Everyone has thoughts

Or maybe I should say a very GROGGY one, as I woke up kinda late (after the usual brief early rising to pee -- you can tell I'm approaching middle age), then spent most of the afternoon trying to focus enough to actually DO shit instead of sit around and daydream/look at various Baldur's Gate III mods and wiki pages. (Which, okay, that was supposed to be research for writing down what spells/abilities/skills I wanted to prioritize for Tav!Smiler, but I didn't really get down much -- just some basics on what I need to pick to make them look right, what their classes are going to be, and what abilities they'll be prioritizing. Nothing that I really didn't have written down in some form or another before!) *shakehead* I don't know why I was so tired/distracted, but it was kind of annoying. Didn't help that it was another kinda-chilly, windy, often-cloudy day outside. I'd ask where the hell the summer weather is, but I know -- it's showing up on Tuesday or Wednesday, when the temps are supposed to hit the 80s. *sigh* Why can't it do that on the weekends, when I'm in a better position to enjoy it? *shakes head* Meeeh...

Anyway -- I might not have gotten THAT much done, but I did get SOME stuff done:

Tumblr: Welp, it was another day where nothing was happening over on Valice Multiverse – but while I got on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) rather late today (around noon), I still managed to get some stuff done over there:

A) I spent most of my time before lunch going through some of the older posts on my dash and having a bit of a reblog spree, putting up –

I. A post by my friend Newt collecting a bunch of facial studies of the Dead Boy Detectives cast together (featuring all the main characters – Edwin, Charles, Crystal, Niko, Esther, Monty, and of course his beloved Cat King; don’t watch the show but figured I should reblog out of solidarity :) )

II. A post by “kieren-fucking-walker,” a friend of Newt’s, asking for any assistance people might be able to give to help their mother and their sister get settled in their new council flat – which, thanks to stupid fucking “we have to tear out everything between tenants” reasons, does not have a FLOOR (like, what the HELL – I sent them 30 pounds via their Ko-Fi in response)

III. A post by “idontmindifuforgetme” about JK Rowling using her massive wealth to create the “J.K. Rowling Women’s Fund,” an organization specifically designed to help deny trans people (specifically trans women, who she believes aren’t really women) their rights in as many places as possible, with a follow-up by “mintedwitcher” about how trans people’s lives matter more than nostalgia so don’t watch that fucking reboot nonsense coming out on HBO or something (seriously, how is she that fucking evil?!)

IV. A post by The Satirical Demon showing off a YouTube video “Freshy Kanal” and friends made of a rap battle between Hercule Poriot and Benoit Blanc...which actually involves a bunch more detectives horning in to accuse all the other ones of being shit – including Colombo, which is the whole reason Satirical posted it, as he’s a fan of the guy. XD It was a very fun video, though, especially the surprise little twist at the end when a certain OG detective and his mate came in to teach ALL the other ones a lesson. Good times!

V. A post by “furiousfinstann” about how some Japanese researchers might have a lead on what causes “long COVID” in some people! Apparently some people end up with leftover viral fragments deep in their nose tissues which causes continued irritation and issues, and by swabbing the affected areas once a week with a Q-Tip dipped in 1% zinc chloride solution, the people in the study saw improvements! It’s only one step on the road – there’s a larger clinical trial being organized to confirm the results – but fucking hell, it’s good to see some GOOD news related to this awful fucking virus! (Especially since, apparently, a new variant is bumming around the States, uuuuugh…)

VI. A post by “hermit-frog” with a video showcasing a scene from the movie Sinners, where the main musician at the “juke joint” where most of the movie takes place, Sammie, plays a blues song so beautifully and intensely that he ends up summoning specters of both the past and the future – represented by a variety of Black musicians and dancers (and a couple of Chinese ones, as while the majority of the cast are Black, there’s a Chinese couple important to the plot there too) performing both traditional and modern music along with him (like, there’s traditional African drummers and dancers mixed in with guys playing electric guitar and spinning records on a DJ booth and women twerking). I haven’t seen the movie, but it’s an amazing scene, especially given the way they blend all the different musical styles together so perfectly. Really fucking impressive, let me tell you!

VII. And a post from “ororium-z” featuring an Instagram video of a guy named Mark Kanemura (apparently he’s a dancer, been on So You Think You Can Dance and Glee and in some music videos) doing a fancy dance in honor of the start of Pride – swanning around in rainbow undies and a half-skirt he uses as a cape, whipping a whole rainbow of wigs off his head, fanning himself with a rainbow fan, and finally yanking off a final long-haired multicolored wig off to release a load of confetti, all to “Cut To The Feeling” by Carly Rae Jepsen! It’s kind of a tradition around tumblr for people to reblog it around the start of Pride, and I figured I might as well join in. It’s a fun video. XD

So yeah – busy morning there, as you might expect. XD

B) Then I moved some stuff in my likes to my drafts for later posting, including –

I. A post by “esamastation” about the dangers of writing “snippets” of your fanfic ideas, because those little shits can grow like motherfuckers XD (I added in my tags that, while I can keep them to just snippets sometimes, they can easily grow into monster fics, like the Londerland Bloodlines series, or into a whole TON of shorter fics, like the Valicer In The Dark series – so I’m screwed either way :P)

II. A post by “dreemurr-skelememer” with a picture of a figure labeled “Insane about own AU” (which is about as me as you can get – I rambled in the tags about how all the Valicer fanfic I’d write if I had the time, and how the image primarily applies to my beloved Valicer In The Dark AU, because oh boy am I obsessed with that)

III. A post by “rookamell” about how it isn’t writing that’s the hobby – it’s being insane about fictional characters, and writing is just the only viable outlet (again, an extremely me post, as I am quite insane about Victor, Alice, and Smiler, and writing is the only way to get it all out)

IV. And a post by “randomgirlyoudontknow” that consists of the sentence “love is stored in the fictional couple i’ve gotten overly invested in” and to which my friend Squid, where I found the post, appended the tag “sometimes it’s a throuple or larger polycule but yes” (the third “me” post in the lost, especially with that tag because currently love for me is stored in the fictional OT3 I’ve gotten overly invested in XD I made sure to tag this post with all the ship names for my favorite ships and polycules as a result)

Not exactly what I intended when I said last night that I wanted to work on my drafts over here, but it still counts!

YouTube: Sunday around these parts is Jon and Fallout: London Day, and so this evening we had “Fallout: London - Part 45 - Queen For A Day!” The continuing adventures of Lady Aria as she –

A) Did Johnny Shrapnel’s “Prison Break” mission for the Vagabonds, freeing the prisoners on the HMS Dredge and blowing it the hell up! A process that involved Aria napping in a nearby factory until nightfall to avoid the worst of the guards; Aria attempting to sneakily kill the guards at the very front of the boat, and nearly succeeding – until Mad Jack chose to pick a fight with some mittenlurks nearby, drawing the attention of some other guards on the bridge next to the boat and forcing Aria to kill them as well (which at least got her a level up and the first rank of the “Sneak” perk for her trouble); Aria getting into the boat and taking out the guards within with a combination of the silenced crude sniper and the ultra-fast knife she got off Merlin’s corpse (Jon really wanted to do this proper sneaky-like, but kept getting foiled by guards spotting Aria and shooting at her REALLY QUICKLY – he did pull off ONE nice sneak attack with the knife, though!); Aria finding the Vagabond prisoners and attempting to free them via opening up their cells at the nearby terminal...only to guess wrong on the password (123456? Really, Aria?) and have to sneak up to the captain’s room in the bridge to reset it; Aria managing to get up to the bridge and reset the password without too much trouble, easily knifing all the security that got in her way (took a man’s head straight off at one point); Aria releasing the Vagabond prisoners, then backtracking to the OTHER prisoners she found along the way and – after a quick chat with the “leader,” Agatha (aka the only named one) – releasing them as well and cracking open the armory at the back of the ship so they could arm themselves before escaping (Agatha and company taking a tea break in the canteen as she did this because they hadn’t had a decent cuppa in ages XD); Agatha making her way to the bottom of the boat and finally trading her knife in for her nice solid Instigating shotgun to kill all the security down there, before planting the bombs Johnny gave her and getting out of dodge; and Aria murdering the new guards coming in around the outside of the boat before turning and watching the big old explosion as the bombs went off and the boat went up in flames! She was less impressed with how little it had sunk afterwards, but, well, it was docked in a very shallow canal, so there was only so far down it could go. The important thing was, it was definitely out of commission as a floating prison!

B) Returned to the Swan & Mitre to report on her successes to Gaunt, “Chill” Winston, “Bullettooth” Anthony, and Johnny “Shrapnel!” Winston, Anthony, and Johnny were all very appreciative, praising her good work to the skies and giving her things like stimpacks and cricket ball bombs, while Gaunt was – less than impressed, shall we say. He simply couldn’t stop bitching about how Aria should have sabotaged the Syndicate supply line instead of grabbing the train (Winston was like “if that was so important to you, why didn’t you mention it before?!”), or how she risked much for a pittance of guns while clearing out the warehouse (Aria: “I DID blow the place up afterward, you know”), or how the Syndicate would try to spin her blowing up the Dredge as Vagabond terrorism – though at least there he seemed genuinely upset that the blood of the other prisoners aboard would be on their hands. And thus properly relieved when Aria told him, “Hey, I got everyone else out, and they know that the Vagabonds helped them, so…” The meeting ended with the lieutenants firmly convinced of Aria’s greatness, and Gaunt telling her that he needed a few days to think before proceeding with the next stage of his plan to take out the Syndicate. Aria was happy to give it to him – mostly because she was pretty sure she could turn everyone against him when she came back and get him deposed before there was more unnecessary bloodshed. :p

C) Headed over to the Imperial War Museum to both:

I. Deliver Smythe’s orders to the Tommies stationed there, promoting Colonel Major to General and demoting General Asquith to – whatever rank’s below General, I don’t know and neither did Jon. XD She came in to see Major arguing with Asquith about who they owed their loyalty with (Major being firmly on the “The Gentry will promote stability for the people” side, Asquith being on the “we are loyal to the Queen and her people, not those rich twats” side). Aria delivered her message, but, as expected, Asquith made it clear that they wouldn’t be accepting orders from anyone but Her Majesty herself, meaning that Aria had to find a way to get the Queen’s signature on those papers

II. Finally tell that “Mr. Tommy” who gave her the mission to investigate the mysterious disappearance of some Tommies chasing after a distress signal in an old underground station AGES ago what had happened (as Jon had just realized he’d never turned in the quest): that the Tommies had died to ghouls in the station; that the distress signal was the result of a mechanical failure (ruptured pipes) and that when she’d tried to repair the damage, the whole place had self-destructed; and that she’d returned with this unique shotgun as proof of her words (well, TECHNICALLY – Jon wasn’t sure if she actually had the gun in her inventory or not, but Mr. Tommy was able to examine it regardless). Mr. Tommy was very sad to hear of his fellow soldiers’ deaths, but glad that they now had answers as to what had happened and that the distress signal wouldn’t be bothering the higher-ups anymore, and told her to feel free to keep the shotgun as a reward. Aria was like “thanks, but my Instigating shotgun is SOOO much better, seriously.” XD

D) Headed back to Buckingham Palace to figure out how to get the Queen’s signature on the orders promoting Major and demoting Asquith – which Jon suspected would be difficult, as Aria had sure as hell not seen any queens about the first time she visited the Palace. However, after chatting with a guard outside about the purpose of her visit, she was directed to a wing she hadn’t been in before, with a locked room at the end of it –

And something screaming and thumping around behind the door, making the entire hallway shake. Jon promptly went “okay, the Queen’s a feral,” and a visit with Princess Elizabeth, Dr. Hebertson (from Angel’s secret de-feralization lab), and Smythe’s voice over the telephone confirmed that the poor woman was a mindless monster. Aria was like “so, um, how the hell do I get her to sign these papers without getting my limbs chewed off?” –

And Smythe told her, “ask Dr. Hebertson – you already helped him find the answer, after all.” Yes, it turned out that, after Aria’s good work in helping him create and test his de-feralization serum, Hebertson had come up with an even better version, and was more than willing to let Aria test it on the Queen to see if it would bring back some mental stability. Aria thus collected the serum; got the key to the Queen’s quarters off Princess Elizabeth; and then ventured inside the royal chambers to find the erstwhile monarch. She was briefly distracted by the adorable corgis roaming around (they were so cute!), but soon located the feral Queen Victoria II, and managed to incapacitate her with Mad Jack’s help (with Jon yelling at Jack through the screen the whole time to NOT KILL HER PLEASE). One jab of the experimental serum later, and the Queen regained at least some of her senses (represented by the vicious feral version of Victoria II exploding into the saner ghoul version with nicer clothes – I know that they were probably limited in the animations they could use to represent the change, but that was still VERY funny XD), and was able to sign Aria’s papers. Though Jon did note afterward that, since the Queen is now dependent on Hebertson’s serum to stay even partly sane (Hebertson even lording it over Princess Elizabeth that he would have to keep the Queen in his care to see the long-term effects of the serum – meaning that, no matter what she said, her mother WAS his pet science project, thank you very much), Angel had just basically turned the queen into their puppet figurehead. Very sneaky, Angel – very sneaky indeed.

E) Had a heart-to-heart with Mad Jack on their way back to the Tommies to deliver the now-Queen-approved orders, prompted by Mad Jack deciding he idolized Aria after she stole some ammo. XD Jack told her that he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the horrors of his childhood ever since he told her about them, and how it made him sick to think of the people who did that to him being HAPPY and never getting their just desserts. Aria, a little concerned, told him that he had to get over it sometime, and he said he knew that, it was just hard – but he thought that she could help him with it. Because, you see, he’d gotten a letter from an old cellmate of his shortly before she’d come into his life. A letter that he’d only recently found the courage to open –

And which he’d discovered had the names and last known locations of the people who’d tormented him and turned him into their killer attack dog! Meaning he now has a way to find them all and get revenge for himself and all the other people he tormented. He asked Aria to help him with this, saying that he really did want to forget and move on, but felt like this was the only way he could. Aria cautiously agreed, and Jack thanked her and said that he was going to get some supplies from his old gym, and to meet him over at the Pilgrim once she was ready to go. So yeah – seems like Jack’s companion mission will be all about bringing some justice to the gang that hurt him so. I am all for it.

F) And finally, delivered the orders demanding he step down and promoting Major in his place to General Asquith, who – after some grumbling about his station – finally submitted thanks to the Queen’s signature. The newly promoted General Major proceeded to give a rousing speech about getting out there and making the streets safe again to his men, rallying them to get out there and do their duty (with Jon warning them not to do TOO good a job, because otherwise Smythe wouldn’t be able to enforce marital law) –

And right after, one of the second lieutenants approached Aria and told her she had a call on the new General’s personal line. Unsurprisingly, it was Smythe, who congratulated Aria on her good work with the Tommies but said that there was one more thing that needed to be done before they could officially meet in person – bring down any and all rebellion in London by uniting the people against a common enemy, a fabricated monster that threatened their lives and livelihoods –

Angel! Yes, Smythe had decided to take advantage of the fact that people now knew of the organization’s existence, but not how deep it had gotten its claws into the government, to terrify the people into obedience by saying she was their only hope to stand against it. Basically “pulling a Palpatine,” as Jon called it – controlling both the government and the government’s enemy so they’d both do what she wanted. She thus directed Aria to Land’s End Inn in Peckham to pick up her luggage in Room 5 and prepare to bring Angel to the world stage…

And that is where Jon chose to end things, because who doesn’t like a bit of a cliffhanger! :P Though we’re going to have to hang from the cliff for a while, because next week, Aria’s focusing on completing Mad Jack’s companion quest and seeing if she can get him to resolve things with a minimum of violence (just for his own mental health, mind, not because the people who tormented him don’t deserve a horrible death). And hopefully also checking back in with the Vagabonds and getting Gaunt out of the leader’s seat already. We’ll see what happens next week – I am looking forward to it!

Workout: Back on the bike this week, and back with the Oxventure videos as I hit the next one in the upload order: “D&D But... Everyone's A Kobold LIVE! | Oxventure!” Which – is actually one that I’ve already seen, just not on the official Oxventure channel. This was done at a con – MCM, to be specific – and was originally uploaded on the con organizer’s official YouTube channel, which is where I watched it the first time. However, I recalled it being a very funny adventure, so I decided there was no harm in watching it again and officially marking it off the Oxventure channel! :D As this was uploaded about a year ago, I will quickly bring you up to speed on what’s going on – the premise of this one-shot is that a bunch of kobolds (played by Andy, Johnny, Mike, Jane, and Ellen – Luke is our lovely DM) have been tasked with going to the dangerous lands of The Surface to retrieve a special leaf to help cure their ailing leader, Gitvis (tended by her successor, Era the Vacuous, aka the kobold who survived the longest in the FIRST “D&D But...Everyone’s A Kobold” video). However, since they’re kobolds, and thus only have 5 HP, it is expected that nobody is going to be playing the SAME kobold for very long as they tackle the various dangers along the way. So every time someone’s kobold dies, they get up and get a new one from the “kobold vending machine” – aka a big cardboard box filled with pieces of paper containing suggestions from the audience – and then that kobold catches up with the others and joins the adventure to keep the action going. Each kobold has a name and an identifying trait, and the comedy comes from how the players express that identifying trait, and how ridiculously the kobolds die as they attempt to complete their goal. So far in the first half-hour, we’ve had:

I. Mike showing up a little later than the others in the intro...because he’d bought a dragon onesie with incredibly short shorts and had changed into it right before coming on to do a “so we’re not doing costumes?” gag. XD And those short shorts do not cover a lot, let me tell you – he’s not flashing the audience whenever he stands up to grab a new kobold, but it is a VERY near thing! XD

II. One of the first kobolds being “Izzy The Wizzy,” played by Andy, who rolled a nat 20 on “urinating freely” and ended up basically hovering thanks to the stream, only to then think himself to death trying to remember what he knew about leaves after being assigned their important mission

III. Mike’s first kobold being “Amelia the Furious” who died attempting to fight the sun (her neck snapped when she tipped it back too far)

IV. Johnny getting a little too into their role as “Astor the Smug” and telling poor Jane to not forget Disadvantage on a roll that didn’t actually require it and getting very embarrassed, poor enby

V. And, in terms of the main quest, the kobolds coming across a bear cave on their way out of the darkness of their dungeon with a sleeping mama bear and two playing adolescent cubs that they had to get past! Cue Jane’s first kobold, “Lyrical the Lavish,” dying in a very lavish way to bear claws (blood jetting EVERYWHERE); Andy’s next kobold, “The Unimaginative,” dying because he insisted on not paying attention to what he thought were just big furry rocks (he simply couldn’t imagine dying!); Mike’s next kobold “The Squishy” getting the sleeping mother bear involved by CLIMBING INTO HER MOUTH to try and stab her – and then getting tangled in her uvula; Mike then making up for that by managing to talk Luke into not insta-killing him when the other bears dragged him out by saying his squishiness should protect him (so that kobold’s now just down to 1 HP, yay); Johnny managing to distract the bears from all the other kobolds by pulling a kobold identified “The Kipper” and deciding that meant they were actually a fish that had been raised as a kobold XD; and Andy pulling a kobold called “The Bear Impersonator” of all things – and then flubbing the roll to try and talk the bears out of attacking his friends, because he didn’t know bears don’t speak Common (and also his costume makes him look like a green gummy bear, not an actual bear, because he had no idea what a bear looked like). He at least managed to nonplus the bears a bit?

So it’s been – chaotic, so far. XD And yeah, don’t worry about the kobold’s first names, it’s always the “The [blank]” part that’s important when it comes to identifying these little buggers. XD Anyway, I left off with Mike, Andy, and Johnny’s kobolds “The Kipper” (Johnny), “The Squishy” (Mike), and “The Bear Impersonator” (Andy) still dealing with the bears, having not YET died to their fearsome claws; and Ellen and Jane’s kobolds “The Quiet” (Ellen) and “The Miniature” (Jane) having actually made it out of the cave, yay! Tomorrow, we’ll see who else manages to get past the bears and join them on their quest to find that damn leaf!

So yeah -- maybe not a total loss of a day, but definitely not as productive as I would have liked. *shrug* What can you do. Besides go to bed, because I need to get some sleep. Tomorrow's a workday after all! Hopefully it won't be a bad one...night all!