#i get wanting to do things for the 'aesthetic' but it's conflicting with the stuff you're genuinely trying to write!!

[genericpuff]

i completely forgot to mention this in my previous ask, but have you seen Too Many Crowns video on LO and how it makes the myth worse? its one of my favourite video essays. a few years ago i had watched their previous critical analysis' of LO before they became unlisted, and they are now linked in the description of her final video about LO (i was searching for LO hate cuz i couldn't find any and i just started to realize it was slowly becoming a bigger dumpster fire lol). if you haven't seen it you definitely should, it sums up everything wrong with the story (a lot of which has been discussed by you and the ULO community, but some other really amazing stuff) and how it negatively diverges from the myth.

thank you! sorry for the long questions lol

I saw this ask the other day and realized it had been a while since I had watched it, so I had revisited it! They definitely do a great job of summing up a lot of the larger points as to why people criticize LO. One thing they pointed out in particular was something I had completely forgotten about-

literally what happened to this crown

does she even HAVE a crown

like we've seen Hades wearing his crown plenty of times on the job but the only time we've seen Persephone with any sort of crown was during her Dread Queen transformation, and not only was it FAR better than this (and within the themes of the story, more indicative of Persephone's true transformation from being the daughter of Demeter to the Dread Queen with the transition from white to black) but it's really telling that Hades' choice for a crown for her was some dinky (white-colored!!) dollar store tiara that's NEVER EVEN BEEN MENTIONED SINCE-

[fourspiceblend]

It's funny cause for the most part of the game, I didn't really care about people's criticisms of Engage's writing and thought they were just mad the story was straightforward and didn't try to be overly complex... But now that I'm (finally) reaching the endgame, there's a loooot of weird plotholes that 3H would be jealous of lol.

[centrally-unplanned]

Time for a pet peeve take response - let me capture our target below:

[Unpopular Fantasy Opinion Take:] The fantasy genre by-and-large took the wrong takeaway from Tolkien, and has been generally spiraling since as a result. They took his surface-level aesthetics and fantastical elements, and left his engagement with real, historical texts, his philology & his moral seriosity. In a different timeline, subsequent authors would have adopted Tolkien's erudite love of language and mythology and applied it to other cultures & mythologies - not just superficially, but by engaging with the great Chinese novels or the Shahnameh like he did with Beowulf. Even when you *do* see more recent novels "inspired by" other cultures, they are very blatantly just taking the (degraded distillate of the) Western, Tolkien-esque tradition and coating it in a thin veneer of Chinese or Mesoamerican lore.

This is not the first time I have seen this specific take, and it is part of a "fallen literature" genre that is always confusing supply & demand, with a hefty bout of selection bias for good measure.

To get the obvious out of the way, the "lessons" people took from Tolkien are entirely what audiences want to read, and were never going to be any other way. Most people don't wanna read hard, heavy books! Even if they want that sometimes, for every one Gravity's Rainbow they are gonna read a dozen Gone Girl's as a palette-cleansing snack, which means by-the-numbers the latter will dominate. Fantasy did not invent the genre of adventure stories and swashbuckling heroes and hot maidens to woo and mystical mumbo-jumbo; people stapling tried-and-true genre tropes onto elves and orcs once they took off was a given. The "shallow" part was the only part that could have changed; a world where the median fantasy novel is dealing with theological issues could never have been.

And to top this all off, no disrespect to Tolkien at all, but like...he isn't that deep? The "moral seriousness" of the Lord of the Rings is very simple - characters are often cartoonishly evil or blatantly good, the conflicts they face are often black and white, and in particular the moral dilemmas faced by characters boil down to tests of courage more than half the time. What Tolkien does have is his own unique interests? Like in Middle Earth the "act of creation", from art to life, is itself a moral undertaking with metaphysical implications. This is super cool - but it is also again very simple, it is barely even discussed in the novels and his ideas can be summarized in a paragraph. This is all good btw! The novels would not benefit from more complicated morality. But modern books are just as complex, and often more so.

Actually just a little aside here - a lot of people do this thing with Tolkien where they mention his letters and drafts like that is canonical story text? Yeah he wrote like an essay about the theological implications of the various orc origin stories, but he didn't publish that, it is nowhere in the Lord of the Rings and is barely in the Silmarillion. Other authors have notes like those; you just don't read them.

And the "other cultures" stuff is particularly egregious - I'm sorry, are we just not reading many modern stories? You think Spinning Silver isn't pulling great threads from Slavic folklore? You think the Chinese Gays in Mo Dao Zu Shi/The Untamed aren't dropping refs to Daoism and the four classics in between their will-they-won't-they necromancy shenanigans? In response this author would, of course, pivot from their bailey of "no one references other traditions" to the motte of "and if they do it is shallow" with no definition of what qualifies as such, nor again any admittance that audiences care way more about getting the gays than the deep cut cultural refs. The fact that the median person in the west prefers their Dungeons & Dragons campaigns in a default Tolkien-esque setting because the point is to have a comfortable backdrop for ease of play of a combat dice game will just not factor into their analysis.

The elephant in the room for all of this is that foundational texts differ, structurally, from modern texts, because they were made in different environments. The Lord of the Rings probably wouldn't sell well today! The prose is wooden, the characters are flat, it throws random lore it never explains at you, Tom Bombadil is just there as a walking momentum-destroying plot hole, etc. People read it because it was a first in a world that didn't have books committing to this level of world-building & detail in a fantasy environment. And as a new genre, things like his crazy level of language building are appealing, it's all so new and different, something cool to dig into.

But imagine picking up your 185th elves-and-orcs sword & sorcery book in 1998 and reading "ah yes Quenya is just one of two alphabets for the Elven tongue and it is inspired by Finnish-Germanic and I write entire poems in it even though I never finished a cohesive dictionary or grammar system but I do have 15 pages of pronunciation notes"?? You would throw at it at a fucking wall, absolutely insufferable. It was cool the first time, and that is why you learn Elvish, just like you learn Klingon. That was never gonna keep as a zeitgeist - instead just popping up here or there as this or that series takes off.

You have to accept that audiences are in the driver's seat on this one - they have infinite stories to choose from, they are absolutely not being dragged along by willful writers. Which means genres will evolve and change over time - and that is fine.

[twilightarc-gm]

Why do you like jiang cheng?

At the risk of liking him for the wrong reasons, let me be verbose and annoying about it.

A short anecdote: I finished the donghua before the novel and I liked JC's aesthetic so I was happy to have that imagery in my head for the novel, but mostly I came out of the donghua like "cool story, the ending was frowny face though" and I came out of the novel like I was lost in the IKEA store "there's stuff here but it's not what I want and it's organized in a way that's hard to navigate through." Bit like giving me a puzzle to solve.

Anyway, imagine a cat bapping at a thing trying to get fandom to show me what to do with MDZS (i.e. reading fanfic) and then I come across anti-Jiang Cheng stuff.

//record scratch

I'm sorry what?

Why?

NO.

I started then on Shuangjie reconciliation fic and quickly evolved into Jiang Cheng "Apologist" ((I actually don't think he has anything to apologize for even if he would do so anyway.))

I've been in the xianxia/wuxia sphere of media consumption for a year or so before trying out MDZS and JC just fits so well as the main character of his own story; destined for a position of power through birth, friends with someone in his life that causes conflict, seemingly betrayed by said friend when needing that friend the most, losing and losing and losing as his trust in said friend proves unfounded because the friend walks a path he can't follow, and then he's left with the tragedy that befell the world because--ultimately he trusted this friend too much.

It's a classic story of love and attachment and how good intentions can have massive consequences. Two men entwined by fate and in the end there's a battle on a hill (off screen in this case) where one is forced to "kill" the other.

MDZS could have ended with the past timeline, and I would have liked it more but at least in the present timeline we get Jiujiu and a-Ling.

Anyway: Excerpts and Commentary Below about WHY I LOVE JIANG CHENG, courtesy WANYIN

Of all the clans to offend, you don’t offend the Jiang Clan, and of all the people to offend, you never offend Jiang Cheng.

We stand by a badass mf in this house. The first thing we learn is that he gets credit for killing a big baddy and the second thing we learn is how fierce the rest of his reputation is. He brooks no shit and leaves no quarter. Amazing 💜

Well, I was done for at "gaze like two streaks of cold lightning" so RIP me, I guess. Reminds me of some antis that are like "you only like him because he's hot" which isn't true but it is a nice plus. He's described as inferior to LWJ so like, if it was only about hotness then wouldn't I like LWJ???

“I am his uncle. Do you have any last words?”

At the sound of that voice, every drop of blood in Wei Wuxian’s body seemed to surge to his head but then immediately drained away again. Thankfully, his face was already a mess of ghastly white, so it didn’t look strange when he went a little paler.

A man in purple attire strode over. He was dressed in a narrow-sleeved light robe, with his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. A silver bell dangled from his waist, yet there was no sound when he walked.

This young man had fine brows and almond eyes, with a chiseled handsomeness to his features. His eyes were deep and intense with a hint of aggression, his gaze like two streaks of cold lightning. He stopped and stood three meters away from Wei Wuxian. His expression was like that of a nocked arrow on a bow, ready to shoot, and even his composure was suffused with arrogant pride.

Jiang Cheng ruled the Jiang Clan of Yunmeng alone, so it could have been said that he was in a state of isolation.

🥺 Alone?? And he could still afford 400 Immortal Binding Nets? Self-sufficient king 🤩 And like, his reputation is so fierce and he's boiling over with anger in that scene, but still he restrains himself because he did the cost-benefit analysis! And then later he takes a huge risk on WWX, like he always does for WWX, and that doesn't work out for him--like it always does.

Seeing that nothing had happened to Jin Ling, Jiang Cheng was greatly relieved. However, that relief soon turned into a furious reprimand:

Parent behavior. Enough said.

He has a twisted smile when encountering a trigger for his PTSD and then he decides to fight it instead of letting it paralyze him. He's such a doer. Like, every other moment of the day he's carefully calculating pluses and minuses to every choice (valid) but when it comes to facing his personal demons he's ready to throw down. Excellent.

A moment later, Jiang Cheng’s lips pulled into a twisted smile. His left hand subconsciously began stroking that ring once more.

He said softly, “Excellent. Back, are you?”

He let go of his left hand, and a long whip dangled from it.

“Oh? Then please enlighten me, what is your type?”

Walking A-Spec flag very concerned about what the man who might be his shixiong thinks about him, more at eleven!

Wei Wuxian waved him off and then hooked his arm around Jiang Cheng’s shoulders. “Who cares? I’ll tease him a bit more before I go. You’ve already collected my corpse so many times. Once more won’t hurt.”

Okay but big lol that JC doesn't get to collect WWX's corpse that final time. //sounds of sobbing

A smile appeared on his face, but then he immediately humphed.

He's so grumpy and adorable! I love him! pre massacre JC is precious and I just want him to have someone to bring out that smile again.

He literally didn't have to do this. He makes all these excuses how he'll be embarrassed if WWX is rolling around 😂 Perfection. Boy, you are still carrying him and he doesn't want you to stop.

Jiang Cheng, walk slower, you’re gonna throw me off.”

Not only did Jiang Cheng want to throw Wei Wuxian off, but he practically wanted to bash his head into the ground to create a human crater. “So fussy even though I’m carrying you!”

“I didn’t tell you to carry me,” Wei Wuxian reasoned.

Jiang Cheng flew into a rage. “If I didn’t carry you, I think you’d hang out at their ancestral hall all day, rolling around on the floor. I can’t afford this embarrassment! Lan Wangji took fifty more strikes than you, but he walked away on his own, and you’re not embarrassed, pretending to be an invalid? I don’t want to carry you anymore. Get the hell off!”

“No, I’m wounded,” Wei Wuxian said.

Alrighty, like I'm just going through the entire book at this point.

Let me see if I can make this more concise:

Sacrifices himself despite his very dutiful nature that would oppose this. He throws away all his responsibilities for WWX, again and again, carrying on a tradition of favoring WWX over his own health and happiness. Citing: JFM favoring WWX to the detriment of his marriage, JYL dying to save WWX, and JC (exhausted and with little or no power) running into danger to save WWX ala distracting the Wen patrol and 2nd Siege.

Can't be honest in his affections and makes up excuses to do nice things for others.

Loves and understands his sister. She wanted JZX so he made it happen when LLJ had absolutely no reason to reinstate the marriage contract between Xuanli. JGS notes in the CR arc that he didn't want the marriage for his son in the first place and that there were better options than YMJ, and that was before the war! JC helped her get to Yiling to show off her wedding dress! Even though she married out he still felt so attached to her son he couldn't not co-parent Jin Ling.

Yes, he has Zidian, but he also has a second horsewhip that he keeps on him which is very exciting to know.

The narrative hates him but he survives. (He survives because the narrative hates him).

Most BAMF entrance in the novel at the temple scene with the busting the temple doors down and coming in from the rain with an umbrella. Like sure the narrative hates him but small blessings that rule of cool still counts for something.

Mama's boy.

Just some dude, shows up late to treasury room nonsense, knows all the gossip, no one has faith in him including himself, but he keeps going and doing what needs to be done even when he's so so tired and his shixiong shows up 3 months late with a ghoul lady and a latte, or disappears to liberate slave property without warning first and now he's called into a midnight meeting after trying to get some much needed rest and now he's got consequences to deal with. Someone help him!

An expert at sneering. Threats as a show of worry and care. This makes all the little and brief smiles so much more endearing.

Sandu Shengshou is an amazing title, get out of here if you don't agree. Holy Hand of the Three Poisons? Brutal, perfect 💜 It gets used like, ONCE. Crime against me personally.

Link to Blorbo Sheet for JC

He loves, he hates, he wants to hate he's not allowed to love. Zero middle ground, he's all in and there's no way out.

//is shot and dragged off stage

But just as the Wei Wuxian of the past who’d extracted his golden core for Jiang Cheng had been unable to tell him the truth, the Jiang Cheng of the present could no longer bring himself to speak up.

[caineinthecorner]

Hi. I binged like 80 chats in a row and I have opinions(tm) about physical strength and general power stuff of the brothers. Mostly just strength related things, but I tried to cover most of their battle stuff.

Yes I know, yes I know, "they're ranked as siblings by power blabla", but that's LAME. So here are my personal takes mostly for fun. Canon is dead and I ate it.

Also I finished the dividers and general aesthetics of this blog woo

★ Lucifer.

Generally the strongest, period, can and WILL kill almost anyone without much issue or even second thought

Physical strength, however? He’s not the best, as he doesn’t rely on it at all for battle / conflict

He didn't need it in heaven, after all

(Beel was his brawns and he was already a powerful angel so it never was a requirement)

I don't see him actively working out (anymore, at least), so most of his strength is merely his baseline

His main tactic conflict wise is intimidation.

Cough giving MC death threats cough

Very prideful of himself in battle, obviously

Rarely would ever use any sort of dirty tricks

Would probably prefer to go down the "honorable way"

Target his brothers though and he WILL play every trick in the book with little regard to his pride or his own life

This fuck looks like he knows swordsmanship and is probably the only of the brothers who does so

(except maybe Satan who is learning just to copy / be better than him)

Either that or he knows fancy sword dances for angel rituals he cannot partake in anymore (and doesn't do them anymore)

Diavolo has photos of him doing said dances but his lips are triple sealed since it is a heavily touchy subject

★ Mammon.

Canonically this man is physically weak (or at least has a weak complexion / scrawny arms)

Probably the most disappointing in terms of strength because he is literally the second born

His saving grace is his unholy speed and dirty tricks, using it to cover his weaknesses / lack of physical strength.

A LOT of dirty tricks and bs magic stuff. So so many. Never ends

He’s the living embodiment of the “random bullshit go!!!” meme

You know Looney tunes? Yeah this man has the Bugs bunny's levels of bullshit

But he has the best stamina out of his brothers (so he can run away from his debts)

Doesn't train because he's already perfect as it is (<- that's his ego talking he can barely pick up the weights at Beel's gym)

Honor is for the dead type of person. Nothing is out of the table in battle

(^ that makes him terrifying to fight against btw)

He either tries to intimidate (imitating Lucifer) or sweet-talk his way out of conflict

It usually just pisses off his adversary more which actually leads to the fights starting, but hey, he tried 乁⁠(⁠ ⁠•⁠_⁠•⁠ ⁠)⁠ㄏ

★ Leviathan.

Physical strength is shit.

he will get his shit kicked if he tries to brawl with almost anyone

Except maybe the lowest hanging fruit (humans)

Magical or general strength is decent, but he's definitely not the greatest in battle out of the brothers

^ he's kinda insecure about this and he wishes he were stronger (he sulks about it)

Wishes that actual irl battles were like Fire Emblem or strategy games bcs he's actually good in those

Update: I didn't make it clear (mb lol) but I see him as the best strategist of the brothers by far, he just isn't good at front-line action

^ Being away from the front lines keeps the pressure away from him for the most part, and it avoids him getting riled up and acting rash

He once tried to workout with Beel but quickly got overwhelmed because Beel shoved 200kg weights onto him thinking it was an reasonable starting point

So he kinda has trauma(tm) about it

Despite his garbage physical prowess, he WILL start fights and get riled up easily

He goes onto his demon form immediately when he wants to fight

^ bcs his strength isn't great, and he needs any boost he can get

Plus, awful anger management

My man will get onto a fist fight with the demon equivalent of a redditor over anime waifus and he will lose

★ Satan.

As the literal embodiment of Wrath, he does pack quite a punch and will maul you to death with only his fists. No problems at all

But that's merely his baseline strength (which is a lot) since he doesn’t really train physically

Probably focuses on other areas (read: intelligence) instead of physical strength.

Which is ironic because he could kick Lucifer's ass in a fist fight if he actually trained more

But oh well. Books do be booking

Surprisingly strategic while in fights, although not above Going Apeshit

Funnily enough the least likely of the brothers to enter a fight

Has read The Art Of War and will quote it just to be a smartass

★ Asmodeus.

Physically? Weak.

Probably the weakest of the brothers, having more or less the strength of a human (and on the weaker side of that).

He doesn’t train whatsoever; Likes his slender figure and muscles “ruin” that.

However, he makes up for it on the "trickster" scale.

As the Avatar of Lust, he will probably go the charm route instead of wanting to directly fight his enemies, or he make someone else do the dirty work for him.

Think of Mammon but make it a bit less scummy, tricks wise.

His go-to is sweet talk.

Something something the Avatar of Lust being physically weak since sex is considered an act of vulnerability and therefore the lowering of one’s guard something something

Something something the poetic narrative of the Avatar of Lust having only power through Communication something something

★ Beelzebub.

Contrary to Asmo; he does lift for days and can pack quite the punch, being one of the stronger brothers physically despite being one of the youngest.

I don't see him caring much for magic or other types of strength, he is content in packing the punch and has the capabilities to back him up.

Fight wise he will probably punch the problems away

Maybe use one or two tricks he’s learned

Mostly relies on his intuition and gut and it surprisingly works out

Nothing fancy; Dictionary definition of all muscle no brain battle wise

Literally one of the scariest brothers to ever fight he will actually beat you to a bloody pulp

And make a smoothie out of it

★ Belphegor.

This fucker doesn't lift at all you can't tell me shit

At MOST he'll accompany Beel to the gym and would sleep at the benches

The strength he has is the strength he was born with

Which isn't a lot, but still above human average by quite a lot

More or less demon standard of strength. Maybe a slightly below it

But he's still above most demons by a mile in other regards, mostly magic prowess

He's stronger than Levi because I think it would be hilarious that the dude who sleeps all day is stronger than him

(or you can make him really physically strong just because it'd be funny to see the sleepy dude kick ass)

(either way is funny as shit go ham)

★ Physical strength chart

Behemoth type strength :

Beel (only barely)

Lucifer

Satan

High / Low above human average :

Mammon

Belphie (low diff w/ mammon)

Levi

Asmo

★General strength chart

Can kill hundreds no effort :

Lucifer

Satan (If apeshit)

Are not as strong but still terrifying :

Mammon

Beel

Belphie

Levi, Asmo (Tie)

[comicaurora]

When did you decide on introducing Falst as a fakeout villain? in my head it's such an ingrained part of the arc but I have to imagine his intro wasn't always like that.

It wasn't! In the very earliest version of the story, aka the loose pre-scripting nebulous idea for how to get him in with the group, it was a pretty simple scenario where Falst was victimized by some bad guys and the gang helped him out, validated his existence, etc. It was functional for what it needed to accomplish - getting him in as a Main Character - but it had a lot of problems, namely that he had no agency in any of it.

I realized as I got closer to introducing him that Falst had a characteristic that none of the other protagonists had: he was rough. Erin isn't nice like Kendal and Alinua, but he's not going to go out of his way to purposefully hurt anyone who hasn't hurt him first. Erin can be rude and thoughtless, but he likes explaining things, and that does a lot to smooth over potential miscommunication. Falst isn't like that. Despite suffering deeply from loneliness, Falst is not good at making himself palatable for other people, and for the most part doesn't want to, in part because he shouldn't have to. It took a lot of bad stuff to grind him down to the point of seriously contemplating turning himself human to make it stop, and even then, he typically responds to antagonism by hitting back twice as hard, not making himself more inoffensive in the hopes of making it stop. In the trifecta of fight-flight-freeze, he defaults to fight, and he has a lot of reasons to wall off every conceivable vulnerability and snap out at people instead of giving them an in-road to hurting him by being nice to them. This makes him incredibly vulnerable to conflict and miscommunication plotlines because he will never explain himself if he thinks he has any other more combative option available, and that makes it very easy to turn people against him if they aren't willing to reach out and potentially take a hit trying to close that gap.

What I like most about writing Falst is that none of this makes him a monster, and none of it makes him unworthy of chances, love or understanding. He's a ball of sharp corners and he hurts people, and he's very easily framed as an antagonist because of that. And framing him opposite a kind, soft-spoken, eloquent, handsome small town doctor makes it easier to see him as a villain. And the fact that the doctor is actually a manipulative villain doesn't undo any of the stuff Falst did during their initial encounter when they didn't know each other and he made his introduction by robbing the party and lightly maiming Kendal. Falst is not perfectly nice, and it doesn't take much to get him to be actively mean or unnecessarily defensive. It is easy to convince characters and an audience that a character like that is a Problem, because if he weren't a Problem he would be nice and non-confrontational and conventionally attractive. Undercutting aesthetic morality is always fun, and sometimes you just gotta judge a character by their actions and conclude that they might not be good at making you like them but they're not actually doing anything all that bad.

Falst is kind of a jerk. He also has a lot of qualities that are not jerk traits. Falst found people who like him, and the fact that he's a jerk doesn't contradict that. We're all jerks sometimes, and we all tank hits from our friends being jerks sometimes. Falst is at his most interesting when I let him be emotional, hostile and imperfect, and I think it's nice to give him people that love him without undercutting the things that make him believe he's unlovable.

[the-ellia-west]

INTRO POST!!1!!!!!1!

Hello! I'm Ellia! Welcome to my weird-ass writeblr blog! Here's some things to know about me:

I am an Aspiring author and Devoted Christian Woman. I live in the USA (CDT time zone) I am a minor, and the only other language I know is some very spotty spanish.

I mainly write Fantasy, and I'm working on four main projects (Listed Below)!

I like: Jesus, Bright Colors, People, Writing, Reading, Cats, Music, Warm Weather, Rain, Flowers, Dresses, and my Moots!

I Dislike: The texture of wool, Heavy Lifting, Baked Beans, Sin, Satan, Demons, and the Time Travel Trope

Hey! Pst! Before you continue! I have a side blog! Check out @jakkon-and-rose-topic if you want to read some stuff!

Tags:

Ellia Writes - Any talking or sharing of any aspect of any of my WIPs

Ellia's Construction Company - How I make stuff, tutorials, ect.

Ghost Party - Chatting and geeking out with my friends/Moots

Ellia answers - Answering questions

Ellia's Rambling - Me talking about stuff (a little too much)

Ellia's Haunted house - Any posts that I could slot into my story and character/world building. And my pile of creations (Including shitposts)

Ellia's mind palace - Stuff I'm adding to my mental Library :]

Ghost gardens - Aesthetic Pictures and stuff

Ghost scribbles - Art/Drawing Practice

My Wips:

TCOT - (The Cursed One's Throne) - TCOT is a low fantasy Novel Series I have been working on for 5 years, and I hope to publish in the next year, and the Main Wip I will work on and talk about on this blog (Tags: #elliatcot, #ellia tcot, #ellia's tcot, #the cursed one's throne)

J&R - (Placeholder Title) - High fantasy Adventure with Sass, spunk, and a heck of a lot of conflict (To be turned into a comic one day)

StF - (Steel and Feathers) - StF is a High Fantasy project about a Chosen one And stuff (Tags: #stf, #elliastf, #ellia'sstf, #ellia stf, #ellia stf)

Fallen - (That's the title) - A High Fantasy Romance between a Runaway Noble and a Disgraced (probably Criminal) (Tags: #elliafallen, #ellia'sfallen, #ellia fallen, #ellia's fallen, #rustpearl)

StF Short story Masterpost!

Alkain - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Raavas - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 3.5

Old Pinned post Copy-paste below (followed by my moots)

------------------------------------ Hey there! Hi! You! Tumblr user!

Are you a fan of epic fantasy? Want a story with romance, action, and sassy heroes and villains? How about some good old-fashioned ANGST?

If so, you're in luck! Get ready for the upcoming release of The Cursed One's Throne (TCOT for short), coming... well, eventually!

A story of trauma, war, recovery, trust, and love intertwined with curses, magic, sacrifice, and a few too little hours of sleep. Who needs a release date when you've got me, the very entertaining author, right?

------------------------------------

Wtf is TCOT?

TCOT sneak Peek

Worldbuilding

Music

TCOT Ships

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@sunglasses-in-the-bentley - My beloved adopted daughter who deserves all the attention :]]]

@supercimi - A WONDERFUL friend with ALL the Amazing ideas you could wish for

@thecoolerlucky

@thelazywitchphotographer

@thepeculiarbird - Amazing Artist, I deeply admire her every word and movement

@urnumber1star - The author I can only wish to be 😔✊️ Follow Her

@vyuntspakhkite-l-darling - THE MOST CREATIVE AND WONDERFUL AND AMAZING IDEAS I THINK I HAVE EVER SEEN

If you made it all the way to the end, have a wonderful day, don't forget to drink water, have a little snack, sleep, take a walk, and Don't forget that I love you :] <3333

[autisticgirliesbracket]

What makes Mabel Pines from Gravity Falls the autistic girlie ever of all time? Here's what the people have to say:

Mabel-related asks/reblogs: x This post will be updated after each round!

Image ID in alt text and under the readmore.

[Image ID. White slide with a screenshot of Mabel in the top right corner, she is dancing. She is surrounded by text boxes which read,

"wears a different sweater every single day in SUMMER. also she's loud and very silly in situations where it might not be appropriate, says whatever's on her mind, struggles with change, retreats into her sweater and rocks back and forth when she's upset, doesn't always realize how her actions impact others, has high empathy and a hard time saying "no" because she doesn't want other people to be upset, etc etc"

"One of her main story arcs is resistance to change particularly when it comes to her being very attached to her brother. She is very social and friendly but is often "too loud" or generally misses social cues - also tends to spit out random information to people she is talking to. The friends she does make are people who thing her eccentric nature is charming! upon meeting a girl with a lizard and a girl who fashioned herself fork-hands she whispers "ive found my people". She hyperfocuses on things very often! Like the sock puppet episode where she spends days producing a puppet show, or her crush of the week, or a boyband. She if VERY much the "oh she isn't autistic lol, shes just girly" type of gal that people dismiss often because shes social so "she cant POSSIBLY be ND". when she is emotionally overhwelmed she "goes to sweater town" aka sinks into her sweater to remove sensory imput from the outside world. also she has trouble empathasing with people at times especially if it comes into conflict with something shes hyperfixating on and can often have trouble controlling emotional bursts as a result of those conflicts. she also adores being creative, colorful stuff, knitting. i frankly think shes is autistic AND had adhd. i love her to death and i think a lot of her conflicts in the show could be interpreted/understood in a way thats like "oh thats an undiagnosed autistic kid dealing with stuff". her relationship with her brother is also interesting cause i think both of them are autistic and have learned to support/help each other in a way other ppl dont understand"

"She has tendency to obsess over things (such as her crush of the week or her pet pig), and clearly enjoys the sensory stimulation of lots of bright colours and patterns, and strong, sweet flavours. Her social skills also leave a little to be desired, as she's often very forward, quite loud and overly enthusiastic. Mabel is also quite change averse, as well as averse to the idea of having to 'grow up' and act more mature, which becomes a running theme throughout the show, as she tries to hold onto her childhood."

"Constantly wearing sweaters even in summer (literally only ever takes one off on-screen when she's made fun of for wearing it, and even then she ties it around her waist instead of tossing it), immediately bonds with two girls who are weirdos (affectionate dw) who do things like tape forks to their fingers in order to eat popcorn without getting butter on their hands, obsessed w/ bright colors and the 80's aesthetic, loves to make weird noises, I could go on"

"She wears sweaters every day (different ones in different colors, same style). She’s sometimes easily distracted, but tends to hyperfocus on a goal once she has it. When she’s sad or scared she goes to “sweater town” (pulling her head, arms, and knees under her sweater)"

"Knitting is her special interest to the point that she has a different sweater every day. She purposefully makes friends with everyone, ignoring social cues. She stims a lot by doing jazz hands and big movements. When she's very upset, she rocks back and forth and hids in an oversized sweater. She takes promises very seriously and always tries to see the best in people. Last but certainly not least, she has a whole episode dedicated to how "weird" she is with the ultimate conclusion being that unconventional, out of the box thinking is good."

"I know everyone hcs her as ADHD but also LISTEN...she has so much autism to me. She has a special interest in crafting, she tends to let her emotions override logical thinking when she's passionate about something, she just means so much to me as a former weird girl and since I am also autistic, I love projecting <3 Also you know she makes her own sweaters 1) because it's fun but also 2) maybe she struggled to find sweaters that weren't bad texture-wise so she decided to take up sewing/crocheting and made all her own clothes with a special yarn after that."

"i am not autistic but all my autistic friends love her and say she has autistic girl swag"

"it's mabel. all of that family has autism in spades and she is no exception. look at her. look at sweater town. come on" End ID.]

[carlyraejepsans]

If you are going to make a game here’s some things that might be helpful!

Game engines:

Godot: very new dev friendly and it’s free. Has its own programming language (GDscript) but also supports C#. It’s best for 2D games but it can do 3D also.

Unity: I don’t even know if I should be recommending Unity. It has caused me much pain and the suffering. But Unity has an incredible amount of guides and tutorials. And once you get the hang of something it’s hard to get caught on the same thing again. It also has a great Visual Studio integration and uses C#. I will warn you the unity animator is where all dreams go to die. It’s a tedious process but you can probably get some plugins to help with that.

Unreal: Don’t use it unless you’re building a very large or very detailed 3D game. It also uses C++ which is hell.

Renpy: Made for visual novels but has support for small mini games. It only supports Python iirc. Basically if you’re making a VN it’s renpy all the way otherwise you should look elsewhere.

What to learn: Game design and how to act as your own game designer. As a designer you need to know if a part of your game isn’t meshing with the rest of it and be willing to give up that part if needed. Also sound design is very important as well. If you want to make your own sounds audacity is perfect for recording and cutting up your clips. If you want to find sound effects I recommend freesound.org and the YouTube royalty free music database.

Sadly I can’t recommend a lot of places to learn this stuff because I’m taking Game Development in Uni. So most of my info comes from my lectures and stuff. One of my game design textbooks is pretty good but it’s around $40 CAD. It’s called the game designers playbook by Samantha Stahlke and Pejman Mirza-Babaei if you’re interested (fun fact there’s a photo of Toriel in there)

Anyway sorry for dumping this large ask on you I’m just really passionate about game design and I like to see other people get into it.

please do not apologize I'd never heard half of this stuff so this is super useful!! I've seen some godot tutorials on YouTube although so far I've played around with RPG maker MV (it was on sale. very very fiddly interface, i had trouble getting around it) and gamemaker, which recently became free for non-commercial use (a lot more approachable on first impact but like i said, haven't really done anything substantial in either yet).

mostly, I'm still in the super vague stage. I've got an idea for the main story conflict, the protagonist and their foil, the general aesthetic i want to go for (likely 2D graphics, but it would be cool to make like. small cutscenes in low-poly 3D) but not much else. haven't exactly decided on the gameplay either! it's gonna necessarily be rpg-esque, but I'm not much of a fan of classic turn-based combat so. I'm gonna check out other games and see if i can frankenstein anything cooler :P

[mask131]

You know what? I will actually make my post about this problem (and even talk about some misogynistic implications! yeepee!)

It all started with the recent depiction of Hestia in the show "Blood of Zeus". Now... I did not watch the second season of Blood of Zeus, because the first season already gave me enough reasons to dislike the show and rank it among the bad depictions of Greek mythology. But I couldn't escape the massive success and presence of season 2 on Youtube, so I did watch some of the scenes of "Hestia doing battled" and throwing fire-balls and fire-tornadoes at people.

I do not take offense to that. Why? Because this fits the show's aesthetic and goal. As much as I dislike this, the show is about doing huge battles and being an action-piece filled with gore, taking cues from things like God of War, and depicting the gods as violent and destructive and warriors always fighting and killing people. So having Hestia weaponize her fire was expected from this show - I would have been surprised she didn't do it.

HOWEVER! What I take offense to is how people reacted to this. I saw the flood of comments which were basically "Yas girl, show them queen, burn them to a crisp, show you're the oldest and most powerful!". Some even said "This is the best depiction of Hestia alongside Riordan's". And to THAT I take offense. Now I know there is a symbolic plotline about Hestia protecting the omphalos, and honestly this sounds cool and good, but I am not speaking about it. I am speaking about Hestia you know, fighting monsters and demons by unleashing winds and waves of fire on them.

This isn't what the Greek goddess Hestia is about. She is not a fighter, she is not a warrior, she is not a power of destruction or war, she literaly is the most passive and peaceful entity you can find in Greek mythology. And in this light, Riordan's depiction of Hestia in his novel "The Last Olympian" is far superior because Riordan gets what makes Hestia who she is, and he prepares the story to show her in the role she fulfills: a woman sitting by a fire, welcoming people, feeding them, talking to them, guarding and staying awake and behind, and just... keeping the last fort, so to speak. And by doing so proving herself immensely cool and powerful and important. (That's another tip for writers out there: if you are confronted with a conflict of character versus plot... you know you are supposed to sometimes tailor the plot specifically to allow the character to shine as they were intended to be, and you are not forced to modify a character to fit your plot? Don't want to depict Hestia as a warrior deity because she was not that? Simple: don't show her being directly in battle or in need of defending herself. Write about something else instead).

I will admit that my teenage-self would have loved to see Hestia throwing fireballs - because that's the edgy stuff teenagers love (and I guess this is why "Blood of Zeus" works so much, it was literaly designed for your edgy teens). But I am an adult now and I know better. And I have also enough experience to see that people wishing and craving for a fireball-throwing Hestia is symptomatic of something much wider.

This wider thing being: modern audiences have a very hard time understanding that you can have immensely powerful characters who are mighty without being violent, agressive and hostile. I will be biased because events in my life and the real world are revealing we are living in an hyper-violent time, but this indeed led me to think about this topic.

Hestia is a manifestation of this idea that "might and importance does not mean violence". But there are many, many others, and to take a similar example I will dig up a Tolkien example I adore. Melian, from the Silmarillion. People got into a whole drama when "The Rings of Power" was released because of Galadriel's depiction, and I am NOT getting into that. But Melian and Morgoth's fight is linked, because it was Tolkien's precursor to Galadriel's battle against Sauron. So, what about Melian? She is a demigoddess among mortals, a divine spirit more powerful than the magic users we are knowing in the Tolkien universe (more powerful than Gandalf or Saruman), and one of the main ennemies of Morgoth himself, the OG Dark Lord and the baddest of the big bads. She is one of the mightiest entities to have walked Middle-Earth outside of the Valar themselves, and how does it manifests itself?

By the Girdle of Melian. A magical protection of her land. But does this magic wall manifests as spikes of fire? Are trespassers killing by a thunderbolt? Not at all. You can't even see the Girdle. Melian's magic simply... protects her land, and shields it from the eyes of evil. It makes intruders confused and lost and it leads them astray, without actually harming them. And Melian repels all the evil spells and dark curses and malevolent forces. And that's it. Simple, invisible, passive - and yet one of the most powerful enchantments and impressive feats of magic of Middle-Earth, able to keep Morgoth himself at bay.

This later would earn Tolkien's writing some criticism, as Tolkien was very fond of this idea of "passive power" for women (outside of his two famous "active" women, Eowyn and Luthien), and it fed into the unfortunate fantasy stereotype of "women are passive, men are active" (itself a manifestation of the underlyng misogyny among 20th century fantasy literature as a whole). But this is a good manifestation of how Tolkien imitated and took inspiration from old mythologies and legends - where this idea of "passive power" was VERY prevalent and important.

Hestia and Melian are just two examples I took out of my hat, but there are many many more, and they all rely in one principle: you have great and mighty powers that make some characters (or places, or items) dreaded by villains and beloved by the good people ; you have these forces that repel all evil and that are to be considered sacred and to be protected ; you have these ancient and immensely powerful entities that outrank everybody... and yet who never lift a hand against someone else, and who don't unleash floods or storms onto people, and who never even threatened to harm anybody. Because their very power relies on other principles, because they are a form of sacred power in what it has of... essential I'll say. This specific motif is VERY prevalent among Christian legends (at least European Catholic flavors) because it was heavily used when depicting saints and angels. One of the recurring motif of hagiography (the life of the saints and the legends surrounding them) is how the saint does not threaten those that wish to put them to death, never lift a finger against those that try to harm them - but by the very power of their sacredness, love/wisdom/goodness, weapons break against them or cannot reach them, and those that wish to destroy them are rendered powerless. In a wider scope it is also reflected in other Christian-derived myths like the vampire myth: before people decided to "visualize" the vampire's weakness to sacredness by having crosses or churches burn the vampire alive, it was just... the vampire literaly couldn't enter the church, and just fled away, like some mental compulsion, before the cross.

It is a concept and idea of the "sacred" and of the "sacred power" (so to speak) that existed since the Ancient Greeks to modern Catholics, and that heavily fueled and fed our fiction from old fairytales to modern fantasy novels. And it is something that is being completely lost as today power means: fighting, hitting, beating up, unleashing storms and chaos, and threatening to break every single finger of the people who are angry at you. It is even more annoying because we are not speaking about real life here. We are talking about MAGIC and about FANTASY and so EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE.

And I promised you more misogyny well here it is... I noticed something recently and that might be just me extrapoling things, but while this whole "passive power" idea has been heavily criticized for female characters (in a very right way, as one cannot deny passive women in fantasy was indeed a big problem) and is now fully rejected, I can't help but notice that when it comes to male characters suddenly it is praised and glorified, especially as how it depicts men "not being violents for once". And... I can't help but think, cynical little mind that I am, that maybe by trying to flee one form of misogyny we enter another one, because the implicit of "passive power" being good for men but laughable for women, is that... women need to be active and violent and brutalizing to prove themselves, while men do not have to. The sort of inherent sacredness and respect people once gave to women has now passed onto men - because men do not need to "prove" they're strong anymore, everybody is supposed to know this - while women, if they try to just be a power in themselves and by themselves, get ridiculed because "If someone comes with a mace, they won't be able to defend themselves". Almost as if people can't take seriously anymore the idea that you just have women so powerful they don't even need to fight to defeat you.

I don't know, here I am truly rambling around, and this is a Charybdis and Scylla scenario because you literaly have problems whether you depict women as active or passive, since both sides are hated by different people and both bear their inherent biases and stereotypes.

But conclusion: I wish when it comes to power and magic and gods we had more depictions of passive and non-violent forces. I am tired enough of the violence in the real-world I don't need even more added onto my screen in an unecessary way. If I want to see a goddess burn everything to the ground, I go look for Pele, or Sekhmet. I don't look for Hestia.

[that-ari-blogger]

A Parody Of A Parody (Any Sport In A Storm)

One of the foundational parts of The Owl House is that someone looked at a magical otherworld story and thought “what would I do in that situation?���.

As a result, you get Luz, someone who is creative to the point of breaking the plot, who understands the mechanics of stories so well that she can call things out before they happen. Someone for whom the realisation that its ok to be unique and stray from the path comes easily. Luz doesn’t resist the story at all, she embraces it with open arms.

She is, in that way, a parody of certain other characters, most specifically Monkey D Luffy. She actively seeks adventure because it’s fun to her rather being obligated by revenge or duty or a desire to protect those she cares about. She has that range, but it’s not her core motivation. She’s heroic, but she’s not coming at it from a particularly stand out motivation. She’s just kind, and that leads her to being the hero.

So, what happens if we reshuffle our hands and play with something new. What if we had someone else go on the same journey as Luz, in their own way? Someone else parodying her.

Then you get Hunter, and Any Sport In A Storm.

Let me explain.

SPOILERS AHEAD (The Owl House, One Piece, Lord Of The Rings)

Monkey D Luffy is a good person naturally. That’s why he will topple governments and fight gods. But fundamentally, his motivation is selfish. He wants to be happy and free. I’m not saying that’s villainous; I’m saying its amoral. You apply it in context.

Case and point, a key villain of the story, Blackbeard, has the exact same motivation. The difference being that Blackbeard has no care for anyone’s life except his own, and Luffy cares deeply about everyone else; his personal happiness cannot coexist with letting people get hurt. The character is kind, the motivation is not. Kindness is a characteristic not a goal.

Luffy’s and Blackbeard’s motivations both lead them to Impel Down, but Blackbeard’s character caused the Ace’s death, while Luffy’s made Ace’s life meaningful. Motivation is a big part of who a person is, but it’s far from the whole picture.

It’s almost as if people are inherently complex. I wonder if that’s important to the series’ theming.

"You're very good at doing exactly what you're told" accompanying a symmetrical shot with Hunter in front of an empty throne room that is too big for him to fill. I wonder if there's any symbolism there.

Hunter is not Blackbeard. He’s not a villain, most importantly. This is why he doesn’t actually get redeemed, he just switches sides, but that’s an argument for another day. He’s also doesn’t share a motivation with Luz.

Except he does, except he doesn’t. It’s complicated, and this gets granular.

Ok, the symbolism behind this. Hunter doesn't have the practical skills required for anything beyond following orders. He can read and learn, but that came from his need to read instructions. When it comes to putting something together, he will try, but he is in way over his head. This is part of the episode's setup, establishing the conflict to come. Here, that is being reshuffled. Hunter can do heroic stuff, it's the mundanity that's a problem for him.

Luz seeks to be accepted; Hunter wants to fit in. These are both facets of a desire for belonging, but their differences are more important. You could argue that they are effectively the same, but that restricts everyone into about three categories, those seeking belonging, safety, or comfort. The Owl House is fundamentally opposed to categorisation in this way, and the point of these two protagonists is that the two things are not equivalent.

This episode highlights that, showing how two similar characters react in wildly different ways.

It's not important, but the fact that the Crow Phone line is like torn paper makes me smile. It's a medieval aesthetic take on a modern visual.

Most notably is in their personalities. Because while their aims are similar, these two characters are opposites. Hunter isn’t curious, he’s wary. Hunter is constantly strategizing, paranoid that something might hurt him, Luz has zero impulse control at the best of times. Also, Hunter actively resists the plot at every turn.

The brave new world in this case is the opposite of Luz’s in a way. Where Luz went from mundanity to adventure, Hunter has gone from questing for the emperor to school drama.

The lessons here become the same as those that Luz learns day one. It’s ok to be different. Hunter just has a hard time learning that because he isn’t willing to look past what he thinks he already knows yet. He has blind spots, and he isn’t willing to examine them.

A good example of this is the contrast between the details that terrify our protagonists. I can’t exactly point at “everything”, so something specific. Luz freaks out when Eda loses her head the first time, Hunter barely flinches at Bellos’ transformation. Instead, Hunter is terrified by someone saying that they want to change the system.

The question then becomes: how do you get someone this resistant to change to undergo character development? Incongruity. Make his motivation clash with his blind spot and force him to operate in that unknown territory.

Hunter gets told to recruit the best and brightest, and to do that, he has to get unconventional. He has to learn that greatness comes in many forms, and if there was that useful piece of information to be found, what else could be hidden in places he has avoided looking?

At the moment, we’re setting up for bigger things down the road, and to do that, we need to get Hunter ready to accept some big changes.

So, we bring him into direct conflict with an authority figure, twice. We give him a support group that encourages him to think differently. We give him a way of using his skills that isn’t as a tool.

But more importantly, we mess with his idea of what people do and don't deserve.

"Where I come from, even chances have to be earned."

That's a pretty fundamental part of Hunter's character. He says the word "earn" so many times in this episode alone that it becomes a mantra. He believes you have to work to receive basic human decency. Willow shows him that that's not the case, and that he can chose to open himself up, if he wants. The emperor's way is not the only way.

He doesn’t pick any of these options yet, but we’re widening the scope of his character, letting him know that those other options are available. We’re setting up a Chekhov’s gun in the form of the power of friendship.

On the note of skills, has anyone else noticed that if it wasn’t for Willow, Hunter would unquestionably be the team powerhouse? Like, Luz is creative, she can take down stronger foes than herself through tricks and clever uses of magic. She’s not overtly powerful, she’s clever. Gus is similarly an illusionist; he can’t directly stand against anyone. Hunter, without magic, and with a new staff that he doesn’t understand, can hold Amity to a standstill.

Eclipse Lake was, so far, Hunter’s worst day, and he was still a physical and tactical threat. Which is why he’s not the main character.

The Owl House is heavily inspired by One Piece, but it throws in references to a ton of different anime, mostly shonen, and part of that is the power system. A core tenet of shonen is that raw power isn’t everything, and clever tactics can often lead to a victory despite that. Luz is the underdog, outclassed in raw magical talent, and yet she succeeds with tactics. Hunter is outclassed in natural magic, yes, but he punches far above his weight class with martial talent to make up for it. He’s a knight, an epic fantasy archetype.

Luz, with her grand dealings and evil emperor shenaniganry, is a shonen protagonist in an epic fantasy story. Hunter, with his discovery of the power of friendship and school drama, is an epic fantasy protagonist superimposed into a shonen story.

But epic fantasy is built on a dynamic with power in a different, hierarchical way. Lord Of The Rings has a reputation for a view on monarchy that I don’t think it actually features.

Tolkien definitely had some ideas that later audiences will find iffy, but his view on leadership was pretty iron clad. A king in Lord Of The Rings is a servant of the people, and those who use the people to serve them are portrayed as villainous. The people come first.

Even Aragorn’s destiny as the one true king isn’t characterised as accepting power, it’s accepting a duty to protect. In Lord Of The Rings, there is an idea of the good king, and he doesn’t have wealth or a kingdom. He has a sword.

Which, yeah, Tolkien was a soldier in WWI. And a soldier believing that a leader’s duty is to protect those under him isn’t that hard to believe.

Later authors have focused on the idea of real-world monarchy being inherently unjust, which I can’t say I disagree with, but the aesthetics of Tolkien have remained in epic fantasy. Knights loyal to kings, etc.

Which brings us to Bellos, and we see The Owl House’s view on unwavering loyalty. This is a series about understanding and engaging with the world around you. Hunter is loyal uncritically, which puts him as an antagonist in the series so far.

We’ll see how that goes for him.

Final Thoughts

The side plot of this episode isn’t really plot relevant. It’s another dead end. But its thematically quite interesting.

Luz and Amity go seeking someone who has paved their way before them and find out that it was a lie. They’ll have to make it up as they go, just like everyone else. But they take comfort in doing that together. They write their own stories.

But also, the Hexside crew other than the main five got a ton of characterisation here. Bosha got moved past, and Viney and Scara are finally in the same place at the same time, which means shipping.

I have speculations about a possible season three, and what I would like to see explored, and part of that would be a spiral from Bosha while Skarney becomes an actual thing. I think those three would make a phenomenal trio to base that series around while the actual protagonists are in the human realm. It would be about what happens when the characters with actual plot armour aren’t here, and the story needs to progress anyway. Essentially, the first scene in For The Future expanded. Throw in Mattholomule and the Blight Twins, and you have a story begging to go haywire.

Nex time, I’ll be covering Reaching Out, my favourite episode of television full stop. So, stick around if that interests you.

Previous - Next

[wordbunch]

the fellowship in a college dorm

a/n.... uhhHHH this is a thing..... i have nothing to say in my defense. have fun 💛

warnings: mentions of alcohol and weed i guess? but literally just mentions.

Aragorn + Boromir: they actually bicker a surprising amount, but they’re the only ones allowed to talk shit about each other // every other night they accidentally end up talking until like 2 a.m. and having a heart-to-heart // neither of them likes cleaning but they will definitely grumpily do it when it’s their turn // Aragorn makes tea a lot and he has a collection with various tea flavors // also he is outside a lot so he isn’t even in the room that much and on the outside Boromir is like hell yes 😎😏 but actually he’s like 😔😔😔 // Boromir wants to have a pet but it’s not allowed so he feeds birds or stray cats outside // Aragorn will eat whatever is in the fridge, no matter how old, and miraculously never get sick // Boromir’s guilty pleasure are long showers // Faramir is the lil brother who studies abroad but likes to come visit and then he crashes in their room but he lowkey hates the mess and he gives the room a deep clean every single time // in return Boromir and Aragorn take him to cool places and buy him food and they act responsible when Faramir gets wasted (he is a total lightweight) // their room is right underneath Merry and Pippin and they often wonder WHAT is happening upstairs🤨 // generally they’re very decent neighbors to have except for when Faramir comes to visit, then they get up to shenanigans because they wanna be those Super Cool Big Brothers who do all sorts of “forbidden” things with the lil bro and living it up 🤪// surprisingly (or not??) Boromir is the one who always organizes things like ‘the secret santa’ for the dorm squad also he is the designated “bring the bluetooth speaker” guy // Aragorn likes to make and build DIY stuff + Boromir is prone to accidentally breaking things = bad combo // however it will usually get smoothed over with a beer or two, which is usually how they solve their lil conflicts 🍻

Legolas + Gimli: the LIGHTEST sleeper sharing a dorm with the one who snores like a truck and cannot be woken up, if not by a nuclear attack // Legolas immediately invested in ear plugs and he just lays down looking at the ceiling for hours on end while Gimli happily sleeps // Legolas tries to have aesthetically pleasing decorations and he definitely has quite a few plants on his side of the room, but he really. loves. stickers. so his aesthetic goes out the window pretty quickly, and suddenly there’s stickers everywhere // Gimli has posters of like, rock and metal bands on the walls and one pinboard dedicated exclusively to concert & festival tickets // he also likes to play loud music with open windows and sometimes Legolas wants to STRANGLE him, but eventually he realizes he will miss it when the semester is over (and he will miss the snoring too)  🥺🥺🥺// strands of fallen hair everywhere. everywhere. // also both of them have lots of hair products, but obviously for very different hair types so… chaos ensues if they accidentally switch them (accidentally? Merry and Pippin have entered the chat.👀) // Gimli eats all of Legolas’ leftovers // Legolas 100% asks super weird questions at like 3 in the morning and he most definitely has a 13 step skincare routine // once he was doing skincare in the middle of the night, because he can study well at night and then he needs to unwind, and fsr Gimli woke up and was scared shitless by Legolas in a face mask // Legolas lounges around in tights and always ALWAYS has a witty comment for any situation or person // out of everyone, they’re the pair of roommates with the biggest differences, but they bully each other affectionately the most and they bond A LOT over secretly talking shit about others; however, nobody else in the 500 mile radius isn’t allowed to say a single bad thing about their friends // Gimli will drink straight outta the carton/bottle/whatever, while Legolas uses fancy thrifted champagne glasses to drink WATER✨

Merry + Pippin: their room is the designated hangout place // more often than not there’s at least one more person in the room just chilling // also they got The Weed…so maybe that’s why?? ☘️☘️ // literally never a quiet moment // the room is a mess but it’s never dirty! it’s just organized chaos and both of them always know where everything is // posters, random trinkets, a collection of random bottle caps or something like that // Merry has fairy lights and quite a few books and he’s used to completely tuning out Pippin’s random rambling while reading/studying // Pippin sings in the shower (basically canon actually) and loses track of time and suddenly the whole floor is complaining about not having warm water // they go over to hang with Boromir when Aragorn is off to who knows where // they wear each other’s clothes almost always and have a pretty much shared wardrobe at this point // accidentally almost burned down or flooded the room more than once but they REALLY like scented candles!! // Merry has some miserable old acoustic guitar and thinks he is A Musician and Songwriter™ (everyone except Sam is like no <3) // pre-drinks before going out are ALWAYS in their room and then others accidentally leave some of their stuff there; the following week Pippin just appears in a band tshirt (of a band he doesn’t even know) that might have belonged to Gimli at some point… 🤫// when Pippin talks gibberish in his sleep, Merry records it and plays it during hangouts // Merry, Frodo and Legolas have a mini book club but a wildly different taste in books // when Pippin goes to someone else’s room, he will point at things on the shelves/walls and ask a hundred ‘and where’s that from’s’ 👀// so many times something (better than someone!) accidentally fell through the window and then Aragorn or Boromir caught it downstairs // they would really like a pet but they can’t so once Pippin caught a butterfly in a jar as a pet substitute, but felt too bad and released it almost immediately🥺 // Merry likes to play therapist for others but… take his advice at your own risk

Frodo + Sam: literally the quietest room ever, others sometimes wonder if they’re alive // of course Sam has as many plants on the windowsill as possible // Frodo has a nice little book collection and some old maps as wall decor and also he likes collecting nice stuff like postcards or magnets  // they have an air humidifier and scented candles and it’s the coziest room for sleeping 😌😌😌// so their friends will gladly crash there for a nap, especially after an exam or a party // also they have some nice herbal soaps // obligatory classical/instrumental music for studying // Sam obviously uses the common kitchen the most, and he always makes too much of everything and then feeds his friends, and even leaves some leftovers in the kitchen so that others from the building can freely take it 💖// Sam and Aragorn are those that are called when something needs a quick fix, like a leaking tap in the bathroom or sth // Frodo is one of those people that are like, resident advice giver, but Legolas is surprisingly nosy?? so he will just drop by (with an obligatory snack) to listen to whoever is spilling their woes to Frodo // neither Sam nor Frodo really have the heart to yell at Merry and Pippin when they’re being too wild, but ONCE it was just too much and it was during exam season, and they enlisted Gimli to help them pull a prank in which he pretended to be a security guard threatening to throw out Merry and Pippin 😈// Gimli has a really soft spot for these two idk, he’ll be like “if anyone EVER bullies you-” // Sam falls fatally in love with someone every other week and he will literally sit by the window and sigh and stare into the distance while Frodo is trying not to die laughing // they have a little projector that they bring for movie nights // Frodo made a groupchat for all of them… resulting in even more tomfoolery <3

-

i’ll be sappy for a moment and say i’m grateful for all the fun and crazy times i’ve had in my dorm life... it’s been good thanks 4 everything 🥰

✨ taglist my beloved ✨ @lotrnonsense​​​​​​ @starlady66​​​​​​ @queenmeriadoc​​ @entishramblings​​​​​​ @thesolarangel​​​​​​ @silversword7000​​​​​​ @friendofthefellowshipsnerdblog​​​​​​ @averys-place​​​​​​ @valkyriepirate​​​​​​ @emmaarenstarr​​​​​​ @noldorinpainter​​​​​​ @asianbutnotjapanese​​​​​​ @adamgetawaydriver​​​​​​ @fenharel-enaste​​​​​​ @ironmandeficiency​​​​​​      @starryeyedrogue​​ @dinofromspac3​​  @wisheduponastar​ @lady-of-imladris​ @frodo-cinnamonroll​  (i sincerely apologize for putting you through this)

[ello-sims]

Whew, long time no upload! Partly a busy start to the summer but also because I wanted to finally, at long last, get this followers' gift out for you guys! I hit 2500 + followers a little while ago and was just so overwhelmed that my little lockdown escapism has been shown so much support. Thank you guys! I come armed with gifts to show my appreciation, in three parts and I'm super excited because I'm sharing stuff I've not done before. Starting off with some default eyes 😌

Maxis eyes defaulted with @entropy-sims Remussirion’s Indel eyes 4to2 and @mouseyblue Black Eyes.

(non-squished preview - thanks tumblr...)

This mouseyblue set (which I can't find an original link to, just in her mediafire file grrr) has always, always been my favourite and I always hoped they'd release an eyeset in a similar style to make a full set of defaults but they never did. When I ran across entropy's eyeset I thought the size, shape and placement of the highlights could work and they do! I think they look really good as a complete set!

One thing to note about these defaults: as I believe mouseyblue wrote in the original download, making sims of certain ethnicities is kinda hard because the brown eye colours are always too pale. I made this set because I wanted a dark eyeshade that I felt could be used convincingly on black and asian sims. I also wanted a paler brown as well so sacrificed the dark blue for it. It's only an aesthetic difference and if you take my set out, they'll go back to having blue eyes. With this default though, sims like Dustin Broke will now have brown eyes instead of dark blue for example.

While I was at it, I also chucked the rest of the indel eyes set into wardrobe wrangler and geneticised/townified them so you can enjoy the full spectrum of this gorgeous set. Entropy has kindly allowed me to share them with you too. Please remove her set if you are using these ones, as they will conflict. I haven't done any supernatural versions as I don't tend to play with them but happy to add them if anyone would like them! 😊

indel / black eyes as defaults | indel eyes geneticised

As I said, Mouseyblue's set is my fave, so why default one swatch from it when I can default all of them?

Maxis eyes defaulted with @mouseyblue Black Eyes

(non-squished preview)

I thought these might be useful for simmers playing in a hood/world with a dominant ethnic group or you just really like the aesthetics of the dark eyes 😊 to get the most out of this set, I suggest downloading this mod alongside it, so babies have an equal chance of getting any of the 'shades' in this set. Not a requirement though!

Download Mouseyblue's black eyes as defaults

Just a quick reminder that you can't have both defaults in at the same time. indel / black eyes defaults and indels geneticised are intended to be used as a set so you can download both!

And that's part 1! Look out for the next two parts in a little bit 😊

[peebrainiac]

does anyone remember the skirt arc in the first twenty episodes of Jackson's Diary. I do. And I have feelings about it. Long rant incoming, I've held this in for a long time and I've never seen anyone talk about it.

I love the characters of Jackson’s Diary, they’re the reason I keep coming back, but you have to admit at the start they’re cliche. Maybe that's what Paola was going for, but the characters introduced later on aren’t any kind of cliche?? Jackson is the stock standard protag, Exer is the jock who bullies the protag for fuck all reasons, David is a twink, Ronald is the Russian One, Brenda is a popular girl, and Pamela is the goth chick. Side note, this takes place near the end of the cold war, I’m surprised no one thought Ron was a soviet spy.

These characters change later on, and by the end of season one and onwards they feel more like real people, but I’m left wondering why the beginning was so cartoonish.

Now the conflict, everyone and their mother hates the misunderstanding trope

misunderstanding plots are overdone and frustrating. Things like this happen in real life, sure, maybe if you're surrounded by idiots and have crazy bad luck. The main problem people have with misunderstanding plots is that the characters who’ve been friends for a long time suddenly turn on each other because they overheard something, and at least that doesn;t happen here. No one really likes each other yet. But yeah, this shit is so frustrating to read, I can’t imagine reading these as they came out and knowing the next episode would be the same song and dance.

Everyone feels. SO. DAMN. STUPID. Exer and David are actively making things worse and when the whole debacle is over Jackson blames HIMSELF?????? I get it, they think this guy is a pervert, but do they have to constantly talk over him? Why does no one let anyone communicate AND WHO WALKS AWAY WHEN SOMEONE IS TALKING TO YOU?? WHO DOES THAT?? WHAT THE FUCK BRENDA??

i get it stupid teenagers doing stupid things yada yada, this still just wasn't fun to read, man.

the thing I actually hate most about this arc is the fact that you could skip it almost in its entirety (except for the ron stuff because WHY WOULD YOU WANNA SKIP THAT) and it would not hinder your experience at all. This takes up almost ten episodes and FOR WHAT? You can’t even say it was so Jackson and Pamela have a meet cute because THAT IS NOT A MEET CUTE??? You're not cute, I’m getting second hand embarrassment JACKSON DON’T YELL AT YOUR HALLUCINATIONS IN PUBLIC YOU”RE GOING TO GET PUT IN A WARD, AND I KNOW THEY WERE SHITTY IN THE 80S.

TDLR: I just. I don’t know anymore man. This arc is a HARD read, I considered dropping it so many times because I wanted it to be over. On reread it becomes bearable, but maybe I’m just desensitized.

please remember people can criticize the media they like, I don't hate Jackson's Diary at all

This chain of events is a slog to get through, and with a few tweaks it could be written out of existence, and everything else could happen as it does in canon. This arc was probably thrown in to endear the audience to Jackson and see him as a little wet cat who’s the victim all the time, and it works. Because by the time Jackson snaps, it feels deserved. The thing is, other, worse things have happened in the time after the skirt accident and the time he snaps. So why is so much time spent on this?

Does this arc have any fans? Do I have to worry about getting swatted?

I could also rant about JD being detached from its 1980s identity and aesthetic but I'm not as angry about that.

[idylls-of-the-divine-romance]

What are your thoughts about Catholicism? Very fond of your writings and musings about Christianity. Also, I hope your friend and their family is alright.

Yayyyy, I got an ask! I love talking about Christianity and I am very glad to hear that you like them. I unfortunately have not heard from my friend since Wednesday (which is not weird, so not worried yet). I will either see her this coming Wednesday, or I will at the very least see some people who can inform me so fingers crossed and still praying.

To your question: (this is roughly but poorly organized so sorry)

Firstly, Catholics are Christians. It's sad that this is such spicy thing to say, but it is. Catholics will be alongside Protestants and Orthodoxes at the resurrection should just... chill out everyone. They have not anathematized the gospel or whatever. The gospel is that despite what it looks like, Jesus is King and has come to save humanity by dying for our sins and rising from the dead so that you can be free from the grip of sin and death. No self-respecting catholic would deny that. And so no self-respecting catholic should be called non-christian.

Secondly, I'd like to just start with something i noticed that is kinda funny to me. Whenever I learn about some disagreement in church history between Catholics and some other group, I tend to side with the Catholics for aesthetic reasons and the Others for moral reasons. So like with the Iconoclasm. The Eastern Church was like "Icons are idolatry; let's destroy them!!" And Rome was like "Uhhh... no. Don't destroy the beautiful art work." So on that base issue I agree with Rome: iconoclasm is bad and art is beautiful. But there's also a deeper issue of whether the Pope has the authority or whether the other church has the right to mind their own business and with that I side with the East.

Similarly with the Catholics and Puritans in the 17th Century (which is slowly becoming my new favorite time period for literature reasons). I side with the Catholic cause like, yeah, liturgy is awesome, art is beautiful, theatre and festivals are fun (who cares if they're pagan!!), women are great (that's more of a Catholic poet thing but wtv). But on the Puritan side I'm like, yeah... there is a lot of greed and corruption and stuff in there too so...

That said: both Catholic (Cavelier) and Puritan poets during this time were freaking awesome. Is that relevant?? Idk. It's my post i do what i want lol.

But as you can see, my thoughts are always being conflicted: on one hand, Catholics make great points, on another there are also many bad points.

Thirdly, as is no surprise to anyone here, I (despite growing up and still being a devout protestant) am a lover of Catholic philosophy. Some points i really love include:

High Church: The Beauty. The Tradition. The Liturgy. Read anything any catholic has ever said about the Eucharist. It's just *chefs kiss*

The Deuterocanon. LUTHER!? WHAT THE HECK BRO! Okay so I understand why the deuterocanon is not considered canonical by Protestants. And I agree. It isn't in the Tanakh, it isn't canon. But like... can't we put them in an appendix or something??? I'm 17 years old and have never read Judith or Jesus son of Sirach or Baruch or Enoch or the Maccabees or- you get the point. Catholics have such an advantage in that these books are part of their scriptures. Also, to any protestants: no. Having a different canon doesn't make them heretics. They have a different doctrine than us, but they have the same theology. Same goes for the Orthodox churches.

I agree with the Catholic exegesis that when Jesus said "On this rock I will build my church" he was talking about Peter. Peter was most definitely the leader of the early church and to deny at least that fact is pretty foolish (Paul did a lot of missionary work, and Jacob/James was the leader of the Jerusalem Church, but I would assert that Peter was overall the leader who did a lot to bridge together Pauline and Jacobine Philosophy).

Exorcism. Demonology (I don't like this word but i don't know what else to say) is something not really talked about in Western Protestantism despite the fact that it was very important to Jesus. I don't know if the Catholic Church's official teaching on demons is like mine (I put a lot of emphasis on how demons are the "powers and authorities", as Paul says, energizing oppressive political bodies) but I do know that they put attention into exorcism and as I know a girl whose mom was possessed, I thank them for that. Demons are just not talked about enough over here which leads into the problem C.S. Lewis mentioned: either Christians are obsessed with them, or they don't think about them at all.

Sacramentology. Great. Splendid. Do I agree with them all? No, but that doesn't matter cause they're cool. I love transubstantiation and how Thomas Aquinas used Aristotle's philosophy to explain it. Freaking awesome.

That leads into the next point: Scholasticism. I like Catholicism lack of fear with engaging with philosophy and science to prove/defend the religion, like using Aristotle to explain transubstantiation. They have historically wanted to know everything about everything. I think that's great. I am a big fan of scholasticism.

Saints. No comment. I wrote about this before. I am fully convinced. Also Mary is Mother <3

Catholicism teaches that it is the church's job to make Christianity visible to the world. And as such, no other denomination (or at the very least, few others) has improved the world through hospitals and universities and art and music and literally laying the groundwork for modern science (!!!) like the Catholic Church. Militant haters may accuse you of being anti science. But don't worry. I know the truth. They are also the largest charitable organization in the world both now and historically.

Concupiscence: It is not a sin to desire to sin. Thank you Catholicism for this. Just... thank you. This should not be a controversial statement and yet!

Feast Days: Everyday is a holiday if you're catholic lol

Mary: What do you mean I already mentioned her? I can mention her twice! She's Mary Mother of God! Queen of Heaven! Drink some respect women juice (i.e. communion wine).

Some points I am confused by

Infant Baptism: So... I do believe in infant baptism. I do not believe that baptism washes away original sin. I believe that it's about covenant.

Purgatory: I am... undecided. My thoughts on what exactly happens when you die is always in flux because the bible isn't as clear as you might think (for example, over the summer i stopped believing in heaven. I did believe in the future resurrection of the dead. But i thought in between you were just... dead). At the moment I do believe that the saved go to "be with Christ" after death and the unsaved just die until all are resurrected at the end of the age. As such, my beliefs don't really require a belief in purgatory. After the resurrection all people will be allowed to align with New Jerusalem or to go into The Valley of Hinnom so there's really no point in purgatory then? I view the earth right now as a kind of purgatory I suppose. That said, it can't hurt to pray for those in purgatory so *shrugs* Pray away.

The idea that the church can forgive sins. And I want to be very clear what I mean by this. When I hear "The church can forgive sins" i think, yes. Obviously. Jesus says to forgive others and that those who refuse forgiveness will not be forgiven. Of course the church can forgive sins. I forgive my sister when she sins against me, how is that that different? That said, I've heard protestants mention this "The church can forgive sins" idea as if it was something different from what I've just said which makes me think I don't understand it.

Non Sola Fide. Okay. So.... my thoughts on this are complicated and I personally think Catholics and Protestants have more common ground on this than is thought. It's important that we don't fall into caricatures. I would assert that Catholics do believe in faith alone - at least in the way that a Protestant would define fatih. Faith is not just belief, but is a combination of that with works. If I claim to believe in Jesus but never participate in the church, I don't actually have faith. So I think this is really just semantics between the two. The issue is how you define faith.

Bible vs Church: This is complicated. The bible wasn't written by an assembly but majorilly by individuals who were inspired by God, starting with Moses and the Torah. Then a later assembly of Jews looked at other writings from their history and agreed (by the help of the Spirit and the guidance of the Torah) that these too were divinely inspired. This community that came around these texts then began to debate and discuss which texts were divinely inspired and which weren't. This carried over into the Jesus Movement where followers of Jesus were also debating these same texts, as well as new texts written by the Apostles. One of the criteria for these new texts was how they related to the older texts (i.e. no antisemitism etc). Eventually different assemblies decided on different texts but for the most part are the same. This is all well known but my point here is this: the Modern Bible was assembled the Early Church, which was a community centered around the teachings of Jesus, gathered together by the apostles. These teachings were themselves based off of an earlier group of texts assembled by a group of people who had come across texts written by mostly individuals inspired by the Spirit and the Torah. So did the bible make the church or did the church make the bible? Both. Neither. Both again. It's too complex of a history for such an easy answer. I fall in the "the bible has equal to or greater than authority than the church has."

Mary: So... I believe that Jesus' siblings were younger siblings by Mary and Joseph. If you don't, that's fine, just don't step on my throat for it. I've heard that they could be adopted, which i'd accept, or cousins, which I'd accept. What I will not accept is older siblings by Joseph. This is not possible because of birthright stuff. They would inherit the Davidic throne instead of Jesus basically. That said God loves the youngest born so *shrugs*. I also have problems with the immaculate conception. No. Just... no. There's no point to me. I think it's mental gymnastics. That said, i have problems with Original Sin period so *shrugs*. That said there is this really good article by a Catholic mutual of mine on original sin that i really like and has (possibly) convinced me so check it out. Then the assumption... uh... idk or really care for that matter. Peter was crucified upside down. Paul was beheaded. Mary was assumed. One of these is not like the other but *shrugs* sure. I have no reason to believe it, but i also have no reason not to believe it.

And finally things I don't like:

Authority over Interpreting Scripture. This is one of the things that bars me from conversion. I believe in a great importance of the individual reading and interpretation of scripture. I think the individual should look into Church history and historical traditions, philosophies, and such, but I think the individual should, nonetheless, come to conclusions on their own and wrestle with the scriptures. I'm not saying this doesn't happen in catholicism, but I am saying that I think the way I think of scriptural reading is discouraged. I don't like the idea that if I interpret Ezekiel differently (that he's not talking about Mary's womb as a gate that only Yahweh passes thru) I suddenly can't be Catholic. My interpretation is just different.

So... yeah lol

[laufire]

if you're willing, would you mind sharing more of your thoughts on mia/jason? B/c i personally can't see mia wanting anything to do with him (based on the green arrow arc), but i am open to having my mind changed if you have a case for it

sure!

I'll preface this by saying that although I ship them, I don't have A Plot for them yet, the way I do for other of my jason rareships, and thus I have yet to ~envision how I'd personally have it go down. but these are my thoughts on them at the moment.

first of all... the green arrow arc isn't this HORRIBLE, TEERRIBLE, AWFUL thing that happened to mia, or this irredeemable evil jason did, and I'm always baffled whenever I see it talked about that way. like. mia is not a normie kid living her normie life in a slice-of-life teen story. she's a freaking SUPERHERO that risks her freaking LIFE on the regular. jason is this dude one, maybe two years older than her that didn't even want to seriously harm her.

she obviously wouldn't walk out of that encounter with kind thoughts about him. he was an asshole! he wanted to scare her! (and he had a GOAL re: sidekicks and the danger they're exposed to and a point to prove about it, which I always feel is handwaved). but like, jason is not a static character, or not doomed to be at least. he'd have to sincerely apologise, saying that yeah, he was a shit, that was a shitty thing to do, he was projecting some stuff on hers and ollie's relationship that wasn't even true and he's ready to compensate her for it. and again, these are... not normal people. like sorry but I just don't think what jason did in that arc garrants an eternity of hate and enmity to them.

and obviously not hating him forever/seeing his actions for what they were and not more/being able to forgive them in the face of a sincere apology and amendments isn't the same as actually seeing jason as a romantic prospect! but it's a first step into a less than hostile dynamic.

and within that context, I could see mia thinking back on some of the things jason said in their confrontation, about them being alike (also, winick wasn't been subtle in his parallels here, but I've seen people being VERY obtuse about this part of the scene añsldkf). I haven't read mia in a team context/with lots of peers her age yet, but even if she's more likely to find people with commonalities/messed up childhoods among child heroes, common ground is still something to be curious about, to bond over. and such very specific common ground would be something I think she'd value.

I haven't reached that arc yet, but I know mia has also killed, once, in circumstances where she thought she had no other choice. and she doesn't want to do that anymore, she wants to be a hero and stay on the path and raise above. those are things that I find interesting in conjunction to a dynamic with jason, in particular. the way it would lead both to conflict and to a different level of understanding.

also, there's always this sense in posts against these ships where I feel like... mia doesn't have to be perfect. she can be messy and make questionable romantic choices and maybe they pan out or maybe they don't, but it could be something actually fun to explore with her character, to see her in a context like that. less in the "bad boy attraction" sense because really, past aesthetics jason does not fit that role in a romantic sense, but as in getting to explore other sides of her character through a romantic relationship, especially as a character with both a history of sexual abuse and with HIV. and I'm sure there are other candidates for that, both canon and fanon, but it just happens that the first thing I read with her was the Jason Being A Menace arc and that I looooove a meet ugly, especially if it comes with a "recognition through the other (derogatory)" bonus.

anyway. I'm not trying to convince anyone because I'm perfectly happy in my rowboat-sized ships and it's nothing to me if other people disagree or judge me for them lol, but thanks for the chance to talk about them a bit!