Decently Productive Saturday

Like, I didn't get to QUITE everything I was hoping to get to (Petey's latest Super Sim video mocks me from my Watch Later, and I had to queue up the stuff in my Valice Multiverse inbox tonight instead of answering it outright), but I am still satisfied with what I did manage to accomplish --

Tumblr: Got through the most important stuff on both my tumblr blogs, I’m happy to say –

Victor Luvs Alice – Finished getting the pictures sorted for the Chill Valicer Save “Harvestfest With Marm” update (ended up being 85 pictures in total), then got all the posts drafted (traditional five posts to cover the entire update this week) over the course of the morning, and the hour or so between lunch and our vaccinations (see below). Happy to say the main text and tags on all the posts are all sorted – as per usual, tomorrow we will add all the image alt text to get these posts ready for Wednesday!

Valice Multiverse – Answered three asks that went into the queue (because, again, I simply didn’t have time to answer them after my YouTube watching ran extra long – again, see below) –

A) Anon ask for “Londerland Bloodlines meets Aperture Wage Slave” for the “universe comparison ask game” (featuring LB Alice wondering if Cave Johnson was a Malkavian, and AWS Victor saying “I think he’s not, and the very idea of him being one fills me with dread” – LB Alice agreed and offered to take care of the guy, and AWS Victor was immediately like “only if you take me with you so I can watch” XD)

B) Anon ask for “Forgotten Vows meets Inevitable High School AU” for the “universe comparison ask game” (I went with FV Victor getting to meet all the dogs IHS Victor walks on Saturdays as part of his dog-walking job...including that one weird one that always shows up on its own, occasionally with an envelope full of money to pay for its walkies. IHS Victor told his counterpart he’d learned not to ask questions XD)

C) And a Toonsisters ask talking to the Cuddlepile Valicer trio about how a really scary movie would feature your mother following you on all your social media (Victor was indeed horrified by the thought; Smiler noted their mother was much more chill but they still wouldn’t like it; and Alice said that if her mother did that, it was clearly the start of a zombie movie, but she wouldn’t care because that meant she could talk to her Mom again :( )

All good stuff!

Writing: Did some good stuff on my Valicer In The Dark universe today –

A) I spent a bit of time this afternoon downloading the appropriate fancy BITD character sheets for Victor (Whisper) and Smiler (Leech, even if they have a lot of Slide in them too), and the appropriate crew sheet for the Three Pillars (Shadows), from the A.D. 1066 site, and filling them out in Firefox’s integrated PDF reader because I am still struggling with figuring out what kind of separate PDF reader I want. At least this way I have all the basic information for everybody filled in, even if it isn’t always displaying properly!

B) I reviewed the worldbuilding in my master doc on the VITD universe and did a tiny bit more work on the bit about how the clock and the calendar works in this universe (establishing that a lot of people wake up around Hour Two or Three, and established Hour Six as roughly the equivalent of noon, just for my own edification)

C) ...And then I went “fuck it” and made a doc for the next story, “A Murder Shared Is A Murder Thirded,” and started working on the outline! Which involved me setting up the score (infiltrate Houndsditch to find evidence of Bumby’s guilt and hopefully murder the guy); determining what kind of plan it was and what detail I’d need to provide (stealth, with them breaking in through the back door into the basement kitchen); figuring out everyone’s loads (light by necessity – none of them actually have any kit thanks to them basically arriving in Elder Gutknecht’s home with just the clothes on their back, though I have established at least one of them has a bag for carrying both the ledger and Alice’s stuff); noting down all my “must-happen” scenes (namely, them getting Alice’s things, successfully finding the ledger, Alice getting Lizzie’s key back and killing Bumby, and the three successfully escaping so they could meet up with Smiler’s parents later) –

And finally, finally getting to roll my swanky BITD-themed dice as I determined their engagement roll and started doing action rolls to figure out how the story is going to go in between the must-happen bits! :D So far, I’ve determined that they do successfully get into the kitchen, but are surprised by June coming down while they’re trying to sneak up – fortunately, Smiler successfully talks their way past her by saying they’re here to talk to Dr. Bumby about a potential partnership (they ARE dying inside while spinning that lie, but it does work); pick up Alice’s stuff; get upstairs only to encounter a child who wants to tell Dr. Bumby that Alice is back – Alice manages to stop them from going to fetch the doctor right away, but she only got a partial success on her roll, so the kid will be telling Dr. Bumby as soon as they see him; and get into Bumby’s office before he can be informed they’re there. I had to leave it there because I had to get to my YouTube watching (below), but DAMN was I having fun there. :) Possibly because the dice were being nice to me by giving me full and partial successes, but still. XD Might try and take a moment tomorrow to finish off the outline so I’m ready to go with the actual story on Thursday! :)

YouTube: Well, it took MUCH longer than I would have wanted (mostly because I stopped to get ice cream right before starting Jon’s latest and ended up spilling my chocolate sauce on the counter, and that took a while to clean up), but I DID get through all three videos I wanted to watch today –

A) First up, we had yesterday’s Josh Way – “STREAM TIME: Rebel Ridge Review!” Which is a Netflix original about a guy who was trained to fight in Iraq, but never deployed, ending up in an escalating fight against the local corrupt police department when they basically almost run him over on his bike and then use civil forfeiture to seize the money he’s going to use to help get his cousin out of prison. Josh’s thoughts can be summed up as “it’s a bit long, but it is an excellent movie with lots of fun audience misdirection and a plot that just keeps ramping up and ramping up.” So if you like tense, taut thrillers with loads of plot and action, and you have Netflix, this sounds like it could be for you!

B) Then we moved onto today’s GrayStillPlays offering – “Cars vs Planets in GTA 5!” A Torture Board that even Gray himself thought was very cool, all about our lovely solar system and some of the iconic planets within it! Specifically, Gray faced off against the following challenges –

I. Jumping The Mini Solar System – Exactly what it said on the tin – Gray had to use a car to leap over a miniature model of the solar system, complete with a sun that flared up (aka shot some jets of flame out of it) when you got near! Gray was highly impressed with the detail that went into it, even if he didn’t appreciate how hard it was to jump over. Though he did enjoy using the Bandito RC car to complete a self-inflicted sidequest to jump onto Saturn’s rings. XD

II. Jumping Over Saturn – Again, exactly what it said on the tin – Gray had to leap over the entirety of Saturn – which was a pretty big prop, as you might imagine! The trick, Gray found, was not only to get a speedy car (like the blue electric car, which carried him through the first part of the challenge), but also to master leaning forward to get that little bit of extra distance. Oh, and to time the jump correctly so you didn’t smash into Saturn’s rings. That was very important too. XD

III. Jumping Saturn’s Drunk Good For Nothing Brother – A variation of the previous challenge, this one had a higher ramp that forced Gray to thumbnail hole the narrow gap between the rings of a sideways drunken Saturn. As Gray had just mastered the lean technique to make these jumps, this was a little difficult for him, but he did make it in the end!

IV. Jumping Over Jupiter – Gray was given a checkpoint and a quartet of rocket cars to try to make this challenge, since Jupiter was a pretty fucking massive prop to get over! He rather rapidly eliminated all the cars except the Scramjet (which has a jump as well as a boost), then – after NEARLY getting over the damn thing – discovered that you could actually go through Jupiter’s big red spot and get to the other side...if you could get through the massive storm that they’d programmed to trigger while you were inside the planet! It was tricky, but Gray did indeed make it across – I mean, it was probably less intense than good old Hurricane Helene, I will tell you that!

V. Escaping Mini Black Hole – A fun and unique challenge that required Gray to try and drive on the rings of Saturn to get away from a miniature black hole that was sucking him toward it. Which, paradoxically, involved driving TOWARD it until he could make a sharp turn toward the escape area and hit the boost to get through the tiny thumbnail slot past the black hole’s effects. Gray actually spent the first part of the challenge in essentially zero G, floating through the air to the black hole and trying to figure out how to get back on flat surfaces to use his boost. Very amusing stuff – it’s always fun when Gray has to fight weird forms of gravity. XD

VI. Back To Florida – And finally, Gray was dropped near the top of one of GTA’s mountains by a teleporter black hole and given a hoverbike to use to try and get to Florida on a GIGANTIC rotating Earth at the end of a long platform in front of him. Since the creators’ art skills were not the best, they helpfully marked it out with palm trees. XD This one was basically all about Gray figuring out the timing of when he had to start heading toward the massive planet to get there in time to reach Florida – mostly because that platform was a LOT longer than he’d originally anticipated, and he kept missing his adopted home state (Gray is actually originally from New Jersey). But he got it eventually, and boosted his way into the Floridian teleporter and the win. :) Very cool board – I like it when they come up with some more unique challenges! Stairs and speedbumps are great and all, but you need a little variety in your diet.

C) And finally, we had Jon’s Saturday Fallout Video – “Fallout: London - Part 10 - All Scatter’d In The Bottom Of The Sea!” Featuring the continuing adventures of Lady Aria and Archie as they went exploring in a part of London that Jon actually knows a bit better and found some interesting sidequests to complete! This included –

I. A trip to Thameshaven to improve Lady Aria’s arsenal now that she’s got “Gun Nut 2,” and Lady Aria finding “Archie’s Memento” in his inventory – a necklace made up of stones, a bullet, and a keycard. Aria was like “where did this come from” – and then promptly nicked it because it gives you +1 to Agility and Endurance (though it did force her to take off her ruff). I hope that memento’s not important to Archie’s companion quest! XD

II. A trip to the Ferryman’s Dockhouse to find a bridge to the parts of London Jon wanted to explore! Lady Aria first tried going across London Bridge, coming across one “Beefy” and his toll gate (ten tickets to pass through the door – Aria ended up having to pay twice as Jon went BACK through the door after paying to show how it worked, only to end up on the wrong side as it closed again XD), only to discover a boat full of Jack Tar on the other side. And when she tried to take them and their turrets out, she discovered that the fancy sight she’d added to The Ferryman’s Friend gun was misaligned, making it HARDER to aim. And then she fell in the Thames, took a bunch of rads, scrambled desperately to whatever dry land she could find along the edges (locating a Submarine Dock in the process, though I don’t think Jon was paying attention to that), tried to go around to get back up on the main road – and fell back in the Thames and died due to excessive rads. Whoops.

III. A trip in the other direction to Southwark Bridge, in Tommy territory (Aria helped them kill a threatening Hooligan), to cross the Thames with much less risk of death/falling in the heavily irradiated river. XD Also allowed Jon to spot and lightly mock the Millennium bridge, which apparently wasn’t exactly the sturdiest thing when they built it...

IV. A trip to the Globe Theater, where Jon was delighted to see people in ruffs talking in Ye Olde English and fucking up Shakespearean monologues. XD And where Aria picked up a quest from the owner, Wilhelm, to help the company complete their collection of plays by picking up eight that they know the location of but haven’t yet been able to get. Partly because the people they hire to get them either quit or don’t come back… Anyway, Will’s assistant Jeanine told Aria all about the plays and where to find them (handily sorting them into categories depending on how hard they were to get – “easy-peasy,” “a-okay,” and “you’re fucked”) – and Aria, upon consulting her Pip-Boy’s map, discovered that one, Pericles, was actually rather close nearby...it was on the “you’re fucked” portion of the list, but she figured she might as well go grab it!

V. A trip over to that Jack Tar ship that was giving her so much trouble before and the surrounding area, like Borough’s Market – Aria this time was able to take out the Jack Tar and their turrets without too much issue, and while poking around the Market, discovered that the Hooligans had robot members – Atkins! Including one Legendary one, which had one of Jon’s least-favorite Legendary items on it (a Poisoner’s leather leg – Jon considers the poison resistance it offers to be one of the least-useful effects in the game) – but also had a crude launcher for “shaped charges,” which allowed Aria to shoot explosions at people. THAT got yoinked right away. XD She also found a weapon’s workbench which allowed her to take the wonky sight off the Ferryman’s Friend so it could be properly aimed again, yay.

VI. A trip into the Submarine Dock from the landlubber’s entrance, since that was the “cave” the missing play was in – Aria first had to do some tricky platforming to navigate the partially-collapsed entrance (passing a skeleton with a glowing mushroom growing out of its butt); then murder a TON of Jack Tar in what appeared to be the submarine dock area itself (she made good use of both cricket ball grenades and her new launcher, and got some fancy epaulets for her shoulders off the captain); and finally locate the side area where the corpse of her predecessor, The Contractor, lay with with the play in his pocket, “protected” by a Legendary Mirelurk and all of its babies (the Legendary only had some Ghoul Slayer’s gear on it, but Aria appreciated the opportunity to rebuild her crits by killing all the babies). She then exited the dock via the Skyrim Ladder located where she killed all the Jack Tar –

And immediately encountered a Naval Walker, which is basically a robotic sea mine with legs. Jon was like “what the f.” XD Aria managed to kill the first one (and avoid being exploded by it), but then a second, tougher one appeared and she just ran for it, leaving poor Archie to get exploded instead. XD (To be fair, being a kid AND a companion, Archie is very much immortal – but still, not a good look, Aria!)

VII. A trip to Coin Street Flats to find a bed to sleep the rest of the night away – only to find it full of dead robots, dead Hooligans, and very much alive ferals. Including a LEGENDARY PUTRID GLOWING ONE. O.O Yeah, taking that down became a bit of a PROJECT for Aria – her first attempt, just straight up using her guns and some hero, resulted in the damn thing coming straight for her and murdering her in one hit; and her second attempt, which involved setting up a pile of mines to make a trap, was prematurely exploded by one of the lesser ghouls hanging out with the damn thing. Fortunately, the third attempt was the charm – the monster was distracted by Archie (who actually attempted to put up a fight, good for him), and then when it tried to come for Aria after she sneak attacked it, it appeared to get stuck on some scenery, allowing her to throw all the molotovs at it (breaking her own arms in the process) before using one of her guns to break a leg so she could kill it at her leisure. And after all that, what item did it have on it?

NOTHING. NOT EVEN THE USELESS SAFECRACKER’S GEAR JON HAD GUESSED IT WAS CARRYING. Aria basically went “screw it” and went straight to bed after that. XD

VIII. A brief trip to Bankside Power Station by the Globe, mostly because an Industrialist standing outside it insisted on both shooting and trying to explode Aria and Archie – Aria murdered him with her fancy flare gun, then looted his fancy vintage top hat from his corpse because it matched her jacket nicely. XD

IX. A trip to Waterloo Station near the Millennium Eye Ferris Wheel, in the middle of Tommy territory – Jon was initially tickled that the station was now being used as a giant water purifier, but then wandered inside and found that, uh, they were selling the water and it wasn’t even properly purified. However, that turned to be something that Lady Aria could help fix, as Private Pope of the Tommys informed her that the reason for the contamination was because the water was infested with leeches, preventing them from turning on the valves to help fix the situation properly (they’d run out of purification tablets to use to at least fake they were still selling clean water, and as Pope revealed later, the gentry they work for were forcing them to sell the bad water to the “punters” because revealing the situation was bad for them). Aria agreed to help and wandered down into the flooded area, finding a bunch of leechlings and a few more powerful leeches (including one armored one that gave her a LOT of trouble) –

And then discovered one of the leeches she had to kill had glitched into a wall. *sigh* Bethesda games… Anyway, she decided to just concentrate on turning on all the valves in the hopes that would complete the quest…

Nope, big old Bloatmother showed up to continue ruining Aria’s day. XD Fortunately Aria was able to run back to the Tommys and get them to help kill that horror (and the shit that popped out of her), then finally kill the leechling that had popped out of the wall. She then ran to manually restart the purifier at Pope’s direction –

And got 75 XP for her trouble. Jon was NOT impressed. XD I mean, sheesh game, if you’re gonna throw bloatmothers at the player character, at LEAST give 100 XP for completing the quest!

X. And, to end the episode, a trip to the Millenium Eye Ferris Wheel itself, which is now apparently a town! Aria hasn’t gone into any of the gondolas yet, but Jon plans to thoroughly explore the place and see what its deal is next week, before heading toward Trafalgar Square in his quest to find all the locations. Should be very fun – who doesn’t love a Ferris Wheel?

Other:

-->Got my COVID shot this afternoon, along with my parents (who also got their flu shots). Traffic wasn’t great getting there, but it was a nice easy vaccination in a fairly quiet CVS, so that was good. :) Glad to be all immunized up now!

-->FINALLY got to Moose’s messages and answered all of those, yay~ Hope you enjoy, Moose!

-->We ended up playing beanbags since the weather was pretty decent (not as sunny as they said it might be, but still reasonably warm and dry) – aaaand then had to quit after one round because we’d forgotten that gnats are a thing. XD What we get for playing around 5 PM, I suppose! On the plus side, I won said single round by pulling out a seven and a five just when I needed them at the end – Dad came in second, and Mom came in third. We’re planning on playing earlier (probably after lunch) tomorrow – we’ll see how things go then!

Whew! Busy day that ran longer than I would have liked, but at least I got all the important stuff done. And now I am heading to bed already...goals tomorrow include getting all that image alt text done on my Chill Valicer Save update on Victor Luvs Alice and doing my best to keep up with any more Valice Multiverse asks; playing a little Fallout 4 and finishing off Vault 75; updating the FO4 Playthrough Progression appropriately -- and, if possible, finish up the "A Murder Shared Is A Murder Thirded" outline; getting in a workout (very tempted to just watch the Super Sim episode with that); and keep up with Gray and Jon as best I can. We'll see how I do! Night all!