#aka THERE WAS NO RESEARCH

[butchratchettruther]

Studying language and gender is so embarassing on the behalf of linguistics. It’ll be like in the 1970s this researcher concluded that women’s speech is inherently inferior and that they don’t actually think when speaking. His research is based on post cards and his own experience. He wrote a book on it and everyone believed it. 

[spicymancer]

Skincare Routine

Monster Researcher Andie continues to study gorgons.

Happy Year of the Snake!

[blackkatdraws2]

[Toon x Mobster] Chapter 1: First encounter.

Next - (chapter list)

Jack Desmond was running under the heavy rain with a bag over his head, as he had given his umbrella to an old lady on his way home. It was an act of generosity that wasn't out of place in the whimsical place of cartoons.

He almost missed the dark shape sprawled out in an alleyway. Nothing too unusual, maybe some ne'er-do-wells or a goofy character caught in some mishap, but somehow, his gut told him that it felt different. Disturbingly out of place.

Faintly, his nose picked up on a worrying scent. Hesitant yet worried, he trudges closer, his shoes being tainted with red as he knelt down beside the dark figure. “Hey, buddy, you alright?” he called out, voice full of concern. His fingers tentatively touched the man’s shoulder.

Jack gasped, pulling his hand back quickly. His fingers were smeared with something deeply red and thick. His brain slowly processes what he's seeing, unbelieving. With the scent being washed down by the heavy rain, he pulls his palm closer to his nose to take a sniff.

His spine crawls and he jolts up, confused eyes shaking yet staying transfixed on the injured person as he stumbles backwards. He takes a closer look at the man's face- or, just his entire self for that matter. Staring back at him was a foreign face twisted into a harsh scowl, unconscious. Deep scars crisscrossed his face, making him look rather villainous.

This guy wasn’t a Toon. The thick dark coat, those scars- the blood. This man was from another Genre, one that didn’t belong in their streets of lighthearted fun.

His eyes caught sight of the gun tucked into the man’s coat, confirming Jack’s fears.

He's a Grim… perhaps a Guktav member?

The Guktav is one of the biggest and most influential criminal syndicates in the Grim genre where this gloomy-looking person probably came from. These men were dangerous, he'd better make a run for it just in case the assailant of this scene was still nearby.

Unsettled and too riddled with uncertainty and fear, he'd planned to just mind his own business and skedaddle… but his foot stayed planted where they stood, eyes transfixed on the wounded Grim man.

The more he stared, the more the puddle of blood spread.

The rain made the blood travel to the soles of his shoes quicker, and Jack’s stomach churned. He’d never seen anything like this before, not in this city. Life here has always been peaceful and non-life threatening despite the slapstick gags of silly violence people were hit with, but this? This wasn’t funny. This sight made his innards twist.

Jack glanced down at his palms, still stained with blood. The rain hadn’t washed it away, no matter how hard it came down. Starting to get a bit dizzy, he slowly starts to walk away.

Authorities… He should go call the authorities.

…

His feet stops not too far away, and the rain comes down harder than before.

"…Oooh-! Applesticks!" Jack curses, turning back with a huff and stomping back towards the man. “This is a bad idea.” He muttered to himself, shaking his head as he bent down again-

Jack's heart nearly leapt out of his chest when the man's gruff hands grabbed unto his arms and pulled him down, bloodshot eyes glaring straight at him. Jack's legs felt weak, his knees buckling and harshly hitting the bloody floor, terrified as the man's stare told him all he needed to know.

Do anything bad and he'd kill him.

The man's eyelids twitched, pupils rolling back. His large body collapsed on top of the smaller man, making Jack stutter as he fell on his bum, unable to balance himself. Jack lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding, staring at the unconscious man lying limp on his stomach, staining Jack's suit with his blood.

Jack Desmond swallows hard, his heart wavering. Should he really do this?

[This chapter has been edited.] _

Next - (chapter list)

[vicmillen]

Accidental Villain Lair Acquisition

Team Phantom fleed Amity after a bad run with GIW. They found themselves in Gotham, then proceed to discover some interesting things underneath the city.

There is a natural spring of ectoplasm, for one. Not as pure as realms quality, but beggers choosers and whatever.

Then there's the messed up group of enthralled liminals too.

In other words, the court of owls are not having a good time at all. And Team Phantom accidentally become the new court. Yay...?

Bonus:

Danny:if I get a penny every time I gained the right to rule by rite of conquest, I'll have two. Which isn't a lot but... Why the fudge does this keep happening???

[crow-caller]

Getting a suspicion this book isn't very good

Lightlark3 is somehow. How do I put this. Worse. The prose is really, really bad, and Aster operates on a baseline of having 'pretty bad prose'

Gee, I wonder if writing and releasing skyshade, plus writing her new adult book, plus a new bonus lightlark book and the 4th due next year... might be resulting in even less editing?

[nobleriver]

Rick and Michonne Grimes - Their Journey Over the Years

It's a broken world, Michonne. And you're the only thing that puts it back together. Til my last breath I am yours.

[glitter-stained]

I always feel like a little sad seeing posts about how Jason's character is inherently tragic and that's what makes it good, how him being unloved, a tragic consequence of his own actions, is inevitable, and how that shouldn't change because any change on that regard is a fundamental misunderstanding of his character. Yes, Under the Hood is a tragedy. Yes, Jason survived and for a long time people have been pretty confused at what to do with the character that survives the tragic ending. That doesn't mean he should continue to be trapped in the tragedy, that there's only value in him as long as he's unloved. And maybe that's me preaching and being a party pooper again but the idea that the teenage-to-young adult character with a mental illness that has damaged all his relationships is doomed to be lonely and have bad/upended relationships forever, that he's only good as a character as long as he's hurting others and/or himself (and usually both) and isolated because of this... It's sad, at the very least. I refuse the presumption that tragedies are the only stories wise and worth telling.

Also I personally really dislike the idea that Jason isn't and shouldn't be anyone's favourite, because he made himself nobody's favourite on purpose. Did he make himself a villain on purpose? Fuck yeah. Does any of his early attempts at reaching out to people hurt them? Indubitably. I maintain that this is because he wants to be someone's favourite as he is, at his worst, with his hands covered in blood. And I think he should be. (Without contradicting or damaging, by comparison, the relationships between other characters, that's the tightrope we need to be weary of when making such things, of course.)

It's like this: love, in most relationships, is conditional: you don't owe your friend or your partner to continue to love them if the relationship changes, if you change, if you become violent etc. If my girlfriend started murdering puppies, I would stop loving her. Ideally, however a parent's love for their child is unconditional. That's very often unfortunately not the case, but ideally it'd be, it's really not great for a kid to have zero parents that love them unconditionally. And most importantly, it's not just about actual unconditional love, it's about it being perceived. So it doesn't matter in the debate if Bruce actually loves Jason in spite of the murder, it matters that Jason asks for confirmation of it at the end of UTH and receives a negative answer. (similar arguments to be made about Catherine loving Jason and dying of drug overdose and Willis going to jail and dying - it's the potential perceived abandonment of it that would matter, not their agency and actual love. And it's not a question of whether he would be angry at it so much as that he'd yearn and hurt for it. And of course Sheila didn't love him at all.) That's why he, upon learning about Mia and reaching previously unknown to man levels of projection*, tries to rally her with the hope that, because she's "so similar to him" she would understand him. That's why upon learning about Dick "killing" Blockbuster Jason, again projecting more violently than a bullet, Jason makes Dick into his new favourite person (god, the concept behind BiB has so much potential why did it have to suck so bad...) Anyway, Jason to me is a character with a very intense, very overwhelming conception of love both in who he loves and how, who struggles to understand that other people love and show it differently, and it makes so much sense for him to keep looking for a person who will love him unconditionally (something that's both very rare and not necessarily healthy since, again, most relationships aside from parent-child relationships do not and probably should not include unconditional love). This is particularly interesting in the context of him having bpd (again, using bpd because i'm focusing on the interpersonal dimension that's been mostly studied within that frame) because BPD often functions around a vicious circle of "is afraid of rejection/abandonment -> does maladaptive behaviour in attempt to prevent rejection/abandonment OR protect oneself by being the one to leave first" which is what leads to the instability in relationships. It's a doomed prophecy: i have maladaptive patterns that make me think my girlfriend is gonna leave me at any time, I keep demanding to see her phone, assuming she's cheating everytime she leaves and thus demonizing her even though I was glorifying her five minutes earlier" then she's going to leave me, which is gonna reinforce my thought pattern that everyone always leaves me. But that also means that in rare instances in which the other person in the interact, for whichever reason, sticks around through that, then these incorrect thought patterns begin to change through the sheet logic of extinction: if i think that people always leave me because of something fundamentally wrong with me and people don't leave then eventually the idea that people are doomed to abandon/reject me is going to lose its power. That's, btw, an important part of why therapy works.

(*that one's a joke, btw. He's not projecting onto mia and dick to levels impossible to mankind, just pretty intensely. Very human levels of projection, might I add'. Just to clarify.)

Now, be mindful: I'm not saying make Jason an abusive boyfriend. I'm not saying put him in a relationship where the other stays because they're afraid of him, that's not unconditional love or acceptance that's just fear. Of course, the ideal version of it would be Jason goes to therapy but because dc hates me specifically this is never gonna happen, but imagine him being in a relationship, romantic or otherwise, with someone who is as intense and "unwell" about him as he is about them. I'm not saying it would fix him (again, get him so goddamn therapy jfc) but it would change him. And just as it doesn't have to be healthy it doesn't have to be tragic.

I was asked a while ago my thoughts on Jason's current stagnancy as a character and if I thought he could become interesting again, and I said yes and talked about the directions I dream would be explored with his character and their potential. My answer hasn't changed, and it's completely compatible with this, but I will add: I think Jason as a character has largely and for long enough been defined through his yearning to be somebody's favourite, and that if you want his mode of interacting with others and dynamic with different characters to change then this is a very logical way to do it. And it would make a lot of sense for it to be the catalyst for other changes in his character (ie in his name or philosophy).

Get that boy into a super intense long-term codependent situationship, is what I'm saying. Please.

[loverducky]

emperor!stsg x gn gladiator!reader; 0.4k words

you feel their eyes on you as you fight.

your sword clangs against your opponents', once, twice, three times before you dance backwards, narrowly avoiding a stab aimed at your stomach.

the two of you retreat from one another, circling and assessing each other in turn. he takes his paces with a slight limp, its source a thin cut across the meat of his calf. he's an older fighter, one with a few victories - and a few more losses - under his belt. he's a good entertainer, though, and so the crowd has called for mercy each time he's fallen to his knees.

mercy, granted each time by the gods that watch you now.

you, a new fighter in these games. not the newest, of course, but new enough to have skin yet unmarred with scar tissue, able to fight without phantom pains crowding your mind and making you slow. you're experienced enough in combat, though, to know your advantages.

your opponent is wounded; you are not. he fights like a soldier; you do not. however, your greatest advantage is thus:

your opponent is known, and you are not.

your name, your voice, your strategies - all have been carefully guarded. your anonymity makes you interesting, to the crowd and emperors alike, and interesting gladiators are the ones who survive.

you keep yourself low to the ground as you break the circle and charge towards him. your opponent braces, his eyes on your sword, his blade raised in defense.

with a sharp inhale, you part your lips - the sound that leaves them is not one that could ever be considered human. it’s the guttural scream of a wounded animal, and the soldier in front of you flinches but for a moment.

it’s all you need. the distance closed, your sword flashes through the air. the heavy thud of metal on dirt is followed by slow, soft drops of fresh crimson; you kick your opponents’ sword away as he clutches at his hand. the collective around you holds their breath, and it's only now that you dare to meet their gazes.

emperor gojo’s eyes are bright, blue as the endless sky above you and wide with excitement that you’d almost call boyish.

emperor getou’s eyes, on the other hand, smolder like volcanic ash, dark and narrow and curious.

his fist outstretches. the crowd roars. and you’re walking towards the barracks before the body hits the floor.

[susivoi]

Some wholesome drawings that I made to relax and get myself back into doing art after settling down in my new place.

[mammoth-clangen]

Do you have any source websites about mesozoic wildlife/ecosystems? I want to make a clangen or just comic thing about some form of dinosaur (either the microraptor, velociraptor, or kulindadromeus) and I'd like to figure out what other species were a part of their life

Nope sorry, research is rarely that easy buuuuut...

*cracks knuckles*

H'okay I have some advice but it'll probably be long and rambly.

Disclaimer:

I am a professional Nothing and am not an authority on anything. There is no right or wrong, this is just how I Personally do research.

Short answer:

Work out what geological formation(s) your chosen main-character-species is found in and Wikipedia it. (E.g. Kulindadromeus is fron the Russian Ukureyskaya Formation). Then go to Wikipedia's sources and skim at least the abstracts of scientific papers to get an idea if things.

If the Formation is lacking info, try searching the Epoch they're from. By that I mean "middle Jurassic" not just "Jurassic" 'cause each of these is already Huge, you want a decent idea of the overallworld they lived in! (Better yet, get it to stage, like Callovian or Maastrichian)

Also learn to draw ferns, lots of ferns, there's no grass in the Mesozoic so the groundcover is Weird cx

Long answer

(to be considered before even getting to the above step):

When choosing a setting for a story, particularly a paleo one, I find it useful to decide on what kind of story I want to tell first, then pick a species that compliments that.

A clangen, for example, relies heavily on the species being very social (such as herding hadrosaurs or sauropods). Telling a story about a lone traveller might be better with a large pterosaur or wandering ceratopsian. A story about warring factions would be better set a high competition environment like the Kem Kem or Morison, with several fighting predator guilds. Conversely a story about working through personal differences may be better with different species of herbivores living in symbiosis; hadrosaurs and ornithomimids acting like modern gazelles and zebras.

Etc etc

Choosing a species first is fine, but you'll likely have to work the story around what makes sense within that! Otherwise you end up with the aforementioned social tigers and patriarchal hyenas.

Also don't shrink-wrap your dinosaurs im begging on my hands and knees

tl;dr: research everything, choosing a species before a story is climbing ass-first up a tree, Wikipedia is your friend because they compile and summarise primary sources

[chaoticly-shy-dragon]

Whoever wrote that percy jackson au of the dead boy detectives, you live under my skin and I love you. So much so that my brain tried to think of a way to make it even more canon-accurate without making them dead. or reborn Hazel Levesque style.

What I have so far is playing on the whole West civilization bit and how it moved to the.. well west - but also that World War 2 was a big three kid conflict? So. I have sort of a time-table and I'm throwing it out of the window.

Edwin is a child of Athena - that much stays the same - who is very bookish and very studious but not in the way the rest of his siblings are. They are handy and crafty, strategic and interested in architecture or design. He.. is not. (I need a reason why his siblings didn't come to help him when the "death scene" happens.)

The whole boarding school is one of many spread across the London countryside - Chiron moves a lot. They teach both ancient and modern warfare because magic or not you can't escape the bloodshed forever - you either get drafted or you run and get blacklisted somewhere or another.

(St Hilarion was actually a son of Apollo that got really popular during the Crusades - Zeus didn't smite the school when it was established because times are different and Hera would be angry if there was another big fire with no explanation that put their soldiers'- eh-hem- kids' lives at risk.)

They still teach Latin alongside Greek because it was what all normal boarding schools did and that's what they were. Maths, English, and Sciences - were all taught to the boys. The girls went to another school - where they were taught the bare minimum to survive. Because sexism was rampant and if the Romans were on the wrong side of the civil war, that means no matter how progressive the gods could have been in certain areas, they aren't now/then–

Artemis really, really hated that time period. Zoë or this version of Zoë got a kick out of shooting so many assholes in the face. Or in their dicks. They also got way more recruits than in later years. Silver lining.

Anyways: Simon - son of Hecate - and the bunch of boys, one of which was a son of Hades, do the whole let's sacrifice Edwin. Only the book is a Christian book on witchcraft that Simon truly didn't think would work. He and the rest - Hades boy included - did the whole preparation of the sacrifice as it was absolutely terrifying for Edwin to experience on top of everything else. They didn't know it was a real thing - but is the only reason why Edwin stays alive.

It's essentially a stasis charm that lets the ritual run for as long as needed without the poor victim dying beforehand. It requires bloodletting and "runes" and such. The thing is scary, traumatizing stuff so it seemed like a fun thing for Simon and his buddies to do. So they did it.

They skimmed the reading. Blood with power is spilled, ritual that is very real gets haphazardly done and so monsters get involved.

Fun fact, that I'm really hoping is actually true - sometimes monsters with names similar to other religions' occult beings pick up the summoning calls. If the ritual is shoddy enough for them to hear, the participants all die either way, it's only important who gets there first.

So. The bullies get killed and a fury-type thing drags Edwin's whole being to the fields of punishment so it can feast on its offering. He gets dusted Sally Jackson style.

We enter his hell era. ( Part 2, Part 3, TBC )

[sisaloofafump]

Sneakin 🐾

[chiropteracupola]

1 page down 39 pages to go everyone please cheer and clap while I drag myself hand over hand up this awful cliff

[poedays]

Hush’s opacity is at 60%

[identityquest]

I recently found some old sketches for my Kentucky-based fakemon project and decided to clean em up. These two lines are based on the state butterfly, the Viceroy, and its Müllerian mimic, the Monarch.

Both would be a simple bug/flying combo, but I think it'd be cool if they had abilities that played together when they're sent into double battles. Maybe something that increases evasion and defense when they're on the battlefield at the same time, or maybe something niche like a chance to poison opponents when hit with Lick or Bite.

[mokeonn]

Worked my new job at the pet store today and I accidentally scared a hamster. So im gonna make it up to him by giving him a loving home