#quality of the source material is THE most important thing

[dresshistorynerd]

The Real Cost of the Fashion Industry

Atacama Desert, in Alto Hospicio, Iquique, Chile. (source)

The textile industry is destroying the world. The industry is wasting massive amounts of energy and materials, and polluting the air, the ground and the water supplies. It overwhelmingly exploits it's labour and extracts wealth from colonized countries, especially in Asia. I assume we all broadly understand this, but I think it's useful to have it all laid out in front of you to see the big picture, the core issues causing this destruction and find ways how to effectively move forward.

The concerning trend behind this ever-increasing devastation are shortening of trend cycles, lowering clothing prices and massive amount of wasted products. Still in year 2000 it was common for fashion brands to have two collections per year, while now e.g. Zara produces 24 collections and H&M produces 12-16 collections per year. Clothing prices have fallen (at leas in EU) 30% from 1996 to 2018 when adjusted to inflation, which has contributed to the 40% increase in clothing consumption per person between 1996 and 2012 (in EU). (source) As the revenue made by the clothing industry keep rising - from 2017 to 2021 they doubled (source) - falling prices can only be achieved with increasing worker exploitation and decreasing quality. I think the 36% degrees times clothing are used in average during the last 15 years (source) is a clear indication on the continuing drop in quality of clothing. Clothing production doubled between 2000 and 2015, while 30% of the clothes produced per year are never sold and are often burned instead (source), presumably to prevent the returns from falling due to oversupply.

These all factors are driving people to overconsume. While people in EU keep buying more clothes, they haven't used up to 50% of the clothes in their wardrobe for over a year (source). This overconsumption is only made much worse by the new type of hyper fast fashion companies like SHEIN and Temu, which are using addictive psychological tactics developed by social media companies (source 1, source 2). They are cranking up all those concerning trends I mentioned above.

Under the cut I will go through the statistics of the most significant effects of the industry on environment and people. I will warn you it will be bleak. This is not just a fast fashion problem, basically the whole industry is engaging in destructive practices leading to this damage. Clothing is one of those things that would be actually relatively easy to make without massive environmental and human cost, so while that makes the current state of the industry even more heinous, it also means there's hope and it's possible to fix things. In the end, I will be giving some suggestions for actions we could be doing right now to unfuck this mess.

Carbon emissions

The textile industry is responsible for roughly 10% of the global CO2 emissions, more than aviation and shipping industry combined. This is due to the massive supply chains and energy intensive production methods of fabrics. Most of it can be contributed to the fashion sector since around 60% of all the textile production is clothing. Polyester, a synthetic fiber made from oil which accounts for more than half of the fibers used in the textile industry, produces double the amount of carbon emissions than cotton, accounting for very large proportions of all the emissions by the industry. (source 1, source 2)

Worker exploitation

Majority of the textiles are produced in Asia. Some of the worst working conditions are in Bangladesh, one of the most important garment producers, and Pakistan. Here's an excerpt from EU Parliament's briefing document from 2014 after the catastrophic Rana Plaza disaster:

The customers of garment producers are most often global brands looking for low prices and tight production timeframes. They also make changes to product design, product volume, and production timeframes, and place last-minute orders without accepting increased costs or adjustments to delivery dates. The stresses of such policies usually fall on factory workers.

The wage exploitation is bleak. According to the 2015 documentary The True Cost less than 2% of all garment factory workers earned a living wage (source). Hourly wages are so low and the daily quotas so high, garment workers are often forced through conditions or threats and demand to work extra hours, which regularly leads to 10-12 hour work days (source) and at worst 16 hour workdays (source), often without days off. Sometimes factories won't compensate for extra hours, breaching regulations (source).

Long working hours, repetitive work, lack of breaks and high pressure leads to increased risks of injuries and accidents. Small and even major injuries are extremely common in the industry. A study in three factories in India found that 70% of the workers suffered from musculosceletal symptoms (source). Another qualitative study of female garment workers and factory doctors in Dhaka found that long hours led to eye strain, headaches, fatigue and weight loss in addition to muscular and back pains. According to the doctors interviewed, weight loss was common because the workers work such long hours without breaks, they didn't have enough time to eat properly. (source) Another study in 8 factories in India found that minor injuries were extremely common and caused by unergonomic work stations, poor organization in the work place and lack of safety gear, guidelines and training (source). Safety precautions too are often overlooked to cut corners, which periodically leads to factory accidents, like in 2023 lack of fire exists and fire extinguishers, and goods stacked beyond capacity led to a factory fire in Pakistan which injured dozens of workers (source) or like in 2022 dangerous factory site led to one dead worker and 9 injured workers (source).

Rana Plaza collapse in 2013 is the worst industrial accident in recent history. The factory building did not have proper permits and the factory owner blatantly ignored signs of danger (other businesses abandoned the building a day before the collapse), which led to deaths of 1 134 workers and injuries to 2 500 workers. The factory had or were at the time working for orders of at least Prada, Versace, Primark, Walmart, Zara, H&M, C&A, Mango, Benetton, the Children's Place, El Corte Inglés, Joe Fresh, Carrefour, Auchan, KiK, Loblaw, Bonmarche and Matalan. None of the brands were held legally accountable for the unsafe working conditions which they profited off of. Only 9 of the brands attended a meeting to agree on compensation for the victim's families. Walmart, Carrefour, Auchan, Mango and KiK refused to sight the agreement, it was only signed by Primark, Loblaw, Bonmarche and El Corte Ingles. The compension these companies provided was laughable though. Primemark demanded DNA evidence that they are relatives of one of the victims from these struggling families who had lost their often sole breadwinner for a meager sum of 200 USD (which doesn't even count for two months of living wage in Bangladesh (source)). This obviously proved to be extremely difficult for most families even though US government agreed to donate DNA kits. This is often said to be a turning point in working conditions in the industry, at least in Bangladesh, but while there's more oversight now, as we have seen, there's clearly still massive issues. (source 1, source 2)

One last major concern of working conditions in the industry I will mention is the Xinjiang raw cotton production, which is likely produced mainly with forced labour from Uighur concentration camps, aka slave labour of a suspected genocide. 90% of China's raw cotton production comes from Xinjiang (source). China is the second largest cotton producer in the world, after India, accounting 20% of the yearly global cotton production (source).

Pollution

Synthetic dyes, which synthetic fibers require, are the main cause of water pollution caused by the textile industry, which is estimated to account for 20% of global clean water pollution (source). This water pollution by the textile industry is suspected of causing a lot of health issues like digestive issues in the short term, and allergies, dermatitis, skin inflammation, tumors and human mutations in the long term. Toxins also effect fish and aquatic bacteria. Azo dyes, one of the major pollutants, can cause detrimental effects to aquatic ecosystems by decreasing photosynthetic activity of algae. Synthetic dyes and heavy metals also cause large amounts of soil pollution. Large amounts of heavy metals in soil, which occurs around factories that don't take proper environmental procautions, can cause anaemia, kidney failure, and cortical edoem in humans. That also causes changes in soil texture, decrease in soil microbial diversity and plant health, and changes in genetic structure of organisms growing in the soil. Textile factory waste water has been used for irrigation in Turkey, where other sources of water have been lacking, causing significant damage to the soil. (source)

Rayon produced through viscose process causes significant carbon disulphide and hydrogen sulphide pollution to the environment. CS2 causes cardiovascular, psychiatric, neuropsychological, endocrinal and reproductive disorders. Abortion rates among workers and their partners exposed to CS2 are reported to be significantly higher than in control groups. Many times higher amounts of sick days are reported for workers in spinning rooms of viscose fiber factories. China and India are largest producers of CS2 pollution, accounting respectively 65.74% and 11,11% of the global pollution, since they are also the major viscose producers. Emission of CS2 has increased significantly in India from 26.8 Gg in 2001 to 78.32 Gg in 2020. (source)

Waste

The textile industry is estimated to produce around 92 million tons of textile waste per year. As said before around 30% of the production is never sold and with shortening lifespans used the amount of used clothing that goes to waster is only increasing. This waste is large burned or thrown into landfills in poor countries. (source) H&M was accused in 2017 by investigative journalists of burning up to 12 tonnes of clothes per year themselves, including usable clothing, which they denied claiming they donated clothing they couldn't sell to charity instead (source). Most of the clothing donated to charity though is burned or dumbed to landfills (source).

Most of the waste clothing from rich countries like European countries, US, Australia and Canada are shipped to Chile (source) or African countries, mostly Ghana, but also Burkina Faso and Côte d'Ivoire (source). There's major second-hand fashion industries in these places, but most of the charity clothing is dumbed to landfills, because they are in such bad condition or the quality is too poor. Burning and filling landfills with synthetic fabrics with synthetic dyes causes major air, water and soil pollution. The second-hand clothing industry also suppresses any local clothing production as donated clothing is inherently more competitive than anything else, making these places economically reliant on dumbed clothing, which is destroying their environment and health, and prevents them from creating a more sustainable economy that would befit them more locally. This is not an accident, but required part of the clothing industry. Overproduction let's these companies tap on every new trend quickly, while not letting clothing the prices in rich countries drop so low it would hurt their profits. Production is cheaper than missing a trend.

Micro- and nanoplastics

There is massive amounts of micro- and nanoplastics in all of our environment. It's in our food, drinking water, even sea salt (source). Washing synthetic textiles accounts for roughly 35% of all microplastics released to the environment. It's estimated that it has caused 14 million tonnes of microplastics to accumulate into the bottom of the ocean. (source)

Microplastics build up into the intestines of animals (including humans), and have shown to probably cause cause DNA damage and altered organism behavior in aquatic fauna. Microplastics also contain a lot of the usual pollutants from textile industry like synthetic dyes and heavy metals, which absorb in higher quantities to tissues of animals through microplastics in the intestines. Studies have shown that the adverse effect are higher the longer the microplastics stay in the organism. The effects cause major risks to aquatic biodiversity. (source) The health effects of microplastics to humans are not well known, but studies have shown that they could have adverse effects on digestive, respiratory, endocrine, reproductive and immune systems. (source)

Microplastics degrade in the environment even further to nanoplastics. Nanoplastic being even smaller are found to enter blood circulation, get inside cells and cross the blood-brain barrier. In fishes they have been found to cause neurological damage. Nanoplastics are also in the air, and humans frequently breath them in. Study in office buildings found higher concentration of nanoplastics in indoor air than outdoor air. Inside the nanoplastics are likely caused mostly by synthetic household textiles, and outdoors mostly by car tires. (source) An association between nanoplastics and mitochondrial damage in human respiratory cells was found in a recent study. (source)

Micro and nano plastics are also extremely hard to remove from the environment, making it even more important that we reduce the amount of microplastics we produce as fast as possible.

What can we do?

This is a question that deserves it's own essays and articles written about it, but I will leave you with some action points. Reading about these very bleak realities can easily lead to overwhelming apathy, but we need to channel these horrors into actions. Whatever you do, do not fall into apathy. We don't have the luxury for that, we need to act. These are industry wide problems, that simply cannot be fixed by consumerism. Do not trust any clothing companies, even those who market themselves as ethical and responsible, always assume they are lying. Most of them are, even the so called "good ones". We need legislation. We cannot allow the industry to regulate itself, they will always take the easy way out and lie to their graves. I will for sure write more in dept about what we can do, but for now here's some actions to take, both political and individual ones.

Political actions

Let's start with political actions, since they will be the much more important ones. While we are trying to dismantle capitalism and neocolonialism (the roots of these issues), here's some things that we could do right now. These will be policies that we should be doing everywhere in the world, but especially rich countries, where most of the clothing consumption is taking place. Vote, speak to others, write to your representative, write opinion pieces to your local papers, engage with democracy.

Higher requirements of transparency. Right now product transparency in clothing is laughably low. In EU only the material make up and the origin country of the final product are required to be disclosed. Everything else is up to the company. Mandatory transparency is the only way we can force any positive changes in the production. The minimum of transparency should be: origin countries of the fibers and textiles in the product itself; mandatory reports of the lifecycle emissions; mandatory reports of whole chain of production. Right now the clothing companies make their chain of production intentionally complex, so they have plausible deniability when inevitably they are caught violating environmental or worker protection laws (source). They intentionally don't want to be able to track down their production chain. Forcing them to do so anyway would make it very expensive for them to keep up this unnecessarily complex production chain. These laws are most effective when put in place in large economies like EU or US.

Restrictions on the use of synthetic fibers. Honestly I think they should be banned entirely, since the amount of microplastics in our environment is already extremely distressing and the other environmental effects of synthetic fibers are also massive, but I know there are functions for which they are not easily replaced (though I think they can be replaces in those too, but that's a subject of another post), so we should start with restrictions. I'm not sure how they should be specifically made, I'm not a law expert, but they shouldn't be used in everyday textiles, where there are very easy and obvious other options.

Banning viscose. There are much better options for viscose method that don't cause massive health issues and environmental destruction where ever it's made, like Lyocell. There is absolutely no reason why viscose should be allowed to be sold anywhere.

Governmental support for local production by local businesses. Most of the issues could be much more easily solved and monitored if most clothing were not produced by massive global conglomerations, but rather by local businesses that produce locally. All clothing are made by hand, so centralizing production doesn't even give it advantage in effectiveness (only more profits for the few). Producing locally would make it much more easier to enforce regulations and it would reduce production chains, making production more effective, leaving more profits into the hands of the workers and reducing emissions from transportation. When the production is done by local businesses, the profits would stay in the producing country and they could be taxed and utilized to help the local communities. This would be helpful to do in both exploited and exploiter countries. When done in rich countries who exploit poorer ones, it would reduce the demand for exploitation. In poor countries this is not as easily done, since poor means they don't have money to give around, but maybe this could be a good cause to put some reparations from colonizers and global corporations, which they should pay.

Preventing strategic accounting between subsidiaries and parent companies. Corporate law is obviously not my area of expertise, but I know that allowing corporations to move around the accounting of profits and losses between subsidiaries and parent companies in roughly 1980s, was a major factor in creating this modern global capitalist system, where corporations can very easily manipulate their accounting to utilize tax heavens and avoid taxes where they actually operate, which is how they are upholding this terrible system and extracting the profits from the production countries. How specifically this would be done I can't tell because again I know shit about corporate law, so experts of that field should plan the specifics. Overall this would help deal with a lot of other problems than just the fashion industry. Again for it to be effective a large economic area like EU or US should do this.

Holding companies accountable for their whole chain of production. These companies should be dragged to court and made to answer for the crimes they are profiting of off. We should put fear back into them. This is possible. Victims of child slavery are already doing this for chocolate companies. If it's already not how law works everywhere, the laws should be changed so that the companies are responsible even if they didn't know, because it's their responsibility to find out and make sure they know. They should have been held accountable for the Rana Plaza disaster. Maybe they still could be. Sue the mother fuckers. They should be afraid of us.

Individual actions

I will stress that the previous section is much more important and that there's no need to feel guilty for individual actions. This is not the fault of the average consumer. Still we do need to change our relationship to fashion and consumption. While it's not our fault, one of the ways this system is perpetuated, is by the consumerist propaganda by fashion industry. And it is easier to change our own habits than to change the industry, even if our own habits have little impact. So these are quite easy things we all could do as we are trying to do bigger change to gain some sense of control and keep us from falling to apathy.

Consume less. Better consumption will not save us, since consumption itself is the problem. We consume too much clothing. Don't make impulse purchases. Consider carefully weather you actually need something or if you really really want it. Even only buying second-hand still fuels the industry, so while it's better than buying new, it's still better to not buy.

Take proper care of your clothing. Learn how to properly wash your clothing. There's a lot of internet resources for that. Never wash your wool textiles in washing machine, even if the textile's official instructions allow it. Instead air them regularly, rinse them in cool water if they still smell after airing and wash stains with water or small amount of (wool) detergent. Never use fabric softener! It damages the fabrics, prevents them from properly getting clean and is environmentally damaging. Instead use laundry vinegar for making textiles softer or removing bad smells. (You can easily make laundry vinegar yourself too from white vinegar and water (and essential oils, if you want to add a scent to it) which is much cheaper.) Learn how to take care of your leather products. Most leather can be kept in very good condition for a very long time by occasional waxing with beeswax.

Use the services of dressmakers and shoemakers. Take your broken clothing or clothing which doesn't fit anymore to your local dressmaker and ask them if they can do something about it. Take your broken and worn leather products to your local shoemaker too. Usually it doesn't cost much to get something fixed or refitted and these expert usually have ways to fix things you couldn't even think of. So even if the situation with your clothing or accessory seems desperate, still show it to the dressmaker or shoemaker.

If it's extremely cheap, don't buy it. Remember that every clothing is handmade. Only a small fraction of the cost of the clothing will be paying the wages of the person who made it with their hands. If a shirt costs 5 euros (c. 5,39 USD), it's sewer was only payed mere cents for sewing it. I'm not a quick sewer and it takes me roughly 1-2 hours to cut, prepare and sew a simple shirt, so I'm guessing it would take around half an hour to do all that for a factory worker on a crunch, at the very least 15 minutes. So the hourly pay would still be ridiculously low. However, as I said before, the fact that the workers in clothing factories get criminally low pay is not the fault of the consumer, so if you need a clothing item, and you don't have money to buy anything else than something very cheep, don't feel guilty. And anyway expensive clothing in no way necessarily means reasonable pay or ethical working conditions, cheep clothing just guarantee them.

Learn to recognize higher quality. In addition to exploitation, low price also means low quality, but again high price doesn't guarantee high quality. High quality allows you to buy less, so even if it's not as cheep as low quality, if you can afford it, when you need it, it will be cheaper in long run, and allows you to consume less. Check the materials. Natural fibers are your friends. Do not buy plastic, if it's possible to avoid. Avoid household textiles from synthetic fibers. Avoid textiles with small amounts of spandex to give it stretch, it will shorten the lifespan of the clothing significantly as the spandex quickly wears down and the clothing looses it's shape. Also avoid clothing with rubber bands. They also loose their elasticity very quickly. In some types of clothing (sport wear, underwear) these are basically impossible to avoid, but in many other cases it's entirely possible.

Buy from artisans and local producers, if you can. As said better consumption won't fix this, but supporting artisans and your local producers could help keep them afloat, which in small ways helps create an alternative to the exploitative global corporations. With artisans especially you know the money goes to the one who did the labour and buying locally means less middlemen to take their cut. More generally buy rather from businesses that are located to the same country where the production is, even if it's not local to you. A local business doesn't necessarily produce locally.

Develop your own taste. If you care about fashion and style, it's easy to fall victim to the fashion industry's marketing and trend cycles. That's why I think it's important to develop your personal sense of style and preferences. Pay attention at what type of clothes are comfortable to you. Go through your wardrobe and track for a while which clothing you use most and which least. Understanding your own preferences helps you avoid impulse buying.

Consider learning basics of sewing. Not everyone has the time or interest for this, but if you in anyway might have a bit of both, I suggest learning some very simple and basic mending and reattaching a button.

Further reading on this blog: How to see through the greenwashing propaganda of the fashion industry - Case study 1: Shein

Bibliography

Academic sources

An overview of the contribution of the textiles sector to climate change, 2022, L. F. Walter et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science

How common are aches and pains among garment factory workers? A work-related musculoskeletal disorder assessment study in three factories of south 24 Parganas district, West Bengal, 2021, Arkaprovo Pal et al., J Family Med Prim Care

Sewing shirts with injured fingers and tears: exploring the experience of female garment workers health problems in Bangladesh, 2019, Akhter, S., Rutherford, S. & Chu, C., BMC Int Health Hum Rights

Occupation Related Accidents in Selected Garment Industries in Bangalore City, 2006, Calvin, Sam & Joseph, Bobby, Indian Journal of Community Medicine

A Review on Textile and Clothing Industry Impacts on The Environment, 2022, Nur Farzanah Binti Norarmi et al., International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences

Carbon disulphide and hydrogen sulphide emissions from viscose fibre manufacturing industry: A case study in India, 2022, Deepanjan Majumdar et al., Atmospheric Environment: X

Microplastics Pollution: A Brief Review of Its Source and Abundance in Different Aquatic Ecosystems, 2023, Asifa Ashrafy et al., Journal of Hazardous Materials Advances

Health Effects of Microplastic Exposures: Current Issues and Perspectives in South Korea, 2023, Yongjin Lee et al., Yonsei Medical Journal

Nanoplastics and Human Health: Hazard Identification and Biointerface, 2022, Hanpeng Lai, Xing Liu, and Man Qu, Nanomaterials

Other sources

The impact of textile production and waste on the environment (infographics), 2020, EU

Chile’s desert dumping ground for fast fashion leftovers, 2021, AlJazeera

Fashion - Worldwide, 2022 (updated 2024), Statista

Fashion Industry Waste Statistics & Facts 2023, James Evans, Sustainable Ninja (magazine)

Everything You Need to Know About Waste in the Fashion Industry, 2024, Solene Rauturier, Good on You (magazine)

Textiles and the environment, 2022, Nikolina Šajn, European Parliamentary Research Service

Help! I'm addicted to secondhand shopping apps, 2023, Alice Crossley, Cosmopolitan

Addictive, absurdly cheap and controversial: the rise of China’s Temu app, 2023, Helen Davidson, Guardian

Workers' conditions in the textile and clothing sector: just an Asian affair? - Issues at stake after the Rana Plaza tragedy, 2014, Enrico D'Ambrogio, European Parliamentary Research Service

State of The Industry: Lowest Wages to Living Wages, The Lowest Wage Challenge (Industry affiliated campaign)

Fast Fashion Getting Faster: A Look at the Unethical Labor Practices Sustaining a Growing Industry, 2021, Emma Ross, International Law and Policy Brief (George Washington University Law School)

Dozens injured in Pakistan garment factory collapse and fire, 2023, Hannah Abdulla, Just Style (news media)

India: Multiple factory accidents raise concerns over health & safety in the garment industry, campaigners call for freedom of association in factories to ‘stave off’ accidents, 2022, Jasmin Malik Chua, Business & Human Rights Resource Center

Minimum Wage Level for Garment Workers in the World, 2020, Sheng Lu, FASH455 Global Apparel & Textile Trade and Sourcing (University of Delaware)

Rana Plaza collapse, Wikipedia

Buyers’ compensation for Rana Plaza victims far from reality, 2013, Ibrahim Hossain Ovi, Dhaka Tribune (news media)

World cotton production statistics, updated 2024, The World Counts

Dead white man’s clothes, 2021, Linton Besser, ABC News

[brucewaynehater101]

I think that prior to Tim being found out as a spider demon, only Cass had good thoughts about Spiders. And maybe Damian but in more of a "don't kill it, you put it in a cup and move it to the garden" kind of way. Dick *hates* them and Jason had a bad experience with Beast Boy using the form of a spider the size of a dinner plate to jump scare him when he was still Robin.

As for how he makes his silk, i once saw a design of a spider demon that had two black dots at the corners of its mouth and when it pressed a finger to the dots and pulled them away, a line of string was hanging between their finger and the dot. I think his thread looks like normal spider thread (including the size) but is durable enough that only a few strands can stop a charging Bane. It's possible for him to take the silk he produces and turn it into thread and from thread into fabric. The fabric moves and feels like high quality silk but is about twice as durable as Kevlar due to how strong his threads are.

The only reason all of the Bats aren't already decked out in full Tim Silk Gear is because of the sheer amount of time and energy it takes to make that much thread. If he uses all of his spare time to make thread and turn it into fabric as quickly as he can, he would only make 2 or 3 fabric napkins in a month. If he was only eating, sleeping, and making silk he could produce a single sheet about the size of a picnic blanket in the same amount of time. Not exactly a lot of fabric to work with. Plus there's the fact that his thread is very weak by the standards of his species due to a mixture of malnutrition, constant exhaustion, and frequent injuries.

However, most of his family does have at least one thing that he made with his thread for them. They have no idea what kind of fabric it is that Tim brings them things made of and when asked if he can get more, he simply shakes his head and says, "I wish I could, but farming to much of the material needed to make this stuff can seriously harm the type of creature that creates it. I'm keeping it vague so that you guys don't try to buy it yourselves. The person I get this from have been very, *very* heavily researched to make sure that it's done in a humane way. Basically anywhere else you find this stuff is almost garenteed to be horribly mistreating the creatures to force them to produce as much as physically possible. And I got my guys entire stock just to make this for you." This throughly covers his tracks and makes it so that the Bats won't consider trying to buy more silk from other sources. Most of the things he makes for them are small, like gloves or Domino Masks or at most an under shirt to give them an extra layer or protection. Cass's whole cowl is made of Tim's Silk.

As for what kind of malnutrition Tim has, the Bats already knew about that, sort of. John saw Bruce's new gloves and after feeling them asked where the fuck he got that much Jorogomo Silk and why it's such Shit Quality. When Bruce asked for him to elaborate, Constantine ran his hands over the gloves a few times while muttering to himself before sighing, "Malnutrition. Their silk is a direct reflection of their health. Whoever made this, they have *not* been eating well. Probably only just enough to survive and with no... well, you'd probably be glad to hear that the one who made your gloves hasn't been chowing down on an human flesh. But it's an important part of their diet. Yeah, this one seems to have been trying to use supplements for the shit it needs, but that'll never truly work. Like you can take all the vitamins tablets ya want, but unless you go out and soak in some sunshine every now and then you'll always be deficient in Vitamin D cause your body just won't process it. If I were you, I would get in contact with your seller and get them a deal with the local mourge. After all, you're from Gothem. I'm sure no one would notice if a few of the already dead disappeared."

That night Bruce had an uncomfortable conversation with Tim about how his seller might not be as good as he thought and what Mourges tended to "loose" bodies most often. Tim did start eating some from the already dead but he hates it. Not because hes eating people but because they've been dead for a while and only fresh bodies taste good.

As for Jack, he goes into a coma until Tim gets there and he uses some of his threads to make Jack his puppet. However, Tim doesn't have any practice with preserving the bodies of his puppets yet so after about a month, Jack is starting to fall apart a little so Tim sets up for him to be part of a car crash and makes a new puppet to be Uncle Eddie. The second puppet does last longer, but only about 2 and a half months and then Tim eats what's left of Uncle Eddie. Maybe one day he'll be able to make puppets that last for years like his mom did, but not just yet.

Also she isn't dead and does stay in contact. She just got bored of her life as Janet Drake and ditched her puppet, telling Tim "here's my new number and new name and the puppet of your father. Good luck kiddo." And Tim was like "YOURE THE BEST MOM" because really, by their standards she is. Most of his species are completely abandoned once they can walk, hide themselves, and produce silk. Most don't have any idea who their parent or parents are at all.

Ooh! The way you made his silk OP but then put in a very realistic limitation was cool as hell.

I'm also curious how the Bats would feel about Tim needing to consume human flesh. If Red Hood is still killing, it would he super cool of him to offer up some of the people he murders. Hopefully that will be a bit fresher and better tasting for Tim.

Also, would Alfred try to cook food for Tim's diet? Or would that be too much for Alfred to handle so he refuses to cook human flesh?

If Tim or someone else cooked that food (post-reveal), they probably would have to build an entire kitchen just for him. They wouldn't want to cross contaminate that since it could make the humans really really sick.

You mentioned that Tim doesn't hate consuming flesh. Does he have any reservations about it? Are there parts of his being that he hates for not being human enough?

At least Bruce doesn't seem to mind a creature consuming already dead people. Though, maybe Tim (pre-reveal) worries Bruce would mind if it was someone he knew.

I'm also hella curious where puppet Uncle Eddie comes from. Dead body? Bad guy Tim doesn't mind turning into a puppet?

Love Janet Drake. Maybe Tim could go visit her every once in a blue moon. If not, at least both of them seem happy and content with their relationship

[minkkumaz]

FISH OUT OF WATER

your gentle boyfriend left you to care for his most beloved fish, along with the tank he's worked on for awhile. but when you tip over the tank, completely shattering all of his work, he snaps.

PAIRING kim leehan x fem!reader WC 1.6k TAGS angst. fighting. blood mention. cutting yourself on glass by accident. jaehyun showing his leader qualities LMAO. OMI NOTE this setup is so cute considering the heart wrenching angst you are all about to read wink wink.

leehan had always been an extraordinary boyfriend to you. he was often calm and gentle, while still loving you to his hearts extent. when saying he would walk across the world for you, you know he would without any hesitation.

but another thing about him was that he was quite practical. dwelling on things wasn’t his forte, and he often wanted to come up with solutions as soon as possible. many people relied on him, so he had to be able to deliver an answer immediately.

whenever you did something wrong, or there was a miscommunication, he’d try to reach out and fix it immediately. this is what kept things between the two of you whole. leehan was truly your missing piece. you’ve never caught him in a bad moment.

one of leehan’s many interests was fish. in particular, decorating tanks and caring for the cute aquatic creatures. you thought it was adorable, and have always encouraged it. so while he was away for the weekend to shoot for his groups jacket shoot, he trusted you to care for his corydora.

the instructions he gave you were very detailed, but just came down to simply feeding them everyday. you knew how important it was that his fish was taken care of properly, so you followed to the best of your ability.

everything was smooth sailing for the weekend. a happy and healthy little corydora swam around freely in it’s habitat. you truly admired how beautiful leehan made the fish tank look. he had worked on this one in specific for a long time, gathering all the right materials from good sources to ultimately pull together something beautiful.

when the night that he would be coming home rolled around, you were in a rush home from your classes. feeding the fish completely slipped your mind, so now you were racing to get home before leehan. there was a chance that it still had leftover food hiding in the sand, but you couldn’t be too sure.

as soon as you jammed your key into the door, opening up to an empty apartment, you sighed with relief. sliding off your shoes and placing your bag by the door, you approached the tank with heavy breaths. 

you had left the container of food on the lid of the tank, so you quickly grabbed a little stepstool in order to reach it. lee was giant, so it was normal that you needed a little bit of assistance when doing tasks he’d normally do.

but with your recklessness, the stool folded back underneath you, making you stumble forward. in a failed attempt to save yourself, the entire tank shattered from impact

you fell, barely avoiding the broken glass that slid across the floor from the heavy flow of water everywhere. all of the greenery and sand within the tank scattered everywhere. and to your dismay, the poor fish flopped around helplessly in the middle of it all.

panic washed over you as you scrambled to get the fish back into water. your side hurt like hell and there was probably a little bit of glass stuck to your sweater, but that was the least of your worries. all of leehan’s hard work entrusted to you, and for what?

when you heard footsteps towards the door you almost wanted to start crying. you picked around the floor, pushing the glass away from the corydora to pick it up safely. safely in the palm of your hand, you sprinted to the kitchen to get it in a cup of water. 

the doorknob twisted loudly, the glass you held shakily in your hand was halfway full. after hearing a suitcase roll in and a call for your name, you plopped the fish inside the cup and came out to greet leehan with dread.

“leehan i’m so sorry i can explain!” you heaved, placing the fish down in a table.

“oh my gosh y/n, what the hell happened?” he had a shocked expression on his face, hand slightly covering his gaping mouth.

“i– i forgot to feed the fish so i ran home and–”

“you forgot to feed my fish? are you serious? i barely left you for a couple days y/n!” he didn’t normally yell, but thats the only thing he could express right now. 

“i know! trust me i’ve been doing it lee but it was just this one time and when i went to grab the stepstool i fell and the whole tank toppled over!” you cried out trying to explain.

“i worked so hard on that tank for months, how could you be so careless?” his words stung your heart, you finally let the tears flow.

“leehan i said i was sorry…” you choke, wiping your face with the hand that wasn’t slightly blood stained.

“fuck, did you even care? was it on purpose?” he groaned, tearing up a little also.

“of course i didn’t do it on purpose i swear it was an accident.”

“give me the fish, i have a spare tank at the dorms. i can’t stay here with you tonight.” he mumbled, grabbing the cup and leaving before you could say anything more.

the silence in your shared apartment was now more deafening than ever. all you could do was cry. this was all your fault, if you hadn’t stupidly forgot to feed his fish and rush home. you soon realized there was a much bigger mess that you needed to clean, so you got to work to distract yourself.

your tears mixed with the tank water as you kneeled to pick up all of the glass, too numb to pay any attention to the small cuts it was leaving. except as a much larger piece gashed through your skin you finally got worried.

“fuck fuck– fuck!” you whimpered, running to the bathroom to run your hand under the sink. it made you much more aware of how hurt your hands got in the whole process of cleaning. what made it worse is that you had no bandages, and you obviously couldn’t contact leehan right now.

the scene from before replayed in your head at the thought of him, making your heart ache. you were sure he didn’t mean it, but there was another part of you that believed he did. 

with that, you called jaehyun to tell him everything, still sobbing on the other side. he came to you as fast as he could with bandages. you made him promise not to tell leehan anything, though he really wanted to.

“jeez y/n, i’ve never heard leehan do anything like that.” he sat next to you on the floor of your bathroom, wrapping up your hands lightly.

“did you see him at the dorms?” you mutter.

“not really, i left before he came in.”

“okay.. thank you jaehyun.” you pull away, examining the bandages on your hand.”

“anytime y/n. but i really think you should let me tell him if you aren’t going to yourself.” he sighed.

“i’m just a little scared i don’t know.. it was my fault the tank shattered.”

“but you didn’t mean to! i’m sure he’s just frustrated right now i mean– he cares more about those fish than himself.” jaehyun noted making you laugh.

“i guess you’re right. you can text him. i’ll try to mentally prepare myself.”

“great. i’ll go clean up the fish tank for you real quick and by the time i’m done he’ll probably be on his way.” he smiled at you, making his way out and down the hall. the sound of glass hitting a dust - pan filled your ears.

you went to your room and sat still for awhile, unable to comprehend what happened in the past hour and a half. you missed leehan so much. the spot in bed that was usually filled by a warm body was cold. he didn’t come home as quick as jaehyun said he was, so you let yourself fall asleep with tear stained pillows. 

it was late when the door opened and leehan came rushing to the bedroom. you were sound asleep, cuddled into a bundle of pillows. he found you cute like this, but it was different when his last interaction with you was a bad one.

“y/n, my love.” he whispered, shaking your side. 

“lee?” you stirred awake, blinking away sleep to look at him.

“love i am so so sorry, i really am.” he stroked the side of your face as you leaned yourself up on your elbow.

“i’m so sorry about your fish tank, it really was an accident.” you weep, clutching onto the sleeve of his sweater, before catching your mistake and wincing.

“baby… your hands. i shouldn’t of left you like that to clean it all up i am so sorry. i take full accountability for leaving you in such distress.”

“it’s okay, i was just so worried you’d leave. we always talk things out when things go bad…” he wipes the tears falling from your face.

“i have no idea what came over me, but that’s not an excuse. i was rude and immature. i could’ve been way more understanding about things.” he exhaled, feeling a weight lift off his shoulders, “of course i was angry, but that didn’t excuse any of the things i said about you. i don’t want to lose such a precious girl.”

“thank you…”

leehan takes your hands, placing soft kisses over the bandages, before letting his lips attach yours. it was gentle, something you were much more used to.

“my little corydora is okay, so don’t even worry. at least i’ll have another tank to busy myself with.” he said, going over to crawl towards his side of the bed and give you a much deserved cuddle.

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[bonefall]

Could the cats make little toys? Like making plushies out of plants or figurines out of rocks and sap or something?

70% of the toys they make are weaved or whittled. I actually made a small scene in the outline (which HOPEFULLY, i keep saying this, should be out Soon TM) of Darkstar's Commandment where she creates a wicker ball as a gift for Reedshine

^^^ These are willow balls! If you have access to willow trees, you can make these really easily. For Clan cats, it's a sign that you're a really good weaver, and making these is a big favor because they're naturally quite brittle.

These are the basis of the famous "mossball." Pure moss doesn't keep its shape if you kick it around; a wicker skeleton is stuffed and covered with moss so it doesn't hurt if it bonks you in the face. Usually, these are just kept in a pile somewhere any anyone can go grab and use one for games.

You can customize a ball for a specific person by sourcing some leather or linen, and then sewing it around the skeleton. WindClan has the market cornered on this sort of thing because of how many rabbits they hunt, but for RiverClan, SkyClan, and ShadowClan, pelts and flax are pretty valuable and not typically wasted on crafting good mossballs.

(SkyClan in particular is more likely to just trade kittypets for their excess toys.)

Even the best Clan cat artisans only whittle the sorts of figurines we might associate with small children. They're sharp-edged, simple, and look a lot like these;

They don't have "polish" figured out yet, so nothing they make looks "smooth." Some cat's going to figure out that they can rub the edges against the nearby exposed sandstone, but I'd leave that for a bit of a "genius" like Dustpelt or his mentor One-Eye to figure out.

They can also be made out of clay, but that's more common in RiverClan and WindClan where wood is scarce.

Figurines are often directly commissioned by deputies and senior warriors for use in strategizing, ESPECIALLY in WindClan where they have a history of needing to "visualize" the various parts of their open moor in battle plans. They can be simple toys, but these can get pretty elaborate as it's seen as a bit of a status symbol if the deputy's "pawn" of you is fancy.

Basically, it means you're important enough to be frequently included in battle plans, so much that YOUR pawn is customized. These will often be buried with the warrior, or passed down to their living descendants.

Figurines show up a lot in "channeling." The illegal, direct method of summoning the dead by bypassing StarClan. They aren't "consumed" by the ritual like more organic tokens, so someone who does a ton of channeling of a specific spirit will often end up crafting one of these.

There's various other toys too, but they're generally not soft or stuffed. Clan cats don't have "plushies," since they require a LOT of textiles and sewing which they can't experiment freely with.

And to close out;

Glue is made from animal hide, and is another one of those "high-quality" materials mostly used by artisans and patrol heads.

Making pitch from pine is dangerous; go here for a tutorial on that

Sap's not a great adhesive, but works fine for kittens just having fun.

Whittling, weaving, and molding are the skills usually used to make toys.

Yes, they make toys, and they love to play with them.

Most "crafts" Clan cats make are communally owned, personal belongings are usually very special.

[casper-spills]

✧ ℌ𝔞𝔩𝔩𝔬𝔴𝔢𝔢𝔫 𝔖𝔭𝔢𝔠𝔦𝔞𝔩: 𝔚𝔥𝔞𝔱 𝔨𝔦𝔫𝔡 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔱𝔠𝔥 𝔞𝔯𝔢 𝔶𝔬𝔲? ✧

01. Green witch

The Green Witch embraces nature by drawing on the energies from the earth and of untamed things. They commune with the land, with stones and gems and they reley on plants, flowers and herbs. They call to nature for guidance and respects every living being and they have a strong belief that humans must give back to world and protect it. They tend to be animal/environmental activists and they will go the extra mile to spread awareness.

The Green Witch makes their own ritual tools from found objects in nature and they make sure these are ethically sourced materials. They might also work with Animal Guides and Plant Spirits. The forest is the Green Witch's sacred temple and they often spend time hiking or visiting parks and gardens.

Books I recommend:

The Green Witch ~ Arin Murphy-Hiscock

Encyclopaedia of Magical Herbs ~ Scott Cunningham

Occult Botany ~ Paul Sedir

The Treadwell's Book of Plant Magic ~ Christina Oakley Harrington

Wortcunning ~ Nigel G. Pearson

02. Crystal Witch

Crystal Witches focus their magick on healing and manifesting. Crystals are known for their healing energies due to their ability to raise one's own vibration. Crystals emit this constant vibration, that when met with a lower vibration, has the ability to raise, in turn, providing healing qualities through an energetic level, which can therefore fast track our own physical healing.

Crystal Witches may also be drawn to rocks and stones alike and generally appreciate the gift of nature. They may also be attracted to the study of geology and often work with chakras/practice chakra meditation.

Books I recommend:

The Power of Crystal Healing ~ Emma Lucy Knowles

The Zenned Out Guide to Understanding Crystals ~ Cassie Uhl

The Crystal Workshop ~ Azalea Lee

Crystals for Witches ~ Eliza Mabelle

03. Kitchen Witch

The Kitchen Witch’s potion is a soup and they’re magical wand is a trusty wooden spoon. Cooking becomes a sacred art for the Kitchen Witch. A Kitchen Witch may not often dedicate a specific time and resources to ceremony, instead they work intuitively rather than ritually to find the magic in everyday life.

Kitchen Witches personalise their space with great intention and care. They instantly know when a space resonates with them or not. They often cook with whole, organic foods and they may also grow their own food. They also tend to enchant ingrediants before using them in a dish and they might sometimes make dishes to treat illnesses.

Books I recommend:

Potions, Elixirs & Brews ~ Anais Alexandre

The Wicca Cookbook ~ Jamie Wood & Tara Seefeldt

Wicca in the Kitchen ~ Scott Cunningham

The Magick of Food ~ Gwion Raven

`04. Sea Witch

A sea witch is a practitioner of witchcraft whose spiritual focus and magical practices are closely tied to the sea and its elements. They use the potent energy of the ocean as a force to drive spellcraft, cleanse the soul and renew the spirit. Sea Witches forge a deep bond with the sea and its inhabitants, working with its energy to manifest their intentions and achieve their goals.

Sea Witches are naturally sensitive and empathetic. The ocean is their sacred space and often times they might live near the ocean or are very drawn to it. They are also very drawn to stroms and enjoy the rain. They might study oceanic mythology and sea animals. They also often collect seashells, pebbles or other beach treasures and may use them in their craft.

Books I recommend:

Sea Witch's Companion ~ Levannah Morgan

Sea Magic ~ Sandra Kynes

Water Witchcraft ~ Annwyn Avalon

Mermaids ~ Skye Alexander

05. Divination Witch

The Divination Witch focuses primarily on divination practices such as tarot & oracle, pendulum, scrying, runes, tea leaf reading, meditation, and connecting to your inner guides/higher being. To them, it’s most important to incorporate these divination practices to their everyday life, or at least in ceremonial rituals.

A Divination Witch may draw power from the earthly elements, mediation, or with the help of seasonal changes that open portals and lower the veil between the physical and spiritual worlds. For those highly in-tuned with their intuition, have the ability to hear, see, or sense what others can’t, find themselves as an empath, and have the uncanny ability to predict the future.

Books I recommend:

The Book of Divination ~ Michael Johnstone

I Ching or Book of Changes ~ C.G. Jung & Richard Wilhelm

Tarot Card Meanings ~ Brigit Esselmont

Chakra Healing ~ Margarita Alcantara

06. Lunar/Cosmic Witch

A Lunar Witch has a fascination and connection with the skies, stars, moon and planets are unparalleled. With the fundamental belief that what happens above in the cosmos is a direct correlation to what happens on Earth, Cosmic Witches focus their study on astrological transits, moon phases, and intertwining that with their own natal birth charts. A strong belief is that as we are born, we are given a blueprint, a snapshot of the skies, that presents past, present and future forecasts of not only ourselves as an individual, but as a collective, sometimes generational viewpoint too.

They draw their power from the Moon and perform certain spells and rituals depending on the phase of the moon.

Books I recommend:

Moon Magic ~ Aurora Kane

Moon Spells ~ Diane Ahlquist

Moon Magic ~ Diane Ahlquist

Witchs Moon ~ Edain McCoy

✧ 𝔗𝔥𝔞𝔫𝔨𝔰 𝔣𝔬𝔯 100 𝔣𝔬𝔩𝔩𝔬𝔴𝔢𝔯𝔰! ℌ𝔞𝔭𝔭𝔶 ℌ𝔞𝔩𝔩𝔬𝔴𝔢𝔢𝔫! ✧

Special thanks to @rainychibikko @googiekook @attymi @miraclekay97 @julyourwitch @honeytarotmind @honnuey @notakitsune @mercurialstime @artscapismsworld

[aratitty-itto]

Diluc's In-game outfits: An analysis

His regular outfit- Official name Darknight Blaze (really Diluc???) source First, it's similar to the long coat he wears in the manga when he's still in the knights. The ropes he has on one shoulder are something you usually only see on military uniforms, too. Also, the belt that crosses the chest and then one across the hip- that's similar to a weapon/sword belt, and it's one many of the knights have with the one across the chest there to keep the belt from sagging. These are two things I think Diluc had in the knights and incorporated into his later outfit. The all black with some gilt/gold is because Diluc is dramatic and likes the color and also looks good in it. The red on the gloves I personally think is also because Diluc is, again, dramatic and determined to wallow in guilt, so he made the palms red "to remind himself of the blood on his hands" or some shit. (I'll admit this is headcanon territory but i think it's really in character.)

Practically, the coat is armor. The coat looks and moves like it's made of some heavy material. I think it would be wool, because wool as a material has a lot of bonuses. It burns after some time- but is hard to catch on fire. It's a great insulator, so it keeps heat in in the cold . . . . and also keeps it out in. It doesn't melt to your skin like some materials (usually synthetic ones) would when burned. Wool can withstand the temperatures of a regular campfire normally for a fair amount of time, and even higher temps if its specially treated. It's used in firefighter suits even today for all of these reasons. Wool keeps you warm even in rain. It also repels water because of the oils in wool and it takes a lot to get it wet.

And as for armor- Heavy and/or padded fabric is fantastic about spreading out the force of a blow. Diluc would probably barely feel an average punch and maybe get a bruise from a sword slash. It might even block a stab from a dagger or sword (depends on weapon quality and force behind it) or at least keep the stab from going in too far. Those giant arm cuffs have a purpose- double the armor on his wrists, one of the most important things to keep from getting injured while fighting. Same for that little capelet- a hit on the shoulders or near the spine would stagger you and make it hard to swing a heavy claymore with the force necessary. I definitely think Diluc decided to put his collar up like that because he thinks it makes him look cool- and then realized it helped prevent slashes to the back of his neck. The coat is open in the front- but you're able to guard your front a lot easier than your back. Even the fact that its sewn in all those weird shapes is useful. If it gets cut/burnt/bloodied too much in one section he simply rips the seams on those specific panels to replace them, instead of having to replace the whole coat. Also, if you headcanon Diluc as autistic I can tell you that wearing a wool cape/coat is like wearing a weighted blanket. It feels so nice. i also wonder if there's something about self-consciousness, and feeling like he needs several layers between his body and the rest of the world at all times.

Red Dead of Night- 5-star skin

source His Hidden Strife event outfit. In the Hidden Strife event we got it in he said something like "It's an old outfit he got while fighting the Fatui." It looks a bit similar to the Pyro agents, actually. Not so much the recent ones besides the feather-like coattails, but I bet the Fatui changed military uniforms, partly because uniform changes happen regularly and partly because Diluc may have been using Fatui uniforms to sneak into bases and such.

He probably doesn't wear it all the time for darknight heroing, but it comes in handy for certain things because-

-if its night you will only see shapes instead of colors and red isn't actually super noticeable in the dark, if someone sees it they will see the distinctive tailcoat that looks a lot like a Fatui Agent, and will assume its Fatui- perfect for if he wants the Fatui blamed for this action.

-if it is a Fatui uniform he stole it's a combat uniform so its meant to be maneuverable in combat. if he has it why not use it.

-already has armor built in, its probably meant for Pyro agents so it's presumably fire resistant. I've seen several cosplays made with leather which would make a lot of sense, it's light, maneuverable, fire resistant and provides light armor.

-and probably the original reason he has it- it has bird theming, the bird on the waistcoat and the back looks like tail feathers, it's red, it's fire-themed, I bet you when Diluc first saw it he was so jealous and needed one himself. And then realized all the other practical points of stealing one.

In conclusion, Diluc is wearing armor at all times even when it looks like he isn't. I wonder what he would wear for purely comfort?

[marciabrady]

here are some sleeping beauty plot points/general details that i love and i would love to see more discussion around

the story team did such an incredible job with fleshing out aurora while still making her feel true to the mythos from which she was derived. in every novelization i've ever read that predates the disney film, she's only ever given one line of dialogue (something like: "what is that thing that spins so merrily?") before falling asleep. disney took that same princess and successfully expanded her into a living, breathing dynamic human who is filled with everything- ethos, pathos, everything, but is also authentic to her origins. they also did a genius job at creating a basis for why love is so revered in this tale. true love conquers all, we're told, and it's indeed what keeps aurora safe from maleficent for all these years, as it's the one thing the evil fairy can't understand. yet, the fact that the princess grew up surrounded by the love from the three fairies, which instills that care in her heart, along with the fact that she grows up in isolation, so connected to the universe around her and allowing her to be introspective enough to observe the animals about her and draw a connection to the human condition and that of the consistencies of nature is so...deep and profound and develops her and makes her an evergreen character that will always represent people, for as long as we're around, because aurora's struggle is one that speaks to everyone. she isn't just some "lovesick princess" but a character that's growing up and longs to be able to find her soul's mate and to express the love in her heart in a universe where she was socially excluded and deprived of others outside of her three guardians. as humans are tribal creatures, social inclusion is one of the main pillars of wellbeing. so to take aurora, who is already an innately romantic person, and to deprive her of that just gives all the more reason why the kiss of true love really would revive her. she isn't just some princess who grows to be fifteen or sixteen, pricks her finger, and then is awakened by a prince she never meets. she is someone who was raised in love, grows up and wants to become a woman and share that love and express it with someone else. when she finds it, it's suddenly stripped from her and she's induced into a magic slumber that's meant to symbolize her transformation from girl to woman. then, she's awakened by the same love she'd thought she lost and it's just...the structure of it is genius and incredible and they retain all of the qualities about her in the fairytale and storytelling devices but they develop it so much further and round her out so well but still maintain a reverence to her source material instead of condemning it or outright changing it and i just LOVE

i don't think enough people realized that, it wasn't until maleficent visited prince phillip in the dungeon and showed him the vision of aurora in slumber repose that he knew that aurora and briar rose were one in the same!!! like this is the moment it all clicked for him and it gave him the drive and determination to slay the dragon in her honor. he realized the woman he loved and the princess he had been betrothed to were both one and that's so important and it's just such a plot twist that, again, was so genius of the writers. it proves to us that he loves her enough to leave the kingdom for her and risk damning the princess he had been betrothed to to the curse she was under and he'd take her as she is, even if it were a peasant, but also that his love is so steadfast and true that he'd defeat a dragon for her. 10/10 and it sooo runs along the vein of the lyric "visions are seldom all they seem." this is a plot twist done RIGHT but with so much sophistication that it tends to fly under most everyone's radar because it isn't like loud

something i love about the original princess movies is how the female characters are forever in the forefront, and the fact that this film opens with the celebration of the birth of a female child is something that's so special! instead of having to think about how female children weren't celebrated in that time, or it was a disappointment she hadn't been a son, or something of the like, the fact that the spotlight is on their daughter and the opening of the film continues this matriarchy, where all in the land praise this female birth, before the fairies are introduced as their most "honored and exalted excellencies." we need to see more worlds like this instead of pixar films where there's like not a single main female character lol

THE FACT THAT PHILLIP WAS WILLING TO GIVE UP THE THRONE AND THE KINGDOM "for some nobody" and told his dad flat out to his face without hesitating makes me love him soooo much?? he loves aurora for who she is, not just because she was a princess to whom he had been betrothed to his entire life, and this proves how genuine his love is. it also paints how progressive and open-minded phillip was, seeming to be the first that would ever break the tradition of princes marrying princesses and opening up his country for a new type of culture and reign. love me a freak like that

one of the biggest facets to aurora's character, and something that further develops her relationship to phillip, is how differently she reacts to her guardians when told of the betrothal. where phillip already knows, and is aware of the king and queen and how his duty is to marry their princess daughter, aurora is just finding out that she has living parents for the first time and the future of a nation rests on her shoulders. she discovers she's to be married to a prince and must give up her true love forever. again, before i hear anything about "she just met this man for two minutes in the woods, why is she crying," this is a fairytale with magic that's meant to be archetypical. in the narrative of the film, and in the universe of this world, phillip is her true love- and this is confirmed when it is his kiss that awakens her from the curse. so to leave the one true love who was meant for you, when that's all you ever wanted in the isolation you were raised in, to accept your duty and responsibility over parents you didn't even know you had and to assume the obligations of a nation you aren't even prepared for...it's astounding. aurora does everything right, she even leaves love behind for the good of her people and puts everyone above her own personal desires, and yet people still criticize her and say she's dependent on a man and all she cares about is love. meanwhile, phillip never receives any hate, and he's literally willing to give up the throne and the kingdom and start a war between two countries for the girl "he just met in the woods for two minutes" but he's one of the most beloved princes...it really just makes me think about how misogynistic our society still is, without even realizing it. aurora literally couldn't have done anything better, by our modern standards, but people still condemn her just because? this is definitely a discussion piece i want to hear more about and, in general, i think it would behoof us all to understand why aurora has been so demeaned culturally as a character when her actions, in and of themselves, are exactly what we say we want and would appeal to modern sensibilities

this is a slight sidenote but i always was tickled by merryweather proclaiming, if she had it her way, maleficent would be turned into a "fat old hop-toad." i always felt like this was a nod to the original tale from which this movie was based on, where a magical frog tells the queen that her wish to be with child shall soon be granted and that it, just generally, was a very clever easter egg/allusion

in this film, they have enough action and movement to appease the more restless demographic/traditionally "masculine" crowd, but i love how the basis of maleficent's defeat lies still in the femininity of the three good fairies. it's these elderly women that save phillip from the dungeon and arm him, not just with weapons that will kill another being and are predicated upon violence, but with symbolic weapons that are laced with truth and virtue. i think it really reminds us all how transformative these values are and how, in arming ourselves with them, we'll alone be able to navigate the road to true love (whether that be familial, platonic, or romantic love) which will be "barred by many more dangers" and how it enables us to have a sense of autonomy where we'll be able to overcome anything that's thrown our way while still retaining the core of who we are

i wrote about this moment previously, but to piggyback off of what i wrote about phillip just above...i love how aurora is the most competent human in this world? much has been said about how the plot of sleeping beauty is essentially the fairy worlds dueling with one another and, in that, many of the mortals are somewhat...inept, to put it for lack of a better term. king stefan is unable to protect his daughter with the burning of the spinning wheels, even with all the power he harnesses within his kingdom, and the fairies are quick to see his folly. prince phillip would still be rotting in the prison had the fairies not interjected, and he would be burned to a crisp had they not sprung a final chant of magic upon his, already, enchanted sword. yet, maleficent has to hypnotize aurora for the princess to even succumb to her plan and, even then, aurora is temporarily able to snap out of the magic hypnosis she's put under. i don't think people realize how powerful that is? yes, i understand it's a minor moment, but the hesitation and the ability to counter magic while remaining totally unarmed is something that reminds me why aurora is our main character, despite what anyone else might say.

going along with what i said above, while many are quick to point out aurora's lack of screentime, the film begins with her birth, the plot is sprung forth with every character wondering what they could do to protect her, then when she pricks her finger upon the spinning wheel, she and the entire kingdom are put to sleep. it isn't until she wakes up, that the entire kingdom does, too. she holds the key to this entire universe in a persephone like way and i just love how important it is in the narrative of the film to wake her up. she isn't just this beautiful creature who's valuable because she's pretty, because if that was the case, her being a lovely figure posed to perfection in her slumbering mode would be enough...but the people of her universe value her so much more when she's alive and active and being her own person, that it ensues a fairy war, practically. she's also involved in every single plot, even if she isn't physically present. this is her movie and no one can take that away from her. but, just to restate, the fact that there's so much emphasis in aurora being alive and well is something that's so important

so, it's kind of a given at this point that every princess can sing, but i think the role that music plays in sleeping beauty is the most meaningful and well done? sleeping beauty makes much to do about its classical score and it skillfully combines realistic characters and storylines (like the fairies not knowing how to cook and clean, phillip being captured with no way out, the kings toasting to the impending nuptials of their offspring before getting into a quarrel centered around a misunderstanding) with the fantastical world of fantasy and opera. by giving aurora the gift of song, the narrative is creating a framework that explains her relationship to her singing voice in a way that's even more profound than that of ariel's connection with her singing. it explains why aurora sings more than she speaks and ties in perfectly with the thematic style of the operatic presence in sleeping beauty, which is that in the opera, instead of speaking about it, you sing.

OK but this scene of hubert's/his general plotline and character motivation that results from this is genuinely perhaps the best comedy disney's ever done? hubert is coming off of declaring war upon his best friend stefan, because he misunderstood stefan's caring for his own daughter as a snub against hubert's son. after challenging aurora's father to a duel, they quickly make up, before hubert hears phillip has arrived and rushes off to greet his son. there, the news is broken that phillip is actually in love with a peasant and that he plans to renounce the throne- which will actually cause a war- so that he can be with his beloved. hubert is convinced phillip is joking, especially as he happens to meet this mystery maiden on the date that aurora is set to come home- the most anticipated date for these past sixteen years in the kingdom- and his son is set to be a central figure in the celebration for the princess's homecoming! before he can reason with phillip, his son escapes, leaving hubert to be the one to break the news to stefan. heavy-hearted, as hubert tries to tell stefan, he keeps being interrupted by trumpets and the musical notes that are meant to accompany the princess in her debut to her country. then the fairies literally put hubert to sleep when he finally gets a chance to explain it to stefan and, when they're awoken from this fog like slumber, the first vision that greets hubert is that of his son and the princess??? the same son who said he had no interest in aurora, but was set to marry the peasant maiden. the whole thing concludes in a very charming "all's well that ends well" but i still think the whole "how am i ever going to tell stefan" dilemma, while continually being interrupted, and this king who declared war in 2 seconds flat and minced no words in being so short-tempered was suddenly at a loss for words and so hesitant and fumbling and nervous about this news his son sprung on him lol

one of the most haunting sequences in film is the one above. the three good fairies have endeared themselves to their mortal charge, even giving up their magic for her for sixteen years. their bond is so much deeper and meaningful than it would've been otherwise, as they probably would've blessed her at the christening and then only appeared in her life intermittently, at a distance. they clearly aren't close enough to humans to know too much about their customs, and their magic always gives them away as outsiders, which indicates they were always content to live in their own fairy-world. but then they give it all up for this baby, this child, and they change their entire world for her. she is their world, to the point where their sole purpose is protecting her, until that's all they can think about for close to two decades. they would do anything they could to make her happy, to give her a fighting chance at life. they're so protective over her- and the fact that they got this close to the finish line...only to leave her alone because they want to be respectful of giving her privacy as she's still reeling and processing from all the news they sprung about her at once. they were even discussing going to king stefan and attempting to convince him to let aurora out of the arranged marriage so that she could be with the boy in the woods. and this all leads to maleficent enchanting aurora to her demise. as the fairies place her in a bed for the last time, looking upon her in her princess form, all of the time they've spent with her runs through their mind. how this isn't their little briar rose anymore, but a princess who inhabits, not the woodcutter's cottage, but king stefan's castle. someone who will never be with them the way she once was ever again and who, presently, is dead for all they know. as they look upon their lost daughter, the faint chimes and musical notes of the celebration of her homecoming is heard in the distance. i could talk about this forever but it's just such a heartbreaking and sad but also eerie mood

in 2023, it's time king stefan gets his flowers. while, in the time period in which this film is set, it'd be totally realistic for a father to set his daughter up in an arranged marriage to further the prospects of his land, stefan displays an understanding that seems more contemporary than his counterpart, hubert. hubert doesn't think about prince phillip's feelings for a beat and concedes that the "children" are bound to fall in love with one another. meanwhile, stefan seems to display a much more well-rounded paternal instinct, even exemplifying a degree of care and concern for both aurora's emotional wellbeing and her consent. he urges hubert to calm down and remember that this might come as "quite a shock" to aurora and to not push all of these political arrangements upon his daughter before she's had a chance to react to them and digest them.

the duality of briar rose and princess aurora is so fascinating, but also the moments in which they overlap is more enchanting still. this is a fairytale that is meant to be archetypical, and aurora's enchanted slumber is meant to be symbolic for her transition from girlhood to womanhood. briar rose, the girl, is anxious about her future, the prospect of meeting her love and settling down and getting to the next stage of her life. she loves her guardians, but is frustrated at their inability to see and treat her as anything other than a child. she goes to sleep a scared, shy, unsure teenager and wakes up as a self-assured, mature, gracious woman- the princess aurora. she's a vision, descending the staircase on the arm of her beloved, and she paints quite the picture as she gracefully curtsies to her parents, the king and queen. yet, true to the girl from the cottage, briar rose takes over. unable to contain the love she feels, she bolts forward and rushes to embraced her lost parents. i love this because, for as calm as a character as aurora is, i've always been so mesmerized by the breathless excitement with which she speaks when she returns to the cottage. this is a girl that has more love inside her than she can contain and it renders her a beacon of light. her running into the arms of her parents, instead of resenting them for giving her up, putting her in an arranged marriage, or even pausing to question whether or not she should be so warm with these figureheads of state, is such a tender moment that i don't think i've ever heard anyone speak of.

i will never get tired of singing the praises of the three good fairies. this film placed three older, conventionally unattractive women at the forefront- without pushing forced hetero ships on any of them- and allowed them to be bad ass (ie saving phillip from the dungeon, providing him with the tools and guidance with which to defeat maleficent, coming up with all the plots and actions that propelled the plot forward), while reminding us that love and kindness is truly the most powerful force on earth and placing an emphasis on the strength and power of femininity. the entire transition, from them being business women in the kingdom essentially (this is more in modern jargon; them being the fairies who are invited to political organizations for their contributions and not knowing anything about things like cooking or cleaning or rearing a child) to learning how to raise a baby and the film ending with them beaming over the shining achievement of their assigned charge finally being safe and happy is...it's everything. how beautifully the film focuses on them and the relationship with their adopted daughter and how that's the driving goal in all of this is something that's been unable to ever be surpassed

[sh0tanzz]

can you do ZB1 as your boyfriend PLS (like all of them🙏)

guess who’s kinda back…😨

ZB1 RICKY AS YOUR BF based on astrology ~

(reminder that this for fun and astrology is something I study for a hobby, these are all inferences based off of observations and not exact fact unless I knew him myself !!)

Taurus Sun @ 29° : With his sun being in a venusian sign in a leo degree (the sun), he’s the bf that takes care of himself/maintains his appearance. Everyone talks about “boyfriend air” and how bfs tend to be messy but he most likely is vv hygienic. He’s not one to rush and might initially be a bit reserved/introverted (until he opens up and feels more comfortable). He appreciates physical art and pleasures (fashion, food, leisure) and it translates into his relationships. He probably likes to gift his partner with material items that enhance their beauty so outfits, skincare, jewelry. It makes sense that he helps the members do their makeup and probs would maybe do the same for his partner. Being reliable is something he finds relatively important.

Gemini Moon @ 9° : In relationships he enjoys being able to be versatile and express himself in different and even unpredictable ways. He finds comfort in being able to freely share his thoughts/feelings and will reciprocate this to his partner. He may enjoy hearing his partners pov and opinions about things or even relish in hearing his partner’s voice in general. There’s a sense of spontaneity especially with the moon being in a sag degree. He has moon square jupiter+uranus and trine neptune; so he could be a bit restless and even indifferent emotionally adding onto his unpredictability. I wouldn’t say he has mood swings but his feelings could be very case by case.

Taurus Mercury @ 4° : He is honestly on the more laidback and rational side of things but is capable of being more obstinate and deliberate. He has mercury trine jupiter and sextile uranus so he lowkey has a gift for gab and basically is a yapper with whoever is partner is. With mercury sextile mars he might even slightly enjoy debating things (unless it’s something he’s super set in opinion with and sensitive about). He’s most likely more intelligent and has more common sense than he likes to let on and most likely shares his more intellectual/philosophical side when he’s with his partner. Would enjoy having person inside jokes with his partner alone.

Gemini Venus @ 26° : He’s naturally flirty, charming and even playful. He dislikes being bored and mentally under stimulated in his romantic pursuits. He acts in a sense that will bring both comfort and stability but also still mentally entertain. He likes his space however and may not enjoy extreme clinginess. Ricky is naturally creative and finds beauty in refined things with quality even in the mundane. He’s the guy who takes you to outside places to both indulge as well as communicate. He flirts in a way that’s not super in your face but still witty and clever with a smoothness; with it being in a taurean degree he finds satisfaction in giving gifts and doing reciprocal tasks. He has Venus opposite Pluto so depending on the state of the relationship he may have a tendency to constantly waiver between being passive/indifferent to being attached/controlling or just borderline being unpredictable in his displays of affection.

Cancer Mars @ 8° : In a scorpio degree oooo. He’s very caring and protective to a degree. He most likely would want to take the lead or at least be a source of comfort for his s/o. He isn’t super quick to confront and may gather his thoughts and feelings before expressing more negative feelings. He might have an unintentional tendency for unspoken resentment if he doesn’t/can’t express himself. He has mars sextile jupiter and conjunct saturn so though he seems slow to act whenever he does it will be bold or at least with impact, in relationships he wants actions to emotionally mean something and not be pointless. Lowkey might be persistent in a seductive nature LOLL.

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

Purely from a customer and consumer point of view, the products Meghan is teasing do not seem appealing.

I really artisan jams and jellies and cute, home grown products that look adorable are my roman empire (please don't judge me for this). But I also look for quality products, the stories of the owners, curators, as well as how and who from the products or raw materials are sourced. And I channel this interest of mine into my secret side gig as an anonymous food critic. I write about artisan cafes and food products. So looking at Meghan's 3 products from that lense -

If the only products she is offering is freshly made (perishable) jam and a dog biscuit, then it is extremely off putting for a consumer. It doesn't matter if it's beautifully packaged. There is no cohesion between the 2 products. For most people who don't have dogs or are sticklers for hygiene would be a little icked out. At the price point which she intends to sell these products it's very important to create an image in the customers mind. Wholesome, clean, fresh, cosy, tasty, happy kids happy families, warmth and lighthearted fun filled family times etc etc etc.

No all I'm thinking of is that she is making the jam on one hob of her stove top and putting together the dog biscuit ingredients in a large bowl on the same countertop (and dog food ingredients are usually raw, smelly, include things like liver, lamb, bone meal, bone broth etc). Just thinking of that has put me off of whatever was launched simultaneously with those dog biscuits.

Those products should not have been launched together. Technically she hasn't launched anything, I know. But if and when she does, a lot of people would already associate the two products together.

Of course this is just my opinion, but I do think Meghan has noone to advice her on market strategy and brand story. She is focussing too much on or and not at all on getting the basics of her brand together. A brand, as in the product itself, is always bigger than the creator.

People buy skims because it's a good product that looks good, does te work it does and it offers variety. Not just because kim wears it. People are over Kylie lipkits because the lipsticks are bad, flaky, and substandard. Kylies pillowey lips can only sell soany kits.

Using the same logic, if Meghan is not highlighting the produce, the strawberries, the raspberries, the jam making, the gardens, the fruit picking, the quality checks, the jam batches to get just the right taste it's not good. It won't sell. The company would never take off. The products will not be a success countrywide, let alone worldwide. (Which I think is what she would ideally like).

Old ask from June 17th

A perspective on ARO and why it’s failing.

[beespaceprogram]

Sticker Cutter Research

I was looking into getting a sticker cutting machine, and I decided to start by looking into cricut which is a well known brand. I had a look at what models they had than their feature etc, but what I was most concerned about was their software. Printer companies like to lock you into a defacto subscription to support hardware you don't really own, and as I was to discover, cricut are operating in a similar way.

The cricut software is online-only*. To cut your own designs you need to use their software to upload your art to their server. There's no way to cut a new design without a logged-in cricut account and an internet connection. At one point in 2021 they flirted with limiting free accounts to 20 uploads/month but backed down after huge community backlash, as far as I can tell.

The incident spawned several community efforts to write open-source firmware for cricut hardware. Some efforts were successful for specific models/serial numbers, but require cracking open the case and hooking in to the debug contacts to flash the chip; not exactly widely accessible. Another project sought to create a python cricut server you can run locally, and then divert the app's calls to the server to your local one.

I restarted my search, this time beginning with looking for extant open-source software for driving cutters, and found this project, which looks a little awkward to use, but functional. They list a bunch of cutter hardwares and whether they're compatible or not. Of those, I recognised the sihouette brand name from other artists talking about them.

I downloaded the silhouette software to try like I did w the cricut software, and immediately it was notable that it didn't try to connect to the internet at all. It's a bit clunky, in that way printer and scanner software tends to be, but I honestly greatly preferred using it to cricut's sluggish electron app⁺. Their software has a few paid tiers above the free one, adding stuff like sgv import/export/and reading cut settings from a barcode on the input material. They're one-off payments, and seem reasonable to me.

This is not so much a review, as sharing some of the research I've done. I haven't yet used either a cricut or a silhouette, and I haven't researched other brands either. But I wanted to talk about this research because to me, cricut's aggressively online nature is a red flag. Software that must connect to a server to run is software that runs only at the whim of the server owner (and only as long as it's profitable to keep the server up). And if that software is the only thing that will make your several hundred dollars worth of plastic and (cheap, according to a teardown I read) servos run, then you have no guarantee you'll be able to run it in the future.

Do you use a desktop cnc cutter? What has your experience been like with the hardware and software? Do you have any experience from home printers with good print quality and user-refillable ink cartridges?

* Cricut's app tried to connect to more than 14 different addresses, including facebook, youtube, google analytics, datadoghq.com, and launchdarkly.com. Launch Darkly are a service provider that help software companies do a whole bunch of things I'm coming to despise, for example, they offer infrastructure for serving different features to different demographics and comparing results to control groups. You know how at various times you've gotten wildly different numbers of ads than your friends on instagram? They were using techniques like this to work out how many ads they could show without affecting their pickup/engagement rates. Scummy stuff.

⁺ Electron apps are web-pages pretending to be applications. They use heaps of ram, tend to have very poor performance, and encourage frustrating UI design that doesn't follow OS conventions. Discord's app is a notable example of an Electron app

[markantonys]

is ROP lacking in the female character department or have i just been way too spoiled by the plethora of them in WOT? lmao

like, galadriel's excellent, 10/10 no notes. but it feels like the others are always playing second fiddle in a storyline the source material designed to be about men (disa, miriel), or are bopping around on a charming sidequest that, while important as a breath of lightness amidst the heavy stuff, is nowhere near as compelling as the ring-related storylines (nori, poppy). (or had to get written out due to the actress leaving; such a shame because i imagine bronwyn would've been a big player in the southlands storyline this season.)

and i think it mostly comes down to source material. i have a vivid childhood memory of reading the hobbit and then the fellowship of the ring and then quitting because i got bored and cranky about there not being any girls except for arwen in like 2 chapters, so i would not be surprised if much of ROP's source material is similar, where the vast majority of the important players are men. and the show is doing what it can to add in more ladies, but it's just tough to make them feel like they're on an equal level of narrative importance as the men for whom the story was originally designed.

and that makes me so incredibly thankful for WOT and the huge amount of story-driving women RJ baked into the story. i give him flak for some things, but in this regard he was truly ahead of his time! and ahead of OUR time, even today it's rare to see a (mainstream) story with such a wide array of female characters. and that's made the show's job easy; it doesn't have to fight the source material to make women important in the narrative, because they already are. i saw a text post the other day about "tasting the good bologna" and how you can never be satisfied with a mid-quality thing again after you've had the most luxurious version, and boy have i tasted the good bologna with WOT and female characters.

[naranjapetrificada]

Thinking this midday about ofmd AUs and what it means for someone to be "out of character". I've talked about this here at length before, but today I'm thinking about a different aspect of it. Namely that I wish people thought more about their goals when writing and recalibrated their relationships with canon as a concept.

We all know by now how contentious a certain late first mate (what is the opposite of "qepd" lol) is. When writing him in fic, some people seem to have this (inexplicable to me) urge to show him behaving in ways that the canon version of him would hate (outwardly nice, polite, kind, open, etc). And while not everyone is open to direct feedback about their writing, I've seen discussions a handful of times in ao3 comments and more commonly over here between readers about how in or out character potrayals of him are, and something occured to me today.

When there are opposing sides on the core question of whether or not a portrayal is in or out of character (vs people who agree on that question but may have quibbles about the reasons why they came to their conclusion), the sides tend to be "here's why this was in character" and "here's why this isn't in character". And while that gap will always exist because there are as many readings of a text as there are readers, there's a reason the concepts of "canonical" and "non-canonical" exist. There are things that are canon and things that are not and there is disagreement about which things are which but like it or not, there are some people that are more correct about canonicity.

The thing about fan works is that people should always create what they want, and will do so according to their interpretations of source material, and the question of being in or out of character should, at the end of the day, come down to your goals. We all have more goals in our creative work beyond "finish" or "do it well" and we may not consciously consider them, but they're always there. Those "alternate" goals may be different from work to work, but they exist are influenced by our experiences and inspirations and aren't ever going to be 100% impartial or canon-aligned, because the former would be boring as hell and the latter is neither possible nor desired in what's supposed to be a transformative work.

Everyone who creates anything wants it to be "good", but measures of quality can change from work to work the way goals can. For many writers, how "true" their characterization feels can be one of those quality measures that relate to their goals. Probably in most cases tbh, and especially in AUs. But it isn't always part of the equation because other writers have other goals, and it's usually pretty obvious when those goals haven't been examined.

Some of y'all think Con O'Neill/Izzy Hands is hot, and just wany to imagine his character in various sexual situations with other characters you find attractive (or at least narrative useful) in some way and you know what? That's perfectly fine, and despite not comprehending that impulse at all I understand the importance of creative freedom in fandom enough to want people who write that to write it without hesitation. In these cases we often just tell people to be "proud villainfuckers" which is easy, straightforward, and usually has less contentious discourse around it.

But some of y'all find Izzy to be the most sympathetic character in the series, and while I have enough of the acquired (and healthy) suspicion as a black person who has spent decades in fandom spaces to not want to touch that tendency with a 10 foot pole, those same decades of fandom experience make me understand that there will always be people who glom onto antagonists and secondary characters like that. Even when if I wonder about the motivations behind such an inclination, I understand that y'all are usually part of the ecosystem too.

But the thing is: if you're motivated to write Izzy as outwardly nice or kind or as some kind of hero vs the antagonist he canonically is, or gravitate toward reading those kinds of portrayals, why argue with people about what is or isn't in character? If something in you is drawn toward that kind of Izzy and wants to sympathize with him, why not just own it? There's no easy "villainfucker" way of making peace with this though because it's much more likely to make you want to think about individual morality.

No one who is partial to Izzy wants to be called racist or femme-phobic etc, and I'm not here (on this post at least) to litigate whether or not those accusations would be fair or not (although my opinions are probably obvious). But isn't it exhausting to have to put canon through so many refractions so you can insist that what you like seeing and/or writing is canonical? I understand that being able to point to canon can make it feel easier to stand by your preferences, but is all the bending over backwards to make it fit worth it? What if you could just acknowledge if your goal is to persuade others to see him the same way you do, or see him getting cared for, or whatever else you get out of it? I wish more of y'all had the courage of your convictions and were willing to just say "I like seeing Izzy this way" or "I sympathize with Izzy" because you would probably be having more fun.

[lunastrophe]

Drow Fashion 🕷️✨ About Spider Silk - Part 1

Everything you may want - or may not want - to know about spider silk in (mostly Lolth-sworn) drow culture and fashion. In this part you will find information about:

sources of spider silk,

basic uses and meaning of spider silk in drow culture.

🕷️ Various Types Of Silk – among surfacers, silk spun by spiders is generally not widely used, but in the Underdark, spider silk is not excessively hard to obtain. It is extremely light, very elastic, durable and often has many other extraordinary properties, especially after being imbued with magic. In consequence, the Underdark silk market is probably vast.

Raw spider silk can vary in quality, depending mainly on the spider species it comes from – also, most spiders are naturally able to produce several types of silk that vary in thickness and adhesiveness. Some threads are suitable for producing delicate, transparent or semi-transparent materials. Some are useful for weaving thicker fabrics, carpets and tapiseries. Silk waste, after being properly processed, is also useful – for example, for making silken threads and fabrics of lesser quality.

🕷️ Silk Farming? – silk can be obtained from webbings, cocoons or egg sacks of wild spiders, or it can be extracted directly from caught or freshly killed specimens of various sizes. Such methods are generally time-consuming, though, and often dangerous.

Silk farming is probably quite popular in the Underdark, allowing to produce silk on a larger scale while maintaining better control over its quantity, quality and properties. Silk farms can contain thousands of more or less domesticated spiders that can belong to species best suited for producing silk.

Headcanon warning - silk farming is not mentioned in drow lore sources, I borrowed this idea from historical attempts to produce spider silk on a larger scale. So far, we humans are bad at this, mainly because we cannot figure out how to domesticate spiders (they like to kill each other, so it is hard to keep them together) and how to make them produce the kind of silk we want them to produce (every spider produces several types of silk and only some are suitable for making threads and textiles)... but I bet that drow would figure out how to make this work.

(If anyone is curious about this topic, I was inspired mainly by this article).

🕷️ Free-Range And Cruelty-Free* – silk can be obtained without harming the spiders and in case of more intelligent species, even with their explicit permission. Such things are probably especially important to Lolth-sworn drow who are forbidden to cage, mistreat or kill arachnids, or even to disturb inhabited spiderwebs.

*Only in relation to spiders, though. Underdark drow are probably not overly concerned with well-being of slaves and serfs tasked with gathering and processing silk...

Silk of spiders that live in temples and other places sacred to the Spider Queen, as well as silk of abyssal arachnids that live in Lolth’s domain, is most likely highly valued among worshippers of Lolth – especially among her priestesses.

🕷️ Uses Of Spider Silk – drow use silk to make armour, weapons, clothing, domestic and ceremonial textiles, high-quality strings, lines, nets and tents, and various works of craft and art. Spider webs, often calcified with magic, are used in creation of architecture ornaments or sometimes even whole structures like bridges, passages or buildings.

Among Lolth-sworn drow, spider silk is closely connected to worship of Lolth and is widely present in Lolthite temples and shrines – just like living spiders. It is said that Lolth herself favours silk and that when she takes the guise of a drow, she appears as a lithe drow woman dressed in a gossamer gown woven from spider silk.

Spider silk is also useful as a spell component and it can be used to craft magical items. For example, silk of phase spider and strands of ether are needed to create a portable hole – wondrous item that looks like a circle of black cloth.

For more of my drow lore ramblings, feel free to check my pinned post 🕷️

[viscountess-nila]

A little chaos - Theloise oneshot

Set in the social season after the season Polin gets married. Benophie could or could not be happening, that is up to you. In conclusion, Lady Danbury's boredom can lead to quite a few amazing things.

It seems that even gossip can become boring when it is a person's only source of entertainment.

It was truly a phenomenon that shocked Lady Danbury, and that was not something that happened often.

It had started gradually, a few months into the off-season, as the effect of Lady Whistedown's reveal (something Lady Danbury has suspected; the now Mrs Penelope Bridgerton was a genius indeed) slowly lessened, the excitement of secrets and scandal gradually faded away.

Now as the next season was to commence, the ton made their way back to London, and sitting in her glamorous carriage, Lady Danbury had concluded that gossip would not be enough, the season would only be the slightest bit entertaining with something more.

But what?

Lady Danbury sighed, completely stumped (a first for the intelligent matriarch), and looked out the blinds to see the huts and smoke of Bloomsbury.

And just like that, a plan clicked into place within her devious mind.

A grin unfurled, 'Entertaining indeed'

----------------

A few hours after the next dawn, Lady Danbury arrived at an edge of Bloomsbury, a list of successful worker's names.

The ton had been lacking both drama and population, and Lady Danbury would quench both deficiencies. And it would also align with her opinions on the imbalance of power between the high-fashioned ton of Mayfair and the hard-working citizens of Bloomsbury, who faced blatantly unfair discrimination.

So, starting now, every year, Lady Danbury had decided to provide for 4 of the most successful from the town, so they may also get a chance of the glamorous life Mayfair was born into.

Give them the chance to marry into it. Or to gain powerful influences from it.

Yes, part of this was fueled by the matriarch's guilt of the unearned privileges of her birth, but mostly by the need for something chaotic, something beyond glamorous life.

She looked down at the carefully acquired list of names of the newest members of the ton

Miss. Elina Bernard - silks and velvet merchant, best quality material Violet has used

Violet's clothes were quite impeccable.

Mr. Jacob Clint - import business, from America to Asia, freshest and most authentic Indian products Kate has purchased in London

The new Viscountess could not last a lifetime in London without mangoes and had hunted down this businessman almost immediately.

Miss. Esther Addams - doctor, provides service free of cost and always guarantees recovery, saved Lady Mary in her initial years

Life had not been kind to Mary Sharma in the years after her marriage, but this doctor had been.

However, Lady Danbury's favourite recommendation was the last.

Mr. Theo Sharpe - Printer, most successful in Bloomsbury due to being Lady's Whistledown's preferred printer

Now all that was left was teaching them the basics and introducing them at her ball, the first of the season.

This was going to be fun.

----------------

Theo Sharpe, a man of hard work and dedication did not expect a Countess summoning him to take part in the ridiculousness the uppish ton called a social season.

Two years ago, he would've scoffed in the Lady's face, niceties be damned, for he did not need her charity work or pity.

But then a maddeningly beautiful and terrifying intelligent woman had entered his life (and left, quickly), leaving a mark in his heart that nothing could erase.

And taking Lady Danbury's offer would give him the chance he thought he'd never get, to see Eloise Bridgerton again.

She, evidently, did not think of him every waking moment the way he had these last two years, but being able to see her once again would sustain his feelings for the rest of his life.

And maybe an apology for his damning words the last time he saw her, to erase the guilt of how he's broken their friendship.

And maybe-

She deserves better than you. She deserves better. She deserves better.

Theo watched as Elina, Jacob and Esther accepted Lady Danbury's offer, all varying shades of wonder, shock and scepticism, then their eyes turned to him.

A few seconds of silence then-

"Yes, I'll do it"

I can see Eloise Bridgerton again

----------------

Eloise Bridgerton had come from Scotland's mountain views and brimming libraries, back to London's bustling ton for the sole reason of her mother's masquerade ball, two weeks from now, and had no intention of setting foot in a ballroom that was not hosted by her mother or Kate.

But then she had received Lady Danbury's invite to her Introductory ball, which had boasted a phenomenon that had never been seen before, and now Eloise was intrigued.

From anyone else, that claim would've been untrustworthy, but from Lady Danbury...

It was something considerable indeed.

And so, Eloise sat in a carriage, donning a simple blue dress, riding towards the introductory ball of her 3rd season.

From her right, Benedict asked, "Is there any reason you decided to join us last minute, sister?"

Eloise turned, her eyes showing her confusion.

"I mean, anything or anyone...", the rest of his question trailed off into nothingness as Eloise fixed Benedict with a deadly glare.

He immediately assumes it is about love

Anthony, who was seated beside Kate, grinned, "No brother, Eloise simply wanted to see Lady Danbury's grand phenomenon, as the invite stated"

Her glare and Anthony's grin did not die down until they reached the ball.

----------------

Penelope, Kate and Eloise stood together, though the two married women were whispering with grins on their faces, and clueless Eloise could not last without answers.

"What are you-"

"Eloise", Kate replied, not waiting for the question to be completed, "If you wish for Lady Danbury's surprise to be a surprise, then you cannot know what we are speaking of"

What?

Eloise's mouth fell open, "You know?"

"We were part of planning it", Penelope replied with a cheeky grin.

"Betrayal", Eloise shook her head, "Betrayal, by the only two people I actually trust"

A beat passed, and all three women started laughing, lost in the mirth and comfort of sisterhood.

As Eloise opened her mouth to shoot back another playful retort, an announcement rang out asking everyone's attention and silence.

Lady Danbury stepped onto the podium, a smirk playing on her face.

Eloise's mind was reeling, "But surprises are usually not revealed until the end of the ball!"

Kate simply smiled in response, mirth dancing in her eyes.

Lady Danbury's voice echoed across the room, "Within London, there is a section none of us really consider, and yet is the backbone of our society. Bloomsbury"

Eloise's heart clenched at the memories flooding her brain.

No, don't think about him, he's probably forgotten you already

"The people living there are just as strong and worthy as us all"

Eloise's eyebrows furrowed, Where is she going with this?

Lady Danbury's smile grew, and Eloise's heart picked up the pace in anticipation, "And so, I have decided to present four of Bloomsbury's most successful in this year's social season and will continue to do so every year"

Eloise's mouth fell open, her mind blanking, 'What'

Lady Danbury powered through the rising murmurs of dissent and disapproval, her eyes hardening and her voice turning to steel, "Treat them with the respect you give each other, they work much harder than we do and still succeed beyond our own achievements"

Four people walked out of a door behind Lady Danbury, and Eloise's heart stopped altogether.

"Miss Elina Bernard, Mr Jacob Clint, Miss Esther Addams and-"

His eyes scanned the room and found hers, and suddenly the whole room reduced to the two of them.

"-Mr Theo Sharpe"

----------------

When he was a child, the colour blue had been a favourite to Theo, whether it was the sky, the oceans he read of, or the cover of the only book he owned at the time.

As he grew, preference in colour didn't matter, only the smell of ink, the feel of parchment and the all-consuming need to succeed in his life as his mother had wanted him to.

Then, one unsuspecting day two years ago, a girl had walked into the print shop with eyes somewhere between the skies and the oceans and that childhood fascination had come back in full force.

And once he was better acquainted with her devious mind and knowledge-hungry soul, the fascination had grown into a raging love, love as natural as breathing.

She deserves better. She deserves better, Theo.

This last year, it had morphed into heartache, dull, throbbing and constant, but as their eyes met over a thousand judgemental ones, all he felt was that maddening all-encompassing love, and a smile formed on his face.

The shock lighting those cerulean blue eyes and the faint blush on her face morphed his smile into a grin.

Oh, how he had missed seeing her.

Of course, he could not walk up to her and brazenly declare their friendship and his feelings, which would tarnish both their reputations and this once-in-a-lifetime offer, but before the night ended, he would speak to her.

She would be the only person he thought of all night.

----------------

An hour, it had been an hour since Lady Danbury's announcement, and while most members of the ton were enamoured with Esther's kind smile and caring words (who Eloise had to admit were very pleasant), the 5th Bridgerton's eyes had not left Theo.

It had been an hour. Why hadn't he approached her yet?

Eloise sighed 'He does not care for you anymore Eloise. He has moved with his life and found his success'

Then why couldn't she? Move on, and go forward in her life beyond this pain.

It wasn't entirely her fault, though, for every time she convinced herself he didn't care, his eyes found hers, lingered a little too long for it to be coincidence, his lips curving upwards and all semblance of the belief disappeared.

Why did talking to a friend have to be so complicated?

Maybe because there was a little more-

No. She had decided never to be so careless as to fall in love, she wanted a life of freedom and independence.

But wouldn't Theo give her that?

Caught up in, by her confused heart and raging mind, Eloise did not hear her sisters-in-law approaching until they started speaking.

"You should go talk to him", Penelope's voice rang out from behind her, startling Eloise.

She fixed Penelope with her reproachful eyes, "Yes after my association with political radicals-", Penelope winced, "-that would be an amazing idea"

Kate, who had been clueless until now, lit up with realization, "So this is who you were working with to discover Whistledow-, well Penelope"

Eloise nodded while Pen's expression grew sheepish.

A grin bloomed on the Viscountess's face, "He seems like more than just an acquaintance"

"Yes, he-", Eloise took a deep breath, memories flooding her in full force, "He was a friend, an intellectual, whose thoughts resonated with mine so perfectly it was like debating and talking with myself and yet my best opposition"

Both Kate and Penelope's eyebrows raised in expectation and Eloise blushed, despising the interrogation.

Why me

"Alright maybe, just maybe, mind you", Eloise continued, berating her thundering heart, "I felt a little more than just platonic friendship for him"

The Viscountess smirked, a true successor to Violet Bridgerton, "Very well-"

"But", Eloise interrupted before any plans were hatched, "we broke it off on bad terms, and Theo has probably forgotten all about me"

"You may want to reconsider that Miss Eloise", the voice behind her caused her heart to drop to her stomach, "You make quite the impression"

The girl in question whirled around, and despite her confusion, the rawness of the wound their broken friendship had left on her, the cruel words he had thrown at her last time they had spoken, the sight of his warm brown eyes, the small smirk gracing his lips and the familiar rightward tilt of his head tugged the corners of her lips upward.

The retort came as natural as breathing, "I made an impression on you, Theo Sharpe, because I was the only person who deigned to read your musings and crazy writings"

His eyebrows furrowed in mock confusion, "But were you not the one who came to me for discernment due to the complexity of my ideas?"

She stepped closer to him, tilting his head upwards and relishing the flare of surprise in his chocolate brown eyes, "That was, as I mentioned that day, due to your ineffective communication"

"And as I mentioned that day", he replied, leaning the slightest bit closer to her, "ideas such as those require more exposure to this world of ours", his smirk grew, "and a less fragile mind"

Eloise glared at him, though her smile remained and was about to shoot back another scathing retort when a sharp, pointed cough came from the Viscountess behind her.

Immediately, the two intellectuals became painfully aware of the mere millimetres of space between them and the hundreds of other people in the ballroom with them, jumping back as though they were burned.

A small smile replaced the smirk, "I've missed you, Eloise"

"More like you've missed being in the acquaintance of someone with some semblance of wit, unlike yourself", Eloise's blinding grin at his confession softened as regret passed over her features, "I've missed you too"

Guilt and regret clouded his eyes, "It was my fault, I shouldn't have spoken so cruelly, you can do nothing about your birth and its privileges and...", his voice grew quieter and timid, "Sorry, about the other thing"

The almost kiss

Eloise did not wish to talk of that, she wished to rebuild the friendship she had lost, "No, I- I must apologise. Both of us reacted rashly that day", her ocean-blue eyes met his forest brown ones, "We're not doing whatever the last 2 years was again"

A slight nod and determination shining in his eyes, he offered his arm to her, "Very well, Miss Bridgerton, let us take a turn around the room and discuss Wollstonecraft's Memoir, shall we?"

Butterflies fluttering in her stomach, her grin returning in full force, Eloise took his arm, "I suppose we shall"

----------------

Not so far away from this reunion, three chestnut-haired brothers stood beside each other, each holding a glass of champagne and wearing an expression of disbelief, all looking toward their second younger sister.

"Why is he willingly talking to her, of all the people in this ballroom?", sheer confusion laced Benedict's question, though his soft smile at his sister's happiness was in complete contrast to it.

Colin shook his head, unable to believe what he was witnessing, "Why is she so happy about it? Eloise hates conversing with men of the ton"

"How sightless can the two of you be", Anthony sighed, though he was also shocked (pleasantly, that is), by the turn of events, "They are formerly acquainted, close friends judging the way are conversing. If my speculations are correct, then Mr. Theo, was it? He should be the political radical she was associating with her debut season"

Realisation dawned in Colin's face, while Benedict turned to his older brother grinning and surprised at his perceptiveness, "I'm surprised, brother, this is not the kind of analysis I expected from you", his grin widened, "but I suppose Kate and little Edmund have softened you"

Anthony lit up at the mention of his gorgeous wife and adorable son, "You will get there soon, Benedict, I am sure you will"

"I hope I do"

A few moments of comfortable silence passed and was broken by Benedict once again.

"Well, which one of us is going to interrogate him?"

Anthony replied solemnly, "We do not need to, Eloise herself is enough. If he survives her, our interrogation will be insignificant"

A beat passed and all three brothers burst into laughter, all three rejoicing the happiness of their headstrong sister.

----------------

Had it been seconds, or had it been years? It didn't matter to Theo, for all he cared for was holding onto his arm, speaking at the speed of light, her eyes lighting up like sapphires in sunlight, emotions from excitement to sarcasm taking over her face as they talked and talked and talked.

In his opinion, beautiful was an understatement.

She deserves better. She-

Theo stopped himself. What was he saying? Who was better for Eloise?

Sure, she would live a more comfortable and influential life if she married one of the ton.

But that wasn't what Eloise wanted, was it? No, she was an intellectual, a woman who wanted to advocate for the rights of others, who wanted to read and read and read and might even want to publish one day.

And even the most open-minded of these men would not allow her that life. Theo would.

Theo would do anything for her, but that was another matter entirely.

And the inkling of the thought of her smiling at another man like this had him seeing red.

Yes, economically, she deserved better. But he could not imagine her with any other man, so instead he would become better, for her.

His attention shifted back to reality, where Eloise (still holding onto his arm) had been silent for a few moments, the reason he had let himself spiral into his thoughts.

Eloise's attention had been captured by the dark-haired woman she had been talking to earlier and a man who looked rather similar to Eloise (Theo presumed it was one of her 7 siblings) and despite Eloise's usual distaste for the concept of romance, she seemed rather wistful at the sight.

Theo could see why too. While all the others danced to the music or the steps they had practised, the two of them seemed to be in a world of their own, dancing to a tune only they could hear.

"I thought you would make a remark on how sickening the romance was", Theo asked, "Not stare at them dancing as though you wanted it for yourself"

Eloise rolled her eyes at his remark, though the underlying pensiveness remained, "It is sickening, Theo, one cannot be in the same room as those two at home and want to stay there"

"But?"

Eloise smiled, "But, the man my brother was before Kate entered his life was a ghost of the man he was before my father died. He became entirely work and duty and protecting us, and existing solely for us, killing the side of him that had fun and read books and debated with me for hours about it and lived for himself"

"She brought it back"

"Yes, she did", Eloise's eyes fell once more, "And that is why, despite my distaste for romance, part of me hopes to find someone-", her eyes flicked up, met his, then went downcast again, "-who might change my life the same way"

"A suitor then?", Theo's eyebrows were raised, carefully keeping his jealousy in check.

Eloise scoffed, "As if any man here would let me live the radical life I wish to live. No, I am afraid these thoughts should remain dreams"

In her head, however, there was one man she had in mind, a man who would let her live the life she wanted. She was standing beside him at that very moment.

But why would he want her after how she had reacted the last time?

And it was because of these thoughts that she did not expect his next sentence at all.

"I would", his cheekbones became light pink, and Eloise was doing everything she could to hold in her smile, "I would live the radical life with you"

A few seconds of silence, and Theo continued his voice barely was whisper.

"If you were fine with it, I would court you, you know", he hesitated, but continued, "I know you aren't comfortable with romance and love, and if you tell me to stop right now, I'll stop"

Eloise wanted everything except for him to stop, "Don't"

Hope lit up his eyes as his gaze met hers and he kept talking, "Until you came into my life, my only opinion of the ton was that they're uppish, unempathetic and selfish. I wanted nothing to do with any of them"

Eloise laughed, "Yes, it was evident with how you reacted the first time you saw me"

Theo winced, "Yeah, let's not bring that up. Point is, when I despise the concept of classes and the obvious powerlessness I will feel as a part of this ton, why do you think I took Lady Danbury's offer?"

Eloise's lips curved upwards, her cheeks turning red, which had a smile blossoming on Theo's face as well.

"For you, I came for you, because your constant talking and crazy ideas and rebellious personality have made me fall in love with you, and two years without you in my life has been horrible"

Eloise's smile burst into a full-blown grin, though her eyes were suspiciously bright. Theo couldn't blame her, with tears pricking his own eyes.

"Well", Eloise dragged out the word, her tone childish, her happiness palpable, "Turns out you're in luck because despite you're mediocre writing skills, I love you too"

Theo laughed at her retort, "Very well, Miss Eloise, I suppose I have your permission to court you, then?"

"I think you will also require my brother's", Eloise directed his gaze to the brother who had been dancing, now standing at the edge of the floor, holding onto his wife, but for some reason looking at them.

Theo tilted his head towards her, "I do believe that to court you, your permission of more important than his"

Eloise nodded, bouncing on the balls of her feet with unbridled joy, "That it is. Now that we've got all the emotional stuff sorted, may we please go back to discussing Wollstonecraft's various wonderful arguments"

"You started the emotional stuff, though"

"And you just gave that gods-damned speech about loving me"

"You loved it, don't lie"

And so, for the rest of the night, though neither of them got on the dance floor once, they too danced to a tune only the two of them could hear.

----------------

The next morning, Viscountess Kathani Bridgerton was helping her husband with the ledgers, when a footman entered the room saying a man named Theo Sharpe required an audience with her husband.

The Viscount and Viscountess exchanged a grin, and Anthony left the room, a second after which her mother-in-law entered.

"There's a man calling on Eloise?", Violet asked, her surprise written in her wide eyes, "No, even that is fine. But she seems overjoyed about it?"

Kate beckoned her forward with a conspirator's grin, "I do believe you are yet to hear the events of last night's ball"

A few minutes later, once all the information had been transferred from the current viscountess to the former, Anthony walked in and informed his mother, "I believe you have some chaperoning to do"

After spending a mere five minutes chaperoning Eloise and Theo, Violet started planning the wedding breakfast.

They already acted like a married couple, it wouldn't be long until her planning was put to use.

Violet chuckled under her breath. Yes, she was being a bit dramatic but-

What is life without a little chaos?

Thank you for reading this far <3

(Part 2 if you all like it)

[north-noire]

what's your process for writing? :3

my writing process: I stare at my document file for hours and weep, repeat until writing gets miraculously done.

In all seriousness I tend to already have outlines ready for future chapters and stuff like that ready (and an idea of what I'd like to happen in the arcs/timeline of events). I've already had like a vague outline of my entire fic as a whole, but that's just kind of my own version of what happens in FNAF LMAO. I also just sometimes brainstorm, imagine new scenes that seems fitting for future chapters and list it down for me to write!

Though sometimes, even my writing execution just sometimes makes me have to divert/change plans up for chapters since sometimes writing's a bit unpredictable and sometimes some ideas I have just come out of nowhere/don't work anymore!

I talk back and forth about ideas with some friends/my alpha reader and bounce back ideas between them! It's really fun brainstorming with people and being able to put my ideas into words before writing it down. I also sometimes draw it out as concept art since it's fun visualizing some of my ideas!

Of course I still base most of the ideas from the actual source material (the games, some parts of the book trilogy) but since this is an AU I'm allowed to explore some "what-if" ideas and be able to have some creative freedom with it without worry since it is an AU after all! I get to do/explore things the way I want without worrying about judgment since this isn't really canon-compliant.

I take very long in actual writing stage (for obvious reasons), and after completing my rough/first draft I let it sit for a few days or a week before reading it again with a fresh pair of eyes and edit/revise/add new scenes accordingly. Sometimes I just make scenes out, no matter how bad it may be at first, and then just let revising/editing do my work for me. Sometimes I also have readied drafts for some scenes of future chapters that I can come back to, put it in the document and just rewrite it/rework it to be better suited for the narrative.

I tend to take my time longer during the editing/revising stage for a lot of things; I'm a perfectionist, I tend to sort of heavily criticize my work, and I worry a lot about its quality at the end of the day, and sometimes I realize that I need to fully revise the scene or fully rewrite a scene since it's lacking something/I'm missing a scene that should essentially be there. It's a hard battle, and an admittedly frustrating process.

That, and irl responsibilities makes it hard to just read through it sometimes.

During those breaks I sometimes read books/literature so that I can come back to editing/revising with fresh new knowledge on how I can improve or be able to know how I'll handle writing again.

After editing/revising is done, I just hand off the beta-reading to my beta readers, which also takes a while; we're all having irl responsibilities after all, and I mostly go to them back and forth about their feedback since it is nice having fresh eyes on your work WHILE also getting feedback from "first-time readers" of my work and what the readers might think of it when I publish it. They also help me with minor editing stuff since I'm not an English speaker (English isn't my first language) and their feedback really helps!

And then I usually draw out the cover chapter, and when my chapter's published, I do a nice little celebration for myself, since I take very long on chapter updates/making the actual chapters! It's important to celebrate the little victories we have, after all :]

Sorry for the SUPER long post, but since it is the writing process, I might as well share the ups and downs of my own writing process anyway XD Hope this helps?

[doodle-pops]

Hey girl! 😁

How you’ve been?? I hope you are doing great and that things are easy.

I wanted to ask if you had any advice for writing Maedhros and a little bit of Namo as well? While I have my own thing going on I don’t think I like it and wanted to know if you have some tips and tricks.

With my love! ❤️🫂

Heyo! My life has recently been a tragedy as a series of unfortunate events (nothing severe, more comical) keep occurring to me. All my years of being accident-prone have caught up to me. I hope you’re doing better than me 👁👁🫵

Description & Dialogue:

But onto your question. Everyone has their view on a character's personality, and for both Maedhros and Námo, it seems pretty evident in the source material what their traits are.

Maedhros

Prideful & Tempered

Determined & Ambitious

Brave

Burdened

Compassionate/Caring

Intelligent

Enduring

Conflicted

Propriety-based

Family-oriented

LOYAL

Reserved

Námo

Authoritative

Solemn

Stern

Just

Omniscient

Detached & Reserved

Respectful

Wise

Mysterious & Enigmatic

Those are also the personality traits I tend to use when writing their character with the inclusion of them having a bit of humour, ie; their sense of humour. It is also important to remember that it’s fanfiction, so you have free will to alter their personalities a tad bit based on the genre and AU. At the same time, keep certain traits they are renowned for having.

Example: Maedhros being the son of Feanor enables him to have the classic Feanorian temper and pride. Furthermore, taking a look at his role during their exile, he becomes driven and feels burdened by the weight of the war. In any situation for Maedhros, we can assume that’s the qualities he’ll display for sure, not just in exile.

When writing, dialogue or describing an action is a great way to display their quality. For most people, dialogue tends to be easier than going through the trials of describing. It all depends on you the writer and the scene you’re setting. There are times when description is better than dialogue and vice versa because show and not tell. So, ensure the scene you’re creating focuses on whichever is your strong point.

Writing Tips:

I sometimes feel like I’m the wrong person to give writing tips when I write like a mad woman when inspiration hits me out of nowhere. So:

Create lots of headcanons to make writing scenes and personalities better, and then include them in the stories. Eg: Námo reacting to you falling into Middle Earth, Maedhros Meeting Modern Reader (Valinor or Beleriand), Námo adopting Reader…

Play around with the timelines and find which suits you more, which would give you more room to create, or source material. You can turn it into Canon Divergence, an AU or the 4th Age when everyone returns.

Write down dialogues and descriptions when they pop up and note the scene it would occur.

Make lots of drafts and edit over and over and over again until it’s to your standard.

Get yourself into a writing mood. Listen to music, watch a show/movie, or a cartoon, go for a walk and let your mind wander. It’s terrible writing a story or creating a plot on an empty brain.

Sometimes the original plot you had in mind for the fic doesn’t work out. That’s alright. Do a little more brainstorming, rewrite the storyline or lastly, alter the plot.

Let me know if you require any more assistance! 😊