DE: Don't lose the weird little wrench

[bjornwilde]

And back to the suggestion box this morning with one from camwyn :
Your character has to build a piece of IKEA furniture. How do they approach the task?

Comments

[sdelmonte]

Cy and Howard both find a better way. (Actually, Howard improves on the modular system so well that he invents a new way to make planes. Or armor.)

Knox fumbles with the whole thing and makes a bookcase that is perfectly stable and still looks like it's going to tip over any day now.

Kirk probably tries for an hour, and then asks Engineering to finish the job. Delegation is everything.

Gibbs does a pretty good job, but curses under his breath that anyone things a human being can use such things, and longs for a good rigging.

And Charlie goes all Zen and gets to the inner essence of the chair. It is a perfect job. It never wobbles. And it probably gets trashed in the next Crisis.

[a1enzo]

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: NordicKraft

(I don't know, either.)

[damncompass]

+5 internet points for making me giggle before I've had my tea.

[a1enzo]

\o/

Have you seen Ursula Vernon's gardening achievements?

[damncompass]

... that is amaze.

... now my brain is wanting Milli-achievements.

[cameoflage]

We did that as a DE once, didn't we? Maybe we should do it again.

[damncompass]

We possibly did. I have a memory that makes Swiss Cheese look solid.

I would totally be up for another, though! :D :D :D :D

On 19 September 2013 11:14, cameoflage - DW Comment dwnull@dreamwidth.orgwrote:

[damncompass]

Joshua flails at it for an hour and a half with little progress, and then calls his sister, who whips it up in ten minutes. It probably becomes an Artifact that will NEVER BREAK, but won't move no matter how hard you try.

Helena does quite well with it, but it somehow turns out to have more moving parts than the box would imply.

Valentine is very careful with the assembly, and gets it made. Eventually.

Fantine is just confused by the idea of flatpack furniture.

[never_shall_yield]

The Bruces - would need no instructions, and just put it together. Or improve on the design (not that either of them would use flatpack furniture to begin with).

Javert - once he understood the concept, would follow the instructions to the letter, complete with laying out and counting every bit first, and assembling all recommended tools.

Gene - would barely even glance at the instructions, then fling them out the nearest window (complete with colourful insult about him not being a bird, or a retard, or a poof), haul his old toolbox in from the shed, and hammer the thing until it did what he wanted. He's very handy actually, but in his own freestyle kind of way.

[the_cupbearer]

I kind of want to see the existential meltdown that would result from Javert having too many screws. (I always end up with too many of the damn things. I swear I am using the right number of them per directions.)

[never_shall_yield]

*dead of laugh*

Oh my God. That would be the worst kind of freak out. And a hot tip for anyone looking to play a practical joke on him! It would drive him nuts.

[saphyria]

Sunshine would probably not have too much trouble with it, but may accidentally do one of the steps out of order and have to back up and try again once or twice.

Zelgadiss would have no trouble putting it together, whatsoever.

Yrael would get bored and fall asleep in the box. >_>

[boston_bruiser]

Voodoo accomplishes this by not buying IKEA in the first place.

John Marston reads the instructions thrice, but still manages to break something.

Mako does it perfectly - on the second try.

Connor gets Lance to help him out.

[vojvode]

Alex would put on some yoga pants and an old sweat shirt,  pour herself a glass of red wine, put on some music, layout the instructions, lose one of the tools, find it, get the thing put halfway together, pause to examine it and drink more wine, decide it was wrong, take it apart and start over.  Halfway through she'd have to chase Gene off for kibitzing. Eventually, she'd have it together, but one part would be reversed, easily fixed, and tada! Furniture.  And more wine.

Sherlock would glare at the box for three weeks, until Mrs Hudson asked if he needed help, and he'd start, then get bored halfway through and forget about it in lieu of a case, wherein John would finish it and he'd pout that he'd have got to it eventually.

Vlad would be completely and utterly stymied. He might ask Sunshine for help. And he'd hover, if she did agree, maybe eventually trying to help, feeling like an idiot most of the time, which would make him cranky.

Long John would squint at the instructions, try to lay the parts out on a table (rolling around on the floor is less than dignified with one leg), and put it together fairly quickly and accurately. Of course, this assumes the parrot didn't wander off with or chew up any of the pieces.

Earl is so glad angels don't have to worry about such things.

[saphyria]

And he'd hover, if she did agree, maybe eventually trying to help, feeling like an idiot most of the time, which would make him cranky.

*cackles* Make him cranky? She'd accuse him of looming in the background and idly threaten him with a screwdriver.

<333

[vojvode]

~snerk~ He'd withdraw and try to read the instructions, and have that classic moment of turning the pamphlet, only to discover, no it really was upright the first time. And squinting at it.

[alexiscartwheel]

Lady Mary: Servants!

Carol: Read instructions, assemble furniture. If it doesn't work, blast it.

Stiles: Invite Scott over to help. Argue over the meaning of all the tiny pictures. Take way too long to assemble furniture, probably re-do some things along the way and remind Scott that Stiles is always right and he should listen to him, and generally have a hilariously awesome time.

[herr_bookman]

Autor would read the manual thrice, assemble the chair--likely injuring himself in the process--and then use it for a completely new, possibly destructive purpose.

[not_my_sandbox]

Amascut knows how to disassemble and reassemble living things. I don't think furniture is going to be a problem for her. She may glance at the instructions once in a while, because some things won't be intuitive, but in the end she will be tempted to smash it with a hammer.

Fairy Fixit will also have no problem doing it, but would pay more attention to the instructions.

Evil Chicken would find out why they have to build furniture and attack the reason.

[herr_bookman]

You, I very much like.

[mm_z]

Nicholas would read the instructions at least three times before he even starts. He'd also probably get the whole thing done in one go, without losing any of the pieces, the bastard.

Travis would just give the whole thing to Nicholas and fuck off down the pub. It'll be done by the time he gets back.

Tim would start, fuck it up, find the instructions, get pissed off at them, have to start over, read the instructions wrong, have to start over again, have a mild breakdown on the floor over it, and then finally approach the problem with a blowtorch.

And Gary wouldn't even bother buying the thing in the first place.

[ceitfianna]

Will would be confused by the idea of flatpack furniture but end up with it together.

Charles would grumble about having to assemble it but get it done quickly and neatly.

William would be annoyed at it and probably lose a piece and put it together odd. It would work but wobble.

Sameth would stare at it, then improve on it so that it never fell over and repelled the dust.

Moist would only put it together if he had to so someone would trust him. Otherwise he would sell it or use it for a job.

Jane would be confused but then enjoy the challenge of building something. She would get annoyed at the instructions and end up correcting them and finally put it together.

Demeter would give it to someone who needed it and help them put it together, also she might use divine powers to cheat and talk to the wood.

Tumnus would be interested and baffled but figure it out in time.

The Pirate King would make Frederick put it together.

[bjornwilde]

Ben grumbles and fumbles with things, occasionally threatening to smash the whole thing to pieces, especially if Johnny is around. Secretly though? He is having the time of his life cause he is building something. He reads the instructions maybe a step ahead of where he is, likely ends up with extra pieces but the end result is perfect and stable.

Hank reads the instructions and lays all the pieces out before assembling them. If this is done at the mansion, I can see Alex or Raven hiding a piece or tool but Hank foils their plan by improvising and producing something better than the original.

Val dives right in, loses the wrench and a few of the pieces, so has to go out to the forge to remake them. The wrench she's not worried about as she can make her own with a force field. The end result looks like a catalog piece.

Andrea does much the same, minus the losing of pieces.

Anton stares forlornly at it for a few minutes before deciding it was an appropriate use of magic and casts a spell to assemble it for him.

Quinlan is very confused as the technology is so basic. Eventually he does ok though the piece is wobbly since he can be impatient and likely he's broken a wooden peg or two in his haste.

Thalia scowls at it and walks away to get Annabeth to put it together.

Jess does something similar, likely using her pheromones if need be.

[souffle_girlek]

Oswin/Clara has it done the fastest, and found the simplicity of the iconographics a little insulting.

Haymich just shrugged and used the box as a table to put his bottle of alcohol on. Either the Capitol folks will come and take this stupid thing away, or will put it together some other way later if he did try to work on it, so why bother?

Katya used ikea hacks and went nuts. Nothing she builds follows the iconographics at all.

Glorfindel is insulted by the quality and refuses to touch it.

Balthazar is siding with Glorfindel. It's not classy.

Bones would like everyone to know he's a doctor, not a carpenter. But putting this stuff together isn't very hard.

Ace got started on it, lost some bits because organizational skills were never her thing, and ended up making a bonfire out back with the remains.

Blakeney slowly and steadily puts the dang thing together, and then polishes it once it is done.

[jjprobert]

Alfred would have no problem with it. And he'd do it by the book. Except that he'd never buy from IKEA in the first place.

Max would get about half way through, then realise he needs an extra pair of hands to complete the job, and either yell for help, or abandon it until he can get some. Eventually it would get done well enough.

Bean is too small. He'd have to get someone else to help, whatever he was doing, so the quality of the build would primarily be dependent upon their skill.

Jack would get down to the last screw before he realised it had vanished. Of course, this is not necessarily a disaster, but he'd get frustrated and spend a good hour looking for it, before finally finishing the job properly.

Erik isn't that bad actually. When he's not distracted by the latest discoveries, he'd take it methodically. He probably wouldn't actually look at the instructions in much detail, but he'd end up with something very accurately done.

[genarti]

Thor... uh. Thor has to have the concept explained to him -- yes, we're assembling this furniture, yes we're doing it ourselves, yes this flimsy material really does count as acceptably sturdy furniture on Midgard -- but he does all right in the end. He's amiably bemused by the entire thing. (And he's being very, very careful the entire time, lest he put a hand straight through the particleboard by accident.)

If this is in Asgard, Thor just assumes the servants will do it, and the servants assume likewise.

Clare just stares at it. And then wanders away. If the humans need this weird human thing done, they can take care of themselves; she doesn't see the point or have any idea where to begin.

Enjolras is kind of appalled at the idea that this is furniture, for starters -- it's made of sawdust held together! And it's hideous! Enjolras doesn't even care about aesthetics, but seriously, this is like making furniture out of packing crates made of balsa wood. If someone explains that this is an invention of the future to allow for affordable functional furniture available to people on tight budgets, he'll be persuaded, though.

He'll be as confused by the directions as by the pieces -- he expects textual directions -- but he'll do fine once he wraps his brain around the symbols involved, and he'll see the logic of using directions that the uneducated can decipher too. In other words, the furniture will end up assembled perfectly competently, but only after some lag time for culture clash and overthinking the underlying socioeconomic implications.

River will either leave it to somebody else to do, or will assemble it perfectly without ever looking at the directions.

Regan will be kind of appalled at the cheapness of the materials too -- she knows the value of this, there's no culture clash here, but she's never owned anything made of particleboard since college (if ever) and she's forgotten how much it's built to fall apart if you look at it cross-eyed -- but she'll do fine. She may be my only one who will both obey the directions scrupulously and understand their language and purpose at the first glance. (She'll kind of have fun with the whole thing once she gets started, actually.)

Trowa will glance over the directions once, mentally declare it a waste of ten seconds to have done so, and then assemble the thing perfectly and go off to have lunch.

[hasthehighground]

and from then on Cathy will make Trowa assemble the furniture the first time, instead of try to do it herself. /laughing.

[genarti]

That's because Cathy's smart!

*laughing too*

Sensible use of resources, man. *solemn* Trowa approves.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

http://www.allthelyrics.com/lyrics/jonathan_coulter/ikea-lyrics-1161881.html

[genarti]

Ha! The chorus of that song is a frequent feature in any Ikea-related discussions in my household, but I'd entirely forgotten the verses.

Thor would find that song highly entertaining! (Even though he wouldn't totally understand it.)

[gavin62truck]

Tommy and Lou get the younger guys in the firehouse to build it while they sit back and eat Swedish meatballs and lingonberries.

[arrin]

AndrAIa, I think, could manage it okay. She's a mechanic and a Game sprite, I think it shouldn't provide too difficult of a task for her. Her husband, on the other hand...

Thirteen would likely grumble and finagle whatever she's building into submission.

Kaidan has the use of his Biotics to act as extra hands. He has this covered.

Hawke...dear god, no.

Kanaya, or any of the other trolls, I think, would likely end up with things from here.

[guppy_sandhu]

Guppy: Build the piece entirely. Realise that the third piece you put in was backwards. Paint over the wrong colour part and pretend it was meant to look like that.

[afullmargin]

I love this prompt too much not to answer even as late as I am...

Michael: Would throw away the instructions and build something significantly more useful.

Henry: Would build the stupid thing, shake his head and give it to Shawn (or Gus since there's likely no room where Shawn's living and Gus would appreciate it more).

Gus: Would ask Henry to put it together even though he probably could if he was forced to and could borrow any tools beyond a screwdriver and alan wrench while *very carefully* following the instructions (assuming Shawn doesn't lose them and/or throw them away).

Penny: Would end up putting it together herself after the boys try to "help". See this clip.