Decent Tuesday Back

Weather was very nice today (I'm hanging out in a pair of my cooler weather pajamas, even), I was able to get gas for under $20 this afternoon, and I had a pretty productive evening --

Work – A surprisingly-quiet return to work today – apparently not much happened on my day off yesterday! No credit card calls or nothing. I thus spent most of my day running the usual morning reports; checking out failed credit cards and setting up a bunch of people to receive reminders; looking up things for my coworker (and pointing out where she’d put in a check wrong); and going through the exceptions when they came in that afternoon. *shrug* I’m just glad it wasn’t a total clusterfuck! We’ll see if tomorrow remains halfway decent too.

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – I returned to the bike and to GrayStillPlays compilation videos today, starting on the most recent one to hit his channel – “Making every human life unbearable,” aka a compilation of “bad life choices” games! So far, I’ve gotten through him being as inconsiderate as he could possibly be in one of the Kuukiyomi: Consider It games (I’m not sure which one, though I’m pretty sure it was one of the later ones as Gray always seems to upload series in reverse order in these compilations) and him pooping in extremely inadvisable places in Code Brown (ranging from someone’s lemon tree pot – causing the lemon tree to grow and fruit – to someone’s IV bag, causing them to turn brown and then sprout wings and fly out the window), and I’ve just started another one of the Consider It game videos. We will continue with Gray making horrible choices and being completely inconsiderate tomorrow!

2. Continue final edits on “A Murder Shared Is A Murder Thirded” Chapter 3: Check, though unfortunately I wasn’t able to get said edits done like I’d hoped – I spent a lot more time tweaking word choices and rephrasing things and adding in bits here and there than I thought I would! But I’m most of the way through the chapter now, having covered Smiler setting up their escape route with the rope; Victor finding Bumby’s safe under a false bottom in one of his desk drawers; Smiler cracking open said safe while Alice and Victor kept watch – and heard Bumby and the children come in from the yard outside; and the gang reading through Bumby’s ledger and getting a real good look at what a monster he truly is. Left off with them preparing to skedaddle with said ledger – TOMORROW, we’ll finish this off and get the chapter posted, I promise!

3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Substitution Check – it was another No Subs Tuesday, so once I was done with my editing above, I headed into the Watch Later for another CaFae Latte compilation video from C. M. Alongi – “CaFae Latte Season 41 - TikTok Compilation!” This one featured:

I. Husniya dealing with a bratty customer who thought she was making her drink wrong by showing that she wasn’t making her drink at ALL (Erik was, and he had to get the extra blueberry syrup she requested – Cyrus teased him that he missed “Mommy Mommying”)

II. Bob serving a Doordash driver who came in after Nicole got her usual hot chocolate, and hearing some horror stories from her about guys who disguise themselves behind feminine names and fake “I’m disabled” notes in order to lure people like her into bad situations (forcing her to keep a gun on her hip and her himbo boyfriend in the car with her; Nicole gave her a card for her coven and Bob promised to add extra protective spells to her cafe to help protect the drivers)

III. JC getting called into a meeting with two of their professors, Jane (main) and Vincent (chocolate), and learning that Vincent was trying to get their apprenticeship at CaFae Latte revoked because they weren’t working under a pastry chef (despite JC CLEARLY TELLING THEM “hey, I’d like to use my retail job where I am the kitchen manager” and getting that APPROVED) – JC and Vincent started really going at each other until Jane got them to stop and said she and Vincent could stop by the CaFae to see what JC actually had to deal with

IV. JC informing Bob and Cyrus of this and them being appropriately miffed at JC’s apprenticeship being under threat, and Bob handing Vincent the sales numbers when he and Jane arrived to show how much JC had improved their profits (Vincent was very dismissive, prompting Bob to be like “oh, so you can pay your bills without money?”)

V. Jane and Vincent seeing just how busy JC actually WAS in the CaFae Latte kitchen – keeping on top of various baked goods, keeping a running grocery list going, coming up with their own new recipes, finding ways to do vegetarian/vegan options (because apparently most fairies are vegetarian, cultural thing) and gluten-free options (they like the challenge), etc, etc

VI. After the visit Vincent being a pretentious asshole about how JC’s situation was still not a proper apprenticeship, but caving at least a little to Jane’s protests and saying that when he talked to the Dean, he would encourage him NOT to kick out JC, but to discourage a situation like this from happening in FUTURE

VII. And JC and Nicole discussing the whole situation after it transpired JC could keep using CaFae Latte as their apprenticeship and JC admitting that they were so revved up to have to fight for it that having it all turn out okay took the wind out of their sails (Nicole offered to swap stories about the worst Karens they’d faced at the cafe and the worst kids she’d dealt with at her school, which made them feel better).

Good stuff as always, though I REALLY wanted to slap Vincent during this one. Really hope the Dean told him to fuck off. Or that he shows up again in a situation where he can get some proper comeuppance. >( Grrr…at least JC’s little family of coworkers always has their back!

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check and check, though it took a bit more doing than usual tonight –

Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Just had three reblogs to throw into the queue over here:

A) Another A:MR moodboard, this one focusing on Alice’s Steamdress with images of tea sets and rusting machinery and clockwork spiders, for Wednesday

B) A Corpse Bride “wallpaper” made up of various shots of the movie (mostly standard stuff like Victor and Victoria’s held gaze post-bouquet catching, and Emily spinning around after getting her veil back pre-her and Victor’s wedding) overlaid with sparkles for Thursday

C) And coulrosaurus’s fanart of their Smiler OC Kipp dancing along to The Smiler soundtrack for Friday!
*nods* Nice and simple – just gotta figure out Song Saturday, and I’m good. :)

Valice Multiverse – And then I came over here and discovered I had six things to drop into the queue:

A) Another reblog in the “Forgotten Vows!Alice meets Richard Lewis” thread I have with The Coven Wars, with Seth offering his sympathies about Alice’s situation, saying that losing family sucks and that he’s glad Richard needed him, as it kept him from falling apart post-their fire – Alice agreed that losing family INDEED sucks, and said that she was glad they both got out alive. And assured him that, even though it took some time and a lot of healing, she’s started her own family now. :) (Also threw in a note saying that I was PROBABLY going to have to start a new thread with the next reply, as the current one is getting kind of long, and looking rather squished over on my blog! Ah, the fun of not being able to properly trim replies anymore…)

B) Another entry in the “salamander people in Secundus!Victor’s greenhouse” anon ask series, with some constables showing up at Victor’s door with a weird rickety wooden rocket thing, saying they’re tracking what they thought to be two children who became Touched early – and the salamander guy Victor was talking to running out to the ship and starting a conversation with the person lugging it around. Victor’s reply consisted pretty much of “well I thought this had nothing to do with me, but apparently it does! Though I don’t think this salamander person and the other I found in my greenhouse are children, as they had an egg with them…”

C) An ask from The Satirical Demon featuring a trio of bizarre monstery folk (a goopy zombie guy named Mud; a bread-headed man; a woman wrapped in bandages; and a guy with a cleaver in his head) standing on a roof taking potshots at someone on the street, with them arguing about why they’re hunting “Jack” (apparently Mud likes him) and the bandage-woman and cleaver-guy telling bread-head to turn Mud inside-out for cash – I had the Valicer In The Dark trio respond by being VERY WEIRDED OUT by what was going on up there. Victor wasn’t even sure what they WERE, supernaturals-wise, just not ghosts. Don’t worry, buddy, I don’t know what the hell they are either

D) An anonymous ask featuring Fact Core claiming that the first recorded instance of the slow clap was St. Peter slow-clapping Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead – Aperture Wage Slave!Victor was like “...guess that’s kind of appropriate for the time post-Easter?” XD

E) An anonymous ask noting that “fishing” is the only hunting activity that has its own verb – like, deer hunting isn’t called “deering,” or duck hunting “ducking.” Cuddlepile!Alice noted that that was a little odd, but said that the examples provided proved how hard it was to verb “deer.” And that the problem with “ducking” was, it was already a word, and while they could give it another meaning, it would just add to the pile of goofy jokes confusing “duck” the animal with “duck” the act, so…

F) And an anonymous ask talking about how, if you must do a thankless job, do one you love, so you have the satisfaction of doing it well – Londerland Bloodlines!Alice was like “but isn’t a thankless job by definition one you don’t love?” but said that if the anon could find pleasure in them, more power to them.

Whew! Was not expecting it to be that busy over here tonight. @.@ We'll see if it's just a temporary surge or not!

Aaand yeah, summing up all that made me stay up later than I should have, so I gotta get to bed now. Night all!