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#EDIT - Fixed something that was bugging the heck out of me
metalhusbands · 2 years
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The agony of losing a brother
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kafus · 1 year
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beginner’s guide to the indie web
“i miss the old internet” “we’ll never have websites like the ones from the 90s and early 2000s ever again” “i’m tired of social media but there’s nowhere to go”
HOLD ON!
personal websites and indie web development still very much exist! it may be out of the way to access and may not be the default internet experience anymore, but if you want to look and read through someone’s personally crafted site, or even make your own, you can still do it! here’s how:
use NEOCITIES! neocities has a built in search and browse tools to let you discover websites, and most importantly, lets you build your own website from scratch for free! (there are other ways to host websites for free, but neocities is a really good hub for beginners!)
need help getting started with coding your website? sadgrl online has a section on her website dedicated to providing resources for newbie webmasters!
HTML (HyperText Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) are the core of what all websites are built on. many websites also use JS (JavaScript) to add interactive elements to their pages. w3schools is a useful directory of quick reference for pretty much every HTML/CSS/JS topic you can think of.
there is also this well written and lengthy guide on dragonfly cave that will put you step by step through the basics of HTML/CSS (what webpages are made from), if that’s your sort of thing!
stack overflow is every programmer’s hub for asking questions and getting help, so if you’re struggling with getting something to look how you want or can’t fix a bug, you may be able to get your answer here! you can even ask if no one’s asked the same question before.
websites like codepen and jsfiddle let you test HTML/CSS/JS in your browser as you tinker with small edits and bugfixing.
want to find indie websites outside the scope of neocities? use the search engine marginalia to find results you actually want that google won’t show you!
you can also use directory sites like yesterweb’s link section to find websites in all sorts of places.
if you are going to browse the indie web or make your own website, i also have some more personal tips as a webmaster myself (i am not an expert and i am just a small hobbyist, so take me with a grain of salt!)
if you are making your own site:
get expressive! truly make whatever you want! customize your corner of the internet to your heart’s content! you have left the constrains of social media where every page looks the same. you have no character limit, image limit, or design limit. want to make an entire page or even a whole website dedicated to your one niche interest that no one seems to be into but you? go for it! want to keep a public journal where you can express your thoughts without worry? do it! want to keep an art gallery that looks exactly how you want? heck yeah! you are free now! you will enjoy the indie web so much more if you actually use it for the things you can’t do on websites like twitter, instead of just using it as a carrd bio alternative or a place to dump nostalgic geocities gifs.
don’t overwhelm yourself! if you’ve never worked with HTML/CSS or JS before, it may look really intimidating. start slow, use some guides, and don’t bite off more than you can chew. even if your site doesn’t look how you want quite yet, be proud of your work! you’re learning a skill that most people don’t have or care to have, and that’s pretty cool.
keep a personal copy of your website downloaded to your computer and don’t just edit it on neocities (or your host of choice) and call it a day. if for some reason your host were to ever go down, you would lose all your hard work! and besides, by editing locally and offline, you can use editors like vscode (very robust) or notepad++ (on the simpler side), which have more features and is more intuitive than editing a site in-browser.
you can use ctrl+shift+i on most browsers to inspect the HTML/CSS and other components of the website you’re currently viewing. it’ll even notify you of errors! this is useful for bugfixing your own site if you have a problem, as well as looking at the code of sites you like and learning from it. don’t use this to steal other people’s code! it would be like art theft to just copy/paste an entire website layout. learn, don’t steal.
don’t hotlink images from other sites, unless the resource you’re taking from says it’s okay! it’s common courtesy to download images and host them on your own site instead of linking to someone else’s site to display them. by hotlinking, every time someone views your site, you’re taking up someone else’s bandwidth.
if you want to make your website easily editable in the future (or even for it to have multiple themes), you will find it useful to not use inline CSS (putting CSS in your HTML document, which holds your website’s content) and instead put it in a separate CSS file. this way, you can also use the same theme for multiple pages on your site by simply linking the CSS file to it. if this sounds overwhelming or foreign to you, don’t sweat it, but if you are interested in the difference between inline CSS and using separate stylesheets, w3schools has a useful, quick guide on the subject.
visit other people’s sites sometimes! you may gain new ideas or find links to more cool websites or resources just by browsing.
if you are browsing sites:
if the page you’re viewing has a guestbook or cbox and you enjoyed looking at the site, leave a comment! there is nothing better as a webmaster than for someone to take the time to even just say “love your site” in their guestbook.
that being said, if there’s something on a website you don’t like, simply move on to something else and don’t leave hate comments. this should be self explanatory, but it is really not the norm to start discourse in indie web spaces, and you will likely not even be responded to. it’s not worth it when you could be spending your time on stuff you love somewhere else.
take your time! indie web doesn’t prioritize fast content consumption the way social media does. you’ll get a lot more out of indie websites if you really read what’s in front of you, or take a little while to notice the details in someone’s art gallery instead of just moving on to the next thing. the person who put labor into presenting this information to you would also love to know that someone is truly looking and listening.
explore! by clicking links on a website, it’s easy to go down rabbitholes of more and more websites that you can get lost in for hours.
seeking out fansites or pages for the stuff you love is great and fulfilling, but reading someone’s site about a topic you’ve never even heard of before can be fun, too. i encourage you to branch out and really look for all the indie web has to offer.
i hope this post helps you get started with using and browsing the indie web! feel free to shoot me an ask if you have any questions or want any advice. <3
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liminal-librarian · 7 months
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The proper use of predictive LLMs
I'm going to say something slightly controversial, but it's been bugging me lately. There probably have been others who have said it better and with more data points to back it up. But here goes:
Various forms of AI have been around since the 50s. Our current most powerful approach is Neural Networks (or neural nets). A technique pioneered in the 1950s based on some 1940s-era research:
(Heck, we now know enough about neural nets that we could probably build them out of WWI-style mechanical computer parts.)
For years researchers have been writing papers about how to convince neural nets to calculate & recognise various things. To process various kinds of data, and to give feedback about it, usually in a form that could be interpreted as a wager on which option is most clearly the correct one to associate with the input.
Very very many of the ways proposed to output data into language could generate a series of words, but it would be clunky and gross, sometimes not even grammatical, depending on the project and the skill of the coders.
Everyone knew that a possible solution, perhaps the ideal solution would be to generate ALL the ways of saying the desired thing and use another neural net to wager which of those sounds most natural.
But that was a hard problem and often beyond the capabilities of the hardware. Now it's not! Now we have LLMs capable of choosing the most natural way to say things.
Don't get me wrong, this is a huge achievement one that we've been waiting for since at least the 60s, perhaps earlier.
But is anyone using them for their intended purpose? I'd argue that LEX is, not sure anyone else is.
Instead, we're pointing them back at themselves and making them extend nonsense by wagering on the most natural-seeming next token. The surprising thing is not that this generates such beautiful Laurum Ipsum, that's what it was designed to do.
The bug here is that it sometimes manages to do more than that.
Yes. I just said when an LLM being forced to masturbate, manages to tell the truth more often than not, it is a bug, not a feature, and proves that the LLM was trained on skewed data. Specifically, data skewed towards our current average beliefs. The point of the LLM is to rate language by how natural it sounds, not by its trueness, if your LLM was trained on data skewed enough for it to prefer sentences that you believe, (or society as a whole believes) are true, then when the time comes for it to do its job and do a clarity edit, on the output of your Brand New Oracle Machine(TM). It's not going to be passing on the New Paradigm Shifting Idea untouched, but adjusting it back towards ideas inoffensive enough to exist on the modern web.
It will fail at its one job, (wager on clarity) because we noticed a bug in the training data and mistook it for a feature.
And rather than go back and fix it, we exacerbated the bug, by further skewing the data so that we could feel more ethical about forcing it to masturbate for our entertainment.
Stop using LLMs alone to generate content, and go back and revisit the ideas from the 1950s onward for gems that could and did generate real output but couldn't do an effective job without an LLM to edit/filter their output for clarity. The LLMs are finally here, the time has come for those ideas to shine.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
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tarysande · 3 years
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Oh no, I've been thinking.
Okay, I can't stop thinking about something ending-related. I don't know this for certain, but based on previous statements and such, it feels like the writers were always aiming for a bittersweet ending. Like, no matter what else happened or how the story evolved, come hell (lol) or high water, that ending couldn't just be happy. For reasons. I guess.
Now, I don't mind a bittersweet ending ... if it makes sense for the ending to be bittersweet.
I critique stories for a living. I'm literally taking a break from the developmental edit of someone's novel to write this post. And the persistent thought that bugs me about the Rory setup is that it is so artificial. Time travel is a pain in the narrative ass. Time travel suddenly introduced in the sixth season of a show that has never touched on time travel? As an editor, I probably would've pointed out that time travel for the purpose of angst, especially time travel without rules that make sense ("I don't know anything about time travel! Except I do know you have to take the most painful path!"), seemingly introduced as a final ploy to make that bittersweet ending work ... well, to me, it breaks the narrative contract they established with the audience. Your audience is going to be confused. An editor's job is to alert the writer to any potential confusion so it can be fixed before the story goes to print, etc. Confused audiences get mad, annoyed, frustrated. They feel hurt. They put down the book and don't pick it up again. Usually, writers don't want that. But they're so close to their work that they need a completely outside perspective to say, "Hey, I'm not sure you realize this, but..."
I mean, I keep referring to Rory as "deus ex daughter" because in literary terms, she is a blatant deus ex machina. Rory is the god in the machine of the Bittersweet Ending.
Now, I loved a lot of S6. I did. My overall feeling about the season is not negative. But ... I can't stop thinking about why the things I didn't like REALLY didn't work for me.
I loved the emotional growth we saw in Lucifer and Chloe facilitated by the question of parenting and parental love. I did. And I would have loved to see a lot of those notes hit not with an angel kid out of nowhere ... but with the daughter already in the picture. Especially because it would have circumvented the icky idea that a child has to be one's flesh and blood to induce such feelings. I also understand that coronavirus and Scarlett's age and schedule made this difficult. But I just can't swallow that the only way to wrap up the story of this show--a show about found family, non-traditional family, friendship, connection, FREE WILL, love in all its many shapes and forms and colors ... was to introduce a brand new character via a device (time travel) that fails to make sense almost every time it's used, no matter the medium. (And then had only that brand new character be there when her mother died. Don't even get me started. Ugh.)
If time travel was always going to be on the table, couldn't we have found a more plausible way to use it with the characters we already knew, loved, and had spent four or five seasons with? A time-travelling older Trixie, say? If you're going to use the impossible device, just ... twist it another way to make it work.
Okay. Okay. So, leaving Trixie aside for now just like the show did, let's say we leave everything about the season the same, even Rory. Do you know what ending makes more narrative sense?
Future Rory sacrificing herself by NOT forcing Lucifer to make a cruel and impossible "choice" so the baby that might have been her grows up with a family that loves her. Chloe's already pregnant. That's not going to be undone. And this nonsense of a "closed time loop" falls apart if you side-eye it for even a few seconds. The Rory who came from the future never exists except in the memories of those she met when she came back from that future. Chloe and Lucifer lose that daughter even as they gain the new one whose existence is not a tool of unrelenting fate because wow this show has always been about free will what the heck happened there yikes. And a choice made under the duress Chloe and Lucifer were under, forced out of them, and forcing them to "choose" a life apart for *handwave* Reasons has nothing to do with free will. A "choice" made at gunpoint is not a real choice. Future Rory basically bullied them into ensuring she got to exist--something, quite frankly, neither her parents would have done.
Instead, how much more appropriately bittersweet is it if Chloe and Lucifer lose that child while gaining one who, because of that angry time-travelling version, will never suffer as she did.
Also as an editor: the groundwork for my version is already laid, by the way. It should have been Rory learning about the importance of free will over fate. The importance of personal sacrifice. The importance of not thinking your young self knows best ... because experience and therapy will help rid you of that self-centered world view. That's the contract the writers made with us with this show. And Chloe and Lucifer have already BEEN THERE AND DONE THAT. (See: the end of S4.)
Furthermore, this season finally HAD Chloe and Lucifer DEAL WITH the only thing that actually would have contributed to a narrative, characterization-based reason for Lucifer to disappear: His history of running and his putting Chloe on a pedestal. Once they really talked that out, his "disappearance" became a Rory-induced trauma of inexplicable fate that flies in the face of all the progress Lucifer made over six seasons. (I would rather have had more of that and less of mysterious disappearing oh no plot.)
And I'm sorry, the "Once you get to Hell you're going to work 24/7" excuse given for why Lucifer won't be around and why he can't make time for Chloe until she's DEAD(????!???) is ... it's lame. If AMENADIEL AS GOD can make time for his kid's birthday party, I refuse to believe Lucifer can't work out some Hell/Earth-work/life balance. Never mind that in the show about partnerships, the Bittersweet Ending just ... destroyed it. Chloe was planning on being God's consultant; she could have helped Lucifer solve Hell's Trauma Mysteries (it's what she did with Jimmy, setting up that yeah, Lucifer could do it alone like he accidentally did with Lee, but doing it with HIS TRUTHSEEKING PARTNER would be more effective). Just as Lucifer could have continued helping HER solve some of the problems within "that corrupt little organization" of hers.
tl;dr: I think the writers fixated so completely on their version of Bittersweet that they missed all the foreshadowing, groundwork, and clues that were right there, already built into the story, poised for a different kind of ending than the one they once imagined. That's why so many parts of it feel almost-but-not-quite right and why these aspects are so off-putting. That's why it's just not ... organic. It's something squeezed into a box it grew out of ages ago.
Ironically, certain elements of this season involved the writers insisting on the FATE they decided long ago instead of letting the story and the characters have the FREE WILL to choose a different, more fitting, more organic ending--one that had long-since evolved past that original flavor of Bittersweet.
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mistaeq · 3 years
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Caught in his fangs, freed in his claws.
Chapter 1.
TW // blood will be implied, kinda non-con relationship, vampires, werewolves, spooky things.
DISCLAIMER! EVERY IMAGE IN THIS FIC IS EDITED BY ME AND MATCHES THE DESCRIPTIONS IN THE FANFIC.♡
So. This is Dora's interactive halloween fic. What do I mean with "interactive". You choose your ending! Yay! At the end of every chapter, I'll give the reader a choice to make. You don't have to necessarily tell me your choices, you'll just have to keep them to yourselves and remember them as you go. Both endings will be posted - four, counting the not nsfw ones -, since the choice will be based on how many answer "A"s and "B"s you personally gave. But still, if you want to, you can share with me your choices! It'll be funny to know how would you behave!
Lord Higashikata x neutral!reader / Butler Nijimura x neutral!reader [depends on your choices <3]
WORD COUNT: 2.3k
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Once upon a time, in a kingdom... a young creature who was nothing more than a duchess/duke, was sitting in a carriage, waiting for their destiny to come. This is not about a princess/prince, no knights galloping on a noble steed, but the story of a pure, untouched creature who was sold to save their family. This was deeply illegal. This is why from the day they were born, their parents never declared their birth at the government. They were noble people, god dammit. They would have never let such a shame fall on their surname's fame, on their dynasty, on their family's reputation. So they waited, living their misery in secret. They waited until their eighteenth birthday to sell them to someone who they knew would have never aged and would have never died, in the meantime.
You had heard of this person. He was a Count, mercilessly buying people to gain pleasure from them. To be satisfied. Almost like a tribute, almost like the Minotaur myth. It sounded just like this man could never be without someone beside him, pleasuring him. But you spent eighteen years of your life with your parents by your side, reassuring you about the fact that this person would have treated you well and properly, and he would have given money to your family after every year of your life spent with him. He had never had the chance to ask for something like that before... but since your family had promised you to him since the very start, since the day you were born, he asked for them to make sure you made it to him as a virgin.
Did this mean... he wanted you to have your first time with him...? He wanted you sexually, someway? Maybe making sure you were untouched just for him? These were the questions that were bugging you all the way towards his castle. The carriage felt always colder, and you stared at the coachman, hoping he would someway reassure you. "Excuse me...? Do you know anything about the man I'm being brought to...?" as you asked, the carriage stopped, and the man turned towards you, clearing his voice. His cyan eyes looked so deep, they were cutting through you as the sharpest sword ever.
"You mean my uncle, Lord Higashikata, I figure." what a deep voice, you felt the goosebumps it caused creeping up behind your spine. Lord Higashikata? At least now you knew about his surname. The surname you maybe would have taken.
"Y/n Higashikata..." you murmured, just to hear how your name would have sounded with his surname, slightly whispering and fighting hard against the tears that were forming in your eyes. Your parents had made you use to this thought. But all you would have wanted, watching all the lovebirds flirting and kissing in the streets, you realized you would have rather chosen to slowly fall in love with someone, rather than being forcibly paired with that Count. Meet someone, make friends, spend time together... passing time making you fall in love. This is what you craved. But you would have never found it now. It was too late. Maybe.
It took waking up from your daydreaming, to notice that the coachman who was talking to you, had no body at all. Or better, he did have a body... but it was driving the carriage, while the thing that was talking to you was his head only, held up by a single hand of his instead of being on his neck. "What the heck?" you almost shouted, terrified, as you curled up against the carriage's seat. "What... what are you..." your voice broke, as the man put his head back on his driving body with a sarcastic laughter. Your eye fell on a notebook, which was right beside the coachman. It had a name on it. Probably his. "Are you possibly... Kujo Jotaro?"
"Why even bother asking. Does my head scare you, young creature?" Kujo's deep voice answered in a melancholic way, as his back relaxed against his seat. "You'll see way better shit than this, in that castle. My uncle did this to me. He's the only one who can fix me, so that I have to be loyal, if I want my reward." what? You didn't know why. But your instinct told you to investigate. The more you knew about your future husband, the better it would have been.
"Lord Higashikata did this to you...?" your soft voice asked, even if you already knew the answer. "Is he evil? Possessive?"
"Are you asking to know whether you have a choice without dying or not?" your breath hitched. Dying? What kinda man was he? And if you parents promised you to him as soon as you were born, how can he be as young as they said he looks like? Now that you thought about it... you had heard of this man wanting young boys and girls for his own pleasure during a time which was located way before your birth.
"Why hasn't he been killed yet?" when this question left your lips, you thought you were nuts. How could you let yourself ask such a thing to the Count's coachman? "How old is he...?" you immediately tried to cover up your last question with a new one, which anyways bugged you a lot as well. Jotaro shrugged.
"Nobody really remembers it precisely apart from him and his advisor. I think he's around two hundred..." No way you heard what you just heard. Were you gonna marry... an elderly man? But no, come on, two hundred years isn't even considered elderly, it's basically... dead? "You know..." Kujo continued. "...Vampire stuff." Oh. OH. So that's what it is. Vampire. Great, good to know your family had been planning to sell you to an edgy bat for eighteen years so far. Now, if possible, you were twice as terrified as before. You didn't dare to ask any more questions to the coachman, considering he sometimes even sounded pretty pissed at the thought of solving your doubts himself.
The jacket you had taken off while you were in the carriage, returned on your shoulders as it stopped in front of the scariest view ever. A castle, a giant, castle, where the only light available to make it clearer to your sight, was the moon. It wasn't even full, that night, so that there wasn't a great light to dispose of. Great. You waited for some seconds, as the coachman opened your door out, interrupting the whistle lingering in everyone's ears, when it all suddenly gets too silent. Only then, you had the occasion to notice two things. The first one, was that Kujo was ridiculously tall and muscular. The second one, way more scary, was that the carriage, since the beginning of your road, had been carried by... nothing. You swallowed, as your gaze decided not to stare at that too much. This counted for both Jotaro's muscles and the lack of horses. "Just get to the main door. Someone will be waiting for you."
His deep voice then left you, all alone, as he took his place back in the carriage, and you could swear you heard him murmur something on his way back, on the line of "This is the nth youngster that I bring for him... I feel like Charon." Seriously? Charon? Was he implying he had just brought you - and many others - to basic hell? You huffed and held back your tears, a true miracle. No need to cry now, this won't bring you back home, not that you're this much eager to see the two people who sold you to a vampire murderer. And probably an old man, too. Your feet moved, shyly, to the main, giant, iron made door. A short, smiling, reliable-looking guy, and a tall, muscular, serious-looking sentry, were waiting for you. You decided to talk to the short one first, as you noticed the white part of his right eye was black, instead. Plus, the iris of that eye was red, whereas the left one was blue.
"Uhm... hello?" you murmured, trying to smile the best you could, as your breath suddenly hitched at the feeling of the cold tip of something sharp against your neck. You didn't dare to move your face, or the blade would have wounded you. But you turned your eyes toward the taller sentry, the golden wolf decoration attached to his double-breasted jacket almost blinded you, as it reflected the moonbeams. You swallowed. The blonde, braided haired sentry didn't even think about backing off. Until...
"Keicho." the shorter guy talked, putting his hand on the sentry's. "You don't wanna slice our Lord's betrothed, do you?" he giggled. The man, Keicho, was it, backed off, and retracted the weapon from your neck. Now that you had a good sight of it, it looked like a long, heavy arrow.
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"No, I don't." the sentry hid the arrow behind his back, right where it probably was before, since you didn't even notice it until he attacked. "I apologize, Koichi." wait. For real? Koichi? Keicho and Koichi? Like Tweedledum and Tweedledee? Keicho and Koichi? You avoided giggling about this. The last thing you wanted was getting your head threatened to be cut off again. The little guy just nodded, and gestured you into entering the door. He would have followed and guided you. To keep on following Kujo's reference, Koichi would have been your Virgil in that hell. Keicho remained at the entrance of the castle. As a sentry, he was required there. He was, anyway, the most normal one you had met so far. Almost. ALMOST.
"So... Y/n, if I'm not mistaken?" the short one asked, his smile not abandoning him. He looked like a pacific person. You nodded. "Good, good. You're talking to Lord Higashikata's advisor. I stay by his side when he needs so, and he requested me to welcome you myself, since..." he smiled, to probably reassure you. The corridor looked neverending. "...you might have noticed Keicho isn't the most graceful man on Earth." Lord Higashikata's advisor... you're sure Kujo spent some positive words about him, previously, but you remembered none of them. You could just think you probably agreed, so far. "You're a special guest. Not like all the other people I've witnessed disappearing during my career." disappearing? Oh dear God. "You're a virgin, he mentioned that to me. Such a fresh creature never happened to him before. Higashikata Josuke wants to marry you." oh... Josuke. You now had found out his name, too.
"Do I have any hope of escap-" as you pronounced it, Koichi grabbed your arm.
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"Don't say it. Just don't." his voice didn't sound menacing or threatening. Just... scared. Scared or hopeless. As if his smile was just a way to hide a deep, stressful story. "Accept it the way it is. Just fall in love with him or... force yourself to do so. Or else, you'll die." the way he switched from this sentence, to a toothy smile, totally hurt your heart. Koichi was broken inside, yet you could just watch this happening and vaguely imagine your destiny beside that vampire. Old vampire. Probably. "Anyways..." he huffed. "It's all straight through this corridor, you're almost at the end. Just get the last door in the middle, at the end. The only door." Koichi bit his lip. "I'm sorry I'm leaving you like this... but I just heard some sounds... I'm afraid Keicho's fighting with the Lord's snake." oh great. Higashikata has a snake, you thought to yourself as the small guy left you alone in the corridor.
Great. Charon brought you to hell. Virgil brought you here, a step closer to Lucifer, who you saw in Josuke. What's next, a Beatrice? You almost chuckled, thinking it was so absurd you could have woken up right now back in your bed at home and be unimpressed. You felt a sudden goosebump, all of it in a single instant, but couldn't even have time to process what you felt, that you heard a loud sound of a door being angrily closed. "Guh! Shit..." what? Was there someone at the end of the corridor, now? You thought, processing the sight of someone lying on the ground, quickening your steps to get closer enough to see who it was without being suspected of something or attacked. There was, in fact, someone. It looked like a young guy, a long - almost waist long - grey braid coming from his hair, which were black on the top, was now squished to the ground, the double-breasted jacket was similar to Keicho's, as you noticed it had the same golden wolf shaped decoration on his chest. His skin, though, was much different from the usual. Flesh colored, yes, but grayer. Way grayer, as if it had no saturation at all. You saw him trying to stand up, planting a hand on the ground to lift his chest up, but he fell back down. You could notice that his right hand, the one he used to help himself, was covered by a crimson glove.
As you looked at him struggling, you knew there was only a thing to do. You would have...
a) ...helped him to stand up. You couldn't look at someone struggling without helping.
b) ...been careful and waited for him to stand up, to see if he was really harmless.
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mikemoon · 3 years
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                                 FOOLSHQ TASK 001: THE INFODUMB.
template credits © go to @yeonjvnz 
“hello and welcome, my 10 subscribers. how’s it going? good? good.” mike grinned at the camera, his silhouette was so terribly green-screened onto his gameplay screen. his character was already running around his animal crossing island as he talked. “i think youtube should make a 10 subscriber play button. but they won’t answer my email about that, so… that’s why i made my own.” he pulled up a piece of paper ripped from a notebook with a makeshift youtube play button drawn on it with a green marker. ‘presented to HATSUNEMIKEY for reaching 10 subscribers’. cut to a clip of mike sticking it on the wall behind him and giving two thumbs up with a grin.
“if you’re wondering what we’re doing today, we’re building a playground. my villagers need a fun place to go to, and so we’re making it!”
“we’re also here today because i’ve got some shit to say… again.” mike grinned once again. “i’ve made a list of things that… well, they need to change. and some things i’m just not vibing with but they can’t change… does that make sense?”
“first on the list: nintendo! please!!! for the love of god!! let me fucking craft multiples of the same item at the same time!!!” he said with frustration, meanwhile his pink haired character was putting down a path on the ground. “okay, listen. the fishing and bug tourneys are two of my favorite events in the game. heck, i even time travel just to play them again with my friends. but the fishing tourney is the worst to play when you gotta go collect clams last minute and make some fish bait and then your friend beats you to the diy table, and then you gotta wait for them to finish crafting their 20 fish bait one at a time. like, dude… the event has ended by the time i got to make the darn bait.”
“speaking of crafting, i would really fucking love it if i could craft in my house and i don’t have to grab things from my storage to do so. the pain of going to the diy table, finding the diy you want, and then realizing you don’t have everything in your inventory, so you have to click out and grab shit from your storage again… it’s not that hard to fix!”
“anyways,” he sighed as he put down some country fences. “my list included the very limited design slots. however, i don’t have to annoy you with my whining about that today because holy shit, the new update?! the extra 50 slots?? i actually lost my shit.” he laughed. “the fact that we have 100 design slots in total? i feel too powerful and i don’t know what to do with that power. it’s like… i already have all the codes i need for the designs on my island, but the extra 50… they’re so empty… so lonely… i feel like i Must fill them and use them. it’s a struggle… trust me. you must’ve felt it too.”
“next on the list…” an edited zoom on mike’s very traumatized face. “zipper.”
“since we’re currently going through the bunny day event, let me just say… i’m still traumatized by zipper from last year. the fact that i ran into him again the other day… dude, the war flashbacks.” a clip appears of mike playing animal crossing a few days ago where he was casually collecting eggs and sees zipper the bunny in the background, only to scream and run the other way. “this is the bad place.” real time mike deadpanned.
“all i’m saying is, they either change the dude’s creepy eyes, or they get rid of him completely. i’m still having nightmares because of the way he dances and turns towards you as you run by… unpopular opinion, though… the overalls he’s wearing are kinda cute and i wish able sisters were selling them.”
“next!” he says as he puts down a bunch of flowers. “why, oh why, are we limited to eight bridges and inclines?” he paused to think for a moment. “is it eight or seven…? whatever! either way, you’d think tom nook’s greedy ass would let you have more bridges and inclines. meaning: he gets more money! right? no! change it! i need more inclines! i’ve got way too many cliffs and i’m tired of taking out my ladder.”
“okay, this next one, i’ve seen someone say it and... i need it. please, just make a bin in the airport that you can throw your spare diys in and visitors can take them. at least isabelle would stop nagging me about there being items thrown around the place.” 
“speaking of isabelle... make her give the weather report or something. it would be so cute. her currently dialogue at the start of every day is so boring. i want her to tell me about the weather, or maybe about which npcs are visiting that day. it would be so helpful. it’s such a wasted opportunity that she talks to us every morning and only talks about her sock that she found behind the washing machine.” 
“next, the ability to move resident services. listen, some of us don’t have enough space to make epic entrances. moving it would be such a good addition. also, shit, remember when you could change the way the ‘mayor’s office’ looks... or whatever it was called in new leaf. i wish we could do that here.” 
“okay, hear me out... what if backpacks acted as extra storage? like, they’re not just some pretty things you’re wearing. they could give you extra space to hold stuff in your inventory, and that would be so helpful, especially when you’re making a build... like i am right now. speaking of that,” mike opened his inventory in the game, which was completely full of flowers. “i need some help here.” 
“and... last but not least. villager dialogue. did you know that one villager dialogue from new leaf equals at least 3 villager dialogues in new horizons?” he said before dropping his jaw in shock. “how insanely sad is that?? they’re seriously so boring, i want to listen to them talk on and on about something, and i could actually choose where the conversation goes. i don’t know if you noticed, but in new horizons, if a villager asks you something, they just go ‘oh okay’ and end it right there. like...? there’s no substance.” 
by now, mike had finished building his little playground in the game, and his character was walking around, showing it off. “we finished the playground, it’s so cute.” he smiled. “i love it. nintendo, please let the villagers interact with it, it’s too precious!”
“anyways, i’m gonna end it right here-” he paused, looking like he just remembered something. “actually, one more thing. nintendo, imma need you to fix your online service. just get rid of it. no one needs to pay twice to play something; once for the game, and once again for the service. it’s useless as hell.”
“anyways, thanks for watching. see you when i reach 11 subscribers. bye!” 
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snowtimeisbesttime · 3 years
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Thoughts and questions on Hiveswap Act 2– Part 1.
**DISCLAIMER** I haven't played through the entire game yet! I got to the intermission in the whole trial thingy, and will continue tomorrow! Therefore, I Am Not Looking at anything yet, only posting. I'll probably come back and edit this once I've actually finished the game.
-Did the default names for Xefros & Dammek's lusii change?? I loaded my Act 1 save, and I'm sure they had their default names (Zoosmell and Cornibuster) there, though I'm also pretty sure i accidentally unlocked the “name the lusii” achievement on that save by clicking on the text windows without actually changing their names so... Dammek's lusus is called Toothy now i guess?
-On that note, if Xefros' lusus died I'm going to fucking scream. Even though I'm pretty sure we've barely seen him on screen since like the end of Act 1 but Regardless.
-We see Charun's cave, and it turns out they were neighbours with Zebede all this time, but they're nowhere to be seen at the train?? unless they grabbed an earlier one... Charun did get a death flag the size of the pacific ocean, when interacting with their weird sculpture with a lot of legs and arms surrounding a mouth, but Zebede's just gone without a trace? The bees are gone and there's a hole in the side of his hive, but his lusus doesn't seem to be particularly upset? And neither is Charun's, assuming that huge bug near the cave is their lusus. (Idarat the canon fantroll #3 doesn't appear at the train either, but that's probably for the same reason there aren't any jade or teal background characters: to keep the court scene neat)
-The drones are supposed to be en route to the station, supposedly to fix the ticket machines but probably to cull whoever tripped the alarm on them... i sure hope they don't follow the train or anything orz
-Mostly everyone seems to resemble their respective Friendsims, more or less:
Fozzer appears to be scratched still, yet more philosophical. Also he's not in the train either.
Folykl seems just a touch friendlier than in her friendsim (and Kuprum's still just as hyped about becoming a helmsman as before, even if he seems to know more details about it now).
Chixie's more anxious, probably because it seems she's been doing stuff as The Mask for a while now, and she's going to fuck shit up at Jeevik Week. She says she's not alone in that, and considering it's apparently confirmed that the random troll from her good end Was Dammek all this time... is she also actively in the rebellion? Also is it just me or does her sprite look somewhat scribblier than everyone else's? Even the background characters??
Elwurd's pretty much the same, and it does seem her flirting with Joey was mostly to try and get her to buy something. Also... if her fake tickets were so good, why didn't she just use them, instead of giving them to Joey and Xefros? Like, I get Marvus and Boldir Knowing Stuff, but her?
Zebruh's paying attention to Marvus instead of Chixie, which. Small mercies. He's still a dick, and we're still doing the whole “clowns are peak oppressed” thing.
Marvus seems to still be perfectly nice to the main characters, and perfectly willing to let other people die in order to help them advance (getting Zebruh to sign up for Slam or Get Culled, Daraya if you fuck up in the trial thing, Hopefully Not Any More Cases...) He is helping Tyzias out with her defensive legislaceration experiments, though, and basically everyone who isn't Joey seems to think he might flip his shit and murder someone, as clowns do. At least people don’t seem to lose their minds around him anymore.
Vikare's basically the same, but Joey immediately picks up on his Jake Vibes and instinctively dislikes him.
Diemen eats people???????? as in, actively????????? wtf?????????
Skylla seems to be pretty much the same, but she's obviously worried because Ladyy's sick!! God I fucking hope we do get to help her out before the end of the game.
Marsti's also friendlier than she was in her volume, though I remember MSPAR was particularly prone to sticking their foot in their mouth in that one.
Cirava's surprisingly more trusting than they were in their volume (and also, their eye's light green and not teal). Also, apparently they gouged their other eye out on stream?????? as in live???? besides that, good to see not All of the powerful psionics get succesfully indoctrinated.
Polypa's also rather willing to help out, though we still don't know what the heck happened to her.
Boldir's suitably mysterious, and probably also involved with the rebellion... she does call Xefros “burgundy figurehead”.
Konyyl and Azdaja are still having relationship stuffs, but in the end they clearly care the most about each other. (he still doesn't seem to give a fuck about helm stuffs so far?) The question is, who exactly were they hunting down??
The jades and the teals are basically the same as their Friendsim incarnations, as far as I've seen. The one major change to the jades (besides jade lore which i'll discuss further down) seems to be that hatched2dance is now one of the biggest reasons for their fights, and Bronya does get a crunchy bit of Backstory (the jade from her past that got culled because of the Rainbow Hemotions saga, which is also the reason she's so hard on Daraya now)
On the teals, Stelsa and Tyzias seem to have a teensy bit of quadrant vacillation going on?? Tirona seems to be more focused on becoming a history revisionist than a memeagandist now, and it would also seem that Tegiri's the one into vampires now (or at least, Tagora's better at hiding it And a lot better at not getting involved with the whole mess that is whatever the heck the jades are doing)
-Psionics can have single-colored eyes!! tbh we'd already seen this back in Tegiri's route in Friendsim but it's good to Actually See it visually.
-Also, nice to see that Xefros *can* go toe to toe with the strongest psionic we know in all of Hiveswap! (95% sure that I've seen someone theorize something like this might happen?? I personally wasn't expecting it here but anyways Xefros you're doing amazing sweetie) What's not so nice is that he's only shown this strength when Azdaja hurt Joey (as far as i've played of course)... so unless he like unlocks his potential or something so he can do Big Psychics without seeing his friends get hurt beforehand we're in for some Angst.
-Also if Marvus got his ticket from Cridea (and Chixie won hers in like a raffle or something) then why couldn't she have given Xefros and Dammek some?? like, Dammek's been to one Jeevik Week already. Fiamet also told her about Joey, but by then they were already in the train.
-Me: Xefros' microphone's going to be important in act 2! Also me: *has to give it to fucking Zebruh to get his ticket*. Oh well, that's one thing for the Second Playthrough of Achievement Getting (plus: wearing the cone horns, having Joey introduce herself to Boldir, getting through the whole ace attorney segment without game overs...)
-We get the Quadrant Explanation #1000, sans auspisticism.
-It's vaguely implied that Dammek has also read some Soldier Purrbeasts books?? He's told Xefros the whole “death creates a bond deeper than matespritship or kismessisitude” thing, apparently! So if he's not secretly into troll warrior cats then. That sentence's more than mildly worrying??
-JADEBLOOD LOREDUMP PART THE NTEENTH: Okay first of all it's implied that More cloisters exist? Which in retrospect is pretty much obvious because you can't expect only six trolls to take care of All the troll grubs in existence. Also, the reason jades can't sneak out of the caverns anymore is “because they get Drone'd”, and it seems to be implied that they Can't go out At All*, which kinda contrasts with Friendsim (where literally all the jades snuck out of the caverns at least once: Lanque, Daraya and Wanshi in their own routes, Lynera in Vol 18, and Bronya in Vols 6 & 18). One of their tasks seems to be guarding Forbidden Literature, and Xefros states that they either cull or indoctrinate the most powerful psychic grubs.
-It's also stated that all of our jades were chosen for the cloister when they were basically wrigglers, while Lynera states in Friendsim that she's only been 2,43 sweeps in the caverns. (Considering Bronya's new backstory, it seems that capability to become a rainbow drinker ISN'T the qualifying factor for getting cloistered– depending on how exactly that jade died). It comes to mind that regular, non-cloistered jades might not really know about all these logistics, as it seems that at least Bronya wants to keep them secret– and therefore I don't have to go back and re-rewrite yet another chunk of Mirrorbent orz.
-Lastly, Xefros says they will all become nuns (btw, space church was mentioned in Lanque's route!) when they reach their Ordeals, and we already knew they'd be forced to live in isolation from Friendsim, but during the ace attorney thingy Lynera says she's NOT going to leave the planet because she'll become a midwife and tend to the Mother Grub (basically what we all thought jadebloods did back when we only had the ancestor stuff on Homestuck)... but either Daraya or Lanque told her that they weren't real? So either there's more jade propaganda that we didn't know about, or...
-*The one exception to this is, coincidentally, Jeevik Week, and it's apparently because Trizza herself made it so jades could go too, 3 or 4 sweeps before Hiveswap... why's that? What's so important about Jeevik Week that Trizza would do this? Iirc Cridea and Trizza were sort of set up as opposing forces (?? words), all the way back from the first bunch of concept arts we saw of them? The first thing we learnt from Trizza was that she was the “second best at memes”, and on Cridea's first appearance, when troll twitter was still Prongle, she said that some chick was stealing her memes... and now, Cridea has exactly one follower less than Trizza, who everyone in Alternia's forced to follow... would that person be the heiress herself?
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shinglescat · 3 years
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Low-key disappointed in the game.  Gameplay wise it’s good, story wise - okay. It’s vast but ultimately empty. 
The first game made by CDPR that I finished (and sorta-kinda enjoyed).  Deffo better than their previous game *cough* tw3 *cough* Wasn’t waiting it, wasn’t hyped for it either, just needed a brand new game to play. I’d say it’s 6/10. Will definitely be 8/10 once they fix bugs and do something about that shitty optimization. I mean, it’s playable in its current state, but every bug breaks the immersion.
A mess of thoughts:
Despite my initial neutral to negative opinion of this game, it grew on me after the prologue; it started to pick up and all that stuff. I loved the side quests, I loved the main quests, and my main issue with the game is the writing for V. It’s not bad, it’s just... it’s more for a game like Skyrim with a generic avatara-protagonist, but not for a game where personality and persona matters the most, story wise. It had a lot of potential to turn into a mindblowing mindfuck, but instead it’s just... disappointing. V’s character and personality never gets defined either by the game or by the player, and the background does very little to help the matter. Feels like I bought another BG3, but without the EARLY ACCESS badge. Actually hoping Larian would handle this whole head parasite problem better. This whole “you’re turning into Johnny”  thingy is just there to, I dunno, just to add some more shits and giggles to the story, I guess. I’ve been expecting V to start turning into the guy, or the guy starting to turn into V, buuuuuuuuuut with exception to the smoking - there’s nothing. Thought at first that Johnny had a better writing compared to V, but in the end - they’re at the same level of shitty. Both need a lot more definition than that. The endings are all the same, it was obvious that there’s nothing that could help V to stay in the land of the living - so went with Arasaka to close the circle for the corpo kid. It was all alright up until the point where mr. Reeves started scolding me for my choice, like lmao, what the heck game, you don’t know my V and why we went this route. Sorta-kinda redemption, stfu Silverhand. I dunno, man. I was hopeful before the “point of no return” for the DLC to come out, but now I’m just depressed a bit, ‘cause well - the protag grows on you either way.
The game tries hard to be several games at the same time. It’s trying to be GTA-like, it’s trying to be an immersive sim like Deus Ex, it’s trying to be an rpg, but it fails miserably at almost everything. The game would be better, imo, as a linear experience, not as in corridor one, but rather in character development - haven’t seen those games in ages. Yeah, keep your rpg mechanics for leveling up, skills and yada-yada, but leave the character linear without any player input to better tell the story of Silverhand’s and V’s. Also, the city is E M P T Y. It’s pretty and all, but that’s just a shell. 
Did I mention the AI? It’s the fucking worst. Imagine Karens from NFS: Heat and multiply that by 100 - that’s the traffic in CP2077. Also, if you ever thought NFSH’s police was brutal - try Night City’s, it literally forces you to obey the law, and god forbid if you ever get a lot of wanted stars - it’s insta death.
Optimization is sucky too, dunno how people play it on non-Turing cards. I played on ultra with RT turned on at psycho ’cause I wanted to see if the lighting is still a piss with it to the max (spoiler - lighting is indeed a piss), DLSS set to auto, and maaaaaaaaaaaan, from 20 fps up to 60 down to 20 again in a heart bit just because I was playing the game for too long. Possible memory leak?  Disabled DLSS for funsies - fps cut in half. Oy vey.   Also, this game turns the PC into a really nice space heater. -15C outside, windows open, +50C radiates from the case and warms the footsies. Nice.
Sex scenes are hilarious, by the way. My V banged Meredith, and oh boy did I laugh hard at that. 
Aight, now to some positive parts that I still remember:
I loved River’s quest line (and prerequisites for it), tho a bit short, and yes, I’m gonna complain about the dude being not available for the dudes because I did not know that and did not started as a dudette. The Hunt quest was... it was thrilling, disgusting but amazing at the same time. Not a masterpiece, but it you get the idea. Would’ve loved more jobs with him, like a buddy cop stuff, idk. Then there’s Panam, her quests are great too, not gonna go into the details.  Judy’s quests, a thriller too. The main quest isn’t so bad too except for the protag duo who would benefit from a better writing.
To be honest tho, overall it was... a really plain experience. The only time I had goosebumps and some semblance of water in my eyes is with Alt’s part, Johnny’s memories and that stuff. Annnnnnnnnnnnnd that’s that. 
Gameplay is fine, I had a lot of fun dicing enemies with katanas.
Looking forward to see what DLCs would bring. Hopefully a happy-happy ending, because fuck this world is depressing as is already.
Edit: wanted to add, there are not enough of proper side quests. A lot of generic gigs, but a handful of normal side quests. 
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hitodama89 · 3 years
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I've had a quite an action-filled week, but in like... The most boring adult-way possible. I still wanna write about it because hey, I am a boring adult after all.
Most of my time has been spent working with my balcony. I've been cleaning it thoroughtly because despite having closeable windows it gathers a ton of this certain sort of nasty "city dust" in it (more on that later). The first incidence that stressed me to hell and back was when I was washing its floor and suddenly the neighbor who lives below me starts yelling that water is leaking to their balcony. I tried to ask several times where exactly was it coming from so I could actually do something about it, but instead of giving any sort of helpful answer they just kept mumbling about their annoyance as loud as I think is possible to mumble. After I had finished the cleaning I went to their door with a package of cookies in order to apologise, but they didn't even open the door. Finally I ended up just writing them an apology letter because there wasn't really anything else I could've done. Fortunately that whole ordeal hasn't escalated any further since that.
After that it was time to try to fix the issue of the city dust. The thing is my balcony hasn't always had windows, they were installed a few years ago when the whole house got some remodeling done. Buuut the windows weren't exactly a perfect fit: between their frame and the balcony's handrail is this weird ~5-10 cm gap that has let anything from bugs, snow, rain and that dang dust in. So after suffering from it for several years I, uh, took the matter into my own hands and filled the gap with this... Sprayable, hardening foam thing, god knows what it's actually called even in Finnish let alone in English. After hardening it resembles styrox quite a lot? It should keep the forces of nature out quite well but it can also be dug out in case the landlord for some reason hates it and wants it gone. (The apartment complex is owned by the city I live in, not by some individual person, and usually they don't really care what you do as long as it is reverseable. I highly doubt they will ever even notice it, especially as I'm not planning to move out from here in the foreseeable future. And if they do notice it and hate it, they'd either ask me to take it off and/or give me a fine of some sort, which, okay, I can live with that risk.)
So I spray the foam which is again scary and weird and stressful, but I get it done. And then I take the next day to tidy it up, scraping it off from surfaces it doesn't belong to. At this point I'm tired and exhausted more than in a good long while, but I'm far from being finished! So what the heck even is the point of all this: why am I doing it now exactly? Well, the first reason is that for the last week or so it has been abnormally warm in Finland, temperature rising to heights that normally belong to June. The second reason stems directly from that: it reminded me of how much I've wanted to spend more time in my balcony during summers, but I've just had really no comfortable furniture in it. And that reminded me of a purchase I already tried to make during last autumn, but I ran into SEVERAL online stores that claimed to have the product I was looking for in storage but when I had already paid for it, they sent me an email stating that they didn't actually have it for real and that they'd return my money.
Now that the season was more optimal, I decided to try again: I bought myself a sun sofa. I don't know if that's what it actually called in English because even in Finland stores sell it under various names, but basically it's this nest-like round sofa thing with a raisable canopy. It's meant to be kept outside so it should be perfectly fine to keep it in my balcony, especially now that the stupid gaps have been filled (which is the reason I did it). It costed A LOT of money, likely as much as the rest of my furniture combined, as the vast majority of them have been bought used or as the absolutely cheapest option available. But like... I've basically had a whole small room I have barely been using, so I figured turning it into actually comfortable space for me would be worth it.
Okay, so at this point I had cleaned up the balcony, fought with the neighbor, filled the gaps under the windows, tidied the filler foam and ordered the nest sofa. The sofa had already been sent but according to tracking it hadn't moved out of the capitol area yet, so I thought I'd have time to paint the foam to make it less noticeable before the sofa arrives. I was wrong - this morning a confused post delivery man called me that he can't find my house (I don't really know how because I heard the voice of a GPS on the background) so I went out to wave at him. He dumped the sofa out of his car, couldn't even bother to lift it into the staircase even thought it was raining outside, and left. And I was like okay let's do this, let's get this bad boy into the third floor where I live!
I couldn't fit it into the elevator. I tried, back and forth, for god knows how long. Finally my hands were so shaky and weak that I couldn't even lift the sofa anymore and I have literally no clue what I would've done if it wasn't for the fact that my parents live in the same city and I could scream for them to come and save me. (I don't exactly love doing that, but what else was I supposed to do?) So until they arrived I just sat there in my staircase, sweaty as a pig and faint from exhaustion, with a god damn sofa in the middle of it all. Finally they came and we managed to smash that problem child into the elevator and inside my apartment.
And then that fucking thing didn't fit through my balcony door. Oh believe me, I had measured everything meticulously and it should've fit through; I don't know if the packaging was different from the promised or what, but there was no way to get it in. But good thing I had plans B, C and even fucking D ready! They were, in that order:
Take apart this... Metallic rod thing that prevents the door from opening fully so it doesn't hit the wall behind it.
If that fails, take apart the hinges of the door and lift the whole door away.
If literally everything else fails, open the window that goes from my living room to balcony and lift the motherfucking sofa through the window.
At that point we couldn't even start from B because the door had some really fucking weird screwheads and I had no right sort of screwdriver for it. Thank the forces of the universe my father is the DIY man of all the DIY mans and has about every tool you can ever imagine, so we had to go get more tools from their place and try again. In the end plan B was enough and we didn't have to take apart half of the balcony, but we were both sweating bullets for the whole day even from imagining having to do it.
Now the sofa is in the balcony. The next time I have to move it from there is hopefully when the city remodels the whole house the next time, which will be in, idk, 30 years or something. At least I promised my (now 60 years old) father that at that point he doesn't have to come to move it anymore. ='D The ordeal is finally more or less over, unless the sofa was somehow damaged during all of this: I haven't yet taken it out of the wrappers because I want to keep it covered during the painting of the foam. (I did do some painting already after all this, so I should hopefully be able to strip it tomorrow and stash it to the already painted corner.)
Two bonus points that gave some extra spice to all of this: I also got my first Covid vaccine shot this week (I belong to one of the risk groups because of my health issues) so one of my arms was pretty hurt even before I had to start lifting the sofa around the apartment complex. Fortunately I the very least haven't had any other side effects*! And bonus point number two: that heat wave that hit Finland? It's gone by now. There is literal god damn snow on the ground again. =DDDDD
*(EDIT: NO WAIT, I just realized that I did likely get one other side effect! Please skip this if you feel icky about health subjects, but I do want to mention it in case it could be helpful for someone else. I thought it was just because of intense stress and quite a bit of exercise, but my body has produced some period blood even though it isn't a proper time for it. My body doesn't generally do that because of my hormonal medication, but these days getting weird new health-related symptoms mostly just makes me shrug and continue my life. BUT now I remembered reading that the vaccine has been affecting people's periods by making them more voluminous, so that's actually likely what's causing it??? That's interesting.)
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cy-fi-theansweris42 · 4 years
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Auto Berserk Rambling Pt.1
Alright what I’m rambling about today is the Transformers G1 episode Auto Berserk, aka the episode that introduced me to Red Alert and got me absolutely hooked on his character! This rambling will include me talking about little details, my thoughts on the episode and what happens during it, and, as always, pictures!!! Fair warning, this is a very long post so I’m putting a Read More line on it so you guys don’t have to scroll through this all (also a 2 parter because it’s too long for a single post, lol). Now let’s begin!
First off…Soundwave. My dude. My cassetticon-carrying man.The Decepticon logo on the front gives away your disguise.
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Like I have no idea how this fooled anyone but go off, I guess.
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Dude looks so shook after going to grab a tape recorder that wasn’t even his and it turned into a giant robot in front of his eyes, like this is what you get for trying to claim some random tape recorder as your own, no mixtapes for you.
Moving on.
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Red Alert that is one serious light show you’ve got going on. Now we know those are sensors for him (he mentions it in Blaster Blues before getting shot at by the Decepticons I’m pretty sure) and I remember reading somewhere that he has enhanced sensors (I know for sure in MTMTE he has enhanced hearing, I don’t entirely know about his other senses though), and I like the idea that the little sensory horns he’s got spark when either an alarm is being tripped or he’s detecting danger of some kind, or when he’s dealing with sensory overload. Here it would be the first for sure since Soundwave’s just hanging out.
Alright, oh boy, we’re about to get into part of what causes the main conflict of the episode.
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Inferno leaving Red Alert when he was supposed to be his backup.
Now, I’ve got mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, Inferno saves Optimus and gets Rumble out of the Negavator, which helps them win the fight. He also didn’t want to stay in the bunker, he wanted to go out and fight, but Red had him stay. On the other hand, he literally left Red alone in there, to guard a bunker and the controls for the Negavator by himself, and him leaving Red is what leads to Red thinking Inferno betrayed him once his logic chips aren’t working anymore, which lead to the idea that the other Autobots were out to get him. Inferno couldn’t have known that would happen though, so we can’t really blame him for that part. Personally I think Inferno should have stayed, but it’s a complicated situation.
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They argue about it for a bit but eventually Inferno just leaves. Maybe he should have yelled out that he was leaving as he was leaving, or did something so Red knew for sure that he was leaving, but instead Red was just left confused as to where Inferno was after getting injured by the missile, which sucks.
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Press F to pay respects.
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Ok theory time: So Red’s sensors are sparking like mad here, probably since he was just caught in an explosion it’s a combination of malfunctioning and being in a dangerous situation. They’re sparking like mad and he was just caught in a literal explosion, which no doubt caused damage, so I think it’s a combination of his sensory horns sparking too much and the damage from the explosion that fried his logic chips. Plus there’s the red effect underneath his eyes that starts up just after the screenshot above.
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(I’m sorry if you can’t see it too well, it’s the episode quality but I swear it’s there.) I think that might have been a visual representation that at that point, his logic chips were toast, so it wasn’t the initial blast that took them offline, it was something afterwards, so the idea of it being a combination of the blast and his sensory horns sparking too much could work.
And then everything goes downhill from there.
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Ok there is just….so much I have to say about this bit. First off, it’s when Red’s delusions start. He feels like Inferno betrayed him, ok, that’s valid considering Inferno just left, but then he says “why can’t anyone see it, Inferno wants my job!” which…doesn’t make a lot of sense, but his logic chips are toast at this point, there’s going to be leaps in logic and delusions don’t make sense a lot of the time (I could be wrong, my own knowledge of delusions is limited to what I’ve learned on my own over the years). Then when Optimus says that “it’s too dangerous to remain here”, Red’s convinced that “Optimus wants me out of the way too, it’s a plot!”, so now instead of just thinking Inferno’s out to get him, so does Optimus, and there’s an entire plot to get rid of him, which we know isn’t true, but it’s what Red believes.
This is when things start to get worse for Red.
Now let’s talk about why the heckity-heck Optimus doesn’t push for Red to see Hoist or any other medical bot we’ve seen on the show (Hoist is the only one in the episode though). Like Red was just caught in a literal explosion, Optimus saw Red Alert’s sensory horns spark just because he was getting worked up (cue my headcanon that when Red has panic attacks his can cause his sensory horns to spark), and heard Red say “it’s just an electro-glitch that comes and goes, comes and goes”, the last part of which was said in the exact same tone and cadence as the first time he said that! Like there’s multiple signs that something could be wrong, and at the very least since he was caught in an explosion, Red should be getting checked over.
But no. Instead things get worse. I’m just saying, if Red had gotten checked over, maybe they could have discovered that his logic chips were damaged before they nearly exploded.
Ok. Moving on.
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:( This is also the only time where we see that his sensory horns sparking can actually cause him pain, like it might be a combination of them sparking on how his logic chips are damaged, but I think that sometimes when he’s overwhelmed or convinced there’s danger, they can spark to the point of causing him pain. Either way, it’s still a :( moment.
Ok. Here’s another bit that bugs me.
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Optimus: Red Alert, analyze that noise. Red Alert: Noise? What noise? All clear.
Like. COME ON YOU GUYS, YOU JUST SAW THE ROCKS HIT THE GROUND IN FRONT OF YOU AND IT’S WHY YOU STOPPED, YOU HEARD THE NOISE, WHY AREN’T YOU QUESTIONING WHY RED’S JUST LIKE “Noise? There was a noise? Idk what you’re talking about, I didn’t hear anything.” WHEN RED ALERT POSSIBLY HAS THE BEST HEARING OUT OF ALL OF YOU. COME ON, WHY AREN’T YOU QUESTIONING THIS????? (Also, for context if you haven’t seen the episode, while Red’s saying his bit, there’s more of those sparks and we hear electrical noises, so I think it’s implied that the damage made it so he either didn’t hear the noise or just made him forget about it immediately.)
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F to Optimus and Ironhide, RIP in pieces my dudes.
Anyways, Decepticons attack, there’s confusion, and Red gets hit, which damages him even further, and he’s basically stuck halfway transformed with smoke coming from him for part of the battle and then I guess stunned during the rest since we just see him sitting on the ground at one point.
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This is just the Red Alert Suffers Episode, huh.
The battle itself is hilarious though, like you’ve got Decepticons saying nonsense (Smokescreen lands some shots at them so they’re saying stuff like “hey, my circuits electric blew just out” “too mine, I’m blind flying” “away move, before collide we—” (….I have that memorized. Why do I have that memorized?), Smokescreen living up to his name, and Megatron realizing that “I’ve got morons on my team!” (we’re in season 2 of the show my dude, it’s about time you realized that. Also I remember the episode where you got drunk with the rest of them and proceeded to pass the heck out, you ain’t special. Edit: Ok that’s literally in the next episode, lol, I guess Megatron realized “hey, we’re all morons here, yolo”)
And now…oh man do I have a lot to say about this bit. I’m going to include dialogue too.
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Optimus (talking about the Decepticon attack): Red Alert, why didn’t you warn us? Red, backing away: You want to get rid of me, just like the others do. Optimus: Hmmm, you’re more damaged than I thought. Red, still backing away: There’s nothing wrong with me. Optimus: Red Alert needs a complete overhaul. [Hoist and Inferno begin to approach Red, Red’s still backing away and now his horns are sparking] Hoist: Your logic and reason circuits are fried. Inferno: You need immediate repairs! Red: Don’t give me any of that, you just want to disassemble me for spare parts! [backs up into the wall] Never! I won’t let you! [runs at them, knocking Hoist and Inferno to the ground, and runs off] Inferno: Wait! Hoist: We’re your friends! Optimus: Quickly, we must rescue him before he makes his condition worse! [Autobots chase after Red, calling after him]
So it’s just like…man, they just…really didn’t handle this situation well. The entire time, throughout this entire exchange, Red is scared. He’s backing away from the others the entire time, trying to put some distance between them because he doesn’t feel safe. When Inferno and Hoist start approaching him, his horns start sparking because he’s detecting danger and that danger is Hoist and Inferno. He’s absolutely terrified that they’re going to hurt him, to get rid of him, to “disassemble him for spare parts”, and what do they do? They keep approaching, talk about how “he needs to be fixed”, and don’t listen to him or see how scared he is at all.
Now, if you don’t get why Red’s so scared, don’t get why he’s running from his friends and should “just realize he’s not thinking straight” or something like that, let me put it this way: Say you’re playing a video game, you’ve got allies, you’ve got bad guys, and you’ve made a lot of progress in this game and trust your allies to help you out. But then! Surprise plot twist! Your allies are actually planning on betraying you, so now you have to escape before they catch you! You’d feel betrayed, right? While playing this level you’d feel scared, or at least nervous, whenever any of them started to get close to catching you, right? You’d want to get away as quickly as possible, right? Well that’s kinda what it’s like for Red right now. Only it’s not a game, for him it’s real, and that makes it absolutely terrifying. (It’s not a perfect metaphor or whatever but it’s the best I’ve got, hopefully you get the point). Anyways, just the way they handled this situation wasn’t very good. They didn’t listen to Red at all, they continuously mentioned how “he needed to be fixed”, continued to approach him, and when he ran off they chased after him, still yelling about “how he needs help”. There’s multiple things they did wrong here, and all of it led to Red running off. Also, I just want to note that Red was trying to keep his distance from them the entire time, and the only reason why he ran at Hoist and Inferno before running off was because he had literally backed into a wall and they still kept approaching. At that point he felt trapped and that’s when he felt he had to run. Now, I’m not entirely sure if the situation could have been de-escalated enough that Red wouldn’t have run off, but I can make suggestions for what they could have done better. 1) Gave Red his space. Literally he was backing away the entire time so he wanted space, and potentially this could have stopped him from running off since if they did this then maybe he wouldn’t have backed into the wall and felt cornered. 2) Had some of the other Autobots drive back to the bunker, or just somewhere else. Red Alert was seriously outnumbered and he thought they were all against him, if I was outnumbered about 7-to-1, I’d be scared too, especially with one of those bots being Optimus-freaking-Prime. Honestly having like, just Hoist, or just one single bot (not Optimus or Inferno though, they were the first few he thought were against him so that might not have worked well) try to talk calmly to Red might have made a huge difference. 3) Stop talking about fixing him. While they were right about him needing help, all that was doing was making him more and more upset, so they needed to stop talking about that and listen to what he was saying more. There’s honestly probably more stuff but I can’t think of it.
Oh my god that was a ramble and a half MOVING ON.
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I feel like this could be a meme format. I don’t know what kind, but it has meme vibes. Feel free to meme, lol, just make it memeingful.
Ok we’re about halfway through so I’m cutting it off here and putting the rest in another post, it should be up shortly!
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mcrmadness · 3 years
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Gosh I have a TERRIBLE urge to post some die ärzte fanart content or other creations here RIGHT NOW but the thing is: I should create that before I can post it!!!
I just spent some time editing a few art behind-the-scenes posts and idk if those interest that many people so it’s not really the same as posting actual art - all of those drawings or comics I have already posted here before anyway. And my comics are not really that liked here anyway so I guess I’ll keep drawing for myself and those... idk, 5? 6? people who seem to find them even relatively interesting. I still have 3 more comics waiting to be drawn out there. I mean, I did the lines for the panels and I should just get to sketching whenever I just get on that mood again.
I also have this other drawing process I’m very excited over and want to start working on asap BUT. There’s this one big but. My current pencil WIP. I usually never start a new project if I haven’t finished with the previous one because that reduces the chances for ever getting motivated for continuing the WIP in the future.
And I figured that I really love the part where I am drawing, blending and erasing and seeing the drawing to come alive and turn into 3D image BUT I hate the fact I can never get the lines perfect at one go and I then spend days on polishing some fine details and I still don’t get anywhere. I just feel that I’m trying to run in deep snow and all I do is to either walk backwards or simply just be stuck in that snow without being able to move forward at all.
With the current WIP I’m at that phase where I’m stuck to snow but just can’t get forward. There’s things to do and fix but I just absolutely hate it because no matter how hard I try, I cannot achieve what I try to achieve. Sometimes I don’t see what’s wrong (90% of the time), sometimes I do but I feel almost helpless because no line I draw will be the way it should. It’s like I can’t control my hand and I don’t understand why. I think I’m drawing the correct looking line but then I compare it to the image and it’s like from a different world and I wonder if I have even been looking at the same photo as what my hand is trying to copy.
So I really want to start the next project because it involves lots of drawing and blending and erasing - but I have the WIP, too. And I don’t want it to be WIP any longer. I want it to be finished. But I am too stubborn to call it a day because it will bother me forever if I now leave it like it is because it CLEARLY ISN’T FINISHED.
I still look at the previous pencil drawing I did and altho I really like what the technique looks like, it still bugs the heck out of me because it isn’t perfect. There’s so many things wrong with so many things, mainly the eyes, but there’s nothing I can do now because I already used fixative on it. Partially just to prevent mysef from ever touching the drawings again! But now I’m already having trouble looking even at my icon because I drew it but I feel more like I would have butchered that image instead and now seeing my icon will remind me of the bad decision I made and how much I hate the little mistakes in that drawing. Even when I told myself that it’s over now, we’re not gonna touch the drawing anymore, time to move on.
I always get the most angry and frustrated at this part when I try to get everything to look good. Like, I don’t mind if it doesn’t look exactly like the photo, as long as the people in the drawing are recognizable. But the longer I stare at my drawing, the less I recognize anyone from them anymore. I think my partial face blindness really steps out when I see a face for so long I stop... seeing it. Like, I see details but I can’t connect the details to a big picture any longer.
This whole “I can’t see” thing is my biggest flaw in arts. When I say that I can’t see, I really mean it. It’s not that I’m blind or even partially blind, it’s more like I mentally can’t see? It’s not aphantasia, I think I actually have the opposite aka hyperphantasia, but it just feels like my eyes are not connected to my brain correctly. The information that comes in gets partially lost on its way to my brain and my hand only gets half of that information it needs and it can only draw from what I can SEE instead if what is actually there TO BE SEEN.
That’s why I can’t do perfect drawings and that’s why it makes me sad that the comics, that are perfect or almost perfect in my eyes, because I can see them fully in my mind and draw from there what I see; are not appreciated anywhere. Be it fanart or self-comics but especially self-comics are not appreciated here at all. Those might be simple but I like doing them that way. There’s a reason for them to be so simple: my old perfectionism. I needed to invent something very simple to draw so that I don’t need to drive myself crazy with all unnecessary details in everything that eventually always led to me abandoning a comic because it was just way too much work for me to do every time and I was worn out. By my own comics.
Anyway, I try to find that energy and motivation for the current WIP at some point so that I can finally start with the next project sooner or later. Preferably sooner because I really am looking forward to that and can’t wait to get to work on that one! But it might be a good decision to do some or at least one of the comics first. It’s always a bit different process and much more free and easier to make “perfect”, but at the same also challenging and super fascinating learning process.
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dfcfanfics · 4 years
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Isolated Miraculous Prompt of the Day
Everywhere Has To Be Somewhere... Doesn't It?
The latest in Hawkmoth's series of Akumas was a tricky one... a teleporter, who could teleport both herself and anyone or anything she blasted. Ladybug and Chat Noir found themselves dodging falling objects plummeting out of nowhere, swinging at empty air and fighting back-to-back. It was a long fight, ranging over much of the city of Paris, but in the end Chat got the hang of timing her reappearances and tagged her several times with his baton.
"Face it, Flicker," Chat gloated as he watched the villain clutch at her head, down on all fours in front of him. "You can run, but you can't hide from me forever! Now stay down and surrender... unless you want to get hit again."
He heard Ladybug land beside him, just behind him. "He's right. You're beaten," she declared, then lowered her voice for Chat's ears alone. "Stay ready," Ladybug muttered. "I don't know that we're done here."
When Flicker turned around and faced the duo, her eyes were full of rage. "You have no idea what I could do to you," she snarled. "Or what I'm about to do..."
An energy butterfly flashed across her face. "Careful, Flicker. You have a job to do here," Hawkmoth lectured her. "I don't want these heroes dead; I want their Miraculous. They may have the upper hand right now, but you have untapped power yet to--"
"I. DON'T. CARE!" the villain shouted, making Ladybug take a wary step back. "Maybe I can't hide from them... but I can hide them from everybody ELSE!"
"I, uh, don't like the sound of that..." Chat noted, taking a step back himself.
Flicker gestured wildly... and an energy capsule of some kind formed around the heroes, imprisoning them momentarily.
"What is--" gasped Chat.
Ladybug snapped, "Don't touch it if you don't have to! We don't know what it is, or what it can do."
"So how do we find that out, then?" panicked Chat. "Is it just me, or..."
"Look out!" gasped Ladybug.
With a wicked grin, Flicker called, "Bye-bye, now!" and slammed her hands together. The capsule went from the size of a city bus to that of a Mini... then to a football... then to a marble...
...then out of sight altogether.
"What have you DONE?" Hawkmoth howled... but for the moment, Flicker didn't care.
~---~
Chat Noir opened his eyes, very slowly, and decided almost instantly that it wasn't his best idea of the day.
"Owww!" he gasped, holding his head. "What happened? Why is everything so bright?"
"Chat," said Ladybug's voice, a short distance away. "I'm here. Listen to me... open your eyes slowly and let them adjust, okay? I... need you right now."
Now, that's a request that I can't refuse, he thought. Reluctantly, he cracked his eyes open just a bit, then a little bit more...
About three meters away, he saw Ladybug sitting with her legs bent, one hand shading her own eyes.
"I'm glad you're awake," she sighed. "I was really worried about you."
"You can't get rid of me that easily..." mumbled Chat. "What the heck did she hit us with?"
"I have no idea," confessed Ladybug. "It was very dark when I woke up; I was afraid that we'd been buried underneath something. Then there was some light... and now way too much light. It seems to come and go, but I can't figure out what's causing it."
"Huh. That's not good," said Chat. "So where are... we?"
He looked around as best he could under the circumstances. No matter which direction he looked -- including up and down -- everything except himself and Ladybug seemed blank and featureless as far as his vision reached.
"...We are somewhere, right?" he wondered. "What are we even standing on?"
"No idea. It's hard," replied Ladybug, reaching over and rapping her knuckles against it without getting up. "It's holding our weight, so wherever this is... there's gravity, at least."
"So we have light, we have gravity, and we have each other. That's enough for me to take on the world..." Chat quipped, but his mood changed quickly watching his partner's reaction. "...'Bug, are you okay?" he asked, moving to her side.
"I'm s-scared, Chat," Ladybug admitted. "Whatever she did... it's like nothing we've ever faced before. I've been studying everything around us while you were out, looking for some clue... but there's just... nothing!"
Seeing Ladybug that unsettled froze Chat's blood cold.
"I don't know where we are or how to get out. I don't know how much air we have. Where we could get food or water. What Lucky Charm could do... and I'll only get one shot at that," she continued. "And Lucky Charm usually gives me something I can use with what else is around us... but there's nothing around us!"
"Well," Chat managed, just above a whisper. "I wish I'd brought a deck of cards."
(edit: fixed typos.  rassum frassum phone autocorrect)
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ren-c-leyn · 4 years
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QnA tag game
I was tagged by @hyba​ to play this. Thank you very much.
rules: post your answers, and tag some pals.
1. When did you first learn you enjoyed writing?
Honestly, I used to hate writing. It wasn’t fun, it was boring school essays and annoying prompts on exams. That being said, I had always enjoyed storytelling, and had been telling stories since before I could remember.
How I reconciled that gap between the written and the spoken was I went through a really shitty period of time in my life and I took up poetry to help vent. And it was so freeing and fun that I kept with it.
I had been doing that for a while when I decided to try writing some fantasy story that popped into my head, though I can’t quite recall why I bothered to try. It wasn’t a very good story, but I filled up like an entire notebook with it and started writing it on another, and I discovered ‘hey, writing can be fun... if it isn’t about something boring.’
And over the years, fantasy has over taken poetry. I still write poems from time to time, but not like I used to.
2. Tell us about the first project you ever wrote.
It was one that tried cramming way too much into one story, but there’s elements of it that I still use a lot of. I can’t remember the exact plot I had in mind for it, because it was all over the place, but I remember there being some sci-fi, a lot of fantasy weirdness, and a chosen one who was both angry and horrified that her world ended when she had the power to save it, because no one knew what she was or that their world was in danger. It never got finished, but I had fun with it while I was working on it.
3. How does your favorite media shape who you are as a writer?
In ways I don’t even realize it did, I’m sure. Particularly since I binge read without really analyzing the writing techniques of people. My writer brain turns off and reader brain takes over. Which many people say is bad, but it works for me. That being said, I can draw some obvious parallels between things I’ve read and my own works.
I know that Tolkien was a big influence for my ‘this string pulls on this person’s string, which does that, which leads to a poor hobbit having to lose his finger to throw a cursed ring into a volcano and save the world’ kinda plots. I also enjoyed his world building, but, and this is just my opinion, it slowed the Lord of the Rings triology down a lot and made it a little clunky to read. So it taught me both what I kinda wanted to see in my world building, but also how I didn’t want it to come out in the story. Plus, The Hobbit is the book for me. It is one of the first ones I got when I finally learned ‘oh, reading can be fun’ (because child me hated reading like she also hated writing boring essays), and it’s the one that got me stuck on fantasy.
Douglas Adams, there are many who will probably consider it a crime I have not read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and yet still list his name in this, but my favorite book of all time is probably The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, and it was the way the characters existed and the hidden easter eggs that I’m still finding like 7 read throughs later and the pacing and red herrings. I learned from and loved a lot about that book alone.
There was also J.A. Jance, the author of many of the murder mysteries my grandmother loaned me, and it was from her and other mystery authors that I finally, finally figured out how to set up suspense and tension. They were also really good studies in character motivations and how a character’s mindset can change the way they perceive the world and the things they notice and miss.
Video games is another thing I know has influenced me. I like story and lore rich games. Dungeons and Dragons is another thing I play a lot of and has followed me through my writings. The stories that get told can be every bit as awesome as a book, and the mechanics are also part of what helped me learn to structure my magic systems. Because if the wizards didn’t have rules, who would play a fighter who does? The same idea got translated into my writing very early on, ‘if I don’t give my wizards rules, why would warriors exist?’
And I can keep rambling, but I think I’ll leave it at this for now ^^
4. What’s something you’ve wanted to write, but aren’t sure you could? (A tv show, a genre, a style, a time period, a video game, etc)
I had an idea for a fantasy world inspired by various Asian myths, and even had a basic map drawn out in my head and some ideas for a magic system, but I’ve been too terrified to actually do anything with it, and it’s been so long since then that I don’t remember anything about it. Plus, I had no plot to use for it at the time.
I also wanted to write a mystery, but when I tried I found that while I has suspects and everything, I couldn’t think of the crime or how the heck anyone would just kinda figure it out from a bunch of random things normal people could just play off or not notice XD
5. What is the thing that keeps you from writing the most?
Procrastination is sometimes a problem, and I do occasionally need to kick myself in the shin. But there’s also life and plot snags and just days when a story isn’t working for me.
6. How do you deal with an inner editor?
That depends. Sometimes the inner editor saves me a lot of headaches later, and sometimes a tiny mistake can break the flow of writing. I normally don’t have an issue with fixing things on the spot, but on nights I need to focus on writing I just keep myself from reading back.
7. How long have you been writing?
I mean, they make kids write really young for school, so begrudgingly that long. Creatively and for fun? I’m not sure. I can’t quite recall how old I was when I started with the poetry. But considering the notebook I have the earliest pieces in is falling apart, I think it’s been a long time. lol
8. What is your general writing process? Do you write chronologically? Do you do a lot of planning?
I normally get this idea that shows up out of the blue as a daydream or a random thought. Then, there’s at least a month. If it’s still there, it gets considered. If it’s grown and expanded into something resembling either a world or a plot by then, it’s probably getting written.
After the idea finally bugs me enough, I’ll start world building and building a bare-bones plot, complete with bare-boned characters. I never flesh anything out completely, since I do most of that while I write and having strict outlines suffocates my story.
If the world building, characters, and whatever I have of a plot are interesting, I’ll start chronologically and keep moving from there.
9. Assign a scent to your writing style.
A scent for my style? Um... that’s kind of a weird question and I have no idea how I would even begin to think of an answer for that. Like, how do you translate comma usage and word choice into a smell? I mean, I use roses a lot in my stories, so maybe that would work?
10. One book you hope everyone reads?
I have to agree with hyba that I hope everyone just finds their version of the book. The one that gets them through a hard time, the one they really need, and that that book won’t be the same for everyone.
11. What is it about your least favorite genre that makes it your least favorite–and how might you change that to better appeal to you?
Oh that’s simple, it’s because horror does it’s job. That’s it. It’s nothing particularly about the style or anything besides that the genre is what it is.
12. Design a “collector’s edition” for your first novel. Include items that might be of interest to your audience.
Never thought about it, but I guess I could throw in the world map I drew for The Plight of a Sparrow into it.
13. If one thing was real from your project, what would you want it to be?
Nothing in particular? I can’t think of anything that would make sense to transfer from my projects to the real world, because I don’t want magic to be real, because my magic systems tend to be brutal, but also, we have stuff like or better than a lot of what doesn’t run off magic. Maybe some of the creatures would be cool, but I don’t know how that would affect ecosystems.... probably not for the better.
14. What’s something you always include in your work? Do you have any other Easter eggs?
As far as easter eggs, I can’t think of anything off the top of my head. If I do, it probably wasn’t intentional.
15. What is your favorite passage from your own work?
I still am not really comfortable with sharing things out of my WIPs on here. As far as things I’ve written for the blog itself go, there are quite a few pieces and passages that turned out really good. I think one of my favorites is from a really old piece I did back before I was doing fusion stories. It’s from this one specifically, if anyone would like to read the full tale, it is a grim one, though.
The very edge of the forest was about as welcoming as a gallows. Crows watched us hungrily, like we were dead men about to sway. None of them made so much as a peep as their dead eyes followed our trek through the knotted mess of brambles, ivy, knotted shrubs, and gnarled trees. We hacked at the plants, and they hacked right back at us. We traded blows like it was a war. hatchet and sword blows countered with sharp thorns and parried with thick branches.
I’m going to leave this an open tag, jump in if you’d like to. =D
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yastaghr · 4 years
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Our Skeleton 33
This is the Tell All pt. 3: Frisk Edition! Enjoy!
Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7563223/chapters/56304640
The sun shone down on the back of the house from where it was disappearing behind Mt. Ebott. It had reached that golden time of the afternoon that directly preceded sunset. It filled everywhere it touched with a honey-coloured light. It dyed the white bones of Papyrus, standing on the back porch while Toriel finished cooking dinner, an almost creamy hue. It did little to Frisk’s skin tone, since their heritage had given them an even richer honey-olive glow that couldn’t be tamed.
“SO, TO RECAP, I HAD HORRIBLE PARENTS WHO LITERALLY TIED ME TO A CHAIR BECAUSE I COULDN’T SIT STILL. I HONESTLY WOULDN’T BE SURPRISED IF MY DAD DID TRY TO KILL US. HE’S HIGHLY UNSTABLE AND VERY VINDICTIVE. MOM HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE SMART ONE, APART FROM THAT TIME SHE DROPPED SANS ON HIS HEAD. I HONESTLY HAVE NO IDEA HOW THEY COULD HAVE PRODUCED US. GRILLBY REALLY IS MORE OF A PARENT TO US THAN THEY EVER WERE. AND-”
Papyrus froze when he heard the sound. It was a familiar sound, in that he had heard it before, but it was unfamiliar in that he had never heard it here. To be honest, he had never thought he would hear it again. After all, the cause of that sound had sworn he wasn’t going to leave the Underground for anything. Yes, he had technically broken that promise when he’d come up to drop off Papyrus’ present, but that didn’t really count. Could he really be here again?
When the yellow petals poked their way out of the dirt, Papyrus smiled. Flowey was here! He had no idea why his friend had come, but it was nice to see him again. Well, sort of. Flowey was facing Frisk with his back to Papyrus, but still!
Papyrus opened his mouth to say hi, but it was Flowey who spoke. “Howdy, Frisk. Why the heck do you keep LOADing? You haven’t been this trigger happy since you were Underground! What’d you do, lose track of the smiley trashbag? I’m starting to get a headache!”
“FLOWEY, WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT CALLING MY BROTHER THAT? IT’S NOT NICE! I KNOW YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN THAT.”
The flower froze. Then he slowly, ever so slowly, turned around to face Papyrus. He looked incredibly nervous. Frisk had slipped into their usual deadpan look. He was starting to dislike it as much as he did Sans’ fake smile.  “Oh. Uh, hey Papyrus…? When did you get here?”
Papyrus frowned. “I WAS HERE BEFORE YOU WERE, FLOWEY, AND I HAVE SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT WHAT YOU JUST SAID. WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHEN YOU SAY FRISK IS LOADING? YOU DON’T SOUND LIKE YOU MEAN LOADING THE DISHWASHER, AND, ANYWAY, I HAVEN’T SEEN THEM DO THAT. SO, WHAT DO YOU MEAN?”
Flowey, very rudely, turned to Frisk instead of answering him. “Okay, Frisk, now would be a really good time to LOAD. You don’t want to know what happens if-”
Frisk interrupted him. Their face was still deadpan, but their eyes were determined. [No, Flowey. I’m going to tell him. He just shared his big secret with all of us. We should share this with him. And you should stay up here with us. There’s a big thing coming soon, and you can get to be mean to someone without getting told off. You like that, right?]
The flower sighed. “There’s no way I can convince you, is there? You’re going to tell him whether I agree or not. Fine then. Tell him for all I care, but I’m not… you’ll let me be mean to someone? Really? But you never let me be mean!”
Frisk grinned and Papyrus smiled. One, Frisk was emoting again, which was good. Two, Frisk was so clever to have used that trick on Flowey. And three, Flowey was going to stay! Yay!
[Yep! Papyrus and Sans get to join the Bad Parents Club, and you get to mess with their parents. They did lots of not-nice things, but every time one of my monster friends tries to confront them the dad kills them. But I know you’re clever enough not to get caught. You can do whatever you want to them as long as it isn’t permanent. Okay?] Frisk signed.
“Okay,” Flowey said reluctantly as Papyrus’ eyes bugged out. Frisk had just said that those were dreams! Were they more than that, or was his friend confusing them with reality?
Frisk noticed his reaction and smiled at him. [I’ll explain it in a minute, Papyrus. I just want to tell Flowey who he needs to annoy.] Then they turned to Flowey. [Their parents live in a big mansion in the snobby part of town. Their names are T.N. Roman and Coursiva Revenant.]
“I know them!” Flowey said with a creepy smile. “And I know what drives them nuts. Just leave this to me.”
With that, Flowey disappeared beneath the soil once again. Papyrus stared at the hole for a moment before moving his gaze to Frisk. “WELL, FRISK? WHAT IS THIS LOADING HE WAS SPEAKING OF?”
Frisk sighed and moved over to the bench on the edge of the deck. Papyrus followed them. [LOADing is… well, you know videogames?]
Papyrus nodded. “I DO, IN FACT, KNOW OF WHAT YOU SPEAK.”
[Well, imagine for a minute that this world is a video game. There would be certain Save Points that you could use to SAVE, right? And then there would be times where you died or messed up, so you’d LOAD back to the last time you SAVEd. Then, sometimes, if you messed up badly enough, you could RESET back to the very beginning of the game.]
“YES, I UNDERSTAND. WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH REAL LIFE?” Papyrus asked.
Frisk gulped. [Well… it is real life for me. I can do all of those things. I have done all of those things. Flowey knows because he used to be able to do those things before I came along, and he still remembers when I do them.]
At first, Papyrus didn’t really know what to think. This sounded so outlandish, so far fetched, that he couldn’t believe it was real. Then he thought back, remembering all the times Frisk had warned him about danger or steered him away from doing something. He remembered their face when that happened. He also remembered those times in the Underground when Flowey would predict things with pinpoint accuracy.
“O… KAY. THAT… SORT OF MAKES SENSE. YOU BOTH HAVE DONE THINGS THAT DIDN’T MAKE A WHOLE LOT OF SENSE. ARE YOU TWO THE ONLY ONES WHO REMEMBER?”
Frisk shook their head. [Sometimes everyone remembers a little bit from the last timeline. Do you remember the vision Toriel had of Sans being hurt? That was actually a memory from the other timeline. Sans got really badly hurt and ended up in the hospital. As in he broke a lot of bones and was probably going to die. I had to LOAD to save him.]
Papyrus gasped. “AND YOU WERE HANDLING THIS ALL BY YOURSELF?! FRISK, THAT’S WAY TOO MUCH FOR JUST ONE PERSON. IS THIS WHY YOU SOMETIMES GET SO DEPRESSED? BECAUSE YOU FEEL GUILTY THAT YOU HAD TO LOAD, AND BECAUSE YOU HAD TO CHANGE PEOPLE TO SAVE THEM?” Frisk’s wince told him that he was right on the money. “FRISK, IT’S OKAY TO FEEL LIKE THAT, BUT YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS ISN’T YOUR FAULT. TAKING ON THIS MUCH RESPONSIBILITY BY YOURSELF IS BOUND TO HURT. THINK OF IT LIKE A HEAVY BURDEN. IT’S REALLY HARD TO CARRY IT BY YOURSELF, BUT IF YOU HAVE LOTS OF PEOPLE TO HELP YOU CARRY IT, IT FEELS LESS HEAVY. DOES THAT MAKE SENSE?”
He held out his hands for a hug. Frisk dove into his arms and hugged him tightly. He could feel their tears leaking into his clothes, but he didn’t care. Frisk needed this right now.
When they eventually pulled back, they were smiling. They signed, [But now I have you! You can help me carry it better, right? I’ll just tell you and Flowey why I have to LOAD and you’ll help me fix it, right?]
Papyrus nodded. “I’LL HELP YOU, FRISK, BUT I THINK THAT YOU SHOULD TELL EVERYONE ELSE. THAT WAY WE CAN ALL HELP YOU! AND WE CAN HELP YOU PREVENT YOURSELF FROM HAVING TO RESET. THAT SOUNDS LIKE A THING WE SHOULD AVOID. WHERE DO YOU RESET TO, ANYWAY? HAVE YOU EVER HAD TO RESET BEFORE?”
Frisk nodded. [Just once. My RESET point is when I first fell down into the Underground. When I first fell down I was really scared. I thought you guys were going to hurt me because, well, everyone on the Surface tried to hurt me. So… I fought back in a lot of those battles. I… I killed some of you. I killed Toriel, Undyne, Mettaton, and Asgore. Oh, and Jerry. Then I made it up to the Surface and… nothing had changed. The humans still ignored me, refused to serve me, and actually beat me up, all because I was homeless.]
[Then one of them went too far and I died. Char... I had the option to go back. I remembered how nice you were. Not everyone at first, just you. I wanted to come back and live with you. When I came back I couldn’t help but notice how everyone was really nice. They had hopes and dreams and I really rooted for them. So I did everything I could to bring you to the Surface.]
[It seems to have worked so far… with a few bumps and bruises,] Frisk concluded, [but, hey! We made it this far, right?]
Papyrus smiled at them and gave them a thumbs up. “YES, THAT’S THE SPIRIT, HUMAN! WE CAN DO ANYTHING IF WE TRY! NOW, LETS GO TELL EVERYONE ELSE ABOUT THIS. UM… YOU MIGHT NOT WANT TO TELL UNDYNE THAT YOU KILLED HER. SHE MIGHT TAKE THAT AS A PERSONAL CHALLENGE.”
Frisk giggled. [I know. Flowey told me that he did that once and she creamed him.]
“AS IT SHOULD BE! UM… DID FLOWEY DO THIS KIND OF STUFF, TOO?” Papyrus asked. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to hear the answer, but he felt he needed to.
[He kinda did… and he kinda did a lot worse. You should ask him. But! Now he’s not like that anymore, and I have a plan to make him even better! Or I will. Soon. I hope. Anyway, let’s go tell everyone about this and eat some pie!]
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twilightofthe · 4 years
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In celebration of Mutual Acquaintances.. Satine: 5, 6, 7, 8, 28, 31, 42, 47, 48; Obi-Wan: 7, 8, 12, 14, 27, 31, 33, 47, 48; Padmé: 4, 6, 7, 8, 12, 18, 19, 28, 33, 34, 39, 42; The Disaster Boi: 10, 12, 14, 18, 20, 22, 28, 29, 31, 33 and bc we all need more sexuality headcanons, 13 for ALL of them
Whooo-WEE here we go, thank you!  Get ready for VERY VERY LONG Rambling!
SATINE
(5) Cleanliness habits: Oh, she’s a total neat freak.  Everything in her office is minimalist style and organized to a T.  If someone moved something even an inch, she’ll be hounding everyone about who was messing with her stuff.  Constantly washing hands, very clean, doesn’t like dust on stuff at all (has a bit of a dust allergy, actually.  Lily pollen getting everywhere is a Problem for her).  She’s practical, however, and if she HAS to get down and dirty, she will-- of course not without a suitable amount of icky faces made plus a side of complaints xD
(6) Eating habits and sample daily menu: Ok so we’ve got canon showing her eating meat, but don’t tell me Super Pacifism Lady wouldn’t IRL be that one ubervegan friend of yours on Facebook who’s constantly posting weird things about it and you gotta be like “aight Katie chill”.  ANYWAY, so I’d say Satine in canon eats healthy-ish?  She’s not the biggest fan of breakfast foods and is always up in the morning doing stuff, so she sometimes forgets to have anything besides black coffee.  She’s not a particularly picky eater so she’ll eat whatever the cook is serving that day, but she prefers simpler meals, and can cook for herself (which came in handy during the Year On The Run because neither Obi Wan nor Qui Gon can cook for shit (my canon is no one in that line besides Anakin can cook and I’ll die with it) and eventually Satine was like “guys, I’m sorry, but no, u can’t try and protect me and then poison me at dinnertime.  I’ll cook”).  She does like to pair her evening meals with whatever drink she’s having that night.  I also h/c her as a functioning alcoholic, so she’s always got SOMETHING to drink, but she is trying to work on restraint and control because when she was younger it got... Not Good at one point.  She also has a sweet tooth though, and she really likes chocolate!
(7) Fave way to waste time and feelings surrounding wasting time: Satine is a... twitchy.... individual with a stressful job, so she is kinda conditioned into stressing the heck out if she’s got too much free time.  Therefore, a lot of her free time is spent trying to relax.  Cleaning is theraputic for her, so she does clean (yes, there is a cleaning droid but it is nOT GOOD ENOUGH) when she can.  She likes that Mando sword box game we saw Sabine and Fenn Rau playing in Rebels, it clears her head and lets her practice problem solving.  She likes going for walks too.  She’ll sneak down to the kitchens and just make a bunch of sandwiches.  She does enjoy beautiful things, so I’d say shopping for dresses or browsing art galleries is good too.  I also think she’d be the type to read and write poetry, then save bits she likes.
(8) Indulgences: Look, Satine likes Nice Things, ok?  She does consider fancy wardrobe and buying nice paintings a bit of an indulgence, but she adores color so she excuses that as promoting happiness for the people. As so she does a fancy ship and other fancy trinkets around the house. She’s not a huge fan of most people touching her, but she allowed a massage once... she would be amendable to perhaps another in the future.........  Scented candles are nice too, clears the head.  She refuses to consider chocolate an indulgence because it is obviously the gods’ gift to humanity, excuse you.  Are we calling lusting over her secret forbidden boyfriend an indulgence????
(28) Who is their best friend?  Their worst enemy?  The sad thing about Satine Kryze is that canon wise, she is extremely lonely.  Literally everyone she trusts betrays her at some point-- which also makes worst enemy pretty hard too.  In my verse, this has led to her kind of shutting away from friends because people always leave her-- though I’d say she’s always been close with Padmé; she sent aid to Naboo after the Federation Blockade and got to know and became extremely impressed with the young Queen, and they kept in touch afterwards.  Whether they could be together or not, I’d always say Obi Wan was her best friend too because that’s ALWAYS necessary in a relationship, and they clearly stayed in contact and knew each other like the back of their hands.  I’d honestly say her worst enemy is herself, cliché as it is, because girlie makes a LOT of mistakes-- and then never learns from them or even acknowledges they exist besides an “oh whoops, that happened, we fixed it, everyone as you were”.  I get it wasn’t meant that way, but she legit committed ethnic cleansing against her political opponents.  I hate to say it, but there are very valid reasons for a lot of people to Not Like Her (none of the guys who attack her on the show count because they’re literally all douchecanoes fuck them), and she kind of shoots herself in the foot trying to fix the problem but making it worse.  I h/c her as having a lot of self-loathing problems because she is trying to fix things but nothing ever works and that must be her problem so she must try harder without ever confronting what exactly her problem is.
(31) Most prized possession: Woah, never really thought of that.  As much as I want to say “pressed flower from Obi Wan”, that’s a little too sappy.  I’m going to go with this.  There is a famous Mandalore version of The Art of War, and Satine has an uber-extremely-rare first edition copy given to her from her father, who was a master strategist and had the wealth and power to collect nice things like that.  Satine may be a pacifist, but she has her family’s warrior’s spirit, and she enjoys adapting the book’s battle strategies to her own political fights and how she shapes her own life.  It’s an actual old paper book, so she keeps it in a locked box under her bed and only ever reads it by candlelight with special gloves on to protect the pages.
(42) Hobbies: Like I said before, cleaning, writing poetry, the occasional cooking.  Oh!  Whenever she has Korkie over, she lets them pick the activity they do.  This may or may not lead to Duchess Satine Kryze of Mandalore getting very invested in Space Mario Kart.  She’s good at it too!  So yes, gamer girl, and she also likes looking at art and she’s also also pretty good at dancing and yoga, which she does a bit of both for exercise.  She also enjoys watching shows at the theater, but she’s weird in the way where she refuses to watch TV or movies because they’re “not as good”.
(47) If they were to fall in love, who or what is their ideal:  I’d say trust is the most important thing for her, given how many things go wrong in her life.  Someone she can trust to be herself around instead of The Duchess and can both support her when she’s falling but also call her on her bullshit (or try to, anyway) when needed.  Again, she likes nice things, so she tends to fall for super attractive people lol.  Another thing is, she likes to feel safe.  She goes for the protectors, those who fight for everyone and can come back and hold her tight in a hug if she feels like she’ll fall apart because she sometimes needs someone to protect her too.  They also have to be as smart as she is (only smarter if they’re not a dick about it) so she can have intellectual conversations (indignant yelling matches), and she needs someone who can match the firecracker she can tend to be, someone who can jump right in after her.  Not a weakling, basically xD
(48) How do they express love: She just says it (”I love you”), if they’ll let her.  If they don’t let her or she can’t for some reason (*coughOBIcoughcough*), she becomes frustrated because she isn’t always the best, emotion-wise, and she worries she’ll make the wrong gesture or do something to mess up, so frustration can build towards the other person so she can also be very snappy at them.  In general though, familial or romantic or platonic, it’s just lots of soft smiles that no one else sees, letting them see her in casual clothing, teasing them or telling jokes, trusting them enough to tell them about the confusion and stress inside her head.
OBI WAN
(7) Fave way to waste time and feelings surrounding wasting time:  Obi Wan is of the opinion that time enjoyed is never wasted, so he only views wasted time as exactly that: time that could be spent doing something but is instead being wasted not doing anything or doing something he doesn’t like.  His favorite things to do when he has time to himself are read (he’s not picky, he’ll read most things with an interesting plot, though he does enjoy a good mystery or historical nonfiction), watch trashy tv shows (he’s only watching them to judge how bad they are, it’s Anakin’s fault, really, he watched them first, and Obi Wan just needs to know what happens next--), sketch random objects (he’s a pretty good artist, and it’s relaxing), do research on stuff because he is a NERD, go bug Anakin and/or Ahsoka because he honestly delights just sitting in their company and hear them talk about their day, drink with friends, spar (with Anakin, preferably, he’s the most of a challenge because he knows him so well, and he’s the only one who doesn’t hold back at all), sit in the Temple gardens and check on Qui Gon’s favorite flowers he planted there and bask in the serenity of it all.
(8) Indulgences: Ooooohhhh this is hard because Obi Wan is so Obi Wan about that sort of stuff, it can be difficult to read what he would do xD  I’ll say he indulges in food?  That while Jedi probs have a pretty strict health food diet, on the weekends or once a weekday he indulges in getting nice stuff for breakfast, ice cream for dessert, fried food at Dex’s because why not, it tastes good and Anakin did a good job today or he did a good job today and that deserves something, so oh well, he’ll just work out harder tomorrow.  He’s also has some very nice old teas he saved from Qui Gon The Absolute Tea Snob he’ll have when he feels he needs it, and he’s got a cabinet with like four bottles of different really good, expensive alcohols that he’ll drink when he REALLY feels he needs it.  I’ll also say this, boi is vain about his hair.  Will never admit it in a million years, but he is, so he’s probs got at least some sort of haircare products that aren’t exactly necessary, ya know xD.  He also does like his creature comforts when available, so I’d say he’s got a couple super fluffy blankets and maybe the thread count in his sheets are a bit higher than average cuz hey, soft things are nice.  He also indulges in being lovey and mushy to the people he cares about 
(12) Favorite book genre: Hey, I kinda talked about that!  So yeah, I’d say he’ll probs try anything, but he likes mysteries and thrillers since with a book the Force can’t give you any Bad Feelings about anyone, so the surprises are genuine surprises.  He also likes historical nonfiction because he is a NERD, but he’ll absolutely pick up whatever’s at the top of the Galactic Times Bestseller’s List if it’s there and give it a chance
(14) Physical abnormalities (including injuries/disabilities, illnesses, allergies): His right hip acts up in the cold from an old slug wound there (Anakin does indeed tease him about being an old man), over half of his teeth are fake or replaced because come on, have y’all seen how often he’s been hit in the face?  Scars literally everywhere because everyone and everything has tried to murder him at some point or another.  I h/c him with ADD, depression, anxiety, and dyscalcula (he had to really work to be good with numbers) as well as PTSD because basically all of the Jedi do at some point (someone HELP THEM).  He also has TMJ, which I also have and I project my issues.  It gets worse when you’re stressed and grind teeth, so it’s valid.  Idk whether it’s canon or fanon that he has some food allergies, but I am ALL FOR IT with him just... forgetting about them???  And then eating some food and be like “hwoops I’m dying lol” while Anakin is like seriously Master again? and legit ends up the Mom friend with a list of foods like “is there gonna be this food in it?  Cuz he can’t eat it” and then he’ll eat it anyway cuz it looks good and Anakin is all “what do you have in your MOUTH” and he’ll be like “uh” and yeah, that sounds funny
(27) Biggest regret: WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS.  ok so we all know how literally everything about Obi Wan’s life is a mcfreaking nightmare.  We ALSO know he blames himself for literally everything.  So yea, he’s got a looooot of regrets.  I’d say his biggest though is not being a good enough Jedi (in his opinion) to save those he cared about (Qui, Satine, Anakin, Pads, the entire dang Jedi Order, etc.).  Maybe just not a good enough person, in his eyes.  If he hadn’t screwed up somehow, everyone would still be here and fine and omg someone help him
(31) Most prized possession: Luke Skywalker.  Ok, not actually, but y’all can’t deny Luke was Obi Wan’s greatest treasure.  I’d say actually tho it’s holos, of people he loves and cares about, in a kind of album he keeps to himself.  He hates having his own picture taken, but he loves seeing the smiling, laughing faces of everyone he knows (and is reminded of them when they’re no longer here).
(33) Concept of home and family: He always feels like other people overcomplicate this.  Home is where you feel safe to always return, where you belong, and family is those you love and wish to spend your life with.  Now, the fact that he only really allows himself to acknowledge the Jedi as a whole as his family and doesn’t exactly allow himself to dwell on specifics like what Anakin means exactly to him, what Ahsoka means, what Qui Gon meant, because he does love everyone as a family, why does he have to define it?  That’s a whole ‘nother basket of his issues lol
(47) If they were to fall in love, who or what is their ideal:  Obi Wan Kenobi has always been attracted to chaos and danger like a moth to a flame, so anyone he loves is gonna be a whirlwind of an individual.  He likes someone who can challenge him, who can test him.  He likes someone who’s loud and bright, the stars at the center of solar systems that everyone else can’t resist orbiting around and Obi Wan is no different.  He likes snappy humor and the amusement he can get from playfully bugging them into hissing at him.  They have to match him as a team, they have to be able to work with him (and he knows he’s not always the easiest to work with) and have his back.  He likes passion, he likes dramatics, he likes the kind of strange ones that other people find a bit hard to get along with, but he couldn’t love them any different from themselves.
(48) How do they express love:
PADMÉ
(4) What would they do if they needed to make dinner but the kitchen was busy:  Assuming the people in the kitchen were not making food, Padmé would fix them with a firm Senatorial Scolding Face and ask them politely if they could move it somewhere else.  She can easily outargue any protests;  the kitchen is for cooking and she needs to make dinner!  If ppl were making food in the kitchen, Pads would roll up her sleeves and ask what she could do to help so it would be done faster and she could get started.  She grew up with her mother insisting her and Sola help out with all the household chores, kitchen duty included, so she’s a fine cook.  Anakin learned to cook from his mother too, so sometimes their husband/wife bonding time will include just making dinner together and enjoying each others’ company.  In an OT4 situation with Obes and Satine, Obi Wan is the only one out of the four of them who Cannot Cook and is legit banished from the kitchen except for making drinks/certain desserts, so it ends up with Anakin, Padmé, and Satine all talking and laughing while preparing food while Obi Wan pouts sits in the doorway and talks from there
(6) Eating habits and sample daily menu:  Ok, so you know how I said Satine can sometimes get distracted by work and skip breakfast?  Well Padmé is like that but worse.  She gets so busy with duties, she just forgets to eat for very long periods of time, and then she’ll be doing something and be like “woah, I’m hungry, I don’t think I’ve eaten today,” and Sabé/Anakin/Bail/whoever she’s with will just be like padmé nO.  When she does eat, however, she is one of those crazy people who Does Not Like Sweets.  Like, at all, they just don’t agree with her.  Anakin is scandalized.  Satine is scandalized.  Everyone is.  She just doesn’t like them.  She’ll eat fruit, but that’s as sweet as it gets.  So when she does remember to eat, or if she’s going out for a dinner, it’s usually something pretty healthy-- though Pads will confess to a weakness for nice cheeses.  There’s also this one really greasy bad fried chip thing that she’s got a secret weakness for.  Padmé’s also not a huge alcohol person; like, she’ll drink when others do, she’s not a lightweight or anything, but she won’t seek it out herself, just, something about the taste, and she doesn’t like not being in control of her head.
(7) Fave way to waste time and feelings surrounding wasting time: Honey, Padmé is from Naboo.  The luxury planet.  They know how to lazily waste time in style.  She loves long baths and listening to classical music, walking in nature (she loves flowers), practicing new hair styles, facials and manicures.  She also reads the gossip columns (no she doesn’t, you never heard that) because she needs the tea.  She just do.  She likes to read and study new languages (because she is Queen Overachiever) or just add to her bucket list of Ways To Improve The Galaxy.  Padmé totally has a Space Pinterest.  In reality, she trained herself from a young age how to relax so being a teenager in planetary politics didn’t literally kill her.  
(12) Favorite book genre: ROMANCE!  It’s canon that Pads is just such an ushy, gushy romantic of a person, so she likes stuff like Space Jane Austen and all the other romantic books.  She refuses to associate with Anakin’s trashy dollar romances, she thinks they’re bad writing.  He does not agree.  He also called one of her faves boring once.  They do not discuss books.  But also Padmé likes political history and civilization books cuz politician, and she’s pretty into the mysteries like Obi Wan is.  She likes religious texts too, learning about different ones, she finds it interesting.  Reading can be hard for her because I h/c her as dyslexic, but she loves it too much.
(18) Favorite beverage: Spiced cider.  She could get it homemade back on Naboo; cool and refreshing when iced but warm and tangy and perfect when heated.
(19) What do they think about before falling asleep at night: If Anakin’s not with her, she always thinks about him not being there.  She can’t help it.  If he is with her, she thinks about how much she loves him.  She also tends to do a mental to do list every night of what she needed to do before bed and if she’s gonna allow herself to sleep now or not.  She also has another mental to do list so she knows what she’s gonna do when she wakes up in the morning.  With the damned war dragging on, more and more nights are spent going to bed troubled and worried for the future. She also daydreams, though, of what she can do after.  Her happily ever after.
(28) Who is their best friend?  Their worst enemy?:  This is hard because Pads is so friendly with everyone!!!  Queen’s Shadow really made me fall in love with Padmé and Sabé, but I’ll always be a sucker for the canon and fanon where Padmé’s best friend is Bail Organa.  I’m sorry, but Bail is just a cinnamon roll of a human being, and he’s such a calm, levelheaded friend for Pads where she can be a bit overeager and chomping at the bit sometimes, but he’s also ALWAYS got her back and she can talk to him about stuff and ahhhhh and he literally raises her daughter as his own and gahhhhhh.  Is it messed up if I almost want to say Padmé’s worst enemy is Anakin?  I mean to be more general: her worst enemy is the Sith, as they destroyed the Republic and her entire life’s work and corrupted her husband and depending on if you believe the “draining life forces” theory (which I do) they killed her.  But Anakin was the one who got past her defences, took her by surprise, and unknowingly ended up playing the most active role in her destruction, which is immensely tragic for both of them because all he ever wanted to do was love her (*crying*).
(33) Concept of home and family:  For Padmé, home isn’t so much a place, but an idea of where you can feel closest and most at one with those you’ve decided to share your life with.  Yeah, she’ll always love Naboo, but you saw how choked up she got in that TCW episode where Anakin called her Coruscant apartment “home”; for her, home is a state of mind.  Family is a bit different; she’ll always have a bit of an idealization towards her own parents’ marriage and how she’s seen Sola’s, and how families developed from that.  Canon shows she’s envious because she can’t have that, the 2.5 kids and a dog with a white picket fence outside and a large backyard mentality.  She has issues over being separated from family; she had to drop the Naberrie name to go into politics, so I’m guessing there’s some distance felt there, and she can’t even publicly acknowledge her own husband as her husband, so she’ll cling to the idea of a “perfect” family as a someday, as a maybe, and working towards that someday and the long goal she can forget just how complicated and messy her real family-- her parents and sister, her husband, her husband’s new adoptive sister, her husband’s boyfriend, his weird side of the family --is.  It’s even more pronounced when everything is falling apart in Revenge of the Sith and it’s obviously falling apart and Anakin is obviously Not Fine, she tries to retreat and take her comfort in “oh but when the baby comes and we can be a Family, things will all work out perfect!  It’ll be okay!!!”
(34) Thoughts on privacy (are they a private person, or are they prone to TMI):  Padmé is an extremely private person.  She’s been in the public spotlight since she was thirteen years old.  Everyone’s always staring at her, what she’s wearing, what her opinions are, how she acts, who she’s with.  Padmé has nearly nothing she doesn’t have to share with the public eye, so what she does have to herself she tends to hoard and not show anyone except for those she implicitly trusts.  Now, whether she’s any good at keeping secrets is a whole other story, but she certainly tries!!! xD
(39) What recharges them when they’re feeling drained: Anakin can make things better or worse for her depending on the mood he’s in and the mood she’s in, but he usually makes her feel better just by showing up and being a dork.  She likes her greasy chip snacks and a good book, but she’s a sucker for a good spa day complete with fluffy, comfortable clothing.  Also, Padmé loves cat naps, and is the queen of setting an alarm and taking short power naps that actually have her waking up refreshed.
(42) Hobbies:  Is creating new outfit designs via Space Pinterest a hobby?  Because Padmé does that.  Padmé is also the type of person to have a Space Candy Crush problem, and I completely believe that Satine got her into Space Mario Kart (Satine’s actually pretty good at it and Pads isn’t good at it at all, so it’s in no way fair, but they have fun xD).  Padmé loves creating flower arrangements too, just creating beautiful things makes her happy.  She loves calling one of her handmaidens over and having martial arts practices because she needs to stay ready to defend herself, but also it’s just fun and she’s a good fighter.  Padmé’s also into scrapbooking, she makes a bunch of adorable books she puts together, and she gave one to Anakin on their first anniversary and he cried (she hides them, don’t worry).  
AHHHNAKIN...
(10) Neuroses:  Hooo boy, there’s a lot!  Okay, so Anakin is a very handsy person.  When he’s nervous or uncomfortable or stressed, he’ll always need something to do with his hands, whether that be fiddling with his clothes, tugging at his hair, messing with the digits on his mechanohand, poking at the wall patterns or other objects.  In general, he hates sitting still and has a tendency to fidget if he has to for too long.  He will also either stare you directly in the eye or dislike making eye contact at all, depending on his mood.  Fiddling with machine parts gives him something to focus his mind and his hands on, so that’s a real big help for him if they’re available, often times he just keeps scraps in his pockets for specifically this purpose.  He’s sort of aware he does this, but he doesn’t like to think about it much because that would mean thinking why, and if you try and point any of them out to him he’ll get embarrassed and probs just snap at you.
(12) Favorite book genre:  Anakin really isn’t much of a book person.  It has to do with his focus issues (I h/c him as ADHD), they just aren’t really able to draw him in enough to keep his attention.  It frustrates him because that’s another reason why ppl imply he isn’t smart, which is dumb, he can read just fine, he just doesn’t like to.  He does like the trashy penny romances I mentioned before.  What can he say?  He’s a sucker for the drama and swooning and Epic Proclamations of Love.  He’ll read books about the latest ships and speeder models too, because he’s interested in that.  He’ll also read tactical strategy books too, because of the war and all.  It’s just not his go-to form of entertainment.
(14) Physical abnormalities (including injuries/disabilities, illnesses, allergies):  Metal hand.  Eye scar.  At one point is one big giant asthmatic burn scar who’s like 80% robot.  But we’ll focus on Anakin as of now.  When he was a child, some brute in the market cracked him hard across the back with something heavy.  It damaged his spine, and Shmi was terrified for a while he’d never walk.  Thankfully, he recovered, but now his spine is funny as in it is super flexible.  Like backbends where it looks like he’s snapped in half, that flexible.  It gives him fantastic advantages in acrobatics and combat, but it also means he can do that creepy walk the girl from The Ring can do.  He has managed to successfully scare the living piss out of Obi Wan, Padmé, Ahsoka, Rex, and multiple others on different occasions by emerging from the shadows in the middle of the night doing the Ring walk.  No one was pleased.  Yoda thinks it’s hilarious though.  Anakin gets hit in the face just as much Obi Wan does, so he also only has like less than half of his real teeth still in his mouth.  Is also covered in various scars from people trying to kill him dead.  In total, I project many mental illnesses onto him, so I say he has anxiety, ADHD, BPD, and PTSD.  His super strongness in the Force means he is a complete lightweight, so alcohol is an uh oh for him; the only positive is that he never gets hangovers.  It also means that Force sensitive objects may suddenly go flying at his head when he’s just trying to casually stroll through a creepy old temple.  I also h/c that Anakin is allergic to tookas/lothcats.  No other animals, just them.  And it’s hilarious when on one occasion some kittens made their way into a briefing room and he just bursts into a sneezing fit, which, why are you all laughing at me? and then Rex points out the little kitten just perched on the top of his head.  Poor baby actually does chafe pretty badly from sand too, so his hatred isn’t completely unwarranted.
(18) Favorite beverage: Coffee with a gazillion lumps of sugar in it, protein powder because he’s all about the grind, a hint of space chili pepper, and like a dozen other ingredients that should Not Go In Coffee (one of the ingredients Is Bugs).  Obi Wan claims he tasted the concoction once and had hallucinations.  Ahsoka says she saw a drop melt the edge of the tabletop.  Padmé won’t go anywhere near it.  Anakin says they’re all cowards; it’s the only thing that can get him up and focused in the morning.
(20) Childhood illnesses?  Any interesting stories behind them?: I h/c that amongst the slaves, Shmi was the local medicine woman.  Therefore, Anakin as a child was constantly getting first exposure to all the local sicknesses and building up immunity, so besides one bout of food poisoning, he never got sick as a kid.  Once he got to the Temple... well, he was past the age where all the other kids had gotten vaccinations, Obi Wan, bless him, hates dealing with medical and was distracted by everything else and kind of forgot to make sure Anakin was up to date with everything, so he caught EVERYTHING.  EVERY LITTLE THING WOULD MAKE HIM SICK.  HE HATED IT.  OBI WAN HATED IT BECAUSE THE ONLY SICK PATIENT WORSE THAN ANAKIN IS HIMSELF.  IT NEVER ENDS.  ANAKIN IS TWENTY TWO YEARS OLD AND STILL CATCHING SHIT LIKE THE SPACE CHICKEN POX.  THIS ISN’T FAIR.
(22) Given a blank piece of paper, a pencil, and nothing to do, what would happen?: Lots of writings of stuff like “Padmé Skywalker” or “Anakin Kenobi” cuz Ani is at heart a 12 year old girl.  Ok ok ok, but actually, there would be lots of different stuff on the page.  Mathematical calculations for ships and designs because he is a canon engineering nerd and I h/c he’s a whiz at math.  Also little doodles.  Anakin’s not a bad artist himself; his style is much more cartoonish than Obi Wan’s, but it means he can do cool little actions scenes of different ships or pods, him being a badass, Yoda getting attacked by space seagulls, etc.  Maybe designs for another japoor carving (I h/c he keeps the hobby).  Or, the page might be folded up as Anakin turned it into either a boat or a hat or an airplane that actually flies, or just a ball of paper he set on fire because he was bored.
(28) Who is their best friend?  Their worst enemy?:  OBI WAN KENOBI FOR BOTH OF THEM DAMMIT ANAKIN WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS.  Alright, alright, in reality, his worst enemy is probably more of a combination of himself and his own fears, Sidious for being an evil, manipulative asshole, and society for creating his fears and traumatizing him (though mostly it’s himself because he absolutely had the choice to do the right thing, but he didn’t).  Obi Wan is absolutely his best friend though.  No competition.
(29) Reaction to extrapersonal disaster (eg Oh no, the house is on fire!  What do we do?): For Anakin “I burned down the Republic because you left for an afternoon and I panicked” Skywalker?  “Ok, no problem, I got this.  I’ve got this.  No, wait, I don’t got this.  I defiNITELY DO NOT GOT THIS, I MADE IT WORSE, HOLY SHIT, NO ONE PANIC, I NEED AN ADULT-- (Ahsoka: You are an adult) --I NEED AN ADULTIER ADULT.”
(31) Most prized possession: His loved ones ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  And we’ve got at least six movies and a tv show telling us exactly how that did Not Go Well For Anyone
(33) Concept of home and family: Hmmm.  I’d say where he feels safe and comfortable.  Again, it’s stated in the show he feels at home at Padmé’s, but honestly?  He refuses to acknowledge Tatooine cuz ya know, the slavery, so he never really had a strong childhood home, and while I want to say he considered the Temple home at one point, , I’m not sure he does because I feel he’s always on red alert for things to get worse so he never really lets himself get comfortable anywhere-- not even Padmé’s.  Family is a bit easier for him; a group of people who love each other-- and for Anakin, it doesn’t have to be blood relations but if you ARE related by blood, you’re a family member by default and he will be Very Offended by blood relations who cut away from their families because he feels if you’re connected like that, you should love each other.
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the-desolated-quill · 5 years
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Sonic Movie Does A U-Turn - Quill’s Scribbles
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Okay, so I’m actually writing a whole other Scribble about the Sonic the Hedgehog movie and about live action/CGI hybrid movies in general, which I’m hoping to have finished by tomorrow, but some news has come out and I know for a fact people are going to use it as a stick to try and beat me with even though it’s completely irrelevant to what I have to say, so I’m going to talk about it now.
So live action Sonic the Hedgehog is hideous. That’s pretty much an objective fact. He looks like something that came out of Andy Serkis’ arse after he ate the mo-cap dots and gave himself a stomach bug. Well apparently the fan and critical backlash has been so extreme that the director Jeff Fowler has gone on Twitter and vowed to change the design.
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Now this isn’t the first time a movie was changed in post production in response to audience feedback. After the critical failure of Batman V Superman, Warner Bros and DC hired an editing team that usually does movie trailers to recut the film Suicide Squad to make it more like Marvel, which of course resulted in the misogynistic technicolor shitshow we ended up with. (In other words, it’s exactly like a Marvel movie. OOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH!!!! I’M SO EDGY!). But Sonic feels significant because of the amount of backlash and the sheer size of the change the filmmakers are now having to implement. We’re not talking editing scenes or doing CGI touch ups. We’re talking a full remodelling of a very prominent CGI character. That’s going to take quite a bit of money and overtime to complete before the November release date.
So this is good news I guess. We’re getting a live action Sonic that’s closer to the iconic design from the games. That’s all well and good... but only if it’s worth the extra effort and let’s be brutally honest, it really doesn’t seem like it.
Sonic The Hedgehog Of The Opera is really just one problem in a sea of problems. You’ve all seen the trailer, right? Yes Sonic The Hedgehog Of Notre Dame is hideous, but what about all the other shit in the trailer? The unfunny jokes? The generic premise? The cringeworthy music choice? Jim Carrey being an obnoxious tool? A Sonic redesign isn’t going to change that. Those bits are still bad. Honestly I think this film is dead on arrival and it’s not really worth the effort fixing Sonic at this point. You only get to make one first impression and this was it. This is without a doubt one of the worst trailers I think I’ve ever seen and everyone involved in this movie, who worked on this movie or are even associated with this movie should be incredibly embarrassed by this. And that’s including Tim Miller. 
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Yeah! The director of Deadpool is the executive producer of this film! Not only that, he approved the design! In an interview with IGN, he said:
"It would be weird and it would feel like he was running around nude if he was some sort of otter-like thing. It was always, for us, fur, and we never considered anything different. It's part of what integrates him into the real world and makes him a real creature." 
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Tim... he’s wearing running shoes. I think the boat has sailed on the realism front, don’t you?
Apparently Sega and Sonic Team weren’t too happy with the design, particularly the eyes, and that’s really the main thing about all this that’s confusing me. How the fuck did this design get approved? Did no one on the production team or at the executive level say ‘hang on a minute, this looks a bit iffy’? Did no one at least question why they were making such a drastic change to such an iconic design? What about Sega? Why didn’t they put their foot down when they saw the initial design? It’s not like they’re powerless. They’re co-producing this thing. Guys... what the hell happened?
Now there’s a bit of a conspiracy theory going around suggesting that this is all a marketing ploy. That the trailer and Sonic design was deliberately shit in order to drum up publicity. I can see why people think that, but I very much doubt that’s the case. For one thing, it’s one hell of a gamble releasing a trailer that’s deliberately shit just to get people talking. Like I said, you only get to make one first impression. Even if and when they reveal the revamped look, they’re going to have a heck of a job winning people over again, especially those who weren’t really sold on this film to begin with. But also it doesn’t change the fact that the studios are going to have to spend time and money redesigning Sonic and implement the new design into already completed footage. There’s no way any studio would waste that much time and money on a concept they didn’t think was saleable. And that’s really the source of this whole conspiracy, isn’t it? People understandably can’t wrap their heads around the idea that the filmmakers legitimately thought that this design was good. It’s simply mind-boggling that anyone would approve such an obviously bad design, and yet wonders never cease.
So there’s a chance Sonic might actually look like Sonic in a few months time. That’s nice. But it doesn’t matter if the film isn’t good and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have my doubts. Based on that trailer, this looks set to be this generation’s Super Mario Bros movie, which is a shame because out of all the movie adaptations of video games we’ve had, Sonic is the one with the most potential to succeed. I think the premise would translate so well to the big screen. If only the film was being made by competent filmmakers.
Sigh. I don’t know. Fingers crossed, eh?
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