Cold Windy Thursday
Dec. 11th, 2025 11:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickYeah, after yesterday nearly reached 50F, we were back down into the 30s today -- and because it was windy, it felt a lot colder. Bleeh -- December weather. I am Not A Fan. >( Anyway, here's the daily write-up:
Work – Not a particularly exciting Thursday at work, I must admit – I spent most of the day doing obituaries and related roster maintenance stuff (spent most of the morning working through everyone who had one particular name, in fact, as everyone who had it seemed to be dead). Though I was able to wrap up a few things that I had outstanding – namely, learning that one of the people that I was trying to confirm the address of no longer even lived in the country, and getting a refund check to send out to another person who’d overpaid on their pledge. *nods* Good to close the door on those two, so to speak! Now I just gotta get through Friday...
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with The Truman Show! The movie that documents one man’s breakdown after realizing the world around him is entirely artificial! :D Today’s pedal session saw me get through –
A) Truman telling Marlon about the weird things that have been happening and how he thinks it’s somehow related to his dad being alive, and managing to successfully lure him out of the store where he’s stocking the vending machine; cut to them watching the sunset over the water while Marlon deflects Truman’s questions about where he went when he was hauling chickens for a certain outfit and tries to convince him there’s no place better than Seahaven – to no avail, as Truman quietly informs him he’s going away for a while
B) Truman being forced into looking at old photo albums by his mother and his wife when he gets home, and getting pressured into giving the former grandbabies...only to take another look at his wedding album when the two depart, and discover that Meryl had her fingers crossed during their big wedding kiss
C) Truman trying to get Meryl to talk to him the next morning, only for her to brush him off with talk of needing to get to work right away and assist on a surgery on someone involved in the “elevator accident” yesterday (her in-universe job is nurse) – and get noticeably startled when Truman mentions “crossing his fingers for her;” cue Truman following her to work and managing to get a view of the operating theater despite the rest of the cast’s best efforts to slow him down – he’s dragged away by a cop, but not before he sees that the actors playing doctors don’t know what they’re doing and are “operating” on someone who’s wide awake
D) Truman attempting to get out of Seahaven by first booking a flight to Fiji at the travel agency (only to be told there’s no flights for at least a month – “it’s the busy season”), then trying to take a bus trip to Chicago (only for the bus driver to either reveal he can’t drive the bus and accidentally fuck up the bus, or DELIBERATELY fuck up the bus to keep Truman stranded)
E) Meryl coming home to find Truman waiting in the car, and him revealing to her that he’s discovered that three of the people on their street are doing a loop, just going round and round endlessly; when she can’t distract him with talk of an upcoming barbecue, she resorts to telling him that he should save up and go to Fiji to try and calm him down – only for him to lock her in the car and drive off because he figures they should go now
F) Truman managing to successfully get past the synchronized traffic on the roundabout (by backing back up into the roundabout, pretending he’s going back home – only to go around a few more times and cruise down the now-clear road), driving over the bridge out of town (by closing his eyes and forcing a terrified Meryl to take the wheel from the passenger seat), and a flash of flame from a fake forest fire going across the road (just PLOWS right through it and even seems to enjoy it a bit) – only to be finally stopped by a staged leak at the local power plant...and then a cop he’s never seen before calls him by name, and Truman, freaked out, abandons the car and briefly escapes into the woods before finally being tackled by the people playing radiation checkers
G) Back at home, Truman wondering why Meryl wants to have a baby with him when she can’t stand him...and Meryl unwisely trying to fit in a product placement for a cocoa brand into refuting that/cheering him up; cue Truman realizing she’s in on it, and a brief struggle in the kitchen that leads to Meryl – or, rather, Hannah (because this is definitely NOT done in-character) calling out for Christof to “do something!” when Truman gets her in a headlock, which does not help his paranoia – fortunately for her, Marlon shows up moments later with beer, and she grabs him and starts wailing about how this is all so unprofessional and how can they expect her to carry on while poor Truman slumps down by the door
H) Marlon taking Truman down to the unfinished road and listening to Truman go on about how the world seems to revolve around him and how everyone is in on it, and trying to put his fears to rest by reminding them how long they’ve been friends and talking about how he’s the closest thing Marlon’s ever had to a brother and how he’d walk into traffic for him...as the scene cuts to Christof feeding him all those lines; cue a very painful moment as Louis, Marlon’s actor, stumbles over “the last thing I would ever do...is lie to you” because, well, he IS, and Truman...looking less than comforted because he’s realizing Marlon IS in on it
I) Truman being reunited with his father in an emotional scene where Christof very carefully controls everything from the cameras being used to when the music fades in, and most of the fans being absolutely captivated by it as a result...except poor, heartbroken Sylvia :(
J) And the start of the “TruTalk” segment (with host Mike Michaelson) and the interview with Christof, with the two talking about how this isn’t the first time someone’s broken onto the set (showing clips from a few other incidents); why Truman’s dad was killed off in the first place (which includes clips of other ways they tried to crush Truman’s wanderlust, like claiming there’s no place left to explore and scaring him with guard dogs); why Christof was willing to write him back in (because Christof was sure only Truman reuniting with his dad could stop him noticing everything being so artificial) and how he intended to explain the 22-year absence (...amnesia); and some of the history of “The Truman Show” (Truman was the first born out of five unwanted pregnancies, basically, and was legally adopted by the corporation) and how it makes its enormous revenues (the entire town is product placement, essentially).
Good stuff – good, creepy stuff. I continue to stand by my assertion that this is a horror movie. *nods* Anyway, I left off just at the point where Sylvia calls in to berate Christof – tomorrow, we’ll listen to her give him the business, and hopefully finish up the movie!
2. Work on Christmas Gift Fic: Check – edited Marie’s gift fic tonight! Which, as she said she wanted to be surprised, is a sequel to last year’s gift fic and features my VITD trio telling her OC Madeline about some of the adventures they’ve had (specifically, how they’ve broken into Rowan House three times, and how they’ve set up an awesome community greenhouse with glowing butterflies) – only to be interrupted by Madeline freaking out briefly over what proves to be a hallucination of a specter; cue Madeline complaining how much she hates her hallucinations and how annoying it is that the two guys her father was going to bring her to died before she could meet them. And then cue her revealing that said guys were Bumby and Kelman, and the Three Pillars being like, “Uh, yeah, we helped kill them, but it was for VERY GOOD REASONS.” XD There wasn’t much I had to do with this one beyond flesh out some stuff here and there and make sure the dialogue was in-character for everybody (had to tweak some of Victor’s lines), but I had fun going through it and making all the edits. I do love writing for my VITD trio, it very much has to be said. :) Slowly but surely getting to the end of all these edits! And then it’ll be time to start dropping some of them into my tumblr drafts...
3. Watch something on FreeTube/Invidious: Check – another Thursday, another OXBox list video – this one “7 Most Annoying Plot Twists!” Jane and Mike talking us through those games that had plot twists that were – implemented poorly, let us say. Including:
A) Twelve Minutes revealing that the weird 12-minute time loop your character has been stuck in has all been him just imagining a weird scenario where he must save his pregnant wife from a man accusing her of the murder of her father...in response to her father taking him aside and letting him know that, thanks to an affair he had with your character’s mother, his fiancee is in fact his half-sister (ewwwww). Turning the whole game into just a weird thought exercise from someone who apparently REALLY wants to bang someone he’s just learned he’s related to
B) Dead Space 3’s “Awakened” DLC giving the co-op partners Isaac and Carver a chance to escape their canon deaths at the end of the main game, destroy the moon threatening everyone with space zombies, and return home to Earth...only to discover all sorts of OTHER space zombie moons converging on the planet, before getting blasted by one themselves. Turning the ENTIRE SERIES into one incredibly bleak Shaggy Dog story (and like, these are not happy games, but STILL)
C) Haze revealing that the player is being mind controlled by the Nectar drug their private military company gives them a few levels in, and that they’re being made to do some pretty evil things, causing them to switch sides...and then putting that very same twist on the back of the game box, thus negating any impact it might have had and rendering the whole thing entirely pointless (add in that I’ve heard this game is not very good in general, and – yeah)
*nods* Yeah – it is very easy to totally muck up a plot twist, it seems! Perhaps games should rely on them less and just concentrate on delivering a good and fun product? Maybe?
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Half-check – and not because I didn’t have anything to do on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler). No, the reason it’s only a half is because I had two anon asks on Valice Multiverse, but only answered one of them, because I couldn’t get an answer to come together on the other one. Ironically, the one I ended up answering was the “the FIFA board has started investigating the ‘Peace Prize’ their asshole president gave to Trump; their first clue it wasn’t a legit reward was the fact that they’re a SOCCER ORGANIZATION” ask from a few days ago that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to answer or not – I couldn’t resist having my Cuddlepile!Alice respond point out that the soccer organization in question IS FIFA, and thus known for corruption (though she allowed that this didn’t negate the anon’s point, as their corruption was always soccer-related before now). The other question was a copy of a text post I’ve seen going around, about how funny it is that Kermit The Frog is the main crossover character between Sesame Street and whatever the other Muppets have going on, given the tonal differences between the two groups – I thought it would be an easy thing to answer for my Inevitable High School group, but for some reason I can’t get it to come together. Hmmm. I’ll come back to it tomorrow!
Not too shabby, I suppose -- and now I'm going to climb into my nice warm bed. *nods* Night all!
Work – Not a particularly exciting Thursday at work, I must admit – I spent most of the day doing obituaries and related roster maintenance stuff (spent most of the morning working through everyone who had one particular name, in fact, as everyone who had it seemed to be dead). Though I was able to wrap up a few things that I had outstanding – namely, learning that one of the people that I was trying to confirm the address of no longer even lived in the country, and getting a refund check to send out to another person who’d overpaid on their pledge. *nods* Good to close the door on those two, so to speak! Now I just gotta get through Friday...
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with The Truman Show! The movie that documents one man’s breakdown after realizing the world around him is entirely artificial! :D Today’s pedal session saw me get through –
A) Truman telling Marlon about the weird things that have been happening and how he thinks it’s somehow related to his dad being alive, and managing to successfully lure him out of the store where he’s stocking the vending machine; cut to them watching the sunset over the water while Marlon deflects Truman’s questions about where he went when he was hauling chickens for a certain outfit and tries to convince him there’s no place better than Seahaven – to no avail, as Truman quietly informs him he’s going away for a while
B) Truman being forced into looking at old photo albums by his mother and his wife when he gets home, and getting pressured into giving the former grandbabies...only to take another look at his wedding album when the two depart, and discover that Meryl had her fingers crossed during their big wedding kiss
C) Truman trying to get Meryl to talk to him the next morning, only for her to brush him off with talk of needing to get to work right away and assist on a surgery on someone involved in the “elevator accident” yesterday (her in-universe job is nurse) – and get noticeably startled when Truman mentions “crossing his fingers for her;” cue Truman following her to work and managing to get a view of the operating theater despite the rest of the cast’s best efforts to slow him down – he’s dragged away by a cop, but not before he sees that the actors playing doctors don’t know what they’re doing and are “operating” on someone who’s wide awake
D) Truman attempting to get out of Seahaven by first booking a flight to Fiji at the travel agency (only to be told there’s no flights for at least a month – “it’s the busy season”), then trying to take a bus trip to Chicago (only for the bus driver to either reveal he can’t drive the bus and accidentally fuck up the bus, or DELIBERATELY fuck up the bus to keep Truman stranded)
E) Meryl coming home to find Truman waiting in the car, and him revealing to her that he’s discovered that three of the people on their street are doing a loop, just going round and round endlessly; when she can’t distract him with talk of an upcoming barbecue, she resorts to telling him that he should save up and go to Fiji to try and calm him down – only for him to lock her in the car and drive off because he figures they should go now
F) Truman managing to successfully get past the synchronized traffic on the roundabout (by backing back up into the roundabout, pretending he’s going back home – only to go around a few more times and cruise down the now-clear road), driving over the bridge out of town (by closing his eyes and forcing a terrified Meryl to take the wheel from the passenger seat), and a flash of flame from a fake forest fire going across the road (just PLOWS right through it and even seems to enjoy it a bit) – only to be finally stopped by a staged leak at the local power plant...and then a cop he’s never seen before calls him by name, and Truman, freaked out, abandons the car and briefly escapes into the woods before finally being tackled by the people playing radiation checkers
G) Back at home, Truman wondering why Meryl wants to have a baby with him when she can’t stand him...and Meryl unwisely trying to fit in a product placement for a cocoa brand into refuting that/cheering him up; cue Truman realizing she’s in on it, and a brief struggle in the kitchen that leads to Meryl – or, rather, Hannah (because this is definitely NOT done in-character) calling out for Christof to “do something!” when Truman gets her in a headlock, which does not help his paranoia – fortunately for her, Marlon shows up moments later with beer, and she grabs him and starts wailing about how this is all so unprofessional and how can they expect her to carry on while poor Truman slumps down by the door
H) Marlon taking Truman down to the unfinished road and listening to Truman go on about how the world seems to revolve around him and how everyone is in on it, and trying to put his fears to rest by reminding them how long they’ve been friends and talking about how he’s the closest thing Marlon’s ever had to a brother and how he’d walk into traffic for him...as the scene cuts to Christof feeding him all those lines; cue a very painful moment as Louis, Marlon’s actor, stumbles over “the last thing I would ever do...is lie to you” because, well, he IS, and Truman...looking less than comforted because he’s realizing Marlon IS in on it
I) Truman being reunited with his father in an emotional scene where Christof very carefully controls everything from the cameras being used to when the music fades in, and most of the fans being absolutely captivated by it as a result...except poor, heartbroken Sylvia :(
J) And the start of the “TruTalk” segment (with host Mike Michaelson) and the interview with Christof, with the two talking about how this isn’t the first time someone’s broken onto the set (showing clips from a few other incidents); why Truman’s dad was killed off in the first place (which includes clips of other ways they tried to crush Truman’s wanderlust, like claiming there’s no place left to explore and scaring him with guard dogs); why Christof was willing to write him back in (because Christof was sure only Truman reuniting with his dad could stop him noticing everything being so artificial) and how he intended to explain the 22-year absence (...amnesia); and some of the history of “The Truman Show” (Truman was the first born out of five unwanted pregnancies, basically, and was legally adopted by the corporation) and how it makes its enormous revenues (the entire town is product placement, essentially).
Good stuff – good, creepy stuff. I continue to stand by my assertion that this is a horror movie. *nods* Anyway, I left off just at the point where Sylvia calls in to berate Christof – tomorrow, we’ll listen to her give him the business, and hopefully finish up the movie!
2. Work on Christmas Gift Fic: Check – edited Marie’s gift fic tonight! Which, as she said she wanted to be surprised, is a sequel to last year’s gift fic and features my VITD trio telling her OC Madeline about some of the adventures they’ve had (specifically, how they’ve broken into Rowan House three times, and how they’ve set up an awesome community greenhouse with glowing butterflies) – only to be interrupted by Madeline freaking out briefly over what proves to be a hallucination of a specter; cue Madeline complaining how much she hates her hallucinations and how annoying it is that the two guys her father was going to bring her to died before she could meet them. And then cue her revealing that said guys were Bumby and Kelman, and the Three Pillars being like, “Uh, yeah, we helped kill them, but it was for VERY GOOD REASONS.” XD There wasn’t much I had to do with this one beyond flesh out some stuff here and there and make sure the dialogue was in-character for everybody (had to tweak some of Victor’s lines), but I had fun going through it and making all the edits. I do love writing for my VITD trio, it very much has to be said. :) Slowly but surely getting to the end of all these edits! And then it’ll be time to start dropping some of them into my tumblr drafts...
3. Watch something on FreeTube/Invidious: Check – another Thursday, another OXBox list video – this one “7 Most Annoying Plot Twists!” Jane and Mike talking us through those games that had plot twists that were – implemented poorly, let us say. Including:
A) Twelve Minutes revealing that the weird 12-minute time loop your character has been stuck in has all been him just imagining a weird scenario where he must save his pregnant wife from a man accusing her of the murder of her father...in response to her father taking him aside and letting him know that, thanks to an affair he had with your character’s mother, his fiancee is in fact his half-sister (ewwwww). Turning the whole game into just a weird thought exercise from someone who apparently REALLY wants to bang someone he’s just learned he’s related to
B) Dead Space 3’s “Awakened” DLC giving the co-op partners Isaac and Carver a chance to escape their canon deaths at the end of the main game, destroy the moon threatening everyone with space zombies, and return home to Earth...only to discover all sorts of OTHER space zombie moons converging on the planet, before getting blasted by one themselves. Turning the ENTIRE SERIES into one incredibly bleak Shaggy Dog story (and like, these are not happy games, but STILL)
C) Haze revealing that the player is being mind controlled by the Nectar drug their private military company gives them a few levels in, and that they’re being made to do some pretty evil things, causing them to switch sides...and then putting that very same twist on the back of the game box, thus negating any impact it might have had and rendering the whole thing entirely pointless (add in that I’ve heard this game is not very good in general, and – yeah)
*nods* Yeah – it is very easy to totally muck up a plot twist, it seems! Perhaps games should rely on them less and just concentrate on delivering a good and fun product? Maybe?
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Half-check – and not because I didn’t have anything to do on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler). No, the reason it’s only a half is because I had two anon asks on Valice Multiverse, but only answered one of them, because I couldn’t get an answer to come together on the other one. Ironically, the one I ended up answering was the “the FIFA board has started investigating the ‘Peace Prize’ their asshole president gave to Trump; their first clue it wasn’t a legit reward was the fact that they’re a SOCCER ORGANIZATION” ask from a few days ago that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to answer or not – I couldn’t resist having my Cuddlepile!Alice respond point out that the soccer organization in question IS FIFA, and thus known for corruption (though she allowed that this didn’t negate the anon’s point, as their corruption was always soccer-related before now). The other question was a copy of a text post I’ve seen going around, about how funny it is that Kermit The Frog is the main crossover character between Sesame Street and whatever the other Muppets have going on, given the tonal differences between the two groups – I thought it would be an easy thing to answer for my Inevitable High School group, but for some reason I can’t get it to come together. Hmmm. I’ll come back to it tomorrow!
Not too shabby, I suppose -- and now I'm going to climb into my nice warm bed. *nods* Night all!
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Date: 2025-12-12 11:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-12-13 03:32 pm (UTC)