Boxing Day Not-So-Chilling
Dec. 26th, 2025 11:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickYes, as an American I don't actually celebrate Boxing Day, but shush. :p Anyway, I had a pretty decent, if kinda busy, Boxing Day -- let me give you the write-up:
Tumblr: Well, nothing of interest happened on Valice Multiverse today – which is kind of a good thing, as I ended up having a pretty busy day over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler)! I spent about an hour before lunch and a decent chunk of my afternoon:
A) Finishing off the Valicer In The Dark fic masterpost – which turned into QUITE the thing because I decided to include not only all the regular AO3 fics and prompt fics I’d written, but also all my early WIP stuff for the various stories, my not-incorrect quote collections, my crossover not-incorrect quotes with Baldur’s Gate III, and my various gift fics set in that universe. It was – it was a LOT, let me tell you. And I’m going to have to add to it soon enough, since I love this verse and I keep wanting to write shit in it. *shakehead* At least the initial version’s done – you can see it here if you are so inclined.
B) Reblogging my friend Satirical Demon’s “Christmas haul” post, which included multiple LEGO sets, a bag from the La Brea Tar Pits (neat), some Will Wood t-shirts (Will Wood being a singer he quite likes), and – most notably – some new plushies! Zoe the fanfic writer who looks very stressed; Melancholy the gremlin with a big old toothy grin; and Cyn the “eldritch AI skinsuit horror” wearing a T-Rex onesie. XD I don’t know what properties they are from, I only knew that they were cute in their own ways. Oh, and there was also a go-karting Pomni from The Amazing Digital Circus, which was also adorable – I said that I fully expected any other plushies that fit would go joy-riding in her kart (one of his other plushes already tried to take it for a ride as per the pictures). Looks like he got a very good haul this Christmas, good for him.
C) Reblogging another post from Satirical – a surprise one from last night where he translated my Valicer OT3 into the world of Mortasheen, that new TTRPG he loves so much that is full of body horror and scientific weirdness! As I’m only vaguely familiar with the RPG myself (it seems interesting, but a lot of the creatures, and thus the illustrations, have major gross-out vibes, which I’m not that keen on – like, I get that the joke here is that everyone looks like a horrible monster but is actually pretty friendly, but it just isn’t for me), I confess to not understanding EVERYTHING in his explanations of what he thought the trio would look like and what their backstories would be in that world (short version: Alice as a fish person whose father was working on weaponized chemical photography until Bumby blew up his work and his house in response to one too many rejections by Lizzie, now suffering from hallucinations thanks to a damaged “Pscape” and accompanied by her living bunny plush monster as she works to find the bastard who killed her family; Victor as a goblin-orc thing whose last name in this verse is KIDNEYSTRIKE (as per Satirical, he got it from, well, striking someone in the kidneys) and who, after his social-climbing fellow hive members stressed him out one too many times, fled his home with his vampire fish friend/master and ended up accidentally engaged to a zombie; and Smiler as a brain-in-a-jar robot-person who fled their father and their horrific experiments on a small group of normal humans with their vicious jester-hat-monster Marmally and ended up instead with a cult of insect-people who spread joy via carefully-created chemical compounds – while initially a bit hesitant about their methods, Smiler ended up finding a talent for alchemy and is now a member in good standing), but I appreciated that he likes my OT3 enough to translate them into something ELSE he enjoys deeply! :) I mean, that’s what I do with the three all the time!
D) Posting my completed VITD fic masterpost, followed by immediately reblogging my “hey, my birthday’s coming up” post from earlier in the week with a note saying “hey, VITD masterpost up if you want to take a look, would still appreciate some love for this verse for my birthday.” Because I did not do all that work for people not to look at it!
Whew – yeah, definitely a busy day on the old VLA(NS)! But I’m glad to have the masterpost done, and I’m glad to see Satirical getting as much joy out of my OT3 as I am. :) We’ll see what happens over here tomorrow!
Baldur’s Gate III: I got to this late, thanks to spending so much time on tumblr today, but I did get to it, with a short session that was all about testing a new mod, finding a new merchant friend, and doing some inventory management –
A) First things first – before booting up the game, I installed the latest mod in my mod set: “Wyll – Theo Solomon Banter,” a mod that makes sure that all of Wyll’s environmental lines (the ones you get if you click on his portrait, or if you prompt him to do certain actions while in control of him, like hiding or attacking) are the ones recorded by his current voice actor, Theo Solomon, instead of his previous Early Access voice actor, Lanre Malaolu. Because while Larian had Theo re-record all those lines, they never actually got rid of Lanre’s versions, nor made sure that the ones that played in-game were Theo’s. Because apparently a lot of upper management at the studio are racist assholes among their many other faults. *sigh* Sorry – seen some stuff on tumblr about what dickheads these people are recently, and it just – pisses me off. Nearly gave up the game entirely, but apparently the decent employees are still proud of what they made (plus, unlike Sims 4, the company’s not getting sold to Saudi Arabia, and this game will never have any DLC packs, so I need never give them money again), so…
ANYWAY. If you’re wondering why I had to install the new “making sure Theo Solomon’s hard work doesn’t actually go to waste” mod before starting the game, it’s because it’s one of those that can’t be installed via the official mod manager – not sure why, maybe it’s because of how much stuff it overrides. So, because I didn’t particularly want to try juggling two mod managers for BG3 (the official and the unofficial ones), I had to put it into the game manually. Fortunately, the method for doing so was very easy and straightforward – just find the install location and create a few folders in there to stick a bunch of sound files in. Didn’t take hardly any time at all, once I confirmed the file path location on the mod’s Nexus Mods page. :) So now I can be assured that poor abused Wyll will always have the correct voice, in cutscenes AND in the general overworld, going forward! Hooray! Shouldn’t have had to do that myself, but hooray!
B) Once that was done, I fired up the game and rejoined my party where they were hanging out by the ox “pen” in the tiefling camp, having just chatted with the various oxen there. I swapped control to Wyll and clicked on him a few times to confirm that the “Banter” mod was working as expected – certainly sounded like it! – then went back to Smiler to continue exploring the place. After a quick word with Toron, the tiefling minding the oxen (who just told Smiler that the place was a death trap and that they should leave as soon as possible – apparently the goblin attack really spooked him), they led the party over to the nearby wooden walkway overlooking the lower portion of the camp in an attempt to get away from Guex constantly cluttering up the combat log with his attacks on the training dummy in the nearby training area. XD As they headed down, I spotted a few bedrolls and backpacks and crates and such lined up on said walkway –
Including something that was called the Unusually Cold Crate. Curious, I had Smiler poke their head inside, where they discovered the Silken Scarf of Comfort (which reduces all incoming cold damage by 1, and adds a bonus to death saving throws equal to half a character’s proficiency bonus, rounded down), an Arrow of Ice (which can freeze things, as you might expect), a trap disarm toolkit, a bottle of blue dye, and three Elixirs of Cold Resistance! A bounty of good things to be sure –
EXCEPT. Just like when I found those pouches in the hay pile, or those crates on the nearby wagon, while the crate wasn’t marked as “owned” (aka in red), I still felt weird about taking anything because my brain went “but that’s the TIEFLINGS’ stuff! D:” And I feel bad for the tieflings – they’ve been through a lot of shit! I don’t want to take their stuff! So I left everything where it was for the time being. *shakehead* Maybe eventually I will convince myself that it’s okay to take the stuff the game openly tells me it’s okay to take, even if it’s technically in the tiefling camp.
C) With that crate examined for possible looting later, I had Smiler and company continue on, checking out a recruitment flyer for the Flaming Fists (the civil militia of Baldur’s Gate, led by Uther Ravengard, aka Wyll’s dad) lying near a bedroll before peering down at what was happening in the lower section of the camp. There were a few people going about their business down there, including Rolan bantering with his siblings near the stew pot to the right; Aradin and his lot hanging out on a wooden structure off to the left, watched by some of the tiefling kids (who were openly commenting about needing new pockets to pick XD) –
And, on a partially wrecked stone circle between the two, wandering a makeshift forge and muttering to himself about druids and their love of wooden tools, Dammon the tiefling smith! The guy I was looking for last time I played! :D I promptly had Smiler and company descend the ladder just past the guard watching over everything on the corner of the walkway and head over there to say hello. Dammon, once he was done grumbling about the poor tools he had to work with, greeted them kindly, thanking them for their help in holding off the goblins and saying that if they needed equipment, they could stock up with him – though he warned them his selection was pretty slim, as he’d had to leave most of his stuff in Elturel (his old hometown, and the one that got sucked into the Hells in the backstory). Smiler noted the poor forge seemed to be barely holding on and asked if Dammon was indeed a smith – Dammon confirmed he was, saying he’d been a regular old tinsmith before Elturel was dragged into Avernus and all the shit went down, but after his time in the Hells, his talents were more – eclectic. And that, while he hoped to forget a lot of what he’d been forced to learn by the devils, he still couldn’t help but admire just how powerful and amazing infernal machinery really was. Smiler tucked that away for later (AKA, for after the group finds Karlach, who will need an infernal blacksmith to help fix her heart), and asked to see what the guy DID have for sale –
And so we entered the Trading/Bartering screen! Where my mission was simple – start raising Dammon’s attitude toward Smiler so he’d like my charismatic half-elf Bardlock, and Smiler could eventually get some inspiration just by trading with him (as one of their inspiration triggers as a Guild Artisan is “trade with someone who has a good opinion of you”). So, after a quick look at Dammon’s wares (some special arrows, some lightly-enchanted weapons, a few bits of armor, some dyes), I swapped from the Trading screen (where you just buy and sell stuff outright) to the Bartering screen (where you can try to create a fair swap of goods by dragging items to the middle), loaded up Smiler’s side with 325 gold’s worth of the various weapons the group had gathered from their various travels and battles so far –
Then just straight-up handed them over to Dammon, because one of the best ways to get a merchant to like you is to gift them things, as per the BG3 Wiki (which I was checking on my phone while doing this). Sure enough, Dammon’s attitude toward Smiler improved from neutral orange to friendly yellow (putting him at 54 points on the 0-100 numerical meter). Pleased, I prepared to give him more stuff to earn some more goodwill –
But then thought, “Actually, wait – let’s make sure that he doesn’t have anything that I genuinely do want before I just give him EVERYTHING that I have for sale/trade.” So I took another look at his wares, specifically his weapons and armor…
And found two items that caught my eye – the “Hunter’s Shortbow,” which is a +1 shortbow (I don’t know EXACTLY what that means, but I presume it does an extra point of damage) that grants the holder Advantage against Monstrosity-type beasties AND the Hunter’s Mark spell (which allows the wielder to mark a target as their “quarry” and do an additional 1D6 worth of weapon damage to them with each hit), and the “Padded Armor +1,” which is a light armor with 12 AC instead of 11 (meaning it protects against attacks a bit better) and the “Superior Padding” passive (which means the wearer takes one less damage from bludgeoning attacks). Now, I’d already improved Dammon’s opinion of Smiler enough that he was offering his wares at a 45% discount from before, but the two items were still pretty expensive, adding up to 294 gold in total worth. And the various armors, weapons, and shields that I still had left to trade didn’t QUITE add up to a fair swap. Hmmm. Fortunately, Astarion came to my rescue with the group’s collection of gemstones and jewelry, and throwing in a few gems got the value of Smiler and company’s offered items all the way up to 313 gold. The trade was made, Dammon’s opinion of Smiler went up another few points to 57, and the gang walked away with much lighter pockets and a couple nice new items! *nods* Slowly but surely getting the hang of this!
D) With inventories largely emptied and some items to pass around, I decided (after briefly entering Party Mode outside Dammon’s stall) to head back to the Wilderness camp to trade items and equip the new stuff – mostly because I wanted to dye Smiler’s new +1 Armor the correct colors before putting it on them. So the gang headed back to camp, and Smiler headed over to the Traveler’s Chest to get the Amaunator dye. They combined it with their new armor, then slipped out of their old armor and slapped the new freshly-dyed stuff on –
And to my surprise, it was actually a different design from the armor they’d been wearing before! I hadn’t realized because the thumbnail in the inventory was the same. And it’s actually an even better look on them – take a gander for yourself:
Nice, right? I like how this one is mostly yellow, and the black-and-white-striped half-rings on the tops of the shoulders are perfect, given stripes like that show up a lot around the coaster. :) Excellent purchase for my enby indeed!
E) With Smiler now sporting a lovely new fit, it was time to get their inventory fully sorted and give away a couple of things they didn’t need. So, after having them put away a random bone they’d picked up on their travels, I entered Party Mode so I could quickly swap items between everyone’s inventories. Specifically:
I. I gave the Circlet of Prismatic Resonance to Wyll and had him equip it as his headgear – I get the feeling he’s going to get more use out of its included Chromatic Orb spell than Smiler, and it looks better on him to boot
II. I gave Smiler’s old padded armor to Lae’zel to carry, as she’s got the best carry capacity – we’ll sell that (probably to Dammon) later!
III. And, after a little pondering, I gave the Hunter’s Shortbow to Astarion – I was tempted to give it to Wyll, but then thought, “No, he’s got Eldritch Blast, he’ll probably be relying on that for ranged attacks.” So the fancy bow with the fancy spell went to everyone’s favorite vampire elf! And you know what – given that I looked up “Hunter’s Mark” on the wiki while writing this and saw that it takes a bonus action to cast, giving it to Astarion, who has two of those now thanks to his Thief subclass, really DOES make sense. *nods* Good job, me.
F) And finally, having given away everything I wanted to give away, I made sure Smiler’s inventory was nice and neat – then finally had them do some fucking alchemy! Because that IS supposed to be their thing, and they had some ingredients just sitting around taking up space! I chose to have them make an Elixir of Peerless Focus (for help maintaining concentration on spells – as a LOT of Smiler’s spells are concentration-based, this is an important potion for them), and a Potion of Healing: Greater (because you can never have too much healing). Sadly, they biffed both Wisdom checks to make an extra potion, but hey – at least now they have one of each! Better than not having any!
And, with that, I saved and headed out! Short session, but a good one, I feel. Next time, the group will return to the tiefling camp to continue wandering around, talking to people, picking up quests, and generally getting the lay of the land. Should be a fun time – I hope, anyway!
Workout: Hopped back on the bike tonight to finish off the third episode of The Great British Baking Show Holidays collection on Netflix (and to watch a couple of trailers for the various seasons, just to fill out the last few minutes). Tonight’s pedal session saw me get through the rest of the Christmas Bake-Off with Liam, Flo, Jane, and Andrew, and featured:
A) The end of the Technical Challenge and the four making that fancy Icelandic flatbread Laufabrauð – only Jane and Andrew figured out how to properly do the fancy v-cut design on them; Flo ended up underfrying hers while Andrew burned a couple of his; Liam discovered he’d been reading his thermometer wrong and only had time to fry up four out of the six they were supposed to do; and Jane had one of hers shatter on the way to the judging table (as they made them hang them all off decorative trees). However, her almost-perfect frying and decorating meant that Jane won the technical, with Andrew coming second, Liam third, and Flo fourth
B) And the entirety of the Showstopper Challenge, which saw the four tasked with creating cakes that looked like Christmas presents with a hidden design inside! Flo did a cute little Christmas tree design that came out really well, but for some reason chose to do a mulled wine cake (which involved pouring a WHOLE BOTTLE of the stuff into the batter) with a CHEESE-BASED “buttercream,” which – yeah, the judges were NOT fans (Flo insisted she knew it was a good cake; I think her family just doesn’t want to tell her it’s shit). Andrew did little bauble ornaments inside his orangey cake which were a little off-center, but still looked good – the painted stars on his fondant “wrapping” suffered from him having to do a rush job at the very end of the time, but he had a beautiful pulled-sugar bow, which won him a few points back. Liam did alternating stars and gingerbread in his cake, which had delicious flavors (Prue said later it was her favorite cake to eat), but a sloppy outside thanks to his fondant stripes being kind of crooked. And Jane –
Well, Jane did an adorable cake with a penguin and two Christmas trees inside. :D And while her outer fondant wrapping didn’t QUITE impress the judges (they thought the colors should be bolder), it was enough to win her Star Baker and the coveted cake stand. :D I’m glad – she was very consistently good throughout the entire competition, and she deserved the honor. A nice way to end off Christmas week!
FreeTube/Invidious: Ended up watching three things today on FreeTube – one of which was a bit of a surprise...
A) First, before firing up BG3, I watched “Wyll Theo Solomon Banter (Nexus Mods)” by nyilas7 – a video by the mod’s creator showcasing the difference in Wyll’s environmental lines before using the mod (when they’re being said by his original voice actor, Lanre Malaolu) and after (when they’re being said by his current one, Theo Solomon). I felt it was important that I check this out before I started the game so I could be absolutely certain that the mod was working and it was Theo’s voice I was hearing when I clicked on Wyll – mostly because I hadn’t heard a lot of Wyll’s environmental lines yet, and some of the commenters on the Nexus Mods page had said they hadn’t immediately been able to tell the original lines weren’t Theo until they got the mod. And yes, when I listened to the before and after, I had to say that Lanre’s voice for Wyll and Theo’s voice for him WERE pretty similar – but Lanre delivered all of Wyll’s lines with a very low, laid-back tone, never infusing them with any real urgency, while Theo’s takes tended to be a lot more excited and full of energy – he roared some of the combat lines Lanre merely murmured. Nothing against Lanre, who was REALLY screwed over by the whole “last-minute Wyll rewrite” thing, but I do feel like Theo did a better job. Makes me even gladder I got that mod to make sure his excellent performance got the showing it deserved (even as it makes me madder that Larian never fixed the issue themselves…)!
B) Then, after supper and game night (Sequence tonight – I was the reigning champ, winning four games in a row after Mom and Dad each won one :D), I watched “XMAS CHALLENGE FINALE: GTA Online Scooters Only Tiebreaker Race 🎡🍕🛵” on OXBox! The TRUE grand finale of the OXBoxtra Christmas Tournament Of Champions 2025, this challenge saw the four descend into GTA Online, where Andy and Ellen were each given a “Pizza This” scooter and told to race each other from the top of the mountain just behind the Vinewood sign to the Del Perro pier at the edge of the city. Whoever jumped off the end of the pier into the water first won the coveted title of Christmas Champion! Jane would be following them in her Lambo as the official “chase car,” while Mike had intended to take a helicopter to be their eye in the sky – but while they were setting up the challenge, some jerk came and blew it up (because, you know, GTA Online), so instead he paid for a skydiving experience so he could observe via parachute instead, at least for a bit. XD Anyway, Jane counted them down, and in a vroom of scooter engines, the pair were off! How did the race go?
Well, for Andy it went very smoothly! He decided to just gun for the pier in a straight a line as possible and ended up tearing down a ridge on the side of the mountain, managing not to crash despite one big surprise jump; scooting over a bridge in the farmlands outside the city limits, avoiding being knocked down by a deer he spooked along the way; weaving expertly through the thin traffic on the roads in Vinewood itself (he assumed that everyone had gone back to their hometowns to fall in love with lumberjacks who cut down Christmas trees); and finally leaping off the edge of the pier into the water at just before the five-minute mark in the video. Where he proceeded to pretend that he hadn’t already completed the challenge for a bit just to troll the others. XD As for said others, well:
Ellen tried going around the big Vinewood sign and ended up crashing, rolling her way down the mountain onto the road below; hit a cop once she got into the city and picked up a few wanted levels, meaning she had to shake the rest of the police while doing the challenge; and, in trying not to hit a woman standing at a bus stop, managed to smash right into the tree next to said bus stop – by the time she reached the pier, she’d successfully figured out Andy had long beat her even with his trolling
Jane immediately ran straight into the Vinewood sign while trying to follow Andy, meaning she ended up way behind both him AND Ellen and didn’t have eyes on either for most of the challenge; and then, when she did reach Vinewood, she ended up having her car flipped in a crash – by none other than MIKE, who had ended his skydiving trip and had instead commandeered a big blue Hummer to follow the race (he was the one who saw Ellen recovering from the tree hit at the bus stop). Jane was thus forced to steal another car from a passing motorist to try and catch up with the shenanigans, and didn’t arrive at the pier until everyone else was already in the water
And Mike – well, we didn’t see much of Mike during the whole thing, but after finishing his parachuting trip to watch the race from above, stealing the Hummer, and flipping Jane, he ended up crashing very cinematically off the end of the pier as well to join Ellen and Andy in the water. Like, if this thing had been judged solely on style, he would have totally won, seriously. :p
But yes – thanks to some smart thinking and a blessed run, Andy was able to make to the end of the pier first and thus claim the Christmas Champion crown! The group celebrated in-game with some fireworks at the end of the pier (Mike shooting his up into the sky; Andy shooting his at Mike and killing him, before killing Jane and Ellen via the resultant fire on the pier – Mike got him back, don’t worry :p), then proceeded back into the real world to officially crown Andy. He declared that he would be a fair but harsh king, and encouraged people to always have a winning smile in their interactions with others before demanding a pyramid. XD Good times – I always enjoy OXmas. It really makes this time of year The Most Wonderful one. :P
C) And then, after that, in the hopes of maybe managing to sneak in a little bit of work on “The Van Dort Vacancy,” I searched “oxventure blades in the dark barnaby” to see if I could find some sort of short clip of Barnaby in action to help get his voice right –
And I found one. An official short on the Oxventure channel called “BARNABY RETURNS! 🧐 | Oxventure Blades in the Dark Holiday Special.” Now, you may be wondering what that means, given that there’s only one Oxventure Presents: Blades In The Dark holiday special, and it stars Edvard and Lilith, not Barnaby. Well, there’s a simple answer to that question –
THEY DID ANOTHER ONE! THEY DID ANOTHER ONE THIS YEAR, APPARENTLY WITH THE WHOLE CREW, LAST WEEK! AND I HAD NO IDEA BECAUSE I HAVEN’T HAD A CHANCE TO LOOK AT OXVENTURE AT ALL SINCE I STARTED USING FREETUBE AND WATCHING MOVIES DOWNSTAIRS!
...welp, I know what I’m watching next week with my workouts! Sorry Netflix, sorry Blu-Ray player, but I am just one woman, and that one woman loves her Oxventure Presents: Blades In The Dark! *shakehead* Anyway – I ended up watching the short just to see what it was about, and it apparently covers the point where Barnaby ends up joining the score (Mike having joined the others late), which appears to be set on a fancy cruise ship of sorts. There wasn’t much context given, but from what I could glean, Edvard and Zillah were trying to get on disguised as members of the ship’s band (maybe – Edvard mentioned at one point setting up instruments, but I guess he could have meant scientific ones) and were having trouble with one of the actual crew members – cue Barnaby walking onto the ship via the wrong gangplank with his 12 PM tipple and immediately making it the guy’s problem, terrifying him into compliance when he realized that oh shit, Barnaby is one of the rich folks. XD It was delightful stuff – I was so pleased to see my favorite asshole Slide back in action, even as I bemoaned learning too late that they did another holiday special in this verse. Ah well – I’ll see it next week. And then start catching up on the rest of Oxventure, because I have a looot to catch up on.
Writing: Unfortunately, between playing and then recapping BG3, Game Night, and my shock at learning that Oxventure did a Blades In The Dark holiday special this year, I did not actually get to edit anything on “The Van Dort Vacancy” today. :( BUT! I did update my VITD Master Doc with a couple of ideas, both related to BG3 in some way –
A) First, I added a note to my story write-up about a future fic where the trio will be investigating a mysterious company on behalf of a craftsman named Larian (who was making boxes for them and wanted to know what they were being used for) ...only for Smiler to end up kidnapped by the company, and the gang to get yanked into a version of the tutorial Nautiloid level of BG3 (complete with Smiler saving Us and bringing them home). My ORIGINAL concept for the story had Larian has a decent guy who had been pulled into something much bigger and more dangerous than he expected...but now that I know that the company is run by dickwads, I’m thinking of making him instead part of the conspiracy, having hired the trio specifically to get rid of them before they could interfere with his operations. Meaning I can have him torn to pieces on the airship the three find themselves on by various air demons. Just – feels cathartic after all the shit I’ve learned about the place!
B) Then, I added a new idea to the list of story ideas – one featuring the gang meeting the local version of Wyll! He would be the “Blade of Deathlands” in this version of reality, roaming the wastes outside of Duskwall to keep the innocent safe and the monsters at bay. I was thinking that maybe my trio could help him with his version of Mizora, the devil he has a pact with (and would like NOT to have a pact with because she’s a bitch). I’d also like Karlach to be involved in some way, since her story and Wyll’s do intertwine a bit. *shrug* Hey, if I can adapt a bunch of Fallout 4 NPCs and quests to VITD, why not BG3 ones?
*shrug* Not what I really WANTED to do, but any writing is better than no writing!
Yeah, uh, I probably tried to cram a LITTLE too much into my day today, given it was Game Night and all. :p But at least I got most of what I wanted to get done, done. And now I have to go to bed. Tomorrow, it is my birthday, and -- well, beyond "work on 'The Van Dort Vacancy'" and "see about answering Moose's messages," I don't know yet what I'm going to do. We'll find out, I suppose -- night all!
Tumblr: Well, nothing of interest happened on Valice Multiverse today – which is kind of a good thing, as I ended up having a pretty busy day over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler)! I spent about an hour before lunch and a decent chunk of my afternoon:
A) Finishing off the Valicer In The Dark fic masterpost – which turned into QUITE the thing because I decided to include not only all the regular AO3 fics and prompt fics I’d written, but also all my early WIP stuff for the various stories, my not-incorrect quote collections, my crossover not-incorrect quotes with Baldur’s Gate III, and my various gift fics set in that universe. It was – it was a LOT, let me tell you. And I’m going to have to add to it soon enough, since I love this verse and I keep wanting to write shit in it. *shakehead* At least the initial version’s done – you can see it here if you are so inclined.
B) Reblogging my friend Satirical Demon’s “Christmas haul” post, which included multiple LEGO sets, a bag from the La Brea Tar Pits (neat), some Will Wood t-shirts (Will Wood being a singer he quite likes), and – most notably – some new plushies! Zoe the fanfic writer who looks very stressed; Melancholy the gremlin with a big old toothy grin; and Cyn the “eldritch AI skinsuit horror” wearing a T-Rex onesie. XD I don’t know what properties they are from, I only knew that they were cute in their own ways. Oh, and there was also a go-karting Pomni from The Amazing Digital Circus, which was also adorable – I said that I fully expected any other plushies that fit would go joy-riding in her kart (one of his other plushes already tried to take it for a ride as per the pictures). Looks like he got a very good haul this Christmas, good for him.
C) Reblogging another post from Satirical – a surprise one from last night where he translated my Valicer OT3 into the world of Mortasheen, that new TTRPG he loves so much that is full of body horror and scientific weirdness! As I’m only vaguely familiar with the RPG myself (it seems interesting, but a lot of the creatures, and thus the illustrations, have major gross-out vibes, which I’m not that keen on – like, I get that the joke here is that everyone looks like a horrible monster but is actually pretty friendly, but it just isn’t for me), I confess to not understanding EVERYTHING in his explanations of what he thought the trio would look like and what their backstories would be in that world (short version: Alice as a fish person whose father was working on weaponized chemical photography until Bumby blew up his work and his house in response to one too many rejections by Lizzie, now suffering from hallucinations thanks to a damaged “Pscape” and accompanied by her living bunny plush monster as she works to find the bastard who killed her family; Victor as a goblin-orc thing whose last name in this verse is KIDNEYSTRIKE (as per Satirical, he got it from, well, striking someone in the kidneys) and who, after his social-climbing fellow hive members stressed him out one too many times, fled his home with his vampire fish friend/master and ended up accidentally engaged to a zombie; and Smiler as a brain-in-a-jar robot-person who fled their father and their horrific experiments on a small group of normal humans with their vicious jester-hat-monster Marmally and ended up instead with a cult of insect-people who spread joy via carefully-created chemical compounds – while initially a bit hesitant about their methods, Smiler ended up finding a talent for alchemy and is now a member in good standing), but I appreciated that he likes my OT3 enough to translate them into something ELSE he enjoys deeply! :) I mean, that’s what I do with the three all the time!
D) Posting my completed VITD fic masterpost, followed by immediately reblogging my “hey, my birthday’s coming up” post from earlier in the week with a note saying “hey, VITD masterpost up if you want to take a look, would still appreciate some love for this verse for my birthday.” Because I did not do all that work for people not to look at it!
Whew – yeah, definitely a busy day on the old VLA(NS)! But I’m glad to have the masterpost done, and I’m glad to see Satirical getting as much joy out of my OT3 as I am. :) We’ll see what happens over here tomorrow!
Baldur’s Gate III: I got to this late, thanks to spending so much time on tumblr today, but I did get to it, with a short session that was all about testing a new mod, finding a new merchant friend, and doing some inventory management –
A) First things first – before booting up the game, I installed the latest mod in my mod set: “Wyll – Theo Solomon Banter,” a mod that makes sure that all of Wyll’s environmental lines (the ones you get if you click on his portrait, or if you prompt him to do certain actions while in control of him, like hiding or attacking) are the ones recorded by his current voice actor, Theo Solomon, instead of his previous Early Access voice actor, Lanre Malaolu. Because while Larian had Theo re-record all those lines, they never actually got rid of Lanre’s versions, nor made sure that the ones that played in-game were Theo’s. Because apparently a lot of upper management at the studio are racist assholes among their many other faults. *sigh* Sorry – seen some stuff on tumblr about what dickheads these people are recently, and it just – pisses me off. Nearly gave up the game entirely, but apparently the decent employees are still proud of what they made (plus, unlike Sims 4, the company’s not getting sold to Saudi Arabia, and this game will never have any DLC packs, so I need never give them money again), so…
ANYWAY. If you’re wondering why I had to install the new “making sure Theo Solomon’s hard work doesn’t actually go to waste” mod before starting the game, it’s because it’s one of those that can’t be installed via the official mod manager – not sure why, maybe it’s because of how much stuff it overrides. So, because I didn’t particularly want to try juggling two mod managers for BG3 (the official and the unofficial ones), I had to put it into the game manually. Fortunately, the method for doing so was very easy and straightforward – just find the install location and create a few folders in there to stick a bunch of sound files in. Didn’t take hardly any time at all, once I confirmed the file path location on the mod’s Nexus Mods page. :) So now I can be assured that poor abused Wyll will always have the correct voice, in cutscenes AND in the general overworld, going forward! Hooray! Shouldn’t have had to do that myself, but hooray!
B) Once that was done, I fired up the game and rejoined my party where they were hanging out by the ox “pen” in the tiefling camp, having just chatted with the various oxen there. I swapped control to Wyll and clicked on him a few times to confirm that the “Banter” mod was working as expected – certainly sounded like it! – then went back to Smiler to continue exploring the place. After a quick word with Toron, the tiefling minding the oxen (who just told Smiler that the place was a death trap and that they should leave as soon as possible – apparently the goblin attack really spooked him), they led the party over to the nearby wooden walkway overlooking the lower portion of the camp in an attempt to get away from Guex constantly cluttering up the combat log with his attacks on the training dummy in the nearby training area. XD As they headed down, I spotted a few bedrolls and backpacks and crates and such lined up on said walkway –
Including something that was called the Unusually Cold Crate. Curious, I had Smiler poke their head inside, where they discovered the Silken Scarf of Comfort (which reduces all incoming cold damage by 1, and adds a bonus to death saving throws equal to half a character’s proficiency bonus, rounded down), an Arrow of Ice (which can freeze things, as you might expect), a trap disarm toolkit, a bottle of blue dye, and three Elixirs of Cold Resistance! A bounty of good things to be sure –
EXCEPT. Just like when I found those pouches in the hay pile, or those crates on the nearby wagon, while the crate wasn’t marked as “owned” (aka in red), I still felt weird about taking anything because my brain went “but that’s the TIEFLINGS’ stuff! D:” And I feel bad for the tieflings – they’ve been through a lot of shit! I don’t want to take their stuff! So I left everything where it was for the time being. *shakehead* Maybe eventually I will convince myself that it’s okay to take the stuff the game openly tells me it’s okay to take, even if it’s technically in the tiefling camp.
C) With that crate examined for possible looting later, I had Smiler and company continue on, checking out a recruitment flyer for the Flaming Fists (the civil militia of Baldur’s Gate, led by Uther Ravengard, aka Wyll’s dad) lying near a bedroll before peering down at what was happening in the lower section of the camp. There were a few people going about their business down there, including Rolan bantering with his siblings near the stew pot to the right; Aradin and his lot hanging out on a wooden structure off to the left, watched by some of the tiefling kids (who were openly commenting about needing new pockets to pick XD) –
And, on a partially wrecked stone circle between the two, wandering a makeshift forge and muttering to himself about druids and their love of wooden tools, Dammon the tiefling smith! The guy I was looking for last time I played! :D I promptly had Smiler and company descend the ladder just past the guard watching over everything on the corner of the walkway and head over there to say hello. Dammon, once he was done grumbling about the poor tools he had to work with, greeted them kindly, thanking them for their help in holding off the goblins and saying that if they needed equipment, they could stock up with him – though he warned them his selection was pretty slim, as he’d had to leave most of his stuff in Elturel (his old hometown, and the one that got sucked into the Hells in the backstory). Smiler noted the poor forge seemed to be barely holding on and asked if Dammon was indeed a smith – Dammon confirmed he was, saying he’d been a regular old tinsmith before Elturel was dragged into Avernus and all the shit went down, but after his time in the Hells, his talents were more – eclectic. And that, while he hoped to forget a lot of what he’d been forced to learn by the devils, he still couldn’t help but admire just how powerful and amazing infernal machinery really was. Smiler tucked that away for later (AKA, for after the group finds Karlach, who will need an infernal blacksmith to help fix her heart), and asked to see what the guy DID have for sale –
And so we entered the Trading/Bartering screen! Where my mission was simple – start raising Dammon’s attitude toward Smiler so he’d like my charismatic half-elf Bardlock, and Smiler could eventually get some inspiration just by trading with him (as one of their inspiration triggers as a Guild Artisan is “trade with someone who has a good opinion of you”). So, after a quick look at Dammon’s wares (some special arrows, some lightly-enchanted weapons, a few bits of armor, some dyes), I swapped from the Trading screen (where you just buy and sell stuff outright) to the Bartering screen (where you can try to create a fair swap of goods by dragging items to the middle), loaded up Smiler’s side with 325 gold’s worth of the various weapons the group had gathered from their various travels and battles so far –
Then just straight-up handed them over to Dammon, because one of the best ways to get a merchant to like you is to gift them things, as per the BG3 Wiki (which I was checking on my phone while doing this). Sure enough, Dammon’s attitude toward Smiler improved from neutral orange to friendly yellow (putting him at 54 points on the 0-100 numerical meter). Pleased, I prepared to give him more stuff to earn some more goodwill –
But then thought, “Actually, wait – let’s make sure that he doesn’t have anything that I genuinely do want before I just give him EVERYTHING that I have for sale/trade.” So I took another look at his wares, specifically his weapons and armor…
And found two items that caught my eye – the “Hunter’s Shortbow,” which is a +1 shortbow (I don’t know EXACTLY what that means, but I presume it does an extra point of damage) that grants the holder Advantage against Monstrosity-type beasties AND the Hunter’s Mark spell (which allows the wielder to mark a target as their “quarry” and do an additional 1D6 worth of weapon damage to them with each hit), and the “Padded Armor +1,” which is a light armor with 12 AC instead of 11 (meaning it protects against attacks a bit better) and the “Superior Padding” passive (which means the wearer takes one less damage from bludgeoning attacks). Now, I’d already improved Dammon’s opinion of Smiler enough that he was offering his wares at a 45% discount from before, but the two items were still pretty expensive, adding up to 294 gold in total worth. And the various armors, weapons, and shields that I still had left to trade didn’t QUITE add up to a fair swap. Hmmm. Fortunately, Astarion came to my rescue with the group’s collection of gemstones and jewelry, and throwing in a few gems got the value of Smiler and company’s offered items all the way up to 313 gold. The trade was made, Dammon’s opinion of Smiler went up another few points to 57, and the gang walked away with much lighter pockets and a couple nice new items! *nods* Slowly but surely getting the hang of this!
D) With inventories largely emptied and some items to pass around, I decided (after briefly entering Party Mode outside Dammon’s stall) to head back to the Wilderness camp to trade items and equip the new stuff – mostly because I wanted to dye Smiler’s new +1 Armor the correct colors before putting it on them. So the gang headed back to camp, and Smiler headed over to the Traveler’s Chest to get the Amaunator dye. They combined it with their new armor, then slipped out of their old armor and slapped the new freshly-dyed stuff on –
And to my surprise, it was actually a different design from the armor they’d been wearing before! I hadn’t realized because the thumbnail in the inventory was the same. And it’s actually an even better look on them – take a gander for yourself:
Nice, right? I like how this one is mostly yellow, and the black-and-white-striped half-rings on the tops of the shoulders are perfect, given stripes like that show up a lot around the coaster. :) Excellent purchase for my enby indeed!
E) With Smiler now sporting a lovely new fit, it was time to get their inventory fully sorted and give away a couple of things they didn’t need. So, after having them put away a random bone they’d picked up on their travels, I entered Party Mode so I could quickly swap items between everyone’s inventories. Specifically:
I. I gave the Circlet of Prismatic Resonance to Wyll and had him equip it as his headgear – I get the feeling he’s going to get more use out of its included Chromatic Orb spell than Smiler, and it looks better on him to boot
II. I gave Smiler’s old padded armor to Lae’zel to carry, as she’s got the best carry capacity – we’ll sell that (probably to Dammon) later!
III. And, after a little pondering, I gave the Hunter’s Shortbow to Astarion – I was tempted to give it to Wyll, but then thought, “No, he’s got Eldritch Blast, he’ll probably be relying on that for ranged attacks.” So the fancy bow with the fancy spell went to everyone’s favorite vampire elf! And you know what – given that I looked up “Hunter’s Mark” on the wiki while writing this and saw that it takes a bonus action to cast, giving it to Astarion, who has two of those now thanks to his Thief subclass, really DOES make sense. *nods* Good job, me.
F) And finally, having given away everything I wanted to give away, I made sure Smiler’s inventory was nice and neat – then finally had them do some fucking alchemy! Because that IS supposed to be their thing, and they had some ingredients just sitting around taking up space! I chose to have them make an Elixir of Peerless Focus (for help maintaining concentration on spells – as a LOT of Smiler’s spells are concentration-based, this is an important potion for them), and a Potion of Healing: Greater (because you can never have too much healing). Sadly, they biffed both Wisdom checks to make an extra potion, but hey – at least now they have one of each! Better than not having any!
And, with that, I saved and headed out! Short session, but a good one, I feel. Next time, the group will return to the tiefling camp to continue wandering around, talking to people, picking up quests, and generally getting the lay of the land. Should be a fun time – I hope, anyway!
Workout: Hopped back on the bike tonight to finish off the third episode of The Great British Baking Show Holidays collection on Netflix (and to watch a couple of trailers for the various seasons, just to fill out the last few minutes). Tonight’s pedal session saw me get through the rest of the Christmas Bake-Off with Liam, Flo, Jane, and Andrew, and featured:
A) The end of the Technical Challenge and the four making that fancy Icelandic flatbread Laufabrauð – only Jane and Andrew figured out how to properly do the fancy v-cut design on them; Flo ended up underfrying hers while Andrew burned a couple of his; Liam discovered he’d been reading his thermometer wrong and only had time to fry up four out of the six they were supposed to do; and Jane had one of hers shatter on the way to the judging table (as they made them hang them all off decorative trees). However, her almost-perfect frying and decorating meant that Jane won the technical, with Andrew coming second, Liam third, and Flo fourth
B) And the entirety of the Showstopper Challenge, which saw the four tasked with creating cakes that looked like Christmas presents with a hidden design inside! Flo did a cute little Christmas tree design that came out really well, but for some reason chose to do a mulled wine cake (which involved pouring a WHOLE BOTTLE of the stuff into the batter) with a CHEESE-BASED “buttercream,” which – yeah, the judges were NOT fans (Flo insisted she knew it was a good cake; I think her family just doesn’t want to tell her it’s shit). Andrew did little bauble ornaments inside his orangey cake which were a little off-center, but still looked good – the painted stars on his fondant “wrapping” suffered from him having to do a rush job at the very end of the time, but he had a beautiful pulled-sugar bow, which won him a few points back. Liam did alternating stars and gingerbread in his cake, which had delicious flavors (Prue said later it was her favorite cake to eat), but a sloppy outside thanks to his fondant stripes being kind of crooked. And Jane –
Well, Jane did an adorable cake with a penguin and two Christmas trees inside. :D And while her outer fondant wrapping didn’t QUITE impress the judges (they thought the colors should be bolder), it was enough to win her Star Baker and the coveted cake stand. :D I’m glad – she was very consistently good throughout the entire competition, and she deserved the honor. A nice way to end off Christmas week!
FreeTube/Invidious: Ended up watching three things today on FreeTube – one of which was a bit of a surprise...
A) First, before firing up BG3, I watched “Wyll Theo Solomon Banter (Nexus Mods)” by nyilas7 – a video by the mod’s creator showcasing the difference in Wyll’s environmental lines before using the mod (when they’re being said by his original voice actor, Lanre Malaolu) and after (when they’re being said by his current one, Theo Solomon). I felt it was important that I check this out before I started the game so I could be absolutely certain that the mod was working and it was Theo’s voice I was hearing when I clicked on Wyll – mostly because I hadn’t heard a lot of Wyll’s environmental lines yet, and some of the commenters on the Nexus Mods page had said they hadn’t immediately been able to tell the original lines weren’t Theo until they got the mod. And yes, when I listened to the before and after, I had to say that Lanre’s voice for Wyll and Theo’s voice for him WERE pretty similar – but Lanre delivered all of Wyll’s lines with a very low, laid-back tone, never infusing them with any real urgency, while Theo’s takes tended to be a lot more excited and full of energy – he roared some of the combat lines Lanre merely murmured. Nothing against Lanre, who was REALLY screwed over by the whole “last-minute Wyll rewrite” thing, but I do feel like Theo did a better job. Makes me even gladder I got that mod to make sure his excellent performance got the showing it deserved (even as it makes me madder that Larian never fixed the issue themselves…)!
B) Then, after supper and game night (Sequence tonight – I was the reigning champ, winning four games in a row after Mom and Dad each won one :D), I watched “XMAS CHALLENGE FINALE: GTA Online Scooters Only Tiebreaker Race 🎡🍕🛵” on OXBox! The TRUE grand finale of the OXBoxtra Christmas Tournament Of Champions 2025, this challenge saw the four descend into GTA Online, where Andy and Ellen were each given a “Pizza This” scooter and told to race each other from the top of the mountain just behind the Vinewood sign to the Del Perro pier at the edge of the city. Whoever jumped off the end of the pier into the water first won the coveted title of Christmas Champion! Jane would be following them in her Lambo as the official “chase car,” while Mike had intended to take a helicopter to be their eye in the sky – but while they were setting up the challenge, some jerk came and blew it up (because, you know, GTA Online), so instead he paid for a skydiving experience so he could observe via parachute instead, at least for a bit. XD Anyway, Jane counted them down, and in a vroom of scooter engines, the pair were off! How did the race go?
Well, for Andy it went very smoothly! He decided to just gun for the pier in a straight a line as possible and ended up tearing down a ridge on the side of the mountain, managing not to crash despite one big surprise jump; scooting over a bridge in the farmlands outside the city limits, avoiding being knocked down by a deer he spooked along the way; weaving expertly through the thin traffic on the roads in Vinewood itself (he assumed that everyone had gone back to their hometowns to fall in love with lumberjacks who cut down Christmas trees); and finally leaping off the edge of the pier into the water at just before the five-minute mark in the video. Where he proceeded to pretend that he hadn’t already completed the challenge for a bit just to troll the others. XD As for said others, well:
Ellen tried going around the big Vinewood sign and ended up crashing, rolling her way down the mountain onto the road below; hit a cop once she got into the city and picked up a few wanted levels, meaning she had to shake the rest of the police while doing the challenge; and, in trying not to hit a woman standing at a bus stop, managed to smash right into the tree next to said bus stop – by the time she reached the pier, she’d successfully figured out Andy had long beat her even with his trolling
Jane immediately ran straight into the Vinewood sign while trying to follow Andy, meaning she ended up way behind both him AND Ellen and didn’t have eyes on either for most of the challenge; and then, when she did reach Vinewood, she ended up having her car flipped in a crash – by none other than MIKE, who had ended his skydiving trip and had instead commandeered a big blue Hummer to follow the race (he was the one who saw Ellen recovering from the tree hit at the bus stop). Jane was thus forced to steal another car from a passing motorist to try and catch up with the shenanigans, and didn’t arrive at the pier until everyone else was already in the water
And Mike – well, we didn’t see much of Mike during the whole thing, but after finishing his parachuting trip to watch the race from above, stealing the Hummer, and flipping Jane, he ended up crashing very cinematically off the end of the pier as well to join Ellen and Andy in the water. Like, if this thing had been judged solely on style, he would have totally won, seriously. :p
But yes – thanks to some smart thinking and a blessed run, Andy was able to make to the end of the pier first and thus claim the Christmas Champion crown! The group celebrated in-game with some fireworks at the end of the pier (Mike shooting his up into the sky; Andy shooting his at Mike and killing him, before killing Jane and Ellen via the resultant fire on the pier – Mike got him back, don’t worry :p), then proceeded back into the real world to officially crown Andy. He declared that he would be a fair but harsh king, and encouraged people to always have a winning smile in their interactions with others before demanding a pyramid. XD Good times – I always enjoy OXmas. It really makes this time of year The Most Wonderful one. :P
C) And then, after that, in the hopes of maybe managing to sneak in a little bit of work on “The Van Dort Vacancy,” I searched “oxventure blades in the dark barnaby” to see if I could find some sort of short clip of Barnaby in action to help get his voice right –
And I found one. An official short on the Oxventure channel called “BARNABY RETURNS! 🧐 | Oxventure Blades in the Dark Holiday Special.” Now, you may be wondering what that means, given that there’s only one Oxventure Presents: Blades In The Dark holiday special, and it stars Edvard and Lilith, not Barnaby. Well, there’s a simple answer to that question –
THEY DID ANOTHER ONE! THEY DID ANOTHER ONE THIS YEAR, APPARENTLY WITH THE WHOLE CREW, LAST WEEK! AND I HAD NO IDEA BECAUSE I HAVEN’T HAD A CHANCE TO LOOK AT OXVENTURE AT ALL SINCE I STARTED USING FREETUBE AND WATCHING MOVIES DOWNSTAIRS!
...welp, I know what I’m watching next week with my workouts! Sorry Netflix, sorry Blu-Ray player, but I am just one woman, and that one woman loves her Oxventure Presents: Blades In The Dark! *shakehead* Anyway – I ended up watching the short just to see what it was about, and it apparently covers the point where Barnaby ends up joining the score (Mike having joined the others late), which appears to be set on a fancy cruise ship of sorts. There wasn’t much context given, but from what I could glean, Edvard and Zillah were trying to get on disguised as members of the ship’s band (maybe – Edvard mentioned at one point setting up instruments, but I guess he could have meant scientific ones) and were having trouble with one of the actual crew members – cue Barnaby walking onto the ship via the wrong gangplank with his 12 PM tipple and immediately making it the guy’s problem, terrifying him into compliance when he realized that oh shit, Barnaby is one of the rich folks. XD It was delightful stuff – I was so pleased to see my favorite asshole Slide back in action, even as I bemoaned learning too late that they did another holiday special in this verse. Ah well – I’ll see it next week. And then start catching up on the rest of Oxventure, because I have a looot to catch up on.
Writing: Unfortunately, between playing and then recapping BG3, Game Night, and my shock at learning that Oxventure did a Blades In The Dark holiday special this year, I did not actually get to edit anything on “The Van Dort Vacancy” today. :( BUT! I did update my VITD Master Doc with a couple of ideas, both related to BG3 in some way –
A) First, I added a note to my story write-up about a future fic where the trio will be investigating a mysterious company on behalf of a craftsman named Larian (who was making boxes for them and wanted to know what they were being used for) ...only for Smiler to end up kidnapped by the company, and the gang to get yanked into a version of the tutorial Nautiloid level of BG3 (complete with Smiler saving Us and bringing them home). My ORIGINAL concept for the story had Larian has a decent guy who had been pulled into something much bigger and more dangerous than he expected...but now that I know that the company is run by dickwads, I’m thinking of making him instead part of the conspiracy, having hired the trio specifically to get rid of them before they could interfere with his operations. Meaning I can have him torn to pieces on the airship the three find themselves on by various air demons. Just – feels cathartic after all the shit I’ve learned about the place!
B) Then, I added a new idea to the list of story ideas – one featuring the gang meeting the local version of Wyll! He would be the “Blade of Deathlands” in this version of reality, roaming the wastes outside of Duskwall to keep the innocent safe and the monsters at bay. I was thinking that maybe my trio could help him with his version of Mizora, the devil he has a pact with (and would like NOT to have a pact with because she’s a bitch). I’d also like Karlach to be involved in some way, since her story and Wyll’s do intertwine a bit. *shrug* Hey, if I can adapt a bunch of Fallout 4 NPCs and quests to VITD, why not BG3 ones?
*shrug* Not what I really WANTED to do, but any writing is better than no writing!
Yeah, uh, I probably tried to cram a LITTLE too much into my day today, given it was Game Night and all. :p But at least I got most of what I wanted to get done, done. And now I have to go to bed. Tomorrow, it is my birthday, and -- well, beyond "work on 'The Van Dort Vacancy'" and "see about answering Moose's messages," I don't know yet what I'm going to do. We'll find out, I suppose -- night all!
