#made a minor edit to this one to add the second to last sentence bc i forgor to articulate that

[chthonicmoons]

i wanna talk about the subtle but inherent horror in transistor. how it goes from “huh, the streets are unusually empty for this hour” to the game showing you towards the end that certain white blocks you passed throughout the game were actually people who had been fully processed. and just the sheer brilliance in storytelling of building this sense of horror as the scope of the process slowly unfolds, via the OVC terminals. the missing persons number slowly ticking up and up and up and not stopping for as long as you stand there until you open that terminal. the percentage of process spread to cloudbank increasing by each terminal you visit. the relocation request failing because too many people are trying to use the circuits. just the use of a news scroll in general is soooo haunting as you slowly see each district status listed as OFFLINE. administration saying “casualty reports unsubstantiated” followed by an urgent advisory to evacuate to the city perimeter and leave all valuables behind. the sudden and complete downfall of a city all happening just outside the scope of what we as red can see as she heads into the danger instead of away. we just see it all play out on the OVC terminals until there’s no one left to report it. it’s just so so so so fucking good

[lesserfandomappreciation]

Ariadne and why the Mycenaeans can fuck right off

Warning: Includes brief mentions of r*pe, cultural destruction, ancient patriarchy reminding us why no woman would ever time-travel more than 5 years into the past if that and a great deal of spite for male historians/public education history/mythology classes. 

Possible side effects may include a sudden intense rage for an ancient society equivalent to the innate rage one has for the Romans burning the library of Alexandria, a distinct hatred for ancient men not being able to let anyone have nice things, and a sudden fascination for Minoa. 

Usually, I stick to writing imagines and being happy with that. It’s fun! I love it! But every now and again, in an attempt to escape the crushing forces known as reality and responsibilities I’ll put on a few cutscenes from games I’m: A) Too lazy to play B) Too broke to play C) Too unskilled to play D) All of the above

because cutscenes are free and why torture yourself with impossible levels when its free on Youtube?* *In all seriousness please support video games and video game creators, but no shame to those of us who prefer cutscenes to gameplay.  A few weeks ago I added the game Hades made by Supergiant to the list because the cutscenes were bomb and the characters are so much fun! Intricate as all hell! Hella cute too but that’s unrelated! Now my pretty little simp patootie is especially a big fan of Dionysus and his gorgeous design so the cutscenes with him are my favorite.

I’m re-watching his cutscenes a few nights ago for fun as background when he has a certain line about Theseus. Don’t quote me on this since my memory is foggy at best but roughly it was: Dionysus: Good job with Theseus. Never cared much for him- what he did to that girl was just horrible.*

*I know that’s not his exact line but this is clearly a rant post fueled by spite and ADD-hyper-focused obsessions with ancient civilizations so let’s not worry too too much about the semantics here. 

Now, I like mythology! Personally, I prefer the Norse mythology due to the general lack of very very gross dynamics that several other ancient mythologies seem to include, but I’m decently familiar with Greek mythos. Enough to go - “Why does the God of Wine give a single fuck about the frat bro of Greek heroes being a dick to a woman? Grossness is embedded into the very DNA of all distant relatives of Zeus, a woman being harassed by Zeus or his bastard army is a typical Tuesday in ancient Greece.” 

Wikipedia confirms that Ariadne is the only woman in the story of Theseus and the Minotaur, which I kinda knew already so unless Theseus did some f’ed up shit to some other princess of Minos, Dionysus could only be referring to her. Disregarding what I know about Wikipedia and how it can suck you down the rabbit hole of rabbit holes through sheer fury I stupidly clicked the link to Ariadne’s article. 

By the time we get to the end of this shitstorm, I will have two separate plotlines for two separate stories based of Ariadne, 2k+ notes (and going) on an ancient civilization prior to a week ago I didn’t know existed and within me there will be a rage towards a different ancient civilization I vaguely recall learning about in high school. 

Here’s how this shit went down. 

First of all, apparently after Theseus abandoned Ariadne on an island to die (yep! He did that! To the one person who is the only reason he defeated the minotaur! Fuck this guy.) there are multiple storylines where Dionysus takes a single look at Ariadne and falls in love. 

“A god falls in love?” you say, aware of how most love stories in Greek mythos can be summed up with Unfortunately, Zeus got horny and Hera is a firm believer in victim blaming. “This poor woman is about to go through hell!” I thought so too! And in one variation of the story, Dionysus does his daddy proud by being an absolute tool to Ariadne. In the majority though? He woos the fuck out of her, and ultimately marries her by consent!

Her consent!

In ancient Greece!

The party dude of the Greek pantheon knows more about consent then his father and modern day frat brothers!

Okay! That’s interesting, so I keep reading. 

Ariadne getting hitched to Dionysus is a big deal in Olympus, to the point of getting a crown made of the Aurora Borealis from Aphrodite who is bro-fisting Dionysus, beyond glad she didn’t have to give him the talk about consent. The rest of the gods are pissy especially Hera who doesn’t like Dionysus much since he is the son of Zeus and Semele but they don’t do much. Ariadne ascends to godhood, becomes the goddess of Labyrinths with the snake and bull as her symbol and that’s that on that. 

Colorin, colorado, este cuento se acabado.  And they lived happily ever after. That’s the end of the post right?

NO! Because curiosity has made me their bitch and there’s more to this calling me. 

Also, I was pissed! Still am! Why the fuck-a-doodle-do did I have to learn about the time Poseidon r*ped a priestess instead of the arguably healthiest relationship in the entirety of the pantheon? Why is Persephone and Hades’ story (which has improved since it was first written and I like more modern versions of it, no hate) the only healthy-ish Greek love story I had to learn when Dionysus and Ariadne were right there? The rage of having endured several grade levels of “Zeus got horny and Hera found out” stories in the nightmare of public education led me to keep looking into this. 

There’s this wonderful Youtube channel called Overly Sarcastic Productions that I highly recommend that delves a lot into mythology, and I have seen their bombass video about Dionysus and how his godhood has changed since he was potentially first written in a language we comprehend. 

Did ya’ll know this man is the heir apparent to Zeus? ‘Cause I didn’t know that!

YEA! Dionysus, man of parties, king of hangovers and inducer of madness, is set to inherit the throne of Olympus! Ariadne didn’t husband up the God of Wine, she husbanded up the Prince of Olympus and heir apparent to the throne! Holy shit! No wonder some of the gods were against her marriage to Dionysus - can you imagine the drama of an ex-mortal woman sitting on the Queen’s throne of Olympus? Hera must have been pissed.

BUT WAIT.

There’s more.

The reason we know Dionysus is a very important god and is possibly even more important than we think is because of a handy-dandy language known as Linear B, otherwise known as the language of the Mycenaeans!

For those of you fortunate enough to have normal hobbies and interests, the Mycenaeans were the beta version of the Greeks. Their written language of Linear B is one of, if not the first recorded instance of a written Indo-European language. This language, having been translated, gives us an interesting look at what the Greek gods were like back in their beta-stages before they fixed the coding and released the pantheon. 

Interesting side facts of the Mycenaean Greek gods include:

Poseidon being the head god with an emphasis on his Earthquake aspect, and being much more of a cthonic god in general. 

Take that Zeus, for being so gross. 

The gods in general being more cthonic, as Mycenaeans were obsessed with cthonic gods (probably due to all the earthquakes and natural disasters in Greece and Crete at that time)

Several of the gods and goddesses that we know being listed, alongside some that we don’t consider as important (Dione)

The first mention of Kore, later Persephone, but no Hades because since a lot of gods were cthonic, there would be no need for one, specific cthonic god to represent the majority of death-related rituals.

That’s not what we’re focusing on though! What we’re focusing on is a specific translated portion of Linear B that we have. One of the translated portions of Linear B that for the life of me I can’t find (someone please help me find it and send the link so I can edit this post) says an interesting phrase. “Honey to the gods. Honey to the Mistress of Labyrinths.”

One more time. “Honey to the gods. Honey to the Mistress of Labyrinths.”

Mistress of Labyrinths. 

Now wait a gosh darn minute. Isn’t there a goddess of labyrinths in the Greek mythos? Why yes! Yes there is! Ariadne!

Here’s a question for you. If Ariadne is but a minor god in the pantheon, a wife to a more predominant god, why is it that while all the other gods and goddesses are bunched together in a sentence of praise, the so-called ex-mortal gets a whole-ass sentence to herself singing praises?

And thus, we have arrived to Minoa!

What is Minoa, you ask? Minoa is to Rome what Rome is to us. An old-ass civilization either older than or younger by a hundred years to ancient Egypt. Egypt, that started in 3200 B.C-ish depending on who you ask. That’s old. Old as balls. They were contemporaries to their trading partner, Egypt until 1450 BC-ish. A 2000 year old civilization.

Minoa was founded on the island of Crete, and was by what artifacts we have found a merchant civilization with its central economy centered on the cultivation of saffron and the development of bronze/iron statues of bulls. Most of what we know about them comes from artifacts and frescoes found on Crete that managed to survive everything else I will mention later, but what matters is that we know a few things about them. 

Obsessed with marine life for some time, given their pottery. 

Had the first palaces in all of Europe, some of them ridiculously big. 

Wrote in Linear A and Cretan Hieroglyphs, both still untranslated languages. 

Had a ritual involving jumping over a bull, for some reason. 

Firm believers in “Suns out, Tits out.”

You’d think I’m kidding on the last one but no! No no no! All the women apparently rocked the tits-out look in Minoa!

^^^^One of many, many Minoan works featuring women giving their titties fresh air. ^^^^

“Wait a second Pinks! What does this have to do with Ariadne being the Mistress of labyrinths?”

Well you see dear wonderful darling, while we know very little about Minoan religion because Mycenaeans (we will get to those bastards in a second), we do know this:

All the religious figures appear to be exclusively women.

The most important figures of their religion seem to be goddesses as there are few artifacts featuring male gods.

Because of the religion, the culture may have been an equal society or even a matriarchy! Historians who are male aren’t sure. 

A frankly ridiculous amount of their temples, including the ones in caves in the middle of fuck-all feature labyrinths. A lot of labyrinths!

Their head god is a goddess! Whose temples have labyrinths and whose main symbols are snakes and bulls. Who do we know is a) the mistress of labyrinths and b) is symbolized a lot by snakes and bulls?

ARI-fucking-ADNE THAT’S WHO!

Ariadne didn’t upgrade by marrying the prince of Olympus! Dionysus wifed up possibly the most important goddess in all of Crete and becoming her boy-toy! 

I’m not even kidding, most Minoan depictions of the goddess’ consort features a boy/man who cycles through the stages of death. Dionysus himself in several myths goes through the same cycle - life, being crushed, death, rebirth, repeat.  Cycles the consort goes through in Minoan legend depictions too!

Okay, that’s great, but what does that have to do with the Mycenaeans? Why do you want to single-handedly go back in time and strangle the beta-Greeks with the nearest belt?

Everything I just said about Ariadne being a Minoan goddess, the Mistress of Labyrinths being hella important on Minoa, is all theoretical. The Mycenaeans are partially to blame for making it theoretical. 

Minoa thrived for 2000 years but it had a lot of issues, mostly caused by natural disasters. Towards the end of their civilization (1500 BC-ish), the nearby island of Thera, today known as Santorini, decided to blow up. The island was a hella-active volcano that when erupted, destroyed a lot. 

How big was the eruption? Well when Pompeii was wasted by Mt. Vesuvius, the blast was heard from roughly 120 miles away, 200 km. 

The blast on Thera was heard from 3000 miles away. 4800 km away.

Fuck me, the environmental effects of the explosion were felt in imperialistic CHINA.

Holy shit that would waste anybody! And it did! Minoa went from being a powerhouse in the Mediterranean to scrambling to recover from losing 40,000 citizens and who knows how many cities. Tsunamis may have followed the blast, further destroying ports which for a navy-powerhouse of an island nation is a bad thing and the theorized temperature drops caused by a cloud of ash lingering for a while would have destroyed crops for the year.

Minoa was fucked. 

The Mycenaeans and all their bullshit made it worse.

Up until a few hundred years prior to Thera’s explosion, Minoan artifacts don’t depict much in terms of military power. Why would it? Crete is a natural defense post. Sheer cliffs, high mountains and a few semi-fortified areas would make it pointless to invade. It’s only when the Mycenaeans in all their bullshit decided to attack/compete that Minoa really needed any army to speak of.

Guess who decided to invade while Minoa was reeling from an incredibly shitty year? Mycenaea!

Guess who won?

Also Mycenaea!

Nobody knows how this shit went down though because wouldn’t you know it, the Mycenaeans in all their superiority-complex glory decided to destroy most written accounts about Minoa, a good junk of the temples and culturally eliminated most of Minoan beliefs. 

Minoa isn’t even the real name of the civilization! It’s just the name Arthur Evans, the guy who re-motivate interest in Minoan archaeology, gave to the civilization because the writings that would have included the name of the civilization were destroyed.

“That sucks!” Fuck yes that sucks! “What does that have to do with Ariadne though?”

Oh ho ho. Strap in because you’re about to be pissed. 

Those of us unfortunate enough to be aware of all the bullshit the Christians pulled on the European pagan belief system are familiar with the concept of cultural, religious destruction. There’s a special name for it I don’t know but if I did I would curse it to be absorbed by the horrendous will of fungi. 

An example: Christianity was not the most popular of religions amongst the Vikings. A monotheistic religion that is heavily controlled did not strongly appeal to anyone with a pantheon as rad as the Norse one. 

In order to appeal to the Vikings, what monks would do is they would write down traditionally Viking stories which up until that point were orally passed down. Beowulf, the story of the most Viking Viking to have every Vikinged, was one of these first stories. 

However! Did these monks write Beowulf as closely to the original oral transcript as possible? Of course not! They took liberties! While Norse features such as trolls and dragons and all sorts of Norse magic occur, there is a lot of Christian features added in. 

This happened across all Pagan religions that Christianity came into contact with in Europe. Stories would be altered when written down to be more Christian (this happened to the Greek Pantheon too btw), holidays that were Pagan magically lined up with ones the Vatican just happened to suddenly have. Even names of mythological figures were taken and added onto Christian figure names. Consequently, a lot of pagan religions they did this to got erased over time, with many of their traditions and details being lost forever, and the details we do know being tinted by Christianity.

The Mycenaeans were likely no different. 

Minoa and Mycenaea were as culturally opposite as can be. Minoa is theorized to be a matriarchal or equal society*. Mycenaea and most of early Greece absolutely was not. In fact, during early stages of their religion where they believed in reincarnation, the Mycenaeans believed the worst thing to come back as was a woman. 

Did you get that? With your options ranging from man to ever single animal on Earth, a woman was ranked as beneath literal animals in Mycenaean society.

Fuck the Mycenaeans.

* This is not to say Minoa was without fault, as a society that is matriarchal or equal can still have rampant issues such as privilege, classism, racism, sexism and more, but when history has a shortage of civilizations that didn’t treat women like shit, you find yourself rooting for them more. 

 What do you do then, when you take over a society that is very much the opposite of a nightmare of a patriarchy? You fold their beliefs into your own to bait them into yours. Going back to the Linear B line about “Mistress of Labyrinths” that line would/could have been an early tactic of incorporating Minoan belief into Mycenaean belief. Other goddesses and gods were made into aspects of Mycenaean gods. Bristomartis, the Minoan goddess of the hunt, would become Artmeis. Velchanos, a god of the sky, would become Zeus. 

With more time, the religion shifted more into Mycenaean and eventually into ancient Greece as we know it. Through trade other gods and goddesses would continue to shift and change, some being straight up imported (Aphrodite for example). Dionysus himself changed a lot too, going from a God representing freedom and attracting slaves, women and those with limited power into his cult, to a God of parties for the wealthy. 

Theseus and the Minotaur was a myth likely based on a Mycenaean myth based on a Minoan myth that changes Ariadne from an important, possibly the important goddess of an ancient religion and relegates her to a side character in a pantheon so vast that she would be lost within it. 

All of this brings us to today. Today, where as soon as work ended I spent most of the day, as well as the past two days, looking up everything I can on Minoan civilization and added it to my notes. Spite is fueling me to write two possible different stories for two different fandoms where Minoa dunks of Mycenaea and it is giving me life. Expect an update within the next two weeks folks as I lose control of my writing life once more. 

In summary: Ariadne deserves more respect, fuck the public education system for skipping over the good parts of Greek mythology instead of the r*pey as shit parts, the Mycenaeans can eat my shorts, and a world were Minoa became the predominant power instead of Greece would be an amazing world to live in.

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk. Pink out. 

[rickriordanfandam]

opinions on riordanverse ; my edition

a lot of people have been doing this so i decided why not right. probably gna lose some followers or smth but anyways. pls respect my opinions! if u disagree, thats fine, but please be polite. unless any of my opinions strikes u as morally wrong then pls point it out to me respectfully. thanks!

- i actually liked drew. im so sorry to everyone who hates her but full offence, why. think about it this way ok, first of all drew became hc because silena died. silena was the traitor, the one who betrayed chb, yet after she died campers celebrated her as a hero? and then drew suddenly has to replace her and live up to idk that legacy she left behind,, when all of a sudden this girl named piper swoops in and takes her place. idk abt u but i wld be salty abt that too. not only that, but as an asian, the chances of drew having faced racism/bullying as a child is pretty high (she studies at brooklyn academy). which means that when she finds out shes a demigod, and arrives at chb where most of the campers are white (this is an assumption btw), she’d obviously be scared of being bullied for her skin color right?? so the first thing she wld do before the campers get to bully her is to bully them before they can do so. (sentence structure here is wack i apologize) ofc this might not even have happened, drew could have had a perfect childhood && was a b1tch for no reason, BUT EVEN THEN HER ROLE AS A BULLY WAS PRETTY VITAL BECAUSE THAT FURTHER SHOWED THE CONTRAST BETWEEN HER AND PIPER,, HIGHLIGHTING PIPER AS A HERO//GOOD CHARACTER,, AND THEREFORE MAKING READERS LIKE PIPER MORE. anyway stop hating on drew please. ALSO WHY IS THIS SO LONGA SDFJHG

- jason isnt bland, the fandom just kinda erased his backstory (thanks to @pjohoo-memes for the phrasing lol)

- reynabeth wouldnt have lasted/would have broken up several times. idk i just see them as two extremely powerful characters who have firm opinions and will definitely clash at some point. in a platonic relationship,, i can see them as really good friends but as lovers? idk i just think theyll break up

- PIPABETH

- i dont really like jercy,, i see them as better friends than lovers. also idt jason and percy were that close..?

- the dam and not my type jokes are srsly cringey and were never funny. ik that seems hypocritical since my username literally makes use of the dam joke but honestly i dont actually like the joke. its not funny to me and has never been funny

- the seven were not best friends. they definitely argued,, and honestly probably werent as close as the fandom makes them seem. like ure dumped with 6 other people, out of which u only know a few. my introverted ass would have jumped off the argo 2 quicker than leo valdez could bomb camp jupiter up. also leo was a dick to frank. so what if frank is bigger sized?? thats not a valid reason to tease him

- the fandom needs to stop hating on octavian while worshipping luke. if u hate luke and u say u hate octavian too, then okay. but if u tell me ure a luke stan but u despise octavian?? imma disagree w u. luke was worse than octavian im sorry. first of all, octavian being a dick was kinda justified. hes been after the praetor position for so long, and everyone keeps saying to “wait for jason” when suddenly this dude, whos a son of NEPTUNE (neptune wasnt liked much by romans), and the camp decides to make him praetor?? dude i would be pissed off big time. and then afterwards, he finds out that greek demigods are real and the dude they made praetor is greek. AND THEN GREEK DEMIGODS COME TO CJ AND ONE OF THEM BOMB IT UP?? octavian has been told all his life that greeks are scum and this dude called leo valdez attacks cj. sure it was an accident, but did octavian know that? no. so it was honestly justified that he was such a salty prick im just saying. also some of yall be hating on octavian for cutting a teddy bear open and thats the funniest shit ive ever heard i swear 

- luke didnt go to elysium

- travis and connor stoll r way too underrated. the two have been head counselors of the hermes cabin since luke was revealed as a traitor, can u imagine the stress? luke, the person they probably looked up to as a brother, betrayed them. and they didnt even have time to process this when they were  thrown the roles of being hcs. that would have been so stressful and i would probably have broken down if i were them. the stoll brothers taking turns to wake up at ungodly hours because a new camper is crying and homesick and terrified, the stoll brothers having to comfort and take care of new campers, having to deal with the amount of people in that cramped space because not enough campers are being claimed fast enough. having to resolve issues between campers in the hermes cabin all the time. the stolls arent just comedic relief, and we need to stop treating them as such

- tratie shldve been canon idc idc

- demigods of the demeter cabin arent talked about enough and i love the fact that meg was demeters kid. like she isnt the child of one of the big three yet shes so powerful.

- we need to hype clarisse up more her character arc was phucking amazing 

- rachel is overhated. sis found out greek gods exist and regularly come down to earth to fuck around and went “ok cool”. queen shit behavior methinks

- the floor 19 crew of mcga is srsly underrated. like do u even remember halfborn gunderson, mallory keen, tj, etc??? bc i feel like we only remember samirah, magnus, alex, and sometimes blitz and hearthstone

- sadie (tkc) was kinda annoying at first. i like her more now tho but i rmb not liking her for a phat while

- tkc and mcga need more love

- carter kane and jason grace arent boring. theyre just really sweet boys who are too good for this world and yes yes yes 

- hazel and frank (especially frank) need to be hyped up more. i hardly ever see anything about them. also yall seem to forget that frank was literally made praetor and that even hecate admired hazel and was willing to fight beside her because of how powerful she was

- frazels age gap is kinda sketch but i still think theyre really cute

- nico definitely had trauma from going to tartarus on his own

- GROVER IS PERCYS BEST FRIEND

- annabeth isnt smarter than leo but neither is leo smarter than annabeth. ive seen a lot of discussions about who is smarter and heres my hot take on it: neither. theyre equally smart, just in different ways. leos a genius mathematically speaking. he has no issues solving math problems meant for people much, much older than him. annabeth on the otherhand, is great at strategies etc. she can make an army of 1000 more powerful than the enemy, even if theyre outnumbered. so in my opinion, both are equally as smart//u cant compare their intelligence, because their talents lie in two different areas.

- while i do agree rick riordan isnt a god and that hes bound to make mistakes,, AND that hes given us a lot of representation,, if the representation offends the people its sposed to represent, then theres a problem. im talking about piper as a poc and wearing feathers in her hair. im not a poc, so i cant speak for them on whether or not its wrong, because i dont know either. HOWEVER, i have seen multiple posts BY pocs talking about how they didnt really like rick’s representation of piper, and thats an issue. pocs have been and are still oppressed and discriminated against by many. as a white cis man, we cant really blame him for not knowing (tho he could have done a research,, asked some pocs,, idk), but by representing pocs in that manner, hes influencing impressionable kids/teens into thinking “oh pocs wear feathers in their hair all the time” etc, which isnt true. the pjo/hoo series is extremely successful, and kids who read the books will probably start forming inaccurate opinions on pocs. the amount of fan art that depicts piper with feathers in her hair dont help either. “but rick said so in the books, so its canon” yeah well rick isnt a god and he can get some things wrong at times. im not saying we should cancel him, im saying we should start educating ourselves and not spread false info like pocs wearing feathers in their hair all the time. also that snake song shit where she sang Summertime was just- yeah. bc heres the thing you can be racist, and still include minorities, but portray them in a racist way. And even then, ignorance isn't a thing to admire. Getting those facts wrong still has a major impact. It continues to perpetuate racist stereotypes.

“ With the feather thing, I looked it up myself; it takes less than five minutes to figure out that Cherokees don't braid feathers into their hair. I didn't grow up in the country where my parents are from. I have many other first/second generation American friends who have also been through that, with a bit of a disconnect from their culture. But something that most of us have in common is that when we didn't know something, and when our parents weren't that big of a help, we looked it up. We sought out resources online and through other people from our culture to be able to connect more with where we came from. Some of that took a Google search. So I find it hard to believe that Piper, a girl who Rick's trying to portray as someone who is attempting to connect with her culture and is totally against racist stereotypes, wouldn't know that eagle feathers aren't supposed to be braided into your hair casually. She may be disconnected from her culture, but she's also shown to want to connect back to it. Piper wouldn't be casually braiding feathers into her hair while also telling off people for being racist. It makes no sense.” - reddit thread (down below) 

for those of yall who wanna know more please please read this, it has a lot of things i wanna add in here : https://www.reddit.com/r/camphalfblood/comments/gy3gl2/piper_mcleans_portrayal_is_innacurate/ 

as well as https://finding-my-culture.tumblr.com/post/189422373260/maxie-ratties-and-cattie-finding-my-culture 

i will be posting screenshots of these in future posts so if ure viewing this on ig and u dont have tumblr,, dont worry 

- the fact that most of the strong female characters in the series refuse to be “girly”, and ngl i dont really like that. just because ure girly doesnt mean u cant be strong. 

- piper would have been a great way for him to start making the strong characters act girlier, but instead he went with the “I’m not like other girls” trope which is quite obnoxious to hear constantly, and I don’t think it’s necessarily great for younger girls to read that idea growing up.  the closest we've ever had to a strong female character who was also into "girly" things was Silena. when I was younger I admired Piper's "I'm not like other girls" thing, but then I got older and realized that the whole mentality of "not like other girls" is super obnoxious, and a little bit toxic

i have a heck load more that i cant rmb rn but yeah feel free to add more 

[owlaholic68]

Fic Writing

Since I’ve just (almost) finished writing chapter 9 of Au-Dela/Beyond the Stars, I thought I’d do a lovely little retrospective of my writing and translating experience!

The most obvious thing is that my writing speed in French has improved dramatically. I just busted out over 1000 words today, which is not bad compared to my English writing speed, and is way better than it was when I started. 

My random thoughts on chapters I’ve written:

Chapter 1: there’s apparently an “entertainment officer” on Lucky and I have no idea why their job is important enough to be mentioned. 

Chapter 2: I literally forgot that Lily was in this fic for some reason, don’t worry, she’ll be back. Also, I imagine Arcade’s lab to be like a Studio Ghibli greenhouse/science room. 

Chapter 3: I literally don’t remember coming up with the plot for this chapter, it just happened. Also, Julie is very good friends with both Christine and Veronica, I hope that was clear. 

Chapter 4: This was like the Bachelor, but less dumb and also less romantic? Also, Arcade was supposed to be in this somewhere, I don’t know where he went. 

Chapter 5: This is where Arcade went. Sorry, man, your job sucks. Also the king does...literally nothing ever... Oh right, my big reveal! I’m not sure why I tacked it on to this chapter, but I hope it was a nice cliffhanger!

Chapter 6: This is like the Boy who Cried Wolf with all these darn fake medical emergency messages. Also, almost kissing, ugh my weakness. 

Chapter 7: This chapter was supposed to almost 4000 words long, I don’t have any idea how that happened, so I split it two bc i’m back in school next week. 

Chapter 7 part two (Chapter 8): Oooh this isn’t up yet, but it’s a lot of fun! Veronica’s in there, Christine’s in there, Dmitri gets some time in. I also wrote this to the angstiest songs for some reason?? Also, not to spoil anything, but some scenes go better when I just knock Arcade unconscious. I just like giving the man head wounds. It happened in She Packed No Star (in the last chapter he got a concussion), Silver Stars (knocked himself out while teleporting to Julie’s temple), and this chapter too! Sometimes I get stuck writing, then I knock him out and everything goes great!!!!! Sorry!!!!!

Chapter 9 (just mostly written): I learned a lot about old Moroccan (Marrakech specifically) ruins and architectural elements. It was a lot of fun. That’s all I’ll say. 

Sometimes I forget what words I’ve used, and I always have my previous chapters open. Recent example: the word “stretcher” has two different words in French, and I just jumped back to Chapter 1 to find exactly which one I’d used. I have a weirdly good memory for exact times that I’ve used certain words or phrases.

Oh, the agony of decisions concerning formality of language...Christine just started using “tu” with Lynn and I’ve just been screaming internally the whole time I’ve been writing.

WHY do I use the present participle so much?????

THANK GOODNESS I made a stylistic decision a long time ago to write in present tense, because this would have been a lot harder if I would have had to write in passé simple or in another past tense. 

Forgot the spelling of the word “emperor” in french, jotted it down in English on my document, went to go look up the word and forgot how to spell it in English, had to go back to what I’d written. I should’ve just looked at my other chapters. It was in chapter One. It would have taken half as much time.

*word* *looks up French/English equivalent* *while page is loading, I think of the right word in French/English, now I just have the dictionary page open for no reason*

“La main” or “le main”? I’ve used the word for “hand” about 30 times a chapter, still second-guess myself on the gender of the noun. 

*writes romance interlude* *interlude is longer than my normal chapters* *interlude also contains important plot elements, so it’s basically just another chapter*

I actually have to set aside specific time for romantic interactions, bc sometimes I just forget...that that’s one of my main plot elements...Also (for example) bc of plot restraints, Veronica often can’t be a big part of the other chapters (yet), so she needs a little bit of designated Lynn Interaction Time. And since this is my first time writing a poly thing, that little bit of extra relaxed time will come in handy later.

While translating into English, I go to look up a phrase. After reading the dictionary definition, I don’t like it. Then I somehow remember the exact phrase that I had wanted to say while writing it originally in French. 

Translation is great bc I know EXACTLY what the author was trying to convey, because I AM the author. 

Finds errors in my French version while translating it into English.

WHY aren’t there as many descriptive words for saying things different ways in French? Ughhhhhh there’s basically no difference between scream/yell/shout/say loudly/squeal/squeak, they’re all just “crier/hurler”

WHY do I have all these weird sentences that are just “she stood up.” Why did I feel like I needed to write these in French? 

stuff that sounds better in French

stuff that sounds better in English

stuff that doesn’t sound good in either

I have to translate right at the end, bc otherwise I’ll change/add things in my French draft that I then have to go change/add in my English one and it’s a huge pain

PRONOUNS. Example: Technically Dmitri should use the feminine “elle” because the word for plant is feminine, but he of course uses “il” which I’m not sure exactly conveys that Arcade is saying “he” not “it”???? Also Arcade uses “tu” with Dmitri, fyi.

Also PRONOUNS between all these women are killing me.

Speaking of Dmitri, I have no idea why I picked that name. I think I looked up French nature-related names, and something similar to that came up? I just really like the name. 

I either write a whole paragraph without looking up a single word, or I have to look up every word in a single sentence. The former results in fast writing of quick-action scenes that I go back and edit, the latter makes for some lovely poetic descriptions. 

Lynn is always hesitating for some reason. She’s also making lots of eye contact too. Julie is always smiling. Christine is always showing lots of nonverbal affection. Arcade always has something in his hands. 

Speaking of Christine, I did toy with the idea of making her unable to speak, but ultimately forgot about it and dropped the idea within 0.5 seconds of writing Christine dialogue. I don’t regret it one bit. 

The king was supposed to be House?? And now he’s not, but he still kind of is?? Oh well I don’t care about him anymore...

I had the first story arc mapped out pretty detailed, this second one is going to be about 95% done on the fly, I pretty much just know what’s going to happen at the end. It’s going to be very character driven. There’s going to be an overarching plot with Star-Trek-style episodes thrown in.

I can’t decide what the ship’s hierarchy is?? Definitely (in order): the king, Lynn, Julie, and then I think Christine and Boone, then Fantastic and Reyes, then other minor officers? 

Somehow tropes from Silver Stars (Greek Mythology AU) are trying to creep into this story. One Big One is coming in Chapter 9 that I kept bc it still feels right, but I realized halfway through that this particular story element is kind of familiar. There’s also a lot of mentions of stars and the night sky that I don’t know why I’m still using in this fic, but it does still paint a very lovely picture. 

I’m definitely describing a lot more in french, but also describing things less in some ways. Sometimes I go to translate certain parts, and I’m shocked by how little time I spent describing scenery. But other times, I realize that I’ve gone into detail about the diplomatic structure of peace treaties in my AU. 

Uhhhhh a lot of times I write fic on my phone, and I just can’t do that with this, because I always need at least one dictionary tab open, and usually another couple tabs with music or research. However, it’s easier for me to edit my French drafts on my phone because I have a french keyboard option, which I can’t get a handle on on my desktop. 

I try to listen to French music when I write in French, but anything’s fair game when I’m translating. I always come up with ideas when I’m in my car listening to either Bob Dylan songs or Woodie Guthrie protest/pro-union anthems. 

I can’t believe I’ve written so much, and I’m still probably just under halfway through (if even). Also, I can’t believe that I’ve actually have consistent updates of decent lengths, every single week! This fic has been so much fun to write and translate, and has definitely been the slowest burn romance I’ve ever written!

I hope that everyone reading has enjoyed reading as much as I’ve enjoyed writing!