#so i can just make stuff up and not be constrained by canon | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mean-scarlet-deceiver · 4 months

Note

also, not quite related to Great Hate but is related to some stuff said therein; I don't think any of the Skarloey/Arlesdale/Culdee Fell books are bad (honestly i rate them all very highly) buuuuuut if there was ever another attempt to adapt the books for television or television-adjacent-media, I would probably just opt to cut the non-North Western Railway stories out entirely. (the railways wouldn't be straight up Not Canon, there just wouldn't be episodes based on the stories about them.) They're a bit of a narrative cul-de-sac in terms of the overarching story of The Books, and while they are all excellent I feel like the opportunity cost of adapting those instead of expanding on the existing North Western stuff would be too high... Insult to injury is that by doing this, you don't really impact the North Western stories at all besides a little bit of Oliver the Western Engine's content and that can be adapted around (as has been done before...)

Ooh. You make a compelling point about how you could have a very good adaptation by cutting out the smaller-railway stuff.

At minimum, if one did not want to take their literary axe that far, the writers should very much take the opportunity to come up with a better way to manage the narrative of the multiple railways. I agree it's a big weakness that the RWS flips back and forth after introducing other railways — it doesn't always feel like all these books are in the same series and the going back and forth can be jarring. It's understandable, since Awdry was constrained by writing them in the order than he created them. But with distance there is a chance to reconceive things in a better way.

TVS Series 4, I think, made a vast improvement by grouping all the narrow-gauge stuff together — showing the Duke rescue before Peter Sam's and Sir Handel's S.R. breaking-in is awkward, of course, but having a whole half-season devoted to the narrow-gauge railways helps the narrative flow immensely. Sadly I think for the rest of the TVS they fall into the same choppy waters Awdry did. Obviously plenty of people do like the narrow-gauge episodes despite all, but they are definitely not set to best advantage when a handful of them feel kinda randomly sprinkled within the other stories. The improvement TVS continues to make however is finding ways for "the big engines" and "the little engines" to interact, as in creating more and more locations with mixed gauges.

Anyway your idea of a fresh television adaptation of the RWS is so enticing. My ideal series would be 30-minute adult-TV-esque episode dramas (hey, we're dreaming). You could have a significant number of episodes that take a birds'-eye view of Sodor rail and, instead of being organized around One Character Gets Put in a Situation, are organized by some new development (a new service, coal shortage, dieselisation, key person retires, labour strike, etc.), then you can have an A and a B plot on two different railways and see the fallout.

(Usually the North Western would be one of the two railways in focus, just coz a lion's share of industrial activity and travel on the island is going through them. But can you imagine how cool and special an episode it would be to have a Depression-era episode where we see the Skarloey and Mid Sodor Railways trying to pluckily adapt and eke out their survival? And we could see the Skarloey, who seemed to be in the more precarious position at the beginning, still squeaking through at the end with one engine, one engineer, etc., and downer ending! at the very end we see the Mid Sodor is ruined. Cue silent montage of putting up "Closed" signs and boarding up windows and selling off Falcon and Stuart over sad music.)

It would, indeed, necessitate coming up with original plots, especially for the smaller railways (even if, again, the North Western probably will get a big share of screen time), but the fandom has shown that there's plenty to be done there. However, the goal is to cover all the classic RWS stories — just putting them into a larger context and thinking about the island's arc over the course of a season. Fleshing out the dramatic bits of lore.

The openers for most of the episodes would be, like, a little slice-of-life showing miners or dockers or farmers or housewives going about their life for a minute or two until the Pressing Need is shown and a hint of what the railways are gonna do about it appears; a bunch of men in top hats and tails shaking hands over some new venture; new track is being laid; or some piece of news reaches Sodor and then! opening theme song and then we cut to our engines <3

#so sorry jamie's ask just sent me on a 20 minute daydream and i was typing all the while #if this makes no sense kindly just ignore it... i'm having a great time watching my new favorite imaginary television show #chatter #the railway series

22 notes · View notes

courtney-deserved-better · 6 months

Note

Hi!! I'm a huge fan of your writing, and I've been wondering: how did you plan long fics (like slippery slopes) in the past, and how are you doing it now with amicus curiae? :)

thank you! and that's a great question! for slippery slopes, i used canon very much as a blueprint and plotted out the changes episode by episode until i had an outline of all the plot points and moments i wanted to write. and then as i was writing it some of that stuff went completely out the window (courtney was originally gonna be eliminated in the china episode and cody was gonna make it to the final four but courtney and alejandro ended up unexpectedly developing this great friendship so courtney stuck around for a lot longer than i initially planned but i loved how it worked out) but because i had my outline i was able to still hit the most important parts of the story as well as develop new ones that fit into the overall fic. as for amicus curiae... i made an outline for the entire season, struggled to write it, got like 2 drafts and 10k words in and was like "nope" so i completely abandoned the outline and started writing episode by episode with no real plan. which worked for about 40k words until i realized that courtney and emma's dynamic would work so much better if they were class rivals before the fic started (in the first 3 drafts they didn't know each other prior to rr and i wasn't vibing with their dynamic) and so i started a new draft, rewrote those previous 40k words but with courtney and emma's new dynamic, and then kept going, and that's how we landed with the amicus curiae that's actually seeing the light of day (aka ao3). i had a few small things planned out for each episode, mostly just eliminations so it could logically track and a few ideas for conversations/interactions but i was very much going chapter by chapter watching the canon episodes and writing along with my own version. which took me to a lot of places i didn't expect, but also created some logical inconsistencies that could be a pain in the ass to work out. i had an idea of which team was gonna win when i started but that has changed three times by now (i think) and i haven't written the last three chapters yet so who knows how that will turn out. in the original stuff i've been writing for, yknow, my career as a writer, i've learned that writing very freeform and not starting with an outline is actually really helpful with not only motivation but creativity and discovering new things about characters and where the story can go. i've been writing the courtney time travel au pretty similarly, but because that is focused on one pov and this is focused on six, amicus curiae has been a lot harder to write spontaneously. but it's been a great challenge and i've enjoyed not constraining myself too much with outlines and povs and whatnot!

#ask #anon #slippery slopes #amicus curiae

22 notes · View notes

melonlthawne · 6 months

Note

Oooh, how would meloni raising Thad change things? Bc I’d imagine it’d change a lot lol

HI. sorry this took a bit. im notoriously terrible at answering asks or like anything at a practical pace so i had to get my brain into the mood to answer. but thanks for sending i really appreciate it!

so yes the short answer is that A LOT changes. i think the main aspect here is that thad is actually raised as a wanted, loved child with his own thoughts and feelings that matter versus president's thawnes upbringing of him only being useful when he can be used as a tool to terminate bart or hurt the flashfam. though meloni definitely wasn't expecting another child in this au, she welcomes thad in with open arms knowing that if he's raised by eobard, thad won't be loved and she would never want that if she could help it. so the best option she has is to take him home and raise him herself.

she's not the best parent ever. no one is. but if there's one thing meloni can ensure she does is make sure thad knows hes loved and appreciated no matter what his origin is. when thad is older she probably explains the complex situation to him so that he doesn't have to find out in some other way that could be traumatic.

assuming things go to plan, mel would encourage thad in any way she could much like how she does with bart canonically in the very little time they have together. in this au/verse, bart's rapid aging either doesn't exist or is solved when hes still a baby which makes things a bit more normal though i imagine raising any speedster child can be a nightmare at times.

i'm sure some traits that thad has typically still show up, like him being very dedicated to whatever his tasks/responsibilities are, maybe being a little unintentionally rude or blunt, and he and bart would probably still bicker and fight a lot but not physically or to an extreme degree. just like typical sibling junk. but because from the moment they got him thad isn't "trained" to be evil or whatever he probably just ends up in a sort of chaotic good position or maybe even chaotic neutral but NOT evil. he still has the potential to be bad just like we all do but it would only end that way if he has some other influence outside of mel bart & don that is frequent and persistant enough to outshine mel's well intentioned upbringing.

he'd probably still end up as a hero. idk if he'd still be inertia maybe cause its just a cool ass name but maybe with a different suit that isn't inverted-color impulse since he has his own life now and has different interests and thoughts outside of his genetical coding being identical to bart. he's allowed to become his own person no matter what his dna says. he's not constrained to JUST be the better or inferior bart/bart-clone. and meloni and don would make sure thad always knows he is his own person and he's not just an extension of bart. they may be brothers but they are not the same person.

i could probably ramble even more on this and i will probably. i have that fic i plan on touching after like a year and a half of nothing. i have a surgery coming up and a buttload of time to recover so i might get some writing done soon. if you're interested in this stuff, keep an eye out! plan to get more art and writing in this verse asap : )

#answered #roseandgold137 #thaddeus thawne #thad thawne #inertia #meloni thawne #meloni allen #two of a kind tag #two of a kind #thad raised by mel au

20 notes · View notes

dandylovesturtles · 1 year

Note

Chello~! So I was reading your amazing fic “I May Be Invisible but I Still Look Good” and I was wondering, just outta curiosity. What inspired the concept for the fic in the first place? It’s a really cool concept- a spell that basically tears the soul out of the body and makes a person a “ghost” (sorry, Leo, I’m using the word ghost), but there are restrictions to what they can go through and stuff.

And another note- is there a specific reason you chose which one of Leo’s brothers broke which part of the spell? Like, Mikey broke sight, Raph broke sound, and Donnie broke touch. I see the parallel with Donnie, since he’s typically pretty adverse with touch, but I was wondering about Raph and Mikey.

I also wanted to say that your writing is beautiful and the fact that I can’t leave more than one kudos-es on Ao3 is cruel 😤.

Keep up the amazing work and have an absolutely wonderful amazing supercalifragilisticexpialidoshus day/night/afternoon/2am/endless white void :,]

Hi! Thank you so much for reading, I'm glad you're enjoying it! I've answered some of this but I'm too lazy to dig through my blog so I'll answer again! lol

I've written a fic similar to this before for another fandom (One Piece) over a decade ago - it's a trope I've always enjoyed haha. Though that fic was definitely more of a comedy (the character who got ghosted ended up possessing another character's body so they had to share), while this one leaned more heavily on angst. Although both OP and ROTTMNT are comedic canons so there's still a lot of jokes in both haha.

Anyway I thought of doing this with Leo because even though Donnie was (and still mostly is) my favorite character, Leo is the one I like putting through the spin cycle, because I think his character is a really interesting one to dig into. Leo has a lot of layers to him, and he has a hard time showing his real self to others and asking for help, and this sort of trope is great for forcing characters to do exactly that. Take away their ability to communicate and it makes them want to communicate more! lol

I ended up rambling so I'm putting a cut here.

I actually went around and around for a bit coming up with exactly what the restrictions are for how Leo can move. Like, I spent way too much time trying to decide if he can climb ladders and in the end I just avoided ever mentioning it (he probably can, like he can climb stairs, because otherwise getting out of certain parts of the sewer would be hard). But a lot of it came out of practicality, like I needed him to be able to ride in the tank properly so he could go home with them in the first chapter. But when I thought of the scene where he and Mikey get separated by Meat Sweats I just pushed that to the logical conclusion of "well he can ride in the car but he isn't actually constrained by the frame of the car besides the bottom" and that turned into car surfing.

Initially however I was going to have it so he was restricted to the immediate area around his body and so to leave the lair with Leo the brothers would have to Weekend at Bernie's him around. I eventually gave up on this idea because it caused too many logistical problems lol... Like I would have to establish that either his body can survive because it's just in a form of stasis (which I didn't like because it retroactively killed some of the first chapter's tension and also killed later tension) or they would have to cart around some kind of ventilator and that's a logistical nightmare. But I didn't want Leo to be confined to the lair because, boring. So that's where the idea of him being tied to them after they regained a sense came from, which has worked out great because I ended up using it for way more drama than I anticipated at the start haha.

Here's my writing tip no one asked for: when coming up with the rules for any kind of magic anything, narrative utility always trumps realism - as long as you have internal consistency it's fine.

AS FOR WHO GETS WHAT, well, I always planned for them to regain the senses in the order Mikey > Raph > Donnie (I feel like it just makes the most sense that Mikey is first and Donnie is last so Raph is naturally the middle), but originally they were going to get the senses in waves, like once Raph broke part of the spell both Mikey and Raph would get hearing, etc. And I already planned on it going sight > hearing > touch as well. But then I decided to split the senses up because I felt like it was more interesting that way. See the tip I posted above LOL

But as for why I picked sight > hearing > touch, well... I needed Mikey to see him first for narrative utility but also since Mikey is the one who is best at emotions, I liked having him get sight, because that way Leo can't really hide from him, and so Mikey can get a sense of how Leo is dealing with everything through this ordeal. Like Leo can hide his emotions from Raph by being quiet or from Donnie by not touching him but he can't escape Mikey. The other two obviously know Leo is not having a good time, but Mikey is the one who has the fullest picture of how badly this is affecting him, and Mikey is also the best at communicating that to the others and helping Leo through it just by being there. That's why you get a lot of Mikey literally guiding the others to him, too - he's good at helping that way!

As for Raph, I made a joke at the time that I wanted to force the dumb-dumbs to actually use their words lol. Which is a lot of the motivation! Of course, Raph and Leo are at a better place than they were pre-movie anyway, but I still wanted to put them in a place where they have to talk because they literally don't have any other options. Also, I really love the co-leaders vibe, or at least Raph being his right hand man, and I wanted the two of them to be able to talk strategy, which was of course easiest if they could actually, ya know, talk. Leo may be leader but he still looks up to Raph and turns to him for advice, or as a sounding board to work out what he's thinking through, so it's really beneficial for him to be able to talk to Raph.

And yes finally, Donnie is touch averse so he gets touch and we all laugh. LAUGH. But also Donnie would be most frustrated by not having a more direct way to communicate with Leo, but also the most determined to actually make it work. Also this way he is given a problem to fix. Leo is touch-starved and it's not good for him to be like this for too long, because he's losing his grip on reality. Donnie can fix that problem by touching him, and so he will, because Donnie fixes problems. Even if it requires giving his dumb-dumb twin shell scratches (he doesn't mind) (he won't admit it though).

Also the ouija board jokes are very funny. If it works for zozo why can't it work for Leo!

Sorry for all the rambles aaaaa thanks for the ask!

#fic: i may be invisible but i still look good

42 notes · View notes

sack-thing · 3 months

Text

Miasma Streams and Elements

Let's do it again. Editing and completing things said there.

Also thanks @crookedvoidbird for talking about the parasite.

So here's our default map:

In the past, a meteorite crashes into Mount Vellenge (and destroys the giant crystal that was there). The meteor parasite that came along settles there. It starts producing miasma that spread around the world, but also creates some underground rifts; we can imagine it does that by growing very long tentacles or roots. They are aiming for the main elemental sources scattered over the continent.

Even if it's a move from a living organism that aims to survive, the path that the new rifts take isn't purely from its will and is constrained by geology to some extent, so they happen where the earth's crust already shows some weakness or near tectonic plates boundaries.

So the rifts are created, miasma also goes into them and flows around the world. Most of the time this path is underground, but sometimes it goes higher and reaches ground level. This is where we get our miasma streams as shown in the game. They look like rifts too; what we see is a bridge above some kind of void and very strong winds all around.

The miasma that travels through those rifts gets imbued with elements on its way. Eventually it goes back to Mount Vellenge to bring the food —the elements— to the parasite. A secondary path is made after the main water source to allow the cycle to repeat and ensure permanent feeding.

A new rift is created by the parasite, circling Mount Vellenge, leading to a new miasma stream. On their usual cycle, the streams/elements don't merge together, they just swift and let the place to the next element. But if they're stuck together, like they end up doing around Mount Vellenge, the elements are forced to fuse and give birth to the unknown element. The parasite now has a solid barrier to prevent predators from coming too close (like humans who'd want to destroy it by any chance).

(Compared to the initial (black) rift that is located underground, the unknown element (bright yellow) travels on a higher level so they don't meet.)

But geology and randomness are still a thing. Located where three plates meet/diverge in the ocean, a new breach opens to the south, weakened by the miasma stream that runs nearby, unplanned by the parasite. Some miasma goes in there too and ends in a closed circle underground, the same way it does around Mount Vellenge. A new stream of unknown element is made. Some of it finds its way between smaller breaches until reaching Lynari island and rising to the surface there, in the desert. And as we see in game, there's still some enigma to solve there to find it, but that's not the topic.

Voilà. More notes under the cut.

Note 1: this is basically how I imagine the miasma stream to flow when it reaches the land just after the wind source, when it seems to pop up from the ocean.

Note 2: If I really wanted to stay true to the cycle from the game, the earth and fire sources should be swapped. I'll say screw that after all. I already diverge from canon for many things and it would just affect the gameplay/traveling options, which is not exactly my problem.

So the miasma streams' elements change each year like this:

Note 3: If you wonder why I suggest there's a whole continent that isn't seen in game, here's why.

Note 4: I'll never pretend that everything makes sense geologically wise. Also I'm just doing my headcanons with my own logics and subjects affinities, but I'm sure there could be other nice explanations for miasma streams. Just gonna go with that for now. If needed, it has time to evolve before I get to write more post-game stuff :')

As a last bonus, there could be other elemental sources on the continent, it's just not my point of focus. But something like this could also be true and reinforce the cycle (more sources to the north of the continent are possible):

#ffcc headcanons #ffcc #crystal chronicles #spent too much time on that i need to stop #there are many other related topics that could be addressed but later #next thing to do is rearranging my tags on this blog cause it's a big mess

8 notes · View notes

lansplaining · 1 year

Note

I really think WWX and JGY wouldn't get along on a personal level! Based on JGY's closest relationships (LXC, Qin Su, and Su She), he seems to like mild-mannered people who are intentionally polite and deferential to social norms. (I'm excluding NHS and JL because they are not friends he has chosen, but rather people he "inherits" from relationships he didn't enjoy very much, and also strategically and politically important.) JGY suffered so much under social prejudice, and he downright resents NMJ for not being to sympathize with that, so I don't think he'd like WWX who is not very invested in being polite and shares the burden of managing social expectations.

From WWX's side, I think he is actually similar to NMJ in that he believes social appearances are just appearances that can or should be changed to make way for more "important" principles. If they were close, I think WWX would feel betrayed by some of JGY's choices like NMJ was, while JGY would be frustrated by WWX's flaunting of conventions. Like I can see them being polite or friendly acquaintances, but they can't sustain a deep friendship.

I think this is a very legit take, and I definitely agree that they would be likeliest to become friends if they, like JGY and Xue Yang, were forced to collaborate by circumstance in the first instance. But as Xue Yang proves, JGY is evidently capable of forming a kind of fondness for people he finds a bit terrifying/wildly irritating. And more importantly, he will repay kindness with kindness, and the one thing WWX wouldn't do is treat him badly because of his background (obviously the 'your mom' insults in the temple are a specific circumstance). WWX might flout convention, but he's rarely just a dick to someone to their face at first meeting, for no reason.

I think WWX is also very capable of understanding when people feel constrained by their circumstances to act pragmatically rather than morally-- see the way he interacts with Jiang Cheng over the Wen stuff. So I don't think he's fundamentally going to hate JGY for trying to protect himself rather than live up to his ideals-- and JGY does then use his position to live up to his ideals, in a way few others in canon do!

So basically... I agree they'd probably need an initial push of some kind, like a shared project or shared enemy. But I feel like they could definitely become friends, if bickering ones.

#ask answered

34 notes · View notes

performativezippers · 5 months

Note

I hope you don't mind me asking but I've recently started on writing a fanfiction and I thought I had it all planned out and partly written but I often get new ideas or tidbits and then I have to add or change the already written parts. It gets frustrating and I end up not writing at all 😕

How do you plan what you write?

Oh great question! I do think this is very personal and what works for one person doesn't work for another. But here's some stuff I think you could try to see if it helps you!

Firstly, what about this process of going back/adding/changing feels frustrating? Do you feel like you're moving backwards? Is it delaying your posting schedule? Editing and revising can be part of the process, so you could try reframing for yourself that you're not going backwards, this is part of the writing process! Maybe that's all you need? But if it's feeling genuinely frustrating beyond just usual editing, then I have some ideas below for how to do less of it! Because we want you to be in a place where you can write!!

1--Are you writing something too long? Maybe you're losing some of the planned details because you're biting off too much at once. When I'm working in a new fandom, I like to start with a couple of one-shots that only have one plot point (Lucy is high on drugs, Kate is asking the internet for help) so I can really focus on that one thing, and on getting the voices/details/characters right. If you're trying to do a whole big plot, for example a big case or crime investigation, that's a lot of moving parts and you might want to scale down for now.

2--Are you changing character choices? Did you decide Jane is a pastry chef, and then you realize you want her to be a private investigator? That would be super frustrating to revise, and if that's the case, then I'd advise either (A) returning to the canon to more deeply root your character in the canon characterization of Jane, or (B) ignoring canon completely (lol) and spending more time daydreaming or imagining your fic. Write fanfic in your head of your fic. What would your pastry chef Jane do if she met Maura as lifeguards at a summer camp? During a crime? Out dancing? That often is what helps me nail down my characters--what is consistent between AU's of this person I'm creating? Who is she, fundamentally? That might help you make fewer changes later because it'll be more solid from the start.

3--Are the new ideas coming because you're bored of what you've plotted/already written? Are they ideas for new plot directions or for missing scenes in the plot you've already written? Those are fundamentally different problems.

If you're feeling bored: try starting without outlining and plotting. Maybe you're not a plotter but more of a panster (making it up as you go), and once you've outlined something you're feeling too constrained by it, so your brain is coming up with new things to keep you interested. This is what happens to me, and why I don't ever outline!

If you're going in new plot directions: this could be a for a few reasons. Maybe you're trying to make a long fic out of an idea that really only should be a one-shot (we've all done this!). Maybe you picked an idea you're bored with and you're spinning out new directions instead of ending the fic and starting something new from one of these new ideas. Maybe you started writing some domestic fluff but realized you want to be writing some hard-hitting crime! Ask yourself: is this idea for this fic, or an idea for a different fic?

If you're adding missing scenes: take a look at your outline. Is it plot driven, character driven, vibes driven? And then take a look at your new ideas for missing scenes. Are they the same? Different? Maybe your outline is all plot points (Alex goes here, Maggie punches this person, Kara finds this clue), but what you're adding is all character beats (Alex and Maggie have a long morning in bed together, Alex is sad). That would tell me that your outline simply didn't account for those character/relationship moments, and you're feeling like they're missing, so you're adding them. That's okay! I often go back and add things in when I notice in a re-read that they're missing, and next time you can make sure your preliminary outline has more of that stuff (and I have some thoughts about how to do that if you're curious)

Let me know if any of this helps, and feel free to send more asks with more specifics or specific situations if you'd like!

#writing advice #ask zipps #ask zipps about writing #writing fanfic

7 notes · View notes

quibbs126 · 1 year

Text

So yesterday I was in a bit of a funk, both due to me having bombed my math exam (and probably all my others), and because I wanted to draw but couldn’t figure out what to draw, and anything I was making didn’t look very good. Then I decided, “hey, I have Cookie Run ocs, why not just make a page with them?” And so I did

I was planning on having more sketches, but the drawings were big on my canvas and I couldn’t fit more (I like to keep them roughly the same size

First I wanted to draw Cabbage Rose again, because he’s honestly one of my favorite AI generated cookies, and this time I gave him a redesign, now that I wasn’t constrained by the art generator. Mainly I changed his hair and gave his sword more stuff so that it looked like a regular sword, particularly with the leaves on the end (though to be honest I feel like they ended up looking more like wings). The cape design was giving me difficulty, I probably need to draw it without it fluttering in the wind so I can get a better grasp of it

Also can I just say, I hate the fact that there are colors of his that are close enough that having them both feels unnecessary, but different enough that I can’t change it to one or the other because it looks wrong. I try to have colors repeat themselves to minimize the number of colors and keep it simple, but I can’t do that here and it annoys me

Anyways next up we have the Cacao siblings (and technically the only canon character in this page). I was originally gonna draw Ruby with a more dynamic pose, with her and her brother fighting off beasts, but then I decided instead to have her basically teaching Dark Cacao about how to use a sword, which is what she’s doing here. They’re supposed to be still at the tribe with some swords they had around

I was considering giving her a different weapon to differentiate herself from her brother, so that they don’t seem like just copies, but then I figured that if anyone were to teach Dark Cacao how to use a sword, it would make logical sense for it to be his older sister, especially when they’re living on their own

Also you get a full body reference for Ruby Cacao now

Alright, now let’s move onto the final one, with Blueberry Ice Cream Cookie and Strawberry Jam Cookie (note, I still want to change that name, but I haven’t figured out to what. They’re a Legendary grade, and most Legendaries tend to have names that are either what they are (aka Wind Archer, Fire Spirit, Millennial Tree) or like, what their role is/what they represent (again Wind Archer, Timekeeper, Moonlight?). Technically Strawberry Jam is made of strawberry jam, but that’s still in keeping with normal Cookies, which they aren’t. If anyone has suggestions feel free)

The only major thing I changed here was Blueberry Ice Cream’s sword, the Blueberry Buster Sword. Originally it looked more like the Strawberry Jam Sword, but I wanted to change it because they later consider it be their greatest failure and despise it. So why would they make their perfect creation, the Strawberry Jam Sword, look just like it? I mean it’s still a sword, because that’s what they use, but they wouldn’t make them look so similar. So with this I ended up basing it more on the Final Fantasy Buster Sword, as well as just pictures of broadswords/greatswords, since that’s what the Buster Sword is based on. I was considering moving the gem onto the blade like the FF7 one, but I thought that looked too similar

On one hand, I feel like redesigning Strawberry Jam Cookie, since when I see the Sovereign, I don’t really feel like these two are the same person. But then again, the Sovereign has Dark Choco’s body, so they wouldn’t really look/feel the same, would they?

I was also STRUGGLING with Strawberry Jam’s posing, specifically with the sword. I wanted them to be swinging it high up, but I couldn’t find a good pose to reference that had that, so I had to try and improvise myself. Unfortunately, I didn’t really have a big stick, other than my mop. And a mop isn’t exactly the same as a sword. Not to mention I kept holding like a flag because habit. I feel like it looks like they’re just holding it close to their face, when they’re supposed to be swinging it. Maybe eventually once I figure it out I’ll go back and change it

It was fun drawing them side by side though, since I can definitely see similarities and differences between them, so that you wouldn’t immediately think they’re related, but you can still pick up on similar elements

Another thing, this pose is sort of what I imagine a banner with them would look like. Well I mean not entirely, I’d personally have Strawberry Jam taking up more horizontal space, but something like this. I have this idea in my head of these two being part of like, a Halloween update, and when you see the two on the banner initially, you might think that these two are fighting each other, or Blueberry Ice Cream is having to defend against them in some way. You might also notice that’s the Strawberry Jam Sword and assume this is lore about the original wielder of the SJS and perhaps someone they fought, possibly the one who sealed them in the sword. And once you start their story, things seem to be fine, it’s just introducing our protagonist, Blueberry Ice Cream. But then as the story progresses, you eventually realize that there’s definitely some shady connection between the two, and eventually some to the realization that they are in fact the same person, just at different points in their life, and you watch Blueberry Ice Cream turn into this horrible monster

I say Halloween specifically because it’s supposed to be like a scary story about a good person’s corruption into pure evil, and the fact that it doesn’t end on a good note. Also another way the story might be framed is as a scary story being told to younger Cookies, though it is a true story.

I also imagine that the ending would involve Dark Choco when he was younger. If it’s the storytelling version, at the end of the tale, he asks if this was true, and the narrator’s reply implies to him that it’s not that reliable, and more a story to scare children (even though again the story presented is supposed to be true), so Dark Choco chooses to ignore its warnings and keep seeking the sword out. If the story is a series of flashbacks, then the final cutscene is Strawberry Jam Cookie, in the void of their sword within Dragon’s Valley, having lost all semblance of who they once were, and likely their own humanity (or the Cookie equivalent of that I guess). Then, it hears a voice, and we see a silhouette of young Dark Choco, exclaiming that he finally found the legendary sword, and Strawberry Jam Cookie says something along the lines of (but not this at all) “someone new…he will do nicely…”. We all know what happens from there, but the last thing we see are Strawberry Jam Cookie’s words, so we don’t see the corruption

But yeah, it was fun doing these. To be honest, now I just want to draw more of them

#cookie run #cookie run kingdom #cookie run oc #cabbage rose cookie #ruby cacao cookie #dark cacao cookie #blueberry ice cream cookie #strawberry jam cookie #strawberry jam sword #sovereign of darkness #have I mentioned the hypothetical event with those two before? Not sure I have #another name idea I had for Strawberry Jam is Jam Drop Cookie #a type of cookie that has jam in the middle (which can include strawberry jam)#but also that falls in the more “normal Cookie” naming scheme #rather than the “legendary Cookie” one #sorry I just have a lot more to say about those two than the others #at least when writing this #my ocs #my art #oh yeah I forgot so there might be confusion as to the pronouns of BIC and SJC #Blueberry uses he/him Strawberry uses they/them and the Sovereign is usually referred to as it #because by that point it’s not really considered a Cookie

23 notes · View notes

strawberrys-starship · 8 months

Text

So I watched Star Trek 2009 again and decided to do some more in depth note taking this time around, and decided to post it here. I'll be honest though most of it is me pushing the mcspirk agenda and complaining about the uniforms

Disclaimer! This constrains spoilers for this movie and also Star Trek into darkness, I will also say here that I am an autistic queer man, and I refer to a lot of Spock's behavior as autistic, if that is something that makes you uncomfortable them maybe you should skip this post.

Also the spacing is weird but I'm not gonna fix it, sorry :/

Anyway! Onto the post itself.

-----------------------------------

So I'm watching this movie again, I feel like I will like it much better now that I have my own twisted perception of this movie 👍🏻

It's unfair the amount of power this soundtrack has over me

This movie is truly beautiful, the uss kelvin is a gorgeous ship

And the sounds?? Ugh, I love it

I love the fake out they did there, I know so many old trekkies in the theater were like "THERE THE ENTERPRISE!!! LOOK AT HER!!! THERES THE BRIDGE!!! Oh wait..."

I love the funky shape the kelvin has

Ok so, what era are these uniforms supposed to be in? It's not the same ones from Archers days, and even though this is *technically* the point where the timeline diverges, these uniforms had to be canonical in the prime timeline too bc obviously hey were wearing them before they discovered the anomaly.

I'm guessing they just wanted to show that it was in the past? I'm pretty sure these uniforms were invented for this movie specifically.

We're only 1 minute and 43 seconds in.

Yea that ship is pretty damn scary

Oh em gee is Chris Hemsworth, wonder what he's doing here

Side note, when I first watched this I thought he was actually Chris Pine, but I kept going like "hmmm something ain't right here" yeah doofus you got the wrong Chris

It's even funnier when u know that I'm actually a big MCU fan and did a whole marathon of all the movies like a year ago, just full on did not recognize Chris Hemsworth

("Wow Lynsey, you're an MCU fan? How cringe!" Yeah whatever I know, I know, it's got a million and ten problems with it, but hey I love a good fix-it)

Fucking side note- this opening battle scene is gruesome as fuck, I remember watching this the first time and just being like "damn, three minutes in and already we have bodies flying through space??"

Ok so is this canonically what future romulans look like?? Bc this is not what romulans look like in any of the other shows, including SNW but that's all in the "past" so...?

I do find it interesting how many different species they have in starfleet here, because again up until the very minute that wormhole appeared, this was the prime timeline (which begs the question, WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO KHAN??) so that means that in TOS they also technically would have had several other species in starfleet at any given time, obviously we don't see that in TOS itself bc of primary budget issues (that's why Spocks makeup wasn't super inhuman and stuff, bc they didn't have the money to put a regular character in super complex makeup every episode) but this little detail opens up a window of possibilities that I find really fun

Like because of this movie, my TOS crew of OC's has an Orion and two Vulcans in their senior staff (I know I know most Vulcans at that time wouldn't be caught dead in starfleet but they're my dollys and I get to decide what they look like!)

I'm back like, an hour later!

Let's get right to it!

He really does like like Chris pine, like I'm not going crazy, am I?

Is it just a Chris thing??

But yeah I can see why all the fics are like "Jim looks EXACTLY like his dad" cuz yeah they kinda do look like brothers if nothing else

Again I wonder what the theater reaction was to that "Kirk!? JIM Kirk?? But I thought he was played by a different blond twink!"

(Listen I'm sorry to say it but Chris Pine was a twink in this movie, it's just the truth! He gets more twunky as the movies go on, though.)

It's so weird to hear Chris Hemsworth speak with an American accent, or at least his attempt at one

Do we ever hear about this captain like, ever again?

I love the romulan language dude

Wait so do the romulans just straight up not have the eyebrow ridges? Like I think I read somewhere that sometimes they don't have them, but it looks like this entire crew doesn't have them

I'm confused

All I can hear when I look at Nero is the wackes bonkes audio that was going around on TikTok like, two years ago

Idk he just gives me that vibe

Spack! :D

Also I'll say right here right now, I do not support this ending for Spock prime!! I will give her a happy ending even if I have to forge it with my own to hands!!

GASP 😱 we're in the past!

I hate the fact that I had a Once phase, because all I can see is Emma so to me it's like a really weird crossover fic where Emma Swan and Thors child is Jim Kirk

What a mix

GASP! 😱 what ever will he do!

He sounds soooo confident that the baby will be ok

Them both being blond and blue eyed gives me the ick

Damn, poor Jim. Now he's got a million and ten allergies.

Ok ok ok I know this is supposed to be super emotional (and to be fair it is pretty emotional) but with all the fics I've read and fan content I've consumed where Jim's dad dying kinda fucked him over and Winona leaving him as soon as she could just makes me apathetic towards them.

So... yeah.

And I know none of that's canon (I don't think? We'll see as the movie goes on and I remember shit) unless I've missed a book or ten somewhere that provides all this extra information (like where frank came from, sam leaving, basically all the troupes we see with most AOS fics)

Damn, I gotta say that's pretty traumatizing

Star Trek!!!

Yep, we just got to the title sequence :)

Baby Jim!!

Ok so canonically Winona is off planet

I do love the fact that Jim listens to dad rock. Why? Because I listen to dad rock!! And it's very important to me that Jim does too!!

Ok so from the fics, that is supposed to be Sam, right?? But is that confirmed anywhere?? Also they never said who was on the phone, I just knew because of the fics

Where did all this extra info come from??

Oh, nope that's some kid named Johnny oops

Let's hope that we don't have cops in the 23rd century, thank you.

The trauma. This kid.

SPACK!

If I'm not mistaken (I probably am) this is one f the first good looks we get at an actual Vulcan city, right? Like in TOS we only got the ritual grounds, in TOSM we got the other ritual grounds, and then the other other ritual grounds, but we never really saw a city of any kind, did we? It's been a minute I might be mistaken.

And then in TNG, we only really saw some of Sareks home and not much else of Vulcan, but then again I haven't watch the majority of Trek so maybe in Voyager or one of the other shows we see more

Anyway, I choose to believe that Vulcan cities look way more colorful then this, you can't convince me otherwise!

When the Vulcan children are in the learning sphere it makes it look like the floor is actually a really big doughnut pan

BABY SPOOOOOOCK 🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹

SHES LITERALLY THE SMALLEST BABY IN THE WORLDDDDD HOW CAN YOU BULLY HIM YOU BASTARDSSSS

GAHHHHH I LOVE HERRRR

My question is what Vulcan would think this is logical behavior. Like I know that they're xenophobic and like obviously they couldn't care less about logic when it comes to that so it doesn't really matter, but you go up to possibly the golden standard of Vulcan ideology and act like that?? And then say he's the one who's illogical and out of place?? Look In a mirror bud.

BEAR HIM UP! BEAT HIM UP! BEAT HIM UP!

I don't know how I feel about Sarek being British

Sarek I'm not entirely sure that's what they intended when they made you ambassador to earth 💀💀 but I see where Spock get her "Ah yes, it is perfectly logical to have sex with my human captain and the CMO, it builds respect and is a great team exercise."

Sure bitch

It was so random to cast Winona Rider as Spocks mom, I'm not complaining ofc, I love Winona, but just so random

See, I can't just let her be killed off when she's that damn nice. I refuse! Amanda lives!

Idk what kind of gay little outfit this is bust it works for Spock, honestly. Idk I just feel like he can pull it off but if anyone else wore it it'd look ridiculous.

Is that because Spock is my favorite and therefore can do no wrong?

No! Be quiet you!

YEAAAHHHH!!!! GET 'M SPOCK!!! TELL THEM WHATS WHAT!!! BE A BITCH!!! FLIP THEM OFF!!! TELL THEM WHERE THEY CAN SHOVE IT!!!!

I literally love her so much.

The one bar in Iowa 💀

I never know how to feel about this scene.

Jim Kirk you literally bitch. I love him with my entire heart.

Kirk...

Jim Kirk is a gay bitch (he's bi but still)

KIRKKKK 💀💀💀

Ok that was unnecessary. :| fucking 2009.

Kirk: you can whistle really loud, did you know that?

I... cannot tell you how much Jimby Kirk means to me. Just- he is so absolutely important to my wellbeing. I love him so so so much.

I want a tiny star ship salt shaker

It's also very important to me that he rides a motorcycle, because I love motorcycles

Can you tell I'm very heavily attached to AOS Jim Kirk? I don't know how good that is for my health

WEAR A DAMN HELMET YOU DUMBASS!!! YOU CAN STILL CRASH!!!

The Enterprise 🥹

Did they just let him in? No questions?

BONES! BONES! BONES!

LET ME SEE HIMMMM!!!!

BONESSSSSSSSS!!!!! THERE HE ISSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just- they all mean so damn much to me

I also identify with Bones so much because I too am a southern queer

Ok I'm sorry, I love Karl Urban, but again I am a southerner and this accent... 💀 I just can't

It's so damn funny to me

You look a little love struck there Jimby 🤨🏳️‍🌈

Ahaha I hope nothing bad is about to happen

Ok no the romulans do have the eyebrow ridges, they're just not very prominent

Wakus bonkus

:( Spock prime

I'm sure he does, I bet he studies your ass every second he gets 💀💀

Also I paused just as they cut to the scene with Jim and Gaila 😬 that's fun.

Ok- first off, very interesting that Uhura doesn't even blink at Gaila being in her underwear, but then proceeds to undress in front of her

Gay? More likely then you think.

Also, can they stop making Jim a creep? Thanks.

Well. I can confirm I am a gay man.

I love her tone here

Bones is over this shit

BISEXUAL BITCHY KIRK!!!

Jim 💀

SPOCK SPOCK SPOCK!

THERE SHE ISSSS

LIGHT OF MY LIFEEE

Kirk 💀 why must you cheat

I can physically hear Jim's thoughts going "oh no she's HOT" when he saw Spock stand up

First off- I love how Spocks the type of autistic that makes too much eye contact, like this whole time he's just 👁️👁️ LASER focused on Jim's face

Second, that's a lowwwww blow Spock 💀 damn.

Gehhsjchdishsjs I feel sickkk

I hate that I know what's coming.

Honestly, I started writing fics just so I can fix this kind of thing, bc in my mind Vulcan is not destroyed! Fuck you!

(Don't mind me just reading the name plates of all the admirals)

SEE BONES IS INTO SPOCK TOO!!!

THEYRE ALL GAY!!

(Ok I need to stop for now cuz it's late and I have things to do, I made it 35 minutes and 29 seconds through!)

(I'm bAAAaaaack!)

Bones hair flying in the wind 💀 he looks so disgruntled

How tall is Chris Pine? I didn't think he was very tall but he towers over this random commander

Maybe that guys just short tho

Bones, you poor poor fool, you're so in love with Jim. One kicked puppy look and it's all over for you

Gehhhhh I am not here for the Spock x Uhura relationshipppppp

The worst part is, is that I honestly think Spock and Uhura could work, not in these movies obviously with how abhorrently they write Uhura to be a #girlboss (and then they did the same thing with chapel in SNW) but I think that if it was written by someone who like, actually cared about the characters then I feel like it could work

But also that because I headcanon Spock using he/she pronouns and being just all over the queer spectrum, and I also headcanon Uhura as the number one lesbian of the year, so I think the dynamic between those specific headcanons would be very interesting to see

Anywho!

Ok now that I'm looking at this relationship through the lens that they are both lesbians I don't mind it as much

BONES 💀 YOU ARE SO GONE ON THIS MAN

"Just sitting there looking all pathetic" HE IS SO IN LOVE WITH JIM ARE YOU KIDDING ME

I... fucking love Bones so much. I can't even put it into words

THERE SHE ISSSSS THE ENTERPRISEEEEE

It seems my opinion on the new uniforms has not changed. Idk what happened but I just do not like how they redesigned the classic tos uniforms, it feels like they took the sparkle out of them, whatever that means

Spack! :D

Ok like. Why do the uniforms just look like a tee shirt and jeans? They don't look like a uniform!!

I also hate the longer cut on the shirt, the higher waist line from tos along with the sleeker pants just looked better to me

ALSO WHY DO THE DRESSES HAVE SHORT SLEEVES??? HOW THE HELL ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO TELL SOMEONES RANK WHEN THEY DONT HAVE THE STRIPES???

And then the delta just printed all over the shirt but there no texture to it... it's like those cheap bodysuit cosplays you can get online where they just print whatever the character is wearing onto a polyester bodysuit that warps whenever you stretch it too far

And the shirt isn't tailored at all!! It's so baggy!! Like Spock was looking at her station, kinda leaning over, and the collar of his science blues was like sticking out because the shirts fit like shit!

Anyway... I got big feelings about these uniforms

I ALSO hate how they attempted to make it look like the shirts were sewn like they were in tos (y'know with that weird shoulder seam they had? I don't know the name of it) but then they're actually just sewn the normal way?? So there's like, double the seams??

Sulu!!

I literally love the dynamic between Bones and Jim so much. He just knocked him the fuck out without even blinking. I love it

Chekov :(

One of my favorite things that Bones does is follow Jim around with a regenerator because he knows that Jim Will Not sit still long enough for him to like actually do his job normally so he's had to adapt

THAT looked like Jim was gonna kiss him

Haha..ha... I wonder why they're drilling into the surface of Vulcan... it'll probably be fine...

Spock is like "what a reckless and intriguing man. I Must Have Him"

I saw that glance gay boy

Damn this movie is actually kinda intense

I hate that I know what's gonna happen

✨Spock and her autism✨

THAT WAS A GAY ASS LOOK KIRK

That guy reminds me of the Skyrim guards

Godddd that is so damn scaryyyyy

Fuckkkk that is so. Fucking. Terrifying. Instantly vaporized.

My question is why didn't they immediately start evacuating Vulcan the second they could

God. I feel physically sick knowing what's about to happen

God.

Gut wrenching.

Six billion.

God damn.

On a side note, I find that I don't mind the relationship between Uhura and Spock as long as I imagine that they're either in a QPR or are lesbians

I still don't like how they reduced Uhuras character to being Spock's girlfriend tho, especially in into darkness.

Anyway. I'm still reeling over Vulcan being destroyed. That was fucking devastating. I can't even think about it

This is why 90% of my AOS writing either takes place during the academy or is an AU

Who the fuck is Nero's actor?? Why do I recognize him??

One sec now I gotta look it up

I looked him up and I literally don't know him from anything except Star Trek, so I guess he just reminds me of someone else but idk who

Ok but. Romulus was destroyed because the star went supernova, not because the federation or Vulcan went after it, right? Like I'm not misremembering that, am I? Guess we'll see.

Like I know Spock got there too late to save it, but Romulus is still gonna be destroyed?? If anything he just made it far less likely that Romulus will survive now that most of the Vulcan scientists that came up with red matter are dead.

I fucking hate those thingssss

I love that Kirk is already in the captains chair, he's just that much of a bitch

They totally just wrote that in so Spock could nerve pinch someone 💀💀

Damn. Really just dumped him on an ice planet

Run bitch!!

Spock :(

Oh my god. The look in his eyes. How does anyone expect me to be ok after that.

Heart wrenching.

Spock hasn't seen her Jim for decades. Possibly even a century. And the first time she sees him again, he doesn't recognize her.

And I know, I know, timeline shit, but like, could you imagine how devastating that is? To see your lost loved one and them just straight up not even know you? And Vulcans feel emotions so much stronger too.

Yea so see? They didn't personally destroy the planet! It a was natural space disaster! And Nero probably just fucked up any chance of them being saved from it!

Man, now I want to watch TOS again so I can see Spock happy.

Spock to McCoy: I understand that James Kirk is a ""friend"" of yours

It's ok you can call them boyfriends

These southern phrases they have Bones saying are insane 💀 not once during my life as a southerner have I ever heard someone say that, and I hear weird shit come out of other southerners mouths every day. We make shit up, but nothing that damn complicated 💀💀

SPOCK YOU ABSOLUTE CUNT 💀💀💀

SHES LITERALLY GOT A SMIRK ON HIS FACE RIGHT NOW

I missed bitchy Spock 💕

WHAT AN ABSOLUTE BITCHHHHHHH

Sorry McCoy I don't think you can come back from that 💀💀💀💀💀 Damn

Ok no need to be racist McCoy

Or xenophobic, technically

Oh don't worry Spock prime, Jim's tiny little human arms got the door, just keep on walking down the hall

SCOTTYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!

THERES THAT CHAOTIC SON OF A BITCH!!!

YOU DUMBASS 💀💀💀 I DIDNT KNOW HE USED ARCHERS DOG 💀💀💀

AOS Scotty is one of my absolute favorite things in the world

Kirks over this destiny shit, man

And then Spock prime breaks that rule himself 💀💀 I think she just didn't want to deal with her angsty younger self

Fuck Spock prime doesn't even know this version of his mom is dead too

WAHHHHHHAHA 😭😭😭 THAT OLD FRIEND WAS JIMMMMM BECAUSE HE FUCKING CHEATED THE SYSTEM ALL THE TIMEEEEEE

you got this Kirk, don't worry about it

There was way more water in that pipe then that

Spock: un-fucking-believable. He found his way back onto the ship. I Must Have Him.

Ohhh shit here comes one of my absolute least favorites scenes. THE PAINNNNN

Oh my goddd like I know why Jim is doing this but it HURTS and it makes me want to DIE

Oh my god oh my god STOP

STOOOOP

GET EM!!! GET HIS ASS!!! SHOOT HIM INTO SPACE!!!

But not rlly cuz I love him

And that single shot of Kirk changed the entire fandom. For the better? For the worse? Who's to say

Scotty 💀💀💀💀

Yeah fair 💀

Oh my goddd the cut of these shirts bothers me SO MUCH

THEY LOOK AWFULLLLLL

IT LITERALLY TURNS EVERYONE THAT WHERES THEM INTO A SHAPELESS BOX

except if you're a woman, then that thing is tailored to your body like a glove 🙄

Its guns-UH-blazing, McCoy! Get it right

I can't explain in but Spock is standing in a very autistic way

WHAT IS THIS LOOK SHES GIVING KIRK RIGHT NOW

"Vulcans don't show emotion" MY ASS!!! SPOCKS ALREADY SMITTEN!!

They are standing veryyy close

OK WHAT WAS THAT SLAP SOUND EFFECT 💀

And Spocks face after 💀💀 pure regret

Ok no thanks I'd rather not see them make out

😐

Gaygaygaygay

Kirk "oh wow that weird, wonder why it called u ambassador, that so random" 💀💀

YALL CANT JUST STARE INTO EACH OTHERS EYES LIKE THAT WHILE STANDING TWO INCHES APART AND THEN CLAME THAT SPOCK AND JIM ARE 100% CISHET

I WONT BELIEVE IT!!

Spock finding a chair that swivels on its own fascinating is extremely autistic

Dude the Vulcan ship is literally so damn cool

Whys this damn thing got no safety rails?? Isn't this a ship from the future?? I figured you'd be at least a little concerned with safety, holy shit

I really thought Nero went "FUCK!!!" But he was just saying Spock 💀

Jimbyyyy Kirk, what a sad lil boy

And that's how you break several ribs

Ok damn I got chills when the enterprise appeared

"Jim!" "Bones!"

HOMOS!

OH MY GODDDD THEY ARE LITERALLY FLIRTING RIGHT IN FRONT OF MEEEE

The enterprise looks so tiny

damn, got chills again

GAY

Ok one sec I know that this is like an "omg Spock and Spock are talking!" Thing but-

SEE THEY KNOW HOW TO TAILOR SHIT!! THAT PROFESSOR UNIFORM LOOKS GREAT ON SPOCK!! WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED WITH THE OTHER UNIFORMS!!

Spock prime knows exactly what's going on. She really said "that's gonna be one of your husbands, couldn't get in the way of that lmao"

AGAIN EVEN THE ADMIRAL UNIFORM LOOKS BETTER THEN THE STANDARD UNIFORM!!

Gay! They are GAY!

GAY AGAIN!! THEY ARE ALL FUCKIG GAY!!!

AHHHH THE ORIGINAL INTRO ;;;0;;;

IM NOT CRYING YOURE CRYING

also that was the end of the movie! I didn't time myself this time around, but I would say all in all it probably took me like three hours to watch this movie, maybe more

Anywho! Maybe I'll watch into darkness again soon so I can cringe (not that I don't like the movie, it's a fun time, but there are some bits that are just... yikes, y'know? Namely Khan)

#star trek #star trek aos #mcspirk #spirk #spones #mckirk #star trek 2009

13 notes · View notes

ganymedesclock · 2 years

Text

Okay @ruthlesslistener I promised I’d get you back for the good meta so, Pale King emoting and body language headcanons, here we go! This is just sort of a disorganized ramble but I didn’t want to make it a bullet list due to its long-windedness.

I think he ends to leave an extremely aloof/deadpan impression on people thanks to his monotone whisper-voice that only very rarely cracks into a genuine emotion,

(and it does crack when he does that; he just does not have a smooth voice. Though, uh, hesitate to rush to make fun of it because part of why it’s so rough and echoing and bizarre is because wyrms use sonar. He can kill a mundane bug and stun a large creature at close quarters by ‘shouting’)

but his actual poker face is, ironically, terrible. The fact that he has basically no experience with wyrms or ex-wyrms and little self-awareness of what wyrm physiology or quirks tend towards means that he basically only hides his emotions by a fortuitous combination of that he tries to shame and/or rationalize himself out of having them in the first place (thus, suppressing his body language as much as possible) and that his social cues are alien to others.

When I’m writing him, I tend to take a lot of inspiration from a cat in terms of facial expressions. He stares a lot, often without obviously blinking; he has a notable prey drive that even if he’s not hungry or intending to hunt means he tracks fast objects and his response time is nightmarishly swift.

Since anatomically he’s almost nothing but spine all the way down, he’s extremely bendy and even kinda compresses by settling onto himself most of the time; his canon sprite is small but he can stretch out or periscope up on his coils to about Lurien’s body length. Pre-fall of Hallownest PK finds this absolutely mortifying and limits himself extremely to highly constrained movements any time he’s not in a life-or-death fight; both “not king yet” PK and RFR-timeline postgame PK do it a lot more, especially the latter after he cuts his robes and basically gives up on keeping his weird shrimp body out of people’s attention.

His face is almost entirely a rigid, inflexible plate. His eyes can blink and squint and such but even so, some of the way they blink is unsettling; he has three separate eyelids. I stand by the headcanon that his actual ‘mouth’ and jaw (complex pedipalps/mandible array with lots of rasping blades and little sharp stuff) is tucked under the point of his ‘face’. Opening his jaw fully means that his eyes are stuck pointed up at the ceiling and away from whatever he’s biting, but his wyrm self had the same problem basically all the time. His mouth assembly is highly dexterous and can operate by feel just fine.

Because of this whole de-emphasized face, he’s actually a lot easier to read if you know the tricks to look for. He talks with his body language more than anything facial and the former recontextualizes the latter. Squinting can be like a happy blink from a cat- “guard down, I’m comfortable,” or it can be an expression of contempt, and that contempt can be passive smugness or it can be “you are seconds from death”.

Happy blink PK is going to be otherwise relaxed and usually won’t have his face/eyes pointing straight at whatever he’s with; if he’s super relaxed he’ll unspool from his tense posture and spread out bit by bit, like how a very relaxed hamster will go flat as a pancake. Pretty much the only person who has this privilege reliably is White Lady, where half the time they’re together and not busy he’ll just be somewhere in the same space as her either with his back facing her or completely sprawled out somewhere near her “feet” (where her roots meet the ground- he likes to feel the pulse of energy flowing around there, it soothes him instinctively)

Preening/arrogant PK tends to have his head lofted; he’ll also relax there, but stay upright and the relaxation is basically patronizing whoever he’s talking to rather than a gesture of trust. His body is more tense and able to respond; which works as he is often arrogant in combat.

A pissed off PK is distinct from the others in that his head stays down the entire time and tends to make very unbroken eye contact with whatever the source of his anger is. If he’s sitting straight the hostility is still theory and not ‘practice’; if he’s hunched forwards towards a more horizontal / (all ‘sixes’) pose then he may or may not actually be about to follow through but he is probably thinking about what your entrails would taste like.

Progressively in RFR PK’s body language opens up a lot more and he starts making more casual gestures with his posture and with his hands especially. He also starts using face journeys as a form of communication (e.g. making eye contact with someone, looking at a second person, and then back to the first with a fractional eye-widening = ‘get a load of this guy’).

He does all of this without thinking about it and actually is mortified to have attention drawn to it long after he’s entrenched this as a habit. Now all of Hallownest knows you have feelings, shrimp. You have failed.

#Hollow Knight #Pale King #readmore #some of this is repeating older posts but it's good to do that from time to time

81 notes · View notes

ffnetstarseeds · 10 months

Text

Pretty Sailor Soldier Sailor Moon Legendary Hearts

By: Kou Kotori

New Senshi! New Enemies! The Starlights are back! S/U Y/M T/A Mamo/? ^___^

Starting from the start, the title. Repeating the word ‘Sailor’ makes the title trip up, and adding a colon for extra. Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon: Legendary Hearts seems very inline with the Sailor Moon brand.

The summary is so general in its information. doesn’t really tell me anything. Who is the villain and what is their goal? Why are they dangerous? What makes the OC more interesting than the characters I already know? I also assume that breaking up Usagi and Mamoru is to make room for an OC which always feels like wank to me.

The opening, the chapter title feels in line with Sailor Moon but I’d encourage the writer to make use of FFnets formatting, centre and bolding to make it stand out.

The weird thing is I think the mimicking of the opening could have worked had they done it for multiple chapters and a simple italics. I think the tone does sound like Usagi enough that it doesn’t need the Usagi’s Voice author’s note. The other stuff, the idents and theme song doesn’t because writing is a completely different medium to anime and feels very out of place.

Sailor Vanessa is right in that nowadays certain archives allow gifs where it could be a little bit of flourish, but at the time this was published no chance. Use your medium appropriately and in this case FFnet is just text.

The intro is an overdone trope. Yeah, yeah, Usagi’s late. It’s also jumpy, from the street to Ms Haruna’s classroom? Super weird. I think this highlights how important knowledge of the canon, and making sure you stay within the setting is. When these kinds of details it catapults the reader out of suspension of disbelief. Attention to detail is important.

It’s also a good idea to make sure a scene has a certain length and serves a purpose. The school scene is a handful of sentences before jumping to a different scene in the throneroom of the enemy.

…. Always a throne room. I know Sailor Moon is known but I’ve always assumed it's to save the animation budget. The best thing about fanfic is you are not constrained by budget!

I do appreciate that there’s some appearance detail because in some OC fics you get nothing, but it can be expanded on, like clothes, accessories. Her minion, Tiako, got the lion’s share, and I will say that there is something intriguing about an enemy all in bubblegum pink.

Again, the scene is very… perfunctory? Minion! Do the thing!.... Yes leader, I will do the thing…

And because we’ve watched Sailor Moon we know exactly what the thing is. Again, the scene is so short I don’t have time to get immersed. There’s no atmosphere or emotion, just description.

The dialogue is stilted. I’d introduce the writer to one of those ‘lists of alternative said words’, adverbs and work on combining dialogue with an action to create a more dynamic scene.

"Apologize," said Ami.

Rei suddenly felt a bad vibe coming from random directions. "Guys, I feel something coming..."

"Don't sneak your way out of an apology!" said Usagi.

"She's right, Usagi-chan," said Luna. "Something is coming."

Is only a little better than scriptfic. Better, but not a lot.

Sailor Moon attacking with pies is cute, it’s a creative touch! Kind of on brand but where did she get the pies?

After what feels like forever because nothing really happened, we get the intro of the OC. In fact we get the ol’ Seven Sue Pileup, where five OCs are dumped at once with only a quick description of what they look like. This is the ol’ telling over showing.

This doesn’t work because it’s like going to a party, around the circle with introductions and you never remember who they are! They are just descriptions, no emotions or personality so character wise they’re stickfigure in depth.

I think the best way to introduce multiple OCs in a single scene is one at a time, give each a purpose and a way to shine, showing off their personality more than powers. For example if Sailor Sun is the main and the powerhouse, what if Tiako ran? Sailor Earth might be a tracker, using a visor from a distance to keep track of her and warning caution. Sailor Comet might be the fastest, chasing her down and bragging arrogantly. Sailor Macrocosm could show she’s sneaky, she already predicted the enemy to flee and laid a trap with her attacks causing an argument between Comet and Macrocosm showing their rivals. Then Sun plops down to finish the job.

Each OC should have a reason to be there, otherwise they’re just accessories. Because they are the usual generic first choice of Otaku Senshi creators their team feels incredibly incohesive- Sun, Comet, Earth and Macrocosm…

She wanted them each to feel special so they got to pick their names- including a senshi of the whole universe which is a very interesting choice in that group of friends. (I actually thought of this clip https://youtu.be/JPA9bKz2meI from Southpark).

To review the OC, my guess is Sailor Sun is the avatar OC just because she’s first.

The red pigtails makes me think back in the day she’d be a Usagi recoloured in a .bmp colour scheme with the buns sawn off with a Paint colour palette and plain enough to go on my Sailor Sun Drinking Game page. Apparently she doesn’t wear shoes.

The only other bit of information we get about her is her attack. ‘Sunbeam.’ Aside from being very basic, only described as a golden beam. Sailor Venus wants her attack back. None of this breaks the mold.

So each of these new Guardians spout their attack, destroy the enemy, say something mysterious and vanish back into the shadows leaving the Inners to gasp at how powerful and mysterious they are. Given this is how Uranus and Neptune were introduced, it’s incredibly overused in the Otaku Senshi fandom. Heck, even popular Ocs like Sailor Orion use this trope! But I’m kind of over it and will add it to my own Drinking Game page.

What might have happened is Kotori and Kasumi had some friends they wanted to share this with. Awesome! That’s a great way to keep yourself challenged and inspired! I can imagine two girls in the 2000s sitting at a computer chatting and laughing as they write together! It’s a cute and fun way to write a fic but it also means there’s not a lot of editing. The best way to improve your work is multiple read throughs. Add some here, rephrase something there and slowly sculpt your fic into something more polished and refined.

Two girls sat at a computer and typed and posted it immediately. I always want to find something to praise in a writer because writing is hard. Starting is hard, finishing is hard and chapter 2 is the hardest thing of all.

Unfortunately nothing jumps out at me as unique or original or setting off fireworks in my brain going “Oh! Cool idea! Never seen that before!” and will fade into the great mush of Sailor Moon fics I’ve read before and forgotten.

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

So that was my first review, did with the FSA Book Club to get my reviewing chops back. It feels a little bland, not fun at all to read like the old reviews on Livejournal.

I think I’ll also do a little chibi doll to paint over for each of the OCs to give these reviews a little icing. This one was done quick, not chibi enough. Keep an eye out for the next one!

#sailormoon #sailor moon #sailormoonoc #sailor moon oc #otakusenshi #otaku senshi #sailormoonfanfiction #sailormoonfanfic #authors notes #sailorsun #7suepileup #onechapter

4 notes · View notes

tciddaemina · 11 months

Note

I actually found your work through your LoZ fic and then stumbled onto your One Piece fics as well and I see that you write for quite a few fandoms. Would you say that you have one particular piece of media that inspires your creativity the most?

while i do dabble in a lot of fandoms, some definitely inspire me more than others. i sort of feel like i have at least one fic in me for whatever i watch/read/play - sort of my response to each story i guess, written out in the form of a fic - but often i do that one story and then am happy to move on. that's how i end up with so many one offs for random different fandoms 😂

that said, yeah, some fandoms are ones that i feel way more inspired by. i could never run out of stories for one piece, for example. it's just so vast a world with such an eclectic, intriguing cast of characters that there's always something to enjoy - and honestly i'm just in love with the story itself. it has a special place in my heart. its a fandom where the vastness and possibilities of the canon itself leaves plenty of room to be inspired, one i've been following for the better part of a decade now.

(oof this got a little long. sorry, you got me waffling. here, i'll spare any poor passers-by with a read more)

loz, in contrast, is another fandom i enjoy a lot, but in a very different way. loz is a lot more cryptic and opaque and the canon plots are much more constrained and simple, but the implications behind stuff when you tease it out is really intriguing and something i like to explore. playing, for example, with the concept that many of the loz games are so similar with repeating characters, settings, and plots makes for some interesting thoughts about reincarnation, cycles of fate, and the cyclical nature of their world, stuff like that. so unlike one piece, where it's the canon content itself that makes me so inspired, in loz its almost the unsaid bits and missing pieces from canon that draw my attention most and inspire me. (stuff like how and why ganondorf ended up being evil, what the actual politics between the difference races are, the implications of what it actually means to be a divine fated warrior chosen by a goddess, etc)

still if i had to try and name one piece of media that inspires me most... honestly thats sort of tough. there's stuff i'm inspired to write for, certainly, and then there's stuff that's inspired on more fundamental level the type of stories i like to tell and how i like to tell them. i'd say some of the most formative inspirational media - the ones that inspired what themes i enjoy, how i approach them, heck, even my tendency to enjoy more intense emotions in my writing and how violence is handled - are pieces of media that i've never written anything for. i have a deep abiding love for some of the more serious ghibli movies for example (princess mononoke and nausicaa) and they've had a big formative experience on the types of stories i enjoy reading and writing. another big formative work for me was a random book i picked up when i was like nine (rumo and his miraculous adventures by Walter Moers - i cannot understate how big an influence this story had on my taste in literature and eventually my writing). a lot of how i write and make stories can be drawn back to my love of those particular pieces of media and the way they handle concepts of emotion, kindness, anger, violence, and inhumanity.

as for the question of whether there's one particular piece of media that inspires me above all else - well, not really i guess. i have no one fandom that i consider my no. 1, though if we go by length of duration i've been in it then one piece probably takes that title. i enjoy playing with a range of settings and characters, and with them a range of themes and tones, and swapping between fandoms lets me work on different stories with very different vibes. some fandoms definitely have me coming back again and again with new ideas, as we can see with one piece and loz (and even nirvana in fire), but on the whole many of the fandoms i enter i'm happy to just visit and pass through.

haha, apologies, this answer definitely got a bit long and out of control. you got me thinking i guess. sorry if the answer wasn't clear cut 😂😂

#ask #my writing #hope i answered your question anon #sorry it got a bit long #te talks

3 notes · View notes

vermillioncrown · 2 years

Note

SI!Kagami has brought up physically fighting the GoM on a couple of occasions- fighting for his life if he got in a fistfight with Midorima, Kuroko performing a locked room murder mystery, Akashi the sword wielding basketball executioner. What would you say is the ranking for a fight? If its a straightforward fistfight Kuroko is the easiest and Murasakibara probably the worst, but if it's an ambush or preplanned pistols at dawn, the math changes(although Kagami would do everything to avoid aduel

i want to point to ch 1, where si!kagami knew he was gonna get decked in the face and let it happen, and then asked another question that would probably get him decked again and still proceeded

he's a gentle guy and consciously so. and with perspective, he knows how big and scary he can look. besides scruffing kuroko (for his own good) and dinging him on the head with a badminton birdie or a poke on the head, he doesn't get physical. he'd rather not.

let's get into fights, either way. just because si!kagami would rather not fight, doesn't mean he can't think of contingencies if a Clown goes rabid. you've seen examples of his way of thinking, constrained to basketball. let's unleash it.

vs kuroko - lol little beastie has punched and gotten handsy with canon!kagami multiple times, normally to cool the hothead down. but he's also not afraid to pick fights way above his weight class. he'll get a good few hits in but si!kagami can just grab him and dunk him in the basketball hoop for timeout.

vs kise - boy doesn't know how to fight, and he needs to protect his looks for modeling. sure he's athletic, but it takes more than athleticism to win a fight. if you're copying to win, you're already on the backfoot (unless you're kakashi of the sharingan and mess with your opponent so bad they slow down their ninjutsu and -). one wild swing from kise and si!kagami can pull him onto the ground, face first.

vs midorima - i thought him prim and proper before i finished the first vs shutoku arc. he has pent up nerd rage. he should be the male model, at least by western standards. he's got the canonical superhero physique and it's of utility. but he's also a nerd from a nice family and doesn't know how to scrap (shame, because i'm sure people made fun of him so much when growing up). the only fear is if he manages to get his hands/arms around you (like a crocodile bite) or you catch a stray punch. but he's not gonna punch with his left hand, aka his strongest hand, so it's good. punch his face and break his glasses. or destroy his lucky item. he's cursed and now can't leave until someone rescues him.

vs aomine - yeesh. he does know how to scrap and has the recklessness that can make him dangerous. he'd rather put you down than worry about himself. but as insufferable as he may be, he's the type that attacks if provoked. if you don't provoke him, he won't bother. or if the provocation is disproportionate to his retaliation, he'll probably stop and just "um. my bad." but while he scraps, at heart he's not a mean boy. just fight dirty if si!kagami wants to win, or take a punch somewhere si!kagami can handle and aomine will calm down.

vs murasakibara - he doesn't want to fight. i see him as a guy that has a lot of expectations and stuff heaped onto him because of his size and talent, and he'd rather not have any of that. physically, he can put you flat. but with proper technique you can put him flat, permanently. si!kagami can kick him in the knees sideways.

vs akashi - um, by the time you've done something to ensure The King Clown wants to physically fight you, i don't know how both of you can walk away without involving the cops and a tranq rifle. guy is the worst of teenage brain - where you're smart enough to plan and think things through, but not emotionally experienced enough to understand long-term consequences, and very easy to provoke to great heights due to ego. si!kagami takes a first hit because akashi's the type to Disrespect (slowly whittle you down like playing with his food) and then take that one opportunity to donk him on the head with a brick.

si!kagami is not ambushing anyone. that's... that's actively seeking trouble. nothing he wants to accomplish can be done so via active violence.

he also would never sign up for a duel. you'd literally need to corner si!kagami for a fight.

#inquiry #Anonymous #on bil #he doesn't wanna fight #his presence is usually enough to stave off weirdos from miho+gang #in defense is when he's ready to fight if he has to and luckily it's never come down to that #idk i hope you guys can see that

33 notes · View notes