Impossibilities

Me (standing at a firm 4ft11in and getting winded by a flight of stairs): I will protect you at any cost

Clone: if anything we’d be the ones protecting you-

Me:

what i mean: the prequels may be flawed in directing, acting, dialogue, etc. which at many points make them seem comically awful as movies, and they may be widely reviled by both casual and die hard audiences, but despite that i enjoyed the overall story told, the characters introduced, and the depth and world building it added to the star wars universe.

Give me a story where Qui-gon survives, but at the cost of Obi-wan losing an arm and his legs. A mirror image to the loss Vader suffers.

Let me see all that physical pain and adaption that Lucas loves to put into his villains turned into something light and amazing.

Let Anakin see the Jedi’s hypocrisy when they cast Obi-Wan out because he’s angry and in pain and they say he can’t access the living force anymore. When Obi-Wan always favored the unifying force anyway.

Let him ask why they fear he’ll go dark and see the parallels to slaver ‘mercy’ when they free slaves too weak or injured to work because it isn’t worth paying slave tax on them and you have to pay a fine if you kill off your slaves in order to dodge taxes.

Because the Jedi don’t have money or things. When he gets cast out all Obi-Wan will have are the robes on his back, a lifetime of fighting skills, and mounting debt as he tries to get prosthetics and pain management.

All Jedi who leave the order go grey or dark is a self fulfilling prophecy when you toss them out without trade skills or money.

Let me see a Anakin who picks a path with Obi-Wan still. Two gray force users. Making a life for themselves of the fringe of society, freeing slaves, learning to force heal and build prosthetics. All with the queens of Naboo and Mandalores quiet and unofficial backing. Dodging Jedi and Sith interference at every turn.

Until one day they stumble on a planet in the middle of nowhere and are shown thousands of slave children waiting to be sent to die for the Republic and the Jedi they are trained to serve.

They steal them away a little at a time. Covert opps they tell anyone that asks. And when they check the boys for slave chips and oh do they find them.

Palpatine doesn’t even know his plans have gone astray until it explodes all over the net that a thousand fighters have appeared out of no where to destroy the Hutt empire. All the slaves are free and any system wanting to break from republic rule are free to petition to join the new alliance. Naboo and Mandalore are some of the first to join.

There are all the clones he had planned to use against the Jedi along with the chosen one and his mentor who have remained annoyingly too hidden for Palpatine to gain control of.

And here are Yoda and Mace faced with two men who they cast aside as too broken and likely to fall. Now shining in the force so brightly that is has cleared away shatterpoints and the ever encroaching sith influence.

1) Read your dialogue out loud. Do your best fake accent. Swear to god this is the best way to check if any dialogue works, accent or no. Eventually you’ll recognize that some accents have melodies. There’s a reason why they call Texan accents a drawl, so use long vowels, heavy words. Irish is quick, rolling and singsong - the more pitter-patter fast-pace you can make your verbs, the better.

2) Pay attention to sentence structure. People from different places will build sentences differently. E.g., people with particularly uppity-sounding English accents tend to say “I’ve not” rather than “I haven’t,” so I always use the former for Percy. The Texan accent Fjord uses is pretty easily evoked by dropping articles at the beginning of sentences (e.g., use “Can’t have you getting away” instead of “We can’t have you getting away”), and Jester’s Eastern European accent keeps her away from certain contractions (she’ll say “I do not” more than “I don’t” - not all the time b/c of improv, but you can use that to your advantage in fic). Molly’s Irish accent is a fun one: most other people will curse throughout their sentences, but Irish accents are one of the few that curse RIGHT at the beginning, and then  you can make up fun fantasy swears!! “Hells and devils, you’ve got us in a pickle, haven’t you?”

3) Keywords and word choice. Similar to the above! Pay attention to words characters like to repeat, or synonyms they prefer over others. I already noticed Molly and Fjord prefer “coin”, while Jester and Beau say “money”. And if you think about it, both those words sound better in their respective accents! While VAs are in character, they lean almost automatically towards words that sound better in that accent, I find. It’s even better if the characters have catchphrases or signature words, because dropping those into fanfic can have readers thinking in the character’s accent and you don’t have to do too much hard work to maintain the illusion after that (be careful with overusing them, though. It’s way too easy to have Vex saying “darling” every paragraph).

4) Exceptions / onomatopoeia. Some accent-evoking misspellings or not-quite-words are common enough that writing them with apostrophes won’t kick your reader out of a story. I use “ain’t”, “oi”, and “aye” a lot for Grog, and I occasionally end his -ing words with -n’ (particularly “fuckin’”) because that’s not too intrusive.  Fjord will probably drop the “ing” as well, but he’s well-spoken enough that his verbs don’t DEMAND the -n’ the way Grog’s do - but that’s my opinion! Feel it out, and remember to put apostrophes in when you drop letters \o/ it’s good grammar manners.

“But Logan, there’s no way this fills all my needs, I’m a multishipper who ships everyone who breathes near each other-”

Say no more, my friend, because take a look at this:

These are our catagories. New Paladins is where you wanna be if you’re new in the server and need help:

While Lounge is where we do most of our more general based talks:

But the other catagories I told you about? OH BOY, DO THEY GET LONG! In fact, we have so many ships in this server, we had to break it down into manageable chunks. Which are:

The Castle of Lions ships:

Look at that! We’ve got Shaladin, Coran/Paladin ships, along with all the other classics like Klance and Shallura.

“But what about poly ships?”

Gotcha covered:

We can never get enough of poly in this place and are always willing to add if you got recommendations. Just join us in this place and you can talk about all your OT3s, OT4s and whatever else.

“Okay, but what about the heroes X villains. This is great, but I doubt you guys allow that stuff.”

Actually we do, take a look:

We try to be all inclusive and honestly, so long as the relationship is healthy, we don’t mind you guys talking about it. In fact, we love some old villains (or perceived villains) learning to love thanks to our heroes.

“But I’ll bet you don’t have any Blade of Mamora since they’re all dead!”

Wrong again:

It’s a short list, but we’d gladly expand it anyday if anyone wants in.

“Okay, but what about stuff that’s not in those catagories, like Matt ships or Hunay?”

Dear, don’t you know by now you shouldn’t question me?

We’ve got room in here for EVERY. SINGLE. SHIP. EVER.

So, if you’re a multishipper burning for content.

Or a rare-pairer begging for a space to talk about your new OTP.

Or you just like the classics and want a nice place to observe everyone enjoy themselves and their ships, without any of the drama:

THEN STOP ON BY IN LEGENDARY PALADINS! I won’t give the link here since it changes all the time and I don’t want antis coming in and ruining the safe space. But if you want in, just:

Ask me or message me.

New Ornate Mandala Designs by Asmahan A. Mosleh

UK based artist Asmahan A. Mosleh’s deep found love for elaborate mandala designs is evident in all of her compositions, seeking inspiration from temples, mosques and exotic architecture from all across the globe.

Sea salt over here. I figure I get enough sodium and iodide from the foods I don’t make.

I use kosher salt in my cooking and sea salt for flavor. I don’t use a lot of salt, but some just finishes a dish. Also, I barely use butter in my day-to-day (I don’t like dairy and I definitely don’t like the taste), so I use a lot of butter in my baking.

Pro-tip, to make excellent pie crust, use 1 ½-2 sticks of butter and substitute vodka for ice water. The alcohol bakes out, but the combination of butter and vodka makes a wonderfully flaky crust. 

urban fantasy

necromancer teens summoning the ghosts of historical figures to help them study for their APUSH exams

mermaid lifeguards

artists doing portraits for ghosts and vampires who can’t see their own reflections

fae vigilantes hunting down bad guys and making their lives miserable

witch police officers that stun criminals using spells, safely arresting them

gnomes running flower shops

activists protesting the hunting of magical creatures like the Yeti, Jersey Devil, unicorns, and the Loch Ness Monster

succubi as marriage counselors

hospitals equipped with “werewolf rooms” where werewolves can safely stay during the full moon

dudebros getting drunk and summoning frazzled and annoyed demons

tattoo artists tattooing healing runes onto chronically ill people

elves playing along when little kids come up to them and ask if they work for Santa

young adults learning the healing arts so that they can be street medics at protests

shapeshifters teaching trans kids the tricks of the trade so that they can change their bodies to match their minds

will-o’-the-wisps leading lost and homeless people to shelters

leprechauns hanging around orphanages and playing practical jokes to lighten the mood and make the kids happy

enchantresses picking out creeps in bars and using their magic to lure them away from women

conservationists advocating for the protection of dryads, nymphs, and other nature-tied creatures

mediums assisting detectives in figuring out murders

the ghosts of prominent black people like Martin Luther King Jr. and Harriet Tubman frequenting BlackLivesMatter demonstrations and schooling the reporters that try to misquote them against protestors

During Boromir’s death scene in the Fellowship of the Ring film, you a hear a choir in the soundtrack. The choir isn’t singing random vowel sounds; they’re actually singing in Elvish.

The English translation of the lyrics? It’s a line from the books: “I do not love the sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only what they defend.”

For bonus hurt points– in the book, those lines were said by his little brother Faramir.