After the Calling

Alright, here is what is happening. Ten Years Prior is ruining everything. I was going to double update it in an attempt to finish it faster because I hate it. But since I hate it, I can’t finish it faster. Part VIII, I finished. Part IX is off running naked through the forest, high on shrooms or something, and I just can’t deal with that idiot right now. Despite my wanting TYP to be over and done with forever ago, actually trying to finish it makes me want to punch my computer in the face, so I needed to abandon it for a minute while I spent some time slamming my head into a wall. I really tried to do what I was trying to do but I just had to stop trying because I couldn’t do it.

What I am going to do, however, probably won’t work. It will probably confuse you. It will probably screw up everything, but if I don’t do it, I’m going to have to stab something, because Ten Years Prior has officially driven me insane.

In order to stem the insanity, I am resuming the main story while also finishing up TYP. If this is just really terrible form, and you all want me to just do one thing at a time, I can chill. Just putting out Betray All: Part I is making me feel better. I can glide for a minute on Betray All: Part I and chill out for long enough to force myself to finish TYP, which only has 4ish updates left to its name, and then a kind of epilogue thingy that extends the timeline a bit for more, possibly superfluous, background. BUT if it all is cool, I can continue to do dual updates until TYP is done and then go on about my merrily.

The problem is that I have taken pictures for Betray All up to Part III, where I’ve only taken pictures up to the pictures you see on the site for Ten Years Prior, despite many fruitless attempts to remedy that (seriously, I’ve taken not one TYP picture since my teaser post). Betray All is taunting me. TAUNTING ME. I’ve done too much. But now that I’ve done the much, I have to release the much – veritably striking it from my consciousness through its passage into the interneted strata – or else it will sit on my brain like a toilet seat and drive me loony and next thing you know I’ll be cutting off my ear and gifting it to prostitutes. Except I’m not an artist, and it’s already been done, so that act of crazy wouldn’t be history, it would just. be. crazy.

I’m sorry, I’m having a bit of a moment. I don’t want to be an adult anymore. And wordpress is glitching my face off. And Ten Years Prior is the death of me. And my laptop ate my Velvet Goldmine dvd, over which I’m having a slight emotional crisis. And I left my copy of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in another country and am willing to swim the Atlantic to go get it. And it has been brought to my attention that I a much better at first person fiction writing than I am at third person fiction, and this new awareness has basically ruined my life. RUINED MY LIFE. But feel free to tell me to reign in my lunacy. Really. Feel free.

DUAL UPDATE!! They are both abominably long.

I’m just going to spew at you for a minute. That disappearance was a bit longer than I originally planned. Stuff just exploded into crazy.  I had to go on a last minute trip to China for work. Tuesday morning staff meeting went something like this:

Boss: I need somebody to go on a last minute trip to China. Someone who is able to leave tonight, met the CP rep and knows the distribution laws over there, and remembers the brief on our new distributor banks that happened last week when Veron wasn’t here. Don’t volunteer if you’ve never visited this site, like Veron, or if you have any upcoming trips, like Veron, who is going to Hertford, England in like four days and is busy preparing for that trip.

Veron: *puts on her “I don’t even know what a CP rep is” face.*

Qualified Coworker: I can go. I know all the distribution laws, heard the brief, I’m already packed and can leave right now, and the CP rep is my mom’s boyfriend. I know Cantonese and Manderin. I learned both when I spent 10 years cultivating rice fields in Dazhai for my masters thesis which was entitled “Totally Qualified For This Trip”. In fact, I still live in China. I commute in every morning from Bangkok, which isn’t even in China, but Veron doesn’t know the difference.

Boss: Mmmmm, yeah that’s nice, but despite my already stating why she’s the worst possible person to go, I’m sending Veron.

Veron: WHA??!? No no no, see, look, I’m wearing my “please don’t send me to China” face.

Qualified Coworker: I completely agree. She is much more qualified than I am to go to China. Her England trip can be postponed even though its been put off for more than a month now.

Veron: Okay, wait, T for timeout -

Boss: Veron, shut up and go to China.

…Yep. So I got back from that craziness yesterday, spent the whole trip hopeless busy and hopelessy clueless, and I’m off to the UK on Thursday. So I figured, in this little interim, I’d just leak simly insanity all over the site.

My house still isn’t quite done, but my cats have been using their pee as a method of biological warfare, and my boyfriend evicted us the minute I came back. It is nice to have cable again though. I realized last week that a heavily dvr-ed routine of Animal Planet, Gordan Ramsey, Spongebob Squarepants, liberal news media, and general access to the internet, when encountered near daily, is more addicting than heroin. If I wasn’t busyoverdosing on the crystal meth of Sharon Shinn series, screaming “BUT WHY, STUPID?!” at her characters all that week, I might have succumbed to televinternisonet withdrawal and actually considered the boyfriend’s “seriously joking” suggestion to try and steal the neighbor’s wifi. Although, I will say, much like crystal meth, there is such a thing as too much Sharon Shinn.  Her good books drive you to unhinged madness and her bad books are… just… awful.  If I ever meet her in person I am going to deliver a swift helicopter kick to the back of her head. Or kiss her full on the mouth. I haven’t made up my mind. Honestly, both actions are equally likely and may happen simultaneously, proving only that I should lay off her novels for a while. And probably never meet her in person.

“Webbed cocooned erotic spiders” showed up NINE TIMES in searched engine terms this week. I love you all. Honorable mention goes to “invader zim bedsheets” , “red fart“, “thumb war lab“, and “loooooooook“.  Schools need to start offering classes on how to do a proper web search.  Despite my entertainment, this is ridiculous. I mean, invader zim and you click on me? For seriously? What the nuts is a red fart?

I’ve been blaming this insensibility on google, because wordpress doesn’t tell you which search engines lead the parade of WTF. But I’m finding that google ignores me, unless you specifically type AtC by Veron or, more recently, webbed cocooned erotic spiders. Any other time, google totally cockblocks me, and RIGHTLY SO because I have nothing to do with invader zim, or red farts, or erotic spiders for that matter. So something told me to check out yahoo, because… yahoo is just… the broken vacuum cleaner of search engines…  I type in “invader zim bedsheets” because, WTF. GUESS who comes up as the NUMBER SEVEN result on the FIRST PAGE??!?!?! As a result of INVADER MOTHERFLIPPIN’ ZIM BEDSHEETS?! I’ll tell you. ReaperofHate on Deviant art. I know this because AtC comes up as NUMBER FRICKIN’ SIX.  And frankly, I think that ReaperofHate should be number one. I mean, if you’re going to do it, you might as well do it like you mean it. Why not? Yahoo doesn’t care. Yahoo isn’t even trying.

But they aren’t being entirely brainless (although they are being purdy damn brainless). Turns out that GAYL (!!!!!)  made a comment that  mentioned invader zim bed sheets a few weeks back and apparently yahoo was just as thrilled about it as I was. Number 6. First page. Crazy.  I’ll let you know when I figure out which one of you is behind ”thumb war lab”.

Real, live parapsychologists are commenting on my post where I call bullshit on parapsychology. I’m a bit frightened.

In this episode:  Ten Years Prior: Part VII, (Ten Years Prior: Part VIII is sort of done depending on if I’ll feel like editing the pictures, so I may have something to update with later in the month), “Self Found” for those who follow the SWA Collab, AND Posing Without Pose Boxes III: Not Your Granddaddy’s Overlays. And uploading all that crap in one day sucked more ass than a fly at a horse show. Now I can allow myself to be shipped off to Britain as a sacrificial offering to the gods of adult novelty distribution. We must not anger them lest they rain down their deadly wrath of bad porn and latex allergies.

…Hmph. Look at that. I just realized why searching for “dildo” can lead you to this site.  All of this has everything to do with the update. I will be in and out, around and about. Give me a sec with emails and comments and reading and breathing and everything. Actually, give me another two weeks. Fraps and I had a falling out so I’m not as pic heavy as I usually am… but still extraordinarily pic heavy. LINKAGE BELOW.

Soooooooooooooo, I’m running out of sims. Like, I’m literally out of sims (who don’t look like horses) to use for my characters and my extras. So I’ve had to dip back into the stock and pick out a sim for a new character who may or may not be the sim son of a very main character (a main character who may or may not have something obscene like 15 kids with 12 different women in my game) and may or may not look just like him, a fact that may or may not completely confuse the storyline if you think of him in that light. But the sim is not the character. … Well, the sim IS the character, but his simly resemblance to other character(s) should be completely ignored. Sense? Bah. Humbug.

I’ve been staring at this damn thing for days now. Days and days. I can recite it from memory. I’m posting version 5.0, because I had serious psychological issues with versions 1.0 – 4.0. I attempted Arden’s POV, and just couldn’t stick with it. It’s hard to be in the head of an evil ass psychopath. I even tried writing objectively. Fail. So there is a bit of a jump from the TYP Part IV into this one, like you loose that bit of time between Arden being with Mickey and Arden going off and being a dickhole. Not to mention the POV of a throw away character. I’m still Twitchy McGee over certain aspects of this one. Some pictures in particular are making me anxious, but I can no longer indulge that because I have something of a self-administered deadline for Ten Years Prior, and worrying over this is just wasting time. There are also some sappy cheesy bits where I toe the lie between cavity-inducing sweetness and terrible story progression.

This update has me feeling all kinds of resentful of this Ten Years Prior experiment and, it might be ending a little sooner than originally intended. Poo.

ACK! Sorry I disappeared. I had an issue at work that I was trying to sidestep and it ended up blowing up in my face and exploding my head. I’m a little swamped so I might be a bit shifty. In fact… I’m still at work now… at 9:00. I want to strangle something. Hehe, I guess it isn’t helping that I’m updating my site instead of finishing what I’m supposed to be doing .

But hey! I did Mickey’s POV! … but it sucked so bad I’m pretty much sure I’ll never do it again. I think because when I write it, I’m fine, but once I have to sim it… like make sims act that crap out, that’s when I start feeling like a bowl of ass… And then it screws with my writing because I end up taking out stuff and patching things together because I don’t feel comfortable taking the balls-assy pictures. Eh. Maybe I’m just a pansy. Probably.

Hi! Quick chat. I’m not NOT answering emails on purpose. I swear if you’ve contacted me, you will get a response eventually. I SWEAR. I’m just a little bit fuzzed at the moment. I’m preparing for another business trip and my grandfather MAILED me a dog. From Canada. A Maltese. When I already own a bunch of Great Danes. I say, “Grands you drum to the beat of your own tune.” He says “No, I drum to the beat of a Celine Dion album.” AND IF THAT in itself isn’t the best explanation as to why this fool would mail me a dog, then nothing is. I’m a bit preoccupied with finding the pup a more reasonable, responsible, Great Dane-less, home without having to declare civil war on my boyfriend who melts at the sight of anything that wags its tail. The pansy.

It’s been a strange week. I’m feeling strange.

Okay! I know! I personally promised about 10 people that I’d have this out yesterday, but my brain is staging a revolt because I was looking over this crap and THE DISCONTINUITY IS CRAZY. I was originally going to split this in two parts, but I had to take some crap out so I could redo it. That said, IT’S STILL LONG… and I should probably still break it in two… but… eh, I’d just release both parts at the same time and you’d read them both anyway. And I also had to have a “squick” fight with myself, because there is some questionable stuff in here. Questionable stuff = boobs.

Anyhoo three things: 1) Delana Franz is in this but she is not Delana “assasin from simsgenix picture story” Franz. She is just Delana “sit around and look pretty because you were already on the lot and you’re hot” Franz. 2) There are some crazy instances of discontinuity. Stuff is changing and disappearing(LIKE CLOTHING AND HAIR STYLES >{-( …I mean really) , its crazy. If you catch it, just know it could have been sooo much worse. 3) LORIS!

Random: I had a dream that Chauncey was in the woods hunting bears with Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love.  This story is eating my face.

I’m a little bit frazzled. A lot is going on right now. I’ve been running around with my crazy pants on because my sanity pants are in the cleaners. My job is smacking me around. My best friend from childhood, like from age 0, my veritable big brother, left me for New Zealand yesterday. Off to go settle down with his Kiwi girlfriend to make kiwi babies and raise kiwi livestock (he isn’t raising livestock. In fact, I think he’ll be living in a townhouse, but I’ll call him a kiwi farmer until he retuns to his senses and moves back to New Jersey). When I presented him with the Jonas Brothers’ Concert DVD I bought him, he requested that I come within arms length of him so he could elbow me in the neck. I’m going to miss him so much.

So my nerves ran me into a wall today, and just couldn’t do anything… Well, my nerves, and the fact that there is a 72-hour straight Spongebob Squarepants marathon happening on Nickelodeon right now (!!!!), and there is NO WAY anything productive is getting done with this awesomeness tuned on every single television in my house and die a thousand deaths if you dare try to change the channel. I don’t care if I watching the tv upstairs, I can FEEL if MSNBC suddenly comes on downstairs. Turn it back. Don’t play with me. Read a newspaper if you want to know what’s going on in politics this weekend.

Anyway, yeah, spongebob, sims, and gluten-free peanut butter this weekend. I’m in a good mood now. FINALLY got some photos shot, LEARNED SOME NEW POSING TECHNIQUES. Okay so remember how I was rambling about arm animations and overlayable holds? UHM YEAH, that’s nothing. How about EVERY SINGLE ANIMATION that you can think of is overlayable. How about that? EVERY SINGLE ANIMATION. Everything can be overlayed. EVERYTHING. And, I was actually doing this before, but I didn’t realize I was doing it. I kept finding these shots of poses that I had no idea how I did or how to recreate. But now I figured it out. And I’m gonna tell you about it once I can sit down again. I’m actually gonna try and take some pics for a tutorial today. EVERYTHING CAN BE OVERLAYED!

Okay, but here is what you are about to encounter. I know I said I’d be starting Chapter 5: Betray All… but that’s impossible. My timeline is so jacked, there is no way I can continue without doing a massive flashback and straightening out some things first. Otherwise, I’ll just be writing in circles and I think I’ve done enough of that. Chapter 5, pre-commitment-to-writing-a-flashback, was a giant holy crapcake game of mad-dash connect the dots. Read: It was shit. I admit I was never expecting to go in depth into what actually happened DURING The Calling… and I’m still not… not really… But I have to let you in on the details of some of the shitty shit that happened, otherwise none of us are going to know what the hell is going on. So I’m just inserting a midpoint epilogue to the first half, prologue to the second half that will be set ten years prior to the shit show. It will be entitled: Ten Years Prior (to the Shit Show).

We’ll be taking a look at the storylines of (almost) every character where they were approximately (key word approximately) 10 years ago, extending some plot lines, taking a deeper look at characters before they were dreaming/insane/bitter/bad guys/good guys/ addicted to motherfracking vampires/uhm, DEAD… you know, the simple stuff.

I’ll admit, I was being a little pose-overlay-excited in this one, and some picture look kind of stupid… like I’m doing WAY too much and I’m losing my realism. But once I get a pose tutorial out, my shots should cool back down.

Random: Watching episode about how a butterfly in a bubble gets loose in Bikini Bottom and everyone thinks it’s a monster, because if you actually take a good look at a butterfly, colorful wings notwithstanding, you realize that YES BUTTERFLIES ARE FRICKIN’ SCARY. And I’m just glad that my favorite show is taking the initiative to let the world in on that terrible fact. 72 HOURS OF SPONGEBOB!!!! AAAAHHH!

TEN YEARS PRIOR!!!! to the shit show.