A Grumpy Snow-Covered Tuesday

Yeah, it was kind of a frustrating day, I'm sad to report:
-->I got woken up early by the sound of my Mom starting to shovel out the front path without me (which annoyed me because I'd promised to help her with that and I was worried Dad would get annoyed with me over her starting on her own)

-->When I did go out to help Mom with the rest of the path after breakfast, she was annoyed because with Dad thinking he was sicker than he was (and with him complaining that shoveling the walk and stuff was "his job") -- and it didn't help that I ended up not having much to do, as the shoveling was really a one-person job given the narrowness of the path

-->After lunch, it came out that Mom had twisted her knee a bit taking off her boot, which didn't improve her mood, and thus didn't improve mine any

-->I had a bit of a frustrating gaming session, as you will see below (productive, in its own way, but frustrating)

-->And I got word from my director right at the end of said session that the Diocese is merely opening late tomorrow (at 10 AM) rather than staying closed another day. Which is a bit of a problem, because -- while our driveway is now plowed out (thanks to some guys we hired to come clear it), our street is not fully plowed. There's only one lane surrounded by walls of snow -- and if you're wondering why that's a problem, our road is a two-way street, meaning that trying to go up it could be tricky if someone else is trying to come down it the other way! Add in that my parents basically decided that they were going to take my car tomorrow to run some of THEIR errands, and -- yeah. Looks like I'm going to have to use a vacation day to stay home one more day and hope they plow us out properly! (Though, to be fair, my coworker sounded like she was in a similar predicament when she responded to my director's text...and my director admitted that I might not have to use any time at all given a lot of people seemed to still be snowed in. Add in that it's supposed to snow AGAIN tomorrow morning, and -- well. We'll see what happens with that late opening!)

*shakehead* Just -- not the best Tuesday. Not made any better by the massive amount of snow outside -- seriously, it's a wonder anybody can get anywhere. But at least I managed to get in some fun stuff too --

Tumblr: As per usual, there was nothing going on over on Valice Multiverse today – but over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), I had a very productive morning looking through my tracked tags and adding things to my drafts! Because I definitely needed some more stuff to queue up for later. Today’s haul was quite meaty too, including –

A) A set of The Smiler-themed “stamps” by m0-th, featuring both still images (like The Ministry Of Joy logo and “You Belong To The Smiler” from the ride’s central screen) and animated gifs (like the coaster itself going around the track, and a yellow-black-and-white spiral transforming with a few flashes into the ride’s logo)

B) A picture by shenanigansz of their Smiler OC, this time featuring him in an off-the-shoulder ruffled-collar yellow blouse (with some sort of black-and-yellow tank top thing under it), a black-and-white-striped waist cincher with hearts, and a little bow tie choker

C) Another picture by shenanigansz of their Smiler OC, this time featuring him in his standard outfit (yellow shirt, black waistcoat, yellow-purple-black-striped tie, fluffy yellow fur coat collar around their upper arms), smirking at the viewer while sitting under a bright light that makes their usually-black hair look purple – the caption indicates this has to do with the Phalanx interrogating Smiler about something, so I presume this is the view of the interrogator

D) A very nice light box display depicting Alice falling down the rabbit hole into Wonderland (complete with stuff like an actual little mirror reflecting Alice as she falls past, a picture of the Queen of Hearts on the wall, a tiny teapot pouring out tea, and a tiny chess board tumbling with Alice) tucked onto a bookshelf posted by ariesmoonscorpiorising – I’m not sure why they posted it in the “#alice madness returns” tag, admittedly, as it depicts a BLOND Alice falling, and while it doesn’t EXPLICITLY depict the scene from the original animated Disney movie, it does feel INSPIRED by it at least, but it was still cool

E) Also found on ariesmoonscorpiorising’s blog, a post by jetix showing off some gorgeous butterfly-themed artwork by lonesomehoboglass on Instagram – specifically, a little corner piece for a window with all sorts of different butterfly and moth wings captured in glass and metal in a fancy design, along with a few flowers for good measure

F) Some art by gurepujuice of her Alice: Madness Returns and Psychonauts crossover, depicting Alice and Raz fighting together (Raz jumping up and over Alice as she prepares to attack with her knife, and Raz perching on Alice’s shoulder sending out psychic blasts while she fires on something else with her Pepper Grinder), Raz pushing Alice away from Cheshire while sticking his tongue out at the grinning Cat (“my friend”), and Alice and Raz sitting together, Alice leaning on Raz’s head while wearing his goggles (aww)

G) A Corpse Bride gifset by ghiblin, covering Emily realizing exactly who Barkis is (“YOU!”), Barkis protesting that he left her, Emily finishing his sentence with “...for dead,” and the audience gasping – with Alfred the skeleton finding it literally jaw-dropping XD

H) A little CB video by jmaticedits to a snippet of the song “How Deep Is Your Love” by Mitski, showing various scenes of Victor being cute with Victoria, Victor being cute with Emily, Victoria going to Pastor Galswells to get help for Victor, Victor battling Lord Barkis to keep Victoria safe, and Emily setting Victor free at the end of the movie paired with appropriate lyrics (with most of the more romantic/heartfelt moments getting the “how deep is your love?” line)

I) And a CB gifset by jasonstodds of good Victoria Everglot moments – from encountering Victor at the piano, to pleading with Pastor Galswells to share what he might know about the living marrying the dead, to telling off Lord Barkis during their wedding dinner

*nods* All good stuff! Granted, I didn’t actually figure out if I wanted to put any of it in my queue for this week yet, but I’ll have time to do that in the morning. We’ll figure it out one way or another!

Fallout: New Vegas: As you probably expected, I succumbed to the siren call of the Mojave Wasteland today, continuing the adventures of Courier Victor – which, in this session, mostly consisted of being attacked by geckos, the little fuckers. >( Let me tell you all about his gecko-themed trials and tribulations –

A) I picked up right where I left off last time – with Victor standing outside of Victortron’s shack after a solid night’s sleep, ready to hit the road and try to make it to Primm! However, as his limbs were looking just a little shabby after his encounter with the ridge geckos and Barton the fink last time, I decided that Victor should visit Doc Mitchell to make sure he was in perfect health before he bid Goodsprings adieu. He accordingly walked down into town and over to Doc M’s house, where – after a little wandering around looking for the guy – he finally encountered the good doctor in the hallway between his bedroom and kitchen, examining something on a shelf. Approaching him caused him to ask how Victor was holding up – Victor admitted, “I'm hurt. I need help, Doc,” prompting Doc M to give him a quick once-over. He declared the damage to be “nothing too serious” (not surprising, as Victor was technically at full health), and, for 50 caps, patched up Victor’s limbs so everything was at full condition. *nods* Very important that Victor not end up limping into the next quest location with a broken leg or anything! I think we can all agree that would be bad.

( The Traditional Cut To Save Reading Pages )

Workout: Got back on the bike again tonight, as I tend to do, and pedaled my way through:

A) The last twenty-five-ish minutes of “Fallout: New Vegas - Old World Blues - Grand Finale - The Power of Science!” The Adventures Of Useless Steve, Science Edition ended with the following:

I. Useless Steve leveling up to Level 12 – he brought Melee Weapons up to 46 and took the “Gunslinger” perk because he didn’t actually need any skill points or perks at this point in the series

II. Useless Steve having a final talk with Mobius about how to handle the Think Tank wanting to escape and if it was possible to resolve things peacefully – Mobius was initially dismissive of the idea of appealing to their humanity (noting that they hadn’t been very good humans back before becoming floating brains in tanks), but when Steve insisted, he admitted that helping them remember some of the things they’d forgotten during their time as brains in tanks – “Friendship. The thrill of discovery. Love. Masturbation.” – might do the trick. Before adding that Steve could also just try to subdue them through fear, like Mobius himself had. Unfortunately, that route involved Steve having to pass some very hard Speech and Science checks (because I believe that’s the route where you pretend to be Dr. Mobius’s brain piloting your body), and Steve had already done the little sidequests to help remind some of the scientists of the pleasures of being alive, so – appealing to their humanity it was!

III. Useless Steve taking a little side trip to show off the legendary bloatfly that lives in the Mysterious Cave near Dr. Mobius’s Forbidden Dome – and to reveal why Jon had basically never shown it off before (except in his run of the JSawyer Mod, apparently): because it was an ultra-tough bloatfly that spits plasma. Not even a Stealth Boy saved poor Steve from its wrath, and he fled the cave after dying twice without trying to kill it. (That honor ended up reserved for the “Tale of Two Wastelands” protagonist, who’s time in the Mojave was basically limited to conducting experiments to figure out just how fast she could walk and big game hunting.)

IV. Useless Steve arriving back at the Sink and taking a moment to upgrade his Sonic Emitter to the most powerful setting (“Robo-Scorpion,” natch) and plug his original heart and spine back into his body before confronting the Think Tank (your brain only gets re-added AFTER you confront them, apparently – until then it just lives in your inventory, probably making sarcastic comments) – Jon took the opportunity to discuss how, in his opinion, the “Reinforced Spine” perk is a definite upgrade over the “Spineless” perk (as you get +2 Strength and +2 DT instead of +1, at the cost of your torso being able to be crippled again), but the “Cardiac Arrest” perk is about the same usefulness-wise as “Heartless,” so you may want to think about what effect you want more (total poison immunity and robots 50% less able to score a critical hit against you vs a 50% resistance to poison and robots only being 25% less able to score a critical hit against you, but healing items and chems being 50% more effective). Definitely something I’ll be considering once Victor gets whisked away to Big MT in his playthrough!

V. Useless Steve confronting the Think Tank and refusing to hand over his brain to Dr. Klein to be interrogated about the Mojave, instead suggesting the man confer with his colleagues...which, despite Dr. Klein attempting to reject such a notion, led to Dr. Dala stating that she could not bear to see Steve stop breathing and that he needed to be kept alive for study – “Slow study” (oh Dala XD); Dr. Borous claiming that Steve was actually a lot like them and that they should prolong his suffering for Science, like what happened with Gabe, Finest of Lab Specimens (Jon explained this rather callous speech was because Gabe died and if they’d saved the dog, they would have gotten a kinder one, but I like to think Dr. Borous was just trying to put “let’s keep Steve alive” in terms that Dr. Klein might accept); and Dr. 8 simply protesting that Steve was his friend and he didn’t want him to get hurt (because apparently 8 is the nicest one in the group – Dr. Klein suggested using chems to free himself of those icky feelings XD). Dr. 0 also spoke up, but only to ask Klein if he’d really considered all the combat probabilities, pointing out they hadn’t done drills in ages – aka, his interest in avoiding a fight was purely pragmatic, not because he held any actual affection for Steve (mostly because the skill check to get him on side is an EXTREMELY high Intelligence check, and while Steve IS good at boosting his stats, he can only do so much). Dr. Klein was very pissed off by all this and threatened to overrule them all, noting that Big MT was not a democracy –

Only for Steve to point out that no, it was a research facility, and Klein’s colleagues were disputing his findings. Klein was even more pissed off to have Steve (STEVE) use logic against him, protesting that there was a whole world beyond the crater and that they could have gone and tested it and made it squirm –

But Steve said, “You can still do that here, quietly, for me,” and Klein was like “...that’s odd. I feel like I would like that.” He thus backed down, declaring Steve the Think Tank’s partner and saying they were at his disposal so long as he did not destroy them. Cue Steve winning the day without a single skill check needed. Hooray!

VI. Useless Steve getting the official ending slides for all of his various adventures in Big MT, and scoring pretty much all happy ones, as Jon had hoped – stand-out endings included the Book Chute nearly choking on a paper clip while processing seditious material, and insisting it had been a Chinese paper clip trying to assassinate him; the Auto-Doc finding a way to finally turn off the Y-17 Trauma Harnesses to release the skeletons that had been held captive in them all these years; the AI behind the X-13 facility sending out robobrains to find the Aural Stealth Suit post-upgrades, finding REPCONN, and setting up a new lab there testing out things on the unfortunate Fiends who kept raiding the place; Light Switch 01 and Light Switch 02 continuing to be catty with one another – until Steve finally brought a flashlight into the Sink, causing the pair to unite in their hatred of the “showboat;” Blind Diode Jefferson saving Big MT from a sonic attack – and having an affair with both Light Switches until he forgot their names once too often and got left in the dark; and Roxie indeed finding Rex in the Mojave and having puppies with him – which Jon had to tell us about because, uh, all of the ending slides are narrated by the character featured in them...and Roxie is a dog. Meaning her “narration” consisted of barks. XD It’s not so bad when you remember to turn the subtitles on, but guess what Jon forgot to do! XD

VII. And Useless Steve putting his brain back in his head (getting the “Big Brained” perk, which is pretty decent (head can’t be crippled, only 10% addiction resistance but 10% more DT)) and getting a final cheer from all the electronic denizens of the Sink before using the Transportalponder to return to the Mojave Drive-In...where he faced off against a Jackal and got half his health taken off before he blew the guy’s head off with Elijah’s Advanced LAER. Because once a Useless Steve, always a Useless Steve. XD

Fun times – I’m very glad that I went ahead and gave The Worst Courier and its follow-up series here a try! Shame I don’t think Steve ever did come back after these two series...well, unless he was part of a Fallout 3 or Fallout 4 playthrough, since Jon DID hint at the end that he wouldn’t mind taking Steve to the East Coast of post-War America. But I feel like I would have seen the latter, so… *shrug* Just glad we got what we did!

B) And the first ten minutes of “Creating CaFae Latte: Behind the Scenes” by C. M. Alongi! Because I’ve been meaning to watch it, but as it’s a nearly-hour-long video, I never really had a proper chance to before. But I’m watching it now, and so far it’s been really interesting, with C. M. revealing such tidbits like:

I. She balances her laptop on a couple of chairs on a table when she films so she can look at her script without looking down toward the floor – helps keep the illusion of her characters talking to other people

II. The building where she rents her studio also allows her to rent a filing cabinet for her to keep costumes and props in, which she really appreciates as it means she doesn’t have to keep lugging them to and from her apartment

III. She used to wear make-up in the earliest CaFae Latte videos, but gave it up around the time she introduced Nicole, for multiple reasons (not all the characters wear make-up, the foundation kept coming off on the CaFae Latte hat, she hates how make-up feels on her face, and she didn’t feel like she should have to wear make-up for her videos anyway)

IV. She only ever wears contacts while filming CaFae Latte as she prefers her glasses, but contacts allow her to put different glasses and other related headwear on her characters as needed

V. And while she used to film each individual script as one unit, she quickly found that she was losing lots of time to constantly having to change costumes (plus all those changes tended to defloof her hair, which she didn’t like), so these days she films all the lines for one particular character in one batch, all the lines for another in another, and so on, then has Video Editor Nic chop them up and turn them into actual skits

Fun stuff! I look forward to seeing more of the behind-the-scenes goodness during tomorrow’s workout. :)

Writing: Edited another page of Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” tonight after finishing my workout video write-ups above – this one featuring:

A) Hatter telling Alice that it was good her current obstacle – getting across an array of lasers – didn’t require her to use Obfuscate, as she’d nearly used up all the blood Victor had gifted her earlier; Alice sadly noted that it had been well-used, at least

B) Alice asking Hatter if he had any tips on how to disable the lasers – and Hatter, after suggesting disrupting the lens array or changing the wavelength of the light, pointing out the black control panel on the wall and saying she could “tap” it; cue Alice complaining that “that book in the Skool library needed that solid kick and you all know it!” before checking the panel and confirming that, yes, it probably would be faster to smash it than to try to either find or figure out the code she needed to turn off the lasers properly

C) Alice smashing the panel (with her jacket sleeve pulled over her fist to muffle the noise) and thinking she’d managed to turn off all the lasers but two – only for the entire array to start winking on and off at random; Alice was like “well that’s not so good,” but decided it was still better than having to deal with all of them being on all the time

D) Alice studying the timings, then managing to make it past all the lasers by taking her time and pausing to make sure the ones that were off were really off – she nearly got caught by the seventh one in the line when it turned on unexpectedly in front of her, but luckily she managed to stop in time and scrambled past once it turned off again; she rewarded herself for a good job by doing an unnecessary combat roll in the junction past them, because who doesn’t enjoy those :p

E) And Alice checking the junction for where she should go next, and spotting a keycard door down one end that she suspected was the workshop whose key she had recently picked up – though she was briefly thrown by the lack of a camera above it; she quickly decided, though, that they’d probably thought it wasn’t worth the bother given that only authorized personnel would be in this section...then thought “oh, this theft of mine is going to cost a lot of people their jobs, isn’t it?” XD

And I left it with Cheshire telling her not to worry about the fates of the security guards, but her own, and Alice going “yes, yes, I know, mustn’t keep LaCroix waiting” and trying her keycard in the door’s lock! Next time, Alice gets into the workshop area and finally tracks down where the sarcophagus should be! ...emphasis on should, there...

Whew! At least I accomplished a good amount of stuff online...though yeah, once again my videos ended up neglected. I think tomorrow is going to HAVE to be a video catch-up day just so I don't have a bunch of them hanging over my head! With perhaps a short round of Little Corners if I can get the update to download and install. *nods* As it stands, though, I really have to get to bed, as I'm going to be trying to get up a little earlier tomorrow just to see what's going on outside and to let my boss know about the whole "have to stay home one more day" thing. Night all!