Kitchen Upgrades Friday

My parents spent most of their day finishing the wallpaper in the kitchen and cutting new frames for the doorways -- the place is slowly but surely finally starting to come together! I am glad of it, let me tell you -- though I'll be gladdest once the sink is finally functional. Ugh. So sick of washing dishes in the bathroom. . . Anyway, that was their day -- my day was more like this:

Tumblr: Did a full dash-and-tags catch-up on Victor Luvs Alice before lunch (helped by the fact that we didn’t HAVE lunch until 1:30 PM, but still). :) Even threw a few bits of cool fanart for VTMB and CB into the drafts for later. I also have two posts that will need reblogging later (one of them involves reading a long fanfic chapter!). Over on Valice Multiverse, just have the one ask reply in the queue currently.

Fallout 4: Kellogg be dead, y’all! Though it took some doing. . .and the real problems didn’t start until AFTER he died, interestingly enough. Let me clue you in –

A) Okay, so, 12:30 PM in-game, in Kellogg’s inner sanctuary – time to go confront the bastard and kill him. After taking off Victor’s new synth helmet because it’s good but creepy (covers his entire face), and that’s no good for chatting. Victor and Nick proceeded down the hallway to Kellogg’s little “base” (picking up loot along the way), and found the man in the locked control center they’d passed earlier. Kellogg praised Victor’s resilience, with Victor demanding to know where Shaun was. Kellogg called him a good kid and reassured Victor that he’d die knowing he was safe and happy in the care of the Institute. Victor responded that he’d FIND a way in to the Institute or die trying – Kellogg praised him again for not giving up, because that’s the way fathers should act, even if it’s useless. I had Victor respond with the sarcastic option about “when I die I hope I go to Hell so I can kill you again” –

B) And then Kellogg went invisible and Victor nearly DID die because he had both a regular and a LEGENDARY synth as bodyguards. Good thing I had a lot of good modded food (a full ribs dinner and some tarberry juice, followed later by a Mirelurk Queen steak and a Nuka-Quantum) and stimpacks for Victor to cram down his gullet/inject into his arm! Also a good thing I had Nick with me because while Victor was able to take out the synths with his trusty Two-Shot no problem, it was Nick who was able to see Kellogg and kind of point him out to Victor by attacking the bastard (getting in a few good shots with that shotgun I gave him). Poor guy got downed, but by then Victor was clear of the synths and could see the distortion where Kellogg was – a few hastily-fired shots, and Kellogg was dead, yaaay!

C) And then it was time for Nick’s next affinity conversation! Yeah, I was surprised as anyone that we were already up to “admires you” status. I had Victor revive him via stimpack (they really should have patched him to use robot repair kits when Automatron came out – eh), and then Nick initiated the “I know loads about you, wanna hear my backstory?” conversation. I figured it was an at least semi-appropriate time and had Victor ask about the Institute (Nick doesn’t recall much, but he knows that he was stuck in one test chamber for AGES) and who he is (getting the story on how Nick’s personality is copied from a pre-War cop, to Victor’s surprise, and how when he woke up in the trash heap, a friendly community welcomed him in like a person and he’s been trying to “pay it back” ever since). Nice stuff, and I’m glad Victor and Nick are already such firm friends. :)

D) Okay, time to save and continue advancing the plot and looting the hell out of the place. Victor looted all of Kellogg’s various containers, his synths (the Legendary had an Instigating Submachine Gun – hmm) then looted the body to get his terminal password and all his weird cybernetics – plus his gun, of course. From there it was a quick check of the terminal to learn that he’d delivered Shaun to the Institute, as stated, and that he’d been tasked to go after the “renegade,” leading to him setting up a base in Fort Hagen. Nick said that this put them “in the weeds,” even after Victor insisted there HAD to be a way into the Institute, and suggested going back to talk to Piper, as she’s the only one willing to go up the Institute’s tail feathers. Victor was keen, and so the gang headed back, out the freshly-unlocked security doors, through the command center they’d passed through before, back into the “main” Fort Hagen area, and up all the way through the roof hatch to watch the arrival of the Prydwen! :D

E) . . .except there was no Prydwen. Baffled, I had Victor run around a bit on the roof, then hop off and go around the general area (hitting the Blood Bank in the process and killing a few bloatflies). No Prydwen. I reloaded the quicksave I made right before using the ladder onto the roof. No Prydwen. I went over to the parking garage entrance and went in and out. No Prydwen. I went back to the roof hatch and went in and out. No Prydwen. No matter what I did, I could NOT get the Prydwen to trigger. Completely confused and very concerned, I ended up reloading my hard save that I’d made right after Nick’s affinity talk, looking for something I’d missed while redoing looting Kellogg’s corpse –

F) And THIS time, when I exited, I finally noticed that the quest marker was pointing down the OTHER END of the hallway, toward an elevator that had been previously been locked off. AHA! I let Victor have a bathroom break, made sure to loot the lockers in front of the elevator thoroughly (economy Wonderglue is not to be sneezed at!) and then hopped in the elevator with Nick.

Cue the world’s longest elevator ride to the building’s roof – I ended up doing some ambient conversation with Nick just to pass the time! But we eventually got up there, and Victor opened up the door with the terminal – and THERE was the Prydwen, looking admittedly gorgeous against the setting sun. :D I had Victor run around admiring it while taking a few screenshots, then had him check his PipBoy map to see how close I was to Sunshine Tidings (which needed Victor to go over and say hello to clear some old damage from an attack). Straight shot up, so I had him descend from roof level and start past an abandoned house – only to see a bottlecap mine inside. Since I will need explosives soon, I had him try to grab it. . .

G) Cue him getting blown up. Cue me realizing I FORGOT TO SAVE AGAIN and getting kicked back AGAIN to just post the Kellogg fight! *facepalm* Fortunately, third time proved to be the charm – looted everything, had Victor talk to Nick, sent him up by the elevator, watched the Prydwen arrive, this time at the very tail end of a rainstorm. SAVED, then oriented Victor again and had him descend to ground level and AVOID any explosive houses. He and Nick started up the road –

H) Only to pause as I spotted some people in an abandoned building up ahead, having apparently just had a scrap with someone as I’d heard laser fire. I approached cautiously, hoping they were friendly. . .

And then noticed that at least one of them was carrying a laser musket.

Minutemen! :D Yup, it was a whole Minutemen patrol, wandering the little broken-down complex just past the Fort Hagen Red Rocket. :D They’d just killed some raiders, and apparently they’d set up a whole little barracks in the remains of the building – beds with footlockers and everything! I was absolutely thrilled and spent some time poking around and looting that stuff that I felt was acceptable to loot (I left them most of their food and water, though I took some explosives and ammo off the one dead one – plus all the desk fans). How nice. :D Reminds me I gotta do the Castle after I finish off “Reunions” and get through Kellogg’s memories!

I) And so I ended the day and the playsession by having Victor and Nick bunk down at the Red Rocket, Victor using the weapon bench there to scrap a few Institute guns for parts. :) Next time, the pair will head up to Sunshine Tidings, then work their way around some of the settlements in that general area on their way back to Diamond City!

Writing: As per usual, did some more on the FO4 Playthrough Progression, with the final confrontation with Kellogg, leaving Fort Hagen and seeing the Prydwen flying overhead, and meeting up with the little Minuteman patrol nearby. Went pretty much how my actual playsession went, minus me screwing up how to trigger the Prydwen’s arrival and blowing Victor up with a bottlecap mine. XD Also with more crying from Victor over how he came all this way only to find his son’s not there and is instead trapped in the Institute, aww. :( At least it provided a good reason for in-fic Nick to trigger his “affinity conversation,” I suppose. But yeah, both in-game and in-fic, we have started Act Two! AKA “the bit where I will be doing most of the side quests once I finish this one plot-important bit.” XD

YouTube: Well, I didn’t get as much out of my Watch Later as I wanted, but I got one thing, AND I am finally fully caught up on my Subs for the moment! So that is something to celebrate. :D Here’s what I got through –

A) Started pre-workout with the latest from Josh Way – “SKETCHY: Nicodemus from The Secret of NIMH!” Which is exactly what it says on the tin, Josh drawing Nicodemus from The Secret of NIMH and talking about how good Don Bluth is and how he’s really gotten into animation art as of late. Good drawing, and I’m looking forward to seeing what else comes out of his virtual pen!

B) Then, after supper, it was finally time to catch up with the Call Me Kevin video sitting in my Subs – “This modpack completely changes Minecraft!” Yes, Kevin was back to his Minecraft adventures with a modpack either by or called “Feed The Beast” (it was a bit unclear) which is a pack of mods for making machinery and doing magic! There’s tons of new ores and tree types added, and there’s all sorts of little tool tips popping up so you can tell what everything is. ...Kevin immediately started by breaking a beehive thinking it was wood and stealing an entire village’s bread. XD He eventually got his act together, though, finding a house on a cliffside that he took over and turned into a grand cliff manor above a scary cave full of monsters! Which he openly called “my future death” because the modpack allows you to set custom waypoints. XD (It was entirely accurate too – he died TWICE in there to skeleton murder.) But he got a bunch of ores down there and was able to start making wondrous machines to increase his ore storage and create more machines! Once he got the copper he needed, of course. XD Yeah, that was kind of the running gag of the video – Kevin disdaining getting actual treasure out of dungeons in favor of mining more and more copper. (Though he did take a set of iron armor after he kept getting shot by skeletons and mobbed by zombies.) Eventually he found everything he needed – ores in the various mines around his house (dude was SWIMMING in coal, which is good, because he needed a lot of it); rubber from rubber trees he stole from the swamp (once he figured out how to use the taps and buckets – a lot of this video was Kevin trying to figure out how everything worked, especially since the guide he was using was kind of outdated); and glowstone and other strange materials stolen from the Nether (along with a zombie pigman who followed him through the portal and got trapped in a hole – Kevin made him a little cell complete with chains across the top, which he stole from another monster hole) and was able to set up a whole little complex to make diamonds. So now he can have manmade diamonds whenever he wants! Well, whenever the battery in his solar panel is charged, anyway. XD Along the way he made a lovely farm with a whole load of crops (tomatoes, potatoes, and – hemp), got himself a lonely chicken, designed a beautiful balcony for his bedroom – oh, and found out he could make nukes and nuked the neighbors Ancient Fat Man style. XD Damn, Kevin, you’re cold. I hope he does a sequel that shows off the magic part of the modpack next!

C) Then it was over to the Watch Later to clear out one OXBox list – “7 Jerks Who Tricked You Into Doing Terrible Things!” A list of characters who trick your PC into doing something horrific. Like the King in Final Fantasy IV getting main character Cecil to bring a package to the village of Mist to burn it down to the ground! (He may have been killed and replaced as per the comments, but still.) Your teacher in Jade Empire having deliberately trained a weakness into your battle forms he could exploit after getting you to kill his brother and then murdering you afterward! (You get better.) And the Assassin Order members in Lisbon in Assassin’s Creed Rogue not telling new member Shay that trying to get a Piece of Eden under the city will cause a horrific historical earthquake that will kill thousands – the guilt of which drives Shay to join the Templars! (At least his game is apparently one of the lesser-known entries?) Yes, you must stay on your guard to avoid these terrible fates. Or at least play video games featuring less-duplicitous characters. :p

D) And then it was back over to the Subs for the GrayStillPlays upload of the day – “When lies ruin lives,” aka a return to Perfect Lie! That mobile game that is all about horrible lying and pranking people in ways that should kill them. Our little long-nosed lying master grew up even more this episode, entering university by lying about how he wanted to be taught by their professors; lying about kissing his “firend’s” girlfriend; lying about coming home drunk from the club and getting a tattoo to his mother; lying his way into a job as a police officer (insert “all cops are bastards” joke here); lying to his new wife about her missing anniversary gift; and pranking said wife when she got upset by shoving a grenade in the cake and then filling her mop bucket with gasoline that automatically lit on fire. Gray does not know how this kid is not in prison. XD Also Florida Man Coffee (Gray’s coffee business) sells hot cocoa now, which makes me happy. XD

Social: Made sure to answer all of Moose’s messages today, yay. :)

Workout: Got in a little over a half-hour on the bike today before dinner, where I watched the following:

A) Rifftrax, “Let’s Talk Turkey!” – Mary-Jo Pehl (aka Pearl Forrester from the later MST3K seasons) and Bridget Nelson (aka Mike’s wife and writer on the show, along with occasional bit star) take on a short from Marie Gifford about how the new “table-dressed quick frozen” smaller-size turkeys available in stores mean you can now have turkey 365 days a year, not just at Thanksgiving and Christmas! Complete with all sorts of recipes, ranging from the traditional stuffed turkey to turkey pinwheel biscuits to just a whole roast turkey you can serve in the middle of summer with corn on the cob. The girls were vicious in their distaste for how much math the short made them do. XD

B) Petey Plays It, “Henford-On-Bagley Secrets And Features” – a quick look at some of the features you might miss in Henford-On-Bagley! While the stuff on the Isle of Volpe is hard to miss (though I agree that wrecked gazebo is a sweet date spot), some other things are – like there’s a fishing spot right by the top of the waterfall near Cordelia’s cabin in the Bramblewood, and a cute little water mill in Old New Henford that’s ripe for picture taking. :) Might have to send the gang around their chosen homeworld for another mini-vacation soon!

C) Petey Plays It, “6 Creative Beach Ideas To Improve Your Game” (admittedly this one I started on the bike and then finished later) – another quick look at some different beach ideas to spice up your Sulani gameplay! Ranging from “create a nude beach” to “make a beach campground with tents and firepits” to “make an artificial party island out in the water,” they’re little ways to make going to the beach for your Sims that bit more fun. I find myself quite intrigued by a party dock, honestly. . .ugh, if only I had the time to truly customize a save file for myself. . .

Pretty productive day, all things considered! Though I do need to give that fanfic chapter a proper read. . .that'll be on my unofficial to-dos for tomorrow, along with cleaning my room, playing more Sims 4, and keeping up with YouTube Subs. *nods* Sounds good. And now to continue doing the social thing and keeping an eye on tumblr. Night all!