#anyway i know this because i did a bunch of research trying to figure out if there was a good translation for a joke i wanted to make

[whetstonefires]

this is in fact how we got the title 'mister' in english, the title 'kyrie' in greek, the title 'monsieur' in french, the title 'señor' in spanish, the title 'signor' in italian--all of these are used the same generic way now, but are derived from titles of mild distinction like 'master' and 'my lord.'

courtesy inflation will get you every time.

anyway yeah i agree, the princess speaking above is the head of HR.

“So let me get this straight. We’re here to rescue a princess.”

“That’s right.”

“At the request of a princess.”

“Right again.”

“And you, who will be leading the expedition, are also a princess.”

“You’re very perceptive.”

“How big is your royal family, again?“

“We don’t have one.”

“But–“

“We overthrew our monarchy centuries ago, but we kept most of the titles around. The rank of ‘princess’ is held by the directors in charge of various civil service branches.“

“Huh. And the princess we’re rescuing today is in charge of…?”

“Public sanitation.”

“The Lord of Death’s Dominion kidnapped your public sanitation director?”

“We think he’s a little confused.”

[genericpuff]

I'm honestly amazed by how well you can imitate the LO S3 art style! Have you always been good at this sort of thing or is it a skill you developed due to your work as a tattoo artist?

ahhh thank you, but ima let you in on a little trade secret -

it's literally just referencing LMAO which is a valuable skillset to have! but one that I think a lot of folks tend to overlook because they think "learning to draw" means "I need to be able to draw everything perfectly from imagination!" Which sure, learning how to draw things without needing references might be cool, but it's ultimately not the sole defining feature of a "good artist" and I think there's frankly way too much emphasis put on "drawing without references" these days because it creates this unrealistic expectation of what an artist is. Referencing is part of the process! It's important! And it's a valuable skill to have so that you can actually grow your skills beyond your own limits! Referencing is as important to the process of creating art as research is to the process of writing, you can only produce so much new stuff if you're not taking in new stuff alongside it.

Though I use this skill a lot in tattooing as well, it's mostly rooted in my animation schooling which broke me out of the habit of drawing purely from imagination and taught me how to properly reference other material for educational purposes.

And I'm sure there are people in audience right now gasping at the fact that I simply cropped a bunch of different shots of Minthe from S3 and rearranged them like some surgical madman playing with body parts-

-but this is like, the actual majority of the process when it comes to learning other art styles and this process is taught as a skill in a lot of art schools because it forces you to draw what's there rather than what you think is there. This is the basis of master studies, to learn the techniques of other artists by trying to mimic them as closely as possible. Don't know what tools that artist used specifically? Try to recreate the work anyways with your best guess. Even if you only get close but not perfect, you'll still likely learn a lot along the way and may even develop some brand NEW techniques that weren't present in the original work you're studying from.

Imagination is necessary to the creative process, but it's only part of that process, you can't suddenly learn how to draw the way other artists draw through imagination alone because your imagination is limited purely by your own lived experiences. Our brains don't come pre-installed with these skills, they can't just magically unlock the capability to "do the thing". Just like how we have to learn to follow recipes as a means to becoming a baker or learn to read the alphabet to learn how to read and write, we have to learn how to draw what we see and reference the material around us if we truly want to expand our own innermost knowledge which will allow us to draw from imagination.

Here are some other examples of studies I've done, such as my attempts to learn the art style of The Doctor Foxglove Show:

As well as a background study from S1 of LO:

And of course here are a handful of the shitloads of studies I've done to try and "figure out" how to draw Hades and Persephone from S1 of LO:

Aaaand just for the fun of it, here are some completely non-LO studies, like the ones I did of Kazuma Koda's background work and Akihiko Yoshida's character designs for Nier: Automata:

And this sorta rotoscoped ??? animatic of Mitsuhiro doing the opening jig for Still Feel by Half Alive which is 100% not done and probably never will be LOL

I'm always progressively doing studies of both LO and other media in this way so that I can update my knowledge and continue to improve my skillset.

Though, despite my best efforts to mimic the original creator's style, works like Rekindled will always have my own stylizations present, as that's just an inevitable consequence of it being made by myself and Banshriek (and the fact that we just refuse to draw worse to look more like LO because jfc so much of LO's original art, even the stuff we love, is rooted in Rachel's trial and errors lmao), but that's a feature, not a bug :') <3

So the answer is yes, the Minthe S3 redraw was done through skills I developed over time, though not necessarily through tattooing, simply through learning how to actually practice properly beyond "drawing a lot". And you can too! Draw lots, but also remember that your brain isn't naturally just going to "get better" at whatever you're trying to achieve just because you really want to achieve it. I try to avoid the mantra of "just practice" because it oversimplifies what's truly necessary to learning - having something to learn from outside of your own imagination. If you don't learn how to practice properly, then you'll just wind up repeating the same mistakes and reinforcing the same bad habits over and over again.

All that's to say, if you want to learn how to draw like a certain artist, try and recreate their art for yourself ;0 (but like also please for the love of god remember that it's for EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES, I shouldn't have to tell y'all not to copy directly off other artists' work for your own because that's just deadass stealing lmao) I know this enters the ethical dilemma of tracing, and whether or not it's a "valid" way to learn, but there's a lot of virtue in learning through referencing other artists and building new skills through them. I'm sure folks will argue that it's a 'crutch' or 'training wheels', but that's all often being touted from the perspective that crutches and training wheels... are automatically bad things and aren't meant to help people ?

Like obviously if you want to create your own thing that isn't purely "living in the shadow" of the works that inspired you, you WILL have to make that leap into the unknown. But that leap's a lot less scary to make when you have a parachute.

[blueskittlesart]

can we talk about how rauru is literally like. just zelda’s dad. like in that one scene where zelda looks like she’s gravely contemplating turning into a dragon and then rauru goes “i believe the answer lies in more research and understanding your power!” and she looks at him with such shock and awe. zelda’s adventures in the past are literally like her life but with a better dad. the queen promises her to help her figure out her power but dies before they can figure out a way how to use that power to safely save everyone. zelda desperately wants to help everyone and is clearly feeling the pressure of it all and the king is the one to tell her “hey i understand how hard you’re trying and how much you want to save everyone and we’re thankful for what you’re doing”. rauru actually acknowledges zelda’s dedication and the importance of research and technology, he is kind to her and never blames her for any of the bad things happening. he also never pushes zelda to make sacrifices and is the one sacrificing himself in the end - in botw, all the champions and zelda have to choose to make sacrifices to save the kingdom, but in totk rauru doesn’t ask that of any of the sages, instead recognizing his own responsibility as king and basically dying to save his kingdom. he’s literally zelda’s better dad.

same anon as the one raving about rauru also the differences between how the two kings treat link. they’re both tutorial figures but the way they guide is SO different. pretty much the first thing rhoam does is lie and pretend to be a random old man, being quite annoying as he sends link to do a bunch of challenges for a paraglider. the framing is so fundamentally different, rauru freely offers the information he has to link upfront, he apologises for the body modification, acknowledging link’s potential distress. rhoam basically keeps link on the plateau arbitrarily, presenting giving items and teaching link about things as challenges for link to overcome. rauru on the other hand aids link as best he can, tells him what he needs to do from the beginning (tells him to open the door which is pretty much the last thing he’ll need to do in the tutorial, telling him about the ultimate goal from the beginning), proposes solutions when it doesn’t work out (directs him to the shrines as a way to help him gain the strength he needs, as opposed to making him complete challenges to get a paraglider that in the moment seems like literally arbitrary conditions). rhoam telling link how much responsibility and pressure he has on him all of a sudden and how much he needs to do vs rauru telling link that it was wonderful to meet him and zelda’s accounts of him were all true. like. the framing. the difference in character. the deterioration of knowledge within hyrule falls parallel to the deterioration of its king’s kindness and virtue.

the differences between rauru and roham are crazy to me because one of them was so fundamentally good and one was so fundamentally flawed and yet. neither of them were able to save their kingdom. no matter how good a king of hyrule is, no matter what he gets right or wrong, he is still doomed to die. rhoam tried to sacrifice his daughter to keep hyrule alive. rauru did everything in his power to make sure she DIDNT have to be sacrificed. and in the end the outcome was the same. but the KINGS were not the same, and that difference in framing you mentioned i think is fundamentally a difference in legacy. rhoams legacy is to forever be the king who sacrificed children to save himself and died anyway. rhoam died a loser through and through, a king atop a throne of nothing but failure. i think that’s partially why he appears as an old man at first, because he KNOWS what being the king of hyrule means and he’s EMBARRASSED that his legacy is what it is. but rauru. in complete contrast, rauru was so GOOD. rauru died with his sages and his DAUGHTER alive to see another day. rauru ENSURED they’d live no matter what. he wouldn’t LET them sacrifice themselves for him. rauru put everyone else before himself. he didn’t expect or even tolerate self-sacrifice and yet when the time came he sacrificed HIMSELF selflessly despite knowing that it wouldn’t even WORK. rauru’s legacy is something to be proud of. he’s open to link because he has nothing TO hide. no regrets or stupid decisions. and he is remembered so much more favorably because of it.

[justdarklr]

In Stars And Time: Providence

An In Stars And Time x Persona AU

Created and Written by JustDarklr, Co-Created by mizzle-moths

Card I – Providential

Spoilers for In Stars And Time below the cut! Go play the game before reading!

Table Of Contents —

Card I — Providential ( Reading Now )

Card II — Awake

You… have trouble believing this is the end of your journey. You should recap everything in your head real quick. Just to make sure you remember everything, mostly. Your memory’s never been that good, after all.

It was almost a year ago now that The King appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. Possessing immense Craft Power, he did something never heard of before— he spread his Curse across the country of Vaugarde, freezing in time everything in its path. With Dormont’s House of Change under his control, he patiently waits, for he knows his Curse can only be undone if he is defeated.

His victory would be all but determined, if not for The Housemaiden, Mirabelle. She is the only survivor of the House of Dormont, in which the King froze everyone inside in time and locked the gates. Everyone says she was blessed by the Change God themselves with the power to fight back the King’s Curse… which makes her the only one able to save Vaugarde, bound by her destiny.

When you met her, she had already been traveling with The Fighter, Isabeau, and The Researcher, Odile. They were trying to get the orbs necessary to open the House’s gates and defeat the King. You helped them defeat a rather strong Shadow, and, seeing your strength, they asked for your help. You… had nothing better to do, so you decided to accompany them!

Shadows are… a manifestation of grief, or something. You never researched them, but Odile seemed to know a bit about them, so you just took what she’s said at face value. They usually take the shape of figures from old Mythology or works of Fiction, though how they know of those forms is unknown. Some speculate that these Shadows had once been people, and they take the form of whatever they had the most attachment to in life upon their turning, but that theory has never been proven, supposedly. Either way, they’re a bit of a nuisance.

Anyways— a few weeks later, you met The Kid, Bonnie. Meeting them completed your little ragtag team of heroes. Though, Bonnie is mostly just your snack master. That doesn’t make them any less important, however!

You saw a lot of Vaugardian cities during your travels. Some frozen, some not, and you’ve done your best to sidestep the slowly encroaching Curse. Even still, though… you all kept going.

Mirabelle kept going to honor the Change God’s blessing, save her beloved house, and save Vaugarde. She didn’t have any other choice, after all— she is the only one who can.

Isabeau came with her after Vaugarde’s Defenders themselves refused to help. A bunch of cowards, probably.

Odile came to satisfy her curiosity about Vaugarde. She’s from another country, which makes sense, and she’s supposedly here to research… whatever she’s researching. … and because, in her words, “leaving the fate of a country to a bunch of young ones would give me an ulcer”.

Bonnie came to save their sister, frozen by the Curse. You worry about them, sometimes.

… you’re here because there’s nothing else for you to do. What else are you supposed to do except travel with them?

Once… Mirabelle asked if you were okay, following them on a journey to save the country. She felt guilty, like she was forcing everyone to follow her on a hopeless quest.

You wanted to put her at ease, so you said easily and truthfully that traveling with everyone was the happiest you could remember being. She… looked upset.

You cringe just thinking about it, honestly. Probably not the most considerate thing you could’ve said to someone with her problems at that moment!

But… tomorrow, one way or another, your journey will come to an end.

You tell everyone as you arrive that you’re tired, and you’re going to go find someplace to nap. They nod, and you’re off.

But… before you do, you have a stop to make. Just for some peace of mind. So, you head towards the favor tree on the west side of town.

… this tree is said to grant wishes. You’re not too sure about that, but… you may as well, right? You heard everyone else was going to, anyways. And, who knows, maybe it’ll come true?

You try to rack your brain for something to wish for. After a moment, something pops into your head. You’ve heard Isabeau mention something in passing before, haven’t you? That he wants to be a clothing designer, you think. That seems like a good wish to make. And, who knows, maybe it’ll help his dream come true, too.

You take a leaf from the favor tree, and whisper your desire into it three times.

“… I wish to be able to wear clothes Isabeau has made.”

… you pause, for a moment. And then whisper something else into the leaf, in addition to your first wish.

“I want to stay with them.”

This journey has been the most fun you can ever remember having. You… you love them. Your party. You’ve made such good friends on this journey, and you want to stay with them. Who wouldn’t? They’re your friends, after all…

You then fold the leaf over, and let it drift back into the shadow of the tree. You have a good feeling about that!

Afterwards, you get a move on. You find a clearing near the south side of town, slowly crouching down and splaying yourself across the soft grass. Feels just like a soft bed, you think. You haven’t slept in one for who knows how long. It’s just been sleeping bags, mostly. As you close your eyes, you feel yourself drifting off to sleep nearly instantly. You didn’t realize how tired you were…

… you dream of a strange room, covered in strange shades, with a strange man sitting in the middle of it. What is this place? You feel yourself walking forward, standing in front of the strange man’s desk, as he opens his mouth to speak.

“Well, isn’t this surprising? A brand new guest, and one with quite an intriguing fate at that. I wasn’t expecting anyone for some time now.”

You open your mouth to respond, but he cuts you off.

“Ah-ah. I apologize, but I will have to make this quick. Your nap is going to be rather short, after all.”

The man clears his throat, then places his hands on his desk, interlocking his fingers. You want to ask what he means about attendants, but you can’t get any words in before he starts speaking once more.

“Welcome to the Velvet Room. My name is Igor… I am delighted to make your acquaintance. This is the space between dream and reality, mind and matter. It is a space only those who are bound by a ‘contract’ may enter. And it seems that such a fate has already befallen you, even without your knowledge.”

What? But you don’t remember signing any contract. You… you could have, though. Maybe you’ve just forgotten. Maybe it was that insignificant in your mind.

“Now then… why don’t you introduce yourself?”

Finally, a chance to speak. You open your mouth once again, ready to belt out all the questions you have— but instead, all you’re able to say is your name. “Siffrin.”

“… Siffrin. No middle name, no last name. Is that correct?”

You nod. Stars, that’s annoying. Why can’t you talk? Dream logic, or something?? Ugh, this dream sucks.

“I see. An interesting name, but I suppose it is one befitting of one surrounded by as much mystery as you. Now then… why don’t we take a look into your future?”

A set of tarot cards appear on the man’s desk. He flips one over, and examines it closely.

“Ah… I see. The tower, in the reversed position. This card represents resistance to change, and the delaying of the inevitable…”

He flips another card over. You already don’t like this.

“The star, in the reversed position. A card representative of despair… I see.”

He flips one last card over. This has to be fake, right? It’s just a dream, without any meaning. You’re sure of it.

“… Judgement, in the upright position, representing reflection, and rebirth.”

The tarot cards disappear, and the man smiles at you. Like he has been, this entire time. Stars, you haven’t really gotten a good look at this guy— you’ve been kind of out of it, but something is off about him. His skin isn’t lightless or darkless, nor a shade inbetween, his smile never seems to falter, and his nose is far too long to be normal. Who is this man? … Well, you suppose you know the answer. ‘Igor’. A strange man, in a strange room, in a strange dream. That sums up this situation rather well, you suppose.

“It seems you will face a great trial in the near future. One in which you resist oncoming time, and face despair and hopelessness because of it.

But fear not. You will overcome this trial through reflection, and in the end, you will face rebirth. A new day to come. Yet, if you fail to overcome this trial, you may be forever lost. My duty is to provide assistance to our guests to ensure that does not happen.”

Your head hurts. This is a lot to take in at once.

“I would like to introduce my assistant to you, but it seems they’re not here as of yet. They’re late. But they will be here soon enough to accompany you throughout this perilous journey.

We shall attend to the finer details another time. Until then, farewell…”

Your vision faces to black, and…

You reawaken in the field to someone calling your name. Your head hurts from that dream. Too many weird shades to take in… but at least you’re back in your lightless and darkless world, now. Normalcy. That’s what you need right now.

… who’s calling your name?

CARD I — END

Next Card ~ Awake

[baskeigh-ball]

Ignoring the fact that ibis had the ai paint feature a couple years before this whole ai fiasco, after seeing your post, I decided to try it out to see if it really held up. I already knew what you said made no sense, as even stuff like ai painting requires heavy human input that isn't just someone typing a prompt in a thing and looking through thousands of images and somehow still calling it 'art'. Really, it's just some weird advanced bucket.

The ibis ai paint... really sucks. I'm pretty sure it hasn't even been touched since it was added. No matter what I did, I got random colours and whatever colours I had put there looked like it were from a filter, not to mention how my lineart bled everywhere like it was blurred out.

Ibis isn't problematic for adding that feature as not only was it added ages ago, but it was also just a gimmick only added because a few more popular paid programs added them, like Clip Studio Paint. I highly doubt even the company took it seriously considering how poorly built it is. This is actually the one time I'm glad some feature in an app sucks so much.

Another reason why ibis isn't problematic by the mere feature alone is that, when you look at the artists making content during the time of that update, it was received with humour. It was something fun to try, but ultimately dismissed for actual artwork, as nobody would use it to fully paint their works. Nowadays we see something slapped with the words 'ai' and think that it's instantly bad due to the latest issues with it and big corperations/ certain production companies but it isn't. It's just a lot of people abusing what was previously some fun gimmick, which it can still be, and for certain apps, still is. Nobody throws pitchforks at character ai, after all.

You can tell just by the size of this that I'm procrastinating on something. Ima go and let this rot away in your askbox now lol

You really thought this would fade away in my ask box, mwahahaha /j

I wanna start off by saying thank you for holding me accountable, I will admit that I got buzzworded pretty hard in this situation lmao

This information came as a surprise to me-- I was seeing posts pop up within the past week complaining about the ai feature on ibis, so I assumed it was recent. As it turns out, after reading your ask, I discovered that I got a few wires crossed! Because yes, the auto paint feature I referred to in my post has been around for years now, and was never taken seriously anyways

So that was my bad (and yea ur right it's completely unusable, lmao)

But as it turns out, the feature that people have been complaining about DID come out recently. It was called the AI Example feature, I think the idea was that you make a simple drawing and the AI adds 99% of the detail and color, which I've seen a bunch of other programs do.

...and then it was immediately removed due to some pretty major backlash, which, duh

^ This is the only evidence I can find of the 11.2.0 update that included the AI feature on the actual site; their update history stops at 11.1.0. But there's also the news page about the removal of the update, so it's not like they're trying to pretend it never happened.

So tl;dr, I jumped on the hate train a little too quickly and never did enough research to figure out what the actual update was, and that it's been removed by now anyway (which I couldn't have known until today, ofc, but i did kinda post that thing about ibis today so it's still a pretty major oopsie)

I think I can say with confidence now that I agree, ibis paint isn't problematic to use-- they made a mistake with this update, but they actually listened to their users and removed it LITERALLY the next day. So, thanks for letting me know! I'll also edit my last post to prevent any misinformation, just in case people make the same mistake I did :]

[dragonmarquise]

BRC Headcanon Full Names

I have another BRC ask to work on tonight, thus I figure I should post this now. So then, behold! A big ol’ list of full name headcanons!

Basically a continuation of this post I made a long while back. This covers pretty much all the major characters, at least the playable ones. Plus even specific crew members from the rival crews!

Some of these have specific meanings that I used for the particular character, others were just kind of more general vibes, like “Oh this sounds cool/cute/etc.” A few of these will have extra notes on why I picked particular given/family names, but otherwise just assume it was because I liked the sound of it! Went with mostly Dutch last names for most of these characters since, well, dialog in parts of the game imply New Amsterdam is still in the Netherlands, so that made it a bit easier when I couldn't think of anything else to try, y'know? :P

Also note, not everyone here has a middle name. Not everyone irl has one anyways! Also also, some of the Dutch last names may be in the format of “Van (something)” or “De (something”, so just wanted to point that out in case anyone might get confused and think Van/De is a middle name, lol

Starting with the main cast:

Tryce = Tristian Christoffel

Bel = Annabella Pieper

DJ Cyber = Cyrus Rafaël Nassau

Felix = Bernard Manfred Van Steen (I still maintain that Felix looks like his real name would be Bernard, lol)

Vinyl = Florence Zoë Hendriks (when she was a child, she would sometimes write it as “Hendrix” and try to convince people she was related to Jimi Hendrix; it worked more often than it probably should have)

Solace = Levi Smit

The five bonus BRC members:

Rave = Vanessa Yvonne Ziegler (A headcanon, note, her dad is a black German, and her mom is from the Dominican Republic! Since she has a bunch of lines in German, and at least two in Spanish (one in particular being specifically Dominican slang), so that’s how I’m handled this :P )

Mesh = Bassam Karimi (first name means “smiling” in Arabic, last name is derived from the given name Karim/Kareem, which in turn means something along the lines of "generous, noble" or “dignity”; my research into this yielded differing results, but this seems to be more or less the overall idea. Honestly think it both sounds nice and really suits him!)

Shine = Sol Bakker (“Sol” just means “sun” in Spanish and Portugese, basically the idea is she derived her street name from that!)

Rise = Josephine Katherina Thomas (She hates being called any sort of nickname for her first name. It’s either Rise or Josephine, that’s it)

Coil = Oscar Meijer (Fun fact, the English equivalent of Meijer is Meyer/Mayer. I genuinely did not intentionally make Coil’s real name to be a roundabout reference to the lunch meat, but now that I realize it, I’m definitely keeping it this way, loool)

Some others:

Rietveld = We know here full name is Irene Rietveld, but a bonus idea: the rest of BRC point out it’s a bit awkward for her to go by her real name as her street/writer name, so she eventually settles on Rivet as an alias! :D

Escher = Matthias Conrad Escher (Originally just Matthias, but then decided to make a reference to the actual M. C. Escher, “Yeah, my parents knew what they were doing.”; thanks to @slappels for the suggestion way back when!!)

My Devil Theory OCs! The season in parentheses is what in-game palette they correspond with.

Sai (spring) = Tomás Lucas Ortiz

Nunchaku (summer) = Roxanne Beverly Sullivan

Daishō (autumn) = Hiro Francisco Morikawa (first name using the character for “prosperous” (浩); last name using the characters for “forest” (森) and “river” (川). Not that he ever gets a chance to write them in Japanese characters anyways :P )

Bō (winter) = Gavril Jansen

Now for DOT EXE! A repeat from the full DOT EXE headcanons I made a while back, but still including it here for convenience.

Cueball = Ernesto Alberto Visser (Dutch father and Italian-American mother; “Her side of the family were like, the conservative Italian-American types. The kind that makes an annoyingly big deal about celebrating Columbus Day.”; his first and middle name come from two different great grandfathers on his mom’s side)

Eight Ball = Frederik Visser (older half-brother to Cueball, they share the same dad)

Cinco (five ball) = César Hugo Raúl Garcia-Flores (last name got hyphenated when he moved to New Amsterdam while getting his papers in order and stuff; not sure if I ever clarified it in the original post, but in most (probably all?) Spanish-speaking countries, people have two last names, one from their father and the other from their mother. When moving to a country that doesn’t allow for two last names, some people end up forced to pick one or the other. Cinco went with just hyphenating it to be able to effectively keep both.)

Neun (nine ball) = Sebastián Montero Sebastian Jäger

Twoson (two ball) = Beau Driessen

Fourside (four ball) = Robin Zaal

Jūrō (ten ball) = Maximilien Théodore Perrault

Quatorze (fourteen ball) = Marie-Madeleine Lucille Perrault

And heck, the rest of the New Amsterdam crews too while I’m at it. Same as with DT and DE, the season in parentheses is the corresponding in-game palette for the playable rival character.

The Franks:

Flesh Prince = Ruben Vos (last name meaning fox, and apparently was/is a nickname for a clever person… or a person with red hair, lol)

Bill (spring) = Caspar Westenberg

Charles (summer) = Thomas Vogels

Michael (autumn) = Abraham Joël Admiraal

Larry (winter) = Lennard Van Herten

(For their street names besides the Prince, they’re named after famous basketball players, specifically from this list; Charles, Michael, and Larry are probably obvious, with Bill there’s at least two different Bills on that list lol)

Eclipse: (Street names come from constellations, I tried to go with more (relatively?) obscure ones for the names)

Vela (spring) = Sara Al-Ghazzawi

Aquila (summer) = Melissa Agnes Fortuin

Lyra (autumn) = Hannah De Klerk

Cassiopeia (winter) = Xandra Gemma Daalmans (given name is actually Alexandra, but she goes mostly by Xandra for her business)

And finally the rest of FUTURISM: (see my recent short headcanon post about them!)

Nyx (spring) = Laura Kappel

Jazz (summer) = Vincent Linden

Veronica (autumn) = Paula Prinsen (Paula is the feminine form of Paul, which in turn has roots in the Latin word Paulus which can mean humble. This is an intentionally ironic name choice for this character, lmao. Also Prinsen means “son of the Prince”, so this one is more in line with her haughty attitude)

Quantum (winter) = Esther Katja Hoedemaker (She goes by Kat as a nickname)

This next one only applies to my fanfic AU of “What if we take the postgame at face value and Red somehow became a separate person from both Felix and Faux”, but anyways:

Red = Russell Miles Van Steen (Picked the first and middle names himself, note that Russell just means “red” lol. He took on Felix’s last name since they see each other as brothers after a certain point. And it’s not like Red could come up with a better last name anyways. His middle name when paired with Felix’s middle name is a Miles Edgeworth reference :P )

[crossedsabers10s]

Hi! just read charnal house floor and adored it-- the dramatic irony, the tension, the rising horror; liz calling damon young which is so terrible because she's right he always will be and yet he absolutely isn't.... art.

I did want to ask, how do you think something similar would go down when they are closer, when liz knows damon's a vampire, when they are both a bit more traumatized, when liz has once tortured damon herself and he's forgiven her that?? like if it were around season 3 or so. I ask mostly because I just really love it when people feel sorry for damon shjddk anyway you're an amazing writer and happy new year !

fjkl;adfdsalfkj thank you!

hm, later in the show when they're friends/she knows? Well, the same story line (her showing him the storage room, perhaps even as a show of reconciliation? her showing a vampire the secret stuff?) relies on Liz forgetting she knows about Augustine or just not considering it important so it remains as status quo until that moment and Damon finds out. He is. Less likely to attack her? Probably--tho we all know how Damon deals with sudden strong emotions-- and she'd realize that this is personal to him, even making the leap that he was involved w Augustine at one point. Which would possibly result in her prying a few horrific details out of him--he's sharing them to shock her into not asking more, she's staying calm and treating him like a victim, falling back on her training, which he does notice and switches to telling her he already took revenge, bc he wants her to see him as villain instead of victim, maybe which spawns her researching the Whitmore family and all of his victims perhaps even preventing him from killing Aaron's aunt bc she's like 'does it make you feel better? does revenge help? this woman never hurt you.' and he's all 'it makes me feel better' but then through the power of friendship he's forced to confront the fact that revenge is ultimately empty/isn't going to bring back Enzo or absolve Damon's role in his 'death' and Liz convinces him that tearing apart the organization and dragging the non-supernatural shady shit to light is a better vengeance than random murder of people who are like. Innocent of the original crime and Dr. Whitmore isn't even alive to care that his family is being hunted down. Tearing down his legacy tho? the college and program and all that? Ruining his name and memory? That's where it's at. So they do that, discover Enzo, and bam. Of course, then Liz has to convince Enzo not to kill Aaron/Aaron's aunt. She could probably call them even for her getting the ball rolling on his rescue as long as he doesn't go after them and instead focus on Wes. They drag Enzo back to Mystic and suddenly, amongst the Original Plotline, they have to deal with Damon's... ex? friend? ex friend? no one is sure. Liz and Damon are keeping quiet. Enzo is too busy being free to answer questions.

OR

she now knows vampires feel and think as people do, remembers Augustine exists and guiltily goes out of her way to check in with them--maybe to convince herself that the vampire they have is a bad one and therefore deserves it? and instead finds. Well. Enzo. when she tries to dig further, she's either shut down or they try to silence her. So she starts... going about it the legal way. Do you have a permit for that? Oh hey I noticed you ordered a bunch of medical supplies. Where did that go? Throws the book at them until they Do Something about it and gets kidnapped so Augustine can figure out why she's making trouble/maybe they even found out about Caroline and threatened her. Liz, drawing her gun: Frankenstein wannabes say what? Whatever, point is, she rescues Enzo, brings him back to Mystic and goes hey maybe I should ask Damon for help? Maybe this guy would feel more comfortable with another vampire. Damon, walking into the room because Liz asked him to help her with something: this isn't the last thing i expected but only because i didn't expect it at all. Enzo: *kill bill sirens*

[copperbadge]

Hi Sam, how did you come to the conclusion you should be tested for neurodivergence? I've been reading a lot of Temple Grandin (Visual Thinking is fantastic) and see so much of myself in her books. But, I, too, am, let's just say well into adulthood, and I don't know if my life would change that much with a diagnosis. The only thing I can think of doing with a diagnosis is telling my siblings and childhood bullies that they picked on someone who had a reason for being "weird." But it doesn't change anything. Beyond the medication, did you find any solace? Thank you for sharing your journey.

I was just thinking I should do a post about this....

I don't recall the specifics and have never been able to find the post again, but sometime prior to 2019 I made a joke about having a short attention span, and someone said something like "Oh, did you finally get a diagnosis?" and I said haha no, I don't have ADHD, and a bunch of readers went, "Uh, you very clearly do." Some of them added that they thought I knew and was just being discreet about it. (As if I have ever been discreet about anything in my life.)

So I figured, okay, probably there's some level of neurodivergence there, given that my mother and siblings all have various diagnoses, and my father was clearly autistic. (Knowing what we know now about how ADHD can mask as other mental illnesses, there's a strong chance this comes from my maternal grandmother, who was the person in the family I was most like when she was alive.) I tried a couple of times to get evaluated and always had either slow or nonexistent responses from the clinics I reached out to, so I stopped trying. I had a ton of coping mechanisms in place and was in a good spot in my life, so I thought honestly, what would it change?

But by the end of 2021, while I was still in a pretty good financial place, and my career was doing well, I could tell that if things kept up as they were I was going to tank my job purely through being unable to get through a day doing productive work the way I used to.

I thought, well, if this is ADHD and it's getting worse because the whole fucking world is on fire, I have two options: I can assume I have it and just do the reading and figure shit out on my own, or I can get evaluated, get professional advice, and possibly get medicated. That seemed like the best return on investment, so that's what I worked on. My goal was primarily medication, because I didn't see myself being able to change much else about my situation on my own. And, truthfully, medication has been the biggest change -- I actually have an essay about that queued for the anniversary of my starting Adderall. But while it hasn't been a massive life-altering world-shattering change, all of this was worth it purely for the medication.

Uh, momentary sidebar in my memoir: there are downsides to having a diagnosed disability -- discrimination, legal barriers to certain things like holding government jobs or adopting, etc. Those have to be weighed when you're considering evaluation. If you think you may have autism, there's not necessarily an advantage to having a formal diagnosis unless you need accommodations; if you think you may have ADHD, the huge advantage is access to medication, which doesn't exist for autism as far as I'm aware. So your particular flavor of neurodivergence might dictate whether you get a diagnosis, or whether you just start operating on the assumption you have it. Both are valid, I think, it really depends on what's going on in your life and what you want to change.

Anyway, I have been doing other research, reading journal articles and pop psychology and talking to people, and that's been good, but even if I had none of that, the medication has been so helpful in getting me back on an even keel and then making life even better.

This sounds kind of weird to say but I'm not generally someone who needs a lot of solace. There is some relief in knowing that at least some of my fuckups in life weren't something I could have prevented by simply having more strength of character or working harder, and that's nice, but it's something I could have had without a formal diagnosis -- just like you could simply tell your siblings and bullies you have a diagnosis. (Being real, I doubt they'd care; bullies gonna bully whether you had a reason to be weird or not, and none of that would have been your fault regardless of your neurology. But it's all very situational, as I'm sure you know.) I wasn't badly bullied as a kid and there's nobody really to...tell, in the sense you're thinking of. But I didn't get into it for emotional solace; I got into it to fix a life that was, albeit extremely slowly, starting to fall apart. So if you're someone, as most people are, who derives emotional satisfaction or catharsis from having the diagnosis, I think it probably would be pretty helpful. But even if you aren't, like me, if you can get medication or accomodations, I think it's worth it.

[trashlama]

Heeeeeyyyyy.... guess who's ADHD can't let them write for shit?~ This bitch✨~

I suuuuuucck guys I know! I did a poll and everything just so I would have to write some of these! I just couldn't help but get side tracked.... My brain is in the LMK and Spiderverse fandoms!!! Though I will say I basically got this Rise Donnie x Big Mama Assistant req almost done. Almost I say. We'll see if I post it in the next two days and not something else random instead.... I suck lol

Anyways— here's my 3am thoughts from the other night that I'm finish up tonight ironically at 3am again. Soooo bare with me these are basically a bunch of summaries/plots/not fully flushed out possible one shot ideas I might do. Probably could've re-read it a couple more times buuuuttt it's about to be 4 now so....

I hope you guys enjoy!

Sorry this is long↓ I don't own these memes. I've never claimed to do so. I just come across them on Pinterest when I'm on break at work and think they're funny so I like to share them. If I mistakenly put one on here that I shouldn't have please let me know! I like to respect people's wishes. And if you could add the creator names too that would be great so the same mistake isn't made twice. Sorry for the inconvenience that my sharing may cause. I hope you have a good day.

+++++++++++++++++++

Sooooo I was going through the Across the Spiderverse tag(specifically Miguel O'Hara) because you know he's hot. Priorities— Anyways— I kinda had an idea. Brahhzz what if I just took the whole Miguel kidnapping his dead wife/lover's alternate dimensional copy deal that everyone has been throwing around and introduced a new take on this tale?

We all know that the Spiderverse is very open to a wide selection of possibilities and versions of Spiderman and we're all aware that the same thing applies to other characters as well. Soooo who said that Y/n has to be a civilian/or a version of Spiderman for this idea to work?

My fellow peeps I introduce to you Earth 2099 Miguel O'Hara x  Villain/Alchemax worker/Morally Grey scientist Reader!

I can kinda see this playing out in a few ways.

1.)Villain reader investigating the strange phenomenon that occurred a couple months before hacking the multi verse and stirring up trouble. Miguel intervenes and takes what he wants.

For the last year since the bizarre phenomenon in downtown Brooklyn you've been stirring up more trouble than you typical due to collecting the materials needed for your "experiments" to figure out what that phenomenon really was and what the hell was Alchemax —your ex-employers— were up to with your research. With some finessing of the illegal kind you figure out what the corporation was up to. Before being fired you had discovered the existence of the multiverse however before you could investigate any further you were let go. Now that you have your research back you're able to Doc Octo this shit and break into the multiverse. If you could pull this off nothing was stopping ya' from fulfilling yer goal and maybe scoring some fame while you were at it. After some convoluted ass science mumbojumbo. You manage to Doc Octo this shit and break into the dimensional web that held the spider verse. Inside the alternate universe you immediately start messing up shit straight off the back as soon as you fly through the colorful portal. Miguel is quick to pick up on this anomaly and sends some Spiders out to handle the issue. Long story short— they fail. Forcing Miguel's hand to go and correct the anomaly himself. Only to find that it was you. Her. His dead wife/or dead lover. The only problem is that you're obviously not a good guy. Miguel being Miguel will try to rationalize it to himself as he demolishes your equipment/suit that you're not his Y/n, you're a villain, he can't keep you without risking a whole universe just for his selfish desires. However as he stood over your defeated helpless form. He decided. If one anomaly can exist and not destroy existence why can't another? There were ways around this. There had to be. Holding you in his grasp again the hero wasn't sure if he could let you go once again....

2.) You're an inventor/scientist that works at Alchemax/or your another rogue scientist . Either way you're looking to get into the Spider verse. Since the phenomenon from a couple months ago you've been intrigued by the strange occurrence. The news labeled it a "strange weather occurrence" however you knew that wasn't the case. If you're working at Alchemax you've known about the phenomenon since the beginning. If you're an inventor/scientist (with some grey morals) you found out after some research and trespassing. Either way your tinkering pays off thanks to the help of some stolen tech from Alchemax and an interesting glitch from the hacked tech. You eventually have yourself a fully operational universe hopping watch. And where do you end up? Right in the middle of Earth 2099. Miguel is immediately alerted of your presence. An obvious stranger to this Jetson world you find yourself quickly apprehended by a small group of spiders/or Miguel. Either way the red & blue leotard nosferatu as soon as he catches sight of you the dude is all over you. Miguel may be a man who would like to believe he is in control of himself and his rash decisions buuuuttt that's gonna be a nah. Never had the Spiderman ever expected to speak to an alternate version of his dead wife. Especially in person. Every time he's stolen a glance it was from a distance or behind one of his various monitors. He couldn't risk ruining another verse. However somehow regardless of his attempts to keep his desires at bay you've still managed to break past that last thing that was keeping you from him. Now that you're here the thirty year old wasn't sure if he could let you leave him again...

3.) What if instead of breaking into the multi verse. Alchemax employee/Morally Grey scientist Reader! is lured into the multiverse? In your home verse the Miguel who you had married was dead. Struggling with piling debt and depression you choose to bury your problems under research into the weird phenomenon that occurred in downtown Brooklyn a few months before. During this time of trial and error you figure out how to access the multiverse thanks to some misplaced Alchemax files and risky choices. The documents aid in building the device that would aid in your plan to find your ex-husband's alternate universe copy. All the while you were walking right into Miguel's clutches. Cause like you Miguel was having an equally hard time getting over his family's death. Although they are gone the widowed father couldn't help but, search for his loved ones amongst the various worlds that rest at his finger tips. He needed them. He needed you....and you needed him. Although you guys weren't from the same earth you both can replace the pain that was birthed from this tragedy and regain something more. Just be a family.... Hopefully you want to play his game because Miguel couldn't watch from the sidelines any longer.

Alrighty guys that's all for now! Sorry if they're a little all over the place. Regardless I hope you guys liked them and I hope you guys have a good week!

[lanternfields]

so I've been working on my trolls beneath the mind au for a while now and during the whole process of trying to figure out what kind of worldbuilding I've wanted to do with the musical strings

I got bit sidetracked on another au idea that I've had that focuses on my favorite rare pair in the trolls fandom that being chazdory

the name I've been thinking for this au being 'Jazz Hunters AU'

the whole plot of the au is honestly meant to be a aesthetically vintage inspired romance kind of thing but with themes of emotional isolation and deception that both John Dory and Chaz would have to deal with in both internally and externally.

as I've made a somewhat fleshed out backstory with Chaz and his upbringing within the jazz tribe, being well.. not a ideal since he got socially and emotionally isolated from the rest of his tribe for making jazz music that's too different. I got this idea actually from researching a bit on why smooth jazz is a not that popular among the jazz community. Turns out its because smooth Jazz is actually supposed to be meant for a more broader audience― ironically for the Chaz being compared to pop music in some cases and takes away some key jazz aspects that made a some people mad

but I don't really know that much since I've only done surface level research at the moment but yeah

and as the romance part with John Dory in this au I've actually using the same a idea that I have for him in my beneath the mind au. This being John's disconnect and burnout from music entirely.

I've read or maybe heard from somewhere in the fandom that John is actually supposed to be a more extreme version of Branch in a way so I'm going to be playing with this idea of him post return to the tree only to find it empty and assuming his brothers were dead. He just ends up becoming disconnected from music entirely his reasoning being again similar to that of Branch but instead of guilt for getting his grandma killed its because of build up internal trauma he got from one of the brozone parents. I talk more about an idea of brozone's parents in this post that I will flesh out more in this AU.

Anyways the romance plot: as for how Chaz and John meets, I'm leaning towards John―who might be an underground bounty hunter trying to lay low for a bit, maybe just being at the right place at the right time. Like a supply run when John after being on the road for a few years ends up at this small trading town that's in jazz territory just to get some stuff for him and Rhonda at this point. Chaz meanwhile still only a few years into bounty hunting is getting tracked down by a bunch of trolls he pissed off or something like that and getting John involved because he was just so happened to be at a place where Chaz could and did use him to shake off the group of trolls he pissed off

shenanigans ensue

during the whole thing, it comes out that the reason John was laying low for a little bit was because it just so happened that he also pissed off the same group of people a while back too and are now out to kill him out of spite

so what you have in the beginning is John Dory immediately hating Chaz for getting him involved in something he was trying to avoid and Chaz being well Chaz is a jerk to him and the two now having to compromise with each other to get out of the situation that their in.

and that's about it for now there's still a lot of plot points I have to connect to each other with this au and since their some aspects that I haven't even explained in this post yet but here a bullet point run down on what else will be in this au

Chazdory romance is actually supposed to be mix between enemies to lovers and the 'your the only person that treated me with some decency in a long time and I don't know how to feel about that'

their relationship is inspire by kanthony in Bridgerton

They both end up as well known bounty hunters and John actually starts to rekindle his disconnection and burnout of music after Chaz introduces him to jazz music via piano

The other bounty hunters, Wani, Tresillo, Hickory, and Dickory ends in a weird found family kind of thing with the two ( All of them met because of a weird bounty gone wrong and it seems they all just keep bumping into each other after so why not stay in contact if this is going to keep happening?)

John and Chaz do get married between maybe the 10 to 11 year mark brozone broke up, they first met around 8 years after brozone broke up

They have a daughter, Theodora, who by the time of world tour and tbt is ten years old

After Theodora or Thea's egg detaches from John's hair and hatches he goes into something similar to post-partum depression, this being a major plot point as John despite being married and happy still feels like if he messes one thing up the life he's built up now would be ruined, caretaker mentality he developed after he helped Chaz with his issues and Chaz did do the same with John hence introducing him to jazz music but this plot point being more about John having a relapse in a way.

So Chaz ends up convincing John to get help after a while of John Dory denying anything but soon relenting and having therapy schedule to help him move on from a lot of things.

In world tour, when Branch and Poppy meet Hickory and Dickory, in this au instead of the two of them, its Hickory and Chaz along with Theodora that bust them out but this time there's no tricking thing in canon, since the two are only doing this bounty because barb is holding John and Dickory hostage along with the k-pop gang and Tresillo and his sisters (the two groups actually manage to escape but couldn't get Dickory and John out with them and still meet/team up with Branch later on while John and Dickory actually help the snack pack get into the mainstage in the end though) and Theodora came with them cause well their was no one to take care of her and Chaz was in no way going to leave his only kid alone with a complete stranger

One last thing is that Theodora during the capture of poppy and branch and all of them just chilling on the makeshift boat is wearing John's old goggles (the one he wore pre-brozone breakup) around her neck since it doesn't really suit her hair type being the same as Chaz's hair

Branch immediately clocking in on them as soon as things calm down and this just leads up to an interrogation scene in Branch's head anyways with Theodora on where she got those goggles around her neck and Thea after saying it was her papa's and ends up showing a picture of her and John

Cue Branch realizing the one of his brothers is alive and Theodora is his niece and Chaz being like 'Oh shit this is my husband's younger brother'

Meanwhile Poppy and Hickory in the background watching this drama unfold:😦😶

It all works out in the end of world tour though with the events going the same way just bit more dramatic on since well branch did not expect to one- find out his eldest brother is alive, two- also find out he has a niece and one of the bounty hunters that captured him and his crush is actually his in law

I still have to figure out how this would alter the events of tbt but no doubt that Chaz and Theodora is going to tag along with them cause like Chaz just got his husband back from a hostage situation and Theodora being the whole world tour thing being her first ever time at a bounty and just wants to spend time with her papa

man this was a lot and it turned out longer than I originally intended it to be

[thealienfantasy]

Alien Fantasy-File 9: Recognition through the Blizzard

This is another story that was inspired by a post from Recklessly Tall Tales. This one right here: https://recklessfiction.tumblr.com/post/178327330499/expanding-on-my-post-on-extraterrestrial-fairy

2 Months and Days 30 Since Impact:

Looks like they finally finished building the Watch tower. After months of having to move from unknown area to unknown area like a bunch of nomads, it feels good to finally be able to sit down and relax. You know, provided those hulking aliens don't find us here too.

These past few weeks have been the absolute worst. Why did the higher ups decide THIS planet needed exploring? Why couldn't it have been like..an ocean planet or something? At least there we wouldn't have to worry about this blizzard completely messing up our comms.

How did the Captain lose control of the ship anyway? What, did the gravity bitch-slap our ship into orbit? We were barely able to treat the survivors that got wounded.

Speaking of surviving...God, never in my life did i think i'd start missing instant noodles. It's been pretty much a game of Russian Roulette trying to figure out which of these fruits won't end with my stomach going into turmoil. We were able to salvage some food from the ship, but i'm willing to wager that our ship rations only take up like 5% of our food right now.

Our ship isn't in good shape as of now. Because of this never ending blizzard, reaching HQ has pretty much been next to impossible. It doesn't help that a few days later, Those hulking aliens showed up and began trying to kidnap our crew members. The ships' weapons were barely functional after the crash. We were able to fend them off at first, But we soon had to flee and find somewhere to stay out of sight. And since we can't carry the entire ship, that means we had to leave our one safe shelter behind.

We did salvage some drones, so we were able to continue doing research of this planet. (As much research as you can do within a blizzard like this anyway.), But it didn't take long for those aliens to track us down. They didn't' seem phased at all by this blizzard. I guess they must've adapted to it. They kidnapped a few of our crew members. They didn't even try to "attack us", They spend most of the encounter trying to grab and take us. Unfortunately, we were severely outnumbered. And they were able to escape with some of our crew members.

The past few months has pretty much been a repeated game of these aliens finding us and us having to run away. Andy tried reasoning with them, but seeing as our translators have never picked up this language before. Yeah...

...That's how they got him too.

Most of the kidnapped crew were able to keep their communication devices. But once again, The Blizzard of this planet has made it difficult for us to decipher what situation they're in right now.

After weeks of running, we'd stumbled upon this spot - a dark area surrounded by high, rocky outcroppings. It wasn't perfect, but it was defensible. We'd immediately set to work, using whatever materials we could scrounge to build a makeshift fort.

"Hey!" I called out to a nearby crewmate. "How's the perimeter looking?"She gave me a thumbs up.

"As good as it's gonna get with all we've got. Those barricades should slow 'em down if they try to rush us."

I nodded, turning my attention back to the watchtower. It had been a pain to construct, especially with the constant threat of alien attack looming over us. But now that it was finished, we had a chance to spot the bastards before they were right on top of us.

The drones had been invaluable in retrieving supplies from the crashed ship. Every successful run brought us more materials to fortify our position. But the blizzard's interference with our comms meant long, nerve-wracking gaps between retrievals.

Suddenly, a shout from the watchtower jolted me out of my thoughts.

"Movement! There's movement at the entrance!"

Goddamnit...

I scrambled for cover behind the nearest barricade.

"Everyone to positions! This isn't a drill!"

My heart was pounding, I peered over the fortifications. Through the swirling snow, I could make out several large, lumbering shapes approaching. The aliens had found us again.As they drew closer, I could make out more details. They were humanoid in shape, but that's where the similarities ended. They were massive - easily eight feet tall and built like tanks. Thick, matted fur covered their bodies, And their faces...Eat your heart out Beauty and the Beast..

One of the aliens, slightly larger than the rest, raised a massive, torch-like device. It bellowed something in its guttural language, the sound carrying even over the howling wind.

"What the hell are they saying?" someone whispered nearby.I shook my head.

"Doesn't matter. Get ready to light 'em up!"

The alien leader roared again, and as one, the group charged towards our fort. Their massive frames closing the distance with terrifying speed.

"Open fire!" I screamed, and our salvaged weapons crackled to life. The hastily repaired turrets rattled as they spat out a stream of energy bolts. The recoil threatened to tear them apart with each shot, but they held - barely.

Flashes of light illuminated the snowy battlefield as our defenses engaged the alien threat.To my amazement and relief, the barrage seemed to catch the aliens off guard. Several of them stumbled as energy bolts punched holes in their armor. Their charge stopped and for a moment, I thought they had finally decided to give up.

Of course not. Even with our weapons pushing them back, they kept coming, using their massive bodies to shield each other from our fire.

one of our turrets finally gave up, collapsing and crackling.

"Shit! Keep firing! Don't let up!"

The loss of firepower was noticeable immediately. The aliens pressed their advantage, closing the distance to our walls. We were seconds away from being overrun.

Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the attack faltered. A piercing screaming coming from the alien leader bellowed again, this time with a note of... was that fear? Some black liquid was coming out of their body. Their blood presumably. The massive creatures began to fall back, dragging their wounded with them.

"They're retreating!" someone shouted. "Don't celebrate yet! " I growled, watching as the aliens disappeared back into the swirling snow.

As the adrenaline began to fade, I took a look at our situation. We'd repelled the attack, but at a cost. One of our few turrets was down, still crackling and buzzing.

"You there!" I shouted at a nearby group. "Get that turret back online ASAP! I want it repaired and reloaded before those freaks come back!"

As the crew scrambled to follow my orders, I allowed myself a moment to breathe. We'd survived this encounter, but for how long? Our resources were dwindling, our weapons were falling apart, and without most our equipment, sooner or later those aliens would figure out how to breach our defenses.

I gazed out at the endless blizzard, at this point i was starting to wonder if we should even bother contacting HQ. We've gotten next to no response. I turned back to the fort, ready to oversee repairs and plan our next move. I just hope the people they took are okay.What were those aliens planning to do with them anyways?

=================================================================

Captain Zor'nak trudged through the snow, Clutching the injury he had obtained from those stinging projectiles. The clerk whispering as they tended the wound. The icy wind howled around them, but it was nothing compared to the storm of emotions raging within his chest. He cast a final glance back at the small and unusual fortress, its crude watchtower barely visible through the swirling blizzard.

"Damn this blasted curse. Damn what heretic was responsible for turning our kind into....THOSE POOR THINGS!" He groaned.

The group of Polarians he'd rallied for this rescue mission huddled close, their thick fur providing some protection against the bitter cold. They'd come so close this time, nearly breaching the walls of the fortress where their transformed kin were hiding. But those strange, crackling weapons had driven them back once again.

Kel'thra, Zor'nak's mate, placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. 

"We'll free them, my love. We must not lose hope."

Zor'nak grunted in acknowledgment, but the frustration gnawed at him. He knew that beneath those small, fragile forms, their true Polarian selves were waiting to be freed. If only the curse didn't affect their minds so severely, making them lash out at their would-be saviors. As they trudged back towards their settlement, the sound of sobbing reached Zor'nak's ears. He turned to see several young Polarians, barely more than cubs, huddled together in distress.

"What troubles you, little ones?" he asked, his gruff voice softening.

One of the cubs looked up at him with sadness. "Will we ever get our brother back? He was the bravest warrior in our clan, and now he's... he's..."

"Transformed..." Zor'nak finished for her. Kor'vax had been one of the first to change after the strange meteors began falling from the sky. The once-mighty warrior was now trapped in the form of one of those small, furless creatures. Zor'nak knelt down, bringing himself eye-level with the cubs. 

"Listen to me, all of you. We will not abandon our kin. No matter how long it takes, no matter how hard they fight against us, we will bring them home and break this wicked curse."

The cubs nodded, their sobs quieting somewhat. Zor'nak stood, his determination renewed. He would not let these young ones lose faith. As they continued their journey, one of the older Polarians spoke up.

 "Captain, who do you think is responsible for this calamity? So many of our people have vanished and been transformed since those accursed meteors began falling."

"I know not, Grak'thul. Perhaps a coalition of malevolent spirits? Or maybe..."  "It has to be the work of Kingdom of Endo! Those traitors! It can't be a coincidence that those meteors started falling at the height of the war!" Another elders spat out.

"Improbable. Their leader may be a warlock, but such work is something only a deity would be capable of.

"Maybe it is a punishment from the gods themselves?"

A murmur of unease rippled through the group. The meteors. Their members vanishing after the loud noises. These creatures appearing in their stead. The idea that they had somehow angered the gods was a terrifying prospect.

"But for what crime?" 

"I don't know..." Zor'nak admitted. "But whatever the cause, we must not falter in our efforts to save our people."

As they neared the outskirts of their settlement, Zor'nak's thoughts turned to their most recent rescue attempt. They had managed to retrieve one of the transformed Polarians from the wreckage of one of the fallen meteors before the others had taken refuge in their fortress.

"Vex'ala..." he called out to a young maiden walking nearby. "What news of the one we brought back? Has there been any change?"

Vex'ala's face crumpled, her jaw quivering. 

"No, Captain. I... I tried the courtship ritual, as the legends suggest. But...The one I believe to be my Sar'thal just tried to escape. He fought so hard we had to subdue him." "Same thing happened with the others we brought back sir. One of them almost tore off my mane."

Zor'nak's heart ached for his people. He knew the pain of watching a loved one trapped in a form that no longer recognized you. 

"Do not lose hope! We will find a way to break this curse."

As they entered the settlement, Zor'nak paused, looking back in the direction of the strange fortress that seemed to appear there recently. Through the swirling snow, he could just make out the faint glow of their strange lights.

"My brothers, my sisters." he said softly, his words carried away by the wind. "We have not abandoned you. We will bring you home."

[wrongcaitlyn]

for the ask game !!! 4, 6 and 22 for tyt / dear reader in general !!!

4. If the fic required it, what did you research in order to write it?

oh SO much😭 there was definitely a lot of research into dates, at first, just because i wanted to make sure i was lining up all the award shows with the actual dates and choosing which award shows to write (also coming across the fact that grammys 2018 was on jan 28...) also, the categories that were in award shows, i had to research what exactly all of those categories were for - which ones nico would be nominated for, who they were awarded to (just the singer, also the producer?). the amount of time that i spent on the grammys' wikipedia page was much longer than i'll ever admitslkjfd

also billboard charts! i did a ton of research into records, how they're counted, because i wanted to make sure that when i was mentioning nico's milestones, they were at least somewhat realistic. i read through a bunch of billboard album reviews and articles with producers and whatnot to try and figure out the basics of music journalism.

there was research into transitioning, as well, even though i was much more hesitant to trust *google* for that sort of stuff, but i wanted to know just how easy it would be for nico to actually get top surgery and whatnot, and also the effects of binders when singing/having a performance and stuff

SO MUCH OLYMPICS RESEARCH. LIKE. god i think i complained about this at some point but seriously, the archery world championships and olympics qualification is still confusing asf to me. but i wanted to make sure that, despite kayla being a relatively minor character, i was figuring out all the right dates, how she would get qualified, records for youngest world champions, etc etc.

weather accounts. ik that it's very unnecessary but i genuinely looked up dates for concerts and what the weather was, or when i wanted it to rain i actually looked up whether it was raining, how i could twist it to when it *did* rain, and whatnot. i may be insane when it comes to details like that

and in general, i watched a lot of interviews (though that was in my free time, and tbf i've always been interested in it, even before i started writing the series) about artists and singer-songwriters and how they wrote, how they worked, and just the entire creating-an-album process

there's probably a lot more that i'm forgetting, bc i genuinely was always researching something. fun fact! there hasn't been an italian artist to reach #1 on the billboard hot 100 since 1958 (he was also the first european artist to reach #1 on the billboard hot 100).

6. How did you decide what tense and POV(s) to use?

i had just written a fic (my hunger games au) in past tense, and when writing it, i felt like i kept slipping into present. so when i started writing talk your talk, i decided to just test out present tense and see whether i liked that better (back when i thought it would be a relatively short oneshot, maybe a oneshot series)

the funny thing about that is that i thought i didn't like it, and so THEN when i wrote another fic - my marauders jegulus fame au - i decided to write that one in past tense. a warning for any writers: NEVER. write two wip's that are in different tenses. it's a horrible kind of torture. since then, i've had to write all of my other fics in present tense because i didn't want to mess up my brain while writing talk your talk - it's so confusing to switch it up, because then i'd also have to monitor what i was reading, and if i read something present tense, i wasn't able to write starry eyes; if i read something past tense, i wasn't able to write talk your talk. i couldn't write one and then switch over to the other, i had to like program my brain to think in the correct tense - ANYWAY it was very very hard and i highly recommend to never do that and just stick with one tense, at least until you want to fully switch over😭

as for the pov, in talk your talk, it was always going to be nico! the whole fic was very centered around him, and i knew that i wanted to add all these details on how he felt about his rise to fame - i really wanted that internal dialogue during shows, and school, and producing music, and also how songs would come to be and whatnot. also, i had just written my hunger games au in nico's pov, and i just really liked it😭

when it came to greatest of luxuries, i knew that i wanted to expand on the universe. that did horrendous things to my wordcount, but i think it was for the best!! i got to add more character development to will, which was *really* important to me, seeing as he and nico are pretty separate stories while nico is on tour and will is in college, and it also let me introduce a bunch of new characters!! i added a few other interludes too, with a bunch of different pov's, but the most interesting, i think, was apollo

apollo's pov/memoir (and i'm so sorry, i know you haven't gotten to that yet but i just had to include it when talking about pov's!!) is one of my FAVORITE things to write. i knew that i wanted to add more of apollo's lore and his story to the au, but for a while, i didn't know how to do it - it didn't feel right to just add an apollo pov where all he does is reflect on the past and so i got SO excited when i thought of creating a memoir. usually i'm heavily against writing in first person, but it just felt so natural with apollo - how else could you have a pov that just focuses on the past (pretty much an entirely different timeline) but still with the huge ego of apollo? while he still shows maturity and how he's grown as a person?? i'm already such a fan of including mixed media in my fics, but the memoir has to be my favoritekjldsf

22. What is something you learned about yourself as a writer from the experience?

i love causing pain. i think i already knew that, seeing as one of my first fics when starting to write again last year was a hunger games au in which i killed off like a good majority of the main cast. but there was something cool in writing angst as a theme in talk your talk, when fame au's largely focus more on the reputation of a person, conflicts between relationship, etc. not that i have a problem with those, seeing as im a sucker for literally any kind of fame au, but i sort of put them in the background for this series!

overall, i feel like i've grown such a huge amount with this fic. i started it around the same age as nico and will, only slightly younger, and now they're nearly 20 and im still 16. both in the writing sense and just in general, i really got over my fear of starting/committing to longer fics, because i really just fell in love with the universe. i learned that i *love* adding different forms of media to fics, and that one of my favorite things about writing is exploring how different universes would impact the characters differently - it would shape their personalities, give them some different characteristics and different outlooks on life, and that's prob why i love au's so muchdjfs

but the main main thing is that this is the first time that i feel like i really wrote the fic and got a huge community out of it - i've always had a few mutuals in fandoms and whatnot (both when editing and writing), but with talk your talk, i started getting repeat commenters, and eventually started my tumblr, and i realized how incredibly motivating it is to be able to share my obsession with the au with so many other people!! it's been an absolutely incredible experience <33

well i definitely rambled a lot thereDLKFJS thank you for the asks!!

[hellsingmongrel]

Man, so I'm not normally the biggest fan of Modern AUs, nor am I overly fond of fiction focused on kids, but...last night, my sleeping brain decided to concoct this Trigun (Stampede-flavored) Modern AU that now is living rent free in my damn brain! I want to get it out of my head and into the ether. I don't know if I'm going to do anything long-form with it, and I'm having to translate dream weirdness into more coherent storytelling, but here we go.

So it's modern day Earth, like 2024 or some shit, right? And that's when this version of Earth had just begun fucking around with Plant cloning. It's early enough that the SEEDS project hasn't even left the planet, the scientists haven't yet figured out how to put Plants in bulbs and use them for fuel, none of that! But they've already had Tessla happen, and the boys have already been born. Since they're not in space, even though they had to have found out about their sister, Nai hasn't had a chance to literally nuke humanity from orbit, and I guess Rem has had a chance to try and curtail some of his trauma, so he's...more stable? Ish? Stable enough where he's not actively trying to murder everyone. And the boys are "older," like we see in the flashbacks for the time Vash encountered Nai during the Last Run, so probably around 6 years old but looking 16 or so.

Rem has managed to fudge their paperwork so they've started going to school with human kids, to try and give them a normal childhood. Nai isn't as eager to play ball with the whole "being human" thing as much as Vash is, but Vash has got so many friends, Meryl and Milly and Lina are there and they're like the cutest, most stupidly adorable group of friends, just a bunch of little goofballs, like kids that age are. And the school has a field trip to a theme park (it was Disneyworld in my dream because my school actually did this, but ours was a band trip) and Vash manages to convince Rem to let him go. Vash and Nai and Rem are still paranoid about humans figuring out who they are, so you know, he's told to be extra careful and take care of himself, and Nai gives him one of his blades or something for self defense, just in case something happens. Even though Vash would never, that boy has trauma around knives and trying to defend himself, if you've read Trimax, iykyk. But he takes it anyway, and somehow, he manages to sneak it into the park. Maybe the metal doesn't register on metal detectors or something, who knows.

But he's a kid, and kids are dumb. Especially when they're 16. Especially if those 16 year olds aren't actually 16 and don't have the actual lived experience to know better. So he starts playing with the knife in front of the girls, showing off and just being a silly little guy. And then the knife slips. Bad. We're talking "this is how he probably lost his arm in this AU" bad. Blood everywhere, the girls are panicking and take him to the school chaperones and it's like "HOLY SHIT WTF DUDE, We're taking you to the ER, someone call his mom!"

And he hears that, pictures the doctors finding out he's not human, remembers what happened to Tessla, and panics. Boy does a runner like only Vash can do, and he manages to get away from them, out of the park, and escapes from security. And when parents get involved in trying to find him, the authorities start looking into the incident, and someone in the government overseeing the Plant research is able to recognize the elemental make up of the blade he dropped, and they start having suspicions. So the feds get involved, and it just goes from bad to worse, right?

Meanwhile, loopy from blood loss and panicking and a little sobbing mess because he feels dumb about slipping up and he's afraid he'll never get to go home to his mom and his brother again and is spiraling the way kids do when they panic, he gets lost in the city and ends up stumbling over teenage Wolfwood, who lives on the streets and has a few street kids that he looks after on his own with Livio. They never got to live at the orphanage, but that also means that the Eye (in whatever form it takes in this AU) never got ahold of them, so yeah, shits fucked for them, but it's actually a whole lot better for them than it might have been. And it's Wolfwood without all of the EoM trauma, so you can just imagine what he does when this delirious, bloody, terrified, severely injured kid runs him over in the street, sobbing about being caught by the adults and taken away.

Big Brother Nico do what Big Brother Nico do.

At that point, I ended up waking up, but damn if my brain didn't give me enough details to come up with a dumb AU idea that I kind of love and want to do something with, but I don't know if I have the time or spoons to do so.

Ideas I'd had following this beginning to flesh itself out in my head; Luida and Brad are Plant researchers brought onto the project to help the feds figure out wtf is going on with this whole situation, and when Luida is told to talk to Rem, because she's not giving them anything they can use, the two of them reach a secret accord to bring Vash home safe and sound and cover everything back up nice and squeaky clean the way it should have stayed.

Vash's arm is bad enough that he can't really heal it very well on his own without medical care, Plant healing or no. He's doing better than most kids would, but it still begins to go septic, and it forces Nico and Livio to make the really hard decision to find adults they can trust to bring him to so he can get the care he needs. He still ends up losing his arm, though.

At the end of everything, Melanie ends up taking Nico and Livio and the other kids in, so they still get to have their momma figure, even if she comes in later. Maybe she's the one that they find to help them. Is she maybe someone they've known was mostly safe but was never able to get them to stick around long enough to take care of them? Either way, the boys get Vash to her, and it starts the process of getting him home and the kids finally staying at the orphanage.

Meryl, Milly, and Lina all end up sneaking away when they realize that Vash is in more trouble than the adults are letting on, trying to go find him, since they know him better than anyone other than Rem and Nai. Eventually, they meet up with Nico and Livio while everyone is trying to avoid federal agents.

Obviously it's lovey-dovey Vashwood and Insurance Girlfriends and Polygun-flavored, but in the "these kids are too oblivious to think about sexy things, yet" sort of way, because I really do headcanon that at least Vash is ace, Wolfwood is probably demi, and also I am not writing children getting intimate like that. >8/ But kids having little crushes on each other is adorable and I can't not have Vashwood and Insurance Girlfriends be the eventual outcome, once those idiots all grow up and get their heads screwed on straight.

Also, because Nai hasn't had a chance to murder everyone, Rem's managed to work with him enough that he's very slowly overcoming his trauma and regaining his ability to trust that he's not in permanent danger. He'll probably grow up to be a Plants Rights activist or something, lbh. Or a politician. But he's not going to murder people, so either way, it's a win/win!

Because Nico's been living on the streets with him, Razlo either hasn't had to manifest as strongly for Livio, or hasn't manifested at all. Livio is still the sweet, shy, crybaby teddy bear we see, and maybe Razlo only comes out when the feds start getting closer and almost managing to grab the kids, and because he's been able to bond with Nico and the other kids so well this time, Livio is close enough to them that the thought of them getting hurt or taken away is enough to make him want to protect their little group instead of just Livio.

Wolfwood absolutely grumbles about how alike Vash and Livio are. Both a couple'a crybabies, geez, what the Hell you two??? But he also is very much a teddy bear who gives the best hugs when one of his little band of gremlins is upset, so he probably spends more time in a cuddle pile than anything else, now that there's two of them to lose their shit at the drop of a hat.

Vash was totally the one very sweet boy in a clique of girls that everyone who'd known him realized, when they were adults looking back, that he was very much the sweet gay kid hanging out with the girls because it was safer to be himself around them than it was to be around the other boys. (This isn't meant as a stereotype of gay kids, this is based on actual kids I grew up with. My friend group honest to God adopted them because we were all a bunch of momma bears.)

Vash is also...not trans? Because he's a Plant and Plants don't work the same way humans do, but he's also not what humans would think of as a cis boy. He expresses a masc presentation, but probably the closest equivalent would be an intersexed kid. Nai, too, tbh, though he's probably more of the "I don't give a fuck" opinion when it comes to his own gender identity. He uses he/him because that's what humans think when they see him, but he doesn't care any deeper than that.

[wundergeek]

From my currently 15K WIP in which I am Very Normal About Wanting To Fuck Self-Esteem Into G'raha Tia

---

"What's on your mind?" I asked mildly.

"I... was wondering about what you said last night..."

"Care to be more specific?" I asked after a long moment of silence.

G'raha turned red and looked at his hands. "About what... what you think of me," he stammered.

I smiled and said nothing.

"How... why... do you think that? About me?"

I paused in my chopping to give him an incredulous look. "Raha, have you seen yourself? There's a reason you've never had any problems finding 'study partners'."

"Not that," he shot back, dismissing the compliment with an irritated wave of his hand. "I know I'm good-looking. I meant... the other stuff."

I just barely managed to refrain from calling him an idiot. As dense as he could be sometimes (including right now) - he did appear to be genuinely confused. "Any particular part of it that you're having trouble with?"

G'raha's turned nearly the same color as his hair. "You said I was... fascinating. But..." He squirmed and looked down at his hands. "I'm just... a nerd."

"A nerd who knows more about the Allagans than all of the Allagan researchers for the last thousand years combined," I countered sharply.

"Only because I have the Eye of Allagan - which didn't have anything to do with me," he protested. "It was a genetic lottery win."

I gave him sour look to let him know what I thought of that argument, but let it slide. "Alright then. A nerd who is extremely accomplished, even by the standards of my very long-lived people."

G'raha's ears flattened with dismay. "I can't take credit for any of that! Most of what happened on the First was your doing, and the rest... I was just playing out my part in a plan that took dozens of researchers almost two centuries to perfect. They mapped out the path and set me on it, all I did was walk it."

"Raha," I said with loving exasperation as my determination not to insult him went out the window. "My dear, sweet buffoon. I would hold your face gently while I say this if my hands weren't completely covered in onion, but... The 'path' they set before you was literally insane."

G'raha blinked at me in bafflement.

"Seriously. Try and step outside yourself for a moment and look at it from my perspective. You went to sleep to safeguard the Tower's secrets, never expecting that a bunch of scholars would break in two hundred years after the literal end of the world to task you with crossing time and space to travel to another Shard and undo everything that had happened since the Eighth Umbral Calamity - a task which would require you to forsake part of your humanity by merging your essence with the Tower. Any way you look at it, it's completely mad."

"But..."

"Furthermore," I continued, my voice steely. "No one forced you to 'play your part' in this grand plan - you could have said no."

"You know I couldn't have refused!" G'raha exclaimed, tail lashing as he narrowed his eyes in hurt confusion. "How could I, when I knew what hung in the balance? Knowing that I was the only person who could avert the Calamity, and thus save thousands, maybe millions of lives?"

"I didn't say it was a good choice. But it was a choice. And let's not forget," I pinned G'raha with a sharp stare. "You weren't even given a detailed plan! It was more the shape of a plan that you had to fill in by yourself. By your own account, it took decades to figure out how to summon me to the First, which you had to do while shepherding the community that grew up around the tower."

"I..." G'raha was too intelligent not to see the trap he was walking into, but doggedly persisted anyway. "I couldn't just leave them to get turned into sin eaters right on my doorstep. That would have taken more time away from my research."

"You didn't have to let them build their settlement around the tower itself, though." I countered. "Nor did you have to become their leader and protector. But you did, because it's what you do. You leave people better than you found them."

"This... you're changing the subject," G'raha complained, not meeting my gaze.

"Maybe a little," I admitted. "But only because it makes me crazy how little credit you give yourself for everything you've achieved, or for how much you had to go through in order to achieve it. Those researchers could never have hoped to comprehend the magnitude of the sacrifice you had to make! By the time I showed up in the First, you had so much love in your life. You loved and were beloved by a community of people whose lives you had shared for three generations. You had a daughter, who you raised to be strong, and good, and tirelessly excellent at what she does. You had everything to lose, and still you didn't hesitate to lay down your life when the time came."

There was so much more I wanted to say, but G'raha was all but bent in half under the weight of so much positivity, his shoulders shaking with barely-contained emotion, which made me afraid that I'd said too much already. "It's what you would have done," he choked out.

My heart twisted in my chest as I hurried around to the other side of the table to pull him into a crushing hug. "You are worth so much more than how much you're willing to sacrifice for others," I said fiercely. "And... Gods, Raha. I wish I could show you what I see, because you're the best of us."

G'raha shuddered and pushed his face into my shoulder. "Y-you can't possibly think that."

"I do," I shot back, my words sharper than my touch as I gently stroked his back. "So deal with it."

Finally, he seemed to have run out of arguments. So I held him as he cried, and again that big dangerous something reared its ugly head, too damn obvious to avoid putting a name to.

Love. I loved G'raha. And I knew in that moment I always would love him, just as I loved Alisaie.

I wanted so badly to say it, to give G'raha something he could hold onto when his self-doubt made believing in himself impossible, but doubt held me back. I couldn't tell G'raha I loved him without saying the same to Alisaie, and I didn't have the faintest clue of how she'd feel about the level of implied commitment that would bring.

Unfortunately, I dithered too long, and the moment was lost when G'raha pulled away and wiped his eyes. "Thank you," he whispered hoarsely. "No one has ever understood me so well as you. Indeed, I think you understand me better than I understand myself."

"We always see others more clearly than we see ourselves," I pointed out, giving him one last squeeze before I let go. "And lest you worry about living up to my standard, I'll tell you right now that there's no sign saying 'you must be this heroic to ride the Warrior of Light's dick'."

The joke had the desired effect as G'raha involuntarily snorted with laughter. "You can be a real ass sometimes," he said, his eyes sparkling with something much closer to his usual good humor.

"What can I say? Alisaie's a bad influence."

Read from the beginning on AO3

[literallyjusttoa]

Ok I have just been scrolling on your blog for like ages now and I just wanna say that I find your greek mythology rants literally so interesting bc a) they are so informative and when reading them it's obvious your dedicated abt it and b) I just love the way you write??? There's so much passion and it makes reading all your posts so interesting. I just love the info dumps especially bc I really want to know more abt greek mythology but I just don't have the time + have no idea where to start finding this information.

Plus I just really really love your art. It's so adorable?? I love your style and the way you draw your characters I just want to bundle them all up and never let go like I am literally etching every last bit into my brain.

Anyways I hope this doesn't seem like weird ☀️

These are like the kindest compliments, thank you!!!!

I'm so glad my passion for mythology comes through in my writing bc I do care so much about greek mythology and like mythology in general, if I thought I could make it in academia I would totally get a job in mythology research it is one of my favorite things. AND! I have a couple of resources I would totally recommend for a good place to start researching!

Theoi.com: oml this is such a phenomenally good resource for greek mythology. It has a whole bunch of different information and all of it is linked back to it's original source from antiquity. I will say that the writing on the website can be a bit dense, but it's not horrible and I could not recommend this site enough as a source for information.

If you have the money to buy a book I would recommend getting a copy of the Apollodorus' Library. This is a collection of mythography (It's like a mythological dictionary) that is thought to have been written around 2nd century BC. So, two plusses. 1. It's a primary source. 2. It has a lot of myths in a small package. Obviously, the original book is in ancient greek, which I sadly have not learned to read, but there are a lot of really good translations in english that are readily available. The one I have was translated by R. Scott Smith and Stephan M. Trzaskoma, and it's really cool because it also has the translated Hyginus' Fabulae, which is also mythography but this time it's roman. So like, two in one go! Woop woop!

After these two resources, I would recommend going trying to find resources that go more in depth on whatever myth catches your eye. Of course, that could be anything, so I can't really offer up a certain book or website for that, but I can give a couple of tips I use when looking into potential sources of information!

Primary resources!!! Always look for primary resources!! These are the sources that are actually from ancient greece, and have little to no additions from an author. I know these sources are usually more dense and harder to get through, but I think it's good to have an understanding of the original myth before you start looking at other people's interpretations of that myth, just so you don't get their thoughts confused with the actual original text. If you're having trouble figuring out if a book or site is a good primary research, search it up and look for reviews! Usually there's at least a couple people talking about how good the source is academic-wise.

I would always encourage researching ancient greek and roman history alongside researching mythology. These myths did not exist in a vacuum, and a lot of the time certain myths and stories are the direct result of the culture and politics of the era. I think the connections between greek mythology and history give you a greater understanding of both topics, and is always a good step!

(Also just my bias showing, but greek art history!!! is so good!!! and tells you so much about the culture!!! and then roman art history is also great!!! Because you get to see how the artists of rome used the cultural and artistic values of greece to create meaning and influence the people!! Like, Octavian purposefully had himself sculpted in a hellenistic style so that people would be less worried about him ruling from such a young age?? That's so interesting!!! I love art history!!!!)

I will say a lot of this does take a lot of time (I only really have time to research now bc it's summer so i'm not in college ;-;) but I really think it's such an interesting field, as you can probably tell by how long this was.

[vacayisland]

Hiii! Not a request but a question, I hope that's alright!

Seeing your writing has made me pretty inspired and I've been wanting to do trolls fics of my own! I've been struggling a lot w some characters, though, especially Floyd

My question is how you figure out their personalities and way of speaking enough to write for them? Unlike the others, we don't really see much of Floyd outside of his brothers TwT so I'm just not sure how to get his character right, but I feel like you do him justice! Feel free not to answer btw!! Hope you're doing well ♡♡

I actually really love answering questions like that, or generally any writing-based question; as long as I help people get inspired to write or help them in their creative journey, that’s what I am here for after all!

So, personally, my way of writing tends to be a little different than other people’s (at least I think it is) but my way of researching characters tends to be the same. So I’m going to try and do some sort of justice of explaining this! Bear with me please and if you have any other questions just ask me.

With characters like Floyd, I tend to find him easier to do. Both because I focused a lot on him during the movie and when it first released, and because he has such little screen time. Of course that’s both a blessing and a curse, because not many will realize that Floyd has a slightly sarcastic way of humor (or at least I didn’t the first few times watching the movie).

Yet with any character you would want to research on them! And that’s a little easier written than done but this is what I did for JD (who was harder for me to grasp on):

When I first saw the movie, I thought JD was what he was first presented as. A rude bastard who didn’t know when his family was upset and pushed them to do things anyways. And while he’s a little bit of that he’s actually a lot more.

Unlike Floyd, JD gets a bunch of screen time that writers should take advantage of! If the background, if you watch JD, you can see the little things that make him not fully a jerk. Such as the upset look he gets whenever a brother goes to Branch first instead of him, and yet how he tries to act like it didn’t bother him. Showing no matter how much of a hard ass he was he does actually are about his brothers in his own weird way.

I also looked upon different sites and saw what they described his personality as. Then I watched the movie, picked what I thought to be true, and honestly that’s what I go on. It’s kind of always changing because no matter how ‘cannon’ you’re trying to write a character there should always be a little self influence of you in them.

Not saying to completely derail a character and make them not cannon, but have fun with it. Take aspects of their character as you wish and just keep practicing and rewriting lines until you feel like it’s correct.

But JD is always harder for me to do, so that’s why I want to do him more. The more practice the better.

For characters like Floyd, who have minimum screen time, I find easier because they don’t have a stricter personality box. From what we see in the movie, what I’ve gathered from websites and other writers (reader other people’s work! They might actually inspire how you write a character a lot), Floyd is sensitive yet witty. He’s smart and caring.

That’s our base line, four traits that are easy to write because they don’t have much to them. THEYRE just traits! Then we can take a few of Floyd’s voice lines to base how can mimic speaking like him; And he speaks a little like Branch but a little on the nicer tone to people he actually cares about.

I don’t know if that makes sense or if it actually helps at all, but it’s a weird process. It’s all about how do you make yourself most comfortable playing and writing the character. Do we much research as you need, take your time! There’s no rush to publish fan fictions, there’s no rush to do anything.

Remember to post only what you’re proud of and what you enjoy. Writing is a process that gets slightly easier the more you practice it, and sometimes it gets harder. But just enjoy it along the way and write only when it feels right. :)

But happy writing and please tag me in any post you publish! I’ll love to read your work.