Usual Busy Sunday Night
Sep. 15th, 2024 11:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickYeah, this proved to be a pretty typical Sunday too -- which means, as usual, I'm rushing to finish up all my notes on my to-do list so I can get to bed at a reasonable time --
Tumblr: Got everything I needed to get done, done over here, happily –
Victor Luvs Alice – Got the image alt text done on all four of the Chill Valicer Save update posts for this week – like yesterday, finished two before lunch, and two after. So THAT is all set for this upcoming Wednesday, yay~
Valice Multiverse – Had one ask from Toonsisters for the queue tonight, featuring her telling one of the Victors (I went with Cuddlepile as she’s been favoring them lately) about a mysterious medieval magical swordsman of legend she’s heard about, the Butterfly Spirit Swordsman – who apparently was named Vincent Van Dort. Victor was like “[blink blink] Wait, really?” XD He’s just having trouble parsing that someone so apparently badass could be related to him...
Fallout 4: Got to this a little earlier than usual thanks to us having lunch earlier than usual (we wanted to finish Episode 1 of Series 18 of “Taskmaster” before the football game today – good stuff, as per usual), and spent a good hour in the game with Victor and Ada continuing to explore Malden! Because we know me – the main quest has nothing on me discovering a new location and going “ooooh, what’s in here?” XD Anyway, here’s what they got up to today –
A) Picked up where I left off a couple of weeks ago, with Victor and Ada in the Slocum Joe’s Corporate HQ, preparing to head into the inner offices! I had them thus proceed through the door, which put them in a tiny little office with a bunch of ruined desks –
And a trio of raiders in the more open area just around the corner, with two of them watching the third attempting to kick open a safe in the corner. None of them had noticed the crouched Victor, though, so I had him sneak around to get a good shot at the one standing in front of the archway, aim up with the Tactical Tesla Rifle, charge up a shot –
And, thanks to the fact that the electricity jumps to all nearby targets, take out all three raiders with one sneak-attack blast. :D Now THAT was satisfying! And very fortunate, as the minute Victor entered the room, I discovered the trio were all sporting pretty good quality combat rifles. So a firefight might have been a bit, ah, painful for poor Victor. *pats the Tactical Tesla* Thank you, electric death machine!
B) With the raiders dead, I had Victor start looting bodies and containers in the room – the raiders had the usual crappy armor, ammo, and caps, while a file cabinet in the corner had a technical document that I’m sure that dude on the Prydwen would like. The real interesting stuff, though, was in the novice-locked desk in the center of the room and the advanced-locked safe. I started with the desk and popped that open to find another technical document; four containers of Slocum Joe’s Buzzbites (basically donut holes filled with hot coffee); and a notice to Slocum Joe’s from “C.H.W.A.”, stating that the organization would NOT be approving their Buzzbites prototype for more general sale, because there was a 90% chance of customers getting third-degree burns from the hot coffee inside the donut holes. Explaining why this food item actually DECREASES your HP while actually raising your AP and Perception temporarily. XD The sole survivor is lucky that it’s just a hit of -10! As for the safe, I cracked that open and found a 10mm pistol with ammo, $100 worth of pre-War cash –
And, as I had expected when I first wandered in here, the recipe to MAKE Buzzbites, should I so choose! :D I mean, I don’t know if I SHALL so choose, but it’s fun to have, and the game gave me some XP for finding it. Might be useful if I really need the extra AP and Perception. If you’re wondering how you make them in the post-apocalypse, you need a coffee tin, dirty water, a mirelurk egg, oil, and three bits of razorgrain. Hopefully the pre-War version involved clean water! XD
C) Anyway – with the Buzzbites recipe secured, I had Victor take all the guns and the leather armor off one of the raiders and scrap it all down for bits (got some good stuff out of it all too, including aluminum and rubber, along with the standard steel and screws), then – keeping an eye on his AP, because the game had just let me know he was feeling tired – sent him and Ada back out into the Commonwealth. They left the main building by dropping down to the first floor through the hole in the second floor and then cutting through the lobby, then I had Victor loot all the nearby ice machines, cigarette machines, and trash bins while I figured out what I wanted to do next. I knew that I OUGHT to start heading south so Victor could get to finding and killing that damn courser, but there was a map marker that I wanted to investigate REALLY nearby, so I figured that I’d do that first real quick. I thus swung around and went behind the HQ (finding the dead attack dog from earlier beside a bus on the road next to the building – yup, looks like Ada got it by blasting its head clean off) and headed toward the building across the street –
Only to pause as I saw what looked like a bloatfly hanging out on the road up ahead. A VATS scan revealed that a Black Bloatfly and an Albino Squirrel were having a scrap – I was tempted to leave them to it for a second, but then the squirrel started fleeing in Victor’s general direction, causing the bloatfly to come straight toward him. Fortunately, a zap with the Tactical Tesla once the fly was close enough killed both it AND the squirrel (who was apparently running in for another go now that the bloatfly was distracted). Victor gathered up the meat and the bloatfly gland, then immediately proceeded to get hungry and thirsty. XD I had him chow down on some melon flambe (it’s an easy way to satisfy both hunger and thirst in one go), then proceeded up to the building to finally trigger the discovery –
D) And found that I’d discovered Malden Middle School! I was immediately like “hang on, isn’t this that school that has a vault underneath it that’s full of Gunners?” A thought that you think would have made me turn back from exploring it, but nope! XD As the front doors were barred (and in a way that made it clear they were just a texture), I had Victor loop around to the ruined side of the building, climbing over the rubble to enter a classroom –
And spotting an oddly jail-like door in the hallway just beyond. Huh. I had Victor loot what he could out of the classroom (it is never a good sign when you find a surgical scalpel in a teacher’s desk), then head into the hallway and get some stuff out of the office across the way before investigating the door. Turns out it opened up onto a little stairwell that led to the doors into the basement. Obviously those had to be investigated –
But not right that second, because poor Victor had progressed to the next stage of his exhaustion and now could not run and had like no AP. I thus had him backtrack a little bit into the classroom, find an empty spot, and set up his tent so he could hit the sack. At least he made it all the way to 8:05 PM in-game before nearly collapsing! XD
E) After an eight-hour snooze among the rubble, Victor was up and ready to go by 4:05 AM. I had him pack up his kit then head down into the basement, where I was greeted with a catwalk, gunner symbols on the far wall, a bunch of earthmovers, and – indeed – what was clearly the entrance to a vault. :D I had Victor creep around the starting area for a bit, looking for goodies to loot while trying to keep to the shadows as much as possible –
And then heard something hit Ada behind me and turned around to see her fighting a Gunner Private armed with a baton. I quickly raised the Tactical Tesla, then JUST as quickly went “wait, no, electric gun, don’t know if the beam knows not to hit companions, ELECTROCUTING ROBOT BAD” and fumbled around for a second grabbing the Deliverer from my kit and trying to find a good angle to, you know, actually shoot the woman. By the time I got Victor into a decent position, Ada had actually already killed the private just by smacking her enough with her robot claws. *facepalm* I tried to help, Ada, I swear!
F) Of course, that little battle didn’t go unnoticed, and as Victor tried to creep back up to the entrance to see what was going on, he and Ada were promptly fired upon by a turret. I had Victor switch back to his electric death machine gun and head up to the entrance proper to take it and the two Gunners guarding the place out – he managed to kill them all with a few VATS shots, but he took a LOT more hits than I would have liked from the turret and the second Gunner’s plasma rifle, forcing me to have him chow down on a Deathclaw Roast to regain his ragged HP. I do love the Tactical Tesla rifle very much, but it’s not a great VATS gun, that’s for sure (well, sort of – it takes less AP to fire it than you might think, and that’s important in VATS) – it just doesn’t have great range, and it doesn’t do its max damage unless you charge it. Probably best for those situations where I can sneak up on a crowd and take the time to hold down the trigger before murdering everybody!
G) Anyway – having cleared the entrance, I had Victor wander around looting everything he could find (including some military-grade duct tape, niiiice), which eventually led him into the little admissions office on the side – which just so happened to have a working terminal. I had Victor sit down and see what was inside out of curiosity – we had a press release, stating that Vault-Tec was offering subsidized enrollment fees to the families of Malden with young school-age children who wished to live in Vault 75 (aka the vault we were in right now) in order to “safeguard the future” and all that bullshit; the “Enrollment Guidelines,” which specified that the subsidies and discounts could only be offered to families with children under 15 attending school in Malden, with no more than two adults allowed in per eligible child, and that children could be enrolled WITHOUT their parents; the “Special Admission Protocols,” which stated that after all the usual admission stuff was taken care of, all children under the age of 17 would be taken to the Atrium to receive a special orientation from the Overseer, while everyone else would be taken to a holding area to get a briefing from the Head of Security; and a list of some of the kids enrolled. Yeah, if you are starting to think something is PARTICULARLY fucked up about this vault and its emphasis on wanting young children, you are absolutely correct! I remembered this vault being fucked up, but I didn’t recall the specific way it was fucked up –
H) So I had Victor and Ada get into the nearby elevator and head deeper into the vault, thus starting the quest “Vault 75” to explore the place and see what was going on! They arrived in a hallway much like the one they’d left, strewn with various boxes, crates, and suitcases, with a couple of Gunners patrolling in the distance – I had Victor take ‘em out with the Two-Shot (beloved!), then explore to find good lootables. This resulted in him discovering a solider skeleton behind a crate near the entrance clutching a Vault-Tec lunchbox with gumdrops inside in one hand and a burnt Grognak comic with a magnifying glass in the other, with a toy alien by his side. Well, I guess this was the kid vault, sooo… Victor took the good stuff and continued onward, through the hallways, into a little side office, then out and around again, grabbing anything and everything good –
And discovering a locked door into one of the labs, which needed a keycard to access. Hmmm. I resolved to look out for that and continued onward, down the hall into the Atrium (which, judging by all the tables, also served as the lunchroom –
I) Where there were yet more Gunners – including one Legendary! I had Victor sneak in and manage to kill that guy with a single sneak attack, but the shot got the attention of the other Gunners in the room, and soon Victor and Ada were embroiled in quite the fight, with poor Victor getting hit from a variety of angles simply because I couldn’t always turn around fast enough to figure out where the gunfire was coming from. Fortunately the Two-Shot is a beast and can take down damn near anyone in one hit, AND I had Ada with me, which meant not only did she draw fire, I could also follow where she was shooting her lasers to take out Gunners I had missed (especially on the balconies overlooking the main atrium). We eventually wiped them all out (including a Gunner patrolling an unfinished-looking room off to the side – think it’s the generator room), and I went over to the Legendary to see what they had for me –
And discovered, to my surprise, that they weren’t carrying any Legendary equipment. Puzzled, but aware that this is a known bug, I took what I wanted from his corpse and moved onto the corpse of the private nearby –
And THERE was the Legendary weapon – a Never-Ending 10mm pistol! XD Right, enemies in these games can grab each others’ weapons if they fall. Well, I don’t really NEED a never-needs-reloading 10mm, but it’ll be good to sell eventually!
J) And so the playsession ended with Victor and Ada popping into the kitchen briefly to loot any goodies in there (mainly a toaster); returning to the atrium to finish looting and killing a final Gunner Corporal who was wielding a Ripper mini-chainsaw (as I believe it’s the first one I’ve ever seen, I went ahead and grabbed it – Victor’s not really a melee guy, but might be fun to try it out once?); and taking a moment to get a drink from the nearby bubbler and fill up Victor’s empty bottles with fresh water. *nods* Pretty solid stuff, I think! Next time, Victor and Ada will continue exploring the vault and see if they can uncover the mysteries of the place by finding that lab keycard! Should be fun. :)
Writing: It’s a Sunday where I actually play Fallout 4? Then it’s a Sunday where I update the FO4 Playthrough Progression with the fanfic version of what happened in the game! As usual, the adventures of Victor, Alice, and Ada in the fanfic verse hewed pretty closely to the events of my actual playsession, with a few relatively minor changes –
A) As per usual, Victor fired on the raiders trying to open the Slocum Joe’s safe in self-defense rather than just sneak-attacking them, because I prefer him to not just murder people in the fanfic world. Makes me feel better if he’s acting to protect himself – even if he then fries them with a charged shot from the Tactical Tesla. XD
B) Victor was less impressed by getting the Buzzbites recipe than I was and has no plans to make any anytime soon (even indicating he is more likely to trade the recipe away if they can’t find a way to make the food safe) – though I couldn’t stop myself from having him make a joke about making the “Rhode Island” version by using iced coffee instead. XD I mean, if you know, you know. XD
C) Victor went to investigate what he would later recognize as Malden Middle School half because he was getting tired and thought it might be a good place to camp for the night – and then, after recognizing the place and recalling the Vault-Tec press release about subsidizing families with kids to live in the attached Vault 75 in case of a nuclear disaster, he decided he wanted to get inside because – well. He was personally screwed over by Vault-Tec and their weird cryogenic vault, and he really wanted to know what happened to those poor kids. Alice and Ada, knowing his history and how shit Vault-Tec is, were totally on-board – after he got a good night’s sleep, of course. XD
D) Alice and Ada of course helped a bit more with all the fights inside the vault, particularly the big dust-up in the atrium – and I gave the kill of that final Gunner Corporal with the Ripper who ran in at the very end of my playsession to Alice so she could get her hands on the little mini military-grade chainsaw. Perhaps that kind of weapon is not Victor’s jam, but I do believe it is hers! :D Hopefully I remember to have her make use of it in the future.
E) Oh, and I didn’t bother making the one Legendary guy legendary, because Victor doesn’t need a never-ending 10mm and I don’t know how I’d justify that in a slightly-more-realistic world anyway. Not all Legendaries need to exist in the fanfic universe – just the super-useful ones (like the four in Victor’s current gun line-up) and all the funniest ones. XD
But yeah, other than that, all the same beats hit in the fanfic universe as in the game, with the trio currently holed up in the atrium of Vault 75, ready to explore it, find that lab keycard, and get to the bottom of what happened to the kids. We’ll see how their investigation goes next Sunday!
YouTube: Well, I started later than I wanted to (as usual), but I did get through the usual Sunday Two, yay –
A) First up, from the Subs, we had GrayStillPlays and “I spent $7,381,952,604 ending all life on earth,” aka Gray plays Survivor.io! This is a game where you play as a little cartoon dude with throwing knives, moving around a few city blocks in a cartoony zombie apocalypse, killing zombies with your knives, earning XP with from those kills, and learning skills as you level up. Skills like getting a soccer ball to bounce around the screen, or throwing a brick into the air, or tossing around molotov cocktails. And as you continue to level up, you get more skills and improve the skills you have – like adding more soccer balls, or making your bricks more dangerous. The goal is to survive as long as you can against the hordes, occasionally fighting tougher monsters and outright bosses like poison-spitting flowers. Basically, this is a game that encourages you to get the most nonsensical upgrades that you possibly can in the name of clearing the screen –
And we all know how much Gray loves a nonsensical upgrade! XD Yeah, after worrying that he would have to hack the game to see the higher-level upgrades at the very beginning, he quickly realized “oh no, wait, this is a game that gets SUPER EASY once you get a few upgrades under your belt” and embraced the nonsense entirely. His first run consisted of him throwing around soccer balls, bricks, molotovs, and rockets until he was overwhelmed – his second run, he upgraded his kit, got himself a katana, and went high-tech with multiple drones firing missiles, drills bouncing around everywhere, and a forcefield that grew to almost encompass the screen. Though he did make sure to get his beloved soccer balls again, because they do a SURPRISING amount of damage. :p By the end, the only reason he had to move was to pick up all the XP from the enemies being ABSOLUTELY SLAUGHTERED around him – not a single creature could stand up against the might of his missile barrage, deadly forcefield, and love of soccer. XD Good stuff – nice to see him playing fun games instead of jank ones for a change! (Though of course I will never say no to Gray making fun of a jank game. XD)
B) And second, from Many A True Nerd, we had Jon and “Fallout 4: Sim Settlements 2 - Part 52 - Military Unintelligence!” Featuring the continuing adventures of Mayor Bob in his war against the Gunners! Today’s adventures included –
I. Bob returning to HQ after his Glowing Sea adventures (and after taking the two level ups Jon completely forgot to take at the end of last week – dumped ‘em both in Charisma to max that out and get the “Intimidate” perk open so he could have fun trying to intimidate people into surrendering) and – after learning from Cassandra that Salvador was being forlorn on the roof, and identifying a weird weakness in their defenses around the HQ (namely, an unprotected ladder directly onto the roof, which led to an unprotected base-game elevator down into the basement – Bob was like “we should PROBABLY have someone guarding this shit??”) – meeting up with Salvador to learn some of his tragic backstory! Mainly how Salvador met Theresa (he was trying to track down a violent gang, but none of the locals would point him in the right direction to take them out because they didn’t trust him – however, Theresa, who is good at talking to people, was able to talk them around, and working together, they got the gang sorted); how they met their other mutual friend (still unnamed, but apparently very good at offense); and how they traveled together helping out the Commonwealth until something VERY BAD happened and they all went their separate ways (Salvador isn’t sure if what happened was his fault or theirs – despite his ability to crunch the numbers, he can’t make sense of the incident). All of this was prelude to him pointing out that Bob was changing the Commonwealth forever with his war against the Gunners, and how, if the Curators won, Bob would be a leader on a scale previously unknown – so he had to ask if Bob actually valued keeping the Commonwealth stable, like and his friends once did. Because, yeah, Bob has done a LOT in a relatively short amount of time, and stands to be at the head of the most powerful faction the place has ever seen, and Salvador – well, he can’t help but worry.
Bob immediately thought about all the times he’s thought about making himself God-King of the Commonwealth and evaded the question by saying he couldn’t make any promises since they didn’t fully know yet what they were dealing with here. XD Fortunately Salvador accepted that as an honest answer, as Bob couldn’t fully tell what effect his organization would have going forward...though he did note that this brought up the issue of what happened after Bob’s death and if he had a plan in place for that inevitability. Bob evaded that question too, though Jon worried that at some point, he and Salvador might come to blows over Bob’s love of being leader…
(Oh – and it was at THIS point that the game was like, “Oh, yeah, you’re at war with the Gunners.” Jon was like, “??? Yeah, uh, I thought we already were?” XD I GUESS what the message was trying to convey was that Jon was out of the tutorial stage and into the war proper, especially as it talked about how to win the war (basically drive the Gunners out of all the territories they hold, fight back against strikes from them in Bob’s own territories (and watch out for more of increasing intensity as they lose numbers), and use scouting missions to figure out where to attack next to best eliminate the faction entirely), but it was still pretty funny. XD)
II. Bob turning Jamaica Plain into an outpost, and then taking over the Gunner outpost of Murkwater! The former was very simple – just involved dropping a War Planner’s desk in the settlement and then confirming he wanted it to be a military installation – the latter...not so much. Mostly because FIRST Bob was like “let’s clear out University Point, looks like the Gunners have taken over that” before recalling “oh, right, that’s not actually a settlement,” THEN because when he initially went and scoped Murkwater Construction Site out with his binoculars, he was informed he didn’t have enough warriors available to actually take the place, since a lot of his army was sat around guarding other territory he’d taken. XD Fortunately he was able to head back to Jamaica Plain and recruit a bunch of new scrubs to help him out (plus MacCready and The Ventilator as they weren’t doing anything else) and together they cleared out the Gunners! The game then informed Bob that reinforcements were inbound from the FMS Northern Star, so Bob began watching the east while using a recent level-up to take the “Intimidation” perk to see if he could get any of them to surrender amusingly –
And then the game told him “hey, congrats on conquering Murkwater!” because apparently the Gunners died en-route and that counted as a win for Bob’s team. Okay then. XD And then Salvador tried to call Bob about the next quest in the line right as the “results” screen triggered, thus revealing that the cool flyover view of the settlement is the result of the game temporarily giving Bob the ability to, well, fly over it. XD Bethesda game was quite Bethesda tonight, is what I’m saying!
III. Bob forming official alliances with a bunch of other factions in the game! Yes, after Bob came back down to ground, Salvador called him again and commented on his friendly relationship with the Nightingales, complimenting him on building camaraderie with the other factions in the world and talking about how said factions could assist the Curators with the war effort. This started the quest “Under One Banner,” which prompted Bob to start helping out other factions in the game – including the main quest line ones (the Brotherhood of Steel, the Railroad, and the Institute – Minutemen weren’t a problem as Bob already runs that faction). Which, uh, was tricky, because Bob I believe has done enough work for all of them that helping one out would necessitate betraying the other two at this point. *grimace* Bob decided to put that to one side for the moment (figuring he could talk to some of the factions he was already friendly with, like the CPD, about an alliance later) and instead concentrated on setting up Murkwater as a new outpost and recruitment center –
And THEN the game prompted him to head back to HQ and meet an envoy there. A curious Bob did so and discovered that it was none other than Lydia Proudmore! Who, as a result of Bob helping her to become Chief Trader, was only too happy to offer him a formal alliance with the New Liberty Trading Company! Meaning there would be more activity from NLTC traders in his settlements. Bob was intrigued, but was like “what’s the catch?” – Lydia just reminded him that the NLTC takes anything written down as absolute law, so he’d be better be careful to make sure he followed all the terms of their contract, lest their agreement come to an end. Bob was like “that would be easier to agree to if I had the contract in front of me, but sure.” XD Lydia thanked him, saying that the contract was with his Logistics Officer, and headed out –
And the game was like “you have other envoys waiting for a chance to talk to you, want to see them now?” Bob was like “hell yes” and proceeded to take meetings with Simon of the CPD (who said that he and his police would be happy to help with security for settlements, and finding and recapturing deserters as necessary); Fiona of the Nightingales (who assured him that they’d put more doctors in his settlements and come when he called upon them); and, of all people, Sickle of the West Everett Estate mutants! Remember him? Bob met them back near the beginning of the series when he did them a favor to get them to give him some ASAMs they stole, then set out on a quest for chalk to soothe Sickle’s poorly tummy. XD Anyway, Sickle came by to report that he liked Bob’s house (lots of blinky machines) and that the Gunners had tried to recruit him and his gang to fight for them against Bob, but he and his fellow mutants had smashed them instead, as Bob was one of them. So he wanted to join up officially to help smash more Gunners. Bob was like “...welcome aboard!” XD I mean, hey, he’s ALREADY got Strong on his side...and he may even get more super mutants in the future, as agreeing to let Sickle join the alliance gave him the ability to recruit OTHER super mutants should he so choose… Yeah, I think this army’s gonna be very interesting very fast. XD
IV. Bob clearing out University Point and getting a message from a new friend! Yes, after getting all of his alliances set up, Bob headed back to Murkwater to get his scrub army to take University Point back from the Gunners (as now the game was prompting him to take out Gunner “territories” and he wanted to get University Point back on his map PROPERLY, damn it). Things got complicated right from the start when some Rust Devils and their robots showed up nearby to add to the chaos, but Bob was able to use his Lorenzo gun to blast them away, then pulled out the explosive ammo to deal with the Gunners and their Annihilator sentry-bot. He completely lost track of his army during the mess and basically took out the handful of reinforcements sent by himself, but the battle WAS won, and his men only suffered two injuries and one death, so – could have been a lot worse. However, while Bob was preparing to mop up the mess and figure out what Gunner territory he wanted to take next, a message came through on his radio –
From some guy named Magnusson. AKA the pre-War creator of the Comm Hub and ASAMs. Bob was like “the flip? How are you still around?” but Magnusson was a little cagey on that point, saying that he knew that the War was an inevitability and that he’d taken steps to survive it (meaning he’s either a ghoul, a robobrain of some description, or possibly froze himself like Bob was frozen in Vault 111). Anyway, Magnusson has been monitoring Bob and Jake’s adventures through the Comm Hub for a while now, and while he’s approved, he hasn’t really had the opportunity to contact either of them directly before now – though he HAS been monitoring the Gunner’s communications and quietly making sure that Jake and Bob overheard any that would be useful to them (Jon immediately realizing THIS is the guy who made sure they knew about the Gunner force off the coast of Spectacle Island). He wants to help out more now that the war has properly kicked off, though – mostly by helping Bob and company with their guns. For you see, as Bob has noticed, the Gunners have all sorts of fun new energy weapons and nuclear bullshit on their person, which is apparently courtesy of their secret employer. Magnusson’s attitude was “two can play at that game,” and he directed Bob to a stash of pre-War gear that should help him with kitting out his soldiers. Jon is a little concerned that this whole thing with Bob versus the Gunners is now just the latest skirmish in some kind of weird “shadow war” between Magnusson and whoever is employing the Gunners, but Bob isn’t about to say no to new guns. So next time, Bob is going to head off to get that cache, and see what Gunner territory and whatnot he can take back along the way. :) Should be a fun time! I hope we actually get to meet Magnusson then too – I am curious as to what exactly his deal is!
Workout: Back on the bike again this week, and back with James Turner for “I have 8 Sims in one house... Every Life Stage Challenge! - Part 7!” The penultimate episode of the series, which so far can be summed up as “James has four stress and Semaj has no money.” XD Yes, this episode started with James cleaning up the house, selling Winterfest presents, and using the money-giving trash-can to get the family to about $12K in household funds – and then spending almost all of it on renovating the house. Specifically, he added an entire upstairs “apartment” area for Krystoff and his squeeze Raoul Chopra (who I only realized this episode is actually the teenage grocery deliverer from Henford-On-Bagley – though he and his mother were discovered to be living in Chestnut Ridge when James went and aged him up, so I guess they wanted a change of scenery. To be fair, my Michael Bell the Creature Keeper lives in goddamn SULANI, so XD) to live and raise their upcoming child in (as it is now Krystoff’s job to have a baby), and a few extra rooms downstairs for the pipe organ, the kids’ toys, the garden that Semaj has to start for Scarlett (he spent some time running around harvesting strawberries and daisies to get going on that), and a second bathroom. Though, hilariously, pretty much none of these rooms are furnished yet – hell, many of them DON’T EVEN HAVE DOORS because the whole “ran out of cash” problem. So the main focus of the episode so far has been “trying to earn money,” which has been going – variably. Mostly because, right after the house reno, the bills came, and suddenly rather than continuing to update the house, James had to have Semaj pay those. XD Not to mention he keeps buying things like school projects and focusing lights for Semaj and his kids to use… On the plus side, Krystoff IS just about keeping the family afloat with his painting, and the kids are doing pretty well – both Sunny and Vivienne have completed all their childhood tasks (having gotten TONS of mental skill from school projects that they never finished), Camilo is making good progress on all of his toddler skills, and Scarlett is making good progress on her milestones. :) And Semaj is not only getting them a little extra money from cutting cheap gemstones (and has got a crystal tree going in the backyard now, so THAT’LL be a help once it fully grows), he has another all-important gig coming up, and THIS time he’s actually putting in the effort to do well, such as improving his Fitness with the basketball hoop and getting his Acting skill up. So yeah – usual chaos happening in this household, with a side of “everyone is also broke.” XD We’ll see if and how things improve for them all in the next half-hour tomorrow!
Other:
-->I know it’s not technically Officially Fall for another week, but it’s officially fall here at the house, because the last of the air conditioners came out of the window today – my parents took out theirs and the living room one (my old one, which now makes a weird rattling noise, so it’s not good to have in any of our bedrooms anymore) last week while they were recovering from COVID, and I asked Mom to help take out mine today, because it hasn’t been hot enough at night to justify using it. Down to just using the window fan to keep my room cool at night – have to enjoy it before we get all shut up with the coming of winter!
-->Holy shit beanbags are back XD Yeah, everything finally came together for us to play today – namely, the weather actually being nice and everyone being healthy enough to play. So we got out the boards and slung around the bags –
And Dad absolutely murdered Mom and me, winning all five games. Mom and I had to make do with competing for second, and Mom constantly came ahead of me right up until round four, when she finally started throwing worse and I was able to pick up a couple of twos. Final scores were me 3-3-3-2-2; Dad W-W-W-W-W; Mom 2-2-2-3-3. Yeesh. But then again, I guess it’s good that the guy who had major intestinal surgery was able to do so well. XD We’ll see if I can get my dignity back tomorrow!
Whew -- all right then! Busy day, as you can see, but a good one, at least. And now I REALLY have to get to bed, because I do have work tomorrow. Moose, I'll get to your messages tomorrow! Night all!
Tumblr: Got everything I needed to get done, done over here, happily –
Victor Luvs Alice – Got the image alt text done on all four of the Chill Valicer Save update posts for this week – like yesterday, finished two before lunch, and two after. So THAT is all set for this upcoming Wednesday, yay~
Valice Multiverse – Had one ask from Toonsisters for the queue tonight, featuring her telling one of the Victors (I went with Cuddlepile as she’s been favoring them lately) about a mysterious medieval magical swordsman of legend she’s heard about, the Butterfly Spirit Swordsman – who apparently was named Vincent Van Dort. Victor was like “[blink blink] Wait, really?” XD He’s just having trouble parsing that someone so apparently badass could be related to him...
Fallout 4: Got to this a little earlier than usual thanks to us having lunch earlier than usual (we wanted to finish Episode 1 of Series 18 of “Taskmaster” before the football game today – good stuff, as per usual), and spent a good hour in the game with Victor and Ada continuing to explore Malden! Because we know me – the main quest has nothing on me discovering a new location and going “ooooh, what’s in here?” XD Anyway, here’s what they got up to today –
A) Picked up where I left off a couple of weeks ago, with Victor and Ada in the Slocum Joe’s Corporate HQ, preparing to head into the inner offices! I had them thus proceed through the door, which put them in a tiny little office with a bunch of ruined desks –
And a trio of raiders in the more open area just around the corner, with two of them watching the third attempting to kick open a safe in the corner. None of them had noticed the crouched Victor, though, so I had him sneak around to get a good shot at the one standing in front of the archway, aim up with the Tactical Tesla Rifle, charge up a shot –
And, thanks to the fact that the electricity jumps to all nearby targets, take out all three raiders with one sneak-attack blast. :D Now THAT was satisfying! And very fortunate, as the minute Victor entered the room, I discovered the trio were all sporting pretty good quality combat rifles. So a firefight might have been a bit, ah, painful for poor Victor. *pats the Tactical Tesla* Thank you, electric death machine!
B) With the raiders dead, I had Victor start looting bodies and containers in the room – the raiders had the usual crappy armor, ammo, and caps, while a file cabinet in the corner had a technical document that I’m sure that dude on the Prydwen would like. The real interesting stuff, though, was in the novice-locked desk in the center of the room and the advanced-locked safe. I started with the desk and popped that open to find another technical document; four containers of Slocum Joe’s Buzzbites (basically donut holes filled with hot coffee); and a notice to Slocum Joe’s from “C.H.W.A.”, stating that the organization would NOT be approving their Buzzbites prototype for more general sale, because there was a 90% chance of customers getting third-degree burns from the hot coffee inside the donut holes. Explaining why this food item actually DECREASES your HP while actually raising your AP and Perception temporarily. XD The sole survivor is lucky that it’s just a hit of -10! As for the safe, I cracked that open and found a 10mm pistol with ammo, $100 worth of pre-War cash –
And, as I had expected when I first wandered in here, the recipe to MAKE Buzzbites, should I so choose! :D I mean, I don’t know if I SHALL so choose, but it’s fun to have, and the game gave me some XP for finding it. Might be useful if I really need the extra AP and Perception. If you’re wondering how you make them in the post-apocalypse, you need a coffee tin, dirty water, a mirelurk egg, oil, and three bits of razorgrain. Hopefully the pre-War version involved clean water! XD
C) Anyway – with the Buzzbites recipe secured, I had Victor take all the guns and the leather armor off one of the raiders and scrap it all down for bits (got some good stuff out of it all too, including aluminum and rubber, along with the standard steel and screws), then – keeping an eye on his AP, because the game had just let me know he was feeling tired – sent him and Ada back out into the Commonwealth. They left the main building by dropping down to the first floor through the hole in the second floor and then cutting through the lobby, then I had Victor loot all the nearby ice machines, cigarette machines, and trash bins while I figured out what I wanted to do next. I knew that I OUGHT to start heading south so Victor could get to finding and killing that damn courser, but there was a map marker that I wanted to investigate REALLY nearby, so I figured that I’d do that first real quick. I thus swung around and went behind the HQ (finding the dead attack dog from earlier beside a bus on the road next to the building – yup, looks like Ada got it by blasting its head clean off) and headed toward the building across the street –
Only to pause as I saw what looked like a bloatfly hanging out on the road up ahead. A VATS scan revealed that a Black Bloatfly and an Albino Squirrel were having a scrap – I was tempted to leave them to it for a second, but then the squirrel started fleeing in Victor’s general direction, causing the bloatfly to come straight toward him. Fortunately, a zap with the Tactical Tesla once the fly was close enough killed both it AND the squirrel (who was apparently running in for another go now that the bloatfly was distracted). Victor gathered up the meat and the bloatfly gland, then immediately proceeded to get hungry and thirsty. XD I had him chow down on some melon flambe (it’s an easy way to satisfy both hunger and thirst in one go), then proceeded up to the building to finally trigger the discovery –
D) And found that I’d discovered Malden Middle School! I was immediately like “hang on, isn’t this that school that has a vault underneath it that’s full of Gunners?” A thought that you think would have made me turn back from exploring it, but nope! XD As the front doors were barred (and in a way that made it clear they were just a texture), I had Victor loop around to the ruined side of the building, climbing over the rubble to enter a classroom –
And spotting an oddly jail-like door in the hallway just beyond. Huh. I had Victor loot what he could out of the classroom (it is never a good sign when you find a surgical scalpel in a teacher’s desk), then head into the hallway and get some stuff out of the office across the way before investigating the door. Turns out it opened up onto a little stairwell that led to the doors into the basement. Obviously those had to be investigated –
But not right that second, because poor Victor had progressed to the next stage of his exhaustion and now could not run and had like no AP. I thus had him backtrack a little bit into the classroom, find an empty spot, and set up his tent so he could hit the sack. At least he made it all the way to 8:05 PM in-game before nearly collapsing! XD
E) After an eight-hour snooze among the rubble, Victor was up and ready to go by 4:05 AM. I had him pack up his kit then head down into the basement, where I was greeted with a catwalk, gunner symbols on the far wall, a bunch of earthmovers, and – indeed – what was clearly the entrance to a vault. :D I had Victor creep around the starting area for a bit, looking for goodies to loot while trying to keep to the shadows as much as possible –
And then heard something hit Ada behind me and turned around to see her fighting a Gunner Private armed with a baton. I quickly raised the Tactical Tesla, then JUST as quickly went “wait, no, electric gun, don’t know if the beam knows not to hit companions, ELECTROCUTING ROBOT BAD” and fumbled around for a second grabbing the Deliverer from my kit and trying to find a good angle to, you know, actually shoot the woman. By the time I got Victor into a decent position, Ada had actually already killed the private just by smacking her enough with her robot claws. *facepalm* I tried to help, Ada, I swear!
F) Of course, that little battle didn’t go unnoticed, and as Victor tried to creep back up to the entrance to see what was going on, he and Ada were promptly fired upon by a turret. I had Victor switch back to his electric death machine gun and head up to the entrance proper to take it and the two Gunners guarding the place out – he managed to kill them all with a few VATS shots, but he took a LOT more hits than I would have liked from the turret and the second Gunner’s plasma rifle, forcing me to have him chow down on a Deathclaw Roast to regain his ragged HP. I do love the Tactical Tesla rifle very much, but it’s not a great VATS gun, that’s for sure (well, sort of – it takes less AP to fire it than you might think, and that’s important in VATS) – it just doesn’t have great range, and it doesn’t do its max damage unless you charge it. Probably best for those situations where I can sneak up on a crowd and take the time to hold down the trigger before murdering everybody!
G) Anyway – having cleared the entrance, I had Victor wander around looting everything he could find (including some military-grade duct tape, niiiice), which eventually led him into the little admissions office on the side – which just so happened to have a working terminal. I had Victor sit down and see what was inside out of curiosity – we had a press release, stating that Vault-Tec was offering subsidized enrollment fees to the families of Malden with young school-age children who wished to live in Vault 75 (aka the vault we were in right now) in order to “safeguard the future” and all that bullshit; the “Enrollment Guidelines,” which specified that the subsidies and discounts could only be offered to families with children under 15 attending school in Malden, with no more than two adults allowed in per eligible child, and that children could be enrolled WITHOUT their parents; the “Special Admission Protocols,” which stated that after all the usual admission stuff was taken care of, all children under the age of 17 would be taken to the Atrium to receive a special orientation from the Overseer, while everyone else would be taken to a holding area to get a briefing from the Head of Security; and a list of some of the kids enrolled. Yeah, if you are starting to think something is PARTICULARLY fucked up about this vault and its emphasis on wanting young children, you are absolutely correct! I remembered this vault being fucked up, but I didn’t recall the specific way it was fucked up –
H) So I had Victor and Ada get into the nearby elevator and head deeper into the vault, thus starting the quest “Vault 75” to explore the place and see what was going on! They arrived in a hallway much like the one they’d left, strewn with various boxes, crates, and suitcases, with a couple of Gunners patrolling in the distance – I had Victor take ‘em out with the Two-Shot (beloved!), then explore to find good lootables. This resulted in him discovering a solider skeleton behind a crate near the entrance clutching a Vault-Tec lunchbox with gumdrops inside in one hand and a burnt Grognak comic with a magnifying glass in the other, with a toy alien by his side. Well, I guess this was the kid vault, sooo… Victor took the good stuff and continued onward, through the hallways, into a little side office, then out and around again, grabbing anything and everything good –
And discovering a locked door into one of the labs, which needed a keycard to access. Hmmm. I resolved to look out for that and continued onward, down the hall into the Atrium (which, judging by all the tables, also served as the lunchroom –
I) Where there were yet more Gunners – including one Legendary! I had Victor sneak in and manage to kill that guy with a single sneak attack, but the shot got the attention of the other Gunners in the room, and soon Victor and Ada were embroiled in quite the fight, with poor Victor getting hit from a variety of angles simply because I couldn’t always turn around fast enough to figure out where the gunfire was coming from. Fortunately the Two-Shot is a beast and can take down damn near anyone in one hit, AND I had Ada with me, which meant not only did she draw fire, I could also follow where she was shooting her lasers to take out Gunners I had missed (especially on the balconies overlooking the main atrium). We eventually wiped them all out (including a Gunner patrolling an unfinished-looking room off to the side – think it’s the generator room), and I went over to the Legendary to see what they had for me –
And discovered, to my surprise, that they weren’t carrying any Legendary equipment. Puzzled, but aware that this is a known bug, I took what I wanted from his corpse and moved onto the corpse of the private nearby –
And THERE was the Legendary weapon – a Never-Ending 10mm pistol! XD Right, enemies in these games can grab each others’ weapons if they fall. Well, I don’t really NEED a never-needs-reloading 10mm, but it’ll be good to sell eventually!
J) And so the playsession ended with Victor and Ada popping into the kitchen briefly to loot any goodies in there (mainly a toaster); returning to the atrium to finish looting and killing a final Gunner Corporal who was wielding a Ripper mini-chainsaw (as I believe it’s the first one I’ve ever seen, I went ahead and grabbed it – Victor’s not really a melee guy, but might be fun to try it out once?); and taking a moment to get a drink from the nearby bubbler and fill up Victor’s empty bottles with fresh water. *nods* Pretty solid stuff, I think! Next time, Victor and Ada will continue exploring the vault and see if they can uncover the mysteries of the place by finding that lab keycard! Should be fun. :)
Writing: It’s a Sunday where I actually play Fallout 4? Then it’s a Sunday where I update the FO4 Playthrough Progression with the fanfic version of what happened in the game! As usual, the adventures of Victor, Alice, and Ada in the fanfic verse hewed pretty closely to the events of my actual playsession, with a few relatively minor changes –
A) As per usual, Victor fired on the raiders trying to open the Slocum Joe’s safe in self-defense rather than just sneak-attacking them, because I prefer him to not just murder people in the fanfic world. Makes me feel better if he’s acting to protect himself – even if he then fries them with a charged shot from the Tactical Tesla. XD
B) Victor was less impressed by getting the Buzzbites recipe than I was and has no plans to make any anytime soon (even indicating he is more likely to trade the recipe away if they can’t find a way to make the food safe) – though I couldn’t stop myself from having him make a joke about making the “Rhode Island” version by using iced coffee instead. XD I mean, if you know, you know. XD
C) Victor went to investigate what he would later recognize as Malden Middle School half because he was getting tired and thought it might be a good place to camp for the night – and then, after recognizing the place and recalling the Vault-Tec press release about subsidizing families with kids to live in the attached Vault 75 in case of a nuclear disaster, he decided he wanted to get inside because – well. He was personally screwed over by Vault-Tec and their weird cryogenic vault, and he really wanted to know what happened to those poor kids. Alice and Ada, knowing his history and how shit Vault-Tec is, were totally on-board – after he got a good night’s sleep, of course. XD
D) Alice and Ada of course helped a bit more with all the fights inside the vault, particularly the big dust-up in the atrium – and I gave the kill of that final Gunner Corporal with the Ripper who ran in at the very end of my playsession to Alice so she could get her hands on the little mini military-grade chainsaw. Perhaps that kind of weapon is not Victor’s jam, but I do believe it is hers! :D Hopefully I remember to have her make use of it in the future.
E) Oh, and I didn’t bother making the one Legendary guy legendary, because Victor doesn’t need a never-ending 10mm and I don’t know how I’d justify that in a slightly-more-realistic world anyway. Not all Legendaries need to exist in the fanfic universe – just the super-useful ones (like the four in Victor’s current gun line-up) and all the funniest ones. XD
But yeah, other than that, all the same beats hit in the fanfic universe as in the game, with the trio currently holed up in the atrium of Vault 75, ready to explore it, find that lab keycard, and get to the bottom of what happened to the kids. We’ll see how their investigation goes next Sunday!
YouTube: Well, I started later than I wanted to (as usual), but I did get through the usual Sunday Two, yay –
A) First up, from the Subs, we had GrayStillPlays and “I spent $7,381,952,604 ending all life on earth,” aka Gray plays Survivor.io! This is a game where you play as a little cartoon dude with throwing knives, moving around a few city blocks in a cartoony zombie apocalypse, killing zombies with your knives, earning XP with from those kills, and learning skills as you level up. Skills like getting a soccer ball to bounce around the screen, or throwing a brick into the air, or tossing around molotov cocktails. And as you continue to level up, you get more skills and improve the skills you have – like adding more soccer balls, or making your bricks more dangerous. The goal is to survive as long as you can against the hordes, occasionally fighting tougher monsters and outright bosses like poison-spitting flowers. Basically, this is a game that encourages you to get the most nonsensical upgrades that you possibly can in the name of clearing the screen –
And we all know how much Gray loves a nonsensical upgrade! XD Yeah, after worrying that he would have to hack the game to see the higher-level upgrades at the very beginning, he quickly realized “oh no, wait, this is a game that gets SUPER EASY once you get a few upgrades under your belt” and embraced the nonsense entirely. His first run consisted of him throwing around soccer balls, bricks, molotovs, and rockets until he was overwhelmed – his second run, he upgraded his kit, got himself a katana, and went high-tech with multiple drones firing missiles, drills bouncing around everywhere, and a forcefield that grew to almost encompass the screen. Though he did make sure to get his beloved soccer balls again, because they do a SURPRISING amount of damage. :p By the end, the only reason he had to move was to pick up all the XP from the enemies being ABSOLUTELY SLAUGHTERED around him – not a single creature could stand up against the might of his missile barrage, deadly forcefield, and love of soccer. XD Good stuff – nice to see him playing fun games instead of jank ones for a change! (Though of course I will never say no to Gray making fun of a jank game. XD)
B) And second, from Many A True Nerd, we had Jon and “Fallout 4: Sim Settlements 2 - Part 52 - Military Unintelligence!” Featuring the continuing adventures of Mayor Bob in his war against the Gunners! Today’s adventures included –
I. Bob returning to HQ after his Glowing Sea adventures (and after taking the two level ups Jon completely forgot to take at the end of last week – dumped ‘em both in Charisma to max that out and get the “Intimidate” perk open so he could have fun trying to intimidate people into surrendering) and – after learning from Cassandra that Salvador was being forlorn on the roof, and identifying a weird weakness in their defenses around the HQ (namely, an unprotected ladder directly onto the roof, which led to an unprotected base-game elevator down into the basement – Bob was like “we should PROBABLY have someone guarding this shit??”) – meeting up with Salvador to learn some of his tragic backstory! Mainly how Salvador met Theresa (he was trying to track down a violent gang, but none of the locals would point him in the right direction to take them out because they didn’t trust him – however, Theresa, who is good at talking to people, was able to talk them around, and working together, they got the gang sorted); how they met their other mutual friend (still unnamed, but apparently very good at offense); and how they traveled together helping out the Commonwealth until something VERY BAD happened and they all went their separate ways (Salvador isn’t sure if what happened was his fault or theirs – despite his ability to crunch the numbers, he can’t make sense of the incident). All of this was prelude to him pointing out that Bob was changing the Commonwealth forever with his war against the Gunners, and how, if the Curators won, Bob would be a leader on a scale previously unknown – so he had to ask if Bob actually valued keeping the Commonwealth stable, like and his friends once did. Because, yeah, Bob has done a LOT in a relatively short amount of time, and stands to be at the head of the most powerful faction the place has ever seen, and Salvador – well, he can’t help but worry.
Bob immediately thought about all the times he’s thought about making himself God-King of the Commonwealth and evaded the question by saying he couldn’t make any promises since they didn’t fully know yet what they were dealing with here. XD Fortunately Salvador accepted that as an honest answer, as Bob couldn’t fully tell what effect his organization would have going forward...though he did note that this brought up the issue of what happened after Bob’s death and if he had a plan in place for that inevitability. Bob evaded that question too, though Jon worried that at some point, he and Salvador might come to blows over Bob’s love of being leader…
(Oh – and it was at THIS point that the game was like, “Oh, yeah, you’re at war with the Gunners.” Jon was like, “??? Yeah, uh, I thought we already were?” XD I GUESS what the message was trying to convey was that Jon was out of the tutorial stage and into the war proper, especially as it talked about how to win the war (basically drive the Gunners out of all the territories they hold, fight back against strikes from them in Bob’s own territories (and watch out for more of increasing intensity as they lose numbers), and use scouting missions to figure out where to attack next to best eliminate the faction entirely), but it was still pretty funny. XD)
II. Bob turning Jamaica Plain into an outpost, and then taking over the Gunner outpost of Murkwater! The former was very simple – just involved dropping a War Planner’s desk in the settlement and then confirming he wanted it to be a military installation – the latter...not so much. Mostly because FIRST Bob was like “let’s clear out University Point, looks like the Gunners have taken over that” before recalling “oh, right, that’s not actually a settlement,” THEN because when he initially went and scoped Murkwater Construction Site out with his binoculars, he was informed he didn’t have enough warriors available to actually take the place, since a lot of his army was sat around guarding other territory he’d taken. XD Fortunately he was able to head back to Jamaica Plain and recruit a bunch of new scrubs to help him out (plus MacCready and The Ventilator as they weren’t doing anything else) and together they cleared out the Gunners! The game then informed Bob that reinforcements were inbound from the FMS Northern Star, so Bob began watching the east while using a recent level-up to take the “Intimidation” perk to see if he could get any of them to surrender amusingly –
And then the game told him “hey, congrats on conquering Murkwater!” because apparently the Gunners died en-route and that counted as a win for Bob’s team. Okay then. XD And then Salvador tried to call Bob about the next quest in the line right as the “results” screen triggered, thus revealing that the cool flyover view of the settlement is the result of the game temporarily giving Bob the ability to, well, fly over it. XD Bethesda game was quite Bethesda tonight, is what I’m saying!
III. Bob forming official alliances with a bunch of other factions in the game! Yes, after Bob came back down to ground, Salvador called him again and commented on his friendly relationship with the Nightingales, complimenting him on building camaraderie with the other factions in the world and talking about how said factions could assist the Curators with the war effort. This started the quest “Under One Banner,” which prompted Bob to start helping out other factions in the game – including the main quest line ones (the Brotherhood of Steel, the Railroad, and the Institute – Minutemen weren’t a problem as Bob already runs that faction). Which, uh, was tricky, because Bob I believe has done enough work for all of them that helping one out would necessitate betraying the other two at this point. *grimace* Bob decided to put that to one side for the moment (figuring he could talk to some of the factions he was already friendly with, like the CPD, about an alliance later) and instead concentrated on setting up Murkwater as a new outpost and recruitment center –
And THEN the game prompted him to head back to HQ and meet an envoy there. A curious Bob did so and discovered that it was none other than Lydia Proudmore! Who, as a result of Bob helping her to become Chief Trader, was only too happy to offer him a formal alliance with the New Liberty Trading Company! Meaning there would be more activity from NLTC traders in his settlements. Bob was intrigued, but was like “what’s the catch?” – Lydia just reminded him that the NLTC takes anything written down as absolute law, so he’d be better be careful to make sure he followed all the terms of their contract, lest their agreement come to an end. Bob was like “that would be easier to agree to if I had the contract in front of me, but sure.” XD Lydia thanked him, saying that the contract was with his Logistics Officer, and headed out –
And the game was like “you have other envoys waiting for a chance to talk to you, want to see them now?” Bob was like “hell yes” and proceeded to take meetings with Simon of the CPD (who said that he and his police would be happy to help with security for settlements, and finding and recapturing deserters as necessary); Fiona of the Nightingales (who assured him that they’d put more doctors in his settlements and come when he called upon them); and, of all people, Sickle of the West Everett Estate mutants! Remember him? Bob met them back near the beginning of the series when he did them a favor to get them to give him some ASAMs they stole, then set out on a quest for chalk to soothe Sickle’s poorly tummy. XD Anyway, Sickle came by to report that he liked Bob’s house (lots of blinky machines) and that the Gunners had tried to recruit him and his gang to fight for them against Bob, but he and his fellow mutants had smashed them instead, as Bob was one of them. So he wanted to join up officially to help smash more Gunners. Bob was like “...welcome aboard!” XD I mean, hey, he’s ALREADY got Strong on his side...and he may even get more super mutants in the future, as agreeing to let Sickle join the alliance gave him the ability to recruit OTHER super mutants should he so choose… Yeah, I think this army’s gonna be very interesting very fast. XD
IV. Bob clearing out University Point and getting a message from a new friend! Yes, after getting all of his alliances set up, Bob headed back to Murkwater to get his scrub army to take University Point back from the Gunners (as now the game was prompting him to take out Gunner “territories” and he wanted to get University Point back on his map PROPERLY, damn it). Things got complicated right from the start when some Rust Devils and their robots showed up nearby to add to the chaos, but Bob was able to use his Lorenzo gun to blast them away, then pulled out the explosive ammo to deal with the Gunners and their Annihilator sentry-bot. He completely lost track of his army during the mess and basically took out the handful of reinforcements sent by himself, but the battle WAS won, and his men only suffered two injuries and one death, so – could have been a lot worse. However, while Bob was preparing to mop up the mess and figure out what Gunner territory he wanted to take next, a message came through on his radio –
From some guy named Magnusson. AKA the pre-War creator of the Comm Hub and ASAMs. Bob was like “the flip? How are you still around?” but Magnusson was a little cagey on that point, saying that he knew that the War was an inevitability and that he’d taken steps to survive it (meaning he’s either a ghoul, a robobrain of some description, or possibly froze himself like Bob was frozen in Vault 111). Anyway, Magnusson has been monitoring Bob and Jake’s adventures through the Comm Hub for a while now, and while he’s approved, he hasn’t really had the opportunity to contact either of them directly before now – though he HAS been monitoring the Gunner’s communications and quietly making sure that Jake and Bob overheard any that would be useful to them (Jon immediately realizing THIS is the guy who made sure they knew about the Gunner force off the coast of Spectacle Island). He wants to help out more now that the war has properly kicked off, though – mostly by helping Bob and company with their guns. For you see, as Bob has noticed, the Gunners have all sorts of fun new energy weapons and nuclear bullshit on their person, which is apparently courtesy of their secret employer. Magnusson’s attitude was “two can play at that game,” and he directed Bob to a stash of pre-War gear that should help him with kitting out his soldiers. Jon is a little concerned that this whole thing with Bob versus the Gunners is now just the latest skirmish in some kind of weird “shadow war” between Magnusson and whoever is employing the Gunners, but Bob isn’t about to say no to new guns. So next time, Bob is going to head off to get that cache, and see what Gunner territory and whatnot he can take back along the way. :) Should be a fun time! I hope we actually get to meet Magnusson then too – I am curious as to what exactly his deal is!
Workout: Back on the bike again this week, and back with James Turner for “I have 8 Sims in one house... Every Life Stage Challenge! - Part 7!” The penultimate episode of the series, which so far can be summed up as “James has four stress and Semaj has no money.” XD Yes, this episode started with James cleaning up the house, selling Winterfest presents, and using the money-giving trash-can to get the family to about $12K in household funds – and then spending almost all of it on renovating the house. Specifically, he added an entire upstairs “apartment” area for Krystoff and his squeeze Raoul Chopra (who I only realized this episode is actually the teenage grocery deliverer from Henford-On-Bagley – though he and his mother were discovered to be living in Chestnut Ridge when James went and aged him up, so I guess they wanted a change of scenery. To be fair, my Michael Bell the Creature Keeper lives in goddamn SULANI, so XD) to live and raise their upcoming child in (as it is now Krystoff’s job to have a baby), and a few extra rooms downstairs for the pipe organ, the kids’ toys, the garden that Semaj has to start for Scarlett (he spent some time running around harvesting strawberries and daisies to get going on that), and a second bathroom. Though, hilariously, pretty much none of these rooms are furnished yet – hell, many of them DON’T EVEN HAVE DOORS because the whole “ran out of cash” problem. So the main focus of the episode so far has been “trying to earn money,” which has been going – variably. Mostly because, right after the house reno, the bills came, and suddenly rather than continuing to update the house, James had to have Semaj pay those. XD Not to mention he keeps buying things like school projects and focusing lights for Semaj and his kids to use… On the plus side, Krystoff IS just about keeping the family afloat with his painting, and the kids are doing pretty well – both Sunny and Vivienne have completed all their childhood tasks (having gotten TONS of mental skill from school projects that they never finished), Camilo is making good progress on all of his toddler skills, and Scarlett is making good progress on her milestones. :) And Semaj is not only getting them a little extra money from cutting cheap gemstones (and has got a crystal tree going in the backyard now, so THAT’LL be a help once it fully grows), he has another all-important gig coming up, and THIS time he’s actually putting in the effort to do well, such as improving his Fitness with the basketball hoop and getting his Acting skill up. So yeah – usual chaos happening in this household, with a side of “everyone is also broke.” XD We’ll see if and how things improve for them all in the next half-hour tomorrow!
Other:
-->I know it’s not technically Officially Fall for another week, but it’s officially fall here at the house, because the last of the air conditioners came out of the window today – my parents took out theirs and the living room one (my old one, which now makes a weird rattling noise, so it’s not good to have in any of our bedrooms anymore) last week while they were recovering from COVID, and I asked Mom to help take out mine today, because it hasn’t been hot enough at night to justify using it. Down to just using the window fan to keep my room cool at night – have to enjoy it before we get all shut up with the coming of winter!
-->Holy shit beanbags are back XD Yeah, everything finally came together for us to play today – namely, the weather actually being nice and everyone being healthy enough to play. So we got out the boards and slung around the bags –
And Dad absolutely murdered Mom and me, winning all five games. Mom and I had to make do with competing for second, and Mom constantly came ahead of me right up until round four, when she finally started throwing worse and I was able to pick up a couple of twos. Final scores were me 3-3-3-2-2; Dad W-W-W-W-W; Mom 2-2-2-3-3. Yeesh. But then again, I guess it’s good that the guy who had major intestinal surgery was able to do so well. XD We’ll see if I can get my dignity back tomorrow!
Whew -- all right then! Busy day, as you can see, but a good one, at least. And now I REALLY have to get to bed, because I do have work tomorrow. Moose, I'll get to your messages tomorrow! Night all!
