Raining Sky Guy (Sky_King)

side effect of watching james cameron’s avatar and sharing one very smart brain cell.

no touching happened that day bahaHAHA

Worldbuilding where being queer is normalized and queerphobia has no impact on the plot? THAT'S FINE. Worldbuilding that includes queerphobia and tackles the effects of it as part of the story? THAT'S ALSO FINE.

Low-stakes queer romcom where the characters are fluffy and cute? THAT'S COOL. Messy queer drama with toxic people who fuck each other over and clash repeatedly? THAT'S ALSO COOL.

Stories that center the characters' queerness, show a trans character's transition, and are about the queerness as much as the rest of the plot? AWESOME. Stories where the characters' queerness isn't treated as a big deal, and have trans characters whose transition happened before the story entirely? ALSO AWESOME.

You may PREFER one thing or another, but it is actually good to have all these things. It's about variety. It's about queer characters being allowed to exist without censorship. It's about queer artists getting to make things without being told we're a "niche issue" or "adult content." It's about having as many goddamn cakes as the bakery can produce.

We’re in the final 48 hours of our crowdfunding campaign to publish the anthology Wild and Full of Marvels: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Folklore and Fairy Tales!

With Wild and Full of Marvels: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Folklore and Fairy Tales, our authors and artists bring our perspective as queer adults in the 21st century to the stories, some ancient, some modern, that meant the most to us when we were young. Each creator selected a folktale, fairy tale, myth, or legend that had personal significance for them, then reimagined these personal touch-stones as we wish they could be: stories that uphold our cultures, stories that impart the lessons and morals we wish to impart, stories that drive home the cautions we wish we’d received, stories in which people like us are the heroes held forth for emulation. We’ve transformed these stories to be more inclusive, more personal, more understanding of others, and—of course!—much more queer.

Hitting our base goal, of course, ensures we can publish. But hitting our stretch goals is also super helpful, as they enable us to increase the pay of all our creators. We’d love to be able to do that, and raises for this many creators add up fast, so please please signal boost this last push for our Kickstarter if you’re able.

Curious what they’ve made? Check out our many reveals and teasers!

Cover Reveal, art by Jinx Inks

Merch Reveal 1: Stickers by Alessa Riel and Elias Strunck, Bookmark by Jagoda Zirebiec

Merch Reveal 2: Enamel Pendant by Aceriee, Slate Coaster by Clare DeZutti

Merch Reveal 3: Journal by Aceriee, Art Print of the Front Cover, and Window Hanging by Betta

Contributor Post 1: zazrichor, Shea Sullivan, H. Armstrong, and T. L. Sly

Contributor Post 2: Cris Alborja, Kendall Pletcher, E. V. Dean, and Sage Mooreland

Contributor Post 3: Anne Hessel, Elias Strunck, Lyonel Loy, and R. L. Houck

Contributor Post 4: Razz, Florilége, Zel Howland, and J. D. Rivers

Contributor Post 5: Amalia Zeichnerin, Sam Inverts, Isabelle Delisle, and ilgaksu

Contributor Post 6: May Barros, Max Jason Peterson, Joy Summers, and Mikki Madison

Contributor Post 7: Xander Day McCafferty, J. Radin, Em Rowntree, and Nicola Kapron

Contributor Post 8: radicalhoodie, Luck Stellaluna Faer, S. J. Ralston, and Cedar D. McCafferty-Svec

Contributor Post 9: guoldu, Clare DeZutti, Terra P. Waters, and Robin S. Blackwood

Contributor Post 10: Betta, Aceriee, J. D. Harlock, and Alex Pfaw

Contributor Post 11: As Cores Da Lua (Lulu), Jupiter V, Sue Wilson Munro, and boneturtle

Pet Foolery, #93

We are scant days from the end of the Kickstarter funding period for Wild and Full of Marvels: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Folklore and Fairy Tale, and we have finally – after many posts! – finished sharing teasers from all 40+ of the works that will be included in this awesome anthology.

Read all about it by visiting our Kickstarter! or….

Our last three teasers are by A. A. Weston, Jagoda Zirebiec, and Beth Elderberry!

Learn more about what’s been created for this project:

Cover Reveal, art by Jinx Inks

Merch Reveal 1: Stickers by Alessa Riel and Elias Strunck, Bookmark by Jagoda Zirebiec

Merch Reveal 2: Enamel Pendant by Aceriee, Slate Coaster by Clare DeZutti

Merch Reveal 3: Journal by Aceriee, Art Print of the Front Cover, and Window Hanging by Betta

Contributor Post 1: zazrichor, Shea Sullivan, H. Armstrong, and T. L. Sly

Contributor Post 2: Cris Alborja, Kendall Pletcher, E. V. Dean, and Sage Mooreland

Contributor Post 3: Anne Hessel, Elias Strunck, Lyonel Loy, and R. L. Houck

Contributor Post 4: Razz, Florilége, Zel Howland, and J. D. Rivers

Contributor Post 5: Amalia Zeichnerin, Sam Inverts, Isabelle Delisle, and ilgaksu

Contributor Post 6: May Barros, Max Jason Peterson, Joy Summers, and Mikki Madison

Contributor Post 7: Xander Day McCafferty, J. Radin, Em Rowntree, and Nicola Kapron

Contributor Post 8: radicalhoodie, Luck Stellaluna Faer, S. J. Ralston, and Cedar D. McCafferty-Svec

Contributor Post 9: guoldu, Clare DeZutti, Terra P. Waters, and Robin S. Blackwood

Contributor Post 10: Betta, Aceriee, J. D. Harlock, and Alex Pfaw

The stories and artwork in our forthcoming anthology Wild and Full of Marvels: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Folklore and Fairy Tales were (as the title implies) inspired by folklore and fairy tales – specifically by tales of personal importance to the creator. Many of the inspiring works are well-known – Snow White, various versions of the Little Mermaid, and Robin Hood are among the chosen works – but some are less for a variety of reasons . We asked the creators to share more information about their chosen stories, and these are the replies we got! (Some of these are still fairly known, and “less known” is of course a cultural construct and, to a lesser extent, personal, so your mileage may vary on whether you consider these lesser known, and that’s okay!)

The Water Lily: an indigenous story about Naiá, an indigenous girl that fell in love with the Jaci, the Moon. One day, she saw the moon’s reflection on a river and fell in thinking she would finally be together with her beloved. Jaci was touched by the girl’s devotion and turned her into the aquatic flower to save her life.

Artemis and Orion: Artemis was out hunting with the seven sisters one night when they crossed paths with a giant hunter named Orion. Orion chased the sisters and they ran to Artemis for protection. As protection and punishment for their cowardice Artemis sent them to the sky as the Pleiades. Artemis and Orion become hunting companions and he becomes the only man to make her consider giving up her vow of chastity. Apollo is jealous of their relationship and brings about Orion’s death. Heartbroken Artemis goes to Zeus and asks him to make Orion a constellation so that they can be together forever.

The Town Musicians of Bremen: four old farm animals, rather than be put down at the end of their service, decide to travel to Bremen to become musicians. Along the way, they come across a cabin, where they overhear a group of thieves discussing their next heist. Under cover of darkness, the animals chase the thieves out of the house. The thieves mistake the animals’ teeth and hooves for the fearsome weapons of a gang of raiders. They abandon the house, and the animals decide to settle there for the rest of their days.

The Chicago Mothman: The Mothman of the East Coast of the United States is the most well known and the one upon whom the mothman legends are built. However, starting in 2011, “reports of a giant, flying, winged humanoid began surfacing,” (WBEZ Chicago). While the reports peaked in 2017 and have tapered off a bit since, they’re still out there…Chicago’s very own Mothman.

劍客 The Swordsman: a Tang dynasty youxia poem about a sword that was honed but otherwise unused for ten years, with its wielder now seeking purpose.

The White Kitsune: a Japanese legend: a young nobleman named Yasuna is traveling to visit a Shinoda shrine when he encounters a military officer hunting foxes to harvest them for medical ingredients. Yasuna fights off the officer and sets free the white fox that was trapped but sustains several deep wounds. A while later, he is limping home and a beautiful woman named Kuzunoha finds him along the road. She helps him the rest of the way, tends his wounds, and they fall in love. They marry and she has a child that turns out to be unusually clever. Kuzunoha realizes the child has inherited part of her power, as she is actually the white fox Yasuna rescued, transformed into a human to assist him. Years after, the child catches sight of her tail and she flees, leaving behind a poem, asking her husband to find her in Shinoda forest.

Selkies: Celtic fae; seals who can shed their skin to walk on land as humans. The stories of selkies come in two flavors: stolen brides, and male lovers who come and go because of the call of the sea. Neither are particularly happy. For the brides, the selkie has their skin stolen and hidden, trapping them in marriage and on land…and even if they come to love their spouse/children, they’re still cut off from home. And if they ever find their skin, they have to return to the sea, even if it means leaving behind their children and the life they’ve made. As to the lover who comes and goes…imagine the sea calling you away from the only place you want to be, and the only person you want to be with. Imagine being the human…watching the waves, wondering if they’ll ever return or if this time the sea has taken them from you for good.

Wondering what stories served as inspiration of the works in Wild and Full of Marvels? Here’s the full list! The approximate origin of the story is in parenthesis. Links are provided to Wikipedia when possible

The 1001 Nights (Southwest Asia)

Aldara the Deer Woman (Spain)

Artemis and Orion (Greece)

Beauty and the Beast (France)

The Boy Who Cried Wolf (Greece)

The Bronze Ring (Southwest or Central Asia)

La Chasse-Gallerie (French Canada)

East of the Sun and West of the Moon (Norway)

Eros and Psyche (Greece)

Fitcher’s Bird (German)

The Frog Prince (German)

The Goose Girl (German)

Hades and Persephone (Greece)

Hansel and Gretel (German)

King Thrushbeard (German)

Krabat (Sorbian)

Kuzunoha and Kitsune (Japan)

Legend of the Sphinx (Greece)

The Little Mermaid (Denmark)

Little Red Riding Hood (Western Europe)

The Mermaid of Nowogard (Poland)

Mothman (European-American)

The Nightingale (Denmark)

The Painted Skin (China)

The Pied Piper (German)

The Rider of Grianaig (Scotland)

Robin Hood (England)

Sainte Radegonde et la Grand’Goule (France)

Salome (Christian Bible)

Selkies (Ireland)

Sleeping Beauty (Western Europe)

Snow White (German)

The Swordsman (China)

The Three Little Pigs (England)

Thumbelina (Denmark)

Town Musicians of Bremen (German)

The Ugly Duckling (Denmark)

The Warsaw Mermaid (Poland)

The Water Lily (Brazil)

White Bear King Valemon (Norway)

The White Cat (France)

I have several mutuals who regularly talk about interrogating how you’re writing black or Jewish characters, because it’s very easy to perpetuate stereotypes. Even if the characteristics you’re assigning to them are neutral, if you ONLY ever give those characteristics to guys with certain backgrounds it … implies something. This is true.

I see a lot of posts about how fantasizing about an idea doesn’t mean you want to act it out in real life. Reading or writing about a character being tortured, or cheating on someone, doesn’t mean you want to hurt real people. This is true.

Almost daily I see another trans person laughing about old things they wrote before transitioning where they said ‘caring about this gendered topic doesn’t mean I’m that gender!’ I see posts about how representation matters, and about how people discover themselves through fiction. This is true.

There’s a post going around about how when you’re talking to someone suicidal, it is important to say the word, rather than use euphemisms. If words are too taboo to use, people suffer silently, unable to talk about their experiences. This is true.

There’s also research that shows that reading the detailed description of a suicide can entice other people to copy it, and so it’s better not to focus on it too much. This is true.

-

Stories aren’t reality. Stories have power. People explore things through fiction - things they want, things they fear, things that confuse them, things that they care about and want to share with others. What you read says SOMETHING about you, but it’s often difficult to figure out what that something is for a specific person. What you write affects how those who read it will see the world, but you are not responsible for their reactions.

…

You can’t objectify a character. If only your poor characters are violent and/or hypersexualized, people who read your writing may feel objectified. Writing a character avoiding sex as much as possible doesn’t mean you hate sex. If you find yourself writing a lot of characters that avoid sex, thinking about asexuality and you in the same thought might prove helpful.

People can write/read about bondage because they like being tied up, because they’re terrified of being trapped, because they’re overworked and want to imagine being forced to take a break, because they like being in control, because they really like people looking at them, because someone they love is taking dangerous risks and they don’t know how to stop them, because they’re curious why anyone would like bondage and want to explore, or a thousand other reasons.

…

“You can always assume one thing about your clients; and that is that they are doing their best. Always assume everyone is doing their best. And if they’re having a day where their best just isn’t that great, or their best doesn’t look like your best, you have to be okay with that.”

a guest post by Sky_King.

We’ve all heard about the importance of leaving a comment on the stories that we read. How important they are to the writers, how discouraging it can be to not receive any, or few, or, hell forbid, get an AI word vomit. There’s a lot of templates circulating on social media about how to leave a proper comment, as well as advice, tips, and instructions, but sometimes I feel we forget how fun it can be.

Stories posted to AO3 are oftentimes shared with the intention of reaching out toothers. To build a community, to have someone acknowledge the time and effort spent in writing a fic.

A comment is that, but it is also a bridge between reader and author. It is a shared space where we, as the reader, can connect with the author, with the story. The emotions and thoughts that the work provoked are held and preserved in that comment box, sometimes relived like you’re reading the story for the first time.

Have you ever read a fic that made you laugh out loud? That kept you up until dawn, hitting that Next Chapter button like your life depended on it?

Have you ever had a story affect you so deeply that you don’t know what to do with your emotions? That rearranged your brain chemistry one kink at a time?

Sitting down and pouring all of these emotions into a comment can be so liberating, so freeing. If it made you feel mushy and happy, commenting can stretch out the happiness. If the fic destroyed you emotionally, commenting can be part of the winding down, commenting can help put you back together afterward.

And there’s so many ways to write a comment.

A comment can be an incoherent keysmash because you don’t have any other way of articulating yourself. It can be a simple “Thanks for commenting!”. It can be a series of hearts, of emojis.

Writing a long comment lets you enjoy the story in a different way. You remember your favorite moments, the perfect dialogues; you share the love, the hurt, the joy, with the author, and with the world.

And sometimes commenting is not that deep, sometimes it’s just the quiet joy of knowing you’re making an author’s day, or giving a lonely fic a little love. It’s that second kudos you really wanted to leave. It’s that satisfaction at the end of a good read.

In this increasingly desolate online landscape, it’s a small sign that we’re still here.

odyssey dashboard simulator

🚣‍♂️ captain.odysseus

to be so honest neither are looking great but sometimes u gotta make tough decisions. nobody tell my crew about this btw

65 notes

⬜ crewmate-238-deactivated12109

the sirens are dangerous to YOU. i understand them though. we are holding hands and singing and they're not even eating me

🧜‍♀️ siren.girl.40 Follow

no we’re not

⚔️ 0restes

OP being deactivated really adds something here

🎵 demodocus.sings.a.lot Follow

the sirens killed him

🐅 circe.without.mercy

62,234 notes

🤴 telemakhos.of.ithaka

just fucked up so bad i met queen helen from sparta and called her "helen of troy" in front of her husband who literally spent ten years fighting a war to get her back FROM TROY. about to throw myself into the sea

💅 face.that.launched.1000.ships Follow

omg no worries babygirl come back anytime :))) happens to everyone

🤴 telemakhos.of.ithaka

was no one going to tell me helen of troy had a tumblr

🤴 telemakhos.of.ithaka

FUCK i did it again

56,329 notes

⬜ crewmate-24-deactivated9823

for real though has anyone seen elpenor

#i could have sworn he was with us when we were at circes??

4 notes

⬜ crewmate-438-deactivated5764

dreaming of burger made of helios' cattle rn. mmm

⛰️ oracle-at-delphi Follow

it is actually insane that people are reblogging this. do you know how disrespectful this is to helios and to all of the gods?? those are literally sacred cattle, i shouldn't be seeing odysseus' crew blogging about how they want to make them into burgers. it's not funny and it's not a joke.

⬜ crewmate-438-deactivated5764

#it was gonna be such a perfect day for a bbq but its stormy all the sudden #:( #oh well i guess we will just eat our burgers inside

20,572 notes

🐗 antinous420

how long could it possibly take to weave a fucking shroud

📷 ithaca-fact-checker Follow

fun fact! it can actually take 1,543 years to weave a burial shroud for one’s father in law, depending on the materials, style, and craftsman!

🤴 telemakhos.of.ithaka

ayyy ithaca fact checker i missed you

🐗 antinous420

who the hell is running this account

#that has to be a joke right #otherwise that would mean that like only an immortal could weave these #ik athena is goddess of weaving but she cant be the only one doing it #right???

322 notes

🏐 what.up.its.nausica

not the random naked man i found on my shore who i almost got betrothed to being odysseus king of ithaca are you KIDDING me

🏄 pisistratus-son-of-nestor

i thought he was dead???

🚣‍♂️ captain.odysseus

im not

🏄 pisistratus-son-of-nestor

@ telemakhos.of.ithaca @ queen-penelope-official HELLO???

23,753 notes

🐅 circe.without.mercy

actually disgusting that people are still following @/calyps0 when she literally kept odysseus captive on her island for seven years. yes odysseus is incredibly problematic and he should be held accountable for actions. yes i dont support what he did to polyphemus and i will block anyone who said that was deserved. but he literally has a wife and son he needs to get back to and it's disgusting that she tried to impede him like this

🏖️ calyps0 Follow

hey what was going on when he stayed at your place for a year

🏖️ calyps0 Follow

lmfao she blocked me

#girl this situation is messyyyy

16,422 notes

🦉 goddess-of-wisdom

why is everyone so mad at odysseus. he’s just a silly little guy. my silly little mortal. he does tricks. free him

🔱 earthshaker Follow

he blinded my son

🦉 goddess-of-wisdom

ok??? have you considered that maybe your son was being a little bitch

45,890 notes

🚣‍♂️ captain.odysseus

lmfaoooo ive been sending anon hate to polyphemus and he still doesn’t know it was me, odysseus, son of laertes sacker of cities king of ithaca who lives at ithaca palace and is currently sailing home on the aegean sea. click the read more to track my voyage home

Read more

#what are you gonna do about it big guy #nobody cares

5,738 notes

👁️pol.y.phe.mus Follow

when i find whoever it is that is sending me these you are going to be so sorry

3 notes

👑 queen-penelope-official

like this post if you want to be included in the archery contest tomorrow!

#may the best shot win!

108 likes

🍽️ suitor-37

anyone noticed the quality of penelope’s wines at ithaca palace has kind of sucked lately

🕶️ ordinary.beggar.dont.worry Follow

i have a strong feeling that you won’t have to worry about this for much longer :)

17 notes