Author Archives: Sam

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Ok so Season 1 of Ahsoka is over. I live rambled over every episode. I tried to find the good more than the bad. Although I definitely ranted a bit. These are characters that I love so much and seeing them again was cool – except when it wasn’t.

In my rambles I pointed out a few times when the dialogue was so on point that I could hear/see it in the animation. But that was pretty much exclusively in the banter department and when it came to major plot relevant times…. /sigh.

The actress that played Sabine was great. I don’t agree with what the story did to her, but I can’t argue with her effort. I even think she maybe studied the animation to get some of Sabine’s blaster combat style?

Thrawn’s real voice gave me chills. It’s a shame in a lot of ways we didn’t get that with Hera. While Hera’s actress did grow on me a bit as the season went on, I still miss animated Hera a lot :/

Ultimately I feel like there are two main points I am circling round.

1) however good Sabine’s actress was – this should still have been animated. I really tried to give live action a shot and yes I went mental seeing the Ghost, and Chopper was well-realised, but I had intense feelings for these characters in the animation. I would have gone feral for an animated season 5 of Rebels.

We only got to see the cockpit of the Ghost as it would have been too expensive to build more sets. If it was in the animation we could have had the entire ship again. Ahsoka could have been voiced as she always has been, which would have helped I think as I was not a fan of her actress’ portrayal. Although I suppose that could be unfair as she could only work with what she was given. C-3PO cameo was cool and all but an animated show could have given us General Leia for real. We could have had Zeb as no concerns about another character with intense make-up/prosthetics.

We could have had actual Kanan flashbacks…

Animation would have been superior.

2) would the writing/story direction have been better in the animated medium? That’s the other point because while there were definite technical/cost limitations which affected direction on the show, there were also obviously choices that were made.

Now this is where I tie myself in knots as just because I didn’t agree with a story direction, doesn’t make it bad. I try and not be judgemental. Sort of more “I didn’t vibe with that” or “that wasn’t meant for me I guess”. I try and be aware that the thing that I disliked, someone else might have loved, and fair play. You do you, I do me, you know?

But still…. I wanted to love this show so badly. I am trying to make myself love it. And there were some awesome moments no doubt. But the plot tying it all together was IMO bad. It leaves me feeling a bit bereft in some ways. What I love has been twisted up and I can’t unsee that. Now don’t get me wrong I have seen far far worse offenders. Ahsoka was Oscar-worthy in comparison to Picard season 3 (which I will rag on for eternity, it was so painful), but the Ahsoka finale has still left me with a feeling of disquiet. Mixed up emotions, instead of joy, and I find that sad.

I really do miss my beloved Rebels crew 🙁

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sarcasticsciencefictionwriter asked:

How about Sanctuary fandom + Once Upon a Time (show)?

Ok cool. This will be the top 5 things off the top of my head, so I reserve the right to facepalm if I forgot something important. Thanks for the ask!!!

send me a tv show/book/fandom and i’ll say the top 5 things i’d change about it

Well first off let’s address the elephant in the room that there are two ways to answer this question. 1) Is how I would change it to make it more like what I wished it was, 2) Is how I would change it to improve on what they actually chose to do. Those are two very different things. I am going to attempt to answer in the vein of number two, accepting canon and just tweaking it to be better, rather than throwing out everything in favour of the show I would have written, as I feel that’s more in the spirit of what the question is actually asking.

So without further ado!

(I am longwinded so cut)

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tinknevertalks asked:

4, 31, and 35 for the wip asks, please! 🙂 (If I’ve already sent in my request ignore this one – my brain is not co-operating today.)

4) Last sentence written?

I debated about this question because I haven’t written anything in a month, and what I was working on then is a redraft of an original novel and I’m not confident enough to share that. So I think I will skip (sorry) and instead use the random number to pick another question to answer for you. Which is….

26) Google docs, word doc, or neither?

You are around my age I think? So does this question amuse you a bit too? I predate those options. Well maybe not Word but we didn’t have it until I was in high school. I started off with good old pen and paper. My grandparents had a computer (a BBC-B) and they let me play frogger on it sometimes but not work. My mums first computer was a Windows 3.1 which predates the taskbar start menu and all of that. That had a program on it called “Microsoft Works” which from google to shore up my failing memory looks like it was word/excel/publisher etc. all in one. So that was my first foray into digital.

But I digress because yes of course I went on to wordpad, and then I got Word 2003 (still haven’t upgraded btw) but then when I got an iPad which has no stinking USB socket, I couldn’t carry around my stick with my word files anymore to work on everywhere so then I jumped to google docs.

Buuuuuut I have recently jumped to… something else. The problem with google docs is it is rubbish at large files (lags horribly), it doesn’t have a decent dark mode, it doesn’t have any integral backup options for changes, and I just don’t think it is really intended for 80k novels. I used it for years but it was really starting to frustrate me. It’s free which is why I tried to stick with it but I have moved to use NovelPad. By the name it’s designed for novels. It is web based but with a good offline mode, backs up every minute automatically, you can split everything into scenes, the revision feature is my favourite (no more juggling multiple documents) and the dark mode is so good. It’s also not overly complicated like Scrivener (which I could never get on with). The only bad thing is it’s a subscription. But as serious as I want to take my writing and with all the quality of life it offers I decided for me it was worth it.

31) Are you doing this instead of actually working on your wip?

No… well I suppose technically all ‘free’ time could be used for writing. But it’s 7:30am and I am going out this morning to buy a new mattress. I have had mine for 25 years and I am now waking up with backache everyday (no springs poking through but I can feel them grinding). But yeah I am terrible if I have appointments for not being able to focus (even more than I usually can’t haha).

35) Are you more likely to make grammatical errors or spelling errors?

Hmm. There are some words I just can’t spell (like guarantee thank you auto correct), and there are some words I spell so badly that spellcheck can’t fix it and I have to go “google you are my only hope”. But for the most part I can spell. It’s more automatic than thinking about it, I think if you used me to spell out words I would probably be worse haha. So maybe grammatical? I’m not too sure what comes under the heading of grammar. I don’t do any of the big things (I think/hope) but comma splicing probably, passive voice definitely etc. I don’t get that many wavy underlines either way to be honest.

Thanks for the ask ❤️

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sarcasticsciencefictionwriter asked:

For the Writing-WIP ask game, 23 and 37, if you don’t mind? 😊

23) Do you make your own wip covers?

Yup. It’s actually an ambition of mine to get good enough at drawing to be able to make all my book covers properly. Not there yet and I might never be but it’s a dream. Anyway for original novels I just do quick temp covers with a vaguely related royalty free stock image + text, nothing fancy. For fandom it depends I have done photo manips, I have done drawings, and for Sanctuary I did quite a few gifsets. I generally like to provide some kind of banner image to liven up the post whatever it is 🙂

37) Name a series you’ve abandoned writing

Ok I’m going to take the word ‘series’ loosely here. For the most part I am relatively good at finishing what I have started posting. Dredging my memory I think I have only abandoned 4 fanfics in my /cough 20+ years /cough. The first I was about 12 and it’s a very long story to explain. The second I was 19, it was a self-indulgent crossover and I wrote part 1 (it ended on a cliffhanger), but then I could not work out how to keep it going with the crossover element. It just failed the logic test of why everyone would still be included and so I posted all of my notes/thoughts as an epilogue (this was on ff.net) and gave up.

Where I start to feel guilty is with the more recent ones. I wrote for Once Upon a Time for a year or so and I really wanted people to like me, I wanted to feel included. So I jumped on every prompt going. My desperation could probably have been seen from space 🙄. Anyway I wrote two chapters of a rare… crossover pair (hard to explain anyelle quickly but basically that) and then I had so many WIPs in those days that it just constantly fell to the bottom of the pile and when I ran out of steam and stopped, it’s what was left undone. The other one I feel even more guilty about as I actually won a fandom award for it. That was called Painting Layers of Love, and the problem with that is I poured far too much of my own anxiety into one of the characters, and then obviously I wanted the character to be happy which meant dealing with their issues. Problem is I don’t know how to “fix it” as I can’t fix myself. So I stalled as I couldn’t see a way out and eventually just officially abandoned it /guilt /guilt.

For original novels… I struggle with the ‘abandoned’ part because I might go back to it, or I will cannibalise it and use parts elsewhere. I mean sure technically there is a series. I actually indie published Book One. I thought I had been so sensible as I had waited until I had drafted Book Two but I was behind and it was only a first draft. I should have had it fully ready, and if I had waited I would have known, but I had booked promotions and so couldn’t delay. Anyway when I went to revise Book Two it just fell apart. I tried redrafting it from scratch but I could just not make it work. Fortunately nobody had been all that interested and so I took Book One down quietly and decided to chalk it up to experience. I later indie published the first two novels in another series and had to also take them down (this time due to a mental breakdown) buuut that’s another story. And that series really isn’t abandoned as I do intend to fix it up and republish eventually. But yes I suppose the time travel crime series is abandoned. I get nostalgic for it but I don’t know that I will pick it up again. Never say never of course. But my original ideas are many (I could write solidly for a decade and not be done) so it’s not like I need to go back to it.

Thanks for the ask ❤️

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This might be petty I don’t know but I bought a new mattress today. Mine is 25 years old and killing my back. Anyway! As part of the purchase I had to give my full name including title…

There was Doctor and Mr. Then there was Miss, Ms and Mrs, as apparently even in 2023 we are still defining women by marital status. None of the above was not an option.

I just feel like this is a micro example of how pervasive gendered shit can be. First I don’t know why a title is even mandatory. Sure be proud if you worked to become a doctor but otherwise personal choice, no? Second as NB there was no valid option, I had to pick one, and that sucks. But even not being NB why are there still three options for women based on marital status? That just feels so wrong.

So yeah we need a neutral title and/or make titles not be mandatory AND we should make a title for women not based on relationship. I suppose Ms. is supposed to be that which is probably why it got so much stigma. But I can’t speak to that for sure as I haven’t researched it.

Anyway thought of the day.

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tinknevertalks asked:

Sanctuary + 9, and Helen Magnus + 8, please and thank you. 🙂

9) which characters I think should have interacted more in canon

James + everyone really. Honestly it was an absolute crime that he was only in five episodes. 5! Haha for The Five 🤣 sorry bad joke. Yeah I do know that for all my interest The Five weren’t the main characters. Alas poor Nigel you are around 80% headcanon.

To be more specific I wish we had seen more James + Henry and Ashley. I have obviously my interpretation/shippy headcanons for Helen and James’ relationship. So those are Helen’s kids and in a kinder world James would have been a father to them. Due to time travel nonsense (headcanon) he was more distant but I have to believe he would have still been part of their lives. Not to replace Biggie of course who had a huge loving role to them. Just I don’t know. Even if you don’t ship the OT3 (or James with either John or Helen separately) Ashley was still the only child of the Five, and all the history of John I just think there was so much there that could have been explored.

To be honest Ashley only being in one season (and why was that? I should google) meant that while she had some interaction with John everything was left unresolved, and there wasn’t much interaction with Nikola etc. It’s like the moment she really learned the truth of her existence she was ‘killed off’ (I headcanon she lives but we don’t see her on screen again).

8) a headcanon I have about this character

Ok let’s think what is canon, and what have I made-up and forgotten is made-up as I have repeated it too many times?

Was it ever officially confirmed Helen was on the Titanic or did we just get that from the opening credits? Because there is that.

I have my shippy headcanons (as I alluded to earlier) regarding why James didn’t move with Helen to Old City – the time travelling version of Helen didn’t have anyone else and he couldn’t be with two versions lest current!timeline Helen think he was cheating. There’s also how/when I think they all got together etc. Not sure that really counts as a Helen headcanon though.

Hmm I firmly believe time travel Helen saved both Ashley and James by ‘colouring between the lines’. So long as everything happened how she remembered it, who is to say it wasn’t always this way? (Time loop). I also believe very strongly that Helen and Nikola were working together the entire time in season 4 and that he was undercover kinda with SCIU.

I have written in a few times that I think Helen was given the source blood by an abnormal she helped.

I don’t know there’s probably more but it’s a bit like with “what’s your favourite quote?” question. As unless there is something utterly huge, I kinda need something more specific to prod the old memory to conjure it up.