Chill And Chilly Sunday
Apr. 19th, 2026 11:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickYeah, it was pretty damn cold and miserable today -- it barely got into the 50s temperature-wise, and most of the day was wet and/or windy. Felt more like the end of autumn than the beginning of spring! *grimace* I am very happy that I didn't need to go anywhere, that's for sure! But while the weather was pretty terrible, the day itself was not, as I ended up being pretty damn productive for someone who spent most of her time sitting at her desk wrapped up in her favorite purple blanket --
Dreamwidth DMs: Answered all of Moose’s messages this morning, hooray – only took me like a week and a half this time. :p Ball’s in your court now, Moose! (Or arrow’s in your target?)
Writing: As I expected, it took a pretty solid chunk of the afternoon (because doing the end-of-chapter notes regarding Easter eggs and references and stuff ALWAYS takes a while), but I did indeed get Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” posted! As I have warned, Alice’s adventures on her twelfth night as a vampire are long as fuck, so you’ll either want to read this in sections or set aside a solid chunk of time to peruse it. However you do it, I hope you enjoy! Especially since it’ll be the last bit of “Londerland Bloodlines” fic for a while – I mean, I’ll be starting the next entry, “Hollywood’s Deluded Depths,” in a little while, but you probably won’t be seeing it for a couple of years at LEAST. Long fics remain fucking long, folks.
Tumblr: Was another quiet day over on Valice Multiverse – but oh man, did I get a LOT done over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) –
A) First, after getting Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” up on AO3 as per the above, I made a post announcing its release! Which had to be a regular “text” post instead of a proper “link” post because the latter aren’t working again, but whatever. So the tumblr peeps now know about the new chapter!
B) Then, I decided to straight-up reblog a couple of things that had caught my attention:
I. A post by dinolich featuring some fanart of the initial SAW movie...and Taskmaster, in the form of a pic of one of the protagonists of the first movie informing his fellow captive that Jigsaw doesn’t want them to saw through their chains, but their feet – followed by a pic of Greg Davies lying dead on the floor of the bathroom next to a task (it’s implied he shot himself) and Alex Horne sitting on the toilet dressed up as the famous puppet, going, “All the information is on the task.” XD I found this on my friend Newt’s tumblr, and as someone who wrote him the crossover fic “Tasksaw” a couple of Christmases ago, it appealed to me. Even if I’m not a fan of the SAW franchise at all. XD
II. An adorable video posted by the-big-mood showing a couple of otters at the Toba aquarium helping the handlers clean up the pool by fetching cones and toys and stuff that had fallen into the water, and being rewarded with ice cubes – reblogger chryza said “literally in tears at this video....such good helpers...…” and I had to agree. :D I think you will too!
III. A big long thread of people talking about how annoying it is when people say “you can’t have a purple bedroom or a hot bubblegum pink loveseat or a lime green office or a doughnut wedding cake, you’re an ADULT” and showing off both their own lovely whimsical homes (including marlynnofmany’s dungeon door leading to her garage, spuffybot’s coffin-shaped coffee table, and dykepuff’s lime green office wall covered in signs) and historical homes that were highly decorated and colorful to prove that the “everything must be white and minimalist” trend is a very modern invention (including marizpanandminutiae showing off a gorgeous Art Deco jewelry shop from 1901 Paris, and beatrice-otter showing off intricately-carved-and-painted traditional Norwegian farmhouses), culminating in atopfourthwall (yes, the actual Linkara from that web series) talking about how he and Viga were forced to paint everything a nasty shade of brown when they moved into their original rental back in 2016 because the owning company wanted the house in their “corporate” colors, and how they made damn sure to make their CURRENT house as colorful as possible (the living room is yellow, orange, and blue!) – as someone who has a purple bedroom with loads of posters and collectibles, and who made the Chill Valicer Save farmhouse as colorful as possible, the thread just spoke to me. :) Take a gander for yourself, the pictures are really nice!
IV. And a video by teamhawkeye of her Chow-Chow Boswell (a rescue pup she adopted recently) wearing his fuzzy “glow collar” – an electronic collar cycling through multiple colors – at night so he’s prepared for his night walk – my friend Squid reblogged this, and I saw it and was like “awww” :D Look, he’s so cute!
C) And finally, I decided I might as well go through my tracked tags and see if there was anything I wanted to drop into my drafts for later – proved to be slim pickings today, but I did save:
I. A post by gerdark showing off some Alice: Madness Returns fanart – a picture of London!Alice looking pensive, and a picture of Wonderland!Alice (with added fingerless mesh gloves and a choker) holding up a clock and pointing at it as if she’s stealing Rabbit’s job XD
II. And a post by nuri4ever showing off some Corpse Bride fanart – a picture of Emily looking at something off to the side vaguely wistfully while holding her (rather scraggly-looking) bouquet
I just liked the style of both of them. :)
So yeah – LOT done over there. I am pleased. :D
Workout: Welp, Jon once again uploaded the latest F:NV YOLO Remastered video late, so I had to turn to another one of his videos to keep me entertained while I pedaled away on the bike – “Fallout: New Vegas - Where Do They Go?” A video he did about five years ago where he decided to see where exactly all the “wandering NPCs” in the game went after you met them and they said their piece to you. Turns out the answer was generally “to a designated despawn point” or “into a bunch of monsters so they’ll quickly die and you can loot their stuff.” In order, we had:
A) Oliver Swanick, the guy who won the “lottery” at Nipton and thus was allowed to run away alive when the Legion sacked it – Jon discovered that he pretty much immediately beelines straight into the radscorpion nest in the middle of a nearby dry lake bed, and if you kill the radscorpions threatening him (which Jon could because he’d given himself a Gatling Laser for exactly that purpose), he picks a certain rock near the entrance to their burrow and just stands there forever. Okay then! Weird way to celebrate getting to live, but okay!
B) Malcolm Holmes, the guy who spawns in when you find your first Sunset Sarsaparilla Star Bottle Cap and then finds you to let you know about the associated quest – Jon triggered his event over in Goodneighbor, then followed him past Primm and along a rather dangerous ridge over to the Mojave Outpost, where he discovered that Malcolm officially despawns right outside the door to the bar there. The only way he’ll ever actually go IN the bar is if you get your first Star Bottle Cap in there and then wait for him to arrive – and even then, he’ll immediately go back out and despawn in his usual spot, because those are the rules
C) Tomas and Jacklyn, the pair of prospectors who were traveling together...until Jacklyn realized Tomas’s “lucky necklace” was made of Star Bottle Caps and tried to kill him for it; they only spawn in once the Courier has gotten a Star Bottle Cap of their own – Jon checked what happens to both Tomas and Jacklyn, and it turns out whoever survives the fight between them heads to the Mojave Outpost as well to despawn, though they (or at least Tomas; Jon didn’t follow Jacklyn the whole way) blip out of existence closer to the statues at the front
D) Tabitha and Rhonda, the Nightkin who tries to kill you in Black Mountain and her Mr. Handy best friend, who must be repaired to get her to chill out and head back out on her journeys – Jon discovered that they cut down the trapped pass that he often uses as a shortcut to Black Mountain (he found a way to trigger the rockslide that normally happens when the Courier tries to go up there the first time, but it turns out the rocks just roll right through Tabitha), follow the road past an invisible Nightkin (who, if aggroed, will not only attack you, but get Tabitha and Rhonda to attack you, as Jon learned the hard way), then despawn once they hit a certain section of road right at the base of said mountain. He also learned that New Vegas can always develop new bugs, as poor Rhonda spent the majority of the trip as a floating cloud of disconnected Mr. Handy pieces, which was fun XD
E) Vulpes Inculta and his Legionnaires, who you first meet coming out of the Nipton town hall post the town’s sacking, and who instruct you to spread the word of the town’s fate to demoralize the NCR – Jon discovered they arguably have the longest, most dangerous journey, as Vulpes leads his men out of Nipton and on the most direct path to Cottonwood Cove if you follow him...which takes them straight through NCR territory, including past Camp Searchlight and through the actual, heavily irradiated town of Searchlight. And while they’re equipped to handle a couple of the NCR troopers along the way, they very definitely needed Jon’s help once they got closer to Searchlight and the tougher troops (and ghouls) there! If Vulpes dies along the way, his men just stop and refuse to move any farther, as they’re programmed to follow him; if he doesn’t, he makes it all the way to the pier at the far end of Cottonwood Cove, where his men despawn – but he doesn’t. He just stands there waiting for a raft that won’t come until the Courier steps into the Tops. Fascinating!
F) The two Powder Ganger captives you can find and free from a Legion raid camp as part of the quest “Booted” – Jon, to his horror, found that these two idiots immediately took off toward the Old Nuclear Test Site nearby, which is not only radioactive, but absolutely SWARMING with ghouls ranging from basic ferals to Glowing Ones to full-on Reavers! Which they insisted on trying to fist fight. As a result, despite his best efforts (and even cheating to increase his speed), he was never able to keep both alive – the best he could do was one, and even that guy insisted on remaining in the area. Really makes the whole quest to save them feel pointless, I gotta say
G) Norton and his mercenaries, who threaten the peaceful super mutant community of Jacobstown on behalf of the NCR and must be talked down or paid off to leave them alone (or killed, but that was against the idea behind this video) – Jon wasn’t able to follow the whole party because Norton got spooked by something along the road leading to the town and ran off, leaving his NPC friends in the dust, but he was able to keep up with Norton...and found out that Norton goes left at the bottom of the mountain to a specific random campfire near the edge of the map! Where he just hangs out! Jon was like, “...I didn’t even know that was a mystery that needed solving, but gosh darn it if it didn’t just get solved.”
H) Joana and her squeeze Carlitos, who you can help escape from Gomorrah (along with a couple of her fellow workers, I guess – at the very least, two extra women join her in slipping into Freeside), provided you can talk down or otherwise stop the goons sent to recapture Joana – Jon already knew that the goons went back to the casino, but was curious to see where Joana and her entourage went. Turns out not far – they actually end up following the mercenaries over to the gate between one side of Freeside and the other, by the Elvis impersonation school the Kings call home, and everybody despawns on the other side of that load zone. Probably the shortest distance any of the NPCs have to travel!
I) The NCR Ranger who gives you the NCR Emergency Radio once the NCR likes you enough – Jon triggered this guy to appear while hanging out outside McCarran...and then watched as the Ranger promptly ran to and despawned immediately outside McCarran’s front doors. XD Bullseyed his despawn point without even meaning to! Jon, however, wanted to be thorough, and triggered the Ranger to show up and give him the radio while he was in Goodsprings to check to see if he always ran toward McCarran, or if he just ran toward the nearest NCR base. Turns out he always runs toward McCarran...even if that takes him through Quarry Junction, aka Home Of The Deathclaws. Whoops. XD On the plus side, Jon found a way to exploit this guy – see if you can trigger him near Goodsprings or another early-game area, then follow him and let him wipe out a lot of the low-level enemies in your way! He’ll die once he hits the quarries, of course, but still! :p
J) And finally (after supper because the video was just a bit too long), the NCR hit squad, who appear if you have a terrible reputation with the NCR...but unlike their Legion equivalents, the first time you encounter one, they simply warn you that they’re the squad that does “terrible things to terrible people” and give you a three-day grace period to improve your reputation with the NCR before they start trying to actually kill you. You can’t even provoke them into fighting you right then (at least not through dialogue), as the leader will go “you don’t even want to live a few days longer? Seriously, go get laid one last time or something” in response to you demanding they finish things right there and then. Jon wasn’t sure he’d ever even featured them on the channel before, as it’s a lot harder to piss the NCR off to the point where they want to kill you than the Legion. But he wanted to see where the squad wandered off to after that initial warning, so he used console commands to make them appear not far from Quarry Junction…
And then got hit with New Vegas being New Vegas, as the squad refused to go anywhere at all once their dialogue was done. They just stood in a line staring at him. So instead he took advantage of the fact that he’d given himself super speed earlier to try and save the Powder Ganger captives and lured them into Quarry Junction to get killed by deathclaws, because they were going to be the grand finale of his video one way or another. XD
Fun stuff! It was rather interesting to see where the NPCs are supposed to go once you’re done with them – Jon himself admitted he had no idea there were so many “black holes” in the map that swallowed NPCs. Learn something new about this game every day!
YouTube: As stated, Jon uploaded the latest episode of his F:NV YOLO Remastered series late tonight – meaning I couldn’t watch it as my workout video, meaning I had to watch something else, meaning I ended up spending most of my evening summing up that video (as seen above). Which didn’t leave me enough time to watch the entirety of the new YOLO Remastered episode. But I wanted to watch some of it, at least – so, once, I was done with the workout write-up above, I went ahead and watched roughly the first 13 minutes of “Fallout New Vegas: You Only Live Once Remastered - Part 39 - Let Go!” Which featured –
A) Our favorite Drunken Melee Courier, P. D. Shoot, braving the first hallway of the Executive Suites (where Christine was locked up)! This involved her heading left (avoiding a little patch of Cloud to the side) and following the hallway down to some doors near the end – where she could hear a hologram of Vera Keyes in a couple of the rooms beyond begging Sinclair to come and let her out because she didn’t want to die here. :( P. D.’s goal was to get through a hole in the wall of the bedroom the hologram was occupying, which she could have done by unlocking the first door on the right, waiting until the hologram wandered into the other room, then darting through with her super-speed –
But instead, she decided she wanted to get the hologram out of the way entirely so she didn’t have to worry about it. Cue her instead going through the door on the left into another wrecked portion of the suite, waiting behind some rubble near a hole in the wall until the hologram went back into the bedroom, then darting through and into the nearby bathroom, which contained the hologram emitter. One Repair 75 check later, and that particular Vera hologram was no more! ...honestly, given what she was saying, felt kind of like a mercy kill.
B) P. D. then heading through the hole in the bedroom wall, which led to another hallway where she could access a storage room with lots of shelves of stuff, laundry machines, and a workbench! She switched off the deadly radio on the washing machines (gotta keep the head from exploding), then grabbed the Suite Maintenance keys from a desk by the other door into and out of the room before using the Emergency Network Terminal on it to unseal all the emergency doors in the area, allowing her access to more spaces. She then moved onto to the Maintenance Network Terminal on the desk next to it, and – after a bit of hacking – used it to turn off all the hallway speakers before downloading another “Starlet Hologram Code Snippet” for later –
And a recipe for the Super-Heated Cosmic Knife. Because, despite the DLC being nearly over, the game still wanted to give her one more new weapon (or, well, one more new variant on an old weapon). P. D. went ahead and made one, since she had all the materials to do so, but while it looks cool, Jon admitted that it’s not really that great – it actually does one point less regular damage than the Clean Cosmic Knife! And while it has much better DPS thanks to also doing fire damage to enemies (because, well, it’s a super-hot knife – the guy who wrote down how to make one revealed it melted the damn table he put it on), there’s no enemies in Dead Money who are weak to fire damage, so...yeah, P. D. is going to stick with her Bear Trap Fist + when it comes to fighting Ghost People, thanks!
C) P. D. then using the maintenance key to unlock the door next to the Emergency Network Terminal to get back to the start of the area, before going through the now-unlocked emergency door to the right and avoiding all the Cloud patches and doors with potentially-dangerous holograms behind them to get into a room near the end. This room was very important because it contained the Security Terminal – which not only allowed P. D. to unlock the security closet in the room (though the only thing of value in there to her was another set of Reinforced Sierra Madre armor, which she used to get her own up to perfect condition) –
But also allowed her to “Recalibrate Hologram IFF.” Which essentially made all the holograms of Vera wandering around the place recognize her as a member of the security team and thus prevented them from going hostile! Meaning P. D. didn’t have to spend all her time sneaking around them and finding ways to turn off their emitters! Hooray!
D) P. D. then leaving and cutting through all the various wrecked hotel rooms with the Vera holograms (talking about how the other guests were begging to be let out too – it looks like they were all sealed in when the bombs fell thanks to the security system D: ) to get to the end and turn off another potentially-deadly radio! Because, again, don’t want the head to go pop. She then exited back into the hallways, before finding her way to another recently-unsealed emergency door into what I believe was the kitchen to open up another shortcut. This involved turning off another radio (seriously, all these damn radios), then fixing a gas leak in the room – though, curiously, THIS gas leak didn’t cause damage, unlike the ones in the restaurant kitchen. O.o I mean, obviously that was GOOD, P. D. doesn’t have that much health to spare anymore, but still – odd. Anyway, turning off the gas opened up another door on the far wall, and going through THAT (while dodging some Cloud nearby) put her right back next to the door she’d used to enter the storage room. Easy way to get right back to the elevator out of here – sorted!
E) P. D. venturing back into the hallways and grabbing the Suites Security Pass (and a spare helmet in case she needed to repair hers) off a skeleton of a guy at one of the junctions (one who clearly killed himself when he discovered he was trapped D: ), before entering the big double doors leading to Vera Keyes’s old suite! Where, after verifying the room on the right was locked, she went right to Vera’s bedroom and met back up with the newly-revoiced Christine! Christine was glad to see her (as, you know, P. D. had been nice to her), and informed her that she’d been hunting Elijah for a long time, stressing that the man could not leave the Sierra Madre alive because of all the things he’s done. (And she wasn’t just talking about the shit he’d pulled AT the Sierra Madre, nor what he’d done to her personally back in Big MT – as per Jon, Elijah was also the Elder in charge when the Brotherhood of Steel got massacred over at HELIOS One by the NCR, because he refused to give the damn place up.) P. D. skipped most of her conversation options (or, at the very least, Jon didn’t show them), but did ask her about the Auto-Doc in the room and if it still worked – Christine confirmed that the basic functions did, but that there was a lot of garbage data on it. P. D. asked if she could pull anything off it, and with a little hacking, Christine did – specifically a medical report. For Vera Keyes. Revealing that she’d had a terminal illness and was basically being given all the Med-X to handle it. Christine commented that, based on the report, it didn’t look like she even really knew what was going on – she would have just been numb for the most part due to all the drugs. Yeah, basically, between that and Dean blackmailing her into seducing Sinclair for his stupid plan, the end of Vera’s life was an absolute shitshow. :( I want to give this woman all the hugs, but she’s dead and her holograms would likely try to kill me, so…
F) P. D. then telling Christine that she should sit tight in the suite while she dealt with Elijah! Christine warned her that he wasn’t an easy opponent (as she would know) and promised to help if she could by using the computer systems, then gave her Vera’s key. Which did not open the locked door on the other side of the suite, funnily enough – P. D. had to use the nearby terminal to crack that one! (According to the Independent Fallout Wiki, it actually opens the dresser in her bedroom – how weird.) P. D. then raided the safe on the other side of the door, grabbing a copy of Vera’s outfit…
Before going back to Vera’s bedroom and stripping her dress off her skeleton. Because yes, there are two copies of her outfit in close proximity to each other for some reason. Jon was quite confused – then reasoned, “Well, she was a famous celebrity, it’s not a surprise she’d have two sets of clothes.” XD Anyway, after getting her goodies, P. D. went back into the unlocked room and found the elevator actually heading down to the Vault, and the intercom that could be used to unlock it –
But, despite Elijah demanding that she find a way to open it, she couldn’t do anything but examine it yet. Because while they had the right voice to get the elevator moving – Vera’s, courtesy of Dean Domino’s horrific torture of Christine – they didn’t have the right password – what Vera/Christine had to actually say. The only way to figure that out was to piece together all the Starlet Hologram Snippets P. D. had been collecting...and to do that, P. D. needed to go back downstairs, which was apparently a lot more dangerous now...
And that is where I left things off! I plan to watch the rest tomorrow with my workout – we’ll see what’s so scary about the downstairs and if P. D. can figure out the password and pull off the heist then!
*nods* I'm pretty happy with all that! Yeah, it would have been nicer if I'd been able to fit in some Portal 2, or gotten to watch the full YOLO Remastered episode -- but I enjoyed the "Where Do They Go?" video, at least. And I'm pleased as PUNCH to be done with "Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland." Dunno when I'm gonna start "Hollywood's Deluded Depths," but I think I've earned at least a week with just my beloved Valicer In The Dark to worry about!
And with that, I shall be heading to bed, as it is a work night and it's actually not that late for a change. Gotta take the little wins. *nods* Night all!
Dreamwidth DMs: Answered all of Moose’s messages this morning, hooray – only took me like a week and a half this time. :p Ball’s in your court now, Moose! (Or arrow’s in your target?)
Writing: As I expected, it took a pretty solid chunk of the afternoon (because doing the end-of-chapter notes regarding Easter eggs and references and stuff ALWAYS takes a while), but I did indeed get Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” posted! As I have warned, Alice’s adventures on her twelfth night as a vampire are long as fuck, so you’ll either want to read this in sections or set aside a solid chunk of time to peruse it. However you do it, I hope you enjoy! Especially since it’ll be the last bit of “Londerland Bloodlines” fic for a while – I mean, I’ll be starting the next entry, “Hollywood’s Deluded Depths,” in a little while, but you probably won’t be seeing it for a couple of years at LEAST. Long fics remain fucking long, folks.
Tumblr: Was another quiet day over on Valice Multiverse – but oh man, did I get a LOT done over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) –
A) First, after getting Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” up on AO3 as per the above, I made a post announcing its release! Which had to be a regular “text” post instead of a proper “link” post because the latter aren’t working again, but whatever. So the tumblr peeps now know about the new chapter!
B) Then, I decided to straight-up reblog a couple of things that had caught my attention:
I. A post by dinolich featuring some fanart of the initial SAW movie...and Taskmaster, in the form of a pic of one of the protagonists of the first movie informing his fellow captive that Jigsaw doesn’t want them to saw through their chains, but their feet – followed by a pic of Greg Davies lying dead on the floor of the bathroom next to a task (it’s implied he shot himself) and Alex Horne sitting on the toilet dressed up as the famous puppet, going, “All the information is on the task.” XD I found this on my friend Newt’s tumblr, and as someone who wrote him the crossover fic “Tasksaw” a couple of Christmases ago, it appealed to me. Even if I’m not a fan of the SAW franchise at all. XD
II. An adorable video posted by the-big-mood showing a couple of otters at the Toba aquarium helping the handlers clean up the pool by fetching cones and toys and stuff that had fallen into the water, and being rewarded with ice cubes – reblogger chryza said “literally in tears at this video....such good helpers...…” and I had to agree. :D I think you will too!
III. A big long thread of people talking about how annoying it is when people say “you can’t have a purple bedroom or a hot bubblegum pink loveseat or a lime green office or a doughnut wedding cake, you’re an ADULT” and showing off both their own lovely whimsical homes (including marlynnofmany’s dungeon door leading to her garage, spuffybot’s coffin-shaped coffee table, and dykepuff’s lime green office wall covered in signs) and historical homes that were highly decorated and colorful to prove that the “everything must be white and minimalist” trend is a very modern invention (including marizpanandminutiae showing off a gorgeous Art Deco jewelry shop from 1901 Paris, and beatrice-otter showing off intricately-carved-and-painted traditional Norwegian farmhouses), culminating in atopfourthwall (yes, the actual Linkara from that web series) talking about how he and Viga were forced to paint everything a nasty shade of brown when they moved into their original rental back in 2016 because the owning company wanted the house in their “corporate” colors, and how they made damn sure to make their CURRENT house as colorful as possible (the living room is yellow, orange, and blue!) – as someone who has a purple bedroom with loads of posters and collectibles, and who made the Chill Valicer Save farmhouse as colorful as possible, the thread just spoke to me. :) Take a gander for yourself, the pictures are really nice!
IV. And a video by teamhawkeye of her Chow-Chow Boswell (a rescue pup she adopted recently) wearing his fuzzy “glow collar” – an electronic collar cycling through multiple colors – at night so he’s prepared for his night walk – my friend Squid reblogged this, and I saw it and was like “awww” :D Look, he’s so cute!
C) And finally, I decided I might as well go through my tracked tags and see if there was anything I wanted to drop into my drafts for later – proved to be slim pickings today, but I did save:
I. A post by gerdark showing off some Alice: Madness Returns fanart – a picture of London!Alice looking pensive, and a picture of Wonderland!Alice (with added fingerless mesh gloves and a choker) holding up a clock and pointing at it as if she’s stealing Rabbit’s job XD
II. And a post by nuri4ever showing off some Corpse Bride fanart – a picture of Emily looking at something off to the side vaguely wistfully while holding her (rather scraggly-looking) bouquet
I just liked the style of both of them. :)
So yeah – LOT done over there. I am pleased. :D
Workout: Welp, Jon once again uploaded the latest F:NV YOLO Remastered video late, so I had to turn to another one of his videos to keep me entertained while I pedaled away on the bike – “Fallout: New Vegas - Where Do They Go?” A video he did about five years ago where he decided to see where exactly all the “wandering NPCs” in the game went after you met them and they said their piece to you. Turns out the answer was generally “to a designated despawn point” or “into a bunch of monsters so they’ll quickly die and you can loot their stuff.” In order, we had:
A) Oliver Swanick, the guy who won the “lottery” at Nipton and thus was allowed to run away alive when the Legion sacked it – Jon discovered that he pretty much immediately beelines straight into the radscorpion nest in the middle of a nearby dry lake bed, and if you kill the radscorpions threatening him (which Jon could because he’d given himself a Gatling Laser for exactly that purpose), he picks a certain rock near the entrance to their burrow and just stands there forever. Okay then! Weird way to celebrate getting to live, but okay!
B) Malcolm Holmes, the guy who spawns in when you find your first Sunset Sarsaparilla Star Bottle Cap and then finds you to let you know about the associated quest – Jon triggered his event over in Goodneighbor, then followed him past Primm and along a rather dangerous ridge over to the Mojave Outpost, where he discovered that Malcolm officially despawns right outside the door to the bar there. The only way he’ll ever actually go IN the bar is if you get your first Star Bottle Cap in there and then wait for him to arrive – and even then, he’ll immediately go back out and despawn in his usual spot, because those are the rules
C) Tomas and Jacklyn, the pair of prospectors who were traveling together...until Jacklyn realized Tomas’s “lucky necklace” was made of Star Bottle Caps and tried to kill him for it; they only spawn in once the Courier has gotten a Star Bottle Cap of their own – Jon checked what happens to both Tomas and Jacklyn, and it turns out whoever survives the fight between them heads to the Mojave Outpost as well to despawn, though they (or at least Tomas; Jon didn’t follow Jacklyn the whole way) blip out of existence closer to the statues at the front
D) Tabitha and Rhonda, the Nightkin who tries to kill you in Black Mountain and her Mr. Handy best friend, who must be repaired to get her to chill out and head back out on her journeys – Jon discovered that they cut down the trapped pass that he often uses as a shortcut to Black Mountain (he found a way to trigger the rockslide that normally happens when the Courier tries to go up there the first time, but it turns out the rocks just roll right through Tabitha), follow the road past an invisible Nightkin (who, if aggroed, will not only attack you, but get Tabitha and Rhonda to attack you, as Jon learned the hard way), then despawn once they hit a certain section of road right at the base of said mountain. He also learned that New Vegas can always develop new bugs, as poor Rhonda spent the majority of the trip as a floating cloud of disconnected Mr. Handy pieces, which was fun XD
E) Vulpes Inculta and his Legionnaires, who you first meet coming out of the Nipton town hall post the town’s sacking, and who instruct you to spread the word of the town’s fate to demoralize the NCR – Jon discovered they arguably have the longest, most dangerous journey, as Vulpes leads his men out of Nipton and on the most direct path to Cottonwood Cove if you follow him...which takes them straight through NCR territory, including past Camp Searchlight and through the actual, heavily irradiated town of Searchlight. And while they’re equipped to handle a couple of the NCR troopers along the way, they very definitely needed Jon’s help once they got closer to Searchlight and the tougher troops (and ghouls) there! If Vulpes dies along the way, his men just stop and refuse to move any farther, as they’re programmed to follow him; if he doesn’t, he makes it all the way to the pier at the far end of Cottonwood Cove, where his men despawn – but he doesn’t. He just stands there waiting for a raft that won’t come until the Courier steps into the Tops. Fascinating!
F) The two Powder Ganger captives you can find and free from a Legion raid camp as part of the quest “Booted” – Jon, to his horror, found that these two idiots immediately took off toward the Old Nuclear Test Site nearby, which is not only radioactive, but absolutely SWARMING with ghouls ranging from basic ferals to Glowing Ones to full-on Reavers! Which they insisted on trying to fist fight. As a result, despite his best efforts (and even cheating to increase his speed), he was never able to keep both alive – the best he could do was one, and even that guy insisted on remaining in the area. Really makes the whole quest to save them feel pointless, I gotta say
G) Norton and his mercenaries, who threaten the peaceful super mutant community of Jacobstown on behalf of the NCR and must be talked down or paid off to leave them alone (or killed, but that was against the idea behind this video) – Jon wasn’t able to follow the whole party because Norton got spooked by something along the road leading to the town and ran off, leaving his NPC friends in the dust, but he was able to keep up with Norton...and found out that Norton goes left at the bottom of the mountain to a specific random campfire near the edge of the map! Where he just hangs out! Jon was like, “...I didn’t even know that was a mystery that needed solving, but gosh darn it if it didn’t just get solved.”
H) Joana and her squeeze Carlitos, who you can help escape from Gomorrah (along with a couple of her fellow workers, I guess – at the very least, two extra women join her in slipping into Freeside), provided you can talk down or otherwise stop the goons sent to recapture Joana – Jon already knew that the goons went back to the casino, but was curious to see where Joana and her entourage went. Turns out not far – they actually end up following the mercenaries over to the gate between one side of Freeside and the other, by the Elvis impersonation school the Kings call home, and everybody despawns on the other side of that load zone. Probably the shortest distance any of the NPCs have to travel!
I) The NCR Ranger who gives you the NCR Emergency Radio once the NCR likes you enough – Jon triggered this guy to appear while hanging out outside McCarran...and then watched as the Ranger promptly ran to and despawned immediately outside McCarran’s front doors. XD Bullseyed his despawn point without even meaning to! Jon, however, wanted to be thorough, and triggered the Ranger to show up and give him the radio while he was in Goodsprings to check to see if he always ran toward McCarran, or if he just ran toward the nearest NCR base. Turns out he always runs toward McCarran...even if that takes him through Quarry Junction, aka Home Of The Deathclaws. Whoops. XD On the plus side, Jon found a way to exploit this guy – see if you can trigger him near Goodsprings or another early-game area, then follow him and let him wipe out a lot of the low-level enemies in your way! He’ll die once he hits the quarries, of course, but still! :p
J) And finally (after supper because the video was just a bit too long), the NCR hit squad, who appear if you have a terrible reputation with the NCR...but unlike their Legion equivalents, the first time you encounter one, they simply warn you that they’re the squad that does “terrible things to terrible people” and give you a three-day grace period to improve your reputation with the NCR before they start trying to actually kill you. You can’t even provoke them into fighting you right then (at least not through dialogue), as the leader will go “you don’t even want to live a few days longer? Seriously, go get laid one last time or something” in response to you demanding they finish things right there and then. Jon wasn’t sure he’d ever even featured them on the channel before, as it’s a lot harder to piss the NCR off to the point where they want to kill you than the Legion. But he wanted to see where the squad wandered off to after that initial warning, so he used console commands to make them appear not far from Quarry Junction…
And then got hit with New Vegas being New Vegas, as the squad refused to go anywhere at all once their dialogue was done. They just stood in a line staring at him. So instead he took advantage of the fact that he’d given himself super speed earlier to try and save the Powder Ganger captives and lured them into Quarry Junction to get killed by deathclaws, because they were going to be the grand finale of his video one way or another. XD
Fun stuff! It was rather interesting to see where the NPCs are supposed to go once you’re done with them – Jon himself admitted he had no idea there were so many “black holes” in the map that swallowed NPCs. Learn something new about this game every day!
YouTube: As stated, Jon uploaded the latest episode of his F:NV YOLO Remastered series late tonight – meaning I couldn’t watch it as my workout video, meaning I had to watch something else, meaning I ended up spending most of my evening summing up that video (as seen above). Which didn’t leave me enough time to watch the entirety of the new YOLO Remastered episode. But I wanted to watch some of it, at least – so, once, I was done with the workout write-up above, I went ahead and watched roughly the first 13 minutes of “Fallout New Vegas: You Only Live Once Remastered - Part 39 - Let Go!” Which featured –
A) Our favorite Drunken Melee Courier, P. D. Shoot, braving the first hallway of the Executive Suites (where Christine was locked up)! This involved her heading left (avoiding a little patch of Cloud to the side) and following the hallway down to some doors near the end – where she could hear a hologram of Vera Keyes in a couple of the rooms beyond begging Sinclair to come and let her out because she didn’t want to die here. :( P. D.’s goal was to get through a hole in the wall of the bedroom the hologram was occupying, which she could have done by unlocking the first door on the right, waiting until the hologram wandered into the other room, then darting through with her super-speed –
But instead, she decided she wanted to get the hologram out of the way entirely so she didn’t have to worry about it. Cue her instead going through the door on the left into another wrecked portion of the suite, waiting behind some rubble near a hole in the wall until the hologram went back into the bedroom, then darting through and into the nearby bathroom, which contained the hologram emitter. One Repair 75 check later, and that particular Vera hologram was no more! ...honestly, given what she was saying, felt kind of like a mercy kill.
B) P. D. then heading through the hole in the bedroom wall, which led to another hallway where she could access a storage room with lots of shelves of stuff, laundry machines, and a workbench! She switched off the deadly radio on the washing machines (gotta keep the head from exploding), then grabbed the Suite Maintenance keys from a desk by the other door into and out of the room before using the Emergency Network Terminal on it to unseal all the emergency doors in the area, allowing her access to more spaces. She then moved onto to the Maintenance Network Terminal on the desk next to it, and – after a bit of hacking – used it to turn off all the hallway speakers before downloading another “Starlet Hologram Code Snippet” for later –
And a recipe for the Super-Heated Cosmic Knife. Because, despite the DLC being nearly over, the game still wanted to give her one more new weapon (or, well, one more new variant on an old weapon). P. D. went ahead and made one, since she had all the materials to do so, but while it looks cool, Jon admitted that it’s not really that great – it actually does one point less regular damage than the Clean Cosmic Knife! And while it has much better DPS thanks to also doing fire damage to enemies (because, well, it’s a super-hot knife – the guy who wrote down how to make one revealed it melted the damn table he put it on), there’s no enemies in Dead Money who are weak to fire damage, so...yeah, P. D. is going to stick with her Bear Trap Fist + when it comes to fighting Ghost People, thanks!
C) P. D. then using the maintenance key to unlock the door next to the Emergency Network Terminal to get back to the start of the area, before going through the now-unlocked emergency door to the right and avoiding all the Cloud patches and doors with potentially-dangerous holograms behind them to get into a room near the end. This room was very important because it contained the Security Terminal – which not only allowed P. D. to unlock the security closet in the room (though the only thing of value in there to her was another set of Reinforced Sierra Madre armor, which she used to get her own up to perfect condition) –
But also allowed her to “Recalibrate Hologram IFF.” Which essentially made all the holograms of Vera wandering around the place recognize her as a member of the security team and thus prevented them from going hostile! Meaning P. D. didn’t have to spend all her time sneaking around them and finding ways to turn off their emitters! Hooray!
D) P. D. then leaving and cutting through all the various wrecked hotel rooms with the Vera holograms (talking about how the other guests were begging to be let out too – it looks like they were all sealed in when the bombs fell thanks to the security system D: ) to get to the end and turn off another potentially-deadly radio! Because, again, don’t want the head to go pop. She then exited back into the hallways, before finding her way to another recently-unsealed emergency door into what I believe was the kitchen to open up another shortcut. This involved turning off another radio (seriously, all these damn radios), then fixing a gas leak in the room – though, curiously, THIS gas leak didn’t cause damage, unlike the ones in the restaurant kitchen. O.o I mean, obviously that was GOOD, P. D. doesn’t have that much health to spare anymore, but still – odd. Anyway, turning off the gas opened up another door on the far wall, and going through THAT (while dodging some Cloud nearby) put her right back next to the door she’d used to enter the storage room. Easy way to get right back to the elevator out of here – sorted!
E) P. D. venturing back into the hallways and grabbing the Suites Security Pass (and a spare helmet in case she needed to repair hers) off a skeleton of a guy at one of the junctions (one who clearly killed himself when he discovered he was trapped D: ), before entering the big double doors leading to Vera Keyes’s old suite! Where, after verifying the room on the right was locked, she went right to Vera’s bedroom and met back up with the newly-revoiced Christine! Christine was glad to see her (as, you know, P. D. had been nice to her), and informed her that she’d been hunting Elijah for a long time, stressing that the man could not leave the Sierra Madre alive because of all the things he’s done. (And she wasn’t just talking about the shit he’d pulled AT the Sierra Madre, nor what he’d done to her personally back in Big MT – as per Jon, Elijah was also the Elder in charge when the Brotherhood of Steel got massacred over at HELIOS One by the NCR, because he refused to give the damn place up.) P. D. skipped most of her conversation options (or, at the very least, Jon didn’t show them), but did ask her about the Auto-Doc in the room and if it still worked – Christine confirmed that the basic functions did, but that there was a lot of garbage data on it. P. D. asked if she could pull anything off it, and with a little hacking, Christine did – specifically a medical report. For Vera Keyes. Revealing that she’d had a terminal illness and was basically being given all the Med-X to handle it. Christine commented that, based on the report, it didn’t look like she even really knew what was going on – she would have just been numb for the most part due to all the drugs. Yeah, basically, between that and Dean blackmailing her into seducing Sinclair for his stupid plan, the end of Vera’s life was an absolute shitshow. :( I want to give this woman all the hugs, but she’s dead and her holograms would likely try to kill me, so…
F) P. D. then telling Christine that she should sit tight in the suite while she dealt with Elijah! Christine warned her that he wasn’t an easy opponent (as she would know) and promised to help if she could by using the computer systems, then gave her Vera’s key. Which did not open the locked door on the other side of the suite, funnily enough – P. D. had to use the nearby terminal to crack that one! (According to the Independent Fallout Wiki, it actually opens the dresser in her bedroom – how weird.) P. D. then raided the safe on the other side of the door, grabbing a copy of Vera’s outfit…
Before going back to Vera’s bedroom and stripping her dress off her skeleton. Because yes, there are two copies of her outfit in close proximity to each other for some reason. Jon was quite confused – then reasoned, “Well, she was a famous celebrity, it’s not a surprise she’d have two sets of clothes.” XD Anyway, after getting her goodies, P. D. went back into the unlocked room and found the elevator actually heading down to the Vault, and the intercom that could be used to unlock it –
But, despite Elijah demanding that she find a way to open it, she couldn’t do anything but examine it yet. Because while they had the right voice to get the elevator moving – Vera’s, courtesy of Dean Domino’s horrific torture of Christine – they didn’t have the right password – what Vera/Christine had to actually say. The only way to figure that out was to piece together all the Starlet Hologram Snippets P. D. had been collecting...and to do that, P. D. needed to go back downstairs, which was apparently a lot more dangerous now...
And that is where I left things off! I plan to watch the rest tomorrow with my workout – we’ll see what’s so scary about the downstairs and if P. D. can figure out the password and pull off the heist then!
*nods* I'm pretty happy with all that! Yeah, it would have been nicer if I'd been able to fit in some Portal 2, or gotten to watch the full YOLO Remastered episode -- but I enjoyed the "Where Do They Go?" video, at least. And I'm pleased as PUNCH to be done with "Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland." Dunno when I'm gonna start "Hollywood's Deluded Depths," but I think I've earned at least a week with just my beloved Valicer In The Dark to worry about!
And with that, I shall be heading to bed, as it is a work night and it's actually not that late for a change. Gotta take the little wins. *nods* Night all!
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Date: 2026-04-20 11:39 pm (UTC)I didn't see any spelling goofs but you know I'll re-read it at some point. All I could think of when mentioning something happening to Victor if LaCroix found out about him is what happens to Heather if you don't have the patch or don't do the things to keep her safe.
If I'm not mistaken, Diablerie is what Phyre did to Fabien in Bloodlines II. That's why she has his voice in her head. That reminds me...I haven't played that in a while.
Also whenever someone mentions Antediluvian all I can hear is the Sixth Doctor calling his past self in "The Two Doctors" an Antediluvian fogey.
JAMIE: Now my Doctor wouldna' have done THAT!
(Jamie reaches for the controls but the Doctor slaps it away.)
SIXTH DOCTOR: Your Doctor, is an antediluvian fogey, allowing himself to be captured by the Sontarans. If anything happens to me as a result of it I shall never forgive himself.
PERI: Oh, I do wish you'd stop switching personal pronouns. It'd make it a lot easier to understand what you're talking about.
Also, also....years?! *cries* (j/k... worth the wait cuz you're so awesome with these)
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Date: 2026-04-21 12:04 pm (UTC)Good, I'm glad to hear it passed the first read. :) And really? I didn't even have what happens to her in mind -- probably because I've never actually had Heather get murdered by the Sabbat, I always send her away before that can be an issue. Fortunately, Victor wouldn't be murdered by LaCroix and the Camarilla -- unfortunately, Alice is right in that he would be used as a patsy to further the guy's schemes. So, not exactly a great fate there either!
Is that so? Guess that makes sense, but damn. Poor Fabien. :(
*snork* I see. XD Yeah, I imagine it sometimes gets a little confusing when the Doctor refers to his past selves -- especially when he says things like "If anything happens to me as a result of it I shall never forgive himself." XD
...I'm gonna be honest, I'm still holding myself back from screaming something about how I'm writing the VTMB/A:MR/CB crossover equivalent of War & Peace here, of course it's going to take a while. But that's more your comment unfortunately tripping over the fact that I kind of resent "Londerland Bloodlines" for being so popular when my Valicer In The Dark stuff, which I love more, doesn't get that kind of love. *shakehead* But yeah, you're gonna have to put on the patience hat, I'm afraid.
no subject
Date: 2026-04-21 12:14 pm (UTC)