Elpickett - El Pickett - Tumblr Blog

I remember books beginning to come out with queer characters, and that being a big deal, and the author taking risks. I'm in my twenties, and the change I've seen between my childhood and my younger sister's in terms of diversity and inclusion in the media is monumental, to an extent I don't think we often appreciate enough.

One thing that's likely not visible to all younger queers is that little kids shows have gotten radically queerer in the last 10 years.

I'm not just talking about Owl House, Kippo etc, much as I love them.

I mean like stuff for kindergardners.

Characters in Strawberry Shortcake and Superhero Girls and more have gay parents just unremarkably in the background. That was unthinkable 15 years ago.

But the thing that shocks me utterly is the casual inclusion of nonbinary characters.

Dee and Friends in Oz, Polly Pocket, Craig of the Creek...it seems like half the shows my daughter watches have nonbinary characters just seamlessly included. Not even a Very Special Episode. Just...here's the scarecrow in charge of scarecrow village who uses they/them pronouns that everyone just uses without comment.

I was almost 30 before I found the word nonbinary. For my kid to just grow up with this is astonishing.

Conservatives are so mad because it's INCREDIBLY hard to just put this kind of inclusion back away. Once something is normal, and clearly not causing anything bad to happen, it's hard to convince people to be scared of it.

okay I've never seen this show so I can say nothing about the characters but like... that lace is ripping me right out of the historical period it is so obviously completely modern and machine made and polyester WHY MUST YOU DO THIS!!!! quit it!!!! pay for proper lace making!!!

"The Buccaneers" Wedding of the Season (TV Episode 2023)

this must’ve took forever, but it’s really well done.

luv edits.

well shit

at least we found him?

The intern responsible for running Joja Co. official Tumblr account has been accidentally shipped to the North Pole. If you see him, please tell him that he will not be paid for the days that he was absent.

WHO LET TOMMY COOK 🗣️🗣️🗣️

y'all are gonna break me this is perfection

but like I do regret we didn't get to see more of Tess and Joel as smugglers in Boston - Joel is fairly openly dealing to FEDRA and Tess seems entirely unthreatened by Robert who seems very powerful. These two survived long past everyone else because they were *good* at what they did

do you ever think about how joel and tess were together long enough to see each other start going grey

💐 once you receive this lovely bouquet of flowers you have to mention five things you love, publicly, and send it to 10 of your favorite followers if you want. SPREAD POSITIVITY! ⛅️

Hope you’re having a beautiful day 💛

five things I'm loving at the moment!

1) nice tea! I'm living in Spain this year and the tea situation here is dire frankly

went home over Christmas and had good loose leaf tea (my partner and I drank a lot of a vanilla tea blend that was delightful) but frankly also a cup of decent earl grey is wonderful

2) cats! here are some photos of mine and my partners I took while back in the uk

3) good food - I love cooking and I find it relaxing. My faves are risotto and lots of Indian veggie curries

4) online communities for things people are passionate about! Fandom is wonderful and full of incredibly supportive people especially as I've been easing back into writing, but also online communities for people with same weird disability as me which has helped me learn how to handle it better

5) lego flowers!!! the combination between lego (wonderful, delightful, extremely calming) and flowers (beautiful) is great especially with the lack of pollen. I have both the flower bouquets combined in my room and they look so good, even if they do desperately need a dust rn

i didn't get to go into this in as much detail as I wanted in oathbreaker because it was already at like 13k words when I stopped

But in my head:

they weren't trying specifically for a kid but they also weren't trying not to, they both kinda thought they were too old

they both had a really rough time when they first found out - Maria because of Kevin and being pregnant again when her son should be an adult but was stuck forever at three, and Tommy because of Sarah because I will die on the hill of Tommy basically raised Sarah with Joel and it broke him just as much when he died

this is when they made the memorial we see as a way to remind themselves they aren't forgetting Sarah and Kevin

by the time Maria's in her second trimester they are both incredibly excited but show it very differently

Maria has done this once, and is excited to be a parent without freaking out every time the baby does anything

Maria is also greatly enjoying not throwing up the whole time like she did with Kevin

Tommy also panics constantly whenever Maria looks even marginally uncomfortable

Tommy has just gone fully insane over being a father

Maria is four months along and he starts rebuilding part of the house so they have a proper nursery

He makes a rocking chair and a crib and a load of wooden toys

He also starts bringing back baby clothes from patrol runs except he has no idea how newborn sizing works so a bunch of it goes to the coop in town

Maria does not take maternity leave until she is like, actively in labour, and then she still finishes a council meeting before telling Tommy who freaks out and sprints for the doctor, tripping on his shoelaces as he runs out the door so now the do tor has to deal with Maria giving birth and also Tommy's broken nose

The baby is incapable of going to sleep without being held because between Maria and Tommy they are always holding him and then Ellie and joel get back and this baby is spoiled as hell (as all babies should be)

picturing the sweet shocked look on tommy’s face when maria told him she was pregnant

okay I just saw guys and dolls last night, but like this is perfect!!!

Tess as Adelaide (has been waiting 14 years to get married, which mirrors her and Joel's long relationship with no actual communication of what they are)

Joel as Nathan (loves Tess, but also loves his job which just happens to be highly illegal)

Tommy as Sky (ex highly illegal job, learns to do better after he meets Maria, would think flying from New York to Havana for dinner with a woman he'd met earlier that day was a good idea)

And Maria as Sarah (actually put together, learns to chill out when she meets Tommy)

ugh it'd be perfect thank you for putting this is my head!!!!

broadway theatre x tlou au where all the cast is part of les mis or something

Want to learn something new in 2022??

Absolute beginner adult ballet series (fabulous beginning teacher)

40 piano lessons for beginners (some of the best explanations for piano I’ve ever seen)

Excellent basic crochet video series

Basic knitting (probably the best how to knit video out there)

Pre-Free Figure Skate Levels A-D guides and practice activities (each video builds up with exercises to the actual moves!)

How to draw character faces video (very funny, surprisingly instructive?)

Another drawing character faces video

Literally my favorite art pose hack

Tutorial of how to make a whole ass Stardew Valley esque farming game in Gamemaker Studios 2??

Introduction to flying small aircrafts

French/Dutch/Fishtail braiding

Playing the guitar for beginners (well paced and excellent instructor)

Playing the violin for beginners (really good practical tips mixed in)

Color theory in digital art (not of the children’s hospital variety)

Retake classes you hated but now there’s zero stakes:

Calculus 1 (full semester class)

Learn basic statistics (free textbook)

Introduction to college physics (free textbook)

Introduction to accounting (free textbook)

Learn a language:

Ancient Greek

Latin

Spanish

German

Japanese (grammar guide) (for dummies)

French

Russian (pretty good cyrillic guide!)

having got back into writing recently after years of not writing anything, it's been so incredible to start back in this little fandom full of the most wonderful and supportive people I've ever had the joy of interacting with online!

also I will update soon I promise lmao it's almost there

Six Summer Fics for Tessjoels

... confused? Well, it's summer here, and that means summer reading! Here's some of my favourite Tessjoel stories that are in progress right now, and have been updated within the last month.

These are just unfinished tales - here's some of my finished favourites from the last year.

Taste your beating heart by @beerandyarn I can't tell you what this story is really about without spoiling it. The mystery is way too much fun. But let's just say it's a TLOU AU set in the early days of Tessjoel and there are ... other mysterious things than just Cordyceps out there. The characterisation is fucking awesome and this is the slow burn of slow burns. Like, part of me wants to shake elfin for making me suffer and the other part of me can't get enough.

Of Artists and Architects, by @oliviassunrise It's kind of hard to transplant characters from the TLOU universe into a modern AU without losing them in the mix. You have to really understand them so as not to shed their personalities while building a softer, mushroom-free world around them. Kayli does this beautifully and you still feel like Tess is Tess and Joel is Joel. This is no basic repackaging though - there's so much soul to this story, you can really feel the care and love with which it is written.

A Soul for Sale or Rent, by @bumblepony I don't want to give too much away about this one because it's full of surprises and takes a concept that could be ridiculous but ends up being so clever and heartbreaking and heartwarming. Ellie is a ghost and only Joel can see her. While Tessjoel isn't the focus of the story the way it's included is so clever and haunting (I think about it randomly, ok) that you've gotta check it out. So original.

deep red bells by melforbes Subtle queen. All this author's stories are like poetry, but they manage not to divulge into aimless whimsy and are always anchored with a strong story and pathos. This is an AU where Joel's daughter is abducted and Tess is a young cop with a tantalising dark past. The magic is in the dialogue. It's dark, but not heavy, and I'm pretty sure it's going to kill me.

I Saw the End, it Looked Just like the Middle, by @elpickett A new Tess lives series, and it has a really interesting narrative structure. As with the stories above, I don't want to spoil that, but there's some insight into FEDRA which I really enjoy. I love to read different ways Tess Lives Truthers fix explore the canon and bring her to Jackson. You can tell the author has really put a lot of thought into how this is going to work and how to 'save' Tess in a believable way.

Let the Burial Rite be Read, the Last Funeral Song Sung, by @stephpuppet An AU with a dark and gentle premise - Grim Reaper!Tess! Ever since I saw Meet Joe Black and Dead Like Me I've had a yen for this kind of tale, personifying Death as a sympathetic and empathetic, a wise creature who maybe experiences emotions they do not understand. ANYWAY. I love different interpretations of this theme and combining it with my hyperfixation is a treat for the new year. Grab your tissues, the first chapter is devastating.

One of my personal nitpicks for historical fantasy is a lack of servants, staff, subordinates, and... idk... subjects? Like, their absence is not... a total dealbreaker for me, depending on the situations the characters are in and whether or not I can just assume that other people are there in the background... but so many of the protagonists in historical fantasy stuff are higher-ranking (very often royalty), and/or have busy jobs, and/or have enormous houses that would necessitate having at least part-time staff.

Like, girl, you should have a maid! WHERE is your chaperone?! WHO is driving this carriage?! Where are your footmen? Are you trying to imply that a WEALTHY DUCHESS is taking a CAB?! You know that you probably have tenants, right? Where is your steward?! Where is your lawyer? Your accountant?! (Like, yeah, you're not going to have your lawyer living in your house, but you HAVE one, right???)

Or, man, you're supposed to be a military commander and you don't even have a single secretary?! Where is your SQUIRE?! (In the spirit of historical fiction, I am jumping wildly across time periods with every sentence here.) Man, I know you aren't looking after your own boots. Where are your GUARDS?! Who set up this tent for you?! Who is looking after your horse?! Who is making and carrying the incredibly valuable maps people are recklessly stabbing daggers into?!

SOMEONE has to be scrubbing these floors and delivering the mail and cooking the meals, and they're probably all DIFFERENT people! My dentist has at least three different receptionists and we can't even get ONE for our court wizard here? A sorcerer's apprentice to take notes? Sherlock Holmes can get away with just having a housekeeper and taking taxis, sure, but your character is supposed to be a KING?! Why is he answering his own front door? He's going to get assassinated.

Like, yes, I understand that a lot of servants in certain places at certain times were supposed to make their labor invisible, but there have always been servants who still had to interact directly with the masters of the house?! Yeah, there are potentially really messy ethics here, class divisions are bullshit, but I don't think ignoring the reality that humans have ALWAYS been doing work for other humans (even if it's just having a collective cooking pot for the group and the cook not necessarily being subservient to anyone) is better than just including some servants and employees? Because a complete absence of them, especially where logically for the worldbuilding there MUST be servants, often makes me think that your main characters just don't care enough to notice the "lower class" people or know their names.

Also, even Frodo Baggins had a gardener and Samwise Gamgee might be the best damn character in the story?! Sam saved the world?! Servants are PEOPLE. Servants are often the funniest and most interesting characters, tbh, with the most to say about a society and its workings, and also the joke of some romantic scene being carefully orchestrated by a stage crew of servants frantically diving into bushes to stay out of sight never gets old to me. Team work makes the dream work!

I don't want to gatekeep historical fiction, especially not historical fantasy, because the worlds don't necessarily have to conform to our own and may have magic and characters are often in very unique circumstances, but... sometimes I pick up a story and it's like... "Author, please tell me that you know there is a difference between a butler and a valet?!"

Interstellar Overdrive

A Tess x Joel bodyguard/boss AU set in the 1970s whew

His fingertips brushed through the curtain of hair hanging to her waist. Dressing like a goddamn hippie with motivations that were resolutely square. A capitalist muckety-muck playing dress-ups with the beautiful people. Tess had some goddamn nerve and he wanted every last piece of her, Duke’s warnings be damned.

Because Duke was right – he’d never met anyone like her before. And maybe by getting a little closer he could unravel the enigma, because he’d meant what he’d told Duke – one woman was, essentially, the same as another. There were a finite number of parts people could play. And she was just playing one of them, concealing it a little better than most.

Tess whispered again in his ear: “You answer to me, now.”

Chapter One now on AO3! HNY!

got trapped under a weir current while canoeing and almost drowned (and did dislocate my shoulder and knee), took two minutes of me being dragged back underwater before someone could get close enough to me to pull me out

then caught COVID two days later and got an awful secondary chest infection lmao

I still plan to canoe that stretch of river again

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

i fully believe that if tess hadn't gotten bit, she would have gotten them to wyoming in a month and a half with sam and henry in tow, fixed ellie's survivor's guilt, bullied joel into growing the fuck up and feeling his feelings, and then settled in jackson with them once she realized the fireflies are fucking stupid and have no clue what they're doing.

and she would have looked incredibly hot the whole time

my latest finished project! it was a christmas present for my partner as sea shanty society at uni needed a new mascot and he is first mate this year

i bought the pirate fabric a while back and shamelessly stole the seagull fabric from my mother while at home for christmas

ah see those are the ones coherent enough to have made it on paper, there are others swimming around my head but revision for exams and going home for christmas have forced me to have them remain in my head I'm fucked as soon as exams are over

foolish me, i thought that posting a work would mean that my wips count decrease

and yet, here i sit, with 16 wips when i used to only have like 12-14. and i currently have all of them open in tabs as i try to see what sparks the ✨vibes✨ and the ✨inspo✨

okay I feel better about my three now tbh it's all fine

foolish me, i thought that posting a work would mean that my wips count decrease

and yet, here i sit, with 16 wips when i used to only have like 12-14. and i currently have all of them open in tabs as i try to see what sparks the ✨vibes✨ and the ✨inspo✨

big tennant being, of course, georgia tennant, who continues to feed us all with content

this whole show is just a scheme made up by Big Tennant to sell more David Tennant

yeah I have a sneaky suspicion this is going to be how my Saturday looks lmao I'm so ready to be done with this term

the semester ended yesterday and today i have a hangover and my period

#unstoppable force (percy king of sass) vs immovable object (mr d king of idgaf)

PERCY JACKSON AND THE OLYMPIANS 1.02

first two episodes were iconic, Percy is a sassy little nightmare as he should be

I'm already so much more committed than I ever was for the movies, it's almost like letting the authors write the shows helps it stay true to the source material

PERCY JACKSON AND THE OLYMPIANS (2023-)

I'm so honoured 💕💕💕💕💕

Ellie and Charlie

TLOU Advent fic #16 for @elpickett

Ellie paused. “If all the seas were dried up, what would Neptune say?”

There was a confused beat. “What?”

“If,” Ellie repeated, slower, “all the seas were dried up, what would Neptune say?” She looked up, a gradual, smug smile spreading across her face.

Joel sighed and rubbed his eyes. He wasn’t so quick at picking up when she was joking around, or maybe she was just too good at disguising puns in regular conversation now.

“I don’t know. What.”

More on AO3

I speak English (fluently) and Spanish (well enough I'm living in Spain and all my classes are in Spanish and it's fine)!

The weird thing with studying abroad though is by the standards of other Erasmus students I'm weird. One of my friends here speaks four languages extremely well (Italian, English, German, and Spanish) and that's not even unusual it's wild.

I'm desperate to learn more though, at school I took one year where I had Spanish, french, Latin, and classical Greek and it was wonderful

how many languages do you speak?

(i’m counting languages where you took one class for a semester if you retained any of it congrats you are a little multilingual)

(reblog for bigger sample size!)