#(i mean their visual designs and vaguely personalities but obviously very different in a lot of ways)

[katagawajr]

extremely unwell abt timkat again. goodnight… 🫶

[sewerpalette]

My Human AL-AN redesign!! The video is still a WIP because I got sick haha, but yk.

At first I was scared I wouldn’t see a lot of visual Improvement, since the video is only 7 months old, but I compared the two and wow, there is a huge difference and I’m very happy with it.

Also this isn’t really much of an AU(?) it’s kinda hard to explain but it’s basically just the alien designs replaced with humanoids for my personal convenience (can’t draw em very well), with some minor story altercation that doesn’t really affect the plot. I think with AL this is easier to explain as they canonically have the ability to cause visual hallucinations, so this design would probably just be an extension of that, not really how he looks. I always liked the idea of the architects being a little eldritch that way, they have a true form but it’s unphysical, the human mind can’t make it up so the individual simply chooses what to present itself as: at least that’s my personal interpretation/headcanon.

As I’ve said before in the first post about the concept design where I further explain my decisions, I gave him a burn scar over his face from the disease research facility incident wich I imagine stuck with him in a way it, in one way or another, burns itself through every body he possesses aslong as the transfer doesn’t go wrong and he remains with the memory (also obviously to resemble his face screen).

His attire is based off of those the alterrans scientists wear, the pattern is a mix of precursor architecture textures and shapes mimicking those on his body, the logo on the lab coat is inspired by the architect statues from BZ, wich i reaaaally loved.

Hair/face shaped to vaguely resemble his face plate thingy and horns.

Also gave them a bag in wich I imagine carries all the different tools that are built into their arms in the game, because I’d rather die than draw those again beyond blocking in rough shapes haha, bag coincidentally ended up having a sea dragon color palette wich I initially wanted to change but ended up really loving because it kinda symbolises his guilt haunting him a little. it’s also stacked to the brim with enzyme 42 for obvious reasons.

I also still stand by the idea that the architects would look a little uncanny when trying to resemble humans, they can mimic them to near perfection, but something is just off, the body ratio looks strange, neck a few centimetres too long, shoulders a tad bit too low, lower legs too long, face moving too monotonely, small things like that yk.

Had to rerender this because I started drawing at like 6am at wich point my brain was rotting so hard I completely forgot what brushes I use, but that doesn’t really matter since I love to render so yk lol.

I made a poll on Instagram asking wether or not people liked the glasses, because on one hand I felt it made the colors more even whilst directing attention at and lighting the face nicely, but on the other I don’t really wanna make every „smart“ character have glasses, so I decided that these are reading glasses, wich means he does have them but he can also go without.

here is the alternative without:

[havethetouch]

Here be pirates

2020 - Siti, Mahdi

2021 - Ila, Mel, Eli, Asa, Ava, Ife, Niv

2022 - Ixtia

2023 - Lev, Ora, Dar, Ira, Ayo, Efe, Nia, Jia

2024 - Nor

Figured I throw them down all in one post because why not most people are not even aware how vast the cast of this lil pirate story is, and those are the characters that got their design down, I have some more that I still play around with a bit on terms of colours and shapes. Aside from Ava and Lev, everyone got their first design try on a quick headshot that felt right and then threw colours on. Ava and Lev just got a ref sheet right away because idk I hit the golden moment with those two. (context: I hate doing refs and it usually takes me ages to do them even if if I have their designs down to a T. Mahdi for example.. is after Siti oldest characters created for this story and I only finally got around to finish his ref what? At the end of last year (2023)? Niv only got her ref like in July of 2024. Like fuck you could not pay me to do reference sheets the only reason I even do them is so that I can hand them to the handful of people I like to buy comms from (and sometimes for AF) who need the visuals bc they cannot just see them in my head otherwise I would not bother.)

The order these are drawn in is also not necessarily the order those characters have been living rent-free in my head either. Like there is Wyn who I vaguely know what he looks like for 3 years now but I have not brought him to paper yet lol. However the first few are. Siti was obviously the first, it started with her, Mahdi came second in my head even though back then I didn't even knew his name yet, he was an integral part in Sitis backstory and had the workname "Mapmaker/Scholar" but I knew while I tinkered with Sitis story that he needs to come back into the picture and then I started developing him. Technically it went like this: In the course of Sitis bg story she is faced with the loss of people she considered family (among them the mapmaker/scholar who she shared the closest bond with) during a vicious pirate attack at sea that she is the lone survivor of but even as I worked on that part I was like... "ain't no way that this fucker died, he is probably messed up but I bet he survived I want him to survive and reunite with Siti down the line" - and then a bit later in my head (mahdi, kicking the door in) "Hello there. I have risen!".

It still takes the duration of a decade before these two reunite. Which is also the starting point of Siti being the captain bc those two yearn for the sea regardless of the trauma.

After came the first five, being Ila, Ava, Eli, Mel and Asa. Ife and Niv followed soon after and then it kinda gets muddy with the rest. I had some rear up louder some just slipped in through the backdoor and at some point I started to design those as well. Nor is the most recent design in the lineup which I adopted from someone else because I had her down at her core but I could not decide on which animal which vibes but I saw demi-reality sell this zebra lady on their TH and I looked once, twice, thrice and went "oh. That is Nor." It be like that sometimes. But yeh so that is Sitis crew, at least those of them that have fixed designs. It is funny to look at the first headshot ever of Siti she changed not really much at all from that one aside from the fact that I got her unique face shapes down better in a way that I could not properly bring to paper back in 2020. So much shit happened around those years too, many losses in my family, among them my own father so many of these characters are intertwined with that grief and brainfog and memory loss that came with that trauma. A wild time that feels like a different life at times and I'm glad to have it behind me now. And I didn't even mean to get so personal about it here but those characters are, like I said, very much intertwined with a lot of that which also reflects in most of the early casts stories. But yeahhhh anyway I keep tinkering around, lots of writing going on in the background among some other stuff I have planned.

[hawkogurl]

The fact that people interpret that scene in the first Raimi film where Norman seemingly shows Harry affection for the first time when Harry tells him MJ loves Peter and vice versa as genuine on Norman's part is so wild to me bc it's obviously manipulation - but I suspect the disconnect comes from both (a) reading the scene through a post-NWH ret-con lens, and (b) taking what he says at face value while ignoring that characters can say one thing and mean another, and that there is a lot of other cinematic storytelling going on to frame the scene as sinister and each Osborn taking a different meaning from it.

Like, Norman's promise to 'rectify certain inequities' is Norman meaning revenge, and we as the audience know the context - but Harry does not, so he misinterprets it as meaning he's going to be a better father, and the disconnect and double meaning comes off as sinister and manipulative; likewise, the dark music playing in the background, and the visual storytelling like both of them being dressed in black, the way Norman looms over Harry, the vaguely gothic vibes of the penthouse, etc. all frame the scene as being creepy and foreboding; even if you only pay attention to what Norman says, he's very obviously immediately and only interested in Peter rather than Harry and his hurt feelings, and doesn't actually sound concerned in a fatherly at all!

NO ITS LEGITIMATELY WILD TO ME. Like man I guess Norman really is a master manipulator cause that shit worked on more people than Harry. It’s also really frustrating because a lot of the behavior we see from Harry aligns with the idea he was been abused and manipulated in a capacity designed to make him want to do anything to please Norman, something that makes me personally really dislike the idea Harry did poorly in school to act out for his attention. We sort of repeatedly get implications Harry WAS trying because he would do anything to be something Norman recognizes as worth loving. The way his hallucinations talk to him are probably things that ring true as to how he felt Norman saw him and frankly probably ring true to how Norman actually saw him. He would do anything for Norman’s validation and that’s just another example of it. Norman manipulates him with the affection he craves to get him to continue giving him what he wants. It’s framed as a bad thing for a REASON. it’s not benevolent. He’s taking advantage of his vulnerable son. I can’t even really put it better than you did, but it’s especially baffling when the rest of the movies reflect the idea that Norman manipulated him to crave his validation at all costs for his own benefit.

[acaplaya-musings]

Voiceplay Visuals: A Chance To Fly (Wicked Medley)

You'd be hard pressed to find a Voiceplay arrangement that took more time to create/finish than this one. This was Geoff's creation (he arranged it, came up with the video concept, co-directed it, and collaborated on lighting design), and he apparently worked on this for years. I don't know how long exactly, but I'm fairly certain he vaguely alluded to it in a live Q&A he did on his channel in 2020, when someone asked if Voiceplay was planning to do any Broadway stuff. And based on comments I've read on reaction videos, I believe he's worked on it since sometime in 2019 or so?

But anyway, as spectacular an arrangement as it is, I'm not here to talk about it! I'm here to talk about the video which accompanies it, which was released on the 26th of November, 2021, and features the awesome Emoni Wilkins (in the role of Galinda), and the wonderful Rachel Potter (in the role of Elphaba) (and yes, this is another rare six-vocalist video for Voiceplay, though this time it's 4 members + 2 guests, rather than 5 members + 1 guest). One of the comments says that this is apparently Rachel's 10th collaboration with Voiceplay, though I can only count 7 previous ones (or 8 if you count Just Sing (she was in that too right?)). But regardless, what a veteran!

Anyway, the medley itself clocks in at about 7 and a half minutes, so enough backstory - there's a lot to get through!

Group shot! Love the giant clock backdrop, very cool (and very accurate/appropriate of course)

(Note that I've never seen Wicked, not even a bootleg, but I've listened to the soundtrack a few times on the odd occasion, and I know how the story goes)

(Also this video really highlights the height difference between Layne and Eli, the tallest and shortest of the group, respectively. Apparently Eli isn't actually even that short - he's like 5"5/165cm (which is about how tall I am) - it's just that everyone else in the group is taller than him, whether by a little (like Cesar), or a lot (like Layne, who's 6"1/~183cm)

I adore Emoni and Rachel's makeup looks in this one. Shoutout to Rick Underwood for doing amazing things yet again!

(Also that's a super gorgeous necklace that Rachel is wearing and I want it)

Super massive shoutout and kudos to Geoff and Eli for the lighting on this one! This is top-tier stuff! And so much variety throughout the video in terms of colours and light levels!

Cute earrings, and also face jewels! (Those things can be an absolute pain in the backside, both in terms of applying and then getting them to stay there! I'm assuming Rick used some special skin-safe "glue" product to make them stay in place, and/or some setting spray afterwards?)

Get it, Rachel! 🙌👌

Geoff is handsome as ever, of course

Firstly, go off, Eli! And second of all, Rachel looks so freaking enamoured by Eli during this part, which obviously would be because he's filling the role of Fiyero, the love interest of Elphaba (whom she's acting/singing as here), but also it's just a little bit amusing too 😁

"Think of it as personality dialysis!"

Cesar being adorable 💜

Layne popped a bubble! (With matching "sound effect" of course) (Also I only just realised earlier while watching this that Layne is wearing a tie, just that it's mostly hidden/tucked in)

"And with an assist from me, to be who you'll be, instead of dreary who you were- well, are"

Nothing but respect for my Wonderful Wizard! (He did nothing wrong 😁😝)

I love him your honour

(Gonna do a Geoff Hair Study for this one too, but won't include it in this post, because frankly this post is long enough ^^;)

(Also just realised that Geoff is also wearing a tie that is mostly hidden, and wait hang on a minute, that means that his shirt is actually fully-buttoned-up? Gasp!)

I know I'm going quite heavy on screencaps (and we're only halfway through the video, heck), but I had to share these blink-and-you-miss-it shots of Cesar and Rachel 😄

Cesar: "KILL THE WITCH!"

Geoff (noted bass singer and sometimes sea witch): Uh oh 😬

(Joke stolen from a YouTube comment, but it was too good not to include)

"Because I knew you," (🥺🥺🥺)

The urge to take a million screencaps of the Defying Gravity section at the end is strong. It's so good on all levels!

The quality as an individual screencap is not the best, but still, I'm calling it another "Voiceplay money shot", and such a cool way to end the video!

As I am typing this, the trailer for the Wicked movie (or part 1 at least) has been out for a few days, but I'm yet to even watch it, and I probably won't see the movie, because honestly I don't see how they could make any of the musical numbers better than this. And this was just a medley! And acapella! Re the movie, I'm a little uncertain on how to feel about Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, and I'm definitely skeptical about Ariana Grande as Galinda. Rachel and Emoni killed it though, as did all of the guys of course! Well done Geoff, this was definitely worth the hard work and the long wait!

[sepyana]

Jjba Stone Ocean Ep 13-22 Thoughts

50% Crying about F.F. %40 Sports Maxx arc %10 Making fun of Anasui. Also Pucci is there.

Ep 13-14

A lot happening this arc. I don't really know where to start. Let's talk Ermes first.

Turns out, Ermes ended up in prison to get revenge on her older sister's killer, who is getting out of prison in a year. Araki says Ermes's position in the story is like Polnareff's (in the stand commentaries iirc) though their arcs are handled very differently.

The most important one is that Ermes's revenge is framed as a good thing. Polnareff got Avdol "killed" in his pursuit. Much like Ermes, he didn't care what would happen to himself as long as he got his revenge. Kakyoin says Polnareff shouldn't go sacrifice himself. They both lack self preservation. They both run on their own and refuse to get help from others. Ermes straight up ran in for the kill and got severely injured for it.

What I'm trying to say is Ermes's revenge is framed as good (mostly) while Polnareff's is framed as bad. Her sister comes from the heaves to hug her when she kills Sports Maxx. She does it alone at the end too. If her arc was a counter-argument to part 3's in some way it would be one thing but it doesn't do that at all. If Polnareff's arc never happened I wouldn't have cared about the message of this arc but It's so hard to ignore it when part 6 is basically the direct sequel to part 3. It's looks like Ermes just got lucky that no one got gravely hurt or kicked the bucket.

I don't wanna be mean. Pol is one of my favourites and I already like Ermes a lot. I don't wanna make it sound like Pol's arc is great either. It has it's own issues.

There is still a lot of stuff I liked though. I liked the visuals and the music of this arc especially. The shot of Ermes landing the killing blow along with the music is obviously amazing, it's over the top but I adore that. The music playing is Dio's world iirc. It plays at the finale of both part 3 and part 4 when the main casts face off against the villain. It plays here because Sports Maxx is Ermes's main villain. I don't think Sports Maxx is cool enough to deserve this theme but I like the effect regardless. I appreciate it when music from part 3 plays every now and then.

This might just be me being an F.F. fanboy but I really liked the part when they shot the alligator straight in the mouth. Determination is one of my favourite tracks from part 6. I might like it a bit more than the main theme.

So she can use her strings to sense movement in the area around her. Ok. Okay.

(This bit is from later episodes but it fits better here)Talking to Sports Maxx, Pucci says "There is a fixed amount of souls in the universe". And then he talks about how if someone had thousands of souls at once. Now I know that this is referring to the green baby, I initially thought this was because there weren't enough souls. Since the number is is fixed souls would get divided in the afterlife maybe. It's sort of interesting to think about. If there are too many souls do they get destroyed? Or jjba has already reached the limit and souls are getting reincarnated. Reused, if you will.

Pucci does care about Dio but I do think their relationship was more transactional than he would like to admit. It's not as bad as Dio but Pucci does treat everyone around him like tools, and cannot trust others enough to connect with them. The concept of heaven is too vague for me to comment on it right now, though I do think it is not as different from Christian kind as you might think at first.

Ep 15-16

Anasui is a character that exists. I saw him way before I got into jjba. I liked his design back then and he still has one of my favourite designs now. I remember seeing a post saying "How can such a naked character have this many articles of clothing" and I think about it every day.

Personality wise... I'm sorry but he is just so fucking boring. He is a murdered that likes disassembling things and he loves Jolyne. That's it that's the whole thing. His specific obsession with "marrying" her could be interesting potentially. Then you could ask "Why does he care about marrying Jolyne so much? What is his view of marriage to begin with? Any personal history about that? Maybe his worldview might relate to it. etc. etc.

Another interesting thing is why he is with Weather and Emporio in the first place. Emporio says Weather is the only person who keeps him in check. I am interested in seeing them interact now.

It's a shame they changed Anasui's gender early on. I love problematic lesbians, if my adoration for Shiori and Homura means anything.

The survivor fight could have been shorter. That's all I'm gonna say I thought it was kinda boring tbh. Other than Jolyne flipping off the guard 4 different ways.

Ep 17-18

F.F. my best friend F.F.

I don't really have much to say about episodes 16 to 20 as it's mostly fighting. I think Dragon's Dream is a cool concept and it was executed pretty well. What can you do against an enemy when fate has their back? This arc also has the issue of being too long I think. Some of the bits drag on for too long.

Jolyne tunning to save F.F. despite all her injuries... My heart... I love them..

Ep 19-20

Jotaro not letting anyone take off his hat while in a coma, with no memories and half a soul. Jjba is pretty funny when it wants to be.

Jotaro injuring himself and it just happens to spell Jolyne. And the same cuts show up on Jolyne too. I get some families in jjba have psychic links but this is too much. My suspension of disbelief can only go so far. I can excuse the Dio bone plot but I draw the line at this.

Anasui actually tells F.F. to push Jolyne so he can hug her with zero shame. F.F. rightfully calls this sexual harassment. How does plankton who entered society like a few weeks ago has better morals than him. Get your shit together Anasui.

People loathe Yo Yo Ma. I don't think it is as bad as some say. Don't get me wrong though, it is bad. It's main problem is that it's really fucking boring. I shit you not I almost fell asleep while watching this which is absolutely huge for someone like me who takes an hour to fall asleep. It's not the worst part of jojo but it is up there.

Ep 21-22

Well after the pretty boring stretch we got the last few episodes we get this gem -> completely ignoring the green baby thing

Wow so much to talk about that Dio and Pucci interaction huh. I was initally iffy on what Dio's character was going but I'm loving it.

Do you remember Dio's whole peace of mind way back in part 3? I mentioned it while talking about Kira but I never thought it would be relevant again. Arakkiiiiii please more of this.

So firstly, this pretty much confirms peace of mind is what Dio seeks despite talking about humans. Dio from birth had absolutely zero time to chill, he couldn't trust anyone, he couldn't depend on anyone. Pucci is the person he is closest to but even then he cannot fully trust him.

This is just speculation from my part but maybe that's what heaven is? That serenity, the ease. For someone like Dio who has made so many fucking enemies by this point that peace of mind is not really possible for him outside of reaching heaven. Much to think about.

Also Leonardo Da Vinci is a stand user. This is the jjba equivalent of Joan of Arc being a magical girl in pmmm to me. Why would you tell me this.

Araki can't play with my heart like this. I thought F.F. might make it for a second.

F.F. started to have flashbacks and all I could think was "It's so over". The fight with White Snake was incredibly tense. Having a stand disc like that on hand was a good idea from Pucci.

The moment when Weather caused rain to help F.F. was so hype. It's a good comeback. I always love seeing White Snake suffer. He is annoying as shit.

Jolyne hugging "Weather" was really wholesome despite what we learn later. Despite what Anasui thinks I don't think there is gonna be a romance between the two. More like a positive male figure in her life (Which she seems to lack).

Then here is my least favourite insulting my fave and you already know what I'm gonna say. It would be one thing if Anasui talked shit about F.F. after Ep 22. But Anasui just keeps going on about how they don't deserve to live and that they are lesser because they aren't human and dude. F.F. hasn't even done anything. They only told you to stop being a immature baby about Jolyne hugging a guy when they've got Pale Snake to deal with, rightly so. I'm not even mad I just have no idea why he is reacting like this. All this shit talk over nothing and F.F. still decides to save Anasui instead of themselves.

I didn't see the reveal coming at all. It's was as much of a surprise to me as the characters because 1. I am dumb 2. I don't think Pale Snake has shape shifted up to this point.

Pucci's remarks about how much Jolyne has grown is definitely true. I thought she was just as immature as the other protags despite being older than most of em but that's definitely not the case anymore. My girl ate the musrooms growing on her bedframe in prison. Just to get a chance at saving her father. She has definitely grown... Stone Free grew with her too.

F.F. is not the most unique character. There are so many media that has handled "someone with a newly acquired consciousness learning what it means to be alive" trope way better. But I still found it heartwarming. They are just happy to be there and I appreciate that. They have memories and people dear to them. F.F. didn't have a life before meeting Jolyne. Living a life gave them a reason to sacrifice it for their loved ones. They have a soul now and here come the tears again

Love getting emotional about jjba because I will look at what I am actually crying at and it's the goofiest most nonsensical shit ever and I instantly stop

One thing that's weird is why F.F. without a body looks like Atroe instead of their normal design. Their soul too. I know why they did it and it was the better choice probably. To us Atroe look is F.F. Plus it's easier to make it emote than the Foo Fighters form.

[adobe-outdesign]

Oddish! The Oddish line!

Oddish is based off of a mandrake, and in addition to being nocturnal and burying itself during the day it also shrieks mandrake-style if you pull it out of the ground. I'm mostly mentioning this because the mental image of this cute little thing screaming bloody murder because someone pulled it up is hilarious.

Anyway, yeah, Oddish has a perfectly nice design. The blue body is what really makes it interesting, helping it avoid the sort of generic green grass-type motif that we see a lot. I also like that it doesn't have arms and just runs around everywhere on its two little legs.

My only nitpick is more to do with the entire line; Oddish only having green leaves makes it feel a little disconnected from Gloom and Vileplume. I would've liked to see a little of the red worked in there, maybe at the base of the leaves. That's obviously not a big deal though.

Gloom is where things really get great, as we begin to see the line's theme come into play: they're based off of corpse flowers! I.e. those giant plants that look and smell like rotting meat.

Given how many grass-types are just generic green leaves and flowers, this is an insanely cool plant to take inspiration from, and its habit of drawing in insects with its smell makes it appropriate for their poison-typing as well.

Gloom also does a good job as a middle evo; it transitions clearly, but it doesn't look like either, with ball-like petals instead of Vileplum's giant open ones, some long grass-like red leaves, and a drooling, sleepy expression that adds a ton of personality and feels fitting for a corpse flower. Also, once again, I love the non-traditional colors here.

My only nitpick is that I could've done without the arms, at least until the last evo, just because that would've been more interesting. Other than that, Gloom's pretty perfect.

Vileplume's probably my personal fav out of the line; I love being able to see the flower in full (said to be so huge it has trouble holding itself up, a nod to how rafflesias have the largest flowers of any plant. The colors still look great, and maybe it's just my imagination, but I love how vaguely threatening it looks, like it's trying to look friendly but is secretly planning to stun spore you out of existence.

My only real complaint is that, while the expression is fun if you interpret it that way, it doesn't really make sense to go from Oddish's face to Gloom's face only to go right back to Oddish's face with Vileplume. I feel like either Gloom should've had Vileplume's face and vice-versa, thus adding a sense of progression, or Vileplume should've had a different face entirely. Regardless, it works perfectly as a final evo, and it still embraces its corpse-flowery nature to its fullest instead of just being a generic flower.

Spoke too soon.

I mean, Bellossom's not really bad; I don't even have much to critique about it, other than maybe the length and thickness of the arms is a bit off, but... really? We really needed to add a split evo to this line that throws out the one thing the original line had going for it?

I mean, to be fair, I kind of see what they were going for; it evolves via sun stone, and goes from night-flowering to day-flowering, from vaguely malicious and kind of gross to generic and pleasant. There's definitely people out there that would find Bellossom more appealing to them personally, even if I don't.

However, I think my main problem with Bellossom is that it really, really does not fit with the original line visually. I may not care for Gallade that much, but at least I can see how Kirlia evolves into both it and Gardevoir, and how it fits with the rest of the line.

But Bellossom? Bellossom feels like a completely separate design that was tacked onto the Oddish line during development (which to be fair, it very well could have been). The colors are completely different; gone are Oddish's pleasant blues in favor of yellows and greens. The eyes are much more detailed and different than the rest of the line's simple dot eyes. In fact, the only single thing I can see that connects it to everything else is the shape of the flowers on the head, and that's not much.

What's particularly weird about the colors is that some early art shows it did have bluish skin originally, and I don't know why they changed it (even the original shiny had blue skin before it was randomly changed to lavender):

At the end of the day, Bellossom just feels like it shouldn't evolve from Gloom, or even be connected to the rest of the line. It's not bad in and of itself, but it adds nothing; and at the end of the day, if I want a humanoid grass-type wearing a dress with a flower, I'll take Lilligant any day of the week.

Overall: Oddish is cute, and I adore the colors and corpse-flower theme of Gloom and Vileplume. Bellossom, meanwhile, is fine but doesn't fit with the rest of the line, and is much more generic. Still, the original trio are still some great and refreshing grass-types.

Also, enjoy this oddly ominous card art of an Oddish looking like it just blew up a town without remorse:

[maulusque]

Clone genetic enhancement ideas

So the clones were genetically enhanced, but i don’t really see any writers (in fanfic or in published stuff) really exploring what that MEANS beyond “clone very stronk”. Here are some ideas that would actually make clones significantly different from just a regular-ass human in peak condition. 

-enhanced senses: eyesight, hearing, etc. I’m talking eyes like a HAWK

-better reflexes

-quicker information processing

-can hear sounds of higher and lower frequency than standard humans

-can see light of a broader spectrum than human standard

-learn quicker, retain information and skills better (potential problem: if you learn something the WRONG way, that way might stick really well)

-photographic memory (really useful for memorizing layouts and maps)

-immunity to various diseases

-can tolerate a wider range of temperatures and environments

-increased stamina and strength baseline. Clones can just run full-tilt for hours and hours and be like “ah a nice stroll”. Over long distances, they can out-pace jedi in the same way that humans can out-pace horses.

-higher tolerance of certain poisons/toxins (clones can straight-up drink ethanol, and get maybe a little tipsy)

-bodies respond quickly to physical stress, and slowly to the absence of it (basically, this means that physical conditioning results in stronger muscles and a stronger cardiovascular system really quickly, and it takes MUCH longer for a clone to lose strength and conditioning due to not exercising than standard humans. Think how much valuable training time is saved if they only have to go on a run like, once a month in order to stay in shape)

-increased ability to function through intense pain and acute injuries. Basically, semi-disabling the pain system so it’s less distracting. Probably not good for the survival of the individual in many situations, but an advantage on the battlefield. 

-heal faster and better, with fewer long-term complications. Clones can dislocate their shoulders and NOT have the joint be permanently fucked up, because the Kaminoans re-designed the whole damn thing to suck WAY less.

-actually, unique internal anatomy. There’s probably a lot about the human body besides the shoulder joint that is actually just really stupid, and something no intelligent designer would actually build. So the Kaminoans can fix a lot of that stuff. Better knees, maybe. Stronger ribs. Maybe Cody punches droids not just because he’s a mad bastard, but also because his metatarsals are literally as strong as steel. 

-Hearing loss/hearing damage? No problem, your ear can regrow those little hair-thingies that help you hear. 

-Of course, it takes energy to maintain muscle mass, which is why human bodies lose it if we’re not using it. Clones need significantly more calories than standard humans. However, their digestive systems are enhanced to extract calories and nutrients from food much more efficiently, so food goes much farther. Potential weird side effect: maybe clones only have to poop like, once a week?

-You could probably extend that into increased ability to tolerate long periods without food/on low rations, despite the increased need for calories. 

-wouldn’t it be NEAT if the kaminoans somehow designed self-repairing DNA. This would mean that others couldn’t take a DNA sample from a clone and modify it to create their own clones (basically, it protects their product. It’s like DRM for clones). This ALSO means that clones couldn’t get cancer, and that they’d be immune to radiation poisoning. So a clone could just walk up to a sphere of uranium at critical mass and pick it up. Maybe with oven mitts on if it’s hot. (this would also make it harder for a rapid-aging cure to be developed, but uhhhh fanfic writers find a way)

- “bred for obedience” I think most of this would have to be accomplished through tightly-controlled messaging and cultural norms as the clones grow up- basically, enshrining obedience as a desirable and almost sacred trait, to be prized higher than anything else, including the lives of your brothers. In the same way that we hear stories of people sacrificing their lives to protect their loved ones, the clones would grow up hearing stories of soldiers sacrificing their brothers’ lives to obey an order from a superior. 

-SOME of the “obedience” thing could be engineered, though. Humans are already super social, but it would probably make sense for the clones to have an even greater need for social bonds. This would make for greater teamwork and coordination, and better unit cohesion, since the clones would be more inclined to prioritize friendship/agreeing with someone over winning an argument. It would also make it so they’d bond with their natural-born generals more easily, so they would obey them not just because they’re supposed to, but because they’d be much quicker to see them as a friend, and someone who’s trust they want to earn, someone they want to incorporate into their group and make happy.

-consequently, clones who find themselves alone do NOT do well. Isolation has a much more profoundly negative impact on clones than on regular humans.

-Originally, clones designed to operate alone or in small teams would not have the social enhancement- ARC troopers, spec-ops teams, etc. There wouldn’t be much of a noticeable difference in everyday interactions, but they’d also be vaguely weirded out by what they interpret as aggressive friendliness from their brothers, and their brothers would think they’re a bit shy and standoffish. 

-actually this social modification would make it MUCH harder for clones to kill people. REGULAR HUMANS are already super bad at killing people- i remember reading this article about how as soon as soldiers have to point their weapons at actual people, their aim gets mysteriously much shittier. Even when compared to situations that are exactly the same, except they’re not shooting at other humans. So reconcile this how you will, idk.

-I imagine a lot of these enhancements would be accomplished not through DNA, but through microorganisms. Retroviruses could explain the DNA resistant to modification, and the increased healing speed, and possibly some disease resistance (do i know anything about retroviruses other than a vague concept of what they are? no i do not. will that stop me? also no.) Their metabolism can be partially explained through specially engineered gut microbes.

-not sure how they’d go about making clones “resistant to any stress”, because you can’t exactly turn off the trauma response in the brain without breaking a bunch of other things. They could probably do a bit of fiddling to make clones more resistant to chemical imbalances, and therefore more depression-resistant. I think most of the “stress-resistance” would have to come through training. Either they train the clones to basically suppress everything, which might work alright in the short term. OR they actually have systems in place that help prevent the development of things like PTSD and help treat trauma. Meaning the clones are literally trained in self-care, positive self-talk, talking about their pain with their brothers, and having community rituals around things like death and grief. I don’t think that’s super likely because one thing that’s integral to those concepts is the concept of “i am a person and i have worth, and if i feel angry about something bad happening, that is ok and valid” and considering that a whole lot of bad things happen to the clones all the time and their childhood is a whole boatload of bad all happening at once, i don’t think the kaminoans would want the clones realizing “hey wait a minute i’m a person and i don’t deserve to be treated this way and it’s ok for me to be mad at you”. 

- the clones were supposedly engineered to be “less aggressive” but i think there was literally nothing more to that than a cover story for the control chip. The clones wouldn’t be raised with a lot of the aggressive western concept of masculinity, where anger is the default reaction to like, everything, and your personal pride is extremely important and also fragile (no offense lmao). So you wouldn’t have clones posturing and getting angry over perceived slights and fighting each other all the time, like everyone in-universe apparently expects to be the case. Anyway, why would you want your soldiers to be less aggressive? they’re literally supposed to fight and kill the enemy. You want them fully capable of getting angry, anger is the human response to fear and danger that lets us DO something about it. 

-obviously the biggest component in how they behave would be how they are raised, but that’s an entirely different post

-Specializations! I imagine that initially, the Kaminoans had different clones with different traits engineered specifically to fill certain roles. However, as the war went on, they struggled to keep up with demand and had to start shoving clones into whatever roles were needed (hence Fives and Echo becoming ARCs, despite not being engineered as ARC troopers). 

-Command clones would have better abilities in the executive function parts of the brain that deal with extrapolation, planning ahead, spatial reasoning, etc. They’d also have increased visual pattern recognition (like a pigeon)

-search-and-rescue troops would also have the pigeon pattern recognition abilities. The coast guard literally strapped pigeons to helicopters who would tap a button when they saw orange in the water, because they were better at spotting it than humans. Pigeons can detect cancer in microscope images of cells, because they’re that good at pattern recognition

-Pilots would have hella reflexes, excellent spatial awareness and spatial reasoning skills, much greater ability to process visual information, stronger hearts and blood vessels (to resist greater Gs of force), and they’d also be much shorter, to better fit into a cockpit. Which reminds me of Axe, that poor bastard from Ahsoka’s squadron over Ryloth who was almost eight feet tall. rip poor Axe, how did you even become a pilot, you long bastard.

-medics who can smell certain diseases. If you want to get a little bit out there, make the medics able to purr so they can sooth stressed-out patients. 

-infantry would have even greater endurance than everyone else, as well as greater tolerance for, and ability to, remain constantly on alert.

-ability to fall asleep at will? that would be super dope.

-maybe more efficient sleep, so to an adult clone, 4 hours of sleep is genuinely sufficient.

-concept: clones can sort of turn down their bodily functions- slow their digestion, heart, lungs, the whole nine yards- to last longer in adverse conditions. Sort of a half-hibernation (or quarter hibernation- they’d still be able to talk and think, but they’d feel very lethargic). They wouldn’t be able to function very well, but it would be great for things like enduring intense cold, periods without food, low-oxygen environments, and it would be especially useful if you were wounded and waiting for help, since you could slow your circulation, meaning it would take you a lot longer to bleed out. This state could be triggered by a combination of physical actions such as sitting or lying still, breathing slowly and deeply, and focusing on slowing the heart down (humans can actually slow down their hearts consciously if you practice at it, this is basically that, but turned up to like 1100).

-one thing that never made sense to me was the whole “we’re running out of jango fett’s DNA, all the new clones won’t be as good, and we have to stop ventress from stealing the original DNA” because like, can’t they just, get the EXACT SAME DNA from the clones?? you know, the exact genetic copies? With all the enhancements already done? But now my idea is that the kaminoans have engineered the clones so their DNA straight up can’t be copied. The clone’s own body can obviously replicate it, but if you take a sample and try to extract the DNA, it just self-destructs or something. This is to protect their intellectual property, but also means that they literally have to use a couple of Jango Fett’s actual human cells for every single clone they make (and the fact that they then have to do all the above enhancements to every single embryo helps explain why there’s so many small mutations, such as hair color and height). So they kinda shot themselves in the foot with that one. 

-of course since things like ADHD and autism have a strong genetic component, the kaminoans could theoretically engineer those out of the clones, but actually FUCK THAT so for whatever reason, that’s just not something they are able to do, and neurodivergent clones are absolutely a thing

[invincibleweasel]

Nitpick November: Day 3,4, 5 & 6

Nitpick 3: Why is Penny’s blood green? If we are meant to believe that she was built to blend in with the rest of humanity, why give her such an inhuman colour for her internal fluids? What if Penny got injured while on a mission with her old team, and they see her green blood. Her cover would be blown.  Considering the fact that Penny bleeding in the first place seems to be a new addition to Penny 2.0 which begs the question, why give her the ability to bleed? Why give her the ability to feel pain? These weren’t features she originally had. She shrugged off the truck in Volume 2 like it was nothing, just a scratch. It really brings into question what Pietro was thinking while making Penny 2.0. Nitpick 4:

Adam’s main colour is red, supposedly. Why does he wear predominantly black then? If this was post Fall, I would understand. Wearing more and more black as a visual representation of his growing obsession with Blake, that would’ve been good. But he doesn’t. He wears more black than red in all appearances that we’ve seen him in. What gives? Why not dress him in mostly red for the Black Trailer and then following the Fall he starts to wear more black. 

Nitpick 5: The Colour Naming Rule leaves much to be desired. It isn’t necessarily bad, conceptually. But there’s a lot of loopholes that come with it. Any name can be associated with a colour with enough leaps in logic and reaching. And that isn’t even getting into the fact that it doesn’t even have to be the first name that is colour associated. Just the last name will do. It’s why we have names like Jacques, James and Ghira which have no colour meaning, but are still accepted as following the rule because of their last names.  What’s stopping them from naming characters generic names? Weiss Schnee could easily be named Karen Schnee, after all, she gets the colour meaning from Schnee, doesn’t she? Even then, you could get a colour out of Karen as it can mean ‘pure’ potentially bringing to mind white. Which brings me to my next issue with the rule, a name’s meaning could bring to mind different colours depending on who you asked. One person might think that ‘pure’ brings to mind white, while another might think of black as a ‘pure’ colour. It’s vague and there’s no objective right or wrong answer to it.  Another problem I have with the rule is that names reference things that don’t exist in Remnant to get their colour meaning. Dr. Bartholomew Oobleck for instance, gets his colour green from the oobleck substance from the Dr. Seuss book Bartholomew and the Oobleck. This wouldn’t be too big of deal if the rule was purely from a meta standpoint. But the rule actually exists in-verse, meaning Dr. Seuss and his books would have to exist too to get this colour meaning. The same applies for Ghira, who takes his name from Bagheera. Does The Jungle Book exist in-verse as well? Nitpick 6:

Heels. Why does almost every female character in this show, regardless of occupation wear some sort of high heels, stilettos or wedges?  Now, this isn’t to say female characters can’t wear heels. They obviously can, and for some characters such as Weiss, Cinder or Glynda it makes perfect sense. It works character wise. But characters like Blake, Pyrrha, Neo, Winter and Raven? Highly trained fighters who partake in a lot of movement while fighting shouldn’t be wearing heels that would likely inhibit said movement. Even Nora in the words of Ein Lee who worked very closely with Monty was originally in high heels and had much longer hair in Monty’s original sketch, before Ein Lee changed it. This honestly wouldn’t be too big of an issue if the creators were a group of women who wanted to make their own show of badass women. But it isn’t. The truth of the matter is that these characters were made and designed by three cishet men. They are the ones who chose to give their spartan inspired character super high platform heels with a mini-skirt and no upper armour. They are the ones who gave a random heart-shaped boob window to their Nordic warrior. They are the ones who gave the audience long lasting shots of a female character’s body for the audience’s enjoyment and nothing else. They are the ones purposely gave their black thief an even skimpier outfit than the one she had originally, just to show off her breasts more.  These were all decisions the creators purposely made regarding their female characters’ designs, who were all minors at the time. The creators have a problem with unnecessarily sexualising their female characters and it needs to stop.

[salmonid-ink]

Let’s talk about Salmonid intelligence!

There seems to be a wide misconception that Salmonids aren’t intelligent, or at the very least, aren’t as smart as Octolings or Inklings. This idea couldn’t be farther from the truth! And because I’m the Resident Salmonid Fanatic™ it’s my job to talk about this. 

In hopes to make people consider and think of Salmonids in a better light, and NOT as pets, I’m going to do my best to pull evidence from in-game, as well as interviews, that imply or outright confirm that Salmonids are sapient, much like our beloved Octolings and Inklings. 

To start, I’d like to touch on their interactions with other creatures, namely their trade deal with the Octarians. It’s hard to argue for Salmonids not being intelligent when you consider the confirmed fact that they actively trade with other creatures to benefit the both of them.

They exchange their useful Power Eggs (and perhaps vegetables and fruits) to the Octarians for mechanical blueprints, weapons, and machine parts (and potentially tentacle cuts for food). We can wager this trade deal has been going on for a long time, as the Salmonids are fitted to the gills with machinery, and you can make the argument that the Octomaw was inspired by Maws!

While the Salmonids could easily take these blueprints and make the machines exactly as the Octarians planned them, these fish take it one step beyond and put their own twist on things! With their intellect, they’ve customized traditional weapons to suit them better, and the examples can be seen in just about every boss you encounter. 

Ink Storm + Brella -> Drizzler

Sting Ray -> Stinger

Ink Jet + Tenta Missiles -> Flyfish

Splash Wall -> Steel Eel

Baller/Splashdown   -> Steelhead

Shielded Octotrooper + Roller  -> Scrapper

Octocopter -> Chinook

Flooder -> Griller

Octo Seeker -> Mothership

Additionally, they are INSANELY resourceful, able to use any scrap of metal or machinery to make their contraptions, and make them decently reliable. Not to mention the fact that Scrappers are able to repair their cars! On the fly! All while under fire! That takes dedication AND smarts!!

Not to mention the fact that Smallfry, who could very well be babies (and I will argue that they are, as there is no benefit to stunting the growth of ANY creature), are able to pilot Flyfish. They were raised just right in the best environment, and now they’re super smart!

Also, Salmonids are crazy creative, with how they’ve incorporated their cookware into their weaponry. They take their aesthetic to the next level, man.

Next, lest talk about their homes!

It’s vastly clear that they have their own society. At the very least, we can take a glimpse of it with their houses. The Lost Outpost (known as the Colony at Sea in Japan) is a great example of this!

While these houses look like they were cobbled together with recycled parts, which falls in line with Salmonid resourcefulness, they are clearly stable living spaces that were built by he Salmonids themselves with ocean living and fishing in mind. 

Additionally, towards the back of the stage, we can see another house with a city on the horizon. While this is purely speculation, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to believe that this city is Salmonid-owned. The areas you go to are claimed to be restricted ocean zones, and given that you’re so far out that you need a house-sized radio dish just to communicate, it’s hard to believe that the city would be owned by anyone else. 

I think these city-based homes would be owned by Salmonids that work with machinery, such as repairmen and mechanics. This could also include artisans! Farmers would obviously live in more rural areas, where they can plant and grow their crops. 

We can also glean a similar idea from the Spawning Grounds (called the Salmonid Dam in many other languages): 

I will argue until the day I die that the dam found in the Spawning Grounds, as well as the adjacent city, belongs to the Salmonids, as evidence by its proximity to the stage, the green water pouring from the dam, and the very clear Salmonid mark on it.

Whether this city was built by them, or it’s one they took ahold of and built upon during one of their past migrations is yet to be determined, seeing my speculations are even true. Either way, it’s clear that the Salmonids are capable of building structures and homes with ease!

If we talk about their homes, even if this is much more on the speculative end, we’ve also GOT to talk about the factory we can see at Marooner’s Bay:

Again, given the proximity to Salmonid territory, as well as the various Salmonid-themed items around the stage, we can speculate that these factories are Salmonid owned, and perhaps where they work on many of their machines and devices.

Things such as Scrapper Cars, Steel Eels, Flyfish jets, Grillers, and Motherships could be constructed here, or this place could be used for processing water or chemicals! It’s a rather vague factory, so again, this is all theoretical. I haven’t a clue what they do here. 

Next let’s talk about their art. The existence of art alone should be enough of an indicator that they have minds to think and feel with! Especially when their designs are as intricate as these:

The most of these can be seen around the Lost Outpost and Spawning Grounds, but every single stage has a few of these markings floating around. I don’t currently have many in-stage caps on hand, but if you take the time to look around, you’ll find a few on the ground and walls!

While a lot of these are very clearly graffiti markings, the intricate designs may have some meaning. While we haven’t a clue what exactly they mean, or what they represent, I think they’re extremely fascinating, and give us a peek into what culture Salmonids have. 

They’re likely made with stencils, but all the same, they were designed carefully, and must hold SOME significance.

I have a theory that these designs are primarily to mark specific territories. Perhaps certain marks mean different schools and families! Or some of them could be warnings, such as to indicate Grizz activity (such as with the bear icon, which appears in a few stages). 

I believe in part, these are a form of expression, ESPECIALLY if they indicate schools. There are so many unique fish-shaped designs, it’d be cool to see how these correlate to individual groups!

They could also be a visual indicator for Inklings and Cephalopods that, yes, this is Salmonid territory, so you’d best stay away! Because while it’d be easy for a Salmonid to tell what area belongs to who by smell alone, Inklings certainly don’t have that luxury!

At any rate, I’d love to see what personal art looks like for Salmonids. What kind of crafts do they make? What sort of things do they love to paint? We don’t really know, and we can only speculate...

One thing we know for certain is that Salmonids appreciate music. It even seems as though they’re inspired by it, given the descriptions that the Salmon Run songs have.

I feel like this is worth stating, even if their existence is fairly common knowledge: ω-3. A band. That plays complex instruments. And does all their own mixing. 

Pretty freakin’ smart, I must say!

Additionally, each of the members have VASTLY different styles. The Cellist is stern and stubborn, and won’t accept anything but the best, be it in passion or in radical works. The timpanist is soulful, passionate, and is straight to the point. The DJ is reckless and disrespectful, yet puts forth his best effort.

All three of them are so unalike to one another in style and personality. They may not even get along that well, but at the end of the day, they value working together SO MUCH that they make amazing, unique, and great-sounding songs that stir and inspire their people. 

It’d be amazing to see what other types of music that Salmonids like, because this can’t be the only kind. However the style of  ω-3 certainly goes hand-in-hand with the chaotic, resourceful, and determined nature of the Salmonids. 

We should also touch up on the fact that Salmonids are stated to have tradition. Aside from their 70-year migration, they’re also stated to pass cookware from generation to generation in Sunken Scroll #19.

"Salmonids are known to keep their weapons in tip-top shape. The frying pans they wield have often been passed down from generation to generation. You can see the unwavering pride of these fierce warriors in their (somewhat crazed) eyes."

I like to think that they also pass things like recipes and other tools down to their offspring and kin. Family and schools on the whole appear to be very important to them, which ties directly into their drive to work together as a unit, rather than separately as a makeshift team.

For some conventional evidence, look at this one bit from the Merry Fishmas piece, posted by official Splatoon sources: 

I LOVE this image, and there are so many tiny details that you can make out in this. Such as these two:

THEY ARE PLAYING CARDS, and this ain’t no dogs playing poker bit, either! It looks like the other one is losing really bad... Or going into a food coma. One way or another, the other Salmonid is trying to check up on them, haha. Or maybe they’re trying to sneak a peek at the other’s cards? Who knows! That sly grin tells a story.

Also, there’s this Goldie, who is fishing:

These are all pretty human-like characteristics, which makes me think, all the more, that they’re on par with Inklings intelligence wise. I REALLY want to see more interactions like this someday, it fills my heart with delight and joy.

Phew.. Well, thank you so much for sticking with me through this whole thing. I hope this helps people get more perspective on Salmonids, and what little we know about their community and culture. 

[whocalledhimannux]

@peregrer the What. 👀👀👀 *insert John Mulaney gif of "say more right now"*

ok so when I say "the extent to which I've fleshed out the QT GBBO AU in my head is getting to be embarrassing," I truly and deeply mean it, please enjoy 1,900 words of utter ridiculousness.

first, our competitors:

Legarus - performs so poorly that viewers are a bit confused how he got on the show in the first place, a la Jamie (series 10) or that one guy who made a lime and chocolate cake in the first week.

Chloe - nice flavors and good ideas for decorations, but pretty sloppy. was up for elimination in the first week but came back with a great showstopper.

Melheret - good but not as good as he thinks he is (hence his bread week elimination because of sloppy technique), heavy-handed with the alcohol flavoring

Agape - solid competitor, not flashy but tasty + pretty results. I haven't worked out exact week-by-week themes (that would indeed be Too Much) but I imagine this is something like "Dairy" or "Caramel" or "Vegan," some particular element she just happens to not be strong on. viewers are disappointed by her early elimination

Teleus - Dad contestant. brings in a bunch of weird pans and gadgets he made up himself, does pretty well until it comes to Fiddly Foreign Foods he doesn't know (probably eliminated in French or Patisserie week)

Laela - typically has good flavors and pretty designs but technical knowledge is a bit lacking, so there are usually some flaws in the execution and she's often in the bottom half of technicals

Phresine - Grandma contestant. nails the classics but ultimately isn't creative enough to make it further.

Magus - the "Ian (series 6)" flavor of Dad contestant, often brings in foraged ingredients or eggs from his own chickens or whatnot and revives old recipes/flavor combinations no one else knows about. one week, some of those turn out to just be too weird, leading to his elimination.

Sophos - pretty elaborate decorations and good flavors (on the border of classic and new), but he tends to try a million different embellishments on everything and struggles with timing, occasionally to the detriment of technique.

Kamet - always has really interesting and different flavors and tends to do well in technicals especially, assuming he doesn't get overwhelmed. which is... an assumption (Finalist)

Costis - leans towards classic and indulgent flavors, although sometimes a bit sloppy--the kind of contestant where the judges look at his dishes and say "it's a bit of a mess" and then Paul Hollywood starts laughing because it still tastes delicious (Finalist)

Irene - absolutely stunning visually, queen of the technicals, occasionally gets the "style over substance" warning (Winner)

more details below the cut

I've gone back and forth on whether Eugenides should be in it but ultimately I decided no because I wanted to maintain a pre-show relationship between Laela + Kamet (I thought otherwise at first but then I realized I hadn't left Kamet any longterm friends or family for his finalist video and that's depressing af) and Irene and Sophos which to my knowledge hasn't happened once on the show so far? so having a married couple on top of that seems like it would be a stretch, and also then I think I'd need to make Eugenides the winner on principle and you know what? he can stand to be second fiddle to his wife for a little bit. My alternate backstory for him is that he was actually the winner of MasterChef one year (good with knives), so in the first episode Irene's first little chat to camera is something like "my husband's been bugging me for years to try out and I keep telling him he's got a skewed perspective on cooking competitions, finally I applied just to shut him up... and here we are." Her little video introduction is about how baking is a stress relief from her bigshot job. Her decorations tend to be abstract and gorgeous rather than cutesy.

Kamet, likewise, was nagged into applying by Laela, but she very cleverly framed it as she wanted to apply and wanted him to do it to for moral support. both were confident the other would get in and surprised that they did themselves. This is one of those series where everyone's friendships are immediate and obvious and super adorable (cast of series 10 my beloved...), and in particular these two are holding hands in episode 1. Laela's deep blue robe from TaT sticks in my head for whatever reason so I imagine her making an elaborate blue peacock cake or something one week that wins her star baker. somebody always does a peacock something and it's always impressiev.

Phresine is cool as a cucumber under pressure, always has lovely things to say about everyone else's bakes, and is the go-to last-minute helper because she usually comes in under the time. Irene starts out similar but as the weeks go by she starts to feel the pressure a bit more and cuts it a bit close. Sophos is the worst on timings, and mentions his wife at least once an episode. (I also played with him being single on the show and meeting Helen later through Irene and Eugenides, but this idea is too cute to pass up tbh.) Teleus lives with Relius, a fact that isn't mentioned until a few weeks in when he comments that Relius likes a recipe or gave him an idea for a flavor or something (Relius does not bake himself but will happily sample practice bakes), to the surprised delight of every viewer whose favorite contestant is the oldest gay in any given series (me, me, that person is me).

Costis tends to use a lot of chocolate and, as I said, pretty "classic" flavors--one of those people who makes a full English savory bake at some point. He's usually in the top half of the competition but doesn't get the top until one of the later weeks in the competition, which is a Honey themed week, and he absolutely nails it. The delicate decorations of his honey nut cakes and his use of honeycomb are particularly praised and that's the week he gets star baker. One of those bakers who flirts with elimination the first few weeks but noticeably improves over the course of the show.

My most, like, plot-y ideas are about Kamet (SHOCKER). I imagine he was born in Setra (I usually make Setra a non-autonomous region in my AUs) but arrived in Britain as a child due to [Unspecified Crisis] and ended up with foster dad Jeffa, who was roughly from the same region but not Setra itself; whenever Kamet wanted Setran food as a kid, Jeffa would take him to the library to find recipes and that was what sparked his love of baking. He's well-read on the subject and knows about foods from a lot of different cultures, so he's usually heard of the technical challenges even if he hasn't made or eaten them. He does a lot of fusion flavors, and is ALL ABOUT bread week.

I don't usually make the his-relationship-with-Nahuseresh-is-romantic leap in modern AUs but I think it works for this one because of the nature of the format--Nahuseresh doesn't actually appear on camera but is alluded to once or twice, ends up being Very Displeased that Kamet is doing something for himself, and during the week following Laela's elimination they have the fight that makes Kamet realizes this is actually a terrible relationship and he needs to leave now. He calls Laela to let her know what's up and mentions that, since he'll need to stay in a motel and has presumbly lost his job as a secretary (yeah working for your boyfriend is Bad, he's realized that now), he's going to have to drop out of the show. Laela, despite living in a studio flat without room to host him, immediately thinks "um fuck that" and calls Costis, and within an hour Costis and Aris and a few rugby buddies have moved all of Kamet's things into Costis and Aris's flat, where Costis insists that he'll squeeze into Aris's room (they've shared before, it's fine) and that Kamet gets first dibs on the kitchen for all bake off practices.

None of them actually reveal any of this to the show's producers. Kamet gets a little overwhelmed the following week and nearly walks away from the tent, but Costis jumps in to keep his bake from being ruined, and some soothing words from Irene + the hosts calm him down and he returns to finish. The only mention of the Drama comes in the finale, during the longer video clips they do on each of the contestants. Kamet is deliberately vague about the details of the situation, but Aris shows up in both Costis's and Kamet's videos and references the fact that having TWO flatmates in the bake off is a bit difficult because they only have a standard size kitchen, so he hasn't cooked for himself in a month and has been living off cake and savory breads. one of the hosts talks to Kamet in the tent after that clip is shown and he still won't talk about it in more detail, but says that he wanted to tell people so they could appreciate why Costis hasn't practiced as much the last few weeks (the judges scolded him for winging it a couple of times), and admits that he totally copied some of Costis's techniques for honey week based on watching him at home.

I imagine the finale task is something like an illusion cake--probably with a bunch of additional required elements because the show has been going bonkers with the finale showstoppers in the newer seasons--and Irene wins with a jewelry box containing, among other things, ruby earrings made out of candy. Kamet does a stepwell, and Costis does something architectural (I was thinking castle but something visibly Greek-ish so maybe a temple or a megaron? idk). Irene wins but they're all BFFs and that's obvious, so everyone's delighted for her. The little montage at the end reveals that Irene + Gen are expecting twins, that everybody hangs out all the time, and that Costis + co recently helped Kamet move into his own flat where he's now working on a novel (Immakuk and Ennikar inspired, obvi, leaning heavily on the honey-shared-on-the-road thing and including some recipes that actually work in the narration, albeit still written in an ancient-novel-like-way).

[Obviously not part of the show, but when Kamet mentions that it's time for him to look for his own place, Costis tries to v awkwardly invite him to stay forever and Kamet is like "nope I've got to try this on my own but yes we will go on a date once I've moved out and see how it goes from there."]

[This is so far beyond the scope of the show but also several of them go on to have more baking-related careers and have active social media presences and at one point they're all hanging out and Eugenides pulls out a camera and demands they all produce baking pick-up lines. Teleus refuses and also doesn't believe anyone knows baking pick-up lines off the top of their head or could make them up on the spot. Sophos sort of proves him right by coming up with "you're the apple of my pie," which Eugenides instantly mocks because Sophos's three greatest loves are baking, Helen, and poetry, and that's the best he can do? Helen comes up with "I like my cake the way I like my men--rich, sweet, and bright red," to which Sophos blushes on cue. Irene's is "when I'm with you, I feel like chocolate heated to 50 degrees--I struggle to maintain my temper." Eugenides protests this is more like an anti-pickup line. Irene insists this is the most accurate marriage-related baking pun anyone could ever come up with.

[Laela's is "You and I are like custard--I hope we never split." Kamet's is "You remind me of bread, because I knead you." Costis freezes for a minute and finally comes up with "Fancy a cream horn?" which produces a lot of giggling and makes Kamet slap his arm in such a way that, hen Eugenides posts this video to instagram, fans of the show all go WAIT ARE THEY DATING NOW] [by this point, yes they are] [I didn't even have to google baking pickup lines for this, guys, I legit came up with them on my own, please clap.]

am I obsessed? I might be obsessed

[weaverofthreads]

On the process of writing a novel...

Ok, so this began as a DM to a very dear friend who had said they were super excited to work on a novel of theirs that they'd abandoned for years, but they felt a bit lost when looking at the project again. They had "too many characters, too many intrigues" and they didn't "know how to create order" for all their ideas. They didn't know "what to keep, what to remove, what to change" and wanted to know if I had any tips.  

I began to reply in messages and then realised I needed to make a whole post out of it, so here it is! All 3k words of it. This is for you, darling! I hope it helps.

Things I found extremely helpful when planning my novel for NaNoWriMo this year, after also taking some time off from it.  

Most of this comes from Alicia Lidwina’s Four-Part article on her NaNoWriMo prep process, and setting up a writer’s notebook, for 2018. You can find the link to the first part here and I highly recommend you check out the whole series of articles for a more in-depth read. 

Content of this ‘essay’: 

Preparation, Groundwork, and Materials

Project 'Stats' & Overview  

Mood, Moodboards, and Key Imagery

Things to Consider, and Important Bullet Points

Get to Know Your Characters  

Chronological Order

Tangential and Preceding Events

Basic Premise, Plot Definition, Sub Plot Ideas  

List of Locations

Scenes

Chapter Outline

NaNo Plan

Additional Notes and Tips for Writing

Ok. Let's begin.  

First of all, I'm not saying that this is the only way to write or organise a novel. It can be tackled in as many ways as there are writers in the universe. This is just the method I used to get my ideas crystallised and organised. 

Preparation, Groundwork, and Materials.  

Take your preparation seriously. I bought a cheap but still nice A4 sketchbook with blank paper for maybe £2 at the local hobby store, and used it solely for the purposes of being my Novel Notebook. It doesn’t have to be a pretty, perfect, Aesthetic(TM) journal at all. Its function is to act as a route-guide through the process.  

I bought a cute sticker from Etsy and used it as the front cover design so that I liked the book and that it felt a little bit special, without being too intimidating to put a mark in. Then I left the very first page blank, and opened it to the first double page. On the left, I wrote ‘Contents’ and then moved on to the right and wrote ‘Project Stats and Overview’.  

I used a pen that was comfortable to write with, which for me was important. I’m a very tactile person, and having nice paper and pens (not necessarily fancy), made the process feel good.

Project Stats and Overview

This is the bare bones of the book, and includes details such as:

Project Working Title: (in my case it’s Weaver of Threads)

Targeted Wordcount: (to give yourself an idea of the scope, but it’s not necessary. For me it’s 50-100k)

Genre: (for me, fantasy)

Series: (will it be one book or more? For me, probably more than one, and at least two).  

Inspiration: (here you can jot down all sorts of things which inspire your world and your writing, and it can be anything. In my case, I began with “density and lore, and feeling of being grounded in a real world from LOTR and Tolkien.” And I went on to include other writers and novels in the fantasy genre, as well as elements from our own world, such as Mongolian herding communities and way of life, the history of the Persian Empire, and Renaissance Florence!).  

Project Timeline: Give yourself a structure, and be realistic. If you know you’re a slow writer who’s prone to distractions, be generous, but if you’re someone who responds well to short deadlines, tighten the time frame up a bit. I said “November 2020 - November 2021 for the whole manuscript” because I know I’m a procrastinator who gets dejected if they shoot past intense deadlines….

Editing Deadline: December 2021-January 2022. I know I can edit fairly quickly, so I made this one much shorter.  

Main Requirements Prior to Starting: What do you need to get sorted before you can get going? It could be purchasing a laptop or figuring out a magic system. In my case, it was the latter.  

What Happens in your novel?: This is not ‘what do your characters do?’, but what, in one sentence, actually happens in the book. For Fellowship of the Ring, you could say ‘a diverse group of people assemble and set off together with the goal of destroying the Ring’. LOADS more stuff actually takes place, obviously, but that’s probably the key thing that happens in that book. So, write the same thing for yours. I’m not going to tell you what happens in mine, because that would spoil it :).  

That took up the first A4 page of my writer’s notebook, and after that, I moved on to Mood and Key Imagery. 

Mood, Moodboards, and Key Imagery

On the left hand side of the page, I wrote down the words and concepts that sprang to mind when I thought of the novel itself. These were in no particular order or placement — just a random cloud of ideas in a rough column on the left hand side of the page — and they included: history, mystery, love, friendship, betrayal, nostalgic, homesick, sense of belonging, sense of place, searching, closeness, secrets… etc. etc.

Then on the right hand side, I wrote down five key words that I wanted to associate with the novel. These would form the ‘visual aesthetic’ in the background of my mind, and could be very easily expressed with a moodboard.

This same process (writing down words and creating a moodboard) could be achieved on a website like Pinterest. Take your time with it, find the right visual clues that really match the essence of your story, and create a final mood board with a limited number of panels that will be your novel’s ‘true north’ when it comes to feelings. If you're artistically inclined too, you could draw sketches of things relevant to your world too.  

While this stage is really important for solidifying the feeling and mood of the novel, don’t get stuck here and spend forever procrastinating on Pinterest or whatever. Once you’ve crystallised that ambiance, it’s time to move on. It’s also perfectly fine to come back to this at a later stage if you find yourself running out of inspiration or drifting a bit. Daydreaming, drawing, mood-board-ing are all great ways to work on your novel on days when you don’t feel like writing.

Things to Consider:

Alicia Lidwina asked herself some questions which helped me get past the ‘block’ that I’d created when thinking about the novel, and those were:

What scares me about this story? (in my case it was the scope of it - it was easy for me to get lost in over-thinking tiny details and get too overwhelmed to handle the big picture)

What will readers take away from it? (in my case, I hoped that it was a sense of friendship, people from desperate cultures finding common ground, and a sense of being grounded in a real, tangible world.

What is its selling point? (essentially, why would an agent/publisher choose yours over the next one in the pile?). Don’t be bashful about this. This is your notebook, so if you’re proud of a feature or aspect of the story, write it down. In my case, there is no ‘Big Bad come to destroy the world’, no Chosen One who is the only one who can stop it. There is an antagonist, but it’s on a personal scale, and that’s the selling point. It’s about two people going on a personal journey to uncover a lost piece of knowledge that’s arguably not all that world-changing on its own, but which means the world to them.  

What will be the three biggest issues in writing the first draft? Identify the three biggest roadblocks, and then take a bulldozer to them. For me, it was time management, getting mentally stuck, and the sheer darned effort of it becoming overwhelming!

Important Bullet Points  

These are five key facts about your novel, distilled from the sections above. They include: What’s at the heart of the story? How long is the story? What’s the narrative focus of the story? What are the maximum number of main characters? And the maximum number of supporting characters (this obviously doesn’t mean you can’t have other, less important characters too!)?  

Relationship between the two main characters is forefront

50-100k words

The novel’s focus is on the characters’ main goal (had to be more vague here so I didn't give it away)

2 main characters

3 supporting characters  

If you find you’ve got too many main characters (not necessarily a bad thing to have a lot of characters - look at A Song of Ice and Fire after all!), then figure out whose story you want to tell here. You can always write another story with other characters in a connected novel, or a sequel. You don’t have to tell everything all at the same time.  

Speaking of characters… 

…Get to Know Your Main Characters:  

Here you can write character sheets for each of your main characters and cast. There are hundreds of these templates available on the internet, asking questions like ‘how would your character react to [insert event]?’ etc. to get to know your character. If this isn’t your thing (it isn’t mine) then at least write down some useful information about them. Rough height and weight, hair, eye and skin colour, general temperament, and any other defining physical or mental traits. 

Next came the Chronological Order

This does not have to represent the final order of the novel’s structure, nor the order in which you write the manuscript, but you need to know what happened within the timeline, and when, in order to be really clear when you’re telling the story. You can write the manuscript out of order, and you can tell the story with flashbacks or in a different order, but you need to have the underlying chronology securely in place so that your writing makes sense and so that you don’t confuse yourself or the readers in the process.  

Preceding and Tangential Events

These don’t need to be in the novel itself, but it may be important to define the sequence of events that also led up to the moment where we pick up your story, and what is happening elsewhere so that you can be sure of these too. In my case, I defined the events that concerned one of the supporting characters’ lives so that I knew how and why they were at the point they are in the story. It relates directly to - and heavily influences - the events of the novel, so I needed to have this person’s history nailed down as well, even though I don't tell it all explicitly in the book (because that would be unnecessary and a bit dull).  

Basic Premise, Plot Definition, and Sub-Plot Ideas (plus writing a synopsis)

Alicia Lidwina defined the story premise helpfully with the following formula:

Story Premise = Main Character + Desire + Obstacle

Pick a different colour for each of these components, and write a short paragraph to explain them in the context of the novel. Alicia Lidwina used the following:

[Main Character] “Harry, an orphan who didn’t know that he’s a wizard, [Desire] got invited into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and wanted to live his school life to its fullest, [Obstacle] but a certain Dark Lord who killed his parents is trying to rise into powers again and kill him in revenge.

Do this for your novel, and keep it really short.  

Plot Definition: This is even shorter than that! It’s a single sentence!! It’s most closely tied to the desire of the character, and lies at the heart of the story. It’s most likely a distilled version of the ‘what happens in the story’ from the Project Stats page, so check that to see what you wrote there.  

Sub Plot Ideas  

Five bullet points (no more) for things that are happening concurrently and which are related in some way to the main story. For me, Kae and Tomas are doing their research, so that’s the main theme, but beneath that there are a few other related incidents.

Writing a Synopsis - developed out of the points in this section, and includes:

Who the main character is

What the stakes are (the story premise is your guideline)

What the main plot line is

How the MC resolves the problem in the main plot line

How the book ends.

List of Locations  

Start with the main ones and add to it as you go on. Write a little bit of information about them so that you have something to refer back to. I also drew a big old map which I found very helpful and also really fun to do.

List of Scenes

It’s very important to map out every single scene that happens in the novel. Use your timeline to help with this, but remember a scene is not necessarily a chapter. You can have more than one scene within a chapter, but try not to have too many.  

I used small post-it notes (sticky notes) and wrote down things like “M joins K’s clan at the fire and K learns about magic” and “K studies at Citadel, intro to Citadel, magic, and characters” as separate scenes. Once you’ve written down everything that is going to happen (this will take some time! Get a drink and some snacks ready, and go slow), you can stick them into your notebook in the order you’d like to tell the story. Some chapters may have just one scene, while others may have two or three. I didn’t have more than two in any of my chapters, and actually ended up splitting some scenes that I’d made too vague in this section into more chapters. It doesn’t have to be set in stone, but it will form a road map.  

Additions and Notes:  

I left a section of the Scene Outline bit of the notebook blank for things to add in as I went along. I haven’t used it yet, but I might.  

Chapter Outline

I arranged the scenes into the chapters already by sticking them in order, but you could do a chapter outline separately after this. It’s up to you. 

NaNoWriMo plan:  

I did this back in October, and wrote down the main goal for nanoprep, which was to finish the background info. Breaking that down further, I listed - magic (how does it work exactly), geography, and politics. 

After that, it was just a case of writing the 1667 words a day. *spoilers, I got distracted and didn’t do NaNo this year* . What I should have done, was break it up into chunks and write down my goals so that I had something tangible to use as a road map, and I will be doing that now for the novel as I take it up again outside of NaNo. Having check boxes and manageable goals really works for me. Find what will work for you, and if it turns out not to, adapt!

Some final pointers and tips:

Set regular goals for yourself. Whether you work by saying ‘I’ll write 1000 words a day’ or ‘I’ll write something every day’, make a structure for yourself. If you slip and miss a day, week, or month (I didn’t meet NaNo this year because I chose to work on another project instead *slaps forehead*), don’t beat yourself up. Writing is a craft and it takes a long time and a lot of discipline to master a craft.  

Your first draft does not have to be good. At all. Your first draft is just words on paper. A first draft is the block of marble taken from the quarry, and subsequent edits and reworking is the process of carving the sculpture itself. The editing that is done by the publisher or the professional you employ to edit it for you later, is the final polishing. Don’t be demoralised if the block of marble seems very rough when it first lands in your studio. That’s ok!  

Take regular breaks. Writing is hard work, and most people can’t concentrate on something successfully for longer than 55 min's, and if you’re doing that, you’re already doing really well. Personally, I’m at 15-20 on a good day. Write in little sprints of ten minutes or so, and then get up and stretch, look out the window, maybe leave the room, come back in with a fresh approach.  

Stretch your hands, and wear wrist braces when you work. Seriously. I gave myself tendinitis on my first major project, and couldn’t use either hand properly for weeks. The ones I have are these, and they allow me to work safely for much longer.  

Keep hydrated. Have a bottle of water on the desk in front of you between your arms as you type and sip it, otherwise you’ll forget. 2 litres a day is usually recommended, but know your body and drink accordingly.  

Treat yourself. Whether that’s something as simple as a decadent hot chocolate after your first chapter/chunk/sprint is done, or a new notebook or a pen or that sticker set you wanted on Etsy or literally anything nice, reward yourself for the hard work you’ve put in, with tangible things you can look at or experience and say ‘I have that because I did the work’. It’ll help with your sense of achievement, especially if the project is a long one.  

Join a local writer’s group for feedback. With the current Covid-19 chaos, this is probably not possible right now, but getting constructive feedback on your work from someone who hasn’t been cocooned in the project in the way you are, but who respects you as a writer and wants to help you grow, will be invaluable. It’s too easy to exist in a little isolated bubble and think you’re doing ok, when in reality you could be creating bad habits which will be difficult to break later. By these, I mean things like ‘filler words’ you don’t realise you use, or other pit-falls it’s easy to tumble into when you can’t see the wood for the trees…It’s intimidating, and it might take some courage to work up and do, but I promise it’ll help you grow. You don’t have to do what the people suggest, but it’s great to get outside opinions all the same.

Submit work to writing competitions. This will help with showing agents and publishers later down the line that you’re not only committed, but hopefully talented, and will help you to push yourself. Use the world of your novel for the setting, and get to know it by writing short stories on the competition’s theme set there.  

Read. Read the writers you admire, and read them ‘actively’ - figure out exactly what it is about ‘that’ sentence that made you shiver, and use the same techniques in your own work (don’t plagiarise, obviously, but if it was alliteration that made the sentence work so well, use it yourself! Perhaps it was the metre of the line? Great, now you know a rhythm that will drive a sentence forward or slow it down etc.)

Enjoy it. If you’re not enjoying what you’re doing, it’ll show in the work. Take a step back if you start floundering, and ‘interview’ yourself about why it’s not fun any more. Refer back to the sections in the notebook that helped to clarify the plot/process, and see if you’ve wandered away from them. Make yourself answer questions like: ‘What is the main reason I don’t want to do this?’ ‘What is the character’s motivation?’ ‘Should I scrap this section?’ (don’t delete it, but cut and paste it into another ‘scraps’ document, and then start afresh from the last place you were happy with. Nothing is wasted - it all goes into building the world and getting to know the characters, even if it doesn’t get explicitly told in the finished product, so don’t be afraid to do that last bit).  

Good luck!

I hope you found this helpful, and if you have any questions or things you’d like to add to this, please feel free to send me an ask here on Tumblr.

If you’re a new writer hoping to get an agent or publisher, you might also find this post on ‘talking to a published author’ helpful or interesting.

If you would like to keep up to date with my own novel’s progress, you can follow me here on Tumblr, as well as on my writing Instagram @rnpeacock

[mylittleredgirl]

trekathon: disco 1x8

in this week’s episode of star trek discovery:

saru gets zapped by a sentient version of the winamp player visualizer and proceeds to terrify the fuck out of me

intrigue! on the ship of the dead

with only a passing knowledge of latin, i assume “si vis pacem, para bellum” means “if you want peace, square the fuck up”

remember that time odo said “the klingons felt menaced by fog?” 

i feel like that’s about to become relevant

we’ve avoided this topic long enough:

so

t’kuvma shining a bright light to draw klingon ships in from around the quadrant

that whole business with the red lights appearing all over the galaxy in season two

detecting klingon ships by sonar

it’s just going to be easier on all of us if we accept that for mysterious space reasons, for a brief period of time about 10 years before captain kirk’s five-year mission, light and sound traveled at infinite speed and then we don’t worry about it anymore

yikes™️:

is there anything creepier than when a character get possessed by aliens and starts attacking their friends

with a calm smile

and it turns out they weren’t possessed after all

i mean i too would go to some lengths to get rid of anxiety but i wouldn’t donkey-kick my colleagues and destroy the federation’s last hope of ending the war!! SARU!!!!

this episode is very stressful

i posted this and then immediately realized i need like three more hours of thought before i can get into it properly, but it feels actually inevitable that saru and michael would get into a physical fight and the “you won’t stop taking!” line just. the way they’re both grieving for georgiou and he’s taking it out on her HURTS.

meanwhile, klingons:

that “scream” scene with l’rell and cornwell? a+++

i don’t remember what l’rell is after and that makes this Very Good TV

but seriously... mary chieffo creating a layered character using none of her actual face or eyes or teeth and in a language she doesn’t speak

i know things are going to go to hell before redbubble would have time to deliver, but i want lorca and cornwell and tyler to have matching “i got tortured by the klingons and lived to tell about it” jackets because that seems to happen a lot

STOP STOP I ALREADY LOVE THEM:

they really really got me with the michael and ash tyler thing, like there’s a deep wailing in my soul when i think about the ship they make me think they are setting up here

“our futures look different” 😭😫😭

i was going to keep these recaps text-only because i love mediocre memes too much to stop once i start, but there’s really no other way to express my love for ash tyler’s pickup line:

AND IT WORKS

i just want them to get on a boat together in peacetime and eat fresh trout!!! discovery!!!!! why are you doing this to me!?!!???

while i’m making vaguely relevant memes:

it’s like gersha phillips looked gene roddenberry’s ghost dead in the eye and designed these field jackets as a personal attack

other characters:

tyler and lorca have now both played the Reveal Trauma card as a diversion technique and people wonder why 100 years later it became standard to put a trained mental health professional on the bridge

in the meantime, we have tilly in the mess hall!

stamets’s mushroom hangover periodically yeets him out of this dimension oops

that definitely seems like a thing you should not keep to yourselves when stamets is the key operating component of your starship engine but ok

i REALLY thought that when saru gave tyler the pahvan harmony crystal it was going to knock loose the klingon brainwashing

i have spent way too much time on this:

i feel like we should talk about captain t’shen kovil of the uss gagarin, human man with a traditionally female vulcan name

i mean obviously?? the first thought is trans human-vulcan hybrid, BUT we know from tng that vulcan/romulan ears remain dominant for at least two generations, and it hasn’t been long enough since enterprise-era for more vulcan generations to pass

so instead, consider: “10,000 names for your baby from 65 Federation worlds!” books

linus! jennifer! t’shen! imagine the federation version of the babynames.com message boards

“i want to give my baby an andorian name but that’s sooo popular right now ugh so i’m thinking i should spell it in rigellian or klingon??”

very sad though that we didn’t get a replay of that “i was told to expect a vulcan” scene with stamets, except it’s t’shen and michael meeting each other

“i assumed you’d be a woman.” “i assumed you’d be a man.” “i also thought you’d be a vulcan.” “i get that a lot.” “....... actually so do i.”

rip dude i thought about you for 75 times longer than you were actually on screen

other moments of delight:

michael’s explanation of starfleet protocol brings peace to my soul

i was going to come at voyager specifically for their tendency to toss everything under the prime directive banner but then it occurred to me that voyager is well over 100 years later, so they probably added some sub-paragraphs

so more specifically, michael’s explanation of starfleet protocol at a simpler time in star trek history brings peace to my soul

“mr. rhys, can i trouble you to FIRE at something!” i.... still really like lorca

“the needs of the one” most romantic line in star trek confirmed

[biblio-bitch]

Detroit Evolution Commentary Pt. 3 [FINAL]

It’s been a while, sorry. Life sucks ass sometimes and I had to do some transferring to my new laptop. I’ll write down some more fun facts as an apology. Disclaimer: This is all stuff I noticed, inferred, or interpreted. I didn’t write the film, anything I’ve interpreted is just that, an interpretation based on things I noticed using my experiences and knowledge. 

Fun fact #1: I have attempted to write in a proper novel style at least five times. After watching DE and watching @octopunkmedia ‘s script breakdowns and such, I've started writing scripts instead. I’m much farther along in those than I ever have been in books. 10/10 amazing for my visual based concepts.

Fun fact #2: My mental health was rapidly declining and I was losing interest in quite literally everything at the time the film was released. Watching the film and fixating on it for a month straight not only inspired me but helped me regain control of my life. Watching streams by the cast and Michelle while I worked for school made my productivity skyrocket.

Fun fact #3: I recently developed a tic that I now can’t get rid of. It was out of control for about twenty minutes right before I began writing this post. However, when I began re-watching the film (partially because it’s a comfort for me and I’m quite honestly terrified of what’s happening in the US right now) it stopped. So that’s fun.

As usual, spoilers and swearing under the cut! Quick note: If there should be a trigger warning on this or anything else I post, please let me know! I’m horrible at remembering to tag triggers. I’ll also be doing some quick posts on Umbrella Academy and my severe obsession with Jason Todd soon. Have fun!

As usual, here’s a list of people I know the users of in case you’d like to check any of them out. I’m likely missing people so feel free to let me know who I’m missing so I can add them!

Maximilian Kroger - Nines (@ maximiliankroger)

Christopher (Chris) Trindade - Gavin (@ trindabago)

Michael Smallwood - Chris Miller (@ michaelsmallwoodforever)

Carla Kim - Tina Chen (@ carlahkim)

Jillian Geurts - Ada (@ jilbobaggins_nyc)

Michelle Iannantuono - (@ octopunkmedia)

JJ Goller - Lazzo (@ quasar.cos)

Brett Mullen - Cinematographer (@ brettmullendirector)

Austin Butts - Sound Design (@ austinbytts)

Tiare Solis - Valerie (@ tiareleiana)

So I decided to put all of the rest into this post. It’s a long one. Not even that sorry about it bc I love this film with my entire heart. Warning for me getting sidetracked. I use a lot of Supernatural references but it’s because I’m visiting my dad and he’s binge watching the show. I like Dean and only Dean, don’t bully me for it.

The Wrist Grip™️ in the bedroom before Nines moves back

Shoutout to Maximilian Kroger’s muscles u go dude

Lighting Symbolism™️, big theme through the movie, honestly I think it’s beautiful and they did a wonderful job with it.

The little nod from Gavin as he starts talking about his nightmare 

You can see Gavin gearing up to move, like not in a normal way, in a “oh god I don’t know if I have the energy to do this” way and that’s Relatable™️

The little smile from Nines as they sit together

The SHARK PLUSHIE I LOVE HIM (THE SHARK HAS AN INSTAGRAM @ sharktreuse)

Nines being domestic, making coffee and breakfast, being Soft.

Shirt change??? Either I’m blind or he’s wearing a different shirt in the morning (He is. He’s wearing a t shirt at night and a buttoned collar shirt in the morning. Perhaps he changed? He’s wearing normal pants so he probably changed but he’s not wearing that same shirt in the next scene)

Ada eye rolling at them being passive aggressive dumbasses. Same. Apparently Jillian kept fucking with them which is,, so valid. 

The lighting in this scene (the office pt. 2) makes Maximilian look Android-white and outlined in the CyberLife blue-ish color. Very symbolic, I have no idea if it was intentional.

Another shoutout, this time to Maximilian’s eyebrows, the expressiveness is *chef’s kiss*.

“You can thank me later, Casanova.” Nines: *confused Android noises* 

Honorable mention to Michael’s Foo Fighters t shirt in the bar, it’s vintage.

Nines is in fact wearing a different shirt now. Not the same shirt from the morning bedroom scene. I also think he’s wearing a different jacket. Less of a peacoat and more of a leather jacket. Nice.

Shoutout to Tina’s (not irl) wife, Valerie! And her weird crush on Hank! I honestly can’t wait to see her in Seven Deadly Synths!!

Ada DODGING the questions that Nines is asking because she is SHADY. 

Also, he looks to Gavin when he talks about wanting to be more human. Recurring theme of him perceiving himself as lacking because of his ace-ness/android-ness, like he can’t give Gavin what he wants. Honestly I know that the android thing is a thinly veiled metaphor for race in canon but I kinda like thinking of it as a metaphor for being LGBT+ and in Nines’ case, specifically ace. Might not make sense but it does in my brain??

Gavin Senses Are Tingling and Nines is GONE. Leaving the bar for ur not-bf to try to talk things out like adults??? King shit.

Also electric lighter, fun, I genuinely didn’t know those existed

SHIRT WITH UNBUTTONED COLLAR

“You don’t want to help me, you want to fix me.” What a loaded line. Because in a way, it’s almost true? Like, Nines has this entire simulation of Gavin in his ideal world, and obviously that version of Gavin has probably been idealized at least a bit. Nature of humanity, and Nines might not be human but he’s got the Brain Things. And at that moment, it’s nearly true that Nines wants Gavin to be like that ideal Gavin. Obviously Nines wants Gavin as Gavin, but there’s the edge of that simulation there, still. 

But Nines does want to help Gavin, and that’s where he’s wrong. Nines wants Gavin to get better, wants to help stop the nightmares, etc. But by pointing that out, I think it’s partially why Nines can accept letting go of Simulation!Gavin when Ada attacks him. Because he knows that the simulation of Gavin will never be the real Gavin, and this line sort of helps him understand that he can’t really keep Sim!Gavin anyways.

Again idk if that’s legit but that’s definitely something I felt from that while watching.

Nines is constantly very controlled, but when he walks away from Gavin you can see him straining to keep that composure and not let his anger show. 

Ada looking So Done With This Shit when Nines comes back from talking with Gavin outside of the bar

“I’m sure this will be like...every other time.” Oh honey. Oh my sweet child. I am so very sorry. It most definitely will not be.

Ada’s exasperated Eyebrow Raise before taking a drink. If that ain’t the mood sis.

I love Ada’s bat wings on her outfits. 

Gavin being a stalker and putting his hood up. 

“I’m...certain that most of the credit can go to you.” IMMEDIATE ANGER. Must Defend Boyfriend.

I SO WANTED HIM TO SAY “WISDOM” WHILE TALKING ABOUT GAVIN’S SKILLS BECAUSE IT WOULD MIRROR HIM TELLING GAVIN THAT HE ISN’T WISE BEFORE THEY LEFT FOR THE STAKEOUT. He didn’t, but instinct is a better word for Gavin anyways.

Nines has Suspicion™️...press X for doubt... 

*Only vaguely related rant warning*

I do feel that we as a fandom tend to make Connor almost childishly innocent despite him being likely one of the least kind and least innocent characters. The characterization of Nines in this--and pardon me for the off topic rant--where he’s a fully grown man and acts like it is so much more realistic. Nines is a cop, as is Connor. 

Even post deviancy, they were designed and equipped to handle murder. Nines, in a lot of fandom content, tends to come off as an exasperated older brother or a gritty and mean detective, or even worse, essentially a sociopath who feels nothing in contrast to Connor’s childish and extreme innocence. I dislike both. Seeing Nines be a normal fucking person is so relieving, I’m serious. There’s still those elements of ‘oh he’s only been properly alive for like a year, right? He probably doesn’t get Chris’ Casanova reference.’ but it’s not to such an extreme that it overtakes all of his personality traits.

Like, yeah, ok, I get why a lot of fandom content does that. In order to balance what we see Connor do (and in order to further push the Hank as a father line) we over-emphasize the not getting references and such. Honestly I see the same in content for Castiel from Supernatural. Nines, when he’s added, often HAS to be a lot darker in order to make that seem not as jarring and unrealistic.

Doesn’t mean I enjoy it. If you do? That’s great, good for you, but I don’t like seeing those characters be portrayed as such one dimensional extremes. People aren’t like that. On the off chance that someone is such an extreme, there’s still other aspects of their personality.

DE has done an amazing job at not flattening their personalities. Nines and Gavin are three-dimensional and incredibly interesting characters I find myself invested in every time I watch it.

*Onto the commentary again.*

Gavin is still being a stalker

“Particular fascination with the RK line” AHAHA funny. She’s also an RK, and she likely knows more than Nines because her programming is based on information gathering. Her fascination begins and ends with what their programming can do for her.

The little computer details in Ada’s eyes as she copies Nines’ OS, and again in Nines’ eyes when he’s in the alley alone. I believe Michelle did all of that and I am just amazed every time I watch. 

The warped voice effect.

Gavin shifting to hold Nines as soon as he passes out

The ethereal colored lighting is very good for the mood, space hospital vibes

Shoutout to the latex suit they put Maximilian in! That’s not CG! He’s wearing a full body white latex suit. I’m so sorry.

Gavin looks so tired talking to Dr. Maria. His posture is defensive, pulled into himself. Shoulders hunched, arms pulled in. Eye bags, messy hair. Boy looked messed up. Somebody hug him.

Nines’ hair being disheveled and messy in the corrupted Zen Garden, rivaling his assertion that in his ideal world (Aka the normal Zen Garden) his appearance is polished, signifying the loss of control and the loss of the Zen Garden being a safe, ideal space for him. Same concept with Sim!Gavin being corrupted.

Nines: *wakes up in his mindspace*

Also Nines, immediately: GAVIN!!1!!1

Nines believes in CONSENT!! You do not go into someone’s program without asking, ADA.

Ada’s “poor widdle baby” face as Nines is freaking out because she trapped him. Mood.

Tina wearing a low turtleneck and a flannel is Peak Gay, especially next to Gavin “I wear the same leather jacket+hoodie combo every single day and probably the same jeans for a month” Reed, aka the most disastrous and chaotic bisexual I have ever seen. Again, a mood, I honestly felt that one.

The face when Nines realizes that Ada isn’t deviant yet. 

Gavin is blaming himself somebody stop this idiot. 

“Not without Nines.” What a softie.

“The last thing I said to him was ‘I don’t need you’.” BITCH WHAT THE FUCK MY HEART.

Gavin calling Tina “T” in that soft voice is so sweet omg

Ugh the bisexual LIGHTING is KILLING ME, ESPECIALLY as Gavin sits at Nines’ bedside

Tina encouraging Gavin. WLW/MLM solidarity. 

Fun fact: Chris Trindade told Maximilian not to react at all to the big speech but Maximilian literally started crying during it and there’s footage somewhere of the Dramatic Single Tear rolling down his face while he’s still ‘in stasis’.

Yes, I double checked the streams to make sure I got this right, I love the concept though.

Look I cannot get into the speech because I will write 1.5k words on it, but I will say this: It made me cry. The acting, the writing, it’s iconic. The amount of love and devotion they got without even saying the words “I love you” was amazing. Chris is so very talented. 

THERES A TAKE WHERE GAVIN FALLS ASLEEP NEXT TO NINES’ HOSPITAL BED AKSDGAKL IM SCREAMING

Tina is the best wingman ngl

The glitches in Zen Gavin are amazing. The sequence when he’s deleting the Zen Garden is also amazing. I use amazing a lot but it’s deserved.

Nines deleting the Zen Garden and Sim!Gavin is very symbolic of letting go of all of the fake stuff, letting go of the fear he was holding that kept him from confessing to Gavin and I love that

Nines sitting silently straight up. 

Gavin is highly intelligent and I’m so glad Octopunk embraces that. 

*another vaguely related rant warning*

Ok let me tell y’all a thing because this RUINS MY LIFE. People tend to take characters like Percy Jackson or Dean Winchester, whose intelligence isn’t outwardly obvious from the get-go, and remove it entirely. Percy is reduced to an idiot who can’t tie his own shoes and Dean is often shown basically unable to research without Sam. Both of those are bullshit. 

Percy has ADHD and Dyslexia, so when often we categorize smart as only book-smart, Percy’s intelligence as a battle strategist and his actual knowledge gets erased. Dean is usually the more physical and shoot-first-never-ask-questions type, and his intelligence is severely downplayed. He made an EMP detector from scratch. Made a shotgun, remembers how to kill things, is a very good hunter, especially on his own. But that’s thrown away because he’s not book-smart.

I despise when people take characters who are talented and smart in ways that aren’t just reciting the periodic table and reduce them to muscles and angst or drooling children. 

Octopunk having a scene where Gavin is working through a case, already having done the things that Chris, someone who was only recently promoted, suggests, is just affirming Gavin’s intelligence in a way I wish I could be not surprised by. Gavin is smart, and luckily I haven’t seen much downplaying that fact. He’s a detective for a reason. Unfortunately I think it might be because the fandom tends to turn Connor and Nines into actual children, but a win is a win.

Now I’m not saying I don’t love a good himbo character but I literally had to stop interacting with Percy Jackson content because people wrote him as incapable.

*Moving on*

“I think I can help with that.” Bitch why are you so dramatic I love him so much.

Nines’ t-shirt says “Detroit City Marathon” 

“You...undead asshole.” What an iconic line. I need a t-shirt. 

“I...hate you.” “You love me.” Harkens back to the beginning where the roles are reversed. Yes I used that unironically. Words are fun.

Gavin looking scared right before The Kiss™️ 

THE PULSE POINT!! THE SCENE WAS SUPER EMOTIONAL SO MICHELLE WANTED THEM TO DO YOGA ZEN SHIT TO PREPARE AND THEN THEY JUST DID THE THING BUT THEY PUT IN THE PULSE POINT 

ANYWAYS THAT’S WHAT GAVIN IS FEELING FOR ON NINES’ WRIST RIGHT BEFORE THE KISS.

I thought that was cute when I learned it in one of the streams.

Nines’ LED spinning blue when they finally kiss asgladkaf 

“What dipshit programmed you to do that?” “I’m the most advanced android ever made, detective-“ “oh you are such a fuckin’ prick!” “Takes one to know one.” I canNOT with them, I laughed my ASS off

The little broken laugh Nines does

Nines rubbing his hands over Gavin’s while they talk about Gavin’s jacket

Shoutout to Chris’ surprised pikachu face. (Tina is also there) That was a joke take, it’s in the gag reel, too. The face wasn’t supposed to make it into the film but Michelle added it. (In the gag reel, Carla yells “Let’s go to Denny’s!” At the end.) 

And Ada’s leather pants. Honestly?? She’s so pretty. I love her. They’re all really attractive it’s actually terrifying.

Nines and Tina being a part of the Gay Turtleneck Gang

Nines’ untucked turtleneck

Tina being a Smart Girl. (Nines calling her “Officer” and her replying with “I’ll make detective someday.”

Chris being Exhausted during the whole meeting. Me too dude.

Chris and Tina doing literally nothing while Gavin and Nines have a whole heart to heart

The WHITE COAT. Tina in her blues. Chris’ Foo Fighters shirt. They’re such icons but they absolutely look like a group of gay ppl who did NOT decide on a theme.

The fight sequence is impressive, considering that they’re literally not stunt actors. I’m not a fight choreographer or stunt person so That’s really all I have to say on that.

Chris patting Gavin’s gun after he explains what he’s doing. \

As a Jason Todd lover the crowbar is unfortunate (had to, sorry)

Nines’ smirk and the TURTLENECK as he spins away from Ada with the crowbar. Iconic. The Big Dick Energy. Especially for someone who doesn’t have a dick.

Chris being a Dad when Gavin runs off to go stop the body calibration

Ada just YEETS Gavin. Iconic.

Ada: *doing the villain “you won’t shoot me, you’re too moral” thing*

Chris: Shut the fuck up *shoots her*

Deviancy sequence, iconic

“You’re awake now” bitch get your own tag line, Markus became Robot Jesus for this shit

He’s HOLDING HER HAND while DEFENDING HER!! PLATONIC HAND HOLDING

Gavin trusting Nines’ decision immediately. Amazing. THAT’S LOVE BITCH.

The SMILES after Ada leaves!! They know they made the right choice!

Ugh the COLOR SYMBOLISM!! This is one thing that Michelle has touched on herself! Gavin isn’t wearing white in this scene because he’s not ‘fixed’, he never will be! He has trauma and he’s just barely beginning to heal from it with Nines’ help. He’s wearing grey, lighter than his usual, but still grey because they aren’t pure or innocent and they’re not perfect!! And that’s the fucking point!! It’s also a contrast against Sim!Gavin wearing white! Sim!Gavin was an idealized version of Gavin in Nines’ idealized world!! Real Gavin isn’t that!! So he’s wearing grey!!

Gavin immediately understanding that Nines is Ace and that it’s ok!! Beautiful!

“You’ve been a whole person since the day you woke up” YES!! YOU DO NOT NEED SEX TO BE WHOLE!! FUCK YEAH!!! (this is ace excitement. In the months since writing this I realized I’m aro-ace and trans so fuck yeah for ace rep.) 

Gavin being a dick and making Nines tell him about the skin thing

THE KISS!! They slowly move more into the light!! Because they’re getting better TOGETHER!!

Ok before I sign off, it’s only 3 am so I think I’m awake enough to talk about this, I like that they bring up that Gavin has like, actual issues that he needs to get through. Let’s be 100% honest here, I see Gavin as having ADHD, depression, and probably a form or symptoms of PTSD. He’s kinda fucked up and I’m gonna be real here he needs some therapy. He’s got trauma and needs to work through it. 

I like that at the end they explicitly have Nines understand and accept that that’s what needs to happen. As someone who has actually had relationships ruined because of trauma (on both sides) that we were unprepared to work through together, if I had seen something like that? Game changer. As it was, most relationships I had seen were idealized and seemed to “fix” those issues by way of just being in a relationship. Thanks major media. 

Now that the Detroit Evolution post series is over, I’m gonna be a bit sentimental and say that this film quite literally changed my life. Seriously. Michelle is such a big inspiration for me and I can only hope to be the same for someone else. 

If you ever have a chance to check out any of the amazing people who worked on this film, please do. To put into context how big this was: I changed my ideal college major from Forensics to Film. 

That’s it that’s all, ending this post at 3:24 am before I literally start crying over it. Thanks for suffering through my long-winded explanations, I hope you enjoyed. Have a wonderful day.

[0poole]

Soul

Breaking news, everyone: Pixar made another slapper.

I’m gonna get it out of the way first, but the only (and yes, only. Not like someone trying to say “only” even though they have many more nitpicks that they just don’t want to talk about) problem I had at all was that the super high realism of the settings of Earth kind of made the more cartoony faces of the people look a little more off. But, it’s kinda like the same thing people were talking about with that cat in Toy Story 4. It looks super real, which is impressive, but I feel like it was almost too real compared to the faces. Obviously it was too real compared to the supernatural settings because that was intentional, but yeah. It’s not even a big problem, it’s just the only one I can think of. I do think the realistic renderings of hair, light, water, etc at least work with cartoony stuff, but apart from that it looked almost like it could’ve been a photograph, with no exaggeration in the buildings or anything else.

I mean, I love the faces, so I definitely wish they went the extra mile showing extra personality and character in the buildings, as faces do with characters. Considering the faces matter like a bazillion times more, I still think they knocked it out of the park on the visuals. People with more investment and knowledge into the topic already said that the faces of any of the people of color felt cartoony and unique while also being true to life and respectful (My family recently stumbled onto some old animations from the 30s and lemme tell ya... We’ve come a long way), but seriously the characters that sold me on the visuals were the Picasso-esque beings who may or may not be the Gods of the universe maybe?

Spoiler boundary of course. It’s definitely worth a watch.

And that’s honestly what made the realistic world so much better. When the accountant guy went into the real world to set the count right, it was one of the most fun I’ve had just watching something. The sheer contrast between him and the world was so much fun, and it even solidified that those beings weren’t even acting in a different dimension or anything. They’re literally just beings that exist, meaning that all the other parts with the unborn souls and such are just as real as Earth. Or, even better, they’re the ones who can just casually rip a hole in dimensions. As far as depictions of Gods go, if they are even Gods at all, I think they’re one of the best I’ve ever seen. They feel like they could actually be how Gods actually exist, since all the commonalities of Gods involve supernatural power, which would suggest they’re supernatural themselves. I mean, I have a story with Gods in it too and they’re basically just that although admittedly a lot less imaginative.

With those guys being my favorite design, second place definitely goes to the lost souls, although obviously for more subjective reasons. 1) They’re purple, 2) They have one eye, 3) That eye is yellow which I always think is the best compliment to purple, 4) Tentacles, 5) Creepy in a kid’s movie. Franky, I would’ve made them a lot creepier, but even then they’re super creepy, if not visually then in their behavior. They’d just be kind of sad if they were just mumbling around, but since the first introduction to them starts charging at the main characters like a deranged monster. Considering how weird everything in that dimension is, finding something that isn’t nearly as innocent as everything else instantly invokes fear, since you have no idea what that thing can and wants to do to you. Sort of similar, I would’ve also made the “In the Zone” moments a bit more crazy and colorful, like when Joe fell through the void between the road to the Great Beyond and the You-seminar (is that how it’s spelled?), but these “I would do it differently”s might just be a fault of my design ideas or just subjective interests. I would’ve watched 2 hours of pure, nonsensical abstract worlds like the You-seminar with no explanation to how they work.

I definitely have a relief with the story, mostly entirely revolving around 22′s character. I was kind of worried she’d be too childish to really enjoy, but I feel like she was done really well. All the major historical figures’ remarks on how hopeless she were both funny and also really tied into her character “flaw” at the end as she was a lost soul. It might not be the most unique character archetype of all time, but it definitely makes sense, with all the people bringing her down implanting in her mind that she was an anomaly, and after a while was just sort of following it. Plus, she seemed genuinely interested in Joe’s weirdness, instead of being super mindlessly irreverent. And her being able to expand Joe’s understanding about his own world, like with the barber and his student, brings her up as more than a whiny, bratty child in the scope of the story. She didn’t JUST learn.

Even though I kind of expected it from the get-go, I’m also relieved that the movie didn’t shy away as much with the dark elements of death. It was kind of suggested that this wasn’t going to be a perfectly casual romp through a magical afterlife like Inside Out was with the mind because of the unborn souls unabashedly saying “Hell” in the TRAILER of the movie. I feel like that alone made the story super interesting, because it shows they’re actually going to be a bit more serious with things instead of just simplifying the unknowable complexities of the before & afterlife. Even with the dead souls going into the Great Beyond, it was a mix of being weirdly peaceful for some and super scary for others. My family thought it was peaceful for the most part, but my mom specifically though it was terrifying, and even though it’s a lot more peaceful than almost all other depictions of death, I can’t blame her. The souls were just kinda accepting it, like they’d been brainwashed or something, but still acknowledged that they were dead and were going into the afterlife. Plus, Joe, being the main character who we are supposed to sort of reflect in a way, was super freaked out by it, so that could easily suggest it’s to be afraid of and the other people are the weird ones.

I think the true message of the story being so strange was better too, because it would’ve been so boring if it fell into a super basic message we’ve heard millions of times. I feel like it has a similar sentiment to the basic messages, but is at least a more interesting way of saying it, if it is even like that in the first place, because it’s also somewhat vague in a good way. I think my brother/mother misinterpreted and simplified things a bit too much, where they thought it was sort of like a happier way of saying “accept your lot in life and don’t change it.” I could probably go on a full other rant about why I think this is wrong, but part of it is I don’t really know how they came to this conclusion in the first place, considering with that scene with that guy who threw the computers off his desk as his lost soul was cured (I guess you could call it that?), who obviously realized he wasn’t okay with his lot in life and was destined to change it. I think they sort of misinterpreted “the spark” and other things it as a 100% for-real, this-is-how-the-real-world-works sort of way, and not as much as a fictional way of saying things. Not necessarily symbolic, but I guess symbolic also? It has some of the same weird logical problems as the Cutie Marks from My Little Pony, except they’re obviously better since Cutie Marks determine your life down to your very job some of the time, while “sparks” are more vague and seemingly up to you. They’re more like when an unborn soul realizes there’s something on Earth they want to figure out, not necessarily their hobbies or jobs. For example, they kind of cited the barber character as the one who supported their point, but I think he does the complete opposite. He wanted to be a vet, but he ended up being a barber. But, they sort of assumed his “spark” was to be a barber, and that his personal interests didn’t matter because the “spark” forced him into a less favorable job. But, in reality, I feel like his “spark” is more his interest in love for the people around him, which is why he decided to get a more practical job to support his daughter (wife? one of the two) when he really needed to. Plus, he still enjoys being a barber because his devotion to love lets him connect to people as he cuts their hair. After all, he seems to be succeeding in his goal, since Joe was just like “Hey, let’s go see this guy he’s the exact guy we need!” People who don’t show love and interest for others don’t make that kind of impression in people’s minds. I feel like if we knew each story of everyone’s life down to the last detail we could fully determine what the mechanics of the world and its people are meant to say from a fictional context, but with such a limited selection I don’t think you can say something so sure. Sure, every choice in a movie is made specifically for a purpose, but I feel like if a movie tries to hard to be like “Oh but don’t worry here’s an exception” a million times it gets bogged down by its own attempt to make the message as obvious as possible.

Anyway...

There are also a lot of neat little details I loved, like how even though they did this for basically no other point in the movie, they made sure to include people from all around the world in that mess of dead souls, firmly sort of putting in the idea that the entire globe is in a sense one single entity that leads to the same place. They could’ve so easily just made everyone speak English for that throwaway scene, but I feel like including people from all around the world was very beneficial. Even the EXTRA little things, like the path to the Great Beyond looking like the neck portion of a guitar with the metal bits that separate the notes, or the facial features of the Gods blurring when they turned their heads in the other direction.

But yeah, who would’ve guessed Pixar made another good movie, right? Even then, Soul’s in the upper echelon of Pixar films. I really hope they (and Disney) realize they can go bonkers with a movie and still benefit/survive from it, since they’re so damn rich and inherently profitable. I think AAA animated movies like this that are the perfect amount of artsy are few and far between, and we need more of them. If anything, I hope they get more artsy, but I guess I’ll still never say no to a fun fantastical romp either. Basically, Pixar has looped me into watching any and everything they produce because it’s never “bad” I think. In the grand scheme of quality, even their worst work (Cars 2) is still not “terrible,” per se, even if it feels like it exists more as a cash grab than a genuine tale.

[hoshigomi]

Valley of Xuanyao // RAY! (not a review.)

Some thoughts on Xuanyao/Genyou/Dazzling Valley/Mysterious Valley/whatever you want to call it + Ray!

(This isn’t a fully-formed, plot critical review by any stretch of the imagination, but I wanted a chance to say everything I loved about these pieces of theatre, as well as a few criticisms I have.) (These are all my opinions and I’m sure people would agree or disagree with plenty of them!) (It’s literally just a couple lists, read at your own discretion.)

There are MANY SPOILERS HERE so watch out.

First off: Genyou no Tani / Valley of Xuanyao / Chinese Aterui (I guess it’s not as much like Aterui as I initially assumed) / AVATAR (the blue people one) (but set in China) / not NOT Pocahantas ~

Call it what you want, I’ll admit right out of the gate that I didn’t follow the entirety of this show. It got a lot better on the second and third try, but the first go was a little rough. 

Official plot summary here. 

Things I LOVED:

This show is beautiful. The set is very Alphonse Mucha aesthetic in style, and it makes me very sad that exactly 0 pictures do it justice. Not only is the set STUNNING, but it’s INNOVATIVE as well, the way they used huge hilly mountainous set pieces to create, well, valleys (haha) and set the scene actually grabbed my attention SEVERAL times. There are also no pictures that do the palace set justice, but the grandeur of it took my breath away, as did the EASE with which the set took us between settings. Unfortunately the visual aesthetic of the show is like not something I’m skilled enough to describe in words, but my point here is that if you get the chance to see this show, it would be worth it for the visual feast alone. 

This show is beautiful (music edition). BOY! The music is HAUNTING and POWERFUL and simple and complex all at once. I have told several people that if either the opening or finale songs are put on that custom CD maker thing in the theatres I would literally buy a custom CD just to get my hands on these songs like a couple weeks before their official release. I got chills every time Shirotae Natsu opened the show (we could NOT ask for a better new fukukumichou), and without fail, at the (spoilers) mass exodus of the Wen people (hello, Coto Moses?) song. 

The show is beautiful (general stage edition): It’s SO DANCEY. IT IS SO EXPRESSIVE. Even though the vast majority of the cast is costumed… nearly identical to one another, watching a n y one of them is a treat different from any other. There is no shortage of opportunity for these women to emote physically, and not a single one of them holds back. There are also like a billion acrobatic tricks in this show for some reason. They don’t take you out of anything, it’s just all VERY PHYSICAL. The Wen men and women specifically use physicality HARD to express their… history, I guess? There are several scenes with a few singers and a few dancers working together to tell a story. They give me CHILLS. The women (led by Honoka) in the palace also serve to set the aesthetic world and honestly I don’t have anything smart to say about them but they blew me away. Aomi Sario does several cartwheels. Yuunagi Ryou jumps like five feet in the air and does a somersault. I don’t know why any of these women are airborne as much as they are but they sure are good at it. 

Other standout things I loved- there were a LOT more, but I need SOMEONE to talk about these people and moments, and I guess it’s my burden to bear. 

FOR SOME REASON OOKI MAKOTO TALKS LIKE A LOT. She may talk more than Amahana Ema, freshly-transferred Ayaki Hikari, or Kiwami Shin. I can’t stress enough how much there is NO REASON FOR THIS. She ALSO, in a TURN OF FATE, IS NOT PLAYING AN OLD MAN. She’s playing a young soldier (NO FACIAL HAIR!!!!!) who at one point is goofing around under a tree on the edge of a stage and does some incredible pantomime work getting a spider off of her. I’m a little in love with her. I could not be happier that they truly just let her GO OFF this show. If you have ever liked Ooki Makoto, you need to see this show. 

Ooki Makoto is always accompanied by Tenju Mitsuki who, as usual, is doing The Most for the Least Payoff because she like angered a God in her past life but not enough for the God to not give her the most beautiful face known to man. She doesn’t get to do much at all, unfortunately as USUAL, though her character very much has the vibe of her Kamatari character, and she does get to do a really fucking sick trick where she gets hit by an arrow and despite watching her through opera glasses three times in a row I have no idea how she does it. 

SEO YURIA REALLY STEPPED UP HER GAME? This was a good meaty role with a nice little bit of her Red Oni from Another World mixed in for like chaotic measure. She sounds vocally FANTASTIC and looks at times actually TRULY PHYSICALLY IMPOSING. I’ve always been theatrically on the fence about Seo, but it looks like she’s really finding where she fits onstage and her strengths and is working HARD. I’m really into it. 

Arisa Hitomi does beautiful work as the narrator of the whole piece, more or less, I just wish we could have seen more of her. That’s kinda how it’s gonna go from now on huh. Sigh.

Amato Kanon Amato Kanon Amato Kanon Amato Kanon Amato Kanon Amato Kanon . I will live and die in Hoshigumi, but if one day they move her to somewhere else to be top star, (after I mourn for a year and go through the five stages of grief), I will be right there by her side. Her character is spunky and fun and young and then gets tortured and killed (sorry, I said there were spoilers) in a way that I almost couldn’t WATCH. She’s an expert on throwing her (rapidly becoming lifeless) body around onstage in a way that really, really, really broke my heart. I winced. I’m sure I’m not the only one in the audience who would have put myself in her place to save her. 

It’s very cool when they use projections to enhance moments in this- like a sword striking a rock and the sparks that fly, or the mysterious man disappearing. Additionally, the SOUND DESIGN of this show was pretty flawless.

Current Kumichou and Soon-To-Be-Senka member Mari Yuzumi played, obviously, Coto’s mom, and the two of them share some really beautiful moments and part of a song- it was a fitting and sweet part to give her, and I’m so glad she got some real stage time here because lord am I gonna miss her. 

There’s a little drumline throughout some scenes of Wen people featuring (I THINK) Toudou Jun, Asamizu Ryou, Sayaka Rin, Sakuraba Mai, and POSSIBLY Kuresaki Rino. They don’t do anything to serve the plot, they just sometimes act as a transition in and out and winding through group scenes. It kicks ass. 

Though this show was by NO MEANS an “ensemble show” (it was obviously very heavily (and wonderfully!) pulled by Coto, and all the ensemble was…. To be honest, visually mostly indistinguishable from one another), it like… WAS an ensemble show. There are MANY scenes with the HUGE chunks of the troupe, whether it’s the soldiers doing some INCREDIBLE sword and spear work or the dancers as the Wen people telling stories through the sheer power of their NUMBERS, or the women in the palace with their ribbons and dance, the real power of this show is in the ensemble and what they give to the story. Personally, ensemble driven stories tick ALL my boxes, so even if the plot was a little rough for me, the sheer POWER of Hoshigumi really made this a show that I realize now, sitting at my desk in Tokyo, I wish I was seeing again like today. This show did a complete 180 for me, and I can not recommend it enough. It isn’t FUN, but I can’t find the words to express how MOVING and BEAUTIFUL it is. If you can’t see it in person, I guess I recommend buying the blu ray, renting out a movie theatre, and watching it on as big of a screen as you can possibly get.

RAY:

Ray was just OKAY to me, though I admit I DID love it a little more with each consecutive viewing. I wonder how I’ll feel about it at the end of the Tokyo run- it very well might grow on me and stick in my heart as a revue I really love, but for now I’m personally a bit lukewarm on this one. I’m gonna express my three gripes first, and then move on to the things I love. 

1.) God this revue really fucking abuses projections. Not only does it OPEN AND END with an unnecessary mini movie, and not only do they use the projections to transition us literally through the starry galaxy to the PANTHEON which they make with like Windows Screensaver level skill and then for some reason also show us on a real backdrop- if they had the REAL backdrop, why did they need to also show us a CGI version?, but they also straight up show us MOVIES while people are singing. As captivating as I find every single woman in Hoshigumi, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the acid trip that was the projections. They weren’t STILL EITHER. They were THIS distracting, down to the literal giant eye. I hated them so much. They didn’t make any visual sense, they didn’t enhance a thing, they really weren’t even vaguely thematically appropriate. I hope beyond hope that the venues they use for the tour just don’t have the tech power for this and the projections get cut. I didn’t like a SINGLE one of them. 

2.) I can’t really explain this one but something was… missing. The numbers weren’t…. varied , I guess? They were all the same like. Power level and mostly had the same amount of people onstage (a lot), and while there’s NOTHING I love more than a big group number, this one had… I guess maybe too many? Or maybe it wasn’t the amount that is the issue, maybe it’s just how they weren’t like tonally varied. The numbers were all GOOD, but the flow was weird? I don’t know. Something felt off. If anyone sees this and gets what I mean, please talk to me about it. 

3.) And this one is personal preference, but I thought the whole Ray theme was…. Much too heavy handed for an ohirome GT. To clarify, I think this would have been VERY suitable for a taidan revue, thematically, but I think it’s too early to be playing top star name games and adorning the whole stage with her name… repeatedly. I GET that it’s clever because like, ray of light, starlight, etc, but I didn’t like it. I wouldn’t have liked like, Dramatic ‘S’ as a first revue either, for example. This isn’t personal or about Coto, if they had made Kai top and called her first revue like ‘Seven Seas’ I also would have been like ….#yikes. I just wish they’d save this stuff for later in Coto’s run. 

That said, the good outweighed the bad! Some numbers of note (this is NOT all of them, just the ones that stuck with me) include: 

The opening, which was very fun! The set was cool, multi layered and opening with just Coto inside like a cut out diamond shape on a platform and made good use of a pretty bare stage to really give EVERYONE a moment. There were more featured faces in this number alone that I didn’t even RECOGNIZE than I can count- and that made me really happy to see! Special shoutout to Taiki Hayate and Ruri Hanaka for getting to stand on the edge of the stage and sing. I just think they’re neat. The opening was rock-y and sexy and mature and it was very fun to get to see so many people shine in it. 

This was followed by Seocchi in a number with again, a BEAUTIFUL set. Seriously, when they aren’t abusing the hell out of a projector, this revue IS VISUALLY STUNNING. It’s like set on Jupiter kind of, there’s a swirling galaxy all lit up behind the dancers (Seo, Amato Kanon, Minato Rihi- who has big Renta energy and always makes me happy to look at) Aomi Sario, Ruri Hanaka, notably.) This number has big Look At The Youth Of Tomorrow energy. Seo sounds INCREDIBLE, and everyone who is featured here makes my heart leap. This was definitely one of my favorite numbers. 

There was a tango that would have been 90x sexier if only it didn’t feature those stupid turbans on literally everyone. Mikkii gets to sing her bridge solo (thank God), and the energy is rowdy. Everyone is in white pants.

The chuuzume is nice. It starts what feels like oddly early, but probably isn’t. They abuse the projections during the start of this one, (Hanagata Hikaru) and then thankfully pull the screen up and get rid of them for a while. The chuuzume is neat in that it also features a lot of little groups of siennes, from the young ones (who even get to SING small solos and things) (and I mean SMALL ones)- Amato Kanon has a solo at a point (and is CENTER ON THE BRIDGE for the kyakuseki part of the chuuzume), Aomi Sario and (iirc) Yuuhi Maki get a small duet, little groups are coming on and off constantly. It’s fun. They put the otokoyaku on the bridge and they do some sharp dancing and some kinda… seductive, to me, stuff. Most everyone is in red. The aesthetic of this chuuzume is GOOD.

THIS ROCKETTE MIGHT BE MY FAVORITE ROCKETTE EVER.

Aesthetically it is flawless, and it’s led by three girls including RURI HANAKA who gets a CENTER OF THE BRIDGE SOLO. These costumes are BEYOND adorable as well! Look at them! This rockette really shows off how skilled some of these girls are. They also do a lineup that goes as usual from shortest to tallest to shortest again, except they break this up by putting the three leads in the MIDDLE, which really means its like, short to tallest to SHORTEST to tallest to short again and believe me when I say it is COMICAL. There’s a solid foot difference between some of these women. 

The Olympics number which immediately follows the rockette is lovely, it features a biiiiiig group of the cast and then Mizuno Yuri, Otosaki Itsuki, Sazanami Reira, Aomi Sario, and Amato Kanon as the colors of the Olympic rings. Musically this one didn’t stick that hard with me, but it’s a visual treat, and everyone’s dance proficiency is on full display. Plus if you look at the back of the stage you’ll see Yuunagi Ryou and Hiroka Yuu doing like a dance battle and pulling and pushing each other around which is extremely relevant to my interests. 

From here it got really lovely for me personally. Amahana Ema and Kiwami Shin led Swingin’ On A Star on the bridge (and both of them sound lovely and sweet), and then theres a couple dance featuring about 10 or so people including  Toudou Jun and again Yuunagi Ryou (this is the only place in the revue I didn’t have trouble spotting her unfortunately, and I’m GOOD at finding her), going on while Maisora finishes up the number. It’s sweet and it’s sugary and it’s a piece of like small lightness after all the very Heavy and Full group numbers before. 

The kuroenbi is pretty good, it felt somehow… unfinished? But immediately after that is Coto jumping into You Are My Sunshine which I personally find to be the most charming thing in the world. It includes solos for Seo, Hanagata Hikaru, Aichan, and a LOT of attention on Hoshigumi’s musumeyaku who get to ALL line up on the bridge together and sing. It’s a treat. It made my heart happy and made me grin really big. 

Other shoutouts go to 

Sazanami Reira and her wild hair flips

Akachan who for some reason sounds vocally like she’s underwater, which was hard for me to place until recently 

Maisora and Coto who really DO work together well as a combi though these two shows didn’t give them much chance to see that (please watch Mozart once it’s out on DVD to see what these two can DO together)

Mari Yuzumi for still killing it with everyone else in every number despite the fact that she’s so up there that they’re moving her to senka after this- boy I am gonna MISS her

Amato Kanon for holding my future in her, soft, capable hands.

Minato Rihi for smiling like Renta

The upperclassmen for not letting being completely sidelined ruin their attitude and for still giving their all to everything and pulling my attention with their YEARS of expertise

Kisa Kaoru, Soua Takeru, Houma Toa, Hiroki Yuzuha, and Kuresaki Rino just because they make me smile.

Sakuraba Mai and Haruto Yuuho who should actually be a top combi together. 

Seo Yuria for really just like stepping it up all around and drawing my attention and taking up SPACE.

Ruri Hanaka because holy shit, girl���.

All in all, this was a good pair. Not every revue works for everyone, and maybe this one just didn’t grab my heart the way I wished it did. It was still fun, and it definitely had enough numbers that I loved for me to want to go back multiple times, and whatever Ray lacked, Valley picked up for me. It’s a good set of shows, and everyone does really lovely work. I can’t wait to see where Coto and Maisora’s Hoshigumi goes!