#I’m obsessed with this stuff rn. my niche

[skinks]

Discovery Channel “destination stores”

“An incredibly elaborate 'edutainment' concept, the first example was located in the Verizon (orig. MCI) Center in Washington, D.C. (1998). Featured a full-scale T-Rex cast in the lobby, and four-themed levels; but closed in 2001”

- evan collins (CARI researcher) - all credit to him for images

#design #edutainment #utopian scholastic #I’m obsessed with this stuff rn. my niche

[macabrecravings]

You want asks? I'LL GIVE YOU ASKS! QUESTIONS! A WHOLE SET! 1. What's your most niche dislike? 2. Last thing you googled? 3. Favorite colors? 4. Relationship status? 5. Favorite food? 6. Last thing you read? 7. Opinion on.. circuses? (That's all you get because I can only count to seven 😎)

YEAHHH THANK YOU ANON ……. haunty lore time *rubs my hands together*

1) This is such a good question…. unfortunately I cannot for the life of me think of anything I dislike rn niche or not

2) I just shut down my laptop so I have no idea what my search history has been for the past few hours since you sent this, here’s my phone history. Sydney. Sydney sydney sydney sy—

3) This is going to be so surprising… /s Black, Purple, & Red!!!!! In that order.

4) Single LOL. I need to work on myself and maturing more before I date anyone seriously ahshdjfnfjggkg 🙏🙏 I’m so chill with just having. “casual” homoerotic, borderline-obsessive friendships at this point in my life it’s my rite of passage amen

5) I am the least pickiest eater ever u could ask me what i dislike and that’d be easier. Anyway. Erm. Probably………. noodles. Nhdhdhfjf my go-to food for life.,,,, mac & cheese or smth w alfredo or

6) If we’re talking actual books, it was The Great Gatsby. If we’re talking fanfiction, it’s that one in my search history

7) AAA…… Circuses…. omg. Okay so I think IRL they are fucked up and a lot of the time their conditions for both animals and people are 👎 BUT. FICTIONALLY. i can never get enough.

I cannot tell u how deep i get into world building when it comes to circuses and carnivals and stuff omg They’re so fun I love making AUs and I’ve made so many original stories of them since I was a kid. Histories of circuses and “freak shows” are so wild (and fucked up) but i find it so interesting. On the other hand, I’m also. A certified clown fucker a lover of clowns in general eeee

How’d you think of such. good questions for me. Do i give off circus enjoyer vibes . A little whimsical guy perhaps ?

#to be fair the janitor rp was bc i was sending screenshots to a buddy #but yeah it’s. a lot of sydney always #haunting’s thoughts💋🖤

[spoopy-moose]

Nine people you’d like to get to know better!

Tagged by @herbgroom and @whyareweherereally thank uuuuu 😖

Last played: Ditto by Newjeans, they put some drug into that song seriously

Currently watching: I put it on like in the background now that I’m constantly drawing but the legend of Vox machina it honestly is very good and is convincing me to watch critical role

Currently reading: just started blood meridian by cormac mccarthy(I’m literally obsessed with this man’s books rn) and it’s…going. Also trying to finish Out by natsuo kirino which i unfortunately started at the start of the year

Current obsession: pathologic! I love my blorbos and my meow meows! And also I’m in this weird creative boom right now so I’d also say my current obsession is also drawing and stuff

Tagging:

@m0th-g0th0 @everlasting-evocation @erriga @miuzik-r @keki-desu @mariamegale @niche-hot-takes @tranquil-inferno @florentz

No pressure tho!

#tag game #my first time on tumblr dot com omg

[folkloriansolitairian]

blog intro!!

hi everyone! my name is ava and i am a highschool student who uses tumblr as a creative outlet and escape from the world kinda! i’m pretty introverted and shy irl so i use tumblr to just be myself behind the safety of a screen lol

a bit about me:

my pronouns are she/her and i identify as bisexual!

i’d say i’m pretty chill and i’d love to make some friends on here!

i really want to be a writer/journalist when i grow up so i sometimes like to post long essays basically with my opinions or sometimes even fictional stories i write!

i like to blog about: books, music, gay stuff, my writing and opinions, taylor swift, my current niche obsessions, or just random stuff!

my faves:

music artists: taylor swift, gracie abrams, beabadoobee, phoebe bridgers, lucy dacus, boygenius, clairo, girl in red, faye webster, harry styles, lizzy mcalpine (very queer hopeless romantic vibes lol)

albums: folklore, 1989 tv, red tv, evermore, the record, harry’s house, minor, good riddance, this is what it feels like

shows: not too huge on watching tv but i love heartstopper! (i’d love tv show recs?)

films: again not too big on films (short attention span lol) but i like IT chapters 1&2, chucky, rw&rb, and the little mermaid!

books: radio silence, solitaire, a good girls guide to murder series, they both die at the end, drama by raina telgemeier

characters: tori spring, charlie spring, tao xu, michael holden, aled last, pip fitz-amobi, cara ward

random facts: my favorite food is mac n cheese, favorite drink is root beer, favorite color is magenta, i collect vinyls, i really like candles, and i’m like so hyper-fixated on aquariums rn 🐠🪸🌊

if you’re seeing this please give a follow! i love you wherever you are <3

#introductory post

[lyrebirdswrites]

.doc

#wow not to toot my own horn but I’m literally so obsessed with the r&j au #this is not a negative tags rant like genuinely I think this fic is gonna be really good #somehow! the inspiration is flowing for this one! I’ve written more for r&j than I have for anything else in weeks #it’s also shaping up to be a rather long oneshot #I’m like 4k words in and megumi literally has not shown up yet #more stuff needs to happen before he even makes an appearance #but despite the fact that it is long and niche and not as good as it can be yet #I’m just like. happy to be writing again. #regardless of the quality of the prose which tbh probably still needs work I’m basking the joy of creation rn #and the joy of research!!! #I literally had such a grin on my face when I was picking out books on shakespeare from the library #anyway I just wanted to tell about it somewhere bc the r&j au occupies all my thoughts and I’m real proud of how it’s turning out :> #why is a raven like a writing desk

[atlaese]

✨AO3 Tag Game✨

tagged by: @pastafossa​! I- what!! when i saw this notif i think my heart stopped. like. i did not realize you knew i existed i am such a big fan of your work!! i read the whole of TRT in like... a week when i should have been studying (i am hardcore fangirling rn!!)

1. How many works do you have on AO3? right now i have 9 works on there! i only made an account last month and decided to publish some of my beloved fics on there too!

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 35.777 sksks, it's not much but it's something! i'm still working on a few things (bucky stuff and matt stuff) so we might see an increase soon!

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? okay so i'll do the ao3 version, but like on tumblr there's a different top 5?? so interesting!! these are all bucky fics, except for the last one - thats a spencer reid fic!

loving dawn as certainty of sunrise

kill with kindness

wasteland, baby!

black holes

liability

more under the cut bc i don't wanna clog the dash

5. Do you respond to comments, why or why not? yes!!! omg i love responding to comments! i honestly don't get many, but the ones i do get warm my heart so much!! its just so nice to see someone who read your stuff give a short comment why they liked it and idk its so nice to hear and everyone who has ever commented has my heart!!

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

i think homesick at space camp? that is just angst from beginning to end lmao! but i wrote a fluffy part two to it, so i don't know if it counts, but yeah, that one!

7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what’s the craziest one you’ve ever written?

ooh, i actually haven't and i haven't even thought about that! maybe one day, but i feel like my writing skills aren't good enough yet to write more than one complex character in a fic with like... a good plot lmao.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

not yet! my stuff also isn't good enough to receive hate so thats like a plus too lmao we love the duality

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

i tried to write smut once. it was a part two to the pool tables have turned. i had horny thots that night. i published it. then i went to bed. i woke up 8 hours later and it had decent exposure? i reread it. i cringed. and then i deleted it. yes, that was the saga of me writing smut, deleting it and thinking i should never do it again, haha! so atm i don't write explicit smut, but i do like some allusions to it, hehe.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

maybe in my wattpad days? also yes, i recently came across a site that all of the published wattpad stories copied onto it, my old stories to (from like 2014!!) so yes, my unfinished, downright horrible 5sos fics are also on that site :)

11. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

yes, i think in my wattpad days! i honestly cannot remember what it was about or what happened, but i did! recently i haven't! i might be open to it though!

12. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

me x fictional character because i am lonely lmao. no um. super niche but there was this book series called the chemical garden and i liked the main characters relationship with gabriel. i think it was rhine x gabriel. yeah, i liked those two together! i like most canon ships ngl so this one was the first that came to mind.

13. What are your thoughts about writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

depends on the execution honestly! i like little words here and there, sometimes a full sentence if i can deduce whatever is said through context, but when there's full on another language with translations at the end of a fic, i'm less inclined to read it! (most of the time i can understand what is said though! bless me and my obsession with languages!)

13. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

okay. this is hard. i am a little embarassed. so i wrote for 1D first BUT i was never a fan? i was a little capitalist back in my wattpad days and i saw those stories got way more likes and reads than original work? so i was like, lemme use these men to my advantage. i also was too lazy to make a complex character of my own. so yes, 1D, then 5SOS.

14. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

hmmm, difficult! black holes is one i adore, just because i put so much of myself in it. but then i also love my short matt fics, and i also really like this one from fatws... so i think those! they're also so different so egjzrgr

no pressure tags💞: @therootsinmydreamlands @belowva @imaginearyparties

#tag game ! #bestie when i tell you i screamed #this actually kinda made my day??? #our lord and saviour pasta from the matt murdock church tagged lil old me???? #i freaked!!

[viir-tanadhal]

thanks for tagging me tiffany @loiteringdiligently! these were really interesting questions (and oop tagging @clavelbemelmans because you just tagged me in yours too kaldjfa)

who was your first favorite artist?

it has to be hannah montana/miley cyrus lol i was that kid. i recently removed my hannah montana cds from my old cd holder and was surprised how many i owned of her albums

who are your current favorites? 

pet shop boys, new order, electronic, and omd (so diverse, so eclectic /s)

are you into musicals? which ones/why not? 

i’m not really into musicals, not out of any hatred of them, but i never really had a musicals phase. but i was in the periphery of the musical/theater kids in high school and the drama surrounding those was definitely wild and all i really think about with musicals and that period of time lol

are there songs you consider so special you only listen to them very rarely? 

no but i do have some that really touch me but i don’t go out of my way to avoid them or listen to them only rarely specifically. i consider Being Boring to be one of them, and although listening to it makes me sad, i don’t actively avoid listening to it.

what’s your preferred way of listening to music? (time of day, medium, situation) 

i listen to music while walking to class or work for something to focus on and generally when i’m back in my room and on my laptop in the afternoon/evening. since i got a portable cd player, i’ve also recently laid in bed and listened to some of the cds i’ve recently bought to listen to for the first time! otherwise i listen on spotify on my laptop. when i’m home and not in my college town, i listen to cds in my car but otherwise don’t listen to music out loud.

what would you say is the most niche music you listen to? 

i don’t listen to anything particularly niche or underground but idk does the dragon age soundtrack count lol. it’s not really niche but probably would be if you don’t play the games

what’s your favourite music related movie/tv show that’s not a musical? 

i’m sure i’ve watched one that fits this but i really can’t think of any :/

albums or playlists? 

albums if it’s one i like most of the songs on otherwise i stick songs i like into a playlist or pick off of my spotify likes

favourite albums? 

behaviour by pet shop boys, crush by omd, technique and republic by new order, violator by depeche mode, the innocents by erasure, disintegration by the cure

is there an artist you’re trying to get into? 

i just finished listening to some new order albums i haven’t heard yet (movement, low-life, brotherhood, and get ready) and will probably listen to their last few recent albums i have left. i’ve been thinking of giving duran duran’s stuff a listen too since i haven’t listened to a full album by them

whose music do you find overhyped? 

(maybe depeche mode’s stuff just a little bit but it’s just because i don’t get the full-blown obsession with them but i don’t know much outside of some singles and violator--which i liked--so maybe i’ll change my mind but you didn’t hear this from me)

what’s an underrated song? 

sister of mercy by thompson twins (particularly the single version). i just love it a lot i don’t know why

what’s a thing a bunch of songs do that you love every time? 

when they build-up at the start and then deconstruct until they are at the bare form again at the end. also when there’s a really good combination of synths and strings that sounds really good or a repeating synthline. also songs bleeding into one another on albums!!

what song is better acoustic? 

i wouldn’t say better but i love the acoustic versions of rent by pet shop boys

what’s the worst song of all time? 

a worst song for me is cars by gary numan. i’m sorry i just can’t stand his voice on it even tho i really like certain parts of the song i just can’t Do It. probably some recent stuff too i can’t think of rn

do you put individual songs on repeat? if so, for how long and how often?

yes, sometimes i’ll listen to a song for the first time or the first time after a while and my brain will just latch onto it and i’ll listen to it literally 20x in a row. how often just depends if i’m in the mood to listen to only one song a lot

do you make your own playlists? if so, what’s your most entertaining playlist title? 

i’m also bad at making playlist titles and playlists in general and usually just make playlists of the songs i like by a particular artist (tho with psb i have multiple themed ones). i know everybody likes “neil tennant said is anyone going to sing this yearningly?” and “socio-political commentary in my pet shop boys song? it’s more likely than you think”

headphones or earbuds? 

earbuds

do you always sing the lead vocal or do you harmonize sometimes? if you harmonize, do you ever invent your own harmony? 

lead i guess?

a musical confession? 

i never listened to full albums until 2020, otherwise i just listened to individual songs i knew i liked or that stood out to me because of the title

#sarah's shenanigans #i too am bad at playlists tiffany

[spectrumscribe]

look i know its cringe but if you get the chance you should try watching the lego ninjago series. i stared w/ the movie which is different from the show but its all great. its like, its got fun plots and interesting character relationships and the main characters actually like each other and are friends, and the world is so much fun. i feel like, based on your relationship with tmnt 2012, youd get a lot out of it. and YES its cringe but like, in the fun, hammy way, not the exhausting way

Joke’s on you anon IVE ALREADY STARTED WATCHING NINJAGO HAHA

for real tho I have actually been (extremely slowly) working through the LEGO ninjas cartoon lmao, I’m somewhere in the start of s2 but haven’t had time to keep up a steady binge w/ so many irl things happening + my fall anime picks updating every week. You are absolutely right in that I would love the cringe of this series, shout out to you nonny for knowing my exact taste in niche cartoon obsession✨✨

I’ve been spoiled for a lotta stuff in the series but someday.... I hope to be caught up......... also fave characters rn are Zane & Cole. They are good boys. I will someday talk about this series but that is not today.

#ask the writer #i followed it casually when I was younger + it was on tv #didn’t see anything past the first handful of eps #only recently got back into it bc an artist I follow for duck tales/tmnt got Really into it and did stuff for s11 angst #and y’all know how much I love my angst #so long story short the Implications of a fucked up situation in a kids cartoon yet again got my goat

[pepperf]

2020 Creator Wrap

Favourite Works

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 (or so) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works.

I was tagged by the frabjous @annieaceofhearts, who made this absolutely spot-on Community 2020 calendar post that you should go check out rn, I’ll wait.

Right??? I particularly loved “So this is the year we all die” bc talk about the mood for March pt 1.

Tagging @annerbhp, @geneeste, @delicatelie89, @joracwyn... oh cripes, who else wrote fic in 2020? I don’t remember past last week. Consider yourself tagged if you wanna do this.

Okay, onto my stuff...

I was honestly surprised to get anything written in 2020, never mind an entire October’s worth of ficlets. I don’t know what stars aligned to let that happen but I did appreciate it, otherwise this would be a terribly sparse post. In fact, looking at my AO3 list, prior to October, I hadn’t posted anything since December 2017, yikes. All credit for that long hiatus goes to my soul-draining previous job and my doomed obsession with The 100 (which for whatever reason I found almost completely unwritable). 

But fortunately I found a fandom and a prompt challenge this year that got me writing. Everything on this list is from those halcyon days of October - because I wrote nothing the rest of the year - all based on whump prompts, and all about Diego from The Umbrella Academy. In reverse order, because that’s always more exciting:

5. Nothing Good Starts In A Getaway Car: A mostly dialogue fic, all just for the sheer joy of writing the siblings bickering, seasoned with some worrying about Diego (who is, lbr, kind of a woobie). 

4. That Renfaire Life: Historical puns! Costumes! Time travel! Niche historical facts! Outright lies! Lila meets Diego’s robot mum! I really crammed a lot into this one - I just wanted them to really make use of time travel, and also to put Diego in a codpiece and Lila in fancy velvet, and for them to have an in-person ‘I love you’.

3: Box Of Rocks: Because I think I’m funny. What can I say, I just like it when Diego is being a spectacular dumbass, and Lila is yelling at him for being a dumbass while also saving his life. Also, snuggling for warmth.

2. Comin’ Home Baby: Not because I wanted to write the Umbrella Academy people with kids, but because I thought they’d be terrible with them and that was hilarious to me. I now have a whole AU in my head for this, where they basically do the Xavier Academy for Gifted Children thing, only... well, they’re trying their best, and they should get points for that.  

1. Wicked Games / My Girl Is A Heartbreak (look, it’s really a two-part fic, it’s not cheating): Because once I got an image in my head of Lila as Catwoman to Diego’s Walmart Batman, it would not let me go. So much so that I even commissioned artwork (a spectacular decision, 10000/10).

So, that's me. I hopefully will get some more writing done next year, in less of a manic fashion, but let’s not jinx it.

#mememe #fic year in review: 2020 #fic by pepper #tua #the umbrella academy #diego hargreeves

[mazitdynasty]

I present to you, the most niche thing I’ve ever created in my life: Dragon Quest 11 + World Trigger crossover AU!

My roommate @scribbleses and I have been playing a lot of DQ11 recently and I have also gotten back into being obsessively fascinated by World Trigger because it’s quarantine and I need somewhere to direct all my energy. The combination of these two things being in my brain at the same time + some goading from Scribbleses has led to the creation of this AU, which I have proceeded to put a weirdly large amount of time into! So enjoy!

Unfortunately the master file that I had all of these drawings in got corrupted and I lost most of the originals so I only have screenshots of everything, but good enough.

If you’re interested in the specifics of who does what and why I gave them the weapons that they have, there’s (a lot) more under the cut!

--

So teams in World Trigger are usually only 3-4 people and the party in Dragon Quest 11 is a bit too big for that so I split them up. 

The main team is Luminary Unit, a B-Rank team comprised of the Hero (I call him Sachiel in this because that’s what my roommate named him in our playthrough), Erik, Veronica, and Serena. Veronica and Serena are slightly more seasoned agents, who were already in B-Rank on their own and then attached themselves to the Hero and Erik’s team after they rose through the ranks. I designed their uniforms based on the Hero’s jacket, and the X’s on the front are a reference to Veronica and Serena’s dresses, with some little individual variations thrown in to keep it interesting (I do think that Erik has gloves like some of the other WT characters but I didn’t save a gloved version of this out before my file got corrupted so whoops!). The Hero and Erik are attackers, Veronica is a gunner, and Serena is defense. 

I gave the Hero and Erik weapons that kind of mimic the ones that they have in game. The Hero uses kogetsu because it’s a sword and that’s pretty much the only justification. Erik uses scorpion because I think that being able to produce blades from anywhere on his body would probably be useful for him, and also the World Trigger wiki described it as being “for crafty users” and I thought that sounded appropriate.

Veronica uses pretty much all the trion cube triggers. She probably has a pretty decent amount of trion so she has the firepower to take people down pretty swiftly. The cube bullets look the most magical out of all the main WT weapons imo so that’s why she has that.

Serena was really tricky; there isn’t really any equivalent for healer in WT because obviously the combat system doesn’t require it, and so I decided to put her in as defense instead since that’s also her area. She has Raygust in the pictures above, but I figured that she probably also has escudo and some other bonus shield triggers that make her really defense + shield heavy.

The Hero’s also the captain of their team. We head-canon him as nonverbal for the most part so I’m not sure exactly how that works with him giving orders and stuff but there’s so much weird tech shit in WT that I’m sure I could come up with a solution if I thought hard enough about it.

--

Jade and Sylvando are older, A-Rank agents who are probably part of separate A-Rank teams, but they end up meeting and becoming friendly with Luminary Unit through various circumstances. Kind of a mentors + sparing partners type situation. Jade is an attacker, Sylvando is a gunner.

Jade just has a spear. Idk, she has one in the game art, and I know that spear triggers exist so I gave her one. I don’t know a whole lot about those, to be honest but there’s so much going on with the WT weapons that I’m sure there’s something that exists that would cover what she has. That being said, I think she’d also do good with scorpion since she does a lot of kicking and martial arts stuff in game and scorpion could supplement that!

Sylvando gets viper! I originally gave him a sword like the Hero but then I realized that viper and the trion cube shots in general are a lot more showy and fancy looking and that’d be up his alley. I’m sure if he wanted to he could use both. I had a really cool drawing that I was working on of him using viper that was in my file that got corrupted and is now lost forever, so let’s all mourn for that.

--

Rab is also in this AU in theory? But I didn’t have a chance to draw him before my file got lost (RIP) and I’m taking a slight break from drawing digitally rn. Regardless, I thought it’d be fun if he was an operator since sometimes he seems to play a similar observational role for Jade in the game. And I also desperately want to draw a version of the operator uniform that has pants.

You can have a shitton of different weapons in World Trigger and so they all have other options on their triggers that they use based on the situation I’m sure, but I don’t have the energy to figure all that out so I just gave them some “main” ones when I made this.

Anyways, there you have it! If you happen to read all of this hey very cool thanks for being interested in my ramblings! I’m not an expert on either of these series of course I just had a fun time thinking all of this through because the combat system in World Trigger is just really interesting and DQ11 has a really fun cast of characters.

#dragon quest 11 #world trigger #Dragon Quest XI #dq 11 spoilers #Art Stuff #DQ WT Crossover #anyways this is first on the list of things only I have probably ever thought of #I cannot possibly describe all the weapons and stuff in detail because it is Simply Too Much so if this is confusing to people that aren't #deeply entrenched in world trigger lore I am Very Sorry lol #Digital #Fanart

[mikeshanlon]

iwwv anon and PHEW OK. I def did not expect that essay and now I feel bad cause I KNOW my thots r not gonna be articulate or right. nonetheless! i think Oliver does qualify as an unreliable narrator cause hes. very oblivious but not like... Richard papen (who is a whole ass clown don't get me started on tsh) but not like addy from dare me(I will support till the day I die that dare me is da like I WILL die on this hill) who sees what she wants to see. 1/?

i think he just... thinks that his friends r diff ppl than they actually r? that doesnt rly make sense but yea. what I mean is that everything the characters do is coated in that empathetic view Oliver has which is usually wrong? so we don't get an objective look into the characters. meredith is my girl like I love the hot popular girl trope deconstruction but at the end of the book she's not at a great place like she's w someone that doesn't love her like she needs to be loved... 2/

I guess the most probable ending is that James never meets Oliver again and that everyone is kinda stuck on what happened but that's soo sad and I really don't want to think abt it. ngl iwwv wasn't like my fave book ever and I really don't understand why people are so obsessed with dark academia sometimes but what i rly liked abt the book is that despite how fucked up everyone is and how toxic they r to each other they do at heart care abt one another...3/

like I rly liked that esp cause at that point the only other da book (other than dare me!) that I had read was tsh and godd every character is so fuckinh annoying and they all hate each other. i was super confused by it till I saw someone saying that it's satire and I felt my mind explode. I feel like this is so long but I didnt rly properly answer all you wrote sorry! I think its a pretty good book tho it has some crazy quotes like hold awn Im gonna look at the highlighted stuff on my copy.. 4/

Were you in love with him?” “Yes,” [...]Yes, I was.” It’s not the whole truth. The whole truth is, I’m in love with him still. LIKEEE PHEWW OK OK OK. WE OUT HERE. that line literally made me go crazy. I'm so sorry for any spelling mistakes or like general mistakes I made here English isn't my first language, it's 1am and I wrote this in the notes app w/o looking it over. so like.. NOT a professional review lemme tell you. 5/5

 Ahh im so sorry I did not see this before I yeeted for a month!!!

Oooh okay first of all dare me as a DA… I’ve only watched the show but like yeah I see the Elements for sure.

Also yeah I can understand what you mean abt Oliver being an unreliable narrator now… Ig my view of unreliable was more like they are purposefully twisting the truth or omitting facts or just literally don’t know shit but I get how personal bias can make the narrator unreliable. I do think the assertion that Oliver thinks his friends are different than they actually are makes sense. He sees James in a very positive light and though I like James a lot and think he is better than, like, Richard, he definitely has darker moments and manipulates Oliver at times (again I’d like to think it’s not the most nefarious thing in the world but like him just being shitty bc he’s in a dark place and he one, wants to do anything he can so Oliver doesn’t figure out he fought Richard so Oliver still thinks of him the same way/bc he knows Oliver would do something stupid like get himself arrested for James; and two, is very jealous that Oliver is with Meredith after Richard dies and has sort of a somewhat positive outcome from Richard’s death versus James being riddled with guilt and anger). And yeah, the probable ending is they never meet but I refuse to acknowledge that so LGNRG. Also that line makes me go CRAZZZZZZZZZZY!!! There are so many great lines, both using Shakespeare and on their own and its like okay give me a moment im going bonkers…

Personally, I haven’t read that many dark academia novels yet (bc for some reason i can barely finish a book rn sigh) but the concept interests me. I think what’s compelling is the setting/atmosphere of like ~mysterious college vibes~, and the idea of a sort of niche, obsessive bond and pursuit of knowledge with a tight knit group of friends (and the like inherent homoeroticism in every single DA elrngenrg). Like Dead Poet’s Society (the film I haven’t read the book) isn’t Dark in the same way most other dark academia is by like, obsession and death and manipulation (though of course there are dark elements with Neil’s storyline), but I think the other building blocks of academia are present there in a more wholesome way and you can see why people are drawn to that idea. As for the more Dark aspects I think it’s interesting to analyze things like group psyche, obsession, manipulation, etc, like what went wrong for everything to take such a dark turn???

 But, like everything else, it really has to be done well or else its just like okay….… I’ve tried to read TSH twice and I may try again but from the 100+ ish pages I read I totally get what you mean. IWWV is so interesting to me bc the characters are all very compelling and multifaceted and I like that they are a close friendship, we come in after 4 years of them spending all the time together and to me that is apparent. Like you said, we can see fissures and problems especially as the novel continues but there is care there between them. That also makes the decision to let Richard die much more interesting and sinister imo, as well as how all of them interact with each other after he dies, and how the roles of the group change without their “leader” so to speak. Also, maybe it’s just bc I like Shakespeare, but I think the academia part of IWWV is so much more accessible compared to TSH. Like I don’t know every Shakespeare play or anything so I didn’t understand every nuance or was like immediately like oh this is from Cymbeline or whatever the fuck, but you could understand the gist of things and it made sense that they spoke in Shakespeare lines bc that’s all they’ve been doing for four years and also theatre kids are Like That. Their pretention also provided any Layers to the story, like the parallels between the characters they play and their own arcs, how some of the lines echoed their own thots, foreshadowed, or they were able to say things through Shakespeare (I’m thinking of like, Oliver realized he loved James during Romeo and Juliet, the foreshadowing that James was going to ruin Richard’s life and that he dislikes Meredith/Richard when he quotes Mercutio at the start “A plague o’ both your houses”, the exchange Oliver and James had onstage and had that kiss during King Lear before Oliver was arrested,etc.) (Also I think the structure of some of the dialogue being formatted like a play really helped make it feel more realistic and immersive). Versus TSH which is just so pedantic and dense and hard to follow at times im like I get they are smart but what??? And maybe that’s part of the satire aspect (or maybe im dumb) but like donna I read TGF I know you are pretentious and info dump abt random obscure shit anyways so erglknerg. Like to me there was a Point to all of the academic Shakespeare stuff in IWWV and it was the soul of the book, and M.L. Rio made it very interesting—like the way that the directors reimagined the plays and had Julius Caesar be like a modern political play, the cool mirror shit in King Lear, the Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet performances where they did them at events and interacted with their environments (which were one of my favorite parts of the books bc I just think that concept is so interesting), etc. For TSH the shit they did literally just felt like “okay look at them they’re smart see you can’t even keep up!” like okay… I felt lost a lot and only like snapped into reality whenever Henry (?) was like oh… murder….. and even then I was like idk what this dude is saying but like he’s being darksided LMAO. And I also agree that it’s just like… Richard being thrown in the middle of this group could lend itself to some cool ideas but its hard to believe that he fits into the friendship group and hes just like hell yeah I love Greek so much and lets go kill this guy other than like okay ur gay and stupid and just want to impress Henry or whatever his name was (which he was but I digress). It’s just not as impactful to me as this close friend group falling apart. Ik TSH fans might be angry if they see this (and of course I haven’t finished the book so my perception may be warped but I also kno many ppl felt that way u did) bc I’ve seen ppl say IWWV is just like TSH but “lackluster” or whatever and while I can see some parallels (mostly b/w Richard and Henry and Alexander and Francis), I really think M.L. Rio expanded upon common DA tropes and the interesting parts of TSH but made it her own and interesting and oh yeah there are actually multiple compelling female characters and LGBT characters (and no incest)!!!

#if we were villians #books #also literally dont apologize for any mistakes or going bonkers like i have no problem n i understood what u meant anyways LMAO #anon #ask

[cinnbar-bun]

@angel-of-requiem said: 

“Despite the stigma towards OCs and self-inserts, I adore these kinds of character. Especially in the Granblue Fantasy fandom. And SI's, despite being based off the author, often take on a life of their own. I am curious about Luna's backstory on this and how she won over Lucilius of all people. Because my headcanon is that if he could, he would marry science. But yeah... I am curious about how they got together now.“ 

“Also regarding OCs and SI's there are definutely people who do not like those characters but it DOES have it's own niche so there are definitely people out there who would read your story”

Def agree with what you say, and I say this with 10000% honesty if I was basing this off of actual canon Lucilius would never really pay any mind to her. Since most of Lucilius’ history isn’t ever mentioned, as is some of the other things about Astral lore, I just decided to make my own because I can. I kinda made her originally because I love Lucy so much and I was hooked on the concept of opposites attracting (BECAUSE THATS MY ISHHHH)

What I have at the moment for Luna is that she was a primal created by an Astral named Sol. This part I keep tweaking a bit, but she was created as basically an opposite of Sol, to watch and protect his children. Lemme find what I put in that doc because holy heck I’m big dumb rn... also putting this under a read more so others arent too bothered by it.

Edit: OKAY FOUND IT. Anyways most of the canon for GBF is a bit skewed because this was made in a discord with me and my friends, so it’s a bit different than it would normally be. 

But yeah, Sol is a bit of a *cough* GARBAGE DUMP *cough* and continuously has kids with all the women he meets. Because he’s a garbage dad, and he’s too busy and doesn’t have the energy to actually care about people, he created Luna as a way to basically be the opposite of him and take care of his kiddos. 

He was a pretty powerful Astral, even on the High Council, and worked on many different primals during his lifetime. During that time (thanks to a pic on Twitter that my friends shared that made me hhhh and add this in) Lucilius was just beginning to make a name for himself for being a prodigy in the Astral world and kinda became an ‘assistant’ to Sol. So him and Luna met up quite a bit. 

This is where stuff happens because Lucy has no life skills whatsoever and really is obsessed with becoming respected, so when he visits and Luna is offering to cook and stuff he kinda just...softens up. The two hang out once in a while before they pine a bit. But Sol is a jerk and when he finds out Luna likes Lucilius, gets angry that Luna would ever dare leave him, when he created her specifically to help his family only. 

Luna is torn between her family and following her heart, but when Sol dies during a battle between the Astrals and the humans, the kids scramble for inheritance and power. All the work she’s done has been destroyed. Sol’s kids threaten, murder, and steal from one another, leaving Sol’s name an even bigger mystery later in life, as well as the research he’s done. Luna and Lucilius had been separated at that time to deal with their own issues and conflicts, before Lucifer is eventually created.  

This part absolutely does not happen in canon, but because I can, and I love it, Lucifer is baby. Smolcifer. Luna reappears in Canaan, but Lucilius during that time has gotten more cold and power-hungry, so when she returns he gets kinda annoyed like ‘where were you during all that time?’ The two are a bit different from when they last saw each other, but Lucifer grows quite attached to Luna and she takes care of him like a mother. Eventually, the two rekindle their past affection, and make it official after Belial is born (also bby). 

So far this is basically the premise, the other parts afterwards change a bit and depending on how angsty and experimental I wanna get. But uhhh yeahhh I’m always open to answering more questions about her???

[lets-talk-about-captive-prince]

AU Idea

So this is something I came up with in class that is super niche and will probably only interest me but here ya go.

Basically, it’s Captive Prince with a lot more of the ancient Greek stuff, specifically 4th-5th Century Athens and the Peloponnesian War.  

Okay, so Akielos is fighting “Sparta” (Patras?? I realized Pastras is Sparta with the letters rearranged, so I feel like it would work.) and they need Vere’s help (or at least an agreement that they won’t intervene). I think of Vere in this situation as like “enemy of my enemy is my friend” and so they kind of work with Akielos but hesitantly, and maybe they do wind up switching sides and then they fight or they fight at the beginning and then Damen brokers a deal? I’m not sure rn, both appeal to me. 

So, a couple things I want to include is the Greek culture from the time, like the City Dionysia, some historical figures, and their concepts of religion/science/philosophy. I’m a theatre major so I’m really excited about the Festival of Dionysus, like yes please cater to my specific interests! Also Socrates and his relationship to Alcibiades, also just Alcibiades in general like I am obsessed with him. In my world he is the first man Damen ever had sex with and he taught Damen the ways of love. Why? Because I want to. Also like the Symposiums that the men would have interests me and stuff like that. How would Laurent get to see that? He comes to the Festival of course! And he is forced to watch tragedies and raunchy satyr plays and horrific comedies. I’m stoked.

Also, I want to play with the story of Achilles and Patroclus, cause like, if I’m doing a Peloponnese War fix-it fic, might as well fix that too! I’m thinking the story is know like the Iliad and maybe there’s a tragic play about it and Damen and Laurent see it. This fic would have a happy ending though, so that’s the fix-it part. Also Akielos (Athens) wins the war. Yay messing with History!

One thing I’m still working on is pederasty because that was a big part of the culture and I want to include it but, like, obviously I don’t want adults having sex with children, like I’m not okay with that so I might just age them up? Or the adults down? Or just make it non-sexual but that’s not 100% accurate? IDK I feel like there’s a way to make it work and not be gross but I haven’t gotten there yet.

Also I can’t decide what to do with Auguste like is he alive? If not how did he die? Does he die in battle in-fic? IDK!

So yeah that’s what I got I’m sorry this is long

TL;DR Captive Prince Peloponnesian War AU focusing on Greek Culture

#captive prince #Peloponnesian War AU #War AU #my post #lamen #laurent of vere #damen of akielos #damianos