Decent Enough Sunday
Dec. 12th, 2021 11:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickStill some tension (mainly from football games that ALMOST didn't go the way my Dad wanted them to go), but at least we didn't have anything from my aunt today, so -- that was good? Also there were chocolate chip cookies. That makes everything better. *nods*
Anyway, had a fairly busy day, so let's see the list:
1. Continue editing gift fics: Check – got through tumblr friend SlyCooper’s today, which is a sequel to the birthday fic with his character Phillianne Tropy as an unusually kind-hearted Ventrue Camarilla Prince visiting L.A. during the time of VTMB. After giving Alice a night off and having a snippy conversation with LaCroix about it in the birthday fic, SlyCooper asked for one featuring her meeting the Anarchs in The Last Round – and after some discussion, that was turned into meeting Damsel in The Last Round. Damsel was – not happy to see her, as you might expect. XD Kinda fun to write her swearing up a storm – good practice for when she shows up in “Londerland Bloodlines” too!
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs and see if Jon has a Fallout 4 video: Check – easy today, with only two Subs videos. . .though the Jon one was kind of a substitution, as you shall see below. . .
A) Started this evening with Call Me Kevin – and the return of the Sims 2 save file! O.O Yeah, apparently Kevin managed to unfuck it enough to start a second “season,” of sorts – buying his self Sim a new, almost completely empty house (one light, one phone), and then going around meeting people to mooch off their hospitality! And burn their houses down. XD So far, in his adventures in moving in with other people temporarily, he has forced Peter Ottomas to fight every woman who dares find him attractive using his powers of influence (this is at least three women); caused severe mental distress to the Waltons (a dude who adopted none other than Test Tube 1 Curious, one of Sim!Kevin’s alien babies – the kid NEARLY got taken away while Sim!Kevin was there, but a last-minute feeding by the new father spared the kid. . .or condemned them to continuing to live in this save file, your choice); started and was immediately fired from a Dance job as an aerobics instructor (tried to dance on a hurt leg, fell over and caused a panic); caused multiple fires at the Ramaswamis before locking them into one room to starve to death (the wife was dead by the time he left, and the husband not far behind); and finally found Peter’s house and burned down the kitchen – and then manipulated some of the family into STANDING BY THE FIRE. By the end of the day, only the pregnant mother and the toddler abandoned outside was still alive. Oh, and he started a successful career in the military. XD Ah, this is lovely nostalgic chaos – looking forward to however long it lasts!
B) Then it was over to GrayStillPlays for more Happy Wheels! This one didn’t actually have that many boards – we had the bottle flip of Yeets and Shoutouts (Gray got Yeetynator pretty quickly, but it took him a few tries to get SHOUTOUT (ALL CAPS) properly standing up); Gray’s Toilet Board (where Pogo Man had to pogo his way to the bathroom through the Yeet Mall (knocking over anyone in his way) to get rid of the meat cleaver stuck up his backside); Troll Board #1 (where Gray figured out pretty quickly that going backwards was the only way to go, but nearly got minced by some gaps that were on a timer – also by some harpoons); Troll Board #2 (a pair of boosts going in opposite directions designed to bounce you back and forth away from a win – it was only after abandoning his bike that Gray realized the win post-the-boosts was locked off behind an invisible wall and the actual win was down a hidden gap); Harpoon Run Long (where Nixon not only had to Segway past all the harpoons, but also leap over the shapes in his path – took Gray a couple of tries, but he did it); Rope Swing Fatal (a very short and simple rope swing where dying was easy, but winning was also easy because you didn’t need to be alive to win); and finally – F L E S H. A horror board featuring a fleshy landscape filled with eyes, teeth, and bones, you had to ride through, which took up a full HALF THE EPISODE because Gray was having so much trouble getting past BOTH sets of toothy crushers in the level. Eventually figured out the first set, but it was a miracle that saved him from the second set. Winning this one took a LOT of time, and a LOT of nightmares. Yeesh.
C) And then it was time for Jon, who did not have a new Fallout 4 video, but did have a new Fallout: New Vegas video – and as it was titled “Fallout: New Vegas - Utter Chaos - The Day The Mojave Broke,” I was sufficiently intrigued to check it out. And – you know how I was amazed and amused to see Call Me Kevin using both the Randomizer Mod and the Chaos Mod together in GTA V?
Yeah, Jon’s using AT LEAST FOUR DIFFERENT RANDOMIZERS in F:NV right now. There’s a randomizer for the character models (Victor is a Cadazore, Doc Mitchell is tiny, and half the NCR is dressed up in Legion gear). There’s a randomizer for Jon’s character build (the Courier has 10 Charisma, 10 Agility, 5s in Strength, Perception, and Endurance, 3 Intelligence, and 2 Luck; and his tagged skills are Energy Weapons, Explosives, and Melee Weapons). And, most importantly, there’s a randomizer for locations. How the fuck does that work?
EVERY DOOR NOW GOES TO A RANDOM LOCATION. Now, the doors don’t change every time you visit them – once a location is chosen, it always goes there – but it means that none of the shop doors lead into the shops. The schoolhouse leads out into the DLC Lonesome Road. Part of one of the NCR camps leads directly into the Hoover Dam. Basically, trying to find the right door to take you to the right place is going to be the world’s biggest crapshoot. Add onto this everyone has random armor and weapons, AND Jon – in the spirit of the chaotic nature of the game – took the “Wild Wasteland” trait, which makes things even weirder, and – well. This is either going to be a very short series, or a very LONG one, depending on what the hell happens with Jon finding the right locations to actually advance the damn story. I mean, hell, finding MISSIONS he could do as a level one character was tricky enough! He’s only JUST got to Level Three, poor bastard, and that was only due to being able to get to an NCR camp and do a really simple “hey this town I found is all burned down because of Legion” report to two different characters! I really don’t know enough about F:NV to report in detail on his activities, but it’s DEFINITELY amusing to watch him try to find a good path to any location through the random doors, and hear him comment on Lakelurks spitting lasers at traveling merchants in power armor and top hats, or watch one of the Legion Big Bads end up in Camp Golf, which I assume to be an NCR camp, and shoot it to pieces, sooo. . . I think I’ll stick with it. It’s definitely not a good way to learn about the game, but I’m only ever planning on playing FO4 in the series anyway. XD
3. Play either Bloodlines and go fight the Sabbat, or Fallout 4 and get everybody to Sanctuary: Double Check – because there was no “or.” I ended up playing BOTH as I had nothing pressing in the YouTube Watch Later queue, and only two videos in the Subs! :D Rare for me to be able to pull THAT off. . .here’s how it went down:
VTMB – Had a bit of a frustrating time in Bloodlines today, sadly – after dropping by Crystal’s haven, I had her release Heather for her own good (aw), check up on e-mails, then report to the Prince to learn about the Sabbat attack and get her orders to take them out in the Hallowbrook Hotel. She took a moment to talk to Beckett, telling him what Johansen had told her and getting an experience point out of it. That FINALLY got her Intelligence up to three and her Research up to nine, allowing her to read the skill book she had on her – only for it to say she ALSO needed a Dodge of four to use it. *grumbles* From there I decided it was time to swing by Confession for cash and blood, then go to visit Mercurio in Santa Monica to see if he had anything useful for sale.
I must have reloaded that map FIVE TIMES before I finally realized that, no, it’s not my mouse, there’s just some sort of glitch in this game that makes Crystal punch people and get police attention if an officer is in the wrong spot at the wrong time when she arrives in SM. *heavy sigh* And the FIRST time she tried to hide from the police by Kilpatrick’s, a homeless woman ended up trapping her in said alley by the mere act of sitting down just next to where she was crouching. I eventually had her flee to the sewers by the Asylum, and wait out the hunt there while fully refilling her blood on rats. Finally came up by Gimble’s, then visited Mercurio, trading a bunch of other weapons for the Dragonsbreath shotgun. From there it was back to Downtown, and into the Hallowbrook itself to fight the Sabbat! Which actually went pretty well, especially with Crystal’s ability to Blood Boil people. . .
But then I got to Andrei.
I have forgotten what a ROYAL PAIN IN THE ASS Andrei is in his Zulo form. Again, I want to say I died at least five, six times? No matter what I did, he always got me. I think part of the problem is that I’ve gone into this at about roughly half-blood (thanks to the previous Blood Boiling), and he is INCREDIBLY hard to dodge, especially with the way he keeps diving into the blood pools in the arena. I’ve made a save right before entering said arena, where I’ve murdered a couple more of his cronies for a spare blood point in the Odious Chalice. . .but I think what I REALLY need to do is reload back in Santa Monica (if possible), and swing by Vandal as well as Mercurio. Extra blood stores might be the only damn thing that keeps me alive. Ugh, why does the end game here have to be so haaaard. . .
FO4 – Fortunately, had a better and calmer experience in Fallout 4, by virtue of not having to fight anything. Victor caught up with Preston and his gang in the Museum, then walked with them back to Sanctuary, fighting his own growing exhaustion along the way. (It is totally canon he completed that fight with the Deathclaw running on old Nuka-Cola fumes. XD) I sent him to bed once he’d put his power armor by the station and stowed a bunch of his shit, then had him catch up with Codsworth and Preston once he woke up that afternoon. He’s taken Codsworth on as a companion for the nonce, agreed to help out Tenpines Bluff for Preston – but first things first, he’s helping Sturges turn Sanctuary into a decent place to live. First day he built beds for everyone in a few of the sturdier houses (cleaning up all the junk as he went) and got a water purifier set up in the river; now it’s time to fix the food situation – and what better way to do THAT than go looking for that Orchard that “Appletree Bakery and Creamery” added to my game? Though I had him swing by the Red Rocket in search of Dogmeat first (who I think temporarily despawned when I was fighting the Deathclaw -- fortunately, trading him for Codsworth made him reappear at the Red Rocket), to get all the stuff he stored on the dog back and scrap/store as much of it as possible. To my delight, Dogmeat DOES use the bed you can build for him with “Campsite!” :D How cute. :D But yeah, Victor’s upgraded his armor a little, switched from his vault suit to road leathers – next trip, to the orchard! Wonder if the bear from previous versions of the “Apples” mod is still there. . .
4. Get the Wednesday Chill Save update started in VictorLuvsAlice's drafts: Check – I did the pictures last night, as I said I might, and then got them into starter drafts on Victor Luvs Alice, yay. Still gotta complete the text, but I can do that tomorrow evening at some point. Also got my queue done for Valice Multiverse – just one ask reply, so that was nothing too major.
5. Get in a workout: No check – the aforementioned “double check” on my gaming technically left me enough time, but I got distracted by internet stuff and never made it down to the basement. *shrug* Not the end of the world!
Additionally:
-->Helped my Mom do a bit of Christmas decorating – she handled the outside stuff on her own, but I joined in to help her pin the ornaments to the curtains (. . .we don’t do Christmas trees anymore) and set up those without strings on the fireplace mantel and suchlike. So yeah, bit of Christmas spirit in this house at last. :p
So no check on one item, but a double check on another -- I guess it evens out. :p Now I just have to get through the upcoming week. . .last full one before the end of the year, and there's a non-zero chance of getting out early on Wednesday (holiday party -- I'M not going, but I think they have to let everyone out early so those who ARE going can attend). Hopefully it's not TOO stressful -- though everything tends to be extra stressful when I'm PMSing, unfortunately, sooo. . .we'll see. *wince* Night all!
Anyway, had a fairly busy day, so let's see the list:
1. Continue editing gift fics: Check – got through tumblr friend SlyCooper’s today, which is a sequel to the birthday fic with his character Phillianne Tropy as an unusually kind-hearted Ventrue Camarilla Prince visiting L.A. during the time of VTMB. After giving Alice a night off and having a snippy conversation with LaCroix about it in the birthday fic, SlyCooper asked for one featuring her meeting the Anarchs in The Last Round – and after some discussion, that was turned into meeting Damsel in The Last Round. Damsel was – not happy to see her, as you might expect. XD Kinda fun to write her swearing up a storm – good practice for when she shows up in “Londerland Bloodlines” too!
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs and see if Jon has a Fallout 4 video: Check – easy today, with only two Subs videos. . .though the Jon one was kind of a substitution, as you shall see below. . .
A) Started this evening with Call Me Kevin – and the return of the Sims 2 save file! O.O Yeah, apparently Kevin managed to unfuck it enough to start a second “season,” of sorts – buying his self Sim a new, almost completely empty house (one light, one phone), and then going around meeting people to mooch off their hospitality! And burn their houses down. XD So far, in his adventures in moving in with other people temporarily, he has forced Peter Ottomas to fight every woman who dares find him attractive using his powers of influence (this is at least three women); caused severe mental distress to the Waltons (a dude who adopted none other than Test Tube 1 Curious, one of Sim!Kevin’s alien babies – the kid NEARLY got taken away while Sim!Kevin was there, but a last-minute feeding by the new father spared the kid. . .or condemned them to continuing to live in this save file, your choice); started and was immediately fired from a Dance job as an aerobics instructor (tried to dance on a hurt leg, fell over and caused a panic); caused multiple fires at the Ramaswamis before locking them into one room to starve to death (the wife was dead by the time he left, and the husband not far behind); and finally found Peter’s house and burned down the kitchen – and then manipulated some of the family into STANDING BY THE FIRE. By the end of the day, only the pregnant mother and the toddler abandoned outside was still alive. Oh, and he started a successful career in the military. XD Ah, this is lovely nostalgic chaos – looking forward to however long it lasts!
B) Then it was over to GrayStillPlays for more Happy Wheels! This one didn’t actually have that many boards – we had the bottle flip of Yeets and Shoutouts (Gray got Yeetynator pretty quickly, but it took him a few tries to get SHOUTOUT (ALL CAPS) properly standing up); Gray’s Toilet Board (where Pogo Man had to pogo his way to the bathroom through the Yeet Mall (knocking over anyone in his way) to get rid of the meat cleaver stuck up his backside); Troll Board #1 (where Gray figured out pretty quickly that going backwards was the only way to go, but nearly got minced by some gaps that were on a timer – also by some harpoons); Troll Board #2 (a pair of boosts going in opposite directions designed to bounce you back and forth away from a win – it was only after abandoning his bike that Gray realized the win post-the-boosts was locked off behind an invisible wall and the actual win was down a hidden gap); Harpoon Run Long (where Nixon not only had to Segway past all the harpoons, but also leap over the shapes in his path – took Gray a couple of tries, but he did it); Rope Swing Fatal (a very short and simple rope swing where dying was easy, but winning was also easy because you didn’t need to be alive to win); and finally – F L E S H. A horror board featuring a fleshy landscape filled with eyes, teeth, and bones, you had to ride through, which took up a full HALF THE EPISODE because Gray was having so much trouble getting past BOTH sets of toothy crushers in the level. Eventually figured out the first set, but it was a miracle that saved him from the second set. Winning this one took a LOT of time, and a LOT of nightmares. Yeesh.
C) And then it was time for Jon, who did not have a new Fallout 4 video, but did have a new Fallout: New Vegas video – and as it was titled “Fallout: New Vegas - Utter Chaos - The Day The Mojave Broke,” I was sufficiently intrigued to check it out. And – you know how I was amazed and amused to see Call Me Kevin using both the Randomizer Mod and the Chaos Mod together in GTA V?
Yeah, Jon’s using AT LEAST FOUR DIFFERENT RANDOMIZERS in F:NV right now. There’s a randomizer for the character models (Victor is a Cadazore, Doc Mitchell is tiny, and half the NCR is dressed up in Legion gear). There’s a randomizer for Jon’s character build (the Courier has 10 Charisma, 10 Agility, 5s in Strength, Perception, and Endurance, 3 Intelligence, and 2 Luck; and his tagged skills are Energy Weapons, Explosives, and Melee Weapons). And, most importantly, there’s a randomizer for locations. How the fuck does that work?
EVERY DOOR NOW GOES TO A RANDOM LOCATION. Now, the doors don’t change every time you visit them – once a location is chosen, it always goes there – but it means that none of the shop doors lead into the shops. The schoolhouse leads out into the DLC Lonesome Road. Part of one of the NCR camps leads directly into the Hoover Dam. Basically, trying to find the right door to take you to the right place is going to be the world’s biggest crapshoot. Add onto this everyone has random armor and weapons, AND Jon – in the spirit of the chaotic nature of the game – took the “Wild Wasteland” trait, which makes things even weirder, and – well. This is either going to be a very short series, or a very LONG one, depending on what the hell happens with Jon finding the right locations to actually advance the damn story. I mean, hell, finding MISSIONS he could do as a level one character was tricky enough! He’s only JUST got to Level Three, poor bastard, and that was only due to being able to get to an NCR camp and do a really simple “hey this town I found is all burned down because of Legion” report to two different characters! I really don’t know enough about F:NV to report in detail on his activities, but it’s DEFINITELY amusing to watch him try to find a good path to any location through the random doors, and hear him comment on Lakelurks spitting lasers at traveling merchants in power armor and top hats, or watch one of the Legion Big Bads end up in Camp Golf, which I assume to be an NCR camp, and shoot it to pieces, sooo. . . I think I’ll stick with it. It’s definitely not a good way to learn about the game, but I’m only ever planning on playing FO4 in the series anyway. XD
3. Play either Bloodlines and go fight the Sabbat, or Fallout 4 and get everybody to Sanctuary: Double Check – because there was no “or.” I ended up playing BOTH as I had nothing pressing in the YouTube Watch Later queue, and only two videos in the Subs! :D Rare for me to be able to pull THAT off. . .here’s how it went down:
VTMB – Had a bit of a frustrating time in Bloodlines today, sadly – after dropping by Crystal’s haven, I had her release Heather for her own good (aw), check up on e-mails, then report to the Prince to learn about the Sabbat attack and get her orders to take them out in the Hallowbrook Hotel. She took a moment to talk to Beckett, telling him what Johansen had told her and getting an experience point out of it. That FINALLY got her Intelligence up to three and her Research up to nine, allowing her to read the skill book she had on her – only for it to say she ALSO needed a Dodge of four to use it. *grumbles* From there I decided it was time to swing by Confession for cash and blood, then go to visit Mercurio in Santa Monica to see if he had anything useful for sale.
I must have reloaded that map FIVE TIMES before I finally realized that, no, it’s not my mouse, there’s just some sort of glitch in this game that makes Crystal punch people and get police attention if an officer is in the wrong spot at the wrong time when she arrives in SM. *heavy sigh* And the FIRST time she tried to hide from the police by Kilpatrick’s, a homeless woman ended up trapping her in said alley by the mere act of sitting down just next to where she was crouching. I eventually had her flee to the sewers by the Asylum, and wait out the hunt there while fully refilling her blood on rats. Finally came up by Gimble’s, then visited Mercurio, trading a bunch of other weapons for the Dragonsbreath shotgun. From there it was back to Downtown, and into the Hallowbrook itself to fight the Sabbat! Which actually went pretty well, especially with Crystal’s ability to Blood Boil people. . .
But then I got to Andrei.
I have forgotten what a ROYAL PAIN IN THE ASS Andrei is in his Zulo form. Again, I want to say I died at least five, six times? No matter what I did, he always got me. I think part of the problem is that I’ve gone into this at about roughly half-blood (thanks to the previous Blood Boiling), and he is INCREDIBLY hard to dodge, especially with the way he keeps diving into the blood pools in the arena. I’ve made a save right before entering said arena, where I’ve murdered a couple more of his cronies for a spare blood point in the Odious Chalice. . .but I think what I REALLY need to do is reload back in Santa Monica (if possible), and swing by Vandal as well as Mercurio. Extra blood stores might be the only damn thing that keeps me alive. Ugh, why does the end game here have to be so haaaard. . .
FO4 – Fortunately, had a better and calmer experience in Fallout 4, by virtue of not having to fight anything. Victor caught up with Preston and his gang in the Museum, then walked with them back to Sanctuary, fighting his own growing exhaustion along the way. (It is totally canon he completed that fight with the Deathclaw running on old Nuka-Cola fumes. XD) I sent him to bed once he’d put his power armor by the station and stowed a bunch of his shit, then had him catch up with Codsworth and Preston once he woke up that afternoon. He’s taken Codsworth on as a companion for the nonce, agreed to help out Tenpines Bluff for Preston – but first things first, he’s helping Sturges turn Sanctuary into a decent place to live. First day he built beds for everyone in a few of the sturdier houses (cleaning up all the junk as he went) and got a water purifier set up in the river; now it’s time to fix the food situation – and what better way to do THAT than go looking for that Orchard that “Appletree Bakery and Creamery” added to my game? Though I had him swing by the Red Rocket in search of Dogmeat first (who I think temporarily despawned when I was fighting the Deathclaw -- fortunately, trading him for Codsworth made him reappear at the Red Rocket), to get all the stuff he stored on the dog back and scrap/store as much of it as possible. To my delight, Dogmeat DOES use the bed you can build for him with “Campsite!” :D How cute. :D But yeah, Victor’s upgraded his armor a little, switched from his vault suit to road leathers – next trip, to the orchard! Wonder if the bear from previous versions of the “Apples” mod is still there. . .
4. Get the Wednesday Chill Save update started in VictorLuvsAlice's drafts: Check – I did the pictures last night, as I said I might, and then got them into starter drafts on Victor Luvs Alice, yay. Still gotta complete the text, but I can do that tomorrow evening at some point. Also got my queue done for Valice Multiverse – just one ask reply, so that was nothing too major.
5. Get in a workout: No check – the aforementioned “double check” on my gaming technically left me enough time, but I got distracted by internet stuff and never made it down to the basement. *shrug* Not the end of the world!
Additionally:
-->Helped my Mom do a bit of Christmas decorating – she handled the outside stuff on her own, but I joined in to help her pin the ornaments to the curtains (. . .we don’t do Christmas trees anymore) and set up those without strings on the fireplace mantel and suchlike. So yeah, bit of Christmas spirit in this house at last. :p
So no check on one item, but a double check on another -- I guess it evens out. :p Now I just have to get through the upcoming week. . .last full one before the end of the year, and there's a non-zero chance of getting out early on Wednesday (holiday party -- I'M not going, but I think they have to let everyone out early so those who ARE going can attend). Hopefully it's not TOO stressful -- though everything tends to be extra stressful when I'm PMSing, unfortunately, sooo. . .we'll see. *wince* Night all!
