#Native American fantasy

[milkcos]

lemonade mouth/band au! more notes under the cut

lemonade as in like the disney movie! so there are a couple like clear comparisons but mostly it's the bad kids get stuck in detention together except they form a band instead of an adventuring party

fabian > no equivalent (olivia vibes)

the most popular kid at school who is both in dance and on the football team. somehow gets decent grades as well. no close friends, but a lot of people who know him and want to get on his good side. kind of depressed, and his dad's currently in prison. he started playing the guitar as a way to show off and then genuinely started enjoying it

adaine > mo

she's a concert violist (playing the viola) always an accompaniment for her sister and is striking it out on her own for the first time. her family is very upset about this, and consistently puts her down so she'll go along with they want her to do. also she recently transitioned to going to public school for the first time, making her the new girl.

kristen > no equivalent

she's recently ex mormon, got out of her parents house (currently living in her car) and without all of her former friends stuck in a student president position that she got when she was still with the religion. questioning her sexuality after one too many encounters with the soccer team captain, tracker. used to be on the church choir, was a bit too enthusiastic about it.

gorgug > no equivalent (charlie vibes)

he's got like one or two kinda friends (mainly fig). extremely busy with his classes and with marching band and self isolating as a result. he's stressed out about living up to his parent's name (they run a very successful electric engineering company). signed up to work as a sound tech for the theatre department bc one of the female stage managers is very cute (zelda) and then discovered that he rlly like it.

riz > no equivalent

no friends! (other than maybe the AV club + penny) too used to burying himself in work at both his part time gig and with his insane amount of extracurriculars. started playing the piano bc he heard it helps with memory retention and overall cognitive ability.

fig > stella/wen

she's the cool loner skater kid who is the floater friend mostly? she's got a maybe relationship with ayda, who she loves to annoy at the school library. very interested in making her own music not very interested in school. freaking out over her parents getting remarried. her mom enrolled her in music lessons when she was younger, and it's one of the only things she can talk about with her mom these days.

[maplewozapi]

Final fantasy XIV characters commission, I had so much fun with this commission! She’s so gorgeous 🩷💖💜😆🎀

[descendinight]

西海岸West coast

[neechees]

[image description: semi realistic digital fan art of characters from Lord of The Rings. On the left is a near fully rendered, full color drawing of a warrior: they are carrying a rawhide shield with three different colored horses in a ledger art style, with a green, turquoise, and red horse. The warrior is wearing a fully beaded white vest with a red scarf tied in the front with a round shell tie. Their black hair is tied into two braids with red hair wraps, and falls just below their breast. They wear a striped red, plains war horse mask and a porcupine roach. Their showing arm that holds the shield is painted black with stripes going down their muscular arm. To the right of the warrior are two busts stacked vertically labeled “Eomer” and “Eowyn”, with syllabics next to the names. They both have long black hair, a hooked nose, a square jaw, and full lips, and look related. Eomer has two hair pieces in front of his ears wrapped in beads and forehead bangs tapered to a square point, and thick eyebrows. Eowyn has thinner eyebrows and fuller cheeks. end image description.]

okay so hear me out. Plains Native Rohirrim. Featuring Eowyn, Eomer, and Eowyn as “Dernhelm” in full warrior gear.

[rs-hawk]

Piasa Bird bringing you shiny objects and relocating his nest by the river so you can see how beautiful it looks during the day or with the stars shining off of it. His smile faltering when he sees the pollution clogging up the river and making it look murky and muddy. It’s the first time you’ve seen him anything but confident and strong.

His reptilian eyes clouded with memory and emotion as he lands back in the nest, sitting on the far edge away from you. You assure him you still think it’s a lovely spot. You like the scenery. He doesn’t really respond for a little while, then asks why humans do this. You don’t have a good answer, so you just take one of his wings, wrapping it around yourself like you would a human partner’s arm.

You both sit in silence until the sun sets, then you point out how beautiful the stars look twinkling off the water. That at least makes him grin, showing off his mouth full of razor sharp teeth.

[rs-hawk]

Okay so I wasn’t going to say anything else about this after that ask, but if I don’t, I feel like this might bother me for awhile. It is very important to me to have stories featuring my culture. Yes it’s “just smut” for the most part, but until I started writing it, I had literally never even read a romance novel with an Indigenous main character in any capacity.

Growing up, the only movies I saw myself portrayed in positively and not the butt of a joke was Spirit, Brother Bear and Dances with Wolves. Books I can think of a couple more, but they were primarily folklore/cultural stories that got illustrated. Yes, what I write isn’t going to touch some kid’s life and make them feel represented, but it makes ME feel represented. It makes ME feel seen. I know it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but to me it is. I have always been put down and made fun of for being “Indian”.

Don’t come onto my blog and tell me I’m being disrespectful by using my own culture in my writing. I’ve written so many stories using my own culture and literally one using Wahzhazhe traditional language because I’m learning it. I and other Indigenous Peoples deserve to be able to express ourselves using our own culture without being accused of stealing it. Don’t accuse someone of being disrespectful when they’re creating their own representation because their entire life they can count on one hand the amount of positive representation they’ve had. If you don’t know, check out their blog or just ask. That’s less upsetting and offensive imo than jumping to accusing me of stealing my own culture.

This is like getting upset with 1876 or Walela for using terms like “Indian” or “Rez” because you don’t know they’re Indigenous bands.

[browsethestacks]

Dani

Art by Maria Wolf

[nizar-dreams]

As amazing as Fantastic Beast is with all of the interesting creatures and additional lore, I loathe the take on the American Magical World. And not because American pride (‘Merica🇺🇸🦅🇺🇸🦅🇺🇸🦅) but because that might work in New York, but that social structure sure as fuck don’t work the farther west you get.

Each state is different, it gives them their charms, and each state also has… drumroll please 🥁🥁🥁🥁

NATIVE AMERICANS!!! Yes the people who’ve been on these lands since before the first of the 13 colonies even existed!!!

Can you imagine Magical America? The creatures who lived alongside tribes? The giant forests? Hell, the other sentient beings like the centaurs, goblins, elves, etc.? Imagine:

The great Rivers and Lakes guarded by the merfolk and swimming with the great salmons, occasionally assisting the tribes along their borders so they all may share what the waters have to offer them

The great Plains and Forests with centaur tribes being mighty and powerful, guardians of the lands and occasionally allying with the human tribes

Elves that are still short but mighty and healthy and who get mistaken for native children when they live alongside human tribes

Goblins living deep in the caves of mountains, living happily with little human interaction besides for trading for safe passages and materials.

Imagine the werewolves loving their inner wolves and having their own tribes and living peacefully in their homes.

Imagine that, for thousands, and hundreds of years they lived in peace, occasionally waring against themselves but things happen of course but they way the magic and earth had never been so healthy as it was. Gods imagine Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon? Or the Mojave Desert? The great basins, the plateaus…

And then, when the Europeans started claiming the land that the magical beings fought to protect the lands they have lived on for centuries, the creatures of the forest hiding the remnants of their great lands from human eyes and hands, protecting the magic that slowly dies as the land gets destroyed and the magical beings who called those lands home started to die and could no longer protect the land.

That they tried to cling and hide and fight for their homes with whatever they could, but when the magical Europeans got involved it just went to hell for the magical beings.

The Native Reservations, National Parks/Lands, and deep into the mountains, are some of the few places that magical creatures can live in relative peace. The centaurs are not as many, and the elves either live on the reservations or the forests. The goblins are not like their European kin, but they are not the same as they were, now instead of trade for safe passage it is trade for protection of human materials or trading for goblin creations. The merfolk have perished in most lakes and rivers where humans have polluted or hunted their food to extinction. The magical creatures who once lived on the land are either hunted down for sport or for being declared born of hell.

Now imagine Ilvermorny, created by a mother who wanted her children to learn magic, and turned into a way for tribes to take shelter and teach their ways as well as learn other ways for magic. The school cropping up in the midst of Magical Americas downfall becomes a place that the few tribes not driven out of their home learn different form of magic while creating a foundation for Native American magic to survive and be taught in the school. Imagine multiple sister schools (because America is too big for there ti be only one school) to the original Ilvermorny being created to teach, to embrace and preserve a culture they refuse to let be erased.

Years later and it is a core course that gets taught, and keeps a part of a culture alive that was on the bring of complete erasure.

Imagine that when African slaves started appearing and become enslave, those who escaped and found themselves at Ilvermorny schools, they started teaching their magics as well. Then as more minorities started to appear in America, so did the lessons in certain Ilvermorny schools where these minorities were prevalent.

America is a cauldron full of magical cultures being mixed, and Ilvermorny is the first to openly teach different magical cultures. The southern schools involve more Mexican, Spaniard, some French, and African magical courses, while the north is more French. The east coast is more influenced by British magics, while the west coast is influenced by the Spaniard, Chinese, and Russian.

They all had their own mix and all have the main course shared by the people who lived their first, but magical america is sooo much more more fascinating and so young still! There is still so much that I can’t possibly cover without a month of research! And we haven’t even reached the southern hemisphere!

Fantastic Beast is great, but it’s missing the uniqueness and complexity of America. And I can only dip a finger into the endless possibilities of the magical American world.

[katiajewelbox]

Hey everyone, I think I just found "Native American Magic Knights Rayearth"!

[submissive-and-readable]

Sheine Lende by Darcie Little Badger

Source: NetGalley ARC

Publisher: Levine Querido

Release date: 16 April 2024

Genre: young adult historical/urban fantasy (70s rural Texas)

If you like:

dogs (ghost dogs!)

various ghost animals, existing and extinct

no romance whatsoever

hope and community in the midst of grief and loss

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Synopsis

Shane works with her mother and their ghost dogs, tracking down missing persons even when their families can't afford to pay. Their own family was displaced from their traditional home years ago following a devastating flood - and the loss of Shane's father and her grandparents. They don't think they'll ever get their home back.

Then Shane's mother and a local boy go missing, after a strange interaction with a fairy ring. Shane, her brother, her friends, and her lone, surviving grandparent - who isn't to be trusted - set off on the road to find them. But they may not be anywhere in this world - or this place in time.

Nevertheless, Shane is going to find them.

Content warnings

Colonisation

Loss of close family members

Illness

Natural disasters

Grief

Review

I found out about this book while scrolling through NetGalley, and the second I saw that it was a prequel to Elatsoe, I had to read it.

This is a prequel about Elatsoe's grandmother Shane as a 17 year old girl, but you don't have to read Elatsoe to know what's going on, and both books can be read in either order as standalones.

This book is so well-crafted and thoughtful; it took me a little while to fully immerse myself in the story, because the setting and vibe is so different from Elatsoe, and it is a little slower paced, but once I got into the groove, the story flowed over me.

We follow Shane as she tries to figure out the mystery of her mother's and a child's disappearance, and along the way we learn about her history, as well as explore her relationships with her family and friends.

A strong focus of the book is on Shane's grief; grief from losing not only her home and her family members, but also losing her culture and language. This book tackles the harms caused by colonialism, which goes beyond stealing land, but also erases culture and peoples.

At its heart, this book is about family and community. At times Shane may feel alone, like she has to take on her burdens by herself, but her friends and family are always there for her (dead or alive).

I also loved Rovina Cai's lovely illustrations at each chapter heading; they tell a story parallel to the main story, and they add another layer of depth.

Overall, this is book was written full of heart, and it shows <3

[siryl]

"Animal Spirits" by Norval Morrisseau.

[voluptuarian]

in Dune Duncan Idaho's central importance to the future success and evolution of humanity is a metaphor for the impact of potatoes, chief agricultural product of the state of Idaho, in stabilizing global food supply and nutrition for centuries, in this essay I will

[ravenkhor]

WIP art of Nuvua Tuktulok and her son, Ikumak Tuktulok.

Nuvua and Ikumak are both healers, though only she can use her abilities due to the fact Ikumak doesn't have all ten fingers on his hand. Though, both of them have physical features of the Tuktulok family's magic, giving them green eyes when naturally they would be brown.

There's a lot of antler coding in the patterns in her gloves (which are made to be similar to Kakiniit, which she does have on her face) to call back to the Caribou spirit they descend from :)

Ikumak has a lot less of a natural-themed design, as he takes on a completely new role unlike any of his ancestors.

[breannaelise-blog]

I have learned that the point of life’s walk is not where or how far I move my feet but how I am moved in my heart.

📸: @fay_baldwin

[texasthrillbilly]

Halt! Who goes there?

[rs-hawk]

I’ve never read anything with Indigenous main characters/reader POV before. I’m mixed and this means a lot to me. I noticed the little details in my brothers hot friend. Is the reader their native too? Noticed the mention of the braid on a man and stuff so hoping 🙏

I’m cryinggg. Sobbing, actually. I’m also mixed but I identify more with my Indigenous side (I live in the US, how I look, culturally, etc) and I struggled a lot as a kid to find any kind of positive rep. That’s one of the reasons I write so much. Obviously what I write now isn’t for kids, but I think, no matter how old you are, finding positive reputation when you’ve been starved for it can feel good. It makes me feel good. Thank you for reading and I hope you continue to enjoy ❤️

ALSO YES I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU NOTICED 😭 Ofc I want everyone to be able to read from their own POV which is why that’s the only detail about the reader I added, but yes that’s why. I wanted to go into a little more detail, like partial head shaving, specific tattoos/piercings, but I decided not to for it to be easier to project. But yes, for me, the Reader in My Brother’s Hot Friend is Indigenous.