Valicertine's Day Everyone
Feb. 14th, 2026 11:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickI'm holding off on the "happy" because, well, it wasn't really -- I once again spent more time than I would have liked cleaning my room (thanks to getting a late start and getting interrupted a few times -- ended up taking from 11 AM to 3:15 PM, though that was with a break for lunch shortly after 1 PM); my parents were having a hard time with the taxes this morning which didn't do much for anyone's moods; and Dad ended up having a really bad day with his stomach and intestines and whatnot -- he couldn't eat dinner tonight, and ended up throwing up bile later on. *sighs* Not a good time at all. But I managed to fit in a few Valicer-related things:
I. I wore my Valicer hoodie for a decent portion of the day, with one of my Valice shirts underneath it for maximum Valentine's Day power
II. My Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) queue went up without incident, and I enjoyed looking at my Valicertines and bonus image again
III. I rewatched a couple of my old Sims 4 videos featuring the Chill Valicer trio -- specifically, the one I took of Victor hosting a seance, and the one where Smiler was telling Victor and Alice a story during their Chestnut Ridge SimCity Founding trip
IV. I watched a trio of short clips of their respective canons tonight -- Alice complaining to Cheshire that he'd better not bully her as she was very much on edge after first arriving back in Wonderland in Alice: Madness Returns (with him retorting, "Purrfect -- when you're not on edge, you're taking up too much space"); Victor apologizing to Emily right before the piano duet in Corpse Bride (cutting off right before he explained how the day had not gone at all according to plan); and an unused commercial spot for The Smiler coaster (simply highlighting how the 14-inversion coaster was now finally open -- possibly it was designed for one of the earlier opening dates, not the actual one)
V. And I reread some Valicer fanfic -- notably, two of my Valicer In The Dark short stories, and two of my Modern AU short stories
So that was all right. But I'm going to have to add in the other main accomplishment of the day -- playing some more Fallout: New Vegas and taking down the Powder Gangers -- tomorrow, because It's 2:14 AM here and I am SO FUCKING TIRED. *facepalm* So I'm dragging myself to bed. Watch this space! EDIT: 2/15/2026: Back again, here's the write-up of the Adventures Of Courier Victor:
Fallout: New Vegas: I may have gotten to it much later than I wanted due to how long it took me to clean my damn room (and then I had to pause for a few minutes right at the start to deal with some cuts opening up on my fingers thanks to how dry and cold it’s been, which was a pain in the ass), but I did get back to the adventures of Courier Victor today, and I did have him fight the Powder Gangers! A little, anyway – here’s how things went:
A) I picked up with Victor just outside Ringo’s gas station hideout, preparing to talk to him and kick off the fight against the Powder Gangers – but, before he did that, I had him head down the road to the Prospector’s Saloon again to see if Sunny Smiles was there. Reason? I was curious to see if Victor could somehow “report back” to her about the progress on the optional quest objectives – like, say “Trudy’s agreed to help us” or “I convinced Chet to lend everyone some leather armor.” Sadly, there wasn’t, though Sunny did at least have a nice quest-specific conversation intro line when Victor went to talk to her – “I'll keep an eye out for the Powder Gangers and meet up with you and Ringo when the time comes.” So Victor at least knew she was doing her part! *thumbs up* And while there was no way to talk more about the quest with her, I was able to have Victor broach another topic – namely, the fact that he was a little short on caps, and would appreciate it if she told him if there was any work to be had in town. She admitted there wasn’t, but then added, “But if you're up for a little scavenging, there's always the schoolhouse. Most of what's in there is junk, but there's this old safe that even Easy Pete wasn't able to crack with dynamite. If you want to take a shot at it, take these” –
And handed Victor a free Locksmith’s Reader (aka the lockpicking skill magazine) and some bobby pins (I believe four? I didn’t see the exact number, but that would line up with how many bobby pins Victor ended up having at the end of his adventures)! Nice! Though Victor was a little confused at first, judging by his dialogue options – “A magazine on locksmiths?” Sunny explained that, if the lock proved too hard for him, reading that could give him the edge he needed to crack it – and when he asked about the bobby pins, explained that they were for picking the lock itself – “Be careful, though – put too much pressure on them and they'll snap.” Victor was quite grateful and said that he’d take a look once he got a chance, and Sunny sent him on his way with “Always happy to help someone down on their luck” –
And a note, basically summarizing everything they just talked about and what she gave him to help him out. Much like how Victor got a note from Trudy about fixing her radio after offering to take a look at it. I guess this is the game’s way of helping the player keep track of stuff they might want to do but which doesn’t have an official quest attached? *shrug* All right then.
B) With that sorted, I had Victor head outside and back up the road to Ringo’s! Pausing a couple of times to figure out how to hot-key things (assigning the 9mm pistol and varmint rifle to “right” and “down” on the D-pad respectively – we’ll see if I remember to use said hot keys!) and to double-check that the old truck was the only thing in the open area to the right of the door (it was). He finally entered the station around 6 PM, ready to tell Ringo that Sunny was on side and that they should be all set to take on the Powder Gangers –
Except, before he could initiate the conversation, I noticed something that looked like a toolbox sitting at the end of one of the aisles between the shelves at the back of the store. Curious, I decided to see what was inside –
And discovered it wasn’t a toolbox, it was a doctor’s bag! Which is very important to Victor, as those things can heal crippled limbs (in fact, they’re one of a very limited number of ways to heal crippled limbs in Hardcore). I promptly had him grab it (wasn’t marked as owned – and before you say “but isn’t Ringo staying in the store?” I’m pretty sure he has a specific stash of owned stuff that’s behind the counter, ammo and such. Also this isn’t BG3 and I’m less of a bleeding heart toward Ringo than I am toward the tieflings. :P), then started looking for other potentially-important missed goodies –
And sure enough, down the other aisle, partially hidden behind a partially-collapsed shelf, were a couple of stimpacks on the floor! So I had Victor grab those too – though because they were smaller, and in a slightly-more-awkward location, he also ended up accidentally grabbing some Abraxo cleaner and a can of something – the latter mostly because I tried crouching to get the second stimpack and, once again, pressed in the wrong stick (right stick instead of left), which caused him to pick up and start moving the item directly in front of him in the world – and when I tried to get him to drop it, I had him put it into his inventory instead. *shakehead* My greatest nemesis in this game – MUSCLE MEMORY. Why’d they have to change the controls between F:NV and FO4…
C) Anyway – having grabbed the extra medical supplies from the shop, it was time to talk to Ringo and kick off the fight! Ringo greeted Victor by asking if Sunny had agreed to help them – Victor reassured him that Sunny was with them, and Ringo replied, “Well, I guess that means we're ready to go. Unless you think there's something else you can do?” Victor, of course, had already fulfilled all the optional objectives to get the rest of the town to help, but unfortunately couldn’t tell Ringo that directly (bit of an oversight – but then again, this is a game that was made in 18 months, so oversights are expected) – instead, all he could say was “Let’s do this.” Ringo replied, “All right, I'm ready. I hope” –
And just like that, Sunny was at the door, telling him and Victor to look alive, because the Powder Gangers were moving in to attack the town! Victor, startled, asked how many – she informed him, “At least six, Joe Cobb included. They look pretty mean.” So not the smallest gang, but not too overwhelming either. Victor, aware of the need for speed, said, “Let’s go” –
But before they left, Sunny had something to tell him – namely, “Oh, Easy Pete came through with the dynamite. Here's your supply. I really hope I don't blow myself up.” Netting Victor five free sticks of dynamite! Always nice to have in case of emergency – though I also hoped Victor didn’t have to use them, as I didn’t want him to blow himself up either. She then informed Victor that she’d be setting up near Chet’s store, admitting she hoped the gang didn’t make it that far –
D) And with that, everyone headed out the door and down the road to fight the Powder Gangers! Victor got his varmint rifle ready (as he had the most ammo for that), then followed Sunny and Ringo as they ran down the road toward the general store and the saloon. Ringo hid behind a nearby big rock while Sunny joined her fellow settlers holding the line in front of Trudy’s saloon –
Have to say, it was really gratifying to see them out there – the physical fruit of all of Victor’s labors in completing all the optional objectives. :) Anyway, Victor went to join them as the Powder Gangers down the road started rushing into town –
And I discovered that Jon of Many A True Nerd had been right in one of his earlier videos that I listened to during a past cleaning session – if you do all the optional objectives and get the residents of Goodsprings properly kitted out, they can pretty much just do the fight themselves. Like, Victor participated – he crippled the leg of a guy advancing on him with a cleaver, crippled the head of someone trying to bash in his with a baseball bat, and shot Joe Cobb in the leg near the end – but the NPCs were the ones getting all the kills, and doing it very fast. Now, granted, part of this is because I’m not the greatest at manual aiming and thus was VATS-scanning until various gang members got close enough for Victor to hit them, but still – I was surprised at how quickly and efficiently the Goodsprings lot took everyone out! Which led to a second discovery when the fight ended and the “here’s how all this affected your reputation with the various factions involved” pop-ups appeared –
Whether you end up “Shunned” (aka only receive one level of infamy and end up with them being unfriendly, but not necessarily willing to shoot you on sight) or “Vilified” (aka receive three levels of infamy and end up being their Public Enemy #1) by the Powder Gangers post-this fight depends solely on if you KILLED any of them, NOT on whether or not you participated in the fight at all. Now, I knew from another of Jon’s videos (one of the first ones in the F:NV YOLO Remastered series) that if your Courier just completely sits out the fight and lets Sunny, Ringo, and any Goodsprings residents they can bring around take care of the Powder Gangers, your Courier will become merely “Shunned” by all other Powder Gangers because they didn’t kill any of them – but I thought participating in the fight and actively helping the Goodsprings residents win by, you know, shooting the attackers would guarantee you would become “Vilified” with the faction post-fight. But no – since Victor never scored a killing blow, the remaining Powder Gangers out in the world settled for merely “Shunned.” Which is actually quite good, as it means Victor will have less to fear from the Powder Gangers at the start of the game, and should be able to investigate the NCR “correctional facility” they’ve taken over and perhaps do part of the quest there! We’ll see!
E) Anyway – with the fight over, and Victor officially Shunned by the Powder Gangers but Idolized by Goodsprings (because, well, even if he didn’t do much, he DID help defend the town from the gang), the “Ghost Town Gunfight” quest officially wrapped up with a relieved and happy Ringo telling Victor, “I owe you a huge favor for this. Here – these are technically Crimson Caravan funds, but I know they'll understand once I explain things,” and giving him 100 caps. I was briefly tempted to have Victor note that Ringo hadn’t said he had the caps to pay him before, just to hear what he’d say – but given Victor helped Ringo out of the goodness of his heart, not a reward, I suspected he would be happy to receive anything for his hard work, so I had him just say “You’re welcome.” Ringo then told him that he’d be in town for a few days longer before hitting the road again, and encouraged him to look him up at the Crimson Caravan camp should he ever reach New Vegas. As I know for a fact Ringo gives the Courier more money to thank them for saving his life when you do, Victor will definitely be seeking him out in the future. :p That ended the conversation –
And dropped Victor into the level-up screen, as he’d just gotten enough XP from finishing the quest to hit Level 2! Hooray! :D As an Intelligence 8 character, he got 14 skill points to distribute among his various skills – I raised his Barter up to 20 (as I like the idea of Victor, whose background includes being the son of a very successful fish merchant, being good at Barter – especially since there’s more checks for it than you might realize), his Lockpick up to 22 (very important skill, need to move it in the right direction), and his Speech up to 25 (as established, Victor CAN be persuasive if he wants to be, and this means he should be able to pass most low-level Speech checks right now if necessary) – and as it was an even level, he got to pick a perk! Though there weren’t a lot available to him, admittedly – his SPECIAL stats were too low for a lot of them, and for many of the ones where he had the SPECIAL, he didn’t have the skills. The perils of being a low-level character designed to mimic a specific stop-motion puppet… After pondering the few options he had for a bit, I decided to go with “Retention,” which triples the length skill magazines last (from roughly one real-life minute to three). A useful perk for Victor, who will probably be relying on these skill-boosting magazines fairly a lot for the time being as he works on gaining levels and thus skill points! Really gotta take another look at the list of available perks and figure out which ones best suit Victor so I can tailor his skills to match...
E) With Victor having officially leveled up, it was time for everyone’s favorite post-fight activity – looting! So, as the citizens of Goodsprings all headed back either to the saloon or their houses for the night (including Easy Pete, which I found quite relieving as I’d seen him during the fight and his health had looked worryingly low), Victor went between the various corpses and picked up what he could – mindful of his not-great carry weight, of course. He secured the following:
I. 11 caps, a .357 magnum revolver and 8 rounds for it, 12 magnum round cases, a stealth boy (apparently Joe is guaranteed to have one, nice), and some Powder Ganger armor off Joe Cobb himself – useful if Victor needs to disguise himself as one to avoid trouble!
II. 5 caps, a varmint rifle, 3 5.56mm bullets and 6 cases, and 5 sticks of dynamite off a random Ganger on the road (glad he didn’t throw any of the dynamite!)
III. A baseball bat and a carton of cigarettes off the Powder Ganger whose head he’d crippled
IV. A stick of dynamite, a simple shotgun, and 9 20 gauge shells and 7 hulls off another random Powder Ganger
V. 2 caps and a cleaver off the Powder Ganger whose leg he’d crippled
VI. And 4 caps off the final dude in the gang – who also had a machete, but Victor was very close to weight capacity at that point, so I figured it was better to leave that for now and loot it later
Not a bad haul, I suppose – certainly not for the beginning of the game! All of that took Victor until about 10 PM at night, though, so once he had his goodies, I had him head up the road to Victortron’s shack to spend the night again. His Securitron name-twin was waiting outside again, just chilling like he pretty much always does –
Which made Victor realize that, hang on a second, Victortron had promised to help in the battle, but he’d never shown up. He thus went to talk to the guy about it and see what had happened –
Only for Victortron to greet him with a cheerful, “Howdy, pardner! So, when do the rustlers show up?” A baffled Victor replied, “They were here. The fight's over,” causing Victortron to get confused himself and say, “Really? I must've dozed off. Although, that's never happened before…” Yes, robots aren’t exactly known for “dozing off,” Victortron. And fortunately, because Victor has a nice high Science of 40, he was able to note that too, stating, “There may be data corruption in one of your memory chips. Let me take a look.” Victortron allowed him in, simply asking him to put everything back where he found it –
Causing Victor to discover that Victortron had fallen victim to something called “Override Command 16-Delta.” He asked Victortron if that meant anything to him, but Victortron insisted he’d never heard it before. Mystery… Victortron then apologized, saying he was truly sorry he wasn’t able to help, and asked if Victor wanted to talk about anything else. There were no new dialogue options, though, so Victor demurred and just headed inside the shack, where he got some water from the sink, ate a gecko steak as a late dinner, used the varmint rifle he’d gotten off the Powder Ganger to repair his own and up the condition a little, and finally hit the sheets at 10:50 PM. *nods* He’d earned it!
F) Victor woke up the next morning (Wednesday, 10/23/2281 for the curious) just before 7 AM, refreshed and mostly ready to go – I had him take his customary drink from Victortron’s sink to make sure his H20 levels stayed manageable, then sent him out into the world to continue his adventures! And what better way to continue them then by going after the safe in the old schoolhouse? It was right next door to Victortron’s shack, after all… I thus had Victor head on over, creeping over the broken fence by the front door before equipping his straight razor as his weapon of choice for this fight – mostly because I had yet to use it and wanted to see what the melee combat in this game was like. I then had him creep around the perimeter of the building to see if there were any enemies or any items of interest outside –
And while I found nothing for him to fight, I did find something for him to pick – jalapenos! Yes, the famous hot pepper apparently survived the apocalypse, and Victor was able to get two off the plant growing by the boarded-up back door. Nice – more ingredients for cooking nice meals. :) Apart from that, though, the only thing I found of interest was the side door into the school, which unlike the back was also open. I considered going in that way for a moment…
Then decided, “eh, the front door will do” and had Victor head in that way, keeping him crouched in an attempt to be stealthy. Inside was a big old room with a few side areas, filled with overturned desks and broken lockers and dirty side cabinets –
And a bunch of giant mantis nymphs! Who, despite Victor’s decent sneakiness, did manage to spot him pretty fast as he crept into the room. Fortunately for Victor, they were all quite weak and had pathetic attacks – a few jumped at him and tried to bite him, but their little jaws couldn’t get past his armor, and he was able to take them all down with a few swipes of his trusty razor. Earning himself some progress toward the “Bug Stomper” challenge perk, 5 XP per kill, and three mantis forelegs and two mantis eggs off the corpses. Which was pretty nice all on its own –
But then I looked at the desk beside one of the corpses, and discovered that it too was lootable, and in fact contained a cherry bomb! Meaning there was a lot more to get in here than whatever was in the safe. I thus had Victor explore the school before cracking the safe to see if there were any goodies he could pick up (mindful again of his carry weight limitations), which netted him:
I. The aforementioned cherry bomb from a sideways desk
II. Another mantis egg out of a mantis “ootheca” (some weird pod-looking thing that is apparently an egg capsule for mantises and some other insects, as per Wikipedia, so I guess it makes sense Victor found a mantis egg in there) by some lockers
III. A Programmer’s Digest skill magazine on one of the side counters
IV. A Salesman Weekly skill magazine on the floor by some old metal shelves
V. A couple of bobby pins on the shelves in the room behind the safe (which is where the side door led, it looked like)
V. And another Programmer’s Digest and another bobby pin on the counter with the terminal next to the safe!
*nods* Not a bad haul at all – and Victor hadn’t even cracked open the safe yet! I thus had him turn his attention that, ready to pick it open –
Except. The darn thing was an Easy lock, meaning you needed a Lockpick of 25 to open it. And Victor, as previously established, only had a Lockpick of 22. Whoops – I’d assumed it was Very Easy and thus Victor would be able to take a crack at it no matter what! ^^; Fortunately, he had that Locksmith’s Reader that Sunny had gifted him, and one quick skim through that boosted his skill by 10, allowing him to attempt to open it –
And introducing me to the F:NV version of the lockpicking mini game! Which, fortunately, was pretty similar to the FO4 version – wiggle left stick to rotate the bobby pin in the lock, right stick to apply torque with the screwdriver. (Or press (X) to try and force the lock open, but that rarely works and can permanently break the lock, so...) And this particular one was very easy, requiring just a small adjustment of the pin to the left to pop open. :) Victor thus successfully cracked the safe and claimed his prizes – 17 caps, a package of mentats, 2 pre-War bills, a Stealth Boy (Victor’s swimming in those now), and a Super Stimpack (good for emergencies) – there was also a butter knife, an egg timer, and a wrench in there, but I left those behind because of carry weight reasons again. Victor could always go back and get them later if he so wanted! I then had him check out the terminal by the safe, figuring I could get some some practice at the hacking minigame –
Only for the terminal to just display some nonsense symbols when Victor tried to activate it. For it had become a broken terminal and thus unhackable – apparently, according to the Wiki, this is just something that happens if you pick the safe open manually before interacting with it. >( Rude – if I’d know that beforehand, I would have hacked first. Victor can do that no problem at all! Ah well, I suppose there will be other opportunities for Victor to practice his hacking…
G) Having thus filled all the pockets on his leather armor with stuff from the Powder Gangers and the schoolhouse, Victor decided the next logical step would be to swing by Chet’s store and actually sell some of it to get some money and some carry capacity back. I thus had him head on over there, where Chet, examining his goods, greeted him with “That was a hell of a fight. Let's hope it doesn't bite us in the ass later on.” Don’t worry, Chet, I’m pretty sure Goodsprings is completely safe after “Ghost Town Gunfight” is complete. *nods* Victor, mindful of the fact that he’d basically ignored Chet’s “hey here’s what I have for sale in my store” spiel in favor of getting him to actually help the town during the fight, decided to open things up by asking Chet to tell him about weapon mods and special ammo now – Chet happily explained the former included silencers, scopes, and bigger magazines, while the latter included armor-piercing ammo (which, naturally, can get past armor at the cost of doing less damage) and hollow-point ammo (which does more damage to unarmored targets but none to armored ones). Thus informed, Victor then asked to see the goods on sale –
And so the trading screen opened up! I was very pleased to see that Chet had a good variety of things for sale (including weapons, ammo, and aid items – including, of all things, TURBO! What the heck are you doing with THAT all the way out here, sir?) AND a lot of caps to buy things with (882, if I recall correctly). After looking through his inventory and Victor’s (and discovering to my delight that when you swap to different categories with one person, it swaps to the same category with the other, which is useful), I proceeded to have Victor sell him the 9mm submachine gun, the baseball bat (which had a higher strength requirement to use correctly than Victor had), ten sticks of dynamite (I had him keep one for emergencies), two cartons of cigarettes, eight empty whiskey bottles (from the campsite he cleaned up while learning how to craft with Sunny), the three leather belts he’d crafted from his gecko hides, and one regular gecko hide (which was actually worth more than a belt – good to know), and buy 35 9mm rounds for his pistol, four 5.56mm armor-piercing rounds for his varmint rifle (because might as well get some special ammo since he asked about it), and a whetstone (which MIGHT be useful for maintaining his straight razor? We’ll find out, but it felt like something he should have). End result was Victor got a good amount of junk out of his inventory, some more ammo for his guns, and 295 caps from Chet. Which I’m sure rankled the general store owner, but what are you gonna do. :p
H) With his shopping done, I figured I might as well have Victor quickly chat with Chet while he was there and ask if he knew anything about the men who’d attacked him – after all, wasn’t out of the question he might have sold them something! Chet told him that “The leader was a New Vegas-type, typical city boy. He had a bunch of Great Khans with him, probably hired guns. The Great Khans normally stay in their own territory way up northwest, on account of them being enemies with the NCR” – which didn’t offer anything new about Benny, but at least told Victor a little bit more about the people who were with him. Victor, curious, asked if Chet knew anything more about the Great Khans – Chet declared them “tough sons of bitches, mean but not crazy – they'll leave you alone unless you've got something they want.” Which was – sort of encouraging, but probably not that comforting to Victor, as they’d seemed to want him very dead before. Chet then followed up by explaining the Khans were major players in the illegal chem trade in the area – “There's a good chance that most chems you come across were made by Great Khans.” Which leads me to believe that the Turbo in Chet’s inventory was from the pair that Benny hired – must have sold it to him. :p Victor filed all this away for later then asked Chet if he’d ever been to New Vegas, and Chet confirmed he had – “Twice. Both times, I drank a lot of liquor and lost most of my caps at the card tables. In that order, now that I think about it.” XD He then recommended that Victor visit Gomorrah as the “best casino in the city” if he ever headed up that way, before warning him to behave himself if he did make up there because “between the NCR military police and Mr. House's robots, you don't want to be causing trouble on the Strip.” Victor filed that away as well and asked if Chet could tell him about this “Mr. House” –
Only for Chet to admit he didn’t know much. But what he did know was interesting –
I. House owns a casino on the Strip, the Lucky 38, but nobody ever seems to actually go there to gamble – the only people he’d ever seen going in and out were the guy’s robots
II. Despite this, the owners of the other casinos all seemed to follow House’s rules, so it appeared he was the de facto leader of the Strip
III. As far as he was aware, nobody has ever actually seen House in person
IV. And, most interesting of all – “I think that robot who pulled you out of the dirt belongs to Mr. House. If Mr. House is looking after you, that's gotta be a good thing, right?” Which, yes, on the one hand, if Victortron pulled Victor out of the ground on House’s orders, that means Victor owes House his life...but on the other, means that Mr. House was probably behind the “Override Command 16-Delta” that stopped Victortron helping out against the Powder Gangers. Which could have COST Victor his life if the residents of Goodsprings hadn’t been so quick to take the gang down! So yeah – very much a mixed bag there! But still, good info for Victor to have going forward.
And so the play session ended with Victor, having finished grilling Chet, heading back out into the town proper, with me saving right on the front porch of the general store. Next time, I’ll probably have Victor ask Sunny the best way to get to Primm so he can get this show on the road and start tracking down Benny and the Khans! Dude’s gotta leave the tutorial town at some point, after all…
*nods* There we go. Hopefully the next time I play I can get the write-up done in one day!
I. I wore my Valicer hoodie for a decent portion of the day, with one of my Valice shirts underneath it for maximum Valentine's Day power
II. My Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) queue went up without incident, and I enjoyed looking at my Valicertines and bonus image again
III. I rewatched a couple of my old Sims 4 videos featuring the Chill Valicer trio -- specifically, the one I took of Victor hosting a seance, and the one where Smiler was telling Victor and Alice a story during their Chestnut Ridge SimCity Founding trip
IV. I watched a trio of short clips of their respective canons tonight -- Alice complaining to Cheshire that he'd better not bully her as she was very much on edge after first arriving back in Wonderland in Alice: Madness Returns (with him retorting, "Purrfect -- when you're not on edge, you're taking up too much space"); Victor apologizing to Emily right before the piano duet in Corpse Bride (cutting off right before he explained how the day had not gone at all according to plan); and an unused commercial spot for The Smiler coaster (simply highlighting how the 14-inversion coaster was now finally open -- possibly it was designed for one of the earlier opening dates, not the actual one)
V. And I reread some Valicer fanfic -- notably, two of my Valicer In The Dark short stories, and two of my Modern AU short stories
So that was all right. But I'm going to have to add in the other main accomplishment of the day -- playing some more Fallout: New Vegas and taking down the Powder Gangers -- tomorrow, because It's 2:14 AM here and I am SO FUCKING TIRED. *facepalm* So I'm dragging myself to bed. Watch this space! EDIT: 2/15/2026: Back again, here's the write-up of the Adventures Of Courier Victor:
Fallout: New Vegas: I may have gotten to it much later than I wanted due to how long it took me to clean my damn room (and then I had to pause for a few minutes right at the start to deal with some cuts opening up on my fingers thanks to how dry and cold it’s been, which was a pain in the ass), but I did get back to the adventures of Courier Victor today, and I did have him fight the Powder Gangers! A little, anyway – here’s how things went:
A) I picked up with Victor just outside Ringo’s gas station hideout, preparing to talk to him and kick off the fight against the Powder Gangers – but, before he did that, I had him head down the road to the Prospector’s Saloon again to see if Sunny Smiles was there. Reason? I was curious to see if Victor could somehow “report back” to her about the progress on the optional quest objectives – like, say “Trudy’s agreed to help us” or “I convinced Chet to lend everyone some leather armor.” Sadly, there wasn’t, though Sunny did at least have a nice quest-specific conversation intro line when Victor went to talk to her – “I'll keep an eye out for the Powder Gangers and meet up with you and Ringo when the time comes.” So Victor at least knew she was doing her part! *thumbs up* And while there was no way to talk more about the quest with her, I was able to have Victor broach another topic – namely, the fact that he was a little short on caps, and would appreciate it if she told him if there was any work to be had in town. She admitted there wasn’t, but then added, “But if you're up for a little scavenging, there's always the schoolhouse. Most of what's in there is junk, but there's this old safe that even Easy Pete wasn't able to crack with dynamite. If you want to take a shot at it, take these” –
And handed Victor a free Locksmith’s Reader (aka the lockpicking skill magazine) and some bobby pins (I believe four? I didn’t see the exact number, but that would line up with how many bobby pins Victor ended up having at the end of his adventures)! Nice! Though Victor was a little confused at first, judging by his dialogue options – “A magazine on locksmiths?” Sunny explained that, if the lock proved too hard for him, reading that could give him the edge he needed to crack it – and when he asked about the bobby pins, explained that they were for picking the lock itself – “Be careful, though – put too much pressure on them and they'll snap.” Victor was quite grateful and said that he’d take a look once he got a chance, and Sunny sent him on his way with “Always happy to help someone down on their luck” –
And a note, basically summarizing everything they just talked about and what she gave him to help him out. Much like how Victor got a note from Trudy about fixing her radio after offering to take a look at it. I guess this is the game’s way of helping the player keep track of stuff they might want to do but which doesn’t have an official quest attached? *shrug* All right then.
B) With that sorted, I had Victor head outside and back up the road to Ringo’s! Pausing a couple of times to figure out how to hot-key things (assigning the 9mm pistol and varmint rifle to “right” and “down” on the D-pad respectively – we’ll see if I remember to use said hot keys!) and to double-check that the old truck was the only thing in the open area to the right of the door (it was). He finally entered the station around 6 PM, ready to tell Ringo that Sunny was on side and that they should be all set to take on the Powder Gangers –
Except, before he could initiate the conversation, I noticed something that looked like a toolbox sitting at the end of one of the aisles between the shelves at the back of the store. Curious, I decided to see what was inside –
And discovered it wasn’t a toolbox, it was a doctor’s bag! Which is very important to Victor, as those things can heal crippled limbs (in fact, they’re one of a very limited number of ways to heal crippled limbs in Hardcore). I promptly had him grab it (wasn’t marked as owned – and before you say “but isn’t Ringo staying in the store?” I’m pretty sure he has a specific stash of owned stuff that’s behind the counter, ammo and such. Also this isn’t BG3 and I’m less of a bleeding heart toward Ringo than I am toward the tieflings. :P), then started looking for other potentially-important missed goodies –
And sure enough, down the other aisle, partially hidden behind a partially-collapsed shelf, were a couple of stimpacks on the floor! So I had Victor grab those too – though because they were smaller, and in a slightly-more-awkward location, he also ended up accidentally grabbing some Abraxo cleaner and a can of something – the latter mostly because I tried crouching to get the second stimpack and, once again, pressed in the wrong stick (right stick instead of left), which caused him to pick up and start moving the item directly in front of him in the world – and when I tried to get him to drop it, I had him put it into his inventory instead. *shakehead* My greatest nemesis in this game – MUSCLE MEMORY. Why’d they have to change the controls between F:NV and FO4…
C) Anyway – having grabbed the extra medical supplies from the shop, it was time to talk to Ringo and kick off the fight! Ringo greeted Victor by asking if Sunny had agreed to help them – Victor reassured him that Sunny was with them, and Ringo replied, “Well, I guess that means we're ready to go. Unless you think there's something else you can do?” Victor, of course, had already fulfilled all the optional objectives to get the rest of the town to help, but unfortunately couldn’t tell Ringo that directly (bit of an oversight – but then again, this is a game that was made in 18 months, so oversights are expected) – instead, all he could say was “Let’s do this.” Ringo replied, “All right, I'm ready. I hope” –
And just like that, Sunny was at the door, telling him and Victor to look alive, because the Powder Gangers were moving in to attack the town! Victor, startled, asked how many – she informed him, “At least six, Joe Cobb included. They look pretty mean.” So not the smallest gang, but not too overwhelming either. Victor, aware of the need for speed, said, “Let’s go” –
But before they left, Sunny had something to tell him – namely, “Oh, Easy Pete came through with the dynamite. Here's your supply. I really hope I don't blow myself up.” Netting Victor five free sticks of dynamite! Always nice to have in case of emergency – though I also hoped Victor didn’t have to use them, as I didn’t want him to blow himself up either. She then informed Victor that she’d be setting up near Chet’s store, admitting she hoped the gang didn’t make it that far –
D) And with that, everyone headed out the door and down the road to fight the Powder Gangers! Victor got his varmint rifle ready (as he had the most ammo for that), then followed Sunny and Ringo as they ran down the road toward the general store and the saloon. Ringo hid behind a nearby big rock while Sunny joined her fellow settlers holding the line in front of Trudy’s saloon –
Have to say, it was really gratifying to see them out there – the physical fruit of all of Victor’s labors in completing all the optional objectives. :) Anyway, Victor went to join them as the Powder Gangers down the road started rushing into town –
And I discovered that Jon of Many A True Nerd had been right in one of his earlier videos that I listened to during a past cleaning session – if you do all the optional objectives and get the residents of Goodsprings properly kitted out, they can pretty much just do the fight themselves. Like, Victor participated – he crippled the leg of a guy advancing on him with a cleaver, crippled the head of someone trying to bash in his with a baseball bat, and shot Joe Cobb in the leg near the end – but the NPCs were the ones getting all the kills, and doing it very fast. Now, granted, part of this is because I’m not the greatest at manual aiming and thus was VATS-scanning until various gang members got close enough for Victor to hit them, but still – I was surprised at how quickly and efficiently the Goodsprings lot took everyone out! Which led to a second discovery when the fight ended and the “here’s how all this affected your reputation with the various factions involved” pop-ups appeared –
Whether you end up “Shunned” (aka only receive one level of infamy and end up with them being unfriendly, but not necessarily willing to shoot you on sight) or “Vilified” (aka receive three levels of infamy and end up being their Public Enemy #1) by the Powder Gangers post-this fight depends solely on if you KILLED any of them, NOT on whether or not you participated in the fight at all. Now, I knew from another of Jon’s videos (one of the first ones in the F:NV YOLO Remastered series) that if your Courier just completely sits out the fight and lets Sunny, Ringo, and any Goodsprings residents they can bring around take care of the Powder Gangers, your Courier will become merely “Shunned” by all other Powder Gangers because they didn’t kill any of them – but I thought participating in the fight and actively helping the Goodsprings residents win by, you know, shooting the attackers would guarantee you would become “Vilified” with the faction post-fight. But no – since Victor never scored a killing blow, the remaining Powder Gangers out in the world settled for merely “Shunned.” Which is actually quite good, as it means Victor will have less to fear from the Powder Gangers at the start of the game, and should be able to investigate the NCR “correctional facility” they’ve taken over and perhaps do part of the quest there! We’ll see!
E) Anyway – with the fight over, and Victor officially Shunned by the Powder Gangers but Idolized by Goodsprings (because, well, even if he didn’t do much, he DID help defend the town from the gang), the “Ghost Town Gunfight” quest officially wrapped up with a relieved and happy Ringo telling Victor, “I owe you a huge favor for this. Here – these are technically Crimson Caravan funds, but I know they'll understand once I explain things,” and giving him 100 caps. I was briefly tempted to have Victor note that Ringo hadn’t said he had the caps to pay him before, just to hear what he’d say – but given Victor helped Ringo out of the goodness of his heart, not a reward, I suspected he would be happy to receive anything for his hard work, so I had him just say “You’re welcome.” Ringo then told him that he’d be in town for a few days longer before hitting the road again, and encouraged him to look him up at the Crimson Caravan camp should he ever reach New Vegas. As I know for a fact Ringo gives the Courier more money to thank them for saving his life when you do, Victor will definitely be seeking him out in the future. :p That ended the conversation –
And dropped Victor into the level-up screen, as he’d just gotten enough XP from finishing the quest to hit Level 2! Hooray! :D As an Intelligence 8 character, he got 14 skill points to distribute among his various skills – I raised his Barter up to 20 (as I like the idea of Victor, whose background includes being the son of a very successful fish merchant, being good at Barter – especially since there’s more checks for it than you might realize), his Lockpick up to 22 (very important skill, need to move it in the right direction), and his Speech up to 25 (as established, Victor CAN be persuasive if he wants to be, and this means he should be able to pass most low-level Speech checks right now if necessary) – and as it was an even level, he got to pick a perk! Though there weren’t a lot available to him, admittedly – his SPECIAL stats were too low for a lot of them, and for many of the ones where he had the SPECIAL, he didn’t have the skills. The perils of being a low-level character designed to mimic a specific stop-motion puppet… After pondering the few options he had for a bit, I decided to go with “Retention,” which triples the length skill magazines last (from roughly one real-life minute to three). A useful perk for Victor, who will probably be relying on these skill-boosting magazines fairly a lot for the time being as he works on gaining levels and thus skill points! Really gotta take another look at the list of available perks and figure out which ones best suit Victor so I can tailor his skills to match...
E) With Victor having officially leveled up, it was time for everyone’s favorite post-fight activity – looting! So, as the citizens of Goodsprings all headed back either to the saloon or their houses for the night (including Easy Pete, which I found quite relieving as I’d seen him during the fight and his health had looked worryingly low), Victor went between the various corpses and picked up what he could – mindful of his not-great carry weight, of course. He secured the following:
I. 11 caps, a .357 magnum revolver and 8 rounds for it, 12 magnum round cases, a stealth boy (apparently Joe is guaranteed to have one, nice), and some Powder Ganger armor off Joe Cobb himself – useful if Victor needs to disguise himself as one to avoid trouble!
II. 5 caps, a varmint rifle, 3 5.56mm bullets and 6 cases, and 5 sticks of dynamite off a random Ganger on the road (glad he didn’t throw any of the dynamite!)
III. A baseball bat and a carton of cigarettes off the Powder Ganger whose head he’d crippled
IV. A stick of dynamite, a simple shotgun, and 9 20 gauge shells and 7 hulls off another random Powder Ganger
V. 2 caps and a cleaver off the Powder Ganger whose leg he’d crippled
VI. And 4 caps off the final dude in the gang – who also had a machete, but Victor was very close to weight capacity at that point, so I figured it was better to leave that for now and loot it later
Not a bad haul, I suppose – certainly not for the beginning of the game! All of that took Victor until about 10 PM at night, though, so once he had his goodies, I had him head up the road to Victortron’s shack to spend the night again. His Securitron name-twin was waiting outside again, just chilling like he pretty much always does –
Which made Victor realize that, hang on a second, Victortron had promised to help in the battle, but he’d never shown up. He thus went to talk to the guy about it and see what had happened –
Only for Victortron to greet him with a cheerful, “Howdy, pardner! So, when do the rustlers show up?” A baffled Victor replied, “They were here. The fight's over,” causing Victortron to get confused himself and say, “Really? I must've dozed off. Although, that's never happened before…” Yes, robots aren’t exactly known for “dozing off,” Victortron. And fortunately, because Victor has a nice high Science of 40, he was able to note that too, stating, “There may be data corruption in one of your memory chips. Let me take a look.” Victortron allowed him in, simply asking him to put everything back where he found it –
Causing Victor to discover that Victortron had fallen victim to something called “Override Command 16-Delta.” He asked Victortron if that meant anything to him, but Victortron insisted he’d never heard it before. Mystery… Victortron then apologized, saying he was truly sorry he wasn’t able to help, and asked if Victor wanted to talk about anything else. There were no new dialogue options, though, so Victor demurred and just headed inside the shack, where he got some water from the sink, ate a gecko steak as a late dinner, used the varmint rifle he’d gotten off the Powder Ganger to repair his own and up the condition a little, and finally hit the sheets at 10:50 PM. *nods* He’d earned it!
F) Victor woke up the next morning (Wednesday, 10/23/2281 for the curious) just before 7 AM, refreshed and mostly ready to go – I had him take his customary drink from Victortron’s sink to make sure his H20 levels stayed manageable, then sent him out into the world to continue his adventures! And what better way to continue them then by going after the safe in the old schoolhouse? It was right next door to Victortron’s shack, after all… I thus had Victor head on over, creeping over the broken fence by the front door before equipping his straight razor as his weapon of choice for this fight – mostly because I had yet to use it and wanted to see what the melee combat in this game was like. I then had him creep around the perimeter of the building to see if there were any enemies or any items of interest outside –
And while I found nothing for him to fight, I did find something for him to pick – jalapenos! Yes, the famous hot pepper apparently survived the apocalypse, and Victor was able to get two off the plant growing by the boarded-up back door. Nice – more ingredients for cooking nice meals. :) Apart from that, though, the only thing I found of interest was the side door into the school, which unlike the back was also open. I considered going in that way for a moment…
Then decided, “eh, the front door will do” and had Victor head in that way, keeping him crouched in an attempt to be stealthy. Inside was a big old room with a few side areas, filled with overturned desks and broken lockers and dirty side cabinets –
And a bunch of giant mantis nymphs! Who, despite Victor’s decent sneakiness, did manage to spot him pretty fast as he crept into the room. Fortunately for Victor, they were all quite weak and had pathetic attacks – a few jumped at him and tried to bite him, but their little jaws couldn’t get past his armor, and he was able to take them all down with a few swipes of his trusty razor. Earning himself some progress toward the “Bug Stomper” challenge perk, 5 XP per kill, and three mantis forelegs and two mantis eggs off the corpses. Which was pretty nice all on its own –
But then I looked at the desk beside one of the corpses, and discovered that it too was lootable, and in fact contained a cherry bomb! Meaning there was a lot more to get in here than whatever was in the safe. I thus had Victor explore the school before cracking the safe to see if there were any goodies he could pick up (mindful again of his carry weight limitations), which netted him:
I. The aforementioned cherry bomb from a sideways desk
II. Another mantis egg out of a mantis “ootheca” (some weird pod-looking thing that is apparently an egg capsule for mantises and some other insects, as per Wikipedia, so I guess it makes sense Victor found a mantis egg in there) by some lockers
III. A Programmer’s Digest skill magazine on one of the side counters
IV. A Salesman Weekly skill magazine on the floor by some old metal shelves
V. A couple of bobby pins on the shelves in the room behind the safe (which is where the side door led, it looked like)
V. And another Programmer’s Digest and another bobby pin on the counter with the terminal next to the safe!
*nods* Not a bad haul at all – and Victor hadn’t even cracked open the safe yet! I thus had him turn his attention that, ready to pick it open –
Except. The darn thing was an Easy lock, meaning you needed a Lockpick of 25 to open it. And Victor, as previously established, only had a Lockpick of 22. Whoops – I’d assumed it was Very Easy and thus Victor would be able to take a crack at it no matter what! ^^; Fortunately, he had that Locksmith’s Reader that Sunny had gifted him, and one quick skim through that boosted his skill by 10, allowing him to attempt to open it –
And introducing me to the F:NV version of the lockpicking mini game! Which, fortunately, was pretty similar to the FO4 version – wiggle left stick to rotate the bobby pin in the lock, right stick to apply torque with the screwdriver. (Or press (X) to try and force the lock open, but that rarely works and can permanently break the lock, so...) And this particular one was very easy, requiring just a small adjustment of the pin to the left to pop open. :) Victor thus successfully cracked the safe and claimed his prizes – 17 caps, a package of mentats, 2 pre-War bills, a Stealth Boy (Victor’s swimming in those now), and a Super Stimpack (good for emergencies) – there was also a butter knife, an egg timer, and a wrench in there, but I left those behind because of carry weight reasons again. Victor could always go back and get them later if he so wanted! I then had him check out the terminal by the safe, figuring I could get some some practice at the hacking minigame –
Only for the terminal to just display some nonsense symbols when Victor tried to activate it. For it had become a broken terminal and thus unhackable – apparently, according to the Wiki, this is just something that happens if you pick the safe open manually before interacting with it. >( Rude – if I’d know that beforehand, I would have hacked first. Victor can do that no problem at all! Ah well, I suppose there will be other opportunities for Victor to practice his hacking…
G) Having thus filled all the pockets on his leather armor with stuff from the Powder Gangers and the schoolhouse, Victor decided the next logical step would be to swing by Chet’s store and actually sell some of it to get some money and some carry capacity back. I thus had him head on over there, where Chet, examining his goods, greeted him with “That was a hell of a fight. Let's hope it doesn't bite us in the ass later on.” Don’t worry, Chet, I’m pretty sure Goodsprings is completely safe after “Ghost Town Gunfight” is complete. *nods* Victor, mindful of the fact that he’d basically ignored Chet’s “hey here’s what I have for sale in my store” spiel in favor of getting him to actually help the town during the fight, decided to open things up by asking Chet to tell him about weapon mods and special ammo now – Chet happily explained the former included silencers, scopes, and bigger magazines, while the latter included armor-piercing ammo (which, naturally, can get past armor at the cost of doing less damage) and hollow-point ammo (which does more damage to unarmored targets but none to armored ones). Thus informed, Victor then asked to see the goods on sale –
And so the trading screen opened up! I was very pleased to see that Chet had a good variety of things for sale (including weapons, ammo, and aid items – including, of all things, TURBO! What the heck are you doing with THAT all the way out here, sir?) AND a lot of caps to buy things with (882, if I recall correctly). After looking through his inventory and Victor’s (and discovering to my delight that when you swap to different categories with one person, it swaps to the same category with the other, which is useful), I proceeded to have Victor sell him the 9mm submachine gun, the baseball bat (which had a higher strength requirement to use correctly than Victor had), ten sticks of dynamite (I had him keep one for emergencies), two cartons of cigarettes, eight empty whiskey bottles (from the campsite he cleaned up while learning how to craft with Sunny), the three leather belts he’d crafted from his gecko hides, and one regular gecko hide (which was actually worth more than a belt – good to know), and buy 35 9mm rounds for his pistol, four 5.56mm armor-piercing rounds for his varmint rifle (because might as well get some special ammo since he asked about it), and a whetstone (which MIGHT be useful for maintaining his straight razor? We’ll find out, but it felt like something he should have). End result was Victor got a good amount of junk out of his inventory, some more ammo for his guns, and 295 caps from Chet. Which I’m sure rankled the general store owner, but what are you gonna do. :p
H) With his shopping done, I figured I might as well have Victor quickly chat with Chet while he was there and ask if he knew anything about the men who’d attacked him – after all, wasn’t out of the question he might have sold them something! Chet told him that “The leader was a New Vegas-type, typical city boy. He had a bunch of Great Khans with him, probably hired guns. The Great Khans normally stay in their own territory way up northwest, on account of them being enemies with the NCR” – which didn’t offer anything new about Benny, but at least told Victor a little bit more about the people who were with him. Victor, curious, asked if Chet knew anything more about the Great Khans – Chet declared them “tough sons of bitches, mean but not crazy – they'll leave you alone unless you've got something they want.” Which was – sort of encouraging, but probably not that comforting to Victor, as they’d seemed to want him very dead before. Chet then followed up by explaining the Khans were major players in the illegal chem trade in the area – “There's a good chance that most chems you come across were made by Great Khans.” Which leads me to believe that the Turbo in Chet’s inventory was from the pair that Benny hired – must have sold it to him. :p Victor filed all this away for later then asked Chet if he’d ever been to New Vegas, and Chet confirmed he had – “Twice. Both times, I drank a lot of liquor and lost most of my caps at the card tables. In that order, now that I think about it.” XD He then recommended that Victor visit Gomorrah as the “best casino in the city” if he ever headed up that way, before warning him to behave himself if he did make up there because “between the NCR military police and Mr. House's robots, you don't want to be causing trouble on the Strip.” Victor filed that away as well and asked if Chet could tell him about this “Mr. House” –
Only for Chet to admit he didn’t know much. But what he did know was interesting –
I. House owns a casino on the Strip, the Lucky 38, but nobody ever seems to actually go there to gamble – the only people he’d ever seen going in and out were the guy’s robots
II. Despite this, the owners of the other casinos all seemed to follow House’s rules, so it appeared he was the de facto leader of the Strip
III. As far as he was aware, nobody has ever actually seen House in person
IV. And, most interesting of all – “I think that robot who pulled you out of the dirt belongs to Mr. House. If Mr. House is looking after you, that's gotta be a good thing, right?” Which, yes, on the one hand, if Victortron pulled Victor out of the ground on House’s orders, that means Victor owes House his life...but on the other, means that Mr. House was probably behind the “Override Command 16-Delta” that stopped Victortron helping out against the Powder Gangers. Which could have COST Victor his life if the residents of Goodsprings hadn’t been so quick to take the gang down! So yeah – very much a mixed bag there! But still, good info for Victor to have going forward.
And so the play session ended with Victor, having finished grilling Chet, heading back out into the town proper, with me saving right on the front porch of the general store. Next time, I’ll probably have Victor ask Sunny the best way to get to Primm so he can get this show on the road and start tracking down Benny and the Khans! Dude’s gotta leave the tutorial town at some point, after all…
*nods* There we go. Hopefully the next time I play I can get the write-up done in one day!
no subject
Date: 2026-02-15 06:26 pm (UTC)So you know me, I got the new Royalty whatever expansion. My pun name is Prihn Cehs or something along those lines, lol (though you think I'm bad? There's literally a Sim named Connie Fidential in the new world). Being nobility for "normal" Sims is a career. You just need to buy a throne or ask one of the in-game nobles to Knight you. It's an alignment "U" where one side is the commoners and the other side is the nobles. Do good things for the commoners and the nobles get annoyed, do good things for the nobles and the commoners get annoyed. They just send hate mail, so it's not that big of a deal lol. I just respond to the letters with kind words.
Finding out scandals is kind of fun-ish. And your Sim can be part of them if they're in the Noble career. Prihn got caught WooHooing Lilith Vatore in the crypts in the cemetery. Oh, speaking of WooHoo, she froze to death WooHooing a ghost. What a way to go.
There wasn't as many new additions as I thought there could be, so that's a little disappointing. But it was fun to mess around with.
no subject
Date: 2026-02-16 04:48 am (UTC)I do know you, and that sounds very much like you (and seriously? Oh EA XD). And I see -- well, I guess there really wasn't any other way to implement it, and running a kingdom IS a job, just not one you usually find in the paper or on your phone. And yeah, I figured there couldn't be TOO drastic consequences to pissing people off -- this is the Sims, not a realistic royalty simulator!
Interesting -- and LOL, I see. I hope Prihn at least had fun with both woohoos! That really is a way to go -- must be a new death, as I've never heard of it before.
Aw, that's too bad -- I have heard there's a lot of recycling in this pack, particularly of specific assets in Build/Buy. Maybe that's why the new stuff feels kinda lean. But I'm glad you enjoyed messing around with it.