Usual Late-Running Sunday

Though in this case, I don't have to stress about that because I took tomorrow off and thus I don't have to get up for work, yay~ So I'm allowed to take some extra time getting the daily write-up done. Still, I don't want to be up all night doing it, so let's get this show on the road:

Tumblr: Had the reverse of what happened yesterday over here – that is, I had nothing to do over on Valice Multiverse this evening, but I got plenty done on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) in the hour and a half before lunch! Granted, none of what I did included working on my drafts, but – still got stuff done! Specifically:

A) I reblogged a bunch of stuff in a big old burst because I had a lot of shit on my dash that I’d been meaning to reblog over the last few days but never got around to (because I am easily distracted away from doing anything on my dash), including:

I. A post about a recall on testosterone gel because benzene was found in some lots and that’s not good to rub into your skin (also mentioned some other drug recalls like for ibuprofen and such because of unknown contaminants – the website listing them all is specifically for Washington state, though, so hopefully it isn’t TOO much of a problem?)

II. A post about how the government is trying to change the wording of the Endangered Species Act to make it so protecting the endangered species’ habitat is not longer a priority, and how the proposed change is open to public comment until May 19th, so maybe go over to the document on regulations.gov and make your voice heard?

III. A post about how the best way to make sure the trans people around you don’t get misgendered is just to lead by example and use the correct pronouns (always important, especially in the current trans-unfriendly climate)

IV. A post with three sets of gifs showing Doc heading off in one direction while rambling about something sciency, then doing an about-face and heading in the opposite direction while Marty tries desperately to keep up, with examples from BTTF, BTTF: The Game, and BTTF II (what can I say, it amused me XD)

V. A post saying that anyone who has had or wanted an abortion is safe on the blog its featured on (because it’s fucking healthcare damn it and people shouldn’t have to carry children they don’t want)

VI. A post encouraging people to call their House representatives and tell them to impeach Trump already because he’s fucking defying the Supreme Court with his El Salvador prisons, complete with a reblog featuring a script you can use (you can see it here if you are so inclined)

VII. A post about one of the best UK Trans charities to support now (because the UK Supreme Court recently ruled that trans women aren’t women, because they’re assholes and because JK Rowling threw a lot of money at the anti-trans organization that helped secure this ruling because she’s an asshole), Five For Five, run by trans fems – apparently they take the money collected every month and distribute it randomly between two fellow trans charities/organizations and three fundraisers that trans fems have set up! So it sounds like if you donate to them, your money does the most good

VIII. A post about how nonbinary rights and issues are also important in the current trans-unfriendly climate, and how the UK High Courts are apparently completely unwilling to recognize them as well (linking a case where an American nonbinary person who moved to the UK couldn’t get a Gender Recognition Certificate stating they were nonbinary back in January 2024 because apparently the panel only recognizes binary genders), which – ugh

IX. And finally, a silly poly-related joke post, “you and your dreadful little polycule haven't seen the last of me” (that’s it, that’s the post, by fangs-4-fags), because I saw a memed version put on some Dead Boy Detectives screenshots on my friend Newt’s blog (the witch Edith supposedly threatening main characters Edwin, Charles, and Crystal) and I wanted the original post because I felt it was a Valicer In The Dark vibe!

*nods* Yeah – lot of important political and medical stuff, with a couple of cute and funny fandom-related posts thrown in so it didn’t all get too depressing. That should cover just about everything I wanted to do!

B) And I wrote up a quick post telling the general tumblr populace all about the edits I made to “Start At The Beginning...Sort Of” the other day, highlighting the new paragraph of Smiler description and the updated “Victor explains his marital situation” paragraph. *nods* So now everyone on tumblr is aware of those changes too, and I can move onto editing and posting the next chapter of “A Murder Shared Is A Murder Thirded!” Yay!

Fallout 4: Ended up hitting the Commonwealth again today for my video gaming – while I’d originally intended to check in on my party in Baldur’s Gate III and start exploring the tiefling refugee camp, I had to put that plan on hold because I’m not sure how many of my mods are updated/confirmed compatible with Patch 8 (particularly “ImpUI,” whose creator semi-recently posted they would not be maintaining because they no longer had time for modding...). And, uh, how I update them in the in-game mod manager if they need updating. ^^; Probably should make a back-up of my save file before I start fiddling around with all of that… But yes, returning to the adventures of Victor and Ada in post-apocalypse Massachusetts seemed the safer bet today – though there was a lot less “adventuring” and a lot more “stumbling around in a blind confused haze” in this particular playsession, I must admit…

A) Started out with the pair hanging out outside the combined motel/bar in Bunker Hill on a foggy, foggy morning, right where I’d left them last Sunday. As per my last set of updates, my plan was to have them swing by Goodneighbor to hit the shops there and get some goodies (and MAYBE see if I could get the next Silver Shroud mission to trigger already – stupid glitched quest), then send them to confront the Mechanist because I couldn’t justify them stopping to do any other sidequests before taking her out anymore, at least as per my Playthrough Progression’s version of reality. There’s just been too many robot attacks on the Minutemen settlements – the mastermind behind them all must be stopped, damn it! Accordingly, I had Victor leave Bunker Hill via the front entrance and go straight down the road, toward the bridge that connected to this part of the city to downtown Boston proper and would lead him, if not straight to Goodneighbor, then at least pretty close –

Only to pause when said bridge came into view – along with a trio of Gunners atop it. They weren’t immediately hostile, thought, so I had Victor approach cautiously, Deliverer in hand. Once he was close enough, one of them ordered him to stop, which he did –

And then he informed Victor that they were under orders to collect a toll from everyone coming through – 1,000 caps. AKA, they were just a more-high-rent version of that one raider encounter you can get on bridges, and which happens to plague my save file. *shakehead* Victor promptly said “Nope, I am not paying up,” and then took the trio down with his lovely light pistol – though he did take a few painful hits of laser fire in the process, since it took me a second to get VATS up and start queuing all the shots. *wince* Sorry, Victor! I’ll try to be a little quicker on the left bumper next time!

B) Anyway, once the Gunners were all dead, Victor and Ada looted the bodies and continued onward, past Cabot House and into the heart of downtown. I had Victor tune to the Silver Shroud signal once the game told me his radio had found it again to see if there was anything more interesting than the usual loop of Mechanist-related episodes playing (unfortunately not), then work his way up and around some of the side alleys, looting the dead ghouls lying around for their caps before arriving by Haymarket Mall. I paused there for a moment to continue listening to the radio for signs of Kent’s next broadcast and to check on where to go from there to reach Goodneighbor –

And then heard a super mutant start wondering who was there. A Super Mutant Suicider no less, according to the subtitles. Frantic, I got out of the Pip-Boy and had Victor start searching for the threat, gun at the ready. A moment later, a super mutant came charging in, and I helped Ada kill it before registering that, oh, wait, that was a SKIRMISHER –

Aaaand then Victor blew up, because I’m pretty sure the Suicider ran up BEHIND him while I was looking in the wrong direction. *facepalm* Damn super mutants! Go away, nobody loves you (unless you’re Strong, and even THEN I don’t think anybody particularly likes you that much).

C) With the protagonist having been reduced to bloody chunks, the game obligingly rewound time to when I’d last quicksaved – right before confronting the Gunners on the bridge. At least it didn’t wipe THAT much progress… Anyway, I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to face them again and had Victor swap to his beloved Two-Shot before venturing onto the bridge again. Interestingly, the Gunners didn’t give him the speech about needing to pay a toll this time around – they just automatically went hostile once he got too close. Maybe they saw him switching guns to a heavier-caliber weapon and realized there was no point in trying to shake him down. XD Anyway, while the Two-Shot took two of them out nice and quick, I had to wait for my action points to refresh before taking out the third, so Victor still took a hit before the three went down. I think it was a LITTLE faster than the previous confrontation, and it definitely resulted in less damage to Victor, but… *waggles hand* I wouldn’t say it went THAT much better than it had before!

With that sorted, I laid down a new quicksave, relooted the bodies, then headed back into Boston proper, once again turning on the Silver Shroud radio station to see if anything had changed quest-wise (nope, meeeh). I had Victor take a slightly different route toward Haymarket this time, going off into a side alley at one point to take care of a hostile garbage squirrel (dunno why it objected to Victor’s face, but it did – went down fast though) and watching a vertibird fly past nearby, before apparently getting in a fight with some enemies a few streets over (hopefully those damn super mutants that killed me the first time I tried to get into the city) –

But then, as I was wandering through the streets trying to figure out the best route to Goodneighbor, the skies went dark, and the game suddenly informed me “hey, uh, you’re taking six rads per second now.” Yes, what had started out as a foggy morning had suddenly turned into a full-on, extremely powerful radstorm. Damn it! I quickly had Victor pop some Rad-X to put a damper on how many rads he was taking, then started looking around for a good place where he could bunk down for a bit and wait out the storm. However, I quickly ran into two problems in this endeavor – one, there were no good locations nearby with safe interiors –

And two, moments after the rads started, the rain rushed in and made visibility near fucking nil. Like, I had a ROUGH idea where I was, but trying to navigate the streets, watching the rads on my health bar tick up steadily all the while, was dam near impossible! Not to mention, the only place that that I knew had a safe interior anywhere nearby was Haymarket Mall, and I didn’t want to go in THERE because the damn place was full of raiders, and I didn’t need to deal with that right now! So I stumbled around the city for a while, desperately trying to find a spot, ANY spot that was both out of the rain and had a chair where I could wait, going in the vague direction of Pickman’s Gallery because I knew THAT would be safe –

D) And then I happened across a green door in a wall that said it led into some place called “Mean Pastries.” Good enough! I promptly had Victor and Ada duck inside, and was greeted by the wrecked remains of a little bakery, with a counter near the front door on the left; a U of various display cases next to it; some booths and tables with stools against the opposite wall on the right; a Port-A-Diner with another one of those mysterious pieces of perfectly preserved pie in it by those; a back door exactly opposite of the one Victor and Ada had come in –

And a cat, mysteriously hanging out by the display cases among the skeletons dotting the ground, doing cat things. Huh. Dunno why a random stray cat would be hanging out in a pre-War pastry place, but then, I’m not a cat. :p Anyway, Victor left the kitty alone (not that he could do much else, as there’s no option to interact with them – they should be an option to stroke the kitties) and did some Rad-Away to clear the rads he’d picked up bumbling around in the storm, then went around behind the display cases to steal all the cake pans (precious precious aluminum) and tried his luck twice at the Port-A-Diner (nope – that piece of pie remained perfectly preserved under the glass and out of Victor’s inventory) before settling down in a booth to wait. I ended up having him wait two hours in total after the rain sounds didn’t abate after the first timeskip – but when it proved to still be pouring after the second, I went “okay, maybe it’s transitioned from a radstorm into just regular rain by this point. We can but hope!” I thus had Victor and Ada exit out the back door to check –

And, after a very long loading screen (not even one of the fun ones with tips, either, just one of those plain black ones with the symbol in the corner), they found themselves in a back alley under only lightly-raining skies! Hooray! About freaking time! :P

E) With the radstorm finally over, the adventure could at last continue – Victor and Ada thus worked their way out of the back alley, down a side street, and through some nearby scaffolding, before stumbling across the very-familiar facade of Fanueil Hall. Seriously, it sometimes feels to me like all roads to Goodneighbor lead to this fucking hall. XD From there, all they had to do was turn and follow the red “Freedom Trail” line up the nearby steps, through the shopping plaza, left past the Old Corner Bookstore and the garbage piled in the street there, and finally up the road to Goodneighbor! They happily encountered no problems along the way, and once they were safely in the settlement, I took a little break to put the Silver Shroud station on again in one last attempt to see if Kent had any updates for Victor (since the mission objective WAS to listen to the station specifically IN Goodneighbor). Sadly, there was no message from Kent waiting for me when I tuned to the signal, but I did at least have fun relistening to the final episode in The Mechanist arc. Seriously, even if you don’t want to do the quests, the Silver Shroud station is worth listening to just because all the episodes are so delightfully goofy – you really should check them out if you’ve got the game! And hey – it just occurred to me that me listening to these episodes of the Silver Shroud again would be the perfect inspiration for Victor deciding to wear his own Silver Shroud costume while confronting his own Mechanist...

Anyway – once I’d finished listening to the episode (and had Victor chow down on some Melon Flambe for a snack when he got hungry), it was time to hit the shops! Victor visited KLE0 first, as is usually his wont, and ended up trading his most-depleted fusion core, all his flamer fuel, all his missiles, all his mini-nukes, and 16 2mm electromagnetic cartridges for 25 plasma cartridges (which he needs for his new sniper rifle) and all her .308 ammo (which he needs for the old standby of the Two-Shot Combat Rifle). We do love a nice even trade, and KLE0 being KLE0, I’m sure she liked getting all that ammo. XD Then it was over to Daisy’s place, where Victor proceeded to sell her a bunch of unwanted food (including two boxes of Fancy Lad Snack Cakes, eight mutt chops, and five Nuka-Crams) and seven syringes of Med-X in exchange for an alarm clock, duct tape (both a single roll and a whole pack), two flip lighters (one regular, one gold-plated), and some Wonderglue, this time making a two-cap profit on the trade. :p I then had him cook up a little bit of food at Daisy’s stove, because why not, I could always use some more nibbles in the old inventory –

F) And then it was back out into the Financial District to start the trip to the Mechanist’s! I thus consulted my map to figure out the best route –

And quickly realized “oh shit – if I try to do this by land, I’m going to have to backtrack all the way to Bunker Hill, then loop way up and around the top of the map to get across the water and over to the section of Boston I need to be in. Which is sad, because it’s actually not too far away from here as the crow flies – just across the bay, near the Boston Airport. But do I really want to go and swim across the heavily-irradiated water just to take a shortcut –

“Wait. Hang on. I just said it’s not too far away as the crow flies...and I have vertibird signal grenades.”

Yes, in a rare turn of events for me, I decided to take advantage of my ability to get a ride from the Brotherhood of Steel whenever I need one and summon a vertibird to take Victor over to the Boston Airport so he didn’t have to take the long way around to the Mechanist’s lair. So, after a quick potty break (after which Ada came TERRIFYINGLY close to knocking over Victor’s port-a-potty bucket – very glad I quickly saved beforehand!), I had Victor toss down a signal grenade (slightly injuring Ada when it went off, whoops) and send up a plume of smoke to summon the BOS. The game quickly informed me that a vertibird was on its way (which was good, as I was a little worried it would tell me there wasn’t enough open room nearby for one to land), and Victor and Ada spent the time waiting for its arrival killing a nearby raider down the road who decided to open fire on them for no good reason (well, ADA killed the raider; Victor missed all of his shots because he couldn’t get a good angle) –

And then I heard the buzz of rotors overhead – but didn’t see a vertibird anywhere. Puzzled, I ran around the general area for a minute, looking for it, but none appeared. I quickly realized that “oh shit, the damn thing decided to land somewhere nearby instead of in this nice clear spot that I thought for SURE was big enough” – I’d seen this happen a few time in Jon’s LPs, but didn’t think it would happen to me. Fortunately, I had a good way to track down my missing transport – when the random “board the vertibird” miscellaneous “quest” popped up to prompt me to get into the ‘bird I’d summoned, I marked it as an active quest, deactivated all other active quests, then chased down the marker! (Hey, maybe that’s why we get that quest in the first place – so we can find a vertibird that’s had to land in a different place from where we summoned it!) Fortunately, the ‘bird was not far – just down the road past the dead raider, near the Park St station where Victor found Nick back in the day (a bit worryingly close to Swann’s Pond, mind, but the behemoth didn’t seem to feel like making trouble). Victor hopped aboard, and after a bit of fiddling on his Pip-Boy, set his destination as the airport. The ‘bird obligingly took off (leaving Ada behind, since apparently she wasn’t rated for that kind of travel – she said she’d catch up later) –

And a minute or so later, safely landed at Boston Airport, having made the jaunt over the bay without any issue! Victor disembarked and ran over to the little attached settlement near the front (the old terminal/waiting area) to meet back up with his robot buddy, who’d just companion-teleported in –

And I decided that was the perfect spot to save! :) So yeah – next time, Victor and Ada hike up to the RobCo Sales & Service Center (which – it occurs to me I could have had Victor take the vertibird directly over there, as I’ve already discovered that location...ah well, what’s done is done, and given Victor isn’t much of a Brotherhood guy, probably for the best he keeps them out of his business) and start their infiltration into the Mechanist’s lair! :D Should be fun, I hope.

Writing: Since I played Fallout 4, obviously today’s writing consisted of me updating the FO4 Playthrough Progression – and while most of what happened in the fanfic world was the same as what happened in the game world, I made the usual handful of small-to-medium-sized changes to account for things like “there’s no saving and reloading in this world” and “I have to adjust this to be more realistic.” And, in this case, to give Alice a new pet! Here, let me explain –

A) First, there was obviously no “Victor kills the Gunners on the bridge with Deliverer, then dies to a super mutant suicider, forcing time to reload to before the group confronted the Gunners, allowing Victor to this time use the Two-Shot Combat rifle against them” incident like in my game – the world does not work like that! XD Instead, Victor just confronted the Gunners with the Two-Shot from the start, informing the trio that none of the raiders who have tried the “toll bridge” shit survived before taking two of them out, no trouble. The third got drunk by Alice, who I figured could use a snack at this point in time. :)

B) Second, I took advantage of Malkavian!Alice having helpful hallucinations to have Rabbit lead them to Mean Pastries when the radstorm kicked in and blinded everyone with pouring rain...and then changed the cat that was in said pastry shop from the standard gray-striped tabby that is the game’s main cat model into a brown cat with a light brown stripe up its nose and a light brown tail. Why?

Because that is what Alice’s pet cat in this universe, Kit-Kat, is supposed to look like! Yeah, ages and ages ago I wrote up a post on tumblr (don’t know if I ever shared it here) talking about pets in the “Fallout of Darkness” world, and one of the ones I came up with was a cat that gave absolutely no fucks about anything, who thus wouldn’t be bothered by Alice being a vampire and thus could be adopted by her. Because if Victor got two dogs in Dogmeat and Mutt, then Alice could definitely have a cat. :) The original write-up had Victor just coming across the cat on a random stroll one day, taking it back to the Red Rocket, and the cat immediately deciding to cuddle up to a surprised Alice – but while I was doing the summary of my playsession above, I realized that I could just have Kit-Kat show up HERE and meet Alice directly! So yeah – in this universe, the cat immediately started meowing at Alice once the trio entered the shop – and when she sat down after wringing out her clothes, promptly jumped in her lap and made himself comfortable. Alice was very startled, but also thrilled to find a cat that wasn’t put off by her vampiric nature, and nicknamed him “Kit” for the time being, and he came along riding on her sleeping bag once the gang left the shop. I’ll have to have Victor head back to Sanctuary and the Red Rocket to drop him off to live with Dogmeat and Mutt at some point in the near future!

C) Third, I changed things up so Victor only listened to the Silver Shroud station once in the fanfic universe, in Goodneighbor itself after it occurred to him that he should see if Kent had anything for him while he was in town. And in this universe, there was a broadcast from Kent – granted, it was him saying that he didn’t have anything for their favorite hero yet, but he was investigating a lead. And in the meantime, by popular request, he was replaying The Mechanist arc of the radio show. Which Victor did end up listening to as he ate his lunch before going shopping...and inspired him to maybe pull out a costume sitting his various packs when he confronted his version of the robot-releasing villain. XD I mean, I did say above I was planning to do that!

D) And fourth, I had summoning the vertibird go a little more realistically – with one happening to pass over, see the smoke, and yell down to Victor that, if he needed a lift, he was going to Boston Airport. And when Victor said that was fine, he agreed to meet them over at Park St Station rather than just flying there and making them find him. Oh, and obviously he took EVERYONE, not just Victor – though it took a little doing to get the junk cart, Alice’s sleeping bag, Victor, Ada, and Kit in there! The pilot was a little put off, and Victor ended up tipping him a few caps for his trouble.

And there you have it – all the major changes from the game to the fanfic! :) I am glad that it occurred to me to make the cat hanging out in Mean Pastries Alice’s Kit-Kat – I don’t know where I could have fit in the cat arriving on the scene otherwise! (Frankly, I’d kind of forgotten that he was even supposed to be a thing.) But now Alice has her kitty friend, and all is good. :) Hopefully the cat will be useful during the assault on the Mechanist’s lair – we shall see!

YouTube: Got in the usual Sunday Two, I am pleased to report –

A) First up, we had GrayStillPlays and “When life steps on your soul,” aka another episode of Happy Wheels! :D Best boards of this episode were:

I. The opening bottle flip, with death options including “DELIVERED” (where Gray got dropped into a mincer, and then his giblets were taken away by a KFC truck) and “EATEN” (where Gray got slid down the throat of a random head behind him, then exploded by land mines), plus an MLG Tower (which was the thing Gray went for in the end – took him a few tries, but he got it)

II. An extremely impossible pogo jump board where Gray had to get Pogo Guy over to the win despite being pelted with All The Crossbow Bolts (leading to him giving us the sage advice “Never quit in life! It doesn’t matter how many crossbow bolts fly at you!” And yes, he did eventually survive and make it to the win, where he was pelted with yet more crossbow bolts XD)

III. A “Don’t Move” board that cheated Gray out of winning by killing him right before he hit the win area, prompting Gray to break the rules and start using his incredible wiggling and swinging skills to reach the win without dying (take THAT, board!)

IV. An extremely deadly “Impossible” board that was full of pretty much everything that could kill Bike Dad and Tom Hardy in three seconds crammed in at the start (Gray managed to win it, but I’m pretty sure it was just luck)

V. And a “weird world” board which saw Gray taking Bike Dad and Tom Hardy on a trip through a weird world, including having to bike over a giant book and the feet of a giant woman, brave the knife-tentacles at the bottom of the ocean, meet a mermaid, and not get murdered by random wrecking balls (and then, when he won, he ran off the edge of the board and got mulched)

Good stuff, as always! :)

B) And second up, we had Jon of Many A True Nerd and “Fallout: London - Part 39 - Pleased As Punch!” The continuing adventures of Lady Aria as she –

I. Had a final heart-to-heart with Mountbatten! Who told Aria that his days with her were some of the best of his life, and that even though he had no idea what he was going to do with himself going forward, she’d made him excited to find out. :) Jon was rightfully quite touched by this...though he wasn’t particularly impressed by Arthur’s special companion perk, “Going Commuting.” Like, it wasn’t bad at all – it gave Aria +25% XP for all her kills and +50 Fire and Radiation resistance – it just wasn’t SPECTACULAR like the perks he got from Archie and especially Kiera. But he would take it, no problem.

II. Dismissed Mountbatten now that she had his perk (though Jon did feel bad about it, and promised him that Aria would fetch him from Convent Gardens once it was endgame mission time) so she could go pick up the final companion in the game – Mad Jack! That fighter she attempted to survive a minute in the ring with closer to the start of the LP, and who utterly wrecked her shit. XD Now that she was level 40, though, and had figured out that, if she did a bunch of stat-boosting food and drugs before stepping into the ring and losing all her stuff temporarily, she’d still be under the effects for the duration of the fight, she felt like she could take him on. So she headed back to the pub where his gym was located, did all her food and drugs, signed up for another round –

And discovered that Mad Jack wasn’t willing to start the fight. Turns out this is another one of the mod’s Known Bugs, and a little fiddling with console commands got him moving again. Aria thus kited around him for a while, throwing a few punches to keep him busy and watching as he occasionally just straight-up ran out of the ring while trying to get to her (which Jon felt was cheating a bit), and managed to survive the minute! Mad Jack then asked her back to his office (aka the gym he trained in) for a chat –

And then dropped the whole “yelling and growling madman” act so he could politely plead with her to take him on as a companion. Turns out he’s actually a pretty nice guy – he just started acting mean to keep bullies off him in his youth, and now it’s part of his boxing persona. He wasn’t very good with words (couldn’t recall the word for “bark” for example), but he was very sincere in his desire to go out adventuring, calling Aria a “survivor” and saying that he had a “sadness” on him that would get bad if he stayed in the gym. I suspect that “sadness” is going to tie into whatever companion quest he may have… Anyway, Aria was more than happy to welcome him aboard, and so the two left the gym together once Mad Jack had told his manager what was up. Looking forward to getting to know you, Mad Jack!

III. Did a brief “pub crawl” around the local area with Mad Jack in an attempt to find out what he liked and find him some people to punch – picking the Strength Coaster from the wreckage of the Red Tiger pub, and the Charisma Coaster from the neutral-ground “bad guys” pub (as in, it was full of NPCs from the various raider gangs Aria usually fights against) the Drunken Wolf. They also located the Regent’s Park Checkpoint – which proved to be a doorway to the edge of the map and a surprise elephant just wandering around the area; as Aria couldn’t reach the creature she had Jack go and make friends instead – and found a Legendary Glowing Radstag by the Easy Tea Company headquarters, which Aria let Jack try to punch to death. He did – middlingly well – like, he did damage, got it to the “regenerates its health” level, but Aria had to step in with her new super-speedy knife to finish the damn thing off. *pats Jack* You tried! Just a shame it didn’t have anything good on it (Ghoul Slayer’s Leather Left Arm, meh).

IV. Decided to finally take up the quest of the mysterious Cutethulhu dolls again and go investigate that mysterious cabin in Greenwich she learned about all the way back in the Bank of England in the hopes of finding some cultists for Mad Jack to beat up! So, after a quick stop in Thameshaven so she could upgrade Mountbatten’s trusty Webley and her new Two-Shot Musket Rifle, she and Mad Jack headed over to the Golden Elm pub before trudging through the increasingly-radioactive wastes of Greenwich looking for this cabin, fighting many ghouls along the way and dealing with what Jon dubbed “radsnow” (though I think it was just a visual effect – a very unpleasant one, mind). Eventually, chasing the quest marker took them to the Mushroom Marsh, which was a wet, mucky place full of bloatflies and giant glowing mushrooms (a lot of which looked like ones you might find in Alice: Madness Returns, honestly). The pair followed the winding wooden path in the water over to the mysterious cabin –

Where they found a mysterious glowing spell circle on the ground. With sixteen slots all around it for Cutethulhu dolls. Aria promptly placed down as many as she had in her inventory…

Only to discover she was four short. Meaning the mysteries of the mysterious cabin would remain mysterious mysteries for now. :p But at least now the place is a known location on her map, so once she finds those remaining four dolls, she can just fast travel back in and slap them down to see what happens. Probably nothing good, but we will find out!

V. Finished off the hunt for all those copies of Shakespeare’s plays for that guy at the Globe – both because she’d been planning to complete the quest this episode anyway, and because she was hoping she’d stumble across more Cutethulhus picking up the last couple of plays. The last two quest markers took her and Mad Jack into the weirdly-named “Plodd Bins” building in Islington to fetch Troilus and Cressida out of a wall safe protected by a bunch of Miller’s Men (who were ill-prepared to face Mad Jack wielding the VATS-Enhanced Sacrificial Machete, and Aria her super-fast knife she got from Merlin), then into Westminster to grab Cymbeline out of Westminster Abbey (which – did not require any killing at all, as nobody was around to see her do it). Then, after a quick stop by a hat stand to steal a couple of the hats there (as, after trying and failing a few times to figure out what he liked, Aria had gotten a hunch that Mad Jack liked stealing, and was proven right upon lifting her first hat – she gave it to him to wear as it was called the “Basher”), the pair trucked them back over to the Globe and presented the collection to owner Wilhelm Kelpe. He was thrilled and gave Aria 500 tickets –

But mentioned that, apparently, his collection was NOT quite complete yet, and that she could increase her winnings if she was so inclined. Aria was very curious as to what he meant by that, and he explained that his friend Jeanine had recently located a copy of the truly lost (as in, it disappeared in the 1600s) play The History of Cardenio, and that he was prepared to offer Aria a further 250 tickets if she got it. Aria was like “sure thing” and went to talk to Jeanine about it –

Only for Jeanine to be like “Uh, you shouldn’t go get that one, it’s too dangerous.” Further probing by Aria revealed that the play was in Greenwich, and Jeanine felt like sending Aria there was a bit too much, given what that area was like. To the point where she was willing to just give Aria the 250 tickets straight away if she went and told Wilhelm that she couldn’t find the play. Aria, however, was extremely curious now and insisted on being told the location of the play –

And lo and behold, it was in a location that she’d already discovered – the mysterious flooded foot tunnel that connected Greenwich to the Isle of Dogs! Though that did bring up the question of why Aria hadn’t spotted the play there before, given her earlier adventures...still, she went back to the tunnel for a look, and followed the quest marker down and around and through a hole in the floor –

To find a totally empty safe next to a rad barrel. No sign of a play at all. Aria promptly stormed back and confronted Jeanine – she pretty much immediately broke, apologizing for getting Aria hurt and admitting that she’d lied about the play being there. She’d claimed she’d found it because – well, she’s been best friends with Wilhelm for a while, and during all that time his big driving passion had been having a complete collection of Shakespeare. And when Aria had shown up and started actually FINDING the lost plays, she’d suddenly gotten worried that, if he did complete his collection, she’d somehow lose him. So she made up finding Cardenio to keep him striving, hoping that Aria would lose interest and wander off when she couldn’t find the play. She begged Aria not to tell Wilhelm about her deceit, and Aria promptly pumped herself up with Charisma-enhancing drugs (and Rigby’s headset from the Camelot folks) to convince Jeannine to tell Wilhelm herself. Because like hell was she letting this go. :p Jeanine agreed, thanked her, and handed over the agreed-upon 250 tickets and her ruff, which she felt like she no longer deserved. Bit of an odd end to that quest, but at least Aria got her money! And a spare ruff besides.

VI. Had her first heart-to-heart with Mad Jack, who haltingly told her that he knew that she’d a little reluctant to bring him on, given he was big and loud and stupid and his only skillset was punching, but that he’d enjoyed his time with her (punching with her being good-er than he’d expected) and that he wanted to thank her for being his friend. He quickly emphasized that Aria didn’t have to call him her mate back, but Aria was like “aww, of course we’re mates, I like having you around!” Mad Jack was thrilled and started assuring her that he punched extra-good for his mates –

And then got an opportunity to demonstrate when a wandering Camelot Squire saw Aria, clocked her as the woman who murdered all of Camelot, and ran in to attack them, ending the dialogue early and ruining the moment. Aria was QUITE displeased, as you might imagine. XD But the threat was taken care of quickly, and now she has proof that she’s on the right track with Jack to max out his affinity. Yay!

VII. And finally returned back to Gordon and his settlement to see how he was doing – to her surprise, he had NOT entered the Pindar and mutated into a tree next to his partner as expected. Instead, he was still hanging out with his druids, doing the whole protect nature thing (Jon figured he must have felt like he had a responsibility to them not to turn into a full tree). He greeted Aria warmly when she arrived back, thanking her for her help with the dryad problem and for finding his long-lost partner, and told her that they would be honored if she stayed with their little group and took on the position of a Head Druid. After all, her skills would be very welcome in running the settlement! And even if she didn’t choose to stay, he wanted to make sure she knew she was always welcome here. And thus, Aria got as her quest rewards full control of the local workbench (giving her a new settlement to hang out in if she so wanted – a nice big one too at that) –

And the Puncturing Flower Power Staff, which was in fact a big old battleaxe! A very slow and heavy one, meaning it was very much NOT Aria’s style. She instead gave it to Mad Jack, figuring it was better in his hands than hers. *nods* He does look pretty badass toting it around!

And so the episode ended with them hanging out in the Druid settlement, chilling before their next adventure! Next week, Jon hopes to steal more stuff to make Mad Jack like Aria more; hunt down the remaining four Cutethulhus; and go check out that one remaining sidequest in Westminster that he’s been told is a must-see. Looking forward to it!

Other: While my family isn’t big on Easter, I did get some candy for it this year – a big old bag of Cadbury Chocolate Mini-Eggs! :D Granted, this is because I asked them to get me some back on Friday, but still. XD They’re my favorite candy, and I’m thrilled to have a big old bag to pick at for a while. Yay~ :D

Aaand it is now 1:30 AM because I got distracted by tumblr for a while. *facepalm* All right, I really need to head to bed and get some sleep. Last day off tomorrow -- goals currently include working on my drafts on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) (gotta get those Mega-Ghostbusters AU posts done); probably playing more Sims 4 and working on the Polyheart OT3 House (unless I decide I'm willing to put in the work to check on my BG3 mods, I suppose); at least starting final edits on Chapter 3 of "A Murder Shared Is A Murder Thirded" (gotta get that up!); getting in a workout; and keeping up with my YouTube Subs (and maybe getting a chance to watch more CaFae Latte). We'll see how it all goes -- night all!