jaeeeeee

The curse of forgetting what fucking day it is now that I've had a long weekend strikes again! XD Anyway, yes, had a pretty busy day today, so let me dive straight into the write-up:

Work – As you might expect, my day at work was largely about playing catch-up with everything I’d missed (while my coworker, who was actually ALSO out yesterday with a stomachache, worked her way through the GLs and some gifts that needed go on) – namely:

A) Answering some questions from our database company contact to help her get the final two credit card batches from last week on (had to call a guy about multiple online gifts; turns out he’d set up a recurring gift trying to make a one-time payment to “catch up” on his pledge)

B) Doing a QC file for the next Capital Campaign pledge billing going out

C) Calling back a woman who wanted to set up her new credit card pledge

D) Double-checking that all the missing payments had been posted by the credit card company

E) Doing some roster maintenance my boss had forwarded to me and my coworker in our absence (adding one guy, changing the parish on another, and marking two others as deceased)

F) Properly submitting my time card for last week, as I managed to forget to do that before I left ^^;

G) Taking some phone calls, including doing a payment on a pledge with one guy who always phones in his payments and assuring another that her mother’s gift was going to be credited to the right parish

H) And doing some reversals, including splitting an online pledge into THREE online pledges to different parishes now that the donor’s first payment had FINALLY been posted

Whew! It was a fair bit, but I got it all done. And you can’t say it didn’t make the day go by. *nods* We’ll see what happens tomorrow!

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with “D&D But... Everyone Has Amnesia Again | Oxventure | D&D with Scratch Card Character Sheets!” And let me tell you, tonight’s chunk of The Adventures Of Ms. Blue the dwarf (Jane), Mr. White the Goliath (Mike), and Mr. Brown the human (Andy) was very chaotic indeed, featuring –

A) Blue and Brown, fresh out of the Fuzzbug’s Fast Gold Exchange, noting that White wasn’t looking so hot (down to 13 HP out of 33), and Blue deciding to see if she had any healing magic to hand – aiming at one of White’s arms juuust in case whatever came out was the opposite of healing so she only took off a limb rather than kill him. XD Fortunately, what came out wasn’t an offensive spell –

Unfortunately, it also wasn’t a healing spell – in fact, it was kind of an anti-spell, in that it was Counterspell, which cancels the effect of other magic. Brown decided “well if we have one of THOSE in hand, might as well try something myself” and tried casting a spell of his own –

And discovered that he actually had something useful – Aid! Which temporarily doubled both White’s upper HP total and his HP at the time. Inspired (and feeling much healthier), White reached deep inside himself to see if he had anything that could help –

And discovered his Large Form ability, growing to massive size for roughly ten minutes! With nothing to counter, Blue threw her Counterspell down the alley, where it hit the kid they’d bullied earlier, preventing him from trying to use magic against them. XD Well, that could have gone much worse for all of them!

( Let’s face it, it’s going to get long )

2. Continue editing Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – I finally returned to Malkavian!Alice and her conversation with Beckett in the museum tonight, getting through another page of their chat – specifically:

A) Beckett agreeing with Alice that other Kindred should treat the thin-bloods better (if only because he wants to know if this “thin-blood alchemy” they’ve cooked up is real) and commenting that the weak often make good scapegoats for people’s fear, before continuing on with his theory that Gehenna is not a real thing, but just a myth derived from other myths about the end of the world from the various cultures all Kindred were a part of while they were still human, and that a self-made destruction seemed much more likely to him than one inflicted on them by a vengeful God; Alice thoroughly agreed with him there

B) Alice noting it sounded like Beckett had been studying this for a while, and Beckett confirming that he’d spent 300 years trying to figure out the reason why Kindred exist (one that didn’t have anything to do with “supernatural, biblical vengeance,” anyway) and would continue working on it for 300 more if he had to – before asking if Alice had any thoughts on the subject; Alice joked that “we’re here because the jellyfish will it so” (an actual Malkavian line from the game), then more seriously suggested that Kindred could be a predator species designed to keep humans on their toes and thin their herds, like many predator/prey relationships in nature. Before adding that there was definitely something supernatural about their origin, because they could do magic by pulling energy from their blood, Beckett. XD

C) Beckett confirming that he knew vampires were supernatural, he just didn’t think it had anything to do with God, before stating that he’d heard Alice’s “predators made specifically to hunt humans” theory before and that, while interesting, it didn’t have much evidence backing it up – after all, most Kindred take pains NOT to kill those they feed on, and to keep themselves hidden from the masses of humanity, meaning they certainly don’t keep humans on their toes. Though he still liked it better than the “divine punishment for manslaughter” thing – Alice was like “Don’t you mean murder?” but Beckett said that after studying the Bible, it didn’t sound to him like Caine MEANT to kill Abel, so the charge should be downgraded. Alice deferred to his greater expertise, admitting she wasn’t familiar with the Bible thanks to her family not being religious (even if her father was a Dean at Christ Church in Oxford) – Beckett admitted he wasn’t religious either even after reading the Bible, as he had a hard time believing in things without evidence. Alice sympathized, saying she had a hard time believing in anything but herself after all the shit she’d been through, and Beckett encouraged her to keep doing so – after all, you always know what YOU’RE capable of. You hope, at least.

*nods* Solid stuff, I think! I left off with Alice looking at the busted crate the sarcophagus was supposed to be in and commenting that she had to go tell LaCroix his sarcophagus had gone mysteriously walkabout – tomorrow, we’ll finish off this section with Beckett taking his leave and Alice meeting up with some familiar faces before going to see LaCroix! The end is slowly but surely moving into sight here, folks!

3. Watch something on YouTube: Check – fortunately, I had something short in my Subs that I could slip in tonight after my writing session – “Fun With Shorts: Robotics The Future Is Now” by Josh Way! Part 1 of an old short hosted by William Shatner (yup, Kirk himself) about robots and robotics, with an especial focus on industrial robots (though there was a cameo from a cute dome-headed “personal robot” who toddled in to ask Shatner for his autograph near the beginning). Shatner went on and on about stuff like “degrees of freedom” (how many ways an industrial robot can move), “end effectors” (the tool you put at the end of a robotic arm), and the like, comparing robotic arms to human ones and noting how industrial robots had to be programmed to work with things like conveyor belts and inspection cameras – meanwhile, Josh went on and on with jokes about how overly-excited he was to see William Shatner (calling “Starring William Shatner” the “greatest three words in the universe”), Shatner charging the little dome robot $90 for the autograph ($200 if it wanted it personalized), one of the robotic arms in one of the clips complaining about being programmed to feel tedium, and how he “wasn’t dressed” to go visit the National Bureau of Standards (which controlled the standards for getting industrial robots to interface with other automated machinery). XD Good stuff as always – the short itself was reasonably entertaining and informative, and Josh’s jokes made it all much more amusing. I look forward to Part 2, whenever it pops up!

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – I am pleased to say that tumblr chose to revert their terrible update to reblogs, so I feel safe in posting and reblogging things again. *nod* And while it was definitely a nothing day over on Valice Multiverse again, it was a very busy night over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) –

A) First, I quickly reblogged three art posts from my friend Nebby that she posted the other day (which I was reluctant to reblog before because of the stupid update that broke the notes and how creators tracked reblogs and suchlike):

I. One showing off some new outfits for her redesign of the vampire “madam” NPC Madame Jo-Jo for her MediEvil II rewrite fanfic – specifically, her underthings, her walking dress, her evening gown, and her tea gown (which had some cool bat motifs to it)

II. One showing off some new outfits for MediEvil big bad Zarok – specifically his sleep gown, his winter gown (which had a cool lava-like look to it), and his coronation gown (which made him look like a cobra)

III. And one showing off some MediEvil-themed tarot cards she did a little while back (The Fool, showing protagonist Dan facing off against the arrow barrage that killed him; The Devil, showing MediEvil II antagonist Lord Palethorn; and Justice, showing Dan preparing to face off against Jack The Ripper to protect Kiya (who he kills in the original MediEvil II)

B) And second, I threw a few things into my queue for this week just now:

I. The “VITD Timeline” post I was working on this weekend for Wednesday

II. The reblog of polyshipprompts’ “imagine your polyship sharing a bed for the first time and trying to figure out who should sleep where” post with my addition about how Alice and Smiler quickly learned that cover-stealing Victor should sleep in the middle for Thursday

III. And the reblog of that “Let’s fuck him together. You and me. (Hold out your hand)” reaction image from jennaflare, with additional image of the text over the image of a guy holding his hand out by lethalwizard, with my tags commenting on this being Smiler talking to Alice about Victor for Friday XD

So that’s all sorted, yay! Well, except for Song Saturday, but I’ll figure it out later. Here’s hoping that they don’t fuck with the reblogs again for a while!

...aand proper spacing is going to have to wait until tomorrow morning, because I have to get to bed. Expect a few light edits to this post tomorrow to make it more readable! Night all! EDIT 3/18/2026: Spacing fixed and a bit more detail added to the tumblr section at the bottom, enjoy!