Unexpectedly Lazy Monday
Apr. 6th, 2026 11:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickYeah, for whatever reason, my get-up-and-go got up and went today. Probably at least some of it can be blamed on a poor night's sleep last night -- went to bed too late, woke up too early thanks to needing the bathroom and not really being able to get back to sleep afterward -- but otherwise, no clue why I was so distracted and generally out of it most of the day. Meh. At least I managed to accomplish a handful of things:
Tumblr: Just had Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) to worry about today – and while I was hoping to get more done, I did at least manage to get a little more written on that “when do Victor and Alice (and occasionally others) find out Smiler’s birth name is ‘Marmaduke’” post that I started yesterday, adding in an entry for when the Running Into The Bullshit mega-polycule finds out that fact and an “Honorable Mentions” category for Victor and Alice finding out a particular Smiler is Mar-Mal, eldritch being of happiness! So that’s slowly coming along. ...and it occurs to me that you guys might want to know the answer to that question too, so here’s a quick sum-up:
I. Modern AU – revealed by Smiler’s parents’ asshole neighbor Bob Wickerman during an argument with Smiler over his dog, Nemesis, menacing Victor
II. Valicer In The Dark AU – Kelman lists Smiler as “Marmaduke Kelman” on the notice he puts out looking for the trio, and after a bit of confusion, Alice and Victor realize that’s Smiler’s original name (prompting the reveal of their tragic backstory)
III. Soulmates AU – Smiler was introduced to Victor as “Marmaduke Kelman” and Victor learned they prefer “Smiler” through the soulmate bond when it activated; Alice by contrast met Smiler under the name “Smiler Alton” in the Mangled Mermaid, and didn’t get their original name until THEIR soulmate bond activated
IV. Multiplayer Wonderland AU – Victor and Alice learn that Smiler is “Marmaduke” shortly after meeting as kids when Kelman scolds them for playing under a table at the party they all met at; Smiler is introduced to Victoria as “Marmaduke Kelman” at the rehearsal, and only learns they prefer Smiler later; when Emily learns is up in the air, but it’s either going to be from one of the crystal memories they find in Wonderland, or when a monster from the nightmarish version of Sanctuary Smiler is thrown in during the same time Alice ends up in the Rutledge nightmare after Queensland (Victoria and Emily both end up in mazes where they have to run from Barkis, though they don’t initially know they’re running from the same guy; Victor ends up in a dark void and needs to be rescued by the others) calls them “Marmaduke” while they’re all reuniting
V. Londerland Bloodlines AU – Alice learns it when she helps Smiler take down Kelman and the Sanctuary, and Smiler reluctantly tells the others afterward just to avoid keeping secrets (though makes it clear they HATE that name)
VI. Severance AU – On the Innies’ side, Wheatley introduces Smiler to Victor and Alice as “Marmaduke A.,” prompting Smiler to wince and ask that they call them “M” until they come up with “Smiler” during the “decorating their cubicles with Post-It notes” incident; on the Outies’ side, Victor and Alice don’t know Smiler personally, but know that they’re “Marmaduke Kelman,” Dr. Kelman’s “son” – Smiler gives them their preferred and gender identity when they all end up stuck in the elevator together post-Innie rebellion (basically, this universe could be seen as the inverse of most of the others)
VII. Valicer Forgotten Vows AU – Again, Smiler is introduced to Victor as “Marmaduke Kelman” when they first meet, and tells him their preferred name a bit later; Victor tells Alice that they’re Marmaduke when telling her about the relationship, but stresses that Smiler always preferred “Smiler,” so when they actually show up, Alice makes sure to call them that
VIII. Smiler In Secundus AU – I plan for this to come out in the next fic I plan to write, the one where Smiler wows everyone at Richard’s table with their tea-making skills – when Smiler reveals where they’re from, Doc asks if they knew Dr. Kelman and comments how sad it is that his son Marmaduke died with him when the Sanctuary was stormed by an angry mob; Smiler’s reaction clues Alice into the fact that SMILER’S Marmaduke, having actually escaped
IX. Running Headlong Into The Bullshit AU – Came up with this while pondering how the big polycule could come to find out – I think it would be interesting for Piper, while talking about her somewhat-unusual name, to say that she knew a “Marmaduke” for one year in elementary school, prompting Smiler to be like “oh cripes some other unfortunate kid was named that?” and out themselves...only for it to then be revealed that SMILER was the Marmaduke Piper knew; I have to reconcile the fact that Piper’s American and Smiler’s English here, but Piper moving to England for a year if her parents had a job opportunity there might not be out of the question…
X. And in the Honorable Mentions category just added, Victor of Fallout of Darkness (the FO4/VTMB crossover I was kinda-sorta working on while playing Fallout 4) learns the Smiler robot is actually a vessel for eldritch being Mar-Mal during the fight for Nuka-World, when a raider smashes the robot, then tries to smash Victor, only to be stopped by Mar-Mal intervening – he then tells Alice (and presumably Piper and Preston too); and everyone in the Mega Ghostbusters AU learns Smiler is God Of Happiness Mar-Mal when Smiler goes up against Gozer for the fate of Hill Valley in the big climactic fight
Whew! You see why I didn’t try to sum all that up for you guys last night. :p
Portal 2: Welp, today’s half-hour trip to Aperture Science ended up surprising me, as it turned out Wheatley was rather closer to breaking Chell out of the testing track than I had originally thought at the end of last week’s session, meaning today’s session consisted mostly of rather a lot of madcap running around and careful-yet-speedy jumps...let me tell you all about it –
A) I started things off right at the entrance to Chamber 21, the second-to-last test chamber on the testing track, having just been informed by GLaDOS that there was a “surprise with tragic consequences” awaiting Chell at the end of the next chamber. So she had that to look forward to! :D Anyway, I entered the test chamber itself to discover it was a rather tall room, sporting a couple of deadly water pits on the floor – one by the entrance to the left, and one by the exit (which, incidentally, was halfway up the wall) to the right. The one by the entrance had a hard light bridge stretching across it into a portal-able patch of wall and a cube dispenser over it – though, unfortunately, the cube dispenser was just to the left of the hard light bridge, so any cubes dispensed would be immediately fizzled in the deadly water – while the one by the exit was just there to make life a little bit more difficult for Chell when she had to find a way to reach said exit. There was also a big red button on the floor in front of the exit; a cube dispensing button in a little notch to the side of the exit, also elevated off the floor; and a few more patches of portal-able wall around the place. After taking in the landscape, I started out by putting a portal in front of the hard light bridge and another on the very narrow patch of wall by the exit, in front of the cube dispensing button nook – to my delight, this not only provided access to the cube dispensing button, but also a platform for the cube itself to land on! I thus cheerfully walked through the portals, hit the cube dispensing button, and prepared to walk over and pick up the newly-dispensed cube –
Only for the lights to turn out and the hard light bridge to disappear. Cue Chell falling to the floor (safely, thanks to her long fall boots) and the cube plopping into the water to fizzle while I and GLaDOS both wondered who had turned out the lights –
And then cue the portal-able bit of wall in front of the hard light bridge opening up, and Wheatley popping his eye through the gap! Greeting Chell with an ATROCIOUS Texan accent that he claimed was beyond GLaDOS’s range of hearing. XD He then informed her that he knew he was a little early, but that they had to go right now, instructing her “Walk casually toward my position and we’ll go shut her down.” Naturally, I had Chell do just that –
As slowly as possible, because I was pretty sure he had additional dialogue to urge you along if you didn’t walk over to him fast enough. XD Unfortunately, none of it actually triggered – he just kept staring at Chell as she inched toward him, not saying anything at all. Eventually I was like “either I’m misremembering or you have to keep him waiting for a WHILE,” gave up, and just had Chell approach him normally. Prompting GLaDOS to inform Wheatley coolly that she could hear him –
B) And Wheatley to tell Chell in a panic, “Run! I don’t need to do the voice. RUN!” as he opened up the wall fully so she could get through. Cue me running into the backstage area, making onto a catwalk with the help of the reactivated hard light bridge, and then sending Chell on a desperate jog through the maze of catwalks and stairs and tubing and whatnot back there, trying to keep Wheatley in sight so I knew where the hell to go. Wheatley being Wheatley, he kept up a steady stream of encouraging babble throughout, telling Chell to keep moving and informing her of the plan – “We are going to shut down her turret production line, turn off her neurotoxin, and then confront her!” Sounded good to me, and I’m sure it sounded good to Chell too! After a bit more scrambling about trying to keep our favorite Intelligence Dampening core in sight, I had Chell exit the latest catwalk to instead book it across the top of a hanging chamber, as there was nowhere else to go –
And then GLaDOS, commenting on how Chell had almost finished the testing track, opened up the chamber next to her, revealing a pre-solved cube-and-button test with a heart on the wall and an entrance door with fake greenery inside. She encouraged Chell to step inside via a hard light bridge and finish things properly, as it would be better than whatever ridiculous plan Wheatley had come up with, prompting Wheatley to scoff and ask, “Oh, what? How stupid does she think we are?” –
And me to wonder, “...I do have the achievement for going inside that chamber and getting killed by GLaDOS, right? Ah, hell, even if I do, let’s go ahead and do it anyway, it’ll be fun.” XD So I slapped down a save and had Chell head inside the chamber, to Wheatley’s horrified astonishment. She made it all the way to the fake exit door before GLaDOS slammed it shut in her face, locked her inside the chamber, and gassed her. XD What can I say – I’m a very compliant test subject!
C) Fun had, I let the game reload and instead used the hard light bridge GLaDOS extended to continue following Wheatley, getting above the next set of catwalks just as she turned it off under my feet. I crashed down onto the catwalk, and – after another moment looking around for my guide – turned around and headed left –
Straight into a loading screen. Because that’s exactly what you want in the middle of your big chase sequence. XD (To be fair, though, this game was made in 2011 – same year as A:MR, neat – so it’s quite possible they couldn’t do the whole thing WITHOUT the loading screen). Fortunately, it was a quick one, and soon I was able to resume the escape, following Wheatley down another catwalk and into a gap between chambers –
Where GLaDOS hastily boxed Chell in with a bunch of haphazardly-placed panels before dropping a few turrets in there to try and shoot her former test subject to death! Fortunately, none of them landed facing Chell, so I was able to have her just run into all of them and knock them over without fear while Wheatley panicked outside. Once they were all dead, I searched the area and spotted a portal-able wall above a catwalk through one of the gaps – and wouldn’t you know it, the room also had a portal-able wall in it! I thus was able to portal my way out and continue following the relieved Wheatley, along more catwalks and past another turret trap – the turret WAS technically in a room with a portal-able floor, but I figured it was just as easy to tank the shots and keep moving. (After all, a turret’s innards consist mostly of springs that fire the WHOLE bullet, so they don’t actually do THAT much damage when they shoot you!) This brought us into a vast room that Wheatley said had the exit in it –
A room that immediately started falling apart as GLaDOS began deconstructing it in a desperate attempt to keep them from making it out, culminating in the far wall beginning to move forward like a giant crusher, taking out all in its path. Fortunately, it moved slowly enough that Chell was able to follow Wheatley’s instructions to “GET IN THE LIFT! GET IN THE LIFT!” at the end of the catwalks, and she safely ascended on her little platform as the rest of the room was crushed. Whew! Content in victory, I waited for the wall to finish going past so I could continue on…
And when that didn’t happen, thought to look behind me and saw a door there. ^^; Look, it’s been a while since I played this game, and I don’t always remember what I’m supposed to do!
D) Anyway – going through that door prompted another loading screen, and the start of Chapter 5 – “The Escape,” appropriately enough. :P The first obstacle to such? A second, malfunctioning door that only opened a little bit, meaning Chell couldn’t squeeze her way through. She could, however, shoot a portal through it – and, fortunately, all the walls were portal-able in this area. So she used a couple to bypass the door and catch up with Wheatley on the catwalks on the other side. He was glad to see her and encouraged her to keep following him, saying that they still had a lot of work to do and “At least she can’t touch us back here” –
Cue GLaDOS pulling on Wheatley what he’d pulled on her and turning off all the lights. Leaving our heroes in pitch blackness. Wheatley, however, had a plan, telling Chell, “Okay. All right. I have an idea. But it is bloody dangerous. Here we go…”
Before proceeding to turn on his flashlight with a loud scream of terror. Which was immediately followed by a lot of annoyed rambling as he explained that the scientists who made him had informed him that if he ever turned on his flashlight, he would die. And that “They told me that about EVERYTHING. I don’t know why they even bothered to give me this stuff if they didn’t want me usin’ it. It’s pointless. Mad.” I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say you don’t explain the basic principles of being an Aperture Science Scientist, Wheatley. Being absolutely mad is kind of a requirement. :p
Anyway – now that he knew he wasn’t going to die from using his flashlight, Wheatley was only to happy to motor along on his rail and light Chell’s way, leading her along the various catwalks and across an old broken conveyor belt full of smashed up turrets and telling her a spooky story about how “the old caretaker of this place went absolutely crazy. Chopped up his entire staff. Of robots. All of them robots. They say at night you can still hear the screams. Of their replicas. All of them functionally indistinguishable from the originals. No memory of the incident. Nobody knows what they’re screaming about. Absolutely terrifying. Though obviously not paranormal in any meaningful way.” XD From there, it was around some more catwalks, pausing briefly to let Wheatley light a big old jump where Chell had to drop from the broken ledge of one high catwalk onto a lower one, then to let him light a drop onto a working conveyor full of moving metal panels. Chell hopped onto those, then did a little bit of dancing as I did my best to stop her from getting smacked off by the now-cut panels being carried sideways across the line, or from getting lasered by the automatic cutter arms that kept cutting sections out of the panels being conveyed right in front of her. Fortunately, by the time they reached her, there was another catwalk on the other side of the conveyor that she could jump to before she got die-cut herself. I thus directed her over there, and followed Wheatley over to the next spot to drop down, listening as he talked about how he’d nearly gotten a job in Manufacturing, only for the foreman to instead go with an exactly replica of himself and instead stick Wheatley with the worst job, “tending to all the smelly humans” –
Aaaand cue Wheatley abruptly remembering CHELL is human and awkwardly apologizing, saying that just slipped out and it was a bit insensitive. XD God, he’s such a jerk, but also so lovable. :P Anyway, from there, Chell dropped down onto some catwalks that snaked through a room full of those giant pneumatic tubes that send cubes and turrets and whatnot all throughout the facility, following those around until she hit a wall. Wheatley informed her that they had to split up for a moment and to portal up to the passage above her –
But when she did so, she unfortunately found herself a bit trapped, as the “passage” was more of a big old observation deck of sorts, with a door that Chell couldn’t open. Fortunately, Wheatley was on the case, and used his flashlight to point out a chunk of portal-able wall behind a bunch of robotic arms carrying more of those laser-cut panels off to wherever they needed laser-cut panels. I thus had Chell portal her way over there onto the catwalk in front of it, then portal her way through to the next wall Wheatley pointed out, which got them back on track. Chell proceeded to walk through a bunch of weird cubes full of robotic arms, all dedicated to turret assembly (actually, that’s probably what the laser-cut panels were – turret parts!) while Wheatley waxed on about how great humans were to make up for his previous comments –
Before coming to a very tall room with a spiraling pneumatic tube full of stuff going down the middle, a broken catwalk, and a few out-of-place cubes forming platforms that you could jump on if you were really really careful. And a few turrets peeking out of other cubes along the walls, though fortunately all of them proved to be inactive. Cue Wheatley informing Chell that “Right. Well, I’m going to take this rail down the back way. See you at the bottom. Good luck!” and zooming off. XD Again, such a jerk, but still so lovable. Fortunately for Chell, getting down proved to be pretty simple – she just had to jump off the catwalk onto one of the cubes, then from there onto another, lower cube a little ways away, and from there onto the spiraling pipe in the middle, which she could then walk along until she reached the bottom and the airlock doors leading into the Factory. Yay for making it down easy-peasy – WITHOUT getting shot to death by turrets. *nods* Very important, that!
E) And finally, one trip through the airlock doors and a loading screen later, Chell emerged into a back office of sorts, overlooking two working “turret redemption lines” – aka, two big conveyor belts full of smashed-up turrets being brought into a big old incinerator. The only path forward was across the lines, but Chell was unable to jump onto the nearest thanks to an inconvenient railing and the belt being a little too far –
But, she was able to portal onto it thanks to there being a nice portal-able patch of wall right above it! She thus did so, and was informed by the Announcer (the masc robot voice who stood in for GLaDOS at the beginning of the game) that turret redemption lines were NOT rides and she needed to get off immediately. Chell, fortunately, had no desire to go into the incinerator and hopped onto a nearby steel beam. From there, she had to make a sideways jump onto the next beam, which was at a 90 degree angle, so I steeled my nerves, picked my angle, and had her jump –
Aaaand she missed, plummeting into the bowels of Aperture. Whoops. One reload later, and she was back at the start – I sent her back onto the turret redemption line, then had her jump for the beam at the side –
Aaand she missed. Again. And when the level reloaded, I looked at the situation, looked at the clock, and went, “You know what, that’s close enough to half an hour.” XD So yeah – left off with Chell in that back office, ready to once again try and get across the turret redemption lines. We’ll see if third time is the charm next week! Though I’ll have to be careful, as I believe this where you can rescue the Different Turret, and I don’t want to miss out on doing that. Gotta make sure our favorite prophecy-spewing robot is okay! Before replacing all her siblings with crap turrets. >D
Workout/YouTube: Back on the bike tonight, and back with the OXBoxers to watch the trio try to take down another Elusive Target in “Hitman 3 Ways to Play: GRANNY MURDER Elusive Target | Angel of Death!” (With the last five minutes being watched after supper, hence the dual category.) This one saw Andy, Jane, and Mike all try to kill Etta Davis, a retired nurse who tended to poison her charges back when she worked (taking out many a pensioner in a retirement home), who was roaming around the original Hitman (No Subtitle) level of Marrakesh! With a retinue of military bodyguards, which was a bit troublesome, as you might guess. And, as usual, they all committed the assassination in their own unique ways:
Andy arrived in the level in the cream-colored summer suit, intending to be a conscientious hitman and fulfill the optional objective of murdering Etta with lethal poison, as per the client’s request. He thus not only had the ICA smuggle in some poison in a syringe for him, but – just to be on the safe side – infiltrated the military base in the level to grab some poison from the general’s office. He then sent about finding his target –
Only to discover that she had no less than four bodyguards. At least one of which was a noticer and would see through his disguise. Fortunately, having to flee from her and her guards into a rug shop ended up setting up the perfect opportunity for him to get rid of said bodyguards – namely, lure them into the shop with a distracting coin, then strangle them and hide the bodies! And so the Strangling Spot was born, where people got strangled and then hidden in a box. The grand opening was a little rough – the owner of the shop spotted 47 trespassing, which then led to the noticer guard seeing 47 wasn’t one of his men, forcing Andy to make a tactical retreat to the roof (where he had to knock out the people already up there) – but it did result in him managing to choke out at least ONE of the bodyguards, and once he cleaned up his mess, the remaining stranglings went a lot smoother (especially once he knocked out the actual shopkeeper and took his clothes). He eventually got rid of all her bodyguards (though the last one involved having to hastily change into his victim’s outfit when his strangling was noticed by some passersby), then proceeded to follow her around on her loop, watching her do all her window shopping, until FINALLY she went down a side alley where there were no NPCs, allowing him to prick her with the syringe and murder her nice and silently. From there, it was just a matter of looping back to where he’d left his summer suit and swapping back into it (couldn’t just leave it on the ground in the base, his tailor would be FURIOUS), getting out of the base without being seen, and heading for the marketplace exit to successfully end the level. Envenoming Assassin, 2 Stars! Which is a low score for Andy, but he did strangle a LOT of people! And leave at least one unconscious witness in the shopkeeper. Ah well.
Jane arrived in the level in the bright red suit that makes 47 look like a Pitbull cosplayer and – having smuggled in a sniper rifle – made her way up to the rooftops through one of the shops, knocking out the woman hanging out up there before waiting for what she felt like ages for her target to actually appear (wandering around from sniping spot to sniping spot to stretch 47’s legs from time to time). Eventually she spotted Etta by the entrance to the cafe and tried to shoot the sign down on top of her (as she’d never done such a kill before) – unfortunately, the falling letters JUST missed her target, and she went into temporary lockdown in the VIP lounge. Jane descended back to street level and checked on the target (as she’d picked up an invitation to get into the lounge during her wanderings on the roof), then tailed her for a while once the lockdown was lifted, contemplating killing her with her old friend Screwy the Screwdriver (picked up from a local mechanic) –
But then decided “No, I brought in the sniper rifle for a reason,” went back up on the roof, and eventually successfully sniped Etta from above. Unfortunately a wandering soldier meant that she couldn’t just flee down the most convenient flight of stairs; fortunately, she was easily able to climb down the front of the building instead, moving onto a different, lower rooftop, and from there to the front gates of the market, striding out scot-free. Shadow ICA Assassin, 3 Stars! (Probably because she didn’t have to choke out a lot of people like Andy.)
And Mike arrived in the level dressed like a clown, immediately went to pick up his drop from a nearby alleyway – an emetic gas mine – and immediately compromised himself by carrying the clearly-illegal item around, sending everyone into a panic. XD Cue him:
I. Fleeing up to a rooftop to hide and setting off an unnecessary explosion with a propane flask when he couldn’t bring it down off the bit of roof it was on without throwing it and causing it to start leaking
II. Eventually murdering one of the guards after him and swapping into a private’s outfit so he could carry around his emetic mine without everyone causing a fuss
III. Somehow being the FIRST to get eyes on the target and tailing her around until he could throw said emetic mine INTO HER HEAD (because unfortunately he realized he could do that while wandering through the civilians in the market and had to try it out) in the lamp store – and getting compromised again
IV. Fleeing back up onto the roofs and murdering so many guys coming after him, before getting an elite soldier disguise off one so he could go back to looking for his target...and then someone woke up the one guy he left alive, and he ended up having to change disguises again, eventually shooting one of the local shopkeepers who found him on a rooftop where he wasn’t supposed to be (it wasn’t even the shopkeep who outed him, I think!)
V. Wandering into the consulate carpark while looking for his target (who he thought MIGHT be throwing up somewhere) and inflicting “hammer time” on all the guards (i.e., hitting them in the head with a hammer to knock them out) before realizing where he was and leaving through a nearby store...which involved him murdering a bunch MORE militia members after his latest “hammer time” crime was noticed
VI. Compromising his shopkeeper outfit, killing a guard in view of the target and sending her into lockdown, then going on a rampage against even MORE militia members which swarmed into try and arrest him
VII. Going BACK into the consulate carpark to get a fresh disguise (admittedly a compromised one, but at least he wasn’t being actively hunted) – only to discover the military guys he was trying to flee from coming down; cue him killing EVEN MORE of them, including shooting one guy in the crotch until he died, then having an ammo crisis and picking up a sword from a shoe shop instead
VIII. Heading into one of the local bathrooms and setting up a sink overflow trap to maybe lure in a waiter to get a new disguise; instead he got some more military dudes (one of whom got choked out for making the mistake of taking a leak, and one of whom fell to the sword) – and fortunately, one cameraman, who got knocked out and stripped
IX. FINALLY locating his target again on a hostile rooftop and trying to distract her guard with precious coins on the stairs so he could knock him out with a brick – only for the guard to abruptly teleport back onto the roof because the game was just DONE with Mike’s shit; fortunately the second attempt to coin him down worked out a lot better
X. Dropping a remote-control mine just by the stairs to kill his target – but, for some reason, not immediately blowing her up when she came to investigate the disturbance on the stairs, which led to her spotting the body of her guard and panicking; Mike attempting to flee, only to be caught by a DIFFERENT militia guy coming UP the stairs; and Mike finally running back, knocking his target out, then blowing her and the militia guy up with a carefully-thrown bottle of nitroglycerin
XI. Killing the last few militia guys who came to investigate the disturbance and then FINALLY fleeing the level, admitting that was the most south any of these Elusive Targets has ever gone and commenting on how “this proves that, in ten years, I’ve learned – basically nothing.”
...Yeah. Messy Amateur, 0 Stars. Mike fully admitted he deserved that. XD But damn was it fun to watch.
And there you have it -- not much, but at least I had fun with what I did do. *nods* And now it's time to head to bed and prepare to go to work again. *sigh* Night all!
Tumblr: Just had Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) to worry about today – and while I was hoping to get more done, I did at least manage to get a little more written on that “when do Victor and Alice (and occasionally others) find out Smiler’s birth name is ‘Marmaduke’” post that I started yesterday, adding in an entry for when the Running Into The Bullshit mega-polycule finds out that fact and an “Honorable Mentions” category for Victor and Alice finding out a particular Smiler is Mar-Mal, eldritch being of happiness! So that’s slowly coming along. ...and it occurs to me that you guys might want to know the answer to that question too, so here’s a quick sum-up:
I. Modern AU – revealed by Smiler’s parents’ asshole neighbor Bob Wickerman during an argument with Smiler over his dog, Nemesis, menacing Victor
II. Valicer In The Dark AU – Kelman lists Smiler as “Marmaduke Kelman” on the notice he puts out looking for the trio, and after a bit of confusion, Alice and Victor realize that’s Smiler’s original name (prompting the reveal of their tragic backstory)
III. Soulmates AU – Smiler was introduced to Victor as “Marmaduke Kelman” and Victor learned they prefer “Smiler” through the soulmate bond when it activated; Alice by contrast met Smiler under the name “Smiler Alton” in the Mangled Mermaid, and didn’t get their original name until THEIR soulmate bond activated
IV. Multiplayer Wonderland AU – Victor and Alice learn that Smiler is “Marmaduke” shortly after meeting as kids when Kelman scolds them for playing under a table at the party they all met at; Smiler is introduced to Victoria as “Marmaduke Kelman” at the rehearsal, and only learns they prefer Smiler later; when Emily learns is up in the air, but it’s either going to be from one of the crystal memories they find in Wonderland, or when a monster from the nightmarish version of Sanctuary Smiler is thrown in during the same time Alice ends up in the Rutledge nightmare after Queensland (Victoria and Emily both end up in mazes where they have to run from Barkis, though they don’t initially know they’re running from the same guy; Victor ends up in a dark void and needs to be rescued by the others) calls them “Marmaduke” while they’re all reuniting
V. Londerland Bloodlines AU – Alice learns it when she helps Smiler take down Kelman and the Sanctuary, and Smiler reluctantly tells the others afterward just to avoid keeping secrets (though makes it clear they HATE that name)
VI. Severance AU – On the Innies’ side, Wheatley introduces Smiler to Victor and Alice as “Marmaduke A.,” prompting Smiler to wince and ask that they call them “M” until they come up with “Smiler” during the “decorating their cubicles with Post-It notes” incident; on the Outies’ side, Victor and Alice don’t know Smiler personally, but know that they’re “Marmaduke Kelman,” Dr. Kelman’s “son” – Smiler gives them their preferred and gender identity when they all end up stuck in the elevator together post-Innie rebellion (basically, this universe could be seen as the inverse of most of the others)
VII. Valicer Forgotten Vows AU – Again, Smiler is introduced to Victor as “Marmaduke Kelman” when they first meet, and tells him their preferred name a bit later; Victor tells Alice that they’re Marmaduke when telling her about the relationship, but stresses that Smiler always preferred “Smiler,” so when they actually show up, Alice makes sure to call them that
VIII. Smiler In Secundus AU – I plan for this to come out in the next fic I plan to write, the one where Smiler wows everyone at Richard’s table with their tea-making skills – when Smiler reveals where they’re from, Doc asks if they knew Dr. Kelman and comments how sad it is that his son Marmaduke died with him when the Sanctuary was stormed by an angry mob; Smiler’s reaction clues Alice into the fact that SMILER’S Marmaduke, having actually escaped
IX. Running Headlong Into The Bullshit AU – Came up with this while pondering how the big polycule could come to find out – I think it would be interesting for Piper, while talking about her somewhat-unusual name, to say that she knew a “Marmaduke” for one year in elementary school, prompting Smiler to be like “oh cripes some other unfortunate kid was named that?” and out themselves...only for it to then be revealed that SMILER was the Marmaduke Piper knew; I have to reconcile the fact that Piper’s American and Smiler’s English here, but Piper moving to England for a year if her parents had a job opportunity there might not be out of the question…
X. And in the Honorable Mentions category just added, Victor of Fallout of Darkness (the FO4/VTMB crossover I was kinda-sorta working on while playing Fallout 4) learns the Smiler robot is actually a vessel for eldritch being Mar-Mal during the fight for Nuka-World, when a raider smashes the robot, then tries to smash Victor, only to be stopped by Mar-Mal intervening – he then tells Alice (and presumably Piper and Preston too); and everyone in the Mega Ghostbusters AU learns Smiler is God Of Happiness Mar-Mal when Smiler goes up against Gozer for the fate of Hill Valley in the big climactic fight
Whew! You see why I didn’t try to sum all that up for you guys last night. :p
Portal 2: Welp, today’s half-hour trip to Aperture Science ended up surprising me, as it turned out Wheatley was rather closer to breaking Chell out of the testing track than I had originally thought at the end of last week’s session, meaning today’s session consisted mostly of rather a lot of madcap running around and careful-yet-speedy jumps...let me tell you all about it –
A) I started things off right at the entrance to Chamber 21, the second-to-last test chamber on the testing track, having just been informed by GLaDOS that there was a “surprise with tragic consequences” awaiting Chell at the end of the next chamber. So she had that to look forward to! :D Anyway, I entered the test chamber itself to discover it was a rather tall room, sporting a couple of deadly water pits on the floor – one by the entrance to the left, and one by the exit (which, incidentally, was halfway up the wall) to the right. The one by the entrance had a hard light bridge stretching across it into a portal-able patch of wall and a cube dispenser over it – though, unfortunately, the cube dispenser was just to the left of the hard light bridge, so any cubes dispensed would be immediately fizzled in the deadly water – while the one by the exit was just there to make life a little bit more difficult for Chell when she had to find a way to reach said exit. There was also a big red button on the floor in front of the exit; a cube dispensing button in a little notch to the side of the exit, also elevated off the floor; and a few more patches of portal-able wall around the place. After taking in the landscape, I started out by putting a portal in front of the hard light bridge and another on the very narrow patch of wall by the exit, in front of the cube dispensing button nook – to my delight, this not only provided access to the cube dispensing button, but also a platform for the cube itself to land on! I thus cheerfully walked through the portals, hit the cube dispensing button, and prepared to walk over and pick up the newly-dispensed cube –
Only for the lights to turn out and the hard light bridge to disappear. Cue Chell falling to the floor (safely, thanks to her long fall boots) and the cube plopping into the water to fizzle while I and GLaDOS both wondered who had turned out the lights –
And then cue the portal-able bit of wall in front of the hard light bridge opening up, and Wheatley popping his eye through the gap! Greeting Chell with an ATROCIOUS Texan accent that he claimed was beyond GLaDOS’s range of hearing. XD He then informed her that he knew he was a little early, but that they had to go right now, instructing her “Walk casually toward my position and we’ll go shut her down.” Naturally, I had Chell do just that –
As slowly as possible, because I was pretty sure he had additional dialogue to urge you along if you didn’t walk over to him fast enough. XD Unfortunately, none of it actually triggered – he just kept staring at Chell as she inched toward him, not saying anything at all. Eventually I was like “either I’m misremembering or you have to keep him waiting for a WHILE,” gave up, and just had Chell approach him normally. Prompting GLaDOS to inform Wheatley coolly that she could hear him –
B) And Wheatley to tell Chell in a panic, “Run! I don’t need to do the voice. RUN!” as he opened up the wall fully so she could get through. Cue me running into the backstage area, making onto a catwalk with the help of the reactivated hard light bridge, and then sending Chell on a desperate jog through the maze of catwalks and stairs and tubing and whatnot back there, trying to keep Wheatley in sight so I knew where the hell to go. Wheatley being Wheatley, he kept up a steady stream of encouraging babble throughout, telling Chell to keep moving and informing her of the plan – “We are going to shut down her turret production line, turn off her neurotoxin, and then confront her!” Sounded good to me, and I’m sure it sounded good to Chell too! After a bit more scrambling about trying to keep our favorite Intelligence Dampening core in sight, I had Chell exit the latest catwalk to instead book it across the top of a hanging chamber, as there was nowhere else to go –
And then GLaDOS, commenting on how Chell had almost finished the testing track, opened up the chamber next to her, revealing a pre-solved cube-and-button test with a heart on the wall and an entrance door with fake greenery inside. She encouraged Chell to step inside via a hard light bridge and finish things properly, as it would be better than whatever ridiculous plan Wheatley had come up with, prompting Wheatley to scoff and ask, “Oh, what? How stupid does she think we are?” –
And me to wonder, “...I do have the achievement for going inside that chamber and getting killed by GLaDOS, right? Ah, hell, even if I do, let’s go ahead and do it anyway, it’ll be fun.” XD So I slapped down a save and had Chell head inside the chamber, to Wheatley’s horrified astonishment. She made it all the way to the fake exit door before GLaDOS slammed it shut in her face, locked her inside the chamber, and gassed her. XD What can I say – I’m a very compliant test subject!
C) Fun had, I let the game reload and instead used the hard light bridge GLaDOS extended to continue following Wheatley, getting above the next set of catwalks just as she turned it off under my feet. I crashed down onto the catwalk, and – after another moment looking around for my guide – turned around and headed left –
Straight into a loading screen. Because that’s exactly what you want in the middle of your big chase sequence. XD (To be fair, though, this game was made in 2011 – same year as A:MR, neat – so it’s quite possible they couldn’t do the whole thing WITHOUT the loading screen). Fortunately, it was a quick one, and soon I was able to resume the escape, following Wheatley down another catwalk and into a gap between chambers –
Where GLaDOS hastily boxed Chell in with a bunch of haphazardly-placed panels before dropping a few turrets in there to try and shoot her former test subject to death! Fortunately, none of them landed facing Chell, so I was able to have her just run into all of them and knock them over without fear while Wheatley panicked outside. Once they were all dead, I searched the area and spotted a portal-able wall above a catwalk through one of the gaps – and wouldn’t you know it, the room also had a portal-able wall in it! I thus was able to portal my way out and continue following the relieved Wheatley, along more catwalks and past another turret trap – the turret WAS technically in a room with a portal-able floor, but I figured it was just as easy to tank the shots and keep moving. (After all, a turret’s innards consist mostly of springs that fire the WHOLE bullet, so they don’t actually do THAT much damage when they shoot you!) This brought us into a vast room that Wheatley said had the exit in it –
A room that immediately started falling apart as GLaDOS began deconstructing it in a desperate attempt to keep them from making it out, culminating in the far wall beginning to move forward like a giant crusher, taking out all in its path. Fortunately, it moved slowly enough that Chell was able to follow Wheatley’s instructions to “GET IN THE LIFT! GET IN THE LIFT!” at the end of the catwalks, and she safely ascended on her little platform as the rest of the room was crushed. Whew! Content in victory, I waited for the wall to finish going past so I could continue on…
And when that didn’t happen, thought to look behind me and saw a door there. ^^; Look, it’s been a while since I played this game, and I don’t always remember what I’m supposed to do!
D) Anyway – going through that door prompted another loading screen, and the start of Chapter 5 – “The Escape,” appropriately enough. :P The first obstacle to such? A second, malfunctioning door that only opened a little bit, meaning Chell couldn’t squeeze her way through. She could, however, shoot a portal through it – and, fortunately, all the walls were portal-able in this area. So she used a couple to bypass the door and catch up with Wheatley on the catwalks on the other side. He was glad to see her and encouraged her to keep following him, saying that they still had a lot of work to do and “At least she can’t touch us back here” –
Cue GLaDOS pulling on Wheatley what he’d pulled on her and turning off all the lights. Leaving our heroes in pitch blackness. Wheatley, however, had a plan, telling Chell, “Okay. All right. I have an idea. But it is bloody dangerous. Here we go…”
Before proceeding to turn on his flashlight with a loud scream of terror. Which was immediately followed by a lot of annoyed rambling as he explained that the scientists who made him had informed him that if he ever turned on his flashlight, he would die. And that “They told me that about EVERYTHING. I don’t know why they even bothered to give me this stuff if they didn’t want me usin’ it. It’s pointless. Mad.” I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say you don’t explain the basic principles of being an Aperture Science Scientist, Wheatley. Being absolutely mad is kind of a requirement. :p
Anyway – now that he knew he wasn’t going to die from using his flashlight, Wheatley was only to happy to motor along on his rail and light Chell’s way, leading her along the various catwalks and across an old broken conveyor belt full of smashed up turrets and telling her a spooky story about how “the old caretaker of this place went absolutely crazy. Chopped up his entire staff. Of robots. All of them robots. They say at night you can still hear the screams. Of their replicas. All of them functionally indistinguishable from the originals. No memory of the incident. Nobody knows what they’re screaming about. Absolutely terrifying. Though obviously not paranormal in any meaningful way.” XD From there, it was around some more catwalks, pausing briefly to let Wheatley light a big old jump where Chell had to drop from the broken ledge of one high catwalk onto a lower one, then to let him light a drop onto a working conveyor full of moving metal panels. Chell hopped onto those, then did a little bit of dancing as I did my best to stop her from getting smacked off by the now-cut panels being carried sideways across the line, or from getting lasered by the automatic cutter arms that kept cutting sections out of the panels being conveyed right in front of her. Fortunately, by the time they reached her, there was another catwalk on the other side of the conveyor that she could jump to before she got die-cut herself. I thus directed her over there, and followed Wheatley over to the next spot to drop down, listening as he talked about how he’d nearly gotten a job in Manufacturing, only for the foreman to instead go with an exactly replica of himself and instead stick Wheatley with the worst job, “tending to all the smelly humans” –
Aaaand cue Wheatley abruptly remembering CHELL is human and awkwardly apologizing, saying that just slipped out and it was a bit insensitive. XD God, he’s such a jerk, but also so lovable. :P Anyway, from there, Chell dropped down onto some catwalks that snaked through a room full of those giant pneumatic tubes that send cubes and turrets and whatnot all throughout the facility, following those around until she hit a wall. Wheatley informed her that they had to split up for a moment and to portal up to the passage above her –
But when she did so, she unfortunately found herself a bit trapped, as the “passage” was more of a big old observation deck of sorts, with a door that Chell couldn’t open. Fortunately, Wheatley was on the case, and used his flashlight to point out a chunk of portal-able wall behind a bunch of robotic arms carrying more of those laser-cut panels off to wherever they needed laser-cut panels. I thus had Chell portal her way over there onto the catwalk in front of it, then portal her way through to the next wall Wheatley pointed out, which got them back on track. Chell proceeded to walk through a bunch of weird cubes full of robotic arms, all dedicated to turret assembly (actually, that’s probably what the laser-cut panels were – turret parts!) while Wheatley waxed on about how great humans were to make up for his previous comments –
Before coming to a very tall room with a spiraling pneumatic tube full of stuff going down the middle, a broken catwalk, and a few out-of-place cubes forming platforms that you could jump on if you were really really careful. And a few turrets peeking out of other cubes along the walls, though fortunately all of them proved to be inactive. Cue Wheatley informing Chell that “Right. Well, I’m going to take this rail down the back way. See you at the bottom. Good luck!” and zooming off. XD Again, such a jerk, but still so lovable. Fortunately for Chell, getting down proved to be pretty simple – she just had to jump off the catwalk onto one of the cubes, then from there onto another, lower cube a little ways away, and from there onto the spiraling pipe in the middle, which she could then walk along until she reached the bottom and the airlock doors leading into the Factory. Yay for making it down easy-peasy – WITHOUT getting shot to death by turrets. *nods* Very important, that!
E) And finally, one trip through the airlock doors and a loading screen later, Chell emerged into a back office of sorts, overlooking two working “turret redemption lines” – aka, two big conveyor belts full of smashed-up turrets being brought into a big old incinerator. The only path forward was across the lines, but Chell was unable to jump onto the nearest thanks to an inconvenient railing and the belt being a little too far –
But, she was able to portal onto it thanks to there being a nice portal-able patch of wall right above it! She thus did so, and was informed by the Announcer (the masc robot voice who stood in for GLaDOS at the beginning of the game) that turret redemption lines were NOT rides and she needed to get off immediately. Chell, fortunately, had no desire to go into the incinerator and hopped onto a nearby steel beam. From there, she had to make a sideways jump onto the next beam, which was at a 90 degree angle, so I steeled my nerves, picked my angle, and had her jump –
Aaaand she missed, plummeting into the bowels of Aperture. Whoops. One reload later, and she was back at the start – I sent her back onto the turret redemption line, then had her jump for the beam at the side –
Aaand she missed. Again. And when the level reloaded, I looked at the situation, looked at the clock, and went, “You know what, that’s close enough to half an hour.” XD So yeah – left off with Chell in that back office, ready to once again try and get across the turret redemption lines. We’ll see if third time is the charm next week! Though I’ll have to be careful, as I believe this where you can rescue the Different Turret, and I don’t want to miss out on doing that. Gotta make sure our favorite prophecy-spewing robot is okay! Before replacing all her siblings with crap turrets. >D
Workout/YouTube: Back on the bike tonight, and back with the OXBoxers to watch the trio try to take down another Elusive Target in “Hitman 3 Ways to Play: GRANNY MURDER Elusive Target | Angel of Death!” (With the last five minutes being watched after supper, hence the dual category.) This one saw Andy, Jane, and Mike all try to kill Etta Davis, a retired nurse who tended to poison her charges back when she worked (taking out many a pensioner in a retirement home), who was roaming around the original Hitman (No Subtitle) level of Marrakesh! With a retinue of military bodyguards, which was a bit troublesome, as you might guess. And, as usual, they all committed the assassination in their own unique ways:
Andy arrived in the level in the cream-colored summer suit, intending to be a conscientious hitman and fulfill the optional objective of murdering Etta with lethal poison, as per the client’s request. He thus not only had the ICA smuggle in some poison in a syringe for him, but – just to be on the safe side – infiltrated the military base in the level to grab some poison from the general’s office. He then sent about finding his target –
Only to discover that she had no less than four bodyguards. At least one of which was a noticer and would see through his disguise. Fortunately, having to flee from her and her guards into a rug shop ended up setting up the perfect opportunity for him to get rid of said bodyguards – namely, lure them into the shop with a distracting coin, then strangle them and hide the bodies! And so the Strangling Spot was born, where people got strangled and then hidden in a box. The grand opening was a little rough – the owner of the shop spotted 47 trespassing, which then led to the noticer guard seeing 47 wasn’t one of his men, forcing Andy to make a tactical retreat to the roof (where he had to knock out the people already up there) – but it did result in him managing to choke out at least ONE of the bodyguards, and once he cleaned up his mess, the remaining stranglings went a lot smoother (especially once he knocked out the actual shopkeeper and took his clothes). He eventually got rid of all her bodyguards (though the last one involved having to hastily change into his victim’s outfit when his strangling was noticed by some passersby), then proceeded to follow her around on her loop, watching her do all her window shopping, until FINALLY she went down a side alley where there were no NPCs, allowing him to prick her with the syringe and murder her nice and silently. From there, it was just a matter of looping back to where he’d left his summer suit and swapping back into it (couldn’t just leave it on the ground in the base, his tailor would be FURIOUS), getting out of the base without being seen, and heading for the marketplace exit to successfully end the level. Envenoming Assassin, 2 Stars! Which is a low score for Andy, but he did strangle a LOT of people! And leave at least one unconscious witness in the shopkeeper. Ah well.
Jane arrived in the level in the bright red suit that makes 47 look like a Pitbull cosplayer and – having smuggled in a sniper rifle – made her way up to the rooftops through one of the shops, knocking out the woman hanging out up there before waiting for what she felt like ages for her target to actually appear (wandering around from sniping spot to sniping spot to stretch 47’s legs from time to time). Eventually she spotted Etta by the entrance to the cafe and tried to shoot the sign down on top of her (as she’d never done such a kill before) – unfortunately, the falling letters JUST missed her target, and she went into temporary lockdown in the VIP lounge. Jane descended back to street level and checked on the target (as she’d picked up an invitation to get into the lounge during her wanderings on the roof), then tailed her for a while once the lockdown was lifted, contemplating killing her with her old friend Screwy the Screwdriver (picked up from a local mechanic) –
But then decided “No, I brought in the sniper rifle for a reason,” went back up on the roof, and eventually successfully sniped Etta from above. Unfortunately a wandering soldier meant that she couldn’t just flee down the most convenient flight of stairs; fortunately, she was easily able to climb down the front of the building instead, moving onto a different, lower rooftop, and from there to the front gates of the market, striding out scot-free. Shadow ICA Assassin, 3 Stars! (Probably because she didn’t have to choke out a lot of people like Andy.)
And Mike arrived in the level dressed like a clown, immediately went to pick up his drop from a nearby alleyway – an emetic gas mine – and immediately compromised himself by carrying the clearly-illegal item around, sending everyone into a panic. XD Cue him:
I. Fleeing up to a rooftop to hide and setting off an unnecessary explosion with a propane flask when he couldn’t bring it down off the bit of roof it was on without throwing it and causing it to start leaking
II. Eventually murdering one of the guards after him and swapping into a private’s outfit so he could carry around his emetic mine without everyone causing a fuss
III. Somehow being the FIRST to get eyes on the target and tailing her around until he could throw said emetic mine INTO HER HEAD (because unfortunately he realized he could do that while wandering through the civilians in the market and had to try it out) in the lamp store – and getting compromised again
IV. Fleeing back up onto the roofs and murdering so many guys coming after him, before getting an elite soldier disguise off one so he could go back to looking for his target...and then someone woke up the one guy he left alive, and he ended up having to change disguises again, eventually shooting one of the local shopkeepers who found him on a rooftop where he wasn’t supposed to be (it wasn’t even the shopkeep who outed him, I think!)
V. Wandering into the consulate carpark while looking for his target (who he thought MIGHT be throwing up somewhere) and inflicting “hammer time” on all the guards (i.e., hitting them in the head with a hammer to knock them out) before realizing where he was and leaving through a nearby store...which involved him murdering a bunch MORE militia members after his latest “hammer time” crime was noticed
VI. Compromising his shopkeeper outfit, killing a guard in view of the target and sending her into lockdown, then going on a rampage against even MORE militia members which swarmed into try and arrest him
VII. Going BACK into the consulate carpark to get a fresh disguise (admittedly a compromised one, but at least he wasn’t being actively hunted) – only to discover the military guys he was trying to flee from coming down; cue him killing EVEN MORE of them, including shooting one guy in the crotch until he died, then having an ammo crisis and picking up a sword from a shoe shop instead
VIII. Heading into one of the local bathrooms and setting up a sink overflow trap to maybe lure in a waiter to get a new disguise; instead he got some more military dudes (one of whom got choked out for making the mistake of taking a leak, and one of whom fell to the sword) – and fortunately, one cameraman, who got knocked out and stripped
IX. FINALLY locating his target again on a hostile rooftop and trying to distract her guard with precious coins on the stairs so he could knock him out with a brick – only for the guard to abruptly teleport back onto the roof because the game was just DONE with Mike’s shit; fortunately the second attempt to coin him down worked out a lot better
X. Dropping a remote-control mine just by the stairs to kill his target – but, for some reason, not immediately blowing her up when she came to investigate the disturbance on the stairs, which led to her spotting the body of her guard and panicking; Mike attempting to flee, only to be caught by a DIFFERENT militia guy coming UP the stairs; and Mike finally running back, knocking his target out, then blowing her and the militia guy up with a carefully-thrown bottle of nitroglycerin
XI. Killing the last few militia guys who came to investigate the disturbance and then FINALLY fleeing the level, admitting that was the most south any of these Elusive Targets has ever gone and commenting on how “this proves that, in ten years, I’ve learned – basically nothing.”
...Yeah. Messy Amateur, 0 Stars. Mike fully admitted he deserved that. XD But damn was it fun to watch.
And there you have it -- not much, but at least I had fun with what I did do. *nods* And now it's time to head to bed and prepare to go to work again. *sigh* Night all!
