#I don't really like Mariel all that much but she's cool

[spanakorizzo]

More redwall doodles

[aimmyarrowshigh]

I don’t have any idea what you’re referring to with your 2001 bubblegum pop post BUT I genuinely unironically think you’re so cool for knowing so much about that era! Every time it comes up I get jealous of how knowledgeable and passionate you are.

LOL it's purposely incomprehensible. I just saw a Bad Take and was compelled by obsession to be angry about it in a vague way.

HOWEVER, I have to say! 2001 teenipop/bubblegum pop is an amazing genre and it's super fun to get into, at least on a surface level (listening to it and jamming out)!*

*Don't necessarily dig under the Y2K chrome surfaces, though, because like anything having to do with the entertainment industry prior to #metoo and especially regarding child- and teen stars, it gets... so depressing so fast.

**BUT YOU CAN IGNORE THAT PART WHILE CHEWING ON SOME TASTY SWEDISH-INFLUENCED BEATS AND YOU SHOULD!

And I like to pride myself on being Extremely Learnèd in its glittery pink ways, but I will only ever be but a humble student of the two true masters of the genre: Tommy2 Ramirez (although he's stopped popblogging and started, ugh, runner-blogging, RIP t2.net the GOAT) and Mariel Talks Pop.

(I am prolly the 3rd highest ranking sorcerer of teenipop, though. Just saying. But Mariel is the Sorcerer Supreme and Tommy2 is the Wong.)

Mariel is basically the sole reason that 90% of teenipop/2001-era bubblegum pop albums and music videos have survived the physical to digital media transition. She ran a blogspot for years in the Dark Days of the Mid-Aughts and Early-Tennies where she doggedly wrote bios and uploaded full album rips with metadata of every album whose label had died before the big digital push and thus have never been made available on YouTube, Spotify, or iTunes. She is truly a godsend. She doesn't do that anymore and a lot of the links have gone down as sharing sites have been taken offline, but the bios alone are doing the lions' share of keeping ANY record of a LOT of bubblegum pop artists. She also focuses way more on the full global contingent of pop than I ever have, so I get to discover new-defunct artists through her page(s) all the time, too!

And Tommy2.net was like. The Rolling Stone of bubblegum pop. I wrote for it for a while after college and got to do some fun interviews and get some show screeners (like Glee). The fact that it is now offline makes me genuinely really sad, especially because it existed for so long before tagging posts was a thing that websites could do, so even if it gets pulled up on the Wayback Machine, it is fucking impossible to navigate easily. I wish that it could have transitioned to an archive, but I get that hosting that much media for the four weirdos who ever are like, "Wait, I need to know exactly what pureNRG said in that interview in 2007!!!" (aka Me, Mariel, and like, two bots probably?) wasn't feasible.

Anyway, all that to say, archival fans are so important and I love them forever.

[writernopal]

It Blursday!! 🖤💜

WE’RE TAKING THE SQUADDIES TO EISENGARD!

You don’t have to fill all the roles, and they don’t all have to be from the same WIP, but who’s:

the Ring-bearer, entrusted with carrying the One Ring (bonus: funniest instance they use it to nope right out of reality)

the “Sam”, armed with a frying pan and a wizard of potatoes

Sean Bean, who dies in every movie — falls victim to their own hubris

totally crushing on Arwen and has a really cool sword

AND MY AXE

AND MY GLOCK BOW

Merry and Pippin the “package deal”, very concerned about missing second breakfast

the dude with a sick staff and a concerning amount of explosives, may or may not be an actual wizard

— @outpost51

Happy Blursday Korb!

Oh this question omg haha I've been looking at it all day and I'm rubbing my grubby little hands in anticipation to answer it!

the Ring-bearer, entrusted with carrying the One Ring (bonus: funniest instance they use it to nope right out of reality)

Mariel. The group unanimously agrees that she is the least likely to be corrupted by it and she is probably the only one responsible enough not to misplace it. She probably nopes out the minute Axtapor starts trying to make her stutter or generally make her nervous. I like the idea of him flirting with her, thinking he has the upper hand and then she just disappears LOL. I'm imagining his reaction is like those dogs who get surprised with that blanket disappearing trick.

the “Sam”, armed with a frying pan and a wizard of potatoes

He's not technically my character, but he is part of the AASOAF cast sooo I can't resist throwing @illjustpretend's Sartor in here because he fits this role SO WELL. He can't fight worth a damn but he'd fucking clock you with a frying pan for free and he might accidentally kill you because he doesn't know his own strength.

Sean Bean, who dies in every movie — falls victim to their own hubris

Oleander. It's always Oleander because he thinks he's much stronger/more powerful than he actually is.

totally crushing on Arwen and has a really cool sword

WILKES. The biggest pining idiot of them all! Also he carries a broadsword and a jeweled cutlass with him like all the time so it fits.

AND MY AXE

Axtapor WAAAAAHHHHHH He'd follow Mariel anywhere and you bet he'd volunteer to go with them! Also he knows how to fight with almost any weapon under the sun, you put an axe in his hands and you'll be sorry you did!

AND MY GLOCK BOW

Fay, begrugingly. She's got damn good aim and she'd go along under the pretense that she will probs get something out of this. Though the more likely reason she'd want to go is to kick ass lol.

Merry and Pippin the “package deal”, very concerned about missing second breakfast

Jace and Rapheus BECAUSE WHO ELSE?! They are absolutely the types to want to stop and smell the roses and also get all of the hobbit meals in because they typically aren't the ones doing any sort of fighting, so they'd definitely be concerned about keeping their energy up lol.

the dude with a sick staff and a concerning amount of explosives, may or may not be an actual wizard

KIRIK RRRAAGGGGH!!! He's not a mage but he'd definitely carry a staff around to fool people into thinking he is and if you don't think that this guy is obsessed with explosives you'd be dead wrong. Who do you think taught Axtapor to make them?

[soulsxng]

Taari and Sgaire for the child meme.

@desiderium-eden (mentions @sansloii)

Name: Marielle

Gender: Female

General Appearance: I feel like she heavily resembles Sgáire for the most part, aside from having wavy hair like Taari, as well as Taari's wings (and one blue eye). Taller than lots of other kids in Gabe's classes that are her age, but I also feel like she's probably going to stop growing so much soon, and end up mostly average height. The maker had wings, so I just gave them to her automatically, but I also kind of think that she might end up with Sugar's fox features, instead? Or heck, she could even have both, who knows!

Personality: Very "Fight me", and thinks she's a lot tougher than she is...which tracks, because Taari was a scrappy little kid at times, too. And she does have the boundless energy and spunk to back it up too, because even if she gets knocked down, she's hopping right back up, ready to go again. Still, for all of that, she's actually a pretty well behaved kid, overall. She likes playing tricks, but she knows where the line is. She might be scrappy, but she doesn't start fights unless it's for a good reason. Wants to hurry and get big like her big brothers and sisters, and her older cousins, so she can hang out with them more, and is always trying to drag her parents out to do all kinds of wild things.

Special Talents: Hide and seek champion...but somehow, Eri-jii, Eno-jii, and Zassy-jii are always able to find her anyway! And really, a lot of times they have to, because she'll be hiding somewhere for so long, that she dozes off and doesn't hear her parents call when the kids she's playing with go get them because they don't know where she went. She has sound powers like some of her angel family too, and she likes using them to mimic all kinds of animal sounds, right now. Sometimes Taari will just name an animal Marielle knows, to see if she can copy the sound it makes. She thinks it's a blast.

Who they like better: Her siblings! And her cousins! sorry mom and dads, she loves you too, don't worry

Who they take after more: She might take after Sgáire more in looks, but I feel like she takes after Taari more in personality...at least, Taari when he was a kid. She definitely doesn't have the cool, calm, collected thing that he generally does these days, lol.

Personal Head canon: Even if she's in her regular classes with Gabby, I feel like she really likes learning from Brodi whenever she can, too. She sees how much Jarrah and Laurys respect them, and thinks that if she also learns from Brodi, that she'll be as cool as he big sister and brother. Actually, she's probably like that with everyone that her siblings have a lot of respect for. Just immediately going to stick to that particular person like "Teach me how to be cool like -insert sibling here-!". Because of this though, she actually has a really wide base of knowledge for a kid so young, so I can see her turning out to be a real jack of all trades type.

Face Claim:

[mauannacreates]

Flufftober Day 12: Fire and ice

Hi, for those who have seen my other stories, thanks so much for reading them so far. So here's my prompt for the 12th of October. These prompts are made by @flufftober. And the characters that belong to this story belongs to me, @mauannacreates. I really enjoyed making this story, and I personally love the banter in this. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this.

___

So, the weirdest thing has happened today. So, today, we met this jellyfish pal, Marielle. And apparently she says that Tynan and I are more important than what we would originally think. Even if I am already the heir of Lanz district, this random jellyfish says that I’m more special than that.

“Yes Lainy, i know it’s a bit hard to believe an’ all. But we’re supposed to be the Spirit fighters.” Marielle pauses, before she looks away from me. “At least, it is until those new clams shows up.”

But now, we’re sitting at a campfire after some time after exiting Aeromount Ridge with Marielle. And the weirdest thing about all this, which even though we have set up a campfire, Marielle has to be sitting with a big rectangular bucket. This cannot possibly get any weirder than this.

“Uhh, Marielle.”

“Yep Ty?” He’s glimpsing away. I have seen Tynan long before this girl. But he glances towards the lower lining of her dress, and the strange, big bucket that's on her feet.

“Why…" And he's just shaking his head. Trust me, I am wondering the same thing. "What’s in the bucket?” He says, and her smile just inches that bit wider.

“Oh, why it’s cool salty water of course!” And she gave the biggest grin I had ever seen. “The one you’d get from the sea!” Tynan glances back at me with his eyes scanning around me. He has to agree, this jellyfish that we somehow stumbled into almost seems otherworldly.

“And… why would you have a bucket filled with water?” I say, letting a smirk drip through my mouth. “You know, you can always ice it up. Make it a bit more… Icy for your taste.” I drawl the last bit out and she seems to be looking at me…? I don’t know. But she is definitely facing me.

“Lainy, no. I will not do that.”

I gave a laugh “Why not?”

“Because, when you put ice and salt together… It burns a lot more than this fire. Maybe as much, but…" And her mouth tenses as if she has eaten the most sourest lemon there ever is on Lanz. "No. I will not do that.” And as much as I could try to stop myself from laughing (which means I didn't even try) I start to wheeze by how much my sides are hurting. She has to have the best reaction to this salt and ice analogy ever! But sharp claws starts to grip tight on my head as he starts pulling on my hair.

“Tynan…!” I try to scrabble my arms towards the bird who flaps his wings off of me and sits on the side of the log.

“Don’t pick on Marielle.” He says. Does he have to insist it like I'm a little kid? I let out a long breath.

“Ok dad.” And his head swishes towards me as I gave a smirk.

“Dad?” Tynan says.

“Yes.” I reply, and he goes and looks away towards the warm fire, before he glimpses back towards me. And... Why is he looking at me with a strangely satisfied smirk...?

“Well… Does that mean I can call you mum?” And then I lean back. His beak twitches at his low drawl. He has got to be kidding me.

“No!” I say, but with a sudden splash... Oh, no. From her hands clasping together to her big pink rounded skirt bobbling. I bet her eyes would be sparkling with how wide her smile is. And she gives a chuckle.

“Oooh! And does that mean that I’m the child here?” God, Marielle, please do not encourage him. And he stares towards me. No, Tynan... Don't...!

“Yes.” Tynan! “In that sense, it would be.”

“Yaaay~!” And she starts twirling inside the bucket.

Oh for fucks sake, what have I started…? There were laughs between them. And I swear, if there was a burrow nearby I’d probably bury myself to the ground right at this point.

“Naww… Lainy, don’t worry.” my fur spikes up as I jerk towards Marielle, and she had a small smile striking her face. “I will never take your spot away.” I inch back. A spot...? What is she on about...?

“What spot?” I say as slow as I could, as Marielle's smile... Oh, no. Have I fallen into her trap again...!?

“That you can be the tall child and I can be the incredibly short but cute and awesome mum.”

“No…! Marielle, no! Stop!” But she was laughing as if there were a choir of mermaids singing here. And it is hard. My face has to be heating up! I want to lift my feet up and march away from both of them. Even with Tynan reserved slyness in this is not helping! That is, until he clears his throat.

“Ok Marielle, maybe we should calm down a bit.” Tynan finally says, “Elaine’s a bit…”

“Ooh, yeah.” Why is she saying it as if she knows everything? “I know, I know.” What does she know…? But her small smile curving across her face… “She’s nervous.” Ok at least she’s not silly to know that- “About me.” I jump up from my seat and point at her.

“No!” and Marielle gives a chuckle.

“Lainy, It’s ok to admit that. I know I‘m a bit much, as much as I'm an adorable little bundle of stuff and fluff, and you’re a guard and a princess with a lot of responsibility.” And Marielle's smile spreads across her face as the birds starts to chirp within the meadows. “I respect that.”

“I am not exactly a guard, but…” I do get the sword skills she probably has seen me using... And I couldn’t help but smile back. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” The forest chirps quietly, as Tynan glances between us, then he lets out a yawn.

“Hmm… Maybe we should go to sleep now. We don’t want to distract anyone else.”

“Yeah.” I reply, turning towards Marielle. "We should."

If you guys are interested in looking into some of the other prompts that I have done from the previous months, check it out here:

[pastelwitchling]

Helfyre by Mariel Pomeroy

⭐⭐

Cultural appropriation up the wazoo 😂

I gave this book two stars for Lúc, Tariq, and Shiron. And the final climax was pretty cool, excluding the epilogue which didn't make much sense. And yes, I did in fact read this start to finish.

I'm sure the author wasn't considering the effects of what she was doing when she decided to use so much Arabic, because that's what the majority of that language is; Arabic. Except, I'm afraid, it's very poorly translated.

For example:

- Nahr Al Nufus? That means River of Breaths, ma'am, not River of Souls. River of Souls would've been Nahr Al Arwah. Arwah is the plural of Ruh, which is the singular word for soul. But the author already knew that because... (see next point)

- Ruhi. Yeah, the literal translation is my soul, I knew it the whole time while I was reading, and every time Aheia asked what it meant. It means my soul. You can put the little accent over the i, but it's still Arabic.

There are several instances in the book in which someone commands Aheia to do something in Arabic, but here's the glitch, author. Google Translate doesn't differentiate between the feminine and masculine versions of a word. To make it feminine, you add an i to the end of the command, otherwise, to a native Arabic speaker, it sounds very botched because we can tell that the command has just been copy/pasted from Google.

Similarly to another point when Arioch, concerning Aheia, asks, "Ma hi" which is just incorrect on all accounts. He's asking about a woman, so the question is Ma hia. If it had been a guy, it would've been, Ma hua. And this is official Arabic grammar, there's no particular dialect being used here. I checked these all on Google Translate to be sure, and I was right. They're just copy/pasted straight from there, with no thought to grammar or conjugation.

And I wouldn't have minded at all! Truly, when I started reading and I saw the Arabic, I thought it was kind of cool and a little flattering. Thanks for thinking this language is pretty enough to use in this big fantasy, it was honestly really interesting. But here's where my slight problem came in;

The use of all the Islamic terms, like Al Shaytan, the literal translation of the devil or Gehenna, which is a layer of hell in Islam, without any respect whatsoever to the basic ideals of Islam. I'll get into issues I had with the main character a little below, but using Islamic terms because you think they look pretty with zero consideration or mindfulness to the religious terms you were using, and then having characters go on and on about "the gods" like believing in them or praying to them was this embarrassing act that only mind-washed victims commit? C'mon, author.

And the thing is, I followed the author on IG for a while, I know she wouldn't intend to do something like this, I'm sure (I know, in fact, because I looked it up on Google Translate to confirm) that she typed in whatever she wanted to use, pulled it into her story because it sounded cool, and thought that was that. To her credit, she builds a very intricate world with a lot of potential. But I personally can't focus on that too much in the passages when she's blatantly insulting the very fundamental beliefs of a religion and culture that is (I'm assuming, apologies if I'm wrong on the author's background here) not hers, nor has it ever been.

How does the story start to come off to an Arabic speaker who can understand what the terms mean and where they come from? It starts to feel like all the passages about Aheia being side-eyed for praying, all the prayers she mentions experiencing herself, the relationship she has to the gods, the comments on what women are treated like in a realm that does worship the gods; it starts to feel like an insult to a culture and a religion that the author doesn't belong to. To be frank, I just don't think it's her place. Especially not if she's going to use Islamic terms, and then demonize almost everyone that does worship the gods, save for one character whose backstory we never get.

Honestly, I'm not insulted because I know she couldn't have intended this. But when you use phrases and terms from another culture that you know nothing about, it drags that culture into the story and makes them a part of it. If you don't know any Arabic, if you never grew up around it, if the extent of your research on it goes to what you can type into Google Translate, then maybe just don't use the language? Possibly?

I wish I was done. I'm not.

Aheia had no personality whatsoever. She felt like nothing but a figure that is solely defined by her poor mental state. That's it. And then every time she speaks, she's either "angry" or "irritated", and she wants to play the victim in the very place she'd been trying to escape to, while managing to act entitled to what she wants at the same time. Arioch's your "CAPTOR"?? I DON'T THINK SO! I would say she and Arioch have no chemistry, but that would imply she has any kind of character and she just doesn't.

It feels like she just said things that the author thought would sound cool, but make no sense in the moment. She would fall over herself in her plea for him to touch her, and in the next sentence say that she doesn't want him; it's just weird. There's a point near the end when she promises she'll work in the city, he won't have to see her, she just wants to stay, and I really liked that moment but I also felt like that should've been her attitude from the beginning, too. Instead she acts like she deserves to be there, for whatever reason.

There was even a part at the very end that almost had me tearing at my hair because Arioch tells her point blank what his plan had been, but she still doesn't believe him or what he's saying because "she couldn't." That's it, that's her whole reason, she just couldn't. Come on now.

Nothing happened during her chapters. It was just pages and pages and pages of self-deprecation. I was at page 70 and still unable to really form an opinion on anything because of the pace. That reminds, the pace and tone are all over the place. The descriptions aren't good at all; everything was way too wordy so that I felt nothing for anybody (except Lúc, he's my darling, more on him in a second), the smut scenes were awkwardly done and just bordered on boring for how wordy they were, to be honest (I'm sorry, but it felt like I was just reading about Arioch sleeping with a name on a page, that's how little presence or character Aheia had), the grammar was pretty bad at times, commas were thrown in everywhere and cut up sentences where it didn't make sense, and I didn't completely get what I was looking at or where we were half the time.

This wasn't a terrible time. It really wasn't. If anything, I'm more bummed because the potential for what this story could've been with some real editing was great. I understood the world building for most of the story, it's really intricate (again though, and I know it can't be changed now because the sequel I think is already published, but maybe next time just use an ancient Swiss language or English or Latin or Greek or something) but still done in a way that makes sense. I did keep track of most of the names, mostly because a lot of them were in Arabic so I understood the meanings fine, but I see how it could get to be too much for someone that doesn't speak the language.

I really loved Lúc. I wish we'd gotten more scenes with the other characters. That one Lúc chapter alone revitalized me (he's such a psychotic demon, I love him 😂), I loved his moment with Tariq and those inner thoughts (please, stop, but don't ever actually stop because I love them), I really liked Shiron, I think we could've gotten more Emryn and that weird redhead who clearly has something going on with her. If you cut out the hundreds of pages of Aheia's useless inner monologues that went in circles for most of the story and focused instead on developing existing characters and their relationships, I feel like we could've had something truly epic here.

God help me, I might read the sequel just for Lúc and Tariq, but maybe I should check the reviews first to see if they get more story. Otherwise, I'm quite satisfied with what I know about Helfyre, I'm glad to finally satiate my curiosity on the hype surrounding it, and mostly, I'm glad I'm done.

[daring-elm]

Let's spread some love!! Patton and Thomas for the ask thing! Love ya ~M

Patton - Name 3 people you love on this app, tag them and tell them why they make you happy!

just three? i may need to bend the rules a bit here

@mintydoesart pattoncake i love you so much—you're an incredible artist and an even better friend, i'm so so happy to know you (even though you bully me for being tiny /j), you're a wonderful person and i don't have the vocabulary to express just how much you mean to me

@gaydumbassenergy @wowimsogoddamnoriginal my two wonderful sons—andreas and logan, you two are some of the nicest people out there, and i'm super glad i got to know you :D you're also both amazing artists, seriously, i love y'all's work so much

@sociallyawkward--fics how can you not love xy i mean??? she's So Cool and such an amazing writer—if you're into the witcher please do yourself a favour and check out her stuff

@sandersfanders @gabe-killed-me-with-ace-cream @romanasanders and everyone else from the server whose urls i can't remember, y'all are amazing people too like iconic!! i'm so glad i know you, thank you for the time we've had and will have in the future—thank you sunny for lighting up my life and being my pun buddy with kas, whom i also greatly appreciate; thank you mariel for being endlessly supportive and taking my side during food discourse; thank you hazel for starting and managing the server with me—really, i couldn't have done it alone; thank you em and eeva and apollo and virgil and everyone else for being amazing

i love y'all with my whole tiny aro heart 🤍

and more!!! @coconut-cluster @ethospathoslogan i love your writing so much you're amazing!! i can't believe i'm mutuals with people that are This Talented i don't deserve y'all OTL

and just!!! i have too many cool mutuals to even tag them all but like if you're reading this and we're mutuals yes i mean you you're great ily

Thomas - Name something you love about yourself!

i answered this one earlier in a kinda self-aggrandizing ramble lol, but i've got some more!!

i love how excitable i am!! if you couldn't tell by the ridiculously long ramble just now i have a lot of feelings, but that also means i can get hyped about so many awesome things!!! i'm practically a human puppy at this point but it makes everything so much more fun!!

thanks for the ask mari, love you too!!

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