Less PMSy Sunday

Yeah, I had slightly better focus today, and didn't feel as thirsty all the time like I did yesterday -- though I still had moments of extreme annoyance over little things. *sigh* So we cannot count my horrible hormones out entirely yet. We can merely be relieved they didn't cause me too many problems today. :p In fact, I actually ended up having a pretty productive, nice Sunday:

Tumblr: Well, it was another quiet day over on Valice Multiverse (who is surprised), but I ended up having a very nice, productive day over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), I’m happy to say –

A) First, despite a late start (took me a bit to get going this morning), I was able to finish off my Easter-themed set of Valicer Not-Incorrect Quotes! Which included –

I. Smiler jokingly asking Alice via text if the White Rabbit knows the Easter Bunny, and Alice reporting back that said Bunny is apparently Rabbit’s “father's cousin's sister's nephew's roommate's fifth sibling” – cue Smiler asking Alice to remind them if she’s seen Spaceballs or not because they genuinely can’t tell if she’s fucking with them XD

II. Victor knocking on Smiler’s door, asking if they’re ready to go on an unspecified trip, and Smiler yelling back that they can’t find their special Easter shirt – Alice promptly teases them that their regular wardrobe makes them look like an Easter egg anyway, and Smiler goes “ha ha ha, get in here and help me look”

III. Smiler very carefully mixing dyes in their kitchen for an Easter egg decorating date they’re having with Alice and Victor, with Alice watching and telling Smiler that they don’t have to go that hard on getting the dyes just perfect, she and Victor won’t be able to tell if something is a shade off what Smiler wanted – and then Victor showing up with a pysanka egg (you know, the ones with the fancy designs drawn on them in wax) decoration kit and cheerfully showing off past attempts on his phone, causing Alice to be like “actually, Smiler, be as precise as you want mixing those colors” XD

IV. Victor texting Smiler about if they’re looking forward to Easter or not, and Smiler saying yes, they’re hoping for good weather so maybe they can have a picnic, and perhaps do their family’s version of the Easter Egg hunt – clarifying when Alice asks what’s special about the Alton egg hunt that their parents gave them eggs to hide from them the night before Easter, so everybody could have fun hunting eggs down. Victor and Alice were more than game for that, with Alice suggesting color-coded eggs for each of them – then saying that she and Smiler could finally figure out which one of them loved Victor more by seeing who found more of his eggs. XD Cue Smiler laughing and Victor insisting he will make sure they both find an equal amount XD

V. Smiler asking Victor if he liked Easter growing up (as they know he likes spring holidays thanks to May Day), and Victor admitting it wasn’t a favorite just because the first half of the day had to be spent at church listening to Pastor Galswells deliver a long sermon about how it was all about Jesus’s sacrifice and how the day should be solemn and sad. Smiler said that did sound rough, then admitted they didn’t always like Easter too as a kid – cue a surprised Victor being like “Really? But it’s so colorful and you,” and Smiler pointing to their teeth and explaining that they got bullied sometimes for having a smile like theirs, being called “bunny boy” and having carrots thrown at them (they have buck teeth, remember). And that having an Easter Bunny go “oh, you must be related to me” upon seeing their chompers didn’t help. Victor sympathized with the bullying, and Smiler said that at least their parents had shut it down fast, and that actually, the “bunny boy” comments had helped them figure out the “nonbinary” thing because they eventually realized they objected to the “boy” part more than the “bunny” part. And that anything was better than being teased for their name –

Causing Victor to realize that neither he nor Alice know Smiler’s legal first name. Smiler, grinning: “Yeah, that’s deliberate.” XD I put in the tags that I do now have an idea for a new post detailing when various Victors and Alices learn that Smiler’s legal name is “Marmaduke” in the tags!

VI. And Smiler opening a bag of Cadbury Mini-Eggs, only for Victor to appear on the scene and immediately start eyeing them up – cue Smiler being like “oh no, these are mine” and resisting Victor’s pout…leading to Alice coming into the room a bit later to find the pair wrestling on the floor, and the bag shoved on a nearby side table to prevent it spilling. She promptly steals it and runs off, pursued by Victor and Smiler (“You don’t even like candy!”) XD

Yeah, as you might be able to tell, I had a lot of fun writing these. :) Reminds me of why I did them so often when I first came up with the trio! I should do a proper summer-themed one at some point… Or add onto the food one now that I know that there’s a UK snack called Shrimps & Bananas (midway down the page) that surely could support a new scene...

B) And, while catching up on my dash, I reblogged a post by lysimachias about shipping into my drafts – namely, how it doesn’t matter if a ship is supported by canon, or even reasonable by any standard metric – it matters if “the thought of these characters standing next to each other make you want to chew concrete and then break apart a nearby automobile with your bare hands.” Which, yeah, I’d argue is a Valice/Valicer mood. :p So yeah, I’ll plop that in a future queue! (Or maybe even this week’s, we’ll see how I feel.)

Writing: Edited another page of Chapter 5 of “The Van Dort Vacancy” this afternoon – a process which involved –

A) First, taking a bit of time to watch some “research” videos – specifically, the first seven minutes of “Opera, Chauncey and Makeout Spots - The OX Crew play BITD” by CaitlinRC (the compilation of “best-of” moments from the first episode of Season 2, “The Marriage of Lady Fyengeh” – featuring Kasimir suffering after having brunch with Barnaby, Barnaby trying to make “punked” a thing, and Edvard shouting “IT’S ALIVE!” in his mind every time he pulls a big lever as part of an opera’s lighting crew), and the entirety of “Corpse Bride Practicing Vow” by Qing 345 (which as you might expect is the bit of the movie featuring Victor practicing his vows in the forest and accidentally waking up Emily). Again, trying to keep my characterizations and speech patterns accurate!

B) And second, doing the actual editing, which covered:

I. Kasimir commenting that, if the guards on the vault are former City Watch, then they’re probably open to being bribed, which makes their lives easier – Alice asked if that meant they’d be offering them a cut of what they stole, and Kasimir said no, it meant they’d be offering them a “special little something” that would knock them out cold as he pulled out a tiny vial. Smiler, the chemist of the group, promptly recognized the slumber essence and agreed that would do the trick if they could get it into their mouths – well, unless Kasimir had a blowdart pipe on him? Kasimir said he didn’t, explaining that was more their friend Edvard’s thing, as he was the one into “innoventions.” And that they’d had to stop him trying to send one of his Wonderful Mechanical Men to get a job at the Van Dort mansion. XD At least his sighing over Edvard’s antics was slightly fond!

II. Kasimir then saying that he had a bottle of whiskey, and he could tip the slumber essence in and offer it to the guards to pass around...before looking at Barnaby and noting that maybe someone in the group might have some more high-quality spirits that would be more tempting to folks used to the usual pub swill? Barnaby obligingly revealed that he had a bottle of very nice gin that he’d bought recently, and that he’d planned on sharing with Squiffy at the club, but if needs must, he could spare a drop. Alice pointed out that, given that they planned to drug the drinks, the guards wouldn’t drink more than a glass each, if that, so he should still have plenty to share with his friend –

And originally I had a bit here featuring Barnaby complaining about how it would taste different if poor people had drunk any of it, but I decided that was WAY too mean-spirited for him – plus out of character, as he’s only too happy in most cases to offer drinks to people. So instead I had Victor say that, if Squiffy wasn’t impressed by the opened bottle of gin, he could always share what he and Kasimir had stolen from the wine cellar – cue Kasimir saying “I don’t know what you’re talking about” while clinking a bit again. XD Much funnier, and more in-keeping with the spirit of Oxventure Presents: Blades In The Dark!

III. Victor ignoring the clinking and telling Kasimir that the plan he’d come up with was a good one, as he’d heard from the other servants that the guards were very fond of a drink – Barnaby was promptly like, “Who doesn’t?” only for Alice to be like “Me – never liked the taste and my head’s weird enough without outside help.”

Cue Barnaby being absolutely shocked and demanding to know how Alice gets through each day – and when she said, “Well, I’d say like anyone else who doesn’t drink, but I’m mad, so – I really don’t,” going on about how “only a madwoman wouldn’t drink” and declaring he’d be useless without his regular tipples, isn’t that right Kasimir? Kasimir responded blandly that he had no idea, since he’d never seen Barnaby sober – the closest he’d ever come was when they caught him drinking rubbing alcohol out of Zillah’s kit for bruises. A stunned Victor was like “I thought that was a rumor” (referencing a line from the cut bit where he thought “I’ve heard that you would drink rubbing alcohol if you thought it would get you plastered” in annoyance over Barnaby being a snob) –

And Barnaby was promptly like “I was out of port! And they shouldn’t call it ‘alcohol’ if you’re not allowed to drink it. It was all fine in the end!” XD Yeah, this is all WAY better than the bit I cut. This is why you revise, people!

IV. And Victor deciding he doesn’t want to know and commenting that, okay, they have to go by the kitchen anyway to get Alice and Smiler’s things, so maybe he can pop his head into the kitchen to ask for some glasses – only for Barnaby to produce two cut crystal tumblers from his coat as well, stating he always comes prepared as you can’t trust the middle classes to have proper glassware. Cue a moment of silence, broken by Alice saying “I’m going to get my bag” and heading off to the changing room, and Victor just facepalming and muttering “thought that was an exaggeration too” (“that” being the rumor referenced back in Chapter 2 about Barnaby’s coats being walking drinks cabinets) before telling everyone where they’d be going once Alice got back. XD

Some really good stuff today, as you can see! I was quite pleased with it. Especially the new stuff, since it was so much more amusing than the old stuff. XD Tomorrow, we’ll have the gang actually encounter the guards and try to drug them – which will go not quite according to plan, thanks to my earlier dice rolls...

Portal 2: Today’s visit to Aperture Science saw me complete two more test chambers for GLaDOS as she got gradually more and more explicit about murdering Chell once she was done with the current testing track – one big, kind of complicated one, and one much more simple (but still a little bit tricky) one –

Chamber 19: This was the big complicated one – literally, the room past the entrance door was absolutely HUGE. Here, this should give you a sense of how big this sucker was:



Massive, right? And that’s only as much as I could fit into one screenshot. Anyway, the full complement of stuff that was in this room that I could see from the starting ledge included:

A) A laser spinner on the ledge next to me

B) A Laser Redirection Cube on a little pillar platform on the right, far enough away that there was no jumping to it

C) A laser coming out of the far wall waaaay to the right

D) A nook with another laser spinner directly next to the laser emitter on the far wall

E) A low-set nook with a trio of faith plates in it on the far wall directly across from the starting ledge

F) A second Laser Redirection Cube on the floor, resting on the only portal-able patch

G) The exit door in another nook on the far wall to the left – guarded by a bunch of turrets, though fortunately they were all facing to the left and thus weren’t interested in killing Chell right away

H) The receiver for the laser beam on the far wall to the left of the exit

I) And not a hell of a lot of portal-able surfaces – one big patch on the floor (as mentioned), a few patches on the wall, and the ceiling of the starting area

Obviously, the goal was to get the laser through both spinners and then into the receiver using the cubes – but how did one go about that? Well, like so:

( Yeah, let’s put in a cut, just to be nice )

...I did also watch the latest episode of Jon's F:NV YOLO Remastered series, but summing that up is taking longer than expected, so I'll edit this post with that write-up tomorrow. As it stands, I really do need to get to bed -- it may be a short week, but I still have four days of work to get through! Night all! EDIT 3/30/2026: Finally completed the write-up of the F:NV YOLO Remastered episode -- you can see it below!

YouTube: Well, today, irony abounded, as it turned out that the Sunday I skip my workout (since I did all that walking yesterday) is the Sunday where Jon finally uploads an episode of the F:NV YOLO Remastered series early enough for me to watch it with my workout again. *shakehead* Ah well – at least it was there for me to enjoy tonight! And in a nice compact 30 minute size too. (Not that that helped me get this done any faster in the end...) :p Tonight’s episode of the Drunken Melee Adventures of P. D. Shoot was entitled “Fallout New Vegas: You Only Live Once Remastered - Part 36 - A Leap of Faith,” and featured –

A) P. D. having to make a return trip to Salida Del Sol to grab something important from the area where she’d left God to deal with the firework switches – the vending machine code to get the “Bear Trap Fist – Heavy Duty Springs” mod! Which she very much wanted because the Bear Trap Fist was currently her primary weapon, and that mod added a flat +3 to the thing’s base damage. And while that didn’t sound like a lot, as Jon pointed out, she was often working with at least one damage multiplier during fights (sneak attack critical, various modifiers from doing special VATS attacks, etc), so even a small increase in damage could lead to much bigger numbers in actual combat. Even better, there was a vending machine in a little side shop nearby (past a couple of traps, which fortunately she did manage to spot and disarm in time) –

Unfortunately, she couldn’t buy her mod from that one, as it proved to cost more chips than she had on her (250 chips to her 128). :( Fortunately, she was easily able to loot some more from the cash register right next to her (47 chips, to be precise), and scouring around the main Villa area provided enough spare cigs and clothing for her to sell back to one of the local vending machines, bring her chip total into the 260s and allowing her to buy and install the mod. Hooray!

B) P. D. recruiting Christine to take her into Puesta Del Sol and bring her to the switching station to turn on – er, I’m not actually sure, it was never specified. To turn on something important to the Gala Opening, I know that much! Jon was not eager to do this, both because the starting area had four Ghost People – two in the first plaza, two in the second right next to it – that could easily spot him and cause an all-out fight if he (or Christine) wasn’t careful, and because the whole thing ended with a dungeon that featured deadly speakers, deadly cloud, and the worst thing of all – JUMPING PUZZLES. In a game where the jumping was very much imprecise. But it had to be done, so he had P. D. collect Christine and head to Puesta Del Sol North. Once inside the new map quadrant, P. D. immediately went and hid behind a tree, peeping out at the plaza beyond to see where the Ghost People were. After a bit of waiting and watching the red ticks on the compass, one stumbled into view, and she decided to try and take him out with a sneak attack –

Only for the OTHER Ghost Person to be facing in her direction and immediately spot her. Whoops. XD P. D. promptly slapped on the Med-X and the Implant GRX, then ran forward and battered one guy to death manually while he was distracted trying to throw spears at Christine. The other enemy smartly tried to target actual threat P. D., but she was on him in VATS before he could do more than raise his throwing spear, and a few crosses too him down. This all caught the attention of the Seeker in the next plaza over, but fortunately he was a bit slow, and hadn’t even tried to throw his gas grenade yet, so P. D. was able to use her super speed to get up to him and kill him before he ever got the chance. She then retreated back to the entrance plaza, wondering where the hell the fourth guy was –

And getting her answer when she suddenly went into caution for no reason. A quick peek at the street between the two plazas revealed the fourth guy had seen the corpses of his friends and was staggering this way. P. D. was thus prepared to wait out of sight until he passed and then kill him –

But, well, Christine had other plans. Plans that involved running straight up to the other guy and trying to punch him. XD Fortunately, this did mean that she served as an excellent distraction while P. D. swooped in and murdered the guy with bear trap fist punches, but damn. Girl, please, we need you to be smarter than Dog!

C) P. D. then leading Christine through the plaza, into a side room in one of the buildings, up two flights of stairs to the rooftops (disarming a tripwire and a bear trap along the way), onto the roofs with the help of a little wooden bridge (disarming another bear trap that was tucked up right under where the terracotta roof sections meant the recessed area in the middle – Jon said that he’ll never forget where that one is because it’s so evil), onto a lower roof above some cloud, then along the terracotta tile pathway into an office where she could park her butt and keep an eye out for the next enemy to stumble along. She ended up waiting there for quite a while as she watched the Ghost Person up there on the roofs with her and Christine stumble back and forth, wanting him to be in the absolute perfect position – and after what must have been quite a bit of waiting (as Jon sped up the section), she finally decided circumstances were good (AKA, the murder of this Ghost Person would not be seen by his buddy down below), ran up behind him, and killed him. She then retreated a bit, waited the other Ghost Person below to chill out, then sprinted for the next office safe zone. This one had a radio in it, but fortunately Christine’s special companion perk allowed her to counter it with a special frequency long enough for P. D. to turn it off. Even better, it had a terminal in it that allowed P. D. to activate and deactivate a security hologram – she promptly turned that on for a bit and listened to the chaos downstairs (including one explosion) as the hologram attacked and killed all the Ghost People (and Christine attempted to join in, or at least watch, from the rooftops). *nods* When you’re P. D. “Never Allowed To Heal” Shoot, you must find many ways to work smarter, not harder!

Once it was clear the downstairs was no longer full of creepy monster-people in hazmat suits, P. D. switched the hologram back off (couldn’t take the risk it wouldn’t like the look of her and Christine, after all), then traversed the rooftops over to where the door leading inside what I presume to be some sort of power plant (aka the dungeon he was not looking forward to) was. She had to use another dose of Implant GRX to get through the cloud lingering at the bottom of the stairs she had to drop onto to get to the door, admittedly, but – well, the last thing she needs is to take any more damage! Once inside, she used her high Repair skill to jury-rig the electrical box right at the beginning of the power station room to get the lights on, then began running from safe space to safe space to keep the local speakers from blowing up her head, Christine trailing behind. This got her through the initial hallway, down the stairs, and into the next room –

D) Which was the room of Jon’s nightmares, as THIS was the room with The Jumping Puzzle. Or, rather, the Leap Of Faith. You see, this room was a big room with a bunch of generators in it – covered in a haze of low-lying Cloud. Cloud that not even P. D. could get through with her precious GRX without being poisoned. The only way to get through it safely was to leap off the railing of the catwalk on one side onto a (fortunately-wide) pipe in the middle of the room (which looked like it was in the Cloud, but really wasn’t, it was just visual effects), then hop from the end of that onto a staircase on the other side. And then, to be absolutely SURE she was safe, she had run like hell up and around the nearby catwalk, past another deadly speaker, and into a little office area overlooking the whole thing to hack the terminal there and turn off the local speakers. WHILE making sure to disarm the tripwire trap in front of the terminal so it didn’t release a bunch of grenades on her head. *grimace* Not a fun time for poor old P. D.! But she still had one dose of her precious Implant GRX, so Jon felt like she’d be okay. ...Unless he fluffed the jump, which would make everything go wrong very fast. *wince* He thus got her up onto the railing of the catwalk, then ran and took the leap –

And made it! :D He promptly had P. D. use her final GRX dose, leapt onto the staircase, and started sprinting, getting out of the little bit of Cloud there before it could hurt her and around the speaker before it could blow her head up. She had a little bit of trouble disarming the trap in the tiny office (Jon couldn’t get the targeting reticule in the right place), but the game made up for that by letting her get the password for the terminal on the first try (UTOPIA, ironically). She thus deactivated the speakers, then headed back the way she’d come and through a door over by the staircase that she hadn’t been able to access before because of the speaker. A door that led her through a room and to something very very important –

The big old terminal for the ventilation system! One hack of that, and much of the Cloud, both inside and out, was vented away. Yay! :D So if P. D. ever has to wander through this godforsaken area again, at least she won’t have to worry so much about choking to death. *nods*

E) P. D. then taking Christine into the next room over on their journey – one full of catwalks, with a turret standing guard on a little balcony in the middle. Fortunately, that turret had the same level of Perception that Jon normally has when it comes to traps, and thus did not actually pose much of a threat to the ladies. XD P. D. thus zipped across the first set of catwalks to a door that, after a little fiddling, she was able to unlock – that brought them to an internal office-type area where she was able to hack a terminal to turn off the speakers in this room as well. She then exited back onto the catwalks for a moment, going right behind the turret, before entering the next mini-office, grabbing Ennis’s key off a nearby desk (no clue who that is, but I’ll trust that it’s important), then going around the corner to crack the Remote Maintenance Terminal. Why did she have to hack that?

Well, because if she did, she could transfer control of the facility to that terminal. Meaning that Christine would be able to stay up here to pull off whatever she needed to pull off for the Gala Opening, rather than be escorted down to the basement. Which meant that P. D. both got to avoid escorting her into the basement (which I’m sure would have been a horror show) and managed to make Christine happier with her, meaning she’d be much more likely to be friendlier later on when it came time to wrap up her personal stuff. And P. D. was all about making Christine (who, if you didn’t know, is in fact a trained Brotherhood assassin, essentially) happy so she’d be on her side! Girl needs friends in this DLC, that’s for sure… Anyway, she got the terminal hacked, let Christine take her place at it, then hopped in the nearby elevator and rode it up to the surface, emerging in a building just around the corner from the first plaza. She thus went to leave and escape this horrible place for a tiny bit –

Only for Jon to suddenly go, “Flip – why didn’t I wait in the facility? I could have gotten my Implant GRX back!” Whoops! Though, admittedly, he immediately wondered if he would have been allowed to wait because of the turret still being active...guess we’ll never know!

F) P. D. thus spending the final few minutes of the episode trying to find a good place to wait so her daily doses of subdermal Turbo would be refreshed before she tried to get Dean Domino into position! Her first thought was to try and get into the “service route” area near the entrance – but the door in was locked, and not able to be picked. Fortunately, given her antics with the hologram earlier, most of the Ghost People in the general area were dead – and because she’d turned the ventilation systems back on, most of the Cloud was gone too. Meaning she was free to wander around and try to find a way into the “service route!” She’d thought she might have found a shortcut in through a pickable gate nearby the main door – but, unfortunately, after she cracked it, she just found another door that wasn’t opening unless she had the right key. She thus picked her way through the previously-deadly plazas until she found the right building –

Only for Jon to get briefly spooked when she came across a tripwire trap that he couldn’t disarm. Fortunately, when she accidentally triggered it, it proved to have been already set off or something, and thus was harmless. Jon didn’t like that, though, nor the fake “Cloud” visual effect that was lingering at the bottom of the nearby stairs, so he had P. D. get down there, grab the Foreman’s Key, and then get out of there. From there, it was back to the “service route” doors, to finally crack them open and head into that area –

Only to find she couldn’t wait in there. Apparently it didn’t count as one of the vanishingly rare “safe spaces” in the DLC. Annoyed, Jon thus sent her back over to the Medical Center, his designated “wait zone” for her –

Only to find that there was a new Harvester hanging out near the entrance. Which really puzzled him because, while he knew the enemies around here could respawn, he hadn’t expected it to be so soon. Worrying... Fortunately, the guy was easily killed, and P. D. was finally able to get into the Medical Clinic so she could wait for her GRX to refresh –

Only for Jon to realize that it was just past 11 PM in-game. Meaning all P. D. would have really had to do was stand around for a few minutes anywhere that didn’t have any enemies around, and she would have been fine. XD He had her wait an hour anyway so he could just get the GRX back, but sheesh. What a way to end the episode!

And so the episode ended with P. D. returning to the Fountain to eventually collect her one remaining heist mate, Dean Domino! Next week, she gets him into position (which Jon admitted shouldn’t be too bad, as he’s in the same general area as Christine, meaning it won’t be nearly as dangerous), then perhaps attempts the terrifying run to the controls to start the Gala opening (down a narrow section of map absolutely packed FULL of nightmarish bullshit). Looking forward to it! Man, I really hope she manages to complete this DLC, I am INVESTED now.