Slightly Less Rushed Sunday
Jun. 22nd, 2025 11:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickI mean, I'm still up later than I should be, but the entire write-up of my day is actually finished, so that's better than I've been doing on Sunday lately! So let me paste that in there so I can hit the sack sooner rather than later --
Tumblr: Had a pretty productive day over on the tumblrs, I am happy to report –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Once again, I accomplished two things of note over here:
A) First, I indulged in a little reblog spree to put some posts I’d recently seen and enjoyed on my dash, including –
I. A post from “nondelphic” about why they write – “because it’s the only way to silence the characters pacing around my brain like victorian ghosts with unresolved issues that prevent them from moving on” (which, yes, is a mood)
II. A trio of posts from “honestlyvan” in a chain, talking about how fandom needs to start “projecting on tops” more, and explaining in a couple of reblogs that what they mean by that is writing fewer tops/doms that are fully comfortable and confident in their sexuality and desires, and writing more that are struggling with them and have complexes about being horrible freaks who want to hurt people (I went on in the tags about how I haven’t touched on this MUCH in my writing yet, but this IS something I think about a lot with Alice, who – thanks to my particular intersection of kinks and shipping dynamics – should be absolutely baffled and horrified by her desires to see Victor hypnotized and compelled into doing things, never mind that he’s into it. Might be something to bring up in future fanfics, perhaps)
III. A post by “boringkate” featuring a picture of a kinky collar...with a little tie attached to the ring at the front, with a joke about “Finally some appropriate business formal atire [sic] for high powered executives like you and me” (I knew the minute I saw that damn thing that Smiler and Alice would buy it for Victor, and I enjoyed the tonal whiplash of reblogging it right after the ‘give doms complexes’ post XD)
IV. A reblog chain by a bunch of people talking about how The Blues Brothers movie should be more popular on tumblr, given it involves (to quote the first person in the chain, “boccs”): “Attention and respect to pioneering black musicians, open hostility to nazis, open defiance to police, Carrie Fisher with a rocket launcher and flamethrower, a soundtrack that goes hard as hell, John Belushi so blasted on cocaine that he continues to do somersaults despite having a broken ankle,” with the others in the chain adding fun gifs and pointing out things like how 60 cop cars are destroyed in the film (having seen and enjoyed this movie thanks to my parents renting the extended edition, I had to reblog with some tags encouraging people to go see it, especially if they like the “I hate Illinois Nazis” gif set)
V. And a post by “alloftimeandspaceisours” with an Instagram video of “rubin_allergy” warning about the heat dome coming over the US over the next few days, and some tips about how to keep yourself safe and how to recognize signs of heat stroke and heat exhaustion (an important PSA – we’re getting into the worst of it on the East Coast over the next few days, so stay safe everybody!)
B) And second, in my drafts, I started a new collection of pet-related Valicer In The Dark Not-Incorrect Quotes! Because I’ve been meaning to do that ever since I wrote up the post about their various pets. So far I have:
I. Alice getting yarn at the market and telling Victor and Smiler she intends to take up knitting...only for Victor to correctly guess all those balls are pet toys for Guide, her cat (Alice insisted she WILL learn how to knit once Guide is done with them)
II. Victor playing fetch with Dogmeat in the “backyard” – only for Benny the lap dragon to swoop in and steal the stick
III. And Alice (genuinely learning how to knit) hearing a yarn ball getting batted about and looking up expecting to see Guide – only to find Us playing with the balls (they said it looked fun when Guide did it, which Alice can’t argue with).
Just need to figure out a couple more scenes (including one with Smiler and Sooty, their raven friend), and I will be all set, yay. :)
Valice Multiverse – And over here, I had one anon ask to drop into the queue, saying how you couldn’t spell “ghost” without “ho” – because that would just leave you with “gst,” and that didn’t count as a word. XD I had the Valicer In The Dark trio respond (since they’re the most familiar with ghosts), with Alice saying that she now wanted to make “gst” a word, or at least an acronym; Smiler noting that it would have to be a special ghost indeed to get its own acronym, and asking Victor his opinion; and Victor admitting that (like me), his brain was stuck on “gooey” for the G. XD I put in the tags that suggestions for what GST could stand for were welcome – we’ll see if anyone takes me up on that!
Writing: Wrote up the first draft of Gig’s gift fic this afternoon after lunch – as requested, it does feature Smiler in Secundus, but in the interest of keeping it a surprise I won’t say more than that. :p Just hope you enjoy it when it comes out in about a week!
Superliminal: I went collectible-hunting in the second level of this game today, searching out the secret goodies in “Optical” (so named because there’s a lot of optical illusions, natch). And with the help of the guide on my phone, I was able to find:
A) The secret blueprint stuck on the outside of the big square “hotel” room that you have to escape by grabbing an exit sign and using it as a ramp so you can jump over the wall into the backstage area (I actually managed to set up my escape route so I dropped down right in front of the blueprint, which was nice)
B) The “constellation room” (a hidden room absolutely FULL of stars) tucked away in a darkened hallway underneath the stairs in one of the backstage areas you have to traverse, where, when you stand in the right place looking at the right clump of stars, you can reveal a constellation of a dining table on its side (the guide claimed that it was hard to line this one up, but I got it pretty quickly)
C) The red pawn chess piece sitting atop a random bit of scaffolding/fake wall in the middle of the same backstage area, beside the stairs and the second “Hello. My name is Dr. Glen Pierce” radio (as per the guide, I went back and grabbed the exit door from the previous “hotel” room I’d just left to make a ramp up to grab it)
D) The blue knight chess piece sitting atop the end of the vents running around the backstage room where you have to find the right place to stand to create a real giant green chess piece out of a painted wall and pipe, because once it’s real you can pick it up and create a cutout in the wall to proceed to the next area (yes, this game is weird) (this one took a bit to get, since those vents are HIGH up, but eventually I got it by making a die I found in a garbage can in the SECOND secret room in this area – it’s a room high up on the wall you can only access if you find the right way to climb up it; I got in there in an earlier run to pull a fire alarm and empty a fire extinguisher for THAT achievement, but I didn’t realize there was a special die you could manipulate in the garbage can until the guide told me – absolutely giant, making the chess piece equally big and putting it next to it, then using a bit of catwalk on the upper level of the room to jump onto the big die, then onto the chess piece, and finally onto the vent, right by the knight piece. Whew!)
E) And the second secret blueprint hidden on the roof of the final “hotel” room, only accessible through the open skylight windows through which you grab the moon so you can pluck the exit door off its surface (again, THIS GAME IS WEIRD) (this one again took some fiddling to get the moon both the right size and in the right spot so I could jump up onto it using a cheese ramp (as the moon also has a wedge of cheese on its surface – along with a letter block, a soda can, and a radio, because why not), and then jump off the moon through one of the windows – got there in the end, though, and found the blueprint around the back of the roof area, beside the secondary skylight)
Whew! Bit tricky to locate some of these, but at least I can be sure that all the goodies for this level are now got. :P Along the way, I also learned:
I. That turning the “look sensitivity” of the game down a bit (from 20 to 15) really helped with not feeling motion sick while playing, yay
II. That I’d missed both pulling a fire alarm (in one of the hotel hallways) and emptying a fire extinguisher (in the big square room) in this level! No wonder the achievements for doing those haven’t popped yet… I’ll have to be on the look out for any others I may have missed as I go along!
III. That the spinning ball projectors on the roof of the final “hotel” room can be turned off, removing the night sky and revealing that you’re stuck in a perfectly ordinary room with a perfectly ordinary ceiling (well, I say that, it’s a dream room, so it’s not THAT ordinary, but still)
IV. That there’s some hidden text written on the walls in one of the “hotel” rooms (the one where you have to climb up onto the elevated sides to line up a painting of an exit door with the hinges taped on a column to turn it into a real door and thus open up the room’s exit (WEIRD GAME)) – on one side, it says “why are you doing this” (because it’s fun); on the other it says “please don’t snoop around” (but how am I supposed to find the collectibles then?)
V. And that all the sodas have funny “taglines” on them – I told you about Baking Soda’s “what have we done?!” last week – today, I was able to check out the ones for Red Soda (“So smooth...and reeeeeeeed!”), Diet Soda (“Smooooooooooooooth!”), and Green Soda (“Greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen!”) XD Now I have to see what the other kinds of soda say!
Good times! There’s a lot of fun stuff to see in this game if you know where to look. :) Next time we play, we’ll be hunting for constellations, chess pieces, and blueprints in level 3, “Cubism!” Somehow I get the feeling this will involve cubes. XD
YouTube: Another Sunday, another episode of Fallout: London over on Many A True Nerd – tonight’s being “Fallout: London - Part 48 - Pardon My French!” The continuing adventures of Lady Aria and Mad Jack as they –
A) Returned to the Swan & Mitre, headquarters of the Vagabonds, to talk to Gaunt and let him know that Aria had negotiated ceasefire terms with Black. Gaunt initially was like “why the hell would I want to hear about those, I want that fucker dead,” but Anthony told him that they should at least hear her out, learn what the terms were. Gaunt was extremely grumpy about it, but agreed to a meeting, and they all headed inside to talk. Things didn’t get off to a great start, with Aria lying to Gaunt about not knowing where “Blind” Nelson was when he asked (Gaunt easily guessed it was a lie and said he’d figure out if she’d killed him and was avoiding retribution or hadn’t killed him when she should have later), but she was able to explain to him, Anthony, Winston, and Johnny the agreement – the Vagabonds would keep their territory in Bromley, while the Syndicate would keep theirs on the Isle, and they’d just leave each other alone. Gaunt immediately said that they’d never honor those terms and Aria was an idiot for thinking they would; Anthony and Johnny were in the “let’s give peace a chance” camp (with Johnny saying that they could still hate the Syndicate, but peacefully – “make hate, not war!” XD); and Winston was like “a ceasefire would feel like a surrender, but...I’m willing to consider it.” You could tell who Aria only did one job for. :P Gaunt called them all idiots and demanded the full terms of the ceasefire, and Aria admitted that Black wanted her in charge of the Vagabonds. Gaunt was like “fuck that, the Gaunts have been running this area since you were in nappies,” accusing Aria of always being a follower, not a leader, and asking what she’d done that might make people follow her –
Cue Aria happily bringing up how she successfully looted that Syndicate supply depot before blowing it up; stole that supply train without any issues; and sunk that prison boat after freeing all the prisoners. Causing Anthony, Johnny, and Winston to all back her up, point out the good work she’d done, and essentially tell Gaunt, “we’re all sick of this war, please step down and let her call it off – nobody’s kicking you out of the gang, we just need a new direction.” A furious Gaunt told them they were all gutless cowards and promptly accused Aria of having been working for Black this whole time (telling Winston to shut up when he tried to remind him they initially found her in a test tube). Aria, in turn, used all of her Intelligence-boosting gear and drugs to get smart enough to tell him “look, if you want your own revenge, I’m not going to stop you – go try and kill Black if you must, just don’t drag the entire gang into it.” Gaunt said that was the first sensible thing she’d said and promptly went off to do just that, telling the others that if he succeeded, he wanted them to remember this day. Anthony, Winston, and Johnny admitted that it was a shame things had had to end that way, but welcomed Aria as their new leader, with Winston saying that he was sure the others would get used to her soon enough. (Jon: “Uuuh – if this is the end of the quest line, I’m about to completely disappear from the Vagabonds – Anthony, you were the one who backed me first, you’re my deputy and thus de facto leader!” XD) After a rousing cheer of “make hate, not war,” Aria headed up to Nelson’s room to let Black know that she was now in charge and accepted his ceasefire terms (and that Nelson was welcome to come back anytime, even if he had been a dirty spy), and the questline ended with her getting the “Peacemaker” perk, which scored her double XP from all speech checks! Now THAT is nice. :D Shame you didn’t do this earlier in the LP, Jon, you could have gotten a ton more XP from all those speech checks Aria makes!
B) Headed to Peckham to try and find a faction that the comments informed Jon that he had missed on his first trip through the area! Aria thus set about exploring, and found a mysterious Tommy camp, where no one (not even the named character) was willing to speak to her; a nearby dump that wasn’t even marked on his map that had a bunch of Gatherers in it who were INITIALLY chill – and then a few took offense to Aria’s presence and she had to gun them all down (with John worrying that she was killing the very people she was trying to meet); and finally a football stadium within said dump –
Where Aria was promptly held at gunpoint by a pair of French ghouls. Jon, playing up his Englishness, was very annoyed at this turn of events. (Never mind that he’s dating a French woman.) XD At any rate, after hearing them argue in a mix of English and French in front of her for a bit (something about needing a uniform?), Aria asked what was happening – and then, upon being told it didn’t concern her, went “Look, guys, I will do ANYTHING for money so long as you get to the point.” XD Fortunately, this brashness worked, and one of the men, Eugene, told her that she could impress him and earn a few tickets if she went to the Tommy camp she’d passed before and freed one of their friends held prisoner there (Segolene, as per the quest goals). And if she didn’t, he’d kill her and all her loved ones. Aria was like “I don’t know how you’d do that given you don’t know my name and wouldn’t know how to track me down if I just left right now, but fuck it, I’ll go get her, sure.” XD I mean, we established last time Aria has no morals or price – just whims...
C) Learned the history of the group they were preparing to help (as Eugene proved to be a lot more friendly and willing to talk once Aria agreed to the mission) – apparently the faction was called “L’Chouans,” though the individual members were called Normans (like Normandy), and they started life as a pre-War terrorist group trying to overthrow the French government for being too servile and refusing to take its place at the top table. They were aided in their endeavors by a fellow from the British Embassy, one “Billy Wickham,” who provided them with guns, supplies, and intelligence for their operations. Eventually the French government started noticing their actions, and began trying to wipe them out, bu the group held on long enough to get one last huge shipment from Billy at their usual drop-off point, along with a note that made them think that, if they attacked the Channel, they’d get assistance from the British Navy –
And then they attacked the Channel and were nearly wiped out, because no, the British Navy was NOT helping them. By sheer persistence and luck, Segolene was able to get them a boat, and the remaining members of L’Chouans were able to escape across the sea and to the British shore. The group naturally was united only in their hatred of Eugene, their leader, at this point, and Eugene thought about just killing himself because without his men, he was nothing –
Aaaand then the apocalypse happened, and it turned out a group of well-armed and well-trained French terrorists were very well equipped to survive in the new world order. Apparently Eugene helping them to survive once the bombs dropped got him some measure of respect back from his underlings, and when they exhausted all the “lambs” on the coast, they moved inward, to London. *nods* Interesting stuff! I will say this about Fallout: London – they do flesh out their NPCs really well.
D) Broke Segolene out of the Tommy camp! Which consisted of Aria talking to Sgt Williams, who revealed that he caught her trying to break into their (empty store), and that he couldn’t just release her until he got word from HQ about what to do with her – and then Aria flashing her tickets at him and going “I hear the locks are fragile around here…” XD Sgt Williams responded that he didn’t need tickets, he needed ammo, and that if Aria could get him what he needed, he’d release the prisoner into her care. Fortunately for Aria, she was already carrying everything he wanted, and thus the trade was made without her having to go anywhere else at all! Aria thus freed Segolene, then stole a bunch of ammo from one of the toolboxes in the camp before hustling back to the dump to reunite the Frenchwoman with her fellows. Because come on, Aria couldn’t just let them have that ammo – she needed something in return! That wasn’t a grumpy French ghoul terrorist. :P
E) Got roped into L’Chouans’ next mission – steal a boat from another Tommy outpost over on the Isle of Dogs! Mostly because Jon was like “yeah, I figured this would happen – sounds like you guys are eager to get back to France” and thus happily had Aria agree to help them “make history.” XD Eugene told her that all she needed to was get a Tommy uniform, charm her way into the base, then open up the back hatch so they could sneak in and steal the boat – though he also warned her that they’d only be in position at night, so if she went in during the daytime, she was on her own. Aria was fine with that, and once her new employers ran off, executed her own personal three-part plan:
I. Procure the uniform, which she accomplished by heading back to the nearby Tommy base, locating a guy on his own, taking him out with one sneak attack from her super-fast little knife, and stealing his clothes before running off
II. Head to the base under the cover of night – which proved to be a shed next to the water with a little speedboat-type dealie behind it, instead of on a gigantic gunboat like Eugene had implied. O.o Methinks they found out a little too late that they couldn’t get/make some of the assets they were hoping to use in this quest!
III. Charm her way past the guards inside (a very simple speech check saying she had a message for the CO got her through), which allowed her to open the back door, then fiddle with a fuse box to extend a bridge behind the shed so that Eugene, his second-in-command Jean, and Segolene could run up it to the boat. Which they then stole without any fuss from the Tommies inside. …yeah, something definitely changed between when the dialogue for this quest was written versus when the quest was actually implemented in the game.
F) Learned Eugene’s ACTUAL ultimate goal for stealing the boat once they successfully parked up in The Most Radioactive Bit Of London (near the Vaulzon Warehouse where Jon thinks Aria got her Instigating Shotgun, in fact) – to blow up Westminster Palace and take over the British government! Segolene and Jean were like “WHAT?!” while Aria was like “COOL!” XD Segolene and Jean attempted to talk sense into their compatriot and get him to realize that they SHOULD use the boat to get home to France and start over, but Eugene held firm – and Aria, unable to resist the thrill of blowing up yet ANOTHER London landmark (after downing the Millennium Eye), sided with him. Segolene and Jean thus walked off, determined to find their own way back home, and Eugene sent Aria on a shopping trip to the Millennium Dome to get the munitions they needed. Aria happily picked them up from his recommended vendor, Samara (paying 2,000 tickets for 50 cartridges – she’s rich, she can afford it), and hurried back to Eugene to tell him the good news –
Only to be informed “thanks for all the help, here’s a sword, now run along.” An astonished Aria was like “wait, what? I thought I was going to help you do this?” and Eugene explained that, well, she was irrevocably tainted by being English, and thus once they took over the government, she would be their subject, not their equal. Thus she couldn’t be allowed to help in blowing up the Palace, lest she get ideas above her station, I suppose. Jon was very annoyed (especially since the sword wasn’t very good), but managed to refrain from immediately killing Eugene because he still had some small hope that the guy would remain true to his word and blow up the Palace. But if he doesn’t get his fireworks, Eugene...well, remember what you told Aria about killing her and all her loved ones? Aria can much more easily do that to you.
And so we left off with a disappointed Aria preparing to head back to Peckham and hit up the Land’s End Inn to collect that package Smythe left for her and start the final part of Angel’s plan to fully and irrevocably take over England! Seems like we’re slowly coming up on the end of the series, folks! Very eager to see what the endgame will look like – and how many more atrocities Aria will commit along the way. XD
Workout: Back on the bike (in our nice cool basement) tonight, and back with alien teens Radian Inu (Andy), Kae’l Crex (Jane), and Galaxa Spacemountain (Liv) for the final episode of the Teens In Space miniseries: “A Whole New (old) World! | Teens in Space TTRPG | Episode 4!” To my surprise, this episode did not feature the teens having to fight the leviathan that was mentioned at the end of the last episode, mostly because they were able to talk AI E.T.T.A. (a holographic artificial intelligence tasked with preserving life inside of a freshly-hollowed-out Earth when the sun turned into a black hole – I’m pretty sure the acronym as given was actually E.T.R.A., as per my last recap, but Jasper the GM keeps pronouncing it “ETTA,” so… *shrug*) out of trying to introduce them. XD Instead, it featured:
A) E.T.T.A. telling the kids that the two best groups to approach for their power needs would be either the crows or the dolphins, as they were both super smart...and then having to explain what both species actually were as the kids tried to bluff that they totally knew. XD The kids decided to go visit the dolphins, because, as per E.T.T.A., they craved knowledge above all else, so they could just tell them about their corner of space instead of having to pay them with money/shiny things like the crows
B) E.T.T.A. telling the kids that they were not to hurt any of her precious creatures, not even in self defense (she was initially like “you’re the ones coming into THEIR space, so if your options are ‘fight back’ or ‘lay down and die,’ go for the latter” but eventually softened it to “you can run if you want, but no fighting!”) – cue Radian attempting to sneak his blasters by her by claiming they were special devices that “measured peace.” XD He did NOT sell this lie, and E.T.T.A. forced him to leave them behind, to his deep annoyance
C) The kids going to see the dolphins, who had cool mech suits they could lay on top of for when they wanted to do things on land – Radian attempted to communicate with them via the medium of cool kickflips done on his hoverboard (which he had apparently taken with him), but while the dolphins found this amusing and even did some flips of their own, he was unable to express the idea of “hey we need power” via this method. As you might have guessed. :P Kae’l then attempted to mime what they needed – only for it to be revealed the moment she spoke that the dolphins have universal translators. XD And thought the teens were too primitive for spoken language because they didn’t START with that. XD Whoops.
D) Radian’s kickflips impressing a troop of chimps in the nearby rainforest, who immediately began hacking down trees to make their own boards to imitate him – Radian successfully rolled to become leader of the troop and began giving them all instruction, claiming to be the legendary “Tony Hawk” XD
E) Kae’l and Galaxa telling the dolphins about their adventures on Rez T-75 and the whole thing with the space pirates in order to get their help in getting power to the ship – and let me tell you, the dolphins seemed worryingly into the whole concept of being “space pirates…”
F) The dolphins agreeing to help supply the needed power (in exchange for a look at the ship), and the ladies managing to convince Radian that he had to come back with them and not be leader of the chimps. XD He thus passed on his authority to one of the apes, who started a worryingly-violent chant of “HAWK! HAWK! HAWK!” among his fellows as his very first act. XD E.T.T.A. was not amused!
G) The teens leading the dolphins (dragging some giant cables with them) through the rainforest back to the surface and their ship – only to find themselves watched by a mysterious presence in the trees. Galaxa tried blowing sand on it to reveal it, only for the figure to decloak as she did –
And reveal itself to be a – okay, I’ve avoided writing this so far because I wasn’t sure how you spelled it, but the way Jasper pronounced it, it sounded like “Noa-Alith,” so that’s what we’re going with. Anyway, it was a member of the precursor race that invented all the warp technology like the warp drive they used to get to this planet! You know, the ones who said they would wipe out all “unnecessary” races if they ever used such technology to leave the known universe. Yeah. Cue the kids frantically pretending to be a weird dolphin (Radian), a dog (Kae’l – note: Radian is the one who ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE A DOG), and Michelle Obama (Galaxa, who shapeshifted into the woman after the Noa-Alith pointed out she didn’t look like a human, she looked like a tree). The Noa-Alith did not buy these stories for a second, as you might expect from a hyper-advanced, hyper-intelligent race. XD The embarrassed teens thus revealed the whole “we heard you were going to kill us all if we ventured outside of known space” thing –
Only for the Noa-Alith to be utterly shocked because, wtf, they never said that! Turns out that the story THEY’D always heard was that the Noa-Alith race was KICKED OUT of the known universe by the ACP (the organization that Galaxa’s dad is part of) because they tried to democratize space travel by giving the warp drives they’d invented to everyone, and the ACP did NOT want their “bottom line” affected. Capitalism – ruining everything even in space! Anyway, the teens were rightly pissed off by this reveal, and vowed to get their ship back home so they could tell everyone the truth! And convinced the Noa-Alith to come with them – which didn’t take much doing, as they were quickly revealed to be a teen themselves (allowing for a fun title drop). Though there was some confusion involving the phrase “egg on their faces” first that led to Kae’l smashing an egg on the Noa-Alith’s face because they thought that was something the others wanted to do to give them protein or something like that. XD I left off with the group preparing to get back to the ship (leaving behind a giant statue of Radian, and a littler one of Galaxa as Michelle Obama, built by the chimps) – tomorrow, we see if they can get their ship repowered by the dolphins, join up with the Noa-Alith’s ship (waiting in low orbit), and get back home! Because yes, Galaxa’s dad needs to be humiliated EVEN MORE after THIS little reveal, that’s for sure!
Other: Since I had a little free time this afternoon, I was able to make some progress on my “start reading and commenting on fanfic again” New Year’s resolution, getting a little more than halfway through a collection of stories based on fairy tales by laurasimmonsdaughter, “A Take On Fairy Tales!” Including such fun shorts as various bits of fairy tale “case law” (such as a witch trying to argue that she should be allowed to turn a Prince back into a frog after he was almost immediately turned back into human by a kiss from his platonic life partner – this was denied), and the witch from “Rapunzel” finding the unlucky husband trying to steal her lettuce – only for the pregnant wife to show up and accidentally charm the witch into sparing him by explaining why he did it (to help clear an awful mustiness from her mouth brought on by the pregnancy), leading to the witch offering a potion to help with the problem...and accepting an invitation to dinner. XD Fun stuff – I’m looking forward to reading the rest of them!
*nods* Pretty nice day, all things considered! Just wish the period tiredness had been less of a thing...ah well, we're almost past the worst of it. And now I must hit the sheets already -- night all!
Tumblr: Had a pretty productive day over on the tumblrs, I am happy to report –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Once again, I accomplished two things of note over here:
A) First, I indulged in a little reblog spree to put some posts I’d recently seen and enjoyed on my dash, including –
I. A post from “nondelphic” about why they write – “because it’s the only way to silence the characters pacing around my brain like victorian ghosts with unresolved issues that prevent them from moving on” (which, yes, is a mood)
II. A trio of posts from “honestlyvan” in a chain, talking about how fandom needs to start “projecting on tops” more, and explaining in a couple of reblogs that what they mean by that is writing fewer tops/doms that are fully comfortable and confident in their sexuality and desires, and writing more that are struggling with them and have complexes about being horrible freaks who want to hurt people (I went on in the tags about how I haven’t touched on this MUCH in my writing yet, but this IS something I think about a lot with Alice, who – thanks to my particular intersection of kinks and shipping dynamics – should be absolutely baffled and horrified by her desires to see Victor hypnotized and compelled into doing things, never mind that he’s into it. Might be something to bring up in future fanfics, perhaps)
III. A post by “boringkate” featuring a picture of a kinky collar...with a little tie attached to the ring at the front, with a joke about “Finally some appropriate business formal atire [sic] for high powered executives like you and me” (I knew the minute I saw that damn thing that Smiler and Alice would buy it for Victor, and I enjoyed the tonal whiplash of reblogging it right after the ‘give doms complexes’ post XD)
IV. A reblog chain by a bunch of people talking about how The Blues Brothers movie should be more popular on tumblr, given it involves (to quote the first person in the chain, “boccs”): “Attention and respect to pioneering black musicians, open hostility to nazis, open defiance to police, Carrie Fisher with a rocket launcher and flamethrower, a soundtrack that goes hard as hell, John Belushi so blasted on cocaine that he continues to do somersaults despite having a broken ankle,” with the others in the chain adding fun gifs and pointing out things like how 60 cop cars are destroyed in the film (having seen and enjoyed this movie thanks to my parents renting the extended edition, I had to reblog with some tags encouraging people to go see it, especially if they like the “I hate Illinois Nazis” gif set)
V. And a post by “alloftimeandspaceisours” with an Instagram video of “rubin_allergy” warning about the heat dome coming over the US over the next few days, and some tips about how to keep yourself safe and how to recognize signs of heat stroke and heat exhaustion (an important PSA – we’re getting into the worst of it on the East Coast over the next few days, so stay safe everybody!)
B) And second, in my drafts, I started a new collection of pet-related Valicer In The Dark Not-Incorrect Quotes! Because I’ve been meaning to do that ever since I wrote up the post about their various pets. So far I have:
I. Alice getting yarn at the market and telling Victor and Smiler she intends to take up knitting...only for Victor to correctly guess all those balls are pet toys for Guide, her cat (Alice insisted she WILL learn how to knit once Guide is done with them)
II. Victor playing fetch with Dogmeat in the “backyard” – only for Benny the lap dragon to swoop in and steal the stick
III. And Alice (genuinely learning how to knit) hearing a yarn ball getting batted about and looking up expecting to see Guide – only to find Us playing with the balls (they said it looked fun when Guide did it, which Alice can’t argue with).
Just need to figure out a couple more scenes (including one with Smiler and Sooty, their raven friend), and I will be all set, yay. :)
Valice Multiverse – And over here, I had one anon ask to drop into the queue, saying how you couldn’t spell “ghost” without “ho” – because that would just leave you with “gst,” and that didn’t count as a word. XD I had the Valicer In The Dark trio respond (since they’re the most familiar with ghosts), with Alice saying that she now wanted to make “gst” a word, or at least an acronym; Smiler noting that it would have to be a special ghost indeed to get its own acronym, and asking Victor his opinion; and Victor admitting that (like me), his brain was stuck on “gooey” for the G. XD I put in the tags that suggestions for what GST could stand for were welcome – we’ll see if anyone takes me up on that!
Writing: Wrote up the first draft of Gig’s gift fic this afternoon after lunch – as requested, it does feature Smiler in Secundus, but in the interest of keeping it a surprise I won’t say more than that. :p Just hope you enjoy it when it comes out in about a week!
Superliminal: I went collectible-hunting in the second level of this game today, searching out the secret goodies in “Optical” (so named because there’s a lot of optical illusions, natch). And with the help of the guide on my phone, I was able to find:
A) The secret blueprint stuck on the outside of the big square “hotel” room that you have to escape by grabbing an exit sign and using it as a ramp so you can jump over the wall into the backstage area (I actually managed to set up my escape route so I dropped down right in front of the blueprint, which was nice)
B) The “constellation room” (a hidden room absolutely FULL of stars) tucked away in a darkened hallway underneath the stairs in one of the backstage areas you have to traverse, where, when you stand in the right place looking at the right clump of stars, you can reveal a constellation of a dining table on its side (the guide claimed that it was hard to line this one up, but I got it pretty quickly)
C) The red pawn chess piece sitting atop a random bit of scaffolding/fake wall in the middle of the same backstage area, beside the stairs and the second “Hello. My name is Dr. Glen Pierce” radio (as per the guide, I went back and grabbed the exit door from the previous “hotel” room I’d just left to make a ramp up to grab it)
D) The blue knight chess piece sitting atop the end of the vents running around the backstage room where you have to find the right place to stand to create a real giant green chess piece out of a painted wall and pipe, because once it’s real you can pick it up and create a cutout in the wall to proceed to the next area (yes, this game is weird) (this one took a bit to get, since those vents are HIGH up, but eventually I got it by making a die I found in a garbage can in the SECOND secret room in this area – it’s a room high up on the wall you can only access if you find the right way to climb up it; I got in there in an earlier run to pull a fire alarm and empty a fire extinguisher for THAT achievement, but I didn’t realize there was a special die you could manipulate in the garbage can until the guide told me – absolutely giant, making the chess piece equally big and putting it next to it, then using a bit of catwalk on the upper level of the room to jump onto the big die, then onto the chess piece, and finally onto the vent, right by the knight piece. Whew!)
E) And the second secret blueprint hidden on the roof of the final “hotel” room, only accessible through the open skylight windows through which you grab the moon so you can pluck the exit door off its surface (again, THIS GAME IS WEIRD) (this one again took some fiddling to get the moon both the right size and in the right spot so I could jump up onto it using a cheese ramp (as the moon also has a wedge of cheese on its surface – along with a letter block, a soda can, and a radio, because why not), and then jump off the moon through one of the windows – got there in the end, though, and found the blueprint around the back of the roof area, beside the secondary skylight)
Whew! Bit tricky to locate some of these, but at least I can be sure that all the goodies for this level are now got. :P Along the way, I also learned:
I. That turning the “look sensitivity” of the game down a bit (from 20 to 15) really helped with not feeling motion sick while playing, yay
II. That I’d missed both pulling a fire alarm (in one of the hotel hallways) and emptying a fire extinguisher (in the big square room) in this level! No wonder the achievements for doing those haven’t popped yet… I’ll have to be on the look out for any others I may have missed as I go along!
III. That the spinning ball projectors on the roof of the final “hotel” room can be turned off, removing the night sky and revealing that you’re stuck in a perfectly ordinary room with a perfectly ordinary ceiling (well, I say that, it’s a dream room, so it’s not THAT ordinary, but still)
IV. That there’s some hidden text written on the walls in one of the “hotel” rooms (the one where you have to climb up onto the elevated sides to line up a painting of an exit door with the hinges taped on a column to turn it into a real door and thus open up the room’s exit (WEIRD GAME)) – on one side, it says “why are you doing this” (because it’s fun); on the other it says “please don’t snoop around” (but how am I supposed to find the collectibles then?)
V. And that all the sodas have funny “taglines” on them – I told you about Baking Soda’s “what have we done?!” last week – today, I was able to check out the ones for Red Soda (“So smooth...and reeeeeeeed!”), Diet Soda (“Smooooooooooooooth!”), and Green Soda (“Greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen!”) XD Now I have to see what the other kinds of soda say!
Good times! There’s a lot of fun stuff to see in this game if you know where to look. :) Next time we play, we’ll be hunting for constellations, chess pieces, and blueprints in level 3, “Cubism!” Somehow I get the feeling this will involve cubes. XD
YouTube: Another Sunday, another episode of Fallout: London over on Many A True Nerd – tonight’s being “Fallout: London - Part 48 - Pardon My French!” The continuing adventures of Lady Aria and Mad Jack as they –
A) Returned to the Swan & Mitre, headquarters of the Vagabonds, to talk to Gaunt and let him know that Aria had negotiated ceasefire terms with Black. Gaunt initially was like “why the hell would I want to hear about those, I want that fucker dead,” but Anthony told him that they should at least hear her out, learn what the terms were. Gaunt was extremely grumpy about it, but agreed to a meeting, and they all headed inside to talk. Things didn’t get off to a great start, with Aria lying to Gaunt about not knowing where “Blind” Nelson was when he asked (Gaunt easily guessed it was a lie and said he’d figure out if she’d killed him and was avoiding retribution or hadn’t killed him when she should have later), but she was able to explain to him, Anthony, Winston, and Johnny the agreement – the Vagabonds would keep their territory in Bromley, while the Syndicate would keep theirs on the Isle, and they’d just leave each other alone. Gaunt immediately said that they’d never honor those terms and Aria was an idiot for thinking they would; Anthony and Johnny were in the “let’s give peace a chance” camp (with Johnny saying that they could still hate the Syndicate, but peacefully – “make hate, not war!” XD); and Winston was like “a ceasefire would feel like a surrender, but...I’m willing to consider it.” You could tell who Aria only did one job for. :P Gaunt called them all idiots and demanded the full terms of the ceasefire, and Aria admitted that Black wanted her in charge of the Vagabonds. Gaunt was like “fuck that, the Gaunts have been running this area since you were in nappies,” accusing Aria of always being a follower, not a leader, and asking what she’d done that might make people follow her –
Cue Aria happily bringing up how she successfully looted that Syndicate supply depot before blowing it up; stole that supply train without any issues; and sunk that prison boat after freeing all the prisoners. Causing Anthony, Johnny, and Winston to all back her up, point out the good work she’d done, and essentially tell Gaunt, “we’re all sick of this war, please step down and let her call it off – nobody’s kicking you out of the gang, we just need a new direction.” A furious Gaunt told them they were all gutless cowards and promptly accused Aria of having been working for Black this whole time (telling Winston to shut up when he tried to remind him they initially found her in a test tube). Aria, in turn, used all of her Intelligence-boosting gear and drugs to get smart enough to tell him “look, if you want your own revenge, I’m not going to stop you – go try and kill Black if you must, just don’t drag the entire gang into it.” Gaunt said that was the first sensible thing she’d said and promptly went off to do just that, telling the others that if he succeeded, he wanted them to remember this day. Anthony, Winston, and Johnny admitted that it was a shame things had had to end that way, but welcomed Aria as their new leader, with Winston saying that he was sure the others would get used to her soon enough. (Jon: “Uuuh – if this is the end of the quest line, I’m about to completely disappear from the Vagabonds – Anthony, you were the one who backed me first, you’re my deputy and thus de facto leader!” XD) After a rousing cheer of “make hate, not war,” Aria headed up to Nelson’s room to let Black know that she was now in charge and accepted his ceasefire terms (and that Nelson was welcome to come back anytime, even if he had been a dirty spy), and the questline ended with her getting the “Peacemaker” perk, which scored her double XP from all speech checks! Now THAT is nice. :D Shame you didn’t do this earlier in the LP, Jon, you could have gotten a ton more XP from all those speech checks Aria makes!
B) Headed to Peckham to try and find a faction that the comments informed Jon that he had missed on his first trip through the area! Aria thus set about exploring, and found a mysterious Tommy camp, where no one (not even the named character) was willing to speak to her; a nearby dump that wasn’t even marked on his map that had a bunch of Gatherers in it who were INITIALLY chill – and then a few took offense to Aria’s presence and she had to gun them all down (with John worrying that she was killing the very people she was trying to meet); and finally a football stadium within said dump –
Where Aria was promptly held at gunpoint by a pair of French ghouls. Jon, playing up his Englishness, was very annoyed at this turn of events. (Never mind that he’s dating a French woman.) XD At any rate, after hearing them argue in a mix of English and French in front of her for a bit (something about needing a uniform?), Aria asked what was happening – and then, upon being told it didn’t concern her, went “Look, guys, I will do ANYTHING for money so long as you get to the point.” XD Fortunately, this brashness worked, and one of the men, Eugene, told her that she could impress him and earn a few tickets if she went to the Tommy camp she’d passed before and freed one of their friends held prisoner there (Segolene, as per the quest goals). And if she didn’t, he’d kill her and all her loved ones. Aria was like “I don’t know how you’d do that given you don’t know my name and wouldn’t know how to track me down if I just left right now, but fuck it, I’ll go get her, sure.” XD I mean, we established last time Aria has no morals or price – just whims...
C) Learned the history of the group they were preparing to help (as Eugene proved to be a lot more friendly and willing to talk once Aria agreed to the mission) – apparently the faction was called “L’Chouans,” though the individual members were called Normans (like Normandy), and they started life as a pre-War terrorist group trying to overthrow the French government for being too servile and refusing to take its place at the top table. They were aided in their endeavors by a fellow from the British Embassy, one “Billy Wickham,” who provided them with guns, supplies, and intelligence for their operations. Eventually the French government started noticing their actions, and began trying to wipe them out, bu the group held on long enough to get one last huge shipment from Billy at their usual drop-off point, along with a note that made them think that, if they attacked the Channel, they’d get assistance from the British Navy –
And then they attacked the Channel and were nearly wiped out, because no, the British Navy was NOT helping them. By sheer persistence and luck, Segolene was able to get them a boat, and the remaining members of L’Chouans were able to escape across the sea and to the British shore. The group naturally was united only in their hatred of Eugene, their leader, at this point, and Eugene thought about just killing himself because without his men, he was nothing –
Aaaand then the apocalypse happened, and it turned out a group of well-armed and well-trained French terrorists were very well equipped to survive in the new world order. Apparently Eugene helping them to survive once the bombs dropped got him some measure of respect back from his underlings, and when they exhausted all the “lambs” on the coast, they moved inward, to London. *nods* Interesting stuff! I will say this about Fallout: London – they do flesh out their NPCs really well.
D) Broke Segolene out of the Tommy camp! Which consisted of Aria talking to Sgt Williams, who revealed that he caught her trying to break into their (empty store), and that he couldn’t just release her until he got word from HQ about what to do with her – and then Aria flashing her tickets at him and going “I hear the locks are fragile around here…” XD Sgt Williams responded that he didn’t need tickets, he needed ammo, and that if Aria could get him what he needed, he’d release the prisoner into her care. Fortunately for Aria, she was already carrying everything he wanted, and thus the trade was made without her having to go anywhere else at all! Aria thus freed Segolene, then stole a bunch of ammo from one of the toolboxes in the camp before hustling back to the dump to reunite the Frenchwoman with her fellows. Because come on, Aria couldn’t just let them have that ammo – she needed something in return! That wasn’t a grumpy French ghoul terrorist. :P
E) Got roped into L’Chouans’ next mission – steal a boat from another Tommy outpost over on the Isle of Dogs! Mostly because Jon was like “yeah, I figured this would happen – sounds like you guys are eager to get back to France” and thus happily had Aria agree to help them “make history.” XD Eugene told her that all she needed to was get a Tommy uniform, charm her way into the base, then open up the back hatch so they could sneak in and steal the boat – though he also warned her that they’d only be in position at night, so if she went in during the daytime, she was on her own. Aria was fine with that, and once her new employers ran off, executed her own personal three-part plan:
I. Procure the uniform, which she accomplished by heading back to the nearby Tommy base, locating a guy on his own, taking him out with one sneak attack from her super-fast little knife, and stealing his clothes before running off
II. Head to the base under the cover of night – which proved to be a shed next to the water with a little speedboat-type dealie behind it, instead of on a gigantic gunboat like Eugene had implied. O.o Methinks they found out a little too late that they couldn’t get/make some of the assets they were hoping to use in this quest!
III. Charm her way past the guards inside (a very simple speech check saying she had a message for the CO got her through), which allowed her to open the back door, then fiddle with a fuse box to extend a bridge behind the shed so that Eugene, his second-in-command Jean, and Segolene could run up it to the boat. Which they then stole without any fuss from the Tommies inside. …yeah, something definitely changed between when the dialogue for this quest was written versus when the quest was actually implemented in the game.
F) Learned Eugene’s ACTUAL ultimate goal for stealing the boat once they successfully parked up in The Most Radioactive Bit Of London (near the Vaulzon Warehouse where Jon thinks Aria got her Instigating Shotgun, in fact) – to blow up Westminster Palace and take over the British government! Segolene and Jean were like “WHAT?!” while Aria was like “COOL!” XD Segolene and Jean attempted to talk sense into their compatriot and get him to realize that they SHOULD use the boat to get home to France and start over, but Eugene held firm – and Aria, unable to resist the thrill of blowing up yet ANOTHER London landmark (after downing the Millennium Eye), sided with him. Segolene and Jean thus walked off, determined to find their own way back home, and Eugene sent Aria on a shopping trip to the Millennium Dome to get the munitions they needed. Aria happily picked them up from his recommended vendor, Samara (paying 2,000 tickets for 50 cartridges – she’s rich, she can afford it), and hurried back to Eugene to tell him the good news –
Only to be informed “thanks for all the help, here’s a sword, now run along.” An astonished Aria was like “wait, what? I thought I was going to help you do this?” and Eugene explained that, well, she was irrevocably tainted by being English, and thus once they took over the government, she would be their subject, not their equal. Thus she couldn’t be allowed to help in blowing up the Palace, lest she get ideas above her station, I suppose. Jon was very annoyed (especially since the sword wasn’t very good), but managed to refrain from immediately killing Eugene because he still had some small hope that the guy would remain true to his word and blow up the Palace. But if he doesn’t get his fireworks, Eugene...well, remember what you told Aria about killing her and all her loved ones? Aria can much more easily do that to you.
And so we left off with a disappointed Aria preparing to head back to Peckham and hit up the Land’s End Inn to collect that package Smythe left for her and start the final part of Angel’s plan to fully and irrevocably take over England! Seems like we’re slowly coming up on the end of the series, folks! Very eager to see what the endgame will look like – and how many more atrocities Aria will commit along the way. XD
Workout: Back on the bike (in our nice cool basement) tonight, and back with alien teens Radian Inu (Andy), Kae’l Crex (Jane), and Galaxa Spacemountain (Liv) for the final episode of the Teens In Space miniseries: “A Whole New (old) World! | Teens in Space TTRPG | Episode 4!” To my surprise, this episode did not feature the teens having to fight the leviathan that was mentioned at the end of the last episode, mostly because they were able to talk AI E.T.T.A. (a holographic artificial intelligence tasked with preserving life inside of a freshly-hollowed-out Earth when the sun turned into a black hole – I’m pretty sure the acronym as given was actually E.T.R.A., as per my last recap, but Jasper the GM keeps pronouncing it “ETTA,” so… *shrug*) out of trying to introduce them. XD Instead, it featured:
A) E.T.T.A. telling the kids that the two best groups to approach for their power needs would be either the crows or the dolphins, as they were both super smart...and then having to explain what both species actually were as the kids tried to bluff that they totally knew. XD The kids decided to go visit the dolphins, because, as per E.T.T.A., they craved knowledge above all else, so they could just tell them about their corner of space instead of having to pay them with money/shiny things like the crows
B) E.T.T.A. telling the kids that they were not to hurt any of her precious creatures, not even in self defense (she was initially like “you’re the ones coming into THEIR space, so if your options are ‘fight back’ or ‘lay down and die,’ go for the latter” but eventually softened it to “you can run if you want, but no fighting!”) – cue Radian attempting to sneak his blasters by her by claiming they were special devices that “measured peace.” XD He did NOT sell this lie, and E.T.T.A. forced him to leave them behind, to his deep annoyance
C) The kids going to see the dolphins, who had cool mech suits they could lay on top of for when they wanted to do things on land – Radian attempted to communicate with them via the medium of cool kickflips done on his hoverboard (which he had apparently taken with him), but while the dolphins found this amusing and even did some flips of their own, he was unable to express the idea of “hey we need power” via this method. As you might have guessed. :P Kae’l then attempted to mime what they needed – only for it to be revealed the moment she spoke that the dolphins have universal translators. XD And thought the teens were too primitive for spoken language because they didn’t START with that. XD Whoops.
D) Radian’s kickflips impressing a troop of chimps in the nearby rainforest, who immediately began hacking down trees to make their own boards to imitate him – Radian successfully rolled to become leader of the troop and began giving them all instruction, claiming to be the legendary “Tony Hawk” XD
E) Kae’l and Galaxa telling the dolphins about their adventures on Rez T-75 and the whole thing with the space pirates in order to get their help in getting power to the ship – and let me tell you, the dolphins seemed worryingly into the whole concept of being “space pirates…”
F) The dolphins agreeing to help supply the needed power (in exchange for a look at the ship), and the ladies managing to convince Radian that he had to come back with them and not be leader of the chimps. XD He thus passed on his authority to one of the apes, who started a worryingly-violent chant of “HAWK! HAWK! HAWK!” among his fellows as his very first act. XD E.T.T.A. was not amused!
G) The teens leading the dolphins (dragging some giant cables with them) through the rainforest back to the surface and their ship – only to find themselves watched by a mysterious presence in the trees. Galaxa tried blowing sand on it to reveal it, only for the figure to decloak as she did –
And reveal itself to be a – okay, I’ve avoided writing this so far because I wasn’t sure how you spelled it, but the way Jasper pronounced it, it sounded like “Noa-Alith,” so that’s what we’re going with. Anyway, it was a member of the precursor race that invented all the warp technology like the warp drive they used to get to this planet! You know, the ones who said they would wipe out all “unnecessary” races if they ever used such technology to leave the known universe. Yeah. Cue the kids frantically pretending to be a weird dolphin (Radian), a dog (Kae’l – note: Radian is the one who ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE A DOG), and Michelle Obama (Galaxa, who shapeshifted into the woman after the Noa-Alith pointed out she didn’t look like a human, she looked like a tree). The Noa-Alith did not buy these stories for a second, as you might expect from a hyper-advanced, hyper-intelligent race. XD The embarrassed teens thus revealed the whole “we heard you were going to kill us all if we ventured outside of known space” thing –
Only for the Noa-Alith to be utterly shocked because, wtf, they never said that! Turns out that the story THEY’D always heard was that the Noa-Alith race was KICKED OUT of the known universe by the ACP (the organization that Galaxa’s dad is part of) because they tried to democratize space travel by giving the warp drives they’d invented to everyone, and the ACP did NOT want their “bottom line” affected. Capitalism – ruining everything even in space! Anyway, the teens were rightly pissed off by this reveal, and vowed to get their ship back home so they could tell everyone the truth! And convinced the Noa-Alith to come with them – which didn’t take much doing, as they were quickly revealed to be a teen themselves (allowing for a fun title drop). Though there was some confusion involving the phrase “egg on their faces” first that led to Kae’l smashing an egg on the Noa-Alith’s face because they thought that was something the others wanted to do to give them protein or something like that. XD I left off with the group preparing to get back to the ship (leaving behind a giant statue of Radian, and a littler one of Galaxa as Michelle Obama, built by the chimps) – tomorrow, we see if they can get their ship repowered by the dolphins, join up with the Noa-Alith’s ship (waiting in low orbit), and get back home! Because yes, Galaxa’s dad needs to be humiliated EVEN MORE after THIS little reveal, that’s for sure!
Other: Since I had a little free time this afternoon, I was able to make some progress on my “start reading and commenting on fanfic again” New Year’s resolution, getting a little more than halfway through a collection of stories based on fairy tales by laurasimmonsdaughter, “A Take On Fairy Tales!” Including such fun shorts as various bits of fairy tale “case law” (such as a witch trying to argue that she should be allowed to turn a Prince back into a frog after he was almost immediately turned back into human by a kiss from his platonic life partner – this was denied), and the witch from “Rapunzel” finding the unlucky husband trying to steal her lettuce – only for the pregnant wife to show up and accidentally charm the witch into sparing him by explaining why he did it (to help clear an awful mustiness from her mouth brought on by the pregnancy), leading to the witch offering a potion to help with the problem...and accepting an invitation to dinner. XD Fun stuff – I’m looking forward to reading the rest of them!
*nods* Pretty nice day, all things considered! Just wish the period tiredness had been less of a thing...ah well, we're almost past the worst of it. And now I must hit the sheets already -- night all!
no subject
Date: 2025-06-23 04:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-06-24 03:48 am (UTC)