#taran intro

[ladypepperofdavenshire]

WELL

it seemed like a good time to give these two a proper introduction, wanted poster style!  This is like, the Reader’s Digest version of the gist of their story; there’s obviously more involved but I’m keeping a majority of it close to the chest for now, unless I continue to leak things in increments as I’ve been doing LOL

 I’m considering doing a lil intro for Xi as well since she’s important to the story as the villainess hunting these two down 🤔

[four-leafed-queer-gal]

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧Hi there! You can call me Clover!𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧toki! mi kala Kowe, anu soweli Kowe, anu waso Kowe!𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

‧₊˚🌿✩ ₊˚🪵⊹♡‧₊˚🌿✩ ₊˚🪵⊹♡

I AM NOT ON POST LIMIT

I hate to do this, because there are some genuine and important donation pages and the like out there, but a few bad apples mess it up for everyone I suppose.

ATTENTION EVERYONE:

UNLESS WE ARE MUTUALS, DO NOT SEND ME ASKS WITH DONATION LINKS. IF YOU DO, I WILL ASSUME YOU ARE A BOT AND YOU WILL BE BLOCKED.

More below the cut :3

♡ 17 years old, & a Saggitarius! Turning 18 in approx. 2 months!

♡ ✨Taken✨ by the amazing @theacemagpie, the Black Bat to my Spoiler 8/7/2024 (Or 7/8/2024, if you use DD/MM/YYYY)

♡ my pronouns are she/they! 🏳️‍⚧️

♡ I have ASD, BPD, and ADHD ☘️

♡ I love languages! I can only speak English fluently, but I'm learning Old Norse, Old English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, toki pona, Russian, and Albanian! I also speak a little bit of French, thanks to school & friends! 🗣️

♡ I like Marvel, PJO, Avatar (Both blue people and not blue people), Batman, Hunger Games, Suits (The show), Skyrim, Ben 10 (Not the reboot), and more! ✨

♡ Therian! Theriotypes: Spotted Hyena, Sea Wolf, Viperfish, Vampire Bat, Arctic Fox, Eleonora's Falcon, Moth, Barracuda, Thresher Shark, Raven, & Cheetah (Plus others I haven't figured out yet)

♡ my favourite animals are dinosaurs 🦖

♡ I love to read 📚

♡ I enjoy writing! ✏️

♡ Pagan! I worship the Norse, Egyptian, Celtic, Roman, Greek, pretty much everybody! I'm very eclectic. My patron is Loki, They're mín Móðir. The others I work with the most are The Morrígan, The Twin Archers (Apollo & Artemis), and Thoth!

"People are going to talk shit about you no matter what. May as well give them an interesting topic!" - Mín Móðir

𖡼𖤣𖥧𖡼𓋼𖤣𖥧𓋼𓍊

Please DNI if: you’re queerphobic, anti-self dx, someone who supports beastiality, zoophilia, pedophilia, rape, etc, or if you’re racist, ableist, sexist, or fascist. Be nice! I won't hesitate to block assholes, or bigots ✨☘️

"Be humble, be kind, but don't be afraid to drag the fucker who crosses the line" - Me

✩°𓏲⋆🌿. ⋆⸜ 🍵✮˚

Side blogs! Pls interact with them?

- @cass-daughter-o-ari RP blog for my PJO OC, Cass Clemens!

- @the-axolotl-queen Blog for the Axolotl Kingdom! I'm the Queen, obvs-

- @montoya-son-o-nemesis RP blog for my PJO OC, Jason Montoya!

- @lucas-bane-son-of-punishment RP blog for my PJO OC, Lucas Bane!

- @lughs-lightheaded-son RP blog for my Celtic PJO OC, Aidan O'Neil!

- @daughter-of-the-cailleach RP blog for my Celtic PJO OC, Taran Keir!

- @ronan-child-of-ogham RP blog for my Celtic PJO OC, Ronan Callahan!

- @behold-a-man-everyday Behold! A man! Everyday!

- @diogenes-totally-real Diogenes the Cynic gimmick blog!

- @aeolus-the4winds RP blog for Aeolus, Notos, Zephyros, Boreas, Euros, Aeolus, Auster, Favonius, Aquilon, and Vulturnus!

- @the-fmby-north-carolina-totally Gimmick blog, a Femboy North Carolina!

- @antiquitian-empire-real Gimmick blog, Antiquitian Empire! A micronation!

- @literally-the-first-state Gimmick blog, Delaware! The first state in the United States!

- @four-leafed-queer-writing Writing blog! I'll reblog writing tips, and sometimes post original stories of mine!

- @four-leafed-pagan-gal Pagan blog! Reblogs for things relating to the Old Gods and other pagany and/or witchy things!

✩°𓏲⋆🌿. ⋆⸜ 🍵✮˚

Here are some of my cool humans (moots)! 💚

♡ @theacemagpie My amazing girlfriend! A fellow fan of numerous fandoms, and a speaker of multiple languages! <3

♡ @star-dust-shark Mack! He's a super cool dude, and who made most of this intro post! Go check out his blog!

♡ @lucas-iamgod Lucas! He's also a really cool guy, you should check out his blog!

♡ @hugs4neth-official Neth + others! They're all really cool, and in my experience are nice.

♡ @green-thighs-save-lives I honestly don't know much about him, but he's a nice, chill guy from our interactions.

♡ @violet-hady Hady! Great person, good friend, though always tells me to be healthy and stuff-

♡ @ankoku-teion Irish, fellow trans something??? She's currently debating between three names, I'll update with whatever she chooses when results are released :]

♡ @poemsofanentomologist An anentomologist! They're really cool, they write poetry and have inspired me once or twice to write some of my own!

♡ @gaygoose09 Fellow therian and fellow hyena, very awesome! Check out their blog!

♡ @i-am-thoroughly-confused A fellow therian & fellow bat! They are a good being :3

♡ @poppitron360 A fellow PJO enjoyer! They've got great takes on Riordanverse stuff, y'all should check out their blog!

♡ @justagremlinoncaffeine Gremlin! Cool person, really nice, I've enjoyed every interaction I have with them.

♡ @unstableunicornsofasgard Forrest! Also a great person, ¡y el habla español!

♡ @theacemagpie Magpie! An amazing person! Honestly can't believe it took me this long to add her to my pinned, lol-

♡ @peace-love-and-french-toast Amazing human! I sometimes do PJO rps with them, and with a bunch of others! They run @cabinseventheaterchick, and do a darn good job!

♡ @lizzzzzzzzzzzzzz---lol We haven't interacted much, but Liz is a great person, and what little interaction we have had has been good!

♡ + All my other moots! I have a lot, so I can't list all of y'all, but you're all amazing!

₊˚ʚ 🌱 ₊˚✧ﾟ.

"Either walk like you're the Queen, or like you don't care who the Queen is." - Lady Artemis

Have a nice time! <3

(Note: Intro post was made by @star-dust-shark!! If you want one like it, go check out Mack's blog!!)

[lizalfosrise]

Rise who are your favorite AK antagonists? Personality, aesthetics, story, gameplay, whatever metric you want to use.

Ahh, there's so many!

Most Reunion commanders of course but especially:

Crownslayer - seeing that artwork of Crownslayer on the hill of Chernobog rubble as a promo near launch then in that intro in-game was instantly 'wow i hope we get them that outfit is stylish- wait what do you mean she's an antagonist AHHH THAT'S NOT GONNA WORK OUT FOR HER! STOP!' (Lo and behold, clownslayer bullying) She just keeps getting fucked over progressively worse as things go on... W - The Character Of All Time. Starting off like 'oh sick ch1 boss design- hang on she SMOKEBOMBED AWAY!? NO DEATH ANIMATION ALLOWED HAHAHA HOW FUNKY! "KILL YOU LATER" alrighty!' and then uh yeah, Chapters 2&3 happened. Boy was that fucked up. But then we got to see her plans unfurl prior to Darknights Memoir which solidified her as Fucking Incredible. I finally understood the Hype about her banner on CN. Character I simply resonated with so strongly at that point. Phenomenal major player in the main story. Is she bound to meet a violent end? I feel like it'd be a neat and tragic mirror to the end of Arc 1 if there was an Amiya/W face-off eventually. FrostNova - Yelenaaaaaa....... Perish in Frost is gonna end me all over again honestly. Very important bnuyu. Listening to Lullabye repeatedly lately; in memoriam, and an attempt to memorise the lyrics in anticipation. Personally it's kind of amusing that she gets the True Rng attacks with her Black Icicles. Genuine, authentic russian roulette gameplay. Crisp design, that pale ice-blue is a nice touch.

Non-Reunion:

Mandragora - my wonderful soggiest poor little meow meow dripping mud n dirt n blood everywhere <3 Ain't she great! Now that Yato can go visorless, a Masked slot is available! Make it so, Hypergryph. Sometimes self-care is skewering Victorians to instil fear as catharsis for trauma-inducing abuse that more-or-less ended one of her lives that she crawled out of like a more bedraggled version of Kill Bill's The Bride. Unhinged, justifiably-founded but now-disproportionate revenge is just fun. Wear your wrath like a mantle. Anyhow it's as gutting as intended that she's the one that most cared for her troops and the Taran peoples; for overturning the Victorian nobility and their policies. So it'd be nice to see an actual return after they let her vanish in Londinium. Also HornDragora excellent dynamics Ya - Ohohohohoho. Hypergryph really love making characters just for me~ They deserve to burn Yan to ashes, absolutely. Not the traitor bitch-in-chief Sui. Oh, you're mad that you got betrayed by the insects whom you taught to kill gods? Really now? That bastard pulled a Zaaro and wants to be the last one standing, to curse Yan with his rebirth and outlive those He betrayed. Fuck that. Ya is essentially bleeding out after being woken from stasis by the shitforbrain Shanhaizhong idiots yet doing all the cool wuxia villain shit in a heartbroken rampage to bring Sui back simply for Them to burn the world and die together as kin once more. Wonderful! And though I don't recall if Fire Emblem: Awakening did have that same exact dynamic between Grima and the Grimleal, I adore that scenario of 'hey you fucked me over in order to have the end of the world summoned for you BUT guess what? You die too, bitch. No world domination for you filth either!' (Heroes recently gave us the true Laser-Guided Karma moment with that) They carved away specific slivers of time for Their pocket dimension home to keep Their cherished moments away from humanity and got woken up by nobodies, for little of purpose. YA01, what a legendary codex tag. The boss gimmick was an interesting way of doing the clone tactic but damn those additional spawns if you let Them move too far forward. Overall I like Them a normal amount, see. Pancho Salas - This guy was ridiculous, what a goofy Bond villain parody. Lovely action film setpiece of a map fending off his armoured missile boat and those waverider casters from a chewed-up luxury yacht in an artificial sea. Taking his boat down only to face the absolute brick wall of an anchor-wielding seadog with a metal arm, damn. Dossoles Holiday was much more fun than expected even with its Deep Water/Tides mechanics. Kaschey - Not exactly a favourite, but. They made a very good punching bag of an Actual Evil Bastard. That scummy method of self-propagation allowing him to be all "Ursus is MY plaything and I shall continue to grease its wheels with the blood of all those my Glorious Empire shall oppress!" was one hell of a reveal to throw into that interlude, huh? And that colour palette he maintains across his victims - the austere, harsh grays and black against white with dashes of crimson: it's the bloodstains amidst the Ursus Tundra echoing his presence. That's a sublime and careful coordination, yet more of Hypergryph's mindful consideration and planning behind characters, behind lore themes & motifs. Zumama, during Great Chief Returns - I CAN BEAT GAVIAL'S STRENGTH WITH MY ENGINEERING I PROMMY, GODDAMMIT (can't, lmao) Tomimi, during Great Chief Returns - I CAN KEEP GAVIAL WITH ME IN ACAHUALLA FOREVER I PROMMY, GODDAMMIT (can't, lmao. Gets tail-spanked, lmao) Jetpack Thief/Jetman from IS2 simply because the Arts Drones are more of a threat than his dumb arse. Stall, he hops into flight when we're given Anti-Air Defense tiles boosting ranged atk, and when he lands you should have a burst dps melee ready to grind him. One of the safest Floor 3 bosses if rngesus has allowed it. IS3's Pathshaper gets a shout here too for being a hilariously-deletable non-event of a Floor 3 boss.

On the more passive antagonism side of things would be ones like:

Degenbrecher (all sides knew it's just a stalling game where Enciodes is far more antagonistic towards the Very Shitty Clan Leaders & Great Elder, yet Sharp actually held out sparring with her) The Last Steam Knight (a warping of conviction and duty beyond death that defends a final bastion "You are not permitted to stain MY Victoria! Trespasser!") Dusk ("Hey what the fuck are you looking for me for? Get in the painting idiots. Wait, you lot have too much trauma to deal with that? Lame. Why's my annoying big sister here too?!") Ho'olheyak (she's not evil, and not the arc's villain, just as she said; but her manipulation of various parties during Dorothy's Vision/Lonetrail and taunting of both Saria and Muelsyse was enough for us to find delightful)

[eilonwy-pelydryn]

Task Eleven → Intro & Connections

Eilonwy Pelydryn

Character Information*

The Basics*

FULL NAME: eilonwy pelydryn

NICKNAME: n/a

GENDER: female

PRONOUNS: she/her

AGE: thirty-three

OCCUPATION: psychologist and paediatric doctor at redwood hospital

FACECLAIM: vanessa kirby

ORIENTATION: straight

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: single

PETS: has a pet dog called gurgi - he’s a dobermann

The Personality*

+ Brave, Talkative, Strong-Willed - Cynical, Guarded, Anxious

there’s no doubt about it that eilonwy is a brave woman after everything she’s been through, however, she remains completely guarded in fear of letting the wrong person in. she’s cynical and anxious about the world and has a bleak view about it, and as a psychologist, she knows that this is down to the trauma she experienced as a child that she’s never fully processed and healed from.

since moving to town she’s met people that have become friends and slowly started bringing down those walls she had built years ago. she doesn’t care for people in her personal life easily, but once she does she’s loyal to her core and will go to the ends of the earth for you. 

Additional Notes*

has a black belt in karate

lives in a home by the water, she finds it soothing and it calms down her nightmares

hates cheese

Wanted Connections*

friends

ex’s

neighbours

work colleagues

lover/crush

besties

gym buddies

Wanted Plots / Plot Ideas*

taran - the boy who was the son of her captors and was always kept away from her. when they were older, he used to sneak down and talk to her and bring her extra food. he was the person who freed her and saved her life. eilonwy remembers him from all those years ago and sometimes finds her mind drifting to him wondering if he is okay ((taran could be a fake name used or the characters name))

trauma - eilonwy’s trauma comes out to play and _____ either finds her or remembers the news stories at the time of her disappearance & triggers her

fun - eilonwy is admittedly not someone that has a lot of fun between what happened to her & work. ______ decides to take her somewhere/arrange an activity that lets her live some of the key things she missed when she was younger - fun fairs, theme parks, prom etc

Taken Connections*

best friend - @honeymxren​ 

boss - @cxrlfredricksen​

friend/dog walking buddy - @elliefredricksxn​ 

??? - @flash-hundredyarddash​

Other*

One character from the open tag you would like to see taken / added to the Most Wanted page -  from the most wanted page - the lost boys & from the open tag to be added to the most wanted page - sebastian clarke

One Character you want to see a bio for in relation to this specific character - the other neptune sisters!

[sacredsanguine]

welcome to my new Butterfly Court blog!! I've been lurking around in the fandom from my main for EVER and finally decided to get in on the fun!

I'll make a better intro post later but for now: I'm Odette, 18+, and obsessed with the Butterfly blorbos. Official Esme apologist. Um...I ship pretty much everything EXCEPT Tarame (ngl I have a meta post coming up about how most of the Esme hate should really be directed at Taran). Looking forward to meeting new friends!

[conteramme]

Taran Basics

► GENERAL INFORMATION

FULL NAME: Taran Patil

NICKNAME(S): Taran

AGE: 17

ZODIAC: Taurus

DATE OF BIRTH:  May 3rd 1959

SPOKEN LANGUAGE(S): English (fluent), Marathi (fluent), and French (fluent)

HOUSE: Slytherin

YEAR: Seventh

BLOOD STATUS: Pureblood

AFFILIATIONS: Death Eaters

SEXUALITY: Questioning

► APPEARANCE

HEIGHT: 6′2″

WEIGHT: Around 185 pounds

DOMINANT HAND: Right

HAIR COLOUR: Deep brown

EYE COLOUR: Hazel

SCARS: One on his left pec from a Diffindo that backfired

TATTOOS: The Dark Mark on his left forearm

► BACKGROUND

HOMETOWN: France 

FAMILY RESIDENCE: Windsor, England

CURRENT RESIDENCE: Hogwarts castle, Scotland

FINANCIAL STATUS: Extremely wealthy parents

PATRONUS: Erumpent

WAND: Dragon heartstring, black walnut wood, 12 ¾ inches, unyielding

POSITIVE TRAITS: Courageous, passionate, strong willed

NEGATIVE TRAITS: Arrogant, entitled, judgemental

LIKES: Poking and prodding until he finds a weakness in his peers, crisp white shirts, crups, liquorice wands, Quidditch.

DISLIKES: The colour yellow, having a future laid out for him, exploding bon bon’s, group activities, people who snore.

► PAST

Taran Patil is the only child of wealthy wizarding extremists, Arjun and Priya Patil. His grandparents on his fathers side emigrated from Mumbai in 1902 and began an antiques business in France that was eventually passed down to his own father. He grew up with his parents in Paris and attended daily lessons with his tutor at the request of his mother until he received his acceptance to Beauxbatons Academy of Magic. 

His father was noticeably cold and absent during his childhood, preferring to spend his time on business trips rather than with his son, but his his mother was a constant presence in his life and he considers himself very close with her. When he wasn’t taking lessons, taran spent many happy hours talking to her in the garden over tea during the summer months or holed up in their cosy home library when it rained. His lack of connection with his father and the seeing his mother constantly alone and left behind shaped the way he views relationships in a negative way.

Taran isn’t one for team sports, never has been and never will be. But he likes flying and Quidditch and while he never tried out for the team he still enjoys a lazy sunday game of Quidditch with his mates in the grounds of his own home or the Quidditch pitch at Beauxbatons with his school friends. 

In 1976 his family moved from Paris to Windsor, England at the insistance of his father who had become an avid follower of the Dark Lord during his trips to the UK. His mother had no complaints about the move and Taran was pulled from Beauxbatons at the end of his sixth year and began his seventh and final year at Hogwarts as a transfer student.

He made friends easily, charming his housemates in no time at all, but branching out and making friends with students from other houses isn’t something that’s high on his priority list. After all, he’s only got one year left at school and most the influential family’s are in Slytherin house anyway so why waste his time. He has little to no patience for most people, but will make exceptions for certain friends. 

As of his seventh year, Taran is still unaware that he is not the only child of his parents. Taran is in fact a twin - the child that his parents chose to keep while offering his twin sister up for adoption. He has heard whispers from the house elves that perhaps he wasn’t the only child born to his parents, but he assumed that his father had had an affair at some point and produced an illegitimate heir. It’s not until he meet’s Harriet - the spitting image of his own mother - that he realises he needs more than the odd fragment of information here and there to piece together parts of his life that he didn’t know were missing. 

Taran is expected to take over as head of the family antiques business when he leaves school, but secretly he’s been looking into joining the international Unspeakables as a Legilimens.

Tran can be unnecessarily unkind, if not outright cruel when he wants to be, and he’s the kind of person that seeks to undermine other peoples confidence. If he finds a weakness he will exploit it, either for his own gain or his own enjoyment. There has never been a limit to how far he’s willing to take something and  if he’s being honest with himself that kind of scares him. Not that he’d ever admit to being scared.

► NOTES

Taran has terrible insomnia and there’s every chance if you’re up early enough you can find him outside in the frigid morning air or reading in the common room.

Wandless magic and Legilimency are carefully curated talents that Taran possesses.

He can produce a corporeal patronus

Taran is accomplished with dark magic though he has yet to use an Unforgivable

Upon leaving school, Taran hopes to join the international Unspeakables as a Ligilimens.

[tarankorpal]

all in a day’s work.

Miss.

The paper ball slumped just out of reach from the garbage can in the corner. Taran couldn’t seem to get his aim right now matter how hard he’d tried. As he crumpled another sheet in his hands, a knock on the door so rudely interrupted his precious “work”.

“Just a minute!”

Immediately, Taran removed his feet from his desk and straightened his curly hair as best as he could. A little girl peeked through and it took him everything not to scowl.

“Marybeth, that is no way to act,” the girl’s mother said as she entered the room herself.

He put on a megawatt smile and gestured to the chairs in front of his desk, “It’s not problem at all. Please take a seat.”

If you didn’t know any better, you would say he looked downright ecstatic for the company. However, Taran specifically instructed the secretary that he wouldn’t be taking any more appointments today. After sitting through a three-hour budget meeting, it was hard not to get sick of other people’s voices. He at least hoped that the look on his face didn’t seem too forced.

“What can I do for you today?”

“Well, Mr. Korpal - Tarin. Do you mind if we call you Tarin.”

Yes, he thought to himself. Yes, he did mind very much.

“Of course not! After all, we’re one big family here in Peach Hollow,” he replied instead.

“You are a darlin’,” she said with that lazy drawl everyone had in Georgia. “We’re here to see about the noise over at the park near Peach Place.”

Taran mustered up a look of concern as best as he could. He’d gotten quite used to feigning worry when it came to housewives and rich old seniors. She wasn’t the first to come charging into his office on a holy mission and she certainly wouldn’t be the last. Didn’t these people have anything better to do than bother the Parks and Rec department of a town that wasn’t even a blip on the radar?

“You see, there are rules in place about these sorts of things.” Taran put it tenderly. Maybe he could save them the mountain of paperwork they would have to do. More, importantly, it would save him the trouble of actually going through it all.

The woman opened her comically large purse and pulled out a stack of papers. She dropped it on his desk with a thump and quirked an eyebrow at him as if she’d won an argument.

He lifted the papers and smoothed them out. “I’ll be sure to look over these.The safety of our children is this town’s utmost priority.”

“I’m glad to hear that, Tarin,” she sighed. “This place could do with more young men like you.”

Taran placed a hand over his heart and nodded his head with a smile that was almost too condescending. The woman called over her young daughter who began picking the leaves off of his ficus. The girl took out a drawing from her own purse (Seriously? A seven year old with a Prada bad?) and handed it over to him. It was a picture of the town with a wonky rainbow over the page. God help the Peach Hollow elementary art curriculum. 

After a warm thank you, he gently escorted the mother and daughter out of his office. The pair departed looking as satisfied as ever while Taran sat in his chair, peace finally restored. He gave the picture a once-over and proceeded to crumple it in his hand.

Miss.

He tried again with the fresh stack of papers on his desk.

Hit.

Hit.

Miss...

[mihrsuri]

Okay I’m going to attempt to type up my entire current English Royal Family (1509-2020) in my Tudors OT3 AU universe. A note - I have like two-three of the spouses named and the kids names I have are the oldest mostly but I have done the monarchs \o/ And have mathed as best as I am able. Also this is Going To Be Long As Hell. 

Intro: so a short note. I see a lot of unofficial/official abdications happening because my rulers tend towards a longer life (mostly) so they kind of co-rule with their heir and their spouse/the heirs spouse because this royal family has (in the vast majority of cases) functional and excellent parenting game. Also they have a regnal name and a family/close friends name so I have included that name when I know it. 

Henry VIII (1491-1570) (ruled 1509-1570, unofficially abdicated 1556)

Anne Boleyn (1510-1600) (Queen 1533-1570/1556)

Thomas Cromwell (1505-1585) (Duke of Essex 1536-1585)

Thomas I (1536-1616) (ruled 1556/1570-1590/1616)

Co-ruler with his wife Mihrimah Sultan (1535-1616)

Thomas ‘Turhan’ II (1556-1626) (ruled 1590/1616-1626)

Married to Joan I of Scotland & Prince Consort of Scotland 

His oldest daughter Mary (Maryam) became Mary I of Scotland

Oldest son became Thomas III of England

Thomas ‘Tomas’ III (1574-1630) (ruled 1626-1630)

He didn’t get to rule in his own right for very long is all I know

Married a 

second son became king after his oldest child died

Arthur II (1610-1649) (ruled 1630-1649, but assisted his father and grandfather prior to that)

Deposed and executed in The Restoration Rising after they won the English Civil War 

Married to Queen Eleni, Princess of Ethiopia (Solomonic Dynasty)

Made his oldest daughter Charlotte heir regardless of whether she had any male siblings in the future 

Introduced a spate of solidified anti-empire/colonialist laws and entrenched universal democracy and human rights 

A Good Dude 

Charlotte ‘Askala’ I (1629-1700) (ruled 1657-1700 but reign is back dated to her fathers execution so generally 1649-1700)

England’s first Queen Regnant 

English Civil War (1642-49) led to her exile with her husband 

15 children 

Her husband is a Sudanese Prince 

Henry IX (1647-1720) (ruled 1700-1720, co-ruled with his mother from the 1680s)

He married a Vietnamese Princess 

Charlotte II (1700-1775) (ruled 1720-1775)

She married a Chinese Prince 

Henry X (1723-1780) (ruled 1775-1780)

Only ruled five years 

Died of influenza along with his wife and his mother 

Thomas IV (1750-1800) (ruled 1780-1800)

GAY AS FUCK. 

His only child became Queen 

Was BFFs with his wife who was a Giant Fucking Lesbian (she had a wife, he had a husband) and English-Algerian 

Anne I (1780-1819) (ruled 1800-1819)

Married an indigenous man from the country white people called Australia but is not called Australia in this world 

Died in childbirth aged 39 and her only child became Anne II

Anne II (1819-1901) (became Queen at birth but ruled in her own right from 1837 on)

Bought up by her father and her parents wife/mistress

Married to Lord Melbourne (who is English-Bengalese Muslim) 

Anne III (1840-1915) (ruled 1901-1915)

LESBIAN 

BFFs with her first husband (a Balinese Prince) with whom she had three girls 

Secondly married to her wife with whom she had a daughter and a son (her wife is trans Jewish and black I love her also she is the MOST ENGLISH)

Charlotte III (1865-1936) ( ruled 1915-1936)

married first to an Earl who turned out to be a Complete Dick. Had two sons, the second of whom turned out awesome. 

married second to a chef (who in my head is played by Jason Isaacs) and a dancer (who in my head is played by Michelle Yeoh) and they had four kids

Edward VI (1894-1972) (ruled for six months of 1936)

forced to abdicated due to being a restorationist dick

Thomas V (1900-1952) (ruled 1936-1952) 

second son 

married an Afghani Princess 

Elizabeth I (1929-) 

current queen from 1952

married an Irish-Norwegian Prince

four kids

Thomas ‘Taran’ Prince Of Albion (1949-)

Three children with Lady Diana Wake-Liddell

William ‘Will’ (1982)

Henry ‘Harry’ (1984)

Eleanor ‘El’ (1996)

Very happy marriage but Diana still died in a car crash in 1997

Diana came from a restorationist family (the closest they have to royalty), she ran with her younger siblings as soon as she could, met Taran when they were both studying Botany & History at Oxford. 

William ‘Will’ Duke of Cambridge 

Married to Catherine (a bisexual biracial Persian-Jewish woman) Narahari 

Four Children 

Edmund Henry Thomas (2013)

Maryam Elianna Diana (2015) 

Abbas Anthony Joseph (2018)

Niloufar Esther Padme (2022)

Henry ‘Harry’ Duke of Sussex 

Married to Meghan Markle 

Three children 

Dorian William James (2019)

Philippa Eleanor Catherine (2019)

Sofia Madalyn Diana (2022)

[secretsfromwholecloth]

Dragon Age II, day 1.

So lovely to be (mostly) free of the crashies.

Hello, Varric. Oh, but you should see the grin on my face.

Hello, Cassandra. It’s good to see you, too.

Is rogue!Hawke wielding mini-bat’leths in the intro? Is that what those are?

Having the bullshit scene before character creation is a cool idea, but it makes me a lot less likely to stray too far from default Hawke in my character design once I’ve been controlling default Hawke and seeing them in action for a few minutes (and having default Carver/Bethany cemented in my head as someone my new baby needs to be a plausible-looking sibling to).

Hello, male Hawke’s voice. You’re very nice.

Huh, dagger rogues in this game have something approximating crowd control abilities? Good to know. :D

Not just women whose hairstyle options are absolutely dire, huh? (Mods require more fiddling for less benefit than I’m willing to commit to.)

Beard options aren’t particularly what I want, either.

Maybe one day I’ll do something other than “start from preset 3, put the hair back to black, and tweak” in this game’s character creator. Today is not that day.

At least this one has good enough lighting for me to tell what the eye colors are. Small blessings.

Well, I may have blundered into creating a plausible cousin to Isaura by accident, so good job, me.

Will I end up heading for the Mirror of What’sitcalled as soon as I can access it? Almost certainly—something about him still looks wrong, and I don’t know if it’s the facial structure, the coloring, something that’d be fixed by the addition of a beard if there were any remotely decent ones aside from the “shortish full beard” option I used for Taran, or what. But I’ll have to suffer for now.

Might just be the eyebrows, I forgot to change them to black. But I think there’s also something happening in the jaw area. *sigh*

Well, that’s done. Everyone, meet Gabran Hawke.

...you know, I really miss the ability to switch between ranged and melee combat at need, like most characters had in DAO. I was planning to make Gabran a dagger rogue from the beginning, but I feel like I need to go into mourning for something lost when I actually start taking those skills (and leaving archery on the table).

But of course going for archery would leave Varric competing with Sebastian for such limited attention that I’d end up hating myself for neglecting him. Right. Daggers it is.

Hello, Aveline. Now come get your husband before he gets himself stabbed. And not by darkspawn. Gabran is a nice boy, but his sister is one of his biggest berserk buttons. It’s how he was (very deliberately) raised.

You tried, Carver.

Nice to see you in your good clothes and with your hair and makeup done, Flemeth.

Subtitles are lovely. Not being able to see the subtitles unless you’re facing the character speaking is weird bullshit.

I do like the art in the narration sections.

There are certainly worse people to be working for than Athenril.

Varric, we can see you making yourself out to be the smoothest thing this side of the Frostbacks. But then if you’re going to be telling this story under duress, you might as well have some fun, right?

And it’s gotten quite late, I ought to pack it in for tonight.

[wowhead]

me doing the pandaria intro quests on my alts: i know, i know. im so fucking sorry. im sorry taran zhu. im sorry mayor honeydew

[tabbydrafts]

WIP Intro - Hoarfrost Rising

If it had been any time else, someone would have noticed it. Someone would have noticed the way the ice crept, swallowing the city whole, devouring it like the monster it was. But it was winter, so no one noticed.

If it had been anywhere else, someone would have noticed it. They would have noticed how the ice never melted, didn’t drip... only grew. It grew and grew, and it took and took. But it was Ohio, so no one noticed.

If it had been anyone else, someone would have noticed it. The victims it took were almost hard to ignore, but the ones it left alive were already used to keeping their secrets. They were quiet and carried the winter within them before the ice so much as touched them. They changed, becoming something different. But they were already different, so no one noticed.

No one noticed until shit went to hell, and the ice lit up with power. No one noticed, and now it’s too late.

Welcome to the ice-pocalypse.

-

Hoarfrost Rising is a wlw sci-fi/paranormal novel and my 2019 NaNoWriMo project. It follows twenty-four year old Winnaretta Taran as she navigates the new world order as strange killer ice begins to take the Earth for its own. Of course, things are hardly as simple as a straightforward apocalypse, especially when Winnie’s fate is tied in with a band of people comprising of her ex-girlfriend, the world’s most infuriating and conceited tease, a very tired thespian, and her overenthusiastic little sister.

Send a message, ask, or comment on this post to be added to the tag list!

Target Audience: New Adult Content Warnings: body horror

[tag] | [wip page (coming soon)] | [playlist (coming soon)] | [character intros (coming soon)]

[signourneybooks]

Intro

You know sometimes I like to challenge myself.

How to Play

This reading challenge consists of 3 sections. Fantasy, Sci-Fi and General for a total of 52 prompts which comes down to about 1 book a week.

 You can do 1, 2 or all 3 sections.

With each section you are allowed 1 Double-Up. Double-Up means you can use 1 book for 2 prompts. Preferred is not to at all but if for some reason you are struggling with time or a prompt you can.

In the general sections you can use both fantasy and sci-fi books but not other genres.

Graphic novels, comics, audiobooks and novella’s are allowed. It is all reading in my book.

Rereads count.

You can move the books around throughout the year if things fit better elsewhere and all.

You can step into this reading challenge at any point. I’m starting it in January 2019 but in reality this is a reading challenge you can fit for yourself in anyway you like. If you want to start in May and end April the year after, that is totally fine.

Graphic

Sign-Up

I don’t know if people want to join me but I would love to interact with each other if you do. You can participate anyway you like, with goodreads, twitter, instagram or your blog. I don’t require a sign-up post but I would appreciate if you boosted this.

If there are a nice group of people we can see if we can do a twitter dm group or an fb group or something to chat with each other on how to fill the prompts. 🙂

The widget won’t go into the post because wp sucks so here is the direct link.

If You Need Inspiration: Find Some Fitting Books Per Prompt Here

I figured some of you might like to have a list of options for each prompt so here we are. I’ve read a portion of these, others are on my own TBR and others I just know fit with the prompt. These are in no way meant as real recommendations, just those that fit the prompt. No links because do you see how many books I mention haha.

Fantasy

Classic Fantasy The Dragon Bone Chair by Tad Williams / Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin / The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien / Narnia by C.S Lewis /

Magic School Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling / Tempests and Slaughter by Tamora Pierce / A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. le Guin / The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss / Carry On by Rainbow Rowell / Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones / The Magicians by Lev Grossman / The Novice by Taran Matharu

Necromancers Darkest Powers by Kelley Armstrong / Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride / Sabriel by Garth Nix / The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco / Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews / Johannes Cabal the Necromancer by Jonathan L. Howard / Reign of the Fallen by Sarah Glenn Marsh / Skullduggery Pleasant by Derek Landry / Give the Dark My Love by Beth Revis

PTSD Witchmark C.L. Polk / The First Law by Joe Abercrombie /

Dragons The Last Namsara by Kristen Ciccarelli / Liveship Traders by Robin Hobb / The Copper Promise by Jen Williams / Talon by Julie Kagawa / Seraphina by Rachel Hartman / A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin / Eragon by Christopher Paolini / Eon by Alison Goodman / Temeraire by Naomi Novik / A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan / How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell / Wings of Fire by Tui T. Sutherland / Nice Dragons Finish Last by Rachel Aron

Fairytale Retelling Uprooted by Naomi Novik / A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas / Ash by Melinda Lo / Forests of a Thousand Lanters by Julie C. Dao / The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh / The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden / Thorn by Intisar Khanani / To Kill a Kingdom by Alexandra Christo

Grimdark Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence / Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson / Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin / A Crown for Cold Silver by Alex Marshall / Skullsworn by Brian Stavely / Red Sister by Mark Lawrence / The Black Prism by Brent Weeks

Ghosts Lockwood & Co. by Jonathan Stroud / The Graveyard Queen by Amanda Stevens / City of Ghosts by Victoria Schwab / The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman / The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater / Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

Uncommon Fantasy Creatures So not the usual werewolf, dragons, vampires and the like Bones and Bourbon by Dorian Graves (Huldra) / The Golem and the Djinni by Helene Wecker (Golem) / Steel & Stone by Annette Marie (Incubus) / Troll Fell by Katherine Langrish (Trolls) / The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison (Goblins)

Shapeshifters Moon Called by Patricia Briggs / Written in Red by Anne Bishop / Stray by Rachel Vincent / Soulless by Gail Carragher / The Gathering by Kelley Armstrong /

Gods Percy Jackson by Rick Riordan / Magnus Chase by Rick Riordan / Aru Shah at the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi / American Gods by Neil Gaiman / The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin / The Goddess Test by Aimee Carter / The Chaos of Stars by Kiersten White / Furyborn by Claire LeGrand / Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor / Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman / Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova / The Gospel of Loki by Joanne Harris

Animal (or in Animal Form) Companion(s) Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb / The Dragon Bone Chair by Tad Williams / Reign of the Fallen by Sarah Glenn Marsh / Spellslinger by Sebastien de Castell / The Summoner by Taran Matharu

Matriarchy Seven Realms by Cinda Williams Chima / Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake / Daughter of the Blood by Anne Bishop / Dragonflight by Anne McAffrey / The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells / The Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley

Set in Our World The Others by Anne Bishop / Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling / Shadowhunters by Cassandra Clare / American Gods by Neil Gaiman / Shadowfever by Karen Marie Moning / Psy-Changeling by Nalini Singh / Moon Called by Patricia Briggs

Witches Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt / The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco / A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness / Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett / The Worst Witch by Jill Murphy / Uprooted by Naomi Novik / Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor

Magical Law Enforcement Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling / Rivers of London by Ben Aaronvitch / The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher / The Golem’s Eye by Jonathan Stroud / Lockwood & Co. by Jonathan Stroud

Thief The Legend of Eli Monpress by Rachel Aaron / The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch / Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo / The Demon King by Cinda Williams Chima / The Death of the Necromancer by Martha Wells

Pirates Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo / Magic of Blood and Sea by Cassandra Rose Clarke / Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch / The Nature of a Pirate by A.M. Dellamonica

Portal Fantasy Child of a Hidden Sea by A.M. Dellamonica / The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis / Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll / Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire / The Magicians by Lev Grossman

Warrior Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin / Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien / Night Angel by Brent Weeks / Half a King by Joe Abercrombie /

Sci-Fi

On a Different Planet A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers / Defy the Stars by Claudia Gray / The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin / The Martian by Andy Weir / Dune by Frank Herbert / Red Rising by Pierce Brown

Space Ship The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers / The Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers / An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon / Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Addams

Artificial Intelligence Point of View A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers / I, Robot by Isaac Asimov / 2001: A Space Odessey by Arthur C. Clarke / Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Kick

Proto Sci-Fi As Frankenstein is seen as the first sci-fi novel all books prior to that that seem to be sci-fi are called proto sci-fi but anything before H.G. Wells will count here as it seems to cause some discussions.  New Atlantis by Francis Bacon / Frankenstein by Mary Shelley / The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson / From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne /

Alien The Fifth Wave by Rick Riordan / The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Addams / The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells / Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

Time Travel The Time Machine by H.G. Wells / Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier / Passenger by Alexandra Bracken / The Girl From Everywhere by Heidi Heilig / The Map of Time by Felix J. Palma / Invictus by Ryan Graudin

Utopia The Dispossed by Ursula K. le Guin / Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel / Andromeda by Ivan Efremov / The Giver by Lois Lowry

Games/Gaming/Virtual Reality Warcross by Marie Lu / Armada by Ernest Cline / Otherland by Tad Williams / In Real Life by Cory Doctorow / Unplugged by Donna Freitas

Hive (Mind) The Shadow over Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft / Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie / City of Broken Magic by Mirah Bolender

Steampunk Soulless by Gail Carrigher / Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve / Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld / Boneshaker by Cherie Priest / Lady of Devices by Shelley Adina

Super Powers The Reckoners by Brandon Sanderson / Lorien Legacies by Pittacus Lore / Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee / Nimona by Noelle Stevenson / The Runaways by Brian K. Vaughan

Science Better known as heavy sci-fi if you go searching for books Foundation by Isaac Asimov / World War Z by Max Brooks / The Color of Distance by Amy Thomson / Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds

Replicate/Replica Accelerando by Charles Stross / Replica by Lauren Oliver / Evolution by Stephen Baxter / The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson

Space Colonization The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Briggs / Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie / The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradburry

Mecha Themis Files by Sylvain Neuvel / Gundam Wing by Haijme Hatate / Dreadnought by Cherie Priest

Space Creatures/Beasts Mistworld by Simon Green / Dune by Frank Herbert /  Alien by Alan Dean Foster /

Teleportation Jumper by Stephen Gould / Timeline by Michael Crighton / The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter / The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Space Western The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury / Six-Gun Planet by John Yakes / Trigun by Yasuhiro Nightow / Those Left Behind by Joss Whedon / Cowboy Bebop by Yutaka Nanten

The Moon The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer / Moonseed by Stephen Baxter / Artemis by Andy Weir / Red Rising by Pierce Brown / The First Men in the Moon by H.G. Wells

Invasion Alien or Human The Andromedia Strain by Michael Crighton / Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout / The Lorien Legacies by Pittacus Lore / The Alien Years by Robert Silverberg / Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card / First Men in the Moon by H.G. Wells / Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein

General

For this you can use sci-fi and fantasy where you can make them fit.

Satire Discworld by Terry Pratchett / Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams / The Portable Door by Tom Holt / Red Shirts by John Scalzi /

Novella Binty by Nnedi Okorafor / Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire / The Ghost Line by Andrew Neil Gray / The Girl Who Rules Fairyland – For a Little While by Catheryne M. Valente

Finish a Series For this you can read the other books for other prompts throughout this challenge and read the last one here or finish a series you previously started. Or you could just read a whole series for this prompt alone. Whatever you want haha.

Mental Health Stormlight Archives by Branden Sanderson (depression) / The Magicians by Lev Grossman (depression) / Witchmark by C.L Polk (PTSD) / Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo (PTSD)

Disability * On the Edge of Gone by Corinne Duyvis (autism) / October Daye by Seanan McGuire (weelchair) *Kristen from Metaphors and Moonlight created a masterlist.

Set in Africa Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor  / Zoo City by Lauren Beukes / The Famished Road by Ben Okri / Changa’s Safari by Milton J. Davis

Library Library is semi-important in the book Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor / Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine / The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman / The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins /

By a Woman of Color Nnedi Okorafor / N.K. Jemisin / Tomi Adeyemi / Julie Kagawa / Malinda Lo / Heidi Helig / to name only a few…

One Word Title / Under 500 Pages / Over 800 Pages / Published Before 1990 I don’t think I need to make a list for these, right?

If you have any recs for any of these categories (especially Disability, Mental Health, Set in Africa and PTSD) than please leave them down below.

Printables

Let me know if these don’t work to save.

Dancing with Fantasy and Sci-Fi – A (2019) Reading Challenge + Bingo Cards Intro You know sometimes I like to challenge myself. How to Play This reading challenge consists of 3 sections.

[erazon]

I’ve sort of been thinking this for a while and seeing how it’s topical I kinda wanna go into why I really like Genn Greymane as a character without necessarily thinking he’s a “good” Alliance hero or a “bad” manipulative evil guy, and it’s mostly to do with faction stuff so if you’re interested

So I know there’s a bit of a rivalry going on between people who see Genn in a positive light, who understand that his grief and the curse he carries impacts his behaviour and that his opponent is arguably very morally corrupt- and those who consider him in a negative light; he’s war hungry, manipulates Anduin and only seems to care about anything when it concerns Gilneas. 

But I think we need to agree that he’s kind of all of these things at once, so you can’t really shine just one light on him and walk away. He’s a morally grey character and we’re all gonna like it because that’s exactly what the Alliance needs. 

Going into larger faction stuff, I think that the original core themes of the factions were meant to be the Alliance: Knights in Shining Armour, against the Horde: Misunderstood Outcasts. Faction pride was fostered by the idea that you couldn’t pick the wrong side, because there wasn’t one. What mattered most was what you identified with more: Justice and Valour for the Alliance or Resilience and Strength for the Horde. Then Cataclysm happened, Garrosh Hellscream happened, and the Horde went from the Misunderstood Outcasts to the Primary Aggressors. 

Whenever the writers wanted some kind of faction conflict, they sat around a room and said, “okay, which Horde leader gets to hold the Stupid Stick and attack the Alliance or act aggressively in some kind of way?”. And I think the best way to explain the consequence of this kind of writing is using the Mists of Pandaria intro quests. 

Horde intro basically goes like this: You show up on Pandaria on your big airship, you see an Alliance airship, and Nazgrim promptly presses the Beserk Button and immediately sends you off to blow shit up because the Alliance are here and that’s bad and you should kill them because they’re Alliance. Your player character goes along with it because there’s no such thing as autonomy in WoW, and then Taran Zhu shows up and rightly tells you “WTF? You need to chill out and probably go home”. You spend the rest of the intro making it up to the local Pandaren village by trying to repair the destruction you caused, there’s a little part that explains that ‘The Alliance can be bad too we promise!’ but when you go to deal with the Hozen you start by attacking them and their leader and it takes Lorewalker Cho sitting you down and saying “have you tried this thing called Diplomacy??” for you to get your shit together. 

Alliance intro goes like this: You show up on Pandaria, but the Horde got there first and is doing terrible things to the local Pandaren. You need to hop off your ship and help the poor locals, save them from the Horde’s dangerous machines and enslavement and basically go about being the hero who swoops in to save the day. There’s a bit where you have to shoot unarmed Horde soldiers who are swimming to safety, and one of the Alliance members expresses such doubt and remorse about it that he has the Sha of Doubt manifest in him. Not the Sha of Hatred for the person who was killing them, but Doubt for the guy who thought that was the wrong thing to do to show you that even when the Alliance is being bad, it’s still good deep down. You basically go on to stop more Horde baddies and help out the locals just because you’re nice. 

It’s a stark contrast when you’re playing through it. As the Horde, you need to take responsibility for your aggression. As the Alliance, you get to save the day. And that’s basically been the status quo for pretty much everything about the faction wars. A lot of Horde biased players will try to excuse and ignore the bad things that the Horde has done, but I think we need to understand that these people probably started playing back when Thrall was the leader and the Horde was still Misunderstood Outcasts, and don’t want to reconcile that that’s just not what it is anymore. 

This is why I like Genn Greymane. Because for the first time, it’s the Alliance’s turn to see how it feels to not be the Knights in Shining Armour, and to pretty clearly be shown as the aggressor. We play the intro to Stormheim, and watch as Greymane attacks the Forsaken both unprovoked and against orders. We see him chase vengeance and Sylvanas very much like a dog chasing after a cat. Of course Sylvanas herself is hardly innocent, but that’s not really the point. The point is that Greymane, the Alliance, got to hold the Stupid Stick for once. 

If faction war is going to be a prominent thing in the upcoming expansion, then there will need to be balance between the Horde’s usual aggression and the Alliance’s saviour complex. You can like Genn Greymane, you can think that he truly does love Anduin, and that he’s not the manipulative asshole people think he is. But he’s still willing to do bad things to get what he wants, just as the Horde does- and this provides a balance that brings faction pride back to square one. 

Maybe the Horde aren’t misunderstood outcasts anymore, but if Genn Greymane ruins the Alliance’s spotless knight image, then at least it’s an even playing field again. 

[your-atozhome]

How To (Alternate) Home Improvement TV Intro

How To (Alternate) Home Improvement TV Intro

(Alternate) Home Improvement TV Intro

Fatal Farm #(Alternate) Home Improvement TV Intro Fatal| Farm| Tim| Allen| Patricia| Richardson| Taran| Noah| Smith| JTT| Zachery| Ty| Bryan| Richard| Karn| Earl| Hindman| Binford| Theme Comedy Fatal Farm

(Alternate) Home Improvement TV Intro 1/5

(Alternate) Home Improvement TV Intro 2/5

(Alternate) Home Improvement TV Intro 3/5

(Alternate) Home…

[sobdasha]

library book haul

these are all many months out of date

Conservation of Shadows, Yoon Ha Lee This sci-fi and fantasy short story collection is Good Shit. Plus it includes my favorite short-story-collection thing, aka Author's Notes on the stories, which enhances the experience even more. So: I tried to read this in the previous batch with Lee's other work, but Lee's work requires your full attention and is not suitable for reading in the breakroom at work, where people come up, see you with a book, turn on the TV, and then proceed to ignore the TV the entire fucking time while they talk excessively loudly with the other people in the breakroom. I've been enjoying the fact that they put a real chair in the department so if I don't work the morning shift I can take my break in the department where the din from the customers is, in fact, quieter. And I don't have to walk to the literal opposite corner of the store, wasting time and chronic pain! Anyway. So I waited until I was on vacation, and had large stretches of quite time, to read this, and it was amazing. I did not do the write-up then because I am lazy. However, I am in the middle of rereading now, and I can tell you that these stories only get better the second time around. I was a little worried it'd be like Shakespeare--you have to read several Shakespeares before you finally get into the Shakespeare zone and can actually, like, read the Shakespeare. These stories, on the other hand, remained accessible and are enhanced by having half a clue where the story will go. I like them all, but some of my top favorites: Ghostweight--Lee says this was the second-hardest story to write because it took months to nail the intro/outro of the story. Well, it pays off. The Bones of Giants--Lee says the fantasy equivalent of mecha is to dig up some giant skeletons and apply necromancy. I'm bad at recognizing "zombie" when you don't use the word "zombie", so like the Abhorsen series I don't really consider this "zombie lit which I would hate." Mostly it's just a little soft and when I'm reading I picture big sweeping landscapes, like a Studio Ghibli film or Breath of the Wild. The Unstrung Zither--Lee just talks about the music stuff, but this one feels to me like Gundam Wing if I'd actually finished watching Gundam Wing because Gundam Wing had turned out to actually be anywhere near as interesting as the quantum versions of it I'd imagined. (Thanks to Lee's other stories, I'm now using "quantum" instead of "noodle incident".) Well, now I no longer feel any need to actually go back and watch Gundam Wing. Cool! It's occurring to me that Lee's works mostly fall into the category of: soft; this is the literal cost of genocide and occupation; and both at once. It's a hell of a lot better than ~the glory of war~. Anyway as I said it's all good.

Always Coming Home, Ursula K. Le Guin I actually quit reading this one pretty early on. Not exactly a quit, though. I wasn't in the right mindset; I just couldn't get through it and realized what I was in fact craving was Adventure. So I went on to reread The Prydain Chronicles instead and I'll pick this up again sometime later when I am in the mood for something quiet, reflective, domestic, and not big on plot.

Ursula K. Le Guin: The Last Interviews, ed. David Streitfeld This was interesting! Although I always have mixed feelings when I'm reading about authors talking about the craft. IDK I think it's a me-thing. Like, I pick up this essay expecting the author to tell me what works for them, and then I get annoyed because I decided the author was telling me "this is the only way" when that's bs and now I want to rebel??? Or maybe because Le Guin talked about how even a novel ought to be poetry and as someone who understands the theory of meter but has been flunking everything related to meter or stress since grade school in the practical sense, I find that idea Highly Overrated. I honestly don't remember what else was in here, because I waited for many months to do this write-up. I didn't actually hate reading this though so.

The Prydain Chronicles, Lloyd Alexander These are Peak comfort food to me. All I want to say this time around is, I should write some fics as Alexander's penance for making Eilonwy Very Cool but mistakenly doing so by making her Not Like Other Girls. (Crying and having feelings is gender-neutral in these books; what's portrayed negatively about Eilonwy through Taran's view, despite the fact that she's objectively better than him lol, is her ~chattering~. Which is annoying because not only does Eilonwy internalize that into putting down non-sword-women for "clucking like hens", Fflewddur chatters at least as much as Eilonwy, if not more, and because he's a guy it's never phrased that way even though we're all aware he's super flighty. I really wish this had been done with more nuance, because Eilonwy also has internalized misogyny about things like dresses and washing your hair and sleeping in a comfortable bed, and Fflewddur again is always the first person to be like "um but I would like to be comfy tonight though.") Anyway I just think that after Taran is king, if he wants to go someplace and keep his hands busy to think, presumably the gardens and fields are enough out of the way that this would make your king difficult to find. So instead, I propose that he goes to the spinning and weaving rooms, because that's literally in the castle, easy to find, he knows how to do that shit, Dwyvach schooled his ass good about how work doesn't have a gender in book 4, and he did enjoy weaving, and as a bonus he can realize that "chattering" is not bad and gossip is a good way to learn things you, as a king, probably need to know about the working of your castle, and Eilonwy can join him for bonding and realize this is not so terrible after all, and we will all value these women who spend a lot of fucking time and effort making sure you can have some goddamn clothes to wear. THE END.

The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle Everybody really loves The Last Unicorn, by which I think they mean the movie? And I thought that I did as well, even though I remembered exactly nothing from it save for the title when we watched it once in either kindergarten or first grade in place of recess for a week because it was, idk, cold?? raining nonstop??? Anyway I always thought that I loved it and then I finally rewatched it as an adult and it was. Not. Great. And then I forgot and watched it again a few years later and was like Nope, still Not For Me. And now, finally, I decided to get off my bum because for me books are almost always better than the movie, and lo and behold, it is. From what I can recall, the movie is the general plot structure of the book portrayed as an Adventure, stripped of the thoughtful, reflective narration and the deeper narrative themes. Which is 100% why that movie appears to me to be some kind of acid trip. I wish I had read this as an early teen, so that I could have absorbed some of Beagle's writing style, his turns of phrase in simile and metaphor. "His scimitar smile laid its cold edge along their throats," etc. He never really makes it seem like Too Much. (Side note, that's something I notice about Yoon Ha Lee too. Very lush and descriptive similes and metaphors, very much get the job done and are not things you have ever heard before. Although Lee's tend to make me stop and go "wait what???", and catch me off guard. I suspect it's a mix of innovation and cultural difference, whereas for Beagle everything sounds so exactly right and smooth and perfect probably because everyone else has been copying off him for years and I'm familiar with diluted versions. Anyway what I'm trying to say is, I got a bit away from that in my writing, but dang I am gonna have to up my game and purple my prose a little bit more because I really love what these guys are doing!)

Trail of Lightning, Rebecca Roanhorse Okay so Ann Leckie recommended this book to me, both in a general sense and also in person. And I looked at the description and thought, "Well, it's not my genre but it probs can't hurt me to pick it up and try." And so I finally did. Reading this was an interesting progression (probably most especially for my roommate who gets my live-reading reactions while she's trying to DnD) of watching me go from: "It's not my genre but it's not like the writing sucks so it's not bad" to "Well it is engaging and I do like garbage loner protagonist is a woman instead; I'm not compelled to buy this but I will read the rest of the series as it comes out from the library" to "Oh snap I love it when the critical reviews of a book were actually recommendations for me to read it" to "*weeping* Kai is a soft good boy and I support Maggie and her Emotional Support Shotgun, I will buy ALL THE BOOKS" At one point there was a perfect place, in the midst of a discussion about how you can like flamethrowers and makeup at the same time, Maggie, just because you don't like makeup, etc, to insert a joke about "it's called flaming gay for a reason". BUT in Rebecca's defense the entire scene was great anyway. The whole book was great. It's great. Read it. Oh speaking of the critical reviews, one of them was like "the protagonist claims to be unable to cook and then a few paragraphs later makes a 5 star meal, so this book is garbage." Lol was the reviewer confused because the word "bread" was used, and believes that bread is an art form unable to be accomplished by mere mortals (which, I mean, is how I feel about the idea of babying a loaf of bread all day)? Because bread only has to be "I made a paste of flour and water" which this. Basically was. Fried in a pan. And then the side dish was a can of beans with a can of chiles thrown in for fancy. This is literally the definition of can't cook, because you can't exactly order takeout on the reservation after the apocalypse when you prefer to live in a trailer in the middle of nowhere. I'm just saying, this scene was perfect. Also this was the point in time where I started summarizing all apocalyptic books as "After the events of the year 2020" to my roommate. It. It continues to hold true. Every year for like the past five years we've been saying maybe next year will be better, but I'm gonna be honest, I'm terrified of what 2021 will bring. One final visual: me, unable to pronounce Navajo words to my roommate when reading select passages, and also not being able to spell them on account of not knowing the names of accents in English: "so it's c-h-apostrophe-i accent aigu cedilla-i cedilla-polish l with a line through it…" (not an actual word, I don't remember the actual words, I returned the book to the library long ago, this is for illustrative purposes of my ignorance only)

To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf I tried to read this because Le Guin praised it a lot in The Last Interviews, and it was on the Wizard's Library shelves and I thought maybe I should broaden my horizons. But I quit early on because I, a disaster of run-on sentences, could not parse half of these and I was not invested and if I don't have to read ~classics~ for literature class it probably won't ever happen. Honestly a lot of the contemporary literature I'm reading is better for me anyway.

Sunlight and Shadow, Cameron Dokey This was also on the Wizard's Library shelves and I like fairytale things in theory and despite reading the wiki summary on various occasions I really don't know anything about the plot of The Magic Flute, which is this a retelling of. This book queerbaited me. It's unfair of romances to always put more chemistry between the people who aren't getting together than who are. In this case, both girls and both boys, who were to pair off into het couples. There's literally an entire chapter of Gayna going from "You've ruined everything!" to "I wish I could hate you!" to "Oh no you're hot!" to "And that doesn't actually make me jealous oh shit!" to "Okay I'll help you" to "Oh no she smiled and my heart skipped a beat huhhh!" about Mina. The word gay is even in her name!!! What is the author doing with her choices??? Seriously what is the author doing with her choices, in the author's note at the end of the book I learned Statos (Monostatos) was originally "evil character just because he's a Moor" so Dokey Fixed It by making him just a guy who wanted Things like the rest of the characters want Things and he just happens to come off as bad because he's not aligned with them and also he's very, very white. Noooooo that's not how you do it, that's not how you fix racism, you redeem him while keeping him black. I also, as a rule, dislike first-person-narration-that-changes-each-chapter, especially when you're not skilled enough/don't care to write in such a way that the narrator can easily be identified, so basically for a long chapter and a half I assumed Lapin was a girl and when the Queen of the Night was like "fuck you, boy!" I assumed it was a sick burn and Lapin just ~wasn't pretty~ but it turns out he was, in fact, a boy. Also for a book that points out that you can be perfectly happy settling with a decent person and marrying your not-soul-mate (Lapin's parents and grandparents), it's awfully insistent that the main characters all be properly paired with soul mates. HM. Basically this is marketed as feminist but I think it fell pretty damn short on that mark.

[emelinewrites]

| WIP Intro |

the autumn court | fantasy | na | third person pov | series

| Plot |

taran has spent her life under the rule of the autumn court, a realm of wicked fae who see mortals as nothing more than toys and slaves. she dreams of the day they’ll fall to ruin - and when her father dies, it’s all the motivation she needs to find a way into the court, determined to tear it apart from within before any other mortals can die at the hands of fae cruelty.

lady iseult is the first in a new generation of fae, firstborn child of the queen and king of the autumn court. many would look down on her as nothing more than a shallow and fanciful girl - but she may be a greater threat than anyone expects. she knows fae magic has the potential to be used for good rather than for oppression, and she will betray even her own blood if it means an end to the autumn court’s reign over humanity.

a mortal and a fae should have no reason to work together. but bringing down the autumn court will require ancient magic, and both taran and iseult’s skills to succeed.

| Main Characters |

taran - 21 years old, bisexual, a mortal woman from the land of fenmire. she’s spent much of her life working as a seamstress with her mother, but now serves the folk of the autumn court. sensible and brutal in equal measure, when she needs to be.

iseult - 22 years old, lady of the autumn court. as beautiful as she is deadly, though there are many who would dismiss her strength and see her twisted antlers as an unladylike deformity. well-practised in deception, and not afraid to be ruthless.

| Status | April Camp NaNoWriMo project.