Boxing Day Not-So-Chilling

Yes, as an American I don't actually celebrate Boxing Day, but shush. :p Anyway, I had a pretty decent, if kinda busy, Boxing Day -- let me give you the write-up:

Tumblr: Well, nothing of interest happened on Valice Multiverse today – which is kind of a good thing, as I ended up having a pretty busy day over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler)! I spent about an hour before lunch and a decent chunk of my afternoon:

A) Finishing off the Valicer In The Dark fic masterpost – which turned into QUITE the thing because I decided to include not only all the regular AO3 fics and prompt fics I’d written, but also all my early WIP stuff for the various stories, my not-incorrect quote collections, my crossover not-incorrect quotes with Baldur’s Gate III, and my various gift fics set in that universe. It was – it was a LOT, let me tell you. And I’m going to have to add to it soon enough, since I love this verse and I keep wanting to write shit in it. *shakehead* At least the initial version’s done – you can see it here if you are so inclined.

B) Reblogging my friend Satirical Demon’s “Christmas haul” post, which included multiple LEGO sets, a bag from the La Brea Tar Pits (neat), some Will Wood t-shirts (Will Wood being a singer he quite likes), and – most notably – some new plushies! Zoe the fanfic writer who looks very stressed; Melancholy the gremlin with a big old toothy grin; and Cyn the “eldritch AI skinsuit horror” wearing a T-Rex onesie. XD I don’t know what properties they are from, I only knew that they were cute in their own ways. Oh, and there was also a go-karting Pomni from The Amazing Digital Circus, which was also adorable – I said that I fully expected any other plushies that fit would go joy-riding in her kart (one of his other plushes already tried to take it for a ride as per the pictures). Looks like he got a very good haul this Christmas, good for him.

C) Reblogging another post from Satirical – a surprise one from last night where he translated my Valicer OT3 into the world of Mortasheen, that new TTRPG he loves so much that is full of body horror and scientific weirdness! As I’m only vaguely familiar with the RPG myself (it seems interesting, but a lot of the creatures, and thus the illustrations, have major gross-out vibes, which I’m not that keen on – like, I get that the joke here is that everyone looks like a horrible monster but is actually pretty friendly, but it just isn’t for me), I confess to not understanding EVERYTHING in his explanations of what he thought the trio would look like and what their backstories would be in that world (short version: Alice as a fish person whose father was working on weaponized chemical photography until Bumby blew up his work and his house in response to one too many rejections by Lizzie, now suffering from hallucinations thanks to a damaged “Pscape” and accompanied by her living bunny plush monster as she works to find the bastard who killed her family; Victor as a goblin-orc thing whose last name in this verse is KIDNEYSTRIKE (as per Satirical, he got it from, well, striking someone in the kidneys) and who, after his social-climbing fellow hive members stressed him out one too many times, fled his home with his vampire fish friend/master and ended up accidentally engaged to a zombie; and Smiler as a brain-in-a-jar robot-person who fled their father and their horrific experiments on a small group of normal humans with their vicious jester-hat-monster Marmally and ended up instead with a cult of insect-people who spread joy via carefully-created chemical compounds – while initially a bit hesitant about their methods, Smiler ended up finding a talent for alchemy and is now a member in good standing), but I appreciated that he likes my OT3 enough to translate them into something ELSE he enjoys deeply! :) I mean, that’s what I do with the three all the time!

D) Posting my completed VITD fic masterpost, followed by immediately reblogging my “hey, my birthday’s coming up” post from earlier in the week with a note saying “hey, VITD masterpost up if you want to take a look, would still appreciate some love for this verse for my birthday.” Because I did not do all that work for people not to look at it!

Whew – yeah, definitely a busy day on the old VLA(NS)! But I’m glad to have the masterpost done, and I’m glad to see Satirical getting as much joy out of my OT3 as I am. :) We’ll see what happens over here tomorrow!

Baldur’s Gate III: I got to this late, thanks to spending so much time on tumblr today, but I did get to it, with a short session that was all about testing a new mod, finding a new merchant friend, and doing some inventory management –

A) First things first – before booting up the game, I installed the latest mod in my mod set: “Wyll – Theo Solomon Banter,” a mod that makes sure that all of Wyll’s environmental lines (the ones you get if you click on his portrait, or if you prompt him to do certain actions while in control of him, like hiding or attacking) are the ones recorded by his current voice actor, Theo Solomon, instead of his previous Early Access voice actor, Lanre Malaolu. Because while Larian had Theo re-record all those lines, they never actually got rid of Lanre’s versions, nor made sure that the ones that played in-game were Theo’s. Because apparently a lot of upper management at the studio are racist assholes among their many other faults. *sigh* Sorry – seen some stuff on tumblr about what dickheads these people are recently, and it just – pisses me off. Nearly gave up the game entirely, but apparently the decent employees are still proud of what they made (plus, unlike Sims 4, the company’s not getting sold to Saudi Arabia, and this game will never have any DLC packs, so I need never give them money again), so…

ANYWAY. If you’re wondering why I had to install the new “making sure Theo Solomon’s hard work doesn’t actually go to waste” mod before starting the game, it’s because it’s one of those that can’t be installed via the official mod manager – not sure why, maybe it’s because of how much stuff it overrides. So, because I didn’t particularly want to try juggling two mod managers for BG3 (the official and the unofficial ones), I had to put it into the game manually. Fortunately, the method for doing so was very easy and straightforward – just find the install location and create a few folders in there to stick a bunch of sound files in. Didn’t take hardly any time at all, once I confirmed the file path location on the mod’s Nexus Mods page. :) So now I can be assured that poor abused Wyll will always have the correct voice, in cutscenes AND in the general overworld, going forward! Hooray! Shouldn’t have had to do that myself, but hooray!

( And a cut to save your reading page, as this shit gets long )

Workout: Hopped back on the bike tonight to finish off the third episode of The Great British Baking Show Holidays collection on Netflix (and to watch a couple of trailers for the various seasons, just to fill out the last few minutes). Tonight’s pedal session saw me get through the rest of the Christmas Bake-Off with Liam, Flo, Jane, and Andrew, and featured:

A) The end of the Technical Challenge and the four making that fancy Icelandic flatbread Laufabrauð – only Jane and Andrew figured out how to properly do the fancy v-cut design on them; Flo ended up underfrying hers while Andrew burned a couple of his; Liam discovered he’d been reading his thermometer wrong and only had time to fry up four out of the six they were supposed to do; and Jane had one of hers shatter on the way to the judging table (as they made them hang them all off decorative trees). However, her almost-perfect frying and decorating meant that Jane won the technical, with Andrew coming second, Liam third, and Flo fourth

B) And the entirety of the Showstopper Challenge, which saw the four tasked with creating cakes that looked like Christmas presents with a hidden design inside! Flo did a cute little Christmas tree design that came out really well, but for some reason chose to do a mulled wine cake (which involved pouring a WHOLE BOTTLE of the stuff into the batter) with a CHEESE-BASED “buttercream,” which – yeah, the judges were NOT fans (Flo insisted she knew it was a good cake; I think her family just doesn’t want to tell her it’s shit). Andrew did little bauble ornaments inside his orangey cake which were a little off-center, but still looked good – the painted stars on his fondant “wrapping” suffered from him having to do a rush job at the very end of the time, but he had a beautiful pulled-sugar bow, which won him a few points back. Liam did alternating stars and gingerbread in his cake, which had delicious flavors (Prue said later it was her favorite cake to eat), but a sloppy outside thanks to his fondant stripes being kind of crooked. And Jane –

Well, Jane did an adorable cake with a penguin and two Christmas trees inside. :D And while her outer fondant wrapping didn’t QUITE impress the judges (they thought the colors should be bolder), it was enough to win her Star Baker and the coveted cake stand. :D I’m glad – she was very consistently good throughout the entire competition, and she deserved the honor. A nice way to end off Christmas week!

FreeTube/Invidious: Ended up watching three things today on FreeTube – one of which was a bit of a surprise...

A) First, before firing up BG3, I watched “Wyll Theo Solomon Banter (Nexus Mods)” by nyilas7 – a video by the mod’s creator showcasing the difference in Wyll’s environmental lines before using the mod (when they’re being said by his original voice actor, Lanre Malaolu) and after (when they’re being said by his current one, Theo Solomon). I felt it was important that I check this out before I started the game so I could be absolutely certain that the mod was working and it was Theo’s voice I was hearing when I clicked on Wyll – mostly because I hadn’t heard a lot of Wyll’s environmental lines yet, and some of the commenters on the Nexus Mods page had said they hadn’t immediately been able to tell the original lines weren’t Theo until they got the mod. And yes, when I listened to the before and after, I had to say that Lanre’s voice for Wyll and Theo’s voice for him WERE pretty similar – but Lanre delivered all of Wyll’s lines with a very low, laid-back tone, never infusing them with any real urgency, while Theo’s takes tended to be a lot more excited and full of energy – he roared some of the combat lines Lanre merely murmured. Nothing against Lanre, who was REALLY screwed over by the whole “last-minute Wyll rewrite” thing, but I do feel like Theo did a better job. Makes me even gladder I got that mod to make sure his excellent performance got the showing it deserved (even as it makes me madder that Larian never fixed the issue themselves…)!

B) Then, after supper and game night (Sequence tonight – I was the reigning champ, winning four games in a row after Mom and Dad each won one :D), I watched “XMAS CHALLENGE FINALE: GTA Online Scooters Only Tiebreaker Race 🎡🍕🛵” on OXBox! The TRUE grand finale of the OXBoxtra Christmas Tournament Of Champions 2025, this challenge saw the four descend into GTA Online, where Andy and Ellen were each given a “Pizza This” scooter and told to race each other from the top of the mountain just behind the Vinewood sign to the Del Perro pier at the edge of the city. Whoever jumped off the end of the pier into the water first won the coveted title of Christmas Champion! Jane would be following them in her Lambo as the official “chase car,” while Mike had intended to take a helicopter to be their eye in the sky – but while they were setting up the challenge, some jerk came and blew it up (because, you know, GTA Online), so instead he paid for a skydiving experience so he could observe via parachute instead, at least for a bit. XD Anyway, Jane counted them down, and in a vroom of scooter engines, the pair were off! How did the race go?

( Spoilers! )

C) And then, after that, in the hopes of maybe managing to sneak in a little bit of work on “The Van Dort Vacancy,” I searched “oxventure blades in the dark barnaby” to see if I could find some sort of short clip of Barnaby in action to help get his voice right –

And I found one. An official short on the Oxventure channel called “BARNABY RETURNS! 🧐 | Oxventure Blades in the Dark Holiday Special.” Now, you may be wondering what that means, given that there’s only one Oxventure Presents: Blades In The Dark holiday special, and it stars Edvard and Lilith, not Barnaby. Well, there’s a simple answer to that question –

THEY DID ANOTHER ONE! THEY DID ANOTHER ONE THIS YEAR, APPARENTLY WITH THE WHOLE CREW, LAST WEEK! AND I HAD NO IDEA BECAUSE I HAVEN’T HAD A CHANCE TO LOOK AT OXVENTURE AT ALL SINCE I STARTED USING FREETUBE AND WATCHING MOVIES DOWNSTAIRS!

...welp, I know what I’m watching next week with my workouts! Sorry Netflix, sorry Blu-Ray player, but I am just one woman, and that one woman loves her Oxventure Presents: Blades In The Dark! *shakehead* Anyway – I ended up watching the short just to see what it was about, and it apparently covers the point where Barnaby ends up joining the score (Mike having joined the others late), which appears to be set on a fancy cruise ship of sorts. There wasn’t much context given, but from what I could glean, Edvard and Zillah were trying to get on disguised as members of the ship’s band (maybe – Edvard mentioned at one point setting up instruments, but I guess he could have meant scientific ones) and were having trouble with one of the actual crew members – cue Barnaby walking onto the ship via the wrong gangplank with his 12 PM tipple and immediately making it the guy’s problem, terrifying him into compliance when he realized that oh shit, Barnaby is one of the rich folks. XD It was delightful stuff – I was so pleased to see my favorite asshole Slide back in action, even as I bemoaned learning too late that they did another holiday special in this verse. Ah well – I’ll see it next week. And then start catching up on the rest of Oxventure, because I have a looot to catch up on.

Writing: Unfortunately, between playing and then recapping BG3, Game Night, and my shock at learning that Oxventure did a Blades In The Dark holiday special this year, I did not actually get to edit anything on “The Van Dort Vacancy” today. :( BUT! I did update my VITD Master Doc with a couple of ideas, both related to BG3 in some way –

A) First, I added a note to my story write-up about a future fic where the trio will be investigating a mysterious company on behalf of a craftsman named Larian (who was making boxes for them and wanted to know what they were being used for) ...only for Smiler to end up kidnapped by the company, and the gang to get yanked into a version of the tutorial Nautiloid level of BG3 (complete with Smiler saving Us and bringing them home). My ORIGINAL concept for the story had Larian has a decent guy who had been pulled into something much bigger and more dangerous than he expected...but now that I know that the company is run by dickwads, I’m thinking of making him instead part of the conspiracy, having hired the trio specifically to get rid of them before they could interfere with his operations. Meaning I can have him torn to pieces on the airship the three find themselves on by various air demons. Just – feels cathartic after all the shit I’ve learned about the place!

B) Then, I added a new idea to the list of story ideas – one featuring the gang meeting the local version of Wyll! He would be the “Blade of Deathlands” in this version of reality, roaming the wastes outside of Duskwall to keep the innocent safe and the monsters at bay. I was thinking that maybe my trio could help him with his version of Mizora, the devil he has a pact with (and would like NOT to have a pact with because she’s a bitch). I’d also like Karlach to be involved in some way, since her story and Wyll’s do intertwine a bit. *shrug* Hey, if I can adapt a bunch of Fallout 4 NPCs and quests to VITD, why not BG3 ones?

*shrug* Not what I really WANTED to do, but any writing is better than no writing!

Yeah, uh, I probably tried to cram a LITTLE too much into my day today, given it was Game Night and all. :p But at least I got most of what I wanted to get done, done. And now I have to go to bed. Tomorrow, it is my birthday, and -- well, beyond "work on 'The Van Dort Vacancy'" and "see about answering Moose's messages," I don't know yet what I'm going to do. We'll find out, I suppose -- night all!