#maybe one day I'll be able to make a bigger version

[arttsuka]

Look at what I made

From this drawing

[98chao]

Sonic Prime thing

so basically after i watched Sonic Prime S3 (on the day it came out) i was left pretty unsatisfied with the weird storytelling, plot holes and loose ends and decided to start brainstorming a re-imagining for it and drew some designs...

so this is gonna be long but i wanna preface this by saying i'm not a writer or even that good at character design 😭!!!! and also the majority of this is like from almost 2 months ago and it's very incomplete so i haven't done much thought on it i just had some ideas and ran with it Tbh. so if stuff doesn't make much sense Lmk bc a multiverse story is a very big thing to tackle, you really have to pay attention to the little stuff for everything to be complete.

also i like stuff with darker themes so if a lot of this is like "a Sonic show wouldn't do that" well. Yeah. this isn't a pitch to SEGA it's just my own thing LOL

(also also we're just gonna throw out the whole "Prime is canon to the games" here, i use the games as a basis but i wouldn't say this is in the realms of canon for multiple reasons)

~ The Main Stuff ~

so pretty much i went into this mostly thinking about changing the shatterverses while still keeping the base ideas that Prime had, and also a bit about how the shatterverse works in the first place. so i have some bullet points that i wrote down. i haven't watched s1&2 in a long time so i don't remember too much of the lore they already established, so if some of this is just reiterating what they said in the show then that's my bad

i wasn't exactly sure how it made sense that a single rock in some random cave conveniently in green hills had control of the entire universe so i want the explanation for why breaking the prism had this kind of effect to be something else (or to just change the prism to be something different) but i'm not sure exactly what. definitely not like "it was an illusion like the phantom ruby" or some stupid shit but it felt off that something completely world (universe) ending was so easily accessible. anyway.

Sonic explicitly doesn't exist in each alternate universe because he was the one who broke the prism. Sonic being the final piece that brings the universe together should probably have bigger lore implications as well

i think this is already what's in canon but Shadow used chaos control as the prism got shattered, causing himself to get fragmented across time and space as well.

unlike in the show, Shadow still has alternate versions of himself in each of the universes, but he has to kinda do an EEAAO and swap into their consciousness for him to be able to enter their respective universes (which takes a lot of energy bc its literally dimension travel so he can't do it a lot). his actual body is stuck in the void which means its at risk of erosion and also any hazard in the void like asteroids n stuff. it also explains why he's greatly weakened in the show (because his ass should not have been handed to him that easily in s3) cuz bits of his . being. is split across each universe, and can only be completed by the prism.

the void decays life which adds a higher stake to Sonic needing to complete the prism asap and also why Shadow is so hellbent on getting him to do it quickly. his actual, original self is slowly dying. (adds a bit of a character flaw too like the zombot arc, because you'd think the ultimate lifeform would be resistant to erosion. maybe at first he thinks he'll be fine and does the dimension travelling for fun until he starts feeling Really drained)

before i get to the individual universes, i'll talk a bout Sonic's character real quick because hoo boy, was it BAD in Prime. no shade to anyone who enjoyed his character in Prime, but as a show that claims to be "canon to the games", he was embarrassingly out of character. if it were just another version of him like movie Sonic i wouldn't really be so weirded out by it. so i wanna just say right off the bat that i'm using my own favourite iteration of Sonic as a reference for his character, which is the characterization from Sonic X.

i think when the prism gets properly explained, Sonic would kind of put 2 and 2 together and realize completing the prism would erase the other universes. and rather than being all ambiguous about it like Prime was, here it very explicitly would be that restoring the prism will erase the shatterverse. so Sonic get's really stuck between a rock and a hard place, because restoring the prism brings his friends and world back, but then he's effectively killing thousands of people, many of them who look exactly like his friends, all for the sake of his own world.

i think this is the kind of dilemma that would be really good for a character like Sonic, who's carefree and always does what he believes to be the right thing regardless of what other people say. his conflict with Nine isn't even all that different from his conflict with Merlina. but would he be okay with being enemies with someone who's literally just his little brother? i don't think Sonic would have tried to reason with Nine as much as he did in Prime, attachment be damned, but i still think it would still be hard for him to come to terms with the fact that Nine is his enemy and that in the end he would have to erase him too.

this is all i wanna say about Sonic rn because truth be told i'm not exactly sure how different the decisions he made in Prime would be here since i haven't thought too much on it, i would have to rewatch the show (god forbid) to figure that out lol.

~New Yolk City~

so i actually have designs for this, some of them have went through changes but they're all pretty "initial concepts". i wanna say that first off, i wanted this to be explicitly an alternate timeline and not just an alternate universe. one where Sonic doesn't exist in the main timeline so nobody really does anything to stop Eggman and he takes over the world. the designs are deliberately edgy so i call it sonic underfell in my notes lol

also, because a dystopian Sonic premise already exists in the form of SatAM... we got Sally Acorn back :D i didn't include all the Freedom Fighters for fear of the cast getting too big, but Nicole is here too because i love Sonic comic's robo assistants like Nicole and Kintobor. Sonia and Manic were also considered as added characters since Sonic Underground also has a dystopian premise, but i think it would be weird to add Sonic's siblings in a world where he doesn't exist, so it's not like they'd have a little 'OMG he's my long lost brother' moment. like no they don't even know who he is LOL.

alright so for character info i'll start with Nine because he's like the 3rd most important character in the show. i have a few different sketches of him, most incomplete... and for the third one my friend wanted him to look more emo. i wanted to add a bit more to that design but i wasn't sure what to do. if anyone has suggestions lmk

just like in the show, bc Sonic never meets Tails, Tails doesn't get saved from bullying and becomes very jaded. as for the robot face and tails, i think in the show they really drive it home how Nine values robots over people very much, going as far as to make robot clones of his friends in order to replace them. so... robot body parts doesn't seem too out of the realm for what he'd do! it's a very good parallel to what i have planned for Eggman/the Chaos Council it's also very fucking gruesome and sad esp because hes like 8 years old..

also, i'd really love it if he wasn't just weirdly evil the way he was in Prime S3. because no the hell he is not evil, it felt like a cheap way to get you to stop sympathizing with him until the very last moment where he had a change of heart. he's just a small, traumatized kid who was shown friendship for the first time only to realize that Sonic only cared about him because he was a Tails and actually pretty much wanted him dead (even if this all wasn't exactly true, i can genuinely see why he felt this way).

next i'll talk about who the main extra characters in this universe will be, which is Sally and Nicole.

so obv the resistance is called the Freedom Fighters, and Sally is the commander (like she should've been in Sonic Forces/IDW, but alas, she is dead to SEGA). she'd have a much more serious personality compared to her Archie/SatAM counterpart. where she'd usually banter with Sonic in Archie, here she would straight up tell him to gtfo. the aim of the Freedom Fighters in current time isn't really to fight to get their world back, just to survive and preserve what they still have.

just like in other media, Nicole is Sally's AI assistant slash potential love interest who does all the tech-y stuff, like scanning the area for threats, hacking things, etc. which gives them a bit of more power against the enemy without needing Nine's help.

next we got Amy aka Rusty Rose, this time she's fully a robot instead of being only half of one, and i'll expand on why. (also to note i didn't look at other Metal Amy fan designs when making this just to try and keep this a bit more original lol)

so, obviously being inspired by SatAM and Archie, roboticization is a concept that would be reintroduced here through Rusty Rose. she was previously a freedom fighter who got a bit reckless and was captured, and was roboticized before her allies could save her. she's kind of used as a cautionary tale among the Freedom Fighters as a way to hammer in don't be reckless and don't get caught.

i remember in Sonic Prime they tried to use the flicky 'powering' her as a way to keep her connection with humanity, which was great except for the fact that she still had half a mobian face so she wasn't even fully robot. in this case, i decided to make her fully robot and keep the flicky, except this time it is genuinely powering her lifeforce unlike whatever they did in the show. obviously taking it out for a bit just to showcase the fact she does have a flicky won't insta-kill her, but she will slowly die without the flicky inside of her. not sure why the Chaos Council didnt just slap a chaos drive in there but whatever lol, it's nice symbolism anyway.

also just a note, she can shoot bullets out of her fingers if you were wondering why her hands looked like that. yes its an Aigis Persona 3 reference. but also she no longer uses her hammer because as a robot she's stripped of her personality and autonomy, and the Piko-Piko hammer was like an Amy signature weapon, who Rusty Rose no longer is at this point. but mostly it's an Aigis Persona 3 reference. We ball

next is Rouge, who's no longer a leader of the Freedom Fighters, but just a spy/intelligence agent who still has an eye for shiny things.

in the inital art i drew of her i named her Agent Rebel, but honestly Agent Rouge works just fine because yknow. Rouge is just the word for red in french. if they really have to all have different names then Agent Red also works too, but it might be a bit on the nose. anyway she's apart of the Freedom Fighters as their spy, something they desperately need because of the constant surveillance around new yolk. of course she's still the morally gray bastard she usually is, so she always desires compensation for her efforts, especially on the more dangerous missions.

the reason why i demoted her from leader is because Rouge is really not the leader type, maybe you could give her a leading role if it were a smaller group like Team Dark, but when its a whole resistance she's genuinely not cut out for it, especially because she's not particularly selfless and definitely doesn't give too much of a shit about the well being of others. here she understands very well that her life is also at risk, so aiding the Freedom Fighters is pretty much her only choice.

next we got Knuckles who is definitely not having a good time. he never met Sonic so he's very distrusting towards everyone, even allies. he lived on Angel Island until it was attacked by Eggman and he lost the Master Emerald. unfortunately i didn't draw anything full body or coloured so i only have this sketch

being from a clan of warriors, i'd say its a no-brainer that he'd be co-commander of the Freedom Fighters. as for all the injuries, they're from a time where he was captured. to compensate for his... lack of knuckles... he now wears brass knuckles. he's definitely the most angry and vengeful of all the different versions of Knuckles, because he feels as if he's been disgraced in multiple ways, and he sees the Freedom Fighters as a means to an end. his pure, unadultered rage definitely helps with taking out enemies tho.

okay, i mentioned that Shadow would have alternate versions of himself and lucky for yall i did draw a design for New Yolk Shadow, who's named Terios and is inspired by that beta design.

Terios isn't apart of the Freedom Fighters, but he's not on the side of the Chaos Council. hes kind of an anti-hero vigilante, he's cordial with Rouge but not really interested in the Freedom Fighters. he kinda does his own shit. realistically, since New Yolk is an alternate timeline where Sonic doesn't exist, and it's implied that Gerald based Shadow off of Super Sonic then technically Shadow shouldn't exist but hey, this is the one plot hole i'm not gonna try to mend. We Ball. Shadow exists because he's goated like that.

anyway his backstory is the same but because everything is so Fucked Up he never really gets the chance to explode the world like he wanted. since he's not on the evil side i'll say that Eggman wasn't the one who woke him up tho and he got talked out of his homicidal urges. who woke him up? idk i'll think about it

now for another added character... Silver!!! but he goes by the alias "Venice"... because his beta design is called Venice LOL

before i explain Silver's deal, i'll talk abt how i imagine time works in the Sonic universe. basically, the future isn't something predestined and is actively changed by events in the present. this is in fact something that 06 contradicts since the future was messed up before Sonic even met Elise, but that in and of itself contradicts Sonic CD which does the whole "actions in the present affect the future" thing with the good future/bad future. so i went with CD's time mechanics because it makes more sense for this story. also 06 isn't canon so #WeBall

so Silver, being from the future, wakes up one day to find everything all fucked up again. except now he's in the present too. he tries to ask ppl if they know where Sonic is, assuming that of course Sonic would know what happened, but nobody seems to know who he's talking about. Silver eventually crosses paths with Shadow/Terios and asks him where Sonic is, but even Terios doesn't know who Sonic is (at this point, our Shadow hasn't linked his consciousness w/ Terios) so Silver is just really fucking lost and doesn't know what the hell is happening, why it's happening and why nobody seems to know who Sonic is.

he ends up following Terios around as sort of an apprentice type thing because he's the only familiar face so far and he really needs to understand what's going on. Terios isn't very happy about it but can tell Silver's a pretty strong person he would want as an ally, so he keeps him around. Silver wears a cloak and goes by the alias Venice as a way to protect his identity.

so obv when Sonic shows up he KNOWS Sonic fucked up real bad somehow. cue the 'it's no use! take this!' loop

(Blaze isn't here because she's relaxing and enjoying a cup of tea in her palace. also trying to tackle how the prism affects the Sol Dimension will make things way more convoluted)

~ New Yolk City: The Chaos Council ~

okay... NOW we talk about Eggman. so maybe you've noticed i kept switching between saying Eggman and the Chaos Council, and i will explain.

the Chaos Council do still exist in this reimagining, but Eggman also exists. Kind of.

basically my idea for the Chaos Council was that it was originally just Eggman ruling the world (btw his name would be Robotnik because nobody was there to call him Eggman), but here comes the inspiration from Archie again, and now he's split himself into 5 robots to help rule over New Yolk City. and i say it's inspired from Archie because i very vividly remember that Robotnik fucking died in Archie and then uploaded his consciousness into a robot or some shit, and then when it came time for his modern design to be incorporated into the comic he literally switched robot bodies to become modern Eggman. So Yeah.

multiple facets of himself get uploaded into robot bodies, because what's the point of living a mortal fleshy life when you can be a sick ass immortal shiny robot (throwback to how i said it would be a parallel to Nine) and these different "facets" of Eggman would just be different parts of his personality, these are what i had in mind but it's still a WIP:

intelligence (cunning, manipulative, thinks logically and lacks empathy)

childishness (interest in juvenile things like themeparks, acts. well. childish)

vain (self-absorbed, uncooperative, gets upset by criticism, interest in flashy things/theatrics)

emotional (prone to outbursts--typically rage, empathetic)

dramatic (placeholder until i think of a better one because this is just grouped in with vanity tbh)

bad news is that i never drew designs for these. because if im not good at designing characters, im ESPECIALLY not good at designing robots. Rusty Rose was already a challenge. but ill figure it out lol.

ANYWAY now we're done with New Yolk. if this seemed long, don't worry because it was pretty much the only one i did brainstorming on. i have one more design and a few notes but nothing else for the rest of the shatterverses.

~ No Place ~

there's not much about No Place i would change other than the character roster and basic premise. it's still pirate-y, and Dread is DEFINITELY staying the same because i Love him.

pretty much my idea is that instead of there only being one crew which is Dread's, there are two. one with Dread, Amy and Tails, and another crew with Rouge, Shadow and whoever else i think to add. basically they're rival crews that compete to get treasure, and the prism shard is just another one they set their eyes on. Marine is also gonna be there probably on Dread's crew.

Sonic initially takes Dread's side because hes a Knuckles, Knuckles is his friend and Rouge usually means trouble, but when Dread starts being yknow. batshit crazy and manipulative. Sonic realizes that he picked wrong and hes kinda on his own to get that shard.

the only thing i drew for this is a design of Rouge

i imagine Shadow would just be the one pirate design from that Sonic mobile game that everyone likes to draw. his name would also be Blackheart because of the lyrics "black-hearted evil / brave-hearted hero" from I Am... All Of Me

that's all i have for No Place. in truth i didn't make much changes because i actually very much enjoyed No Place (mostly bc of Dread)

~ Boscage ~

so... this one i've done the least thinking about, and honestly it's because i don't really know what to do with this one. something about Boscage rubs me the wrong way, maybe just bc it's a jungle universe and the designs make me cringe a little bit. if anyone has any ideas on this then lmk. i don't think i want to get rid of it entirely but i just don't know how to go about this one.

all i have in terms of notes is that:

it should be a bit similar to Sonic Boom in setting, so an island with dense forests

Sticks should be a character, potentially taking Prim's role in the story

~ Extra Notes ~

more characters in the main cast like Cream and the Chaotix should appear

other characters robot copies should resemble canonical ones like Metal Sonic, Knuckles and Amy, however Nine's robot copies should look Fucked Up to emphasize the Wrongness in how he views his robot copies as true friends

^ this means Chaos Sonic should literally just be Metal Sonic. sorry Chaos Sonic fans i love him too but it made no sense to me that it wouldn't be Metal Sonic but lmk your thoughts on that

that's it for everything i think. i might have had more but i didn't write it down so it has just been forever lost in the dark depths of my brain. this is very unorganized and way too long but i hope it was interesting to read at least. ofc any feedback is welcome. i don't think i'll make any kind of story out of this but i'd like to complete it tbh

[brennholzverleih]

A few weeks ago I switched to Linux and I've got some thoughts

I chose Arch Linux because I had some prior experience with using Ubuntu and Linux Mint on laptops, both for work and for myself.

Gaming is, aside from games that require certain anticheats, extremely easy to set up. Steam just works and I use Heroic as an alternative frontend for the Epic games launch and GOG Galaxy and it runs better than both of them did on windows. I haven't looked into Origin the EA App or Uplay Ubisoft Connect but I know I could play their stuff via Lutris or Bottles.

I locked myself out of my system once because I didn't verify a change I made to my fstab (basically a file where all your drives are listed) and while that's my fault for not verifying, you'd think the os would be able to boot if some drive that's not necessary isn't plugged in. A little help from a mutual helped me fix it.

Gnome is a very meh desktop environment. It's kinda considered the default for Linux and aside from KDE and budgie the only one I'm really familiar with. I had to install a bunch of extensions for it to work the way I wanted and it also comes with a bunch of preinstalled software that I don't need and can't (without fearing I'll break something) get rid of (for example, I use Alacrity but have to keep Gnome Console around).

The theming is so good. I can theme so much stuff it's great. I start up LibreOffice and it picks up the background and accent colour I set, I love it.

I'm getting more comfortable with using the terminal and while I still think that ideally every application should have a GUI, sometimes the terminal is more convenient (like using yay to update my entire system).

When I used Windows I had sporadic crackling sounds that I assumed were the fault of my DAC/AMP but I haven't had them since switching to Linux so I guess this was a Windows issue somehow. I tried so many fixes before that didn't work like checking drivers and firmware, using different usb ports and cables, trying different headphones but to no avail even when I got a completely new pc. Thanks, Windows.

I don't get Flatpak at all. Universal packages are neat but when I installed the Flatpak version of Bottles to run save/mod managers inside the proton prefixes that Steam uses, it suddenly took up almost 5gb. It also for whatever reason couldn't see half the folders even after I gave it access to the entire file system. In the end I went with the AUR version of Bottles which does not have that problem despite being Unofficial™. I just wish that the library/shortcut system worked but I can live with it I guess.

The AUR seemed annoying because it took forever to build packages compared to just installing binaries. The Chaotic AUR is a godsent because it contains a ton of binaries from the AUR. I don't get why people don't recommend it more often.

The only software I really miss from windows is ShareX. Not even because of all the tools like scroll capture, but also for OCR. Watching a vod of a twitch stream and being able to grab links out of the chat on screen is nice. Maybe I'll find an alternative someday, who knows.

I've come to despise a lot of people who think that the way they use Linux is the only good one. A big thing that kept me from switching was that the more I informed myself, the more weird opinionated takes I saw. Being forced to engage with questions such as "Is systemd bloat?", " Is neovim the only good text editor?", "Are tiling window managers universally better?", " Is Canonical literally Satan for having made Snap packages?" and "Is it ok to call this person a slur for using solarized KDE?" makes it so much harder to make a choice you're comfortable with.

I should not have put /home on a different partition or at least made the /root partition bigger. It's fine if I clean the pacman cache regularly but I don't want to look up those commands every few days (I know I can resize the boot partition with a live usb and I will, I'm just lazy rn).

My controller only works correctly when plugged in via usb. If I connect it via Bluetooth, the buttons don't map correctly. This is less of a Linux issue and more of a firmware issue since this is a third party controller that does not support Linux. I'm also aware of Steam having a robust remapping tool so I'll use that if I ever need to.

I have not yet looked into software to map my additional mouse buttons and control my keyboard/mouse rbg. Both of these store their settings on board so there's no need for it right now.

Might add more in the future but these are my thoughts for the first few weeks

[alicewritingstories]

Febuwhump Day 21: Unresponsive

CW: Injury, blood, broken bone, field medicine, unconsciousness

Continues Day 17

AO3

---

Wind was on the defensive almost immediately; there were three men against him and all of them were bigger than him. However, this was also the kind of fight he was used to, especially when one of the men suddenly yelled and reeled back, swatting at the side of his neck as if he'd been stung by something. With a grin, he pressed his advantage, lunging forward with a stabbing swipe of his sword that the man only barely dodged. A hand closed on his arm, but then that man also yelled in pain and shock and let go of him. Wind twisted away to put his back to a wall and waited for another chance.

It quickly came as the first man once again swatted at his neck. This time Wind saw something scuttle down off his shoulder, away from the bloody scratch in his skin, and leap to the next. He lunged forward and wounded that one, cutting a long slash across his chest.

Then the one Wind had seen the motion towards suddenly caught something in his fist and threw it to the ground with a curse, yelling something about demons.

Fortunately, between that and the discovery that Wind wasn't a helpless kid they'd apparently had enough; all three turned and ran, nursing their wounds. Wind followed them to the gate, but they had already vanished into the crowd.

For a moment he hesitated between following them - and possibly reporting what had happened to the guard - and finding out what exactly it was that the man had thrown down. But then he decided to listen to curiosity and the desire to make sure whoever had helped him was OK. He ran back to the location of the fight and crouched down to look more carefully among the trampled grass, hoping whoever it had been - a new type of fairy, perhaps? - hadn't really been invisible.

He pushed blades of grass this way and that, frowning to himself, then his eye was suddenly caught by a flash of color. It looked almost like…

"Four!" he cried as he moved some more grass and saw what looked like a tiny version of Four lying in the grass. His arm looked shattered, a shard of bone poking through a tear in his sleeve, and as Wind very carefully picked him up he didn't even twitch. His heart in his mouth, Wind pressed a fingertip to the tiny chest, unsure whether he'd even be able to feel a heartbeat.

He couldn't, but he did feel the faint motion as the little Four breathed.

"OK," he said, putting aside how weird this was for the time being. So maybe Four had a tiny version of himself as a companion. Or he could make himself small. It wasn't the weirdest thing Wind had ever encountered.

He looked back at the place little Four had been lying and saw a gleam of metal still there. When he picked it up, he saw it was a perfectly-scaled version of Four's sword, no bigger than a needle; he must have been holding it when the man threw him to the ground.

It really was Four. Just… small.

Wind shook his head and slipped the sword into its sheath. This still wasn't the weirdest thing he'd seen in his career and Four needed help. Very gently, still with the very tip of his finger, he shook his shoulder on the uninjured side.

"Hey, Four?" he whispered, unsure whether a shout would be too much for little ears. "Four, can you hear me?"

No response.

"Four?" said Wind a little louder, and then louder still, "Four?"

Nothing. Wind swallowed hard. He was going to have to find help. Four had kept this ability secret, probably for a reason, but there was no help for it. Cradling the tiny figure as safely as he could in his hands, he set off at a run towards where he'd last seen the others.

It wasn't far before he met Twilight coming the other way.

"Wind!" the rancher exclaimed, in that angry tone Wind knew adults used when they were actually more scared than anything else. "Where have you been? We've been searching all over Castletown for you!"

"I'll explain in a minute," said Wind. "Four needs help. At least… I think it's Four." He held out his hands.

Twilight frowned, confused. "What do you mean, you think -" Then he saw what Wind was holding and his eyes brightened in understanding, though the expression quickly turned to horror. "That's Four. What happened to him?"

"A guy threw him on the floor."

"Why -" Twilight shook his head. "OK, let me…" He also gently shook Four with a fingertip, but there was still no response. "OK. That arm's broken…"

"Should we find Wars? Or Hyrule?"

"No, not if we can help it. I already knew he could do this, so let's keep this between us if we can. I… once set a puppy's leg. He's smaller, but… OK, let's get out of the way." Twilight led the way through another gate into another piece of the park and into a sheltered corner behind a bush. "Let's give this one try. If I can't set the bone, we'll have to get Hyrule."

Wind nodded, swallowing hard, and held Four out again, telling himself that it was probably for the best that Four was unconscious.

"What if he doesn't wake up?" he asked. "We won't be able to get a potion into him like this and… he's smaller than a potion bottle; does it work to scale?"

"I don't know," said Twilight. "We're going to have to find out. I… almost hope this wakes him up."

Wind didn't, though he could see the point. He gritted his teeth, holding his hand out as flat and steady as he could.

Twilight gently took Four's forearm between his fingers, braced his body with the other hand, and pulled it straight.

Four didn't react at all.

---

Continued on Day 22

[lost-girl-2021]

Would it be possible for you to write a fanfiction on ao3 about Metkayina Spider human au? It sounds so interesting that I don't even know how to comment

I think I might after I finish up with Days Into Decades. I'm in school rn (and trying to get a job) so I don't want to take on too many projects at once. I've definitely started fics, then got a new idea, started a new one, and accidentally ghosted the first, so I'm hoping to avoid that atm, lol.

I have three-ish ideas for new fics that I've written a little about, but I'll probably decide once I've finished with Days Into Decades (I'm starting the last act rn, actually).

The options are as follows, for anyone interested:

Metkayina post-battle Spider AU

(After the battle) Spider is taken in by Ronal and Tonowari. Either he washes ashore like Ariel and is taken in before the Sully's even notice he's there, or he's doing his little beach-boy thing and sleeping in trees and they notice.

I also think it'd be really funny if all the Metkayina people think Spider's, like, ten or something because surely human's get bigger than that, right? Like, it's been awhile since they've seen any humans and they never worked closely with them/interacted outside of fighting. So, they never really paid attention.

Young Spider (Adopted) AU

AU where humans don't age as fast as the Na'vi, so Spider's like 12-14-ish and his friends are all fifteen/sixteen. Also, in the AU, I would probably have Spider be adopted by the Sully's. I've touched based on it before, but I'd probably do something where Spider was raised (properly) besides the Sully kids and the rest of the movie takes place pretty much the same (minus my boy Neteyam dying, never gonna go there).

Brainwashed Spider AU (Probably my fav atm)

Spider is 'rescued' by the Sully's after the battle, except he doesn't remember them. At all. As far as he's concerned, he's Miles Quaritch Jr. and Jake Sully is a traitor of humanity.

There's a couple different ways this could go. Either Quaritch lives and takes him back at some point, only for Spider to realize he was treated better with the Sully's. Or, Spider finds out Jake killed his dad and feels bad for starting to trust him. Spider could run away at some point, he could try to off himself like the 'good soldier' he is. Idk, there's so many options.

Modern Metkayina/Foster kid Spider AU (the more I think about this one the more ideas I get)

Spider is a foster kid sent to live with Ronal and Tonowari's family.

Two options for Spider's childhood before this: (one) he was living with the Sully family until they had to move to another country to be with Neytiri's ailing mother (two) he lived with his father in the mountains and was homeschooled, but his father was arrested and Spider's been sent far away to avoid anyone knowing his situation/any of Spider's uncles/aunts being able to find him while the case is investigated. I'm partial to the second version, because I feel like it'd be interesting to see Spider have to learn how to be a Real Boy. But, I also like the angst that comes with Spider getting comfortable with his new foster family and his old foster family (the Sully's) moving back to the States and wanting to adopt Spider, basically making Spider pick where he wants to go.

Whichever backstory he gets changes how the rest of the fic goes, but we'd definitely see Spider learning to surf (maybe to swim?) and Aounung at first bullying the guy and then getting in a fight for him or something whenever someone else tries to do it (very much 'i'm the only one allowed to make fun of my brother' vibes).

Those are the main fic ideas I have atm, lmk which one(s) you like the best or if you have any more ideas for me to hyperfixate on lol.

[coyotiii17]

They never came.

So Welcome To The Dark Side exists, but I actually once imagined even darker version of this AU. So dark that I decided that writing it would be impossible for me. Maybe a scene or two I could write as oneshots, but not the entire thing, because it would break my heart.

In original WTTDS story I simply changed the episodes from Naboo to Hoth. Rowan gets blackmailed by Naare into helping her with finding the Kyber crystals, Naare reveals to him that she wants more and wants to train him on the Dark Side, Rowan then escapes from her on Zoh, almost escapes entirely, Naare captures him again, they go to Hoth, find the crystal, Zander and Kordi swoop in and save him, they take the crystals and leave Naare behind. But then the story continues like in canon show so Rowan then seperates from Kordi and Zander yada yada the same thing, only with small changes, but that's basically it.

The darker version (is this even a pun-) would go differently on Hoth. Basically Kordi and Zander wouldn't be able to find them and would never come to rescue Rowan. Desperate Rowan would take his last chance to free himself from Naare and actually destroys the Kyber crystal, hoping this would convince Naare to just leave him alone. But this motivates Naare even further. No Kyber Saber? Okay then. Let's pour my frustration on this kid and completely turn him to the Dark Side. And she basically takes him away to train him and make him another Sith.

But, despite the AU being darker, it still ends, hm, "well". If I can use the word well in the first place, because it's not pretty. Rowan is gone for about 3 months while training under Naare's wing, but he never looses his determination to go back to his siblings. After 3 months he finally has a succesful escape attempt. But this last attempt is only succesful, because Naare got killed by Rowan in self defense when she tried to stop him from leaving. It's darker for a reason.

It ends well, since Rowan manages to find Kordi and Zander and returns home, but not so well, because the whole damage is already done and Rowan would need a long time to heal from that. Kordi and Zander would be there for him though.

Maybe one day I'll write about how relationship between Naare and Rowan would look like if she was his mentor on the Dark Side. I think it could be interesting and I have a lot of ideas for it. I can only assure that there would be nothing extreme. No violence, no gore, like I saw in many fanfics portraying situations like that. Especially since Rowan is a kid.

But yeah it's still too dark to me and I'm bigger fan of wholesome and happy stuff, so that's why I like to see this darker AU as something like nightmares Rowan would sometimes have, doesn't matter if it's in canon show or WTTDS AU.

[chevvy-yates]

Long post. thoughts post.

So, yesterday I went to a goodbye party my neighbor (also former colleague) gave bc she moves into another city.

I knew from the beginning I'll be probably the person that stands out the most just by my hair and clothing style (as I always wear something not causal when I get out and it's not for biking/groceries) but also be the one who knows only my neighbor and some faces I remembered from a past party she gave years ago.

It was a nice evening but still I wasn't able to shake the feeling that I felt alien there. I mean I talked with maybe 12 out of the 20 people there, the music was relatively okay for my taste as it had techno (but the more funny ones).

With two or three I had maybe a chatter lasting even 20 minutes? But idk I just think it happened because 1-2 of them were just curious who I am. Like my neighbors new boyfrined only knew me by name before and he said something like "So you are that phantom she always talked about" – yes I am that. Exactly right. Look at me Brudi, I wear black, I look different, I'm the overdressed phantom hiiiii! I even said to him, I like the description bc it truly is how I must appear to a lot of people. Anyway and whenever I come up with the topic Japan they want to hear something. It's lways like that. But after that? nothing.

However most time I noticed I spent with rather listening to chatter around me and watching them play beer pong. The version they played was named rage cage and way too stressful for me to try it myself – beside that I didn't want to be the one who has to constantly drink bc I fail at this and I don't enjoy to get myself drunk anymore. Or at least not with people around me I don't really know (besides I dislike the feeling next morning so yeah).

Let's circle back to just watching and listening: Around 1am I felt like, okay no one is actually making a move to talk with me anymore and I cannot find a gap to integrate myself into it somehow. So I just sat around "wie bestellt und nicht abgeholt" and the flat was empty except a beer bank and I was getting tired too (didn't really slept the night before either) so I decided to go home.

I keep telling myself that this evening was alright and I think it really was – after all my neighbor was truly happy I came. But I knew it would turn out for me like that even if I tried talking with people. And here is now me again thinking if I'm just too weird for people just by my looks alone.

Also a very German thing is, that if you have your little-big friend circle and go to parties or bigger meet-ups you tend to stay in that circle and others who do not belong to it usually don't get in. And I as a German srsly do not like that. I witnessed this at the techno event I went to with Glory. Almost no one opens up for getting to know new people. You come as a group, party as a group, go home as a group. I don't say that all Germans are like that but majority definitely is.

And here is me wanting to connect as I am tired of sitting around at home nearly every weekend but how shall I connect with people if it is so hard to get them into a chatter? I cannot say from myself I'm someone who just gos and says hello I want to talk to you. I have no problem talking with strangers but I don't want to be annoying is all so I prefer if others make the first approach if I cannot make out it's okay to approach them but fucking Germans aren't as open as eg. Americans (the amount of people talking with me while my 12-days US vacation was the entire opposite.)

See I don't need to get to be friends with you in the end, I just want to like to fucking talk with someone and not just sit around like a douchbag on a private party like that. bc then I can spent my time with better things instead. The techno event a bunch of weeks back was different, I came there not to talk but to dance, if chatter would happen no problem with that. But I paid for listening djs playing sick beats live so I prefer to dance instead of talking.

I don't really know how to make friends around here to be honest. Sometimes I feel so alien I wish myself I would just be the standard normal type of human being with a causal style, preferably one human type that doesn't have 12343 thoughts and overthinks everything as I've learned those people exist and I envy them. They must walk around so carefree.

[iwsynttr-project]

WAAAHHH I just saw people have been posting about the project on Pinterest???

THANK YOU???

I am so pink oh my goodness aaa

I'll give some updates then so people know we're not just slackin', haha;;

This past week we've been hella busy with church, school, trying out programs, still figuring out the whole learning to drive thing, stuff with disability, etc... but especially with Valentine's Day & Moose's birthday.

CJ came up to visit which was really special & we got to eat out & get boba all together which was super nice as he doesn't live too close by ever since we moved a few years back.

I recently got most of my m3dz figured out so I might be able to start hrt within the next year, & it sounds like the date has been set for CJ & I to get married this April 29th!

On top of all this we recently found out that a couple other plans have been thrown into the mix:

Our folks are planning to head out for a week a few states away to spend time with family & celebrate our twin cousins' birthday & then they'll be goin to Medieval Times for Moose's birthday possibly with another friend or cousin.

My mom & I are gonna try & see a show with CJ & his mom if they're able to come for my 21st birthday (Which is March 13th!) & CJ's birthday is at the start of April.

Right before our wedding is my dad's birthday & we're gonna see another live performance in another state, & then right afterwards a few days later is gonna be the wedding.

We're just gonna make it small & Soukoku themed, but maybe years later from now when we're livin' alone & financially stable we might do a bigger more official wedding. We'll renew our vows, maybe have custom made suits, special stuff like that.

Somethin' we're hopin' to do is for the small one we might make custom Lego Minifigures to be in front of/above the cake & then if we save up... the four-six hundred bucks... we wanna get the Soukoku "wedding" figurines that came out a bit ago.

It's a dream.

Anyways, as for the actual project!

I'm still working on the script when I have time, I just got stumped since we don't have Golden Demon written yet- but I managed to come up with some content to fill in for during or after the scene plays out for now & continued from there.

Moose has decided to try & make two versions of Life's Better With A Little Party In It: one that's a trashy pop song, & one that's his own take on the song based on artists like YOASOBI. (Into the Night, Monster, Idol, etc...)

We're also thinking about making a Cover Album on the side to go with the soundtrack just for fun with covers of songs from bands & artists like ONE OK ROCK & Set It Off.

I'm still thinking I might go for making The I Was Screaming Your Name Through the Radio Project into an episodic animatic series, but with everything going on I might wait to record the actual script & songs until we've got most of the script & songs written out more at the least if not also until after I get a better microphone & possibly start injections. (Maybe I'll still do the first few chapters since they're just teens anyways but meh whatever; we'll see.)

I did do a drawing while I was free last night though & have been talking with my dad who's voice is basically his life & career about vocal training of sorts or if I should find classes online or something along those lines for it.

(Back to the drawing) I made a concept design for Moose's online/music persona AquaticSnow & a possible first EP/Album cover. I'm not sure I'll post it (yet?) since he might use it for stuff like his avatar, channel/s, music, etc but if I do it'll be on my personal main Tumblr, Instagram, & probably Deviantart & Twitter/X.

I'm also nervous about somebody tryin' to steal the art &/or concept.

Another reminder that I do have a personal server where I stream drawing, gaming, sometimes reading & writing, watch parties (movies, shows, etc...) & I post planning & updates for the project there!

.:Charli's Discord Server:.

( Don't forget to pick roles & read the rules! Otherwise you can't see the other chats;; )

Sorry 'bout the long post, haha;; we hope you all had a great Valentine's Day!

Charli

[just-someone-online]

Okay, so I had a couple ideas for a crossover for all three gens of Monster High, but I'm not exactly sure where to go with it beyond the initial setup.

Probably doesn't help that I haven't finished watching G1 or have even started G2

Essentially, G3 Draculaura finds this spell for a mirror that lets its user see alternate versions of themselves. Being a vampire and all, she's obvi not going to be able to use, but the spell is a little more advanced than what she's used to, and that makes her want to give it a try, just to see if she can.

Blah, blah, blah, skipping through the creation of the mirror.

The mirror's done, and as expected, Dracularua can't see her reflection or her alternate selves, but Frankie and Clawdeen can, so she considers it a success... at first.

Like, she's happy the spell worked, and even if she knew going in that couldn't use it, she'd have liked to have been able to, y'know? So she begins experimenting a bit, just to see if she can force the mirror to reflect her. It goes about as well as you would expect.

Nobody is sure what exactly did it. Maybe the mirror wasn't compatible with other magic. Maybe one of Draculaura's spells put too much stress on the mirror. Maybe it was just unstable to begin with. Whatever the case, the mirror cracks, then shatters in an explosion of blinding light.

From there, I'm not sure where to go with it.

There's option A). In which the shattered mirror brings G1 (Or G2, haven't decided yet) Draculaura, Clawdeen, and Frankie into G3. In G3 Drac's attempts to fix the mirror, the G2 (Or G1) trio would be brought in as well. I considered adding more G1 and G2 characters with each attempt to fix things, but I'm already looking at nine different characters with the main trio, so maybe not.

Then there's option B). In which the mirror's destruction douses Draculaura, Clawdeen, and Frankie with unstable mirror magic, causing each of them to swap places with one of their alternates whenever they come into contact with a reflective surface. This one would have a bigger sense of urgency than the last one since they've gotta fix this before Toralei or Bloodgood sees them switching.

And finally, option C). In which Draculaura is swapped with either her G2 or G1 counterpart, leaving the rest of the G3 gang to figure out how to get her home and send the new Draculaura home, only to realize that three Draculaura's were switched, not two. So now they've got to get G-whoever back home. While the other two would switch between everybody's POV, this one would be more about the Draculaura's than anybody else.

I was leaning towards A a couple days ago, but then I thought of C and now I can't decide. idk, I'll probably come to a decision by the time I finish G2 but at the rate I'm going, that's still a ways away.

[palialaina]

Everything is falling into place.

Well, mostly.

I have some questions I want to ask, but the town is so small, I don't want it to get around.

Maybe I'll ask Dad...

It's been calm since the ceremony, at least. People congratulated me, Najuma asked how I liked her fireworks (I loved them. Though watching them explode I got a memory of something like chalk in my mouth. Ew.), and no one's had any sort of requests or crises I needed to handle.

So I've been able to focus on what I've started calling the Sleepover Room.

Coming along quite nicely, I think. I do want to fix up the colors of the other harvest bed, maybe go purple-blue... Not sure yet. And I definitely need a rug! I've looked a few times at Zeki's, but either he doesn't have any in stock, or I'm broke!

Mostly the latter. Zeki's prices are mean... Which is funny, because for a little conman, Zeki's actually pretty nice. He says Earth type personalities like his aren't anything like Water types (re; mine), but he's softer than he wants to let on.

It's kind of nice.

Jel and I went out to Bahari again. Or rather, I told him I was going to go to Bahari because I needed some stuff, and he insisted I wait for him to get some things together.

He came back with a hat bigger and floppier than Uncle B's and his own version of a beach outfit. Honestly, he looked absolutely ridiculous, and it... it made me feel a lot better about the future for this relationship of ours. If he can wear something that makes him look super silly, and help me get a ton of oysters, then maybe me being a source of inspiration to him works out...

I hope so, anyways.

Also, he unintentionally launched himself with that geyser, and when I'd stopped laughing, he decided to call it a day. A bit more excitement than he'd bargained for, but he did well, and I appreciate every last bit of effort he put in.

I found this, and I swear it was singing to me. Sort of how the Night Sky Temple seems to sing when I step into it. (Caught a void ray! Just three more things to go! Also, Hekla told me that finishing what I did unlocked something under the water. I don't like that information Hekla.)

I wonder what it's tied to, and how it works. It's not too far from another door that looks like it needs a Flow battery, so maybe it's part of that? I wish I knew. Jina's told me a lot about these ruins, but there's so much that she doesn't know, and other people won't tell her.

And I'm no use, whatever these ruins are, they're completely unfamiliar to me. They sing to me, sure, but I don't have a clue as to why...

Oh, and my new friend Orion decided to write to me the way Lark does. So now I have two friends writing me letters!

Berry,

Thanks for explaining stuff! I would’ve been super lost without you. Well, I’m still lost, but I would’ve been double lost, or something. But it’s cool. This place is really relaxing! I’m working on getting my house set up, but there’s so much to see and do I keep getting distracted. And people to talk to! Everyone’s so nice, or neutral at best (I still say Eshe’s putting on an act, nobody can be that unpleasant in real life). Foraging, mining, fishing, even catching bugs.

I feel like someday Jina is going to write something that will be The Definite Truth About Humans and everyone will be super impressed and it’ll be taught in schools around the world. I’m honored to help however I can. Elouisa, on the other hand, is going to write a hundred books, none of which have even the slightest truth to them, and I will happily read every single one and gleefully participate in whatever crazy experiments she cooks up.

I keep trying to get Reth to involve me in his practical jokes. He swears he doesn’t do stuff like that. I don’t believe him.

Soooooooo I kinda need your advice on something. Talking to Chayne is really relaxing, and thought-provoking. Which is a problem. After talking with him I spent so long thinking about the Phoenix and Paths and whatever I didn’t pay attention to where I was going, and wandered in to an unfamiliar shop. No big deal, right? Well it wasn’t actually a shop, it was a house. When I realized I was trespassing I ran the heck out of there as fast as I could. Which is why I ran into you. Sorry again btw. Anyway, apparently that was Tish’s house. Which, I guess I’m lucky it wasn’t Hassian or Celeri, but I still need to apologize to Tish. Except if I go up to her and say “Hey, sorry I snuck into your cute house and looked at all your neat stuff” I’m pretty sure I’d die on the spot. What should I do?

-Orion

PS: Still have the carrot Nai’o gave me. First thing I got in this place, I’m never getting rid of it.

Nai'o still giving out carrots. He's gonna get in trouble again at this rate. Hehe.

I do love living in a place where there's not really locks on the doors. You can just poke your head in and look around, and no one gets bugged by that. It feels... like a novelty, I suppose, which I guess means that it wasn't common Before.

I'll see if there's anything Tish wants this week and maybe let him use that as a silent, non-specific apology so he doesn't die of mortification~

I have to visit Bahari again. Iron for sure, and once I wake up, I'll have more glow worms, so maybe I can finally catch that recipe!

Or that fish. Either one. Hekla's... concerning comments aside, I really want to know what'll happen once I finish opening this vault thing. I wonder if the door back in the hiding place next to the Phoenix temple will open? Or maybe something out in Bahari Bay?

I just need the sushi recipe, a giant goldfish, and a long-nosed unicorn fish.

And a whole lot of glow worms. Einar's probably going to induct me into his guild at this rate! Sheesh!

[frogsandfries]

Okay, so the cool thing is, for the most part, the contents of the Color of the Sky notebooks is done. I think, if I'm not mistaken, there's one section that isn't done at all, then there's just a bunch of page numbering and then slapping all the material into some Canva documents to be turned into PDFs. I think, for my own personal purposes, I'm going to go for two dot-gridded notebooks. I think I might make them available as four blank and four dot-gridded notebooks and call it a day. Then I can say that I've finished a relatively big project. Idk I'm partly just feeling down about all these projects I keep remembering and trying to finish and I just feel like Sisyphus, but with five boulders.

Like, the Darger project? It can take about eight to honestly twelve hours to transcribe one page--and that's without the distraction of being at work. Because of my attention span, I have to run it character by character; otherwise I'll just glaze over and I won't get anything transcribed. I also find the typewriter font hard to focus on, and the typos and fading provide further distraction. My own handwriting, while a tedious way to parse these pages, is much more consistent in quality and easier to focus on, and using the notebook app, I should be able to largely transcribe my handwriting quickly, and then just neaten it up in the typed version.

And he's got more than ten notebooks of multiple hundreds of pages. Multiple hundreds of pages of, I swear there's no way this is 8×11 paper. It's got to be bigger because all the typewriters I've ever encountered (like, maybe five maximum, okay) don't produce print as small as this would be on 8×11 paper.

Anyway. Talk about sisyphusian.

It's not like this project is going to get me any kind of merits or anything, so there isn't really a reason to sweat over it. It's just a nice little side activity to do while I'm at work, when I'm done trying to gather my materials for the Tumblr books. I finally got into January of 2013 today.

Off into that tangent, I also found that a three-scroll screen-cap was too big for the 5×8 page, so I tried just doing a double scroll, regardless as possible of how it drifted between posts and I can just cut and stitch the posts back together in the Canva document. Whenever I get back to that.

Unlike the artist of the Colors of the Sky, who is most likely still alive and could very well come after me for profiting from their work (by the way, I'll pay out of my own pocket if that artist wants any copies of these notebooks; I doubt my notebooks are going to be any kind of like, Amazon best seller or anything, but it's really the least Ican do), Darger is very well long gone and doesn't appear to have any immediate family, so I guess that's one way I could benefit from my labors. I wonder how many books pages just one of his notebooks would be..... I probably wouldn't put a whole ton of effort into it like I have with my fanfic typesets. Just grab a decent font, get it nice and neat, simple page numbers and some headers and go.

Anyway, eventually, I'm going to have to let something rest to the side, probably the Tumblr notebook. I still have all these text blocks to cover and I'm actively working to typeset Lapsarian so that I can go back to working on BUFN.

I need to start putting projects to rest. I need to figure out how to get this glitter paint on the cover of Mon Couteau without the entire bottle of paint drying out. I need to finish the embroidery for Manacled. I need to start purchasing book cloth like I mean it.

[sesshy380]

i picked couple from each list answer as many as you want

fic ask 8 and 18 oc ask 🌋🔫

Hello Anon! A few from each list, eh? You didn't specify which version of OC, but looking at the questions it doesn't really matter. Both pertain to her core personality (if you had asked one of the questions about family/friends then you would have gotten the longfic au version as those details are more fleshed out)

Fic Asks:

8. Narrative or dialogue?

While dialogue is fun (especially banter), I love to do narrative. I love including all the small things that make up the bigger picture. I can do entire scenes of just narrative.

18. How often do you forget stuff because “I don’t need to write it down, I’ll remember” syndrome?

The first rule of 'I don't need to write it down, I'll remember' syndrome, is don't talk about 'I don't need to write it down, I'll remember' syndrome...

OC Asks:

🌋 VOLCANO - how bad is their temper? is it a slow boil, or a instant explosion?

Kat most definitely has a temper. How quick it gets to full-on nuclear depends on the situation. Multiple mild annoyances throughout the day will be a slow boil that will just unexpectedly burst into a massive grease fire over the smallest thing. Instant explosions, however, can come from messing with those she cares about.

🔫 PISTOL - do they trust people easily? how easily will they turn their back to someone? have they been backstabbed before? will they betray someone if given an ultimatum?

Kat has trust issues, that's for sure. I wouldn't say she trusts easily, but there are some people that she'll warn up to quicker than others. She goes by her gut on whether or not she can trust someone based on her interactions with them.

She doesn't turn her back easily. Even those who mistreat her she will still hold a faint glimmer of hope that maybe things can change for the better.

Has she been backstabbed? Literally? A number of times. She doesn't enjoy it. It's a very annoying since it's always in that spot you need to scratch at but can't reach. Figuratively? Yes, but it was more a betrayal of the heart.

Would she betray someone in an ultimatum? It has to be one hell of an ultimatum where she feels the betrayal is the only alternative. She'll hope the person understands why she made that choice in the end, and will hope they are able to forgive her.

[ratralsis]

More is more

I'm spending the next three months reading about writing. I was hoping to spend it writing. I'd still like to spend some of it writing.

Truthfully, a fair bit will be spent playing Zelda. I'm weak like that. I'm going to limit myself. I have to. Otherwise, I'll spend all day and night playing that game. It's a compelling game.

I don't know if it's a good game or not yet. But it's compelling, that's for damn sure. I do think that fusing items to your weapons is awfully tedious, though. I honestly don't find that nearly as enjoyable as I think I'm supposed to. Maybe I will like it more later, once I start plumbing the depths and finding non-decayed weapons and so forth.

I could, and likely will, write an entire post about how I think the fetishization of the Master Sword has become a problem that I don't think the series has figured out how to handle. But that's for another time.

I've been reading about writing.

I understand most of the ideas in the books. What I need are examples. One of my favorites is this one from "Techniques of the Selling Writer:"

Here's an example from a student manuscript: "The girl, in spite of her confusion and the hazard offered by the razor-edged shards of glass from the shattered window, somehow broke free."

Girl is the subject in the above sentence; broke the verb. Yet they're separated by twenty words of modification, and the separation renders the sentence distracting and confusing.

Is the separation needed? Or could our reader perhaps survive a different version: "Confusion seemed to overwhelm her in that moment. The razor-edged shards of glass from the shattered window offered an added hazard. Yet somehow, the girl broke free."

Fuck, I love that example. Break down that sentence! Show me what's wrong with that sentence, word daddy! I crave those sweet, sweet lessons! I need them!

I've gotten pretty good at writing stuff like this, this thing that you're reading here, over the last twenty-one years. That's how long ago it was when I first took up the name "Ratralsis" and began writing under it, on a site called "Conniving Pete" that hasn't existed in many years and never paid me a dime for anything I wrote.

I don't mind mentioning the name of the site, because you'd have to do a lot of work to find anything I wrote there. The site's gone! Good luck! It might be doable! I used to be able to do it! Haven't tried in a while!

I've been reading about writing fiction.

I want to get good at writing fiction. I don't want to take a reader by the hand and gently guide him through my world. I want to grab the reader by the collar and drag them, kicking and screaming, through it. I want them to hate how much they want to know what's going to happen next. I want them to hang on every word, wishing they already had answers to the questions I'm making them ask me, questions I'm not even asking, I'm just implying.

And I think that the worst lesson I've learned is that "less is more."

The idea is sound. It makes sense on paper, which is, incidentally, where I also want my stories to go. I wrote about it at length in my 14,000-word essay on Death Stranding, where I said this about Kojima's writing style:

…Kojima’s work is not a shoe with a narrow heel or a broad heel. It is a steamroller. It is gigantic and broad to the point of absurdity, but it is so heavy and so powerful that it will crush your entire body into a smear on the pavement if it rolls over you. It’s the difference between stabbing someone with a knife or stabbing them with a baseball bat: the knife, having a narrower point, is going to penetrate their body more easily. Kojima stabs with a high-powered cannon. The projectile is bigger, blunter, and heavier than either, but its sheer power makes up for it.

Less is more? No, says Kojima. More is more. Think about it. It just makes sense. This, I believe, is the great lesson that Kojima wished to impart with his game Death Stranding.

That's, and I'm being serious here, the way that I want to write. And I've been reading Discworld, as I've said, and I recently read a passage from my favorite standalone novel, The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle:

“I dreamed about her last night,” he said.

Molly cried, “So did I!” and Schmendrick opened his mouth, and then closed it again.

King Lír said hoarsely, “By our friendship, I beg you—tell me what she said to you.” His hands gripped one hand each of theirs, and his clutch was cold and painful.

Schmendrick gave him a weak smile. “My lord, I so rarely remember my dreams. It seems to me that we spoke solemnly of silly things, as one does—grave nonsense, empty and evanescent—” The king let go of his hand and turned his half-mad gaze on Molly Grue.

“I’ll never tell,” she said, a little frightened, but flushing oddly. “I remember, but I’ll never tell anyone, if I die for it—not even you, my lord.” She was not looking at him as she spoke, but at Schmendrick.

King Lír let her hand fall as well, and he swung himself into the saddle so fiercely that his horse reared up across the sunrise, bugling like a stag. But Lír kept his seat and glared down at Molly and Schmendrick with a face so grim and scored and sunken that he might well have been king as long as Haggard before him.

“She said nothing to me,” he whispered. “Do you understand? She said nothing to me, nothing at all.”

Then his face softened, as even King Haggard’s face had gone a little gentle when he watched the unicorns in the sea. For that moment he was again the young prince who had liked to sit with Molly in the scullery. He said, “She looked at me. In my dream, she looked at me and never spoke.”

He rode away without good-by, and they watched after him until the hills hid him: a straight, sad horseman, going home to be king. Molly said at last, “Oh, the poor man. Poor Lír.”

“He has not fared so badly,” the magician answered. “Great heroes need great sorrows and burdens, or half their greatness goes unnoticed. It is all part of the fairy tale.” But his voice was a little doubtful, and he laid his arm softly around Molly’s shoulders. “It cannot be an ill fortune to have loved a unicorn,” he said. “Surely it must be the dearest luck of all, though the hardest earned.”

This is one of my favorite passages, and here is another, because FUCK IT, THAT'S FUCKING WHY, MORE IS MORE:

Schmendrick must have carried her for a time, because she was definitely not walking and his green eyes were ringing in her head. “That’s right. Nothing but magic matters to me. I would round up unicorns for Haggard myself if it would heighten my power by half a hair. It’s true. I have no preferences and no loyalties. I have only magic.” His voice was hard and sad.

“Really?” she asked, rocking dreamily in her terror, watching the brightness flowing by. “That’s awful.” She was very impressed. “Are you really like that?”

“No,” he said, then or later. “No, it’s not true. How could I be like that, and still have all these troubles?” Then he said, “Molly, you have to walk now. He’s there. He’s there.”

These passages, long as the first one is and nonsensical as the second one is, are perfect examples of my love of "more is more" and when it's appropriate to "tell, don't show."

"A straight, sad horseman, going home to be king."

"Oh, the poor man. Poor Lír."

"His voice was a little doubtful, and he laid his arm softly around Molly's shoulders."

"That's right.[…]It's true.[…]No, it's not true."

Sometimes, you have to tell the reader things. Important things. Things they can't be trusted to deduce on their own. To piece together like detectives. Sometimes, the reader needs to put on their deerhunter cap and put their pipe in their mouth and raise their magnifying glass to their eye and examine the text for clues, but that is not the way I ever want to write and it is not the kind of thing that I ever want to read.

Spell it out for me.

Here is a passage from Discworld's eleventh book, Reaper Man, another of the Death books:

And it suddenly dawned on the late Windle Poons that there was no such thing as somebody else’s problem, and that just when you thought the world had pushed you aside it turned out to be full of strangeness. He knew from experience that the living never found out half of what was really happening, because they were too busy being the living. The onlooker sees most of the game, he told himself.

And another:

BECAUSE YOU’RE ALL YOU’VE GOT, said Death.

So.

What do I do with this dark and secret knowledge? The idea that it's okay to say things outright? That if what you're saying is worth something, then it's worth saying it?

I guess I'll have to say things, too.

I need to learn how to write like that. To hit hard.

Sometimes you have to use adverbs, even though you shouldn't use adverbs. You shouldn't say that "he laid his arm softly around Molly's shoulders" like that, what are you DOING, Beagle? He can place his arm around her shoulders the way you'd place a priceless antique onto a silken pillow, maybe. That way the reader knows he's doing it softly without you going and saying he does it "softly." Drop those "-ly" words, you fool!

Or… don't, actually. Keep it. It's perfect the way it is, and no other word than "softly" will work as well.

Use a metaphor! Use an image! Describe the man as something the reader can understand, not as a "straight, sad horseman," Beagle! What are you THINKING, just coming out and throwing a string of adjectives at me like that? You stupid, stupid man!

Or… leave it just like that. No metaphor is necessary. Hitting us with adjectives like that is, in fact, hitting us. It's swinging a baseball bat directly into our skulls, hammering home the truth of the moment: a man is sad that the woman he loves is gone forever and she left him without even saying goodbye, though she could have. Though she did say goodbye to Molly and to Schmendrick, and neither of them can help him. He is a straight, sad horseman. He is strong. He is a hero. He is injured. He will never feel the love of that unicorn ever again, and he knows it, and that is the saddest thing.

Even calling it "the saddest thing" is bad writing, isn't it? Shouldn't I use some flowery metaphor? "It will hurt him more than any physical injury," perhaps?

No. It is the saddest thing. The hero's reward at the end of The Last Unicorn is that he goes home to be king, and to be the saddest man.

Windle Poons's reward (yes, that is the name of the main character of the secondary plot of Reaper Man, who, I would argue, is the main character of Reaper Man) is to die. But he dies well, doesn't he?

And, with great relief, and general optimism, and a feeling that on the whole everything could have been much worse, Windle Poons died.

A 130-year-old wizard who needed to fail to die and return to life as a zombie to learn that, in this life, we're all we've got. And he learned it, and then he died.

What do I do with this? What do I say in my story?

That's the question.

For one thing, I think I need to get over any foolish notions of "less is more" and "show, don't tell." There's a time and a place for those things. There is. There absolutely is. Here is a passage, the opening passage, from "The Legend of the 10 Elemental Masters" by Nick Smith (aka ulillillia):

Knuckles glides north 1500 feet above Lake Sakakawea at 800 mph following Highway 83. A small thunderstorm is somewhat visible to the south. The sky is 3/8 scattered with cirrus clouds and 1/8 scattered with altostratus clouds. The wind is 15 mph with gusts to 20 mph. A few small patches of snow in ditches, some with water, are visible but hard to see due to the speed. A 40-second pause in speech occurs while credits display on screen.

Knuckles resembles a human, but with differences. Knuckles is neither male nor female, though referred to as a “he”. Three-quarter-inch-thick dark-violet-colored (FFA000E0) fur covers his entire body. He is only 25 1/3 inches tall, 4 inches wide, and 2.5 inches deep. Knuckles gets his name from his large hands, 40% bigger than a human his size would have. A reflective, glittery, greenish (FFA0FF00) haze a half millimeter across borders his pupil. Knuckles has no nose and a mouth 2/3 as big. Every other aspect of his is that of what a human would have for his size. For details on the numerical colors (in parentheses), see appendix 5.

I will never, and I emphasize this as strongly as I can, NEVER say a single bad word about ulillillia. That man deserves nothing but kindness and respect.

But his writing? By his own admission: not great. The man is not a fiction writer. At the time he wrote this book, he wasn't much of a fiction reader. So he wrote the way he wanted things to be written. With extreme detail. It wasn't enough to tell us that Knuckles was a bit over two feet tall. He needed to know his precise dimensions. ALL of them.

That's too far for me, I think. There's a happy medium between Hemingway and Nick Smith, I think.

But I'd like to do more of my main character's inner thoughts in the third draft of my novel. I'd like to reference the physical descriptions of him and of the other characters more than I do now. Talk about the architecture of the buildings they see in the towns that they visit. The food that they eat. That kind of thing. I think it can be done.

If nothing else, I think I learned from Wyrd Sisters that I can hammer home the idea that Katia, the main heroine and an orc woman and a veteran of a major war from ten years before the story takes place, is big and muscular and has blue-gray skin with orange eyes and numerous disfiguring scars. Yet, by the end of the book, our hero William still thinks she is as beautiful as she considers herself to be, and he is right. She is. When he confesses his love to her and hugs her close to him, he rests his head under her chin, because she's so much taller than him. He feels her familiar warmth and smells the smell of her leather armor and her sweat, because she's not exactly showering every day and putting on perfume. When she smiles at him, her tusks glint in the light, and she has a stump for a left ear from where half of it was torn off in a fight.

But that doesn't matter.

As for him, he doesn't have as many obvious physical characteristics I can point out, but he's still a wiry guy who wears a lot of furs that he acquired himself the hard way, and he carries around a massively heavy backpack with things like a tightly-rolled up canvas tent, a bedroll, and a cooking pot so that they can sleep at night in relative comfort. He also has his longbow and his broadsword and his knife, and he looks like a patchwork packmule on two legs with all of his burdens. He slowly grows a beard over the course of the story and he hates how it itches. His eyes dart around a lot, and he stalks instead of walks, out of habit. He stammers and pauses mid-sentence to gather his thoughts because he's spent the last ten years living by himself in the middle of the woods and has gotten worse at talking to other people. Yet, by the end of the story, he's a hero who's willing to put his life on the line to protect someone else, a thing that he was never willing to do before then. He was well-known for his self-preservation skills. They're how he managed to self-preserve for so long.

Are they the same? No, not really. But they're what I've got, for now, at least.

These are just some thoughts.

I'll keep on reading. I don't know what else I can do.

[bell-arina271]

Day 1 (technically yesterday) of Building Elsa's Ice Palace

I had this idea yesterday, but if I posted it then people would have thought it was a joke lol so I had to post yesterday's exploits today and start the blog one day late.

I wanted to find some good land to build on, but it's hard to guess things just from pictures. There's a couple plots for sale in my area, but I couldn't get to the second one because I couldn't find the entrance.

The first one isn't WHOLLY ideal, since it's right next to a water waste treatment facility, but when I went by there I didn't notice any strong smells. But I do have allergies right now, so my sense of smell may be blocked. I want to see how BIG the land actually is because I have no concept of distance, but I'll only be able to see it once I take an actual tour of them.

I really don't know what I'm doing. This is such a dumb idea and literally only makes sense to me, but here we are. It started with an idea of getting more land to fit all the pets I wanted to, and possibly redoing my house in a Frozen theme. But then my imagination went bigger and bigger and now I want to just build her palace from the ground up.

Not a to scale version lol that would be insane. But at least a four-story large house version that would include all the details. Still not sure how big I actually want it.

I wanted the land originally because I wanted a lion. They need a big space in order to run around freely. But now I don't want one for myself, I want to make a safe haven for the ones that will inevitably be abandoned within the next few years. (Before anyone @'s me, I'm aware of how dangerous they are and do NOT make good pets, believe me, I know. That's why I want to make a sanctuary now, because I know some people are stupid and will try to get one thanks to social media boom, find out the hard way it's a bad idea, and then leave it to the other sanctuaries to try to take care of them. I don't want these animals to be put down just because some people don't know what they're doing.)

I know it sounds crazy. Do I want the land for the big cats, or the palace? Maybe I want both. But if I wanted to share the palace with the public like I originally wanted, that means I would have to section off a piece for the public so they could walk safely. Which in retrospect isn't actually that difficult, just making a pathway for them wouldn't be an issue, I just don't want them too scared to come. I want to share the joy of her palace with other people too.

Anyway I just want someone to (nicely) tell me I'm crazy and that this will never work so I don't waste my time over something pointless. As it is, the smaller tract of land is just out of my current budget, forget about the bigger one. And I'm trying to accomplish so much already, I don't have a lot of time to spare. I can't possibly raise enough money within the next six months for a down payment big enough to afford it.

Can I?

[queen-of-my-goofball-army]

Undiagnosed Autism-spectrum disorder in The Michells Vs The Machines

I'm sure that more well educated people have put two and two together in this film but I really, really want to put my own spin on it from my experience. For me, as an aspie, film is one of my biggest interests. I love studying and more than anything I love watching and rewatching films. My latest favorite movie was one that I just watched last night for my family movie night, The Michells Vs The Machines. I also went 17 years of my life asking myself the same question that both Rick and his daughter ask each other, what is wrong with him/her?

Well, I'll tell you, in my firmly undiagnosed autistic opinion for far too long, that this family is full of people with undiagnosed autism spectrum disorder. When I was watching it with my parents my mom made the comment that "the dad was a jerk" and maybe "he just didn't love his daughter enough to let her be her own person." I thought that was so not seeing the bigger picture even though it was only fifteen minutes into the film. I have felt like Katie so much with my own dad. My dad is a computer nerd and a physics major for those of you that don't talk to me very often. That means in laminas terms that he's extremely smart. Way smarter than I will ever be in my entire life. Both of my parents are insanely smart in their own rights. My mom is a CPA accountant. But that isn't what I wanted to talk about here. I want to discuss the effect of undiagnosed autism and what it can do to a whole family when they all have it and just don't know that they do. This will probably go on for quite some time so you may stop here or read below the cut because this also has the probablity of getting super, duper personal.

We'll start with Katie! To me, Katie is one of the most relatable characters that I have ever come across. She's a film nerd, which alone has made her supremely relatable as somebody who is thinking about going into a degree in film studies. I am more of a critic of film than somebody who wants to make her own film but nonetheless, there were SO many little moments that I related to. The first thing that I personally noticed and related to was the stimming technique that Katie has. She chews on her hoodie strings. As somebody who has chewed on the drawstrings of hoodies far too often long before I was officially put into the Aspergers box. Aspies are also known to stick with one "special interest" for the rest of their lives if it's one that is wide enough and varied enough to make it applicable. For Katie, that's film. For me that's animation. I appreciated that little detail of most of her dialogue being references to other films because as a lover of films and movies in general I could go for days on just fumes and movie references that nobody else understands. The little things from her hair being perpetually messy (same that's a whole ass mood like I just learned over quarantine how to tye my own hair back), only having one earring in her ear at all times, the way that she dresses and draws on her own hands, this was just me when I was first in high school. I was one of the few people that wore shorts underneath all my skirts/dresses. Everyone who knew about looked at me like I had grown a third eyeball.

Aaron, the younger brother, also just oozes spectrum lil buddy out of his every pore from his being. I do think that they should have picked somebody capable of doing a bit of a younger sounding voice (I know what they were going for, but like Ben Schwartz has become a huge deal in both voice acting and live action before switching mediums.) His special interest is actually quite a common one, he loves dinosaurs. I've met a bunch of people on the spectrum that are fascinated by dinos and what they meant for the world as well as the universe as a whole. To me, there was one scene specifically that was the scene where Katie was lightly teasing him when they were going to the half assed dinosaur extravaganza. For me, this was SO relatable because both of my parents will mess with me about my interests most of the time it's when we go to Disneyland, they'll tell me that we actually aren't going to land of magic but to Timbuckto (hopefully one day they'll say some place else just to switch things up.) I related so hard to Aaron's protesting and whining in this scene since that is always my reaction to doing something that I want to do but get told that I can't do that thing.

Linda is more of your traditional mom but I think that she's on the spectrum as well. Just a more... normalized version as opposed to her family. She's able to be a teacher, she's able to interact somewhat normally around her neighbors. If anything, she reminded me of my own mom. This independent, takes nobody's trash (especially not her husband's), strong minded, and amazing mother who is completely in control of everything. She knows the special interests of her children and is constantly thinking of what will make them happy. Whether it be taking a detour for something dinosaur related, reminding her daughter that her dad loves her no matter what, and even something as simple as watching something that her daughter made and put her heart and soul into. I can't tell you how many times my mom has watched something with me. She watched my first anime Soul Eater with me when I was 12 and ever since then has been trying to get me to watch other shows with her. She's a lot like Linda, your loving, but firm mother who just wants her family to work things out.

Whew boy. This one is going to be probably where I cry. Comparing my dad to Rick is... something that I did consistently when I was watching the film. He's the strong but silent type usually, unless your me and he's just this constant annoyance when I'm trying to do something. He could be seen as just a "Jerk" but I think that is the undiagnosed aspie talking. Rick and Katie just struggle so hard to see eye to eye because their special interests can't intersect to save their lives. This, this hurt me because so often I struggle to relate to my dad. Especially when he talks to me about computers or physics. Now I took physics but without having been in quarantine and having him as my live in tutor I would have failed, not gotten an A. This has resulted me in saying things that I don't mean in the heat of the moment when we do argue. It doesn't happen nearly as much as it used to back when I was in middle school but when it happened it was because of one thing. I lied. I used to lie a lot because I felt so unworthy of being his daughter because on my best days I am not technically smart. You want to know how many nations of the world there were in 1991 when the original Animaniacs was airing? You want to hear my Dot Warner impression? Did you ever wonder how to recognize a specific voice when your watching anime? Have you ever had to watch a panel of your favorite anime voice actor just to laugh at something? No, well I did. But ever since I have started taking a quarter off from community college I have realized something. I am not technically smart. I struggle at learning the rules for math. My dad can do this with his eyes closed but me, I struggle and look like a complete moron. It took years for my dad and I to see eye to eye. Sometimes I still wonder if I was the product of some laboratory experiment of what would happen if two intelligent people came together, fell in love, and expecting that the daughter was smart I was the reject. Watching this movie with my dad I saw so much of my relationship with him on the screen. Struggling to relate to one another, fighting and getting into arguments about petty things, and not being able to be in the same room as one another without heated words because I didn't get him.

The scene that I related to the most when it was in terms of how much Katie just doesn't understand her dad was after he was nabbed by the machines. When Aaron asked her why she said those things to their dad and her simple answer was "I don't know." This. This right here was when I saw me. So many times I've gotten into heated arguments with my dad when he has simply annoyed me at the wrong time and I've just blown up in his face. Then I regret my actions and not know how to apologize for losing my temper with him because "I don't know" just doesn't seem like a nearly acceptable answer. I felt this in my soul because it happened especially often before I was diagnosed.

When I was diagnosed, things started to get better with my dad and I. We haven't had a fight in nearly four years now. He watches cartoons with me now to try and relate to me, it's mostly Pinky and The Brain but it's more than I could have ever asked for. I love my dad so much, more than anything in the entire world. This movie is so, so good at telling a story about how a family of undiagnosed aspie's and people on the spectrum struggle to relate to one another because their special interests are different.

Special interests and family's are especially difficult and I applaud this movie so loud because of the way that it was able to treat the subject matter with integrity and honesty. I'm sorry if this analysis got a little bit long in the toof but thank you for sticking with me! I really hope that if you watched the film you loved my analysis.

[voicefromthecorner]

"Y'know, this mess is gonna have repercussions upstairs. But hey, at least things are back to normal. Right? "

"...What? You seem down."

"Hey, it's their world. They get to decide what to do with it. We just..."

"Heh, some folks just can't take 'no' for an answer."

(My screencaps of the gang were awful, I'm so sorry, Beat. Got a good shot of Shiki's real form at least.)

So I mentioned during the Hamilton thing that I saw in advance the change made to this cutscene from the original DS version. To talk about it now, it is of course the fact that when Hanekoma says "you seem down", Joshua used to actually look down, with a small yet distinct frown on his face. But here, that's been changed to a small yet distinct smile.

Both kind of work, but they change the way we see Joshua. What they have in common is that we see Joshua watching over Neku reuniting with his friends while Hanekoma notes that he's sad, which sounds to be a result of Joshua being told "no" or knowing the answer to be "no" in response to, most likely, being able to join them. I don't think there's much possibility of a different interpretation. For a time, I used to wonder if Joshua was unhappy with the results of the game, but that wouldn't makes sense since said results were his decision. When I realised the real reason he was so down, it was honestly kind of a shock to me that made me appreciate Joshua a little more.

I think that's why, after thinking about it, I ultimately prefer the original. Seeing Joshua openly unhappy about something, like sad unhappy, is so significant. He actually drops his mask, even for just a second, which is such a big deal for Joshua. I feel like it's a bigger impact because for something to finally cause that to happen, it must be really big deal.

Here, we get the sweet implication that Hanekoma can see through his mask, but we don't know how big a deal it is because the mask is still up. This could be really painful for Joshua or just a little disappointing and we wouldn't know which. Heck, Mr H could even be totally misreading him and he could really be fine with it. There's just a lack of certainty that this is a big deal to him like there was before.

Still, if he's smiling through the pain, then that's just another way to look at this scene with pity. Whether Hanekoma can read him despite his defences or whether Joshua is willing to let down those defences to his trusted friend. Whether Joshua is just sad to be excluded or able to smile because things are happy for other people. Both versions show a deeper side to him. Both versions give us reason to pity this hidden loneliness he feels. Both versions indicate that at one point, Neku (and the others, maybe) realised that Joshua wasn't coming and gave up waiting for him. And both versions show a closeness to Joshua and Hanekoma that's all the more tragic when you remember Secret Report 21.

This secret ending is short, and the obvious visual highlight is the chance to see Hanekoma in his full Angel glory, but the big reveal of it is that despite his incredibly enigmatic persona, Joshua does care and on some level wishes he could be friends with Neku.

*(side-eyes A New Day ending)*

And the tragedy is that he can't. I do feel like some of that is lost with that change, but it remains true. Proof that Joshua Kiryu has a heart.

And that's us! The liveblog of The World Ends With You Final Remix officially ends here!

I'll post some thoughts on the anime when I finish it and I'll do a substantially shorter liveblog/reaction to NEO. And heck, I might make a post or two for this game sometime in the future if something catches my eye.

But the story and the full content of this playthrough concludes here. I can't thank all of you who joined me for this, pitched in your thoughts, shared some of my dumb jokes and/or ramblings and in general just had fun following along enough. I've said it before, but it's worth repeating.

I feel like a lot of this liveblog has just been me unloading years of TWEWY love I've not had a chance to share with anyone before. It was a lot of work and it probably showed how new to the whole thing I was a few times. But it feels good to complete it and it was an honour while it lasted.

The future you choose is within you. I am glad to have had the chance to meet you.