I have definitely done this (TEEN WOLF, getting major character’s eye colors and voices TOTALLY WRONG in the process) and am ingesting basically the entire wiki for the detroit: become human game so I can do it again
I think this is actually common if you’re exposed to a fandom through fanartists and authors first, instead of the source material… or is that just me
none of them have names right now but i’ve drawn the gentleman on the right before. he and the Cobra are bitter frenemies doing a solid for their actual friend, the little Hognose.
Cobra is a disgraced former bodyguard to reptile dignitaries now making his way as a sellsword/entertainer. he hardly trusts anything or anyone and he’s great at protecting people he actually cares about. always has a backup plan. frickin’ hates the Python.
Python is a mercenary 4 life with great fashion. seems to have dirt on everyone he meets and can come up with a lie at the speed of sound but mostly tells the truth because people just believe he’s lying anyway and that’s funnier. no one knows exactly what kind of python he’s supposed to be. thinks the Cobra is trash.
Hognose has worked with both these gents before and she’s just happy to be here. the boys are both like brothers to her and owe her a lot of cash so they’re her personal body guards to wherever she’s going. they don’t know where she got the definitely cursed staff from in the two years she’s been missing, since she used to have a big battle ax, and they kinda don’t want to ask. they’re starting to feel like the less they know about her quest, the better. some gods seem to be side-eyeing them pretty hard. at least the staff doesn’t seem to be affecting her. she’s still at her natural amount of mischievous corruption as far as they can tell.
i refuse to write more about them because i’m working on Downtrodden stuff and so help me i don’t need to make Snake Race Lore.
In all seriousness I took a death and dying course in college for fun and that’s when I fell in love with, and began to seriously study, spontaneous or “street shrines”. These are the organic, unplanned placements of items when someone is killed, generally, and the community almost descends on a spot. I am fascinated by that interfaith, inter-spirit moment of connection fostered. What drives someone to leave the first item? Who guides them there? What do we, as humans, seek from the leaving of a memorial on a place that now hallowed? And we know it is, to some extent, even if we’re not spirit-workers. We have this human need to bear witness, no matter who we are, and over and over again it manifests as this need to build some space, some monument that says “they were here, and now they aren’t here, and we, collectively, of all faiths and walks of life, strangers to each other, will remember them”
We take comfort in, and protect to some measure, that space we create with tea-light candles and stuffed bears and flowers and it just feels like the Right Thing to Do. We rebuild these spaces when they are torn down by authority and we keep building them up and that’s beautiful
Street shrines are TRULY universal, too. They are largely non-verbal but it’s like we just KNOW what to do, like something moves inside all of us and it doesn’t fucking matter if we can’t understand anyone else standing at the site, it’s just a Knowing. It’s phenomenal
kototyph 