is knives closer to brad than luida? does she remind him of rem too much?
So much to say about this one and please re-ask it (or I'll rb it) further down the line when we know more!
I can say now that Knives hero worships Brad a bit while he's closer to actual friends with Luida. Which doesn't necessarily equal closeness either way. I think you can tell this already by how often Knives thinks about what Brad would do and what he would say if he was there. They have a very unique relationship that's probably my favorite in the fic, and it was hard to write so I hope it lands how I want it to land.
It's interesting writing a main character of Trigun who's not obsessed with Rem. Knives was more mature than Vash, and as happens frequently in families with a high needs kid like Vash he got a little promoted to part-time caregiver (he also promoted himself, to be fair), so he had a more mature relationship with Rem than Vash ever did. So he's not as obsessed with her pacifism, which means that Knives is pacifist for different reasons in a different way. In a. You know. 'Cold turkey' way.
I never got much chance to explore this, but Vash is absolutely still obsessed with Rem. I couldn't see any situation where Vash didn't do exactly what he thought Rem would want. Which severely affected me writing him because that means that he has to have a baseline level of Space Alien Scifi Insanity for that to be part of his mental schema for the world. Jonestowning a city and telling himself that Rem would want him to do that means that this baseline level has to be extremely high.
This fic was. Really tricky. So tricky. Very tricky. I'm proud of it but MAN you still have to wonder if you did what you wanted to do.
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I've made some good progress on my Batuu vest sewing project in the last couple of days since I posted about finishing the Jyn Erso sweatshirt project. Like I mentioned in that post, working on the sweatshirt helped me realize that I needed to add fabric to the front shoulder of the vest rather than removing it. Once I got the shoulder seam sitting where I wanted it, the bust seam fit perfectly and didn't require any adjustments at all, woot.
With that and a few other small changes made to the lining, I went ahead and transferred all the changes to the paper pattern (including actually taping on extra paper to the front shoulder section) and then cut out the exterior fabric out of scraps of that same blue linen I used for the lining/mock-up.
All the work I did on fitting the lining and adjusting the paper pattern made the whole thing come together quickly and easily. I still had to do a slash-and-spread technique to ease the bust panels together, but it was sort of ridiculously easy compared to how much I struggled with that seam with the lining before realizing that the problem was with the markings on the pattern itself.
So now I've got two layers of the vest all sewn together, exterior on the left and interior lining on the right:
When they're layered together, the raw edges are all sandwiched between the exterior and the lining. This linen already has a good amount of body on its own, but layered together it's nearly as rigid as the duck cloth I made my original vest for The Moment out of. Which honestly I'm glad to see, since the torso section will be so fitted once the zipper is in, and actually under a bit of tension.
Last night while I was trying to fall asleep, I realized that any pockets I want to have in this vest need to be put in before I attach the exterior to the lining, so that the stitch lines don't show through. I haven't decided yet if I want to have any pockets visible from the outside (flaps or otherwise), but I knew I definitely wanted to have hidden interior pockets that I can access when the zipper is zipped all the way up (to mid-bust or so). This morning I measured and cut two little square pockets that live in the overbust area of the lining, below my collarbone but above the largest part of the bust -- visible on the right in the pic below where one of the front panels is opened up to show the lining:
I sized both pockets to fit my in-character pilot's license such that the license would stick out just a tiny amount (making it easier to retrieve without digging around in a too-deep pocket). My pilot's license is just slightly bigger than my real-world ID, so the pockets would also work for carrying practical items like ID, credit card, roomkey, etc. The pic below shows the pilot's license on the left and my driver's license on the right, with the lining turned completely inside out so that both pockets can be seen.
The next step, which I'm hoping to get to tonight, will be ironing all the new seams I've sewn in the last few days -- the pockets, the new shoulder panels in the lining, and all the seams in the exterior. While I'm at it, I want to cut out and iron a couple of pocket flap mock-ups so that I can pin the flaps to the outside and see if I like the look, and if so where I want the pockets to be.
The Moment vest has a pair of zipper pockets set on a diagonal, based on the screen-used vest Billy Piper wore in the Doctor Who 50th anniversary episode. Originally my plan for my Batuu outfit was to wear that vest as is, and then I started thinking about covering up the zippers (to follow the No Visible Closures In Star Wars rule) and figured I would just hand-sew some flaps over those zipper pockets.
But now that I'm doing the vest as a completely new scratch-build, I have the option to do whatever I want with the pockets. Pockets are lovely, but I do have the two interior pockets, my brown leather bag, and my belt (potentially with pouches) to help carry stuff around -- and even if I did have pockets on the lower torso of this vest, I probably wouldn't put much in there anyway, since the whole thing is so fitted.
I know for certain that I don't want to do patch pockets that stand away from the body of the vest, like the ones on Han Solo's vest. Side seam pockets are also out, because I think the tension of the fit would pull on those weird. Which leaves various types of welt pockets, with or without a flap, carefully angled so that tension doesn't make them pull and gap.
A lot of the vests in Star Wars have visible pockets, often multiple visible pockets, but those vests also tend to hang open rather than closed and snugly fitted. One exception that I've been looking to for inspiration is Bix Caleen from the Andor show on Disney+. She has a longer coat that's fitted through the torso with princess seams, just like my vest, and while it has pockets they're much lower down, on the hips. She also has something more properly called a vest, worn over a long-sleeved shirt, that is similarly fitted with princess seams -- and again, no visible exterior pockets at all.
The more I look at pictures of Bix, the more I'm leaning away from doing any sort of external pocket at all, and just stick with the two small internal pockets. I might need to do some top stitching along the seams to give it some visual texture (another thing that Bix's coat and vest both have), but that could be a good way to secure the lining to the exterior, too. Hmm. Definitely something I'll have to think on.
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I would also LOVE to hear about the dynamic you have planned for Metal and Shadow in the Second Chance AU. Give me some headcanons if you'd like.
some of this was touched on with the previous ask because it kind of got away from me, but i'll keep this one more to the point and conversational--
metal definitely struggles to see this timeline-displaced shadow as not-the-one-he-originally-knew, but only in a responsibility kind of way. he knows they're two separate people, but he will still always default to "taking care" of this-shadow. he thinks of it somewhat as repaying the kindness that-shadow showed him in the events referencing rivals 2.
they are literally housemates. metal's new mechanic/caretaker lives in the same general area shadow eventually takes up residence. metal basically invited himself to "live" there too, and shadow just never questioned it. this mostly equates to metal occasionally sitting down in the den somewhere to defrag his systems.
metal communicates via sign language, but eventually allows his new caretaker to reactivate the voice box that was still left in him from his little IDW neo metal arc. speaking aloud is often a last resort, purely because sign language is more comfortable. the only exception is when he's communicating with shadow, in which case the default is using his voice, because shadow doesn't know sign language (yet).
i consider metal's voice to be Adrenaline Dubs's take on neo metal, so it's a big spooky scary voice that tends to catch people off guard when he does use it. he doesn't find this funny nor does he particularly have the foresight to warn people/care if it would startle them, even though it does all the time.
metal does not have the capacity for empathy, and is still figuring out how to logic his way around why people act/react the way they do, as he can't predict it. his method for "taking care" of shadow largely involves doing whatever's logical on a purely scientific level, whether that's ratting him out for self-isolating, or forcefully dragging him into his black shield when things get dicey.
both are travelers to an extent. shadow's focused on undergoing tests (some grueling and even downright painful) for the first few months after his revival, but eventually starts to branch out once the research is more out of his hands. metal, also given the ability to hop worlds, does whatever he damn well pleases, if for no other reason than to collect data. he's a walking library.
metal has a truly unfathomable amount of storage space for data, and only questionably-realistic methods for which to manage it. this is part of why he (eventually) chooses to travel-just-because; data collection is one of the very, very few things he has identified as Something He Likes To Do. every single world he visits and person he meets has a "profile" in his database.
if he's processing, metal's eyes glimmer not unlike the way they do in the OVA; if he's just thinking normally, they do not. since his storage space is so large and consequently demands longer processing times on occasion, this distinction was intentionally programmed in by his caretaker, so people know he's not just ignoring them.
shadow is tiny. i erroneously claimed he was 2'09" without his shoes earlier today. i was wrong. he is 2'10". (3ft exactly with them on.)
if you only count the time he was consciously awake, shadow is like… a year old, maybe just under two. metal is, at max, six, and that does include all the time he was out of commission/put into stasis. both are childish in their own ways. both are also incredibly responsible. (usually.) shadow's relationship and understanding of his own age is complicated. his trying to be "mature" is more often than not a façade. there are days he allows himself to be more childish, and that usually amounts to being more emotionally open/needy. metal is similar, but more rarely, and it usually amounts to him demanding company; he is not subtle about his needs, when he can identify they are in fact needs.
shadow has a full set of chaos emeralds, which he keeps stashed away in a bag-of-holding type thing. these are emergency-use only, as the full array of his powers still rely on them. these were acquired through questionable means after he got his shit kicked in by a giant poison plant-thing and realized he is in desperate need of his usual arsenal. he has never (and probably never will) go super; the max he's used at once is 2. he likes the green and light blue ones the most.
sonic is eventually made aware of metal's absence and why. he doesn't find the whole multiverse thing unusual, just based on the game canon alone, and accepts it. if anything, he's relieved metal has finally found his freedom.
Mr. Tinker, and a whole bunch of other ex-badniks, will eventually be involved. "second chances" is the running theme for the entire cast, so a lot of it revolves around these guys getting their lives reframed in a more safe and freeing environment they wouldn't otherwise be allowed if eggman/the weight of their original timelines were still holding them down. (metal in particular will have some extremely complicated feelings about Mr. Tinker (and sage)'s return.)
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