Back To Pretty Much Normal Again

I did wake up a little early this morning, but I was able to roll over and pretty much get right back to sleep, and then sort of bounced between sleeping and wakefulness for a little while before getting up. So yeah. Hopefully that means the worst of the insomnia is behind me now! *fingers crossed* Especially since I'm also pretty much back to normal when it comes to posting times... And now the weather my day --

Work – The days get quieter as the week gets longer – today I only had three credit card calls, all pledges, and they all came in a bit of a burst in the early afternoon. Guess most people are mailing their stuff in… I also did more roster maintenance (natch) and pestered our credit card people to upload a batch of payments they apparently missed for some reason after trying to find a different batch that seemed to be missing (that one was just under the wrong “parish” in the system). Not really that much going on! Just glad tomorrow’s Friday, yay~

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – pedaled my way through the end of “Our first Sim to finish in Tiny Town Challenge! - Part 14” by James Turner tonight! The final half-hour of Vivienne’s final episode featured –

A) James finishing off her house, including updating her bedroom (turning her bed so it faced the window on the back wall and getting her a new dresser and some cool graffiti to go on the shipping container wall on the side), and giving her a proper little garden (including making both a cute seating area near the back with with a bench, a birdfeeder, and a little pink fountain, all surrounded by shrubs and scaled-down trees; and giving her another tree with a towel under it to lounge on)! It perhaps has a bit more greenery than someone into Industrial style should have, but it looks really nice. :) He indicated he MIGHT go back to add one or two more finishing touches should the comments insist (he already mentioned maybe solar panels on the roof), but as far as he’s concerned, the house is DONE.

B) James discovering that Krystoff’s Book Of Life had somehow vanished from the vault (along with all the other books in Vivienne’s bookshelves, the HELL??), meaning he had to do an off-screen marathon to have her write eight more to cover herself and all her siblings. It wasn’t until he was setting them all up in the vault room with their appropriately-colored spotlights and such that he discovered –

I. How one makes copies of books (you have to put them out in the world, and then there will be an option for you to make a copy of it for the retail price of said book) – he was VERY annoyed that he could have just written ONE book and then copied it a bunch of times, but he did at least take advantage of the option to make back-up copies

II. That writers cannot bind a Book of Life to themselves, meaning Vivienne’s book is currently a book of nothing. He ATTEMPTED to gift it to Camillo and have him do it for her, but I think the option is only available for those who have completed the aspiration, so he wasn’t able to assist. Meaning that right now, Vivienne is so far so out of luck if she dies! (The comments have pointed out that Bernice Robles’s husband does have level 9 Writing Skill already, though, so he might be a good candidate to get the trait and give Vivienne a hand here. Can’t have the new rainbow book vault room incomplete!)

C) James discovering that poor Scarlett’s bumper crop of giant mushrooms was starting to die off because he left them neglected for too long – he had Vivienne hastily harvest the ones that remained, then – after discovering he couldn’t just leave them in a storage box for Scarlett – did an off-screen temporary swap to her to keep them in her fridge so they wouldn’t go bad. Sorry Scarlett, but you should still get a decent payday from those!

D) And James ending the episode with Vivienne adopting a cat, as per one of the comments on her last episode – a cute little kitten named Dilbert! James took him around to the local vet clinic to get a treat to age him up (as he’d intended to get an adult cat, he just chose Dilbert because he liked the name), then – once he was fully grown – dressed him up in a bunch of pink outfits and put a lot of pink cat stuff around the house. XD Dilbert is a Curious, Playful, and Lazy cat, so he should make a good companion for the largely-sedentary Vivienne. :) No more tanked social need for her!

And that wrapped things up for her! :) Good stuff, and a good note to end things on for Vivienne. Next time – well, I think it’s another finale, though I don’t know whose. Guess we’ll find out!

2. Resume working on “A Murder Shared Is A Murder Thirded”: Check – yes, I got back to my second Valicer In The Dark story today, where the gang goes and murders that asshole Bumby! Though as of Chapter One, Alice and Victor are just trying to wake up while Smiler, somehow a morning person in a world that doesn’t have mornings, gets tea and breakfast ready. XD Good thing for their roomies that they make an amazing cup of tea! Anyway, I left it with Smiler having provided everyone with a cuppa (or a beakera, given that they only found ONE teacup along with the kettle up in the library) and some surprise loaf for breakfast, and the trio preparing to talk plans for what to do about Bumby! Looking forward to getting back into the swing of this – I do love this universe a lot. :D

3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – I got to YouTube a bit late tonight, but I was still able to get in a couple of short videos –

A) First up, from the Subs we had Josh Way and “The Brutalist Movie Review!” His Trademark Complicated Thoughts on the new three-and-a-half hour Jewish-immigrants-in-America epic that came out recently, covering the life of a Holocaust survivor architect and his wife. Said Trademark Complicated Thoughts could not be discussed in full because he refused to spoil the ending (though apparently, after thinking about it, he’s decided it’s brilliant), but he did say that this is a good movie! Just the themes are VERY heavy-handed and it feels like it’s showing off what a Big Important Movie it is. Basically, it’s one of those films that looks at you and says “I DESERVE AN OSCAR” and dares you disagree. And also it’s three-and-a-half freaking hours long. Which automatically puts it in the “not for me” category (two hours is generally my limit), but hey, if you want to give it a go, feel free!

B) And then, from the Watch Later, we had OXBox and “Fallout 76 Playable Ghoul: Here's What It's Like Playing as a Ghoul in Fallout 76!” A short (seriously, not even three minutes) sneak peek at the new “playable ghoul” content that’s coming to Fallout 76 in March, which Andy is pretty sure was inspired by the popularity of the Ghoul from the TV show. While they weren’t allowed to show the quest to become a ghoul (though they were allowed to say it unlocks at level 50, making it “end game” content), Andy did show off what ghouls look like in this game (very Fallout 4 style), and talked a bit about the different mechanics (namely, radiation heals you instead of harms you; you can gather rads for “glow” to help boost your abilities; there’s thirty-two new ghoul-specific perk cards to play with; and ghouls trade “hunger” and “thirst” meters for a “feral” meter, which goes up the more radiation you have and down the more chems you take – you lost AP and accuracy the higher the meter, but become very powerful in hand-to-hand combat – just like enemy ferals!). It looks interesting, so fingers crossed Bethesda doesn’t fuck it up for the Fallout 76 players!

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check and check again –

Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – I did quite a bit over here tonight, surprisingly –

A) I went through my dash and reblogged some posts that caught my eye, including –

I. This post about how, if you don’t want Siri learning from your apps, you have to turn off that toggle for EACH INDIVIDUAL APP which I did myself this morning after seeing it on my friend Poesdaughter’s blog. *sigh* Important info is important!

II. A post shouting out trans people (with a little extra shoutout to black trans people) – felt like a good thing to reblog, since I have a couple of trans friends over there :)

III. A post with a quote from Ocean Vuong (no, I’m not sure who that is), talking about a legend about a Chinese painter who was commissioned by the Emperor to paint a landscape so beautiful that the Emperor could step inside of it – and how, when the painter’s work wasn’t up to snuff and the Emperor was preparing to have him killed, the painter himself stepped inside his own work and escaped into it. Apparently Ocean loved the allegory and how it says that your work is always enough for you – you can always escape inside of it. The poster who put the quote up said that this is what writing fic is meant to feel like, and – yeah. I reblogged it just to agree with that sentiment. :)

IV. A post with a clip from Would I Lie To You?, one of my favorite British TV shows, featuring one of Bob Mortimer’s hilariously implausible stories and poor David Mitchell stressing out about if it’s real or a lie (since that’s the point of the show, figuring out which stories are real and which aren’t). The problem here being, Bob Mortimer’s hilariously implausible stories tend to be true – but not always. XD I HAD to reblog this, as WILTY is freaking hilarious and deserves to have more people know about it. Seriously, if you can watch the show, do so, it’s fantastic. The episode we watched tonight had us all in stitches. XD

B) I also answered a couple of replies –

I. Answered Satirical explaining where his plush knife-hand-toothy-monkey friend came from (as I said yesterday, it’s knock-off merch for the video game Dark Deception), stating that at least his is more cuddly XD

II. And had a brief conversation with Satirical on my VITD Advocates post, where he compared Mar-Mal’s standard manifestation to that of the Cosmic Starfish (a SCP creature that is not quite of this earth and has contaminated all of our reality, which feeds on lower, less “fractal” lifeforms and will kill anything that can truly perceive it) and said it was a good thing that Mar-Mal was nicer; I said “yes it is” and gave him some links to images of the coaster so he could get a better idea of what Mar-Mal is supposed to look like; he thanked me and confirmed that the Cosmic Starfish is a giant prick and DOES exist in the Beneath A Broken Sky world; and I was like “of COURSE it does.” XD

C) And, finally, I took a moment to add an idea I had earlier to the rough draft of my “Valicer (And More) Ghostbusters AU” post (“Valicer (And More)” because it also features BTTF characters front and center) – namely, that Clara should have the “Dana Barrett” role insomuch as she lives in the haunted apartment building that will become the focus of the final confrontation with Gozer, and meets the initial four Ghostbusters – Doc, Marty, Victor, and Smiler – when she calls them about Zuul being in her fridge. Doc and Clara are of course smitten at first sight, and she ends up joining the team out of her own interest in what they’re doing. :) Didn’t want to forget it tomorrow!

Valice Multiverse – By contrast, I just had the one thing to slap in the queue over here – another ask from toonsisters, talking about “when the autism hits” and pressing a big red button that says “DO NOT PRESS” – the Cuddlepile trio argued that was less about autism and more about just being human, with them looking up a certain quote from the Discworld novel Thief of Time about how, if you put an end of the world switch in a cave and painted “End of the World switch, please do not touch” above it, the paint wouldn’t even have time to dry, to prove their point. And so I could remember exactly what the quote was because it was bugging me. :P

Whew! That was a lot, but I was glad to be productive over on VLANS tonight. :) And now it's time for me to head to bed, since I've still got one work day tomorrow. Night all!