It's The 14ths You Have To Look Out For
Aug. 14th, 2025 11:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickCase in point, while yesterday (the 13th) only had a somewhat-annoying work day for me, TODAY started out with me being unable to start my car, and having to be ferried to work by my parents while wondering if there was something seriously wrong with it. Fortunately, as per AAA, it was simply a case of a dead battery that needed to be replaced -- apparently they only last about five years now, and given my car is a 2020 model... So yeah, after my parents tried having the first guy charge it, only to find it wouldn't hold the charge, we called in a second guy after work to swap out the battery. Cost me a little over $200, but apparently batteries are fucking expensive, and having him do it was indeed the cheapest option. *shrug* Honestly, I don't mind the price so much as this had to happen on one of the hottest, muggiest days of the week -- it was UNPLEASANT, standing in that garage watching the guy work and starting up the car for him when he asked! Bleeeh...it's supposed to be cooler and drier tomorrow, but I will believe that when I see it.
Anyway -- here's how the rest of my day panned out:
Work – Well, as befits “My Car Battery Died This Morning” Day, it was another kinda-stressful day at work – though, fortunately, it didn’t stay stressful the entire time. Instead, the stress was largely concentrated into the morning hours, with me having to juggle getting the GL done with answering the phone, taking calls like “my mother died a few months ago and I want to bitch about how rude the priest at our local church was” or “hi I’m a telemarketer offering will-writing software.” *shakehead* Fortunately, things calmed down closer to lunch, and I was able to finish the GL and get the couple of checks we received onto the system without too much fuss. And then the afternoon was largely stuffing envelopes for a mailing and checking on the failed credit cards, broken up with a couple more calls (sending one lady some reminders for her pledge and updating an address for another one). Nothing too taxing! Just it was a little frustrating early on, especially with me worrying about the damn car. Hopefully tomorrow will be chill, or at least relatively so!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – I got to it later than I wanted, thanks to when the AAA guy showed up (though he did get the battery changed quite quickly, and with minimal fuss, which I appreciated), but I did get on the bike, and I did pedal my way through the end of Corpse Bride! Which was quite enjoyable – I’d forgotten how much I liked “The Wedding Song” and all the Land of the Dead characters running around getting ready for the wedding. :) I also learned two new facts after rewatching the movie over the past couple of days:
A) Right before Victor’s piano solo at the start of the movie, you can hear the Van Dorts sucking up to the Everglots off-screen as they make their way to the west drawing room and Victor lingers by the piano – Nell asking who the Everglots’ decorator is while William goes “nice piles, shame about the drapes” (presumably complimenting the rugs?). An annoyed Nell then says “Oh, my husband says such foolish things! Ignore him” –
And after that, William has one final line that I’ve never been able to make out before. But this time I was able to hear it: “Ahaha, yes, that’s usually for the best.” XD Seems William knows his place in the household hierarchy! XD
B) I’ve always thought Victor’s tie was just rumpled after his run through the forest trying to escape Emily – but after getting a better look at it in some of the Land of the Dead scenes, I think it actually got torn, just like his suit coat! It’s just not as visible because of the aforementioned rumpling. Interesting little detail – though it makes sense, given he ran through some pretty thick brambles just before reaching the bridge, and they were tearing pretty good at his chest – I always though the scrap of fabric he left behind was from his coat, but maybe it was from his tie instead. Hmmm!
So that was fun. :) Good to revisit the core canon for a bit – hopefully I will be able to put it to good use writing my Victors going forward!
2. Continue editing “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – we are within sight of the end of Chapter 5, folks! Today’s page had Alice make herself presentable (aka put on her nightgown and panties), then go and burrow into the blanket next Victor made for her before having a bit of a chat with its creator. Covering such topics as:
A) Alice not being used to people just doing nice things for her, not without her doing something for them first (Victor pointed out she does let him live with her, and Alice responded he looks after the place while she’s away, so they’re square on that front)
B) If they had any trick-or-treaters (a determined group of five, who Victor happily gave candy to – along with their chaperones a mom and the security guard)
C) What Victor did while she was out (watch dumb Halloween specials)
D) And if Alice was ready to talk about what had made her so upset (causing Alice to relay that she literally couldn’t talk about some of it thanks to LaCroix, and apologizing again for Dementing Victor in the hospital, with Victor being like “I have forgiven you and will keep forgiving you”)
Maybe not a full emotional rollercoaster, but there were a few ups and downs anyway. Tomorrow, we wrap things up with Alice and Victor holding hands for the first time and Alice settling in for daysleep in her nest...and then next week, we work on the final edits for this monster so we can get it posted! Everyone who follows this story should be thrilled. :P
3. Keep up with YouTube “Subs”: Check, and I even had an actual Subs video tonight – “I’m Starting Over” by Josh Way! A personal update video that revealed that his life is kind of burning down around him, sadly – he’s finalizing his divorce (something that I suspected was going on because of some of the vague comments he’s made in previous videos); he lost the job that he got after losing his previous job two years ago (THAT was a surprise); and he’s going to have to move because it’s just too expensive for him to stay where he is (no surprise if he’s getting a divorce and out of a job!). He made it clear that he still wants to do stuff on YouTube, like shorts, and he’s hoping that this hard reset forced on him by life will allow him to restructure so he can focus some more on his more creative endeavors, but – yeah. I would not be surprised if there was a longer-than-usual dearth of content from him as a result of all this! Here’s hoping you land on your feet, Josh!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check plus and check tonight –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Not only did I finish off my queue for the week over here, I actually ended up reblogging a few things to my dash tonight:
A) On the queue side, I went diving through my “#song saturday” tag again, and came across a post from seven years ago that I’ve passed by a few times – one that was supposed to contain a Soundcloud audio player featuring “Wake Me Maybe,” a mashup someone made putting the lyrics of Evanescence’s “Bring Me To Life” (no, it’s not called “Wake Me Up Inside,” that’s just the most famous part of the chorus) to the tune of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe,” but which I’ve seen as blank for quite some time now. I always assumed that the post had broken some time in the past (because hellsite functionality problems and people deleting their blogs and whatnot) –
But tonight, I happened to glance up at my NoScript browser extension – and finally wondered, “wait a second...is that blocking whatever would normally show the audio player?” So I fiddled around with my settings a bit –
And yuuup, turns out Soundcloud was being blocked. And once I set it to “Temporarily Trusted,” the player came back and allowed me to listen to the mash-up again. :D So I happily did so, then dunked it into my queue as my Song Saturday to celebrate! (Extra bonus: this is one of my few not-YouTube-based Song Saturdays, and I was hoping to reblog one of those this week since we so recently had the “No YouTube” day to protest the stupid AI stuff they’re doing. So double win!)
B) And on the dash side, this evening I reblogged:
I. My friend thesatiricaldemon’s latest “plush acquired” photo post, featuring a plushie of SCP-106, “Old Man Larry” – a zombie-looking purpley dude in a vest. Satirical had him feast upon the leg of a skeleton before putting him with the rest of the collection in the photos – I just had to say hi and comment on how he was small but deadly. XD
II. A post by alaraxia: “oopsie! You got a bit too manic about a creative project too close to bedtime and now your brain is too awake to sleep. One million dead 10 morbillion injured,” with a follow-up by supreme-leader-stoat: “Also you haven't actually worked on the project, to be clear” – as someone who has had nights where her brain just runs away with one of the Valicer AUs that lives rent-free in my head and can’t get to sleep because of it, this post and its addition really spoke to me
III. And a post by exitwound showing off some some truly beautiful gifs illustrating solutions to the “three body problem”, featuring three spheres of light orbiting each other in various ways, which was reblogged twice by polyamorousmood talking about how it reminds them of polyamory (the first time was just a fun “posts that are about polyamory to me” quickie; the second was a full essay about how perfectly these gifts illustrate various poly dynamics and how you’ll be closer to one person, then to another, and how sometimes there’s someone on the sidelines who doesn’t get that close at all, but is still an important part of the ‘cule) – and which I reblogged because, after the first time polyamorousmood reblogged it, I noticed the colors representing the three bodies were blue, red, and yellow, and immediately realized I had to pick which one was Valicer. XD Currently leaning toward the fourth one in the top row, which draws a pretty star-shaped pattern using the three, though I also like the “chain” formed by the second one in the third row, and the “clover” in the middle of the second row. :) They’re just pretty and make me think of my OT3!
Valice Multiverse – And over here, I had one anon ask to drop in the queue – an exchange between two people, with one declaring how they were gonna “fist someone’s face” and the other demanding the first stop referring to punching like that. XD I queued up Cuddlepile!Alice telling the second person that the first was probably saying that to get a rise out of them, and if they REALLY wanted it to stop, they were going to have to stop telling the person to stop. She recommended instead smiling, waving, then finding a pillow to scream into. XD
And there we have it. I am just glad the entire day was not shit, despite its best efforts. Now I just have to hope my car turns on without a problem tomorrow...fingers crossed, everyone! Night all!
Anyway -- here's how the rest of my day panned out:
Work – Well, as befits “My Car Battery Died This Morning” Day, it was another kinda-stressful day at work – though, fortunately, it didn’t stay stressful the entire time. Instead, the stress was largely concentrated into the morning hours, with me having to juggle getting the GL done with answering the phone, taking calls like “my mother died a few months ago and I want to bitch about how rude the priest at our local church was” or “hi I’m a telemarketer offering will-writing software.” *shakehead* Fortunately, things calmed down closer to lunch, and I was able to finish the GL and get the couple of checks we received onto the system without too much fuss. And then the afternoon was largely stuffing envelopes for a mailing and checking on the failed credit cards, broken up with a couple more calls (sending one lady some reminders for her pledge and updating an address for another one). Nothing too taxing! Just it was a little frustrating early on, especially with me worrying about the damn car. Hopefully tomorrow will be chill, or at least relatively so!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – I got to it later than I wanted, thanks to when the AAA guy showed up (though he did get the battery changed quite quickly, and with minimal fuss, which I appreciated), but I did get on the bike, and I did pedal my way through the end of Corpse Bride! Which was quite enjoyable – I’d forgotten how much I liked “The Wedding Song” and all the Land of the Dead characters running around getting ready for the wedding. :) I also learned two new facts after rewatching the movie over the past couple of days:
A) Right before Victor’s piano solo at the start of the movie, you can hear the Van Dorts sucking up to the Everglots off-screen as they make their way to the west drawing room and Victor lingers by the piano – Nell asking who the Everglots’ decorator is while William goes “nice piles, shame about the drapes” (presumably complimenting the rugs?). An annoyed Nell then says “Oh, my husband says such foolish things! Ignore him” –
And after that, William has one final line that I’ve never been able to make out before. But this time I was able to hear it: “Ahaha, yes, that’s usually for the best.” XD Seems William knows his place in the household hierarchy! XD
B) I’ve always thought Victor’s tie was just rumpled after his run through the forest trying to escape Emily – but after getting a better look at it in some of the Land of the Dead scenes, I think it actually got torn, just like his suit coat! It’s just not as visible because of the aforementioned rumpling. Interesting little detail – though it makes sense, given he ran through some pretty thick brambles just before reaching the bridge, and they were tearing pretty good at his chest – I always though the scrap of fabric he left behind was from his coat, but maybe it was from his tie instead. Hmmm!
So that was fun. :) Good to revisit the core canon for a bit – hopefully I will be able to put it to good use writing my Victors going forward!
2. Continue editing “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – we are within sight of the end of Chapter 5, folks! Today’s page had Alice make herself presentable (aka put on her nightgown and panties), then go and burrow into the blanket next Victor made for her before having a bit of a chat with its creator. Covering such topics as:
A) Alice not being used to people just doing nice things for her, not without her doing something for them first (Victor pointed out she does let him live with her, and Alice responded he looks after the place while she’s away, so they’re square on that front)
B) If they had any trick-or-treaters (a determined group of five, who Victor happily gave candy to – along with their chaperones a mom and the security guard)
C) What Victor did while she was out (watch dumb Halloween specials)
D) And if Alice was ready to talk about what had made her so upset (causing Alice to relay that she literally couldn’t talk about some of it thanks to LaCroix, and apologizing again for Dementing Victor in the hospital, with Victor being like “I have forgiven you and will keep forgiving you”)
Maybe not a full emotional rollercoaster, but there were a few ups and downs anyway. Tomorrow, we wrap things up with Alice and Victor holding hands for the first time and Alice settling in for daysleep in her nest...and then next week, we work on the final edits for this monster so we can get it posted! Everyone who follows this story should be thrilled. :P
3. Keep up with YouTube “Subs”: Check, and I even had an actual Subs video tonight – “I’m Starting Over” by Josh Way! A personal update video that revealed that his life is kind of burning down around him, sadly – he’s finalizing his divorce (something that I suspected was going on because of some of the vague comments he’s made in previous videos); he lost the job that he got after losing his previous job two years ago (THAT was a surprise); and he’s going to have to move because it’s just too expensive for him to stay where he is (no surprise if he’s getting a divorce and out of a job!). He made it clear that he still wants to do stuff on YouTube, like shorts, and he’s hoping that this hard reset forced on him by life will allow him to restructure so he can focus some more on his more creative endeavors, but – yeah. I would not be surprised if there was a longer-than-usual dearth of content from him as a result of all this! Here’s hoping you land on your feet, Josh!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check plus and check tonight –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Not only did I finish off my queue for the week over here, I actually ended up reblogging a few things to my dash tonight:
A) On the queue side, I went diving through my “#song saturday” tag again, and came across a post from seven years ago that I’ve passed by a few times – one that was supposed to contain a Soundcloud audio player featuring “Wake Me Maybe,” a mashup someone made putting the lyrics of Evanescence’s “Bring Me To Life” (no, it’s not called “Wake Me Up Inside,” that’s just the most famous part of the chorus) to the tune of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe,” but which I’ve seen as blank for quite some time now. I always assumed that the post had broken some time in the past (because hellsite functionality problems and people deleting their blogs and whatnot) –
But tonight, I happened to glance up at my NoScript browser extension – and finally wondered, “wait a second...is that blocking whatever would normally show the audio player?” So I fiddled around with my settings a bit –
And yuuup, turns out Soundcloud was being blocked. And once I set it to “Temporarily Trusted,” the player came back and allowed me to listen to the mash-up again. :D So I happily did so, then dunked it into my queue as my Song Saturday to celebrate! (Extra bonus: this is one of my few not-YouTube-based Song Saturdays, and I was hoping to reblog one of those this week since we so recently had the “No YouTube” day to protest the stupid AI stuff they’re doing. So double win!)
B) And on the dash side, this evening I reblogged:
I. My friend thesatiricaldemon’s latest “plush acquired” photo post, featuring a plushie of SCP-106, “Old Man Larry” – a zombie-looking purpley dude in a vest. Satirical had him feast upon the leg of a skeleton before putting him with the rest of the collection in the photos – I just had to say hi and comment on how he was small but deadly. XD
II. A post by alaraxia: “oopsie! You got a bit too manic about a creative project too close to bedtime and now your brain is too awake to sleep. One million dead 10 morbillion injured,” with a follow-up by supreme-leader-stoat: “Also you haven't actually worked on the project, to be clear” – as someone who has had nights where her brain just runs away with one of the Valicer AUs that lives rent-free in my head and can’t get to sleep because of it, this post and its addition really spoke to me
III. And a post by exitwound showing off some some truly beautiful gifs illustrating solutions to the “three body problem”, featuring three spheres of light orbiting each other in various ways, which was reblogged twice by polyamorousmood talking about how it reminds them of polyamory (the first time was just a fun “posts that are about polyamory to me” quickie; the second was a full essay about how perfectly these gifts illustrate various poly dynamics and how you’ll be closer to one person, then to another, and how sometimes there’s someone on the sidelines who doesn’t get that close at all, but is still an important part of the ‘cule) – and which I reblogged because, after the first time polyamorousmood reblogged it, I noticed the colors representing the three bodies were blue, red, and yellow, and immediately realized I had to pick which one was Valicer. XD Currently leaning toward the fourth one in the top row, which draws a pretty star-shaped pattern using the three, though I also like the “chain” formed by the second one in the third row, and the “clover” in the middle of the second row. :) They’re just pretty and make me think of my OT3!
Valice Multiverse – And over here, I had one anon ask to drop in the queue – an exchange between two people, with one declaring how they were gonna “fist someone’s face” and the other demanding the first stop referring to punching like that. XD I queued up Cuddlepile!Alice telling the second person that the first was probably saying that to get a rise out of them, and if they REALLY wanted it to stop, they were going to have to stop telling the person to stop. She recommended instead smiling, waving, then finding a pillow to scream into. XD
And there we have it. I am just glad the entire day was not shit, despite its best efforts. Now I just have to hope my car turns on without a problem tomorrow...fingers crossed, everyone! Night all!
