strong independent powerful garage

(via @currentlycreating )

after i dropped out of high school i found a torrent of like 5GB of OCRd romance novels and i read like 3 romance novels a day for a while

read enough romance novels and you will realize that they live or die entirely on technical skill. if you are new to romance novels then even bad ones can dazzle you with novelty but by the time you are on your 30th historical fake engagement between a bluestocking and a rakish duke you can grade them and you know when they've failed. when two books have what should be the same main characters hitting the same plot beats, but one of those books is delightful and the other fucking sucks, you learn some things. some books are bad and still delightful. other books are good but they just don't hit. you start to see the seams in the bad ones. 'oh, this is a weird out of character moment because she wanted to have the kabedon moment and didn't know how to get there'. 'she didn't want the ust to end but couldn't think of a better reason than this deus ex cockblock.' that kind of thing.

you could probably do this with other genres but i like romance because the plot is two people fall in love. that's it. everything else is set dressing. if you can figure out how to make that work you can carry it over into whatever other genre you feel like. mysteries would give you a different skillset around plotting that i don't have.

and the other thing is that you can't really sub in fanfic for this. plenty of fanfic takes characters from other genres and plops them into romance, but it's not the same. a good romance novel says, "here are two characters. you may know their archetypes, but you don't know them. you are going to get to know them, and you are going to love them, and you are going to want them to love each other, and when they love each other you are going to be happy for them". i love a rakish duke. when a man who's never had to do his own laundry is slutty as fuck that's my shit. but you still have to make me like him. you can take that archetype and make a guy who fucking sucks. most fanfic will not impart to you any knowledge about how to make a reader like a guy from scratch. you already know that guy. that's the whole point. fanfic with as much character building as an original work is the exception, not the rule.

the whole reason i get catty about fics that just make a different guy is that... you've made a different guy. i don't know who this guy is and i don't like him, and you haven't bothered trying to make me like him, because you slapped another guy's nametag on him like a cheat code. it's cool if you did make me like this new guy, but why is he wearing that other guy's nametag if no other aspect of him is present?

I was going to make a list, but then i realized this is a good time to share this book

Making Stuff and Doing things is a whole collection of old punk DIY zines about making and doing just about anything, even things you probably never knew you wanted to do.

Book binding? In there.

Making bowls from old vinyl records? I made a whole ton for my brother’s grad party last year.

Basics of guitar? Making rubber stamps? Silk screening? Composting? Homemade beer, root beer, and wine? Soymilk?? Quill pens??? All in there.

Since it’s more punk, it doesn’t have a ton of the folksy, cottage vibes/hobbies, but it’s all about being resourceful and sustainable, which they both have in common.

Spoilers at least up to chapter 96 of the manga

Okay, so I was fumbling around the independent witch hat wiki for inspiration, and I stopped at the section about the mythology of the world. I said, "Cool, maybe this will help."

There's a section on this page about a trilogy of drawings Sensei did of three epics of Zozah

The first one is about the Dadah King's death and the other about the King and his witch

But there's a third one.

"Song of the Princess who married the wind, handed down in the tribe of the dragon herders"

While the first two have been referenced in the anime, this is the only one that hasn't. The Japanese version of chapter 96 referred to the current arc as something akin to the "Dragon Isles arc". This arc is the perfect place to introduce the full story behind the princess's epic.

The thing about the princess marrying the wind might also be connected; there have been some ominous mentions of something in the wind, not only by Vinanna (and its mention immediately worries Beldaruit) in chapter 75, but by Eoleo when talking to Riliphin.

The mysterious person at the end of chapter 96 is also introduced with their hair blowing in the wind.

The princess who married the wind passed by the people who herded the dragons and possibly lived on the isle of dragons. I don't think this is all a coincidence, not entirely at least.

I was about to call it off on theorising, but something else caught my attention when taking a closer look at the art of the princess.

The buns. My mind immediately remembered not only the cover of chapter 96, but the bonus chapter of volume 8.

Tetia has a similar side-bun style on the cover of the chapter that introduces the arc, and again when she calls herself a princess.

My theory is that Tetia has some connection to the dragon isles. Wheter she is aware of it or not. And we're going to find more about it in this arc.