atlantic-riona

[atlantic-riona]

It's only hinted at very briefly during the period Bruce was dead but my preferred reading is that Dick's problem with Cass has always been that he spent the better part of his young life looking for a father in Bruce and struggling to reconcile with the complicated and flawed man that he is. Then Cass literally just walked in off the street one day and she and Bruce immediately grokked each other on a spiritual level. He tries not to let it bother him. He fails. It bothers him. It bothers him so much.

[atlantic-riona]

when i repost my art i am basically doing this to all my followers

like ah ah ah sorry musta been a mistake,,, this art piece i spent 2 whole days on did not get enough notes... clumsy of youy,

[atlantic-riona]

There used to be a lot of activities that took place around a populated area like a village or town, which you would encounter before you reached the town itself. Most of those crafts have either been eliminated in the developed world or now take place out of view on private land, and so modern authors don't think of them when creating fantasy worlds or writing historical fiction. I think that sprinkling those in could both enrich the worlds you're writing in and, potentially, add useful plot devices.

For example, your travelers might know that they're near civilization when they start finding trees in the woods that have been tapped, for pitch or for sap. They might find a forester's trap line and trace it back to his hut to get medical care. Maybe they retrace the passage of a peasant and his pig out hunting for truffles. If they're coming along a coast, maybe your travelers come across the pools where sea water is dried down to salt, or the furnaces where bog iron ore is smelted.

Maybe they see a column of smoke and follow it to the house-sized kilns of a potter's yard where men work making bricks or roof tiles. From miles away they could smell the unmistakeable odor of pine sap being rendered down into pitch, and follow that to a village. Or they hear the flute playing of a shepherd boy whiling away the hours in the high pasture.

They could find the clearing where the charcoal burners recently broke down an earth kiln, and follow the hoof prints and drag marks of their horse and sledge as they hauled the charcoal back to civilization. Or follow the sound of metal on stone to a quarry or gravel pit. Maybe they know they're nearly to town when they come across a clay bank with signs of recent clay gathering.

Of course around every town and city there will be farms, more densely packed the closer you are. But don't just think of fields of grains or vegetables. Think of managed woodlands, like maybe trees coppiced-- cut and then regrown--to customize the shape or size of the branches. Cows being grazed in a communal green. Waiting as a huge flock of ducks is driven across the road. Orchards in bloom.

If they're approaching by road, there will be things best done out of town. The threshing floor where grain is beaten with flails or run through crushing wheels to separate the grain from its casing, and then winnowed, using the wind to carry away the chaff. Laundresses working in the river, their linens bleaching on the grass at the drying yard. The stench of the tanners, barred from town for stinking so badly. The rushing wheel-race and great creaking wheel of the flour mill.

If it's a larger town, there might be a livestock market outside the gates, with goats milling in woven willow pens or chickens in wooden cages. Or a line of horses for the wealthier buyer or your desperate travelers. There might be a red light district, escaping the regulations of the city proper, or plain old slums. More industrial yards, like the yards where fabric is dyed (these might also smell quite bad, like rotting plant material, or urine).

There are so many things that preindustrial people did and would find familiar that we just don't know about now. So much of life was lived out in the open for anyone to see. Make your world busy and loud and colorful!

[atlantic-riona]

'the greatest reveal in the history of media was-' no. the greatest reveal in the history of media was in the novel Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones (1986), wherein after having spent the entire book up to this point in the fantasy land of Ingary, where fairy tales come true, it is revealed that the real reason that Howl is so odd, so strange, so different from everyone else is that he is not, in fact, like everyone else. and this is not because he is a wizard, or a layabout, or heartless--it is because he is Welsh. as in, he is from modern day Wales. as in, he and his pals from Magic World go for a quick trip to visit his family in Wales, circa 1984-6. and suddenly everything about Howl Pendragon aka Howell Jenkins suddenly makes a lot more sense

[atlantic-riona]

psych style adaptation of king arthur where everyone thinks merlin has magic because he keeps solving camelot’s problems but he actually has no magical ability at all and it’s just that everyone else is incompetent. he keeps up the magic thing though by making up weird prophecies and cryptic comments because he kind of needs a job

[atlantic-riona]

Me: *googling an object to learn about it*

Google: Buy? You want to buy? Buying it? Amazon Etsy eBay Wish Shein? You are buying it now?

[atlantic-riona]

THIS IS KILLING ME. HELP

[atlantic-riona]

a deeply underrated part of the gay taylor swift conspiracy theories is that if they're right and she really has spent over a decade sending subliminal messages based on minute details for people to decode then she's uuuuuh. I mean she's insane. she's jigsaw. she's the riddler. her dad bought her career because if she didn't have music to distract her she would have started building deathtraps.

[atlantic-riona]

[atlantic-riona]

Possibly the greatest NPR exchange ever recorded

[atlantic-riona]

[atlantic-riona]

do publishers realize that advertising books using fanfic tropes spoils the experience of reading an original story. stop telling me it’s enemies to lovers and there was only one bed and unrequited love hurt comfort golden retriever black cat timeloop major character death. why do i give a fuck if i don’t know any of the characters and now plus i already know the entire plot of the story. that’s what ao3 is supposed to be for

[atlantic-riona]

The Wichita Beacon, Kansas, August 9, 1918

[atlantic-riona]

young man. what is that you have found.

I said young man. you picked it up off the ground.

I said young man. you should put that thing down.

I don't think! that! you! should! eat that!

[atlantic-riona]

my most american trait is that i love hanging out in a parking lot

[atlantic-riona]

"this book has this trope", "this book has that trope"... what happened to SUMMARIES. what's the PLOT.

[atlantic-riona]

ppl who think jungkook is princess Diana have a stronger argument than people who think taylor swift is gay