…..
aaah
okay so once again it's not good fanart
I only started drawing like 4 years ago so idk
[this is really nerve-wrecking all of a sudden]
and also - yes, I didn't know much about Phoebe in superhero form (if you saw anyone obsessively viewing your google doc, that was me - I think I still have that one passage where she's looking at herself open on my phone somewhere)
which means that her suit is very much not like it should be
I do apologise for that
Also, idk how to art so the background is just… not even a thing
and her bracelet is basically non-existent right now, it's just an acknowledgement that a bracelet should be there
I also added "stars"?
aaah sorry
also the resolution is pretty bad because I didn't want to upload like an MB of picture
[even I can tell that I'm stalling at this point]
[here goes]
And also - yes! Yes for unceremonious info dumping, that's what I'm here for.
I'm actually really curious as to their different weapons and stuff (I'm assuming the "compact" was the holoscope?) and how they complement each other in action. And other superhero stuff. And Cecilia's family. And the card game! And anything really! [Oh yeah that reminds me - I was rereading the old posts and stumbled across this:
the characters who know the civilian forms of the superheroes work in a bakery together (there's a reason why they're specifically working in a bakery, too - nothing that plot important but it's still somewhat cool) so they can eventually work up the money to pay for hospital visits
and I was slightly intrigued by it
I've wanted to ask for a while but I kept forgetting]
Also (this keeps getting bigger, sorry) I saw earlier that you mentioned that you were uncomfortable with writing action sequences. Me too. Which is why I've done some research (meaning - I have some gigantic tumblr post screenshots and maybe a few links buried somewhere in the recesses of my files) which I'd be happy to share if you're interested. Not just about action writing - about other stuff too (I'll add in a more comprehensive list later when I have time to sort through my stuff). So if you're ever interested in random writing advice (not from me, because I really don't know what I'm doing, but from the internet, which can at least pretend it knows what it's doing) then let me know!
So it's later. Here's a list of writing stuff that I have research on:
Minor Character Development [and generally character development, including writing specific things like PTSD, anxiety, slow descent into madness, or abuse as well as finding character motivations]
Writing children (children's speech)
Subplot development prompts, character arcs, story structure, outlining
Developing cultures/worldbuilding
Show don't tell/descriptions/style advice (I had a phase)
Writing Pain and injuries (goes along with action I guess)
"Writing a relationship your readers will ship"
Writing death scenes (I also had a phase)
I won't be offended if you don't want this, by the way. But I figured I'd offer, because some of the advice was quite helpful when it came to improving my writing.
if you heard the sound of a delighted banshee a couple minutes ago, that was me upon viewing your drawing
[DEEP INHALE]
ggggggIIIIIIRRRRRRRRRRRLLLLLLLLLL THAT’S SO GOOD?? T H A T ‘ S S O G O O D ? ? EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
okay, my screaming fit is (temporarily) over!
but wow?? honestly that is amazing! i’m genuinely really, really impressed, considering how goddamn V A G U E my description of cancer was. i wanted the vague description to be credited to the fact that phoebe was in shock and didn’t have time to concentrate on her looks, but we all know the truth. even though she’s my main character, i still have absolutely no idea what her suit looks like. i’m 100% serious right now
I LOVE HER LITTLE STARS AAA :”D
A N A T O M Y G O A L S
seriously, though, that’s impressive that you managed to draw someone climbing onto a window. maybe it’s due to my own lack of skill that makes it seem super amazing, but i’m sure that anatomy is no easy thing and climbing back into a window is the kind of action that requires a weird placement of limbs.
the wall has color variation, and like, slight shading (it’s lighter to the left and darker to the right, unless i’m being blind). i admire you for this as well, considering that i would’ve just slapped a plain block color onto it and then proceeded to the rest of the drawing like the lazy thing i am
also, color variation in the window frame and sill. N I C E
i just want to inhale this entire artpiece. that sounds weird but that’s my feeling right now
THAT’S A REALLY NICE SKY YOU DREW
ALSO MORE COLOR VARIATION ON THE THING SHE’S GRABBING. (PRESUMABLY THE WINDOW SILL OR LIKE A ROOF.)
i bet your thought process is like “why is this hyperactive thirteen year old getting excited because i used different colors” but i’m honestly just so lazy and it never fails to amaze me when people actually do things. beautiful
eeeeee
if you want, here’s a little (terrible) doodle of what i visualized cancer’s hairstyle to look. i’m not saying that your version is wrong, though, because i really genuinely L O V E your artwork and honestly who the hell cares THAT much about cancer’s hair when the overall artpiece is so great. i know i don’t
i have no idea how to display images on here?? so here’s a imgur link. let’s hope that it just transforms into an image, or else you can just click on it :”)
also, yes, the “compact” phoebe described is in fact, the holoscope! the holoscope is basically an enlarged compact mirror without the mirror.
here’s something else that i was considering:
technically, sagittarius is the only zodiac sign who really understands what’s happening, because she was already one of the zodiac signs (albeit, an eastern one). it would be a hassle to write her mentoring everyone else, and of course i could just have the other signs learn things by themselves, but what if they had like…a robot in their holoscope.
i could just call it the “Zodiac Computer Intelligence” (Z.C.I as abbreviation) and it could be a guide to the zodiacs!
i’ve included an example below, but just think of it as an advanced siri in each of the holoscopes, lmao
also, altogether they’re called the “zodiac computer intelligence(s)” but each computer intelligence specifically is named after which holoscope it’s in. e.g. virgo’s Z.C.I would be called “virgo computer intelligence” or V.C.I.
here’s the crappy example:
onto weapons! this entire section about weapons will be extremely disappointing b/c you were probably like “oh wow, i can’t wait to hear about what they wield in battle!” but fun fact: i have literally no idea (other than ophiuchus lmao)
————————————————————————————————————
aries:
um….a sword, maybe? to be honest, i don’t really want to give any of the signs weapons that are bluntly dangerous, because i don’t think they’ll be really needing to stab anybody?
of course, this depends on how black cat targets them and what she uses to fight them. i actually still haven’t figured out how black cat sends enemies to the zodiacs - considering her past, i don’t think she’d be the type to have an empire of minions working for her?
help pls
alternatively, aries could wield a spear + shield! this is based off of the fact that the symbol for mars (aka, also the symbol that symbolizes the male gender) is supposed to represent mars’ shield and spear.
also, some of ares’ symbols are a shield and spear, sooo….
taurus:
???
i have absolutely no idea. although i’m not necessarily basing their weapons off of their ruling planets, it does help give me something to work with, and taurus, along with virgo, are the two signs that don’t really have a ruling planet. ancient rulers for them were venus and mercury respectively, but i wanted to use modern rulers instead. in modern rulers, taurus is either ruled by ceres or earth, and virgo is either ruled by ceres or chiron, so i don’t know anymore.
gemini:
UHHHHHHHHHHH
i already made it so that gemini (both of them) when transformed, have like these….wheel shoes. they help gemini move super fast, because gemini’s ruling planet is mercury, roman counterpart to hermes.
i don’t remember where i read this, but i’m sure hermes moves really fast - he wears talaria (winged sandals) which presumably would make him speedy, and he’s also a messenger of the gods, so he’d have to be speedy to send messages quickly.
also, mercury, as in the planet itself, has the fastest orbit out of all the planets, so there’s that.
ANYWAYS
the only weapon that hermes wields is a caduceus, which is a staff with two snakes entwined around it. i have to save the snake staff for ophiuchus, though, because ophiuchus is literally the snake bearer.
i mean, i suppose you could use the shoes as a weapon if you treated them like chakrams, which are literally circles that you throw.
hermes is also associated with the lyre (basically, smaller harp, i think) and it’s just an instrument. weaponizing an instrument shouldn’t be too hard, but i can’t think of a way that you could weaponize it.
why am i like this
cancer:
what
i’ve really failed as a writer. cancer/phoebe is my main character and i haven’t got any idea as to what she’d wield in battle.
a possible idea is like, a big circular shield, to represent the moon.
a cool thing i could do if i go with cancer’s weird moon shield is that maybe the shield changes to match whatever lunar phase the moon is in, or cancer can change the lunar phase the shield displays herself by just commanding it to change. each lunar phase could alter her power a little bit/give her new abilities
of course, that might make cancer overpowered, and there’s eight lunar phases so that means i have to think of eight different powers relating to cancer and the moon.
i definitely have the time to sit around and think of eight different powers, but i definitely also do not have the creativity and/or intelligence needed to do so.
pls shoot me
also where the hell would she put the shield when she’s not using it? does it shrink and she can clip it onto her belt? does cancer essentially become a turtle when she’s not fighting (like, does she put it on her back)
leo:
the good thing about leo is that he’s got tiny little claws now. like, his gloves have small claws at the end of them. he can just straight up scratch someone if it comes to that
idk what possessed me to think of it, but a grappling hook gun? he can travel really fast (just grapple at a far area), swing across buildings, restrain someone by wrapping the string around them, and tie someone up too (not quite sure what he’d need to do that for though)
i don’t think a grappling hook gun has any connections with leo/a lion in general, though, and if we take the concept for cancer’s weapon (a shield) and compare it to leo’s, there’s no connection of any sort. and you know me - everything between cancer and leo needs to reflect each other or i will die
virgo:
what (x2)
a thought i had was that she had a halo floating above her head when transformed, and she can physically just grab the halo and fling it at something. the halo is white hot (and it’ll burn anyone other than virgo that touches it) and can cut through materials.
the thing is, this sounds really inefficient (it’s a circle. you’re literally fighting with a circle) and also too similar to gemini’s weapon (a chakram that doubles as basically rollerblades, but a chakram is still a circle that you throw).
of course, i don’t really even like the idea of gemini using chakrams, but we’ll see!
libra:
what (x3)
how would you even weaponize this sign?
hitting someone over the head with a pair of scales would definitely hurt for that person, but it’s not…..that’s not a weapon
help.
scorpio:
a dagger? that can stun people when scorpio stabs them with it?? it kind of mimics being paralyzed from venom, i guess
alternatively, some sort of accessory that allows scorpio to turn invisible when she puts it on, but that’s really boring and i doubt scorpio would be pleased with it.
technically, a grappling hook gun would work for scorpio - scorpions are part of the same family as spiders, and you know. i guess a grappling hook gun is kind of related to a spider in the sense that it gives scorpio easy grips on walls (like a spider)?
i don’t know anymore. pls help
sagittarius:
the obvious choice is a bow and arrow, but again, i don’t really know if giving the signs flat-out weapons is a good idea. i didn’t really plan on them needing to stab anybody?? (or shoot anybody, in sagi’s case)
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
capricorn:
what (x4)
no idea. literally no idea.
aquarius:
what (x5)
again, no idea.
pisces:
um??? i don’t know, maybe some sort of musical weapon (like a flute) but i’m still going to need to figure out how to turn an instrument into a weapon
ophiuchus:
this is literally the only sign that i have a concrete idea of a weapon for.
this isn’t where ophiuchus belongs on the zodiac (i’m pretty sure he fits between scorpio and sagittarius?? i don’t remember) but whatever
his weapon isn’t actually the caduceus like i might’ve led you to believe in the gemini section, though. it’s asclepius’s rod!
“who the hell is asclepius”
asclepius was an ancient healer who was such a hardcore healer that he could literally bring back people from the dead. one thing associated with him is his rod, which is basically just a rod with a snake wrapped around it.
ophiuchus wasn’t always associated with asclepius, like for example ophiuchus was also seen as representing apollo fighting a huge snake at the oracle of delphi by the ancient greeks at some point, but according to roman era mythography, ophiuchus represented asclepius
so let’s just pretend that the romans are right
anyways, i was thinking that ophi would have the ability to heal small wounds and lessen the pain from larger wounds using the snake wrapped around the rod. so, like, a little beam of light will shoot from the snake’s open jaw (also, the snake is not alive, by the way) and drag over the wound and the wound will be gone.
i did mention earlier that black cat would infect ophiuchus’s charm to give him more powers (which in turn also kind of makes her weaker), so now the newly buffed ophiuchus can drain energy from others too!
BC can use ophi as a method to replenish her energy, and if ophi goes out there to fight the zodiacs himself, he can’t really do much physical combat, but he could totally weaken the signs easily.
ok buckle your seatbelts, kids, here’s where it gets confusing
so the snake (on ophi’s staff) is basically shooting a laser so it can heal wounds. when it’s healing a wound, the laser’s colour will be golden!
in reverse, when the snake is draining someone’s energy, a purple-black laser will shoot out instead.
so here’s how the whole energy drain thing might work:
let’s imagine that aries, a week prior, screws up while fighting and gets a cut on her arm or something.
by now, the cut is healed, and then she goes to face off ophi for whatever reason.
the snake on his staff will shoot a purple-black laser directed towards aries, and when it latches onto her, the cut she had a week before will be back like she was just injured. and, well, your body (essentially) needs energy to heal wounds, right? so, the snake has taken the energy aries’ body produced to heal that injury. now, the injury is back, and ophi has that energy for himself, stored in his staff, to use again to heal whoever he wants.
this can easily be abused/make ophi overpowered, so i think what i’ll do to restrain it is say that the snake can’t hold too much energy, otherwise it’ll either just break apart or it’ll exhaust black cat, because she essentially has to use her own magic to manage ophiuchus’s charm.
the snake has a scale pattern; at default, they’re gray, and as ophi collects more energy, they’ll turn green. ophi has to make sure that no more than half the scales are green at once.
there’s a lot more on ophiuchus but we’re only here to discuss weapons, so i’ll leave it here!
here are the eastern zodiacs! i did my best to do some research on oriental weapons, but ofc they don’t all need to wield an oriental-originated weapon. i’m just a terrible, nit-picky person
rat:
what (x6)
sigh.
ox:
again with how i’m not quite sure i want them to all wield flat-out weapons, but here’s my idea so far:
ox can wield a 牛尾刀! pinyin is niúwěidāo, but just calling it niuweidao is fine. it’s a chinese sword and literally translates to “ox-tailed sword” or “ox-tail sword” (niu = ox/cow, wei = tail, dao = sword)
and obviously, as you probably know, i chose this weapon just for the fact that it has the word “ox” in its name.
you can google “niuweidao” to see images of it, b/c there is an article on wikipedia about it, but there’s no images.
tiger:
what (x7)
H E L P
rabbit:
there’s a chinese myth kind of thing about chang’e, a goddess who lives in the moon, with her rabbit by her side. in chinese mythology, the rabbit pounds the elixir of life in the moon, but in japanese mythology, the rabbit pounds mochi.
so technically, cancer’s moon shield could be given to rabbit, but like….i feel like a rabbit would have something light and small, and a shield really doesn’t give that impression.
H E L P (x2)
dragon:
AGAIN WITH THE FLAT-OUT WEAPONS THING BUT….
there’s something called a green dragon crescent blade (and, again, i’m considering it only because of the name, lmaoooo)
something to do with stone (because medusa) would be cool
but for the time being:
what (x10)
monkey:
a golden baton/staff type thing that extends or shrinks (in length, not size) at monkey’s will!
this is based off the weapon of the monkey king in the classical chinese story journey to the west. in that story, sun wukong (the monkey king’s actual name) has a weapon called the 如意金箍棒, and it’s basically this golden staff that’ll do anything the monkey king wants it to. shrink, extend, duplicate, etc
i think that duplication & some of the other abilities of the staff would make monkey super overpowered, so i’m sticking with the shrink/extend for now.
so, i mean, it’s not as much of a weapon as aries’ or anything, but monkey can still do a lot of things with an extendable staff. need to stab someone from across the room? extend your baton! need to get onto a high place quickly? extend your baton (and hold on tight)! need to get someone to shut up? you don’t even need to extend your baton. just smack the person with the baton
also it shrinks, so it’s very portable.
this sounds like i’m doing an advertisement pitch for a baton
rooster:
i think a fan with feathers patterned like a rooster’s would go well with her!
maybe the fan would be soft to the touch on the flat sides/feathers, but on the edge, it’s super sharp and durable. rooster can use the fan to cut through materials and occasionally cut someone if that’s really necessary
she can smack someone from a long range too. the fan could be thrown at someone and it would automatically return to rooster’s hand afterwards (like a failsafe boomerang).
my original thought was that rooster could also sharply swipe her fan in the direct of something/someone and it would produce a small wind to knock them back, but i’m not quite sure if that’s overpowered or not.
this is a drastic change of topic, but i’d appreciate help/feedback on how black cat would get access to the zodiacs/how she fights them, because she isn’t the type to go out there and fight them herself. considering her background, i don’t think she’d necessarily have an empire at her command - she’s just a scientist. i know i said that previously she’d take control of citizens, but that means that the swords and stuff wouldn’t be able to be put to use, because that’s a person underneath that you’re stabbing. maybe she has robots? repeatedly just robots would be boring, though.
one idea i had was that black cat still lives a (kind of) normal life when she’s not being a villain. she can’t revert to her civilian form because the BC charm doesn’t come off, but that doesn’t mean that she can’t possess someone!!
couldn’t BC just take control of someone at a local hospital that was like, dead or something? she could just give herself a new identity and live a normal life. wouldn’t it be interesting if BC’s “civilian” self worked for the parents of either adrien, casper, or octavia? i had actually planned for octavia’s parents to have a butler of some sorts named camilla. octavia’s family is rich, so obviously BC might target them, and i think that she’d be fine with working as an assistant, because it means she gets plenty of time to warm up to octavia’s parents and gain their trust. her office for when she’s doing her super villain stuff could be located somewhere in her actual home, and then she just….un-possesses the body and goes back into her BC form.
i actually really wanted for BC to work in a position close to everest, since that’s basically her son, and even though neither of them would find out it was their son/mother, the reader would eventually know and it would be sad, especially if i have “civilian” BC behave rudely and/or attack everest at some point. i wanted “civilian” BC to still have ties to science, but the rich kid trio in my story doesn’t have a set of parents that do science-y stuff. maybe i should make everest’s dad wealthy as well??
what do you think? this is a whole lot of plot for me to deal with, and it still doesn’t give me any idea as to how BC would attack the zodiacs, but it’s something, i guess. i just need to give BC a way for her to do normal human things, because she’s obviously not gonna sit in a dark room all day and disdainfully mutter “zodiacs” while rubbing her hands together in that evil way.
anyhow, i need help on figuring out how BC attacks the zodiacs, and your feedback on the whole “civilian” BC idea!
————————————————————————————————————
we’re gonna discuss the card game, cecilia’s family, and the thing about the bakery you asked about in the next post because this is already too long.
also, i’d love to hear about “subplot development prompts, character arcs, story structure, outlining” along with "writing a relationship your readers will ship". i probably need that help, so hit me up!
this is unedited! sorry for any mistakes or parts that sound really repetitive.
…
okay
so I've been working on a reply to this thing all day
and it just got deleted
but that's fine
And I meant to be all witty and hilarious
But now I lack the energy I am sorry
So
basically
THANK YOU YOU ARE SO KIND
I BLUSHED SO HARD I THINK I'M THE TRUE CAUSE OF THE HEATWAVE IN WESTERN EUROPE
and boy yes anatomy sucks
Especially when you're trying to find references and you're drawing someone female because that basically guarantees you're going to get something that's uncomfortably sexual
like I just wanted someone actually rock climbing not this weird creepy "let me cling awkwardly to this rock with my tonny locks gleaming in the sunlight and my climbing gear impractically promiscuous and my mouth open and staring into the distance"
On another note I never thought I'd type the words "that one meme with the girl climbing out of the swimming pool" into google but here we are
Your design of Cancer is excellent! I love it so much! The pacman shapes make a lot more sense the way you have them, and your side bun actually looks like a side bun, and just yes all of it makes so much more sense than what I had
Is that your actual handwriting?? It's so neat!
[I also laughed out loud] [absorbing my "talent" is an arduous process involving a blue rubber chicken, green sharpies, and an HP Deskjet 3070A] [not that there's anything to absorb really] [1/10 do not recommend]
I didn't want to spam this thread with my huge images and links and stuff so I (hopefully) set up a dropbox folder where I'll put stuff I think is relevant, like my "research" and my fanart and stuff https://www.dropbox.com/sh/j23ab81h5z4wzgh/AACm2BMse1092jcxTyCzbVW3a?dl=0
I hope that works, please let me know if it doesn't
It's time for another ~Disclaimer~ because I don't do enough of those:
Once again, I realise that I say stuff and it sounds like I'm telling you to go do it or I say stuff and it sounds like I'm just assuming you'll go with that idea for your story. I don't intend that. I'd never want to be that annoying person who keeps firing ideas that you don't want at you. So please, once again, take everything I say or draw or whatever with a grain of salt - you are the author and I'd never want to force my opinion on you
psa over
About the weapons: I pondered it most of the day today and here's how I'd approach it (bearing in mind the aforementioned disclaimer, of course):
Maybe one way to start is by deciding on the heroes' powers and then have the weapons align with those. Idk if all of them have a specific power other than enhanced agility, speed, and stuff, but if they do then it'd be a lot easier to assign them weapons that complement the powers
Taking a random example, if you decide that Leo does get fire powers, then it'd be easier to assign him a weapon like a flamethrower (bad example) or anything along those lines
Alternatively sometimes a power (such as fire power) would stand well enough on its own - you wouldn't necessarily need a weapon if someone can literally shoot fire out of their hands
Another possibility is having everyday objects be enhanced as weapons. I keep coming back to ML, but Ladybug's main weapon is literally a yoyo. I guess if you can make it work, anything can be a weapon even if it isn't marketed as such
A very bad example would be if libra got like a giant magical gavel or something
Idk that sounds really dumb
But I think you know what I mean
Definitely go for the civilian identity of BC! It might add another interesting layer to her character depending on how you play it - like if in her civilian form she's also obsessed with figuring out the zodiacs and their true identities and stuff or if she specifically chooses to live the life she dreams of having once the BC charm leaves her (idk if that made sense but yes all the way for civilian BC!)
Though if she possesses a corpse, would the corpse end up reanimating or would it continue to rot and be lifeless and stuff? How far can she control a body? Could she get a dead body to come back to life? If she has none of her memories, how would she function in normal human society like with idk driving a car or stuff like that? Would she get access to the memories of the person she's possessing?
I've actually been wondering about the mini villain thing. Presumably, if they're not in control of their actions, then the zodiacs would want to "free" them without hurting them, right? Would the restoration spell you mentioned also restore the victim back to their former selves, like with memories, or would a BC possession completely wipe someone else's memories too?
I guess another idea would be to have BC, with her engineering/sciencey background, possess inanimate objects and combine them to form monsters. Or even plants? Idk.
I honestly have no idea, actually.
That wasn't very helpful, I'm sorry.
OH AND YES YOUR ZCI IS JUST EXCELLENT
THAT EXTRACT KILLED ME IT WAS WONDERFUL
SCORPIO IS MY FAVE (because I'm totally not biased because it's my sign, no, not at all)
oh one more random little thing
I was reading about astrology and I came across this thing called the "ascendant"? It's like someone's second sign? i don't really get it but I thought it was fun
And this has happened like three times where I stumble across some tiny detail where I think "oh would you look at that " and I mention it and it was a big deal for the story?? [like the name thing]
I don't think this is a big deal but I just thought I'd mention it in case it was a huge plot point or anything
So yeah
This is a lot less comprehensive than it was but oh well
I'm sure I forgot something
Sorry about that
Have a nice day! (or night, or whatever it is where you are)
oof, sorry for this late reply! internet lowkey cut out for a bit and then i was too tired for the rest of the day anyway because my familly + i just got to canada yesterday
anatomy sounds like absolute hell. good thing i have no idea how to draw humans anyways
that’s essentially how i envisioned cancer but obviously, with my low level of drawing experience, i wouldn’t ever be able to accurately convey my thoughts into a drawing, but that’s the closest i can get :”D
“siri, where can i buy a blue rubber chicken and an HP Deskjet 3070A”
also me being me, i snooped into the “stars in transition fanart” folder like the irresponsible and terrible person i am the other day, and AAAAAA what a cute drawing/headshot of cancer?? and the sparkly-eyed leo. 100/10 i love it, leo’s facial expression was my facial expression when i opened it up
i can’t believe you made two artworks for my dumb story. that’s more investment than i would’ve ever expected anyone to have in it
but i’m just going to throw in this temporary intermission/break in my terrible jokes: i do feel kind of bad for repeatedly bogging you down with long responses, because i’m sure that writing a response to respond to everything i blurted out in my response takes time, and you’re at that age where you’ve got more important things to do than listen to a hyperactive little girl screech at you about constellations. you can imagine, since i’m literally still in middle school, my workload is very small so i can usually get back to you very quickly. don’t feel pressured to match me in response speed!
idk if this is the kind of thing that’s exclusive to me only, but i always feel terrible whenever people respond to me very quickly and then they gotta wait until 2019 for me to respond. honestly if you take 3 days or longer to respond i’m really not gonna care. pls take ur time, don’t let someone four years younger than you take up all your time and/or indirectly drag you into hell
that aside, thanks for all your interest in my flaming cesspool of a story so far! there aren’t too many writers at my school and most people i show my work to aren’t interested in reading it, because A) it’s always ridiculously long and B) everybody’s got better things to do than read some girl’s work. ergo, i’ve had some trouble connecting with others at my school, because writing has really started to occupy a lot of my interests and i can’t find common ground with others, which does make it kind of hard to socialize.
it’s very motivational and amazing to have someone - especially someone who is technically a “stranger” on the internet - suddenly show this much investment in my stuff, so thanks for all your support! it means a lot!!
W O W sorry for that Unnecessary Infodump About My Lack Of Friendship Skills(tm)
thanks for coming to my tedtalk
OKAY BACK TO NORMAL
THANK YOU FOR THE RESOURCES!! you can safely assume that i suck as a writer (so the subplots were highly welcomed!) and being thirteen years old, you can also safely assume i’ve never been in a relationship (and never will because my personality is a very effective people-repellent) so writing one is not going to be too easy. THANK
ooh, i never thought about approaching it that way!! i’ll see what i can do to make this weapon process easier. admittedly, my story has had a severe lack of tying in the actual elements of the signs (i mean, besides the hair colors, i guess) so this’ll probably help round things out
when you talked about the shooting-fire-out-of-hands thing, the immediate mental image i had was leo torching someone to death. that would not be fun
a yo-yo? that’s definitely a creative and interesting choice for a weapon. does LB just…..smack people in the face with it
a giant magical gavel? all i can think of is libra slamming that thing down and screaming “OBJECTION”
that’s not how court works, but oh well!
yeah, i gotta figure out how that whole “possessing a dead body” would work, because presumably the body will start to rot once black cat disconnects her magic from it/un-possesses it, which means she does need to be a “civilian” for a while in order to keep the body in good condition (as creepy as that sounds). i’d also have to figure out the limits of her power, because i don’t want to make her ridiculously overpowered either
the thing about the memory loss is that it mostly applies to the identity of who BC was before she was BC. she slowly forgets who she used to be, but i think that the BC charm would let its holder keep a faint grip on memories like how to ride a bike or drive a car or something. the charm just slowly erases the memories of the identity of the BC holder, leaving the BC holder only with the info that who they used to be was good, which will drive them to carry out the task of taking the zodiac charms.
to be quite honest, i don’t know if i still want to keep that whole “BC takes control of civilians to do her dirty work” kinda thing. but, if i do, yes, the zodiacs wouldn’t want to hurt them, and instead free them from black cat. it’s not like BC is full out possessing them - instead, the civilian is in control of what they’re doing, but they’re heavily influenced by BC.
the purification spell is meant to revert one of BC’s mini villains back to normal (with memories!) and the restoration spell is meant to restore the environment to normal (so the restoration spell heals injuries and fixes the collateral damage)
ofc, since the RS also relies on the magic in the zodiac charm, how many injuries can be healed and how many buildings/etc can be put back to normal can always change, depending on how much magic is left in the charm of the superhero that’s casting it.
so not everything always goes back to normal
the restoration spell has priorities, here’s a list of em in order:
1) civilian major injuries (so, it’ll heal any civilians with major injuries, and this is it’s topmost priority - the RS will always do this first)
2) civilian minor injuries (cuts, bruises, etc)
3) major collateral damage (toppled buildings, etc)
4) minor collateral damage (fallen trees, etc)
5) major zodiac injuries (so, priority #5 is to heal the major wounds of the zodiac superheroes)
6) minor zodiac injuries
the whole point of the RS is to try and bring everything to what it was before the mini villain came in. the zodiacs’ needs rank so low on the list because the reasoning is that they’re heroes and therefore should put the needs of everyone else before them
it’s all good! but tbh i also don’t have any idea, so you can probably expect chapter 2 to arrive like never. i want phoebe, in chapter 2, to have to transform and fight so that the reader can actually see what battles are like, but right now i don’t even know how BC functions in terms of fighting the zodiacs, so yeah. rip
computer intelligences for the win!!
here’s another set of bullet points to organize things:
yes, i know about the ascendant sign, though i call it the rising sign (means the same thing; ascending = rising)
i’m not quite sure what these would be called, but a person has multiple signs (which makes sense, you can’t really reduce a human being to one sign only)
before i start my infodump, i’d just like to mention that even during writing this story, i don’t really believe in astrology, but i have to admit i do like to look at those “the signs” tumblr posts whenever i’m out-of-my-mind bored. that being said, i feel like i know too much about the zodiac for someone who doesn’t believe in it.
HERE WE GOOOOO
there’s these different types of signs: sun, moon, mercury, venus, mars, jupiter, saturn, uranus, neptune, rising (ascendant), lilith, midheaven, and asc node
i think that’s all of them?? not quite sure
unfortunately, i really have not done too much research in this area of work, so it’s not a big plot point or anything. i feel as though i should be doing a lot more work in this topic so that i can give all twelve of my characters a designated sign in each planet, but instead i’m being detail obsessive over last names :”D
anyhow, they all represent different aspects of a person!
the sun sign is the most well known, and to most people, it’s the only sign they know. the sun sign is essentially the base for your personality. it’s judged by using your birth date, so it’s the kind that you see in magazines and on the web and stuff. i’m an aries!
the moon sign is (i think) your emotional needs and emotions in general, or a side of you that you keep tucked away. i don’t really remember how i figured out my moon sign (i think it’s judged by what time you were born) but my moon sign is cancer!
the rising sign is how you perceive the world and how the world perceives you. i forgot how i found mine out, but i’m a leo rising! (i swear the cancer moon and leo rising thing are coincidental, aha. when i found my moon + rising sign i was just doing it cos i was bored, i never knew at the time that one day i’d be writing those two signs falling in love)
anyhow, the rising sign is how people see you, so even though i’m an aries, i look at the world at how a leo does and others get a more “leo” energy from me than an “aries” energy. idk what that means but that’s what i read on that one website like almost 2 years ago so
i don’t know too much about the other signs. i know that mercury sign = how you communicate and how you think, venus = how you act in relationships and everything else related to relationships, makes = basically when you’re mad, and i have no idea what the rest do.
just google “astrological chart”. there’s things like trines, oppositions, conjunctions, squares, etc (that’s all i remember lol)
here’s some other things i know:
zodiac signs can be grouped based into things like whether they are a cardinal, mutable, or fixed sign (cardinal = action, dynamic, force; mutable = flexible, adaptable; fixed = stubborn, inflexible). i think these are called “modalities”!
zodiac signs can be classified as either “feminine” or “masculine” and that doesn’t really mean gender, but more like the “energy” that each sign contains; i remember i read somewhere that “feminine” means within oneself and then “masculine” has to deal with the outer world. i was originally going to decide the signs’ genders by using whether they were a feminine or masculine sign, but i couldn’t visualize aries (masculine sign) as male because i’m an aries female, so that didn’t work out.
i think you already know about the whole “planetary rulership” thing, considering how many times i’ve talked about it, but there’s other things surrounding planetary rulerships such as dignity, exaltation, detriment, and fall!
i’m not gonna elaborate unless you want me to, cause this post is already too long whoop
zodiac signs have different “categories” called decans! each decan of a sign is ruled by a different planet, and supposedly each decan has a different personality to one another (ofc, ultimately they’re all similar because they’re the same sign)
for example, for my sign, aries, there’s aries decan 1 (ruled by mars, march 21 - 30) aries decan 2 (ruled by the sun, april 1 - 9) and aries decan 3 (ruled by jupiter, april 10 - 20). i’d be aries decan 3, because my birthday is april 16th.
WHEEZE
i’m well aware that there’s nothing of substance to reply to in this post, buuuttttt i’m still gonna push the zodiac card game, the bakery, and cecilia’s family topics to the next response because even if this is essentially just useless information, it’s still reaaaallllyyyy long. tbh your response can just be like 3 sentences and i wouldn’t care because there’s literally?? nothing to respond to anyways??
My brain: you have to draw libra
Me @ my brain: we don't even know what libra looks like, it doesn't make sense for us to draw her
My brain: you gotta
Me:
Me:
Me:
sooo about the folder
it was kind of meant for you to see, or I wouldn't have made it public
I just didn't want to be that awkward person on the internet advertising my own art, but yeah I also wanted to show you because you know
yeah
so I'm adding to that as I get random bursts of motivation (/boredom because I'm on break and idk what else to do)
[my brain: we gotta draw cecilia
me @ my brain: I don't want to keep drawing characters and having them not match @royaltea's vision and forcing her to spend time on appearances when she's working on other things or doesn't feel like it
my brain: you gotta
me:
me:
me: gosh darnit]
so anyway
feel free to snoop around the folder whenever you feel like it that's what it's lowkey meant for (also whenever I do something that's like way too out there just say the word and I'll stop)
shameless self-promotion is over, I'll stop now
tbh I haven't ever been in a relationship either so I have no idea if the resources are actually useful
From what I can tell from my friends who have had crushes/been in relationships
1) having a crush is hell
2) actually though because communication is non-existent
3) there's a lot of self-doubt involved
4) if it ever gets to the relationship stage, it's honestly more like having a really handsy best friend
5) idk though I'm like the least qualified person on this earth to write relationships which is why I've usually tried to avoid it
I actually went and did one of those weird astrological chart things too (I don't believe in astrology either)
and you know how I said your civilian aquarius was my spirit animal? Aquarius showed up like four times in the different charts
Apparently I'm a lunar Aquarius but a rising Taurus
So yeah Aquarius for the world
[just like @Auria Nox] [do you think we scared her off?] [I think it was the t-shirts] [sorry about that]
Random question: say (because I'm morbid) say a zodiac was like mortally injured, would they still be lowest priority? So in this totally hypothetical situation, if there was a lot of civilian injuries and collateral damage but the zodiac was like impaled or something and definitely wouldn't survive the wound, would the restoration spell still consider them last? Would the spell heal them partially even if that meant leaving a minor wound on a civilian? Or is it like not sentient and non-negotiable?
I keep asking random questions that force you to drag out your responses, so if you ever don't want to reply to a question and just write whatever, then by all means go for it
by the way, no worries with the time thing! I'm only starting work on September 1st (no college for me yet, thank goodness) so I have a lot of time on my hands since right now I'm just traveling around a bit with my family and doing Certified Adult (tm) things like finding a flat and getting insurance and horrible stuff that requires me to talk to people. I always look forward to this thing here when I've been out adulting for too much. So don't worry about me, I'm always up for a chat or reading or whatever. [also take as much time as you want to post, because I understand that you still have school and obligations and whatnot so yeah] [don't worry about responding "late" I really don't mind]
warning: this entire thing is unedited. pls forgive me for typos
list #1 (me screaming about the drawings):
ace attorney: stars in transition edition
i feel like this is made funnier by the fact that cecilia’s parents are, in fact, lawyers
LEO NO. THIS IS WHY YOUR PARENTS ARE DEAD
AND OH YEAH I SAW THE CECILIA DRAWING AFTER YOU MENTIONED IT AND IT IS A+++++++++++. she’s so pretty!! i love the cute little outfit you gave her (WHERE CAN I GET HER BAG I LOVE HER BAG) and tbh, i never even thought too much about her sense of fashion (even though that’s a big component of her personality). her having a slight obsession w/ jewelry is now canon, because it’ll help tie her to octavia! she’s definitely a social media lover - there was actually this one excerpt i wrote back in june about cecilia baking cookies just for her youtube channel (her true love is probably instagram, though)
the excerpt is terrible though. i gotta fix it sometime
the pattern on her dress is so pretty! honestly how do you draw clothing
s m o o t h i e s
H A I R G O A L S
nothing’s too fancy for school in terms of cecilia. she’s probably really extra when it comes to clothing
the little heart-dotted “i”s in “cecilia” is such a nice touch, whether intentional or not. cecilia 100% dots her “i”s with hearts
i love it. [INHALES YOUR ART]
list #2 (an actual response):
sounds like everything i would imagine a crush to be. i haven’t had a crush since second grade, i think? and even then it really wasn’t a crush. do you know when you meet someone and you get this overwhelming desire to be their best friend because they’re just So Cool(tm)? yeah. there was this boy in my class that i found Extremely Cool(tm) (i don’t remember why anymore)
also, even if i had a crush as of now, my experiences are 150% not relevant because how genuine and legitimate do you really think the love of a thirteen year old girl is. not very, i could tell you
i’ve never actually done an astrological chart before because it looks complicated and complicated things severely intimidate me and my vast amount of stupidity
was it the t-shirts? it might’ve been the t-shirts. it was probably the t-shirts.
hmmm…i think that a zodiac charm is at least partially sentient, because like shown in twenty-two stars, the bracelet knows that the future cancer superhero is (unintentionally, because phoebe was just frightened) abandoning her duties, and so it refuses to go into the box by flying away from phoebe. if a zodiac was mortally wounded, the zodiac charm could probably redirect the magic used to fix minor collateral damage and minor civilian injuries into healing that zodiac.
good to know that i’m not being even more a nuisance than i normally am irl. i start school on august 28th, and although i know i should be grateful (because it’s just eighth grade, it’s not that stressful or terrifying) i’m still really bitter about having to start in august. i’ve started school on september 5th (or at least in september) for as long as i can remember and now they gotta cut my summer break. @american school system: what the fresh hell
ah, talking to people. truly the bane of existing. i think a close second would be talking to relatives (especially ones that you didn’t know existed?? like when did we have a [insert name] in this family)
list #3 (the trading cards):
this is SO stupid and unnecessary, but i just thought it’d be a good factor to aid the zodiac crew when they start to try and find BC’s identity!
basically it’s just these cards (kind of like pokemon cards, i suppose?) that have the illustration/drawing of a past zodiac holder on the front, their title on the bottom of the card, and then on the back, there’s this little blurb about their achievements, when they served as a superhero, and what they’re remembered for and yadda yadda.
their “title” is just something to distinguish each zodiac holder, because usually, even after a zodiac holder is dead/done with their career, the public still doesn’t know their civilian identity. every libra is called libra and every cancer is called cancer, so it’s impossible to tell the difference between two different zodiac holders of the same zodiac. ergo, a title is assigned (usually relating to what that sign has done)!
so it could be something like “Libra, The Charmer”, “Libra, The Justiciar” and “Cancer, The Prophet”, “Cancer, The Chariot”
except that when you wanted to refer to libra (the justiciar) specifically, you’d just say “The Justiciar” because there’d only be one zodiac with the title of “The Justiciar”
i do want one character to be obsessed with collecting these cards, but i can’t figure out which one out of the twelve would be the most reasonable choice. cecilia, because she loves her new status as a superhero (because she’s FAMOUS) and (kind of) wants to learn more about the superheroes’ past? edith, because she’s competitive, likes video games, and things like pokemon cards are right up her alley?
i also need to start thinking about exactly how well known the zodiac superheroes are. presumably they’ve been around for a hella long time, but i need to figure out if the rest of the world’s attitude towards them is mostly “we acknowledge the zodiacs but we don’t really care” or if it’s like “we acknowledge the zodiacs and we kind of care”, because i was wondering whether or not a little exhibit in a museum about the history of the zodiacs would be plausible. it might help with their investigation of who BC is!
anyhow, for the time being, i gotta figure out what the trading cards themselves are called. do tell if you have any ideas ‘cause i sure don’t lmao
list #4 (cecilia’s family):
like i mentioned before, cecilia is based on lady justice, and i recently found out that lady justice’s greek equivalent is dike!
apparently, dike has the horae, the moirai, along with eunomia and eirene as siblings. this promptly gave me the idea that the big family thing should be transferred from octavia to cecilia (i couldn’t imagine octi having a big family anyway)
so now cecilia has more siblings, i guess. she now has an older sister named irene (after eirene, goddess of peace) but i have no idea how to translate “eunomia” into something not totally obvious and blatant, because i don’t think there’s any names deprived from eunomia. and, you know, i like to keep my references subtle.
my obsession for these useless details is really screwing me over, if you can’t already tell.
cecilia now has cousins, because i can’t give her too many siblings. her cousins are based after the moirai (the three fates). you know that tale about the three women who have the strings that represent the lives of every human being, and when they cut one, that human dies? yeah, that’s them
cecilia’s cousins help their mom (ceci’s aunt) run a clothing brand/shop! that’s the easiest way i could think of incorporating “strings” into their characters.
the actual names of the three fates/moirai are clotho (“spinner”; spins the thread of life), lachesis (“allotter”; measures each thread), and atropos (“inevitable” or basically death; cuts the thread).
the names i’ve come up for cecilia’s cousins are penelope (meaning “weaver”, represents clotho), decima (meaning “tenth”; represents lachesis and is named after the roman equivalent of lachesis because i couldn’t find a name meaning anything close to “measuring” or “allotter”), and morana (meaning “death, plague”, represents atropos).
i don’t really know why you’d want to name your daughter “death” or “tenth”, so let’s just say morana and decima were named after an ancestor of theirs or something.
i originally thought that i could name one of ceci’s cousins “bella” and have her middle name be “donna”, after the belladonna flower (aka deadly nightshade), which has the scientific name of “atropa belladonna”. the atropa part was specifically named after atropos, and belladonna can kill you, so it does fit the death theme, but i also have an unreasonable dislike for plain names like bella, so i didn’t go with that.
obviously, the mother of these three sisters is named moira. father is yet to be named, and i also need to figure out a clothing brand name :U
i’ll deal with transforming the horae into family members later, name research is so tiring and now i gotta make up last names for these losers
ANYWAYS
i don’t know if i want to make use of the moira sisters’ (that’s what i’m calling them now) symbolism. the foreshadowing/fortune telling quirk already belongs to cecilia’s little sister, prue. the moira sisters would be perfect to foreshadow character death - all i would have to do is very strongly establish a color as belonging or representing a character, and then have the moira sisters start designing some big dress that involves solely that color, ergo a lot of string cutting (and then put a lot of emphasis on the string cutting, i guess).
the thing is, that’s like a one time use because i do plan on a character death, but only one.
i’m overthinking again aren’t i
list #5 (the zodiac keeper and more overthinking):
i’ve been really neglectful of ophiuchus and his civilian identity. like, really neglectful, as in i don’t really know what his name will be and i don’t even have an appearance set for him like i do with every other zodiac. i went into a good ol’ wikipedia article frenzy, and i didn’t find anything to help, but i did find something about a hypothetical fourteenth zodiac surrounding the whale constellation cetus!
this is actually perfect because i finally have something to base the zodiac keeper around - originally i’d just planned on naming her something like “astrid” or “estelle” to relate to the stars in general, but i could base her off cetus! (not to say that ZK is a fourteenth zodiac or whatever; it just fits well with the zodiac theme).
that being said, the name “mira” is going to be taken from civilian pisces and given to the ZK, because “mira” is actually the name of one of cetus’s stars (omicron ceti). i could have ZK/mira be a marine biologist, which is the only career i could think of that would help relate her to whales. of course, cetologist (someone who literally studies whales) is always an option, but that’s too unsubtle.
also, the ZK won’t be an old lady anymore. maybe she’s like, mid thirties
the only problem with this is that i don’t know anything about marine biology and i don’t know if marine biologists travel a lot?? if they do, it wouldn’t make sense for the ZK to be one because she has to stay in the same place for a while to kind of be a guiding symbol for the zodiacs.
i’m currently under the impression that marine biologists travel a lot. either that, or national geographic has lied to me for a looonnnggggg time.
a possible idea is that civilian ophiuchus is the son of the ZK, because cetus is also a sea monster in greek myth and is often depicted as having serpentine features (and y’know, ophi is a serpent). i think it’d be really stressful to technically manage thirteen fifteen year olds, though, so no.
also she’d have to hide the fact that she’s literally the maintainer of twelve powerful artifacts from her family.
WOW THAT WAS LONG. is my wrist still functioning? probably not!!!
Tbh I don't see how you being 13 makes your love less genuine/legitimate
Like sure I kind of think that personally, my 13 year old self was dumb, but that doesn't make her experiences any less legit.
Honestly the more I hear about the American school system the more I think it could benefit from a lit match and a lack of moral inhibitions
Like y'all's college education is pretty good but the rest of it… not so much?
YES TO TALKING TO RELATIVES
And in third place we have talking to your parents' friends/colleagues like "it's great that you changed my diapers that one time but I still have no idea who you are pls help"
Bonus round: talking to said parents' friends' kids
Especially when your parents are convinced you're best friends because they're best friends
And you are most certainly not best friends
More list because list is good
So I really love the trading card idea
I'm terrible at naming things so you probably don't want me to help with that unless you want some ominous-sounding latin phrases like "per adua ad astra" or "nec aspera terrent" or "luctor et emergo"
Which is probably not conducive to marketing trading cards
And this is really bad
But when you said that each Zodiac would have a title based on what they were known for
I just
THIS
was my immediate mental image
Like who decides the titles? The playing card company? Is there a vote? Or do the signs get a say? Because I can totally see teenagers doing this to each other
Don't ask me, ask my brain
That's my new motto because heaven knows I don't know what's going on in there anymore
One question about the "acknowledging with varying levels of concern" thing:
Wouldn't that affect the media portrayal thing from the very first extract? If the public is super into superheroes and has trading cards and stuff, wouldn't they be supportive of the wheel in general? Or would there be more pressure to live up to previous wheels? Idk I can just imagine two old grouchy men in the park or wherever being like, "Sonny back in my day the Zodiacs were much more competent they didn't fool around with none of this black cat business"
I don't know but the public's general view of the Zodiac would affect how quick they would be to turn on the current wheel when things get out of hand.
More list!
The only names I could casually google in relation to Eunomia would be female Almira or male Cosimo
So I understand your struggle
Clotho
I just
Clotho
That sounds like Australian slang
YAY for symbolism with the colors and the threads!
C H A R A C T E R D E A T H
WHATTTTTTT
NOOOOOOOOO
(I understand that it's necessary)
But still
noooooooo
Even more list
Every author needs those good ol' wikipedia article frenzies from time to time
I know nothing about marine biology unfortunately
Alternate possible jobs relating to whales:
Illustrating children's books about the deep sea
Working with an NGO (like Pacific Whale Foundation) that works to save/protect whales
Someone who works in manufacturing that involves whale parts in creating products (like lipstick or shoe polish) (at least it used to idk anymore)
May your wrist rest in peace
It will be sorely missed
[I'm really sorry about the quality of this post, btw] [I swear I'll edit next time] [and actually be coherent]
that’s true - your age doesn’t make your experiences any less legitimate.
set the american school system on fire! set the american school system on fire! set the american school system on fire! set the american school system on
most of my relatives are in china, so i don’t have to deal with them often, and my mom is naturally an introverted person, so we also don’t have people around the house that much. however, she still invites her old friends over on occasion; luckily they don’t usually bring their kids but when they do, it’s terrible.
like GREAT now i have to actually TALK to someone
usually whenever they come over, i lock myself into my room.
our neighbors are really nice people and my mom has invited them inside our house once or twice, and i did such a good job of hiding away that they were surprised that my mom mentioned she had a kid
they’re like “a daughter?? wait where??”
list #2 (trading cards):
i think i might just name them astra cards! boring, but it works
what a nice drawing though?? finger guns are A+
what really cracks me up is that if this were a legitimate card, people playing the card game only refer to the zodiac by their title. so Cancer, The Prophet would just be The Prophet, so that means that they’d call this sagittarius The Punny
“hey, do you have The Punny? i’ll swap with you, i have The Justiciar”
WHEEZE
the playing card company does! i’m sure they’d let the signs give suggestions and input, but knowing the current zodiacs, they’d do things like “Libra, The Computer-Illiterate Idiot”, “Scorpio, The Actual Reincarnation of Satan”, “Aries, The Girl Who Should Start Paying More Attention To Her Surroundings”, and “Pisces, The Emotionally Unstable”
and the playing card company is just. we’re no longer taking suggestions from any of you
i mean, the thing with media is that they’ll naturally run after the superheroes and try and get the tea on them, but my thought was that “does anybody care enough that there’s an actual museum exhibit about them”. when you have something like superheroes in your city, the media and the citizens will be interested in them, but it takes a whole lot of interest for a museum exhibit to sprout up.
and the thing with the superheroes is that they only pop up every few years and nobody knows where they’ll be next, because that depends on where the next villain is. if your country doesn’t have a lot of history with the zodiacs, they naturally really won’t care about them that much.
ok that was confusing. NEVERMIND
anyhow, the trading cards aren’t super popular and the civilians aren’t super into the superheroes - i feel like the general public has a neutral (leaning towards positive) view on the zodiacs.
list #3 (i don’t have a description for this one):
ooh, those are both really pretty names! i’m gonna keep them in my Name Storage(tm) for later use.
i knOW RIGHT?? when i saw “clotho” my initial thought was “australians”
C H A R A C T E R D E A T H
i don’t know if you want to know who dies or not, so i’ll put it in a spoiler tag/box/thing at the end.
heeeyyyy, an NGO is a good idea!
i think this will be the first time i say this sentence in my life: i’m out of things to talk about.
not totally out, because i’m sure i’ve got more topics that i forgot to bring up, along with other really boring details (like a chat client phoebe + cecilia use to talk to each other through and a forensic science app that octavia’s obsessed with) that aren’t worth mentioning.
but, for now, this is it! this is the unabridged version of all the garbage in my head surrounding stars in transition. i hope you’re proud of listening to me for almost two months, because you’re the first person that knows all of this. i did mention this story to one other person at my school (remember that girl who suggested the love square to me?). even then, it was just because she caught me writing during lunch and was genuinely interested in seeing what the hell i was doing, but the most amount of information i mentioned to her was that there was a girl named phoebe and a boy named adrien in my story and that they’re superheroes. i didn’t even say anything about the whole zodiac thing and black cat and the other ten characters.
so yeah! at this point, give me your character headcanons, ask me random questions, give me suggestions, or ask me to shut up. your decisions!
actually, sike. here’s that spoiler box that’ll tell you who dies. i havens aid anything about the ending yet, so if you want to hear that, let me know, because i will happily infodump about that too!
(see? i’ve still got more things to say. when will i ever stop)
Spoiler - click to show.
it’s leo
JUST KIDDING, IT’S BLACK CAT. black cat dies.
So these past three days I've seen my sister (a Certified Adult (tm)) and as good sisters do we shared our new fandoms. Which means that I forced to read through this entire conversation in my presence.
[I just asked her if I could call her a "fan"
she said that she is "intrigued and interested"
which I think she's trying to sound all "Mysterious Adult" (tm)
so you can basically interpret that as her liking it very much]
My sister is also a writer, though arguably more of the poem variety
I usually run my story ideas by her because she is one of those wonderful people who is actually creative which I find spectacular
Anyway
her reactions as I experienced them included:
Laughing
Snorting
"this girl is so funny"
"how old did you say she was?"
"howwwww" (upon learning your age)
saying "pisses" into the silence of my room because she can't pronounce pisces
Creating this list of headcanons/ideas/comments/etc
Which I will preface with the usual disclaimer: take what you like of her input, but don't feel any pressure to do something you don't want to
If it doesn't work or you don't like it then discard it bc this is your story
Anyway
1) She got really hung up on Octavia's 4 cousins (bc of iapetus?). She insisted that they were either villains or chaotic good people who everyone views as villains
Idk if they're still planned for Octavia's family
But that raises an interesting question - if BC ever figured out any civilian identities, would she purposely infect family members?
2) Her thoughts on why 15 year olds would be chosen over others:
Teenagers are more adaptable and would cope better with getting new powers
Bc of school, they can't become loners and technically have an emotional support system available (?)
3) About BC and sharing powers: she pictured BC's charm as something that you could easily pick apart, like a puzzle or a book or something (idk if BC also gets charms of the jewelry variety but anyway). And to infect her victims she'd somehow slip a piece of the charm onto them (like a puzzle piece or the sheet of paper into their pocket or something). and the more bits of her charm are missing, the more power she's sharing and the more vulnerable she is. but when the mini villains are defeated then the charm returns to her and she regains power. Idk if that made much sense
In this case it's actually "don't ask me ask my sister" which I guess is also a nice motto
4) Though I understand that you already have an ending planned for BC? [can I just say] [poor Everest] I'm definitely interested in hearing about that!
5) Casper's last name - Martens bc Martin McGuinness (I honestly don't remember what this was about but oh well)
6) She decided to give different options for powers/weapons for the different heroes. The disclaimer applies here too:
Don't ask me why but she has "Taurus viking helmet with the holes for his bull horns" written down on this paper
ok then sister that works too
She had the idea of weaponising the lyre by having the wielder be able to use the strings as whips. With the obvious downfall of the weapon being limited to a few uses as the whips are depleted
Her ideas for Gemini: have them have star powers depending on the chemical reactions involved in the stars they represent
Oh and apparently according to her, red stars are slowly burning out and she said she wouldn't be surprised if red Gemini was slowly dying
(she's morbid that way)
Her ideas for Phoebe: Gravity/magnetic powers because the moon and the tides
Or the clips on her hair sticks are the shrunk down versions of the moon shield
Leo:
Here's her exact wording:
"senses - ego
leader
looks useless
grappling hook"
Which I've interpreted to mean that Leo could have powers that aren't necessarily combat-oriented, such as heightened sound and vision and he contributes to battles by being the eyes and ears and the back up and stuff
Oh and she said that it'd be ironic to have Phoebe be ridiculously competent and Leo seemingly incompetent as superheroes while Leo is the one who's actually confident in his abilities while Phoebe questions everything she does so they could be opposites that way
So yeah
That was a very interesting conversation to have with my sister at 11 pm
Libra: traps
Um
okay
So I think this was based off my stupid suggestion that Libra just wraps people up in fine print which she then took further to Libra being able to analyse villain's weaknesses and the perfect way to trap them
Because balance?
idk it sounded a lot cooler when she explained it
Scorpio:
This was a cool conversation too
So basically she took the invisibility thing to mean that Scorpio could turn invisible but that would also mean becoming intangible - like in order to be able to touch things or throw daggers or whatever she has to be visible and vulnerable. Idk. Also she said Scorpio' daggers could be like Mai from Avatar ( http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Mai%27s_weapons )
Capricorn: "disintegration"
okay then
I think the power to touch something and break it down into its components? Like a shoutout to his engineer civilian identity? So if he touches a phone he could break it down into its individual parts?
idk how that could be useful but hmmm
Aquarius: the power to temporarily summon random (small) objects out of thin air
Pisces (pisses): Pied Piper powers
Rat: the power to summon all rats/mice in the area (wow okay that's hardcore)
Tiger: camoflage
Pig: repelling magic/powers, so it'd have to be taken out by something non-magical
7) She had an idea for angst fuel: if they kids can't figure out where the mini villain's talisman is, they have to commit murder (like permanently)
8) I was asleep when she wrote these next things down so here we go:
"Eunomia = Mia"
"ZK = swim instructor"
"cards: the Zo-deck" (uuuuuuuuuuugh) (pun levels: -1000)
So yeah. You can do whatever you want with all this stuff, hopefully some of it can spark a new brain wave?
If you're officially out of things to say (except the ending) then here's a few questions I still have:
The bakery thing
ummmm
I think that's it for now?
I'm sure I'll think of more once I get some sleep
Anyway, have a beautiful day!
person_off
Deleted user
"Her world had delved into a strange sort of quiet once she had willed herself to unmask Black Cat and reveal the supervillain's identity once and for all " seems like you tried a little hard
"Angela had eventually adapted herself to the fast pace that her life moved at" reword that
"The media was hungry wolves" either singular or plural, not both
There are also other minor details in spelling and whatnot.
That being said, YOU ARE AN AMAZING WRITER. This was super organized and really original! I love the idea of superheroes not fitting into the cookie cutter mold! i did wonder tho: could you give us a bit more information on angela's personality? I know you just started the story, but i need to know a bit more about her personality soon so she can become a full character in my brain and i can anticipate her actions and stuff.
hey hey hey, welcome back! and wow, two days late response from me. really sorry!
list #1 (i don’t have a description for this):
i’m sorry but i find the sharing fandoms thing extremely funny. how did you even tell your sister about this conversation?
ninja_violinist: hey sis, long time no see. anyways the update on my life is that i accidentally got reeled into a thirteen year old girl’s hyperactive imagination. wanna see the essays we’ve been sending to each other over the course of like two months?
ninja_violinist’s sister, probably: i’m sorry what
maybe it’s just because i don’t have siblings but i also can’t seem to imagine how you’d EVER manage to get your sister to read all of this garbage. i really cannot believe your sister sat down and read E V E R Y T H I N G in this thread. she’s the true mvp
i have only one question for you: did you show your sister the twenty-two stars google doc? because i’ve been editing it the past few days so it’s a bit different from what you saw and i haven’t gone back to edit out any errors and i am actually scared your sister saw the google doc whILE I DIDN’T FINISH FIXING IT DNDHENEHSAKW
it’s all good though. i haven’t finished fixing it but my writing really doesn’t improve that much from non-edited to edited
ANYWAYS
so would that be three souls dragged down into my legion of fandom demise?
writing poems?? your sister is hardcore. in my opinion, poems are the hardest thing to write - the next hardest thing would be flash fiction because it has a word limit and i always write too much.
i’m sure your sister is a fantastic writer! please ask her to transport some poem writing capability to me. i need it
i can’t believe somebody thought i was funny. that’s honestly an achievement
is your sister snorting at my jokes, my stupidity, or my general strangeness? what is the t r u t h
i actually have no idea how pisces is pronounced either - i never even checked to see if i was saying it correctly. i say pie-seas, though.
i’m not quite sure if octavia’s cousins are still planned, to be honest. connecting iapetus with the scorpio zodiac is a bit of a stretch; i admit that i did like what octavia’s four cousins represented, though. we’ll see!
and yes, BC probably would!
tell your sister that i’m going to steal her reasoning for why fifteen year olds were chosen over others. that’s perfect, thanks!
THAT’S SUCH A GOOD IDEA!!! i might not use it for black cat (i’m still deciding on whether or not BC will infect civilians) but i’m keeping that idea for sure. perfect! if that book/puzzle thing belongs to BC, then it would also give her a reason to become a civilian (to slip bits and pieces of the book/puzzle to others!)
BC’s charm is of the jewelry variety, but she’ll need to have a weapon of some sort, too! a book or puzzle wouldn’t be a weapon, but considering that the BC charm is more powerful than a singular zodiac charm anyway, it could probably support a book/puzzle along with a weapon. no idea what her weapon would be, though.
poor everest indeed. it’s actually everest (well, kind of - he’s in his superhero form, so capricorn) that kills black cat.
essentially what happens is that they do manage to strip BC of her charm, so now she’s bianca. however, even then she hasn’t completely returned to normal. capricorn, upon seeing who BC really is, immediately tells the other signs to stop attacking and goes to try and help her up.
taking advantage of capricorn’s temporary vulnerability, bianca snatches capricorn’s weapon (which he probably put down in order to signify a peace treaty of some sorts) and attacks cancer, due to the fact that cancer angered BC deeply while fighting her (like maybe BC was about to kill leo or smth and then cancer intercepted and BC’s angry)
(by the way, their final fight is planned to be on the rooftops or a tall building somewhere - not in BC’s lair like i had originally planned)
at this point, either cancer is really weak, bloody, and tired from a long fight, and one more slash from a weapon might actually kill her. capricorn forces himself to come to terms with the fact that the woman he loved as a child is long gone, and then, to save cancer’s life, he shoves bianca either out of a window or off the top of the building, ultimately killing her from the fall because BC’s magic isn’t there to cushion it.
originally, capricorn was going to save virgo, not cancer. i wanted an implied romance between virgo and capricorn, because both of them are great thinkers (virgo = smart, detail-oriented, patient and a strategist; capricorn = tech guy, likes science and is highly logical) and they’re actually just compatible in general.
however, saving cancer would actually be much more sad, especially for cancer, because i planned that at this point, cancer knows that capricorn = everest and capricorn knows that cancer = phoebe, so cancer KNOWS that he literally just killed his own mom to spare her life
hit me that good survivor’s guilt (kind of)
i googled martens to see what it meant as a last name, and it actually is derived from mars, the roman god of war. so it could work for edith (i’ve been needing a last name for her anyway)
i’m not quite sure if edith marceline martens or just edith martens sounds that good, though….either way, i’m just really glad to at least HAVE an idea of a last name for edith, so yeah!
list #2 (still no description):
V I K I N G S
that’s not a bad idea!
the whip lyre idea is so cool! i’m just trying to think of how an inactive lyre would work, since carrying that lyre around would be very troublesome. i’m also not quite sure how a whip would work in battle - i can’t seem to visualize it other than just…..hitting the person with the whip (or, you know, whipping) but things like grappling hook guns and shields, i can see them being used many different ways.
i’m gonna need to start doing some superhero research
guess who knows nothing about chemical reactions in the gemini stars castor and pollux?
it’s me.
i honestly don’t know too much about chemical reactions in stars in general
@wikipedia i’m coming for you
anyhow, though, that’s also a super good idea! i really haven’t tied in the actual constellations into the zodiac gang, and admittedly i haven’t done too much research on the stars pollux and castor (which is not good because polly and casey are literally based off of them)
are red giants really slowly burning/dying out? that’s so interesting! this would be such a good chance for me to give polly some sort of illness or something. i could have her die at the end of the book because of the illness, and that’s not a bad idea. casey and polly are very much established to be a pair, so killing only one of them would give maximum sadness if done right.
i’m gonna think about it. this calls for research on illnesses but scrolling through wikipedia doesn’t sound very fun right now
however, this makes me think: how interesting would it be if there was one death for each character? that would make twelve deaths, but we’ve already got two and a planned third one: cancer - black cat, leo - his parents, gemini - his sister
twelve deaths might be too many, though. i’m not quite sure. maybe i’m just a wimpy author?
I’M REPEATING MYSELF BUT THAT’S A SUCH GOOD IDEA FOR CANCER’S POWER. i forgot about the moon and tides omg.
i’m thinking her gravity powers will be catalogued in her ZCI for her to access/activate. so far no sign actually has a power that doesn’t need to be activated via ZCI. i thought that would help make everybody not overpowered (since there’s a five minute time limit on each ability). i’m wondering if this is a bad idea? i can’t seem to settle on any one concept for each sign to base a power off of, which is why they all have multiple powers with time limits.
anyhow, i love the gravity powers idea. A+++++++++++++, your sister is a genius n that’s canon now
having cancer be “more” competent and leo be “less” competent is a great marker of duality! i still won’t give up on their sun/moon duality, though, so i’ll do some research on the sun to try and give leo some powers.
i like the idea of being able to analyze a villain and think of the perfect way to defeat them, and although not each power needs to be perfectly lined up to their user (accidental misuse of powers is good comedy material and sometimes good ways to advance plot), i feel like the image of cecilia in my mind wouldn’t be able to use that very well.
i know it’s a bad habit to try and force my characters into one word descriptions, but giving a power to libra that requires deep attention to details (in a way) would rob virgo of her title as the decisive head and the strategist. i’ve been trying to think of traits unique to each sign that make them indispensable to the team, because when you have twelve superheroes, you need a good reason for each superhero as to why they’re still on the team. what can aries do that the rest of the team can’t? what can virgo do that the rest of the team can’t?
i’m actually having trouble coming with a reason though, lmao. i’ve already decided that aries = most competent fighter (because aries is stereotyped to be highly argumentative), taurus = probably the strongest (bull), gemini (mostly polly) = clever trickster (hermes is a trickster god), virgo = motherly, most responsible, scorpio = most stealthy and best at going unnoticed (scorpio is stereotyped to be highly secretive), capricorn = hacker, best with technology, aquarius = intelligent, in the sense that he has such a random variety of obscure knowledge
no idea what cancer, leo, libra, sagittarius, and pisces are, though. leo’s supposedly a natural leader, however, so he’ll probably work alongside virgo.
however, i still really like the whole fine print idea. gotta archive that in my mind archives!
hey, that’s a good idea! i think i’ll keep scorpio’s invisibility thing now that she’s got other powers.
i actually haven’t thought too much on the subject of capricorn’s powers, but the ability to reduce something to its base components is really cool - gonna archive that one too lmao
both of the powers i’ve got so far for capricorn are all based on time, including the ability to rewind time 10 seconds back or pause time for 10 seconds. i’m not quite sure if 10 seconds is too long, though? to compensate, capricorn’s timer would immediately
anyhow, this is because capricorn’s ruling planet is saturn, which, as a god, rules over things like time and agriculture and whatnot.
capricorn also has the ability to sprout small, pixelated wings that allow him flight for a little bit! i know this is kind of not a good idea (considering it would rob virgo of her unique trait - angel wings) and the fact that capricorn’s ymbol is a seagoat has absolutely nothing to do with wings, but i really couldn’t resist because
time
time flies
G E T I T ?
i’m sorry.
i know this is horrendously off topic, but you know how octavia’s parents run a jewelry company? originally, that jewelry company was going to be run solely by everest’s dad instead because
saturn
capricorn’s ruling planet
has a lot of
rings
okay i’ll stop now.
agriculture in mind, a sickle is something used to do agricultural things and is also one of the associated items with saturn (the god, not planet). the other associated item is the scythe, but when you think scythe, you think “murder and death” and not “oh, farming” so no. however, capricorn could wield a sickle as a weapon, maybe? i read somewhere that sickle cells from sickle cell anemia could be/might be harnessed to fight/attack cancer tumors.
cancer tumors. cancer. capricorn = opposite sign of cancer
so, that’s something to think about! unfortunately, that would make it seem like capricorn hates cancer (he doesn’t) and i’m not even sure if that sickle cell vs. cancer tumor thing is even legitimate. also, everest likes computers and hacking and technology and then you hand him something that’s used for farming and is basically ancient? the irony
ANYWAYS THIS WAS A HUGE TANGENT. I DON’T KNOW WHY I RAMBLED SO MUCH ABOUT CAPRICORN
as for aquarius’s power, i don’t know how that relates to aquarius. it sounds cool but…elaborate? qwq
isn’t the pied piper that dude who lured all of the town’s children out the town and then drowned them in the river or something?
i just checked the wikipedia article and yes, i was right.
i never considered hypnosis powers - i know i’m essentially altering everything your sister suggested, but i think that would work fairly well for libra! libra is ruled by venus, goddess of love, so hypnosis would fit well in with that theme.
at the same time, hypnosis would work really good with pisces if i keep the mermaid theme - kind of like a siren!
i’d love your feedback on whether pisces or libra is more fit for a hypnosis type power, and a big thanks to your sister for the suggestion because i literally would’ve never thought of that.
CAN YOU IMAGINE A TIDAL WAVE OF MICE JUST COMING IN. that’d be terrifying actually
i don’t think i’d use that as an actual power, but i adore the idea of rat purposely trying to scare people/her superhero companions by saying that actually is one of her powers.
camouflage is pretty cool, and so is that non-magical quirk thing for pig. i’d need to try and visualize how they’d work in battle, but for now, into the mind archives they go b/c i like the idea!
that’s A+ angst fuel
I CAN’T BELIEVE I DIDN’T THINK OF SHORTENING EUNOMIA TO MIA SMDESMAKAOSSJEEO
swim instructor is also super good
I LOVE THE ZO-DECK IDEA
list #3 (bakery):
basically my thought was that civilian rabbit (eastern zodiac)’s parents run a small bakery chain of some sort. this is because in the japanese version of the rabbit in the moon, the rabbit pounds mochi (a type of dessert).
i was originally thinking that a couple of zodiacs work at one of the bakeries (obviously when they are older) in order to rack up the money needed for hospital visits - this would connect them with rabbit when she comes to america.
yeah, that’s literally it. it’s not even that special. just a dumb little plot point (that isn’t even planned to be official yet) and me overthinking
disappointment at its finest!!
i was looking for more weapon options, though, and in accordance with the mochi pounding, rabbit could wield a larger version of a mochi mallet as her weapon.
let me know what you think!
anyways this was just a bundle of disappointment. i’m sorry
none of this was edited or read over - sorry for weird sentences and/or typos!
EDIT: lmao i forgot to include this horrid relationship map i did one day as a pastime:
hey, thanks for your interest in my story! i’ll be sure fix those problem sentences - it’s july now and admittedly i haven’t looked at that excerpt in a long time.
angela fits into the no-nonsense, organized, straight A student mood pretty well, so you could use that as a basis for her actions.
That's scarily accurate
No actually what happened was she flew in for like 48 hours for my graduation back in June and I was running on fumes, stress, and not a lot of sleep
So I ranted to her for about an hour about this amazing writer that I'd found online and how I just wanted to absorb your skills
And then once I arrived here we had a phone conversation the day I drew the Cancer headshot and she asked what I was up to and I said drawing and it just escalated from there
She is the true mvp but I'm not going to tell her that because she doesn't really need the ego boost
She really wanted to read the 22 Stars chapter, but it was like midnight and I put my foot down
I did feel kind of bad about that but I guess it's all good now
I'll say yes, that's three souls
POEMS ARE THE WORST AND THE HARDEST AND I CAN'T BELIEVE SHE DOES THEM
I mean okay she did start out pretty cringy but at this point her poems are the sorts of things I want framed on my wall
I already called first dibs on the poem ability transportation, but I guess maybe it'll work for you because you're not related to her
I'm guessing it was your jokes
The thing about my sister is that she's like me, but extroverted and less strange
But she still gets my strange humour and general weirdness
So I don't think she would have picked up on anything out of the ordinary from you, she's too used to me being weird
Really? I say it piss-kes
UPDATE I googled it and apparently pie-seas is correct in English
List # 2 - Right in the FEELS
- THAT IS HARDCORE
- MY GOODNESS
- MY POOR BABIES NO
- NO
- THAT'S HORRIBLE
- I love it
- I mean I can already see the angry tumblr fan posts
- Though
- Wow
- The comparison to JK Rowling is more accurate by the minute
- Because Casey and Polly
- I just
- 12 deaths?
- Jefferson voice My gAWD
List # 3 - My Sister is Ridiculously Creative
- She did A-Level chemistry which means she's always a bit heavy handed on the chemistry side of things
- I know absolutely nothing about star chemical reactions
- Nor do I want to, now that I've glanced over the Wikipedia page
- Yeesh
- The page also does not say anything about Pollux dying as far as I know, but idk
- Though it does say that Pollux used to be a different kind of star so it is degrading?
- Also Pollux has a magnetic field who knew
- Not that this isn't all information that is already available to you
- But you know
- Details
- Speaking of which, that's an excellent point about Cecilia
- I don't know her all that well but I can't see her analysing villains very much either
- TIME FLIES
- YES
- (time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana)
- Somebody stop me
- I guess
- If you'd really liked the Everest's dad running a jewelry store idea
- you would have
- Put a ring on it
- (joke levels: -100000)
- I haven't looked into it very much, but from what I know about SCD, it doesn't seem like it would be effective against cancer at all
- I think there was a actually a study where the advent of a new cancer therapy meant that patients with SCD had a higher risk of malignancy (?) (don't quote me on that)
- Though SCD is actually very effective against malaria! The plasmodium can't attach to blood cells that are sickle-shaped
- That means that in areas where there's malaria, a lot of people are actually heterozygous for sickle cells because, though they do suffer side effects and anaemia because it's a codominant gene, they are also a lot less likely to die of malaria
- Me reading over this: what just happened
- I have no idea where this came from this has absolutely no relevance to you whatsoever
- Sorry about that
- Moving on
- Aquarius' power??
- I have no idea
- I'm really sorry
- Don't ask me ask my sister (which I would except she left again)
- The reason she thought of the Pied Piper was because you'd mentioned flute powers for pisces at some point, I think
- Though I guess that'd be an excellent fit for both Libra and Pisces
- If I had to have an opinion, I'd probably leave it to pisces because hypnosis is all about the removal of free will and idk that doesn't seem to fit as well with libra's justice theme
- Idk though it's up to you
List # (I don't remember what number I'm on and I'm too lazy to scroll back up and check)
- Yay for mochi pounding!
- I actually had another question about the hospital visits
- How would that work with the nurses? Are they just used to random beat-up superheroes flying in from time to time? Wouldn't that break every protocol in the book?
- Oh wait
- Would they go in as civilians to avoid the hassle of keeping your identity secret while you're bleeding out?
- Idk
- My sister is currently getting her Adult Certification at a hospital so if you have questions I can try and bug her
- Though be prepared for disappointment I've tried it before and it wasn't too helpful
Me: so say you were headbutted in the nose what would happen to you?
Her: what
Me: well I mean like if you had me in a headlock and I headbutted you in the nose with the back of my head what would happen to your nose?
Her: what
Me: like would it swell up? A lot?
Her: So you're asking
Her: if you headbutted me in the nose would it swell up?
Me: yeah exactly
Her: Yes?? It would swell up??
Me:
Me: you suck
- THAT RELATIONSHIP MAP
- I AM VERY VERY IMPRESSED
- I CAN'T EVEN DRAW A VENN DIAGRAM
- HOWWW CAN YOU ORGANISE YOUR THOUGHTS LIKE THAT???
- [inhales your organisation skills]
- I also did some art stuff as a pastime but it's kind of dumb
But I guess if you wanted to know my (scarily inaccurate) mental image of the Graylings and Edith, there you go??
(I won't post them here because I'm too lazy to go through all of that but they are in the dropbox)
Anyway
I came up with some more questions earlier - but wouldn't you know it, now that I can actually write them down, I've forgotten them.
Uhhhhh
(Oh yeah this isn't a question but I have this random headcanon that people write fanfiction about the Zodiacs Like, a lot of fanfiction. And by far the most popular ships are those really awkward ones that don't really work at all (like Scorpio/Taurus or whatever) and then Cancer/Leo
And everyone thinks it's hilarious and teases them about it and Cancer is like 800% done
Whereas Leo secretly has a few good fics bookmarked on his phone)
(this is really random) (headcanon, like I said)
Random Questions:
Do you know any of the character's Hogwarts houses?
Do you have any specific character motivations planned out?
How did that planning out the characters' bedrooms thing end up working out? Was it helpful?
…
I got nothing else for now
[This also very unedited, I apologise] [at this point I don't think punctuation and I are on speaking terms anymore]
Have a nice day!
person_off
Deleted user
@royaltea no problem! i really would want to read that story btw! keep up the good work!
you ranted to her about me?? dang. the concept of people talking about me positively behind my back is such a distant and vague concept
THANK GOD SHE DIDN’T READ IT LMAO. i made some changes to it, but i need to make changes to the changes. i really only changed the first part of it but you’re welcome to check it out! :”)
speaking of your sister, i’m curious: what’s her zodiac sign?? i hope it isn’t sagittarius or aquarius or pisces cause those signs have had not a lot of attention from me, whoops
poems are the worst thing to write ever
honestly i probably couldn’t kill twelve characters. i don’t think i’m creative enough
ah, okay. i figured that SCD didn’t really have an affect on cancer b/c the website i found the study from seemed very small and unknown
i actually decided that maybe a trident would be good for pisces, and i’m gonna give that weird hypnosis ability to libra anyway. i feel like it fits really well with her ruling planet!
i think the nurses would be like “well this is….kind of strange” but they’d probably get used to overtime. the superheroes would only de-transform if their de-transformation was coming soon (so that they could avoid de-transforming in front of the nurses) but otherwise, they’d stay transformed because the zodiac charm can help preserve their health if it’s really needed.
THANK
the relationship map isn’t even that good tbh. it’s almost unreadable by this point
HEEEEEEYYYYYYY MORE FANART!! man i can’t believe this is actually happening
anyhow, i love your depiction of the grayling twins!! i never had a mental image of polly prior to this, and i really do like how you drew her, w the cute little bottlecap earrings, butterfly barrette, and tie-dye (probably done by her) skirt thingy. IT’S SO GOOD
i love casey too!! tbh i gotta admit that’s not how i envisioned his hair, but i really couldn’t care less. he looks so great omg
AAAAAAA EDITH!!!! she’s so CUTE i love HER and i love your DRAWING SKILLS
i do have to admit i envisioned her skin tone as lighter than that, but again, who cares???? SHE’S GREAT N I LOVE HER SM.
to be honest, i would imagine that things like zodiac fanfiction and merchandise are floating around. cancer 100% doesn’t like the fanfics and leo 100% does his best to make sure she never knows he has some bookmarked on his phone
i had a fun time envisioning taurus & scorpio reacting to fanfics pairing them up. they’re screaming in synchronization, except taurus is doing the screaming externally and scorpio is doing it internally
hogwarts!!!!!! i actually hadn’t really thought about it before until this point (which is ridiculous. how do you NOT categorize your characters into hogwarts houses) but i think they’d be something like this, based on their zodiacs themselves:
gryffindor: aries, leo, sagittarius
slytherin: scorpio, cancer, pisces
ravenclaw: libra, gemini, aquarius
hufflepuff: virgo, taurus, capricorn
specific character motivations? like the terrible writer i am, no! i honestly haven’t thought too much about it, which is terrible. i’ve only thought about character desires, which i don’t think is the same thing.
e.g. leo desperately wants to win the hearts of his entire zodiac team (in a platonic way - it’s only cancer’s he wants to win romantically lmao) because it’s really the only time he’s got a good shot at making lasting friends. and, again, his parents are very critical, so he thrives of the validation of the people around him (which can be really damaging to his self-esteem, considering signs like capricorn and scorpio don’t openly dish out compliments).
tl;dr: leo just wants all of his superhero buddies to think he’s cool. poor boy
in particular, he wants virgo to think he’s cool (hence the “YOU’RE MY IDOL” on the relationship map between them) because he idolizes her for a quick mind and high intelligence - two things he believes he does not have.
and of course, cancer. gotta impress your future girlfriend even if she doesn’t think she’s your future girlfriend
meanwhile, virgo has accidentally risen to leader and mom status due to her slightly overbearing personality and how she’s pretty much the most responsible person in the group. virgo, as angela, already has enough people having really high standards of her, so she too wanted to utilize her superhero career as a way to bond with others and make friends. however, she has thoroughly established herself as the smart person in the group, so the zodiacs also look to her as a parent figure of sorts and a leader, and it’s really stressing her out, because she doesn’t always know everything.
leo idolizing her is also stressing her out, but she doesn’t want to tell him that because she knows he just has good intentions.
another thing is leo’s fragile ego. fragile not as in super conceited (although he does appear that way), but fragile as in literally fragile and since he already lives off of validation, obvious signs of hatred/dislike/disappointment directed towards him from any zodiac will genuinely make him feel sad.
virgo: [expresses slight disappointment in leo]
leo: I Can’t Believe I Am Literally The Worst Human Being Alive. Oh My God
that’s also stressful for virgo because it’s like leo i think you could’ve done better on that and- OH MY GOD I’M SORRY PLS DO NOT CRY
i’m over-exaggerating, of course, but you know. he needs too much validation
scorpio is initially very cold and aloof to the group, and aries is determined to have none of that in this friend group, so she’s trying to get scorpio to open up which is really irritating scorpio. please let her be anti-social in peace, aries
libra’s probably always out doing flips on buildings and/or cool things where people can obviously see her so that the next day, a ton of newspaper articles, online articles, and other things will pop up about her. she really enjoys being such a loved figure, and also a celebrity, so she’s trying to establish herself as the most open zodiac (and y’know. the media loves that).
want a selfie with one of the zodiacs? ask libra, she’ll do it. want an autograph from one of the zodiacs? ask libra, she’ll do it.
she most likely also unashamedly says “oh cecilia? yeah she’s pretty cool, i’ve talked with her a few times before, i’d love to get to know her better!” so then she essentially makes her civilian self famous too. watch the instagram followers roll in
the rest of the zodiac team is like “yeah do whatever you want” but signs that are serious about this superhero business (the casey half of gemini, virgo, scorpio, capricorn, and a little bit of taurus) really wish libra would stop fooling around
aries would very much like BC to know that she’s hard to mess with, so aries is always (a little too eager) to the most violent path to take the villain down in order to show off her fighting skills
i feel like zodiacs like the polly half of gemini, (especially) leo, and maybe taurus are too overexcited about the sudden freedom they have access to. like….i can just….say whatever i want? i don’t have to sit up straight? i can throw myself off a roof if i really wanted to?
HELL YEAH
i think that mainly applies to leo, though. polly’s parents are pretty chill, but it’s always exciting being able to sneak out in the middle of the night (and that’s why casey wears the gemini zodiac charm and not polly).
anyways, you’d just see leo doing laps on the rooftops at like 12 am and virgo is VERY concerned, leo please go to sleep, please
okay i went off on a tangent. this isn’t even character desires anymore, i just writer-vomited
this is unedited! sorry 4 any mistakes or weird sentences
EDIT: LMAO i forgot about the bedrooms part of your response. we’ll discuss that later, i’m too tired right now :”D
I think this story is really good and is promising an interesting plot line! The idea over all is very good and intriguing to read! Your style of writing is very good as well, the only thing I would suggest is trying a first person perspective, but each chapter or so switch personalities/signs. Although first person is a preference for me, I think giving a lot of back story on each sign would help understand the different mannerisms and qualities of each sign.
So I'm on holiday and it's super hot and I want to die
I also don't have my laptop which means this will be a horribly misspelt short little thing typed out on my phone because who has the energy
But yes I'm back!
I'd love to read the edits! I shall attempt to click the link from earlier and see if that gives me access, if not I'll let you know
she's a Leo! Tbh I don't feel like her personality matches the stereotype all that well but yeah, she's a lil lion and i think she's pretty happy with adrien
fanart: (my phone just autocorrected that to fanatic which I guess is fair enough)
That's not how I imagined casey's hair either. My biggest pitfall as an artist is that at some point I get bored/tired/frustrated and slap something down that I'm not happy with but that will sort of do
And I'm so glad you said that about Edith's skin tone
Bc you're absolutely right
Also
I've tried like three or four times to do octavia digitally and it just always failed miserably but now I've been separated from my one true love (= my laptop) for a week I tried it out in my sketchbook and it didn't immediately make me want to vomit
So that's also in the Dropbox
I'm still not too sure about her clothing though… generally I think it's okay art but I'm not sure how well it reflects your character
… I may have gone a bit overboard in the headcanon department
I think it's nothing new that octavia is my favorite
Feel free to correct me
Anyway
Yay for the houses! (Further confirmation that Aquarius is my true spirit animal)
Honestly a lot of what you said is pretty solid in the motivation department! I really love that addition to Leo's character
I just love all your characters so much
I want to say more
But I don't want to type it out
My thumbs are weak
I'm really sorry
Sooooo
Yeah
ah, thank you so much! it warms my heart that people are enjoying my trash dumpster-level of writing skills. admittedly that excerpt is a very outdated example of my writing, considering that i did it in june, but i do plan to go back and fix it sometime. i’ll take your advice in mind - thank you again!
ninja_violinist -
w O W would you look at this Hella Late Response(tm)
also you drew octavia?? i’m so excited to see omg,,,, unfortunately my internet has been acting up and being a colossal jerk these past few days and dropbox just. isn’t loading for me. the internet’ll probably be fixed soon and i’ll check out your drawing then!!
if you’re interested in more terrible things surrounding this story, i have a google document that i’ve been using to slowwwwwllllyyyyyyyy using to compile details for my story for a while now! it was originally located in my notes app, but my notes app was acting up because of how long it was so i transferred the entire thing onto google docs in like july to resolve the issue.
again - this google doc is basically Overthinking Central and unnecessary details, because it was made for my use only. nothing in here is edited so it’s really messy; PLEASE skip over anything that you don’t want to read because there’s a lot of stuff, including stuff you already know (name meanings and plot). but yeah! feel free to check it out later if you have the time. i wouldn’t want you reading this stuff while you’re supposed to be enjoying your vacation :”D
EDIT: for whatever reason, clicking on the link says that the file doesn’t exist, but pasting the link into the search bar above leads you to the document? i don’t know why it’s like this. sorry!
I live! And I stand reunited with… the laptop which is no longer my one true love because it doesn't open the link no matter what I do or how I paste it
(Me @ laptop: get your act together)
Which means the obscenely long essay responses are back! (…. to no one's enjoyment or delight because who has the time)
(Sorry about that)
Either way
I read the edits to your first chapter and can I just say
it
is
SPECTACULAR LIKE HOWWWWWW DO YOU KEEP IMPROVING SOMETHING THAT'S ALREADY THIS AMAZING
IT DEFINITELY WASN'T BAD BEFORE
BUT NOW IT'S EVEN BETTER LIKE HOW DO YOU DO THAT?????
(ninja_violinist.exe has stopped functioning)
I mean there were some tiny grammar/style/confusion things I noticed as I read through it like 800 times but who cares
Reasons it's amazing:
The characterisation!! Phoebe comes through so clearly in this chapter. It's such a strong first chapter because I feel like it gives a really good look into what sort of a person she is and how she views the world, and it seems like an accurate preview not only of where she is right now but where she might possibly go over the course of the story
I absolutely love the addition of the "Phoebe wants friends" element
Though it lowkey broke my heart bc Phoebe is a cupcake who deserves all the love. (Cecilia, get your act together)
Anyway
Yes for characterisation!! not just Phoebe's, Angela's too
The plot elements came through so much more clearly this time
I didn't think it was an issue before tbh but that may have been because I already had some sort of background to the whole concept. The superheroes are introduced much more clearly and dare I say gracefully
But it doesn't feel like an exposition dump at all it fits so perfectly and balances so well
Howwwwwww
Can I inhale your writing skills please
Style/form/language
You have upped your game!! your word choices seem a lot more deliberate and evocative, your sentence structure flows perfectly, and the side notes in parentheses are LIFE
Like the tucked/cocooned juxtaposition in the beginning, that was so clever and I love it
Once again, you've generally managed to avoid the related pitfall of purple prose and using overly-complex vocabulary that detracts from your meaning
References/allusions
Ohana means family
and family means I live for allusions
I wish I could be more helpful to you but all I can do is sit here and marvel at how amazing this is
If you ever need someone who can actually critique and knows what they're doing, I've been stalking other threads (that sounds so much weirder than I thought it would) and could probably ask someone with actual critiquing skills to look at it
(I mean I've never exchanged a single word with them
And when I say "ask" I mean mention their name and hope they get magically summoned to this thread somehow?? I'll have to revise that plan)
Anyway point being that if you ever want another pair of eyes that's… actually helpful then I could try to find someone
Anyway
Have a nice day
person_off
Deleted user
Hold up. I'm sorry. But is, perchance, 'black cat' based off 'cat noir' from miraculous ladybug?
person_off
Deleted user
Hold up. I'm sorry. But is, perchance, 'black cat' based off 'cat noir' from miraculous ladybug?
I love that show so much and im "not supposed to" or whatever because im "too old"
google doc gods, please take pity on me and make this link work.
instead of copying it straight from my post, try quoting me and then copying the link. it seems to work for me that way? (basically i quoted myself without posting and then copied the link to paste in the search bar, because clicking on the link doesn’t seem to work and/or copying it from my actual post preview doesn’t work either? which is weird, considering that i do have link sharing on n this is the exact link google docs gave me. oh well!).
again, please don’t try and read all of it, there’s a lot. it was made for my personal use as a sort of writing storage, so it’s unorganized and there’s a to-do list at the beginning that you can just skip over - it’s not important lmao
ah, grammar. alexa, shoot me
i’ll go read through that cesspool of a chapter and try and fix any i see!
thank you! i’m really glad it came through with some more characterization. to be honest, i was genuinely considering deleting all of it and then reworking that specific area again, mostly because i thought it sounded awfully like the cliche beginning to a stereotypical YA novel where the narrator (usually a female around phoebe age, give like one or two years) states that she’s unattractive and has no friends or whatever (even though she is, most likely, very attractive).
i originally didn’t even realize i was venturing dangerously close into cliche YA novel starter chapter until i started researching for typical cliches in books so i knew what to avoid, and then came the YA cliche, and i looked at my writing, and back at the article, and back at my writing, and i was like “well crap”
like, really. there’s a lot of red flags in the beginning section of the chapter:
“an uneventful and friendless freshman year followed by an equally uneventful and friendless summer” wow, phoebe, you have no friends? that’s really unique. it’s not like every other 15-17 year old female narrator also has no friends hahahahahaha
i even did that good ol’ “i’m not smart and not dumb, i’m just average” thing without realizing it (source: that one paragraph that starts with “Phoebe was very quiet”)
and also i did the classical “i’m just so average looking” thing. (source: phoebe is described as plain in appearance)
like wow, [gently brushes hand above the first chapter of my book, wafting its smell towards me like a professional italian chef/judge on a cooking show might do with the contestants’ food] smell the cliche
i would’ve definitely just kept these things about phoebe not wanting to socialize or her being average outwardly if it weren’t such a common narrative trope in writing. i do like to think that the rest of the book will be okay - i can’t really foresee any more evident cliche-y parts - but a first chapter is a deal maker or a deal breaker and it’s important for me to really make it shine. i know that when i’m looking at a new book, i’ll read through the entire first chapter, and then from there, i either put it back on the shelf or it comes with me out of the library.
i’d love your feedback on how i might be able to cut that section out entirely and replace it with something else that might characterize phoebe just as well, or on how cliche it really is and if it’s a passable kind of cliche. i know that in a lot of books i read, there’s an abundance of cliche at times, but i like the book so much that those parts are more fun than annoying.
anyhow, thank you so much for you for the compliments!! i’m flattered!! good to know that even though i’ve landed into the cliche YA novel beginning pitfall, i’ve managed to avoid others along the way :”D
honestly i’ve thought of talking with other people on this site and asking them for critique, but my first chapter is like 8k words and it’s not even that good. i feel terrible waddling up to them and being like “hhhhheeeeeeeeeEEYYYYYY wanna see the first chapter (and it’s 8k words by the way) on the first book i’ve ever tried writing”
not everybody has the time to read that much, but at the same time i don’t want to take out chunks of the story for them to criticize, because i feel like you need to read the entire thing in its whole to get the full feeling.
conclusion: when i stop being a coward i’ll stop pestering you and i’ll find them myself for them to critique me :”D thank you for offering to get them here though!!
Rumplestiltskin -
aha, she isn’t, actually! i didn’t know that miraculous ladybug was a thing until ninja_violinist mentioned it to me earlier in this thread. black cat is based off of the chinese myth surrounding how the animals for the chinese zodiac were chosen. essentially how it goes is that a emperor/goddess of some sort announces that the first twelve animals to meet her/him/them/whatever at this specific point early tomorrow morning will be chosen for the zodiac. the cat wants to be part of the zodiac, but he knows his tendency to oversleep, so he asks his friend, the rat, to wake him up tomorrow morning.
the next morning, either the rat purposely doesn’t wake the cat up or the rat just forgets to wake him up - either way, the rat doesn’t wake the cat up and sets off to go meet the emperor/goddess person across the river and gets there first. the cat is so angry with the rat that he tries to kill the rat on sight whenever they meet again, and that’s supposedly the tale behind why all cats today absolutely despise rats/rodents of any kind.
i think you can find the tale if you google something along the lines of “the myth behind the chinese zodiac”. the actual name for the myth is called “the great race”.
anyhow, that’s where i got black cat’s name, because the cat in that tale sure sounds like villain material. nowhere does it state that it’s a black cat in the tale, but i made it black cat because black cats already have negative connotations (bad luck) and “black cat” sounds much more like a villain name than just “cat”.
Greetings!
My laptop has been forgiven because it finally opened the link and I had twenty or so minutes of happiness as I read through your detail stockpile.
Coincidentally I happen to have far too much unorganised research, and I actually found something in my files on one of the topics in your list on "stuff to research"! (I can't believe it either) (when did I start finding stuff I'm searching for??) https://www.dropbox.com/s/gfgtfhf8zu4f3bh/Writing%20Blood%20Loss.docx?dl=0
It's a little snippet from a super helpful article about writing realistic injuries that I found like a year ago. It includes both the effects of losing a certain volume of blood (including mental state, state of extremities, etc) and the likely amount of blood lost depending on the site and severity of injury. I hope this can at least be somewhat helpful
Also
My heart shattered a tiny bit in that "hypothetical deaths" section
aaaaaaah that is hardcore
Specifically in the virgo section
Have you been taking lessons in how to be cruel to your readers??? This is like some
Spoiler - click to show.
Finnick Odair or Prim
level of unfair and heartrending (whoops spoiler warning for the Hunger Games)
killing only polly is better than killing both of the grayling twins because they’re siblings and established to be a pair, so it’ll be better for only one of them to die
"better"
Remind me not to cross you or upset you like ever
On another note, I really love the Angela/Everest subplot!! That's exactly the sort of thing I, as a reader, would want to agonise about parallel to the whole superhero stuff because I can already see myself tossing the book across the room if Angela and Everest fight. And books you toss across the room are the sort of books that frequent my reading lists, if you know what I mean
Tbh I never even considered the cliche aspect of the reworked first chapter. I thought it was fine, but I guess you do make an excellent point that the first chapter has to draw the reader in and give a preview of what's about to come. Maybe "fine" isn't enough, idk
You have several options that you could go for at this point, as I see them:
Delete the first chapter and replace it with:
a) A less cliche opening that still highlights Phoebe's character and the exposition but in a less conventional way (maybe highlighting different aspects of her or portraying these elements in a new way)
b) Opening with something entirely different, such as an action scene/ school scene/ etc which allows you to sprinkle in exposition on the go while assuming that the reader can just catch up later
c) Opening with a different character entirely, someone who you think wouldn't match the profile you're trying to avoid (would probably not recommend this one since Phoebe is your MC and if she's not strong enough to carry the first chapter then she might not be strong enough to carry the whole story) (wow that sounded harsher than intended) (I hope you know what I mean)
Leave the first chapter, either to
c) Press on with the rest of the story and come back to it later when you have a better idea of what tone you're trying to foreshadow (so leaving it as sort of a placeholder for now, with the intention of deleting it/giving it a complete makeover later)
d) Hope that the readers don't mind the red cliche flags and leave the chapter as is (obviously it'll be revised once you finish the entire first draft, but keeping the general feel of it as it is now)
So yeah.
That wasn't even news to you, probably. Here are some more options (designed, once again, to give you ideas on what possibilities you have rather than being expectations of what I think you should do, if that makes sense)
Possibility: You start out with the flashback and work your way forward somehow??? idk that doesn't make a lot of sense
Possibility: You start out with the embarrassing memories that Phoebe's trying to repress (though that would set a very different tone from the rest of the story unless you managed to somehow sprinkle in superhero stuff along the way)
Possibility: You give her different motivations/outlook - for example, "I have all these superhero friends, let's see if I can't find any of them irl in school because they seem sort of my age" (cue disaster)
Possibility:
uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
The first fight against the robot???
Possibility: The cliche (okay so never mind but I'll still say it in case you can put a new spin on this) prologue with the shadowy villain and then pan to the unsuspecting MC
Idk
My recommendation would be not to stress yourself too much about the first chapter! Depending on your ideal workflow, it's totally ok not to write in chronological order and to come back to the first chapter once you're more comfortable with it. From the length of your to-do list I gather that you have other things you could busy yourself with, and expanding on your universe or writing later chapters might give you a better understanding of what you want the first chapter to contain
(idk why I'm acting like I know what I'm doing here, I've rewritten a first chapter 17 times and never got anywhere with the rest of the story) (this may not be the best thing to tell someone I'm trying to give advice to) (but in the interest of fairness and not sounding like a complete snob) (~Disclaimer: I 100% have no idea what I'm doing either)
Basically it sounds like I'm telling you to procrastinate on writing the first chapter
If anything in this long rambly mess was helpful, then feel free to give it a try! Otherwise, I'm really sorry that I wasn't helpful about this
So as it turns out, coincidence would have it that the person I was referring to earlier already lowkey stalked some of this thread! (don't ask me how I know these things) (this entire situation is so bizarre) (I haven't stopped thinking about this for days now)
I dunno, I guess maybe they'll come out of hiding now that I've mentioned this? Or they stopped stalking and will only come when called? Who knows! (I certainly don't)
Either way, it's up to you to share whatever you're comfortable with with whomever you're comfortable with. The last thing I'd want is for you to feel pressured by me into sharing this before you're ready, or into sharing it at all if you don't want to
Oh btw
Congratulations on two pages to this thread! * cue party hangers and confetti *
Here's to not having to scroll as much (for now, at least)!
(I should probably poke my nose out of the woodwork and say hi. So hi! :) @royaltea, your story ideas sound pretty awesome - I haven't read all the posts in this thread but I love the idea of zodiac superheroes and your characters sound really diverse and interesting. Also, I am the stalker @ninja_violinist was referring to. :P Sorry for remaining in the shadows for so long.)
person_off
Deleted user
Thanks for the clarification ninja. Periwinkle, ME TOO! I'm in seventh grade and still binge watch it because it's THE BEST.
person_off
Deleted user
I would like to add on to ninja once more. Yup, it's cliche all over. However, if you don't want to make her outstanding, an easy fix is to just model her after yourself. We aren't 'average' or 'outstanding', none of us. There is literally no single scent of cliche in us. None. Nada. Zero. Plus, you'll know her a lot better than you know a FOTB character (fresh out the box (not modeled after anyone else)).
hey hey hey! sorry for randomly disappearing - it’s getting close to the time that i should be preparing for school and whatnot, so that’s what i’ve been doing these past few days.
oooh, thank you so much! i know nothing abt blood loss so this will be very helpful. honestly, beyond zodiacs and mythology and misc details, i literally haven’t researched anything else for this story (which is really concerning)
tbh i know nothing about how to make a character’s death sad, this is just my brain spewing out random ideas on how to try and make them sad. if there was a lesson on how to be cruel to readers i’d probably sign up because i probably need the help
LMAOOOO i’m not really even that intimidating in real life. i guarantee you that if i somehow met with you in real life and for whatever reason, you feel like punching me into next tuesday, you could definitely do it. i’m very light and easy to pick up :”D
eeeyyyy, glad to see that it wasn’t a bad subplot idea!! i was hoping i could stick in some more academy kids at phoebe’s school (well, more like i was hoping i could somehow make one of the civilian zodiacs’ backgrounds be involved with the academy) but considering how prestigious it is, i don’t have a good reason why they’d be at a regular public school and not at the academy (unless they were also expelled lmao)
i think right now i’ll stick with what i had! over the past few days i did some new intros to try out different perspectives, and so far none of them work for me/they’re all trash. that’s probably just a product of my extremely low level of writing skill, but for now i’ll just go and work on the plotholes in the plot and procrastinate the fixing of the first chapter :”D
thank you for these suggestions, though!! right now i still am lowkey trying to write new intros so this gives me even more options to test out
don’t mind me, i’m just copy pasting ur entire post into a google doc for future reference
more stalkers, woot woot
anyhow, that’s really all i have to say! there’s still new additions to the story, but they’re very tiny, insignificant details (like a whole ton of new siblings for cecilia and civilian pisces finally has a first name - i’ve also figured out a last name for both phoebe n cecilia. finally) and i’m not gonna mention them here because i don’t think they’re worthy of a giant post. i’ll definitely be making new additions to the detail stockpile google doc, though, so check that out if ur interested in hearing even more garbage from me!! also twenty-two stars might change every once in a while. i might as well rename that chapter to “twenty-two times” because that’s probably how many times i’ve edited it (might even be more than that)
anyways, thank you again for listening to me! it’s been like three months since our convo started and i gotta say, that’s a lot of dedication :”D
also!! my internet isn’t crap anymore and i saw your octavia drawing!! she looks as stoic and cold as i would’ve imagined her; her braids don’t look like what i imagined (but the way u drew her braids is my new headcanon for how her mom might do octavia’s hair, because octavia’s mom actually does think octi’s current hairstyle is too simple) but honestly otherwise i think you’re spot-on. octavia’s mom is really kind of careless so she’d definitely be able to binge on forensics shows all night.
and “chemisery”. IT’S PERFECT I LOVE IT. mind if i just….steal this (somewhat) pun from you becauee i could totally see someone who doesn’t like chemistry going “chemistry? more like chemisery”
i’ve said love like eight times now but i love your idea of octavia always having some weird pomegranate snack on her at all times. it’s also perfect!!
edith: pssst, octi. i didn’t have breakfast this morning. do you happen to have anything on you?? octavia: yeah uh, let me just [unzips jacket to reveal rows of pomegranate snacks] i got blueberry pomegranate juice, an entire pomegranate, lamb chops with pomegranate relish, chocolate mousse with honeycomb and pomegranate, pomegranate orange sweet potato bake, pomegranate granola bar, pomegran— edith, dialing 911 in the middle of class: hello yes? yes i think my friend has addiction problems
anyhow, your art is just A+ and i’m stealing all of your headcanons, thanks
(credit and thanks to buzzfeed for those pomegranate dishes. i know nothing about how pomegranates are used in cooking and i just googled “pomegranate snacks” and started copying down the first results i saw)
Riorlyne -
[unholy screeching] it’s you!!
i’ve seen you around the sharing & critiques board (although i have to admit i haven’t browsed this board in like a week).
thank you so much! good to know that my characters are kind of diverse/interesting. managing twelve main-ish characters is getting really annoying (that might just have to do with my own lack of writing experience, though) and it probably wasn’t a very good choice to go with for my first ever story i’m writing :”D
no problem! i also enjoy stalking threads and remaining in the shadows like some weird friend, so feel free to continue to stalk, although i do kind of feel like conversation on this thread will slowly come to a halt soon - i’ve run out of things to ramble about (and that’s the first time that’s happened to me).
anyhow i don’t really have anything else to say. i’ve got two google docs that you can check out - one is the first chapter of my story but it’s 8k words so just beware of that, and the other is a detail stockpile where i keep my rambling and additional details for my story. both are hella long, so don’t read them if you don’t want to! (it’s literally not even that interesting anyways if i’m being honest here)
Rumplestiltskin -
hey, thanks! i do try and model phoebe’s reactions to how i would maybe react - i’m not fifteen like phoebe is, but there’s not too big of an age difference anyhow and reactions to scary/shocking things don’t really change over time, sooo…
anyhow, i’ll try and keep that in mind! i was actually trying to kind of distance myself from phoebe to avoid having stars in transition turn into a self-insert story, but i think you’re right in trying to establish connections rather than distance. honestly what was i thinking lmao. you can’t write a character if you’re not connected with them
again, thank you for the advice!
**this entire thing is unedited, so my apologies for any typos or chunky sentences
hey hey hey! sorry for randomly disappearing - it’s getting close to the time that i should be preparing for school and whatnot, so that’s what i’ve been doing these past few days.
No worries! I have also been busy with "adulty stuff" (tm) like finding a flat and renting it and meeting flatmates and other such eldritch horrors. (I mean not that my flatmates are eldritch horrors, they're all rather lovely people, but the situation itself is just… intimidating) (I had to make phonecalls) (to strangers) (I'm still traumatised)
LMAOOOO i’m not really even that intimidating in real life. i guarantee you that if i somehow met with you in real life and for whatever reason, you feel like punching me into next tuesday, you could definitely do it. i’m very light and easy to pick up :”D
Yes but the emotional damage you can do is worse than any punching or physical pain.
i’ll definitely be making new additions to the detail stockpile google doc, though, so check that out if ur interested in hearing even more garbage from me!!
absolutely yes, so if you see anyone obsessively viewing your doc please don't freak out, it'll just be me rereading it for the 800th time
anyways, thank you again for listening to me!
Thanks for answering all my random questions!
and “chemisery”. IT’S PERFECT I LOVE IT. mind if i just….steal this (somewhat) pun from you becauee i could totally see someone who doesn’t like chemistry going “chemistry? more like chemisery”
cough cough me cough for all of my high school existence cough I have overused this pun so much that the actual word sounds wrong to me now cough
i’ve run out of things to ramble about (and that’s the first time that’s happened to me).
This is also the first time I've come remotely close to running out of questions to ask. It's honestly a rather jarring experience
So anyway
If you ever feel like bouncing ideas off an appreciative audience
Or if you think I might have research that could be useful to you
Or if you ever feel deprived of rambling incoherent essay length bullet point lists
Or if you have any questions you feel like having answered by an unqualified quack
Or if you want someone to ask you a metric crapton of nitpicky and oddly specific questions
You know where to turn
Hit me up whenever
I'm always down
I'll probably also keep drawing fanart, so the dropbox is there for your amusement and convenience.
Thanks again for your patience and creativity! I look forward to hearing more about your story (and maybe someday holding a physical copy of it, screaming hysterically about it to anyone who will listen to me)
