#✦ ・ {{ the test muse }} riker

[actionfigurebullshit]

Some recent action figure bullshit.

I referenced these pictures. I wanted to do something to make Moxie's office out of wood paneling and green art deco clam shells, but the idea was flawed from the beginning because of the height of the "wall" not working right with the size of the action figures- I'm rusty.

There were more pictures of Moxie with test set, but it's more of the same, except for the fact that I replaced the duct tape arm band on Moxie's right arm. I've had to replace it a number of times over the years- stops being sticky, gets sticky in the wrong places, gets hair and other fine fibers embedded into it, so on and so forth.

Replacing the arm band is like a turning of the page, I guess. Are we really in a new age of AFB? It's not the only piece I'll have to replace. Little hands got on Douglas and Trent at some point and we lost some of those pieces I use to cover up the Star Trek logos. I'll have to study some frames to get as close to the original accessories as possible. All for the best, as those pieces were also suffering from similar issues. Another issues is that the duct tape comes apart, and then you get this gross stringy stuff sticking out.

Then there's the TNG proper stuff, which I usually reserve for other blogs, but whatever I do with this is going to be a close neighbor to AFB. I think some of this is new to this blog. I did discuss my killer deal for this bridge playset. It's not perfect, as far as a collector's item goes, but for a maquette to make stupid videos? It's perfect.

Three of these action...

FOUR of these action figures have been modified. That poor Wesley Crusher action figure has been through hell and back, drawn on with a Sharpie, strange scratches on it- it always had odd scratches on it. I remember a time I was considering harvesting this action figure for spare body parts for Moxie. I've hated the pose they gave Cadet Troi, a pose they also gave the Lily and Seven of Nine action figures- were they trying to make them look sexy or something? Just makes them useless as ACTION figures.

It is what it is, though. Whatever we do with Moxie, it has to be done with the limitations of this broken Cadet Troi action figure, and in recent years, I decided to give this action figure a season 2 look, in addition to trying to fix the paint job. Wesley's hair was lightened, as it was Sharpie'd black, and his eye were changed from blue to brown, since Wil Wheaton doesn't have blue eyes. On that note, why did they give Gowron brown eyes? I've got about four of them, one of them should get baby blue eyes. Another one should be tweaked a bit and made into Captain Kavok. IYKYK.

Some of the modifications on the other three are more subtle. I changed the shoulders on Riker. Imagined these uniformed action figures as having a black triangle on top of their department color which goes with the black on the shoulders- they supposedly call that the yoke. Call it what you may, but I didn't like how that triangle lined up with the rest of the yoke, so I repainted it.

Riker's beard is also painted on and a slightly different color. Black isn't the right color, and Trent actor "Wyatt" mused on how it looked different- not to criticize, but maybe I thought I deliberately went with a different look.

Actually, I took off the beard with acetone so I could have a season one Riker. I've seen a number of mods onilne where they've used Cadet Riker (Douglas in AFB), but it looks wrong, as Cadet Riker looks more like a kid than a 29 year old played by a 35 year old. Using a regular old Riker head does come with problems, though, as the beard is sculpted into the face, but just barely. I don't have faith in myself to be able to file away the beard without destroying the head. Similarly, I leave his hair alone, though I'd like to reduce the volume on it. What we have here is definitely mid series. I have wondered if I should add to it, which isn't what we saw in the show, but what we did see in the hilarious YouTube mash up "Acid Trek".

I'll just leave it all one, with this 80s TNG Riker able to switch between seasons with a slight paint job.

I did add to Data's hair, which was all over the place throughout the series- pick any season and you have episodes where his hair is longer, and episodes where he looks like he just got a haircut. I believe his hair was the longest in season 2, though. Weirdly long. Data's hair is extended with cotton from cotton balls and black paint. This makes the texture on Data's hair look wrong, but with the cameras I'm using, it probably won't be noticeable.

Further back is something I'm surprised I haven't yet encountered on the internet- season 2 Worf. When they released the season 1 Worf, it was a lazy re-sculpt, like everything else. None of these season 2 Picards, Data, Rikers, La Forges, etc. look like they're wearing those ridiculous spandex jumpsuits. The uniforms are still basically the two piece outfits from season 3 onward, but with no collar and shoulder piping. This is a larger problem with Worf, whose baldric is basically the one from season 2 onward painted gold. Nothing about it looks like what he actually wore during the first season, which was an identical version of the baldrics worn by higher ranking TOS Klingons, save for two episodes where he was wearing a shitty version, which looked a piece of burlap sack.

By putting this action figure in the proper security division colors with a silver sash, this action figure becomes a decent season 2 version of Worf. Funny they never did this, but decided to release a season 2 Geordi, which is basically what I did.

I did this paint job a few years ago, so the color has flaked off, and I'm not sure if I can mix it properly again. It's not perfect, but then again, Data and Geordi don't quite have the exact shade of mustard yellow green, either.

I still don't know what little video I should make out of this, but I wonder if the plot and story are less important than the angles, which I think will really sell it. Though there's always an ever increasing attempt to mix things up as the series progressed, for the most part, many of the shots of the bridge are basically the same or follow the same rule of thumb. I should simply try to recreate these shots, the make my story around those available shots.

If I get serious about this, though, I will do them in proper 4:3, which I found out too late, is actually a better choice for doing action figure shit, or at least that's how I feel about it today. If I had to redo everything made for Chaos Corridor, I would do them in fullscreen format. Similarly, you can't do a TNG video in widescreen. So many of those shots must be old school because it's the reason things look the way they do, the reason people have to stand so uncomfortably close to each other, which is perfect if you're filming action figures. It allows you to worry less about the background, what's in it, and you get more of the action figures you're wanting to film, front and center.

All this said, I hope I was still able to convey the sensibilities of those shots from 35 years ago. Take, for instance, the wide shot of the bridge. Note how every face is perfectly visible, not obscured, no mergers. In fact, it doesn't look too far off from a TNG shot, or perhaps like some of the ones we saw in Star Trek Picard- and I feel like some of those shots looked weird or not quite TNG because it wasn't in the old aspect ratio and they were using a replica of a set that was meant to be filmed with that ratio in mind. Voyager's bridge might work a lot better in widescreen, as it was a wider bridge, and as result, I feel like the 4:3 ratio didn't do the set much justice. I wonder if they filmed the show "action safe" for 16:9 as they did for season 3 onward for DS9? The reason you can never do TNG in widescreen is because the idea of widescreen versions of TV Star Trek weren't seriously considered this far back, and so with the original film negatives, sure, they were in widescreen, or at least, you could expand out to widescreen, but you'll see a bunch of film equipment.

This is more about Star Trek than the action figure stuff, and I want to keep to the action figures.

Oh...

For what it's worth, before I hit "SAVE" and all this text appears with these photos...

I got double stick tape.

Typically, I've not bothered much with animating walking, and I'll probably try to film around it if I do stuff for these TNG action figures, but I might try to give more of a hint of walking, and if I have to raise a leg, the tape will come in handy. It's been a long time since I used it. Is it corny to blog about it? My excitement for dollar store double sided tape!?!?

[vicit-vim-virtus]

Spacetimewriter. Independent & semi-selective multi-muse roleplay blog, featuring canon muses from Star Trek & Stargate Universe & more. This roleplay blog is semi-descriptive, 21+ (minors do not interact) & crossover friendly. AUs & mirror universes are strongly encouraged. You can also find me over on @my-timing-is-digital (main roleplay blog) or on my Lore sideblog @of-substandard-parts​.

Carrd // Interest Tracker // Memes

Non-roleplay accounts do not interact. Mutuals may reblog.

Muses under the cut.

Latest addition: Luci // primary // disenchantment (but he’ll pop up everywhere lol).

Saru // primary // star trek: discovery.

Lore* // primary // star trek: the next generation // lore has received a sideblog-upgrade.

Ron // primary // ron’s gone wrong.

B-4 // primary // star trek: nemesis & star trek: picard.

Elim Garak // primary // star trek: deep space nine.

Noonian Soong // secondary // star trek: the next generation.

Nicholas Rush // secondary // stargate universe.

Rumplestiltskin // secondary // once upon a time.

Jean-Luc Picard // tertiary // star trek: the next generation & the motion pictures.

William T. Riker // tertiary // star trek: the next generation & the motion pictures.

Altan Inigo Soong // crack tertiary // star trek: picard.

The Doctor** // test muse (by request) // star trek: voyager.

Tuvok** // test muse (by request) // star trek: voyager.

Arik Soong** // by request // star trek: enterprise flexible.

Adam Soong** // by request // star trek: picard.

* The canon star trek: picard!Lore can be found over on @my-timing-is-digital​. However, I probably have an AU that’ll allow me to write Lore in the picard verse as himself, without sharing a body with Data.

** The last four muses are on a try-out; I might decide to keep them or delete them.

[that-girl-over-there-ffn]

Hell Above

All roads lead back to a cell.

Wanda had mused on this idea for quite some time when she first arrived. Not in a serious manner, of course. But she had to keep the all-consuming dread at bay somehow. After the mess had been cleaned up, and the people free, she had to answer for her crimes. Unfortunately, a normal prison like Rikers wouldn’t hold her. Even the Raft was out of the question. So, Doctor Strange and some astrophysicist had suggested a cozy place for people like her.

At first, it had been a bit unnerving. Even frightening. It was freezing, a cold that seeped into her bones, and oftentimes devoid of light. A constant muffling sounded in her head and kept her from looking into other people’s minds. And the other inmates, eyeing her hungrily, were beyond terrifying.

But as she peered expectantly through the shimmering barrier, into the small room before her, she reminded herself: it had all been worth it.

“Mom!” Tommy always arrived first, always sprinting ahead.

A weight that occupied her chest lifted.

Billy came into view next. “Hi, mom.”

Behind them, he stepped in, a careful hand on their shoulders, his only remaining tethers to rationality. “Hello, darling,” Vision greeted.

“Boys, Vision,” her face broke into a wide grin. “I’m so happy to see you.”

They shuffled closer to the rippling barrier. Billy touched it briefly, not for the first time, and frowned. Wanda had a sneaking suspicion he was testing it. A split second look from Vision confirmed he was likely coming to the same conclusion.

“I missed you, Mom,” Tommy smiled.

Billy brushed some hair from his face, “I missed you too.”

“I’ve missed you both so much.” She moved as close as she could to them, then paused. “What are you wearing?”

“What?” Billy glanced down at his clothes. “This is what’s hot.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “What’s hot, huh?”

“Yeah, it isn’t 2004 anymore, mom,” Tommy defended.

Wanda held up her hands. “Okay, okay. Clearly I’m behind the times. How is everything? Tell me about your day, my loves.”

Billy and Tommy animately told her about their new middle school, their teachers, their new friends, what classes they were taking. She listened intently while a bittersweet pulse began in her stomach. Occasionally, as the boys continued, she’d glance at Vision and catch the swelling pride in his eyes.

But after what seemed like mere moments, the buzzer sounded, revealing only 5 minutes of their 60 minute interaction remained.

“What, already?” Tommy groaned.

“Boys,” Vision said. But they were already familiar with the routine, their expressions turned solemn.

“I miss you, mom,” Billy said, eyeing the barrier again.

“Yeah, I love you, mom,” Tommy sniffed.

Wanda bit back the urge to reach out to them. She didn’t dare touch the barrier from her end. They didn’t need to see her writhing in pain again. “I love you both very much. Be good, okay? Don’t give your father too much trouble. I love you. I love you.”

“Bye, mom,” they both said.

“I’ll see you again soon,” she called as they began to fade from view. “Remember to look out for each other!”

A chorused, “we will,” could be heard, then only Vision remained.

“God, I miss them,” she croaked as the tears finally began to stream.

“I know,” he soothed. “They’re adjusting quite well.”

“Good. Good.” She wiped her eyes. “I miss you too, Vizh.”

He tilted his head to the side, an indication that he was considering if his next words were appropriate. “Every minute feels like an eternity.”

She let out a sad laugh, “I know.”

A moment passed, she caught his eyes sweeping her surroundings.

It was no secret that her preferential treatment put a target on her back. To her knowledge, no other inmate was permitted visitors. But once word had gotten around about who she was and what she had done, Wanda had been left alone. “I’m fine,” she said.

Vision frowned, uncertain if the lie was for his sake or her own.

“Well,” Wanda gave him a tired look, “I’m persevering.”

“Quite beautifully, it should be noted,” he added.

Wanda, who hadn’t seen a mirror since she’s been admitted, hid her blush behind her untamed hair. “Thank you,” she whispered.

His voice was strained as he moved closer, “Wanda...”

“Vision, no,” she hushed. Someone was always listening, always watching. But she didn’t need to read his mind to know what he was considering. If they so chose, they could easily walk out of here hand in hand, take the boys and disappear. But that would be no life for them. And she had already agreed, after all she’d done: aiding Ultron, her mistake in Lagos, and the hostages of Westview, she had a debt. “I love you, more than anything.”

“I love you,” he replied. His hand reached out, pausing just a millimeter before the barrier.

Wanda leaned closer, a muscle memory flexing. She’d do almost anything to feel his caress again.

Almost anything.

“It’s time,” he whispered.

“I know,” she smiled sadly. Eyeing his wedding ring, she wished hers hadn’t been incinerated with her other belongings.

Vision straightened up, arm falling to his side. “Please take care, my love.”

“I will,” she nodded then added, “Talk to Billy, okay?”

“Of course.”

“I love you...” she began their traditional game.

“I love you,” he replied.

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

“I–“ but then the shimmer faded. “Love you...” she finished, the weight settling back in the old familiar place.

Wanda took a deep breath and turned back to her blank void. A space devoid of sensory, reserved only for her, and her thoughts. Where she would remain until the end of her days.

[everydayispurple]

Hip-hop royalty and a fashion darling: why A$AP Rocky is music's most exciting star.

Seven o’clock on a Tuesday morning, and I am standing behind Selfridges on the corner of Duke Street and Edwards Mews.

In front of me, sitting in a shopping trolley that has just been shoved into the middle of the road by one of his crew, laughing his head off as a black cab is forced to come to an abrupt stop, is A$AP Rocky. In front of him is Juergen Teller, snapping away, also grinning at the scene that is developing. At the behest of his subject, Teller will soon also be in a shopping trolley, as will a member of the ES fashion team, joining the orchestrator of this chaos in a three-cart race from one side of the street to the other.

‘That’s lit!’ said orchestrator beams, more than once.

Rewind about half an hour and we are in a meeting room above Selfridges. Rocky, having turned up just before 7am pushing one of those three shopping trolleys (he requested five last night), clasping a hot drink, answers my cursory ‘How’s it going?’ with a sheepish grin and a withered, ‘I’m tired, man’. He has, it transpires, been up for a long time — 48 hours or so — and has come straight from the studio. Later, I will ask the artist responsible for the best single of 2015, ‘LSD’, whether he still likes to take lots of LSD.

Oh trust me: I love it,’ he says. ‘Yeah. I just dropped yesterday!’

At one point, I am informed that Rocky may instead want to talk in New York in a couple of days. Which — although all of this was his idea — seems understandable. But it turns out all that is needed to rouse this superstar is half an hour of shopping-trolley drag racing, followed by a nice, big, pre-interview blunt.

Back in the meeting room, we sit. To my left, A$AP Ferg — the second-most famous member of the A$AP Mob collective, who was recording with him last night — pops open a packet of M&S cookies and listens in quietly. In front of me, Rocky, 28 — aka Pretty Flacko, or if you’re Liam Gallagher, WhatsApp Ricky — soon proves himself, despite the self-inflicted circumstances, to be charming, funny and articulate. He is not, he says, in town to party. Today is just how he rolls. When I ask him what he’s been up to while in London, he replies: ‘I’ve been in the studio, just that, nothing else. Don’t even leave. It’s in my room, so...’ When I ask him what he’ll be doing for the rest of his time here (two days or so), he says ‘recording my album, staying in my room. Writing video treatments, coming up with campaign plans and marketing plans for my companies, my entities.’

The latest of these ‘entities’, the ostensible reason we are here this morning, is a collaboration with — you guessed it — Selfridges. But not, as you might by now be expecting, a normal one because Rocky doesn’t really like or do normal. So rather than just sticking a logo on some clothes and then sticking those clothes on a rail somewhere up in the men’s department, Rocky and his umbrella company, AWGE (it rhymes with ‘org’), will instead be opening a New York-style bodega within the confines of one of the world’s most famous department stores. It has been in the works for a while. ‘Four years ago, Michèle Lamy organised a lunch on a barge for Frieze art fair for about 40 people,’ buying and merchandising director Sebastian Manes later tells me. ‘A$AP was there, and so was I, and were very casually chatting over lunch and a glass of wine, and he said he’d love to do something together. The whole thing’s been very organic, and the bodega was completely his idea.’

For Rocky himself, the appeal is simple. ‘I feel like London, and so many different parts of Europe, don’t know what a New York bodega looks like inside so I wanted to bring that here,’ he says, explaining that the AWGE Bodega will be selling ‘food, clothes, toys, films: you name it’. He will, he says, be involved in every last product. ‘For sure: I have to be. Because if not, it won’t be my aesthetic, you know? I have a certain etiquette in the way I work. So for me it’s like... it’s not my way or the highway, but I’m just very adamant about what I want. And I know what I want.’ To add to the authentically New York feel of the place, he will also be doing a few shifts behind the till. ‘That’s gonna be a new thing for me,’ he says, ‘and I’m excited.’

Rocky can now add this new profession to that of muse (the first black face of Dior Homme); fashion designer (not least his well received collaboration with Guess); actor (he was brilliant in 2015’s Dope; has ‘just finished’ another film called Monster with Jennifer Hudson; and talks seriously and at length about wanting to soon do theatre); record label boss (AWGE’s first artist, Playboi Carti, has gone ‘three times platinum’); and — of course — being one of the best rappers on the planet, though he finds ‘rapper’ reductive, preferring ‘artist, renaissance man’.

He is also an unashamed ladies’ man, most recently being linked to one Kendall Jenner. I ask him if he is currently, to use a phrase of his that I like very much, ‘single as a dollar bill’, and he laughs loudly. I then mention that there have been a lot of pictures of him and Jenner in the press. ‘Yeah, I know, man,’ he smirks. ‘You know... that’s the press, what can I tell you? A$AP Rocky and ladies? That’s nothing new.’

There’s then a pause, before he asks: ‘Can I get some cookie?’

It’s not hard to see why both the ladies and, more seriously, the fashion world have fallen so hard for A$AP Rocky. And it’s not just because he is a ‘pretty motherf***er’, though that is true, and helps. What is more important is an innate sense of style that allows him to dress flamboyantly and excessively while somehow always still seeming masculine. He can effortlessly mix high-end with low-end, and doesn’t like big, visible brand names. ‘Some people assume you have to have name brands, or it has to be expensive, but it’s just gotta be your personal preference. It’s called “personal style”. As long as you got personal style, that’s what we respect, we don’t care about labels and brands. I mean, it’s good if you got a cool label, nobody going to knock that — I like that, I’m all for it — but you gotta develop a personal style first. As an individual, if it’s wearing the same pair of pants and shoes every day, then do that. Make it you, though. Own it.’

Born Rakim Mayers in Harlem, New York, to a Barbadian father and an African American mother, he got a sense of this very early on. ‘I remember I was five or six years old, and my mom dressing me for Easter,’ he says. ‘And I’m looking in the mirror just crying. And she’s like, “What’s wrong?” I just didn’t like the way she put my stuff together. So she let me just change my outfit around a little bit, put the sneakers on I wanted to wear, and I had my belt and all this other stuff tucked in. I was six years old! And from that day, I knew that I didn’t feel comfortable in certain stuff. So being that young, and being that precise and sure? It was meant to be, man.’

In second grade — at eight years old, around when he first started rapping — he would wear high waters (short-cut trousers) to school ‘because I wanted to be a mac’. By his early teens, he was wearing ‘Prada and whatnot. Fourteen, Prada, the ghetto? That don’t even mix. It was incredible.’

These years, though, were tough. At 12, his father went to jail for drug dealing (and passed away in 2012 as Rocky’s career was exploding). At 13, his older brother Ricky was shot dead in Harlem. For a time he, his mother and his sister Erika lived in shelters. He turned to selling drugs and at 16 spent two weeks in jail at Rikers Island. It was at this point that he resolved to take rapping more seriously. He joined A$AP Mob (established by his late mentor, Yams) and in 2011 released ‘Purple Swag’, which quickly blew up, introducing his laconic flow to the world. By the end of that year he had signed a $3 million (£2.2m) record deal.

The third A$AP Rocky album will be out later this year (or ‘A-S-A-P: no pun intended’). Its creator likes working in London, always has. ‘It’s just special to me for some reason. I’m just... I express myself way better when I’m in an environment that allows me to be. When I’m here, for the most part, I’m in a peaceful, creative environment and I’m testing the waters and making new music, messing around with new sounds and anything that’s innovative.’ I ask him who he has been working with, and after checking with one of his people — ‘Can I say?’ — he reveals that he has ‘been working a lot with my boy Skepta, just exchanging energy and vibes in a brotherly way’. Rocky is a huge grime fan. ‘All that stuff, all those guys, I’ve been on that stuff for some time, I think it’s cool,’ he says, going on to enthuse about everyone from Stormzy to ‘my favourite of all of them, my favourite UK rapper’, CASisDEAD.

He tells me the album ‘sounds futuristic’. When I ask if it’s as much of a stylistic leap forward as his second (the out there, psychedelic At.Long.Last.A$AP) was from his first (the radio smash-loaded Long.Live.A$AP), he looks at me and smiles. ‘I’ll let you be the judge.’

He then asks me to turn my dictaphone off, makes me promise not to write about the lyrical themes (‘leave that for the jump’) and the next thing I know I am holding A$AP Rocky’s iPhone to my ear, listening to a new A$AP Rocky song that was ‘just finished last night’, while A$AP Rocky raps along to it in front of my face. ‘This new album is just basically like all my albums: evolved,’ he says when it has come to an end. ‘They’ve been missing me, they’ve been waiting for me, they need some new music, they need some new sounds, new waves, new swag, new everything. And who’s the man you go to for that? Yours truly. So I’m back, like I never left.’

By now there are Selfridges employees floating in to work and next door another meeting room full of them, who are waiting eagerly to show him the prototypes of the products that will be going into this bodega of his. Rather than things like this being a drag, he insists it’s something he enjoys, ‘because not only am I helping them, but I’m getting the experience, seeing how corporate people work and developing a protocol and whatnot’. It will be far from the last collaboration of this kind that he does, he says.

And with that, A$AP Rocky is off to his next appointment, after which he will finally get to bed. Well, maybe...