#also i've included descriptions and sources for the pictures

[martiestudies]

hi. i've been inactive for a while and will probably continue to be due to the social and political circumstances in my country

if you're not familiar with argentina's university system please take a moment to read this:

as of last week, on oct 9th 2024, a presidential veto was passed on a law about the national university budget. the law was intended as a wage compensation, because for a few months now (and with the worsening economical situation) professors salaries as well as other university workers salaries have been below minimum wage. our teachers can't make ends meet.

all year we've had had public classes, weekly strikes, protests and all kinds of other forms of demands against the continuous and accelerated dismantling of our public education system, one of the pillars and prides of argentina.

particularly this year the situation has been dire because the salaries of our professors and other uni staff have been rapidly loosing purchasing power in a very short amount of time. there's been two historical rallies across the entire country defending our free and public education system:

the student movement in argentina has always been historical. many goverments have tried to take away our rights before, and we have always fought back. you can't learn about argentina's history without mentioning the force of its university students.

i didn't want to make too long of a post, but honestly i don't know how to summarize the severity of the situation:

we are looking at possibly stopping classes indefinitely, because the goverment has been defunding the national university budgets (along with our national science system and healthcare system, might i add) and we can't continue like this.

as i've said, this is not the first time the student forces have to protest for our rights.

a few weeks ago the Congress debated a law of university funding, that declared "budgetary emergency of the national university system, given the increasing costs of essential goods and services, the impact that they have for salary commitments and operating expenses of all national universities." basically, to ingrease asap the budget because otherwise the system cannot work.

the law passed both representative cameras of the Congress, and then was vetoed by the president, Javier Milei. as stated in our constitution, a veto can be surpassed if it goes through and is approved by 2/3 of both cameras again. however this wasn't possible because our representatives apparently don't agree with our rights, and the law finally didn't pass leaving the university system budget in a growing crisis.

student unions across all Argentina organized assemblies and took action to protest against this desition and in favor of defending the our national systems of education, but also science and healthcare.

as i'm writing this, 72 faculties (and counting) have been occupied by students, and some others have taking different types of action in different national universities across the country. there's quite a lot of footage online, but i'm leaving here some videos of the voting for the occupations (x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x) and protests (x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x). again, all this is from these past few days. and of course there's also opposition from Milei's sympathizers and police repression. still we resist.

i'm writing this in hopes of sharing our reality and trying to explain just a little bit of what we're going through as a country. this goverment has been destroying all that we cherish and pride ourselves in, the things that make Argentina a great country; a single post can't contain all of it.

[scottoro-ramblings]

Dungeon Meshi World Map

The map is largely based on the fantastic map by Ashen_Onion of Reddit, with me checking their sources in the Adventurer's Bible to confirm. It basically contains everything we know in canon, and as you can see our information is pretty strongly concentrated in the Eastern Continent.

Given that the story takes place entirely on one tiny island (excluding a few flashbacks), this is actually pretty impressive! But it still falls a bit short if someone is, for example, trying to write a TTRPG setting guide that could take place anywhere on this world.

With that in mind, let me present my brand new

Expanded Dungeon Meshi World Map

Fully based on my personal headcanon and general vibe for each region; this map adds markers and names for major cities, notable dungeons, and mage academies for every continent. It also is intended to be closer to an in-universe document, so details that are only really relevant to character backstories like character birthplaces and sealed dungeons are ommited.

I'm planning on making a political map, little descriptions of notable locations, and dungeon breakdowns for all 21 dungeons, eventually so stay tuned for that! In the meantime I've included some rambling details on things I've added below the cut.

Several of the dungeon names are based on classic D&D adventures. Let me know if you can spot any of them!

Anhk Mouru is the largest city in the world, populated primary by dwarfs. The Adventure's Bible says the southern continent has the largest dwarf city, and that island in the strait between the two halves was seemed the prefect place to set it. I picture it as halfway between Istanbul and NYC, though yes the name is a Discworld refence.

Which the exception of the eleven universities, all of the magical academies reference mythological and folkloric witches. I choose Befana Academy for the canon magic school because the old gnome instructor gave me similar vibes to the kindly witch, and Italian vibes for favorite elf!

A few names in the Eastern Archipelago are ripped straight from the Journey to the West! I also put the names in Chinese characters as I imagine them having a shared writing system (just like how most of East Asia used Chinese characters before developing thier own systems) despite several local languages being spoken.

All the noted ruins except for Utaya are remains of the ancient Ogre Empire, which I am imagining once ruled the majority of the world before they collapsed.

I also have no idea why the large island of the northern continent is described as completely uninhabited in the adventure's bible. I went back and forth on it being a inhabited by another demi-human race we haven't seen, or it being a magical wasteland like the exclusion zone around Utaya. I felt that either would have been important enough to be at least mention in official sources, so just decided to keep it vague. Might change that later so let me know if you have a preference.

[temperedink]

can i be close to you - COMPLETE!

4/4, 7.3K words

Elain and Lucien have been feeling out their tentative new relationship for a while, and Elain is getting antsy about the slow pace she's set for them. But maybe it's time to take things to the next level.

Chapter 4: Day Court. And finally, finally: they bang.

Thank you to @bibliophiliaxvignette and @itsybitsybluesy for betaing!

This chapter features:

Declarations of love

Day Court architecture

Daddy Helion just trying to help his boy get laid woo

First time!

Elain fully owning her sexual power

Read on AO3.

This is the longest chapter I've ever written, and the longest story I've ever written. (I am not meant for long stories.) I've loved this Elain and Lucien SO much, and I'm going to let them ride off into the sunset now.

Here is the titular song that I realized I've never actually included in any of these posts:

So much unnecessary detail about setting below the cut!

Writing description is really hard for me, so describing Day Court was a challenge. (Why can't I just keep them in a white room??)

I knew I wanted them to have their first time outdoors and in some sort of bower. I was originally going for something like the Bower of Bliss in Spenser's Faerie Queene, but I couldn't find a good picture or description of it. (Also, the Bower of Bliss? Actually not as blissful as it sounds.) This was as close as I got, and we can all agree that it's kinda creepy:

John Melhuish Strudwick, "Acrasia"

Then I tried for some kind of outdoor bed/drapey/viney/flowery thing, but only found terrible AI. Finally, Pinterest randomly served me up this, and I had my bower!

This is "Fancy's Bower" by Patrick Dougherty, who builds these incredible, huge sculptures from branches. This one is in Montreal.

(In the story, the bower's origin is loosely based on Stonehenge.)

The statue inside is similar to this:

by Anna and the Willow

(I had another one in mind, but when I went to source it, it seemed to be AI.)

[winreyplace]

Soulbonding is not just Spiritual/Metaphysical.

Disclaimer: I want to preface this by saying that I am not trying to deny anyone's experiences or invalidate different interpretations. I fully accept, support, and believe individuals about their soulbonding, whatever it may be. The following is more about the revisionism I've seen around what soulbonding is, what it originally meant, and how it's been used in the community since then.

For some years now, this post has been simmering inside of me, and I think it's finally time to let it loose. I've noticed that every time I go looking for resources and community around soulbonding on Tumblr, Discord, etc., there has been a heavy emphasis on soulbonding being a spiritual/metaphysical experience, which is not entirely the full picture. The fact is, there are multiple ways to approach soulbonding, and one such perspective is that of thoughtforms. Thoughtforms are psychological constructs that become real, autonomous, living entities through the power of creative imagination, conscious or subconscious intent, and the thoughts, feelings, and knowledge of the host. This type of soulbonding is the kind Mel and I practice, yet it is often overlooked and overshadowed within the modern remnants of the soulbonding community.

The exclusive focus on soulbonding as a spiritual phenomenon is not only revisionist of its original history, but it also may be excluding people who are already soulbonders (in a thoughtform way) and just don't know it or who would jump at the chance to love, connect with, and understand a character until they are alive. If we bring back the broadened definition of soulbonding that includes all experiences and perspectives, we have the potential to help the soulbonding community survive and thrive with a new crowd of selfshippers, creatives, immersive daydreamers, neurodivergents, and more!

The concept of soulbonding, though coined by Amanda Flowers in the Just for Writers mailing list, is a phenomenon which has long existed for writers and lovers of fiction: that fictional characters—when created, written about, and understood until the level of affinity—will often take on a mind of their own, "coming to life" inside the individual's head, and start interacting with them in a more direct capacity.

One study from the early 2000s referred to it as "The Illusion of Independent Agency" According to the study, 92% of the 219 participants reported that their fictional characters displayed varying levels of independence or autonomy in the author's mind, often without the conscious effort of the author. Another study conducted in 2014 surveyed 1,500 readers of fiction, with 19% of them mentioning experiencing the voices and personalities of characters staying in their minds long after finishing their stories. A quick search on the topic of "characters coming to life" shows writers and roleplayers, both of fanfiction and original fiction, sharing their experiences of characters seemingly telling their own stories or becoming "real" in their minds. Renowned authors such as Phillip Pullman, Cornelia Funke, the TERF who shall not be named, and so many more have also discussed their characters speaking to them or taking on a mind of their own as they write about them.

Now, I'm uncertain where interpreting soulbonding as a primarily spiritual phenomenon came from. I did find a few people initially involved in the JFW mailing list who were aware of and supported both spiritual and psychological theories. (It is worth noting, however, there were some regrets over calling it "soulbonding", for it implied a purely spiritual connotation when it was never meant to be strictly that.) Based on my research, I believe the main source of this misunderstanding of being a primarily metaphysical phenomenon is the description given by fictionkin.org, fromfiction, and the soulbonder Tumblr blog (all run by the same individual presenting themself as a pillar in the community) who seemed adamant on redefining soulbonding to mean being a channeller or medium of external entities.

Regardless of when spiritual soulbonding first got introduced, we psychological soulbonders have always been a part of this community from the beginning (arguably, we were the beginning), and we deserve to have our perspectives and ties to this community, this framework, this terminology, respected as much as any other kind of soulbonder. Please, if you discuss soulbonding, keep in mind the origins of this concept and strive to be inclusive of all interpretations and explanations. Clarify where you can that what you are writing is just your personal experience/interpretation, one of the many within this unique phenomenon.

To any spiritual soulbonders out there, I want to assure you that your experiences are real and valid, just as viewing them as thoughtforms is real and valid. If that idea—of "soulbond" meaning both spiritual/metaphysical and thoughtform—distresses you, it may be worth considering whether a different label with a more narrow definition that aligns with your interpretation might be a better fit. Whether a soulbond is a fictional character "come to life" or "an external entity traveling across the universe like spirits", what truly defines their realness and validity is the impact they have on our lives, how much they care for us, and how deeply we feel for them, not their point of origin.

[angelthefandomobsessed]

Not the be that one person, but to totally be that one person... There's this one account posting a bunch of stories under Twisted Wonderland on AO3 named FantasiaStories (normally I wouldn't name and shame, but uh... for reasons detailed in the rest of the post, I feel quite comfortable in calling them out). After doing a little bit of investigative journalism (because seeing these stories while browsing got real old, real fast), I'm absolutely positive that they're AI-generated.

Why do I think that?

Come with me on a little red-flag-infested deep dive.

Red flag 1: Timelines

Their AO3 account was created at the end of March, 2025. Around two months ago.

In that time, they have posted 62 fanworks, all over 1,000 words. On some days, they'll post a handful of fanfics to AO3. Here are the fandoms they post in, and how much they have posted within them.

My condolences to the Call of Duty fandom; they truly have it worse than we do.

Red flag 2: Just look at it...

Their Twisted Wonderland posts (from what I've read of them) never seem too knowledgeable. Here is a breakdown of 'The Rite of Storm and Flame', and how it betrays its own thin facade within paragraphs.

Maybe even by the summary... What jumps out at you as odd here?

Is it the correct use of the em dash? I never use them correctly in my fics, because they're a pain, I have to copy/paste them everywhere (and I only recently learned how to use them correctly... I kept putting spaces on either side, because that looks better, but no, that's only okay in journalism, or something).

The formal punctation is a bit of a red flag, but not entirely damning. Plenty of more experienced writers will use accurate punctuation throughout their fanfics... Not many (because it's a paaaaain), but they do exist.

What's really, really weird here is the 'tallest tower' of Diasomnia.

I guess it does have a tower taller than the others. By like, a bit. But why are we trapped there? Let's read on and find out. This is the opening paragraph:

So now it's an 'ancient spire'.

Now it's an observatory that is centuries old with a heavy ironing door that has a locking mechanism??? With no explanations as to why the 'author' has included that detail. What stars were we studying? Diasomnia is super murky and potentially in a pocket dimension. Why would anybody think this up? Scarabia would make more sense for stargazing, or even just Ramshackle. These might seem like small details, but they add up into a vague, nonsense picture.

Skipping down a few paragraphs, we find a description of Malleus.

Ah yes, Malleus Draconia, guardian of Diasmonia, master of arcane arts older than Diasmonia itself, which has been established to be centuries old, but has not been established to be a dorm.

Now to be fair, NRC is actually centuries old with the Lilia of it all. I believe we know that Pomefiore is the oldest dorm (because... Snow White), so Diasomnia could have been founded centuries ago, and it could have a random observatory with a random locking mechanism...

But it's all so weird, and vague, and unexplored.

We also have 'a tale to frighten apprentices' which is super weird phrasing, that implies that this isn't NRC, but some other place called Diasmonia. Is it an AU or an AI that has no idea what it's actually talking about, because it doesn't have a brain? Whoooo knows?

They do a back and forth, there's a very quick, very basic sex scene, it ends.

There's one with Leona where it references him being a prince... but it sort of frames it as sort of an English, Game of Throne-sy type of royalty. Like, here, look:

The tapestries and hall and cloak don't read as Sunset Savanna to me... They read as 'Write me a story about a prince lol'. There's no nuance, no love for the source material, and no indication that a person who cares wrote it (because they didn't write it and they certainly didn't care).

Maybe you're reading this and thinking, "Gee Angel, you're being pretty harsh... What if this is a real person? What if you're wrong, and you're trampeling over a new writer's dreams? What if they really are churning out 5,000 words a day, or whatever?"

I am 100% positive that these are works of AI.

Why do I think that..?

Red Flag 3: THEY LITERALLY SAY THAT THEY ARE

I was burying the lead for this whole thing. Sorry about that.

In the notes of their AO3 'fanfics', they put something along the lines of...

(Note: The quote does not appear anywhere in the fic, it's literally just a call to action... blegh)

Now where does that 'Try Fantasia Stories' link go..? Most people would be smart enough not to click it.

I am not most people.

It takes the moron user (me) to this.

Now I'm no private investigator, but this seems like pretty clear evidence that the stories are being generated with this CleverBot lookin' thing.

By linking to this, there is a chance that they are violating AO3's content policy... however, this might not be the case. It looks sketchier than Azul, but it might not be for profit (I'm not poking around to find out).

The website sharing a name with the account is pretty suspicious to me, though.

Fun fact: AI work is considered perfectly acceptable by AO3's current policies so uh... that's unfortunate.

It might qualify as spam, but I doubt it, because their stories are reasonably different from one another.

So... what can we do about this?

We can all mute the user, be free from their constant low-effort posts, and go about our days.

That's it from me. If you recognised this account name and thought they were real, I'm sorry to have brought this unfortunate news to you. If you had never heard about them, that's probably for the best... And if you had seen their works and found something fishy about them, I hope you feel very vindicated.

[venomspecs]

Idk how many of this blog's followers are Italian/know Italian but I know there's a couple of you, and I also know I've recommended this translation/edition before but I'm here to officially recommend it once again because I genuinely can't recommend it enough despite not even being done reading it lol. Here's some reasons why:

Opens with an essay on the composition of the Iliad by Wolfgang Schadewalt and an introduction and author's note by the translator Giovanni Cerri.

Original text and translation are side by side. A lot of Italian editions are formatted this way but it's still something worth pointing out. Honestly love this format, can't go back to just the translation after this lol. As the notes in the prologue say, the translator strived for as much accuracy in meter and meaning of the verses while still making the text understandable to a "casual" audience. Needless to say, I think it succeeded.

Every page contains splendid notes by Antonietta Gostoli. They don't get in the way of the text, everything's sourced and I'm not kidding when I say I found all of the notes useful and very very insightful. It managed to make me genuinely want to dig deeper into the construction of an ancient Greek bed for example. It makes you consider a lot of minute stuff you might've disregarded before, genuinely eye-opening experience. Also, regarding the point before this one, I appreciate it greatly when a word with multiple possible translations gets explained in a note, so that you understand the choice that went into picking one over the other. Sometimes it's metrics, sometimes an ancient author's commentary gets brought up... As I said, really in depth stuff condensed into little space, very good.

At the end of the book there's an index of every Greek word explained in the notes in alphabetical order, with the book and line for reference, as well as an index of every name. Not just the fighters but every single name including names of peoples, cities and regions and more, every name in the Iliad. All this coupled with a small description for each of the names and a list of every book and line they get mentioned. Genuinely insane stuff lol (pic below)

I'll mention some negatives because nothings perfect but they're all to do with the format and not the content itself, so they're more like nitpicks in comparison to everything else but I think it's worth mentioning too.

The paper is really really thin, you can see the page underneath in the picture above. This makes it a bit awkward to handle since I'm afraid of accidentally ripping or irreparably folding a page if I'm not careful lol.

I also find it a bit hard to easily find a specific book, since there's no book number in the pages (there is an index at the end but hey, it's a nitpick lol). I'm using sticky notes as bookmarks so it's not a big deal but I feel like such a lengthy text in such a relatively small format would benefit greatly from some sort of indication in the pages because it can get tricky to know what book you're on without looking at the index

All in all though, I thoroughly recommend this edition, I think it's just amazing, you can feel the love for the source and the dedication to its preservation and understanding all throughout, from the introductory texts to the indexes and the notes. Awesome stuff.

[hellenichaven]

⚔️Ares⚔️

Physical Description

Ares, who may also be referred to as Αρης in Greek, or Mars in translation, was commonly portrayed in Greek art in two ways.

1. A bearded warrior who was equipped and ready for battle.

Much of the time, you would see him in his helm. I feel like that's the most common way anyone pictures him when you mention him. If someone talks about Ares, at least in my personal experience, my mind automatically goes to him dressed in his warrior attire. Helm, spear/sword, etc.

2. A young, nude, and beardless man with curly hair who was still equipped with a helm and spear.

I, personally, find it really interesting how Ares is, more often than not, pictured with his helm in some sense. I suppose it makes sense since one of his main symbols and/or attributes is his helm. When depicted in Greek art, Ares was known to be either wearing or holding his helm in many pieces - the context didn't entirely matter.

Another important attribute associated with Ares is his shield, which, interestingly enough, doesn't have much detail that separates his shield from anyone else's. His shield is often depicted with an emblem of some variety, but ancient artists often drew a generic one even though Ares was a god.

Ares is considered a more difficult god to identify in ancient Greek art because there wasn't much detail that could be used to distinguish him from other warrior figures. However, I was able to find a description of what Ares might have been known to have worn.

》 Short Tunic

》 Breastplate

》 Helm

》 Greaves

Pretty much a standard Greek warrior's attire.

If Ares was depicted in armour, it was known to be golden armour that shone brightly with a burning light. His armour included:

》 Helm

》 Cuirass

》 War-belt

》 Shield

》 Greaves

I'll attach a few photos of depictions of Ares in Greek art that I've found.

This first one is from the Worchester Art Museum.

This second photo is of a statue from the Gaziantep Museum of Archeology.

The main source I use to gather this information is the Theoi Project - Greek Mythology, which I do recommend checking out if you ever want to learn more about a specific god or goddess. The link I included here is Ares' page specifically.

Keeping some conversation going though, how do you picture him when you first think of Lord Ares?

Post Divider Credit: @vibeswithrenai

[thorraborinn]

Hi there! I saw this article with some new runic inscription finds a while ago (www sciencenorway no/archaeology-runes-viking-age/rune-stick-and-game-piece-with-runic-inscriptions-found-in-eastern-norway/2430016) and I've tried a couple of times to find more about the stick that apparently says "from daring dice games come all kinds of outcomes." Do you know of a database where I could find it and the exact inscription in, I assume, old norse. I'd like to see the original untranslated words :)

I'm not as on top of this stuff as I once was, so it's possible I've missed something. But I believe that this is still too recent a find to have made it into any of the sources that are currently accessible like Samnordisk runtextdatabas.

The article doesn't attribute the translation but it was probably provided by Kristel Zilmer of the Museum of Cultural History at the University of Oslo, as she provided the image itself and all the other information in the article about runes. Zilmer has been busy recently as both the museum's go-to person for the press, and researching a number of other runic finds, so she probably just hasn't gotten around to publishing this one yet. Her CV does list something called "Runefunn i 2022 of 2023" but that doesn't seem to be something findable. So I'm inclined to think that she just provided her

Back in the day new finds would be published in Nytt om Runer but that hasn't been around since 2004. Now there is a project in the works to digitize the museum's archives in a web-accessible format but it isn't complete yet; the project is being led by none other than Kristel Zilmer (link in Norwegian).

I don't mind admitting that I personally have quite a bit of difficulty reading this. I'm getting:

þvi . a=lt . af . [s?]tirþar? . ?af?e . ?eka=r . ma=rk . sko=t

Several of those ?'s might be i but might have the twigs cut off. I suspect Zilmer is interpreting the word I wrote ?af?e as tafle, dative of tafl 'board/dice game' which you might recognize from the chess-like game hnefa-tafl. I think ma=rk is probably being read as (OIce) mǫrg 'many', and skot might be exactly what it looks like; skot at it's most literal means 'shot' but has a wide variety of uses, see also skjóta 'to shoot.'

If I were just looking at this fresh without a translation at hand I'd be very uncertain of what I wrote [s?]tirþar?. I'm seeing a very short vertical line in the beginning that looks like it could be an s, although it's quite different from what I'm calling an s in skot. If it ends with an -ar than it's probably a feminine noun in the genitive case rather than an adjective, since there's no noun to give an adjective an -ar ending. I can't find any words starting st that fit the description, and sd- is impossible in Norse, so we should probably conclude there's no s there. I might not have thought of this without the translation already provided, but I believe Zilmer is reading it as (in normalized Old Icelandic) dirfðar, genitive of dirfð 'boldness.' An f in most positions is pronounced like a "v," including here, so if you picture it as dirvðar you might see why they might not bother to write the f.

If we've done this right so far the only remaining ? is the one in ?eka=r, nor am I entirely confident that the last letter is an r (but it probably is, because we expect a verb here, and -ar is an expected ending for a singular, third-person verb). I'm not sure how this inscription is dated, or much about the development of Norwegian, so I don't know if je is possible here -- it wouldn't be in Old Icelandic. The only other runes it could be are t and l, and t makes this (sort of) legible: tekar tekar. In earlier language we'd expect tekr but maybe this is late enough that they're sticking epenthetic vowels in there, like in Nynorsk teker 'takes.'

So I'd provisionally suggest something like this, attempting to reflect features of the language it's written in, followed by the equivalent in Old Icelandic:

Þuī allt af dirfðartafle tekær marg skot Því allt af dirfðartafli tekr mǫrg skot

Which I would definitely have trouble translating directly but I can certainly see the provided translation making sense.

But I'm really seriously not confident in this at all. And I don't think I could have done even this if I weren't trying to retrofit it into an already-existing translation.

I think your options are to wait a while, either for Kristel Zilmer to publish a paper including this find or to finish the digitized runic archive project, or you could always send her an email and ask directly. Her contact info is on her page on the museum's website.

[nostalgiamare]

NOSTALGIAMARE ENTRY 41

NAME: SHEEP IN THE BIG CITY

COMPANY/FRANCHISE: CURIOUS PICTURES

CARTOON NETWORK

CATEGORY: TV SERIES (ANIMATED)

YEAR: 2000

DESCRIPTION: An original Cartoon Network animated series from popular children's book author and illustrator Mo Willems. The series follows a farm sheep named... Sheep, who is forced to flee to "The Big City" when a Secret Military Organisation is on his tail for the purpose of using him for a Sheep-Powered Ray gun. As he spends his city life on the run from the military group (Especially from leader General Specific), sheep must learn to grow accustomed to the urban lifestyle and cultures that welcome him; Including technology, trends and dating. The show's notable for it's heavy use of out of context scenery and absurd yet sophisticated and literal humour, and it's premiere quickly became Cartoon Network's highest-rated for an original series.

MOD THOUGHTS:

1:

I'm telling you these two definitely have something going on and they're not good at hiding it.

2: Hot take but for all of the Cartoon Network original cartoons I've seen, I never had one make me laugh as hard as Sheep In The Big City has. It pulls some the most random shit I've ever heard of (From the raging swede to scenes and songs that come out of nowhere and have no relation to the main plot).

3: Also, I LOVE everything about this show's direction (Voice work AND art style). It fills me with so much charm that only something from my childhood could bring. Though I guess that's because a lot of the talent behind the show had big involvement on Jim Henson Company productions.

Case in point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvO0him4Rv8

LINK TO SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4zPNaTu0opSvOeT8eJ6U9Aww09FMKIrk

[lincolndjarin]

The BKS Screen Adaptation ˖⁺‧₊˚✦

(aka the really fucking dorky thing i've wanted to do for ages.)

if you like Best Kept Secret and you've wanted to know what i imagine in my mind when i write this is the post for you. i put way too much time into this if i'm being honest, but it was so much fun i hope others enjoy it!!

includes fun things like hypothetical casting and soundtrack !!

SPOILERS FOR BEST KEPT SECRET CHAPTERS 1-25

ever since i started writing Best Kept Secret it's helped me tremendously to imagine it in more of a cinematic sense. i love movies. i love all of it, the cinematography, the soundtracks, the casting, all of it has always greatly interested me. so that's how i've always pictured bks in my head, as a movie, or more appropriately a single season of television lmao. anyhow, i've been feeling real fucking fried lately and i just started a proper schedule with my meds so i'm exhausted and i wanted to take a short break from writing to put this together, (more writing) this is long and self indulgent but i had a lot of fun with it so who cares i guess.

The Media Source :

in all honesty i think bks probably wouldn't work as a movie? this might just be the entitled author in me speaking but there is just like, so much stuff? i feel like it wouldn't be properly represented in the 90-150 minute format because there's just too much shit happening. ALSO i write my chapters the way i write my DND sessions, meaning they typically have a prominent ending point that i think translates best in a show format so i'll be presenting this as more of an Max original type beat, 13 episodes ranging from like 50 minutes to 90 in length. (pretty hefty but this is my hypothetical world where i get whatever i want lmao)

The Casting :

bks has a fair amount of original characters that all exist in my brain and in said brain i visually know what they look like and in y'alls brains you have an idea what they look like. like lowkey if i'm being real in my brain space bks is sort of animated? like in the style of arcane sort of lmao, so i don't really have physical manifestations of them but i have always had actors in mind of who i imagine would play them so here's that.

Leodall :

i mean if this is my dream hypothetical and i can do whatever i want i think it would be hilarious but also relevant to cast someone sort of silly as leo.

i think that it's important that leo is a little rat bitch by the end but also like he should be just sort of a clumsy disarming guy to start. i get a couple different vibes but like lowkey hear me out.

Jack Quaid??

like he's sort of just a lanky silly guy but also is capable of doing terrible things, i think he'd be a great leo and would also he'd be able to be disarming and likable at the start. just sort of harmless and nervous (until he isn't)

˖⁺‧₊˚✦

Lysa :

honestly the hardest person to cast. i love her dearly because in my brain she's done way more than she's done in bks lmao and it's hard for me to seperate that sometimes but i thought about it for a while and i settled on someone who i think would capture Lysa as i imagine her in my mind.

Stephanie Beatriz :

she's visually how i imagine Lysa but also i love her so i think she'd be great.

˖⁺‧₊˚✦

Elaine :

this one has always been a no brainer to me. i'd want an actress who is instantly likable and capable of bringing a character that i've grown very fond of to life. there has only ever been one person that comes to mind when i picture someone playing Elaine.

the mother herself : T'Nia Miller

Elaine & Lysa have been sort of wishy washy in description for two reasons, one being that as the story has progressed and they've developed they've become clearer in my mind, two being that there is so much bks and posting something this big chapter by chapter means sometimes i forget what i've previously said (nobodies perfect lmao) but personally T'Nia Miller is one of my favorite actresses and i think she would 100% do Elaine justice.

˖⁺‧₊˚✦

Kodo :

this has always been a tough one for me. this is kind of wild but when i started bks i never intended to kodo to be downright evil (idk if i've ever said that before but it's true lmao) i originally intended for him to be more of a harmless idiot? the plot was going to revolve more so around how princess had a lot of internal battles about cheating on a husband who was neglectful at the worst of times but still absolutely harmless.

i realized pretty quickly how much of a fucking bummer that was LMAO. it's hard to write a hot sex scene when the main characters internal monologue is full of guilt, so i VERY quickly made the switch, and it was definitely the right choice, the story needed a villain and i needed to give Kodo some sort of depth so it fell into place pretty quickly. i was also rewatching game of thrones around this time so, surprise surprise, i bet you can guess who i was inspired by. that being said, i don't think Jack Gleeson is the right choice for this role, first off bc that guy should never play a villain again lmao, get him a fucking romcom or something, but also because if i could pick anyone in this hypothetical situation i would pick an actor that is relatively beloved.

kodo is supposed to be really fucking hot (unfortunately) princess isn't interested in him because he's an ass but he's supposed to be pretty attractive, but also at the end of the say he's a prince. like we know he sucks but i would want to cast someone that lowers an audiences expectations and makes them think that he's gonna be chill at first. if you've seen the movie Promising Young Woman (if you haven't drop everything and watch it rn) they do something that i fucking adore, which is casting men that are liked, Bo Burnham, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Max Greenfield, etc. to lower the audiences guards. that movie is jarring for several reasons but i myself fell prey to the casting, i was comforted by actors who i loved and felt a personal pang of betrayal. (great fucking movie, cannot stress this enough)

two actors come to mind for this role, one more than the other but i'm still fond of both.

one choice being : Nicholas Hoult

the only thing that i don't love about this is that it would be a bit repetitive, we've already seen him in the terrible husband role lmao, but it would be fun to see him be far less redeemable than his character in The Great lol. but also he's fucking phenomenal, there's no doubt in my mind that he would be able to capture the character.

my second choice is gonna be a huge hear me out. like some of y'all are about to be real mad at me but fucking- just give me a second to explain i swear there's a vision here.

my second and preferred choice would be : Josh Hutcherson

listen listen listen. i adore him. actually my pookie bear ^^

which is exactly why he's fucking perfect??

people who don't know the source material are lulled into a false sense of safety bc he's just a little guy, he's just a silly little guy. and if you do know the source material you're like is that fucking peeta?? did they make kodo cool as hell?? no they did not. they just wrapped him up in a pretty package.

i'm saying lets get this man back to blonde and let him let his acting chops loose, i think he's perfectly capable of playing the nightmare that is kodo harand and i think he's the best choice like let him be evil.

pretty boys can be evil as a treat.

˖⁺‧₊˚✦

Din Djarin :

i mean, come on, we all know who's being put in this role.

Pedrito :

he's din djarin don't tell me otherwise. this era pedro ^^ is bks din like i didn't make starwars but i did make bks and this is canon bks din lmao.

but also like whatever they put in his pedro juice when he was doing plays? i'd get him some of that for this.

˖⁺‧₊˚✦

Princess :

this is all in my self indulgent fantasy right? then yeah i suppose i'll play the princess, pull a lin manuel miranda and step up, i was in into the woods in highschool so i've got plenty of experience.

in all seriousness i would cast someone who sort of reminds me of myself, i would be lying if i didn't write her as a vague reflection of myself. i haven't really written a reader like that other than her, she's special to me so in a screen adaptation i would want to be sure that she's done justice.

the obvious choice to me is Stephanie Hsu :

she's a princess, idc. absolutely fucking phenomenal actress (robbed of her oscar btw) and i think that she would be perfect also cause like please cast asian women in things where their entire character isn't built around the fact that they're asian, let them have a character unrelated to that fact PLEASE. she's gorgeous, talented, and charming like she's my bks princess, always has been, anytime i've fancasted bks in my head she's my leading lady.

but also there is a second option that comes to mind which would be the lovely : Simone Ashley

i haven't been shy about how bridgerton inspired bks. she's the love of my life, another actress where i see her and i'm just like yeah she's a princess, it's a no brainer like that could very well be bks princess.

The Plot ( things i'd add, keep, or remove ) :

i'd keep most things the same, obviously i'd cut certain things to properly fill the available time

i would go full hbo max privilege, i want steamy fucking sex scenes, the sex is important to the story like let's be real. some of dins growth is shown through sex, the way he goes from being completely in control of things to being more willing to be vulnerable?? that shits important.

i would def add a lysa and elaine plot, they would have a side plot

there isn't really much i'd cut, if anything i'd cut the blowjob in chapter seven lmaoo, just bc that's the only thing i've ever considered changing in the story just bc it's always felt unnatural to me.

The Episodes :

this section is gonna cover how i would present each episode and also what chapters would be featured in each episode.

also just as a general creative choice i think princess would lowkey be fleabag lmao. like she def talks to the audience cause she's a little silly but also bc her internal monologue is written to be a little funny

Episode One :

chapter one

chapter two

i think this episode would follow the source material well. i actually really like the first couple of chapters of bks, i think they were a good hook for the story so i would keep things similar to how they're written.

Episode Two :

chapter three

chapter four

same as episode one ^

Episode Three :

chapter five

this would be the din episode, instead of princess talking to the audience i like to think just for this episode he would instead. also i have sort of a specific vision for this.

it's canon that bks din is relatively hard of hearing so i would want this episode to open on him getting ready in his cabin before doing all the flashbacks of his point of view of everything. he's not wearing his helmet for the first few minutes while a song plays and he cuts his own hair, his face is never visible in the shot.

everything else stays the same

this is where i get dorky.

dins internal monologue will convey something that i'm not sure i've properly gotten across in bks LMAO but i've always written a din who feels naked in front of princess and not in a sexy way but in an emotional way. he always feels as if she can see through his helmet and it makes him real fucking nervous around her lmao.

so like lowkey hypothetical ending shot is from out in the hall, princess inviting him in and from behind he isn't wearing his helmet bc metaphors.

Episode Four :

chapter six

chapter seven

chapter eight

i think the focus here would be six and eight tbh, if i'm being honest the rules were supposed to be way more important than they ended up being lmaooo, i just went in a different direction with it so i would maybe change that to something else. the book is still important for chapter 25 so maybe like a contract or something that they both sign.

Episode Five :

chapter nine

chapter ten

chapter eleven

yeah i mean this is me being unoriginal but like if it aint broke don't fix it so like i'd keep a lot of stuff relatively the same

Episode Six :

chapter twelve

chapter thirteen

chapter fourteen

^^ same here

Episode Seven :

chapter fifteen

chapter sixteen

i think that the ending spot would be different here than in the source material, the chapter ends with din asking her to come to the cabin but i think instead i would just end with the kiss and open the next one with the cabin convo

Episode Eight :

chapter seventeen

chapter eighteen

chapter nineteen

this is like the anti angst episode, these chapters should be all relationship building up until the chapter nineteen sex scene which i would want rather tastefully done but still filthy. that's sort of the tagline of this hypothetical show, tasteful and filthy

Episode Nine :

chapter twenty

chapter twenty one

another anti angst chapter except this one has a big bad ending so yknow, big dramatic ending, i honestly think there is no need for 'tasteful' violence. like this should be extremely jarring, like din has been protective to a fault but this is like straight up mandalorian possessive rage like fr get his ass yknow? lets see that blood

Episode Ten :

chapter twenty two

chapter twenty three

chapter twenty four

this would probably be the longest ep in my opinion. twenty two is real fucking hefty but also the lunar markets is gonna be the big surprise set piece i want that shit to be gorgeous like i imagine it being so fucking twinkly and delightful

Episode Eleven :

chapter twenty five

lets keep this one straight from the source material, like just use the chapter as a script yknow?

Episode Twelve :

chapter twenty six

chapter twenty seven

i can't say anything about this because it's not technically written yet lmao

Episode Thirteen :

chapter twenty eight

chapter twenty nine

same here ^

The Soundtrack :

music is important. we wouldn't have bks at all without music because it was music that inspired me to write in the first place and it's helped the story along since then, every time i get stuck on something plot wise i play music until something clicks. it's always been the secret ingredient for my writing so it would be extremely important to a screen adaptation.

i think it would be fun to have each episode end with a smash cut to the credits with music, i've always been a big fan of that so this section contains music that i'd use for specific scenes but also what song i would want playing at the end.

Episode One :

end this ep with :

I Can See You (Taylor's Version)

i mean it's a little on the nose but this is lowkey bks anthem so i think it's a solid choice for the ep one ending also it's always fun to end on a pop song yknow?

˖⁺‧₊˚✦

Episode Two :

end this ep with :

Honeymoon - Lana Del Rey

another bks anthem, like listen to the lyrics it's crazy, and i think based on the ending of chapter four this would be an appropriate ending song

˖⁺‧₊˚✦

Episode Three :

Losing My Religion - R.E.M.

this would be the opening of the episode. din never facing the camera and he would get ready for his day while this plays

end this ep with :

Not Strong Enough - boygenius

this is def his ending song like bks din would cry if he heard this song.

˖⁺‧₊˚✦

Episode Four :

end this ep with :

See You Again (feat. Kali Uchis) - Tyler, The Creator

this is one of those ones where i'm just sort of like hell yeah. in my minds eye this works, there is a visual here like trust.

˖⁺‧₊˚✦

Episode Five :

end this ep with :

I'm Your Man - Mitski

mitski is another artist that bks!din would listen to in his cabin while he cries like this is def how he's feeling at the end of chapter eleven

˖⁺‧₊˚✦

Episode Six :

end this ep with :

Saturn - Sleeping At Last

with where this one ends i think that something sort of soft is important, a solid instrumental works well here

˖⁺‧₊˚✦

Episode Seven :

end this ep with :

Starboy - Vitamin String Quartet

i wanted something a little more upbeat but also sort of on theme and i think this is extremely accurate.

˖⁺‧₊˚✦

Episode Eight :

Religion - Lana Del Rey

this is the sex song.

like this is and always has been the song that plays when they have sex without his helmet one for the first time, i consider that to be the first time he's really din with her during sex and this song is straight heat so of course this is what plays during that scene.

end this ep with :

Electric Love - BØRNS

i mean it's a little cheesy but i think it's fun and this episode ends in a happy place so it's neat to have a happy song refecting that yknow?

˖⁺‧₊˚✦

Episode Nine :

Like Real People Do - Hozier

i mean, this is the song that inspired the chapters featured in this episode, it's an important song because a lot of bks later on revolves around the need for normalcy, these two just want to love each other like real people

end this ep with :

I Fought the Law - The Clash

i mean like, this is a bit silly but also like i love when a show ends in a dark spot and a hilarious upbeat song plays, like, i eat it up every time and i think this is just so fun lmao like he fr fought the law (im hilarious)

˖⁺‧₊˚✦

Episode Ten :

end this ep with :

Lover - Taylor Swift

sort of a calm before the storm song, relaxing ass song before all hell breaks lose in the next episode yknow?

˖⁺‧₊˚✦

Episode Eleven :

The Secret History - Kerry Muzzey, The Chamber Orchestra of London

this is our searching for din song. long ass sequence, def longer than it is in the chapter lmao

end this ep with :

Borderline - Tame Impala

god i fucking love this song

but also i feel as though this song has a sense of dread to it that i think is perfect for the way chapter twenty five ends

˖⁺‧₊˚✦

Episode Twelve :

this is a hard one to pick definitive music to, there's a lot of music that is relevant to the chapters featured in this episode so here's just like, a cluster of music that i think would be relevant

Skyfall - Adele

The Night We Met - Lord Huron

Eleanor Rigby - Cody Fry

Fourth of July - Sufjan Stevens

˖⁺‧₊˚✦

Episode Thirteen :

My Love Mine All Mine - Mitski

i obviously can't say what this would be in reference to but the last technical scene of bks would end with this song. i think the epilouge would have different music

Flightless Bird, American Mouth - Iron & Wine

i kinda sorta think that the epilogue could be crammed into a montage that could just be a post credit scene to this song.

that's all, if anyone actually read all of this i will kiss you fr like you're crazy for that and i love you.

if you write fic this was so fun?? like i really do recommend doing this or like a less extreme version of this lol i've been trying to force myself to take a little break from writing but i couldn't think of anything else to do so i did this haha

[winterlyndow]

i started reading the grey daughter again recently and i forgot what an amazing premise it is and how phenomenal your writing is!

i was wondering, after working on fics for so many years, have you found your perspective on any of your past works to have changed? or even just previous chapters you’ve written? it must be so cool to grow with a ship you love but do you ever find yourself wishing you took a different perspective or exploring other storylines or anything?

also this isn’t as detailed ask - just for fun but do you think youll ever delve into more mature or ‘adult’ themes if you catch my drift?

love your work and hope you are doing well!

Hi! Thanks so much for reading (again) and taking the time to message. :)

It's interesting that you ask about perspective over time, as I have just completed a re-read (actually, I listened to it as an audio book--I plugged the work into Speechify) of The Grey Daughter and cleaned up the typos (so much more obvious to my ear than my eye!), so I've had a chance to revisit every word, concept, etc and just completed that endeavor today!

The quick and dirty is that no, on this particular story, my perspective hasn't changed, because by the time I was half to three quarters of the way through The Assassin's Apprentice, I had a pretty clear picture in my mind of the overarching story and how it would go. And the re-read didn't result in me saying, "Oh, I really should have done XYZ instead" since everything is pretty much designed to get us to the end point I envisioned years ago. I think also that this whole process is affected by the fact that I started writing these stories as an adult with a reasonable amount of life experience. So, my ideas haven't been massively impacted by some sudden maturity or experiencing heartbreak or tragedy for the first time. All of that was already in my rearview when I started writing.

As far as exploring other storylines, that's the thing that's so great about fanfiction--you have the freedom to explore those in another work (rather than re-working the original to include them--although I suppose that is another option). A variant of an idea can be written as a drabble, or a one-shot, without impeding the primary story. That's how Morpheum came about. This throw-away character of the Handsome Man got bigger and bigger, but he's not the star of the show in the trilogy, so to explore him a bit more, i just wrote Morpheum.

As far as becoming more explicit in my works, I guess I would never say never, but I think there are ways to write sex without it necessarily being smut. I don't have an objection to it per se, but it's not really my style, for a couple of reasons. First, I'm not sure how interesting I can make describing what is essentially mechanics laid out in stepwise fashion. And there is *so much* of it out there, I don't know what new angle I can bring to it, you know? I think there are ways to describe intimacy and sex that make apparent what is going on (the Bear and Olive have sex "on screen" at one point in TAA) without getting explicit. I think the source material does this--there is a lot of sex, a lot of sexual violence, etc, that happens without the sorts of descriptions so commonly found in both fanfiction and romance novels and I do try to pay homage to GRRM's conventions (somehwat). Secondly, though I don't know if she herself has read any of it, my teen daughter has mentioned to me that some of her friends have found and read my fanfiction, so as much as I try to keep my "real life' and my "fanfic life" from crossing over, sometimes they do, and I want to be able to face these girls when they come to the house! ;)

Thanks again for dropping a line, and I hope this answers your questions adequately!

WD

[livewireprojects]

Old Lou & June stuff

I was told to put this in another post since it's long & the original post is meant to just be a ref

Link to original post

Once again want to mention everyone(except like 3 pics) are drawn with everyone as humans instead of puppet people & I forgot why.

So here’s the old refs for them, for some reason I drew Muppet characters in human/gijinka form most of the time. Dunno why I think part of it was not being sure how well I could do Muppet style all the time.

I don’t remember what Juniper’s coloring was but old Lou was a copy of Lips but eyes covered, freckles & no facial hair. Now they look more like mixes of their parents, June is green cause she’s a mix of her parents’ colors(the lip color is lipstick) June has a very slightly thinner version of Lips’s nose & ignoring the eyes Lou got Zoot’s face/chin, he’s a little more yellow than June but still different than in the past.

It’s kind of interesting how they changed from Juniper & Lou to June & that estranged murderous brother she doesn’t want to be near & for some reason blames past relatives deaths on despite him being too young(or not even being born) to be the cause.

“So this is Juniper, Zoot & Lip’s adult daughter. She works in IT & her brother & dad will embarrass her later by mistaking her fiance saying "I do” for a rejection" -From the description of the Juniper ref

So here's the only time I drew Juniper/old June in Muppet form. I've forgotten at this point what led to her design.(Vincent told he what to draw & what to do for this but it's a blur & possibly on Skype which I don't use anymore) This version's hair later went into the design of Vincent's version of Zoot's mom, Sarah.(Link1)(Link2)

The writing in the bottom left corner came from thinking I messed up her hair a little. As you can probably see & if you read some of the text Juniper & June are pretty different. Juniper was a stylish IT worker that was annoyed by her family’s craziness & the fact they wasted her college fund. June is an introvert editor/assistant for a fashion magazine that doesn’t really put effort into her looks due to being busy with work & cares about her family despite how they are. She still would likely pull a Juniper if her family possibly embarrassed her in front of her partner if she had one.

Here's a redraw of an old image I made involving an old image of younger Juniper & Lou along side a redraw were this time it's current June & Lou.

Some interesting things to know is that for some reason I drew all Muppet characters in gijinka form because I wasn't sure about drawing their muppet forms. As you can see with recent pics I can do muppet style now.

Another thing is that besides mentioning Lou use to be nicer in the past he was also the older sibling in the old stuff. Juniper/June is the older one now.

Link to a colored version I reblogged(for just in case) from Vincent that was colored by another friend of our's

Here's some old pictures of old ver Lou, first one is just him in an ironic shirt & the only time I semi could get his body type right.(I had trouble working on different body types when I was younger, Lou is meant to be chubby but this is likely not good enough) The second picture is just Lou in a dress just cause. It's kind of funny that his shirt says humble, original Lou use to be a relaxed & friendly airheaded guy that loves his family even if they're all crazy(him included) however Lou is a scam artist. Lou's main source of money is selling rocks, minerals, crystals & fake gems while making people(mostly hippies & spiritual people) think these are good crystals & spiritual items or some shit. Janice was his first victim, not because he sold shit to her but he took her crystals. I don't remember what happened I think he was throwing them as skipping rocks or something & learned he could sell these to people when someone asked to buy them from him.

Current/present ver Lou is a guy that has hurt his family, killed animals & now is with a guy(Who as a joke looks like Jim Henson) just as bad if not worse than him with multiple kids. Lou is married to a serial killer cult leader whose first victims were his grandpa(original creator of the cult) & his dad(grandpa's right-hand man) but to be fair they had it coming cause they led to how Sage is now.

One of his kids is Chrysanthemum or Chrys(is the oldest daughter) in past pics who eventually ran away from the cult & go a job helping people that use to be in cults de-learn their cult shit & have normal lives

I don't remember what the context for this was I think I was watching videos of weird moments on Family Feud or something & drew this.

For some reason it's Zoot & Lips(I have no idea why I drew him like this) with their adult kids on a game show with the original version of Clover as the host. Juniper is mad her family is a bunch of idiots(she's suppose to be the family member with common sense) because the winning question was "say the word what" but some how they don't know the answer. Clover wishes to use an airhorn on them to end this show since they've been like this for a little.

Last set of pics I have, this is a compilation of old digital sketches that were part of other sketch dumps. The one in the top left corner was shown already due to being used as context.

Yes these are full sized, I don't know why I drew shit so small in the past.

Top:

Old ver Lou as a kid holding baby Juniper(he grew his hair out a little when he was older which is why they're not covered)

Lou again

Juniper pissed, I think it has to do with her family again

Bottom:

Old ver Lou with eyes uncovered

Zoot & Lips, still don't know why I drew them like this

[irrealisms]

sorry im still thinking about my web weave from earlier. some liner notes

go read the plague in literature and myth... if you don't have jstor access it's pretty easy to find a pdf online....... i was avoiding it for a bit bc i wanted my next girard to be violence and the sacred (<- foundational but also a whole-ass book) but it's! short!! it's a little essay and it's so readable. this also goes for non-divorcesteal fans. tgcf fans im looking at you. i'm not super happy with the quote i ended up going with from it but there weren't many that were short enough to fit + poetic rather than obnoxiously on the nose

this will also give you context for the crime and punishment quote. context matters! while it's also functioning as a "people don't understand each other & cannot see the full picture of what we're all doing" it is, in context, a quote about a plague that has no directly ~medical symptoms and instead kills through war, by making people confused & amoral & violent :) and these are related! the not-understanding is part of the plague!

the piranesi quote & to some extent the quote from the idea of the labyrinth are intending to emphasize the ways it can be seen differently. piranesi is a book about the beauty & wonder of a labyrinth! like the direct quote is asking "why a labyrinth?" which is also about. like. the experience of not knowing, cf the last bullet point. but again it's one where context matters

and yes it is deliberate that each "here is a sentence about how i don't understand" has context that adds to it & isn't included in the collage itself. and in one of them that context is a beautiful maze and the other is a dream of a horrific pathogen. this too is divorcesteal. what you see depends on where you stand!!!

i kinda debated on whether to include revelation but like... apocalypse imagery AND plague imagery AND angel imagery AND sun imagery.... how could i not

i know i already posted it separately bc of how much i liked it but i rly like the nocom + maze overlay... check out fit's video on nocom btw it's really cool but tl;dr nocom was a coordinate exploit on 2b2t that let a team track players and find over 15,000 bases. overlaying the heatmap with the maze, so that the player activity blends into the lines of the maze, is my attempt at evoking the obsidian maze on divorcesteal that leads to bases

you're probably familiar with the wall-with-spikes drawing at the bottom but in case you're not: it's a piece of concept art from the attempt to generate long-term nuclear waste warnings that also originated "this place is not a place of honor". i considered doing the Forbidding Blocks design instead of Spike Field bc obviously the divorcesteal maze doesn't have spikes and also i really liked the description of it but i decided Spike Field is more recognizable and the extra recognizability was worth it to me. anyway it's also [huge black grid made to unsettle but also contain a contaminant] with bonus quasi-apocalyptic connotations so. obvious choice. also i like the guy looking at the gap between the two....ive been there....and again it's also speaking to the impossibility of communication. will the future understand?

no special meaning in the sources of sun photos sorry....i just wanted a bit more color and decided to lean into the thousand suns thing. three is basically the same as a thousand right

ok so this is one you can totally pick up on from just looking at it and i've been trying to avoid talking about those as opposed to talking about "here's some context that you may not realize if you don't know the sources" but i'm really proud of it so. i really like the background being partly bird's eye view of a maze but at the bottom you get a guy seeing it from eye level on the ground. maze-viewers vs maze-treaders again

i think you can probably pick up on the rest of it without context of the sources (though feel free to ask questions) so i'll leave this post there for now :3 but it's doing like 3-4 things and i'm! proud of it

[nampisutti]

Recreated some pieces of Naomi Iwata lost media from my memory

Before I talk about this subject, a few years ago I did two recreation drawings of those videos; A short animation video of Pecola & Coco and a scene from the MHS Demo Reel video that is considered lost. It bothers me that I still cannot find them to this day. Mainly because I still remember those videos from my memory when they used to appear online many years ago (around the 2000s) before they disappeared.

I explained those two posts in detail before, but I would like to add further extend for the other ones I remember as a kid.

----------

The unknown website with lost Pecola videos

Here's my recreation of what the (unknown) website looks like. I've explained the details in the annotation picture.

I discovered that website around 2005 or 2006 (or maybe 2007 I think). Around that time, I remember it had the 90s/early 2000s web design look with the background all gray, and those videos were played with QuickTime. I also remember the images from the website, specifically the top image and the thumbnail of those videos. I even tried to use a reverse image search to find the source but it seems there's no result to it. :(

I mentioned lost Pecola videos from the website:

(Lost) A short production video clip of the Pecola episode, “Melancholy Pecola”; a scene where Pecola is messing around at Mr. Saruyama’s fruit stand during Saruyama’s flashback.

A short clip of the Pecola episode, “Golagola”; a scene where Pecola meets Golagola. Not really a production clip but I remember that was included on the website.

(Lost) Pecola Christmas Japanese commercial/bumper which I'll get into that in the next part.

(Lost) Short animation test video of Pecola & Coco. That one I already drew a recreation and already explained it in detail.

There are some things I, unfortunately, cannot remember.

The website could be someone's portfolio or maybe one of the animators who worked for Pecola but because it's an unknown website, I don't remember the name of it and the site's URL since I only remember the web page visually. However, I couldn't remember what the rest of the website's navigation looks like on the left side and I'm not sure if each video includes the description or not.

Short Pecola Christmas commercial (or a bumper?)

Here's my (rough) animatic recreation of the Short Pecola Christmas commercial (or a bumper) from the same website I talked about in the previous part.

I remember every scene from that video:

It starts with Pecola's face on the screen, which resembles the beginning intro of the show's theme song.

Then he hops out of the screen and he gets annoyed about something? (I don't remember what Pecola says since it's in Japanese)

After that, there was a voice announcer, with Pecola around the reflection of the Christmas ornament because the commercial/bumper was about to end.

In the end, Pecola tries to put a star on the Christmas tree with a ladder but he falls down along with the star.

Even though I remember visually from the video, it's difficult to remember what Pecola says in Japanese.

Midnight Horror School Demo Reel video

Here's my (rough) animatic recreation of the Midnight Horror School demo reel video.

From my experience with Midnight Horror School, the year 2009 was around the time when there were no MHS episodes to watch anywhere online except you only watch the opening and the ending song of the show. In addition, find images from search engine sites (such as Google) and visit the official MHS website when it was active before the site was closed.

From the website I discovered around 2009, they had demo reel videos of various shows as separate pages (I think?), and Midnight Horror School was included there. Sadly like the website with lost Pecola videos, I also couldn't remember the name of this website and the site's URL.

The whole video showed the early designs of the class and some characters such as Liddy, Spimon, and Kabo. The video doesn't include the voices since it was short and it only had the music (like a Halloween vibe).

I remember every scene from that video:

It starts when Zobie opens the door at the Graveyard, as the camera zooms in, the eyes appear in the dark (could be resembled Count Boroso Jiki from Ep. 31)

The camera zooms out of Kabo's eye and the camera moves around, and Kabo turns his notebook. Then Kabo thought to sneak behind Tubee's desk to look at his notebook. When Tubee turns around at Kabo because he gets annoyed, his paint splats on Piranin.

Liddy raises her hand to answer the question to the teacher (Mr. Salaman), then her head turns around that Inky was at the front door of the class with his love letter. Probably that's what the image from the Shockwave puzzle website looked like.

(I made an old recreation drawing of that scene and I already explained the detail in another post but I'll describe this again) Tubee climbs up on Spimon’s chair to look at his notebook, then Tubee falls down and turns up Spimon’s speaker volume by accident. Spimon and his desk fell down because his speaker’s ears went on so loud.

In the next scene, everyone in the Yellow Lizard Class looks up at the clock on the top of the chalkboard, and suddenly a regular clock turns into like a spider. The clock runs toward the screen and then the screen turns black.

In the end, Ampoo & Watt tried to light up in the hallway with other students (I don't remember besides both). Then Watt's head lights off, and everyone came to Ampoo & Watt to help.

Those are every scene I remember from the MHS demo reel video. Interestingly, I'm not the only one who saw that video but my friend has also seen it before as well. She only remembered the Kabo scene and Ampoo & Watt scene at the end as she only saw the video once.

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That's all I talked about it. It's a shame that it would be very difficult when I couldn't remember those two websites' names and URLs. Hopefully one day either Naomi Iwata, Milky Cartoon, or any other studios, or anyone else who worked for both Pecola & Midnight Horror School may remember those lost videos. I don't know. I really wish all of them to be found and I want to see them again since they're still in my memory for years.

[backoftheoutfit]

After watching Hazbin Hotel's season 1, I wanted to draw a human version of Alastor. What started as a glance at the wiki page became so much research. So here's a wide collection of reference material for anyone else drawing Human Alastor.

Sections of the Human Alastor Reference Guide.

Part 1: Essentials.

Part 2: Hair.

Part 3: Clothing.

Part 4: Radio.

This research is to help you create your own design. I've just collected what I thought could be helpful. I'm including extra emphasis on Black figures because they are usually glossed over in art guides and history in general. I'm also including some interesting articles I come across. If there is a collection of photos from one site a source will be linked text at the bottom. If it's only one picture the source will almost always be linked in the photo itself. Check out the sources! In every case, there will be more information and photos in the links.

I'm basing my research off of the Fandom Wiki page description.

"Born into a mixed-race Creole family approximately around the turn of the 20th century, Alastor lived in New Orleans, Louisiana, as a radio host and serial killer, and witnessed the Stock Market Crash of 1929." - Hazbin Hotel Wiki.

Lastly, while this collection will never be a completely comprehensive guide. If you have any tips for improvement or things you think I should add please tell me!

[not-a-space-alien]

hello!! I've just started reading Watch Your Step, and i love it so far T o T !! Do you have character sheets/commissions/descriptions of what each character looks like? I'd love to draw them ^^ !!

Hey that's so sweet! I'm glad you're enjoying it!!

So, you are allowed to picture the characters differently if you think that's fun, but all the visuals that exist of all the characters should be linked in the story masterpost! But I'll recap the main details here to make it easier to reference!

Thistle

By @echollama and @bottlesandbuttons

Height: 5.56 inches

Thistle probably has the greatest "open to interpretation" factor in his look. The only details that are specified in the actual text of the story is that he's bug-like enough to freak out people who are creeped out by bugs, and that he has long black hair. (That and the details of his wing being torn, as well as thing like him emoting with his ears, which implies they're probably longer than a humans'.) I personally would love to see some different takes on what that could look like, but this has been his most consistent character design.

Marcy

by @freshpoof03

Height: 5' 3"

Marcy's only canon descriptors are that she's implied to be fat at certain points, and this contrast Thistle notes with Teddy in 1.10:

Out of all three of the giants, Teddy was the one he was the least familiar with, and the least comfortable.  She was the opposite of Marcy in a lot of ways.  Marcy was thick, Teddy was thin.  They had different skin and hair colors.  Marcy had long hair, Teddy had short.  Marcy liked looking at bugs, and Teddy hated it.  Marcy loved to touch him, handle him, examine him–loved it too much, an unsettling amount. 

She also looks "alt" enough that people assume she's a lesbian in 2.3.

Teddy and Colin

They don't have art yet, but these are their picrews!

Heights: 5' 6" (Teddy) and 6'2" (Colin)

Teddy is implied to black at a few different points in the story and is contrasted with Marcy as I said earlier. Colin is specified to be white and very plain-looking in 2.3

With the power of crowd-sourcing, they even managed to find slurs to hurl at Colin, a cisgender white man who even on his most rebellious days never managed to look more countercultural than the average saltine cracker.  If the fire hose of boiling malice hadn’t been so scary, it might almost be impressive.

Colin also spends a lot of time outside, so I imagine he has perpetual tan lines.

Jewel

By @echollama

Not much to say here honestly. Clownfish mermaid.

Length including tail when stretched out: 6 inches

Violet and Petunia

By @dearheartwitcher

Heights: 3.5 inches (Violet) and 2 inches (Petunia)

Violet (left) and Petunia (right) are specified to be "mousey," fuzzier than a human, and have tails. Also open to interpretation, but Petunia is specified to have colorful clothes made out of candy wrappers and black fur.

Severa

by @echollama

Her right arm is torn off in the shredder till just past the elbow in 2.10. The grey hair and ribbon, and being green, are all that's specified in the text.

Length including tail when stretched out: ~30 inches

Moon

by @echollama

Moon probably has the most detailed description out of anyone

But no.  He was clearly male–although possibly this was a case of using magic to change appearance without being able to change larger features of sex, such as body size, which Thistle had heard of but never seen firsthand.  But this new person’s wings were too different to be a pixie–they weren’t translucent like Thistle’s but solid and powdery like a moth’s wings, green and purple appendages stretching out behind him.  He had long, shiny black hair, braided elegantly, and his clothes were fine, no cobbled together rags like Violet and Petunia had had…finer even than Thistle’s own clothes.  And he was….fuzzy.  The ends of very soft-looking fur poked out from the top of his shirt and the ends of his sleeves. He was sitting cross-legged on the ground in a patch of rapidly waning moonlight, sheltered under the leaves of a sapling, eyes closed.  As Thistle’s footsteps grew loud enough to alert this stranger to the pixie’s presence, his eyes snapped open.  They were red–and reflective, indicating he had better night vision than a pixie.

The cane is for balance because he has foot drop in his left foot.

Height: 8 inches

Sierra

Only has a picrew, but not really any description details given.

Height: 5' 4"

Lalitha and Jaden

Also only have picrews, and no real descriptions given, but Lalitha Mishra is a Hindi name.

And lest we forget...

Mochi

Image taken from google