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Ramping Up Stress Tuesday
Mar. 9th, 2021 11:12 pmQuieter morning (mostly working on this one spreadsheet), but then stuff started piling on in the afternoon and I ended the work day in a fairly bad mood because of various bits of bullshit I had to try and juggle. It's like -- why does everything have to feel like it's coming at once? Hopefully tomorrow I can get some of it sorted. . .
Anyway -- got out, got home, and started on the Standard To-Do list stuff:
1. Get in a workout: Check – more bike meant finishing off episode 62 of Jon’s Fallout 4 Survival Playthrough! Caught back up with Grills as he took pretty much every last tray out of the fishpacking plant he visited – in fact, he took so many he had to do a dose of Psychobuff to up his Strength as he was way over capacity (they weigh one unit each!). The synths fortunately weren’t bothered by Grills suddenly running around screaming “Fucking KILL!” as he wasn’t actually doing any killing, and Grills was able to get all his aluminum home and successfully upgrade his new Visionary’s power armor helmet to max stats, and his Railway Rifle to have some better range. He also decided to try another mode for his Tesla Rifle, which had been underperforming, and switch it over to a more shotgun-like weapon. . .
And discovered he was low on fiberglass. So he was off to Diamond City to buy some phones from Percy, and drop off the paint for Abbott while he was in the area. Another little side quest sorted, and he was able to upgrade his gun and get a good night’s sleep.
Next morning, it was finally time to take on Bunker Hill, as I suspected! Though not without a quick test of his new weapons on some Gunners lurking around outside his door. And not for the reasons I thought – though I was proved correct in that Railroad NPCs (specifically, a whole bunch of “heavies,” many of them carrying Gauss Rifles) do show up even if you’ve gone and cleared out the headquarters. No, what he was trying to figure out was if they would fire on him, recognizing him as an enemy now. At first it seemed like they wouldn’t – but then it became apparent that they had simply been distracted by the Brotherhood and Institute presence at the settlement and were only too happy to see Grills dead. Unfortunately, Grills having BOS backup and good guns meant that he generally had the upper hand in the situation around the settlement itself. He didn’t even have to worry about synth fire, given he’d quietly killed the courser who was supposed to escort him in before even coming near the settlement.
He also didn’t have to worry about dropping a save, because, weirdly enough, some of the NPCs will still speak to you and do their normal NPC things in the middle of a giant firefight. Such as Meg scamming you out of ten caps for a “tour,” or the guy running the motel renting you a room. Grills successfully dropped a save on the mattress and headed inside to deal with the continuing battle. . .
And ended up getting killed because he got grenaded a lot, then got his legs broken by a turret he somehow missed despite it being right in front of him. Take two involved rather more sniping from a secure location and moving slower and more carefully. This time, he successfully made it to the synths and put a bullet in each of their heads, with Jon providing commentary about turning them off like a radio. Jon, if you hadn’t openly called the Brotherhood essentially techno-fascists earlier, I’d be worried about you. That more or less ended the episode, and Jon said 63 would start with him clearing out the rest of his Institute business (I think probably meeting Shaun and making himself enemies with the Institute), then doing a few side quests with a particular companion. He mentioned wanting to do MacCready’s stuff in an earlier episode, if I recall correctly, so I suspect it’ll be that. . .we’ll see!
2. Work some more on “Londerland Bloodlines”: Check! Got past the bit where the Sheriff shows off his own cool magic powers by using wolves and some sort of razor wind thing to take care of the three Sabbat menacing him (I turned the latter into a cloud of flies; felt appropriate). And this has allowed me to have Jack bring Alice quickly up to speed on Disciplines, as that’s not really discussed in-universe in the game – it just comes up as part of the “getting past the Sabbat in the weird warehouse area” part of the tutorial. Alice is somewhat horrified that she gets the power to drive other people mad with Dementation. Don’t worry, girl, I’m having you specialize in invisibility. Once we get to that point, of course – gotta get past a locked door first! Good thing she picked up a pick. . .
3. Keep up on YouTube Subscriptions: Check! Easy peasy lemon squeezy --
A) Started with Call Me Kevin playing GTA III! I have no idea what the story behind this one is – you’re a small-time crook doing jobs for all sorts of people, that’s all I know – but even without a chaos mod, this thing was a trip. Kevin managed to win a street race driving a taxi thanks to his opponents constantly crashing into walls and other cars; failed a tailing mission twice – once from losing the target while trying to stay far enough back not to “spook” him, and once from being too close the moment the target got in his car; got involved in a war on the Triads and drove a car bomb into their base; set multiple cars on fire; took some random dude to meet his banker (and I guess, based on the noises and the sudden “okay get rid of this car it’s evidence” prompt afterwards, was an accessory to murder); and finally got gunned down by the police after a robbery went bad and he exploded another car with the robbers right next to it. Good times! XD
B) Then it was time for GrayStillPlays and more Happy Wheels! The bottle flips remain absolutely ridiculous, you will be glad to hear. There was also a quick-time board (basically in order to disable the obstacles in your path, you had to hit the colored circles at the right time – Gray was not always good at that), an “expanding watermelons” board (one watermelon becomes five million once you touch it – after crushing his head a couple of times, Gray found a way over without touching the watermelon), a “1% Impossible” board (aka “everything is easy” – Gray still lost his arms though by assuming the worst), a “ball run” board (a ball fall that was in two parts – and the second part had lots of crossbows and harpoons; Gray did not approve), and a pogo jump with a low spiked ceiling and TONS of harpoons (Gray beat that one by calling on the yeet). Good stuff, as per usual – and hey, without him breaking his wrists, that’s nice.
C) And a bonus Plumbella video from the other day – reacting to unpopular Sims 4 opinions! Stuff like “Sims 3 ugly,” which – is just fact. Even Jesse admitted the fashions were terrible – and the fact that she likes alpha CC in that game probably helps cover up the uncanny valleyness of those Sims. Ugh. There was also ragging on Sims 4 supernaturals (Jesse and I agree that this generation’s version of vampires is the best; I can see where the person is coming from when it comes to the others, though – mermaids have been done dirty, and Spellcasters needed a bit more oomph) – and, conversely, saying that Sims 4 making stuff easier was for the better (Jesse doesn’t like most of the game being simplified, but will admit that easier needs is always good). She also thinks the build/buy system is the best, which I will agree with – CAS is NEARLY the best, but I agree with her that traits need an overall (someone said they were fine with three traits – Jesse said that WOULD be fine if the traits had more of an impact on Sim personalities, which, yes). Basically it was just an interesting insight into what she likes and doesn’t like about this series. I’m glad most of our opinions line up!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check! Decided to get the Victor Luvs Alice portion done right after my writing for the evening – text for the three Newcrest Adventures posts sorted, and two things to reblog for Thursday and Friday, all in the queue! Just have to figure out what I’m doing for Saturday. . .hmm. . .
Then after watching my videos, got onto Valice Multiverse – busy night! Two asks I covered this morning, then four threads, yeeps. Got them all done, at least. So I’m good for tomorrow, at any rate!
So yeah, busy night, but I covered everything, yay~ Now I just have to wrap up with DW comments and get to bed. Insomnia is starting to rear it's ugly head again, ugh. . .hopefully I sleep a little better tonight. Just have to remember, only two more days this week. . . Night all!
Anyway -- got out, got home, and started on the Standard To-Do list stuff:
1. Get in a workout: Check – more bike meant finishing off episode 62 of Jon’s Fallout 4 Survival Playthrough! Caught back up with Grills as he took pretty much every last tray out of the fishpacking plant he visited – in fact, he took so many he had to do a dose of Psychobuff to up his Strength as he was way over capacity (they weigh one unit each!). The synths fortunately weren’t bothered by Grills suddenly running around screaming “Fucking KILL!” as he wasn’t actually doing any killing, and Grills was able to get all his aluminum home and successfully upgrade his new Visionary’s power armor helmet to max stats, and his Railway Rifle to have some better range. He also decided to try another mode for his Tesla Rifle, which had been underperforming, and switch it over to a more shotgun-like weapon. . .
And discovered he was low on fiberglass. So he was off to Diamond City to buy some phones from Percy, and drop off the paint for Abbott while he was in the area. Another little side quest sorted, and he was able to upgrade his gun and get a good night’s sleep.
Next morning, it was finally time to take on Bunker Hill, as I suspected! Though not without a quick test of his new weapons on some Gunners lurking around outside his door. And not for the reasons I thought – though I was proved correct in that Railroad NPCs (specifically, a whole bunch of “heavies,” many of them carrying Gauss Rifles) do show up even if you’ve gone and cleared out the headquarters. No, what he was trying to figure out was if they would fire on him, recognizing him as an enemy now. At first it seemed like they wouldn’t – but then it became apparent that they had simply been distracted by the Brotherhood and Institute presence at the settlement and were only too happy to see Grills dead. Unfortunately, Grills having BOS backup and good guns meant that he generally had the upper hand in the situation around the settlement itself. He didn’t even have to worry about synth fire, given he’d quietly killed the courser who was supposed to escort him in before even coming near the settlement.
He also didn’t have to worry about dropping a save, because, weirdly enough, some of the NPCs will still speak to you and do their normal NPC things in the middle of a giant firefight. Such as Meg scamming you out of ten caps for a “tour,” or the guy running the motel renting you a room. Grills successfully dropped a save on the mattress and headed inside to deal with the continuing battle. . .
And ended up getting killed because he got grenaded a lot, then got his legs broken by a turret he somehow missed despite it being right in front of him. Take two involved rather more sniping from a secure location and moving slower and more carefully. This time, he successfully made it to the synths and put a bullet in each of their heads, with Jon providing commentary about turning them off like a radio. Jon, if you hadn’t openly called the Brotherhood essentially techno-fascists earlier, I’d be worried about you. That more or less ended the episode, and Jon said 63 would start with him clearing out the rest of his Institute business (I think probably meeting Shaun and making himself enemies with the Institute), then doing a few side quests with a particular companion. He mentioned wanting to do MacCready’s stuff in an earlier episode, if I recall correctly, so I suspect it’ll be that. . .we’ll see!
2. Work some more on “Londerland Bloodlines”: Check! Got past the bit where the Sheriff shows off his own cool magic powers by using wolves and some sort of razor wind thing to take care of the three Sabbat menacing him (I turned the latter into a cloud of flies; felt appropriate). And this has allowed me to have Jack bring Alice quickly up to speed on Disciplines, as that’s not really discussed in-universe in the game – it just comes up as part of the “getting past the Sabbat in the weird warehouse area” part of the tutorial. Alice is somewhat horrified that she gets the power to drive other people mad with Dementation. Don’t worry, girl, I’m having you specialize in invisibility. Once we get to that point, of course – gotta get past a locked door first! Good thing she picked up a pick. . .
3. Keep up on YouTube Subscriptions: Check! Easy peasy lemon squeezy --
A) Started with Call Me Kevin playing GTA III! I have no idea what the story behind this one is – you’re a small-time crook doing jobs for all sorts of people, that’s all I know – but even without a chaos mod, this thing was a trip. Kevin managed to win a street race driving a taxi thanks to his opponents constantly crashing into walls and other cars; failed a tailing mission twice – once from losing the target while trying to stay far enough back not to “spook” him, and once from being too close the moment the target got in his car; got involved in a war on the Triads and drove a car bomb into their base; set multiple cars on fire; took some random dude to meet his banker (and I guess, based on the noises and the sudden “okay get rid of this car it’s evidence” prompt afterwards, was an accessory to murder); and finally got gunned down by the police after a robbery went bad and he exploded another car with the robbers right next to it. Good times! XD
B) Then it was time for GrayStillPlays and more Happy Wheels! The bottle flips remain absolutely ridiculous, you will be glad to hear. There was also a quick-time board (basically in order to disable the obstacles in your path, you had to hit the colored circles at the right time – Gray was not always good at that), an “expanding watermelons” board (one watermelon becomes five million once you touch it – after crushing his head a couple of times, Gray found a way over without touching the watermelon), a “1% Impossible” board (aka “everything is easy” – Gray still lost his arms though by assuming the worst), a “ball run” board (a ball fall that was in two parts – and the second part had lots of crossbows and harpoons; Gray did not approve), and a pogo jump with a low spiked ceiling and TONS of harpoons (Gray beat that one by calling on the yeet). Good stuff, as per usual – and hey, without him breaking his wrists, that’s nice.
C) And a bonus Plumbella video from the other day – reacting to unpopular Sims 4 opinions! Stuff like “Sims 3 ugly,” which – is just fact. Even Jesse admitted the fashions were terrible – and the fact that she likes alpha CC in that game probably helps cover up the uncanny valleyness of those Sims. Ugh. There was also ragging on Sims 4 supernaturals (Jesse and I agree that this generation’s version of vampires is the best; I can see where the person is coming from when it comes to the others, though – mermaids have been done dirty, and Spellcasters needed a bit more oomph) – and, conversely, saying that Sims 4 making stuff easier was for the better (Jesse doesn’t like most of the game being simplified, but will admit that easier needs is always good). She also thinks the build/buy system is the best, which I will agree with – CAS is NEARLY the best, but I agree with her that traits need an overall (someone said they were fine with three traits – Jesse said that WOULD be fine if the traits had more of an impact on Sim personalities, which, yes). Basically it was just an interesting insight into what she likes and doesn’t like about this series. I’m glad most of our opinions line up!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check! Decided to get the Victor Luvs Alice portion done right after my writing for the evening – text for the three Newcrest Adventures posts sorted, and two things to reblog for Thursday and Friday, all in the queue! Just have to figure out what I’m doing for Saturday. . .hmm. . .
Then after watching my videos, got onto Valice Multiverse – busy night! Two asks I covered this morning, then four threads, yeeps. Got them all done, at least. So I’m good for tomorrow, at any rate!
So yeah, busy night, but I covered everything, yay~ Now I just have to wrap up with DW comments and get to bed. Insomnia is starting to rear it's ugly head again, ugh. . .hopefully I sleep a little better tonight. Just have to remember, only two more days this week. . . Night all!
