Back To The Grind Mon -- TUESDAY
Jul. 8th, 2025 11:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickYeah, one of the hazards of a long weekend -- you kind of forget what day it is when you go back to work. :p But it is indeed Tuesday, and I did indeed get back to the grind, as my write-up shall attest:
Work – A fairly busy first day back at the office – there wasn’t too much to catch up on in regards to e-mails and such, but there was a QC file for the latest thank-you going out that I spent most of the day completing, plus a fair number of phone calls to answer (including one donor trying to sneak in a last-minute pledge online – not happening, sorry – and one donor who needed me to shut down an ongoing gift they’d accidentally made). And a few things to look up for my coworker, who spent most of her day going through all the last-minute checks that had to go on. *shrug* It all made the day go by, that’s for sure! And it wasn’t busy to the point where I left late or felt absurdly stressed, so that was all right too. We’ll see what tomorrow brings!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with “Tiny Town Finale! - Part 30” by James Turner! James continued the loop around Tiny Town’s residents in today’s chunklet, visiting –
A) Vivienne so he could slap some solar panels on top of her shipping container house (as he’d said he was going to do for ages now – though in order to afford it, he had to have Vivienne grab some cash from the vault, which meant he had to switch to Scarlett briefly so she could OPEN the vault for Vivienne, which ended up in him being unwillingly pulled into an “electrical failure” event on Scarlett’s lot – he eventually got it sorted, though XD); redo her bedroom a little so her bed was better centered with the window on the opposite wall as the commenters wished (which led to him changing the wallpaper in there too when he didn’t like how it looked with the new layout – the lights were in the wrong place on the pattern); and – most importantly – make her Camillo’s mentor so she could help him max out his Writing skill, and thus finally have someone who could record her epic saga in a Book Of Life! Because, as James has complained (rightfully) about in the past, Sims like her with the “Poetic” trait can’t write Books Of Life for themselves – only other people. Bit of an oversight there, Maxis – I think authors would like to be properly immortal too, please! :P
B) Camillo, so he could get the guy to max out the Writing skill and be granted the power of the “Poetic” trait via the magic of cheats, allowing him to bind Scarlet’s life to a book! (James did briefly consider having Camillo complete the Bestselling Author aspiration to get the trait legitimately, but rapidly decided it would take too long). This involved both Vivienne mentoring him at both her house and his, and Camillo briefly getting back into the world of crystal-cutting to make himself a topaz gem to help him learn creative skills faster and avoid burnout to go with the needs-boosting crystal James gave him to keep his needs topped off. The combination of the two gems and Vivienne’s expertise meant that he maxed out his Writing skill (which was already at level 7 when he started) pretty quickly – and once that was done, James gave him the trait, gave him the blank book from Vivienne’s pedestal, and had Camillo bind his half-sister’s life to it! So now everyone has a book that can be used to bring them back to life should the worst happen, yay. :) Granted, Vivienne’s book nearly ended up in a storage bin as Camillo felt the urge to put it away after completing the binding, but James was able to retrieve it without issue. If with a lot of annoyed shouts of “what are you doing?!” XD
C) And Scarlett, so he could finally get her married to Patchy! Which was a bit of a tricky affair – first, James discovered that something had broken in his game so he couldn’t do a “proper” My Wedding Stories wedding (hooray!). Then, Scarlett had to spend the night before the nuptials visiting her various siblings with kids and partners to meet said kids and partners so she could properly invite them to the wedding, after trying to plan a base game affair on her phone and discovering she didn’t know most of them. Then, when she invited everyone to the shindig to celebrate, James discovered that Patchy had never showed up and had to use teleport cheats to get him in Tiny Town in time for his own wedding. THEN, James discovered that Scarlett could only “fantasize about weddings” when he clicked on the wedding arch, so she and Patchy had to get married elopement-style – which they did midway down the aisle, with Scarlett’s various relations gathered around the benches, watching on and cheering. XD And finally, James discovered that Scarlett couldn’t really fulfill any of her wedding goals, as the game refused to properly recognize her marriage to Patchy (they’re listed as “spouses” in the relationship panel, but Patchy didn’t move in when they got married, and the “get married!” goal for the wedding didn’t get checked off), so he had to end the wedding early, at mere bronze level. Sheesh – it’s like the game doesn’t particularly want players marrying their Sims to characters that aren’t real NPCs. XD
So yeah – another set of goals, fulfilled! I left it off with everyone hanging out in the aftermath of the “failed” wedding, with James confirming that guest Domenic was indeed Scarlett’s dad and she was right to invite him – tomorrow, we finish off things with Scarlett and move onto the only resident remaining – Krystoff! Who has a rather important job to do before this series can be marked as “completed…”
2. Continue editing “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check plus, as I did a little extra editing today on the series –
A) First, in response to a comment from “LizzieAddamsTookAnAxe” on Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Santa Monica’s Vale of Tears,” informing me that newspaper article Bertram Tung finds on the Van Dorts at the end, listing them as the fourth-richest family in the world with 500 million in assets, was BADLY off, as the actual fourth-richest person in the world in 2004 was a Saudi prince who had 25 BILLION in assets, I edited said article to give the Van Dorts a net worth of just over 20 billion instead – and bump them down to seventh place on the list, since that’s where the stats I looked up regarding the richest people in the world in 2004 would put them (among the Walton family). Should have looked that up before, honestly – I keep forgetting that while 500 million is absurdly rich to ME, it’s not rich to the actual ultra rich. Well, it’s fixed now!
B) And second, I edited another page of Alice’s adventures in Grout’s hellmaze in “Downtown Queensland” Featuring Alice finding a pile of ash that used to be a vampire in that beam of killer light coming down from the ceiling; managing to retrieve what was left of the pile of ash’s jacket to check its wallet – and discover it used to be, of all people, Kent Alan Ryan (aka Patty’s missing domitor); discovering that the reason he got ashed was because he was trying to pull a lever that was smack-dab in the middle of the light, which Alice guessed was necessary for escaping; and searching the room to see if she could find anything that would help her pull the lever at a distance, only to come up short. I left it with her preparing to see if she could maybe shoot the lever to activate it – tomorrow, she realizes that the specific type of bag she brought with her actually gives her another option...
3. Keep up with YouTube “Subs”: Check – popped back onto C. M. Alongi’s channel to watch another one of her older TikTok compilations: “The Witch Who Trades with Death - New C. M. Alongi Novel!” This was a series of TikToks she did to promote the latest novel coming down the pipeline – a stand-alone book featuring a witch who, escaping sexual assault and domestic violence, runs off to another land and starts recovering with the help of a found family...only to find her awful ex is the evil emperor looking to conquer the land she now calls home. (Don’t worry – he apparently gets his.) The TikToks featured C. M. and her books (Blackwing, Citadel, the in-progress at the time Heart Of Iron, and Witch) all chatting with each other, and covered:
A) Witch’s introduction to the group (right after Blackwing and Citadel were complaining about when their sequels were coming out, and Heart of Iron had needled Citadel for not winning the Minnesota Book Award), startling all the other books (and causing Blackwing to bitch she was never going to get any sequels)
B) C. M. explaining why she wrote Witch (she was bored and had some free time in between waiting for edits on Blackwing to be done and Citadel), and the other books learning that Witch was an epic dark fantasy (Citadel was incredulous, given that Witch was wearing a very fun shirt with poison dart frogs piled on an ice cream cone – something Smiler would definitely wear, by the way) about a woman escaping domestic violence, healing with the help of a new community, and then beating the shit out of her abuser, only with more witchcraft and evil empires...and, apparently, “spicy”
C) The other books being shocked that Witch is openly spicy, as on-screen sex scenes are not a thing with C. M. – however, given the HELL that C. M. puts Witch’s main character through, she felt it only right to let the poor woman get laid. Plus the scene is apparently plot-important. The other books were “eh” about this (especially since the main pairing is cishet, and most of them are more queer), but they were pleased to hear Witch got a happy ending where the main character gets sweet, sweet revenge on her abuser. :D Blackwing even told Citadel (which apparently doesn’t end on a very good note) to take notes, causing Citadel to protest that their ending CLEARLY left the door open for a sequel, “you self-published swine” and leading into...
D) C. M. and the other books lecturing Citadel for being a trad-pub snob, with Blackwing and Heart Of Iron saying that being self-published did NOT make a book lesser and that trad-publishing came with all sorts of bad stuff – from the danger of an author/publisher power struggle, to the fact that publishers pay only pennies, to the systemic racism and sexism in the industry. Witch (a trad-pub book in the middle of edits at the time) was VERY nervous about them talking shit like this while she was being edited, but C. M. said that publisher Angry Robot knew what they signed up for XD
E) The books talking about why they were written: Citadel to emphasize the importance of talking to each other and not dehumanizing people; Blackwing to build an audience for Citadel before taking on a life of her own; Heart Of Iron to capitalize on the success of the CaFae Latte series; and Witch because, again, C. M. had some free time and was bored XD
F) Blackwing wondering if all the books have the “strong female character” trope, with Citadel saying that they have properly-fleshed-out female characters if that’s what she means; cue Witch worriedly wondering if the fact that her main female character having sexual assault and domestic violence in her past means she falls down on the wrong side of the trope. Fortunately, the others assured her they had some overused tropes themselves, and were able to ascertain that the assault and violence weren’t just there for shock value, weren’t actually portrayed on screen, and that the victim manages to REALLY get her abuser back at the end, so they were like “yeah, you’ll be fine”
G) Witch wondering if her book has to include social justice themes, because she doesn’t think she has any – the other books were like “hold on, your character goes through sexual assault and domestic violence,” with Witch countering, “Yeah, but that’s just HER experience, I don’t talk much about rape culture or anything like that.” Citadel, in a rare nice moment, said that it was okay if the themes weren’t explicit on the page, it was enough that they were acknowledged in SOME way and got people talking about them…
And then Witch started talking about how the main character bonds with her MALE best friend over their shared experience, and how the best friend’s abuser was exposed but avoided punishment thanks to being rich, and how him being the child of immigrants did NOT help, as the town was rather xenophobic. Heart Of Iron was immediately like “you have social justice issues out the wazoo, girl.” Witch was thrilled. XD
H) And Blackwing asking Witch about her magic system, as she was curious – turns out that witches in that world can suck the life force out of people to power their magic, and make trades with the personification of death (hence the full title of the book), sacrificing bits of their soul for more powers or more life force. It was quite dark, but Blackwing got kind of stuck on the fact that the life drain sounded like vampirism, and that it gave the witches a colorful glowing aura...meaning the book had sparkly vampires. XD Welp, given that Witch replied that “they sparkle with the souls of their murder victims!” I think C. M. trusts she did it better than Twilight!
Fun stuff – and good preparation for me watching the compilation of TikToks C. M. did to help promote the book when it came out in March! :) Hopefully I can get to that tomorrow...
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check and check –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Dropped a pair of posts in the queue for Wednesday tonight – that “Dead Boys Detective Agency as text posts” post I liked earlier, followed by my own “Valicer as text posts” post that was inspired by it. Felt only polite to reblog the original before posting my version! Dunno what I’m going to do for the rest of the week yet, but I’ll worry about that tomorrow.
Valice Multiverse – Ended up with a pair of posts to queue up over here too:
A) An anon ask talking about how they think Therese Voerman is the “the finest thing in Santa Monica since sliced bread” and how no one cares about that fact...or the fact that the fledgling blew up a warehouse – Londerland Bloodlines!Alice, said fledgling, agreed with them that shit was crazy and admitted she was surprised to find someone who preferred Therese – she thought most people liked the more sociable Jeannette more (some people just want ladies who will step on them, Alice!)
B) And a surprise response to my oft-forgot thread with The Coven Wars, with their character Seth asking for help finding his brother Richard after he wandered off in a daze – Forgotten Vows!Alice and Victor are on the case, getting out of Seth that they were near the square when it happened and saying that that’s where they should start. Perhaps this kid will get found after all!
Aaaand now it's thundering outside, meaning those thunderstorms that were supposed to show up earlier (they were TWO MILES away from us this afternoon -- I heard the thunder, but every time I looked outside, it was sunny) have finally arrived, so I'd better get off the computer. Night all!
Work – A fairly busy first day back at the office – there wasn’t too much to catch up on in regards to e-mails and such, but there was a QC file for the latest thank-you going out that I spent most of the day completing, plus a fair number of phone calls to answer (including one donor trying to sneak in a last-minute pledge online – not happening, sorry – and one donor who needed me to shut down an ongoing gift they’d accidentally made). And a few things to look up for my coworker, who spent most of her day going through all the last-minute checks that had to go on. *shrug* It all made the day go by, that’s for sure! And it wasn’t busy to the point where I left late or felt absurdly stressed, so that was all right too. We’ll see what tomorrow brings!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with “Tiny Town Finale! - Part 30” by James Turner! James continued the loop around Tiny Town’s residents in today’s chunklet, visiting –
A) Vivienne so he could slap some solar panels on top of her shipping container house (as he’d said he was going to do for ages now – though in order to afford it, he had to have Vivienne grab some cash from the vault, which meant he had to switch to Scarlett briefly so she could OPEN the vault for Vivienne, which ended up in him being unwillingly pulled into an “electrical failure” event on Scarlett’s lot – he eventually got it sorted, though XD); redo her bedroom a little so her bed was better centered with the window on the opposite wall as the commenters wished (which led to him changing the wallpaper in there too when he didn’t like how it looked with the new layout – the lights were in the wrong place on the pattern); and – most importantly – make her Camillo’s mentor so she could help him max out his Writing skill, and thus finally have someone who could record her epic saga in a Book Of Life! Because, as James has complained (rightfully) about in the past, Sims like her with the “Poetic” trait can’t write Books Of Life for themselves – only other people. Bit of an oversight there, Maxis – I think authors would like to be properly immortal too, please! :P
B) Camillo, so he could get the guy to max out the Writing skill and be granted the power of the “Poetic” trait via the magic of cheats, allowing him to bind Scarlet’s life to a book! (James did briefly consider having Camillo complete the Bestselling Author aspiration to get the trait legitimately, but rapidly decided it would take too long). This involved both Vivienne mentoring him at both her house and his, and Camillo briefly getting back into the world of crystal-cutting to make himself a topaz gem to help him learn creative skills faster and avoid burnout to go with the needs-boosting crystal James gave him to keep his needs topped off. The combination of the two gems and Vivienne’s expertise meant that he maxed out his Writing skill (which was already at level 7 when he started) pretty quickly – and once that was done, James gave him the trait, gave him the blank book from Vivienne’s pedestal, and had Camillo bind his half-sister’s life to it! So now everyone has a book that can be used to bring them back to life should the worst happen, yay. :) Granted, Vivienne’s book nearly ended up in a storage bin as Camillo felt the urge to put it away after completing the binding, but James was able to retrieve it without issue. If with a lot of annoyed shouts of “what are you doing?!” XD
C) And Scarlett, so he could finally get her married to Patchy! Which was a bit of a tricky affair – first, James discovered that something had broken in his game so he couldn’t do a “proper” My Wedding Stories wedding (hooray!). Then, Scarlett had to spend the night before the nuptials visiting her various siblings with kids and partners to meet said kids and partners so she could properly invite them to the wedding, after trying to plan a base game affair on her phone and discovering she didn’t know most of them. Then, when she invited everyone to the shindig to celebrate, James discovered that Patchy had never showed up and had to use teleport cheats to get him in Tiny Town in time for his own wedding. THEN, James discovered that Scarlett could only “fantasize about weddings” when he clicked on the wedding arch, so she and Patchy had to get married elopement-style – which they did midway down the aisle, with Scarlett’s various relations gathered around the benches, watching on and cheering. XD And finally, James discovered that Scarlett couldn’t really fulfill any of her wedding goals, as the game refused to properly recognize her marriage to Patchy (they’re listed as “spouses” in the relationship panel, but Patchy didn’t move in when they got married, and the “get married!” goal for the wedding didn’t get checked off), so he had to end the wedding early, at mere bronze level. Sheesh – it’s like the game doesn’t particularly want players marrying their Sims to characters that aren’t real NPCs. XD
So yeah – another set of goals, fulfilled! I left it off with everyone hanging out in the aftermath of the “failed” wedding, with James confirming that guest Domenic was indeed Scarlett’s dad and she was right to invite him – tomorrow, we finish off things with Scarlett and move onto the only resident remaining – Krystoff! Who has a rather important job to do before this series can be marked as “completed…”
2. Continue editing “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check plus, as I did a little extra editing today on the series –
A) First, in response to a comment from “LizzieAddamsTookAnAxe” on Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Santa Monica’s Vale of Tears,” informing me that newspaper article Bertram Tung finds on the Van Dorts at the end, listing them as the fourth-richest family in the world with 500 million in assets, was BADLY off, as the actual fourth-richest person in the world in 2004 was a Saudi prince who had 25 BILLION in assets, I edited said article to give the Van Dorts a net worth of just over 20 billion instead – and bump them down to seventh place on the list, since that’s where the stats I looked up regarding the richest people in the world in 2004 would put them (among the Walton family). Should have looked that up before, honestly – I keep forgetting that while 500 million is absurdly rich to ME, it’s not rich to the actual ultra rich. Well, it’s fixed now!
B) And second, I edited another page of Alice’s adventures in Grout’s hellmaze in “Downtown Queensland” Featuring Alice finding a pile of ash that used to be a vampire in that beam of killer light coming down from the ceiling; managing to retrieve what was left of the pile of ash’s jacket to check its wallet – and discover it used to be, of all people, Kent Alan Ryan (aka Patty’s missing domitor); discovering that the reason he got ashed was because he was trying to pull a lever that was smack-dab in the middle of the light, which Alice guessed was necessary for escaping; and searching the room to see if she could find anything that would help her pull the lever at a distance, only to come up short. I left it with her preparing to see if she could maybe shoot the lever to activate it – tomorrow, she realizes that the specific type of bag she brought with her actually gives her another option...
3. Keep up with YouTube “Subs”: Check – popped back onto C. M. Alongi’s channel to watch another one of her older TikTok compilations: “The Witch Who Trades with Death - New C. M. Alongi Novel!” This was a series of TikToks she did to promote the latest novel coming down the pipeline – a stand-alone book featuring a witch who, escaping sexual assault and domestic violence, runs off to another land and starts recovering with the help of a found family...only to find her awful ex is the evil emperor looking to conquer the land she now calls home. (Don’t worry – he apparently gets his.) The TikToks featured C. M. and her books (Blackwing, Citadel, the in-progress at the time Heart Of Iron, and Witch) all chatting with each other, and covered:
A) Witch’s introduction to the group (right after Blackwing and Citadel were complaining about when their sequels were coming out, and Heart of Iron had needled Citadel for not winning the Minnesota Book Award), startling all the other books (and causing Blackwing to bitch she was never going to get any sequels)
B) C. M. explaining why she wrote Witch (she was bored and had some free time in between waiting for edits on Blackwing to be done and Citadel), and the other books learning that Witch was an epic dark fantasy (Citadel was incredulous, given that Witch was wearing a very fun shirt with poison dart frogs piled on an ice cream cone – something Smiler would definitely wear, by the way) about a woman escaping domestic violence, healing with the help of a new community, and then beating the shit out of her abuser, only with more witchcraft and evil empires...and, apparently, “spicy”
C) The other books being shocked that Witch is openly spicy, as on-screen sex scenes are not a thing with C. M. – however, given the HELL that C. M. puts Witch’s main character through, she felt it only right to let the poor woman get laid. Plus the scene is apparently plot-important. The other books were “eh” about this (especially since the main pairing is cishet, and most of them are more queer), but they were pleased to hear Witch got a happy ending where the main character gets sweet, sweet revenge on her abuser. :D Blackwing even told Citadel (which apparently doesn’t end on a very good note) to take notes, causing Citadel to protest that their ending CLEARLY left the door open for a sequel, “you self-published swine” and leading into...
D) C. M. and the other books lecturing Citadel for being a trad-pub snob, with Blackwing and Heart Of Iron saying that being self-published did NOT make a book lesser and that trad-publishing came with all sorts of bad stuff – from the danger of an author/publisher power struggle, to the fact that publishers pay only pennies, to the systemic racism and sexism in the industry. Witch (a trad-pub book in the middle of edits at the time) was VERY nervous about them talking shit like this while she was being edited, but C. M. said that publisher Angry Robot knew what they signed up for XD
E) The books talking about why they were written: Citadel to emphasize the importance of talking to each other and not dehumanizing people; Blackwing to build an audience for Citadel before taking on a life of her own; Heart Of Iron to capitalize on the success of the CaFae Latte series; and Witch because, again, C. M. had some free time and was bored XD
F) Blackwing wondering if all the books have the “strong female character” trope, with Citadel saying that they have properly-fleshed-out female characters if that’s what she means; cue Witch worriedly wondering if the fact that her main female character having sexual assault and domestic violence in her past means she falls down on the wrong side of the trope. Fortunately, the others assured her they had some overused tropes themselves, and were able to ascertain that the assault and violence weren’t just there for shock value, weren’t actually portrayed on screen, and that the victim manages to REALLY get her abuser back at the end, so they were like “yeah, you’ll be fine”
G) Witch wondering if her book has to include social justice themes, because she doesn’t think she has any – the other books were like “hold on, your character goes through sexual assault and domestic violence,” with Witch countering, “Yeah, but that’s just HER experience, I don’t talk much about rape culture or anything like that.” Citadel, in a rare nice moment, said that it was okay if the themes weren’t explicit on the page, it was enough that they were acknowledged in SOME way and got people talking about them…
And then Witch started talking about how the main character bonds with her MALE best friend over their shared experience, and how the best friend’s abuser was exposed but avoided punishment thanks to being rich, and how him being the child of immigrants did NOT help, as the town was rather xenophobic. Heart Of Iron was immediately like “you have social justice issues out the wazoo, girl.” Witch was thrilled. XD
H) And Blackwing asking Witch about her magic system, as she was curious – turns out that witches in that world can suck the life force out of people to power their magic, and make trades with the personification of death (hence the full title of the book), sacrificing bits of their soul for more powers or more life force. It was quite dark, but Blackwing got kind of stuck on the fact that the life drain sounded like vampirism, and that it gave the witches a colorful glowing aura...meaning the book had sparkly vampires. XD Welp, given that Witch replied that “they sparkle with the souls of their murder victims!” I think C. M. trusts she did it better than Twilight!
Fun stuff – and good preparation for me watching the compilation of TikToks C. M. did to help promote the book when it came out in March! :) Hopefully I can get to that tomorrow...
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check and check –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Dropped a pair of posts in the queue for Wednesday tonight – that “Dead Boys Detective Agency as text posts” post I liked earlier, followed by my own “Valicer as text posts” post that was inspired by it. Felt only polite to reblog the original before posting my version! Dunno what I’m going to do for the rest of the week yet, but I’ll worry about that tomorrow.
Valice Multiverse – Ended up with a pair of posts to queue up over here too:
A) An anon ask talking about how they think Therese Voerman is the “the finest thing in Santa Monica since sliced bread” and how no one cares about that fact...or the fact that the fledgling blew up a warehouse – Londerland Bloodlines!Alice, said fledgling, agreed with them that shit was crazy and admitted she was surprised to find someone who preferred Therese – she thought most people liked the more sociable Jeannette more (some people just want ladies who will step on them, Alice!)
B) And a surprise response to my oft-forgot thread with The Coven Wars, with their character Seth asking for help finding his brother Richard after he wandered off in a daze – Forgotten Vows!Alice and Victor are on the case, getting out of Seth that they were near the square when it happened and saying that that’s where they should start. Perhaps this kid will get found after all!
Aaaand now it's thundering outside, meaning those thunderstorms that were supposed to show up earlier (they were TWO MILES away from us this afternoon -- I heard the thunder, but every time I looked outside, it was sunny) have finally arrived, so I'd better get off the computer. Night all!
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Date: 2025-08-03 04:17 am (UTC)