#unless your respectful about my opinions of course

[estrogenandspite]

So one of my favorite things to think about is “what would it be like if fantasy species were real but not magic - just the creatures.”

This thought experiment resulted in me discovering what would probably be the most devastating combustion you could have on such a battlefield.

Take a centaur. Give it a bow. Take two halflings/kobolds/goblins. Give them bows.

The most powerful combination of open field combat for much of human history was “dude on fast horse with bow.” Until guns, most of anyone anyone who went up against “dude on fast horse with bow” and didn’t have their own “dude on fast horse with bow” lost.

The only flaws to this team up is a horse is not as smart as a people. They are prey animals, skittish even when properly trained, and while bright needs a person steering it to run with more nuance than “towards” or “away.” Of course, shooting the arrow means taking your hands off the reins, so that horse is going where it wants. Training helps them know where to go, but it can only account for so much.

But a centaur is a people. Able to run, think, shoot, and adapt on the fly. They don’t need another person to be effective - but presumably their spines will have limits to how much they can turn.

That’s where the riders come in.

I went with two smaller riders instead of one larger one because you can imagine a saddle arrangement that lets the other two face to the left and right respectively (I’m assuming two full grown human sized people would be too much for a single centaur. They just need to be comfortable and able to aim. That would allow the centaur to cover all but attacks coming from directly behind - and with their riders warning them, sneaking up is unlikely.

You might argue that centaurs would be too proud to allow riders. To that I say… some might. Others would not see them as riders, but allies. Still others would see them as minions or even just turrets with opinions, although you can’t be too mean to someone you have on your back with a weapon. Not unless you want to test the durability of your back armor at close range.

And for why the halflings/goblins/etc would do this?

Unparalleled mobility and an alliance.

I tend to imagine these being the products of well integrated societies, with 3 person teams that have been training together for years and years to the point their society has a special word for the bond that forms.

I…forgot where I was going with this.

Centaur with bow cool. Worldbuilding by thinking about this kind of stuff is fun. And sometimes the magic doesn’t need to be in spells, but in the friends we rode along the way. And if you’re a 3 person DnD party, you have my permission to make your dm cry with this set up (one of the riders should be a cleric to slap the centaur with healing magic, and give the other two options to slow groups so you can kite any melee fighter you have to deal with).

Where archery meets horsing around...

Don't forget to check YouTube for my full video on Fantasy Creatures using bows:

[findstenicht]

will never relate to the people who like discussing politics with their dad. every time i talk politics with my dad it feels like a fight to the death

[beneathashadytree]

from the same authors of "do you think zayne cum is cold?" we also have: do you think xavier cum shine in the dark, or that he shines when he comes (like that blonde female character from the boys, that i forgot the name)?

I know you are only message fics for now and i dont know if something like this would fit that format, but if you can i would love to read anything about this ♡

I’m gonna be honest with you nonnie, I’m VERY out of touch with modern media (I’ve watched like. 4 series in my entire life and a total of like 20 movies all in all) so I have no idea what you’ve just referenced, BUTTTT I do believe I have an answer to your question!! Of course this is all based off my silly headcanons, so take my opinion with a grain of salt🙏🏽 Of course, this is pretty NSFW, and the reader is gender-neutral as always!

To anyone else reading this, my requests are still closed!! These are just my ramblings, or old requests I had🫶🏽

Tip jar!

Masterlist

Metaphorically speaking, Xavier’s cum is pretty much lighter fluid

In the sense that this man’s diet is absolutely disastrous… can a person even live on an almost-purely-carnivorous diet???

Naturally that makes his cum a lot more bitter than it normally would be, so unless his lover wants to choke on battery acid every time they swallow his cum, they ought to sit down with him and have a few serious conversations regarding sex vs food

Either he pulls out of their mouth before he cums when they’re sucking him off, or he gets a little more greens in him in order to improve his own taste… fair enough, I would think!

Xavier doesn’t really mind; after all, he’s still eating lots of red meat, he just now balances that out with more fruits and veggies… and he still gets the overwhelming pleasure of watching his partner swallow his release with a much more pleased hum than they ever did, their thumb reaching out to catch any drops that spill out of the corner of their mouth

It drives him half mad, but he guesses that’s a small price to pay

Now that we’ve got the metaphorical part out of the way, let’s get to this interesting point: does he, or does he not glow when he climaxes?

I wouldn’t say that his cum glows, because if it did, I think his other bodily fluids would too

From a fictional anatomical standpoint, I highly doubt that his lover wouldn’t notice if his saliva had a bit of a glow (something they’d surely notice while making out or having a hearty meal, for example)

So I do believe his cum is as normal as normal could be for a man like him

I do believe, though, since he’s not 100% human (or, at the very least, not from Earth) that doesn’t mean he’s fully normal

I think that he would have abnormally thick cum, and I would assume that that has to do with his biological make-up

Given how people from Philos lead extremely long lives (given Xavier’s age, I’d give them a lifespan of 500+), and given how literally none of the characters from Philos have any siblings, I think it would be safe to assume that their seed isn’t very potent to start with

So if a person will live half a millennium and be able to have just 1 kid their entire life, I do believe that their cum would be stickier and thicker in order to have a higher chance of “taking” by not spilling out immediately

So I honestly think that Xavier’s cum is genetically modified for breeding purposes

And regardless of whether or not his significant other has the ability to become pregnant and/or even wants it at all, his brain has him wired to have a bit of a breeding kink that he can’t even help

But of course, he’ll always listen to and respect his partner’s wishes!

One thing I’ve noticed about Xavier, however, is that his eyes tend to lose their shine when he’s being forward and open about his sexual desires

He’s putty in his lover’s hands, yes, but once he takes control? Those angel eyes have a very intentional purpose, and he’s making that message come across loud and clear

Like a turbulent ocean, deep and all-consuming, his gaze leaves no doubts about what he wants

Now, here’s my headcanon: I like to think that when he’s close, his eyes get their shine back; so much so that they would be mistaken for tears

Maybe it’s the emotional attachment to the person he’s yearned for all these years, maybe it’s because of his own EVOL making its appearance

But for some reason, as he begins to lose control, his eyes do shine quite a bit, almost like freshly-cut sparkling sapphires

It’s quite dazzling and a bit surprising to witness for the first time, since Xavier doesn’t usually exhibit non-human behavior

But it makes that seraphic face seem all the more otherworldly; the contrast between how beautiful he is and how downright filthy his actions can be when he’s buried to the hilt inside them makes their head spin

After he’s spilled inside them amidst soft sighs and sweet moans, his eyes do go back to normal after a few seconds of closing them in bliss, so they might miss it if they’re not paying close attention

Kind of hard to look away though, when your lover looks like that

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[a-dragons-explanations]

Okay, I'd initially decided not to respond to this chain any further because it didn't seem like we were going to get anywhere other than stressing us both out, but in the interest of... idk, respecting the fact that I appreciate you stopping to explain what this has looked like from your end and clarifying some things, I guess? I do want to actually respond.

Which - thank you for doing that, genuinely, because I think we've been talking past each other for a lot of this conversation, and I apologize for my part in that. I have clearly misunderstood some things you've been saying. (For instance: at no point did I get the message that you thought I'd misunderstood something, and to be honest even reading back I can't parse that out of anything said prior to this response.)

I will be honest in saying that I do think that disagreeing on whether people are allowed to exist or not is not "just having a different opinion." I did not start thinking you were interacting in bad faith until the last couple of messages (where if I'm completely honest, I started getting the same "being dense on purpose" impression you've clearly been getting from me in turn), however expressing disbelief in the legitimacy of someone's experience is not really something you can just agree to disagree on. (Bad faith is different from malice.) I do appreciate that you weren't trying to be rude, but the fact remains that coming onto someone's post defending endogenic systems calling me "genuinely insane" and "probably why people say leftists are sensitive" for doing so is rude by I think anyone's measure. That's not a very neutral or respectful way to express an opinion, and it came off to me as starting an argument on purpose, which is why I responded the way I did.

My second response, to your initial "I don't want to discuss this right now" reblog, was not me getting upset about it again - it was me trying to explain why I'd gotten frustrated, while acknowledging that forgetting to respond to stuff happens and that explained why it had looked like you'd ignored me the first time.

The context that you lost the headspace for having the discussion after the initial comment explains why you suddenly reversed course after you started the conversation initially, and that's much more understandable now that I know that - if I'd known that to start with I wouldn't have been so annoyed. Without that context, from my perspective, the exchange basically looked like:

A: here's my opinion defending an often-bullied group's right to exist. B: hey this is a stupid opinion you have and I disagree. A: why do you think it's stupid and disagree? I'd like to talk about it. B: I don't want to talk about it actually.

Does it make sense why that felt frustrating and like shit-starting for no reason to me? (I don't want to keep overexplaining myself, just - this conversation looked very different without that piece of context you just provided, which is why I've been reacting the way I have.)

I'll be honest, I completely misunderstood what you were apologizing for. It sounded to me like you were apologizing for either not realizing I was the same person (???), or more likely apologizing for doing this twice on my posts/reblogs, without acknowledging the thing I was actually annoyed about, which was the perceived A-B interaction I just described above. This was a misread on my part, and I probably should have asked for clarification; that seemed clear enough to me that it didn't even occur to me that I might have misunderstood. (To the point where to be honest, even rereading it now knowing that's an incorrect interpretation, it still reads that way to my brain.) I apologize for that; that one's on me.

Given that understanding that the apology was actually meant to be for the thing I was annoyed about and not the mostly-unrelated things it seemed to be about, I appreciate the apology, and I think we can probably let this conversation rest there, unless some part of my explanation for why I've responded the way I have to all this needs more clarification?

Genuine question, does our system need to label ourselves as ‘endo-neutral’? (Mostly because we just really, really cannot bring ourselves to care. Also people are people and we can’t care (low empathy))

I ask asking because I (and the system) are not involved in syscourse, and I’m not sure what to put in the tags to prevent people from being upset.

Ignore this ask if it is rude in any way (genuinely)

(This was written by the co-host)

If you want my opinion, if you want to say “we don’t want to be actively involved in syscourse,” that exact sentence is the only way to say it.

Personally, I’m kind of of the opinion that “endo-neutral” isn’t a real thing unless you’re “neutral” in the sense that you haven’t done enough research on it yet to have formed an opinion (which, that’s valid but a different thing than true neutrality). You can’t really be neutral on whether people are allowed to exist or not. Either you’re okay with people fakeclaiming other people, or you’re not. “Endo-neutral” just tells me you are okay with it, you’re just not actively doing it yourself - which is a little like this comic:

Y’feel?

This is not me saying you have to involve yourself actively in syscourse. As a matter of fact, I recommend you don’t actively seek that out, in most cases - it’s not really good for you, generally speaking. Not wanting people to drop syscourse on your doorstep is perfectly reasonable. But unfortunately, if you interact with other systems much, it’s probably going to come up eventually, whether you like it or not. Eventually you are going to be in a space where someone starts talking about how endogenic systems aren’t real, and you’re going to have to decide how to respond to that and whether you’re willing to tolerate it.

Ultimately, I don’t think you have to be emotionally invested to decide whether you think something is right or wrong. I know there’s probably some extra energy investment required for that for you, but unfortunately I think that’s just something you’re going to have to deal with, as harsh as that might sound. I don’t really see a way around it. Which, it’s as good a time as any to ask yourself - where do your morals lie? What basic principles do you build your morality on? Are they internally consistent, and if not, what needs to change to make it so? And if you follow those principles to their natural conclusion, what does that tell you about the situation you’ve been given?

(Also, entirely pragmatically, if your goal is to avoid people getting mad at you, “endo-neutral” in my experience kind of just gets both sides upset anyway - endo supporters because of everything I just said, anti-endos because anyone who tolerates endos is the enemy according to them. You’re probably better off just stating you don’t want to argue about syscourse to achieve that goal.)

But that’s just my two cents’ worth. Hopefully it’s good food for thought at least.

[moniquill]

I think one of the disconnects between people learning about 4B for the first time since the election and people who recognize that as a movement it has problematic elements (transphobia, homophobia, authoritarianism, purity policing) is that we live in entirely different fucking universes.

I, a leftist living in a blue state, am vaguely appalled at the idea of pigeon-holing all men based on the actions of the kind of men who voted from Trump... because I never had those men in my life in the first place. I've never had one of those men be brave enough to say to my face that he's a trump voter. I cannot really comprehend the idea of a grown-ass adult who until this very moment has actually been living in the Shirley Jackson/Virginia Woolfe dystopia that was presented to me in Women's Studies in college 20 years ago. I do not know even one woman in my life under the age of 75 who doesn't have a job (unless it's for disability reasons) - I come from a social class where you start working under the table/on the side at elementary school age and you're expected to get a job that pays wages as soon as you turn 16.

In the universe I've lived my life in, OF COURSE I wouldn't sleep with a conservative guy! Discussions of politics and stances on key issues are things that happen BEFORE the first date. "I found out he held [a conservative view]" is a relationship-terminating dealbreaker every single time.

The men that I know, that I'm friends with, even the ones that I'm related to are comrades - lots of them are some flavor of queer, the majority of them are nonwhite, they are capable of being platonic friends with women.

I'm 41 years old and have had zero pregnancies, and no one CLOSE to me, whose opinions I actually respect and care about, has ever given me meaningful push-back about it. The 'Oh you'll change your mind' comments have always come from peripheral people like coworkers and teachers (and I dropped off sharply when I passed age 30)

I was never A Desirable Woman (tm) during the age of social media. I was 33 when Tiktok was created. I did not live in this panopticon, and cannot relate. All I can do is A: Believe the testimony of the women who have had these experiences and B: Advise them on ways that I have avoided those experiences.

"Don't be cruel or hateful to entire categories of human beings based on the way that they were born." does not translate in my head to "You are required to coddle and cater to those people." At all. I don't really understand how anyone makes that leap.

How the fuck have you been in the cage for so long?

[whatlurksbean]

Sort of confused/conflicted so I thought id ask. Is it ok not to like Tusk for her actions? From what ive seen its heavily implied that Tusk DID in fact eat her child’s body (unless im wrong or missing out on something) and that changed the way I look at her. I don’t agree with what Trout did of course but eating your child’s body is a big YIKES

(not about you specifically anon but i am using this ask to express my opinion cause i get "is it okay to like / dislike this guy" asks a lot)

You can feel however you want about characters. You can have whatever opinion you want about ANY fictional character! it is okay! You are entitled to your opinion!

I only ask that people are respectful to creators, and not directly comment weird shit and death threats to oc's. Like don't leave rude or weird comments about people's oc's on their work! That's it! You can think whatever you want, and if you find another hater of the character, I hope you have wonderful conversations about your disdain for them! Preferably not in my comment sections cause it leads to people fighting about it!

so yes, you may hate Tusk, just don't come into my yard and yell at me about how she 'deserves' what happened to her.

[jeonscatalyst]

Whenever I see people scrambling to dismiss the possibility that Jimin and Jungkook might be more than friends by resorting to arguments like “They’re brothers” or “Jimin said Jungkook is like his brother,” I can’t help but feel perplexed.

It’s genuinely baffling to me because, what did you expect Jimin to say? “Jungkook is my lover”? The lack of awareness in such arguments is striking, and honestly a little disheartening especially when it’s clear that many of these people haven’t taken the time to understand even the basics of queer history, the reality of being closeted, or the necessity of concealing relationships to protect oneself and loved ones in the face of societal prejudice.

When people bring up these points, I find myself asking the question “When did Jimin and Jungkook officially come out as a couple?” The answer, of course, is they haven’t. So why would anyone expect them to act in ways that are only possible for people who are openly out? If our (Jikookers) speculations about them are correct, it’s likely they are still closeted and may even be hiding their relationship from close friends and family.

This opinion might be unpopular, especially among jikookers who believe that if Jimin and Jungkook are together, their families would undoubtedly know. But I don’t think it’s that simple. In my experience, coming out isn’t an easy or universal process. It’s deeply personal and often influenced by cultural, familial, and societal factors, particularly in environments where homophobia is pervasive. I’m not going to go into the nitty gritty of why I think their parents and families might not be looped in because for many, unless you’ve lived it, known someone who has, or experienced such societal pressures firsthand, it’s difficult to fully grasp the complexities involved……..So I truly don’t see them letting their parents and families in on things as easy as many people believe it would be.

I think Jimin and Jungkook present themselves to the world as they believe the world sees them: bandmates, friends, and “brothers” from the same town. This aligns with public expectations and offers them a layer of protection. So how else would people expect them to describe their relationship?

Some might argue that they could avoid using terms like “brother,” altogether but let’s be realistic here……it likely doesn’t bother them. They know they’re not actually brothers and probably don’t view each other in that way. What’s more, I doubt they have any desire to let the public into the deeply personal aspects of their lives. While there may be a part of them that wishes to be accepted and loved for who they truly are, they likely understand that this isn’t a viable option right now.

The fear of opening a Pandora’s box of judgment and backlash likely keeps them from revealing anything beyond the surface. If calling each other “brothers” or even something as absurd as “father and son” ensures the safety of their bond, they’ll do whatever it takes to protect themselves and their relationship. That, unfortunately is what closeting sometimes entails so before you rush into my inbox thinking you’ve got a gotcha moment, remember this.

I hope people come to realize that this situation is far more complex than it seems. It’s easy to oversimplify or underestimate the challenges Jimin and Jungkook and other closeted people in homophobic societies might face but it’s crucial to remember that not everyone shares the same privileges or cultural realities. Not every society or culture is as accepting as yours might be. Not everyone has the opportunity to live their truth openly and without fear. You may not understand their choices, and you might not even relate to their struggles, but that doesn’t give you the right to dismiss or minimize them simply because their experiences don’t mirror your own.

Empathy and understanding are essential. Respect the fact that their journey, whatever it may be, is shaped by circumstances most of us can’t begin to imagine.

[rainydaydreamsideblog]

(The Maze Runner) What It's Like Having Him as a Close Friend

(Author’s Note:  In my fics/imagines/headcanons, Gladers are aged up, and also movie version...)

Thomas

Quiet conversations while working or in between jobs.

Walls coming down gradually over time.  You both open up about things you’re thinking about.

You lend a hand whenever he gets himself into trouble.  Which is all the time.

Seriously, standing up for this guy is a full-time job in and of itself.

On the flipside, you will have a most loyal and trusted friend.

Thomas will keep your secrets.  He will look out for you.  You can count on him no matter what.

The slightest hint that someone will do you harm will send him into overprotective mode.  He’ll stare down anyone who says or does anything to make you uncomfortable.

He has this uncanny ability to convince you his shenanigans are a good idea on occasion.  It doesn’t always happen, but when he does manage to recruit you, it’s chaos.

Newt

Witty banter back and forth.

Sitting together at mealtimes and spilling the tea about other Gladers and ridiculous things that happen during the day.

This guy believes in his friends so much, and his actions back that.

He’s there to stomp out any doubts you may have about yourself.  He’ll give you a motivational scolding.

Newt appreciates your willingness to help wherever it’s needed.  As second-in-command, he finds himself helping out in different areas.  It brightens his day when you offer up a helping hand.

He’s super knowledgeable about the Glade, and he never gets tired of questions.  Ask away.

Laughing and joking around at bonfires.

Minho 

Playful teasing and taunts.

There’s also some joking flirts.  Silly pet names spoken with light-hearted sarcasm.  It’s his love language.

He’s so full of sass, but can turn around and be serious around others when trying to be tough.

With that being said, he likes to be taken seriously by others.  He saves the jokes for his closest friends, but doesn’t do it in front of Greenies.  There’s a time and place in his mind.

He’s the Keeper of the Runners, so he’s usually gone most of the day.  He’ll rely on you to fill him in on anything that took place during the day - unless of course you’re a Runner too.

You also get a heads up on progress made in the Maze.  You know more than you probably should about what’s going on.

Gally

In the very beginning, he’s like “oh great, a girl greenie” *sarcasm*

You’re so eager to prove yourself, to do your part, and you do in fact start to grow on him.

He realizes that he had some unfair preconceived notions about having a girl in the Glade, and he comes to respect you.  His respect is bestowed on very few, so don’t take it lightly.

He’ll lighten up a bit and not be quite so gruff.  He still picks on you, but it’s more good-natured and genuine, and it’s usually a cover to distract you from the fact that he’s helping.

“Sheesh.  Move over, Greenie.  You’re going to break your back doing that by yourself.”

Values your opinions and really takes them to heart.  While he’ll tell anyone else to quit complaining or take their ideas elsewhere, he’ll listen to you.  If anyone gives him klunk about being a softie, he gives them a death glare.

He picks on you, but won’t stand for anyone else doing it.

[transmechanicus]

look this is really probably unnecessary, but I've seen tons of posts about how everyone is mad about the page that's going to post unmasked pics of the st guys and how outrageously disrespectful it is to them and well... I gotta say that it's just not that deep.

it's been pointed out that they've only ever said that 'their identities aren't important to the music or the story'. and that's it in terms of the "extreme lengths" they go to hide their identities.

i'm a regular follower of the reddit page where their identities are openly discussed and there is a decent amount of evidence that one of them or someone from their team lurks there and plays around a little with that community. ie, a few of the recent "the summoning solo shenanigans" were suggested in that thread and then seen on stage the next show. but who knows.

some of the guys are actually still participating in other media to a small extent. one of them still streams with a friend on twitch often. one of them just put out some older official music project on Spotify. one of them gets his new tattoos posted unmasked on his tattoo artist's page.

look, I'm not saying that this person who plans to bring this stuff to Tumblr shouldn't be warned about and of course everyone should have the opportunity to block and avoid it to keep their experience of the band how they prefer. that's no question how it should be.

but like... everyone is saying that this person who's starting the unmasked blog is like, evil and so disrespectful to the band. and I think that's just not right. it's their right to start whatever kind of page they want. it's everyone else's right to avoid it.

like I said, this is not really going anywhere, and it's not personal, I just have seen so many people bashing that person on a personal level and I just gotta tell someone, it's not that deep. thank you for reading

To me it is that deep, from what i’ve heard there was a major panic on Instagram in 2023 bc freaks were using info on there to harass II and his family. Hell he still alters his voice in videos, which you only do if you’re concerned someone is dedicated enough to scrape the internet with audio of your vocal patterns. I’ve seen video footage of Vessel cussing out a guy at a festival for yelling real names in the audience. There is direct evidence that the band members dislike off-stage info being known and shared, and that a portion of Sleep Token’s fanbase cannot be trusted to respect the secrecy that allows the band members to live comfortable lives relatively peacefully and out of the public eye.

In my personal opinion, your examples of how they’re still on other social media, and that you know that info abt them are reinforcement of my dislike for unmasked data aggregates. Unless the tattoo artist’s posts or the twitch stream is tagged #SleepToken there is probably a reasonable expectation that they don’t want band related attention for those things. Even if somebody does recognize them as the band members, it would be a minority population if it weren’t for subreddits and archives directly connecting dots between those things and Sleep Token, which is presumably why you have that info yourself in the first place.

By aggregating and collecting unmasked info, a resource is being provided that essentially says “Hey i know these guys have almost entirely retreated from the internet for their own safety and comfort…but here’s their names and faces and loved ones and colleagues and past projects and every little activity they do in their spare time. All gathered together and directly tagged and marked in relation to the band they’ve purposefully tried to anonymize and distance their real lives from”.

It’s stalker behavior, it’s unhealthy, it could be genuinely dangerous for the members if the wrong person made use of it, and i reserve the right to passionately condemn it.

[physalian]

The Hero with Dead Parents is not Cliché, it’s Necessary

The staggering number of protagonists in sci-fi and fantasy with dead parents grows every single year. Frodo Baggins, Harry Potter, Luke Skywalker (before the retcon in ESB), almost every Disney Prince and Princess, the Baudelaire children. Beyond the realm of fantasy into action, thriller, romance, mystery, slice-of-life, and bildungsromans.

Dead parents, or parent, is the curse of being the hero of the story and for a very good reason:

Parents are inconvenient as f*ck.

Unless the mom and/or dad is the villain of the story or the entire story is about the relationship with the parent/parents, the “dead parent” trope serves many purposes and while it may be “cliché” that doesn’t mean this trope is bad or, in my opinion, overused.

It’s one less liability the hero has to worry about protecting

It’s one less obstacle in the hero’s path to their adventure

It’s one (or two) less characters to find excuses to stay relevant in the story

It’s a juicy backstory a lot of people can relate to

Trauma. Is. Compelling.

It’s an excellent motivation

And their murder is an excellent inciting incident

Living parents and guardians get killed off both for internal plot reasons, and meta writing reasons: Living parents are a pain in the ass to keep up with. You’re stuck with a character your hero should still keep caring about, keep thinking about, keep acting in relation to how their actions will be seen and judged by that parent. That parent becomes an obvious liability by any villain who notices or cares.

Living parents can of course be done well, unless they’re the villain, but they just kind of sit there on the fringes of the plot, waiting around to be relevant again and they kind of come in four flavors:

There when the plot demands for pie and forehead kisses (Sally from Percy Jackson)

A suffocating but well-meaning obstacle in between the character and their independence trying to do right (Abby from The 100, Katniss’ mom from Hunger Games, Spirit from Soul Eater)

A mentor figure (Valka from HTTYD 2, Hakoda from ATLA)

The only rock this character has left (Ping from Kung Fu Panda)

*Notice how many of my examples lost their partners shortly before or during the plot, thus still giving the hero the “dead parent” label.

Most of these are self-explanatory so I’ll say this:  I think this trope gets exhausting when the parents are written out without enough emotional impact on the hero. These are their parents and a lot of the time, the emotional toll of losing them isn’t there, like just slapping a “dead parents” sticker is all you need to justify a character’s tragic backstory and any behavioral issues they might have.

Like, yes, the hero has dead parents, but you still have to tell me what that means to them beyond obligate angst and sadness. When the “dead parents” trope reads as very by-the-numbers, usually the rest of the story is, too.

How present the parents were in the character’s life should be proportional to the death’s impact on the narrative (as with any character you kill off). If they were virtually nonexistent? No need to waste a ton of time. If they didn’t matter to the character before, they don’t need to matter now unless the plot revolves around some knowledge or secret their parent never shared.

Sometimes, the hero’s dead parents are a non issue. Frodo being raised by Bilbo doesn’t impact his character at all. It’s a detail given and tossed away. On the other hand, sometimes the entire centerpiece of the work is revenge/justice/catharsis surrounding the parent’s death—Edward and Alphonse Elric’s entire story is defined by the consequences of trying to bring their mother back from the dead.

As someone who kept one of my protagonist’s parents alive and didn’t make them villains just to spite the trope, I have all the more respect for this enduring legacy of fiction. You can of course keep the parents alive, but I don't think it's seen as lazy or cheating or taking a shortcut just killing them off, so long as you remember that your hero is human and should react to losing them like a real person.

[toskarin]

hey rin, a friend of mine enjoys composing music digitally and has a lot of respect for you as someone with more experience with that sort of thing. he has a hard time convincing the people around him to listen to the things he makes, in both the "finding an audience" way and "getting the people around him to give him their opinion on something he's working on way," and he wanted me to ask you if you could speak on your own experiences with those problems and how you've dealt with them. less related, he was also curious about your inspirations for the music that you make. i know this is a lot to cover, so if it would be easier for you to speak with him directly then please let me know

so I'll open by saying that, as far as people who can give good advice on this go, I'm probably not one of those. a lot of what I do only works because of some specific problems with my brain that are oddly adaptive to this sort of thing

that being said, this is a bit of the "tough love" kind of advice for surviving as an artist, so I'll make a second reblog for the second half of the question

this is either advice that will work or a ramble that will lead your friend to making his life unbearable, so look before you leap

-

The Easy Section, or "You've Gotta Be a Bit of a Tradie"

let's go over the business stuff quickly before I start rambling at length about the boring stuff

learn to love the work itself. "find a job you enjoy and you'll never work a day in your life" is garbage, but creative work really is the one area where you should double down on this. kick back and bump your own album on release day, thinking about how every second of it is something that didn't exist before you put it together. this is what's gonna keep you above water when the wind is dead

get on bandcamp. there is nowhere better for small musicians right now. bandcamp is basically the last remaining website with an effective suggestion algorithm that caters to people who want to actively engage with music and buy it

consider getting on instagram. in the majority of places you're likely to live if you're reading this, the local music scene is on instagram. probably don't use your personal instagram for this

consider getting on soundcloud. you won't make sales through soundcloud, because it's a streaming-focused site (more on that in a moment) with a focus on passive listening, but it's pretty decent for networking, especially with digital music production. soundcloud is linkedin for deadbeats

stay off spotify. streaming generally isn't worth the trouble these days unless you're playing concerts or are otherwise already established. if you aren't uttering the words "you can find me on..." more than once a month, it's probably not worth pursuing a spotify presence to end that sentence with

self-promote. if you have platforms, use them. find the subreddit for your genre and post yourself on the self-promo day. consider posting some bandcamp album codes when you do this, not just so you can get word of mouth, but because someone having an album in their collection means you effectively have a permanent zero-cost advertisement for your music which will only show itself to people who are verifiably looking at something similar. companies pay dizzying sums for ads that couldn't dream of being this targetted. this is a big reason why bandcamp is THE place to be for small musicians

cross-promote and collab. work with your friends. if you don't have musician friends, go make some and then help each other out. "independent" music is a misnomer

blind yourself to the metrics. do not look at engagement metrics. pay them no mind at all. don't look at them unless you're trying to see how effective a specific, deliberate course of action was and already know what you want to find

remember that strangers are unknowable. people do things for arbitrary reasons. if you don't have someone giving you written feedback, don't make any assumptions at all about why they did something. skipped tracks and minimum-price pwyws mean nothing at all

present your stuff in a way that gives it context. why should someone care about your stuff? give them a reason. carve out an hour to really work on a nice album cover, go the extra mile and include track-by-track narrative with your dungeon synth album, or just describe what you're expecting people to buy. I firmly believe that NOMAD/VIRTUE was successful in large part because of its presentation

gimmick. gimmick gimmick gimmick. discount codes are more fun than automatic discounts, free album codes are more fun than free albums, contests are more fun than giveaways, so on so forth. lacking any physical goodies to bundle in, you should still endeavour to give people Something To Do that makes them feel like they're really engaging with your music

zero expectations, zero overhead. do not rely on the whims of complete strangers to justify whether or not you end up in the red. if you ever find yourself saying something like "I can afford to pay for a session musician because I'll just make it back" you can't afford to pay for a session musician. you're probably never getting bailed out if you eat a loss, so try not to put yourself in a situation where you can eat a loss to begin with

someone else's expectations, someone else's overhead. if someone else is paying you to make this music for a soundtrack or something, if (and ONLY if) you have the money in your hand and know you have it, you're no longer gambling. at this point, you can start to look at expenses as investment

now onto the less fun stuff. here's where I ramble for like an hour at you.

-

if there's one thing I've really had hammered in over my decade-odd as a somewhat commercial artist (in all the disciplines I've worked with, which is most of them), it's that you have to be a bit of a bitch about it sometimes

that nagging fear in the back of your head that you're annoying? it's stopping you from doing what you need to do: annoy people

with that being said, this next section is kind of...

The Rough Section, or "You've Gotta Be a Little Hard-headed"

at the end of the day, you'll often find that you are your only advocate, and that means you kinda have to get your foot slammed in a few doors if that means holding them open. this also unfortunately means that you've gotta convince yourself you're pretty good. you don't have to think you're great, but confidence is a trade skill

the last opinion people see before the first time consciously engaging with your work (which here means "the thing that primes them for how they feel about it") is yours

which brings us to the first uncomfy rule

absolutely no cutting yourself down before anyone else even gets a swing

you can be modest if you want (you don't have to), but you absolutely cannot prime people to see the flaws in your work. if 50% of people are discerning enough to notice a flaw, why make that number 100%? what do you gain from that?

if something isn't as finished as you'd have liked it to be, but you've pushed it out the door anyway (which you will sometimes have to do), you absolutely cannot prime people to consider it unfinished

if the thing is still being worked on, there's nothing wrong with being forthcoming about that, but the fastest way to make someone think of something as "inferior product" when they otherwise would never have reached that conclusion is by telling them it is

and that, of course, leads us into a bit of an inversion of the previous rule

absolutely do not take the majority of your validation from strangers

doing this is bad for a million reasons, but I see the worst of this in visual arts, where artists double down on what gets them the most engagements and lay themselves at the mercy of complete strangers who have no actual investment in them

of course, it's normal to desire validation and approval from people you respect, but if you put yourself in a position where it's possible to enter a negative feedback loop that crystallises into you no longer making art from the default response of neutral apathy from strangers, it's not a matter of when: it's going to happen to you one day

so what's the move here? spend 8 years making music you don't release like you're in a compressed time chamber? probably not. I did it that way, but I didn't get much out of it, so you probably won't either

the actual answer is that you've gotta network. you need an inner circle. you need people with shared interests so that you can gas each other's stuff up

just like everyone else, you need your friends

you need to have friends who care about you, about what you're doing, and you need to care about them and what they're doing

this is because, while self-confidence is important...

the majority of your external validation as an artist should come from your friends and peers, not strangers

it's important to have artist friends, because then you can encourage each other in ways that are personally meaningful, but having your friends behind you, whether or not they're musicians, is so incredibly important

if you're motivated exclusively by success, however you're choosing to measure that, what you're actually doing is forming a nightmarish parasocial relationship with the concept of a crowd. not even a real crowd! a fictional group that materialises when you've created "the conditions for success"

there is no such thing as a truly independent artist. if your understanding of artistic success requires competition against others, you're going to lose that competition and then explode (unfortunately common)

finding your audience as an artist (and mind you, art is a social field) is very much a process of networking, but it feels gross to say it that way, so I'll just leave that at "if you want to be known by others, you need to be willing to know others"

anyway, this doesn't really terminate in a complete sentiment. I was just transcribing a train of though

if I were to boil this down to a shorter, snappier answer that I could read comfortably read out, it'd be...

TL;DR

the process of finding an audience is so much less about actually finding one than it is about learning to create happily whether or not you have an audience. developing an audience is the largely incidental byproduct of long-term creative efforts coupled with self-advocacy and interpersonal networking

if you want to be found by a scene, you have to participate in a scene, and if you want to participate in a scene, you need to be in the scene. so on so forth

as stupid as it might sound when I put it into words, the truth is that you can't build any kind of audience in isolation. someone has to find you somehow, and it's a lot easier to be found if you're actually somewhere that people might look

[genshingorlsrevengeance]

Hey it me, the guy who asked for the S/O with a mask. You said to remind you about Yae Miko at a later time. Can you still do that along with Jean or no?

(Genshin Impact) Yae and Jean's S/O who wears a mask

I would've had this done WAY earlier tonight, but to be honest with you I got very distracted building a Gundam. AND SURPRISE DARK-KNIGHT!S/O BONUS FOR JEAN!

Yae had always been intrigued by the strange mask her S/O had always worn.

It was a nearly blank white mask, with two black slits acting as eyes, and a red swirl on the bottom right.

Despite how long she had known them for, they had never taken it off, even when it was just the two of them.

Admittedly, Yae pouted a little since she didn't get to see their face, and the expression she made nearly had S/O cave in to her demand.

But for one reason or another, they declined her request. But after they had become a couple, it was shortly after she got to see what their face was like, though not in the way she expected.

===

After the last of the spirits were dispatched, Yae took a deep breath as her tail and purple glowing eyes faded.

(Yae) "Hmph, how troublesome."

She turned to S/O, ready to make a casual remark before her thoughts were halted. They were on the ground with one knee, a stream of blood running down their previously pristine white mask.

Yae rushed to their side and had them sit down, putting two fingers on their neck to make sure they weren't losing their pulse.

S/O's hand gently stroked hers, putting Yae somewhat at ease.

(S/O) "Don't worry, I'll be fine."

(Yae) "I will believe that when we make sure."

Her hand reached to take off their mask before...hesitating.

S/O did not fail to notice, and nodded while looking at Yae, letting her know they had their permission.

Without wasting another second, Yae dropped the mask onto the grass slowly and examined their wound, while getting a good look at their now revealed face.

The worry in Yae's expression seemed to fade as it was replaced with a mix of amusement and annoyance.

(Yae) sigh "Here I thought the reveal of your face would be far more dramatic."

(S/O) "Was your imagination better?"

S/O asked, rolling their eyes but quickly maintained direct contact with Yae. She noticed that they were blushing a little as she stopped the worst of their bleeding.

(Yae) "Truthfully? A little. I imagined you with a great scar, or perhaps the face of a beast. Instead, you are quite normal."

(S/O) "Ouch, scathing."

Yae put the mask back into their and lifted them off the ground, making sure they were able to stand upright without her assistance. She gave them a heartfelt smile as her palm reached under their chin.

(Yae) "If you want my opinion, you should keep it off. It suits you better."

Jean was extremely suspicious about the reports of a masked individual roaming around the streets of Mondstadt.

You only wore a mask if you had something to hide.

Much to her surprise, the reason for their mask was nothing nefarious, just something personal the reason to be shared with lifetime friends.

Or lovers.

And over the course of a year, she became the latter.

She respected their privacy and never wanted to pry unless S/O wanted to bring it up themselves.

But she did always want to see their face, and she got her wish.

In a roundabout way.

===

Jean elegantly sheathed her rapier as it disappeared by her waist. She turned around to account for any injuries among the knights.

(Knight) "Ma'am! Some of the men are down, but nothing fatal. Just bruises."

(Jean) "Understood, get them medical attention and-"

(Knight 2) "A-Acting Grandmaster! S/O is heavily injured!"

She nearly chokes on the breath leaving her throat, immediately spinning around to find S/O's mask cracked with them bleeding.

Jean dropped down next to them at a speed that caught everyone off guard momentarily, before yelling for a medic.

(Jean) "S/O! Are you alright?!"

(S/O) "N-Nothing I won't recover from, but damn I'll have a headache later...!"

Jean's Vision glowed and a small gust of wind blew around them, seemingly patching up the worst of their injury as their breathing steadied.

Relaxing ever so slightly, Jean motioned for the medic to get ready to patch S/O up, before everyone realized that S/O would have to take off their mask in order to provide bandages.

S/O's mask slowly turned to Jean as an awkward silence passed, making the other Knights look at each other.

(Knight) ahem "...E-Excuse us, ma'am!"

She nodded to the knights in thanks as they saluted and respectfully gave them a moment alone.

Jean slowly reached for their mask and lifted it off, getting distracted by seeing their face for the first time. Her mouth was slightly open at the sight, taking it all in.

(S/O) "Heh, your lovely staring can't bandage the wound up, Jean."

(Jean) "O-Oh! I apologize-"

Jean began stuttering before their chuckle made her heart race for a different reason.

(S/O) "I'm teasing, it's alright. Sorry I couldn't show you my face without making you worry."

She gave a smile back as she deftly wrapped the bandage around their head before putting their mask back on.

(Jean) "I'm sure you'll have plenty of time to make up for that when we return home."

BONUS:

(Dark Knight!S/O Megapost for context)

Jean had seen S/O's face plenty of times, whether it was them walking by, or up close during an intimate moment.

But she was still unused to the sight of them wearing that helmet.

It had a blank shiny red visor that covered the entire face, enclosed with black steel.

And it unnerved her that S/O remained completely silent everytime they donned it.

She knew it was the person she loved underneath the outfit, but there was no visual indication telling her so.

===

Aether wiped the sweat from his brow and sheathed his sword as it vanished. He gave a thumbs up to the group behind him.

Jean, S/O, and Kaeya all sheathed their weapons as they all seemed to relax somewhat. Since they were still in the wilderness, they couldn't let down their guard completely.

Paimon appeared suddenly next to Aether and took a deep sigh of relief.

(Paimon) "Man, those Ruin Guards were tough!"

(Kaeya) "Hm, well it's nothing that we couldn't handle. Especially with those tools of yours, S/O. What don't you have on there?"

S/O looked at their now empty belt that was previously filled with small explosives. They simply shrugged, adjusting the polearm on their back.

(Kaeya) "But I must say, those bombs looked eerily like the ones Klee made. Are you having our Crimson Knight make you supplies?"

Now, S/O crossed their arms and their posture clearly gave off the impression that they were not nearly as amused as Kaeya.

Jean gave Kaeya an exasperated look, she wasn't in the mood either.

(Aether) "Okay okay, no need to interrogate them. It's not like they aren't trustworthy."

Kaeya chuckled and decided to let sleeping dogs lie, lest he incurred Jean's wrath.

Jean turned to S/O, seeing her own worried reflection on their visor. The helmet turned to her and still said nothing.

(Jean) "It is just us, S/O. There's no need to remain completely silent."

S/O's hand rubbed the back of their neck as the helmet shifted and looked off to Jean's right. She didn't even need to see their helmet off to know the bashful expression they had, making her smile.

(Jean) "Besides, you're not letting me see the face I love."

Jean teased, her hand gently squeezing S/O's making them pause. Finally relenting, they took off their helmet for a brief moment to give Jean a kiss on her forehead, making them both blush.

(S/O) "When this is over, I promise I'll let you see it every second we're together."

Both Jean and S/O quickly noticed that Aether, Paimon, and Kaeya were staring and quickly averted their gaze, pretending not to see anything.

S/O quickly put their helmet back on as she made her way over to the group, clearly annoyed. They were glad the visor blocked all of their facial expressions, since they were laughing at Jean lecturing them for not giving any privacy.

She quickly shot S/O a look as well, knowing what they were thinking.

(Jean) "And I'll be talking to you later. My anger is not something to laugh at."

Now, it was the other three's turn to give S/O the shit eating grin.

[lover-lyn]

Ranpo my beloved <3

gn!reader, no pronouns or pet names used

Space girl

Space Girl, I saw a lunar eclipse

Looked like how I feel 'bout your lips

Space Girl, the only way that we'd end

Was if you were sucked into a black hole

But I'd still spend my days dreaming 'bout you

Frances forever↻ ◁ || ▷ ↺

Coworker!Ranpo who already knows that your in love with him, he's the world's best detective so of course he figured it out before your attraction to him even began

Coworker!Ranpo who uses this knowledge to mess with you, sending you mixed messages and keeping you on your toes

Coworker!Ranpo who continously drops you hints that he reciprocates your feelings, insisting that you be the one escorting him to and from crime scenes, taking the time to actually explain how he solved a case to you and occasionally letting you have a taste of his snacks

Coworker!Ranpo who makes sure to always check on you, asking how your mission went even if he already knows the answer

Coworker!Ranpo who takes any chance he has to show off in front of you, this is also why he likes dragging you with him to crime scenes most

Coworker!Ranpo who would not hesitate to call you a dumbass, a fool, an idiot or anything of the sort but makes sure to turn it down. Where he would usually tell someone their stupid and insult them unprovoked he'd just tell you that your wrong

Coworker!Ranpo who always knows what to get you, whether that be for a holiday or simply becaus he was feeling particularly generous that day

Coworker!Ranpo who will never let you work in peace, constantly pulling you away from your desk and demanding to get him snacks and entertain him

Coworker!Ranpo who corners you one day and tells you how stupid it is that despite being aware your feeling and his reciprocation to them you still don't make a move

Coworker!Ranpo who decides that if you still won't do anything he will

Coworker!Ranpo who pulls you by your shirt and locks your lips together

Lover!Ranpo who's not very affectionate, don't expect him to tell you that he love you every minute of the day, he's in a relationship with you and in his eyes that's more than enough proof that he loves you, he doesn't need to say it out loud

Lover!Ranpo who's the world's best detective but can't seem to understand why people cheat, he's a firm beleiver that you shouldn't be in a relationship with someone unless you're absolutely sure that you love them and want to spend the rest of your life with them, so you don't have to worry about him, there's no way he'd even think about dishonoring the most basic agreement of your relationship like that

Lover!Ranpo who starts entrusting you with his cases, he doesn't need the help but he's just too lazy to actually put in the effort, your smart enough to figure it out on your own right?

Lover!Ranpo who talks a lot, during the night when the two of you are the most vulnerable he talks about any and everything that comes to mind. He knows you don't mind but he's not the best with flowery words so he opts to showing you that he appreciates you and all that you do by trusting you, he trusts you and tells you to trust him. he talks, you listen. You talk, he listens. That's the way it works

Lover!Ranpo who admires you, he doesn't say it but he shows it. He values your words, normally he doesn't listen to others, their talk doesn't benefit him so just doesn't pay attention to them yet he hangs on to your every word. He values your opinion and that's more respect than he shows anyone

[queer-ragnelle]

hi I was wondering what your opinion is on how to deal with anachronisms in arthurian legend. so many stories include jousting—which didn't exist in early medieval wales. which historic kingdoms do you chose to include, and from which period, and what if two kingdoms sound really cool and you really want to mention them both but one existed in england circa 500ad and one existed around the norman conquest? thank you!

Hey!

I could've sworn I answered this before but I must've been thinking of a conversation in my writing group. Anyway the short answer is:

Do whatever you want! Anachronism is a feature not a bug! Harness it!

The fact is, all of Arthurian Legend is anachronistic and it's great. We don't even have concrete proof that Arthur, as we understand him, existed. We don't have written sources from the era Arthur supposedly lived in, only artifacts. There are some sporadic texts throughout the early Medieval period which mention Arthur, then the majority of what we understand as part of the Legend began with the work of 12th century authors. When Chrétien de Troyes was writing his stories, he depicted the world he lived in. The same goes for Marie of France and Wirnt von Grafenburg and Sir Thomas Malory and of course the many many Anonymous authors throughout the entire Middle Ages. They wrote about knights as they, personally, perceived them, as if the Saxon conflict took place in the 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, etc centuries. After that, modern authors did similarly, while keeping the setting Medieval.

I have found that reading the forewords, author's notes, and letters of modern writers tackling this same dilemma has helped me tremendously. I have a deep respect and admiration for John Steinbeck, both his The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights and his other novels captivated me, so I cherish his philosophy regarding the creative process. In letter to his editor, he wrote:

He gets it!! Everyone is writing for their audience. Themselves, too, but with special attention to the current era and what that looks like.

When it comes to the nitty gritty stuff, you'll drive yourself crazy if you focus too much on what's "possible." Now Persia Woolley and I have our creative differences, but in her author's note at the start of book 1, Child of the Northern Spring, she wrote:

This makes a lot of sense to me. She has adopted a similar method as J. R. R. Tolkien did regarding the stories "coming out of Middle Earth." No, a Hobbit may not have called the circular green thing covering the entrance/exit to his home "a door," but that is the name of the object as the reader understands it, so that is what the author or "translator" has decided to call it.

In the end, you'll just have to sit down and make decisions. If you intend to use the names as they were in the era Arthur lived, it'll be more historically accurate, but unless you also provide a map and name key as Edward Frankland did in Arthur The Bear of Britain, you risk confusing your readers who only comprehend these locations in their Modern form. On the other hand, if you use exclusively Modern names, there's a chance it could break the immersion of your readers who perceive the story as Medieval.

I personally like to have of Medieval and Modern terms as well as technologies and cultural aspects. The fact is that we simply don't know enough about history to ever be 100% accurate about anything, so breath easier and offer yourself some allowances. I haven't scanned this book yet, but in the author's note of Phyllis Ann Karr's The Follies of Sir Harald, she wrote:

This is especially funny considering I don't recall any mention of a specific year to which the "historical accuracies" could be compared, but I assume she means the 12th century, when Chrétien de Troyes lived.

It comes down to what sort of story you want to write. Is it going to be Historical Fiction as Edward Frankland, Persia Woolley, and Bernard Cornwell wrote? Or will it be more loosely "Medieval" such as Cherith Baldry, John Steinbeck, and Phyllis Ann Karr wrote?

It really comes down to your own point of interest which kingdoms you include. I generally tried to stay accurate to the 4th-6th century, a huge 2 century window, which gave me enough wiggle room to pick and choose some names that made clear what I was talking about. Most if not all ports and islands retained modern names for ease of comprehension: Beirut, Isle of Wight, Mainland Orkney, and even Drake's Island, which is named for Sir Francis Drake, who wasn't born until the 16th Century, simply because its older name, St. Michael from the 12th Century, was not only too recent to be "accurate" anyway, but may have caused confusion with the giant of Mont St. Michael, which was of more importance to me than the impossible accuracy of landmasses in the Plymouth Sound. I did away with wooden longhouses in favor of stone castles; some I "built" on top of abandoned Roman forts that can still be visited today, others I invented completely from scratch, each brick and syllable original to my work. Many aspects called for improvision, so I did the best I could to make it all appear cohesive, even if historically those names or practices or fashions or whatever weren't actually as synchronized as my writing would have you believe.

This applies to characters too.

I refer to the main character as Gawain, although he claims it derives from the older name Gwalchmai. Other Mabinogion characters retain their Welsh names, such as Owain, Morfydd, and Bedwyr. Yet others take after their French names, such as Kay, Perceval, and Mordred. I even sometimes use both names, such as with Welsh Cynon/French Calogrenant, who was named the former at birth and referred to as such by Morfydd, but then Christened as the latter, which is what the majority of the cast call him. The Vulgate gives Yvain, son of Urien and Morgan le Fay, a bastard half brother called Yvain the Bastard. Because I had already changed the first character's name to Owain, so too has his brother's name been changed to Owain, as well as introducing a moniker of his own to more clearly identify him as a separate character without constantly referring to him as a bastard. They are from Rheged, but Owain the Bastard is known as FitzEden, as he was born in his mother's house near the Eden River. If you look it up, Rheged/Cumbria are the same general area, so I've linked the character to it through a name I made up for him. Owain FitzEden he now is. Did people use the term "Fitz" in the 5th century? No, they didn't have surnames. Was the river called Eden at the time? Probably not. But I did it anyway because I'm not writing in the 5th century, I'm writing now, for you, for me! And because I like the character enough to "bend the rules." It's not like historical Owain mab Urien had a pet lion, anyway!

It doesn't matter if these characters have "era appropriate" names or come from locations which didn't exist until recently. Say Lancelot is from Brittany or Less Britain or Gaul or France or Benwick or the Lake Kingdom, who cares! I've seen them all in one book or movie or another and they all register the same to me: Across the channel. Foreign. A new guy.

I had to do all of this twice, once for Medieval Britain and again for Medieval Persia. So trust me when I say it's time consuming. You're going to take a lot of notes for your own reference that your readers will never see but will help you keep an internal consistency once you decide what kingdoms and names to keep and what to avoid. The key is to stay accurate within your own world. Even if two kingdoms didn't exist at the same time, if you want to include them, do so, but then you have to follow through with that. Your readers will figure it out so long as you avoid giving the same area too many different names or accidentally changing a location's name between scenes. Locals may call their village something the outsiders don't, that's cool for worldbuilding, but every time you do it, you're making a bid on your reader's ability to hold all that information. So do so sparingly and with good reason.

Reading helps a lot. All the books I've mentioned do a good job of this and would be useful tools for understanding what your preferences are and what the vibe of your story will be. I hope that answers your question and gives you a bunch to think about! Take care. :^)

[sewinrat]

If you were one of Luther's Cat:

Obviously you're not a normal cat. No gender mentioned dw;

While Nyon has those floppy cat ears and Nyen has like a cat hat, you have a beret with cat ears. Do with that information as you will, but either way no one knows if it can come off.

You eat poison once. It was an accident. Trouble likes to linger around you but they can get worse as years went by.

You were the middle cat. What I meant by that is, both in role and personality. You were not as mean as Nyen can be but you were also not as nice as Nyon is.(Unless of course you have a different opinion.) Remember the tier list they had in Vol 1. Lucid 5? Yea, you're placed either in Dime, Ace or something else like Hearts/Diamonds but never higher than that in tier 4. Close to Tier 3 actually but Nyen can be petty.

Danger Level: MODERATE

You are often found around the kitchen or the living room. Any other parts of the house you might be seen is because you have to go there under an order or for other reason. Once, Sebastian found you somewhere in a hallway sitting on the floor terrifyingly staring at the wall.

Unlike Nyen, when it comes to vacuums, you're one of those that chill on it. Just pop hide your limbs, be a bun and sit on top of it. If this ever happens, Nyen usually respects you more than he does when you're off it. It doesn't last long tho.

Of course since you're Luther's cat, you are loyal to him. It's inevitable especially in the ivory house. Luther's house. Maybe when you were a regular human, you would've accidentally met him in Michigan. You lost everything before so why must you worry about your human life when you can be a cat while gaining inhuman traits from Luther. Don't mind whatever happens within the house, you can do anything under his permission.

Ranfren Characters thoughts on You;

Randal: "Yeahh I don't care much about them.. However they're my favourite out of big brother's cats! They're willing to play with me unlike the other two! It's fun since Sebastian don't play my games. I would call them my friend if it weren't for the fact that they're big brother's... And also the fact they can act like him." In short, he would see you as his friend but non friend.

Sebastian: "O-oh.. Who are you? Uh uhm.. okay? I guess they're fine. They're not as crazy as that other one.. but they still make me uncomfortable.. especially when they stare at the wall for no reason. I just hope they won't try to kill me.." He's afraid but he's fine. He can tolerate.

Nyen: "Oh them? I guess they're okay. They're boring to me but they are terrifying when they're on the damn vacuum. *shivers* eugh.. thinking about it makes me sick. Don't tell them that or else I would have to suffer their smug smile for a while." He doesn't care much. Don't try to snitch on him.

Nyon: "... They're okay." He's too quiet on the matter but don't worry, he likes you. You're not mean as Nyen. If anything, you also amuse him randomly. Especially when he saw you intimidating Nyen one time.

Luther: "Ah yes, one of my lovely cats. Out of the other two, as a kitten, they act so good. Better than the two. However, I love them all equally. As they grew older, it seems that trouble stirs around them more but it's fine. It's not as troublesome as some of the things Randal puts himself into. Now, while you are here, come have tea or please leave." His opinion has not changed. He loves you just as much as he loves his family.

Bonus! Ratman Robert: "How the hell did you get here? Whatever, you don't look like one of them. The middle cat? No comment. I don't know if I should be afraid that they seem to be plotting something or grateful they don't attack us when they see us. I would like it better if they don't stare at the wall. It's uncomfortable to feel their eyes on me." He's scared. But he would offer you food that he has as peace offering one day. Don't eat him.

[orkbutch]

So, I'm not really in the weeds of Transgender Discourse on the internet (I have a life and also care about my mental health) but I've seen something discussed here about trans masculinity and I wanna talk about it.

I'm very masculine. I'm butch, I'm trans masc, I've always wanted to be masculine and I feel most comfortable when I'm presenting as such. Without much effort or any intention on my part I am read as a cis man day to day. Because I don't present more fem, in queer spaces I am read and recieved as a man, maybe trans, probably into other men. People do not even consider if I'm a butch lesbian unless there's Significant context indicating it. Because of this I'm viewed through 'Man Lens'; It feels a different if I say 'bitch', if I talk about my attraction to women. I don't get smiled at, people put physical distance between me and them as much as possible.

This is familiar for a lot of trans masculine people and trans men that aren't androgynous/fem leaning in their style, and it is an upsetting change to happen. It makes us feel judged or misunderstood to suddenly be causing this wariness in others; it feels prejudiced. I've seen people putting words to this like transmisandry. This is something they want to lessen in their communities, so they don't have to experience this anymore.

Now, here's my opinion part: That's not going to happen. You cannot tackle the "problem" of people responding to your masculinity with wariness. They aren't controlling the wariness, they can't. More importantly, their wariness toward masculinity and what registers in their brain as "man-like" is well founded. It's based in lifetimes of experiences and trauma that has told them men can be very unsafe to be around, and that is true. Most men are cis, and cis men are the most threatening thing in this world to non-cis men. They are usually* socially privileged above others, more likely to inflict violence, more likely to abuse and murder others, are typically physically more powerful than others. Everyone thats not a cis man DEEPLY internalises a very rational wariness of men, and masculine presentation as an extension. Especially men that are strangers. (*This is of course different when we consider intersections of race, colonialism, classism, ect. But globally this generalisation is still pretty accurate.)

Honestly, I don't think this wariness towards masculine presentation is something thats useful or realistic to challenge. Like many internalised processes it's probably a good idea to examine it and consider its usefulness, but I think it'd be easy to conclude that it is a useful wariness for people to have. Women have lots of reasons to be wary around men, including the unique threats of transmisogyny. Queer and gender deviant men have lots of reasons to be wary around men. This is The Reality of patriarchy.

Personally, the place I've come to with how women and queer people react to my masculinity (which is not entirely negative btw, the wariness is just one aspect) is that... I understand their wariness. I have it too, toward those my brain assumes are cis men. I cannot control how they feel or what they think about me. I can only be respectful to others and to myself and live my life. I flag my butchness where I can, I make my gender clear to those it matters to, and the rest I accept as largely beyond my influence. All of us have to do this in some places in our lives.

Even though my masculinity makes other queers wary, I have lots of friends! I've had no real trouble dating or finding intimacy. Initial wariness is just that. Once you understand each other, break the barrier, its usually settled. For anyone who finds my masculinity so offputting that we can't break the barrier, I'm glad neither of us put each other through that discomfort. I understand where a fear like that comes from. I will still hold community with them because that's what solidarity entails.

Anyway thats my ramble about masculinity in queer community, good bye until another. who knows how long