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A Bit Stressful Sunday
May. 2nd, 2021 11:11 pmGot some decent sleep, at least, but my mom was in a bad mood as she had projects she wanted to complete but couldn't, and then my dad ended up in a not-great mood after mowing the lawn because his knee was bothering him, and then what was supposed to be a bright, sunny, wonderful day ended up kind of cloudy and sprinkly. . .yeah, I've had better Sundays. Meh.
At least I did well on the old to-do list:
1. Draft out the other gift fic I owe this month: Check! Inspiration taken from a recent Dreamwidth post, hopefully the recipient will find it amusing. Always good to get something out of the way early on a Sunday!
Also, for my own personal use, went back into Hypno-Snippets, wrote down a couple of new ideas for snippets, then made a “this is the kind of kinkery fuckery my Victors like” list for reasons. ...look, there are non-zero chances I’ll be writing more of this stuff, even if it’s just for my own consumption, and I like making lists.
2. Watch as much of the OXBox/OXtra videos I have in my Watch Later as I can, along with Kevin and Jon's Fallout 4 YOLO episode: Check, though it’s good that I didn’t specify ALL of the OXBox in my WL, as I wasn’t able to get to the final thing. Hopefully this week or next weekend I’ll manage. In the meantime –
A) Started with the OXBox and OXtra lists, as you do –
I. “7 Darkest Game Overs You Will Never Recover From” – depressing game overs that make you wish you were playing a game where you can’t die or fail. From the Elite Beat Agents having to watch a little girl whose father’s ghost they were trying to bring back for one last visit (it’s – weird) grow up into a depressed teenager; to Phoenix Wright running away from his law career at the end of Ace Attorney: Justice For All after failing to save an innocent women from being convicted of murder (thanks to the machinations of a killer keeping his assistant Maya hostage); to Mark Hamil’s character in Wing Commander IV being led off to his own execution after failing to out the real villain of the game as his war-hungry boss. (Also, Tom Wilson, aka Biff Tannen, is in this game as well. Along with the guy who plays Gimli in LOTR. If this is the same game that has Tim Curry running away to space to escape capitalism, this is one hell of an all-star cast!)
II. “10 Most Embarrassing Hitman Kills You Don't Want in Your Obituary” – some of the most embarrassing ways to off your targets through the “World of Assassination” trilogy of the modern Hitman games. Complete with electrocuting Alexa Carlisle through family photo (thanks Jane), blowing up Silvo Caruso with an exploding golf ball (I KNOW that is Mike), and kicking a toilet through a hole in the ceiling of a dilapidated building onto the head of General Reza Zaydan (has a Mike feel to it, but would not be surprised if it was actually Andy). All sorts of fun ways to make your target wish their death had a little more class to it! XD
III. “7 Sneaky Easter Eggs that Shout Out a Game Maker's Previous Game” – video game companies like referencing their previous video games, and this video proves it! From the Dopefish from ID’s old Commander Keen games getting a surprise HD cameo in Doom Eternal, to Capcom putting a Blanca from Street Fighter mask in Dead Rising 2 and onward as a component in a “shock ‘em dead” mask combo-weapon you can make, to Alan Wake and a typewritten page of his appearing in Control – though that last one eventually got upgraded to full-on DLC status, it looks like. Good for Alan, I suppose. :p
B) Then this evening we had Call Me Kevin and Cat Goes Fishing! Yup, sometimes these games are just what they say on the tin. XD Though it’s a little more complex than that – you can complete “quests” to catch specific kinds of fish, buy rod upgrades and other little bonuses (like rockets to send your line farther), and eventually catch more and bigger fish as you find a way to get your bait deeper and deeper. Kevin found it very relaxing when he wasn’t grumping about not being able to catch a cowfish or spending all his money on rockets. XD It is a very cute little game, though – if you just want to waste an hour trying to catch fish as a cartoony cat, you could do worse.
C) And then, of course, after cupcake, we had Jon’s Fallout 4 YOLO episode! And today was – interesting. Let me see if I can sum it up efficiently:
I. Finalley started renovating Hangman’s Alley, replacing most of the old junk fencing with nice solid barn doors and walls, and a nice metal mesh for the second level – and ran out of wood. This was a problem because the second level has no safety rails and part of the reason for the refit is to stop her taking fall damage in her own settlement.
II. Finalley went to Diamond City to buy more supplies, and found that Arturo has gotten himself a suppressed combat rifle. A lot of careful trading later, Finalley had got her hands on it – but now had basically no money at all. This was also a problem, as the wood situation had not really been resolved.
III. Finalley decided the best way to get money is to do “Diamond City Blues,” a quest that starts off as helping a guy named Paul stop a guy named Cooke from sleeping with his wife, and ends up pulling the PC into being part of a drug deal. Through the use of lots of charisma, a quick stop back home to do some gun upgrades, and clearing out Back Street Apparel for a good vantage point where she could kill everyone involved in the whole trade, Finalley was able to get Cooke to cut her in on the deal without alerting Paul (though she did successfully stop the affair), then – well, I think I already implied this – killed everyone involved in the drug deal so she could take all their money and all the drugs for herself, which she then proceeded to trade around Diamond City for things like wood shipments and fresh meat and caps and whatnot. Finalley has a – flexible sense of morality, let’s say. XD
IV. Finalley finished up her initial updates to the Hangman’s Alley home (basically just two floors, one of which holds the artillery cannon) and went out to get to the Castle so she could talk to Preston about setting up the teleporter to head into the Institute. Along the way, she skirted around and HALF-joined in a fight between the Brotherhood and the Super Mutants of Big John’s Salvage (ended up leaving when she saw too many Mutants to try and take on), and then got YANKED into a fight with some raiders when she encountered a bunch on the road and ran away – only for a Brotherhood vertibird to show up and start antagonizing them. She took about 1.48 hitpoints worth of damage from a stray bullet, but considering the sheer number of raiders and the fact the fight ended with the damaged vertibird falling out of the sky – could have been a lot worse. One Legendary, but they had a Safecracker’s Chest Piece, which made Jon extremely sour.
V. Finalley finally made it to the Castle, talked to Preston, then decided to stop by the Four-Leaf Clover Fishpacking Plant nearby to do some feral ghoul hunting (and some regular hunting, as there were mongrels nearby) in the hopes of picking up a Legendary. None in the ghouls, but Jon did spot one in the nearby Super Mutant camp. . .however, in what he himself termed a great instance of personal growth, he made Finalley turn away and didn’t pick a dumb fight, even when the Legendary Mutant wandered away from his fellow Super Mutants to check out some exploding cars. That plus taking “Adamantium Skeleton” to reduce Finalley’s limb damage made him feel very responsible. XD
So yeah – episode ended with Finalley back at the Castle, ready to make some upgrades to THAT place next episode. We’re also hopefully building the teleporter and entering the Institute, and then – it’s NUKA-WORLD time! Yes, that is the first DLC campaign Finalley will be taking on – but before then, there’s apparently one important item Jon needs her to get. . .we’ll see what happens next week!
3. Play Alice: Madness Returns and get through some more of the Dollhouse level: Check! Played for a little less time than I normally do, but I gotta pace myself if I want any of the game left to play on the anniversary (that isn’t “where the hell is that snout I missed in the Deluded Depths?”). Still got through a good portion of the level, though – past most of the creepy dollhouses and the first major battle arena. Which I ended up cheesing by – after an initial failed jump – staying on the platform you’re supposed to leap off of (past one of those swinging spike babies), popping almost all the Drifting Ruin and just about killing the Dollgirl before making the jump across and finishing her and the final Drifting Ruin off. There’s also supposed to be a Menacing Ruin there, but I guess the game thinks that there’s no way you’re going to kill that after taking care of the Dollgirl or something, so it almost immediately despawned as “the way forward has opened up” cutscene played. XD Hey, I’m fine with that – my weapons are fully upgraded, so I don’t have to worry about teeth anymore, and I’m not losing that much health in fights either! Look at me, being competent. . . As it stands, I’ve gotten past the first Radula Room and the first “dollhead” sequence (guh, fiddly), and I’m almost up to the first trip into the Cellars. Time to go down a horrible nail slide next time I play!
4. Get in a workout: Check – another ride on the bike, another round with “Nuka-World Level One Survival!” Started Episode 8 today, which saw Minnie – having shut down as many Protectrons in the park as possible – head back to Vault-Tec: Among The Stars to see if it was safe for her to pick up the remaining two Star Cores within. And, happily, it was – well, for certain values of safe. Certainly getting past the utility Protectrons who killed her before was much easier, and she was able to fetch the Star Core from the back room (inhabited by the world’s creepiest astronaut animatronic, whose outfit kept glitching out of existence whenever Minnie turned her head). The second one, however, was not only past some turrets (she had a very close call with one of those), but also in a heavily-irradiated room. Fortunately she has a hazmat suit these days – unfortunately, putting it on makes her super slow thanks to losing all her strength-boosting items. Luckily it wasn’t too far into the room to get the core, and she was able to take out the turret lurking in there without too much issue. Yay Minnie!
That cleared out that attraction, so Minnie stopped by the Starport to consider her options. It was eventually determined that the next best bet was to check out the theater and get the easiest-to-obtain Star Cores from there. This proved a little difficult – namely because there was a Nukatron near the entrance that exploded her legs first attempt – but eventually Minnie managed to kill it and its Eyebot friends, and get into the theater. With almost all the Protectrons and Handies shut down, Minnie only had to deal with the laser turrets and one Protectron Guardian not on the main grid, and her bat of awesomeness and some molotovs took care of them (after she, uh, accidentally broke her arms with a bad throw). This netted her three Star Cores from the rooms around the main theater – as the fourth was in said theater, behind a giant sentry bot serving as the “Startender,” Jon decided that was more than enough and went back to the Starport to plug them in. To his delight, this put him up to 15 cores – and gave him the ability to turn some of the robots from enemies into allies! Jon had Minnie turn the turrets from “horrible dangers” into “friendly parties,” then decided his next best bet was to head to Nuka-Galaxy to pick up the cores there.
And promptly ran into some MORE Eyebots and ANOTHER Nukatron, with poor Minnie getting her legs exploded again. Jon bemoaned not getting the eyebots on his side, then plucked up his courage and started looking for sniping spots. Fortunately, some debris lead him into a nice tall was-under-construction-when-the-bombs-hit tower, and he was able to take a few potshots at the Eyebots and their Nukatron buddy. I did end my session with him having to deal with some robots that found out where Minnie was and came up to kill her, though. . .we’ll see how it goes when I return!
Additionally:
-->Played the beanbag game today, despite a few sprinkles – while Dad won four out of the five games, I managed to pick up a win in the third thanks to poor Mom not QUITE making the throw she needed to beat me. Actually, my record went 3-2-W-3-2, which was amusing. :p Still, any win is a good win!
-->Got my queue sorted for Valice Multiverse just a little bit ago -- two asks, one thread. I am relieved it wasn't more.
And I just answered two of my DW comments. . .gotta go answer the final one, then see about getting some sleep. Another full week of work coming up. . .at least this one won't end with a cleaning Saturday. (Though it does end with Mother's Day a week from now, so I'll have to remember that.) Oh, and Alice's birthday on Tuesday -- I've already reserved a cupcake in the freezer, so I'll have to remember to take that out Tuesday morning. :)
Okay, that's about all I've got -- let's wrap things up tonight. Night all!
At least I did well on the old to-do list:
1. Draft out the other gift fic I owe this month: Check! Inspiration taken from a recent Dreamwidth post, hopefully the recipient will find it amusing. Always good to get something out of the way early on a Sunday!
Also, for my own personal use, went back into Hypno-Snippets, wrote down a couple of new ideas for snippets, then made a “this is the kind of kinkery fuckery my Victors like” list for reasons. ...look, there are non-zero chances I’ll be writing more of this stuff, even if it’s just for my own consumption, and I like making lists.
2. Watch as much of the OXBox/OXtra videos I have in my Watch Later as I can, along with Kevin and Jon's Fallout 4 YOLO episode: Check, though it’s good that I didn’t specify ALL of the OXBox in my WL, as I wasn’t able to get to the final thing. Hopefully this week or next weekend I’ll manage. In the meantime –
A) Started with the OXBox and OXtra lists, as you do –
I. “7 Darkest Game Overs You Will Never Recover From” – depressing game overs that make you wish you were playing a game where you can’t die or fail. From the Elite Beat Agents having to watch a little girl whose father’s ghost they were trying to bring back for one last visit (it’s – weird) grow up into a depressed teenager; to Phoenix Wright running away from his law career at the end of Ace Attorney: Justice For All after failing to save an innocent women from being convicted of murder (thanks to the machinations of a killer keeping his assistant Maya hostage); to Mark Hamil’s character in Wing Commander IV being led off to his own execution after failing to out the real villain of the game as his war-hungry boss. (Also, Tom Wilson, aka Biff Tannen, is in this game as well. Along with the guy who plays Gimli in LOTR. If this is the same game that has Tim Curry running away to space to escape capitalism, this is one hell of an all-star cast!)
II. “10 Most Embarrassing Hitman Kills You Don't Want in Your Obituary” – some of the most embarrassing ways to off your targets through the “World of Assassination” trilogy of the modern Hitman games. Complete with electrocuting Alexa Carlisle through family photo (thanks Jane), blowing up Silvo Caruso with an exploding golf ball (I KNOW that is Mike), and kicking a toilet through a hole in the ceiling of a dilapidated building onto the head of General Reza Zaydan (has a Mike feel to it, but would not be surprised if it was actually Andy). All sorts of fun ways to make your target wish their death had a little more class to it! XD
III. “7 Sneaky Easter Eggs that Shout Out a Game Maker's Previous Game” – video game companies like referencing their previous video games, and this video proves it! From the Dopefish from ID’s old Commander Keen games getting a surprise HD cameo in Doom Eternal, to Capcom putting a Blanca from Street Fighter mask in Dead Rising 2 and onward as a component in a “shock ‘em dead” mask combo-weapon you can make, to Alan Wake and a typewritten page of his appearing in Control – though that last one eventually got upgraded to full-on DLC status, it looks like. Good for Alan, I suppose. :p
B) Then this evening we had Call Me Kevin and Cat Goes Fishing! Yup, sometimes these games are just what they say on the tin. XD Though it’s a little more complex than that – you can complete “quests” to catch specific kinds of fish, buy rod upgrades and other little bonuses (like rockets to send your line farther), and eventually catch more and bigger fish as you find a way to get your bait deeper and deeper. Kevin found it very relaxing when he wasn’t grumping about not being able to catch a cowfish or spending all his money on rockets. XD It is a very cute little game, though – if you just want to waste an hour trying to catch fish as a cartoony cat, you could do worse.
C) And then, of course, after cupcake, we had Jon’s Fallout 4 YOLO episode! And today was – interesting. Let me see if I can sum it up efficiently:
I. Finalley started renovating Hangman’s Alley, replacing most of the old junk fencing with nice solid barn doors and walls, and a nice metal mesh for the second level – and ran out of wood. This was a problem because the second level has no safety rails and part of the reason for the refit is to stop her taking fall damage in her own settlement.
II. Finalley went to Diamond City to buy more supplies, and found that Arturo has gotten himself a suppressed combat rifle. A lot of careful trading later, Finalley had got her hands on it – but now had basically no money at all. This was also a problem, as the wood situation had not really been resolved.
III. Finalley decided the best way to get money is to do “Diamond City Blues,” a quest that starts off as helping a guy named Paul stop a guy named Cooke from sleeping with his wife, and ends up pulling the PC into being part of a drug deal. Through the use of lots of charisma, a quick stop back home to do some gun upgrades, and clearing out Back Street Apparel for a good vantage point where she could kill everyone involved in the whole trade, Finalley was able to get Cooke to cut her in on the deal without alerting Paul (though she did successfully stop the affair), then – well, I think I already implied this – killed everyone involved in the drug deal so she could take all their money and all the drugs for herself, which she then proceeded to trade around Diamond City for things like wood shipments and fresh meat and caps and whatnot. Finalley has a – flexible sense of morality, let’s say. XD
IV. Finalley finished up her initial updates to the Hangman’s Alley home (basically just two floors, one of which holds the artillery cannon) and went out to get to the Castle so she could talk to Preston about setting up the teleporter to head into the Institute. Along the way, she skirted around and HALF-joined in a fight between the Brotherhood and the Super Mutants of Big John’s Salvage (ended up leaving when she saw too many Mutants to try and take on), and then got YANKED into a fight with some raiders when she encountered a bunch on the road and ran away – only for a Brotherhood vertibird to show up and start antagonizing them. She took about 1.48 hitpoints worth of damage from a stray bullet, but considering the sheer number of raiders and the fact the fight ended with the damaged vertibird falling out of the sky – could have been a lot worse. One Legendary, but they had a Safecracker’s Chest Piece, which made Jon extremely sour.
V. Finalley finally made it to the Castle, talked to Preston, then decided to stop by the Four-Leaf Clover Fishpacking Plant nearby to do some feral ghoul hunting (and some regular hunting, as there were mongrels nearby) in the hopes of picking up a Legendary. None in the ghouls, but Jon did spot one in the nearby Super Mutant camp. . .however, in what he himself termed a great instance of personal growth, he made Finalley turn away and didn’t pick a dumb fight, even when the Legendary Mutant wandered away from his fellow Super Mutants to check out some exploding cars. That plus taking “Adamantium Skeleton” to reduce Finalley’s limb damage made him feel very responsible. XD
So yeah – episode ended with Finalley back at the Castle, ready to make some upgrades to THAT place next episode. We’re also hopefully building the teleporter and entering the Institute, and then – it’s NUKA-WORLD time! Yes, that is the first DLC campaign Finalley will be taking on – but before then, there’s apparently one important item Jon needs her to get. . .we’ll see what happens next week!
3. Play Alice: Madness Returns and get through some more of the Dollhouse level: Check! Played for a little less time than I normally do, but I gotta pace myself if I want any of the game left to play on the anniversary (that isn’t “where the hell is that snout I missed in the Deluded Depths?”). Still got through a good portion of the level, though – past most of the creepy dollhouses and the first major battle arena. Which I ended up cheesing by – after an initial failed jump – staying on the platform you’re supposed to leap off of (past one of those swinging spike babies), popping almost all the Drifting Ruin and just about killing the Dollgirl before making the jump across and finishing her and the final Drifting Ruin off. There’s also supposed to be a Menacing Ruin there, but I guess the game thinks that there’s no way you’re going to kill that after taking care of the Dollgirl or something, so it almost immediately despawned as “the way forward has opened up” cutscene played. XD Hey, I’m fine with that – my weapons are fully upgraded, so I don’t have to worry about teeth anymore, and I’m not losing that much health in fights either! Look at me, being competent. . . As it stands, I’ve gotten past the first Radula Room and the first “dollhead” sequence (guh, fiddly), and I’m almost up to the first trip into the Cellars. Time to go down a horrible nail slide next time I play!
4. Get in a workout: Check – another ride on the bike, another round with “Nuka-World Level One Survival!” Started Episode 8 today, which saw Minnie – having shut down as many Protectrons in the park as possible – head back to Vault-Tec: Among The Stars to see if it was safe for her to pick up the remaining two Star Cores within. And, happily, it was – well, for certain values of safe. Certainly getting past the utility Protectrons who killed her before was much easier, and she was able to fetch the Star Core from the back room (inhabited by the world’s creepiest astronaut animatronic, whose outfit kept glitching out of existence whenever Minnie turned her head). The second one, however, was not only past some turrets (she had a very close call with one of those), but also in a heavily-irradiated room. Fortunately she has a hazmat suit these days – unfortunately, putting it on makes her super slow thanks to losing all her strength-boosting items. Luckily it wasn’t too far into the room to get the core, and she was able to take out the turret lurking in there without too much issue. Yay Minnie!
That cleared out that attraction, so Minnie stopped by the Starport to consider her options. It was eventually determined that the next best bet was to check out the theater and get the easiest-to-obtain Star Cores from there. This proved a little difficult – namely because there was a Nukatron near the entrance that exploded her legs first attempt – but eventually Minnie managed to kill it and its Eyebot friends, and get into the theater. With almost all the Protectrons and Handies shut down, Minnie only had to deal with the laser turrets and one Protectron Guardian not on the main grid, and her bat of awesomeness and some molotovs took care of them (after she, uh, accidentally broke her arms with a bad throw). This netted her three Star Cores from the rooms around the main theater – as the fourth was in said theater, behind a giant sentry bot serving as the “Startender,” Jon decided that was more than enough and went back to the Starport to plug them in. To his delight, this put him up to 15 cores – and gave him the ability to turn some of the robots from enemies into allies! Jon had Minnie turn the turrets from “horrible dangers” into “friendly parties,” then decided his next best bet was to head to Nuka-Galaxy to pick up the cores there.
And promptly ran into some MORE Eyebots and ANOTHER Nukatron, with poor Minnie getting her legs exploded again. Jon bemoaned not getting the eyebots on his side, then plucked up his courage and started looking for sniping spots. Fortunately, some debris lead him into a nice tall was-under-construction-when-the-bombs-hit tower, and he was able to take a few potshots at the Eyebots and their Nukatron buddy. I did end my session with him having to deal with some robots that found out where Minnie was and came up to kill her, though. . .we’ll see how it goes when I return!
Additionally:
-->Played the beanbag game today, despite a few sprinkles – while Dad won four out of the five games, I managed to pick up a win in the third thanks to poor Mom not QUITE making the throw she needed to beat me. Actually, my record went 3-2-W-3-2, which was amusing. :p Still, any win is a good win!
-->Got my queue sorted for Valice Multiverse just a little bit ago -- two asks, one thread. I am relieved it wasn't more.
And I just answered two of my DW comments. . .gotta go answer the final one, then see about getting some sleep. Another full week of work coming up. . .at least this one won't end with a cleaning Saturday. (Though it does end with Mother's Day a week from now, so I'll have to remember that.) Oh, and Alice's birthday on Tuesday -- I've already reserved a cupcake in the freezer, so I'll have to remember to take that out Tuesday morning. :)
Okay, that's about all I've got -- let's wrap things up tonight. Night all!
