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Animasword

Paschal Dooley
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Yeah...sorry I haven't posted her for a long time, but honestly, I've barely had anytime to work on anything these past few weeks.
One week after another has involved a family visit or some intense work I have to finish, and what little free time I've had has been spent trying to edit either Monkey Broadcast (a podcast I do on another YT channel) or Legacy of a Stray Wolf, and there's a weekly review blog I've just started as well.
In short, my time has been eaten away, and it's only going to get worse since I'm getting extended hours on my part-time job next week, that'll mean I have even less time to work on stuff.
It's not all bad in fairness; Said part time job does have some days when I can get some writing done, so I'm making small progress on that kind of stuff. In fact, you know what? I'm focusing too much on the negitive right now, let's try and talk about the progress I have made.

CYBER REALM
Started recording the voiceover for the 'End of Season' video, but haven't had time to start thinking about Season Two yet.

LEGACY OF A STRAY WOLF
About 80% of the lines are in and I'm now working on the first two scenes.

PROJECT SPARK
Started the basic drawing. Also tried to hire an artist to work on the project but that did not go so well.

SAMOOCHI
Started drawing the first page...but then realised I had some holes in the script so I'm currently trying to fix that

So yeah, little bits here are there but not much. Maybe I should stop trying to solo projects and make more collab efforts? Of course that would involve finding artists and alike who would be willing to work with me. Ah well, complaining won't solve anything.
In short, been really busy up until now and whilst it's not going to be a sudden overnight change, I do want to try and turn things around so hopefully I'll have some content for you guys soon, even if it's just some basic sketches.

Till Next Time ^_^
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Hello guys, sorry for the lack of activity here (or anywhere else) for a while. Work has been insanely busy and in my spare time I've been sorting out the cast for the second episode of Legacy of a Stray Wolf and starting the editing process (which will hopefully take a lot less time to make than the last episode) as well as recently looking for an artist to help me with 'Project Spark'.

Anyways enough talk about work, it's time for me to attempt to make another DA journal meme for writers to take part in. This time we're going to have to tap a little further into the mindsets of some of the writers here on DA and call for a little introspection with these six questions.

1) How would you describe your writing style? And (if you can) your strengths and weaknesses as a writer.
2) What is your favourite and least favourite genre to write for?
3) If you could remake/revisit one of your earliest works, which one would it be and why?
4) Is there a concept you've seen in another story that would like explore in your own writing?
5) If you had the chance to write an adaptation of an existing work, what would it be a why?
6) What is the maddest idea you've ever considered for a story?


Right, I guess I'd better start things off.

1) How would you describe your writing style and (if you can) your strengths and weaknesses as a writer?
My writing seems to focus on character driven action stories and whilst I usually try to keep it light hearted and add some humour to release the tension (add allow the characters to show off who they are), dark and/or depressing elements do start to creep in once things get serious.
People tell me my strengths are coming up with ideas for plots and characters in general and I have had some positive feedback about I write/choreograph fight sequences, but I couldn't say more than that without more feedback.
Weaknesses...I have one big one. Because I have so many ideas at once, I often leapt straight onto them right away without thinking them through 100%, which results in two things, 1) I leave a story half finished (Heroic Heart and Maternal Moon are glaring at me right now) or 2) I panic when I get to something I haven't thought about it and make a quick fix or just let it drop, which leads to some of my weaker moments in the stories (McDuck's 3rd Solo battle in Cyber Realm is a sad example of this) and I've also been told my writing ends up following generic action clichés as well. Another minor weakness is that whilst can write the occasional joke, I cannot write a purely comedic series to save my life, hence why I always have comedy supporting a story or a review, never being the sole focus.

2) What is your favourite and least favourite genre to write for?
I would say my favourite genre is action, but since that's too board, I'll narrow it down to fantasy, simply because it allows my imagination to go wherever it wants to go, although I do like to branch out to sci-fi occasionally.
My least favourite would probably horror. I enjoy creating characters first and foremost, so the idea of creating lead characters and then having to kill most of them off really depresses me. Plus I am really squish when it comes to gore (and yet I like to write action, weird huh?).

3) If you could rewrite/revisit one of your earliest works, which one would it be and why?
I always have the urge to go back and revisit a lot of my works from university usually because there was at least one concept I kind of liked and wanted to revisit.
For example, I have strong desire to write a new story for Coye (the lead from a story called Heroic Heart), who was a small timid boy and a terrible fighter, but (because of the traditions of the village he grew up in) was forced to try and become a hero. The original story was only half complete due to the time limit of my course (I ended the film with 'to be continued') and I'm too afraid to finish it because since then, the movie 'How to Train Your Dragon' came out, and my original story hits the same marks, and there's no way I'll be to convince people that it was a genuine coincidence that I came up with the same idea as Dreamworks around the same time. Want really drew to Coye was the he had to express his thoughts and feelings through his actions rather than dialogue (he was inspired by Link after all) and the idea of strength through kindness rather than physical ability. I have an idea of creating series kind of like Dr Who where Coye arrives in a town and solves their problems in his own way, but that's something I'll have to think about.
I also keep having ideas for the 'Mirrored Blades' universe, which is strange because it was one my earliest and frankly one of my most unoriginal works (I didn't even try to hide the fact that Haru was based on Hiruma Kenshin), and yet even after writing the one shot 'Broken Blades' I keep having ideas for new stories based on those characters and I even have basic ideas for new ones. Maybe I want to fill the massive gaps of universe? Give them some closure by writing good stories for them? Who knows?

4) Is there a concept you've seen in another story that would like explore in your own writing?
One concept that always intrigues me is amnesia, but now for the usual reasons. People always use amnesia as a lazy motive or a way to skip setting up a character at the start of the story, and the rest of the plot (until the very last act) consists of the hero going 'I can't remember who I am', 'I must find out the secrets of my past' etc. But personally I'm more fascinated by what happens when they don't get their memories back, when the characters have start their lives over again and create a new life and/or identity for themselves. It's hard to explain to why, but the issue of creating a new identity is something that really appeals to me, and whilst I've touched on it briefly in other works (mostly roleplays) I'd definitely love to try and explore this concept in more depth in the future.

5) If you had the chance to write an adaptation (or a universal reboot) of an existing work, what would it be a why?
Of course I'd love to make an adaptation of some of my favourite stories such as The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, or Hitchikers guide, but honestly? One thing I would really like to do is a reboot of Buck Bumble.
For those who don't know, Buck Bumble was third-person dogfighting game for the N64 (and I think PC as well?), which saw the title character, a cyborg bee, taking on an army of mutated 'super insects' known as The Herd that want to take over the garden and beyond. To me, this is an awesome concept that could make for some unique moments (fire fights around garden gnomes, desperately running for cover as rain bombards the battle field etc.) and Buck himself has a badass character design, but it didn't get to use its full potential as the characters (especially the villains) had no personality and the landscapes tended to be bland barren fields of mud with the occasional spade, pond, or wheel barrel to remind us it's not supposed to be a generic shooter.
So if I had a chance, I love to explore as much of the concept as I could and just build a large universe around Buck, create new villains that can interact with our hero (maybe generals of The Herd?), give a face to the general who keeps giving Buck orders off screen, and just go wild with the whole miniature scale warfare. At the very least it would a lot of fun.

6) What is the maddest idea you've ever considered for a story?
Two spring to mind off hand. One was a parody of Shonen anime that had one of the characters using a sword that was also a guitar called (brace yourselves for an awful pun) a 'Guitana'...I still facepalm when I think about that one.
The other is two of favourite gaming franchises into a crossover, the Tales RPGs and Donkey Kong. Yes I know the two series are nothing alike, but I believe crossovers are more fun when the two series have little in common, and hey, if someone made a crossover of Phoniex Wright and My Little Pony and somehow made it work, there's no reason this can't work as well.

And that's the lot, if you ever decide to attempt this, please send me a link, as I'd love to see how you all answer these questions.

Till next time ^_^
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Ayup

I'll be honest, there are times when I thought I'd never reach this point. At the time of writing, Cyber Realm reached its finale on SmackJeeves/Suits and Sandals at the same time the first episode of one of my other pet projects, Legacy of a Stray Wolf (an online radioplay), was finally uploaded to Youtube after countless set-backs. It is just a great relief to finally reached this milestone, and I would like my fans for helping to make this far.

Now as I've said elsewhere, once I've finished the Q and A video, I will be taking a break from Cyber Realm to focus on other projects and plan for Season Two (maybe I should come up with a better title), but some of you may have been wondering what exactly I was planning to move onto exactly.

Well whether you were interested or not, here's a sample of just some of the projects I plan to move onto now Cyber Realm has reached a conclusion.

1: LEGACY OF A STRAY WOLF [Radio Play]
One episode down, five more to go; This is the first time I've attempted to make a radio play, but I'm having a lot of fun with it I must say, I'm having a lot of fun with it, and I'm gaining valuable experience from working with the actors and trying out new tricks in editing.
First Episode can be found here if you're curious:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK82of…

2: SAMOOCHI [Web Comic/Hand Drawn]
You've already seen a couple of concept art and/or beta pages in my gallery, but after working with a good friend of mine, we've been reworking the story and just finalising the details of the core cast. I'm currently scripting the first issue and hopefully we'll get started on this pretty soon. Maybe I'll upload some teaser images in the meantime.

3: PROJECT SPARK [Original Flash Series]
I'm taking my time with this one, mostly because I want to try and make it a long running original web series. The script for the first episode is complete, but this time I want the animation/art to be at least 80% done before I start looking for music and voice actors like I did the last time (where I hired voice actors before I even knew if the project was even possible on my timescale). Like with Samoochi, I may teaser images from time to time if you guys are interested.

4: PROJECT YETI
My first attempt at writing the storyline for a video game; the rest of the details are classified for now.

5: AUDIO BOOKS
Dramatic readings of some of my written work...simple enough really. That said I need to actually finish a lot of writing projects I'm working on first.

There are also a couple of silly project ideas I have on the side, but I'll talk about them another time.
So yeah, lots of things to be getting on with, I hope you enjoy them when they come out.

Until next time,
Cherrio ^_^
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Alrighty I got bored and decided to try to fill another DA meme I found on LitteLynn's page, but before I do that, allow me to fill you in a one a few things.

I just got a new part time job which means my time is being eaten up again, so most of projects will be slowing down for the moment; however I will try and push myself to finish the lastest Cyber Realm issue as soon as possilbe (I'm almost at the end I can't give up now!), but it also means 'Project Spark' and Maternal Moon will be delayed for a while longer.
I'm currently working with a friend of mine, Sven the Crusader, in writing a new hand drawn comic series which I hope to start after Cyber Realm has finished (maybe even before). I won't give too much infomation about it now, but if you look through DA gallery you can probably find out what it is very quickly.
Also there will no video work camera for a while. Whilst sword training, there was an accident and long story short, I took a sword to the face. It's not too bad, the wound is healing pretty quickly and I can still eat or talk, but I've been told not to stretch the lips around too much which means I can't do any exagerated expressions, which means I can only do camerawork with a wooden face and hoping no one comments on the scar.

And now let's get onto this meme, time to answer random questions!

1. What are you listening to right now?

Either Xenoblade's sountrack or some random rock/metal  track (Black Tide). Also last night I got bored and started putting some songs into audacity and changing the pitch of the song just to see what they sounded like. It's strange/amussing thing to do as half of the Tales opening themes sound like folk songs, and Waking Up (Shadow the Hedgehog), Time is Running Out (Muse), and The Meaning of Truth (F-Zero anime) sound strangely good with higher/female sounding singer.

2. What's the best thing you've seen on DA in the past month (whether it be a pic, a story, a journal or whatever)?  Post a link if at all possible.  ^_^

Hmmm, well I do like the design of this picture
wuduo.deviantart.com/art/Kunoi…
Yeah it has elements of 'the male gaze' about it, but I'm a sucker for ninjas/kimonos, plus I jealous of anyone who can colour pictures that well (why must your secrets elude me photoshop!!!)

3. Do you consider yourself more lawful, neutral or chaotic?  

Lawful to the extreme; I always follow instructions for anything I do and I always feel akward or shamefull whenever I break them. This also extends to video games where I'm always nice to everyone and always going for the good option. PARAGON FOR LIFE! ^_^

4. If your favorite hero and your favorite villain (who may or may not be from the same story) duked it out, who would win?

Donkey Kong vs Yggdrasil (from Tales of Symphonia?) that would be too close. I mean yeah, Yggdrasil has 4000 years of experience and incredible angellic powers, but Donkey Kong once punched the moon into the planet.

5. What's your favorite dinosaur?

When I was kid it was the Triceratops, but over time I've warmed to the Stegosaurus, espeically after watching this clip a few times, it just makes it seem badass to me ^_^
www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUdcrY…

6. What's your favorite Pokemon?

Sandslash; it just embodies bad-assery to me.

7. Tell me something you dislike, that everyone else around you seems to enjoy.

Ohh that's a tough one. I'm not as fond of Tri-Cresendo games (Eternal Sonata, Baten Kaitos, etc.) as much as some people. I don't know why, there's something about the way they try to artistic and then either fail miserably or go for the easy shallow answer (War! What is it good for!) that just really gets to me for some reason.

8. Tell me something you enjoy, that everyone else seems to not even know exists.

Either Donkey Kong: Jungle Climber, a DS climber/platformer that did not get as much recognition as it should in my opinion, or a relativly new anime called Bodacious Space Pirates. Yeah I know the title makes it sound like a dumb action/harem anime, but it's actually a well thought out character driven story that is prepared to take it's time with the plot and doesn't leap straight into the action, so if you don't mind a slow paced anime, I'd definetly recommend that you give it a look.

9. What's your favorite movie trilogy?

Probably Star Wars the original, but I haven't seen taht many film triologies, so I don't have options

10. Because I'm completely shameless (and out of ideas), what's your favorite page of Rain?

Now that's a tricky one. If I had to choose, I'd say either "Out of Pratice" (99) or "All-nighter" (100), just because it captures the various experience of trying to play a hard video game after a long time. Honerable mention goes to "This" and that one page where Rudy keeps asking Rain questions (I forget the page number/name) just because I like the punchlines.

11. Seriously.  What's with this meme and the number eleven?  Whatever happened to the nice clean 10 question memes?

Because people like to go one step beyond! (Sorry  I couldn't resist)


And that's your lot, now as per the rules, here are some questions for you guys to answer if you want.

1) What's your favorite food?
2) Which do watch more these days, web videos or television?
3) Are there any odd words you like to use in coversation?
4) Has there ever been a fictional character you've indentified with?
5) What's your favorite quote (real or fictional)?
6) Did you ever have a nerd crush? if so who?
7) What's your favorite attack/special move from a video game or anime?
8) What do you like best about where you live?
9) If you had the chance, would you want to be immortal?
10) What's the dumbest thing you've heard in this past month?
11) Why!?

Until next time, cherrio ^_^
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Ayup
Ok, after a really tough editing project in real-life which devoured all my free time, I feel the need to relax and have some fun, so after seeing this meme in one of Little Lynn's journals, I thought I'd try it out. The idea behind this meme is that your supposed to answer these Pokemon related topics over 30 days, but just like Lynn, I've decided to just get it done in one journal rather than spreading it out, so enjoy ^_^

Day 01: Favourite Pokémon
Sandslash. I don't know why, but the simplicity of its design always gave it an badass aura in my eyes, plus it's one of the faster ground types in the game

Day 02: Least favourite Pokémon
Hmmm....I'm really not fond of Mewtwo personally; He completely broke the first generation with his overpowered stats (it didn't help that psychics had almost no weaknesses back then). That said, I dislike Zubat and Golbat even less, just the sheer amount of ways they pester you throughout the first four generations.

Day 03: Favourite starter Pokémon
If we're talking about just the starting form, then Tepig. If we're talking about the whole line, then it's a tie between Charizard and Blaziken.

Day 04: Favourite Eeveelution
Either Jolteon or Glaceon.

Day 05: Favourite legendary Pokémon
Kyorge. That beast just looks so awesome that I use it every time I play through Sapphire, and really love the concept behind it as well; a pokemon powerful enough to create the oceans of the world is one you should respect in my opinion.

Day 06: Most terrifying Pokémon
Mespirit, Azelf, or Uxie. These guys seem harmless, but they can rob you of your memories, emotions, or even take your will and leave you as a silent motionless husk. It's a fascinating concept...but it scares the crap out of me!

Day 07: Most adorable Pokémon
Tepig, Sandshrew, Biltzle, Mew, and Charmander (in Pokemon Snap anyway)

Day 08: Most amusing Pokémon
Raichu when it surfs on its tail.

Day 09: Favourite Pokémon type
I don't have a particular favourite, but if I had to choose one I'd say fire...not sure why though.

Day 10: Least favourite Pokémon type
Either normal for its blandness or Poison for being so annoying in the wild.

Day 11: Favourite new Pokémon from Black & White
I'd say either Tepig (because it's cute), Meishao (because I'm a martial arts nerd), or Excadrill (spiritual successor to Sandslash)

Day 12: Favourite Pokémon attack or move
Hyper Beam. I just love the idea of a pokemon focusing all of its energy into one glourious beam attack.

Day 13: If you lived in the Pokémon world, what would you be?
I'd probably be a gym leader (or training to be one), but like the Unova leaders, I'd have a part time job on the side to pay the bills. Not sure what that second job would be though; probably a film editor or an admin guy.

Day 14: If you were a gym leader, what would be your speciality?
Either fighting or fire; and I'd have a very simple gimmick in my gym (because I have feeling those puzzles are very expensive and take forever to set up)

Day 15: Favourite region in the Pokémon world
Unova.  There's just a greater variety of locations and things to do.

Day 16: If you could live anywhere in the Pokémon world, where would it be?
Somewhere quiet and peaceful, so either Fortree City (it would be cool living in a tree house) or the Village Bridge (I really like at aesthetics of that place for some reason).

Day 17: If you could be any Pokémon, what would you be?
I would with either Sandslash (just because it's awesome), or a Pokemon that could fly (maybe Starapter so I could look badass at the same time).

Day 18: Favourite Gym Leader
The one that sticks out in my mind is Flannery; I love underdogs and the poor girl was trying so hard to match up to previous leaders.

Day 19: Favourite Elite 4 member/Champion
Either Bruno or Cynthia. Just because they both have a good design and they remain cool and collected under pressure.

Day 20: Favourite Pokémon Professor
Professor Rowan; his questions about evolution always intrigued me.

Day 21: Favourite Pokémon bad guys
Team Magma/ Team Aqua. Not only were these guys the first team to have a goal beyond 'steal pokemon and make money', they were the first set of teams to actively compete against each other, and their battles in Emerald were some of the coolest moments in the series, plus I like that both are basically environmental extremists, it just adds an interesting dimension to the whole conflict.

Day 22: Favourite Rival
I know some people will disagree with me on this, but I always considered N a rival, and because of that, I'd definitely say he was the rival the greatest development in the series (with Cherion coming in a close second). When you first meet him, he's an self-righteous prick who quick to make judgements of everyone around him with his extreme views, but as time passes, you begin to realise that he is simply an innocent child who can't grasp the fact that not everything is good and bad or black and white (see what I did there?) and as such is being used by his father as a tool to defeat the elite four and force everyone to give up their pokemon so he can rule over all. It's kind of tragic when you think about it like that.

Day 23: A Pokémon which reminds you of a friend
I can't say any remind of my friends, but Squirtle and Flareon do remind me of my sister since those two were her favourites.

Day 24: A Pokémon you'd find useful in real-life
Anything that can use Fly.  That would save me a fortune on petrol.

Day 25: A Pokémon based on your favourite animal
Wingull....don't judge me!

Day 26: A Pokémon that is your favourite colour
Favorite color: Orange
Favorite orange Pokemon: Charizard

Day 27: Favourite Pokémon game
Pokémon Black.  The story was one of the best (if not the best) in the entire franchise, the gameplay and world design was top notch, the soundtrack was awesome, and any complaints I had with were pretty minor honestly.

Day 28: What did you nickname your rival?
When I wasn't lazy by just calling him Blue or Gary, I named him Kazza. See one of my childhood nicknames was Pazza, so I used the Super Mario logic of taking that name and changing the first letter. The saddest part is I thought I was being clever back then.

Day 29: Favourite Pokémon tune or song
Cynthia's Battle Theme: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yWMOz…
I don't know why but that theme just strikes a chord with me. It's hard to describe, but to me it is the perfect theme for a nail-biting battle and I was so happy when it got a remix in Pokemon Black (two if you include the build up theme before the battle).

Day 30: Most nostalgic element of Pokémon
Now that's a tough one. For me, the most nostalgic experience of Pokemon is either talking about it with other people and trading experiences, favourite pokemon, strategies, etc, or starting another game (be it a new or a new run of an old game) and remembering just why you fell in love with this series all over again.

And that's the lot. I hope you enjoyed it and you're more than welcome to join in yourselves, and if you do, send me a link, it's interesting to see how different people respond to this franchise.

Until next time, cherrio ^_^
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