Long And Busy Juneteenth Off
Jun. 19th, 2025 11:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickYeah, it's been quite the day, and I can already tell I'm going to be staying up a bit later than I should to complete this write-up, so let's get straight to it --
Cape Cod Mini-Golf Trip: So, today was the day of the great trip to Cape Cod to play a few rounds at two of the mini-golf places up there (Skull Island, which has one course, and Pirate’s Cove, which has two – the “Captain’s Course” and the “Blackbeard Course” – we did both), have lunch, and get some ice cream! How did that go? Well, I would say it was a fun afternoon of mini-golfing –
Sandwiched in between TWO HORRIFIC CAR RIDES. Because holy HELL did we have a shit time getting up to Cape Cod and back! Between a multi-car accident (on the other side of the road; we were caught in the looky-loo traffic) and MULTIPLE instances of road construction and just plain heavy traffic, what my parents had said was supposed to be an hour trip up to the Cape took almost THREE FUCKING HOURS. And it would have been an even worse trip if we hadn’t managed to find a rest stop with a bathroom along the way, because let me tell you, Dad and I were getting fit to burst sitting in all that traffic. *facepalm* The trip home wasn’t quite SO bad – taking maybe about two hours? – but we still got caught in some truly miserable traffic at one point, taking like forty-five minutes at LEAST to move a mile or so. *sigh* Just – ugh. AND we had trouble finding a place to eat after completing the Skull Island course, because the restaurant that Mom found first proved to be ULTRA busy, and then, while trying to find another place, she accidentally managed to turn down the brightness on her (already dying) phone, meaning she couldn’t see the damn map to direct us any place else. Fortunately we found a place across the street from Pirate’s Cove, but for someone who was EXTREMELY HUNGRY after having had smoothie glop for breakfast because it was hot and humid, it was pretty fucking frustrating to have to wait THAT LONG to get some food! *grimace*
However – lest my above bitching make you think I didn’t have a good time, let me list what WAS fun about the trip:
A) We saw some fun sand sculptures along the way in front of various places, like the rest stop (which had some aliens visiting the cape) and a bank (which had a dolphin with some coins)
B) Skull Island was a decent mini-golf course, with plenty of fun stuff to look at as we went through (though I suspect I would have liked it better if we’d played there AFTER we ate)
C) Lunch, once we got it, actually proved to be really good – the place we went to was called D.C. Porcelli’s Pizzeria And More, and while it was definitely a “sports bar” kinda place (with darts and a pool table and arcade games and, yes, a bar with screens showing a baseball game), the food was quite tasty! Mom got a turkey club, Dad a meatball sub, and me a chicken parm sub, and all were very filling. And the fries were great – “Jersey Shore” style, meaning they had an extra coating and were deliciously crispy. Reminded me a bit of the ones we had back at Dunn’s Corners pizza, when that was a thing. Just what I needed after being hungry for so long!
D) Pirate’s Cove’s two mini-golf courses were quite fun – and the “Captain’s Course” was very kind to me, as I managed to score FIVE HOLES-IN-ONE. I’m not even kidding. I had the absolute BEST luck on that course, making shots I never expected (or even tried!) to get. My parents did decently too – we actually ALL got a hole-in-one on one particular hole, which was very cool. :D Very proud of myself there – that’s probably the best round of mini-golf any of us have EVER played!
E) Lest you think I utterly crushed my parents, though, I did not – we actually all ended up winning a game, with Dad taking the original Skull Island course, and Mom edging out Dad and me in the “Blackbeard’s Course” at Pirate’s Cove. So that was nice!
F) And we had decent ice cream at Cape Cod Creamery to celebrate our wins before braving the road home – not great ice cream (Mom’s coffee ice cream had grounds in it, apparently; Dad wasn’t able to get his wanted cherry vanilla in his hot fudge sundae; and my hot fudge sundae with chocolate ice cream with brownie chunks didn’t have as many bits of brownie as I would have liked), but decent enough. I couldn’t complain about how chocolately my sundae was, anyway.
So yeah – nice day out, but horrific trip up and back. Makes me VERY glad I have nowhere to go this weekend!
Writing: Despite the long day out, I did find the time to continue writing “The Van Dort Vacancy,” with poor Victor (having just been forced to go and mingle in the main ballroom by this mother) overhearing his parents talk about the story he just told them...and his mother go “what ghost would marry our Victor” in such a derisive tone that it just – hit him straight in the heart. :( And then made him absolutely FURIOUS as he realized that his parents had never truly cared about HIM, and the people who DID (who’d know him for FOUR DAYS and still treated him better than his mother and father) had been forced to go around to the SERVANTS’ ENTRANCE for looking too poor, and that he didn’t WANT to stay in this horrible gilded prison anymore, he wanted to be with Alice and Smiler and damn the consequences! Leading to him storming off while thinking about how he could get up to his room and what he wanted to pack –
Only to bump into someone because, well, not paying attention to where he’s going. XD I left it off with Victor apologizing to the guy – tomorrow, Barnaby “The Butcher” Fortescue III finally gets a speaking role in one of my fics! And let me tell you, I’m absolutely thrilled about it. :D
YouTube: I continued my trip through the C. M. Alongi CaFae Latte backlog tonight with “CaFae Latte Season 65 - TikTok Compilation!” And let me tell you, this episode was EPIC, featuring –
A) A quick meta-short at the beginning with C. M. pitching the Kickstarter of her candle supplier, Wares By Fiend, in-character by Bob promoting in the store – and assuring JC that all the candles are ethically sourced and made when they expressed some worries about them giving money to an unethical big corporation. Hopefully it gave Wares By Fiend a nice boost at the end of their Kickstarter!
B) Bob, Cyrus, Rethu, JC, and Husniya getting ready to close up the cafe (with Nicole sticking around reading C. M.’s latest book, The Witch Who Trades With Death, as she was JC’s ride home) and talking about the Yule party going down on Stoughton St soon – when a terrified mother, Beth, ran in and demanded to speak to the “fairy witch” because Krampus stole her son. Cyrus was like “Krampus is HERE?!” Nicole was like “Krampus is real??” JC was like “What the fuck’s a Krampus?” And C. M. was like “sorry, while I’m ending the actual video here I have to make sure it’s sixty seconds long if I want to get paid, so enjoy this black screen!” XD Oh Tik-Tok, why you gotta be this way...
C) Rethu and Cyrus bringing JC up to speed on Krampus – mythologically the evil counterpart to Santa Claus who punishes bad children, ACTUALLY a horrible goat-man thing who eats any kid he can get his hands on and uses a magic ritual to steal the years they would have lived, thus gaining a form of immortality. (Cyrus: “Bet if Erik had known about this he would have made a whole bunch of different mistakes!”) JC was naturally horrified, and asked why Bob hadn’t already killed this fucker – turns out Santa (a real fairy in this universe, going by, naturally, Nicholas) usually keeps him in line, but with more and more children to look after, clearly that had fallen by the wayside. Fortunately she was only too happy to hunt him down NOW, and after confirming that Beth had tried and failed to get the help of the police (apparently her son, Ethan, has problems with authority and had thrown rocks at their cars, so they weren’t exactly being helpful), went to make some phone calls while Nicole worked on some divination spells…
D) Cue most of the auxiliary cast being called in to help hunt Krampus down! Specifically, Bob called Herla, who said he and his Wild Hunt were dealing with a ghost horde of sailors over Lake Superior, but he’d be over once that was taken care of; Cyrus called Patrick, who not only said yes, but immediately roped in both Janine AND Deer Woman to help; and Rethu called their sister Amyth, who said that she could put the word out to the local paras in the wilder areas to help with the search (and letting us see her kid Xaytha for the first time in the form of an adorable cuddly purple dragon plush :D). And right after Beth complained that, even all this help, they had no idea where Ethan is, Nicole popped up to say that she’d gotten a location – Koochiching State Forest, specifically in some sort of cave with a waterfall and a cage. Bob promptly put JC on extraction duty (since they could pick the lock easiest), let them know that there spare guns and bullets in the false wall behind the bleach (as while she doesn’t use gun, JC does, and they get roped into these situations a LOT), and the gang set out – while, meanwhile, in the cave, our kidnapped kiddo Ethan happily backsassed Krampus as the horrible goat-man tried to fatten him up with mushrooms…
D) Husniya reassuring Beth that her friends would find Ethan, saying that between everyone helping, that they’d probably find the trail before Rethu even landed – cut to JC complaining about how many fucking waterfalls the forest had, with Cyrus saying that, well, Minnesota has a fuckton of coastline, so… Cue JC complaining that this wouldn’t happen in Delaware or Rhode Island, and Rethu countering they have astronomical prices (don’t rub it in, Rethu). Fortunately, Patrick appeared saying he’d picked up the scent, and we cut to a bored Ethan being rescued from his cage by JC. Ethan was a little puzzled as to why JC was saving him, as he said he was a “bad kid” – JC countered that they’d been even worse around his age, and asked if that meant they should have been eaten by a goat man. Ethan said “dunno, haven’t eaten any of his cooking.” XD Meanwhile, Bob and Cyrus confronted Krampus and let him known that Ethan’s mother had sent them to find the kid…
Only for him to go “really? She’s the one who sold him to me!” O.O Ooooh boy...
E) Cut back to the cafe, with Husniya still comforting Beth – only for Nicole to come up to her when she went to refill their coffees and show her one of her recent visions, showing, well, Beth selling Ethan to Krampus (it wasn’t made explicit, but you could tell that’s what it was). Husniya told her to stay out of sight and start recording on her phone, and then returned to Beth and started talking about how mothers should be allowed to complain about when their children are annoying, and how she’d researched times in history when mothers had sold their children to the highest bidder to feed themselves and how “if the kid’s going to die anyway, someone might as well survive.” Predictably, thinking she’d found a kindred spirit, Beth admitted she’d sold Ethan to Krampus for a charm guaranteeing wealth, having thought that her kid was never going to succeed and that, between his problems with authority and his bad influence friends, he was going to end up dead in a ditch anyway. She’d ended up regretting her decision, though, and after being unable to convince Krampus to give Ethan back, went to Bob. Because yeah, she didn’t want to talk to the police and get locked up for a brief lapse in faith! The way Husniya’s fingers tightened on her coffee cup in that moment…
Anyway, cut back to the cave, where Krampus tried to justify Beth’s actions by saying that Bob had probably thought of selling or giving away Cyrus when he annoyed her – and then, after Bob was like “no, never – now are you coming out on your own hooves or in pieces?” summoning a magical blizzard to escape in. JC and Ethan met back up with Bob and Cyrus, with JC asking Ethan if he wanted to ride on a dragon when he asked how he was going to get home to his mom now, while Krampus, tromping through the blizzard (muttering about hypocritical fairies, talking about him stealing human kids when they did the same thing for centuries) encountered a lost child who he happily attempted to steal away...only to notice she had hooves for feet… (And not noticing Herla, Janine, and Patrick nearby, ready to fuck his shit up…)
F) JC, Cyrus, Bob, and Ethan arriving back at the cafe after a very, uh, SPINNY ride from Rethu (Cyrus and Ethan enjoyed it a lot; Bob and JC – not so much) – just in time to see Beth getting arrested because of course Husniya and Nicole called the cops after her confession. Ethan was pretty stunned to learn his mother genuinely sold him to Krampus. :( Fortunately, a kind CPS lady, Anna, was there and assured him they’d find him a new family who would treat him more kindly. Ethan asked if dragons could be involved – Anna said that not many signed up for fostering kids, but that was because a lot of them ended up just keeping said children when they did. And Rethu happened to mention that they had an uncle that did that – and might still be a foster, so, fingers crossed, Ethan! The kid was sent off with a pin of good fortune from Nicole, and when JC got sarcastic about what a Merry Christmas this was, Cyrus pointed out they’d saved the kid and gotten him away from his horrible mother, and they’d killed the horrible immortal child-eater, so, happy holiday in his book! With JC going “wait, I thought Krampus escaped” –
Cut to Herla, Deer Woman, Patrick, and Janine still in the woods, with Herla taking Krampus’s horns as a trophy and asking the others if they wanted anything. Deer Woman declined, saying trophies made it easier for cops or hunters to find her; Patrick also declined with a blood-covered mouth, saying that a full stomach was enough for him; and Janine, also with a blood-covered mouth, saying that she’d take the cloak, even if it felt like rewarding breaking her vegan streak (she normally subsists off coconut water, as it’s close enough to human plasma to sustain her). Patrick reassured her it was the holidays, so it doesn’t count. XD
Yeah – see what I mean about epic? :D Oh man, that was a really fun one...even if the twist about Beth was both shocking and heartbreaking, oof. I hope Ethan does end up with Rethu’s uncle, or another loving dragon-related foster family. And the NEXT compilation is the one with the “Polyamorous Elders” thumbnail, so I can look forward to Oscar, Yarn Granny, and Vet Grampa figuring out a few things then.. :)
...and I also did some stuff on tumblr, but completing the entry with that is gonna take too long, so I'm gonna call it here for now and edit this sometime tomorrow (hopefully in the morning but we'll see) with what I did over on Valice Multiverse (short version -- responded to a reply and stuck three asks in the queue). As it is, I need to hit the sack, as I do have work tomorrow -- my coworker and supervisor took the day off, so HOPEFULLY it will be a quiet day in the office. We shall see. Night all!
6/20, 7:46 AM: Okay, had just enough time to finish this off this morning -- here's the missing tumblr stuff I did yesterday --
Tumblr: Well, I wasn’t able to get anything done on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), sadly – finishing up my Song Saturday post and getting Nebby’s birthday post sorted will have to wait until tomorrow – but I did get some stuff done on Valice Multiverse (as of course the day where I was out and about for most of it was the day where it was actually busy over there):
A) First, I responded to Satirical Demon’s reply on the “Fact Core: Presidential Seal is actually a sea lion” post – I’d mentioned in the tags I vaguely knew that Aperture Science had done some government work in the backstory (as per Victor saying so in the main reply), and Satirical let me know that, as per his research, Aperture and Black Mesa (their rival science firm from the Half-Life series) were competing for government contracts in the 50s with different kinds of portal tech – Aperture with its famous portal guns, Black Mesa with the interdimensional/extraterrestrial stuff which led to them meeting the Xen and the Resonance Cascade that kicks off the original Half-Life. I replied that I didn’t know much about the Black Mesa/Half-Life thing, but as I was pretty sure that the Resonance Cascade led to Earth being taken over by aliens...yeah, probably the US government in that verse regretted funding EITHER company. XD
B) And second, I answered three anon asks and stuck them in my queue:
I. A follow-up to the “Brits call mac & cheese ‘macaroni cheese’” ask where, in response to Cuddlepile!Alice saying “well, England invented the dish, so it’s you Americans who are adding that ‘and’ unnecessarily,” the anon asked how she’d feel if we started calling fish & chips “fish chips” – Alice was unruffled, saying the anon could do as they liked, but pointing out that removing the “and” in this case might make people think that they were talking about a form of fish sticks, or fried fish medallions if we went with the American version of “chip” (aka like a potato chip). Whereas if you call mac & cheese “macaroni cheese,” people should at least picture the same dish. XD Don’t think you’re winning this one, anon!
II. An anon giving dating advice – mainly, that any relationship meant to annoy your parents should be kept very casual, as such a reason for getting together wasn’t viable for sustaining something long term. Naturally, I had my Cuddlepile!Victor respond that it was a good thing that “pissing off his parents” was just a fun bonus of his relationships with Smiler, Alice, Emily, Victoria, Preston, and Piper (and Christopher and Richard, as his metamours)! XD He truly loves them, but ticking off Nell in the process of loving them IS fun.
III. And an anon asking “If Kuei-jin are Kindred of the East then does that make Kindred Kuei-jin of the West?” I had my Londerland Bloodlines!Alice let the anon know that “kuei-jin” are actually pretty much a separate set of supernaturals and resent the comparison to Kindred, as Ming Xiao told her in their first meetings. And that while Ming Xiao turned out to be PERSONALLY a bitch in league with LaCroix, she would allow that reducing the kuei-jin to just “Kindred of the East” was – not great. Granted, she’d allow a kuei-jin to call Kindred “kuei-jin of the west,” as they deserve it for their nonsense, but – still. *grimace* Yeah, apparently that book is one of the more racist ones in the Classic WOD line, so – gotta be careful when talking about stuff like that!
*nods* And THERE we go. I have to get ready for work -- talk to you later!
Cape Cod Mini-Golf Trip: So, today was the day of the great trip to Cape Cod to play a few rounds at two of the mini-golf places up there (Skull Island, which has one course, and Pirate’s Cove, which has two – the “Captain’s Course” and the “Blackbeard Course” – we did both), have lunch, and get some ice cream! How did that go? Well, I would say it was a fun afternoon of mini-golfing –
Sandwiched in between TWO HORRIFIC CAR RIDES. Because holy HELL did we have a shit time getting up to Cape Cod and back! Between a multi-car accident (on the other side of the road; we were caught in the looky-loo traffic) and MULTIPLE instances of road construction and just plain heavy traffic, what my parents had said was supposed to be an hour trip up to the Cape took almost THREE FUCKING HOURS. And it would have been an even worse trip if we hadn’t managed to find a rest stop with a bathroom along the way, because let me tell you, Dad and I were getting fit to burst sitting in all that traffic. *facepalm* The trip home wasn’t quite SO bad – taking maybe about two hours? – but we still got caught in some truly miserable traffic at one point, taking like forty-five minutes at LEAST to move a mile or so. *sigh* Just – ugh. AND we had trouble finding a place to eat after completing the Skull Island course, because the restaurant that Mom found first proved to be ULTRA busy, and then, while trying to find another place, she accidentally managed to turn down the brightness on her (already dying) phone, meaning she couldn’t see the damn map to direct us any place else. Fortunately we found a place across the street from Pirate’s Cove, but for someone who was EXTREMELY HUNGRY after having had smoothie glop for breakfast because it was hot and humid, it was pretty fucking frustrating to have to wait THAT LONG to get some food! *grimace*
However – lest my above bitching make you think I didn’t have a good time, let me list what WAS fun about the trip:
A) We saw some fun sand sculptures along the way in front of various places, like the rest stop (which had some aliens visiting the cape) and a bank (which had a dolphin with some coins)
B) Skull Island was a decent mini-golf course, with plenty of fun stuff to look at as we went through (though I suspect I would have liked it better if we’d played there AFTER we ate)
C) Lunch, once we got it, actually proved to be really good – the place we went to was called D.C. Porcelli’s Pizzeria And More, and while it was definitely a “sports bar” kinda place (with darts and a pool table and arcade games and, yes, a bar with screens showing a baseball game), the food was quite tasty! Mom got a turkey club, Dad a meatball sub, and me a chicken parm sub, and all were very filling. And the fries were great – “Jersey Shore” style, meaning they had an extra coating and were deliciously crispy. Reminded me a bit of the ones we had back at Dunn’s Corners pizza, when that was a thing. Just what I needed after being hungry for so long!
D) Pirate’s Cove’s two mini-golf courses were quite fun – and the “Captain’s Course” was very kind to me, as I managed to score FIVE HOLES-IN-ONE. I’m not even kidding. I had the absolute BEST luck on that course, making shots I never expected (or even tried!) to get. My parents did decently too – we actually ALL got a hole-in-one on one particular hole, which was very cool. :D Very proud of myself there – that’s probably the best round of mini-golf any of us have EVER played!
E) Lest you think I utterly crushed my parents, though, I did not – we actually all ended up winning a game, with Dad taking the original Skull Island course, and Mom edging out Dad and me in the “Blackbeard’s Course” at Pirate’s Cove. So that was nice!
F) And we had decent ice cream at Cape Cod Creamery to celebrate our wins before braving the road home – not great ice cream (Mom’s coffee ice cream had grounds in it, apparently; Dad wasn’t able to get his wanted cherry vanilla in his hot fudge sundae; and my hot fudge sundae with chocolate ice cream with brownie chunks didn’t have as many bits of brownie as I would have liked), but decent enough. I couldn’t complain about how chocolately my sundae was, anyway.
So yeah – nice day out, but horrific trip up and back. Makes me VERY glad I have nowhere to go this weekend!
Writing: Despite the long day out, I did find the time to continue writing “The Van Dort Vacancy,” with poor Victor (having just been forced to go and mingle in the main ballroom by this mother) overhearing his parents talk about the story he just told them...and his mother go “what ghost would marry our Victor” in such a derisive tone that it just – hit him straight in the heart. :( And then made him absolutely FURIOUS as he realized that his parents had never truly cared about HIM, and the people who DID (who’d know him for FOUR DAYS and still treated him better than his mother and father) had been forced to go around to the SERVANTS’ ENTRANCE for looking too poor, and that he didn’t WANT to stay in this horrible gilded prison anymore, he wanted to be with Alice and Smiler and damn the consequences! Leading to him storming off while thinking about how he could get up to his room and what he wanted to pack –
Only to bump into someone because, well, not paying attention to where he’s going. XD I left it off with Victor apologizing to the guy – tomorrow, Barnaby “The Butcher” Fortescue III finally gets a speaking role in one of my fics! And let me tell you, I’m absolutely thrilled about it. :D
YouTube: I continued my trip through the C. M. Alongi CaFae Latte backlog tonight with “CaFae Latte Season 65 - TikTok Compilation!” And let me tell you, this episode was EPIC, featuring –
A) A quick meta-short at the beginning with C. M. pitching the Kickstarter of her candle supplier, Wares By Fiend, in-character by Bob promoting in the store – and assuring JC that all the candles are ethically sourced and made when they expressed some worries about them giving money to an unethical big corporation. Hopefully it gave Wares By Fiend a nice boost at the end of their Kickstarter!
B) Bob, Cyrus, Rethu, JC, and Husniya getting ready to close up the cafe (with Nicole sticking around reading C. M.’s latest book, The Witch Who Trades With Death, as she was JC’s ride home) and talking about the Yule party going down on Stoughton St soon – when a terrified mother, Beth, ran in and demanded to speak to the “fairy witch” because Krampus stole her son. Cyrus was like “Krampus is HERE?!” Nicole was like “Krampus is real??” JC was like “What the fuck’s a Krampus?” And C. M. was like “sorry, while I’m ending the actual video here I have to make sure it’s sixty seconds long if I want to get paid, so enjoy this black screen!” XD Oh Tik-Tok, why you gotta be this way...
C) Rethu and Cyrus bringing JC up to speed on Krampus – mythologically the evil counterpart to Santa Claus who punishes bad children, ACTUALLY a horrible goat-man thing who eats any kid he can get his hands on and uses a magic ritual to steal the years they would have lived, thus gaining a form of immortality. (Cyrus: “Bet if Erik had known about this he would have made a whole bunch of different mistakes!”) JC was naturally horrified, and asked why Bob hadn’t already killed this fucker – turns out Santa (a real fairy in this universe, going by, naturally, Nicholas) usually keeps him in line, but with more and more children to look after, clearly that had fallen by the wayside. Fortunately she was only too happy to hunt him down NOW, and after confirming that Beth had tried and failed to get the help of the police (apparently her son, Ethan, has problems with authority and had thrown rocks at their cars, so they weren’t exactly being helpful), went to make some phone calls while Nicole worked on some divination spells…
D) Cue most of the auxiliary cast being called in to help hunt Krampus down! Specifically, Bob called Herla, who said he and his Wild Hunt were dealing with a ghost horde of sailors over Lake Superior, but he’d be over once that was taken care of; Cyrus called Patrick, who not only said yes, but immediately roped in both Janine AND Deer Woman to help; and Rethu called their sister Amyth, who said that she could put the word out to the local paras in the wilder areas to help with the search (and letting us see her kid Xaytha for the first time in the form of an adorable cuddly purple dragon plush :D). And right after Beth complained that, even all this help, they had no idea where Ethan is, Nicole popped up to say that she’d gotten a location – Koochiching State Forest, specifically in some sort of cave with a waterfall and a cage. Bob promptly put JC on extraction duty (since they could pick the lock easiest), let them know that there spare guns and bullets in the false wall behind the bleach (as while she doesn’t use gun, JC does, and they get roped into these situations a LOT), and the gang set out – while, meanwhile, in the cave, our kidnapped kiddo Ethan happily backsassed Krampus as the horrible goat-man tried to fatten him up with mushrooms…
D) Husniya reassuring Beth that her friends would find Ethan, saying that between everyone helping, that they’d probably find the trail before Rethu even landed – cut to JC complaining about how many fucking waterfalls the forest had, with Cyrus saying that, well, Minnesota has a fuckton of coastline, so… Cue JC complaining that this wouldn’t happen in Delaware or Rhode Island, and Rethu countering they have astronomical prices (don’t rub it in, Rethu). Fortunately, Patrick appeared saying he’d picked up the scent, and we cut to a bored Ethan being rescued from his cage by JC. Ethan was a little puzzled as to why JC was saving him, as he said he was a “bad kid” – JC countered that they’d been even worse around his age, and asked if that meant they should have been eaten by a goat man. Ethan said “dunno, haven’t eaten any of his cooking.” XD Meanwhile, Bob and Cyrus confronted Krampus and let him known that Ethan’s mother had sent them to find the kid…
Only for him to go “really? She’s the one who sold him to me!” O.O Ooooh boy...
E) Cut back to the cafe, with Husniya still comforting Beth – only for Nicole to come up to her when she went to refill their coffees and show her one of her recent visions, showing, well, Beth selling Ethan to Krampus (it wasn’t made explicit, but you could tell that’s what it was). Husniya told her to stay out of sight and start recording on her phone, and then returned to Beth and started talking about how mothers should be allowed to complain about when their children are annoying, and how she’d researched times in history when mothers had sold their children to the highest bidder to feed themselves and how “if the kid’s going to die anyway, someone might as well survive.” Predictably, thinking she’d found a kindred spirit, Beth admitted she’d sold Ethan to Krampus for a charm guaranteeing wealth, having thought that her kid was never going to succeed and that, between his problems with authority and his bad influence friends, he was going to end up dead in a ditch anyway. She’d ended up regretting her decision, though, and after being unable to convince Krampus to give Ethan back, went to Bob. Because yeah, she didn’t want to talk to the police and get locked up for a brief lapse in faith! The way Husniya’s fingers tightened on her coffee cup in that moment…
Anyway, cut back to the cave, where Krampus tried to justify Beth’s actions by saying that Bob had probably thought of selling or giving away Cyrus when he annoyed her – and then, after Bob was like “no, never – now are you coming out on your own hooves or in pieces?” summoning a magical blizzard to escape in. JC and Ethan met back up with Bob and Cyrus, with JC asking Ethan if he wanted to ride on a dragon when he asked how he was going to get home to his mom now, while Krampus, tromping through the blizzard (muttering about hypocritical fairies, talking about him stealing human kids when they did the same thing for centuries) encountered a lost child who he happily attempted to steal away...only to notice she had hooves for feet… (And not noticing Herla, Janine, and Patrick nearby, ready to fuck his shit up…)
F) JC, Cyrus, Bob, and Ethan arriving back at the cafe after a very, uh, SPINNY ride from Rethu (Cyrus and Ethan enjoyed it a lot; Bob and JC – not so much) – just in time to see Beth getting arrested because of course Husniya and Nicole called the cops after her confession. Ethan was pretty stunned to learn his mother genuinely sold him to Krampus. :( Fortunately, a kind CPS lady, Anna, was there and assured him they’d find him a new family who would treat him more kindly. Ethan asked if dragons could be involved – Anna said that not many signed up for fostering kids, but that was because a lot of them ended up just keeping said children when they did. And Rethu happened to mention that they had an uncle that did that – and might still be a foster, so, fingers crossed, Ethan! The kid was sent off with a pin of good fortune from Nicole, and when JC got sarcastic about what a Merry Christmas this was, Cyrus pointed out they’d saved the kid and gotten him away from his horrible mother, and they’d killed the horrible immortal child-eater, so, happy holiday in his book! With JC going “wait, I thought Krampus escaped” –
Cut to Herla, Deer Woman, Patrick, and Janine still in the woods, with Herla taking Krampus’s horns as a trophy and asking the others if they wanted anything. Deer Woman declined, saying trophies made it easier for cops or hunters to find her; Patrick also declined with a blood-covered mouth, saying that a full stomach was enough for him; and Janine, also with a blood-covered mouth, saying that she’d take the cloak, even if it felt like rewarding breaking her vegan streak (she normally subsists off coconut water, as it’s close enough to human plasma to sustain her). Patrick reassured her it was the holidays, so it doesn’t count. XD
Yeah – see what I mean about epic? :D Oh man, that was a really fun one...even if the twist about Beth was both shocking and heartbreaking, oof. I hope Ethan does end up with Rethu’s uncle, or another loving dragon-related foster family. And the NEXT compilation is the one with the “Polyamorous Elders” thumbnail, so I can look forward to Oscar, Yarn Granny, and Vet Grampa figuring out a few things then.. :)
...and I also did some stuff on tumblr, but completing the entry with that is gonna take too long, so I'm gonna call it here for now and edit this sometime tomorrow (hopefully in the morning but we'll see) with what I did over on Valice Multiverse (short version -- responded to a reply and stuck three asks in the queue). As it is, I need to hit the sack, as I do have work tomorrow -- my coworker and supervisor took the day off, so HOPEFULLY it will be a quiet day in the office. We shall see. Night all!
6/20, 7:46 AM: Okay, had just enough time to finish this off this morning -- here's the missing tumblr stuff I did yesterday --
Tumblr: Well, I wasn’t able to get anything done on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), sadly – finishing up my Song Saturday post and getting Nebby’s birthday post sorted will have to wait until tomorrow – but I did get some stuff done on Valice Multiverse (as of course the day where I was out and about for most of it was the day where it was actually busy over there):
A) First, I responded to Satirical Demon’s reply on the “Fact Core: Presidential Seal is actually a sea lion” post – I’d mentioned in the tags I vaguely knew that Aperture Science had done some government work in the backstory (as per Victor saying so in the main reply), and Satirical let me know that, as per his research, Aperture and Black Mesa (their rival science firm from the Half-Life series) were competing for government contracts in the 50s with different kinds of portal tech – Aperture with its famous portal guns, Black Mesa with the interdimensional/extraterrestrial stuff which led to them meeting the Xen and the Resonance Cascade that kicks off the original Half-Life. I replied that I didn’t know much about the Black Mesa/Half-Life thing, but as I was pretty sure that the Resonance Cascade led to Earth being taken over by aliens...yeah, probably the US government in that verse regretted funding EITHER company. XD
B) And second, I answered three anon asks and stuck them in my queue:
I. A follow-up to the “Brits call mac & cheese ‘macaroni cheese’” ask where, in response to Cuddlepile!Alice saying “well, England invented the dish, so it’s you Americans who are adding that ‘and’ unnecessarily,” the anon asked how she’d feel if we started calling fish & chips “fish chips” – Alice was unruffled, saying the anon could do as they liked, but pointing out that removing the “and” in this case might make people think that they were talking about a form of fish sticks, or fried fish medallions if we went with the American version of “chip” (aka like a potato chip). Whereas if you call mac & cheese “macaroni cheese,” people should at least picture the same dish. XD Don’t think you’re winning this one, anon!
II. An anon giving dating advice – mainly, that any relationship meant to annoy your parents should be kept very casual, as such a reason for getting together wasn’t viable for sustaining something long term. Naturally, I had my Cuddlepile!Victor respond that it was a good thing that “pissing off his parents” was just a fun bonus of his relationships with Smiler, Alice, Emily, Victoria, Preston, and Piper (and Christopher and Richard, as his metamours)! XD He truly loves them, but ticking off Nell in the process of loving them IS fun.
III. And an anon asking “If Kuei-jin are Kindred of the East then does that make Kindred Kuei-jin of the West?” I had my Londerland Bloodlines!Alice let the anon know that “kuei-jin” are actually pretty much a separate set of supernaturals and resent the comparison to Kindred, as Ming Xiao told her in their first meetings. And that while Ming Xiao turned out to be PERSONALLY a bitch in league with LaCroix, she would allow that reducing the kuei-jin to just “Kindred of the East” was – not great. Granted, she’d allow a kuei-jin to call Kindred “kuei-jin of the west,” as they deserve it for their nonsense, but – still. *grimace* Yeah, apparently that book is one of the more racist ones in the Classic WOD line, so – gotta be careful when talking about stuff like that!
*nods* And THERE we go. I have to get ready for work -- talk to you later!
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Date: 2025-06-20 02:53 pm (UTC)Krampus is HERE?
Krampus is REAL?
...dafuq is a Krampus?
Also Krampus being the "anti-Santy-Claus".
Also also, yikes sorry you had to deal with horrendous traffic. We had a similar time when we took the kid to Legoland a couple years ago. What was supposed to be an hour and a half ride took 3 or 4 because of an accident or something.
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Date: 2025-06-21 03:54 am (UTC)Ugggggh, that sucks as well! I'm sorry you all had to go through that -- I hope LEGOLand was worth it afterward!