#the character design is more in line with

[lila-kriegerin]

OMG, OP!

I was just about to suggest "Now & Then "

but I saw it in your tags.

I'm so sorry this may look like an unhinged rant no one asked for, but someone has to tell people younger than me what I know, so I spent 2 hours crafting a reply/follow-up/addendum to you post, OP. Please forgive any formatting errors. I tried to keep things simple and engaging but a few things may look a little bit odd depending on what sort of device you're viewing it on. I couldn't take the risk of making all the text too small

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQLVzTtt2Ws

The biggest problem trying to find similar films is that they often involve at least two of the girls having some kind of relationship to boys causing drama (I'm looking at you, "Sisterhood Of The Travelling Pants "... and others) whereas a film like "Dead Poets Society " is definitely in that pseudo-homoerotic and explicitly homoerotic range of storytelling.

Why do you think "Little Women" was popular for so long? It was the 1oth century literary equivalent with the requisite brush with death and loss so common to an era before even antibiotics existed... and loss and grief still happen today.

It's true that so few are like "Newsies " and "West Side Story ", but DON'T sleep on hits like "Annie" &

🥁 drumroll, please 🥁

Want to guess what was the first obviously gay song featured in a film from Hollywood (after the Hayes Code)?

The First Gay Anthem: Calamity Jane's 'Secret Love'

It's not "West Side Story " because it's a western frontier musical, and they skirted the lines as hard as they could to have a nice Christian young woman fancying a "tomboy": Calamity Jane (who by historical record seems to have favoured women and men).

Though based on American Western folklore, this premise clearly imitated the successful 1950 film version of Irving Berlin's Broadway musical Annie Get Your Gun, about Wild West sharpshooter Annie Oakley.

But instead of a make-over, Calamity Jane gives its tough-gal heroine a powerfully symbolic pistol; her masculine aggression plays with sexual identity through gestures enlarged to the point of farce. And then it goes deeper--into emotional confusion that grows from Jane taking on supposed male habits. Doris Day brings comic overstatement to Jane's complex repression of her own instincts. Like many a closet case, she exhibits a self-defeating willingness to fit into a male-dominated culture. Her tough mannerisms are also designed to protect her hidden, vulnerable emotions.

You have to dig.

Dig deep, and be willing to watch a film with a different spoken language and culture, but there are some parallels.

Consider the Britney Spears film, which I believe is called "Crossroad(s)" in English. [Sorry, I don't have time to look up the title.]

Now— what if there were a film that's something a bit like a lesbian equivalent?

Touch

A Chinese movie produced/sponsored by the sapphic dating app Rela. It follows three girls on a road trip. Chinese language with English subtitles.

I've never, EVER seen any website draw direct comparisons to other films that way, such as:

If you loved "She's The Man" but want it more sapphic (though ultimately thwarted by the producer), you can't miss "Bend It Like Beckham"!

The photo which was posted by OP DOES contain valid points!! (No one is going to treat you "like a man/boy" unless they truly think that's what you are, and society DOES socialise people differently, so: how would a group of teenage girls or very young adult women ever have experiences identical to those in a film like "Dead Poet's Society"?)

Nevertheless, there are some similar films that are comparable:

"Superbad" — "Booksmart".

I decided to hyperfocus trying to think up some equivalents to "Dead Poet's Society".

Here's a quick comparison I spent far too much time on:

If you’re looking for a Dead Poets Society equivalent with mostly female characters, a few films capture that same blend of deep emotional intimacy, artistic passion, and repressed desire. Here are the best contenders:

1. Mädchen in Uniform (1931 & 1958)

This is the OG queer boarding school drama. Set in a strict Prussian girls' school, it follows a young student, Manuela, who falls in love with her teacher, Fräulein von Bernburg. The film is explicitly homoerotic in a way that Dead Poets Society is only suggestive of—there’s longing glances, whispered affections, and a stifling environment that tries to crush individuality and desire. Like Neil, Manuela faces tragic consequences for daring to express herself.

Cracks (2009) — If Dead Poets Society were darker and more explicitly about queer desire, it would be Cracks. This film follows a group of girls at a remote British boarding school under the spell of their charismatic teacher, Miss G (Eva Green, in all her seductive, unhinged glory). When a new student arrives, power struggles and hidden obsessions unravel. It has all the repression, poetry, and tragic queerness you could want.

Heavenly Creatures (1994) — Peter Jackson (yes, Lord of the Rings Peter Jackson) directed this feverishly intense drama about two schoolgirls in 1950s New Zealand—Pauline and Juliet—whose bond becomes so consuming that it leads to murder. Like Dead Poets Society, it’s about breaking free from repression, but it takes a much darker turn. The homoerotic tension between the girls is undeniable, and the fantasy world they create as an escape mirrors the way the DPS boys use poetry to carve out their own space in a suffocating environment.

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) — This one’s all about atmosphere—a haunting, dreamlike film about a group of girls at an Australian boarding school who mysteriously vanish during a picnic. While there’s no overt romance, the film is full of lingering touches, dreamy stares, and a pervading sense of longing and repression. The rigid Victorian setting and the contrast between the natural world and societal constraints make it feel spiritually connected to DPS.

The Falling (2014) — Starring Florence Pugh and Maisie Williams, this film is weird and hypnotic. It’s set in an all-girls school in the 1960s and follows a mysterious fainting epidemic that spreads through the students. It has the same themes of teenage rebellion, deep female friendships that tip into obsession, and an oppressive institution trying to crush individual expression.

Céline and Julie Go Boating (1974) — This is a more whimsical, surreal take on female friendship and creativity. It follows two women who fall into a bizarre, looping story in a haunted house, constantly re-experiencing and altering the narrative. It has a Dead Poets Society vibe in the sense that it’s about escaping rigid reality through art and imagination, but with a queer-coded, magical twist.

If you want the closest equivalent to "Dead Poets Society"...

..."Mädchen in Uniform" or "Cracks" are your best bets, and Cracks more than Mädchen in Uniform

because the latter is so old fashioned that to further scandalise viewers they paired a teacher with a student.

If you want something more poetic and atmospheric, "Picnic at Hanging Rock" or "The Falling" will scratch that itch.

If all of that is too gay for you (gofuckyourself, tee-hee)

You really, REALLY should try

"Mona Lisa Smile".

(...and if it's not too gay for you, then go watch CRACKS right now!)

"Mona Lisa Smile" [hereafter referred to as MLS] is often called the "Dead Poets Society" [hereafter, DPS] for women, and yeah, it certainly hits a lot of the same beats—

an outsider teacher inspiring students to challenge societal norms,

a prestigious school that values obedience over individuality, and

a group of young people grappling with expectations that threaten to suffocate them.

Where DPS is about breaking free through poetry and self-expression, MLS is about that sort of thing tosome degree, but more about feminism, gender roles, and the fight for intellectual freedom in a world that wants women to be just wives and mothers.

Similarities to Dead Poets Society

The Inspirational Teacher as a Catalyst for Change

In DPS, John Keating (Robin Williams) shakes up Welton Academy’s rigid, tradition-obsessed environment with poetry and passion.

In MLS, Katherine Watson (Julia Roberts) does the same at Wellesley College, using art history to challenge her students’ pre-ordained roles as perfect housewives.

Both teachers are NOT merely instructing— they’re awakening their students, making them see the world differently, and often doing so in ways that put them at odds with their school’s administration.

The Oppressive Institution and Its Ideals

Welton Academy is a suffocating prep school that values discipline over creativity, much like Wellesley College in the 1950s. They outwardly promote academic excellence but ultimately groom women to become ideal wives. (T_T)

Both films show how these institutions uphold deeply ingrained traditions that resist change, even when it's clearly needed.

Both films show some of the human cost of trying, and giving up.

A Group of Students at a Crossroads

Just like Todd, Neil, and the rest of the DPS boys who struggle between expectation and their own desires, the young women in MLS— Joan, Betty, Giselle, and Connie—each navigate their own battles between societal pressure and personal ambition.

Joan (Julia Stiles) mirrors Todd.

Betty (Kirsten Dunst) is like a mix of Cameron and Richard from DPS.

Giselle (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is the Charlie of the group.

The Tragedy of Repression

DPS’s tragedy is clear: someone's dreams are crushed & there is a heartbreaking su*c*de [all the trigger warnings apply]. MLS doesn’t have a singular moment that tragic, but its heartbreak is quieter—seeing some brilliant young women choose societal expectations over their own ambitions because it feels like the only option... that is definitely going to haunt some people more than it may haunt white cis-hetero male viewers.

In both films, someone (one you probably like most of all, in both films) will have something horrible happen to them by their own choice, and that is very haunting.

Additionally, I dont think it's too big a spoiler to say oth films end with the teacher leaving— but to say why would spoil the endings of the films.

The last scenes mirror each other emotionally: in DPS & MLS, a quiet, bittersweet goodbye with both endings suggesting that while the teacher is gone, the ideas they planted will live on.

Key Differences

The Central Conflict

DPS is about breaking free from repression through art and poetry. It’s about passion, self-expression, and the fight for creative freedom.

MLS is about that too, though with more of a (*cough*white*cough*cough*) feminist focus on gender roles, feminism, and intellectual independence to have intellectual and self growth as an individual— and it asks whether women can truly be free when they’re still expected to conform to outdated expectations.

Homoerotic "Sub"text

[be honest: if you miss it in either film you're in denial or unobservent and that is your own journey you need to take]

DPS is filled with homoerotic tension, especially between Todd and Neil. The intimacy between the boys—the longing glances, the whispered poetry, the emotional weight of their friendships—feels deeply charged.

If you DEMAND that level of queerness, MLS ain't it.

MLS has some queer subtext, particularly with [one character], who is coded as more fluid in her sexuality, but the film doesn’t lean into that as much as DPS does because it's focused more on the pseudo-historical narrative from the book upon which it was based.

Don't forget that DPS came out to cinemas...

THEN "The Craft" did,

THEN "Cruel Intentions" did,

THEN MLS.

DPS was intentionally pushing boundaries of censors for queer story-telling when the USA was still afraid for gay people to peck each other with a little kiss on the lips on television before 10 PM.

DPS ends in a tragedy that reinforces the cost of defying the system— [spoilers redacted], and the boys are [narratively] left in a state which leaves the viewers feeling a bittersweet limbo.

MLS is perhaps a bit more hopeful; and although the school seemingly remains unchanged, things in that world have definitely shifted for the characters.

Their worlds aren't fully transformed though for MLS, it’s beginning to open up, but MLS leaves viewers with their own bittersweet limbo like DPS[-lite] with a sliver of a dash of hope.

Final Verdict:

"Mona Lisa Smile" is "Dead Poets Society" through a differing feminist lens.

It swaps poetry for art,

an all-boys school for an all-girls college, and

queer-coded male friendships for female students fighting for their intellectual freedom.

It has the same spirit—

a teacher who inspires students to think for themselves, an oppressive institution trying to maintain order, and young people wrestling with societal expectations.

However, where DPS is a tale of tragic repression, MLS leans toward quiet rebellion— not a fiery "O Captain, My Captain" moment, but a slow, steady push toward change.

just saw this on pinterest and it hit me like a truck

[raconteur-wanpi]

Here are all the requests I got the other day! This was super fun! I can totally see myself doing it again some time in the future.

+ The sketches and some exploration / warm-ups underneath

^ I did two exploration sketches for Penguin & Shachi! They're a package deal so of course it was always gonna be both of them. You can also see a random Yonji for warm-up lol. These also gave me the chance to practice a few art stuff I've wanted to work on!

Sanji kicking Luffy might be unironically my favorite gestural drawing I've done so far. Thank you for that one!

I got to explore a more complex pose / interaction between 2 characters with Shachi and Penguin + downward head angles!

Caesar has some funny perspective / foreshortening with the proto-SMILE in his hand (also, I chose to draw young Caesar since I've already drawn his current design plenty of times lol).

And with Baby 5, I wanted to work with curve & line flow! I chose to go for her instead of Usopp since I draw him like, all the time lmao.

It was all fun! Thank you everyone who sent in requests!

[exocynraku]

I like to say that I absolutely adore how you design your feline characters and make them very unique. You’re my favorite warrior cat artist because of it! How do you go about designing your characters?

halloo... thank you! this ones a bit harder for me to explain, but i'll try! i'm going to specifically talk about cats, but these could be used for other types of characters, mostly furries. note: um, guess who talks too much! i had to split this post into four. so check the reblogs! 1. placing markings with PURPOSE (this is the big one!!!) it was only recently i finally managed to find a way to word this. to create a good design, you need to understand how to place markings with purpose. to me, there are two components to this: spacing/size and body wrapping. body wrapping first. this is how the markings on a cat's pelt wrap and contort around their body. bodies are not flat surfaces, they have plenty of curves, ridges, etc, which will alter the shape of markings placed on top of them. the markings on your character both needs to contort to the shape of the body part AND how it would look from the viewer's perspective. here's some examples;

in the first picture, you can see how i wrap the markings around the cylindrical shape of the leg. in the second picture, you can see both that i've wrapped the markings around the shape of the arm and belly, but likely also that the marking i've specifically highlighted on the arm is being smushed because of the bending of the arm. this leads to a better design, as when you look at it, i feels more natural than if you were to plaster markings over the cat in a straight line. here's a real-life example.

you can see how the markings curve around the body, though i find it's sometimes less pronounced as i would portray it in art. but it's there. sizing and spacing are second. these are less realistic aspects, as cat markings tend to be very random, however it art it leads to a cleaner, more readable & desirable design. sizing and spacing also have a lot to do with consistency. it's also... a little hard to show. i don't find myself messing it up in old pieces, and the designs i do know of which do this are... from strangers. who i would feel bad throwing under the bus for having designs i don't like LMFAO. but i can do my best to describe them. the size of your markings should stay relatively consistent throughout your design. what i mean by this is if you have large, thick stripes along your whole character's body, i wouldn't recommended adding one random thin, pinstripe-y stripe on your characters body. if you want to give them thin and thick stripes, then you need to have BOTH consistently throughout the body. or, give it a balance. thick stripes on the body, neck and tail, and thinner stripes on the face and legs, for example. very, very small markings are GOING to go unseen by you or others drawing the design, i absolutely guarantee it. similarly, the spacing of your markings should stay relatively consistent. for me this mostly occurs in tabby cats. if i draw, for example, the character's body stripes a certain distance apart, i'm not going to suddenly change that distance on another part of their body, such as their legs. the main issues i find with sizing and spacing is when people have issues with BOTH of them at the same time. random markings everywhere with all sorts of sizes and shapes and spacing will make your design cluttered, unreadable and unappealing. even on characters you'd think would be exceptions to this, such as randomly spotted characters/tortoiseshells, i still think about. how can i place these spots or patches in a way that will properly define the markings, making it easy to understand? how can i place spots to not make them too cluttered in certain area? etc. it's definitely a bit hard to explain, especially without visuals, but i tried lol (SOBS) (see reblogs for CONT.)

[gatheringbones]

[“The American soldiers in Vietnam discovered their own ignorance in an immediate way. The NLF guerrillas chose the night and the jungles to fight in, similarly, and they chose to work with that part of the population which was the most obscure to the Americans and to the Saigon government officials. For the Americans to discern the enemy within the world of the Vietnamese village was to attempt to make out figures within a landscape indefinite and vague — underwater, as it were.

Landing from helicopters in a village controlled by the NLF, the soldiers would at first see nothing, having no criteria with which to judge what they saw. As they searched the village, they would find only old men, women, and children, a collection of wooden tools whose purpose they did not know, altars with scrolls in Chinese characters, paths that led nowhere: an economy, a geography, an architecture totally alien to them. Searching for booby traps and enemy supplies, they would find only the matting over a root cellar and the great stone jars of rice. Clumsy as astronauts, they would bend under the eaves of the huts, knock over the cooking pots, and poke about at the smooth earth floor with their bayonets. How should they know whether the great stone jars held a year’s supply of rice for the family or a week’s supply for a company of troops?

With experience they would come to adopt a bearing quite foreign to them. They would dig in the root cellars, peer in the wells, and trace the faint paths out of the village — to search the village as the soldiers of the warlords had searched them centuries ago. Only then would they find the entrance to the tunnels, to the enemy’s first line of defense. To the American commanders who listened each day to the statistics on “tunnels destroyed” and “caches of rice found,” it must have appeared that in Vietnam the whole surface of the earth rested like a thin crust over a vast system of tunnels and underground rooms.

The villages of both the “government” and “Viet Cong” zones were pitted with holes, trenches, and bunkers where the people slept at night in fear of the bombing. In the “Viet Cong” zones the holes were simply deeper, the tunnels longer — some of them running for kilometers out of a village to debouch in another village or a secret place in the jungle. Carved just to the size of a Vietnamese body, they were too small for an American to enter and too long to follow and destroy in total. Only when directed by a prisoner or informer could the Americans dig down to discover the underground storerooms. Within these storerooms lay the whole industry of the guerrilla: sacks of rice, bolts of black cloth, salt fish and fish sauce, small machines made of scrap metal and bound up in sacking. Brown as the earth itself, the cache would look as much like a part of the earth as if it had originated there — the bulbous root of which the palm-leaf huts of the village were the external stem and foliage. And yet, once they were unwrapped, named, and counted, the stores would turn out to be surprisingly sophisticated, including, perhaps, a land mine made with high explosives, a small printing press with leaflets and textbook materials, surgical instruments, Chinese herbal medicines, and the latest antibiotics from Saigon.

The industry clearly came from a civilization far more technically advanced than that which had made the external world of thatched huts, straw mats, and wooden plows. And yet there was an intimate relation between the two, for the anonymous artisans of the storerooms had used the materials of the village not only as camouflage but as an integral part of their technology. In raiding the NLF villages, the American soldiers had actually walked over the political and economic design of the Vietnamese revolution. They had looked at it, but they could not see it, for it was doubly invisible: invisible within the ground and then again invisible within their own perspective as Americans. The revolution could only be seen against the background of the traditional village and in the perspective of Vietnamese history.”]

frances fitzgerald, from fire in the lake: the vietnamese and the americans in vietnam, 1972

[teatime-tangents-and-toys]

Mattel needs to keep up their allyship and representation now more than ever I swear to god

I know they're a corporation but they actually seem to have people who care pushing out earnest diversity.

Double down on G3 Frankie and change nothing with whatever their new G3 media project is; release their visibly queer Welcome Committee doll too please.

Continue the disability representation and skintones and doll tributes to real pioneers for justice and representation

Even more queer Skullebrity MH characters because that's what the line has exclusively been and at this point it's resistance to make them

Again, Mattel is a corporation, but it is still designed by humans. And even when they got it wrong, they felt like they were trying. I will be immensely disappointed if they look to be censoring themselves. Kids need to see outside whatever bubbles their parents may put around them.

[luckystarchild]

We've been getting a lot of Yu Yu Hakusho anime figures lately. Banpresto has been behind several lines of them recently, with more on the way.

But it's frustrating they've left Kuwabara out of at least one figure run, and they haven't bothered to make any characters besides the main four boys + Youko. They made one Koenma, but that was because the figure designs were based on a certain piece of anniversary art in which Koenma was included.

They've started producing some Toguro figures, which is great! But I'd love to see them branch out into the women of the series. We've never had a good Botan figure, and Yukina/Shizuru/Keiko are such longshots I ever doubt we will. We've had a Genkai, thank god, but only the one.

And what I wouldn't do for a JIN figure! Start making the villains and the side characters, please!

I know figure sales are based on what they think will sell, but a single limited run of some of the side characters would be a dream come true for yours truly.

[silcobrainrot]

It also just has too many songs. Season one had 11 songs (12 if you count Get Jinxed). only two episodes had more than one song (eps 7 and 9). Season two has I think 21 songs? And where season one used songs as supportive and complementary to the visuals, settings, and story, reserving them for places where dialogue isn't necessary, season two has to bend and contort itself around needing to get at least two songs into every 40 minute episode. It critically injured the pacing, character, and plot progression.

the only real "montage sequence" in season one imo is the intro to episode seven, but the way it was used is much different. "Misfit Toys" is an introduction to the firelights, knowing they have a limited amount of time to get across who these people are and how they got here. it's characterization, NOT plot. The music is helping communicate their identity and culture because we spend very little time with anyone other than Ekko. But the lyrics and mood of that song, especially the full version, tell you everything you need to know about how they came together, how they feel about the PvZ conflict, and how they see themselves within that conflict.

We miss out on so much character interaction and potential plot lines because the songs eat too much runtime. Season two is 21 music videos stitched together with a few vague and tropey connecting threads. and i like the music, don't get me wrong, most of it is great, but it doesn't feel like it's part of the story. it feels like an undergrad student's first editing midterm where they chose something kinda catchy and fit the vibe even if the lyrics were completely inappropriate for the visuals they chose.

"Welcome To the Playground" invites us into the underground and presents us with the stark contrast between topside and undercity. it's evocative and seductive with just a hint of an edge. When they transition from the overworld into the Last Drop, the song transitions to playing on the Drop's jukebox. we can still hear it under the entire scene with Vander, Huck, and the shady traders. The jukebox is used three times to keep the music feeling like part of the characters' world and reflective of their internal emotions instead of just a Top 40 track slapped on top for lazy audience identification. season two feels like they just slapped the tracks on top, but it's worse, because it was actually WRITTEN like that.

Likewise, the original score also suffered, because there wasn't as much room for traditional music composition. which is, again, supposed to complement the visuals, and can play under dialogue because they have no singing, so they don't get in the way of character and plot progression. scores exist to heighten the emotion and communicate musically what can't be communicated verbally. characters' true emotions under what they're saying and acting out physically. season one had such a jaw-dropping original composition that, again, meshed organically with the original songs they wrote because they were designed around the script. some places needed traditional composition, others benefited from modern music. You wouldn't introduce the firelights with a full brass and woodwind orchestra, nor would you have the councilors performing shady illegal business deals at a rock concert.

so much thought and care and love was put into how music was used in season one. it's some of the most seamless combinations of modern music with traditional composition i've seen so far because both the score and the soundtrack were written specifically for the show. season two's music doesn't sound written for the show, it sounds like those "ost" soundtracks movies release that are vaguely inspired by the vibes and the already-famous artists got a massive payout for writing a song for it.

So I was thinking about the whole music videos situation in Arcane and guess what, I once again have something to say. No surprises there.

Arcane soundtrack is absolutely amazing, that's true for both seasons, but compared to season 2, season 1 contains significantly fewer montages. In season 2, music isn't just a background for current events. Instead, we get montages, which are basically used as a skip forward button for the show's time skips of unspecified length. A mandatory "Hey, that's what's going on in the world, but we don't have time for that. Now, back to our favorite character!"

Visually, they're gorgeous, but that's not what Arcane was originally praised for. They're more eye-catching music videos than actual storytelling. Good for Riot's promotional material, but when you put them in the middle of an episode? It makes the originally full world of arcane feel like an empty board on which characters play without any real impact on the world around them. Sure, it can be done well, like they did with Firelight's introduction in season 1, but not when it's used to tell very important parts of the story that SHOULD have an impact.

It's abundantly clear in episode 3.

Yep, that infamous part. We montage through Caitlyn using the Grey in Zaun and move past it. That's it. No real influence on the story, characters, or the world.

Imagine if they used the same approach on Jayce and Vi storming the Shimmer factory. If, instead of a mission going wrong, they showed us a montage of them taking over one factory after the other.

I know someone will come screaming "Oh, but they Grey wasn't used on civilians!" Well guess what, Jayce and Vi didn't want to hurt civilians either, that wasn't their intention, just an accident. Are you telling me that during Caitlyn's Strike Team Adventures™, no kid suddenly got in the way? No one was running away in panic and got punched in the face? They were dismantling Shimmer factories too. What happened to all the kids there? None of them panicked at the sight of five fully armed Enforcers?

That is exactly the issue with how they handled that topic and why people are so quick to defend this and Caitlyn's actions and honestly, i get the thought process. It's the writing's fault. Everyone is always screaming about media literacy, show don't tell, you don't have to be shown every single detail, the show shouldn't dwell on it, etc. But the moment they don't literally show us this on screen, people forget about the consequences of the last failed strike attempt at Zaun's criminal underground. They're are quick to say that everything worked out fine, no need to nitpick. But is it nitpicking, if the show made that clear before?

You can't just storm in and take over. Innocent people will get hurt. That's the conclusion Jayce walks away from this. That's the reality of the situation. But it's conveniently forgotten about when the writers don't want to deal with said consequences.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Hello, this blog has been so helpful with writing tips.

Do you have any tips or information if you want to have a character that is Basque? Also if there's any information about the culture during the late 18th and early 19th century. Thanks!

Writing Notes: The Basques

Basque - member of a people who live in both Spain and France in areas bordering the Bay of Biscay and encompassing the western foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains.

In physique, the Basques are not notably different from the other peoples of western Europe; their language, however, is not Indo-European.

Basque language - language isolate, the only remnant of the languages spoken in southwestern Europe before the region was Romanized in the 2nd through 1st century BCE.

Today, the Basques remain physically somewhat distinct from their neighbours.

They are typically broad-shouldered and heavily built,

with distinctive triangular faces, and

they have light brown or medium brown hair and

often blue or grey eyes.

As is well known, they have the highest proportion of rhesus-negative blood in Europe (25 per cent) and

one of the highest percentages of type-O blood (55 per cent).

Many have interpreted these data, together with recent genetic data, as evidence that the Basques genuinely do represent a continuation of an ancient European population, comparatively little affected by millennia of the movement of peoples from east to west across Europe, just as their language indisputably represents the last survival of the pre-Indo-European languages of Europe.

As research has suggested, the Basques are a practical people par excellence.

They excel at business and commerce and they have produced notable industrialists and bankers.

The estuary of Bilbao is lined with blast furnaces and shipyards, and every city and town in Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa is crammed with industrial concerns, large and small, though the recent economic recession has hit the country hard.

Increasingly there are signs that economic activity is moving from the crowded coastal provinces to the more spacious and comparatively undeveloped expanses of Araba and Navarre.

The French Basque Country has not shared in this industrial development: designated by the centralist government in Paris as an area set aside for tourism, it offers little employment apart from that available in the garish strip clubs and casinos of Biarritz and the rest of the coast.

Two miles from Biarritz, the quiet Basque farmhouses look much as they looked a hundred years ago, though more and more of them are being abandoned as uneconomic, and the region is suffering depopulation as younger Basques leave to look for work elsewhere.

The land inhabited by the Basques has a mild and damp climate and is largely hilly and wooded.

It contains mines of iron ore, which early on favoured the development of industries, particularly shipbuilding.

The Basques traditionally farmed small holdings of bottom land and carefully tended slopes of grass, which they cut by hand and fed to stabled cows.

Apple orchards and mountainous sheep pastures were also important to their economy. The farmhouses are loosely grouped into villages or are scattered over the lower slopes.

The household (including buildings, farm, and family) was an entity of great permanence that was formerly defended by a traditional law of inheritance which ensured the descent of the property intact to a single heir or heiress.

Traditional Basque culture therefore revolved around this individual farmstead, called the caserío, the isolation of which resulted in a strong sense of family kinship among its occupants.

Besides being farmers of small acreages and shipbuilders, the Basques were traditionally seafarers.

Basques played a leading part in the colonization of the New World, sailing with the conquistadors and being among the first to exploit the whaling grounds of the Bay of Biscay and the cod fisheries off Newfoundland.

The Basques’ ethnic solidarity and their position astride the Franco-Spanish frontier also made smuggling one of their traditional occupations.

The Basques have a strong allegiance to Roman Catholicism.

They were not converted to Christianity until the 10th century, however, and, although they are now among the most observant of Spanish Catholics, animism survives in their folklore.

Traditional Basque culture has declined with the pronounced urban and industrial development of the region, and emigration to France and the Americas has sharply reduced the population living in caseríos.

In most of the larger industrial towns, not only Basque customs but also the Basque language tend to be lost.

Basque is still spoken in remote inland mountain areas, but in the late 20th century, virtually all Basques spoke French or Spanish, whether or not they spoke Basque.

The Basques possess a distinctive culture and language, perhaps the result of their relative isolation from the rest of Europe until comparatively recently.

A BRIEF HISTORY. It has been suggested that their ancestors migrated to Europe from the Caucasus about 12,000 years ago and about 5000 years ago moved to the Basque country.

Although the Basque country is divided between France and Spain, the Basques have maintained an identity separate from both states.

From the 14th century onwards the Basques were renowned for their fishing and whaling skills.

18th-19th Century. After a period of relative independence, Basque self-government was abolished by the Spanish government in Madrid beginning in 1839. Over time, a growing Basque nationalist movement began to insist on political unity and agitate for a separate Basque nation.

Basque culture underwent a revival in the late 19th century, which ensured its continuance into the 20th century.

During the Spanish Civil War, the Basques supported the Republic; in reprisal, German aircraft acting on behalf of Franco’s Nationalists destroyed the Basque town of Guernica in 1937.

Under Franco’s regime, concerted attempts were made to suppress the Basque culture and language.

In recent decades many Basques in Spain have campaigned for an independent Basque state, some through the nationalist party Herri Batasuna or its violent military wing ETA (Basque Fatherland and Liberty).

In 2011, after several abortive ceasefires, ETA declared ‘a definitive cessation of armed activity’.

Sources: 1 2 3 4 5 ⚜ More: References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

Thanks so much for your kind words, glad to hear! Choose which of these information would be most appropriate to incorporate into your specific story. Do go through the sources as well for more details. Hope this helps with your writing.

[ask-obt]

(To the author) How do you decide on the other half for the hybrid/subspecies pokemon on the team?

// It depends on the character! For the most part, I would start by looking at pokemon with similar body shapes and design schemes, and go from there. In all instances of subspecies, I try to keep the main silhouette of the pokemon intact, and using pokemon with similar structure and design motifs to one another helped reinforce subspecies appearance. Inigo having the Nidoqueen and Kangaskhan lines (both big dino-adjacent monsters), Dielle having Meowth and Zeraora (bipedal yellow cats), Keaton having Chatot and Pidgeot (rainbow bird gets more rainbow bird)... In other cases, I start with a base and just put design elements I like completely independent of any particular species, and then I'll look at existing pokemon to see which matches best to the traits I've added! That's where you get the Guildmaster having a Clefairy grandparent giving him his starry markings.

[spacehareart]

Poppy Playtime Swap AU....!!!!!

Main Characters + Secondary Characters:

Harley Sawyer -> Player

Prototype -> Poppy

Yarnaby -> Kissy Missy

Mommy Longlegs -> Doey

Pianosaurus -> Huggy

Smiling / Nightmare Critters:

Baba Chops -> Dogday

Icky Licky -> Hoppy Hopscotch

Rabie Baby -> Bobby Bearhug

Allister Gator -> Kickin Chickin

Simon Smoke -> Craftycorn

Poe -> Catnap

Touille -> Bubba Bubbaphant

Maggie Mako -> Picky Piggy

Other Toys:

Candy Cat

Bee Cat

Bron

Boxy Boo

Boogie Bot

Bunzo

Daisy

Miss Delight

Petite puppy

Robodog

Pj pug a pillar

Actual info:

It just came to me because i thought at first swapping Harley with Poppy simply because the idea of a teeny tiny TV with limbs was making laugh so hard.

I lol'd then i srs'd /ref

Um! But then i thought about it. I really want to work on a swap AU. Its not just a swap. They dont swap personality exactly- but they are different. I haven't decided on their morals changing or not either. I do think it would be interesting.

I think Harley would be human simply because the player is seemingly human at the moment. But in the AU player is a toy. Undecided though.

I also want to clarify even the ones who don't have swaps exactly are slightly different.

Like Mommy and Doey for example. Mommy has Daddy and Baby Long legs, while Doey is just one of the kids at this point now.

Why did i pick Pianosaurus to replace Huggy? I thought it would be fun. Simple as that. I don't exactly like making literal one to one swaps. And no Huggy would have way more time than Pianosaurus does.

Miss Delight is different too! But i haven't decided too much on that.

Poppy is a slightly taller Doll, while Prototype is slightly smaller. I may change this somewhere down the line.

Thats all i have for now but i think i will work on designs!!!

[turtledork02]

wow! raf is a young man! it must have been weird for the autobots to grow up with raf, seeing as humans age faster than cybertronians. just a blink of the eye and raf has gone from sparkling to little grown baby man.

and prepare for a barrage of questions

what are the sexualities of the bots and humans? do any of the other bots/humans have disabilities too? (love the representation!) how old are the other human characters? are there any other ships going around? is soundwave faceless and mute in this au? and were optimus and megatron a sort of something before the war broke out?

that's all

Yes, to the Autobots, it was a bit of a culture shock (and saddening) to watch Raf grow up so quickly. Sometimes they still treat him like a little kid just because they’re so not used to how humans age. Rafael only corrects them about it if it’s about work, but he usually does not mind. He loves his robot family so much.

As for the sexualities! On Cyberton, the courting culture was just “love who you love” and the concept of sexuality and gender was just an unspoken understanding. That said, among earth standards, they have learned about their sexualities and are happy to explain them to anyone who asks. Optimus is bisexual, Ratchet is gay, Wheeljack is pansexual, Arcee is trans and bi (with a preference for mechs), Bumblebee is pan as well, and First Aid is aroace and non-binary!

Ratchet has a multitude of disabilities since Lockdown maimed him. The obvious one is partial blindness, but he also has pretty heavy chronic pain, irregular fuel line efficiencies, weak gears in his leg, and mild processor damage. He handles it as well as he can and does not really like to talk about it.

Wheeljack is also partially deaf in both of his audio receptors! He uses audio enhancers (like hearing aids) to help him hear. Things blowing up in his face too many times has its consequences.

Raf if 22, Jack is 20, Miko is 19, and Sari is 10. Miko and Sari are adoptive sisters!

I’m still figuring out how many characters I’ll be playing with in my AU, but the main ship is obviously OptiRatch. Wheeljack has a husband, Bulkhead, but he is currently off-world. I’m also heavily considering adding KOBD.

Optimus was friends with Megatron before the war (known as Orion and D-16 back in the day), but their friendship slowly started to turn sour when Orion got an apprenticeship under Sentinel Prime and D-16 did not. D-16 disappeared randomly one day, and when he returned, he had a new name, a new mission, and a newfound hatred for Orion and his mentor.

As for Soundwave, as much as I love his Prime design, my version of him is more inspired but other continuities. But for the most part, he does not speak!

Here’s a little concept design I’m working on for him, just for you anon :)

He’s got big ol’ speakers hehe

[demigodsanswer]

So you really are incapable of making a bad AU I'm absolutely loving the tattoo AU. I love mom annabeth and sophia, I love the lukabeth angst, I love the potential percy & luke angst, I love the fact that you have percabeth basically flip their traditional roles while staying true to their character (annabeth is still a genius and percy is still goofy but they can be so much more too!!). I hope you expand on this story more I wanna see percabeth develop and percy form a relationship with sophia and everything that does to annabeth bc we all know girl can overthink. Anyway I'm rambling but I love your writing you're probably my favorite fic writer and I just adore everything you come up with.

Thank you so much! I've noodled around with a few more ideas. Right now, the fic is really heavy on the Lukabeth B+ Coparenting, with just a side of Percy going "hell yeah, hot milfs in my area want me!"

(for any concerned, given what I did to him in tuap, this Luke is genuinly a good dad, and also mostly pathetic and sopping wet.

he spent his teen years in love with a girl who turned out to be a lesbian who got a tubal ligation at 27, and at 29 she introduced him to a pretty 24 year old who he might like. he ended up not liking her that much on a romantic level, but now he's tethered to her forever. Oh and the love of his life's snot nosed baby cousin is back in town, six feet tall, chiseled, and handsome, and now he's sleeping with his baby mama. And all Luke wants to do is take his daughter to disneyworld while princesses and minnie mouse are still real for her. And for some reason, baby mama isn't immediately on board with the idea. and he's also starting to think he might be gay. he's had a rough six years)

Here's a little bit more -- set a week after the last bit:

~~

Percy still had his hand around her waist as they walked into the shop, ignoring the people queued up in line. 

“I’m serious about that Sting tattoo,” Percy said. 

“Give me a week to design a better one than what I scribbled on a place-mat,” she said. 

“Deal, but next week,” Percy said. 

“I book up months in advance, you’ll have to try your luck with a walk-in,” she said, turning towards him. His hands rested on her hips, and he looked at her with that troublemaker smile. Thank goodness he was on a tenure track; soon, whatever trouble he got into wouldn’t matter. “Of course,” she pulled him in a little closer by the belt loops, “I might be able to find the time, if you ate me out again.” 

Percy smiled and brushed some hair behind her ear. “Baby, I’ll do that again, tattoo or not.” 

“Stop being gross in my establishment,” Thalia yelled at them. “Things went well then?” She asked, looking between them. 

“Yeah,” Annabeth confirmed, stepping away from Percy. 

“So, should we expect a mini Percy in nine months?” Thalia asked. 

Annabeth rolled her eyes and sat on the stool behind the reception desk. “I’m more careful at thirty than I was at twenty-four.” 

“Not thirty yet,” Thalia reminded her. 

“Birthday coming up?” Percy asked. 

“In July,” Annabeth confirmed. 

“July fifteenth, mark your calendar, we’re taking her out,” Thalia told him. She watched Percy take out his phone and make a note of it. Annabeth smiled. 

She was about to warn him that she didn’t really party much anymore, but her phone buzzed. She slipped it out of her back pocket and stared at the screen. 

Luke 

Calling her? 

On a Sunday morning? 

She held the phone up to Thalia. “This can’t be good,” Annabeth announced. 

“You better take it,” Thalia said. 

Annabeth answered. 

“Hey?” 

“Hey, don’t freak out.” He sounded completely freaked out, which only freaked her out more. 

“Why?” She asked, turning to face Thalia and Percy so they could read her expression. 

“Sophie got hurt at the park. She fell. We’re in the ER,” he told her. 

“What?” Her heart raced, and she ran a hand through her bangs. 

“They did the X-rays, she broke her arm.” He sounded guilty, and sad, and scared. Although the sad and scared might have just been her projection. She turned away from Percy and Thalia then, her eyes welling with tears. 

“Is she okay?” Annabeth asked. 

She felt a hand on her shoulder, then a head. Thalia. Thalia’s arms wrapped around her, and held her upright. In her periphery, she watched Thalia flip off the walk-ins who were staring at them through the window. 

“She’s okay. They gave her pain meds and set the arm. They just need to put it in a cast and discharge her. We should be out of here in an hour,” he told her. 

“Why didn’t you call me sooner?” Annabeth almost yelled at him. 

“I’ve been trying. There’s no cell reception in here. I didn’t want to leave her alone.”

All she ever wanted to do was get mad at him, but he always had a reason to keep her from exploding at him. 

“Well, tell her I’ll be there in -- what hospital are you at?” 

“Beth-Israel, fifteen minutes from Electric if you’re there already,” he said. 

“Tell her I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” she said. 

“You don’t need to -- I mean, I’ll bring her right to you --” 

“No, I’m coming, and tell her I’ll be there,” Annabeth said. 

“Okay,” Luke said, “we’ll see you soon.” 

Annabeth hung up with a huff, before wiping at her eyes, grateful now that she decided against make up that morning. 

Annabeth’s hands shook as she opened the Uber app, and Thalia just took the phone from her. 

“I got it,” she promised, “he said Beth-Israel?” 

“Yeah,” Annabeth said, her voice thin and squeaky. 

“Kids get hurt, mama,” Thalia reminded her, as she confirmed the ride, “but if you go in there all weepy, it’ll scare her.” 

Annabeth nodded and grabbed tissues from the box on the counter. Percy handed her a cup of coffee. 

“Thanks,” Annabeth said to him. 

“Is she okay?” Percy asked. He hadn’t heard most of Luke’s part of the conversation like Thalia had. 

“She broke her arm,” Annabeth said. 

“I did that when I was seven,” Percy said, “it hurt, but once the bone was set, it was okay. And I still have arms,” he said with a dopey smile, holding up his two forearms to prove it. 

“Which arm?” Annabeth asked, not sure why. 

Percy pointed to his SPQR. “It broke right about there,” he said. 

 Her phone buzzed again. Her Uber was pulling up. 

“I’ll call you?” She said to Percy. Percy gave her a thumbs up. “Do you need me to come back?” She asked Thalia. 

“Just walk ins today, mama. Just take her home.” Thalia took out her wallet and handed Annabeth a twenty. “Buy her an ice cream on me.” 

Annabeth smiled. “Her dad is probably going to buy her all of Disney World after this, I’m sure.” 

“Good, he should,” Thalia said, turning Annabeth towards the door. “It’s just ink, it’ll be here tomorrow.” 

And with that, Annabeth was out the door. 

~

The nurses all seemed to figure out who Annabeth was right away. She didn’t know if Luke told them to look for a blonde woman covered in tattoos, or if she really did just look that much like her daughter. 

They had given her a private room in the ER. It wasn’t too busy it seemed, and the nurses directed her there easily. 

Sophia was sitting up in a big hospital bed, still in a pink tee shirt and gray sweats, while Luke read something to her. Her tiny arm was in a beige cast. 

“Mommy!” Sophia called out, her eyes immediately filling with tears, her good arm reaching out to her, as both she and Luke said “be careful with your arm!” at the same time. 

“Hi nugget,” Annabeth said, running over to her, and scooping her up in a big hug, mindful of her injury. 

Sophia sobbed into her shoulder, her little lungs struggling to push out words as she became hysterical. “I was -- on the -- swings -- even though -- you told me -- not to -- and I jumped off -- even though Daddy -- told me not to -- and I fell -- and I got hurt -- and I learned my lesson!” 

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Annabeth promised her, rocking her gently back and forth in her lap as she cried. “You’re not in trouble, I promise. You’re okay.” 

Annabeth glared at Luke over Sophia’s shoulder though. You are in trouble, she tried to communicate. Luke looked away, guilty. 

“Aw see, I told you your mommy would be here soon,” the nurse said, walking into the room. He was a male nurse with dark skin and locks pulled back in a pink bandana. “She was very brave, mama. But all she wanted was you. All the nurses have been on the lookout.” 

Annabeth looked at Luke again, angrier now then she had been. This time he didn’t even try to look at her. 

“I bet you were so brave,” Annabeth said to her girl, pushing down her anger. “I bet Daddy was scared.” 

Sophia nodded, her tears slowing and her breathing calming down. Annabeth wiped her tears away with her thumb. 

“Did this nice man get you all fixed up?” Annabeth asked. Sophia nodded. “Did you say your thank yous?” Sophia nodded again. 

“Alright Sophia,” the man said, “I got the colors, which one do you want?” Annabeth spotted his name tag as he moved closer. Austin. She hoped her brain held onto it through everything. 

There was blue, purple, orange, yellow, and pink. 

“Your Belle dress is yellow,” Annabeth said. 

“Oh, I’ve heard about the Belle dress,” Austin said. “Do you want yellow?” 

Sophia shook her head and pointed to the pink. 

“Pink?” Austin confirmed. 

Sophia nodded. 

“Can we use our words, nugget?” Annabeth asked. 

“Pink please,” Sophia said. 

“You got it girlie. Mama, we are gonna need you to put her down for this part.” 

Annabeth nodded and got Sophia back into the bed. 

A few minutes later, the hard cast was in place, and Sophia was cleared for discharge. They’d check on the arm in three weeks, and go from there. 

“I want to go home,” Sophia mumbled into Annabeth’s shoulder while Luke filled out the discharge papers. Sophia was under his health insurance. 

“I bet. We’ll go right home, I promise,” Annabeth said. She looked at Luke standing at the desk, filling out forms. It was still his day with her. She rolled over her options in her mind. If she wanted Sophia to herself, she’d bet Luke would allow it. But -- “Do you want Daddy to come home with us?” Annabeth asked. 

Sophia nodded. 

“Okay sweetie,” Annabeth said. 

A minute later, Luke was walking up to them. “We’re all set,” he said. 

“We want to go home,” Annabeth said, adjusting Sophia on her hip, holding onto her tight despite her weight. 

“Right,” Luke said, “sure, I figured --” 

“Will you come back with us?” Annabeth offered. 

Luke’s face lit up. “Really? You’re sure?” 

“Sophia wants you to,” Annabeth said. As if to prove, Sophia reached for her dad, who took her from Annabeth, holding her with more ease than Annabeth had been. 

“Okay,” Luke said, “let's go home then.” 

~

Sophia fell asleep in the Uber, and Luke carried her inside. 

“I’ll order lunch,” Luke said, walking out of her bedroom, shutting the door quietly behind him. 

“Great, thanks,” Annabeth said, her tone short. For want of something to do, she started on the dishes she left in the sink. 

Luke’s arms snaked around her waist and he rested his head on her shoulder. 

“What the hell are you doing?” She asked. 

“Begging your forgiveness,” he said. 

“Okay. Beg,” she told him. 

He squeezed her a bit, and then said, rather pathetically, “Please don’t take her away from me.” 

Annabeth laughed, confused. “What?” 

“I’m sorry she got hurt, but please, I … I don’t want to stop seeing her.” 

Annabeth put the dishes down and pulled herself out of his hold. She turned to look at him. “Kids get hurt,” she reminded him. “Would you sue me for custody if she broke her arm on my watch? Or would you sue her school if she got hurt there?

“No,” Luke said, “but you are mad at me.” 

“Oh, I’m so mad at you I could scream,” Annabeth confirmed. 

“See, that’s the difference. I also wouldn’t be mad at you if she got hurt on your watch --” 

“I’m not mad she’s hurt!” Annabeth yelled, before bringing her voice back down to a whisper. “I’m mad that I told you no swings, and that you decided to undermine me, even though you said you wouldn’t. I’m fucking pissed that you told me not to go to the hospital when she’d been asking for me. All the nurses were looking for me!” Annabeth reminded him. 

“By the time I got ahold of you,” he said it as if she simply hadn’t been answering her phone, “we had barely an hour left, you didn’t need to at that point --” 

“You should have called me sooner!” 

“I was trying! She was in so much pain. I didn’t want to leave her alone. What would you have done? Stuck in a hospital, no cell service, when would you have called me?” 

“In the taxi on the way to the fucking hospital,” she said, poking his chest with a stiff finger. “What are you getting for lunch?” She asked. 

“Jersey Mikes?” He suggested. 

“Great, you know what she likes?” 

“American cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and bread,” Luke rattled off. 

“No oil or vinegar,” she reminded him. 

“I know.” 

~

Annabeth woke Sophia up after an hour and got her to eat. Sophia, blessedly, gave her parents a break from Beauty and the Beast and selected Encanto. Annabeth relaxed finally, nibbling on an okay Italian sub as the iconic tunes of Lin Manuel Miranda entertained her kid. 

“Your grandpa is a big fan of the guy who did the music for this movie,” Luke told Sophia. 

“Poppop likes Encando?” She asked. 

“Sure does,” Luke confirmed. 

At six, Thalia dropped by. “I had to come check on our tiny badass,” Thalia said, running over to hug Sophia as she giggled at the bad word. (Annabeth told her Sophia wasn’t allowed to say swear words until she was eighteen, and Sophia seemed to interpret this as legally she wasn’t allowed. Annabeth hadn’t corrected her).

“Nice cast,” Thalia said, reaching into her tote bag and pulling out a huge pack of Sharpies. “I brought you these so me and your mom can give you some tattoos on your cast.” 

Sophia grabbed the markers with a big thank you hug for her aunt, and Thalia squeezed her back. Crotch goblin, ha. 

Sophia started to rattle off the things she wanted Annabeth to draw, and Annabeth just smiled. “Okay, why don’t you sleep on it, and then pick out what you want where?” Annabeth suggested. Sophia nodded, obviously taking the decision about her tattoos very seriously. 

“Now, I told your mom to take you out for ice cream,” Thalia said. Sophia looked at Annabeth, obviously already feeling betrayed. “Has she?” 

“No!” Sophia announced. 

“Well! We should fix that,” Thalia said. 

“We were getting there,” Annabeth promised, “but we can go now. Go get your shoes on.” 

Thalia pointed to Luke as Sophia ran to get her shoes. “Are we taking the pouty one?” 

“Not sure I deserve ice cream,” Luke said. 

Annabeth rolled her eyes. “Don’t be a martyr, come on!” She said, pulling him to his feet. 

Sophia picked the brightest blue ice cream Annabeth had ever seen. It was just vanilla, allegedly, with Oreos, but dyed bright blue to look like its namesake: the Cookie Monster. Annabeth stuffed napkins into her cast to keep it clean. 

After a careful bath (with Sophia’s arm wrapped in a trash bag), Annabeth and Luke took turns reading more of The Hobbit to her until her eyes finally started to close. Thalia had been gone since Annabeth announced it was bath time, and now that Sophia was asleep, it was just her and her baby daddy. 

“Should I stay over?” Luke asked. 

“Oh,” Annabeth said. He did stay sometimes. They shared the bed when he did. It wasn't a big deal. It usually happened if Sophia was sick, or on Christmas eve. “Sure, uh,” shit, “I just need to change my sheets,” she said. 

There was a long, terrible pause as Luke figured it out. “You and Percy slept together already?” He asked, obviously judging her. 

“Yeah, so?” she asked, crossing her arms. 

“Seems a bit fast,” he said. 

“Well, I haven’t had sex with someone since you,” Annabeth said, “so forgive me for having some fun.” 

“I’m not mad at you --” 

“But you’re judging me --” 

“It’s just of all the guys --” 

“What’s wrong with Percy?” 

“He’s like a little brother to me!” 

“He told me you two weren’t close!” 

“Not anymore! It’s --” Luke lowered his voice. “It’s fine,” he promised, “I’ll just go home. Do with the sheets what you will.” 

Annabeth frowned. She wasn’t sure how he managed to do it, but she always felt compelled to apologize to him at the end of every spat. She held herself back this time. 

“Alright,” Annabeth said. “I’ll keep you posted about the doctor’s.” 

Luke nodded. “What about …” he glanced at Sophia’s door, “that thing we were talking about.” 

Disney World. 

Annabeth smiled and nodded. “You’re right, we should do it. It’ll mean the world to her. It’s so generous, Luke, I … I’m sorry I wasn’t immediately grateful like I should have been.” 

He shrugged as if to say it’s fine. “You’ll come with us?” Luke asked. 

“I wouldn’t miss it,” Annabeth said. “I can cover myself --” 

Luke kissed her head. “I don’t want you to. Just go and enjoy yourself.” 

“Okay, I will,” Annabeth said. 

“My friend’s wife is a Disney travel agent. She thinks she can get us into the Beauty and the Beast restaurant.” 

“Oh Sophia will love that,” Annabeth agreed. “Do they serve chicken nuggets?” 

“I’d bet my life they do,” Luke said. 

He leaned in again and kissed her cheek as a goodbye, but when he pulled back, his face lingered. She didn’t stop him from kissing her lips. They tried this every few months or so. 

“Anything?” Annabeth asked when it was over. 

“No,” he confirmed. “You?” 

“Nothing.” 

Luke seemed a bit sad but just shrugged. “Worth a try,” he decided. “I’ll be in touch about vacation,” he promised, before leaving her and Sophia alone. 

[sideblogdotjpeg]

Extremely small spoilers for the c3 ending warning

But I think a really fun bit of Sol's character that I kinda didn't notice until the final episode is that ever since Irondeep (or maybe even before?), Sol has just been learning how to sew and crochet. And I have extreme respect for Murph letting Sol use that knowledge in the final episode to redistribute the magic of his displacement cloak amongst the party. I just really love those kinds of small character details in fantasy - the hobby they pick up randomly that slowly becomes more and more of a skill as the story progresses.

YES ! sols background knitting/crochet hobby (theyre used kind of interchangeably) is one of my favourite little quirks of his to think about... and if you keep track of its offhanded mentions, it actually weaves (hehe) a really sweet mini-story about sols character !

(teeny tiny mini essay under the cut, because i. have. thoughts)

so! a minor um actually is that sols knitwork is actually brought up pretty much at the VERY start of his character intro;

"...I'm wearing a homemade sweater that is in the same pattern as the standard issue synth knight sweater, but that one didn't fit me, so ive crafted my own as a replica - the sleeves are a little long, i'm still working on it, i like to knit in my spare time to quell my thoughts a bit..." (ep 1)

so we establish 1) he likes to knit, 2) knitting is an almost meditative practice, a very physical-based method of dealing with his thoughts, 3) he wants to fit in with his cohort of synth knights, even though their 'standard' has excluded and rejected him 4) he takes on this rejection without any bitterness, and instead with an optimism that his own personal inadequacies can be overcome by trying his darn best, 5) he's a cute frog in an oversized sweater

it's a pretty small & overall NOT important line that doesn't mean anything, but you COULD interpret it as the introductory, basic threads of meditative practice, community, belonging and identity that return as pretty major elements in sol as a character!

other, pretty major encounters with the knitting/sewing motif:

ep 7: Callie "we're sort of entwined now, right? i mean, our fates are somewhat braided at this point" + sol "if you're saying that we're friends then yes!" (this isn't a sol knitting moment, but good GOD 'our fates are braided' + them later discovering they're peregrine + sol sewing peregrine patches - we LOVE unintentional foreshadowing)

ep 27: Before the king durretar fight, sol gives everyone a peice of black yarn to wrap around their arms, a symbol of the living will they made to each other. Later in the ep, he holds up the band just before he goes down

ep 39: Right before he leaves to return to irondeep, sol gives swag "a little bracelet of yarn, just so we can feel connected" (literally FUCKING RUINOUS when you think about this being THE LAST TIME THEY SEE EACH OTHER FACE TO FACE and all the other moments sol gives his loved ones threads/bracelets. god. actually ruinous)

ep 53 (short rest!): This requires maybe a bit of context... but essentially, its caldwell describing sol's conflict of wanting to save the people he loves VS the growing reality of his inability to do so as, "no matter how big and thick and fluffy a sweater he knits, it always unravels itself"

ep 57: sol plants a piece of thread on the two ice swags (red and purple) as a way to tell them apart

ep 61: sol takes the black band from the king durretar fight and weaves it into a design that he made of the peregrine symbol/callie's sigil so that they can all wear it as a team (and one for a squire too, of course!)

ep 72: sol shreds his displacer scarf & patches up everyone's track jackets with it, to share the protection magic (this does end up saving calder's life i think.... THAT'S THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP BABY.)

finally, also in ep 72: galactic swag returns the night sky to the faewild, and sol comments "now that's knitting..."

I think. All in all. It's like. sol is this guy who, perhaps more than anything else, longs for family, home & community. He found this in launchpad and mothership, and their promise that if he could just work hard enough to prove that he meets their standards, then he CAN fit in and be worthy, and belong, and be part of something big. And over the course of campaign 3, he finds this with duck team.

All these desires for connection are expressed through the small things he knits for the people he loves. It keeps coming up over and over again, sol trying to stitch pieces of himself into his friends. Have this yarn, and this thread, and this bracelet, so you can remember you have someone to fight for and someone fighting for you (i have THOUGHT about this being kind of like a Lady's favor to a knight.... i've THOUGHT about this...) In ep 39, he gives swag a mushroom with the stated purpose that it might let sol know if swag dies. In ep 41, he tells hardwon that "there haven't been many people that I've met that have stuck around and meant something to me". I think you could interpret.... sol's habit of giving little knit gifts to his friends as maybe kind of a manifestation of that worry. that people are going to leave him, and he's going to end up alone again. so the thread of the living will comes back over and over again... no matter where you are, dead or alive, we'll be connected somehow.

You can also interpret all of this in the context of his childhood! in the waterpark ! A place where he was cold, and in danger all the time, and alone, and nobody made any 'big and thick and fluffy' sweaters for him. That the way he responds to this is... by making sure the people that he loves never ever have to feel like that. Here's something to keep you warm, and to remind you that i Know you, I Think of you, and i Love you. Sol just wants to protect all his friends by knitting them up in a big comfy sweater (and by the finale, in a way, he does!)

anyway ! those are my um. my. very minor thoughts about sol & knitting. i think about it a normal amount i promise. it is really REALLY a very fun bit about his character and it is. wonderful to see it evolve over the campaign.

Also since I accidentally went whole hog and wrote a full essay. Um. more sol knitting mentions that I personally find very delightful, although less relevant to this specific analysis:

Ezry arc: "i haven't had a chance to knit in a while, that really mellows me out" < sol's explanation for nearly punching a salamander to death because he kind of reminded him of a completely different salamander guy who had the audacity to go to the movies with albin, once. Really cute because awww he knits to mellow out. and also. god sol is fucking Insane. frog who is for sure possessive a normal and healthy amount

Living Woods arc: the living woods arc has sooo many cute lil sol knitgifts. sol gives calder a reversible beanie that has the initials CK (for calder kilde) and KC (for kalder cilde)... he says he was making it for calders birthday! (i didn't check this particular moment for accuracy, but i DO rmb calder saying smthn to the effect of "this is the nicest thing anyone's ever got for me") ..... this also has the famous callie crochet bra + i THINK sol's knit boots for calder

Irondeep arc: sol makes the infamous knit hammer cover with pompoms for kenna. (he later also makes i think.. a cloth for kenna to clean her hammer? he's trying guys....)

Tsunare arc: callie asks sol to make a gunk bindle

Ice knife arc: EVERYBODY IS REALLY MEAN TO SOLS KNITTING. SOMEBODY DEFEND HIM HE DOESNT DESERVE THIS....

Faewild arc: after calder gives himself a crop top , "i will Happily be your tailor"

Conclusion? this frog loves his friends!!!!!

[codegeassfacts]

A Collection of Code Geass Season 1 Informations from Various Sources and Interviews // Canon

I've reunited in there all of the various information I couldn't fit into full fleshed out post and only kept the one with sources (that mostly came for Celiss Galvea Geass legacy), that were mentionned in various corner of the web, so there might be some missing as I don't want to share rumors/unconfirmed material. You'll be able to find the same similar Collection for R2 right there.

The title “Code Geass” was a fairly last-minute decision (the tentative title was “Lelouch of the Rebellion”) The production team were in a panic over the lack of a proper title; “We need a title to design the title logo!” etc. (ura de net geass!)

An 8 hour meeting was held to determine C.C.’s name and real identity. Supposedly none of the participants ate or drank throughout the whole thing (Okouchi: “Give me something to eat!”) According to Yoshino, whenever he thought the meeting was about to come to an end, someone would start up again and the meeting would continue with no end in sight. XD . (ura de net geass)

The hero wasn't meant to be an anti hero like Lelouch, but an ace pilot, just like in most anime from SUNRISE (Taniguchi/Okouchi Interview)

At first Lelouch had white hair, Shirley had blue hair and the Ashford uniform was red, that's why some old school scans show the characters with those colors.

Kallen's first name was Akira, then Kallen (Mutuality Artbook)

C.C. had a name during the creation phase, it was Sera, but nothing says it stayed the same, in Stage 11, Jun Fukuyama, Lelouch's voice actor actually spoke her real name but they decided to cut his voice during the montage. (Mutuality Artbook + DVD commentary) Yukana's voice work profile also used to say the name of her character in Geass was "Sera/Cera."

There was a classement of the boobies size of the girls of the anime which went out in a magazine and you'd be glad to learn that Milly has the biggest boobs of them all ; Lelouch's mother is a close second and Kallen takes the third spot. (Newtype)

Lelouch's line in Stage 14 when he erases Shirley's memories "if there is another life…" was supposed to end up like that "…let us be lovers" but it was eventually cut out. (Shirley gave the full line in the best phrase award session stage 14 to 25 of the first DVD of season 1)

When asked about a possible romance between Lelouch and C.C.,(During S1) Taniguchi said that for that to happen, Lelouch would need to see C.C. as a human being, for he was currently seeing her as some kind of alien (That's why he was about to take a blood sample in Stage 11) (Newtype interview)

About romance, Taniguchi said there would be romantic devellopment for Lelouch in season 2 and that it was left out of season 1 to focus more on Lelouch's goals (destroy Britannia, happy world for Nunnally) and him setting up his rebellion to avoid complicating matters (pash ! interview )

Kallen's story was moved to R2 when it was announced they'd be getting a season 2, that's why she became less present within the second half of season 1 (Fake Okouchi interview)

Suzaku isn't a virgin and is said to be experienced, but we don't know who the lucky girl was ; We know his first love was an older woman, that's probably why he had some form of relationship with Cecile, even if she'll be more of a big sister than a lady mama for him eventually. (Commentary DVD of Turn 19)

Zero was meant to kiss Kallen at the end of the first season to give her courage and determination after being shaken up; she was meant to remember the scene during a fight, but the kiss was removed because Season 2 was coming and a lot of arrangments had to be made around Stage 20 (Megami Magazine /Fake Okouchi)

Kallen doesnt know how to cook, if she tries to make bread, it will turn into ashes; (Kallen's character information given to her seiyuu, Ami Koshimizu)

Jeremiah was meant to die at the beginning of season 1 but he had so much popularity within the staff (and in 2ch) that they chose to bring him back to life. Twice. (Taniguchi interview)

Zero was one of the first character to be created, Okouchi wanted a masked man because a Sunrise anime without a masked man didn't seemed right (Taniguchi x Okhawa Interview)

In case the sequel wasn’t greenlighted (they already received the OK for it back in December 2007 at least), they had an alternative route prepared for the story to take, one which would have ended the story in episode 23. It would have been a non-conclusive ending though; according to Taniguchi it was more of a “psychological” ending for Lelouch like the Evangelion Ending (Taniguchi Interview)

Kawaguchi said Lelouch had Euphemia phone number on his phone because they certainly exchanged their numbers when they met on the deserted Island. (Ura de net Geass)

Mao’s repetitive clapping didn’t exist in the scripting stages; Taniguchi was the one who later added it to make him “more annoying”. (Ura de Net Geass)

Originally, Toudou was supposed to join Lelouch’s side much earlier. They talked about the Diethard and Toudou shot in the ED. All were baffled by it; Conclusion: “Only Taniguchi knows.” (Ura de Net Geass)

Stage 19 was written by Yoshino ; supposedly he requested to do it, saying “Oh well, if (Okouchi) wants me to write a script, I might as well do the island arc.” (he’s more or less the fanservice supervisor for this show) According to him (and the Newtype Taniguchi + Fu-kuyama interview), this was how Lelouch’s trap was supposed to work: Lelouch successfully digs a proper hole –> However, a boar appears behind him –> Lelouch tries to Geass it: “Lelouch Vi Britannia orders you to SIT!” –> Geass doesn’t work on animals –> Lulu Quality Tragedy ; However, Taniguchi changed it all, telling Yoshino: “Well, in the first place, Lelouch isn’t capable of digging such a hole…” (Ura de net Geass)

The reason why the writers made Kallen stand on Gawain’s shoulder instead of getting into the two-seater cockpit with Lelouch in Stage 19: “There’s no way Kallen will hand over the 2nd-pilot position to anyone else once she’s in there.” Good point. (Ura de Net Geass)

According to Tanaka, right after the airing of Stage 22, three of his friends rang him up asking “What the hell was that? I need to know what happens next!” etc...; According to Kawaguchi, “some of the viewers may have been satisfied with the handshake in episode 22, but actually, a lot more people would have been upset…” (Ura de net Geass)

After episode 23, the production team received letters from fans saying “Okouchi is so evil”, “Dark Okouchi” etc, and he didn't liked that (Ura de Net Geass)

Discarded Season 1 plotlines :

Kallen's father was first hinted as being someone important by Okouchi, when he claimed his occupation couldn't be revealed back in March 2007 (Okouchi 28 questions interview from Animage)

Suzaku was meant to have an unrequited love, and it was hinted as being an important subplot back in the day ; The hints strongly pointed at Nunnally. (Fake Okouchi)

Suzaku was meant to be linked to Geass, that's why he reacted to C.C. and to the ruins in Kamine Island, in relation to his superhuman abilities; He didn't had a Geass though (perfect Stage Mook Interview)

Cecile's seiyuu said her character had a "painful sibling relationship" in the past, and she was allowed to reveal that because it wasn't going to appear anymore within the show. Cecile's relationship to Suzaku was basically discarded) A scene with Suzaku was also seemingly cut out from Stage 20 (Magazine preview back in S1.) * What happened to Naoto (Kallen's brother) ; The writers considered bringing him back but then couldn't find a place and decided to let him stay dead (Audio commentary Stage 4 + perfect Stage mook interview)

That's about it for the various miscellanous information I could find for the first season; Now that I have gotten several of those magazines, expect more full blown articles from those whenever I'll have more time.

Hope you enjoyed.

[kaibutsushidousha]

Ranking last year silhouette servants?

BB Dubai: Kinda wonky to rank because Dubai, Cosmos, and Golden are all separate characters, with one being completely new, one being old, and one being both. I can't honestly say all three versions deserve to be above the second place, but perhaps the full package does. BB Dubai is the one that theoretically doesn't rely on the emotional buildup of BB's past appearances, so the goal with her writing is proving her as a BB. Work a new character story from scratch and make her appeal to BB fans. And I think she was really successful there. Nice still gets what made the original BB so beloved.

Vincent van Gogh (Miner): I really didn't want to have the top two spots being alts of older characters but unfortunately Amphibian is my goat and Goghie's relationship with Theo is incredibly powerful stuff. 2024 as a whole was extremely good year for events despite having 2/3 of the usual quantity.

Andromeda: Charming design and personality, and a well-executed event. I can't understate how much Andromeda's efforts to be a hero are a great idea to use on the most archetypical damsel-in-distress of mythology.

Louhi: Repeat Andromeda's first sentence here. She could stand to look more Louhi-like and be less of a jumble of stereotypes that kinda signal she'll be the only Finnish Servant we'll get, but this is really minor compared to how enjoyable she generally is. The handling of her vs Sitonai's Louhi is a brilliant idea.

Ushi Gozen: Already has her own post, iirc. Still can't ever be as good as she was in her debut, but her My Room Lines are so much better than anything she gets in Samurai Remnant and its collab.

Le Comte de Monte Cristo: She did it. After 8 years trying, Sakurai finally made Dantès good. Some elements of his participation in FGO could be less convoluted, we certainly didn't need 4 Edmonds running around, but the meat of his story is intense, nuanced, and satisfying. Id is Sakurai's masterpiece and his handling is most of the reason why.

Alessandro di Cagliostro: The diet coke version of Douman. Has backstory connections with Sakurai's entire Victorian era cast and refuses to elaborate about it. Complete opinion coming after the inevitable drama CD.

Yui Shousetsu: The same Shousetsu we already knew and were unimpressed about. We get to learn some really crazy things about Souiken, but that doesn't really change Shousetsu herself as a character. She did have the funniest Valentines scene, at least.

HibiChika: OKSG's flop mascots continue to flop. Now they have a new friend who is about as meh as the two of them. Chikagi is at least better in FGO than in her home series.

Hassan of the Flaring Star: Spends all of Id just observing Fujimaru and saying he'll form an opinion about them later. I hope I also get to form an opinion about him later, but so far he's given me no material to work with.

[bestjeanistmonster]

I want to let you know that I love your aus and sonic works especially the DC au. I love how you made your own versions, backgrounds, and stories for the sonic characters with the designs and many more. I love how you made Sonic being Harley Quinn with its on style and story similar yet different from the original. Looking forward to see more but can I have some questions?

Will Tails end up being Nightwing once he grows up? How about Sonic's thoughts on Knuckles the billionaire (without knowing he is batman)? Does Shadow and Sonic know about Rouge's sorta relationship with Batman?

AWWW TYYYY!!!!!!!!!

1) I honestly haven’t thought that much about it cuz he’s the littlest guy but i imagine at some point he might become nightwing tho i won’t

2) he has generally the same view as everyone else in Gotham, that he’s some rich dumbass who has more money than sense and is always in the news doing dumb stuff or dating some model, donating to charities or whatever. But then there’s the whole situation with Knuckles the billionaire adopting his little brother after he left, which gives him a few mixed personal feelings

Tails seemed happy enough, he lives in a big mansion instead of a crappy apartment, more money than he’d ever seen, goes to a good school, has more opportunities, doesn’t have to struggle to survive

he even introduced himself to the guy to check out his vibe and he seems to be pretty cool

but there is a tight painful feeling in chest whenever he sees the two in gossip sections of magazines and newspapers looking happy but he pushes it away

Tails finally had a good life and he’s grateful to that Knuckles guy for giving it to him

3) Rouge is naturally just pretty flirty, just doing it for fun is just her thing, so they wouldn’t raise too many eyebrows when she does the same to the big bat himself, sure sometimes even sonic throws in the odd flirt or two as a joke to get the guy to fluster and mess with his focus

they make fun of her and gag whenever she does it

but sometimes the way she kinda talks about with a touch of fond intrigue… it sets them on edge a bit, they know she’s joking when she says he’s a ‘catch’ but… nah she’s joking (she wasn’t entirely joking)

they’ve decided trust her to a certain extent, in their line of work extending that trust is very dangerous and they don’t take it lightly. its already being stretched thin with how many times they’ve left each other dry, but it is still there

so if she and batman do have something going on things would probably get dicey real fast and Rouge knows this

good thing she’s an amazing liar