Stuck at shoe store *Spoilers*

[snik]

Been frustrating myself for hours trying to progress the storyline.

Been to the party with pixie, woke up at her place.
I have a modifier, have jumped around all over the place, slurped into the lodge and got into monads appartment. No npc in these places will speak to me.

I've read I need to do the stalker bit on pixie to trigger the next dialog, but I can't talk to her at all. I've tried catching her coming out of her house, when she's near/in the shoe shop, after she comes out, and on the way home - no dice.

Nini is still in the shoe shop and wont let me pass, I didn't have a smoke to give her and can't talk to her anymore (Even though I've been in the lodge already). I've tried giving her one now but she doesn't accept gifts.
She still stops me even if i tazer her.

Any ideas?

[FCC]

Sounds like you're in a tricky spot scripting wise. Are you able to talk to the Lodge doorman Felix about Pixie?

[snik]

I've talked to him before, his dialog is exhausted.

[FCC]

That's aggravating, you might be hosed at that point. If you haven't been turned off for continuing and are willing to restart the game, I suggest ignoring the soda-related quests to save time. Then avoid any teleporting related shenanigans until you trigger the stay at Pixie's place event. I also suspect you can load any save before you exhausted any Lodge-character dialog.

To kill time, you know how to get a modifier at the start right? Just trying not to accidentally spoil anything you didn't want to know now.

[snik]

Thanks for your time mate. I'm considering restarting it, I love the idea of the game, it's just super frustrating. I'll see if I can jump back to an unbroken state, hopefully I haven't overwritten them.
Modifier shouldn't be too bad, I think my first one came from the hotel.

[FCC]

I feel the same frustration/interest about the game too, especially after finishing it. I've fantasized about a mod to the game scripts to streamline the really uneven start, but ended up just subscribing to this forum to answer spoiler questions.

Let me know if you want hints to other things to do, if that will make things more fun while you replay some old sections.

[snik]

Restarted and made sure to have a cigarette on me for the shoestore girl, that seems to have resolved it. I recall getting stopped by the soda guy during the suit/explosion/akari scene, which might have killed off my other lodge option.

[FCC]

Interrupting soda guy is the worst. I get that they needed a quest to encourage you to explore the city during the first few days, but man is that plot thread pointless from a reward/interest perspective. Thankfully (meta-spoiler?) there doesn't seem to be any negative consequences for failing to record a single can sale.