#there’s actual werewolves somewhere in the twilight universe

[rmblythe7]

So in New Moon, Alice says werewolves are vicious, but then we find out Jacob is technically a shapeshifter and NOT a werewolf so I’m just wondering what the hell Alice knows about actual werewolves that are presumably lurking somewhere and how she found out??

There’s a story here. And I need it.

[aikoiya]

LoZ - Wolf Link & the Búralupán Race

Okay, new theory. I know that werewolves aren't technically part of the LoZ universe, but what if Twilight Link was descended from the Búraló-mná (wolf women; a type of wolf fae or spirit, which, the leader of is Twilight's mother, but he is unaware) of Ordona & turning into a wolf in game turns him into the first "werewolf" in Hyrule history?

Hell, maybe he had a Sheikah ancestor, thus making him capable of Twilight Magic &, judging by the Yiga, this could allow one access to shapeshifting. Which, when mixed with him having the Soul of the Hero (which I headcanon is actually the soul of the Fierce Deity, who I also hc created the Sheikah & thus would naturally have access to Twilight Magic himself, which is a mix of Light & Shadow Magic, & one of his sacred animals is the wolf), the Triforce of Courage reacted to the Twilight in Link's defense & used what was already present in his own biology to become something totally new.

I also subscribe to the theory that the Twili are actually a branch of Sheikah who called themselves "the Interlopers," turned against Hyrule, & when they were banished to the Twilight Realm, managed to adapt to it due to their Twilight Magic, specifically being more focused on the Shadow half here. The reason being that Twilight is very closely related to Shadow, being a mix of light & shadow, which allowed them to bridge the gap.

Unless those 2 Yiga (Fake Zelda Yiga & All-Seeing Cucco Yiga) were just masters of disguise. Or if it's specifically a case where the transformation is just an illusion, which could be possible. Though, considering the fact that the Sheikah are literally references to ninja, you could go full Henge no Jutsu from Naruto in which Shadow/Twilight Magic substitutes Chakra & allows them to actively transform their bodies physically.

I'm speculating all these things because I tend to come from a perspective of wanting there to be a biological basis for things. I mean, there has to be a reason he didn't just turn into a spirit like damn near everyone else. And it can't just be because he has the Soul of the Hero. In my mind, the Soul can't just do shit just because.

Yes, the Triforce of Courage, but it couldn't have just been the Triforce. If it was, then he'd be able to maintain his Hylian form in the Twilight like Zelda is able to before she gives the Triforce of Wisdom to Midna. (And it isn't just Zelda either. Ganon walks through that shit just fine & doesn't need to take on animal form.) Because isn't the whole point of the Triforce that no 1 side is greater than the others?

Like, yes, power, but just being powerful doesn't automatically mean you're gonna win, obviously. However, I can get behind the idea of the Triforce being the catalyst, but there must be something more going on beyond that.

Because why would Link's part of the Triforce react differently to the Twilight from the other 2 pieces unless there was something going on?

Anyway, once Midna takes the Twilight Crystal with her (which, I assume is what happened, otherwise it's likely out there somewhere in BotW & TotK if it really is a fusion of all 3 timelines like we're told or that the Wild Series is just an inevitable event no matter the timeline), Twilight Link begins transforming into what we in the real world call a werewolf with Wolf Link's coloration on full moon nights. The reason being that I see the moon as being a very direct & natural source of Twilight Magic (due to its phases), specifically Lunar Magic, & the full moon being when it's most intense.

Or, perhaps just the moon being out at night at all would be enough? That could also work.

Just BTW, in this instance, I consider being a werewolf to be having something called an active werewolf gene. But, here, they're called Búralupáns.

Having a Lupán gene means that when transformed under the full moon, they have thick, bushy, healthy-looking fur (so long as they eat a certain amount of red meat per day), a short lupine muzzle, being tulip-eared with them situated at the top of their head, a long, bushy tail, strong musculature, taller than when human (including Hylian, Sheikah, or Gerudo, though there have yet to be any Gerudo). This form is referred to as their Lupos(ian) form. They are forced to fully transform under the full moon & transforming is uncomfortable at first, but not painful & the transforming becomes less so with experience. And the danger sense or "vibe check" that most animals seem to have.

Basically, it's Wednesday werewolves.

And, much like the Wednesday werewolves, Búralupáns can also take on lupine features at any time, but not fully transform unless it's the full moon. Things like elongated & noticeable canines, longer canid claws (meaning that they aren't actually sharp like a cat's & their danger comes in the strength put behind them), also lucidum tapetum. Not to mention the improved senses that they generally have at all times, though not nearly to the same extent as when transformed. Lupáns with cuspated ears (Hylian, Sheikah, Gerudo) also have almost full range of motion.

Búralupáns can also eventually learn to turn into actual wolves whenever. Not a lot of Lupáns are able to achieve it though & it's considered a point of pride if they do. It involves embracing both Twilight & Wild magic; embracing one's instincts while still retaining one's mind.

Also, Alfa Lupáns grow bigger than other Lupáns in all forms, but only once they become the Alfa. Thus becoming giant wolves. (Yes, this is a Stephenie Meyer's Twilight reference. It's one of the only things I still actively like about it.) My thoughts are that this is the most difficult form to acquire & is the strongest. It's basically like how in the animal kingdom, some species of animals grow bigger than others when they become alphas. Similar to how the Zora seem to.

And even when in their human form, Búralupáns always have slightly pronounced canines, enhanced physicality (including strength & speed), enhanced senses (hearing & smell specifically), & wolf-like instincts, tendencies, & mannerisms. As well as being taller, more hirsute, men having incredible sideburns, & having more potential for muscle definition on average than regular humans. These things becoming even more pronounced when transformed & the more wolf-like they appear, the stronger these qualities become. Not to mention having naturally higher physicality.

Of course, you can also have a dormant Lupán gene, which means you don't transform on your own at all, ever. And if you reproduce there is a chance that those cubs may also have a dormant gene. However, with the right catalyst (whether it's a spell or something else), your Lupán gene can be activated.

One other thing, people descended from Lupáns, whether their gene is active or not, are completely incapable of becoming vegetarians, let alone vegans, because wolves are carnivores, this plus being a subrace of human, makes them obligate omnivores, meaning they can live without plant matter. Not comfortably or healthily, but they can. However, they absolutely require meat in order to survive. Not just be healthy! Survive!

Moving on, I feel like a fic like this could be cool. Whether exploring Twilight Link's life after the game as he navigates this new feature of his or Wild Link being a descendant of Twilight Link & the complications of that as he goes through BotW & TotK.

It'd create a totally new subrace in Hyrule.

Only those directly descended from the Hero of Twilight have his Mark of the Wolf on their foreheads. You know, the pattern that Wolf Link has?

Anyway, I'd make their inspired cultures Gaelic, Celtic, Welsh, & slightly Nordic!

---

LoZ My Fanfic Masterlist

LoZ Cultural Masterlist

[skrltwtch]

Starving

Prompt: I work at the butcher shop and we've never spoken, but I recognise you from when you come in to buy fresh meat every month. I don't mind keeping the store open a little past closing since you're running late and seem kind of desperate. This may be weird to mention, but did you know your teeth are getting sharper while we talk? (Source in master list)

Word count: 2,782 words

Genre: Feels, supernatural

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

Someone had the bloody cheek to enter as I was getting ready to close up shop. Our opening hours were indicated on the door. The door. You couldn’t get any clearer than that. When did schools and parents stop teaching their charges not to enter business premises two minutes before closing time?

It was her.

I could make an exception this time, I suppose. She came in often enough and bought more than enough for me to consider her a regular. And she was a lovely person to deal with; I couldn’t say the same for a decent amount of my other regulars, whose business I accepted with gritted teeth.

‘I’m sorry. I know you’re closing soon. Just — please, I’ll take any cuts of meat you have left. I can pay extra for the trouble,’ she said.

Oh, God, what had I done to earn that kind of impression?

‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine, thank you.’ Her pale skin and quivering form said otherwise. ‘I just — I just lost track of time at work. I got here as quickly as I could once I could leave the office. I’m really sorry.’

‘Don’t — it’s okay.’ I packed whatever I had left that would also match the typical volume of her purchases. From the corner of my eye, I saw her pacing up and down the shop, holding herself tightly. Every breath she made reached my ears. She wasn’t fine. Forget small talk then. Just like it wasn’t my business what she did with enough meat to feed a large animal in a day every month, it wasn’t my business why she looked close to falling over.

Maybe it was.

I called her over to the cashier, where approximately four kilogrammes of raw meat awaited her. Despite her stature, she never had any difficulties making it out of the shop with that much in tow. That might not be the case today. She was having a tough time simply getting her wallet out of her bag, and she looked absolutely sickly. Were those … were those tears in her eyes?

I really shouldn’t.

I really should.

‘Hey, are you alright? You don’t look too good,’ I said. Understatement: she appeared to be deteriorating by the second.

‘I’m fine,’ she insisted as she struggled with her wallet this time. I narrowed my eyes at her for a better look at what I thought I saw: her canines extending and swelling into fangs. A cross between a hiccup and a sob squeaked past her throat and into the open.

‘You can come back for payment tomorrow. I can help you with this to your car.’ No, it was now my social responsibility not to let her get behind the wheel. She was barely able to stand. ‘Or I can drop you off at your place … or somewhere nearby if you’re more comfortable with that.’

‘I’m fine,’ she growled.

Literally.

‘Shit, I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to.’

‘It’s … okay …?’ Sorry, my attention was hijacked by the sight of claws, honest-to-God claws, fucking splitting her fingernails open.

She left £100 on the counter and grabbed the parcels I made for her. ‘Please keep the change. You’ve been so kind. I can’t — I can’t come back here anymore.’

I wasn’t given a chance to question why she felt that way. Whatever was plaguing her — and scaring me a little, I had to admit — didn’t give her a chance either to make it out the door, as she’d collapsed not far from the counter. I had no idea how I could even let her walk out alone in the state she was in. I rushed to the phone. ‘I’m calling for help,’ I said.

She got to her hands and knees. That was … encouraging. I think. ‘No, please don’t. You need to go.’ Her voice was distorted and rumbly. Her blouse started to tear across her back, revealing a thin, but growing, layer of … hair. Fur, more like. Not so encouraging anymore.

‘I can’t leave you here alone. What is happening to you?’

She buried her face in her hands — or whatever they were becoming as they stretched and popped. Her feet burst out of her shoes, the same changes happening to them. ‘Don’t laugh.’

‘I promise.’ The rapid decline of her health from when she came in, the physical changes wracking her body, and the animalistic noises she was making drained what I was witnessing dry of any humour. I doubted there was any to begin with. I felt almost like I was seeing something I wasn’t supposed to.

‘Werewolf. I’m a’ — a bark, involuntary, broke up her sentence — ‘werewolf.’

I went to her. Outside, the shades of violet and orange the sky had been awash with were muddling into a dark blue. I ducked my head a little to verify the shape of the moon tonight. None of the passers-by thought to look inside. At this point, I was more worried about someone else becoming privy to her secret than I was about the image of my shop. I didn’t understand how this was happening. It made sense and no sense at the same time.

‘You can stay in the storeroom tonight. You’ll be safe.’

She kept her head down. ‘Your boss? Okay?’ Her speech was strained.

‘I’m the boss of me.’ I knew my decision not to hire extra help would pay off someday. ‘Come on.’

‘Thank you.’

She stood up. I shifted my gaze elsewhere, as tempting as it was to see what a werewolf looked like mid-transformation. I showed her the way to the storeroom. It was due for a cleanup anyway. Her constant twitching and whining next to me didn’t go unnoticed. I took it to mean that she was controlling herself from either changing completely until I was out of her way or hurting me. I could be completely way off base, of course. The only piece of werewolf media I ever consumed was An American Werewolf in London (I was more of a zombie person myself), and … well, from what I’d seen tonight, the filmmakers got the transformation right, I’d say.

She took off what was left of her clothes once she was inside, and her transformation … accelerated. I closed the door to give her privacy — and to drown out the horrific noises. Nothing about the human body should produce what I was hearing. Things went quiet, eventually. I opened the door ever so slightly. ‘I’ll be here all night,’ I said despite not knowing whether she’d know what I was saying, ‘so you won’t be alone.’ I should be safe on this side of the door: the change had stripped her of opposable thumbs. The keyword was ‘should’.

The darkness coupled with her black fur made it impossible for me to see the creature she had become. Did I want to see? I still couldn’t shake off the feeling like I’d been some kind of voyeur; her appearance mattered naught to me, though I’d understand if she thought — she likely did — it would. Then she threw herself against the door, slamming both the actual thing and the door to my maiden glimpse at a real werewolf shut.

She loosed a howl that drove home the point that I had a werewolf in my storeroom. That I had been selling meat to a werewolf for her consumption. That the sweet, cheery petite lady who came in once a month was a werewolf. I wondered, then, if what she was like as a human carried over to her wolf self. If it did, I should be safe, right?

… There it was again: ‘should’.

I went back to what I was doing before what I knew about this world had been violently upended. I thanked God — should I? Did He or did He not exist? — that tomorrow was my day off. I was going to spend it with a good book and minimal to no human contact in the comfort of my living room. Now I was only interested in contemplating my place in the universe. What else was out there? Were any of the people walking past as I went to advertise the shop’s official closure for the day harbouring similar secrets as well?

Baleful whines transcended the door and filled the air. I picked up the parcels she’d dropped. Could she be hungry? It was worth a shot. I unwrapped one parcel. The closer I got to the storeroom, the more charged she got. I never dreamt I’d get to know the extent of damage a werewolf’s claws could do to a door in this lifetime. I threw the slab of meat as deep inside as I could. While she went to examine what it was that I’d left to her mercy, I turned on the lights to benefit us both.

What I got to see at last was ineffective in reeling in my disbelief. Where I’d left a quaking, infirm woman now stood a massive black wolf rending raw meat like paper. Despite looking almost indistinguishable from an ordinary wolf, there was an unsettling quality to her proportions and demeanour that made it hard for me to remember my manners and stop fucking staring. She was … beautifully horrifying and frighteningly stunning all at once. In some sick, twisted way, it made sense that something like her — something like what she’d become — couldn’t have come about naturally.

She turned to look at me, her jaw dripping with blood and her tail … wagging.

I regained control of my senses quickly enough to leave. The slamming of the door failed to mute her whimper at — missing out on her chance at a tasty human? Being alone in the storeroom again? Best I didn’t read too much into it. I fed her the rest of the meat she bought. She refused to eat the last piece, yet she wailed when I left her be.

‘I don’t think I’d taste very good. I’m lean and stringy,’ I said through the crack in the door. ‘And bland, like most English food.’

I didn’t know what to make of the bark that followed my attempt at a witticism.

I felt bad for her. Wolves were social animals, weren’t they? Then again, who’d feel bad for me upon discovering my mutilated body in my shop? No one had attempted to romanticise werewolves like the likes of Anne Rice and the Twilight author had done with vampires, and probably with good reason, as I willed myself to remember how she, a soft-spoken woman an hour ago, devoured almost four kilogrammes of meat in record time. The ending of An American Werewolf in London wasn’t a happy one, for God’s sake! (Maybe I should stop invoking God’s name for now.)

‘Can you understand me?’ I said. ‘Bark … um, bark twice for yes’, so it wouldn’t be a coincidence.

And she did.

Well, fuck me.

I sighed. ‘Are you … are you lonely? Bark twice for yes.’

Silence.

For the longest time, until she barked again, softly, mournfulness plain to hear in the two notes.

✦✧✦✧

My back! G— fuck, my back. How the fuck did I sleep last night?

Right. I slept in a chair outside the storeroom.

I stretched to get rid of the kinks in my back. Yeah, that was it. That was the spot. No, that one. That other one was definitely it. Relief — sweet, glorious relief. How the hell did I even fall asleep in a chair anyway?

‘Hey, you’re awake.’

I turned to the direction of the voice that had no reason to be here at this time of day. Or at all. No one was allowed here but me. Why was I in the shop? Wasn’t today my day off? What happened last night? Why, of all things instead, did I remember not to use God’s name as a synonym for ‘fuck’? I also didn’t remember finding religion last night. I pinched the bridge of my nose. I needed water.

I focused my eyes on the figure in front of me.

It was her.

Oh.

Oh.

‘Yeah, I am now.’ Without a doubt. ‘How are you?’

She declined my offer to have my seat. My legs demanded that I continue standing to get the blood flowing. ‘I’m fine,’ she said. I could believe her this time. She was wearing one of my aprons over the tattered remnants of her clothes. ‘Thank you for … um.’ Her pause made me think her admission last night was the first time she said those words out loud to someone else. ‘Thank you.’

‘It was nothing. You looked … really sick yesterday’: I took a leaf out of her book

She smiled. ‘It’s okay. You don’t have to be polite. I know what I am.’ Her words were shaded with the same tint of sadness as when she confided in me about her loneliness.

‘No. You — the wolf — you were …’ Tame? She wasn’t an animal. She was … ‘You didn’t hurt — I’m fine.’ I held up both my hands to show her the absence of any marks, and she could very well see I wasn’t missing any limbs. ‘I’m fine,’ I repeated, ‘except for this sudden bout of scrambled egg for brains, but in my defence (or not), this is how I am a fair bit of the time. Who put me in charge of a meat slicer?’

‘You’re very kind. And cute,’ I thought I heard her say under her breath. ‘Thank you. How can I repay you for last night?’

‘You don’t have to. The meat’s on the house, too.’ Nothing to do with what I thought she said. ‘I’ll return you your £100 on the way out.’

‘No. Please. I could’ve done something bad to you.’

‘But you didn’t.’

‘Please. There has to be something I can do for you. I’d feel terrible otherwise.’

I truly wanted nothing from her. I survived a night with a werewolf. That by itself was a fantastic reward. I couldn’t have asked for anything better. Well …

‘Were you serious about not coming to my shop anymore?’

‘I … if that’s what you want, I can go elsewhere. If you’re going to tell the other butchers not to sell to me because of what I am, that’s okay, too. I’ll figure something out.’

‘No. G— shit. That’s awful. I’m not —’ Why did she always jump to the worst conclusions about me? ‘No, promise me you’ll come back to my shop. That’s all I ask. And … your name. You’ve been coming here for years, and I don’t even know your name.’ I knew some of my customers’ names — and not necessarily the ones that mattered. Like her. ‘It’s not about the business I get from you, by the way. I don’t care what you are. I don’t know why you are what you are, and I have so many questions, but I do know it’s none of my business. I won’t judge.’

She nodded. ‘Thank you. I promise. I’ll come back. I’ll come back when it’s not the full moon and I didn’t skip lunch because I was too busy with work. And my name’s Eloise.’

‘I’m George.’

‘It’s lovely to meet you, George. Now you know why I buy so much meat on one day of every month. You’re the only person who knows what I am.’

‘I won’t tell anyone. You have my word.’

‘Thank you. I know I’ve said that a lot of times already, but I mean each and every one of them.’ Her eyes roved around the space. ‘I should go now. I have work in a couple of hours at best … or I’m late at worst. And you probably need to get ready, too. You should be opening soon … or I’ve made you late. It’s on your door.’

‘I have the day off today. Great timing, huh? Are you sure you’re good to drive?’

‘Yes, I can definitely manage much better today than I would’ve have yesterday. I don’t know what I was thinking. I was just so hungry …’ She shook her head, expelling a breath signalling disapproval. ‘I’ll return this’ — she yanked at an apron strap — ‘to you tomorrow as well.’

‘Actually … one more thing. So we’re really even.’

‘Yes?’

‘Would you perhaps like to meet for coffee later, please?’ I could only navel-gaze for so long.

She looked taken aback. That and her response, articulated in three softly spoken words — ‘I’d love to’, led me to believe that what she was like as a human did indeed carry over to her wolf self.

[timelesshonesttrailer]

The bane of many writers is that once you have birthed a story, taken the time to write, erase, rewrite, edit, scream at, and finally accept the words that you have written… you have to name it. 

Like people, or businesses, the name is everything. It’s one of the first things people see. It’s what they will use to communicate the story to others. So picking a good title is vital, which makes it all the more daunting. But like most things in life, once you break it down and examine its parts, see how it works, it becomes a lot less scary and a lot more manageable.

This is how I got pretty good at making titles, not only for my own works, but for others. And I want to share with you what I learned, and hopefully make the task of titling your stories a lot less terrifying.

To create a good title, you have to focus on two things: Structure and Meaning.

Structure

Quick, think of all your favorite books, shows, and movies. Now think of popular franchises that are household names. What do they have in common, title wise? They are short and to the point.

On average, these titles are one to two words long. This does not include articles or connecting words like “the,” “of,” “or,” etc, because they pretty much disappear.

The titles also average few syllables, about two or three. You don’t really want to go above four. English is a very lazy language and we like to keep things short. This is why a lot of titles get shortened anyway.

Examples of Titles (remember, articles/connectors don’t count):

Friends – One word, one syllable.

Cheers – One word, one syllable.

Lost – One word, one syllable.

Dune – One word, one syllable.

Timeless – One word, two syllables.

ER – One word, two syllables.

Twilight – One word, two syllables. Can refer to the entire series.

The Mummy (1999) – One word, three syllables.

The Simpsons – One word, three syllables.

Parasite – One word, three syllables.

Titanic – One word, three syllables.

Hamilton – One word, three syllables.

The X-Files – One word, three syllables. Though it’s debatable if X-Files is one word or two.

CSI – One word (standing in for three), three syllables (standing in for seven).

Star Wars – Two words, two syllables.

Good Omens – Two words, three syllables.

Game of Thrones – Two words, three syllables. Often verbally shortened to Thrones.

Lord of the Rings – Two words, four syllables.

I can keep going, but you see the trend.

But what about titles like the Harry Potter books? The answer is in the question. Each book/movie title starts with Harry Potter and then has a modifier. Harry Potter itself is only two words and four syllables. Then if someone talks about a specific novel, they typically would not say the whole title, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, they would simply say Azkaban. The same is done in other series. Percy Jackson for example.

There are, of course, exceptions.

Elementary is a one word, but five syllables. It’s also a very common phrase in both the genre and in everyday life. Use of common phrases is a way to get around the above formula because we’re already used to saying them, thinking them, etc. One Day at a Time is another good example. Three words, five syllables, but doesn’t feel any longer than Lord of the Rings. 

But the longer the title, the more likely it will somehow get shortened. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was changed to three syllable Blade Runner. My favorite book, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, has a very long title. Technically it’s three words when you remove articles/connectors, but the syllable count is a whopping ten. It gets away with it because for one, it’s a rift on an already common phrase, and two, fans can call it Hitchhiker’s Guide which is only four syllables. 

Now, once you know the structure of a title, you can work on choosing one.

Meaning

The title of your story has to give the reader an idea about what they’re getting into. It does this by focusing on one of the following:

A literal Person/Place/Thing –  Percy Jackson, Cheers, The X-Files

The Subject Matter – Friends, Law & Order, The Sixth Sense, CSI

The Genre – Twilight, Star Wars, Friday the 13th, Altered Carbon

The Overall Metaphor/Concept – Game of Thrones, Parasite, Pride and Prejudice

Many of these cross over. The Sixth Sense and CSI could also be considered a literal thing as well as a genre marker. If your title fulfills more than one slot, that is neat, but not a necessity. You might feel like you have to come up with some complex title, but sometimes it’s really just as simple as it’s a show about friends and their relationships with each other.

Take the title Catch-22. The term Catch-22 is a major metaphor and concept that is universally known today. But when Joseph Heller wrote Catch-22, no one called that concept a Catch-22. The title was simply naming the military rule (a thing), which created the situation and therefore drove the narrative. People later co-opted the title to quickly express the concept that the book so masterfully discusses.

Whatever you chose, the title should match the feel of the story you’re trying to tell. It’s part of your promise to the reader, and must make sense by the time they get to the end of the story.  

But how to pick a title when you have persons, places, things, subject matter, genre, and metaphors in your story? You simply work backwards. Ask yourself what your story is really about.

What is the driving force of the narrative?

What do you want your readers to get out of the story?

Is it a story about a person?

Or about the people of a specific group?

Is the story a one-shot or the beginning of a trilogy/series?

Is there a specific name or line of text that sums up your story neatly?

Somewhere in the answers to those questions is your title.

Now, I can make guesses on how some of the above mentioned titles came to be. Cheers takes place in the bar of the same name, and it’s about the patrons of said bar, so it’s the story about a place named Cheers. But I can’t speak for the creators and what thought processes they might have went through in order to choose their titles. So, instead, I am going to give you some of the titles I have come up with and explain how I got there.

Copper and Gold Two words, four syllables. Genre: Urban Fantasy This is the first book of a series based around a singular character, Minni Masterson, whose motif is copper, which plays a large role in the story. Since it’s a series, I need a title that could be formulaic across each one. In the first novel, the “guest character” is a gold dragon (Aiden Drake). So when I say Copper and Gold, I’m really saying Minni and Drake. And in the second book, when I say Copper and Cobalt, I am saying Minni and the Kobolds. Copper and Mercury is Minni and the Werewolves. Etc.

Emperor’s Shadow Two words, five syllables. Genre: Star Wars fan fiction/Mystery/Character Study The story is about Mara Jade who was an Emperor’s Hand. It’s about her coming to terms with the shadow that looms over her from her past and what Palpatine did to her. Instead of going with something much bulkier like In the Shadow of the Empire, I merged her past (Emperor’s Hand) with her current conflict.

The Serpent and the Liar Two words, seven syllables. (This format of “The X and the X” is one that is an exception to the rule, so long as the syllables belonging to X remain low) Genre: Marvel!Loki fan fiction/Pre-Movies Canon Compliant The story is about Loki and the events leading up to the first Thor movie. It also brings in Sigyn to explore that ship, along with some Norse myths, and to explain why she isn’t in the movie. Loki, of course, is known for his serpent motif and as the god of lies. I play on this, giving Sigyn a serpent motif, something to match her with Loki. But on several occasions, I raise the question of who is actually the serpent, and who is the liar? Because the best way to lie, is to tell the truth. So, like Copper and Gold, I’m really just calling the story Loki and Sigyn, I mean, Sigyn and Loki?

Amehrana One word, four syllables. Genre: Timeless Food Truck AU/Garcy Slow Burn The story is about Flynn and Lucy, and the rest of the team, in an AU setting. I named Flynn’s food truck Amehrana because it’s a mix of the word American and Hrana, which is Croatian for food. So the title is both a thing (the food truck) but also another word for Flynn and Lucy because he’s Croat and she’s American. But unlike Copper and Gold and The Serpent and the Liar, there is the added symbolism here of Flynn and Lucy coming together.

Frankenstein’s Monster Two words, five syllables Genre: Timeless Mission Fic for Proposed Season 3 (non-movie compliant) The mission is Mary Shelley, but that doesn’t mean there *has* to be a Frankenstein reference. But you have Flynn who thinks he’s a monster, one created by Rittenhouse. I also go deeper and hint at Lucy herself being a Frankenstein Monster, i.e. created by Rittenhouse for a purpose she doesn’t want any part of. Once again, my title is basically just another name for my main characters.

I want to interject for a moment and point out that we all have our preferences in our writing styles, and titles are no different. If you realized you tend to do most of your titles a specific way, then own it. It’s part of what makes you unique as an artist. And if you occasionally decide you want to go a completely opposite direction for one story, then go for it.

Case in point.

No Accounting for Heroes Three words, seven syllables Genre: Canon Compliant account of the Fall of SHIELD and its aftermath This fic really takes a hard look at what happens to those living in a world with superheroes. The main character, an accountant named Rani, is giving an account of events. My cowriter suggested putting “accounting” in the title which made me think of the common phrase, “no accounting for taste,” which is a concept about how different people like/need different things, and applied it to the story. No Accounting for Heroes means that we all need a hero, but maybe not the heroes we think we do, and we can all be heroes in some way, to someone in need. But also, there is that underlying current that heroes are not held accountable for the destruction that follows in their wake. 

Never be afraid to ask for help with titles. And don’t be afraid to reject titles if they don’t fit. And definitely don’t be afraid to take the suggestion, turn it over, season it, put it in a waffle iron, and see if what comes out is edible.

I have helped others name their stories, and here are three examples:

Remember, Remember Two words, six syllables. Genre: Timeless Garcy Canon Divergent/Angst/Mission Fic The story is about Lucy trying to save Flynn after he goes back to 2012. Emma saves him instead. Eventually Lucy runs into him and she discovers he doesn’t remember her and only knows what Emma has told him. At the end of the story, they have a final confrontation during the Gunpowder Plot. When the author asked my thoughts on a title, well, the Gunpowder Plot has the very famous saying “Remember, Remember, the 5th of November” and the whole story is Lucy trying to get Flynn to remember…

Disavowed One word, three syllables. Genre: Timeless Luciana Canon Divergent/Angst In this Twitter story, Flynn is blocked from returning to the US from Canada because they still think he’s a terrorist. Basically, his own country, whom he helped save, rejected him. When asked for a title, I focused on the idea that this story is about Flynn being rejected/denied entry/etc. I basically flipped through synonyms for rejected until I came across disavowed which is a term often used in spy craft. It’s a heavy word which paired well with the angst of the story.

Only Our Stories Three words, five syllables. Genre: Timeless Movie Canon Compliant-adjacent/Angst/Mission Fic The phrase “only our stories” is said in the fic itself. Future-Lucy writes it down towards the beginning, once she’s returned from dropping off the journal post-Chinatown. All that she has left of Flynn is only their stories, which she writes in the journal. She is eventually able to change things to get Flynn back, but he doesn’t remember her. There is still a connection though… their stories.

Never be afraid to take a line from your story to use as your title, so long as you follow the structure guidelines from the first section. 

At the end of the day, coming up with titles is just as much a skill as any other part of writing. We suck at first, then we figure out what's good, what's bad, and look at the world around us to figure out how to make it better. And don’t be afraid to edit it as much as you edit your novel. Until you publish, no title is set in stone, so it doesn’t have be right the first time.

And now here is where I close out this reference guide by saying something inspirational. Instead, I’m going to name this piece. While I wrote it, the temp file name was “Creating a Title” which is technically accurate but has no umph or style. This guide is meant to be helpful so the title should inspire confidence that I know what I’m talking about. But I don’t want it to sound too clinical either. 

A synonym for “name” is designation which I like but too many syllables because I’ll have to add to it. Synonym’s for “title” don’t give me much either. Instead, I should focus on the concept of the guide rather than its direct contents. Using something like “What’s in a Name?” would be too cliché. “I Suck at Titles” is funny, at first, with it being the exact opposite, but my genre is more educational than satire.

Wait, if I’m not going to reveal the title until the end, as a way to show you the thought process in creating a title, then to the reader, the title both does and doesn’t exist at the same time. It’s what you might call a…

Schrodinger’s Title: A Guide to Naming

[mimzy-writing-online]

I'm incredibly sorry for this ask , but I'd like the opinion of different writers. I have this story I have finished. It's has been re-read, edited, polished. It's technically done. The story is consistent, the pacing is okay. But what I don't like is how the characters are portrayed. They lack life, and I think it may be because during the years I improved my writing, and now I'm sure I'd be able to do better. What would you do? Would you rewrite the story from scratch? Thanks in advance.

First, no worries about asking for advice. That’s legit what I’m here for. And having been in the same position you are now, (twice) I know how impossible it feels.

Off the bat, advice I would recommend: 

Beta Reading: Get some fresh eyes to look at it, ideally someone who 1) reads books in that genre and that age range, and 2) has no obligation to worry about your feelings.

Thoroughly consider why you want to rewrite it: make an actual pros and cons list. It sounds silly, but it helps because you realize what decision you’re arguing for, what your instinct says.

Give yourself a shot at attempting a rewrite. Give yourself a set time limit to try it out. Your current book isn’t going anywhere and publishing takes forever anyway, so what’s another month or another three months?

At the end of this trial run you can ask yourself: Did a rewrite make it better? Do the characters and their world feel more alive? Even if it looks like a mess, given more time to finish and edit, would it look better than the original?

If you find you like the characters better, if you feel like you know them better, then you can consider going through the book and highlighting where they feel out of character compared to your new understanding of the characters

Watch Whispers of the Heart. I mean it! It’s a Studio Ghibli movie, and I swear to god it will inspire you and make this decision a little easier. The whole movie is about developing your creative craft. Its overall analogy is that of a geode. Your craft looks rough and sloppy on the outside, but with time, practice, and love you’ll find the beauty hidden underneath and make it shine. Amazing movie, it will change how you think about writing.

Now, finally, ask yourself: Is this the story I want to debut with? Is this the story I want to begin my writing career with?

This will be when you make your decision.

That’s the most objective advice I can give you. Since you’re asking a lot of writers for their stance, you’ll probably have a few different opinions, but I think running through this troubleshoot method will give you a chance to see for yourself.

My biased opinion?

It comes from my own experience with A Witch’s Memory. 

This is about to be a very long story, fair warning, but it’s my entire thought process over 7-8 years of working on and off with the same project. A big part of the reason why I’m going in depth about the experience is because I keep going back to what you said:

“I think it may be because during the years I improved my writing, and now I'm sure I'd be able to do better. What would you do?”

The same thing happened to be. I started the series when I was much younger, but in the 7.5 years since then I’ve changed a lot as both a person (not adult/not teenager) and as a writer (who’s had several projects since then). I’m gonna walk you through 7.5 years of personal development and how it affected the project.

I joke that A Witch’s Memory has three universes, and those universes are all different rewrites. I first started the series I was seventeen. I finished the rough drafts of three books in the series and got down to full on editing the first book after I graduated high school. Within a year I had a finished novel that wasn’t necessarily polished (not by my standards today) but at the time I was ready to move forward and publish. I sent query letters out to lit agents but didn’t get any bites back. I didn’t get to work at it for long due to health issues, my whole body kind of just crashed so for six months I was too sick to do much of anything, let alone stress myself out over query letters. I started community college the next semester and got more involved in school than in writing.

17 when I started, 18 when I started editing, 19 when I queried and got sick, almost turning 20 when I started college.

I put the book on hold for another year and focused on school. During that time I had a lot of personal development as a person. I got more experience being myself, being an adult who can make decisions for themself.

And I realized that at age 19 I’d developed a lot of insecurities about my book.

In my case, it was the world building. I love my characters, and at their heart they’re still the same, albeit a bit more realistic. I re-examined what about the world building I didn’t like.

It felt too much like Twilight to start, with the way vampires and werewolves were supposed to hate each other, and witches and fairies hated each other, because that just made sense to a 17 year old who had never read paranormal before Twilight changed the direction of the genre.

I didn’t like magic being a secret that no human could know about, so I changed that. I didn’t like my character’s backstories too much, so I tweaked that too. For the best.

At age 20/21 (it was right around my birthday) I rewrote the entire first book. After finishing the rough draft I looked at editing it, looked at starting the rough draft of the second book, and I realized I didn’t like this version either.

So I put it on hold for anther two years. I worked on two different projects, experimented with writing style, got to know myself as a person better.

At 23 I reexamined what I didn’t like about “Universe 2″ and I realized-

I wasn’t comfortable with the way the book was written now. Too many main characters meant to many pov changes and too many personal plot lines to plan. I could see from the beginning how much I favored Anna and Ulric and Felix over my other main characters, so I cut my cast of six main characters down to three, focusing on my favorites. I also saw that the setting wasn’t working for me and it would be a lot less stress for me to chance the setting to somewhere I was more familiar with, setting it mostly in America instead of the U.K.

And I decided to stop worrying about what my past beta readers would think if the book didn’t look the same in “Universe 3″ and to just run with my heart.

(For any wondering, the beta reader in question is my mum, who has been the biggest supporter of my writing since I was 14 and believed I would be published even when I was ready to give up writing and work at a different career. She’s very attached to “Universe 1″ but it’s not where I want to go, and I know she’ll love this new direction when she reads it)

I started the rough draft for Universe 3 in January of 2019 (almost a year ago to the day I’m writing this). I did it on a whim. I had a dream of Anna and Ulric flying to safety from a villain on a broomstick and I asked myself why witches never had broomsticks in my old world, and I was like “why not, let’s add it”

And I just messed with world building. I aimed it for a more whimsical feel than my older angsty versions. I’m gonna blame all the Studio Ghibli movies I saw that year. Some of my local theatres have been doing special weekends where they show the movies, and I’ve gone to see four in the last year or so. I saw Kiki’s Delivery Service a few months earlier with my best friend (A) and then a month after starting the new draft I saw Howls Moving Castle and Spirited Away (same week, I think, all in theatre) and then as I was finishing the rough draft I saw Whispers of the Heart for the first time.

(this was the moment I realized that specific movie would help A LOT on this decision making process, so I included it above)

Anyway, I just gave myself permission to go in a completely different direction with my book.

I should note, that at 23 I had been visually impaired/blind for some 3 years, although it wasn’t medically official until I was 22. I’d also fallen in love for the first time and broken my own heart. I’d also spent the last two years struggling with gender and sexual identity and really starting to understand that part of myself. 

So in general, the whole experience with those last two years of my life really changed the direction I took the book. 

I focused more on internal struggle as well as the outside “main bad guy” I’d always been planning to work with. It 

I kept the heart of my characters the same. Anna is still the kindest person you’ll ever meet, as well as sarcastic and brilliant and studious. Ulric is an anxious mess who is crazy loyal to his friends and who wants to gain his own independence. Felix is still a brat, but a loving one with the dryest sarcasm and a penchant for mischief.

Anna’s more cautious than her original incarnation. Ulric wasn’t disabled in previous versions (but at 23 I was disabled and I wanted to write a blind character, but I didn’t want blindness to be their only trait, so I took my most developed character and made him blind). Some of the characters are POC instead of white, I let myself have multiple LGBTQ characters (because 17 year old me thought the token queer was the norm because I only had one queer friend before that and we weren’t that close) and I changed some origin stories. It’s much better for that.

Growing up taught me how to put more life in my books, how to write more realistically less melodramatically, and what it feels like to have friends. Seventeen year old me didn’t have many friends in life, but 24 year old me has some wonderful friends.

Summary in Short?? (can I even do that?)

This advice post is getting long and I’m feeling bad, so okay, here I am: I’m almost 25 (in March). 17 and 23 year old me were very different people with different priorities and different levels of experience. And if I had to choose which book I would go with? 

I’d stay with Universe 3 (and Universe 1 will just be a thing my mum and I know and keep to ourselves, mostly)

I’m nearly done with the 1st edit. I still have days of self doubt, but they’re nothing like what I had years ago. I’m closer to publishing than I was before, mostly because I have a solid plan now and I’ll be self-publishing, allowing me to publish on my own.

In my case, rewriting was the best decision I could have made. I’m not everyone else though, nor am I you. You know yourself and your story better than anyone, and I know you are the most qualified person to make that decision. I have confidence in your ability.

[packsbeforesnacks]

A Life Still Permanent || Solo

[Part One | Part Two | Side B]

TIMING: Saturday, February 8th, 2020, Dawn LOCATION: The Outskirts SUMMARY: You can’t keep a good wolf down. WARNINGS: References to suicide and attempt, suicidal ideation, unhealthy coping mechanisms, and potentially self-harm.

Winn felt like death.

There were certain benefits to being a werewolf. Increased strength, stamina and, hell, Winn’s alcohol tolerance had improved—though some might attribute that primarily to his frat boy tendencies rather than his monthly furry problem. But he was only (mostly, kinda) human, and his body could only take so much before it decided to give up.

A quick review of Winn’s week would reveal the following events: (1) the Kansas City fuckin’ Chiefs had won the Super Bowl, (2) he’d been forced to come clean to a maybe-baby-wolf about his being a werewolf (and made an ass of himself in the process), (3) Ricky hadn’t yet confirmed he’d be willing to make Winn more barbecue, (4) Blanche was being weird, (5) he’d helped a drunk lady home (great, one good thing), (6) he’d fought a Zamboni—oh, yeah, and ghosts existed (???), and (7) so did bone-sucking literal monsters (?????), (8) multiple people in his newfound life knew about all of this and were seemingly totally chill with it, and (9) this all happened over the course of a full moon week. Because of course it fucking did. Because (10): Winn’s life was a cosmic joke.

He’d scrawled out so many angry, sad, and/or confused letters to his packmates today, enough to put a small paper mill in business. Why had they left this (huge) detail out? Was it a big secret from even him? Was he not enough of a member of the pack to know. Had everything with them been a big joke? Or, worse: Did they also not know that vampires—and, really, how fucking Twilight of the universe—existed? That people could do literal magic. How could they not know—their families had been around since forever.

And, to Winn’s absolute credit, he had been extremely down with werewolves being a thing! His best friends were werewolves! They wanted him to become a werewolf too! This was all great! Oh, there were werewolf Hunters? Wild! But it was fine! He had friends, he had a pack, he could make it through. And then, ‘course, he had to go and kill one. A Hunter, dead in a pool of blood, blood that covered Winn and César, soaked into the wood of the fraternity house, staining it. Staining them, forever. Winn didn’t regret it—how could he, César was alive, the pack was alive. But he couldn’t forgive himself either—something had changed between all of them that day, they’d all grown up in ways that maybe they wouldn’t have had to if Winn could have just kept his dick in his fucking pants for one goddamn minute.

But here he was, middle of the woods, buck-ass naked, twenty-four cans of cheap beer, a tightly packed bowl, and a half empty bottle of Maker’s Mark in his system, waiting for the full moon to come out. Waiting for the only inevitable thing in this shitcan of a week. Maybe he’d die tonight. Wouldn’t that just be a perfect end to his week? But no. He couldn’t die here, not like this, not crossfaded and self-destructive. Right? They’d never forgive him. No, he’d let the wolf out, let the wolf run free as it could be, and then Winn could think about what the fuck this all meant in the morning. Could hunt down someone—Miles, maybe?—who could actually explain this shit to him. Winn could listen. Winn would listen. It would be fine. It had to be fine.

When the moon reared its beautiful, terrible head, Winn knew something was wrong. His transformation didn’t hurt so much as it felt unbearably numb, the usual stretch and snap of his bones replaced with a dim awareness of the pit in his heart, stronger than any physical pain. He needed to let the wolf fully take control, God. He didn’t want to be in the driver’s seat tonight, thanks. But the wolf… well, it didn’t seem too comfortable about the circumstances either, if Winn was bein’ honest. It growler a little lower, ran a little slower. But still, it ran. Padding through creeks, dancing in the moonlight, reveling in the small apocalypse that Winn had been through. The wolf didn’t care about fae, or witches, or vampires, or ghosts. (And, fuck, the wolf probably knew. Asshole.) It could just be, out here in the middle of nowhere—or at least, nowhere when anyone could see him, deep in the woods on the outskirts of White Crest. Only weighed down by Winn’s cares in the nominal sense, free to push them to the back of its mind, where Winn sat, chained to his own memories.

He didn’t pay any real attention to the world around him until he could sense dawn approaching, once again. It, too, was inevitable. But this time, unlike the previous month, there was no Miles to find him, to make him feel less alone. No new wolves had come upon him either, had fought and bit and rolled with him. Winn has alone and the wolf howled, desperate for his pack. Winn stopped in a small clearing, panting heavily. Wait. Where was he? He could smell his path from the place where he’d left his jeans, but he couldn’t smell any of the characteristics of his own patch of the forest. But still, it felt… familiar. He inhaled deeply, and smelled… people? Fuck, no. No, no, no. He couldn’t have gotten this close to the town. He twisted on the spot, head cocking left and right, trying to look for a landmark, for anything that would tell him how close he was to White Crest proper, how close he was to fucking up everything. Again. Always again, back to this, back to him. Him fucking up. (Could wolves have panic attacks? Was he having a panic attack?)

Winn didn’t see the bolt coming, not until it buried itself in his front-left shoulder, immediately painful, immediately burning him with its force, with its tip. The wolf—he—screamed. It was a Hunter, come to collect Winn’s debt. A debt he deserved to pay with his life. No. No. It was a Hunter. And Winn was the prey. He had to think like himself—like the wolf knew how to. Or else, he was dead. He was so, so dead. The bolt had been shot from above, based on the way it had lodged itself into Winn, that angle… from somewhere in the trees in this clearing. Pretty high, he hoped. And there was hope. The wolf would fight and bleed until its last, so Winn turned, fully at one with himself, and leapt back down the path towards his home, towards his tree, towards anything that would get him away. He thought—maybe—he had just enough time. He could get back to his jeans, find a spot to hide, escape certain death.

But every smack of his paws against the earth, every push downward into the dirt, was another surge of lightning and fire in his shoulder. Winn knew silver. Knew how it from that time, all those years ago, when a silver dagger had buried itself in his back, how the burn peeled away at your innards, rotting you from the inside. Knew it from the time he’d held that same dagger in his hand. Winn knew that, if left untreated, he wouldn’t live long enough to find out who the fuck had shot him. To eliminate the threat. Getting away wasn’t just a decision for his survival, it was now a race against the clock. Winn had to get to the tree, get his jeans, run back towards the hospital, against the dawn, all while trying not to let the Hunter find his path once he finally lost him.

He heard running water, and bolted towards it. He knew these woods, now, knew that there were old, waterlogged trees that wanted to fall, and die, that were trying to make way for new forest. He shoved himself against any tree that looked suspect, his nose telling him that the Hunter was still close on his tail. Another bolt zinged past Winn as he zig-zagged through the forest, and lodged itself in one such tree with a deadly thunk. Fuck. Fuck. The creek—please, fucking please be a wide section—was close now, the rush of water music to his ears. Was he going to get lucky this morning? If he lost the Hunter at the river, he could circle wide and get to his jeans, spiral back and out the hospital. He just needed one good distraction for the crazy person with the crossbow.

It appeared before him like a vision, like a hallucination brought on by the pain from the silver, but Winn knew that it wasn’t, knew that this was the tree that he needed to shove, to crack, to let fall in the Hunter’s path. And damn him, but Winn didn’t want to hit the bastard, just get in his way. The tree was big, a mess of tangled branches at the top and leaves still clinging on, but Winn could be bigger. He circled around the tree, precious seconds ticking by, and rammed his good shoulder into it. Crack. C’mon, c’mon. An arrow thunked into the tree. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Another slam, another shove, and the tree went tumbling down. Not directly, not straight into the Hunter’s face, but firm enough, deep enough, that it would cut him off. Winn hoped. Winn prayed. He didn’t want to die.

He bounded into the river, icy water soothing his spirit a little, even as he reminded himself that he had to keep going, and going, and that he couldn’t stop. Winn ran fast, only using his nose to gauge if the Hunter had been lost, but not slowing down for a second even when Winn confirmed, shit, thank fuck, he’d managed to lose the Hunter in his tree tricks. The last of the moon’s light was fading as the sun breached the sky, but Winn knew that he wouldn’t change back this time, not unless he was safe, not unless he wanted to. He came upon his hollowed tree, yanked his pants away from where he’d hung them and clenched them between his teeth as gently as he could manage. Hospital. Hospital, now.

A voice echoed in Winn’s ears: What’re you going to live for?

He didn’t know yet, but… he wanted to live. And so he ran.

[sunnmo-moved]

I was tagged by @sanhatation !  ty riles this was rlly fun 

Would you rather explore the many planets in the universe or explore the wondrous depths of our oceans? 

Y'all knOw im a hoe for astronomy,, send me thru those worm holes,, lemme meet those aliens,, frick yes ! The ocean scares me lmao

Can you describe your favorite color without saying what it is and its shades? 

It's like,, royalty and oceans, its either dark or light and its so pretty, theres this like twilight (the time of day yall, u stephanie myers hoes can get outta here) kinda feel to it and its very peaceful!!!

Your bias texts you, mistaking your number for one of their friends. Do you talk to them and keep up an act or do you admit the mistake? How do you do it? What happens after?

Minghao would probably send like a picture of some gucci shi and ask if he should get it and i'd be like "dang boy u got money !" and he'd be like "srry wrong number" but im annoying so i would just,, keep talking to him

 Describe your favorite feature of one of your best friends without saying what it is. Why?

I love the way my best friend just, talks i guess? The conversations we have just always seem to keep going on forever and ever and they come so smoothly and easily and even when theres silence it's comfortable and i really like that !! i like how comfortable we are with each other !

 What super power would you have and how would you use it? Hero or villain?

hOoOO okay I've actually thought about this so much and i'd want super speed !! I always seem to be in a time crunch and like,,, imagine waking up like 10 minutes before school starts and getting there like 5 minutes before the bell rings,, extra sleep ?? yes pls?? And honestly?? Lets be real i wouldnt be a hero or a villan,, i just want super speed to help me with my everyday life

What are three things included in your ideal type? Why? Would you accept someone without these features?

alrighty so my no. 1 is Loyalty, these hoes aint loyal? can't relate, my cowboys gotta have my back  secondly they gotta be funny, i can't hang out with w person who doesn't get jokes, super stupid funny is also appreciated, and also?? the want to actually dO things?? like a sense of adventure!! thats nice n i mean yeah id accept someone without these but like,,, i probably wouldnt want to be with u very often,,, lol

Vampires, werewolves, or witches? If you could become one, which would you choose and why?

W I T CH E S  witches are so cool did you know that beer was basically invented by witches?? Idk if its even true but i like that fun fact so im gonna pretend it is until i feel like actually researching it rjfgwpo anyway being a witch would be so cool like first of all the aesthetic of like alchemy and cauldrons and just hAlloween yknow but also??? magic?? yes 

if you released a mini album with 4 songs, what would the song titles be?

1 Crying™

2 Minghaos Elf Ears R Cute

 3 *7 minute screech*

4 Sore After 20 Situps

Describe what you feel right now by using a metaphor without including the word to describe how you are feeling.

There are tiny storms in the back of my brain, but air is in my lungs and my bones are whole.

Your bias from one group confesses to you in front of your bias from another group. They quickly confess their love. Who do you choose? they cannot be your ult. bias.

*uncomfortable aromantic laughter* listen i love rocky n i love lua but i,, the romance is not 4 this cowboy

Your bias promises to go on a date with you on the condition that you plan it. Plan the entire night (where you go, why, what you eat, what you wear, the other places you go, what you talk about, etc.)

*cracks knuckles* get ready for some good platonic shiz right here yall  Okay so im not much of a uh,, going-out kinda person ig but if we wEre to go out it'd be like an arcade or smth and minghao wld be wearing that rEd hoodie n we'd both be workin black skinny jeans bc  Looks™. I'd also be wearin like a white tshirt and my grey demin jacket bc its comfy af and i Love. We'd spend the night challenging each other to rounds of donkey kong and i'd spend like 30 tokens on the claw machines insisting that im a pro and then i'd finally win like a little frog or smth and give it to him bc he Deserves it. He'd probably also wreck some kid at ddr and then we'd spend an hour on the chance games trying to win 1000 tickets and be jealous of the 12 year old next to us who has like 6000 friggin tickets,, we'd come up wih theories on how the kid hacked the games and got thAt many tickets bc ?? they're riGGed man ur not actually supposed to win. After the arcade we'd probably go get shakes and then sit outside and talk about our favorite books and what they mean to us and stuff. Watch the stars and tell funny stories and maybe just take a walk. At some point i'd probably step on a rolly polly and cry bc i just killed an innocent little bug and minghao wld be like "wtf,,, get up hoe,," and then I feel like we'd end up just like sitting on a bench somewhere n talkin about deep things bc we both seem like we're kinda like that?? Idk I know I like talking about the universe and how the world works and things thay dont make sense to me and hes pretty Woke so he probably does too. It'd be a gt tho

fRickitgrn this was really fun ty again ri for tagging me i loev u and I’ll be tagging @arohawe, @illustre-bin, @lost-tearss, and  @blondshua ! have fun !

[newt-pontmercy]

There’s also Marcus talking about ‘children of the moon’ werewolves at some point in Breaking Dawn, I think. And also Carlisle saying ‘newborns. Our kind.’ in Eclipse definitely suggests that there are different kinds of vampires and werewolves out there?? Isn’t there a quote of someone joking Angela’s a witch somewhere too?? Which begs the question: how many different supernatural species actually exist in the Twilight universe that Smeyer was just sleeping on?

psa

I know that the Twilight books left us all with a lot to think about, but I just want to make sure that we didn’t forget about when Edward said that the wolves aren’t really werewolves they’re really shape-shifters in Breaking Dawn. 

[theconservativebrief]

If somebody attempted to do an actual power ranking of all the most popular supernatural creatures, well, that would be stupid, because obviously witches would win. They can do literal magic, and even if the calculations weren’t in their favor they could just like, put a spell on the person doing the math.

But unfortunately, there is no actual way to “do the math” on supernatural beings, because they are not real. What we can do, however, is attempt to determine how much power each of them wield in our cultural consciousness.

To do so, I calculated how much money every major movie about Halloween-y creatures made between 1999 and the present. Why 1999? First of all, it’s almost exactly 20 years ago, which means that it encompasses nearly an entire generation’s worth of taste in film. It also has the benefit of freeing me from comparing the cultural importance of the films from Universal’s genre-defining Classic Monsters era (the original Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, et al) with, say, Nicolas Cage’s witch movie from 2011.

There is also the fact that 1999 happened to be a pretty major year for movies and franchises involving otherworldly beings. The Mummy, The Blair Witch Project, and The Sixth Sense all premiered that year, providing major wins for mummies, witches, and ghosts, respectively.

So without further ado, here’s each of the most popular supernatural creatures, ranked by how much money the movies about them made. An important asterisk here is that films in which multiple kinds of beings play major roles will not be included, which is why you won’t find Harry Potter, Hotel Transylvania, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Dark Shadows, and the like. (Plus, those are relatively lighthearted anyway, and it’s Halloween!) Another important asterisk is that the differences between categories, like ghosts and demons, can sometimes be nebulous, and so if you are particularly riled up about any of these categorizations, please remind yourself that, once again, it’s Halloween.

The following numbers are comprised of a film’s domestic gross only, are not adjusted for inflation, and were pulled from the IMDB-owned Box Office Mojo.

A still from Benicio Del Toro’s 2010 film The Wolfman. IMDB

Poor werewolves. In 20 years, there were only three major movies that featured werewolves prominently, and none of them really made all that much money. And even though Twilight technically stars a shape-shifting werewolf-like teenager, let’s be honest: It’s a vampire movie.

The Wolfman (2010): $61,979,680

Red Riding Hood (2011): $37,662,160

Cursed (2005): $19,297,522

Total: $118,939,362

The mummy in The Mummy. Universal Pictures/IMDB

The Mummy franchise is doing literally all the work here, although a special shoutout to Tom Cruise’s 2017 remake, whose domestic flop Vanity Fair attributes to Cruise’s “vise grip” of control.

The Mummy Returns (2001): $202,019,785

The Mummy (1999): $155,385,488

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008): $102,491,776

The Mummy (2017): $80,227,895

Total: $540,124,944

A still from 2016’s The Love Witch. IMDB

Had we included the Harry Potter franchise here, which at a domestic gross of $2,391,805,822 easily eclipses every other category all by itself, witches would have made it out on top. But despite the fact that they’re easily the coolest of the bunch, the other witch-centric movies of the last generation didn’t quite make the magic happen.

Oz the Great and Powerful (2013): $234,911,825

The Blair Witch Project franchise (1999- 2016): $187,753,254

The Conjuring (2013): $137,400,141

Into the Woods (2014): $128,002,372

Bewitched (2005): $63,313,159

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013): $55,703,475

The Last Witch Hunter (2015): $27,367,660

The Witch (2015): $25,138,705

Season of the Witch (2011): $24,827,228

The Covenant (2006): $23,380,495

The Love Witch (2016): $228,894

Total: $908,027,208

A still from Zombieland. Columbia/Tristar/IMDB

I’ll be honest, I’m a little shocked zombies didn’t do better here. Even after their mid-2000s heyday, zombie movies just kept respawning well into the 2010s. As the BBC argues, their popularity tends to spike in uncertain times: “Zombies embody the great contemporary fear − and, for some people, the great contemporary fantasy − that we’ll soon be surrounded by ravenous strangers, with only a shotgun to defend ourselves. Compared to that, facing a werewolf or a vampire is a breeze.”

Resident Evil franchise (2002-2017): $271,274,006

I Am Legend (2007): $256,393,010

World War Z (2013): $202,359,711

Zombieland (2009): $75,590,286

Warm Bodies (2013): $66,380,662

Dawn of the Dead (2004): $59,020,957

28 Days Later (2002): $45,064,915

28 Weeks Later (2007): $28,638,916

Shaun of the Dead (2004): 13,542,874

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2017): $10,938,134

Total: $1,029,203,471

In The Ring, Samara’s ghost crawls out of a TV.

The fun thing about ghost movies is that there’s a zillion different ways to do them — which is also likely why there’s simply been so many of them. But the one thing that unites them is that one point or another, somebody in the movie has probably had the thought, “I see dead people.” Here, a “ghost” is defined as the spirit of a specific dead person, which separates it from that of a demon.

The Sixth Sense (1999): $293,506,292

The Ring (2002): $233,152,400

What Lies Beneath (2000): $155,464,351

Ghostbusters (2016) : $128,350,574

The Grudge (2004): $110,359,362

The Others (2001): $96,522,687

Gothika (2003): $59,694,580

Thirteen Ghosts (2001): $41,867,960

House on Haunted Hill (1999): $40,846,082

Ghost Ship (2002): $30,113,491

Shutter (2008): $25,928,550

Dark Water (2005): $25,473,352

Pulse (2006): $20,264,436

Total: $1,261,544,117

A still from 2018’s The Nun. Warner Bros./IMDB

There can be some blurriness between what constitutes a demon versus a ghost, but in most cases, a demon is capable of possessing humans, can usually shape-shift, and often come alongside some religious connotations. Films involving the devil are also included in this category.

Paranormal Activity franchise (2009-2015): $401,363,355

Insidious franchise (2010-2018): $257,374,845

The Nun (2018): $116,745,963

This Is the End (2013): $101,470,202

Constantine (2005): $75,976,178

The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005): $75,072,454

The Amityville Horror (2005): $65,233,369

The Devil Inside (2012): $53,261,944

Ouija (2014): $50,856,010

The Possession (2012): $49,130,154

Sinister (2012): $48,086,903

Hereditary (2018): $44,069,456

Drag Me To Hell (2009): $42,100,625

Exorcist: The Beginning (2004): $41,821,986

Little Nicky (2000): $39,464,775

Bedazzled (2000): $37,886,980

Devil (2010): $33,601,190

The Rite (2011): $33,047,633

Deliver Us From Evil (2014): $30,577,122

Jennifer’s Body (2009): $16,204,793

The Babadook (2014): $964,413

Total: $1,614,310,350

A still from Twilight. IMDB

To literally nobody’s surprise, vampires have made the most money at US box offices over the past 20 years. This is, of course, solely due to the popularity of Twilight, the YA saga responsible for thousands of sexual awakenings of both its target tween readership and the adult fans of its unauthorized NSFW spinoff, 50 Shades of Grey.

Twilight franchise (2008-2012): $1,365,922,346

Underworld franchise (2003-2016): $252,766,892

Van Helsing (2004): $120,177,084

Blade II (2002): $82,348,319

Blade Trinity (2004): $52,411,906

30 Days of Night (2007): $39,568,996

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012): $37,519,139

Dracula 2000 (2000): $33,022,767

Daybreakers (2009): $30,101,577

Priest (2011): $29,136,626

Fright Night (2011): $18,302,607

Let Me In (2010): $12,134,935

What We Do In the Shadows (2014): $3,469,224

Let the Right One In (2008): $2,122,065

Only Lovers Left Alive (2013): 1,879,534

Total: $2,080,884,017

So yes, vampires made a lot of money over the past twenty years, but what’s interesting is that if we remove the Twilight factor, they’d be somewhere way down between mummies and witches in terms of box office revenue. That means that it’s actually demons and ghosts that have managed to have the most consistent and lasting impact on movie ticket sales.

Supernatural creatures are embodiments of the things we fear or don’t understand, and they rise and fall in trendiness just as any other pop culture phenomenon. The ones that don’t seem to ever go out of style, however, happen to be the ones that many people actually believe in: ghosts and demons.

One 2013 study by Huff Post and YouGov showed that about 45 percent of Americans believed in ghosts, while nearly one in five U.S. adults say they’ve seen or been in the presence of a ghost, according to Pew Research Center. Meanwhile, in a Public Policy Polling survey from 2012, 57% of respondents said that it was possible for humans to be possessed by demons, and a 2016 Gallop poll also shows that 61% of Americans believe in the devil.

As a 2016 piece by Vox’s Aja Romano pointed out, trends in horror movies tend to reflect the cultural fears at the time. That year, home invasion movies were popular, a genre that’s often aimed at white Americans and can be an allegory for xenophobia. Considering the fact that immigration was one of the 2016 election’s most contentious topics, it’s not exactly difficult to see the connection there.

Ghosts and demons, on the other hand? These will be stoking fears for about as long as their average life span — which is to say, for eternity.

Original Source -> Ghosts, witches, zombies: which supernatural creature makes the most money at the box office?

via The Conservative Brief

[type2diabetestreatments-blog]

Ask D'Mine: Werewolf Issues, Exercising Over 250 mg/dL

New Post has been published on http://type2diabetestreatment.net/diabetes-mellitus/ask-dmine-werewolf-issues-exercising-over-250-mgdl/

Ask D'Mine: Werewolf Issues, Exercising Over 250 mg/dL

When you're confused about conventional diabetes wisdom, or you're too hairy to make your infusion sites stick, who you gonna call? Yup, you guessed it: you can call on us at our weekly, quirky diabetes advice column, Ask D'Mine, hosted by veteran type 1, diabetes author and community educator Wil Dubois.

Need help navigating life with diabetes? Email us at AskDMine@diabetesmine.com

Sysy from Virginia, type 1, writes: I was diagnosed with type 1 seventeen years ago, so a lot of what I was told back then doesn't apply now. One thing I was wondering is... I was told back then that when my blood sugar was over 250 I should NOT ever exercise. What's the new information about this? Thanks in advance!

Wil@Ask D'Mine answers: You can safely get a cute little road-construction sign tattoo on your thigh that says "No exercise when high." That hasn't changed and it never will until the cure.

Here's why: First, muscles in action use more fuel than muscles just sitting there watching TV or waiting for someone to bring you a beer. Second, when we type 1s are high it's generally because there's a shortage or absence of insulin. Without insulin the muscle cells can't make use of all that sweet sugar floating around in our blood, so they go to Plan B and start burning fat reserves for fuel. Third, burning fat creates nasty oily smoke, like the kind you get from burning tires, called ketones—the driving force behind our much-feared diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) comas.

So if you're high and the body is shifting from burning sugar to burning fat, and the ketones are beginning to build up in the blood, the absolute last thing in the universe you want is more ketones, right? But if you start using your muscles, they'll need more fuel, burn more fat, create more ketones, and possibly move you rapidly from a mild crisis into a full-fledged life-threatening emergency.

Type 2s don't need to worry about this as much, unless they've been really, really high—like, say 500 or 600 mg/dL—for several days. If you're a type 2 suffering a garden variety blood sugar excursion from the all-you-can-eat pasta bowl at the Olive Garden, then exercise can actually help bring you back down. That's because type 2's almost always have some insulin to play with and aren't DKA prone. So getting those muscles moving will help vacuum up the excess sugar.

But for us type 1s: No workin' out when high.

Now, how's your blood sugar, Sysy? Really? OK, just stay right there on the couch and I'll go fetch you that beer...

Evan from New York, type 1, writes: I'm not going to beat around my bushy beard on this one: I have such an amazingly hairy abdomen that I could easily serve as a werewolf extra on the set of those Twilight movies (ugh...). This leaves me a narrow hair-free vertical corridor about five inches wide on either side of my abdomen. As I use both a wireless insulin pod (Omnipod) and a CGM (Dexcom), I currently have a severely limited space for infusion sites (trust me, I've tried other parts of the body and they are a definite no-go).

I understand the detrimental effects of not adequately rotating your infusion sites, so I've been considering shaving clean a good portion of my abdomen to provide more real estate to work with. My question is, is there any chance that the hair follicles under the skin might interfere with the operation of an insulin cannula or CGM electrode? For instance, what if a cannula was inserted through or into a hair follicle? Would it still be able to deliver insulin effectively? I know the follicles become even more of a problem after shaving (especially for the first time). Can I confidently go ahead and shave off my stomach 'stache in order to give my infusion sites some lebensraum?

Wil@Ask D'Mine answers: Get out the razor, my friend. And you should take that job with Twilight, there's good money in movies! By the way, no need to be shy about body hair, to the best I can tell after extensive research, about 49% of chics dig werewolves (49% dig vampires, and the remaining 2% say they have better things to do than think about either). Oh, and while I was wasting my time trying to find out those statistics, I stumbled across this quiz you can take to see if you'd make a better vampire or werewolf. To my surprise, I'm the werewolf type. But it's possible that the quiz is off, not taking into account the whole diabetes-and-blood thing.

So, true confession and risking TMI: I've got a pretty good winter coat of hair, too. Not quite so thick as you're describing, but there's very little real-estate on my epidermis that doesn't have some hair growing on it. My solution for years has been running an electric razor over key parts of my body every morning. I personally keep my upper arms hair-free for Dexcom sensors, and a wide patch of stomach free on either side of my bellybutton for pump infusion sites. Done right, it still can look pretty natural, and hasn't affected my part-time job as a member of the Chippendale Dancers in any way whatsoever.

As to hair follicles, go get a magnifying glass and look at your skin where you're wearing your sites now. See all the little dots? Yep. Those are follicles. Odds are that with about a quarter of your insertions you're skewering one of them as it is. No worries. Your gear will still work fine. Any pore on your body is a hair follicle.

In terms of the mowing job ahead of you, I'd advise you to use some sort of electric clippers or bread trimmer to cut the longer/thicker hair first, then get down to the skin with a blade. Give the skin a couple of days to un-freak out, then keep it shorn with an electric shaver.

With your Dex, as you'll probably wear it for the recommended 13 days... What? No kidding? OK, I've just been told you're actually only supposed to wear those bad boys for seven days. Who knew? Only people with good insurance, that's who. Anyway, you'll get some hair growth under the transmitter during the wear period, and you'll probably want to use some Uni-solve to get the gunk off the new hair growth before you shave the site clean again.

Oh, and I just got an email alert saying that zombies are cutting in on both werewolf and vampire popularity. Given all the gear I need to stay alive, I feel a bit like a zombie sometimes. Maybe I can find a zombie quiz somewhere online...

This is not a medical advice column. We are PWDs freely and openly sharing the wisdom of our collected experiences — our been-there-done-that knowledge from the trenches. But we are not MDs, RNs, NPs, PAs, CDEs, or partridges in pear trees. Bottom line: we are only a small part of your total prescription. You still need the professional advice, treatment, and care of a licensed medical professional.

Disclaimer: Content created by the Diabetes Mine team. For more details click here.

Disclaimer

This content is created for Diabetes Mine, a consumer health blog focused on the diabetes community. The content is not medically reviewed and doesn't adhere to Healthline's editorial guidelines. For more information about Healthline's partnership with Diabetes Mine, please click here.

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