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paperanddice · 8 months ago

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This update is a bit special. We reached the spinosaurus in the Tome of Beasts, but Pathfinder already has a spinosaurs (even if it hasn't technically been updated to the remaster, I'm pretty sure the only difference between the actual stat blocks will be the removal of the alignment tag). Meanwhile, 13th Age doesn't actually have any native dinosaurs, so I figured once I got here that I could just provide you with a bunch of "standard" dinosaurs to fill in.

Dinosaurs aren't a regular feature within the Dragon Empire. They are primeval creatures, that should have gone extinct Ages ago, possibly even before the first Age. They aren't in line with humanoids or any creatures of the modern era, existing only in the past and in hidden areas of the world that may as well be the past. You'll only find them through powerful magic portals through time, or in the most isolated and hidden areas of the world, where they somehow have survived the many ages and the complete changing of the world around them. Rumors hold that some giants have found their way to these areas of the world, fighting and taming these massive creatures and creating a new primeval era.

Velociraptor

These small pack hunters have manes of feathery plumage extended down their back and along their limbs, helping them blend into natural environments and puffing up to obscure the creature's size when it is threatened. They leap upon their prey with long, sharp claws on their legs, tearing great gashes and darting away to let other members of the pack strike. They can bring down far larger creatures with these tactics, making them quite deadly despite being only about 1.5 feet tall.

Velociraptor 1st level wrecker [beast] Initiative: +5 Talons +5 vs. AC – 3 damage. Natural 16+: 2 ongoing damage. Leaping Charge: This attack instead deals 6 damage on a hit if the velociraptor first moves before attacking an enemy it wasn’t engaged with at the start of its turn. Pack Attack: The velociraptor gains a +1 bonus to attack and damage for each other velociraptor engaged with the target (max +4 bonus) AC 16 PD 15 MD 11 HP 24

Deinonychus

Larger and even more dangerous than their velociraptor relatives, deinonychus also hunt in packs and use talons on their hind legs to bring down prey. They stand closer to 6 feet tall, more upright than the velociraptor, and also have both feathers and scales. Their forelimbs aren't used for combat, but are strong enough to hold food or pull aside small obstacles.

Deinonychus 2nd level troop [beast] Initiative: +5 Talon +7 vs. AC – 5 damage. Natural Even Hit: 3 ongoing damage. Natural Even Hit or Miss: The deinonychus can pop free from the target. Predator’s Advantage: The deinonychus gains a +1 bonus to attack rolls against targets taking ongoing damage. AC 18 PD 15 MD 12 HP 36

Hadrosaurid

Hadrosaurid covers a broad group of dinosaurs, a family of massive herbivores. They have a variety of different crests on their head, different species carrying different styles and shapes. While they rival elephants in size, they are far less aggressive, using their great size as defense and trying to avoid dangerous predators whenever possible. While smaller raptors like deinonychus can bring down young hadrosaurid or even an isolated adult, a whole herd represents far too much of a hassle, and the herd can crush over and trample most smaller enemies, even if just by accident while trying to escape.

Hadrosaurid Huge 4th level mook [beast] Initiative: +6 Trample +9 vs. PD – 8 damage. Natural Even Hit: As a free action, the hadrosaurid can move and make another trample attack against a different nearby enemy (it will take opportunity attacks for moving). AC 20 PD 18 MD 14 HP 40 (mook) Mook: Kill one hadrosaurid mook for every 40 damage you deal to the mob.

Ankylosaurus

Squat and heavily armored, ankylosaurus are incredibly defensive herbivores. Unlike hadrosaurs, they are far more aggressive and ill tempered, prone to lash out at trespassers with their tail, tipped with a heavy bone club that can smash smaller creatures to paste. Their hide often has bony spikes along the edges as well that ward off larger attackers, making them a pain to bring down from any direction, so most leave these tanks be.

Ankylosaurus Huge 4th level troop [beast] Initiative: +5 Sweeping Tail +7 vs. PD (1d3 nearby enemies) – 22 damage. Natural 16+: The target is stunned until the end of its next turn. AC 23 PD 18 MD 14 HP 160

Triceratops

The three horns that are positioned on the triceratops' head make for an incredible self-defense weapon, able to seriously injure large foes and impale smaller ones clear through. While they mostly fight to defend themselves or to establish dominance and territory, they can be terribly stubborn and poor at recognizing when they need to defend themselves. Even small intruders will often prompt an aggressive defense, so humanoids stumbling into their territory may be charged by the massive creature. In those areas where humanoids or giants have lived among dinosaurs for some time, triceratops are often a target for domestication, as their large, armored frills create an additional defense for the rider.

Triceratops Huge 6th level wrecker [beast] Initiative: +8 Triple Horns +10 vs. AC – 30 damage. Furious Charge: This attack instead deals 60 damage on a hit if the triceratops first moves before attacking an enemy it was not engaged with at the start of its turn. AC 22 PD 20 MD 15 HP 260 Nastier Specials Frill Defense: 1/round, as an interrupt action when the triceratop’s rider is targeted by an attack, the triceratops can give its rider a +2 bonus to AC against that attack. Mount: The triceratops can have one Large or up to four Medium or smaller creatures as its riders. One rider must be designated as its guide. Each round the triceratops can choose to act on its own turn or its guide’s turn.

Tyrannosaurs

Sometimes known as the king of dinosaurs (despite not necessarily being the largest or strongest), tyrannosaurs are massive predators. While they will scavenge for food whenever available, they are not afraid to use their great size and deadly armament of natural weapons to bring down their own food, sometimes even going toe-to-toe with ankylosauruses or triceratops. Against smaller prey they may simply crush it underfoot and pull off chunks, or grasp it in their jaws and throw it into the air to die upon impact with the ground.

Tyrannosaurus Huge 7th level wrecker [beast] Initiative: +9 Crushing Jaws +12 vs. PD – 50 damage. Natural Even Hit: The tyrannosaurus can grab the target. It can carry the grabbed enemy with it as it moves. If the tyrannosaurus starts its turn grabbing an enemy, it can make a fling attack as a quick action. [Special Trigger] R: Fling +12 vs. PD (one nearby enemy) – 20 damage. Effect: The grabbed creature pops free from the tyrannosaurus and is thrown, landing next to the target and taking 20 damage. Special: This attack doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks from grabbed enemies. Trample: Whenever the tyrannosaurus moves, it can make a stomp attack against each creature it engages during that movement. [Special Trigger] Stomp +12 vs. PD – 20 damage. Natural 14+: The target is also grabbed by the tyrannosaurus. This grab ends if the tyrannosaurus moves. AC 23 PD 22 MD 16 HP 316

Spinosaurus

Even larger than the fearsome tyrannosaurus, spinosaurus takes to the water to hunt. With a massive sail upon its back to help dissipate heat and intimidate rivals, it is very adept at catching the large fish and sharks of the prehistoric waters it trawls. This doesn't prevent it from occasionally hunting on shore as well, particularly if easy to catch prey stumbles within reach, but they rarely can be bothered to confront larger foes unless defending themselves or their nests. Even many dragons will hesitate to confront a spinosaurus though, as these great dinosaurs can reach nearly 60 feet in length.

Spinosaurus Huge 8th level troop [beast] Initiative: +9 Massive Jaws +13 vs. PD – 55 damage. Natural Even Hit: The spinosaurus can grab the target. It can carry the grabbed enemy with it as it moves. Claws +13 vs. AC (2 attacks) – 20 damage. Tail Sweep +13 vs. PD (1d3 nearby enemies; can’t target a grabbed enemy) – 35 damage. Natural Even Hit: The tyrannosaurus can grab the target. It can carry the grabbed enemy with it as it moves. Bite and Slash and Sweep: The spinosaurus can make two attacks as a standard action; it can’t make the same attack twice on the same turn. Swimmer: The spinosaurus is a strong swimmer, though it can’t breath underwater. AC 23 PD 22 MD 18 HP 440

#13th Age #monster #beast #13th Age level 1 #13th age level 2 #13th age level 4 #13th age level 6 #13th age level 7 #13th age level 8 #long post

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leastdatablebracket · 1 year ago

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Okay, propaganda (?)... My whole thing about Nowi is that it's actually established through the lore about her species (manaketes, extremely long-lived dragon people) and the presence of another character of that species in the game (Tiki, an adult manakete woman who appeared as a young child looking the same visual age as Nowi in a game set a thousand years earlier) that for all they do the "well TECHNICALLY she's a thousand years old!" thing, Nowi is legitimately a prepubescent child by manakete standards. They're not just immortals that look super young forever. I don't have much of a horse in this race because she and Elise are both really blatant loli bait characters and I find both their romance routes really uncomfortable, and I'm not going to try and present myself as an authority on the fictional ethics of how a species whose prepubescence lasts centuries would relate to people with normal human lifespans, but it rubs me the wrong way when Awakening tries to justify that her chronological age makes her totally an adult when there's a point of comparison right in the same game to show that manaketes do age into adulthood and Nowi is still a child (and would still be a child for the entirety of her spouse's lifetime) and the fact that she's been through a lot of trauma and grief and does have stand out moments of maturity doesn't really change that.

oh for sure. as someone who adores pre-awakening fire emblem games, the sudden pivot to the idea that nowi is Totally An Adult when it was previously established that a manakete her age is a small child pisses me off so much.

#propaganda

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pokemon-ash-aus · 3 years ago

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Since you mentioned that the way pokemon age is different than the way humans age is dead!au ash technically an adult or teenager?

By Alola, he's barely a Teenager

Pokemon all grow differently, if he were a dragon type he'd still be a baby. If he were a Water type he'd be a young Adult

But Ghost type i imagine grow slowly (They get strong fast though) so most of the ones we see are technically Older adults.

If Ash were a Pure Ghost Type, He'd still be a child. But throw in his Poison typing (Which is only slightly faster than Ghost) he is now a Young Teenager

Pikachu is actually in the same boat.

By Human Standards, Ash would barely be 8 after reviving into a new Body but no one knows that because he remembered how to be 10

I dont have a Solid timeframe for how each pokemon grows, but i have plenty of ideas for that Timeline.

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emblemxeno · 3 years ago

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JP vs. Localization in Fire Emblem Fates: Prologue-Chapter 5

I’m getting to that one Royal Sibling Character Arc post soon, lol. But I also wanted to do this kind of thing since way back, so I thought I’d do it now while going through the story again

Here’s a link to a post I made where I list my sources for this stuff.

Chapter 1

-During the back and forth of Leo saying swordplay isn’t the only way to get strong, he concedes when Xander praises his magic, saying “because you acknowledged me, Big Brother”. This early example of Leo’s insecurity isn’t in localization, though the Pointy Metal Sticks line is kind of funny I’ll admit.

-I know that everyone already makes fun of the “the adult that you technically are” line, but the line really does suck. The original just says “geez, always such a brat”, which imo is much better than trying to justify it in weird meta 4th wall stuff.

Chapter 3

-JP version has Iago mention that the mission is to see whether Corrin is qualified to help govern the Kingdom. Localization just says it’s to see whether he/she is “worthy”, and not explaining what he/she would be worthy of.

-Xander saying he arrested Hans himself is not in the JP version... which, let’s be honest: arresting Hans yet having Peri as his personal retainer does nothing but Xander look like a mess of a character, but that’s the localization’s trademark I guess. Just let it be known that Xander’s standards aren’t as wonky in the JP version, and this is an example of that.

-Lilith explicitly mentions her father, mother and friends having passed away when going to the Astral Plane/My Castle for the first time, instead of just a vague “there’s no one left here”.

Chapter 4

-I’ve known this for a while already, but Garon luring Sumeragi to Cheve under false pretenses is a localization creation. The JP version has Sumeragi go to establish friendly relations with Chevalier (Cheve), not Nohr. Garon’s troops ambush him instead of catching him in a trap. The JP version of events makes a hell of a lot more sense in many ways. 1) Why would Sumeragi trust the leader of the kingdom that Hoshido has been warring with forever to not be a dick, and 2) going off of that line of thinking, why would you bring not one, but three young kids with you to a meeting with said hostile nation? Peace relations with an unrelated state resulting in an ambush is much easier to believe.

Chapter 5

-The Hoshidan plaza is known as the “Square of Flames” in the JP version, a very obvious reference to the Seal of Flames binding the Yato. Y’know the best part about it? In one of Fates’ many aesthetic storytelling bits, the plaza is an artistic depiction of the Seal, as there are four statues with the symbols of the divine weapons surrounding the main dragon which conceals the Yato. This chapter quite literally starts to undo the Seal of Flames by “releasing” the Yato. (I recall a Reddit post about it, and of course, everyone was saying “man Fates could’ve had such a great story when it has cool stuff like this” once again blaming the writers for what Treehouse changed)

-Yukimura reveals that Ryoma inherited Raijinto from Sumeragi, and Takumi inherited Fujin Yumi from Mikoto. There’s also mention of how the weapons have deep connections to divine deities (hence why the weapons ‘choose’ their wielders), which from an etymology standpoint I like since all the divine weapons are named after gods and heroes.

#fire emblem #fire emblem fates #fire emblem if #fe14 #corrin fire emblem #azura fire emblem #ryoma fire emblem #hinoka fire emblem #takumi fire emblem #sakura fire emblem #xander fire emblem #camilla fire emblem #leo fire emblem #elise fire emblem #nohr #hoshido #meta #treehouse localization

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mlmvoreconfessionals · 3 years ago

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Could you do some male naga pred prompts please?

Nagas are fun, I love the two stomach idea and I love snake preds. Plus playing with the idea of them being kinda feral or animalistic is an interesting setting!

Becoming a god among men was a much better deal than he had expected it to be, honestly. Well, sure, he wasn't technically a real god--but the humans honestly didn't need to know that. Being a half snake-half man was already pretty amazing on its own, and jumping a few steps to 'god' wasn't the biggest logical leap out there. Besides, if he went and told him, they'd probably stop giving him so many good meals. And he can't have that, now can he? Not when this cult was made almost exclusively of delicious men eager to be added to their god. There used to be a few thousand of them, he thinks. The first few days since beginning his life of luxury, he'd only eaten one or two at a time. The first human had been a lump in his tail for two weeks, one that was rubbing and worshipped the entire time. The second human lasted a day less, and then the next two went down together. After three months and eating five humans at once and still being hungry, he'd come to realize that his new diet was making him get bigger--his tail had easily grown a few feet. And with being bigger, he was getting hungrier. But a few thousand was a lot and he wasn't worried. Two years later, though, and those numbers were dwindling to a few hundred, and the very fattened naga was now eating twenty at a time, two times a day. The humans were still eagerly throwing themselves down his gullet to be lost in his immense tail, but he'd be out of food very soon here. So he can't drop the act just yet--he needs to convince them to find him another food source before he picks the last of them off. After all, their 'god' was only getting hungrier. And they didn't want to let him down.

Humans are a staple of the naga diet, each one being able to keep a standard naga fed for some time. But sometimes, a naga will realize that humans are good but not very big--not nearly as big as some of the other half-humans around like them. Those are the nagas that realize humans are potato chips compared to the real meals around them. But only one ever really kept this knowledge. He was a much older naga, with a massive body made of orange and brown scales. His tail was plush with fat, as was his human half, having grown round and soft due to his improved diet. He dozed in the trees of his home, his coils rapped around many branches, several lumps hanging in the air like hammocks. A bulky centaur snivels in one lump. An angry half-bear roars in another. His brother was in one farther down, which shrinks a few more inches as his body continues to process into the bowels. The freshest was a half-dragon, who found himself in danger of being mulched by the constricting walls. But the meal that mattered most to the sleeping naga was the one willing his human stomach--a group of young adults, brothers likely given the similar patterns on their tails, were busy churning into a thick slop. They'd had a difficult time getting humans and had instead turned their attention onto some half-rabbits. And when they realized how much better of a meal that was, the older naga had struck. Slurped up each one of them like a noodle and slithered off to process them. He belches up some scales in his sleep, his round belly sloshing as he turns a little to face the sunlight coming in through the leaves. He made sure no other nagas realized how much of a waste hunting humans is. He didn't need any competition in his food chain.

Getting knocked out and carted off by some humans had been a very unpleasant experience for the younger naga. It was even worse when he had woken up in an unfamiliar place, a cage, and was being sold off to some human like a pet. The first few days in the human's manor was one of trying to escape and, failing that, attacking. And that failed, too, given the human was far too skilled at getting out of his grasp. It wasn't until he had eaten one of the staff that he calmed down. A full gut made him a bit more sluggish and the hand that reached for him made him hiss until he realized it was rubbing his stomach. It wasn't long after that that he was reluctantly letting the human near him, and at the same time, was being pampered in a way he never was living in the wilderness. Belly rubs and soft, warm beds, an endless supply of food made up of whatever staff got too close to him when he was hungry, and minimal restriction turned a life of captivity into a life of luxury. It was only a month later, when he found himself lazily coiled around the human that brought him here, a couple butlers and a portly chef reduced to soft bulges in his tail, that he realized he was actually pretty happy. He snuggles a bit closer to the human, arms wrapped around the man's stomach and head resting on his chest, and decided that he could live like this for a while longer. Playing along just this once didn't seem so bad.

#v.ore #male vore #mlm vore #m/m vore #gay vore #vore prompts #male vore prompts #oral vore #digestion #fatal vore #mass vore #weight gain #naga vore #monstervore #ask

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tl-notes · 3 years ago

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Kobayashi’s Maid Dragon S2 Episode 10 Notes

I’m extremely not an expert in birds, but I tried to look these up to see if they were a species native to New York (since they’re similar to the sparrows we usually see around Kobayashi’s place). Apparently there are few similar-looking species in New York? My totally uninformed guess is that they may be house sparrows.

The sun sets in Japan relatively early (probably around 6:30pm when this episode takes place), which would make it entirely plausible that if she just flew east (with a slight northward angle) she’d find herself over New York in the early morning while most of the rest of the country is still dark.

These bumpy grey pads at the pedestrian part of the intersection here are known as (among other things) tactile paving; they’re to assist people who can’t fully rely on eyesight to get around.

Interestingly (imo), they were actually invented in Japan in the 60s (by a Miyake Seiichi), where today they’re extremely ubiquitous. They even show up later this episode!

They’re often referred to in Japan as 点字ブロック, tenji (Braille) blocks, and they tend to come in two types: the “dot” design, which indicates a place to stop (or an angle change, or more generally “caution”), and the “line” design which indicates you can safely keep going. They’re generally colored yellow in Japan, ideally making them stand out more to help people with impaired vision find them, and are mandated by law in most places public transport can be found (among others).

Not really a translation note, but “deer cola” felt especially funny in the context of all the horse medicine stuff.

I guess “[animal] [drink]” is a common branding device in-universe, given the crab beer Kobayashi’s always drinking.

Also not really a translation note, but the difference between how “hard” Kanna and Chloe are running to be at the same speed was a nice animation touch.

遊んだ遊んだ！ asonda asonda!

One feature of the Japanese language is a very heavy use of repetition. This includes “reduplication,” a linguistic term for creating words by repeating a root (e.g. a “boo-boo” in English or the dara-dara example below in Japanese), but also just like… saying the same word multiple times, as Chloe does here.

Typically this is done for emphasis or to help increase clarity: if you’ve worked in a Japanese office, you’ve likely heard someone in a phone conversation say desu desu in response to someone asking for confirmation.

This acceptance of repetition sort of extends beyond the obvious uses like this as well: for example, personal pronouns are much less common; instead (if the subject isn’t dropped) you’ll often just use the person’s name again. You’ll notice similar trends with other types of words as well.

Not to mention the ubiquity of things like otsukare.

This often ends up being a challenge for translators, because reusing words in English (when it’s not for an obvious reason) tends to stick out rather unflatteringly, even if they aren’t that close together.

(Like when I overuse “hence” in these notes.)

This “Christ” in the Japanese was “ったく” (short for 全く mattaku, but just used as a semi-generic exclamation). I mostly bring this up because it’s a good example of a word that doesn’t work out of its cultural context; e.g. it wouldn’t make any sense for a fantasy character to say “Christ,” but since this is an American speaker it works just fine (and helps distinguish that fact, even).

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but English uses a lot of “explicit reference” words like this, that can break immersion if put in the mouths of characters who wouldn’t have exposure to said reference—which can be annoyingly limiting when trying to write dialogue sometimes.

As a bit of a culture shock for a lot of Americans I’ve met, most Japanese homes tend to have wall mounted air conditioning units, like this one, that are only for heating/cooling the one room they’re in. (Many also have a “Dry” setting that makes them act kind of like a dehumidifier as well.) It’s common to not have them in every room, like bedrooms, however.

This is in contrast to the central air conditioning system used by a majority of homes in the US (though type/use of AC in the US varies a lot by region; less common in the north for example)—and places like the UK where apparently residential AC units of any kind are quite rare.

You may have noticed that the doors between rooms always seem closed in Kobayashi’s apartment. That’s not just to make the backgrounds simpler, it’s also a good habit to keep if you’re going to be running the AC!

“Kobayashi, are you お休み today?”

“Yeah, お休み.”

お休み o-yasumi, is a noun form of the 休む yasumu, to rest. The word has a variety of applications, as we see here. A day off work/school, i.e. a rest day? お休み. Want to say “good night” to someone before bed? Also お休み.

In this case, it’s not even necessarily clear it’s being said as a pun; as mentioned earlier, repetition is a common feature of the language, so despite the yawn there wouldn’t really be any reason for Kanna to think Kobayashi was about to go to nap or anything.

“Laze about” here is だらだら dara-dara, another phenomime (擬態語 gitaigo in Japanese)—one of those words that mimics the “sound” of an idea/concept/state, which don’t actually make a sound per se.

These phrases aren’t necessarily childish or anything (overuse of them can be, but you can find them even in news articles and political speeches for example). They are, however, used frequently by children, and by adults talking to children, as they’re very “easy” words: they’re expressive, they capture useful daily-life concepts, and they usually roll off the tongue. You’ll notice, for example, that Kanna uses them a lot.

Kanna has a very interesting way of talking actually, which I’ll touch on a bit more later.

Kobayashi’s “bean jam” here is あんみつ anmitsu, a traditional Japanese dessert (technically a spinoff of mitsumame). It typically is a mix of red beans (and/or red peas), agar (an algae-based gelatin equivalent), some fruit, some variety of rice flour product (shiratama in this case, similar to mochi), and a syrup (often black sugar based).

You can find it year-round, but it has a strong summer association and is even used as a summer season word. (It’s typically chilled and you can often get it with ice cream as an ingredient.)

It’s also sometimes paired with a green-tea flavored something as well (e.g. ice cream, agar, or syrup). The trinity of green tea, red beans (aka azuki), and shiratama makes what I like to think of as the “Japanese S’mores Flavor (for Adults)”. No I will not elaborate on this.

I will though point out the shaved ice flavor Kobayashi ordered later in the episode:

え？今スイカ様子あった？

A word of note here for language learners is 様子 yousu, which has a lot of definitions, but in cases like this where it’s attached to a noun or phrase means roughly “the appearance of __” or “an indication of ___” etc. In actual use, it typically means something that makes you think of whatever ___ is—or the lack of something that would make you think ___.

For example here, it’s like “Watermelon? Where’d that come from?” (since the TV was talking about a different dessert-y food entirely).

Or an unrelated example: “I think that guy is hiding something” → “Really? I haven’t seen any yousu of that.” In other words, it can be a lot like “sign,” as in “I’ve seen no sign of ___.”

These color-bordered envelopes (originally colored based on the flag of the country of origin) used to be the standard for air mail, domestic or international, though they haven’t been required for several decades.

That said, they’re still popular for that “ooh, international mail!” feel (at least in Japan) and you can buy them at most places that sell stuff like envelopes. As here, they’re often used in media to immediately convey that a letter came from outside Japan.

Kanna (and Kobayashi) says エアメール, lit. “air mail” in English, which is used colloquially for international mail specifically, rather than “mail sent by plane.”

They’re having what’s called 冷やしそうめん hiyashi soumen, chilled/cold soumen for lunch here. (Soumen being a thin wheat noodle; udon but thinner.) As Kanna says, it’s very easy to make!

Basically you just boil it, wash it in cold water, add ice, get some sort of sauce to dip it in, and you’re done! It’s a popular quick meal in summer, and much easier than the more involved nagashi soumen setups you may have seen elsewhere, where they slide the noodles down a chute for you to try to grab and eat. (It’s basically the same meal aside from that though.)

(You can of course add more to it, but as we see here, you don’t really have to.)

The type of tea here, for the curious, is 麦茶 mugicha, barley tea. Mugi is the general name for cereals/grains including wheat (komugi), barley (oomugi), rye (kuromugi or rye mugi), and oats (enbaku or oat mugi). It’s incredibly common in Japan (and much of East Asia), where it's the household summer drink.

It has no caffeine like many other teas, and has a bunch of various nutritional benefits, so it’s considered a good way to stay hydrated as you’re sweating buckets in the muggy Japanese summer weather.

帽子した？ boushi shita? した！ shita!

I thought this was a cute way of phrasing this question/answer, and a good example of the “parent and their young child” way these two talk.

The suru (past tense shita) verb used here is the ultimate in “generic verb,” and it basically doesn’t get any simpler grammar-wise to phrase something as “noun+suru” like Kobayashi does here (even the particles are dropped).

Kanna, for her part, doesn’t respond with a “yes” or etc, but instead just repeats back the verb itself in confirmation.

Just to note another one of those words like dara-dara: bura-bura, used for things like wandering around, doing something (or nothing) casually/aimlessly, or (with one bura) for something dangling/swinging in a more literal sense, like a spider, slack yo-yo, or wind chime.

These booklets are a common homework assignment for practicing kanji; you can see along the left side there it shows the stroke order, with the first block giving an example to trace over & showing where to start each stroke.

Each character is made up of radicals (e.g. “hot” above: 日 and 耂), which each have a standard way to write them. There’s 214 such radicals (though many are pretty niche; only about ~50 of them are needed to make most characters), and once you get a hang of them it makes learning new characters much easier (not too different from learning word spellings in English imo).

Kanna is repeating out loud the reading for the “hot” character as she writes it.

In addition to the above workbooks (which usually involve both kanji and math problems at Kanna’s grade), elementary school summer homework in Japan typically involves doing an illustrated diary (not a daily one necessarily) and some sort of research project about a subject of your choice. (Think kind of like a small science fair project).

The “research” project part is pretty expansive, and you can typically even do something more arts & craftsy for it.

Manhole covers in a lot of Japanese municipalities feature art representative of the area. For example, the city of Chofu, where the author of GeGeGe no Kitaro lived most of his life, has several with art of that series.

(Photo from https://www.gotokyo.org/jp/spot/1734/index.html)

I mentioned earlier that Kanna has an interesting way of speaking. Probably a better way to put it is that she has a pretty convincingly childish way of speaking (despite the monotone). That is, she uses simple grammar and “easy” words most of the time, but then throws out random big words and fancy idioms from time to time that make you go “...where did you learn that?”

In this case, the phrase she uses is 巷で人気 chimata de ninki. Chimata originally means like a fork (in the road), and since those are often places with lots of people passing through, it expanded to mean “the undefined place where people talk about ~stuff~.” So it’s used for “many people are saying~” or “word on the street is~” types of situations (or “talk of the town,” as here).

It’s kind of an “adult” word though; for example the character for it isn’t included in the jouyou kanji (the 2000+ that are taught in elementary through high school). Hence Kobayashi’s reaction here.

The word she uses for “protected” here is 死守 shishu. The word is the combination of the characters for “death” and “protect,” ~meaning to protect something even at risk to one’s life (to the death, as it were).

It's a word that you learn in third grade in the Japanese education system—the same grade Kanna is in!

Both of these types of signs are common sights in residential areas like this: depending on where you live, it can feel like there’s always some sort of construction project going on, and Japan’s many family/individually-owned businesses like this tend to be closed on various extra days during the summer (and certain other times) to allow for time off.

In this case, them being closed August 12th~16th implies they’re taking off for Obon (and probably leaving town to visit family).

The word Kobayashi uses here is 風物詩 fuubutsu-shi. Fuubutsu refers to something that makes up part of the “scenery” of a place or season, in a pretty broad sense. This shi typically means “poem.”

So fuubutsu-shi is originally a type of poem celebrating a season or a scene of natural beauty, that sort of thing. From that, it’s also now (more popularly) used to describe things that are representative of a season; the kind of stuff you say “it’s not winter until…” about, or “you know it’s summer when…” (It can also be used for places + seasons, like the ice sculptures of Hokkaido winters, or even summer Comiket in Tokyo.)

They’re very similar to the season words I’ve mentioned previously, though they’re far less strict about what counts as one. Here, Kobayashi’s could be referring to the whole package experience of “having to take cover and wait out a sudden heavy rain, despite it being mostly clear skies a few minutes ago,” which you could call fuubutsu-shi (summed up probably as like 夏の雨宿り etc.)

In contrast the relevant season word here would probably be yuudachi (or niwaka-ame), a word referring to the short, sudden bouts of rain that tend to fall (from cumulonimbus clouds, the makings of which are noticeable in the backgrounds before this) on summer evenings.

Feels like in season one she woulda eaten it. Three cheers for character growth!

The parentheticals there are just the “English” in hiragana/katakana.

Kobayashi’s comment (nihongo de ok, roughly “you can just use Japanese”) is an internet-born term people originally would use to reply to someone who said something that didn’t make any sense, had terrible grammar, or was so full of katakana loanwords it was hard to read etc.

Kanna says this line in English, and while I have no proof at all, my guess is that the specific choice of “wicked” was taken from the translation of “maji yabakune?” used in season one.

#maidragon #Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid #kobayashi-san chi no maid dragon #translation notes #anime

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k7l4d4 · 4 years ago

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Plane Shift: The Boiling Isles, Brief Character Portfolio

Hello all, today I am going to go into some measure of detail for the characters in this crossover between the Owl House and Dungeons and Dragons 5e. Everybody clap your hands!!

Now, to give a little heads up, the way this portfolio is set up is based on the following Format:

Character Name

Defining Quote/Motto

Alignment Inclinations

Favored Classes/Known Classes

Brief Profile

Okay, now that the format is listed, time to get into the nitty gritty!

Luz Noceda

“Limits? What are those!”

Chaotic Good/Neutral Good

Primary Class: Wizard, Subclass: Order of Scribes. Secondary Class: Artificer, Subclass: Battle Smith. Tertiary Classes: Paladin, Rogue, and Bard.

The young daughter of the famed Plane Warden and Cleric, Camila Noceda, Luz has always had her head in the clouds, longing for adventure and friendship. Upon entering the Adventurer’s Academy, she proceeded to rock the very foundation of Plana and adventuring by choosing not one, not two, but FIVE classes to train in! She would’ve tried them all, but was talked out of it when they professors made it clear it would be physically impossible for her to take them all, and that the number she had selected would push her to greatest of limits. Luz lives life without limits or regret, and while her extremely impulsive nature has resulted in a rather poor social life, she is greatly beloved among the street dwellers and lower ranks of local organizations and groups of her home.

Amity Blight

“Perfection is impossible. That’s why we seek it.”

Lawful Good/Neutral Good

Primary Class: Warlock, Subclass: Undetermined. Secondary Class: Artificer.

The youngest child of the affluent Blight Family, recently displaced from her home dimension, Amity holds herself to a strict standard of decorum. Her methodical nature, dedication to study, and respect for authority has made her a divisive figure within the Adventurer’s Academy, as while her new instructors find her dedication admirable, they also worry it will disallow her from living a healthy and happy life. Amity regularly runs afoul of Luz, but the human girl’s friendly nature, genuine endearment, and appreciation for magic and learning has served as a bonding bridge between the two. Hints of something deeper within her heart grow clearer all the while.

Willow Park

“Nature is a blessing to us all. We have a duty to care for it, and each other.”

Neutral Good/Chaotic Good

Primary Class: Druid, Subclass: Undetermined. Secondary Class: Barbarian.

The only child of the Park family, Willow is a quiet, gentle child all around, but within her lurks a frightening power over nature itself that constantly threatens to break free if not for her ironclad self-control, and kind nature. Once friends with Amity Blight, circumstances forced a rift between them, and she holds that pain as a torch within her heart, always wary of letting it burn her down to nothing but unwilling to let go. Willow’s incredible connection with Plants has made her a rare talent among the Druid classes, and she is constantly called to demonstrate her power before her new peers, much to her delight.

Augustus “Gus” Porter

“So much to learn! So much to experience!”

Neutral Good/Chaotic Good

Primary Class: Wizard, Subclass: Undetermined. Secondary Class: Bard.

A young prodigy who skipped several grades in his home dimension, Gus is still an outstanding figure when it comes to both technical skill and application of magic. Excitable, kind if somewhat insensitive on occasion, and with a fierce need to prove himself, Gus often finds himself in difficult situations, both socially and dangerously, but he never allows it to affect his optimism. He’s rapidly built a bond with Luz over their shared passion and energy, not to mention his excitement over befriending “an actual real-life human!”

Boscha Triplet

“I saved the day! Why? Because I’m a Star of Course!”

Lawful Neutral

Primary Class: Monk, Subclass: Undetermined. Secondary Class: Artificer.

An athletic star with an incredible ego, Boscha is by all accounts an unpleasant individual, yet since coming to Plana, she’s gradually shown signs of a more vulnerable personality, one she vehemently denies and buries within herself, much to the chagrin of others. While she initially chose Monk as a joke, thinking it of a blow-off course or something similar, the relentless physical training, and the brutally humiliating smackdown dealt on her first day have served to motivate her to continue and succeed in the Class she chose, if only out of pure spite. The philosophical aspects of Monk training seem to go over her head, yet her friends and foes alike have noted her occasionally seem to verge on saying something mean or crude, only to stop herself and stare off in contemplation.

Skara Levine

“Just go with the rhythm. Everything will work out, right?”

Lawful Neutral

Primary Class: Bard, Subclass: Undetermined. Secondary Class: Sorcerer.

A young girl who lived at the top, Skara had many halmarks of being a potential problem child, often being easily lead and influenced by those deemed her friends, Skara is typically very sweet and outgoing, but for all her social butterfly moments, they are undercut by her poor interpersonal skills, frequently stumbling onto sensitive topics without any inclination she understood why she shouldn’t bring them up. She is a paradox, being both kind and cruel, nice and mean, in equal measures, the parallel nature of her behavior often befuddles those around her. She’s recently begun stating that she hears things suddenly when no one is around.

Emira Blight

“Don’t worry, I can handle this on my own.”

Chaotic Good/Chaotic Neutral

Primary Class: Rogue, Subclass: Undetermined. Secondary Class: Fighter.

The oldest daughter of the Blight family, Emira is a mischievous girl with a fondness for mayhem. Nonetheless, she cares for her family and friends, even if her methods occasionally leave much to be desired. Of the Blight Children, Emira is the most independent, often resentful of any perceived restrictions, but calm enough to find workarounds rather than lash out. She frequently professes that looks forward to the day she can live her own life, and enjoys teasing her sister along with her brother.

Edric Blight

“We got this, we just got to stick together.”

Chaotic Good/Chaotic Neutral

Primary Class: Rogue, Subclass: Undetermined. Secondary Class: Bard.

The lone son of the Blight family, Edric is Emira’s twin, and is in many ways both her equal and her mirror. While sharing her sense of mischief and love of tricks, Edric is far more flighty and whimsical, often hyper-fixating on animals and whatever shiny thing catches his eye, often projecting a childish air about him. He is the most insecure of the Blight siblings, though he hides it well, and dreads the idea of being alone, particularly from his twin.

Viney Arkswood

“Animals are our friends. They have just as much capacity for good as we do.”

Chaotic Good

Primary Class: Ranger, Subclass: Undetermined. Secondary Class: Druid.

One of three students sentenced to the Detention Track for their mixing of magical disciplines, Viney has a caring heart and a love of people and animals that manifested in a rather strange way, in that she attempted, and technically succeeded, in training her pet griffin to be a nursing assistant. Viney is genuinely unsure if she wishes to return, with the lone benefit in her mind being to see her parents again.

Jerbo Underslack

“I might be nervous, but that doesn’t make me incompetent.”

Chaotic Good/Chaotic Neutral

Primary Class: Cleric, Subclass: Nature Domain. Secondary Class: Druid.

One of the three Detention Track students, Jerbo’s love of plants and his fondness for the idea of loyal aides combined in his creation of plant monsters that trashed the gardens of his school. Jerbo is the most suspicious and leery of his friends, often being slow to trust and even slower to act, he nonetheless is a kind soul, and used his admittance into the Adventurer’s Academy to try and kind some new meaning in his life.

Barcus Howsberry

“Your soul glimmers with the joy of a newfound toy in the arms of a lonely child.”

Chaotic Good

Primary Class: Wizard, Subclass: Undetermined. Secondary Class: Artificer.

Last and oddest of the three Detention Track students, Barcus’ unusual body and strange speech make him truly bizarre, and his cryptic demeanor doesn’t help. Barcus enjoys both the art of Potions and Prediction, and frequently seeks to join the two. Upon arrival, and confirmation that yes he is a sapient being, Barcus was checked by Camila, and was determined to have a hereditary curse bound to his being, and when offered to have it removed, his comfort with his form initially made him refuse, only to be told that the speech impediment and oddness of his form would destroy any chance of him being able to integrate into society, causing him to compromise and have the curse suppressed instead.

Camila Noceda

“To bring goodness and love in this world means I can rest easy, knowing I left it in the hands of those I love.”

Lawful Good

Primary Class: Cleric, Subclass: Life Domain. Secondary Class: None.

Mother of Luz Noceda, Camila is the current Plane Warden of Plana, being entrusted with guarding the city from extraplanar threats and to help guide and aid those lost between realms. Camila is a loving soul, but the strain of her job has worn on her over the years, with the sole reprieve being her precious daughter. Camila often adopts a motherly role for the displaced children now in her care, offering both advice when needed, and discipline as necessary. Camila also frequently aids and offers advice to the adults now sharing her living space, hoping to help them adjust to their situation.

Edalyn Clawthorne

“I’m the most powerful witch in the Isles, but it never meant a thing until I found someone to use that power for.”

Chaotic Good

Primary Class: Sorcerer, Subclass: Undetermined. Secondary Class: Wizard.

Fiercest Wild Witch to grace the Boiling Isles since Belos’ ascension, Eda marches to the beat of her own drum, no exceptions, but she still holds a beautiful heart for those she cares for, and people in general, no matter how much she denies it. Eda was genuinely shocked to learn that Camila could, and did, heal her curse, effectively if not easily, and feels a deep sense of obligation towards the woman a a result, not to mention her all around soft spot for Camila’s daughter. Eda genuinely has no desire to return to the Isles at this point, beyond maybe a chance to reconcile with her mother and retrieve Hooty and all her stuff.

Lilith Clawthorne

“I am far from perfect, and have made many mistakes. This is the least I can do.”

Lawful Good/Lawful Neutral

Primary Class: Paladin, Subclass: Undetermined. Secondary Class: Wizard.

Lilith Clawthorne, elder sister to Eda, means well, but is both painfully naive and far too trusting for one her age, as well as disturbingly childish and immature. For all that though, Lilith holds a good heart and thrives in a structured and ordered environment and system. When she received the knowledge that Eda’s curse had been cured, Lilith was nearly left catatonic, as the curing of Eda rendered all her efforts meaningless and her life without true purpose. When Eda bluntly stated that even with her curse cured she will NEVER join a coven, Lilith forced herself to accept it, no matter how much it hurt. Since that day, Lilith has attempted to find a new direction in life, and to help others as best she can.

Odalia Blight

“Like it or not, one’s word is their bond.”

Lawful Neutral/Lawful Evil

Primary Class: Wizard, Subclass: Undetermined. Secondary Class: Bard.

Matriarch of the Blight family, and a near-Karen level individual, Odalia is both incredibly goal-oriented and driven by a desire to succeed. Domineering and controlling, Odalia exerts a highly unhealthy and toxic level of influence over her childrens’ lives, though she does truly love them. Odalia enjoys having the upper hand, and will do anything to allow her children and family to not only survive but thrive, and is very much fond of disproportionate retribution against her enemies.

Alador Blight

“This could prove interesting.”

Lawful Neutral/Lawful Evil

Primary Class: Artificer, Subclass: Undetermined. Secondary Class: Rogue.

Patriarch of the Blight family, and all around bizarre individual, Alador cares for little in his life aside from his inventions, his wife, and his children, in that order. Often dazed and easily distracted, Alador is highly curious and constantly seeks new inspiration for his devices and creations, no matter how dangerous the circumstances. He cares little for his wife’s antics and schemes, but in no way does he find them unacceptable, he often acts as a stabilizing influence upon her, and is perfectly fine with calling her out on her behavior when she genuinely goes too far.

Hieronymus Bump

“Dedication and Focus are important, but true passion and joy for what you do makes all the difference.”

Neutral Good/Lawful Good

Primary Class: Wizard, Subclass: Undetermined. Secondary Class: None.

Principal to the famed, some would say infamous, Hexside School of Magic and Demonics, Principal Bump loves to teach and help others learn, and is perfectly willing to play the system to ensure he can do so. While he genuinely loves all his students and wishes them to succeed, he is willing to admit he is old-fashioned to a certain extent and can have trouble keeping his views on a topic unbiased, and can occasionally act in unethical ways if it means finding a solution to a problem, though he does not enjoy such measures. He aids Camila in searching for a way to return home for him and his fellows, and often acts as a reasonable authority figure for the students who came with them.

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revengerevisited · 4 years ago

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So I’ve been kinda dancing around my original story idea for a little while, and I got this idea in my head of ‘what if I release chapter 1 and then get feedback without telling anyone what the story is about first so it’s more of a surprise?’ But honestly? I’m realizing since I already released a preview-of-a-preview for chapter 1, and it might be a little while until I finish chapter 1, plus I honestly kinda feel like I’d rather work on sketches of my character designs than write at the moment, I might as well go ahead and tell you guys. X’3

So! I watched a couple anime recently both centered around the premise of... monster girls! These being Monster Musume and Monster Girl Doctor, but then I noticed there’s also Interviews with Monster Girls, A Centaur’s Life, and the infamous Interspecies Reviewers, and I asked myself... Monster girls are pretty popular right now, yeah? But where’s all the monster boys?! And that’s how I got the idea! I re-watched some of my favorite anime based on Otome Games, Kamigami no Asobi and Uta no Prince Sama for inspiration as well, and a few ones I hadn’t seen before like Dance with Devils and Magic-kyun Renaissance for inspiration as well.

So now I’ve got my premise that I shared earlier: This is the story of Millie, a young woman down on her luck who happens to live in a world where monsters aren’t just real, but commonplace. She started working as a maid in a mansion-turned-art-school whose students are a group of very attractive monster boys. The twist is that these aren’t just any monster boys; they belong to various rare and exotic species with deadly reputations...

Note that character and place names are technically place-holders for now and may change if I come up with better ones. Now, I don’t wanna spoil anything story-wise, but I think I can introduce my setting and some of the characters that you’re gonna meet. The story is set in a modern setting, though it’s vague if it’s actually Earth or just some generic world similar to it, as I try to avoid referencing real-world places or events. This is a world where humans and monsters live together after a Great Interspecies War happened in the past, but tensions have mostly relaxed by the time the story takes place. The war could be thought of as the equivalent of our own World War One, one in which there was a truce decided after many years of stalemate fighting.

The city everything takes place in is tentatively named Dullahan, and was built directly after the war to commemorate peace between human and monster kind. It’s considered an artistic cultural center, and it’s got a lot of interesting entertainment places to go to, arcades, theaters, aquariums, etc, that the characters can have a lot of different shenanigans in. The other main setting is the Beaufort Academy of the Arts, which was actually a mansion that was converted into a small private school. This is where all the characters live, and our main character Millie works as a maid there.

Before I go into the characters, I should start with the various monster species. There are 12 species, divided into 2 groups: common monsters and exotic monsters. The common monsters are centaurs, harpies, lamias (snake people), kobolds (dog people), ogres, and merrows (mermaids). These species are all pretty standard, and will be mostly background characters and npcs. The main characters, and love interests for Millie, will be of the exotic variety: arachnes (spider people), sirens (deep-sea mermaids), mandrakes (plant people), dragons, manticores (with a liontaur body-type), and scyllas (octopus people).

So what differentiates a common monster from an exotic one? Well, while the Interspecies War was between humans and monsters in general, some monsters were already at least partially integrated into human society, and the rest followed soon after the war ended. These monsters were almost as common as humans, and either herbivorous or omnivorous, with the exception of the carnivorous lamias who prefer to eat eggs over anything else. On the other hand, the so-called ‘exotic’ species were not only much more rare, but they had a very different food preference... one which earned them the now derogatory nickname... man-eaters.

Naturally, most ‘man-eaters’ weren’t exactly welcomed into human --nor common monster-- society with open arms, not that most of them wanted to. For the most part, species as powerful and dangerous as them didn’t want to play nice with those they had once --and in some cases still do-- regard as prey, and so hid away into the furthest reaches of the world. Which of course makes them perfect material for all our leading men and Millie’s various love-interests!! Oh yes, while all of these monster boys are perfectly civilized --well, for the most part-- they still belong to species that many both human and monster alike continue to fear to this day. While they aren’t exactly fish out of water (well, except for the siren) there’s still plenty of awkward misunderstandings and interesting scenarios that can be played out.

So! Let’s have a quick run-down of the characters, keep in mind that none of these names are final and could change later on. First there’s Millie, a hardworking young woman who’s had a recent streak of bad luck. Through a misunderstanding she gets hired as a maid in a mansion-turned-art-school. She’s very sweet and tries her best to help others, but she’s not as innocent as she appears; she’ll understand your innuendos just fine, even if she doesn’t really say any herself! Next is Richard and Lara Beaufort, a husband and wife who run the school. Richard is rather laid-back, yet he’s also a master of all kinds of art, painting, sculpture, photography, dancing, singing, you name it! Lara is his arachne wife, a rather boisterous woman who owns a high-class fashion company. The secret to her clothing’s success?? Arachne silk, of course! The school was her idea, a way to help better integrate exotic species into society. Will her mission succeed? Only time can tell.

Richard and Lara have a son named Simon, our first love interest and a human-arachne hybrid who takes almost entirely after his mother in the looks-department (hybrids tend to look like one species or the other, rather than a mix of both). He’s a bit withdrawn due to dealing with bullying as a kid; most people --human and monster alike-- are afraid of his spider-like appearance, so he doesn’t get out much-- to the point his parents worry about him being a shut-in for life! He’s also a gamer boy, and has a secret soft side for gothic poetry, although he doesn’t want to join his parents’ art classes. He actually disapproves of his mother’s exotic species integration plan, as from what he’s experienced he feels it’s a waste of time.

Simon’s best friend and Millie’s second love interest is Louis, a mandrake who lives in the woods behind the manor. Louis is extremely shy and more than a bit lonely, even more so than Simon, and he doesn’t speak very often out of fear that the sound of his voice will hurt others around him. Mandrake screams can induce insanity or even kill those that hear them, hence his fear. Being part plant, Louis has mild shape-shifting abilities and is able to transform between child and young adult forms at will, although he’s actually the oldest of the group. He also isn’t a student at the art school, although he has an interest in floristry.

Now for our actual students! Forrest is a manticore, which in this world means he has a body similar to that of a centaur, but with the lower half of a lion instead of a horse, and a scorpion-like tail tipped with a deadly venomous stinger. Despite his species’s name literally meaning ‘man-eater’, Forrest is extremely friendly and cheerful, and is very sporty too. His passion is photography, and he also loves eating food-- any sort of meat dish is fine by him! He’s also a fan of fantasy tabletop roleplaying games, and will often make references comparing them to everyday life; he always plays the knight who saves the princess!

Anthony is a childhood ‘friend’ of Forrest’s, though he’s loathe to admit it. Highly intelligent and highly snobbish, Anthony fancies himself an intellectual-- and he’s not exactly wrong. Being a dragon, he likes to hoard things-- in his case, knowledge. Anthony loves to read, and is most often found in the library. His skill is in drawing and painting, and all his paintings’ invariably morose subject matter worry Millie. Still, this haughty dragon could definitely learn to loosen up a little, and be a little more kind; perhaps his stay at the academy --and his interactions with Millie-- will open his mind to appreciating the feelings of others. He does, at the very least, greatly respect Master Beaufort as a master of the arts.

The other two students are denizens of the sea, and have been friends for a very long time. Emil is a scylla, and like all scyllas he’s a little eccentric, and just can’t seem to keep his tentacles to himself! While Forrest is obsessed with eating, Emil’s true calling is cooking, and he loves making all kinds of dishes, especially anything seafood and/or foreign. Emil also is highly appreciative of women’s fashion, and absolutely adores everything to come from Madam Beaufort’s clothing brand-- so much so that he actually wears them himself! His pretty-boy looks and penchant for wearing women’s clothing actually has Millie mistake him for a girl at first, though he’s very much unafraid to show her his romantic side, or at least what he interprets as romantic...

Keeping Emil’s pervy antics in check is our sixth and final monster boy, Oswald! As a siren, Oswald spent most of his life in the sea, and still has a lot to learn about humanity. He’s a pretty cool guy but gets a bit embarrassed about his species’s troublesome past as the cause of many shipwrecks at sea, and would prefer to not discuss it. His passion is rock music, and his main instrument is the guitar. He also loves to sing, but refrains from doing so due to the hypnotic effect it has on other species. His lack of legs, tentacles, or a snake-like tail means that like other merrows and sirens he requires a wheelchair to move around on land, and often feels frustrated that he can’t show off how adept he is at traversing water. He’s also easy to embarrass and obsessed with not allowing anything to ‘ruin’ his manly image, including allowing Millie (a girl!) to help carry him around.

So there you have it, all my monster boys! I left out a few things, as those would be major spoilers, but those are my ideas for the characters for now! I’ll try to draw and post some sketches of their designs later. Hopefully I haven’t forgotten anything, but this won’t be the last time I talk about monster boys. Any questions or comments would be very much appreciated! Nsfw questions are allowed (all the boys wear pants for a reason, after all), though I’m currently not sure if this series will be 16+ or 18+, if you catch my meaning. Lemme know how interested you are in this story, or if you’re not interested please let me know that too!

#writing #monster boys #maddie's monster boys #if you ever wanted to see a merman wear pants... here's your chance XD

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natsumiyateirintheauthor · 4 years ago

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From left to right; Rosa, Honoka, and Mauchen.

Part 1

Technically, Ashe could cast a Wandern spell and teleport to his house.

Buuuut there's a child who's light in his arms and gently heavy on his chest, and he doesn’t want to risk the magic rearranging them wrong.

So instead he begins walking back the way he came and, since the telepathic link is still open, he calls to the communication stone in his house.

Honoka answers, his cool voice a natural balm for the constant, lingering warmth in Ashe's head.

"Hey, dad. The mission going okay?"

"Yes. The Fosa cultists weren't a problem- but, can you and Mauchen clean one of the spare rooms?"

Externally, Ashe is silent- there's no risk of his voice waking little Rosa as he exits the cave and greets the harsh sunlight.

Honoka laughs, and Ashe can hear the grin in his voice.

"Are we getting a little sister?"

Ashe told his adopted children what this mission would entail, right down to there being a young girl involved, and he knows they know of his tendency to adopt children.

"....Maybe, if she wants."

"Okay. See you in a bit. Be safe on your way home."

"I will."

With that, Ashe closes the link.

King Eigen was sure Ashe could handle this alone, and Ashe himself is quietly grateful for that. He's eager to get Rosa cleaned up and changed into something more appropriate for a child, and he's sure he'd just get irritated if he had to wait on someone else.

The only downside is now he has to figure out how to get home with an extra passenger. The cave itself is in the middle of nowhere- but...actually, that should make it easy to find from above...which means...

He tightens his grip on Rosa just a bit and lets his fingers attempt to untangle at least the end of her hair as he prepares to place another call.

"Sky-View Draxi services, how can I help you?"

"Hello. I need a dragon sent to my location- it's..."

***

The Hexen house is in the northern district of the mixed-race kingdom of Hoffen. In comparison to the noble estates surrounding it, the house is very modest- at least on the outside. Outside, it looks to be two stories, with a kitchen, dining room, living room, two bathrooms, and three bedrooms.

But Ashe's status affords him special privileges, one of which is the legal ability to use space-manipulation magic inside his house. So despite its external appearance, the Hexen house actually has a kitchen, a separate pantry and freezing and refrigeration rooms, a dining room, a living room, seven bedrooms (a master bedroom, two- soon to be three- bedrooms, and four- soon to be three- spare rooms) each with an attached bathroom, plus another bathroom downstairs, an office, an attic, a basement, a separate wine cellar, a library, a training room, a room for the household communication stone, a room for the household ward stone, and a partridge in a pear tree. The partridge is named Maggie and she actually dislikes pears- but she does like tormenting would-be thieves, so she's actually an excellent guard...bird.

Ashe enters the living room through the front door and takes off his shoes, then sits Rosa on the sofa so he can take off her shoes as well. They're made of gold- fine to look at, but too heavy for her to easily move around in without effort (and that was probably exactly the point, he thinks bitterly).

He wonders, as her head slumps down, if he should cut her hair now or give her a bath first.

He hears two sets of footsteps enter the room, and he greets Honoka and Mauchen with a smile.

"I'm home," he says.

"Welcome home," Honoka says, stepping closer. "We got a room cleaned up. Anything else we can do?"

Ashe hums, and after a couple seconds, nods. "Yeah- I need a bucket of warm water and a pair of hair scissors. Can you get them for me?"

"Sure thing, dad."

Honoka walks towards the bathroom, the white bow in his hair bouncing with every step, and Mauchen crosses over to the sofa.

"Daddy, sissy?" She asks, wrapping her arms around him from behind. Despite being an adult (by beastmen standards anyway) her mind is stuck in a childlike state (the result of an especially bad fever that would've killed her had Ashe not taken her in). Ashe is good at understanding her, but he's also glad he returned on a Good day- it would’ve been harder to explain this to her otherwise.

"That's right, MauMau. This is your new sister. We're gonna cut her hair and give her a bath," she tenses up and Ashe can't stop an amused huff from leaving his mouth. Mauchen didn’t like baths even when he first started caring for her. "We'll get her all nice and clean and pretty, and then you can be her big sissy."

"MauMau big, big sissy?"

"Mhm. Can you handle that? Can you be a good big sissy?"

He feels her nod against his shoulder.

"Yeah! Yeah!"

"Good. Now, wanna watch daddy cut sissy's hair?" He asks as Honoka sets a bucket beside the arm of the sofa.

Mauchen shakes her head. "Nu-uh. MauMau read with Noka!"

Ah, so they were in the library.

"Okay. I'll let you get back to it," he says, more to Honoka, as Honoka himself offers the scissors to him. Ashe takes them, and Honoka smiles fondly at Mauchen.

"Kay. C'mon MauMau- lessee what Gobl the Goblin does next!"

"Yaay!"

And with that, they leave.

Ashe dips his hand into the bucket filled a quarter of the way with water- good thing Honoka remembered to bring a cloth because Ashe forgot to mention it- and wrings out the strip of cloth that was inside it.

He holds it and uses it to rub at the knotted, matted ends of Rosa's hair, and when that isn't enough to detangle it, he channels a bit of magic into the water droplets clinging to her hair and directs them to unravel. Then he sets to work, cutting and detangling until the dead and split ends are cut. Rosa doesn’t stir throughout this, but it's fine.

Her hair, currently a dark bronze color, is cut to a square bob that just barely brushes her shoulders.

Hopefully, Rosa isn't as averse to baths as Mauchen.

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nanigma · 4 years ago

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Hi, Sothis anon again~ do any other dragons in this series speak like Sothis does, based on the Japanese text? Her archaic manner of speaking against her childlike appearance creates this very interesting effect that I don’t remember seeing with other old as balls dragons like Nowi and Tiki... I know the fandom likes to label Nowi as loli bait, but I can’t see the same principle being applied to Sothis, despite her also being romanceable

Well, from the same game, Indech and Macuil both speak very archaic too. They don’t use exactly the same language as Sothis though. Sothis uses “washi” as her first person pronoun, which is basically derived from old people slurring “watashi”. Indech and Macuil use “ware” to refer to themselves, which is an extremely formal pronoun that is nowadays almost only used in literature and media as well.

Sothis uses “onushi” to refer to Byleth, which as I have explained is an outdated second-person pronoun used by mostly elders and Samurai towards people of lower rank. Indech and Macuil use “nanji” as a second person pronoun. Nanji is your “generic” archaic pronoun that often pops up in media with old spells and ancient characters and is what is usually translated as “thou” in English localizations. It’s used in Bible translations for example. To my knowledge, it lacks the same rank conotations onushi has.

Which is interesting. Of course Indech and Macuil speak in archaic ways as they have been living in isolation from humans for a thousand years. Sothis meanwhile not only sounds as archaic as you’d expect from someone who has been outright dead for even longer, but she sounds like an archaic old woman! Pretty neat.

As for other dragons and ancient beings in the series... Well, I am not going to check through them all, but heres the gist.

Baby Tiki sounds like a small child, cause she is one. She and Bantu traveled the world together, so that’s how she picked up more modern language I’d say.

Bantu is fascinating. He uses the standard old-people “washi” like Sothis does and otherwise talks almost exactly like her. Except he uses “anta” (a slurred “anata”) as a second person pronoun. Basically, he sounds like an old dude, but one who still had some human contact in the last few decades.

Adult Tiki sounds like a polite young woman. This makes sense as she does apparently have regular contact with people as “the Voice of Naga”

Nowi talks like Baby Tiki does, really childishly. The localization toned it down a bit, but she is really young for a dragon. She seems to have been abducted shortly after her birth and therefore has spent all her life around humans and therefore adapted to the language as it evolved.

Yune is not a dragon, but still ancient. Also uses formal, but still mostly modern language. Might be because she has had contact with Micaiah for a while now.

Ashera also uses “modern” pronouns, but otherwise very formal and somewhat outdated language.

So there you have it.

Also I do see people calling Sothis a loli option. It’s just normally less pronounced than Nowi, because while Sothis can be a bit of a brat at times, she usually acts pretty rationally and adult-like. Sometimes she comes across almost motherly, like when she nags Byleth or when she comforts them after Jeralt’s death. Nowi meanwhile wants to play house with other characters and generally has the emotional maturity to match her appearance. It’s no wonder people don’t really buy into the “1000 years old” excuse with her, because it feels like a technicality in the grand scheme of things.

#Anonymous #3H #nanigma translates

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voleuxe · 4 years ago

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A STUDY IN : LUDIVINE ROSE ALEXANDER.

BASICS.

IS YOUR MUSE TALL / SHORT / AVERAGE? Measuring in at a lithe 5′8″ she falls pretty close to average (the ‘official’ average height was 5′6″ last I checked) though flirts with the edges of being considered tall. The shoes she wears often push her the rest of the way into Tall territory, and her method of carrying herself serves that end whether she’s wearing a shocking pair of heels or no shoes at all. A technically average height does not a technically average girl make.

ARE THEY OKAY WITH THEIR HEIGHT? I think, proverbially speaking, she would like to stand a little taller in the eyes of some, but physically she has no qualms. Five feet and eight additional inches feels balanced enough.

WHAT’S THEIR HAIR LIKE? Long, for a first impression. All her teenage and now young adult life it has hung no shorter than the middle of her back, and very often longer. And we’re not talking some thinned, heavily layered wisps, oh no; full and dark and shining from root to waist, all in a waterfall, a cascade of heavy satin. & I know I’ve just barely started but I think I could, rather easily, write entire essays about her hair. That sounds like a joke but it’s come to be a very interesting physical reflection of a lot of her particular traits, and in that way is easily related to and a result from several analyses I can make. Suffice to say it is one of her breakings from not only the undercity but also her daily persona. Both would, generally, seek to have this image of a sharp, severe person, and the soft, romantic look of her long & waved dark hair suits neither. She has heard it, I am certain, again and again that the vanity she attaches to her hair is going to get her killed - it is inconvenient as a thief and fighter, often getting in the way or often offering a weakness to your enemies. She has been told, I know, that it makes her look & seem younger, weaker, someone that other company heads and political players will think they can exploit. Ask her, though, if she’s going to cut it. I dare you.

DO THEY SPEND A LOT OF TIME ON THEIR HAIR / GROOMING? Quite a bit, yes. For one thing, her hair is a (as in one of, not exclusively) manifestation of her vanity, so a considerable amount of time goes into maintaining that dark river that crowns her head. For another, it is rather expected of her -and that is the part that annoys her- to maintain a certain air of composure which includes an above-average standard for how well she aligns into the current standards of conventional attractiveness.

DOES YOUR MUSE CARE ABOUT THEIR APPEARANCE / WHAT OTHERS THINK? She does, and she would, I think, even if she wasn’t any kind of public figure (although that is such a far cry from everything Lu Is!) be invested in her appearance. I feel like I’ve mentioned it before? but -while she is not a particularly artistically driven person- she engages with artistic expression through her wardrobe, hair, makeup, etc. It frustrates her endlessly that this is also something expected of her. She hates when she doesn’t have full freedom with it - someone else attempting to style her is certainly a nightmare for everyone involved. Any TV-appearances she has made over the years have undoubtedly led to a reputation which says ‘just let her wear what she wants’ preceding her arrival to future interviews, etc.

PREFERENCES.

INDOORS OR OUTDOORS? Outdoors.

RAIN OR SUNSHINE? Shockingly, the rain.

FOREST OR BEACH? Beach!

PRECIOUS METALS OR GEMS? Metals.

FLOWERS OR PERFUMES? Both hand in hand; and a flash of teeth, too.

PERSONALITY OR APPEARANCE? Personality for the long haul, but she’ll happily snap something beautiful and wildly ill-mannered right up for a bit of fun.

BEING ALONE OR BEING IN A CROWD? In a crowd.

ORDER OR ANARCHY? Whatever suits her in the moment.

PAINFUL TRUTHS OR WHITE LIES? The truth. Always the truth.

SCIENCE OR MAGIC? ... No comment, I don’t think?

PEACE OR CONFLICT? Conflict. Peace is stagnation is death most drawn out and unbearable; not all conflict must be an evil. Mostly it’s just for fun.

NIGHT OR DAY? Night.

DUSK OR DAWN? Dawn.

WARMTH OR COLD? Warmth; you’ll want to run if there is cold. (You won’t get very far, but you might feel better about your odds for a moment.)

MANY ACQUAINTANCES OR A FEW CLOSE FRIENDS? Yes.

READING OR PLAYING A GAME? Oh she’s playing ...probably.

QUESTIONNAIRE.

WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR MUSE’S BAD HABITS? Attention seeking. FLIRTING. I sometimes think she oversteps others’ boundaries, actually. It comes from a place of good intentions (usually) but it’s nevertheless a certain disregard for the limits of others, as she pushes them to break from their comfort zone.

HAS YOUR MUSE LOST ANYONE CLOSE TO THEM? HOW HAS IT AFFECTED THEM? Oh. I don’t... want to talk about it.

WHAT ARE SOME FOND MEMORIES YOUR MUSE HAS? There are many many many things I could put here but there’s this one that sticks out to me because it’s almost... so unlike anything else in her life? She hasn’t had a very ‘normal’ kind of life, you know, she’s not like an ‘average’ childhood or anything. A very happy childhood, but not an average one. And the closest thing from this childhood to something like what ‘normal’ people get is: sick days. When she was school-aged, whenever she got sick enough to warrant staying home, her brother would take the day off as well. In perhaps the most mundane aspect of their relationship, he would do all those things that guardians do for their charges when they aren’t well, checkups and meals and the cold rag on the forehead. And, as Lu’s favorite and most treasured memory, they would sit together on the couch and watch those classic, iconic martial-arts style films. Lu’s favorite is Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and Reece’s was Fists of Fury. She convinced him (once, and only once) to create a drill with her where they took the beats of one of the fights from Fists of Fury and ran through it as an exercise; she runs it as warm up every time she’s practicing.

IS IT EASY FOR YOUR MUSE TO KILL? I will not say easy. She, as a very general standing, will avoid it when/where she can, and often (though not always) go out of her way to accomplish this. It is not something she derives joy from, or that she leans into, but she is quite capable of it. In defense of herself, and even more readily for the sake of those that she defends. She does not, barring the very extreme, want to, and she does not walk away from it unscathed by any means. So, no, not easily, but she can. And she will.

WHAT’S IT LIKE WHEN YOUR MUSE BREAKS DOWN? Unsettling and wrong. Like watching a diamond fall from a short height only to shatter on its impact with the ground. It was not glass, you think, so what happened? What went wrong? Where did all that pressure, all that force, all those fissures come from? Unpleasant, as it should be. She is Atlas and willing; she does not crumble. (Unless you take her sky from her, and she finds that, without the weight, she does not quite hold together..)

IS YOUR MUSE CAPABLE OF TRUSTING SOMEONE WITH THEIR LIFE? Capable? Yes. Willing? When the mood strikes. Ever, truly, committed to the handing over of her heart? To the pressing of that most sacred muscle into someone else’s hands? Only insofar that she will tear them apart before it hits the ground if they should let it slip.

WHAT’S YOUR MUSE LIKE WHEN THEY’RE IN LOVE? Beautiful and terrible; she is everything, every corner of the universe, and if you have taken her in pieces you have not loved her back at all.

#oh lu does Weird things to my writing style hm #( passion pride & protection / hc. )

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masked-disciple · 4 years ago

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19 through 25? :0

19. Is there something you always find yourself repeating in your writing? (favourite verb, something you describe ‘too often’, trope you can’t get enough of?)

Hmmmm.... Honestly, not that I can think of? I mean characters in my head sometimes walk up and inform me they’ve committed incest again, but that doesn’t usually make it to AO3. (Shoutout to Rhada for informing me of a whole lot of shit he did with Sisyphus, who is related to him in Mirrorverse on a fucking technicality, jfc. But also Rhada’s been committing incest by way of sleeping with Gordon, aka Minos’ son, since the bronze age so.)

I mean, I probably overuse Toby quotes, but tbh I actually can’t think of something I overuse too much. Huh.

20. Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)

I’ve already done this a lot (I’m actually answering this last because I’m trying to think of my favourite here), and. Hmmm. Honestly, I’m gonna go with IKM Minos, because while I have rambled about him before, only in DMs, and I haven’t talked about IKM much yet.

The thing is, I know as much about him as y’all who follow the series do. He’s very quiet in my headspace, and only ever comes out when I sit down and write him. But he’s four things. Four things, completely at odds with each other, and yet completely in harmony. He’s a griffon, he’s a Spectre, he’s noble, he’s feral. And everything he is can be summed up in those four traits.

He’s a griffon, to start. Half cat, half bird. All the casual arrogance of cats, all the flock behaviour of a bird, all the loyalty, all the insistence to guard. That’s what griffons do. They guard. And that’s his fundamental beginning: he’s a griffon, once you strip everything else away from him.

On top of that, he’s a Spectre. He’s casually cruel and vicious, very traumatized (how, I don’t know, he won’t tell me), he’s a strategist, he prioritizes his own survival but looks out for the others in his division, and he’s very very choosy about who he trusts to not hurt him, who he trusts he won’t hurt on purpose.

Then, his demon star, Nobility. This comes from the Age of Myth. He’s at ease with humans, can interact well with them, can slip around their social etiquette with grace, despite being nothing like them. He’s a little bit chivalrous, has honour enough, tries not to get too messy, actually does have a moral compass of sorts.

Lastly, he’s feral. Wild. Untethered and unforgiving and free. This is the opposite of his demon star, yes. But it is what he is, and he has no issues stripping free of his fancy clothes and running naked through the mud with nothing but fur to cover him and howling at the moon as he rips through prey with his teeth.

Seems contrary, and indeed, he’s a very contrary person. The real joy in how those go together.

A griffon Spectre means he’ll guard his division. He doesn’t need to love them to have no option but to guard and protect them. He’s the leader of the flock, and he’ll do what needs doing. He’s cruel, he’s responsible, and he does what he needs to. This ties in well with Nobility, his star, because he has enough of a moral compass to know when he has to sacrifice someone, and how to feel bad about it, while his Spectreness allows him to not feel as bad about it as he could.

Naturally, most of the time, he’s noble, a bit fussy and imperious, likes his poetry as a way of speaking. But the more he’s hurt, the angrier he is, the more upset he is, that stripes away into his feral nature. His nobility is a mask and a shield for his true nature: simply a wild griffon, untethered by any rules and unforgiving to any that meet him. I’ll explore this part a bit further later on as this is the part of him that Alba really falls in love with, but this is where his personality begins to really shine. That duality between his noble, imperious nature and his honest, wild self.

He’s a hard as fuck character to write. But oh, I love the results.

21. What other medium do you think your story would work well as? (film, webcomic, animated series?)

As answered previously, I Have No Fucking Idea But Probably Anime.

22. Do you reread your old works? How do you feel about them?

As also answered previously, yes, because I have no other choice if I want to see my damn rarepairs most of the time, and I enjoy doing so because I like most of my fics.

23. What’s the story idea you’ve had in your head for the longest?

I answered last time as Rose’s story, but I checked my spreadsheet for what I’d forgotten and gold star me, I forgot about one I really do want to talk about: the TLC version of Seanan McGuire’s Every Heart a Doorway as a long fic! Harry Potter AUs are out. Wayward Children AUs are in as fuck.

What I know is that Aiolos and Aiolia run a school like Eleanor does. It may be located not far from Sagiverse’s Saint Shion’s University, probably Academia Terrestria. Most of the cast is TLC, Golds and Spectres mostly. It follows the adventures of one young Sasha, kicked out of her world by Hades himself after going mostly all the way through the plot of TLC itself, as she deals with coming back without her brother - a possibility she’d already made peace with - but with him still in Sanctum Greece, out and committing mass murder - the part she isn’t cool with.

She walks in during the first few chapters to meet Aiolia just as Minos - from a high Nonsense, high Wicked world where everything is the theatre and the rules make you think it’s Logic and it’s not - bolts across the room, swings a grappling hook around the chandelier, and scales the wall in the nick of time before Pandora throws her trident at him. They’re roommates. Pandora��s from Prism, Kade’s world, as the Goblin Princess so she is understandably wanting Minos dead here.

Sasha blinks, immediately goes on the defensive because hello, two Spectres, but neither know who the hell she is. Lia takes her with him as he negotiates getting Minos into the tower room with Albafica, from the Moors where he and his dad fend off vampires with a strain of woody rose poison they put into their blood, and then puts Sasha in with Pandora, who helps her figure out that just because she knows all of these faces and names doesn’t make them the same people. (This is after watching her freak out over Minos and Alba sharing a room, because she watched them kill each other.)

And then like two weeks later Alone shows up, immediately throws himself at the Dragon Prince Rhadamanthys, who is sixteen and doesn’t know how to handle a small child without a tail and shares the attic with Aiacos, who lived in a world of fire and brimstone and light and wind, moderate Virtue, moderate Logic. Sasha freaks out, Pandora sits on her, and it is discovered not that long later that Alone brought Hades with him.

I have no idea what the plot is past that point. I figure I’ll be asking Zander or another system how I should best write Alone and Hades, which is a standard possession that I want to be thinly-veiled multiplicity, because really those two things are the damn same from where I’m standing and that would be cool.

I’ll write it when I’ve got a plot. Gah.

24. Would you say your writing has changed over time?

Oh abso-goddamn-lutely. I finally figured out how to show and not tell so much, and how to vaguely fix my biggest problem that I had forever: expanding individual threads so I didn’t rush everything. Now that I’ve figured out how to do that, I’m pretty sure I could redline for another writer struggling with the same thing. One of the bits of advice someone said that really fixed my writing was the idea of one, ‘always name at least two sensory details in every paragraph’, and two, ‘for the next six months never write ‘they saw that’ ‘they felt like’ ‘they wanted to’ etc etc, and find a way to say that without saying that, take no shortcuts and never say it outright’. Once you understand why they’re telling you to do that, you can go do it again and avoid the purple prose, but it teaches you how to expand things.

Instead of just going ‘he was sad’, if you can’t say that, then what ends up happening is that you quietly restate he was sad by referencing it in his every action. Body language. Tone of voice. Show don’t tell is advice that works great with examples. Take out every ‘they were’ ‘they saw’ ‘they felt’ and you have no choice but to show it without telling it. And it makes your writing so much stronger.

Another thing I learned was that a Mary Sue isn’t a level one character, they’re a level twenty in a level-three-recommended story. Their backstory is their plotline. This one I learned from Betsy Lee, with No Evil versus Brother Swan- specifically, Ozma Angeline. Look at her child form. Now look at her adult. Her adult is the perfect idea of an edgy Mary Sue. But it’s clear the moment you see her child form, that her every adornment was gained after she first appeared. She wasn’t born that way. Every mark she has is a part of her story. I first met Angel in NE, and I got to know her. Then I saw her in BS and I was like “is that fucking Angel???” and suddenly everything made sense. That’s a well-written character. Sure, we see fuckall of her arc, but that’s when I finally understood how to write a powerful character without making them a Mary Sue. Because nothing stands in the way of a Mary Sue, they never struggle. You set the Mary Sue as their endgame, twenty years after the series ends, and you’re golden.

The last thing I really learned that helped me so much owes itself to Seanan McGuire, of course the Toby books. Specifically: Luna Torquill. This is where I learned that allies become enemies offscreen if they want to, and how to give your side characters a true arc without ever giving them the spotlight. Toby characters don’t feel like they’re just waiting for Toby herself to check in with them. They go do their own stuff when she’s not there, and actively get more development offscreen without ever feeling out of character. Luna is the most obvious example, but Sylvester, Antigone, Tybalt, and Cass all do it too. Actually, the only one who didn’t was Connor and he died and I didn’t like him anyway. Luna really showed me how to bring my side characters to life, and in that understanding helped me really get how to write a character arc.

25. What part of writing is the most fun?

Sneaking in metaphors and foreshadowing and recurring motifs and parallels, and doing so accidentally because I’m just that good. /lh No really, I love having parallels and shit in my writing that make me look smarter than I am, because most all of them are accidental and I only notice after someone points it out. I look like a genius. I’m bullshitting it the entire way. But when I do actively do it, and it works out, I like it even more. I love hiding little things that reinforce the storyline and atmosphere and add a deeper meaning to my work.

Like, for example. In Aeternum, specifically As We Watch The Hourglass, Tsuko pointed out that the state of the boiler room perfectly represents Minos’ mental state. She’s fine, she’s fixing things, and then outside circumstances causes her to fall apart and Alba just attempts to patch it up enough that it’s vaguely safe enough to work with, but still very very fragile and prone to collapsing at any second. Add in that she’s an engineer and this is her specialty and biggest talent, and it seems like a super cool parallel to do, especially since I really like reflecting my characters in the world around them.

It was completely accidental. I wanted to show that her sadism that canon Minos has is in there, that she isn’t totally OOC and just hasn’t yet become more like her canon form (he’s more traumatized and has gone down a path she’s only inching onto at the moment), but I also wanted them to get a damn bath so Alba could bitch about his hair, while showing that Minos is actually surprisingly useful. In order to do that, I needed the boiler room, I needed to show her fragility, and then I needed to show what was underneath that. And then I needed the threat gone so they could do other shit. In order to make that realistic, I forced her to not panic about it even though she really wanted to, and Alba did a shoddy job because we gave him like an hour and he’s running on little food and less sleep. That was it, that was my entire thought process. And on the page, there’s symbolism that makes me look smart.

When I go to rewrite Aeternum, I’ll be showing more of their early relationship, so she actually is useless onscreen for a bit, so the scene has more oomph when surprise, she has talents after all. (Later those talents will prove very important, but I haven’t written that part yet and won’t for a while.)

So yeah. Accidental symbolism. I love doing that shit.

#asks #anonymous #saint seiya #thank you very much!!!#Anonymous

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gcnfri · 5 years ago

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𝚕𝚎𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚖 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚎 ; 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚒𝚜 𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚍𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚏 𝚢𝚎𝚝 𝚒𝚗 𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚒𝚊 𝚠𝚑𝚘 𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚍𝚛𝚊𝚠𝚜 𝚋𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚑

kelly marie tran; non-binary; she/her — welcome, traveler, to rivendell, [ GENFRI ]. you are [ THE LEGACY ], no? lord elrond is waiting for you. you look young for a [ DWARF ]. you can’t be older than [ 110 ]. are you from [ EREBOR ]? you’ve come a long way. please, rest now.

hello !! my love for everything lotr is very much alive, and as soon as i saw this group i just knew i had to apply. i’m laura (20, she/her & gmt+2), and dwarves are one of my favorite things – hence me picking up the role of the legacy. dwarves are all about culture and tradition, and i’ll be mixing tolkien’s canon with my personal additions and creations.

genfri is heavily inspired by gimli, though they are not exactly the same character. there are similarities when it comes to personalities and backstories, but she is very much her own character.

𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚏𝚛𝚒, 𝚍𝚊𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚘𝚏 𝚐𝚕ó𝚒𝚗, 𝚍𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚏 𝚘𝚏 𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚋𝚘𝚛

genfri was born in TA 2909 in the blue mountains, as the eldest daughter of glóin and mizim. while the blue mountains are the earliest home she remembers, it was never truly a home for genfri’s parents. while the history books were filled with stories of the khazad-dûm, the story of the lonely mountain was too painful for anything else than whispers.

the dwarves of erebor had settled in the blue mountains and life was comfortable there. still a longing for something bigger grew in genfri’s heart. perhaps it was the influence of her parents, who never stopped dreaming of returning to erebor. it slowly turned into a dream of hers, too – she wanted to see the place of the stories, see the legendary halls of stone with her own eyes.

when it was announced that the king-in-exile, thorin oakenshield, was gathering a company to aid him in reclaiming the lonely mountain, genfri’s father was one of the first to join, as well was her uncle, óin. they were, after all, descendants of durin the deathless. but what was even more important, they longed to see the lonely mountain again. genfri, only barely having passed forty, begged to join the company. technically she was an adult by dwarven standards, but they didn’t allow her to join. she was too young, too inexperienced. it was the truth, but it didn’t soften the blow of the news.

she raged at first, like the young dwarf she was. after getting over the initial disappointment, she threw herself into training. she vowed that she’d never be left out again and becoming the best would ensure that. the months that followed weren’t enough to make her the best, but they did change her life. the company had succeeded and the dragon was dead, but soon the joy of the news turned to sorrow. the battle of the five armies had claimed the lives of many, though the losses of thorin oakenshield and his sister’s sons shocked genfri the most.

to erebor they returned, full of joy but also mindful of the cost. slowly they built up a new life there, worked to re-establish the former glory of the lonely mountain. a new normal arrived, and it was comfortable. for genfri, erebor was everything she had dreamed of and she very quickly fell in love with the place. she spent countless hours discovering every hidden pathway and all the secrets, whenever she wasn’t training with her axes.

the years passed peacefully and genfri got older. for many years erebor was enough to keep her content, but after a few decades she grew restless once more. a longing for something bigger was becoming a grand part of her, and she started exploring the areas around the lonely mountain. some expected her to settle down, but she felt like that it wasn’t time for that yet. she hasn’t quite found her own craft yet, beyond occasionally aiding others in training.

so when the invite to rivendell came, genfri was the first one to volunteer to go. given her position and proficiency, this time there was no reason to say no. with her father, genfri traveled to rivendell to see what the fuss is all about. she feels truly alive for the first time in years.

𝚠𝚑𝚘 𝚒𝚜 𝚜𝚑𝚎?

she is steadfast, somewhat obstinate, traditional and a bit reticent. she doesn’t display affection very easily but she is usually pretty nice to people – unless they give her a reason not to be. she can be somewhat prejudiced against elves in particular and earning her trust might take time.

okay, i’ve been writing this for a couple days now so i’ll just stop here! i’ll try to get to interacting as soon as i can so you’ll get a more accurate description of her!

#dunedainintro #finallyyy

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