#And im half persian so like

[faaun]

my research partner and i are huddled in a blanket in paddington waiting for a too-late train i already miss you and you and you

[writingwithcolor]

Conlanging Issues: A Compendium

NOTE: This question was submitted before the Nov 1, 2023 reopening and may not adhere to all rules and guidelines. The ask has been abridged for clarity. 

Most of my questions are about linguistics. […] One of the major locations in my story is a massive empire with cultural inspirations ranging from North Africa in the far south to Mongolia/Russia in the far north […] The middle region is where the capital is and is the main root of culture, from which Ive been taking inspiration from Southwest Asia […], but most notably southern regions of India. I've tried to stick to the way cities are named in Sanskrit-based languages but added the names of stars to the front (because the prevalent religion of this region worships the stars [...]). So Ive ended up with names like Pavoprayag, Alyanaga, Alkaiduru, Alcorpura, Cygnapete, etc. Is this a consistent naming system or should I alter it in some way? The empire itself is named the Arcana Empire since [...] each act of my story is named after a tarot card [...]. Another region in my story is based more on parts of South China and North Vietnam, so I've tried to stick to names with a Chinese origin for that. I understand the significance of family names in southwest [sic] Asia, so I wanted to double check [...]. They have only two short given names. Based on the birth order of the child, the first half of the name comes from the fathers family and the second half from the mothers family. It is seen as disrespectful not to use both names because using only one is seen as denouncing that side of your family. Thus I have names like Su Yin, Dai Jun, and Yi Wen for some of the characters from this region, and the city itself that they are from is named Bei Fen. On the other hand, Im having further trouble naming characters. […] Ive been trying to give my human characters names from real human cultures to distinguish them from the website-generated names of say, orcs, elves, dwarves, etc, but I think I should change many of the names Ive used to be more original and avoid fracturing real world cultures for the sake of my worldbuilding. […] Im still very weak in the linguistics area (even after four years of French, sigh) and am having trouble finding where to read about naming patterns so I can make new ones up. I read your naming guides but am still having trouble on where to start for specific languages. […] Im trying to look into Sanskrit, Turkish, and Persian specifically.

You're Going Too Broad

In my opinion, you’re casting too wide a net. You mentioned looking into Sanskrit, Turkish, and Persian to develop fantasy names. These languages are very different from one another, so unless you’re using them separately for very different parts of your world, it will be hard to draw inspiration from them in a way that makes sense. You’re taking on a huge amount of research in order to worldbuild cultures that span a massive geographical area (basically all of North Africa and Asia?) and have very little in common. Are you sure you want to take on that task?

I could see it being more manageable if most of your story is set in a small region of this world, which you will then research in depth to make sure you’re being as specific as possible.

Taking Persian as an example, you’ll have to decide whether you want to use Old Persian, Middle Persian, or Modern Persian. Each of these comes with a different alphabet and historical influences. They’re also associated with different periods of time and corresponding cultural and social markers. Once you’ve decided exactly when and where you want to start from, you can then expand the borders of your area of focus. For example, if you’ve decided to draw inspiration from Achaemenid Persia, you can then look at the languages that were spoken in the Achaemenid Empire. A quick Google search tells me that while Old Persian was the empire’s official language, they also used Aramaic, Akkadian, Median, Greek, and Elamite (among, I’m sure, many many others and many more regional variations). Further research into each of these will give you ethnic groups and bordering nations that you can draw more inspiration from to expand out your worldbuilding.

Don’t forget to make sure you’re staying within the same time period in order to keep things consistent. It’s a lot of work, and this is only for a small portion of the continent-spanning worldbuilding you’re trying to do.

You can get away with painting the rest of the continent in broad strokes without too much depth if the story doesn’t go there and you don’t have any main characters from those parts of the world. Otherwise, you’ll need to put this same level of detail into your worldbuilding for the area with Turkish-inspired names, and again for the area with Sanskrit-inspired names, and so on.

I know this isn’t what you were asking, but I honestly have a hard time helping you figure out where to start because your ask is so broad I don’t quite know where I would start myself. So, this is my advice: focus down on one region and time period and go from there. Feel free to write back once you’ve picked a narrower focus that we could help you with.

- Niki

So there’s logistical issues in regards to your naming system for southern China-coded regions. One issue is history: mainly on how there is not simply one language in China but multiple due to having a lot of ethnic groups and the size of China. South China in particular has different dialects and languages than the North as seen in this map of Chinese languages and dialects. There’s also how historically Mandarin was not the official language until 1913 in China and historical China saw vast changes in territory dependent on the dynasty. Before then, Mandarin was primarily a northern Chinese language based in Beijing while southern China had its own languages, dialects, and dynamics. Not to mention, historical China saw an evolution of language just like English has Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English, and Modern English. For instance, Vietnam was once part of China during the Tang Dynasty and at another point, it was not part of China.

-Mod Sci

If You’re Borrowing Whole Words or Elements, Research More

The other issue is inconsistency with the cultures you’re deriving this conlang from. In regards to “two given names,” the Chinese name I was given was one syllable and then I would have a last name that was also one syllable. There’s also how not every family is perfect. Not every marriage is sanctioned and some children may come from single parents. Some families may not cooperate with marriage and sometimes children may be abandoned with unknown parents. There does not seem to be contingencies for these names under this conlang system.

The main problem with conlangs is that one needs to truly understand the languages one is drawing from. Tolkein managed to create conlangs due to training in linguistics. Mandarin is already a difficult language with multiple tones, and trying to use it for conlangs without knowledge of how Mandarin works or a good foundation in linguistics is just a Sisyphean endeavor.

-Mod Sci

Four years of French wouldn’t have taught you about linguistics as a science or anything about the language families you’ve listed - Indo-Iranian, Sino-Tibetan, and Turkic, nor any Asian naming conventions. I agree with Niki that you need to narrow down your research.

Pur/pura means city in Sanskrit (ex: Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur). Prayag is a place where pilgrimages are done. Naga isn’t a place name in Sanskrit (google says it means snake), nagar is and it means town. X Nagar is a very common name for places (Ex: Rajinder Nagar). Many cities in Karnataka have names ending in uru (Bengaluru, Mysuru, Mangaluru, Tumakuru, etc) but the language of Karnataka is Kannada - a Dravidian language and completely different family from Sanskrit (Indo-Aryan). I’m not sure where “pete” came from. “Bad” and “vaal” are common suffixes for places too (Ex: Faisalabad, Allahabad). A disclaimer that I do not speak Sanskrit, I speak Punjabi, which is a descendant of Sanskrit and in the same linguistic family (Indo-Aryan languages).

- SK

Also, This Is Not…Really Conlanging.

Hi OP. Linguistics refers to the science of studying how languages work, not the discipline of learning languages. And nothing shows that gap more than how you have thus far approached constructing fictional languages and toponyms. 

The reason why Sci and SK have a lot to say about your place names is because they don't resonate—you have borrowed whole words into your toponyms (place names) from a variety of languages—without an accurate understanding of what these words mean, how they’re pronounced, where they’re derived from—and expected them to work together. I suggest you read the links below on why conlanging is not as simple as choosing some languages and mashing their IRL words together: 

Why Using Random Languages Wholesale in your Fantasy is a Bad Idea 

Pitfalls of Mashing Countries and Languages in Coding

In your city names, for example, you’re using star names from multiple languages that use different sets of sounds represented by different sets of historical spelling rules. “Cygn-” and “Arcana” stick out like a sore thumb—the fact that one “c” is /s/ and one is /k/ is an obvious flag that they are Latin-derived English borrowings. This is because spelling rules were created in Middle English to make sense of the mix of “c” pronunciations across words of Indo-European origin due to a historical split called the Centum-Satem division. This is a phenomenon that is very specific to our world history, and to the history of English at that. Ironically, in your attempt to avoid stock fantasy names (which also often fall into the Latin-derived English pit), you are taking the exact same approach to naming.

Like Niki said, your selections are far too broad to code under a single umbrella. Do you expect that whatever language that city name came from runs the full gamut of sound inventory & spelling variety that spans multiple continents and hundreds of languages? Because that’s not how languages work. (And yes, I mean hundreds. Indigenous languages and linguistic diversity are a thing. See Niki’s note about just the languages in Persia. And nation-states bulldozing over those languages and pretending it’s just one language is a thing. See Sci’s note about China.) I haven't even talked about the variation in morphology (how words are formed) or syntax (sentence structure).

Please just read or re-read my guide on “naming conlangs” in this post and start from there.

~ Rina

PSA ON CONLANGING AND FANTASY NAMES:

For fantasy language asks submitted after Nov 1, 2023, the asker must indicate that they have read Mod Rina’s conlanging posts linked in FAQ 2 (Guides and Posts by Topic) of the Masterpost under the question “How do I make a fictional language for my story?” While this is an older ask, we are posting it as an example to our followers.

Per our new rules, any questions that can be directly answered in or extrapolated from the FAQs, or questions that indicate that the relevant resources haven’t been read, will be deleted with a note in the Deletion Log explaining why.

As always, if this post was helpful or educational to you, please consider tipping the relevant mods: SK, Niki, Sci, and Rina.

Edited for terminology errors

[orderforbrian]

Day 6 - Time Travel for @jonmartinweek!

im late again but only bc i drew waayyy too much for this lol - i couldnt help it tho i really love those kid-centric aus where jon and martin's future kids come visit their s1 selves - they're just full of so many cute moments and little jokes 🤭 i'm also just a sucker for anything jmart kid related. plus watching s1 jon and martin, who have budged hardly an inch past absolute loathing, grapple with the fact they not only get married in the future but have KIDS too is soooooooo good 😆they get to talking and realize "oh god you really are my ideal partner ohno OHHH NOO"

[Start ID: Multiple images of Jon and Martin from The Magnus Archives as well as their future children for an AU. Jon is a thin Persian man with dark, curly hair streaked with grey and rectangular glasses. Martin is a fat, mixed Polish/Korean man with dark brown, wavy hair, browline glasses, and a beauty mark by his lip. 1st image: Jon and Martin are sitting at a wedding table decorated with flowers, a plate with half eaten cake, and a green napkin. Jon is wearing a white shirt with a dark green bowtie, his hair is slicked back into a low bun with some styled stray hairs. His black suit jacket covers the chair behind him. He has light beard and a gold column earring. Martin is wearing a white shirt with a dark blue bowtie, his hair is styled back as well and he wears a gold diamond drop earring. They sit side by side, noses almost touching - Jon smiles wholesomely at Martin, holding up a coupe glass of champagne, and Martin smiles back with his eyes closed, left hand resting around the base of his own coupe glass. Jon's left hand sits on top of Martin's, each hand has a gold band on the ring finger. The drawing looks like a polaroid, Jon's handwriting at the bottom says "Jonathan and Martin Blackwood-Sims. June 27th, 2023." Martin has placed a red heart sticker and written "J+M" in blue marker on the photo. 2nd image: Jon and Martin are older and pose with their children on their backs. Their children, Mina and Jules, have dark, curly hair like Jon's, Mina has a beauty mark by his right eye and Jules has one on her left lower cheek. In this image Mina has her hair tied back into two pigtails and is smiling with one tooth gone. She wears overalls with a scalloped shirt, a sensory bracelet on her right wrist, and sneakers. She is riding on Martin's back, gripping his shirt with one hand and lifting up the other one behind his head, laughing loudly. Martin side eyes her with mirth, his hair is more choppy and down past his shoulders, he has a patchy beard, and wears a simple lined shirt. In this image, Jules has her hair tied back into a ponytail and is wearing a t-shirt, jean shorts and sneakers with a star on them. She sticks her tongue out towards the camera and winks one eye, both her arms are laced around Jon's neck. Jon's hair is past his ears and he has a fully grown mustache and beard, he wears a collared short sleeve shirt. Underneath ths photo Jon writes "Picnic after 2nd year primary. Mina (7) Jules (8)." Martin has drawn a yellow sun and written in blue marker "too old!!" and a crying face. 3rd image: Mina and Jules (off frame) hold up multiple photographs to younger Jon and Martin (season 1). Martin is wearing a collared shirt and his hair is side parted, cut just past his ears. Jon has his hair slicked back aside from a couple large curls at the front and wears a suit jacket, collared shirt, tie, and vest. Martin and Jon stare down at the photos with flustered surprise, confusion, and disbelief, both blushing. Martin pinches one of the photos with his right hand. Jon holds his glasses in his right hand.

4th image is a 7 panel comic. Mina and Jules both wear glasses and school uniforms with a backpack, Mina wearing a tie and vest, her hair done in two braids, and Jules wearing a collared shirt and tie, her hair in a bob with two clips. 1st panel: Jules outstretches her hand while looking angry at Mina who is looking away with a huff. "We would've gotten here way sooner if you didn't have to stop and pet that dumb dog!!". 2nd panel: Jon crosses his arms and sneers at Martin, who is looking unimpressed and annoyed and holding a tea mug. "They get that from you...". 3rd panel: Mina points at Jules and retorts "Well if you weren't so impatient we wouldn't have gotten caught, stupid!!". 4th panel: Martin lifts up the tea mug to take a sip and shoots back to Jon, who frowns, "They get that from you...". 5th panel: Mina and Jules yell at each other with closed eyes and hunched shoulders, "UGH!!! WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS ARGUING WITH ME!!!". 6th panel: A simplified drawing of Jon and Martin, one speech bubble connecting both of them saying "They get that from you". 7th panel: Jon and Martin whip around and stare at each other with offended anger, saying "ME?!".

5th image is of Mina and Jules in full color. They have the same descriptions as in the comic, the school uniform is a purple gray, the skirts plaid. Mina wears a green colored sensory bracelet and Jules wears a blue colored one. Mina has a nervous frown, a couple sweat marks coming off her head, while Jules smiles with quiet confidence, a couple gold sparkles by her head. They hold hands in the middle, Jules is slightly taller than Mina. Above Mina are the following words: Mina (Mia) *younger sibling *a bit shy *fave color is green *loves when Dad does her hair. Above Jules are the following words: Julia (Jules) *older (by 11 months) *more adventurous *fave color is blue *loves when Baba buys her ice cream. End ID.]

[sukaaxo]

caught this in the notes of a fanfic. im baffled left to right throughout the whole damn thing 😭

fanfic was and is acc pretty good, enjoying reading it but the note threw me off.

we can cannot use irl societal imbalances in comparison with that of fae FAKE book characters that very clearly do not have problems with poc/foc. class problems are very very common in SJM books however racism based off of skin color has never existed in her worlds.

the imbalances in prythian are connected to class/culture/wealth etc and not skin tone (if so Helion and Tarquins courts would be viewed highly differently as both Summer and Day are described as being poc). the humans are disliked bcz they’re seen as weak for having no power. the illyrians come across as maybe gypsy/traveller inspo, they’re hated more for their culture than anything. the lower fae are disliked for being lower than the high fae which is a class problem. there’s nowhere that indicates any of the problems are connected to skin color.

lucien is not poc enough to even have been viewed as a poc for HUNDREDS of years, he’s blatantly described as looking like beron (pale white with red hair) so will not experience the (fake bcz it doesn’t even exist in prythian) skin color discrimination this person is making out he does. there cannot be an imbalance when no one even knows he’s connected to Helion (SJM said she viewed him as a ‘beautiful persian male’ so Lucien would be half persian at most PLUS it’s said LOA genes are incredibly strong which is why Beron married her in the first place and why Lucien is able to pass off as an Autumn court son). the Tamlin/Lucien dynamic is based off of the difference between a High Lord and High Fae. even tho they’re best friends, Lucien will never rank the same because he is not a High Lord (yet anyway) and this happens across all the courts

[presidentbungus]

option 1: post-canon, spy visits a team reunion in boston over smissmas, reconnects with scout, maybe ends up forced to confront the feelings he's had for engineer since they parted ways. continu-sequel to more than you probably think which i wrote like a year and a half ago (holy shit)

option 2: halloween, demo gets his body stolen by merasmus for nefarious purposes (and his soul promptly shoved into the persian persuader, which fake demo vanishes with); scout and eyelander team up and move with the rest of the team to save him and go on a big fun halloween adventure or something cool and fun like that

option 3: sniper hates engineer for being so weird and passive-aggressive and hard to read, engineer hates sniper because sniper hates him, and then look at that there's some rich prick in a microcamera-studded minisentry-packed forest somewhere whos head needs a-shootin' and specifically the only two people who can get the job done are the 2 guys who hate each other. im sure your lifetime of fanfiction experience is informing you as to where this is going to go. funtime road trip, theres only one bed in the camper, putting pressure on bleeding wounds (sexily), all sorts of fun things like that

also BIG two, like long long, will probably try to finish other ones first so my ao3 page doesnt remain inactive for a full 2 years but including these for posterity:

option 4: space AU, sort of demo focused, sort of not. main 9 are having great, vaguely interconnected times doing crimes in various corners of the universe, oh no gray mann's giant wild west space casino has all the space australium in the big space vault, so what is there to do except a giant wild west space heist. yes, demoengieheavy (also potentially medic as a secret fourth thing) because i said so, and they hate each other and it's really dramatic i promise. demo is an octopus-man, engie is a wild west robot-man, sniper is a mermaid-man, you know the drill and the drill is awesome

option 5: the one where engie is a clone of radigan. it is extremely elaborate and i am just going to trust youve seen my posts on this one (or my deeply deranged ramblings about it on one of several discord servers (including my own which is pretty cool i am just saying)). complexes galore, demo/engie is there and it is VERY complicated, split between very unfortunate stories from engie's childhood, and a present-day plot following engie through his time in the gravel wars, where he slowly works through all the damage and maybe gets involved in some mann co patented Dark, Torrid Secrets© on his way. normal girlboss things

bonus points if you ask me questions or something about any of these i'll give you an itty bitty little bitty kiss on the forehead

[sosuigeneris]

Mini life updates:

I’ve lost 1 inch since I began the lipo-B12 saline 3 weeks ago

I began using a new product to encourage new hair growth - it’s like this foam thing but it’s super greasy ugh

I began doing J*hn Bent*n’s (censored so that it doesn’t pop up in search) model workouts. He’s an asshole so I didn’t purchase his program (he did some Bad Things and now his wife took over his modelling fitness program company and has been promoting it under the guise of it being “Women-owned”). I found a link on Reddit with a file that has 5 of his workouts. He does have good workouts and they give good results but I ain’t putting a cent in his wallet.

I might adopt a Persian kitty idk

I finished my fittings for the custom piecesss

im yet to break up with my boyfriend 😭

I honestly should just do it. It’s been like a month and half that I’ve been wanting to end things. But the timing is terrible or something or the other pops up and it’s just plain annoying. I have ceased most communication with him and some days, I forget about him completely. I know it sounds horrible of me and I agree that it is but I’m so over this. He went on a boys trip with his cousin and some friends over the weekend and I didn’t want to ruin it for him so I decided to delay by another weekend. So now the coming weekend is the absolute deadline I’m giving myself. It’s sad because he’s a genuinely good guy but my infatuation has faded and the distance doesn’t help. And he doesn’t match my main criteria anymore for a partner. It’s only been like 3-4 months of us seeing each other so it’s not like he’s going to weep buckets over me, but I feel so small and awkward ending things. If he was a terrible personality I would’ve taken great relish in ending things but his overall niceness makes this much harder than it ought to be.

It’s best for both of us to part but he’s one of the “I’m bob the builder I wanna fix this !” types. Isn’t it the worst when the wrong person has the “let’s fix it” mentality?

I’ve bought new books to encourage me to break up and celebrate the aftermath. I’m only going to allow myself to devour them once I follow through with my plans.

-cherry 🍒

[dogmetaph0r]

SIC 'EM

Chapter 6: Heel

A/N: Hiiii did y'all miss me...... so I actually adored writing this even though it was so long and so complicated and took so much out of me and also killed me dead and spit on my grave. But other than that I loved this one :) :) :)!! Disclaimer, I'm not yet fluent in Polari so my grammar is probably pretty clumsy. It's heatin up in this soup pot. A certain someone of course is gonna go really ham-fisted with the dog metaphors but y'know what? I wouldn't entrust shenanigans to anyone else.

Pairings: M!OC x F!OC, M!OC x Tommy Shelby, Tommy Shelby x Alfie Solomons

Warnings: Anti-Romani microaggressions, Alfie being Alfie in general, past child abuse, brief ableism, homophobia

Soundtrack: POWER - Kanye West (i know and i hate him sorry) // Don't Sit Down 'Cause I've Moved Your Chair - Arctic Monkeys // Fido, Your Leash Is Too Long - Light Sleeper (cover)

Summary: Tommy has some business inquiries to make. Sam tries to be helpful, which is something that always seems to backfire. A conversation with a friend brings up some latent complications, and tensions threaten to boil over. There are two very good dogs in one room.

“Not fucking happening, Tom!”

Tommy rubbed both hands over his face. “I’ll pay you double.”

“Get John to do it,” Arthur begged, hands tucked beneath his armpits as he paced circles into the faded persian rug.

“John’s handling export issues in Wales,” Tommy explained for the umpteenth time, though whether Arthur was intentionally forgetting the fact or had simply lost track of it in the snow-covered landscape of his brain was unclear. Try as she might, Linda was evidently having a difficult time getting him off the stuff. “I’m asking you because I can trust you to have my back, and I know he’ll be happy to see you there.”

Arthur sniffed, petulant. “I don’t give half a fuck what makes him happy,” he grumbled. “I hate ‘im, and I’m not fucking going.”

They’d been at this all morning. Frances had come and gone with offers of tea twice now before giving up and bringing them some whiskey, which hardly had time to breathe before it was gone. Didn’t cool the temperature of the room much, but it did wonders for the headache Tommy was smarting with. Arthur flopped onto the couch, hands fisted on the knees of his trousers like they were the only thing keeping him from blasting through the wall like a mortar shell.

Tommy did feel bad about it, sure. It was his fault for putting him in this position, just as it was his fault for sending Arthur in his place that one time. But business was business, and it needed to be done by someone. Arthur just happened to be the only Blinder he knew wouldn’t wet himself in fear when faced with the sort of hazing in store for anyone playing a second to Tommy. A low bar in Tommy’s mind, but in unique circumstances such as these he was hard-pressed to find anyone better for the job than Arthur, hotheaded though he might’ve been. Arthur was not easily cowed, and certainly not by this man.

“I need you there, Arthur.”

Arthur snapped, snarling and red. “You bring me there, I’ll kill ‘im! With my own hands, I’ll kill ‘im!”

There was a knock at the door. Before he could stop him, Arthur was up out of his seat and storming across the room, whipping the door open with fingers wrapped white-knuckled around the handle.

Sam blinked at him on the other side, practically nose to nose. “Arthur,” he said impassively, only a flicker of surprise at the proximity. “Is Tommy still here?”

“Let him in, Arthur.” Tommy ashed his cigarette perhaps a bit more forcefully than necessary, the darkened end crumpled alongside the rest of the pack in the crystal tray.

The tall man glowered for a moment longer before stepping aside, pushing the lank strands of hair from his face. Sam stepped in, cautious but not frightened, even patting Arthur on the shoulder amicably on the way in. Predictably, Arthur bristled, but did nothing about it; he had a brotherly soft spot for Sam, having known him as a shy little boy and now an endearingly awkward grown man. He confessed feeling some responsibility still for the fight in the tent, John replacing Arthur in anticipation of his hot blood getting the better of him only for it to still turn out poorly.

Then again… if Arthur had threatened him at that moment, Tommy wasn’t sure that Sam’s reaction would’ve been any different. In the months he’d known Sam, the man had only ever panicked in three conditions. One was highly unusual on principle; he doubted that there would be any stallions there, regardless. Another was a flashback unlikely to be triggered by a simple sit-down meeting, and men like them didn’t fuck around with the residue of war left on the brain. Too risky and too cruel. Dishonorable, even for their line of work. The third being any time those mysterious notes showed up. Framing an unsuspecting man? Now that was not out of his contact’s wheelhouse by far. But if this hunch was true, and he really was their suspect, then Tommy could accept Sam throttling the man to death for his troubles. Fair was fair.

Sam leaned on the corner of his desk and cast his eyes at the ground, a significant tell of an incoming big ask. Last time, he’d asked to take Grace’s Secret for a gallop— in the height of race season, no less —and the time before that he’d wanted to take Florence into town. Tommy, naturally, had a hard time not indulging him. He’d created a monster, it seemed.

“Was just wondering,” he started, coughing and shifting his shoes about, “I mean— well. It’s been a while since we’ve heard from them. I don’t think they know I’m here.”

They, of course, being their mysterious foes up north. Sam had taken to calling them The Horsemen, unsettled by their revelationist message early that summer and their possessiveness over the racecourse. And he was correct— the one and only time they’d contacted anyone was weeks ago, and they’d sent their letter directly to the house on Watery Lane. The message, Proverbs 28:13, was read loud and clear: come out, come out, wherever you are. Petulant. They were at a loss. Even Arthur, still tetchy from the comedown of their argument, preened at their skilled evasion.

Tommy nodded, sure he knew where this was going. “And you want to stretch your legs a bit, do you?”

Sam flushed at being caught onto. “Well, erm. If that’s okay.”

Tommy might’ve considered that a step too far, a leap too risky, if it weren’t for his lack of backup for this damned meeting, posturing though it may be. And, regrettably, if it weren’t for Sam’s damned hands. Blunt nails on big, calloused hands picking at the crackling of varnish along the edge of the desk. And he knew, didn’t he? Knew how to distract and supplicate. Otherwise he wouldn’t do it so often, skimming his fingers over meaningless trinkets that a second ago had slipped Tommy’s mind. Sam was curious and cheeky. Two observations, independent and fused. Fuck.

He looked at Arthur. Back at Sam. Measured them in his mind, the length of one leg to another. He’d fit Arthur’s navy suit, if just barely.

“How’d you like to go to London with me? I need to visit an old friend.”

When Tommy said London, he imagined clubs and restaurants. That big clock tower, maybe, or the Royal Palace. But the London they’d paid for a swank hotel in was as smoke-sick and gray with rainwater as Birmingham. Perhaps a fair bit bigger, with men and ladies in nicer clothes, but not the glamorous epitome of wealth he’d been taught that the world aspired to. Camden Town, the little neighborhood on the outskirts, might as well be Small Heath if one took away the trash fires and replaced them with the disconcertingly incongruous smell of fresh-baked bread. A bit disappointed, Sam fussed with the way his hair sat under the hat.

It was Arthur’s spare, apparently. Woolen and itchy on the outside, but lined with silk that stuck to his overgrown fringe, prickling his fingers with static as he tried to smooth the flyaways down.

“Quit fussing with that,” Tommy said, eyes never leaving the road. “You’ll cut a finger.”

That— being strapped with weapons head to toe, that is —was perhaps the biggest adjustment he’d had to make about London. Sam had personally never had a friend he felt the need to bring an armed guard around to visit, even just an impostor for show. Then again, Sam had never been a gangster before. The suit, the razor-edged cap, the gun holster digging into the crease of his underarm… all very new. Any confidence the ensemble might’ve given him melted away without a fight at the basement entrance to the warehouse, where two broad, bearded men flanked a nondescript side door. Hasidic, he figured, what with the payot. They eyed him up and down, the slimmer of the two subtly moving his coat aside to reveal the gun at his hip

“Straighten up,” Tommy said, patting the lower curve of his spine. “You’re near two meters tall. Use it to your advantage.” Sam obeyed, face a bit hot at the contact.

Tommy let the men search him, then Sam; a formality at best, because neither the gun nor the hat nor the knife strapped to his calf were confiscated. Hell of a power move, Sam reasoned. Let them wield it all at their own risk. It wouldn’t matter in the end.

Sam’s instructions were simple: do as Tommy says, and no else. You don’t speak to anyone, Tommy explained. You only respond to Rokka. You don’t react. Ever. You don’t escalate. You don’t draw your weapon before me. Arthur warned him, too: don’t trust what the mad fucker says. Grace just laughed when she saw them leaving, shaking her head. Oh, good luck, boys. Have fun.

The distillery (as it now evidently was, with the stacks of barrels lining the narrow basement and the sweet chemical scent of rum flavoring the air) swarmed with workers, aproned like bakers but hands sticky with a thin film of molasses. They seemed not to even notice them, nor pay them any mind besides an occasional glance and below-breath mutter. All except for one man, wiry thin and striding towards them with a purpose. He wiped his hands on a white apron before reaching out to shake Tommy’s.

“Ollie,” Tommy said, “this is Samuel.”

“Mornin’.” The man, Ollie, extended his hand towards him. But Sam had his orders. He stood still, glancing at the man’s hand impassively before looking to Tommy.

“Go ahead,” Tommy told him, Rokka replacing English. Sam obeyed and returned Ollie’s less-than-enthusiastic handshake.

Ollie looked… not quite impressed. Filled with dread, perhaps, by the way he whale-eyed Tommy.

“Warning you now, Tom,” he gestured at Sam, “he’ll have fun with that one.”

“I bet,” Tommy replied, sighing fondly. And what the hell did that mean?

He hardly had the time to ponder it before a shout reverberated through the cavernous tunnel. “Boss on the floor!”

Like a hypnotist had snapped their fingers, the shouting of the distillery went quiet. Eerily so, even with the sounds of light machinery still hissing and groaning in the background. Men sitting around having a lunch break scattered, laborers walking down the center aisle parted down the middle as though cleaved in two. Still looking busy, but conveniently far away from where he, Tommy, and Ollie stood waiting for… someone. And then there he was.

A broad, bearded man at the base of the stairs opposite them seemed to dwarf everything around him. Like a pirate of old with his wide-brimmed black hat, shiny shoes, flecks of blood at the collar of his shirt, and thick, bruised knuckles glittering with gold rings. And then he lumbered leisurely toward them, ursine and heavy-gaited, cane clicking on the floor with an echo at every other step.

“Thomas Michael Shelby,” a voice boomed, the strong cockney accent bouncing off of oak casks and cellar walls. “You got some fuckin’ nerve, mate.”

Tommy’s face would’ve radiated boredom if not for the way the corner of his lip twitched upward ever so slightly. “I assume you got my message last week?”

The man scoffed, now close enough that Sam could see that he actually… wasn’t that tall. He had maybe a few inches on Tommy, but all of the grandness he radiated came from the span of his shoulders and the commanding way in which he carried himself: chest puffed out, head held high. Sam straightened his posture again, remembering Tommy’s words.

“Treacle—“ and that was unusual, humorous for someone so rugged, but he kept a straight face, “—if by message you mean one of your fucking leftovers from… what, Hoxton Gang? Their rat-faced little spy what’s been sniffing around my neighborhood? Then yeah,” he cracked those bruised knuckles, and now Sam could see the rusty dried blood settling in the crevices of his rings, “I got your message.”

“Good.” Tommy did smile then, very faint but noticeable for those who knew what to look for. Something mischievous sparkled in the man’s eyes for a second as he opened his mouth for another quip, but Ollie cleared his throat. The man took a slow look in the direction of Ollie’s pointed sidelong glance, then practically jumped out of his skin.

“Oh, fuck me! What is that?”

Sam whipped his head around, expecting some unseen assailant, but flushed red when he realized Tommy’s associate was talking about him.

“Alfie,” Tommy said, “this is Samuel. He’s a mute.” Mute? Sam shot him a look, but Tommy’s face read stop reacting loud and clear.

The broad man guffawed, clapping Sam on the arm. “Seven hells, mate. Thought you were a ghostie or a ghoul of sorts.”

“And Samuel,” he said, switching languages once again, “this gentleman is Mr. Alfred Solomons, Jr., a business associate of mine.”

Alfie scowled, recognizing his own full name even through the layer of an accent. “Oh, yeah. Real cute, Tommy. Very mature. Bet you’re all geared up to say summat about how I started it, ey? Callin’ after you all proper like a wrinkly old nanny and in turn you play the junior card? Speakin’ your unholy tongues and all, you call me Junior?”

Tommy shrugged, a brand new shit-eating grin plastered on his smug face as Sam struggled to not scowl at the slight. Alfie grumbled, eyeing Sam up and down for good measure before turning on his heel and marching off. Tommy motioned for Sam to follow, Ollie trailing quietly behind.

“New guard dog then, ey, Tom?” Alfie asked over his shoulder, leading them into the labyrinth of the distillery with those wide, limping steps that Sam very quickly began to realize were not put-upon in the least.

Tommy was impassive, even as Sam wrinkled his nose in distaste behind the bearded man’s back. Where the hell did he get off?

“Don’t suppose you’ll be sending our Arthur my way ever again, after the lovely Pesach dinner what’s been wasted on him?”

Aw-fah. What a strange way of speaking!

“Something like that.”

“What tricks have you taught this one, eh? Sit? Stay? Roll over?” Sam didn’t like the salacious rumble to Alfie’s voice as he said it.

“Bite,” Tommy replied, deadpan. “He hasn’t got the hang of let go yet.”

A chuckle as Alfie led them up the stairs, leaning heavily on the cane and shaking his head with a curse. They reached a second floor— an actual bakery, to Sam’s surprise —and then another gangway, where Alfie beckoned them all into his office.

He slumped into a worn leather chair, and with Tommy’s nod, Sam sat ramrod-straight in one of the two wooden armchairs adjacent to the mahogany desk. Alfie liked comfort, Sam noticed, taking in the high quality of the furniture around him. Despite the dust and clutter, it was clear that he took great pride in his belongings. But there was a roughness to the place all the same— bullet holes puckering the wallpaper behind him, panopticon windows cracked in places, flecks of dried blood on the armrest of the chair. Desperate, panicked scratch marks gouged on the inside of the door. Sam shuddered involuntarily. Then he startled, heart in his throat at the rhythmic thump from an unseen corner behind the desk.

Tommy sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as a whistle-whine yawn announced the leisurely awakening of a podgy little dog, wet nose nudging at Alfie’s palm for a pat before ambling wiggle-bottomed to Tommy. He indulged the little fawn-furred mutt despite the glare he cast on Alfie.

“Oh, don’t mind ‘im none.” Alfie turned his head to address Sam as the dog sniffed at his trouser leg. “That’s Lawless. He’s friendly. Law! Go to bed, now, attaboy.”

Lawless willfully disobeyed, dancing like a wriggling fish over to Ollie’s position by the door. Some of the tension bled from Sam’s spine; ruthless and of dubious sanity, but an animal lover. Sam could work with that. There was humanity in it.

Alfie cleared his throat, shaking open a newspaper and perusing it behind the rims of his reading spectacles with great interest. He hemmed and hawed, stroking the whiskey-red shine of his beard now and again. A grandfather clock tucked into the corner ticked rhythmically, setting Sam more on edge with each passing second. Tommy cleared his throat.

“Are we doing business, Alfie?” Tommy’s Birmingham drawl gave the image of boredom, but Sam could see the way his fingers rapped agitatedly on the armrest.

Alfie looked up, as though only just remembering his guests. Peeved, almost, like this was some random inconvenience and not a meeting scheduled far in advance. He huffed, tapping the surface of his newspaper with his knuckles for emphasis. “I’ve got a crossword that needs finishing first, Thomas.”

Sure enough, he flipped the paper around and the two were greeted with that trendy new puzzle of squares that Grace and Fia would pour over when they had tea. Only this time, none of the squares had been filled, despite Alfie’s rapt attention to the page.

Tommy looked unimpressed. “You haven’t started it. Are you even writing the letters down?”

Alfie scoffed, tutting at Tommy like this was a ridiculous observation to make. “Don’t need to.” And with that, he returned to his crossword.

They waited in silence, the clock’s staccato tick-tock-tick joined by the dog’s panting breaths and the distant sound of machinery.

Eventually even Tommy had his limits. He sat higher in the chair, hands clasped and elbows on the armrests, a picture of power and control. “We have a deal to discuss, Mr. Solomons.”

Alfie glared at him over the top of the page. “Yeah, we do, don’t we?” Then, finally, he set the newspaper aside, hands folded on his lap. “I’d like to start with the telephone, honestly. You know that thing goes two ways? I leave my messages with your lovely receptionist, and yet you never—“

“Lizzie does her job just fine,” Tommy snapped.

“I know that,” Alfie fired back. “Great secretary, yeah, always keeping your fucking whereabouts lock-and-key-like.”

Tommy said nothing, but that sly smirk was back. Sam shifted uneasily in his seat, sneaking a look behind him at where Ollie stood guarding the door. If the rumors about the King of Camden were true, his temper could flare at any time with the way Tommy seemed to enjoy provoking him.

Tommy caught on to his discomfort, perceptive as always, and gave an assessing glance at Ollie as well. Taking this to mean it was play time, Lawless’s nails click-clacked on the hardwood as he wormed his way between the chairs, licking Sam’s palm and pawing at his shoe.

Tommy sighed reproachfully. “Does the dog have to be here, Alfie?”

Alfie scoffed, once again offended by an apparently stupid question. “Well yeah, ‘s only fair. You have your guard dog and I have mine. We’re even.”

“If that’s even, then what’s Ollie still doing here?”

The aforementioned Ollie shifted uncomfortably, eyes darting between Sam, Tommy, and Alfie before landing on his own shoes.

“Well,” said Alfie, “have you seen the size of your friend? Practically a Great Dane, that one. Are you Danish, mate? Been to Denmark?”

Sam, startled at being acknowledged, ignored Tommy’s warning look and shook his head. “No, sir.” He realized his mistake the moment the words spilled out, ice-cold fear twisting his stomach.

Alfie’s heavy brow furrowed. “Huh. Pity, that. You’d’ve made an excellent net fisherman.” A wink at Tommy. “Hell of a talented mute.”

Tommy was glaring at him. Sam felt himself shrink under the scrutiny, knowing he’d been tricked.

“Don’t engage. Just follow my cues and don’t intervene.” Tommy hissed the command in Rokka under his breath. Then, icy blue eyes back to Alfie, he continued: “I wanted to talk to you about Aintree.”

That caught Sam’s attention. Resigned to following Tommy’s orders, he kept his reactions to himself, but he felt his fist clench into the leg of his pants as his pulse jumped.

“Aintree? Mate,” Alfie rubbed a hand down his face before his nails strayed almost compulsively to claw at an angry-looking patch of rough, inflamed skin on his neck, “you seem to be under the impression that I give a fuck about your lot taking over shit-stinking Liverpool.”

“I’m not,” Tommy replied, cool as water. “But I know you give a fuck about being paid for protection.”

Alfie held onto that little detail, quirking one brow. “Paid for protection, ey? You think I have the men to spare to send to Aintree on a lark, what with Hoxton up our arses in the metaphorical?”

Tommy shrugged, lackadaisical. “Contact your family.”

Alfie bellowed a laugh, slamming his wide palm down on the desk so hard it rattled everything but Tommy, still staring through him impassively. “My fucking family, he says! The wanker, he says contact my family! Thomas, I don’t know how it is with your free-range people—“ he nodded his chin to indicate Sam, who felt angry, defensive heat rise to his cheeks despite himself, “—but I don’t just have a thousand ill-begotten cousins to pull out of thin fucking air from all corners of the King’s country. In Boston I have Solomonses up to the gills, yeah, but we’re not in fucking Beantown, are we?”

“I’m offering you a good opportunity, Alfie. An untouched racecourse and a new region to expand into.”

Alfie pondered that as his eye twitched, staring down at the surface of the desk for a moment. “No. If I am going to dedicate the time to get my men out there, I want to make my profit on the gambling, too,” he said. “But I can’t spare my bookies from Epsom because unlike you Birmingham thugs they live in fucking London like civilized folks, and I don’t have the time to train some illiterate fuck off the streets.”

A muscle in Sam’s jaw jumped.

“Then call up the local bookies in Liverpool or Manchester,” Tommy said. “Invite them to do their business inside the tracks for a fee, and you can collect a percentage of their earnings. I’m sure the Jewish population of Merseyside will have some respect for your standing.”

Alfie looked taken aback, suddenly quite serious. Sam caught a glimpse of the bearlike giant standing at the other end of the hall when they’d arrived, so frightening from afar and now even more terrifying leaning into Tommy’s space. He knew to respect the orders he was given, but Sam mentally prepared to draw his gun.

“Do you think,” Alfie growled, eyes manically wide, “that just because I’m a Jew, I must know every fucking son of Abraham in the country? Ey, Tom? That’s what you think?”

Tommy said nothing. Alfie sat slowly back in his chair, maintaining that unblinking eye contact the whole way. “Because I do, for the record. Fucking know everybody, don’t I?”

Sam let out a quiet sigh of relief. Tommy, unfazed as ever, made a motion with his hands as though to say well there you go. “We can draft an agreement to edit the next time I’m in London,” Tommy said, cocky now that he’d won.

Alfie ignored him for a moment, burying his face in the newspaper again and grousing under his breath about Liverpool and horse money and Boston baked beans. “We can write up a final deal here and now,” he said, peeking over the edge of the paper, “if you indulge me for a mo’.”

An almost imperceptible sigh from next to him. 

“Now,” Alfie said, cracking his neck. “Since you have decided to make me talk business on a crossword sort of day, I’m going to make you,” he pointed at Tommy, “solve a crossword for me.”

Tommy grit his teeth and nodded almost imperceptibly, slow and calculated. Oh, he was properly pissed now. Sam almost missed that look of frustration and superiority in his eye, as though everyone around him was an idiot and he was the only reasonable player in the game.

“Tommy, you’ll guess this one.” Alfie pointed at a chain of squares on his newspaper, now animated and jovial again. “It’s something I like to call you. Starts with a T.” He leaned across the desk to show Tommy the blank crossword, hand covering the clues. How he remembered where each letter went was a mystery, considering Alfie still hadn’t made a single mark in all the time he spent pondering it. “I’ll give you a challenge, right, since you’re a smarty. It’s one of these words between five and seven letters, and I’ll let you guess which chain. And that’s your challenge, yeah, you’ve got to guess: five, six, or seven letters. Starts with T.”

Tommy pinched the bridge of his nose with an exasperated sigh. “Is it a variation of my name? Thomas, Tommy?”

“No, silly lad! C’mon, it’s easy but not that easy.”

Tommy gave him a dead eyed glare, thoroughly unimpressed. “Tosser.”

That provoked a full-on chuckle from the bearded gangster. “Funny, mate, very funny. But no, alas, it’s summat a bit nicer. They’d never print that, no.”

“It wasn’t a guess,” Tommy muttered under his breath. Samuel bit his lip to keep from laughing; he’d never seen Tommy so petulant and rude. He looked at Sam, eyes dull and lifeless like an old teaching horse put to one too many rides. “Guess, Samuel,” he pleaded. “Play by his rules. Put me out of my misery here so we can move on. Speak, I don’t care. I hate this fucking game.”

It was difficult, playing an invisible crossword with no schooling to speak of, but the letter T was easy. T for Tommy. T-T-T. Sam thought back to when they’d first entered the basement of the warehouse. The strangeness of Alfie’s speech, the way he picked words like fruit and discarded all but the ripest choices. And then an idea came to him. “…Treacle?”

Alfie looked at him in surprise, as though he forgot Sam existed. With the way he had been watching Tommy, analytical and carnivore-sharp, he very well could’ve. A broad smile spread across his bearded face. “Oh, very good guess, Samson.”

“It’s Samuel,” Tommy corrected, drawing a cigarette to his lips. Alfie snatched it away, chiding him about smoking in a distillery. When Alfie turned his full attention back to Sam, Tommy seemed simultaneously relieved and put-out.

“Shmuel, you’ve made a good guess, but not quite.”

Tommy reluctantly gave him a permissive nod, elbow propped on the armrest and fingers curled as though still holding his cigarette. Sam swallowed, thinking about how easily his fingers curled around that gun. How he pointed it at Sam’s bruised and battered head without a second thought, hooking the trigger, safety off, painting him the villain, calling him a—

“Traitor.” Sam shifted uncomfortably in his seat, willing his molten blood to cool, willing his mouth to stop imagining the bitter, metallic taste of a gun. He gulped against the saliva pooling behind his teeth. “Is- is that the one?”

Alfie’s left eye twitched and he scratched at his beard again. Interesting… he’d done that just a few minutes ago when he dangled the idea of an alliance in Tommy’s face. “Not that,” he said, drawing out the vowels. Sam must’ve been onto something.

Sam guessed three times more. ‘Thin’, the wrong number of letters. ‘Champion’, not starting with a T, even though it bloody well sounded like it. An agonized guess of ‘torture’ forced Tommy to restrain a laugh, but that wasn’t the answer either. Before he could try again, Tommy had evidently had more than enough. “Alfie, I didn’t come here to watch you play word games.” Below Alfie’s sight line, he signaled with his hand: that’s enough. Sam frowned, still unused to being bossed about by someone he’d begun to consider a friend.

Alfie’s gaze sharpened and locked onto Tommy’s as he folded the paper up and set it aside with a pat. “Alright, mate. Fine.” He beckoned with his hands. “Give me the pitch.”

Tommy blinked hard, the sharp lines of his face betraying annoyance. “I’ve got Aintree to meself right now,” he said. “That’s the Grand National, plus the Meetings from October through to Boxing Day. But if we take the tracks alone, that’s risky. Suspicious. Now, we can hire your men as our own security, but if you’d rather have the books yourself,” he hung another cigarette between his lips, leaning back in his seat so that Alfie couldn’t snatch it away again, “then I will be charitable and allow you a tenth of the space.”

“Fuck off,” Alfie called out, foghorn loud. “Fifty-fifty.”

“I’ll give you fifteen,” Tommy conceded, even and calm. “Consider it a gift.”

“I’ll consider it a gift when it looks less like another metaphorical gaping fucking maw to feed,” Alfie grumbled, hunched over his desk with hands folded. “Give me something that matters, Tom, because as it stands now I have absolutely no interest in Aintree.” He scratched that spot on his beard, eye twitching again. Sam was immediately on edge.

They volleyed numbers back and forth, a greedy push and pull process to grab up as much space as was available as Tommy quickly smoked his cigarette down to a burnt stub. Sam zoned out, not so captivated by the display as he was by the little autochrome photograph tacked up in a modest frame on the wall behind Alfie’s right shoulder. He squinted. A high-headed buckskin thoroughbred, male. Gelding. Four black half socks, common enough. One white pastern, back left leg, with an odd little stripe of white through an otherwise black hoof. Sam fucking knew that hoof. His heart pounded in his throat. King Solomon. Of fucking course.

“Tommy,” he hissed as Alfie dug in his desk for a fountain pen and a scrap of paper— something about splitting up territory down to the square footage.

“One second.”

“Tom.”

No response. Sam suppressed a howl of frustration. He fucking knew that hoof. He knew that horse. He knew the jockey. Young Jewish lad, good stability. Solid hold on the reins. The duo placed just below George and Tsarina in the rankings. He was at the track that day, and would have every reason to want his rival gone. No interest in Aintree, my arse.

“Tommy, listen to me.”

Rokka. Tommy’s eyes widened a fraction when he looked at Sam, ice blue on raw pearl white. Alfie had been digging through the desk for an awfully long time. Suspicious. There was a pen and notepad already within reach on the desk. Very suspicious. 

“What, Samuel?”

“He’s bluffing.”

Tommy’s eyes followed the path of his stare, and then all hell broke loose. There was a flurry of activity as guns were drawn, Tommy’s at Alfie, Alfie’s at Tommy, Ollie’s at Tommy, and Sam’s at Ollie. A beat, stalemate. Sam could feel his blood quickening just below the skin.

Alfie looked pleased as punch with the circumstances— downright giddy, by the rumbling chuckle and the lax way he wielded the revolver.

“Come now, sweetie,” he drawled, patronizing and sugared, “you think so little of me.” From within the desk, he drew out an embossed envelope, tossing it carelessly across the table. “Now let’s put the guns down and talk about this little slip of paper here, eh? Use our civilized words.” A pointed jab, with a sidelong glare at Sam.

“You’ve gone too far with this one, Alfie,” Tommy growled, ignoring the request. “If you wanted Liverpool to yourself, that’s one thing. But going after me own over it, that’s another.”

Baffled, Alfie wrinkled his nose and put his hands out in pacification. To Sam’s distress, that put the gun in line with his throat. “Alright, mate,” Alfie said, slowly and firmly as though reasoning with an unruly child, “while I usually have many clues as to what’s flared your particular neurosis at any given moment, I’ve been bested this time.”

Tommy didn’t relent, whole body rigid with anticipation. “Psalms 94:1. That’s you, isn’t it? Right out of the Hebrew Bible. I should’ve known.”

“You must be havin’ some sort of a fanatical episode for your heathen arse to be quoting holy books at me,” Alfie warned. “So let’s put the gun away, right? Before we put a hole in someone.”

“You’ve left us messages. Warnings to stay away from Liverpool,” Tommy growled. “All disguised in verses, and now you want to play dumb? Shooting that woman and putting it on us, that’s your idea of a warning? You want the racecourse all to yourself, don’t you?”

Something clicked, and Alfie sagged in his chair, tucking the gun away. “Treacle, this is a new low. If I wanted Liverpool, you think I’d just willy-nilly go and shoot a woman? A politician’s wife? At the biggest event of the year for that fucking dump of a city?” He tsked, shaking his head like Tommy had just thrown a tantrum rather than threatened his life.

Tommy narrowed his eyes for a moment before slowly holstering his own gun. Sam did the same as Alfie scolded Ollie, whose reluctant compliance Sam was not comforted by. Not Alfie, then. Sam’s jaw unclenched a fraction as Tommy apologized for the interruption.

“All’s forgiven. We’re good, yeah. That’s over.” Alfie gave Tommy a cautious once-over. “Whatever the fuck that was. Now take a look-see at that there, eh?”

Tommy opened the envelope and drew out the contract. Sam could see it over his shoulder, but in hushed tones, Tommy read it aloud for his benefit: a Bill of Sale, agreed between some horse breeder up north and one Alfred Solomons, Jr., for a gelding colt.

“Harry’s wife has a nephew,” Alfie said, fiddling about with a paperweight. “Very nice boy. Over in, ah…” he thought for a moment, eyes squeezed shut before he snapped his fingers, “Bristol, yeah, that’s it. Over in Bristol. I promised him that fine creature there as a Bar Mitzvah gift, since he’d been taking lessons. That was some years ago. He’s a proper jockey now. Good investment, yeah?”

“Thought you didn’t talk to Harry much anymore.” Tommy reached a hand up to ash his cigarette in the wordlessly offered tray as opposed to letting it smolder perilously on the desk, the little crystal dish evidently another treasure from Alfie’s cluttered desk.

“Well, you know how my brother is,” Alfie sighed, resigned. “Anyway, he’s a jockey, right? The nephew, that is. Making a name for himself.”

Tommy hummed. “You want me to fix a race?”

”What I want,” he said, leaning in conspiratorially, “is for my little investment to take flight. Now you might not know this, being of a provincial people and all—“ he glanced at Sam, already anticipating the way he fumed at the slight, “—but in high society, poncy gentlemen might purchase a share on a high-performing racehorse just like our King Solomon here. Nothing more than posturing and something to talk about with their fellow vapid old men, but they like to think it’ll make them even richer. And as the owner of that treif beast eating and shitting his weight in money, I would greatly enjoy the opportunity to make some of that investment back and support my nephew-in-law’s early career.”

Sam thought about that. Horses were expensive and delicate… how could anyone’s share break even, much less turn a profit, if the owner of the horse wasn’t making much money either? But by the glint in Alfie’s eye, perhaps he knew that.

“I need an endorsement,” Alfie said. “Somethin’ flashy and new like Shelby Company, Ltd., now that draws attention. And I mean, come on, Tom.” He leaned back, looking him up and down. “Folks like you know a good horse when you see one. And folks like them? Those dunderheaded old farts? They’ll believe just about anything if there’s a little mysticism thrown in.” He wiggled his fingers there to emphasize, like some sort of children’s magician.

Tommy sighed, rubbing his temple. “You want me to do… what, the endorsement equivalent of the powder trick for your nephew’s horse?”

Alfie shrugged coyly. “A little rumor of bohemian horse-charming never hurt nobody.”

Tommy crossed one leg over the other. “And what do I get?”

“For you, biscuit, I will accept your offer of limited co-authority over the racetracks. Just to put your maternally-derived fear of being left on your lonesome at ease, you little nudzh,” he said. “80-20 share. Favoring the Blinders, of course. And if you’re on your best behavior at our next meeting, I might even help you unravel whatever the fresh fuck your little outburst was about.”

They waited stock-still and silent for a while, and just when Sam thought for sure Tommy would say no, he spat in his hand and shook Alfie’s. The bearded man’s responding grin made Sam uneasy, but there was hardly time to comment on it when Tommy was already rising, saying his goodbyes, and nodding Sam towards the door. He was well pleased to follow Tommy out, grown sick of the bickering and sore in the head with nerves.

“Ah, just a minute, treacle,” Alfie called after them. “We have something else to discuss. Few things, actually, yeah.”

Tommy raised an eyebrow. “Is this a private conversation?”

Alfie shooed Ollie off without breaking eye contact with his target. The nervous-looking man ushered Sam out with a hand on his upper arm, trailed happily by little Lawless with a slobbery leather ball in his mouth. “Go on, then, Tall Saul,” Alfie called after him, “and mind your keppele on the rafters, won’t you, poppet?”

Sam bristled.

When the door closed behind them, he shook off the grip and whipped around to go nose-to-nose with the lanky baker. “Tommy didn’t fucking say I should leave,” Sam growled, hooking his thumb into the band of his holster— a stupid move, threatening a man on his own turf in plain view of an entire bakery-slash-distillery, but after the display he just saw he wasn’t feeling terribly rational.

Ollie didn’t look surprised, or even bothered by the fact that their… bosses? Co-conspirators? Were behind a closed and— click! —locked door. Instead he turned, exhaustion hunching his shoulders, as he took to the stairs. “Trust me,” he said as he went, “you’ll wanna be elsewhere for a while.”

Sam took one last look at the windows as Alfie pulled down the blinds one by one, sighed, reasoned that Tommy knew what he was doing, and followed Ollie out.

Tommy seated himself again as Alfie kvetched about the bad weather and his stiff leg. The London gangster was typically unafraid to mention his old war injury, but on a bad pain day like this, he often became quite cagey about it around strangers like Sam. Ironic. Even the most irreverent, crude man in all of Camden Town had soft spots that ran deep. It was never something he hoped to exploit. They knew each others' weak points too well for the sort of nonsense that plagued their early... whatever this was.

Tommy cleared his throat. “You wanted to speak further?”

Alfie looked at him as though he forgot Tommy was still sitting there, but just like everything else, it was an act. Another trick up his sleeve to distract and disarm. “Yeah,” he mused, placid like an addled grandfather despite being not much older than Tommy, “yeah I did, didn’t I?” He leaned forward, folding his hands before him on the desk and staring pointedly into Tommy’s eyes. It was a callback to the warning he was given as a boy: never make eye contact with a wild animal. Even as a child, he disregarded that rule.

“This whole…” Alfie made an exaggerated gesture, “…Psalms mess, that’s not me. Alright? I swear that on me dear mum’s grave, that woman gone brown-fucking-bread many years ago and not often sworn upon.”

Tommy hated when he said things like that. Mentions of the grave always gave him a chill; a blast of mildewing air from the depths of a crypt. He nodded anyway.

“But I don’t exactly know what the mess is about,” Alfie continued, tapping his fingertips together. “I don’t suppose you’ll enlighten little ol’ me? You know, the man you pointed a gun at.”

You said you were over it, thought Tommy, but he knew better than to fall into Alfie’s trap. “What do you want to know?”

He could tell that Alfie wasn’t impressed with the non-answer. Rather than countering with another question, Alfie reached behind him with a grunt and pulled a book from the shelf. Tehillim, he called it, and waited patiently for a moment to see if Tommy would hiss and recoil at the sacred name— a favorite little gag of his as of late, checking to see if Tommy was a demon.

“You don’t trust me with your problems enough,” Alfie said, pointing the book at him with the irreverence of a man who saw himself as above any law. He thumbed it open, peering through those incongruously delicate spectacles until he found what he wanted. “Chapter 94, first verse, you said?”

Tommy nodded.

Alfie read. And then read it again. Then another time, now whispering the words under his breath in a language spanning generations. He looked up. “Tommy.”

“Yes?”

“You are so very fucked, mate.”

Alfie’s expression was as blank and wide-eyed as it usually was when he was putting on a show, and despite the seriousness of the situation, Tommy couldn’t help but breathe a laugh. It tugged Alfie’s face into one of those genuinely delighted grins.

The very real threat was unavoidable, though. Tommy would have to consider spilling the whole story out before his ally and rival, and Alfie was looking at him expectantly. It was only a few moments’ standoff, but Tommy gave in. “Alright,” he said, “here’s the problem.”

The more Tommy explained, the more concerned Alfie seemed to grow. The lines betraying his age drew shadows on his face, sober and contemplative, as he stroked his thumb over the scar interrupting the red of his beard— a souvenir of the Great War.

“I really don’t know, Tommy.” He sighed, furrowed brows folding creases into his forehead as he read the passage again. “Never heard of no gangs up there, nor theologians with an axe to grind. All I know’s that your secret admirer is of a Christian persuasion. The Revelations—“

“Revelation,” Tommy said. “Singular.”

Alfie glared at him. “Revelation. The Revelation verse is your lot. We don’t do that. Awful fucking mess, that wicked fever dream.” He thought for a moment, stroking his beard. “Here’s a strange thing,” he said. “The ink was still wet, right. Who the hell brings a pen and ink to a race? Use a fucking pencil.”

That gave Tommy pause. “Racketeers,” he said. “Ready to forge a signature at the drop of a hat.”

Alfie leaned back in his chair, arms folded. “Hah! It is a gang, then. A rival gang none of us know about, with the means to carry out a public assassination and stalk you in your own home.”

Not the most comforting thought. Alfie gave him a knowing look.

“I’ll confess it, Tommy,” he said, “I already know about your so-called assassin.” He flipped his newspaper to the opening page, and Tommy’s shoulders slumped. Search Continues for Hangdog Killer, the headline said, accompanied once again by that damning sketch. “But I know he’s no assassin, because he’s slower than molasses on the draw. Now usually I’d go after the reward money being offered, but I don’t gain much from throwing away a perfectly good secret to hold over you.”

Tommy said nothing, but nodded nearly imperceptibly. It was as close to a truce on their back-and-forth game of betrayal as he was likely to get. Putting all he knew about their involvement— and lack thereof —on the table was Alfie’s way of showing his cards.

“Right!” He clapped once, a manic glint in his eyes. “That’s enough business talk, innit?”

Tommy startled, betrayed only by the slight jump of his shoulders. Sometimes it was difficult to keep up with Alfie’s moods, even the positive ones.

“I want to have a chat with you. I think you know about what.” Alfie had the kind of look on his face that Tommy always associated with trouble.

He braced himself, sighing deeply. “What kind of chat?”

Tommy regretted the question immediately at Alfie’s response: “Been a minute since we had ourselves a little polari, treacle.”

Ah, fuck. Polari. The talk. The language of outcasts: thieves, whores, traveling sorts… and men like them. Omi-polone. Queers.

His father forbade that language in the house— or anywhere, really. It was below them, he’d said. The speech of idiots and hedonists, a bastardization of languages not meant to be mixed about. A slight at Tommy’s mother; she spoke The Talk as well. For a time, Tommy wouldn’t take John with him to the fairgrounds to see the circus performers because he knew it’d be a flogging for him when the little one inevitably began copying his big brother’s conversations. Babbling about their father drinking their gelt away in the bungery, asking their mother to patch a rip in his clobber. You’ll make him a sissy, Arthur Sr. would hiss between bruising blows. Do you want your brother earning his keep in a molly house? Do you want the boy’s whore money in your pocket?

Do you, Dad? He should’ve asked, just to make him confront his sins out loud, but he had the nerve smacked out of him at that young age. Hadn’t yet reached the size Arthur had where he could finally hit their father back. So Tommy decided to keep it to himself. Listened to the sailors talk about dilly boys at the docks. Watched the pickpockets evade the charpering omi. Learned it all while he nursed a black eye.

“C’mon, Tom,” Alfie begged.

Tommy sighed, swallowed his pride, and let the words come to him. “Only a quick polari, aye? And nishta leaves this room.”

Alfie grinned. “There she is. The bitch is back.”

They went about catching up in such a manner for a while, Alfie reveling in yet another game of wits and words while Tommy mostly just tolerated the embarrassment. It was almost soothing, in a way. Alfie’s growling voice maneuvered smoothly, eloquently through the vocabulary of his childhood secrets. Tommy’s speech was more stilted, uncharacteristically reserved. He didn’t run in the sort of circles Alfie did; wasn’t out, as they say. All he’d known had been stuffed into a box to be forgotten, shameful and secret. No London drag ball for him.

“Let’s not cackle on ‘bout nishta,” Alfie urged after a less-than-respectful description of how badly he’d beaten that Hoxton spy Tommy had sent him. “You need to tell me about that dolly chicken you brought ‘round today.” The meaning? Tell me about pretty-boy.

Tommy swallowed around a burning mouthful of whiskey, nearly choking as his heart rate kicked. “What about him?”

Alfie looked at him as though the answer ought to be obvious. Perhaps it was, but Tommy didn’t want to think about Alfie’s ulterior motives. Not towards Sam. 

“Is he ‘so’?” Is he a homosexual?

Tommy made a face. “Samuel? Come on, Alf, that’s naff. Proper naff.” Unfuckable territory, Alfie. Take a step back.

“Pshh!” Alfie leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head. “On what fuckin’ authority? I took a good vada, I did, and I didn’t find anything I could clock as cod ‘sides the fact he might be a little dizzy.” I got a good look at him. Didn’t seem too bad except that he might be a bit stupid. Is he stupid?

Tommy pinched the bridge of his nose. He had no stake in what Alfie got up to outside of their unique alliance, but this was angering him in a rather troublesome way. Made something ugly tighten up in his chest, unsure if he was possessive of Alfie’s attention… or the unthinkable other option. “He’s got a palone at home. Dally one, her.” I meant that you should leave off. He’s got a lovely girlfriend. He knew this. So why did it feel like he was reminding himself?

Alfie smirked, vicious and arrogant. “You know that don’t turn me off. With plenty of trade you don’t know what you’re missing ‘til you’ve got ‘em in a doss, innat right? And rough trade? That’s the real bold type.” Plenty of straight men are not so straight when it comes down to it. Right, Tommy? To make his point, Alfie raked his eyes over Tommy’s figure. Blue-collar men like him? They get eager. Tommy rolled his eyes; no such thing as subtlety with Alfie.

“Well, you can’t blag Sam,” Tommy stated, feeling his ears go warm. You can’t have him.

“Why not?” Alfie leaned forward, mischief written on his face.

“He’s not…”

“Could be,” Alfie taunted. “Unless that isn’t your issue?”

“Hasn’t dropped any hairpins,” Tommy countered, raising a brow. He hasn’t hinted at queerness.

“Oh, and you’re absolutely bonaroo at clocking that, are you?” You’re terrible at catching a hint!

“If you would hush and Aunt Nell me for just a second—“ Listen to me! Christ!

Alfie found the weak point and dug in. “Tommy, sweetie, is it possible that you’re all out of sorts about this because you’re alamo for him?”

You’re attracted to Sam, aren’t you?

Tommy shut his mouth so fast his teeth clicked, beet red and speechless in a way he hadn’t been since he was a youth caught staring at Arrow Collar Man ads. If it were even possible, Alfie became even more smug.

“Ohh,” he gasped, faux-pitying. “You are.”

“No.” Yes.

And he was, wasn’t he? So sue him. He thought Sam was… pretty, in an odd way. Melancholy features arranged just so, not strikingly beautiful but striking like lightning. It was difficult to pinpoint when he started noticing Sam. Before he took up in the guest wing, certainly. Before he even arrived at the house. Was it when he gripped his hand at the hospital? Or the van? Maybe it was when they sat around the fire and remembered the war? No, he resolved. Before that. Perhaps the moment he saw him.

“I figured as much,” Alfie crowed, “when I saw the way you ogled him up and down. Like he was a challenge. Taming a stray, are we?”

Tommy frowned, and not only for the way he’d been caught. “What, you’re not looking to charver him yourself?” You’re not interested?

Alfie scoffed. “Nanti. He’s got lallies a mile long, sure, but… well, not much of a dish back there, innit?” Nah, he’s all legs and no arse.

“It’s just fine,” Tommy snapped. “It’s a bona dish. It’s normal.” Leave his arse alone, it’s decent enough.

Alfie just laughed. “Fuck me, you’re in deep. You meshigener.” You’re a fucking nut. “But remember, right, that fucking and feelings do not mix.”

Tommy nodded morosely, staring out at the warped world beyond the glass block windows. Fuck, he couldn’t let this get away from him. Already he found himself thinking of Sam more than he should, more than was necessary for a guest in his house. And what if he got too attached? Each of them had their own lives, Tommy engaged and Sam with a baby on the way. This wasn’t anything like the anonymous dalliances of his bachelor days.

“You know,” Alfie said, uncharacteristically sincere, “you’re always welcome in my slice of London. Safehouses, clubs, hotels, the like. Just in case there’s… well, I’ll keep an eye out for trouble, ‘s what I’m saying.”

Tommy nodded, quiet but appreciative. London had proven safe enough so far. If they needed to evade The Horsemen yet again, at least here there’d be two powerful gangs watching Sam’s back. And Florence! Florence and Sam. Both of them. Right.

Alfie must’ve taken the silence as a sign that their business was done, because when a light thud on the desk caught Tommy’s attention, he found himself sitting before a bottle of white rum.

“A drink before you go?” Alfie asked, raising his brow suggestively. “I’m not that loyal stray of yours, but you never seemed to mind before.”

Their conversation… both conversations weighed heavily on his mind, distracting and stomach-twisting. He couldn’t let the proximity get to him. Couldn’t trust himself to be rational if it all went sideways. If he was rejected. If harm came to anyone. Too many moving parts at play, business and loyalty and the beating of his heart all crescendoing every time he thought about the what if, what if, what if.

“I’m getting married,” he said instead of admitting the crushing force of worry on his lungs. Could he even fucking perform, bogged down like this?

Alfie nodded slowly, brows furrowed in confusion. “Right, mate,” he said cautiously, catching the rolling storm of Tommy’s stress on the wind, “we don’t have to. But I will say, six months ago you was also going to tie the knot and it weren’t no bloody moral objections then. And last year we had several meetings, didn’t we, where you cut the business-talk quite short because you needed your fix. Marriage and your little bundle of joy not on the mind back then, yeah.”

Tommy smirked. Yes, he preferred this: Alfie knocked out of that state of supernatural wisdom, back to earth, back to the present. Not playing shrink, just wanting something simple and fun out of him.

“Fine,” he said, holding out his glass for just enough rum to have an excuse, “have it your way.”

Alfie grinned, dark and cunning as he poured. “You never finished guessing the word, treacle. Something I call you, five to seven letters, and I think you know what it is.”

Tommy looked the man up and down slowly, the tip of his tongue running over the backs of his teeth, stopping at one sharp canine. He watched Alfie follow it, setting a fire in his blood that he couldn’t quite blame on the rum. “Tease. The word is tease.”

Alfie downed his own glass in a gulp, expression proud and hungry. “Atta boy.”

Thirty-eight minutes. Not that he was counting. It took Tommy that long to wrap up his conversation and meet him outside by the car, looking for all the world like a man who got into a fistfight after turning away his only backup.

Sam didn’t care about the wait too much beyond the pointlessness of his sitting around. Camden Town wasn’t too terrible, and a portly little fellow named David had apologetically gifted him a loaf of bread for the road and a dram of brown rum from the basement. Something about working men looking out for one another. It tasted like shit, but drink was drink. Besides that, Lawless was rather content to have someone to play with in that time, chasing whatever pebble Sam kicked across the alley and returning for a good fuss on the flank and head. He stared at him with big, simpering eyes before Sam pitied him enough to break off the crunchy heel of the loaf and toss it for him. That’s how he got so chunky, he realized, and had himself a private laugh at the idea of Alfie and Ollie and countless other gangsters buckling to the begging of that precious little face.

When Tommy did return, it was instead the state of him that made Sam angry. Hair mussed, cheeks flushed, tie slightly askew and a button missing from his shirt. Why the fuck did he bring Sam, a man he knew could hold his own, if he was just going to get into a private one-versus-one with the King of Camden anyway? It rankled him something fierce, the casual way in which he motioned Sam into the car. Rankled him worse when he slid behind the wheel with a wince.

He fucking smelled nice, unfortunately. Rum and sweat and a strangely familiar vetiver-musk cologne he was sure Tommy hadn’t been wearing earlier. Where did he get that? A gift from Solomons? A tang of salt, metal… blood from the fight most likely, and fucking vegetable oil of all things. Sam sulked. Did Tommy just bring him around to be bullied by some rum smuggler? He felt ridiculous in the gangster getup, the jacket pinching him in the underarms, the pants too short and in danger of ripping down the crotch if he sat too quickly. Not to mention the hat, static-shock silk lining clinging to everything on his head. He threw the damned thing onto the back seat with the bread as they drove off, his clammy, crumb-dusted palms not a better sensation as he ran a hand over his hair.

“Good conversation?” He sneered, ill-tempered and overtired after too much Alfie in one day. Tommy didn’t dignify it with an answer, but his hands gripped tighter around the steering wheel.

“What happened, ey?” Sam slouched petulantly in his seat. “You’ve seen me fight. I could’ve backed you up in there.” You still don’t trust me.

“Next time,” Tommy chastised, ignoring his questions yet again, “just do as I say. You need to control your impulses or you give too much away.”

Sam blinked incredulously. Next time? “He caught me off guard,” he said. “And besides, I helped you, didn’t I? With the horse thing.”

“The horse thing could’ve gotten someone shot,” Tommy snapped, his low voice warning like rumbling thunder. “You couldn’t just let the insults go, could you?”

“He was talking about us— about Roma, us! —like the dirt off his shoe.” Sam was beginning to rile, fueled by the memories of slurs and clutched purses and globs of spit hurled at his feet. “You sat by and let him say whatever he wanted, and all the while you just looked at him like… you looked at me like—“

“He’s a madman,” Tommy barked. “He says all sorts of things. You knew this and you let him get in your head.”

“You two treated me like I was your dog, Tommy!”

The car stopped with a jolt. Tommy’s glare was a dangerous, electric thing that he determinedly kept fixed on the road.

“If you don’t want to be heeled like a mutt,” he snarled, quiet and definitive, “then don’t fucking act like one.”

Sam raged and roared in his own head the whole way back to Warwickshire.

[ryoki-ph]

Best cheese?

hmm thank you for the ask im not exactly learned on cheeses but i always have warm feelings about feta cheese. my mum would buy this specific persian feta cheese its so salty but it’s the best and i like a lot of the meals my mum puts it in. its amazing with a bunch of roasted vegetables. i haven’t really tasted much cheeses like it since then.

second place is beqa cheese slices easily. slices of it broken in half on vita wheat crackers is maybe the healthiest thing you can eat way too much of in one sitting

worst cheese is swiss had it once when i was small didnt like it

[gumgumvibecheck]

o u o! for the ask game: 1, 9, 12, 15, 23, 42, 58, annnnnd 60.

tysm for playin av!

1. coffee mugs, teacups, wine glasses, water bottles, or soda cans?

i loooove coffee mugs deff have the most of those but i must admit i would be lost w/o my trusty water bottle

9. favorite smell in the summer?

theres the way air smells at elevation on summer mornings when its still cool and the pine is hanging on like the thin little suggestions of humidity they muster up in the mountain west and its the greatest thing in the world

12. name of your favorite playlist?

Nothing With Teeth (from the phrase 'trust nothing with teeth')

15. favorite book you read as a school assignment?

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner. blew the doors clean off my brain

23. strange habits?

i mean fuckin millions of em but i am obsessive about cracking the binding of books (that i personally own) as i read them

42. jacket pockets or pants pockets?

i wear womens jeans mostly so the pocket offerings are abysmal. save me jacket pockets. jacket pockets save me

58. four talents you’re proud of having?

-the persian language skills i have manged to maintain

-rumors of my illiteracy are greatly exaggerated and im not a half terrible writer

-im a really good researcher

-proficient in library of congress and dewy decimal systems

60. if you were a character in an anime, what kind of anime would you want it to be?

battle shonnen that has more odyssey elements like one piece or hunter x hunter. give me the explosions and the adventure

[starjxsung]

stfu MIDDLE EASTERN TWIN IM HALF EGYPTIAN AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAGAHAHA twin pt. 14059492 make it make sense

Also Tara yummy oh my god don’t even get me STARTED I will deadass start foaming at the mouth

STOPPPPPP NO WAY???? WHEN IS OUR MIDDLE EASTERN WEDDING…….. 💒💍

Tara yummy is so SHEEEEEESH THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT HER I had like the smallest crush on her and then finding out she was Persian FULLY DID IT FOR MEEEEEE I love how she feels so reminiscent of scene girl era I want a Tara yummy gf so bad where the fuck is my Tara yummy if u look like her or act like her or u are literally just any woman ever please hmu I want her so bad wtaf

[rinniemybeloved]

[✦] - Haikyuu!! ethnicity headcanons (part 2)

Characters: Yamaguchi, Kuroo, Oikawa, Kyōtani, Shirabu, Aran, Terushima, and Hirugami

A/N: Barely any of the characters in HQ look Japanese at all (maybe that's just an anime thing but whatever) so I decided to give them ethnicities.

-at first I was gonna say Pakistani but it didn't really fit

-so I settled for an Arabian country

-actually scrap that

-Persian

-that fits more

-his hair color is just so random that it's hard to predict where he'd be from

-apart from that, he looks pretty Japanese anyways

-he's Mexican

-one of them Juans

-he looks more Mexican than a Mexican

-his smirk also seems so Mexican

-bros a lil too Mexican

-did I forget to mention that I think he's Mexican?

-laughed just a little while thinking about this but like

-he just looks so white

-im not trying to be mean it's just—i don't rlly see anything 'cultural' in him, yk?

-there aren't rlly any specific features to him that make him seem like he isn't white

-but when I say white I mean maybe smth like Australia

-yes, I think he grew up in Australia

-just forget about the normal dub and imagine him talking in an Aussie accent instead

-in part 1 I said he was one of the characters that actually looks japanese

-well let's just forget about that bc now that I look at him he seems north african

-moroccan fits

-i'd also like to say that he's mixed bc of his skin color and face shape

-somewhere that's still close to Morocco though

-so like Algeria or Mauritania

-finnish

-a biology kid (idk what that has to do with him being Finnish)

-idc whatever y'all say but to me his hair literally screams Scandinavian

-he doesn't know how to speak Finnish that much at all

-he doesn't really care about his ethnicity in the first place

-probably grew up in one of those big happy families

-its canon that he's one of four brothers anyways

-big Cameroon vibes

-tbh I've met several people from Cameroon and they all look alike

-and Aran looks like them

-his facial features just all look Cameroonian (is that even the actual demonym? 😭)

-really random but he reminds me of Kylian Mbappé for some reason

-light skinned hispanic

-maybe just maybe Spain?

-Argentina is an option too but not rlly personality wise to me

-but he knows how to speak Spanish no doubt

-bros in class 7 he has to know another language

-i wanna say like . . . Canadian

-idk tbh

-the hair and stuff is just so off

-but even if he was Canadian he would only be half Canadian bc I feel like his mom would be from somewhere in Europe

-Switzerland is also a choice ig

So I guess I did make this a series. Maybe I'll make a masterlist for this someday. Reblogs are appreciated!!

[moonilit]

Im finally Done with Wanderer quest, in a way, Im glad that’s the path he chooses, someone who make a choice like his is a good person in his heart, i hope he have good life, friends, and healing

I picked up a name for him after I thought about it for a day and a half, in many ways I sympathize with him, I wanted his new life to start with kindness

I picked Hana because it’s a gentle name, his story is both im Inazuma and Sumeru and so this name ties both, it’s flower in Japanese (花) and Persian (حَنا), hope (هانا) in Kurdish, and a bliss (هَناء) in Arabic.

i hope he will be happy

[orderforbrian]

Day 3 - Victorian Times/Confession for @jonmartinweek!

late but better than never lol, im not used to drawing so much! i ended up with bad wrist pain and couldn't finish this last night

anyway thought of a gothic horror victorian au - jon is the newly appointed housekeeper for the Magnus estate (succeeding the late gertrude who died under mysterious circumstances, so he's not entirely qualified to be organizing the estate's finances and directing staff but alas here we are). martin is newly hired gardener who tracks mud into the freshly cleaned house on his first day 😬 but when he's not ruining the estate, jon finds him oddly charming - and when he's not getting yelled at, martin finds the housekeeper is far nicer than he's letting on 🤭 cue the loathing at turning into pining from afar, brushing hands, and then touching without gloves on??!! also them on a gender journey together is so important to me

romance aside (lol) it would be kind of a mix of Haunting of Bly Manor meets Dracula meets Crimson Peak in terms of horror - i think it'd be fun to translate TMA into a victorian estate (like how it's kind of creepy that no one has ever met Magnus himself huh 👀)

[Start ID: Three drawings of Jon and Martin from The Magnus Archives in an AU set in Victorian England. Jon is a thin Persian man with thin half moon glasses and grey streaked, curly hair. Martin is a fat mixed Polish/Korean man with wavy hair and a beauty mark under his lip. In the first image, Jon is wearing a white knitted shawl and a long, dark high collar dress. His hair is in a low bun. Martin is wearing a straw sunhat with a tied ribbon, a long white apron, apron sleeves, a pleated dark dress, and laced Victorian gardening boots. Martin is holding dirty gardening gloves in one hand, all of his clothes and especially his boots have dirt on them and there are track marks of dirt behind his boots. Jon is holding a broom and swatting it at Martin's legs, glaring up at him and shouting angrily. Martin appears shocked and is backpedaling fearfully.

In the second image, Martin has choppy shoulder length hair, tied back in a short ponytail and wears a large collared shirt and a vest as well as a short apron and gardening gloves. In a blue rectangle to the left upper corner, Martin is clutching a pocket watch in a dirty garden glove and holding his gardening hat to his chest, staring to the side with a demure blush. To the side is a mini version of Jon, standing, eyes closed, with one hand on his hip, the other hoisting out the pocket watch. He says, "Here! Since it's so difficult for you to be on time...". In a green rectangle to the right bottom corner, Jon wears a high collared shirt with a neck tie tied in a bow as well as a suit jacket, vest, and short gloves. He is holding a couple flowers in one hand and looking to the side with an awkward blush. To the side is a mini version of Martin with his eyes scrunched shut, thrusting out the flowers and saying, "H-here!!". His shoes are muddy.

In the third image, Martin has wet hair tied into a low bun, portions of his hair falling out of place. He's wearing the same outfit as the previous image sans gloves. Jon's bare hand reaches out from off frame and grasps Martin's bare hand. Martin looks at Jon with a blush and confused, flustered (and hopeful?) eyes. End ID.]

[villaincock]

i mean this with nothing but empathy and respect: WOW fuck your dad??? not even why would your mom marry him, but why would HE marry HER if hes so unaccepting to that degree? "i hate this thing that is a major part of your existence and identity and is deeply significant and persecuted against in indescribable ways. lets get married and have kids" ??? LITERALLY why. im so pissed for you and your mother im sorry that just got me heated you shouldnt have to hide IN YOUR OWN HOME/FAMILY

hi anon! thank u for sympathizing with me and sending this message.

my mom has told me before that this side of my dad was basically nonexistant when she married him (they only dated for about 9 months. my mom wanted a baby because she was 34 when she had me so ANY man would have worked. her ex had a vasectomy after the birth of his one and only son, to a woman who was not my mother, so he could not give her a child of her own, and that is partly why she left her ex). she said he was nice as can be, that he was adored by my bubbey (may she rest in peace), that he turned down three other women to be with my mom… he didnt care that she was persian. he didnt care that she was jewish.

im not sure what changed him. maybe hes only with her for my sake. :( i suspect he wanted me to be born a boy (i have two half sisters on my dads side, NEITHER of whom i have a good or meaningful relationship with), AND once i was born, he wasnt in any place to divorce her and give her child support money for 18 years. my dad was very poor when he met my mom. my mom was actually the girlboss breadwinner for a long time :p maybe he thought she’d just be another fling but then she wanted a baby with him.

to my dad, women — especially woc like my mom — are expendable commodities meant to bear white mens children. i love my mom and i love my culture. i do not have any attachment to my caucasian side (although i am absolutely white passing) because my dad does not treat me like a white girl. he treats me like a jew, because i had the NERVE to want to be jewish and learn from my mom when i was a child..

i agree its very backwards and i will NEVER understand his thinking. cant wait for him to perish so i can wear my tichel with pride :’)

[gal-vanized]

and now heres a list of every g1 pokemon and/or evo lines typing (and design. maybe) id change. if it isnt on here its fine as is.

(keep in mind im pretending ground-type doesnt exist, separating flying-type into bird-type and wind-type, and adding cosmic-type. (also maybe fish type. cuz its funny.))

(and (almost) every normal/flying will be only bird-type, and (almost) every ground-type will be rock-type)

(also assume every pokemon that CAN fly is immune to grounded moves (earthquake, surf, etc)

bulbasaur line - change from grass/poison to just grass-type

charzard - change to just fire-type and remove the wings. just make it a big lizard. maybe make the fire on the tail bigger. maybe when it uses something like flamethrower it places the tip of it's tail in front of it's mouth, similar to putting a lit lighter in front of an aerosol can and spraying flames. yknow?

blastoice - no type change just. remove the big cannons. make a separate 'turtle tank' pokemon. make it resemble wartortle more, make it's tail resemble a large wave rising behind it. (that way, each of the kanto starter's 'tails' would represent their element. venusaur's flower, charz's torch tail, blastoice's big wave tail.)

pidgey line - bird+wind type. maybe just pidgey and pidgeotto be bird-type, then add the wind-type when they evolve into pidgeot.

sandshrew line - rock-type. sandslash's spikes are changed to resemble stalagmites. kinda.

nidoran line - maybe start out as normal-type and then become normal/poison when it evolves.

clefairy line - fairy/cosmic-type. make it resemble a rabbit more, to reference the whole 'moon rabbit' thing. OR maybe remove the 'fairy' elements and just make it a normal/cosmic-type.

ninetails - make fire/ghost-type.

zubat line - make 'em just dark-type. i know bats have rabies n' diseases n' stuff but i dont think that justifies a poison-type. maybe make golbat and crobat separate evos from zubat? then golbat could be dark-poison and be all rabies-y, and crobat could be dark-wind. idk.

meowth and persian - normal-type as meowth, normal/dark-type as persian. yeah i know alolan persian is already dark type.

psyduck and golduck - bird-type as psyduck, then bird/psychic-type as golduck

mankey line - normal (mankey), normal-fighting (primeape), fighting-ghost (annihilape)

poliwag line - no type change, instead design changes. poliwag stays the same (maybe no legs like real tadpoles) poliwhirl becomes slightly greener. poliwrath is entirely green and resembles an actual frog. politoed is made a separate pokemon entirely.

bellsprout line - maybe just make grass-type. they gain an ability called 'flycatcher', where bug type moves deal no damage

ponyta line - maybe make ponyta have a smokey mane + tail instead of a firey one, to make it stand out from rapidash more so. also make a regional variant of both that are wind-type, maybe rapidash wind-electric type. cuz cool pegasus > boring pink unicorn.

slowpoke line - remove the psychic typing from each evo variant except for slowking. make the slowbro with a gun a water/poison. maybe give them all an ability called 'slow uptake' where if they reach 0 hp, they still use the attack they were going to use before they faint.

farfetchd line - bird/normal-type. galar variant and it's evo become bird/fighting-type.

duduo line - just bird-type. they aren't immune to grounded moves just cuz their bird-type.

grimer line - no type change for kanto variant, but make it a sp. attacker instead of a physical one, so it can actually use sludge bomb/wave effectively. maybe make alola variant poison/rock-type. never seemed like a 'dark' pokemon to me, plus its based on oil which comes from rocks i think.

shellder line - water/steel-type.

gastly line - ok so i would completely redesign this whole line. id make gastly it's own separate pokemon that would stay poison/ghost.

the line would start out with a ghost-type pokemon that is entirely a shadow. when it evolves, it would become half-solid, slowly 'stepping out' of the wall/floor it's shadow is occupying. the final evo would be ghost/dark-type, and be able to materialize completely AND hide in shadows.

onyx line - onyx would be rock/dragon, steelix would be steel/dragon. cuz they're both earth wyrms. also onyx gets a huge stat boost because GOD its stats are pathetic. steelix a bit too.

hypno - psychic/dark-type. maybe make it look more like a tapir, less of the whole 'vulture man' thing going on.

krabby line - water/fighting-type, maybe. it's fighting-type moves would mainly involve brute strength as opposed to punching or finesse; moves like hammer arm and superpower.

voltorb line - fine as is i think, maybe make them more physical attackers than sp. atk, so they can properly use explosion. the hisui variants should have been grass/fire-types.

eggxecute line - remove the psychic-typing,. alola one can stay grass/dragon-type.

cubone line - rock (cubone) rock/fighting (marowak). all 'bone' based moves (aside from shadow bone) are rock-type. alola marowak can stay the same but theres gotta be a alola cubone that is just fire-type thats a little fella with a bone torch. itd be cute.

koffing line - poison/wind-type maybe. galar weezing either becomes a steel/poison-type (it should have been that in the first place.) or becomes a fairy/wind-type with a completely different design (along with koffing) - theres a good one on here somewhere.

rhyhorn line - steel-type.

blissey - normal/fairy-type.

kangaskhan - normal/fighting-type. also maybe make it have a pre-evo thats just normal-type, n' remove the baby from the pouch. just so it makes a BIT more sense than one hatching from an egg with a full-grown baby in it's pouch.

staryu line - water/cosmic-type.

electivire - electric/fighting-type.

magmortar - fire/steel-type. i made a post in the past talking about how id redesign it (removing the arm cannons, have the mouth be the 'cannon', make it resemble both a cauldron and a mortar/cannon)

pinsir - it always bugged (lol) me that pinsir learned more fighting-type moves than heracross, but isn't the fighting-type. heracross is. make pinsir bug/fighting-type. its literally a bug wrestler. also maybe change it to look a bit more like a stag beetle.

gyarados - water/dragon-type as it SHOULDA BEEN IN THE FIRST PLACE.

lapras - just water-type. maybe normal/water-type? idk.

ditto - is perfect.

eevee - made a post earlier talkin' about it.

porygon-z - normal/cosmic-type.

fossil pkmn - once again made a post talking about it earlier. certainly not fuckin' rock-type.

the elemental birds - their respective element + bird-type. so no real change, really. (maybe make zapdos the uh. third one. yknow, the suicune, the registeel, the most interesting of the trio. i guess you'd have to change the name to zaptres, then though.)

dragonite - dragon/wind-type. maybe make its pre-evos dragon/water? idk.

mew - change it and every 100/100/100/100/100/100 mythical pokemon's stats to be more unique and interesting. also make it more gross and fetus-y. like it's original sprite. also maybe give it the illusion ability. for funsies.

ok im done. ill do the other regions later. bye bye !

[adagaium]

UAGH THIS IS , SO HORRIBLE IM ???,

One of the most severe methods of crucifixion put the arms straight above the victim. “That can [kill in] 10 minutes to half an hour - it’s just impossible to breathe under those conditions,”

HELLO???? HELLO WHAT THE FUCK??? OH MY GOD IT’S SO MUCH WORSE NOW THAT I … AUGH. WHAT THE FUCK, …

anyway some other facts: crucifixion was invented by the persians in like 400 BCE … i loop back to solheim is like the persepolis of eos … i continue with my validated coding of ardyn’s ethnicity … i continue my “ardyn is mithra” ramblings and point loudly at every bit of info i can find about mithra in zoroastrianism,