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[imthepunchlord]

I found this camera on the subway and look what was inside...

[imthepunchlord]

Quiet Protagonists

I'm not sure if others have come to this same conclusion, but another reason I love Spy x Family is for how quiet the leads are.

Sure they can be loud and exuberant, but that is only during times when they are trying to make a spectacle of themselves (or Yor is drunk).

A lot of the absurdity or volume you usually get from shows (especially comedy) only happens in their heads. Even then, these drawn out sequences for us the viewer is less than a second for the characters.

Loid comes off as the cool, collected, and calculating spy or the happy, family man, father; while on the inside he is always one step away from a panic attack.

Yor is the warm, overly polite, and naive clerk or an unbeatable assassin; but in her own head she is constantly worried about managing her strength or killing everyone around her to get out of small talk.

Then there is Anya. Anya is four and has daydreams and imaginings to match this. As a telepath, she is naturally in her own head quite a bit and isn't the chattiest amongst her friends. Meanwhile, Anya's mind is where we the audience experience the majority of the chaos found in every other characters minds.

[imthepunchlord]

You can do it Franky ! ⚾️💪

[imthepunchlord]

THE STARDEW VALLEY AU YOU POSTED ON INSTA?!? GENIUS. MORE OF THAT PLEASE 🙏 (Only if you want to of course!)

HEHE I'M GLAD PEOPLE LIKED IT!!!! i've been pondering on it for a long long time now

have these ole (and new!) drawings on it!

i should draw more for it tbh tbh tbh

also for people who didn't see the instagram post: so this is a stardew valley au in which damian's the farmer and anya's . practically in the role of the wizard except a lot more involved with the farmer's life bc idk it felt weird to me to make anya a completely normal person living in a town AWJKSDL

this way she keeps her mind reading bc yippee magic

[imthepunchlord]

when i say everybody, i'm actually referring to me.

[imthepunchlord]

i keep saying im gonna share hanamusa kids doodles but i never do lol. here's some! got more and maaaay share at a later date but im trying not to get attached and i know you guys are gonna egg me on LOLOL

*not canon in my au i just love making fankids and am constantly suffering from baby fever

[imthepunchlord]

Random Story Setting Idea (you don't have to do anything with this if you don't want to, I just want to see writers' thoughts when they hear these prompts):

A charming and inviting cafe with steampunk-inspired decor and clockwork gadgets in a world where people can change their physical form.

Celest wondered if this had been a good idea.

She had her suspicions, and she felt she had to act on them. The integrity of Julian Joyrous was at stake. She knows that for elves, accusation of theft were not to be treated lightly. They were proud people, and held themselves to a high standard.

It had been such a seen when Hydraal rampaged her way into their study date, grabbing the elf by his throat and hauling him back to his room. The draconian then ripped out the drawers of his dresser, revealing her stolen treasure.

Celest tried to reason that it was a framing, that there was no way that Julian would loser himself to such standards.

But Hydraal would not be so easily soothed.

And poor Julian looked so enraged and shocked, Celest feared that he was going to faint.

It was with luck that Headmistress Katlyn was able to calm Hydraal down, promising that they'd look into this, in her own coy cat-like manner. It really had been quite a sight seeing the two foot tall black cat staring up at the nine foot dragon-like being, not even batting an eye as icy mist blew past Hydraal's nostrils. But she was the headmaster of the College of Valore. She wouldn't be so if she was so easily intimidated.

But fortunately, or unfortunately, Celest did have an idea on who had done it.

She could always sense the small shift, that brush of fae magic. She had suspected for a while, and with this, maybe it was time to confirm it.

Still, she wondered if this was a good idea.

Celest looked around the Tinker, her favorite cafe that she discovered during her time attending the College of Valore. As an artificer, she longed enjoyed the various clocks and gadgets set around the cafe, the hum of their clicks and the thrum of magic that powered them. It made her think of home. Of her father's workshop. If she closed her eyes, she could be there, joining them as they worked on updating her mother's stave...

"If I was a date, I'd be put off seeing you look ready for a nap."

Celest had a start, looking up to see him here.

The quirky and enigmatic Lestrey.

To most, he looked like a common human. Brown hair, brown eyes, peach colored skin; but Celest could always feel something was off with him. And for someone who didn't attend her College, it was weird to see him hanging around.

She narrowed her eyes, and corrected him strictly, "This is not a date."

"Good. As the addition of your fuzzy buddy would also throw off your potential suitor."

Celest's brow furrowed in confusion, and looked over her shoulder and groaned.

There, a couple of tables away, sat Lunu. The bugbear perked when their eyes met, and all four arms whipped out to wave at her excitedly, the moth-like being oblivious so her quiet exhaustion seeing him.

She groaned, turning away and burying her face in her hands. "He's not supposed to be here," she mumbled.

Did that mean Lunu was nearby for her study date?!

Lestrey laughed good naturally, plopping down in the chair across from her. He offered in a merry tone, "I say take it as a compliment. Most think bugbears are drawn to fire but in truth, they're drawn to light." He gave her a wink. "Maybe there's more to your brilliance than you realize."

Celest gave him a flat stare, not believing him at all.

The youngest daughter of a blacksmith and a local caption of guards? In one of the smaller villages in the outskirts of Chivalryon?

Celest was certain it was only because she made herself a self-lighting lantern.

She was a little surprised that bugbears didn't flock to elves more often, they were the favored children of Nus, were they not? The brightest god of all?

Clearing her throat as she pushed those thoughts back, she gave a fast look around to make sure no one was listening. Lunu was closest, but the overgrown moth wasn't going to blab anything to anyone. So Celest leaned forward, giving Lestrey a hard stare.

Amused and intrigued, Lestrey leaned towards her as well, head tilted curiously.

In a whisper, she half stated, half accused, "You're a changeling, aren't you?"

For a moment, Lestrey just blinked at her, his smile dropping. He didn't look as surprised as Celest anticipated, just vacant. She quickly continued before the troublemaker could reply.

"And you're targeting Julian, you framed him with theft."

Lestrey released a breathe, his lips quirkiness up. "Haa, that's quite a bold accusation. You got a lot on confidence in that?"

"I can feel the fae magic from you," Celest insisted. "It's like... a change. You're never far every time I feel it."

He hummed thoughtfully, closing his eyes as he lent on his hand. "And how can a fully human artist such as yourself sense that?"

Celest winced, looking down at her hands sheepishly. "I, I don't know," she admitted.

Technically, her sensitivity to magic in general should be low. Even if artists were mages, their magic was so weak they needed mediums to wield magic. Which has led to many unique magic usage, much of it has been awe inspiring, but it did mean a weak connection to magic. Celest, as an artistic artificer, shouldn't have any means of sensing magic.

So how could she sense Lestrey?

"See, this is ehy I think there's more to your 'brilliance' than you realize. Are you sure of your heritage? Or were you classified right? Sure you're not a wizard?"

Celest scoffed. "I'm definitely not a wizard. I can't even cast a simple ember! And, yes, I am certain of my heritage."

"I don't know," Lestrey drawled out. "You did get lost in the Chasmic Maze, and you didn't have your little light up thing. It is pitch black down there, but you got around pretty decently."

Celest frowned. That was true... then she had a start. She snapped, pointing a serious finger at him. "Hey! Don't change the subject!"

He held up his hands in mock defense, but kept his aggravating smirk.

"You are a changeling." Her glare softened slightly. "And you were there to see me out."

He blew out a sigh, pouting. But he did have his irises go white for a moment, all the confirmation that she needed, before his eyes went back to brown.

"Why did you frame Julian?" Celest asked.

"I was bored, and I thought it'd be funny."

"That's it?!"

"Well..." Lestrey drawled, "I guess I was feeling rather petty."

"What did he do?" Celest wondered cautiously.

Staring at her with a cold expression, Lestrey stated in a serious tone, "He took the last elderberry muffin from the Glazed Gooseberry Bakery."

"Are you..." Celest couldn't even finish her sentence groaning in frustration.

"So what now?"

Celest glanced his way. "What do you mean?"

"You discovered a wicked changeling lives in your community. What are you going to do about it?"

"I'm going to have you confess and clear the air between Julian and Hydraal," Celest stated, like it should be obvious.

"...That's it?"

"Yes."

"Hm, nah."

Before Celest could insist he does, the satyr clerk at the counter called out in a bored tone, "A creamy coffee and chocolate chip muffin for a Dreamy McGee?"

Lestrey was on his feet and at the counter in a flash, giving her a wink as he loudly called out, "Thanks for covering for me babe! Love you! See you next time."

In a big flashy rush, he was out the door, leaving her gaping at the table.

The bored clerk turned to her, stating, "That'll be fifteen coppers."

Celest growled to herself, muttering a curse.

The satyr frowned at her. "With that attitude, it's now twenty coppers."

"What?! No! I'm sorry! I take it back!"

[imthepunchlord]

[imthepunchlord]

Have you've been enjoying the "Random Story Setting Idea" prompts you've been getting? Because the stories you've been making for them have been awesome!

I have! It's a good little writing exercise, and so far, each prompt actually has something I can work with for my original ideas. And as these ideas I would like to make into actual books, they can be nice little previews for the ideas I have and what'll hopefully come in the near future.

Though how canon these are to the upcoming works is up in the air.

But yeah, I have been enjoying them, I get one and I start think how can I work with this, so it's been nice to get creative juices flowing. And I'm glad to hear others have been enjoying them too.

[imthepunchlord]

A wild Fat HO-OH Appeared!

Inspired by this amazing plush Link

[imthepunchlord]

Reblog so everyone can hear what they need.

[imthepunchlord]

tips for choosing a Chinese name for your OC when you don’t know Chinese

This is a meta for gifset trade with @purple-fury! Maybe you would like to trade something with me? You can PM me if so!

Choosing a Chinese name, if you don’t know a Chinese language, is difficult, but here’s a secret for you: choosing a Chinese name, when you do know a Chinese language, is also difficult. So, my tip #1 is: Relax. Did you know that Actual Chinese People choose shitty names all the dang time? It’s true!!! Just as you, doubtless, have come across people in your daily life in your native language that you think “God, your parents must have been on SOME SHIT when they named you”, the same is true about Chinese people, now and throughout history. If you choose a shitty name, it’s not the end of the world! Your character’s parents now canonically suck at choosing a name. There, we fixed it!

However. Just because you should not drive yourself to the brink of the grave fretting over choosing a Chinese name for a character, neither does that mean you shouldn’t care at all. Especially, tip #2, Never just pick some syllables that vaguely sound Chinese and call it a day. That shit is awful and tbh it’s as inaccurate and racist as saying “ching chong” to mimic the Chinese language. Examples: Cho Chang from Harry Potter, Tenten from Naruto, and most notorious of all, Fu Manchu and his daughter Fah lo Suee (how the F/UCK did he come up with that one).

So where do you begin then? Well, first you need to pick your character’s surname. This is actually not too difficult, because Chinese actually doesn’t have that many surnames in common use. One hundred surnames cover over eighty percent of China’s population, and in local areas especially, certain surnames within that one hundred are absurdly common, like one out of every ten people you meet is surnamed Wang, for example. Also, if you’re making an OC for an established media franchise, you may already have the surname based on who you want your character related to. Finally, if you’re writing an ethnically Chinese character who was born and raised outside of China, you might only want their surname to be Chinese, and give them a given name from the language/culture of their native country; that’s very very common.

If you don’t have a surname in mind, check out the Wikipedia page for the list of common Chinese surnames, roughly the top one hundred. If you’re not going to pick one of the top one hundred surnames, you should have a good reason why. Now you need to choose a romanization system. You’ll note that the Wikipedia list contains variant spellings. If your character is a Chinese-American (or other non-Chinese country) whose ancestors emigrated before the 1950s (or whose ancestors did not come from mainland China), their name will not be spelled according to pinyin. It might be spelled according to Wade-Giles romanization, or according to the name’s pronunciation in other Chinese languages, or according to what the name sounds like in the language of the country they immigrated to. (The latter is where you get spellings like Lee, Young, Woo, and Law.)  A huge proportion of emigration especially came from southern China, where people spoke Cantonese, Min, Hakka, and other non-Mandarin languages.

So, for example, if you want to make a Chinese-Canadian character whose paternal source of their surname immigrated to Canada in the 20s, don’t give them the surname Xie, spelled that way, because #1 that spelling didn’t exist when their first generation ancestor left China and #2 their first generation ancestor was unlikely to have come from a part of China where Mandarin was spoken anyway (although still could have! that’s up to you). Instead, name them Tse, Tze, Sia, Chia, or Hsieh.

If you’re working with a character who lives in, or who left or is descended from people who left mainland China in the 1960s or later; or if you’re working with a historical or mythological setting, then you are going to want to use the pinyin romanization. The reason I say that you should use pinyin for historical or mythological settings is because pinyin is now the official or de facto romanization system for international standards in academia, the United Nations, etc. So if you’re writing a story with characters from ancient China, or medieval China, use pinyin, even though not only pinyin, but the Mandarin pronunciations themselves didn’t exist back then. Just… just accept this. This is one of those quirks of having a non-alphabetic language.

(Here’s an “exceptions” paragraph: there are various well known Chinese names that are typically, even now, transliterated in a non-standard way: Confucius, Mencius, the Yangtze River, Sun Yat-sen, etc. Go ahead and use these if you want. And if you really consciously want to make a Cantonese or Hakka or whatever setting, more power to you, but in that case you better be far beyond needing this tutorial and I don’t know why you’re here. Get. Scoot!)

One last point about names that use the ü with the umlaut over it. The umlaut ü is actually pretty critical for the meaning because wherever the ü appears, the consonant preceding it also can be used with u: lu/lü, nu/nü, etc. However, de facto, lots of individual people, media franchises, etc, simply drop the umlaut and write u instead when writing a name in English, such as “Lu Bu” in the Dynasty Warriors franchise in English (it should be written Lü Bu). And to be fair, since tones are also typically dropped in Latin script and are just as critical to the meaning and pronunciation of the original, dropping the umlaut probably doesn’t make much difference. This is kind of a choice you have to make for yourself. Maybe you even want to play with it! Maybe everybody thinks your character’s surname is pronounced “loo as in loo roll” but SURPRISE MOFO it’s actually lü! You could Do Something with that. Also, in contexts where people want to distinguish between u and ü when typing but don’t have easy access to a keyboard method of making the ü, the typical shorthand is the letter v. 

Alright! So you have your surname and you know how you want it spelled using the Latin alphabet. Great! What next?

Alright, so, now we get to the hard part: choosing the given name. No, don’t cry, I know baby I know. We can do this. I believe in you.

Here are some premises we’re going to be operating on, and I’m not entirely sure why I made this a numbered list:

Chinese people, generally, love their kids. (Obviously, like in every culture, there are some awful exceptions, and I’ll give one specific example of this later on.)

As part of loving their kids, they want to give them a Good name.

So what makes a name a Good name??? Well, in Chinese culture, the cultural values (which have changed over time) have tended to prioritize things like: education; clan and family; health and beauty; religious devotions of various religions (Buddhism, Taoism, folk religions, Christianity, other); philosophical beliefs (Buddhism, Confucianism, etc) (see also education); refinement and culture (see also education); moral rectitude; and of course many other things as the individual personally finds important. You’ll notice that education is a big one. If you can’t decide on where to start, something related to education, intelligence, wisdom, knowledge, etc, is a bet that can’t go wrong.

Unlike in English speaking cultures (and I’m going to limit myself to English because we’re writing English and good God look at how long this post is already), there is no canon of “names” in Chinese like there has traditionally been in English. No John, Mary, Susan, Jacob, Maxine, William, and other words that are names and only names and which, historically at least, almost everyone was named. Instead, in Chinese culture, you can basically choose any character you want. You can choose one character, or two characters. (More than two characters? No one can live at that speed. Seriously, do not give your character a given name with more than two characters. If you need this tutorial, you don’t know enough to try it.) Congratulations, it is now a name!!

But what this means is that Chinese names aggressively Mean Something in a way that most English names don’t. You know nature names like Rose and Pearl, and Puritan names like Wrestling, Makepeace, Prudence, Silence, Zeal, and Unity? I mean, yeah, you can technically look up that the name Mary comes from a etymological root meaning bitter, but Mary doesn’t mean bitter in the way that Silence means, well, silence. Chinese names are much much more like the latter, because even though there are some characters that are more common as names than as words, the meaning of the name is still far more upfront than English names.

So the meaning of the name is generally a much more direct expression of those Good Values mentioned before. But it gets more complicated!

Being too direct has, across many eras of Chinese history, been considered crude; the very opposite of the education you’re valuing in the first place. Therefore, rather than the Puritan slap you in the face approach where you just name your kid VIRTUE!, Chinese have typically favoured instead more indirect, related words about these virtues and values, or poetic allusions to same. What might seem like a very blunt, concrete name, such as Guan Yu’s “yu” (which means feather), is actually a poetic, referential name to all the things that feathers evoke: flight, freedom, intellectual broadmindness, protection…

So when you’re choosing a name, you start from the value you want to express, then see where looking up related words in a dictionary gets you until you find something that sounds “like a name”; you can also try researching Chinese art symbolism to get more concrete names. Then, here’s my favourite trick, try combining your fake name with several of the most common surnames: 王，李，陈. And Google that shit. If you find Actual Human Beings with that name: congratulations, at least if you did f/uck up, somebody else out there f/ucked up first and stuck a Human Being with it, so you’re still doing better than they are. High five!

You’re going to stick with the same romanization system (or lack thereof) as you’ve used for the surname. In the interests of time, I’m going to focus on pinyin only.

First let’s take a look at some real and actual Chinese names and talk about what they mean, why they might have been chosen, and also some fictional OC names that I’ve come up with that riff off of these actual Chinese names. And then we’ll go over some resources and also some pitfalls. Hopefully you can learn by example! Fun!!!

Let’s start with two great historical strategists: Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu, and the names I picked for some (fictional) sons of theirs. Then I will be talking about Sun Shangxiang and Guan Yinping, two historical-legendary women of the same era, and what I named their fictional daughters. And finally I’ll be talking about historical Chinese pirate Gan Ning and what I named his fictional wife and fictional daughter. Uh, this could be considered spoilers for my novel Clouds and Rain and associated one-shots in that universe, so you probably want to go and read that work… and its prequels… and leave lots of comments and kudos first and then come back. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

(I’m just kidding you don’t need to know a thing about my work to find this useful.)

Keep reading

[imthepunchlord]

[imthepunchlord]

you think your sister's bad...?

[imthepunchlord]

You know, seeing you mentioning Marinette weirdly having blue eyes reminds me of how often it's mentioned in miraculous DC crossover fics where they have Marinette be the daughter of Bruce Wayne and Sabine Cheng.

Oh the more you know.

Which given what Bruce can do, yeah that can be pretty plausible for him as Marinette’s father.

[imthepunchlord]

It could also be a way to make Marinette "special". Astruc does take a lot of inspiration from anime, and I think it's an old trope in eastern media for a protag to have blue eyes if they're "magical", but I don't think it's that popular a trope anymore?

Someone correct me if I'm wrong as I'm not entirely sure on that.

Alternatively, when thinking a more white passing/whitewashed Marinette would be more appealing, they really wanted a blue eyed protagonist, and decided it'd be best with her than the blond male lead who does have a blue eyed father.

But visually, it is weird that you just don't see blue eyes anywhere in the Dupain family. Clearly she wasn't much of a consideration when designing the family.

Maybe she's actually adopted?

So, even being flexible with genetics, it is so weird to me that they gave Marinette blue eyes but they don't give her a relative that has blue eyes.

All the Dupains (that we know of so far) have different shades of green eyes. Though Gina is hard to see with her eyes so dark, but they are green.

I don't know if genetically if blue and green eyes are close and that could be a reason; but it is just baffling to me that Marinette clearly wasn't really factored in when designing her extended family and offering where the eye color could've come from.

I really do wish that they stuck to Marinette having dark gray eyes as she did initially in some of her concepts.

And that when she was Ladybug, her eyes would turn blue cause Tikki has blue eyes, and we do see that a human's eye color can change to match the kwami's.

And it could've been a good way to hide her identity without needing to change herself up too much as blue eyes would suggested she's a full European instead of French Chinese.