#shoutout to the only warriors line that has stuck with me for YEARS | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

raymondshields · 4 years

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1, 4, 5, 6, 11, 15, 21, 22, 23 for the writers ask?

1. Tell us about your current project(s) – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

Currently, I’m working on a fic titled A Monstrous Manifesto, which is a fic entirely inspired by Cat Valente’s poem of the same name. Every line is a chapter, every noun is a part of that chapter, and every single beast named corresponds to a Spectre, allowing me to dig directly into their heads and demonstrate their full psychology.

Progress stopped unfortunately back in July on part four - a fiend, which I picked Deadly Beetle Stand for, because I just couldn’t get into his head. Kiril played soundboard for it and I’ve been humming and hawing over him trying to figure it out, but let’s be real it’s gonna come to me in a dream.

Because see here, most folks who’ve read my works, if told to point to my best, it’ll either be a) my breakthrough with Armour Adventures (which tbh if I redid I’d do better on), b) In Kismet Marcescence (which I need to sit down and plot out properly before I continue), or c) rather unexpectedly to me, Green Grows The Asphodel. Guess everyone likes that soft MiAlba where Alba gets his bastardization arc, but also I let him speedrun it in Broken Shine The Stars and people seem to like that one too, so.

The thing is with AMM is that this would be my greatest work. Like AA, it’s gen, but here’s the one advantage I’ve realized I actually have over pretty much everyone else in this fandom: I am myself a monster, fictionkind and all. I’m a Devil and a feral little beast, which means when you offer me Spectres - warriors of the dark and death who are all based around animal motifs - I take one look and go “oh! You’re like me!” and proceed to write them as actual monsters while having some unspoken and long-winded conversation about what it means to be human, what it means to be shunned, and what it means to belong among the broken.

It means that I write Spectres wildly different than anyone who isn’t Kiril (who is on the same wavelength as me and we argue back and forth about the inner details of everyone’s monstrosity), which means when I do it, nobody’s seen this shit before and apparently people seem to think it’s cool. So AMM is the very epitome of that style, of that psychological and philosophical discussion. I don’t really have a background of research in either of those things, so any similarities to works or theories already out there is entirely coincidence. Cat Valente’s poem was the first stepping stone I ever took to accepting myself for who - and what - I am. I owe as much of my identity and confidence to her as I do Zamorakian philosophy, which built my personality and is a major part of how I survived the middle school era of my life. The least I can do in return is offer the best of me out into the world.

4. Share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like)

“Somewhere deep below conscious thought, below his training and the life and this Lemurian body, buried under lifetimes of war, buried under the idea that a Spectre was a fighter, his blood remembered how to love the memory of the fallen.” - Beneath Blood Ties

BBT is one of my most unappreciated fics, which makes sense as it’s set almost two thousand years prior to Classic, starring a fourteen-year-old Lemurian Minos and the Saint who raised him, Aries Kirien, whose name is probably still spelled Kiriel at least once in the fic because no beta we die like Gold Saints.

The original inspiration comes from Seanan McGuire’s Once Broken Faith, and the line in question is Toby reading the Luidaeg’s blood memories after the latter told a young Karen that she couldn’t speak Faerie even in her dreams - she speaks it in her blood memories, and Toby notes that her blood remembers.

It stuck with me, though I’ve read OBF approximately a million times. It, along with A Killing Frost and An Artificial Night, are my three top Toby books. And it responded to me as someone who’s fictionkind: I couldn’t speak the language I spoke as a Devil in my dreams, or in the waking world, but I know some part of me remembers it. Would know how. The Chaorruption filters all of that into English because it thinks it’s helping, but if I were a magical creature right now, in this world, I’m pretty sure my blood would remember.

So I wrote about Minos, and the sorrow he carried. The premise of BBT is that a Pope realized some Spectres come back, went around before they became Spectres, and kidnapped the lot of them to train as Saints, leaving them all traumatized as fuck, unsure of who they were or who they followed, and messed up for lifetimes. I also wanted to show more that Spectres were more than what the Holy Wars made of them, and about digging through that exotrauma to remember that they could be kind.

Spectres, originally, would make sense as really just Hades’ servants and the ones who keep the Meikai running. Pretty sure that means they know every single death rite that’s existed in the past three millennia. Pretty sure they know how to be respectful of the dead. Pretty damn sure that below all that soldiering and war, they’re all really exhausted librarians who want to do their job and also dig graves.

But I like this sentence here best, because that’s pretty much the climax of the plot here: that there is, in fact, something underneath all his exotrauma, all the current trauma he’s been dealing with. That below all of that bitterness and war, he’s a better person than what Athena made of him.

Idk, I just think it’s neat and no I’m not projecting being ‘kin on him again. /j

5. What character that you’re writing do you most identify with?

Albafica, to nobody’s surprise. I mean, come on. A guy with a fuckton of traditionally-feminine beauty whose looks keep getting brought up, is very introverted, has seen some shit, just wants to kill people who hurt what he cares about while also not hurting the people he does care about, really wants you to keep your damn distance, is super touchstarved, and holding onto his humanity with his fingertips? Come on the only things he’s got that I don’t is an actual male reproductive system and naturally blue hair.

Once you realize that especially in TLC Athena’s actions are pretty damn horrific, especially to her Saints, Albafica has the perfect setup to become a Spectre. Seriously, if he’d been offered Luco’s deal but while holding a dying Lugonis, do you really think he wouldn’t have taken it? I explore that more in Broken Shine The Stars, but like. Albafica is the perfect fallen angel of a character. He has genuinely good intentions. He’s hurting so damn bad and only fucking once in his entire onscreen performance is that acknowledged (shoutout to Luco for that one), and if you take his sorrow and let him turn it into anger, he’s a glorious monster indeed. Albafica’s descend into monstrosity and Spectrehood is exactly what would happen if I got angry and also hadn’t been fucking nerfed physically.

I love him way too much.

6. What character do you have the most fun writing?

Surprisingly, Aiacos. Alba’s hard as fuck to write. Aiacos, though. You’ve heard me go off about Aiacos at length, but like. He’s the very embodiment of the worst person you can become while still loving, still surviving. Aiacos is the type of person we’re all capable of becoming, and we all should be terrified of becoming, because every single choice he’s ever made is completely understandable and that much more horrific for it.

It’s somewhat unsurprisingly easy to get into his head. He’s fun to write because he scares me. Because if I let him do all the dumb, selfish, sadistic-looking, survival-focused things, then I don’t have to worry about doing it myself. I let him look out for only himself when the pieces are down, so I can do better.

Also I haven’t seen anyone else write him that way (Kiril being the obvious exception here), so it’s double the fun because new territory.

11. What do you envy in other writers?

Hey. Hey you fuckers who can plot shit. Give me the number of the demon you sold your soul to. Let me PLOT SHIT.

15. Which is harder: titles or summaries (or tags)?

Summaries! Titles are easy, I steal them from songs and Toby books. They’re just fancy wordplay and I have literally a list on my fic spreadsheet of titles I want to use. Summaries, though, are very important. People don’t pick fics based on title and tags, they pick based on summary. They’re your hook into the work, so you’ve got to give the audience your premise short and sweet and actually sounding appealing.

Sometimes I can write them no problemo. Other times, they’re a fucking nightmare. I try to imply the tone of the ending in my summary, because I have absolutely been blindsided by the ending in a way I really didn’t like because I thought the summary was hiding the ending. (Example - there was this one fic that made it sound like my OTP was going enemies to lovers, and it wasn’t, it wasn’t, it needed the fucking dead dove do not eat tag, stopped just short of serious nonsexual noncon (which wasn’t tagged at all), and ended very unhappily and it messed me up for days, I did not like it.)

So for my summaries I set the scene, set the tone, and imply the tone of the ending so you have a vague idea of where it’s going. Easier said than done.

21. What other medium do you think your story would work well as? (film, webcomic, animated series?)

Anime, probably! Manga wouldn’t lend itself too well to my style, but I’d enjoy short anime episodes, I think. I honestly don’t know. Someone tell me what my stuff would work good as. I dunno.

22. Do you reread your old works? How do you feel about them?

For fic, all the time! I write what I want to read, and since six out of seven of the Dohko/Kagaho works on AO3 were my fault, I’d better get used to reading my own writing for pleasure. Fortunately, I like most of my writing recently, so that’s pretty all right!

Don’t ask about what I had up on ff.net. Don’t. It’s old and bad and I didn’t know how to write.

23. What’s the story idea you’ve had in your head for the longest?

Hmmm... I want to rephrase this better as ‘what fic exists only as a concept and has done so for the longest out of all the concepts of fics currently in my head’, and hmmmm. Honestly, it’s either Shion and Aiacos’ romance fic where they also get a daughter (which has a title actually, The Lost Sea Fantasia, but still hasn’t been written); or it’s Wyvern Rose and the Trials of Lightning, which is about 15th century Rhada’s two daughters, the elder of which is surprise-given his surplice and his job when he dies right before Hades does, and the younger of which is kidnapped by a spiteful goddess who doesn’t like the elder of the two.

ToL is a fic that I have somewhat plotted out, but really needs a lot of work. I’m not really sure how to go about writing it, because whenever I sit down to sketch it out, it never comes to me. It does, however, lend itself well as a bedtime / campfire story that Albafica tells Regulus while they’re out on a mission together, as part of Alba sneakily teaching Regu how to be a Spectre without anyone knowing. It’ll stay a concept for a long while until Rose crashes into my headspace and actually fucking tells me more about herself other than “oh yeah btw I’m fucking Julia” like thanks, already knew that from Julia herself, tell me more about you you awful little Judge of a dragon princess.

[ask game here!]

#asks #saint seiya #dorksmithery #thank you!!#i'm gonna go answer the other one now #but ofc send me more if yall want!

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titleknown · 5 years

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Three Spooky Fictional Knockoff Toylines!

That’s right, as the big writing piece for this spooky time of year, it’s three spooky toylines ripping off bigger properties in a way that do not exist.

These are all public domain/CC0, free to use for whatever you see fit, though crediting me and linking to my Patreon or Ko-Fi would be nice.

Shoutout to @genustoys, @phelous and @therobotmonster for heavily inspiring these with their work!

Now, LET US BEGIN!

Monsterlords of the Nether Realms- This line is an odd duck in that it was a knockoff of a toyline that wasn't all that popular. Namely, Inhumanoids.

It was seemingly designed to be cross-compatible with the large monsters of that line, yet in all irony it stuck around seemingly far longer, likely due to the lower price points it was was able to get away with due to being a “non-branded” product and the cross-compatibility of play pattern with the larger figures.

And they were shockingly lavish for what was seemingly a “low rent” property, which has lead to suspicions of it and its related properties being a money-laundering scheme, or at least cover for something unsavory, though others say it could simply be good craftsmanship and the evidence in favor of and against such is perhaps a story for another day.

There were five of them that ended up bumping around store shelves, give or take a few “extras,” which we will cover as they come.

The first piece; likely intended as the “mascot” due to its prescence in promotional artwork is the one known as MOLINTHA, or “ANTHILL EVIL” on certain variants, a large figure encased in a roughly mountain shaped “shell” when curled in a specific position; with an ominous “maw” that turned into a torso when the figure was uncurled.

The mountain pieces themselves (Which were free-standing on their own) provided a large amount of play value with platforms seemingly shaped for various 3&¾-inch figures, but the body itself was a gorgeous design, with the “scaffolding” where the mountain clicked on turning into a series of platforms for figures to climb and clamber over,

The articulation was low, but the sculpting was pleasantly gnarly, resembling some dark ancient castle covered in mystic carving given humanoid form, without an articulated head but instead a snarling “maw” in which figures could be placed inside. Though, there has been some speculation that this head was ripped off a similar design from the front of the classic D&D Dungeon Master's Guide, and I would be lying if I did not see the resemblance.

As expected, it did not come with any figures, but did come with a large assortment of commonly-circulated plastic “bugs” molded in a clear rubbery plastic; along with a few of the notorous “Chinasaurs” that ended up as the basis for D&D monsters bizarrely enough.

The second known most commonly as “LEVIATHOIN” was a piece that had a similar yet wildly different gimmick. The main “body” was actually simply an inanimate idol, which one might say resembles a very specific image of Baphomet, but the smaller figures were of real interest.

Four five-inch ones, bearing an odd resemblance to a scaled-down Molhilintta minus the scaffolding and with a few odd tweaks, with a similar simple articulation scheme, but also a feature in which the arms and legs could “click” together tightly, which leads to the real draw of such.

Each figure attached to a socket in the main “idol” and functioned as a crude combiner., forming a huge “creature”. Each figure could function as n arm or a leg on either side, and the color variants (Including a few alledged remolds of these torsoes) could be their own article in and of themselves.

The third known as MECHA-SHAG was an extremely simple design and yet also one of the most bizarre of them all. It was a hairy “core” akin to the Masters of the Universe Grizzlor, but with a strange robotic face; limbs and at least a dozen missile launchers. They were Micronauts-styled “safety” missiles, but still fascinatingly odd all the same. There is evidence for the pieces origin as a possible Shogun Warriors/Jumbo Machinder knockoff, but again that is a detail for another day.

The fourth one was known as RUCIBEDO, and was unusual even for this line. It was a stylized kaiju-esque “pterodactyl” with a flapping action; its oddly “bio-mechanical” look seemingly giving credence to the idea that the enigmatic company behind the linwas making a Shogun Warriors knockoff-series before they decided to switch gears, but those are not the only notable parts.

The most blatant one is the fact that it is sculpted in a bright red; translucnet plastic, and not only that but had electric lights wired to the flapping mechanism in some bizarrely spacious “alcoves” in the back (Possibly for aborted missile-firing features), creating an immensely striking effect. Albeit one that had a tendency to break; though there are repair guides out there.

And the fifth PLUCHUN is an odd duck, because it should by all accounts be considered kind of a “ripoff” due to using far less material for the same price point as the others, but is often the most fondly remembered.

It is a small torso seemingly made of organic “pipes with a “hatch” on the head and a button slightly below. It also came with a small container of “slime” indicating its function. Namely, put it in the back of the head; press the button repeatedly; and the slime drips out of the holes in the creature, with a pumping rubber “heart” completing the effect. Weirdly; while the rubber on most of these has rotted off, there appears to be a fully sculpted (Albeit much cruder) “heart” that still moved in and out when the button was pressed.

The whole thing was capped off by immensely long rubbery bendy-limbs in the same style as the “main body's” pipes. These tended to be very fragile, and while memorable, this has the fewest surviving specimens out of them all.

As said before, there are other specimens that may be covered at a later date; such as the odd hand-puppet and the bizarrely remolded Imperial Dinosaurs linked to the line and the smaller-range figures, but this is running a bit long, so I'll leave it here for now.

Nightmare Gores- Relating to the preponderance of He-Man knockoff figure lines in the 80s, and the popularity of slasher films, it was only a matter of time that the two would be combined, in ways only possible without mass-fundie-protest at least) in small lines like this.

In striking red-and-black packaging with crude art of a horde of ghoulish monsters rseemingly ripping out of the card back, with the bizarrely memorable phrase of “WE WILL KILL YOU” coming out of a word balloon, there's relatively few things like it.

It used a standard barbarian body whose origins predated the line; but from where they predated was a matter of debate (Though it is known that it most certainly was original to that company and not a He-Man or Galaxy Hole bootleg(), all the same across the line with differing headsculpts.

The headsculpts did have consistent names, and one could tell their inspirations relatively well. Joe was obviously a Freddy Kreuger without the hat, the hockey-masked Rod was obviously Jason Voorhees, Mike was very obviously a riff on Michael Jackson's Thriller Werecat (Corroborated with the usual non-caucasian color of his body sculpt) and Gross was blatantly the Toxic Avenger. Mush was a generalized “melting” face, but could be said to be taken from Cropsey of The Burning; and Hexen's gas mask was likely inspired by My Bloody Valentine's main antagonist; albeit with bizarrely added devil horns.

Then there are the oddballs. Clash is a fan-favorite alongsid Hexen due to his pure black-plastic body and strange hood in striking red with a black void for a front and two piercing red pupils, but I like Frank a lot if only for being a big ridiculous Frankenstein head repurposed for this, as was what I would call the “Baltard” of this line Stall-9 with his slighly crossed eyes and almost comical grin negating whatever intimidation factory they might have. Redd caps off the line with the strange combination of bull and horse head designs obviously repurposed from the barbarian toyline this comes from in a way that still sorta works.

Their pack in accessories vary across production, but there are some commonalities. Mike; Rod; Hexen and Clash almost always came with cool red vinyl “jackets” and Tedd and Frank almost always came with bizzarrely realistic handguns molded in bright orange. And Stal-9; Mush and Clash came with a “chainsaw: very clearly remolded from a gun.

The rest were a mushmash of machetes and hammers, and knives; axes and clubs that were clearly re-utilized from the original line. There are other “relatives” like the Killer Beasts and the Murder Lady, but we'll leave it here for now.

ShineFriendz- One of the many Tamagochi-come-latelies in the 90s, this line tried valiantly to differentiate itself from the usual Tamagochi clones by giving itself a backlite, far more extensive interaction within the limits of its mono-colored pixel art and a link function for “playtimes,” All in a model approximately the size of a modern day smartphone, and to be supported with early web tie-ins in lieu of an expensive animated series.

Of course, the fact that it was its parent company's first venture into such things; a battery company to be exact (Hence why they felt so secure in being battery-eaters), there was very little oversight into the programming. And, due to a series of circumstances too stupid to mention, the devices had far more memory than they anticipated, and far more than they would need for the device's intended functions.

And, what happens when you have bored programmers and lots of time, you get easter eggs. Lots and lots of unsettling easter eggs. To the point where they took up approximately as much space as the “main” games.

So, they were immensely easy to run into during play, but they went unnoticed by corporate during the first three iterations of the pets. The most notorious of them was the possible evolution called only BREATHING which looked like an emaciated and decrepit eyeless version of the brand's canid mascot-species the Buroof that was continually doing what its name implied and had a legion of ominous quirks too long to list here.

Despite rumors, surprisingly none of the glitches involved causing death or injury to any of the pets. Though, that still didn't make them any less fucked up, with such examples as a “pet” known as BRILT that took the form of continual flame graphic that at times would flicker to the outline of another; random pet, to the weird “bird” known as CAUSE whose pleasure meter would go up if you hit the scold button,

There's a full list of “AnomalyFriendz” (the usual fan nickname0 that's too long to list here, but it wasn't limited to them, with such things as a “Game” that involved running from what looked like a crude pair of jaws to a “food” that looked like a wad with what was unmistakably eyes. And the web fiction didn't help, given how the actual text stories were dark , reading more like if Clive Barker wrote Watership Down with it just being barely within what was “appropriate” for kids, with increasingly less subtle allusions to the “AnomalyFriendz”

The minority of parental complaints weren't what got the execs notice however, it was actually the fans of the property, young girls who wrote in asking about those glitches. Not even in disapproving tones either, just asking whether they were intentional, or even asking if playground rumors (Or the rumors circulating across the website's own forums) were true.

This lead to them trying to integrate the macabre bits into the actual marketing for the toys, with the fourth iteration “FreakyFriendz,” with a cleverly altered shell with an ominously warped corner and more integration of the “anomalous” and “regular” Friends. And that is what sunk the line.

Because, parents actually noticed and; since this was the 90s; they bitched up a storm, leading to most of them being removed from shelves. Which is a shame, because enthusiasts say these were the best models yet.

The company left the business shortly thereafter, but there remains a small cult fandom to this day; complete with officially sanctioned web-iterations and even a few (sadly stillborn) attempts at full on revivals. But, maybe someday...

#action figures #toys #fictional toys #public domain #horror #things that need to exist #things that don't exist #macabre #weird #bootlegs #knockoffs

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