#official correspondance... sorta

[shoshiwrites]

my dear, I'd like to submit a Touches prompt: "#35 grabbing the other's hand to pull them back to them" for anyone who tickles your fancy. just need that sorta passion in my life 🥹

I just want to apologize for the fact that this actually is not entirely the prompt, but was 100% inspired by it — I owe you one ❤️ Bucky Egan/War correspondent OC, also on Ao3! Set a little bit after this prompt. Featuring Jo with some new mail and Bucky having some thoughts and feelings about that.

The Clarion starts running her picture with the new pieces. 

She doesn’t hate it, but at the same time it doesn’t quite look like her, the posed portrait she’d sat for in London with her hair pinned back her uniform pressed. She’s more herself in the photos Kay takes, under the cloudy English skies. But she can’t argue with it either — a uniform means something official, and isn’t that what they’re working for? To be taken seriously, to get what the boys are given without having to fight tooth and nail for it, without jokes about lipstick or hair products or a million other things on top of it.

The problem with the picture now, though, is that everyone knows who she is. Not a celebrity, that idea is laughable, but named. Josephine R. Brandt, The Clarion’s Woman in England. 

They’re like name-tags too, the adjectives used to describe her and her fellow reporters in bite-sized news items. Marian Brenner is always petite, and Kay is statuesque. Marjory Manning is titian-haired, which always gets a laugh considering Marjory makes no secret that it comes from a bottle. Jo is brunette, and pert. That word always makes Kay choke a little on her cigarette, peering at Jo and the dark circles under her eyes.

She’s spent the last few days amongst the women of the Clubmobile, sleeping in an extra bed dragged in and photographing, rather amateurly, their truck and living quarters. They were much more accommodating to her than they should have been, especially when Jo attempted to work the fryer in the name of journalistic exploration. Thankfully she was much better at cleaning, with no qualms about rolling up her sleeves. 

Her hair still smells like grease as she sits in an empty mess hall, picking at one of her nails and ignoring the stack of letters beside her. Her photographs wouldn’t quite capture what she’d tried to in her writing: the smell of perfume and the lingering fryer grease, hair tonic and newsprint and cold evening air, the blankets and bedrolls and towels hanging, tables with books and magazines and framed photographs, small pots of rouge, rosaries, hair combs and extra socks. A sprig of chicory sitting in a drinking glass, the blue flowers starting to wilt at the edges.

A name. A picture. What she hadn’t been thinking about — fanmail. 

It was ridiculous, the pile Kay had passed along to her in London and the one she was now patently ignoring next to her elbow. Next to a copy of the paper, a newer one with the picture.

She’d always gotten responses to her pieces back home, whether that meant someone arguing with her about a labor statistic she’d quoted or offering their own version of a recipe back when she’d been on the society pages. Now, overseas, with her name and her picture clear as day, it was like a switch had been flipped.

The only thing that she didn’t have to worry about was William.

The ring was sitting at the bottom of her trunk, buried under a sweater. Tatty had offered to run it over with the Clubmobile, but Jo got worried about the tires. Helen had suggested the fryer. A WAC with strawberry blonde hair voted for a storm drain. Biddick had plans that involved Corporal Lemmons and an unknown quantity of explosives. Douglass, inexplicably, had volunteered to make neat work of it on an upcoming mission. She had no idea how he’d even found out. 

Well, she isn’t wearing it anymore, right?

“Thought I’d find you in here.”

She looks up to see Egan making his way through the doors.

“Someone looking for me?”

He glances behind him and smiles, like it’s obvious. “Yeah, me.”

Maybe she knows better by now than to ask what he’s ignoring to be here. Milk run earlier this afternoon. Not flying tomorrow. 

Isn’t it time for beers and darts, right about now?

“Just answering some mail.” Actual mail, from home. Not the other stack. 

Maybe fanmail is a generous term, she thinks. Most of it is opinions, loud, of where she should or shouldn’t be. Home. Doing war work instead if she had to do something. Some less savory suggestions. Being quiet. 

“You’re a popular correspondent,” he says, sitting down across from her. 

She snorts. 

“I’m just seeing that there’s lot of letters here.”

“Astute observation, Major.” But she’s smiling. 

“Friends back home?”

“Yeah. The rest is-” she gestures, almost sighing out the answer in a sudden yawn, the light outside the soft gold of early evening. “I don’t know. People have a lot to say.”

“They do, do they?”

“Sometimes I forget that I’m not just a disembodied voice, is all.”

He looks a little puzzled, but still amused. She throws the paper in front of him, and his eyes catch the column. He whistles. “Front page, huh.”

“They haven’t used a picture before.” She nods back at the stack of letters.

“Oh.” She can’t tell if he’s about to make a joke or not.

“Might just toss them,” she says. They’d be good for the paper pulp if nothing else.

He grabs one off the top, his expression clouding over as he reads.

“They write this kinda stuff to you?” he says after a minute. One of the ones that had ideas about where she should be, namely the writer’s bed. He tosses it down on the table.

She thinks of London, and Norwich, and Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia. “They say it, too.”

He exhales, the sour expression still on his face. Like a lemon. “Sure.”

“You didn’t get to the marriage proposals yet.”

“The what?”

“They’re in there, I promise. They’re nicer.” He laughs a little, just this side of bitter. She tries to look offended, tries to lighten the mood. “Maybe I ought to be insulted.”

“No, no, I just-”

“Just what?”

He’s tapping his foot a little, she can feel it under the table. Fidgeting.

“I just feel lucky, is all.” The question of it is clear on her face. Lucky, sure, to go through hell every day and make it back here, to the ground and the summer-faded English fields. “That you’re not just a picture to me.”

Oh.

Something feels caught in her throat; it takes what feels like too many seconds. “You’re awfully sweet.”

“I mean it.” She wishes she had a little crabapple to pick at, something to do with her hands. “Don’t think a picture could’ve kissed that good either-”

She tries to whack the back of her hand against his arm, but he pulls away — hey, too quick — before he leans forward again, pulls her face to his. 

“Not here-” she says, a little too belatedly. He’s grinning, all wolfish. His hands are warm. 

“Will you go dancing with me, then?” 

A place where they can do this, she assumes, out of sight, or amongst a crowd. She says it because it feels like something she should say. “There’s something planned here for the weekend, right?”

He makes a gentle scoffing sound. “Nah, I don’t-”

“What?”

“I mean, sure, but. You know. Just be prepared for me to keep stealing you away, ok?”

“And how will that look?”Her stomach swoops, out of something like nervousness, the feel of him close to her again. 

He looks, maybe, the most boyish she’s seen him. “Like I don’t like sharing.”

Like she makes that space for anyone else. That exception. “You can reserve a spot or two on your dance card for me,” she says, diplomacy betrayed by the half-waver of her voice. 

He assents, not entirely satisfied, but doesn’t try for another kiss. Not here, at least. She feels a chill go through her then, when he pulls away from her, lets go. 

[mxescargot]

OC masterlist

misc/multiple universes

garv (fishboy)

prima (tropey good guy)

vindicta (tropey bad guy)

ursa (dark magic bounty hunter)

ari (light magic bounty hunter)

urban fantasy/superhero

premise: a timeline that diverges several years before ours where a significant minority of the population across the world contracted strange illnesses that led to various magical powers; focuses on the Eastern United States (aka what im familiar with). themes of disabled justice and solidarity.

micheal (he/they): friendly college kid who always puts others before himself, teleportation powers

jem (any pronouns): an old self-insert, shapeshifting powers

ayaan (he/they): kid with unique powers that mess with the fabric of reality, of particular interest to the villain

emilia (she/her): sociologist studying how superpowered people interact with a society built for non-superpowered people, recently gained fire/energy/plasma powers of her own in an accident

saiorse (any pronouns): software developer and emilia's spouse. he does not have superpowers

alison (he/him): evil CEO (maybe also politician?) looking to take advantage of superpowered people for his own gain. especially young, powerful superpowered people. i do not know how to write villains tbh

eren (she/her): micheal's classmate.

haru (they/she/it): your average edgy 14 year old.

high fantasy: the world of An

premise: weird mix of some of the history i'm interested in, with a technological level of around the 1840s to 1860s? focuses on a governmental transition from absolute monarchy to parliamentary democracy and the greater inclusion of ethnic minorities in the political system and society as a whole. the people are sorta kemonomimi-hobbits with mammalian and insectoid features. also has eldritch shit going on in its magic system.

these are some of my oldest characters and have changed a lot, their original concept was a "five elements" thing and that still shows through.

the names are based on my conlang :> i didnt try to make the romanizations look pretty, just functional, so uhh ⟨v⟩ is a schwa and most letters correspond with IPA values but idk if thats accessible. here ill replace j with y and v with whatever letter looks best, you can see the mess of the "official" spellings in the tags. they dont exactly have a gender system like ours so pronouns are what i imagine they'd use if raised in our culture and language yk

baa'oni (they/she): activist reviving the long-suppressed/erased (idk what the right word is) life-related magic practices of their ancestors. name translates to "sundew"

lausa (she/her): noble who uses her position of power to help incite change, eventually becomes prime minister. romantically involved with baa’oni, causing suspicion and controversy. name translates to "shadower"

laanya (they/them): self insert. former water magic student reconnecting to it after trauma, also tries to get involved in activism. name translates to "river delta"

treyii (they/she/he): young and uncertain, pressure is put on him to achieve great things and they don't know where to belong. name translates to "sparks"

unnamed character referred to as "wind guy" (they/he): a vengeful prince with command over the weather.

star wars

premise: focuses on jedi fighting in the clone wars. i mostly made these characters in quarantine lol

aiya (they/xe): twi'lek anakin skywalker on a budget. padawan during the clone wars, becomes an inquisitor.

rakiss (she/they): mirialan; Aiya's fellow padawan and very close to xem. killed in O66

haalas (he/him): togruta; aiya's strict master, very loyal to the light side of the force itself and scared of losing another padawan to the dark side. survives O66, but is eventually killed by aiya, who blames him for rakiss's death.

malice (they/she/it): dathomiran zabrak who was the first padawan of haalas. left the order and turned to the dark side, but isn't with the Sith.

ekiv (she/her): rakiss's master, also a mirialan, and longtime friend of haalas. mom friend, but only because she's a people pleaser with massive gifted kid burnout. survives O66; assumes a new identity and learns how to heal.

hizta (any pronouns): tusken ex-bounty hunter who now runs a droid repair shop on coruscant. acquainted with aiya before and during the Clone Wars, aids the Rebellion.

penelope (she/they): human; old colleague of Hizta's. generally fairly cold and professional until you get to know them; actually very affectionate.

i also have some underdeveloped clone trooper OCs

hollow knight

cornu (they/them): HKsona. void-corrupted snail shaman capable of harnessing both soul and void magic.

unnamed fairyfly OC

[deeisace]

Hm. Holmes-ish dream

Firstly, in like 221b, and I/Holmes was entertaining these two ladies - I don't mean in any sort of sense than hospitality-wise, but it was nighttime with candles instead of gaslights - they had information of a sort that I/Holmes needed to get about one case or another

I can't remember the name that Holmes had given himself, but Watson was "Mr David", cs Holmes called through to him to be quiet cs there's guests (he was washing his hands and going back to bed, I think, it was late at night, and I remember him thinking alright, what's all the fuss about, I'm going now anyway)

The scene changed slightly - a different night, different informants, Mr David in the room this time

These informants actually looked like rats themselves, they had long faces as if they were taken from illustrations/cartoon, and they were servants to a somehow-terrible man

I don't remember all the details, and my dreams I'm often sort of floating like a camera instead of embodying a character, which can make it easier or harder to tell what's going on

I think, the man was American, or relative to Americans, and he was trustee for this very rich American school-boy - or, university-age? He had things with the name of his school about his room, the colour was sorta burgundy and I remember thinking there's a letter missing from that name, that begins with H - not quite connecting that it's because this is a dream, but thinking "how strange, I must remember" - that, and there was an anachronistic little can of energy drink on his desk, also branded for the school

Anyway, the plan was to kill this boy and take his money, the rat-people were telling me/Holmes

And then, scene change, in a lift - the boy, I think, and his friend (me, who has little idea what's going on, along for the ride), and the bank official/lift operator man

This system is like shadowy as hell, and in it you appear to just quote a colour and be taken to the corresponding box, and the lift guy knows everyone who's allowed to go to each box, so it's all kept hush-hush an all

The boy quotes "black", and the lift moves, and I/the character of this friend thinks huh how strange he can just say a colour and the man knows where to go, I wonder what happens if I do that, and I say "red, as well" - the lift man grins, amused, and says "today we'll be seeing black, sir"

Scene change again, and now I'm me, in my room, reading the paper - the articles are strange, and don't make much sense, and I have the feeling I read the above as a serial, instead of experienced it, but now I can't find the page it's on

And I get to the puzzles page. All very strange. The page is faded, like it hasn't printed correctly, and the quick crossword is replaced with a mass of white fabric, and the rest of the page, overtop of the faded puzzles, is an interview with an artist, who says that everyone should "be given"/eat a spoonful of themselves - I remember not even being slightly confused by any of this, apart from how the puzzles aren't there - printed light enough to see that something's there, but not to read it - even, the page next to the puzzles were I holding the paper flat, had a tiny victorian streetlamp sticking up from it, and that was not even worthy of anything more than a distracted "oh how strange"

I woke up just as I was taking a photo of the page/s on my phone - specifically so that @scorndotexe could see, I think, but for @calamitys-child too, because I thought the article would be of interest

I'm not sure that I have any more cannibalism mutuals, but it was you two that I was thinking of in the dream

[doubletamponne]

Au Ministre de la Guerre

Naples, 1er janvier 1807

Monseigneur,

Après une campagne pénible dans la Calabre, je me trouve à Naples sans rien faire, parce qu’il n’y a rien à y faire. Cette oisiveté, jointe à la mollesse du climat, détruit ma santé. Je suis malade, Monseigneur, et je ne puis me rétablir à moins que Votre Excellence ne daigne me tirer d’ici. Les médecins tous d’une voix assurent qu’il faut pour me guérir un air moins tiède que celui-ci et une vie plus active. Je vous supplie donc, Monseigneur, si cela peut s’accorder avec le bien du service, de me faire passer à la Grande armée.

Salut et respect

Courier Chef d’escadron au 1er régiment d’artillerie à cheval

Naples, January 1st 1807

Monseigneur,

After a painful campaign in Calabria, I find myself in Naples doing nothing, because there is nothing to do. This idleness, along with the languid climate, is destroying my health. I am sick, Monseigneur, and I cannot recover unless Your Excellency deigns to pull me out of here. Doctors are unanimous in saying that my healing requires a less lukewarm air and a more active lifestyle. I beg you, Monseigneur, if this is compatible with the army’s interests, to reassign me to the Grande Armée.

Greetings and respect

Courier Chef d’escadron in the 1st Horse Artillery regiment

[gdwessel]

Rumors About Ospreay + Unrest In The NJPW Locker Room; Government Adds Okinawa to State Of Emergency, Another Extension Possible; Quick Review of DSOTR Collision In Korea; Shota Umino News!; Ren Narita on Dark Elevation; Satoshi Kojima In Impact Next Week

Strap in because this is going to be a long one.

There are rumors and reports coming out now (mostly from one source, the Voices of Wrestling website, from behind a Patreon paywall) that Will Ospreay's injury may not be what it seems, and there is growing discontent to the point of "mutiny" among the non-Japanese wrestlers regarding the state of emergency, the last-minute decision to resume touring when some were already travelling out of Japan, and the constant need for quarantining when coming back into Japan. Unfortunately this is as much as I can say, because this is behind a paywall, so until it gets made for public consumption I’m kinda limited in what I can say.

I can totally buy that all is not well within NJPW, especially after the COVID-19 bubble has burst. I've already discussed the creative malaise happening in the company right now. That there seems to be backstage dissent shows possible signs of trouble ahead for the promotion, and this golden period that we've been accustomed to is well and truly over. (I mean, it already was once lockdown happened, but they did the best they could, in my honest opinion, including a Pretty Good if not great WK15. Right now, creatively, we are below 2nd-half 2018 levels of poor.) But NJPW has weathered these storms before, although not with a global pandemic looming over everything. I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that Ospreay is indeed injured, because a) they haven't exactly been shy about wrestlers being injured and needing to vacate titles before b) if Ospreay is legit injured, he is far more likely to receive treatment as a citizen of the UK from the (somehow still alive if not totally hobbled by Brexit) NHS, as opposed to Japan's healthcare system which is far more like the US model. Some wrestlers are swearing up and down he is injured, from the rumors. Ospreay certainly hasn’t said anything in his own words, beyond RTing NJPW’s announcement of his injury and vacating the title, and posting a pic of himself kissing the belt. RevPro kinda sorta said something but were also pretty vague. But for an injury suffered on 5/4/2021, this pic posted on 5/18 does not look like someone who just had such a severe neck injury they need to fly back to the UK (mind you, it COULD have been taken much earlier than that). Indeed, Ospreay’s still-active Twitter is more focused on Hana Kimura at the moment*. All this said, professional wrestling by it’s very nature has a baked-in amount of bullshit as part of it, so that this injury might be phony is always a distinct possibility.

It is utterly believable there is conflict between wrestlers and management, and communication is piss-poor at best. It is also believable that NJPW and Bushiroad are only taking their cues from a government Hell-bent on holding an Olympics an overwhelming majority of those polled are against, and who are treating the extended state of emergency as a vague suggestion rather than as a, you know, state of emergency. Pretending everything is hunky dory hasn't worked so far, so not sure why NJPW, nor the Japanese government, think eventually it will. (And NOAH is on my shit list right now too.) On that note, the government has now officially added Okinawa to the state of emergency. There is also talk that it will be extended further, as a government subcommittee member is quoted in the article as saying “it is difficult to think” that it will be lifted on 5/31/2021. Among that talk is word that Tokyo particularly will be under a stricter lockdown if this goes on. On a piece of actual GOOD news, it has been announced that the government has approved both the Moderna and AstraZeneca versions of the vaccine, so perhaps the vaccination rates will start to go up at last.

* - The anniversary of Hana Kimura’s tragic death is tomorrow (5/23/2021). I still sometimes struggle with the idea she is gone. Tonight at 10:30pm EDT (which is 5/23/2021 12:30pm in JST), FITE TV will be showing a live Hana Kimura tribute show put on by her mother, Kiyoko Kimura. Have a look in if you can

I was able to watch the Vice Dark Side Of The Ring episode on Collision in Korea, the two-night joint NJPW & WCW show from May Day Stadium in Pyongyang, North Korea, on 4/28 & 4/29/1995, as it aired Thursday. It will hit YouTube here pretty soon. I am working on a podcast project about this documentary, and the (WCW version of the**) show itself, with the good lads at the Days Of Thunder podcast, so I won't talk too much here, but I will say a few things about it:

I did appreciate the detail here, as well as being able to get an interview with Antonio Inoki for this, especially as he was the principal driver of this show happening. I did also like that they took time to detail Inoki's mentor, and the "father of puroresu," Rikidozan, who himself was a North Korean national by birth. I did not appreciate the mythical pathos they added to the death of Rikidozan, which by all accounts was a random street fight with yakuza over a perceived insult (stepping on Rikidozan's shoe). I also felt they could have done a better job explaining the situation between Japan and North Korea at the time. When the event was first proposed to the NJPW roster, Scott Norton recounts Masahiro Chono telling Norton that "they want us dead," but it took until introducing former CNN foreign correspondent Mike Chinoy nearly halfway through the documentary to (briefly) explain the brutal colonialism that Japan wreaked on North Korea in the first part of the 20th century.

Also, as salacious as DSOTR can get, I am very surprised one of the most famous rumors/stories about this show did not get discussed, the internet wrestling legend that Kensuke Sasaki and Akira Hokuto were, erm, Quite Vocal when they were together, which of course did eventually lead to their marriage four months later which continues to this very day. But that was also part of another critique I had, which is, they mainly focused on the WCW part of the events, when this was an NJPW promoted show. The way it was told on DSOTR, the only Japanese wrestlers there were Antonio Inoki, Shinya Hashimoto, Akira Hokuto and Bull Nakano. I'd love to hear more from the NJPW side of things, besides how proud Inoki was of this political stunt that did not get him re-elected to the Diet anyway.

Overall, I do recommend watching this when and how you can, because it is absolutely bonkers. I will definitely keep you posted on when the podcast project for this drops. ** - I've tried looking for the NJPW version and have failed so far. NJPWWorld only has two matches from this, Antonio Inoki v. Ric Flair, and Akira Hokuto v. Bull Nakano. The WCW version is not officially released, even on WWE Network, so yeah search the internet to see it.

We finally have an update on Shooter! That is, Shota Umino. Earlier in the week, RevPro's official Twitter had a tweet saying This Summer, showing Umino in not only his white/pink Tanahashi-esque tights, but holding his Death Riders jacket from Jon Moxley, that Shota retweeted, making this his first tweet since September 2019. Two days later, a hype video appeared with footage of Shooter, including performing Death Rider. Now a Sports Illustrated article is claiming that Shooter was supposed to have reunited with Mox on the NJPW Strong episode that had Mox & Chris Dickinson face Yuji Nagata & Ren Narita, but Umino had an unspecified injury preventing that. (They further say that Mox v. Nagata’s IWGP US title match was originally set for Strong but Tony Khan convinced NJPW to hold it on AEW Dynamite.) Umino's last match listed on Cagematch was on 3/14/2020 in ATTACK! Wrestling in Cardiff, Wales, on the winning side of a 6-man tag match with Kyle Fletcher & Kid Lykos II defeating Shigehiro Irie, Chief Deupty Dunne & Los Federales Santos, Jr. It's great to have him back wrestling again, and I hope we get that reunion with Moxley soon enough too.

As an update to an item from an earlier post, it appears that the Ren Narita v. Royce Isaacs match that was teased but then not aired on AEW Dark this past Tuesday will actually be on AEW Dark: Elevation this coming Monday instead. Also part of that will be approximately 35 other matches (I only slightly kid), one of those being Rocky Romero v. JD Drake. This usually drops on YouTube at 7pm EDT / 6pm CDT Mondays.

This past Thursday on Impact, a video package showed that Satoshi Kojima would be appearing on next week's episode. This will be Kojima's first time ever wrestling in Impact under any name, as the last time NJPW and TNA were working together, Kojima was still away in All Japan Pro Wrestling. No word as to what he will be doing or whom he will be wrestling.

Also on Impact, Juice Robinson & David Finlay Jr. successfully defended the Impact World Tag Team titles against Ace Austin & Madman Fulton... before getting blindsided by two members of the Violent By Design unit (in this case, ECW veteran Rhino and former AJPW Triple Crown champion + cancer beater Joe Doering) with whatever Impact's version of a Anytime Anywhere Challenge is, and took the belts from FinJuice. They claimed FinJuice were going back to Japan, but, erm, who knows if that's the case or if it was for a time period when Wrestle Grand Slam was still a thing that was happening.

Also also, it seems Don Callis is no longer in any executive capacity at Impact. This is a little significant as it seems it was Callis who opened the negotiations back up for Impact to work with NJPW. Of course, lately he's spent more time as an on-screen heel manager for Kenny Omega, the Good Brothers and now the Young Bucks on both AEW and Impact programming. We'll see how much longer Kenny Omega's belt collector shtick goes on for with Callis no longer part of creative or management.

And that is actually it for now! Yipes!

[squidproquoclarice]

All the questions for the relationship meme :^)

All the questions for Sadithur (as discussed!), done.  This one’s going largely under a cut because it’s long!  Numerous other people requested a single answer, but since I got this one, please go ahead and refer to this for it.

PRE-RELATIONSHIP

How did they first meet?

He came to rob her house for survival supplies, and instead ended up rescuing her from being held prisoner by the men who’d murdered her husband.  Not exactly a meet cute.

What was their first impression of each other?

Uhhhh, well.  Arthur’s first impression of Sadie was “poor shocked woman who’s had her house broken into, her husband murdered, and been attacked herself by O’Driscolls for the last three days”.  And Sadie’s first impression of Arthur is probably “large strange man who was in my house, shot the bastards who broke in, and is clearly a violent man himself, even if he saved me, and I’m not inclined to trust pretty much any man right now, let alone one with a gun.”  Not the most promising beginning.

Did any of their friends or family want them to get together?

Hosea definitely hoped for them to become a couple at some point if they survived what was to come, even though he knew at that time neither of them was in a good place for it.  Hosea’s very much the cheerleader for his kids being happy, to judge from his trying to get Abigail and John to reconcile, and given I’m sure he knows about Eliza and Isaac, he knows how lonely and traumatized Arthur is, and also sees the remarkable rapport and ease of manner he develops with Sadie.  I also think Abigail, who loves both Arthur and Sadie deeply, kind of hoped for it also.  She knows how lonely they both are, and sees how they are around each other, and we know she’s definitely a bit of a romantic and a believer in the power of love.  I suspect Tilly might have leaned in that direction too, because Tilly’s perceptive AF, and Arthur’s Big Bro. Who felt romantic feelings first?

Arthur.  Understandably so, as his grief for Isaac and Eliza is further in the past than Sadie’s for Jake.  It was still only a matter of a couple of months difference, though. Did either of them try to resist their feelings?

Not so much resisted as restrained.  They readily accepted they felt that way, and that the person they felt romantic feelings towards was more than worthy of it.  They were just questioning whether it was right and fair to put those feelings on the other person.  Both of them had concerns--Arthur felt like he had nothing to offer Sadie and had no right to impose on her like that with his feelings, and Sadie had concerns that Arthur would just be bulldozed into a relationship from just being happy to be wanted, and she was unwilling to hurt him like that.

If you had told one of them that the other would be their soulmate, what would they think? Almost immediately the two of them click in a profound way and they’re very close and comfortable with each other.  The trust and affection and deep friendship is already there, so I don’t think they’d be shocked to hear they’d be so important to each other.  But they would likely have both been very surprised at the idea of also being together romantically and sexually at some point.  Not as a reflection of the other person being unsuitable, but because after so much trauma and self-loathing and loss, neither of them could imagine having that in their lives.

GENERAL

Who initiated the relationship, and how did it go?

Neither of them really made a move.  It just sorta happened as a slow change over a couple of years from friends to a cohabiting queerplatonic couple to spouses.  

Did they have an official first date? If so, what was it like?

In a sense, their first date was that shopping-and-gunfighting trip to Rhodes, which was pretty memorable, and shows off their immediate easy chemistry and battle couple potential.  But in terms of a genuine romantically intended “first date”, not really.  They were essentially a QPR by the time they admitted to now having romantic/sexual feelings as well, so things were intense and committed enough already that they didn’t need a date.  They just moved right towards getting married.

What was their first kiss like?

They both had resolved to admit their feelings to each other after the wedding of two of their friends.  Then they got a little tipsy at the wedding, ended up saying a bit too much, and Sadie took the initiative and kissed Arthur.  Given he kissed back very enthusiastically, she could be pretty sure he wasn’t just playing along with her.  But they realized they needed to talk, so they tabled it until the next day when they were sober again and could talk about it.

Were they each other’s first anything (kiss, relationship, etc.)?

For Sadie, no.  She’d been married very happily to Jake.  For Arthur, this was the first relationship with solid grounding and a solid future rather than youthful fantasy like Mary, and he’s surprised at how easy it is to be with Sadie, including being vulnerable, because of that trust.  It’s also the first time he’s had sex and actually really been comfortable and enjoyed it rather than just being left feeling awkward and even more alone, given he comes across very strongly as some type of asexual (I write him specifically as demisexual) and didn’t have opportunities for the emotional intimacy he needs to be interested in sex.  Both of them actually had their first kiss in a same-sex romance, though Sadie wasn’t able to acknowledge hers as romantic until much later.

What’s their height difference? Age difference?

Given Roger and Alex’s heights, and their corresponding relative heights in-game looking accurate to that height differential, I put Arthur at 6’ish and Sadie at 5’4”ish, so there’s an 8 inch height difference.  As for age, it’s canonical that Arthur was born in 1863.  I have him as a July birthdate, so he’s 35 for the early bits of the game, and 36 for most of it.  Sadie appears to be 30ish (she’s definitely no 24-year-old), and I write her as having been born in April of 1868.  So she’s 31 for all of RDR2.   That puts their age difference as a smidge under 5 years. 

What’s their relationship with each other’s families?

Both of them have lost their biological parents by 1899.  Arthur’s only bio sibling (David) died even before Arthur even knew him.  Sadie lost an older brother (Henry), and she’s become estranged from her younger sister Caroline, though they patch that up.  Arthur has yet to meet Caro, though, as she’s been living in Oregon.  So the only real family in question was the gang, and clearly Sadie was not only accepted by them, she actually stepped up and led them.

Who takes the lead in social situations?

Sadie tends to, and Arthur readily relies upon and defers to her experience there.  He’ll be the first to admit his life didn’t exactly teach him the boundaries and everyday pleasantries of Victorian social order, and sometimes that’s to the good.  Sadie’s not exactly a paragon of it herself as a hardscrabble farm girl who doesn’t defer to misogyny, but she’s aware of some of those rules, boundaries, and undercurrents in a way Arthur isn’t.  So he’s not too proud to let her take the lead in a social situation, or to ask her advice in dealing with something without giving offense.

Who gets jealous easier?

Arthur would have, early on.  He was far more insecure in himself (and as Sadie admits, he’ll always be a little more fragile than her in that realm), but he was probably more likely to morosely turn doubts on himself as a perceived inadequacy and personal failure rather than to get jealous of Sadie.  Being romantically or sexually jealous really kind of requires insecurity and lack of trust, and they’ve moved far beyond that.

LOVE

Who said “I love you” first?

I had to double check.  Arthur said it first when he proposed to her, but Sadie immediately followed it.

What are their primary love languages?

For both, I think Quality Time/Acts of Service.  Showing love for both of them is in spending time together doing things, doing little things for each other, and basking in that friendship that’s the solid foundation of everything between them.  There’s a bit of Physical Touch in there also due to both of them being somewhat touch-starved.  I do think Arthur has some Words of Affirmation in there as well, because sometimes he truly needs to hear praise and affection deliberately and unequivocally stated to be able to believe it’s real, and Sadie’s come to realize that and respond to it.

How often do they cuddle/engage in PDA?

They’re not really an overt PDA couple.  What they have they consider generally very intense but private.  They do like to cuddle in private, and small touches here and there are common enough. 

What are their favorite things to do together?

Just spend time together, to be honest.  It could be reading together (silently or one of them aloud), playing music together, doing chores, cooking, spending time with the kids, training horses, lying in bed talking, or anything.  They just genuinely enjoy each other’s company.  

Who’s better at comforting the other?

It’s a learned skill for both of them since neither was great at articulating feelings, but the months at Las Hermanas when they were both healing psychologically while Arthur was healing physically did a lot. They’re both fairly good at nonverbal comfort, and reaffirming each other. 

Who’s more protective?

Pick a day.  It can vary.  ;)  I think we see in-game they’re both fiercely protective of each other.  I do think Arthur has the knack of being protective of her in a non-patronizing, non-paternalistic way, which Sadie appreciates.  It’s still been hard for her to accept that needing and taking help isn’t admitting she’s weak.  Arthur kind of had to get over that notion during his TB convalescence because he constantly needed help for things.

Do they prefer verbal or physical affection?

A mix of both.  Usually not big overt dramatic demonstrations, since that’s not their dynamic, but quick little affectionate touches (on the arm, the cheek, etc.), using fond nicknames and pet names, and things like that. 

What are some songs that apply to their relationship, in-universe or otherwise?

I’ll keep working on this and probably post some of my Sadithur playlist at some point.

What kind of nicknames do they call each other?

“Art” and “Daisy” are their private affectionate nicknames, given Sadie jokingly calling him “artsy Art” as he’s an artist, and Arthur admitting he couldn’t come up with a fitting nickname from “Sadie” and just rearranging the sounds a bit.  After Sadie used it in-game, “honey” is probably the most common pet name they use.

DOMESTIC LIFE

If they get married, who proposes?

Arthur did.  That’s not because Sadie is a traditionalist by any means.  But I do think there’s the part of her that likes to know she’s not steamrollering someone, and that they got to take their own initiative.  Then especially in Arthur’s case, I think he needed to ask.  She needed to be sure that Arthur wanted to be with her, rather than it being a case of her wanting him and him going along with it from being happy to be wanted by her.  I also think he needed it too to prove to himself he could be confident enough in what he had to offer Sadie to ask, and to stand equal to her. 

What’s the wedding like? Who attends?

They had a very small wedding at their home in Chuparosa, for several reasons. One is because they’re just not the type for huge demonstrative parties for their own sake, even if they enjoy them when they’re celebrations for someone else.  Neither of them really likes being a massive center of attention.  Two, they were fairly alone.  They’d made some friends in Mexico, but aside from Charles (who they knew went to Canada), everyone else from the gang was a mystery to them.  Three, they kept it small and quiet also since they’d sorta accidentally ended up playing fake married since Arthur’s admission to Las Hermanas in order to stick together.  So everyone already assumed they were a married couple, and they didn’t want it to become a big obvious thing.  Sister Calderon was the officiant (since it was a secular wedding of two avowed non-Catholics), and their friends Pedro and Juanita Estevez from Las Hermanas were the witnesses.  Dr. Felipe Garcia, Arthur’s doctor who’d also become a friend, also attended, as did Albert Mason, who they’d found in Escalera a few weeks before on yet another wildlife photography expedition. 

How many kids do they have, if any? What are they like?

Mild Sunrise spoiler ahoy, but as of 1908 they’ll have four: Beatrice (born 1902), Matthew (born 1903), Susanna (born 1905, adopted by them in 1907) and Andrew (born in 1908).  I also see them as likely taking in some older kids later once Susie and Andy are a bit older, because Arthur in particular would be passionate about the need to try to give a couple of orphaned and/or homeless teens and near-teens a home.  He knows the kind of people who take you in, or if it doesn’t happen at all, can make a huge difference.  As for personality, Bea’s very much a fierce no-nonsense sort but very protective of the younger kids, Mattie’s a sweet boy who’s going to become a gentle giant, and as for Susie and Andy, I’ll wait to see what they tell me.  Andy’s not born yet, and Susie’s both very young and dealing with the trauma of losing her family to Micah’s gang, so she’s understandably not showing much of her true personality just now. 

Do they have any pets?

Aside from a lot of horses?  They ended up with a black cat (Dido) at the very end of 1899, adopted during the first weeks of Arthur’s convalescence at Las Hermanas and helping keep him company during all that bed rest.  Then they picked up a stray dog (Dusty) in Armadillo in 1901 during fighting the cholera epidemic--this is the Armadillo “Mutt” in-game.  The most recent addition is a border collie puppy (Dorothy), who they’ve adopted from MacFarlane’s Ranch in 1907, given Charlie the border collie being there in RDR1.  

Who’s the stricter parent?

This ended up being something of a big fight, actually, and probably the first huge blow-out in their marriage.  Sadie felt like she was the only one providing discipline and accountability as Bea got old enough to start to need it.  Arthur understandably was feeling his way through parenting since mostly what he has is negative examples from Lyle (physical abuse) and Dutch (profound psychological abuse).  Even Hosea’s parenting was sort of indirect and elusive sometimes.  So he was being very hands-off on discipline out of a need to make certain the kids knew they were loved, and to not worry that he was hurting them.  But he couldn’t do that and leave Sadie all the heavy lifting while he gets to be identified as the “nice” parent and the joybringer, and the two of them came to realize that.  I’d say they’re about even now.   

Who kills the bugs in the house?

Both of them.  Neither is squeamish by any means.

How do they celebrate holidays?

Usually fairly quietly at home with family, but with remembrances of things dear to them.  Songs and music, decorations, favorite foods, little family rituals.  They like to keep that kind of thing alive where they can.

Who’s more likely to convince the other to come back to sleep in the morning?

Sadie.  She knows how hard farming is, so she’s up and at it when there’s work to be done.  But she never had Arthur’s long years of anxious need to stay busy no matter what so he was proving his usefulness.

Who’s the better cook?

They’re both pretty decent at it.  Sadie actually likes cooking, but she doesn’t like being expected to do it just because she’s a woman, so she’s rather protective of that notion.  Arthur came to it late, as kitchen duty was one of the first light jobs a TB patient at Las Hermanas could have after being allowed off total bed rest.  Given how bored he was by then, cooking became something really exciting, and he found out he actually enjoyed it, both the kind of soothing ritual of all those steps, and then producing something tangible by it. 

[ferie-anon]

Hi hun!! 💕 I’m curious.... some websites say I’m a Capricorn and others say I’m a Aquarius (born the 21st of January). I also noticed that in some websites my Venus (in Aquarius) is in the 2nd house and other times (on different websites) it’s in the 1st house. Why is that? 🤔 Is it because I was born on a cusp, and I’m a Capricorn-Aquarius? I can’t figure it out lol

Hmm this one is hard, as I don’t think I’m an expert at determining the reason why some houses may appear differently in some sites. My guess is that the degree of the house is very close to another house, so it could fall into that house as well. Idk if its becuz of a cusp, as I do notice sometimes my mercury appears in the 2nd house, even though most of the other time it appears in the 1st house, and yet I wasn’t born on a cusp (my bday is Oct 12 and I’m a libra sun). Next, I think for your sun capricorn-aquarius cusp, it depends on which zodiac you feel a connection with. Like ofc born on a cusp you are bound to feel both aquarius and cap traits, but its up to you to decide which one you feel correspond with you more. Based on zodiac birthdates, your Jan 21st falls in aquarius’ birthdate range (Jan 20-Feb 18) so I would say officially based on that you are an aquarius, but with your cusp you may still harbor characteristics from capricorn, but it just means you may not feel completely like the sun aquarius traits listed and that’s fine. I don’t think its bad you are born on a cusp personally, I think cusp ppl are balanced with characteristics from two signs, ex: my friend is a leo/virgo cusp yet officially he is a leo sun, but he is just not as showy or may not have all the typical leo traits, as with virgo traits he may be a little more toned down version of a leo sun, his leo sun may be dramatic and fun/may seem sociable yet with his virgo traits he may feel more grounded, value his privacy and have self control over stuff. That’s all I can tell u from wut I know and guess, but I hope this helps you sorta. 💖✨

[suethor]

Evens for Trixie pls <3

2. Do they have any titles? How did they get them?

She officially becomes Tommy’s accountant in season 2; she’s also later a Mrs.

4. What is their relationship with their parents? What’s a good and bad memory with them? Did they know both parents?

answered!

6. What were they like at school? Did they enjoy it? Did they finish? What level of higher education did they reach? What subjects did they enjoy? Which did they hate?

trixie didn’t actually get to go to school but she does end up going to university between seasons 2 and 3. she studies business and accounting but also takes advantage of the library to read about as many things as she can. i think she loved the experience intellectually but wasn’t treated with as much respect as she deserved

8. Did they have pets as a child? Do they have pets as an adult? Do they like animals?

none as a child, but trixie is gifted a cat by tommy that she names austen (after jane) and later her daughter adopts a cat (and names it Bug, rather inexplicably)

10. Do they like children? Do children like them? Do they have or want any children? What would they be like as a parent? Or as a godparent/babysitter/ect?

trixie likes kids but is terrified of being a mother because she didn’t have one growing up. she eventually grows to be happy about having them, but she often gets anxious about whether or not she’s doing a good job.

12. What is their favourite food?

bibimbap!

14. Do they have any specific memories of food/a restaurant/meal?

she has memories of cooking with her father and when she mentioned offhand that she loves apple tarts and tommy made sure they went to a restaurant that served it for her birthday :)

16. Do they collect anything? What do they do with it? Where do they keep it?

books! and trixie also hoards correspondences, she especially loves handwritten letters.

18. What’s their favourite genre of: books, music, tv shows, films, video games and anything else

well these will be modern au but:

books: mystery/thriller

music: i see her liking jazz and swing

tv shows: procedural dramas so she can guess the killer

films: mystery or action

video games: probably story based games

20. Do they like musicals? Music in general? What do they do when they’re favourite song comes?

trixie doesn’t ever go to a musical i don’t think but she definitely hates the opera because she finds it loud and boring. she enjoys music though, especially jazz and swing, and when her favorite song comes on she tends to hum along

22. What are their favourite insults to use? What do they insult people for? Or do they prefer to bitch behind someone’s back?

trixie is very direct with her anger. when she’s mad, she says so to the person’s face (unless she’s constrained by circumstances—such as being undercover with kimber or campbell). her favorite insult is probably just an exasperated glare, followed by a snappy “what the fuck is wrong with you?”

24. What is their sleeping pattern like? Do they snore? What do they like to sleep on? A soft or hard mattress?

she doesn’t have much of a mattress preference, and she doesn’t snore but she grinds her teeth and sleeps curled into a ball, under as many blankets as possible.

26. How do they act when they’re happy? Do they sing? Dance? Hum? Or do they hide their emotions?

trixie’s kinder when she’s happy

28. What is their biggest fear? What in general scares them? How do they act when they’re scared?

at the beginning, her fear was becoming someone she didn’t recognize; for most of the story though her biggest fear is being bored

30. Do they exercise? Regularly? Or only when forced? What do they act like pre-work out and post-work out?

not on purpose, but she’s quite fond of walking

32. What do they dress like? What sorta shops do they buy clothes from? Do they wear the fashion that they like? What do they wear to sleep? Do they wear makeup? What’s their hair like?

trixie’s style is pretty androgynous as the series progresses—she prefers shapeless dresses, big jackets, suits, and short hair. when she sleeps, she wears luca’s pajamas (at first) but later tommy’s pajamas or her own lingerie. i don’t want to mischaracterize her natural hair texture because i’m not confident enough in my knowledge of Black hair (especially the way it was styled in the 20s) but she styles it in fingerwaves. for makeup, trixie prefers dramatic looks! dark red lipstick, smokey eyes, and sharp eyebrows are some of her favorites.

34. What is their body type? How tall are they? Do they like their body?

trixie is quite tall compared to the other women in birmingham, coming in at around 5’7. she doesn’t think much about her body, but i think she wishes she were more physically imposing/masculine because people would respect her more, but otherwise she’s happy with it.

36. What are they good at? What hobbies do they like? Can they sing?

trixie cannot sing for shit, but she’s pretty good at card games once she gets the hang of them. other hobbies include reading, taking walks, and letter writing.

38. What do they admire in others? What talents do they wish they had?

she admires other people for their confidence and self-assuredness, and later for their abilities to lie. i think trixie wishes she knew what she was doing more often, because then she would at least know when something was going wrong.

40. Do they like energy drinks? Coffee? Sugary food? Or can they naturally stay awake and alert?

no energy drinks in the 20s except tokyo, but trixie does like coffee quite a bit

42. What are their goals? What would they sacrifice anything for? What is their secret ambition?

trixie’s goals shift but ultimately she wants power and respect, and she would sacrifice almost anything (morals included) to achieve it.

44. What is their favourite season? Type of weather? Are they good in the cold or the heat? What weather do they complain in the most?

spring or summer! the skies get blue and the world gets a little easier to live in—trixie hates the cold (unless it snows) and finds the perpetual gray skies depressing. she’s also cold all the time so she prefers the heat.

46. Do they make a good first impression? Does their first impression reflect them accurately? How do they introduce themselves?

trixie’s first impressions in season 1 are often frazzled, but she later on tends to introduce herself as a reserved, innocuous woman. this doesn’t reflect her well for the most part, as she grows to be quite cunning.

48. Do they enjoy any parties? If so what kind? Do they organise the party or just turn up? How do they act? What if they didn’t want to go but were dragged along by a friend?

trixie likes to go to parties but gets bored once everyone is drunk; she and tommy often find themselves sitting quietly in a corner together just talking as everyone else dances. if there was a party, she’d probably organize it just to have sometime to do the whole time, and if she was dragged by a friend she’d probably hang at the edge of the crowd

50. If they could only take one bag of stuff somewhere with them: what would they pack? What do they consider their essentials?

answered!

[aseriesofunfortunatejan]

(I don’t know how safe it is for me to post this but basically-- I mean no harm, take my word for it)

Here is my (very) quick attempt at understanding why I don’t like this sprite of Amami. Why-s and how-s (etc.) under the cut!

Having been doing Danganronpa sprite commissions for what? Three years now? And having been regularly looking at sprites for my useless analyses and useful translations, I’ve come to realize the official sprites are very flawed - as we all are - in a way I personally can’t overlook, which is why I simply don’t like them anymore.

When upset by the topic because I’m trying to use them as reference for a pose and find that it makes no sense and my animation teacher would destroy me if I tried to turn in a drawing like that (granted he’s not very nice), I usually bring up V3′s sprites as my arch-nemesis.

It’s extremely obvious they were rushed and most, to me, are simply displeasing to look at. Comparing them to UDG’s sprites, for instance, does them a huge disservice - UDG has my favourite sprites by far and I don’t think that’s a boiling hot take. They have different types of flaws that go from weird positions to weird proportions passing by awful hands and spots the artist forgot to colour in. Some are more obvious than others - some I could see immediately and some others I only understood after trying to remake the same pose properly for a while. When it comes to this specific sprite of Amami... Well, I always knew I hated it, but it was always hard to pinpoint why exactly.

Amami’s design is overall beautiful and most of his sprites manage, in spite of their flaws, to show off his bad-boy kind of beauty very well. His facing sprites, that is, because almost every other pose (3/4 or profile) he strikes looks genuinely disgusting to me. (Which is extremely disturbing to me because I may or may not have a crush on this fictional character.) This one sprite in particular is my least favourite and I was interested in understanding why, which is why I tried to edit it in a way that’d let me find out how it could look better.

Now keep in mind that writing all of this is taking me more time than I spent actually editing the sprites (because writing is fun). If I’d spent more time studying it, I would probably have changed a lot more details about it: most notably his trousers’ folds, which I think make no sense (I did think about editing them a little but I’m also a novice when it comes to folds, so it probably wouldn’t have been *that* much better in the end - I definitely don’t claim to be magically great at things a professional artist visibly struggled with) but I might also have played around the position of his arms and his hair, as they’re usually what I end up disliking about most DR sprites (that being said, I didn’t, so maybe they’re not that bad at all). On that note, you can probably see where exactly I cut some parts because I literaly edited them in a few seconds.

Now that this is all said and done, here’s what I found out:

- In terms of height, the proportions of this sprite are near perfect. Looking at his oddly small-looking legs, I assumed at first the upper-body to legs ratio would be off or something, but it’s actually really good. “Perfect” can rarely be applied to the proportions of a stylized drawing, but I can at least safely say there’s no ground for criticism regarding that part.

- My least favourite part of this sprite is the jaw. I’m judging by the amount of relief I felt when turning the “edit” layer on and off. I was very careful to use a reference of a man’s jaw and even though it’s quite the tiny edit, I find it reeeaaally satisfying. I really thought I was going to change his whole face and this sufficed to make me happy.

- I don’t know how I feel about his face. Sounds weird but okay. As I just said, I thought I would edit it a lot more, but as I tried, I found that nothing I did looked any better than the official one. I did sorta like the look of turning his eye a little bit but I’m guessing it’s subjective taste and cannot be identified as a “fix”-- but at the end of the day, I still think it looks a little off, but can’t put my finger on why or how it could be better. To be honest, profiles are hard to pull off and especially to stylize, and I can’t do it for shit, so... While I really like when my 60€ game has pretty drawings in it, I guess I can’t fault this sprite for having an awkward-looking profile?

- Legs too small lol. While I discovered they didn’t lack in length, I confirmed his legs could handle being a little t h i c k e r. It may look at first like I made his butt bigger (which is a very valid edit imo) but I actually made his pointy butt just a liiiiiittle bit thinner. The thighs are what really changed. I’m not saying Amami needs bigger thighs, but editing them this way made the whole drawing feel more stable to me, and his t-shirt look a little bit less like it was made out of solid plastic. I also think his feet could handle being a little bit bigger, assuming that he’s a cis man.

- I mean, Quasimodo is valid. But while I didn’t search for a reference that would correspond to this pose exactly, I’m pretty sure your arms... don’t... do that. In any case, I feel like my quick edit contributed to the sprite’s stability as well.

I also forgot that one of his rings isn’t closed off for whatever reason.

Anyway, that’s about it. I’m sorry about this long post and I don’t really assume anyone cares, I’m mostly writing this for myself because, again, editing this was pretty satisfying.

If anyone else is interested in the topic, though, I’d like to hear your opinions! What would you change about this sprite, or maybe another specific sprite you don’t like? What do you and don’t you like about my edit of this one? When it comes to stylized art, everyone draws the line of what’s part of the style and what’s too much in a different place. I’m always interested in hearing where that line is and what type of art someone likes!

(PS: I could most likely have edited his legs and butt a little less thick as this might give him a bit more of a feminine figure but uuuuuuuuuuuuuuh)

[kingofthewilderwest]

Is there any theory about WHEN httyd takes place? Book or film. I'm tempted to guess for the sake of picking a time period I can work with to make a sorta-sequel in the wider world. Because Egypt is VERY different on either side of the Ptolemys, as is the Roman empire. And I don't THINK dragons are completely extinct outside the archipelago? I hope not. There are too many cool mythic beasts to dragon-ify.

Most fan theories for when HTTYD takes place (book or film) put it at the end of the Viking Age, which ended more or less in 1066. There’s various reasons that date gets brought up all the time, including the fact that Berk is clearly pre-Christian Era (mentioning Thor, Loki, Odin, etc.), and that Hiccup is someone whose choices drastically shift Viking civilization into a new era. However, I’ve seen some fans place his birthday earlier if they think that 1066 corresponds to Hiccup in his old age, rather than the time frame Hiccup first became an influential leader. I’ve seen estimates for Hiccup’s birth fall around 995, 1045, or 1052.

@dyannehs has said in posts like this one that it’s mid-eleventh century, and she’s someone who would know better than most on this topic.

@avannak, in this admittedly rather old post now, has suggested that the events of the Red Death happened circa 1060.

In the past, I’ve written a few posts about my guesses, too. [1] [2] (Yeah sorry, all these posts are old haha whoops XD)

This conversation with several HTTYD book lovers, including @yv-sketches and @books-are-like-dragons, talks about how we can date things based upon Norbert’s travels to America, and making a guesstimate that the fourth book takes place shortly after 1000.

As you’ll also see in the links above, observant fans have found there ARE a few dates within canon / official / promotional materials. I’m just reiterating what other people have found - not supplying new info myself!

First, in the DreamWorks world, we have mention of the Dragon Viking Games of 1010. 

And in the book universe, we have a few dates for when Berk’s copy of How to Train Your Dragon was first checked out from the library (back before it was stolen). You can see this in the first book in the series. The oldest date the book was checked out was 789 AD and the most recent date for which this book was checked out was 866 AD.

At times, things like the Vikings being in contact with the Americas - which is mentioned in both HTTYD, and is a historical event - and Vikings living before/after a Christian time period - can perhaps be used by fans to estimate dates. Entertainingly, both the books and the movies reference Beowulf, which was written sometime between 700 and 1000. (Beowulf is obviously mentioned in the picture above in the books; and in the first movie, Tuffnut calls the Red Death “Bride of Grendel!”)

Of course, looking for historical references, cultural elements, technologies, etc. can only go so far in the fictional “Viking” world of HTTYD. It’s intentionally anachronistic and inaccurate. Vikings didn’t wear horned hats or domesticate yaks. Tuffnut’s rambles commonly reference the modern world. “How to Ride a Dragon’s Storm” even comments about how steamships and chronometers were thought to have been invented after Hiccup’s times, and yet Hiccup encountered both those inventions in his adventures.

It’s an interesting conversation topic with lots of room for fandom theorizing and information interpretation! What I’m posting here is a brief outline. Hope this and the links help!

As far as writing material of dragons outside the Barbaric Archipelago, dude, that would be SO boss. [chants] Do it do it do it! Whether it’s sequel-y, or prequel-y, or AU-y, or whatever-y, that could be freaking cool! You can totally swing it, whatever time period you pick and whatever location you choose.

[ask-the-friendly-red-cyborg]

((as there are 2 people asking for Ollie - an existing muse as a bonus!

But first the what-if Ollie:

It's canon but Oliver is a cinnamon roll.

Easily blushes as a response to meeting new people, talking about what he likes, being caught off guard, talking about someone else... The list goes on.

Has James free of cage all day long, at night puts him into a cage with enough space for James to fly a bit, that has toys and tree branches inside.

Bed hair 24/7 but everyone agrees that it is adorable

Does his best to Look Presentable as the youngest PowerFX family member.

Has a family that can catch you in a dark corner, beat you up, take your organs and pulverise your skeleton with bare hands if you make the Precious Baby cry

Every New Acquaintance gets the background check none of the intelligence employees get. But if you are Officially Approved as a friend, you are part of the family now and get the corresponding treatment

Is too pure to know about the Bad Adult Things and the rest of the family are a bit too helicoptery to let him learn of it. Explaining where children come from and telling swear words in his presence are criminal offence punishable with death penalty.

Even though he's shy at first, once he opens up and starts talking about his interests (stars, birds, music), he's rather passionate and gets excited if he can teach you something you didn't know

Doesn't play sports but is kinda interested in "true football" (soccer). Never can choose whom to cheer for not to make anyone upset, so he cheers for everyone.

And then in sorta Expectations Vs. Reality there's @ask-a-fukase Oliver...

You mess with him? You mess with the whole family. But if he gets angry, the family isn't able to get involved.

A sentient life-size puppet. He isn't sure how old he is, but pretty positive that it's around 200 years, or more.

As a puppet, he doesn't want and doesn't need to sleep. But as everyone else is sleeping, he's roaming around as a way to entertain himself

With an ability to open doors to another places and dimensions, he can roam around in pretty far off places

For that very reason, never ask him what's in his hands if he's looking suspiciously happy and walks sideways past you with hands behind his back. It's for your own calmness. Some of his many trophies include Mad Hatter's hat, White Rabbit's watch, Time Turner and some other trinkets snuck from places when noone was looking... Or didn't manage to catch him.

Has skin-like unknown material covering his body. It has worn out on some joints, so he covers these places with bandages. The town's supervisors weren't able to replicate this material.

Left eye is red, and sees "more than you're supposed to": if Ollie doesn't concentrate on something specific, he sees all the probabilities of any situation he's currently in (how would it develop in innumerable different circumstances, with exact knowledge what was the difference of the circumstances). This is the main reason for him covering the eye, as the stream of information is too intense and can exhaust even a puppet

The one of two only residents of the town (and the only one official) who knows that everyone's memories are synchronised with the system when they sleep. As he doesn't need to sleep, he's safe from it, yet unable to tell anyone because of fear of causing the control program to override them immediately, and out himself at the same time.

So yes, I love Oliver, but my existing one is kinda halfway between the cinnamon roll and the Halloween Dummy fjwkfkwkx))

@askollieandco

@asketoileandco

[winterbornwitches-blog]

Hello pals!

It’s Mizzy here, back and doing better than ever! Ha,,,haha,..I kid. I was feeling super low and have been for a while so I decided to do a spell bottle for protection, encouragement and courage. It’s sorta loops around like a blessing in a way. It’s partly ties to me and the people I care about - I kinda winged this whole thing.

Things you’ll need (Unless you don’t have it in which case find an alternative that you feel comfortable using):

One clear bottle (or container, as long as it closes and isn’t too big but not too small, just whatever you can use really)

Candles (if you don’t wanna use them that’s fine too - this isn’t a very strict spell)

Pink rock salt

Ash

Cloves

Bay Leaves

Lavender

Cinnamon sticks x 3

The first thing I do is put salt into the bottle, now I put quite a fair amount but that’s because for me that felt right considering I hadn’t done any witchy things in a while so I wanted this one to be a whammy.

After this I put a smattering of ash into the bottle, which for me corresponds to the idea that it binds negativity sent towards me and mine. It also goes very well with the protection theme of this spell bottle. After that in went the Lavender which is for peace, love and some more protection because give me that bouncy shield. Cloves for courage and uber protection with a smattering of that bounce we wanna give the shield so that it will repel any negativity sent towards it. Last I put in three cinnamon sticks, one for the mind, one for the spirit and one for the body. Just to clarify for you all - you don’t always have to follow this through. Most of this I winged and just used whatever I had. If you struggle to wing it then feel free to use this spell/ritual as a base and edit it for your own purposes.

After this I took a certain amount of bay leaves, 7 to be exact but this was just what felt right for me.

I wrote the following on 7 individual leaves: Family, Friends, Courage, Protection, Love, Strength and Home, before turning them over and drawing free form sigils. I don’t make sigils using the traditional method of which they were born (at least I think) this is just more a way I like to work with energy and intent.

After this you just stuff them all into the jar/bottle, I did it in a clockwise manner so that I could utilise the last remaining space as efficiently as possible.

After this I use the 5 candles that I mentioned at the start, the colours were each chosen for a specific purpose, so you can change what colours you use and why or even use a digital candle too! Anything goes.

Green candle for protection and renewal. The first layer for me and the one that create the ultimate coverage.  

Blue for peace, and strength in the stillness. The second layer and the second wind. It brings strength at moments when you need it most.  

Purple for intuition, and the gut feeling you get throughout your life. The universe isn’t always listening. And neither do we. Sometimes it’s good to have that nagging feeling reminding us of something important.  

White candle for the sun, and the shadows that it brings. There must always be a balance. Where there is good. There will be bad. But this candle serves as that reminder, that not all good things are good. Too much sun burns you.  

Black candle for the night, the light that the moon shines even when the shadows are all around. Where there is bad. There will be good. This candle serves as a reminder, that out of bad situations, good things come too. This reminds you that there is always hope. And it is never too late.  

Here we have the first layer I did of candle wax, which was green and I built it up until it became eventually like that 100 layer nail polish challenge. Just layers everywhere,

After all the layers on the top of the bottle, and letting it cool and harden. I took it outside, again this is just a spontaneous thing because I’ve been meaning to go to the garden and officially greet the tree that’s there. I did a little speaking, calling on elements and whatnot - this part isn’t really necessary unless you feel like doing so. You can always do this silently in your head or just forgo it completely. It’s entirely up to you.

Et Voila! You have successfully made a blessing style/protection spell bottle!

Enjoy, and feel free to ask any questions if have any in the ask box!

Lots of love Mizzy x

[ooblets]

Ooblets January 2018 Devlog!

Rebecca and Ben here, back again to share another devlog with all of you.

What a month it’s been! We’ve gotten so much done on the game that it’s crazy to look back on everything– but that’s EXACTLY WHAT WE’RE GONNA DO!

Port Forward

You know all those towns that are situated on artificial floating islands you see everywhere? Even Ooblets isn’t immune to their presence, because that’s just what Port Forward is. It’s the newest region we’ve added and it’s also probably the most complete, as well.

The idea behind it is that it’s a little eclectic town that floats in the water. We’re planning on putting in a few smallish shops in it that you’ll be able to visit during and after completing the region storyline. No spoilers, but the story involves ¡REVOLUCIÓN!

New Ooblets!

Were you under the misconception that all ooblets were plant-based just because you grow them in the ground? We’re here with a handful of nooblets to prove you completely wrong once and for all. You should be ASHAMED

Meet Firmo and Sidekey, two new little robotic-themed babs that were designed and modeled by our very talented friend Sander.

And these delightful and distinctive babbos are Gubwee, Kingwa, and Skuffalo. I guess Gubwee is sorta plant-based but that’s beside the point. These three were all designed by bitmOO and modeled by Sander.

GLEAMIES

Didja know?? Ooblets have different rarity levels, but by far the rarest of all ooblets are their GLEAMY variations.

They’re pretty easy to spot in the wild. Battling one has a pretty good chance of producing a GLEAMY seed for you to grow your own GLEAMY.

Why do I keep writing GLEAMY in all caps? you might ask. Well dummy, it’s because THAT’S THE OFFICIAL SPELLING. Also it doesn’t stand for anything, it just needs to be said with excitement.

✨ GLEAMIES! ✨

New Crafting Machines and UI

We’ve now got a PLETHORA of crafting machines, ranging from your bog standard gooperator to your more high-end soggifier.

Check out these babies! They’re ready to ground your springbeans, goop your clustered custard, and slurry your nurnies.

We’ve also made a brand new crafting system and UI to go along with it:

There’s always room for bloppycake!

Mail

You’ve got test!

Who doesn’t like getting mail huh?? Unfortunately our example correspondent Bazil here isn’t the most articulate just yet, but we’re hoping his vocabulary will expand in time.

Interiors

We’ve got some new interiors made, like this Mimpins underground clubhouse:

And this hair salon:

Item Display Slots

It might not sound that interesting, but it’s actually a really cool feature! It allows you to place certain smaller objects on top of other furniture so you can get that Sims 4 style decor going. Eventually you’ll be able to place little plants, figurines, trophies, and other junk on your dressers, bookshelves, and tables!

Press!

Cover girl! Ooblets was on !!the cover!! of PC Gamer’s Indie Issue with an awesome article feature. I don’t think there are enough adjectives to describe how excited and floored we were about this.

Ooblets was also featured in a bunch of fancy lists for anticipated games of 2018, like IGN’s, GamesRadar’s, Sweety High’s, and les Inrocks’ (which is French I guess!). Now we just need to get the game finished in 2018…

Patreon News

We had a couple big milestones over the past month or so on Patreon. We surpassed 500 patrons and $1750/m, which is totally nutso. People keep joining all the time so we keep posting more fun stuff:

Who is this handsome lad??

This past month, patrons have gotten to hear a new music track from the game, seen new ooblet concepts like the ones above, participated in a super secret live stream Q&A we did, got a sneak peek at all the new crafting machines and the new crafting UI, saw some dumb cat gifs of our dumb cats, and hung out in the supporters channel in our Discord.

If you’d like to join our Patreon, you can do so here, but only do it if you want the rewards and have the disposable income. We’re not struggling for money (yet, at least) so please don’t feel any pressure to support us.

Fanart

We haven’t done one of these fanart roundups in a while, but we got so much crazy good stuff recently that we had to make a couple shout outs:

These are by @ChocoAnouki, @mrpibno, and @TheaTurbo. Click those names to see bigger versions of each piece.

Until Next Time!

I wonder what we’ll come up with next! If you’re wondering that too, you should be sure to check back with us each month and don’t forget to wishlist Ooblets on Steamto get notified when we release. If you want even more Ooblets news and stuff, you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Discord, or Patreon.

Thanks for reading all this and being into what we’re doing,

Rebecca & Ben

[valiantzombiestudent]

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Making music should be fun, even if you’re making it alone with your Mac. So you can download GarageBand and see how making tracks, sequences, and mixes look and sound like a real band. Looking like a simulator game, this app is quite a tool for composing and arranging your own songs. The core app is free, but you may purchase additional. Here's the way you can.download Garageband for Windows. for free, this method works on Windows 10 hassle free. Install Garageband for PC using this 2020 guide. 6.8 spc.

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[doubletamponne]

Au Ministre de la Guerre (2)

Vérone, 27 janvier 1808

Monseigneur,

Par votre lettre du 3 novembre vous me demandez l’état de mes services. Ayant été en Calabre une fois pris et trois fois dépouillé par les brigands, j’ai perdu tous mes papiers. Je ne me souviens d’aucune date. Les renseignements que vous demandez ne peuvent se trouver que dans vos bureaux. Je n’ai d’ailleurs ni blessures ni actions d’éclat à citer. Mes services ne sont rien et ne méritent aucune attention. Ce qu’il m’importe de vous rappeler, c’est que je suis ici aux arrêts par votre ordre, pour avoir dit à Naples au général Dedon ce que tout le monde pense de lui.

Verona, January 27th, 1808

Monseigneur,

In your letter from November 3rd, you are asking for my service records. Having been captured once and robbed thrice by brigands in Calabria, I have lost all my papers. I can remember no date. The information you request can only be found in your offices. I do not have any wound or feats to mention anyway. My services are nothing and deserve no attention. What I find important to mention is that I am here under arrest by your order, having told General Dedon the same things everyone thinks about him.

[ganymedesclock]

Hey so remember that time that I was like “so I’m gonna come up with pokemon for some major Voltron characters, but I’m gonna limit it to two each because what kinda maniac would do full teams for 12+ characters”?

Me. I am that kinda maniac. 

Team Voltron in this post- Sincline plus Haggar and Zarkon later.

Lance Milotic [s] * Primarina * Gyarados * Swampert * Octillery * Lapras

Lance ended up with the single most evenly-typed team out of everybody I put here. The shiny Milotic is his signature pokemon but overall I can see Lance spending a lot of time with his team, both talking to them and grooming them. (if there’s anybody on the team I can see doing really well in contests, it’d be Lance)

Milotic and Gyarados are natural choices given the implication, as I’ve discussed before, that Lance is only a few steps behind Keith while not being a prodigy, and thus, a hard worker- so him getting pokemon that are regarded as pathetic, looked-down-upon initial evolutions, and refusing to give up on them no matter what, and reaping the rewards with a show-stopping team. 

Primarina arguably fits in for the same reasons (I remember when Sun/Moon started coming out, everybody dunked on Popplio) but with its final evolution being a ~beautiful mermaid~ there’s also no way Lance wouldn’t roll for that.

Octillery is a nod to Lance’s own brilliant marskmanship as well as being stated to be a calm pokemon that enjoys being fussed over, and Lapras are stated to sing to find each other, good for the empathetic connector that Lance is as a person. The swampert is both an effective canceler of electrical attacks (as Lance is pretty dang adaptable all things considered) and a nod to his connection with Hunk, the Earth paladin.

Keith Charizard (Y mega evolution) * Absol * Talonflame * Aegislash * Minior * Arcanine

I feel like Keith’s team, outside of the obvious fire motif, would be more ranger-like than focused on battling; the feeling from his house in s1e1 and the way he so clearly enjoys both the hoverbike and the outdoors strikes me as someone who would take very well to having a team that can let him tear across an open expanse or soar through the air. Either way, gotta have room to roam- his team has some rather large members.

I imagine Keith’s not a very earnest trainer. Most of his team came to him rather than him seeking them out, and they have funny personal stories behind almost all of them. The only exception is Charizard, who he got as a starter Charmander and who stuck with him the entire time he was shuffling around the foster system.

Aegislash are stated to be servants of those it believes possess a ‘kingly spirit’ and that one in particular doesn’t always listen to Keith, though it does sure seem interested in his welfare- it just sometimes disagrees with him on what that looks like. He’s never known it as a Honedge or Doublade- and it’s been around as long as he can remember. Perhaps someone asked it to look after him? It certainly nannies him an awful lot.

The arcanine he found as a growlithe hiding under a car, but it didn’t evolve until Garrison. Conversely the talonflame evolved really quickly; it was another adopted one (he found it after it hit a window and was able to nurse it back to health) I can see him using the talonflame more for exploration than for fighting.

Absol was a present from Shiro who thought they were similar-minded and could get along. (C’mon it’s a moody, well-intentioned prophet pokemon with flippy hair. I couldn’t not give one to Keith) It’s a little troubled but so’s he, so, they work.

Keith has no idea what’s up with the Minior. It latched onto him during his year in the desert and refused to leave him. He kinda thinks of it as a kindred spirit since they’re said to come from space and he feels pretty lost himself. (Kiddo you have no idea.)

Shiro Lucario * Skarmory * Mightyena * Umbreon * Scizor * Dusknoir

Veteran trainer who runs a tight ship, though not to his team’s detriment. A mix of dark and steel types, mostly, suitable for the tough-as-nails Black Paladin whose fighting style definitely has some shades of “brutally efficient”. As much as Shiro is an honorable and empathetic type, when it comes to life-or-death situations he goes for the throat big time. 

Thanks to his leadership, coordination and focus, they all made it through the missing year a bit beat up, a bit scarred, and pretty stressed- in particular his eevee didn’t exactly... plan to end up in that evolution but it had to evolve in the sunless sterile environment of the arena. 

Lucario is really nearly Shiro as a pokemon and I can see him sharing a very strong bond with it- the natural sense of justice, keen personal focus and that, for all of its strong instincts and wills, it’s a pack hunter that focuses on the idea of the group.

Skarmory is a pokemon said to refine its edge through experiencing hardship, battering its steel wings until it eventually regrows them and sharpens their cutting edge. Scizor fits in under that umbrella as well, since it’s another steel type and one that has to use its wings to thermoregulate, creating the image of an entity under pressure that has to regulate itself carefully. I sort of imagine during the missing year they spent a lot of time tanking for Shiro himself and for the rest of the team, and came out the most battered as a result. 

Mightyena is another socially-motivated pack hunter, which, given it’s a dark type and thus allegedly ‘evil’ would implicitly strike a balance between honorable and pragmatic, which is very significant to Shiro. 

Dusknoir’s a good sport, helpful and obliging, but Shiro sorta gets the creeps around it since he went into the missing year with only five pokemon (having given Keith his absol) and has absolutely no memory of when or where this one showed up and given its whole guide of the dead thing he sometimes wonders if it’s actually here for him in the not necessarily supportive sense of the term.

Hunk Donphan * Aggron * Bastiodon * Claydol * Golurk * Chansey

The donphan is his signature pokemon and primary companion- which matches his mentality basically perfectly as a relative slow mover that becomes virtually unstoppable once set on a single goal.

Hunk’s team pretty much embodies the dual nature of a compassionate protector of others with someone who will through-and-through mess you up if you tick him off or hurt his friends. You’d better believe that chansey is ready to throw down at any time of day. 

Aggron nicely embodies both with its propensity to restore and maintain its territory but also being a metal dinosaur that will protect that territory viciously.

Claydol and Golurk are more testaments to his curiosity and interest in technology. Hunk was the only one I gave a fossil pokemon, with the idea being he’s the sort of person who’d take the time to carefully nurse a revived prehistoric creature back to health. In general, I think Hunk’s team would be in good shape, like, he’s the type who just really enjoys taking care of them. He never officially signed up for the league (hence his lack of a starter) but just sorta accumulated pokemon that he made friends with.

In his defense most of these guys were a lot smaller when he started out and sometimes his donphan forgets that it’s not the size of a lapdog anymore. 

Pidge Rotom * Phantump * Porygon * Minun * Beldum * Cleffa

With only a single grass type, Pidge has the weakest connection to her element, but that much really makes sense- of the team she’s probably the most distant from understanding herself. Her team is all first evolutions as well- she’s got a lot of growing to do.

The rotom is both her signature and virtually never battles, usually hiding out in her laptop. They’re her best friend and avid confidant and she doesn’t like to have them occupy something they can’t talk to her through. (You bet your ass she has a Rotomdex. she built it herself)

Minun and Cleffa were gifts from her brother and her father respectively- Matt has a corresponding Plusle, and Cleffa because someone like Sam Holt who dedicated his life work to finding extraterrestrial life would be charmed by pokemon like the clefairy line that is rumored to have come from outer space. Pidge didn’t have much interest in the ‘conventional’ pokemon league and I imagine she only caught a few of her pokemon personally- most were from her family. Her mom got her Porygon partially in honor of her love of old-school graphics.

Beldum she caught all on her own! It was difficult- she killed an entire holiday- but she’s gonna have a metagross. As. soon as she can figure out how to encourage it to evolve. So far it’s not buying anything. Sometimes her Rotom has to chase it away from her laptop so it doesn’t try to dismantle her equipment. She has successfully trained it to fetch wrenches though.

Phantump is a new addition after her dad and brother went missing- they’re the spirits of lost children and while Pidge didn’t get lost as much as Sam and Matt did, I think that sense of being forlorn and isolated would lead her to quickly connect with a creature that felt the same way. By the time half of these babies grow up she’s gonna be pretty terrifying.

Allura Diancie * Audino * Florges * Altaria * Mawile * Espeon

Diancie’s basically a given. Of course Allura has a legendary, of course it’s the pink princess coming into her own, of course Allura’s team is mostly fairy types. Have you seen Mega Diancie? Tell me that’s not an Allura look.

Audino is a healer, Florges is a pokemon that explicitly makes gardens for royalty, and Altaria being a dragon bird basically is the embodiment of “beauty and grace and about to destroy your face.”

Mawile is also a nice testament to Allura’s toughness and strength of spirit, while Espeon is more a nice allusion to her strength of mind- also putting her as a counterpart to Shiro as the two leaders of the paladins. A very beautiful team, and a very competent one. 

Given Allura’s sentimental nature, I can see most of her pokemon being old childhood playmates, even Diancie- her apparent love of the outdoors and Altea’s climate would both imply that it wouldn’t be hard to run into powerful pokemon. So her team has a very strong emotional bond and are able to trust each other implicitly.

Originally I was going to give Allura Xerneas and Haggar Yveltal, but I thought that Diancie was a better fit for Allura, and while she’s OP, she’s not that OP, at least- not that consistently so the idea is they’re more entities that the two can call upon in times of need.

Coran Stoutland * Drampa * Probopass * Alakazam * Walrein * Carbink

Yes, I know what you’re thinking, and yes, yes I did.

That said Coran’s team is anything but a joke- he can and will cheerfully destroy you if you’re unprepared. His whole team is docile as sheep outside of combat, though- Allura has a lot of fond memories hanging out with that Drampa. 

Others (the Alakazam, Walrein, and Probopass) are a little lazier but still certainly friendly.

The carbink pretty much had to be there as soon as I looked at the relationship the carbink advisers are said to have with Diancie in the movie-verse since it’s basically the relationship between Coran and Allura just with pokemon. I sort of like the idea that in-universe working with Diancie and the carbinks is just a very standard affair for the Altean royal family- as diplomats they formed alliances with the pokemon in their environment before moving into space.

His signature pokemon is the Stoutland, through and through- a long-lived wise pokemon cited as a protector of others and a creature that will go through great toil to protect others. Also it’s such a stodgy, respectable-feeling thing, you can just imagine it patiently trotting along beside Coran on his way around the castle.