#i loved looking for references and i found some great websites :)

[old-stoneface]

some medieval outfits for morgan, dai, perry, gwen and gwaine :) notes under the cut 👇

morgan's outfit is scandinavian inspired, that kind of northern medieval period with a layered woolen dress and a tablet woven belt. i gave her no extra jewelry and no accessories because she would see no use in being dressed up, and i wanted to ensure a utilitarian vibe. her shoes would be made of variegated leather. she's wearing a very period appropriate head covering of a simple cotton or linen fabric, pinned into place over her hair, which would be braided and secured around her head.

dai's outfit is very much the typical sort of general british medieval peasant/artisan garb. i desperately wanted to give him the hood that defines the working man's silhouette from that time period, and of which we have archeological evidence of existing :) hes wearing a layered tunic, one with long sleeves underneath a sleeveless one, secured at the hip with a decorative belt, and tights underneath - this is a very distinctive medieval outfit, perhaps one that you would instantly recognize as mid to late dark period. his shoes would also be leather, but i made them more fashionable than morgan's, because he seems concerned with aesthetics.

perry has the honor of wearing on of my personal favorite items of medieval clothing: the quilted gambeson. this is based on an actual 14th century reconstruction, the sort of long, tunic type of padded armor that would typically go underneath chainmail, but i opted to give them a more freeing outfit for more agile movement. the hat is an accurate head covering too, but because they're an athletic youth, i made sure their hair was showing in some capacity. underneath, they have sturdy leather shoes and tights. what's interesting to me about this ensemble is that it looks androgynous on them, cementing their gender identity to the modern eye, but historically, this is a men's outfit. their spear is also referenced from an image of a 13th century weapon.

to be honest, i don't have much to say about gwen's outfit. this was referenced from an illustration of 13th century french fashion. i really wanted to give her a regal, subdued look, the kind of identity she would assume in order to sort of fly under the radar, as it were. nothing that grabs too much attention but it does accentuate her good posture and noble status. the head covering is a veil over a hat with a hair covering underneath, hiding where she would have braids pinned up in the back. her shoes would be probably a sturdy linen with a leather sole. her belt would either be embroidered fabric or fashioned out of cloth and metal ornamental discs.

gwaine has one of my other favorite outfits. to me, his identity as a rambling traveler is pretty important, so i gave him traveling clothes. he's got the wool cloak clasped at the shoulder with the typical brooch used in this time period, a simple, long sleeved tunic, trousers under that with tights beneath those, and leather/cloth shoes that are secured by leather strips. his hat - maybe my favorite part - is referenced from a reconstructed landsknecht hat. it is definitely a little silly in its color and construction, very eye catching as were most landsknecht adornments. it shades the eyes, its a statement piece, and with the mismatched nature of the rest of the outfit puts together an image of a well-traveled man who spends his days on the road. for accessories, he would also have a short sword on his belt, and a lute strung over his back.

thanks for reading :) hope u found it interesting!!

[hiddenhearthwitch]

📚 Small Intro To Polytheism📚

One of the most frequent asks I receive is how and where to get started when it comes to polytheism. This is a fairly broad subject and I’ll try to be as general as I can for advice but I will include specific references for Norse polytheists as that’s my shit. This information can be used to help you find a pantheon or to help you pick deities to work with it. If you’d like to use it to pick a patron deity that’s super, if you want to worship 20 gods and not have a patron deity that’s cool too. You do you dude. Please keep in mind this is all reflective of my research and personal practice. 🌻

Picking A Pantheon/Deity

This really boils down to personal preference. You’ll read a lot of posts and books that tell you many different ways and it’s entirely up to you because it is your practice.  That being said, there’s a couple of different ways to go about it. 

Research! This is one of my favorite ways to delve in. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with reading the stories of multiple pantheons and picking on that calls to you. You can also talk to other devotees and see what they have to say about deities and their religions. It is important to keep in mind that some religions are closed so please do proper research!

For example, I wasn’t originally a Norse pagan. I read some stories and thought the Hellenic pantheon would best suit me. I reached out to Eros for a while but after feeling no real connection to the pantheon I continued my research! After reading up on the Norse pantheon I decided to reach out to them out. Obviously, I fucking loved it because here I am. Point being, you can pick a pantheon based on research and not some divine message or whatever. You are also more than welcome to try out a religion, decide it doesn’t suit you, and move on. 

Divination! You can use runes, a pendulum, tarot, etc.This can go a few different ways. You can write pantheon/deity names on separate pieces of paper, mix them up, and place them face down then ask the pendulum to pick. You can assign a deity/pantheon to each suit of cards or major arcana card or even do the same thing with runes. 

For example, this is how I found a devotion to Frigg and Hel. I asked if there were any deities who were interested in working with me and pulled the runes Hagalaz and Berkana which read as Hel and Frigg to me. I followed up with tarot cards and pulled Death(Hel) plus the Queen of Pentacles(Frigg).

Asking/waiting for a sign. This isn’t something I’ve personally done so I don’t have much to say on the subject. You can go about meditating, praying, doing a ritual, or whatever and essentially wait for a sign after. It can come via a dream, something you experience, symbols you see in your daily life, it’s pretty much up to your intuition to decipher it. If anyone has information they’d like me to add in here please let me know!

If there’s a god you’re curious about and don’t want to do any of the above it’s totally cool to just reach out and ask if they want to work with you. 

Idk How To Research

Same, tbh my keyword search game is weak. Anyways, good portion of us are looking up dead religions with little reliable resources. To give those curious about the Norse an easy head start here’s a compiled list of  books by yours truly(click me!!) . It’s important to take everything with a grain a salt of salt when doing research. In my experience a lot of the retold Norse sagas have been Christianized or written under heavy Wiccan influences. It’s a good idea to do research on the author before reading one of their books.

Other blogs! There are tons of great witches and pagans on tumblr that have information waiting for you. 💗 You can search their blog/tags for good references for books, websites, podcasts, etc. Plus lots of blogs are open to answer asks. If you don’t know where to start for searching it’s best to try things based around your interest like: “norse polytheist”, “hellenic witch”, “gaelic polytheism”, etc.

Media! How lucky are we that we live in the age of technology? Knowledge is right at our fingertips! There are countless documentaries, podcasts, and audiobooks on youtube full of information for different cultures and religions. I’d personally recommend almost anything by BBC, Myths & Legends, and World Mythology!

Books! I love starting on goodreads to find good books and trust worthy authors. They’ve had almost every book I looked up with bunches of different reviews so you can get varying perspectives. Check out your local library as well! A lot of city libraries have online databases now of all of their books so you can “check it out” online and read the PDF(personal fave). 

Feeling Lost Still?

That’s completely reasonable and your feelings are more than valid. It can be overwhelming and lot of information to soak up. Just do your best and take it at your own pace, there’s no rush to find a deity or pantheon. 💞 Below are a few other general concerns I hear a lot that I was hoping to address.

“I’m leaving a monotheistic(Christian, Catholic, Jewish, etc) religion and it’s giving me anxiety.” This is entirely common and almost expected in my opinion. I was raised Roman Catholic and my first year to two looking into polytheism riddled me with anxiety. I was constantly concerned that god would smite me down or I’d face an eternity in hell for worshiping false gods. While I can’t speak for everyone that fear was entirely erased for me when I found my gods. I’ve never felt so safe and strong and hopefully with time you can find the same in your gods!

It’s okay to want to learn more or to seek something more. I can’t tell you how to handle your anxiety but please know you’re not alone in that fear. There’s whole communities out there willing to support you and help you find your safe space(including me)!

“What’s UPG?” You’ll see a lot of posts, mine included, that mention UPG - UPG is Unverified Personal Gnosis. This is essentially someone’s personal thoughts and beliefs about a deity. For example, I associate Sif with hazelnuts. There’s nothing in the lore or any book that says that she likes hazelnuts; that’s just a personal opinion(aka a UPG).

“How do I reach out to the gods?” I have a lot of information on my blog about this topic although a lot of it is Norse specific. You can check out my beginner polytheist tag here and my beginner norse post/ask here.

Altar! This is my go to typically. Altars aren’t limited to the cookie cutter image that comes to mind(no hate though I have a few); one thing you can make a side blog dedicated to your pantheon/deity, make a small one in a tin can, or even make one in a video game like Minecraft or some shit. You can be as creative or as to the book as you want. It’s up to you.

Prayer! You can totally just sit down and be like, “Hey man wanna work on some shit together?”. While I’m not 100% that all gods would be down with you being that casual it’s still something you can try.😂 You can reach out to them by sitting down in a quiet space and meditating into prayer, praying in the car or in the shower, or just pray at the altar you set up if you did. Again, I can not reiterate this enough, it’s your practice, reach out to them as you please.

Do something personal! This is more like devotional work in my opinion. Let’s say you knit and you want to reach out to a creative or domestic deity, you can knit something as a devotional act to them and as a way to reach out. For example I pick up litter in honor of the Vanir and Jörð, or I play Skyrim for Thor and Týr.

Most importantly just be honest and up front with the god that you’re reaching out too. Considering that statement be honest with yourself as well. There’s no point going into a relationship with a god if you can’t be upfront, it’ll end up in nothing but grief.

“Can deities reach out through gods/signs?” They totally can. However, it is up to you and your intuition if a deity has and it’s not likely another witch will decipher that for you. Sounds, experiences, images, all have different meanings to each of us - they may show you something that’s very personal to you but would be mundane to someone else. Trust your instincts. However, please remember that not everything is magical, sometimes a raven is just a raven and not Odin.

✨Take everything you learn with a grain of salt. Including this post.✨

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[artnwill]

Resources for animal artists

As an animal artist I am always trying to find good resources that I can use in aiding my artworks or for studying animals and animal anatomy. Here are a few that I have found that have been really helpful and wanted to share some for any other artists that may need more resources to learn from. I also try to look for resources that do not include AI generated images as it can be difficult to find regular photos in-between all the new AI spam on Google images.

iNaturalist - This is a website in which users can upload pictures of animals and have them identified by other users for identification purposes. There are a large amount of photos for various species of animals and some included videos. I recommend starting with explore and hitting the species tab to get a list of different species that you can start referencing from. Love this site for bug references!

Here is the link to the website: https://www.inaturalist.org/

ArtProf- ArtProf is a website created by Clara Lieu, who was a professor at the Rhode Island School of Design. This website focuses on teaching art online for free and is a great resource for artist who are beginning or for educational materials. Seriously recommend checking them out and they also have thousands of image resources that you can use as well as a YouTube channel. Definitely recommend them! Here is a link to their website: https://artprof.org/

Here is a second link that links directly were you can view reference images. Not only are there animal references but they also include people, building, fish markets and many more: https://www.flickr.com/people/189561381@N07/

National Museum of Wildlife Art- This is the website for the National Museum of Wildlife Art, which is a museum in Teton County, Wyoming. This museum features a collection of thousands of animal artworks created by various artist from around the world. This website is really nice to use when wanting to study other artists animal artwork from past eras and recent ones.

Here is a link to the website: https://www.wildlifeart.org/

and another for the collection area specifically: https://www.wildlifeart.org/collection/explore

Biodiversity Heritage Library- The Biodiversity Heritage Library is a digital library that provides information on biodiversity and resources for old literature and artworks that have been collected from different eras such as from the 17-18 hundreds. They also provide a collection of hundred of thousands of old illustrations of different species and old scientific illustrations of animals.

Here is a link to the website: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/

and to specifically the photo collection they have on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/people/biodivlibrary/

I hope these resources help any artists who are looking for resources to use in learning more about animal art. I also recommend going to museums and zoos, as they can be great resources to learn from, especially zoos as you can do live drawings of the animals, which helps with observation skills. Of course if it is not possible for you to go to these places in person, I hope these resources help you and many more that can be found online.

Here is a few of my favorite pictures from when I visited a museum in California:

[homestuckreplay]

TURNTECH GODHEAD JUMPSCARE!

(page 308-312)

OH PSYCHE????

This asshole came outta fucking NOWHERE right when I was looking at a cool wizard painting on Rose's wall. Truly Dave Strider is just like his raps, always showing up where he's not wanted.

'standing around being all chill, like cool dudes are known to do sometimes' would a cool dude think this? really? I mean, as a sword owner I WILL acknowledge that slashing things with a sword is pretty cool. I bet Dave has a Wii and attaches the remote to a sword. And it's interesting that we open on an action shot of Dave, as he literally forces his way into the story and then starts attacking, compared to John and Rose being more passive.

TT: I must have a weakness for insufferable pricks. (p.63)

TG: and for that matter you should probably wash your hands of flighty broads and their snarky horseshit altogether (p.204)

Both Dave and Rose's 'wrong' names as entered by the player come from pesterlogs where they're talking about the other, which is fun. John's been part of all Pesterchum chats so far, but I really hope we get to see Rose and Dave talk soon. They're both so obnoxious in different ways I really want to see how they'll bounce off one another.

Dave just looks so EXPRESSIONLESS with no visible eyes and the tiny straight line mouth. His SUNGLASSES show more emotion than he does. I guess this is the birthday gift John got for Dave that 'touched stiller's weird, sort of gaunt face at some point.' A quick search says these are from the Starsky & Hutch movie, which I guess I'll watch soon.

As for Dave's room, there's a LOT going on. The rooms are getting progressively messier, from John to Rose to Dave, so I can't even imagine GG's. The main feature here is the turntables hooked up to various computers and gadgets in an expensive, convoluted audio mixing system. I guess this is the turntech. And the godhead is Dave with his belief that it's okay to have a dozen trailing electrical cables in his room because tripping and electrocution aren't a risk to him.

This music studio combined with the extensive record collection and the record on his shirt really gives Dave the vibe of 'guy who makes music his entire personality'. The envelopes for the Sburb beta discs are next to the turntables, but Dave recently told John he lost his copy and that 'its a stupid story and id rather not talk about it' so.... did Dave try to play the Sburb discs on the turntables or what?? And like, can we really expect smart decisions from someone who has TWO issues of GameBro on his desk?

Everything in Dave's room is held up by cinderblocks for some reason. I don't know if this is a real thing that people do or not. He's also into photography, which is a great hobby, but all his pictures are just of him which for sure loses him some Cool Points.

Dave also has a poster of the Midnight Crew, as featured in John's and our favorite website mspaintadventures.com, and his playing card suit bedsheets might be a reference to that too, so this webcomic is another shared interest of theirs. He's also kept the box from John's birthday gift, and next to the box half-inside the closet is a bottle Dave mentioned to John on page 26: 'i just found an unopened container of apple juice in my closet it is like fucking christmas up in here.' I really love all these nods to John and Dave's friendship scattered around the room.

[tenaciouschronicler]

July 3 2024 2009

Lets take a look at Julys updates now that I have some free time.

Behold! Apple juice!

So with this we have a better grasp of the time jump, its before Dave and John first talked on Pesterchum. @homestuckreplay made a great observation that I just wanna reiterate... Its absolutely adorable how much Dave LOVES talking to his friends, especially John. First thing he thinks of when finding apple juice? How much of a kick John is gonna get out of the unexpected movie reference.

Behind his cool guy persona hes just as much of a dweeb as John and I think he(John), at least as far as weve seen, is probably his closest friend. Maybe they were childhood friends until one of them moved and as they grew up Dave found it harder to fit in or find someone he could let in and trust.

You also might as well ask him about that beta. The kid's been harping about it for weeks. It would be cool if it came on his birthday. He'd be one happy camper.

Before we get into the chat, we see a little of Daves mindset. Even though Dave has made it pretty clear hes not really interested in the Beta, his friend is and hes gonna, 'In your own cool, sort of roundabout way', ask about it because he likes his friends happy.

Lets take a look at his desktop. (I appologize for the quality, dont know what happened)

Fisrt of, sick as hell wallpaper. Not sure what its from but its got a battle bracket on the bottom right so maybe an in-verse video game? Im not sure what app that blue one is, or maybe a file?, but Dave aint happy with it seeing as its named 'COMPLETE BULLSHIT'. The two red folders however hold Daves 'ILL BEATS' and 'DOPE RHYMES SO DOPE'. And keeping in-line with the sheer amount of tech, Daves sporting a shiny Pesterchum 7.0.

The enflammed silhouette is Daves browser aptly named Hephaestus. Hephaestus is the Greek God of artisans, blacksmiths, carpenters, craftsmen, fire, metallurgy, metalworking, sculpture and volcanoes. He was casted out of Olympus either by his mother Hera or by Zeus depending on the myth. In the first he is lame at birth, in the second he becomes lame after the fall. He now resides again on Mount Olympus crafting the Gods equipment and any fine metalwork pieces are said to be his work.

The first website Dave visits is his own satire review blog where he posts about Gamebro. And then theres his webcomic SWEET BRO AND HELLA JEFF and. it. sure is. Something.

I.

Theres no words honestly.

Daves cool guy facade is fading fast. But then again hes a kid so....

Theres 3 pages with the same style and Ive gotta question if this is really as popular as Dave makes it out to be ┐(￣ヘ￣）┌

[bitterseaproduction]

An Indispensable Silver Lining | The Hobbit Ref Dump

So, I can’t (see: don’t want to) go on with An Indispensable Silver-Lining until I can sit down and rewatch some Desolation of Smaug to pin down some character locations, and I really wanna decide if I’m going full movie-verse or embracing a specific fanedit or book+movie mix and what timeline I want to hold myself to for Thorin—

Can you believe I started this fic thinking ‘I’m not going to get bogged down by canon or details this time. I just wanna write for the fun’? 😂 That went well.

Point is, just because I want to gather some canon facts? It hasn’t stopped me from writing up 1500 words of a chapter 2+ plan, or over 6 THOUSAND WORDS of long-term storyboarding in less than THREE DAYS covering Smaug and the men/dwarves/elves factions and the orcs and some of the bagginshield progression and the ‘act 1’ climax and like three ways ‘act 2’ could break bad, and— well, you can tell it’s a true passion project when I keep stepping away, think of another thing, and scramble back to my phone to jot down a few hundred more words in whatever moments I can steal. And, more pertinent to this post, I can’t stop devouring a ton of resources and inspiration.

So, with that in mind, I thought I’d just share something of those sources! For fun, for later reference for myself as I write, for practical use if you’d like it yourself, or maybe you just want something else to read and these are great fics/lore bits to choose!

Updated May 15th, 2024. Additions marked with a *

The Hobbit Trilogy Fan Edit Sources

A Comprehensive Guide to Fan Edits of the Hobbit Trilogy An older list, but viable for what it covers

Help on choosing Hobbit fan edit? Which is the best? A second reddit list, a bit more modern.

FanEdit.org: Lord of the Rings franchise A comprehensive list of options for The Hobbit + other LotR works

* Specific Fan Edits

I still need to watch all of the edits I've found properly from beginning to end, but after skimming through a number of options, looking for specific wants and do-not-wants in each and reading/watching a few things on how each version was created, I think I have narrowed my interest down to these three fan edits:

Chris Hartwell's Hobbit Trilogy A very comprehensive cut that keeps pretty much all of the movie beats intact, just trims down the trilogy's more clunky spots to create a more polished film experience. (i.e. a reduced Radagast, Alfrid, older Bilbo, some of the action scenes, etc.) Generally prioritizes Bilbo as the MC and his dynamic with Thorin as the through-line of the story and includes some of the extended scenes that highlight both, which I really appreciate.

The Hobbit, or There and Back Again An edit that more fully cuts some of the less loved factors of the movies like the Tauriel romance, but not nearly as cut-heavy as a lot of the more well-known fan edits.

The Compromise Cut Very similar to 'or There and Back Again' but more ambitious in rearranging footage to create new beats to cover cuts vs 'or There and Back Again' being more of a clean 'straight from the source' cut.

~

For my purposes, Hartwell's will probably be my go-to for full lore and plot inclusion & the most 'bang for my buck' while being a cleaner watch than the OG, while There and Back Again or The Compromise Cut are what I would share with friends who despise some of the film-only content, but are willing to give the trilogy another try.

I know there are a number of other great edits of there, M4 and MapleFilms being especially loved, ~but~ I set a rule for myself that any edit that cut the carrock hug was instantly out, so these were the three I landed on.

Resource Websites

The Encyclopedia of Arda Tolkien Gateway LotR Online

Specific Details

TEoA: A Viewer’s Companion (AUJ) TEoA: A Viewer’s Companion (DoS) TEoA: A Viewer’s Companion (TBoFA) TEoA: Longbeards + The Other Clans

TG: Quest Motivations Generally good overview of the point of the quest and what happened.

TG: Smaug Role / Gandalf motivation "Following the sack of Erebor, Gandalf felt that Sauron would take advantage of Middle-earth's weakened state and attack Rivendell and Lothlórien or try regain Angmar; he also feared that Sauron "might use" Smaug "with terrible effect". [...The White Council] attacked Dol Guldur in TA 2941, while Sauron and Smaug could not "help one another". [...] his adversaries were able to drive him from the fortress with relative ease. [...] Sauron abandoned Dol Guldur willingly, and returned secretly to Mordor, where he would openly declare himself in TA 2951, and began preparations for his final war to dominate Middle-earth."

TG: The Arkenstone Arkenstone info from book and adaptations

* Khuzdul Words for Fanfiction Writers A resource for Khuzdul words for - as the name says - fanfic writers!

Durin's Line Tapestry from DoS Shows the family connections with original book birth dates for all. Even though it was presumably made pre-sacking in 2770, and 3 of the company depicted were born after Erebor fell. That... is curious.

The Line of Dwarves A more thorough (and intriguing) look at the dwarf lines and relevant dates, all book-based.

Comprehensive Genealogy Chart of all the Hobbits from J.R.R. Tolkien's Legendarium My gosh is this expansive... and hard to load up on a screen, but if you don't want to miss something, check this!

HOBBIT FAMILY TREE: How are Bilbo, Frodo, Pippin, Merry, and Sam related? The less brain-breaking hobbit tree that focuses on the main 5 from the books.

Lord of the Rings Hobbit Family Tree More of a middle-ground on the 2 above options.

* Prominent Hobbit Families and Individuals A lovely breakdown of the hobbit families as a group, what they are like and who are the crucial members of those families.

Bag-End PJ Hobbit Map Crucial for Bilbo background & any Shire scenes if they come!

* Untangling Middle-Earth's many routes to evil A map of where all of the characters traveled in The Hobbit and The Lord of the RIngs! I found this handy when I was trying to track Gandalf in particular.

A chronology of The Hobbit A day-by-day breakdown of the journey in The Hobbit, great for what-ifs and assessing likely travel times!

Suggested Alternative Timeline For The Hobbit by @avelera A very nice older post on a potential timeline alternative for The Hobbit films. As said above, the films do use the original dates in places, but as this post says, they don't always make sense about it. This is a nice option to consider instead.

Major Inspiration Fics

Backs To The Wall by @conkers-thecosy My current top TH/LotR read, a great active WIP, definitely a direct inspiration to me with the failure to get into Erebor leading things off course! And I'll likely have a parallel Laketown focus for a bit, though nothing as detailed and lived-in as Conkers' fic. And, aside from great writing and general motivation to write TH/Bagginshield, I love the portrayals of the characters (BILBO, Thorin, Gandalf, Dwalin, Nori, Bard and the Bardlings--) and pairings. Definitely tempting me towards Dwalin/Nori here!

And I'm Your Lionheart by Lee_Whimsy There always seems to be a fic in every fandom of mine that draws me in very early, becomes and instant fave, and then hangs there unfinished but perpetually on my mind. The 'one that got away' fic. This is it, and I shall forever love it, and you can just bet it will bleed into my takes somewhere, especially with Gandalf and Legolas and Bard and Fíli, if I recall correctly. I should totally reread this, or at least sections of it. Reading to the 'end' is... painful.

The Most Precious of Treasures by @sapphireshelle91 Another long untouched WIP, but a VERY different one, as it is a) post-TBoFA, and b) features a female Bilbo and parentshield with dwobbit!Frodo. I include this one because a) I love a number of the characterizations, b) if 'And I'm Your Lionheart' gives me the infrastructure and maintenance inspiration for Erebor, THIS fic delivers on the politics and intrigue, and c) I am a HUGE sucker for parentshield, be it biological or adoptive, so naturally I'm contemplating it for my own fic. Still iffy on which way I'll take it, but I've fallen down some intriguing rabbit holes in regards to Shire culture and Bilbo's background while considering the biological option, and I'd be loathe to abandon those ideas now. But either way, this fic deserves a definite nod for motivating me to come up with ideas.

Home Behind and Home Ahead by Etharei Love the characterizations in this one, and anything that gives me a tap into Bilbo's character is appreciated. And I don't know if I'll draw much on it for this fic in particular, but I love all forms of parentshield and this is a lovely dynamic between the three characters, so I'd happily draw from it in the abstract.

* Planting a Hobbit by @northerntrash I adore the vibe of this! A sweet 'Bilbo in Erebor' AU focused on the dwarves (Thorin especially) being so silly and endearing in their efforts to make Bilbo happy, and featuring some nice world and dynamic building in the process.

* Bad Blood by @conkers-thecosy Yo~ give me a nice what-if any day, and having it feature a protective!Bilbo + ardent!Thorin + gremlin!elvenking in the process, with a side of dwarven culture and royal politics? For it.

* [explicit!] Safe and Distant by Lindzzz I ADORE a Bilbo like this. A Bilbo who isn't oblivious about his feelings or denying them, but whose self-image/image of Thorin makes him unable to Comprehend anything not one-sided could come of those feelings. Who celebrates Thorin's good regard with joy and accepts it as 'enough' and 'more than he could ask for'. Who would probably just combust at the idea Thorin might want more, might want something beyond what their adventure can provide, just as Bilbo does... or just as Bilbo would, if he would allow himself to even accept that as a possibility. A Bilbo who finds the idea of Thorin wanting him back terrifying, because to hope for that and be wrong? It would shatter him. ...Yeah, I am very, very for this Bilbo. (And that doesn't even touch on the Thorin or the last chapter, omg-)

* [explicit] Canoodling by @avelera This fic is sweet. This fic is funny. This fic touches on differences between the Tolkien cultures and misunderstandings and the unique ways that could affect intimacy with a couple, and you know that bagginshield is a gold mine opportunity for all of that. I love any explicit work that plays with experience levels and expectations and lets the couple mess up and then swing it back around to lovely afterwards, because that's realistic and relatable and thus, when done right, all the more attractive a read! And this one does it well, a good foundation read.

[toydrill]

ULTIMATE CBS MASTERPOST

(or, a general hub to answer a few questions that my followers who are here for other things that are not my passion projects might be curious about)

recently i've been really pushing hard into working on this revival project, so i thought it would be helpful to have a nice big post with links to all of my stuff inside it!

"what is care bear stars?"

care bear stars was a 2008-2009 fanime created, drawn, and animated by joshua click (known at the time as jcstars5). here's a general synopsis:

Care Bear Stars follows the story of Terry Rogers, who meets a magical anthropomorphic bear named True Heart Bear. She gives him a magical talisman, and with it, he transforms into Tender Heart Bear. Along with the other Care Bear Stars, they work to protect good feelings and love among humankind and fight the evil Professor Coldheart, alongside a rogues gallery of otherworldly foes.

for those who don't know exactly what a fanime is and what it entails, here's a good definition from TVtropes:

Fanime (a portmanteau of “fan” and “anime”) is a type of Web Animation typically created by young amateur artists that originated on YouTube around 2006, a year after the site's launch. ... In the past, many fanime were animesque cartoons based on pre-existing anime, especially Tokyo Mew Mew and other Magical Girl shows. Tracing was also common. Instead of using animation software, creators would usually draw frames in MS Paint or Photoshop and composite them in Windows Movie Maker. ... As fanime was predominately created by very young artists inexperienced in animation in the beginning, it gained a reputation for being bad. ... Following the mainstream popularity of Nyan~ Neko Sugar Girls, this type of fanime dominated the community for a long time, but creators attempting to create genuine shows still remain and the community has grown increasingly talented and creative throughout the years.

care bear stars was received pretty well for its time for fanime, receiving a decent amount of fanwork and discussions on websites like deviantArt. though it was far from the only fanime at the time with its premise, its generally considered one of the pillars of first generation fanime alongside series like elemental goddess, and stood out for having full TV length episodes (something that was unheard of at the time for fanime).

the project was cancelled in 2009 after the creator received a cease & desist letter from then (now defunct) owners of the care bear stars franchise, cookie jar group.

for a more in depth write up of my knowledge of CBS during its active period, joshua click's thoughts looking back on the series in adulthood, and where many of the VOs in the project are now, you can check out this document i've worked on and off on for 8 years

"why do you gaf?"

autism

i met some really great friends from the fanime community and now i've imprinted on this show in my mind more than any fanime that i'd ever watched

i love care bears

autism again

as a testament to said autism: here's a collection of all the care bears stars fanart i've ever found

"okay so what is care bear stars r?"

exactly what it sounds like. it's just a 1-to-1 remake of the premise, characters, etc with what i could find of the original project + what i would have done if it were me

for an in-depth (but WIP) write up of my revival, CARE BEAR STARS R, you can click here

you can also find all of my art & write-ups here , and all of my friends' fanart here , and all of the references for them here

other resources

my twitter thread that i consistently update

my tumblr tag for posting about care bear stars

the original series in chronological (series) order

thank you so much for reading!

[emyn-arnens]

Hi i was just wondering if there are any resources you recommend for writing fics? For names, maps, info about characters and places, anything like that.

I love your blog by the way and your fics are awesome!

Thanks, anon!

I've put together a list of some of my favorite resources that cover the topics you're asking about, with a few extra favorites thrown in. I’ve included both resources that stick purely to canon and worldbuilding resources that expand on canon but are not strictly canon (these are marked with an asterisk). There’s some overlap between some of these resources, but I’ve often found that if I can’t find what I need from one website, another one probably has what I’m looking for.

I’ve broken the resources down into general resources, Silm resources, and LOTR resources for ease of reading. It's a lengthy list, so I've put it below a read more.

And of course, although all of these are good, canon-based resources, it’s always best to verify the information against the source text and double check quotes and citations.

GENERAL RESOURCES

Sources not specific to Silm or LOTR.

Arms and Armour of the Eldar: This webpage lists relevant quotes from Tolkien’s writing about the weapons and armor of the Elves. It predominantly focuses on the First Age but does go into the Third Age.

@askmiddlearth: This blog is a great general reference for all things Tolkien. Although no longer active, the blog has many great guides about the people groups and cultures of Middle-earth, as well as a slew of information accessible from the blog’s tag list about events and time periods, places, races/people/cultures, characters, languages, and objects. 

The Atlas of Middle-earth: The Atlas of Middle-earth contains maps of Arda during the First, Second, and Third Ages. There are also maps focusing on the events of The Hobbit and LOTR, as well as thematic maps illustrating the landforms, climate, vegetation and population, and languages of Middle-earth. I have the physical copy of this because I use it all the time and love looking through it just for the sake of looking through it. If you don’t have a copy of this, you can find a lot of Karen Wynn Fonstad’s maps online. @askmiddlearth has shared a number of them on their blog.

Do note, though, the inconsistencies and errors in some of the maps, identified and listed at the Tolkien Gateway link above.

The Dwarrow Scholar*: The Dwarrow Scholar has many resources about Khuzdul and neo-Khuzdul (a fan-created expansion of the language heavily inspired by Semitic languages). The site also has worldbuilding resources covering Dwarven holidays, feasts, seasons, folklore, traditions, marriage customs, succession customs, food, naming conventions, and much more. 

Encyclopedia of Arda: The Encyclopedia of Arda has thousands of articles covering topics from Tolkien’s world. It also has a searchable chronicle to discover what happened on a particular date, a calendar to translate dates and events, a glossary of archaic and unusual words in Tolkien’s works, a lexicon of names (mainly in the Elvish languages), and more. 

Flora of Middle-earth: I don’t yet own this book, so I can’t personally speak to its usefulness, but it covers all of the plants mentioned or described in Tolkien’s work. It addresses climate zones and plant communities, plant morphology, plant identification, the Two Trees, and the plants of Middle-earth.

Henneth-Annûn Research Center: Henneth-Annûn is a goldmine for quickly finding all of the information given in canon about a character, place, thing, etc. You can search for timeline events, character bios, places, and things, and the site will display all relevant passages from the book that address your search term. There is also an A-Z index of characters, places, things, and events. (There is a full-text Boolean search as well, but at the time of posting this, it doesn’t work.)

LOTR Project: LOTR Project has created timelines and interactive maps for the events of the Silm, The Hobbit, and LOTR. The site has also compiled statistics on the demographics of Arda’s various people groups.

Parf Edhellen*: Parf Edhellen is a dictionary of all of Tolkien’s invented languages, with an emphasis on Elvish languages. Parf Edhellen imports other trusted Tolkien sites’ dictionaries into its own, so it has a vast number of words listed. You can filter your searches by language and time period (when Tolkien created/reworked the language), parts of speech, and the website they were taken from. There are reconstructions (fan-created words formed using Tolkien’s language rules) in the dictionary, but they can be filtered out if you would prefer not to use them.

RealElvish.net*: RealElvish.net provides a slew of resources about Tolkien’s languages (and for more languages than just Sindarin and Quenya), including name lists, phrasebooks, pronunciation guides, and word lists. The site’s Trustworthy Websites page is also worth perusing for links to more sites focusing on Tolkien’s languages.

Tolkien Gateway: Tolkien Gateway is well-known in the fandom as a Tolkien wiki with articles on almost anything you can imagine, but I want to highlight its Silm timeline (covering the days before days, the Years of the Trees, the First Age, and the Second Age), Third Age timeline, and Fourth Age timeline. All of the years listed in the timelines can be clicked on to get a more detailed breakdown of the events that happened that year, which is especially helpful when writing about Third Age events. 

SILM RESOURCES

Sources specifically focusing on the First and Second Ages, including Tolkien’s writings beyond the Silm.

@melestasflight's food and cuisine worldbuilding posts*: Melesta’s posts cover both Valinor and Beleriand.

@outofangband's societal and environmental worldbuilding posts*: Outofangband’s societal posts cover people groups in general, fashion, food, education, architecture, festivals, traditions, and more. Their environmental worldbuilding posts cover Beleriand’s flora and fauna, rivers and streams, lakes and springs, forests, marshes, geography, and more.

Silmarillion Writers’ Guild's character biographies: The SWG has an index of character biographies covering many of the characters in the Silm and Tolkien’s other First and Second Age writings. Very useful for a quick refresh about a character or for learning about more obscure characters. (Alternate link to the old site, which lists the characters in alphabetical order.)

LOTR RESOURCES

Sources specifically focused on LOTR and the Third and Fourth Ages.

The Logistics of Minas Tirith*: This short essay by Anders Blixt addresses the logistics of food supply to and distribution within Minas Tirith and poses possible solutions.

Shire of the Hobbits: Shire of the Hobbits has many resources about the Shire, including hobbit customs, typical food and drink, hobbit history, hobbit names and meanings, and a list of hobbit sayings. The site also has information about hobbit calendars and chronology, the various writings produced in the Shire, and the Shire’s geography.

The Religious Rituals of the Dúnedain of Gondor*: This essay by Michael R. Hickman explores canon information about the Dúnedain’s religious customs and ceremonies and uses that information to expand on how those religious customs and ceremonies might look in Fourth Age Gondor under Aragorn’s rule. I haven’t yet read all of the way through the essay, but it is well-cited, using an array of Tolkien’s texts on the subject.

Travel Times in Middle-earth*: This site has generic info about how long it would take to travel in Middle-earth (focusing on major Third Age locations), based on the mode of travel. There is also a table that lists the time it would take to travel from one location to another. The table is incomplete but still very helpful.

[3pirouette]

Fic: Timeless (1/1)

Title: Timeless

By: TriplePirouette/3Pirouette

Spoilers: Loki Season 2 (especially Episode 6), MCU through Endgame, Several of my own Steggy Fic

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

Distribution: AO3/Tumblr  Anyone else please ask first :)

Story Summary: for @behindthelabels for Steggymas2023/Steggy Week 2024 Day 5 “Inspired by”! Hauhet spends her days languishing in the Decoding and Intelligence office at the TVA, but when things start to unravel into chaos, she finds she, too, had a normal life on the timestream as one Agent Peggy Carter. 

AN: Inspired by the Taylor Swift song Timeless (Which is irrevocably Steggy) and Season 2 of Loki and the character of Oroborus. This was put on the back burner once I found out Behindthelabels actually HADN’T watched Loki season 2 and would understand none of this. I wrote her another fic, and said she’d get this as the non-returnable stocking stuffer she never asked for. Almost a year late, but, here you go! Thanks @steggyfanevents

Also, I decided to be REALLY self indulgent and reference a bunch of my own fic as AUs. I tried to include some of my "Greatest hits."

I highly recommend either listening to this song or looking up the lyrics before reading the story. From a random lyrics website: "The song is ultimately about a love so powerful that it would still come to fruition even under circumstances that made it close to impossible to exist."

Hauhet- Egyptian goddess of infinity

Tenses jump back and forth between past and present on purpose. I hope it’s not too jarring, but I felt it would be an interesting way to portray that everything is happening all at once and yet over and over again… 

Also see notes at the end of the fic…

~*~

Read below or HERE on AO3

~*~

It was, in a word, chaos. Time was branching, and without the branches being snipped, she didn’t know what would happen. 

That wasn’t her department, though. The little sign that said “Decoding and Intelligence” on her door kept her separated from the rest of the TVA and though she felt the need to jump into the fray, there was also a deep fear that she’d done that before and it had come to no good. 

That she’d suffered great loss. 

Some days, her little isolated office of books and codes felt like home. People so rarely needed her or visited her, but when she was needed to decode messages or break complicated cyphers, Hauhet knew she was appreciated. 

Yet, sometimes, her little office felt like a prison. 

If she thought too long, she couldn’t remember, exactly, how long she’d been there. She couldn’t remember when or how she’d gotten her job. She couldn’t quite remember what her home even looked like. But those thoughts vanished like the ether, quickly replaced with the urge to update her codex or rearrange her shelves of gadgets. The impetus to think never really left her though, and she spent most of her time alone feeling unsettled, like she was meant for more. 

She just knew she had to be ready, available, for when a time agent would come to her, needing help. Those were the times she felt like she was doing what she was meant to do: breaking cyphers, deciphering codes, solving mysteries. They never let her outside of the TVA, never took her with them on site, but she felt just a hint of value inside her. 

She had so much more to give. She knew that. She just didn’t know how to tell anyone else. 

Not that anyone asked, anyway. 

But the chaos outside of her door today stirred something deep inside her, and within a few minutes she hacked her data pad, listening to the conversations of those agents floors and floors away, discussing things that shocked her. 

They had been people. People in the time stream. 

She wasn’t just a worker at the TVA. She had been someone before that. She’d had a life and a family and she had had something so important that felt just out of reach to her into the annals of her mind. If she closed her eyes and concentrated she saw smart clothes in army green and bright blue and fiery red. High heels and dramatic hats. 

Red, white, and blue Stars and Stripes that made her heart flutter. 

All she ever wore was drab TVA khaki with her sensible sneakers and her hair in a tight knot at the top of her head. With a sudden burst of longing that had to be from something real, she missed the feel of soft silk on her legs and the powerful sound of high heels clicking on tile floors. 

There was a smile. 

She missed a smile. 

If she closed her eyes she could see it: bright teeth that were straight, but not too straight, soft pink lips, a little hint of a quirk on one side so genuine she could feel her heart melt. 

She’d had someone. 

Hauhet stood and paced her little room, running her hands over the bookshelves lined with thick tomes, new and old, chewing at her lip as she tried to get the nervous energy out of her body. 

It was a loss and a gift all at the same time: she’d had another life, but she didn’t know if she could find it or get back to it. 

Did she even want to?

What if… what if that life wasn’t as exciting as this one? What if she’d contributed even less? She picked up her Data pad, rolling it over and over in her hands. There was only one way to find out. 

Hauhet sat at her computer and pulled out a small set of tools, slipping her magnifying glasses on. It took longer than she liked, but eventually she had her data pad wired into her computer. 

With a deep breath, she input the search and waited only a few seconds for it to blink upon her screen. She pulled her glasses off slowly and watched…

~*~

“Well, what do you think?” Steve turns in a circle in the empty living room, pointing at the stairs to the second floor. “Three rooms and a full bathroom up there, half bath, kitchen, a den, and a living room here. Plenty of space downstairs in the basement for a washer and a dryer and a home office…” He shrugs, smiling. 

Peggy sighs, bouncing Mandy in her arms. “You don’t think it’s too big?” The baby giggles, reaching out her arms for Steve. Peggy passes her over before wandering away into the kitchen. “It just seems like a lot…”

”It is,” he quickly agrees. “It’s more than I ever had, that’s for sure.” He steps over to her, looking out the window over the sink, past the back porch and into the green expanse of the back yard. 

“More than I’ve had as well,” Peggy mutters, turning back to him. She taps her fingers on the stove before walking a slow circle in the kitchen, eyes roaming over every surface. “I’m used to barracks and hot plates now.”

Steve nods, his hand running over the downy hairs on Mandy’s head as she snuggles into his shoulder. “Yeah, well, there’s room to spread out,” he says gently, looking up with warmth in his eyes, “Room to grow.”

Peggy pauses, thinking about all the things they’ve said to one another, all the promises they’ve made, and for once, there’s about to be peace in their lives with little else to do but think about the future. The ring on her left hand is still new, and she turns it with her fingers anxiously. 

There will be time to think about growing. 

“It’ll be tight,” she starts, turning pragmatic as she moves past him and towards the front door, “on our pays.”

He follows, a bright spring in his step as he knows she’s made her decision. “I’m pretty sure they’re keeping us on the payroll, Peg.” He smiles at Mandy, bouncing her in his arms as he follows her out the front door. 

“And there’s going to be plenty of work to do to keep it up: mowing, gardening, taking out the trash…” she pauses, tilting her head as if she’s just thought about it. “We’re going to have to do our own grocery shopping. Cooking.”

”I’m sure Jarvis will take pity on us once in a while,” Steve chuckles. He joins her on the front step, closing the front door behind him and looking it over before turning back to her. “So?”

Peggy turns, still serious, looking at the door and all it represents. “What do you think, darling?” She reaches over and tickles Mandy under the chin. “Ready to have your own room? Leave the little government apartment we’ve called our own for a few months now?”

Mandy’s squeal and giggle are a resounding positive. 

“Alright then, darling, we’re all in agreement,” Peggy smiles up at Steve. “We’re going to be homeowners.” She leans up, kissing him quickly, but stopping him when he starts to speak again. “We’re not getting dog.”

~*~

Loop 1

Hauhet stood and paced her little room, running her hands over the bookshelves lined with thick tomes, new and old, chewing at her lip as she tried to get the nervous energy out of her body. 

It was a loss and a gift all at the same time: she’d had another life, but she didn’t know if she could find it or get back to it. 

Did she even want to?

What if… what if that life wasn’t as exciting as this one? What if she’d contributed even less? She picked up her Data pad, rolling it over and over in her hands. There was only one way to find out. 

Hauhet sat at her computer and pulled out a small set of tools, slipping her magnifying glasses on. It took her less time than it should have to wire her data pad to the computer, she was surprised at how easy it seemed. 

With a deep breath, she input the search and waited only a few seconds for it to blink upon her screen. She pulled her glasses off slowly and watched…

~*~

The music swelled, and Peggy couldn’t quite stop the welling of emotion in her chest. 

“I promise I’ll write ya,” Steve says loudly, loud enough that his voice carries all the way to the back of the empty auditorium. 

“And I’ll write you, every day,” she answers under the hot stage lights in her best American accent, stepping forward and putting her hand on his arm. “Just promise you’ll come home to me.”

He looks at her, stares at her for longer than he should, before saying his next line. “Hitler himself couldn’t stop me from coming home to you, Betty.” There’s a lilt in his voice she’s never heard before, a catch before he says her character’s name. 

The music swells again, and when the lights go out and they hurry off stage, she can’t quite seem to catch her breath. 

“You okay?” Steve asks as soon as they’re off stage, the lights raising again and filling the wings with warmth as the girls take center stage to sing. 

Peggy turns back to him, nodding and forcing her breath to even out. “It just…”

”Seemed almost real, right?” he nods, pulling her deeper into the wing and out of the way of the stage hands setting up the next scene change. He almost crowds her into the corner in his effort to give her some privacy while she composes herself. 

Peggy nods at him, wiping away tears that aren’t quite shed from the lash line of her eyes, the dark black stage eyeliner coming off on her fingers. “I almost lost you once, Steve, and I will not go through that again.” 

He leans down, taking her into his arms and letting her melt into him. “You won’t have to, Peg. I promise.”

”You don’t know that, you just can’t-“

”You won’t, I-“

”I hate to break this up,” Angie’s voice, full of her own thick emotion, floods over them, “because I’m sure you could use a minute.” She sniffs, wiping at her own stage make up carefully to lift the tears away. “I mean, you got me crying, too!” She reaches over and pulls Peggy from Steve’s arms gently, “But if we don’t move our asses we’re gonna miss the quick change again and you heard him- if he has to stop the show we’re gonna be here all night and I do not have another 15 hour rehearsal in me!”

Steve watches Peggy go, his arms feeling empty as Angie hurries her away to the little dressing screen they have set up for her. 

He felt it, too. Maybe it is the music, or the costumes. Maybe between the lights and the costumes, the backdrops and the speakers, it makes it feel like hyper reality. But whatever it is, something is different. It isn’t hypothetical anymore. She’d almost lost him once already, and as soon as they’re done here he’ll be on the front sooner rather than later, and she’ll be there, too, in just as much danger. 

And yet, his arms feel empty without her. 

He doesn’t want to write letters. 

He doesn’t want to go months without seeing her. 

He doesn’t want to go to bed one single night without her next to him. 

It is an amazing feeling, swelling in the sadness that had just filled him from their little, poorly written scene. 

He loves her, and he knows now he isn’t letting go. 

~*~

Loop 114

Hauhet stood and paced her little room, running her hands over the bookshelves lined with thick tomes, new and old, chewing at her lip as she tried to get the nervous energy out of her body. This felt like it had happened before. 

Could that be? 

Could time have repeated? Here? In the TVA?

It was a loss and a gift all at the same time: she’d had another life, but she didn’t know if she could find it or get back to it. 

Did she even want to?

What if… what if that life wasn’t as exciting as this one? What if she’d contributed even less? She picked up her Data pad, rolling it over and over in her hands. There was only one way to find out. 

Hauhet sat at her computer and pulled out a small set of tools, slipping her magnifying glasses on. The ease with which she was able to connect her data pad to her computer, something she’d never done before, told her that time was indeed not running correctly. 

It didn’t much matter right now, though. 

With a deep breath, she input the search and waited only a few seconds for it to blink upon her screen. She pulled her glasses off slowly and started to watch…

~*~

The rain pounded the top of her canvas tent, the little light she had flickered in and out as the storm raged. She couldn’t seem to get dry in her little tent, but then again, nothing had been dry in days. 

It felt like the war had come to a stand still. Both sides were trying to fight trench foot and keep people warm and alive. They didn’t have time to fight one another. Hydra seemed farther and farther away every day that kept her in camp and away from the front. 

Instead, all Peggy could do was pull out her little nub of a pencil and write. Again. 

Not that Steve minded. She was sure he didn’t, just like she didn’t mind any time she got a letter from him back in New York. She opened the little tin box she used to keep her paper dry and ran her fingers over the little picture of Steve she kept taped to the top. He’d obviously posed for it, had someone else snap it and gotten it developed just to send to her. It was the only thing she really cared about keeping dry, that and his letters. 

She ran her fingers over them, filled with stories from home and all the things he wanted to do with her once the war was over, all the things he wanted to say to her in person but would have to suffice in the written word. 

They were an ocean part, with only the vaguest of promises between them, but she knew, deep in her heart, that the frail boned man would be her destiny. She’d known the first time he’d smiled at her. 

She pulled out his last letter and started reading. It still astounded her that he liked her, that a smart, interesting, funny man like him could find something in her. She’d always been told she was too bold, too brash, for men to like her. All her life her mother had tried to get her to play a part to attract a suitor, and now, after Erskine’s experiment, she knew she wasn’t what most men would find attractive. 

Steve? Steve looked at her with love in his eyes and it astounded her every time. 

She read about the war effort and his experiments with Stark, his art projects and how much he hated watching the kid in the neighborhood have to go without birthday cakes because of rationing. 

She read his letters over and over again until she could recite them by heart. Some days, deep in a foxhole or shivering in the rain while she waited to raid a Hydra strong hold, reciting his words in her head were all that gave her hope. 

She loved him, and she was pretty sure he loved her. 

She just needed to put an end to this damn war, and then she’d be able to show him just how much. 

~*~

Loop 872

Hauhet stood and paced her little room, running her hands over the bookshelves lined with thick tomes, new and old, chewing at her lip as she tried to get the nervous energy out of her body. This seemed… familiar. This action, this moment. 

She’d lived it before.

The emotions weren’t new. They were old and worn in, even if she couldn’t remember ever feeling them before. 

She picked up her Data pad, rolling it over and over in her hands. There was only one way to find out. 

Hauhet sat at her computer and pulled out a small set of tools, slipping her magnifying glasses on. In seconds the interface was working. 

With a deep breath, she input the search and waited only a few seconds for it to blink upon her screen. She pulled her glasses off slowly and started to watch…

~*~

“Skinny Bastard,” Phillips mutters, shaking his head as he enters. 

Steve laughs, climbing down the ladder and out of the rafters of the stage. “You’re gonna have to stop calling me that one day.” He holds his hand out once his feet are on the ground, smiling when Phillips shakes it firmly. 

Phillips works hard to hide his smile. “You’re a day late.”

”Don’t go blamin’ him!” Angie’s voice carries through the empty auditorium. The building is almost unrecognizable to what it was a few years ago when they put on their first show. She weaves her way through the rows of seats, carrying garment bags of gowns in her arms. “All this one’s fault! 

“Now that’s just-“ Bucky’s words fall away as he sees Phillips’ stern look. “sir. Yes sir, I was just-“

”Dawdling? Like always?” He holds his stare for a moment, watching the way the poor man’s Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows before shaking his head and laughing. “I’m not your commanding officer anymore, Barnes.”

”No,” he responds, moving into he room with his arms full of stacked crates, “But you do put us up for the whole winter while put together a new show so I figure I should still, ya know.”

Steve pulls the crates from Bucky’s hands, stopping his rambling. “Go get the rest of it, will ya?”

”Yeah, yeah,” he mutters, dropping his head and heading out to Phillips’ amusement. 

Phillips follows Steve to where he drops the crates by the edge of the stage. “So what’s the big to-do? Ana’s been looking like the cat that swallowed the cream and won’t give any of us a damn hint.”

Steve smiles to himself as he starts to unpack the stage lights from he crates. “Peggy won’t be in the show this year.” 

Phillips watches him carefully. “I’d ask if there was trouble in paradise, but you’re still wearing your ring, and you’ve got that stupid, suspicious as hell smile on your face that I don’t like.” He leans back on the edge of the stage, watching as Angie weaves through the seats to head back out and help Barnes with unpacking the rest of the truck. “You let that wife of yours get a better offer from a club in the city?” 

Peggy’s voice rings out from the wings. “Oh no, I promise you, I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

He looks over, but can’t see her in the dark. “Well then, what’s the damn secret?”

Peggy moves out, less graceful and less lithe than she was last time she was on this stage, hindered this time by the way her rounded belly leads the way. She lets her hand run over it, her dress tightening for just a moment so Phillips can see it. “Not much of a secret anymore, I’m afraid.”

”Skinny Bastard knocked you up!” he can’t help the smile that slides along his face. He claps Steve on the shoulder. “Congratulations, you two!”

Peggy waddles over to the edge of the stage, letting Steve gently lift her down. “I’m afraid I had to tell someone. Looks like our little one may be making an appearance before we’re done for the season. She’s helped me find a local midwife.”

”Good, good,” Phillips mutters, watching the way Steve absentmindedly stokes her lower back as he inventories his crate, the way her hand smooths over the rounded bump of her stomach. “Makes sense why he wouldn’t put you in the show.”

”Absolutely does not,” Peggy bites out, eyes narrowing. 

“Does too,” both men reply at the same time. 

She huffs, but doesn’t make a quip back. This is an old fight, and one she doesn’t want to rekindle now. 

“Jarvis!” Phillips calls, and the mana pops his head in the auditorium comically fast. 

“Yes, sir!”

”Did you know Carter was pregnant?”

”I believe she goes by Mrs. Rogers now, but yes, Ana had let it slip that-“

”Well, why in the hell are you still standing here? We have work to do!” Phillips stars moving away, despite Steve and Peggy’s protests. “we’ve got to make sure that cabin’s draft free, and that their hot water heater’s been checked and re-checked. Get that midwife on the phone for me, she’ll be staying here until that baby’s born. And another…”

His voice fades as he and Jarvis disappear from the room into he main part of the inn. 

“I told you,” Peggy mutters, leaning back on the edge of the stage. “He’s going to make an insufferably big deal of this.”

”Of course he is!” Barnes pipes in, carrying another set of crates in. “In my opinion, Steve is being way too cavalier about my godson being born.” 

“Or goddaughter,” Angie cuts him off quickly. “And he’s just being sensible, aren't you, Steve?”

”I’m trying,” he sighs, turning to Peggy. “I really think you should have stayed in the City. I could be back as soon as you go into labor and-“

”Absolutely, under no circumstances, will you miss the birth of our child because of show.” She raises her eyebrows at him. “Especially one you won’t let me in.” She softens, taking his hand and settling it over her belly where he can feel the soft kicks. “This is a family act, Rogers. Get used to it.”

”Yes, Ma’am.”

~*~

Loop 2,467

She didn’t think about it anymore, just let her body run on instinct. She’d been here before, she’d done these things before. 

With a deep breath, she input the search and waited only a few seconds for it to blink upon her screen. She pulled her glasses off slowly and started to watch…

~*~

“Damnnit, Rogers, run faster!”

Steve pumps his legs, jostling Peggy on his shoulder. “I’m running for two here, Jones!” He calls back as they move through the cavern, the walls shaking and collapsing around them. 

“Care would be appreciated!” Peggey called from over his shoulder where he was carrying her, her arms and legs still tied tight to her sides, a high pitched squeal leaving her throat as Steve narrowly jumped away from a tumbling boulder. 

“Speed might be better!” Jones called, hysteria creeping into his voice, jumping over a crack that appeared in the ground in front of them. 

Steve took the same widening crack, now nearly a full chasm, easily as dirt and pebbles started to fall from the ceiling. 

“Is this standard Hydra?” Jones called, slowing and climbing over a pile of rubble that stood between them and the exit. 

Steve took Indy’s hand, keeping one arm around Peggy and letting his friend boost him up and help him navigate the rubble. “Not really, no,” he replied loudly, never missing a step as the path cleared out in front of them once they were over. “But then again, I’m not that surprised, either.”

”Implosion or explosion?” Peggy asked, looking up at Jones from over Steve’s shoulder as he took the lead, using his nearly photographic memory to wind them back through the shaking catacombs. 

“Could be either,” Jones huffed, trying to keep up, “but I’m betting implosion. Easier to set this low in the ground.”

”Either one is bad,” Steve bit out, moving faster.

Peggy dropped her head, unable to hold on with her hands still tied to her sides. “Bit of an understatement, darling.”

”Are we having a chat?” Indy bit out sarcastically, overtaking Steve again as the dying sunset shone through the small entrance of the cave. “I’d like to get as far away from the bomb as possible, please!”

Jones shimmied out of the small hole, then reached his arms back in, carefully grabbing Peggy around the hips as Steve set her down and wiggled her through the opening. Jones had her in his arms, though a little less gracefully than Steve, and was running as soon as her feet left the ground. 

“Steve!”

”Steve will be fine,” Indy puffed out, breathless as he moved across the empty desert terrain. “He’ll be better than us if he’s close.”

”Won’t be close,” Steve called out, just a step behind, “Let’s move!”

 He reached out, pulling Peggy from Jones’s arms and both men pushed their legs even farther and harder. 

They felt the explosion before they heard it, the ground shaking beneath their feet. Indy and Steve tumbled to the ground, both men wrapping themselves around Peggy as they tumbled, working to keep one another safe. 

They skidded to a halt just in time to turn and look at the small mountain they had just been under crumble in on itself, spewing dirt and sand into the air. When the cloud settled and the ground stopped shaking, when they could blink their eyes open again and when the dry coughing from the dust-laden air stopped, there was only a crater filled with rubble where there had once been a secret Hydra base. 

“Implosion,” Indy muttered, humming. “Told ya.”

Steve sat back, pulling his helmet and gloves off, wiping at his face where stark lines of dirt streaked where his helmet hadn’t covered. “Told ya It’d be bad.”

Indy pulled his hat off his head, hitting it to get the dust dislodged. “Well of course it was going to be bad, Rogers, it was a self-destruct.”

”Hydra doesn’t always-“

”Well of course they always-“

Peggy huffed, lifting both feet and slamming them back down in the dirt, getting the attention of the men as they talked over one another as they let off the adrenaline of the last few hours. “I’d get up and leave you two to your bickering,” she started, wiggling in place as the ropes that tied her together were still laced across her chest and down around her legs, “but I seem to be having some trouble. Care to help?”

She raised her eyebrow at them, waiting as they both stared at her, jaws hanging open. 

“Well?” She asked again, wiggling her hands at her side when they still didn’t move. “Untie me!”

Indy leaned back, smiling. “You know, you're the one who ran off and got captured. Seems it’s in our best interest to keep you from running off again, don’t you think, Steve?”

Peggy huffed, but Steve shrugged, sitting back. “I think slowing her down a little bit isn’t a bad idea.”

”You wouldn’t dare!” Peggy bit out, starting to get truly incensed. 

Steve shrugged as he and Indy stood, wiping the dust off themselves. “I could use to know where you are for a bit, Peg.” He smiled in a way that was usually cheeky and charming, but only served to increase her ire. He reached down, even as she started squirming, and hoisted her over his shoulder again. 

“You put me down and let me out of this right now!” She wiggled, but didn’t fight against his tight grip too much as he started walking back the mile and a half to the jeep in step with Jones. 

“You heard him, Peg,” Indy said, his voice full of smug teasing. “We gotta know where you are.”

Peggy lifted her head, throwing Indy a harsh look before she flopped back down. “Don’t think I won’t forget this,” she muttered. 

“Don’t think I’m gonna forget you scaring the shit outta me,” Steve replied, “by intentionally getting yourself captured.”

”Language!” Indy interjected with a smile. 

“Well, it worked,” Peggy muttered, her fight gone. “Hydra’s lost another base and we have a lead on Schmidt.”

Steve didn’t say anything, but she felt more than heard his grumble. 

After a few quiet minutes, Peggy finally spoke again. “Well, joke’s on you, darling, I’m getting a lovely break back here, with a lovely view, and you’re doing the work for both of us.”

Indy laughed next to them. “If you want to leave her here, Rogers, I won't tell anyone.”

”Nah,” Steve responded, gently tightening his hold on her as the Jeep came into view, “I’ve grown a little attached.”

~*~

Loop 12,356

Hauhet could hardly breathe. She couldn’t remember anything, not really, little foggy memories and ideas of lives before this, of painted nurseries and undercooked hams and missions in snowy communist countries. 

All of those half formed memories seemed much, much more real than her time at the TVA, than whatever illusion of a life she had here. 

With a deep breath, she input the search into the data pad and waited only a few seconds for it to blink upon her screen. She pulled her glasses off slowly and started to watch…

~*~

“Steve! You’ve come back!” 

He takes her hand, holding tightly from the side of the bed. 

“Yeah, Peg, I’m here.”

She could feel the emotion welling up in her chest as she tried to sit up, but he just smiled down at her, leaning forward and helping her sit. Always the gentleman. 

“Easy, Peg,” he whispers, his voice thick with his own emotion. 

“How?” She whispers, reaching up and running her hand over his cheek. She pauses, looking at the dissonance between their skin: his as young as the last time she saw him, and hers, withered and wrinkled with a lifetime lived. 

He lifts her hand from his cheek, holding it in both of his as he sits on the side of her bed, smiling sweetly. “It’s a long story for another day.”

She can’t help but be maudlin, can’t help but say all the things she’s thinking. “I missed you every day, my darling.”

His eyes flutter shut, chin falling to his chest. “I-“

”Don’t apologize,” she whispers, “I came to terms with what you did long ago.” He looks up at her, and this time, his eyes are filled with tears. “Doesn’t mean I didn’t love you, didn’t miss you, every day.”

He swallows, hard, and threads his fingers in with hers. “Didn’t mean to stand you up for our date,” he croaks out, fighting to force a smile. 

Peggy smiles up at him, holding his hand tighter in hers. “You’re here now. you always were just a little late, weren’t you?”

~*~

Loop 300,465

She doesn't think, she just does. Hauhet has learned to trust her intuition in her time with the TVA, but something screams in her that she’s simply remembering now. Something screams to her that this was a skill she had before.

This was something she’d done without thought. 

Agent.

Even the seconds it takes for her to connect the Data pad seem too long. 

She needs to know…

~*~

“Peggy, this is my choice.”

Peggy holds the microphone tight in her hand. She wants to say something, anything, but no words come to her, nothing swells but the feeling of loss, bigger than anything she’s felt in a long time. 

His voice comes through the line, tinny and resigned. “Peggy, I’m gonna need a rain check on that dance.”

”All right,” She takes a deep breath, desperate to hold on to whatever time she has left with him, uncaring of who is still in the room, uncaring of the tears running down her face. “A week next Saturday, at the Stork Club.”

”You got it.” His voice is tight, strained. But not afraid. 

Never afraid. 

Steve has never, for one moment, been afraid of what he’s thought he’s had to do since she’s known him, even when he was small and skinny and jumping on grenades.

”Eight o’clock on the dot,” she continued, trying to take some of his bravery, trying to steal some of his damn assuredness, “don’t you dare be late. Understood?”

”You know I still don’t know how to dance,” he rushes out, his voice starting to shake. She pretends it’s just the shaking of the plane. 

She can’t help but smile, can’t help but think maybe… maybe… if there is a God in this world, he won’t let this good man die on her today. “I’ll show you how,” she rushes out, hoping he can hear how much she needs him, how much she wants him to survive this in her voice. “Just be there.” 

His voice is raising. It’s not much, but she can tell it’s there. Nervousness. “We’ll have the band play something slow.” The ship shakes over the line, the sound of shivering metal something she’s heard before in transmissions just before disaster strikes. “I’d hate to step on your-“

The static, a low rumble in the room, is deafening. 

“Steve?” She pleads across the line. “Steve?”

She’s lost him. 

She can only pray, as the tears fall, that there’s still a chance to find him. 

~*~

Loop 1,475,692

Hauhet sits heavy on the floor of her office.

No, not Hauhet. Peggy Carter. 

Agent Peggy Carter. 

She’d had a life once. 

The memories flood into her, stronger than whatever force is being used to keep her complacent. This day has happened over and over. She sees herself, sitting at that desk, over and over. Hundreds of times. Millions of times. 

More than any sane person could handle, she’s sure, if they could remember. 

But she does remember now. Because she met him in every single branch. Every single universe. Every single timeline. 

Steve Rogers. 

And no matter when or how they met, it felt like home. 

She could feel him, sitting in her heart, like a beacon. She had her own Steve. There was a man with that little boyish lopsided smile and the courage of a lion out there somewhere, waiting for her. 

And she’d been languishing in this pace for millennia, doing the tedious desk work she’d fought so hard to get away from all of her life. 

She hadn’t found her Steve yet, she knew that. None of the branches, none of the stories she had seen so far gave her anything more than a longing. 

She’d feel it when she found him, when she found her timeline and her world. She knew it. 

And as long as this day kept repeating, she’d find him. She’d find their life together. 

They made each other better. Even in the timeliness when they lost one another, even in the timelines when there was only a short period of time left together, they made one another better. 

They were timeless, finding one another again over and over, no matter what the world looked like, no matter when their souls showed up. 

Even if he was gone in her timeline, she wanted to be a place where he was, where he had been and she could find and recover and languish in the memories. 

She was ready to give up this drab, rote existence. 

Saving the universe meant nothing in here. Saving it from out there? With her heels and her gun and the love of her life? 

Well, that was something that had real value, and Peggy was going to stop at nothing to find it. 

Without even thinking she let her hands fly over the wires, connecting her Data pad to the computer. 

She was going to find him, and she was going to get back to him. 

~*~

End A/N: 

While we have our MCU Steggy and What If…? Steggy, I couldn’t HELP but throw in my favorite Steggys in there from my own fic. (Yes, it’s a little *cough*lot*cough* self indulgent) They’re all Extra Scenes that don’t show up in the main fic and they’re inspired by the lyrics to Timeless. In order that they show up in the story:

1- Nobody’s Baby (Two lovers laughin’ on the porch of their first house)

2-The Captain and the Missus (On a Crowded Street in 1944 and you were headed off to fight in the war)

3-What if…? (I would have read your love letters every single night)

4- A Red, White, and Blue Christmas (Which brought me back to the the first time I saw you Time stood still)

5-Interested Parties Series (Indiana Jones Crossover) (Down the block there’s an antique shop)

6- Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Time breaks down your mind and body, don’t you let it touch your soul)

7- Captain America: The First Avenger (Story of a romance Torn Apart by Fate)

[pixelplayground]

Hello! I just want to say I really love all your builds and interiors and your design sense. Could recommend some of your favorite places to get inspiration, if you look at anything or save pictures? (social media, magazines, etc)

Hello @suneesims,

Thank you! I tend to prefer using Instagram these days compared to Pinterest. During my remodel IRL (which TBH is still on-going, and I feel like it will never be done, lol) I found Instagram to be very useful in terms of sourcing local vendors, landscapers, architects, etc. They will usually have their own Instagram pages and websites showcasing their portfolios.

I have also been visiting a lot of local home parades from the luxury custom builders in my area which is always great for inspiration. I will take pictures in person to refer to later.

I have been collecting architectural books too. Patrick Ahearn is the architect of most of the Dutch Colonial and Cape Cod builds that are popular on Pinterest and then by default, simblr. Historical Concepts is another prevalent firm. McAlpine, Charles Hilton, Olson Kundig, Eric Olsen, Amber Lewis, Studio McGee/McGee&Co, etc. are all very popular. I have always loved RH and the designers that they collaborate with. One of the nice things about referring to the actual firms behind these builds is that on their Instagram they will link every firm that was involved in creating the project, such as their interior designer, the contracted builder, the landscape firm, etc. You can go down the rabbit hole and expose yourself to new and less “popular” accounts so you're absorbing a broader range of influences versus the same derivative content over and over again.

[genderqueerdykes]

Do you have any tips or resources for someone who wants to get into drag?

hello there!

this is a good question! i don't have any websites or anything like that handy, but i'll make sure to include things as i find them!

my biggest piece of advice is to observe what other drag artists are doing. there's not a rulebook or anything like that, a lot of artists go in a lot of different directions with their looks! i think it's best to try to get some exposure to the community on a large scale when and where possible and to just see what others are doing

you can think about any potential themes you'd like to incorporate, like bimbo, doll, lolita, ballroom, camp, alternative, gothic, nonhuman, or time period specific looks! there are lots of styles for all types of drag artists, there are lots of drag kings out there as well and the inspirations and themes for outfits can vary wildly!

it's good to think about what you think drag is for you, too. what is your statement? what are you telling the world when you dress in drag? what are you parodying? what is it a satire of? what are you making fun of? what are you expressing? is it self love? is it showing the world this is who you are inside? is it commentary on how society views you? is it how you can have fun and look pretty at the same time? is it about breaking down binaries? having to over-perform womanhood, manhood, or nonbinaryhood? feeling like a caricature? and so on and so forth

once you have an idea of what you are expressing when you do drag, it can give you some more inspiration on looks. you are never locked into one look, having one name, being one type of performer. you can switch between being a drag queen, king, artist, and thing! there's nothing stopping you from having multiple drag personas, or not having one at all. you don't have to have a name or a specific persona if that doesn't suit you

if you want to have a specific persona, a lot of folks like to make their name or title some type of pun. i'm autistic and suck at cultural references, so i'm not great at lending a hand on this one! but some folks are able to come up with some hilarious names. humor is a huge part of drag so please don't feel like you can't be funny. drag can leave you crying laughing- some performers love to do comedy in drag and it rips!

you can also be serious, sexy, mysterious, playful, animalistic, nonhuman, alien, or childlike. it's totally up to you, there's no hard set rules, it's a very play it by ear kind of thing. above all else it is an artform, meaning it is highly up to interpretation. you don't have to necessarily layer your face up in makeup if that doesn't suit you. if you can find other ways to express yourself and have fun with gender and presentation that don't involve that, show people!

many performers also include cultural aspects of their ethnicity into their drag as well! i live in a highly diverse area with a lot of latine and indigenous performers and i have met a lot of local navajo queens who have incorporated fashion from their culture into their looks as well! drag's foundation is in black & latine ballroom culture, people of color have always had a massive hand in being the pioneers of drag, so don't be afraid to incorporate those themes into your performances and outfits if it feels comfortable to you

clothes and wigs can be thrifted depending on the area you live in, and your sizes. i have found great success (i.e. all of my outfits except my vests!) from thrift stores. it can take some looking but it is worth it. however, i do understand some folks struggle to find cute clothes for drag because their local area does not have great thrift stores. it is okay to do what you have to to find cheap clothes, if you do not have access to thrift stores that have a lot of variety, you can always look for consignment shops and other types of boutiques of that variety, and i do believe there are lots of drag closets online, as well as any other sites that you personally find clothes from that suits the aesthetic you're going for! you can find clothes for drag anywhere if you develop an eye for it

i would highly suggest browsing youtube for wig styling and makeup tutorials! i just kind of view my face as a canvas and paint on whatever i think would look cool, but for some of my looks i am learning how to play with light and shadow, so i highly recommend just browsing for tutorials for people who match your skin and hair type! i would highly recommend making sure you are specifying what type of hair you are working with when searching for tutorials

you can start playlists of songs to perform to if music is your thing, and you can also look up choreography for songs on youtube as well for ideas, if music will be involved in your performing. it's definitely not necessary though, and many folks dress up and spend time in drag to socialize, not to sing and dance, which is totally fine as well! comedy, book readings and cooking tutorials are just a few other things that folks like to do while in drag! you can do a lot or nothing at all it's really up to you

i hope this helps! if we come up with anything else, we'll add it! you can also ask any more specific questions you'd like! we hope this was a good place to start off from!

[complimenting-ocs]

I'm too much of an autist to put their stories into coherent words without going on a full rant (I have multiple-page Word documents about them and the fantasy world they live in) but please have these monkeys🥹💖

⬇️Reference drawings⬇️

Comic based on an incorrect quote I found on the website called Tumblr (not sure you've heard of the place /s /j hehe) ⬇️⬇️⬇️

(⚠️suggestive joke ahead⚠️)

I love drawing character acting,,,😢🫶

Comic that I thought of late at night⬇️⬇️⬇️

Uhh um. Baby monke🥹⬇️⬇️⬇️ (that's bscly how they met)

And some more funnies⬇️⬇️⬇️

The 1st one is Ürespocak Maki (roughly meaning: monkey with an empty tummy)

The 2nd one is Fopha

And the kid is named Kid (very creative, I know pfphpfpg😭)

I would also like to add how wholesome the idea of this whole blog is, it warms my squishy little heart💖‼️

WAIT HOLY CRAP YOUR ART LOOKS AMAZING WHAT??? THEY’RE SO COOL AND FUN AND HAVE SO MUCH ENERGY AND EXPRESSION!!! Your artstyle would also look great in a cartoon I think and to be completely honest, I would watch the hell out of a show with these guys (or a comic OR REALLY ANYTHING)

And I love that you gave their names specific meanings, it really adds to their personality and culture!! Very very impressive!!!!

The one drawing with Ürespocak Maki and Kid is hilarious and beautiful, I love them 😭😭😭

They will hold a special place in my heart forever, thank you for sharing!!!

(And thank you for the compliment, I just love supporting artists ^^)

[princess-of-the-corner]

K, 2 things:

1. — So, yeah, looked at potential vampire beings for Himiko hero names and either 1), they are not actual “vampires” but creatures that simply primarily drink blood, otherwise have no connections at all, or 2) they really lean into the “Ancient, Sexy Immortal”. I basically made my criteria “drinks blood” after a bit, because it was otherwise REALLY HARD to find anybody who sort fit. Of the few I found that KIND OF fit:

Strix - in Greek myth, a creature that largely resembles an owl, but seems to reflect the behaviour of a bat, hanging upside down from perches, and making high-pitched noises that sound like crying. They drink blood (though a few tales mention feasting on human flesh) and were either the familiars of malevolent witches, or merely ill-fated omens which themselves posed no harm, but seeing one was the harbinger of doom or despair coming your way. Also called “vampyre owls”. Apparently six strix feathers were main ingredients of several love potions. Strix also became synonymous with “witches”, specifically used to refer to “flying women”, at some point, though it seems to be fairly even between the witch and vampire association.

Mullo - a kind of vampire from Romani culture, though more specifically, an undead, usually a person who did not receive proper burial rights. This isn’t being included as an actual name suggestion, I just got a kick out of Mullo also being the Mouse Miraculous, so I imagined a little vampire mouse.

Jubokko - a Japanese yokai, basically a demonic tree that grew near a battlefield. So many people died on said battlefield, that the tree would suck up blood rather than water, and seem to become addicted? (The website I found this one on was oddly translated, and Wikipedia did not help much). So, the trees start kidnapping travellers who venture near it, wrap them in its roots, and drain them dry.

Dhampir - supposedly the offspring of a vampire and a human. Can really only see this if Himiko was making some kind of statement about her parentage.

Empusa - both the best and worst one I found. Greek mythological beings, they were blood drinking shapeshifters (often said to have one leg of bronze/copper, and the other vaguely reptilian). They also lured young men in, so they could Black Widow them (the spider, not the Marvel character). So like, on the one hand, actual blood-drinking shapeshifter! On the other, Greek myth monster that liked killing people! I could definitely see Himiko making it work, but again, it doesn’t really fall into the “cute” category she’s going for, even the one she has that’s different from most peoples.

2. — Now I’m thinking about it, Termina could be an entire side quest section of No Fate. Like, you get introduced to it by whatever the Zora Quest is (cause I am really attached to the Trio turning into different species). Like, Trio can’t get to Zora’s domain, because it is COMPLETELY flooded/underwater, so they follow a rumour about a mask that lets you breathe underwater. They end up in Kokiri/Deku Forest, and find a hut with an old man, who says he’ll carve them the masks if they get wood from the Deku Tree. So, the go to the Great Deku Tree, who gives them some wood to use, they go back to the Old Man, and he carves the masks. My main thoughts here are 1) as the Trio travel through the forest, they see glimpses of Termina. 2) Maybe at some point they fall asleep and their dream selves get briefly transported to Termina, where they encounter [Fairy Whose Name I Forgot].

Regardless of how it happens, they first ask the Deku Tree about it, and he tells them that the Forest occupies a “Space Betwixt and Between”, a kind of crossroads that can lead to other places. Then, they ask the old man, as he’s carving their masks, and he makes some vague remarks about the state of his “home”, and why he might be in the Forest in the first place. You get the masks, and go do the Zora thing (Ganon and Zelda are both surprised to actually TURN INTO Zoras, while Link is like “oh, should I have warned you?”). The Zora masks let the Trio breathe underwater and swim fast (or in Ganon’s case, let him swim), and maybe let you explore the Great Lakes or something, but are the only Masks that are plot relevant.

The Termina thing could be a whole side thing, where you visit the old man, fall asleep, and get Dreamed to Termina, where you sort out various problems, probably find some rare items or materials. Completing the various sections would also earn you new masks, which while cool, giving you new forms to wear, wouldn’t be required to beat the game. Like, you could have a Rito Form, who increases your jump (and changes any gliding animations from a Glider, to using your wings), and maybe gives you default cold resistance, maybe makes using bows easier. The Goron mask lets you roll around, and has a built in heat resistance. Zonai could give you increased magic buffs. None of these things are required to beat the game, but they are helpful, since they wouldn’t take up any armour slots. You put the mask on, and your “base” changes, but you can still wear all your other gear.

Thoughts?

-

Re: Himiko’s Name: I think the thing here is that yeah a lot of them are so off--handedly scary. And while some Heroes can have ‘scary’ names, Himiko is trying for more cute than scary.

I have a Thought™ on what I may want with MM but I’ll come back to that

[mae--bee]

Can you share about your dissertation on historical trans men? That sounds interesting

man tumblr just straight up didn't give me a notification about this, sorry this late but here's my overdue, overly long rambling about my diss 🤠

it's basically about trans cowboys. or an analysis of the formation of the "american identity" amd american ideology that was created during the westward expansion (manifest destiny, american exceptionalism, and the caricature of american masculinity), and how these values were (or were not) represented amongst gender nonconforming groups.

Harry Allen (fka Nell Pickerell) was the classic outlaw type, I had over 40 newspaper articles about his crimes - which included marrying multiple women at one time, most of whom were prostitutes he was supporting. he was the poster child for my dissertation cause of how vocal he was about being a man. finding transmen in history is difficult because of the lack of terminology they had to self-identify, and so many women lived as men for financial and personal security. Allen's mother was even known for showing up at the jail where Allen was being held and asking for her son Harry, refusing to listen to anyone who referred to him as Nell or her daughter. there's actually a dissertation from the 1920s in which Allen did an interview regarding his gender identity, which ngl I was so excited when I found it

Charley Parkhurst lived for over 40 years as a man, and is considered by some to be the first 'woman' who voted in America because he was able to vote as a man. he did an interview with Harpers Weekly (Washoe Revisited, you can find it on the way back machine), where the journalist describes him as a well respected and well known man in the community. he was a stagecoach driver who was known as the driver who could do the routes no other driver could. there's an incredible drawing of Parkhurst in the article, where he's shown as a rugged aging man. Parkhurst wasn't outed until after his death

Theodore Hoffman was the girl-bell-boy at hotels who reached out to newspapers in order to have interviews where he could defend his gender identity. he posed a threat to traditional masculinity because unlike Allen, he wasn't a "degenerate" who was hellbent on causing trouble, so his gender identity couldnt be excused as part of an act to disrupt polite society.

if anyone's interested in transwomen, there's a really interesting discussion surrounding transwomen and race, as the only named accounts of transwomen I could find were Mrs Nash, who was a Mexican women (who married 3 different men, 2 who used her for money, and 1 who was her soulmate who loved her until her death), and Lucy Hicks Anderson, who was a socialite Black woman. both women had their race weaponised against them in order to attack their gender identity. they're incredible women and I recommend looking into them more (especially Mrs.Nash, who I have a soft spot for)

There's some really cool articles on Native American gender identities that I didn't manage to touch on in my diss. the rigid gender structures we know today were laregly a response to two-spirit people, in order to keep the American identity white and heteronormative.

Peter Boags "redressing Americas frontier past" is an incredible book for anyone who wants to read about historic transpeople, and he's written a load of articles where he deepdives into individual people. Susan Stykers "transgender history" is also a great read, and branches out from the American West. library of Congress website has a fuck ton of newspaper articles about Harry Allen (search Nell Pickerell, sort by Washington state 1880-1920)

also all my chapter titles were red dead redemption 2 quotes. so that was pretty cool

[palidoozy-art]

Sorry if you’ve answered this before, but what website do you use to play DND? The map layouts and character tokens look really good and I’m hoping to have something similar for the online game I’m running with my friends.

No worries! I fuckin' love talking about D&D and my campaign, thank you for giving me the opportunity.

So for tools we use to play D&D -- we currently run D&D in Foundry. It has an up-front cost ($40, no subscription), but only requires a single license and then the DM can host it on their machine while everyone else connects. It has a TON of modules that allow you to customize it, including a DND beyond importer.

That said, it does cost, y'know, money. We switched to foundry for the post-Curse of Strahd campaign. Originally for Curse of Strahd we actually used roll20. Roll20 is free, but there were minor things that I didn't like about it that caused me to switch.

But if cost is your concern or you're just doing a oneshot and don't want to invest, go for roll20 imo. If you do, HIGHLY recommend you install the VTT enhancement suite and Beyond20 (if you use D&D Beyond) which improve the site immensely.

For the maps -- I vary what I use. I use the following tools and programs:

Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator

Watabou's City Generator

Inkarnate

DungeonDraft

My own hands

Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator is what I usually use to create a baseline for a world map, including a first draft of town and country names. I'll treat it like a rough draft before taking it into photoshop, drawing over it, and adjusting it to my liking. I generated the base of my game's world map in Azgaar's before I drew over it and adjusted it to fit my needs.

Watabou's City Generator is actually built into Azgaar's to some extent (click on any town name and it'll give you a link), but you can generate it manually, too! I used to use it to generate the city maps I'd give to my players. Here's an example of Thatking, the capital of Zarova (formerly Treteria). For reference -- the party fought the Queen here, and Kjosev died in the Citadel.

Nowadays, when I build cities, I actually use the next website on the list -- Inkarnate. I'll might use Watabou's for a base, but I use Inkarnate for polish.

Inkarnate is extremely good at two things: cities, and open-world battlemaps. Here's the lizardfolk capital of Savegoria, Paign! It's where Yolihuali is from. I built it solely through Inkarnate.

One of the things I like about Inkarnate is that it lets you adjust the hue/saturation of the little tokens you can put down, which I abused the HELL out of when I made battlemaps for Twilight Woods. Here's one of the random forest battle maps I made:

Now that said: Inkarnate sucks ass at making rooms. There's allegedly something in the works to address this... but currently you have to place every wall manually, and it sucks. That's actually where Dungeondraft comes in.

Dungeondraft is a little more cartoony, but it's great at building interiors and rooms. Unlike Inkarnate, it's not through the internet -- it's just a program you buy. But I've found decent use out of it. I built the entire map for the University of Temir in it (note: this is a snippet, the map is enormous)

And here's an example of the players' early bunkhouse, back when their town was underdeveloped! Both built using Dungeondraft.

VERY VERY RARELY I'll hand-draw a battlemap. Usually this is done because I've already tried to build the map in other tools and I wasn't happy with it, or I couldn't get it to look like the vision in my head. For example, I drew the map to Tephelt's lair by hand (snippet below: it's too big to post)

(Note: if it looks light, that's actually because I set up the lighting in Foundry. This is the equivalent of looking at a horror movie set with the lights on. Below is what it looks like in-game to my players, with Rahadin and Tephelt for size)

i also drew this little sleepy town for some reason. i don't know why. i think literally for fun.

For the tokens -- most of the ones you guys see I draw by hand. It's a decent amount of work, but my players love it. Plus I think they're cute. They are available for free and anyone can use them, as long as you don't claim credit or anything. The PSDs are included as well, so if you want to edit one or dig around in there, you can! Some of my favorites:

Now that said I'll be totally honest: I do not hand-draw every token for my players. I can't. I already put a lot of work into the campaign, and I can't feasibly draw every token when it comes to random encounters. For those, I use Token Stamp 2 to create a token from an image!

Anyway, sorry this was long. I hope it's helpful. It gave me an opportunity at least to post some of the maps I make -- I usually don't post them.

[most-normal-eccles-cake-ignorer]

Darkness Lane by Joan Hassall [ x ] - the piece that most inspired my recent woodcut-style piece.

When I found out I was drawing for @gorgeousundertow's regency AU fic, Half Agony, Half Hope, as part of the @ineffableidiotsbigbang, I started looking up Jane Austen novel illustrations for inspiration and ended up finding some really cool art and websites! I'm posting about some of the images and resources I found because I think it may be interesting to others too (and even if it isn't, I'll have gotten the infodump out of my system haha).

Illustrations from Mansfield Park by Joan Hassall [ x ]

The link above points to a gallery on pemberley.com which has deliciously old-school DIY website HTML and a wealth of Jane Austen illustrations, as well as references for regency clothing. This was where I discovered Joan Hassall's work and decided I wanted to do a woodcut style piece (and then subsequently regretted it many times during the process of making it because I had no idea what I was doing). The detail, visual texture and dramatic lighting in her work is so cool and I just got more obsessed the more I saw.

See more Joan Hassall on tumblr via @uwmspeccoll (a very cool account!) here, here, and here.

The gallery on pemberley.com also had a bunch of Charles Edmund Brock illustrations, which I could not get enough of and so returned to the searchpage and found Molland's Circulating-Library. SO COOL! Jane Austen fans have bought illustrated editions of her novels and uploaded scans of them and oh my gosh they are all so beautiful.

Northanger Abbey watercolour illustrations by C.E. Brock [ x ]

Side note about Henry Tilney (Catherines' love interest in NA), I also came across this old fan page for him from a mostly-broken-links-now site called THE CULT OF DA MAN and um it's great haha, check it out. (reviews of artists representations of him, more delicious HTML, and pixel art (!) of da aforementioned man)

There's also an article on Molland's about Charles and Henry Brock and their Jane Austen works that I found interesting. Charles is better known and did far more JA illustrations, but I do really enjoy Henry's tinted line pieces! (the article also dunks on some bad reproductions of them haha)

Pride & Prejudice tinted line illustrations by H.M. Brock [ x ]

C.E. Brock also did really cool title pages and when I found out that fic banners were a thing I knew what I wanted to do! (with the help of the symmetry tool and undo haha, so much respect for traditional art)

Title pages illustrated by C.E. Brock [ x ] and my banner - the banner design uses elements of both of the Brock images.

So, research in hand/bookmarks folder and banner completed, I decided on a scene from Chapter 10 where our beloveds are standing beside the Thames in the moonlight after walking around London for hours together and talking (CUTE). I wasn't sure what buildings to include in the background, so @gorgeousundertow gave me a few suggestions: Old Southwark Bridge, London Bridge, Southwark Cathedral, and Clink Prison. I realized after a bit of sketching that bridges would be hard to show with the straight-on view I wanted to do, so I decided on the Cathedral, partially because I had also considered drawing a scene that takes place in Salisbury Cathedral in Ch. 7.

OK BUT HOW? I struggled finding reference images for a while until I realized this was LONDON and would be very Google Earth-able. Big ups to Frank Cosgrove, whoever they are, for uploading this haha. This was also where I found out that all the suggestions were from a very small area!

View of Borough High Street, London, 1830, by George Scharf [ x ]

The building in front of the cathedral looked too new, so I went searching for an older image and found the second image. It's a completely different angle but it was enough to get me past the 'oh no idk what do'.

the much brighter concept vs the much darker finished product, featuring a barely-visible Southwark Cathedral

While looking for images of the Thames pre-Google Earth, I also found this website called Dictionary Of Victorian London which has a whole bunch of old images and excerpts from newspapers, etc on a variety of topics. One of the categories, Sex > 'unnatural offences', had this excerpt from The Times (1863), which reads:

Thomas Lane, a coffeehouse keeper, No.9, Love-lane, Eastcheap, city, and James Mortimer, a seaman, were charged with unlawfully meeting each other to commit an unnatural offence. ... The Magistrate committed both prisoners for trial.

Ugh. I hate that so much. Some sexy stuff happens right after the moment I'd chosen, and reading that reminded me that such things would be much more comfortable and safe in darkness (or if ppl just stopped being homophobic, but barring that). I wanted them to feel alone, like the whole world was asleep and it was just them, outside of time.

With that in mind, the iconic Thames Walk Lamp had to go bye bye, and when rendering the background I tried to minimize any light - it's just the suggestion of buildings. I also added tree cover! I tried to imitate how Joan Hassall does trees in some of her artwork, but when she rendered trees like this they were usually farther away/smaller, so my version looks more stylized with how prominent they are.

The ribbon border and book quote presentation is of course more Brock, but by making it black and having the interior image use it as a border instead of a fade-out inside it, I made it a bit of a reference to the very cool foliage edges you see in the very first Hassall image at the top.

I used the procreate brushes from this post on the Procreate Folio forums if anyone wants to try them!

Also fun fact! The font for the quote is called Chanson D'Amour <3 (I initially downloaded it when making the banner before changing the banner font to one called Dark & Black)

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That's all I have to say about the process for the piece, but here's a comic from Dictionary Of Victorian London, Thames > Sanitary condition that I thought was cute (and gross ig? but also cute):

a Punch comic from 1850, I can't link the page due to how the website URL system works but it's from the Thames > Sanitary condition page