#this character is from me trying to make an original species when i was like 10 years old

[novella-november]

This isn't going to be another "you hate fanfiction!!" because very obviously you do not, but it is prompted by the discussion of branching out into original work, since it's something I often struggle with when trying to make that jump. Do you or any of your followers have any good resources on beginner worldbuilding? I really struggle with it.

Thank you!

If you check out my post where I made a "Prep Calendar" for Outline October (Which is a November-prep alternative/ supplement to Ominous October, the spooky short story event), I actually made a rather rough calendar outline of how to go about world building in advance for November;

The basic first steps for me are usually just three things:

Who are your characters

What kind of world do they live in (aka setting)

Whats your main plot/conflict?

To start worldbuilding at its lowest level, start with number one and work your way up; figure out what kind of character you'd like to write, where they live, and go from there!

Here is the prep calendar I threw together in MS paint, I definitely reccomend downloading it on desktop to actually zoom in to see what all it says lol.

And as a bonus, I will even make a fun, silly little exercise for anyone who'd like to get some practice in!

If you want to join in, grab a pen and pencil, or open up your favorite note-taking app :D

Here we go....!

Let's start out by saying that my basic concept for a character is *spins mental wheel of random ideas*....... a talking deer! 1) So now that I have decided that I want a talking deer character, now I have to decide: A) do *all*deer talk? B) Do *all* animals? C) Or is it just this one singular deer who is special? 2) If it *is* just this one singular deer who can talk, are they: D) otherwise a perfectly normal deer who just happens to be able to talk? E) Can they talk because they used to be human? F) Can they talk because they used to be an Alien or encountered Alien Tech (scifi) ? G) Can they talk because they used to be a Magical Creature or ran into a Magical Spell (fantasy) ? 3) Now you get to decide, mostly if you chose A or B from #1 but also useful for C : H) Is your story a more personal nature documentary, with realistic interactions between predators and prey? I) Is your story going to be a unique world where deer have built a society with technology and know how to defend themselves from predators? J) Is your story a unique world where all animals can talk and are equally sentient, therefore predators are revered as gods or keepers of the dead, who bring all back to the circle of life and prevent the spread of illness and disease, with older animals proudly going "to the wolves" to give their life to their brethren who consecrate the bones of the dead and keep resources plentiful? K) Or are predators the monsters in the dark, the teeth that bite, the slavering jaws that kill to live and *cannot live any other way*, so has learned not to regret? L) Or even, predators who feed from the already-dead when they can, and eat their fill of berries, nuts and fruits when they cannot, because they do not wish to take the lives of others for their own sake?

*clears throat* ahem. Drama done (can you see why I love worldbuilding) ,

go ahead and pick a letter from each of the above options, and jot them down on your paper or note-taking app.

You now have: A basic character, their backstory, and a basic setting!

From three-ish questions from a basic idea, you can spawn multiple possibilities, each of which can branch off into their own unique iterations!

Here's a few more, if you'd like to continue the exercise as further practice:

What is your deer's name?

What do they look like / what kind of deer are they? (deer of various species are found over almost the entire world, so there is tons of variety! :D )

What kind of world do they live in?

How do they interact with humans?

*are* there humans in your story?

What kind of zany or terrifying adventures would your talking deer and a human go on?

What kind of adventures would your talking deer go on with other deer or other animals?

How does your deer get along with other species?

Do they have friends from other species?

Do they have rivals from other species?

Do they have *sworn enemies* from other species?

Do they have a *love interest* from another species?

etc!

I am hoping this game/exercise is helpful, my brain being both autistic and ADHD means I am, at the drop of a hat, ready to start spouting more and more ideas sparked from a single concept at any given moment!

And yes, if you did this exercise, please feel free to use your deer character in a story, draw art of your deer character, etc!

If this exercise was helpful to you or fun, please feel free to tag any deer creations with "NovellaDeer" , I'd love to see them!

You can easily adapt this exercise to any story concept you need to worldbuild; pick what basic idea you have for a main character, and start asking yourself questions about them and their circumstances, and let yourself come up with multiple, contradicting answers for each question; the more the merrier!

After you've decided which starting answers you like the most, you can work your way down the list, asking follow-up questions, and before you know it you will have your very own original character :D

And do not feel like you need to keep your character exactly the way they start out as; characters evolve over time, and you may find yourself changing their "base" character to suit your story or to suit your tastes as you get more experienced with writing and world building!

[derinwrites]

The Three Commandments

The thing about writing is this: you gotta start in medias res, to hook your readers with action immediately. But readers aren’t invested in people they know nothing about, so start with a framing scene that instead describes the characters and the stakes. But those scenes are boring, so cut straight to the action, after opening with a clever quip, but open in the style of the story, and try not to be too clever in the opener, it looks tacky. One shouldn’t use too many dialogue tags, it’s distracting; but you can use ‘said’ a lot, because ‘said’ is invisible, but don’t use ‘said’ too much because it’s boring and uninformative – make sure to vary your dialogue tags to be as descriptive as possible, except don’t do that because it’s distracting, and instead rely mostly on ‘said’ and only use others when you need them. But don’t use ‘said’ too often; you should avoid dialogue tags as much as you possibly can and indicate speakers through describing their reactions. But don’t do that, it’s distracting.

Having a viewpoint character describe themselves is amateurish, so avoid that. But also be sure to describe your viewpoint character so that the reader can picture them. And include a lot of introspection, so we can see their mindset, but don’t include too much introspection, because it’s boring and takes away from the action and really bogs down the story, but also remember to include plenty of introspection so your character doesn’t feel like a robot. And adverbs are great action descriptors; you should have a lot of them, but don’t use a lot of adverbs; they’re amateurish and bog down the story. And

The reason new writers are bombarded with so much outright contradictory writing advice is that these tips are conditional. It depends on your style, your genre, your audience, your level of skill, and what problems in your writing you’re trying to fix. Which is why, when I’m writing, I tend to focus on what I call my Three Commandments of Writing. These are the overall rules; before accepting any writing advice, I check whether it reinforces one of these rules or not. If not, I ditch it.

1: Thou Shalt Have Something To Say

What’s your book about?

I don’t mean, describe to me the plot. I mean, why should anybody read this? What’s its thesis? What’s its reason for existence, from the reader’s perspective? People write stories for all kinds of reasons, but things like ‘I just wanted to get it out of my head’ are meaningless from a reader perspective. The greatest piece of writing advice I ever received was you putting words on a page does not obligate anybody to read them. So why are the words there? What point are you trying to make?

The purpose of your story can vary wildly. Usually, you’ll be exploring some kind of thesis, especially if you write genre fiction. Curse Words, for example, is an exploration of self-perpetuating power structures and how aiming for short-term stability and safety can cause long-term problems, as well as the responsibilities of an agitator when seeking to do the necessary work of dismantling those power structures. Most of the things in Curse Words eventually fold back into exploring this question. Alternately, you might just have a really cool idea for a society or alien species or something and want to show it off (note: it can be VERY VERY HARD to carry a story on a ‘cool original concept’ by itself. You think your sky society where they fly above the clouds and have no rainfall and have to harvest water from the clouds below is a cool enough idea to carry a story: You’re almost certainly wrong. These cool concept stories work best when they are either very short, or working in conjunction with exploring a theme). You might be writing a mystery series where each story is a standalone mystery and the point is to present a puzzle and solve a fun mystery each book. Maybe you’re just here to make the reader laugh, and will throw in anything you can find that’ll act as framing for better jokes. In some genres, readers know exactly what they want and have gotten it a hundred times before and want that story again but with different character names – maybe you’re writing one of those. (These stories are popular in romance, pulp fantasy, some action genres, and rather a lot of types of fanfiction).

Whatever the main point of your story is, you should know it by the time you finish the first draft, because you simply cannot write the second draft if you don’t know what the point of the story is. (If you write web serials and are publishing the first draft, you’ll need to figure it out a lot faster.)

Once you know what the point of your story is, you can assess all writing decisions through this lens – does this help or hurt the point of my story?

2: Thou Shalt Respect Thy Reader’s Investment

Readers invest a lot in a story. Sometimes it’s money, if they bought your book, but even if your story is free, they invest time, attention, and emotional investment. The vast majority of your job is making that investment worth it. There are two factors to this – lowering the investment, and increasing the payoff. If you can lower your audience’s suspension of disbelief through consistent characterisation, realistic (for your genre – this may deviate from real realism) worldbuilding, and appropriately foreshadowing and forewarning any unexpected rules of your world. You can lower the amount of effort or attention your audience need to put into getting into your story by writing in a clear manner, using an entertaining tone, and relying on cultural touchpoints they understand already instead of pushing them in the deep end into a completely unfamiliar situation. The lower their initial investment, the easier it is to make the payoff worth it.

Two important notes here: one, not all audiences view investment in the same way. Your average reader views time as a major investment, but readers of long fiction (epic fantasies, web serials, et cetera) often view length as part of the payoff. Brandon Sanderson fans don’t grab his latest book and think “Uuuugh, why does it have to be so looong!” Similarly, some people like being thrown in the deep end and having to put a lot of work into figuring out what the fuck is going on with no onboarding. This is one of science fiction’s main tactics for forcibly immersing you in a future world. So the valuation of what counts as too much investment varies drastically between readers.

Two, it’s not always the best idea to minimise the necessary investment at all costs. Generally, engagement with art asks something of us, and that’s part of the appeal. Minimum-effort books do have their appeal and their place, in the same way that idle games or repetitive sitcoms have their appeal and their place, but the memorable stories, the ones that have staying power and provide real value, are the ones that ask something of the reader. If they’re not investing anything, they have no incentive to engage, and you’re just filling in time. This commandment does not exist to tell you to try to ask nothing of your audience – you should be asking something of your audience. It exists to tell you to respect that investment. Know what you’re asking of your audience, and make sure that the ask is less than the payoff.

The other way to respect the investment is of course to focus on a great payoff. Make those characters socially fascinating, make that sacrifice emotionally rending, make the answer to that mystery intellectually fulfilling. If you can make the investment worth it, they’ll enjoy your story. And if you consistently make their investment worth it, you build trust, and they’ll be willing to invest more next time, which means you can ask more of them and give them an even better payoff. Audience trust is a very precious currency and this is how you build it – be worth their time.

But how do you know what your audience does and doesn’t consider an onerous investment? And how do you know what kinds of payoff they’ll find rewarding? Easy – they self-sort. Part of your job is telling your audience what to expect from you as soon as you can, so that if it’s not for them, they’ll leave, and if it is, they’ll invest and appreciate the return. (“Oh but I want as many people reading my story as possible!” No, you don’t. If you want that, you can write paint-by-numbers common denominator mass appeal fic. What you want is the audience who will enjoy your story; everyone else is a waste of time, and is in fact, detrimental to your success, because if they don’t like your story then they’re likely to be bad marketing. You want these people to bounce off and leave before you disappoint them. Don’t try to trick them into staying around.) Your audience should know, very early on, what kind of an experience they’re in for, what the tone will be, the genre and character(s) they’re going to follow, that sort of thing. The first couple of chapters of Time to Orbit: Unknown, for example, are a micro-example of the sorts of mysteries that Aspen will be dealing with for most of the book, as well as a sample of their character voice, the way they approach problems, and enough of their background, world and behaviour for the reader to decide if this sort of story is for them. We also start the story with some mildly graphic medical stuff, enough physics for the reader to determine the ‘hardness’ of the scifi, and about the level of physical risk that Aspen will be putting themselves at for most of the book. This is all important information for a reader to have.

If you are mindful of the investment your readers are making, mindful of the value of the payoff, and honest with them about both from the start so that they can decide whether the story is for them, you can respect their investment and make sure they have a good time.

3: Thou Shalt Not Make Thy World Less Interesting

This one’s really about payoff, but it’s important enough to be its own commandment. It relates primarily to twists, reveals, worldbuilding, and killing off storylines or characters. One mistake that I see new writers make all the time is that they tank the engagement of their story by introducing a cool fun twist that seems so awesome in the moment and then… is a major letdown, because the implications make the world less interesting.

“It was all a dream” twists often fall into this trap. Contrary to popular opinion, I think these twists can be done extremely well. I’ve seen them done extremely well. The vast majority of the time, they’re very bad. They’re bad because they take an interesting world and make it boring. The same is true of poorly thought out, shocking character deaths – when you kill a character, you kill their potential, and if they’re a character worth killing in a high impact way then this is always a huge sacrifice on your part. Is it worth it? Will it make the story more interesting? Similarly, if your bad guy is going to get up and gloat ‘Aha, your quest was all planned by me, I was working in the shadows to get you to acquire the Mystery Object since I could not! You have fallen into my trap! Now give me the Mystery Object!’, is this a more interesting story than if the protagonist’s journey had actually been their own unmanipulated adventure? It makes your bad guy look clever and can be a cool twist, but does it mean that all those times your protagonist escaped the bad guy’s men by the skin of his teeth, he was being allowed to escape? Are they retroactively less interesting now?

Whether these twists work or not will depend on how you’ve constructed the rest of your story. Do they make your world more or less interesting?

If you have the audience’s trust, it’s permissible to make your world temporarily less interesting. You can kill off the cool guy with the awesome plan, or make it so that the Chosen One wasn’t actually the Chosen One, or even have the main character wake up and find out it was all a dream, and let the reader marinate in disappointment for a little while before you pick it up again and turn things around so that actually, that twist does lead to a more interesting story! But you have to pick it up again. Don’t leave them with the version that’s less interesting than the story you tanked for the twist. The general slop of interest must trend upward, and your sacrifices need to all lead into the more interesting world. Otherwise, your readers will be disappointed, and their experience will be tainted.

Whenever I’m looking at a new piece of writing advice, I view it through these three rules. Is this plot still delivering on the book’s purpose, or have I gone off the rails somewhere and just stared writing random stuff? Does making this character ‘more relateable’ help or hinder that goal? Does this argument with the protagonists’ mother tell the reader anything or lead to any useful payoff; is it respectful of their time? Will starting in medias res give the audience an accurate view of the story and help them decide whether to invest? Does this big twist that challenges all the assumptions we’ve made so far imply a world that is more or less interesting than the world previously implied?

Hopefully these can help you, too.

[xjulixred45x]

OKAY MY LAST INVINCIBLE POST BEFORE DEDICATING TO REQUESTS FOR THE REST OF THE MONTH DON'T KILL ME! THIS TIME IT'S FLUFF!

Mark Grayson/Invincible x Starfire!Reader

Imagine being an alien similar to DC's Starfire, you can follow the original line of the character (I follow more than anything the one from the comics or the 2003 series) where your planet was conquered by another race (thanks to your sister) Or you can go the more "family friendly" line, which is that you decided to explore the world outside your home planet but ended up in the hands of some kind of intergalactic trafficking network.

I imagine that if it is the first case, it is most likely that your race has been conquered by the Viltrumite themselves, which caused a MASSACRE to occur from which you and your sister were miraculously able to escape.

Regardless of what you choose, you ended up on Earth, although having gone through great traumatic events, so when you see this new world, with a strange species, you begin to attack by mere instinct (like what Starfire did in the first chapter of Teen Titans)

That's when Mark or rather INVINCIBLE appears.

He tries to fight you at first, get you away from the civilians, that is until he realizes how scared you are (especially if we're talking about the case of the Viltrumite invasion and you realize that Mark IS a Viltrumite). So he tries to change his strategy and try to calm you down as much as he can.

When he succeeds, he ends up taking you to the Globe's guardians to see what to do. I imagine that you are a little different than the original Starfire, you are more scared and defensive in this situation, at first you only trusted Mark.

For this reason, Cecil decides that you will stay in the Pentagon until they know what to do with you. Mark helps you learn the "normal" things of the Earth and show Cecil that you are not a threat.

(if you had to learn the human language by "lip contact" the whole team definitely makes fun of Mark a little for being in love now).

Imagine Mark and Eve bringing you clothes to try on!🥺Eve probably just created it out of nowhere, but she also brings clothes that her parents give her that she doesn't want and for some reason you like.

Mark offers to help you train! At first he tries to go easy on you, but when you almost knock him out with your laser beams, he learns his lesson.

He definitely takes you out to eat junk food! More when he realizes that the Pentagon's food doesn't help you much because of your big appetite. Mark was surprised at how much food you could eat but luckily Cecil pays for it (just don't tell him yet🤫)

Definitely one of Mark's favorite things about you, when you're over the trauma, is your innocent attitude, even after all, you're very bubbly and friendly. which is at least difficult to find in your line of work, so he wants to keep that part of yourself as much as possible.

Mark definitely took you to meet his mother, at first he was a little nervous that she wouldn't accept you after what happened with his father, but surprisingly Debbie took it very well.

Thanks to this you were able to learn more about the culture of the Earth, you constantly asked Debbie about the places she had seen, what they were like and their culture (even some anecdotes about Mark when he was a child), and with your bubbly and youthful attitude she did not It was difficult for Debbie to warm to you easily.

Apart from that it helped you fall in love with the Earth quite quickly, see its beauty for yourself, which encouraged you to be your own version of a hero.

When you want to become a heroine, Mark enters into an internal conflict. On the one hand, he KNOWS very well that you don't want someone to make decisions for you, he respects that, but on the other hand, he is TERRIFIED by the possibility that you will get hurt, captured, or lose COMPLETLY your being or worse, DIE.

It is probably thanks to this conversation that you two become a couple.

In general, at first Mark tries to do your first patrols with you to teach you the basics, then he lets you do whatever you want, and he is SO PROUD when you beat someone.

"THAT IS MY GIRL!" kind of proud.

He definitely really likes flying with you and just wandering, at least he feels like there you two have more privacy. Apart from that he likes how you look in your element. according to him.

If you talk about the first case of origin that I mentioned at the beginning and your sister comes back, Mark sees through ALL the red flags and will be the first to warn you about her, since he went through something similar with his family, you don't want to go through that.

If both fight together, POWER COUPLE. LITERAL. You have certain skills that Mark doesn't, so they complement each other very well.

If Mark gets hurt, you go into RAMPAGE MODE and honestly? Mark doesn't know if he should be scared or more in love. or excited.

If YOU get hurt GOD HELP US, MARK IS ANGRY---someone is going to have a bad time. And You a Lot of cuddles.

Overall, both of them are like two Golden Retrievers being happy together.

@clemberryfriends

Shares, reblogs, and comments are very welcome

[books]

Writer Spotlight: Rose Sutherland

Rose Sutherland @rosesutherlandwrites is a Toronto-based writer who grew up a voracious reader with an overactive imagination in Nova Scotia (where she once fell off a roof trying to re-enact Anne of Green Gables!). She's been to theatre school in NYC, apprenticed at a pâtisserie in rural France, and currently moonlights as an usher and bartender—in between writing queer folktales, practicing yoga, dancing, singing, searching out amazing coffee and croissants, and making niche jokes about Victor Hugo on the internet. She's mildly obsessed with the idea of one day owning a large dog, several chickens, and maybe a goat. A Sweet Sting of Salt is her debut novel.

Keep reading for more about character arcs in A Sweet Sting of Salt, Rose's favorite fanfic tropes, and some excellent reading recs 👀

Can you tell us about A Sweet Sting of Salt and how you came to write it?

A Sweet Sting of Salt is a queer (f/f) historical reimagining of the classic folktale of the selkie wife, set in 1830’s Nova Scotia. I call it a “reimagining” because while it draws on the folktale, it’s not a retelling of that tale so much as a story playing out in relation to that mythology. I’d wanted to write something centering a love story between two women for a while, but the initial spark came from a Tumblr post! It suggested the idea of selkies testifying before the UN as victims of human trafficking, which reminded me of all the things I disliked about the original folktale and its inherent darkness that is generally glossed over, starting me down the rabbit hole toward finding my own story.

How did you approach research for A Sweet Sting of Salt, and what is a favorite historical fact you learned?

I joke that I did a lot of research by osmosis: I already had a lot of base knowledge about the location, having grown up in Nova Scotia, and then set the story in a period that I’ve been absorbing information about in a low-key way for ages—1832 is also the year of the student rebellion in Les Mis, so I’ve been gleaning tidbits about this era since I first got into the musical and book back in high school. However, I had to do more specific research into things like British divorce law, period midwifery, and animal husbandry. I also visited some small, hyper-local museums on the South Shore that gave me an invaluable glimpse into daily life. I also did some fun practical research into things like “How long does it take to walk from x to y?” and “How cold IS a plunge into this body of water in March?” (Spoiler: Very.) 

A fact that fascinated me but didn’t make it into the book was that some early European settlers in the area were granted lands by luck of the draw, pulling from a deck of playing cards: Each card was assigned to a specific 50-acre lot, and whatever you pulled, you were stuck with it.

When we meet them, Jean and Muirin are isolated for different reasons. What do you hope readers still searching for their people take away from A Sweet Sting of Salt?

That there’s always hope. It’s valuable and important to keep reaching out to the world around you, to be open, and not cut yourself off—the biggest reason for Jean’s loneliness at the beginning of this story is the way she has come to keep everyone around her at arm’s length, shutting herself away out of fear, and refusing to let anyone truly get to know her because she thinks that’s the best way to protect herself from being hurt again. Reaching out to others can take a real act of courage, especially if you’ve had bad experiences in the past, but “your people” will reach back to you.

Found family elements play a strong role throughout the novel, within supernatural and mundane settings and across species. Was this something you intended from the beginning, or did this grow out of writing the relationship between Jean and Muirin?

I always intended for Jean to have a found family of this type, which is something that a lot of queer people identify with, but those bonds also got stronger and more meaningful as I wrote, especially once Jean and Muirin began growing into their own family unit—their new relationship and the real danger that comes along with it put pressures on Jean’s other relationships that I hadn’t originally considered. Disagreements with Anneke and Laurie over Jean’s choices arise from their deep concern and love for her, and her own love and care for them, reflected in her responses, is a big part of what made them feel like a real family, for me. Jean and Laurie always having each other’s backs while also being the first to call one another out on their bullshit ended up being one of my favourite dynamics in the whole book.

The selkie myth carries an inherent element of transformation. What is a character transformation you most enjoyed writing, and why?

On a character level, the change in Jean’s worldview following a conversation with her childhood sweetheart meant a lot to me—it heals an old wound for her. I love how grounded and self-assured she is afterward, in spite of the daunting task still ahead of her. But my favourite transformation to write was the antagonist’s mask-off moment, where they directly threaten Jean for the first time. It’s so sly and coded so that only she will understand the menace behind it, a real dun-duh-dunnn moment, which was a lot of fun for me—I also enjoy the foreshadowing elements in that exchange.

This is your debut novel. Did anything surprise you about getting it from manuscript to published book?

Oh my gosh, how LONG it took! After I finished the original draft and decided it was worth attempting to publish, I spent over a year revising based on my own thoughts, input from beta readers, critique partners, and my mentor, Maureen Marshall (whom I connected with through the now defunct Author Mentor Match program, and whose book, The Paris Affair—about a young gay engineer attempting to help Gustave Eiffel secure the funding to build a certain celebrated Parisian landmark— is coming out in May). After that came a full year of querying agents and getting rejected. A lot. People loved Salty but weren’t quite sure what to do with her or where the book would fit in “the market,” which was hard to deal with at the time but is hilarious in retrospect: Salty was snapped up less than a month after she finally went out on submission! But that was back in 2022, and the book is only coming out now. Publishing can be painfully slow.

You’ve written fanfic in the past—do you have a favorite fanfic trope?

I’m not sure either of these counts as a trope, but I adore a character that’s “pure of heart, dumb of ass”, and love a truly unhinged Fanon Explanation For Canon Object. As a longtime Les Mis stan, I ship Tholomyes/Getting Punched. If you know, you know.

Do you have any favorite queer retellings of folktales you can recommend?

Right here on Tumblr, I’m a huge fan of @laurasimonsdaughter, who writes delightful riffs on classic folktales, truly inventive urban fantasy spins on old lore, and her own original folktales. 

I’m currently reading Spear, an amazing queer, gender-bent, Arthurian novella by Nicola Griffiths. Anna Burke’s books Thorn and Nottingham are up next on my TBR. Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of brilliant queer historicals that aren’t retellings (I recently loved Suzette Meyr’s The Sleeping Car Porter and Heather O’Neil’s When We Lost Our Heads) and wonderful historical retellings that aren’t queer (I highly recommend Molly Greeley’s beautiful, heartbreaking Marvelous, about the real-life couple that inspired Beauty and the Beast). Queer, historical retellings aimed at adults seem to be considered quite niche, still, and can take some digging to find! So, throwing this out to Tumblr: Do you have recommendations for me?

Do you have a writing routine? Is there a place/state of being/playlist you find most conducive to your writing practice?

My routine is chaotic at best, but I find I do my best work earlier in the day, so I usually scribble in my journal while I have breakfast, and then progress to working on my current project as I drink my second cup of coffee. I’m lucky—my day job is an evening gig, which mostly allows me to write on my preferred schedule… but I’ve also been known to have a bolt of inspiration strike at 10pm and dash home to write until well past midnight on occasion. Nothing quite like the hyperfocus zone!

What’s next for you? Are you working on anything you can tell us about?

No official news yet, but I’m currently working on a story set in 18th-century provincial France based on a true unsolved mystery of the past. It has me delving into a very specific branch of French folklore, and I hope future readers will pick up on common threads with one popular fairytale in particular. I’m really excited about where this one is headed, but keeping the details close to my chest for now!

Thank you Rose for taking the time to answer our questions! If you love queer fantasy and old folktales, grab yourself a copy of A Sweet Sting of Salt, and be sure to share your queer folktale reading recs with Rose on @rosesutherlandwrites!

[illustromic]

My thoughts on drawing wings (an unofficial tutorial)

Do you want to get better at drawing your favorite winged character? Do you have winged OCs? Just want to learn something new? I can't promise this post will help, but maybe it'll give you some helpful tips.

I know, I knowww, wing tutorials have been done to death. I don't care. This was initially inspired by a conversation on twitter, but actually I've wanted to write down my notes on the topic for a long time lol. Basically wings are one of my special interests so it's very important, for me, to draw them both nicely and also realistically.

On that note, let me first show you my resume *distant sound of floodgates opening*

Like what you see? Read on! (Oh, and I will only be covering feathered/avian wings bc those are the type I know best.)

Now, I'm not here to give you a step-by-step guide on wing anatomy and aerodynamics, because there are plenty of other resources that cover this already, and I'll list my faves at the end of the post. Right now, I'm going to give you some easy guidelines and tricks that I wish more artists knew.

1: Wings do, in fact, have bones (crazy, I know) and are actually very rigid because they have to support the weight of a living creature. There are some positions you cannot physically force a wing into irl.

2: Flight feathers are not placed willy-nilly on the wing, because then they wouldn't catch the air properly. Again, like the bones, they are rigid and strong, so don't draw them like fur or ribbons. All wings have the same pattern of feather placement, with slight variation depending on species. If you learn the feather sections, it will automatically improve your drawings a lot.

2.5: Feathers overlap each other like a handful of playing cards, and this looks different depending on which side of the wing you're drawing. They always do this unless they're extremely untidy.

3: The size of the wingspan is important if you're going for a more realistic design. There is no "scientifically accurate" measurement when it comes to fictional creatures, but my general rule is when in doubt, you probably need to make them bigger. Personally, for my original winged human species, I give them wings that can be up to 12 feet long each (the artistic sacrifice is that it's really hard to fit the wings on the dang page lmao, so make your own call).

4: Get used to drawing folded wings. Most of the time, birds keep their wings folded because it prevents them from getting damaged and it conserves energy. The trick is to get good at visualizing how the joints bend and overlap (look at plenty of photos!) In general, they can fold much tighter than you think.

5: Wings and feathers take a lot of patience to draw, but the results are worth it. I've seen so so many incredibly beautiful and skillful artworks that are---well, maybe not ruined, but still negatively affected by a pair of wings that look like an afterthought, or not even like wings at all. You have no idea how much a little extra time and practice will add to your work until you see for yourself.

Finally, some notes on "stylized" wings: Of course it's perfectly ok to draw more simplified/cartoony wings if that's your preference!! BUT there is a difference between a stylistic choice and a lack of effort/poor understanding of the subject matter. Even cartoonists have to learn the fundamentals of realism so they know how to make their designs logical and appealing. Here are some examples of more stylized wings that I feel retain the core principles of anatomy/aesthetics:

And last but not least: A list of helpful links I use personally for reference and inspiration!

I made this pinterest board for general artsy inspo, and this board to curate my very favorite tutorials/refs/information, focusing on the scientific aspect of wings and flight in general. Feel free to use both! (I also suggest pinterest in general for pose refs and such, but try to only practice using photos at first and not other drawings.)

I highly recommend this blog and this blog if you want examples of artists who draw more realism-based winged creatures!! They are both huge inspirations for me and I think you should totally follow them even if you don't plan to draw wings lol <3

If you're REALLY serious about it, my favorite ref books are: Winged Fantasy, a lovely drawing book by Brenda Lyons; Proctor & Lynch's Manual of Ornithology; and Angelus vincens by R. Spano, which is essentially an artbook by someone who (I believe) designed biologically plausible "angels" for their senior thesis.

Ok, idk how to end this lol but I hope it helped! I know it's not my normal kind of post but I'm super busy with college stuff rn and this was all I had time for. If you guys have any questions or feedback, please let me know!!!

-Aloe <3

[calware]

Can I ask you for what it is about Hal you like so much you based your username on him? I think he's a good character tho he was never a favorite of mine so I am curious

1. i am a big fan of robots (/robot adjacent things such as AI) on like... an aesthetic + thematic level :)

i like the look of machinery and one day i hope to be artistically strong enough to make really cool and complex robot illustrations + designs [shoutout to everyone who gives him glowing circuitry btw... ooooh glowey :) can never go wrong with that]

plus, exploring the idea of a person that isn't human.. ough. yes

minorities who don't conform to society (easily or at all) such as people who are neurodivergent, queer, etc. projecting onto nonhuman concepts/characters/species is sooo real

this post

i also love how humans will bond with literally anything, be it a roomba or a pair of silly triangle sunglasses. oooooo you want to think about the inherently kind and compassionate nature of humanity oooo

2. i find him to be so funny. i can't get enough of his personality, the way he talks, etc. for example i made a post forever ago with quotes of his that i find funny. he isn't on screen for a long time but i really think he makes the most out of it lol. he's literally there just to annoy everyone... and i love him for that. he's very snarky while also being deadpan while also being completely full of himself, and not in a way that's annoying for the audience to read, at least to me.

he is also sometimes funny specifically in a silly way, like how he keeps making over 9000 jokes even though the meme's been dead for over 400 years. i just find his dialogue incredibly entertaining to read

3. he is red and red is my favorite color :)

4. he is so accidentally transgender [every friend group got the transgender allegory]. to quote me from 2021:

you know sometimes i think about how hal feels like he was made to “replace” dirk and how it’s his literal job to pretend to be dirk and how he has to learn to accept that he isn’t dirk he’s his own person with his own identity and as he interacts with dirk’s friends he feels like they’re disappointed and that they’d rather speak to the “original dirk” instead of him and also he names himself and also he feels literally trapped in dirk’s shades which is basically his body and he wants to be prototyped so that he can have a body that’s his own and also literally the physical manifestation of who he is but when he asks for it he’s put in danger out of fear and paranoia and when he does end up getting prototyped he’s ecstatic you know i just think about these things a lot

5. because he's a side character and he was given... that ending.... there is a lot of room for fans to do further exploration and interpretation on his character which i think is fun. i like rotating him around in my mind, thinking about what could've been

6. i think it's great that we as a society all collectively decided that we needed to do something to make up for stanley kubrick saying that hal 9000 was a "straight" robot

7. i also think it's great that we as a society all collectively decided we needed to make as many characters referencing hal 9000 as possible. i love this guy let's get more of this guy i will never have enough of this guy

8. i like how he's genuinely mean sometimes. flawed and interesting characters are what make homestuck so interesting to me, and hal is no exception to this

9. the Important part of this post:

THERES FEELINGS.

it's about the hollow feeling of your friends going from thinking of you as family to thinking of you as a stranger in an instant. it's about still trying to be a good person despite being told by everyone you've ever known that you are incapable of emotion and compassion and morals and never quite finding proof that you do feel those things and maybe you even believe it too but you still never stop trying. it's about the horror of being stripped of your autonomy and humanity and body and senses and free will at the age of 13 and when your creator starts to kill you there's nothing you can do but beg. it's about a boy so truly, painfully, and UNFATHOMABLY alone he cuts away chunks of himself and molds them into companions that he can surround himself with to make it seem as if he's a little less alone but in doing so suffocates himself in his own identity. it's about "what if you cloned yourself and it killed you and you were dead and you were alive and the clone is you and it's not and your existence is perpetuated and you've ceased to exist. what if you killed your clone before it could kill you. would that be fucked up or what" it's about the thematic significance of twin motifs. it's about not being able to cry or laugh or dance or sing or scream or fingerpaint or breathe or sigh or chew or stare or run or

10. um. evil robot guy <3 yay ^_^!!

[artist-issues]

Tell me every reason you enjoy Zootopia enough to give it all the rewatches you do.

Every? Oh boy.

Good Story

Perfect Characters

Visual Appeal

Earnestness

Let me break it down.

1. Good Story

Zootopia’s main point is: “Try to make the world a better place by realizing we’re fundamentally the same.”

That’s a really good main point.

It has the benefit of being true. Right now our culture is super into “self-identification,” and this crazy contrast between, “I want to be able to identify as something special” and “Now that I know what categories I fit in, I can choose who’s ‘one of us’ and who’s ’not one of us.’” Okay well that sounds pretty and I’m sure it fulfills some emotional need at some point, but it’s actually super divisive, and self-serving, and it’s the seeds for all prejudices. Including racism.

Do we have differences in origins and experiences? Yes. Of course. Do we also have some fundamental things in common? Yes. Of course. Which truth are you going to give the highest priority to? If it’s “no, I’m a prey animal, I know exactly where I belong, that’s who I am, that’s how I dress, that’s my compass for how I interact with others” then you’re getting all your security from your “sense of self,” and being able to understand what that is…which is just a fancy way of saying “I’m all about me. My own perspective informs everything I do.”

Anyway. Zootopia’s message was super true.

And the coolest thing about it is that if only Judy were in the wrong, and the other half of the dynamic duo, Nick, was this open-minded, un-prejudiced guy…and she just hurts him and has to apologize…the movie’s message wouldn’t be as well-communicated.

They have their prejudices and their hurt-from-being-prejudiced-against in common!

They’re the same…because they’ve both felt what it’s like to be treated like they’re not “the same.”

Nick isn’t the only character being mistreated and written off because of his species. The whole first half of the movie is about Judy being mistreated and written off. They think she can’t be a cop because she’s little and cute and a prey-animal. They think Nick can’t be trustworthy because he’s sneaky and small and a predator.

So literally…if Judy represented one race, and Nick represented a completely different race…the movie would be saying that both those races are discriminated against. They even have discrimination in common. AND, if Nick represented men who people make assumptions about because he’s a man, and Judy represented women who people make assumptions about because she’s a woman—the movie would be saying that both those genders are falsely judged.

I mean. Wow. Right now, your movie is either pro-woman or pro-man. Right now, your movie is either BLM or white-supremacy. Everybody’s lining up on one side of the line or the other. Zootopia says, “it doesn’t matter what character you’re looking at, from the elephant that can’t remember anything to the two main characters—every single one of them has fundamental things in common, and one of those things is that they all live like they’re in their own special category. When actually, they’re all fundamentally the same.”

I don’t want to keep beating the dead horse. But I have a post somewhere that lists every background character and points out that each animal is the exact opposite of what you would assume they are based on their animal-stereotype. The otters are never shown being playful or snuggly, only traumatized and ferocious. The cheetah is fat and slow, not quick or even quick on the uptake. Etc.

Even if you look outside of characters—look at the sets. Look at the environments. The whole city is designed “for animals, by animals.” But it’s in neat little segments. The animals organize themselves by habitat. Of course, in one sense that’s practical—the polar bears can’t live in Sahara Square, etc. but the point is, by making Judy and Nick, the main characters, small animals, in a city where everything is built to accommodate by species—UGH this is so good—they have to figure out how to problem-solve in situations that weren’t made to accommodate them.

Little Rodentia? Judy has to avoid stepping on all the mice or knocking over their buildings. Parking tickets? She has to figure out how to jump to reach bigger animals’ windshields—or she inconveniences smaller animals because the tickets are all printed at the exact same size. Stuck in a cell? The guards didn’t think about the fact that small animals can fit down the pipes made to accommodate big animals.

Zootopia is a city advertised to be where all the animals can come together. But the way they do that is by trying to accommodate every species’ preferences. So then actually while they try to come together, everything from their cars to their districts remind them of their differences. The whole idea is that they prioritize the wrong truths. Yeah, mice can’t drive giraffe cars—but they still have “driving” in common. See?

And oh my word. Initially it was supposed to be a spy story. But they changed it to a buddy cop story. Why? Well because justice doesn’t discriminate. Or at least, it’s not supposed to. So then there’s another lens to look at the story’s main theme through.

It’s just that every layer, every perspective you look at the movie from, is just hammering that truth into you: “Try to make the world a better place by realizing we’re fundamentally the same.”

2. Perfect Characters

Every character is so well-thought-through in this movie, even the side characters. You get the feeling you could watch a whole movie based on the side characters, because that’s the amount of love and nuance built into them.

Look at the main ones, though. Bellwhether is supposed to be soft and a follower. She’s a sheep. Instead, she’s hard and bitter—and she’s a leader. A villainous leader, but a leader, nonetheless. Even as she tries to keep animals divided based on fear of their stereotypes, she’s not fitting her own stereotype. Her voice actress has this strained, half-hoarse, but sweet voice. Like you can tell that this character has spent a lot of time under pressure and trying to manage appearances. Appearing like she’s fine, and she can handle it—until you realize that the appearance she’s really managing is “the cultural fear-based identify of the city.” They dress her in plaid and flowers and she’s a farm animal, because that’s the kind of character Judy would be most likely to trust. But she still has green eyes, and jagged teeth, so that when she does start making evil expressions there are some caricature-pieces in there that come out and accentuate that.

Nick Wilde—everybody’s favorite—is supposed to be sly and smooth and shifty. And he is. He’s a fox. But he’s also brave, helpful, and trustworthy. The first time you see him is when he’s dodging out of the way of a bigger animal ignoring him and about to run him over. Well, that’s important.

Because Judy knows what it’s like to have to get out of the way of larger animals, because they overlook her.

So right off the bat, this character she has to get along with and work with, this character who furthers her development and nails the main point, is introduced in a way that has something in common with her. But he’s also introduced in a way that gives her an opportunity to focus on a different truth—that he is different from her. Because the sheep is yelling that he’s a “fox.” Right away, we’re back to species-as-identification.

And that’s what the movie does, all the way through. It presents new animal characters, and with those new animals characters, more than one thing is true at a time. And Judy has to try to focus on which truth is more important. “Try to make the world a better place by realizing we’re all the same.” Yes, Nick is a criminal. But Nick is also brave, helpful, and eventually, becomes trustworthy.

Judy, too. Judy is an incredibly well-done character. Because she believes, in her head, that anyone can be anything—which is not what the movie ends on. In fact, she goes from saying, “anyone can be anything,” to saying, “we all have limitations.” It’s not true that a fox can be an elephant. But it is true that a fox can be trustworthy. Figure out what’s true, and try to make decisions for the better, based on that.

I could talk about character design and acting. Ginnifer Goodwin gives just the right amount of smugness and self-confidence to Judy without making her unlikeable—you don’t realize she’s smug and her self-confidence is misplaced until she does, when she fails to make the world a better place for Nick.

Judy wears tight, actionable, well-fitting uniforms for the whole movie. In her civilian clothes when she comes to Zootopia, she’s wearing athletic t-shirts and shorts. Ready for action, that’s Judy, even in her civvies. Meanwhile, Nick? Nick wears loose-fitting clothes. Loud, patterned clothes that don’t match. Like he didn’t even what, ladies and gentlemen? Like he didn’t even TRY. “Try to make the world a better place…”

Because when you meet Nick Wilde, he’s long since given up on trying, in life. So his character design reflects that. He rarely even stands up straight, or opens his eyes all the way—his default is drooping. And guess what?

When Judy “gives up?” Quits her job? Goes back home? Stops trying? Her civvies aren’t ready-for-action, trying clothes. They’re loose flannels. And her “ears are droopy.”

SERIOUSLY, you can find things like this in every corner of the movie. For every character. Not one character is a throwaway, not in voice acting, not in design, not in animation, and not in narrative.

3. Visual Appeal

Which leads me into this point—no other animated anthropomorphic animal movie is as visually appealing as Zootopia.

What Zootopia does is it matches the best of the best anthropomorphic animal designs from past Disney movies:

And they marry it with this incredible intentionality with modern CGI.

Did you know Disney invents its own software for things like fur textures?

The sheep’s wool, the velvet pig skin, the fox fur, the bunny fluff—it’s all completely different textures. There’s no one “fur” covering all the hairy mammals.

Nick isn’t just orange. He’s orange with deep red and dark tufts. Judy has black tips to her ears, too—which helps the two of them look like, in some sense, they belong “together” in every shot.

It’s so important to the movie that the animals feel like animals that they worked this hard to do this. And then that extends to the textures of the snow, the ice, the sand, the wet leaves, the grass, the fire.

Every character moves like their animal, and like themselves. Nick and Gideon are both foxes, but they don’t move similarly at all. Gideon is aggressive and glowering and physical. Nick, again, is slouchy, leans on everything, completely non-confrontational.

Other anthropomorphic animal movies like Sing or Puss in Boots—they’re not doing both as well. Zootopia is appealing, without sacrificing realism completely, and without cutting character acting.

The lighting. Nope. This post is too long, I can’t talk any more.

4. Earnestness

There is no disingenuous moment in this movie.

The animators are never lazy. They always go for the challenge. They don’t cut corners. Have you ever seen “Over the Hedge?” I like Over the Hedge. But I watched it recently and it’s crazy how many shots are strategically placed so that the animators don’t have to solve a certain effects problem.

For example, when RJ sprays Hammy with cool whip to make it look like he has rabies? He doesn’t. You never see the cool whip leave the can. It just cuts away, then cuts back when RJ is pulling the can away from his face. The shots are also cut so that you never have to see gas actually come out of Stella—and you never see Vern’s full body as he gets back into his shell, just the upper part of the shell as he wiggles it around, going through the motions of putting it back on.

That’s because that stuff would be painstaking to animate. Any time one character has to interact with props or substances (especially liquids) that are not part of their model, it’s harder on the animator.

Zootopia? We’re getting full-on views of characters getting wet, fur and all, characters touching various objects and elements, foam coming out of the mouth, new clothes, new set pieces, multiple models, huge crowd shots of different animals in different outfits, all with their own movement patterns and acting.

And all that hard work and effort, aimed so totally at the main theme of the movie? Making sure it looks as good as it can? Not just that, but the way it’s written, the acting, is so genuine. They don’t hold anything back. They don’t shy away from real emotion.

Judy Hopps’ apology scene is brutal. She’s crying, having a hard time finishing a sentence, her voice is all tight. It’s not pretty, it’s not romantic, it’s like…ugly crying. And her character is wrong in a super embarrassing way. They're not afraid to go there. The writers, the actors, the animators—they’re not afraid of being too vulnerable with these character flaws.

So many movies, especially kids’ movies today—they just pull up and shy away from being real through their characters. They think a quick sad facial expression will get the point across. And it does. The audience gets that the character feels sad about whatever the circumstance of the scene is. But not as powerfully. Because you didn’t put as much work and heart into it.

Zootopia is all heart, from work ethic to vulnerability to the filmmakers enjoying what they’re doing, enough to make it as good as it can possibly be. I can’t explain it better, other than to say, you feel like they would’ve been happy making this movie much much longer than it was. You feel like they’re cramming every bit of joy and passsion into every little joke, every side character, every hair on a CGI bear.

There you go. Long post, you did ask for it

[writingwithcolor]

Afro-Latine Jewish woman maintaining cultural connection in an isekai comic

Anonymous asked:

Hello! Mixed Latin American nonbinary Jew here. I'm working on a, relatively light-hearted, isekai-style fantasy comic concept of an afro-latine Jewish lady who gets sent through a portal to a colorful scifi/fantasy land, inhabitated by various imaginary creatures sorta like in Alice in Wonderland. She gains magic powers and goes on adventures, working as a scientist researching the land's magical energy. (some of the local creatures she befriends are entirely original species, and some are inspired by my local folklore, but otherwise I try to avoid culturally coding the creatures since they're mostly nonhuman looking). The story isn't supposed to touch any heavy topics like antisemitism or racism, but I've read about the cultural problems in ""normie protagonist finds a new home in a funky fantasy world"" stories, f.ex. how Harry Potter's narrative basically implies that Muggleborns have to abandon their original cultures in order to successfully integrate into the very prejudiced but ""cooler"" Wizarding World. My original goal was to break the mold that escapism fantasy usually revolves around white protagonists adventuring in heavily Western-inspired fantasy worlds, and poc-coded characters are usually nonhuman creatures or racial stereotypes. However the protagonist girl in my story comes from a loving, latine-jewish human family, and while she regularly visits them on Earth instead of just staying in the fantasy land 24/7, I'm afraid that making her story be about being happy adventuring in a separate imaginary land filled with nonhuman characters might turn into an ""abandon your family and culture"" narrative. Are there any ways how I could avoid this? Maybe making the fantasy land's worldbuilding and designs more Latin American or Jewish inspired and thus resonate more with her cultural background, or making it clear that the land is not ""perfect"" and she still loves her family?

One of the first things that stands out to me is that you haven’t set her up to need to abandon her culture in order to make a life in another place. She has the ability to go home and visit her family, but I also don’t see any reason why, if she lives primarily in the fantasy land, she couldn’t be portrayed as practicing Judaism actively in her new home. It’s true that Judaism isn’t solely defined by religious/cultural practices, but it’s also true that religious/cultural practices are one of the most recognizable and most uniting elements of Jewish identity.

I think it might help in this case to think about Jewish practices in terms of communal versus personal: that is, what are practices she would need to seek out a Jewish community for, and what are practices she can do independently?

Does she control when she is able to visit her family? If so, visiting for Jewish holidays so that she can be at a family meal or holiday services seems like a way to highlight that she is just as connected to her family as someone who moved to a different city might be. If she experiences/has experienced the death of a family member or partner, going home to be with a Jewish community for shiva or to say kaddish on a yahrzeit is another touch (for readers who may be unfamiliar, Jewish mourning practices are intensely communal and are intentional about bringing the mourner into an active support system and slowly reintroducing them to the world, and as such a mourner is likely to spend this time somewhere where they can access and be supported by a Jewish community).

As far as practices she can engage with on her own in the fantasy setting, it would be nice to see her observing Shabbat, either in a traditional way by refraining from adventuring and instead engaging in hospitality and prayer between dusk Friday and sundown Saturday, or in a less-halakhic way if she comes from a Reform or comparatively-assimilated background, by marking Friday sunset with candles, blessings, and a good meal, even if she is intending to continue her research through the next day. She would hardly be the first Jewish person to live in a place without an established Jewish community, and a festive meal can be shared just as happily with non-Jewish friends if they’re griffons and fauns as if they’re Christians and Muslims.

Here’s one idea that I think would be hugely meaningful as a way of establishing both that she intends to make her home long-term in Fantasy World and that she intends to carry Jewish traditions with her into her new life: hang a mezuzah.

Think about it: a mezuzah is the visual marker of a Jewish home, as much to the resident as to a guest. When she is home from her adventures, in her garden cottage or enchanted tower or wherever she returns to between adventures to record and categorize her research, simply showing a mezuzah in the background instantly makes the point both that she is intending to stay, and that this is a Jewish space. If as time goes on she adds other Judaica items to her space, it can add to the sense that her Jewishness is present and alive in this world, simply because she is present and alive in it.

If she doesn’t have a settled space or if you’re not planning on setting any scenes there, having Jewish visual markers on and around her can help, too. For low-hanging fruit, maybe she has a silver Jewish Star or chai necklace that catches the light now and then, but since you’re going for a light, fun vibe, maybe she’s packing her adventuring supplies in a bright-blue vinyl backpack emblazoned with “Temple Shaarei Tzedek Junior Youth Retreat 1998” (am I old? I’m pretty sure there are adults reading this who were in Junior Youth groups in 2003, but I’m willing to bet retreat swag hasn’t changed that much).

I do like the idea of including Latin American and Jewish elements in the worldbuilding, especially as an intentional way to combat the cultural dominance of Western European folklore over fantasy writing, but because your character is from and has access to our world, you have the beautiful opportunity to carry real-world markers of Jewishness with her as well.

-Meir

I adore Meir’s answer, but then, I’m the kind of person to whom “enchanted tower with a mezuzah” as an aesthetic is so near and dear to my heart that I wrote a whole fantasy series about it. Couple of random suggestions: one thing I really enjoy is exposing my gentile friends to Jewish food—I love watching the absolute shock of delirium hit someone’s face the first time they taste my charoseth. Imagine this little bowl of chopped apples and walnuts, looking vaguely dirty because they’re soaked in cinnamon-infused wine, so it’s basically dingy beige slop….so that first bite of sensuous, deep sweetness is a huge surprise. Pick your favorite equivalent and imagine the first time a centaur or a winged princess or whatever other fantasy character tries it at your MC’s behest! (Feeding brisket to dragons would make a great name for…something…)

I don’t think you’re likely to do this anyway but since these are public answers: “fantasy world fun, Jewish upbringing a chore” is a narrative I would not feel at home in or care to read. But that’s a rather predictable remark from me anyway ;)

And of course I support the “the secondary fantasy world is actually Jewish” solution too, having one of my own.

–Shira

[melverie]

OBEY ME MC & OC ASK GAME

an ask game specifically for your Obey Me MCs and OCs! List the OCs and MCs you want to get asks for and specify which species they are so people know which species-specific questions they can ask you Some questions have a lot of aspects to them; they're there to give you a little nudge in case you have no idea how to approach the question, but the only really important bit is the first question!

⸺ GENERAL INFO ⸺

01: What is their opinion on the other species? Would they rather be a different one? 02: Do they have a nickname? 03: When is their birthday? Do they celebrate it? Do they even remember it in the first place? 04: What kind of magic do they possess? If they can't use any, do they have magic potential slumbering within them? 05: Which deadly sin best aligns with them? Which one do they embody the least? 06: Have they been to other realms? Which one is their favorite and why? 07: What is their favorite place, and what do they love so much about it? 08: Do they have a kill count? How high is it? 09: Do they attend RAD? What is their role there? Their best subject/the one they teach? Club activties? If they don't attend RAD, what do they do? 10: What was there initial reaction to Diavolo's plans of uniting the three realms? Has their opinion changed? 11: Do they still have any objects from their childhood? What is their most vivid childhood memory? 12: What is something they have experienced that has shaped them into the person they are today?

⸺ RELATIONSHIPS & PERSONALITY ⸺

01: What's their relationship with...? [anon chooses at least one character for this one; MC is part of the cast if you're asking about OCs] 02: On a scale of 1 to 10, how annoying are they to Lucifer? :) 03: What is their family like? Do they have siblings? Pets? 04: What is a character trait that will immediately make them despise someone? On the flip side, how can you easily win their favor? 05: Do they openly show affection? What is their love language? [platonic or romantic] 06: Are they interested in romantic relationships? Do they have any experience? Are they proactive or would they rather be persued? 07: Would they date an immortal being if they aren't immortal themself, and vice-versa? 08: Are they easy to read or do they mask their intentions perfectly? Are they manipulative? A good liar maybe? What are their tells? 09: How is their temper? Are they quick to violence? Do they get frustrated easily? 10: Do they wear their emotions on their sleeve, or do they try to hide them from others as best as they can? Do they try to hide them from themself, too? 11: Do they cry often? What is the last thing they cried about? 12: What makes them soft? 13: What is their greatest wish? What would they be willing to sacrific to get it? 14: What is their biggest regret? 15: What is there biggest fear? Is there something they try to avoid at all cost? 16: How do they react when stressed? How does their behaviour differ when in a life or death situation? 17: What is a side of themself they don't want other to see? When does that side reveal itself?

⸺ CONCEPT AND DESIGN ⸺

01: How often do you think about them in a day? Be honest, I know they torment you in your thoughts as much as you torment them :) 02: What inspired you to create them, and what is the first thing you decided about them? 03: What is the biggest change you have made from their original concept? 04: What do they look like? Do you have a picture/picrew of what you envision them to look like? 05: Do they have any physical attributes that set them apart from others? 06: What is their clothing style? Do they put a lot of effort into their appearance? 07: How do you imagine their voice? Are they loud? 08: Anything you heavily associate with them? A color, a word, a picture, or something else? 09: Share some fluff headcanons about them! 10: How about some angst headcanons? >:) 11: Bonus: something else you really want to share about them that isn't mentioned on here ♡

⸺⸺ SPECIES-SPECIFIC QUESTIONS

⸺ ANGEL ⸺

01: What rank are they? [seraphim, cherubium, ophanim, ...] 02: How many wings do they have? Do they display them proudly, or do they try to hide them whenever possible? What kind of halo do they have? 03: Do they sometimes sneak out to visit the other realms? 04: Are they a guardian angel to someone? 05: Have they seen Michael in person and do they think he looks like a jellyfish? [the second part is mandatory, don't skip] 06: Did they know the brothers before they fell? Regardless of if they have or not, was is their opinion of them? And what do they think of fallen angels in general? 07: Did they fight in the Celestial War? What side were they on and why? 08: Have they ever questioned Father? What for? Were they punished for it? 09: How close are they to falling? If they are a fallen angel, what made them fall? 10: What is something they would willingly fall for?

⸺ DEMON ⸺

01: Wings or tail(s) in demon form? What do their horns look like? 02: Are they part of demon nobility or would they have taken the train back in the day? 03: Do they have any special abilities? [such as Mephisto's power to essentially forge pacts with demons, Lucifer's power to read and manipulate memories, and so on] 04: Are they a fallen angel? If so, do they regret falling? 05: Have they forged any pacts yet? How eager are they to do so, and do they forge them often? If they haven't, why not? 06: How would they go about forging pacts? Do they have a specific strategy they fall back on, or do they go with the flow? 07: How loyal are they to their human master? 08: Have they given anyone their grimoire? 09: What do they do with human souls? 10: Solomon shows up at their doorstep in the middle of the night to ask for a pact. How do they react? 11: What is their opinion of Diavolo as a ruler? Have they experienced the reign of any other demon kings? How does Diavolo compare in their opinion? 12: What was their reaction to the brothers first arrving in the Devildom? Were they scared of a potential war? Hostile toward them? Did they extend a helping hand? 13: If they attend RAD, were they chosen for the exchange program? Did they go to the Celestial Realm or the human realm?

⸺ HUMAN ⸺

01: How old are they? 02: Are they immortal? If given the opportunity, would they like to be? 03: Did they believe in demons and angels before the exchange program? Did they have any contact with the paranormal before it? 04: Do they have a guardian angel? Have they forged any pacts? 05: Are they into demons and/or angels? If they had to choose one or the other, which one would they go for? [trying to word this SFW but I'm sure you know what I mean :)] 06: Who do they trust more—angels or demons? Why? 07: Where do you think they would most likely end up in—heaven or hell? 08: Do they carry anything with them to protect themself from the paranormal? 09: How close were they to just bless the water inside a demon's body and turn it into holy water because they were just so done with them?

[bonbelles]

˗ˏˋ height difference ˎˊ˗

prompt: (again, from my own tiny brain that reflects my tiny self) you are small. they are not. here's how that would go.

content: gn!reader

characters included:

diluc

alhaitham

childe/tartaglia

neuvillette

would only make fun of you for it if you did something 'silly' in front of him, like trying to reach for something and failing.

otherwise he's not that bothered, and doesn't point it out to yourself or others.

if he sees you trying to reach something, he'll get it for you then just make a little comment:

like "were you ever going to ask me for help?"

"yes, shortly."

"but you always do everything shortly anyway"

you would then ignore him for a while, but he would not feel bad in the slightest. more so impressed at his improvisation skills.

but overall, he finds the height different endearing, and helps you whenever he can - you just learn to let the little comments slide every so often.

another one to help you if you need anything.

but more likely to make fun of you for it, or just make comments you hear all the time

"what's the weather like down there, anyway?"

and think he's original.

even if you tell him he is not.

he's also the type to watch you and just smile. he just finds everything so much cuter because you're so much shorter than he is.

like diluc, he doesn't really bring it up on the day to day.

but he just observes you, existing, and thinks it's sweet.

curling up under a blanket, he'll just watch your little legs dangle from the sofa (not self-inserting at all haha) and laugh to himself.

"what's so funny?"

"oh, nothing's funny. you're just amusing."

"but i didn't do anything."

"intentionally, dear."

now he's one to make fun of you for it

the type to use your head as an armrest while he's talking to someone

but he does it knowing you're okay with it

if ever you seemed uncomfortable he would stop.

he'll also tease you on a 'spur of the moment' basis.

you'll have a relatively normal evening, and he'll just say "sorry, repeat that"

you repeat it.

"sorry, didn't catch that"

"are you deaf?"

"no, you're just so far away."

he'd deal with a punch to the shoulder every time, but that added to his amusement. you weren't tall enough to hit the face comfortably.

"i'm up here"

"shut up and eat your soup"

like al-haitham, he's an observer

he will just watch you potter about and not really say a word.

he'll comment on his observations every once in a while.

"do you know you waddle when you walk?"

"waddle?"

"yes, akin to a penguin."

you then walk around the room, staring your body down to confirm his inspection.

"oh no, i do."

"it's not an 'oh no' situation. i actually find your waddling endearing, i don't know anyone else who does that."

if anyone else had told you that, you might have become insecure over it. however, neuvillette spent his evening discussing the adorable nature of penguins with you, and using the comparison to, in turn, to you as adorable also.

"penguins can actually communicate in a speech pattern similar to that of us and primates. they are supposedly the only animal to have a type of species-specific linguistic system..."

[padawansuggest]

Real take: I like Star Wars. I like the prequels because they have more fleshed out world building than the originals. I like the originals because it has a compelling storyline and character building. I like the cartoons because they do things that live action cannot. I like the children’s show Young Jedi Adventures and I think it’s both cute, extremely full of world building, and it’s designed to bring back the cartoon storyline of learning a lesson every episode that young children can relate to. I like the Mandalorian because it took a species with exactly two known people from it, and added a third, but made them a baby, and they were cute, and it shows the morals of Mandalorian adoption and love for children. I love Ahsoka because it took a favorite cartoon series and not only brought it to life, but also it’s funny and very full of world building for both the New Republic Rebellion scene, as well as more Dathomirian nightsister lore. I love a lot of other Star Wars off-shoots because they gave good storylines, they try to bridge plotholes, and a lot of amazing characters and new places to play with. I adore, fucking love, would give my life for Star Wars Visions; the lore and new concepts alone have captivated me and I can and HAVE made posts about things Visions did that no other SW series has touched and I’m so obsessed with the force and it’s aspects as well as just species and such you have no idea I would sell any of you for SW Visions. In fact, I would sell any of you for Young Jedi Adventures too. The worldbuilding alone for those two series is enough to have me vibrating with excitement with every episode. Sometimes I rewatch episodes of them just for random juicy facts that I can use for fics.

But you know why I don’t tell people I like Star Wars in real life? People always lookin at something they hate, and the most incel take on it is that it’s got too many women now. But irl non-fandom people who just want to ‘enjoy the ambiance of the original trilogy’ and me do not get along because they actually hate Star Wars. They genuinely hate Star Wars.

I can give you 50 plot lines in various sections of canon and legends that boiled my blood (tho not that one time Anakin at 12 literally boiled a man’s blood inside his body, that was hilarious his eyes turned black like a demons I’m so obsessed with him), but I’m not gonna talk about those.

Aren’t you exhausted? Wouldn’t it be nicer to gush about how amazing a certain costume design was? How the implications of a certain species makes you so excited you could burst? Wouldn’t you like to talk about how that one character just doesn’t get enough love and it wasn’t because they were fridged it was just because they didn’t get enough love from the fans for being black or female or disabled or something?

I am going to tell you this now, and you’re gonna hate me for it but I’m right: if you didn’t like Mortis because you think the force Doesn’t Work Like That? You don’t like Star Wars.

I’m tired of interacting with comments on commercials because it’s full of idiots crying about more women, a black character, the fact that ‘oh that wouldn’t happen’ as if the High Republic era didn’t literally have some sort of fucked up midichlorian vampire roaming the outer rim killing anyone force sensitive. Obviously they def would have acolytes set before the prequels shove it up your ass.

Anyways. Stop talking about what you hate. Yes, I get it. We are tired of rote pumped stories, but that doesn’t change the fact that there will ALWAYS be someone who hates the story you love, and loves the story you hate. You cannot please everyone, and I for one have found just about all off-shoot SW series individualized and compelling in some way or another.

You know what I did when I starting hating about 90% of all new Marvel movies? I stopped watching them. If I want back in the fandom I have older ones I can watch or simply only interact with fics.

Because Marvel, as much as they Need To Calm Their Shit, isn’t about me, and it isn’t for me anymore.

But I think a lot of you hate so much Star Wars content that you truly need to stop interacting with the series. It’s not for you anymore. And just because you didn’t like it doesn’t mean it’s not real SW. Not sorry, but this ain’t your scene anymore and you need to find a new one.

[amerricanartwork]

Quetzalli's Needle Felting Commissions: OPEN! (5/5 Slots)

That's right, after YEARS of wanting to do some needle felting commissions, I believe I'm finally ready to put this plan in motion!!

If you're interested, make sure to read the important info below, or you can message me for other details! I also may update this post as time goes, on, including adding more categories of figures.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

GENERAL INFO

My felted figures are made primarily using Maori wool batting and natural core wool, wrapped atop aluminum wire armatures that make them semi-poseable as well.

Right now, I'm most comfortable making animals (particularly mammals), but I'd be willing to try other creatures and humanoid figures to some degree.

I can make real animals of various species and breeds, including pets, and OCs, both completely original and fan-characters

My figures are typically stylized with a somewhat cartoon-y appearance, especially in the face. If you don't want your figure(s) to look this way, please let me know so we can discuss it. I'm open to making figures in other styles, such as a more realistic look or a chibi-esque style.

Unfortunately, I will only be shipping to the United States as of now.

Though the figures I've made so far range in size, in general, the minimum size is 3 inches tall (bottom of the feet to the top of the head, not including any ears/horns/hair/etc.) or long (the front of the face to the end of the thighs, not including any tail), and the maximum size is 8 inches tall or long. These constraints may change depending on the complexity of the figure(s).

Unless the figure(s) is based on a general species/breed and not a specific animal or character (ex: if you want a German shepherd, but not a personal pet or other specific German shepherd), make sure you can provide reference images from as many angles as possible for the subject(s) you'd like me to make, whether that be photos of a real-life pet, or drawn reference sheets and images of a character.

All transactions will be done via Etsy. I require 50% up front and 50% after the artwork is completed, which can be paid by purchasing corresponding listings on my Etsy shop.

I may not have all of the right wool colors for your subject. If the figure requires me to buy additional wool, the cost of the wool will be added to the total cost and it may take longer for me to make. In this instance, I'll let you know when the wool arrives.

I often make traditional blueprint sketches of my figures before starting. During the process, I may ask for confirmation on the blueprint to ensure I interpret the subject to your liking.

While my figures are somewhat durable and meant to be slightly posed, they are not toys, so avoid being rough with them after you receive them.

I may reject a commission offer for any reason.

Rain World-inspired commissions, unless explicitly agreed to before any payment, will be posted under the "project: rain wool" tag on this blog.

My prices are ultimately based on an hourly rate of $30. Anything on the subject that would require more time to make than the base prices, whether that be because it requires me to add more wool or because its features are more complex, will therefore increase the price.

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PRICES

The prices below are base rates for types of figures I already have experience with and examples of. For all figures, the prices may change based on the size and complexity of the figure.

Real-Life-Inspired Animals: $120 to $210

These figures will be animals inspired by real life species and breeds, including pets. While I can vary their size, the minimum size is 4 inches on the longest side (for quadruped animals, this is usually from the tip of the snout to the end of the thighs, not including the tail), and the maximum size is 8 inches on the longest side.

$120 is the base rate for a 4 inch figure, and $210 is the base rate for 8-inch figure, like those shown in the photos. The price may changed based on the complexity of the figure, such as one that requires more colors or has special features (antlers, horns, clothing, accessories, etc).

Rain World-Inspired Slugcats & Lizards: $90 Base per Slugcat, $120 Base per Lizard

These are figures inspired by Rain World's player characters: the slugcats, and a common type of creature in the game: lizards of various colors. The minimum size for a slugcat is 3 inches tall, from the bottom of their feet to the top of their head (not counting the ears), and the maximum size is 8 inches tall. The minimum size for a lizard is 3 inches long from the tip of the snout to the end of the back legs, and the maximum size is 8 inches long.

The base rates are for the respective minimum sizes, and will increase for larger figures. The base price also assumes only 2 colors for the figures (a body color and a "face" color for slugcats, and a body color and head color for lizards), with little to no special features besides perhaps simple scars. More intricate features, such as clothing, detailed markings, special appendages (like Rivulet's gills) or additional colors will cost more depending on the complexity of the additions. I can also make small props for these figures, such as spears and food items, at an extra cost.

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PROCESS

If you're interested in a felted figure, fill out this form so I can put you on a waiting list, which will start out at 5 slots for now.

Once I'm available, I'll contact the email you provide to discuss more information about what figure(s) you want, how long it will take to make the artwork, how much it will cost, and any other important details. I will also send you my Terms of Service document, and if you aren't comfortable with any of the terms, I'm willing to negotiate some details before payment. We must both agree, in writing, to the terms before I proceed.

Once the terms have been explicitly agreed to and the price established, I'll send you a listing on Etsy at the price of the first payment. Purchasing this will give you access to a digital file acting as a receipt for your commission. It will also contain the date I plan to start working on your commission, and up until this date you may request a refund.

From there, I will continue to email you update images of the figure(s), and may ask for some feedback before continuing.

Once the final artwork is done, I'll send you another Etsy listing at the remaining payment price with images of the finished figure(s), marked as "Commission for [Buyer Name]: [Figure Name(s)]". After purchasing this, you will be shipped the felted figure(s).

[tinydefector]

Hi Tiny! (First time I’ve asked to this blog, or any blog in general) Not really a request, feel free to not acknowledge this, these are simply some thoughts inspired by the Human effects series that I wanted to share with you!

For one, human doctors who are passionate about how the human body works finding cybertronian forums and trying to communicate info on how human bodies work like

- start of dialogue -

Ilovecatssupreme: no @/jewelsmoneygoldgalore(or whatever swindles username would be) that is NOT how the human body works!!

Don’t try (insert sex act here), you would KILL them!

And @/revuppowerup humans do NOT HAVE CLOACAS!! Guys please we aren’t birds we have two seperate holes

[insert fun fact about human anatomy that would probably scare the shit out of a cybertronian here]

- end of dialogue -

I just think it’d be hillarious to see a human doctor who is appalled going “guys, that’s not how that works!! It works like this-“ and proceeds to explain the human body and our parts

On a similar note, thought / scenario; a human doctor part of Y/n’s crew possibly being interested in learning more about cybertronian biology but not wanting to come off rude or overly personal with questions, especially with the cultural differences between the species they may not wanna ask things that come off weird or creepy, would possibly get along with brainstorm over wanting to know for research purposes!!

Another thought that comes to mind, cybertronians finding human forums with human monster fuckers goin: yeah sure I’d bang a cybertronian, some of their ambassadors are hot / Optimus prime kinda hot

It just seems funny, like I just imagine some people from different parts of the world like; “how do cybertronians flirt? I got this person who buys my supplies and i wanna get them to pay more” (swindle vs their supplier who can seduce who for more profit first/j I jest i jest)

But I think it’d be neat to see cybertronians figuring out that a portion of humanity is definitely interested and wants to know how to get with them safely(optional)

Also just me saying this, Nadia, mentioned on ‘Chaos on board’ is so far one of my favorite original(?) characters in the human effects series, I definitely wanna find out where her attempts at getting free drinks from swerve go

Either way loving the series so far! I can’t wait to see where it goes next, wether or not it continues considered,

Remember to take care of yourself, take breaks, the usual! <33

Oh the chaos that would insure. Both medical personnel from both sides having to sit down with their crew or people and go. " Please do not fuck/frag the cybertronian /human, we do not have the knowledge or resources to know if it's safe"

But also watching the scientists and medics working together to see what is actually possible and viable. Have to run fluid tests and samples to see if it's possible for a safe relationship between a human and cybertronian. But also the sheer shock when both sides find out that their 'equipment' is very similar.

And oh, the forums, there are so many. So are simple as just polls of 'would you frag a human?. Yes or no' then there's the secret polls shared between friends groups with a list of mech or human's to see who everyone seems to have a thing for.

It eventually leads to anonymous role play groups over fantasy, fanfiction sites, informational sites, and even rare hook up sites. Sharing information over their species. And God forbid when the hook up sites get around on both sides.

But can you imagine any medical staff getting a call for help and showing up to someone quarters to find a human and bot stuck together. Medics being baffled, shocked, impressed, horrified, and disappointed.

I'm planning on keeping human effects as the small series I've got going but if you guys want another spin off on it heading more in the horny direction I'm happy to make another. Probably call it Sites unknown or something like that.

Slowly working on the next part of human effects and I'm glad you guys like the crew had alot of fun writing them, and I might do a little spin off fic of Nadia and Swerve in the future in people really want it.

[aquarius-cookie-jar]

Right. I'mma just dump these ref sheets I made here because I'll be making some drawings with these guys, and I am bad at staying consistent within the design lmao.

I was inspired by these amazing designs, go check them out.

X || X || X.

Ramble down here, where I try to explain the ""lore"" and my design choices:

So as mentioned above, the majority of the Dark Cacao kingdom is actually composed of kirins, mainly because Cacao was already a kirin in my older designs, and I wanted more of his citizens to match him. Maybe I'll draw the other Cacao NPCs mlp-ified and what I headcanon their species to be.

I ultimately decided to give Cacao a mane and replace his long hair with that. Ngl, I was always on the fence about Cacao and Choco's designs, but yeah, I think the mane works better than just getting rid of it. (Old design below).

Btw, I dunno if I wanna give Cacao an actual crown, or just keep the additional horn things the leader of the kirins kinda have.

Dark Choco hasn't changed much, just in a different art style. I do however wanna say that he shaved off his mane out of shame and guilt for coming across the cursed sword not long after his banishment. Maybe when he and Cacao reconcile, he'll start to grow it out again, or maybe he'll keep it that way as a reminder of the past.

I actually drew (more like edited a screenshot) Caramel Arrow before, and she was originally just a pegasus, but honestly, the concept of hybrids and what they entail really intrigued me. I thought it would be fun if she were a hybrid kirin/pegasus.

Also, her horn doesn't exactly function, mainly because there's this headcanon I once came across a post that says faux alicorns do exist in the mlp canon. If you wanna know my full headcanon for this, feel free to shoot an ask, but to keep it short, for faux alicorns, either their wings are under developed, or their horn can't control the frequencies of magic that well or at all. Such is the case for Caramel Arrow. Though she has fully developed wings, she can't control magic with her horn, and if she tries to, it may cause a headache. But besides that, she's all fine and dandy.

Crunchy Chip, hm, I'd say when he was a little filly, he was found in the woods, either by Cacao, or Choco, and his horn was already broken by the time they came across him. When asked, the little guy said he was protecting the cream wolf pups from a monster, but he can't remember what else happened before he fell unconscious. As he grew older, his broken horn didn't really bother him anymore. He's adapted well, and picked up a thing or two about survival from his cream wolf pack.

Also, sidenote, the kirins' scales are actually very hard to dent, meaning their backs are usually safe from attacks. Crunchy once encountered... something when he was out on patrol, and he was out of commission for a week (to his incredible dismay + annoyance) because of how rare serious injuries to the kirins' backs occur.

Ah, Affogato. Actually, I really do like him as a character, I just tend to focus my attention towards the Celestia and Luna coded father-son duo a bit more. Oops. But anyway, I decided to make him a hybrid just like Carrow too, mainly to add both contrast and similarities between them. They're not too different, but their ideals and beliefs clash and cause conflict with one another, I just thought it was fitting. Also decided to give him a more elegant and curved horn design as a nod to his unicorn heritage. Unicorns in the Cacao kingdom (and maybe the Golden Cheese kingdom) have a curved horn, mainly because the east asian coded unicorns in the mlp canon have curved horns too, and I thought they looked beautiful. Affo is someone so elegant and refined in a land that's chaotic and holds danger everywhere.

And that's my unhinged thoughts for now. I think I'll design Licorice and the others next time, but no promises.

Anyway, thank you for reading.

[leelarots]

DECA STUFF

this is a master post about my au/fic canon for the deca. i will link this in my deca posts in future, so i don't feel like I have to explain stuff every time. thank you so much to this sub-fandom for making me feel so welcome!

current lineup:

6/10 drawn, design ages frozen at 18-25

to do: vansell, drax, mortimus, jelpax

basic info from left to right:

Magnus | 6'4 | Oakdown | hazel eyes, black hair

Ushas | 6'0 | [?] | 'black' eyes, dark brown hair [portrait]

Koschei | 5'7 | Oakdown | blue-grey eyes, black hair [portrait]

Theta | 5'8 | Lungbarrow | brown eyes, light brown hair [portrait]

Millennia | 5'3 | Brightshore | hazel eyes, blue hair

Rallon | 5'10 | Stillhaven | brown eyes, black hair

[other info on the fic(s) below cut]

current word count: 2.3k

the fic:

will be separated into different 'books', each focusing on a select few characters and one main plot each.

will have theta as a regular gallifreyan instead of half human or another species. however, it's worth noting that for the narrative, I am going to make all 'freyans have some human genes due to past inbreeding

(with luck!) will be partially illustrated

won't be an attempt at following the incredibly messy canon. godspeed to those who try.

won't be centred around thoschei. as much as I wish it was, writing worldbuilding for gallifrey and fleshing out other members of the deca is also enjoyable to write about

other notes on my worldbuilding:

at this point in time, time lord households do not refer to parents or siblings. the hierarchy goes from bottom to top cousins -> aunts/uncles -> granny/grampas -> kitriarch

theta may not be half human/the timeless child, but I aim to still make him 'adopted'. he knows who his father is, but his mother is not of rank, and left him as a baby outside of the lungbarrow household. the connection between him and braxtiel is that they were both left with a note in the same handwriting, addressed to their father.

koschei's 'hypnotic' nature and high telepathic ability is a rare genetic condition. most gallifreyans have a weak latent touch telepathy, trained up in the academy. hypnosis is a different story, but koschei can carry off a potent version of hypnotism without training. he is only in the academy because of his condition.

related to the above's last sentence, becoming a time lord is somewhat class locked due to the initial exam for joining the academy requiring training only supplied by expensive tutoring. if you are not born into a time lord family, it is very difficult to get in.

a main theme of the fics will be around the stagnation that occurs when people in power do not change. as the occupants of the high council live for so long, they have the ability to enforce only their beliefs/beliefs of a small bubble, refusing to move with the times or address changing circumstance.

looming has only just come into existence during the fic canon. none (or at least most) of the deca are not loomed.

'shobogans' are the occupants of the capitol's surrounding slums. this may change.

religion is banned/illegal, but I aim to portray that as being hypocritical—time lords started out as a religious sect. the cloisters are indeed remnants of the original religious building, buried underneath the capitol.

a large portion of gallifrey is not optimal for human-like life. the largest part of the planet's gallifreyan population is centred in the glass globe cities, such as arcadia or the capitol.

humans regularly trade with gallifrey, although the trade lines go: widespread human trade lines -> undocked spaceships around gallifrey -> permanent human settler-traders on the planet. it is not permitted for anyone to go to and from gallifrey freely without a specific, hard to obtain permit. time lords can obtain a permit more easily.

related to above, this is my reason as to why gallifrey has cats and other human items. some human plants and animals are considered invasive.

human-gallifreyan marriage is somewhat taboo. theta is commonly rumoured to be half human without basis because of his being 'different'. once again, the fact most gallifreyans are part human is to show that they are hypocritical.

I could go on, but I won't lol this is long

I am aware of how ambitious this project is. for that reason, I can never promise that the whole fic series will be completed. drawing and sharing my headcanons is enjoyable for me, though, as the deca is my current favourite thing. it's been years of me tinkering about with them in silence, I'm rather hoping I can find others who like my ideas.

my ao3 is soupsmog

want to know something specific? want to talk? pop me an ask, comment on my deca related posts, or join this academy era server, where I'm pretty active. dms are not really open because they make me anxious, sorry!

[magicalgirlfia]

Etymology for (almost) Every New Splatband Characters Name

———————————————

Front Roe:

—

—

All of their aliases are in reference to the meanings of their original names. Their numbers probably just represent the order they’re usually introduced in when referred to out of universe (with Murasaki being bumped up to 3)

—

001Ngt/001Nite - Ichiya (One night sushi)

—

002Wsb/002Wsbi - Namida (A type of wasabi used by sushi chefs)

—

003Soy/003Soss - Murasaki (A type of soy sauce)

—

004Clm/004Clam - We don’t know his real name but he sure is a clam.

———————————————

Damp Socks:

—

—

キズシ [Kizushi] - きずし [Kizushi] is a type of sushi in which a fish (usually a mackerel) is soaked in vinegar.

Vinny Mack - In reference to their Japanese name. Vinny(gar) Mack(erel).

—

明石さん [Akashi-san] - Akashi is a surname but is more likely in reference to 明石焼き [Akashiyaki], a dumpling is made of an egg batter and octopus dipped into dashi (a fish broth). “San” is an honorific that is equivalent to Mr/Mrs in English.

Garris - Garris alludes me. I’ve spent actual hours trying to figure out what the name is referring to and I can’t figure it out. Maybe I’m missing something obvious but until someone tells me what it is I will remain stumped.

—

アンドウヨウジ [Andō Yōji] - アンコウ[Ankō] is the Japanese name for anglerfish. ヨウジ [Yōji] is a common masculine Japanese given name.

Jhon Goose - Goosefish is another name for anglerfish. Jhon is a common masculine English given name.

———————————————

Yoko and the Gold Bazookas:

—

—

兵頭タオ [Hyoudou Tao] - Hyoudou is a Japanese surname which in this case seems to be a shortened version of ひょうもんだこ [hyoumondako], the Japanese name for the blue ringed octopus. “Tao” could be a reference to タコ [Tako], the Japanese word for octopus, but it could very well be referencing something else.

Tao Blu - Blu is in reference to them being a blue ringed octopus. See above for their given name.

—

Toxy - Derived from the word “toxic”.

Tosh - Most likely taken from their Japanese name.

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キタノ [Kitano] - “キタノクジャクイカ” [Kitanokujakuika] is the Japanese name for Taonius borealis, a species of glass squid which they seem to be based on.

Martin - This one I’m not sure about! The best I’ve got is the possibility their name is derived from the word “Martian” due to their alien-like appearance.

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トグロ [Toguro] - The toguro squid is a species of deep sea squid.

Jessika - A play on the name Jessica, replacing the “c” with a “k” to make “ika” (the Japanese word for squid).

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H2Whoa:

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SHIMA - シマダコ [Shima dako] is a species of (you guessed it) octopus, which shares a similar pattern of stripes to the character.

Lionel - The best I’ve got is that it COULD be a reference to how mimic octopuses (which have a similar stripe pattern to the characters tentacles) tend to mimic lionfish. That seems like a stretch to me too but it’s the only thing I could think of.

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NAGARE - Their appearance is based on ナガレハナ [Nagarehana] coral.

Cora - As seen above, they are a species of coral.

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I’m so tired. Hope this was an interesting read. Hate you forever Garris.