A Decent Enough Tuesday

Wasn't perfect, but I did get pretty much everything I wanted to get done, done --

Work – EXTREMELY quiet day – I don’t think the phone rang once. I spent pretty much the entire day after doing the usual morning reports doing duplicates (both on my list and that I found while doing the ones on my list). Plus Talky Coworker was back and talking up a storm, which helped add to my irritation. *grumbles* But hey, I got out early, and I got home in really good time, so – I’ll take THAT, if nothing else!

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with GrayStillPlay’s compilation “The evolution of Flash games!” Today I finished off the Flight portion, with Gray spending a bunch of real money to upgrade his plane to the max and glitch it into getting infinite speed and distance (making it entirely vanish off the screen); got through the entirety of the Potty Racers section, where Gray upgraded a port-a-potty into the ultimate racing machine (which included putting ACTUAL ROCKETS on it so the driver could shoot up so high they transcended time and space – AND he found a way to get infinite distance even BEFORE he did that); and started the Duck Life 3 part, with Gray training his duck to win races around the globe and figuring out how to evolve it into an even more hench duck (right now it is an ugly duck, which can swim and climb really well but who struggles with running). *thumbs up* Good times!

2. Continue writing THE GIFT FICS: Check – edited my tumblr RP partner deathmaiiden’s requested fic today, which was the “Kevin reunites with his mother” scene from the end of Home Alone redone with Victor and her Van Dort daughter OC Lily. Took me a little bit to work it into shape, but I think it turned out pretty solidly in the end – at the very least, she should enjoy it! Fingers crossed!

3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Okay, TECHNICALLY I missed one video in my Subs (a new “Fun With Shorts” from Josh Way), but I’m still calling this a check because I basically substituted in a much longer video that I really wanted to watch – I’m sure you can guess which one. XD Here’s what I got through –

A) First up, we had me catching up on the Jon video I should have been able to watch on Sunday – “Fallout 4: Sim Settlements 2 - Part 14 - The Six Million Dollar Brahmin!” Yes, I finally got to catch up on Bob’s adventures today (sparing me from trying to find the time this weekend), which included:

I. A trip to Starlight Drive-In to use it as a stopping-off point before heading into the greater Sanctuary/Concord area, and to link it into the greater caravan network because apparently the caravans in SS2 have distinct radii they can travel within and thus he can’t just link Sanctuary with Egret Tours Marina and be done with it. The trip there from Kingsport Lighthouse (the location he secured at the end of the last episode) via BOS vertibird was, uh, a little glitchy (first his minigun disappeared, and then Bob somehow ended up standing farther back and partially separated from his own arms), but he made it there safely, was able to scrap a bunch of stuff so the people there could complete the initial plots he set up, and set the municipal plot to “caravan” to link them into the wider network and allow them to build even more stuff. Basically, what was once a crap settlement Bob barely cared about is now a pretty decent place to live! We love to see it. :)

II. A trip over to Jalbert Brothers Disposal to talk to the Children of Atom who have been harassing poor sapient Glowing One Archon (or Ron, though I guess we can’t call him that because we already have THE Ron and it would just be weird XD). After the little contingent had cleared out the mole rats that generally live in the area, Bob chatted with the lead Acolyte about Archon. The Acolyte was insistent that finding Archon in the rubble of his building was a sign from Atom and that they needed his guidance to continue their worship effectively – but then Bob told him firmly “ATOM COMMANDS YOU” while wearing his favorite fancy red dress, fancy glasses, skull bandanna, and captain’s hat, and the dude was convinced they should go. XD Good job on passing the red speech check, Bob! Even if I think the Acolyte was more amused by you than anything else. XD

III. A very quick visit to the ghoul doctor who lives in the horrible rad-infested swamp near Arcjet, because Bob needed healing – specifically, he had to get rid of the massive amount of rads he’d picked up fighting the Children of Atom at Kingsport. XD Fortunately, some Rad-X to reduce the amount of rads he picked up while visiting the doctor, Bethany, managed to keep him from getting too irradiated as she did her work, and once she was done he just TOOK OFF to avoid picking up any more red in his health bar. Look, she was more convenient than going back to Diamond City! XD

IV. A trip back to Abernathy to let them know that Taffington Boathouse was clear and ready to be settled (this involved him swinging by Sunshine Tidings to do some cooking, then helping the Brotherhood fight some super mutants on a nearby bridge because he’d spotted a Legendary Super Mutant Skirmisher in the group – unfortunately, all it gave him was an Assassin’s Boxing Glove XD), then up to Sanctuary to tell Archon his troubles with the Children of Atom were over and to send him and his theoretical physics with a background in engineering (apparently he’s a super smart guy!) over to Egret Tours Marina, presumably to hang out with fellow ghoul-in-a-hazmat-suit Franklin. XD Bob also made sure to one of the Sanctuary settlers to Oberland to help set up more caravan plots there, and give some dog food to Old Paul so Little Cola could remain fed. :) Bob is a good mayor sometimes!

V. A trip into Concord to see Branigan and how he was getting on – turns out, Branigan wanted his help in creating the ultimate brahmin so he could conquer the caravan brahmin market and earn both of them loads and loads of caps! Bob was only too happy to get in on the Brahmin Breeding Program and took his shopping list – securing a suitable trough out of the Robot Disposal Grounds; finding brahmin feed at Wicked Shipping; and getting some corn, razorgrain, and Sugarbombs to mix into said feed. Jon had Bob pre-emptively apologize to the brahmin in the pen by the house about what was to come, food-wise. XD

VI. A distraction on the way over to Jake’s to learn his tragic backstory in the quest “Memory Lane” – namely, getting cornered by Elias Thompson, a hunter, who was rather annoyed that Bob had managed to kill the Concord Deathclaw (who was apparently rather famous) and demanded to know how he did it. Fortunately his daughter Ruby had some more manners, explained that her father was a hunter looking for a few trophies, then invited Bob to dinner the next evening so they could explain a bit further. Jon was deeply intrigued by this, and also amused because he didn’t REALLY kill the Deathclaw, he let the unfortunate raiders do most of the work. XD I mean, you fired the killing shot, so that’s not nothing!

VII. A trip to Jake’s to learn his tragic backstory! Which, uh, took a bit to actually tell –

a. To start, Bob managed to walk in on Jake recording a message for someone over the radio (telling them to avoid the Gunners), with Jake hemming and hawing over who it was for. Finally, he agreed to tell Bob if he retrieved his missing screwdriver (which was right outside), explaining once it was in hand that he’d grown up in a settlement farther down south called “Sanford,” fell in love, and had a daughter, Laura.

b. And then the lights went out as the generator in the plutonium well stalled, giving Jake an opportunity to send Bob away to fix it before telling him more. An annoyed Jon tried to send Bob to talk to the Thompsons first, but as it wasn’t “the next evening” yet (as specified in the quest write-up itself), he couldn’t actually have a meal with them. He did at least find Elias’s list of potential trophies, though – in addition to a fun few references to creatures from Fallout 76 (namely a Scorchbeast Queen and a Wendigo), and a reference to the “Snow Yeti,” which Elias doesn’t think exists, there were some specific creatures in the Commonwealth he was looking for, including “The Matron” (a mirelurk queen near Salem) and “Boss” (a super mutant behemoth somewhere in East Boston). The Concord Deathclaw was called “The Statesman,” by the by, which is fun. :)

c. Anyway – unable yet to have dinner with the Thompsons, Bob went and fixed the generator (which was surrounded by radroaches, and even featured different options for repairing it based on traits – Bob went with his “Scrounger” trait to fix it properly, though he also had the “slap something sticky” on it option from “Idiot Savant” XD), then reported back to Jake to learn more of his backstory. Turned out he’d fallen out of love with Laura’s mother Katelyn, but they retained a cordial-enough relationship, and he of course adored his daughter. Whenever they were apart, they kept in touch via the radio. Until one night she didn’t respond to his radio call, causing him to rush over to Katelyn’s, where he found –

d. Oh, hey, there’s a radroach infestation out in the street that the local Protectron is having trouble with, can you help it out, Bob? XD Jon was getting fairly annoyed with all the interruptions, but as one of the radroaches was a Legendary that gave him a Staggering Pipe Pistol, he couldn’t be too mad. XD Anyway, after shooting them all from the roof, Bob finally got the final bit of the story out of Jake – namely, that when he went over to Katelyn’s, he found – nothing. No bodies, no evidence of a struggle, nothing to suggest a violent end at all. He quickly deduced that Katelyn had, for whatever reason, decided to pack up and go and take Laura with her, and confirmed that they’d joined up with a caravan train going north. He tracked that train to the Commonwealth, and that is why he’s in the area at all – he’s still looking for his daughter, and leaving her messages every night, just in case. Very heartfelt and touching, honestly. ...we’re going to find out Katelyn and/or Laura is a Gunner, aren’t we.

VIII. A trip downstairs back into the shop proper when Jake’s Protectron alerted them to intruders! (Even Jake was tired of the interruptions by now.) It turned out to be Old Paul with a new friend, Hubert (who spoke with a very pronounced Canadian accent), who was looking for those “assums” that could help set up new settlements. Seems he and his friends had had to flew their old home, and their current residence wasn’t exactly the greatest place to live, so he was willing to join up with Jake and Bob’s little empire to get his hands on some help. Jake was initially nervous about handing over the ASAMs, remembering what had happened with the Gunners and that initial little settlement under the bridge he helped out, but Bob said that they should help, and he agreed – they couldn’t be afraid to help people. Hubert went off to tell the others, and Jake gave Bob a box of ASAMs to bring over to their settlement once he was ready. Seems the next major “main” quest will be getting Hubert and friends sorted!

IX. A trip to have dinner with the Thompsons just up the road, because it was finally “the next evening” as per the game! Leaving Hubert and his friends for later, Bob went and had a nice bowl of iguana soup with Ruby and Elias, who explained that they were in the Commonwealth because their previous home had been overrun by super mutants (Elias, to his credit, took down four before they had to flee). Elias’s big hope is that he can take down a few last monsters before he officially “retires.” Which started a miscellaneous quest for Bob to hunt down “trophy animals” – unsurprisingly, the named creatures on the list that Bob found! Jon was eager to send Bob big game hunting, but decided that could be saved for next week’s episode, as he already had something in mind to end this one –

X. A trip to gather the ingredients to make the perfect brahmin! Yes, delighted with Branigan’s plan to make super-brahmin, Jon decided to get everything the guy needed to end the episode. And so Bob went to, in order:

a. The Robotics Disposal Yard to secure the special brahmin trough – which was very easy, as the sentry bot was still bumming around there and easily took care of the one raider and her dog that was there. Though Jon found something very interesting on the raider’s body – namely, a letter indicating she was a dog breeder for other raiders, and considered the Commonwealth ripe for the taking in that area. Hmmm. . .

b. Wicked Shipping to grab the bags of feed he needed – while the ghouls were all dead or gone (and the robot back in its charging pod), the place HAD attracted some radroaches – including another Legendary! Bad news, Bob got bit a few times and developed insomnia; good news, the Legendary had a Cunning Raider Left Arm, which Jon decided was worth wearing, yay.

c. Oberland Station (via vertibird) to set up a Caravan plot so the random settler he’d sent there could be an official caravan worker

d. Graygarden to pick up some corn from the planters there

e. Diamond City, to steal a couple of boxes of Sugarbombs from Sheng while he argued with someone about the water supply

f. And, by working his way past Jamaica Plain, University Point to steal as much razorgrain as he could before he was murdered by synths.

With all the goodies in hand, he went back and gave all the stuff to Branigan (who told his other workers, “see, here’s someone who does the job without working about ‘worker’s rights’ or ‘a living wage’), who gave him a sturdy leather left leg in return and told him to come by in a few days for his grand opening, where you could buy two brahmin for the price of three. XD Bob was rather unimpressed at the lack of caps, but he will give Branigan a chance to prove himself.

And that was our episode! Next week – monster hunting out on the East Coast! I am quite looking forward to it. :) (And HOPEFULLY I’ll just be able to watch it on Sunday with no bullshit.)

B) Then, this evening, we had the next day of OXmas – “XMAS CHALLENGE DAY 3! Baldur's Gate 3 PVP Deathmatch | Tournament of Champions 2023!” Mike versus Andy today – or, rather, Egbert versus Corazon, as the two were set to do battle on the field of Baldur’s Gate 3! Luke created versions of Egbert the (oathbroken) Dragonborn Paladin and Corazon the Human Pirate Rogue for them to use, and the two jumped into multiplayer mode, greeting each other by spinning around wildly on the spot. As you do. XD They both then proceeded to level up (as Luke had left both versions of the characters just on the verge of reaching Level 3), made some choices in regards to what spells they wanted and suchlike, enabled turn-based mode, and started wailing on each other!

Or, rather, Corazon kept running away from Egbert and hitting him with ranged attacks while Egbert struggled to get close enough to use anything of major consequence. Yeah, the problem here was that while Andy had plenty of options to hit Egbert at range (an explosive vial, Magic Missile (which is GUARANTEED to hit), various sneak attack options), Egbert didn’t have much that could be used against a constantly-fleeing opponent (though he got in a good throw with a javelin, and managed to tag Corazon with his fire breath once). Not to mention, Corazon started running away before he was technically allowed to (that is, on Egbert’s first turn), meaning Egbert really never had a chance to catch up. So the match ended with Corazon sneak-attacking Egbert to death, earning Andy the Christmas point AND the ire of the comments section (seriously, pretty much every comment was “Andy should have been called out for blatant cheating” – I added that Egbert should have had his iconic bombs over the mace he barely uses). At the very least, though, he did go and revive Egbert from his “Downed” condition when the duel was over –

And Egbert ABSOLUTELY SMASHED HIM FLAT with one of his attacks of opportunity, proving that if he’d been ALLOWED to get in range, he would have WRECKED Corazon. XD Ah well, it’s Andy’s point for now (barring any last-minute changes in the scoring to reflect the will of the commenters, but I don’t know how that would work given I’m quite sure every one of these is pre-recorded). We’ll see how things go in the next challenge, and if things are a little more fair!

C) And finally, we had Happy Wheels Tuesday on GrayStillPlays, with “When you eat 100,000,000 calories!” Today’s boards included a “how far can you fly” board which challenged Bike Dad to fly across the sky until he reached “Nonexistence” (which was genuinely the name of the farthest win – Gray fell to pieces on it but still got it); a “98.998% Impossible” pogo jump (which Gray easily did by carefully jumping on the rockets at the edge of the winning area to set them all off and trigger everything else); a McDonald’s-themed bottle flip (where to win you either had to complete an average McDonald’s meal OR go straight for the McAlcoholism); a “Pogo Impossible” board where Pogo Guy had to leap over a pit full of harpoons and crossbows while also not getting spiked or blown up in any way (Gray thought this would be easy; it proved to be anything but thanks to the harpoons having a better shot at him than he first realized); an “Everything Dodge” where Pogo Guy had to leap around a octogon dodging random humans, random trash, random vans, and a random nuclear strike represented by falling mines (Gray THOUGHT he’d found a way to cheat it by getting himself stuck in the ceiling – only to not be able to free himself to reach the win; he eventually won by legit means); a “Wall Run” where Bike Dad had to do various parkour challenges (flipping himself over onto higher platforms, breaking through random glass, etc) to touch yellow walls to open up more of the course and get to the win (Gray struggled with a key that required him to build up some speed before turning himself over – took him a while to get there); a very weird pogo board with fake negative spikes (that is white spikes on a black background), collapsing walls and floors, laser-guided javelins, and fake harpoons, with a final “3-D” corridor at the end filled with mines (which Gray SOMEHOW managed to avoid blowing himself up on despite setting two off nearly right away); an extremely deadly ball throw with multiple ways to be murdered (after getting swords to the head and being dumped in a crossbow-filled spike pit, Gray actually tore his arms off trying to check to make sure the win was really a win – fortunately it was XD); a “shifting blocks” board where Segway Nixon had to carefully make his way through a course full of red and green blocks that kept shifting from shadow to solid and back again, with the trick being to time things so you could get through certain areas while the blocks were not solid and then interact with the blocks as platforms when they were (it took Gray a few tries to get the pattern down, with him getting stuck inside blocks a few times, and he was thoroughly impressed with the board afterward); an “Iron Man Testing” board where Bike Dad had to hang onto a rocket and find the winning area among the skyscrapers (which was difficult, but he DID manage in the end via lots and lots of front-flips); a rope swing made especially for Gray to play featuring a drop from a conveyor belt down a spike pit and then having to get impaled on a javelin to swing into the winning coin (Gray’s board creators know him so well); a “Vanoss Spike Fall” that included a JET FALL near the bottom of the spike funnel (Gray won in pieces but he did indeed win); and a return to Dylan Boards with “Cocoa Mountain,” featuring Bike Mom having to brave collapsing chocolate bridges, killer spinning pretzel sticks, Indiana-Jones-ball cookies, and more falling chocolate before reaching the win (all set against one of his patented gorgeous backdrops). Good times, as always!

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Very check, yay –

Victor Luvs Alice – Put the Wednesday Chill Save Update, Thursday reblog of my Valicer Christmas Headcanons post, and Friday reblog of someone’s “cool OT3 dynamic of herding dog/lamb/wolf” post in the queue! Still have to pick what Christmas music I want to feature on Saturday, but I can do that tomorrow. :)

Valice Multiverse – One anon ask about “cherophobia” (which is in fact a real phobia where you’re irrationally afraid of being happy, and not a joke where you’re afraid of Cher like I first thought) – chucked it in the queue! Nice and easy.

Not too shabby, eh? Still a little annoyed I wasn't able to get through everything in my Subs as well as the Jon video, but then again I started later than I expected on the Subs videos, so it's only to be expected. And the thing I have to catch up on is only six or so minutes, so I should be able to do it either tomorrow or Thursday. *nods* As it is right now, though, it is time to head to bed and prepare to do it all again tomorrow. At least this is the last full week of work I have to get through before the holiday break starts. . .night all!