Busier Than Expected At The End Saturday
Aug. 23rd, 2025 11:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickMeaning I was expecting a relatively quiet Saturday night spent finishing off my write-ups of my daily activities for you all -- but when I went to go chat with my friend Squid around 10:30 PM, as I usually do, it turned out they had a TON of screenshots to share with me about certain shenanigans that happened to them earlier today. Which, as you might expect, took me a while to get through. This led to me struggling to complete my write-ups while still keeping up on my responses to them --
And then I remembered I had an anon ask waiting for me over on Valice Multiverse, and a comment over here from Gigs. And suddenly I had four things I had to keep up with instead of just two. *facepalm* Granted, I knew about the ask on Valice Multiverse and the comment from Gigs earlier, but I thought "oh, I'll have plenty of time to do those tonight!" And then I just kind of forgot about them until the day was almost over. *sigh* Time management -- it remains out of my grasp. ^^; But I got the write-ups done, so here is how the rest of my day went:
Tumblr: Had a somewhat productive day over on the tumblrs –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Over here, I spent the time before lunch working on the “Tav!Smiler” update post in my drafts – unfortunately, it took me longer than I wanted to get going on it because I had some unexpected trouble getting the “Class” portion of the post just right. Fortunately, I got past it eventually, and I managed to get through “Class,” “Background,” “Abilities,” and partway through “Spells” before it was time to go and eat. Hoping I can finish this up tomorrow morning – be nice to post it sometime this week!
Valice Multiverse – And over here, I did indeed manage to answer that anon ask that was waiting for me this eve – later than I’d intended, granted, but I did answer it! The ask proved to be an anon commenting on how the metaphorical billion monkeys chained to a billion typewriters might in fact produce Hamlet – but any person who would DO such a thing would neither appreciate nor even recognize the play when it finally arrived – I had Cuddlepile!Alice note that this was very true and served as an excellent metaphor for modern capitalism. Maybe not my best work, but I was pretty tired when I wrote it!
Fallout 4: I successfully returned to the Commonwealth today, sending Victor and Ada just a little bit deeper into the Mechanist’s Lair and discovering some more of the horrors of the secret robobrain facility she’s set up shop in! Because it’s not Fallout unless you have The Horrors, preferably tucked away behind a nostalgic 50s aesthetic. *nods* Today’s adventures included:
A) Victor and Ada traversing Holding Block A! Which, when the door from reception was opened, proved to be a long corridor full of prison cells in various states of disrepair, with a couple of brain-in-a-tank-driven gurneys stopped on a rail going down the center of it. Yes, it was just as creepy as it sounds – especially since the first one had a dead feral ghoul still strapped to it. D: (Though said ghoul did have an aluminum can on them, so that was a silver lining.) The cells themselves were also pretty damn grim – with simple beds jutting out from the wall (some without mattresses), what looked like some sort of feeding trough (you know, like for livestock) at the back, and a big old pipe coming out of the wall that bent upward at a 90 degree angle that – might have been used as a toilet. I don’t know – I certainly didn’t see any PROPER plumbing in there! D: Honestly, it all just drove home just how inhumanely these people were treated, criminals or no. *grimace* And the worst part? While most of the cells were either empty or contained just dead bodies (a mix of dead ferals and skeletons) –
Six of them contained still-alive ferals. All of whom were locked in and couldn’t get out. Now, I’m not usually in the business of feeling that sorry for feral ghouls – mostly because they’re too busy trying to claw my face off when I meet them – but I felt genuinely terrible for these six. Because damn, imagine surviving the nuclear apocalypse, only to have to watch your body decay and mutate while your brain deteriorates, all while still trapped in the same tiny little cell the government shoved you into with the intent of harvesting your brain for its stupid robot project. *shudder* Yeah, it’s – it’s not pleasant. So, after Victor and Ada finished going down the corridor, visiting each unoccupied cell (popping open those that were still locked – just Advanced locks, nothing Victor couldn’t handle), gathering what goodies they could (mainly some ammo, caps, Med-X, and bobby pins – which was good, as I broke about one bobby pin per lock *grumble*), and marveling at the one pair of cells that had a giant hole in the wall between them (not sure how THAT happened), I had Victor eat some food (Mirelurk Delight for a temporary boost to Endurance and max AP, and some health tea for increased healing – for some reason, Ada acted like the latter was booze and told Victor that he’d have to drink alone, “ma’am” O.o), then return to the start to open each feral’s cell, sneak in, and mercy-kill them as they stirred and prepared to attack. Happily, one blast from the good old Tactical Tesla took all of them down without issue – even the one Legendary Gangrenous Feral Ghoul, who I expected to be a bit tougher. Then again, in close quarters, very little can stand up to the Electric Death Machine… Anyway, this mission of mercy netted Victor the following:
I. A kickball off the body of the first ghoul (yay, rubber!)
II. Some apple cider vinegar off the body of the second, plus a stash containing dog tags and 45 caps in their room
III. Some industrial-grade Abraxo cleaner and a baseball off the body of the third
IV. A viable blood sample for that one lady in the Brotherhood off the body of the fourth – which was interesting, because Victor actually reduced that guy to ash O.o
V. Some Daddy-O and a shot glass off the body of the fifth, plus some stimpacks and jet in their room – I guess this one was the party ghoul :p
VI. An Auto-Stim Metal Chestpiece (decent legendary effect, terrible armor) and an aluminum can off the body of the sixth (which, as you might guess, was the Legendary)
VII. And – as a result of all that lockpicking and murder – a level-up to Level 49! :D After considering my options for a bit, I decided to just directly boost Agility up to 8 – Victor is an agile boy, and given how often I use VATS to murder things, having more AP at my disposal is always a good thing!
B) Victor and Ada going up the ramp at the end of Holding Block A to the observation hallway above! Which contained some busted-up protectrons (who were not lootable, boo); a bunch of glass windows lining the sides of the corridor floor, allowing the scientists to peer into each cell from above (creepy); a few tables with surgical trays and other goodies on them (Victor picked up another Protectron Model, nice); a busted door to Holding Block B at the far end (guess we’re not going in THAT block – good, honestly); a Stealth Boy on a crate beside said door (yay!); a hole back downstairs if you didn’t feel like going all the way back to the ramp –
And, right in the middle of the corridor, a wall-mounted “Medical Observation” terminal! Which, when opened, had notes on five of the prisoners who were being observed (I guess the others weren’t interesting enough to warrant entries). In order, we had:
I. A22, a serial killer who was said to have high brain function but a weak constitution – the doctors put him on a high protein diet and started using regular electrotherapy on his muscles to make sure that his brain would survive the eventual extraction
II. A53, an arsonist who burned down a courthouse and killed three people, and who could only be approached if sedated – apparently her family had a history of dementia, so she was immediately dismissed as a viable candidate and recommended for termination
III. A57, a woman who killed a waitress – it was noted she was prone to sudden outbursts of violence and was very emotional, so the staff had her on a cocktail of anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medications, with one “Dr. Astleford” preparing psychiatric sessions to see if they could get her more stable
IV. A72, a guy who killed someone while he was drunk – he was very smart and showed good knowledge of tactics, but also some signs of PTSD, so Dr. Astleford was also evaluating a treatment plan for him
V. And A88, an ex-military woman who was convicted of second-degree manslaughter after she beat up someone so badly they died in the hospital later – she was noted to be highly intelligent and mentally sound, so she was immediately approved for the project! Lucky her. *grimace* And given she was said to be a woman, I wonder if the person she beat up was a superior who – tried to get handsy, let’s say…
Yeah – pretty much exactly the kind of horrible bullshit I expected from this place! Damn…it never really gets any easier to see the shit the Fallout government pulled on people. Especially with our government feeling closer and closer to that one every damn day...
C) Victor and Ada returning to the end of the original corridor and riding the big elevator they found there (which had another brain gurney with a dead feral strapped to it inside) down to the actual research wing! Which prompted a very dramatic music sting that I feel was wasted on Victor and Ada just looking at the big decontamination arches and the lockers at the entrance to the room. XD Victor got some blood packs (one empty, one full) and some Buffout out of the lockers, then – after cautiously passing through the arches (post a quicksave) and finding that, fortunately, they weren’t now spewing out radiation or anything like that – proceeded into the heart of the room –
Which was essentially one big surgical theater. Compete with more brain-gurneys (well, theoretical ones, anyway – there were no brains in jars attached, but there was definitely a spot on them for one), these with EXTREMELY thick metal restraints on them. D: Which was unpleasant enough, until I directed Victor to the back of the room to see what was going on there and found a wall full of filing cabinets and two rooms tucked away on either side – one reading “Brain Extraction” and one reading “Cerebral Reconditioning.” And then I made the mistake of having Victor poke his head into “Brain Extraction” –
Only to find within a giant horrible machine that looked like it literally sucked the brains out of people’s heads. Along with so many fucking brains floating in jars full of glowing green liquid. Like, there were shelves upon SHELVES of these brains on both sides of the room. D: Mechanist, how the FUCK did you not look at all this and go “oh wow, the people working on this project seemed super evil, maybe I shouldn’t be using these robobrains to play hero with.” *shakehead* Fortunately for me, Victor and Ada came across this place near the end of my playsession, so I didn’t have to endure it for long. Instead, I just had Victor:
I. Combine some drugs at the nearby available chemistry bench – he may not partake, but they sell for good money, and combined drugs take up less inventory than separate ones
II. Grab some duct tape and other goodies out of a tool chest on a nearby desk (always gotta have the adhesive! Even if it make me wonder how all these brain jars were secured in the robobrains)
III. Get confused by the fact that the terminal next to the tool chest was labeled “Cerebral Reconditioning” when he was in the “Brain Extraction” room – I sent him across the hall to take a look at “Cerebral Reconditioning” to see if they had a “Brain Extraction” terminal, and they did (along with a scary machine that looked like it could absolutely fry someone’s head with current pointed at a scorched hospital bed). Not sure what’s going on there, other than Bethesda putting the wrong terminals in the wrong rooms for some reason O.o
IV. Bunk down in the main surgery area for the night at 7:30 PM because, well, he was feeling tired, and I figured I might as well end my playsession with him getting some sleep. In the least scary room of the research wing, because like fuck was I having him sleep near all those brains!
And that was pretty much that! I left it with Victor having just gotten up at 3:30 AM the next day, ready to resume his terrible adventures through the horrible government lab. Next time, we finish exploring the Research Wing (including seeing what’s on those two swapped computers), then maybe see if there’s time to take on the Mechanist herself! Because, well, the quest marker on the compass is telling me that she’s not only nearby, but finally on the same floor as me...we’ll see what happens!
Writing: Actually got two bits of writing done today, go me –
A) First, before beanbags (see “Other,” below), I did the FO4 Playthrough Progression write-up of the day’s FO4 playsession! Featuring Victor, Alice, and Ada taking on Holding Block A, the observation hallway above, and the research wing just beyond it! And, as per usual, their adventures weren’t too different from what actually happened in the game – just with a few small changes:
I. Alice was the one to propose my “maybe the pipes are the toilets” theory when the gang went into Holding Block A and saw the horrible cells there – though she allowed that maybe it was used to gas the prisoners in case of emergency or something. And then said that, if it was her in that situation, she’d probably shit in the pipe anyway to annoy the guards. :P
II. After Victor noticed the first living ghoul stuck in a cell while going down the block looking for goodies, and used the VATS feature on his Pip-Boy to find the others, he and Alice worked together to mercy-kill them – Alice opening all the doors (as she’s the better lockpicker in this world) while Victor administered the fatal shocks before the ghouls could even move (with Ada staying nearby to help if things got ugly). Lunch and looting the cells also happened after all the ghouls were killed (and put on their beds to try and lay them to rest in SOME sense), and Alice naturally received the bobby pins for all her hard work. *nods* You did good, Alice! Even if I had you break almost as many bobby pins as I did. XD
III. While reading the Medical Observation terminal upstairs, I had Victor wonder if the serial killer mentioned, A22, was the ghoul who had that auto-stim chestpiece – I mean, given his write-up, it seems logical that they’d give him something like that to help keep him healthy! – and put forth my theory that the ex-military woman, A88, was arrested for assaulting a superior officer who tried to get fresh with her (noting that his female colleagues in the military complained about that all the time). Alice also got understandably upset about none of the people mentioned having NAMES, because, well, guess who it reminded her of. Even Ada was disgusted, and Jackson didn’t even install those emotion modules in her! Just a bad time all around.
IV. In the research wing, Victor gave the blood pack he found in the lockers to Alice (who, as a reminder, is still her Malkavian vampire self from VTMB, just a variant universe where Victor wasn’t her ghoul) – sadly, she could smell it was rancid and thus had to throw it away. Shame! Ada also scanned the decontamination arches and declared them clean so they could pass through without fear.
V. And I used the power of “hey, all of these characters are truly independent entities here” to have Alice check out the “Cerebral Reconditioning” room while Victor checked out “Brain Extraction” (and was nearly sick, poor guy) – she wasn’t very happy with her room either, as you might expect! I left in the terminals being in the wrong rooms, though, which they both found very confusing. Yeah, same here, my dudes.
And there you have it! I left off with Victor, having bunked down in the surgery room just like in the game, waking up at 3:30 AM from a nightmare about having his brain sucked out of his skull (sorry Victor!) – next time, they’ll finish exploring the research lab, then go see if they can find that Mechanist! Because I’m pretty sure they’ll all want to kick someone’s ass once they finish reading all those terminals and whatnot.
B) And second, after supper and my second bit of YouTubery (also below), I actually got a bit more done on editing Chapter 5 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland!” Specifically:
I. I went back to the beginning and quickly skimmed through the first twenty pages again cleaning up more instances where I overused Alice’s name (along with making a few other little tweaks and fixes)
II. And I finished editing Alice’s time in the creepy mannequin house, meaning I’m now on page 38 of 54 in the chapter! Hooray!
Yeah, felt good to make some progress on this when I didn’t expect to. :) Hopefully tomorrow I can get in a good editing session and see if I can make it so I might be able to get this sucker up on Monday...
YouTube: Got in two videos today, which was nice – even if one of them was incredibly short XD –
A) First up, right before Fallout 4, we had “Changes to the Channel” by C. M. Alongi! A quick two-minute video of her making two quick announcements –
I. One, she finally was able to rent a dedicated filming space for the series (instead of having to work in her apartment and deal with all the problems of filming therein), so future episodes will look a little different (and might even feature greenscreen again!)
II. And two, she’s starting a podcast series, Cafae Convos, where she interviews a guest each week! Those should be going up on Wednesdays starting September 3rd. The comments are already hoping her video editor, Nic, is one of the guests. XD
So that’s interesting! I admit, I’m not so interested in the podcast, but I’m very intrigued as to how having a bigger, dedicated filming space will affect the actual series. Maybe we’ll be able to see how the CaFae is actually supposed to look? One hopes…
B) And then, this evening, I finally got around to watching the final video in my Watch Later – “The Sims 4 Just Added a New GAME-BREAKING Feature…” by onlyabidoang! This was his look at the base game update/patch that dropped on 8/19/2025, and it consisted roughly of the following:
I. Abi warning people that they really needed to remove/disable their mods after every Sims 4 update, no matter how small, because any given update could do something in the background that really fucked up mods – and then demonstrating with his own game by showing how enabling his mods post-update led to a fucked-up start screen with no images because he had a main menu replacement mod that wasn’t yet updated. Just common sense, people!
II. Abi showing off a possible mod-related bug where he couldn’t load into any lots in his latest save game with mods enabled (he kept being kicked to the World Select screen), but could once he took them out – however, he stressed that, judging from the comments on the official thread on this bug in the EA help center, some people DO seem to be getting this “can’t load into lots” bug on clean saves, so beware!
III. Abi showing off the new “Pack Selector” feature that came with the patch, which allows you to disable packs to get, for example, a base-game-only save file. Which sounds like it could be an interesting feature (even if Abi and I agree it’s probably been implemented so EA can tell Simmers suffering game performance issues or bugs “well, if you turned off some of your packs...”)...but as Abi demonstrated, if you want to then re-enable packs (either for a new save file or to “upgrade” an existing one), you might find yourself unable to do it as the confirming checkmark button will be inaccessible, giving a “game data is still loading, please wait” message. Fortunately, restarting the game DOES seem to fix the issue, at least somewhat (it allows you to actually click the checkmark button again, anyway), but if you’ve seen reports of Simmers complaining that this feature broke their saves, the inability to re-enable packs might be what they’re talking about. (They might also be complaining about disabling some packs destroying an existing save, but if they are, that’s on them, because the feature does make it VERY CLEAR that you should only be doing this on NEW saves to prevent save data loss/corruption, and even tells you “if you MUST open this older save with all these packs missing, at least let us make a copy of it for you so the original will still be there for you.” Yeah, this feature may be a buggy mess, but they at least covered their asses in THAT area.)
IV. Abi going through all the new skin details – including freckles, stretch marks, wrinkles, and age spots – the patch added to the game, showing them off on both a light-skinned young fem Sim and a dark-skinned older mas Sim so we could see what they looked like on different skin tones, body frames, and ages. They’re mostly pretty good additions, especially for people who want their elderly Sims to look appropriately aged, but I did think that some of the stretch marks didn’t show up very well on the dark-skinned guy. Maybe that’s just me, though.
V. Abi talking about the new toggle to enable/disable the spread of Ailments (the magical diseases that come with Enchanted By Nature) through contagion (aka, Sims passing them on to other Sims through contact), because despite a previous patch lowering the rate of contagion significantly, people were still up in arms about how often their Sims were getting Ailments. As long as the box is unchecked, Sims cannot pass Ailments on by contact, and you can only get them via being very Imbalanced or fairy shenanigans. This honestly feels much more logical to me – they’re magical illnesses! Caused by magical means! Why would they be contagious in the first place? *shakehead* Hopefully the toggle works as it’s meant to, but we’ll see…
VI. Abi briefly noting a change to the hated Cart button in the top UI – instead of popping up a window showing off a pack you don’t have in an attempt to get you to buy it if you click on it, now it just straight-up takes you to the store page. Which – who knows why they changed that, but EA, what we want is for you to TAKE IT OUT ENTIRELY. Ugh.
VII. And Abi briefly going through the bug fixes and performance tweaks in the patch notes, because none of them were really the kind of fixes that could be shown off in a video (mostly making sure some clothes were properly classified).
So yeah – not a stunning review of the latest patch to drop for the game! Sounds like that Patch Selector has been causing some real problems for people...and that “can’t load into a lot” bug is obviously something that needs to be fixed PRONTO. Especially since one of the commenters on the video indicated they’d gotten it –
In an OFFLINE game. That has NOT RECEIVED THE UPDATE. That was EXTREMELY WORRYING to hear tonight, given that my plans for tomorrow included firing up the game in offline mode again to continue working on Smiler’s potion caravan! O.O Cripes, I really hope it loads...keep your fingers crossed, everyone!
Other: While a good portion of the day was hot and a little sticky, it did actually cool down and dry out around 5 PM, so we were able to go out and play some beanbags. And after a painful losing streak the last few time we’ve played, and a first round where she managed to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory, Mom actually came back and end today as the beanbags champ, winning three games out of five! Dad won the other two, and I just kind sucked in general, only getting a couple of seconds. Meeeh. Final scores were me 2-3-3-3-2; Dad W-2-2-W-3; and Mom 3-W-W-2-W. We’ll see if we play tomorrow – Mom’s pretty firm about giving the croquet set a spin instead, but that requires set-up, and I don’t know if she and Dad are going to get to it...we’ll find out, I suppose!
So yeah, not too bad a day -- though as you can probably tell, I did not get to Gigs's comment. Sorry -- I'll answer it tomorrow morning! Just too tired right now...and yeah, in the interest of NOT going to bed again at 2:30 AM, I'd better hit the sack. Tomorrow's plans are -- well, a little up in the air, honestly -- while I know for sure that I want to see if I can finish that Tav!Smiler post on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), my video gaming will depend on both if I can actually load any lots in my game (hopefully) and if we do indeed play croquet tomorrow (and how long it takes). And what I watch with my workout will depend on how long Jon's video tomorrow really is -- because, as he's been entertaining his in-laws this week, he's putting up a "thoughts on the Fallout TV series Season 2" video instead of the next episode of F:NV YOLO Remastered. And if that video is short enough and easier to sum up, I MIGHT take the opportunity to start the super-long Alien RPG episode of Oxventure...we will see. Right now, I just want to brush my teeth and get to bed. Night all!
And then I remembered I had an anon ask waiting for me over on Valice Multiverse, and a comment over here from Gigs. And suddenly I had four things I had to keep up with instead of just two. *facepalm* Granted, I knew about the ask on Valice Multiverse and the comment from Gigs earlier, but I thought "oh, I'll have plenty of time to do those tonight!" And then I just kind of forgot about them until the day was almost over. *sigh* Time management -- it remains out of my grasp. ^^; But I got the write-ups done, so here is how the rest of my day went:
Tumblr: Had a somewhat productive day over on the tumblrs –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Over here, I spent the time before lunch working on the “Tav!Smiler” update post in my drafts – unfortunately, it took me longer than I wanted to get going on it because I had some unexpected trouble getting the “Class” portion of the post just right. Fortunately, I got past it eventually, and I managed to get through “Class,” “Background,” “Abilities,” and partway through “Spells” before it was time to go and eat. Hoping I can finish this up tomorrow morning – be nice to post it sometime this week!
Valice Multiverse – And over here, I did indeed manage to answer that anon ask that was waiting for me this eve – later than I’d intended, granted, but I did answer it! The ask proved to be an anon commenting on how the metaphorical billion monkeys chained to a billion typewriters might in fact produce Hamlet – but any person who would DO such a thing would neither appreciate nor even recognize the play when it finally arrived – I had Cuddlepile!Alice note that this was very true and served as an excellent metaphor for modern capitalism. Maybe not my best work, but I was pretty tired when I wrote it!
Fallout 4: I successfully returned to the Commonwealth today, sending Victor and Ada just a little bit deeper into the Mechanist’s Lair and discovering some more of the horrors of the secret robobrain facility she’s set up shop in! Because it’s not Fallout unless you have The Horrors, preferably tucked away behind a nostalgic 50s aesthetic. *nods* Today’s adventures included:
A) Victor and Ada traversing Holding Block A! Which, when the door from reception was opened, proved to be a long corridor full of prison cells in various states of disrepair, with a couple of brain-in-a-tank-driven gurneys stopped on a rail going down the center of it. Yes, it was just as creepy as it sounds – especially since the first one had a dead feral ghoul still strapped to it. D: (Though said ghoul did have an aluminum can on them, so that was a silver lining.) The cells themselves were also pretty damn grim – with simple beds jutting out from the wall (some without mattresses), what looked like some sort of feeding trough (you know, like for livestock) at the back, and a big old pipe coming out of the wall that bent upward at a 90 degree angle that – might have been used as a toilet. I don’t know – I certainly didn’t see any PROPER plumbing in there! D: Honestly, it all just drove home just how inhumanely these people were treated, criminals or no. *grimace* And the worst part? While most of the cells were either empty or contained just dead bodies (a mix of dead ferals and skeletons) –
Six of them contained still-alive ferals. All of whom were locked in and couldn’t get out. Now, I’m not usually in the business of feeling that sorry for feral ghouls – mostly because they’re too busy trying to claw my face off when I meet them – but I felt genuinely terrible for these six. Because damn, imagine surviving the nuclear apocalypse, only to have to watch your body decay and mutate while your brain deteriorates, all while still trapped in the same tiny little cell the government shoved you into with the intent of harvesting your brain for its stupid robot project. *shudder* Yeah, it’s – it’s not pleasant. So, after Victor and Ada finished going down the corridor, visiting each unoccupied cell (popping open those that were still locked – just Advanced locks, nothing Victor couldn’t handle), gathering what goodies they could (mainly some ammo, caps, Med-X, and bobby pins – which was good, as I broke about one bobby pin per lock *grumble*), and marveling at the one pair of cells that had a giant hole in the wall between them (not sure how THAT happened), I had Victor eat some food (Mirelurk Delight for a temporary boost to Endurance and max AP, and some health tea for increased healing – for some reason, Ada acted like the latter was booze and told Victor that he’d have to drink alone, “ma’am” O.o), then return to the start to open each feral’s cell, sneak in, and mercy-kill them as they stirred and prepared to attack. Happily, one blast from the good old Tactical Tesla took all of them down without issue – even the one Legendary Gangrenous Feral Ghoul, who I expected to be a bit tougher. Then again, in close quarters, very little can stand up to the Electric Death Machine… Anyway, this mission of mercy netted Victor the following:
I. A kickball off the body of the first ghoul (yay, rubber!)
II. Some apple cider vinegar off the body of the second, plus a stash containing dog tags and 45 caps in their room
III. Some industrial-grade Abraxo cleaner and a baseball off the body of the third
IV. A viable blood sample for that one lady in the Brotherhood off the body of the fourth – which was interesting, because Victor actually reduced that guy to ash O.o
V. Some Daddy-O and a shot glass off the body of the fifth, plus some stimpacks and jet in their room – I guess this one was the party ghoul :p
VI. An Auto-Stim Metal Chestpiece (decent legendary effect, terrible armor) and an aluminum can off the body of the sixth (which, as you might guess, was the Legendary)
VII. And – as a result of all that lockpicking and murder – a level-up to Level 49! :D After considering my options for a bit, I decided to just directly boost Agility up to 8 – Victor is an agile boy, and given how often I use VATS to murder things, having more AP at my disposal is always a good thing!
B) Victor and Ada going up the ramp at the end of Holding Block A to the observation hallway above! Which contained some busted-up protectrons (who were not lootable, boo); a bunch of glass windows lining the sides of the corridor floor, allowing the scientists to peer into each cell from above (creepy); a few tables with surgical trays and other goodies on them (Victor picked up another Protectron Model, nice); a busted door to Holding Block B at the far end (guess we’re not going in THAT block – good, honestly); a Stealth Boy on a crate beside said door (yay!); a hole back downstairs if you didn’t feel like going all the way back to the ramp –
And, right in the middle of the corridor, a wall-mounted “Medical Observation” terminal! Which, when opened, had notes on five of the prisoners who were being observed (I guess the others weren’t interesting enough to warrant entries). In order, we had:
I. A22, a serial killer who was said to have high brain function but a weak constitution – the doctors put him on a high protein diet and started using regular electrotherapy on his muscles to make sure that his brain would survive the eventual extraction
II. A53, an arsonist who burned down a courthouse and killed three people, and who could only be approached if sedated – apparently her family had a history of dementia, so she was immediately dismissed as a viable candidate and recommended for termination
III. A57, a woman who killed a waitress – it was noted she was prone to sudden outbursts of violence and was very emotional, so the staff had her on a cocktail of anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medications, with one “Dr. Astleford” preparing psychiatric sessions to see if they could get her more stable
IV. A72, a guy who killed someone while he was drunk – he was very smart and showed good knowledge of tactics, but also some signs of PTSD, so Dr. Astleford was also evaluating a treatment plan for him
V. And A88, an ex-military woman who was convicted of second-degree manslaughter after she beat up someone so badly they died in the hospital later – she was noted to be highly intelligent and mentally sound, so she was immediately approved for the project! Lucky her. *grimace* And given she was said to be a woman, I wonder if the person she beat up was a superior who – tried to get handsy, let’s say…
Yeah – pretty much exactly the kind of horrible bullshit I expected from this place! Damn…it never really gets any easier to see the shit the Fallout government pulled on people. Especially with our government feeling closer and closer to that one every damn day...
C) Victor and Ada returning to the end of the original corridor and riding the big elevator they found there (which had another brain gurney with a dead feral strapped to it inside) down to the actual research wing! Which prompted a very dramatic music sting that I feel was wasted on Victor and Ada just looking at the big decontamination arches and the lockers at the entrance to the room. XD Victor got some blood packs (one empty, one full) and some Buffout out of the lockers, then – after cautiously passing through the arches (post a quicksave) and finding that, fortunately, they weren’t now spewing out radiation or anything like that – proceeded into the heart of the room –
Which was essentially one big surgical theater. Compete with more brain-gurneys (well, theoretical ones, anyway – there were no brains in jars attached, but there was definitely a spot on them for one), these with EXTREMELY thick metal restraints on them. D: Which was unpleasant enough, until I directed Victor to the back of the room to see what was going on there and found a wall full of filing cabinets and two rooms tucked away on either side – one reading “Brain Extraction” and one reading “Cerebral Reconditioning.” And then I made the mistake of having Victor poke his head into “Brain Extraction” –
Only to find within a giant horrible machine that looked like it literally sucked the brains out of people’s heads. Along with so many fucking brains floating in jars full of glowing green liquid. Like, there were shelves upon SHELVES of these brains on both sides of the room. D: Mechanist, how the FUCK did you not look at all this and go “oh wow, the people working on this project seemed super evil, maybe I shouldn’t be using these robobrains to play hero with.” *shakehead* Fortunately for me, Victor and Ada came across this place near the end of my playsession, so I didn’t have to endure it for long. Instead, I just had Victor:
I. Combine some drugs at the nearby available chemistry bench – he may not partake, but they sell for good money, and combined drugs take up less inventory than separate ones
II. Grab some duct tape and other goodies out of a tool chest on a nearby desk (always gotta have the adhesive! Even if it make me wonder how all these brain jars were secured in the robobrains)
III. Get confused by the fact that the terminal next to the tool chest was labeled “Cerebral Reconditioning” when he was in the “Brain Extraction” room – I sent him across the hall to take a look at “Cerebral Reconditioning” to see if they had a “Brain Extraction” terminal, and they did (along with a scary machine that looked like it could absolutely fry someone’s head with current pointed at a scorched hospital bed). Not sure what’s going on there, other than Bethesda putting the wrong terminals in the wrong rooms for some reason O.o
IV. Bunk down in the main surgery area for the night at 7:30 PM because, well, he was feeling tired, and I figured I might as well end my playsession with him getting some sleep. In the least scary room of the research wing, because like fuck was I having him sleep near all those brains!
And that was pretty much that! I left it with Victor having just gotten up at 3:30 AM the next day, ready to resume his terrible adventures through the horrible government lab. Next time, we finish exploring the Research Wing (including seeing what’s on those two swapped computers), then maybe see if there’s time to take on the Mechanist herself! Because, well, the quest marker on the compass is telling me that she’s not only nearby, but finally on the same floor as me...we’ll see what happens!
Writing: Actually got two bits of writing done today, go me –
A) First, before beanbags (see “Other,” below), I did the FO4 Playthrough Progression write-up of the day’s FO4 playsession! Featuring Victor, Alice, and Ada taking on Holding Block A, the observation hallway above, and the research wing just beyond it! And, as per usual, their adventures weren’t too different from what actually happened in the game – just with a few small changes:
I. Alice was the one to propose my “maybe the pipes are the toilets” theory when the gang went into Holding Block A and saw the horrible cells there – though she allowed that maybe it was used to gas the prisoners in case of emergency or something. And then said that, if it was her in that situation, she’d probably shit in the pipe anyway to annoy the guards. :P
II. After Victor noticed the first living ghoul stuck in a cell while going down the block looking for goodies, and used the VATS feature on his Pip-Boy to find the others, he and Alice worked together to mercy-kill them – Alice opening all the doors (as she’s the better lockpicker in this world) while Victor administered the fatal shocks before the ghouls could even move (with Ada staying nearby to help if things got ugly). Lunch and looting the cells also happened after all the ghouls were killed (and put on their beds to try and lay them to rest in SOME sense), and Alice naturally received the bobby pins for all her hard work. *nods* You did good, Alice! Even if I had you break almost as many bobby pins as I did. XD
III. While reading the Medical Observation terminal upstairs, I had Victor wonder if the serial killer mentioned, A22, was the ghoul who had that auto-stim chestpiece – I mean, given his write-up, it seems logical that they’d give him something like that to help keep him healthy! – and put forth my theory that the ex-military woman, A88, was arrested for assaulting a superior officer who tried to get fresh with her (noting that his female colleagues in the military complained about that all the time). Alice also got understandably upset about none of the people mentioned having NAMES, because, well, guess who it reminded her of. Even Ada was disgusted, and Jackson didn’t even install those emotion modules in her! Just a bad time all around.
IV. In the research wing, Victor gave the blood pack he found in the lockers to Alice (who, as a reminder, is still her Malkavian vampire self from VTMB, just a variant universe where Victor wasn’t her ghoul) – sadly, she could smell it was rancid and thus had to throw it away. Shame! Ada also scanned the decontamination arches and declared them clean so they could pass through without fear.
V. And I used the power of “hey, all of these characters are truly independent entities here” to have Alice check out the “Cerebral Reconditioning” room while Victor checked out “Brain Extraction” (and was nearly sick, poor guy) – she wasn’t very happy with her room either, as you might expect! I left in the terminals being in the wrong rooms, though, which they both found very confusing. Yeah, same here, my dudes.
And there you have it! I left off with Victor, having bunked down in the surgery room just like in the game, waking up at 3:30 AM from a nightmare about having his brain sucked out of his skull (sorry Victor!) – next time, they’ll finish exploring the research lab, then go see if they can find that Mechanist! Because I’m pretty sure they’ll all want to kick someone’s ass once they finish reading all those terminals and whatnot.
B) And second, after supper and my second bit of YouTubery (also below), I actually got a bit more done on editing Chapter 5 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland!” Specifically:
I. I went back to the beginning and quickly skimmed through the first twenty pages again cleaning up more instances where I overused Alice’s name (along with making a few other little tweaks and fixes)
II. And I finished editing Alice’s time in the creepy mannequin house, meaning I’m now on page 38 of 54 in the chapter! Hooray!
Yeah, felt good to make some progress on this when I didn’t expect to. :) Hopefully tomorrow I can get in a good editing session and see if I can make it so I might be able to get this sucker up on Monday...
YouTube: Got in two videos today, which was nice – even if one of them was incredibly short XD –
A) First up, right before Fallout 4, we had “Changes to the Channel” by C. M. Alongi! A quick two-minute video of her making two quick announcements –
I. One, she finally was able to rent a dedicated filming space for the series (instead of having to work in her apartment and deal with all the problems of filming therein), so future episodes will look a little different (and might even feature greenscreen again!)
II. And two, she’s starting a podcast series, Cafae Convos, where she interviews a guest each week! Those should be going up on Wednesdays starting September 3rd. The comments are already hoping her video editor, Nic, is one of the guests. XD
So that’s interesting! I admit, I’m not so interested in the podcast, but I’m very intrigued as to how having a bigger, dedicated filming space will affect the actual series. Maybe we’ll be able to see how the CaFae is actually supposed to look? One hopes…
B) And then, this evening, I finally got around to watching the final video in my Watch Later – “The Sims 4 Just Added a New GAME-BREAKING Feature…” by onlyabidoang! This was his look at the base game update/patch that dropped on 8/19/2025, and it consisted roughly of the following:
I. Abi warning people that they really needed to remove/disable their mods after every Sims 4 update, no matter how small, because any given update could do something in the background that really fucked up mods – and then demonstrating with his own game by showing how enabling his mods post-update led to a fucked-up start screen with no images because he had a main menu replacement mod that wasn’t yet updated. Just common sense, people!
II. Abi showing off a possible mod-related bug where he couldn’t load into any lots in his latest save game with mods enabled (he kept being kicked to the World Select screen), but could once he took them out – however, he stressed that, judging from the comments on the official thread on this bug in the EA help center, some people DO seem to be getting this “can’t load into lots” bug on clean saves, so beware!
III. Abi showing off the new “Pack Selector” feature that came with the patch, which allows you to disable packs to get, for example, a base-game-only save file. Which sounds like it could be an interesting feature (even if Abi and I agree it’s probably been implemented so EA can tell Simmers suffering game performance issues or bugs “well, if you turned off some of your packs...”)...but as Abi demonstrated, if you want to then re-enable packs (either for a new save file or to “upgrade” an existing one), you might find yourself unable to do it as the confirming checkmark button will be inaccessible, giving a “game data is still loading, please wait” message. Fortunately, restarting the game DOES seem to fix the issue, at least somewhat (it allows you to actually click the checkmark button again, anyway), but if you’ve seen reports of Simmers complaining that this feature broke their saves, the inability to re-enable packs might be what they’re talking about. (They might also be complaining about disabling some packs destroying an existing save, but if they are, that’s on them, because the feature does make it VERY CLEAR that you should only be doing this on NEW saves to prevent save data loss/corruption, and even tells you “if you MUST open this older save with all these packs missing, at least let us make a copy of it for you so the original will still be there for you.” Yeah, this feature may be a buggy mess, but they at least covered their asses in THAT area.)
IV. Abi going through all the new skin details – including freckles, stretch marks, wrinkles, and age spots – the patch added to the game, showing them off on both a light-skinned young fem Sim and a dark-skinned older mas Sim so we could see what they looked like on different skin tones, body frames, and ages. They’re mostly pretty good additions, especially for people who want their elderly Sims to look appropriately aged, but I did think that some of the stretch marks didn’t show up very well on the dark-skinned guy. Maybe that’s just me, though.
V. Abi talking about the new toggle to enable/disable the spread of Ailments (the magical diseases that come with Enchanted By Nature) through contagion (aka, Sims passing them on to other Sims through contact), because despite a previous patch lowering the rate of contagion significantly, people were still up in arms about how often their Sims were getting Ailments. As long as the box is unchecked, Sims cannot pass Ailments on by contact, and you can only get them via being very Imbalanced or fairy shenanigans. This honestly feels much more logical to me – they’re magical illnesses! Caused by magical means! Why would they be contagious in the first place? *shakehead* Hopefully the toggle works as it’s meant to, but we’ll see…
VI. Abi briefly noting a change to the hated Cart button in the top UI – instead of popping up a window showing off a pack you don’t have in an attempt to get you to buy it if you click on it, now it just straight-up takes you to the store page. Which – who knows why they changed that, but EA, what we want is for you to TAKE IT OUT ENTIRELY. Ugh.
VII. And Abi briefly going through the bug fixes and performance tweaks in the patch notes, because none of them were really the kind of fixes that could be shown off in a video (mostly making sure some clothes were properly classified).
So yeah – not a stunning review of the latest patch to drop for the game! Sounds like that Patch Selector has been causing some real problems for people...and that “can’t load into a lot” bug is obviously something that needs to be fixed PRONTO. Especially since one of the commenters on the video indicated they’d gotten it –
In an OFFLINE game. That has NOT RECEIVED THE UPDATE. That was EXTREMELY WORRYING to hear tonight, given that my plans for tomorrow included firing up the game in offline mode again to continue working on Smiler’s potion caravan! O.O Cripes, I really hope it loads...keep your fingers crossed, everyone!
Other: While a good portion of the day was hot and a little sticky, it did actually cool down and dry out around 5 PM, so we were able to go out and play some beanbags. And after a painful losing streak the last few time we’ve played, and a first round where she managed to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory, Mom actually came back and end today as the beanbags champ, winning three games out of five! Dad won the other two, and I just kind sucked in general, only getting a couple of seconds. Meeeh. Final scores were me 2-3-3-3-2; Dad W-2-2-W-3; and Mom 3-W-W-2-W. We’ll see if we play tomorrow – Mom’s pretty firm about giving the croquet set a spin instead, but that requires set-up, and I don’t know if she and Dad are going to get to it...we’ll find out, I suppose!
So yeah, not too bad a day -- though as you can probably tell, I did not get to Gigs's comment. Sorry -- I'll answer it tomorrow morning! Just too tired right now...and yeah, in the interest of NOT going to bed again at 2:30 AM, I'd better hit the sack. Tomorrow's plans are -- well, a little up in the air, honestly -- while I know for sure that I want to see if I can finish that Tav!Smiler post on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), my video gaming will depend on both if I can actually load any lots in my game (hopefully) and if we do indeed play croquet tomorrow (and how long it takes). And what I watch with my workout will depend on how long Jon's video tomorrow really is -- because, as he's been entertaining his in-laws this week, he's putting up a "thoughts on the Fallout TV series Season 2" video instead of the next episode of F:NV YOLO Remastered. And if that video is short enough and easier to sum up, I MIGHT take the opportunity to start the super-long Alien RPG episode of Oxventure...we will see. Right now, I just want to brush my teeth and get to bed. Night all!
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Date: 2025-08-24 10:16 am (UTC)My newest Sims 4 wtf glitch is getting the angry moodlet from using the cell phone off the grid... except that particular challenge or whatever they're called is not selected. Hell, I even have Fast Internet for the lot! Googling showed me I'm not the only one, but no promise of a fix. 🤷♀️
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Date: 2025-08-25 03:46 am (UTC)Oh yeah, I think that's actually an old bug from back when they first introduced the Off The Grid challenge (though I think it was a lot trait back then?). Nice to know that it was either never properly fixed or restored somehow with one of the latest patches! Meeeeh... I hope it's not annoying you too much!
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Date: 2025-08-25 12:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-08-26 03:42 am (UTC)