Or something

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277k ratings

See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna
sualne
charlemane

writing tip: searching "[place of origin]ish names" will get you a lot of stuff and nonsense made up by baby bloggers.

searching "[place] census [year]" will get you lists of real names of real people who lived in that place.

homoqueerjewhobbit

I feel like I'm constantly shilling for them but BehindTheName.com, the only baby name site that doesn't feel like it's run by mommy bloggers, includes census-based graphs for dozens of countries/regions (though not all of them go back very far yet)

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And you can expand them to see rank, number of babies, and percentage of babies and add a second name to compare. (in 1973 four percent of babies were named Jennifer! 1 in 25!!!)

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Also this. Cursed.

emperorsfoot

@homoqueerjewhobbit what name did you search for your example, and what's going on with Moldova?

homoqueerjewhobbit

Those are the graphs for Samuel. They only have 1 year's data for Moldova right now, so that's why it's a straight line. Similarly, they only have 2 years for Mexico right now. The US goes back to 1880. I'm not sure how much of that is publicly available/translated records and how much of it is that it's like 1 or 2 guys maintaining a website of 27000 names and a finite amount of time to format and upload.

Here's the list of all of the countries/regions they have popularity statistics for if you want to nerd out on it!

some-teeth-in-a-trench-coat

You can't advertise BehindTheName for writers without mentioning the advanced search! You can search names based on cultural origin and usage, gender (including unisex), meaning, and even things like meter and number of syllables, or famous namesakes (you can also see a list of famous namesakes on every name's page, along with meaning, history, related names, alternate spellings in different languages, the above popularity graphs, and more).

I wouldn't even call BehindTheName a baby name site. They have a surname sister site and a random name generator with tons of variables to set that is very clearly intended to be used for fictional characters (iirc it can even generate a cause of death? I haven't looked at it in many years so it might have changed but these things predate generative AI so unless it's been forcefully enshittified it shouldn't be slop). Like, you can use it for baby names, but the website isn't explicitly intended for that purpose. This website caters to us.

quohotos
coldgoldlazarus

I want to see a work of fiction that reverses the "vampires are snobby upper class, werewolves are brutish lower class" stereotypes

coldgoldlazarus

Consider a vampire's reliance on blood as a metaphor for living paycheck-to-paycheck and depending on the kindness of others to get by, and the desparation that can make one slip into taking.

toaarcan

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Originally posted by imthehuman

@tiredspacedragon's tags.

wait-for-success

@barbwritesstuff

haberdoordasher

Terry Pratchett "The Fifth Elephant" has the best example of aristocratic high-powered werewolves I've ever seen. Their Castle has no weaponry because they've never needed it, it's great!

modmad
grifalinas

My favorite form of redemption arc is “I hate that I have morals now”

grifalinas

Like “I realized that I was in the wrong and now I will work hard to atone” is good and all, but “how dare you infect me with morals” will always be so much more entertaining

pactmagic

That moment the former baddie starts to walk away from some bad situation, almost gets out, and then just stops, curses, and turns around to go help?

*chef’s kiss* delicious

grifalinas

This one gets it

pitviperofdoom
capsyst

I love animation history and one of the things that always baffled me was how did animators draw the cars in 101 Dalmatians before the advent of computer graphics?

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Originally posted by madeleineengland

Any rigid solid object is extremely challenging for 2D artists to animate because if one stray line isn’t kept perfectly in check, the object will seem to wobble and shift unnaturally.

Even as early as the mid 80’s Disney was using a technique where they would animate a 3D object and then apply a 2D filter to it. This practice could be applied to any solid object a character interacts with: from lanterns a character is holding, to a book (like in Atlantis), or in the most extreme cases Cybernetic parts (like in Treasure Planet).

But 101 Dalmatians was made WAY before the advent of this technology. So how did they do the Cruella car chase sequence at the end of the film?

The answer is so simple I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me sooner:

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They just BUILT the models and painted them white with black outlines 🤣

That was the trick. They’re not actually 2D animated, they’re stop motion. They were physical models painted white and filmed on a white background. The black outlines become the lineart lines and they just xeroxed the frame onto an animation cel and painted it like any other 2D animated frame.

That’s how they did it! Isn’t that amazing? It’s such a simple low tech solution but it looks so cool in the final product.

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Originally posted by madeleineengland

transhuman-priestess

@transparent-plastic-robotgirl check it out

transparent-plastic-robotgirl

omg that's cool as heck!!! 🌸