Merry Christmas! (The Presents Update)

Doing a bit of an early update today to let you all know what I got today, and to give out a couple of presents of my own! First, my own Christmas haul:

From My Parents:

-->My usual bag of hot chocolate mix from Ghirardelli

-->A pack of Lip Smackers Coca-Cola-sodas-flavored chapsticks

-->A pack of 45 neon-colored hair ties

-->Four pairs of new soft bed socks (two sets of two pairs each)

-->The usual big box of Ferrero Rocher (the kind with regular, dark, and white chocolate)

-->BTTF Monopoly! (Which is a bit more of a family present because Mom wanted a board game we could all play together)

From My Aunt:

-->Three regular Chapsticks (one plain, two strawberry flavored)

-->A pack of 5 bamboo-fabric coiled hair ties

-->A donation made in my name to the World Wildlife Fund to symbolically adopt a vampire bat -- with the symbol being a big old vampire bat plushie! In honor of me enjoying a lot of "Dracula Daily" posts over on tumblr, I have decided to name him "My Good Friend Jonathan Harker." XD (Because that's what everybody called Jonathan at the beginning of the book.)

I'll probably get a picture of the last later. . .in the meantime, though, I still have two gift fics to post! So let's take care of Dreamwidth friends right now:

( For Gigs )

( For Moose )

All right, and with that, it's time to, you know, actually get dressed and do stuff. XD I will be back later tonight for more updates! Hope you're all having a good holiday (if you celebrate, of course)!

Merry Christmas! (The Day Update)

Whew -- okay, hi, I'm back. XD I hope you've all had a good day! I have to say, I've had a pretty nice one overall. Let me give you the skinny --

Actual Christmas: Spent most of the day with the parents, eating dinner (turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, glazed carrots, broccoli and cauliflower – all very nice) and playing a VERY long game of BTTF Monopoly. A game in which Dad and I were largely CREAMED by Mom, who had some REALLY lucky dice rolls which allowed her to accumulate the capital to fix up all her properties pretty quickly. Dad lasted longer than I did, thanks to having more cash on hand, but DAMN did she just pound our asses into the ground. XD It was fun though, especially with the special BTTF twists on everything: the money shows different important dates on the time circuits; the properties are all BTTF locations in different eras (like you had three versions of the Statler dealership – 1885 horse pen, 1955 car dealership, 2015 flying car dealership), and the “Chance” and “Community Chest” cards are now “Future” and “Past” and reference doing things like being the “Luckiest Man On Earth” (a la 1985-A Biff) and getting $10 from every player or getting chased by Biff’s gang and having to go back three spaces. Good stuff!

Oh, and as promised, here's the picture of my new bat plush, "My Good Friend Jonathan Harker" --



Tumblr: Obviously didn’t get much done here, given I was offline most of the day, but all my Christmas gift fics fired off without issue, yay, and people seemed to like them a lot. :) Plus I got a surprise gift of my own – a new fan drawing me a cute scene of Forgotten Vows!Alice reading to her son Chester under the lights of the Christmas tree after the kid had a nightmare. :) So that was very sweet! :)

Fallout 4: Despite spending the vast majority of my day off the computer, I was determined to at least get in SOME Fallout 4, and thus played about an hour after Monopoly was over and Mom had finished becoming a capitalist genius. XD Just took me to the end of the current in-game day I was playing, but it was still exciting enough –

A) Started in Diamond City during the last of a rainstorm – since I needed gold (for making a maximized capacitor for Righteous Authority), I figured that I’d swing by Myrna’s stall and see what she had for junk before heading out. To my puzzlement, the minute Victor said “hi,” she said that she didn’t serve synths, which was confusing –

And then it became obvious she was talking to Nick. Once she said that as long as the “synth” didn’t touch anything, they could do business, I had Victor say “not interested” and just turn around and leave. Fuck you, Myrna – I’ll wait until Percy shows up. >(

B) Anyway – with no shopping to do, it was out into The Fens! The inexplicably sunny Fens. XD I had Victor check his Pip-Boy map for his current objective to orient himself, then started going in the direction that seemed most likely to lead to Goodneighbor and the Memory Den. Spotted some dumpsters near one of the wandering guards and raided those for junk, then (after passing off a bunch of stuff to Nick) continued up that street to see where it led. After poking around some and following some of the growing markers on the compass below, Victor and Nick discovered the Fen Street Sewer (which I believe is where that one creepy serial killer’s lair is?). I didn’t send them down (though I did raid the nearby toolbox) – instead, hearing some super mutants nearby, I had them go through a nearby gate down a side alley where I found a shipping container someone had been using as a makeshift house, with a lantern, an oil can, a teddy bear, and a bottlecap mine inside. Mindful of getting exploded, I made a quick save, then managed to sneakily grab the first three things on that list without setting off the mine. (Not even sure it was active, but not taking any chances!) Victor and Nick began looking around for where to go from there –

C) Cue me hearing a Super Mutant Suicider start questioning his surroundings, and the [HIDDEN] brackets going to [CAUTION]. I tried to have Victor back off as fast as he could without upsetting them more, but the Suicider came around the corner, spotted Victor, and began pursuing – panicked, I accidentally hit the bash button (which did nothing except have Victor thrust out his gun), then fired a random shot into the guy’s leg –

And, because I was using Victor’s absurdly over-powered Two-Shot Combat Rifle, the guy died. Like FEET in front of Victor. Dropping his mini-nuke unexploded. THAT IS PROBABLY THE LUCKIEST FUCKING SHOT I WILL EVER MAKE IN THIS GAME. Thank you random Legendary Ghoul Reaver in the National Training Yard who dropped that freaking Two-Shot! I will be forever grateful to you!

D) Of course, the Suicider wasn’t alone, and he’d managed to chase Victor out into a spot where the others could take potshots at him. After laying down a save (as I did NOT want to risk dying and then not getting off that great shot at the Suicider), I had Victor spin around and locate the others (as Nick finally caught up to him – I think he went through the nearby doorway into the camp instead to take them on) and kill them also with the Two-Shot, because that thing just RIPS through any low-level enemies. Proved to be a Skirmisher and two regular Super Mutants, all camped around a diner that was attached to a nearby apartment building. I looted the two bodies on the ground, then – after a moment’s indecision – went into the apartments to see if there was any good loot and to find my way to the top of the diner so I could loot the one super mutant who’d been attacking Victor and Nick from up there. There was a bit of nice loot in the building, along with one Skirmisher armed with nothing more interesting than a board (easily taken out once found), and the diner roof had an explosives box to unlock, so worth the trip! (Also, there was a weird scene with toy aliens behind a door in one of the storage rooms, where someone had set up a slightly bigger toy alien as the “parent” to a smaller one that had been put in a toy baby buggy with a bottle and a rattle. Oh Bethesda. :p)

E) Of course, it was only AFTER that that I realized that the only way to get to Goodneighbor was to retrace my steps and come back toward Diamond City. *sigh* I made my way back to the side of Fenway Park, then started down the road that was heading in roughly the right direction, toward the Boston Public Library. Found a dead raider along the way – and as Victor investigated the corpse for goodies, poor Nick got attacked by a trio of vicious mongrels. Fortunately they were easily put down (helped that one dog ended up running into a wall trying to get to Nick), and the boys continued on past the library into Trinity Plaza. Once that location was tagged, I had Victor investigate a nearby Pulowski shelter and collect a bunch of overdue books from the sad skeleton within, then – seeing some laser fire nearby – went over and helped a Brotherhood of Steel patrol take down the last of the super mutants in the Dartmouth Professional Building. Victor looted the corpses, scrapped a couple of 10mm he didn’t kneed, and took a look at his map –

F) And ONCE AGAIN had to loop back the way he’d come, past the BOS patrol, because he was going the wrong way. It is SO easy to get lost in this damn game! Anyway, turns out the correct path was past Trinity Tower – fortunately, Victor and Nick were able to sneak past with minimal trouble and not upset the super mutants within. (Yet – I DO need to rescue Strong and his buddy from there eventually!) This road led them toward what looked like a raider camp, with one raider, a turret, and a spotlight that Victor took out with the Two-Shot, and two other raiders outside of a building –

G) Which the game helpfully told me was the Combat Zone! AKA the location where you pick up Cait! I wasn’t interested in doing that just yet, but it’s handy to have it marked on my map, at least. Victor and Nick took out the raiders just outside the building, then Victor went up a nearby bit of scaffolding and took out a third who was on a nice clear platform nearby. Looted the bodies, then – as Victor was starting to feel tired anyway – had him stop and scrap a bunch of leather armor he’d picked up, cook up the mongrel dog meat he’d grabbed, then set up the tent on the platform and headed to bed in-game at 9:33 PM. He woke up the next morning to heavy fog at 5:36 AM, and that is where I left it! Good to at least make a LITTLE progress, even if it was largely going in circles. *facepalm* Hopefully next time I play, I’ll actually reach Goodneighbor!

Writing: Managing to fit in a bit of Fallout 4 meant that I could add a little more to the FO4 Playthrough Progression! Pretty much all the same stuff as happened above – refusing to buy from Myrna when she was rude to Nick; going on little adventures down side-streets killing super mutants because I get lost easily; pulling off that lucky kill against the suicider – just with Victor and Nick towing Alice along in her sleeping bag. :p And, as above, the boys are currently camped out by the Combat Zone, getting ready to move out and hopefully reach Goodneighbor soon. Should mention that, in-game it’s now 12/30/2287 – would feel rather appropriate if I wrapped up all the Kellogg stuff around New Year’s, I think! So yeah, gotta beat feet the next time I play. . .

YouTube: Okay, this started late and went even later than I usually like to go, but screw it, it’s Christmas, and I had some videos I really wanted to watch today. Fortunately it was really quiet over in Subs land (Gray apparently took the day off and I’m hardly going to begrudge him that), which helped a little, and allowed me to focus on the other stuff –

A) Started with that Sole Subs video by Josh Way – “SKETCHY: Donald Duck!” Yes, the other king of cartoon ducks, and Josh’s personal favorite cartoon character of all time, made his appearance today on YouTube – and much like with Daffy, Josh did four pictures of him showcasing his evolution over time (from the super-long-billed first appearance, to the iconic head-on shot that opened up his old cartoons, to the most modern Donald ranting and raving, to the Mickey’s Christmas Carol Donald because it IS an advent calendar thing), talking about how much he likes Donald’s design and Donald as a whole. Mostly because, before the most modern cartoons, Donald was easily the one of Mickey’s gang that had the most personality. XD A good time, and always nice to watch Josh draw. :)

B) Then it was into the Watch Later to clear out all the Christmas-related content there, starting with the last two weeks of Atop The Fourth Wall –

I. “Batman #27: A Christmas Peril” – Linkara reviews a Batman Christmas story from 1945 where he and Robin crack down on a Christmas tree-selling racket (with gangsters forcing those selling Christmas trees to raise their prices and cut them in on the profits), and then kidnap the young child whose fortune is helping bankroll the bad guys to show him the error of his ways (as said kid was a brat who knew that his secretary Eggers was doing less-than-savory things to increase his net worth but didn’t much care) via exposing him to all the people who got hurt from the racket. Also the kid’s secretary and butler were embezzling from him and the kid nearly got killed by a gangster trying to protect Batman. Yeah, child safety was less of a thing in the 40s. XD But yeah, mostly just a kind of silly, kind of heartwarming tale from a simpler time in comics.

II. “Mr. T and Emmanuel Lewis in A Christmas Dream” – Linkara looks at a strange holiday special from the 80s (where variety Christmas specials were still a thing), featuring that kid who played Webster as a jaded little latchkey kid without any Christmas spirit, and Mr. T as the charity Santa who takes him around New York and the Radio Music Hall to try and teach him the meaning of the season while showing off various celebrity acts (like David Copperfield hanging out in a toy store, or singer Maureen McGovern doing multiple Christmas carols at different points in the show). The VHS rip Linkara had also had some of the commercials, including a bunch of He-Man toy ads and breakdancing teenagers advertising McDonalds. XD It was a very weird and not very good special, with Linkara pointing out that the kid’s situation (his parents don’t pay him a whole lot of attention due to how hard they work) isn’t exactly the worst that’s ever been seen. Also the “Christmas dream” that named the special is barely anything – just the Rockettes performing a toy soldier dance before Emmanuel Lewis takes the stage to “kill” them with a cannon. XD But of course Linkara enjoyed seeing Mr. T and making jokes about Mr. T, and it did guarantee us plenty of Mr. T content for 2022 (meaning we don’t have to worry about even more disasters like when Linkara forgot to review a Mr. T comic in 2016), so that’s all good enough. XD

C) Then it was over to OXtra for their Christmas Eve Show of the Weekend – “Ellen & Luke Are Visited by Santa and Swap Xmas Presents 🎁” featuring the pair kidnapping Santa! No, seriously, the opening was Producer Jon Santa coming to their purple couch to leave presents, and the pair surprising him and off-screen dragging him off to an unknown secure location. XD The actual bulk of the episode was them opening their presents, of course – Luke got from Santa a record of Disney songs and themes done by Lang Lang, who is apparently a pianist of some repute (apparently they have some of his songs at the California Disneyland, and they’re great), and from Ellen a The Rescuers Christmas ornament featuring villain Auntie Medusa on her swamp boat thing, and an Among Us blind box figurine which proved to be the ghost of the blue Crewmate; Ellen got from Santa a little cactus in a Bulbasaur planter, and from Luke a plus baby Pegaus from Hercules. Seeing them get all excited over their gifts (Ellen in particular hugging both her cactus planter and her Pegasus) was adorable. :) Great bit of Christmas fun!

D) And finally, from Jon of Many A True Nerd, it’s “Fallout 4: The Many A True Nerd Christmas Special!” Because he wanted to do something fun and silly for Christmas, and Fallout 4 has something resembling Christmas DLC, in the form of a Creation Club offering (from “fadingsignal,” who I believe is the guy who made my camping and weather mods) featuring a tiny quest to get presents for the kids of Diamond City from one of the Fallon’s Department Stores in the Commonwealth (achieved by killing the Santa ghoul hanging out there, Raymond, and his dog Rudolph and collecting a bunch of packages to put into a special collection bin in the schoolhouse) which unlocks Santa costumes (both standard and sexy) for your Sole Survivor, dog hats and antlers for Dogmeat, and a bunch of decorations in the settlement workshops (plenty of light-up kitsch, plus a makeshift tree you can hang baubles on). But Jon wasn’t happy just completing that tiny quest and getting a couple of outfits. Jon wanted to become a proper Santa Claus! Which involved taking his female character to the barber to bleach her hair; the surgeon to update her body mass and paint up her face a little to make it look like she had a beard; setting up a bunch of decorations in Sanctuary (including showing off that the Vault-Tec Calling DLC, the one with Vault 88, for some reason has a better, nicer Christmas tree than the actual Christmas DLC), and – after waiting for the calendar in-game to tick over to 12/25/2287 to give it a Christmas makeover (enhanced with the extra decorations available in this holiday pack, which is nice) – giving out loads of presents to everyone in Diamond City!

Via the Junk Jet! XD Yes, this whole exercise was basically an excuse for Jon to do something he could never do in his Dishonored playthroughs and become the Santa Claus Of Murder by killing as many Diamond City residents as possible with ironic “gifts” – like pelting the security guards with baseballs, smashing microscopes into the skulls of the scientists at the science center, beaning Piper with a new typewriter, and hitting Sheffield with an empty Nuka-Cola bottle (because you can’t put a full one in there). It was hilariously awful in that “Jon’s gone evil and won’t admit it” way. XD Perfect way to end the holiday!

So yeah, pretty busy evening, but all in all I can't really complain about my Christmas. :) And now it's time to try and wrap up everything so I can hit the sheets at a decent hour and thus not screw up my sleep schedule too much. . .goals for tomorrow are to write my aunt a thank-you note; see about getting that GrayStillPlays Happy Wheels compilation watched; and starting the Call Me Kevin Rewind with my workout. Oh, and probably at least STARTING my drafts for this week's Chill Save update. The rest can be figured out as we go. *nods* Night all!