#the other is World Building involving a TON of characters and I may have to intro it very slowly lol

[professorjirt]

I am SO MAD that fics don’t just pop out ready made. I have fanart of my own shit BEFORE I even finish writing……. guys I’m about to invent the wordalizer and it’s about to revolutionize the tri-state area

[herebecritters]

BIG UPDATE FOLKS!

So I’ve been meaning to say something about this for a while now, but due to time restraints and me trying to get stuff more established, I just haven’t been able to. Some of you may have noticed that I haven’t been posting up here much for a while now. Those of you who follow my other socials have probably also noticed that I have not been tagging anything as Htf within the last month or so and that my art there has had small design tweaks taking away some of the more iconic features that are standard for Htf (piecut eyes and pink heart noses for example). So I will be completely transparent with you all here.

Essentially, thanks to encouragement from outside friends and for the sake of my own mental health, I’m ripping my ocs and story out of Htf completely. By this point it has completely become its own thing. The concept of Death loops and anthropomorphic animals are not exclusive to Htf and even then, so much has deviated from the original formula that I hardly recognize it as that anymore. I haven’t had much desire or interest in drawing canon stuff for a while now, and it’s not a matter of me disliking it. I just have been feeling so fulfilled by this original story that we’ve been building for a few years now and I really want to dive into it and make it a real thing outside of the confines of a fandom. Being able to share this story to others on the outside of the fandom without needing that specific context has been really good for me and I feel like the art and writing I’ve been pouring my heart and soul into now has a future.

What does this mean? Well the story for the most part is the same. There’s been some redesigns such as Nergals temple, the idols, Dumuzis brother (which luckily cro-marmot did not *really* have an established character in show and my characterization of him is my own anyways), but the overall plot and world building and the way the curse works was already my own original idea so that stays the same. I will not ignore that this story is very inspired by Htf, but it’s grown so much that I think it’s time that it walked on its own. Canon Htf characters are no longer a part of the world, there is no “Happy Tree Town” ect. Certain ocs, however, are still a part of it; such as Icky, Hopps, Screwball, Kyle, ect. This is still a collaborative effort with @ickyguts and @technicoloranimalviolence since they have been a part of it for a while now and have both inspired me and have helped me a ton with writing. Their ocs are still their ocs of course and what they do with them will always be ultimately up to them so nothing will be made involving their ocs without their consent. They are part of the team for as long as they wish to be <3 And I am so proud and honored to be working with them on this project.

Now I want to make it clear that while I’m cutting this story completely out of Htf that does not mean I hate Htf or the fandom or anything. It’s done a lot for me and people for the most part have been very kind and supportive of me. I may still even draw fanart of canon characters in the future if I ever get the itch to again. I just really wanna be able to do more with this story outside of that. I haven’t felt so fired up by a project like this in so long and since I’ve made the decision to do this I have been feeling really excited and happy about creating again. There’s something really fun about working on a project that’s your own that I can’t explain. I’m still establishing and setting up a lot for it but it’s very much in motion and I have a lot of cool folks cheering me on inside and outside of this little fandom. I know I’m definitely going to be taking a hit as far as followers go now that I’m going full original content, I may even lose a lot of you here because of it, but there’s something really exciting about building from the ground up. I want to make it clear though that there is absolutely no pressure for you to stick around if me drawing Htf was what you were here for and if this news makes you lose interest in this blog. I want people to follow me because they like my work overall.

That brings me to the fate of this blog. I will still keep it up and keep up my old posts. Like I said I do not wish to try and bury the roots of this story. I’ve joked with some friends that I’m “pulling a 50 Shades of Grey with this shit”. Old art will remain, but here on out the trio and my other ocs are not a part of Htf. Be Brave is no more.

Now, they are part of a project we call Fossilized.

ALSO I’m on bluesky now!

You can follow me on Bluesky HERE

And Official pages and content for Fossilized will be hosted HERE (site very much still a WIP though)

So much love and thanks to those of you who have stuck with me up until this point. And for those of you who continue to stick with me, buckle up, cus it’s going to be a wild ride! 💖💖💖

[theresattrpgforthat]

How about any TTRPGs set underwater that aren't horror themed?

THEME: Underwater Games.

Hello friend! I am so sorry that your asks got eaten - I'm glad to have them back! (It looks like Tabletop Trick or Treat unearthed a few gems.)

Now, let's see what kind of underwater games I can fish up for you!

Deepwater Enclaves, by kiryas.

Just plain old air pollution? A failed weather control experiment? Or more sinister forces? Nobody will know for sure why earth cooled below a dark mantle of clouds in the 1980s. Agriculture could not adapt fast enough and when conventional battles for the few remaining natural resources close to the equatorial line erupted into full-scale nuclear war, humanity was on the brink of extinction. Less than five hundred thousand mostly malnourished, freezing humans were left, when the year 2000 began.

This game is about venturing from a safe Community into the unknown. At the core are taking risks for your loved ones; sometimes this is at odds with your individual motives.

Deepwater Enclaves is a Rooted in Trophy game that contains a number of roll tables with evocative choices, and a community creation that involves the entire table. As players, you play both your character and a member of the community who is important to someone else. You play through a series of scenes, structured in a similar way to the way you might set up a scene in a tv show.

To participate in a scene, if you are not one of the original characters set to play a role, other players must spend a token. These tokens are also used to affect outcomes from when you roll, as well as reduce risks that may pop up as you play. You need two different colours or shades of d6’s for this: one colour will represent regular dice, while the other will represent “dark” dice, which raise the stakes whenever you roll with them.

Overall, I think this game is about exploration and survival. I think it has the potential to be a horror game if you want it to be, but you can also alter the tone to redirect the story towards something more dramatic, perhaps centring the game more on your community, and awarding the players with enough tokens to give them the ability to pull themselves out of danger.

Carcinauts!, by Hessan Yongdi.

Carcinauts! is inspired by a famous British children's animated TV show that takes place in and around the sea. You play animal explorers, scientists, and rescuers. Joined by your many friends and helpers, you seek to learn more about our fascinating oceans. Make the world a better place for the animals who live in and around the Great Blue Sea!

Based on the prolific Dominus system created by members of the Brazilian RPG community, Carcinauts! is designed to allow for quick play without a game master. This makes it idea for a solo session in the Sea or a team adventure, using the tables to build out your story. Its simple rules based around d6s and largely non-violent topic materials also make this game child-friendly.

Carcinauts is a two-page game that feels a little bit like a kid’s show; you are all underwater animal explorers, going on missions and solving problems. The resolution of the game is called the Dilemma oracle, and is fairly simple. You must determine two possible outcomes or answers, and then roll 1d6. On a 1-3 the first option is true, on a 4-6 a second option is true. These outcomes need not necessarily be “success” and “failure” either. They could be “left” and :right”, “up” and “down”, or “true” and “false”. This resolution system also makes the game friendly to solo gamers or GM-less tables.

If you want a light-hearted game about underwater explorers, which generates a lot of story ideas for you, maybe check out Carcinauts.

Deep Love, by Bully Pulpit Games.

You’ve come to this paradise to drop a two-and-a-half ton iron ball off the side of a ship and lower it almost a kilometer into the abyss. 

You’ve come to crawl inside that iron ball and go down with it, to see what there is to see down there. 

You’ve come with three other brilliant adventurers, friends, and lovers, and you’ll all get a chance to descend and risk your lives in exchange for seeing things no human being has ever seen.  And maybe, in the inky darkness and cold silence, you’ll find a measure of happiness and fulfillment.

Deep Love has a fond appreciation for old naturalist drawings of various fish, and uses those drawings as the art for the game. You play four characters, possibly pre-generated, on an expedition to the deep waters of an island for a geographic expedition. You all have feelings for each-other, and you’ll have to spend some extended time in a bathysphere to sort this out.

This game looks like it’s equal parts emotional conversation & role play, and, on the other hand, discovering the wonder of the ocean. According to the designer, it looks like you can modify how much you want to experience the former, and how much you want to experience the latter. If you want a game that gives you the tools to explore both your character’s internal emotional landscape as well as the strange underwater world around them, you might like Deep Love.

Submerged, by Arcane Atlas Games.

SUBMERGED is a solo journalling game of undersea exploration.

In this game, you take on the role of a daring explorer aboard a submersible. You have been charged with venturing into the depths of the ocean, to find something wondrous and undiscovered, hidden deep below the waves.

This one is for the solo gamers! It’s based on Carta, which uses a deck of cards to explore a map or series of locations. The player draws a number of cards and lays them face-down in a grid. Each turn, you move to a new card, flip it over, and come up with a journal entry based on the prompt the card gives you. The four suits represent four elements of the game: the Lost City, The Creature, the Wreckage, and the Signal. All of these elements play into the themes of mystery and exploration that this game seems to be about, but I don’t think any of it is necessarily horror-focused.

24XX The Deep, by Chaosmeister.

ONE DAY THE OCEANS DROWNED THE WORLD. Humanity survived below the waves. The sea birthed leviathans. Your crew owns a dingy old sub. Odd jobs, salvage, leviathan hunting and a few merc gigs keep you afloat and breathing.

24XX The Deep is a game about underwater survival and it’s also a drama. As a 24XX game, it’s only a few pages, but those pages distill the necessary parts of the game into a few things: customization for your submarine (aesthetic and mechanic), character options, and roll tables for pieces of the world, such as the factions that your crew might have to work with or work against.

The designer for this game says that 24XX The Deep isn’t necessarily meant to be a horror game, but it can still be a little creepy in tone when you consider the ways the natural underwater environment can raise the stakes for your players.

Aqua Squad, by Em.

A Tunnel Goons hack of aquatic and aquatic-adjacent adventure, created for the Saturday Morning Cartoon Jam. 

I think this might be a fairly safe bet considering it was submitted to something called the Saturday Morning Cartoon Jam! As a Tunnel Goons hack, this game is fairly simple. You follow the Submarine crew of the Cuttlefish, as they go for adventures underwater. Players pick character types, which kind of act like characters on a tv show, and fill in a few pieces of information to make those characters fit their play style.

The resolution mechanic involves rolling 2d6 and adding a relevant ability, and adding +1 for any relevant item you might have with you. You must meet or beat the difficulty score to succeed. You start with 3 items, and 10 HP. There isn’t much in terms of GM tools for adventure generation however, other than what appears to be episode title names. These titles can be evocative: you roll two words and put them together, so the GM may have an interesting time designing a “ghostly volcano” for the squad to investigate, or trying to figure out what the title “Vacation Megalodon” might mean.

Signals From The Deep, by Aaron Goss.

SIGNALS FROM THE DEEP is a tense, ocean-floor setting and scenario made using a no dice, no masters roleplaying game system Tiny Tokens.

This scenario takes you and the rest of your old, sentient, deep sea research robot team SEA-4 on a shared voyage, exploring deep sea wonders as you seek out the source of a anomalous signal detected way down at the bottom of the ocean. What awaits you in the depths?

Signals in the Deep is a mystery game, but it’s not necessarily a horror one. The game is small, meant to fit on two double-sized poker-card-sized cards. It’s easy to pick up and carry, and doesn’t have too many rules. Your core goal is to figure out the source of the signal; but what exactly that source is will be up to the GM, at least from what I can see.

Also Check Out…

Octopus Shipwreck Explorer, by SassWrites.

Bones Deep, by Technical Grimoire Games.

Odyssey Aquatica, by Old Dog Games.

My Mermaids TTRPG Recommendations.

The Sea Calls Recommendation Post.

My Coral Recommendation Post from last week.

[katsukiizmoon]

Fanfiction Writing / Reading

Hi everyone, I wanted to make a little post on general fanfiction writing and reading etiquette etc for everyone. For reference I've been writing fanfiction since I was 12, I'm now nearing 23 and I've been on tumblr since 2013. There's links to resources for those that would like them.

-> GENERAL ADVICE

Color Coding Dialogue On Tumblr: While using color can create visual contrast in things like titles or description, using it to color code dialogue can cause problems for those who are neurodivergent or vision impaired. For instance, I have trouble reading things where the dialogue for one character is bright in color. This means I miss out and can't read and support many new writers.

Showing support for your writers: I don't think demanding reblogs is an appropriate response. However, as someone who has been here for a long time, it's important. You can show your support by commenting, liking, reblogging (and reblogging with tags gives brownie points). Generally : liking will be lost in a sea of likes over time making it harder for you to find that fic again but shows you thought it was good, reblogging shows you enjoyed the fic enough to share it with those on your blog (you can even have a side blog dedicated to fics) and would like to find it again, reblogging with tags or comments says that you enjoyed it enough to share it, push it higher in the tags and that you had thoughts. This helps motivate writers ! Feel free to send them an anonymous ask if you're shy, expressing that you really enjoyed their work.

Use of italics and bold in works: Italics and bold should be used to indicate stressing or importance of certain words. EX: "no you did it!" vs "no you did it" ! You don't need to italic entire dialogue unless it's in certain situations (flashbacks, memories, whispers, etc)

Plotting & Timing: Plot and timing can be a really useful tool! Understanding what your characters are doing and having the plot move smoothly is important when writing. It prevents gaps and promotes interest. Even some of my works move a little too fast, and it can sometimes cause confusion.

READ, READ, READ: Reading is probably the fastest way to increase and broaden your horizons as an author. It allows you to gain a larger vocabularic range and new metaphors. And it helps you find what could be plot holes and more.

SMUT ; Cum Timing: I've written this before, it can happen but it's unlikely. I'll make a whole post dedicated to.. smut. But for now. Here's some other scenarios and miscellaneous notes: -> bottom cums really early on, then the top cums later -> top cums extremely early on, proceeds with oral on bottom -> top can't get it up (this happens a bit with drugs involved) for a while and gives pleasure to bottom, then stops and gives up on an orgasm

Those are a few of my main, overall tips but I'm going to link you to a bunch of resources, too. I understand more than anyone what it's like being new to this. But one of the biggest pieces advice I'm going to give you is:

Allow your writing to be objectively "bad" at first. It always comes with practice. My first fanfictions I used "~" like it was a goddamn period. It's okay.

-> RESOURCES

"writing resources : words are hard"

"describing feelings, emotions, and tone"

"au prompt list"

"how to write medieval smut"

"starting a new paragraph"

"writing resources: world building"

"writing fight scenes"

"ways to further develop main characters"

There are tons of writing blogs on tumblr. You can send them an ask anonymously if you have any questions and they may respond with some good resources. Being a little more on the accurate side, even if you accidentally fuck up a bit, gives you brownie points a LOT.

Have a nice day OwO !

[cepetriwrites]

Behind the Chapter (Into the Eye Ch 32)

This chapter was a doozy and involved a lot of research wormholes. Let's get cracking.

Language

Trying to depict a different language using italics or valyrian for every foreign language Helaena might encounter was driving me crazy. Also Helaena may or may not be going to other places in Essos and I was having a difficult time conceptualizing how easy it would be for Helaena to understand the languages so I got my anthropologist sister to assign languages to the different places of Essos, on the basis High Valyrian would be latin. Behold her wonderful language map:

(in case you can't read it:

Braavos – Quebecois

Lorath – Dutch

Norvos – German

Pentos – swiss german  

Myr – Italian

Tyrosh – Spanish

Lys – Portugeuse  

Volantis – French

Qohor – Polish

Sarnor – Czech

Mantarys – Hungarian

Dothraki – Russian

Lhazar – Monogolian

Meereen – Slovaki

Yunkai – Yemeni

Omber – Ukrainian

Rhoynish - Gaul

Common/Westeros - English

First Men Language - Welsh

So the Lyseni will be written in Portuguese, if you see Latin that's high Valyrian. I plan to still use High Valyrian words, but this method was helpful with writing. Plus I get to use different languages :)

Mendigo Inspiration

One of Mendigo's inspiration (can't reveal the other due to potential spoilers ;) ) was the character Mary Faber from the Bloody Jack series by L.A. Meyer. Another is the Artful Dodger from Oliver Twist.

Her name was originally going to be Urchin but after Portuguese became the language of Lys I changed it to the translation "mendigo"

Helaena’s Hair

Reference for Helaena's new hair cut

Pearl Diving

I cannot begin to describe the amount of time I spent researching pearl diving and free diving. Details like the fact that only certain families were allowed to pearl dive where inspired from this article. Along with the tools pearl divers would use.

I also learned about a terrifying thing called "surface blackout" where your blood becomes too hypoxic and you can pass out at the surface and potentially die. I used this article to write about the proper recovery breath holds that help prevent surface blackout.

Also I learned there are different types of pearls based on the location you harvest them from.

Festival of Love

This is a piece of world building I made up. The Festival of Love is a seven day festival that is dedicated to the different types of love based off of the Greek forms of loves. These are the seven different types celebrated in Lys:

Eros (sexy time)

Philia (friendship)

Agape (god worship and charity)

Storage (family)

Philautia (self love)

Ludus (playful love)

Sacrificing goats, making a goat-date marinade dish, and the practice of men running around naked and whipping women with goat hides is all inspired off of the real life Ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia. This video provided the recipe and interesting facts about the ancient festival.

Pillowhouse Wine

"It was a tart, almost bitter flavor, it lacked sweetness like other wines Mendigo had stolen before. Mendigo tried another swig, it did not improve, only making her face feel warm."

This sentence is a little personal easter egg inspired from a different fanfic. Alicent Reverses the Hourglass by Reddish on AO3. If you my blog you probably know I'm obsessed with it as I've made a ton of memes about it. Non spoiler. One chapter mentions a wine called Lover's Lips.

“This wine was known for one thing. Men in Lys would drink a copious amount of it the night before they were to spend with their paramour as it would keep a man ‘at his peak’ for longer during the act.

One would only need about half a cup before being able to sustain himself for at least a few hours. Any more than that and the man would experience a fever-pitch of ravenous desire that would confound the senses completely. Too much of Lover’s Lips could make a man impossible to satiate for sometimes an entire day long.” - Alicent Reverses the Hourglass

It's basically Viagra wine, which is basically vasodilator (opens up your blood vessels) which is why it makes Mendigo's face feel warm, because her blood vessels are dilating.

Oyster Bake

This was the recipe that inspired Mendigo and Helaena's oyster bake:

Ironically I spent a lot of time researching seafood recipes despite not being the biggest fan of seafood.

Mendigo's Fracture

The "crushing syndrome" complication Mendigo experienced is called Acute Compartment Syndrome in the medical field. It is when there is increased pressure within a muscle compartment and is a medical emergency. The pressure will deprive muscles and nerves of blood flow and will cause permanent muscle damage, paralysis or death if not treated.

Symptoms include:

Pain - unrelieved by pain medicine (which is why Mendigo complains the milk of poppy does nothing)

Pallor

Paralysis - early sign that starts with numbness and tingling

Pulseness (late sign)

Poikilothermia

Edema

Treatment is a fasciotomy, where they cut through strong connective tissue to relieve pressure.

I had to study fractures and their complications for one of my nursing finals and it's 100% the reason why it was included in the chapter.

This was the video of a fasciotomy I watched to write the scene (don’t watch if you’re squeamish)

Mendigo's Illness

Mendigo contracted mono. Her description of her condition is based off of my mom's quote when she caught mono: "it feels like you got hit by a mac truck, it backed up, hit you again, and then the driver got out and beat you up."

I wanted a disease that would make you feel awful but not kill you because antibiotics don't exist.

Menina uses Kudzu root - a plant from Asia - to treat her fever and mallow root for sore throat.

Philia Bond

I already knew I would have the philia bond, but there is some similarities between it and matelotage. A type of civil union used between European sailors, particularly pirates. There is debate about whether it was platonic or romantic. In Mendigo and Helaena's case it is platonic.

Painting Inspo of Mendigo & Helaena

John William Waterhouse - The Rescue (1890)

[numbknee]

Why do you think Kyman gets so much hate? I can understand some things about what people don’t like about it but some of the things they say, the harassment is so out of pocket. Especially on Tik Tok! It is like a battle ground out there and they all will shoot you down immediately if you SAY anything. I just wanna love Kyman without it seeming like a punishment 😭���

Dude I totally feel you. It's so much easier to live and let live so I don't understand how these ppl have the energy to be so aggressively hurtful all the time. This has been said before ad nauseum but for god's sake, it's JUST a fucking tv show. I'm too old for this shit.

(longer explanation under the cut! like... extremely long lol I'm so sorry my thoughts about this have been building up for a while 😅)

I think the extremely aggressive kyman hate is a symptom of growing poor media literacy and the larger "purity culture" trend that's been present online for a while now. It's very reminiscent of American Evangelicalism or Puritanism, where members of the church have to follow a very specific set of rules for behaving and thinking and if you deviate from those rules in the slightest, you're shot down immediately by the community and shamed for being sinful and blasphemous, all to keep you on the "righteous path" and avoid burning in hell for eternity. This is why so many puritanical christians in the US hate themselves for doing what most of the world sees as normal behavior, and simultaneously force that self-hating worldview onto others to "save" them. (For example see this video by FD Signifier on youtube explaining how hardcore religious ppl/conservatives are doomed to be bad in bed because they see sex as "evil" when in reality it's a normal part of human behavior 😬 It's long but very good).

Though, it's important to note that ppl who think this way may not even be christian themselves, but the behavior is so pervasive in american culture that you absorb it even if you're not a puritanical christian. (for example, to quote Ian Danskin, athiests may think "I don't believe in god, but the god I don't believe in is Jehovah). Tons of the first generation of white USAmericans were exiled British puritans who were kicked out of their home country for essentially being self-righteous assholes and trying to force their shit worldview on everyone else lmao. And I think because so many online spaces are so USAmerican-centric, people from all over the world have started adopting that purity culture as well.

Now, South Park is extremely popular (duh). It's been around for decades so it has a ton of fans both old and new. Unfortunately a lot of new fans, especially young people, follow the show for very different reasons than the average normie/not-terminally-online viewer does. They take the characters out of their original context, use them like dolls to make their own stories and fan content, and ignore all the other blatantly controversial shit that's been going on in the show since day 1 (which is why so many exclusively make blasé creek fanworks imo). They want to keep their thoughts "pure" and only engage with content that's approved by the puritanical online community

It's extremely fitting but also sad that Cartman is the scapegoat for everything wrong with South Park, both in the show and in the real world. Either ppl don't want to acknowledge he exists, or ppl latch onto him and project all of that puritanical hatred toward him or anyone that likes his character. Hell, even I'M guilty of this kind of thinking before I watched the show and understood Cartman's character better.

Kyman in particular is a target BECAUSE it involves Cartman, but also because people boil it down to shipping a nazi with a jew which, at the surface level, seems horrible! But if you've ever actually WATCHED the goddamn show, you know that is an extremely reductive and inaccurate interpretation of their characters. It's horribly poor media literacy. These ppl CANNOT seem to comprehend that you can enjoy watching a character who's a "bad person" without condoning their actions, and that enjoying the shipping dynamic of such characters DOES NOT make you a bad person by proxy.

A huge role of fiction as media is to explore ideas that may be harmful in the real world in a safe way because... *gasp* it's imaginary!! It makes you think and experience emotions you may not have the opportunity for otherwise! However, in the eyes of puritans, the fact you're even thinking about something like that makes you a sinner. It's a thought crime, which is why they consider us mentally "sick" for shipping kyman. So, they send hate at the drop of a hat and publicly vilify kyman shippers to reinforce that behavior with each other, all to say "Hey look at me!!! I'm a Good Person! see how much of a Good Person I am??? I'm gonna go to HEAVEN, and YOU'RE going to HELL". Like I said before, it's not that they necessarily believe in heaven or hell, but that's the general root of the behavior. It's performative puritan dog-piling. Also, because they haven't even fucking watched the whole show, they conveniently ignore all the other horrible shit the show portrays because random kyman shippers online are easy targets while Matt & Trey are gajillionaires who are essentially un-cancellable for things they do on the show at this point because, to quote Trey: For anyone to go up and go "Did you see this thing on South Park? That was really offensive" someone's gonna be like "Dude shut up 😒 that's just South Park".

Geez man this got super fucking long lmao. But my advice is to please take care of yourself because, and this super cliché to say, but FUCK the haters dude 🖕🖕🖕 You're engaging with media that brings you joy and exploring interesting ideas with a community of awesome artists/writers/meta-analysts and more. This is supposed to be FUN!! Anyone who tries to take that away from you or shame you into stopping is a fucking immature, holier-than-thou asshole who needs to get a fucking life. The block button is your friend, so use it early and often. You have the power to curate your own online space, and you shouldn't subject yourself to dealing with these dickheads (this is a big reason why I don't have a tiktok lol)

Good luck dude, and keep on shipping kyman 😎🤘❤️💚

[kataraslove]

Do you think Kataang will ever get retconned for Zutara? I can see Bryke/Avatar Studios/Paramount/whoever tf is in charge now for the upcoming movie being like, “To drive up sales we should reintroduce Kataang vs Zutara discourse. Let’s make it so that Katara never actually loved Aang and only settled for him because she couldn’t have Zuko.”

short answer: highly doubt it

long answer: bryke had the chance to give in to fanon and make zutara canon at the end of atla; they didn’t. bryke again had the chance to make zutara canon in the legend of korra; they instead gave confirmation that katara and aang got married and had three children. bryke could have made zuko and katara end up together in old age; we have not seen one instance in which they even interact. bryke could have had them date in the comics, especially now that zuko is currently single. instead, katara spends her time helping rebuild the world with aang. any supplementary material from avatar studios could have indicated that they were spending time together - but the only thing i’ve really seen is stuff like legacy of the fire nation reiterating their friendship during the series. so if bryke never made it canon all these times, they’re probably not going to reverse their decision now. especially not when it’s been 15 years and the canon ships have a lot more support now.

in fact, one of the writers who had wanted zutara even said, “they’re definitely together in an another universe.” and offered no follow up as to whether they canonically had feelings for each other in the current atla one.

i mean, mike dimartino doubled down on braving the elements by stating that the moment in which katara offered to heal his scar wasn’t intended to be romantic. for context, when zach tyler eisen stated that the scene of katara bringing aang back to life was more romantic than the zutara moment, mike offered no denial. mike even confirmed one of my fave kataang parallels in that episode. so, the chances of kataang being retconned for zutara happening with avatar studios content are very slim. and isn’t that the whole point of avatar studios; so that bryke could tell their stories in the ways that they want to?

while kataang is probably going to be retconned for zutara in the live action adaptation, I highly doubt it will in any animated content (not going to say no because if the past lives can be completely removed in avatar lore, anything is possible. but it just wouldn’t be consistent with the canon that they’ve spent establishing over the last 15 years).

finally, the whole “katara secretly wants zuko while being married to aang and maybe could cheat with zuko behind aang’s back” is an insult to katara’s character in general, but it is especially insulting for the version of her character that’s a married adult women with a political career and a baby. even if for some reason she hated being married to aang and/or secretly wanted zuko, I’m pretty sure the version of adult katara that we’re going to see will be way too busy with her own affairs to even contemplate cheating. quite frankly, i should hope that there’s a ton of plot lines that bryke plans on doing with adult katara that isn’t “having a secret affair with her husband’s best friend.”

now here’s what i think will happen (and you can revisit this in two years time if i’m right): i think the marketing of the movie might have zuko and katara stand beside each other. y’know, hype it up for the loudest portion of the fandom who is relying on content from 2008. emphasize on the Fire and Water and red and blue and whatever.

the actual movie content will consist of aang and katara - as lead characters - being politically involved while navigating early parenthood. i think zuko will get a little bit of screen time, enough to build-up events for the rumoured zuko movie (which will likely be a sequel to the adult gaang movie). i think the adult gaang movie will confirm zuko’s relationship with mai. zuko and katara might talk with each other, could even share a nice platonic moment - but that’s about it (and that would be enough to stir up zutara shippers).

meanwhile, for kataang, I think the movie’s plan is to break popular misconceptions that:

aang is a horrible father and husband

katara is a SAHM (not that there’s anything wrong with that)

and i’m not saying that as, like, things that i want to desperately see. i’m saying that based on all the comics that have come out in recent years and all the content from avatar legends. of the two, the second misconception is the one that i’m most confident about that. we will definitely, no doubt in mind, get to see katara’s career and legacy (which I’m super fucking excited about!!!). and the movie will 100% contain a plot surrounding katara. this i can guarantee you, based on everything that I’ve read behind the scenes. remind me to one day finish writing out all the evidence i have surrounding this.

but anyway, anon, I hope this helps give you hope and anticipation? long story short, you’ve got nothing to worry about. look at how beautiful the happy couple looks.

[co-mixed]

Daredevil by Ann Nocenti

I was planning on a short review but the more I read, the more details and elements kept popping up and I knew I would be wrong to not point them out. So here it is, a fully detailed review.

Take Your Time

Nocenti took over the title after Frank Miller (and if memory serves me right, several guest writers). It was not going to be easy, especially after the massive Born Again arc, in which after having his life completely shattered by Kingpin (and Miller), Matt returns to Hell's Kitchen to live happily ever after with Karen and opens a legal clinic/addiction hotline. He can't legally practice law, she is definitely not qualified for any psychological help, what could go wrong? Oh well, he's also still Daredevil and Karen still hates it, so there is that. Nocenti had a pretty tough task to rebuild everything and at the same time deliver good stories.

At this point, I notice when a new writer on a title is struggling for the first few months, while they try to establish their own take and find their footing. Once that's out of the way, everything goes smoothly (for most, anyway).

Nocenti's run gets a little chaotic in the beginning, while she starts to set the rules and draw the neighborhood around Daredevil and Karen. And if you expected her to go easy on the characters, you can rest easy knowing that she's put DD through hell. Literally.

Building Hell's Kitchen

Right away she involves some neighborhood kids and gives them all slow-burn arcs. In fact, she includes children in a lot of stories, and they provide a reflection of the dark and complex adult world. They react, they mirror the grown-ups and the things happening around them affect them in an unpredictable way. The arc of the kid who slowly, in the span of several issues, discovered his darker side and ended up being killed by a mob member, is something you barely notice happening at first. And then he keeps coming back, making a small but ultimately wrong choice, which eventually brings him to his demise. All that adds a sense of responsibility and urgency to Daredevil. Something he may have always experienced but didn't necessarily watch happen. Not to imply that no one has suffered from his misguided actions before (RIP, Heather). And not to say that he was responsible for the kid's choices, but said kid came to Matt repeatedly and Matt missed all the signs. If you want to direct the issue back to the kid's parents, I have to point out that most of them were ill-attended. The other kid story is Bullet's son Lance. He doesn't have much to do with DD but he's a reflection of how an impressionable child due to lack of attention can develop a full-on phobia. That's not something that I've seen in superhero comics that often. This darkness is fully developed by Nocenty and if you look closely, has its roots in Miller's stories.

The Origins of Evil

There is a series of one/two-issue arcs with guest stars and seriously messed up villains. And I don't use messed up lightly, I didn't necessarily expect this much darkness from the 80s (which is funny, since I've seen it before). In each story, there's a social issue mixed into the arc and exaggerated to the extreme. Nocenti doesn't just throw a bunch of villains at the hero. Even her minor [evil] characters usually have a rich backstory, which she isn't afraid to share. They can be victims of injustice, bad parenting, or circumstances. And then she gives them a voice and in some cases, it starts to sound reasonable before you actually see where they went off the rails (Not sure if Neya can be called a villain though).

The Main Event(s)

But all these additional stories more or less revive around two main arcs - Typhoid Mary and Mephisto. Mary's arc is very impressive, and not just because it gives tons and tons of drama. Okay, mostly because of that. The worst way for a hero to lose everything is when they get hurt by someone they trusted. But also, Matt walked into this nonsense all on his own (with a little help from heightened senses, sure, we buy that). I've seen Mary before but never really got familiar with her backstory, aside from encountering her in the latest X-men runs when she married Kingpin. But here it's introduction time and literally the best possible way to know all there is to know about Mary. Her two personalities are interesting in her relationships with other characters (she mostly interacts with DD/Matt and Kingpin but only as Typhoid). But arguably the most definitive element is her parts trying to coexist or rather push each other out. Typhoid is a wild, unpredictable, manipulative, and murderous woman, while Mary is a wallflower, sort of like early Karen. They despise each other, obviously. One's qualities are incompatible with the other's. Typhoid manages to almost kill Matt, but ironically, Mary accidentally delivers the final blow. At this point, Matt's mental stability is shaken to the point from which he can't return on his own, so in true DD fashion, he skips town, reviving the Lone Stranger arc from Miller's run. It doesn't help that before he leaves, beaten and humiliated (rightfully, I might say), there's Inferno going on in New York, as in a literal Limbo opening. It takes an encounter with Mephisto and Inhumans to force him to find himself again and go back to New York. But overall, both stories are some of the greatest examples of how to properly torture a character.

I liked Ann Nocenti's take, it was brutal and harsh with the world showing its ugliest colors. She doesn't shy away from a righteous message and she delivers it in a way that resonates. Nocenti also doesn't reduce her female characters to mindless damsels in need of saving. She even outlines it in the arc of Number Nine. In fact, she didn't paint one or the other as the ideal, both Nine and Brandy learned something from each other.

The Big Picture

In my short review of Born Again on Instagram, I mentioned scaling, specifically Miller inviting the Avengers to deal with one of the villains Daredevil couldn't necessarily handle. Nocenti does a similar thing but again, brings it a step further - she lets Human Torch walk a day in Daredevil's shoes. While at first, he believes it's easier than his job in the Fantastic Four, since they deal with Galactus and other massive dangers on a daily basis. But quickly, he finds out that things aren't that simple. What Daredevil deals with, the famous "street level" is different from saving the world, but that doesn't mean it's easier. Saving one neighborhood with limited resources is something he can't handle. This is bringing value to a character that could easily be considered second-tier. Something that's both necessary and impressive.

Other Pictures

But if I get into this, I might end up rehashing everything that happened in the run. That is if I haven't done it already. I want to sum it up, and of course, it wouldn't be even acceptable without pointing out John Romita Jr's art, he was the main artist for the majority of the run and stood out too. It was dynamic and added the perfect amount of emotion to every character and the interiors that surround them.

All in All

See, when I read the first few issues by Ann Nocenti, I was sure I wasn't going to like it. I thought I was missing something so many people saw. But I kept reading and when it ended, I saw exactly what was there and what made it so unique. It's a perfect follow-up to Born Again, in every sense, and it manages to destroy the seemingly indestructible life the characters created for themselves. The best stories are all like that.

[rosewoodroad]

Character Study: Zhou Yao

(AKA a massive infodump about a character that was onscreen for a grand total of 10 minutes.)

I've been away from my tablet for a long while now, but the Yao fever is returning and everyone's amazing Yao fanart is exacerbating my pain (masochistic). If I can't doodle my headcanons, I'll type out the headcanons!

This will also act as a little guide for myself for future comics, but feel free to use this as reference for your own ventures!

Yao as a character is in a very unique position. They've been advertised as a main story NPC for EoD, but barely actually appear in the expac. Yet, a bigger role for them has been hinted at for the coming Living World episodes, and out of all the characters we know, they have the most "behind the scenes" plot connections and characterisation.

In other words, despite them having as much of a presence as a gust of wind in EoD, we're actually given a ton of clues and insight into their character if you squint hard enough.

We'll start with what we know is 100% canon of their personality:

Pessimistic & Sarcastic

Their VA, Ry Chase, describes them as a quick witted person with a "cynical outlook on life" which is pretty self explanatory. Given that most of their dialogue in EoD involves sassing literally everyone (even the Commander, who has just beaten up 3 jade bots in front of them), they are quick to sniff out your bullshit and pulls no punches regardless of who you are, with maybe the exception of Joon. Even then, they’re not above making light fun of her paranoia in building the Jade Behemoth in Kaineng Blackout. In hindsight, it’s funny how we’ve never actually seen the two interact on screen.

But, this also means that they're very judgemental. They are quick to assume the worst about people and situations, which may form an unfair basis for the rest of Yao’s interactions with them as it does with Mai. Note that in The Future in Jade, Mai doesn’t even know why Yao is so ticked off at her. She may be responding to their jabs, but it certainly sounds like one-sided aggression on Yao’s part.

Yao also strikes me as being overly defensive with their sass as well. As compassionate and charismatic as they can be about others, they are quick to resort to biting and dismissive remarks when they come across someone they disapprove of.

As they best described themself, a mostly friendly engineer.

Intelligent & Self-assured

They’re smart, hypercompetent, and they know it. Literally every piece of dialogue we have with Yao involves them boasting about themself in some way, but it’s not an unfounded assumption. Joon’s snooping employee notes on Yao states they don’t have a formal education, but they’ve built their own functional Jade arm despite the Jade brotherhood, who are as bad at Jade Engineering as they are shady, being their only prior working experience. They’ve also been actively attending to reports of malfunctioning Jade equipment for some time prior to the start of EoD, so they aren’t exaggerating about being “essential” to New Kaineng City’s Jade industry either. Plus, they’re not too bad a fighter.

The fact that Joon has taken them in as her protégé and so readily promoted them to Head of R&D in The Cycle Reborn speaks a lot to their natural intelligence- especially when, by the time EoD ends, they’ve also only been employed with Xunlai for three years. 

Holodrama Junkie & Feline Enthusiast

My favourite “canon” fact about them. According to Joon, Yao literally can’t stop talking about these. I love this nerd. Somebody invite them to the Commander’s house.

Anyway, that’s all the official character facts we have about Yao thus far! But now we get into the underlying layer of things; little notes here and there detailing their past, their relationships with other NPCs that you can just barely taste outside of the main narrative, and a whole lot of assumptions by connecting the dots.

Here’s what we can infer from the crumbs we are given about Yao:

Self-conscious

Yao may be haughty when it comes to their competence, but they are not delusional about it. They are very aware of their limits and faults, and will back off when they’re confronted with something they can’t fight, or admit when they are wrong (given enough time and/or evidence to reflect upon it, of course)

Scenario A: They were confident enough to come running to the rescue through a sea of Void with extractor parts in The Only One, but from the sounds of it, didn’t bother trying to fight at all, admitting it’s “not what they do” despite them kicking Jade mech butts on a daily basis back in Kaineng City. 

Scenario B: Openly reflects on themself and their wrongdoings against Mai in The Cycle Reborn. Even during their catfights, Yao is pretty frank and on-the-nose about why Mai bothered them (basically, the fact that she also managed to become Joon’s protégé- their equal- despite having even less engineering qualifications than themself).

Petty, Grudge-holding

You could see this one coming a mile away, but from how they respond to the tiniest, even unintentional slight against them, Yao is indeed the pettiest little shit. They are very emotionally-driven for an engineer; their relationship with Mai is evidence in itself, but they also get pretty salty about Officer Mizuki’s patronising too. There’s also that moment in The Future in Jade where they scold Dragon’s Watch for “talking behind people’s backs”, only to slyly rub it in barely an hour later by saying the Commander would be free to “talk shade about anyone in no time.”

Also, according to Joon’s snooping employee notes again, they do not like the Jade Brotherhood and gets sincerely angry at any mention of them. We don’t know for sure when Yao left the Brotherhood or what they did to Yao, but the fact that they can remain so incensed about the Brotherhood all this time later points to a deep sense of personal justice that, once transgressed, would earn you longstanding ire.

They also tend to let these grudges or petty disagreements get in the way of their personal efficiency, being unable to work together with Mai on even a single project out of jealousy.

But, and a big but, Yao is capable of being forgiving with surprising ease- they did accept Mai’s extremely awkward apology despite her literally shit talking them half a dialogue session ago, though this might be a result of Mai stroking their ego. We’ll have to see if this extends to Chul-moo and the Brotherhood, though.

Sociable

I think of all the NPCs we’ve ever met across GW2′s narrative, Yao is one of the few who explicitly owns, and more importantly maintains, a social life outside of other main story characters. Both Elora and Nozomi openly consider Yao a close friend, and both of them come from wildly different backgrounds (Xunlai and the Brotherhood respectively). I want to bring attention to Nozomi here; not only is she another ex-Brotherhood member- meaning Yao got to know her years ago in an environment they have long since left- they are also still in touch today (and happily gossiping about the Commander). 

Once more in Kaineng Blackout, we also see Yao eagerly introducing themself to Mizuki and offer a helping hand with crimefighting despite their initial hissy fit. They’re Peter Parker levels of chatty while they’re fighting off Jade mechs during the event, trying to spark badly-timed conversations with the Commander(s) accompanying them. Making friends comes naturally to Yao, and I won’t be surprised if they’re actually an extrovert.

Ambitious, Approval Hunter, Attention-seeking

I grouped these 3 traits together because of how tightly intertwined they seem to be. Yao may not be obnoxious about it, but you can tell recognition and personal progress matters a lot to them. They’re jealous about Mai stealing their spotlight as Joon’s protégé. They have told Joon they want to become project head in the MedTech department. They consistently try to push the (admittedly accurate) narrative that they are a competent, important Jadetech engineer running Kaineng City’s powerplant. They eagerly offered to assist Officer Mizuki in crime-busting. They proclaimed they had the “world to save” when asked about their future plans. They were ecstatic to be offered a chance to run with Dragon’s Watch, and loved mouthing off about how they were a “big deal” to the Commander.

Yao is someone who runs on ambition, and is always seeking opportunities to elevate and put themself out there. They are not clawing desperately for attention, but they definitely love the spotlight and seek recognition and close compatriotship from those who they admire or respect (Joon, Officer Mizuki, and later the Commander after the whole back-talking incident). 

Yao’s ambitions aren’t necessarily selfish, however. Yao’s aspirations to become an expert in Medical Technology is born out of a want to help others like themself, as we see with Elora being taken under their wing as a fellow disabled engineer, and they worry about Cantha’s (and Joon’s) future without Jade technology.

Not unlike Joon herself, huh?

Inferiority-Superiority Complex

Unless you’re a fullblown narcissist, most superiority complexes originate from a place of inferiority. We can kind of get a sense that Yao is trying to compensate for something from how hard they try to feel appreciated, and there are times where Yao reveals some self-depreciating thoughts to the Commander, albeit in a more “casually humorous” way. In The Cycle Reborn, they begin their dialogue with the Commander by boasting about helping with the extractors, only to start contradicting themself and indirectly admitting how unimportant their role was.

We also know Yao is worried about their jade arm failing without a viable power source now that Soo-Won is out of the picture. They are likely afraid of feeling vulnerable and useless without it, and being a top engineer with aspirations of leading medical technology does tend to get a lot harder when you’ve only got one arm. Those of you who have the Order of Whispers as their Personal Story pick would find this sentiment reminiscent of Tybalt Leftpaw’s own social and technical challenges, which is a situation Yao appears desperate to avoid.

Part-time Alchemist

This is kind of a cop out given how support-engineer NPCs do the same thing, but if you look carefully, Yao tosses elixirs at you during the Kaineng meta (I swear someone had a GIF of this somewhere on Tumblr). I just think the idea of Yao experimenting with potions and alchemy outside of their job is adorable.

In a nutshell, Yao’s confidence is not unfounded, but as much as it comes from a place of genuine competency, they’re also somewhat desperate to cover up for their vulnerabilities or what they perceive to be lacking attributes in themself. They can and will bite, but will soak up approvals like a sponge and attach themself to anything that can make them feel valuable or of use- not unlike Mai, or even Joon, perhaps.

I have some more headcanons about them below based on the inferences and timeline shenanigans, but these aren’t really backed up by facts, just feels on Yao as a character compared to other NPCs.

Headcanons:

Yao reminds Joon a lot of herself when she was young. Ambitious, intelligent, disadvantaged, but eager for the world to recognise their talents. She won’t admit it, but this is partially the reason she took them in.

Yao is about Taimi’s age- 22 to 24 years. In Renho’s report to Chul-moo about Yao, he calls them a “kid,” which means they were not officially an adult when they left the Brotherhood (<21 years, assuming Cantha follows the same social concept of maturity as we do). We also know that Yao has only been employed for about 3 years from 1333 to 1335 AE (when EoD took place), which gives us a general ballpark of how old they were when they began their job with Xunlai Jade. Also, it’s pretty obvious they’re a young adult from how immature they tend to act, much like Taimi.

Adding on, Yao has probably been with the Jade Brotherhood since they were very young, possibly as an adolescent. Knowing how intelligent they are, it’s not an impossible feat for them to keep up with Brotherhood Jadetech despite their youth. Plus, Chul-moo is surprisingly protective, maybe even fond of Yao (see encrypted Brotherhood communique), and this is despite him being a mostly terrible person who doesn’t mind sacrificing his goons for the progress of his organisation. If there’s one way to endear yourself to a corporate snake, it’s being a cute and smart kid.

I mentioned this before, but once Taimi starts working with Joon as her advisor, I foresee Yao and Taimi either quarrelling over literally everything under the sun like siblings fighting over their mom’s attention, or praising each other’s geniuses depending on their mood. There is no middle ground here.

Yao has a tendency to hyperfixate and ramble on and on about things, often totally dominating a conversation without realising. They also talk to themself in the absence of company. They don’t like being alone for too long, and sleeps with holodramas playing on to have some semblance of activity in their house.

[sailoryooons]

B, I, M, R, W please

Hi hi hi!

B: Any of your stories inspired by personal experience?

Yes - the entire setting of The Wood is inspired by the town my parents have a hunting cabin in deep in the middle of nowhere in Georgia. That placed has creeped me out for years. And then the town in F*ck Christmas is designed exactly like my hometown. I just changed names of neighborhoods and stuff.

I: Do you have a guilty pleasure in fic (reading or writing)?

Yes, I really enjoy darker fics with a lot of psychology involved. So like, I wouldn't say dark romance because it's not really the 'romance' in that that I find fascinating, as much as the psychology etc. involved. I like psychological thrillers for this exact reason, I find the mind fascinating and seeing some writers utilize that for morally grey or 'villain' characters is cool!

M: Got any premises on the back burner that you'd care to share?

I have a faerie Jimin that I want to do as soon as I finish Gods of the Dark! It's called Changeling and I can't decide if I want to put it on Hali After Dark or do it here. I also have a mini-series I'd like to do for Taehyung called Tether, which some may remember from me talking about last year! That one involves witches and daemons and a fantasy setting.

R: Are there any writers (fanfic or otherwise) you consider an influence?

Yes - some of my favorite published authors are Fonda Lee, R.F. Kuang, Samantha Shannon, Pierce Brown, and Christopher Paolini. Kuang and Brown have shaped the way I liked to write loyalties and betrayals and the consequences of violence in my fics. Paolini, Shannon and Lee I attribute a ton of my world-building drive to. Some fanfic authors I have recently have been super inspired by are @gimmethatagustd @eoieopda and @vyduan. Jai and I legit brainstorm ideas almost every day - they get so many of my offshoots and problem-solving and they come to me for the same stuff, so I am always inspired by them. I just beta-read something for Jade the other day and it was so fucking well written that I have been thinking about it for days and it was to the point that now I want to write a similar aesthetic/genre because I was so insane about it. Virginia is literally mechanically and narratively one of the best writers I've ever seen here and her ability to like.. inject feeling and wordplay into her fics makes me want to eat her style like Kirby and make it mine.

W: Do you like more general prompts, or more specific ones?

For drabbles I like more general prompts because it is really hard to capture 'specific' for me in a short amount of writing space. For fics or one-shots, I like more specific prompts.

Fanfic Ask Game

[shadowshrike]

for the ask meme, 30, 7, and 39

30. Have you ever written something that was out of your comfort zone? If so, what was it, and how did it affect your approach to writing fic thereafter?

I pretty regularly write outside my comfort zone if for no other reason than writing is extremely uncomfortable to me. To answer less literally - almost anything I've written for Ace of Diamond is outside my comfort zone due to the setting. I'm a very casual baseball fan, have never had the opportunity to go to Japan, and very rarely write anything set in non-fantasy settings.

Probably the furthest I've reached outside my comfort zone was Unspoken, which is a fic with no dialogue. Do I love it? Not really, but I'm glad I tried it. As someone who hears and sees the characters in my head first, anything spoken is a huge crutch for me while writing. I regularly write entire fics of just conversations and then have to build prose around it, trying to get the rhythm of words to evoke the mood I'm going for while still carrying enough information to tell what's going on. Also, Endless Song was a huge departure. It is both the only thing I've ever written in 1st person, and is inspired by Xianxia; a truly crazy combination for a fic about baseball kids.

As far as how this writing has impacted me - it's made me more okay with following inspiration rather than factual nuance when writing. I'm a detailed world builder, so playing in a place where I'm not 100% confident I know what things are 'really like' has been freeing. I still research to anchor the space, of course. I just spend less time freaking out about leaning on the occasional literary shorthand of stereotypes to keep things moving in casual, small fics where the world is not the focus.

7. Any worldbuilding you’re particularly proud of?

Veridian Sky is no doubt the king of this for me. I had so much fun researching to piece together an Almyran culture, and I still think about it (and the final two missing chapters...) regularly.

Honorable mentions for other fandoms to: Endless Song (Ace of Diamond) - unfortunately not very visible in the fic due to it being unfinished and in 1st person, but I have a crazy amount of notes for it since it's completely fantasy and therefore needed an entire world built. Asylum Obscura (Fire Emblem: Fates) - also unfinished, and being years old it's something where I don't love all the writing. However, deeply exploring the commoner cultures of a world you barely see in game, especially how it clashes across national and class borders, was really fun. Life, Loss, and Bearfaced Lies (Baldur's Gate 3) - just finished this, so it's fresh in my mind. The worldbuilding is so insanely complex for this one, and it makes me a little sad that it's tied to a premise which almost no one but me would find interesting in that fandom. I may end up writing some other things that are more accessible to play with this world some more.

39. Is any aspect of your writing process inspired by other writers or people? If so, who?

I honestly am not involved enough in the writing community to get a ton of inspiration from others' processes. That said, I do borrow quite a lot from fic writers I admire stylistically. Ones like you (mareza) or now OAKtoONT in the Daiya space have me re-reading what you write from time to time and trying to identify what feels so good about the words or stories you've chosen. It has me often adjusting my own flow or trying to come at a fic idea from an angle I hadn't considered before.

[pidayforpi]

Confession Time

[...about the "settings" in my Ducktales/Duckverse fan fics]

(If you have been following my "headcanon-heavy" Ducktales stories (such as this, this or this), or my random thoughts/infodump from time to time, you may see that I often refer to something as "my settings". Or, in case of characters, "my Donald"/"my José"/"my Scrooge" etc.

You may also notice various cringy outlandish additional details in some of my Ducktales works (such as the fact that Donald is absolutely mentally unstable, and can and will commit murder; or the fact that Donald (among others) has literal magic for some reason).

So, uh...here's the thing...

[Super embarrassing self-indulgent infodump below]

Before I even started writing fan fics, I have actually already thought out an entire plot and settings for my Ducktales story.

This is something that I...sometimes do (especially in the past). Whenever I get invested in a new production, my brain may automatically generate a "fan" plot and settings using that production as a background, which may get developed more as I got to know the production better (as well as a possibility of adding crossovers).

(Yes DT is not the only one subjected to my cringy mind, but I'm still too embarrassed to share the others at the moment. If you must know, another example is Skyrim)

Now that I realise it, that Undertale story idea is actually an example of that. Personally, I call these ideas "Projects".

These Projects:

→ Are developed to different extents. "Developments" include a complete plot (e.g. an ending?), a comprehensive world-building/settings, and possible messages and themes of the story

[Ducktales has been rather developed]

→ Are of different lengths (Long, Medium, Short)

[Ducktales is a Long Project]

→ Are thought out automatically in my mind. A plot will just pop up, and I will use it, with only adjustments and add-ons. (In other words, once a plot is generated, it stays. I may make modifications as I am thinking it out, but the plot direction largely stays the same)

→ Are thought out in an...anime episode fashion (instead of words). I visualise the scenes in my mind, with music, visual effects and such things that I can't possibly portray in a written story

→ Are...also very anime-y (most of them are Fantasy/Adventure, with power systems and yes, skill names)

[Like Ducktales has its own "Magic" power system, with different categories of magic]

→ May involve "crossovers". Crossovers are usually other productions that are canonly or non-canonly related to the base productions

[For example, my Ducktales Project uses DT17 as the base, but has crossovers from LotTC, Paperinik and Kingdom Hearts. There is also a bit of Goof Troop (or the Goof-verse in general), because Max/Goofy/Pete/PJ are in the story]

[For the Skyrim example, the "other productions" are actually Skyrim mods]

[They may also involve other fanworks/personnel but obviously I can't share them publicly. Not any for Ducktales though]

→ Are 80% non-lore-friendly (I redefine what is lore-friendly lol)

[In my Ducktales Project, the entire event of Season 3 is non-existent, because when I thought of the plot Season 3 had not been aired yet logically it cannot happen under my story]

→ Are something I never thought I could ever share with absolutely any other human being. I have a ton of ideas in my mind that, from the moment of creation, I have prepared to die without anyone knowing it (Because they are just...so crazy or I legally cannot share them due to copyright. It's like your sketchbook of OCs you've created when you are like 12)

-------------------------------------

So. What am I trying to say?

When I started legit writing stories, sometimes, I used some of the settings in my Ducktales Project. At that time, I called those settings "headcanons", rather than the entire story being set in an AU.

This is due to me wanting to actually create something for my very much self-indulgent Ducktales Project, as well as share my (very crazy) ideas with someone else. Therefore, I have integrated bits and pieces of my settings into my published works.

...but then here's the problem. I was (is) too embarrassed to fully reveal my AU. As a result, there are now weird, half-canon (to my Ducktales Project) stories that I have written. (which is worse than completely non-canon, to be honest)

For example...

→ That "Wish" story linked above, which is supposed to be an alternate scenario of the Season 3 "Quack Pack!" episode? Is not canon. Simply because anything from Season 3 does not exist in my AU. Goofy also does not inform Donald of the war this way, nor is the war "a war between Light and Darkness" this actually sounds so forced and cringy. It is not even a "conventional war" in technical terms (not a two-sided war, at least), more like an insurgency.

(The entire Kingdom Hearts plot and concept has been basically taken apart and reshaped into something else. Sora isn't even in the picture, for example. It's a completely different story. Another AU, if you may.)

What is canon are the involvement of Goofy, Mickey and Donald in the war (both past and present), as well as everything in the headcanon page in that story.

→ Another example is the "Power of Berserk" story. That is 100% not canon (sorry shippers, donro isn't a thing in my AU). This is extremely embarrassing, because there is a chapter/scene in my Ducktales Project that is called "Power of Berserk", with a somewhat similar but also very different plot.

What is canon are Donald's violent tendencies, and the idea of an Evronian apocalypse. Otherwise that story is super non-canon.

→ The most "canon" story I have written is probably "Ice on Fire" (yes Donald canonly beats up Lunaris in my universe). The only things not that accurate is Panchito's reaction/personality (I made him too dumb/distant from Donald. He's supposed to be rational but sympathetic), and some points in the headcanon page afterwards (e.g. Scrooge and the kids do know that Donald has magic (because magic is very common in my universe; also why would Scrooge need Donald on their adventures otherwise?). They just don't know what Donald is doing with his magic).

Also there's more to that scene, because that is actually an ending of the first part of my Ducktales Project.

-------------------------------------

I...cannot rewrite/delete those stories. I may add a label about what is canon or not.

But the most important thing I am going to do is to make an info sheet about my Ducktales Project. This is getting confusing that even I have to write one, if only for myself to read.

It is going to be super long...and super self-indulgent. But I have become less embarrassed to share my ideas, after seeing others share theirs (such as Cursegirl's Furious Revenge AU I mentioned in the last infodump). I feel like, even if it's only my Ducktales AU, I can share it.

I just have to write it out...which may take a while. (But this is like the "2023 Summer of Infodump", where I keep writing these passages instead of actual stories. So the momentum is here...for now)

If I have the time, I will also produce a character sheet besides the info sheet. The info sheet is going to be about world-building, settings and the plot, while the character sheet will focus on...character information.

Yea. Let's see how it goes.)

(7-8-2023)

[wordacrosstime]

A Diamond In The Dust

["A Diamond in the Dust - The Stuarts: Love, Art, War" by Michael Dean. 24 November 2022. Holland Park Press Ltd. Paperback. 225 pages. ISBN: 9781907320965]

The brutal murder of King Charles I was followed by the establishment of the Commonwealth of England, a brief republic. Reinstatement of the monarchy with his son Charles ll was accompanied by the execution of the judges - the Regicide Judges - who had condemned Charles I to death. Ten of them were hanged, nine of whom were hanged, drawn and quartered. The ringmaster Oliver Cromwell died naturally. His corpse was exhumed, hanged at Tyburn (in London, now Marble Arch), beheaded, and its head mounted above the building where Charles I had been tried.

They knew how to do things in those days.

Michael Dean's A Diamond in the Dust starts and ends with the show trial and execution of Charles I, with a second book - The King's Art - scheduled to take the story forward.

Shortly before his death, Charles I wrote a (very long and frankly dreadful, but yes, execution was going too far) poem titled (with capitals as written) Majesty in Misery, Or an Imploration to the KING OF KINGS. It's not known if God has read it yet, it could take a while. Mercifully Michael Dean only quotes three lines and then solely to explain the title of the book:

With my own Power my Majesty they wound, In the King's name the King himself's uncrown'd, So doth the dust destroy the Diamond.

Watch those capitals Charles. Upper Class OK, Upper Case seldom.

Michael Dean's delightful A Diamond In The Dust is a very exact account of many of the painters artists soldiers and male prostitutes who flourished around the courts of Europe. Charles emerges as worried about what he felt was his mis-shapen body until he finds he is good at something. That something, in what was perhaps his own language was f__king. And to give it context, music, sculpture, f__king, religious wars, wars, f__king, spending money he didn't have, f__king, and when at a loss for something to while away his sybaritic hours, not-surprisingly, more f__king.

This should not suggest that Charles I was promiscuous. On the contrary he and his wife Henrietta Maria seem, after a difficult start (there was a lot of religion, catholic and protestant, involved - all across Europe and all across their lives) to have been not simply in love, but profoundly in love. Charles I does emerge at times as a bit of a pr__k, but, as the English public of the time might well have said, 'at least he's our pr__k).

Art, politics, religion, shipwrecks. Michael Dean knows his controversies and A Diamond In The Dust is crammed to the gunwales with them. George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham is a superbly-drawn (he's real - all the people in the book are, and there are tons of them) character, sexually versatile on both sides, bold, generally courageous, a kind of World-War-II-We'll-Fight-Them-On-The-Beaches lad (he might well have turned up there for a cameo), hated, unfortunately by Queen Henrietta, and in the end murdered. The narrative does slump a bit when he exits, but it's coming to the end (for Charles I) when he leaves the story, and Charles is only going one way.

Michael Dean is expert with history and characters. His novel about the painter Marc Chagall, The White Crucifixion (2018) as well as being a fine novel is a smart piece of work, coming across - like A Diamond in the Dust - with the feel of historical accuracy (only God knows if it's extremely true, but He's tied up with Charles I's Majesty in Misery, possibly for eternity).

A Diamond in the Dust may be one for (1) history experts who long to pick holes in other historians' work while gloating at their superiority; (2) fanatical puritans (OK, Americans), protestants, catholics (it's got lots of all of them, entangled, not always religiously) (3) Republicans (4) Royalists (5) fans of art (yards and yards of art in 225 pages, lots of named works, very detailed biographies of big (and interestingly obscure) artists and patrons. And others who hate being categorised but read The Guardian flagrantly, with a fixed expression of disapproval.

[Image credit: book cover, with thanks to the copyright holders]

John Park

Words Across Time

19 May 2023

wordsacrosstime

[kevinsreviewcatalogue]

Review: The Big Lebowski (1998)

The Big Lebowski (1998)

Rated R for pervasive strong language, drug content, sexuality and brief violence

Score: 5 out of 5

<Originally posted at https://kevinsreviewcatalogue.blogspot.com/2023/01/review-big-lebowski-1998.html>

The fact that The Big Lebowski isn't the defining film of Joel and Ethan Coen's careers speaks less to its own quality and more to the remarkably high bar the sibling team of writers and directors have set for themselves before and since. Despite being a box-office dud in its day, its unique blend of a crime caper, a noir mystery, a slacker comedy, and all manner of other influences both cinematic and psychedelic quickly helped it find its audience and build an enduring following on home video, quoted in fraternity houses and analyzed in philosophy 101. It tells the kind of story that the Coen Brothers specialize in, smart comedy about really stupid people who get into something way over their heads that turns out to be a lot simpler and dumber than it seems, taking classic film noir tropes and turning them upside-down. All of it is elevated by an all-star, larger-than-life cast of actors giving instantly memorable performances, crafting a world of ordinary and not-so-ordinary people that feels lived-in and authentic even as everything goes increasingly crazy. It's the kind of mystery where the protagonist figures everything out about thirty minutes in, instead being more interested in exploring the lives of its distinctive characters. Either way, it's a trip.

Set in the early '90s against the backdrop of the Gulf War, the film opens with a pot-smoking, middle-aged slacker named Jeffrey Lebowski, who prefers to go by simply "The Dude", getting his home raided one day by a pair of crooks on the orders of a porn producer named Jackie Treehorn, who beat him up and soil his nice rug. As it turns out, they got him mixed up with another Jeffrey Lebowski, the "Big" one, a millionaire philanthropist whose sexy trophy wife Bunny owes a ton of money to Jackie. The Dude, wanting some compensation for his ruined rug, heads to the Big Lebowski's house, which gets him and his bowling buddies, the hot-tempered Vietnam veteran Walter and the oblivious Donny, sucked into a bizarre tale that involves kidnapping, German nihilists, Jeffrey's artist daughter Maude, a punk kid from the suburbs named Larry, and more, all while an old cowboy who's seemingly wandered in from a Western narrates the tale.

This is not really the easiest movie to describe, in no small part because, like any good mystery or comedy, describing what happens ruins most of the fun. Like I said, it's a Coen Brothers movie, and the main appeal here isn't really the central mystery to start with. No, this is a hangout movie centered on The Dude, Walter, and Donny, a group of friends whose ordinary lives are thrown into disarray by unforeseen circumstances and then go even more askew thanks to their own blunders and stupidity. The central character, The Dude, is a guy who looks at first glance like he's the biggest idiot in the film. He's an aging hippie who took part in protests back in the '60s and has drifted through life ever since doing odd jobs in a world that's left him behind, as the Big Lebowski rather bluntly informs him the first time they meet. ("Your revolution is over, Mr. Lebowski! Condolences! The bums lost!") And yet, he's also the guy who manages to correctly guess what's really going on thirty minutes into the movie, and the only reason why it takes so long for him to do anything is because, well, just look at him. He's lazy, and even if he weren't, he doesn't really care either way, except for the fact that he's being pulled around by the people around him. The Dude may just be the most clear-eyed character in the entire movie, a guy whose philosophy of life is to let nothing get to him and just brush off what others have to say. It may have turned him into a layabout who's doing nothing with his life, but at the very least, he's happy and doesn't seem to be overburdened with problems in his life. It's no wonder that Julianne Moore's Maude Lebowski, arguably the only other character in the movie who seems to have her head on straight (and even she's a rather eccentric, smugly superior asshole), takes her own weird sort of liking to this guy, or that fans of the film have turned "Dudeism" into an actual spiritual code.

Everybody else, meanwhile, is going through life like they're in a completely different sort of movie, and most of the fun comes from watching them butt heads with one another. John Goodman's Walter, the hothead who can't stop going on about the war, is a Vietvet out of a prestige drama about a guy trying and failing to adjust to civilian life (though if you take the original screenplay as canon, it may just be stolen valor coming from a man with a few screws loose), one who winds up causing more problems than he solves. Peter Stormare, Torsten Voges, Flea, and Aimee Mann play a group of German nihilists who act like the hip, quirky protagonists of a contemporary Quentin Tarantino crime thriller as they try to exploit the situation, and simply make things worse for everybody. John Turturro's rival bowler The Jesus is the villain of a sports movie. Tara Reid's Bunny is someone lifted straight out a '70s porno who's directly responsible for the entire mess (noticing a trend here?). The only characters in the movie who aren't stupid are those who've either been dragged into it or, like Sam Elliott's mysterious narrator, are simply observing it all from afar, and yet, this is not a stupid movie. Rather, these characters, each brought to life by an amazing all-star cast, are stupid in their own unique ways, the jokes coming from how their unique brands of stupidity interact and form all manner of unique cocktails of mayhem. It's a movie where everything is constantly flying off the rails because none of these idiots know what they're doing, and just like The Dude, you're just along for the ride of a lifetime.

The Bottom Line

This is just, like, my opinion, man, but The Big Lebowski deserves its reputation as one of the greatest crime movies of a decade that had no shortage of them, a twisted tale of a bunch of idiots falling into a larger-than-life yet all-too-real maelstrom. See it, learn to quote it, and abide.

[by-glass-and-waves]

Intro post time :o

Hi I'm Glass, 30F (she/her). I spend way too much time with worldbuilding or story ideas or exploring themes SIGH. I'd enjoy building/upgrading my computers if I had the money and space for it >:( I also find driving (without traffic or a ton of stoplights) while listening to music super relaxing (eg my story playlists)

Bluesky

AO3

I really like to draw/write about Narinder/The One Who Waits 🙃

I've got four Cult of the Lamb AUs/storylines on a sliding scale of dark to lighthearted:

Depression Quest (fic, cw: abuse, self harm, depression)

The Courtship of the God of Death (fic, cw: unhealthy/toxic relationship, obsession, jealousy, manipulation, violence, gore, emotional/psychological abuse)

Restart (cw: violence, gore)

19th Century AU

More on the AUs below the cut

Interests: Dragon's Dogma, Cult of the Lamb, Star Wars Outlaws, Final Fantasy IX, Neon Genesis Evangelion, No Man's Sky, Rune Factory 4/5, Skyrim, Fallout New Vegas/4, Nier Replicant/Automata, pre-Destiny Bungie lore + Destiny's Book of Sorrows and a few other bits + Halo's Forerunner Trilogy

My name comes from something I wrote for my oc worldbuilding project:

He pressed against the glass of time, feeling it crack beneath his fingers. He stepped into the tides of space, seeing the water part for his feet. … He broke through the glass, looked down at them again. … He swam through the rising tides to a new world.

Depression Quest:

My very First Idea™ for Cult of the Lamb. It follows the canon ending of Lamb conquering The One Who Waits. Essentially, the Lamb turns Narinder into a trophy husband, and Narinder does not have a good time.

This is my darkest au and includes things such as abuse, self harm, depression, etc. My favorite thing is the fact that Ratoo and Narinder eventually become friends. I've written a chapter but the fic won't be updated often. Tag: #cotl depression quest

The Courtship of the God of Death:

This is the fic I've published on AO3. Follows the alternate ending of The One Who Waits regaining the Red Crown and his freedom, but instead of sacrificing the Lamb, he accepts their proposal to become his Consort and rule over the Cult by his side. He enjoys his victory, deals with the Lamb's affection for him, and processes what happened between he and his siblings.

It starts out lighthearted, then becomes a descent into darker themes such as obsession, jealousy, manipulation, emotional/psychological abuse, and the toxic relationship between the Lamb and Narinder. It also includes some violence and gore. It borrows some stuff from Depression Quest, and involves the majority of my headcanons/worldbuilding. Tags: #cotl courtship, #cotl the courtship of the god of death, #the courtship of the god of death, #cult of the lamb the courtship of the god of death

Restart:

Follows the alternate ending of The One Who Waits sacrificing the Lamb and regaining the Red Crown. He gets bored and decides to time/worldjump to another version of The Lands of the Old Faith, replacing Ratau/the Lamb as the crusader against the Bishops. Too bad he's a thousand years out of practice.

This is more slice of life and includes Narinder and Lamb arguing like a married couple but there's some drama in there. It does include violence and gore since Narinder does have to go on his Crusades and fight his siblings. This one does not have a fic written, it's more ideas I've doodled. Well, I did have a chapter written, but it may be posted as a separate piece instead.

tl;dr Narinder goes New Game+ and becomes the player character (but he really sucks at it). Tag: #cotl restart

19th Century AU:

Created after watching of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Emma. It follows Prince Narinder of the Kingdom of the Old Faith Amenthes, investor of Ratau and Ratoo Trading Company, who has just moved into Acheron Estate. He bumps into the Lamb by chance while meeting with Ratau, and hires her as his servant after being intrigued by her fiery personality.

It's a slice of life and is a silly, self-indulgent AU written as if it was a screenplay. Maybe I'll post the scenes on AO3 even though they're out of order. Tag: #cotl 19th century AU

Also made a concept playlist (ask box post with song list, WIP) on the AUs because I'm absolutely nuts

I've also written mad ideas and wrote a few bits on an OC worldbuilding thing I've had since like 2010 or something no idea if people might be interested in it and it's as convoluted as the Kingdom Hearts series soooo Tag: #three kids and their pet ghost