Decent Sunday
Mar. 22nd, 2026 11:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickThe weather was miserable, granted -- starting out cloudy but kinda warm, then getting colder and rainier as the day went on -- and there were a few annoying moments here and there, but I got to have a big bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios, chocolate granola, and banana slices for breakfast, my parents got calzones from our favorite calzone place for lunch (spinach & pepperoni and chicken parm), AND we had chicken pesto pizza for supper, so food-wise it was great. XD And there's plenty of leftovers I can take for lunch over the next couple of days, which is even better. :D You guys have no idea how much I've missed calzones and pizza and the like -- we've been avoiding them because Dad couldn't eat them. He's still having some trouble with his dentures, mind, but he's got a dentist appointment tomorrow, so HOPEFULLY something can be done then. Fingers crossed!
As for my goals for the day, I did pretty well on those too:
Tumblr: Once again there was nothing going on over on Valice Multiverse – but over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), I did indeed spend the morning going through my tracked tags and looking for more stuff to add to my drafts for later queues! And I’m happy to say that I was able to snag a good number of posts, including:
A) A Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines gifset by claudiawolf, depicting scenes from the Ocean House Hotel level like the White Dress Woman ghost, the one I named Dorothy in “Londerland Bloodlines: Santa Monica’s Vale Of Tears,” running from her murderous husband down a hallway, and one of the paintings on the upstairs balcony shaking in a worrying way – it’s a good level and I thought the gifs were quite well done
B) A VTMB photoset by gamerism depicting locations in the Chinatown map area, including Kamikaze Zen (the computer place you have to infiltrate to do the “setting up the Nosferatu Schreknet hubs” mission), The White Cloud (where the creepy guy who sends you to do things like get a dead criminal’s eyes and be a “bad luck farmer” in the local spa works), and the noodle shop (where you can meet Yukie and help her avenge her dead mentor by fighting a wereshark) – the pictures were really pretty, edited to make the colors really POP
C) A photo post by twisted-cat2476 showing off her latest acquisition: a The Smiler pin with the iconic swirly-eyed smiley face and “CORRECTED” hanging down from underneath the logo – I like Smiler merch myself, and it’s a very cool pin :D
D) An Alice: Madness Returns photoset by cbcks depicting the cutscene where Alice falls down the rabbit hole after confronting Pris Witless, tumbling about through the normal Wonderland debris before seeing the new added Ruin-themed mechanical stuff at the bottom and changing into her Wonderland form as she enters the Vale of Tears – it was a nice photoset with some good shots, depicting a very cool moment from the game in the kind of detail you don’t often see on tumblr
E) A photo post by edellis showing off their fanart of A:MR Alice in her Queensland dress, featuring two variants of a portrait of her looking off to the side (one with a simple frame background, one with a Queen of Hearts cards background) sandwiching a picture of her standing in the card castle that serves as the entrance to the level once you leave Cardbridge – it was some very nice fanart, and I found the way they did the cards in the background of the middle one to be very impressive – they looked just like the ones from the game!
F) A photo post by vorpalbae showing off some A:MR fanart they found on max.wise.art’s Instagram, featuring his take on what a Polly Pocket playset based on A:MR might look like: a compact with teeth lining the rim; tiny Alice and Cheshire figurines; a bottom section that mostly resembled the Vale of Tears with a bit of Queensland mixed in in the form of a hedge maze (with a cake at the end), and Ruin pouring in from the side; and a top section with rooms depicting some of the realms Alice travels through in the game (Hatter’s Domain, Deluded Depths, Dollhouse, Rutledge Hallucination, and Dollhouse Basement) – it was very cool and very well done
G) A short Corpse Bride video by rjvill, showing a few clips of the film like Victor and Emily looking at the butterfly in the forest, Emily giving Victor his ring back, and Emily dissolving into butterflies at the church doors, set to some pretty background music – the quality on the video was not the greatest, but I still liked it, and the music rjvill chose was pretty
H) And a text post by callagoo simply stating “anyone else think the corpse bride should have ended with victor and victoria and emily as a poly couple” in pink – I mean, the Corpse Bride trio were basically my first OT3, so, yeah :P
*nods* A good haul! Should help get me through a couple of queues, at least. :p
Writing: I spent the time after lunch revising my tumblr friend Newt’s birthday gift fic (the Valicer In The Dark/Dead Boys Detectives crossover where my crime trio has to tell the titular detectives, Charles and Edwin, that they’re stuck in a place where ghosts must be destroyed as there is no afterlife) as I said I would last night – main things I did were:
A) Start the whole thing off by finding some clips of Charles and Edwin (mostly ones showing them acting like an old married couple) from Dead Boy Detectives on YouTube and watching them through to make sure I had their voices right for the fic (very important, that)
B) Cut out the whole bit specifying how the Spirit Wardens in this world kill ghosts (by boiling them in electroplasm) – while I liked the part where Edwin automatically corrected “electroplasm” to “ectoplasm,” only to be told “no, it’s electroplasm because it’s electric – are ghosts not electric where you’re from?” it just slowed things down and fucked with the pacing
C) And adjusted some of the dialogue – Smiler’s now the one who explains how most ghosts in their world aren’t as sane as Charles and Edwin are (mostly because poor Victor was getting tongue-tied trying to do it), while Victor is the one who initially tells the boys there is no afterlife (Alice dropped the bombshell in the first draft). Gotta fit the right words to the right person!
Couple that with some general rephrasing and cleaning up, and I think this fic is good to go. :) Hopefully Newt likes it when it goes up on Thursday!
Portal 2: Spent a half-hour in the bowels of Aperture Science this afternoon, getting through three whole test chambers today! Mostly because the first two were pretty simple, granted, but still. XD In order, we had –
Chamber 16: The big screens around the elevator advertised various custom paint jobs you could get for the infamous turrets (both solid colors and patterns like plaid and forest camo – the latter of which is actually the color of the “blind box” turret figurine I got to go with my Chell figure and Wheatley light-up keychain years and years ago), and indeed this chamber featured them heavily – to the point of having a turret tucked away behind a grate in the wall in the tiny entrance “hall,” ready to shoot you as you passed by. *rolls eyes* Fortunately it was easily defeated by running and jumping past its laser sight as fast as possible. The test chamber itself was divided into three distinct areas:
I. The starting area, which consisted of a big red floor button, and a laser emitter on the ceiling, pointed at a portal-able bit of floor nearby – the laser emitter turned on when you stood on the button, and could be portaled to wherever you needed it to be
II. A side area to the right, separated from the main area by a big glass partition, that had three turrets lined up in a row in it, ready to shoot you should you try to come around the side of the partition, all guarding a Weighted Storage Cube and a Laser Redirection Cube behind them – unfortunately for them, they were facing some portal-able chunks of wall…
III. And another room next to the starting area, cut off from the other two areas with glass walls, featuring a bunch of turrets guarding the laser receiver and the exit door, which did not have seem to have any immediately-visible entrances
Figuring out how to handle the first part of the test was easy, as you might imagine – once I figured out that the button turned on the laser emitter (and killed the camera GLaDOS had set up in the room), all I had to do was put a portal on the bit of floor beneath the emitter and another on the wall in front of the turrets in the side area with the cubes, then stand on the button and watch as the laser first set the turrets on fire, then blew them up as they overheated. :D The second part was a bit more complicated, though – you see, when I initially stood on the button myself to kill the turrets, I assumed that it also opened up an entrance to the room with the emitter in that side area with the cubes. But when I took the Weighted Storage Cube over to said button and used it to give myself a permanent laser (after briefly moving one of my portals so I could walk down the hall safely), I discovered this wasn’t the case – all of the glass panels stayed in place. Which was a relief in one sense, as all the turrets were facing me when I looked at them through the panel – but was also a puzzle in another, because how was I supposed to solve the puzzle and escape if I couldn’t get into that room?
...And then I remembered “that panel is glass – and lasers are light.” Sure enough, once I brought the laser back down near the floor, I was able to use the Redirection Cube to redirect it right through the glass panel, killing the turrets on the other side and powering the receiver. Which opened up a couple of blue glass panels on the side wall next to me and allowed me to access the room and the now-open exit door! Allowing me to head out and to the next test chamber...all while GLaDOS hummed “For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow” in a vaguely-menacing way…
Chamber 17: Designed by one of Aperture’s Nobel Prize winners, according to GLaDOS – which was not received for “Being Immune To Neurotoxin.” XD (Personally, I would have expected Aperture scientists to be more likely to win Ig Nobel Prizes, given the kind of things they do…) They also clearly did not get the Prize for “Advanced Portal Testing Design,” as the test itself was very simple – a tall narrow room with an elevated exit door at the end (at the top of the pit that served as the main testing area), with portal-able patches here and there on the otherwise-metal walls and the following elements:
I. A notch in the left hand wall containing a hard-light bridge extending to a portal-able wall patch on the side, with a Weighted Storage Cube resting on it, blocking a laser coming out of an emitter on the wall behind it
II. A laser receiver on the right-hand wall, in the perfect position to be hit by the laser should the cube be removed
III. And a big red floor button on the wall under the receiver
I promptly killed the camera on one of the portal-able patches of wall, then used portals to extend a portion of the light bridge down to where I could get on it and walk across it to grab the cube. This allowed the laser to hit the receiver, revealing it caused a platform at the very end of the room to lift up to where the exit door was. I then brought the cube to the button and dropped it on, revealing that that opened up the exit door itself. With the door open, I decided to see if the raising platform was in fact a bluff and you could extend the hard light bridge over to where you needed to go –
But, sadly, no – the only portal-able patch of wall I could use went in front of the receiver, and ran into another wall where the room narrowed right before the exit. For a moment, I wasn’t sure what to do, as I had to have the cube blocking the laser until I was on the platform that would lift me up to the exit, but I also needed the cube on the button to actually, you know, LEAVE –
And then I looked at the hard light bridge I’d created in front of the receiver and the position of the button, and went “Oh!” Cue me hopping down again and resetting the bridge so I could walk onto it from the floor; taking the cube with me onto the original bridge portion in the notch; setting up a bridge directly in front of the receiver again; and then taking the cube over onto THAT bridge and setting it down in front of the receiver, directly atop the button below. With the laser thus blocked, all I had to then was hop off, head over to the lifting platform and stand atop it –
Then move the portal extending the hard light bridge. Causing it to disappear and the cube to drop onto the button, allowing Chell to ride the platform up to the open exit! Where she received a message from GLaDOS telling her that, despite appearances, she had not forgotten Chell’s surprise (which was supposed to happen BEFORE this test, but I guess GLaDOS couldn’t find a good room for it in this area), and that she was in fact heading toward it right now. And GLaDOS was getting all choked up just thinking about it…
Chamber 18: AKA the first chamber of Chapter 4: The Surprise! Naturally, things started off with GLaDOS guiding Chell into a dark room with a single spotlight in it, before turning off the light and declaring she was now deploying the surprise –
And then turning on all the lights, revealing Chell was standing in an empty back office, and revealing she’d made it (i.e., finding Chell’s birth parents in cold storage and hinting that she’d reunite them) all up. Before releasing some confetti through a pipe in the ceiling. And then telling Chell not to feel so bad, as her parents had abandoned her shortly after she was born, so it was only logical they wouldn’t want to see her. XD Oh GLaDOS, you are such a bitch, and we love you. XD
Anyway – the test PROPER started with Chell going into the observation room next door, then jumping down through the open window into the chamber – a task made a little more difficult by the fact that there was a turret at the far end of the room pointed in that direction that was only too happy to try and shoot her. Fortunately, there was also a hard light bridge extending from the floor to the ceiling that served as a barrier, so I had her duck behind that to avoid taking a bunch of spring-loaded bullets to the abdomen. Once she was safe, I took a look around and noted all the most important parts of the frankly-huge test chamber:
I. The aforementioned floor-to-ceiling hard light bridge barrier
II. The aforementioned turret, standing on a little platform at the far side of the room, surrounded by metal walls and empty space so it was impossible to get to
III. A little area directly to the left of Chell’s hiding spot to the left protected by a short wall with a laser being fired into it – the wall protecting it was portal-able on either side, but the floor underneath the laser emitter very much was not
IV. A glass wall to the right of Chell’s hiding spot in front of a big patch of portal-able wall and floor, perfect to hide behind to avoid the wrath of the turret
V. A pair of cube dispensers hanging from the ceiling over raised platforms along the right wall, one closer to the back corner and one closer to the front, each with a Laser Redirection Cube in it
VI. Four laser spinners on the floor, widely spaced and set up in such a way that you would definitely need both Laser Redirection Cubes to get the laser through all of them
VII. A little raised balcony platform of sorts on the far wall, leading to a standing Cube Dispensary Button in a notch toward the right
VIII. The exit door on its own little platform on the left-hand wall
IX. And a lot of sunken areas forming a sort of “trough” around the entrance
Yup – rather a more complicated puzzle than the last two! I promptly started things off by using portals to get myself over to the other side of the room, onto the little balcony by the Cube Dispensary Button and away from the turrets. This revealed to me two other very important things about the room – namely, that all those sunken bits I’d noted before were in fact filled with deadly deadly water –
And that there were faith plates under each Cube Dispenser. Meaning – as I proved when I pressed the Cube Dispensary Button and released a couple – the cubes, when released, would hit the faith plates, be bounced toward each other, collide in midair, and fall into the water. Where they would be promptly fizzled. Meaning that, to save at least ONE of the cubes, we needed a barrier to stop it hitting the other one on the other side of the room.
So, good thing we had that hard light bridge barrier near the start, huh? And even better thing that I finally remembered what the “zoom” button is on the controller (right bumper, if you’re curious), huh? I thus used portals to set up a bridge blockade in front of the first dispenser, then hit the release button again to drop more cubes. And this time, one cube hit the hard light bridge and immediately dropped to the floor, and the other sailed unimpeded over to the far side of the room and landed not far from its twin. Yay! *thumbs up*
With the cubes in play, I portaled my way back over to the side of the room with the lasers and such (making sure to pop out behind the glass wall that would protect me from turret fire), then used further portals to bring one cube over to me without me having to get it. A couple more portals brought me and cube over to the laser area, where I was able to put the cube under the laser and redirect the beam through two of the spinners. I then returned to behind the glass wall and picked up the second cube with portals –
And then was presented with a problem – namely, I had to go further out into the room to put the cube in the right place to direct the laser beam through the remaining two spinners...but I couldn’t do that without the turret getting me. And picking up the second Laser Redirection Cube and venturing out briefly from behind the wall proved that it would not protect me from getting shot like a Weighted Storage Cube would. Which meant that the turret had to die...but that also required me to leave the safety of the glass wall so I could get over to the laser and redirect it toward the turret on its little platform. What do?
Remember that the hard light bridge also protects against turret fire and use that! Specifically, I used portals to extend the bridge through a different spot on the floor, and ducked behind that; then ducked behind the original bridge when I couldn’t get to the laser from that position; and then moved the extra barrier over closer to where the laser was going through the spinners and ducked behind that. Fortunately, that one proved to be close enough to the laser, and I was able to use my Redirection Cube to aim the laser at the turret and murder it. *nods* Very satisfying. And with that done, I was free to waltz out and put the cube in the right spot to redirect the laser through the remaining two spinners and into the emitter behind them on the far wall (a trickier process than you might think, as it was very easy to accidentally move the cube slightly so the beam wasn’t going through one of the spinners). Prompting GLaDOS to insincerely tell Chell about how she felt just terrible about that surprise, and pretend to call her birth parents, only to get a message about how “the birth parents who you are trying to contact do not love you” (GLaDOS: “Oh, that’s sad – but impressive. Maybe they worked at the phone company”) –
And prompting me to go (once I’d gotten the damn beam lined up properly) “Wait a second – how do I get to the exit door?” Because, again, that was on its own platform, apart from the main area, across the deadly water. I was genuinely flummoxed for a second –
And then I saw the portal-able surfaces on the OTHER side of the wall blocking the laser area from turret fire, and went “Ooooh…” Cue me firing a portal at the ceiling, another on that wall, and creating a hard light bridge that I could go over and hop on to cross over to the exit. I then had Chell get in the elevator, expecting to go straight to the next test chamber so I could end my play session…
Only for the elevator to start moving surprisingly slowly, because it was Wheatley Check In Cutscene time! He delightedly informed Chell as they both descended through some half-built levels that he’d gotten a job with the nanobot crew that worked on the elevator shafts to help her out – right before being told off and then fired by his unseen supervisor Jerry, because, you know, he’s a full-sized core and not a nanobot (he immediately furiously accused Jerry of committing a hate crime against him). Anyway, he told her that he was still working on the plan, and she just needed to get through five more test chambers –
And with that, my playsession ended, as Chell then went through the loading screen and ended up deposited at the start of Chamber 19, where GLaDOS talked about how comedy was “tragedy plus time,” then noted how long Chell had been asleep in her relaxation chamber. Because, again, she’s a bitch. :p Next Sunday, we’ll continue and see how many test chambers we get through! And how long it really takes Wheatley to rescue us, because I’m pretty sure Chell doesn’t have five chambers left to go on this track…
Workout: Well, Jon once again uploaded the latest F:NV YOLO Remastered episode too late for me to watch it while on the bike (in fact, he uploaded it right as my workout ended) – so instead I pedaled my way through a different, older Fallout: New Vegas video he did around the time that The Outer Worlds (another RPG made by the creators of New Vegas, Obsidian Entertainment) came out: “Fallout: New Vegas - The Gun Runners' Arsenal Challenges!” This was a one-shot video talking about the special challenges that the Gun Runners’ Arsenal DLC added to the game for people to complete for loads of XP, because Jon had never really covered them before and was always keen to make more videos talking about just how flipping good New Vegas is and how much content it has. :p The specific challenges he covered in the video were –
A) “Vault 13’s Revenge” – kill 15 super mutants using a weapon that you might have been able to find in one of the first two Fallout games, like a 5.56mm pistol, plasma grenades, or a power fist! Because the title refers to the vault from which the very first Fallout protagonist came from, which was threatened by super mutants in that game. Jon said that this was one of the easier challenges, and proceeded to prove it by acquiring That Gun (a unique 5.56mm pistol specifically named after a type of pistol in the original games that players would call “that gun”) and slaughtering the friendly super mutants of Jacobstown. Which – completed the challenge, but also left him feeling very ashamed. *nods* As he should be – Marcus deserved better!
B) “You Don’t Belong In This World!” – kill 10 abomination-type enemies with weapons you might be able to find in a Castlevania game, like a katana, throwing spears, throwing knives, or throwing hatchets! Because this one’s title is a reference to a line said by Richter Belmont in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night when facing off against Dracula. Jon said that this was an easy challenge so long as you knew what you were doing (aka, not trying to murder a bunch of deathclaws with throwing knives), and proceeded to prove it by getting a fancy katana from Mick of Mick & Ralph’s, then heading to Vault 22 and using it to take out the Spore Carriers and Spore Plants there, as they were classed as abominations! And took the opportunity to show off the katana’s super-good special VATS move, Unlabored Flawlessness, which does 250% more damage for a greater AP cost. Just fucking OBLITERATED those Spore Carriers, let me tell you!
C) “Against All Tyrants” – kill 10 named Legion members with weapons that the NCR favor – such as hunting rifles, cowboy repeaters, or brush guns! Jon admitted this one was more of a challenge, simply because there aren’t that many named members of the Legion in the game thanks to the faction being slightly underdeveloped due to the short development time, but said it could be done – and without having to go to The Fort and attack Caesar and all his friends there! He then proceeded to show off how you could complete the challenge by sticking to the main Mojave by:
I. Starting a new game, getting his Courier enough money and experience to get Paciencia – a unique hunting rifle that is the best sniping weapon in the game – then heading to Nipton to take out Vulpes Inculta, the guy who usually tells you to spread the word about what happened to the town, from a distance (while luring all of his unnamed buddies into mine traps along the road)
II. Then heading over to Nelson, helping Milo snipe off the Legion dogs and unnamed guards around the town, before making his way into the house where Dead Sea is holed up and shooting him dead – because Dead Sea is forced to remain neutral even if you’ve been killing his guys outside so you can get his quest if you really want. Dead Sea didn’t appreciate that, I’m sure
III. Then heading down the nearby road to the Techatticup Mine (where there’s a little quest to rescue some NCR troopers from the Legionnaires keeping them hostage) and going inside to snipe off the guy in charge, Alexus, before escaping with the help of some Med-X and a Stealth Boy. This also allowed him to show off something neat about the game – neither members of the Legion nor the NCR will start shooting you on sight if you’re enemies with their faction until after you start “Act II” of the game by dealing with Benny! You may have special hit squads sent after you, sure, but the day-to-day soldiers will give you the benefit of the doubt until you’ve gotten your revenge and then prove you’re determined to give their faction a bad time. Interesting!
IV. Then making his way to Cottonwood Cove to do some fancy-ass sniping with his new fancy-ass sniping gun and take out three Legionnaires – Decanus Severus (the quartermaster and the guy you give NCR dogtags to for Legion fame and supplies), Canyon Runner (the slave runner who holds the Weathers family captive if you’re doing that quest), and Aurelius of Phoenix (the commander who likes to stand out on his balcony in the afternoons making him a perfect sniping target). *nods* We like it when we can get three bastards in one location!
V. Then making his way to the Khans in Red Rock Canyon to kill Karl, the Legion ambassador in the Khan camp! This one, however, required a bit of set-up to make sure that the Khans didn’t react poorly to the Courier killing their guest – namely, Jon had to talk to Papa Khan and start the quest “Oh My Papa” (despite having not even taken care of Benny yet, because the game was like “you wouldn’t BE here if not to start that quest), find Karl’s journal with his real thoughts on the Khans and his mission in the area, then present it to Papa Khan to make him realize that the Legion had absolutely no intention of honoring their promises to give them loads of land after defeating the NCR. This made Papa Khan furious and demand that the Khans chase the asshole out or kill him, allowing Jon to chase the fleeing Karl outside and shoot him to death without hurting anyone’s feelings. Yay!
VI. Then making his way over to Camp McCarran to kill, not Silus, the captured Legion centurion (because you can’t take any weapons into the interrogation room he’s being held in), but rather Captain Ronald Curtis, aka Picus, the Legion spy that sabotages the NCR monorail into Vegas! This one also required some set-up in the form of Jon speaking to Colonel Hsu to start the quest “I Put A Spell On You” to figure out who was leaking NCR information to the Legion, then sneaking up to Curtis’s tower office to listen in on him reporting to his Legion superiors about sabotaging the monorail before confronting him – had to make sure he was a wrong-un before killing him, you see! Jon thought this meant that the quest would be locked into the “bad ending” where the monorail exploded (since he couldn’t expose Curtis while he was still alive) – but when he went to check on the monorail, he discovered that his Courier could still disarm the bomb! Turns out you only get the bad ending if you report back to Colonel Hsu before trying to disarm the bomb – so Jon was able to get the good ending AND his kill! Yay!
VII. Then making his way to the Strip to deal with Benny (and complete a different challenge, see below), triggering the arrival of Alerio – a special “back-up” character the game has who delivers the message that Caesar wants to see you and that all crimes against the Legion have been forgiven if you have already killed Vulpes Inculta (who normally approaches you once you leave The Tops)! This is why Jon made sure to kill Vulpes back in Nipton – to make sure this guy showed up so he could be murdered immediately after handing over the Mark of Caesar. He’s got a name, so he counts for the challenge! (And even better, nobody on The Strip gives two shits if he dies, so no trouble with the Securitrons!)
VIII. And finally returning to Cottonwood Cove to do one last bit of long-range sniping against another character who’d just shown up there – Cursor Lucullus, the ferryman who is supposed to take you between Cottonwood Cove and The Fort once you receive the Mark of Caesar.
*whew* A lot of work, but definitely worth it!
D) “Talk About Owned” – kill Benny with his own gun, the special 9mm pistol Maria! Jon naturally did this at the tail end of the above challenge (since he had to go to The Tops to trigger the appearance of his last two targets anyway), and found it to be one of the easier ones – though, in his particular case, it required a bit of set-up, as his Courier didn’t have the Sneak skill necessary to sneak in any “holdout” weapons. Fortunately, she did have the Speech skill to convince Swank that Benny was no good, which got her all her weapons back and the opportunity to go upstairs and kill Benny privately, which resulted in her confronting him, shooting Maria out of his hand once he pulled it, then grabbing it off the floor and shooting Benny repeatedly in the head while Benny attempted to punch her. It took a little while to kill him via this method (Jon joked about going and having a game of blackjack while his AP refreshed), but he managed it, completing the challenge AND getting delicious ironic revenge. I am very tempted to have my own Courier Victor complete this one if he can!
E) “Deathclaw Pro Hunter” – kill five adult deathclaws – not young ones, full-grown adults – using the shittiest weapons in the game, such as .22 pistols, boxing tape, or recharger rifles! Jon allowed this one was super hard, but had a plan on how to complete it using the explosive option on the list – dynamite. Namely, by taking advantage of the fact that dynamite, when placed on the ground, could be exploded by shooting at it – and that a bunch of dynamite placed nearby to each other would all set each other off. Unfortunately, the stupid stupid plan never actually came to fruition, because –
I. On his first attempt, he made a big old pile of dynamite to set off on the road (into Quarry Junction, I presume), but strayed too far from it while luring in a deathclaw to blow up, resulting in him being murdered by the deathclaw when it basically ran through the pile to get at him before he could actually activate it
II. On his second attempt, he made a giant dynamite “net” out in the desert and managed to lure a deathclaw toward him with some gunfire – with the help of getting the timing JUST right with VATS, this trap did work, and the deathclaw got fucking launched to Jupiter while Jon cackled
III. And on his third attempt, Jon went back to the “make a pile of dynamite on the road” method and managed to successfully lure a deathclaw into it (again, using VATS to get the timing right) – only to discover he’d made the pile too small and thus unable to kill the deathclaw. Fortunately, the pile did cripple the creature’s legs, allowing Jon to take his time killing it by throwing dynamite at it (he actually felt kind of bad for it by the end) –
Unfortunately, when he finally took the thing down, the pop-up in the corner of the screen indicated that he’d only killed one deathclaw for the challenge, despite clearly having murdered two. Apparently the one sent to the moon via the dynamite “net” didn’t count. Jon was quite disgusted and didn’t finish the challenge.
Yeah – tough one, this one! Fortunately, Jon indicated while doing all this Looney Tunes bullshit that the challenge could be fulfilled by weakening the deathclaws with good weapons before switching to a shitty one for the actual kill, so – if you’re going to try it, I would recommend that method.
F) And, in a two-for-one deal, “Even a God-King Can Bleed” – cripple Caesar’s head with a throwing spear, in a nod to the movie 300 – and “Historical Propriety” – kill Caesar with either a regular knife or a combat knife, obviously referencing how the historical Julius Caesar died. Both of these were tricky (given Caesar is in the middle of The Fort and heavily guarded), and it did end up taking Jon a few tries to actually get to the guy and complete both challenges:
I. Plan A was to go and get Chance’s Knife from his grave near Goodsprings (since it’s a valid unique variant of the combat knife for this challenge), then head to The Fort with Veronica in tow to serve as a distraction...and was scuttled when Jon’s Courier was relieved of all his weapons upon entering The Fort, because naturally the Legionnaires there don’t want anyone trying to assassinate their leader (and remember, this particular Courier is no P. D. Shoot – he had like no Sneak and thus no ability to sneak in a holdout weapon like a knife)
II. Plan B was to try and buy some weapons off the merchant who hangs around near the entrance to The Fort, but that was quickly thrown out when it was revealed the guy had no weapons to sell
III. Plan C was to raid all the footlockers in the camp and see if any of them had a knife and/or a throwing spear inside...and was scuppered when Jon robbed every one, including the ones in the KITCHENS, and found NOTHING
IV. Plan D was to change out Veronica for Boone and let Boone murder everyone at the front gate, thus allowing the Courier to get his weapons back before storming Caesar’s tent – unfortunately, this meant that the Legionnaires in the tent were not happy about the Courier’s presence and killed him before he could complete the challenge (and they managed to do this with the Courier under the effects of all the drugs AND a Stealth Boy!)
V. Plan E was the same as Plan D only with throwing the spear earlier – this successfully crippled Caesar’s head, completing the FIRST challenge, yay! Jon then ran outside to prepare for the second one –
Only to realize that he really shouldn’t have left Boone directly outside the tent, as his companion was attempting to kill-steal by shooting Caesar. And Jon’s attempt to get in with the final blow with his knife only resulted in him getting killed by Caesar with some sort of power fist. Kind of the opposite of the challenge, that!
VI. And Plan F was the same as Plan E, only with Jon keeping a much better eye on Caesar’s position in the crowd when he fled post-spear-throwing (and also running the opposite way so Boone was much more occupied with the guard than Caesar himself) – which resulted in the Courier managing to kill Caesar with the knife, completing the challenge! He then proceeded to flee the camp, leaving Boone behind to deal with the hordes of angry Legionnaires. XD Boone got a lovely mock funeral in his honor at the very end of the episode.
Fun stuff! I’m glad I picked it as my substitute F:NV video for the day. :) We’ll catch up with P. D. Shoot and her adventures tomorrow!
YouTube: Well, as usual, summing up my workout video took up most of my evening – but I was determined to watch something, so I went ahead and checked out a couple of Shorts that I’d noticed lurking in my Recommendeds that I found intriguing –
A) “When Oghma’s Cleric Meets a God #baldursgate3” by SuNStereO – a short showing off a unique interaction that a Cleric of Oghma (god of knowledge) can have with Milil, the minor god of music that serves as the entertainment at the epilogue party. Basically, Milil starts the party off pretty sad because he considers himself “washed up” after being banished to the Fugue Plane by trickster god Cyric – however, a cleric of Oghma can cheer him up by telling him “It’s an honor to meet the Wise One’s closest godly ally.” He promptly goes “damn straight it’s an honor,” notes he sensed a “whiff of the wise” about the cleric, and asks what he can do for a fellow “Oghmanyte.” XD Just another fun little extra in a game full of fun little extras depending on your class!
B) “They didn't say “cut" and it led to one of the best jokes of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” by Featurama – a short talking about how one of the funniest moments in the Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves film came about! Basically, when the paladin Xenk parts ways with the main characters (having helped them acquire the artifact they need to perform a big old heist on their former friend), he turns around and walks away in a straight line down the beach they’re all hanging out on. His actor, Regé-Jean Page, was only supposed to keep walking until one of the directors said “cut”...but as you might have guessed by the title, neither director said “cut” because they wanted to see what would happen, particularly when Regé-Jean ended up encountering a big old rock in his path. Regé-Jean’s decision to march right up it and hop over it rather than go around (coupled with lead Chris Pine’s commentary) proved so funny to them that they knew they had to include in the final product. Given it seems to be a pretty iconic moment I’ve seen a lot on tumblr and the like, I believe this was the correct decision. XD
So yeah -- pretty productive day, overall! And now it is time for me to head to bed so I can get to work tomorrow and face whatever bullshit is waiting for me. *grimace* Night all!
As for my goals for the day, I did pretty well on those too:
Tumblr: Once again there was nothing going on over on Valice Multiverse – but over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), I did indeed spend the morning going through my tracked tags and looking for more stuff to add to my drafts for later queues! And I’m happy to say that I was able to snag a good number of posts, including:
A) A Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines gifset by claudiawolf, depicting scenes from the Ocean House Hotel level like the White Dress Woman ghost, the one I named Dorothy in “Londerland Bloodlines: Santa Monica’s Vale Of Tears,” running from her murderous husband down a hallway, and one of the paintings on the upstairs balcony shaking in a worrying way – it’s a good level and I thought the gifs were quite well done
B) A VTMB photoset by gamerism depicting locations in the Chinatown map area, including Kamikaze Zen (the computer place you have to infiltrate to do the “setting up the Nosferatu Schreknet hubs” mission), The White Cloud (where the creepy guy who sends you to do things like get a dead criminal’s eyes and be a “bad luck farmer” in the local spa works), and the noodle shop (where you can meet Yukie and help her avenge her dead mentor by fighting a wereshark) – the pictures were really pretty, edited to make the colors really POP
C) A photo post by twisted-cat2476 showing off her latest acquisition: a The Smiler pin with the iconic swirly-eyed smiley face and “CORRECTED” hanging down from underneath the logo – I like Smiler merch myself, and it’s a very cool pin :D
D) An Alice: Madness Returns photoset by cbcks depicting the cutscene where Alice falls down the rabbit hole after confronting Pris Witless, tumbling about through the normal Wonderland debris before seeing the new added Ruin-themed mechanical stuff at the bottom and changing into her Wonderland form as she enters the Vale of Tears – it was a nice photoset with some good shots, depicting a very cool moment from the game in the kind of detail you don’t often see on tumblr
E) A photo post by edellis showing off their fanart of A:MR Alice in her Queensland dress, featuring two variants of a portrait of her looking off to the side (one with a simple frame background, one with a Queen of Hearts cards background) sandwiching a picture of her standing in the card castle that serves as the entrance to the level once you leave Cardbridge – it was some very nice fanart, and I found the way they did the cards in the background of the middle one to be very impressive – they looked just like the ones from the game!
F) A photo post by vorpalbae showing off some A:MR fanart they found on max.wise.art’s Instagram, featuring his take on what a Polly Pocket playset based on A:MR might look like: a compact with teeth lining the rim; tiny Alice and Cheshire figurines; a bottom section that mostly resembled the Vale of Tears with a bit of Queensland mixed in in the form of a hedge maze (with a cake at the end), and Ruin pouring in from the side; and a top section with rooms depicting some of the realms Alice travels through in the game (Hatter’s Domain, Deluded Depths, Dollhouse, Rutledge Hallucination, and Dollhouse Basement) – it was very cool and very well done
G) A short Corpse Bride video by rjvill, showing a few clips of the film like Victor and Emily looking at the butterfly in the forest, Emily giving Victor his ring back, and Emily dissolving into butterflies at the church doors, set to some pretty background music – the quality on the video was not the greatest, but I still liked it, and the music rjvill chose was pretty
H) And a text post by callagoo simply stating “anyone else think the corpse bride should have ended with victor and victoria and emily as a poly couple” in pink – I mean, the Corpse Bride trio were basically my first OT3, so, yeah :P
*nods* A good haul! Should help get me through a couple of queues, at least. :p
Writing: I spent the time after lunch revising my tumblr friend Newt’s birthday gift fic (the Valicer In The Dark/Dead Boys Detectives crossover where my crime trio has to tell the titular detectives, Charles and Edwin, that they’re stuck in a place where ghosts must be destroyed as there is no afterlife) as I said I would last night – main things I did were:
A) Start the whole thing off by finding some clips of Charles and Edwin (mostly ones showing them acting like an old married couple) from Dead Boy Detectives on YouTube and watching them through to make sure I had their voices right for the fic (very important, that)
B) Cut out the whole bit specifying how the Spirit Wardens in this world kill ghosts (by boiling them in electroplasm) – while I liked the part where Edwin automatically corrected “electroplasm” to “ectoplasm,” only to be told “no, it’s electroplasm because it’s electric – are ghosts not electric where you’re from?” it just slowed things down and fucked with the pacing
C) And adjusted some of the dialogue – Smiler’s now the one who explains how most ghosts in their world aren’t as sane as Charles and Edwin are (mostly because poor Victor was getting tongue-tied trying to do it), while Victor is the one who initially tells the boys there is no afterlife (Alice dropped the bombshell in the first draft). Gotta fit the right words to the right person!
Couple that with some general rephrasing and cleaning up, and I think this fic is good to go. :) Hopefully Newt likes it when it goes up on Thursday!
Portal 2: Spent a half-hour in the bowels of Aperture Science this afternoon, getting through three whole test chambers today! Mostly because the first two were pretty simple, granted, but still. XD In order, we had –
Chamber 16: The big screens around the elevator advertised various custom paint jobs you could get for the infamous turrets (both solid colors and patterns like plaid and forest camo – the latter of which is actually the color of the “blind box” turret figurine I got to go with my Chell figure and Wheatley light-up keychain years and years ago), and indeed this chamber featured them heavily – to the point of having a turret tucked away behind a grate in the wall in the tiny entrance “hall,” ready to shoot you as you passed by. *rolls eyes* Fortunately it was easily defeated by running and jumping past its laser sight as fast as possible. The test chamber itself was divided into three distinct areas:
I. The starting area, which consisted of a big red floor button, and a laser emitter on the ceiling, pointed at a portal-able bit of floor nearby – the laser emitter turned on when you stood on the button, and could be portaled to wherever you needed it to be
II. A side area to the right, separated from the main area by a big glass partition, that had three turrets lined up in a row in it, ready to shoot you should you try to come around the side of the partition, all guarding a Weighted Storage Cube and a Laser Redirection Cube behind them – unfortunately for them, they were facing some portal-able chunks of wall…
III. And another room next to the starting area, cut off from the other two areas with glass walls, featuring a bunch of turrets guarding the laser receiver and the exit door, which did not have seem to have any immediately-visible entrances
Figuring out how to handle the first part of the test was easy, as you might imagine – once I figured out that the button turned on the laser emitter (and killed the camera GLaDOS had set up in the room), all I had to do was put a portal on the bit of floor beneath the emitter and another on the wall in front of the turrets in the side area with the cubes, then stand on the button and watch as the laser first set the turrets on fire, then blew them up as they overheated. :D The second part was a bit more complicated, though – you see, when I initially stood on the button myself to kill the turrets, I assumed that it also opened up an entrance to the room with the emitter in that side area with the cubes. But when I took the Weighted Storage Cube over to said button and used it to give myself a permanent laser (after briefly moving one of my portals so I could walk down the hall safely), I discovered this wasn’t the case – all of the glass panels stayed in place. Which was a relief in one sense, as all the turrets were facing me when I looked at them through the panel – but was also a puzzle in another, because how was I supposed to solve the puzzle and escape if I couldn’t get into that room?
...And then I remembered “that panel is glass – and lasers are light.” Sure enough, once I brought the laser back down near the floor, I was able to use the Redirection Cube to redirect it right through the glass panel, killing the turrets on the other side and powering the receiver. Which opened up a couple of blue glass panels on the side wall next to me and allowed me to access the room and the now-open exit door! Allowing me to head out and to the next test chamber...all while GLaDOS hummed “For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow” in a vaguely-menacing way…
Chamber 17: Designed by one of Aperture’s Nobel Prize winners, according to GLaDOS – which was not received for “Being Immune To Neurotoxin.” XD (Personally, I would have expected Aperture scientists to be more likely to win Ig Nobel Prizes, given the kind of things they do…) They also clearly did not get the Prize for “Advanced Portal Testing Design,” as the test itself was very simple – a tall narrow room with an elevated exit door at the end (at the top of the pit that served as the main testing area), with portal-able patches here and there on the otherwise-metal walls and the following elements:
I. A notch in the left hand wall containing a hard-light bridge extending to a portal-able wall patch on the side, with a Weighted Storage Cube resting on it, blocking a laser coming out of an emitter on the wall behind it
II. A laser receiver on the right-hand wall, in the perfect position to be hit by the laser should the cube be removed
III. And a big red floor button on the wall under the receiver
I promptly killed the camera on one of the portal-able patches of wall, then used portals to extend a portion of the light bridge down to where I could get on it and walk across it to grab the cube. This allowed the laser to hit the receiver, revealing it caused a platform at the very end of the room to lift up to where the exit door was. I then brought the cube to the button and dropped it on, revealing that that opened up the exit door itself. With the door open, I decided to see if the raising platform was in fact a bluff and you could extend the hard light bridge over to where you needed to go –
But, sadly, no – the only portal-able patch of wall I could use went in front of the receiver, and ran into another wall where the room narrowed right before the exit. For a moment, I wasn’t sure what to do, as I had to have the cube blocking the laser until I was on the platform that would lift me up to the exit, but I also needed the cube on the button to actually, you know, LEAVE –
And then I looked at the hard light bridge I’d created in front of the receiver and the position of the button, and went “Oh!” Cue me hopping down again and resetting the bridge so I could walk onto it from the floor; taking the cube with me onto the original bridge portion in the notch; setting up a bridge directly in front of the receiver again; and then taking the cube over onto THAT bridge and setting it down in front of the receiver, directly atop the button below. With the laser thus blocked, all I had to then was hop off, head over to the lifting platform and stand atop it –
Then move the portal extending the hard light bridge. Causing it to disappear and the cube to drop onto the button, allowing Chell to ride the platform up to the open exit! Where she received a message from GLaDOS telling her that, despite appearances, she had not forgotten Chell’s surprise (which was supposed to happen BEFORE this test, but I guess GLaDOS couldn’t find a good room for it in this area), and that she was in fact heading toward it right now. And GLaDOS was getting all choked up just thinking about it…
Chamber 18: AKA the first chamber of Chapter 4: The Surprise! Naturally, things started off with GLaDOS guiding Chell into a dark room with a single spotlight in it, before turning off the light and declaring she was now deploying the surprise –
And then turning on all the lights, revealing Chell was standing in an empty back office, and revealing she’d made it (i.e., finding Chell’s birth parents in cold storage and hinting that she’d reunite them) all up. Before releasing some confetti through a pipe in the ceiling. And then telling Chell not to feel so bad, as her parents had abandoned her shortly after she was born, so it was only logical they wouldn’t want to see her. XD Oh GLaDOS, you are such a bitch, and we love you. XD
Anyway – the test PROPER started with Chell going into the observation room next door, then jumping down through the open window into the chamber – a task made a little more difficult by the fact that there was a turret at the far end of the room pointed in that direction that was only too happy to try and shoot her. Fortunately, there was also a hard light bridge extending from the floor to the ceiling that served as a barrier, so I had her duck behind that to avoid taking a bunch of spring-loaded bullets to the abdomen. Once she was safe, I took a look around and noted all the most important parts of the frankly-huge test chamber:
I. The aforementioned floor-to-ceiling hard light bridge barrier
II. The aforementioned turret, standing on a little platform at the far side of the room, surrounded by metal walls and empty space so it was impossible to get to
III. A little area directly to the left of Chell’s hiding spot to the left protected by a short wall with a laser being fired into it – the wall protecting it was portal-able on either side, but the floor underneath the laser emitter very much was not
IV. A glass wall to the right of Chell’s hiding spot in front of a big patch of portal-able wall and floor, perfect to hide behind to avoid the wrath of the turret
V. A pair of cube dispensers hanging from the ceiling over raised platforms along the right wall, one closer to the back corner and one closer to the front, each with a Laser Redirection Cube in it
VI. Four laser spinners on the floor, widely spaced and set up in such a way that you would definitely need both Laser Redirection Cubes to get the laser through all of them
VII. A little raised balcony platform of sorts on the far wall, leading to a standing Cube Dispensary Button in a notch toward the right
VIII. The exit door on its own little platform on the left-hand wall
IX. And a lot of sunken areas forming a sort of “trough” around the entrance
Yup – rather a more complicated puzzle than the last two! I promptly started things off by using portals to get myself over to the other side of the room, onto the little balcony by the Cube Dispensary Button and away from the turrets. This revealed to me two other very important things about the room – namely, that all those sunken bits I’d noted before were in fact filled with deadly deadly water –
And that there were faith plates under each Cube Dispenser. Meaning – as I proved when I pressed the Cube Dispensary Button and released a couple – the cubes, when released, would hit the faith plates, be bounced toward each other, collide in midair, and fall into the water. Where they would be promptly fizzled. Meaning that, to save at least ONE of the cubes, we needed a barrier to stop it hitting the other one on the other side of the room.
So, good thing we had that hard light bridge barrier near the start, huh? And even better thing that I finally remembered what the “zoom” button is on the controller (right bumper, if you’re curious), huh? I thus used portals to set up a bridge blockade in front of the first dispenser, then hit the release button again to drop more cubes. And this time, one cube hit the hard light bridge and immediately dropped to the floor, and the other sailed unimpeded over to the far side of the room and landed not far from its twin. Yay! *thumbs up*
With the cubes in play, I portaled my way back over to the side of the room with the lasers and such (making sure to pop out behind the glass wall that would protect me from turret fire), then used further portals to bring one cube over to me without me having to get it. A couple more portals brought me and cube over to the laser area, where I was able to put the cube under the laser and redirect the beam through two of the spinners. I then returned to behind the glass wall and picked up the second cube with portals –
And then was presented with a problem – namely, I had to go further out into the room to put the cube in the right place to direct the laser beam through the remaining two spinners...but I couldn’t do that without the turret getting me. And picking up the second Laser Redirection Cube and venturing out briefly from behind the wall proved that it would not protect me from getting shot like a Weighted Storage Cube would. Which meant that the turret had to die...but that also required me to leave the safety of the glass wall so I could get over to the laser and redirect it toward the turret on its little platform. What do?
Remember that the hard light bridge also protects against turret fire and use that! Specifically, I used portals to extend the bridge through a different spot on the floor, and ducked behind that; then ducked behind the original bridge when I couldn’t get to the laser from that position; and then moved the extra barrier over closer to where the laser was going through the spinners and ducked behind that. Fortunately, that one proved to be close enough to the laser, and I was able to use my Redirection Cube to aim the laser at the turret and murder it. *nods* Very satisfying. And with that done, I was free to waltz out and put the cube in the right spot to redirect the laser through the remaining two spinners and into the emitter behind them on the far wall (a trickier process than you might think, as it was very easy to accidentally move the cube slightly so the beam wasn’t going through one of the spinners). Prompting GLaDOS to insincerely tell Chell about how she felt just terrible about that surprise, and pretend to call her birth parents, only to get a message about how “the birth parents who you are trying to contact do not love you” (GLaDOS: “Oh, that’s sad – but impressive. Maybe they worked at the phone company”) –
And prompting me to go (once I’d gotten the damn beam lined up properly) “Wait a second – how do I get to the exit door?” Because, again, that was on its own platform, apart from the main area, across the deadly water. I was genuinely flummoxed for a second –
And then I saw the portal-able surfaces on the OTHER side of the wall blocking the laser area from turret fire, and went “Ooooh…” Cue me firing a portal at the ceiling, another on that wall, and creating a hard light bridge that I could go over and hop on to cross over to the exit. I then had Chell get in the elevator, expecting to go straight to the next test chamber so I could end my play session…
Only for the elevator to start moving surprisingly slowly, because it was Wheatley Check In Cutscene time! He delightedly informed Chell as they both descended through some half-built levels that he’d gotten a job with the nanobot crew that worked on the elevator shafts to help her out – right before being told off and then fired by his unseen supervisor Jerry, because, you know, he’s a full-sized core and not a nanobot (he immediately furiously accused Jerry of committing a hate crime against him). Anyway, he told her that he was still working on the plan, and she just needed to get through five more test chambers –
And with that, my playsession ended, as Chell then went through the loading screen and ended up deposited at the start of Chamber 19, where GLaDOS talked about how comedy was “tragedy plus time,” then noted how long Chell had been asleep in her relaxation chamber. Because, again, she’s a bitch. :p Next Sunday, we’ll continue and see how many test chambers we get through! And how long it really takes Wheatley to rescue us, because I’m pretty sure Chell doesn’t have five chambers left to go on this track…
Workout: Well, Jon once again uploaded the latest F:NV YOLO Remastered episode too late for me to watch it while on the bike (in fact, he uploaded it right as my workout ended) – so instead I pedaled my way through a different, older Fallout: New Vegas video he did around the time that The Outer Worlds (another RPG made by the creators of New Vegas, Obsidian Entertainment) came out: “Fallout: New Vegas - The Gun Runners' Arsenal Challenges!” This was a one-shot video talking about the special challenges that the Gun Runners’ Arsenal DLC added to the game for people to complete for loads of XP, because Jon had never really covered them before and was always keen to make more videos talking about just how flipping good New Vegas is and how much content it has. :p The specific challenges he covered in the video were –
A) “Vault 13’s Revenge” – kill 15 super mutants using a weapon that you might have been able to find in one of the first two Fallout games, like a 5.56mm pistol, plasma grenades, or a power fist! Because the title refers to the vault from which the very first Fallout protagonist came from, which was threatened by super mutants in that game. Jon said that this was one of the easier challenges, and proceeded to prove it by acquiring That Gun (a unique 5.56mm pistol specifically named after a type of pistol in the original games that players would call “that gun”) and slaughtering the friendly super mutants of Jacobstown. Which – completed the challenge, but also left him feeling very ashamed. *nods* As he should be – Marcus deserved better!
B) “You Don’t Belong In This World!” – kill 10 abomination-type enemies with weapons you might be able to find in a Castlevania game, like a katana, throwing spears, throwing knives, or throwing hatchets! Because this one’s title is a reference to a line said by Richter Belmont in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night when facing off against Dracula. Jon said that this was an easy challenge so long as you knew what you were doing (aka, not trying to murder a bunch of deathclaws with throwing knives), and proceeded to prove it by getting a fancy katana from Mick of Mick & Ralph’s, then heading to Vault 22 and using it to take out the Spore Carriers and Spore Plants there, as they were classed as abominations! And took the opportunity to show off the katana’s super-good special VATS move, Unlabored Flawlessness, which does 250% more damage for a greater AP cost. Just fucking OBLITERATED those Spore Carriers, let me tell you!
C) “Against All Tyrants” – kill 10 named Legion members with weapons that the NCR favor – such as hunting rifles, cowboy repeaters, or brush guns! Jon admitted this one was more of a challenge, simply because there aren’t that many named members of the Legion in the game thanks to the faction being slightly underdeveloped due to the short development time, but said it could be done – and without having to go to The Fort and attack Caesar and all his friends there! He then proceeded to show off how you could complete the challenge by sticking to the main Mojave by:
I. Starting a new game, getting his Courier enough money and experience to get Paciencia – a unique hunting rifle that is the best sniping weapon in the game – then heading to Nipton to take out Vulpes Inculta, the guy who usually tells you to spread the word about what happened to the town, from a distance (while luring all of his unnamed buddies into mine traps along the road)
II. Then heading over to Nelson, helping Milo snipe off the Legion dogs and unnamed guards around the town, before making his way into the house where Dead Sea is holed up and shooting him dead – because Dead Sea is forced to remain neutral even if you’ve been killing his guys outside so you can get his quest if you really want. Dead Sea didn’t appreciate that, I’m sure
III. Then heading down the nearby road to the Techatticup Mine (where there’s a little quest to rescue some NCR troopers from the Legionnaires keeping them hostage) and going inside to snipe off the guy in charge, Alexus, before escaping with the help of some Med-X and a Stealth Boy. This also allowed him to show off something neat about the game – neither members of the Legion nor the NCR will start shooting you on sight if you’re enemies with their faction until after you start “Act II” of the game by dealing with Benny! You may have special hit squads sent after you, sure, but the day-to-day soldiers will give you the benefit of the doubt until you’ve gotten your revenge and then prove you’re determined to give their faction a bad time. Interesting!
IV. Then making his way to Cottonwood Cove to do some fancy-ass sniping with his new fancy-ass sniping gun and take out three Legionnaires – Decanus Severus (the quartermaster and the guy you give NCR dogtags to for Legion fame and supplies), Canyon Runner (the slave runner who holds the Weathers family captive if you’re doing that quest), and Aurelius of Phoenix (the commander who likes to stand out on his balcony in the afternoons making him a perfect sniping target). *nods* We like it when we can get three bastards in one location!
V. Then making his way to the Khans in Red Rock Canyon to kill Karl, the Legion ambassador in the Khan camp! This one, however, required a bit of set-up to make sure that the Khans didn’t react poorly to the Courier killing their guest – namely, Jon had to talk to Papa Khan and start the quest “Oh My Papa” (despite having not even taken care of Benny yet, because the game was like “you wouldn’t BE here if not to start that quest), find Karl’s journal with his real thoughts on the Khans and his mission in the area, then present it to Papa Khan to make him realize that the Legion had absolutely no intention of honoring their promises to give them loads of land after defeating the NCR. This made Papa Khan furious and demand that the Khans chase the asshole out or kill him, allowing Jon to chase the fleeing Karl outside and shoot him to death without hurting anyone’s feelings. Yay!
VI. Then making his way over to Camp McCarran to kill, not Silus, the captured Legion centurion (because you can’t take any weapons into the interrogation room he’s being held in), but rather Captain Ronald Curtis, aka Picus, the Legion spy that sabotages the NCR monorail into Vegas! This one also required some set-up in the form of Jon speaking to Colonel Hsu to start the quest “I Put A Spell On You” to figure out who was leaking NCR information to the Legion, then sneaking up to Curtis’s tower office to listen in on him reporting to his Legion superiors about sabotaging the monorail before confronting him – had to make sure he was a wrong-un before killing him, you see! Jon thought this meant that the quest would be locked into the “bad ending” where the monorail exploded (since he couldn’t expose Curtis while he was still alive) – but when he went to check on the monorail, he discovered that his Courier could still disarm the bomb! Turns out you only get the bad ending if you report back to Colonel Hsu before trying to disarm the bomb – so Jon was able to get the good ending AND his kill! Yay!
VII. Then making his way to the Strip to deal with Benny (and complete a different challenge, see below), triggering the arrival of Alerio – a special “back-up” character the game has who delivers the message that Caesar wants to see you and that all crimes against the Legion have been forgiven if you have already killed Vulpes Inculta (who normally approaches you once you leave The Tops)! This is why Jon made sure to kill Vulpes back in Nipton – to make sure this guy showed up so he could be murdered immediately after handing over the Mark of Caesar. He’s got a name, so he counts for the challenge! (And even better, nobody on The Strip gives two shits if he dies, so no trouble with the Securitrons!)
VIII. And finally returning to Cottonwood Cove to do one last bit of long-range sniping against another character who’d just shown up there – Cursor Lucullus, the ferryman who is supposed to take you between Cottonwood Cove and The Fort once you receive the Mark of Caesar.
*whew* A lot of work, but definitely worth it!
D) “Talk About Owned” – kill Benny with his own gun, the special 9mm pistol Maria! Jon naturally did this at the tail end of the above challenge (since he had to go to The Tops to trigger the appearance of his last two targets anyway), and found it to be one of the easier ones – though, in his particular case, it required a bit of set-up, as his Courier didn’t have the Sneak skill necessary to sneak in any “holdout” weapons. Fortunately, she did have the Speech skill to convince Swank that Benny was no good, which got her all her weapons back and the opportunity to go upstairs and kill Benny privately, which resulted in her confronting him, shooting Maria out of his hand once he pulled it, then grabbing it off the floor and shooting Benny repeatedly in the head while Benny attempted to punch her. It took a little while to kill him via this method (Jon joked about going and having a game of blackjack while his AP refreshed), but he managed it, completing the challenge AND getting delicious ironic revenge. I am very tempted to have my own Courier Victor complete this one if he can!
E) “Deathclaw Pro Hunter” – kill five adult deathclaws – not young ones, full-grown adults – using the shittiest weapons in the game, such as .22 pistols, boxing tape, or recharger rifles! Jon allowed this one was super hard, but had a plan on how to complete it using the explosive option on the list – dynamite. Namely, by taking advantage of the fact that dynamite, when placed on the ground, could be exploded by shooting at it – and that a bunch of dynamite placed nearby to each other would all set each other off. Unfortunately, the stupid stupid plan never actually came to fruition, because –
I. On his first attempt, he made a big old pile of dynamite to set off on the road (into Quarry Junction, I presume), but strayed too far from it while luring in a deathclaw to blow up, resulting in him being murdered by the deathclaw when it basically ran through the pile to get at him before he could actually activate it
II. On his second attempt, he made a giant dynamite “net” out in the desert and managed to lure a deathclaw toward him with some gunfire – with the help of getting the timing JUST right with VATS, this trap did work, and the deathclaw got fucking launched to Jupiter while Jon cackled
III. And on his third attempt, Jon went back to the “make a pile of dynamite on the road” method and managed to successfully lure a deathclaw into it (again, using VATS to get the timing right) – only to discover he’d made the pile too small and thus unable to kill the deathclaw. Fortunately, the pile did cripple the creature’s legs, allowing Jon to take his time killing it by throwing dynamite at it (he actually felt kind of bad for it by the end) –
Unfortunately, when he finally took the thing down, the pop-up in the corner of the screen indicated that he’d only killed one deathclaw for the challenge, despite clearly having murdered two. Apparently the one sent to the moon via the dynamite “net” didn’t count. Jon was quite disgusted and didn’t finish the challenge.
Yeah – tough one, this one! Fortunately, Jon indicated while doing all this Looney Tunes bullshit that the challenge could be fulfilled by weakening the deathclaws with good weapons before switching to a shitty one for the actual kill, so – if you’re going to try it, I would recommend that method.
F) And, in a two-for-one deal, “Even a God-King Can Bleed” – cripple Caesar’s head with a throwing spear, in a nod to the movie 300 – and “Historical Propriety” – kill Caesar with either a regular knife or a combat knife, obviously referencing how the historical Julius Caesar died. Both of these were tricky (given Caesar is in the middle of The Fort and heavily guarded), and it did end up taking Jon a few tries to actually get to the guy and complete both challenges:
I. Plan A was to go and get Chance’s Knife from his grave near Goodsprings (since it’s a valid unique variant of the combat knife for this challenge), then head to The Fort with Veronica in tow to serve as a distraction...and was scuttled when Jon’s Courier was relieved of all his weapons upon entering The Fort, because naturally the Legionnaires there don’t want anyone trying to assassinate their leader (and remember, this particular Courier is no P. D. Shoot – he had like no Sneak and thus no ability to sneak in a holdout weapon like a knife)
II. Plan B was to try and buy some weapons off the merchant who hangs around near the entrance to The Fort, but that was quickly thrown out when it was revealed the guy had no weapons to sell
III. Plan C was to raid all the footlockers in the camp and see if any of them had a knife and/or a throwing spear inside...and was scuppered when Jon robbed every one, including the ones in the KITCHENS, and found NOTHING
IV. Plan D was to change out Veronica for Boone and let Boone murder everyone at the front gate, thus allowing the Courier to get his weapons back before storming Caesar’s tent – unfortunately, this meant that the Legionnaires in the tent were not happy about the Courier’s presence and killed him before he could complete the challenge (and they managed to do this with the Courier under the effects of all the drugs AND a Stealth Boy!)
V. Plan E was the same as Plan D only with throwing the spear earlier – this successfully crippled Caesar’s head, completing the FIRST challenge, yay! Jon then ran outside to prepare for the second one –
Only to realize that he really shouldn’t have left Boone directly outside the tent, as his companion was attempting to kill-steal by shooting Caesar. And Jon’s attempt to get in with the final blow with his knife only resulted in him getting killed by Caesar with some sort of power fist. Kind of the opposite of the challenge, that!
VI. And Plan F was the same as Plan E, only with Jon keeping a much better eye on Caesar’s position in the crowd when he fled post-spear-throwing (and also running the opposite way so Boone was much more occupied with the guard than Caesar himself) – which resulted in the Courier managing to kill Caesar with the knife, completing the challenge! He then proceeded to flee the camp, leaving Boone behind to deal with the hordes of angry Legionnaires. XD Boone got a lovely mock funeral in his honor at the very end of the episode.
Fun stuff! I’m glad I picked it as my substitute F:NV video for the day. :) We’ll catch up with P. D. Shoot and her adventures tomorrow!
YouTube: Well, as usual, summing up my workout video took up most of my evening – but I was determined to watch something, so I went ahead and checked out a couple of Shorts that I’d noticed lurking in my Recommendeds that I found intriguing –
A) “When Oghma’s Cleric Meets a God #baldursgate3” by SuNStereO – a short showing off a unique interaction that a Cleric of Oghma (god of knowledge) can have with Milil, the minor god of music that serves as the entertainment at the epilogue party. Basically, Milil starts the party off pretty sad because he considers himself “washed up” after being banished to the Fugue Plane by trickster god Cyric – however, a cleric of Oghma can cheer him up by telling him “It’s an honor to meet the Wise One’s closest godly ally.” He promptly goes “damn straight it’s an honor,” notes he sensed a “whiff of the wise” about the cleric, and asks what he can do for a fellow “Oghmanyte.” XD Just another fun little extra in a game full of fun little extras depending on your class!
B) “They didn't say “cut" and it led to one of the best jokes of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” by Featurama – a short talking about how one of the funniest moments in the Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves film came about! Basically, when the paladin Xenk parts ways with the main characters (having helped them acquire the artifact they need to perform a big old heist on their former friend), he turns around and walks away in a straight line down the beach they’re all hanging out on. His actor, Regé-Jean Page, was only supposed to keep walking until one of the directors said “cut”...but as you might have guessed by the title, neither director said “cut” because they wanted to see what would happen, particularly when Regé-Jean ended up encountering a big old rock in his path. Regé-Jean’s decision to march right up it and hop over it rather than go around (coupled with lead Chris Pine’s commentary) proved so funny to them that they knew they had to include in the final product. Given it seems to be a pretty iconic moment I’ve seen a lot on tumblr and the like, I believe this was the correct decision. XD
So yeah -- pretty productive day, overall! And now it is time for me to head to bed so I can get to work tomorrow and face whatever bullshit is waiting for me. *grimace* Night all!
