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Another Kinda Vampirey Day
Oct. 3rd, 2021 11:25 pmI ended up searching "vampires" on a random tumblr blog this morning and getting sucked down a rabbit hole of posts and ideas, I played more VTMB, I even ended up wearing some bat-themed socks. I think we can safely say blood-suckers are a passion of mine this October. XD
Okay, and now that the Patriots have unfortunately lost the night game against the Buccaneers (and Tom Brady) thanks to one missed field goal, I can finally do the update and head to bed here --
1. Write some more on "Learn To Love Again": Check! I have finished up the party scene with Victor’s parents returning, Radcliffe claiming a mild case of stomach upset to get away from Victor, and Victor hopeful that he can indeed get the rabbit from the charity shop. And I have just started the scene where he shows up at Houndsditch for Alice’s birthday with a package in hand, so you can guess that he was successful. XD Look, her losing her beloved rabbit is one of the great tragedies of the games – if I can get it back to her, I am. And if I can use Victor to do so, even better. :p
2. Keep up on YouTube Subs and Jon's FO4 YOLO episode: Check! Pretty easy as there were only two Subs and the one YOLO ep – which is good, as I did get wrapped up in a tumblr reading spree this morning and thus wouldn’t have had much time for more than that and the couple of short bonus vids I watched. Interestingly enough, it’s a lot easier to lose track of time when I’m NOT binging YouTube stuff!
A) Started with a few more videos from Daria Cohen’s channel about the “Vampair” –
I. The “When You’re Evil” group project she organized with a bunch of different animators when she hit 666K subs – I think I remember her announcing this! The idea was she WANTED to have Duke singing “When You’re Evil” by Voltaire, but couldn’t figure out a way to fit it into the “main” series, so instead she had a bunch of other people illustrate bits of the song so she could do a cool collab video on it instead! And it came out really cool – lot of talented animators on display, including somebody who did claymation! :D So that was neat.
II. The five-year anniversary Q&A (yes, this series has been going on for FIVE YEARS), in which Daria updated the character sheets (to reflect that Missi now is down one eye, and Duke down one thumb) and answered a few questions about the series and the characters. For example – Missi had a birthday during the course of the first season – she was 17 in the first episode, but 18 in all the others (her older sister Vanessa is 20, while Duke’s age and origins will be explored in Season 2); the entire first season AND most of Season 2 was thought up by Daria while creating the characters for the original film “The Night” (a graduation project for film school) – she wasn’t really planning on making it a series, though, until her involvement in a multi-animator music video ended up drawing people to her channel and making the original short a viral hit (she HAD started “In the Land of the Dead” at that point, but it was just a fun side project); the short that took the longest was “Land of the Dead” (ironically, it’s the shortest of the videos – she just had an official animator’s job at the time, so she could only dedicate her spare time to that one) – it also ranks as one of her favorites, along with “The Silent.” And don’t ask her anything about the layout of the castle Duke and Missi live in; she hates architecture and she just has rooms appear as they’re needed. XD Fun stuff!
B) Then, after supper, we caught up with Call Me Kevin and The Lost and the Damned – apparently an actual DLC for GTA V, where you play as the leader of a biker gang that I guess at some point gets roughed up by Trevor from the main game? It’s – I guess a decent enough DLC – you do crime-related missions as in the main game, such as stealing bikes from enemy gangs, and you can hang out with other gang members to make them better friends, such as taking Clay out on a very roundabout trip to play some air hockey – but the animations and the AI are a bit jank, with bikers regularly ramming into the scenery and each other. Kevin being the kind of player who will rather plow into a bunch of dumpsters than dare show weakness like BRAKING in front of his gang, then turn around and hire a taxi to bring him to the social event he arranged with Clay, did not help. XD On the plus side, he got a cool Burger Shot theme for his phone, and a neat ringtone to go with it. XD It’s the little things!
C) Then it was onto GrayStillPlays and more Streamer Life 3D! Because things weren’t weird enough the first time. XD Today’s adventures in streaming for Pleasemakeitsto (the final “p” didn’t fit) involved imprisoning a thief in a giant bubble gum bubble (and then letting him go for future drama purposes); beating her rival Alexa in a rock-paper-scissors battle (with Alexa straight-up collapsing upon her loss); giving herself a glam makeover (Gray was NOT going to go natural); eating the stankiest piece of pizza in the drawer because apparently food poisoning followed by heavy farting brings in the views; trying to lock her door against another intruder – only for him to come in through the window and Gray to decide “fine, you get a kiss” (walking on the wild side); having an on-air argument with Alexa because we hate that bitch (and we love the views); and taking a hair vitamin, only to call them out when all her hair fell out. You know, just another average couple of weeks in the life of an influencer! XD
D) And then, of course, we had Jon’s Fallout 4 YOLO episode! And as per the ending last week – it was time for Finalley to take on The Galactic Zone in Nuka-World. AKA the one world that has very perceptive enemies with projectile weapons (well, sort of – LASER weapons, mostly, but still). Jon was very scared of taking on this area, but told us he had a plan and was going to execute it as well as he could!
. . .okay, if you’ve been following along with my recaps of the episodes and the reoccurring themes in them, you’ve probably guessed that, because Jon was scared, took things carefully, and had a plan in mind for everything, Finalley got through the area without a single scratch. Because that’s how things work in this LP. XD The plan went roughly like so:
I. After sleep, food, and water, get to the Galactic Zone, fiddle around on top of the barricades set up by the dead settlers you find outside to get onto the roof, then use the recon display in the power armor to tag all the roaming robots and systematically take them all out. Because there’s always more Eyebots than you think there’s gonna be.
II. Carefully navigate around the roofs until you reach Nuka-Galaxy (the indoor roller coaster). Cheese this place by going in the BACK way so you only have to fight a couple of robots at the end and pick up the cores from their stations. Sneak back outside without upsetting any of the other robots. This will take your total of Star Cores up to seven thanks to the four you’ve already picked up.
III. Head up to the tower in the middle of the park and grab the star core up there, mindful of eyebots. You’re up to eight.
IV. Get back up to the roofs again and sneak around to the area the Starlight Interstellar Theater is in. Get a little confused by the fact that you’ve only got three enemies to kill, then decide not to worry about it too much and just kill those robots. (Also a bunch of feral ghouls you’ve managed to upset for XP.) Once they’re down, head into the Theater, and very sneakily kill a couple of Mr. Frothys and Protectrons (and a turret via grenade) without upsetting the Startender Sentry bot too much. Get the two easily-obtained Star Cores in this area (one on the bottom, one up top in the projection booth), and then get out as fast as possible. You’re up to ten.
V. Get back on the roofs, only to realize that the wall that you thought you COULD get on top of to get to Vault-Tec: Among The Stars is actually impassable. Also upset the Cave Crickets just outside his area with your attempts to get up there. Kill two of them, lose two, panic over the fact that you don’t know where they are because they hit like trucks.
VI. After some recalibrating and popping some Berry Mentats to see what enemies are still around, find your way over to Vault-Tec: Among The Stars and start VERY CAREFULLY slaughtering robots. This includes a number of tricky turrets, and one terrifying Novtron Dominator that gets a crit because of course it does. Also take a good chunk of rads because there is one HEAVILY-irradiated room in there. However, after killing all the robots that need to be killed and picking up all the employee keys, get SEVEN freaking star cores and bring your total up to seventeen, three less than what you need! And you know exactly WHERE to find those three. . .
VII. Move to Starport Nuka and – keeping an eye on Mr. Frothys and turrets nearby – get up to the top floor and open up the display case with the star core in it. Also grab some Nuka-cade tickets because you earned it.
VIII. Go to the area just behind the Starport and get the star core there. Get NEARLY seen by the Protectron Guardian there but manage to slip past and then take it down.
IX. Get the final star core in the Starport itself, and plug them all in and disable Defensive Mode. Park is now yours, robots are friendly.
X. Assign the park to the Operators because you already know you want the Disciples to betray you and get the hell out of there. XD
And there you have it. Finalley has finally taken over all of the parks! And without any more lost health to robots, gatorclaws, or ghouls painted like clowns. Of course, NOW she has to start taking over Commonwealth settlements and going back and forth to Shank. . .but that’s a problem for next week. We’ll see how much he edits out of the next episode next Sunday! XD
3. Play more Bloodlines and get through to the Nosferatus' haven: Check – Crystal managed to get through the Warrens Shortcut area with only one Final Death – turns out those giant spidery-women monsters? Yeah, they DON’T explode when you boil their blood, though it DOES hurt them. Turns out using it as a damage-causing stun and then wailing on them with a katana works a bit better. Anyway, she killed it, found the secret entrance to the Nosferatu Warrens, navigated it (and picked up a little data CD for later), and introduced herself to Mitnick and Imalia to pick up their quests (as Crystal is a character who will do morally-shady stuff, especially if it has a cool artifact or plenty of cash as a reward). From there she met up with Gary, got his mission to go to Chinatown and find Barbarus, and then popped out in the Hollywood Cemetery – where I decided to have her go visit Romero.
And sleep with him in lieu of, you know, actually trying to murder zombies.
Turns out the game fades to black and plays some VERY SUGGESTIVE NOISES when that happens. XD Oh cripes, it is so awkward and terrible. I kind of love it – though I do wish that she’d gotten some blood back for doing that! She was running a bit low after fighting the creatures in the sewer. Apparently you CAN use him as a blood doll after this, but I didn’t see the option. Hmm. Anyway, she left him behind, then went to go see Isaac to report on what had happened up at Kings Way, then ask if he had any other work for her, getting the Gargoyle quest. Naturally she needs to talk to Strauss before progressing THAT, but I sent her back to her have in Santa Monica first, to refill Heather’s vitae needs and check her e-mails –
And holy shit, did she have a lot of e-mails. Mitnick letting her know about the first hub in Santa Monica; Bertram Tung e-mailing her with a “proposition;” Gary giving her the first part of the poster scavenger hunt quest; and Beckett e-mailing her with the start of the patch-added “Sabbat in the library” quest. Holy crap, she’s gonna have all the XP soon enough. . .not to mention, most of it I can just do in Santa Monica! Handy. . .so that’s for next weekend! :)
4. Get in a workout: Check – another thirty on the bike, and another thirty with The First Oxventure! Caught up with Dob, Corazon, Merilwen, and Prudence as they got past the gate guard of the potions operation working out of the crypt (with Dob impersonating a merchant and the other three hiding in his cart) – of course, there was a second employee to deal with in the crypt itself, the guy who took the money from sales and helped resupply people. Dob decided to deal with him by casting “Hideous Laughter” on him to incapacitate him with an awful knock-knock joke, then SPRINTED back to the original guard to try and knock him out, which he just failed at. At this point, the other three decided to get involved – Corazon tied up the guy who was laughing his head off, while Merilwen tried to further incapacitate the gate guard by shooting him in the knee with an arrow – when she JUST MISSED, Prudence decided “fuck this noise” and obliterated him with an “Eldritch Blast.” XD Which pleased Cthulhu but not really anybody else. XD They interrogated the other employee, who told them M. Channail was two levels down in the basement and begged for his life; they left him tied up and started downward, taking a moment to stop on the first basement level – where Dob found the gold haul from the enterprise! Some discussion about how to handle this money resulted, with Merilwen making the winning suggestion of “let’s all put a couple of fistfuls in our pockets, and then we’ll see if we can come back for the rest later.” This ended Episode 2, and we started Episode 3 with Corazon deciding to sneak his way down to the second level where M and two workers were. We’ll see how successful he was next time!
5. Work on tumblr queues: Check – there wasn’t actually anything going on over on Valice Multiverse, so I just put a couple of fandom posts I liked for CB and AMA into that queue. And on Victor Luvs Alice, managed to squeeze in the initial drafts for the Newcrest Adventures posts this week! Whew!
Aaaand yeah, between the long YOLO episode, me getting sucked down vampirey rabbit holes, and the game, I've REALLY got to get to bed now. At least I've already brushed my teeth. . .and hey, I have the pleasure of knowing that I get ANOTHER three-day weekend at the end of this week! Gotta make it through the standard five days first, though. Night all!
Okay, and now that the Patriots have unfortunately lost the night game against the Buccaneers (and Tom Brady) thanks to one missed field goal, I can finally do the update and head to bed here --
1. Write some more on "Learn To Love Again": Check! I have finished up the party scene with Victor’s parents returning, Radcliffe claiming a mild case of stomach upset to get away from Victor, and Victor hopeful that he can indeed get the rabbit from the charity shop. And I have just started the scene where he shows up at Houndsditch for Alice’s birthday with a package in hand, so you can guess that he was successful. XD Look, her losing her beloved rabbit is one of the great tragedies of the games – if I can get it back to her, I am. And if I can use Victor to do so, even better. :p
2. Keep up on YouTube Subs and Jon's FO4 YOLO episode: Check! Pretty easy as there were only two Subs and the one YOLO ep – which is good, as I did get wrapped up in a tumblr reading spree this morning and thus wouldn’t have had much time for more than that and the couple of short bonus vids I watched. Interestingly enough, it’s a lot easier to lose track of time when I’m NOT binging YouTube stuff!
A) Started with a few more videos from Daria Cohen’s channel about the “Vampair” –
I. The “When You’re Evil” group project she organized with a bunch of different animators when she hit 666K subs – I think I remember her announcing this! The idea was she WANTED to have Duke singing “When You’re Evil” by Voltaire, but couldn’t figure out a way to fit it into the “main” series, so instead she had a bunch of other people illustrate bits of the song so she could do a cool collab video on it instead! And it came out really cool – lot of talented animators on display, including somebody who did claymation! :D So that was neat.
II. The five-year anniversary Q&A (yes, this series has been going on for FIVE YEARS), in which Daria updated the character sheets (to reflect that Missi now is down one eye, and Duke down one thumb) and answered a few questions about the series and the characters. For example – Missi had a birthday during the course of the first season – she was 17 in the first episode, but 18 in all the others (her older sister Vanessa is 20, while Duke’s age and origins will be explored in Season 2); the entire first season AND most of Season 2 was thought up by Daria while creating the characters for the original film “The Night” (a graduation project for film school) – she wasn’t really planning on making it a series, though, until her involvement in a multi-animator music video ended up drawing people to her channel and making the original short a viral hit (she HAD started “In the Land of the Dead” at that point, but it was just a fun side project); the short that took the longest was “Land of the Dead” (ironically, it’s the shortest of the videos – she just had an official animator’s job at the time, so she could only dedicate her spare time to that one) – it also ranks as one of her favorites, along with “The Silent.” And don’t ask her anything about the layout of the castle Duke and Missi live in; she hates architecture and she just has rooms appear as they’re needed. XD Fun stuff!
B) Then, after supper, we caught up with Call Me Kevin and The Lost and the Damned – apparently an actual DLC for GTA V, where you play as the leader of a biker gang that I guess at some point gets roughed up by Trevor from the main game? It’s – I guess a decent enough DLC – you do crime-related missions as in the main game, such as stealing bikes from enemy gangs, and you can hang out with other gang members to make them better friends, such as taking Clay out on a very roundabout trip to play some air hockey – but the animations and the AI are a bit jank, with bikers regularly ramming into the scenery and each other. Kevin being the kind of player who will rather plow into a bunch of dumpsters than dare show weakness like BRAKING in front of his gang, then turn around and hire a taxi to bring him to the social event he arranged with Clay, did not help. XD On the plus side, he got a cool Burger Shot theme for his phone, and a neat ringtone to go with it. XD It’s the little things!
C) Then it was onto GrayStillPlays and more Streamer Life 3D! Because things weren’t weird enough the first time. XD Today’s adventures in streaming for Pleasemakeitsto (the final “p” didn’t fit) involved imprisoning a thief in a giant bubble gum bubble (and then letting him go for future drama purposes); beating her rival Alexa in a rock-paper-scissors battle (with Alexa straight-up collapsing upon her loss); giving herself a glam makeover (Gray was NOT going to go natural); eating the stankiest piece of pizza in the drawer because apparently food poisoning followed by heavy farting brings in the views; trying to lock her door against another intruder – only for him to come in through the window and Gray to decide “fine, you get a kiss” (walking on the wild side); having an on-air argument with Alexa because we hate that bitch (and we love the views); and taking a hair vitamin, only to call them out when all her hair fell out. You know, just another average couple of weeks in the life of an influencer! XD
D) And then, of course, we had Jon’s Fallout 4 YOLO episode! And as per the ending last week – it was time for Finalley to take on The Galactic Zone in Nuka-World. AKA the one world that has very perceptive enemies with projectile weapons (well, sort of – LASER weapons, mostly, but still). Jon was very scared of taking on this area, but told us he had a plan and was going to execute it as well as he could!
. . .okay, if you’ve been following along with my recaps of the episodes and the reoccurring themes in them, you’ve probably guessed that, because Jon was scared, took things carefully, and had a plan in mind for everything, Finalley got through the area without a single scratch. Because that’s how things work in this LP. XD The plan went roughly like so:
I. After sleep, food, and water, get to the Galactic Zone, fiddle around on top of the barricades set up by the dead settlers you find outside to get onto the roof, then use the recon display in the power armor to tag all the roaming robots and systematically take them all out. Because there’s always more Eyebots than you think there’s gonna be.
II. Carefully navigate around the roofs until you reach Nuka-Galaxy (the indoor roller coaster). Cheese this place by going in the BACK way so you only have to fight a couple of robots at the end and pick up the cores from their stations. Sneak back outside without upsetting any of the other robots. This will take your total of Star Cores up to seven thanks to the four you’ve already picked up.
III. Head up to the tower in the middle of the park and grab the star core up there, mindful of eyebots. You’re up to eight.
IV. Get back up to the roofs again and sneak around to the area the Starlight Interstellar Theater is in. Get a little confused by the fact that you’ve only got three enemies to kill, then decide not to worry about it too much and just kill those robots. (Also a bunch of feral ghouls you’ve managed to upset for XP.) Once they’re down, head into the Theater, and very sneakily kill a couple of Mr. Frothys and Protectrons (and a turret via grenade) without upsetting the Startender Sentry bot too much. Get the two easily-obtained Star Cores in this area (one on the bottom, one up top in the projection booth), and then get out as fast as possible. You’re up to ten.
V. Get back on the roofs, only to realize that the wall that you thought you COULD get on top of to get to Vault-Tec: Among The Stars is actually impassable. Also upset the Cave Crickets just outside his area with your attempts to get up there. Kill two of them, lose two, panic over the fact that you don’t know where they are because they hit like trucks.
VI. After some recalibrating and popping some Berry Mentats to see what enemies are still around, find your way over to Vault-Tec: Among The Stars and start VERY CAREFULLY slaughtering robots. This includes a number of tricky turrets, and one terrifying Novtron Dominator that gets a crit because of course it does. Also take a good chunk of rads because there is one HEAVILY-irradiated room in there. However, after killing all the robots that need to be killed and picking up all the employee keys, get SEVEN freaking star cores and bring your total up to seventeen, three less than what you need! And you know exactly WHERE to find those three. . .
VII. Move to Starport Nuka and – keeping an eye on Mr. Frothys and turrets nearby – get up to the top floor and open up the display case with the star core in it. Also grab some Nuka-cade tickets because you earned it.
VIII. Go to the area just behind the Starport and get the star core there. Get NEARLY seen by the Protectron Guardian there but manage to slip past and then take it down.
IX. Get the final star core in the Starport itself, and plug them all in and disable Defensive Mode. Park is now yours, robots are friendly.
X. Assign the park to the Operators because you already know you want the Disciples to betray you and get the hell out of there. XD
And there you have it. Finalley has finally taken over all of the parks! And without any more lost health to robots, gatorclaws, or ghouls painted like clowns. Of course, NOW she has to start taking over Commonwealth settlements and going back and forth to Shank. . .but that’s a problem for next week. We’ll see how much he edits out of the next episode next Sunday! XD
3. Play more Bloodlines and get through to the Nosferatus' haven: Check – Crystal managed to get through the Warrens Shortcut area with only one Final Death – turns out those giant spidery-women monsters? Yeah, they DON’T explode when you boil their blood, though it DOES hurt them. Turns out using it as a damage-causing stun and then wailing on them with a katana works a bit better. Anyway, she killed it, found the secret entrance to the Nosferatu Warrens, navigated it (and picked up a little data CD for later), and introduced herself to Mitnick and Imalia to pick up their quests (as Crystal is a character who will do morally-shady stuff, especially if it has a cool artifact or plenty of cash as a reward). From there she met up with Gary, got his mission to go to Chinatown and find Barbarus, and then popped out in the Hollywood Cemetery – where I decided to have her go visit Romero.
And sleep with him in lieu of, you know, actually trying to murder zombies.
Turns out the game fades to black and plays some VERY SUGGESTIVE NOISES when that happens. XD Oh cripes, it is so awkward and terrible. I kind of love it – though I do wish that she’d gotten some blood back for doing that! She was running a bit low after fighting the creatures in the sewer. Apparently you CAN use him as a blood doll after this, but I didn’t see the option. Hmm. Anyway, she left him behind, then went to go see Isaac to report on what had happened up at Kings Way, then ask if he had any other work for her, getting the Gargoyle quest. Naturally she needs to talk to Strauss before progressing THAT, but I sent her back to her have in Santa Monica first, to refill Heather’s vitae needs and check her e-mails –
And holy shit, did she have a lot of e-mails. Mitnick letting her know about the first hub in Santa Monica; Bertram Tung e-mailing her with a “proposition;” Gary giving her the first part of the poster scavenger hunt quest; and Beckett e-mailing her with the start of the patch-added “Sabbat in the library” quest. Holy crap, she’s gonna have all the XP soon enough. . .not to mention, most of it I can just do in Santa Monica! Handy. . .so that’s for next weekend! :)
4. Get in a workout: Check – another thirty on the bike, and another thirty with The First Oxventure! Caught up with Dob, Corazon, Merilwen, and Prudence as they got past the gate guard of the potions operation working out of the crypt (with Dob impersonating a merchant and the other three hiding in his cart) – of course, there was a second employee to deal with in the crypt itself, the guy who took the money from sales and helped resupply people. Dob decided to deal with him by casting “Hideous Laughter” on him to incapacitate him with an awful knock-knock joke, then SPRINTED back to the original guard to try and knock him out, which he just failed at. At this point, the other three decided to get involved – Corazon tied up the guy who was laughing his head off, while Merilwen tried to further incapacitate the gate guard by shooting him in the knee with an arrow – when she JUST MISSED, Prudence decided “fuck this noise” and obliterated him with an “Eldritch Blast.” XD Which pleased Cthulhu but not really anybody else. XD They interrogated the other employee, who told them M. Channail was two levels down in the basement and begged for his life; they left him tied up and started downward, taking a moment to stop on the first basement level – where Dob found the gold haul from the enterprise! Some discussion about how to handle this money resulted, with Merilwen making the winning suggestion of “let’s all put a couple of fistfuls in our pockets, and then we’ll see if we can come back for the rest later.” This ended Episode 2, and we started Episode 3 with Corazon deciding to sneak his way down to the second level where M and two workers were. We’ll see how successful he was next time!
5. Work on tumblr queues: Check – there wasn’t actually anything going on over on Valice Multiverse, so I just put a couple of fandom posts I liked for CB and AMA into that queue. And on Victor Luvs Alice, managed to squeeze in the initial drafts for the Newcrest Adventures posts this week! Whew!
Aaaand yeah, between the long YOLO episode, me getting sucked down vampirey rabbit holes, and the game, I've REALLY got to get to bed now. At least I've already brushed my teeth. . .and hey, I have the pleasure of knowing that I get ANOTHER three-day weekend at the end of this week! Gotta make it through the standard five days first, though. Night all!
