#also how do you draw iceland...?

[sweet-rabbit]

perspective what's that yeah i started drawing just norway reading then once got past the head, uh, things happened

[simplydnp]

WAD: Cover Art

dan is still working on selling the distribution rights for We're All Doomed! so i decided to make some DVD/Blu-ray disc jacket art!

this is my attempt at a traditional jacket design! none of the images used are mine, but i did create the concept and design:

as i was making the first one for myself, i was struck by the fact that 'well, it's for me, so it doesn't have to look like a stereotypical jacket cover' which led me to be more artsy in my approach for the next one:

i was really enjoying the creativity and space to explore, so i went looking for more inspiration for a third design. this led me to dan's favourite Muse album: Origin of Symmetry, which i paid homage to:

after the first Muse album, i looked at their catalogue to see if there was more inspiration there. i was just thankful dan's favourite was easy stylistically to mimic, unlike say, 2009's The Resistance...

thank you @danielhowell for the inspiration!

nerdy stuff & reference pics below the cut!

General notes

i don't know how to use photoshop! i entirely brute-forced my way through the whole project, and the only tutorial i looked up was for the gradient text in the 4th cover

this wasn't even the original project i was working on! you'll eventually get to see that though

and this one also inspired art for the disc itself so stay tuned ���

i will do anything for authenticity so these are Full of intentional details

matching fonts is a nightmare

the traditional cover

took the longest, as it was the first.

the barcode numbers are the date of the first video he uploaded on dinof, and the last tour show date (in m/d/y)

i changed 'iceland' to 'poland' on the front cover, as he never actually went to iceland, and poland wasn't ever on the list even though he did go there

the orange may look a little off-center in the front, but these designs need to include space for a spine between the front and back cover, i promise it's right 😂

the black and white cover

inspired by the 'i want to believe' aliens poster

the cover art comes from his metal band merch shirt design

i had to manually shrink the text, line by line, and ensure it all lined up on the back!

i even made the logos on the back greyscale

the Muse: Origin of Symmetry cover

a shockingly perfect style for a WAD cover. i'm so glad i used the cubes, even if they couldn't be orange.

there's some versions of the art online where the sky is even more orange and it baffles me how i haven't seen any parallels like this before

the Muse: The Resistance cover

this cover was never supposed to see the light of day! i meant it when i said i was grateful i didn't have to try to adapt this complex design... and yet, i tried anyway.

i did all the grid lines by hand, including the jagged/broken edge parts, shading each section, and then drawing every star.

the hardest part was getting the gradient on the back text to cooperate. photoshop's gradient settings are surprisingly limited

gotta shout out @amazingphil for being the reason i knew what this cover looked like--it's the only muse album i knew the art of before embarking on this quest!

obligatory sob story:

i've been extremely and suddenly ill for 6 months. it is difficult to function moment to moment, but especially in doing little things just for me. this is the first and only art project i've been able to feel inspired to not only work on, but to finish, and despite the pain and long hours, i enjoyed every minute of it. thank you, dan, for creating this space for me to explore, and thank you, everyone here, for being wonderful support during this time 💞

[hetalia-club]

Hetalia characters but it’s what kind of kid in Highschool they would have been. (I’m going off American/Canadian high school types because I am American)((Midwest to be more specific))

America- the jock who took dodge ball way too seriously. Would throw the ball way to hard. He really took all of Gym class way too seriously.

Canada- was the Hockey Meathead. Also took Gym way too seriously. And always had a huge dip in his bottom lip and carried around a clear spit bottle.

England- the “um actually” kid. Would correct the teachers with usually wrong information they learned off of the internet or TV, The teachers hate him.

France- class hottie who always skips class but the teachers have like a weird crush on him so they let him do whatever…

Russia- quiet photography kid spends too much time in the red room some think he’s a serial killer but he just is awkward and shy and doesn’t know how to socialize

China- the kid who draws all day every day. Draws dragons and wolves specifically. Will not pay attention in class. Gets in trouble for drawing all the time. People like him a lot though. He will draw you a sick dragon if you ask nicely.

Italy- similar to France. But he does get in trouble for things because he cannot stop talking to save his life.

Romano- is always in detention for his mouth. Has a reputation as a ‘bad kid’ but it’s actually because he just has no filter. At least twice a week if you are in a class with him you will hear the teacher say “Lovino, go to the principals office” and he’ll be like “the fuck did I do?”

Japan- the foreign exchange student everybody loves. Gets invited to all the parties and has dated most of the popular girls in school.

Prussia- the foreign exchange student nobody likes. Gets no bitches. But does not mind.

Germany- Teachers pet. He is the one who will yell at the class to “stfu! The teacher is talking!” Will remind the teachers there was an assignment due.

Spain- The senior foreign exchange student. One of the most well liked kids in school. New S.O every week. Will most likely be Prom King

Austria- sexual active band kid. (If you know you know)

Norway- the kid who always has his headphones in. Doesn’t want to talk to anyone. will just ignore you if you try.

Finland- major frat boy energy. Goes to every house party and gets trashed. He seems to always know where they are happening even if he wasn’t invited he’s still going to show up.

Sweden- the shy/quiet kid who is friends with the party boy he always gets drug along because Finland says he needs to “socialize more” but he always just sits in the corner and waits for someone he knows who is leaving to take him home.

Denmark- another jock. But he is friends with everybody. Will talk to everyone. Floats around the lunch room and does not have a specific clique.

Iceland- the kid who is always asleep in class. Somehow he is passing everything with straight As but he is never awake. Sometimes he’ll not show up to school for like a week. Straight just vapes in class and somehow never gets caught.

[deedala]

✨ weekly tag wednesday ✨

thanks for tagging me @heymacy @energievie and @mybrainismelted !! 💖

(disclaimer: there is presently a glitch with tumblr that only allows you to tag 5 people per line in your text posts. to remedy that, you can separate your tags into different lines as i have at the bottom of this post to ensure that everyone that's tagged knows they've been tagged!)

**

name: deanna

age: noel

your time zone: EST (or apparently EDT currently as its during daylight savings? when it goes from UTC-5 to UTC-4. Time is a construct.)

what do you do for work? i help color other peoples comics

do you have any pets? narp

what first drew you to this fandom? i had tried several times to watch shameless since it started but kept getting turned off by how gross frank was lmao. i really like cameron monaghan though and back in 2022 i was just in a good place (apparently) to finally push through (and skip!!) the gross frank shit and watch the show. i think i watched some of it. and then i went and just watched gallavich scenes on youtube? and then i went BACK and rewatched all of the actual show? over and over again lol. my love of cameron monaghan and shameless's vibe just finally clicked into place amen.

are you a morning person or a night owl? i guess moreso a night person since i suffer desperately from revenge bedtime procrastination. but also at the same time i dont like sleeping in very late either or itll feel like the whole day fucked. but also i wanna sleep for 9 hours.

what are your hobbies? tv and film enjoyer, drawing, reading, video games, being silly

how tall are you? 5'2" or 157cm (please help me reach the things on the top shelf)

if you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live? iceland? ireland? new zealand? ...really into lands ig

favorite color? mint green

favorite book? the masked empire by patrick weekes still holds this spot

favorite movie? the fall, the eagle, love and monsters, princess bride, the mummy, vampire academy

favorite fic? intro to quantum dating, cooperative gameplay, fine art of falling for you, love is a ballfield, none the wiser, two of your earth minutes, the menagerie, apotheosis, ma--*the microphone is forcibly removed from my hands*

favorite musical artist: chappell roan, cake, petey, dove cameron

what is your average screen time so far this week? thats none of my business

what's the first app you open in the morning? discord~

how long have you been on tumblr? 12.5 years

finally (and i know this one is hard) tell me a fun fact about yourself: i dunno if its a *fun* fact but i used to be a licensed cosmetologist. i know how to do all the things i just realized i hate interacting with customers and could not bear to carry on with that a career after about a year of it lol

and now i shall tag some precious nuggets who can play or simply accept this offering of a🫸 face squish 🫷😚 @darlingian @too-schoolforcool @michellemisfit @thepupperino @metalheadmickey @softmick @callivich @vintagelacerosette @squirrel-fund @creepkinginc @whatwouldmickeydo @gallawitchxx @mickeysgaymom @suzy-queued @crossmydna @gardenerian @mmmichyyy @tanktopgallavich @rereadanon @heymrspatel @the-rat-wins @iansw0rld @loftec @palepinkgoat @themarchg1rl @jrooc @thisdivorce @blue-disco-lights @sam-loves-seb @sickness-health-all-that-shit @samantitheos @lee-ow @sleepyfacetoughguy @transmickey @lingy910y @tsuga-of-mars @ardent-fox @purplemagpie @captainjowl @wehangout @mikhailoisbaby 💖💖💖

[illwynd]

Utgard-Loki's Tale

I finally got to perform this thing tonight, so I guess it has reached its final form.

This poem is inspired by the traditional Icelandic rhyming poem Lokrur. My adaptation uses a bastard Kalevala metre (trochaic tetrameter), with various features of both Finnish poetry (repetition and alliteration) and Icelandic poetry (alliteration and abundant use of kennings and other wordplay), and I developed it specifically for spoken performance, in accordance with the way the story would originally have been passed along. There's some really geeky shit in here.

Also my thanks to @obligate-rebel who gave me a thumbs-up on an earlier iteration of it :D

...

By men I am called Utgard-Loki

Outlands’ trickster, apt in magecraft,

Skilled in spells and in shape-shifting

One who worked his tricks on wanderers

One who wickedly deceived them

When to his threshold gods came calling

You see, all Thor and Loki knew about me was that I throw all the best parties—what else is there to do when you live way out in the Outlands?—but everyone in attendance has to be the best there is at whatever it is they do, so these two gods... they thought they’d crash my party, cause some trouble, start some fights, show me who’s boss in my own house, and I had to figure out a way to get them to head on home without actually starting a war, because, y'know, that would tend to put a crimp on the party scene. So do you want to know how I managed that trick?

Surely you have heard them tell it?

Heard the tale as they recite it

Heard about Thjalfi, swiftest,

Tricked in foot-race versus Hugi

Passed by one who treads so lightly

Or the contest of the mighty

Rymr, he who calls the thunder,

Put his lips upon the vessel

‘Pon the cup all full and frothy

Froth as white as salty sea-foam

And the thirsty draughts he drew then

Drained the horn—of but a mouthful!

So it seemed by liquid’s level

Sore was he, Midgard’s protector

Falling short in simple trial

Surely you have heard them tell it

Heard the tale as they recite it

Heard how Loki, sly and clever

Set his hunger versus Logi

Chowing down along the trencher

Met the two with crumbs between them

Drawing even, feasts devoured

Loki patting bulging belly

Smirking with his smile ‘broidered

Met they then—but skinny Logi

Ravenous as wolf in winter

He had eaten all the meat…

And all the bones… and all the trencher!

Thus was Laufey’s heir defeated!

And you must have heard them tell it

Heard the tale as they recount it

How the grim one’s son continued

Put him forth another challenge

Boasting of his strength of body

Strength indeed of all his sinews

I set before him then the mouser

Tomcat’s father, hearth’s wee tiger

Purring on the floor before him

That he should test his might upon it

Asa-Thor bent low to grasp it

Bent to wrap his grip around it

Struggling with grunts of effort

Grunting as he tried to lift it

But one paw he barely shifted!

One paw raised above the tiles!

Purring still the feline bore it

As Baldr’s brother failed to heft it!

Fury gripped lord of Bilskirnir

And in his anger bade another

Challenger be brought before him

Said I then I thought my mother

In her youth a wrestler had been

But in her dotage still might suit him

Wroth was he with red beard bristling

Stomping on the mat before him

As Elli hobbled to her corner

But soon she did contrive to hold him

Hold him fast with arms around him

Arms like bands of stubborn iron

Till his knee did bend beneath him

Shamed was Grimnir’s lauded kinsman

Beaten so by woman wizened!

Tell me those are not the stories

More or less as you have heard them

But one voice has not been cited

One has not been heard to tell it

That is me. And if you’ll heed

I’ll tell the legend as I lived it

And each contest I’ve recounted

—true it is that I deceived them

Wanderers of Aesir kindred

But look at it from my perspective

Behold for but the briefest moment

Consider how I first had found them

Sheltering in fingers’ caverns

Cowering within the leather

Where the last night I had left it—

I swear I did not mean to wound them

Or to frighten with my snoring

I was merely heedless taken

Heedless of their headstrong journey

Thus I met them in the morning

Waking to their faces frowning

Trying to be most disarming

Not to give them cause for worry

Then they asked ME where the pathway

To the hall of Utgard-Loki!

I saw it full, the very future

Of which I’d had no foretelling

For they queried after speaking

‘Mongst themselves of doom impending

Doom that they would deal that monster

Dwelling in those halls unknowing

Well!

I endeavored to dissuade them

Placing in their path obstructions

Surely less than cruel misfortunes

Set before them my conditions

If they’d travel with my guidance

They would travel by my schedule

I would call the halts and respites

I would carry all provisions

Thus I handed them frustration

Goaded them to resignation

Alas the doggedness of gods

Was not within my calculations

So, if they’d not be dissuaded

Then ‘twas I must scheme before them

How to meet their whim for action

Without inviting my destruction

Thus I pointed them to pathway

To the door of Utgard-Loki

Once apart I shed illusion

Readied all in preparation

Waited till they came a-hailing

Thunder roaring at my doorway

And ‘twas I that granted entry

Though they did not recognize me

As they came to show their mettle

Prove their might in any challenge

Fain was I to meet their boasting

With my own skill in devising

Thus I placed the end of vessel

From which Odin’s son drank freely

Down upon the dolphin’s doorstep

Thirst could never be so mighty!

Not to drain the fishes’ highway

In this way I meant to thwart him

Meant to tactfully confound him

Meant to make him long for Asgard

Not to linger ‘neath these timbers

Then, said I to ember’s elder,

Let me place on you deception

Garb yourself in Aesir aspect

Shape the hungry tongue within you

Solid where your spark did flicker

That Laufey’s son so sly and able

Might not swiftly recognize you

As he sits down at the table

Thus I spake to Munin’s brother

Of the planned dissimilation:

Wrap yourself in men’s attire

From the ash-wood make your raiment

Lace your boots of supple leather

Then set foot upon the pavement

There to meet Toothgnasher’s wounder

There to race against him striving

Round the path of mead’s lacuna

Thus alike I worked enchantments

On the great snake Midgardsormr

On that serpent world-encircling

One that Thor once snared while sailing

Scales reshaped to furry shoulders

Still he hissed alike I tell you

That one trait you might have noted

Naught else of his essence showing

And then came the last contender

Gracious guest of all the prudent,

Spoils of the years’ survivor

By her leave I did conceal her

Veiled her hair in moonlight’s metal

Bent her back like twisted tree-limb

So Harbard’s son would be no wiser

When she set her hold upon him

In the aftermath of trials

Egos soothed with ale aplenty

I revealed to them my secret

That they would not feel too cheated 

Nor would they feel too affronted

All I wished was their forbearance

Parting then as friendly rivals

So they would crave not for vengeance

For Jotuns have our share of talents

Our own place on World-Tree’s branches

Spells apart from gallows’ knowing

More are we than Aesir’s foemen

There my tale is near completed

But if my tongue’s allowed to waggle 

Somewhat more of gods and giants

And the bitter blood between us

Just a few words I will venture

Fury, I have surely felt it

Anger aching for requital

For accounts all to be settled

Quenched with blood the battle’s metal

But I’ve seen no better ending

Not for bards and not for swordsmen

Than to sit by fire flaming

Telling tales with close companions

Ale in hand and sated, cravings

And all the stars above bright-blazing.

[noctupede]

I love how sweet your interpretation of Iceland seems to be, and you draw him so cute :)

Do you have any HCs for Iceland and Sweden’s relationship? They’re my favourite characters and I’m curious how you view them, I always see Sve as the sort of soft-spoken, supportive big brother Ice sometimes needs, but I’m curious what’s your opinion !

Thank you!!ദ്ദി(｡•̀ ,<)~✩‧₊

I love soft-spoken, supportive big brother sweden. Because I imagine him to be very stable, while norway and iceland are very close, Sweden is a very big stability that you can rely on if you have issues or need someone to rely on for a while.

Iceland views most of the nordic in a very brotherly manner. And Sweden is one of those you can very comfortably just be in the presence with in silence without any discomfort or like awkward silence.

I like the idea of Sweden being the type of being very perceptive, even of monotone people like norway and iceland. So he can easily read if iceland is having a bad day.

Iceland also just sucks at talking about what's bothering him and will get defensive if he is asked directly, so it's always beneficial when Sweden can easily be able to tell and can help out without making iceland feel like he's being interrogated about his feelings.

Overall, they are very wholesome, the few that don't even have any teasing between each other. Very sweet and supportive of each other ദ്ദി(•̀ ᗜ <)

[thornswoggled]

you know what it is. 106 stream of consciousness. lets go

WOW ok just by the thumbnail alone im surprised. i did NOT think we were gonna get to see the rest of hildas scene with lindel so soon. like i had no earthly clue where this chapter was going to start up

chapter title lindel feels very reminiscent of ch1 "future chise" illus

"misery makes strange bedfellows." hmmmm. all small caps too for some reason

yamazaki prepping us to view lindel as a secondary antagonist by drawing his face in shadow like every other frame

ARE THOOOOOOSE FUCKIIIIING DWAAAAARRVES????????? HELLOOOOOOO???????

why did we not meet these thangs the first two times they went to iceland. maybe she decided to add a little spice

oh my god missing subtitles. literal empty bubbles. comicgrowl needs to be dealt with. severely

more talk of eggs and chicks. which could mean nothing

looking at the slider.... this is another slightly longer chapter. huge for a guy like me

OMG we get to see what happened that time rahab summoned them oooooooooo

lindels shirt in this scene is really cunty. sorry. who said that

"this is the 2000s era" ok so we are still playing coy with what year it is. probably a good idea

"my first time meeting the current you." so yamazaki is weaving in the concept that rahab can meet people on different parts of their timeline. which feels a little op and a good deus ex for conflict resolution but thats my own personal beef with timeline fuckery as a plot device

wadda hell. this dragon hatched fully fledged like a damn bulnosaur

ohhhh this dragon is the one flying behind lindel in that one color spread for arc 3. the one i captioned with "whatever. go my dragon"

adolfs protestation about magic is like. yes. i agree. because tamb does not have a robust magic system and its attempts to form a solid action-based plot are largely impotent, which is FINE, we are here for character development anyway. i once made a webcomic with the same problems so i dont mean to throw stones in glass houses but like. yeah the distinction between mages and alchemists and how magic works is not something i have ever been sold on

great callback to chise summoning those wasps in arc 1. i enjoy seeing a scene from the early chapters reimagined in the modern art style. tangent, but in the supplements the note for that scene was something like "chise has never seen this kind of bug in real life so she probably remembered it from a nature documentary"

pokemon-ass messaging here. fucking catch em all

just now noticing the twins got their hair swoop from hilda

"i managed to avoid lying." i was about to ask how exactly he lied but then skipped ahead and read the answer whoops

lindel hurrying hilda out the door but he doesnt even know what she came here for yet. like she didnt get to tell him about the red dragon yet LOL

im also just now realizing that the dragon we saw at the end of 105 was the dragon adolf hatched and not the dragon that cursed chise. ok 🧍‍♂️

"they even forbade me from speaking my language" so i think lindel is implying here that hes part of the sámi people which tracks. i wonder if they were speaking one these languages when he met elias? i still dont know why lindel bothered to ask where elias came from when he could have inferred it from whatever language he spoke

adolf explicitly states that he left germany before ww2 which i think was very funny on yamazakis part (DO NOT GET IT TWISTED, she said, HE IS NOT A NAZI) but at the same time. why was he fleeing british soldiers. maybe they just assumed he was a nazi cuz of his name and accent. idk

ok so its time to go back to school already. silky being convinced that theyll be stuck there for months again is. so funny

"do you think we can ask the college to send letters for us" what do you mean by that. does the college not give you the means to send mail. are you expected to just use the royal mail. why arent you using royal mail anyway. hello

ok so she stomps on the floor and a new door springs up. it looks like an exterior door based on the lock. is this a sort of uhhhh howls moving castle/witch hat atelier windowway sort of situation. is silky going to break into the college so she doesnt have to miss her kid. she looks so stupidly nefarious i know the reason she looks so creepy is going to be funny as fuck

so overall i cant say that lindel and adolf are my fav characters or that i am terribly invested in them so i dont feel i got a TON out of this chapter but i am excited with the last page we got. happy for the lindel enjoyers and the lore dump yall got. i guess im not sure what purpose this new dragon is serving either because its (probably) not related to red vs white dragon conflict. i guess you could say that its a third dragon that emphasizes the importance of choosing your own path rather than being locked in this fated cyclical battle the way the red and white dragons are, which would be in line with tambs greater themes. like a third choice, i guess. adolf is also shaping up to be in a similar position to chise - that is, he has a unique relationship with magic, and his master has to lie for him so he wont be unduly researched lol. i am interested to see how much time we will see chise actually studying or being in class considering all the other things shes now expected to be responsible for. her ass is not studying 💯💯💯

[paikothecateater]

do you have any norway-centered headcanons???

You betcha! In fact, have a mega comp!

Positive stuff:

-he is genuinely the best brother out there. It doesn't matter if he and Iceland are in a fight, Norway will absolutely drop everything without a second thought if Iceland ever says the words 'I need you'

-much like his brother, he is exceptionally good looking.

-he has a great sense of humour.

-he is extremely respectful towards the creatures he sees. All of them.

-whenever he is in no position to do so himself, he asks his creatures to watch over Iceland. Iceland knows about it. He pretends to be irked, but it moves him that Norway cares so deeply.

-he is surprisingly very generous.

-also like his brother, his voice is beautiful and he also has a very soothing tone.

And of course, the negatives:

-he can be a bit sloppy.

-he's a little mean to everyone except Iceland.

-can come across as conceited.

-extremely petty and passive aggressive.

-has trouble expressing emotions.

Buncha bonus stuff:

-learned how to play the piano so Iceland (who plays violin) wouldn't be the only one who plays an instrument, but ended up genuinely falling in love with the piano.

-he used to be a huge insomniac, but found that being near Iceland helps him fall asleep easier, so he began randomly walking into Iceland's room every night to talk and mess around until they both fall asleep.

-he loves Denmark's cooking, but as I've mentioned, he's too petty to let Denmark know.

-whenever he's put in a situation where he has to side with either Denmark or Sweden, he'll ditch the situation and side with Finland instead (who likely wasn't even involved)

-when Iceland was younger, Norway refused to hang out with him because he himself had barely exited the broody teenager club and rule number one of that club is that younger siblings are lame, but now that he's in the clingy young adult club, he constantly wants to hang out with his suddenly cool younger brother, who now as a teenager, has an actual social circle, unlike Norway and therefore can't be there to hang out with Norway all the time.

-he casually draws smiley faces on any random paper left unattended.

-he makes his own hairclips and has made a few for Iceland.

Thank you so much for the ask!

[fornasedensgudar]

Hello! I have a questions but i'm not sure if there's even an answer: do you know whether there is a norse or continental germanic god/goddess that is associated with wind??

Oh Im so glad you asked because I love wind gods and spirits and I got two that I feel like almost no one outside of Scandinavia seemes to know about.

One is norse but not really germanic. The other, is not even norse just swedish af lol.

First I like to tell you about Kåre.

I bet most of you have never heard of him, but I also bet you heard of Ran, or Logi och Ägir.

As some may know, Ran is married to Ägir, a sea jötun. And I bet you know Logi, the jötun who is wild fire personified.

What does this have to do with Ägir? Well Ägir is listed as the brother of Logi and Ägir. Whos father Fornjot, is know in one saga to be the King of the swedish island of Gotland. (Perhaps a hint to an old cult or god of the island.)

These three sons of Fornjot personified the elements or the three most brutal aspects of nature, the wild deep seas, the every hungry wild fires and the ever harsh and cold northen wind. (With a father who rule over an island in the baltic sea that makes rather sense)

The name Kåre is also a swedish word describing a special form of wind or storm.

Kåre is also mentiond in Flatöboken and in one story in Fundinn Nóergr Kåre is the father of Frosti of the frost. But in Hversu the son is named Jökull wish means ice feald. This Jökull is in folklore (mostly in norway) said to be the father of old man winter.

So a lot of maybes here and things that hint he was more well known from Gotland to iceland and norway back in the day but a lot been lost.

But we do know he was a winter and wind jötun and one of the three elemental brothers.

My local group do offerings to him during winter and autum rituals but I know some pepole up north do as well. But overall hes rather forgotten compared to his brothers.

Here is a drawing of him by me:

THEN we get to the fun local part.

Ysätters-Kajsa!

Now who the heck is this and whats her deal?

Well Im from a Village called Asker, In Närke.

And back in the day, the farmers spoke about a troll by some, a Huldra by others and by some a spirit/creature who did not fitt any of the molds. Manny famous writers also wrote about her. Most famous of them all is Selma Lagerlöf.

Ysätters-Kajsas name came from the old Moss/lake in Ysätters thats said to be her home or birthplace, but she ruled the weather (but mainly wind) all over Närke but mostly Asker and the sorounding flat plains and fealds.

Ysätterskällan was likely an old offering place to what once was an old goddess or for spirits witch hints to her older roots before she was said to be an evil troll or forest spirit.

The Kajsa in her name is explained in a intervju with an old farmer from Asker in the start of the 1900s dokumentet in the book "Asker, Sant å sånt"

"that was just wat they named them trolls and giants back in the day"

That might seeme weird but tbh in the 1700s there are stories how pepole would toss coins to Kajsa of the sea while fishing.

Or in the 1800s when some in the Mountains and forest called forest and Mountain spirits for Kajsa as well.

It almost seemed as a form of a so called "noa-name" or maybe as the old man said: "it was just what them trolls was named back in the day."

(Im sure there is someone smarter here who can explain this weird Kajsa thing)

But ok, her wind aspect then?

Well first of all, its windy in East Närke.

Like the start of this old poem said

"Den ljuva Närke slätten, där enbart stormen består."

"The lovely Närke plains, where only the storm remains."

Also in manny stories she is said to controll wind and to travel by air.

In one story its said Ysätters-Kajsa looking down on Närke and was like "man this place is pretty, pepole have it good here, we cant have it like that."

And pretty much just made sure its always a bit windy and would play trick on the humans, making them get lost in forest, stealing laundry that hanged out to dry and in general just make the pepole of Närke just a little less comfy in their home.

But she is also a protector or the land!

In one myth, back in the day when a wild fire almost brought an end to the village of Asked she came to save the pepole, because even if she liked to play tricks on them she also deeply loved the pepole and needed them just as much as she they needed her.

So its said when the fire got to the center of the village, a woman was seen dancing up on the church towers roof and as she did storm clouds started to form and with wind and rain the fires was put out and the Village was saved.

Ysätters-Kajsa drawing by me:

This is also why my group call to her and giver her offerings for protection. Shes our local trickster and protector spirit of the wind.

But being a very Asker and Närke spirit. This is one I have to say I would think would be very weird and not really ok if like, pagans in america for some reason started to make offeings to. Because this is not just any big ol god or goddess. This is a local myth and spirit and part of my childhood and culture. I added a lot here from books just to get the facts right but I also just str8 up heared stories about her as a kid. She is just the protector of Asker and the bringer of wind in Närke.

Like if you dont live here, dont.

Go with Kåre then instead whos more wind in general.

But I had to share this about her becouse I just love her and wind spirits and gods in general.

Also, this is a good reminder to check what you have local, you might have myths and stories about old spirits and gods of the land you grow up and live in.

As I often say. The best way to do polytheism and anmism is to know and work with your local land and the spiritits and gods within said land. Because thats the best tools you got right here, right now. The land it self.

[aisereththeprince]

lol this is my first post on here I’m so nervous

MASTERPOST or something?

My name is Aisereth. You can also call me Seth if you prefer.

This is a Pokémon blog! My first game was Omega Ruby and my oldest game is B2. I watched most of the series? And only partially read the gold & silver manga, the Ruby & Sapphire manga and the Sun and Moon manga, lmao.

I LOVE Submas and am honestly amazed by the community built around these goobers.

My fav pokemon has gotta be… zorua (both normal and hisui variant). I’m really bad at picking favs so this says smth.

I like lots of characters including Ingo & Emmet, Guzma, Lusamine, Cynthia, Sycamore, Maxie & Archie, Laventon, Arven, Penny, the whole of team star admins/ leaders, and more…

Imma say this now: BLANKSHIPPERS DO NOT INTERACT. I personally find shipping siblings… gross. Same goes for any other proship or whatever the hell.

More under cut

Anyway

More about me

I’ll be posting once a week. (#Aisereth yap session is not included)

I draw digitally and traditionally :]

I speak English, French and German (writing french is a pain tho)

It’s always a good day to be a multishipper- also: please no ship wars. It’s unnecessary.

I only like angst if there’s a happy ending ;I

Boundaries and such

No NSFW asks, replies, etc.

No asking personal questions, such as anything about my body

Do not repost! For any reason! Not on tumblr or any other platform, please and thank you.

Please be polite! You may cuss and be more casual but I mean don’t be rude if there’s something you don’t like for example. Tell me like a normal person.

If you want to give advice or critique on stuff like my art/ writing please be constructive. "I hate ___" is not constructive.

How I present myself (as in oc/mascot)

Tags

#Aisereth answers (asks that have been answered)

#Aisereth reblogs (posts I have reblogged)

# Aisereth yap session (text posts/ self explanatory)

Posts in the correct order

Headcannons

Submas related

Single panels

Submas twins in casual clothes

Warden Ingo hearing some news in the icelands

Akari in the Crimson Mirelands

Meme with Akari and Ingo

Submas reunion (lots of crying)

Pokémon drawing practice

Submas twins doing a mirroring pose

Tabhita from ORAS

Akari at the Temple of Sinnoh

Ingo side profile

Emmet meets Jirachi

Ingo and Lady Sneasler

Colress and Beheeyrerm

Jesse and James

Throwin it back (shitpost)

Mode of transportation for Colress

Comics

Ingo reassures Akari (+ Emmet shit post)

Language barrier (+ silly version)

Tabby cat Ingo

[alpaca-clouds]

Arctic Solarpunk

Let me continue with areas, that kinda get overlooked when it comes to Solarpunk worldbuilding, even though there is of course the anthology "Solarpunk Winters". Which is something I really do enjoy as a concept.

Yesterday we already talked: Most Solarpunk is set either in foresty (sub)tropical climates or in temperate climates. Which is also what the aesthetic focuses on.

But, of course, quite a few people live in colder climates. Especially up north. Sure, again, most humans will be drawn towards the temperate climates, but there are and always will be people living in colder climates.

So... How do we solarpunk this up?

First of all: One thing that humans living in those climates will not get around is heating. Because humans are not made to survive in cold temperatures, so we need heat. Probably one of the reasons our ancestors once upon a time figured out the entire fire thing.

At this point we can now argue, whether or not we should allow people living in those areas to burn some sort of ressource, even though it creates CO2, just on the basis that only few people will live there.

But again, like in the deserts, we will also be able to use something else: Passive warming through heat exchange. Because we can in fact warm buildings and other facilities through the heat from the ground.

In some areas, like Iceland or Hokkaido, this works even better, because we have geothermically active ground, so we can draw a lot of heat from the ground and use it for all sorts of purposes.

But there is also the food problem. See, historically speaking, cultures living far up north tended to go down more on the "gathering and hunting" part of the human evolution. Even though they had the knowledge about farming, they barely used it. Because farming so far up north is hard for several reasons. Outside of the temperatures, that do not work with a lot of crops, there is just simply the fact, that it is pretty dark for half of the year, which does not make for good growing.

So, a lot of these cultures lived especially from meat of all sorts and fish. With the cold temperatures being used to allow to keep the meat fresh for longer. We still see this to this day with the Inuit, of whom many will still mostly hunt for survival.

But, of course, within a Solarpunk world we would also have other possibilities to grow crops. For example we could create massive green houses, that also use artificial lights to keep the crops growing during the dark months of winter. We could also heat this up with warmth from the earth and geothermal heating.

And speaking of geothermal: We can use geothermal energy to create electricity as well. This is already done today in Iceland to account for some of the energy use of the island.

Otherwise it is a bit more dire when it comes to energy. While a lot of northern places do have access to bodies of water and hence also to hydroenergy, photovoltaic often does not work, due to the dark months. In fact, in the colder climates often wind turbines do not work either, as we have not figured out how to keep them going during especially cold periods and them also creating additional hazards.

So, this is something to most certainly keep in mind.

Other than that: Even the colder climates are habitat to a lot of fauna and some flora. As such we need to keep in mind that they have as much of a right to live their as we have.

Oh, and if you wonder: What is with the cold areas in the South?

Well, in general the habitable landmasses do not reach as far south as they do reach north. So even stuff like the tip of South America are not as extreme as northern regions. And Antarctica will never be home to any human, who ain't there for scientific reasons.

[thorraborinn]

I have this kind of idea in my head that Odinn was worshipped more by the wealthy/warrior class whereas Thorr was the guy for the working class people of the viking age. I think I remember reading something about that, perhaps even on your blog? But I can't find much about it anymore. Is that true and how do we know it?

The main piece of evidence for this is the poem Hárbarðsljóð, in which the disguised Óðinn taunts Þórr like this:

Óðinn á jarla, þá er í val falla, en Þórr á þrælakyn.

'Óðinn has the jarls who fall in battle, but Þórr has the kindred of slaves.'

Interpreting this, especially in light of other evidence, is not easy. Clearly, the jarlar that Óðinn is talking about are the einherjar in Valhöll. We do get some pieces of lore about Þórr also having a place where people go in the afterlife, but not in detail, and as I'll discuss below, all of the most famous Þórr-worshipers are not slaves (though, let's keep in mind our sources for the religious beliefs of slaves is not good). Hárbarðr's taunt might be alluding to something like Óðinn being worshiped by a very specific elite, while Þórr was worshiped by people at all strata of society, including but not limited to slaves.

The idea is mentioned in recent literature pretty frequently, but some key articles are "How High Was the High One? The Roles of Oðinn and Þórr in Pre-Christian Icelandic Society" by Terry Gunnell (in the book Theorizing Old Norse Myth), "Pantheon? What Pantheon?" also by Gunnell, and to a certain extent also "How Uniform was Old Norse Religion?" by Stefan Brink (which is not about class, but about geography, which is a much stronger indicator). In "Cunning Intelligence in Norse Myth: Loki, Óðinn, and the Limits of Sovereignty," Kevin Wanner makes use of the absence of royalty in Iceland, and just within Iceland Þórr. Both of the Gunnell pieces are highly synthetic of other peoples' work, revisiting ideas that were already decades old in light of new evidence, and are full of citations to other resources you might find useful.

As an example of where it starts to break down, part of the evidence for this is the way that Þórr was widely recognized in Iceland (which we know about though place-names, personal names, and saga descriptions of people and their religious expression) while Óðinn seems not to have been (based on the same types of evidence; the most famous Icelander dedicated to Óðinn was Egill Skallagrímsson, who was renowned as a poet, and whose family did serve Norwegian royalty at one time).

But within Iceland, the people we're drawing evidence from were in many cases wealthy land-owners. People like Þórólfr Mostrarskegg were marginalized from formal power in Norway, but did become part of Iceland's less centralized, land-owning aristocracy.

We might even be able to say that, by comparing the highest classes of Iceland and Norway, worship of Þórr and worship of Óðinn respectively pertain to two different ideologies of wielding and maintaining power (Olof Sundqvist has written quite a lot about "religious strategies for rulership"). Though, we can also bring it back to the original question by framing Þórr worship in this context as "We are commoners who happen to have more wealth and power than other commoners, so support us, because we support you, because we are essentially the same" where Óðinn-worship might have been something more like "we rule because we are categorically above commoners."

We can find examples pertaining to worship of Freyr as well. So while there's a class dimension here, Iceland and Norway had different class configurations due to the absence of royalty in Iceland, and just within Iceland Þórr was worshiped by people of the highest class attainable. We also have reason to believe that Freyr was worshiped as a god of specific and exceptional importance by royalty (just not the particular royal culture that would eventually produce a great deal of written Norse mythology), so the fact that he was also worshiped by Icelandic farmers means that in his case too we can't really pin it to class in a general sense.

So basically, yeah, what you asked about is a real idea, and it may have been an idea that had currency already in the Viking age, but there was probably never an actual time or place where it was unambiguously true, and even if it were, even that was probably only true of a very specific subsection of people.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Ian McDonald's "Hopeland"

Tonight (May 30) at 6:30PM, I’m at the NOTTINGHAM Waterstones with my novel Red Team Blues, hosted by Christian Reilly (MMT Podcast).

Tomorrow (May 31) at 6:30PM, I’m at the MANCHESTER Waterstones, hosted by Ian Forrester.

Then it’s London, Edinburgh, and Berlin!

Have you ever read a novel that was so good you almost felt angry at it? I mean, maybe that’s just me, but there is one author who consistently triggers my literary pleasure centers so hard that I get spillover into all my other senses, and that’s Ian McDonald, who has a new novel out: Hopeland:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780765375551/hopeland

Seriously what the fuck is this amazing, uncategorizable, unsummarizable, weird, sprawling, hairball of a novel? How the hell do you research — much less write — a novel this ambitious and wide-ranging? Why did I find myself weeping uncontrollably on a train yesterday as I finished it, literally squeezing my chest over my heart as it broke and sang at the same moment?

Hopeland is a climate novel, and it’s not McDonald’s first. Hearts, Hands and Voices (published in the US as The Broken Land) is a climate novel (that also happens to be about the Irish Troubles). So is his stunning debut, Desolation Road, which I picked up at a mall bookstore in 1988 and lost my mind over:

https://memex.craphound.com/2009/07/02/ian-mcdonalds-brilliant-mars-book-desolation-road-finally-back-in-print/

But those were climate novels written in the early stages of the discussion of the gravity of the anthropocene, and so climate change was more setting than anything else. In Hopeland, the climate is more of a character — not a protagonist, but also not a minor character.

The true stars of Hopeland are members of two ancient, secret societies. There’s Raisa Hopeland, who belongs to a globe-spanning, mystical “family,” that’s one part mutual aid, one part dance music subculture, and one part sorcerer (some Hopelanders are electromancers, making strange, powerful magic with Tesla coils).

We meet Raisa as she is racing across London in a bid to win a rare, open electromancer title. She is on the brink of losing, but then a passerby pitches in to help: Amon Brightborne, part of another mystical family whose stately, odd manor in the English countryside can only be reached by people who can work the “gateway,” which makes the road disappear and reappear. Amon is a composer and DJ who specializes in making music for very small groups of people — preferably just one person — that is so perfect for them that they are transformed by hearing it.

Amon’s intervention in Raisa’s bid for electromancy unites these two formerly disjoint families, entwining their destinies just as the world is forever changing, thanks to the decidedly un-magical buildup of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere. They have a romance, a breakup, a child. They are scattered to opposite ends of the Earth — Iceland and a tiny Polynesian island.

Their lives are electrified. Literally. On her passage to Iceland, Raisa confronts a ship-destroying megastorm, speaks its true name, and sends it away before it can sink the container ship — captained by a Hopelander who gives her free passage — that she is sailing on. In Iceland, she falls in with more Hopelanders, tapping a thermal vent to create a greenhouse cannabis farm, which begets a luxury salad greens business, then an electricity plant that attracts cryptocurrency weirdos like shit draws flies.

Amon, meanwhile, is sinking into drunken ruin on his island paradise, where he becomes a kind of mascot for the locals, who respect his musical prowess. The island is sinking, both figuratively and literally, as its offshore king, hiding in a luxury mansion in Sydney, drains its aquifers for the luxury bottled water market and loots its treasuries to fund his own high lifestyle.

McDonald takes a long time getting to this point. This is a 500 page novel, and the build to this setup takes nearly 300 of them. Every word of that setup is gold. McDonald’s prose often veers into poetry, or at least poesie, and he has this knack for seemingly superfluous vignettes and detours that present as self-indulgences but then snap into place later as critical pieces of a superbly turned narrative. How the fuck does he do it?

How does he do it? How does he deliver a sense of such vastness, a world peopled by vastly different polities and populations, distinctly different without ever being exoticized, each clearly the hero of their own story, whether they live on a tiny island or captain an American battleship?

I mean, cyberpunk — the tradition McDonald most obviously belongs to — was always about a post-American future, but no one ever managed it the way McDonald did. He delivered a superb, complex, Indian future in 2004’s River of Gods:

https://memex.craphound.com/2004/06/12/ian-mcdonalds-brilliant-new-novel-river-of-gods-bollywoodpunk/

And then did the same in Brazil with 2007’s Brasyl:

https://memex.craphound.com/2007/04/30/ian-mcdonalds-brasyl-mind-altering-cyberpunk-carioca/

And Turkey in 2011’s Dervish House, a novel of mystical nanofuturism set in an Istanbul that is so vividly drawn that you feel like you can reach through the page and touch it:

https://memex.craphound.com/2010/07/12/ian-mcdonalds-dervish-house-superb-novel-of-the-mystical-nano-future-of-istanbul/

Those were ambitious books, but Hopeland puts them to shame. It draws on so many threads — music and art, climate justice, mysticism, electrical engineering, economics, gender politics — and has such a huge cast of finely drawn characters. By all rights, it should collapse under its own weight. I mean, seriously — who can write multi-page passages describing imaginary music and make it riveting?

McDonald is just so damned good at writing love-letters to places that turn them into characters in their own right. The first third of Hopeland treats London that way, bringing it to gritty life in the manner of Michael de Larrabeiti’s classic Borribles trilogy:

https://memex.craphound.com/2014/01/16/the-borribles-are-back/

Or, for that matter, China Miéville’s debut novel King Rat, itself out in a fancy new Tor Essentials edition with an introduction by Tim Maughan, who absolutely bullseyes the appeal of Miéville’s novel of underground music, mystical societies and urbanism:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250862501/kingrat

(It shouldn’t surprise you to learn that Miéville is a giant Borribles fan:)

https://www.tor.com/2014/03/13/the-borribles-excerpt-introduction-china-mieville/

I have loved Ian McDonald’s work since I picked up Desolation Road in that mall bookstore when I was 17. One of the absolute highlights of my writing career was writing an introduction for the 2014 reissue of Out On Blue Six, a book that mashes up David Byrne’s solo projects, Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, Huxley’s Brave New World, and Dick’s Do Androids Dream in a madcap dystopian comedy:

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

I’ve read everything I could find about how he manages these giant, weird, intricately constructed novels, like this fascinating 2010 interview about his research process:

https://web.archive.org/web/20100726181934/http://www.cclapcenter.com/2010/07/an_interview_with_ian_mcdonald.html

But despite it all, I find myself continuously baffled by how manages it, but each book just stabs me. For one thing, he’s such a good remix artist. His three-volume, essential retelling of Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress starts with Luna: New Moon (2015):

https://memex.craphound.com/2015/09/22/ian-mcdonalds-luna-new-moon-the-moon-is-a-much-much-harsher-mistress/

Which substantially out-Heinleins Heinlein, adding thickness and rigor to the tropes Heinlein tossed in as throwaways. Then, he topped himself with the sequel, Luna: Wolf Moon (2017):

https://memex.craphound.com/2017/03/28/ian-mcdonald-returns-to-the-harshest-mistress-in-luna-wolf-moon/

Before bringing it all in for a screaming landing that tied up the hundreds of threads he pulled on in the course of the previous two volumes with the conclusion, Luna: Moon Rising (2019):

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/05/16/luna-moon-rising-in-which-ian-mcdonald-brings-the-trilogy-to-an-astounding-intricate-exciting-and-satisfying-climax/

In each volume, McDonald proved — over and over — that he understood precisely what Heinlein was trying to do, then outdid him, and, in so doing, shredded Heinlein’s solipsitic, simplistic, seductive argument about a libertarian utopia.

Perhaps this is McDonald’s greatest gift: his ability to rework others’ ideas, tropes and tales, without ever trying to hide his influences, and then vastly outdoing them. That’s certainly what was going on with his wild-ass, deiselpunk YA trilogy, which started with 2011’s Planesrunner:

https://memex.craphound.com/2011/12/06/planesrunner-ian-mcdonalds-ya-debut-is-full-of-action-packed-multidimensional-cool-airships-electropunk-and-quantum-physics/

One important McDonaldism: being deadly serious about his whimsy. The books are all very whimsical, but never frivolous. To get a sense of what I mean here, consider his 1992 graphic novel Kling Klang Klatch, a deadly serious comic book about the Klu Klux Klan, told entirely through adorable teddybears in a noir cityscape, whose dialog is heavily salted with Tom Waits lyrics:

https://memex.craphound.com/2004/01/24/ian-mcdonalds-kling-klang-klatch/

No, really. And it’s fantastic.

Back to Hopeland. It’s a climate novel, because what else could you write in this time of polycrisis? The book is vast enough to convey the scale of the crisis. The storms that ravage the world are both personified and realized, a terror to compare to any literary monster or Cthuhoid entity. But it’s called Hopeland for a reason, because it’s a book about hope, not nihilism, a book about confronting the crisis, a book about solidarity and love, about overcoming difference, about challenging the way things “just are.”

That’s why I was crying and holding my heart yesterday on the train. The hope. What a ride.

One of the reasons I was in such a hurry to read this novel now is that I’m appearing on a panel with McDonald this coming Saturday, June 3, at Edinburgh’s Cymera festival, along with Nina Allen, author of the new novel Conquest:

https://www.cymerafestival.co.uk/cymera23-events/2023/4/4/connection-interrupted-with-nina-allan-cory-doctorow-and-ian-mcdonald

I’m so looking forward to it. I’ve written a couple dozen books since I read my first McDonald novel as a teenager, and while I still have no idea how McDonald does it, there’s something of his work in every one of my books.

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Nottingham, Manchester, London, and Berlin!

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

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

[Image ID: The cover for the Tor Books edition of 'Hopeland.']

[bonesandthebees]

hey i was translating one of the tcfsv's chapters and got real curious about how you came up with names and/or superpowers of siren, jester, iceman/thanatos, arson (her powers), and 404 and why did you choose the name daedalus for sam and aurelion for foolish? i tried to split aurelion into aura and lion and it didnt make sense so i hope its fine to ask :D

oh man it's been a while since I've been asked this question. I'll just go in order of the characters you mentioned!

siren - I'd seen wilbur be given siren powers/the power to compel people with his voice in a few other fics before I came up with clinic, and in hush now specifically his villain name itself was also 'siren' so I straight up just took it from that lol

jester - because of how often quackity changes his minecraft skins for bits, I once saw a comic a longggg time ago about c!quackity on the dsmp being a shapeshifter. I always thought that was a really cool concept, so when I was trying to come up with his powers I thought shapeshifting would be really interesting! as far as the name I don't really know how I came up with that? quackity's just goofy and cracks a lot of jokes so I thought a clown/theatrical kind of name would be fitting, so I came up with jester and really liked it

iceman/thanatos and arson - I came up with iceman as jack's name after I came up with arson for niki's. I really liked the name arson for niki's initial villain name because I wanted to call back to c!niki burning down the l'mantree during doomsday, but I knew I wanted her to have water powers both bc of her merling origin on origins smp and also I just thought a waterbending kind of vibe fit her. so then I knew I wanted her and jack to be a duo, so I was struggling to come up with a name for jack until I thought "what if I made him and niki have opposite powers and I made a joke about iceland and greenland" and thus we got iceman lmao. then later on I decided I wanted both of them to switch their names after their near death experience (arson to nemesis and iceman to thanatos) so I thought thanatos fit jack because of how close he came to death, since thanatos is the personification of death in greek mythology. and I wanted him to have a greek mythology name because niki was changing to her syndicate name, nemesis, which is also from greek myth

404 - I'd seen 404 used for george before in other hero aus. it's a play on his user 'georgenotfound' bc 404 is a not found error you get with computers. I just thought it was fun. as far as his powers, I wanted them to be connected to sleep because of the running bit/eventual lore of him sleeping through everything on the dsmp, but I wanted it to be more creative than just him knocking people out. I've always been fascinated with dreams and the kind of fantasy powers you can do with them, so I decided dream manipulation could be really interesting to explore with him.

daedalus - in greek mythology daedalus is an inventor who is made to build the labyrinth by king minos to trap the minotaur, and is later imprisoned in the labyrinth by minos with his son icarus. during their escape with wings made of wax, icarus dies, leaving daedalus alone. I just thought the themes of being imprisoned by your own creation and losing the last thing you love during your escape matched a lot of c!sam's character on the dsmp especially with his warden role and how he's a redstone inventor. I wanted to tie it in a bit to his story in clinic, and overall I just thought it was an interesting connection to draw.

aurelion - yeah this is probably the most confusing name since it's not a real word technically. aurelion is a play on the name aurelia, and aurelia is derived from the word aurum which is the latin word for gold. c!foolish is often designed as being made of gold or close to it given his totem skin, so I just wanted to connect him to gold somehow because I thought it fit. so aurelia as a name means gold, and I just took that and made it sound more like a superhero name by changing it to aurelion

hope this helps!! good luck with the translation!

[sophiemaryjanes]

me in class writing essays: *frantically reciting the ABCs* *trying to remember what CER stands for* "Perchance,,,Belgium is the capital of Iceland--"

me at three in the morning in my notes app:

People say that abuse isn't love -- that if someone hits you, or hurts you, or makes you feel uncomfortable, they don't love you -- but I don't think that's true. Love is an emotion, not a set of guidelines. There are infinitely many ways to love someone, and there are also infinitely many ways to hurt someone, and sometimes the two collide. Sometimes, in loving someone the only way we know how, we end up harming them irrevocably -- but that bears witness to the strength of love, not its absence. Passion is so carnal and so volatile that I think the only real way to hurt someone, to shatter them, is to love them. The distinction between pain and no pain is a distinction not between love and no love, but between a love that is kind and sustainable and a love whose roots reach down to touch a buried poison that will destroy its practitioners. The beauty and the danger of truly loving someone is that you'll do anything for each other -- even things you don't want to do, even things that harm you. There is a reason being in love feels so much like being afraid.

I quickly discovered that in order for me to produce, it had to be either very loud or very quiet. There is something in silence that I can draw out and mould into ideas and sentences - but there is also something in the not-quiet, the drifting chaos of an airport or a high school lunch room, that offers the sort of ambiguity a person made of ideas can easily get lost in.

There's something comfortingly real about making your own bed in the morning, pouring your own coffee, checking your outfit in your own mirror. As much as I despise domesticity, there's a mundane beauty to having a place that's yours.

Maybe a home is not a heart or a building. Maybe a home is just somewhere you know, somewhere you understand - somewhere it doesn't take a herculean effort to exist.

[fridka]

Every year I try and avoid any Eurovision spoilers until the event itself, but I have finally listened to all songs and I have OPINIONS

so keep in mind these are all rather fresh opinions, and some of these songs might grow on me or lose their appeal over time.

Anyway my thoughts on each song under the cut‼️

Albania - Duje - Albina & Familja Kelmendi

I want to like this a lot more than I do. It’s sweet that she’s singing with her family(I think??) and the instrumentals are nice, but it’s all just a bit much.

Armenia - Future Lover - Brunette

Wtf are these lyrics. Wtf is this whole song. This is a front runner? I don’t get it

Australia - Promise - Voyager

YEA THIS IS MY SHIT. First verse I thought was kinda meh but then that chorus hit. I cannot see this win just bc of how eurovision is, but I’ll be checking out more of their stuff. Plus the guitarist is 💖💖

Austria - Who the hell is Edgar? - TEYA & Salena

This song got spoiled for me, but i don’t care because I love it. The lyrics, the opera, the dig at Spotify. Queens.

Azerbaijan - Tell me More - TuralTuranX

I can’t lie i kinda love this one. It’s just kinda awkward and the rap is PRETTY BAD but in this really endearing and charming way. They’re just a couple of guys 🥺

Belgium - Because of You - Gustaph

THIS IS MY SHIT. People don’t like this one? Why it’s amazing. The backup singers, the Lady Miss Kier reference, the nostalgia. I’m not gonna dare hope that this can win, but I want it to qualify so bad

Croatia - Mama Šč!

Oh boy. This one I knew I had to look into because I knew it was gonna be either extremely dumb or extremely political, and thankfully it was the latter. I still think the song is a complete mess but I kinda fucking love this.

Cyprus - Break a Broken Heart - Andrew Lambrou

It’s just a nice song. In a weaker year I think I’d like this a lot more, but as it is it sort of fades next to some of the other entries

Czechia - My Sister’s Crown - Vesna

I LOVE THIS ONE I WANT THEM TO WIN. At first I wasn’t sure about the English parts because it reminded me of Toy (which I really didn’t like), but this has grown on me so much. And the performance. The part with the hand signal for help. Fucking CHILLS. Plus the fashion in the music video, so good

Denmark - Breaking my Heart - Reiley

Den er ikke ligefrem min kop te, og han ligner en der er blevet skabt i et laboratorie i et forsøg på at lave den perfekte tiktoker. Men danmark sender altid noget bras så det er vel on brand :B

Estonia - Bridges - Alika

I’m biased against ballads, and this one sure was a ballad.

Finland - Cha Cha Cha - Käärijä

I LOVE THIS ONE AND I WANT HIM TO WIN. As someone who has social anxiety and who uses to party a lot, the lyrics were oddly relatable lmao. Plus the performance. The shirt the d a n c e

France - Évidemment - La Zarra

SO PERFECT. SO FRENCH. SHE IS GORGEOUS AND I WANT HER TO WIN

Georgia - Echo - Iru

??? The lyrics? Was this song written by ai? It’s painfully awkward and uh.. I think I hate this one

Germany - Blood and Glitter - Lord of the Lost

I think Lordi are iconic so I thought I was gonna love this one, but I kinda don’t. It’s.. a bit boring to be honest?

Greece - What they Say - Victor Vernicos

Yeah these lyrics are way too whiny for me

Iceland - Power - Diljá

It’s just alright. I don’t like it as much as many others seem to do. It’s not bad it’s also just not making much of an impression

Ireland - We are One - Wild Youth

(I can say the following because I lived in Ireland for the better part of a decade) Ireland is an amazing country and has such a rich culture and history to draw from, and yet they always just send boring garbage. I’m sorry but this one is trash, and your man looked so uncomfortable in that outfit

Israel - Unicorn - Noa Kirel

I don’t get it. Am I too old for this? I feel like I am. This song is a complete mess to me but people love it??

Italy - Due Vite - Marco Mengoni

It’s another one of those entries that’s just Some Guy. Nice voice and beautiful language, kinda boring tho

Latvia - Aijā - Sudden Light

Could have been good but it needed more power imo. Another adorable guitarist tho 🥺

Lithuania - Stay - Monika Linkyté

I don’t really know what to say about this one. Very eh

Malta - Dance - The Busker

NOW THIS ONE MAKES ME MAD, THEY SHOULD HAVE QUALIFIED 100%. It’s not quite winner material for me but there is no way they didn’t deserve a spot in the finals over some of the other crap

Moldova - Soarele si Luna - Pasha Parfeni

I usually like (or at least am entertained by) what Moldova puts out and this year is is no exception. This is a capital E Eurovision song, super theatrical and I love it.

Netherlands - Burning Daylight - Mia Nicolai & Dion Cooper

I like it as a normal song, but not really as a eurovision song, if that makes sense? I also don’t think his vocals could match hers at all

Norway - Queen of Kings - Alessandra

This is such a Norway entry 💖 there are other songs I like more but definitely deserves to place high. That whistle note

Poland - Blanka - Solo

Oh boy okay so I looked into this one and apparently there was another song people wanted to win, but the Polish government didn’t approve of it so they had the competition rigged and gave her the win? And I’m assuming she’s some dumb influencer or something? Anyway this song blows, Jann was robbed

Portugal - Ai Coraçäo - Mimicat

I like this as a performance only. She is kinda a babe, but the song itself is whatever

Romania - D.G.T - Theodor Andrei

This one is AMAZINGLY BAD. “Take off your clothes step on me” he sings with a super out of place anti-war message sharpied on his chest, while disinterested half naked women walk about the stage looking totally checked out. I love it

San Marino - Like an Animal - Piqued Jacks

Oh these lyrics suck ass as well. I got butterflies in my ears. Pure poetry

Serbia - Sami Mi Se Spava - Luke Black

At first this one was a little too silly for me, since I assumed it was just an edgy song about video games, but it’s grown a lot on me after learning what it’s about.

Slovenia - Carpe Diem - Joker out

Yea this one is legit. This isn’t exactly what I want in a eurovision song, but just as a song this is great stuff. That guitar riff in particular.

Spain - Eaea - Blanca Paloma

I think this one is… interesting, and I think it deserves a spot in the finals, but I wouldn’t exactly call it good.

Sweden - Loreen - Tattoo

Oh my god, okay so probably my most controversial opinion here. I don’t care for Loreen. I didn’t care for her in 2012 and I do not care for her now. I’m obviously not gonna try and argue that she’s not an incredibly talented singer, but I just can’t deal with the terrible enunciation or the annoying interpretative dance. And yea it’s gonna be so disappointing if she wins. Sorry

Switzerland - Watergun - Remo Forrer

Borderline disrespectful and incredibly eyeroll worthy, but regretfully it gets a bit catchy in the second half.

Ukraine - Heart of Steel - Tvorchi

It’s not nice to be all “yeah I know you guys are getting invaded and all, but your entry for silly song contest sucks”, so fortunately I don’t have to do that because I genuinely like this. Kinda reminds me of something from an LCS cinematic. I wish the whole thing was in Ukrainian though

UK - I wrote a Song - Mae Muller - I am biased against UK entries, but this one is fun. Not winner material for me, but deserves to at least make the finals

Overall I think this is a pretty solid year, definitely better than the last couple ones. There’s some really fucking good entries, and a lot of the bad ones are bad in an entertaining way.