I wish...

My car said it was 70F when I left work today, and I could believe it -- I cracked the car windows open on my drive home, and one of my room windows when I got back. Fucking NICE to have some warmth, let me tell you -- and we have seen a HUGE reduction in the snow now, yay. :D Granted, it's not supposed to stay this nice -- tomorrow is going to be in the 60s, and then it drops back into the 40s -- but I'll take what we get while it lasts! Given how utterly wretched the world can be today, it's good to have SOMETHING to enjoy.

Anyway -- now that I'm done cheering the lovely weather, here is the daily write-up:

Work – It was actually a pretty quiet first day back at work – which, trust me, I was grateful for, given today’s the second day of my period and thus my brain is still a little foggy:

A) I spent most of the morning working on the GL again, since we had a good chunk of stuff uploaded on Friday

B) I then spent some time before lunch examining some returned mail to see why it was returned – not sure why a couple of pieces were sent back, as the addresses seemed legit, but one lady had straight-up died, which was understandable

C) And after lunch, I sent out a couple of tax letters to people who called looking for them and started working through a fresh set of obituaries

No credit card calls, no complicated issues in my e-mail, no nothing – worse thing that happened was my coworker asking me how to do a particular sort of reversal on my lunch break, and that admittedly only took a couple of minutes. We’ll see how tomorrow plays out!

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike and back with “Baldur's Gate 3 Cast play D&D #2 | High Rollers Presents: Shadows of Athkatla!” Tonight’s pedal session featured:

A) Shadowheart and Lae’zel entering The Bhaalspawn Experience – with Shadowheart’s new best friend Bing Bong the imp clinging to her hand like an eager little kid (much to Lae’zel’s disgust). After “gathering their party” in the entrance room, the ladies and Bing Bong stepped through a magic portal into the first room of the experience, featuring clockwork wooden automatons of Jaheira and Minsc (and Boo of course) in cages with explanatory plaques of who they were and how they were connected to The Bhaalspawn, along with various paths to travel. Bing Bong insisted on checking out the automatons first (Lae’zel grumbling over Shadowheart indulging the imp’s curiosity while Mark insisted that he did NOT intend for Bing Bong to be helpful to them in ANY way), but quickly got bored with their repeated phrases, and Shadowheart and Lae’zel headed down the corridor going straight on, through a room with some sort of fake magic generator (complete with illusions of lightning zipping around the room, scaring Bing Bong onto Shadowheart’s shoulder) and deeper into the exhibit –

Where they encountered the smashed-up remains of a couple of other automatons. And a long smear of fresh blood on the ground, as if someone had been dragged away. The ladies instantly agreed that the smart thing to do would be to follow the blood, and tracked the trail through a junction (where they discovered another smashed-up automaton of some sort of monster in a chamber to the right, and where Bing Bong managed to endear himself to Lae’zel a bit by licking the blood off the floor) and into a room which (as per another interlude with our lovely Narrator) mimicked the terrible cloning labs of the late Jon Irenicus, complete with vats and tubes of evil glowy blue-green stuff with various fake monstrosities in them (at least, I hope they were fake!). From there, they could see that the blood trail continued on through a recently-opened secret passage in the wall, and prepared to investigate further…

( Got Longer Than Anticipated )

2. Start final edits on Chapter 4 of “The Van Dort Vacancy”: Check – got the chapter uploaded to FF.net’s Document Manager for the final scan, and made my way though Victor bringing Alice and Smiler to his room to him offering them some of his clothes to be repurposed into clothes for them after having another guilt attack regarding how much STUFF he has (in this case, sixteen suits when he knows neither of them has anywhere near as many clothes). I left off with Alice and Smiler reassuring him again that he doesn’t have to apologize for growing up rich – we’ll see how much I can get through tomorrow! (Given the chapter’s only nine pages – likely a lot. :P)

3. Watch something on YouTube: No check – well, no check in the sense of “did I watch something other than chunks of what I watched during my workout so I could do an accurate write-up for you above and/or a quick clip of Victor in preparation for starting final edits on ‘The Van Dort Vacancy?’” *shakehead* One of these days I’m going to force myself to rely on my memory instead of going back to check certain details in my workout videos – it inevitably makes the whole process take longer! Maybe I can get to those CaFae Latte shorts I wanted to watch tomorrow...

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: N/A – Monday, only keeping an eye on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), not much going on there, what can you do. I should still have enough in my drafts to get a queue sorted for this week tomorrow!

Yeah, as usual, the workout write-up ate up more of my time than it should have. One of these days I am going to wrestle it back into submission, and then maybe I'll be able to get back to more usual nightly routines. As it stands, I should make an effort to get some decent sleep -- night all!

Yes, as documented in my update to yesterday's now-completed entry, it appears part of the reason I failed to complete my write-ups in time yesterday was because my period was nigh -- it showed up around 11 AM this morning, the bastard. >( Fortunately I heeded my body's warning signals last night and put a pad in, meaning there was no ruining of clothes, but still -- bleeh. I hate this time of the month and how it fucks up my brain, I seriously do. *shakehead* At least it'll be all over with by NEXT weekend...

Anyway. Between dealing with the red curse and spending a not-inconsiderable amount of today finishing off my recounting of yesterday's activities, I ended up having a relatively lazy Sunday, only accomplishing a couple of things of note:

Baldur’s Gate III: Welp – because I was all period-y today, and because I really wanted to get that special extra moment with Gale that I missed when I did his special “channeling the Weave together” cutscene yesterday, I went back into BG3 this afternoon and – after confirming that I did not have any other quicksaves available from before I’d done the cutscene (just one from after) – replayed yesterday’s session from Smiler and company raiding the harpy next to the morning after the Weave channeling. And while it went mostly the same as yesterday’s write-up, there were a few little fun differences and extras:

A) First, when I sent everyone over to the Harpy Nest to raid it, there was two bones in there with the rest of the treasure, not just one! XD Not that Smiler picked up either, granted… But yeah, they were able to grab all the same stuff they got yesterday, notes and journals and jewelry and snacks – and this time, I had Smiler equip the Ring of Colour Spray after picking it up so they’d have the spell ready to use next time there was close-quarters trouble. Might as well!

B) Second, while I was able to trigger both the “how would you punish someone who had wronged you, Lae’zel?” banter between Shadowheart and Lae’zel, and the “Have you heard of a vampire named Cazador, Wyll?” banter between Astarion, Wyll, and Gale, it took a bit more walking around than before to get them to start chatting. Though I suspect this was just the result of me being overly cautious about missing out on the conversations, as both triggered in roughly the same spots as they did before – it just took me longer to get to said spots because I was moving more slowly and wandering around the general area more in an attempt to encourage them to talk (especially Astarion, Wyll, and Gale). At least while I was doing so, I was also able to confirm that the developers actually took the time to animate the characters’ mouths moving when they chatted to each other like this – despite the fact that, when you’re actually in the world and not part of a cutscene, you’re mostly going to be seeing your party from a bird’s-eye overhead view unless you take the time to zoom in. And even then, you’re not going to get THAT close. *shakehead* Really did not expect that attention to detail! Gotta say you did a good job there, Larian.

C) Third, when I sent everyone back to the Wilderness Camp after triggering all the party banter, I had Smiler do all their alchemy stuff again – except, this time, after making their Feather Fall potion (which they still only got one of), I decided to have them make some Oil of Accuracy (which is a coating you can put on your weapon to get +2 to all attack rolls for ten turns in combat with that weapon) as well! Mostly because they had the ingredients and I thought it might be a nice gift for Wyll. :) So they combined their Ashes Of Daggerroot and Salts Of Rogue’s Morsel in the Alchemy screen –

AND PASSED THE MEDICINE CHECK! :D Which meant they got a bonus Oil of Accuracy! Hooray, it finally happened! The mod was worth it! XD So now maybe I’ll have Smiler give one to Wyll, and perhaps one to someone else! Maybe Lae’zel? We’ll see…

D) Fourth, when I ended the day and sent Smiler over to Gale to repeat the “channeling the Weave” cutscene:

I. I discovered that you can actually see Gale looking at his little projection of Mystra’s head in the camp before triggering the cutscene – he’s standing staring at it right outside his tent:



I wasn’t really paying attention to anything but the little “!” over his head before, so that was a neat detail to catch! Again, Larian, must give you credit.

II. Smiler ended up absolutely smashing the Insight roll to get Gale to open up about why he was looking at a conjured bust of Mystra AND the Dexterity (Performance) check to imitate Gale’s magical gesture in this version of the scene, getting a nat 20 on both! :D Though, hilariously, they did a bit worse on the incantation roll this time, getting a 5 on the initial roll that improved to 10 with their bonuses. But as the DC to beat was only 5, they still fully succeeded in adding their little flourishes to everything Gale did. :p Granted, I’m not sure if the in-game animations bore Smiler’s excellent dice rolls out:



They really do look like they’re just catching a bug there, don’t they? I may have accused Gale’s gesture of looking a bit goofy yesterday, but Smiler’s is definitely the more awkward of the two. XD But we’ll cut them a break – according to my own backstory, they’re actually still quite new to being a spellcaster.

III. And, of course, this time around, when the Narrator said “The Weave connects you. The moment feels intimate,” I had Smiler choose to hold onto the moment, as it was a good night for intimacy, prompting her to then reveal, “You realize the Weave is making you one. You have but to imagine your desire, and Gale will know it” –

And giving Smiler a few options of scenes to pick from! Some of course being quite romantic – kissing Gale, or going on a nice walk with him hand-in-hand – and some being, uh, anything but – kicking him in the gut or putting his head on a spike. O.O I, uh, guess those ones are for the “evil” players. The sole “platonic friends” one, though, was actually a perfect fit for Smiler – “Picture a hearty meal with Gale, food and friendship flowing between you.” :) That is exactly the kind of thing they’d want to do with a bestie. Though I’m very sorry to say that this didn’t actually affect the end of the cutscene – the Weave still dissolved, and the night still felt cold and lonesome afterward. Aw. :( Maybe only the Galemancers get a nicer end to the cutscene! (Or maybe not, as the page on Gale’s romance indicates that, since he’s still pining over his lost goddess ex, he’s kind of awkward when the subject of romance with the player character comes up during this scene…)

E) Fifth, after completing the cutscene, saying a quick “hi” to Wyll to see if he had anything new to say (he did not), trimming the party, and heading to bed, I swear I heard someone snoring during the brief cutscene that plays showing the four “main” party members sleeping by the fire. XD Don’t know who it was, but it was pretty amusing!

F) And sixth, after getting up the next morning, restoring the party to its full size, and redoing the “didn’t know it was so easy to cast magic” conversation with Gale (because I couldn’t skip that), I briefly went into Party Inventory Mode and had Smiler send the Polished Dagger they found near some of the bones of the harpies’ victims to Astarion, and had him equip it. Because why shouldn’t he get a shiny shiny dagger to go with his fancy Needle Of The Outlaw Rogue? :p I debated sending the Nature’s Snare staff Astarion was carrying back over to Smiler, since I’ve been debating if they should start using a quarterstaff as their main weapon, but decided against it – I’m not sure that one is really SMILER. I’ll wait until I find the staff that one of my equipment mods was supposed to have put in the world that helps boost (among other thing) Psychic damage.

And I left off pretty much right where I left off yesterday, with the morning castings having been completed and everyone ready to hit the road again! Next time, we play properly, and get Smiler and company on the path to meeting Karlach! Got a lot of cutscenes with her to catch up on, I’m sure! As a parting gift, have another smiling Smiler in the middle of Gale teaching them magic:



They are cute. :)

Workout: Welp – Jon did not have the latest episode of his F:NV YOLO Remastered series up in time for my workout, nor did he upload it during the “grace period” I gave him at the very beginning by watching a very short video I spotted in my Recommendeds. So today’s session saw me instead pedal my way through:

A) The entirety of “OK Go - Upside Down & Inside Out BTS - How We Did It” by OK Go! The “grace period” video, this was five-and-a-half minutes of two members of the band, Damien Kulash and Tim Nordwind, along with the director, Trish Sie, talking about how they made the iconic “zero gravity” music video for their song “Upside Down & Inside Out!” Basically, the video was filmed in a special plane that did regular parabolas up and down on its flight path, resulting in 20 seconds of double gravity as they went up, 27 seconds of zero gravity as they went over the hump, then 20 seconds of double gravity again as they came back down. In order to fit all the music video stuff into the little bits of zero gravity time that they had, they chopped up the song into 21-second chunks, then slowed the playback about 28% to take up the full 27 seconds. Every time they came up to a zero-gravity section in their flight, the pilot would give a signal, relayed through their cosmonaut trainer (as this was all being done in Moscow), to the sound guy, and he would turn the music on, and they’d do the right chunk of the routine for the song. Then they’d sit down and wait the four-to-five minutes to do the next section. Once everything was filmed and everyone was happy, the video was then sped up and all the “waiting” bits chopped out to give the illusion of a single-shot routine. It was apparently pretty grueling – the band members had to be trained out of automatically trying to “swim” in zero G, and the crew kept throwing up because they didn’t want to wear the anti-nausea patches the band members were wearing – but everyone was pretty happy that they managed to get it done and produce a cool video. Given that “Upside Down & Inside Out” is both one of my favorite songs AND one of my favorite music videos from the band, I’m glad they managed to get it done too.

B) And the first 28 minutes of “Baldur's Gate 3 Cast play D&D #2 | High Rollers Presents: Shadows of Athkatla!” Because if I couldn’t have The Adventures Of P. D. Shoot in “Dead Money,” I could at least have The Adventures Of The BG3 Companions in “The City Of Coin!” (I guess this officially makes this a BG3 weekend!) After the requisite ad for the game, everyone reintroducing themselves, and a recap of what happened last episode, the two-shot resumed with the companions exploring Athkatla for the source of the horrible dark magic that was trying to take over poor Tav’s mind and body, and featured:

I. Astarion and Karlach arriving at the docks district (which was quite massive, cut off from the rest of the city by big stone walls, and featured not only the usual masses of ships and traders going about their business loading and unloading and moving wares, but also a good amount of high-class housing – who knew that the docks would be the place to live?) – just in time to see a dwarven teenage girl in a purple cloak parkouring across the nearby rooftops, keeping one step ahead of the city guards that were chasing her. Unfortunately, as she attempted to make good her escape, she ended up misstepping and crashing to the ground, twisting her ankle and leaving her easy pickings for the guards. She got up and hobbled around, asking for help as the locals did their best to ignore her, not wanting trouble –

But luckily for her, Astarion saw her and was like “opportunity to get on a local thief’s good side!” He thus caught Karlach’s eye and indicated through some exaggerated gestures that she should take the thief and help her hide, then prepared to go intercept the guards, shooting the thief a quick message in Thieves’ Cant sign language to “go with my friend, she can help” as he passed. The thief replied in sign that “I don’t trust you, but I don’t have any choice either” – Astarion shot her a cheeky “good luck” middle finger, and she returned it before limping toward Karlach. Astarion thus swanned toward the incoming guards, putting on a show of being noble and thus above any mere city watchmen. Mark the DM gave Neil (Astarion’s player/voice actor) the choice of rolling Deception or Performance to sell being a noble, or Acrobatics to pull off bumping into them while making it look like they bumped into him – Neil went with Acrobatics, as Astarion had a nice high bonus for that (+5) –

AND, for good measure, enhanced it by using the Minor Illusion cantrip granted to him by being a High Elf to create an illusionary seagull named Jim to swoop down on them. Mark agreed this would definitely make the guards duck (he lives in Bristol, he KNOWS seagulls will just suddenly come at you), and told Neil to roll with Advantage –

And cue Neil getting a dirty 20! He and the guards thus collided, and the female half of the pair nearly told him off until she saw how Astarion was dressed and holding himself and thought “ooooh shit.” XD Astarion promptly started making a fuss about how his fancy clothes were from NEVERWINTER and were NEARLY IRREPLACEABLE – the male guard hastily apologized to him and explained they’d been chasing a thief. Astarion was like “what thief?” and gestured around –

Causing Mark to rewind time slightly to when Karlach was approached by the thief and asked what the plan was. Having had a look around the dock for potential hiding places for the kid, Karlach decided she did not want to stuff the poor girl into a smell basket that had previously held very oily eels and instead ripped the top off a nearby crate so the girl could hop inside. Fortunately it was filled with soft silks, so the girl was very easily able to scramble in, and Karlach slammed down the lid and sat herself upon it just as the guards looked over, doing various possibly-too-innocent-looking poses. XD Fortunately, the guards were pretty flustered after bumping into Astarion and didn’t see anything suspicious about this. Astarion detained them a moment more by pretending to write down their names and badge numbers and warning them not to bump into him again, then finally let them go so they could get about their business. Mark then flipped POVs to –

II. Gale and Wyll talking at the city gates (Gale just having stealthily cast Detect Magic down an alleyway to see if he could sense the evil magic anywhere – no dice, but he had ten minutes to work with; Wyll having just read through Volo’s guide to the city and found some actually-useful information about the three major powers in charge), and Wyll telling Gale that, according to the guide, they probably wanted to start by talking to the Cowled Wizards. This required them to go over the grand bridge that spanned the river running through the middle of the city, so they headed through the River District and, after paying a toll, onto the bridge –

Where they discovered a grand temple to the goddess of beauty and love, Sune, and what looked like some sort of festival going on outside. Getting closer revealed it was a bunch of people getting their hair cut and having their makeup done, apparently in honor of it being the Day Of The Adoring Eye. One of the priestesses of the temple, a lovely elven woman in a flowing gown, approached them and asked if they’d like to partake of the temple’s services, as everything was free today in honor of the holiday, or if she could help them in any other way –

And Wyll politely asked if she could maybe point them in the direction of the Cowled Wizards. Causing the woman to blanch, but she did tell him that the Cowled Wizards made their home in the government district...but that they’d shut the doors to all visitors, so Wyll was unlikely to see any of them. She asked if the matter was important, and Wyll confirmed it was, adding that he had money if that would help get him any more information –

Causing Gale to be like “Uh, hold on a minute, Wyll, let’s not go STRAIGHT into open bribery…” His player Tim’s initial intention was to be like “let me see if I can do some magic to help encourage her to share more info” (Devora, Lae’zel’s player, noted that Tim had LOADS of spell cards, and everyone started joking about how Tim wanted to USE them damn it XD), but then he remembered he still had Detect Magic active and asked if he was getting anything from that. And Mark confirmed he was, saying that he could tell that there were enchantments and illusion spells all over the temple, and all over the people working there, including the priestess they were currently talking to. Basically, it seemed everyone was more or less glamoured to look as perfect as possible (though Mark did stress there were a wide variety of body types on display, as well as multiple genders). So Gale’s interjection became more about getting Wyll to back off because things weren’t quite as they seemed, and that something wasn’t right. As it turned out, though, the priestess was fine with sharing what she knew, no bribe required – basically, the Cowled Wizards had shut their doors about a week ago, coinciding with a rash of abductions and disappearances throughout the city. The temple itself had lost a priestess! People were trying to get the Wizards to look for the lost, but they insisted they were very busy with some experiments…

And then the priestess turned to Gale and asked what was that about things not being right? Gale, thinking quickly, claimed that he’d been talking about his hair, and that he really needed a trim – “just the split ends,” he assured the woman when she was like, “Oh, you can’t want to cut such a gorgeous mane!” He promptly tried to sweet-talk her into thinking he wanted the temple’s services – “You do YOUR magic!” – and Mark called for a Deception skill check. Though with Advantage, because he loved that line. XD Gale’s best roll was a 14, and Mark had the priestess make an Insight check in response…

Aaand she fluffed it so bad she was immediately taken in. XD In fact, she decided that Gale, with his lovely hair and regal bearing, deserved to be a VIP and said she’d be personally happy to attend to his needs – giving him a nice rinse, a facial scrub, all of that. Gale kindly made sure that the rather confused Wyll was a part of that deal, and she led them inside to get a lovely spa treatment! With the option of talking to the other attendants to get more information for their mission, if they so chose.

And that’s where I left it, with Gale and Wyll getting the full spa experience (Gale: “We did very well in coming this way”), and Mark preparing to move the camera to Shadowheart and Lae’zel going through The Bhaalspawn Experience (Abbreviated) with Bing Bong! We’ll pick up with that tomorrow –

And as for P. D. Shoot, we’ll catch up with the latest episode of her antics at the end of the week. Because I finally spotted the next F:NV YOLO Remastered episode in the recommended videos this evening – and it proved to be an hour long, meaning I had no chance of watching it tonight. Especially not given my period’s brain foggery. Better to wait and give it a proper shot later!

Other: Answered a couple of nice comments I got on “The Van Dort Vacancy” yesterday – it’s always encouraging to get some on the Valicer In The Dark stuff! Especially when the commenter says they’re really eager for the next bit, and I can tell them that the next chapter should be coming out by the end of the week (even if it isn’t the heist one that they were hoping for, but the one just BEFORE that XD).

Yeaaaah, far from my most productive day, but -- fuck it, on my period, feeling generally kinda blah about the world. Getting that extra Oil Of Accuracy and confirming Smiler's "besties" status with Gale made me happy, damn it -- as did watching the BG3 players continue their D&D shenanigans. And answering those comments. And now I'm going to go to bed. Hopefully tomorrow will be a decent day -- keep your fingers crossed! Night all!

Weatherwise anyway -- it was pretty cloudy all day, and we don't think that it got quite as warm as they said it was going to get. Though it definitely got warm enough for some of the snow to melt -- the patio looked pretty wet when I glimpsed it when Dad went outside to make sure the garage's back door was locked. Slowly but surely getting evidence that this snow is going to go away! My parents ended up spending most of their day on the couch watching their shows, while I spent mine working on my tumblrs, playing Baldur's Gate III, and watching some stuff on YouTube --

All of which I will have to tell you about tomorrow as it is so late and I just cannot finish all my write-ups in time. Especially since it's Spring Forward day and thus it's about to be 3 AM, not 2 AM... *sigh* This is what I get for playing BG3 AND watching a longer-than-usual CaFae Latte compilation video in the same day. Anyway, watch this space for the full write-up of what I did today tomorrow. Night for now, and remember to set your clocks ahead!

EDIT 3/8/2026: Welp, as it turned out, part of the problem was ALSO the fact that I was just about to get my period -- fucker showed up late this morning. >( Fortunately I listened to my body's warning signals and had a pad in when it did, but -- ugh. I may possibly elaborate on that more in today's actual entry -- in the meantime, here's the write-up of the things I did yesterday:

Tumblr: Had a pretty decent day over on the old tumbls –

Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – I am pleased to report that I managed to update two of my drafts over here today –

A) I properly wrote up the “Victor, Alice, Smiler, and the rest of the party encounter Mirkon being lured by the harpies in the Secluded Cove – and after seeing the harpy music charming Alice and Smiler and starting to affect the others, Victor gets mad and uses one of his own Duskwallian spells to open up a portal to the Void Sea over the rock the harpies are hiding on, leading to three of them getting snatched by a leviathan and the fourth deciding to cut her losses and flee” scene in my latest “VITD Meets BG3 Not-Incorrect Quotes/Shitposts Collection” post, complete with Victor screaming after the fleeing harpy “YEAH, SEE HOW YOU LIKE IT!!!” and Gale trying to ask Wyll if that was Hadar, only for Wyll to go “FUCK NO.” XD Honestly, this post is pretty close to done, I think – I just need to edit all the scenes in it now and do some proper tags for it! …and then maybe start a FOURTH post of scenes like this, because I really want to do a scene of Victor, Alice, and Smiler delightedly eating rat to SOMEONE’S surprise in the game, but this particular post is getting a little long. XD

B) And I worked a bit on the “Valicer Eats God” post where I’m trying to turn my OT3 into muppety menaces from the RPG Eat God! I didn’t make a huge amount of progress, but I did:

I. Decide that Victor’s third Trait, to go with the already-selected “Fast Feet” and “Sticky Steps” should be either “Dexterous Digits” or “Lanky Limbs” – though I’m leaning toward the latter, as “Dexterous Digits” allows those who have it to pull off all sorts of sleight-of-hand stuff, and I don’t think that’s really Victor-ish, whereas “Lanky Limbs” just gives him a hell of a lot of reach, and Victor IS quite lanky! (I did also briefly consider “Aquatic Aspect” to cover the fact that he’s the son of fish merchants, but quickly discarded it – being associated with fish is more his PARENTS’ thing than his, and I still want to do a kind of mothman look for him)

II. Come up with an Expression (a short sentence on how the Trait informs her personality) for Alice’s “Menacing Missiles” Trait (which allows her to file natural projectiles at people – I’m thinking an organic version of her Cards from the first game): “Most problems go away if you pepper them with enough projectiles (aka throw enough shit at them).” XD I mean, you can’t say she’s wrong, especially when it comes to the problems she faces in her games!

III. Also come up with an Expression for Smiler’s “Vile Venom” Trait (which allows them to inject people with a hallucinogenic substance – Joy Serum, natch): “If I can make people feel happy with one jab, why shouldn't I?” Feels in-keeping with a Smiler who’s based a little more on the ride’s actual themeing than most of my others!

So that’s good – I would like to get this post sorted sooner rather than later!

Valice Multiverse – And over here, I actually had an anon ask to answer! From, uh, yesterday, but I forgot to check this account last night because nothing has been happening on it for just about two weeks, soooo… *shrug* Anyway, the ask was a fake news report talking about how a woman was arrested after “breaking into a home to eat cereal and pet the homeowner's dog.” She was caught at the kitchen table chowing down on Fruity Pebbles, and admitted to consuming marijuana before the incident. XD I had Londerland Bloodlines!Alice reply that she could totally believe the woman had had weed before committing that crime, yes...but that it was also nice to have a relatively wholesome crime on the news for a change, as it was normally a lot more depressing. A sentiment that both Victor and myself (in the tags) totally agreed with. *sigh* I’d kill for more silly, relatively-harmless stuff like that in the news...

Baldur’s Gate III: Well, after a week of watching the people behind the Origin companions play their first-ever game of proper D&D (and poor Theo Solomon learning the dice hate him almost as much as Larian seems to hate his character), it was only natural that I’d return to the realm of Faerûn this Saturday to have some more adventures with Tav Smiler and their companions! Today’s session consisted mainly of the gang searching the harpy hangout for goodies, followed by Smiler having a very interesting experience with Gale back at camp – let me tell you all about it:

A) I picked things up at the little beach of the Sheltered Cove, with Smiler and company having just saved Mirkon from a terrible fate by slaughtering the harpies luring him to his doom. And as the tiefling kid was officially out of danger, and Gale was officially out of “hi you’re gaining approval with me at a staggering rate” stories, it was officially time to loot the bodies! I thus had the gang search the corpse of each harpy, looking for goodies –

And ending up sorely disappointed. >( True, the harpy right next to Smiler on the beach had 28 gold on her, which wasn’t bad, but the one that Astarion killed up on the ledge overlooking the water had naught but a bone on her person (which Smiler didn’t take because we already had a couple of bones taking up space in the camp chest), and the one in the water and the one lying on the lower ledges of the big pointy rock island they’d called their own both had absolutely nothing. >( Like, Smiler and friends did all that back and forth, climbing up and down twisted roots and wading through nearly-waist-deep water, for no benefit! Or, at least, that’s what I thought –

Until I spotted a wooden chest lying near the water’s edge on the opposite side of the big pointy rock island. I had the group approach it cautiously, just in case it was trapped, but fortunately it proved to be completely benign, and provided them with the following:

I. 30 XP as they approached it for – unknown reasons. O.o Like, seriously, no clue why the gang got a bunch of XP there – possibly it was the game having a Johnny-come-lately moment and suddenly giving me some location discovery XP? Or there’s some other trigger that dumps XP on you for finding that chest...I mean, I’m not complaining, I’m TRYING to get everyone up to Level 4, but still. Just odd.

II. 60 gold pieces – hooray, the gang’s personal stash continues to grow! Their ability to buy things is restored! XD

III. And the “Hat of the Siren’s Call” – a fancy cap from my big old “extra equipment” mod by GraphicFade that grants the wearer the Sonic Blast cantrip! Which is a custom cantrip where you release a cone of sound that inflicts thunder damage on enemies and – if they fail their Constitution saving throws – pushes them three meters away from you. Potentially useful!

So yeah, that was a halfway decent reward for fighting all those harpies. *nods* Thank you chest – and GraphicFade, of course. :P

( You lot all know how wordy I get now )

YouTube: I’m happy to report that I was able to fit in two videos this evening instead of just the one (though, given I’m posting all this the following day, maybe I should have just focused on one):

A) “7 Times The Real Ending Was Hidden in DLC: Commenter Edition” by OXBox! Andy, Jane, and Mike talking about more of those times where the real ending to a video game’s story was hidden in downloadable content – or, in the case of the last entry, Fable, which was released before DLCs were really a thing, an entirely new version of the game you had to buy – as per the comments on their last video! Examples included:

I. Thought Dead Rising 4 ended with Frank sacrificing himself to the zombie horde to make sure his friends Brad and Vick got out of Willamette in time? Nope – as per the “Frank Rising” DLC, he ended up turned into a sort of super-zombie with special powers, managed to regain some control of his faculties with the help of science, got cured and returned to being a human, escaped the town, and then – depending on how many wasps you collected during the whole thing – either retired from the public eye and had nightmares about being a zombie for the rest of his life, or wrote a best-selling book about his time as a zombie and helped expose the government’s involvement in the zombification incident.

II. Thought Fable ended with with a big boss fight against the fully-human Jack of Blades? Nope – as per the enhanced edition Fable: The Lost Chapters, that was only round one, and to truly stop his reign of terror, the Hero had to fight him again, this time with Jack in the form of a dragon! And then take his mask and either consign it to the lava...or claim it himself and become a worse villain than Jack ever was…

III. Thought Dragon Age: Inquistion ended with Solas firmly on your side in sealing the breaches in the Veil separating the regular world and the spirit world? Nope – as per the “Trespasser DLC,” he’s actually the avatar of the elven god of BETRAYAL, and was hoping to rip the Veil fully asunder – at least, until his initial plan to give his magical orb to the big bad of the main game went wrong. Thus justifying Jane’s decision to have him live in the library and never come out on missions because she hates his stupid bald head. XD

Bottom line? You can never truly trust a game to end satisfyingly if the company behind it thinks they can make more money by hiding it in the DLC and forcing you to pay a few extra bucks for it. Because capitalism. *serious nod*

B) And “CaFae Latte Season 84 - TikTok Compilation” by C. M. Alongi! Which featured more Adventures In Opposing ICE by the CaFae Latte regulars, including:

I. Oscar on aerial ICE-watching duty, reporting in to Andy about how the truck he was tailing had just stopped for gas at a station with a “DON’T TREAD ON ME” sign in the window (after being refused service at an earlier station) and letting him know the coordinates so David and Asif could add it to their “places to boycott” list. Which, as he noted, was pretty close to CaFae Latte...he then continued following the truck as it made its way toward the very street CaFae was on (wondering if they were going after the Mexican restaurant across the way again) –

Only to be told off by a seraph ICE agent also in the skies, telling him to get out of their airspace, he was interfering with an investigation. Cue Oscar blowing the hell out of his whistle and getting into a little bit of a scrap with the guy, then phoning Bob to let her know ICE was coming –
While the ICE seraph tried to shoot him in the back! D: Fortunately he missed because Oscar’s friends loaded him up with good luck charms, but fucking hell, poor Oscar!

( Because these always get long too )

...yeah, you see why I couldn't do all that last night. Especially with the time shift. *sigh* Anyway, talk to you all this evening, where hopefully I WON'T be staying up half the night doing write-ups...

It's not TOO bad yet, but -- I am definitely having my fair share of "staring off into space" or "getting caught up in something I didn't mean to get caught up in" moments. And I have in fact been suffering a few of those moments working on this entry, so let's get this posted and get myself to bed:

Work – Another mostly-quiet day, fortunately, though it was a bit more stressful than yesterday –

A) I had to do up a new “gift confirmation” letter for a guy who called saying he’d received an incorrect one, and he needed something with “received by” dates and amounts and whatnot for tax purposes

B) I had to take a couple of credit card calls (with my coworker grabbing a third at the end of the day)

C) I had to help our main database contact get a bunch of credit card batches posted, which involved calling a guy to let him know that he’d created another unnecessary gift in an attempt to pay his pledge (bit sad, really)

D) I had to e-mail our credit card people again about an issue because they had yet to get back to me

E) And I attempted to research some returned mail, only to not get far thanks to everything else (though I was able to find some updated addresses and send a couple of letters back out)

Yeah, it was busy, but not OVERWHELMINGLY so, at least. And the commute up and back was a LOT better today, so I will accept it. Here’s hoping Friday isn’t a total shitshow!

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with “Baldur's Gate 3 Cast play D&D #1 | High Rollers Presents: Shadows of Athkatla!” Tonight’s half-hour featured:

A) Astarion checking through Tav’s pack and finding – tucked away amongst all the various pots and cups and far, far too many books the player character has picked up – two potions of healing (Mark the DM even gave Neil a special little jar with a die inside that Neil could roll when he used it), a scroll of Counterspell, a scroll of Detect Thoughts, and two Arrows of Fire (which are basically arrows that, when fired, light themselves in midair and explode when hitting a target, doing extra fire damage to them and possible the people around them). Astarion promptly tucked all that away and distracted Karlach with a light-up yo-yo he found in the pack. XD

B) Shadowheart wandering toward Lae’zel, Gale, and Elminster to make sure the githyanki didn’t piss their new friend off, and Wyll deciding to swallow his pride and ask if his party members could maybe provide a bit more help with all the wounds? Fortunately for him, Mark decided that their chat with Elminster and cleaning up after the fight and such could count as a short rest, restoring some of their special abilities (Wyll got the spell slot he expended casting Darkness back, Lae’zel recovered her action surge, etc) and allowing Wyll to spend some of his “hit dice” – three dice that a character can roll to help recover hit points! The way they work is, you roll a die (the size of which depends on your character class – Wyll as a warlock had a D8, Karlach the barbarian had a D12, and poor squishy Gale the wizard had a D6), add your Constitution modifier to the result, and recover that amount of hit points. You can roll however many you like, but you only get three (at least until a long rest), so… Wyll thus rolled his first “hit die” –

And got a fucking one. XD Poor Theo! At least he had a +2 Constitution modifier, so he was able to bump that up to a three! He ended up spending another die to get another +6 HP, bringing him up to 15, while Gale rolled his and recovered 5 HP overall. *nods* At least nobody’s actively dying!

( It’s That Time Again )

2. Continue editing Chapter 4 of “The Van Dort Vacancy”: Check – kind of had to squeeze this in at the last minute thanks to the above write-up taking so long, but I DID get about a page edited, covering:

A) Victor remarking that the Advocates cult was the weirdest he’d ever met (after Smiler told them yesterday that they hadn’t forced the publishers of the magazine Amusements to join them, since it wouldn’t have made them happy) – Alice was like “have you met many cults?” and Victor had to admit no, but also any cult that allowed potential recruits to just say “no” like that was – well, he would have said “weird,” but then his fingers bumped into a mysterious feathery something under his bed…

B) Victor feeling around under his bed until he could find a handhold on the object and pulling it out – to discover it was an old masquerade mask he was kind of hoping to never see again because he wore it on a particularly upsetting night out. Alice and Smiler both noted how fancy it was, and Victor explained to them that he’d worn it to a party at the Kingsleigh’s, back when his mother was still parading him in front of noble daughters, and that his main memory of that night was standing around in a ridiculous costume, watching all the other men chat easily with the ladies...and then trying to imitate them while introducing himself to the daughter, only for her to laugh in his face and start immediately making fun of him to her friends while he went and hid by the buffet. Smiler was immediately like “do you have any happy memories?!” (Victor: “Meeting you and Alice?” Smiler: “...any more than four days old?”)l

C) And Victor assuring Alice and Smiler that he has actually been happy before after Smiler admitted they were tempted to drag him back to the MOJ and stick him in one of the art rooms until he could feel joy again and Alice admitted she was tempted to let them – just that the doom and gloom kind of overshadowed all the happier moments. Smiler declared that was why Victor was getting out, after all, and reiterated their stance on “if you have terrible parents, you leave them and find new ones.” Victor noted he was a little old to be adopted by anyone now – Smiler countered that their parents would probably be happy to claim him. After all, they were happy to claim Smiler…

And that is where I left things for tonight! Tomorrow, we should hopefully be able to finish off this chapter with Victor making a decision about what to do about this mask – and then next week, we can focus on getting this baby posted! Yay!

3. Watch something on YouTube: No check – I was hoping that I might be able to fit something in, but the work-out write-up took way too long, unfortunately. *sigh* I’m getting WAAAY too into the details of what I watch when I do my write-ups, and I really need to cut it out.

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Substitution check – didn’t do anything with my queues on either Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) or Valice Multiverse, but I did straight-up reblog something on the former – a thread all about the latest bullshit internet censorship laws going to a “markup vote” to get in front of the House today, and who to call if you wanted the people on the “House Energy and Commerce Committee” to reject the markup vote entirely and stop the bills in their tracks. Just felt important, you know? With all the bullshit happening everywhere? *sigh* I hate this timeline, seriously.

And there we are, and now it is time for me to go get some sleep. At least the weekend is only one day away! Night all!

Yeah, the weather was notably worse today -- afternoon saw snow turn to freezing rain, meaning the roads were all slushy as hell and getting home was a bit of a battle. Not a full-on nightmare like some days -- I was able to take the highway, and traffic wasn't quite as bad as I'd feared -- but it was still a slog! But in most other respects, it was a nicer, more productive day overall:

Work – Fortunately for my sanity, it was a quieter day at work today. There were still problems – like finding out I couldn’t update someone’s pledge (which they’d set up wrong on the website) because of credit card bullshit, and being able to put on a batch at the end of the day because the right source code hadn’t been set up for it, and discovering some more payments that needed moving – but I was finally able to finish that batch I’ve been working on for the past couple of days, and clear a few things out of my e-mail inbox, and automatically take care of one exception when the person it involved called in about something else. And the credit card people HAVE started uploading batches again, which is also good – if they get posted without too much bullshit, of course. We’ll see how tomorrow goes!

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with “Baldur's Gate 3 Cast play D&D #1 | High Rollers Presents: Shadows of Athkatla!” Tonight’s chunklet saw the group continuing their combat with the Glass Warrior and its army of weird Glitchy Magic Spirits, and featured:

A) Gale declaring his intent to hit the Glass Warrior with Ray of Frost, which everyone agreed was an excellent move – well, until Mark the DM pointed out that Gale was essentially going to have to fire blind thanks to Wyll’s Darkness, and thus he would have to make the roll at Disadvantage. Cue Shadowheart immediately asking “can I cast Guidance on him?” XD Mark said she could not (Guidance doesn’t effect attack rolls – good to know), but she could actually cast something better – the spell Bless, which DOES affect attack rolls! ...on her turn, using her action. Though Gale did have the option of holding his action until it was her turn if he wanted that bonus. After a bit of back-and-forth about “do I want to Bless Gale or do Shield of Faith on Tav,” she decided that she wanted to Bless Gale, and Gale thus held off on frosting the Warrior for the moment…

( It Got Long! )

2. Continue editing Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – got a good chunk edited today, covering:

A) Beckett confirming to Alice that no, he had no interest in stealing the Ankaran Sarcophagus – in fact, he would have much preferred the damn thing stay where it was so he could study it and prove it was just a relic from a bygone age. Mostly because all the talk about it containing an Antediluvian and being a “portent of Gehenna” was getting on his nerves. XD

B) Alice and Beckett taking about Antediluvians and what their deal was, with Beckett correct her misremembered musings that they were the childer of Caine – they’re the grand-childer, actually – and confirming again that they’re the supposed “founders” of each clan and bloodline, and that some Kindred insist they still exist in the present. Alice mentioned what Skelter told her about slumbering elders controlling all those who share their blood, and how it had creeped her out – Beckett agreed it was an unpleasant thought, and reassured her that he believed that, had any Antediluvians survived to the modern era, they would have much better things to do than meddle in the squabbles between Camarilla and Anarchs and Sabbat. “I understand something called ‘Big Brother’ is now popular on the television?” XD (I looked it up, and that WOULD have been the right era for it!)

C) Alice then asking Beckett about why the sarcophagus would be considered a “portent of Gehenna,” given she wasn’t familiar with the concept – he explained in a bored tone that it was supposed to be the inevitable Kindred apocalypse, where Caine and the Antediluvians would come to either kill or devour all their childer. He did not think that was going to happen anytime soon, though – and when Alice asked why, started by explaining his theory that Caine, the First Vampire, was not actually a real person, but just a mythological figure intended to mark the transition from nomadic societies to ones centered around farming. He admitted he was willing to consider the idea that there was SOMEONE named Caine in ancient times, and that perhaps he even killed his brother, but Caine as the Dark Father of all vampires? That he most certainly did NOT believe. Alice admitted she’d prefer if the mythological mega-Kindred stayed in the ground herself and asked if people thought Caine was the one in the sarcophagus – Beckett said he hadn’t heard that theory, stating that most of the masses seemed content to assign one of the “lesser” Antediluvians to it – like Ventrue, or Arikel (the Toreador Antediluvian), or Malkav – and considered that enough of a sign of the End Times.

D) And Alice and Beckett talking about other portents of Gehenna – specifically, thin-bloods popping up everywhere. Alice noted disdainfully that she’d already heard some Kindred get “murderously nervous” around them, and asked why, when thin-bloods were so weak, causing Beckett to explain it was exactly that weakness that made Kindred anxious – given that thin-bloods often don’t display any obvious traits or powers of their clan, cannot usually Embrace, and are sometimes rumored to be able to reproduce the typical human way (or use strange alchemy to twist Kindred vitae in ways not even Elders have dreamed of – had to throw that in from V5 as I thought it was an interesting concept), other vampires think they signal the eventual end of all the clans. Beckett personally thought this was a rather ignorant and reactionary response, and Alice fully agreed, saying that the Santa Monica thin-bloods had been extremely nice and hadn’t deserved all the hounding they got. And that maybe thin-bloods would be more inclined to share their alchemical discoveries if people were nicer to them.

*nods* Solid stuff! We’ll pick up with Alice and Beckett talking about apocalypse myths and the origins of Kindred next week – tomorrow, it’s back to Chapter 4 of “The Van Dort Vacancy” to start finishing that up!

3. Watch something on YouTube: Check-ish, in the sense that I watched most of a video my friend Squid recommended to me yesterday – “How Silksongs True Ending was beaten Blindfolded” by MyPetCactus! Basically someone analyzing the 19-and-a-half-hour run done by some dude named Brisk who was determined to beat Silksong and get the true ending, all while blindfolded. Oh, and he did it on PERMADEATH mode because he needed a specific bonus that only appeared in that mode. *shakehead* Challenge runners, I swear… Anyway, I confess I skimmed over a few bits here and there because it was a 45-minute-long video, and, being unfamiliar with Silksong, I did find some of it a little confusing – but the stuff I watched was pretty damn impressive! Especially for someone doing it blindfolded! Stand-out moments included:

A) Brisk holding forward and down on the keyboard in a certain area with spike pits all around so Hornet (the protagonist) was constantly swinging her needle as she ran, which would allow her to do an accidental “pogo” out of a spike pit should she fall in

B) Brisk abusing the fact that one enemy was in the same area as a friendly NPC with some battle chops themselves, and luring said enemy down to them so they could kill it XD

C) Brisk taking regular breaks to “farm” certain enemies to get the currency needed to buy tools and upgrades and equipment (including, at one point, a key to skip a boss fight he was SO not ready for) – notably, at one point, he went and killed two specific enemies one hundred and sixty-nine times for their stuff. It was pretty wild!

D) Brisk cheesing as many boss fights and arena battles as possible with the strategy of “hang on the wall just out of reach and let my little helper bugs attack them when they get too close, occasionally jumping off to avoid an attack or get a few hits in myself” XD

E) Brisk pulling off a very tricky skip to get out of the boss fight for “Fourth Chorus” – basically, what you’re supposed to do is wait for the camera to shift left, then doing a big jump AS it shifts, then dash and heal to get a little extra distance once the camera follows you in order to land on a very narrow ledge off to the side. Brisk naturally couldn’t see the camera shift, so he did the heal animation FIRST to buy a little time, which allowed him to do the jump around the time the camera shifted and do a dash to get onto the ledge. It was close, but he made it!

F) And Brisk doing the Ascent – a long mostly-vertical platforming section where Hornet is running away from rising lava with the help of her new “shoot up like a rocket with the power of your silk” skill – really, REALLY well for a blindfolded guy! Sure, the version I saw was the successful portions of three different attempts stitched together, but still. It was very cool nonetheless. :)

Yeah, that guy EARNED his victory scream at the very end of the run! *nods* Proud of you, Brisk. Even if you seem to have inspired another lunatic to try a run where they attempt to 100% the game blindfolded. XD Seriously, what is UP with the Silksong community...

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – was another “nothing” day on Valice Multiverse, but on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), I got my queue for the rest of the week sorted quite easily, dropping in:

A) Some fanart of Beckett from Vampire: the Masquerade by trefa for Wednesday

B) That cool Alice In Wonderland lightbox bookshelf decoration by ariesmoonscorpiorising for Thursday

C) That cool “butterfly wings and flowers encased in glass” window corner decoration by – well, by LonesomeHoboGlass, but posted by jetix for Friday

D) That short video of Corpse Bride clips featuring Victor & Victoria and Victor & Emily being romantic together to Mitski’s cover of “How Deep Is Your Love” by jmaticedits for Song Saturday

E) And the “A Smiler In Secundus, Part 2” post I whipped up this past weekend, where I shared Gigs’s Christmas fic of Smiler meeting Alice and Chester at Victor’s house, for Sunday!

So yeah, we’re all good for the rest of the week, yay~ Good to have that off my plate!

*nods* Not bad, not bad at all! But I really do need to head to bed now, so off I go. :p Night all!

We had a bit of snow this morning, but while it looked like it might turn into something serious for a few minutes, it didn't actually amount to anything but a bit of fluff in a few spots. Halle-freaking-lujah -- we do NOT need more snow! And according to Dad, it looks like -- after tomorrow's arctic burst -- the rest of the week is going to be mostly rainy, which should help continue to melt all the snow that's still piled up outside. Though he did also mention the weather people getting nervous about ANOTHER big storm that's apparently hanging out somewhere...oh, I hope we're not going to get a third snowstorm. One each during January and February was ENOUGH. *sigh*

As for my day, I am pleased to say I accomplished pretty much everything I hoped to accomplish:

Tumblr: Twas another day when nothing happened on Valice Multiverse – but I did manage to add a couple of things to my drafts for later over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) –

A) An old post by polyshipprompts (which I found on the blog polyamorousmood) which offered up this prompt: “imagine your polyship sharing a bed for the first time and trying to figure out who should sleep where” Which I reblogged with this addition: “As per the "Sleepytime" set of Not-Incorrect Quotes I did for my OT3, Alice and Smiler very quickly figured out during that first time that if Victor didn't sleep in the middle, he stole all the covers. XD” Because yeah, that headcanon was literally the first thing I thought of when I saw the prompt. XD As per the tags (and the linked post), though, Victor actually really enjoys sleeping in the middle, as it makes him feel very safe and loved, so it all works out!

B) And the post “Secundus Sunday: A Smiler In Secundus, Part 2” because it occurred to me recently that I’d never cross-posted Gigs’s “Secundus!Smiler ends up coming home with Victor and meeting the family after the whole ‘getting a permit to sell their wares’ things” Christmas fic over on tumblr. It just kind of fell by the wayside after all the medical bullshit we’ve been dealing with. So I figured I should correct that and whipped up a post with the story and the notes on how it came to be. It’s not going up THIS Sunday because I was a little groggy earlier thanks to my late wake-up this morning, and thus I want to give the post a second look before actually posting it, but I figure it can go into the queue for NEXT Sunday this week. :)

Hooray, a few extra things to queue up if I need ‘em! :P

Writing: I made sure to edit a page on Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodines: Downtown Queensland” after lunch today – today’s session included:

A) Alice getting into the “workshop” area of the museum, which initially involved navigating a dark and dingy storage space with various boxes full of potential exhibits the museum staff hadn’t gotten to yet – she wondered how long some of them had been waiting, noting one in particular had a pretty healthy layer of dust on it, which prompted Carpenter to complain about how the item inside must crave the spotlight and how the museum might as well send it back to its country of origin to see if THEY want to display it. Alice was like “we’ll see what happens once I get the sarcophagus – I somehow doubt that many places will want their precious artifacts stored here after the theft is discovered” in response

B) Alice finding a door in the wall that would have been nearly impossible to see if not for the keycard reader next to it (making her wonder if the reader should be painted to match the wall to deter thieves...before going “wait, no, you’d want the STAFF to be able to figure out where they’re going”) and using Auspex to confirm that it was the right door for her – cue the Insane Children drawing a pair of arrows pointing to the door on either side –

And a frazzled Alice face on the door itself, causing Alice to complain that that was rather contradictory of them. :P She wondered if that meant that there was a guard on the other side that she needed to watch out for, then noted that she hadn’t seen any guard-shaped outlines through the wall when she had Auspex on (reminding herself (and me) that she needed to use that aspect of the power more often, as it was useful), so maybe it was a camera she needed to hide from instead. Either way, though, she didn’t see any other doors anywhere nearby, so she took a chance and swiped her card to open it. Leading to…

C) Alice stepping through the door into a big old workroom with all sorts of stuff in it – including a big blood-spattered crate she recognized from the Elizabeth Dane – but no sarcophagus. And then being startled almost back to life by the sudden appearance of Beckett behind her, commenting on how he wasn’t sure why anyone would want to steal the “box with a very ancient corpse. This city’s not that dull.” XD She asked what the hell he was doing there, and he explained that, as an archaeologist himself, he’d wanted a look at the sarcophagus that was sending the city into a tizzy. His guess was that all that was in there was a mummified Mesopotamian king, but he needed confirmation. Alice told him that he wasn’t getting it here and asked if he was sure it was supposed to be in this room (as she’d wondered briefly if it had been moved) – he assured her that he’d had it on good authority the sarcophagus was supposed to be in here, meaning someone had stolen it – “or ‘intentionally misplaced,’ if you prefer.” XD Beckett really does have some excellent lines.

And so I left off for today with the pair staring at the empty examination table where the sarcophagus should be, wondering who took it and why! Tomorrow, Alice and Beckett start talking potential suspects before veering off into discussing how it ties into the Gehenna superstitions that Beckett hates so much. Should be fun – like I said, Beckett does have some banger lines. :p

Portal 2: My grand return to Aperture Science proved to be a little less grand than I’d expected, as I only completed two test chambers today. ^^; But they are getting a little harder, and I only played for about forty minutes (so I wouldn’t be overwhelmed trying to summarize a long gaming session and the latest F:NV YOLO Remastered episode later), so… *shrug* It is what it is! Today’s chambers were –

Chamber 12: Another test featuring everyone’s favorite architectural feature created from sunlight – the hard light bridge! Along with a bit of actual plot stuff before the test itself, courtesy of Wheatley sabotaging the door leading into the chamber by dumping a bunch of bird eggs into the mechanism so GLaDOS would go off and fix it and he could check in with Chell. Granted, his check in was interrupted by him being attacked by the furious mama bird, and his impassioned declaration that he was going to break him and Chell out soon was rather undercut by him admitting he still had to think of how he was going to do that, but – it was still nice to see him again. XD Anyway, he disappeared once more when GLaDOS returned and announced she’d basically killed the door mechanism for failing her, allowing Chell and I to get on with the actual test, which went like so:

( Sparing your reading pages because every game write-up I do is long )

Workout: In a surprise twist this Sunday, I ended up watching two videos with my workout today – mostly because Jon was a little late uploading the latest F:NV YOLO Remastered episode again today, which led to me watching one short video I found in my Recommendeds while seeing if it would pop up or not. So today’s workout saw me pedal my way through:

A) The entirety of “GLaDOS Actor Reacts to Your Comments” by Fall Damage! A seven-minute video of voice actress Ellen McLain, voice of GLaDOS, responding to various YouTube comments about her role! Including:

I. “I can’t believe the voice actor for a murderous robot villain is just a nice old lady I love that” by mothbrain – Ellen jokingly responded that she only pretends to be nice >D

II. “Imagine they used AI voice instead of a voice actor. Her performance was so incredible” by keith3915 – this one made Ellen reveal that, at the time the original Portal was made, you had to license the only true AI voice out there, meaning it was actually cheaper for Valve to hire an actual voice actress to play GLaDOS and then just run her voice through a filter. Ellen apparently got the job by virtue of sounding the most like the robot voice! Good for her!

III. “The worst part about Portal 1 and 2 is that you can never play them for the first time again” by rubric167 – Ellen said that was so sweet...and then revealed she’d never played the games herself. Her husband, fellow voice actor John Patrick Lowry (The Sniper in Team Fortress 2) has, but Ellen just couldn’t get past the first room when she attempted the original. Apparently she’s “sort of a technophobe,” which is very amusing given GLaDOS must be the role she’s most famous for now.

IV. And “The TF2 announcer is pretty much the only person I could imagine playing chess with Glados” by gilamasan – after having fun trying to figure out how to pronounce their name, Ellen admitted that the Administrator – whom she ALSO voices – would probably give GLaDOS a run for her money, martini in one hand and cigarette in the other. And that the Administrator is one of the toughest characters on her voice (along with the Broodmother spider-monster from DOTA 2).

It was a fun little video, and I am glad that I got the chance to watch it. :)

B) And the first twenty-four minutes of “Fallout New Vegas: You Only Live Once Remastered - Part 32 - The Beginning of the End” by Jon of Many A True Nerd, with the final fourteen minutes watched after supper! As is my wont. *nods* Today’s episode saw our favorite drunken melee courier P. D. Shoot tackle the first of her two finales in this series – wrapping up the main game with an NCR win at the Second Battle Of Hoover Dam! A dangerous task which involved:

I. P. D. descending into the very deepest level of the Dam to report to Cassandra Moore that President Kimball was safe (as she stopped his assassination last episode) while Jon explained how this made the NCR ending probably the most dangerous for old P. D. – mostly because, rather than starting at the top of the Dam as she would if she was doing the House or Yes Man endings, and fighting her way across to the Legion camp at the other side, she would first have to fight her way back up to the top of the Dam through all the Legion invading the place and then make her way across! There were four extra zones worth of Legion she would have to face off against! (He didn’t mention how the ending would have worked if she’d stayed with the Legion rather than turning on them rather last-minute, but I presume it would have involved fighting her way into Hoover Dam to take it from the NCR – another not-ideal situation!) Meaning there was a non-zero chance that P. D. was going to find herself wrapped up in at least one firefight she couldn’t avoid. Jon had a route in mind for her to follow while trying to get out of the power plant, and failsafes in the form of her Stealth Boys and precious Turbo, but he fully admitted that P. D. getting through this ending was not guaranteed! (Though, on the plus side, he was able to show off how, if you get into the lower levels of the Dam, you can slip out a side door and take a look at the actual dam itself from the bottom. It’s pretty cool, honestly!)

II. P. D. then reporting to Cassandra that the president had survived the assassination attempts last episode and safely evacuated, resulting in her getting her orders to report to the newly-arrived General Oliver as soon as possible, and triggering the game’s “hey, you’re locking in fighting with the NCR during the Second Battle of Hoover Dam and getting their ending – if there is anything else you want to do, now is the time to back out and go do it” warning pop-up. P. D., content in getting a save at that exact moment that she could warp back to once this whole mess was over, told the pop-up she was ready, then went to talk to General Oliver, who informed her that – thanks to the work she’d done for them – the NCR had an opportunity to assault the Fort and take the fight to the Legion. He revealed that he’d called in all their allies, and once they arrived, they’d start their plans for the big push in earnest –

Aaaand then cue one of the maintenance workers rushing in to tell the General, “So the Legion are invading us through the clogged intake tunnels, and their leader the Legate has set up a camp on the eastern bank.” Welp, so much for a surprise attack on the Legion, eh, Oliver? XD P. D. was thus tasked to get to the camp and take out the Legate to hamstring the attack –

And then was promptly warped via cutscene into a nearby room where panicking engineer Mike Lawson told her about the Legion coming in through the intake tunnels and how someone needed to stop them, preferably by finding a way to restart the turbines and shred the incoming Legion...which P. D. had no interest in doing, because Jon did not feel that side objective was in any way worth it. It would just put her in more danger than she already was! She said she’d try just to keep Mike off her back, but – yeah. No turbine murder for you, Mike!

III. P. D. then backing into a corner the moment she left the conversation and slapping on a Stealth Boy to prepare for her stealth mission back up to the top of Hoover Dam...followed by her having to do a dose of Turbo to maneuver around all the Legionnaires pouring into the room through its one door. Mostly because, for this portion of the final fight, the game cheated and basically subconsciously told all the Legionnaires where she was, meaning – even if they couldn’t actually detect her, they still automatically went to her position. It’s like how a couple of the enemies in “Lonesome Road” just KNOW where to aim to give the Courier a bad time – I think it’s intended to FORCE the player character into helping out instead of letting the NPCs do all the work. P. D. however, was like “fuck that” and simply speed-crouch-walked past all the various fights, passing through every door on her way up that Jon knew would spawn friendly NCR reinforcements instead of Legionnaire enemies. She made it past almost all of the nonsense in her way without much trouble, though she did have to take a second dose of Turbo to shake a conga line of Legionnaires who were tracking her thanks to their game-given “we can tell where you are even if we can’t actually detect you” powers –

And then she went to go into the Visitor’s Center level and the game crashed. XD Figures, eh? Fortunately the game had autosaved fairly recently, so she just had to trek her way through the final power plant again (and THIS time, there were a few friendly NCR lads hanging out ready to fight the Legionnaires trying to follow her – though she still took that second dose of Turbo, just to be safe), and her second attempt to get into the Visitor’s Center went just fine. *whew* Glad that game crash didn’t screw her over – New Vegas is gonna New Vegas, people!

IV. P. D. then reaching the top of the Dam, greeting the arriving Great Khans, and proceeding across to the eastern bank to get into the Legate’s camp! Which at first involved her taking the road running along the side of the Dam so she didn’t have to get involved in the fighting –

Before deciding, “Eh, I should probably help out if I can” and hopping over the wall onto the sandbag-wall-covered top of the Dam itself to weave through the Legionnaires and punch a few of them into the stratosphere. XD This strategy did not always work out for her – punching off the head of a Legionnaire near the door to the second half of the Dam put her into [CAUTION] because his buddy noticed the death (I mean, how could you MISS it?), while trying to help out Alpha Squad (who’d she’d just Speech checked into trying to overwhelm the oncoming Legion by pushing the advance on them – aka, running forward to serve as decoys as she snuck past) by punching the three Legionnaires trying to attack them resulted in two misses despite a 95% chance to hit (Jon was absolutely BAFFLED, but I think at least one of them just moved out of position before she could pull off the punch) – but she did kill a few (including the ones she missed previously)! And between that, all her allies drawing fire, and her Stealth Boy making her much harder to detect, she made it over to the other side of the dam, past the one Legionnaire who runs down to the bottom of the Dam instead of joining the fight at the top (Jon doesn’t know why that happens but thinks it’s hilarious) and the Legionnaire and his dog guarding the front gate, and into the camp! Yay!

V. P. D. then crouch-running through the Legate’s camp, killing a few lone Legionnaires standing around and using her Repair skill to lock the Legion Mongrels inside their little pen so they couldn’t get out and cause trouble, before quickly reading a “Meeting People” magazine to raise her Speech to 100 and doing a final dose of Turbo (via Implant GRX, because Jon suddenly remembered “oh right, I got that perk at the end of last episode, I should, you know, MAKE USE OF IT”) to outpace the two NCR Rangers running toward Legate Lanius so she could start the conversation with Lanius early and save their lives (because, otherwise, those two Rangers end up murdered by the Legate to show off how badass he is. Having seen Jon save them by accident recently in the “Worst Courier” series, it was kind of sweet to see him pull it off deliberately in this one!). She then proceeded to chat with Lanius and pass all the Speech checks to convince him that crushing the NCR at Hoover Dam would lead to the destruction of the Legion in the long term – mostly through telling him that, if he chose to focus his army’s efforts on holding the newly-conquered West, he’d have to give up all the hard-fought territory they’d won in the East. The empire would just be too big for the Legion to handle. Which caused Lanius to admit that the East had been a “hard-fought campaign” and that he’d already felt that Caesar had directed too many members of the army to the Mojave on the quest to take Hoover Dam. He then declared the Dam to be “just a place” and that “I will not have it be the gravestone of the Legion – whether quickly, or as you describe, slowly...by attrition.” P. D. thus convinced him there was victory in wisdom (pointedly AVOIDING the option asking if he agreed to retreat, since that would make him realize she was bullshitting him and make him challenge her to combat anyway), and he agreed to leave with his remaining troops and head back east – though he warned that, eventually, he would return to fight the NCR again, and they would meet on the battlefield once more. And if there were more people like P. D. to fight that time – perhaps it would be a worthy battle indeed. *nods* I’m glad Jon showed off the entire conversation in this run – as he himself pointed out, Legate Lanius only appears for a very short time at the end of the game, but he leaves an impression with his iconic stone mask and his excellent voice acting. And it was cool to see P. D. talk him down, even if Jon still thinks that’s a weird way to wrap up that fight. (And even if Jon also lamented for this specific run that there was no special dialogue for Couriers who did a lot of Legion work before swapping sides to the NCR. Ah well – can’t cover every weird player case in 18 months of development!)

VI. P. D. then wrapping up the mission by going back to the main gate and chatting with General Oliver once he and his rangers blew it open and came through – saying “thank you, I couldn’t have done it alone” when he praised her for helping secure the NCR’s future, before telling him that, if there was nothing else, she had to head out – and getting her ending slides! Which included:

a. The NCR, post-victory celebration, annexing the Strip and the other communities around it

b. P. D. getting the Golden Branch, the highest civilian honor the NCR had, despite her rather brutal methods not being improved of by many NCR citizens

c. The Brotherhood of Steel and the NCR managing to maintain their truce in the Mojave, with the NCR surrendering all their salvaged power armor in exchange for the Brotherhood helping to patrol the I-15 and Highway 95 to encourage trade

d. Veronica feeling better about the Brotherhood’s immediate future in the wake of the truce...but realizing there was a gap between herself and her fellows that could never been bridged, and spending much of her time hiding out in Old World libraries, researching incredible technologies she knew the Brotherhood would never use ( :( LET HER PUNCH MCNAMARA)

e. The NCR evicting the Followers of the Apocalypse from the Old Mormon Fort – and, after a little bit, Outer Vegas altogether

f. The Great Khans returning to Red Rock Canyon...only for the NCR to eventually come in, kill a bunch of them, and exile the rest to a “barren reservation” far north of their trade routes so they could have the land

g. The Nightkin, having never actually gotten a cure for their schizophrenia, leaving Jacobstown and attacking the local humans as their conditions worsened, leading to reprisal attacks on Jacobstown, eventually leading to the rest of the mutants abandoning it as well

h. The Kings and the NCR actually managing to maintain their truce in Freeside, coordinating on relief efforts to help all the citizens – and the Kings stubbornly maintaining their independence in the face of repeated NCR pushing to join the Republic (I don’t know if that extended to Freeside, given it was said to be annexed in an earlier slide, but still)

i. And Primm Slimm turning out to be a decent sheriff for Primm, even if he was so slow some criminals got away clean (Jon decided that this was the best ending for Primm and said that handing control over to a cowboy robot is obviously how you get a perfect society XD)

Yeah – a pretty mixed ending there! Though I’m glad the Kings were all right in the end – and Primm. But yes, this is just more evidence that I should do the Independent Vegas ending in my own run – the NCR do NOT seem to treat the people under their purview as well as they ought!

VII. P. D. then going back in time to the moment when the pop-up warned her she was committing to an ending and going “I’m not ready!” so she could do the remaining bits of DLC that needed doing! Though, in order to keep things fair, she stored a Stealth Boy and two doses of Turbo in Colonel Moore’s desk, so her inventory matched what it looked like at the end of the main campaign (though she did forget that she used a “Meeting People” – Jon promised he’d store one of those away too before she moved on into “Dead Money” when the comments reminded him). On the plus side, doing so allowed her to discover that Moore kept the Hoover Dam saferoom key in there, meaning Jon had once again Learned A New Thing about New Vegas. Neat! :)

VIII. And Jon ending the episode by telling all the people who have been telling him in the comments of the past few episodes, “Hey, before you go into ‘Dead Money,’ go back into ‘Lonesome Road’ and kill the super deathclaw Rawr – his hand is a quest item, so Elijah can’t take it off you, meaning you can convert it into a super-powerful deathclaw gauntlet once you’re in the Sierra Madre” that no, he will NOT be doing that. Because to him, it’s just too much of an exploit – the whole point of “Dead Money” is that you arrive in there with nothing – it’s important to both the difficulty and the story. And he wants to respect that, damn it. (...I suspect he also worries that P. D. would never be able to take on Rawr, but we’ll see what happens once he actually finishes “Lonesome Road” and actually meets the Deathclaw. XD)

And there we have it! Next week, poor Jon finally faces his fears and starts the “Dead Money” DLC. Having never seen him play it before, I am very eager to see just how terrible and painful it is. Hopefully his decision not to take the Light Step perk does NOT screw him over!

YouTube: While I don’t usually watch anything other than the latest F:NV YOLO Remastered episode on Sundays, today saw me watch one other video that I spotted this morning while looking for stuff to listen to as I made my bed: “Velma Losing It in the Background Is the Best Part (Scooby-Doo 2)!” A short by Heartsnreels showing a silly throw-away joke from Scooby-Doo 2 that they felt was one of the best in the movie! Basically, the gang has been captured in big rolling ball cages (don’t know why, never saw the movie), and their fellow captives (in different balls) are a Girl Scout and a pair of evangelists. The Girl Scout asks if they want to buy some cookies, followed by the evangelists asking if they’ve heard the good news –

And cue Scooby going, “Yeah! There’s cookies!” XD And yes, the actress playing Velma IS laughing in the background as he says it. XD Just a few seconds, but it was fun!

*nods* Not bad at all! Was hoping to get a bit more done on tumblr, but -- I woke up late this morning, so it is what it is. *shrug* And now I have to head to bed, as it is a work day tomorrow. Hopefully it won't be too bad...night all!