#blabbing Haddock

[thatbanjobusiness]

One of the funniest ways to start a war would be to go to bluegrassers and tell them harmonica is the forgotten bluegrass instrument

[lefthanded-sans]

Well, you've been inactive for 6 years, but I wanna say hi anyways! I'm a fellow Papyrus lover and new to the game.

Awwww, not writing UT meta doesn't make me inactive (Ｔ▽Ｔ) (Ｔ▽Ｔ) (Ｔ▽Ｔ) ;) but a great big howdy to you! I'm so glad you reached out! It's always fantastic to meet another fan of a series, especially someone coming in with new enthusiasm. Papyrus forever! Seriously, feel free to chat with me if you'd ever like. I don't have the knowledge base for serious meta anymore, but it's always fun to have casual convos about things like Undertale.

[kingofthewilderwest]

friendly reminder when drawing musicians: remember to research which direction the instrument points

be careful in a quick Google search because sometimes images get mirrored horizontally

[kingofthewilderwest]

Hot take, but I think people are overreacting to the "second" Megamind movie being bad. Yes, I understand people have been begging for a proper Megamind sequel for over a decade, and thus when anticipations aren't met, they're disappointed. I get that. People wanted a sincere and efforted return to the franchise. However, this isn't some shocker bad movie. There is no shock to this. It's par for the course. This is the direct-to-video VHS equivalent of the modern age. It's the same reason I was never surprised a Mulan 2 or Beauty and the Beast sequel was bad. They're cheap footnotes that were meant to be cheap footnotes. This was always designed to be like a backdoor pilot to a crappy stream-only TV show. "Oh my goshhhh what the heckkkk why is it so baaaad?" We already know why it's bad. Call me when we get a theatrical release to a long-awaited property.

[kingofthewilderwest]

Happy actual birthday to Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, Takashi Shirogane, and every other fictional character that creators went Extra (TM) on

[kingofthewilderwest]

After a decade-long absence, I'm in a concert band again.

One of the pieces we're working on is a How to Train Your Dragon suite. And while that's a common piece to play, it smacking me in the face the moment I opened my music folder was...... something... I tell ya.

Now I have to pretend to be normal about it for months until the concert's over.

[kingofthewilderwest]

much of tumblr is

"theoretically I agree with this post but it was written in an unnecessarily confrontational way so I'm not touching it with a ten foot pole"

[kingofthewilderwest]

No grilling intended, but common mistakes in viral language-related (English-focused) posts:

"English is a stupid, weird, and nonsensical language 'worse' than other languages because.... [says something cross-linguistically common]"

"This phenomenon in English deplorably arises from ignorant colonists because... [mentions a common paradigm for loanword spread that applies to multiple forms of linguistic contact and in no way is unique to colonialism nor English]"

"How hard is it for people to say [insert loanword that, like all loanwords, in any language, broadly adheres to the phonetic and phonological constraints of the adopted tongue]"

[kingofthewilderwest]

Moral Orel has hedonistic orgies, bathtubs of splattered blood, hard drug addiction, and everything wrong under the sun, and yet one of the most disturbing visuals remains a woman eating an egg.

[kingofthewilderwest]

I repeatedly am like, "I should scream my views on tumblr more again." But back then it was like, HTTYD and Voltron and Undertale. And I think about what I'm into now and I'm like, "What am I gonna talk about? How I'm over the moon about this specific Abbott and Costello movie because it reverses the A&C formula where it's actually straight man Abbott who gets the bunt of the jokes, but actually Abbott and Costello have few face-to-face interactions, Costello primarily works along woman lead Marjorie Reynolds and their chemistry is a delight and their characters stay as friends the full way through, it starts as a full-ass 1780s period drama introducing multiple factions that makes you wonder if you're watching the wrong movie, Costello our funny man has a literal goddamned death scene done straight and he's a ghost the majority of the runtime, the movie is a fun low-stakes treasure hunt mystery in a single house, the comedy is about ghosts having way too much naive fun learning about technology and pulling childish pranks like six-year-olds, why do ghosts flash the electric lights it's because they don't know what electric lights are and they are ecstacic about learning what these do, Costello is such a dumb ghost he keeps getting scared at the possibility of being haunted even though his Starting Mission is he wants to haunt Abbott, AGAIN ABBOTT as the STRAIGHT MAN is being haunted, they have the extra brilliance to make this straight-man-haunted-man be a psychiatrist who goes from a serious, practical man to a blubbering mess "TOOT TOOT IN MY STETHESCOPE!" as he unravels from the hauntings, the story has cute heart and focuses on the ghosts trying to find peace and rest and get un-cursed so they can go reunite with their respective romantic loves in heaven they've never had the chance to be with, you find yourself rooting for the characters and plot rather than watching for outdated crappy slapstick hijinks though of course those exist I mean it's an Abbott and Costello movie what else did you expect when you signed up for an Abbott and Costello movie, it's refreshing to watch 1940s effects because they don't need to be expensive they don't need to be perfect they just need to let you imagine the moment and have fun, I REPEAT it's got cute heart, and AGAIN it's a type of low-stakes movie you don't see in theatres anymore?"

[kingofthewilderwest]

I know plenty of nothiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing

[kingofthewilderwest]

Every once in a while I think about the "hidden favorites" people enjoy. People hear you screaming and hollering about some things and know you love them, but there are others you -- for whatever reason -- don't end up talking about much. They're beloved, they're just hidden lore about yourself.

I love learning the less obvious favorites friends have, all the other stories and hobbies and joys that expand their life. Here's to all favorites we have, especially the ones that manifest quietly.

[kingofthewilderwest]

I think it's, like, gone out of fashion to upload selfies (I sure haven't in an eon and a half). But today feels good and forgive me, I wanna celebrate. Bruh this is the first time I've worn The Concert Black in nine years.

Can't believe I let the core parts of my being lie dormant so long. I'm rebecoming myself. Cancer's gone, hair's been growing like a weed, I'm looking and feeling like myself again; I've got a classical music concert tonight - I'm again participating in the activities that are me. It's time to tackle what I want, reignite old goals and daydreams I'd lost, and make everything I care about count.

[kingofthewilderwest]

My creative heart thrives by revamping my older works.

This means that, in my thirties, I play melodies that I wrote at nine. I still am revamping and retelling stories I began when I was six. I still have my old crayon-scribbled stories, with all their messy illustrations, loose narratives, and misspellings.

The naivete of being six means that you don't realize when names are poor names. The most egregious examples include a toad princess named Shitslyia and a story where two alien characters were named Labia and Clitzy (how????? in the same story?????).

So this means names get updated. Her name's Lebiya now, for the record.

Well. One of the names I've had the hardest times updating is Moron Miston. She's a frequently-recurring character who's appeared since I was about five, back to when I couldn't spell or do grammar worth a darn.

Now, Moron isn't exactly pronounced like "moron." It's subtle. But it's different. The second vowel is more reduced, verging close but not always quite to schwa territory. I'm simplifying my explanation, but "schwa" is close enough for y'all. If I were being a linguistic pedant, I could pick the proper International Phonetic Alphabet mark. But for English's vowel-depleted writing system, the "o" is the closest I get to what I hear.

But, obviously, calling a character, a serious character, "Moron," unironically, can't be done.

I could do Morin. That's a good option, frankly, and one I keep veering toward. I could do Morynn or Moryn or Morenne. Morenne Miston, that's got style. I actually did Moren from junior high to early college. Elsewhere, I compromised by giving her a longer name, Moronian Mistonlhel, as if adding -ian could excusably preserve the "moron" at the core.

It's been a battle for the ages: preservation versus save-my-face-ification. It's been a lifelong quest, a wrestling match, a marathon of carefully calculated decisions. Odysseus's quest is light in comparison. Magellan never traversed as far as I. There is no suggestion you could provide that I haven't contemplated, deep into the night, sleepless, staring up at my ceiling, mental screams overriding any external nocturnal tranquility. Every time I get rid of that second "o," my poor brain registers, "But that's not the right sound I'm trying to depict." The "e" is too forward. The "a" is too open. It's an "o"! No, I can't use a diacritic, that looks wrong! And every time I look at the second o written down, I cry, "People are going to call her 'moron'."

People are going to call me moron.

Who the heck do people think I am, an actualized woman in her thirties, dithering about calling one of her characters MORON Miston?!?

And then, the other night, I was going back through said five-year-old childhood stories.

Reconstructing spelling has always been weird for these stories. I had "Majik Misty," which obviously was a mispelling of "Magic Misty." No sweat. I also had Jireh. I didn't know how to spell Jireh, so her name got transliterated as Jiaria, Jaarah, Jarah, and every other phonetic attempt, but I always knew it was Jireh. Also no sweat.

And I thought Moron Miston was no sweat. It got quickly standardized to Moron. I always thought it was Moron. The OG, "official" spelling has been Moron for over two decades.

And then...... in said five-year-old childhood stories...... I saw her name written with one variation.

"Morgan."

I'm screaming.

[kingofthewilderwest]

tbh one jarring thing about joining fandom spaces for me was realizing fanfiction was the default and original works had to be prefaced as original works. the assumption is writers are working on fanfiction. fanfiction is the primary point of creative writing conversation. fanfiction is the logical jumping-off point of creative writing because the characters and settings are set up for you. etc.

Fanfiction was my aberration, a rare and awkward project done to try to assimilate to this new community, derivative from my usual writing, hard for me because I had to imitate preformatted characters that weren't in my voice rather than have the freedom to Be Myself. I don't like writing fanfiction and I disrepect the rare fanfiction I wrote. Meanwhile I love, adore, and swim in the personal stories I've worked on - even the ones I began at five years old. Those are the real me.

Every time I see a creative writing post on this site, I'm like, "huh, this is interesting," and every time the word "fic" pops in halfway through and takes me jarringly out of the moment and I'm like, "oh, right, there's this underlying expecting the advice will be applied for fics." Rather than, just, any, creative, writing, project.