Happy Birthday To Me

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.