#i love bug fables so much 😭

[axolinaaxolotl]

i love bug fables

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

do you happen to enjoy fairy tales as much as (character) Miss Raven does? I got the feeling not just because of- well, you choosing that as a big characteristic on her, but also bc of how you sometimes talk about your fav characters in scenarios where they have "princely" attitudes or stuff like that HHAHSHSHSH plus I think a certain amount of that type of writing shows in your pieces (which I love!!!)

if the answer is yes, then I wanted to ask: what kind of dairy tales are your favorites? is there certain motifs you specially like?

YES �� I’m super into fairy tales! One of my favorite Disney movies is Enchanted, but I also love the Shrek universe (Shrek 2 and Puss in Boots 2, my beloveds) and Ever After High before it quietly got cancelled. I listen to fairy tale-themed songs (I’d recommend Cinderella Step by Daoko; been listening to that a lot lately), read fairy tale retelling novels, collect fairy tale themed blind box toys… All of it 😭 And one of my favorite anime ever is Princess Tutu, which references a lot of classic ballet and fairy tales ✨

As I mentioned in this post, Miss Raven (the OC) is not meant to be a self-insert, but she is in part informed by my own tastes since I did create her. I injected her with my love of fairy tales, but tried to incorporate that in a way that makes sense. While she was still an actual bird, she often people watched and then daydreamed about being a part of “that world”. Her wild imagination eventually leads to this rose-colored expectations of how great “that world” is. She’s expecting a fairy tale but is then slammed with the reality that the students at NRC aren’t exactly the perfect princes she was imagining. Miss Raven copes with it by being delulu daydreaming and penning stories~

Before TWST corrupted me, I love Love LOVED princely/knightly characters… and butlers and bug brother-types still I blame that in part knowing me enjoying fairy tales so much. snvsjwbskwkekdbsk I-I didn’t realize that that kind of dreaminess bled through into my writing 😭

I think it’s pretty obvious by my blog name, but I love Alice in Wonderland for its whimsy and nonsensicalness. Many of the motifs that commonly appear in Alice (mushrooms, card suits, tea and sweets, talking flowers, clocks, white rabbits, etc.) are charming to me. It’s a big reason why I was super into the White Rabbit Fest event. Anything Alice-inspired… I’m so tempted to grab 😔 I once went to an afternoon tea inspired by this story, which was so fun! I’d like to go again someday, and this time with my TWST plushies.

Some other stories I like are Little Red Riding Hood, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, and The Ugly Duckling (though this one is more a fable than a fairy tale). I also quite like stories told in ballet, such as Swan Lake and Coppelia. If you squint at Miss Raven, you’ll notice that she has elements from each of these stories. I just really enjoy stories with themes of self discovery and/or getting lost but then finding your way. Again, this is also echoed in Miss Raven’s own growth and development journey.

[paynomindtotheinsanity]

Update, I've reread it twice and gone thru most of your blog for crumbs. My body shrieks for this fabled 'Chapter 27' of Legend. Sealed away in the dragon's keep. Locked under lava, flame, magma and DOOOOOM!!!

I also like??? Really like your writing style?!?

It's astoundingly good because even though I'm the type to drop and not read 1st Person POVs (I did this, I replied, yadda yadda), I got hooked onto the premise and your words almost immediately. It was amazing.

I also wanna bring up the art. Your style for Zim is surprisingly cute and what is to be said about Dib remains in the deep crevices of my mind. Deep... Very Deep. Deeper than the caverns that gave him his trauma, that's for damn sure--

I shoosh. I shoosh. Otherwise I'm gonna keep talking about the horny bug and his vampire boyfriend all day and we wouldn't want that on our plate. Not todAy.

Have a nice rest of your day, night or evenin', bye byes!

Aahhhhh thank you!! 😭

Chapter 27 is very real, I assure you. Poor @abrthephantomq has to suffer with me throwing random smut scenes at them while I work on the draft. It's gonna be a beast of a chapter >:]

But for real, the comments you guys leave about my writing style means so much to me. I went, like, seven years without writing much of anything, and getting back into it has been a huge factor in recovering my mental health. I know 1st person POVs aren't typically popular, but it's my favorite writing style, and it warms my heart to see it's been well-received.

Also, your thoughts about The Dib are safe here. We all viciously simp for the alien-vampire 😌 (the "deeper than the caverns that gave him his trauma" line was so fucking funny, thank you for that).

Chapter 26 will be up in a few days. It's kinda heavy, so I've been struggling a bit to make sure it hits just right.

Thank you again for such a lovely message! <3

[marshmallowloves]

replaying Bug Fables kinda reminded me that I have some little guys about it??? like it's been so long since I've drawn/written these three in their original context that I almost straight up forgot I made them for this game/universe specifically…and I really miss it!!! 😭 I think they're all pretty perfect for each other honestly. found family trope my beloved kdsjfhg

When I first wrote them, I didn't have any sort of complicated backstory for them and honestly I…kinda liked that?? 😂 like they're just a couple a gals who do things together and it's just nice dfkjg. They do still have their own little dynamics and motives that I think make them compliment each other really well, but I really like the idea that nobody really knows how they ended up together and became friends. Each of them was alone and wayward in their own way and just sort of…found each other at some point and ended up needing each other, which is why they call themselves Team Serendipity - though they're not even an actual exploration team, they're just kinda like this image dfkjhg

I know I've written about their backgrounds and stuff before (…at least I think I have kjfhg) but I'd like to write them again anyway :o It's been a while since I posted about these three anyway so it's kinda like a little refresher I guess kjdfg

Sylvie is a silverfish who used to live with her single mother, who loved her very dearly to the point of coddling and sheltering her. Her mother struggled financially to care for the both of them, and resorted to offering shady services in order to make ends meet. Sylvie saw many questionable strangers stay in their home for various periods of time, and her mother would often be drained and physically hurt by the time those bugs left. Sylvie soon came to view herself as a burden, blaming herself for making her mother go to such dangerous lengths just to care for her, and decided to move out as soon as she was old enough, believing that it would make things easier for her mother financially.

She ended up being right, and her mother very quickly became able to support herself through much safer work, but all it did was prove to Sylvie that others were better off without her. She became very introverted and a little emotionally detached, finding it hard to trust others and form new relationships, and mostly stayed holed up in her new home - an overturned book whose pages she ate away at until it became a house-shaped place for her to live - until she met Folia and Lilith.

Her two new friends - Folia especially - help her to be more independent, as her sheltered upbringing kept her from learning how to care for herself. They also encourage her to be as kind to herself as she is to others, and to understand that it's not an inconvenience for others to offer help.

+++++

Folia is a walking leaf who once had herself a traditional family - she, her spouse, and their two children made their cozy home in the branches of a tall, thin tree for several years. One day, an earthquake suddenly struck, violently swaying the branches of their home until they broke from the tree. Folia and her spouse tried desperately to save their children first, but before long the whole tree snapped and toppled over. Folia was the only one to survive the fall, and was not only burdened with the task of finding and burying her family, but also with finding somewhere else to live, as many other places nearby were destroyed in the quake.

Folia traveled for several moons throughout much of Bugaria, spending many of her nights at inns or in the homes of kind and sympathetic strangers, and doing various odd jobs to feed herself when she needed to. It wasn't until she met Sylvie and Lilith that she finally found somewhere to settle down and make a new home.

Not long after they become friends, Folia comes to adore Sylvie and Lilith almost like daughters. She knows she can never bring her own family back, but her new friends give her a chance to make up for losing those she feels she could have protected.

+++++

Lilith is an angel insect - bugs that are typically born without eyes or wings, but will produce new offspring with these features to help find a new home for the colony in times of hardship. Lilith was only born just as her colony was beginning to prepare for relocation, so she has no eyes, and although she does have wings, they are very weak and barely suitable for flying. As such, her colony deemed her unfit to help lead them to a new location and she was even shunned by a handful of her fellow bugs. Lilith took this personally and became quite a troublemaker in retaliation, picking fights with others and even stealing things in an attempt to prove her strength and ability, but it changed nothing. When her colony finally moved, they purposefully left her behind for her unruly behavior, and Lilith was forced to find her own way to a new home.

As she traveled, she kept herself afloat with prize money she earned from various fighting competitions, not all of which were…entirely legal. Despite her strength and conviction, she still came across many bugs that pitied her for her lack of eyes. Not wanting to be seen as weak by even more than her own colony, she started wearing a bandana across her face and played it off as part of her training, an intentional handicap meant to hone her other senses. It impressed plenty of bugs, as she'd hoped, including Sylvie and Folia, with whom she became fast friends.

Lilith's two new companions help build her confidence, encouraging her to see her worth not only in her fighting capabilities but in herself as a bug, no matter what others say. This is especially true after they learn her secret, and Sylvie and Folia continue to show Lilith that the way she was born has no impact on her value as their friend.

[draconictonics]

God I’ve been getting so much love on my bug fables post I don’t know how to handle it /pos 😭😭❤️❤️❤️