It’s a very cute little gift! I’ve got it sitting in front of my big life-size flux capacitor replica for the moment – once I can clear my desk of all the chocolate boxes and bags I’ve picked up though, I’ll probably move it next to my Victor Funko Pop figure. We’ll see!

So that was all good, at least! Kind of wish I'd been able to get more done, but at least all the most important things were accomplished! And now I should probably head to bed, as it is pretty late and I don't want to sleep all Christmas. XD Only to-do I have tomorrow is to continue working on "The Van Dort Vacancy," as I AM really enjoying editing that again after so long away -- otherwise, we'll just see what happens! Night all!