#New Moon Reimagined

[restinslices]

What I Would Change About Twilight Vampires

I’m back in my Twilight phase, so I wanted to discuss what I would change about vampires if I made them or if Stephanie was like “hey, rewriting the series, got any ideas for the vampires?”. Keep in mind these are just my thoughts and it’s ok to think my changes are straight ass. 

- Ok, so I’d keep the basic stuff the same just so they’re recognizable. Like it being hard for them to drink from humans without killing them, their skin being like marble so they can’t get tattoos, red eyes meaning they drink humans and yellow eyes meaning they drink from animals, even the whole sparkly vampire shit even though I don’t like it.

- Now, moving on-

- First of all, no reproduction. Vampires are a walking corpse, so none of them can have kids. Women can’t get pregnant, men can’t knock people up. Simple as that.

- I think vampires who drink human blood should be NOTICEABLY stronger than those who drink animal blood. I know it’s a trope, but if newborns having human blood in their veins is why they’re so strong, then vampires who drink human blood should get the same boost they do. They should at least be stronger than vegetarians. 

- I don’t know how I didn’t mention this before but VAMPIRES OF COLOR SHOULD EXIST. They shouldn’t turn “paler” or any of that bullshit. Having vampires who are considered incredibly beautiful and having them only have light skin, is not ok. 

- Vampires should be able to drink from blood bags. It’s still human blood. Maybe they prefer the hunt, but if they’re desperate, blood bags should do.

- I would give them fangs. I heard they don’t have them and I was bamboozled. 

- I think vampires should have consequences for what they are. So, maybe they look beautiful, but when feeding they should have another form. Like, in Vampire Diaries. I didn’t get that far (I only watched 9 episodes), but vampires having a different face is a detail I like. I’d make it that when they’re feeding, their skin turns a slight blue or purple, or whatever color a corpse turns. Preferably it changes depending on how long they’ve been a vampire. Then, when drinking blood, it should visibly go through their veins. Like yeah, they’re drinking it but it still seems cool?

- I heard vampires can’t dye their hair because “they’re frozen in time”. I get that, so here’s where my version would differ. I think vampires should be able to dye their hair, BUT the dye comes out super fast. Their body wants to stay where it was frozen, and even if they try to fight back (by dyeing their hair), their body will always win. The dye can last maybe a few weeks before it comes out completely. 

- If a vampire is starved or is like “oh my gosh, I refuse to drink blood!”, I think they should become more feral and also weak. I know it’s already a detail but I’m imagining like, if you starved Carlisle for a while, you could get him to attack a human. That feral. Depending on how long they’re starved though.

That’s all I can think of for now. Remember, it’s ok to disagree.

[big-idiot-wolf-boys]

New NTRE chapter!

For the first time since October, we have a new chapter everyone! Read it here although I've made it for AO3 members only since I've heard some rumblings about AI being fed works and I'm not cool with that, sorry to non-archive readers!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Ian McDonald's "The Wilding"

I'll be in TUCSON, AZ from November 8-10: I'm the GUEST OF HONOR at the TUSCON SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION.

Ian McDonald is one of those absurdly brilliant novelists that just leave me wondering the actual fuck he manages it. How does he cover so much ground, think up so many compelling characters, find so many gracenotes, conjure up so many complicated emotions?

McDonald burst on the scene in the late 1980s, with the 1988 novel Desolation Road and then his 1989 Out On Blue Six, a slick, stylized cyberpunk-meets-Orwell tale that overflowed with beautiful prose, technomysticism, and sly jokes that hid sneaky truths that hid even more sly jokes:

https://memex.craphound.com/2014/01/20/out-on-blue-six-ian-mcdonalds-brilliant-novel-is-back/

By my count, McDonald has now published twenty books – mostly novels, but a couple short story collections (and the most amazingly demented, Tom-Waits-inflected teddybear murder comic imaginable, 1994's Kling Klang Klatch):

https://irishcomics.fandom.com/wiki/Kling_Klang_Klatch

McDonald's work is truly globespanning. While he's made his mark on the Martian soil, and overtaken the moon with the Luna trilogy (his definitive rebuttal to Heinlein's Moon Is a Harsh Mistress) he is widely adored and much-awarded for the glittering, futuristic versions of Brazil (Brasyl), Tanzania (the Chaga series), and India (River of Gods).

Indeed, McDonald's imagination has roamed so far over the Earth and the solar system that it's possible to overlook his fantastic reimaginings of Ireland, the land where he was raised. There's his Philip K Dick Award-winning 1991 novel King of Morning, Queen of Day, a swirling, mythopoeic novel of Celtic mysticism:

https://www.baen.com/king-of-morning-queen-of-day.html

And then there's 1992's Hearts, Hands and Voices, which is lowkey one of the best novels I have ever, ever read – a scorching science fictional allegory for The Troubles, but with the gnarliest biotech weirdness you can possibly imagine:

https://archive.org/details/heartshandsvoice0000ianm/mode/2up

McDonald's books cover so much goddamned ground, but one feature they all share is a prose styling wherein every sentence is at least 20% poetry, a fraction that somehow, impossibly, rises to as much as 150% in certain especially shiny passages.

Like this passage, which opens The Wilding, McDonald's new horror novel that marks his first return to Ireland since 1992:

Autumn lay on the great bog in silvers and tans, late purples and duns.

The sun rose above the tall ash saplings and feral sycamore. It called the birds into full voice. Stabbing shrills, tumbles of notes, the flutes of dove-call, frantic ticking hisses, song upon song. In hedgerows and copses, among the pale foliage of the birches, in the weave of deep willow and the bramble fastnesses, each bird called and was heard. In this season the peatland held the day's warmth through the night and on the bright, clear mornings rivers of mist formed, filling the subtle hollow places in the exposed cuttings, the bogs and fields. High sun would dispel it but at this hour half of Lough Carrow lay mist-bound. Each blade of grass hung heavy with dew, the clumps of sedges were already browning, the bracken curling and crisping.

A pair of horns lifted above the willow scrub and out-grown ash hedges of the Wilding. Polished tips caught the low sun and kindled as bright and keen as spears.

https://www.gollancz.co.uk/titles/ian-mcdonald/the-wilding/9781399611503/

Oof.

I would drop everything to read Ian McDonald's grocery lists but after that opening, I wasn't going to put this one down, and I didn't, reading the whole thing on yesterday's flight home from my gigs in Atlanta this week.

The Wilding is (I'm pretty sure?) McDonald's first horror novel, and it's fucking terrifying. It's set in a rural Irish peat bog that has been acquired by a conservation authority that is rewilding it after a century of industrial peat mining that stripped it back nearly to the bedrock. This rewilding process has been greatly accelerated by the covid lockdowns, which reduced the human footprint in the conservation area to nearly zero.

The story's protagonist is Lisa, a hard-case Dubliner who came to the bog to do community service after a career as a crime syndicate driver for hire, a woman who never met a car she couldn't boost and pilot in or out of any tight situation. After years in the bog, she's ready to start a new life, studying Yeats at university, indulging a late-discovered love of poetry that has as much to do with her redemption as her years in the wild.

Lisa's last duty before she leaves the bog and goes home to Dublin is leading a school group on a wild campout in one of the bog's deep clearings. It's a routine assignment, and while it's not her favorite duty, it's also not a serious hardship.

But as the group hikes out to the campsite, one of her fellow guides is killed, without warning, by a mysterious beast that moves so quickly they can barely make out its monstrous form. Thus begins a tense, mysterious, spooky as hell story of survival in a haunted woods, written in the kind of poesy that has defined McDonald's career, and which – when deployed in service of terror – has the power to raise literal goosebumps.

There's a lot of fantasy that deals with Celtic mythology, including McDonald's own King of Morning, Queen of Day, but the vibe of that stuff tends to the heroic and romantic – sure, there's the odd banshee, but in the main, it's mischievous wee people, pookas, and leprechauns. More fey than fear.

But Irish mythology in its raw form is terrifying. The monsters of Irish storytelling are grotesque, mean, remorseless, and come in every shape and size. Some authors have done well by going back to the bestiary for the deep cuts. When I was a kid, I must have read John Coyne's Hobgoblin fifty times (mostly because it was about D&D, which I was obsessed with). I haven't read this one since I was about 12, and I have no idea if it'd hold up today, but it left me with a deep appreciation of the spooky multifariousness of monsters who dwell in Ireland's bogs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobgoblin_(novel)

The Wilding is a suspense novel, which means there's no way to really sum up the plot without spoiling a lot of the affect, but suffice to say that McDonald brings large swathes of deep Irish lore to the surface, and it had me reading as fast as I could and wanting to put the book down and hide.

What a writer McDonald is! The fact that this is the same guy who wrote last year's stunning secret-history/solarpunk/uncategorizable wonder that was Hopeland beggars belief:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/30/electromancy/#the-grace

Read you some Ian McDonald novels, is what I'm trying to say. This one is only available in the UK, if that's not where you are, consider mail-ordering it. Looks like they've got stock at Forbidden Planet for £19 plus £18 shipping to the US. Worth every penny:

https://forbiddenplanet.com/424306-the-wilding-hardcover/

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/25/bogman/#erin-go-aaaaaaargh

[skyscrapergods]

I had no real reason for this, I just suddenly imagined the reimagining of the Canterlot Wedding arc in the Shireverse (very specifically *after* the whole Changelings debacle was over, and the preparations for the *actual* wedding with the *actual* bride and non-magic-drained groom.). And it's just *so many shenanigans.* I'd imagine that Cadence would roughly be at the size that you drew Chrysalis mimicking her at, so maybe 3 or 4 times bigger than Shining Armor? Small enough to fit in buildings, big enough that getting an outfit for her is a hassle, and braiding her mane and tail when they *dissolve into smoke* is an even bigger one.

Also I this she would be getting the beginning of her telepathic alicorn powers, so imagine: You're a pony invited to the wedding of one of the Royal Guards of Canterlot, and a new goddess. There are many near-incomprehensible things at the beginning, but at the *actual* wedding and reception after the drama has passed, you can just faintly at the back of your head feel or sense this vague sense of giddy, overjoyed excitement. and you realize - oh. that's the bride. That's the force of her happiness at getting married bleeding out into the world so that everyone else can feel it. and also away from all the wedding stuff - what exactly does the Canterlot Royal Guard *do* when the 'Royals' are goddesses the size of buildings or the fucking sun and moon themselves?

she is SO in love!!! and her groom loves her SO MUCH. there's practically fireworks and flowers blooming all over the place. It's a bit overwhelming for ponies not used to the presence of gods.

[writingwithcolor]

Running Commentary: What is “ok to do” in Mixed-Culture Supernatural Fiction?

Dear readers: 

Today we are trying something new. To give you some insight into our process in the Japanese moderator section, we are presenting our response in the form of running commentary to show you how we dissect and answer long asks. We hope this makes clear what points are useful and not useful when sending us a query. As always, this is for learning purposes, not callouts. Be prepared: this is a long one. 

To summarize: the asker is looking to create a comic drawn in Japanese manga style, and has provided a long summary of the story and worldbuilding which involves a mix of “reimagined” Japanese yokai mythos and cultural symbols from many other sources. They have questions with respect to cultural appropriation, coding etiquette, and “what is and isn’t ok.” 

Opening Comments

I know a common advice when it comes to the thing I am about to ask is to talk to people involved in __, but I struggle with opening up to strangers for reasons I'm uncomfortable explaining. 

Marika (M): This is already a red flag. If you want to engage with another culture without talking to people from that culture, then research is going to be very challenging. You won’t have members of that culture to guide you towards sources and perspectives they feel most accurately represents public opinion. If I were in your shoes, I might start with tackling my discomfort when engaging with other people, if only to improve my work. If you aren’t ready to engage with a culture and its people directly, then I think you should wait until you are. 

I should note, reaching out to the Japanese mod team at WWC does count as engagement, but WWC should not and cannot be the only point of contact because there is no single, legitimate cultural perspective. 

Rina (R): Also, you don’t need to “open up” to strangers or talk to them in person to get perspectives. Asking specific research questions anonymously to a forum or on social media requires very little vulnerability. You managed to do it here on WWC. So give it a try! 

Anyway, my question basically amounts to the what is and isn't ok [sic] in terms of depicting fantasy creatures and concepts outside of their respective culture.

R: So, the reason why we turn away rubber stamp questions by that ask “is XYZ okay?” is because “okay” & “not okay” 1) is vague and 2) creates a dichotomy where there isn’t one. 

When we say something is “not okay,” do we mean:

It’s offensive to the general majority of XYZ group? 

It’s contentious among people who ID in the group? 

It has a potential to be interpreted in a certain negative way, but may not be a red flag to everyone?

Insetad try asking:

What are the reasons this subject is offensive? 

What makes cultural appropriation bad? 

When might it be “okay” to intentionally discuss a difficult or controversial topic?

What is your reason for including something that may be interpreted as offensive and can it be sufficiently justified? 

What stereotypes or tropes might it be consistently identified as or associated with, and why? 

When might it be justified to bring up these tropes?

With That In Mind...

Let’s get into the rest of the ask below. 

…a story I've been working on in recent times is largely inspired off the Japanese yokai, and the setting is basically Earth in the far future, as far as when the next supercontinent may form. These yokai, although portrayed differently here, do retain their main characteristics [...] Included in this world are two goddesses of my own creation, primarily representing the sun and the moon. [...] There will be thirteen nations, named and based after the Chinese Zodiac, and the life force found in the living things in this world, called qi, comes in two forms that are always opposing each other but can never fully overpower the other, this being based off yin and yang. They're even directly named this; yin qi and yang qi.

M: This reads more like using Japanese and Chinese culture for the “aesthetics”, not the cultures themselves, which I personally feel falls under cultural appropriation. From a world-building/ coding standpoint, the actual use of concepts is workable, and, dare I say, typical, given how Chinese cosmology influences Japanese culture. However, naming a concept “yin qi” or “yang qi” is the equivalent of naming something “- charge” or “+ charge”, respectively. That you don’t seem aware of this tells me you are pretty early in your research phase. In that vein, we’ve covered translating terms and names from foreign languages in fantasy before. See the following article linked here for our recommendation against using RL terms outright but instead encouraging people to create their own conlangs. 

R: Worldbuilding-wise, I think you would have to figure out the chicken-or-egg of the zodiac nations. Did the nations come first, and the zodiac later as an origin folk story (which you would have to rewrite to serve the nation-building narrative)? Did the zodiac come first, and the nations named (most likely re-named) by a political entity? What is the justification? Otherwise, again, it’s a shoehorning of aesthetics. 

There is also a third, lesser known god based off of fox spirits and trickery and I imagined he's the patron deity of a family that honors and worships him, but his influence on them has transformed them into Kitsune-tsuki, which I depict as fox-like anthros. 

M: Not related to this ask directly, but I have jokingly ranted about how often non-Japanese people prefer using imagery related to kitsune-tsuki in Japanese coded world-building (link). This makes me feel the same level of petty irritation. See my troll answer below for a similar experience.

R: Same. It’s boring tbh. 

M: Troll Answer: I get that kitsune-tsuki are very sexy furries, but Japanese folklore has other sexy furries too! These underrepresented demographics also deserve recognition and appreciation!!

The plot of the story is this; modernization has left the goddesses neglected of their worship and forgotten, something that is necessary in this world to stop them from fighting each other. The Moon Goddess awakens first, punishing the humans by unleashing the yokai. Then the Sun Goddess wakes up to fight in humanity's defense…

M: This could feel rather like Shinto-like coding (Ex. the myth of Amaterasu and the Cave, or Tsukuyomi slaying Ukemochi), but something about this scenario feels a bit too binary in terms of themes of good v. evil, light v. dark to be Shinto. The plot also feels more Gaelic/ Nordic in influence for me as a person raised in a Japanese Buddhist and Hindu household. I imagine this dissonance could have been fixed with better guided research. 

…but their fighting has caused a perma-eclipse and this world is in danger of ending. The yokai have run rampant; some are loyal to the Moon Goddess, and some aren't, and it lies to the main characters to bring balance back to Midgard. Yeah... the name of this future Earth is Midgard. I debate changing it since it and some other things I will mention sorta feel out of place.

R: Marika, looks like you were right on the Gaelic/Nordic influence /j 

Also, worldbuilding question: if the Earth is in the far geologic future, how long has it been since modernization (19th-20th century)? Centuries? Millennia? How long has this fighting gone on for? What triggered the perma-eclipse, and why now? Why is this time depth necessary? 

One of the main characters in question is a humanoid woman with wolf features named Ling, and she is a descendant of the dynasty that had first ruled the one of the nations, particularly the one based off the dragon zodiac. She accidentally summons the other main character to this world as she's praying at a shrine, a humanoid with dragon features--I call them drakon--named Angelynn.

[on the names of characters] is it appropriating by not having the world entirely based on [Chinese, Japanese, and Indian] influence? it's a little weird to me how worldwide the creatures are referred to as yokai, implying a strong Japanese influence not unlike how it is today with Western culture being so dominant, yet there are still names like Keith and Kiara.

M: I will give you credit for recognizing you have unconsciously veered towards white-washing/ race-bending: either presenting European cultural influences (drakons, Angelynn, Keith, Kiara, Midgard) as default or utilizing general E. Asian cultural influences and aesthetics for a Western-style story (Ling, qi, Chinese zodiac, yokai). I agree with you that this creates a sense of cultural dissonance. At this point, I’d say you have a clear choice: write a Western-style high fantasy using a background with which you have more familiarity, or get some better guidance on research with East Asian cultures so you can code the story more effectively. 

The focus of this story is centered around meeting all these yokai and showing that there's more nuance to them than Ling believes, all while saving the world. But I worry if I'm appropriating these concepts and creatures by 1, drawing from more than one culture--I initially imagined that there would be a mix of Chinese, Japanese and Indian influence because according to a website I am getting the info on yokai from, the yokai in question already draw inspiration from or have been based on something in Chinese mythology or Hinduism [...]

R: Sure, some yokai have Chinese or Hindu parallels as that tends to happen with folk tales. But not all–some are unique to Japan, and some are more modern. Sometimes it’s very political–some people consider the Ainu Korpokkur as being a “Yokai of Japan” despite it belonging to the indigenous culture. It’s up to you to research, untangle, and understand these influences. 

The fact that you bring up that the Asian continent has seen a lot of cultural exchange is not a sufficient reason to randomly combine influences for the sake of visual appeal or “coolness.” That is appropriation. These influences must be understood in their historical context so that you know how/why certain things combined or morphed into another, and what makes sense to combine/morph. 

M: This also indicates that the character views the yokai as evil/inherently bad, which I would argue is not a typical stance for much Japanese folklore. Again, this shows a deficit in research. 

2, reimagining these yokai in a new context even though I have done the research on them, because one thing I kept seeing in regards to cultural appropriation is that it's bad to do that […]

R: Refer above to my note on “okay” and “not okay.” The thing with folklore and fairy tales is that every–and I mean every–folk tale is reinterpreted with every new iteration of it. Reimagining in a new context is what people do every time they pass on a story or tell a story with the same plot or characters. Do not think of folklore as an “original” that is altered and rebooted, but rather a living document that gets added to. Reimagining is not the inherent issue. HOW you reimagine something matters. 

So I suppose my question is...if someone were to do research upon the creature they want to use, given they are allowed to use it, and gained an understanding of what the creature or concept stood for, are they allowed to pick it apart and reimagine it? Alternatively, is it ok if it's explicitly pointed out that it is derivative of the original?

It has actually become my biggest fear that I may have internalized something that could both continue to do harm long after the fact and attract the wrong people to me work. I don't wanna let people down!

M: As Rina has noted several times, I think the problem is in trying to ID a set of specific variables and circumstances that make a thing “okay” or “not okay.” I want to recommend that you read my joking response about writing in secret rooms while wearing a disguise (Linked here). Who can you hurt if no one knows what you are doing? There’s a difference between creating for oneself and creating to share. 

You have internalized a message incorrectly, but not the one you cite. The goal of many recommendations against cultural appropriation is to avoid causing direct harm to people who have seen their cultures demeaned, discredited and devalued, especially in shared spaces. Assessing cultural engagement, whether we are talking about appropriation, appreciation or exchange is not a measure of personal virtue or a collection of commandment style do’s and don’t’s. Rather, I believe engaging with other cultures is the state of mind of acknowledging that when using these cultures’ in one’s own work, there is value in consulting members of that culture and giving credit where credit is due. This will be challenging if you are only comfortable engaging with all of these cultures in a distanced, minimal capacity. 

FWIW, I’ve written stories that probably will offend people from other cultures and backgrounds, but I don’t show them off. I don’t think writing these makes me a bad person, but I also don’t see the need to give unnecessary offense, so those stories are just for me, to be written and read in my own secret room. However, I’m not ashamed of having written them, and I’m also comfortable to “let people down” provided that my own shared work reflects my personal principles of what I consider to be sufficient research and engagement with other cultures,  As a creator, my work wouldn’t be mine if I didn’t first please myself. I think the trick to the creator role is deciding what to keep private, what to share and what constitutes sufficient engagement. 

P.S. 

We’ve referenced the need for research multiple times in this ask, and in some of the other asks that have gone up this week, so we thought this would be a good place to plug a beginner’s guide to academic research created by the mod team.. Look for it soon under WWC’s pinned posts!

[ancientgoddessofegypt]

Astrology Theories : The Sun & The Moon

Hey! So todays astrology theory post will focus primarily on the moon/sun and the aspects and signs pertaining to it.

Let me start off by saying, people who carry the aspects connecting the sun and moon together, will be easily likeable, as well as someone who can be a team player and be a beacon for people. There is a sense of inspiration that comes out of them because the blending of these two come together and makes for something totally unique for the individual and their experience. There is a special persona that comes out of these characters who hold this placement, and the way they share it is magnificent.

Sun Conjunct The Moon - To be, this gives the energy of someone who is the first born in the family. Could naturally be a caretaker, could become a leader and be in these roles easily because of their inner nature. Could process their emotions differently, and may need small amounts of alone time, depending on the sign they both are in this can show a bit differently. These characters are born under a new moon, so their can be experiences we're they can reimagine and start over their lives for the greater good of themselves and possible the world.

Sun Opposite The Moon - Big personalities. Big possibilities. Bigger lessons. You get the picture. Everything seems more intense because of the power trip the full moon gives the sun, but they both work hand in hand together and make things powerful with their magic. Now I can assure you, they are not to be messed with. Their energy can create waves because they are use to the tides always shifting in different directions. They gotta make it work in order to balance themselves out. This ain't a walk in the park, got it? Inspiration moves right through them as they are processing their own vibration and people will tend to catch this energy and want to know more about them.

Sun Square The Moon - Creatrix. Beautiful liars. Sociopaths. Can be likeable, can be unlikeable. It depends on the upbringing. There is so many different ways to express the complexities of this placement, because they are used to being the black sheep as well as the golden child at the same time. Could very much so like to have it their way, but the world forces them to appease to others.. and vice versa. They have relationship issues do to parental problems where the parents put their needs before the child. They could of had strange upbringings with the family and learned how to occupy their time with developing their personalities their own way and keeping that unique personality to themselves. They could be selfish, they could be sweet. They could be generous, they could be mean. You never know what you're going to get with them, or when those tides can change. Cause it all depends on how their feeling, after all.

Sun Trine The Moon - Attractors. Manifestors. Healers. Creators. The people with this placement seem to have an eye for detail. Could potentially erase years of trauma and guilt from their family tree, and could strive to create better for the future head. Could be very good leaders, and someone who just knows what they want.. and they're not afraid to get it. They have great potential to be somebody in this lifetime, and could use this potential to help others see this light within them as well. They have to choose the right people in their space so that they can bloom more, it just works that way. Truly being who they are, is how they will maintain a lifetime of success. Reaching for the stars is in their nature, because they know that they are one themselves.

Sun Sextile The Moon - Healers. Potential. Channelers. Potion Makers. Could be deemed crazy. The Sextile gives a promise that these individuals can utilize this energy and can create excitement around what it is they desire. This aspect is good creating space and community for people like them. And can be somewhat of a mirror for anybody who needs to channel that energy into something new. Could be very delightful and fun to get alone with it. Could be shy and full of nervousness. Could be someone who gets their needs met by sharing their emotional needs with others. They need a safe space to survive.

[duranduranofficial]

“NEW MOON (DARK PHASE)” featuring Andy Taylor, a reimagined version of the band’s classic song “New Moon On Monday,” is out now.

https://duran.lnk.to/NewMoonOnMonday 🌗

[h-didanart]

Guys

Musical au

Musical au

Musical au :D

Ok so context, I’ve had this idea for a while now but wanted to explore it more with the whole au combo thing I did for a bit

BUT THEN I got a new idea, one that combined more than two aus…

So I present to you this Musical AU, it contains characters from my three main aus (currently, tho I am very inclined to add some others), and it’s basically two of the main stories as musicals!

Let’s meet the main characters shall we?

From Get in Losers: Musical Edition, Sunrise Rays and Crescent Moondrop Celestial as Sun and Moon! The twins that started it all, you won’t believe how unlucky these guys get, watch as Sun and Moon fumble through dimensions, the plans of their enemies, and their own relationship in their way to collect as many family members as possible.

These two were very surprised when they not only got accepted but were actually casted as the main characters. Even more so when their other triplet wasn’t included with them since the start. They were certainly nervous about this all, but knowing the rest of the cast and their family members are right next to them puts them at ease.

And from The Sunset and Moonlight Musical, Waning Moonlight and Sunset Sky Galaxia as Moonlight and Sunset! The tale we all know and kinda love reimagined with the classic character swap, watch the twins face every challenge coming their way while they try to keep the rift between them from increasing further.

These two gave it their all in their auditions, and they got in! They weren’t aware of the fact that the other had auditioned as well though, it was meant to be a surprise from both of their ends. They laughed about it after finding out. Since the musical is still being written (I don’t have enough songs for the story yet :() they have some extra time to get to know their fellow cast members and get familiarized with the theatre.

Both these main character sets have an extra member however, with being two sets of triplets and all. Nem and Morningstar, while not exactly jealous of their sibling’s roles, aren’t exactly thrilled about missing out on all the fun. At least at first. They used to joke with one another about how they’d make their own musical behind everyone’s backs.

And that’s the lore for now! Check in next time for some character movement notes!

We hoped you enjoyed this little peak at Sunrise Arc Theatre and we hope to see you soon!

[lgbtqreads]

hi! gay uncle book shopping for my trans nephew, he's 17 now so he's moving more toward adult fiction, he likes lyrical and slightly tragic books, he loved Song of Achilles, is reading Call Me By Your Name (and enjoying it) I was thinking about getting him House of Impossible Beauties and Dayspring, but I'd love some recommendations of books in that vain, adult, new adult or robust YA with a poetic writing style and maybe a little sad/tragic, bonus points if it has a transmasc main/major character because its always hard to find good books with trans male characters

The best uncles are book shopping uncles! In YA I really love Beating Heart Baby by Lio Min, which definitely has some sadness and a transmasc main character (and lovely writing). Another great one with a transmasc lead is Man O’War by Cory McCarthy; highly recommend. And one of YA’s most gorgeous writers, in my opinion but also many award committees’, Anna-Marie McLemore, has three books with trans boy leads: When the Moon Was Ours (m/f magical realism), Self-Made Boys (a historical t4t m/m Gatsby reimagining), and Venom & Vow (which is epic trans/bigender fantasy co-written with their husband, Elliot McLemore.) I’d say those are the most literary YA options, though if your nephew might like things with more of a thriller/horror bent, check out Andrew Joseph White’s books as well, starting with Hell Followed With Us.

In Adult, definitely check out The Thirty Days of Night by Zeyn Joukhadar (more literary) and Rules for Ghosting by Shelly Jay Shore (more commercial, but definitely hits the sad and lovely beats), and if he’s up for historical, Confessions of the Fox by Jordy Rosenberg, All the White Spaces by Ally Wilkes, or more horror-adjacent, The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo. 

For books on my radar in 2025, in case he wants stuff to look forward to, I’d keep The In-Between Bookstore by Edward Underhill and Notes from a Regicide by Isaac Fellman on your radar, and I know Andrew Joseph White has an adult called You Weren’t Meant to Be Human coming up at some point, though that might be 2026.

Every one of those books fits the Ask with a trans male main character, so I hope you find some great books for him to love! 

[gen0ration9k]

This is my Dusttale: Obsessed Monster take. Since it was not intended to stray too far from the canon and instead fix what I disliked about him, I simply refer to it as "Obsessed Monster Reimagined". Essentially it derived from my other Reimagined dust timeline "Carnos Reimagined DustDust". Essentially after Dust failed and the human reset, his DT caused an anomaly in which his LV reset from Max (twenty) but his stats didn't and he was still considered to be LV twenty but was displayed as zero so he could achieve LV twenty again, but the more he climbed over twenty the more his body deformed and mutated to be monstrous. This takes place after that iteration fails and another reset takes place, enhancing the anomaly a little by making Dust remain the abomination he's become, resetting his LV again but not his stats, and removing the progression cap. Essentially Obsessed was able to climb to LV twenty and keep gaining LV stat bonuses even though his LV remained twenty, so it's like he could still gain LV but it wouldn't show more than twenty. Obsessed Monster never used souls in this au, instead he wanted to defeat the human without the help of souls, he wanted to crush them, to become the new soul of determination and see them suffer as he makes them feel a fraction of the suffering and helplessness he's felt. Sans makes a device and hides, waiting for the human to reach the barrier, and as they do he initiates the device while they're passing through, firing the power of the souls through the human, not killing them but creating a short power burst equivalent of seven human souls, destroying the barrier, allowing Sans to escape while the humans left unconscious. By the time the human awakens, the world has fallen, Sans has personally exterminated all life, both man and beast alike. The human would progress out of ebot and into a ruined city, the sky black from the new moon night. Eventually they'd encounter this newly deformed horrifying Sans, his voice borderline demonic, deep, distorted, and dark. Sans and the human battled, the human struggled but somehow managed to cut him down. However, when Sans was struck to zero, he uttered the words "Did you really think it would be that easy?" Before fading to dust, however he was not dead, the abomination that was Sanses true form, the eldritch horror he had become, appeared on the horizon with it's claws gripping the side of the world, as if holding it steady from orbit. This abomination opened the terrifying maw upon it's chest as it slowly charged a blast, red light shining from it's chest, the humans eyes filled with nothing but unbridled terror as the beam fired, eradicating them and the world. With this, Sans reset, and if the human ever returned, he would grant them the same hell again, and again, and again.

Please keep in mind this is a W.I.P, it and Carno RE were made last night out of boredom

[big-idiot-wolf-boys]

Gonna be rereading NTRE for inspiration on fixing the last chapter because I hate writing Edward and know it can be improved

[aus-from-undertale]

Sans centric aus

("but heart mod, isn't that all of them?")

(well yeah- but um ... Yeah... I guess...)

Original Sans

Ut-mob- gangster sans takes care of a strange human

Reapertale- reaper sans messed up the job

Sans the seraphim-sans takes Frisk soul and opens the barrier

Darker yet darker sans is a gaster experiment

Handplate- still being experimented

Stand in- Frans au, where sans can't get over a soulless pacifist run

Littletale- sans is smol

Timetale- Salphys au about sans life

Weabootale-Shitpost sans

Insomnia- Sans sleep is having a bad time

Cybertale- monsters surviving with technology wants to go back home

How to greet a new pal- Undertale sans ends up on Underfell universe

Underlust reimagined - sans got it hard (pun)

Ut gangster au- Mob sans!

Something's missing- is it fair to put this here?

Hollowtale- hollow knight lives with the bone bros

Unexpected guests- bones bros gain pet gaster blasters!

Bark at the moon - the bone bros BECOME gaster blasters

Underorquestra- sans is a maestro

Leaf gaster bros-daily life of the gaster bros

Flowey possession - Flowey helps sans protect papyrus =)

Anothertale- sans tries to stop genocide from the beginning but it gets worse

Doormaker- sans from Undertale and deltarune are the same!

Merges

Echotale- gaster and sans merge after an experiment gone wrong

Mergetale-Frisk and sans merge after an accident

Bromalgamate-sans and papyrus merge accidentally after a lot determination

Gaster blaster- Sans merged with his blaster!

Damaged!tale- after a genocide route gone wrong, papyrus, sans and Frisk become one!

Fatal!error- literal merge between Error!sans and Aftertale sans

Paper crane- merge of many sans

Sixbones- amalgamation between sans and papyrus

Underfell

Soulfell- edgy sans loves hot topic

The skeleton games- post pacifist sans lives nearby a vampire

Feline good- sans became a cat and wants to turn back!

Heavenfell- Frisk goes to die and ends up on the underground

Songfell- Frans au where Frisk is a priest dealing with a large monster

Underswap

Buttontale- Sans is coraline

Underforgotten- genocide route where just sans is alive :(

Bad x Good sanses

Warverse- every au collides with each other and a war begins!

Let dust be a reader!- the bad sanses wants to chill

Dreamtale- Story about the life of the twins Dream and Nightmare

Blue and the bad sanses- blue is being really underappreciated!

OC

Killer!sans- after many resets, sans accepts a proposition

Ink!Sans- born as a sketch, this sans has no emotions

Eclipstale- other take on dreamtale

Dreamtale 0- more sinister beginning to the dreamtale story

Errortale- someone who likes to watch novelas and cause chaos!

Aftertale- after many resets, sans finds someone on the menu

Undertone- blind and timid sans deals with a genocide

Alterverse- Sans with the toriel role!

Underfresh- a parasite with good vibes!

Asylumtale-Sans is not well

Paperjam- mix between ink and error!

Parasitetale- Sans will do anything to live

Terrortale- sans that is a mix between Underfell and underlust!

Tidetale- a robot created for sans!

Naturetale- sans is vegan

Goth- ship child

Chance!tale- magician sans with a complicated past

Ferntale- sans with plant powers

Undersource- sans won't take more suffering any longer

Soulbound- sans injects himself with determination and it doesn't go well

Impostortale- a copycat ends up on the underground

Underwar,- it's not a war between monsters and humans, but monsters and demons!

Undergut- the underground is HUNGRY

Sintale- sans is sloth

Anxietytale- sans is anxious

Basic!sans- sans had his code messed up :(

Sunny- sans who has a bit of every character within

Irrsintale- bone bros were formed by crystals!

Fileverse- sans is born from a drawing!

[windforestsso]

What area do people want to be updated the most?

I think area wise there is all of the harvest contries (minus greendale) and south hoof peninsula. I dont think south hoof havent even gotten a texture upgrade like the rest of the map.

And as settlements that havent been upgraded yet there is Cape West, Silverglade Vineyard, Jarlaheim, Jorvik Stables, Cresent Moon Village, New Hillcrest Firgrove.

In my opinon I would love to see the acient tree + stone circle in south hoof to be updated. And the swamp north of hillcrest to be updated. Also Jarlaheim. But for now I think it works. Same for Firgrove village and new hillcrest are new enough to not needing an upgrade for awhile.

While Cape West Im worried for. I love it for what it is and with the look of it, it looks like SSO will completly reimagine areas when updating them. I dont want Cape west to change that much, just to have a texture upgrade.

[hate-love12]

good morning gamers im here revitalising my hypothetical g6 (again)

i felt weird that all of my previous mane 3 were from g3 so i decided to keep minty but switch out starsong and kimono for two others- mystic moon (a reimagining of moon shadow from g2) and honeycomb from g1.

i've written some descriptions on them but i'll keep them under the cut

Peppermint “Minty” Stockings has a big heart, running a candy store alongside her mother Spearmint. She can be quite clumsy and airheaded, but she always has good intentions. She isn’t a pushover however, having worked in retail for long enough to know how to put on a false smile and work around people. Minty tends to speak rather quickly, having a habit of not thinking about her words before she says them, which makes her fear being seen as annoying or saying something she didn’t mean. She has a sock collection and likes various arts and crafts activities- mostly scrapbooking. Minty is Pansexual and has undiagnosed ADHD. 

Mystic Moon is the one with the brain cells. Though she can seem majestic, she’s truly a huge nerd and loves learning about the world around her. She grew up very sheltered due to her status as a noblewoman but has since left her home behind to travel with her new friends. She has a child-like wonder and curiosity but also knows a bad idea when she sees one and is experienced enough with high-class ponies to be able to tell when somepony is using her, though this leads to her being distant with strangers at first. Mystic Moon is a fan of tarot cards and more obscure sources of magic like artifacts or scrolls rather than her horn’s magic. She is Aro-Ace and Autistic. 

Honeycomb is a queen bee with a strong soul. She knows what she wants and when she wants it, and though she comes off as aloof and snobby she is really as sweet as her name implies. Truth is, coming from a poorer family, she’s trying to earn the life she wishes she could have with her eye for nature and wonderful flower gardens. Honeycomb has a habit of immediately being suspicious of people that approach her unless it’s for business, but once friendship is gained, she wouldn’t hesitate to drop anything and everything to be there for you. Besides her flowers, she also occasionally plants vegetables, fruits, and other such plants- using them to cook delicious meals for herself and her friends. She’s Biromantic and Asexual. 

[funhouse-mirror-barbie]

So I actually really enjoyed the little HB short with Millie and Sallie Mae.

I thought it was cute and it was breath of fresh spring air to get some scenes with JUST woman characters interacting and talking about their relationship.

That said, after watching, it just made me realize how much I want an ACTUAL episode exploring Millie and her background.

At the end of the short we get that brief conversation about Sallie Mae seeming to feel left behind when Millie moved to the city, and that honestly should have been the plot of the harvest moon festival imo.

Little reimagining of how Harvest Moon Festival could have used the basic premise/conflict in Hell’s Belles to develope Millie more and give us a better insight into her character. (Also after typing all of this out I realized I misspelled Sallie May’s name, and I’m too tired to go back and fix it please do not bully me rip 😭🪦)

So, Instead of having Moxxie compete with striker, what if we’d learned that Millie left home because she had an inferiority complex due to constantly being compared to Sally Mae, who could be the “golden child” of the family.

Maybe Sally Mae and Millie have always had a really fierce sibling rivalry, and Millie has struggled a lot with measuring up to her sister.

Striker could be not only the new farmhand, but Sally Mae’s new boyfriend. Instead of the conflict being Moxxie’s feelings of inferiority to Striker, further tension could come from Millie being upset that her parents are so accepting of Sally Mae’s partner while not approving of her’s.

Millie could be the one to find Striker’s assassin gear, and Striker manages to knock her out like he did Moxxie. Instead of Moxxie stabbing Striker like Millie did in the actual episode, it’s Sally Mae who catches Striker and stabs him to try and save her sister. The way this could be set up could also be a nice establishing character moment for Sally Mae—she’s dating Striker, but the moment she sees her sister in danger she doesn’t hesitate to try and save her sister.

Striker throws Sallie Mae and Millie into the basement, and Sallie Mae is the one to get her leg in the bear trap.

They have a sister heart to heart, where Millie expresses her frustration for not being able to take Striker out on her own and feeling like she’s always been in Sallie Mae’s shadow.

Sallie Mae could then reveal that she’s always been jealous of Millie for being her own person and going against their parent’s wishes by striking out on her own moving to Imp City. Maybe Sally Mae has always been afraid of disappointing their parents, but wishes she could also leave the farm. Or Idk, maybe she’s always been the “golden child” because she’s been trying to impress Millie, and not their parents, because she admires her sister. There’s a lot of different sibling rivalry/insecurity conflicts and dynamics that could be used here.

The main point is that they come to an understanding in the basement, Sallie Mae gives Millie a pep talk and lets her know that she can do this and take down Striker.

Millie escapes the basement and the episode plays out like it does in the actual show. Instead of Millie getting talked down to her parents at the end, it’s Sally Mae, and when they criticize Sally Mae for getting hurt and try to praise Millie for getting out of the basement and chasing Striker away with Blitzø, Millie stands up for herself and her sister, stopping her parents from pitting the siblings against each other like they did in the past.

The sisters leave on good terms and the day is saved or whatever. They hug goodbye, and promise to stay in touch more and visit soon.

This could potentially help set up the idea of Millie having an inferiority complex and struggling with not believing she’s important that, in my opinion, comes out of absolutely nowhere in “Unhappy Campers”. If it’s established early that Millie has always struggled with feeling less-than in comparison to Sallie Mae and her siblings, it makes a lot more sense that she’d be so excited with the attention she receives in Unhappy Campers. And that she’d be extra upset by Moxxie’s lack of support.

Also for anyone asking “what about moxxie” idk. helluva boss loves their b and c plots so maybe there could be a slapstick bit where Millie’s brothers keep trying to wrestle Moxxie, so Moxxie is always hiding from them or getting tackled by them. Or maybe Moxxie could be really excited to try and bond with Millie’s family and get to know them more, so he keeps trying to connect with them in different awkward ways. Whatever. This is Millie’s episode now, I don’t care what moxxie does.

This is a very very basic re-imagining, and it’s definitely been done before and can be cliche. I want to make it really really clear that I’m NOT writing this out as a “fix-it”.

More of just a “what-if” and wishing about what may have been in terms of Millie getting more character development in the show proper, instead of getting a tiny bit of development and background info in a 5 minute short.

It’s just a shame because I’d love to have more concrete development for Millie. The short gave us a LITTLE insight into her and Sallie May’s characters, but it feels like we’re still being given crumbs about who Millie is as a character after a season and a half.

We should know more about her by now other than “likes violence/is good at fighting” and “is cheerful”. And also feels unimportant sometimes even thought she’d never given any indication that she’d ever struggled with that before.

Also I don’t think the voice direction for Sally Mae was done well. I liked her voice in “Harvest Moon” but it felt like the voice actress was struggling with keeping the southern accent in tact + sounding natural.

Overall, I did really like the short, but it also made me kind of sad for what could have been in terms of giving Millie more of the spotlight.