Smokingboot

"Somewhat" because my parents didn't have the best time -- Mom ended up with some stomach upset after lunch (well, intestinal upset according to her), and Dad, who is still recovering from tearing a muscle in his back, complained that his side was starting to hurt during dinner, so that wasn't great. And even I had to deal with a bit of a stiff neck much of the day (didn't bother me TOO much, but -- it made itself known). But we had a nice time opening presents in the morning once I got up for the day; lunch was good, with all our Chinese leftovers; and I had a pretty chill, relaxing day overall, so I'm going to count it as at least a decently good Christmas. I've had worse ones, that's for sure! Let me share with you all the most important stuff of the day:

Present Haul: It isn’t Christmas without presents, and I had a pretty decent haul this year, including:

-->A 2026 “Mensa Brain Teasers” page-a-day calendar (it’s basically a calendar full of various daily puzzles; I got one last year for 2025 and have really enjoyed it, so I requested another one)

-->A box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates (one of the “standard” gifts I get every year)

-->A bag of Ghirardelli hot chocolate mix (another “standard” gift)

-->A third sports bra of the same kind I got last year (I got two in last year’s present haul, and I figured having a third would be a good thing – would make sure I always had one ready to go if the others needed washing!)

-->New winter gloves with special leather padding on the forefinger and thumb to facilitate touchscreen use and keep them from wearing out too fast (my old pair, while still good, were starting to wear out, with holes developing on the thumbs, so this was a nice surprise)

-->A white mushroom-shaped battery-powered desk lamp (I asked for one of these because it can get very dark at my desk sometimes thanks to its position relative to the ceiling light, and I wanted to brighten it up a bit – the lamp does the job, but for some reason it came with a USB charging cable when it runs on batteries AND doesn’t actually have a slot for the charging cable to plug into – like, there’s a hole the right side on the white outer ring of the base, but there’s no actual socket behind it. O.o We’re not sure what to make of it. Keeping the cord as a free extra phone charging cable if I need it!)

-->A Shaun the Sheep pin (from Wallace & Gromit – it’s very cute, shows him chewing a newspaper while wearing the sweater from A Close Shave

-->Two pairs of soft Christmas-themed socks (one blue pair with candy canes, one white pair with reindeer – they were technically a gift for my mother from a friend of hers, but she gave them to me because she doesn’t really wear socks and I do)

-->A mini Ghostbusters ghost trap that opens and closes, and lights up and plays different noises depending on if it’s open or closed, and which came with a mini sticker book (made by the same people who made my new mini flux capacitor, RP Minis – it’s really well done!)

-->A mini magnetic BTTF Part II hoverboard that came with a stand to balance it on (so it looks like it’s floating), and two magnetized mini-power-lacing Nikes that you can put on your fingers and then attach to the hoverboard (and finger-hoverboard your way around the room), along with a fridge magnet of the DeLorean traveling through time (which I stuck on my big flux capacitor replica – this is also an RP Minis creation, and it’s very cute)

-->A pair of $20 Steam gift cards (which I originally asked for so I could purchase Paralives with them – however, that game’s been delayed til May, so they might get spent on something else beforehand. Though, admittedly, I have to use up the $22 bucks I had left over from buying Baldur’s Gate III first, so there’s a bit of a buffer :P)

-->The game Little Corners (which I actually purchased for myself with some of that $22 bucks of buffer money – it’s a cute little sticker book game where you pick a room “corner” to decorate – with options ranging through a cottage kitchen to an adventurer’s tavern, from overgrown ruins to an emperor’s chambers – and select what you want to put inside it from sheets of virtual stickers! I’m currently in the process of decorating an alchemist’s tower, which I will describe in a bit more detail below)

-->And technically I got a new pair of slippers (as my old ones are giving up the ghost) – but, unfortunately, while they’re long enough, they’re not wide enough, especially with the socks I like to wear (Mom’s going to see if she can get me a wider pair of the same kind, and if not we’ll see what else we can get)

Not too shabby, I feel! My favorite presents of the lot were the three RP Minis prop replicas – here, have a picture of them all lined up:



Cute, huh? I’m very happy with them. :) Just have to find a good place to put them now – they’re currently on my nightstand as my desk is taken up with all my chocolate. XD

Little Corners: As stated above, I bought this cute little “sticker book” game today with some of my Steam gift card money – I’d seen it being promoted on tumblr by a friend of one of the creators, and it looked like an adorable, low-key game that I could play when I wasn’t in the mood for anything complicated. And I’m pleased to say it is just that! The controls are simple (left click to pick up a sticker; right click to flip it; scroll the mouse wheel to change what “layer” the sticker is on, and scroll the wheel and hit SHIFT to determine if a particular sticker ends up on top of or underneath another sticker (like if you want to put a pillow under a cat)); there’s a decent number of corners to customize, and a good amount of virtual stickers to use in each room; there’s a customizable background to make working more fun (like you can put your corner on the beach if you are so inclined, or on a cheeseboard – I’ve gone with a bright yellow “Moroccan” background because I’m working on an alchemist’s room, and of course when I think of alchemy, I think of Smiler); you can zoom in to get a closer look at your room, which is great for placing stickers much more precisely; the soundtrack is pleasant to listen to; and there’s even hidden stickers to unlock if you want a goal other than “decorate this room to look pretty.” My one complaint so far is that there’s no way to customize the color of your stickers – what you see is what you get, and while all the stickers are cute, I would have liked to at least have had a few different color swatches for each one! My alchemist’s tower is currently VERY brown. *shakehead* Ah well – it’s still a fun little game, and it’s easy to get sucked into decorating your room JUST right. I spent about an hour today working on the alchemy room, setting up –

A) The main entrance on the left-hand wall, with a torch right next to it for light

B) A bookcase and a storage cabinet (built from a couple of stacked cabinet stickers) on the wall next to it – the bookcase is full of colorful books, while the storage cabinet has spare glassware, jars of ingredients, and some scrolls inside, along with a little cobweb and spider on top, where it meets the corner

C) A big stone fireplace in the middle of the right-hand wall, flanked by two stained glass windows, with a pile of logs and a bellows next to it on the left (originally on the right, but I decided I wanted that space for other things)

D) A small standing desk underneath the right-most window on the right-hand wall, with a book of various illustrations of alchemical ingredients on it and a chair next to it

E) And a big work table in the middle of the room in front of the fireplace on a plain brown rug, with a cutting board (with knife and mushroom atop it), a mortar and pestle, a set of scales, and a metal gripping arm holding a tube of something being heated by a little burner (took me a while to get this all set up, let me tell you – hopefully I don’t have to move any of it!)

*nods* It’s all coming along nicely, I feel! Here, have a screenshot of it in progress – er, ignore the bunch of potion bottles on the floor, and the glassware kind of floating/sitting next to the table, I forgot to move them out of the shot ^^; –



I like it so far, anyway! I’ll keep poking at it and keep you apprised of what happens. :P

Tumblr: Well, in addition to getting and answering a bunch of “thank you, this was great” comments and reblogs regarding all the gift fics that went up today (nice to be appreciated, I must say), I did end up posting one thing on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) (Valice Multiverse, as usual, was completely dead) – a video post showcasing my three RP Mini replica presents mentioned above! Because I very much wanted to share how cool they were with everyone. :D So, if you want to see the mini flux capacitor, the mini ghost trap, and the mini hoverboard in action, I encourage you to click that link and watch my hand fumbling around with all of them. XD

FreeTube/Invidious: Welp, I finally got to it today before supper – the hour-long OXBox video that’s been taunting me for a few weeks now: “We Guess the Game from 1 SECOND OF MUSIC!” This was a video featuring Mike presenting a quiz created by The Video Game Professors (another YouTube channel that apparently has a variety of interesting video game quizzes) to Jane, Ellen, and Andy, where they had to guess what game a song came from based on one second of music from said song (generally from the very beginning, though I think a few seconds were sampled from later on)! Though Mike was generous and gave out points for getting the general franchise name right if they couldn’t get the specific game (for example, putting Grand Theft Auto for a song specifically from GTA: San Andreas), which really helped me as I played along. XD Notable moments from the video included:

( In case you want to track down the video and play yourself, I’ll put these behind a spoiler cut )

Writing: I started rather later than I might have liked – a consequence of watching the OXBox video during the afternoon, I’m sure – but I did manage to do a bit of editing on “The Van Dort Vacancy” today, just like I wanted. :) Just got through the one page today, but what a page it was, covering:

A) Victor overhearing his parents talking about his “ghost bride” story through the door, with Nell being like “he actually expected us to believe all that?” and William being like “well, I don’t know, it’s pretty fantastical but ghosts are very unstable, one could have kidnapped him after hearing him recite his vows…”

And Nell replying, “Oh, don’t be ridiculous, William. What ghost would marry our Victor?” Causing poor Victor to feel like he’d been punched in the gut, because while he’d already known she didn’t believe him, to hear her say that in tones of such derision was – something else. :(

B) Victor miserably realizing that his mother doesn’t believe anyone could ever love him, and that his father will never go against her because he’s not the perfect heir to the cannery he wanted...and then becoming furious as it hits him that Alice and Smiler, who he’s known for four days, have treated him better than William and Nell ever did for a lifetime. And THEN the thought of being separated from them thanks to his parents not approving of their friendship making him realize further that he basically just does not want to be a Van Dort anymore. That he’d rather be in Elder Gutknecht’s unheated house, eating surprise loaf for breakfast with Alice and Smiler, than the gilded prison of the Van Dort mansion because at least at Gutknecht’s he’s around people who actually care about him! And now that he knows what it feels like to be wanted...well. He is NOT giving it up.

C) And Victor storming off across the ballroom, thinking about how long it’ll take him to reach his bedroom, and what he should pack, and if it would be prudent to go talk to Alice and Smiler first, before his parents find out about them waiting at the servants’ entrance...only to be abruptly jerked back into the here and now when he runs into someone, because sometimes it’s better to actually pay attention where you’re going even if you’re in a snit.

Good stuff! I admit, I struggled to get going at first, but I’m happy with how the edits came out in the end – especially Victor realizing just how little he wants to be a Van Dort anymore. *nods* I left off with Victor apologizing to the guy he bumped into – tomorrow, we get to learn exactly who that guy is, and I probably get to watch some Oxventure Presents: Blades In The Dark to make sure I’ve got his voice right. :P Somebody’s gotta have a collection of “best Barnaby moments” from that series, right?

And there you have it -- a merry enough Christmas for me! However, as of this writing, it's actually 2 AM on Boxing Day, so I really ought to get to sleep. XD Goals for tomorrow: finish off that "Valicer In The Dark" masterpost I started in my Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) (because why not, I already put in most of the work); work some more on "The Van Dort Vacancy" (I'm actually fairly close to finishing off Chapter 2 -- be nice to post it sometime around the beginning of 2026!); play some Baldur's Gate III (it's been a fucking while and I miss it); watch the OXmas tiebreaker episode (gotta see if Ellen or Andy gets the crown!); and get in a workout (gotta finish off my time with the festive Bake-Offs). Hopefully these are all achievable goals -- night all! Merry Christmas!