Not The Greatest Start To September
Sep. 1st, 2024 11:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickUnfortunately, Dad wasn't exactly feeling great today -- his neck and various joints hurt (which he blamed on lifting weights for the first time yesterday once his doctor gave him the go-ahead), and at suppertime he was shaking so badly that I could feel it through the floorboards. D: Mom found he had a fever and called the doctor to see what we should do -- fortunately, the shaking started going away a little while later, and the doctor's office said that Mom could probably just watch him and see how he was doing (because he might just be getting a cold or something), so it's not an IMMEDIATE medical emergency. But it's not exactly GREAT either. *grimace* I don't like it. I hope he's feeling better tomorrow, or at least we know better what's going on with him!
Despite this late-day fuckery, though, I still accomplished pretty much everything I wanted to accomplish --
Tumblr: Managed to get everything I really hoped to get done sorted over here, I’m glad to say –
Victor Luvs Alice – Drafted out this week’s Chill Valicer Save update – six posts covering Marm L. Iser’s activation and the chaotic family reunion that followed! I got most of the main text and tags sorted before lunch, then finished off the last couple of posts just now so I didn’t have to worry about it later. Tomorrow, we add all the image alt text, and we’re golden! On this at least, anyway. :p
Valice Multiverse – Had one anonymous ask for the queue, stating that the existence of stand-up comedians implied the existence of sit-down tragedians – Cuddlepile!Alice said “sounds like a job I could do,” while Smiler said what I was thinking – that it reminded them of John Oliver on “Last Week Tonight.” XD I mean, I enjoy the show, but the dude is open about the fact that it talks about often-depressing topics!
Fallout 4: Had a satisfying day in the Commonwealth, I’m pleased to say, making progress on one of the quests Victor is trying to complete and finding a bunch of new locations –
A) Started out with Victor having freshly awoken at just after 3 AM in Wildwood Cemetery, where he camped at the end of our last “episode!” I had him promptly unload a bunch of stuff on Ada (including spare weapons and armor that he didn’t need) before sending him around the graveyard to explore and loot some stuff, now that there was no immediate threat of ghoul-murder. He discovered:
I. Another mausoleum up on the ridge that he could enter – fortunately no creepy altars in this one, just a whole bunch of old dead flowers in vases
II. Some glowing fungus, carrot flowers, and hubflowers to harvest
III. Two weird wooden pyramid-like structures at the bottom of the graveyard near the fence there...and what looked like a freshly-dug grave nearby O.o
IV. Another enterable mausoleum up the hill above the one with the creepy altar – this one was missing its door and had a bunch of open, disturbed stone coffins in it, which was worrying
V. A fun tombstone with what looked like a pirate skull decoration on it near that
VI. Two more mausoleums up on the ridge, though he couldn’t get into either of those
VII. And, by following the brick path around the place behind the creepy altar mausoleum and out through the fence nearby, a ruined house with a bunch of chickens in the lot next to it and a box with a few explosives in it. Oh, and a surprisingly-unruined fireplace, given the state of the rest of the house.
So yeah. *shrug* Maybe not the world’s most LUCRATIVE exploration, but I got some more cooking ingredients out of it, and another molotov and a frag grenade. And an idea of where I want the various Wildwood vampires hunkering down during the day. ;)
B) With Wildwood thoroughly explored, and the sun coming up in-game, it was time to consult the map and see where I needed to go to start getting Victor caught up on some of his quests! It quickly became obvious that if I wanted to have him start hunting coursers and maybe picking back up with Bobbi on “The Big Dig,” he would have to basically go straight down – but while I was thinking about the best way to loop around the lake in the way (seemed like I’d have to cut through Lexington), I got distracted wondering about a couple of houses showing up on my compass as a discoverable location to the south and east– and when I checked the map in that direction, I realized that one of the Eddie Winter holotapes Victor was supposed to be picking up for Nick Valentine was in that direction, at Malden Center! I decided “it’s not too far out of my way, let’s go do that this playsession” and thus started walking south, looking to see what I could find –
And coming across someone’s makeshift fence, with what looked like two dead ghouls and a dead settler laying down next to it and an abandoned tractor. I quickly VATS-scanned and determined that one of those ghouls was very much NOT dead (though I had to convince the game to stop focusing on an albino squirrel nearby first to confirm that), then lined up a shot with my Tactical Tesla’s sights –
And held the trigger down for a bit because I hadn’t yet tested the “charged shot” feature of my new electric death gun. It whirred up, then released a MASSIVE blast of electricity that made sure the ghoul would NEVER get the chance to stand up. Very satisfying. :D So glad I chose to grab this thing!
C) Having given my new gun a proper test, I looted the bodies and continued on my way, around the fence and onto the nearby road. I followed that up for a little bit, then (after taking a moment to gather more mutated ferns – I’m swimming in the damn things now) headed south again, off the road onto the rocky, dusty landscape nearby. Victor managed to sneak around some dogs prowling atop one of the rocks no problem, and easily electrocuted a squirrel that came running up with bad intent before continuing down the slope toward the nearby town –
But as I passed through some blasted trees, I saw a familiar curled tail before me. Radscorpion! I had Victor sneak forward and up onto a rock, then take a moment to try and line up a shot with the Tactical Tesla once he had a good view of the monster. It hit, though it didn’t do that much damage, unfortunately – I quickly had him back up as the radscorpion burrowed under the ground to get a better shot at him, trying my best to keep an eye on where the damn thing was likely to pop out. Fortunately, I was facing the right way when it emerged from the earth, and was able to hit it with another electric death shot in VATS, which took it out nicely. :) Yeah, range on this thing might not be great, but when it murders, it murders GOOD. XD Anyway, I got some meat and an egg off the corpse, then wandered forward a little to get a better look around. Directly in front of me was a lake; slightly to my right was the town I guessed was Malden; and behind me was more rocks –
D) And a little trailer, perched upon one of those rocks. Curious, I backtracked up the hill to get a better look at the place, wondering what its whole deal was and if it had any good loot. I came up behind it, then looped around to find a nice little “front yard” area surrounded by hubflower –
Along with a turret on the roof and a whole ass SENTRY BOT in the front yard. Fortunately, it didn’t immediately notice Victor and Ada, giving them a chance to start wailing on it before it could fully boot up – Victor hit it multiple times with the Tactical Tesla while Ada fired her lasers, and between them they got it down before it could fire a single shot! And then the frame exploding took out the turret on the roof, nice. :D I had Victor go and loot the flaming metallic corpse, then poke his head inside the trailer –
And found a fancy bureau with a sequin dress, wine, and shot glasses inside; a nice table and chair; a nice bed with flower vases on and around it; a radio blaring music; and two stashes – one containing handcuffs and a combat knife, the other containing toothpaste and a combat knife (along with caps). Um. O.o I guess this was a fun place for people to – come visit, sometimes? XD
E) Okay, enough of that – it was time to get serious and get that holotape! To whit, I had Victor and Ada leave the weird possible sex-trailer and head down the hill onto the road nearby (next to a bus stop and a crashed bus – nothing interesting in either), then up said road toward what was eventually revealed to be Medford Memorial Hospital. There was a couple of super mutants chilling out outside – I had Victor swap over to the Two-Shot to have a better shot of taking them out from range, and after just a couple of shots, they were both very very dead. :D I may love my new electric death gun, but the Two-Shot remains my absolute favorite weapon. :D Victor looted the bodies and the nearby meat bags, then went around the parking lot and grabbed an empty milk bottle out of a milk vending machine before continuing across the road toward the subway stations on the other side (switching back to the Tactical Tesla because I was half-certain some synths were going to spawn in, and I figured the electric death gun would be better for them). I officially discovered the Malden Center subway station and raided the two raider corpses outside of it (no synths though – hmm), then made my way into the attached police station and raided it for any good junk before heading upstairs to get the holotape (stopping briefly to have some deathclaw steak and melon juice for lunch – look, I had fourteen of those steaks at the time, I think Victor can indulge). After trying and failing to reach all the desks and their telephones to loot them because of a wonky half-collapsed roof in my way, I made my way over to the corner room where the holotape was, but decided to check out the nearby terminal first –
Aaaand ended up coming at it from such a bad angle that Victor ended up stuck on the corner of the desk, vibrating uselessly. And no matter what I did, I couldn’t get him out of that position – the game would literally not let me move him when he was like that. I couldn’t even switch camera angles! For a minute, I thought I was stuck until he finally managed to slooooowly vibrate himself into place –
F) And then I checked the menu again, and realized I could load a previous save. I promptly reloaded the quicksave I made right after killing the mutants and just redid all the stuff I’d done in the previous couple of minutes, with the obvious exception of making sure Victor was standing IN FRONT of the terminal when I indicated I’d like him to take a look at it. And this time he crouched down in front of it with no problems at all, whew. Sadly, though, the terminal proved not to be worth the effort, as it didn’t have any funny reports or anything on it – just a couple of police reports about an armed robbery at a Slocum Joe’s and a counterfeiting operation by a husband and wife, plus more information about where to find the other Eddie Winter tapes. Slightly disappointed, I had Victor pick up the tape and play it (Eddie congratulating an associate on a good hit on Jimmy Montrasano Jr), then pocket it and head out of the station. Seven out of ten tapes acquired now – just have to figure out a good game plan to get the last three! *nods* I thus prepared to do just a little light exploration, then head out –
G) But as I went up the street a little ways, I realized there was an EXTREMELY close location marker on my compass. Like, right behind the police station close. So I headed down the little alley there, toward a small room with a power armor station and some tools in it –
And the game informed me that I had just discovered Slocum Joe’s Corporate HQ! Well, THAT was interesting. :) I took a moment to raid the room with the power armor station, then head out the opposite side to see what was there (a big weird statue in a plaza and a Pulowski shelter nearby – nothing in it), before coming back and heading in through a convenient hole in the wall into the main building.
Where Victor was almost immediately spotted by an attack dog on one of the half-collapsed upper levels. As Victor did not have a good shot at it, I quickly had him back off so the dog would lose interest – which it did fairly rapidly, whew. (Though I could definitely hear Ada firing at something from a different angle while I was waiting for the danger to fade – and as I didn’t encounter the dog on my subsequent exploration, I think SHE may have managed to take out the mutt.) Anyway, after about a minute, Victor was back in [HIDDEN] again, and he was able to sneak back into the building without issue. He did a little exploring, working his way around the rubble and collecting some Nuka-Cola from a nearby machine and some useful junk from some desks laying scattered about. Once he’d seen everything there was to see on the bottom floor (including the lobby, which had survived a lot better than the rest of the building), I had him cautiously head upstairs, where he found a bunch more desks, a cooking station –
H) And a door that led into the Slocum Joe Offices proper. Oooo. However, I was coming to the end of my Allotted Fallout Time for the day, so I decided to explore that later. Instead, I had Victor loot all of the desks, take a bathroom break, and then hit the cooking station so he could cook up everything he’d gathered on his travels lately. And, after making a bunch of teas, juices, squirrel-on-a-stick, and Nuka-Cram, he not only basically emptied his inventory of uncooked food –
He also got up to level 46! :D I promptly popped into the Pip-Boy to take his new perk – and while I was very tempted to get the final rank of Rifleman (since Victor uses a LOT of rifles), I ultimately couldn’t resist the third rank of Strong Back, which immediately gave him another +50 to his carry capacity (as long as he wasn’t wearing power armor, which he almost never is, so) and the ability to run while overencumbered by using action points. :D Given how much crap he’s always hoarding on his person, this will be VERY USEFUL!
I) And so the playsession ended with me popping very quickly up onto the third story of the building to see what was up there – turned out to be a few more desks, a chemistry station, and a big red trunk with LOADS of ammo inside. (Plus Summer Shorts, but Victor doesn’t need those. XD) I grabbed what I could and returned to the door into the offices to close things out. Next time, we’ll pop in there and see what we can find, then head back toward CIT to find that damn courser! Should be exciting. :D
Writing: Another Sunday, another update to the FO4 Playthrough Progression – and as hinted at last week, this week’s writing session saw the introduction of the Wildwood Vampire Coterie to the fanfic universe! Consisting of Randall the Ventrue, Mal and Kevin the Malkavian twins, Harley the Toreador, Harry the Gangrel, Luke the Nosferatu, Alan the Brujah, and Crystal the Tremere (and yes, Harry and Crystal are named after my Gangrel and Tremere fledglings from VTMB, while Mal and Kevin are an obvious pun on their clan name XD). They’re a group of vampires who managed to survive the initial bombing, banded together in the cemetery to get through the nuclear winter that followed, and are now a tight-knit little community. Victor’s time in Wildwood was thus spent getting to know them (after getting over waking up to Mal and Kevin creepily standing over him because that’s what they do), promising Randall that he’d see about getting the vampires a place in the Minutemen network (as they would like the extra protection the faction offers), and taking a tour of the cemetery with Harley (allowing me to establish that the mausoleum with all the flower vases was hers; the one with the creepy altar was Mal and Kevin’s – it’s an art installation XD; and the “fresh grave” was actually Harry’s, as he has the Gangrel “meld with the earth” power). And right before the visit ended because of the vampires’ need to hide from the sun, Mal and Kevin informed Victor that if he headed toward Malden, he’d find another Eddie Winter holotape (in typical cryptic Malkavian fashion, of course). Which is why Victor ended up going off in that direction, because of course he doesn’t have quest markers on his Pip-Boy. :p Felt good to properly establish this gang as part of the verse! :)
As for the rest of the write-up, it basically followed what happened in the game up until Victor got the Winter holotape – namely, his discovery of the Slocum Joe’s headquarters was triggered by him hearing the dog that was inside the place barking away, and Ada explicitly killed it when it made to attack Victor (commenting that she didn’t want Victor possibly getting rabies). Victor also never went to look at the weird statue in the little plaza behind the place; only realized that it was Slocum Joe’s corporate HQ when he found the lobby; and explored the ENTIRE exterior cell and had his deathclaw-steak-and-melon-juice lunch by the cookpot before finding the door to the interior. Relatively minor changes, I suppose, but still good to note. *nods* So yeah – he and his friends are preparing to enter what’s left of the Slocum Joe’s offices. We’ll see what they find next week!
YouTube: As usual, got to this later than I would have liked (thanks to the worries at dinner), but I DID actually watch both of my Sunday Two –
A) First up, we had GrayStillPlays and “When you catch every disease at once,” aka Gray plays more Happy Wheels! Today’s offerings included Gray taking on a bottle flip where the “Death” area was the hardest to get, meaning Gray had to try and get it (he succeeded after many, many throws); a Minecraft-themed rope swing (where Gray managed to win with NO ARMS – he lost them right before the minecart-ride section); Bike Dad having to fight against people armed with such things as a battle axe, a regular axe, bottles of booze, a watermelon, and Santa (he ended the battle by knocking over a pyramid of Florida Men); a medieval joust with Pogo Guy and a medieval duel with Segway Nixon (Gray was very impressed by the historical accuracy on the helmets of his opponents); the Hobo going on a rampage through the town in his car with giant wheels (just smashing up EVERYTHING and avoiding the cops); Bike Dad and Tom Hardy facing off against the ninjas of “McDojo 2” (Bike Dad had more trouble accidentally taking his head off smashing into things than he did with the actual ninjas and such); Gray going on a birthday rampage with a hammer (smashing up everyone and everything in his path before winning the strength test at the arcade, nice); Pogo Guy taking on a fall where the things he had to avoid were the text blocks describing the various levels (you know, like, Easy, Normal, Hard); Segway Nixon taking on a pretty nasty spike fall (with a secret non-win off to the left – Gray was sour over being tricked); a pogo “parcour” board featuring a violent wheel of axes and all the spikes (but also landmines, meaning Gray could sail over all the obstacles in his path without parkouring at all); an obstacle course done for the board creator’s friend (featuring a spike ceiling area that forced Gray to be patient for once – he hated that); an “Impossible Gray” pogo jump with TWO endings (a secret coin in a very stabby area, and the usual win guarded by five million arrows and suchlike – Gray of course did not rest until he got both); a trip through all the dimensions with Bike Dad (which Gray found very confusing); and – in the Dylan Snider board – Hobo Guy having to avoid extra-stabby monkeypox vaccinations but also the monkeypox virus itself with the help of his rocket-powered wheelchair (and also a pit of swords. Regarding which Gray was like “HOW DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH GETTING SICK??” XD). So, you know, all the usual Happy Wheels nonsense. XD We love to see it!
B) And second up, we had Jon and “Fallout 4: Sim Settlements 2 - Part 50 - Four Beheadings And A Funeral!” Featuring the continuing adventures of Mayor Bob in his fight against the Gunners! Last episode saw him and his troops secure Vault 95 (the “rehabilitate drug addicts and then give them access to chems again” vault, the one which is part of Cait’s personal quest to get clean), which the Gunners were using as a base for their communications with their Stingray bombers – so what did he get up to this episode? Well –
I. He and Salvador cleared the interior of Vault 95 and searched it for intel! Fortunately, none of the Gunners they came up against were particularly hard to beat, and while poor Bob was stymied by some doors locked by Master-locked terminals (dude is NOT a hacker), he was able to locate a few key pieces of intel – specifically, coded messages that Salvador could at least partly decode. Apparently the Gunners are trying very hard to keep the Commonwealth Curators down via Stingray bombings while they look for some mysterious piece of technology they want, and are also hoping to figure out how to exploit some sort of “vulnerability” before the CC can take down their bombers or otherwise fuck up their plans. This definitely meant that finding the location of the final Stingray fueling site was a top priority – fortunately, Salvador was of the opinion that he could figure it out by decoding some of the other intel they found.
II. He had a talk with Cassandra and Lupe about the necessity of having doctors at outposts, field medics in combat, and a good flow of supplies in general throughout their little network! Because Cassandra had been seeing a LOT of injuries from the latest skirmishes, and Lupe had been getting rather nervous about how many supplies that they’d been going through. (She was also very nervous about the way Cassandra and Salvador were talking so causally about people dying, but that was more “I am having a hard time adjusting to the fact that we are at war” character stuff, poor kid.) Bob was all for turning people into proper doctors and field medics to help with injuries, and to set up special scavenging stations in outposts so people could go out on the battlefield and into some of the smaller locations they’re holding and pick supplies up off the dead – after all, he’d been doing a fair bit of scavenging himself for the war effort (donating ammo and spare chems to his war chest), so why not take some of the burdens off his shoulders and automate it a bit? He was also in favor of securing Milton General Hospital and Scrap Palace for the two ladies to make sure they had plenty of medical supplies and general useful junk. And as Salvador needed at least a day to continue his decoding efforts, he decided to get straight on that and headed over to Milton General Hospital to make it his own!
III. He got a confusing letter! For, you see, when he actually arrived at Milton General, as he was marking it as a target for his troops, he got a letter from a Courier. A letter –
From Paul. An elderly, slightly doddery but very caring old fellow who threw himself straight into getting the ASAMs working for everyone, and was a key figure in getting the Commonwealth Curators off the ground, along with Jake and Bob himself. A dude that was kidnapped by the Gunners after he helped Stodges and his group set up at the Red Rocket –
And who was murdered by them some episodes ago. Bob was naturally very, very confused to get a letter from him asking him to come to a specific church to say goodbye to an old friend. As you might well be. He put the letter away and vowed to get over there as soon as he could, but first –
IV. He secured Milton General Hospital! Yes, after shaking off the confusion of getting a letter from a dead man, Bob continued with his offensive, summoning his troops to the hospital so he could secure it as a necessary font of medical supplies! However, he couldn’t just walk up to the front door and take the place – the game had to give him a fight to secure it! And so it spawned in a bunch of enemies for the troops to defend it from –
A WHOLE GAGGLE OF SUPER MUTANT WARLORDS. O.O Like, uh, holy shit. FORTUNATELY Bob had recently taken the final rank of “Gun-Fu” and thus was able to use VATS to score bonus critical hits on every fourth target and beyond, plus plenty of grenades to throw at the problem, but it was still a TOUGH fight. Bob really regretted not getting those field medics set up before he did this. :( But he and his troops managed to hold the hospital and kill all the warlords, with only seven injuries and two deaths. The game called that an S-rank win! And Bob was nice enough to go around and try to heal some of his wounded himself using the chems he’d just donated – though some amusing timing on some of the NPC banter suggested his settlers didn’t think much of his medical skills. (Jon was like, “they’re right to complain, I don’t even have Medic as a perk.” XD)
V. He attended a funeral! Because after securing the hospital, he went straight to the church where this “goodbye to an old friend” hosted by the supposedly-dead Paul was taking place to see what kind of necromancy was going on here. And when he arrived, he found a bunch of people (including Jake, Theresa, Lupe, some Diamond City security, and even some raiders) milling around in front of a coffin, with Cola laying next to it and a dude who looked shockingly like Paul standing over it at the pulpit. Bob went up to see who exactly that was –
Only for the dude to introduce himself as YOUNG Paul – Old Paul’s son. Yeah, apparently what happened is that Bob got flummoxed by a Junior/Senior situation. XD Anyway, Young Paul explained that he’d come here to give his dad a proper send-off, and proceed to deliver a fascinating eulogy on his father’s life. Turns out Old Paul was one hundred and nine years old when he died, which is a hell of a thing in the present day, let alone the post-apocalyptic wasteland. We also learned that he was originally a gunsmith in Diamond City, but ended up selling the business in favor of opening a shelter for people who were victimized by synths replacing loved ones after he had to shoot a synth version of his own wife to stop her killing their infant son (and I just had a horrible realization about why his unique “does 50% more damage to synths” gun that he gave Bob was called “Margeret…). He turned to raiding briefly to help fund the place (though he tried only to hit people he thought could spare the caps, and never to hurt anybody), but eventually found he didn’t have the heart for it and became a scavver instead, which helped him fund both the shelter AND a school. :) And even in retirement, he couldn’t sit still, choosing to roam the Commonwealth to help people rather than stay at home with his son – which, of course, is how he met Bob. Bob then proceeded to say a few words about Paul’s life and death (emphasizing that he was a caring, brave man because he’s definitely not going to say “I found him a little annoying at first” at the guy’s FUNERAL), and Young Paul wrapped things up by urging everyone in attendance to remember Old Paul’s life and the way he cared over how he died. Awww. He then thanked Bob for coming (saying he was glad that Bob was there for his dad in his final days) and let him know that Old Paul had left him a holotape. Bob took it and played it –
Revealing that Old Paul had left him a final gift – the coordinates to a stockpile of supplies that he wanted Bob to use to help the Commonwealth. Bob was like, “I could definitely use supplies, thanks Old Paul” and looked up the location on his Pip-Boy, revealing the stash was in Breakheart Banks. Soo –
VI. He cleared out Breakheart Banks! Which fortunately was not too hard, given he had his lovely explosive sniper and all those ranks of “Gun-Fu” under his belt, and the place was not swimming in Super Mutant Warlords. XD Once all the super mutants and their hounds were dead, he headed inside and to the trunk, going “well, Paul, this was kind of out of my way, so I hope this was worth it” –
And found an absolute TON of ammo and guns, along with other useful items. “THANKS PAUL, TOTALLY WORTH IT.” XD Due to a lack of carry capacity, Bob had to leave the guns for now, but he definitely grabbed all the ammo and trucked it back to base to dump into his chest. His army is now officially GOLDEN when it comes to bullets, at least!
VII. And, as a finale, he took Scrap Palace! Which proved to be HILARIOUSLY easy, because in THIS case, the game only spawned in like two Gunners to defend the place. Given he ran over to the place in the middle of a rad storm and had to kill a patrol of three gunners en-route, Bob officially had more trouble GETTING to the Scrap Palace than he did TAKING it. XD Maybe the mod just felt bad for throwing all those warlords at him earlier, I don’t know. Point is, the Scrap Palace is now under Commonwealth Curator control, and hopefully their supply problems will be somewhat eased!
And that was that! Solid episode, and it was very nice to see Old Paul’s son and see the poor guy get a proper funeral. *nods* And next week, we’ll see Bob check back in with Salvador and see if they can figure out how to stop the Gunner’s Stingray bombers once and for all...
Workout: Back on the bike today, and I chose to start off this week’s workouts with “The kids are raising the kids in Every Life Stage Challenge! - Part 6” by James Turner! Because the episode lengths are getting longer as the series goes on, and I can’t really pair them up with Gray’s stuff anymore unless it’s really short (like the “rollercoasters” compilation he posted up recently). Anyway, this episode saw Semaj and his family start the usual grind of completing all of their aspiration tasks and trying to earn money for bills and whatnot – here are the highlights:
A) James doing a little bit of house renovation by combining Sunny and Vivienne’s two little rooms into one bigger room with a spandrel archway separating them, and making Semaj’s bedroom a bit bigger so he could fit a “nursery” (basically just a baby closet) on the side – only to discover that there was a pile of snow stuck in the entrance of said “nursery” meaning Semaj couldn’t actually access the kid. So newborn Scarlett had to live in his bedroom anyway. James was a little annoyed by that, as you might imagine.
B) James sending the family to Copperdale so Krystoff could hit up the bubble tea and thrift store there and make an outfit to sell on Trendi, since that was one of Krystoff’s tasks for aging up! He designed a truly “slay” outfit (with a wild green sweater, black pants, and high black boots) and listed it for $1,000 simoleons – and later that same morning, Vlad of all people agreed to buy it. XD Krystoff shipped it off, and an amused James made a rule that he could only sell an outfit for a ridiculous price to help with the household funds once per teenager. :p
C) James doing his best to get the kids (and Semaj) to smash out as many “age-up tasks” as possible, particularly those involving skills! So far –
I. Semaj has accomplished his “complete an aspiration milestone” task by helping Pablo with a school project
II. Pablo has completed his “finish a school project,” “get one skill up to level 5,” and “get two skills up to level 3” tasks (mostly by doing kid yoga in his room, which improves both Mental and Motor skill, nice – and a picture on Krystoff’s old drawing table got up him up to 3 Creativity)
III. Krystoff has done the “sell an outfit on Trendi” task, natch (and is currently either painting to help earn money or helping Semaj with potty training and taking care of the kids, hence the title of the episode)
IV. Sunny and Vivienne are smashing out their toddler skills (playing together in the tent for Imagination, babbling to each other and their stuffed toys for Communication, watching their family members for Thinking, playing on the toddler slide (which is currently in the hallway for winter) for Movement, and getting potty trained constantly for Potty) – unfortunately, they’ve both developed the Aggressive quirk, which is not great. James blames their mother Alice for being literally Evil
V. And Camillo is getting through all his necessary milestones (he’s already gotten his “Reach” and “Grab” milestones from the playmat, and his “First Bath” and “First Bubble Bath” milestones from Krystoff – now all he needs is tummy time and socialization to get the final Gross Motor and Social milestones)
I think it’s safe to say that James has gotten pretty efficient at this over the course of all these kids. XD Though things are still a LITTLE chaotic, especially with James having put in a new rule that he can’t move the Plumbite spire from the charging grid anymore, meaning only certain rooms are getting its benefit. Meaning everyone now has to actually eat and sleep and stuff. XD But still, they’re all doing pretty damn good! Looking forward to seeing how things go from here in this episode!
Whew -- that was a lot. And now it is time for me to hit the sack. We'll see how tomorrow plays out -- I'm HOPING that I can finish off my Chill Valicer Save drafts on Victor Luvs Alice; play Sims 4 and do a Chill Valicer Save Harvestfest; work some more on "Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland;" get in my workout; and keep up with my Subs. But that's all dependent on there not being any more medical emergencies around this house. *grimace* I guess we'll see what the morning brings. Night all.
Despite this late-day fuckery, though, I still accomplished pretty much everything I wanted to accomplish --
Tumblr: Managed to get everything I really hoped to get done sorted over here, I’m glad to say –
Victor Luvs Alice – Drafted out this week’s Chill Valicer Save update – six posts covering Marm L. Iser’s activation and the chaotic family reunion that followed! I got most of the main text and tags sorted before lunch, then finished off the last couple of posts just now so I didn’t have to worry about it later. Tomorrow, we add all the image alt text, and we’re golden! On this at least, anyway. :p
Valice Multiverse – Had one anonymous ask for the queue, stating that the existence of stand-up comedians implied the existence of sit-down tragedians – Cuddlepile!Alice said “sounds like a job I could do,” while Smiler said what I was thinking – that it reminded them of John Oliver on “Last Week Tonight.” XD I mean, I enjoy the show, but the dude is open about the fact that it talks about often-depressing topics!
Fallout 4: Had a satisfying day in the Commonwealth, I’m pleased to say, making progress on one of the quests Victor is trying to complete and finding a bunch of new locations –
A) Started out with Victor having freshly awoken at just after 3 AM in Wildwood Cemetery, where he camped at the end of our last “episode!” I had him promptly unload a bunch of stuff on Ada (including spare weapons and armor that he didn’t need) before sending him around the graveyard to explore and loot some stuff, now that there was no immediate threat of ghoul-murder. He discovered:
I. Another mausoleum up on the ridge that he could enter – fortunately no creepy altars in this one, just a whole bunch of old dead flowers in vases
II. Some glowing fungus, carrot flowers, and hubflowers to harvest
III. Two weird wooden pyramid-like structures at the bottom of the graveyard near the fence there...and what looked like a freshly-dug grave nearby O.o
IV. Another enterable mausoleum up the hill above the one with the creepy altar – this one was missing its door and had a bunch of open, disturbed stone coffins in it, which was worrying
V. A fun tombstone with what looked like a pirate skull decoration on it near that
VI. Two more mausoleums up on the ridge, though he couldn’t get into either of those
VII. And, by following the brick path around the place behind the creepy altar mausoleum and out through the fence nearby, a ruined house with a bunch of chickens in the lot next to it and a box with a few explosives in it. Oh, and a surprisingly-unruined fireplace, given the state of the rest of the house.
So yeah. *shrug* Maybe not the world’s most LUCRATIVE exploration, but I got some more cooking ingredients out of it, and another molotov and a frag grenade. And an idea of where I want the various Wildwood vampires hunkering down during the day. ;)
B) With Wildwood thoroughly explored, and the sun coming up in-game, it was time to consult the map and see where I needed to go to start getting Victor caught up on some of his quests! It quickly became obvious that if I wanted to have him start hunting coursers and maybe picking back up with Bobbi on “The Big Dig,” he would have to basically go straight down – but while I was thinking about the best way to loop around the lake in the way (seemed like I’d have to cut through Lexington), I got distracted wondering about a couple of houses showing up on my compass as a discoverable location to the south and east– and when I checked the map in that direction, I realized that one of the Eddie Winter holotapes Victor was supposed to be picking up for Nick Valentine was in that direction, at Malden Center! I decided “it’s not too far out of my way, let’s go do that this playsession” and thus started walking south, looking to see what I could find –
And coming across someone’s makeshift fence, with what looked like two dead ghouls and a dead settler laying down next to it and an abandoned tractor. I quickly VATS-scanned and determined that one of those ghouls was very much NOT dead (though I had to convince the game to stop focusing on an albino squirrel nearby first to confirm that), then lined up a shot with my Tactical Tesla’s sights –
And held the trigger down for a bit because I hadn’t yet tested the “charged shot” feature of my new electric death gun. It whirred up, then released a MASSIVE blast of electricity that made sure the ghoul would NEVER get the chance to stand up. Very satisfying. :D So glad I chose to grab this thing!
C) Having given my new gun a proper test, I looted the bodies and continued on my way, around the fence and onto the nearby road. I followed that up for a little bit, then (after taking a moment to gather more mutated ferns – I’m swimming in the damn things now) headed south again, off the road onto the rocky, dusty landscape nearby. Victor managed to sneak around some dogs prowling atop one of the rocks no problem, and easily electrocuted a squirrel that came running up with bad intent before continuing down the slope toward the nearby town –
But as I passed through some blasted trees, I saw a familiar curled tail before me. Radscorpion! I had Victor sneak forward and up onto a rock, then take a moment to try and line up a shot with the Tactical Tesla once he had a good view of the monster. It hit, though it didn’t do that much damage, unfortunately – I quickly had him back up as the radscorpion burrowed under the ground to get a better shot at him, trying my best to keep an eye on where the damn thing was likely to pop out. Fortunately, I was facing the right way when it emerged from the earth, and was able to hit it with another electric death shot in VATS, which took it out nicely. :) Yeah, range on this thing might not be great, but when it murders, it murders GOOD. XD Anyway, I got some meat and an egg off the corpse, then wandered forward a little to get a better look around. Directly in front of me was a lake; slightly to my right was the town I guessed was Malden; and behind me was more rocks –
D) And a little trailer, perched upon one of those rocks. Curious, I backtracked up the hill to get a better look at the place, wondering what its whole deal was and if it had any good loot. I came up behind it, then looped around to find a nice little “front yard” area surrounded by hubflower –
Along with a turret on the roof and a whole ass SENTRY BOT in the front yard. Fortunately, it didn’t immediately notice Victor and Ada, giving them a chance to start wailing on it before it could fully boot up – Victor hit it multiple times with the Tactical Tesla while Ada fired her lasers, and between them they got it down before it could fire a single shot! And then the frame exploding took out the turret on the roof, nice. :D I had Victor go and loot the flaming metallic corpse, then poke his head inside the trailer –
And found a fancy bureau with a sequin dress, wine, and shot glasses inside; a nice table and chair; a nice bed with flower vases on and around it; a radio blaring music; and two stashes – one containing handcuffs and a combat knife, the other containing toothpaste and a combat knife (along with caps). Um. O.o I guess this was a fun place for people to – come visit, sometimes? XD
E) Okay, enough of that – it was time to get serious and get that holotape! To whit, I had Victor and Ada leave the weird possible sex-trailer and head down the hill onto the road nearby (next to a bus stop and a crashed bus – nothing interesting in either), then up said road toward what was eventually revealed to be Medford Memorial Hospital. There was a couple of super mutants chilling out outside – I had Victor swap over to the Two-Shot to have a better shot of taking them out from range, and after just a couple of shots, they were both very very dead. :D I may love my new electric death gun, but the Two-Shot remains my absolute favorite weapon. :D Victor looted the bodies and the nearby meat bags, then went around the parking lot and grabbed an empty milk bottle out of a milk vending machine before continuing across the road toward the subway stations on the other side (switching back to the Tactical Tesla because I was half-certain some synths were going to spawn in, and I figured the electric death gun would be better for them). I officially discovered the Malden Center subway station and raided the two raider corpses outside of it (no synths though – hmm), then made my way into the attached police station and raided it for any good junk before heading upstairs to get the holotape (stopping briefly to have some deathclaw steak and melon juice for lunch – look, I had fourteen of those steaks at the time, I think Victor can indulge). After trying and failing to reach all the desks and their telephones to loot them because of a wonky half-collapsed roof in my way, I made my way over to the corner room where the holotape was, but decided to check out the nearby terminal first –
Aaaand ended up coming at it from such a bad angle that Victor ended up stuck on the corner of the desk, vibrating uselessly. And no matter what I did, I couldn’t get him out of that position – the game would literally not let me move him when he was like that. I couldn’t even switch camera angles! For a minute, I thought I was stuck until he finally managed to slooooowly vibrate himself into place –
F) And then I checked the menu again, and realized I could load a previous save. I promptly reloaded the quicksave I made right after killing the mutants and just redid all the stuff I’d done in the previous couple of minutes, with the obvious exception of making sure Victor was standing IN FRONT of the terminal when I indicated I’d like him to take a look at it. And this time he crouched down in front of it with no problems at all, whew. Sadly, though, the terminal proved not to be worth the effort, as it didn’t have any funny reports or anything on it – just a couple of police reports about an armed robbery at a Slocum Joe’s and a counterfeiting operation by a husband and wife, plus more information about where to find the other Eddie Winter tapes. Slightly disappointed, I had Victor pick up the tape and play it (Eddie congratulating an associate on a good hit on Jimmy Montrasano Jr), then pocket it and head out of the station. Seven out of ten tapes acquired now – just have to figure out a good game plan to get the last three! *nods* I thus prepared to do just a little light exploration, then head out –
G) But as I went up the street a little ways, I realized there was an EXTREMELY close location marker on my compass. Like, right behind the police station close. So I headed down the little alley there, toward a small room with a power armor station and some tools in it –
And the game informed me that I had just discovered Slocum Joe’s Corporate HQ! Well, THAT was interesting. :) I took a moment to raid the room with the power armor station, then head out the opposite side to see what was there (a big weird statue in a plaza and a Pulowski shelter nearby – nothing in it), before coming back and heading in through a convenient hole in the wall into the main building.
Where Victor was almost immediately spotted by an attack dog on one of the half-collapsed upper levels. As Victor did not have a good shot at it, I quickly had him back off so the dog would lose interest – which it did fairly rapidly, whew. (Though I could definitely hear Ada firing at something from a different angle while I was waiting for the danger to fade – and as I didn’t encounter the dog on my subsequent exploration, I think SHE may have managed to take out the mutt.) Anyway, after about a minute, Victor was back in [HIDDEN] again, and he was able to sneak back into the building without issue. He did a little exploring, working his way around the rubble and collecting some Nuka-Cola from a nearby machine and some useful junk from some desks laying scattered about. Once he’d seen everything there was to see on the bottom floor (including the lobby, which had survived a lot better than the rest of the building), I had him cautiously head upstairs, where he found a bunch more desks, a cooking station –
H) And a door that led into the Slocum Joe Offices proper. Oooo. However, I was coming to the end of my Allotted Fallout Time for the day, so I decided to explore that later. Instead, I had Victor loot all of the desks, take a bathroom break, and then hit the cooking station so he could cook up everything he’d gathered on his travels lately. And, after making a bunch of teas, juices, squirrel-on-a-stick, and Nuka-Cram, he not only basically emptied his inventory of uncooked food –
He also got up to level 46! :D I promptly popped into the Pip-Boy to take his new perk – and while I was very tempted to get the final rank of Rifleman (since Victor uses a LOT of rifles), I ultimately couldn’t resist the third rank of Strong Back, which immediately gave him another +50 to his carry capacity (as long as he wasn’t wearing power armor, which he almost never is, so) and the ability to run while overencumbered by using action points. :D Given how much crap he’s always hoarding on his person, this will be VERY USEFUL!
I) And so the playsession ended with me popping very quickly up onto the third story of the building to see what was up there – turned out to be a few more desks, a chemistry station, and a big red trunk with LOADS of ammo inside. (Plus Summer Shorts, but Victor doesn’t need those. XD) I grabbed what I could and returned to the door into the offices to close things out. Next time, we’ll pop in there and see what we can find, then head back toward CIT to find that damn courser! Should be exciting. :D
Writing: Another Sunday, another update to the FO4 Playthrough Progression – and as hinted at last week, this week’s writing session saw the introduction of the Wildwood Vampire Coterie to the fanfic universe! Consisting of Randall the Ventrue, Mal and Kevin the Malkavian twins, Harley the Toreador, Harry the Gangrel, Luke the Nosferatu, Alan the Brujah, and Crystal the Tremere (and yes, Harry and Crystal are named after my Gangrel and Tremere fledglings from VTMB, while Mal and Kevin are an obvious pun on their clan name XD). They’re a group of vampires who managed to survive the initial bombing, banded together in the cemetery to get through the nuclear winter that followed, and are now a tight-knit little community. Victor’s time in Wildwood was thus spent getting to know them (after getting over waking up to Mal and Kevin creepily standing over him because that’s what they do), promising Randall that he’d see about getting the vampires a place in the Minutemen network (as they would like the extra protection the faction offers), and taking a tour of the cemetery with Harley (allowing me to establish that the mausoleum with all the flower vases was hers; the one with the creepy altar was Mal and Kevin’s – it’s an art installation XD; and the “fresh grave” was actually Harry’s, as he has the Gangrel “meld with the earth” power). And right before the visit ended because of the vampires’ need to hide from the sun, Mal and Kevin informed Victor that if he headed toward Malden, he’d find another Eddie Winter holotape (in typical cryptic Malkavian fashion, of course). Which is why Victor ended up going off in that direction, because of course he doesn’t have quest markers on his Pip-Boy. :p Felt good to properly establish this gang as part of the verse! :)
As for the rest of the write-up, it basically followed what happened in the game up until Victor got the Winter holotape – namely, his discovery of the Slocum Joe’s headquarters was triggered by him hearing the dog that was inside the place barking away, and Ada explicitly killed it when it made to attack Victor (commenting that she didn’t want Victor possibly getting rabies). Victor also never went to look at the weird statue in the little plaza behind the place; only realized that it was Slocum Joe’s corporate HQ when he found the lobby; and explored the ENTIRE exterior cell and had his deathclaw-steak-and-melon-juice lunch by the cookpot before finding the door to the interior. Relatively minor changes, I suppose, but still good to note. *nods* So yeah – he and his friends are preparing to enter what’s left of the Slocum Joe’s offices. We’ll see what they find next week!
YouTube: As usual, got to this later than I would have liked (thanks to the worries at dinner), but I DID actually watch both of my Sunday Two –
A) First up, we had GrayStillPlays and “When you catch every disease at once,” aka Gray plays more Happy Wheels! Today’s offerings included Gray taking on a bottle flip where the “Death” area was the hardest to get, meaning Gray had to try and get it (he succeeded after many, many throws); a Minecraft-themed rope swing (where Gray managed to win with NO ARMS – he lost them right before the minecart-ride section); Bike Dad having to fight against people armed with such things as a battle axe, a regular axe, bottles of booze, a watermelon, and Santa (he ended the battle by knocking over a pyramid of Florida Men); a medieval joust with Pogo Guy and a medieval duel with Segway Nixon (Gray was very impressed by the historical accuracy on the helmets of his opponents); the Hobo going on a rampage through the town in his car with giant wheels (just smashing up EVERYTHING and avoiding the cops); Bike Dad and Tom Hardy facing off against the ninjas of “McDojo 2” (Bike Dad had more trouble accidentally taking his head off smashing into things than he did with the actual ninjas and such); Gray going on a birthday rampage with a hammer (smashing up everyone and everything in his path before winning the strength test at the arcade, nice); Pogo Guy taking on a fall where the things he had to avoid were the text blocks describing the various levels (you know, like, Easy, Normal, Hard); Segway Nixon taking on a pretty nasty spike fall (with a secret non-win off to the left – Gray was sour over being tricked); a pogo “parcour” board featuring a violent wheel of axes and all the spikes (but also landmines, meaning Gray could sail over all the obstacles in his path without parkouring at all); an obstacle course done for the board creator’s friend (featuring a spike ceiling area that forced Gray to be patient for once – he hated that); an “Impossible Gray” pogo jump with TWO endings (a secret coin in a very stabby area, and the usual win guarded by five million arrows and suchlike – Gray of course did not rest until he got both); a trip through all the dimensions with Bike Dad (which Gray found very confusing); and – in the Dylan Snider board – Hobo Guy having to avoid extra-stabby monkeypox vaccinations but also the monkeypox virus itself with the help of his rocket-powered wheelchair (and also a pit of swords. Regarding which Gray was like “HOW DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH GETTING SICK??” XD). So, you know, all the usual Happy Wheels nonsense. XD We love to see it!
B) And second up, we had Jon and “Fallout 4: Sim Settlements 2 - Part 50 - Four Beheadings And A Funeral!” Featuring the continuing adventures of Mayor Bob in his fight against the Gunners! Last episode saw him and his troops secure Vault 95 (the “rehabilitate drug addicts and then give them access to chems again” vault, the one which is part of Cait’s personal quest to get clean), which the Gunners were using as a base for their communications with their Stingray bombers – so what did he get up to this episode? Well –
I. He and Salvador cleared the interior of Vault 95 and searched it for intel! Fortunately, none of the Gunners they came up against were particularly hard to beat, and while poor Bob was stymied by some doors locked by Master-locked terminals (dude is NOT a hacker), he was able to locate a few key pieces of intel – specifically, coded messages that Salvador could at least partly decode. Apparently the Gunners are trying very hard to keep the Commonwealth Curators down via Stingray bombings while they look for some mysterious piece of technology they want, and are also hoping to figure out how to exploit some sort of “vulnerability” before the CC can take down their bombers or otherwise fuck up their plans. This definitely meant that finding the location of the final Stingray fueling site was a top priority – fortunately, Salvador was of the opinion that he could figure it out by decoding some of the other intel they found.
II. He had a talk with Cassandra and Lupe about the necessity of having doctors at outposts, field medics in combat, and a good flow of supplies in general throughout their little network! Because Cassandra had been seeing a LOT of injuries from the latest skirmishes, and Lupe had been getting rather nervous about how many supplies that they’d been going through. (She was also very nervous about the way Cassandra and Salvador were talking so causally about people dying, but that was more “I am having a hard time adjusting to the fact that we are at war” character stuff, poor kid.) Bob was all for turning people into proper doctors and field medics to help with injuries, and to set up special scavenging stations in outposts so people could go out on the battlefield and into some of the smaller locations they’re holding and pick supplies up off the dead – after all, he’d been doing a fair bit of scavenging himself for the war effort (donating ammo and spare chems to his war chest), so why not take some of the burdens off his shoulders and automate it a bit? He was also in favor of securing Milton General Hospital and Scrap Palace for the two ladies to make sure they had plenty of medical supplies and general useful junk. And as Salvador needed at least a day to continue his decoding efforts, he decided to get straight on that and headed over to Milton General Hospital to make it his own!
III. He got a confusing letter! For, you see, when he actually arrived at Milton General, as he was marking it as a target for his troops, he got a letter from a Courier. A letter –
From Paul. An elderly, slightly doddery but very caring old fellow who threw himself straight into getting the ASAMs working for everyone, and was a key figure in getting the Commonwealth Curators off the ground, along with Jake and Bob himself. A dude that was kidnapped by the Gunners after he helped Stodges and his group set up at the Red Rocket –
And who was murdered by them some episodes ago. Bob was naturally very, very confused to get a letter from him asking him to come to a specific church to say goodbye to an old friend. As you might well be. He put the letter away and vowed to get over there as soon as he could, but first –
IV. He secured Milton General Hospital! Yes, after shaking off the confusion of getting a letter from a dead man, Bob continued with his offensive, summoning his troops to the hospital so he could secure it as a necessary font of medical supplies! However, he couldn’t just walk up to the front door and take the place – the game had to give him a fight to secure it! And so it spawned in a bunch of enemies for the troops to defend it from –
A WHOLE GAGGLE OF SUPER MUTANT WARLORDS. O.O Like, uh, holy shit. FORTUNATELY Bob had recently taken the final rank of “Gun-Fu” and thus was able to use VATS to score bonus critical hits on every fourth target and beyond, plus plenty of grenades to throw at the problem, but it was still a TOUGH fight. Bob really regretted not getting those field medics set up before he did this. :( But he and his troops managed to hold the hospital and kill all the warlords, with only seven injuries and two deaths. The game called that an S-rank win! And Bob was nice enough to go around and try to heal some of his wounded himself using the chems he’d just donated – though some amusing timing on some of the NPC banter suggested his settlers didn’t think much of his medical skills. (Jon was like, “they’re right to complain, I don’t even have Medic as a perk.” XD)
V. He attended a funeral! Because after securing the hospital, he went straight to the church where this “goodbye to an old friend” hosted by the supposedly-dead Paul was taking place to see what kind of necromancy was going on here. And when he arrived, he found a bunch of people (including Jake, Theresa, Lupe, some Diamond City security, and even some raiders) milling around in front of a coffin, with Cola laying next to it and a dude who looked shockingly like Paul standing over it at the pulpit. Bob went up to see who exactly that was –
Only for the dude to introduce himself as YOUNG Paul – Old Paul’s son. Yeah, apparently what happened is that Bob got flummoxed by a Junior/Senior situation. XD Anyway, Young Paul explained that he’d come here to give his dad a proper send-off, and proceed to deliver a fascinating eulogy on his father’s life. Turns out Old Paul was one hundred and nine years old when he died, which is a hell of a thing in the present day, let alone the post-apocalyptic wasteland. We also learned that he was originally a gunsmith in Diamond City, but ended up selling the business in favor of opening a shelter for people who were victimized by synths replacing loved ones after he had to shoot a synth version of his own wife to stop her killing their infant son (and I just had a horrible realization about why his unique “does 50% more damage to synths” gun that he gave Bob was called “Margeret…). He turned to raiding briefly to help fund the place (though he tried only to hit people he thought could spare the caps, and never to hurt anybody), but eventually found he didn’t have the heart for it and became a scavver instead, which helped him fund both the shelter AND a school. :) And even in retirement, he couldn’t sit still, choosing to roam the Commonwealth to help people rather than stay at home with his son – which, of course, is how he met Bob. Bob then proceeded to say a few words about Paul’s life and death (emphasizing that he was a caring, brave man because he’s definitely not going to say “I found him a little annoying at first” at the guy’s FUNERAL), and Young Paul wrapped things up by urging everyone in attendance to remember Old Paul’s life and the way he cared over how he died. Awww. He then thanked Bob for coming (saying he was glad that Bob was there for his dad in his final days) and let him know that Old Paul had left him a holotape. Bob took it and played it –
Revealing that Old Paul had left him a final gift – the coordinates to a stockpile of supplies that he wanted Bob to use to help the Commonwealth. Bob was like, “I could definitely use supplies, thanks Old Paul” and looked up the location on his Pip-Boy, revealing the stash was in Breakheart Banks. Soo –
VI. He cleared out Breakheart Banks! Which fortunately was not too hard, given he had his lovely explosive sniper and all those ranks of “Gun-Fu” under his belt, and the place was not swimming in Super Mutant Warlords. XD Once all the super mutants and their hounds were dead, he headed inside and to the trunk, going “well, Paul, this was kind of out of my way, so I hope this was worth it” –
And found an absolute TON of ammo and guns, along with other useful items. “THANKS PAUL, TOTALLY WORTH IT.” XD Due to a lack of carry capacity, Bob had to leave the guns for now, but he definitely grabbed all the ammo and trucked it back to base to dump into his chest. His army is now officially GOLDEN when it comes to bullets, at least!
VII. And, as a finale, he took Scrap Palace! Which proved to be HILARIOUSLY easy, because in THIS case, the game only spawned in like two Gunners to defend the place. Given he ran over to the place in the middle of a rad storm and had to kill a patrol of three gunners en-route, Bob officially had more trouble GETTING to the Scrap Palace than he did TAKING it. XD Maybe the mod just felt bad for throwing all those warlords at him earlier, I don’t know. Point is, the Scrap Palace is now under Commonwealth Curator control, and hopefully their supply problems will be somewhat eased!
And that was that! Solid episode, and it was very nice to see Old Paul’s son and see the poor guy get a proper funeral. *nods* And next week, we’ll see Bob check back in with Salvador and see if they can figure out how to stop the Gunner’s Stingray bombers once and for all...
Workout: Back on the bike today, and I chose to start off this week’s workouts with “The kids are raising the kids in Every Life Stage Challenge! - Part 6” by James Turner! Because the episode lengths are getting longer as the series goes on, and I can’t really pair them up with Gray’s stuff anymore unless it’s really short (like the “rollercoasters” compilation he posted up recently). Anyway, this episode saw Semaj and his family start the usual grind of completing all of their aspiration tasks and trying to earn money for bills and whatnot – here are the highlights:
A) James doing a little bit of house renovation by combining Sunny and Vivienne’s two little rooms into one bigger room with a spandrel archway separating them, and making Semaj’s bedroom a bit bigger so he could fit a “nursery” (basically just a baby closet) on the side – only to discover that there was a pile of snow stuck in the entrance of said “nursery” meaning Semaj couldn’t actually access the kid. So newborn Scarlett had to live in his bedroom anyway. James was a little annoyed by that, as you might imagine.
B) James sending the family to Copperdale so Krystoff could hit up the bubble tea and thrift store there and make an outfit to sell on Trendi, since that was one of Krystoff’s tasks for aging up! He designed a truly “slay” outfit (with a wild green sweater, black pants, and high black boots) and listed it for $1,000 simoleons – and later that same morning, Vlad of all people agreed to buy it. XD Krystoff shipped it off, and an amused James made a rule that he could only sell an outfit for a ridiculous price to help with the household funds once per teenager. :p
C) James doing his best to get the kids (and Semaj) to smash out as many “age-up tasks” as possible, particularly those involving skills! So far –
I. Semaj has accomplished his “complete an aspiration milestone” task by helping Pablo with a school project
II. Pablo has completed his “finish a school project,” “get one skill up to level 5,” and “get two skills up to level 3” tasks (mostly by doing kid yoga in his room, which improves both Mental and Motor skill, nice – and a picture on Krystoff’s old drawing table got up him up to 3 Creativity)
III. Krystoff has done the “sell an outfit on Trendi” task, natch (and is currently either painting to help earn money or helping Semaj with potty training and taking care of the kids, hence the title of the episode)
IV. Sunny and Vivienne are smashing out their toddler skills (playing together in the tent for Imagination, babbling to each other and their stuffed toys for Communication, watching their family members for Thinking, playing on the toddler slide (which is currently in the hallway for winter) for Movement, and getting potty trained constantly for Potty) – unfortunately, they’ve both developed the Aggressive quirk, which is not great. James blames their mother Alice for being literally Evil
V. And Camillo is getting through all his necessary milestones (he’s already gotten his “Reach” and “Grab” milestones from the playmat, and his “First Bath” and “First Bubble Bath” milestones from Krystoff – now all he needs is tummy time and socialization to get the final Gross Motor and Social milestones)
I think it’s safe to say that James has gotten pretty efficient at this over the course of all these kids. XD Though things are still a LITTLE chaotic, especially with James having put in a new rule that he can’t move the Plumbite spire from the charging grid anymore, meaning only certain rooms are getting its benefit. Meaning everyone now has to actually eat and sleep and stuff. XD But still, they’re all doing pretty damn good! Looking forward to seeing how things go from here in this episode!
Whew -- that was a lot. And now it is time for me to hit the sack. We'll see how tomorrow plays out -- I'm HOPING that I can finish off my Chill Valicer Save drafts on Victor Luvs Alice; play Sims 4 and do a Chill Valicer Save Harvestfest; work some more on "Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland;" get in my workout; and keep up with my Subs. But that's all dependent on there not being any more medical emergencies around this house. *grimace* I guess we'll see what the morning brings. Night all.
