Okay Sunday

Like, the vibes were off during dinner (Mom seemed pretty pissed, though I think that was because she's been watching/listening to a lot of videos detailing Trump's bullshit lately), but I have to say, most of the day went pretty well, all things considered --

Tumblr: Well, there was absolutely nothing happening on Valice Multiverse today, but I had a pretty productive time on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) this morning before lunch –

A) I did some dash catch-up and went on a reblog spree, mixing together Important Informational Posts and Silly Shit I Like, including –

I. A post on ways to annoy your local government into taking action on the small issues that you can effect in your town or city, from showing up at town meetings to bugging them on social media – always helps to do what you can against who you can!

II. A post showing off a James Acaster bit where he slagged off an offensive comedian who claimed that all comedy came from “love” and talking about how he hoped the guy and his audience all fell down an open manhole and died while complaining about their free speech being silenced (I love him XD)

III. A post featuring a quote from one John Mulaney, “I don’t care for these new Nazis and you may quote me on that” (we have)

IV. A post featuring screenshots of a Twitter thread from someone sharing tips their dad (who was in the Resistance against the Nazis) gave them for resisting fascist regime bullshit, from doing small acts of resistance (“losing” certain pieces of paper, not serving certain people in restaurants), to using whatever privilege you can (their dad apparently spoke German and was able to steal guns by driving up with his fellows and pretending to be doing some sort of routine pick-up), to making sure to operate in small cells and beware of snitches (that’s how their dad got caught, sadly). Potentially very important stuff, and reminds one that the small acts matter too

V. Another post of things you can do to prepare for bullshit, including stockpiling certain medications that may be in trouble (like plan b and ella (same thing but for heavier people), keeping an eye out for ICE raids and yelling warnings if you can, and making sure not to out your friends as LGBTQIA+ or trans or anything like that. Don’t be a fucking snitch, basically!

VI. A post about avoiding surveys asking about LGBTQIA+ stuff or anything like that – not because they might be scams or traps, but because even legit surveys can be accessed by the assholes at the top, and you don’t know what exactly is going to happen to all that information. Just better not to share

VII. A post featuring a scene from a comedy stage production of Dracula, featuring the world’s campest Dracula greeting Jonathan Harker while posing and confirming that Jonathan entered of his own free will due to “liability issues” XD I thought it was funny – and I thought “Smiler would be equally goofy if they were playing Dracula,” so I’ve got some vague Valicer Dracula AU thoughts, or at least an Incorrect Quote of Smiler dressing up as this version of Dracula bouncing around in my head XD

VIII. A post about how “we don’t have kitchen table polyamory, we have table tennis polyamory – as in, we’ve got table tennis downstairs and a reigning champ in my metamour Kevin” XD Again, I thought this was funny – and Valicer-related, given that Smiler and Alice played ping-pong together multiple times in the old Chill Valicer Save, and Alice kept beating Smiler (and then I put in the tags Smiler getting Victor to play against them so they could soothe their ego by winning against him, only for HIM to win too XD Sorry, Smiler, it now amuses me to have you be bad at ping-pong)

IX. And finally, I reblogged my own post about the beginning of “A Murder Shared Is A Murder Thirded” because – well, part of me still fucking hopes that if I put it out there again, SOMEBODY will show some interest in it (and somebody DID actually reblog it later this afternoon, so...)

*whew* Quite a lot, but I’m glad I did it. Really gotta start just hitting the reblog button on some of these when I see ‘em…

B) And I did get in some actual drafting as well – starting a new Valicer Not-Incorrect Quotes collection for Valentine’s Day! Because it occurred to me recently that I really should have a collection for that holiday. XD So far I’ve only got the one – Alice seeing an early Valentine’s Day display in a shop and complaining that the day is just an excuse to sell “terrible chocolate and useless tat,” only to realize that her partner and her metamour actually LIKE the holiday when they start looking awkward – but it’s a start!

Fallout 4: Had a pretty chill day in the Commonwealth today with Victor and Ada, I must say –

A) Picked up right where I left off last time, with Victor waking up from a nap just outside the back exit to Monsignor Plaza after having cleared out the raiders within and taken all their caps. :p He found himself next to a weird little walkway area behind the Fallon’s within the Plaza (a circle around what was either a chunk of the nearby bay or a man-made pond of some sort) – I had him loop around via the road so he could check out both sides, but other than some mines (which he exploded with the trusty Two-Shot Combat Rifle rather than risking getting blown up trying to disarm them) and the corpse of the guy he shot at the end of the last episode, there was nothing of interest there. The Nuka-Cola machine there didn’t even have any Nuka-Cola in it. :( Slightly disappointed, but aware that Victor was reaching his carry weight limit, I thus checked my map and determined the best way to get him to Diamond City –

Which was actually basically to go back the way he’d come, as coming THIS way had actually put him closer to Goodneighbor than DC. *facepalm* And while I did want to visit Goodneighbor (hit the shops, talk to the people, maybe see if I can get the damn Silver Shroud quest to advance already), I had a specific plan to get there that involved talking with Bobbi in Diamond City and finally picking up HER quest again. It’s been quite a while, and I do want to see it through! Not to mention I figured she was probably sick of waiting for me – it’s a good thing for me that the NPCs can’t tell you “you know what, forget it” when you make them wait for ages to finish their sidequests. XD

B) And so the walk to Diamond City began! Featuring Victor and Ada –

I. Passing by Ticonderoga as they left Monsignor Plaza, as the Railroad safehouse is weirdly right next to the raider base – I thought about having Victor pop inside and say hi, but after realizing getting inside the safehouse itself would involve a loading screen, I decided to press on and not get distracted

II. Shooting a turret set up in a big old wooden structure that I think some raiders had built at the end of the bridge that takes you to Mass Fusion and the Old Corner Bookstore and all those places downtown – didn’t see any actual human raiders, mind, but there was plenty of raider-adjacent architecture about, and I figured it was safer to take out the turret before anything kicked off. Admittedly, Victor was able to shoot the turret and sneak through without any further incident, but – you just know that if I hadn’t killed the turret, things would not have gone as smoothly

III. Getting briefly menaced by garbage squirrels while heading further down the road past Greentech – they were rooting around in the garbage along the waterway, and while Victor’s brackets went to [DANGER] when they noticed Victor and Ada’s presence, they never actually ATTACKED, so I didn’t make Victor shoot them – he just continued on his merry way

IV. Discovering that the nearest bridge was partially collapsed, with a small sunken section in front of a “hill” covered in rusty old cars – however, the water didn’t look too deep or wide, so I had Victor pop a Rad-X and brave it. Happily, I was right about the water, and while he took a couple of rads, he was in and out of it too quickly to get irradiated much, and once he climbed the “hill,” the rest of the roadway was nice and solid, allowing him to reach the other side of the river –

C) And find himself near some raiders! Specifically, a raider (whose clothes didn’t render the first time I had Victor check on her through his scope – had a real “???” moment about why there was a raider out smoking in her underwear) and a homemade turret on the wreck of an old truck toting giant pipes parked in front of a shop near the waterfront. Fortunately, Victor was able to keep out of their line of sight as he crossed the bridge –

Unfortunately, a check of his map revealed that they were standing right next to the path he needed to follow to reach Diamond City. Ah well. I had Victor thus go back into crouch mode and slowly descend the stairs to his right, creeping toward the shopfront and the truck while doing his best to stay hidden. He did all right at first, but as he checked on things with his scope again (and the raider’s clothes finally popped into existence), the raider got suspicious and pulled out her own gun. Unfortunately for her, Victor is very good with VATS these days, and was able to take out both her and the turret before she could even properly realize she was in danger. :p This gunplay did get the attention of another turret mounted up on the second story of the nearby building, above the shops, and a second raider who ran in from around the corner to see what was going on, but they were both pretty easily taken care of as well (especially the second raider, who had a tire iron). Once the area was clear, I had Victor head forward to loot the corpses for goodies –

And officially discovered Back Street Apparel! Right, I thought I recognized this bit of the city! This is that little clothing shop that’s held by a small group of raiders – the game sometimes picks it as a location when you have to rescue a kidnapped settler (as it once did in one of my earlier games). Didn’t realized I’d never been down here before in this run! Well, now it’s discovered, so I’m all good. :p

D) Anyway – after looting the dead raiders and their turrets outside the shop (the ones I could find, anyway – the woman’s corpse was nowhere to be found when I searched the truck. Not sure what happened to her), and having a chuckle at a poster I could see in the shop window (“Baseball – National Pasttime, Boston Religion” XD), I had Victor and Ada continue onward down the road, keeping an eye out for trouble because I could hear what sounded like gunfire or a vertibird buzzing around nearby. I expected to see either the Brotherhood flying overhead, or maybe another raider fighting something else on the streets – but by the time I reached the big old overturned appliance truck at the intersection, the gunfire stopped, and Victor randomly got 25 XP. O.o I’m – guessing somebody killed an enemy around here that Victor had previously wounded? Got me… I shrugged it off, consulted the map, and had Victor turn left at the truck, following the nearby road up a bit of a rise –

And straight to Fenway Park stadium! :) I’d recognize the “great green wall” anywhere. :p I had Victor and Ada head around, following the signs to the entrance, and make their way in around 6:30 PM in-game time –

Aaand the minute they entered the actual city, it started raining. XD Like, perfectly clear skies outside, pouring rain and thunder inside. Apparently this is because Diamond City’s interior is in a different cell to the outside, and thus the weather may not always be consistent, but it is still pretty funny. XD Good work, Bethesda!

E) However, Victor wasn’t going to let the fact that it was raining stop him from completing the first of his tasks here in DC – namely, hitting the shops and selling off a bunch of the shit he’d picked up and didn’t want! I had him trade with Ada to grab a bunch of stuff off her (giving her a bunch of junk in return so he could continue moving normally without using AP), then went around and hit in turn:

I. Arturo’s to sell him a couple of Legendary weapons (namely the Blazing Pool Cue, the Never-Ending 10mm, and the Nocturnal Hunting Rifle), seven frag mines, and a whole bunch of mildly crap Legendary armor (seriously, I had SO MUCH mildly crap Legendary armor) in exchange for a bunch of .50 and .308 ammo for the Mighty Sniper and the Two-Shot Combat rifle – ended up making it an exact trade, so nobody had to lose any caps :)

II. Solomon’s to sell him all the Buffjet Victor was carrying, plus a syringe of Calmex, in exchange for some Rad-X and purified water (not an exact trade, but pretty close) – I also had Victor ask him if he had any work that needed doing, and Solomon told him about his need for mutated ferns, saying they were natural rad-suckers and that they’d be great for cooking up Rad-X and Rad-Away. Victor already had some of those, so (after me briefly considering whether or not I wanted to have Victor try the Charisma check to ask for more money, and deciding, no, he has plenty of caps already) I had him hand them over. Solomon was pleased and gave Victor some Buffout, Jet, Psycho, and 100 caps in return. Not a bad trade!

III. Dr. Sun to sell him some antibiotics in exchange for a microscope and a Rad-Away! Dr. Sun was honestly rather annoyed to see Victor at first, grumbling about how a new patient means starting up a new file, then asking if he was there on legitimate medical business or after “facial reconstruction” – I’m guessing there’s a fair number of people in Diamond City who are interested in plastic surgery, and it annoys the hell out of him. :p Don’t worry, Dr. Sun, Victor shall only bother you when he has some meds to sell!

IV. And finally, Polly to sell her some spare food – in exchange for most of her caps, because if there is one thing Victor does NOT need right now, it is more food. XD This is what I get for downloading so many food mods!

F) With that taken care of, I decided that, before I did anything with Bobbi, or settled in for the night (as it was getting kind of late in-game), I wanted Victor to take a moment improving the few guns he hadn’t sold to Arturo – the automatic plasma rifle, the Crippling gamma gun, and the Plasma-Infused lever action rifle. I thus took them (and a pipe pistol I just wanted to scrap) off Ada, and headed over to the workbench outside Arturo’s –

Aaand discovered that I needed WAY more aluminum if I was going to build anything on ANY of these guns. And then, after getting that off Ada, I got interrupted midway through my first upgrades by Victor getting hungry and thirsty (had him eat some strawberries for their rad-reducing properties and drink a bit of water). And then Victor needed to drop his port-a-potty so the game didn’t try to use the aluminum in THAT to build any mods. And then he had to get some gold items off Ada to make sure he could build everything he wanted. Basically upgrading these guns was a bit of a process. XD But I did manage to upgrade the plasma rifle with an Overcharged Capacitor, an Improved Sniper Barrel, a Recoil-Compensating Stock, and a proper Long Scope – which got me up to Level 48, nice – and the lever action rifle with an Advanced Receiver, a Long Ported Barrel, and a Marksman’s Stock. I was in the middle of trying to figure out what else I wanted to put on that one –

G) When I realized I could suddenly hear the crackle of rads going up in the background. Getting out of the crafting menu confirmed that the thunderstorm had become a radstorm, so I had Victor hastily grab his port-a-potty from where he’d left it behind Arturo’s stall, then hurry over to Publick Occurrences before he could get any more irradiated. Because why would he rent a room at the Dugout Inn when he could just stay with his girlfriend right nearby? :p I had him do a Rad-Away to clear the rads he had, checked on Piper and Nat (Nat was just hanging out by her bed, while Piper was working on her computer upstairs), then went into the perk menu to choose my level-up! And after considering my options, I had to go with maxing out “Rifleman” at rank 5, meaning all non-automatic rifles do double damage from their base and ignore 30% of a target’s armor. :D I mean, Victor’s pretty much ALWAYS using the Two-Shot Combat Rifle – might as well make it even stronger and nastier! With that done, though, I wasn’t sure what else I could do with Victor – I wanted to get him past midnight in-game, but I couldn’t send him outside because of the radstorm, and I wasn’t sure what I could do in Piper’s house…

Fortunately, Victor solved the problem for me by getting tired shortly thereafter. :p And so the playsession ended with Victor setting up his tent in Piper’s home and curling up with her inside, having a nice eight-hour snooze and feeling his Lover’s Embrace. :) Left with him fresh and ready to go at about 7 AM the next morning – next week, we talk with Bobbi and see about finishing off “The Big Dig!” :)

Writing: Another Sunday in the Commonwealth, another update to the FO4 Playthrough Progression – and it was a pretty simple update this week, given that my playsession today mainly consisted of walking Victor from Point A to Point B, selling a bunch of stuff, then working on some guns. XD But even then, I had to make some small changes between how things went in the game, and how they went in the fanfic verse –

A) First of all, Victor didn’t even have to search the walkway around the back of Monsignor Plaza – Ada did it for him while he slept, clearing the mines and confirming there was nothing of interest there. So they were able to proceed to Diamond City right away!

B) Second, when they reached the raiders outside Back Street Apparel, I let Ada take out the turret that was on the outside of the building on the second level – she took a potshot at it with her lasers in the game, so it wasn’t even that big of a change. Just Ada managed to hit it in the fanfic world. XD I also had Victor recognize the clothing shop from the poster about baseball being a Boston religion in the window, and state that he actually got a lot of his clothes from there since the tailor there was good at fitting things to his ridiculously skinny frame. He’s already made plans to come back and see if there’s any clothes that will fit him inside – next time I’m in that general area in-game, I will thus have to remember to head in and clear out the raiders to follow up on that!

C) Third, I explained the fact that it was sunny outside of Diamond City but raining inside as a freak thunderstorm that blew in as they stepped into the stadium – Victor was annoyed, but not enough to not go around the shops before they closed! Though he did offer to do so alone so Ada and Alice could go find somewhere dry to wait – the ladies insisted on coming, though. Possibly to make sure he actually SOLD the shit instead of constantly hoarding it. XD

D) Fourth, the visits to Solomon and Dr. Sun went slightly different – rather than asking Solomon for work, Victor just had him look at the mutated ferns he’d already picked to see what he thought, with Solomon happily telling him about their rad-clearing properties and taking them off his hands in exchange for the drugs and the caps; and while Dr. Sun was as grumpy as he was in-game when Victor first rocked up, he got a lot friendlier when Victor revealed he was there to sell him antibiotics. Also specified that the microscope that Victor got in return was broken, lest we think Dr. Sun is just randomly selling important medical equipment. :p

E) And fifth, when Victor went to work on his guns, he had his strawberry snack and got all of his needed supplies BEFORE he started crafting – and when the rainstorm turned into a radstorm while he was working on the lever-action rifle and he and his fled to Piper’s, they were properly greeted because Piper and her sister act like, you know, ACTUAL PEOPLE in this world. Victor and company had a very nice night catching up with her over dinner, and then Ada and Alice played some checkers after Nat went to bed so Victor and Piper could enjoy a Lover’s Embrace. ;) In Piper’s bed, not a random tent Victor set up in the middle of her living room. XD

But yeah, apart from that and of course removing the “Victor gets random XP from someone else killing something somewhere” incident, the fanfic version of events was pretty much identical to what happened in-game! Next week, though, things should get more exciting, as Victor is about to bump into a certain ghoul he hasn’t thought about in a while...

YouTube: Got in the usual Sunday Two, I’m happy to report –

A) First up, we had Sunday Happy Wheels with GrayStillPlays, in “When a gallon of gas costs $7,000,000!” Which, I’m not entirely sure why it was called that, because we didn’t have any boards about getting gas. o.O We did have multiple “impossible” pogo challenges (that Gray beat – perhaps not EASILY, but more easily than most people because he knows how to game these things – and isn’t afraid to win in two pieces); a space-themed bottle flip where Gray started out by getting Shrek but really had to work to get the win; a “pro pogo license” board where Gray had to pogo-fight a bunch of people, then flip himself over to survive being rocketed into spikes (the elf with the spear of Thor gave him the most trouble); a board where Gray got to drive a dirtbike and do cool tricks (when he wasn’t exploding himself flying off the handlebars); a board where he had to toss a mine at his wife’s head while trapped at the dinner table to win (he ended up flipping the mine onto the bottle in the center of the table once, which he found very impressive); and Dylan Snider’s Board of the Week, a deadly trip to Costco which featured toilet paper with free battleaxes included, pallet parkour with mines between each pallet, and killer pizzas in the cafeteria (Gray managed to win simply by getting lucky hitting a mine and flying over most of it). Good stuff, as always – I do love how weird, creative, and downright violent these board creators can be. XD

B) And second up, we had Jon and “Fallout: London - Part 27 - Something Wicked This Way Comes!” The continuing adventures of Lady Aria and Kiera as, having gotten three out of the four signatures Aria needs to get into Parliament and meet up with Smythe already, they proceeded to Hackney to meet back up with the Roundels (who they kind of helped so long ago? At the very least, Aria got a roundel off Guy and Rosie for helping murder some of Miller’s Men while she tried to find the sewer to get into Islington, marking her as an ally to the group) and figure out what they needed to do to get their leader to sign the petition! Which – proved to be a little more difficult than they first anticipated, because things are not going GREAT in Hackney –

I. First, when they arrived, they had to rejoin the Hurly Burly and get that quest sorted before anything else. So Aria and Kiera ran down to meet the Roundels near Club Oberon (a club of theirs that had been taken over by Miller’s Men), and help the people in charge, Dennis and Joan, decide how to get inside. Aria was at first all for going in the back way and trying to be sneaky –

And then she discovered that the back door was beyond her lockpicking expertise and was like “uh, this is actually a trap, we should go in the front guns blazing.” XD Fortunately, that worked out for everybody, as between Aria’s Instigating Shotgun and the Roundels being no slouches when it comes to fighting, the Miller’s Men within went down pretty fast. Once the battle was sorted, Aria went and checked in with Rosie and Guy (with Rosie attending a downed Guy – Aria was worried he was seriously hurt, but no, he’d just sprained his ankle coming up the stairs), and managed to get them to give her the exposition about what was going on with the gang and their territory. Turns out that the gang used to be run by the Davies brothers, Keith and Pete, as their Princes, and they held North London unopposed by even the Gentry. Then Miller moved in with his Men while the gang was dealing with some other interlopers, started fighting them as well, and ended up murdering Keith. The guy died in Pete’s arms, and Pete – Pete did not take it well. He’s still nominally the leader, but Dennis, his lieutenant, runs most of the day-to-day stuff. Aria filed all of that away under “well, that’s not great” and headed outside to listen to Dennis’s victory speech –

And then, at the end, Joan dropped a bombshell by revealing that Ronnie, the former barman at Club Oberon, had turned traitor and helped hide the Men in the bar in the first place! Ronnie tried to deny it, but they had proof in the form of a note he’d tried to burn, and when Dennis told him he had one chance to confess, he cracked and admitted that Miller had promised him the Oberon and a place on his council in exchange for the betrayal. Dennis lobbed the question of what they should do with him at Aria, as she’d been instrumental in winning the fight – Aria lobbed it right back by pointing out they should take him to Pete, because, well, isn’t he the leader? Dennis said yes, but as his lieutenant, he was empowered to hand out punishments on his behalf, and chose to banish Ronnie, which Jon thought was pretty light given what happened. (Then again, maybe Dennis didn’t feel comfortable straight-out murdering a guy without discussing it with his leader first…) That ended the Hurly Burly –

II. And started “Fashion Terrorism!” Because, as it turned out, Prince Davies wanted to see Aria after how she’d turned the tide of battle – but his messenger, Patrick, refused to take her unless she was properly dressed. Somehow her fantastic cavalry coat and her raider chest piece covered in skulls didn’t impress him. XD He gave her a purchase order and told her to go see either Chanelle or Milano at their shops and work out a deal with them – Aria, thrilled by the prospect of another fancy new outfit, headed over straight away, with just a quick stop at the local pub the “Wolf & Port” to pick up the coaster there (the Sneak Coaster, which is a VERY useful one for getting around undetected). After checking out the stores, she initially decided to go with Chanelle as her shop looked a bit nicer – but then Chanelle was rude to her immediately, accusing her of being a beggar, so she said she had to check out the competition and went to Milano’s. However, while he was initially nicer, he quickly turned rude as well, advising her to check out the “discount racks,” so Aria went back to Chanelle and presented her with the purchase order. Chanelle was surprised to learn she was a legit customer, but annoyed that Patrick was once again ordering her around without providing any payment. Aria was like “I’ve got tickets, if that’s what you want,” but Chanelle just called her “adorable” and said that “even as a slave, you might only be worth half a handbag” (WOW) –

But then realized that Aria might be just what she needed to help sabotage her hated rival next door (not that she would CALL it sabotage…). She made Aria a deal – steal some fabric that was sent to Milano’s “by mistake,” talk to model Greta Golitely and convince her not to walk in his show, and somehow take down or sabotage his window display, and she’d provide her best work for Aria’s audience with the Prince. Aria was more than down to do all that, and set about her tasks with glee –

And drugs! For, you see, she needed a liiiittle help passing all the skill checks inherent in all of her tasks. XD But with the help of her massive collection of chems, she was able to talk Margot, Milano’s shop assistant, into taking down his display (claiming that the clothes CLEARLY weren’t the man’s best work); intimidate Barty, the ghoul in the back keeping an eye on the fabric, to just hand it over so he didn’t get hurt (Barty was like “yeah, cloth’s definitely not worth it”); and charm Greta into becoming exclusively a Chanelle model by saying she could charge more if she only walked for one designer (after jokingly trying to get the woman to sign her arse – and discovering she’d do it if Aria actually paid her enough – and burning the good stuff to get her Charisma high enough). She thus returned to Chanelle to tell her the good news, and Chanelle handed her a new Roundel Ally Battle Coat to wear –

And the ability to add BALLISTIC WEAVE to her clothing. Meaning that Aria can make her fancy clothes even fancier and tougher now! Well, once she gets the right perks to do so, anyway. :p Anyway, Aria slapped on the coat (which Jon didn’t love, but what could you do) and met up with Patrick at the Wolf & Port, who complimented her look (unsurprisingly, as it was the same as HIS XD) and told her to meet him at the Shoppe to meet the Prince.

III. And so, after a quick run across town to get the Fusion Coaster from The Chosen One pub (makes fusion cores last 5% longer, which confuses Jon as this is not a version of the game that has a lot of power armor or fusion cores lying around), Aria did just that! The Shoppe proved to be a converted garage, with Prince Pete’s quarters at the top – she met up with Patrick there, and together they went in to see Pete, who Aria was pleased to see wearing a VERY snazzy Union Jack suit –

And rather less pleased to see essentially drugged out of his mind. Apparently he turned to chems after the death of his brother to help ease the pain, and now he’s just – well, a bit off with the birds. Worse yet, he might not be taking them all of his own volition, as the minute he started remembering Keith’s death and getting agitated, Patrick was ready to just inject him with Calmex instead of letting him work through his feelings. Jon, and thus Aria, was not a fan. Through, ironically, in order to convince Patrick that constantly muting Pete’s feelings with drugs might not actually be helping, Aria herself had to do more drugs to raise her Intelligence to the right level. XD I think you might want to pump a few level ups into base stat boosts going forward, Aria!

Anyway – Aria managed to convince Patrick not to inject Pete right away, and they went off to the side to talk about the situation. Patrick told her that she really wanted to talk to either Manchester Mike (the gang’s drug dealer, who helps keep the chems coming for their prince and who Patrick often assists) or Dennis (the guy who is essentially ACTING as leader but won’t officially take the role because he’s so loyal to Pete). Aria made one attempt to talk Pete into signing the petition, but he was just too out of it, and she really didn’t have the Charisma necessary to bribe him, so she instead headed off with Patrick back to the Wolf & Port to speak to both Mike and Dennis. Not that either had much to say to her – Mike said that keeping the Prince doped up had cost them all a lot, but that he thought he had a way for everyone to win, and that if she wanted to hear more about it, she ought to meet him at Maab House; while Dennis was like “Pete may have bad days but he is a GOOD LEADER” when Aria gently suggested that most people were listening to him these days, then told her that he wanted to talk with her more at Club Oberon as he had business there. Meaning that, next week, it looks like Aria may have to choose a side regarding who she wants to help and how she wants to resolve this situation. And Jon isn’t feeling good about this, as he’s noticed that a lot of the names of the quests in this area reference Shakespeare’s plays, specifically the bloody mess that was MacBeth… We’ll just have to see next time if it all devolves into a bunch of king-murder and people dying to men of no women born!

Workout: Hopped back on the bike tonight and returned to the Renrut Tiny Town, starting “A third Sim has completed the Tiny Town Challenge! - Part 16” by James Turner! Turns out the third finale of the series belonged to Scarlett – and what a finale it is! Already in the first chunklet we’ve had –

A) James discovering that he’d completely lost track of the mushrooms that he thought Vivienne had given to Scarlett after saving the ones that hadn’t died from neglect while he was playing her – they were supposed to be in her fridge, but when he checked, her fridge was in fact completely empty. Damn – real shame, considering all the work he put into growing them!

B) Scarlett successfully fishing up a cowplant berry in Oasis Springs for her aspiration – it’s planted in a planter in her front yard, and now she just has to wait for it to reach adulthood in order to become the best botanist and get the trait that for some reason makes her unafraid of fire. XD (Which, considering Reuben accidentally set himself on fire lighting the town center fireplace at one point, might be a good thing to have. He’s fine, by the way, she put him out.)

C) Scarlett getting into the Cupid’s Corner app because James has decided that all of the Tiny Towners should get pets (like Vivienne or Krystoff) or end up in a relationship of some kind in their finales to truly “finish off” their stories, and he thought it would be nice to get Scarlett a partner. So far she’s got three potential likes in the app – we’ll see if any of them pan out!

D) James rearranging Scarlett’s lot to get rid of her giant greenhouse out the front, replacing it with an oversized crops patch (only six plots this time) and a tiny octagonal greenhouse in the back, then moving all of her major money-making plants to her various balconies on the treehouse, since they’ll still be sheltered there. The result isn’t particularly efficient, especially when it comes to harvesting, but it looks nice!

E) Scarlett getting control of the Tiny Town club back from Silas and promptly bringing everyone to the town center to hang out because her Social need was suffering again – she indulged in some truly awful karaoke, and James indulged in some streamer-safe music on the jukebox

F) Scarlett getting the “wealthy weirdo” event call that came with Lovestruck and choosing to meet them in the motel – she got a few gems, an element, an axolotl, and a Voidcritters card out of it. *shrug* Not the worst thing that could have happened!

G) Scarlett entering the lottery...and then, while celebrating Harvestfest and trying to appease all the damn gnomes, Scarlett winning the lottery. James was DUMBFOUNDED. XD So Scarlett is now an official millionaire and doesn’t actually have to earn any more money to complete her house! James, however, still wants to grow the cowplant, grow some more over-sized mushrooms (and turn at least one of them into seat), and grow a (really unnecessary now) money tree, so her final episode will continue until at least those things are achieved. XD But still, damn – lucky break there, Scarlett! I’m sure Reuben, Silas, and Sonny are looking at her like “why couldn’t it have been US who won?!” XD

H) And finally, Scarlett taking one of her potential paramours, the “Socially Awkward” Kiera on a date to a nightclub in Cuidad Enamorada...only to discover that, for some reason, she couldn’t properly talk to her. The only options she had were to give her gifts. O.o Ookay then...I left it with James getting them to seductively dance at each other because the club doesn’t have a proper dance floor, and he wanted them to dance – we’ll see if the date improves from there, or if Scarlett will remain unable to talk to the woman. Doesn’t exactly make me want to try out the new Lovestruck dating system, that’s for sure...

Yeah, not too bad -- and I'm happy to report that I'm not up absurdly late either, yay. :p But I am up a little later than I'd intended, so I'd better get to bed. Night all!