#carmypen

[popflythesky]

This, but it’s Kotori and the axe is a frying pan

https://www.deviantart.com/adorkastock/art/Low-Perspective-Card-Deck-Outtake-909976263

absolutely great choice, thank you!!

[rosemirmir]

would you do something Eiji and Ankh related for prompt 53-holding the other’s jaw?

“Ankh, that’s the fifth popsicle you’ve had…”

Eiji placed the box back into the freezer. Sighing as he turned back to Ankh, who was perched on the counter. Thank goodness it was past closing, and the kitchen wasn’t in use right now. “You really need to give it a rest for today.” I’m not made of money either!

Ankh clicked his tongue, proceeding to bite into the ice pop he held. Eiji was being annoying, again. “You promised me ice cream for a whole year, idiot.”

“And I’ve already explained this to you before, I meant one a day—”

Before he could finish his sentence, Ankh walked over. Summoning his Greeed hand and grabbing Eiji’s jaw. Pressing up a bit to hold is mouth closed. “You’ve told me a thousand times already. It’s annoying.”

The pair stood in silence for a moment. Ankh still propping up Eiji’s jaw, Eiji just staring back. He didn’t remember if he’d see Ankh this up close before. There was something so different about Ankh’s… well, everything, compared to Shingo. Eiji was taking note of his face, observing it closely.

And for the first time, Eiji began to think about something: Where did that eyeliner originally come from? Did it just manifest on Shingo’s face when Ankh possessed his body, or does Ankh apply it—”

Before he could continue his train of thought, Ankh shoved the popsicle right into Eiji’s mouth. “Tch. Don’t give me such a stupid look.”

(Thanks for the ask! This was my first time doing one of these ask games. It was fun! I love writing banter between these two.)

[fortuneaday]

May I have a fortune, please?

You will win.

[dualumina]

🌟

Something you want 

I’m really hoping that the zexal numbers box gets sent and arrives with little to no issues 😧💦

[seventhstar]

For the WIP guessing game: unusual

i know that the post says “WIP document” but i have 4 scrivener projects open with like a hundred fics between them so...uh...here

He doesn’t even flinch, which is unusual, and further cements my belief that he really does have amnesia.

[ld200]

23

23. Unpopular character you love? 

North!

I don’t know if she’s quite considered unpopular these days, but I know opinions about her are mixed at the least. I didn’t like her at first - saw the same problems a lot of people did. It took a few playthroughs to notice more nuance.

I feel like the main reason a lot of us (myself included, for a time) stop to dislike the fact that North is ‘violent’ is because Markus’s whole story is told through the lens of passive vs. violent. That is the struggle, and North’s influence represent’s one side of that struggle.

But if we look past the narrative - if the game didn’t TELL us what North was like and instead we looked a little more at what we were SHOWN, I feel like you see a somewhat different character.

It tends to be overlooked that North is the reason the dirty bomb didn’t go off. I don’t remember the exact quote, but an android rigged a truck to explode, and North says something very close to, “I convinced him not to do it, and to give me the detonator.” North does not like senseless violence. If she wants revenge at all, it’s for the vindication and dignity of her people - but other than that, her attitude towards violence is a lot more based in practicality (and less-based in rage) than people think.

I may be reading more into it than the writers even intended here, but the fact that North defers to Markus when it comes to violent choices (and gives him the detonator, AND outright says he’s the only one who’s fit to lead them) makes me think North is aware that she is the way she is, and that maybe her outlook isn’t necessarily the best one.

She’s no more violent than Connor.

She’s just sensitive and compassionate. She cares about her friends and about her fellow androids. She is truly hurt by what’s happening to the androids around her. You see it in Capitol Park when her lookalike gets shot. She’s heartbroken at what happens and I really think she honestly does believe violence is the answer sometimes. Not to point out to obvious, but we tend to react with what we know, and North... probably knows a lot of violence. She has reason to be cynical about humans. But I don’t think that means that’s all she is.

Couple more stray thoughts:

For those who haven’t done the violent route on Freedom March, where Markus can defeat the polices forces, I highly recommend giving it a try. North does not look the least bit satisfied at the end of the fighting. She looks grim and disturbed surrounded by all those bodies. She is very visibly not happy about it.

If you attack the guard in Spare Parts (where you meet John), Josh’s rep will go down, but North’s does not go up, and the look on her face tells you everything you need to know about what she thinks about unnecessary violence. Why would she like truly unnecessary violence, after all? She’s been on the other end of that herself.

It’s not just a fuck-humans thing either. She advocates more than once for leaving behind potentially dangerous androids (John) or even killing them to keep humans from discovering what they know (Simon). She is practical and that means making sacrifices. Sometimes that means leaving an android behind, sometimes that means hurting a human. But her behavior is pretty consistent honestly, and I’m not gonna say she’s written amazingly, but she’s definitely a more nuanced character than people think.

[theguardianangel-fanfiction]

⭐️

Fanfic Writers: Director’s Cut

Reblog this if you want readers to come into your ask box and ask for the “director’s commentary” on a particular story, section of a story, or set of lines.  

Or, send in a ⭐star⭐  to have the author select a section they’ve been dying to talk about!

Thank you so much for submitting this! There’s one section of chapter 26 (We Hope For Better Things) that had me stumped for literal months, and I wanted to kind of discuss my thoughts and concerns behind it, its canon counterpart, and the ways that I intended it to be interpreted; however, any way that you interpret it is fine.

Fun fact: Chapter 26 takes place during episode 2, A House Divided, which actually came out on my 13th birthday (March 4th, 2014).

This will contain spoilers for Once Bitten, Twice Dead chapter 26, We Hope For Better Things. 

First off, let me talk about my grief with season 2’s treatment of Christa. Now, I don’t absolutely hate that she was, presumably, killed off; I dislike the way that they, in fast succession, killed her and Omid off, never mentioning the baby except for a very brief hint in episode 4 (Clementine closes her eyes and says, “Not again…” when AJ doesn’t immediately move after he’s born). Because of the fact that Clementine is literally around Rebecca for almost the entirety of season 2, I found her lack of reaction to Rebecca’s pregnancy a bit strange.

Like I said, my dislike of the handling of Christa’s pregnancy and Clementine’s thoughts about it have a lot to do with the following paragraphs. I’m all for Clem being able to actually stop and deal with her thoughts and somewhat deal with her emotions (I mean, shit, read my other series posted on AO3 and you’ll see what I mean).

In chapter 26, we get a discussion between Rebecca and Clementine about the baby, Alvin, and the circumstances surrounding this, something that leaves Clem feeling ill, anxious, and somewhat guilty about what she knows that Alvin doesn’t. But the discussion also leaves Clem thinking of Christa, and of her thoughts about Christa’s pregnancy. She is also very prone to comparing Christa and Rebecca, as seen below:

Clementine grasped her left wrist, leaning against the railing as she spoke, watching Rebecca’s mannerisms. She looked nauseous, though Clementine found it hard to tell, as she hadn’t exactly known Rebecca very long; Christa used to get sick, something Clementine could easily remember, when she smelled Omid cooking meat of any kind over the fire. At least until she started showing. In the later stages of her pregnancy, Christa didn’t have any sickness or dizziness. But maybe Rebecca was different.

This only adds to the way that Clem adjusts to and interprets Rebecca’s pregnancy, something that I intend to tackle in another chapter (somewhat in chapter 29, and likely a lot further than that).

Crossing her arms, Clementine spoke in a low voice. “I don’t know.” She hesitated, but then sighed as she thought of herself. She was still alive. But she thought of Duck – the only other child that she spent longer than a few hours with after the beginning of the outbreak – and she thought of his end, and how Kenny couldn’t protect him.

How Kenny couldn’t protect Katjaa, either.

She thought of Christa and Omid. She thought of their child.

This brings up the subject of Christa and Omid’s child, and why Clem is so uneasy about Rebecca’s pregnancy is also brought up. This leads into Rebecca asking Clementine if she wants to listen to the baby kicking. Now, in the game, I said yes, and the scene was absolutely adorable. I love the relationship between Rebecca and Clementine. But with Clem’s past with Christa, I found it to be a little bit unrealistic. Clem obviously has feelings about the baby, and because it was never explored, we as players don’t know whether or not the subject was traumatic to her.

Now, I have almost the exact same age difference with my younger sister that Clementine and AJ have. I’m 18, and my sister just turned 7, if that gives you an idea. Therefore, I remember what my mother’s pregnancy was like, and I remember the kicking and listening to her kicking – it’s a very surreal thing, and for someone like Clem, who for all we know could have witnessed the baby’s death, it can be downright triggering.

That brings me to Clem’s actual apprehension.

“She’s kicking.” Rebecca suddenly spoke, removing both hands from her stomach. She used one to push herself forward, and the other to reach out to Clementine. “Wanna listen?”

Clementine froze in her spot, still staring Rebecca in the face. Rebecca’s expression didn’t change, and she instead reached for Clementine’s hand, but Clementine’s mind was elsewhere.

Can you feel her kicking, Christa?

I don’t think she has feet yet, Clem.

Blinking, Clementine retracted her hand from Rebecca’s grasp and slowly shook her head.

“Can I… just… feel?”

Rebecca’s lowered smile was subtle, but she nodded anyway as Clementine reached out again, her fingertips barely close enough to feel the fabric of Rebecca’s shirt. Carefully, she placed her palm flat against the area that Rebecca guided her to; immediately, Clementine felt her heart racing.

The smallest thump against Clementine’s hand made her slowly pull it away again.

I believe there was a developer or writer for season 2 that claimed that Christa miscarried, but after the amount of misinformation and, might I say it, somewhat lazy writing that came from season 2 (don’t get me wrong, I love season 2), I don’t like this reason.

Why? Well, in All That Remains, Christa appears to be about 7-9 months pregnant. My own mother was about that size when she was 8 months along with my sister, though my mom is 5’2 and Christa looks to be closer to 5’10-6’0. But I digress. Anyway, since Christa was probably about 8ish months along, a miscarriage would probably have killed her. The baby would be nearly fully formed by then. But in OBTD, my idea was a little bit more realistic – not every baby survives birth, and some die before labor.

Clem’s canon reaction, as she looks at a barely conscious newborn AJ, kind of gave me an idea. Stillbirth is a much more likely reason for Christa to lose that baby, as sad as it is. Either that, or SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome).

Therefore:

Clementine crossed her arms, but only to hide the sudden lack of feeling in her fingers as they trembled. Slowly, she asked, “Do you think she’ll be okay?” Just as soon as she spoke them, Clementine regretted it.

And just as soon as Clementine spoke and regretted speaking, Rebecca’s eyes became wide, her eyebrows scrunched. Clementine crossed her arms tighter, her shoulders arched as she did so, and mentally scolded herself. She shouldn’t have said that. She should not have said that.

Just because what happened with… Clementine’s thoughts were cut off when Rebecca spoke in a hushed voice.

And a little bit later, we have:

“I’m… I’m not trying to be weird.” Clementine turned back to Rebecca, “I just… I don’t know.” Once again, she crossed her arms and peered over the railing. Both Sarah and Sarita had abandoned the Christmas tree. “I was just… thinking.”

“About what?”

“Christa.”

“Your friend.” Rebecca placed her hand on her bump and looked into the same direction that she had before, as if expecting Alvin to walk back into the room at any moment. “Why?”

“She was pregnant for a while.” Clementine paused, biting the inside of her mouth and her tongue. She avoided Rebecca’s face. “And I don’t like thinking about it.”

Even later than this, we get a bit more confirmation and insight into Christa’s baby:

Clementine’s gaze focused on Rebecca’s bump just as much as she focused on the words that Rebecca spoke earlier – It’s not his. As in, it wasn’t Alvin’s. Rebecca wasn’t carrying a baby that was her husband’s. If Clementine’s very limited education on the art of where babies came from was any less, then she wouldn’t have even believed Rebecca. Yet, here Rebecca was, pretending that nothing was wrong. Flirting back to her husband.

Her stomach hurt, and Clementine locked her hand onto her opposite arm as she weeded through the other possibilities. Clementine knew that Christa’s baby girl (as much as it pained her to think of that cold, dead face) was Omid’s. She had looked just like Omid, after all, with very little of Christa.

There was, I think, a 5 month difference in this update from the one before this one. Now, I suck at updating as it is, but I will fully admit that this scene stumped me for quite a while. I had a conversation with my dad, and I recall saying to him, “I need a realistic reaction to seeing a pregnant woman in the apocalypse. [Clem] is supposed to have PTSD and her last interaction with a pregnant woman resulted in the death of the baby. You got any advice?”

My dad actually did help a little bit with a reaction; he suggested avoidance, and I was like, “Holy shit, that’s true.” And that’s how I wrote Clem. I have written Clem with implied PTSD and mild anxiety before, but I felt that this was a different situation, because this is meant to be a form of establishing her character in OBTD. She’s similar to one of the ways that I played her in season 2, which is someone who only really talked a lot to certain people (like Walter or Sarah) and was silent in certain situations (like at the dinner at the lodge or after Sarita’s bitten death in episode 4 when Kenny goes off on her).

I’m doing my best to be the best writer that I can, especially while writing from the POV of an 11 year old who has experienced violence, kidnapping, emotional manipulation, and has now seen both childbirth and infant death. Part of the reason that some of more recent chapters have taken so long is this reason, and the surrounding circumstances.

Because of how long OBTD is meant to go for (trust me, we are barely even started), I have to establish both Clem’s actual, legitimate fears and her more childish fears and quirks. I’m trying to do this without her being that mature for her age; yes, she is mature for her age in OBTD and canon, but she is not an adult and I absolutely cannot stand when people write her as so.

It’s different when we’re talking about season 4, where she’s literally been raising a child on her own for quite a while, but in season 2? No, she’s still going to have some childish thoughts, fears, and quirks.Her connecting Rebecca and Christa is, in my opinion, something that realistically would happen if the events of TWDG were real and she were an actual person going through this. The establishment of her issues in not connecting a trauma and a similar act are something that I think was somewhat touched upon in season 2, but I wanted to look a more realistic angle.

In summary, I’m looking to get further into her psyche and how a child in her situation would actually react, but in a more consistent way. Stories need consequence, and I think the small changes in the way that characters feel about each other should actually impact their actions. She feels uneasy Rebecca’s pregnancy, and later what she believes is an affair, and she feels guilty from keeping this from Alvin. Hopefully, I can do this justice as time goes on.

Thank you for your ask, and thank you to anyone who made it to the end. 😊

[neni-has-ascended]

I noticed on your anime list that you’ve completed Yu-gi-oh! Dark Side of Dimensions & the old Sonic the Hedgehog OVA. May I ask for your opinions on these movies? I’d love to hear them!

Ohhhhhhh boy… Heh Heh, alright.

Yu-gi-oh! Dark Side of Dimensions

I love Trading Card games. I used to play YGO and the Pokemon TCG, I regularly play Weiss-Schwarz and WIXOSS and, well, recently I’ve gotten into the Duel Links version of the YGO TCG too. I may not be very good at this sort of games or most games, but I get hooked on them very easily. 

So really, as much of a guilty pleasure of mine YuGiOh is, it’s still a *pleasure*, so as soon as I learned (by accident) that the DsoD movie exists, I decided to check it out.

I… honestly got a lot more than I expected, not gonna lie. I was kinda blown away in a good way. Like, it wasn’t a Master Piece, but by the standards of someone who grew up with the 4Kids version of the Anime, it might as well have been.

The movie was written in the Manga continuity by Kazuki Takahashi, and it actually really shows. A lot more effort is paid to highlighting the characters’ humanity and a lot of fluffy and slow character moments, which were almost always cut out of the Anime when the Manga was adapted (yes, even in the Japanese version and season 0; the anime adaptations were both kinda really bad, regardless of language), are fully present here. Like, Joey/Jounouji, Tristan/Honda and Tea/Anzu get to do things other than badly playing card games and being friggin’ cheerleaders. Heck, even poor Human!Ryou gets some actual screentime! It’s kind of impressive. And the way in which the movie elaborates on Sato Kaiba’s unhealthy obsession with Atem to the point he fails to be able to continue his life with the guy gone, while Yugi is able to move on perfectly fine (albeit with some residual grief) is downright scary and haunting. It kinda feels like a dig at the fanbase too, in a way; going all out saying “Look, you guys, the story is over. You can stop reviving the poor guy in your fanfics now. Don’t be a Kaiba.” 

The weaknesses of the movie come in in two forms: A) How it deals handles having multiple card battles on-screen over the short time span given to the movie, while still having a proper story and B) Diva Aigami. (I know, those are technically two names, but his disguise is never given a proper first name, so I’ll just use it as one game.) 

Okay, so Dimension Summoning. Works on no level, and like, I mean NO level. It claims that the stats of a monster are decided by the willpower of the person summoning it, but thanks to this movie being set after the end of Duel Monsters, everyone’s will-power is already so far off the charts, this detail never even begins to come into play. All the other extra rules are just excuses for bullshit plot twists and to speed up the games. By the end of the movie, the progression of the card games is harder to follow than in the WIXOSS Anime, and I don’t use that insult lightly. I guess that it’s hard to make a less than 2 hours long movie featuring several fully-played card games with a working story, but like. Just don’t. Cut down on the number of card games played, if it really doesn’t work otherwise. I’m sure nobody would have minded that. 

Then there’s Diva’s story which is a mess, from beginning to end, tearing gaping plot holes into the established lore of the Manga, mostly by virtue of making Shadi Shin look like a total and utter moron in retrospect (it’s almost like his Abridged Series portrayal is supposed to be canon now.) The concepts introduced with the Plana are cool and could make for a great plot point, but they don’t really fit with the established lore of the Manga’s Universe, coming across as more science-fantasy than the outright fantasy the manga mostly went for, which makes the Plana’s connection to Shadi, one of the most outright “magical” characters in the Manga all the more puzzling. All in all, the Plana feel like something that would fit better in the worlds of YugiOh GX or 5Ds, but not the original Duel Monsters. Makes you wonder if Takahashi’s tastes just changed over the years.

Diva himself is an utter mess too. His whiny-ness and sense of entitlement make Shinji Ikari look like friggin’ Kamina Jiha. He had every chance to take a moment to breath and think about how stupid what he doing is and he just failed and let the Millenium Ring- the very thing he SHOULD have been angry at from the start, rather than Yugi,Ryou&Co - take control of him. In the process, he ruins paradise for his sister and everyone else involved, for no other reason than screwing things up so badly that Atem is *forced* to exercise some divine intervention, lest everyone he knows is to join him in death prematurely. Ultimately, Diva’s entire character boils down to: “Brother, why did you ruin shit for everyone else?” “BECAUSE UWEHHHHH”.

However, all in all, I still really enjoyed the movie a lot for the way it portrayed Yugi&Co. It really did feel like a tearful reunion with old friends and I appreciate that. The Animation was amazing too. If they re-adapted the Manga with this overall style of quality (in characterization of the main characters and in animation), I’m sure it could easily become one of the best merchandise-driven Anime out there. Not that I need that in my life, but it’s a nice thought. It’s definitely a better candidate for re-adaptation than friggin’ Sailor Moon …*COUGH COUGH*

Sonic the Hedgehog OVA

I… don’t have as much to say on this one. It’s a weird, weird take on what, at the time, was a weird, weird game. I get that it was supposed to be the pilot for a Sonic Anime that never ended up being made (which is a good thing, since I’ll take Chris Thorndyke over Princess Catgirl ANY day- YES I SAID IT.) but it does have merit. The characterization of Sonic as a bit more of a morally grey character, rather than a Shounen Hero who’s overly apathetic to anything that moves slower than 180mpH was a nice take on the character, and Tails’ characteristics as the genius gadgeteer were used well. I don’t get what they were going for with Knuckles, tbh, if Sonic Boom didn’t exist I’d say this was the weirdest take on him I’ve ever seen. I think if Sonic Boom Knuckles were to put on the hat of Sonic OVA knuckles, the Master Emerald would implode in shame somewhere out there. 

The story is nothing to write home about. It’s kinda cool to have a version of Metal Sonic that ends up redeemed, but that plot point was kinda poorly explained and also sort of horrifying. Like, think about it, if the reason he was redeemed is because his AI is actively an exact copy of Sonic’s Soul, does that mean SONIC DIED IN A FIRE? Just… think about that…

(Some people would love to, I’m sure.)

All in all, it’s yet another strange, strange, animated takes on a series with loads and loads of strange, strange takes on it. One of these days, there needs to be a joking crossover where all the different animated Sonics meet one another. It’d be utter chaos, I’m sure.