Warm And Sunny Saturday
May. 15th, 2021 11:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickDefinitely got up to about 80ish, I think -- seems like summer is coming in a bit early! Which, you know what, I'm not exactly mad about. :p And the whole of next week is supposed to be good weather -- fingers crossed!
Okay, first things first -- I do have a birthday fic owed today, for the Mad Scientist, akawhitedove01s! This was inspired by some of your recent rants on the timesoup, and follows the usual format of "Jeannie bitching about the same thing the writer was bitching about in real life." Because even if I'm not sure if I can offer a solution, hopefully I can at least give you some amusement regarding the whole mess. XD Hope you enjoy!
“So – how’s Operation ‘Find Some Stable Parental Figures In This Mess’ going?”
Jeannie gave him a flat look as she raised her head from the mess of papers covering her desk. “I have come to the conclusion that most writers wouldn’t know a healthy parent-child relationship if it danced naked in front of them painted chartreuse.”
Jack winced. “That bad?”
“Close enough to, anyway.” She sighed, flopping against the back of her chair. “I mean, I’ve found a couple, but – it’s slow going. Especially when you have to make sure all species are accounted for.” She gave her beau a weak, sarcastic smile. “One of the downsides of dealing with things written by humans – they tend to prioritize humans.”
“Yeah, well, that’ll happen.” Jack ran his fingers through his hair. “So, you’ve got, what, two people that can give the rest of us parenting lessons?”
“Eh, little more than that. . .” She picked up a file and waved it at him. “Helps that we’ve had a new addition recently – what do you think of teenage mutant ninja turtles?”
Jack blinked a few times. “I think I’m gonna have that damn theme song stuck in my head for the rest of the day.”
Jeannie giggled. “Sorry, hun, but if I have to suffer. . .anyway, Splinter’s on my new short list of parents to vet,” she continued, flipping idly through the papers in the folder.
“Really? The giant mutated rat who raised four mutated turtles to be ninjas?”
“To be fair, they were the kid-friendly ‘it’s just fun martial arts and fighting against bad guys’ version of ninjas – at least, in the versions everybody’s most familiar with,” Jeannie corrected herself, glancing at the “Multiversal Variants” tab. “And the dude did his best to give them good morals and all that. He tried. And that’s more than we can say for almost everybody who raised us.”
“Well, yeah, but – that’s not exactly a high bar to clear, Jeannie.”
“Trust me, I know, but I’m not exactly swimmin’ in candidates, so – the hell is this?”
Jeannie frowned, pulling out a paper with a red sticky note plastered on it. “‘Warning – potential demographic error point,’” she read. “Oookay, what does that mean?”
“You are asking the wrong guy,” Jack said, peering at the paper upside-down. “What is it?”
“Looks like a page out of somebody’s dossier – ‘Baxter Stockman,’” Jeannie said, running her fingesr down the text. “From the original comics, keeps reappearing in other adapta – oh crap. Ooooooh crap.”
Jack instantly tensed. “What? Is he some sort of major psychopath or something?”
“Ah – sort of,” Jeannie said, grimacing. “He’s got some really bad mental problems, is listed as an official villain for some of the TMNT variants. . .” She looked up, her frown getting deeper. “But, uh – that only seems to happen when he’s black.”
“. . .what?”
“The damn carton turned him into a white guy, and then it’s sort of fifty-fifty from there when it comes to him appearing in other adaptations,” Jeannie explained, continuing down the sheet. “And, uh, all of the white versions of him seem a hell of a lot more stable than the black versions. Which is – interesting. You know. For a certain definition of the word.” She pressed her face into her hand. “And oh, look at this, he has an explicitly-white twin brother in one world! That’s great! Just what we need!” She squeezed her temples, then tossed the page and its associated folder back on the desk. “Nope. That’s it. Done for the day. I’ve already dealt enough with the whole ‘holy crap our world is really super-white’ problem without something like this rearing its ugly head. Damn it. . .I’ll talk it out with the bosses later, see if they have any bright ideas or magical solutions.” She shoved her chair back and stood up. “Come on, you – let’s get out of here before I decide what this desk really needs is a smack with a giant hammerspace mallet.”
And now, onto the other tasks I set out to accomplish on this day:
1. Clean my room: Check! Got started after having my smoothie, around 11:15 AM; finished up after lunch around 2:10 PM. Dusted, Swiffered, vacuumed rug and windows – all good for another couple of weeks!
2. Watch the Plumbella and Linkara videos in my Watch Later and keep up with YouTube Subs: Check! Got all five without too much issue –
A) Started with Plumbella and a set of her unpopular Sims opinions! Such as loving to play on speed three and having super-short lifespans in-game (I reserve speed 3 for sleep and boring activities alone with a Sim, and I’m currently finessing what kind of lifespans I want – “Newcrest Adventures” has everyone set on “long,” but I think that’s actually TOO long now – I think with future saves I’ll have it on “normal”); thinking Sims 4 building is the best in the series (I – thought most people believed this? Yes, gameplay is lacking but the building is genuinely good); not missing the color wheel for objects (agreed; Sims 2-style swatch combinations would work for me – but yes, a color wheel for CAS would be nice. We got it for pets!); and not caring to play much with adults, preferring to focus on kids and families (I – am the complete opposite; I find myself getting a bit bored with families and prefer singles and couples who are of adult age). Interesting stuff, even if some of it was probably a bit obvious from the way she plays and builds. XD
B) Then it was time for James Turner and another episode of “3 Brothers!” This one can be summed up pretty succinctly with the word “chaos.” XD Okay, okay, I’ll give you a little more detail:
Brodie is having a bit of trouble parenting his extremely defiant toddler, but has gotten him potty trained enough to go on his own. He also successfully completed another “expert” gig at his Paranormal Investigator job, and also got up to level 8 Snowboarding skill for his aspiration. And his bizarre idol successfully scared away Temperance, so – he’s doing all right! However, he’s also just gotten the “you have to get married to get an inheritance” phone call, so that might be interesting. . .
Candle is not doing great needs-wise, but he’s keeping on top of his university coursework, getting decent grades and whatnot. He’s submitted his first term paper and is ready to do his first presentation once the time comes on Monday.
Isaiah is mostly in the background these days (what happens when you cure your vampirism, dude), but he did get promoted at work and is now officially an Environmental Manager. He’s also survived a number of animal attacks at the house, which annoys James because that’s what BRODIE needs to be doing for his aspiration. XD
Also, the house remains a haunted mess with lots of dirty plates and broken plumbing, but at least the latter prompted James to finally add a second bathroom upstairs. So everyone’s kinda struggling still, but good things are happening too! Which is – kind of just how life goes in general, really, isn’t it? At least Sims don’t have year-long pandemics in their world. . .
C) Then, this evening, we had the latest Atop The Fourth Wall – “Ultimate Power #7-8!” This is a weird crossover event featuring an alternate version of the Squadron Supreme kidnapping the Ultimates version of Reed Richard after thinking a probe he sent into their universe created a biomass weapon (it was actually their own government looking for a way to kill one of their members, Hyperion), and a bunch of other Ultimate superheroes, including Nick Fury, going to the other universe to rescue Reed (who actually surrendered to try and help the “Supreme Power” heroes with their problem), only it turns out Nick Fury got Doctor Doom into this mess, and now he’s unleashing the Hulk on the fighting heroes, but not before the Scarlet Witch accidentally summons in the REGULAR version of the Squadron Supreme and – look, all you really need to know is that this comic is basically a bunch of terrible ideas and go-nowhere plot points stretched across a nine-issue fight scene between multiple versions of the same characters. And Linkara hates it. And Greg Lands can’t stop tracing art to save his life. Uuugh. . .
D) Then it was onto Call Me Kevin and the second half of the “Grognak finds love” GTA V RP storyline! After the mess that was Grognak’s not-date with Lil Cap (during which she was obsessed with pointing out how awesome her new friend Troy (bus-driver extraordinaire) was), it was time to put Grognak on her bachelorette dating show! A variety of people were called in, including Troy, Lil Cap, a crunchy old man who decided everything on dice rolls, a priest of sexy Jesus, Sir Cumference the random stripper, and Anto, a guy in a skull mask who played a bongo song for Grognak that was so awkward it crashed the server. XD And when they came back – well, it transpired that Anto, upset that Grognak was likely not going to pick him, took hostages. As none of said hostages were Troy, however, Grognak chose to get a meal with Crunchy Guy first at the Burger Shot, and secure her record deal with Lil Cap’s friend Beats. XD Eventually, though, she was convinced to go up to the crane where the hostages were being held, where she completely failed at defusing the situation but did succeed in texting Troy her location to get some help. And then the police showed up and everyone tried to get down the crane, with – varying amounts of success. Grognak ended up accidentally throwing Crunchy Guy over the side while trying to carry him down the ladder, while Lil Cap successfully saved another person, earning Grognak’s respect at last! And, after they’d all been questioned by the police, Lil Cap officially asked Grognak on a date, causing her to FINALLY grok that he was interested in her. While still being obsessed with Troy. XD This RP thing is WACKY, let me tell you. I hope we get to see the date eventually, though!
E) And finally we had GrayStillPlays and another GTA V stunt race! This one was chaos, pain, and patriotism! Everything that could be red, white, and blue, was. Also, anything that could be a smashing sphincter of death, a hoop on fire, or a terrible parkour surfaces with lots of sharp turns that are hard to make in a back-heavy pickup truck, was. Poor Gray – the beginning of the board wasn’t anything too special, but once we got to “get through this small hole in the spinning grate – now get through the sphincter made up of lots of spinning grates – now carefully drive over all this corrugated metal, tractor trailers, and shipping containers and fall to your death five million times” – well, he got a good opportunity to plug the “Not today, Satan!” merch, that’s for sure. XD If you want a workout for your tires, you come to this board!
3. Play Sims 4 and do Eric celebrating Winterfest: Check! Eric had a pretty good Winterfest, all things considered – he finished a couple of knitting projects, got a tree and decorated it, had a leftover plate of turkey to fulfill the “Grand Meal” tradition without even needing to cook, caught up with Father Winter and got an awesome new stove (“London’s Choice”) from him, pulled a Tea Magic Personal Brewer out from under his tree. . .
Oh, and Temperance, Guidry’s ex and the “main villain” of the Paranormal stuff pack, showed up. XD Fortunately Eric is such a friendly guy she couldn’t help but like him, and Guidry was able to provide Eric with a Bizarre Idol to ward her off. Eric also summoned Bonehilda for extra back-up – and to clean up all the of the cake ingredients Guidry keeps pulling out of the fridge. Damn ghosts. . .but yeah, despite some moments of sheer terror, good holiday! XD And he’s almost up to Level 4 Medium skill too. . .hopefully I can max that out next play session and have him officially quit the Detective career in favor of Paranormal Investigator!
4. Edit some more on "In A World Of His Own" Chapter 4: Check! Got a good chunk done – finished up the Paino fight, showing off the two modes of the Awful Orphica (offense – shooting off notes like Alice’s Pepper Grinder – and defense – creating a cloud of noise to intercept threats, like the Ice Wand’s wall-creation ability) before having Alice freeze the damn thing and slice it up. Though Victor got to score the killing blow in the end, of course – his head, after all. Should only have a page or two left to edit after this, and then the chapter’s done! And then I can speed up posting on the rest of the story a bit. . .
Additionally:
-->Played the beanbag game, as per usual for a nice day off – my record today was W-2-2-2-2. I actually won that very first game in THREE THROWS – kept throwing sevens and eights. Then my skill level plummeted in game two, and never really recovered. That being said, I did better than Mom, who LOST EVERY GAME. :( I suppose she doesn’t have too much to complain about, as she won every game yesterday, but still. I prefer it if we all win one!
And now I'm just catching up on some tumblr stuff and answering comments and whatnot. Typical Saturday night, really. Before I get back to that, though, let's set up tomorrow's to-do list:
1. Bake my breakfast muffins
2. Watch the RE8 OXBox video in my Watch Later, keep up with YouTube Subs, and watch Jon's FO4 YOLO episode
3. Play Alice: Madness Returns and get a little farther through the Dollhouse
4. Either write some more on the hypno-snippets or draft out some more tumblr posts
5. Get in a workout
I think this is reasonable -- and I really do need to make my muffins. Raisin toast is good and all, but other people want to eat that too in this house. XD We'll see how it all goes, anyway! Night all!
Okay, first things first -- I do have a birthday fic owed today, for the Mad Scientist, aka
whitedove01s! This was inspired by some of your recent rants on the timesoup, and follows the usual format of "Jeannie bitching about the same thing the writer was bitching about in real life." Because even if I'm not sure if I can offer a solution, hopefully I can at least give you some amusement regarding the whole mess. XD Hope you enjoy! “So – how’s Operation ‘Find Some Stable Parental Figures In This Mess’ going?”
Jeannie gave him a flat look as she raised her head from the mess of papers covering her desk. “I have come to the conclusion that most writers wouldn’t know a healthy parent-child relationship if it danced naked in front of them painted chartreuse.”
Jack winced. “That bad?”
“Close enough to, anyway.” She sighed, flopping against the back of her chair. “I mean, I’ve found a couple, but – it’s slow going. Especially when you have to make sure all species are accounted for.” She gave her beau a weak, sarcastic smile. “One of the downsides of dealing with things written by humans – they tend to prioritize humans.”
“Yeah, well, that’ll happen.” Jack ran his fingers through his hair. “So, you’ve got, what, two people that can give the rest of us parenting lessons?”
“Eh, little more than that. . .” She picked up a file and waved it at him. “Helps that we’ve had a new addition recently – what do you think of teenage mutant ninja turtles?”
Jack blinked a few times. “I think I’m gonna have that damn theme song stuck in my head for the rest of the day.”
Jeannie giggled. “Sorry, hun, but if I have to suffer. . .anyway, Splinter’s on my new short list of parents to vet,” she continued, flipping idly through the papers in the folder.
“Really? The giant mutated rat who raised four mutated turtles to be ninjas?”
“To be fair, they were the kid-friendly ‘it’s just fun martial arts and fighting against bad guys’ version of ninjas – at least, in the versions everybody’s most familiar with,” Jeannie corrected herself, glancing at the “Multiversal Variants” tab. “And the dude did his best to give them good morals and all that. He tried. And that’s more than we can say for almost everybody who raised us.”
“Well, yeah, but – that’s not exactly a high bar to clear, Jeannie.”
“Trust me, I know, but I’m not exactly swimmin’ in candidates, so – the hell is this?”
Jeannie frowned, pulling out a paper with a red sticky note plastered on it. “‘Warning – potential demographic error point,’” she read. “Oookay, what does that mean?”
“You are asking the wrong guy,” Jack said, peering at the paper upside-down. “What is it?”
“Looks like a page out of somebody’s dossier – ‘Baxter Stockman,’” Jeannie said, running her fingesr down the text. “From the original comics, keeps reappearing in other adapta – oh crap. Ooooooh crap.”
Jack instantly tensed. “What? Is he some sort of major psychopath or something?”
“Ah – sort of,” Jeannie said, grimacing. “He’s got some really bad mental problems, is listed as an official villain for some of the TMNT variants. . .” She looked up, her frown getting deeper. “But, uh – that only seems to happen when he’s black.”
“. . .what?”
“The damn carton turned him into a white guy, and then it’s sort of fifty-fifty from there when it comes to him appearing in other adaptations,” Jeannie explained, continuing down the sheet. “And, uh, all of the white versions of him seem a hell of a lot more stable than the black versions. Which is – interesting. You know. For a certain definition of the word.” She pressed her face into her hand. “And oh, look at this, he has an explicitly-white twin brother in one world! That’s great! Just what we need!” She squeezed her temples, then tossed the page and its associated folder back on the desk. “Nope. That’s it. Done for the day. I’ve already dealt enough with the whole ‘holy crap our world is really super-white’ problem without something like this rearing its ugly head. Damn it. . .I’ll talk it out with the bosses later, see if they have any bright ideas or magical solutions.” She shoved her chair back and stood up. “Come on, you – let’s get out of here before I decide what this desk really needs is a smack with a giant hammerspace mallet.”
And now, onto the other tasks I set out to accomplish on this day:
1. Clean my room: Check! Got started after having my smoothie, around 11:15 AM; finished up after lunch around 2:10 PM. Dusted, Swiffered, vacuumed rug and windows – all good for another couple of weeks!
2. Watch the Plumbella and Linkara videos in my Watch Later and keep up with YouTube Subs: Check! Got all five without too much issue –
A) Started with Plumbella and a set of her unpopular Sims opinions! Such as loving to play on speed three and having super-short lifespans in-game (I reserve speed 3 for sleep and boring activities alone with a Sim, and I’m currently finessing what kind of lifespans I want – “Newcrest Adventures” has everyone set on “long,” but I think that’s actually TOO long now – I think with future saves I’ll have it on “normal”); thinking Sims 4 building is the best in the series (I – thought most people believed this? Yes, gameplay is lacking but the building is genuinely good); not missing the color wheel for objects (agreed; Sims 2-style swatch combinations would work for me – but yes, a color wheel for CAS would be nice. We got it for pets!); and not caring to play much with adults, preferring to focus on kids and families (I – am the complete opposite; I find myself getting a bit bored with families and prefer singles and couples who are of adult age). Interesting stuff, even if some of it was probably a bit obvious from the way she plays and builds. XD
B) Then it was time for James Turner and another episode of “3 Brothers!” This one can be summed up pretty succinctly with the word “chaos.” XD Okay, okay, I’ll give you a little more detail:
Brodie is having a bit of trouble parenting his extremely defiant toddler, but has gotten him potty trained enough to go on his own. He also successfully completed another “expert” gig at his Paranormal Investigator job, and also got up to level 8 Snowboarding skill for his aspiration. And his bizarre idol successfully scared away Temperance, so – he’s doing all right! However, he’s also just gotten the “you have to get married to get an inheritance” phone call, so that might be interesting. . .
Candle is not doing great needs-wise, but he’s keeping on top of his university coursework, getting decent grades and whatnot. He’s submitted his first term paper and is ready to do his first presentation once the time comes on Monday.
Isaiah is mostly in the background these days (what happens when you cure your vampirism, dude), but he did get promoted at work and is now officially an Environmental Manager. He’s also survived a number of animal attacks at the house, which annoys James because that’s what BRODIE needs to be doing for his aspiration. XD
Also, the house remains a haunted mess with lots of dirty plates and broken plumbing, but at least the latter prompted James to finally add a second bathroom upstairs. So everyone’s kinda struggling still, but good things are happening too! Which is – kind of just how life goes in general, really, isn’t it? At least Sims don’t have year-long pandemics in their world. . .
C) Then, this evening, we had the latest Atop The Fourth Wall – “Ultimate Power #7-8!” This is a weird crossover event featuring an alternate version of the Squadron Supreme kidnapping the Ultimates version of Reed Richard after thinking a probe he sent into their universe created a biomass weapon (it was actually their own government looking for a way to kill one of their members, Hyperion), and a bunch of other Ultimate superheroes, including Nick Fury, going to the other universe to rescue Reed (who actually surrendered to try and help the “Supreme Power” heroes with their problem), only it turns out Nick Fury got Doctor Doom into this mess, and now he’s unleashing the Hulk on the fighting heroes, but not before the Scarlet Witch accidentally summons in the REGULAR version of the Squadron Supreme and – look, all you really need to know is that this comic is basically a bunch of terrible ideas and go-nowhere plot points stretched across a nine-issue fight scene between multiple versions of the same characters. And Linkara hates it. And Greg Lands can’t stop tracing art to save his life. Uuugh. . .
D) Then it was onto Call Me Kevin and the second half of the “Grognak finds love” GTA V RP storyline! After the mess that was Grognak’s not-date with Lil Cap (during which she was obsessed with pointing out how awesome her new friend Troy (bus-driver extraordinaire) was), it was time to put Grognak on her bachelorette dating show! A variety of people were called in, including Troy, Lil Cap, a crunchy old man who decided everything on dice rolls, a priest of sexy Jesus, Sir Cumference the random stripper, and Anto, a guy in a skull mask who played a bongo song for Grognak that was so awkward it crashed the server. XD And when they came back – well, it transpired that Anto, upset that Grognak was likely not going to pick him, took hostages. As none of said hostages were Troy, however, Grognak chose to get a meal with Crunchy Guy first at the Burger Shot, and secure her record deal with Lil Cap’s friend Beats. XD Eventually, though, she was convinced to go up to the crane where the hostages were being held, where she completely failed at defusing the situation but did succeed in texting Troy her location to get some help. And then the police showed up and everyone tried to get down the crane, with – varying amounts of success. Grognak ended up accidentally throwing Crunchy Guy over the side while trying to carry him down the ladder, while Lil Cap successfully saved another person, earning Grognak’s respect at last! And, after they’d all been questioned by the police, Lil Cap officially asked Grognak on a date, causing her to FINALLY grok that he was interested in her. While still being obsessed with Troy. XD This RP thing is WACKY, let me tell you. I hope we get to see the date eventually, though!
E) And finally we had GrayStillPlays and another GTA V stunt race! This one was chaos, pain, and patriotism! Everything that could be red, white, and blue, was. Also, anything that could be a smashing sphincter of death, a hoop on fire, or a terrible parkour surfaces with lots of sharp turns that are hard to make in a back-heavy pickup truck, was. Poor Gray – the beginning of the board wasn’t anything too special, but once we got to “get through this small hole in the spinning grate – now get through the sphincter made up of lots of spinning grates – now carefully drive over all this corrugated metal, tractor trailers, and shipping containers and fall to your death five million times” – well, he got a good opportunity to plug the “Not today, Satan!” merch, that’s for sure. XD If you want a workout for your tires, you come to this board!
3. Play Sims 4 and do Eric celebrating Winterfest: Check! Eric had a pretty good Winterfest, all things considered – he finished a couple of knitting projects, got a tree and decorated it, had a leftover plate of turkey to fulfill the “Grand Meal” tradition without even needing to cook, caught up with Father Winter and got an awesome new stove (“London’s Choice”) from him, pulled a Tea Magic Personal Brewer out from under his tree. . .
Oh, and Temperance, Guidry’s ex and the “main villain” of the Paranormal stuff pack, showed up. XD Fortunately Eric is such a friendly guy she couldn’t help but like him, and Guidry was able to provide Eric with a Bizarre Idol to ward her off. Eric also summoned Bonehilda for extra back-up – and to clean up all the of the cake ingredients Guidry keeps pulling out of the fridge. Damn ghosts. . .but yeah, despite some moments of sheer terror, good holiday! XD And he’s almost up to Level 4 Medium skill too. . .hopefully I can max that out next play session and have him officially quit the Detective career in favor of Paranormal Investigator!
4. Edit some more on "In A World Of His Own" Chapter 4: Check! Got a good chunk done – finished up the Paino fight, showing off the two modes of the Awful Orphica (offense – shooting off notes like Alice’s Pepper Grinder – and defense – creating a cloud of noise to intercept threats, like the Ice Wand’s wall-creation ability) before having Alice freeze the damn thing and slice it up. Though Victor got to score the killing blow in the end, of course – his head, after all. Should only have a page or two left to edit after this, and then the chapter’s done! And then I can speed up posting on the rest of the story a bit. . .
Additionally:
-->Played the beanbag game, as per usual for a nice day off – my record today was W-2-2-2-2. I actually won that very first game in THREE THROWS – kept throwing sevens and eights. Then my skill level plummeted in game two, and never really recovered. That being said, I did better than Mom, who LOST EVERY GAME. :( I suppose she doesn’t have too much to complain about, as she won every game yesterday, but still. I prefer it if we all win one!
And now I'm just catching up on some tumblr stuff and answering comments and whatnot. Typical Saturday night, really. Before I get back to that, though, let's set up tomorrow's to-do list:
1. Bake my breakfast muffins
2. Watch the RE8 OXBox video in my Watch Later, keep up with YouTube Subs, and watch Jon's FO4 YOLO episode
3. Play Alice: Madness Returns and get a little farther through the Dollhouse
4. Either write some more on the hypno-snippets or draft out some more tumblr posts
5. Get in a workout
I think this is reasonable -- and I really do need to make my muffins. Raisin toast is good and all, but other people want to eat that too in this house. XD We'll see how it all goes, anyway! Night all!
