Happy Birthday Victor! :D
Jun. 9th, 2024 11:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickYes, my favorite Victorian stop-motion puppet noodle's birthday is today (as per his actor's birthday), and while it wasn't perfect (weather was cold and rainy for a good portion of the day, for a start), it was certainly good enough, with me getting a lot done and indulging in a lot of Corpse Bride-themed goodness, among other things --
Tumblr: Another decently-productive day over here –
Victor Luvs Alice – After listening to some Corpse Bride remixes while making my bed and getting dressed (in my CB t-shirt and Victor socks, of course), I put on some CB ambiance music videos and caught up on my tracked tags (unfortunately nothing I wanted to reblog or add to the drafts in any of them), then managed to get three out of the five Chill Valicer Save update posts fully sorted with image alt text before lunch. And then, this evening, I posted up my “plushy celebration” pic for Victor’s birthday, showing Victor Plush, Alice Dolly, Smileon, Us, and Dougie all gathered in my computer chair while Victor received a cinnamon bun – aka my breakfast this morning. XD I do enjoy doing those silly photoshoots – though Us’s size means they’re often a bit of a photobomber when I do shots like these. Need to spread things out more in new locations in future years, I think!
Valice Multiverse – Three anon asks to throw into the queue tonight – one about how “idiot,” “imbecile,” and “moron” used to be medical terms for people with specific low IQs (Alice wondered if anyone still used them as medical terms, and Smiler confirmed it wasn’t really done anymore, while also introducing her to the insult “jobbernowl,” which I love); one about how “psychiatrists are just people who weren’t smart enough to be psychics” (Alice allowed this on the basis of a psychic Bumby might have been able to tell Lizzie wasn’t into him); and a follow-up to the ask about Jimmy Carter’s hated temperature control program saying that a post-COVID Alice might appreciate better the extremes people go to for comfort (to which I could only sigh and agree OOC, because ugh). So that’s all sorted!
Fallout 4: Had a pretty productive day in the Commonwealth, with my Sole Survivor Victor and companion Ada making some good progress on getting that robobrain out of Rust Devil headquarters –
A) Started at the checkpoint into the town around Fort Hagen, just up the hill from My Personal Chaos Junction – I had Victor and Ada continue up the hill from the checkpoint into the town itself, past the shed with all the military vehicles and power armor stations; hooking a right past a small group of glowing radstag bucks; proceeding on past the Blood Clinic and a playground currently occupied by a whole flock of radchickens; and finally hanging a left by Fort Hagen itself to head directly toward the Fort Hagen Satellite Array. As the Array came into sight, I had Victor get out the Mighty Sniper and chow down on a Bloodbug Steak to fully heal himself and give himself a little bit of bonus HP. . .
B) Then it was up the hill and onto the rocks to the left of the Array so Victor could scope out the kind of opposition he expected to face using his recon scope! The initial scan of the side of the base revealed one human guard on a tower and a Mr. Handy Wrecker bumming about nearby – Victor marked them both, then took out the human guard with a manual headshot, then started skittering around to try and avoid notice and/or blind-fire. A couple of Mr. Handys came along, but were easily taken out by the sniper before Victor was forced to drop off the rocks to avoid some laser beams coming in his direction. Ada firing furiously on a Protectron Devil allowed Victor to use VATS to take that bot out, then he continued bobbing and weaving all around until he was able to take out the final couple of human guards and turret trying to get him. One of the humans happened to be a Legendary, so after figuring out where I’d killed the first couple of robots, I worked my way over to them, looting all the corpses along the way –
And found a Crippling Gamma Gun on the corpse! This thing does 50% more limb damage, but it’s also a very situational gun – since it deals radiation damage, it’s basically good for humans and not much else. Though it MIGHT be worth keeping, since I do intend to do the Cabot quests at some point, and I would not say no to the Ridiculous Physics Gun that you get from siding with Jack on that. . . Victor had the carry weight to take it, so into the pockets it went! We’ll decide later.
C) With the initial wave of enemies on the outside taken care of, Victor and Ada proceeded to explore the exterior of the camp, looking for any stragglers and any good loot to take. The place was, uh, interesting looking to say the least – the Rust Devils hang bags of metal scrap around their camp like super mutants hang meat bags, and there were a number of totems around consisting of robot bodies with human skulls and the like. O.o Oookay then. . . They also had a big grand entrance with skulls, metal scrap, another turret (which was easily taken out), and a couple of tripwire traps on the road that I presume were linked to the flamethrower traps hidden in the archway itself (Victor disarmed the tripwires, but the only option for the flamethrower traps was ACTIVATE, so I left those alone) – a shame Victor and Ada approached from the other side! XD
D) Anyway – once the traps were disarmed, Victor downed a Nuka-Cola to fend off the encroaching tiredness (he and Ada had come over here in late afternoon, after all, and night was starting to fall), then continued exploring for goodies before trying to get into the main camp itself (a hangar whose entrance was apparently in one of the big satellite dish towers). As he had gotten pretty much everything on ground level, he followed the little plank bridge that went up and around the other satellite dish, grabbing whatever he found along the way –
And discovered that the pathway ended at a homemade computer terminal sitting on a platform attached to the “main” satellite dish. Investigating the terminal revealed it had two things on it – a notice about how they couldn’t skimp on lookout patrols, and how they absolutely needed to have two actual humans with any robots they sent out because of the Mechanist possibly coming after their own bots –
And a security door control! :D So Victor would have had to come up here anyway. I promptly had him open the security door, then head back down and around, through the now-open door on the “main” satellite dish, and into a small room with not much in it but a few shelves –
E) And a trap door into the main hangar! Victor and Ada descended, and after an annoyingly long black loading screen, the duo found themselves at the top of a long rusty spiral set of stairs going down. They headed down into a bit empty room with a few nice bits of loot, a VERY locked door to the left, and a laser tripwire to the right. Victor disarmed the laser tripwire, then went to look at the Very Locked Door to see if there was any way to open it from the side they were on (nope) –
And then turned around to see Ada scrambling on ahead in the other direction, past an Assaultron totem that might have acted as another trap. *facepalm* Companions sometimes. . . Anyway, Victor disarmed the totem as, fortunately, Ada came back without alerting anyone or anything, then went through the door on the right to see what lay ahead. There was a human guard and a Handy guard at the bottom of a big slope – Victor got out the Mighty Sniper, tagged them both with the recon scope, and managed to take out the Handy with a sneak attack –
Only for a SECOND Handy to show up and very rapidly make its way up to Victor, causing me to panic slightly and accidentally fire just to left of it as I tried to get sorted with either VATS or my scope. *facepalm* Fortunately Ada got a few good hits in, and I was able to kill it and the human guard as they tried to approach us without much more issue. Still, could have done without being surprised like that!
F) With those initial three taken care of, I had Victor and Ada make their way down the slope, loot the bodies and the guard’s little sitting area, then make their way through the security gate to the right into a big old room with lots of machinery and crates and whatnot (after a better look around a bit later, I realized that this was some sort of tank storage and production room). I was able to immediately spot one Rust Devil on a catwalk above Victor’s head, and another that I was unfortunately unable to get a bead on with the recon scope from Victor’s current position. I thus had him shuffle carefully into the room and try to get another look from a little further in –
Only to get the attention of another human Rust Devil patrolling. Who, fortunately, was easy to take out, but did manage to raise enough of an alarm that I AGAIN had Mr. Handy Wreckers coming right into my face. Fortunately I managed to shoot them all without issue, take down the guard up top, then help Ada take down a Protectron Devil had had gotten stuck on the scenery. XD I could hear at least one more human running around looking for us, though, and I started scrambling around trying to get a bead on them before they could get one on me. . .
And in such goal I succeeded, as the roaming Rust Devil lost interest before coming anywhere near me. Mostly because he refused to come across the room. XD I finally got eyes on him and the turret he was with at the back of the room after doing a little more exploring of the front, and took them both out with pretty much no issue (the turret ATTEMPTED to shoot Victor, but he had accidental cover behind a beam at the time, so – yeah XD). We love it when the enemies are very very dumb. XD
G) With the enemies taken out, Victor and Ada were free to explore – though as Victor did his initial sweep, trying to find goodies, doors to pick open, and computers to hack, he started feeling tired again. And when I checked the in-game time, I saw that it was roughly 11:30 PM, so I decided, “Okay, we’ve definitely cleared out this room, it should be safe to actually SLEEP here rather than force him to push on with more Nuka-Cola.” So I let him set up his tent by the power armor stations on the side of the room and take a quick six-hour nap. Once he was back up, though, it was back to business, with me investigating whatever nooks and crannies I could and discovering the following –
I. A terminal at the top of some stairs up to a broken catwalk that (after I managed to accidentally guess the password on the very first try) allowed me to open all the security doors in the base by lifting the lockdown it was currently under – I didn’t want to give up the lockpick XP from opening a couple of other security doors I’d found at ground level, though, so I waited to unlock things until I’d picked open all of those doors
II. A security door opening into space right next to the terminal (where the catwalk abruptly ended), which Victor had to jump into when he finally opened it – fortunately it was a small jump, but unfortunately all it led to was a little bit of catwalk over the spot where he and Ada had killed the initial guard, with an explosives box with a few grenades and such in it. Not sure that was worth potentially breaking Victor’s legs!
III. An unlocked room to the left that proved to be a medical ward with a few nice aluminum bits and bobs (always gotta have plenty of those!)
IV. A novice-locked security door on the right that led into a room mostly occupied by one giant generator thing and a toolbox with some goodies in it
V. An expert-locked security door near the novice-locked one that had another expert-locked security door behind it, and a couple of power armor stations crammed into the tiny space on either side of it –
One of which had a FULL set of X-01 Mk. III power armor. INCLUDING THE RIGHT LEG I NEEDED. :D I initially thought “great, I’ll swing by this place when I next come down to visit Virgil for the teleporter plans and grab the leg then,” but then was like “you know what, I do NOT want to forget about this thing,” so I came back and got it after poking around behind the novice-locked door and going up the nearby stairs to check out the platform one of the guards was standing on. Victor has the carry weight, after all! So I guess my real question is, do I now just keep it on me until the next time I go and see Virgil, or do I quickly double back through My Personal Chaos Junction and over to where I left Victor’s personal power armor set in Natick to put the leg on right away and see if I can upgrade it all the way to Mk. VI? Decisions, decisions. . .
VI. An old computer command center up at the top of the stairs, along the route to the platform that one guard was standing on, with one skeleton still clutching a drinking glass slumped by a desk, and a few bits and bobs to loot scattered around the place
VII. And, behind expert-locked security door number two in the Surprise Power Armor mini-room, a room with a bunch of radioactive barrels in it! I decided I was NOT going to investigate THAT right away –
H) But then I finished my explorations around the rest of the room and was like “wait, there’s not really anywhere else to go. . .okay, maybe if I’m careful and quick I can get through the rads room.” So I had Victor very cautiously venture his way inside. . .
And discovered, to my relief, that there actually WASN’T that much radiation in there – you had to get REALLY close to the barrels before you started taking rads. Victor was able to skim around them without many problems, raiding a box for ammo as he did –
I) And then I saw that the security door on the left (which had been closed when I initially picked it) was now open. And that there was a terminal next to it with the same “Lockdown Terminal” labeling as the one I’d hacked open at the top of the catwalk. Seems like I’d accidentally opened the path to my objective from the wrong computer. XD A little further exploring revealed I’d also opened a door at the top of some stairs into the computer room I found before during my explorations, so that was handy – can avoid the rad barrels while leaving this place now, if I need to. I thus ventured through the open security door into a big “boss arena” room with lots of robot bits, more totems, hanging cages, stairs going up and down around the place –
And a quest marker, about 24 clicks away from me, waiting for me to go and say hello. I debated for a moment if I wanted to go ahead and say hi to Jezebel the robo-brain and actually collect her before stopping for the day. . .
And then I remembered “oh, there’s a big boss fight with a big old sentry bot when you do that, isn’t there? You know what, I think I’m good for now.” XD
So yes, that is where I saved and quit for the day – with Victor and Ada in the heart of the Rust Devil HQ, within sight of their goal! Though it occurs to me that there might have been one door back where I killed The World’s Most Useless Guard and his turret that I haven’t yet poked my head into yet. . .might want to go and have a peek there before doing anything I can’t take back! We’ll see if I remember that next Sunday. . .though next Sunday IS Father’s Day, so we’ll see if I have time to play Fallout 4 at all first. Fingers crossed we do, even if it’s just a short session!
Writing: Another Sunday spent in my FO4 save file, another Sunday spent updating my FO4 Playthrough Progression doc with the events of my game fanficced up to match my “Fallout of Darkness” verse! As per usual, things were pretty much the same as what happened in the game, only with Alice hanging around (admittedly usually in a sleeping bag at this point in the timeline – gotta get them over to Dunwich Borers) and a few little tweaks here and there –
A) I couldn’t remember off the top of my head if Victor’s come across a Gamma Gun before (possibly, but they’re not exactly the most common of weapons, and he hasn’t tangled much with the Children of Atom, who are the primary users), so when he discovered the Legendary Crippling one on that one Rust Devil, he didn’t even note that it had been modified to cause extra limb damage – he just saw that it was a weird “radiation gun” and was like “not leaving THAT lying around for anyone to pick up.” XD Which, I mean, fair – we’ll see if he does anything more with it later!
B) I made sure to give Alice a more active role in some of the fights once she was in a position to come out of her sleeping bag – she took out the human guard with her sword in the ramp room while Victor was busy missing all of his shots on that surprise second Mr. Handy Wrecker that startled him after he took out the first one, and she shot and killed the guard on the platform by the door when they made their way into the big tank room.
C) Also, that one guard who stopped looking for them way too early after they killed all the other people and robots in the tank room? Turns out he was on his lunch break and decided he cared more about noodles than finding the people killing his friends. XD I mean, to be fair, I try to avoid working on my lunch break as well, but normally I’M not in danger of having my head blown off by a guy with a Mighty Sniper. Like what happened to him. XD (Okay, I think Victor technically shot him in the chest, but details.)
D) And I had Alice and Ada do a little exploring of the base after talking Victor into taking his six-hour nap, confirming that there were a minimum number of Rust Devils in the camp (Alice thinks most of them are out hunting the Mechanist, worried for their robots’ safety), and finding the medical ward (Alice picked up some aluminum trays for Victor), the lockdown computer at the top of the catwalk and the related security door just next to it (Alice made the leap into the opened doorway easily thanks to her Celerity, but she was as disappointed as I was to just find a handful of explosives behind it), the computer command center at the top of the stairs (Alice was very amused by the skeleton holding a drinking glass), and the novice-locked security door protecting the big old turbine (Alice got the tools and duct tape, since she knows Victor likes those). However, since Victor’s the one with the power armor (even it’s really only for going into the Glowing Sea), I made it so Alice was unable to crack the expert-locked security door into the little room with the X-01 set so Victor could do it and get all excited about finding the leg he was missing on his own set. :) Because it’s his birthday and I need to be nice to him. XD
Other than that, though, pretty much as it was in the game, complete with the trio finding their way past those weird rad barrels and into the central chamber of the Rust Devil headquarters, to see the computer array robobrain Jezebel’s been stuck to. Next week, they should be able to free her, hopefully without any major problems from the big sentry bot boss that is protecting her. . .we’ll see how I do in that fight!
YouTube: Got my usual Sunday Two watched, I'm happy to say –
A) First up, we had GrayStillPlays and “When a volcano spawns in the middle of a city,” aka Gray plays City Smash 2! This is the city-wrecking game that puts you in the heart of the city to see your crimes play out (as opposed to just looking in at the cityscape from the side as in the original), and Gray had a lot of crimes to commit. Such as taking control of an ambulance and making it ram other cars! Driving a hovertank through traffic and using it to blast graffiti off walls (by destroying the walls)! Making the worlds’ biggest pothole by coring into the street with massive lightning strikes! Encircling an unfortunate truck with explosive barrels and then piling up so many landmines nearby everything blew up in a massive road-wrecking explosion! Accidentally dropping nukes all around the city! Growing volcanoes out of the road and trying to get the chunklets to hit a passing police copter! Growing volcanoes out of the road and then sticking black holes into the middle of them to see what would happen (black hole eats all the chunklets spewing out of the volcano, basically)! And growing volcanoes out of the center of the city and putting them up against nuclear bombs to see which is the strongest (the volcano – the first one just swallowed the nuke Gray dropped into it, and the second wasn’t damaged a bit by the nuke Gray dropped next to it)! Poor Smash City – its citizens were so tormented today. XD (Though at least Gray made sure to take care of those weird in-game billboards showing Pampers ads. Like, really, game? Really? XD)
B) And second up, we had Jon of Many A True Nerd and “Fallout 4: Sim Settlements 2 - Part 38 - Radical Thinking!” AKA the episode where Mayor Bob, in his never-ending quest to become God-King of the Commonwealth and help his friend Jake, gathered the materials to build a pair of Vault-Tec super-reactors to provide the necessary power to his new headquarters so Jake could get some of his engineering projects off the ground. How did that go?
I. Well, first things first, Jon thanked the commenters for reminding him that, oh yes, Vault 88 and its related tunnels are actually chock full of uranium, meaning there’s a surplus of nuclear material there. The very thing he was complaining about having a shortage of at the end of last episode. XD So he sent Bob on a grand tour through the North, Northeast, and East sectors to kill all the enemies, gather up the various control boards, and activate the sub-workshops so he could break down all the glowing green rocks and uranium barrels in the various tunnels and scoop up the nuclear material, along with gathering it off any glowing enemies he might find and tearing down limestone walls to unearth the super-enemies behind them. Here’s how that went, sector by sector:
North Sector – Bob found mostly mole rats and ghouls (who had no good legendaries on them) in the main tunnels as he killed his way to the control boards, none of whom posed a major problem given he had Deliverer in hand. He got a good amount of nuclear material from clearing all the uranium rocks and barrels, though – and, behind one of the “boss battle” walls, he found a Legendary Deathclaw Matriarch, who was taken down via sneak attack with the Two-Shot Combat Rifle Bob recently picked up (beloved!), and got a Staggering Minigun off her corpse. Which apparently wasn’t QUITE as good as you might think it was (apparently automatic weapons have a smaller chance to stagger on every shot than non-automatic ones do), but was still good enough for Bob to grab for later!
Northeast Sector – Bob snuck in here around the back way and mostly had ghouls to deal with, though once he got the board he had to face a trio of Mole Rat Brood Mothers, one of which was a Legendary – carrying a Cunning Combat Armor Chest Piece! :D This provides +1 to both Agility and Perception, and given that Bob is a very high-Perception build, Jon was only too happy to trade the Fortifying Metal chest piece he was wearing (which was +1 Strength and Endurance) for it (plus, since the combat armor chest piece was lighter, Bob actually didn’t lose that much carry capacity with the lessened Strength). This awesome find was then completely undercut by Bob opening up another limestone wall and coming across an entire NEST of fucking radscorpions, reducing Jon to terrified stammering as he forced Bob to do all the Psycho-Jet while he blasted them with his Mighty Combat Shotgun. XD I mean, to be fair, it was a fucking LOT of radscorpions, and those fuckers are MEAN – not only are they huge and have poison, they also can burrow under the ground and come up underneath you suddenly. And to add insult to injury, once Bob got through the mess and healed himself, he found that the only Legendary in the bunch had a Troubleshooter’s Hunting Rifle, which is decent (50% more damage against robots), but Jon felt that the one he was carrying, Margaret, was better (50% more damage against synths in particular – plus it’s a tribute to poor Old Paul, may he rest in pixels).
East Sector – Bob came in here expecting Mirelurks, and after killing the requisite lurking ghouls, mirelurks he got, including a glowing Hunter and a Queen he took out with the power of the Two-Shot Combat Rifle (seriously, if you get one in your game, hold the fuck onto it). Unfortunately, his glee at so easily taking out the monsters was dampened by him going on the hunt for nuclear material, finding a huge source of it behind another limestone wall, and then getting irradiated to hell and back trying to break it down with the workshop while ALSO having to deal with more damn radscorpions. It got to the point where his health bar was more rads than health! Which meant when he opened up ANOTHER wall, and saw ANOTHER room full of uranium and potential radscorpions, he decided he was too afraid to try it and turned tail to check on the workshop to see if he had enough nuclear material to leave this hellhole already, thank you. XD And fortunately he did, with 183 units in the workshop, ready to be taken back to the Marina! Bob dumped it in his inventory, declared that if he needed any more, he’d go to the Institute and just steal their tools, thanks, then took a moment to cook up all his meat (gaining a level-up in the process, amusingly – he took another rank of Gunslinger because he’s been using the Deliverer so much) before leaving via one of the secret back entrance/exits, through University Point Pharmacy, to get back to his home base faster (since, you know, more rads than health).
II. Second things second was to get the reactors built already, so after a quick stop at GNN HQ to use their decontamination arch to clear his rads (and discovering in the process that apparently the darn thing was on when off and off when on – that is, it stops working properly when you turn ON the sprayers), he headed to the Marina, dropped off his junk, and prepared to build the reactors –
Only to discover that, hilariously, while he had enough nuclear material, he didn’t have enough ceramic or aluminum to build the actual DOMES. Whoops. XD Just figures, right?
III. Fortunately, Bob already had a plan on how to get the materials he needed – pop down to the Institute and steal their tools for a different reason! Because pretty much every tool they have is made out of aluminum. Bob thus teleported down, cleared out a storage cupboard, then snagged as many coffee cups as he could find for the ceramic before heading back out into the CIT Ruins (ahead of a lot of angry scientists looking for their coffee, probably XD). He then swung by Cambridge to raid the diners there for more cups, plates, and bowls, then figured, while he was out and about, he could drop by the Old North Church, finish “Tradecraft,” and Officially Recruit Deacon to his team at the Marina. Which involved lying quite a lot to Desdemona about how dangerous it was for them to invade the Switchboard, since, you know, the Institute synths are currently on Bob’s side. XD But he officially finished the mission and got Deacon to wait for him at home base –
IV. And then, finally, it was time to head back to the Marina and build his super-reactors! Which Jon ended up nicknaming the “Nuclear Power Boobs” because, well, they’re two domes sitting right next to each other. He hooked them into the grid via the Sim Settlement telephone poles, and almost immediately got a call from Jake thanking him for getting the power upgrade done. Mostly because it meant he’d no longer be getting dirty looks from the other department heads during brownouts. XD He then reminded Bob that they still had to network all the computers, so Bob decided to do that next –
V. Except, hang about, there was a new person hanging around the settlement, wearing a gas mask and apparently named “The Ventilator.” Who, when Bob said hi, told him that he was there to offer them “purification.” Jon was concerned that this meant a purge of his settlers, but fortunately Bob was like “for water?” and the guy confirmed that yes, he was talking better water purification. If Bob got him the right equipment, he could get the purest blue from the brownest muck. Bob was down with that and said sure, and the Ventilator informed him that what he needed was a robot friend from a location with a funny name – which turned out to be the Bottom Feeder Brothel. XD This place happens to be near the Nightingale Headquarters AND the Combat Zone, so Bob made a note to go find it once he was in that general area again. I am very much looking forward to seeing what THAT quest entails. XD
VI. Okay, brief distraction over – time to go help Jake with his computer network project! Bob grabbed Piper and that one random settler who has 10 Perception and sent them to join the engineering team at GNN, then moved over Patty from Facilities to help them when they proved JUST SHY of the engineering “energy” needed to complete the project. Bob let them get on with it while he looked at possible new decorating schemes for the exterior (since they finally scrubbed off all the Gunner logos out there), and before he knew it, they were done. He went over to the Comm Array room and chatted with Jake about the news, who said that he already had another, more ambitious project in mind (Jon was like “can’t be more ambitious than the super-reactors”) – upgrading the antenna on the top of the building! To improve their ability to both send and receive signals to the ASAMs – and maybe help him reach his daughter too. Bob was fine with that and checked what stuff he needed –
And was like “actually, Jake, we can totally do that right now.” So he assigned the project, and the antenna was upgraded, allowing for crystal-clear reception between the Comm Array and the ASAMs! Jake was absolutely thrilled and said that he was preparing a new message for Laura, and that he’d be honored if Bob said a few words on the recording as well – Bob was touched and happily greeted Laura and told her that the Commonwealth was improving while Jake waxed on about how great all of their settlements were and how, in time, they’d be a bustling metropolis, just like Sandford. :) It was a very touching moment, honestly – Bob may be an egotist with perhaps not the greatest plans for the Commonwealth, but his friendship with Jake is genuinely heartwarming.
VII. And so things wrapped up this episode with Jake giving Bob a new project to consider – figuring out the purpose of all the parts the Gunners attached to the Comm Hub while it was in their possession. Jake didn’t know what they did, so he just deactivated them all and stripped them off, but he was thinking that the Gunners added them to the equipment for a REASON, and perhaps their new empire could make good use of them. They just need a team of scientists to actually figure out what they DO before they go installing them. Bob was amendable, though Jon was like “well, your team of engineers is about to be stripped down so all the smart companions can go become scientists, Jake.” XD So yes, that is the task for next week – get Cassandra’s science lab built so she and her fellow Intelligent people can get to work on figuring out those parts, with Jon also thinking he might go out, improve a few more settlements to get more surplus stuff sent to HQ, and grab some more companions he hasn’t picked up yet so they can toil away in his god-kingdom. XD We’ll see how that goes next Sunday!
Workout: Back on the bike again this Sunday – and as it was Victor’s birthday, I made sure to watch a variety of Corpse Bride related stuff! Specifically, I got through –
A) “Tim Burton Corpse Bride Victor family’s & Victoria Family “S CB” by Ethan Lee – a brief clip of the very end of “According To Plan,” showing Victor talking to his parents during the brief carriage ride across the square to the Everglots and the Everglots talking about how marriage is a partnership before concluding the song
B) “Corpse Bride - Practicing The Vows” by robohobosam – a longer clip of Victor heading into the forest to practice his wedding vows, accidentally awakening Emily, getting chased by her, and waking up in the Ball & Socket, cutting off shortly before he would have tried to use General Bonesaparte as a sword
C) “Corpse Bride: Moon Dance Scene (HD) | The Land of the Living | Warner Bros. Entertainment” by, well, Warner Bros. Entertainment – an even longer “official” clip covering Victor and Emily going to Elder Gutknecht to get the Ukrainian Haunting Spell to visit the Land of the Living, Emily dancing in the moonlight (the titular “Moon Dance”), Victor running off to see Victoria, Emily catching them together and dragging him back to the Land of the Dead, and the confrontation in Gutknecht’s tower where Victor says he would never marry her
D) And “Corpse Bride: The Blue Theory” by abitfrank – one of those overthought “theory videos” talking about stuff like how Victor’s treatment of the blue butterfly in the opening sequence of the movie foreshadows what’s going to happen with his marriage to Emily later (Victor only held onto the butterfly for as long as he needed to learn how to draw it; the creator compared this to Emily holding onto Victor until she learned that she couldn’t steal him away from his living bride) and how the only things with any color in them in the Land of the Living are the most plot-important items (the blue butterfly, the gold wedding ring, the gold goblet holding the crimson poison, even Scraps’s bright red collar in his portrait helping to identify him later on when he shows up as a skeleton). Some interesting conclusions, but I think like she was reaching a bit in claiming stuff like “the butterfly in the opening had spots on its wings that look like eyes so maybe Emily was looking out through them and that’s how she knew about Scraps” (it’s made explicit in the film that Emily can understand Scraps’s barks, so that’s probably how she knew he was Victor’s dog) and “Victoria is lit in blue after her confrontation with Barkis to show how close she is to ending up like Emily” (an interesting thought, but EVERYONE is lit in blue at that point, so I’m not sure how well it holds up). Still, not a bad video to end my workout on!
Aaaand I have officially stayed up too late here and need to get to bed. *facepalm* Why are Sundays often so bad for my time management. . .at least tomorrow is a slightly shorter Monday than normal thanks to the early release for graduation stuff! Looking forward to it -- night all!
Tumblr: Another decently-productive day over here –
Victor Luvs Alice – After listening to some Corpse Bride remixes while making my bed and getting dressed (in my CB t-shirt and Victor socks, of course), I put on some CB ambiance music videos and caught up on my tracked tags (unfortunately nothing I wanted to reblog or add to the drafts in any of them), then managed to get three out of the five Chill Valicer Save update posts fully sorted with image alt text before lunch. And then, this evening, I posted up my “plushy celebration” pic for Victor’s birthday, showing Victor Plush, Alice Dolly, Smileon, Us, and Dougie all gathered in my computer chair while Victor received a cinnamon bun – aka my breakfast this morning. XD I do enjoy doing those silly photoshoots – though Us’s size means they’re often a bit of a photobomber when I do shots like these. Need to spread things out more in new locations in future years, I think!
Valice Multiverse – Three anon asks to throw into the queue tonight – one about how “idiot,” “imbecile,” and “moron” used to be medical terms for people with specific low IQs (Alice wondered if anyone still used them as medical terms, and Smiler confirmed it wasn’t really done anymore, while also introducing her to the insult “jobbernowl,” which I love); one about how “psychiatrists are just people who weren’t smart enough to be psychics” (Alice allowed this on the basis of a psychic Bumby might have been able to tell Lizzie wasn’t into him); and a follow-up to the ask about Jimmy Carter’s hated temperature control program saying that a post-COVID Alice might appreciate better the extremes people go to for comfort (to which I could only sigh and agree OOC, because ugh). So that’s all sorted!
Fallout 4: Had a pretty productive day in the Commonwealth, with my Sole Survivor Victor and companion Ada making some good progress on getting that robobrain out of Rust Devil headquarters –
A) Started at the checkpoint into the town around Fort Hagen, just up the hill from My Personal Chaos Junction – I had Victor and Ada continue up the hill from the checkpoint into the town itself, past the shed with all the military vehicles and power armor stations; hooking a right past a small group of glowing radstag bucks; proceeding on past the Blood Clinic and a playground currently occupied by a whole flock of radchickens; and finally hanging a left by Fort Hagen itself to head directly toward the Fort Hagen Satellite Array. As the Array came into sight, I had Victor get out the Mighty Sniper and chow down on a Bloodbug Steak to fully heal himself and give himself a little bit of bonus HP. . .
B) Then it was up the hill and onto the rocks to the left of the Array so Victor could scope out the kind of opposition he expected to face using his recon scope! The initial scan of the side of the base revealed one human guard on a tower and a Mr. Handy Wrecker bumming about nearby – Victor marked them both, then took out the human guard with a manual headshot, then started skittering around to try and avoid notice and/or blind-fire. A couple of Mr. Handys came along, but were easily taken out by the sniper before Victor was forced to drop off the rocks to avoid some laser beams coming in his direction. Ada firing furiously on a Protectron Devil allowed Victor to use VATS to take that bot out, then he continued bobbing and weaving all around until he was able to take out the final couple of human guards and turret trying to get him. One of the humans happened to be a Legendary, so after figuring out where I’d killed the first couple of robots, I worked my way over to them, looting all the corpses along the way –
And found a Crippling Gamma Gun on the corpse! This thing does 50% more limb damage, but it’s also a very situational gun – since it deals radiation damage, it’s basically good for humans and not much else. Though it MIGHT be worth keeping, since I do intend to do the Cabot quests at some point, and I would not say no to the Ridiculous Physics Gun that you get from siding with Jack on that. . . Victor had the carry weight to take it, so into the pockets it went! We’ll decide later.
C) With the initial wave of enemies on the outside taken care of, Victor and Ada proceeded to explore the exterior of the camp, looking for any stragglers and any good loot to take. The place was, uh, interesting looking to say the least – the Rust Devils hang bags of metal scrap around their camp like super mutants hang meat bags, and there were a number of totems around consisting of robot bodies with human skulls and the like. O.o Oookay then. . . They also had a big grand entrance with skulls, metal scrap, another turret (which was easily taken out), and a couple of tripwire traps on the road that I presume were linked to the flamethrower traps hidden in the archway itself (Victor disarmed the tripwires, but the only option for the flamethrower traps was ACTIVATE, so I left those alone) – a shame Victor and Ada approached from the other side! XD
D) Anyway – once the traps were disarmed, Victor downed a Nuka-Cola to fend off the encroaching tiredness (he and Ada had come over here in late afternoon, after all, and night was starting to fall), then continued exploring for goodies before trying to get into the main camp itself (a hangar whose entrance was apparently in one of the big satellite dish towers). As he had gotten pretty much everything on ground level, he followed the little plank bridge that went up and around the other satellite dish, grabbing whatever he found along the way –
And discovered that the pathway ended at a homemade computer terminal sitting on a platform attached to the “main” satellite dish. Investigating the terminal revealed it had two things on it – a notice about how they couldn’t skimp on lookout patrols, and how they absolutely needed to have two actual humans with any robots they sent out because of the Mechanist possibly coming after their own bots –
And a security door control! :D So Victor would have had to come up here anyway. I promptly had him open the security door, then head back down and around, through the now-open door on the “main” satellite dish, and into a small room with not much in it but a few shelves –
E) And a trap door into the main hangar! Victor and Ada descended, and after an annoyingly long black loading screen, the duo found themselves at the top of a long rusty spiral set of stairs going down. They headed down into a bit empty room with a few nice bits of loot, a VERY locked door to the left, and a laser tripwire to the right. Victor disarmed the laser tripwire, then went to look at the Very Locked Door to see if there was any way to open it from the side they were on (nope) –
And then turned around to see Ada scrambling on ahead in the other direction, past an Assaultron totem that might have acted as another trap. *facepalm* Companions sometimes. . . Anyway, Victor disarmed the totem as, fortunately, Ada came back without alerting anyone or anything, then went through the door on the right to see what lay ahead. There was a human guard and a Handy guard at the bottom of a big slope – Victor got out the Mighty Sniper, tagged them both with the recon scope, and managed to take out the Handy with a sneak attack –
Only for a SECOND Handy to show up and very rapidly make its way up to Victor, causing me to panic slightly and accidentally fire just to left of it as I tried to get sorted with either VATS or my scope. *facepalm* Fortunately Ada got a few good hits in, and I was able to kill it and the human guard as they tried to approach us without much more issue. Still, could have done without being surprised like that!
F) With those initial three taken care of, I had Victor and Ada make their way down the slope, loot the bodies and the guard’s little sitting area, then make their way through the security gate to the right into a big old room with lots of machinery and crates and whatnot (after a better look around a bit later, I realized that this was some sort of tank storage and production room). I was able to immediately spot one Rust Devil on a catwalk above Victor’s head, and another that I was unfortunately unable to get a bead on with the recon scope from Victor’s current position. I thus had him shuffle carefully into the room and try to get another look from a little further in –
Only to get the attention of another human Rust Devil patrolling. Who, fortunately, was easy to take out, but did manage to raise enough of an alarm that I AGAIN had Mr. Handy Wreckers coming right into my face. Fortunately I managed to shoot them all without issue, take down the guard up top, then help Ada take down a Protectron Devil had had gotten stuck on the scenery. XD I could hear at least one more human running around looking for us, though, and I started scrambling around trying to get a bead on them before they could get one on me. . .
And in such goal I succeeded, as the roaming Rust Devil lost interest before coming anywhere near me. Mostly because he refused to come across the room. XD I finally got eyes on him and the turret he was with at the back of the room after doing a little more exploring of the front, and took them both out with pretty much no issue (the turret ATTEMPTED to shoot Victor, but he had accidental cover behind a beam at the time, so – yeah XD). We love it when the enemies are very very dumb. XD
G) With the enemies taken out, Victor and Ada were free to explore – though as Victor did his initial sweep, trying to find goodies, doors to pick open, and computers to hack, he started feeling tired again. And when I checked the in-game time, I saw that it was roughly 11:30 PM, so I decided, “Okay, we’ve definitely cleared out this room, it should be safe to actually SLEEP here rather than force him to push on with more Nuka-Cola.” So I let him set up his tent by the power armor stations on the side of the room and take a quick six-hour nap. Once he was back up, though, it was back to business, with me investigating whatever nooks and crannies I could and discovering the following –
I. A terminal at the top of some stairs up to a broken catwalk that (after I managed to accidentally guess the password on the very first try) allowed me to open all the security doors in the base by lifting the lockdown it was currently under – I didn’t want to give up the lockpick XP from opening a couple of other security doors I’d found at ground level, though, so I waited to unlock things until I’d picked open all of those doors
II. A security door opening into space right next to the terminal (where the catwalk abruptly ended), which Victor had to jump into when he finally opened it – fortunately it was a small jump, but unfortunately all it led to was a little bit of catwalk over the spot where he and Ada had killed the initial guard, with an explosives box with a few grenades and such in it. Not sure that was worth potentially breaking Victor’s legs!
III. An unlocked room to the left that proved to be a medical ward with a few nice aluminum bits and bobs (always gotta have plenty of those!)
IV. A novice-locked security door on the right that led into a room mostly occupied by one giant generator thing and a toolbox with some goodies in it
V. An expert-locked security door near the novice-locked one that had another expert-locked security door behind it, and a couple of power armor stations crammed into the tiny space on either side of it –
One of which had a FULL set of X-01 Mk. III power armor. INCLUDING THE RIGHT LEG I NEEDED. :D I initially thought “great, I’ll swing by this place when I next come down to visit Virgil for the teleporter plans and grab the leg then,” but then was like “you know what, I do NOT want to forget about this thing,” so I came back and got it after poking around behind the novice-locked door and going up the nearby stairs to check out the platform one of the guards was standing on. Victor has the carry weight, after all! So I guess my real question is, do I now just keep it on me until the next time I go and see Virgil, or do I quickly double back through My Personal Chaos Junction and over to where I left Victor’s personal power armor set in Natick to put the leg on right away and see if I can upgrade it all the way to Mk. VI? Decisions, decisions. . .
VI. An old computer command center up at the top of the stairs, along the route to the platform that one guard was standing on, with one skeleton still clutching a drinking glass slumped by a desk, and a few bits and bobs to loot scattered around the place
VII. And, behind expert-locked security door number two in the Surprise Power Armor mini-room, a room with a bunch of radioactive barrels in it! I decided I was NOT going to investigate THAT right away –
H) But then I finished my explorations around the rest of the room and was like “wait, there’s not really anywhere else to go. . .okay, maybe if I’m careful and quick I can get through the rads room.” So I had Victor very cautiously venture his way inside. . .
And discovered, to my relief, that there actually WASN’T that much radiation in there – you had to get REALLY close to the barrels before you started taking rads. Victor was able to skim around them without many problems, raiding a box for ammo as he did –
I) And then I saw that the security door on the left (which had been closed when I initially picked it) was now open. And that there was a terminal next to it with the same “Lockdown Terminal” labeling as the one I’d hacked open at the top of the catwalk. Seems like I’d accidentally opened the path to my objective from the wrong computer. XD A little further exploring revealed I’d also opened a door at the top of some stairs into the computer room I found before during my explorations, so that was handy – can avoid the rad barrels while leaving this place now, if I need to. I thus ventured through the open security door into a big “boss arena” room with lots of robot bits, more totems, hanging cages, stairs going up and down around the place –
And a quest marker, about 24 clicks away from me, waiting for me to go and say hello. I debated for a moment if I wanted to go ahead and say hi to Jezebel the robo-brain and actually collect her before stopping for the day. . .
And then I remembered “oh, there’s a big boss fight with a big old sentry bot when you do that, isn’t there? You know what, I think I’m good for now.” XD
So yes, that is where I saved and quit for the day – with Victor and Ada in the heart of the Rust Devil HQ, within sight of their goal! Though it occurs to me that there might have been one door back where I killed The World’s Most Useless Guard and his turret that I haven’t yet poked my head into yet. . .might want to go and have a peek there before doing anything I can’t take back! We’ll see if I remember that next Sunday. . .though next Sunday IS Father’s Day, so we’ll see if I have time to play Fallout 4 at all first. Fingers crossed we do, even if it’s just a short session!
Writing: Another Sunday spent in my FO4 save file, another Sunday spent updating my FO4 Playthrough Progression doc with the events of my game fanficced up to match my “Fallout of Darkness” verse! As per usual, things were pretty much the same as what happened in the game, only with Alice hanging around (admittedly usually in a sleeping bag at this point in the timeline – gotta get them over to Dunwich Borers) and a few little tweaks here and there –
A) I couldn’t remember off the top of my head if Victor’s come across a Gamma Gun before (possibly, but they’re not exactly the most common of weapons, and he hasn’t tangled much with the Children of Atom, who are the primary users), so when he discovered the Legendary Crippling one on that one Rust Devil, he didn’t even note that it had been modified to cause extra limb damage – he just saw that it was a weird “radiation gun” and was like “not leaving THAT lying around for anyone to pick up.” XD Which, I mean, fair – we’ll see if he does anything more with it later!
B) I made sure to give Alice a more active role in some of the fights once she was in a position to come out of her sleeping bag – she took out the human guard with her sword in the ramp room while Victor was busy missing all of his shots on that surprise second Mr. Handy Wrecker that startled him after he took out the first one, and she shot and killed the guard on the platform by the door when they made their way into the big tank room.
C) Also, that one guard who stopped looking for them way too early after they killed all the other people and robots in the tank room? Turns out he was on his lunch break and decided he cared more about noodles than finding the people killing his friends. XD I mean, to be fair, I try to avoid working on my lunch break as well, but normally I’M not in danger of having my head blown off by a guy with a Mighty Sniper. Like what happened to him. XD (Okay, I think Victor technically shot him in the chest, but details.)
D) And I had Alice and Ada do a little exploring of the base after talking Victor into taking his six-hour nap, confirming that there were a minimum number of Rust Devils in the camp (Alice thinks most of them are out hunting the Mechanist, worried for their robots’ safety), and finding the medical ward (Alice picked up some aluminum trays for Victor), the lockdown computer at the top of the catwalk and the related security door just next to it (Alice made the leap into the opened doorway easily thanks to her Celerity, but she was as disappointed as I was to just find a handful of explosives behind it), the computer command center at the top of the stairs (Alice was very amused by the skeleton holding a drinking glass), and the novice-locked security door protecting the big old turbine (Alice got the tools and duct tape, since she knows Victor likes those). However, since Victor’s the one with the power armor (even it’s really only for going into the Glowing Sea), I made it so Alice was unable to crack the expert-locked security door into the little room with the X-01 set so Victor could do it and get all excited about finding the leg he was missing on his own set. :) Because it’s his birthday and I need to be nice to him. XD
Other than that, though, pretty much as it was in the game, complete with the trio finding their way past those weird rad barrels and into the central chamber of the Rust Devil headquarters, to see the computer array robobrain Jezebel’s been stuck to. Next week, they should be able to free her, hopefully without any major problems from the big sentry bot boss that is protecting her. . .we’ll see how I do in that fight!
YouTube: Got my usual Sunday Two watched, I'm happy to say –
A) First up, we had GrayStillPlays and “When a volcano spawns in the middle of a city,” aka Gray plays City Smash 2! This is the city-wrecking game that puts you in the heart of the city to see your crimes play out (as opposed to just looking in at the cityscape from the side as in the original), and Gray had a lot of crimes to commit. Such as taking control of an ambulance and making it ram other cars! Driving a hovertank through traffic and using it to blast graffiti off walls (by destroying the walls)! Making the worlds’ biggest pothole by coring into the street with massive lightning strikes! Encircling an unfortunate truck with explosive barrels and then piling up so many landmines nearby everything blew up in a massive road-wrecking explosion! Accidentally dropping nukes all around the city! Growing volcanoes out of the road and trying to get the chunklets to hit a passing police copter! Growing volcanoes out of the road and then sticking black holes into the middle of them to see what would happen (black hole eats all the chunklets spewing out of the volcano, basically)! And growing volcanoes out of the center of the city and putting them up against nuclear bombs to see which is the strongest (the volcano – the first one just swallowed the nuke Gray dropped into it, and the second wasn’t damaged a bit by the nuke Gray dropped next to it)! Poor Smash City – its citizens were so tormented today. XD (Though at least Gray made sure to take care of those weird in-game billboards showing Pampers ads. Like, really, game? Really? XD)
B) And second up, we had Jon of Many A True Nerd and “Fallout 4: Sim Settlements 2 - Part 38 - Radical Thinking!” AKA the episode where Mayor Bob, in his never-ending quest to become God-King of the Commonwealth and help his friend Jake, gathered the materials to build a pair of Vault-Tec super-reactors to provide the necessary power to his new headquarters so Jake could get some of his engineering projects off the ground. How did that go?
I. Well, first things first, Jon thanked the commenters for reminding him that, oh yes, Vault 88 and its related tunnels are actually chock full of uranium, meaning there’s a surplus of nuclear material there. The very thing he was complaining about having a shortage of at the end of last episode. XD So he sent Bob on a grand tour through the North, Northeast, and East sectors to kill all the enemies, gather up the various control boards, and activate the sub-workshops so he could break down all the glowing green rocks and uranium barrels in the various tunnels and scoop up the nuclear material, along with gathering it off any glowing enemies he might find and tearing down limestone walls to unearth the super-enemies behind them. Here’s how that went, sector by sector:
North Sector – Bob found mostly mole rats and ghouls (who had no good legendaries on them) in the main tunnels as he killed his way to the control boards, none of whom posed a major problem given he had Deliverer in hand. He got a good amount of nuclear material from clearing all the uranium rocks and barrels, though – and, behind one of the “boss battle” walls, he found a Legendary Deathclaw Matriarch, who was taken down via sneak attack with the Two-Shot Combat Rifle Bob recently picked up (beloved!), and got a Staggering Minigun off her corpse. Which apparently wasn’t QUITE as good as you might think it was (apparently automatic weapons have a smaller chance to stagger on every shot than non-automatic ones do), but was still good enough for Bob to grab for later!
Northeast Sector – Bob snuck in here around the back way and mostly had ghouls to deal with, though once he got the board he had to face a trio of Mole Rat Brood Mothers, one of which was a Legendary – carrying a Cunning Combat Armor Chest Piece! :D This provides +1 to both Agility and Perception, and given that Bob is a very high-Perception build, Jon was only too happy to trade the Fortifying Metal chest piece he was wearing (which was +1 Strength and Endurance) for it (plus, since the combat armor chest piece was lighter, Bob actually didn’t lose that much carry capacity with the lessened Strength). This awesome find was then completely undercut by Bob opening up another limestone wall and coming across an entire NEST of fucking radscorpions, reducing Jon to terrified stammering as he forced Bob to do all the Psycho-Jet while he blasted them with his Mighty Combat Shotgun. XD I mean, to be fair, it was a fucking LOT of radscorpions, and those fuckers are MEAN – not only are they huge and have poison, they also can burrow under the ground and come up underneath you suddenly. And to add insult to injury, once Bob got through the mess and healed himself, he found that the only Legendary in the bunch had a Troubleshooter’s Hunting Rifle, which is decent (50% more damage against robots), but Jon felt that the one he was carrying, Margaret, was better (50% more damage against synths in particular – plus it’s a tribute to poor Old Paul, may he rest in pixels).
East Sector – Bob came in here expecting Mirelurks, and after killing the requisite lurking ghouls, mirelurks he got, including a glowing Hunter and a Queen he took out with the power of the Two-Shot Combat Rifle (seriously, if you get one in your game, hold the fuck onto it). Unfortunately, his glee at so easily taking out the monsters was dampened by him going on the hunt for nuclear material, finding a huge source of it behind another limestone wall, and then getting irradiated to hell and back trying to break it down with the workshop while ALSO having to deal with more damn radscorpions. It got to the point where his health bar was more rads than health! Which meant when he opened up ANOTHER wall, and saw ANOTHER room full of uranium and potential radscorpions, he decided he was too afraid to try it and turned tail to check on the workshop to see if he had enough nuclear material to leave this hellhole already, thank you. XD And fortunately he did, with 183 units in the workshop, ready to be taken back to the Marina! Bob dumped it in his inventory, declared that if he needed any more, he’d go to the Institute and just steal their tools, thanks, then took a moment to cook up all his meat (gaining a level-up in the process, amusingly – he took another rank of Gunslinger because he’s been using the Deliverer so much) before leaving via one of the secret back entrance/exits, through University Point Pharmacy, to get back to his home base faster (since, you know, more rads than health).
II. Second things second was to get the reactors built already, so after a quick stop at GNN HQ to use their decontamination arch to clear his rads (and discovering in the process that apparently the darn thing was on when off and off when on – that is, it stops working properly when you turn ON the sprayers), he headed to the Marina, dropped off his junk, and prepared to build the reactors –
Only to discover that, hilariously, while he had enough nuclear material, he didn’t have enough ceramic or aluminum to build the actual DOMES. Whoops. XD Just figures, right?
III. Fortunately, Bob already had a plan on how to get the materials he needed – pop down to the Institute and steal their tools for a different reason! Because pretty much every tool they have is made out of aluminum. Bob thus teleported down, cleared out a storage cupboard, then snagged as many coffee cups as he could find for the ceramic before heading back out into the CIT Ruins (ahead of a lot of angry scientists looking for their coffee, probably XD). He then swung by Cambridge to raid the diners there for more cups, plates, and bowls, then figured, while he was out and about, he could drop by the Old North Church, finish “Tradecraft,” and Officially Recruit Deacon to his team at the Marina. Which involved lying quite a lot to Desdemona about how dangerous it was for them to invade the Switchboard, since, you know, the Institute synths are currently on Bob’s side. XD But he officially finished the mission and got Deacon to wait for him at home base –
IV. And then, finally, it was time to head back to the Marina and build his super-reactors! Which Jon ended up nicknaming the “Nuclear Power Boobs” because, well, they’re two domes sitting right next to each other. He hooked them into the grid via the Sim Settlement telephone poles, and almost immediately got a call from Jake thanking him for getting the power upgrade done. Mostly because it meant he’d no longer be getting dirty looks from the other department heads during brownouts. XD He then reminded Bob that they still had to network all the computers, so Bob decided to do that next –
V. Except, hang about, there was a new person hanging around the settlement, wearing a gas mask and apparently named “The Ventilator.” Who, when Bob said hi, told him that he was there to offer them “purification.” Jon was concerned that this meant a purge of his settlers, but fortunately Bob was like “for water?” and the guy confirmed that yes, he was talking better water purification. If Bob got him the right equipment, he could get the purest blue from the brownest muck. Bob was down with that and said sure, and the Ventilator informed him that what he needed was a robot friend from a location with a funny name – which turned out to be the Bottom Feeder Brothel. XD This place happens to be near the Nightingale Headquarters AND the Combat Zone, so Bob made a note to go find it once he was in that general area again. I am very much looking forward to seeing what THAT quest entails. XD
VI. Okay, brief distraction over – time to go help Jake with his computer network project! Bob grabbed Piper and that one random settler who has 10 Perception and sent them to join the engineering team at GNN, then moved over Patty from Facilities to help them when they proved JUST SHY of the engineering “energy” needed to complete the project. Bob let them get on with it while he looked at possible new decorating schemes for the exterior (since they finally scrubbed off all the Gunner logos out there), and before he knew it, they were done. He went over to the Comm Array room and chatted with Jake about the news, who said that he already had another, more ambitious project in mind (Jon was like “can’t be more ambitious than the super-reactors”) – upgrading the antenna on the top of the building! To improve their ability to both send and receive signals to the ASAMs – and maybe help him reach his daughter too. Bob was fine with that and checked what stuff he needed –
And was like “actually, Jake, we can totally do that right now.” So he assigned the project, and the antenna was upgraded, allowing for crystal-clear reception between the Comm Array and the ASAMs! Jake was absolutely thrilled and said that he was preparing a new message for Laura, and that he’d be honored if Bob said a few words on the recording as well – Bob was touched and happily greeted Laura and told her that the Commonwealth was improving while Jake waxed on about how great all of their settlements were and how, in time, they’d be a bustling metropolis, just like Sandford. :) It was a very touching moment, honestly – Bob may be an egotist with perhaps not the greatest plans for the Commonwealth, but his friendship with Jake is genuinely heartwarming.
VII. And so things wrapped up this episode with Jake giving Bob a new project to consider – figuring out the purpose of all the parts the Gunners attached to the Comm Hub while it was in their possession. Jake didn’t know what they did, so he just deactivated them all and stripped them off, but he was thinking that the Gunners added them to the equipment for a REASON, and perhaps their new empire could make good use of them. They just need a team of scientists to actually figure out what they DO before they go installing them. Bob was amendable, though Jon was like “well, your team of engineers is about to be stripped down so all the smart companions can go become scientists, Jake.” XD So yes, that is the task for next week – get Cassandra’s science lab built so she and her fellow Intelligent people can get to work on figuring out those parts, with Jon also thinking he might go out, improve a few more settlements to get more surplus stuff sent to HQ, and grab some more companions he hasn’t picked up yet so they can toil away in his god-kingdom. XD We’ll see how that goes next Sunday!
Workout: Back on the bike again this Sunday – and as it was Victor’s birthday, I made sure to watch a variety of Corpse Bride related stuff! Specifically, I got through –
A) “Tim Burton Corpse Bride Victor family’s & Victoria Family “S CB” by Ethan Lee – a brief clip of the very end of “According To Plan,” showing Victor talking to his parents during the brief carriage ride across the square to the Everglots and the Everglots talking about how marriage is a partnership before concluding the song
B) “Corpse Bride - Practicing The Vows” by robohobosam – a longer clip of Victor heading into the forest to practice his wedding vows, accidentally awakening Emily, getting chased by her, and waking up in the Ball & Socket, cutting off shortly before he would have tried to use General Bonesaparte as a sword
C) “Corpse Bride: Moon Dance Scene (HD) | The Land of the Living | Warner Bros. Entertainment” by, well, Warner Bros. Entertainment – an even longer “official” clip covering Victor and Emily going to Elder Gutknecht to get the Ukrainian Haunting Spell to visit the Land of the Living, Emily dancing in the moonlight (the titular “Moon Dance”), Victor running off to see Victoria, Emily catching them together and dragging him back to the Land of the Dead, and the confrontation in Gutknecht’s tower where Victor says he would never marry her
D) And “Corpse Bride: The Blue Theory” by abitfrank – one of those overthought “theory videos” talking about stuff like how Victor’s treatment of the blue butterfly in the opening sequence of the movie foreshadows what’s going to happen with his marriage to Emily later (Victor only held onto the butterfly for as long as he needed to learn how to draw it; the creator compared this to Emily holding onto Victor until she learned that she couldn’t steal him away from his living bride) and how the only things with any color in them in the Land of the Living are the most plot-important items (the blue butterfly, the gold wedding ring, the gold goblet holding the crimson poison, even Scraps’s bright red collar in his portrait helping to identify him later on when he shows up as a skeleton). Some interesting conclusions, but I think like she was reaching a bit in claiming stuff like “the butterfly in the opening had spots on its wings that look like eyes so maybe Emily was looking out through them and that’s how she knew about Scraps” (it’s made explicit in the film that Emily can understand Scraps’s barks, so that’s probably how she knew he was Victor’s dog) and “Victoria is lit in blue after her confrontation with Barkis to show how close she is to ending up like Emily” (an interesting thought, but EVERYONE is lit in blue at that point, so I’m not sure how well it holds up). Still, not a bad video to end my workout on!
Aaaand I have officially stayed up too late here and need to get to bed. *facepalm* Why are Sundays often so bad for my time management. . .at least tomorrow is a slightly shorter Monday than normal thanks to the early release for graduation stuff! Looking forward to it -- night all!
