#hugin writes

[hugintheraven]

Here, have a warlords-era fic about what the Undersiders feel like to a random civilian. Aisha-focused, just under 1K.

[huginsmemory]

Family Lepidoptera, Suborder Heterocera

Gravity Falls • Billford • M • 6k

First chapter (of 2) out!!!

Summary:

He begins to leave the clearing, and his mind turns back to moths, mentally cataloging a few new ones he's been meaning to acquire. It's then that he sees something out of the corner of his eye–black with a flash of gold. Immediately, the peace that had fallen over him vanishes, adrenaline spiking; Ford spins, gun unholstered and levelled, ready for anything. It's a large moth that flits through the air, immediately settling down on the bark of one of the trees, wings folded and still, perfectly unassuming. Ford finds a unique moth specimen, the summer after Weirdmageddon, and various memories (and then a certain someone) are dredged up. (billford with a lepitoptery focus, essentially).

[hugintheraven]

"It's still Derrick in there! I'm sure of it. Derrick, can you hear me?"

The mass of black spikes shifted, and something that might have been a head emerged. Parts rattled together, and managed to sound like words. "der-eck?"

"Derrick, my god!"

"not der-eck"

"No, Derrick, I know you're in there, please. You know me, right? It's Sharon."

"saron. know saron. not der-eck. mar. i mar-ee."

"Mar-ee? Mary! Oh, you...oh! You finally admitted it, good for you."

"not eat hurts. think hurts. brain eas-ee when work with it."

"Well, I'm glad. Who do you want to tell?"

"rick-ard"

"Richard? Why him, you know he's just going to be awful about it."

"YES"

"Oh no, this goofy monster virus mutates you into a gnarly beast with an insatiable hunger for human flesh" and then the goofy monster protagonist is able to master their cannibalistic impulses not because they have superhuman willpower or special genes, but because prior to being mutated they were the most repressed human being alive.

[huginsmemory]

everlasting in a different moon

Gravity falls • Billford • M • 7k

Summary:

The paper is slid in front of him. He blankly stares at what's written in front of him, taking a moment to process.

There's only a single question: What do you find attractive?

Ford freezes, anxiety making his body feel leaden, his sweater suddenly too hot. Around him, there's the sound of pencils scribbling, then definitive clicks as they're placed down on desktops. What kind of question is this? What's even the right answer? And is this even appropriate to ask? He feels the pencil slip slightly in his grip, palms sweaty, as he stares.

~

On the Book of Bill's quip about Ford dreams; “Sixer dreams about a pop quiz that asks him “What are you attracted to?” Usually writes “I’m attracted to logic and preparation”. Not sure what to call that! Plansexual?” . A character study, on Bill and Ford's relationship, asexuality, and guilt, framed within series I'm your little ray of sunshine.

[hugintheraven]

”Sabah, PLEASE.”

“Absolutely not, Aisha you are FIFTEEN and half the city is underwater. Even if I had the materials, you can’t wear that anywhere.”

“The docks won’t mind. And I can get you the original, I just need you to tailor it for me.”

“The docks? Do I even want to know why?”

“I’ve got a bet with Regent about whether Taylor will figure out she’s into girls before the end of the year and I want to cheat.”

“It’s not you she’s interested in.”

“I think I’m hot enough that showing up wearing a spiderweb and nothing else will fix that.”

“Your brother would kill me. The answer is still no.”

“Some of her other designs would look just as hot on…someone else. In case there was one you’re interested in, I could pick it up.”

“You’re an evil girl.”

“I just hope I can get a picture of her face.”

Annie's Ibiza Fall 2024

[artemisblackwing]

Hugin and Munin's real-life personalities

and how I am fictionalizing them in my book "Raven".

(Below is a picture of Munin fluffed up and happy on a trip to the park. She was very chatty that day.)

My two ravens both have personalities that are very distinct from one another. Hugin's personality is protective, and generally calm and cautious. Munin's personality is defined by her inquisitive and active nature. Munin is protective of her things, but she is not protective of Hugin. If she is concerned about something, she will often go to Hugin for help, and Hugin will stand between her and the offending person or object croaking menacingly at it, ready to snap at it if it threatens him or Munin. Interestingly, Hugin is not nearly as good a flyer as Munin though, and seems incapable of her complex aerial turns and graceful landings.

When I decided to include Hugin in my book, I took a while to think about how to make the raven in my book true to Hugin's personality. Frankly, real-life Hugin is a bit clumsy, and seems afraid to try tricky flight maneuvers. I hit upon making my fictional male raven albino, to account for the disadvantage in flight (since albino feathers are more brittle, albino ravens often have trouble surviving in the wild due to difficulty flying.)

Note: Hugin and Munin are my two African ravens. I raised Munin from a baby, and got Hugin when he was 4 years old. I gave Munin many experiences with the goal of making her feel confident in new situations. Hugin was raised very differently, and by someone else.

For context, here's a link to my post describing my novel "Raven" which I am publishing in March 2026.

[artemisblackwingfavorites]

Edit: I posted this to the wrong blog, lol, so I posted a second copy to the right one. Here's the link.

I mentioned earlier that Munin had an adventure I would tell you about...

The Norse God Odin had two ravens, Hugin and Munin (Thought and Memory) that would fly around the world bringing him the knowledge of the day. What would it have felt like, awaiting their return? This stanza from the Grímnismál speaks of this:

"Over the earth Hugin and Munin set forth to fly.

For Hugin I fear lest he'll not return,

But for Munin my fear is more."

(Note: Since the Norse name Munin translates as "Memory" in English, we call Munin "Memory" when we really want her attention, or when we want her to come to us. Otherwise she'd quickly learn to disregard her name since we talk about her in her presence so frequently. It is best for her to have a common name, and a "secret" name we call her with.)

Munin's Adventure:

We were invited to a picnic down in Samammish with friends, and Munin was the guest of honor. We were all sitting on the grass, munching on chips (Munin loves chips) when she flew from her perch, snapping her leash. We thought she would wait patiently like a dog while we reattached it, but no (only idiots would think this.) She flew off to a nearby tree and then perched there, chatting with us in her croaky voice happily in an infuriatingly unreachable way. Ravens are like this.

Here is where I must confess that she doesn't come to her name well at all. She is very aware that it refers to her, and will turn to us when we call it, but she only flies over if she sees a reason to, and we had already plied her with every delicious snack at the picnic. I admit this is a failure with our teaching.

We waited under her perch for about an hour, getting on with our picnic, offering her treats every so often for which she politely declined to fly down. Then Munin spontaneously to flew towards us as we were distracted by handing people drinks, then away from us beyond our line of sight. That's when I became concerned.

Very clearly, she was having fun, and when ravens have fun you know something terrible is about to happen.

We called to her, and searched, and eventually she started calling back from a distance, the faint feminine croaking muffled by the surrounding trees. We followed the sounds and sighted her in a tree so tall that she was just a black blob against the afternoon sky. She had already attracted a couple of angry crows that were yelling at her to leave. She tried making friendly calls to them, but it takes more than a friendly greeting to convince a gang of racist crows to hang out with a newcomer. She gave up, and started trying to ignore them. She chatted with us when the crows calmed down a bit. We called back to her and she responded while hopping between branches, occasionally pausing to tear leaves off the tree, tossing them into the air so they fluttered to the ground. Trees have a lot of leaves. We figured that this new project would take her some time.

As we watched, the picnic slowly dwindled in size over the hours, as the lengthening shadows weakened the group by attrition. Only the last and most loyal remained as Munin finally spread her wings and soared up into the sky. The dying sun reflected the end of a beautiful day upon her feathers, as she wheeled about in ever-higher, ever-widening circles, separating herself from our desperate cries of "Memory! ...Memory! ...Memory!!! NO!!!!" Could she even hear us through the rushing wind? I don't know.

So the day ended.

We have given Munin the opportunity to hone her flying skills, and she has learned to forage for treats well, often circumventing my attempts to prevent her from stealing. However, ravens with all their brilliance do have a weakness, and that is language. We can show Munin things to teach her about the world, but we can't tell her about something she hasn't seen yet. Bald Eagles for instance, who on rare occasion prey on ravens, are not something Munin is familiar with, and the fact that two such eagles were nesting in a tree right next to the one Munin had been happily playing in was not possible to communicate to her. It was also not possible to tell her that large flocks of territorial crows can knock a raven off course, nor that West Nile Virus is quite deadly. Munin's previous experience in her rather small, easy-to-navigate world has shown her that everyone loves and admires, or at least respects her. She has certainly never met anyone who considers her edible. As individuals, there will always come a time when our beliefs are tested, when our ingenuity is tested, when we face the dangers that lurk behind the borders of our picnic. That moment often defines us, if we survive it.

We did not wait quietly for Munin's return. We posted paper flyers within a two-mile radius, we put about a hundred flyers under the mats of the nearest neighbors, we notified local birding groups, we paid for online ads targeted to local people, and we handed out flyers by hand asking people to post it on their social media accounts or elsewhere online. Also, we made sure someone was always at the property from which Munin had flown who was able to call for her. For good measure, we brought Hugin in a crate and placed him in the center of the garden to help us call for her. I knew that if she heard him she would come to him.

Every day after, we woke up at dawn to search the distant skies for a lone raven, or any bird being harassed by the local crows. We noticed the local birds flew across the sky at about 5am, so we woke up early every day in case she was with them. We called out "Memory!" every time we saw a bird that could have been her. We rarely got responses, but we got enough to hold on to our dwindling hopes that she would return. Actually, it seemed that we were rather torturing the neighbors, who every dawn and dusk would hear banshee-like cries in the distance as we walked to and fro across the grass plaintively shrieking "Memory, Memory..." Phone calls and texts came in with news of any oddly-behaving raven that was spotted, or offers to help look. We had other animals at our house that we needed to care for, so one of us spent at least half of every day commuting between our home and Sammamish. Finally, we started to talk about staying at home because driving the two hours between our home and Sammamish every day was becoming unreasonable, but we waited one last day anyway, because it didn't feel right to just leave. The dusk and dawn once more passed with no response, and we began to pack up to leave for home. It was the third day. We had everything arrayed on the driveway next to our truck, when my phone rang.

I answered the call, and I heard a calm voice on the other end of the line say "I think your raven is on my deck." The voice said he'd been talking to the raven for about an hour. I asked if she had jesses on her legs and he said yes. I said we'd be right over in a few minutes, and he said he'd keep talking to her. I suggested he feed her cheese crackers and he seemed doubtful. Alan nearly crashed the truck on the way over, but we made it, and we ran around the back of the house where Munin was waiting. She made low, happy croaks as we approached, and flew to Alan's arm the moment he held it out.

Munin was finally returned to us.

The ironic thing in all this is that the guy who saw Munin was too afraid to go outside his door to try and approach her, or feed her treats... he just talked to her through his window from the safety of his house. Memory was returned to us by a very sincere, bird-phobic man. I am deeply appreciative of the lengths to which brave and good-hearted people will go when someone else's heart is on the line.

Now that Munin is home, she seems to have matured. She is a little more confident when flying from place to place, is more unwilling to have us leave her when we're out in strange places, and is much more likely to come to her name quickly. Overall, she seems more confident and relaxed. She seems to have learned some very helpful things out in the world.

(Munin and Hugin are my African ravens.)

[violet-moonstone]

I've been looking at a lot of reference pictures to help me while fic writing, and a detail about the Great Hall (In HTTYD 3) I noticed is that the chieftain's chair has two carved birds on the back.

I'm assuming this is a reference to Hugin and Munin, the ravens that rest on Odin's shoulders and provide him with information. I really like this detail because it seems like whoever designed the chair wanted to give the chieftain an air of wisdom -- not only would it make them visually resemble Odin (which makes them look powerful and wise to onlookers) but it also might be a reminder to the chieftain themself that they have the responsibility to make wise decisions for their community.

I might find a way to work this into the fic -- like every time Hiccup sits in the chair, he feels a combined sense of reassurance and weight responsibility because of the legacy associated with those who have sat in the chair or had the title of chieftain.

[hugintheraven]

(for the sake of brevity, respect for privacy, and the court’s sense of morals and decency, all parties have agreed to redact queries we jointly agreed are irrelevant to these proceedings)

Searched: NLRB contact page

*2 weeks pass*

Job listings New York City

job listings New York

job listings remote

job listings New Jersey

*all queries repeated multiple times for a month*

Real Estate Listings

real estate lowest prices

West Virginia jobs

real estate lowest prices

North Carolina jobs

North Carolina real estate

moving companies

u-haul

NYC buy sell trade

*2 months later*

Home repair contractor rates

repair flooring DIY

repair flooring DIY cheap

*1 week later*

basement door unstick

locksmith North Carolina

locksmith North Carolina cheap

How to decorate an unused wooden door

*1 week later*

repair sink DIY cheap

Black mold

Green mold image search

weirdest fungus in pipes top 10 list

green ooze fungus

rainwater reclamation cheap

*3 days later*

mirror maintenance

mirror leaking

glass mirror blood

glass mirror blood -injury

Eisoptrophobia

*1 day later*

furniture moving on its own

earthquakes north carolina

soil settlement north carolina

furniture rearranged

carbon monoxide detector

*1 day later*

Libraries North Carolina

museums North Carolina

clubs nnmjjkkkkkkkkkk

head injury care

concussion protocol

chairs flying

chairs floating

chairs floating -water

aspirin max safe dose

*1 day later*

translate

Translate french phonetic spelling

Sangis Nare Bit

Sanguis Narative

Sanguis Narrabit

Why Latin

*1 day later*

lockpick how-to

sledgehammer how-to

flashlight average battery life

art major life expectancy

creepy scary basement exploring how-to?!

file will online

*6 hours later*

Animal bites

animal bites bone

bear bites bone

sword wounds bone

axe wounds bone

Human remains laws North Carolina

are North Carolina cops bastards

burial rites

burial rites -Christian

indigenous tribes North Carolina

burial rites Occaneechi

garden centers north carolina

Does Uber eats deliver bags of soil

*2 days later*

tetanus symptoms

Injury care

muscle strain care

why are graves 6’ deep?

ways to celebrate a job well done without spending money

*1 week later*

roof repair diy cheap

*1 month later*

plants growing on graves

mushrooms that grow on graves

mushrooms green ooze

mushroom strange fruit

mushrooms fruit large

To 10 plant fruits shaped like children

plants with teeth large

*1 day later*

how to file a homeowners insurance claim

*1 month later*

how to sue an insurance company

Write a horror story in the format of an Internet search history

[ghostlychaosfoil]

kool kirby lore (NOT CANON ANYMORE)

IM GOING INSANE OVER MY ROTTMNT IC AND I NEED TO WRITE IT DOWN OKAY

warning its super long, this is mostly for me

So kirby and frida were mutated after the og boys were but they arent younger than them bc of their unmutanted turtles age. Kirby is a bit younger than raph (and hes not really build for big brothering) and I think frida is like aprils age. A year after Draxums lab was destroyed, he was in a semi stable living environment but was frankly bored. he managed to salvage some his mutagen notes from the ruins of his old lab. He used those notes and what he could still remeber to recreate a mutagen. He still had this obsession with creating mutants (sort of like how he was w his lil food mutant). He ended up making a stable and similar enough mutagen to his original design. He made about a bucketful. throughout this process, hugin and moonin are very skeptical and not super supportive of daxums spontaneous experiments. Draxum had stolen two different breeds of turtles from the local zoo to use for this experiment. one, a 3.5 year old yellow bellied slider(frida) and a 4 year old map turtle (kirby). He dropped those turtles into theat bucket of mutagen and to his (and hoogin and moonins) surprise it worked just fine. he now had two mutated turtle babies. Not soon after, his living conditions, which were bad already, got worse and he was unable to take care of his beloved children. He left the yellow bellied slider for big mama, who he knew always was looking for new warriors. Big mama did nit want the responsibility of two of them though. So draxum left the mao turtle somewhere else (idk where im still figuring that out hahdbd

At time the series takes place, he was encouraged by his father to get a job, kirby gets a job doing repo work for repo mantis. He definitely failed getting todds rv back before donnie and mikey attempted to. repo taught him to be tougher and how to be intimidating to better his repo skills. So it definitely plays into his personality later on.

movie period he was just living his life when the krang arrived. And he got krangified a little later in the krang invasion so he wasnt a krang zombie until about the point donnie was the spaceship. If he was krangified before the turtles were giving them trouble, he would have been utilized by the kraang like raph was. So in canon, the main reason raph was with them and was different was because he was stronger than the other organisms on the earth. I dont think he really was thought of as anything else after they recovered the key. They didnt care about the turtles or anyone, they didn't truly believe they were a mayor threat until the space ship started going back into the prison dimension. Up until then their rebellion was amusement to the kraang. Ou im getting iff topic- Im saying I think the lraang would have brought all their strongest zombies to be close to them whether they be humans, animals, mutants, or yokai. Kirby, along with others would have been up there with raph if the kraang had more time. Kirby was kraangified abruptly and suddenly so he was in a state of shock and before he knew what had just happend, he was already kraangified. A bunch of kraang goo was launched at his face immediately blinding him and easily taking control of his body being that a bunch of kraang stuff already went in his eye.

in one of the qnas w ron corcillo, he said that he would to make a casey jr and casey focused spinoff series where they hunt KRAANG REMAINS. So its kind of canon that kraang did not fully disappear after the invasion. thats were I buikt off of. Kirby had so much kraang stuff in his body, that after the invasion, he was still kraangified. His first encounter with the turtles would be with him being the hooded krangified enemy. He would be too strong the first time and get away. The turtles would obviously not be down witht this crazy kraang mutant running around so they would hunt him down. mikey would unkraagify him with his mystics, un hooding him in the process. Unkraangified he obviously does NOT trust these turtles. All he has seen of them was through the fuzzy krang memories of them trying to hurt him. That doesnt seem very trustworthy to him.

he doesnt go back to repo or his father after being unkraangified because he doesn't know where they are now, if they even survived the invasion, or if they even care about him anymore, given that he had been kraangified for so long after the invasion and nobody had come looking for him. The turtles come across him again (somewhere..?) where ever he is hiding out trying to get his strength back. He feels weaker than before but he is stronger than ever muscle wise (the kraang basically forcing hik to work out 24/7 for months) but mentally he is unwell. Its kind of a phantom pain kinda situation. Raph finds him o. one of his solo patrols (that he takes even though he doesn't love being alone for that long). Raph and him end up bonding over same trauma and shared interests.

EXTRA RANDOM KIRBY FACTS:

-he roller blades😧😧

-his favorite color USED to be pink (now he cant stand to look at pink)

-regularly uses sarcasm but literally nobody can tell

-pretty good at manipulation if needed

-defaults to a tough guy persona but it really isnt suuper intimidating once he starts talking

-cannot read a clock

-overstimulated AF

-LOVES CATSS

-apologizing problem to people he respects

[hugintheraven]

The Dallon-Hawke Torment Nexus

So @kyliafanfiction was discussing a Dragon Age: Inquisition playthrough as Amy, and that started me thinking about porting the Dallon family into the other DA games. Specifically the family-focused tragedy that's my favorite entry in the series, DA2.

So, the obvious first: Victoria Hawke is the Champion of Kirkwall. She's the hero, the one who takes charge and that people look to in a crisis. If she's pretty sure that's fake, that no one can or should trust her with any authority no matter how good she is at crushing people with her shield, well, that's basically just the standard Hawke character development slightly early.

Amy is her sister, adopted out of the Kocari Wilds. Victoria didn't inherit her father's magic, but the little wildling they picked up because they couldn't let her starve had enough power for all of them. She's been pushed heavily into healing, since her mother Carol was scared of her using her power for anything offensive and was paranoid about blood magic. I'm keeping the obsessive crush on Victoria, of course, and the mess that implies.

Mark is their father. Slight change from canon, I'm making him the one who dies fleeing the Blight. He's neglected his magic beyond what it took to teach Amy(and he skimped on that out of respect for his wife), and he's also just tired(meaning pre-industrial clinically depressed) from decades of running and hiding. When the darkspawn attack, Victoria tries to hold them off. When she goes down, Amy rushes in to help her. And then Mark blows himself and every Darkspawn in the area up to save them, a glorious sacrifice that Carol adds to the list of things she blames Amy for. And Amy blames herself for. And Victoria blames herself for. (We'll leave Maquis Flemeth for later)

And of course Carol is the daughter of a rich family who ran off with the love of her life and found a life founded on love is harder than you'd like. She LIKES the Chantry and their rules, she just doesn't think they should apply to her and her family(except maybe Amy). After all, Mark is a good man, why should he be locked up? Clearly he can hold off the demons with just a bit of willpower. Why do mages act like it's so hard?

So they're happy(well, miserable) in Lothering, the Blight happens, they flee, Mark dies, they arrive in Kirkwall. They're expecting the Pelham side of the family to welcome them with open arms, but they're a military family and most of Carol's relatives died when a nearby route to the Deep Roads opened up. Bad luck for the family, and if it was the decisions of Knight-Commander Colin Wallis, who always distrusted the Pelham family's political and military power, who just happened to put those specific units on the front lines, well, the only Pelham left to complain is the disgraced son Mike, who hated his family anyway after his girlfriend's death in the line of fire a few years after Carol left with the love of her life. And he certainly no longer has the money to bring his family of refugees(or even just Carol and Victoria, an option discussed by Carol in front of her daughters) into the city. Thus forcing the daughters into work on the wrong side of the law for the first time in their straight-laced (though fugitive) lives.

Not sure where we go from there. Kaiser is the Arishok, clearly, and Mayor Roy Christner is the Viscount. I think rather than make the Undersiders or Wards the various companions, we should split them up and give Victoria a messy-ass group gathered from everyone since that's what happened to Hawke. And I mostly won't bother labeling them.

That said, Tattletale is Varric, the information broker/budding crimelord who talks her way into and out of trouble, and every interaction with Victoria is her both tempting Victoria into crime and making Victoria question every decision she's made in her life that led her to thinking this is a good idea. Which makes Grue the one who steals the idol and traps everyone in the Deep Roads, though he's doing it BECAUSE he has a family(sister) to support.

We keep Amy being in love with her sister, and she resorts to blood magic to save her. I'm torn here. The thing from both canons would be to have Amy locked up in the Circle, but that means no Amy being tortured and weird around Victoria and fewer options for fun things involving Maquis/Flemmeth. In a true AU, I think the Templars lock her up, but spitballing it's much more fun if Amy sticks around until endgame, and finds herself using blood magic basically constantly because Victoria keeps dragging them into dangerous situations where, really, it's the only logical choice.

(I also have a scene in my head of them in the Fade, a Lust Demon talking to Amy about "I'll give you what you want most" with Victoria's voice/face, Amy panicking because obviously everyone will know now, and instead Tattletale knows but suspected already, everyone else assumes that's about Amy missing her sister who's always too busy for her these days(clearly that family has issues), and Victoria assuming that "Obviously the demon looks like me to me because I have too high an opinion of myself, gee I wonder what Amy sees while it's flirting with her". Everyone walks out of there with a very skewed opinion of what happens and it takes months to work out that the others aren't just being polite.)

Carol of course eventually dies at the hands of a lone serial killer, which crushes Victoria and Amy who no matter how they felt about her, now can't ever really express those feelings to her and get closure.

For the ending, I'm not sure whether we make Taylor Anders/Justice or not. I feel like Taylor is the sort to willingly become an abomination with a good spirit to save people, but I can't see her blowing up a church.

And because of that and other confusion, I'm calling it here. There's a lot to consider if I wanted to do any more with this, and I also really don't want to write it, so I'm throwing this into the world. I fully expect I at least will be trying to map SOMEONE onto Fenris on my drive to work tomorrow and I want to share that joy with all y'all. Have fun!

[huginsmemory]

7, 20 and 26 for the fic year in review!! 👀

Hello hello :333c thanks for the asks!!! 💕💖

7. Did you write for any new fandoms and ships this year?

Yup!!! I ended up writing for Gravity Falls and Billford, which I've never written before; certainly adored the show as a teenager when it was coming out, but never was actually involved in the fandom then, and absolutely enjoying myself being involved now. People are really nice, and lots of folks comment in the fandom... Ended up writing a whole fic, Family Lepidoptera Suborder Heterocera for the fandom and ship and hope to do more.

Also, an honorable mention to all the one piece WIP's for both smoker/Ace and kidd/law that are languishing in my Google docs/notes app that I had made good work on this year... 🫡

20. Share your funniest line:

Christ that's hard... part of the fic linked above is definitely a more comedic feel, but most of it is built up rather than one liners. But I think this one is good:

"It has been a full year, since Bill had returned. When he had shown up on their doorstep first— what happens when a yellow triangle flanked by sentient glowing orbs of light walk into the Mystery Shack? Forced triangle rehabilitation custody, that's what —it was chaos."

26. Did you create fan works other then fics?

Oh boy yup!!! I've recently rediscovered my old love of drawing and watercolour which I've been posting in my art account @blae-kitta, not to mention my newer found love of making little sculptures. This year it's spanned one piece, gravity falls and Mushishi fandoms. It's sometimes difficult to determine if I would like to write (or what TO write) or do physical art... Not to mention I've also made meta posts as well. As some may say, "I've got range babe!"

[artemisblackwing]

I mentioned earlier that Munin had an adventure I would tell you about...

The Norse God Odin had two ravens, Hugin and Munin (Thought and Memory) that would fly around the world bringing him the knowledge of the day. What would it have felt like, awaiting their return? This stanza from the Grímnismál speaks of this:

"Over the earth Hugin and Munin set forth to fly.

For Hugin I fear lest he'll not return,

But for Munin my fear is more."

(Note: Since the Norse name Munin translates as "Memory" in English, we call Munin "Memory" when we really want her attention, or when we want her to come to us. Otherwise she'd quickly learn to disregard her name since we talk about her in her presence so frequently. It is best for her to have a common name, and a "secret" name we call her with.)

Munin's Adventure:

We were invited to a picnic down in Samammish with friends, and Munin was the guest of honor. We were all sitting on the grass, munching on chips (Munin loves chips) when she flew from her perch, snapping her leash. We thought she would wait patiently like a dog while we reattached it, but no (only idiots would think this.) She flew off to a nearby tree and then perched there, chatting with us in her croaky voice happily in an infuriatingly unreachable way. Ravens are like this.

Here is where I must confess that she doesn't come to her name well at all. She is very aware that it refers to her, and will turn to us when we call it, but she only flies over if she sees a reason to, and we had already plied her with every delicious snack at the picnic. I admit this is a failure with our teaching.

We waited under her perch for about an hour, getting on with our picnic, offering her treats every so often for which she politely declined to fly down. Then Munin spontaneously to flew towards us as we were distracted by handing people drinks, then away from us beyond our line of sight. That's when I became concerned.

Very clearly, she was having fun, and when ravens have fun you know something terrible is about to happen.

We called to her, and searched, and eventually she started calling back from a distance, the faint feminine croaking muffled by the surrounding trees. We followed the sounds and sighted her in a tree so tall that she was just a black blob against the afternoon sky. She had already attracted a couple of angry crows that were yelling at her to leave. She tried making friendly calls to them, but it takes more than a friendly greeting to convince a gang of racist crows to hang out with a newcomer. She gave up, and started trying to ignore them. She chatted with us when the crows calmed down a bit. We called back to her and she responded while hopping between branches, occasionally pausing to tear leaves off the tree, tossing them into the air so they fluttered to the ground. Trees have a lot of leaves. We figured that this new project would take her some time.

As we watched, the picnic slowly dwindled in size over the hours, as the lengthening shadows weakened the group by attrition. Only the last and most loyal remained as Munin finally spread her wings and soared up into the sky. The dying sun reflected the end of a beautiful day upon her feathers, as she wheeled about in ever-higher, ever-widening circles, separating herself from our desperate cries of "Memory! ...Memory! ...Memory!!! NO!!!!" Could she even hear us through the rushing wind? I don't know.

So the day ended.

We have given Munin the opportunity to hone her flying skills, and she has learned to forage for treats well, often circumventing my attempts to prevent her from stealing. However, ravens with all their brilliance do have a weakness, and that is language. We can show Munin things to teach her about the world, but we can't tell her about something she hasn't seen yet. Bald Eagles for instance, who on rare occasion prey on ravens, are not something Munin is familiar with, and the fact that two such eagles were nesting in a tree right next to the one Munin had been happily playing in was not possible to communicate to her. It was also not possible to tell her that large flocks of territorial crows can knock a raven off course, nor that West Nile Virus is quite deadly. Munin's previous experience in her rather small, easy-to-navigate world has shown her that everyone loves and admires, or at least respects her. She has certainly never met anyone who considers her edible. As individuals, there will always come a time when our beliefs are tested, when our ingenuity is tested, when we face the dangers that lurk behind the borders of our picnic. That moment often defines us, if we survive it.

We did not wait quietly for Munin's return. We posted paper flyers within a two-mile radius, we put about a hundred flyers under the mats of the nearest neighbors, we notified local birding groups, we paid for online ads targeted to local people, and we handed out flyers by hand asking people to post it on their social media accounts or elsewhere online. Also, we made sure someone was always at the property from which Munin had flown who was able to call for her. For good measure, we brought Hugin in a crate and placed him in the center of the garden to help us call for her. I knew that if she heard him she would come to him.

Every day after, we woke up at dawn to search the distant skies for a lone raven, or any bird being harassed by the local crows. We noticed the local birds flew across the sky at about 5am, so we woke up early every day in case she was with them. We called out "Memory!" every time we saw a bird that could have been her. We rarely got responses, but we got enough to hold on to our dwindling hopes that she would return. Actually, it seemed that we were rather torturing the neighbors, who every dawn and dusk would hear banshee-like cries in the distance as we walked to and fro across the grass plaintively shrieking "Memory, Memory..." Phone calls and texts came in with news of any oddly-behaving raven that was spotted, or offers to help look. We had other animals at our house that we needed to care for, so one of us spent at least half of every day commuting between our home and Sammamish. Finally, we started to talk about staying at home because driving the two hours between our home and Sammamish every day was becoming unreasonable, but we waited one last day anyway, because it didn't feel right to just leave. The dusk and dawn once more passed with no response, and we began to pack up to leave for home. It was the third day. We had everything arrayed on the driveway next to our truck, when my phone rang.

I answered the call, and I heard a calm voice on the other end of the line say "I think your raven is on my deck." The voice said he'd been talking to the raven for about an hour. I asked if she had jesses on her legs and he said yes. I said we'd be right over in a few minutes, and he said he'd keep talking to her. I suggested he feed her cheese crackers and he seemed doubtful. Alan nearly crashed the truck on the way over, but we made it, and we ran around the back of the house where Munin was waiting. She made low, happy croaks as we approached, and flew to Alan's arm the moment he held it out.

Munin was finally returned to us.

The ironic thing in all this is that the guy who saw Munin was too afraid to go outside his door to try and approach her, or feed her treats... he just talked to her through his window from the safety of his house. Memory was returned to us by a very sincere, bird-phobic man. I am deeply appreciative of the lengths to which brave and good-hearted people will go when someone else's heart is on the line.

Now that Munin is home, she seems to have matured. She is a little more confident when flying from place to place, is more unwilling to have us leave her when we're out in strange places, and is much more likely to come to her name quickly. Overall, she seems more confident and relaxed. She seems to have learned some very helpful things out in the world.

(Munin and Hugin are my African ravens.)

[hugintheraven]

"Well, Poison Ivy's back in police custody, her plants undermining the highways into Gotham are dead, and I have a new supply of overpowered catnip to take home. Not bad for a single teamup. I will have to rob a museum later to even out my karma, but it can wait. For now, handsome" Selina ran her fingers along the base of the gas mask Batman wore "Why don't you slip into something more comfortable?"

"The mask stays on."

"Oh, you always say that. If there were any weird spores around, you would have hustled me out of here as soon as she was unconscious."

"It stays."

Her hand drifted lower. "Oh? And just how devoted are you to that."

An hour later, Alfred came into the Batcave to find his master already back from patrol, a complex molecule pulled up on the computer.

"Tea, sir, to go with what I can only assume is some new horror Dr. Isley concocted?"

"Icelandic tech firm, actually." Batman moved his hand to pick up the cup, revealing a large blister on his lip. "Herpes treatment. Still in early stages. I'm going to buy the company and see what my people can do with it."

"Is that a wise use of resources, sir?"

"Absolutely worth it, Alfred."

batman definitely has some kind of full face mask option for purposes of drama or when it's necessary protection, but he has definitely also used it to hide the fact that he has a really obvious cold sore

[radley-rambles]

Heads Up 7 Up

Tagged by @cwritesfiction!

This excerpt is called 'how Sigyn cunningly convinced Óðin’s ravens to betray him, using only a crust of stale bread'

Ravens circled overhead, chipped from the night itself, visible only when silhouetted against the moon. I knew their names were Hugin and Munin, though I couldn’t tell one from the other. It hardly mattered. Both were tattletales, whispering secrets into Óðin’s ears. Why then had the spies alerted me to their presence? Unless… I paused mid-chew. Looked down at the remnants of my dinner. Sighed.

Corvids never forget a friendly face - or an offer of food.

Tagging @quilloftheclouds, @gingerly-writing, @castironbitch, @ellierenae, @adorhauer, @albatris ! No pressure, of course.

[wilderhyperfoxations]

ARGH trying to write a fic for the fall harvest, WHY do there have to be so many people in this scene?! merlin, hammie, chippy, then i added valen, sinbad, sonja, lucca, and HUGIN BUT i think i'll leave him out. but that feels odd. dude why must i suffer