#there is more emphasis on this being a plot-heavy blog

[austerulous]

Rules have been updated.  You’ll find the gist of what’s been tweaked in the tags. I’m gaming tonight but I’ve got tomorrow free, so I’ll be around then. ♡

[pookie-mulder]

June 2024 fic roundup

Here are my favorite June reads:

👶📝 Of Our Own Making by @television-overload

I totally forgot to put this on last month’s list! I absolutely loved reading each new chapter every morning at work. I can’t not read a marriage of convenience fic, especially when there’s a baby involved.

💌🦃 Small Lives Awake by Jesemie’s Evil Twin

You know when you read something so sweet, so pure, that you feel like it breaks your heart in the best way? That’s this fic. It’s incredibly fluffy without being cheesy, and the writing style is so elegant.

🏝️👨‍��‍👦 The Eden Series by Jacque LaVa

Was this the best fic I’ve ever read? No. Was everyone OOC? Definitely. Did I still enjoy it? You bet. I cannot resist the siren call of a survival fic, an amnesia fic, or a kidfic, and this had all three.

👰‍♀️🤵‍♂️ The Marriage Spectacular by @cecilysass

I’ve never met a cecilysass fic I didn’t like, and this was no exception. Fake relationship my beloved! Only one bed my beloved! Mulder and Scully being idiots in love my beloved! Absolutely delightful. 10/10, no notes.

🌀☔️ Hurricane Season by beduini & rah

This fic perfectly captures M&S’s “we’re completely and utterly devoted to each other and literal soulmates yet we still doubt our place in each other’s lives and we never actually talk about it” dynamic that we know and love. It takes place when William is a few months old and they’re still trying to define their relationship. I loved it SO MUCH!

(hmu for an epub — the chapters are long, which makes it easy to lose your place if you don’t finish the chapter in one sitting)

❄️✈️ WHITEOUT by EvanBlack

A classic “Mulder and Scully get in a plane crash and have to survive until help arrives” story. (You all know by now how much I love a survival fic!)

I absolutely adored the dynamic between them in this one. They’re down SO bad for each other, and it shows. I especially loved the beginning when they’re both wishing they were sitting next to each other so they could hold hands. That’s the good stuff right there!

🛁🧪 Antidote by Rachel Howard and Karen Rasch

Mulder and Scully investigate an unknown contagion in a remote town. You can probably guess what happens from there.

This was the perfect road trip read! Engaging and exciting without being too plot-heavy.

🤰👶 40 Weeks by @malibusunset-xf-blog

What if the IVF worked?

The most delectable pregnancy fluff with a dash of smut and a healthy serving of Mulder and Scully figuring out their relationship.

🪶🐎 Omens by @lepusarticus

I cannot say enough good things about this fic. It’s definitely a new addition to the Holy Grail list.

It’s a casefic, but it doesn’t feel like a casefic…more like an exploration of magic and family and love. With its spooky small-town gothic vibe and emphasis on powerful women and strange houses and ancient magic, it reminds me a lot of my favorite book series, The Raven Cycle. (If you liked this fic, you should go read TRC!)

This fic has layers and nuance and themes and motifs and gorgeous metaphors and one incredibly hot scene that ticked all my boxes. Even the OCs are rich and compelling. I would read a whole series set in this universe!

💥🚗 Goshen by Bonetree

Emily angst plus survival plus tending to each other’s injuries plus hurt/comfort? Yes please! I love it when I find a fic that seems to be created in a lab just for me.

(After reading the summaries of the following installments, I’m not quite sure if they’re really my thing. Has anyone read the rest of the series? Did you like it?)

👦🏻🦊 A Boy and His Fox by 6hoursgirl

Mulder and Scully “platonically” coparent their son. Mulder learns what it means to be a dad. Pure, unadulterated fluff! If you like kidfics, this one is a must-read.

📚👩‍⚕️ Heuvelmans’ On the Track by The_Mythopeodic

This fic is a fandom classic, and I can definitely see why. The author uses language in unexpected and interesting ways, which is not something you see very often in fic.

I tend to go for “popcorn” fics that are addictive and easy to binge. This one is more like a hearty slab of meat. Both types are good in their own way, but this fic made me work for it.

Anyway, I got a bit frustrated with myself around the halfway mark and kept having to reread passages a few times to truly understand what’s going on. I lamented that I needed a reading guide like they used to give you in English class.

After putting it aside for a few days, I came back and DEVOURED the second half. I don’t want to spoil anything, but if you’ve read it, you know what I’m talking about. I loooooved seeing Scully be resourceful and scrappy and capable, and the epilogue is incredible. I’m glad I pushed through!

🪡🌨️ Skamania County by Sarie_Fairy

This is actually the second time I’ve read this one, which I didn’t realize until near the end when I tried to leave kudos, haha. Anyway, I loved it both times! It has everything that makes survival fics so enticing: a nice trip to the woods that quickly goes wrong, one person hiding their life-threatening injury from the other, the intimacy of tending to their wounds, cuddling (naked) for warmth, and finally resolving that UST. Chef’s kiss!

🧙‍♀️🔭 The Mars Differential by @asteraceae-blue

This one is a WIP, and I cannot wait for the rest! It’s an intriguing casefile with plenty of msr.

I also read a bunch of @o6666666’s fics thanks to this masterlist that made its way around recently!

They are the master of writing fic that hurts so good. This IVF arc one might be my favorite, along with this season 9 one that squeezed my heart like a stress ball.

[fountainpenguin]

☁️ Cloudlands AU ☁️

Fairly OddParents

A serious deep-dive into FOP's worldbuilding, with a focus on sewing seemingly conflicting canon together to create consistent lore. Heavy emphasis on non-human biology and complex magical cultures.

#ridwork guides

What Is Cloudlands AU?

An FOP series ft. detailed lore and character relationships. The goal is fanfics that expand on the show's canon without conflicting it if at all possible, even if that means wild explanations.

Why does Crocker's portal to Fairy World have a completely new design every time it appears? Who's that anti-fairy kid Jorgen claims H.P. and Anti-Cosmo raised together? What's up with the Sacred Silver Pencil Sharpener of Canada? And are you telling me Cosmo and Wanda were assigned as godparents to Erg 40,000 years before they were married, presumably while Wanda and Juandissimo were dating? What was that like? We talk about it all!

A carefully considered magic system does a lot of heavy lifting. ❤️

AO3 Series: 130 Station, Rainbow Train, and Other Arcs

FOP blog tag - #FAIRIES!

Tone

Mostly drama with fluff and angst mixed in.

Characters

Mainly Pixies (H.P. & Sanderson), Anti-Fairies (Anti-Cosmo, Anti-Wanda, Foop), & the late modern kids (Poof, Goldie, Goldie's counterpart Anti-Marigold).

Cosmo, Wanda, Timmy, Chloe, and other humans (such as Denzel Crocker, Kevin Crocker, Gary, Betty, and Ed Leadly) also have arcs and messy backstories.

Ships

Canon-compliant, but expanded on. Ex:

- Anti-Cosmo married his childhood betrothed while Anti-Wanda was dating Anti-Juandissimo.

- H.P. and several OCs across his long life. Those romances go... great!

- Shout-out to Mark/Vicky, Poof/Goldie, Foop/Anti-Marigold, Foop/Anti-Coriander, Timmy/Molly & Chloe/Kevin (My beloveds...)

- Also worth mentioning that I treat Wanda/Juandissimo as a sincere and pleasant part of their backstories. They went their separate ways, but had a non-abusive dating life. They were friends :)

- Sanderson has a ton of will o' the wisp dating life issues, but we don't have time to unpack that right now.

Setting

Most works take place in the cloudlands, which include Fairy World, Anti-Fairy World, and Pixie World. Some works takes place in Dimmsdale. Rarely works take place elsewhere, such as alien planets or Unwish Island.

Is It For Me?

This AU is highly detailed. It clings to canon to the point of being ridiculous. It can be tough to get into due to long works and a heavy focus on less popular characters (such as Pixies), but there's a lot to read.

This AU focuses more on magical beings in the supporting cast than it does the main cast, but there are still notable pieces about the mains.

For a breakdown of detailed lore, see the Orange Train post

Major Themes

Growing up, making mistakes, pushing through hard times, recovery, revenge, forgiveness, growth, change, and letting go.

Plot Highlights

- Origin of the Pixies - A young H.P. contracts the real-world bacteria Wolbachia pipientis, which causes wasps to reproduce asexually. Now he's caring for an exponentially increasing amount of pixies he never wanted in the first place, on top of drama like his wife accusing him of cheating and him being kidnapped by Cupid's family because he's the holotype of a brand new species.

- Frayed Knots - Anti-Cosmo, raised in the anti-fairy baby ban era, experiments with Anti-Fairy biology in the hopes he'll discover a loophole to achieve his dream of being a father. In doing so, he finds a breakthrough that could possibly flip biology around so Anti-Fairies are the hosts and Fairies are their reflective counterparts bound to their whims... and he becomes obsessed with fathering a generation whose biology is exactly that.

- 130 Reasons Why I'm Fairy Trash - Happy Peppy Gary and Betty were raised as Pixie tools since they were 10. At age 18, Betty opts to wipe her magical memories, cut ties with Gary, and move to Brightburg. Gary, blindsided and desperate, throws himself down a trainwreck of bad decisions in an attempt to retrieve her memories from Fairy World. Everybody clap for him. (And other stories.)

- Come What May - Kevin Crocker spends the spring with an uncle and grandmother he's never met. Ghosts, the popular kids, an anti-fairy, and his uncle's talking cat make it their personal mission to bother him. It's a good thing he's dead inside.

Ongoing?

This long-term passion project began in March 2016. It is ongoing with intent to wrap up the existing projects in the next several years. Updates tend to come in bursts with breaks in between.

- Want AO3 emails? Subscribing to both the Rainbow Train & 130 Station series will cover everything in Cloudlands AU.

- Or, subscribe to specific plot arcs. Find the list HERE.

Warnings, notes, and explanations below so readers can learn more about this AU. Proceed with caution. Don't like? Don't read.

- There are abused children, neglectful adults, and non-human characters in fanfics for the show about abused children, neglectful adults, and non-human characters?? Scandalous. (Seriously though, this one's a doozy)

👀 Take a Peek

New here? You might like to start with these:

- "Mama's Boy" (G - 3000 words) - A back-and-forth comparison of Cosmo's upbringing against Anti-Cosmo's. Quick and easy read, and definitely a fan-favorite.

- "Make You Proud" (G - 4700 words) - Anti-Wanda is excited that she won a gold medal at the Fairy World Games. She tries to get Anti-Cosmo's attention while he's distracted with the event. Fluffy, silly character study.

- "Step Back" (G - 5600 words) - Foop gets overwhelmed at a party with his extended family. A brief glimpse into Anti-Fairy World and who Foop is shaping up to be as a person. Foop is my favorite to write character studies for and this is an oldie, but a goodie.

- "Solo" (T - 6000 words) - A young pixie answers phones as part of his coming of age trial. Things go awry when Gary and Betty call for help from Florida and the inexperienced pixie is at a loss about how to get them back to California. Takes place during the S4 episode "Baby Face." Huge personal favorite of mine; this is where plot really kicks off. Good introduction to the drama you can expect in a lot of my work.

- "Sentry" (G - 6000 words) - The start of a 3-part arc about Poof, Foop, and their pixie classmate (Finley) at boarding school before transitioning to spring break. The arc starts with Poof getting in trouble for fighting, then moves to Poof reflecting while on the bus, then moves to the three kids spending time with their grandparents.

- Very soft drama with some fluff; a good taste without getting overwhelmed. Also, this arc is more recent than the pieces above, which were posted in 2016. - Takes place at the end of 130 Prompts Arc 2, so it does contain very minor plot spoilers.

Start Reading

Recommended ways to get into the full AU

🌄 First Written - Baby, You're a Rich Man

H.P. and Sanderson got their hands on a baby clown. Now they just have to get him safely back to Pixie World when they've been deprived of magic and damaged their truck.

- Based on the Season 4 episode "School's Out! The Musical" - An introduction to magic basics, biology, and world lore through Sanderson's eyes. - Throws readers directly into the thick of things with Sanderson's meandering thoughts and extremely unhealthy fixation on H.P. and/or taking over as Head Pixie someday

🗑️ 130 Reasons Why I'm Fairy Trash

The 130 Prompts project is a series of one-shots that explores my FOP character ideas and worldbuilding.

- "Excitement" (G - 7500 words) - The first piece written for my series 130 Reasons Why I'm Fairy Trash. It's about the Pixies traumatizing 10-year-old Gary and Betty at an amusement park so they'll cling to safety in the future. From here, you can read the 130 Prompts series in recommended order if you like.

If you're new to my worldbuilding, I recommend reading the prompts in the suggested order instead of chronological order. This way, you'll be given worldbuilding info in order instead of jumping to a piece where that info is assumed.

📅 Chronological Start - "First Things First"

A 10k-word piece (G-rated) about nature spirit OCs, featuring cameos of canon characters like Mother Nature, Father Time, and the Grim Reaper. This piece sets up lore for the Fairy zodiac, which plays a role in Frayed Knots especially.

- Each piece in the 130 Prompts series has Previous and Next links so you can either read in recommended order or you can follow the chronology from start to end. - Reading chronologically is not recommended unless you're already familiar with the worldbuilding - Full timeline chronology (Entire Cloudlands AU)

🗺️ Worldbuilding - So, You're Studying the Cloudlands...

A collection of worldbuilding and meta essays covering subjects like biology, culture, history, holidays, magic, maps, and a handbook on new godkid assignments.

You may also like my @riddledeep blog, where I first posted this meta. I'm currently moving things to the guide linked above. This way, the content is backed up and accessible to those who don't use Tumblr. Posts will remain on the blog.

📋 AU Notes & Warnings

Author writes villain encounters & villain backstories about complex non-human societies and does not inherently condone any viewpoints presented by characters or the societies they live in.

- This series focuses heavily on Pixies, Anti-Fairies, and cloudland or Fae culture. There is less focus on human godchildren or the main characters in the show (like Timmy, Cosmo and Wanda).

- This series is built so that many intricate storylines and worldbuilding elements weave together. There's no shame in skipping pieces you don't want to read, but you may miss plot or worldbuilding details important to the larger story. It can be intimidating to get into such a big project.

- This series does have fluff, but relies on drama. Content may be upsetting, and the order you read things may limit the chance for mental breaks.

- Lots of drama and complicated things going on. I recently changed the rating of my longfics to Not Rated & Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings due to the sheer variety of things, such as:

- Fantastic racism (Fairies, Anti-Fairies, Pixies, genies, and others disliking each other)

-> Show canon heavily implies these races have conflict. Jorgen faced no pushback for calling Norm a "filthy genie" on international TV. Jorgen and others refer to Pixies with rude terms such as "cone-headed freaks", etc.

- Social ladder/caste system (Cupid's ancestors organized fae in a list many generations ago to help Fairies find species with heat cycles that overlapped theirs, but the system has been corrupted into legal discrimination)

- Biologically assigned status (Male Fairies who eat a lot of jelly at a young age will develop into gynes: big, tough, freckled Fairies who fight with each other to defend their turf and drone companions. Think how H.P. and Big Daddy have unique body shapes compared to the other Fairies. They're gynes!)

- Some young bees are fed royal jelly so they develop into queens. The name for these "princesses" is gynes, so I yoinked that

- Most of the pixies are drones, apart from a few gynes. Vice President Longwood is due to succeed H.P. as Head Pixie someday, which Sanderson (a drone) absolutely despises.

- Fairies lick each other in greeting to spread pheromones, mirroring a hive of eusocial bees that gather near the queen to lick her

It's basically a non-sexual A/B/O dynamic, which was completely unintentional and I got a good laugh out of it when I realized what A/B/O was years ago. Convergent evolution...

- Mpreg - It's canon in the show that male Fairies give birth. I don't have anything to say about it; just that it's canon in my work too and treated with the same sincerity as everything else.

- Injury - Includes long-term injury, temporary injuries, and self-harm (Ex: Cutting your palm to stop using magic so you won't age). I don't consider this series bloody or gory. Fairies do have rainbow blood that's mentioned occasionally, but they're very elastic and heal quickly. The humans don't really have bloody moments.

- Character death - Most common when gynes fight to the death, but I've written other deaths as well, such as one where the Pixies caused a car crash on purpose because it benefited them.

-> Fairies are very resilient. Anti-Fairies regenerate if they're killed, as they can't die if their host counterpart (the Fairy) still lives. Death isn't overly common in my 'fics, but I'd feel weird warning for other things and not mentioning this one.

- Sexism (Anti-Fairy World tends to look down on women; Anti-Cosmo in particular tends to parrot the sexist beliefs he grew up with and gets annoyed at pushback)

-> Male bats often mate with many females (up to 30 sometimes). I built Anti-Fairy society around the idea that females outnumber males, but males see it as a sign that many women should be subservient to them because "it's nature." Anti-Cosmo is a product of his culture. Diversity loss! The villain has harmful views!

-> Anti-Fairies tend to be less racist and more sexist than Fairies while Fairies tend to be less sexist and more racist.

- Honey-lock - Anti-Fairies get flooded with hormones and magic 3 months after their counterparts mated. The pair are driven to locate each other, mate, and produce children in reflection of their counterparts.

-> what do you mean that's traumatizing? Dang, you guys live like this?

-> Anti-Cosmo's underlying goal in Frayed Knots is to beat the system so the next generation of Anti-Fairies will be born without the honey-lock's effects.

- Sociosexual Anti-Fairy culture - Anti-Fairies have a touch-based society themed around bonobos because I thought it would be interesting, particularly in a society where pregnancy is out of your control anyway (i.e. you can't accidentally get pregnant- It's in your counterparts' hands).

-> I do think "It feels good and we have few consequences, so why not?" is a reasonable direction for their culture

-> I'm not sure I would make that same choice years later, as it can be quite off-putting, but I'm glad I got to worldbuild with such unique building blocks. I enjoy it, but it's not for everyone.

- Infidelity (Anti-Cosmo cheats on his wife before Anti-Wanda and is implied to sometimes cheat on Anti-Wanda)

-> You're telling me the sexist sociosexual culture has infidelity and the evil villain fell into it? Bummer...

- Iris Virus - Having colored eyes in Anti-Fairy culture is played as an STD that's ceremonially passed to new individuals (because... sociosexual culture).

-> Also, what was I supposed to do with almost every Anti-Fairy having red eyes but Anti-Cosmo, Anti-Wanda, Foop, and the occasional background Anti-Fairy have other colors? Genetics? No way! 😃👍

-> RIP Anti-Cosmo. I'm sorry I find it hilarious that you cheat on all your partners and then sob like your trust's been shattered when your wife chooses to pass the virus on to secure allegiance with a valuable ally. Her body, her choice, dude.

- Child, physical, emotional, and sexual abuse (Frayed Knots in particular is not a hunky-dory story; Anti-Cosmo was often hit as a child. Some characters are cruel to Anti-Cosmo and he is cruel to others as well.

-> There are abuse themes in the Fairly OddParents 'fics?? The TV show about abused kids? what won't they think up next.

-> Cosmo's mother is doting in canon, so I portray Anti-Cosmo's mom as abusive to him.

-> Living in a sexist sociosexual culture sometimes leads to sexual abuse?? Also, belonging to a species that is magically forced to reproduce when your counterparts do even if you didn't consent is probably also sexual abuse? wild.

-> In Origin of the Pixies, H.P. was kidnapped by a will o' the wisp in his younger years and pressured into sex while she was producing milk for newborn Sanderson.

-> H.P. is emotionally distant and not the best at coping with what happened to him. He doesn't necessarily pursue help or get the best closure to this story. Don't hold the villains up as role models.

-> Foop has an alternate personality. This is canon; here's a compilation video I made of his appearances in the series (Note, this compilation includes Foop's Terrific Twos and some scenes where his alter is implied with eye highlights and a high voice to be there, but not confirmed). It's heavily implied he gained this personality due to being isolated in Abracatraz since the day he was born.

-> Cupid's family kills any children that aren't born triplets due to a sacred oath his ancestors took to uphold love all hours of the day. Tradition requires three children to split the magic by way of Morning, Afternoon, and Evening.

-> I would say it's also child abuse that Jorgen was raised with all the pressures of being Keeper of the Rules from the moment he was born, including being pressured to cut off his own wings in line with the tradition of "noble self-sacrifice."

- Young characters & implied offscreen sex - Are you seriously telling me the popular teens might've had sex when they were something like 150,000 years old and they'd been together since childhood? What on earth.

-> In Anti-Fairy society, you're recognized as a full adult at age 150,000.

-> In Fairy World, you're recognized as an adult when you moult your juvenile wings and grow your adult wings. This is generally between ages 140,000 and 180,000.

-> In Pixie World, you're recognized as a full adult at age 250,000. H.P. keeps age of majority high to encourage his pixies to establish themselves in Pixie World instead of leaving. These are non-human cultures that each have their own views.

-> Poof and Goldie have an arc about Goldie having Harm OCD over the fear that she'll fall into her will o' the wisp species stereotype and take advantage of Poof. Meanwhile, Poof has panic attacks because he's pretty sure she did, but blames himself for not being more self-aware. 😬

-> Foop gave his lover Anti-Marigold the iris virus when they were considered young adults in Anti-Fairy society (but still in school) to see if his dad would notice. Years later, he has a breakdown over the fact Anti-Cosmo never did, nor does he seem to care if his son is being reckless.

-> The sexual part of the Celebrity Kids arc is kept off-screen throughout the 130 Prompts. This arc is about the stress of being high schoolers treated like celebrities, ambassadors, royalty, and sports stars.

- Implied incest in H.P.'s family line before he was born (In the old days, it was common to marry cousins to preserve money. This custom has ended in modern times, but comes up on rare occasion)

-> It's implied this family history led to the genetic mutation that gave him wasp biology; that mutation plays a big role in his story.

-> H.P. talks about how he admires his counterpart, whom he considers a cousin. Sometimes other characters mock his admiration because of his infamous family history. It's not even important in his present-day life; it's just that my 'fics are full of jerks.

Some topics may make you uncomfortable. You don't have to read them, but that's part of fleshing out these very detailed, long-lived cultures and their messy underbellies. They're Fae. Were you expecting giddy fluff?

- Summaries for my multi-chapter FOP 'fics

- Summaries for 130 Prompts (with emoji guide)

- Want more info? Send an Ask!

You can create works based on this AU. Please cite me and/or the AU as appropriate (i.e. for things very specific to this AU). You are free to expand on ideas you've thought of thanks to my AU as a jumping off point. I'd love to reblog or link things to my AO3 works if I see them!

I write drama content with morally gray characters. Please don't portray my story events or worldbuilding out of context with intentional malice. In other words, I request you do not post things created for the specific intention of mocking me or the AU. It's not to everyone's tastes, but it's built with sincerity and it is loved <3

[sancta-seraphina]

Can yo u talk about some of the changes please? Just curious! but only if their not too spoilery

Hi anon,

I want to start this by saying I really did love the old 2019 version of Holiest. I think it's better now, but I loved that original version.

Actually, the longevity of the project is something a lot of people might not know about, so I wouldn't mind commenting on that, but after I answer the question.

About the chapters themselves:

One of the immediate changes for previous readers is that the entirety of the first chapter has been rewritten. It is much longer.

Chapters 2 through 5 have been reworked to accommodate for the removal of some characters (a separate topic).

Chapters 6, 7, and 8... I decided I didn't like, so those have been rewritten too. The content itself stayed the same. I just didn't like the writing, I felt it no longer reflected my writing style. I kept some things where I could suffer them, though. They also have some sparkly new scenes, which I will talk about below.

Chapter 9 is currently planned to be the same, however, I may just decide that I hate it. In which case, it will suffer the same fate as 6, 7, and 8 (same content, just rewritten).

As mentioned, a huge change was the removal of some of the characters who were, in my opinion, complicating and distracting from the story. This also included reducing the number of POVs (some scenes were simply rewritten to be from a different POV). Currently we have Lucifer as the main POV of the story for obvious reasons, with other scenes from the POV of Beelzebub, Jehoel, and newly, Metatron. The only thing that upsets me about this is that those characters who were removed were female, and my cast does not satisfy me in terms of having a lot of female characters.

Metatron is another significant change. Previously, he was only in three (3) scenes in the entire story, because I didn't actually need him until the last chapters despite him being so important (unlike The Harrowing, where he has a prominent role, Lord save us). But Metatron became really popular on my instagram, so I decided to work in more scenes with him and also to write from his POV [which you can get a preview of in today's excerpt].

The plot? Is the same. The worldbuilding? Also the same.

The map? I'm ignoring it (by which I mean procrastinating), BUT I've also made additional maps for the novel that can be previewed on my [patreon]. The illustrations? Uh, are not going to be the same and I'm kicking myself for it.

The method of publication? Totally different, it's no longer free—it's going to be a physical book now.

Anyways I hope that answered your question without spoiling too much.

The other thing that I wanted to discuss is the longevity of the project.

Although I'm putting a lot of pressure on myself right now to get the novel back out there, Holiest is nothing new, both to my long-term followers (hello to anyone who knew me in grad school or earlier, and also to all those who re-followed me upon changing blogs), and also to my life in general. It didn't have a name until 2016 or 2017 (I forget which), but my main character, yes I'm talking about Lucifer, literally dates back to 2007 and I still have my first drawing of him with that timestamp. Maybe I'll be brave enough to share it one day.

And the story has always had the same themes, even from its beginning days in '07, '08, and '09: with a heavy emphasis on mental illness/psychosis (of the devil in particular), angels in Hell, and Revelation-inspired visions/hallucinations.

As mentioned, the novel itself was completed in 2018 (I did not write during college/grad school due to lack of time, and I graduated in 2015. I do have endless artworks of the characters from throughout my time in college) and I began publishing in August of 2019. Also my patreon itself dates back to 2017.

But I like to take my time when creating, don't outsource my illustrations to others (please understand how much time art takes), and I am a company dancer in a ballet. So yes, it has been over five years now since first putting it online.

Anyways, although it's been updated, it is not changing in terms of what it is, it has been here for a VERY long time (which others can attest to), and it is also NOT going away.

[deathinfeathers]

Rules

My name is Cinna! I am 21+! Welcome to my stinky, bird infested corner of the hellverse RPC. The main thing you need to be aware of about me is that I am autistic and exceptionally ✨️ mentally ill ✨️! This will affect my activity on the dash but also in DMs. I am notoriously bad at keeping in touch OOC. Please don't take it personally, it is 100% a me issue. I think you are all very lovely, I am just like one of those tiny overly anxious dogs, if you look at me for too long I will vibrate off of this plane of existance.

Major trigger warning for the following topics:

Religious trauma, toxic relationships (romantic, familial, work), physical/psychological/sexual abuse, social stratification, depictions of panic attacks and hallucinations, drug abuse, cannibalism/desecration of corpses, graphic violence and gore

Plot heavy interactions will always be prioritized over more casual, slice-of-life type threads. The latter tends to loose my attention fairly quickly.

Interactions with mains and affiliates will also be prioritized. These are the people who have dedicated real time and effort into building engaging dynamics/storylines with me.

Main verse¹ and main verse² will generally be prioritized over secondary and private verses, simply because that is where my hyperfixation lies most of the time.

All of my verses are single ship, excluding main verse². If our muses really hit it off I am open to setting up a private verse for our ship.

That being said Lute is exceptionally difficult to ship with, so I don't put much emphasis on romance on this blog. If she flirts with your muse it does not necessarily mean that I want to ship with them. 9 times out of 10 it is a manipulation tactic.

I don't write a lot of explicit sexual content and i am extremely, extremely picky about who i engage in that sort of stuff with. If I do write something like that with you it does not give you the right to be gross to me OOC. I am not interested in you sexually. Have some common decency.

Leave your drama at the door. I'm not interested in seeing your callout post. I have zero patience for that shit.

Minors will be tossed into the pit.

Thank you for reading my rules! This page will be edited and expanded upon as I see fit!

[khaosinfo]

RULES.

CONTENT.

this is an 18+ roleplay blog with heavy emphasis on mature, dark, and sexual content. interactions with mun, muses, and faceclaims below 18 is prohibited. please have your age stated somewhere on your blog.

this blog will feature pre-dominantly m / m threads and interactions. but m / f threads are open to some muses.

even though sexual content will be heavy on this blog ( like, really really heavy ), romance and other types of interaction are still welcome. i do most threads by winging them, but if you want a more detailed and plotted interaction, i am all ears!

this is not my only blog, and definitely not my main blog. i made this only for fun, and also to try out this character again with a new spin, so expect a really spotty and inconsistent activity.

INTERACTION.

i am not the best when interacting ooc, but please don't be discouraged if you have a plot or a ship you want to discuss. i simply ask for your patience here.

you can message me to remind me of a thread i missed, or a starter i have not done. but please don't hound me about it.

although being mutuals is preferred, you don't have to be mutuals with me to start a thread. like a starter call, reply to an open, or send me a meme! it's all good.

SELECTIVITY.

although this blog is more open, i will still be selective with the threads that i will reply to. this is mostly to manage stuff and make sure i will not be swamped and burned out.

there are also other reasons why i might not interact with your blog, namely: if you use really big gifs, you don't cut post, there is no about page for your muses, etc. this is for personal preference and i am adding it here for transparency.

that being said, we don't need to be mutuals for you to interact with me. if you want to reply to starters or send me a meme, just do it!

if you like something or send something in, i would appreciate it if you specify which muse you want. it just make things easier for us. agustin and arni are my default muses, so if you want the others then please specify.

please also specify the position if you want a versatile muse. i will always default to writing as the bottom.

KINK LIST.

my kink list for smut threads. will likely change over time. this kink list is also not a blanket list. some muses will enjoy some and not the others etc. longer list can be found here.

FAVORITE:

oral sex ( giving )

face fucking ( receiving )

deep throating ( giving )

cum swallowing

hard cum facials

bukkake

rough sex

anal sex ( receiving )

creampie

breeding

daddy kink

incest

ahegao

cock worship

sex til exhaustion

YES:

anal sex ( giving )

oral sex ( receiving )

public sex

exhibitionism

impregnation

cum denial

dub con

non con

dirty talk

gang bang

gaping

NO:

vore

scat

watersports

diaper

any gorey or violent kinks

[omniishambles]

WHAT NOT TO DO WHEN INTERACTING WITH MY BLOG - Customizable Edition

BASICS !

Name / Alias: Rach

Pronouns: She / Her

Blog type: single muse | Multi-muse | non selective | semi selective | selective | mutuals only | private | other (specify)

Type of muses: canon | OCs | both | other (specify)

GENERALITIES !

Triggers people MUST tag: none, just tag NSFW shit please.

Interest tracker / checker: I have it and it's mandatory | I have it, it's not mandatory but I'm more likely to follow back / interact with the people who fill it | I have one and I prefer it if people fill it in | I have it but it's up to people whether to fill it or not | I don't have one | other (specify)

Reblog karma: I practise it | I practise it sometimes | I don't practise it | I always reblog memes from the source | indifferent | other (specify)

Rule passwords: I have one and it's mandatory | I have one and it's optional | I don't have one | I send passwords | I don't send passwords | (I get why some people request passwords to be sent but I don’t vibe with it and probably won’t follow anyone who practices this.)

3-5 ESSENTIAL RULES PEOPLE HAVE TO RESPECT

I only ship romantically with mains. These are people I trust, who I speak to often OOC, have been writing with for a long time and who I’ve built a good rapport with. I don’t do fast shipping and I’m very wary of shipping with people who do. I also need a lot more involvement to be interested because romance isn’t top priority for me writing wise lol.

I’m slow. I use my queue for this reason.

If you no longer wish to write with me that’s fine, but please soft or hard block me. I’ll also unfollow people as I need to. No hard feelings.

3-5 IMPORTANT PET PEEVES TO KEEP IN MIND

Being super inconsistent. This means people who beg for interactions like memes and starters that they never respond to, people who drop threads and muses all the time and those who blog hop every week. To each their own, but it makes things Not Fun for me and I try to avoid blogs that do this for a reason.

Using the most convoluted tags you’ve ever seen which can’t even be blacklisted easily. 

Being used as a resource blog for memes or aesthetic posts. Don’t do that please.

2-5 THINGS THAT WILL LEAD TO INSTANT (SOFT)BLOCKING

Untagged NSFW content, especially if it features heavily on the blog.

Replies with extreme formatting that can’t be read easily.

Evidence of constant negativity, drama and reblogging of call out posts.

2-5 THINGS THAT LEAD ME TO UNFOLLOW / SOFTBLOCK A MUTUAL / SOMEONE I INTERACT WITH

If I’m repeatedly ignored when sending in memes or responding to starter calls. Especially if there appears to be favoritism going on with the starters that do get written.

I match the energy I receive. I’ll reach out to say hi, to plot and things, but if it feels like I’m constantly the one keeping a plotting conversation going or a thread moving in some kind of direction, I’ll stop making the effort and unfollow. I won’t carry our interactions by myself.

2-5 REASON YOU DON'T TO FOLLOW (BACK) SOMEONE

Excessive OOC posts unrelated to your muses.

A lack of information such as rules or bios.

I don't vibe with the writing style.

I don't know the muses or see a way that they’d interact with mine.

A heavy emphasis on smut threads.

stole it from @countlessrealities!

steal it if you want

[culttvblog]

Sapphire and Steel: Assignment 6 Part 2

This blog post spoils essential plot points of this assignment.

The episode has an uncharacteristically snappy recap for a Sapphire and Steel, but then this is only a four-parter and we are also in the hands of PJ Hammond here, so we can only expect it to be expertly written.

It becomes more apparent in this episode that Sapphire, Steel and Silver are in a situation where things really aren't what they seem. We aren't given easy solutions to what is going on, as they also aren't, but there are a few hints.

We are heavily directed towards the 'arrival' of somebody who somehow has entered the otherwise completely enclosed situation, and towards Time's increasing instability, but the man and the woman are the heavy hints that something's wrong here.

I mentioned in my last post that the man's casual acceptance that they've jumped forward in time is not the normal reaction.

Similarly the woman's reactions to the situation are not the normal human reactions. She has made a point of saying that she doesn't trust where they are, or necessarily believe what she is being told, but the episode starts with her pouring herself a glass of water from the tap in the cafe. I still think this makes absolutely no sense. If you are in a place where you can't rely on the safety of the water (such as Great Britain) the last thing you do is drink the water or swim it.

And then she tells Steel that because they have jumped forward in time she doesn't need to lie to him about what is happening between her and the man. Again, this is not the normal reaction. I think she would have expected her elopement with the man still to be unacceptable in the 1980s and could not have foreseen the sexual revolution happening. She is therefore displaying a knowledge of social standards in the 1980s that she couldn't have known in 1948, so she can't simply be a person unexpectedly brought forward in time.

Of Sapphire, with her advanced understanding of how Time works, understands that the event they have been summoned to deal with may well already have started, even if they don't know what it is.

I have a difficulty with this assignment which I think may not be entirely fair so I wouldn't go to the stake for this criticism. The whole point of this assignment is that Sapphire, Steel and Silver have been summoned by they-know-not-what into a situation where they have literally no idea where they are, who anyone is, or what on earth is going on. That is the whole point of the assignment, I understand that. Perhaps it is my own background as health professional but whatever entities Sapphire and Steel are, given that their existence is spent managing the break outs of a troublesome Time and keeping things as they should be. surely they would be prepared for that to happen and have ways of stopping it happen? I suppose my difficulty is that the premise of this assigment requires Sapphire and Steel to be completely controlled and tricked by the very thing they are supposed to be in control of. I can tell you right now that if you were a community nurse in one of the local mental health teams in the 1990s and rang base to ask for the blue file, they would work out your whereabouts from the list and dial 999. Surely Sapphire and Steel would have had some such arrangement in place? Obviously you'd only expect Mercury to turn up and help you if he felt like it, but still.

Visually, again this one is excellent. They couldn't really go wrong with Joanna Lumley walking down the forecourt of the brilliantly lit empty garage. The level of detail continues from the previous episode and has many a detail reminiscent for a child of the seventies. THe emphasis on drawing attention to things that aren't quite right is outlined by the very obvious footprints of the unseen arrival, which is a nice touch.

Other than my completely unfair questioning of the assignment's entire basis above, this is an excellent adventure, paced just right, and you couldn't possibly criticise it.

This blog is mirrored at

culttvblog.tumblr.com/archive (from September 2023) and culttvblog.substack.com (from January 2023 and where you can subscribe by email)

Archives from 2013 to September 2023 may be found at culttvblog.blogspot.com and there is an index to the tags used on the Tumblr version at https://www.tumblr.com/culttvblog/729194158177370112/this-blog

[bornesorrow]

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ───         an independent  +  mutuals only portrayal of  𝑷𝑨𝑫𝑴𝑬 𝑨𝑴𝑰𝑫𝑨𝑳𝑨 𝑵𝑨𝑩𝑬𝑹𝑹𝑰𝑬 from george lucas’  𝑺𝑻𝑨𝑹 𝑾𝑨𝑹𝑺 .     canon compliant, based on  legends  +  headcanon influenced.     elected by  𝑲𝑰𝑻𝑻𝒀 .

                                        𝒊𝒏𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏��    —          carrd.     sideblog.

𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝒂𝒍𝒔𝒐 𝒃𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅 𝒂𝒕...     —         [ ʜɪɢʜ ᴀᴄᴛɪᴠɪᴛʏ ] @alderheir​  |  @yunharlaquin​  | @warsavant  | @warrued  |  @donutdollie | @quietresistance | @coeursainte [ ʟᴏᴡ ᴀᴄᴛɪᴠɪᴛʏ ] @ofsquadrons | @ofpolitics | @oflightsabers | @ofblasters | @creaturational

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤ[ M O B I L E R U L E S ]

ㅤㅤㅤ───────── B A S I C I N F O R M A T I O N ㅤㅤㅤi draw from both canon and legends with a heavy emphasis on written works and headcanon. i do not, however, consider the characterization of the padmé trilogy to be canon on this blog, though i am willing to include some events if they are central to yours. historical and cultural inspirations are equally central to my interpretation and feature regularly. ㅤㅤㅤthis is a selective and mutuals only blog. i won't interact in-character with blogs i don't follow and may be selective on what i write. if you message me about writing / like a starter or plotting call, please do so only if we are mutuals. i regularly check for new followers, so please do not message me asking if i'm interested. however, non-mutual roleplay and non-roleplay blogs are welcome to message me about characters and new content. i love making new friends!

ㅤㅤㅤ─────────ㅤ W R I T I N G / T H R E A D S ㅤㅤㅤwhile i enjoy asks, i prefer plotted interactions, as having some sort of plan in mind usually leads to longer threads. i focus on these, but they aren't required to interact. i also encourage you to continue asks if you so desire. ㅤㅤㅤactivity may be sporadic. i not only have other blogs, but i run a business and help my family. additionally, i have chronic health issues that complicate everything. these may lead to unannounced hiatuses for short periods of time ( most no more than a month ), but i always return. if you'd like to keep in regular contact and you're a mutual, please ask for my discord. ㅤㅤㅤtypically, i place ic content into the queue, mixing it with text or image reblogs. but like everyone occasionally, i can be very impulsive and post immediately. i lightly format and use icons. this includes small text, indents, increased spaces between sentences, and occasional bold/italics or special fonts. i don't require either formatting or icons and if either is an impediment for you, please let me know.

ㅤㅤㅤ───────── ㅤ S H I P P I N G / N S F W ㅤㅤㅤi ship with chemistry. this means i may be selective with romantic shipping, but queries toward this are always welcome. while anidala is my favorite ship, i don't autoship, and i enjoy shipping canons and ocs. i also feel that a character's platonic relationships are just as or, sometimes, more important than their romantic ones. i don't need to ship to write and would far rather build detailed enemies and friends than a half-cooked romance. i occasionally write nsfw but prefer to do so off tumblr to prevent possibly being seen by minors.

ㅤㅤㅤ─────────ㅤ C O N T E N T W A R N I N G ㅤㅤ ㅤyou can expect darker themes on this blog. there are generally those common in star wars content but specifically war, imprisonment, violence, torture, spousal abuse, blood, politics, pregnancy, child loss, and death / loss. i tag the most common triggers, nsfw content, and those requested by my mutuals. however, if you believe something would be a common theme on this blog beyond the common trigger tags, and it'll severely trigger you, please don't follow. don't risk my forgetfulness, please. the trigger tag for this blogs is 'trigger tw'. i personally don't have triggers.

ㅤㅤㅤ─────────ㅤ D I S P U T E S / D Y N A M I C S ㅤㅤ ㅤthis is a mun doesn't equal muse blog. i don't care what allegiances or beliefs your muse may have. unless i see clear and substantiated evidence of various bigoted beliefs out of character, i'll always assume you're a decent human being whether you write villains, heroes, or anything in between. also, even if we write people with good views and intentions, we still might not entirely agree with their choices. it wouldn't be fair to assume that either so please, extend me the same courtesy. ㅤㅤㅤi'm almost entirely anti-callout. i've been on this site for several years, and i've witnessed a slow degradation of what is considered a valid callout. often, they have little to no substantiated evidence, are a misunderstanding, and \ or result from twisted evidence in the aftermath of a fallout between friends. unless i see substantiated evidence of criminal behavior, i won't reblog them nor do i want to see them in general. ㅤㅤㅤthat being said, if someone i follow has harrassed you, please come and talk to me about it privately. i don't tolerate bullies. ㅤㅤㅤon a lighter note, i don't practice mains or exclusives. like anyone, i have favorites and certainly, those people often are are unofficial mains ( or affiliates ) , but i've been and seen too many hurt by going further. we're all so unique in how we write that no two portrayals are the same. if you find people you want to be mains and exclusives with, i wish you all the best of times however!

ㅤㅤㅤ─────────ㅤ C R E D I T S ㅤ ㅤㅤi created all graphics, psds, headcanons, and icons unless stated otherwise in the post, it's reblogged, or it's listed below. please don't steal, and i'm usually happy to make someone something if asked!

[warsavant]

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤINFO. — CARRD. PLAYLISTS.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤAFFILIATED WITH...

@graysistance | @lionthought | @commandsir | puck etc., @honorhunt | @scoundrvls | @aniimvs | hackett etc.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤBLOG ROLL

[MAIN] @yunharlaquin | @bornesorrow | @alderheir | @quietresistance | @warrued | @donutdollie | @coeursainte | — [LOW ACTIVITY] @ofpolitics | @ofblasters | @ofsquadrons | @oflightsabers | @creaturational |

ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤMOBILE RULES.

[001] welcome to warsavant, an independent writing blog for mitth'raw'nuruodo set in the star wars saga created by george lucas. this version is drawn from and interpreted through the lens of both canon and legends timelines with a heavy emphasis on his historical inspirations, headcanons, and written media.   despite the mixture of sources, this blog is both timeline compliant.

[002]  while my first love in star wars was the legends timeline, growing up with its expanded universe of books, i very much enjoy the new timeline and its characters. i have many quibbles with disney's choices, especially in its overall pacing for historical events and certain retcons of its own content, but overall, i've come to love it too. as such, while i welcome criticism of both timelines and/or the choice to only write in one of the two, i won't be likely to follow if you post consistently about your dislike for one or another. also, i never expect my fellow writers to have the same level of knowledge, either more or less. whether you're brand new to it all, been obsessed with it since birth, or anywhere in between, you've got just the right amount of knowledge for me. finally, due to my occupation, i'm pretty good at research and summing up information, so if you need a research assistant of sorts for anything, feel free to ask!

[003] this is a selective blog, which means i won't interact in-character with blogs i don't follow in return and may pick and choose what i actually write. i absolutely understand mistakes happen for the former, but if you'd like to message me about writing / like a starter or plotting call, please do so only if we are mutuals. when i'm active on a blog, i regularly check for new followers and go through their blogs, so messaging me asking if i'm interested will not make me more likely to follow you back. that being said, non-mutual roleplay blogs and personals are more than welcome to message me about characters and new content. i love making new friends! while i enjoy asks, i prefer threads and really love plotting out storylines, following through those plans, to mesh and grow both sides' muses. i focus on the above on this blog, but that isn't required to interact.

[004] i know at least a little about a wide range of fandoms and time periods, so i'm not only interested in writing within purely star wars verses. i love aus and usually find placing characters easy, so even if you don't see a verse for a fandom, just ask! if you've seen my other blogs, you'll know ocs are also near and dear to my heart, so they're very welcome here as well.

[005] activity here may be sporadic. i not only have other blogs, but i run my own business and help my family. i also have chronic health issues that complicate everything on top of that. these responsibilities may lead to unannounced hiatuses for short periods of time (typically no more than a month), but i'll always return. if you'd like to keep in regular contact and you're a mutual, feel free to ask for my discord. additionally, i often place in-character content into the queue, alternating it with text or image reblogs.

[006] when it comes to romantic shipping, i ship with chemistry. this means i may be selective with shipping, and am especially so here, but queries toward this are always welcome. i don't autoship, and i enjoy shipping canons and ocs. additionally, i find there's heavy fetishization of same sex relationships within the roleplaying community. i watch for this in those i follow and am far more selective with these ships. i also feel that a character's platonic relationships are just as or, sometimes, more important than their romantic ones. i don't need to ship to write and would far rather build detailed enemies and friends than a half-cooked romance.

[007] you can expect darker themes on this blog, especially those surrounding war and the general ones explored by star wars content.  i tag most common triggers, nsfw content, and those requested by my mutuals.  however, if you believe something would be a common theme on this blog beyond the common trigger tags, and it'll trigger you, please don't follow.  the trigger tag for this blogs is 'trigger tw'.  i personally don't have triggers.

[008]  this is a mun doesn't equal muse blog.  i don't care what allegiances or beliefs your muse may have.  unless i see clear and substantiated evidence of various bigoted beliefs out of character, i'll always assume you're a decent human being whether you write villains, heroes, or anything in between. even if we write people with good views and intentions, we still might not entirely agree with their choices, and it wouldn't be fair to assume that either.  please extend me the same courtesy.

[009]  on this note, i'm almost entirely anti-callout.  i've been on this site for several years and over time, i've witnessed a slow degradation of what is considered a valid callout.  often, they have little to no substantiated evidence and\or result from twisted evidence in the aftermath of a fallout between friends or a misunderstanding.  unless i see substantiated evidence of criminal behavior, i won't reblog them nor do i really want to see them in general. that being said, if someone i follow has personally hurt you, please come and talk to me about it in ims.  i don't tolerate bullies.

[010]  i also don't practice mains or exclusives. like anyone, i have favorites and certainly, those people often are like unofficial mains, but i've been and seen too many hurt by this. we're all so unique in how we write that no two portrayals are the same. if you find people you want to be mains and exclusives with, i wish you all the best of times however!

[011]  i've created all graphics, psds, headcanons, and icons unless stated otherwise in the post, it's reblogged, or it's listed below. please don't steal, and i'm usually happy to share if asked!

[012]   at long last, hi, hej, hello, i'm kitty, and thank you for reading this rule page! i'm a twenty-five plus woman currently living in the central time zone of the united states, but i grew up around the world.  i'm a historian, both traditional and fashion, as an academic, but i also am a seamstress/designer/tailor.  you might catch a glimpse of my history adventures in mun posts and rants about the subject in ooc ones from time to time.  it's a pleasure to meet you, and i hope you're having a wonderful day. finally, if you or anyone else you know on this site are having a bad day, know at any time you can send in 'positivity please' anon or not (just make sure to include the url), i'll pull together some kind words to try to brighten that day.

[emiliaknightwrites]

Okay so new blog means new about me post!

This is a smut blog so it’ll be about me as a writer and also my smut works! :3

So I mostly write vanilla stuff, with lots of consent and care and consideration, so I consider myself a kind of ‘intro to smut’ writer. If you want something short and sweet without any major kinks (there’s some light bdsm from time to time but it’s very consent and sub enjoyment focused) I’m your gal!

I write on ao3, though all my works are published on the kindle store in case anyone wants to show support and buy a book! Some of my future works will probably end up being kindle exclusive, but I’ll put it on ao3 while I’m in the process of turning it into a proper ebook so you guys can get a free read first

So onto the works!

My first ever work was Delivering Male!

It’s very short and not so sweet, I was really just finding my feet in nsfw writing!

I followed it up with Delivering Rope, which leans a bit more into light BDSM, with heavy emphasis on consent!

It’s a little longer, had more dialogue, and is currently my highest rated work on ao3! I’m still pretty fond of this piece, and I might do another book in this series, as soon as I think of a good plot.

My third work was Seducing the Soldier (my partner scolded me for not continuing with pun titles but I couldn’t think of a good one okay)

This one was pretty fun to write! I’m pretty sure it came after the whole ‘everyone thirsts after ghost’ and I was kind of in a soldier fic mood

My last work (as of right now) is The Hotel D’amour!

I’m for sure going to be writing more in this universe, and I really enjoyed writing something where the man is just really sweet the entire time.

So that’s me! Oh and if you do fancy supporting my works, my Amazon page is

I try to keep my prices pretty low and do sales when I can!

If you read all this, have a cake! 🎂

[shihalyfie]

Kizuna itself vs. the two versions of the novel

Written on request from a friend who wanted to remain anonymous. This is more of an editorial than a meta, and while I usually have a policy of “this is an analysis blog, not a review blog” it goes into more of my personal impressions and opinions than usual, but it’s something I write hoping to be helpful.

There are basically three “official” full versions of Kizuna: one being, of course, the movie itself, one being the Dash X Bunko version of the novel, and one being the Shueisha Mirai Bunko version of it. While it’s certainly not to say that any of the three is an “incomplete” version of the narrative, if you really want as full of a picture of the story as possible, somehow, each of all three versions of the story happens to have really important information that the other two do not. If I had to pick only one of these three versions to recommend to people, I would of course pick the movie itself; it’s obviously the base story everything else is based off of and was the one the production centered around as a priority, but the novelizations have a surprising amount of info that provide a lot of insight into the movie’s story and themes.

I get the impression that the creation of Kizuna involved making a lot more story and background details than could fit in a 95-minute movie, so these novelizations, which were based directly off the original movie script, ended up being an outlet for a lot of these details (and as much as I could be harsh on the movie itself for being a bit “reliant” on extra material, I have to admit that Adventure and 02 were both like this too -- a lot of our current understanding of the series comes from the Adventure novels and drama CDs -- so frankly I’m thankful we at least got this with a 95-minute movie instead of a yearlong series). On the flip side, while I'm not going to say that the novels are completely and utterly inaccurate representations of the movie, in a perhaps too-close approximation of Adventure and 02's writing style, this is a movie where even the nuances in a single line or split-second moment carry heavy implications, which become much blurrier or harder to identify when they’re presented differently (or not even presented at all) in the novel’s context, especially when they emphasize very different things from what the movie itself was emphasizing.

The short version of this is that I believe the Dash X version contains the greater amount of “plot and story” information but significantly misses out on the emotional themes and presentation, whereas the Shueisha Mirai version abridges and cuts chunks of content but is much better at conveying the intended message. More on this below the cut. (Note that the following post spoils Kizuna’s plot events.)

The movie itself

Since the following parts are more “in comparison to the movie”, I’m not going to go too much into this in this section, but one thing I will say is that the official English subtitle translation for the movie is really not great. Even if you take out nitpickiness about the fact it misses several significant nuances (the difference between “unchangeable fate” and “changeable destiny”, or the fact that Gennai refers to partnership dissolution as a “case” and not like it’s something that happens overall) at really plot-important moments, some lines (thankfully, usually not plot-important ones) are just straight-up incorrect. And worse, there’s evidence the official English dub was based on that translation! (I’m not faulting the people in charge of the dub for this, but whoever handed them that translation to work with.)

The dialogue in the Dash X Bunko version is transcribed effectively word-for-word from the dialogue in the movie (or perhaps vice versa, given that the novel is based on the original script), so I highly recommend checking that version as a reference for dialogue or if you want to do any intimate analysis on it. I don't want to go as far as to suggest not supporting the official version of the movie because of this, but at least please be aware that the translation used there is not entirely reliable.

Dash X Bunko

If you talk about “the Kizuna novel”, this is the one that people usually tend to be referring to, for two reasons. Firstly, it was translated shortly after the movie’s release, and due to the unfortunate circumstances of Kizuna being delayed in accessibility outside Japan for several months, this basically served as the only comprehensive source of info about the movie outside Japan for a very long time. Secondly, in Japan, this one was marketed as “the one for adults” in contrast to the Shueisha Mirai one being “for kids”, which meant that a lot of people assumed that the latter one was just an incredibly stripped down version that was otherwise disposable or replaceable. (This is very, very much not the case, and is extremely ironic when it comes to a movie that partially centers around the dangers of looking down too much on things associated with childhood.)

When it comes to “plot and story info”, this is the one that probably serves as the best reference (especially for fanfic writers or those who need a refresher on certain plot events or to look up something quickly), and probably has the most “comprehensive” listing of plot events surrounding the movie. The dialogue in it is a word-for-word recreation of the movie’s script, and actually includes more scenes than the movie itself does, including two that I suspect to be deleted scenes (a detailing of the specifics behind the initial plan to pursue Eosmon, and a conversation between Koushirou and Tentomon) and adaptations of the first and second memorial shorts within their context in the movie. It also contains some interesting background details and extra context for some things in the movie that you might think would normally be animation flair or something, but take a very interesting implication of story importance if they’re going out of their way to write this in the script. (There’s a scene where Agumon and Gabumon appear in front of their partners when they’d been behind them a minute before, and it’s easy to think this might be an animation error, but not only does the surrounding context make this unlikely, the novel itself actually directly states that their positions had changed.) Given that, I think it was very fortunate that this novel was available to us for those outside Japan waiting for the actual movie to come out, because this level of detail was very important to have on hand rather than fragmented spoilers on social media.

However, the part where I think the novel is significantly deficient in compared to the actual movie (and also to the other version of the novel) is that it describes the plot events in too blunt of a manner and doesn’t bring out its themes very well. (It’s kind of like having a long and very detailed Wikipedia article plot summary; it definitely got all the hard facts down, but the emotion is gone, which is still a pretty significant issue when media’s all about the feelings and message in the end.) While “considering the movie to be more cynical than it’s probably meant to be” happens regardless of which version someone’s working from, I’ve talked to perhaps an unnervingly high number of people who started with the novel and were absolutely convinced that the movie’s message was about adulthood sucking and needing to just accept it, until they saw how the actual movie pulled it off and the surrounding atmosphere and realized it definitely was not. (I think one really big factor here is that a lot of the visual imagery makes it extremely, extremely hard to miss that Menoa’s mentality is completely screwed up and her way of seeing things was dubious to begin with; prose descriptions really just don’t capture the way they slam this in your face with visual and musical cues during the climax of the movie.)

You can figure this out from the novel itself, but you have to really be looking closely at the way they word things, and on top of that it’s hard to figure out which parts you should be focusing on and which parts aren’t actually that important -- in other words, the “choice of priorities” gets a bit lost in there. Even the little things lose a lot of value; it’s theoretically possible to use the novel to put together that Daisuke is wearing his sunglasses indoors during his first scene, but you have to put together the context clues from completely different paragraphs to figure this out, none of which compares to the actual hilarity of visually seeing him wearing the thing in a very obviously dimly lit restaurant because he’s our beloved idiot. (For more details, please see my post with more elaboration on this and more examples of this kind of thing.)

I wouldn’t say that the movie itself isn’t guilty of (perhaps accidentally) having some degree of mixed messaging, but I would say this problem is rather exacerbated by the novel’s way of presenting it due to its dedication to dropping every single plot detail and event without much in the way of choosing what to contextualize and what to put emphasis on (as it turns out, treating practically everything in the movie as if it has equal weight might not be a great idea). So, again, for that reason I think the novel serves as a good reference in terms of remembering what happened in it and knowing the movie’s contents, but I also feel that it’s really not the greatest deliverer of the movie’s message or themes at all.

Shueisha Mirai Bunko

The second version of the novel was not translated until several months after the movie first released, and shortly before the Blu-ray and streaming versions of the movie itself came out anyway, so my impression is that on this end a lot of people don’t even know it was a thing. On top of that, even those who know about it often dismiss it as the “kid version” -- and to be fair, it did baffle quite a few people as to why this version even exists (Kizuna is technically not unacceptable for kid viewing and its plot is still understandable regardless of age, but since the movie is so heavily about the millennial existential crisis, it’s not something kids would really relate to). So a lot of people tended to just skip over it...which is really a shame, because it contains some interesting things that actually aren’t in the other two versions at all. For instance, did you know that, as of this writing, this is the only thing that plainly states the specific explanation for why Yamato decided to become an astronaut, for the first time in 20 real-life years?

While there are still some things that weren’t in the movie proper (mainly the Eosmon initial plan and the adaptation of the second memorial short), for the most part, the actual events are somewhat abridged compared to the movie and the Dash X version, and other than a few stray lines, there’s not a lot of extra information that would be as helpful for referencing the events of the plot. The version of the novel here is rather broadly interpretive of the scenes in the movie, so several things are condensed or taken out (and, amusingly, because it’s assuming that the kids reading this don’t actually know the original Adventure or 02, it has to describe what each character is like in a quick one-liner).

However, interestingly enough, it’s because it’s so heavily interpretive that it illuminates a lot of things that weren’t really easy to glean out of the Dash X version. For instance:

Some scenes are described with “other perspectives” that give you info on someone else’s point of view. (For instance, we see more of Yamato’s perspective and thoughts when he has his first phone call with Daisuke, or a bit more detail in the process of how Eosmon kidnappings work.)

We get a lot more information on what’s going through everyone’s heads during each scene, and what emotions they’re feeling at a given time. (This is something that you could at least get to some degree in the movie itself from facial expressions and framing, but would often be a lot blurrier in the Dash X version; here, it’s spelled out in words.)

When things are abridged, you get a clearer idea of what the intended point and theme of the scene was because it’s stripped down to include only that part. In one really interesting case, the scene with Agumon finding Taichi’s AVs has a “censored” equivalent where Taichi’s pushed to a corner because he can’t find anything non-alcoholic in his fridge -- so when you look at the two versions of the scene and what they have in common, you can figure out that the point isn’t that it was a lewd joke for the sake of it, but rather that Taichi’s forcing himself into boxes of “adulthood” that are actually meaningless and impractical.

Some of the descriptions of the characters, scenes, and background information make it a lot more obvious as to their purpose in the narrative (it outright confirms that Miyako being in Spain means that her personality is getting overly enabled there).

The scene where the circumstances behind Morphomon’s disappearance are revealed makes it significantly less subtle what the point is. In the actual movie, a lot of this involved visual framing with Menoa seeming to become more and more distant, but in this version of the novel they basically whack you over the head with the final confirmation that Menoa is guilty of neglecting her own partner, which contradicts her own assertions that “they were always together” (maybe not emotionally, it seems!) and helps clarify the commonality between her, Taichi, Yamato, and Sora in what exactly led to their partners disappearing.

Bonus: this version of the novel really wants you to know that the ending of the movie is about Taichi and Yamato fully having the determination to turn things around and lead up to the 02 epilogue. (The movie’s version of this involves the extended version of Taichi’s thesis and the credits photo with Yamato obviously next to a rocket, while this novel’s version involves more detailed fleshing out of how Taichi and Yamato decided to use their experiences to move onto their eventual career paths and what kind of hope they still have at the end. The Dash X version...didn’t really have a very strong equivalent here.)

In other words, while this version of the novel isn’t the greatest reference for plot or worldbuilding, it does a much more effective job being straightforward about the intended themes and message of the movie, and even if the scenes in it are much more loosely adapted, it’s much better at adapting the emotional nuances of the things that would normally be conveyed via visuals, expressions, and voice acting. (Although I would still say that the movie itself is the best reference for that kind of thing, of course.) If you just want lore or plot ideas, I don’t think it’ll help you very much, but since this series is so much about characters that had their ways of thinking fleshed out in such incredible detail, and about strong theme messaging, this is all still very valuable information in its own way.

[danidrawsstuff]

Hi ! I came from the doctor gilbert blog. I didn't know you were an animation student ! That is so cool !! That was one of the things I thought about studying after high school but I didn't know enough about it and went a different path. Can you tell us more about how being an animation student is ? What type of classes do you have ? What would you like to work on ? (if that's okay of course ^^)

Hey there!!

Yes, I started animation school this January and while it's very hectic, I'm absolutely having the time of my life ^^ !! It's something that I tried to go into after high school too, but when I realized my art skills were not up to par yet, I also chose a different route while continuing to work on art on the side! Took me two tries to finally get in, so if you ever decide to give it another shot, I say absolutely go for it! Never too late to shoot your shot and see where it takes you!

I will be posting my accepted portfolio pieces here soon, in case anyone was wondering what animation schools are looking for. And if anyone has any questions about the application process, I can try to give some general answers~! For now, more answers to questions under the cut:

The biggest thing about being an animation student is that it's very busy. My animation prof actually described animation as the medical school of the art field since the grind is just as gruelling. The workload has been heavy from the get go, there's typically an assignment due every week for all classes. If it's not finished pieces that's due, then you're expected to have a certain level of roughs done for in-class critique. My wall calendar and my agenda are my best friends for keeping deadlines in mind and helping me to prioritize which projects to do first because if I don't physically see my deadline written out in front of me, my brain can and WILL forget :')

Speaking of critique, that's the second thing: Critique is going to be a big part of your life as an animation student, or any kind of art student for that matter. You're expected to show your work in front of class and have the prof really pick it apart and show you how to improve your work! There are profs who give vague critique but thankfully all my profs so far have been amazing with critique, either by providing extremely detailed notes or by doing draw-overs on our roughs. And we also have TAs available for pre-class critiques if you find yourself stuck on a part of a project that's just not working. I can't speak for other programs in other schools, but in mine there's a lot of support which is awesome since it's such a work intensive program!

As for courses, I'm doing a full course load so I should have 8 courses. I'm only taking 6 since I transferred credits to cover my mandatory communications and electives courses for this sem! Right now I have:

Layout - environments, backgrounds, lots of perspective work. i thought i would hate this class the most since i don't draw backgrounds that often but i actually really enjoy it!

Character Design - lots of character studies, a big emphasis on staying on model and keeping your drawing consistent which has been personally challenging, but still fun!

Animation History - exactly what it says on the tin. getting in on a lot of the disney tea. i believe we're moving on to animation's role in wartime propaganda during ww2 which will be interesting

Animation - the actual animation course. i've posted a few of my assignments on here! lots of ball bounces, seaweed waves, pendulums, all the fundamentals. one of the most demanding courses in terms of time since you have to draw so many frames.

Storyboarding - MY LOVE. this is my actual favourite class. we're given a script and told to plot out our board to show how it's going to be seen on screen. boarding is also pretty intensive since depending on the way you want to show the action, you could easily end up with 60+ frames to draw out, but i love it so much.

Life Drawing - My beloved and beloathed, but so important to animation. the class that's hardest to do online because it's not easy to draw a model when you're looking at a small screen. life drawing profs, at least in my experience, also tend to be the toughest critics.

And I think I might have answered the last question already but I really, really love boarding and I think that's exactly what I want to go into after graduation. Would like to work on something along the lines of ATLA or finally bring one of the many personal projects that have been stewing on the backburner to life kjdjds.

I will also say that it can get very taxing mentally and it's easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of projects you have on your plate. As crazy as the workload is, I've also learned that it's very important to schedule some downtime into my everyday, even if it's just taking an hour or two to walk away from whatever I'm working on and just meme around on discord or take a nap.

I think that about covers it. If you got any more questions, please feel free to yeet them my way!

[interact-if]

Hello mods! I know there are five mods (right?) running this blog, so I think each of you have your own taste when it comes to choosing/reading ifs. My question is- I don't know if this have been asked before, but what is your favourite if genre(s)?

no one had asked about us before indeed! i believe this is the first ask that addresses us personally!

I'm not much of a genre person, really. All i really look for is an interesting premise and I am biased to read games written by friends LOL

The only thing I do enjoy is reading games written in lighter styles, which isn't to say I like light topics only, I just have a hard time focusing on writing styles that become too detailed and almost massive to read. And again, I've got nothing against people who write that way and I have read and loved IFs like that! I just need more brainpower to read them which I don't always have

I do avoid games that become sad just for the sake of being sad since my mood dampens easily, and I do tend to enjoy games in which your relationships with other characters can change wildly based on your choices. Hopefully that somehow answers your question??

Hmmm 🤔 I read any and all genres, like Cruz, it's the premise and the characters that hook me.

That being said, I like 'smaller' plots, where its about the characters, the relationships you build, the stakes are personal (think The Fog Knows Your Name, Slammed!, to name a couple), and less 'we need to save the universe bc we live in the universe'. If the story isn't personal then it takes a lot for me to get invested.

That being said, stories with 'big' plots can still be personal, they just got to emphasize character interactions, push the 'found family' or whatever aspect. Like 'it's all well and good that we need to save the universe, and I'll do it, but I'm doing it for these specific people tyvm'.

I do like heists, I like games that touch on heavier topics and let me explore the ugly, more desperate, parts of being human, but also enjoy a good rom-com, and always bounce between medieval fantasy to cyberpunk sci-fi.

Ohh, I'm a massive fan of all genres, send me an IF and tell me a single trope in it and I'll read, that's all it takes.

I do love sci-fi and fantasy - modern, high, a sprinkle of it in the corner of a single sentence - plus supernatural-types of IFs, where something isn't quite normal or expected from our world, but very interesting to read and get into! You got a vampire? Sign me up. You got werewolves? Sign me up. You got angels? Demons? Some obscure supernatural creature I cannot think of right now? Sign me up.

Add some mystery in there and I'm good to go. I'm a very simple enby 😌 I am also incredibly weak so I tend to avoid tragedy IFs, but do gravitate towards both heavy and light games, depending on how much brainpower I have after

Thank you for asking!!

I've always been a versatile reader so the genre doesn't really matter to me. if the premise catches my interest, then I'll definitely be reading it! I guess you could say it more so depends on the plot of the project itself, rather than the genre.

Then in that case, I'm partial to IFs that put a heavy emphasis to the connectivity/relationships of the characters with each other? Not just in a romantic sense too, I really enjoy projects which focuses on familial and platonic relationships with a good mix of personal stakes from the plot.

If we're talking go-to genre interest though, it would probably be either horror or mystery. I was raised on those genres and I guess they just rooted themselves into my heart 😌

True to form, I think I’m opposite to most of my fellow mods LOL?? While there’s not a lot I don’t enjoy (...any? I don’t enjoy?), I think I have a particular hankering for the complex, slightly heavier, slightly sprawling plot monstrosities—the more brain-bending, the better. Conspiracy, mystery, lore. All of that? My jam. As a result, I tend to love high fantasy, myths, mysteries, things of that sort, mostly because that’s where you tend to develop a lot of intrigue, but you can also develop a similar complexity with sci-fi, which is another genre I’m feral for.

I really, really appreciate when a story is structured in a way such that, as you’re reading, you don’t even realize that a larger plot is brewing/unfolding, that the hints are right before your eyes—my favorite stories have always been the ones where the plot direction isn’t glaringly obvious, yet once each point is revealed, the steps taken to get there are clear-cut. The kind of story that leaves room for the audience to prospect on what might happen because there are hints sprinkled everywhere. The kind of story where everything feels very organic—the plot “twists” are appropriately shocking, scandalous, heart-wrenching, but don’t come out of nowhere, because everything in the story has a foundation.

Ahem. Waxed a little poetic there. Anyways. Big fan of fantasy, sci-fi, mystery, brain-bending mind-melters; that’s pretty much the only kind of TV/media I watch, too. Other than stand-up.

I do enjoy a little supernatural, apocalyptic, and low fantasy content as lighter reading, too, though! I don’t usually look for that kind of stuff to be mind-melting, though, LOL.

And, also, the brain-bending, mind-melting stuff tends to have a 50-50 shot of also being horror-related, so I think it’s fair to tack on that I like horror, too!

TL, DR: I, Dani, have terminal chatterbox disease, can’t ever be concise: favorite genres are mind-melting/brain-bending, fantasy, mystery, sci-fi, horror. Add a splash of some supernatural and apocalypse in there!

[ja-khajay]

Stuff I read (and liked) this year

As promised, here’s a list of the novels, comics, manga, etc... I read this year, focusing on the ones I enjoyed and would recommend to people. Under a cut, this is going to be a little long.

-------- Books --------

Favorite book of the year: Stranger in the Woods, by Michael Finkel

Non-fiction. Based on the interviews of the man himself by the author, it is about a man who felt so unfit for society he decided one day to leave it, and spent the next 28 years as a hidden hermit in forest in Maine. The book details how he survived there, how he was eventually found, and some of his reasons for doing so. It’s a great reflection on the nature of loneliness.

Indian creek, by Pete Fromm

...Yet another detailed tale of living alone in the woods. This time, the diary of a student who spent a winter in the mountains to help tend for salmon hatchlings, and how he spent the rest of his days hiking, hunting, meeting the locals. It’s a fun little book who, being set almost the whole world away from where I live, was a nice way to travel.

Howl’s Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones

I don’t feel the need to explain this one since everyone and their mom has seen the movie adapted from it. The book, that I first read a decade ago before I actually watched the film, is a less romantized, more spirited telling of the same story. The writing is absolutely delightful and so is the world it paints, and it’s the first time in ages a book had me laughing out loud during my entire read.

-------- Comics (BD) --------

Favorite comic of the year: Monsieur Désire?, by Hubert and Virginie Augustin

A discreet young woman becomes a maid for a decadent, unbearable, byronesque young lord. Caked in the rigid and oppressive social hierarchy of the victorian era, you follow a mental and verbal joust between the two, as the lord tries his best to offend and corrupt his new unrelenting servant, to little success. The writing and especially the dialogues were stellar, drawing me into the tense atmosphere, watching this trainwreck of a character flamboyantly destroy himself. While there’s no precise content warnings that I can give, this is a mature and heavy story.

World of Edena, by Moebius

Anyone who’s followed this blog for over a month knows how much of a Moebius fan I am. Edena combines the vague, dreamlike, wordless storytelling from stuff like Arzach or The cat’s eyes with an actual plot. While I haven’t completly finished the story, the evolution of the main characters and how the story is told have been great to read through, and as always the art is beyond gorgeous. Unfortunately suffers from some good old sexism in the writing that even if minimal, tasted sour

Le roman de Renart, by Joan Sfar (book 1)

Sfar’s work always has a signature vibe of being dreamy and light without being light hearted, of being down to earth but drifting in the fantastical, and this one is no exception. It’s an adaption of a series of medieval folk tales I grew up with, who uses the same characters to tell an original story. If you’re familiar with icons like Renart as well as other mythological big boys like Merlin you’ll fit right in. There is something special in how the dialogues are written, who feel natural in a way that you’d overhear in a street corner and is very special to me.

The mercenary, by VIncente Segrelles

Another one I post about a lot on this blog. The mercenary is a king on the throne of fantasy cheese. The worldbuilding is interesting at times but the writing is a pretty pathetic display of glorious old time sword and sorcery sci-fantasy 10 years too late for it’s prime (warning for ye old sexism and orientalism that plagues the genre, cranked very high...) but you come and stay for the art. The entire thing is drawn in a series of hyper detailed oil paintings with an insane eye for technical detail, from the engineering of the weaponry, to the architecture and weather, to the anatomy of the fantasy creatures... Each panel stands out as it’s own painting which makes even flipping through it without reading the scenario a treat. Click here to see more of the art, in my Segrelles tag.

The ice maurauder, by Jacques Tardi

A short story about mad scientists entirely drawn like a 19th century engraving. In great Tardi tradition everyone is ugly and mean, it ends terribly, it’s both a hommage to the genre of late 19th cent. to early 1900s dramatic adventure novels and a critical eye on it, and it’s morbidly funny. Most people I saw online hated the way this was written but I’m not them and I really recommend this book. Die mad

-------- Manga --------

Favorite manga of the year: it’s a tie between the following two.

Cats of the Louvre, by Taiyo Matsumoto

Most wonderful comic I have read in ages. The story follows a bunch of semi-feral cats secretly living in the Louvre museum’s attic, and the small group of humans who share their life, walking through the museum as the night watch. When the cats are together, they are represented in a humanoid way, but still act like animals, and “become” cats again when a human is nearby. The plot is a sort of supernatural mystery centered around a kitten who walks around paintings. It’s a love letter to art, sincere and beautiful, with a unique art style and great characters.

Memoirs of amorous Gentlemen, by Moyoco Anno

A sex worker in early 20th century paris starts writing down a diary of the clients she meets, in a quest to cope with the troubles of her life. You follow her, her colleagues, and her bittersweet relationship with an abusive lover. I don’t have much words about this comic, but the art and writing both are amazing, it’s the perfect length and drew me in like little series had before. Obvious content warnings as this is an adult story that talks about sexuality, but also depicts both mental and physical abuse.

Hana, also by Taiyo Matsumoto 

A very short story, this was not made to be read as a comic originally, but served as storyboarding and visual development for a play, and the way it is written follows that. Hana is a slice of life story set in a fantasy world, of a young boy, his family, his village. Despite the setting being an original one, the character interactions are refreshingly... normal, and there is no huge plot to speak of, just a bit of the life of these characters. The art is beautiful, entirely black and white, with a scratchy style and an emphasis on contrast. Matsumoto is on a speedy road to becoming my favorite manga artist haha

Delicious in Dungeon, by Ryoko Kui

While not marked as my year’s favorite, I still consider this series among my favorite manga ever. The art and writing are amazing, and it’s both heartfelt, well concieved and plain hilarious. The story follows several parties of dungeon diving adventurers each on their little quests with a premise of our protagonists, on a panic rescue mission, surviving in the dungeon by cooking and eating the monsters they come across. From a DnD party turned cooking manual dinner of the week beginning, the plot creeps up on you and slowly thickens. I don’t want to spoil anything about the overarching story of this because it was a delight to discover for myself. While everything about DinD rules, I am especially fond of the design philosophy of the author, who puts great detail in the practicality and biology of what she draws, as well as the character writing. Everyone even side characters has so much charm and depth to them, the cast is so diverse and entertaining...! Each character is just a bit lame enough but endearing, and has their own little backstory that shows in the way they exist. It’s a delight

Chainsaw man, by Tatsuki Fujimoto

I went into CSM expecting a borderline campy hyperviolent dumb fun thing to read and was very surprised to find an uncomfortably well written story about a teenager being groomed. The hyperviolent dumb fun fights are here nonetheless and the series still qualifies as shonen for some reason, but the more mature character writing as well as some truly outlandish visuals make it something very special. If you can’t stand shonen, not sure you will like it, but if you don’t mind it, worth trying.

Witch hat atelier, by Kamome Shirahama

The oh so elegant fantasy seinen every cool kid started posting about this year, who I also succumbed to and fast. Witch hat is hard to explain, as most of it’s plot revolves around the rules of the world it’s set in, specifically the regulations around it’s magic and the social and historical reasons for them. It’s about growing up, learning, disability, making art. You follow a little girl taken in by a witch as an apprentice, her magical education, and learn little by little why her lovely teacher is so willing to break a lot of rules... While a bit too gentle and pretty for my taste at times, Witch hat has great worldbuilding and explores sensitive themes I rarely see in manga, much less in fantasy. And Berserk wishes it had art this good

[wordsnstuff]

Guide To Writing Historical Fiction

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Know The Period Well

When writing a story that takes place during a time you have no primary experience with, it’s important to do your research and not only be able to recall facts but be able to apply historical context to the plot. It’s especially important to consider diversity in period pieces and avoid whitewashing your cast, even if your story is set in a historically white place. The most obvious offender of this is England, but there were many people of color in premodern England that are completely underrepresented in modern fiction about the time.

Balance Drama and Accuracy

Realistically, you’re not writing a school report. There are corners you can cut in order to prioritize the plot and characterization over textbook accuracy. However, if you’re going to misrepresent something, be elegant and intentional about it. Make sure that the moment is worth it and that it serves you to do so. Convenience is not a reason to not do your due diligence.

Readers Will Find Errors, No Matter What

Accept that some readers will not understand that the nature of fiction is not to teach them about non-fictional things. There will be nitpickers, history buffs, “intellectuals”, and internet warriors who take it upon themselves to find and scrutinize every inaccuracy. You cannot avoid it, no matter how careful you are. Remember that your job is to entertain and provoke thought. Leave textbook writing to those who get paid for it.

Be Specific With Time and Place

Being vague about where and when your story is taking place may relieve you of heavy research about specifics, but it will take away from the reader’s experience, and that should always be your priority. People have prior knowledge about time periods and locations, so use that to your advantage. The more specific you are, the less work you have to do in order to create a world in which your characters can exist. Of course, you have to paint the picture, but at least this way you won’t have to design it.

Time and Place Shapes Your Character

Do not place contemporary people in a different time and location, put them in a corset and expect your reader to be immersed in that historical setting. Most of your work in characterizing for this genre will be contemplating what context and circumstances will shape your characters and how that will manifest in the way they think, feel, and behave. Place emphasis on this part of the process, because no matter how well you paint the background, it will be ruined if you have stick figures all over it.

It’s Gonna Take A While

Think about how long it takes to research a history paper versus how long it takes to draft. It’s the same with historical fiction. You will spend about 30% more time in the planning stage than you will in the writing stage. If you don’t have a passion or at least an interest in history, this genre is not for you. There’s no shortcut and there’s no way around it.

Common Struggles

Believable dialogue… Your writing style is your business, and the density of your writing style should usually go hand in hand with the intensity of the dialogue. If you’re writing a historical fiction in a modern voice, don’t break that up with extremely dense dialogue with vocabulary that the reader will have to pick apart. A happy medium, no matter the density of your narration, is usually a safe bet, where it evokes a time period but doesn’t directly copy it. This makes it clearly understandable by the reader but doesn’t destroy their suspension of disbelief amongst denser or lighter narration.

Little details… Guess and check. This is what editing is for. Well, that and nailing the historical voice, but that’s another issue for another time. If you’re on a roll on your first or second draft, don’t open google and agonize over one detail. Have someone more knowledgeable look over it later or do more research in the interim between writing and editing and then check yourself during the next stage.

Vocabulary… This is, again, a guess and check sort of thing. Finish the draft in a way that is clear above accurate and then highlight the words and phrases you’re unsure of before going through and checking each one. Again, you’ll spend more time editing than writing with this genre for this very reason.

Historical Norms… My best advice for getting a feel of what life was and wasn’t like during a certain time period and in a specific area is to read other texts that are reliably accurate and set/about the same time and place. It’s an easy way to get accustomed to the setting as the writer and eventually visualize that place when you’re writing it.

Retelling versus implementing… It’s really easy to lose sight of that line between setting your plot amongst a historical event and making that historical event the plot. I’d say a good way to make sure you’re not writing a narrative textbook is make a timeline of each scene in your draft and if more than 40% of your story centers around a historical event and the ins-and-outs of it rather than the fictional events within the plot, then you’re probably going a little heavy on the history.

Medicine/Technology… I’m not necessarily well-versed in historical medicine or technology but I do know that @inky-duchess can offer quite a few resources on medicine and that regarding technology throughout history, just write your first draft and then go back and fact check. Highlight technological inventions that are mentioned in the text and check that they were already in use at that time.

Other Resources

Resources For Writing Period Pieces: High Middle Ages & Renaissance

Resources For Writing Period Pieces: 1600s

Resources For Writing Period Pieces: 1700s

Resources For Writing Period Pieces: 1800s

Resources For Writing Period Pieces: 1900-1939

Resources For Writing Period Pieces: 1940-1969

Resources For Writing Period Pieces: 1970-1999

Things To Listen To When You’re Working 

Useful Writing Resources

Useful Writing Resources II

Resources For Worldbuilding

Resources For Plot Development

Writing About Another Era

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