Got My Period AND A Sunburn Now
May. 3rd, 2025 11:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickYes, me and my parents went out and about today, and while it was lovely and summery, it was also VERY sunny, and -- well, turns out I should have worn some sunscreen, and perhaps one of my wide-brimmed hats. Got some sunburn on both arms, and a patch on one side of my neck. I'm trying to keep them moisturized with Noxzema, but -- bleh. Combine that with it being the heaviest day of my period, and my body isn't having the most fun time. :( However, despite this, I still accomplished all the most important tasks of the day:
Writing: I am proud to announce that – after spending a couple of hours after lunch editing and getting my end-of-chapter notes sorted and such – Chapter 4 of “A Murder Shared Is A Murder Thirded” is up! :D Yes, the second story of the Valicer In The Dark verse is finally complete, with the trio officially adopting Sooty, meeting Smiler’s parents, learning that they are no longer accused of the murder of a Spirit Warden, revealing that they DID actually just kill someone but he was a total asshole so it was justified, and heading back to the MOJ with Matt and Carol Alton to tell their story and have a well-earned rest. :) I hope you all enjoy! It’s been a fun ride, writing this one – and I’m already REALLY looking forward to getting started on the third story, “The Van Dort Vacancy.” :D Not in the least because I’ll get to break out the fancy dice again while doing the outline for that…
Tumblr: Didn’t do much on here thanks to the aforementioned going out, but I got a couple of things done –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – After getting Chapter 4 of “A Murder Shared Is A Murder Thirded” up (and taking my shower), I of course made a post over here announcing the good news. (Though I couldn’t do a proper “link post” because for some reason that wasn’t working.) We’ll see if anyone takes an interest!
Valice Multiverse – And then, after popping on here and finding that there was still no activity, I went ahead and added the above post to my queue, because I always reblog my fanfic posts on this account. Gives them at least one note! And the Valicer In The Dark ones are relevant since I have a VITD verse for RP purposes. Don’t get to use it as much as I’d like, but it IS there!
YouTube: Despite getting a bit of a later start than I wanted, I did manage to clear out my Watch Later and keep up with my Subs, yay –
A) First up, right after supper, we had the OXBoxtra lists of the week:
I. “7 Cutscenes You Must NEVER Skip” – Ellen and Jane talking about those cutscenes that, while skippable, also kind of have crucial information in them to explain the next bit of gameplay you’ll be doing, so perhaps don’t succumb to that prompt winking away in the corner if it’s your first time playing. For example, decide you’re not interested in seeing Kratos hit the sack in a cutscene in God of War: Ragnarok? SURPRISE, that cutscene actually featured Kratos meeting Thor and Odin, and when you go back to the gameplay, you’re gonna find Kratos being flung into the sky on the business end of Thor’s famous hammer and not know why. Think it’s safe to skip all the little cutscenes of Kasuga chatting with various NPCs on the beach during the “Relics of the Past” sub-mission of Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth? SURPRISE, you’ll miss a guy with a traveling circus aquarium accidentally fling two electric catfish into the battery compartments of a pair of old excavators and you’ll be wondering how the FUCK you ended up in a boss fight with them when gameplay resumes. Presume that the rant of the main villain of Kingdom Hearts isn’t actually going to properly explain anything and thus can be safely missed? ...well, okay, you’re not EXACTLY wrong, but you ARE still going to miss the context of where the boss after him, the weird fleshy battleship that is World of Chaos, comes from, and thus be even MORE confused than the average player of a Kingdom Hearts game. And do you REALLY want that? I didn’t think so. So don’t skip, darn it!
II. “7 Free Game Demos That Were Insanely Generous” – Andy and Mike talking about those demos that actually gave you WAAAY more bang for your buck than you would have expected, given they were supposed to be demos. From Metaphor Refantazio giving players the entire first chapter of the game AND the option to port the save data over to the full release so they wouldn’t have to replay any dungeons they’d cleared; to Final Fantasy XIV (the MMORPG one) increasing the amount of time players could try out their game and how high they could level until they were offering an unlimited playthrough of the game AND its first two expansions, with a level cap of freaking 70 (Andy was like “is this game actually a crypto-mining scam?? Is that how they’re making their money???”); to SEGA accidentally allowing players to download the ENTIRETY of Yakuza 6: The Song Of Life when they first released the “demo” because THEY thought they’d successfully locked off the rest of the game from the people sampling it, only to be proven dead wrong by their players, these demos were some of the best things you could get for free. Though the real shocker for me was looking in the comments and learning classic Windows pinball game 3D Pinball: Space Cadet was apparently a demo for a pinball game by Maxis, Full Tilt! Pinball. The fuck, I loved that game! I would have never guessed it was a teaser for a bigger title! Wild…
B) Then it was onto another compilation of CaFae Latte by C. M. Alongi! Today’s was “CaFae Latte Season 44 - TikTok Compilation” and featured:
I. A meta-video of C. M. Alongi arguing with Heart of Iron, her new series Kingdom of Starlight, and her established books Citadel and the Blackwing series about who should get her attention, all while A New Story Idea danced poorly in the background (used to explain why CaFae Latte took a week off from actual skits)
II. Bob serving a stressed school counselor and giving her the “Protector of the Realm” discount, to another customer’s disbelief – and then the counselor giving him the business by explaining WHY her job is so stressful (to his credit, he accepted the rant and meekly went off with his goods afterward, and she got marshmallows in her hot chocolate from Bob)
III. Jennifer Charles and Nicole having a conversation about an after-school art project Nicole was doing with her fellow autistic kids...only for a customer to come up and claim all autistic people are into math and science and Nicole was clearly faking; Bob didn’t even look up while silencing her and cursing her to better understand autism before she was allowed to speak again
IV. JC and Cyrus serving a Muslim lady who was unfortunately called into a retail shift on Eid al-Fitr, the holiday to celebrate the end of Ramadan (she’d asked for it off, but suddenly her work was short-staffed and needed her to be a "team player") – JC helped give her the will to live with a big coffee and a bunch of cookies inspired by the special ones baked by actual Muslims on the holiday
V. Bob, Cyrus, and Rethu dealing with a queer customer who unfortunately was a gatekeeping asshole against anyone on the asexual/aromantic/demisexual spectrum, accusing them of “stealing queer resources” – oh, and also proved to be a bigot when it comes to fairies as he used a slur against Cyrus, causing Bob to furiously curse him to be exiled from the cafe and silent for at least seven years until he’d gotten a little more accepting
VI. And Rethu – after incorrectly guessing that a guy who was wondering why the CaFae had other businesses advertised on their corkboard was going to throw a fit about when White History Month was after learning they were being advertised for different heritage months – revealing that they were depressed because they were TRYING to do the Kosher thing for Passover this year, but JC’s baking was too good...and then describing the restrictions (no leavening agents, no yeast or fermented grains) to JC, causing them to go into a trance before snapping out of it and declaring “Challenge Accepted” (Rethu was like “I’m scared” and Bob was like “You SHOULD be” XD)
Lovely stuff, as always – and I enjoy learning more about the world! Even if it is that there are specific slurs for fairies. *grimace* That gatekeeping asshole is really lucky Bob didn’t let Cyrus stab him a little, as a treat.
C) And finally, a little late but still squeezed in, we had the latest from GrayStillPlays in the Subs – “Adding wheels to bikes every minute in GTA 5!” Remember when he did those challenges where every time he crashed and restarted, extra wheels were added to his car? Well, this set of torture boards was actually nothing like that. XD Instead, this time, he had to complete challenges, and with each one he did, he unlocked longer and longer bikes with more and more wheels! Which, as per the game designers, pretty much completely broke the physics of the game, in that they didn’t drive very well – but they flew great. The challenges were thus designed accordingly, with Gray having to get through –
I. Climbing up a ridiculous staircase with various gaps, then increasingly narrow stairs (the top was basically a bumpy tightrope just barely big enough for his wheels), in under 26 seconds! The bikes he was offered included the classic two-wheeler and a terrible three-wheeler – Gray quickly gave up on the three-wheeler and – after much trial and error, and a moment where he reached the top JUST as the wall came up and thus got launched back down the stairs on his head – got it to the top in just under the time limit!
II. Going right back down the ridiculous staircase in under 16 seconds! With his newly-unlocked bike having NINE FREAKING WHEELS. Gray gave it a shot, and actually had some success trying to wheelie it downward, but mostly just discovered that the damn thing barely turned and was weirdly floaty whenever it fell, so it was NOT well-suited to this challenge. Fortunately, he still had his two-wheeler available, and thus was able to trial-and-error his way back down the horrible stairs and into the teleporter checkpoint at the bottom!
III. Completing a horrible Minecraft-themed “Flappy Birds” course, this time with motorcycles with two, three, nine, and twelve wheels! This one was designed specifically to use with the weird “can basically fly if you try to do a wheelie with them” long-ass bikes, with Gray needing to get between the various dirt blocks (using the boosters in them to keep his speed up, because these suckers went SLOW otherwise) before landing perfectly between two water blocks to get the teleporter checkpoint. Gray ATTEMPTED it with the twelve-wheel bike, but found it a bit too unwieldy, so ended up completing it with the nine-wheeled bike instead. Like, it was NOT easy, and it took him ages and ages, but he DID do it!
IV. And finally, launching himself into space – specifically, figuring out which bike could get him all the way to the Saturn Alex and company had left for him at the top of the skybox. And naturally, his unlocks this time included a bike with fifteen wheels. Gray did give the twelve-wheeler a try, but while it got high, it couldn’t get quite high enough, so he mounted the fifteen-wheeler and shot into the sky! And after quite a while spent spinning and tumbling through the clouds, he finally reached the massive Saturn, and managed with a LOT of effort to turn his bike and get it to go forward so he could land on the rings and bounce his way across to get the win!
*shakehead* Whew – that was VERY amusing. XD I am in favor of more challenges with horrible physics-defying vehicles, please!
Other: We did get out for beanbags this afternoon (with me sticking to the shade and wearing a hat to keep the sun off my neck) – and oh man, Dad just absolutely smoked Mom and especially me today. Not only did he win four out of five games, he also threw the season’s first 12 – all four beanbags in the holes – in the second game. I, meanwhile, threw like absolute shit almost every round, only JUST managing to claw out a win in the third game after tying with Mom twice (Dad having had a pretty poor final game for some reason). Final scores were me 3-3-3-3-W; Dad W-W-W-W-2; Mom 2-2-2-2-3. *shakehead* I don’t know if we’ll get to play tomorrow – it’s supposed to be rather less nice, with more chances of rain – but if we do, hopefully I’ll do better than THAT!
Not too bad -- very happy to get that last chapter up, let me tell you! And now I really need to hit the sheets, for tomorrow is a rather important day -- Alice's birthday! :) Which means I have to get the following done for celebratory purposes:
I. Get a picture of my plushies celebrating her birthday (I may have her riding Us just for funsies)
II. Play some Alice: Madness Returns -- I'm thinking at least the "Cardbridge" because it's my personal favorite, plus maybe the final boss fight because who doesn't love kicking Bumby's ass
III. Watch something Alice-related on YouTube and/or reread a favorite fanfic starring her
*nods* All achievable goals, I hope! I also have to do the first draft of my friend Squid's birthday fic (as they just reminded me their birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks); work on some post drafts waiting for me on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) (though amusingly the drafts I want to work on are about Smiler); get in a workout; and do my best to keep up with Gray and Jon (using the aforementioned workout as a "hack"). Fingers crossed I can get through most of this without issue! And without my sunburns bothering me too much. Night all!
Writing: I am proud to announce that – after spending a couple of hours after lunch editing and getting my end-of-chapter notes sorted and such – Chapter 4 of “A Murder Shared Is A Murder Thirded” is up! :D Yes, the second story of the Valicer In The Dark verse is finally complete, with the trio officially adopting Sooty, meeting Smiler’s parents, learning that they are no longer accused of the murder of a Spirit Warden, revealing that they DID actually just kill someone but he was a total asshole so it was justified, and heading back to the MOJ with Matt and Carol Alton to tell their story and have a well-earned rest. :) I hope you all enjoy! It’s been a fun ride, writing this one – and I’m already REALLY looking forward to getting started on the third story, “The Van Dort Vacancy.” :D Not in the least because I’ll get to break out the fancy dice again while doing the outline for that…
Tumblr: Didn’t do much on here thanks to the aforementioned going out, but I got a couple of things done –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – After getting Chapter 4 of “A Murder Shared Is A Murder Thirded” up (and taking my shower), I of course made a post over here announcing the good news. (Though I couldn’t do a proper “link post” because for some reason that wasn’t working.) We’ll see if anyone takes an interest!
Valice Multiverse – And then, after popping on here and finding that there was still no activity, I went ahead and added the above post to my queue, because I always reblog my fanfic posts on this account. Gives them at least one note! And the Valicer In The Dark ones are relevant since I have a VITD verse for RP purposes. Don’t get to use it as much as I’d like, but it IS there!
YouTube: Despite getting a bit of a later start than I wanted, I did manage to clear out my Watch Later and keep up with my Subs, yay –
A) First up, right after supper, we had the OXBoxtra lists of the week:
I. “7 Cutscenes You Must NEVER Skip” – Ellen and Jane talking about those cutscenes that, while skippable, also kind of have crucial information in them to explain the next bit of gameplay you’ll be doing, so perhaps don’t succumb to that prompt winking away in the corner if it’s your first time playing. For example, decide you’re not interested in seeing Kratos hit the sack in a cutscene in God of War: Ragnarok? SURPRISE, that cutscene actually featured Kratos meeting Thor and Odin, and when you go back to the gameplay, you’re gonna find Kratos being flung into the sky on the business end of Thor’s famous hammer and not know why. Think it’s safe to skip all the little cutscenes of Kasuga chatting with various NPCs on the beach during the “Relics of the Past” sub-mission of Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth? SURPRISE, you’ll miss a guy with a traveling circus aquarium accidentally fling two electric catfish into the battery compartments of a pair of old excavators and you’ll be wondering how the FUCK you ended up in a boss fight with them when gameplay resumes. Presume that the rant of the main villain of Kingdom Hearts isn’t actually going to properly explain anything and thus can be safely missed? ...well, okay, you’re not EXACTLY wrong, but you ARE still going to miss the context of where the boss after him, the weird fleshy battleship that is World of Chaos, comes from, and thus be even MORE confused than the average player of a Kingdom Hearts game. And do you REALLY want that? I didn’t think so. So don’t skip, darn it!
II. “7 Free Game Demos That Were Insanely Generous” – Andy and Mike talking about those demos that actually gave you WAAAY more bang for your buck than you would have expected, given they were supposed to be demos. From Metaphor Refantazio giving players the entire first chapter of the game AND the option to port the save data over to the full release so they wouldn’t have to replay any dungeons they’d cleared; to Final Fantasy XIV (the MMORPG one) increasing the amount of time players could try out their game and how high they could level until they were offering an unlimited playthrough of the game AND its first two expansions, with a level cap of freaking 70 (Andy was like “is this game actually a crypto-mining scam?? Is that how they’re making their money???”); to SEGA accidentally allowing players to download the ENTIRETY of Yakuza 6: The Song Of Life when they first released the “demo” because THEY thought they’d successfully locked off the rest of the game from the people sampling it, only to be proven dead wrong by their players, these demos were some of the best things you could get for free. Though the real shocker for me was looking in the comments and learning classic Windows pinball game 3D Pinball: Space Cadet was apparently a demo for a pinball game by Maxis, Full Tilt! Pinball. The fuck, I loved that game! I would have never guessed it was a teaser for a bigger title! Wild…
B) Then it was onto another compilation of CaFae Latte by C. M. Alongi! Today’s was “CaFae Latte Season 44 - TikTok Compilation” and featured:
I. A meta-video of C. M. Alongi arguing with Heart of Iron, her new series Kingdom of Starlight, and her established books Citadel and the Blackwing series about who should get her attention, all while A New Story Idea danced poorly in the background (used to explain why CaFae Latte took a week off from actual skits)
II. Bob serving a stressed school counselor and giving her the “Protector of the Realm” discount, to another customer’s disbelief – and then the counselor giving him the business by explaining WHY her job is so stressful (to his credit, he accepted the rant and meekly went off with his goods afterward, and she got marshmallows in her hot chocolate from Bob)
III. Jennifer Charles and Nicole having a conversation about an after-school art project Nicole was doing with her fellow autistic kids...only for a customer to come up and claim all autistic people are into math and science and Nicole was clearly faking; Bob didn’t even look up while silencing her and cursing her to better understand autism before she was allowed to speak again
IV. JC and Cyrus serving a Muslim lady who was unfortunately called into a retail shift on Eid al-Fitr, the holiday to celebrate the end of Ramadan (she’d asked for it off, but suddenly her work was short-staffed and needed her to be a "team player") – JC helped give her the will to live with a big coffee and a bunch of cookies inspired by the special ones baked by actual Muslims on the holiday
V. Bob, Cyrus, and Rethu dealing with a queer customer who unfortunately was a gatekeeping asshole against anyone on the asexual/aromantic/demisexual spectrum, accusing them of “stealing queer resources” – oh, and also proved to be a bigot when it comes to fairies as he used a slur against Cyrus, causing Bob to furiously curse him to be exiled from the cafe and silent for at least seven years until he’d gotten a little more accepting
VI. And Rethu – after incorrectly guessing that a guy who was wondering why the CaFae had other businesses advertised on their corkboard was going to throw a fit about when White History Month was after learning they were being advertised for different heritage months – revealing that they were depressed because they were TRYING to do the Kosher thing for Passover this year, but JC’s baking was too good...and then describing the restrictions (no leavening agents, no yeast or fermented grains) to JC, causing them to go into a trance before snapping out of it and declaring “Challenge Accepted” (Rethu was like “I’m scared” and Bob was like “You SHOULD be” XD)
Lovely stuff, as always – and I enjoy learning more about the world! Even if it is that there are specific slurs for fairies. *grimace* That gatekeeping asshole is really lucky Bob didn’t let Cyrus stab him a little, as a treat.
C) And finally, a little late but still squeezed in, we had the latest from GrayStillPlays in the Subs – “Adding wheels to bikes every minute in GTA 5!” Remember when he did those challenges where every time he crashed and restarted, extra wheels were added to his car? Well, this set of torture boards was actually nothing like that. XD Instead, this time, he had to complete challenges, and with each one he did, he unlocked longer and longer bikes with more and more wheels! Which, as per the game designers, pretty much completely broke the physics of the game, in that they didn’t drive very well – but they flew great. The challenges were thus designed accordingly, with Gray having to get through –
I. Climbing up a ridiculous staircase with various gaps, then increasingly narrow stairs (the top was basically a bumpy tightrope just barely big enough for his wheels), in under 26 seconds! The bikes he was offered included the classic two-wheeler and a terrible three-wheeler – Gray quickly gave up on the three-wheeler and – after much trial and error, and a moment where he reached the top JUST as the wall came up and thus got launched back down the stairs on his head – got it to the top in just under the time limit!
II. Going right back down the ridiculous staircase in under 16 seconds! With his newly-unlocked bike having NINE FREAKING WHEELS. Gray gave it a shot, and actually had some success trying to wheelie it downward, but mostly just discovered that the damn thing barely turned and was weirdly floaty whenever it fell, so it was NOT well-suited to this challenge. Fortunately, he still had his two-wheeler available, and thus was able to trial-and-error his way back down the horrible stairs and into the teleporter checkpoint at the bottom!
III. Completing a horrible Minecraft-themed “Flappy Birds” course, this time with motorcycles with two, three, nine, and twelve wheels! This one was designed specifically to use with the weird “can basically fly if you try to do a wheelie with them” long-ass bikes, with Gray needing to get between the various dirt blocks (using the boosters in them to keep his speed up, because these suckers went SLOW otherwise) before landing perfectly between two water blocks to get the teleporter checkpoint. Gray ATTEMPTED it with the twelve-wheel bike, but found it a bit too unwieldy, so ended up completing it with the nine-wheeled bike instead. Like, it was NOT easy, and it took him ages and ages, but he DID do it!
IV. And finally, launching himself into space – specifically, figuring out which bike could get him all the way to the Saturn Alex and company had left for him at the top of the skybox. And naturally, his unlocks this time included a bike with fifteen wheels. Gray did give the twelve-wheeler a try, but while it got high, it couldn’t get quite high enough, so he mounted the fifteen-wheeler and shot into the sky! And after quite a while spent spinning and tumbling through the clouds, he finally reached the massive Saturn, and managed with a LOT of effort to turn his bike and get it to go forward so he could land on the rings and bounce his way across to get the win!
*shakehead* Whew – that was VERY amusing. XD I am in favor of more challenges with horrible physics-defying vehicles, please!
Other: We did get out for beanbags this afternoon (with me sticking to the shade and wearing a hat to keep the sun off my neck) – and oh man, Dad just absolutely smoked Mom and especially me today. Not only did he win four out of five games, he also threw the season’s first 12 – all four beanbags in the holes – in the second game. I, meanwhile, threw like absolute shit almost every round, only JUST managing to claw out a win in the third game after tying with Mom twice (Dad having had a pretty poor final game for some reason). Final scores were me 3-3-3-3-W; Dad W-W-W-W-2; Mom 2-2-2-2-3. *shakehead* I don’t know if we’ll get to play tomorrow – it’s supposed to be rather less nice, with more chances of rain – but if we do, hopefully I’ll do better than THAT!
Not too bad -- very happy to get that last chapter up, let me tell you! And now I really need to hit the sheets, for tomorrow is a rather important day -- Alice's birthday! :) Which means I have to get the following done for celebratory purposes:
I. Get a picture of my plushies celebrating her birthday (I may have her riding Us just for funsies)
II. Play some Alice: Madness Returns -- I'm thinking at least the "Cardbridge" because it's my personal favorite, plus maybe the final boss fight because who doesn't love kicking Bumby's ass
III. Watch something Alice-related on YouTube and/or reread a favorite fanfic starring her
*nods* All achievable goals, I hope! I also have to do the first draft of my friend Squid's birthday fic (as they just reminded me their birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks); work on some post drafts waiting for me on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) (though amusingly the drafts I want to work on are about Smiler); get in a workout; and do my best to keep up with Gray and Jon (using the aforementioned workout as a "hack"). Fingers crossed I can get through most of this without issue! And without my sunburns bothering me too much. Night all!
