Busyish Sunday

I mean, I had enough going on that I'm running a bit late on this update, but I think that's just a side effect of juggling chatting with friends with doing tumblr queue stuff. . .anyway, here's the to-do list to sum up my day --

1. Work on final edits for Chapter 2 of “Londerland Bloodlines”: Check – I’m through Alice meeting with the Thin-Bloods now, picking up E’s quest, giving Rosa a twenty for her cryptic hints, and heading up onto the pier before leaving so she could check out the Slasher’s first crime scene (which I ended up making even GORIER to match it better to the description you get from the cops sitting by the parking garage). She’s just had the revelation that Rosa DID give her good info by realizing the “man on the couch” must refer to Mercurio! So that’s something. It’s gonna take her a bit longer to find that “lone wolf” means Beckett, of course. . .and even longer to parse “blood-collared one who walked with death.” But she’ll get it eventually. XD

2. Keep up with YouTube Subs, watch at least some of the OXBox/OXtra in the Watch Later, and watch Jon's FO4 YOLO episode: Check – though I wasn’t able to get to the OXtra vid thanks to getting to YouTube watching a touch later than I would have liked. Still got pretty much everything I wanted to watch, watched, though –

A) Started this afternoon post-gaming (see below) with some of that delicious OXBox:

I. OXBox, “7 Times Games Stole Your Stuff To See How Good You REALLY Are” – those times when games either completely wiped your inventory, or at least severely depleted it, for a level made of pain and frustration. Though some of them do it better than others. . . Grand Theft Auto V putting you into a fight in a cemetery with a bunch of Triad gang members with just a pistol? Good way to emphasize this is a hopeless boss fight you’re expected to lose. Resident Evil Village using hallucinatory powers to make you think you have no inventory while trying to avoid a giant baby monster in the spooky doll mansion? Great way to up the scare factor in an already freaky game. BioShock having Peach strip you of your gathered weapons right before his fight with his cronies? Yeah, the game itself reminds you that he can’t actually take your PLASMIDS, and he also leaves you your wrench, which is good enough for people to successfully do challenge runs using that as their only weapon. AND he has a weapon upgrade station in his area, so once you get your stuff back, you actually leave ahead of the game. Thanks, Peach! XD

II. OXBox, “7 Fates Worse Than Death You Gave Your Unlucky Enemies | Part 2” – aka, the Commenter Edition! Seven more ghastly fates worse than death that you can inflict on your enemies (or just innocent bystanders) in video games. From kicking an immortal opponent in Mortal Kombat 11 overboard attached to an anchor so he’ll drown forever in the Sea of Blood, to electrocuting the mind of a man uploaded into a robot for who knows how long as an easy way to restore the power in SOMA, to turning people into edible sweet rolls in Skyrim, you can be a real dick to anyone in your way in a video game sometimes. (Though sometimes there are mistakes made – Andy seems to think that “Alex the Great” from BioShock 2 needs to die because otherwise you’re condemning his previous personality, Gil Alexander, to a fate worse than death trapped in his mutated body – but nothing in the game made ME think they had a split personality. I think he misunderstood the audio diaries Gil left BEFORE mutating into Alex the Great.)

B) Then it was over to the Subs for a momentous episode from Call Me Kevin – the end of the Two-Chunk Minecraft Challenge! Yes, after suiting up and bringing all his dragon-killing gear, Kevin got on his trusty pork-pie steed and left his chunk, searching out the stronghold to bring him to the end to kill the Ender Dragon. He passed through deserts, fields, a village that he set on fire just because, and various streams where he nearly drowned his steed by accident (and picked up some other piggy hangers-on), but eventually he made it down, opened the portal, and leapt into The End!

. . .the game spawned him in falling off the edge and had to put a magic platform under him. XD As you might imagine, this turned out to be a bit of an omen about how his battle against the Dragon went. Namely, the poor guy kept getting wrecked. Not even by the Dragon most of the time – by the Endermen! Poor Kevin kept getting flung off great heights, slaughtered by the Endermen, or set on fire, forcing him to run back into the portal and get his stuff before he got killed yet again. But, with a combination of trench warfare (hiding in a little tunnel right under the perch spot so he could hit the dragon’s belly with his sword) and smashing all the regen crystals with crossbow bolts and eggs, he FINALLY managed to kill the dragon and beat the game! :D We ended with him riding off onto the sunset on his trusty steed, back to the chunks. ...if he could remember where they were. XD A great ending to the little series that sprung up around this challenge. I’m looking forward to the next one he does!

C) Then, this evening, we had GrayStillPlays and more Happy Wheels! And we had a good one tonight – starting with a yeet-tastic bottle flip with double dollar signs for the shout-out, AND a section that led into a spike fall into a freeze fall (aka you crashed into a bunch of orbs at the end and hoped they were in a good position for you to fall through) – Gray immediately abandoned the shout-out to get through the balls, which took quite a few tries (and a few ripped-off limbs). And then we had the glass staircase with Pogo Man (hopping up a series of glass platforms, trying not to smash them and fall through – or, as Gray did many, many times, just plummet through the unevenly-spaced gaps); the boot camp with Bike Dad (crawling through the mud, up a hill, around the bar to avoid the spikes, and just flinging himself off a cliff because Gray missed the parachute); the Surgeon Simulator level with Copter Man (who has a little thingamabob to pick stuff up with – you actually have to load in the right disk to get the Heart Transplant level, then smash open the patient’s ribs with whatever’s handy, get out the bad heart, get the new one out of the little container, and drop it in – it’s very involved); and – THE HILL. A horrible death course of spikes, five million arrows, a wrecking ball, an ill-placed spike designed to catch you and bisect you, and a couple of jet walls. Gray died SO MANY TIMES as Bike Mom to this horrifying course, and it was SO FREAKING FUNNY. XD Especially as he got exploded once, managed to survive with no limbs – and landed JUST SHORT OF THE WINNING AREA WITH NO WAY TO PUSH HIMSELF ONTO IT. I was crying laughing at just the sheer MADNESS of the course and Gray’s determination to beat it. Very satisfying when he did, poor guy. :D

D) And then, of course, we had the latest episode of Jon’s FO4 YOLO run! Another shorter episode this week, all about starting the endgame! Having finally finished all the DLCs with story last week by clearing out Automatron, it was time for Finalley to complete the main quest! This was done in three stages:

I. PREP STAGE – As Finalley is doing the Minutemen ending to the game, she had to do the “Defend The Castle” quest. And in order to properly defend the castle, she needed the supplies to make as many missile turrets as possible. The limiting factor? Oil and screws. How did she get what she needed? By visiting Diamond City a few times to see what she could buy with either, working her way through the Cambridge police station for whatever she could pick up there, popping by the Fraternal Outpost 115 for a desk fan –

And invading the Fens Street Sewer to loot the bones of the victims of the serial killer down there, because bones mean cutting fluid and cutting fluid means oil. Featuring Jon saying “skellingtons” about a dozen times in under five minutes and getting annoyed he couldn’t pick up any of the bones set around for flavor. XD Anyway, Finalley got everything she needed, and went over to the Castle to start setting things up. She was able to get six missile turrets set up at key points, rearrange her heavy machine gun turrets a bit to target enemies of interest, and move around some cheap ordinary machine gun turrets to be decoys and draw enemy fire. The limiting factor? Power. She didn’t have quite enough to power everything (including some spare laser turrets). Never mind – she made a note to bring some of the items she needs for generators when she next returned.

II. ACTIVATION STAGE – With the Castle pretty much adequately defended, Finalley headed into the Institute to declare war. As she’s emphatically NOT doing any of their missions for fear of being shot at (maybe Libertalia wouldn’t be too bad, but The Battle Of Bunker Hill? HELL NO), the only way to let them know that she was no longer on board? Shoot a named character. Not necessarily Father, just a named character. Finalley found the perfect sniping spot on the balcony just below Father’s own quarters and waited until the unfortunate Newton sat down in her sights, then took the shot and ran back to the elevator. She was able to get down that elevator without issue, sneak her way into the other, more central elevator without getting seen or shot, ascend to the emergency teleport (resisting the urge to snipe Liam Binet on the way), activate it, get lectured by Father, and get back outside without a single point of damage. Yay! Though unfortunately, no more easy teleporting around now – boo.

III. DEFENSE STAGE – With war declared, Finalley dropped by Hangman’s Alley to get her supplies to make more generators, then made her way over to the Castle, stopping only briefly to kill the one Brotherhood Soldier that’s been standing along her route for who knows HOW many episodes now because Jon for some reason is convinced that the BOS is going to declare war on him in the aftermath of this. (That’s not a sure thing, Jon! But then again, you sounded pretty eager to blow up their airship at the end, so maybe YOU want to declare war on THEM.) She rushed in to avoid getting grabbed by either Preston or Ronnie to properly start the “Defend The Castle” quest, built her generators (getting Idiot Savant and a level-up out of it), made sure everything was stable, made sure she had her cover behind her hidey-hole, then said hello to Ronnie and started the fireworks!

And – everything went SUPERBLY. The turrets and the settlers did amazing work, murdering pretty much everything while Finalley stayed behind cover and took a few pot shots at synth patrollers. :D It wasn’t long at all before the waves were over, the defense was complete, and Preston was willing to talk to Finalley long enough to give her the good news that Sturges had a way into the Institute. And then immediately went back to being curt with her. Mixed messages, perhaps, but – common enemy. :p So, yeah, as per Jon, next time, we start wrapping this up, as Finalley leads the assault of the Minutemen on the Institute! And possibly on the Brotherhood. We’ll see!

3. Play either Bloodlines and get through the Fu Syndicate, or Fallout 4 and finish cleaning out Sanctuary: Check to the latter – I found myself in primarily a FO4 mood today, so I did a little more with Victor in Sanctuary, cleaning up the place, exploring the environs, stuff like that. Got all of his crafting stuff in one place at the crafting house, built him a little port-a-potty for toilet needs (as I am using the “Advanced Needs 2” mod, where he needs to eat, drink, sleep, and use the toilet periodically), built a water pump for water needs, cooked a few things, found some old raider armor in a suitcase nearby and modified it, built him a proper fishing rod (as I also have a mod that allows for fishing), killed some bloatflies and a squirrel that didn’t have the sense to run. . .

And nearly got killed when those damn maggots the bloatflies keep covering me in because I don’t have my dodging quite down ended up exploding out of poor Victor and nearly murdered him en-masse, partly because I was doing the armor upgrades at the time. >( Luckily he had some stimpacks to keep himself alive – and even more luckily, this happened near Codsworth, who came to his aid and killed those I couldn’t get down. Whew! That is – disgusting. *shudder* Hope that doesn’t happen again for a long time! Note to self, AVOID BLOATFLIES. Ugh. Anyway, did some scrapping and whatnot, and now, early in the morning of 10/25/2287, Victor’s about ready to venture down to the Red Rocket. Saved it with him standing in front of the bridge. So far so okay, but, of course, we won’t know for SURE until I risk Concord. . .

4. Get in a workout: Check – more time on the bike, and today I ended up watching some videos all about Fallout food! Specifically, two videos from “MisoHungrie” reviewing the Fallout Vault-Tec cookbook (which is written like it’s an in-universe cookbook from Vault-Tec that a wastelander has found and added their own updates to) and some of its recipes, both for food (a “mole rat” dip with Italian Sausage – nice; a “braised Deathclaw steak” made with cubed pork that was apparently delicious; and matcha cookies that were supposed to be bright green “Buffout” pills – eh, though the guy admitted he’s crap at baking so this could be a failure on his part and not the book’s) and drink (trying every Nuka-Cola recipe in the book, and even trying his own to get as many fruit flavors into the drink as possible – he found Nuka-Quartz to be too one-note, Nuka-Quantum to be too sour, but Nuka-Cola and Nuka-Cherry to be pretty nice (though you HAVE to cut the Nuka-Cherry syrup with the Nuka-Cola syrup, otherwise it’s just too sweet), and a Nuka-Float is DELICIOUS with vanilla Hagen-Daas. Also do not try to make a Nuka-Cola mix with 17 fruit flavors, it will be WEIRD). Also the beginning of a video on a guy’s attempt to make Sunset Sarsaparilla from Fallout: New Vegas, but that was longer than I expected and the bit I watched was mostly him rambling on about the history of sarsaparilla drinks and the “star caps” quest in F:NV. Still, fun times, and kind of makes me want to get the cookbook! If only to be amused by the writing. :p

5. Work on tumblr queues: Check – got through three asks and one thread reply on Valice Multiverse! And while I didn’t actually get anything done in the drafts for Victor Luvs Alice, I DID get the pictures I wanted for this week’s Sims 4 update – featuring my new house build – sorted, so that’s something!

Not too bad, no. :) And now I only have two and a half days to get through of work. . .hopefully they won't be too awful! Fingers crossed, everyone. . .night all!