Well Guess What?

Didn't go see Dad today because when I got up to have breakfast, it was snowing! When it wasn't supposed to start snowing until tonight! >( Mom naturally didn't want to go back and forth with me in such weather, so I ended up staying home again while she went up to see Dad --

Aaand then it turned out the roads were mostly fine, except for right in front of our house. And then the snow ended up changing over to a snow/rain mix/freezing rain for most of the day, melting all the snow in front of our house. *facepalm* Sooo yeah. Just our luck, right? Ah well -- I did get to FaceTime with him a couple of times this evening, since we finally got that working on everyone's phones, so that's something. And tomorrow Mom is DETERMINED that we'll both go up there and see him. Even though it started snowing again decently hard this evening, because, again, just our luck. *sighs* Plan might be to take an Uber instead of my car depending on the condition of the roads -- we'll see how well they're plowed in the morning!

Anyway -- as I was home, and this time didn't need to clean, I did my usual at-home things, which shall be recorded below...sort of, because I'm super tired and it's almost 2 AM, so you're getting a slightly-incomplete version. Some text clean-up and pictures tomorrow! EDIT 1/19/2026: Slightly-nicer tumblr write-up and pictures inserted into F:NV write-up below!

Tumblr: Today was another “nothing” day over on Valice Multiverse, but I did get a couple of things done over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) before lunch – namely:

A) I edited the draft of my “Valicer Eats God” post (where I try to recreate my OT3 as characters in the TTRPG about Muppet people with Looney Tunes powers causing problems, Eat God) a bit – specifically:

I. I decided on what Alice’s two remaining Forms should be – to go with “Hearty Humors” (which allows her to boost herself into a frenzy if necessary, a la going into Hysteria in A:MR), I added “Fluttering Flight” (which allows her to fly short distances – naturally represented by some poofy skirt action) and “Menacing Missiles” (which allows her to shoot things at people – the way it’s described in the book, it seems to fit the way the Cards work in the original game)

II. I picked another Form for Victor to go with his “Fast Feet” – “Sticky Steps” (which allows him to climb up any surface)

II. And I came up with some basic ideas for what they should look like (I want a Mothman vibe for Victor if I can get it, while Alice needs something like her poofy skirt and something to facilitate the flinging of her missiles). Nothing definitive, but it’ good to get some ideas down!

B) And I edited the draft of my “The Miseries of Margaret Kelman” post to give it a proper introduction, talking about how, when I started, I didn’t really think much about Smiler’s birth mom (in fact, it took me a bit to establish Kelman as their birth DAD) – until I had a very fucked-up thought in the shower one day about what Kelman might have done to her shortly after Smiler was born...haven’t gotten much beyond that, but it’s a solid start.

So that was good. :) Nice to make some progress on those!

Fallout: New Vegas: Welp – while I’d intended to start Portal 2 today, with the promise of a holiday off tomorrow (it’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day, if you’ve forgotten), and Dad as stable as he can get at the hospital, I ended up succumbing to the urge to make it a proper Fallout Sunday and went ahead and played some more New Vegas! Let me tell you all about the latest adventures of Courier Victor –

A) Picked up right where I left off, with Victor hanging out in Doc Mitchell’s house, having just gotten his stuff, his new Pip-Boy, and his new Vault 21 vault suit off the guy. First order of business was to confirm all his stats, skills, and whatnot – here’s the basics of this version of Victor:

SPECIAL: Strength 3, Perception 5, Endurance 8, Charisma 4, Intelligence 8, Agility 9, Luck 4

Skills: Barter 17, Energy Weapons 19, Explosives 19, Guns 27, Lockpick 19, Medicine 25, Melee Weapons 30, Repair 25, Science 40, Sneak 42, Speech 17, Survival 25, Unarmed 25

Traits: Skilled (which gave Victor a +5 bonus to all the skills at the cost of him earning 10% less experience going forward) and Small Frame (added +1 to his Agility (which was 8 when I chose scores at the Vit-o-Matic) but made his limbs more easily crippled)

HP: 130 – not bad for a starting character

Carry Weight: 80 lbs – my little hoarder ass is like “noooooooooooooo” :( Damn you, “Agua Fria,” I know you’re responsible for it being “realistic!” *shakes fist* We’ll see if I succumb to the urge to change it or if I actually just try to manage Victor’s inventory.

B) With all that noted for posterity, I had Victor wander around Doc Mitchell’s house a bit, checking out what was laying around the place, getting a sense of the layout (in addition to the main clinic and living room, he had a small bedroom, a bathroom, and a kitchen right off the hallway to the door – not much interesting in the bedroom or bathroom, but the kitchen had a big bag of yeast on the counter near the sink. I guess Doc Mitchell likes making his own bread?), and wondering if I dared take anything. Because nothing in his house is marked as “his,” so it’s okay by the game’s rules to take, but it still felt a little rude to just steal his stuff, after he was so kind to Victor. (Similar dilemma I had regarding taking the “tiefling’s stuff” in BG3, you’ll notice – just here I don’t have a convenient ethically-dubious Lae’zel or Astarion to “steal” anything!) I eventually ended up back in the main clinic, where I had Victor wander toward the chemistry set in the corner, by Doc M’s computer, thinking maybe Victor could have a fiddle with that depending on his skills –

And spotted a broken 9mm submachine gun lying on a crate of Sunset Sarsaparilla on the other side of the desk. One that could be “activated.” Pressing (A) revealed that the gun could be repaired if you had a Repair skill of 25 or higher – and Victor very much had that, so he went ahead and repaired it! Which automatically added it into his inventory, but I was fine with that, since Victor had been the one to fix it up. Pleased, I then had Victor interact with the chemistry kit, and was informed that there were enough materials in all the flasks and stuff to make either a few stimpacks or a handful of a variety of chems, if you had Science of 25 or higher. Victor very much did, and – as someone who is not going to be using much in the way of chems this playthrough – chose to make some stimpacks. Interestingly, the four he ended up with were different from the standard kind – instead, they were “homemade” stimpacks, which heal less HP (+22 instead of +30) and temporarily drop your perception. Hmmmm – perhaps I should use those up first and save the good ones for proper injuries. That sounds like a plan. *nods* With that sorted, I wandered one more time back to the shelves with various stimpacks, meds, boxes, and other medical equipment on them, looked at what was on offer –

And thought, “Okay. Simply because it would be convenient to have some, I am going to let Victor take the Rad-X and the antivenom from this shelf – and ooh, this box has Wonderglue! I don’t know how important adhesive is to crafting in THIS game, but I have been primed to grab it whenever it is available by Fallout 4, so into his pocket it goes.” XD So yeah, those were my three “it’s morally okay to take” items from Doc M’s house. We’ll pretend for roleplaying purposes that Victor asked if it was okay to take them. :p Anyway, I bummed around Doc Mitchell’s house a bit longer, wondering if I wanted to talk to him again (and observing something interesting – Doc Mitchell, on his NPC idle patrol route, taking a can of food I’d noticed on the shelves in the little hallway outside his kitchen, then bringing it into the kitchen and eating it at the table! What a nice little touch! Granted, he “ate” it by just taking a bite straight out of the can, but we cannot expect miracles here in 2010 XD), before deciding no, I really needed to get on with the tutorial mission. I thus had Victor head out through the door Doc M had shown him before –

( And here is your Victoria-mandated cut )

Writing: Made sure to block out a bit of time this evening to work on Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” – today’s editing covered:

A) Alice arriving in the lobby of the Skyeline...to find the guard and Simon Milligan struggling against each other – the guard trying to shove Simon into the back security office, and Simon kicking him like a toddler and continuing to rant about the moon and her glow. The guard finally triumphed by kneeing Simon in the stomach and then shoving him over, locking him in the office – he demanded to know if Alice knew what had happened, and Alice just winced and said that she was pretty sure Simon was just having a bad night. The frustrated guard agreed, and Alice fled into the night as he called someone about getting the old men with white coats to pick up the former parapsychologist (revealing his name was Larry in the process – had to call him something!)

B) Alice making her way to the hospital, reminding herself that Simon’s state was better than being eaten by Pisha – Caterpillar told her not to take on yet more guilt for something she hadn’t even done, but Alice said it was less she felt guilty and more she just felt bad for Simon and hoped he didn’t end up in a place like Rutledge. After all, she was very well aware of how unkind the world could be toward those who saw it differently. Caterpillar allowed she was, but said that there wasn’t really anything she could do here, as it was better that Simon suffer this and come out either thinking what he’d seen was real or knowing that it had been but he’d better keep his mouth shut about it, than get the attention of people who enforce the Masquerade more ruthlessly. Alice agreed, but said that she didn’t think it was a bad thing she was emphasizing with him – Caterpillar agreed it was not, given how badly ignoring what was going on with the Houndsditch children nearly turned out. He just didn’t want her to drown in the misery of others now. Alice assured him she’d try not to...and then said that at least she had permission to do the one thing that might make her feel better…

C) And Alice arriving back at Pisha’s (after making sure no one ELSE was about to stumble into her web) and using the vent shortcut to get back to her morgue lair as quickly as possible – I ended with Pisha demanding to know why Simon hadn’t shown up yet, and Alice telling her about him losing his mind and how no one was likely to believe him if he started talking about flesh-eating monsters. *nods* Tomorrow, if all goes well, we should start the Pisha boss fight! Something almost no one does, since Pisha does give good items, but Alice simply cannot forgive the death of that camera crew...

Workout: Hopped back on the bike this evening, and – as usual for Sundays – returned to the adventures of our favorite Drunken Melee Courier at the same time, watching “Fallout New Vegas: You Only Live Once Remastered - Part 26 - More Than I Can Bear!” (Followed by the usual “episode was a touch too long for my workout so let’s catch up on the last five or so minutes after my dessert.”) P. D. Shoot’s adventures this week included:

A) Waiting patiently in the Fishing Lodge while Jon explained to the commenters saying that he should “not count” the damage he took from the magical White Legs grenade that got him despite P. D. having looong fled the ambush point that he was letting the damage stand because, one, he could have theoretically gotten out of the area faster and thus avoided the damage altogether, and two, if he’s letting the two points of damage he took from that Marked Man with the magical “knows exactly where you are thanks to scripted bullshit” rocket launcher, he should let this stand too. If it’s a YOLO, all damage counts! (Well, except any Instant Death By Ridiculous Car Physics in a Fallout 4 YOLO, as per the comments. THAT he is willing to negate!)

B) Heading out to the General Store and the Ranger Station to complete Joshua Graham’s shopping list – a trip that involved discovering what looked like the horn of a bighorner that had fallen through the ground twitching in the dirt as she retraced her back toward the main path; avoiding the White Legs Pain-Maker and their dog that she managed to skirt around before – only to nearly get screwed over by ANOTHER White Legs Mongrel that was running around a little further along the path, apparently trying to get back to its master via the dumbest path possible and coming close to detecting a very confused and annoyed P. D.; having to deal with a White Legs Storm-Drummer patrolling near the bridge she needed to cross to get to her destination, who first started creeping toward her when she tried to figure out where he was going so she could kill him, and then fell in the river just as she was getting into position to sneak-attack crit him with her beloved ballistic fist (Jon went “...well I’m not following him in there” and sent P. D. over the bridge instead); and sneaking up on two geckos that spawned near the General Store to sneak attack crit them – only for a THIRD gecko to nyooom on past the store for no reason. And then just straight up disappear when P. D. tried to find it. Jon stated plainly this is why he does not like Zion – too much weird shit happening all the time. XD

C) Entering the General Store and immediately getting out the Industrial Hand and the Turbo to deal with the giant mantises and the one young gecko (who I suspect was the gecko who nyoomed past outside) that were inside – which Jon was actually fine with because he was starting to realize he was kind of behind where he wanted to be level-wise. Mostly because P. D. sneaks pretty much everywhere to avoid combat, meaning she keeps missing out on XP from fighting things, meaning she’s still quite a ways away from her personal maximum level, Level 30 – and Jon does not want to start “Dead Money” without P. D. having reached Level 30 so he can get all the perks he wants her to have for that horror of a DLC. Accordingly, Jon made sure to pick the lock on the desk in the back room while gathering lunchboxes for the lockpicking XP, then continued happily avoiding most combat for the rest of the episode. XD To be fair, P. D. did still get loads of XP from completing various quests during this video, but come on, dude. You can’t complain about lacking XP and then not do more things to get XP!

D) Gathering up all the lunchboxes, along with the limited edition Zion National Park snowglobe (the only DLC snowglobe Jon thinks P. D. will acquire, as all the rest are hidden well off the beaten path in their particular DLCs), in the General Store, then stepping outside to head to the Ranger Station to get the medical kit there – only to see the sun rising and almost immediately step BACK inside the General Store to wait until it was night again because girl did NOT want to risk sneaking around during the day, when enemies could, you know, actually see her. XD

E) Making her way up the road to the Ranger Station under cover of darkness and rain, only to find a Yao Guai Cub nearby – her attempts to get behind it and kill it were stymied by a lack of path, and of course the moment she gave up and just went to go into the Station itself, the cub took that opportunity to run across the road to murder the giant ants that were over there. And every time P. D. tried to get anywhere near it to try and get that sweet sweet kill XP, she went into [CAUTION]. Because apparently bears are nature’s most perceptive animals. She eventually gave up, went inside the Station, murdered the scorpions inside with her Industrial Hand (didn’t bother burning any Turbo because she’s immune to their poison, so Jon felt it was overkill), and found and fixed up the contaminated medical supplies kit, completing her missions and getting a sweet 400 XP, yay. No bear murder required!

F) Heading up to the Sorrows camp at the top of the map to deliver all the supplies to Joshua’s associate Daniel, a journey which required not only sneaking past the original bear outside (who was still being disturbingly perceptive), but also another bear at the top of the little mountain P. D. had to climb (fortunately that one never saw her); very carefully sliding down the other side of the mountain by finding all the spots were she could slooowly drop down without taking fall damage (because steep cliffs at least LOOKED pretty damn steep); having to take a slight detour to the left when something else came close to detecting her (I never saw what, and I’m not sure Jon did either); and finally crossing the river over Caterpillar’s Mound (I approve of the name), which happily put her into firmly friendly territory. If just a little hyper-aware of all the damn bears around. XD

G) Delivering all the supplies to Daniel (after Jon had a little giggle over the fact that Daniel also offered his sympathies over the lost caravan, as if those people weren’t a bunch of randos P. D. abandoned the second it looked like she was going to be in danger), then getting the next set of missions from him – scouting out some locations for White Legs; finding a map of Grand Staircase (a location to the east that I guess he’s hoping to evacuate the Sorrows and Dead Horse tribes to); taking care of all the White Leg traps on the bridge that they hope to cross as they leave; and taking care of a cave of Yao Guai nearby the river that could cause problems – along with some old mining explosives that could collapse the latter quite handily. P. D. then glugged down some more delicious whiskey to get the Speech necessary to get Daniel to agree to trade with her (though he didn’t have much in the way of money or items – I think Jon may have just wanted the Speech Check XP), decided on taking care of the trapped bridge and the Yao Guai cave first –

And then got stuck in the camp for a bit until second potential tribal companion White Cloud offered her guide services (which P. D. of course turned down, as she is a no companions kind of girl) and Joshua showed up to quote the Bible at her and imply that he wasn’t down with Daniel’s evacuation plan to escape the White Legs trying to kill everyone – instead, he wanted to stay and kill all of them instead (Jon noted that Joshua seemed to enjoy doing murder maybe a little bit too much, which – well, the dude’s backstory is that he was one of Caesar’s most vicious Legates before his failure at the first battle of Hoover Dam got him burned to a crisp. Are you SURPRISED he likes murder?)

H) Finally fast-traveling back to the old Zion Valley Welcome Booth and making her way over to the incredibly trapped bridge (avoiding a wandering mole rat and a potential White Leg – mystery enemy we never saw – along the way), where she proceeded to disarm all the bear traps scattered about – nearly missed one, but fortunately Jon noticed before she could leave the area – or worse, walk into it. The game needed a moment to realize that she’d disarmed them all, but once it did, it rewarded her with 800 XP and a level-up to Level 26 – Jon got Repair up to 80 and Speech up to 68 (the latter because he realized that P. D. isn’t going to have all her Speech-boosting goodies when she enters “Dead Money,” so she’s going to need some natural charisma to pass some of the checks), then delightedly took the “Tunnel Runner” perk so P. D. could now sneak around in light armor faster than she could run. Yes, as you might imagine, Mr. “I Am Obsessed With Movement Speed In Fallout Games” Jon was thrilled to make his girl so speedy!

I) And finishing things up by speedily sneaking up the road and across another bridge (avoiding giant ants, a big old group of White Legs, and some unknown enemies that spawned in almost the second after she crossed said other bridge) and to the Yao Guai cave, where she crept around and laid all her charges in the indicated spots (which weren’t always clear – Jon bemoaned that the first one looked like it should be dropped right in front of you on the map, but in fact you had to go around and UNDERNEATH where you were standing), keeping a careful eye out for bears, before exiting the cave and blowing the place up. Which made Jon happy, because after dealing with the shockingly-perceptive cub earlier, he was only too keen on blowing up the local bears’ house –

But also freaked him out, because for a second he thought the explosion had managed to hurt P. D. a tiny bit. Fortunately it seems her armor managed to protect her, and she didn’t actually take another hit – unfortunately, he was so distracted by this he missed the game giving her a bunch of XP for a completed quest and thought that F:NV was lagging for some reason. And then he realized that it was getting light out again, and because P. D. was surrounded by creatures, she couldn’t wait or fast travel –

So, uh, the episode ended with her hiding inside the recently-collapsed cave, because it was not the safest spot in her immediate area. XD Next time, P. D. has to tackle the other two missions given to her by Daniel – one of which is going to be very flipping hard indeed, as it involves infiltrating two camps of White Legs. And then it’s straight into the end game, because “Honest Hearts” is not a long DLC at all. So yeah – we’ll see how she handles the White Legs next week, and how she resolves the DLC conflict after that! Looking forward to it. :)

And now I really need to get to bed if I want to be awake early enough to see Dad. *shakehead* Yeah, really CANNOT double up my own F:NV stuff with Jon's...anyway, we'll see how the visit goes tomorrow, then if I can start Portal 2 and get some more writing done and all that when I get home. Night all.