#i'm just glad to have found my niche

[pokimoko]

@pizzee Thank you for the tagging me to join in on the TV show tag game! I have the exact opposite problem to you in that I watch way too many shows. There's so many I've watched in the last few months alone that I've absolutely loved (Andor, Severance, Poker Face, The Sandman, The Last of Us, Vox Machina, etc etc) but for this I think I'll stick with the ones that I've connected to and cherished the most of the years. It wasn't required or even asked for but all of you are getting Backstory™ for these whether you like it or not. Anyway, in no particular order, here they are:

Moon Knight: Wow, I like the show that is now my defining personality trait? Shocker. But, no, seriously, I don't think I've latched onto a show or group of characters so quickly in my life, or so intensely before. This show has (as of posting this) made me write almost 200k worth of fic about it. I got bloody Discord because of this show because the brainrot was so intense. I am part of a fandom community for really the first time in my life because of this show. It's no exaggeration to say that this show has had a huge impact on me; the dinosaurs got off easy in comparison.

Lucifer: I started watching this show when Season 2 premiered way back in 2016 and I was there watching it up until the end. It was silly and emotional and heartwarming and campy, and the characters were amazing (do I own shirts that Ella Lopez wore in the show? Yes, yes I do.) and the music was excellent. This show loved the heck out of metaphors, and I am not immune to that. Or Tom Ellis.

The Owl House: I used to be obsessed with owls when I was younger (the 'Owls of Ga'Hoole' movie was my jam, and—I'm sorry Zack Snyder directed that??? What the f—ahem, sorry, as I was saying:), and while that particular interest faded over the years, I do remember I was drawn to this show because of the name, and then the premise, and then the characters (Hunter gets a gold star for making me go "argh this guy is annoying" to "I would die for him" within a span of two appearances), and then so, so many things. I've loved a lot of cartoons, many of which deserve a spot on this list, but this one just hits so many of the right notes for me. I will die mad that Disney robbed us of a full season 3, but I will always cherish what we got.

Adventure Time: The first show I ever binged in full, and essentially what kickstarted my career as a Tumblrite (my logo was Marceline for many a year—if you find my *gag* Wattpad account it'll still be there). I still have doodles for this show from when I was 14 (many of which were Bubbline, which was also my first ship). I am the silly little Tumblr fool I am today because of this show.

Avengers: Earths Mightiest Heroes: I used to watch this show on TV as a kid, random episodes here and there, never enough to truly understand what was going on but enough to know the characters. It was how I first came to know Marvel, long before I even liked superheroes, and it was the reason I watched 'The Avengers', which in turn was the reason I went and saw 'Age of Ultron' (the first MCU movie I ever saw at the cinema) and then, well, the rest is history. But it all started here, with this show. (Also, let's be real, the theme song slaps.)

Doctor Who: specifically the Eleventh and Twelfth Doctor's seasons, though I love Ten's as well (even if 'Midnight' and the following Library episodes—episodes I now adore—scared me off from the show for almost 7 years). I might have also been a little in love with Clara. This show has made me sob with true and utter grief (musical motifs that will make you cry without warning and other secrets your Doctor won't tell you!) and also made me feel like I'm taking acid. It's got the range darling.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood: I've watched this whole thing three times. It's just…It's good. It's really good. The world, the characters, the animation/visuals, the god damn narrative. I'm still in awe of how masterful this anime was. I aspire to this level of multilayered, intelligent storytelling… and also the level of comedy. It too has the range. And god I love when shows can do that well.

Bee and Puppycat: I used to watch the YouTube series for this (along with 'Bravest Warriors' and a bunch of other Cartoon Hangover shorts) as a tween and it's just a very fond, cosy memory for me. And now there's the Netflix version and it's been wonderful to not only get more of what was already there, but more to the story in general. My childhood self is being tucked into bed and wrapped in a blanket, content in the knowledge that things left unfinished are not always over.

That really is the tip of the iceberg of all the shows I've loved over the years but we'd be here for a month of Sundays if I went on about all them, so I'll take my leave now and pass on the baton. I'm going to tag @yellowocaballero, @mockspector, @theophagism and @aster-o1d. Have fun! :3

[acey-wacey]

Good morning!!! Congrats for hitting 2000 followers, I think you really deserve it! Also, I'm really glad that you've returned! I've been following your blog ever since last year, when I found your "Love Rivals" and "Meeting your future children", I really like how you portray the twst characters in your writings! There are times where I smiled For the 2000 milestone event, could I please request Idia with Lavender (Mind Reading)? You know how Idia usually think lowly himself, right? What if Idia has feelings for reader, yet he doesn't take action because of his low self-esteem/fear of rejection, but when Idia got in a potion accident where he can temporarily read minds, all he can hear from reader's mind are praises and thoughts of infatuation/admiration about him.

So that's the general idea of it, the rest is up to you. Also, I don't mind if you'll make a few changes here and there. That's all, thank you and have a nice day!

This is so cute! Thank you for hanging around so long!

I may have niche-video-game-referenced my way a little too close to the sun with this one. Hopefully, it makes sense to somebody.

...

Pairing - Idia Shroud x Reader

Prompt - Mind Reader

...

"Tuna, tuna, tuna, tuna, tuna, tuna, tuna, tuna..."

It has been 40 minutes since Idia had gained his powers of telepathy and already he wanted them gone. Grim hadn't had a single thought the entire class except a dumb song he made up about tuna.

The whole thing had been Grim's fault really. The mischievous cat had run away from you and invaded the 3rd year alchemy room. And of course he ran right into Idia just as the upperclassman was adding ground eye of newt to his animal comprehension potion, causing the vial to smash all over him.

You had apologized profusely and tried to wrangle Grim back to your classroom, but Crewel made you miss your class and clean all the dirty cauldrons as punishment, thus why Idia couldn't stop hearing Grim's

Everyone else went on with making their potion, but unfortunately for Idia and his tendency to get overstimulated, he could hear the immediate thoughts of every person in the classroom. He had been trying and failing to pay attention to the lesson due to the crazy noise. Serves him right for daring to venture outside his room.

"I think I put too much nightshade."

"When's lunch again?"

"Sevens, he's pretty."

Idia perked up in his seat. That last one was your voice. He looked over to where you were scrubbing grime off the rim of a black cauldron. Much to his surprise, he made eye contact with you. You looked away so fast, he almost thought he imagined it in the first place.

"Shoot, I hope he didn't catch me staring," you thought. Idia could see the embarrassment in your face now that he knew what he was looking for. He didn't know who was standing behind him, but whoever the guy was was maxed out in luck to get the prefect to like him.

Idia turned back to his cauldron and began to stir lethargically. He tried to block out the noise coming from everyone's thoughts but it was getting very loud. He just wanted to be back in his room playing video games!

"His little pout is so cute! Poor thing, he probably wishes he was back in his room," you thought. Idia's brows furrowed as he subtly looked around the classroom trying to find the person you were thinking about. "I wonder what he's looking for."

Idia snapped back to look at you, only to find you glancing at him again. This time, you were startled but you held his gaze and offered a hesitant wave.

Idia turned his face away as fast as he could so you wouldn't see the growing blush on his face.

"Hm, his hair is turning pink on the ends. I hope he's not mad at me for staring at him," you thought, turning back to the cauldron you were working on. "Though if he doesn't want me to look at him, maybe he should try being less nice to look at."

Idia let out an involuntary squeak. He felt his head start to swim and quickly sat down on a nearby stool. He was sure he looked absolutely crazy to the other students but he was so preoccupied by your thoughts that were apparently about him.

"Is that shallow of me to think that? I don't know. I mean, I don't like him just because he's cute. I also love listening to him talk about games he likes and his inventions are crazy awesome!"

Idia pulled himself deeper into his jacket. Your gaze had been fixed firmly on your work for fear of being caught staring again, so you didn't notice Idia's rapidly increasing fluster meter.

"I like how sweet he is to Ortho, even though he kind of hates everyone else." You sounded kind of defeated when you thought that, or at least you would if your thoughts sounded like anything. "He probably hates me too. I am just another normie. Though I don't know if he co-ops Untitled Goose Game with just anyone."

"No! I don't!" he wanted to scream, but he couldn't get a single sound out of his mouth. He thought he was the self-deprecating one, but you seemed to have convinced yourself that the boy who had a big fat, very obvious crush on you hated you. He even let you play the blue switch controller even though it was his favorite.

"I do wish he would stop being so mean to himself though," you thought, more sincere than Idia expected. "He's so amazing, but refuses to believe anything nice I or Ortho say to him. Maybe if he read my mind, he'd know I'm being sincere."

Idia froze. Did you know about the potion? Had you been messing with him the whole time?

"Well, that little brat better believe me when I tell him I love him even if I have to beat it into him with a Wii remote tennis racket attachment," you thought with a playful vengeance. "Do you hear that, Idia Shroud? I'm gonna make you believe nice things about yourself no matter how many niche video games references it takes!"

That was the moment you decided to glance at Idia, downright shocked when you found him curled up inside his hoodie on a stool with bright pink hair poking out the top.

"Idia, are you okay?" you asked. When he didn't respond, you went up to him and brought your face down to where his would be if you could see it. "Hey, are you alright?"

He jumped, almost falling off the chair.

"You actually said that?" he looked stunned which confused you.

"Yes?" you offered, unsure what he was talking about. "I did just say it."

"Uh, um, I'm, uh, fine," Idia tried to smile at you but it came off more pained than reassuring.

"I don't believe you. What's the matter? Is it too loud in here?" you asked.

"Shame he's always hiding his face. His blush is so adorable!"

"Yes!" Idia shrieked frantically, catching the attention of a few nearby students. "It's too loud. I can't think."

You nodded empathetically.

"You wanna step out for a minute?" you offered, gesturing to the door with a nod of your head. Idia nodded, desperate to get away. It really was very loud, especially with everyone's thoughts flooding his brain. Your seemingly-harmless sweet nothings were only the final nail in his coffin.

You followed Idia out of the room and shut the door behind you.

"Won't Professor Crewel get mad?"

You scoffed.

"Not a single teacher at this school gets to get mad at me after everything I've done," you leaned against the wall with a calming smile. "And if they do, they'll answer to the ghosts that live in my house."

That made Idia chuckle. You lit up seeing a smile on his face, no matter how minute.

"I love seeing you smile. If only I could be the reason more often."

"You're pretty much the only reason," Idia mumbled. Your easy smile dropped.

"What did you say?"

"What?" Idia averted his eyes, his mind filling with panic. "I didn't say anything."

"No, no, you said 'you're pretty much the only reason'," you questioned, your eyes full of confusion and shock. "That sounded like... I don't know, I was thinking something and then you said that and it sounded like..."

You squinted in confusion before scoffing at yourself and relaxing.

"That's stupid, Y/N. He can't read your mind."

"Actually, I can?" Idia squeaked, his voice getting higher with every word. Your eyes widened.

"Idia," you said solemnly, standing dead still.

"Mm-hm?"

"You can read my mind."

"Well, not usually, but there was a thing with a potion and it was with Grim and it messed with my head and now I can read minds and it's actually really loud but mostly I'm just nervous because of the stuff you've been thinking and I'm just really..."

You held up a hand to silence Idia's rapid rambling. He looked away sheepishly. You sighed and blinked a few times to process before laughing. Idia looked up in confusion.

"Aren't you mad?" he asked hesitantly. "I violated your privacy."

"I mean, you saved me the time of confessing to you myself," you chuckled, a giddy smile on your face.

Idia stared at you, trying to find traces of joking but you seemed to be serious.

"You aren't mad?"

"I'm in love with you is what I am."

[artsekey]

Hey op, art therapist here, responding to your comic about your first ever session in therapy-

And oh my *GOD*- I am SO sorry that was your first experience. I’m absolutely dumbfounded the therapists behavior. And to find out in notes she was 15 minutes late?? I sincerely hope you have found or find a better therapist. That is absolutely ridiculous

I see a therapist and my therapist LOVES when I come in with a list of things and reasons why I think it’s going on. As a therapist- i know it helps you develop better self awareness when you write down what’s going on in the moment to help reflect on it (as someone with ADHD its primarily to help me remember lol.) So that initial response from that therapist was super weird and to say “it’s not my process???” For insight- UM!!!?!? WHAT’!?!? THATS YOUR JOB IS TO GIVE INSIGHT!?!?

As a therapist I’m so upset for you that’s just so ridiculous. You coming in knowing exactly what you wanted and with everything ready is honestly every therapists dream. It’s okay to not have a goal yet or ever- but it just shows how “on it” you are and how you want to be an active member in your treatment. Good on you op seriously.

Sorry to rant in your ask- I just fuckin love my job so much and seeing other therapists fuck around like this makes me livid. Keep doing you op! I hope you found/find a better therapist!! You got this!!

Thank you for this! Honestly, I'm really glad I posted that comic. I'd been thinking about going for years just to "tidy up", as it were-- I firmly believe that therapy can be good for anyone, no matter the scope of the problem. A lot of people have encouraged me to keep looking, and that's largely why I think I will-- It was a lot for me to make and go to this appointment, and because I have no other perspective on therapy, the whole experience reaffirmed my suspicions that what I want to work on might be "too small" to bother with (and/or too niche). I really can't overstate how her last comment about the fact that I put my needs aside contributed to a "net good" would've obliterated me a few months ago!

I'm not going to get into the weeds about it because at that point it's personal, but the comics honestly don't do it justice; it was like she took every one of my concerns, ignored them in favor of what she thought was the direction we needed to go in, blew past every "exit" sign I put on the road to get us back on track. It was infuriating.

[infiniteanalemma]

Nobility in Baldur's Gate

Edited to add: I never expected my silly, niche post to get as much attention as it has! I'm giving you all forehead smooches! 😚💋 I've gone through to clean up some things up as I've found new information. I also added a list of nobility that I've found in game and other sources to the end of the post. Thanks, y'all! I'm glad I'm not the only one to wonder about this stuff. Good stuff in the reblogs, too!

Baldur's Gate has dug itself deep in my brain, so I apologize to my poor mutuals who didn't follow me for BG3 content getting this onslaught of posts. Please bear with me until my hyperfixation wears off. 🙏

Now, I'll admit up front that I'm no expert in DnD lore*, so if I get things wrong, please feel free to correct me or just add in stuff I may have missed. I'm going off of what I've found in-game and my Google Fu skills.

That said, I do know enough about DnD to remember that Baldur's Gate nobility are called patriars, and that there are only a relative handful of actual patriar families. I was thinking about my "canon" Tav, Velassa, and her background in BG3. She's a modified OC that I plunked in-game during Early Access, so I made her a noble. It was just part of her existing character that I didn't think too deeply about. It was only after I starting playing that it occurred to me to wonder what exactly "a noble" is to a native Baldurian.

That got me digging a little more into the current state of the Baldurian nobility as of BG3. I don't know who--if anyone--needs or wants this, but I put this together for myself and decided to share it for anyone else who might be interested. I realize that this is probably pretty niche and it's rambly and long af, so I'll put it under a cut.

So, for starters, here's a list of all the patriar families, including "fallen" houses that are barely hanging on: Belt, Bormul, Caldwell, Dlusker, Durinbold, Eltan, Eomane, Exeltis, Gist, Guthmere, Hhune, Hlath, Hullhollyn, Irlentree, Jannath, Jhasso, Linnacker, Miyar, Nurthammas, Oathoon, Oberon, Portyr, Provoss, Ravenshade, Rillyn, Sashenstar, Shattershield, Silvershield, Tillerturn, Vammas, Vannath, Vanthampur, and Whitburn

From what I've gathered, Exeltis, Provoss and Ravenshade are all more-or-less destitute. Also, the Szarr family (Cazador's family) were patriars, but were believed to be entirely wiped out. No living descendants makes them a dead house, rather literally. 😏 (No, I'm not sorry.)

Now, we learn that Wyll's father is Ulder Ravengard, the Grand Duke. This brings us to the first point: There are four Dukes, known as the Council of Four, and the Grand Duke's job is to be the tie-breaker.

Traditionally, one of the Dukes is also the highest ranked officer of the Flaming Fist--that's Ravengard, who was a Fist promoted up through the ranks. Wyll tells us that his father was born lower class, and quite a few of the patriars seem to scorn him for that. The other Dukes are Belynne Stelmane, Dillard Portyr (more on him later) and Thalamra Vanthampur (more on her later, too). Of the four, two are patriars: Portyr and Vanthampur. We don't know much about Stelmane's past, except that she was a brilliant businesswoman, politician and--as we find out later--member of the Knights of the Shield. Apparently, you can't buy your way into the patriars, but maybe you can buy your way into being a Duke.

Skipping ahead a bit, when the player shows up to Gortash's coronation, there are a group of mostly patriars sitting in the boxes leading up to the front of the room. I'm listing them by seating arrangement, with box 1 and 2 being the left and right closest to Gortash, and 3 and 4 being farthest. (I don't know what, if anything, the seating arrangements imply. The second box has eight people, compared to four for all the rest.)

Lady Ailis Belt, Baron Callem Bormul, Lord Rugger Shattershield**, and Lady Alia Durinbold**

Lady Ruth Linnacker, Lord Sarken Eomane, Lady Freida Oberon, Lord Raylen Jannath, Lord Myer Ravenshade**, Lady Madeline Whitburn, Lady Beatrice Provoss, and Duke Dillard Portyr

Lady Winstra Hullhollyn, Admiral Peil Hullhollyn, Lord Randolph Vammas, and Lady Eshvelt Guthmere

Lord Milon Tillerturn, Lady Silifrey Sashenstar, Lord Petric Amber**, and Lady Haeril Birch**

Here's some pictures of the nobles sitting together. (Sorry for the terrible quality! I slapped it together for my own reference. 🙈)

The characters marked by ** aren't human, which is interesting because the information I found said all the patriar familes are human except the Shattershields. Myer Ravenshade is listed as human if you examine him, but he has a dwarf model. That might be a mistake, but I'm including him anyway. Alia Durinbold, from a presumably human patriar family, is a wood elf. Again, this could be a mistake, but unless Larian winds up changing it, it could mean that interracial marriages that once may have been looked down on are now becoming more acceptable. Petric Amber is also a wood elf, and Haeril Birch is a high elf.

Those last two are interesting because they are the only ones in the boxes who aren't patriars. If not for them, I'd have assumed the coronation was simply a demonstration for the patriars alone. Their inclusion means this is something else.

Digging around, my conclusion is that all the listed people are members of the Parliament of Peers--a 50 person advisory party to the Council of Four. However, what I found says that it's pretty rare for all 50 to attend meetings, and the usual group is between 20-30. There are exactly 20 named individuals listed, plus a group of unnamed "patriars" standing at the front.

Here they are, for what it's worth:

One thing I noticed here is that most of those listed here are Lord/Lady, but there are three other titles: Duke, Baron and Admiral. I've already talked about the Dukes. Looking into the patriars, the Hullhollyn family are notable for having a fleet of ships, so it makes sense that one of them would be an Admiral. That leaves the Baron.

I couldn't find anything about what it means to be a baron in Baldur's Gate. Going on real-world peerages, a baron/ess is generally the lowest "rank" of nobility. Basically, it's someone who was an official landowner (usually of an "important" bit of land) under the feudal system. Well and good, I suppose, but presumably all the Lords and Ladies of the patriars own land within the city. This particular Baron is also a patriar, but given that one doesn't need to be a patriar to become a Duke (normally a higher peer than a baron), that may not mean anything.

(Apparently, the term "Duke" was originally meant somewhat jokingly. That said, it still carries the weight of a title even if not the conventional one.) We don't see any other titles between Duke and Baron, so what does that mean?

This isn't canon, but my assumption is that it means the Baron owns important land outside of the city. This would make sense for Baron Bormul, given that the Bormul family apparently have investments in silver mines and vineyards. Assuming they own the mines/vineyards, that may make those lands "important" enough to the city for their owner to earn a title. Alternately, the Bormul family also has counterparts in Amn, so maybe baron is an Amnian title that got passed along. That's getting a bit far afield for me, though. 🤷‍♀️

Anyway, among the group at the coronation, pretty much everyone supports Gortash becoming Archduke, with the exception of Lady Sashenstar (an old woman who really isn't too impressed with this commoner) and Duke Portyr, who expresses some hesitation at the whole thing.

Duke Portyr is interesting here. Except for Ravengard (who is thralled and conducting the ceremony), Portyr is the only Duke present. Now, Stelmane is already dead, so that explains her absence. Vanthampur is also missing, which is interesting. Portyr first, though: he was Grand Duke before Ravengard. He's the one who re-instituted (Edited: and originally created!) the Parliament of Peers to make the day-to-day decisions of running the city, and ceded the title of Grand Duke to Ravengard. He's described as being conflict-averse, so it makes sense that he'd go along with Gortash's coronation, even though he's clearly unhappy about it. Also, the current leader of the Fists is also a Portyr, likely still Liara Portyr, the Duke's niece and Ravengard's second-in-command.

Thalamra Vanthampur is an interesting character, too. She's the head of the Vanthampur family, and part of the Descent into Avernus story. Apparently, she's the one who got Ravengard to go to Elturel before it sank to the Hells, intending to take his place as Grand Duke. From what I read, she also conspired with the Dead Three's cults to murder people in a bid to discredit the Flaming Fist. (The murdery bits were undoubtedly left to Bhaal's cult.) We never do find out anything about Thalamra Vanthampur in this game (I assume that's probably cut content). (Edited: She is mentioned in one of the in-game texts as having been killed, which was one of the possible outcomes of Descent into Avernus. Larian chose that as their canon, just like the fate of Elturel and Zariel.)

The only Vanthampur we do meet is Carnelia Vanthampur, who is in the Guildhall and describes herself as "a peer of the Parliament". She's willing to work with either the Guild or the Zhentarim. Nervously of course. Also interesting is that, on the Bloodstained Parchment hit list, is a Varri Vanthampur, whose gravestone you can find in Candulhallow's Tombstones shop, reading: "Varri Vanthampur. Unwanted in life, welcomed in death."

Interesting, hm?

Also on that hit list is Fridrik Hhune. The Hhunes apparently have links to the Knights of the Shield, from what I looked up--the same group the Emperor led with Stelmane. The only Hhunes we meet in-game are Blaise and Gheris Hhune, two of the werewolves in Cazador's ballroom who are brothers according to the dev notes. With them is another werewolf of a different patriar family, Duver Rillyn. This suggests Cazador has been going after members of patriar families, which sort of fits with what we know about his plans. We really don't find anything else out about them except that they consider Cazador to be their master and Astarion says they're new.

We also can talk to a Flaming Fist who mentions that Hurlbut Hhune is the father of Henrietta Hhune, who used to be secretly engaged to the Fist in question, only for her father to decide to arrange her to marry fellow patriar Derque Rillyn, who the Fist describes as "a major arsehole."

That conversation is interesting for a few reasons. For one, it tells you that arranged marriages within the patriar are a thing. Also, this Fist is a Manip (essentially a Sergeant) who can't ask the other Fists for help because "the Fists don't mess with wealthy patriars, they've got the Watch to back them up." That's aligned with what Devella can also tell you: "There are patriars on the murder target list. I'm oathbound to secure them first, so I'll be heading to the Upper City next." If you say that the Fist should protect everyone: "Not from around here, are you? We're in Baldur's Gate - this is just how things work."

This brings me back to my original issue: what is a Baldurian noble? The patriars are canonically nobles, of course, and they're undoubtedly seen as the "most important" of the nobility. From there, it's not much of a stretch to say that anyone who has earned the title of Duke is now a noble, even if they aren't patriars. I'd go so far as to say anyone on the Parliament of Peers (and their family by association) is a noble^, given that non-patriars Petric Amber and Haeril Birch are considered Lord and Lady. The information I found about that is that there are approximately twelve non-patriar members. If Amber and Birch are two of them, that leaves another unnamed 10.

^Edited: Looking at the dates, I realized that the Parliament of Peers is a very recent change to Baldurian governance. Duke Portyr originally created it after the three other Dukes on the Council of Four were assassinated. It was clearly meant as a temporary measure, but my guess is that the patriars liked having more official say. Not to mention the non-patriars who managed to get a seat. This has all happened within even the youngest of Tav/Urges' lifetimes.

Personally, I'd also assume that branch families of the patriars probably also count as nobility. By branch family, I mean those that marry out of the main line but whose ancestry stems from a patriar family. From what I've seen by naming conventions, Baldur's Gate seems to use patronmyic lineage--ancestry is generally passed to the sons, and wives take their husband's surname. So, if a daughter marries out of the family, she'd no longer be a part of her father's family lineage, but still would be considered nobility. These branch families likely still maintain powerful influence and connections from marrying into wealth, which would make them a good political/financial choice of marriage alliance, despite no longer having the main branch patriar family name. These families are also probably the ones most likely to find a place on the Parliament, too, but likely have to jockey for position if their "representative" dies (or otherwise leaves) and a new opening in the Parliament is created.

If you've read this far, as a treat you can have some crappy close-up portraits of the nobles at Gortash's coronation, grouped together in their respective boxes. 😚

* For what it's worth, I'd count myself as a casual DnD player. I have some knowledge of DnD--I've played BG1 and 2, Planescape: Torment, along with some general cultural osmosis. I've had friends who played the tabletop version, but for one reason or another, I've never played it myself.

[nondelphic]

Hiiii! May I ask for some advice? After a really long time of not writing fan fic, I recently started getting back into it but have been struggling… So I started using a little bit of the chat.ai help me but I feel icky about it but at the same time, I’m constantly struggling with writers block and being burnt out… What should I do?

i'm actually really glad you asked this because i've been preparing a post about using ai responsibly for writing, might just post it here lol:

tldr: this post isn’t about using ai to generate your story for you. it’s about how to utilize ai to enhance your writing process while still keeping your voice and creativity at the forefront.

the rise of ai has stirred up a lot of talk about ethics, originality, and how much tech should really be in our creative space. as writers, our work is highly personal, it's a reflection of our thoughts and experiences. so it’s totally normal to feel icky about bringing ai into the mix.

here's a hot take, though: ai isn’t here to replace your creativity. it doesn’t get the deep, emotional layers that only a human writer can bring. sure, ai can generate text, but it doesn’t really understand what it’s saying. that’s where some of the ethical concerns come in—if we rely too much on ai, we risk losing that personal touch that makes our stories resonate.

on the flip side, when used thoughtfully, ai can actually boost your creative process instead of taking away from it. think of ai as a helpful assistant, it can take care of some of the boring, tedious stuff, giving you more space to focus on what really matters: writing your story, your way. it’s not about letting ai take over, but using it to support and streamline your process.

this is not a post about my experience with ai, but i have to say, that as someone with adhd, ai has been a game-changer for me. it helps me keep track of my ideas, organize my thoughts, and even manage my writing schedule when my brain is all over the place. it's like having an extra set of hands (or, you know, a brain) to help me stay on top of everything, so i can focus more on the actual creative part of writing.

the key is to make sure ai never overshadows your original voice or creative vision. ai should be a tool that helps you bring your ideas to life, not something that writes the story for you. if you’re curious about how to use ai in your writing process while keeping your authenticity intact, here are some tips to do it responsibly:

brainstorming ideas: when you’re stuck on a plot point or character development, use ai to generate prompts or ideas. these can spark new directions for your story, giving you fresh perspectives to explore.

dialogue experimentation: if your dialogue feels flat, try using ai to generate conversation snippets based on your characters. it might not be perfect, but it can give you new ideas for how your characters might interact.

synonym suggestions: tired of using the same word over and over? ai can help you find synonyms or alternative phrases, keeping your writing fresh without losing your voice. i've found this very helpful as an ESL writer!

outline generation: got a rough idea but need a structure? use ai to create a basic outline, then tweak it to fit your vision. it’s a great way to get a head start on organizing your story.

character backstories: use ai to brainstorm character traits, backstories, or names. you can take these ideas and expand on them, adding the depth and personality that only you can create.

quick research assistance: save time by using ai for quick facts or historical details. it lets you focus more on storytelling and less on getting bogged down in research. (disclaimer: never 100% trust what an ai generates, fact check everything). i've found it a great starting point if i have a very niche question for my research.

editing help: use ai for basic grammar and spelling checks to speed up your editing process. just remember, it’s your judgment that will shape the final draft, not the ai’s.

plot analysis: use ai to scan your draft for plot holes or inconsistencies. it can help identify gaps in logic or missing links in your storyline, giving you a clearer idea of where to tighten things up.

tone consistency: ai can help you maintain a consistent tone throughout your story by analyzing your draft and suggesting adjustments where the tone shifts unexpectedly.

pacing adjustments: ai can review the pacing of your story, highlighting sections that may be too slow or too rushed, helping you find the right balance.

character consistency: track your characters' traits, behaviors, and dialogue to ensure they remain consistent throughout the story, preventing out-of-character moments.

theme reinforcement: use ai to analyze how well your themes are being conveyed across the narrative, suggesting areas where you might strengthen or clarify your message.

draft comparison: if you’ve gone through multiple drafts, ai can compare them to highlight what’s changed, what’s been improved, and what might have been lost in the revisions.

to answer your question more personally, i think we can never please everyone, and ai will continue to be developed and get better and better. i understand feeling icky about using ai, and you might get judged for it, but do what you need to do, tbh.

i have found myself in a writing routine where i use most of the advice above in my writing process. i write most of my work myself, but i use ai as a tool to bounce ideas off of, and it's been a life changer. i managed to finish my first novel draft with the help of ai, and it fuelled my creativity to have "someone" (or rather something) to feed my ideas and help them identify what i could do better.

[nisuna]

that cult leader geto thing you posted is so specifically suited to my niche tastes and something i've always wanted to see and never found, i'm lying on the floor screaming!!! i'd love to see more if you decide to write it!!!

hiii!! Thank you for loving my cult leader Geto AU hihii

Same. I've been thinking about these headcannons a lot, but I haven't seen anyone do them before, so I decided to do it myself! I'm glad a lot of you enjoyed that post<3 I might not be alone with my niche tastes after all, hmm >><< CL!Geto just fits them perfectly imo♡

I've posted the first part of the smut adventures of CL!Geto, because I do want to write more for him. He's one of my fave 🤤. Here's an excerpt:

"Geto-samaaa... I need a break today. Please, no more.", you huffed in his arms. Your hips and back were starting to hurt from the countless nights that you've been spending with him.

"What do you mean, pet? Have I overworked you? Oh, poor you. But there has to be something I can do to satisfy myself. What activity do you enjoy that doesn't involve my cock?"

You felt stumped, but something did come to mind. "Che..."

"Hm? What was that, pet? You need to speak up.", he demanded, looking at you expectedly.

"Chest.", your timid voice broke the silence. "I like it when you play with my chest, Geto-sama."

After hearing the words leave your mouth, a toothy grin appeared on his face.

"Good job. Look at you speaking your mind. Such a good pet. Well then, get ready.", he cooed loosening the knot on your robe. "Tonight I'm going to town on your chest. Nothing more, nothing less. I promise."

continue reading HERE!!

TW: heavy nipple play; nipple sucking, biting, pinching; manipulative geto, short non-con, unprotected sex, creampie, mutual orgasm, FIRST KISS, trust issues, crying, he calls you "pet", power imbalance; cult leader!Geto x non-sorcerer!f!reader

<3masterlist<3

[firefly--bright]

Reiner Braun modern headcanons!!!

a/n : the jean one I did did pretty well as a post, so I decided to do for my babygirl too (19 yr old war criminal) :)

warnings : none!

tagging : @mrsnobodynobody

✿ main masterlist is linked in pinned post! ✿ enter my taglist! ✿ requests are open! ✿

• loves animals. TO DEATH like if he sees any stray puppies or kitties, he will rescue them immediately. he'll pull over just to get out of the car and save the babes

• piggybacking off of that, he's also a foster dad for these pets. like he'd take them in. he has two cats and they're kind of on the old side (because he felt bad just leaving them at the shelter), one of them has grey and white fur and he's named her McFlurry (yes) and the other one is actually a cat you and him adopted together - an orange tabby that the two of you named calcifer (from howls moving castle :) )

• used to play like all sports during his entire academic life. he's played so many sports at this point like you'd think you know a niche sport that you didn't think he'd know the name of? he's played it. even rugby.

• hates the way his nose looks, but starts loving it more after you develop a habit of tracing the contours of his nose with your thumb (it makes him sleep too)

• loves to cook! he'd make any experimental recipies that he found from an obscure source on Pinterest. it almost always turns out good but if it doesn't then he tweaks it up until it tastes good.

• like jean, he's kind of not really into physical touch at first, but the more you show it, the more he falls in love with your touch.

• extroverted introvert. feels the need to be nice and be friends with everyone (literally knows everyone you've ever bumped into) but he prefers to stay in and not talk instead. he's glad he gets to sit in silence with you because he feels fully comfortable with that.

• strangers to friends to lovers typa guy (I have a fanfic idea for this but I'm too lazy to write it), like he's seen you before and because he feels the need to know everyone's names and stuff, he decides to befriend you. he's not boisterous or cocky or overconfident, he's actually really nice and down to earth. you start getting closer, he starts working at the same place you work at, which brings you even closer and he falls in love

• and he falls HARD like. when you ask him if he can remember the one point in time where he realised he was in love with you, he doesn't have an answer, because with him, its kinda like... he fell for you in a collection of moments. like you brushed his hair away from his face and he's like "oh that's nice" and then you gave him a thoughtful gift for his birthday, again, he was like "oh that's...super nice" - just little moments like that made him Realize™

• has a complicated relationship with his mom but they're on okay terms now, like apart from the usual motherly criticisms, they're doing pretty well!

• blushes like a damn tomato. he cannot hide if he's flustered for the life of him.

• he tries to hide it, but he LOVES being pampered. he loves it when you massage his shoulders, he loves it when you put those under eye masks on him, loves it when you draw a bath for him, etc. like at first he feels,,, kind of like a burden when you do those things for him, but he slowly starts to think that maybe, just maybe, he deserves this.

• super patient. if you're having a bad day or something, not only does he immediately take notice, he'll wait for you. he'll ask if you want to talk about it or if you just want him to be there, and if you say you want space, he'll give it to you and wait for you to come to him when you need him.

• he knows how to braid hair because of Gabi. when he was 17, he'd braid gabi's hair into two pigtails whenever she came over to their house for the summer. (he's her favourite cousin and vice versa but both won't admit it to eachother)

• loves to knit!!!!! his ideal date is literally just cozying up on the couch with some blankets and hot chocolate or soup and just. knitting. if you like knitting or crocheting too then bonus points!

• speaking of knitting, he also wears chunky sweaters that his mom made for him. warm toned, chunky and soft sweaters are literally all his closet is made up of. except in the summers, he wears loose fitting tank tops in the summer heat.

• religious note-taker. if you share a class with him, expect him to furiously take notes at a godly speed every class. and it's not even a messy handwriting, it's actually recognisable letters that are pretty easy to understand. he'd give those notes to anyone who missed class that day.

• people rely on him alot, and at first in highschool he kind of felt pressured by it, but he's grown into that role. he's a gentle leader.

• speaks german. you'll find him speaking in German to Gabi and his mom whenever they call <3

• speaking of calls, he only picks up if it's a loved one calling him. Gabi sometimes calls him just to annoy him after her school day is over and she's just roaming around the house. at this point Reiner knows all the gossip in gabi's middle school, being super attentive when Gabi talks about her school. like he knows ALL the lore.

• loves watching those relaxing vlogs. like those cooking vlogs with nice music in the background and captions instead of voiceovers. he loves those.

• has prescription glasses only for reading <3

• overthinks so hard. like even if he goes out of his way to talk to and know people more, he hates the after-conversation anxiety that comes with it.

• when he kisses you, he kinda hugs you. like his hands aren't on your waist, they kinda wrap around your back and shoulder and his hands are spread out so that he feels more of your skin.

• loves calling you dove or angel, cause that's exactly what you are to him.

• talks with his hands, very expressive with his conversations. it's very easy to know when he's uncomfortable/doesn't like someone he's talking to when his hands are crossed over his chest.

• he writes. like journals all his feelings out. just like his note-taking, he's very on routine about it. every night, or every other night, he'd sit down at his desk and use the pen he's kept especially for this journal, and describe the day in detail. it helps him alot :)

• he kinda does this small little,,, soft exhale when he smiles. like his lips don't quirk up fully, but you know he's smiling because of that small sound.

• full bellied laughter kinda guy. you crack a terrible joke and he starts out letting a small tiny laugh at it and then it turns into a chuckle and then the next thing you know, he's clutching his stomach and wiping the tears from the corner of his eye because he's laughing so much. which is so ???? you tell him it wasn't even that funny but to him it very much Was.

• his reactions are SOOOO funny. like you're telling him a story and he'll have visible reactions to it. he'll cover his mouth with his hand if he gasps, put his hand on his chest in surprise, scrunches his nose in disgust - like he literally cannot hide his emotions.

• likes jazz and classical music. no I will not elaborate.

• can't Instagram. he uses emojis unironically. he has one (1) post and it's you and him together, eating ramen from the same bowl (a pic that bert took to send to porco)

• even if he doesn't use Instagram that often, he'll always check if you posted. if you've posted something then he will make it his personal priority to spam comment the heart eye emojis. your entire comment section is Reiner sending 🥰🥰🥰 and 😘😘😘 and 😍😍 and all the diff coloured hearts.

• loves taking pics of you against the sunlight or like. infront of a beautiful scenery. he likes taking goofy candid pictures too, but the ones where you're just being lit up by the sun are his favourite because finally, there's an actual accurate picture of how he sees you.

• overall, the Reiner I have in my head in a modern a.u. is incredibly soft and will dance with you in the living room in the dark with no music playing because that's how in love with you he is.

[blue-rose-soul]

Love ur au!!! You have so many interesting thoughts I just adore reading everything you’ve posted!

You’ve already established that Alastor would have exactly zero interest in any sort of bond with his dearly detested sperm donor but I was curious as to what you thought on whether Lucifer would want a relationship with Alastor? How would he approach that?

Hey, much appreciated! Honestly, with the first post I expected it to be a weird niche AU no one besides me would enjoy. I'm really glad you and others are enjoying it and I'm enjoying you guys' questions!

I do think Lucifer would want to try forming a relationship with his long lost son (that feels so weird to type, imagine how weird it would be for Lucifer to say the phrase aloud, lol). From what we've seen of him, he seems like a loving and sweet man who adores his family, even if he's not always the best at expressing that love. I think if he found out he had a kid out there, no matter who that kid was, he'd want to form some kind of relationship with them. Of course, Alastor being Alastor complicates things quite a bit.

They didn't exactly make a great first impression on one another, on top of which Lucifer harbors a lot of guilt for leaving Nicaise to raise a child alone, and Alastor to grow up without a father. Especially when he learns what happened to Nicaise later. Lucifer thinks it's his fault Alastor is the way he is, which... kinda sorta fair? Alastor definitely had an unstable childhood which certainly played a part in Alastor growing to become an unstable adult. That being said, ultimately there were a lot of outside factors contributing to that instability, and at the end of the day, Alastor's choices were his own.

I go with the 'Dexter-like moral code' interpretation of Alastor's murder targets. But I also think there was a fair amount of disproportionate retribution. A man who beats his wife definitely deserves to get beat back and then divorced, but not butchered like an animal. Granted, the culture being what it was at the time, it's doubtful Alastor's targets would have faced any other kind of retribution than what he gave them.

All this to say that Alastor feels perfectly justified in the horrible things he's done, and Lucifer blames himself for Alastor becoming this warped, vengeful person.

Lucifer's attempts to get close to Alastor are horribly, painfully awkward. Remember how he answered Charlie's phone call with, "Heeeeeeeey, bitch!"

Yeah.

He tries, he really does, but a lot of the times Alastor just shuts him down before he can even open his mouth. So he tries going to Charlie for help.

"Ooooof, see, here's the thing, dad... I want to help, I really do! But I'm trying to do this thing where I'm more respectful of other people's boundaries. I mean, I'd love to see you and Alastor getting along! But if he doesn't want to talk with you, I'm not going to force it? As long as you guys aren't fighting? I'm sorry."

And that's as far as Lucifer gets with Charlie. So he tries talking to Niffty and Husk, the two people in the hotel who know Alastor best. Niffty is... sweet, but not entirely helpful. Husk gives what advice he can, but he's got his own chip on his shoulder regarding Alastor, understandably.

"Look, Alastor's a mean son of a bitch who lives to make my life more of a hell than it already is. He's fucked in the head. Always has been. You might as well cut your losses."

That's disheartening to say the least.

I do want there to be a happy-ish end where reconciliation happens. But it would take a loooooooot of time and patience on Lucifer's part. Especially with Alastor making an active effort not to get close with anyone at the hotel.

[eyesore-boi]

You think that you're alone but

We are waiting for you every night...

You're mine.

Close ups and other stuff below!

...so....10 years, huh?

I cannot understate how much FNaF means to me in my life, and yeah...know that sounds a b i t much considering it's the funny har har bear games, but lemme explain-

Truth is, i was actually terrified of FNaF when it first came out! I remember my first introduction to it was when i was having a sleepover at my friend's place and he was both playing and watching other people play the first game, and when i was watching it with him, i got scared and tried to avoid the game as much as i could, even claiming to hate the game despite just knowing the first game. I was young and was prone to sheltering myself from stuff i didn't understand, and that being the first scary game i've ever seen caused that reaction, but over time...that changed.

It happened when i was watching YT and clicked on a comic dub i never seen before, thinking it was an AU for a fandom i was in (probably Undertale i dunno), but lo and behold, it was actually a fandub/animatic for the missing kids incident, and that...peaked my interest. I got curious on how this scary game actually had an interesting story to it and not just some game that goes boo. So, soon after that, i decided to look up simply "FNaF Story", found the Game Theory videos, and...the rest is history.

I was amazed and hooked, got invested in how the games explained the story in ways i've never seen before, got excited when i saw everything click together in real time, and pair that with how i got into the series r i g h t when Sister Location came out, arguably when the lore really started to kick off, i knew there was no going back now. I stuck with the series since. I watched all the animatics and dubs, listened to all the songs, tried drawing the characters, made OC's, and even talked to other people about this franchise.

And now look- Not gonna pretened this whole time it's been sunshine and (Chica's) rainbows, especially in recent times. The drop off SB caused, the lore getting more and more complicated and convoluted, the divide between older and newer fans, being the founder of Mascot Horror (for every Poppy Playtime there i s a Garten of Ban Ban) and course the IRL drama, but in all seriousness...i still wouldn't trade it for anything.

FNaF, this series, is my very first experience connecting me with a community like this, both good and bad, helping me understand how to properly enjoy media and even learn/take things from it, and i think without it i wouldn't be in the fandoms i'd be in now. The scary, horror ones, the niche, hard to find ones, story driven, character rich, and of course...more importantly...getting me into Markiplier, which further influenced the "outside the box" kind of thinking cause my g o d for these two stories you need too-

And speaking of, because of those two stories, it lead to me branching out more creativily and even creating my own webcomic for an AU combining both of them, so regardless on how that'll go, i'm just glad this series has influenced me enough to create something for others to see, since that's all i ever want to give.

But really, this franchise will forever be with me, and though i don't always agree with all of it (i haven't read any of the books in y e a r s and i refuse to do so), it only makes some of the stuff it does do right completely worth it (like the movie, peak cinema), and for where ever this bear shaped train is going next, well, i'll be here for the ride for all of it. No matter how many burning buildings it goes through.

...oh and um- Right yeah. The actual art piece. Uh....it crashed multiple times when drawing it. It's even a miracle i was able to export it. I can't even open it up anymore. So even if i wanted to change anything about it, i c a n 't -

But still pretty happy with how it came together! Was run drawing these robos, some being kinda redraws from the past, while other's i've n e v e r drawn before, so that was interesting! But still, tried to draw the "main character" so to say from each of the main FNaF games, and just kinda be...walking along through the series, nothing too deep or complex, but still interesting enough! ....unlike the fnaf storyline cause g o d how many restaurants wERE THEIR S C O T T -

But for real this is going long enough, so ima head out and do my own FNaF related things thay you don't need to worry about shush *commits arson*

HAPPY 10TH FNAF BIRTHDAY EVERYBODY!! >:DD

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for saying that my boyfriend would deserve it if he died in the Titan submersible implosion?

I figure it's far enough out from the argument itself now that I can post this. I (27M) and my boyfriend (29M) come from very different backgrounds.

He grew up in a wealthy family. His family isn't, like, billionaire rich--his father is a semi-prestigious actor--but they can, for example, eat at michelin star restaurants on a regular basis, pay for all their kid's ivy league educations, drop thousands of dollars on an impromptu trip to Europe for no reason, and so on and so forth. Which, like, good for them! Genuinely, I'm glad my partner and his family did not struggle with money growing up.

I, on the other hand, grew up in poverty. I didn't have any formal schooling until I got my GED and enrolled in college. I grew up food insecure, living in a very poor area, and frequently had periods of time where my family could not afford to pay our bills. I was extremely lucky to be able to go to college, and I only managed to pay for it due to spending basically all of my free time either working or applying for every niche scholarship I could find. Even now, several years into my career, I pretty much live off of rice and lentils so I can pay rent.

All this to say: Neither of us would consider ourselves pro-corporation or billionaire, but my boyfriend is sometimes more sympathetic to wealthier individuals due to his background. We do not currently live together, which is not because of the aforementioned, but is relevant.

A while back, my boyfriend's grandfather came to stay with his parents. His grandfather was, at the time, not feeling well--coughing, sneezing, the works. He pretty obviously had COVID. Nevertheless, my boyfriend took the 4 hour drive to spend time with him, and wouldn't you know it, he got sick. He stayed at his parents house until he got better. I decided not to make the drive to see my boyfriend, and stayed at my apartment. This is because I am immunocompromised and would prefer not to. Y'know. Die.

While my boyfriend was out, the whole debacle with the Titan submersible occurred, which I kept an eye on and made some memes about. A couple days after they found the wreckage, my boyfriend became coherent enough to have a phone conversation. While talking to him, I told him the story of what happened, the details about the submarine, the $250k ticket price, and so on.

He seemed indifferent until I brought up the 19 year old on board. He then seemed very upset, especially when he found out the kid didn't want to go in the first place. I tried to assure him that most of the memes were not about the kid, but he was having none of it. He seemed very sad, and said something along the lines of "I hope I don't go out like that."

I was confused. I didn't think his parents were so rich they would be able to afford that, but I figured it was just a hypothetical. My boyfriend has a big fear of death, and I often need to reassure him about things like this. "Well," I replied, "If you're worried about that, I can assure you that's an easy death to avoid. Just don't do dumb shit like that."

He then got VERY upset. "What do you mean??? Are you saying I'd deserve to die like that???"

Me: "I mean, that's not what I was saying? But you're not 19, you're almost 30, and you're not financially dependent on your parents. Also, your parents aren't nearly that rich, and even if they were, I know them, and they are not nearly that stupid. So, at that point, to get into that situation, you would need to personally drop $250k on a ticket, then weld yourself inside of an experimental deep sea submarine controlled via text message and an xbox controller. Like, there are several steps you personally could have Not taken to avoid being in this situation, including simply not deciding to be on an underwater death trap. So, yeah, that'd be on your head."

He then got even MORE upset, and started yelling about how insensitive I was being. After some back and forth, I got it out of him that he had been speaking metaphorically--that, from his perspective, I was saying that I thought he deserved to die of COVID, because he had made the choice to spend time with his grandfather despite knowing he had COVID.

I assured him that no, that was not what I was saying in the slightest, and he calmed down, but I was still upset. He had been yelling at me, after all, and it legitimately didn't occur to me that he was speaking metaphorically, while I was still on the very literal experimental submarine.

I asked one of my friends/his other partner (30M) about it after it happened, and he laughed and said that my boyfriend was being ridiculous. It's been several months at this point, it was a silly argument, I'm not going to bring it up again (because that would be weird) and I'm sure he's forgotten all about it. That said, if I'm being honest, I still feel kind of indignant that he immediately assumed I was secretly hoping he was going to die in a submarine. Am I being insane here?

What are these acronyms?

[ellestra]

Farming content James Somerton style

Edited: I cleaned up sentences, removed typos and added some links

You've probably seen the latest hbomberguy video that highlights plagiarism problem on youtube. He gives several examples many I never heard about but I've been recommended iilluminaughtii before and watched some of her stuff before getting tired of seemingly endless volume (now I know why). But then he gets to the real subject of the video and I did watch a lot of James Somerton videos. And I liked many of them. I liked them a lot.

I didn't give him any money and, as much as it came as relief, I kept thinking how this must feel so much worse for people who did. I thought about supporting him for a moment when he posted (in April this year!) how his videos are getting less views because youtube algorithm and demonetisation of gay creators (it's a real thing so it was easy to believe) and he will be forced to stop creating if people don't sign up to his patreon. But I was casual viewer and he seemed big enough so I didn't. It must feel like such a betrayal to those who created a real community around him. Just like his film production company it's clear now it was another of his scams. It's infuriating how well it worked.

Somerton deleted his patreon now (along with his twitter and discord server) so there is probably no recourse for those affected. The only good thing is that someone big enough highlighted what he did (and brought receipts) so he had to stop. When smaller creators called him out it either went unnoticed or he managed to make himself a victim (and send his fans after them). He actually did what Anita Sarkeesian was accused of and gaslighted his followers about it. His misogyny just adds an extra bitter taste to this.

At the end hbomberguy talks about how if Somerton was open about what he was doing this could've been his niche. He said it just as I was thinking basically the same thing. I'm sure there is a market for field review type of videos. Not review like movie or book review but in academic sense when you take other people articles on the subject and compare to show the state of research on the subject on at the moment.

This kind of reviews doesn't need any original research. The value is in giving people overview of where the field is at and pointing them to the actual research so they can read more in depth about the results. If you already did the search for all the sources this is a perfect format to use them. Most people don't have time or resources to comb through all the resources themselves but they like to learn about it and this is why videos like that are popular. That's why iilluminaughtii, Somerton and al. were able to cash in on it.

But of course this kind of things have to properly cited. And they cannot be just all quotes. You have to make coherent points not just make stuff up for the transitions (lies that actually made Todd in the Shadows make a video not about music). I suppose that's too much work. Too much effort when you need to crank out content to satisfy all the sponsors.

I was glad to find out I already watch most of the queer creators recommended in the hbomberguy's video (and put on this watch list) as an alternative (I would add Caelan Conrad to it - funnily enough I found them through their video about antivax movement). I trained my youtube recommendations well in which way it skews but it's easier to kick out all the obviously awful when you know what talking points to avoid. It's much harder to spot grift when it pretends to care about the same things you care about. Somerton was saying all the right things. It just wasn't his words.

Did he even believe any of it? I bet he'll insist on yes but the laziness says otherwise. It seems like it was all just for the money and fans this angle gave him. That he enjoyed being cool to the audience he built and the stuff it bought him. Be gay do crime for real. Only he didn't write that one either.

[suzukiblu]

hi! i have a question for you, if that’s ok? i always try to leave comments on fics i read, especially on ao3 where it’s really easy to do that. in other fandoms i’ve been in, before getting into dc, fic authors often responded to my comments on their works and it was pretty easy to make friends through that and other social media and have lots of fun interactions talking about the fandom and our favorite characters etc.

however, i’ve found with this fandom it seems to be very different? almost nobody seems to respond to comments on their fics and i’ve found it very difficult to make any fandom friends, even in a casual-tumblr-mutuals kind of way. (this isn’t about you btw, you seem like the friendliest person i’ve come across on here so far which is why i’m asking you haha)

i completely understand many people are busy or some authors may find responding to comments overwhelming, but i was just wondering if this is something you or anyone else has noticed? is it a quirk of the dc fandom in particular? or am i just getting older and fandoms in general are changing haha, idk.

anyway sorry for the long ramble, feel free to ignore if i’m making no sense. i really enjoy all your stories (and your art! your art style is so cute!) and i hope you’re having a great day :]

Thank you, I'm glad you like my stuff! Especially the art, that I always feel like I'm worse at, hah. ❤️ I hope you're having a great day too. And asking me questions is always okay, no worries! I can't always get to everything in my inbox, to be honest, but I do my best to respond to as much stuff as I can. Either way, though, I never mind getting questions.

Personally I don't currently respond to most of my comments (I try to answer questions that aren't spoilers, but that's usually it these days) because it's just really easy for me to run out of spoons doing it and end up down a rabbit hole of comments instead of actually WRITING, which stresses me out because then I don't feel suitably "productive" for my imposter syndrome brain, and I also know a few people who don't respond because of anxiety or things like that, but I don't know if it's specifically a DC fandom thing or an overall trend in fandom in general? Every fandom is different, obviously, and also certain SECTIONS of those fandoms are different. Like, when I was into MCU fandom, I never really expected super-involved responses when I wrote Stucky because there was SO MUCH Stucky that it seemed like a lot of people just kinda churned through it and it all blurred together for them, but when I wrote about Darcy Lewis oh BOY did people come out of the woodwork to tell me how much they loved it in GREAT detail. Having a niche in general helps, I think, because if you're doing something that isn't super-common or interested in something that isn't super-common, people will be more excited to see it from you or hear you appreciating it from them.

I WILL say there's only a couple DC authors I can currently think of who I generally assume I'll get replies from when I comment on their fic, but I don't know if that's the specific fandom or just that I'm not reading a ton of fic right now and therefore have a smaller pool of authors I'm commenting on. Like, it's hard to tell, honestly. Also DC is a very widespread fandom and pretty old and established, but there's definitely characters and series and canons that just get ignored by huge chunks of it, so if you're into them you either have a real easy time finding people who are excited to talk to you or a real HARD time, depending on where you're looking.

Either way, I think it's really great that you try to leave comments on everything you read and a really good habit for the fandom ecosystem, I know a TON of authors who appreciate getting even, like, a single friggin' emoji or kudos, whether they respond or not. Literally any not-a-hate-comment comment is good for the ecosystem, imo, even when it's not obvious that it is. I very literally once wrote, like, eighty thousand words pretty much just because someone left a very kind comment on an old fic I'd abandoned. I did not actually RESPOND to that comment, as far as I remember; I just changed my mind about abandoning the fic and went through the long-ass process of getting my brain back into it and then the even longer-ass process of writing another 80k over the next few months/year until I got to the end. So like, I VERY much am a person who believes in the value of feeding the ecosystem, hah.

I am largely a call-and-response type of writer myself, so like, getting comments or people talking to me in my replies/asks/messages is basically like somebody is putting tokens in the fic machine and pulling a lever, and we'll all just see if I write three sentences or 80k or secretly tailor a fic towards things a frequent commenter's mentioned appreciating/being into. It's a surprise every time, with me!! And like, that's just how I work, of course, everybody's different, but I have NEVER met anybody who told me they didn't like getting comments.

When I leave comments myself, I tend to feel like more like I'm just telling the author that I think they're on the right track with the thing they're writing, one way or another, and letting them know it got a reaction or feelings or the like out of me, but I'm generally not really expecting a response from them. For actually making friends, I've found MUCH more luck in talking to people on Tumblr and Discord than on AO3. I've made friends on AO3 on and off over the years, but it's just much, MUCH easier for me to do on Tumblr and Discord. Though I kind of have a cheat code there in the sense that I'm a pretty prolific writer and so I've kinda encouraged people to get into the habit of checking my blog pretty frequently or even put alerts on for it, so generally people have a lot of opportunities to talk to me or be reminded I'm around.

I tend to notice people who show up repeatedly in my Tumblr mentions, personally, especially when they talk in the tags or comment in the replies or send me asks, and some of them I've either become friends with or just, like, secretly adopted as secret faves and sometimes sneak little extra treats of Things I Think That One Tumblr Person Would Like into my writing or pick specific WIPs to work on because I think "hey last time I wrote this [ TUMBLR FAVE ] really liked it, I should write more!" (and then I cackle in triumph/delight when they reblog it later, for that is a Victory, mwahaha), but like, it's a process? I definitely feel like making friends in fandom is generally slower than it was once upon a time, but also I'm a Fandom Old so there's been a few migrations and such over my time online too. And also Discord confuses me, hahaha. Discord is VERY confusing to me.

Ummm . . . okay I got INTO that reply, I guess, lol, but I hope that answered your question? Or at least helped answer it, if nothing else!

[starry-907]

hi starry!!! <3 i've been seeing so many stick men on my dash, and i've gotten super curious. the fandom wiki page answered none of my questions, so i thought i'll turn to the resident expert <3 <3 <3 whomst may be these characters and where do they come from?

RESIDENT EXPERT SJDLFJSKDJ THANK YOU I GUESS?? i'm just very autistic abt these silly sticks, i don't think i'm much of an expert

the stickfigures are from Alan Becker's Animation Vs series/franchise (calling it a franchise seems wrong but there's multiple series under the umbrella so idk how else to describe it) on youtube! i'm gonna go into more detail on that but i'm putting it under a cut because i don't know how long this'll get to be completely honest

also sorry if this takes a while to get answered i wanted to collect screenshots and visuals

So i'm not gonna get into a full play-by-play, mainly to avoid spoiling you, but the series can be kinda split up into a few different categories (the first two being the "primary" series of the overarching series)

ALSO the creator refers to all the sticks with he/him but a lot of people tend to headcanon differently (it's me i'm people) so i might use my own hc pronouns for characters. honestly part of the series' appeal is the fact that there's wiggle room for headcanons to emerge.

anyway! starting off with the og:

Animator vs Animation

animator vs animation starts off with the simple question of, "hey what if my drawings came to life and fought me", which is somewhat of the overarching question through the first 3 installments

the fourth one winds up turning that question on it's head by the end because of this silly li'l guy, The Second Coming (usually called second or orange by the fandom)

by the end of ava 4, second (and the friends they found on a website) have reached an understanding with the animator (who's also alan, it's a bit confusing but i try to think of it like mcyt rules where there's the creator and then the character), and are now friends with him. ava 1-4 were recently bundled into being animator vs animation season 1, i'd recommend you start with these four if you want to watch the other series.

ava seasons 2 and 3 (season 3 is currently ongoing) take a bit of a different turn, delving into the previously left up to question fates of the past three sticks that alan had made in ava 1-3, along with also dropping some bombshells of lore here and there. semi related side note i'm taking the chosen one and shaking them in a tupperware violently.

Animation vs Minecraft

this one is the longest of the different series, with 35 episodes (36 counting the original). it also pulls off the "mainly filler eps until everything suddenly spurs into motion" thing very well. it's also funny because the series started out named as "animation vs minecraft shorts" when episodes in season 3 would get up into at least 20 minute runtimes.

this series is where we start to get personalities developed for the four sticks that second befriended in ava 4, through the lens of different minecraft niches, from animal care to potions to redstone to noteblocks.

avm seasons 1 and 2 focus more on exploring the different aspects of minecraft (such as build battles), though season 1 does have a very brief arc involving this other stick, purple

(purple shows up in later episodes as well)

speaking of purple, if you're watching animation vs minecraft as a whole, make sure to watch animation vs leauge before you get to season 3 otherwise there could be a brief moment of confusion.

"but starry idk anything about minecraft-" THAT'S OK!! sorry for yelling i got excited. the series does a pretty good job of laying down the basics of the more complex mechanics before the stickfigures proceed to take it to heights that are probably not achievable in vanilla.

"starry what about season 3-" I'M GLAD YOU ASKED sorry got excited again. season 3 takes a hard pivot from "semi-unconnected episodes with maybe a few overarching elements" to "fully episodic adventures that will genuinely make you a bit emotional at times near the end". it also starts with blue going to find netherwart before the escalation escalates and trust me once you know how the season ends that seems so much funnier.

season 4 goes back to the less sequential episodes, just with a few status quo updates from the end of season 3 added in, namely the occasional addition of two characters from season 3 that people go feral over seeing included.

I'LL ALSO USE THIS SPACE TO TALK ABOUT THE ACTUAL SHORTS, which, as stated, are shorts that don't have a runtime over a minute or a minute and a half. they're somewhat of a mix between minecraft themed and being themed around other aspects of the series (there's one where the sticks and alan try to max out a clicker game, for example).

animation vs education

these ones are a bit less "plot" and a little more "hey look at this cool thing". the only character we're familiar with to be in this is second, and we essentially follow them going through these various black spaces exploring different educational concepts. right now we have avmath, avphysics, and avgeometry.

they all manage to be engaging and interesting even when the concept being explored reaches the point where you might not understand what the heck is going on (a big example for me being when avphysics started getting into more theoretical stuff, the sequence was cool enough that i didn't even care that half of it was going over my head).

i also feel like these are the ones that people unfamiliar with the series are likely to find? at least when i mention the series usually if someone's heard of it it's cuz they've watched avmath or avphysics.

even though these don't seem to have any connection to the main series (though a lot of people hc that they're second's dreams), i still recommend giving these a watch if for no other reason that they're really cool!

influencer arc

this one's the newest bit added to the umbrella! it's a 3-episode arc about one of the sticks, green, making a youtube channel with his friends and also exploring adobe products. we only have one episode of this so far, and it was funny because everyone was literally going feral over it when it released.

this one's also fun because there's an actual youtube channel for green, so you can see the full version of the videos they make in the episodes! the channel was leaked before the episode release so everyone went feral over that then too. the videos on the channel are very much "kids messing around with a camera" vibes.

the one-off eps

there's quite a number of these that explore different things, like animation vs youtube, where second and green manage to tick off a video player, or the team trees and team seas videos where blue gets the ability to grow trees and remove trash with money (at least in second's dreams). like i said, for understanding one aspect of avm season 3 (namely why everyone's fairly chill with purple when meeting them), i recommend watching animation vs leauge before reaching season 3, purple shows up there.

if you want me to go more in depth about the characters themselves (with some of my headcanons bleeding through a li'l), let me know and i can make a part two! i recommend giving the series a watch if you want to understand better but you'll likely want to break it up into more managable chunks

i also wrote most of this while on the bus to work

[adarkrainbow]

A reaction to reactions - about Pierre Dubois

I made a long time ago (at least considering the short life of my blog) a post about Pierre Dubois, an introduction post about the man so that my other posts about various content of his made sense. You can find it here. Recently this post got a lot of reactions, which I'm glad of course! But there's too many, through reblog-texts or flowing texts, for me to anser all of them at once easily. So I'll make this post to answer everyone in an easy way (or rather "react" and talk further, since I'm not here to "answer per se").

First, @a-book-of-creatures had this to say which I have to agree with but expand upon:

I have so many strong feelings on Dubois. When I started doing research on folklore I used him as a reference because his books were the only thing I had available, but as I found actual research I realized just how unreliable he is.

Probably the best thing would be to regard the books as folklore fanfiction and use them as stepping stones to find better things.

And this sums up why people get Dubois' books and work by the wrong end. You are absolutely right - Pierre Dubois' works are not reliable as resources about folklore and legends and myths. But that's because they do not have to, and they do not have the purpose to be. And here is why I say people take Dubois by the "wrong end" - too many people consider Dubois as a folklorist in the scientific, profesionnal sense of the term. Which Dubois is not. There is a reason why Dubois and those that promote it all insist on his job being "un elficologue", "an elficologist" - a clearly made up and fanciful word with no degree or diploma needed. This is not to pretend Dubois is a new type of folklorist - this is to clearly point out that he is rather someone extremely passionate and informed about elves, fairies, lutins and the like, and who spends his entire work writing about them. But he isn't part of any serious or scientific study of folklore, and that's where people get very confused.

Dubois is an author and a collector, a folklorist and a hobbyist, but he is no researcher as in "archeologist". This is why looking at not only his life and interviews but also the prefaces and introductions and postfaces on his various books - where he talks of his life, how it interweaves with his work and his opinions on several other names - is much needed to understand his approach and angle (but unfortunately too many jump out of those para-texts to just read about the fairies and elves).

Dubois did not went to university, did not have diplomas - to my knowledge. He keeps repeating everyhere all about his childhood among manual workers - his father worked in a factory and he was part of those poor factory-towns. I mentionned it before, about how his father reproved and dislike his interest in things like reading or literature. So he did not find out about mythology and folklore by a scholarly or professional mean - he rather had to make himself up, and stayed with an approach through any and all kinds of books he could find about. And the problem is that back in the 20th century, most of the professional study books we have access to today where no disponible in libraries and bookshops like that - they were niche things for university-people and high-ups of the thinking world. Dubois devoured the content of numerous libraries - but this meant he read literature, and poets, and fairytale collections, and outdated books about folklore and legends, and this was his approach to the fairy-world and this is the kind of feeling and ambiance he tried to give back through his books.

In fact, Dubois does not hide his lack of interest for any actual scientific, literary or current folkloric study. In general he is not a man of science - the same way he seems to have gotten a disdain for all too modern technology thanks to his own life in a community dominated by the 20th industries in the shape of the crushing factories, and thus always preferred the countryside, the forests, the ruins, he also has no interest in making books that could be used by universities or for reading expert's books on fairy-folklore and their evolution. Because he has the approach of a storyteller, of an author, of a poet, in the line of all those that either collected all the pieces of fairytales and folklore they could find without questionning or doubting them ; or that either knew of folklore and wrote fairytales, but still wrote them in a slightly edited and reshaped way. I mean for example one of his favorite books is Les contes d'un buveur de bière, which is a compendium of fairytales inspired by the folktales of Northern France - a folklore the author was very intimate with - but is still not traditionally listed among fairytale collections like the Grimm's because they were slightly rewritten in a more literary and modern style, with a few modifications and meta-references in the text. A bit like Andersen's fairytales if you want - they are still folkloric tales with folkloric background and inspirations, but they are a bit too literary to be considered fully "folkloric" tales. And this is the same approach Dubois has to it all.

Through his books, Dubois wanted (and managed) to translate and convey his own experience and feeling of going around France, checking everything about fairies in every library he could have, asking countryside folks from all regions what they knew about folklore or fairytales - an effusion, a boiling confusion, a sprawling chaos of so many things all at once, side-by-side, so different and varied, and yet all tied by these common links, these similar motifs, these evocations and cousin-ship. This shows for example in his various invented genealogies and "species evolution" in his books - fanciful pseudo-scientific inventions, they are not meant to be reflective of actual historical evolution of legendary figures, but rather convey the relationships and echoes he himself perceived when putting all the books and references side-by-side. His view on myths and folklore as a whole isn't the one of a scientist who tracked down a genealogical tree ; but of an everyman who read and saw everything and points out the links and references he perceived just as a reader.

Of course, this makes his work absolutely non-professional and useless in any serious folklore research (or almost as we'll see later)... But it is also the reason why it made his work so successful, and why he is an unavoidable name today. Still in a recent compendium about the evolution of the fantasy genre, he was evoked as one of the great names of fictional fantasy in France, but put on the same way as Tolkien - not because he was a scholar like him, but because his reinvention of traditional folklore and legends will be as impactful and inspiring as Tolkien's own reinvention of elves and orcs and dwarves. Dubois's books are educated entertainment and scholarly fun - but not a scholarly study, if the nuance makes sense. Imagine this as a bit more extreme version of Neil Gaiman's own fairy-books, like Sandman or Stardust or Coraline. And one has to put themselves back into the context of 80s and 90s France and imagine this situation.

For a long time, all encyclopedias of supernatural creatures and folklore were just these dry, scientific, university-like books not meant for regular audiences - and if there were books for your random Joe, they were oversimplified, childish things. And then comes Dubois's "Encyclopedias", which on top of having this extensive enormous collection of so many tidbits of folklore and lore nobody heard about, makes it a fun and entertaining read by bizarre illustrations, by mixing factual descriptions with folktales, by talking about the weird little habits of these creatures like what baked goods they like to cook or what underwears they wear or how they participated in said historical event... This was a revolution because it was a fun, entertaining and poetic read, a book that went beyond simply dryly listing endless variations, but rather used the encyclopedic knowledge to build an entire sprawling world of inter-connected entities, with a full epic history and all sorts of strange civilizations hidden right behind the garden's wall... This was and always has been Dubois' intention and he is clear about it in his text - revitalize the passion and interest in fairytales, make people interested in folklore and legends again, make people consider that maybe there is something interesting in the old-storytellers knowledge... Again, Dubois came from this very industrialized and modern side of France, marked by the World Wars, not caring about literature or magic or folklore, and where all good fairy-related books were pushed back in the dusty and moldy cellars of libraries. Dubois' prime interest was always to make this whole thing revive, in one way or another - and just like so many previous folklorists (even the Grimm themselves) who rewrote, and reshaped fairytales and folktales and invented things to make folklore live on, so did Dubois, in a more extreme way than his predecessors...

That's his own advice for how to become an elficologist - and he keeps insisting upon it when he talks about what people have to do if, like them, they want to become a searcher of fairies or elves. Go outside, walk among natural landscape, go into remote villages, search in old books and grimoires, do not reject anything (except too scientific and materialistic approaches and non-believers), mingle among those that live the folklore, and yourself get lost in the wonders of the overlooked countryside. This sums up very well what was his angle, and why he is located at this strange edge where he can't exactly be pin-pointed. When, in his books about seasons, he keeps referring to the embodiment of winter as "La Vieille", The Old Hag of Winter, the Elderly Witch of the Dead Season, the Queen of Cold and Darkness - he is establishing a fact that comes from looking and comparing European traditions. There is an habit and tradition of depicting the winter as a hag, as a divine crone, under a witch-like figure or monstrous woman. This is attested, and as such Dubois does what he does best, bring the essence of a comparative tradition (Dubois is much more comparative mythology than anything else). But on the bad side, it comes at costs of confusing and fusing together all the various female "winter hags" together ignoring their individual traits. That's always the win and lose of Dubois.

I already evoked it before, but in terms of fairytales for example, while Dubois is a massive fan and praises the brothers Grimm, and traditional French fairytale collectors, and other "folkloric collectors" like them, he strongly disdains and rejects the literary 17th-18th century fairytale writers a la madame d'Aulnoy, and also Perrault (though he does admit his work as part of France's national culture, though still heavily criticizing it). That's because on one side, Dubois had contact with folklore through actual village-people and countryside-folks and other fairytale collectors who like him did a tour of France's remote areas ; meaning he of course disdains those that rewrote fairytales in a too "distant" and "far-away" and "folklore-killing approach" - Dubois rewrites too fairytales heavily, but he rewrites them with the intention of staying faithful to the folklore and bringing out its "essence", which might seem paradoxal, but makes sense when you take this angle. He is the kind of guy who will hate on Perrault for cutting off the part of Little Red Riding Hood where the wolf makes her eat the grandmother's flesh and blood ; and will for example not mind at all expanding on this detail by describing a lush feast of the grandmother's corpse turned into various dishes while evoking all sorts of vampires and ghouls when describing the consumption of the meal... On the other side, this also shows something very true and clear about Dubois - he is filled, imbued with and a carrier of the strong 19th and 20th century fairytale and folklore theories that are now recognized as wrong and outdated. He is clearly a "product of his generation" - and I evoked it with the Sleeping Beauty theory. He is the first contact I had with the theory that Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood and Donkeyskin were all embodiments of an old literary solar-myth and all symbolized the sun or summer threatened or devoured by night/winter before returning to life. I thought he had made it up in his usual "poetic comparative mythology" kind of way, but then I discovered it was an ACTUAL theory that had been claimed and held by numerous folklore and mythology experts and was accepted during most of the 20th century - when Dubois made his own research - before being debunked at the dawn of the 21st century. Dubois doesn't want to actively misinform people, he just shares what he received, what he knows and what shaped him, and as such he is a most important testimony of how folklore was received and perceived up until the mid 20th century.

In many ways he is the Robert Graves of folklore - interesting, poetic, influential and inspiring in his treatment of mythology/folklore, but highly unreliable, misinformed, biased, and ultimately not a serious source for modern research. In fact, it was thanks to Dubois' works that a new wave of (more reliable and serious) fairy encyclopedias, monster encyclopedia and other folkloric compendium started to be released in the early 2000s - aimed for regular people, while still being well-informed like a university work. Dubois clearly launched a new wave of interest and fashion for fairytales - and all the reblogs' affirmations that Dubois' books had shaped them or fashioned their care in one way or another is proof of that (@it-is-phlump oerfectly translates my own perception and reception of Dubois' books, which shaped my childhood, and even though you are mad at him for being so unclear and confusing and unscholarly, you can't be mad because he brings you a whole fascinating poetic and truly "fae" world). Dubois has the same aesthetic credits as for example what Del Toro did with Pan's Labyrinth and the Hellboy movies and more - make people rediscover the magic, eerie, eldritchness, monstrousness, marvels and oddity of what fairies and elves are about. Creature an aesthetic and a world that would produce later works such as for example the excellent Changeling the Lost. But the same way Guillermo del Toro's movies or Changeling the Lost cannot be taken as serious folkloric sources...

With one nuance.

Still going on from @a-book-of-creatures comment, but also @feyariel reblog - about the sources and inventions of Dubois. Dubois has one STRONG interesting thing which makes him a fascinating resource of folklore study - or literature study. His own sources. Dubois invents a lot of things but he does not invent everything - if he presents one specific creature, it means he read or saw about it. He doesn't invent the creatures, he invents the lore about them or fills in the gap of his own sources. I am pretty sure he did not invent the Pillywiggins, because again he doesn't like inventing things - but if you can't find anything about them, it means that either his sources are lost, either his sources might have been literary more than folkloric. And here's my point.

Have you looked at the HUGE bibliographies at the end of each of his volumes? Dubois does NOT want people to stay in the blind about folklore or to be unable to find the same things he did, and he has THOUSANDS of books listed at the end of most of his books about fairies or ghosts or seasonal folklore. But here's the problem - his bibliographies are a confusing treasure.

Dubois, as I said before, did an extensive and complete tour of all the libraries he could find during his travels through the French countryside (so not university-only, higher-up libraries, but the bulk of village and small towns or province towns libraries of the mid-to-second-half 20th century). He collected all sorts of books from bookshops, and as such he read so many books he used for his own works... Many books which today are actually rare or lost books. Sometimes there are books in his bibliographies with clearly no research result when you try to find them today, and you might be led to think "Oh he made it up". But then you see by their side some books who, as it turns out, also lead to no research result, but because they are rare old books, out of print and that you can't find anywhere except by extreme chance... This already puts in perspective some things - he explored the depths of old libraries and private collections, but this means he also likely came among some very rare or old books that are unreachable today or completely lost. Or that are overlooked by people today...

It doesn't help however that in his research, he didn't split things at all. I mean he clearly got better with time at bibliographies - his most recent ones are much clearer than his older ones - but he still mingles and mixes things together, and especially literary and truly folkloric things. You will find Poe's work alongside the Grimm in his bibliographies, and among true beings of folklore in his Encyclopedias he places the literary inventions of Jean Ray or Andersen... Dubois is again, a "random Joe" in this aspect because his bibliographies were literaly him just noting every reference he had, every book title he saw, every author he read about, and putting it together in a list, but without a scholarly rigorism or without questioning his sources. This led for example to another problem of his sources - referential mistakes. A very prominent case happened with the story he collected of the "Ogress Queens" that I talked about here. He collected the tale right in his collections of witches and ogresses - but he made a mistake when giving the name of the source. He wrote the "abbot of the chapel of Apchier" - when in fact, the author full name was "Alix de La Chapelle d'Apchier". Very clearly, when he took his note down, he miswrote the author's name, or he misremembered it, and so confused "Alix" with "abbé" (abbot) and misunderstood "la chapelle" as an actual title instead of a family name... A typical error showing that, once again, it is important to stress out Dubois does not have a scholarly training or treatment or his sources. He is just a guy who reads a lot of everything, and tries to collect everything, and share all he finds, but with a carelessness typical of someone in a non-scientific approach. It is just like how when you write down a reference you spot on a piece of paper, later you type it down but since you carelessly wrote it down, you confuse an "a" for a "o" or "e" and thus mispell the name.

But this carelessness is balanced by, once again, the fact he gave a great care and love for many authors and books overlooked or forgotten, either in his time or by today's time. Again, I evoked the case of the Ogress Queens - this tale, even though wrongly credited, allowed me to discover the works of Alix de La Chapell d'Apchier". Take again Alix de la Chapelle d'Apchier - if it wasn't for Dubois I would have NEVER heard of her work or book of fairytales, because again as located halfway between folkloric and literary tales, she is overlooked and forgotten by both sides. Another example would be Jean Ray. Very recently, a few years ago, Jean Ray was rediscovered by the French book-industry and reprints of his clasic tales appeared on the shelves of every library (around the same time French edition re-discovered Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea series) - but before that, Jean Ray was completely ignored, talked about by nobody, forgotten by everyone... At most people remembered "Malpertuis" but couldn't tell anything else done by him. And yet Pierre Dubois kept referencing him and claiming his love for him and putting tales of his in his own compilation of stories. In fact maybe it was him pushing forard so much the Belgian author that led to the French printing industry "rediscovering" him... Who knows?

In conclusion... Yes, there are many reasons we can be angry at Dubois and reject his books - but there is just as many reasons for us to adore him and buy and reference his works. Ambiguous, polarizing, unperfect but still proving great efforts, a deep passion and having marked cultural and literary history, Dubois is one of those men who are not be taken as a serious source and should not appear in actual fairytale studies (except as a passing reference - for example I evoked him briefly in my paper about ogres) - but who should not be forgotten or ignored due to the importance and impact he had on the reception of fairy folklore, elves legends and other dwarves myths. Again, a bit like Robert Graves with mythology - it can be read as an entertaining side-read, and it has to be considered due to all the movements, theories and groups it spawned, and it was part of the reception of mythology for a time, and it highlighted all sorts of important points - but we still gleefully point out the innacuracies and use it as a source of inspiration and comparison more than any serious reference or resource.

Or rather... A better comparison would be the Dictionnaire Infernal by Collin de Plancy. His compendium of demons and devils is a load of bullshit, with so many invented, excentric, unserious things, and that is no serious resource of information... And yet it marked the history of literature and art, and yet it is still invoked and used today, and yet people keep referring it as a source of demonology.

Overall it reminds me of this question and subject that is sometimes brought up... What is the best way to make folklore live on? For some, it is collecting all folklore and folktales we have, and printing them, keeping them exactly as they were, with no edition, but just side-commentary and explanations, and keep these bits as immobile and frozen as they were before. And for others, like Dubois and the like, the best way to maintain folklore is rather to make it alive again, collect it yes, but also allow ourselves to twist it a bit, to retell it, to link various folktales and unify the various legends and myths in one whole show, and extend it into new stories and new tales. Of course there is no right or wrong answer here, both approaches are needed - we need true folklorists who will collect folklore as it is and bring it in its original truth, as much as we need author, artists and poets who will make pieces of fiction out of this folklore and spin new tales out of these old ones. But it is still a strong debate, and people that keep blurring the lines between the two are often not very well-received - for good or bad, right and wrong... And Dubois is clearly one of those very polarizing figure, with as much blame as praise. However it cannot be denied that he did a bit what Walt Disney did in America - revitalize and bring under a new and fresh form a fairy-world to an audience that was massively uninterested and unknowledgeable about folktales and folklore. Starting once again a love for fairies.

[sliceoflifeshepard]

Thinking about how far I've come over the past 9 years of writing as a commitment.

Long post.

My dad died October 24th 2014 from cancer, and my mum around December time told me to start writing again, to do what I love but take it seriously because I was old enough (luckily my dad died like 2 months after I finished college so I didn't have to worry about college)

I went to the library on the 1st March 2015 and started planning and writing the original plans for Terraclaw. That year was me trying to find where I stood with writing, and I enjoyed every second of it.

Terraclaw went through a lot - in total, I have about 3 or 4 notebooks full to the brim with rewrites, outlines and the lot. All of that scrapped, but I'm keeping it for the memories.

In 2018 I had a health problem and ended up in hospital. The end of October to end of 2019 was spent recovering and teaching myself how to write again because I was that ill I'd forgotten how to, and a few other things too. I picked Terraclaw back up again, my baby. I was home.

Terraclaw at this point had gone through at least 6 or 7 rewrites, and more were to follow. I got rid of most of the rewrites out of shame of not being good enough. Because it wasn't perfect like I'd hoped it would be

2020 was when my life exploded. I found my niche in Angels,Demons, Gods and Reaper supernatural fantasy fiction and I haven't looked back since. The ideas haven't stopped coming, I have so many ideas and I've gone back to Handwriting because I love the wips I do and Handwriting is easier for me.

Today it isn't just Terraclaw's anniversary, but my anniversary of taking Writing seriously. I wouldn't change this for the world. I love my job (yes i consider writing my fulltime job, even though twchnically im unemployed and cant work for disability reasons. You get the picture), I love my life and who I am. Writing is a part of me, you can't take it away from me because then I wouldn't be me.

And I'm glad I've met all of you. So thank you, each and every one of you.

I'm so proud of who i am, how far I've come and I'm so proud of YOU GUYS for loving what I do so much and interacting and all that jazz.

Thank you, to all of you. Especially, but not limited to:

@albatris @abalonetea @antique-symbolism @bardicbeetle @blackandwhitecircus @bard-coded @chickensarentcheap @dandelion-jester @dragonflylady77 @digital-chance @frayed-neurons @howdywrites @hauntedluminarybbq @hallowedfury @heartshattering @indecentpause @icaruspendragon @irilenaps @insidedamienshead @joshuaorrizonte @jasper-the-menace @kalu-chan @caxycreations @multi-lefaiye @n1ghtcrwler @owl-writing @owlsandwich @pheita @pluttskutt @pen-of-roses @radiozilla @revenantlore @scribble-dee-vee @sleepyowlwrites @sergeantnarwhalwrites @thorlokibrother @theprissythumbelina @uccelletto-di-kokuyo @violetcancerian @vacantgodling @waltzshouldbewriting @wait-a-minute-lassie @jezifster @zmwrites

[wanderlustfaun]

I don't like making posts like this but.

Please don't slap my art or designs on your Flight Rising dragon bios as "design inspiration" or "appearance claims" whatever you wanna call it, ESPECIALLY if you're not even gonna credit it.

I'm glad you like my designs but it's honestly just disrespectful and it makes me really uncomfortable. People on the internet thinking they have free claim of whatever image they found on the web to use as "oc appearance claims" is already bad enough of an issue and seeing something like this happen to me on a considerable smaller scale and niche website where I can easily come across it is just upsetting.

I don't care if you're not claiming the whole design and just use it to explain what you think your dragon would look like. Please don't use my art like this unless I made that art specifically for you. Thank you.