Ael

Yeah, the heat index was up near 101 F earlier today -- and then, between 3 and 4 PM, we had a pretty nasty thunderstorm blow through, with high winds and heavy rain and lots of thunder and lightning. I spent that hour playing games on my iPad, as you might expect! But despite the heat and the rain, I had a pretty productive day overall --

Work – A busyish half-Friday to end out the work week – I spent most of my morning working on the GL (proved to be a little more complicated than usual because our database people moved a bunch of gifts from one Appeal year to another, which shows up different than our standard reversal reports on the GL) and answering some e-mails; then called a guy at my supervisor’s behest to get his pledge set up on automatic payments; then spent the remaining hour and a half looking up why some people overpaid their pledges for my supervisor so we could plan calling them and offering them refunds as necessary. *nods* Little more stressful than I would have liked, but it filled the time! And I did get to go home at 1:30 PM, so that’s all that matters. *nods*

Fallout 4 – I did indeed finally have another Fallout Friday today, sneaking in just under an hour of Victor and Ada continuing to make their way through the Mechanist’s lair before having to quit thanks to the thunderstorm that rolled in around 3 PM. How’d that go? Let me tell you:

A) Started off with Victor and the now-very-electric Ada hanging out in the room with all the assembly lines and the partially-completed swarmbots being carried across the ceiling on hooks. I’d guessed that trying to traverse this area would trigger some sort of fight when I first entered it, and I was proven right today as, while trying to see if I could sneak Victor through a gap between one of the floor-level conveyor belts and a cage with some electrical equipment in it (I could not – either it was a tiny bit too small or there was an invisible wall there), a swarmbot spawned in on the ramp leading up to the catwalk at the other end of the room. Victor lined up a shot and easily took it out with a nice highly-charged blast from the Tactical Tesla before the bot even noticed them –

Aaand then things got rather more chaotic as a couple of laser turrets up on the wall suddenly woke up and started firing at him, and a tankbot trundled into the room and began sending blasts Ada’s way. Fortunately, the laser turrets weren’t too hard to take out (once I figured out exactly where I needed to shoot, anyway), and while the tankbot took a good few hits in VATS to die (the Tactical Tesla isn’t really a VATS gun, sadly – you gotta be able to charge it to get the full effect), the fact that it, like most of the other enemies I have faced recently, decided to focus all its murderous efforts on Ada meant that Victor at least didn’t get creamed by the – I THINK they were gamma shots? Some sort of green orb thing, which I’m pretty sure is what the gamma gun fires, so – while trying to kill it. Ada – best companion simply because EVERYTHING focuses its wrath on her, allowing Victor to kill enemies at his leisure. :P

B) Once the enemies were defeated (including backing up and waiting a minute to let the tankbot explode), I had Victor and Ada explore the room looking for goodies. There wasn’t really much to find, though – just a window to the left that looked in on the room we’d passed through before; a little storage area behind the stairs up to the catwalk that yielded some ammo and a bit of useful junk; various boxes and rad barrels scattered around (I made sure to give the latter a wide berth) –

And a big room at the end that had an armor workstation, a box of various drugs, a box of various explosives, and a button in it that made me wonder if it was some sort of giant elevator. Like, I know that sounds a little mental, but this was a big robotics facility that was working on making robots powered by human brains – making a big old room that doubled as an elevator didn’t seem outside the realm of possibility! I was just about to press the button and see what it did –

C) When I saw the open catwalk bridge above me, with a little area to the left with a Nuka-Cola machine and some tables. Curious, and not wanting to press the button in case it WAS an elevator and took me deeper into the facility with no way back up, I had Victor do a little parkour to hop onto the catwalk (basically getting him to jump onto the ramp railing under it, then from there onto the catwalk) and explore the area I’d spotted. He proceeded to find:

I. A bunch of decorative tables and cabinets and cupboards with junk both decorative and grabbable – I had him get a big old industrial oil can and a carton of cigarettes to turn into cloth later :P

II. The Nuka-Cola machine I’d spotted before, which proved to be pretty well-stocked with cola – two empty bottles, two regular Nukas, and a Cherry! Nice :)

III. An openable door leading deeper into the facility at the back

IV. And the button to extend the catwalk over to the other side of the room!

Not wanting to progress anything just yet (as I still needed to figure out what the button did in what I was now calling the “lift room”), I had Victor collect all his goodies, then hit the button to extend the catwalk. This connected the two sides of the bridge – but ALSO closed a big metal shutter on the “lift room,” sealing it off. Curiouser and curiouser! I had Victor cross the bridge to do a little investigating of the stairs on the other side – discovering in the process the button that controlled the catwalk from THAT side, meaning if I’d just gone UP the stairs on the left side of the room instead of simply poking around BEHIND them for goodies, I wouldn’t have had to do the parkour; live and learn – then head back toward that door he’d found with Ada at his side. Opening it revealed another storage area with more tables and cabinets, three whole rolls of duct tape (score!), an aluminum can (will never say no!) –

And another MST3K door (seriously, I am like 99% sure these super-complicated doors are a nod to the “getting into/out of the theater” bits of MST3K with the multiple doors Cambot takes us through) with an access port that required Ada’s scanning expertise to open! Which really suggested that THIS was the way I was meant to go. “So what the heck is the deal with the button in the ‘lift room?’” I wondered, heading back to the catwalks to find out. Once Ada and I were safely across the bridge (a process that took a little longer than it should have, as Ada’s AI glitched out and made her keep walking into the railing until the game was like “oh, FINE” and teleported her to me), I hit the button to retract it and open the “lift room,” then went down the stairs, around and up the ramp into it, and made sure Ada was safely inside before hitting the button…

Aaaand discovered all it did was extend the catwalk bridge and close the shutter. Just like the other buttons outside. I guess this wasn’t so much a “lift” room as, potentially, a “panic” room. *shrug* Hey, I had to find out! Don’t want to miss any secrets or fun stuff!

D) With the secret of the “panic room” uncovered, it was time to continue on! Victor thus got himself and Ada out of the “panic room” and back across the catwalk bridge to the door at the back of the storage area. Ada scanned the access port, the door went through its overly-complicated opening sequence, and the pair found themselves in a big wrecked hallway, in front of a pair of heavy-looking doors looking down over some gigantic room below. They proved to be unpickable, though (mag-locked, probably), so they just continued onward, heading around and over the rubble to the right to a door with another access port – this one labeled “Facilities Wing.” Ada did her scan, the door did its thing, and she and Victor entered another crumbling corridor, this one with some big old pipes on the walls, an ice-cold Nuka-Cherry by one of the cabinets, and a novice-locked toolbox Victor broke open for yet more duct tape (yay). The pair thus continued forward, toward a ramp with steam coming up from under it –

Only to be jumpscared by another Mechanist Eyebot! She angrily told Victor that people were right to fear him, someone who had no respect for human life, and that she, the Mechanist was sworn to protect the innocent, which she would do by getting rid of people like him! Victor wasn’t having that and took down the eyebot with a quick couple of blasts from the Tactical Tesla – but I could hear and see more robots coming in up ahead. I had Victor and Ada carefully go down the slope, with Victor creeping to the side to try and find a good vantage point to take them out –

And then the swarmbot and junkbot both decided to run directly at the pair – as usual, prioritizing targeting Ada – and Victor was able to take them both out with one blast each. XD Elite troops, these were not! Come on, Mechanist, we know you can do better than this!

E) With those foes downed, Victor and Ada continued on their journey, around the nearby corner past tables and toolboxes (the latter had some more duct tape – seriously, there is so much duct tape in this place, it’s great), over to another robot workbench sitting in a forgotten corner, and right to some stairs leading down –

Into a partially-flooded corridor. Cue me going “Oh shit, water” and promptly swapping Victor back to his beloved Two-Shot Combat Rifle, because, well, I didn’t want him getting electrocuted! I’m pretty sure using electrical weapons in water does that in this game! Feeling a little safer, I thus had him descend into the corridor and take a look around –

And then I noticed that, um, the air looked kind of – wavy. Like, not “water reflecting on the walls” wavy (which was happening), but “there’s a gas leak” wavy. Suspicious, I had Victor retreat back up the stairs a safe distance, then fired a single shot into the corridor below –

And sure enough, the air ignited in a brief but spectacular fireball! Well – that could have gone very badly. Good thing I have both played enough of this game and watched enough LPs of it to spot those danger zones! (But not to recognize when a room is not an elevator, of course. :P)

F) With the gas leak cleared (and Victor having had a lunch break at the game’s insistence – Jambalaya Pasta, which not only counted as food AND drink but ALSO gave him +25% XP gain for a couple of hours, nice), Victor and Ada were free to explore the lower corridor! There was a little caged area to the left that proved to have nothing interesting inside it – just a cabinet with nothing area – but to the right was a larger room with some stairs in that I was curious to check out. So I had Victor poke his head in –

Then pull it right back out because oh shit, radiation. D: However, it wasn’t a LOT of radiation, and I WAS curious to see what was in there, so I had him quickly sprint in and up the stairs onto the little catwalk area at the top of the room. Fortunately, the rads only got him on the stairs themselves, and he was free to explore the catwalk area, which mainly consisted of some cabinets; a desk with a big bottle of Economy Wonderglue on it (yay!); and the Power Substation A Terminal! Victor thus sat himself down and checked that out – it proved to belong to one Brandon McDaniel, and had four logs on it –

I. 77, What A Waste (consisting of him bitching about the fact that he’d gone through four years of electrical engineering school and could strip a Mr. Handy down to parts in under two hours, but no, he had to sit in here and babysit the generators)

II. 80, Cunning Plan (consisting of him coming up with a plan – courtesy of some comments by his friend Sharpley – to sneak a cigarette vending machine, loaned to him by a civilian friend, into his station to earn a few bucks from people looking for smokes and get to say hi to all the lovely ladies)

III. 82 Substation B (consisting of him complaining about how his coworker Banks started complaining about all the smoke when the vending machine was put in place – and then made it clear that he wanted a cut of McDaniel’s vending machine cash to keep quiet)

IV. And 90, Official Approval (consisting of him happily declaring that he’d come out on top by bribing the General with a few free cartons of cigarettes to give his machine official approval, meaning he didn’t have to pay Banks squat).

Fun stuff – made even funnier by the fact that the one thing I didn’t see in this room was a cigarette vending machine. Like, I spotted a Nuka-Cola vending machine, tucked into a corner by the generators (I had Victor risk the rads to get a couple more Nukas on his way out), but I did NOT see anything that sold cigarettes. Now, I admit, my Perception score CAN be comparable to Jon of Many A True Nerd’s sometimes (the joke being that Jon misses shit all the time, to the point where it’s joked he has a Perception of -1), so it’s possible I just didn’t pay enough attention, but it was a pretty small room, so...also quite possible that someone at Bethesda put the wrong vending machine in here!

G) With that room explored, it was time for Victor and Ada to move onward, going straight down the corridor into the wreckage of a locker room – which had a scrapbot in it “playing dead.” I had Victor sneak just close enough to activate it and get it to sit up, then blast it with his Two-Shot to instantly kill it with a technical sneak attack. :D I do enjoy flinging lightning around with the Tactical Tesla, but there’s a reason the Two-Shot is beloved! Anyway, I had Victor grab what he wanted out of the room (some toothpaste, a toothbrush, and a robot parts model), then had him move onward, into another big storage room with giant carts and lots of shelving. And an entire PACK of duct tape, which now makes me think they were literally duct-taping the robobrains together or something. XD Victor grabbed that, then dumped some stuff on Ada (the Crippling Gamma Gun – he wasn’t using it – and a bunch of junk) to free up some space, as the pockets were getting full on his Silver Shroud costume. :P He then led the way around the corner, past the carts and into a big, partially collapsed tunnel, with tracks on the ground and a big metal shutter to the left, with a button to open it…

Aaand that’s when the thunder really started thundering, and I had to quickly save and quit before the storm truly kicked off. Meh. But hey, it was nice to make some progress here again! :) And find all of that duct tape and Wonderglue – seriously, if you have played even a couple hours of this game, you will KNOW how much you need adhesive. :P Next Friday, we’ll see what’s behind that metal shutter, and get that much closer to the final showdown with the Mechanist...

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – final night on the bike this week, pedaling my way through:

A) The end of “Oxventure D&D: Wyrdwood | Chapter 4: The Path of Broken Oaths!” The final half-hour of this relatively-lighthearted adventure of the gang discovering that a local hamlet was being swindled by an asshole pretending to be the local Green Man featured –

I. The fight against the Fraudulent Green Man continuing with Willowfine trying and failing to cast “Hold Person” on the fraudster (her magical beam of sunlight just not being up for the job); Lug managing to break the unlucky rolls curse and get two good hits on the guy with his hammer, all the while complaining about how maybe the NEXT hamlet they visited would be fine and normal and he could get a nice drink; and Morven wrapping things up by giving the man a very solid Mind Slivering with her sorcery, causing him to yield. Yeah, doesn’t feel so nice now when it’s you having the psychic spike slammed into your head, huh?

II. The gang berating the fraudster, who attempted to claim that all that stuff in the cave wasn’t his – only to confess to the truth when Morven started warming up a fresh Mind Sliver. XD He then switched tactics, trying to say that what he’d done wasn’t THAT bad, all he’d taken was some silver and some cloth and some chickens, and he never hit the same place twice (patently untrue, sir!) –

And then Cressida tried to spook him with a “levitating” chest of money (having already robbed all the most expensive stuff out of it herself), he cast Dispel Magic on her to see what was going on – and upon seeing her face, went APOPLECTIC. Turns out the fraudster was one Evander Mountforth, who took out a loan from the Blackwater Bank, only to lose everything when he couldn’t pay off the principal fast enough and Cressida ended up jacking up the interest rate in response. So he’d turned to trickery and thievery to survive, and learned magic in the hopes of finding her one day and killing her for what she’d done.

...Cressida was like “I – do not remember you at ALL.” Which, as you might imagine, made him EVEN ANGRIER. And the others did not help his mood by not quite understanding what it was that Cressida had done (given they all live in barter societies and don’t have any concept of “interest rates”) and not QUITE remembering his name (Willowfine calling him “Evangelo” at one point). He got off a Mind Spike against her (though an accidental nat 20 from Ellen when she missed her dice tower roller with the d20 meant all she got was a bad headache) – mostly because Morven was done with all this and busy shrinking everything down to make it easier to carry back to the villagers – but then the others intervened, saying that, even if Cressida had ruined him, that didn’t give him the right to ruin others, and that they felt he needed to go to the court of the Green Man to answer for what he’d done. Evander was like “face the very guy I’ve been impersonating?! No way – how about I promise to never do this again and stop trying to kill Cressida, and you’ll let me go?” Willowfine agreed as long as he handed over the costume –

Including the bits he was wearing. XD The deeply embarrassed Evander reluctantly stripped off his clothes, then turned himself invisible and wandered off. And Cressida, being Cressida, couldn’t resist sending him a final message: “Thank you for banking with Blackwater.” XD Oh, Ellen is loving being an evil bitch, let me tell you. XD

III. The gang returning what items they could to the villagers and explaining about the trickster (with Happen offering his condolences to Lionel about Mark in apology, having seen for himself that Evander could kill, or at least harm, with a glance – and then going to Willowfine “we did kind of forget he murdered someone when we let him go, didn’t we?” XD Fortunately the villagers were a little distracted by the giant chest of silver Morven had delivered to them) – the villagers thanked them for their help and promised to renew their bonds with the ACTUAL Green Man as soon as possible. The gang then headed back to the Green Man’s court through the woods (which involved the others chasing after the impatient Morven), where they reported on what had happened and how they’d fixed it to the Green Man. And, in Morven’s case, tried to unload the trickster’s trousers on him (the Green Man was like “you can keep those” XD). The Green Man thanked them for their help, and Happen once again tried to charm some sweet loot out of the guy by saying they’d clearly gone above and beyond, using the powers of the Cadence Die. His first roll was a paltry 11, but when Andy reminded him that he should still have a free inspiration (apparently humans just GET a point of that after every long rest, fancy), he rolled again –

And – praise Cadence! – got a crit 1. XD It was decided that Happen’s sprites playfully yanked his pants down the minute he tried to seal the deal. XD The Green Man fortunately was amused, and while he didn’t give Happen any sweet loot, he did at least fix his busted bowstring. This Green Man is a fucking nice wild folk, let me tell you. Case in point, he also gave Morven the information he’d promised to give Robin about the strange fellow in the hat and patched coat – he didn’t know much, but he knew that the guy called himself the Poor Man, and that while he SEEMED to be new to Heorth, there was something about him that seemed to be much older than even the Green Man. Which is – somewhat worrying. Morven said she’d have to do some research – I don’t know where, but we’ll see what happens.

IV. And, to end things off, the gang being assured by the Green Man that their debt had been repaid and they could travel through the Wyrdwood freely once more (so long as they kept their bargains and caused no trouble) – and then getting another message from the team in the North on their copestones! Or, rather, they STARTED to get a message –

Only for the copestone to suddenly SPLIT IN TWO. And when Willowfine picked up the pieces, they all saw that it was like someone had taken an ax to the stone. O.o Given that the North team had already suffered injuries the last time we heard from them, this seems – less than ideal. *grimace* We’ll see what happens with that when we watch Episode 5 next week!

B) And, to fill the last few minutes at the end of my workout, three Baldur’s Gate III-related Shorts:

I. “Your first BG3 playthrough VS every save after…” by JourdanGames – featuring a woman cheerily going on about how awesome BG3’s lore and worldbuilding is and how she wants to talk to everyone and read every book and find every place in her first playthrough...and then speeding through everything (the specific example given being Gale explaining his whole situation) on subsequent runs XD

II. “Warlock's unique dialogue about Raphael for Astarion | Baldur's Gate 3” by DragonsDream – featuring a special interaction a warlock can have with Astarion regarding when Raphael shows up to offer them a deal regarding their tadpoles! Seems a warlock can tell Astarion “Oh, he’s a cambion, we can take him” – only for Astarion to dress them down but HARD for being too flippant. Featuring a lot of him sarcastically going on about how they must know EXACTLY what was going on with their tadpoles, and thus EXACTLY why a devil – oh, excuse him, a CAMBION – would find them interesting enough to want to make a deal – because if they DIDN’T actually know...well, they might as well sign their souls away right then. Another excellent bit of acting from Neil Newbon there!

III. And “When Archfey Warlock got denied entry to the circus | Baldur's Gate 3” by DragonsDream – featuring what happens when a warlock with an Archfey patron gets denied entry to the Circus of Lost Days in Baldur’s Gate, because the ghoul at the entrance, Benji, accuses them of having a brain that smells of piss and iron (Benji’s supposed to sniff out murderers, so I guess that’s what you smell like if you murder people?). The warlock’s patron, who’d been all excited about the fey magic inside, got snippy and gave their little magic user some barbed words to use as a weapon, with the warlock thusly informing the guy at the entrance that, unless he wanted trouble with the Seelie court, he’d let them in –

And then proceeded to fail the Intimidation check, causing Benji to attack and the warlock to have to explode everyone. XD Kinda ruins one’s day at the circus, gotta say!

2. Update the FO4 Playthrough Progression Doc: Check – Victor, Alice, and Ada all dove deeper into the Mechanist’s lair today, following the path my game!Victor and Ada laid out for them through the assembly line room, out and around into the Facilities Wing, and over to the cart tracks at the end of the flooded corridor – with the following relatively-minor changes:

A) Nobody made the mistake I did of even briefly thinking that the room the tankbot emerged out of at the end of the assembly line room was an elevator of sorts – though Victor did JOKE that it was one while hitting the button inside to see what it did while exploring. He was very surprised to see it extend the catwalk and close a big shutter in front of the room. XD He did climb his way up onto the retracted catwalk bridge after opening the shutter, though, doing so while Alice and Ada went around the other side to look for the external controls. He had a lot of fun hitting the button on his side to re-extend the bridge right when they found the button on their side. XD

B) And rather than Victor exploring Power Substation A and reading the terminal entries therein about McDaniels and his briefly-illegal cigarette vending machine, Ada was the one to explore the lightly-irradiated room, as she is her own person in this universe and much more suited to taking on rads than the fleshy folks. She related the story of McDaniels to Victor and Alice after she returned (with the Economy Wonderglue in hand, of course), and asked if such behavior was typical of military personnel from his time – Victor was like “yup.” XD

I told you they were relatively minor! :P Just wasn’t a lot to adjust in today’s adventures. Next week, we’ll see what they find on the other side of that big metal shutter in the mysterious tunnel with the tracks, and if I have to make any bigger changes to what actually happens in my game!

3. Keep up with YouTube “Subs”: Check – though I didn’t actually watch anything in my “Watch Later,” as it was another day where I got to the YouTubes very late and thus couldn’t take on anything too long. So instead, having enjoyed some of their shorts earlier at the end of my workout, I headed over to DragonsDream’s channel to check out their actual videos –

And got intrigued by “Companion's secret deepest desire in Baldur's Gate 3!” This was a video on the special “Rapture” interaction you can have with the wood elf Naoise at Sharess’ Caress, a brothel you can visit in the game. Naoise isn’t offering sex, though – instead, if you chat with her (after killing her previous client, who turned into a mind flayer upon seeing you), she offers Rapture, where she weaves for your character a moment of purest ecstasy based on their deepest desire, summed up in a single word. There’s a few generic responses you can give – “revered,” “contented,” “powerful,” “rich” – but most of the “Origin” characters (the companions who double as player characters if you don’t want to make your own), plus The Dark Urge custom origin and one regular companion, have unique desires:

A) Shadowheart, who spends the game largely amnesiac because the cult she’s in keeps wiping her memories, wants to be whole

B) Karlach, who spends the game slowly dying because the infernal engine that’s replaced her heart is slowly but surely overheating outside of Avernus, wants to be alive

C) Astarion, who spends the game dealing with the fact that he was the puppet of an abusive vampire lord and never wants to go back to that life again, wants to be safe

D) Gale, who spends the game dealing with the consequences of trying to prove to his goddess girlfriend he could handle the higher-level magics she dealt with and fucking up big time, wants to be wise

E) Wyll, who spends the game trapped in a horrible pact with a devil who delights in making his life hell (no pun intended) and may only get out of it by agreeing to sacrifice his father, wants to be free

F) The Dark Urge, who spends the game tormented by the urge to murder and maim courtesy of their Bhaalspawn blood, wants to be sane

G) And Minsc, who is a delightfully goofy barbarian you can pick up late in the game who DOES have to deal with the fact he was mind controlled by someone pretending to be one of his dearest friends, wants to be – Minsc. XD Naoise struggles with that one for a moment. XD

All very cute – and very touching, except for Minsc. XD Though a little sad to see that Jahiera, Halsin, Minthara, and ESPECIALLY Lae’zel don’t get specific desires if they ask for Rapture. Like, okay, I can understand it for the first three – Jahiera gets recruited rather late in the story, and Halsin and Minthara are both very optional companions (and used to be mutually exclusive until Larian caved to everyone wanting to have a Minthara on an otherwise-good-aligned playthrough), but Lae’zel is the final Origin character! You’d think she of all people would have a special option! Maybe they thought “Powerful” sufficed, but given her whole thing is to prove herself to her people and get to ride a dragon and wield a silver sword, I think “Honored” would be better. Meh. It’s very weird the stuff Larian didn’t put in – and you notice it a lot more because so much of the rest of the game is treated with so much care.

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – it was another nothing day on Valice Multiverse (plus, while checking my tracked tags, I suddenly ran into an error where I couldn’t load my dash, so I couldn’t have added anything to my queue if I’d WANTED to), but on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), I put one last thing in my queue for this week – my Song Saturday song selection! Which was Alex Warren’s “Ordinary,” a song about how a mundane life can be elevated to something more by sharing it with the right person. :) My initial thought was this was a Valicer song (especially with the lyrics “On the edge of your knife/Stayin' drunk on your vine” making me think of Victor describing his relationship with Alice and Smiler respectively), but while writing up the post, I came to the conclusion that, since the opening lyrics about holy water being watered down and the town having lost its faith made me think of Burtonsville, perhaps the song was in fact best suited for the Multiplayer Wonderland OT5 (Victor/Victoria/Emily/Alice/Smiler, for reference). They’re the ones who still live in that crappy village, after all! Either way, it gives me the warm fuzzies picturing Victor feeling so loved and adored by his partners, and thinking about how they make his life anything but ordinary. :) Perfect Song Saturday!

*nods* Not bad, not bad -- though thanks to the thunderstorm, it DEFINITELY took me longer than I wanted to write that all up. If I just hadn't lost that hour to the weather... *grumbles* Ah well, maybe next Friday will be better. As it is, I gotta hit the sheets. Tomorrow, plans include working on tumblr drafts on Victor Luvs Alice (need to finish off the pet-related VITD Not-Incorrect Quotes for a start), playing Sims 4 (while I'd love to start my new save file, there is YET ANOTHER PATCH coming next week, so it might be easier to stick with offline caravan building); working on "The Van Dort Vacancy" (gotta get the gang past Mrs. Pemberly so they can start the heist proper); and hopefully getting some more videos out of my Watch Later (maybe an OXboxtra list or two?). We'll see what actually happens! Night all!

The actual weather was fairly warm (though quite pleasant when the sun went behind the clouds for a bit this afternoon), but the vibes of the day were pretty calm, which I quite appreciated --

Work – Pretty quiet day at work – with the huge batch of gifts finally fully posted, and the issue of the gifts going on the wrong campaign more or less sorted, I was back to noodling around with roster maintenance and obituaries again, along with my various puzzles to fill in the emptier bits of the day. *shrug* Nothing particularly exciting, but nothing particularly stressful either! We will see if this state of affairs lasts through tomorrow – odds are good it will, but you never know...

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night pedaling my way through –

A) The end of “Oxventure D&D: Wyrdwood | Chapter 3: Howls In The Night!” The last ten or so minutes of this episode featured:

I. Lug, trying to figure out what they could do quickly to maybe get the forest on their side to protect them against the dullahan threatening them, noticing Michael crying – not in a “I’m terrified and want to go home” way like his sister, but in a “I’m feeling guilty about something” way. He asked the kid what he’d done, and Michael whimpered that he’d thought it would protect them and do what they said before taking off his rucksack –

And producing a severed head. Lug was like “is THAT what the kids are into these days?!” (Happen/Luke: “It’s a skull with wiggly eyes and a wiggly jaw, of COURSE they’re into it.” XD) The group immediately sussed that it must be the dullahan’s lost head (as they are a type of headless horseman), and got into a brief argument about whether to give it back or destroy it – they ended up going with Willowfine’s “split the difference” plan of holding up the head and threatening it with a sacred flame. The dullahan did pause, but only for a moment – then he continued his slow march forward, leading everyone to wonder what to do next...

II. The gang then being saved by, of all people, that creepy guy in the leather coat that was all patches and the weird hat that was just a brim! He announced his presence by wrapping an arm around Robin and saying that he’d owe him a favor for this, then leapt into the clearing, grabbed the head from Willowfine, leapt up OVER the brambles, bounced himself off a tree, then shot out of the forest and off over the moors. The dullahan and his hounds promptly gave chase, with Johnny noting that they were actually having trouble keeping up (even with the dullahan on his horse!). Robin was like “that guy keeps popping up!” and Happen revealed that Morven seemed to know a little something about him – that he was present at her execution, at least. He suggested that it might be nice to ask her, but Robin was like “shame she’s not here then,” refusing to even consider the idea of giving up control –

And then Cressida – who, I remind you, had NOT made it into the clearing with the others as she had tripped and gone for turning herself invisible instead – crawled through the hole Happen had made in the brambles, overheard this conversation, and chose to announce herself via whacking Robin over the head with her spellbook. XD And, hilariously, while she did hit him, a poor roll combined with her -1 Strength modifier meant she did no damage – just annoyed Robin. XD Seems like Morven will not yet be making an appearance anytime soon!

III. Yoffie deciding it was time for him and his children to part ways with the group, which even the gang found understandable. XD Happen did note that, if they were heading back to their own home hamlet, they could at least head in the same direction to get a good night’s sleep there…

But as Yoffie, Michael, and Lily backed out of the clearing, the brambles opened up to let them through – and then closed up as they passed, creating an impenetrable barrier. Followed by another path opening up leading deeper into the Wyrdwood, which – as the group followed it – lined and eventually carpeted with bioluminescent flowers. Making the gang realize that they were apparently being summoned somewhere for something…

B) The beginning of “Oxventure D&D: Wyrdwood | Chapter 4: The Path of Broken Oaths!” The first twenty or so minutes of this episode (which picked up immediately from the end of the last one) featured:

I. The gang following the path to what was NOMINALLY a clearing – the forest floor was clear, but the canopy overhead grew over it like a ceiling, making it a bit more like a spherical room than anything else. And in said “room,” they found a chair made out of tree roots and such, and in that chair they found a Green Man – a tall man essentially made of leaves and bark and roots. Lug was like “we should kneel NOW,” and everyone obligingly knelt –

Except Cressida, who refused to ruin her dress any further and instead just politely nodded. The prostrating Robin promptly edged away from her. XD Fortunately the Green Man was not one to stand on ceremony and said that they could get up (Robin was like “why’d you tell us to kneel” to Lug, who replied “it’s better to kneel and not have to than not kneel and find out you SHOULD have”) –

And then the guy promptly got distracted by Happen, who he found fascinating because he was someone who should not be (a “common folk” from the Balewood, who I remind you isn’t supposed to have any common folk in it because their own wild folk killed them for attacking another region). Poor Happen got dragged into the canopy for a bit so the Green Man could get a better look at him using the trees. He took this with his usual calm, still completely confused as to why everyone was so interested in him being from Balewood. XD The Green Man also noted the strangeness about Robin, though our possessed commoner boy managed to avoid being dragged into the canopy. For now. XD

II. The Green Man asking the group their purpose (they explained how they’d been tasked by the folkmoot to investigate what had happened to magic and asked if he knew anything about it; he admitted that he and his wild folk were as in the dark as they were), then getting down to business – namely, informing the five that they owed a blood debt to the Wyrdwood for what they did to the ash tree that took over the people of Oakburn. He acknowledged that they’d acted in self defense, yes, but it was already a thorny situation when they stumbled into the village, and the ash tree spirit had had friends in the Wyrdwood, and – yeah. There was a debt, and they had to make it right. Cressida promptly tried to offer the Green Man some gold coins from her personal stash – the wild folk watching on from the trees were offended, but fortunately the Green Man himself was amused that she thought she could pay this sort of debt off with mortal coin. He explained that he had a bargain for them instead – in exchange for clearing the debt, and being offered free passage through the Wyrdwood (as he and his DID want them to figure out what the fuck was going on with magic), they were to visit a hamlet that bordered the Wyrdwood nearby. They too had entered into the Windfall Bargain (which allowed them to forage and hunt in the Wyrdwood safely), but when the wild folk emerged from their winter hibernation of sorts, the people there hadn’t come to renew their bargains and bonds. The Green Man was actually more worried than offended, and wanted the quintet to see what was going on, and tell the residents that they were ready to renew their bonds if they were. Happen spoke up for the group, agreeing this was reasonable –

And then started going on about “but this will take us away from our very important mission, I feel like we should get an extra reward on top of this.” The Green Man was like “wow, you do NOT care if you live or die, do you.” XD Happen admitted he rejoiced in the possibility, and Johnny had him roll to convince the Green Man, which of course involved the use of the Cadence Die –

Which let us all down by rolling one of the normal numbers. XD The Green Man decided he found Happen amusing and said “go do your duty, and we’ll see what happens – I promise nothing now.” Which in its own way is pretty darn lucky, sooo praise Cadence! XD

III. And the group managing to convince the Green Man to let them have a tight eight hours in the clearing, because they could all use a long rest! Fortunately he was amendable to that (possibly because even he realized it was the middle of the night and they weren’t going to make much progress anyway), and the group settled in for a snooze –

EXCEPT for Robin, who was now pulling the same thing Morven did and taking levels of exhaustion to avoid losing control of his body. (Robin, with your stat block, that’s a lot more dangerous for you!) The Green Man “helped” him stay awake by staring at him curiously all night – even when Robin tried to use the toilet behind a convenient tree (just opening up eyes in the tree, as per Andy). Robin eventually decided he could hold it until they got to the village. XD Hey, it definitely helped keep him awake!

So yeah – seems like the gang need to get this next village sorted if they don’t want the Wyrdwood angry with them anymore! I left it with all the others waking up and preparing to head out and do their duty – tomorrow, we see what’s wrong with THIS village, and if it can be fixed without committing more wild folk murder! Hopefully! Be nice!

2. Continue editing “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – Alice finally made it to Grout’s inner sanctum today! A process that involved climbing yet more stairs (so many stairs in this final section), and having to listen to two of Grout’s horrible tapes in a row – these detailing his growing terror around the unnamed vampire his voices keep warning him about, and his final decision to withdraw from vampire society and retreat into his mansion, making a “Faustian bargain” with his voices in an attempt to keep himself and his wife safe. The latter ended with him raving about how they kept telling him of a “macabre and formless menace” that would be the end of everything – Alice replied “I’m a menace who very much has a form, thanks, and I’m still thinking of shooting you and being done with it.” XD Fortunately Wonderland was like “no gun, just keeping moving forward,” and Alice was – sort of happy to comply. I left it with her being surprised the doors into Grout’s private quarters just opened – tomorrow, she’s going to step into the room beyond and promptly find some very different things to be surprised by...

3. Keep up with YouTube “Subs”: Check – popped into my Watch Later today to catch up on “The Sims 4 Enchanted by Nature: 10 FEATURES You Might Not Know!” by onlyabidoang (and his adorable instant noodle cardboard wings)! Abi spent just about eighteen minutes telling us about the stuff included in the pack that you might not have noticed or not realized was possible, covering things like:

A) The improvements the pack brings to Plant Sims (who get a couple of new abilities powered by fairy dust (like the ability to inflict a “Poison Kiss” that could give a Sim the “Greenie Meanie” ailment), and some lore courtesy of a chat with Spruce Almighty (which basically confirmed they will always be a temporary life state)

B) The two new ways fairies can die (which includes “emotional starvation” – letting their Emotional Force need drain completely – and “emotional overload” – absorbing too many emotions when their Emotional Force need is already full! The first is a new unique death; the second just triggers one of three emotional deaths that were already in the game – and actually takes some doing, as the game gives you MULTIPLE warnings to stop)

C) How fairies get along with other occults from other packs (they have a natural fondness for mermaids and werewolves, complete with the ability to refresh a mermaid’s Hydration need and soothe a werewolf’s Fury if they have the right powers unlocked, and a natural dislike for vampires and spellcasters, complete with mean interactions to accuse them of using dark magic or being unnatural magic users – and they can even absorb a vampire’s vampirism! O.o That feels – overpowered, honestly)

D) All the things fairies can do while shrunk (play in various objects, splash around in the sink, sleep in a dollhouse, visit a fairy house, or even woohoo! With the ability to shrink down any non-fairy partners temporarily)

E) And confirming that you don’t HAVE to make a fairy with visible wings if you don’t want to (like how you mentioned wanting to make Bob and Cyrus in the game if you could go wingless, Gigs – though it still looks like they’d float around as if they did have wings. Appropriate for the Peter Pan sim Abi made; perhaps less appropriate for Bob!)

All neat stuff! Though again, after seeing some of the stuff fairies can do with other occults, they ARE feeling a little overpowered to me...and that’s BEFORE watching his video all about fairies and their numerous special abilities! I wonder how overpowered they’ll feel to me then… :P

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – just Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) to worry about tonight, and I ended up reblogging another story I’d seen on tumblr and quite enjoyed into my queue for Thursday – Eating Gods by Caffeine Witchcraft. Which, I should warn you, was tagged with “gore,” “blood,” and “cannibalism,” and starts off with a semi-graphic second-person description of the protagonist eating her humanoid god, then choking and passing out when she realizes what she’s doing and tries and fails to pull him back out. It gets a lot less gory after that, but – yeah. Beware those first few paragraphs! That said, if you can stomach the beginning, it’s a really good story about someone stuck in an abusive relationship with her god, and her eventual rescue by her new coworker and HIS god. It’s pretty raw at times, but I enjoyed it a lot. And it made me think about how, for all their faults, at least Mar-Mal (my eldritch god version of The Smiler coaster) genuinely loves Smiler and would NEVER hurt them like this. One of the benefits of worshiping/having a pact with a being of pure happiness, I suppose. But yeah – been meaning to reblog it, and now it’s in the queue, yay. :)

Other: Another nice day meant another round of beanbags – which went pretty similarly to yesterday’s round, except that Mom didn’t get second every time – instead, Dad managed to get second in the game I won, making him definitely the undisputed champ of the day. Like he is most days we play, honestly. :P Final scores were me 3-W-3; Dad W-2-W; and Mom 2-3-2. We’ll see what happens the next time we get to play!

*nods* Not too shabby a Wednesday overall! And being over my period at last helps too. :P And now it is time for me to head to bed -- hopefully tomorrow is also a chill day, vibes-wise! We shall see -- night all!

Like, I wasn't TOO grumpy most of the day, but there was some stuff that annoyed me and threw my schedule out of whack (which just annoys me more) --

Work – It was a pretty quiet Monday at the office today – after doing the GL, I spent most of my time working on that one big mega-batch that came back in the exceptions last week with my coworker, finding ID numbers and setting up profiles for a bunch of donors before trying to get all the gifts on the system (they have to be in one big batch as they’re all covered by one big parish check). Unfortunately, a combination of there being a loooot of gifts in the batch (over a hundred!), me being interrupted at one point by a credit card call (someone making payments on their Appeal AND capital campaign pledges), and me discovering a small batch of envelopes that HADN’T had ID numbers associated with them halfway through the pile meant that I didn’t finish the batch before it was time to go, meh. *sigh* All I can do is pick up where I left off tomorrow (after getting ID numbers for the remaining envelopes) and hope I can finish it then! We’ll see what happens.

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike, and back to the D&D Folk Horror Oxventure with “Oxventure D&D: Wyrdwood | Chapter 3: Howls In The Night!” When we left off at the end of the last episode, the gang had been forced to kill an entire village of tree zombies and the tree controlling them; they’d gotten a message from the team going North that two of theirs were injured, and to be careful as the Wyrdwood was angry; and Happen had seen a rabbit made of shadow meld with Willowfine’s shadow while she was tapping out a reply to Team North, asking if they needed help. Today’s episode picked up a few hours after that, and featured:

A) The gang continuing their hike northwest, heading into the moors and out of the forest, after getting a message from Team North saying “we’re surviving, we’ll be okay, please continue your mission” on the magical copestones they use to communicate with each other (chiseling messages back and forth – yes, it DOES sound inconvenient, and I fully expect these things to fail at the worst possible moment sometime in the future). We also got a fun surprise lore drop about how the copestones work after Andy made a joke about if you could leave someone “on read” with the copestones; Luke told Johnny “it’s okay to tell him no;” and Johnny was like “actually, the way I pictured them working was the message heals over once its read, so you can reuse it.” Naturally, this sort of exchange promptly became a bit of a running gag in the early bit of the episode. XD

B) The gang coming across a fellow, Yoffie, and his two children, Michael and Lily, driving a mule-pulled wagon along the wreckage of the road through the moors and deciding to ask if they could bum a ride! Because all this walking wasn’t doing Robin’s feet any good, after all. :P This did not go PARTICULARLY well, as Robin’s attempt to reassure Yoffie they weren’t murderers was promptly derailed by Happen pointing out that that wasn’t true (Robin: “I haven’t murdered anyone!” The others: “Technically.”) and Willowfine trying to smooth things over by promising Yoffie they wouldn’t murder him specifically. XD Fortunately for them, Yoffie was a nice chap and willing to let them ride, and allowed them to clamber in the back while he gave Lily the reins and got out to walk alongside with Michael (who was rather put out at having to use his human legs, as Johnny put it XD).

C) The gang having a fairly awkward wagon ride, including:

I. Learning that Yoffie and his kids had yanked the wagon out of some mud a while back, meaning that it was absolutely filthy – Cressida cleaned herself a patch to sit on using Prestidigitation, and was horrified to discover the original color was OFF-WHITE XD

II. Robin asking Happen about his religion and what he got out of worshiping Cadence, with Happen trying to explain that it’s all about surrendering to luck, not about getting presents, and Robin going on about how a friend of his got the ability to fly from his god (though he did immediately admit the guy hadn’t been able to demonstrate as they’d been in the pub at the time), and someone else got first a bucket, then the ability to throw it over his house. XD It was also established that Happen’s order carries around little coins with them with Cadence’s symbol (a skull with dice for eyes) with them for quick decision-making, and give them out to friends – Happen gave one to Robin, who noted that Happen gave one to Michael (to soothe the kid grumpiness about having to walk) before the rest of them. Happen was like “...Michael seems nice.” XD

III. The gang telling Robin about some of the spells that Morven cast while in control of his body, including the blender that was “Hunger Of Hadar” and the terrifying purple “Sorcerous Burst” that helped take out the flame-guy monster back in episode one – Robin was pretty shaken up, as you might expect! Poor guy, he never asked for any of this...but to be fair, neither did Morven, so… And they did at least stress that using those terrifyingly deadly spells helped save them from danger, though I don’t think that was any comfort to him in the end.

IV. Robin asking Willowfine about where she was from (probably to stop thinking about his Morven situation), which led to her and Happen having a bit of a theological debate (Willowfine not thinking much of Cadence, since HER god does a lot for her local community – Happen was unruffled by this, thankfully). Prompting Robin to try and change the subject again by asking Cressida if she’d like to try his homemade wine. Which had “grape-adjacent” things in it. XD A desperate Cressida actually consented to try it, and fortunately made the Constitution saving throw not to be poisoned. Johnny called it “passable sewage” in their description (prompting Mike to note that all sewage is passable). XD

V. The gang talking to Cressida about what she did in her hometown as a banker (as they’re all rather more familiar with the barter system), and her explaining how she inherited the business from her mother, and that she was in charge of looking after everyone’s coins and keeping them safe from harm. Cue Lily handing her a bag of money, which Cressida very happily took (along with some wooden nickels from Robin, and more of Happen’s Cadence coins). XD Johnny also took the opportunity to drop some lore about money in Heorth – namely, only the upper crust really use it much, and there’s the standard set of gold, silver, and copper pieces. There USED to be iron pieces as well, as the lowest value, but everyone kept melting them down to turn into tools, so the mint just gave up. XD

VI. And talk turning back to the whole “could you throw a bucket over your house?” question after Robin asked if Cressida could throw one over hers – Cressida said she could make the bucket fly over her house; Lug said it would be easy for him, as he’s both really strong and lives in a tiny hovel; Willowfine said she’d never tried, but was pretty sure she could; and Robin revealed he’d tried and accidentally gave himself a second window in the attempt. XD I’m sure the goat that now lives there appreciates it, Robin!

D) The conversation finally being interrupted by Willowfine and Cressida noticing some odd shapes against the setting sun – Willowfine wasn’t sure what they were, but Cressida’s half-elf eyes could see they were a strange blue-gray, and very furry… Cue the pair of shapes howling and giving chase to the wagon, and Cressida hastily trying to warn everyone of werewolves, or at least something wolf-shaped! Causing the mules to start scenting the air, smell the downwind wolf-creatures –

And PANIC, bolting ahead and leaving poor Yoffie and Michael behind! Lug hopped off to help protect the two as Robin scrambled to help Lily get the mules under control, and combat against the two wolf-creatures (which were terrible things with the bodies of wolves but the heads of humans, sporting yellow cat-like eyes and mouths full of needle-like teeth) began! I got through Happen’s round before having to stop for the night, with the guy managing to get off a pair of good shots against both the wolf-creature menacing Yoffie and Michael and the one running alongside the wagon trying to get to the mules (with the help of a little Heroic Inspiration) – tomorrow, we’ll start off by seeing what Robin does to help Lily regain control of the wagon, and go from there!

2. Continue writing “The Van Dort Vacancy”: Check – started Chapter 5 today, with Victor, Alice, and Smiler collecting Barnaby and Kasimir from the wine cellar! As expected, Barnaby was very reluctant to leave, while Kasimir had quietly knicked a few bottles of the good stuff (Victor politely pretended not to notice the gaps in the aging racks). XD However, on their way up and out, the gang was surprised by the appearance of Mrs. Pemberly, looking for her wayward staff – fortunately, the minute she saw Barnaby, it was very easy to convince her that he’d essentially stolen Alice and Smiler from her to show him around the cellar. (Especially given what Barnaby is like to anyone lower-ranked than he is!) Victor followed up by lying that Nell had banned him from the party for showing up so suddenly, and that he’d been sent to check on the new servants, which happily Mrs. Pemberly also bought (probably because she knows what Nell is like, and was so impressed by Alice and Smiler’s work in the kitchen that she was willing to give everyone the benefit of the doubt now). I left off with Victor claiming that he was bringing the newbies to the servant’s quarters to get settled in (subtly implying that his bag is their things) – next time, we see if Mrs. Pemberly buys that too! (Spoiler: she will, because of that crit engagement roll. XD)

3. Keep up with YouTube “Subs”: Check – I unfortunately got to the YouTubes later than I wanted (I got annoyed by WeirdKev on tumblr asking if I’d been checking the doc with all the info on what he wanted in his birthday fic – yes, I’d checked it, the fic is already written, you’re gonna get what you’re gonna get now – which meant it was much harder for me to concentrate on the Wyrdwood write-up and my page on “The Van Dort Vacancy,” meaning it took loads longer for me to accomplish anything tonight), but I was determined to watch SOMETHING. So I turned to Proxy Gate Tactician, and watched the final under-ten-minutes video I had left to watch on his channel: “40 Ways You Can Escape Jail In Baldur's Gate 3!” Featuring Proxy going through the six jails you can get locked up in over the course of the game (from the crappy jail in the Emerald Grove to the pretty solid jails in Baldur’s Gate’s Lower City) and demonstrating 41 ways to escape them (he added in one bonus way to offset two of the ways involving making and climbing a tower to get out over a door). Ways to escape ranged from the ridiculously simple (pickpocket a guard when they’re near your cell to get the key), to the simply ridiculous (using an illusory cat to lure in the guards and sneak out the open door while they were distracted), to the “obvious when you think about it” (melt the door with anything that involves an acid-based attack), to the “completely unique to this jail” (leaping out a giant hole in the wall in the side of the Grove jail, or answering the riddles of a talking skull to get teleported out in the Wyrm Fortress jail). It was a pretty interesting video, and I enjoyed seeing just how many ways you can climb, trick, or just magically teleport yourself to freedom. XD Good to know if Smiler and company ever end up locked up during their adventures!

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – just Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) to worry about tonight, and while I’d hoped to do more, I did at least get the most important post in my queue for tomorrow – WeirdKev’s gift fic! The conversation between LaCroix and Glomgold that serves as a sequel to his Christmas fic. I hope he likes it! (Especially after him asking about if I was checking the doc or not earlier...hmph.)

Other: It was actually a nice day out for once, so me and the family played beanbags shortly after I got home – and while we were all kinda rusty, nobody was rustier than me, who lost all three games. :( I’m just not good at beanbags anymore, it seems! Dad, of course, dominated the first two games, but Mom managed to sneak in a win in the third one – final scores were me 3-3-3; Dad W-W-2; Mom 2-2-W. *shrug* Tomorrow’s supposed to be good as well – we’ll see if I improve any then!

So yeah, not overall a bad day, I just wish things had gone better this evening! Didn't help that a BG3 mod that I thought looked really cool might actually wreck your progress in an act if you actually use it the way it's meant to be used (it's a "player home" mod, but if you go to the player home, it advances quests and stuff without warning you, so...). *grumbles* Why is all the neatest stuff most prone to screwing things up? *shakehead* Anyway, I gotta get to bed -- night all!

What the hell does that title mean, you ask? Well, as for "Periody," it was the second day of my period, meaning I was rather moody, sluggish both mentally and physically, and dealing with a murder scene every time I went to the bathroom today -- fucking biology, I swear. And as for "Mostly Cleaning" -- well, see below --

Cleaning & Laundry: Yup, we had a full load today, with me both needing to clean my room and do the monthly wash of all my blankets and my bathrobe along with my sheets. And unfortunately, it was also one of those days where I had a bit of a slow start, and everything took a little longer than I thought it was going to take. :( Which I think can be blamed on a combination of my period making me feeling generally drained, and me deliberately drawing the dusting out some I could listen to the whole two-and-a-half-hour final episode of Oxventure Presents: Blades In The Dark, “Magic, Ghosts, Danger & Death.” XD What, I really love it and I wanted to make sure I heard the whole thing! How could I pass up hearing the gang finally reaching the Barricade? Cheering them on as they battled Amadeus Astor in one final massive boss fight? Laughing my ass off as Barnaby threw a flask of water on someone because he thought it was some strange exotic chemical concoction? XD Yeah, that kind of highlights the problems with listening to these things while I clean – they’re really fun, but they DO slow me down because I get so into them. Should probably go back to just plain music now that I’m done!

Anyway, regarding how the actual cleaning went – initial dusting started around 10:30 AM-ish, and I threw the laundry in around 11:30 AM-ish. Lunch was kind of late today (mom had to bake the bread for sausage-and-pepper sandwiches because we had no premade rolls or anything), so I was able to get the dusting and Swiffering done and my laundry in the dryer before we finally ate a little after 1:30 PM. I’d hoped to get to my vacuuming right afterward, but a combination of having to help dry all the dishes (working around Mom making meatballs for supper) and an – unfortunate intestinal incident – driving me to the toilet for an embarrassingly long time (I don’t know if I ate something that somewhat disagreed with me, or if my period is just encouraging my intestines to be bastards, but – yeah) meant I didn’t start vacuuming until about 2:50 PM, and didn’t wrap up until just after 3 PM. At which point, my blankets and such were ready to come out of the dryer, so I just went and go those and folded them up while listening to the Superliminal title screen music. Meaning I finally finished and got to start my video gaming around 3:20 PM. *sigh* It would have been earlier if my guts had declined to be such bastards! Meeeh...

Superliminal: I went through the “Labyrinth” level today after finally finishing my cleaning today – and this was another one where getting some of those goodies took some real doing, let me tell you! But I didn’t falter in my mission and, with the help of my guide (and a bit of reloading), I managed to collect:

A) The red pawn hiding in a secret corridor in the sideways room you fall into after falling down a hallway you were previously walking down! This room has a gimmick where there’s an exit door up on the wall high above your head that’s interactive – however, the first time you try to interact with it, it just falls off and hit the wall-floor that you’re standing on. Picking it up again puts a hole in the floor that you can use to escape the room and continue the level. However, there’s a bright blue corridor up on the wall where the exit door originally was, and to reach it, you have to manipulate the exit door into becoming a big old ramp that you can climb up. Hidden in that corridor, under a window in the floor (because of course the corridor is sideways too), is the red pawn. It took me two tries to get the door into the proper position to become a ramp – the first time I ended up shrinking it to tiny size and eventually dropping it through the level architecture, forcing me to reload – but I did it in the end. Moving to another position so I wasn’t fighting the benches nailed to the floor-wall next to me helped a lot, let me tell you! And I also found a fire extinguisher I missed in that corridor, so doubly-glad I got up there!

B) The first blueprint of the level, which was atop the scaffolding sitting on the right-hand side of the “waterfall” pool room, where you have to climb the ledges with the help of a die – which disappears on you when you climb the first ledge, then reappears on the next ledge up with a cheeky smiley face drawn on it. Annoyingly, when this first happened, I turned around too quickly to try and catch the die reappearing, and fell off the first ledge, preventing myself from grabbing the die and forcing a reload – lucky for me the game made a checkpoint right at the start of the room! *sigh* Anyway, to get up onto the scaffolding, you have to climb up the ledges with the die, then go into the backstage area just beyond the room, get a soda from the Dream Soda machine, then use the soda and the die to create a crude pathway up to the top of the scaffolding (generally by making them both really big in a way where you can still climb up them). This REALLY took some doing, as I couldn’t get the die to balance properly on the soda can for the LONGEST time, and kept shrinking the damn thing by accident, but EVENTUALLY I got something that worked and was able to get up on the scaffolding and get the damn blueprint. *shakehead* Oh Pillow Castle (the people behind the game), why are you like this…

C) The blue queen chess piece, which was stuck to the cord of a lamp in the corridor just beyond the room with a yellow button you have to weigh down with a chess piece to open the way forward (at least, that’s how it looked to me – it was dark up near the ceiling!). And using the yellow queen chess piece in the room with you won’t work, because if you put that piece on the button, it immediately turns into a painted image on the wall (it’s delightfully freaky). What you do for the puzzle is stand on the button yourself, see the yellow knight chess piece waiting for you in the corridor beyond, and pick it up and put it on the button to weigh it down and let you proceed. What you do to get the blue queen is to then grab the knight chess piece from the button (thanks to how this game works, once it’s in your pointer hand it’ll be close enough to you not to disappear when the door closes again – it’ll just be small), resize it so you can use it to climb onto the big green pipe running along the side of the room, then grab it and put it on the pipe with you near the lamp, leaning against the wall so you can use it to jump onto the lamp and get close enough to the blue queen to click it (as she’s easily visible from the floor, just too far away to interact with). This one was also a bit annoying, as I had trouble getting the knight into a good position on the pipe so I could use it to leap onto the lamp, but I got there in the end!

D) The second blueprint of the level, which was at the end of a little corridor behind where you land when you drop into the faux-cubism art gallery room with the die that, when you pick it up, suddenly turns the room into an overlit “simulation” room with white lights everywhere and the avocado bed in the middle of the ledge that you you have to climb up. If you turn around instead of immediately picking up the die, you can go around a corner and find some blueprints for, interestingly enough, the NEXT level, “Whitespace,” depicting some of the giant chess pieces there. This is probably one of the easiest blueprints in the game to find –

As evidenced by the fact that, when I went to collect it – I found that the blueprint was already completed. Meaning I’d already clicked on this at some point in the past. O.o I’m guessing that, at one point during one of my original runs, I must have turned around and come this way thinking that maybe it was the way I was MEANT to go, clicked on the blueprint, gone “???”, and then just continued playing because I don’t think I knew about all the collectibles when I first played this back in 2022. XD Welp, at least I knew that one already counted toward my total!

E) The “Projector” constellation room, which was in the overlit simulation room you find yourself after picking up the die in the previous room! Or, rather, it was under it – there’s a square of rectangular white lights in the floor on the lower level of that room, and behind the fake elevator door behind you, there’s some hidden stairs leading down to the corridor that leads to the star room (or you can just wander around until you fall down the hole, like I did XD). I found what I thought were the stars for the constellation pretty quickly, but lining them up took a minute as I struggled to find the right angle to make the projector. Figured it out in the end, though, and was pleased to see the image come to life! That’s almost every constellation collected now, yay~

F) And the third blueprint of the level, which was atop the little room that appears in the endless parking lot once you’ve walked far enough to turn all four horizons you were heading for into four solid walls (I’m – not sure how to explain it any better than that). My guide said that the best way to do that was to climb up the electrical box on the side of the room – I did so, with the help of a nearby chair, and discovered the blueprint lying on the roof. Glad it didn’t require me to drag any items along with me to climb up there! I would have been so annoyed…

So yeah – that’s the penultimate set of collectibles snagged! And as for interesting things I noticed along the way:

I. The electrical boxes you see in various places in this level have proper warning signs on them, telling people not to mess with them – I’d say “safety first,” but this is a game that actively encourages you to empty any fire extinguishers and pull every fire alarm you find, so… XD

II. The water fountains you find while navigating the corridors of the section where the Standard Orientation Protocol stops the Emergency Exit Protocol from waking you up have a sign over them that says “WARNING: This machine is remotely controlled and may start without warning.” I do not think the water fountains actually turn on at any point – but after seeing that sign, they really should! Those two, at least. (Honestly, I think you should just be able to click on them and dispense water, like you can click on the fire extinguishers. Have an achievement for it: “Hydration Achieved” or something like that.)

III. I also got a good look at one of the corkboards in this area, which had two things of interest pinned to it –

a. The mysterious “How To Start It” paper I’ve seen in the reception area of other levels, finally in a place and at a size where I could read it! Turns out it was something Dr. Glenn (yes, two “n”s, apparently I misspelled it before) Pierce typed up while trying to come up with greetings for people who were starting their SomnaSculpt experience! Ranging from the casual “Hey, Glenn here – welcome to your first ever Somnasculpture!” to the fanciful “Greetings, traveler. Welcome to the wonderful world of SomnaSculpt. I am Glenn Pierce, and I will be your guide on this journey.” to the egotistical “Welcome to the future of medical treatment. My name is Dr. Pierce, and I invented SomnaSculpt. Given time, we can, and will, solve everything.” XD And yes, his familiar “Hello. My name is Dr. Glenn Pierce” was on the list too, because it had to be. Honestly, I’m glad he went with that one – him going “Hey, Glenn here” at the start of every message like Cave Johnson from Portal 2 would have had a much different vibe.

b. And a paper covered in code for – well, I thought it was actual code from the game, but apparently it’s code for how the SomnaSculpt system itself works! Which is pretty neat, though much neater are the two Post-It notes stuck to the code printout, one saying “Always asking WHY we’re doing this,” and the other saying “Keep making the game, keep going, don’t mess it up, don’t worry about the bugs in your brain, just do everything by the time it’s over with.” Which is – kinda creepy! But this whole game is kinda creepy, frankly, especially this level – yeah, I know “Blackout” is the explicitly horror-themed one, but this is the one that implies you’re going to be trapped in a dream forever by the incompetence of your carers, which is a lot scarier. I feel like whoever we’re playing should sue Dr. Pierce after this is all over!

IV. There’s a bit in the part where you keep being teleported back into your room whenever you try to leave it after the Standard Orientation Protocol stops you leaving where you fall out of a sideways version of your bedroom and into a big backstage area with a lot of tables and chairs set up for dinner and an alarm clock on a chair, beeping at you (which, when pressed, teleports you back into the standard version of your suite). Now, after playing through “Blackout,” you’d think dinner would be beans, but instead they chose to reuse the chopped-up carrot assets from the “knife jumpscare” moment right before you reach the “IDEA” generator. Maybe the staff accidentally re-enacted the famous fart scene from Blazing Saddles and decided they need more vegetables in their diet or something. XD

V. Something does make a return from “Blackout,” though – the RySan boxes from the box maze! One is in one of the corridors in the backstage area where you’re trying to make your escape, right before you end up falling down a hallway that’s suddenly turned sideways onto a giant red pawn.

VI. Those blue recycling bins you see around the place are apparently only for recycling cardboard, according to a sign above one right next to that giant red pawn. Good to know!

VII. There’s a weirdly shiny SOMETHING attached to one of the walls in the room just below the breakaway floor room (where you THINK you have to resize some stairs to reach an exit high on a wall, but making the stairs bigger makes the floor break apart under you and drops you into a basement area), reflecting the doors on the opposite wall – no idea what it was, but it was interesting!

VIII. The room you go through right before entering the “waterfall pool” room with its moving dice shakes as you go through it, and sounds like a subway train is traveling over it – given SomnaSculpt’s headquarters are in a strip mall, I wonder if this is a reference to something happening in the real world?

IX. Remember that disappearing die in the “waterfall pool” room? What’s interesting is, when it disappears, you can actually hear the die land behind you with a “thunk” – hearing that is what caused me to spin around too fast and fall off the ledge my first time in there.

X. At one point, there’s a maze where you have to find the correct path through a bunch of elevator doors, eventually aided by arrows on the floor (the actual “maze” is pretty small, as per the director’s commentary, because with every room looking alike, they didn’t need to make it big – they just needed to loop people through the same few rooms a couple of times). By sheer coincidence, I managed to speed-run it, taking the right path so that I ended up where the last arrow actually points you to the door that leads outside to the seemingly-endless parking lot. I have no idea how I did that and could not tell you the path I took if you put a gun to my head, but – I’m proud of myself regardless. XD

XI. In addition to the room with your bed that appears in the parking lot once you’ve closed it in, there’s also a separate wall containing a door with a welcome mat, plus a fancy griddle stove next to it for some reason. Complete with a pot on the stovetop. O.o Oookay then. XD

XII. And the big one – when I consulted my guide on where to find the “Projector” constellation room, the person who wrote it mentioned they called it the “Moon Projector” constellation because the projector appears on the main menu screen after you find it, and projects a big old moon on the wall. I was like “ooh, cool,” and – once I was done with the level – returned to the main menu screen to check this. To my delight, I discovered that the guide creator had not lied, and the projector was there, resting on a shelf and projecting the moon on the wall –

And then I looked around the main menu screen and went “hang on. Are ALL the constellation objects in here? Have they ALL been gradually added after I find the rooms and I just haven’t noticed because I haven’t paid that much attention to the main menu?” I thus did some research this evening – and yes, I do believe that is the case! Mostly because I found a couple of examples of a main menu from people who hadn’t yet played the game, and THOSE images didn’t have the Dream Soda machine, or the coffee cup on the ladder, or the cheese wheel on the desk, or any of the other objects I’ve found! So that’s cool – wish I’d noticed earlier! And, apparently, once I find all the constellation objects, I unlock a way to dynamically CHANGE the main menu screen if I want. :D So that’s something to look forward to!

*nods* And that is – NOT that for “Labyrinth,” because unfortunately while I found all the collectibles, and the one fire extinguisher I hadn’t yet emptied, I did not find any unpulled fire alarms! I don’t know where the missing one is lurking – I was looking HARD for those! *frowns* But yes, “Labyrinth” now joins “Optical” in the category of “Levels I Will Have To Replay Later To Get A Missing Item.” Tomorrow, though, we concentrate on finishing off the game proper with “Whitespace,” the final actually playable level (as the actual finale, “Retrospective,” is basically just a big cutscene). And fortunately, as per the Level Select, I HAVE found all the fire alarms and fire extinguishers in there, so I just need to get the collectibles proper. Wish me luck! (Not in finding them, since I’ve got the guide, but in just grabbing the fiddly little bastards. XD)

Writing: Got another page written on “The Van Dort Vacancy” – Victor, Alice, and Smiler got Victor’s clothes, books, sketchbook, and quills packed up today, with Victor lamenting that he didn’t dare take his inks or paints for fear of them spilling, or his easel because it was just too unwieldy (Alice promising him they’d earmark some of their ill-gotten gains to buy him a new one). Smiler suggested Victor also take the big purple blanket on his bed (aka my big purple blanket, which I included in what I believe was one of the first VITD short stories I ever wrote (for the first Polyship Week I participated in, if I recall correctly) – I had Victor explicitly think he was glad he took it from home in that story, so I had to include it here), which prompted Victor to realize that he wanted to take something hidden under said bed – his collection of “slug stories,” aka the Duskwallian equivalent of Victorian “penny dreadfuls.” Hey, my regular Victors read stuff like “Varney The Vampire,” so my VITD Victor had to have a similar vice! :P Anyway, he rooted around for them under there for a bit while talking cheap periodicals with Smiler and Alice (allowing me to bring up the “Amusements” magazine Smiler was reading in one of my more recent VITD stories for Multiamory March – Alice and Victor were very surprised to learn it was NOT an Advocate publication) –

Only to instead find an old fancy masquerade mask. From a party where he was forced to stand around in a stiff, elaborate, horrible costume, and where, when he attempted to woo some ladies the way he saw the other men doing, he got laughed at so cruelly he ran and hid by the buffet for the rest of the party. I ended the chunklet with Smiler asking if Victor had ANY happy memories. I am starting to wonder that myself, Smiler! But don’t worry – tomorrow, Victor’s going to make an announcement that’s going to make YOU very happy, at least...

YouTube: Well, I was hoping to watch more than just the one video, but circumstances forbade. So instead I focused on getting out of my Watch Later the one video I most wanted to watch: “Fast Traffic in Red Dead Redemption 2 is CARNAGE | We React to Ultra Fast Carriages in RDR2” by OXBox! Another one of their newly-beloved “react” videos, this one featured Mike letting Andy play his copy of Red Dead Redemption 2 while Jane watched on, giving Andy control of John Marston in the town of St. Denis and tasking him with getting over to the train station – with Andy and Jane adding the goal of getting to the tailor first, because neither of them approved of the shitty outfit Mike had stuck his John Marston in. There was just one small problem with this plan – Mike had installed the mod “Rampage Trainer,” which makes every carriage in this game travel at the speed of light. As you might imagine, this caused no small amount of chaos, and no small amount of trouble for poor Andy as he tried to get around town. XD Highlights of the video included:

A) Andy starting the challenge being wanted for murder because so many people had died from all the carriages crashing into the buildings/the ground/each other, and then promptly making things worse by shooting every policeman who came for him, all while desperately trying to dodge the carriages – it ended with him having to die so he could start clean

B) Andy having a horse just taken out from clean under him by one of the ultrafast carriages while trying to figure out how to cross a busy road in front of him

C) Andy finally getting John to the tailor (after yet more horse death, flying horses from all the crashing carriages, some very Silent Hill-esque juddering from a carriage on fire caught in a small tunnel off a building, and a brief stint in jail from John being accused of murder AGAIN thanks to being near all this carriage death) and the editors having to speed up how long it took him to chose a new outfit for John (to be fair, I have heard via my friend Squid, who also plays this game, that the clothing system in RDR2 is TOP NOTCH, so him taking a while to get it just right makes sense)

D) Andy getting double-tapped by two carriages in short succession after thinking he found a safe place to stand on the tram line in an area where there are almost no carriages, being launched practically to space, and then falling down and landing perfectly on the top of the tram, giving him three seconds to actually heal up

E) Andy having to deal with another carriage slam knocking John Marston onto a boat in the nearby harbor as he finally got near the station – which was a problem, because John canonically can’t swim (if he drops into swimmable water, his stamina bar INSTANTLY drains). Fortunately, there was a ladder nearby that he could climb before he drowned, and he managed to avoid death by carriage

F) Andy finally getting John to the ticket station...only for the ticket seller to be too busy cowering in terror of the carnage outside to actually sell him a ticket. So Andy instead had John get into the trainyard and climb into one of the train’s freight carriages, and they called that a win. XD He then stupidly climbed out of the carriage to investigate why a dead horse was on a rooftop, and got creamed by another flaming carriage wreck. XD

Fucking hilarious – it’s amazing how much fun you can have with just one mod adding a specific bit of chaos. XD Totally recommend watching this – it’s fourteen minutes of pure superfast carriage comedy!

Other: Got myself a frozen hot chocolate from Dunkin Donuts for the first time in years this afternoon, after playing Superliminal – I felt like, after all the cleaning and the intestinal nonsense, I deserved a treat. Was very tasty, AND I had a gift card that I found in my drawer at work, so I didn’t even have to pay for it. Yay! :)

So yeah -- not the worst day, but I wish I'd been more focused and hadn't had to spend most of it cleaning or, uh, pooping. *shakehead* Hopefully Sunday will be a little better -- hoping to answer Moose's messages; play Superliminal and finish off "Whitespace;" work some more on "The Van Dort Vacancy;" and keep up with Jon's latest F:NV YOLO Remastered video (probably gonna see if I can watch most of it with my workout). We will see what happens! But right now, I really have to get to bed -- night all!

My morning computer time was still cut short thanks to those fucking ants in the pantry (there was another little one on my granola bar box when I took it out this morning -- cue Mom taking EVERYTHING out of their original boxes and putting them in plastic sealed containers, and later washing out the entire thing AGAIN), and I had an annoyingly-long commute home tonight followed by more "what should we do for our vacation" talk almost the moment I walked in the door, but fortunately it wasn't as long a talk as yesterday, and I was able to catch up on all my stuff properly and watch my YouTube and all that jazz. :) Which means I am officially in a better mood tonight, yay. :) But I am still running a little later than I should on getting to bed, so here's my write-up:

Work – Well, it started out as another quiet day, with me doing the usual morning reports, then keeping as busy as I could with the obituaries...then, right after lunch, we got the go-ahead to start processing again, and while my coworker put on a bunch of checks, I concentrated on calling all the people with credit card issues/payments that I hadn’t been able to reach out to before. Had to leave messages for a few people, but I got one payment and one one-time gift done, so THOSE are out of my hair, at least. *nods* Though now I’m faced with a big batch of gifts from one of the parishes that all have to go on together because they’re under the same parish check...and I only just discovered none of them have ID stickers. *facepalm* Meaning I have to go through them and look them up/add them one by one. And there’s a LOT of them. *heavy sigh* My coworker got some of them done for me right before we left, at least, but she’s not gonna be in tomorrow, so...we’ll see what I manage to get done during my half-day!

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike, and back to James Turner’s for a couple of nights to watch “The Sims 4 Enchanted By Nature Build & Buy Overview!” Because it was the perfect length to watch with my final two workouts this week, and because I WAS curious what this pack had to offer, Build/Buy-wise. The half I watched today was mostly focused on the “Build” half of the equation, covering all the doors, windows, wall decorations (including friezes and floor trims and fake balconies for windows), foundations, stairs, columns, spandrels, stairs, railings, fences, gates, floor tiles, and wallpapers that came with the pack – plus all fancy plant wall decorations, some vaguely-plant-related items (like a pergola, wedding arch, swingset, and the apothecary stall), the new gnomes, and the potted plants, both regular “no maintenance needed” and new “actually you need to water these occasionally.” :P It was very interesting, with two distinct “sets” of items on display – a more mossy and whimiscal one, and a “could maybe be used in more normal builds” one – and a lot of stuff that would make a build look fun and magical. I liked it, and James did too –

For the most part. Because while he liked the general fairy-tale style of a lot of this stuff, he did still have some complaints too, namely:

I. He thought all of the doors, windows, etc. needed more fun and whimsical color swatches – the color options for them were kind of lacking, and he was confused why they didn’t just go all-in with bright colors and bold combinations and whatnot. (Though he did like the “villainous” purple-and-green swatches...and the pink-and-light-blue ones too, as they reminded him of cake. XD We might see a “building a cake house” video from him in the future!)

II. He complained how there was no need to make both a “regular” variant and a “curved” variant of one of the windows – and the curved variant didn’t even WORK correctly! Not only did the model squash and stretch in bizarre ways, when you viewed it from the inside, you could see the cut-out of the window around the actual model! That is, there were BIG GAPS around the edges of the window! Sheesh! I hoped they fixed that before release (as obviously this game out while James was playing with the Early Access version)

III. He didn’t like how stretched out the gates for the fences looked when on a diagonal (though he was glad each fence did COME with a matching gate, as we don’t always get those) – he just felt like it was lazy design. He also took advantage of the moment to complain more generally that, now that we’ve got the ability to place doors and windows anywhere on a wall, we should have the ability to place gates anywhere in a fence. (Would be nice, but I don’t think we’re getting it anytime soon!)

IV. He was kind of surprised at the lack of new floors and wallpapers in this expansion – and again, at the lack of fun color swatches for them. Whimsy! He demanded more whimsy!

V. He didn’t like that the two new roof-placeable plants in the pack were stuck into the “roof sculptures” category instead of the “outdoor plants” category, because one, they’re not really roof SCULPTURES, and two, THEY WERE THE ONLY NEW OUTDOOR PLANTS THAT CAME WITH THE PACK. Like, seriously – apparently those two, at least in Early Access, were IT. The fuck??? How can you be Enchanted By Nature if you don’t give us any nature to be enchanted by? O.o

VI. And, on the flip side, he wasn’t keen on the fact that most of the new wall art was JUST branches of fantasy wisteria to drape lovingly over your windows. Like, he ENJOYED that, he really liked the pieces, but at the same time, he’d been looking forward to new fairy-themed pictures and posters and whatnot, and the pack did NOT deliver. Hell, one of the few non-plant wall art pieces was an UNLOCKABLE – only accessible either via cheats or by maxing out the new “Naturopath” career. *shakehead* Absolutely ridiculous – I thought there was going to be a plethora of new pictures and posters myself! Meeeh.

So yeah – overall, he’s enjoying what the pack has to offer (and it all DOES look very nice – though I suspect I’m tempted by it mostly because of the “Smiler’s Fantasy Caravan” build I’m working on right now), but he isn’t afraid to criticize what he feels are dumb decisions and missed opportunities. *nods* Why we like his content! We’ll finish off with the more “house-focused” stuff tomorrow, as he put it – though I think we need to look at the new bar first. Because you can’t have a Sims 4 expansion pack without a bar! XD Granted, it is a VERY pretty bar with a VERY magical backdrop, but still. :P

2. Continue editing “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – having successfully escaped and contained another clawed ghoul last time, Alice spent today’s page in the maze examining the routes available to her from the little landing where she found herself – starting with the green corridor that the ghoul had been guarding. That led to a fancy white door, which, when picked, opened on a room containing the starved corpse of an orderly and his last scribbled message on the wall (which I implied was written in his own blood! Fun). Reading through the message revealed that he’d once been Grout’s most loyal servant, but then his master had succumbed to his growing paranoia and locked him in there to waste away. Alice was like “not a fan of you helping Grout with his experiments, but I allow this was a terrible way to go. And seeing as you missed Grout’s blood more than food, I am once again glad I don’t intend to fully blood-bond Victor.” (Insert authorial snickering here.)

Anyway – having seen all that room had to offer, she returned the main landing and went right next, which led her into a makeshift little chapel! Complete with another orderly corpse (this guy a victim of the clawed ghoul) slumped on a pew. Because as long as we’re being creepy, we might as well throw some twisted religious imagery in there too! Alice was like “I would not have pegged Grout for this kind of thing.” XD I left it with her heading up to the pulpit to examine his holy text – next time, we’ll finish up in there, and FINALLY get Alice out of this maze! I feel like the poor woman’s been in there forever...

3. Keep up with YouTube “Subs”: Check – popped back into my Watch Later tonight to take on “Reacting to YOUR CaFae Latte Hot Takes - Part 2” by C. M. Alongi! Featuring C. M. reading a collection of hot takes/headcanons people had for the characters of CaFae Latte and talking about how she felt about them and if she thought they would work or not. Which sometimes led to interesting facts being revealed about the characters, and of course more talk about how the Heart of Iron book is going to differ from the TikTok series. Examples included:

A) Someone saying that Oscar doesn’t need another partner after dealing with his wife dying – C. M. essentially confirmed that he wasn’t looking for anything long-term or committed (especially since he’s demi and needs time to bond with someone anyway)...but that he’d be down for something a little more casual (I’m PRETTY sure this came out right before the “Oscar gets into a poly relationship with Yarn Granny and Vet Grampa” episode XD Which, yes, Oscar treats fairly casually)

B) Someone saying that the “golden retriever angel” should get his own doggo (or catto, or both) – C. M. said that in-universe, Oscar would want to get a bit more settled in his new home before introducing a pet, and out-of-universe, she is VERY RELUCTANT to get an unpredictable animal in front of the camera (cue everyone in the YouTube comments telling her to use stuffed animals :P)

C) Someone saying that Cyrus has definitely called Bob “mom” at some point and ended up embarrassed about it – C. M. confirmed he’s done that, usually when he’s sick, awwww

D) Someone saying that Cyrus and Rethu should definitely go on a date to the Southern food place in the demon dimension by the lava lake – C. M. was like “this is the problem with doing a web series for two years, you forget all these sorts of details” and then added the idea to her “filler skits” doc :D

E) Someone saying that Bob started the coffee shop because the free drinks helped keep her alive in the mornings – C. M. laughed at that and said that it was a LITTLE deeper than that, but yes, it was definitely a factor! Apparently Bob fell in love with coffee either during the Civil War, or right after while she and Cyrus were roaming the Wild West, hiding their immortal status from the normies pre all the “fae rights” stuff, and thus when it came time to settle down, she was into doing a coffee shop :)

F) And someone saying that Bob, as a former princess, struggled a bit with stuff like cooking, cleaning, what-have-you after being exiled – C. M. was like “sort of” on this one, saying that Bob was a fairly self-sufficient royal because she liked to experience what her troops experienced so she could keep them happy, so she wasn’t TOTALLY unskilled at these kinds of things...but yes, at the same time, when she had a house of her own in the human realm, she had some trouble keeping it clean without the help of servants! And keeping herself clean, apparently – she was almost grateful the Civil War broke out so she could stop worrying if she was dirty or her hair was tangled or what have you. And apparently neither she nor Cyrus are particularly good cooks – leading them to be very relieved when JC showed up!

*nods* Fun stuff as always! Though a little shorter than I would have liked – her Patreons didn’t submit enough takes! Hopefully if she does a third one it’ll be a little meatier.

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – while it was another “nothing” day over on Valice Multiverse, I’m pleased to say I got my Song Saturday pick for Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) sorted! “Shooting Stars” by Rival Sons, a song I’ve heard a couple of times on the radio and really liked. Both because it feels like an excellent protest song for the bullshit world and all the bullshit situations we’ve found ourselves in –
Aaand because the first time I heard it, specifically the “my laughter is louder than your/shouting will ever be” lyrics, I was like “This is totally my Valicer In The Dark Smiler taunting Bob Wickerman of the Beornen.” :P And I have since expanded it to be about the entire trio shouting defiance at anyone trying to beat them down. *nods* So yeah, gotta add that to the VITD playlist I have on YouTube at some point! In the meantime, it’s ready to be posted under the “#song saturday” and “#valicer in the dark” tags on Saturday. :)

*nods* Nice and productive, all that. And now I have to head to bed -- tomorrow, gonna get through work, then hopefully come right home and be able to get right to playing either Superliminal or Fallout 4. Because god damn it, I want to play my games again. *serious nod* Night all!

Dad had a dentist appointment to remove some broken-loose teeth and get some new lower dentures put in, meaning he was in pain a lot of the evening; I found another of the tiny ants we're trying to get out of the house crawling on my cereal box (though, fortunately, not IN the cereal -- I was still not happy, though, as you might expect) while trying to have breakfast this morning; dealing with said ant (and its buddy I found on the counter) made it so I got basically no computer time before work; work itself was kind of annoying (details below); and it was also really hot and humid today because summer. Yeah, it was -- well, see the title. *sigh* But we all made it through, and I even managed to accomplish some stuff:

Work – A fairly “meh” day at work – I spent pretty much all of it going through the exceptions we got back the other day, seeing what I could handle while we were still in our processing freeze (calling some people to assure them that we did have their final payments on their pledges, the billings just got sent out before they were processed; writing out a big long letter to a couple who thought they’d paid their GFGP pledge and wanted an itemized list if we found a discrepancy – their online pledge missed a few payments back in the day), and what I couldn’t (no putting on any of the checks or calling anyone who’d had a failed credit card payment, basically). My coworker and I also went through all the envelopes from that one big bundle from one of the parishes that was returned to us, which took most of the morning, only to discover that the parish check included with it didn’t match the amount the envelopes added up to – it was a little too much. *sigh* My supervisor handled that, but – meeeh. Little mistakes like that just slow processing down so much… Oh, and speaking of mistakes, my coworker found a rejected ACH payment that never got properly taken off by our credit card processors, so now I get to talk to them about that on the call tomorrow. Yay. Plus my supervisor keeps asking me to download things for him from the file sharing site because apparently he figures he doesn’t have to get his password reset if I’m there. *grumbles* Just annoying...but then again, that sums up MOST of my time at work, so… We’ll see if tomorrow’s any better!

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike, back to “Oxventure D&D: Wyrdwood | Chapter 2: Rootbound!” And things got even hairier in this chunklet, let me tell you – or perhaps the correct phrasing is even leafier… Anyway, here’s the gist of what went down:

A) After agreeing they needed to find Ashling, Happen tried to climb on the roof for a better view of the village and see if he could find her – only to be knocked off the roof by his own sprites and get the wind knocked out of him. Praise Cadence! XD Some of the roof-fixing people asked if he was all right, and when he said he was mostly fine, asked if he’d be joining them for the midday meal. He said yes, and went to confer with the others – it was decided that at least one of them should snoop around while the others went to lunch, and Cressida immediately volunteered herself to nose around. Because she’s nosy, and she suspected lunch would be another terrible bread-and-soup deal. So Happen, Willowfine, Lug, and Morven all went off to eat in the communal dining hall while she stayed behind –

And sure enough, it was a terrible bread-and-soup deal! XD Or, rather, a surprisingly-delicious-looking soup with greens and what looked like little goat cheese pearls (Lug/Mike was like “I’d be happier about that if I didn’t already know there were no goats), paired with HORRENDOUSLY awful barely-baked bread. Morven quickly used Sending to let Cressida know she should check out the bakery, while she and the others all pretended to eat their food. Unfortunately, Happen’s chosen “pretending to eat” method meant putting the soup in his mouth (to spit back out into his napkin later), and thus got him a private note from Johnny! Which prompted a mysterious die roll…

B) And then a swap over to Cressida, going to investigate the bakery! She got in without an issue, and discovered pretty quickly that the place hadn’t been touched in a while – everything was covered in dust, and when she opened one of the big barrels of flour in the back and gave it a little stir with a spoon, she found it was utterly infested with weevils. Cue her using Message to scream at poor Morven in a panic about the weevils. XD However, things rapidly got even worse for our stuck-up spoiled little rich girl, as she turned around after poking through the weevil flour –

To find a villager right behind her. Who grappled her by the back of the neck, and shoved his hand in her face...as the palm split open and deposited a seed in her mouth. A seed that then sprouted on her tongue and crawled its way down her throat. D: Cressida was naturally horrified and attempted to punch the guy – though, thanks to a poor damage roll (a one plus her Strength modifier – which was minus one XD), she didn’t actually hit him, realizing at the last moment she didn’t actually WANT to touch him. XD However, the attack set off a strange shiver of alarm in the back of her head…

C) And in the back of HAPPEN’S head, as the villagers around the group all froze for a moment. Some of them attempted to go back to eating, or at least pretending to, but about six men got up and headed for the bakery. Around the same time, Cressida was able to send another Message to Morven about being forced to eat the seed – Morven relayed this to the others, and while Happen kept playing along with the villagers (who were eating their food in increasing slow motion), Willowfine deliberately knocked her and Lug’s soups all over them so they and Morven could pretend to need to do laundry and get out of there. They made their way over to the bakery, where they found the six men already inside, watching Cressida but also clearly ready to take on any threats that walked through the door. Cressida, spotting her traveling companions, quickly began chattering on about how happy she was that everyone had been so hospitable, and how she’d wanted to help, and that she’d baked as a child, and what was that delicious sprout they’d just fed her? A good Charisma/Persuasion roll meant that she kept all the villagers’ attention on her –

And Morven promptly took advantage of that to cast Hunger of Hadar on the lot, using a sorcery point to make it a “Careful” spell and keep Cressida out of the blender. (Mike: “Spells can be careful?” Johnny: “Not historically!”) Cressida was thus stuck in the middle of hungry hungry Hadar just absolutely DECIMATING these poor villagers. XD Hey, Cress, you’re just lucky you’re not part of the OLD Oxventurer’s Guild – PRUDENCE would NOT have tried to protect you! Eventually the slaughter stopped, and the others went in to check on the horrified Cressida and ask her what had happened. Cressida began telling them all about the seed and whatnot –

And then Johnny interrupted her with a Constitution saving throw! Which she failed! Cue Cressida suddenly getting a very strong urge to “protect the tree” and running off, with Willowfine, Lug, and Morven being like “???”

D) At the same time all this was going on, the villagers still in the dining hall got up and headed off themselves, into the Wyrdwood. Happen, still playing along, followed them, trailing near the back of the group as they headed carefully into the forest, avoiding brambles and such –

And then there was another flash of panic in the back of his head as Hadar started nomming on the villagers in the bakery, and suddenly everyone started BOOKING IT, crashing through the underground and charging straight over a large pile of all the village’s goats, who Happen just had time to see had been slaughtered and bled before he rushed to catch up with the others. Their frantic run took them to a strange tree, which looked KIND OF like an ash tree, only it had strange creeping tendrils moving all through it, and a number of bizarre fruits, kind of like raspberries, all over it. Oh, and a big old gash in its side, the rest of an ax lying next to it. And with Happen’s ranger experience, he was able to tell that gash was about two weeks old...when the last of Ashling’s sister’s letters was delivered to the village…

Anyway – the villagers formed a protective ring around the tree, clearly eager to keep it from harm. Happen considered using Mage Hand to lift the ax and take another swing at the tree (while just BARELY fighting off the urge to protect the tree himself, courtesy of the seed he himself must have swallowed in the soup), but after realizing the ax would be too heavy (aka the players discussed it and realized it would be heavier than ten pounds), instead tried to Web it with the help of his sprites. They did their best, but the tree avoided being webbed and lashed out at the sprites in turn. Fortunately, they were too fast for the tree to actually swat with its tendrils, but the increased agitation from the tree put all the villagers on even HIGHER alert (“breathe too loud and you’re gonna get killed,” as Johnny put it)…

Aaand that’s where I left it! With Happen struggling against the parasitic plant inside him; poor Cressida under its control and running off to help defend the tree; and the others presumably following Cressida to figure out what the fuck is going on. Tomorrow, we should see the big finale of this episode – gonna be creepy, no matter what happens, I think!

2. Continue editing “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – after having been left there over the weekend as I wrote my gift fic and worked on “The Van Dort Vacancy,” Alice finally got to escape the creepy mannequin house today – though she first had to take a creepy phone call, because the place wasn’t spooky enough without someone whispering in her ear about how “wishes and words sprout from the same seed.” XD But yes, she made it out of there in one piece, and was allowed to enter the next part of the maze as a result (the final door in the upside-down hall having unlocked itself at last)! So far, she’s found a very pink hallway, and a bedroom that is mostly-but-not-entirely upside-down. Tomorrow, we see her figure out WHY not all of the furniture in this room is bolted to the ceiling, and find a way to progress even further. She’s gotta get out of this hell maze eventually! If I ever want to post the chapter, anyway...

3. Keep up with YouTube “Subs”: Check – and I am pleased to announce that I finally got a chance to watch what is probably Proxy Gate Tactican’s most famous video tonight: “Can You Beat Baldur's Gate 3 As a Cat?” Yes, Proxy did indeed attempt to take on the massive, sprawling RPG that is Baldur’s Gate III with a party full of people wildshaped into cats! House cats to start, with panther and saber-toothed cat forms becoming available as they leveled up. The rules were simple – druid Felix and his party (Shadowheart and a pair of hirelings, all multiclassed/respecced into druids) had to stay in cat form as much as humanly possible! (Uh, pun not intended. XD) The only times they were allowed to be human were if:

I. The game FORCED them back into their human forms, either to facilitate a cutscene triggering or to represent their cat form taking enough damage to “kill” them – in that case, everyone had to shift back either once the conversation was over or once it was their turn again

II. They were in camp and had need of Withers’s services – after all, the hirelings won’t hire themselves, nor the dead resurrect themselves!

III. And, technically, when they physically COULDN’T transform into a cat by virtue of being a level one character – but that only applied to Felix on the Nautiloid, and Proxy didn’t actually show any of that in the video, just saying he speedran it to get to level 2 and his chosen wildshape. The game proper starts on the beach post-crash anyway (at least according to him)!

So yes – with those simple restrictions in play, was Proxy able to beat the game as a cat? Was he able to prove that you don’t have to be human, or elf, or githyanki, or even gnome to defeat the Elder Brain and save Faerun? Was he able to be the fluffiest, cutest savior the city has ever seen?

...not quite. Oh, Proxy gave it his best shot, enduring long hours adventuring without being able to talk to anyone or pick up quests (hell, the only reason he managed to recruit Shadowheart is that she showed up to talk to him during one of the “forced human” cutscenes); figuring out how one actually KILLED people as a weak housecat (traps, basically – meow to get your targets together, then have your other cat friend destroy them with a dropped block of stone or by throwing a candle into some alcohol to trigger an explosion); resorting to using the necromantic powers of Sovereign Glut to make it through the Underdark and kill some duegar for the mushroom-people so he could complete a quest already (and then discovering he couldn’t go kill True Soul Nere for them next because cats can’t float a boat); finding good ways to level up so he could finally get more powerful cat forms (Moonrise Towers in Act II proved especially useful for this, as he could lure guards away from each other into clawed ambushes, which provided plenty of experience); enduring having to drag that damn moonlantern along the ground next to his party so they could go places without being devoured by the Shadow Curse in Act II (because cats can’t carry things – no hands; he loathed THAT by the end of the road, let me tell you); and dealing with the occasional bit of game breakage thanks to his insistence on staying in cat form (like a certain cutscene not playing properly and thus not letting them open a door to confront a certain enemy). And none of that – NONE of that stopped him from staying in cat form. You know what finally made him have to willingly change back into a human (well, half-elf) form?

DOORS. Specifically, the gate that acted as the passageway into Act III, and the door that guarded the key necessary to get to Orin (one of the bosses you have to kill to progress the game). All the other doors, Proxy could find ways to glitch through (either via box towers or by throwing a dead party member in a burning box through a wall to use their corpse to trigger a cutscene – this was actually an Accepted Speedrunning Technique for a while there) or otherwise bypass (using a back entrance into Grymforge to grab more explosives, for example), but these two? These two HAD to be interacted with as a person if Proxy wanted to complete the game. Proxy was very sad about that, as you might imagine. *pats him* But he pressed on, and managed to complete the game having spent MOST of his time as a cat. And having had Shadowheart kill the Nightsong and allied with the Emperor, as he seems to do in most of his challenge runs. XD Like, I want to say that he’s left Dame Aylin alive maybe twice (I’m pretty sure she was key to his “I don’t personally kill anything” run), but otherwise – yeah, it’s all about following Shadowheart’s evil path and allying with the squidboy. XD We’ll see if the pattern holds true for the other challenge videos I still have to watch!

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check, though only a small one, as I only put one thing in each queue –

Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Over here, I naturally dropped the “Teen Valicer Save” post I was working on previously into the queue to post tomorrow – I worked hard to complete that, and now it’s time to put it into the world!

Valice Multiverse – And over here, I hit up “rpmemelibrary” for a meme to chuck in the queue – “Suggest or Submit an Outfit for my Muse to wear and they will react.” Because it might be fun to see if anyone comes up with any particularly interesting or silly outfits for my Valicer trio (or any of my other muses, though it’s mostly the trio these days) to wear. :)

Mmm -- not too bad, I suppose. I would have liked to have put more in my VLA(NS) queue, but I'm having trouble coming up with stuff -- I haven't checked my tracked tags in a while, so my supply from those is depleted. On the other hand, Oxventure: Wyrdwood was definitely a highlight of the day -- I am getting way into these "folk horror" vibes. Looking forward to how the team saves the day tomorrow! :D Anyway -- time for me to hit the sheets and hope that Wednesday is better. Night all!

That I got to experience up close and personal, much to my regret -- I'll tell you all about it in the write-up below:

Tumblr: Another night where nothing happened on Valice Multiverse, but over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), I did successfully finish drafting my “Teen Valicer Save” post before lunch today, yay! I didn’t have that much left to do, admittedly – just had to:

A) Choose two more Aspirations for Alice to complete so she had the same number as Victor and Smiler in their sections (ended up going with The Collector, because there’s a good number of collectibles in Alice: Madness Returns, and Bodybuilder, so she can be as strong and skilled in real life as she is in Wonderland)

B) Add some lines to the “general overview” indicating which aspirations I’ll be having them ALL complete (namely Academic during their college years, and Paragon Partner because it suits them being polyamorous...though I did just realize that I wasn’t thinking about them being a “V” relationship (meaning Alice and Smiler are each romantically involved with Victor, but not with each other) when I picked that...hmm. Well, I suppose I’ve had Alice and Smiler occasionally do romantic things in my fanfics – Alice kissed Smiler in one of my not-incorrect quote collections, in fact – so maybe they can declare themselves partners and we can pretend it’s queerplatonic. (Or...actually, Lumpinou has a mod that makes queerplatonic relationships a thing in the game – maybe we can see if that counts for the aspiration?))

C) Finish off things with a concluding paragraph acknowledging that, for a “less complicated” save file, I have given my Sims a LOT to do (I like having goals!), and talking about how the next step is to actually get the save file off the ground...which would be easier if the game wasn’t so buggy

D) And add the tags, bitching some more about how I’ve had this idea in my head for a while, but it’s been hard to actually get it STARTED thanks to all the bugs (especially from the recent July 1st patch, yeesh) and the other games vying for my attention (such as Baldur’s Gate III, Superliminal – and come December 8th, good old Paralives...)

So yeah – post is all done now, and I should be able to pop it into this week’s queue no problem. :) Figuring out the REST of the queue is left as an exercise for Future Victoria. XD

Workout: Ended up going out and about with my parents early this afternoon, which included a reasonably-extensive walk...which I did NOT dress correctly for, I am sad to report. The problem was, it was cloudy this morning, and stayed cloudy for a while, so I was tricked into thinking I’d be okay in a black t-shirt and a baseball cap – and ended up sweating like a pig throughout the whole trip. Just absolutely MISERABLY hot. *sigh* Very glad that I brought my water bottle to rehydrate...and that I DID think to put some sunscreen on to protect myself from burning after Mom suggested I should. I may have been boiling, but at least I did not also end up as red as a freshly-cooked lobster! Still, I was glad to get home, get in the AC, have some food, and take a nice cool shower. Next time – WHITE t-shirt, Vic. You may only have like two, but they DO exist!

Writing: I got another good chunk of “The Van Dort Vacancy” done today, I’m happy to report. :) Today’s chunklet revolved all around Victor’s closet – specifically, Alice and Smiler getting a look at it while Victor got his carpet bag out and being like “you – you own twelve suits?” (For reference, Alice’s father, a respected educator at Doskvol Academy who lived in Brightstone, had five, with one reserved for special occasions.) Poor Victor was promptly embarrassed by their stunned reaction and ended up asking if they wanted to take any to unstitch and turn into clothes for themselves – cue Alice correctly guessing that this was an offer born out of guilt, and Smiler reassuring him that they weren’t judging him for having more than they did (Alice: “just your parents”), and he didn’t have to “make up” for being rich. Victor relaxed a little after that, but insisted they were still welcome to take some of the suits to repurpose if they wished, and Smiler ended up suggesting he take three that he really wanted, and one that he could stand to see cut up. Because they had all the clothes they needed back at the MOJ, but they knew Alice could use another dress. Alice concurred and said she wouldn’t say no to a repurposed suit – but that she also wouldn’t mind leaving with the servant’s dress she had on, since it was so nice. Victor was like “if you want to, go for it, I don’t mind...just maybe alter it a little so it’s not so obviously from our house,” with Alice replying, “Not a problem, I was already planning on shortening the skirt to my preferred length.” XD I left it with her wondering if her sewing skills were up to moving some of the lace from the collar to the skirt hem, and Smiler and Victor both offering the skills of someone they knew to help her with that if necessary. Tomorrow, Alice will get them back on track with packing (noting that even if Lord Fortescue doesn’t mind being left in the wine cellar, she and Smiler may be missed from the kitchen), and Victor will start grabbing everything he thinks he needs – which might include an old masquerade mask in need of repurposing...

Baldur’s Gate III Planning: Yeah, ended up not having time again to play Superliminal (meaning I’m thinking this upcoming weekend should be Superliminal Collectibles Run Wrap-Up Weekend), so I went back to this instead. And I’m pleased to announce I did make a little progress, specifically on organizing my list of mods I intend to install. Basically, I decided to separate them into subcategories based on function – I now have sections specifically for “Appearance” mods (stuff that makes sure Smiler always looks like, well, Smiler); “Bugfixing” (what it says on the tin – just one mod here, but it’s a doozy, with loads of fixes); “Utility” (for stuff that makes my life easier – better tooltips, the ability to go around with a bigger party, leveling characters up to level 20, etc); and “Equipment & Spells” (again, what it says on the tin). I am also going to make sure I have a link for each mod, plus a note indicating when it was most recently updated and if it has the “Patch 8 Tested” tag or not. *nods* So yeah – once I finalize which mods I’m using, I should have a nice, highly-organized list that I can easily browse to see what I’ve got and what might be causing problems. :) Just gotta get all the mods in it now!

YouTube: Being Sunday, the YouTubery of the day of course consisted of Jon of Many A True Nerd’s latest Fallout-related video: “Fallout New Vegas: You Only Live Once Remastered - Welcome Back To Goodsprings!” Part one of his new F:NV YOLO series, which is a “no healing permadeath” run through the game – that is, he is not allowed to heal any damage he may take over the course of the game, and if he dies, the run just ends right there. I never saw his original F:NV YOLO run, but I did watch and enjoy his Fallout 4 YOLO run with Finn Ally (the woman who went for the Minutemen ending despite doing all the raider stuff in Nuka-World and pissing off Preston), so I’m quite eager to see how this one goes! Here’s what happened today’s brand-new shiny first episode:

A) Jon laid down the rules for this “YOLO Remastered” challenge:

I. No healing, death is the end of the run (as per what we’ve already established – he’s modded out any health regen the game might have tried to foist on him, and is prepared to use console commands to redamage his character down to her “actual” health for those instances where she is fully healed upon entering a DLC land)

II. Game must be played on “Very Hard” difficulty, as the original was played on merely “Hard” (though Jon declined to go all the way into “Hardcore” mode when the game offered it via pop-up right after character creation – the changes it makes to healing and rad removal and whatnot were obviously not applicable to his character, and forcing her to keep up with food and drink meant she would be forced to consume healing items, thus defeating the purpose of a YOLO run)

III. No permanent companions, because otherwise his character could sit back and let Boone handle everything for her (he is apparently a monster)

IV. And the big one – NO. RANGED. WEAPONS. Because Jon remembered that, in his original YOLO run, his character solved everything with either skill checks or sniping, and he felt that the latter made things too easy. So not only is this a YOLO, it’s also a Melee/Unarmed Only run, as Jon is not using any guns, explosives, or throwing weapons! ...Well, except when the game FORCES him to shoot something as part of a quest (like how in Lonesome Road he’s got no choice but to use the Laser Detonator on the warheads to proceed), but fortunately those instances are apparently few and far between. Other than those fleeting moments, NO. RANGED. WEAPONS.

B) Upon waking up in Doc Mitchell’s clinic in Goodsprings after the opening “Benny, aka Chandler Bing [RIP], shoots you in the head” cutscene, Jon designed his character – or, rather, redesigned his former F:NV YOLO Courier, P. D. Shoot! The P. D. stands for “Please Don’t.” XD I don’t know what her stats were in her original adventure, but in this one, the bedraggled Courier had:

I. 7 Strength, 5 Perception, 6 Endurance, 1 Charisma, 9 Intelligence, 7 Agility, and 5 Luck to start (Jon needed the high Strength for Melee and Unarmed attacks; the high Agility for extra AP (action points, necessary for VATS); and the high Intelligence for getting skill points faster to level up her skills sooner – it really hurt him to leave his beloved Luck at solidly average, though. Don’t worry about that 1 Charisma, though – doesn’t mean a thing when you can level up the Speech skill separately :p)

II. Melee Weapons, Speech, and Sneak as her “tagged” skills (I’m not sure what exactly that MEANS, other than them being like “main” skills that get a little bit of a boost at the start – taking Doc Mitchell’s personality test originally got her Survival as a “tagged” skill, but Jon moved that to Sneak because being stealthy is one of the things that will keep P. D. alive

III. And “Skilled” and “Logan’s Loophole” as her traits – the former immediately added +5 to every skill, but caused P. D. to gain 10% less experience going forward, meaning she’d level up more slowly (which Jon was fine with, as that meant enemies would ALSO level more slowly and be easier to deal with), while the latter meant she could never get addicted to chems and they lasted twice as long, but kept her from ever progressing past level thirty (it’s a reference to the movie Logan’s Run, where everyone in a dystopian society is killed at age 30 – Jon was fine with never leveling past 30 as he was pretty sure that, given all the sneaking P. D. would be doing, she wouldn’t have actually gotten much past 30 level-wise anyway, and it was worth it to get the trait’s perks – which were more extensive than you might think...)

A rather interesting build – hopefully it works out for him in this challenge!

C) Once released from character creation (and the endless DLC pop-ups), P. D. went around Goodsprings looting anything that could be helpful to her in the future! The most notable loot included:

I. A weapon repair kit from one house, to keep her melee weapons in good condition

II. A “Chinese Army: Spec Ops Training Manual” (which she immediately read for +3 Sneak skill)

III. A bottle of whiskey, which allowed Jon to explain why he took “Logan’s Loophole” – while the description claims it applies specifically to chems, in reality it applies to ANY consumable, including alcohol. And alcohol boosts Strength in this game when drunk, so P. D. is gonna want to get boozed up if she gets into any fights!

IV. A Wasteland Settler Outfit that gave her a little more protection than her Vault 21 jumpsuit, plus +1 Agility (which boosts her Sneak skill and AP) and +1 Endurance (which sadly DIDN’T boost her health, as that’s calculated solely using her BASE Endurance – did at least increase her rad and poison resistance a skoosh)

V. And a “Locksmith’s Reader” skill magazine in a mailbox (more lockpicking skill, yay)

D) Once she was done looting, P. D. went over to the local saloon and kicked off the opening game quests! Specifically, she met up with Sunny Smiles to do exactly the very first mission of the tutorial (hilariously, also the very first instance where Jon had to break the “no guns” rule because Sunny wouldn’t speak to P. D. until she SHOT the sarsaparilla bottles lined up on the fence instead of knocking them down with a knife stolen from Doc Mitchell’s), then – after ending the tutorial to avoid fighting geckos at the water supply – went to talk to Trudy at the saloon to kick off “Ghost Town Gunfight!” A quest where you must rally the people of Goodsprings to help the caravaner Ringo (who they let lay low in their town after he stumbled in claiming to be the only survivor of an attack on his caravan by a gang) take out the nasty Powder Gangers! Here’s how P. D. handled that whole thing:

I. After learning what was going on from Trudy (and buying some of her skill magazines in exchange for the guns she’d picked up but couldn’t use), P. D. sought out Ringo and offered her help, then went to get Sunny on-side when Ringo said they’d need as much of the town as possible to fight back to have a chance of winning. Sunny happily said yes right away, guaranteeing them at least one ally. P. D. also took advantage of the opportunity to ask Sunny if there was any work in town that would get her some caps – Sunny said no, but said if she wanted to scavenge in the schoolhouse, there was an old safe in there nobody had been able to crack yet (even with dynamite!)…

II. P. D. then went over to the saloon to talk to Trudy and convinced her via her reasonably-high Sneak skill that they could set up some good ambushes near the saloon and general store, if they had the manpower – Trudy thought this was a good idea and said she’d talk to some people, get them to join the little militia P. D. was forming

III. P. D. then went over to the general store next door and convinced Chet, the manager, that the Powder Gangers taking over would be bad for business and he should outfit the citizens – he agreed to spare them some leather armor and ammunition, and even gave some armor to P. D. herself! Which was exactly what P. D. wanted, as she needed an emergency set of good armor to help her take a hit better if and when things started going belly-up. She also mysteriously decided to buy a shovel from him

IV. Having set up a little army with decent ammo and weapons, P. D. then reported back to Ringo, telling him they were ready as Sunny ran in to say the Powder Gangers were on their way –

Aaand then stayed well back out of the fight, watching as the Goodsprings citizens and Ringo took out the Powder Gangers on their own. XD The reason why she didn’t get her own hands dirty? Well, while she was never going to be LIKED by the Powder Gangers for helping set up this ambush, not killing any of them PERSONALLY meant she was merely “Shunned” by the group instead of “Vilified” as per F:NV’s faction reputation system...which mean that the gang wouldn’t shoot her on sight. And as you might guess by her name, getting people NOT to shoot at her is like P. D.’s top priority. XD And it’s not like Goodsprings thought any less of her for not joining in – she is officially “Liked” by the town for putting all this in motion, and Ringo was nice enough to thank her to the tune of 100 caps! So about the only sad thing that happened for P. D. is that she stumbled across the corpse of Sunny Smiles’s dog Cheyenne while looting. :( With her eyes hovering a few inches from her head because New Vegas may be an Obsidian game, but it’s still got that Bethesda smell. XD

E) With the fight over with, P. D. looted the corpses for her first super-weapon – the humble baseball bat! (Plus a cool cowboy hat that gave her a tiny bit of damage protection.) Why is it a super weapon? Well – once you get your Melee Weapons skill up to 50 (which P. D. did after picking a lock to push herself over the threshold to level 2 – she also took the “Intense Training” perk to get her Endurance up to 7 for more health), melee weapons have special attacks unlock in VATS. And the baseball bat gets the “Grand Slam” – an attack that costs more AP than the normal attack, but does double the damage. Which is good, but not amazing –

And THEN Jon explained how, if you get a sneak attack crit on someone, thanks to the various multipliers F:NV adds to the attack, the bat will do like FIFTEEN TIMES its base damage – and against a weak enemy, that is a fucking hell of a lot. Hell, even against a strong enemy, that’s still a pretty damn good hit! And the best way to ensure that sneak attack crit? Use a Stealth Boy, which Joe Cobb, leader of the Powder Gangers, just so happened to have on his corpse. A Stealth Boy that normally lasted two minutes –

But, thanks to “Logan’s Loophole,” would now last four because guess what counts as a consumable? :D Yeah, Jon knew what the hell he was doing when he took that perk!

F) Having obtained her super-bat, P. D. continued looting, heading up to the cemetery with her shove to dig up and loot the graves, then very carefully threading between some rad scorpions and coyotes to reach an unmarked shack to dig out all the guns, ammo, and drugs to sell, and a 9-Iron golf club to take as Super Weapon #2! What makes THAT a super weapon? Simple – as Jon explained once he got P. D. back to Goodsprings via fast travel (and recovered from the game telling him she was in [CAUTION] when she first arrived), the gold club’s special VATS ability is Fore! An otherwise-normal attack –

That knocks enemies flat. Meaning any enemy charging PD can now be knocked down, and thus have to spend precious minutes getting back up while she changes to her bat and wails on them. XD Basically she now has a one-two punch for any enemies who dare try to get in her face while she has the AP to use VATS attacks!

G) And, to close things off, P. D. headed to the schoolhouse to pick the safe inside for its goodies, including a second Stealth Boy! Jon fully expected her to lose some health to the baby mantises inside doing this (and had her wear the leather armor to help minimize the loss), but as it turned out, they were all on the other side of the room, so P. D. was able to sneak in, crack the lock (after one busted bobby pin), get the goods, then SPRINT outside with all of her health. Yay! :D

And that was that! Next week, P. D. ventures out into the wider world to see what is what and figure out how she’s gonna handle everything she needs to do. I’m looking forward to it!

Aaand that, as usual, took way longer than it should have, so I have to sprint to bed now. In my nice cool air conditioned room. Hopefully this upcoming work week isn't too stressful -- night all!