Made an arcane fan animation hehe
"Why do all gender-bent characters have names ending in -a, that's such a fanfic trope" buddy, the "girl names end in -a" trope is so old that JRR Tolkien invented a Hobbitish dialect of Westron in which "-a" is a masculine name affix, then turned around and "localised" those names to end in "-o" in the published text (e.g., Bilba > Bilbo, Maura > Frodo, etc.) so they wouldn't sound feminine to Anglophone readers.
Must be fall
Read a Bagginshield fic with the premise "while Thorins passed out after the battle of Five Armies, Dain and Balin trick Bilbo into learning dwarfish politics and he accidentally becomes an important mediator between Dane and Erebor," and that concept is funny as fuck. You wake up after nearly dying in a war against your generation's long enemy, just to find out that your ex boyfriend, who you tried to murder in a greed induced rage, is now helping run your newly reclaimed homeland.
Mad about politics again
going back to my roots (oh god it's been 10 years since the hobbit ended...)
DID MY YAOI STICKERS ARRIVE
A currency that isn’t gold-standard/having gold be as valuable as tin
A currency that runs entirely on a perishable resource, like cocoa beans
A clock that isn’t 24-hours
More or less than four seasons/seasons other than the ones we know
Fantastical weather patterns like irregular cloud formations, iridescent rain
Multiple moons/no moon
Planetary rings
A northern lights effect, but near the equator
Roads that aren’t brown or grey/black, like San Juan’s blue bricks
Jewelry beyond precious gems and metals
Marriage signifiers other than wedding bands
The husband taking the wife's name / newlyweds inventing a new surname upon marriage
No concept of virginity or bastardry
More than 2 genders/no concept of gender
Monotheism, but not creationism
Gods that don’t look like people
Domesticated pets that aren’t re-skinned dogs and cats
Some normalized supernatural element that has nothing to do with the plot
Magical communication that isn’t Fantasy Zoom
“Books” that aren’t bound or scrolls
A nonverbal means of communicating, like sign language
A race of people who are obligate carnivores/ vegetarians/ vegans/ pescatarians (not religious, biological imperative)
I’ve done about half of these myself in one WIP or another and a little detail here or there goes a long way in reminding the audience that this isn’t Kansas anymore.
Banner image courtesy of NASA (butterfly nebula)
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