#fairy walrus tale

[queerofthedagger]

of course it's less likely for a fairy to turn up on my doorstep than for a walrus, that isn't the point. the point is that if it knocked and i opened the door, the leap from, having read fantasy for 20-ish years where fairies might as well turn up on your doorstep and as such it's 'oh so they do exist. rad', is far less huge than, 'whatever the fuck is a walrus doing in the second biggest city of the country. on my doorstep. how did it knock. who let it into the house.' would it be more likely? yes obviously. would it still be more surprising also? 100% yes. I'm a millenial do you know the shit i've seen that people kept telling us kids were impossible. come on now. the fairies might as well happen

[yoghurt-bimbo]

The walrus-fairy discourse reminded me of a story from Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan about a dugong mysteriously appearing on a family's doorstep.

[varjopeura]

.

[asteroidtroglodyte]

Absolutely fascinated by the Fairy Walrus Discourse. Naturally, I have a take:

This actually is also a fantastic illustration of a truism about Telling Stories that we all implicitly know but rarely acknowledge aloud: the improbable is far less believable than the impossible.

When you invoke the impossible, you silence the critically thinking, reality checking, lie detecting circuitry. Simpler rules reign supreme.

The Walrus, however implausible, is a thing which is real, and so whatever narrative you imagine either precedes or follows the reveal will be constrained by the envelope of the possible.

This is a webbed site all about Narrative.

The person answering the door to a Fairy is in a fairy tale, and frankly most of us would be overjoyed to find ourselves in a fairy tale. Fairy tales have sensible rules, structures we understand, tropes we love and hate.

A Walrus on your doorstep is just one more giant reminder that the world is a maelstrom of chaos, incomprehensible in its complexity, full of moving parts which obey no narrative. It’s another dose of “what fresh hell is this?”

A Walrus on your doorstep is a burden. A Fairy on your doorstep is an escape.

[mycrazyramblings]

Fairy-Drabbles 60: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland XII

by @ulmo80​

Tweedledum and Tweedledee, star witnesses for the Prosecutor's Office, gave this afternoon the damning statement that ended up putting the nails in the coffin of The Walrus and The Carpenter, accused of mass murder of oysters in the coastal area. While the testimony was taking place, those present in the room saw The Walrus weep.

You can read more on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16600925

[dev-solovey]

The answer is a walrus and I can explain why.

You know that episode of Unraveled where Brian David Gilbert goes through all the Smash Bros stages to figure out how many OSHA violations there are in each of them? The one where he finds the most violations is the stage that's actually supposed to be a construction site, simply because the fact that it is a construction site makes the violations easier to identify. It's easier to find regulations about a faulty ladder than it is to find regulations about like, a pit of lava.

I think the reason it's more baffling if a walrus shows up at our front door is because we have more concept of what that entails. Like, fairies are entirely a mystery, because they don't exist. The best we know about them are various tales about fairies, which differ from culture to culture, and there is no verifiable consensus information on them really. How did it get there? Fairy magic, idk. How do you get rid of it? Ask it to leave, it probably understands human speech. How do you react to this situation? Who fucking knows, it's a fairy.

But if a walrus showed up on our door, we do have some idea of how to react, because it's more grounded in things we already know. And we would have far more questions, because we have a better frame of reference for what it would take to get the walrus there, what the walrus might do, and what it would take to get it to leave. How did it get to my doorstep, in the middle of the desert? Did they fly it in on a helicopter? Why didn't I hear the helicopter? How did they keep it alive during the entire flight from San Diego to the Sonoran Desert? Is it a threat? How do I get rid of it? Call the police? What are they going to do about a wild animal that weighs as much as a car? Endangered species are protected by law - are walruses endangered? If they shoot it dead, will that cause controversy? Am I going to have reporters on my doorstep every day for the next month? Etc etc

I can get why some people would be more baffled to discover that fairies exist, but the problems presented are unknowable - and, given the very few bits of consensus information we have about them, they'd probably be a lot easier to interface with. A walrus is way more complicated, and probably more likely to gore you with it's tusks.

Anyway, I'm not sure how to end this but that's my thesis

[bananonbinary]

another reason i havent seen mentioned vis-a-vis walruses and fairies, is that like...you probably have a script for fairies. i mean, not a concrete one, but you've seen movies and read books. you probably were raised on *fairy tales.* you basically know what a fairy is and how to interact with one. it's like when people post about a spooky house, and even if you don't believe in ghosts, everyone knows you do NOT go alone into the creepy basement where the haunted moan is coming from. you know how the story goes.

a walrus on the other hand, i think most of us would have NO fucking idea what to do with. it's not just that it'd be really fucking weird, it's that you have absolutely no reaction prepared for it at all.

[cutecipher]

fairy vs walrus debate is extraordinarily funny to me, you guys know walruses arent real right? thats a childrens tale

[cleolinda]

Weekend links

My posts

1) From earlier this week: “My ~longform posts are going somewhere else. Dreamwidth? Definitely previewed on Patreon and backed up there. Here’s an unlocked post about it. tl;dr: I know tech bros already scraped everything, but if you tell me you’re going to do it, I’m not gonna hand it to you. Maybe it’s a token effort, but there it is.” Of course I’ll still post links to new writing here. 

2) Some people have March Madness. I now have the Hot & Vintage Movie Women tournament. 

One of the best parts of the tournament (you may remember that Toshiro Mifune won the male matchup) is people reblogging and submitting pictures, further bio information, and personal anecdotes--that sense of the Tumblr collective scrapping for the pure love of their blorbos. I love Edwige Fenech’s eyes and her iconic eyeliner, and I had to step in when she went up against powerhouse Julie Andrews with only one small picture. No, I’m not letting Edwige go out like that. She won’t win, but the people must make their choice knowingly. 

I also posted some pictures for Lady Tsen Mei, because I’d actually never heard of her and was curious. Also, because she’s going up against Musidora and that’s not an easy row to hoe, either. If you see matchups like that, where hotvintagepoll didn’t receive much to post about an actress--appealing to the people with a good picspam in the reblogs is where the fun comes in. 

Bear in mind that running the tournament is an INCREDIBLE amount of work; this was Friday alone. Like, I don’t know the person who’s running this, but it couldn’t be me. They’re working with what they were sent, and here’s how we can be the propaganda we want to see in the world. I will jump in as necessary when Ava Gardner, Gene Tierney, Norma Shearer, Paulette Goddard, and (on my mom’s behalf) Julie Christie show up. But there’s 512 contenders, and it’s going to be a hard fight. 

(I am now reblogging the polls at only one an hour, and when I fall behind, that just means that people who missed them can catch up. Each poll lasts a week, after all.)

Reblogs of interest

You are invited to the assassination of Julius Caesar! If you joined Tumblr during the various internet shakeups last year, you may not be aware that the Ides of March is a major Tumblr holiday. You need to be. 

People have always been people: an immensely long collection that may make you cry. 

Respect for the Welsh language

The “Fool in a Field” theory of life in the universe

A helpful guide to some common birds here in the western US

The Forbidden Colors

“You get to drive away”: A Tale

I was not ready for this development in the Fairy vs Walrus debate

(Did William Butler Yeats believe in fairies? An anecdote from my grad school days)

(”While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a slapping”)

Video

“Recently I’ve been interested in what I’d like to call the historical lesbian wardrobe”

“This is the snake I’ve been looking for my entire life”

Angry kitten scolds water, slaps it for good measure

Cat plays theremin

A speedy boi who doesn’t need a bike to jump

The most relaxed tiger

The sacred texts

Yes, THAT Stinky Bastard Man

Personal tags of the week

I want to be clear that AI has incredible scientific uses and could be used voluntarily by writers and artists for their own experimental projects. That is... not what this AI tag is about. 

Speaking of AI: truly, the Willy Wonka Experience debacle has been a DashCon for the 2020s. 

[theothin]

People are talking a lot about fairies these days, aren't they. Or faeries? Is there a difference?

fairies sitting on a rainbow cloud

Pretty straightforward, even if the right image doesn't quite follow the prompt. Also I'm not sure what's going on with those fairy wings sticking out of the cloud-rainbow. Unsurprisingly, these seem to be the tiny kind of fairies.

faeries on a magic boat

Here, I switch to spelling it "faerie", and it seems to go along with them being bigger than the first ones. We're getting a fancy magic environment, but also a lot of distortions in the faeries themselves. I wonder if that's a result of the more fairy-tale style, it'll be interesting to see if that continues.

faerie men and women riding dolphins

Here, I tried to get more gender variation in the faeries. No visible success, but you never know. The anatomy seems less bad than the previous batch, but still pretty wonky in places. It's interesting to see the differences in location and in the color of the dolphins.

Of course, there's a more relevant marine animal to see a faerie interact with. And let's see if we can get a masc faerie while we're at it.

a faerie man feeding a walrus

Here, it seems "man" overrode "faerie" in the AI's logic. Like with previous walrus prompts, the walrus's tusks are pretty messed up, and both images have different issues with the feeding process. Can we do better?

a male faerie riding a walrus over the ocean

These guys might be a bit more faerie-like, but with no wings. The AI seems really resistant to the idea of male faeries - the systems pick up all sorts of associations from the training data, and some of them can be quite troublesome. Let's try one more time to get past this.

winged male faeries leading a walrus through a cave

Now that's a funny little discovery. I've been selecting the Artistic style for these scenes so far, but this time I accidentally selected Anime instead, which seems much more open to male faeries. Also the walruses are much more cartoony and have wings. What does the Artistic style do with this prompt?

winged male faeries leading a walrus through a cave

Huh. Another winged walrus, but this style remains steadfastly opposed to putting faerie wings on men. Also the right walrus looks more like an elephant.

Anyway, we haven't gotten enough out of the faerie/fairy question. Let's revisit that.

fairies lifting a walrus up into the glimmering sky

Back on the fairy spelling, but looking most similar to the ones from the second and third sets, complete with distortions. Also I have to say, I did not expect either of these lifting methods. But let's assume it works out somehow.

fairies and a walrus in a cloud lake

I wasn't entirely sure what a cloud lake would mean, but sure, that's pretty cloudy. It's important to properly care for your walrus, even if you live in the sky.

Finally, let's see the anime style's take on this.

fairies and a walrus in a cloud lake

Are the fairies small, or is the walrus big? The one on the right looks pretty elephant-like again, and its tusks look weirdly floppy. Also it's wearing what looks like a combination of a blanket of clouds, a wig, and what looks a bit like fairy wings. Not sure what's going on there.

I'm also not sure what the fairies wanted with this walrus, but fairies are known for kidnapping humans, so who knows how ethical it is. Maybe they left a changeling walrus behind. Whatever it is, I hope it works out for everyone involved.

[howlingday]

Searching for Fae

Ruby: JAUNE! We need to find a way to make people like us again!

Jaune: People don't like us? What about our fans?

Ruby: Some of them are old and decrepit and they've got gall bladders the size of your head from all your shitposts.

Jaune: Our shitposts.

Ruby: We need to adapt or die!

Jaune: Uh, okay... So what do people like?

Ruby: As much as I can tell, they like flashy sword fights, sexy 3D models, and finding cryptids, like fairies and trolls.

Jaune: But not catboys?

Ruby: Catboys? What?! No! I already told you to forget about including catboys in our posts! Why can't you understand this?! WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?!

Jaune: Calm down, Ruby. Alright, let's brainstorm here. 18 to 40 year old people; what makes them hard?

Ruby: Uh... I don't really know why you'd ask that, but I did see this question coming, so I brought some samples.

Jaune: (Looks at picture) Oh my god! Is this... Is this a man... turned into a walrus?! I can't do this, can I?!

Ruby: No, no, no. That isn't our demographic.

Jaune: (Flips) Oh, okay. So they like anthropomorphic animals, but not catboys. (Flips, Flips, Flips) Why are there so many of these?

Ruby: (Shrugs)

Jaune: (Flips, Flips, Flips, Flips) Forget it... What was that thing you said about cryptids?

Ruby: People today are crazy about found footage of cryptids and other fairy tale things.

Jaune: So if we could capture a cryptid on camera-

Qrow: Forget it, kid!

Jaune: Agh, Qrow! How long have you been sitting there?

Qrow: You kids are pathetic, clinging to your dwindling statistics and your poor perception of demographics. Unaware of the youth no longer caring for Out of Touch Thursdays and Fingers in his-

Ruby: Shut up, Uncle Qrow! We're doing our best! Anyway, do you know where we can find some cryptids?

Qrow: Cryptids? I've tasted the bitter tears of the dark and the unknown. I know about the world in-between where the beasties lie still!

Jaune: O...kay?

Ruby: Is that a yes?

Qrow: Follow me! (Leaves)

Ruby: ...Finally, he's gone! Now, about faking some footage, I've got a couple of ideas.

[abbydaddi]

Wait they’re kinda all like fairy tales. The witch woman is like mother Gothel (jury’s out on Monty I’m not done). The walrus man is like Ariel. Niko’s kinda like an acid trip sleeping beauty.

[vibratingskull]

Mermaid!Thrawn x f!reader part 5

Part 1, 2, 3, 4

"You're searching something in particular, miss?"

You turn to the Librarian, a nice short lady with round glasses that comically enlarge her eyes.

"Well, yes... In fact I'm searching several things : I would like a book on sign language, a book on the legends of the town and the gazette archives around the 50's. I don't know if you would have all that..." you explain. She seems to think for a second. "Wait at this table, I will give you what you need." she says as she walk away among the shelfs. You let your gaze travel on the covers of the books, leafing through some by curiosity, those are illustrated books for children about fairy tales. You realize you've never heard Thrawn sing like in the tales, maybe this is just folklore... You pick up an old illustrated edition of the Little Mermaid and read it again. How long since you last read it? Years, most probably. You sit at the table and let yourself carried by the tragic tale of the adolescent.

You're fully immerged in the story when she came back with the books. "The archives are on microfilms, if you want to see them we will need to take out the machine. Is it urgent?"

"No." you shake your head with a smile "No, I can come back next week.", "It would be preferable, indeed." You thank her and opens the legend book "Legends of our region" and pass everything until the aquatic creatures part. It speaks of a monster toad that haunts the swamps and a little undine that died for a pearl, you skim over the unnecessary text until you find the mermaids, and your thoroughly disapointed : The text is one page long with a childish drawing of a siren. You sigh. You choose a second one, to find out that they don't speak of it at all you take the last one with little hope but you're more lucky.

"The mermaid is an antique sea creature, existing through multiple form in multiple cultures, but the siren of our region is a bit more specific and have capacities her cousins lack." tells you the author. You install yourself comfortably and start reading. Your mermaid specie is especially sociable, helping the fisherman and the shipwrecker victims, they would have guided the fish to the shore with their songs, commanding them. They used to be nomadic tribes, following and hunting among the great whales but became sedentary as humans took the roles of the whales, providers of food. Magical creatures, they can metamorphosis in sea lion, daulphin or walrus, and even human for a brief amount of time. They say they also posess a potion to transform a human in a mermaid. The tales of the shipwrecks by singing mermaid would be a pure invention, the sailors simply choosen to take the potion and disapear into the sea forever and the desesperate partners staying on land shared the tell to mourn their relationships. Once every millenial, the tribe would get on land to enjoy a hunt party and taste what the land as to offer different than the sea and then go back into waters. They would be a second tribes that didn't help humans but eat them, drowning sailors and careless swimmers, they would be hideous creatures screetching in the night, obsess over blood and flesh. They live in the deepest layers of the ocean, where the light can't shine, in contrary of the good mermaid that higher in the layers. Today the mermaid disapeared, never to be seen again, like every mythologic creatures.

Your smartphone rings, you received an sms. It's your mother telling you that your father will sleep at a friend house tonight because they argued again.

You sigh.

You exit the library with your books, saddened. You wish you could come back in time, when you were young and your parents didn't hate each other... When they would laugh and play with you. Today they only scream and break dishes. When was the last meal you ate with them that didn't end in an argument?

What started all of this? Did they fall out of love? Did your mother cheated on your father before or after the first major argument? Before or after your father started drinking? Did he start because of that or because of his work?

You remember one night he came in the dead of night into your room, drunk, and wake you up to cry...

"Why are you crying, child?" a voice rises next to you. You raise your head to an old men in a cassock, on the front steps of the church.

"Huh... Nothing." You wipe your tears, blinking "Just bad memories."

"Would you want to tell me? To alleviate your heart." He proposes. You look at him, he looks stern, uptight, dead serious and cold. "No, i'm not really religious. It would not be-", "I didn't mean in the chapel or anyting of the sort, just have you talk would maybe ease your trouble by putting it into words." He corrects.

"Ho!" you're suprised "That is really nice of you, but I don't like talking of my problems to strangers, that is not really their cross to bearn, y'know." You try some humor, but it doesn't work, his face remains rigid and stoic. His eyes look like they could see your soul, making you feel a bit uneasy. "Then speak to a friend, maybe they would be of good advice.", "Yes sir." you nod, timidely.

"Can I see your book?" he asks politely, but his gaze is hard. You hand him the book in silence. "You try to communicate with your deaf and mute brothers and sisters? That is a good thing." You smile politely "Something of the sort." You observe the church as he leafs through it, you remember loving visiting it. Your familly isn't religious, you just like visiting old buildings, maybe you should try urbex, it could be fun! Him however, you've never seen him before

"You're new here, father...?", "Father Tarkin." he gives you back the book with a nod "In fact I came back, you must have been a infant when I was first here.", "Oh. It was a will of yours?" His hard gaze travels across the streets like he could see sin just by looking at it. "I felt a sensation of unfinished business here." You feel you won't have any more info than that so you politely thay goodbye "Well, welcome back father" and start to walk away

"One moment please." you stop dead in your tracks, turning to him with wondering eyes "Your necklace..." By instinct you grip it "What?", "It reminds me of something, is it a family heirloom?", "Yes" you lie, "Oh... curious." He seems to think, holding his chin and frowning. You feel yourself shivering. What if he knows?

"It looks like the tiara exposed at the museum.", you sigh relieved "Oh? Really?", he nods "Yes. Maybe it was inspired by the same art style?", "Probably"

He looks at it some more and shakes his head "Anyway, the night will soon fall. Go home.", "Yes father!" And you go off, you pedal to the beach and jump off your bike, run to the shore and push a bark into waters.

You paddle towards the setting sun, craddled by the waves. You paddle along the cliffs in search of one particular cavern... When you found it you enter it, when the sea will rise again, the entry will be completely hidden and you'll be stuck.

You get out of the bark and walk inside the large cavern , familiarizing yourself with the place. Then you take your flashlight and study the sign language book, waiting for him

An hour passes by when you feel a claw grazing your tighs, you raise your head from the text to see Thrawn looking at you intently. You can't help but smile. "Hi!" you wave at him surexcited, he imitates your gesture slower, like he wonders what does it mean.

You take out a fish container and he hops on the bank to seat next to you "I hope you like salmon!" you sing. You open it and give him some of the fish and you eat it together, sneakily you robbed your mother of some soy sauce and put some on your piece. He looks interested, "You want to try?" you smile. He takes the bottle and traces the text on the tag with his claw. "I doubt you can make sense of it." you mock gently. He opens the lid and inhale the scent. He frowns severely and you burst out laughing, "You're surely not used to it under water!", he looks at you like he understood you were mocking him. Nevertheless he tries it, lets a drop of it fall on his tongue and taste it. His face is indecipherable and he puts down the bottle without letting an ounce of expression twist it. He eats his salmon silently and with dignity, while you do your own cookery, slicing it and dropping it in the sauce. "Usually I eat it with sesame too." You mundanely explain, you start talking to him about your day, about every little things that happened to you. He lays down on his elbow and listen, letting his codal fin resting in water, you see his ear-fins-things wave at some moment, and his dorsal fin undulate. Once again you vent all you can, he remains still, unmoving as you both can see the sun finishing to set and the water slowly raising. You'll soon need to exit the cavern.

But you feel so good here... with him. You can't speak together, but you feel connected on an intimate level. Like you knew him for years.

You let your eyes wonders on him and you notice he's wearing your old plastic bracelet. "Ah!" you smile, you take out the necklace and show it to him, he nods slowly.

You lay beside him, letting your feet in the water, grazing his fin.

You remain silent, watching the stars through an opening in the stone of the cliff. You point at one star "Ursa minor." you indicate. He points another "Cha'fh." he murmures, "Antares." you say, "Strech" he responds, "Perseus", "Me'ro"...

You redo the wole sky like that, you giggling and him all serious. "I probably shout note everything you say, so I can remember it all my life. Oh wait!" You take out the sign language book and a mini-moodboard with markers out of your bag, " I think about ways to communicate better!" you exclaims. He raises back his torso with a raised eyebrow.

You're about to explain to him when your smartphone rings. He growls at the sudden sound. "It's okay, it's a smartphone, it won't do anything" He relaxes when he see the small machine but looks puzzled when you start speaking to it.

"Where are you?!" bawls your mother. You wince. "I'm out... with a friend.", "You didn't warn me about that! I was worried dead! Come home this instant!", "Mom, I'm an adult, I can do-", "Huh,huh, young lady! As long as you live under my roof you will abide by my rules!" and she hungs up.

You sigh, Thrawn looks at you, curious. "I have to go..." you grumble. You gather your stuff and enter the waters, you'll have to swim the sea rose. Thrawn slides next to you ready to follow you but you hesitate, you got your flashlight to look in the dark but in salted water you won't be able to open your eyes. You wince "Crap." Thrawn seems to notice your hesitation.

He gently takes your hand and pulls you gently. You take a deep breath, close your eyes and go under water. You feel him swim next to you with his powerful tail, pulling you towards the exterior. You let him guide you, swimming with your legs, he pulls you with an assured hand.

Finally you pierce the water with a gasp. Thrawn is next to you, holding your hand, waiting for you to take back your breath. You'll be drenched at home. Great...

"Thank you." You gasp, he nods and you go back to the shore together. You part with him almost reluctantly, but he let go without difficulties. You walk on the sand as he remains in shallow waters, looking at you walking away, you turn to him and wave him goodbye, he imitates you and you look at him swiming away.

Who knows when you'll see him again, he comes and goes as it pleases him

@blueninjablade3 @al-astakbar @thrawnspetgoose @readinglistfics

[fairykukla]

Koo Koo kachoo?

Regarding the poll about "which would be more surprising to knock at your door; a Fairy or a Walrus:"

Look. I *am* a fairy. I ran a travelling performance troop focusing on fairy tales and fairy folklore for over 10 years. I was a professional Faerie Queen.

My current theatrical art project has rebranded me as The Fairy Godmother, Wandering Storyteller and Entertainer.

I'm still a fairy.

I am a fairy, in the same way that Leonard Nimoy was a Vulcan. Vulcans aren't real in the sense that there is an actual real planet out there with pointy-eared bipedal humanoids who practice extreme logic and have copper-based blood. But if you ask an average person, they know what a Vulcan is.

So if "A Fairy" knocked on my door at an unexpected time I would not be surprised. To me, that means someone who self-identifies as a fairy, or someone that I personally think of as a fairy.

Plus, of course, I'm queer. I have many people who are part of the queer community in my life. I fly pride flags outside my home.

If you were a person who was visibly LGBTQA+, and your car broke down or you needed help, would you walk up to the nearest random suburban house, or would you go to the one flying a Pride flag?

So if a Fairy(character actor), a Fairy(a member of my fairytale performance troop),or a Fairy(homosexual) showed up on my doorstep, it's not going to be surprising. At all.

If a Fairy(supernatural creature) showed up, it still isn't going to surprise me, though I know to be wary. They could be serving cease and desist papers, after all.

I have friends in the Furry Community, too. Heck, I'm a furry myself. But I don't know anyone whose fursona is a walrus.

So if a Walrus(real animal), a Walrus(cosplayer/furry), or a Walrus(Tusk, 2014) shows up on my porch, I'm going to be Fucking Surprised.

[bookshelfdreams]

ask game 14 and 11 for dbd?

Thank you! <3

11: an animal you'd like to see person-ified for an AU instead of a [crow/cat/walrus]

That's such a good question! Of course the possibilities are endless but how about a toad? I just think that could be really fun & they are crikinally underutilized in modern media despite being quintessential to folklore

14 - plotline you would put into S2/any future season

I haven't read the comics, so idk what's in stock here, but I would love to see more mythology/fairy tale inspired things. Especially if it's something a little more obscure. I just love it when people do fun things with folklore!

As for what specifically, I'm not picky, but I would love to see dbd's take on fairies. More specifically, mischievous house spirits like brownies or boggarts, I think that would be really fun.

[readingaway]

Middle school language teacher in 2900: Okay class, today we'll be discussing the classic tale "the Fairy or the Walrus."