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Topics - Ptyra

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The Fridge / Long time No Speak!

« on: December 19, 2022, 08:14:58 PM »

Hi all! This is Ptyra!

It's been several years since I've been around (mostly sense the big InvisionFree switch...) and was starting to feel nostalgic for old forum days!

The last time I peeked in, I was starting to attend a tech school for an AAS in Visual Communications in Design, which I got in 2017. Now I'm finally getting my Bachelor of Fine Arts (Graphic Design) and am Even More Finally living on my own! I'm probably graduating by this time next year, but we'll see how my class schedule goes....

Not entirely sure how active I'll be, especially since I'm knee-deep in OK KO and even helping to set up a forum for that. Which is probably part of why I got wistful feelings about the Good Old Times. Especially with this place still thriving!

Anyway, glad to see those of you who are still here!

(almost totally forgot my iconic orange coloring...)

1988 Theatrical Release / The original movie is on Netflix now!

« on: April 07, 2016, 07:57:38 PM »

I come out of my long-time hiatus due to school and having a new computer, to say that the original movie is on Netflix now! At least for those of you living in the US, I don't know what other countries are doing.

As I write this, Sharptooth has fallen into the pit and the Earthquake has started

The Written Word / More Doctor Who fan fiction trouble

« on: March 21, 2015, 04:30:30 AM »

For the last few years, I've been struggling with two Doctor Who stories, both of which now intertwine with each other. But I have another topic for those two.

This one is new, and is probably going to be a bit more...controversial, I guess? If not touchy and perhaps even "gross" to some.

For those who don't follow Doctor Who, Skaro is the planet that the Daleks came from, and its environment was utterly destroyed by their Kaled ancestors' war with another race called the Thals. The war ended when a nuclear bomb was set off and destroyed everything. The deranged Kaled scientist was prepared for such an event, having created a mutant strain of Kaleds that he called Daleks. For a thousand years, the Daleks were unable to leave their city, and had to rely on static electricity to power their casings, and their hearts; they were also sensitive to low levels of radiation, and this prevented them from being able to leave their casings. The Doctor came with his granddaughter and two of her schoolteachers, and they helped the Thals to stop the Daleks from setting off another bomb. And that's just the super diet version.

My story takes place two hundred years after this. The Doctor's visit is a landmark of history, and the Daleks now know that there are other living beings in the universe--information that they are intensely threatened by; they have perhaps the most intense xenophobia the universe has seen. For now, they are figuring out alternate methods of travel outside of their city, creating the solar-powered disks that would later be used in the Daleks' second appearance in the show, where they have taken over the Earth in the late 21st century. The Thals, meanwhile, are starting to fall to a new level of suffering; there has been a dip in their capability to survive the radiation, and infant mortality rates have spiked; it's hard for a Thal woman to even complete a pregnancy in this time, and if it is completed, then it's even harder for the child to live to be five years old.

Ferja is such a Thal, whose longest-lived child dies from radiation sickness at six months old. While trying to work through her grief, she stumbles upon a Dalek whose casing has collapsed down a ravine, stranding it; it was never rescued for several weeks, leaving it to assume it was believed dead. By the time Ferja finds it, it is close to starving to death before anything else can kill it. Seeking only to survive, the Dalek convinces Ferja to nurse it back to health (in more ways than one

).
The agreement ends up putting both of them on track for disaster; they form a filial bond, and put themselves and Ferja's kinsmen in danger from the other Daleks.

The greatest issue I have right now is for events beyond the meeting of Ferja and her Dalek (who she later names; haven't found a good one yet). Namely, the events in which Ferja is helping the Dalek recover. I'm going to cut the BS and have the other Thals know about the arrangement, and even give her support, hoping it would bring peace. It's easier than having Ferja sneak around and keep the Dalek a secret, plus it works in the benevolence and pacifism of the Thals as a species. The Thals also view Ferja's relationship with her Dalek as an act of piety, thinking of it like the Roman virtue, pietas.
It would probably take a few months for the full recovery, so there would have to be a lot of story to fill in that I'm just drawing massive blanks on. Which includes the other characters; I feel like they're just sitting around. They other four characters are Ferja's best friend, and the three men who Ferja attempted to have children with, which includes the leader of the troop. Hey...you gots to do what you can when your species is at risk of endangerment.

Regarding my concern about the story being considered "gross" or "touchy" is because it's an inter-species (platonic-filial) love story, with breastfeeding at its crux. The title is inspired by the ancient exemplary story Roman Charity and well.... It's probably even The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck with its plot mixed up like a deck of cards. A lot of the themes are similar. I can see how the whole idea does look weird, but I want it to be sweet at second glance. It's still a love story, but not a romance--and certainly not star-crossed love, since there's desire for peace and unity on one side of the factions, and highly approves this particular opportunity for it. Oh, those Thals...optimists at the very worst of times.

I would love suggestions for filling in the gaps of the story, as well as anything else, including character development and interactions. Other thoughts in general would be great too.

The Fridge / Pet Stories

« on: February 07, 2015, 07:07:09 PM »

So I realized there hasn't really been a place to talk about our animal companions, so I thought "why not".

Probably won't do all mine at once because then I'd turn into a Forrest Gump of cats XD . And certainly not right away. I should just register as a Crazy Cat Lady and get it over with

.

Especially after last year. Last year was a whirlwind of cat. Half of which were kittens, and half of those having to be bottle fed. The other half needing socializing, and with only one of them having his true colors come out after his siblings had all been adopted.

The Party Room / Replace the place with another place

« on: November 11, 2014, 03:25:31 AM »

So, here's something I just came up with.

Find a song that has any city, state, country, whatever, and replace it with another, at least so it fits into the song, and even edit lines so it fits into the new location. It could even just be a line.

For example, Lullaby of Broadway becomes Lullaby of Norway, which I ended up thinking/singing to myself without really thinking =P
Come on along and listen to
The lullaby of Norway.
The hip hooray and bally hoo,
The lullaby of Norway.
...
When a Norway baby says "Good night,"
The sun's up in the evening.
Lil' Oslo babies don't sleep tight until the dark:
Good night, baby,
Good night, milkman's on his way.
Sleep tight, baby,
Sleep tight, let's call it a day

Now, if you want to, you can do the whole song if you can get the syllables to meet up.

May the deities of all help you if you figure out Istambul (Not Constantinople) ...or harder yet, Moskau

Now go, wrack your minds over the right number of syllables!

The Written Word / Roleplay contrivance advice

« on: May 28, 2014, 09:07:00 PM »

Hello all. It's been a while since I've posted anything, but for some reason, I felt I didn't have anything to contribute since the last time I did.

However, I am in need of some brainstorming for an issue I personally am having with a roleplay I'm doing with a friend.

It's a Jurassic Park-Dinotopia crossover roleplay that is just between the two of us, and an enormous part of it is pretty much bull-pooped to get the story going.

The story is focused on Muldoon surviving his attack by the Big Raptor, but being stranded (same friend is writing a story about his experiences, including caring for the baby raptor that hatched in the movie). A woman from Dinotopia comes up from underground while searching for a lost baby dinosaur and brings her back with him. However, he is not the only one to come from Nublar to Dinotopia, and there is a greater threat to the well-being of the island than the dinosaurs coming through from Nublar...when there is an outbreak of rats and plague infects the humans. And also he forms a special friendship with the woman who saves him

Based on the information from the Dinotopia books, it's best assumed that it's in the Pacific Ocean...same with Nublar. For the sake of plot, Dinotopia is connected to Isla Nublar (and Sorna...and the other three islands) by a series of underground tunnels/The World Beneath. However...I feel like this is MASSIVELY contrived.

And yet...I think rats from the outside world being a bigger threat to the Dinotopian populace than genetically altered monstrosity dinosaurs running amok is...incredibly awesome.
I mean, this is the image I use for the roleplay page!

And then there's the question of why Muldoon's rescuer was on a search party in the first place. Penny Lewis, the character in question, is an inspector...could there be a better reason than "I just wanted to help"? She's not even a native Dinotopian, she's from New Zealand originally, and had been living on Dinotopia practically her entire adult life thus far.

Does anyone have advice?

Computer and Electronics / File converting issue

« on: August 20, 2013, 07:52:30 PM »

So, I just got back from my trip to Minnesota with a flashdrive full of a roleplay I've been doing with the friend I was visiting.
She had it divided into parts on her mac as .textclipping files, probably forgetting that I had a Window's 7 computer (I didn't bring it with me on the trip).

I have tried to find something to convert the files or at least get them so I can read them.

Can anyone give me some advice or point me toward a solution?

Silver Screen / Fish Hooks

« on: May 07, 2013, 05:20:55 PM »

So, Disney Channel isn't all that great...at least when it comes to its live-action. But it's cartoons are well acclaimed, with both Gravity Falls, and Phineas and Ferb being incredibly popular. But Fish Hooks, while I think that Gravity Falls is the BEST of the three cartoons, is my personal favorite.

It focuses on fish in High School...which is a really weird idea, but it's worked. The main characters are Milo (played by Kyle Massey, who has been on Disney Chanel since he was a tot), his brother Oscar, and their best friend/neighbor Bea Goldfishberg. Guess what she is.
Milo is basically the "loud and disruptive kid who is floundering in his classes...haha, floundering, 'cuz fish". Oscar is the "nervous high strung nerd who excels in classes", and Bea is the crazy wanna-be actress.

I think it's a pretty cute show, personally, and I can see why it doesn't have a very big fanbase. The first few episodes are...pretty lame. Especially the first scene of "Fish Out of Water"...maaaan, that script was written weird.

I think what I like about the show is the nature of the characters. They've managed to take some very basic cookie-cutter characters, and then give them a punch-in-the-face twist.
My favorite is with "Shellsea" (you see a lot of name puns like this). She's pretty much your basic fashionista, pop-loving valley girl. Usually, you see these girls being dumber rocks. But Shellsea is flipping BRILLIANT. As Bea's best gal pal, she ends up being her anchor when she goes berserk and shakes her back into her senses. She shows this very strongly in Busy Bea: Rise of the Machines.

Another thing I like is that behind the goofiness of the characters, there are some really, really, HORRIFYING implications.
The homeroom teacher, Mr. Baldwin is a seahorse who didn't know he could get pregnant until it was too late. It sounds funny, but the situation is actually pretty terrifying. Here's why: He's middle aged, lives alone, has no social life, something horrible happened to him in 1986 that caused him to "stop laughing" and stop leaving his house on Friday nights, and seems to have (had?) mild depression. There wasn't a woman in his life until he started dating the school councilor (and she's a train wreck too!). So the question becomes: WHAT DID YOU DO!? I mean, this is a kid's show, but something really, really deep would have had to have happened. I assumed he didn't know because he was raised by another species (I say clownfish) and grew up in an area where he wasn't around a lot of other seahorses. But this still probably means that he doesn't know how the birds and the bees work for seahorses, so whatever happened, it must have gotten ugly. I can't find a perfectly reasonable explanation around it! What happened, Mr. Baldwin!? WHAT HAPPENED?!
Though, I do like that in spite of whatever his first thoughts were, that he's decided to raise his children. And I think it might be because he feels that it's a ticket out of the situation his life is in, and giving him ability to move forward in his life, or at least have some kind of desperately needed change. I just wish he'd get a different crib mobile over the bassinet in his bedroom.

And since I don't want to go through my favorite episodes right now, I'll just go through some of my favorite quotes

Oscar: Mr. Mussels [drama teacher], how do you write such powerful stuff?
Mr. Mussels: You see, one night I was eating dinner!
Oscar: Oh! Okay, that makes sense
(The musical was about a magic potato...and the opening song was based of "Tradition" from Fiddler on the Roof)
- Fish School Musical

Mr. Baldwin: Milo, how is a pregnant male seahorse and his sidekick going to chase down a healthy girl?!
I love how this can be taken out of context.
- Fish Lips Sink Ships (one of my favorite episodes)

Bea: (About Mr. Baldwin and Ms. Lips) Why wouldn't he want to tell her [that he has a crush on her]? They're perfect for each other! They're both single and they're both old...and they're both old.

And my mind is fried...I'll say more later.

History Section / Causes of the Civil War

« on: November 11, 2012, 01:04:39 AM »

My only comment is that slavery was only a minor part of the Civil War. While it was a factor, it wasn't a FACTOR. A lot of it was about economic factors, of which slavery happened to be part of. There were a lot of reasons, and slavery was just a small part of it.

The Written Word / Doctor Who fan fiction

« on: August 28, 2012, 02:07:42 PM »

I'm not so sure if I'll actually load the story on here, since it'll get more sensitive as it goes on.

Really, a few things are needed:
1. Have read Trevor Baxendale's "Prisoner of the Daleks", since the story is based off on of the characters in it
2. Have constructive criticism...yum.

So, without further ado...
Heir of Dalek X prolouge
Heir of Dalek X chapter 1
Heir of Dalek X chapter 2
Heir of Dalek X chapter 3
Heir of Dalek X chapter 4
Heir of Dalek X chapter 5
Heir of Dalek X chapter 6
Heir of Dalek X chapter 7
Heir of Dalek X chapter 8
Heir of Dalek X chapter 9
That is all I have so far because I am stumped between there and the ending, not to mention most of the flaws I noticed for myself

Which I evaluated here

So, if someone would be so kind as to offer critique and bounce ideas off with me, I would be very much obliged

Computer and Electronics / Trouble with Premier elements

« on: July 13, 2012, 01:34:08 PM »

So I was trying to use premier elements on my laptop, the only computer it's ever worked on, which is probably why I never used it in the past.

However, today, it gave me this:

Now, here are my problems:
1. It's already been deactivated on all my other machines
2. I've downloaded photoshop as many times as this, yet it's never given me the warning.
3. I don't think I can afford one of the updates

So, what do you computer techs have to say?

Real-Life Captions / 1st Doctor, Susan, and Daleks

« on: January 07, 2012, 11:13:25 PM »

Welp...I was watching the first Dalek episode (EVAR!) of Doctor Who and then this came up:

Caption away, ladies and gents.

Doctor: We sit down for one moment and then this happens...

The Fridge / Things you like that everyone hates

« on: August 29, 2011, 10:38:49 PM »

It's exactly what it says on the tin.

So...to start with me.

IlikeGungansinStarWars. There I said it.
Now, I was...six years old when Phantom Menace was released, so, of course, I liked Jar Jar. Heck, I made "spaceships" in the garage with giant cardboard boxes and chalk and pretended to go meet him XD . I see the annoyingness now but...holy cow, when I was eleven I had the most atrocious Mary Sue thrown at him. Urrgh, and was she ever D: ! Someone get me the brain bleach!
But even that means a lot to me, really. The six/eleven year old in me just won't let him go. When I was in fifth grade, my boyfriend (before he was my boyfriend) gave me HIS Jar Jar plushy because he knew he was my favorite character, for cryin' out loud...and I still have it =3 .
I think I like Captain Tarpals better now that I'm older...that mustache is amazing...He makes me wonder what would have happened if he was in Jar Jar's place. Maybe exiled for helping "outsiders" or something like that...he might have added a smidge more dignity, but I'm not sure. Or just Captain Tarpals.

My favorite part of that whole movie was when the Gungan Army was coming out of the fog. That was pretty epic, IMO. That really caught the true awesomeness for me.
"Primatives? B*tch, please."

Now, they still need work, and I think that had Jar Jar been more on Tarpals' level, he might not have made the whole group look so awful XD .
They could have been the pre-Wookie bad@$$ warriors. In fact, a 1,500-years-later fanplot that my brother and I have features the "action girl" as a Gungan named Artak. But more on her somewhere else.

So, enough about that...what about you?

And please do not fit the cone of shame on me. I am wearing it as a crown and with pride.