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nightmxre-dreamer · 2 years ago

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Jealousy♡

they/them pronouns will be used

(if you guys want a pt.2 lmk🙃)

Y/n does the finishing touches on their look for tonight because them and their boyfriend, Finn were going on a fancy date at the new restaurant that has just opened up in Canada. Y/n was wearing a red dress that looked just stunning. In the process of them finishing up getting ready they were interrupted by a knock on the bedroom door. "Come in" they say. Having an idea who it is.

Finn then opens the door "Honey are you re-" he couldn't even finish the sentence, as soon as Y/n spun the vanity chair around and stood up, walking toward Finn, Finn’s jaw dropped

"The real question is, are you ready"Y/n pauses and whispers into the curly headed boys ear.

" ~baby" They then walk away like nothing happened. Finn stood there dumbfounded, but then quickly fixed his self and the couple headed to their car.

On the way to the restaurant Finn had his hand on on the inside of Y/n’s thigh. Y/n was already a little hot and bothered (if ya know what i meann🤪) so they were shifting around in the seat a little. But little did Finn know, his lover has some other plans up their sleeve.

TIME SKIP TO WHEN THEY ARRIVE...

Finn’s POV:

We arrive at the restaurant and i park the car. Me and Y/n take our seatbelts off and get out of the car. We walk into the building and sense we have reservations we get our seats very quickly. We sit down and start to talk about a whole bunch of nothing. "Sweetheart you look really good tonight" I say, Y/n being the cutest dummy there is was obviously flustered. "T-thanks bab-" they were cut off by a voice.

"Hello, im Jacob and i'll be your waiter on this fine night, do you guys know what you would want to drink?"

The waiter named ‘Jacob’ says, but doesn’t just look at both of us, he looks at Y/n the whole.fucking.time. Although i’m probably overreacting…

right?

Y/n POV:

Our waiter, i believe his name was Jake or something. But that didn’t really matter.

“What may i get you guys to drink?” He asks politely but seems to always get a glance at me. “I’ll get your Maple Stawberry Sprit-” Finn try’s to request but is quickly interrupted but Jak- i mean Jacob. ��Mhm and for you, beautiful ” He attempts to say in a seductive tone, but fails miserably. But then an idea pops into my head. I’ve been wanting Finns touch ever since we got in the car. And this may be the way i get what i want.

“Oh i’ll take the Maple Macha Tea Latte, with cream. Extra cream actually” i say the last part in a wayyy better seductive voice. “A-alright i’ll be right back with your drinks.” He says as he walks away a bit flustered. I then returned my gaze to the menu then Finn. He was giving me a death stare. Like a warning in a way. Maybe i should stop.

You know what nahhhhhh it’ll be fine…right.

3rd person POV:

Finn was furious. He wanted to take Y/n out of that place right away. But decided to give it another chance. Jacob comes back with the drinks and is ready to take the food orders. Y/n does some more teasing with Jacob and Finn just can’t take it anymore.

Finn’s POV:

Im done. Y/n is in for a long night with her choices. “We’re leaving..” I say dryly. “W-what?” They say with those little ‘innocent fuck me’ eyes. Oh my god, how much i wanted to take Y/n right then and there so she knows that she is mine.

“I said we are leaving. Right now.” I said in a more stern tone of voice. I could see in Y/n’s eyes that they knew that they messed up bad.

TIME SKIP:

We are in the car and i have my hand resting, but kind of gripping it at the same time. I’m still tense from the little stunt Y/n wanted to pull. The car ride was silent. Not one noise was made, except for the low volumed radio and the air in the car.

We arrive home and right as Y/n was about to get out of the car i grab them by the neck (gently so i do not hurt them), and say.

“I was you naked in the bedroom ready for me, you have 6 minutes.”

“go”

And with that they get out the car with a hurry, im not going easy tonight.

By the end of this, she will know that’s she belongs to me….and only me.

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lokeanwelcomingcommittee · 4 years ago

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I'm new to this and picked up the Feeding The Flame Book and they have descriptions of how Loki will mess with your life in serious ways or make advances ect? I've been a victim of assault and PTSD issues from it and the way they describe it I know will trigger that anxiety. Should I respectfully take down the altar? Or could it be diffrent for me? I didn't feel this anxious before about him before but now I'm a little worried I won't be able to handle it?

Hi Nonny.

The first thing you should be aware of is that, in recent years, the author has kind of taken a dive into nationalism and authoritarian politics. The devotional is from 2008, and there are other contributors. But maybe engage with it with that context in mind.

Beyond that, it’s important to realize that different individuals can have very different relationships with the same deity. For some people, yes, sexuality is a big part of their worship. However, this is far from universal. A lot of people have a dynamic with Loki that’s more like parent-child, or teacher-student, or otherwise without any overtly sexual elements. The gods are three-dimensional and capable of having many different types of relationships, just like humans are.

If you talk with Loki and make it clear up front that you don’t want those kind of advances, he’ll be able to understand and respect that. Remember that the lore arguably depicts him as a survivor himself.

All that said, you are under no obligation to pursue a devotional relationship that makes you uncomfortable for whatever reason. Not every deity we take an initial interest in will be a good fit, without either party necessarily being at fault. What is medicinal for one person can be poisonous to another. Sometimes the relationship with the deity could theoretically work, but the religious community surrounding them just isn’t something you can handle. So while it’s totally possible to have a healthy, positive devotional relationship with Loki as a survivor, you don’t have to just grin and bear it if you’ve found yourself in a situation where your path is hurting more than it’s helping.

I wish you the best wherever your path leads. Our inbox is always open if we can help in the future. While it’s not lokean or heathen specific, you might also find some of the resources at Macha’s Justice useful.

- Mod E

#Anonymous

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naometry · 5 years ago

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Ronan and his hero journey

Alternatively: if Gansey is the Arthurian knight in the shining armor type or hero Ronan is the tragic one.

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS FOR CALL DOWN THE HAWK

“Once the spear was uncovered, it wouldn't matter if the hero's truest love or family was in the room with him; the spear would kill them anyway. Killing was what it was good at, and so killing was what it did...The spear, Dad told me, was him...He told me to make sure Ronan was the name of the hero, and not the name of just another spear.” – The Raven King

As we all well know, Maggie’s books have a lot of mythology and history in them. Varying from Glendower, Gwenllian and Boudicca to some less obvious ones, like king Arthur and his knights, the holy grail, to Fionn Mac Cumhaill, Fintan mac Bochra and finally, the one that I would like to talk about, because this is the journey that Ronan mirrors.

Cu Chulainn.

Before we start, beware that this will be quite long and I’m going with The Raven Cycle and Dreamer Trilogy timeline, more or less.

Cu Chulainn is part of the Irish/Celt mythology in the Ulster cycle. Cu is a demigod, son of a mortal woman – Deichtine, the sister of Conchobar, the king of Ulster and one of the most important gods in the Irish mythology - Lugh. In a very very very short version – this is the most popular version, there are others –: Deichtine was missing for three years with fifty maidens with her. They were turned into murderous birds that devoured everything on sight, so Conchobar and his warriors hunted them but were hit by a snow storm. They found a house and asked for shelter. In this house there was a woman and a man. The man was Lugh and the woman Deichtine. Lugh fucked off as soon as the morning his, leaving Deichtine with a child to take care of. A very powerful child.

It all depends on the source you’re reading really, but the most common version (at least that I know of, please keep in mind that mythology has different interpretations/versions depending on the source material) is that Lugh wanted an avatar to bore his power on the mortal real. In certain ways, we can say that Cu Chulainn is, in fact, Lugh reborn. Here is a Wikipedia small passage of him: “Lugh is portrayed as a warrior, a king, a master craftsman and a savior. He is associated with skill and mastery in multiple disciplines, including the arts. He is also associated with oaths, truth and the law, and therefore with rightful kingship.”

Does this story sound familiar?

Be it as it may, Lugh won. He got what he wanted in the end, an avatar on earth that bore the same power he had and then he is gone. Which is exactly what happened with Ronan. Niall got his dreamer, Niall is gone. Ronan was left to whoever wanted him and had the patience to be there for him. Who turned out to be just like Cu in the myth: Cu had Deichtine, Conchobar and Deichtine new husband, just like the warriors that where with Conchobar in that day. Ronan had Aurora, Ronan had Declan, Ronan had Matthew and later on, the Gangsey.

Well, speeding up ahead:

Just like Ronan wasn’t born Greywaren, Cu Chulainn also wasn’t born Cu Chulainn. His actual name was Setanta. Cu Chulainn is actually a title-kind-of thing. Cu Chulainn does in fact mean “The Hound of Culann”. Almost like Ronan “Gansey’s dog” Lynch.

The name was given to him because, at six years old, Cu Chulainn – part of the boy-corps at the time and already better them they all together, thanks to Lugh’s heritage – was invited to a banquet at one of the most famous smiths at Ulster, Culann.

Conchobar, who was the one to invite Setanta, forgot he was coming. So, Culann ordered that the hound of the house - who he said had the strength of a hundred men - to be freed to patrol the outside. As Setanta arrives the hound attacks him. And the boy, at the tender age of six, kills the dog smashing his head into a rock after throwing a ball so hard into the dog’s mouth that he mortally wounded it. As gruesome as this one is, Ronan’s new name is considerably less bloody. He too could have the power to do miracles that comes from heritage.

After all, what is Cabeswater if not a miracle that gave Ronan his new name?

But this is not exactly how the name “Hound of Culann” is given. Do you know why is that?

Because Setanta promised to guard Culann’s propriety until they could get a new dog. And so he did.

Many thieves, one greywaren, right? Many guard dogs, only one worth of Culann’s hound title.

Life went on, Cu Chulainn keeps getting more and more impossible things done until the point that some people just… got quite enough of him.

The thing with Cu Chulainn is that even with all the demigod fuckery, there were still warriors that could match him, in one way or another. Just like there is more than one dreamer and they all excel at different things.

What made Cu special on itself is a different thing. Ríastrad – the battle frenzy berserker mode that had his body contort in unnatural shapes and distorting him to the point of being unrecognizable as a human. This alone doesn’t seem much but when you put it along a few lines in Call Down the Hawk that I found specially interesting, it can be something else.

“It was The Dark Lady, the painting that had taken them hours upon hours upon hours to copy for the Fairy Market, but with Hennessy’s face and throat and knuckle tattoos. A perfect and cunning forgery, as good as theirs. No. Better. Because it oozed with the same magnetic, otherworldly desire that the original had and that their copy had missed. This was not a real-world copy of a dream. This was a dream of a dream. Perfect. Beyond perfect.”

Now, I’m not sure if the wording here is intentional or not but it seems to me that it means to be taken as Ronan’s version of The Dark Lady is a better of version of Nialls.

And then:

“And how would you know? Did you see the painting he did? Out of his head? It took him no time at all, maybe even better than the original Dark Lady. He said he might be able to do something just for you. You didn’t even let him try.”

Ronan might very well be a better dreamer than Niall. Is a better dreamer than Hennesy until this point – this can change along the series, so I’m not putting my hand on the fire for it yet – and is also an arguably better dreamer than Kavinsky, if you take in consideration the amount of tries he needed to get the Mitsubishi vs amount of tries that we are shown that Ronan needs to get the Camaro as stated in The Dream Thieves:

“Yours. I practiced, man!” Kavinsky gestured broadly to the field of Mitsubishis. “You see all these losers? It took me months to get it right. Look at that bitch!”

Now, this doesn’t mean in any way that Kavinsky is a bad dreamer or inferior dreamer or anything like that. Kavinsky actually is possibly on par with Niall but sadly we won’t be able to measure if because they are both so very dead. Niall exceled at the originals, like Robobee, The Dark Lady and another myriad of dream objects we see him with at some point or another. Kavinsky exceled at copies. He prided himself as a forger, as it also said in The Dream Thieves. I would even go a little further, maybe, and say that they also have another point in common in their dreams – creating life. BUT Aurora is not a perfect copy of Mor O Corra (and I can’t even say if this is deliberate or not so let’s leave this one open) while Prokopenko, on the very little we saw of him on The Dream Thieves, seems perfectly human. He is K’s favorite forgery, after all.

The thing with Ronan is that he can do both /and/ more. The thing with Ronan is that he had Cabeswater and then Lindenmere.

Which, tied with K, are the next point here.

Now, going back to Cu Chulainn’s story, Cu fell in love with a woman called Emer. Emer’s father, Forgall, wasn’t very happy with the idea that they could come to marry and probably would if he didn’t do something. Which is, in fact, very fair because Cu isn’t exactly a nice guy. He killed quite a lot of people, he is cocky, he is young and he is arrogant because he knows he is gifted and nothing will stand in his way if he puts his mind into it. Forgall calls him “the madman from Emain Macha”.

It does sound kind of familiar, doesn’t it? Even if it’s in a less tragic/dramatical way. Cu is in a path that has absolutely no other outcoming than self-destruction if he goes on like this. Here is why:

Another nice or not so nice thing about Cu is that at seven, Cu overhears the magician Cathbad – it’s nice to notice that not all scholars seem to agree in the term magician, some use wizard too. The important fact is that he is a druid and he makes prophecies. He is also the guy who gave Setanta Cu Chulainn as a name/title thing.

Anyway, Cathbad makes a prophecy for his students: any warrior that decided to pick up arms and armature would have his name to transcend all other Ireland’s youths BUT this warrior would also die really young. Can you guess what Cu, at the peak of his seven years do right? He goes on to Conchobar and asks for arms and armor. Now, Cu at seven was already a fucking menace and no arms were match to his strength. So Conchobar goes ahead and gives his own arms to Cu.

You can probably guess what I’m equaling Conchobar’s arms with right? Yeah, you guessed it. This is Cabeswater. A very dangerous thing in the hands of a teenager.

Now, going back to Cathbad prophecy, we know that K and Ronan are mirrors yeah? And that Kavinsky is what would have happened to Ronan if he didn’t choose different yeah? (Also correct me if I’m mistaken but I think it’s also said somewhere that dreamers tend to die young.)

But Kavinsky is a lot more than Ronan 2.0, he just has the same formula of a teenage dreamer with lots of trauma. They are not even close to be the same person. So, I present you the idea of Ferdia.

As I said before, Forgall didn’t really want Cu to marry his daughter so he proposes a plan to Conchobar – why Cu Chulainn doesn’t go ahead and train with Scathach? He would come back stronger and better right?

This is the time where you’re very welcome to slap me for giving this much information in a back and forth way but please bear with me I’m trying very hard to it all understandable without seeming too crazy. Just crazy is actually ok, thanks.

Now, Scathach is also part of the Ulster Cycle just like Cu. Known as the shadow maid, she is a warrior who excels at martials arts and in the use of the lance. She is, in fact, one of the most fearsome warriors of the Ulster Cycle and known to be a really good teacher. Scathach lived in Dun Scaith which more or less translates as Fortress of the Shadows/Castle of the Shadows. For you to be taught by Scathach, the first trial was to get in her home and then survive her training. It wasn’t even remotely unheard-of people dying under her tutelage and this was Forgall’s hopes for Cu.

Now, here I think it’s one of the most interesting parts. Cu has A LOT of fuckery going on in Scathach’s training that doesn’t matter much on the meta so let’s get to the parts where K is:

Kavinsky kind of fills a double role here – he has a little of Scathach as in: just like Cu kicks out her metaphorical door and demands that she teach him. (Among other things, but those are not important and this is already LONG).

Which is what happened with K yeah? Ronan learned what he needed with him and then fucked right off to nicer places.

Another interesting bit is that at the time she was teaching Cu, Scathach, as the warrior she is, was at war with her twin sister, Aife. Fearing for Cu’s life in the war, she gave him a sleeping potion so he wouldn’t go around and get himself killed.

While K motives weren’t nearly as nice as Scathach this happened too. Kavinsky repeatedly puts Ronan to sleep in order to teach him how to properly dream. Even if his properly dream is Kavinsky style – which we learn latter that his not the best way to dream for Ronan but that’s not the point I’m going for.

Long story short, Cu wakes up, defeats Aife, makes a son on her (this will be important afterwards, I promise) and fucks off to keep learning with Scathach.

Fits of parts of what happened between them yeah?

So here comes the next role K fills and this one he fills fully and not just partially – Ferdia.

Ferdia was also under Scathach’s tutelage and was the best friend – also depending of the source lover too – and during to the circumstances of the war with queen Medb which again, are not important here – he ends up battling against Ferdia. For better or worse, they were there for each other for quite a long time and loved each other a lot, until Ferdia’s and Cu’s circumstances and choices differed and they end up in different sides of battle.

Now, they battled for three days, until Ferdia got the upper hand, even with Cu Chulainn in his battle frenzy monstruous state. Ferdia had the advantage of an armor that was impossible to pierce so he called for Gae Bolg (which we will, again, talk later about) and as Ferdia heard of it, he made a mistake – leaving his chest open. Cu throws a spear at him which makes him distracted and then impales him with Gae Bolg,

While the situation is not exactly the same, Ronan and Kavinsky had a battle that was a lot like that. Kavinsky had Matthew, who Ronan loves more them himself and they battle for the right of it. Until Kavinsky gets tired. Until Kavinsky let things get out of control and commits suicide. As in:

“A second later, the fire dragon exploded into Kavinsky. It went straight through him, around him, flame around an object. Kavinsky fell.”

Again, I think Cu and Ronan are mirrors, so they don’t follow the exact same path neither the exact same formula. But I still think this is the right path to think about his journey.

Then we get to the demon, to being unmade, to Matthew, to Lindenmere and how both Ronan and Cu Chulainn hold the war for enough time until the enemy can be defeated.

This piece of Cu’s story happens both before and after Ferdia’s battle so please bear with my lengthy explanations.

First of all: the demon and how it ties to being unmade, to Matthew and the similarities is bores with the ríastrad. When the war with Medb started, the Ulster warriors were cursed – for the lack of a better word – and they couldn’t fight.

So, Cu Chulainn fights for them. During months he invoked the right of single combat with Medb’s warriors. Which is basically what he does with the demon during quite some time. And in the process he ends up being unmade. Now, the process of being unmade is described to being gruesome and violent into Ronan’s body.

He is dying after all.

And it all happens because he is special. To Ronan, it happens because he is very deeply tied to Cabeswater, he made it, he is the first one that needs to go if the demon wants to win the war. Which is basically what happens to Cu too. Medb’s warriors tried every dirty trick in the book to take Cu out and he fought until he couldn’t to hold them.

Ronan (and Adam, but this meta is about Ronan) hold him down until they all can come up with a solution, until their win is possible. (The nightwash is a similar thing to being unmade, which also, again, happens because Ronan is Ronan, because Ronan is a dreamer, because Ronan has a big gift, sometimes too big for him.)

He is special, his gift is special, they both can do it.

So they did.

Which leads to Matthew and Conla, Cu’s son. While Ronan didn’t really meant to dream up Matthew and Cu for sure did meant for Aife to become pregnant with his son, the similarities are quite lengthy.

Cu Chulainn killed his own son and it was his fault. There is no way around it. He himself made Aife promise that Conla wouldn’t identify himself, that he wouldn’t deny any battle and that Conla would search for him. Conla did search for Cu and in a truth “the apple doesn’t fall far from the three” fashion he goes around wreaking havoc exactly like young Cu did, until Cu himself comes to battle him. As he couldn’t refuse any duel, Conla and Cu battled until Cu killed him with Gae Bolg,

Ronan, during a very long time, also didn’t know Matthew was his dream. They were brothers, how could Matthew be a dream? But Matthew is and Ronan almost kill him too in his battle with the demon. And now in Call Down the Hawk we see Ronan, once again, for some reason or another, is influencing his dreams. They all search for the riverside yeah?

Do you all know what else had a deep connection with rivers?

Gae Bolg.

How Gae Bolg is used depends a lot of your source material but the most widely known version is that Gae Bolg is a spear made from the bones of a sea monster. It’s a spear that divides itself in thirty barbs and it’s thrown with a foot. It’s a terrifying weapon that if it strikes you, there is no chance of getting out alive. But it has a condition: it can only be used in streams. Now, if Cabeswater was the first weapons Cu Chulainn used as a young boy, Lindenmere is Gae Bolg. Lindenmere is dangerous, it’s wild and it’s unpredictable.

Just like Gae Bolg, there is little chance of you scaping alive if it strikes.

As Ronan himself put:

“I let Lindenmere be more of itself, whatever it was in that other place.”

“And what it is over there is dangerous.”

“Dangerous things can protect themselves,” Ronan said.

Now if Ronan and being unmade and unmaking Matthew where tied to the first weapons Cu wielded, doesn’t seem too farfetched to say that Lindenmere and the riverside problem with the dream things is connected yeah?

Another similarity is the geasa. But this one is already on CDTH:

Even the most invincible heroes could be trapped by conflicting geasa. The mighty Hound of Ulster, one of the boys’ favorite heroes, had a geis to never eat dog (“Shame,” Niall said, “it’s very tasty.”) and a geis to never refuse hospitality, and so when he was offered dog meat by a host, what other choice had he but to spiral into tragedy?

One of Ronan geis is that he can’t stop dreaming. And what is the other? Adam? Declan? Matthew? Geasa means taboo, so what is that Ronan needs to do? Or can’t do? I’m dying to know.

Also you all want to know another funny thing? Cu Chulainn was so ferocious in battle that absolutely no one dared to go ahead and verify is he was really dead. Do you all know how they knew?

Because a raven sat on his shoulder and drank his blood 😊

Please take this meta with a grain of salt, because this is my own interpretation of the story, of Ronan’s journey and my own studies in mythology in general. It’s totally possible I’m reaching a little bit too far too but who knows, right?

Also, I have absolutely no idea of why I wrote this or where I wanted to go with it. I just think the parallels are quite neat, if they are indeed true to Maggie’s (quite numerous, that’s what tipped me off) discreet mentions of Cu Chulainn along her books.

So yeah, hit me up if you wanna talk or something?

#the raven cycle #trc #ronan lynch #the raven boys #the dream thieves #blue lily lily blue #cdth meta #joseph kavisnky #call down the hawk #cdth #trc meta #idk how to tag #mom come pick me up I'm scared #also #I'm not a native speaker so there will be plenity of mistakes #but alas #CDTH #CDTH theories

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rasoir-national · 5 years ago

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@ghostplantss tea is such a fine luxury to have! i never know where to start with teas. which ones do you like? oolong is awful lovely i don't think i knew it was blue before

Oh boy, I am as glad you asked as you’re about to be sorry you did. I humbly present to you :

A GUIDE TO MOTHERFUCKING TEA

By Raz

A Very White European

Part I - Basics

Okay the great thing with tea is that you can take any of them and make them taste like crap. It’s like a superpower that everybody has. I’m not going to make a lecture out of this, but there are two basic rules to respect if you want to actually taste what you bought.

1) THE WATER MUST NOT BOIL !

Fun experiment : put a teabag in cold water. Nothing happens. You’ve wasted your time. Tea works because oxygen trapped in hot water opens up the leaf which frees odouring particles. But if you boil the water, then there’s almost no oxygen left. It will still sort of work, but it won’t even be close to the actual taste of the thing. If you’ve had a oopsie, just had a bit of cold water into the teapot.

2) Respect infusion times

I used to think I was too good for those. If you go over, it will still taste like tea, but most of the secondary flavours will be gone, and it will be much more bitter. You don’t have to buy fancy hourglasses like *some* people, but still respect the basic guidelines : 2 min max for white, 3 min for green, 4-5 min for oolongs, 5-6 min for black, 7-10 min for infusions.

That’s it. Contrary to most purists, I’m not opposed to teabags. Yes, loose tea tastes better, but you know, I’m on a budget too. Onto actual recommendations.

Part II - Brands

Look, I may lose my french citizenship over this, but I’m the most basic shopper when it comes to “gourmet” products. To me, there are only four wines (fruity red, bitter red, fruity white, sink-unclogger white) and three cheeses (gruyère, gooey and gross). Tea is the only thing I’m willing to spend money on, because really, if you don’t aim at least a little bit for quality, you might as well be drinking hot wet garbage. Do yourself a favour and stay away from Lipton, which is owned by Unilever - really, all you need to know.

The upside is that it really pays off to go to an actual tea shop and pick something you really like. Also, one of the rare socially accepted opportunities to go around sniffing everything like a goddamn pervert.

When it comes to luxury brands, I don’t know what will be available to you where you live ; personally, I’m most familiar with french brands, of course. My favourites are L’autre Thé, le Palais des Thés, Mariage Frères and Damann frères.

If you don’t want to spend objectively way too much money on loose leaves, there are plenty of middle-range brands : Kusmi Tea, Lov, Clipper. I’m personally not a fan of their blends but they’re perfectly fine.

And if that’s still too expensive, my advice is to look into green/fair-trade brands. In my own experience they have the best quality/price ratio. Also, the mysterious tea from the quote unquote “ethnic foods” aisle of the supermarket with google-translated info on the box ? The one you’ve never seen anybody buy ? It’s good, actually.

Part III - Actual recommendations

I tried to make a ranking of my favourite teas, but that quickly proved impossible, so instead I’m presenting these in increasing order of how insane you’d be to trust me and try them. I’m a stranger on the internet. Remember the PSAs.

0) Infusions !

This one doesn’t really count since it doesn’t actually have tea in it, but for that reason it’s a good entry point into hot beverage + taste. You have classics, like my personal fave apple&cinammon, and less so, like thyme, which feels like chugging a sunday roast. Also, contrary to popular belief, they’re not just for sleeping : I’m fairly convinced those pills they give US seal teams so they stay awake are just concentrated hibiscus infusions. It’s what I use when I do an all-nighter.

1) Perfumed green tea !

It’s light, usually fruity or flowery, and it’s great for everybody. I’m partial to Jasmine and Lily of the Valley, but you really can’t go wrong with green tea.

2) Green mint tea !

I’m putting this one separately, since it’s the only case in which I take sugar in my tea. I was lucky enough to have an Algerian friend who showed me how to make it : you take basic Chinese gunpowder tea, put it in water, then throw the water away to wash away the bitterness, pour again, then put fresh mint leaves in it, and then just a BUTTLOAD of sugar and you don’t stir. Then you pour it by doing the fancy trick with the teacup super high that my friend did perfectly and that I’ve never been able to reproduce.

3) Perfumed black tea !

We’re starting to get in the zone. You can basically make any flavour with those. Sweet, fruity, flowery, spicy, woody, musky... I personally prefer those last three categories, but there are all sorts of fun blends you can find. This is where we find Christmas teas, the best thing in the universe : they usually have a sweet/fruity base with spices (usually cinammon & cardamon). Since it’s the time of the year, I really encourage you to try those. They’re a good indicator of the sort of flavour you might like.

4) Oolong tea !

This is actually my favourite kind. It’s not usually blue, but it’s recognizable by its slightly burned taste, usually coupled with a secondary flavour like roasted chesnut, fried rice or hot milk. My favourites are from Taiwan (especially the Dong Ding) and Vietnam, but the Chinese ones are great too. I’d say it’s a good entry point into tea that mostly tastes like tea, it’s really easy to like and it goes great with any meal. It’s also quite good iced.

5) Rooibos !

This kind of tea has a fun rust colour and comes mostly from South Africa. Its base is very woody, with secondary flavours that are usually “exotic” fruits. It’s caffeine-free, and a good entry point into “harder” flavours.

6) Raw black tea !

This is where you find all the classic British breakfast types : Earl Grey, Ceylan, Darjeeling, Assam... I personally prefer the last one for its spicy taste. Ceylan and Darjeeling are a bit too bland in my opinion, but I do like a good bergamot Earl Grey. If you’re looking for something a bit stronger, I recommend Chinese varieties : Yunnan and Qimen are my favourite.

7) Smoked Chinese tea !

I’m putting this black one separately because I love it so much I could cry. There are a few different varieties, but you gotta try the Lapsang Souchong. It’s what it says on the tin : very smokey, very excellent.

8) Korean Maesil-cha !

I only tried this one recently. You know how I said green mint tea was the only sugary tea I drink ? This one does it one better by adding fucking plums and leaving the skin in the cup. It probably gave me diabetes, but it’s quite amazing.

9) White tea !

This is tea with minimal processing that is only left to infuse for a very short time, resulting in a strong grassy scent. I recommend working your way up to those, but they are of course excellent. I’m basic : my favourite is the Baihao Yinzhen.

10) Raw green tea !

The only reason I’m putting this so high on the insanity list is those freaking Japanese green teas. You know macha ? That thing every white person loves ? Well real macha is thick as hell, it has weird bubbles, sticks to the bowl and tastes like fish. I’m not kidding. I’ve been a vegetarian for 5 years and it gave me whiplash. It’s not my favourite thing in the world, but I’m gaining more of an appreciation of them. I fell in love with the Sencha Yabukita variety last year. Taste the sea.

* I should note, if you’re a vegetarian as well, a lot of those (as well as some black teas) did indeed involve animal products at some point in their making. This is personally the one exception I give myself in my diet, but do check your tea ingredients if that’s a problem for you.

11) Pu Erh !

Technically speaking, Pu Erh is tea that’s rotting in dirt. Now that that’s out of the way, let me tell you about Pu Erh, the best thing in the universe. It’s mossy, it’s heavy, it’s powerful, it costs 25€ for 100g. The one I own (Mariage frères’ Pu Erh Supreme) is more expensive than most of my clothes, but it’s really the kind of thing you have to try once. Plus, if you’re that high up the insanity scale and you still trust me, you owe it to yourself to see this to completion. Every single person I forced to try it hated it. It delights me. I’m not hardcore by any means, by the way, I just have very white friends. Also it looks like this :

So that’s my unnecessarily complicated recommendation list ! I know you probably didn’t want something that detailed, but talking about tea is one of the things that make me happiest in the world. Thanks for indulging me !

Also, if I didn’t make it sufficiently clear at this point, I’m very white and therefore open to any and all corrections/additions by someone who didn’t just fall into tea when they were 16 the same way white girls get way too much into hip-hop.

#tea obsession

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oidheadh-con-culainn · 6 years ago

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is cú chulainn an incarnation of lug mac ethlenn? probably not.

okay so i said i’d talk a bit more about how the cú chulainn-is-an-incarnation-of-lug theory is totally whack and based on a scribal error, so here goes. there’s an article that talks about this called the textual tradition of compert con culainn, which is in celtica 21 for anyone who has academic library access, but i’m assuming the majority of you don’t and/or can’t be bothered to go look something up which is valid

anyway for those who aren’t familiar with cu chulainn’s birth story, it’s a little bit weird, because he’s kind of conceived multiple times. there’s a boy whom his mother adopts, but who later dies; while she’s mourning said child she drinks and a small ‘creature’ goes into her mouth, at which point lug comes to her in a dream and says she’ll be giving birth to his son sétanta (and by the way the boy who died was his son too); she’s due to marry súaltaim but she’s already pregnant with this unknown child so she induces a miscarriage, marries súaltaim, and gets pregnant again… and this third child is cú chulainn (well, sétanta, he gets his other name later)

so that’s how he was conceived; the circumstances concerning his birth are also a little complicated and vary according to different stories, as well as being contradicted in places by little references to his childhood in other stories. for example, the táin says that he was raised by his mother and father and then left for emain macha at the age of about five, whereas versions of his birth story have him being immediately fostered by the ulaid, and yet another story has it that he’s nursed by láeg’s parents (láeg being his charioteer) so that they’re raised together from infancy (which is ADORABLE and I LOVE IT)

what does any of this have to do with whether or not he’s an incarnation of lug mac ethlenn? well basically the scribe messed up and confused two lines – one line featuring lug identifying himself to dechtire, and one in which he identifies his son, saying that he’ll be called sétanta, and from this concluded that lug-cú chulainn was an incarnation situation, and wrote a verse accordingly which has confused people ever since

now it’s always dodgy to ‘correct’ medieval texts according to what they think they ‘should’ say, but in this case we can be fairly sure this is what happened because there’s more than one manuscript of the story, so can compare them to see why they’re different, and come up with a working hypothesis about how that came to be

so the problematic version is the one from the book of leinster (LL), whereas we also have the slightly older version from lebor na huidre (LU). a verse in LU therefore says “and he [lug] himself was lug mac ethlenn” and then “and the child would be called sétanta”, or something, which the author of the LL version clearly muddled up and thought it said “and he [the child] himself was lug mac ethlenn”, so inserts a verse after that saying “and lug mac ethlenn was in the form of the child […] he was cú chulainn”

because this idea isn’t in the other versions of the story, we can see that something weird’s going on with LL, and if you’ve ever seen a medieval manuscript you can imagine how easy it would be to confuse two lines while reading and draw the wrong conclusions (hell, i’ve done that with tumblr posts, and those aren’t written in insular miniscule)

essentially, this whole confusion appears to come from what we call ‘scribal eye-skip’, i.e. a scribe was tired while reading the story, got muddled, tried to explain the text based on how they’d read it, and resulted in several hundred years of people trying to argue that cú chulainn is an incarnation of lug

(i mean that may also be down to the whole ‘cut-price jesus’ idea, which is… a whole thing i’m not gonna get into right now, but basically, if you’re trying to find more parallels between cú chulainn and jesus other than the fact that he died aged 33 and also one time slept for three days – possibly in a tomb – to be healed by his divine father, then the idea that he is an incarnation of that divine father is going to help considerably with doing that)

now obviously this is an ‘error’ that’s made in the book of leinster, which was compiled some time in the twelfth century, probably by around 1160, and is our major source for various texts, including one of the two main recensions of the táin. it’s not a new, recent thing; it’s older than some of the other material we’ve got. because of this, we need to ask ourselves whether we can really make a value judgment on how valid this interpretation is. i mean, if everything we know about medieval irish texts comes from these manuscripts and it says this in one of those manuscripts, then even if we can see where they might have got that idea from and think it’s probably a mistake, is it not just as valid as anything else in that manuscript? we wouldn’t argue that something from r2 of the táin is an error just because LL differs there from LU; we just say that it’s a different recension and treat it as such

it’s difficult because it involves lug and whenever anything involves gods it starts becoming A Thing, and since people are intent on extricating pre-christian mythology from medieval texts, they want to know whether or not you can consider cú chulainn an incarnation of lug. and then that in turn has a bearing on how you read lug and, indeed, whether you consider cú chulainn himself to be a god of any variety, so that’s when it starts mattering whether or not the scribe got it ‘right’ … like if you want to take that approach, then you’d probably say that no, this idea doesn’t belong to any pre-christian mythology (NOT THAT WE CAN ACTUALLY RECONSTRUCT THAT), it’s just LL getting confused, so we shouldn’t incorporate it into reconstructions now

(i will not here get into the question of whether or not such reconstructions are a useful way of looking at this material because that’s just. a whole can of worms, both academic and theological.)

honestly, for me as someone who isn’t super engaged with the texts on, like, a mythological and/or religious level and tends just to treat them as literature, it doesn’t really matter to me, but the fact that this whole interpretation hinges on what looks to be a very simple scribal error is part of the reason i don’t buy into it and will never write about cú chulainn as if he’s an incarnation of lug

i hope all of that made sense but if you have any questions lmk and i will attempt to clarify. in the meantime i hope you enjoyed this 1200-word post, personally i’m thinking i need to start an Actual Srs Academic blog (like a wordpress or something) to post this stuff on if i’m gonna spend this much time on it, but there we are

main source for this post if you wanna know more / check that i’m not talking complete rubbish: Ó Concheanainn, Tomás, “The textual tradition of Compert Con Culainn”, Celtica 21 (1990), pp. 441–455

#lug mac ethlenn #cu chulainn #irish mythology #celtic mythology #medieval irish #tain bo cuailnge #tc does academia

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incorrect-witcher-quotes · 7 years ago

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The Witcher's Zodiacs

I’ve gotten a few requests to do this and I’ve finally gotten around to it! Of course, none of these are scientifically proven, and it’s merely based on strict character analysis following the claimed character traits of the zodiac signs, and where each of these characters would most likely fit in.

What are my credentials? Well, I used to write weekly articles of the zodiac signs for a long time during my graduation year, it was only a bit of fun as I really love analyzing people, their personalities and behaviors.

With that said, if you ever wondered which of these characters YOU’D be compatible with, or is just generally curious about it, here is my analysis, conclusions and a short little description of each sign.

Aries: Warm, emotional, social and aggressive;

Anna Henrietta, Fringilla Vigo, Olgierd von Everec, Damien de la Tour and Ves.

Taurus: Stubborn, protective, patient, practical, stabile;

Cerys an Craite, Assire var Anahid, Geralt of Rivia, Cahir Mawr Dyffryn aep Ceallach and Éibhear Hattori.

Gemini: Witty, shallow, curious, independent and impulsive;

Eredin Bréacc Glas, Philippa Eilhart, Keira Metz, Philip Strenger and Dethmold.

Cancer: The protector, preserver, loyal and faithful.

Vesemir, Ermion (Mousesack), Zoltan Chivay, Tissaia de Vries, Crach an Craite.

Leo: Strong-willed, jealous, grandstanding and dutiful;

Dandelion, Sigismund Dijkstra, Sabrina Glevissig, Tamara Strenger and Imlerith.

Virgo: Analytic, self-aware, productive and critical.

Yennefer of Vengerberg, Sheala de Tancarville, Vernon Roche, Emhyr var Emreis and Vilgefortz.

Libra: Charming, indecisive, diplomatic, socially gifted.

Orianna, Morvran Voorhis, Elihal and Ge’els.

Scorpio: Intense, strong, passionate, jealous and brave.

Lambert, Maria Barring, Sylvia Anna, Iorveth and Cirilla.

Sagittarius: Honest, generous, optimistic and seeker.

Priscilla, Letho of Gulet, Guillaume, Hjalmar an Craite and Triss Merigold.

Capricorn: Reclusive, loyal, dutiful and ambitious.

Angoulême, Caranthir Ar-Feiniel, Eskel, Fransesca Findabair and Dettlaff van der Eretein.

Aquarius: Perceptive, intuitive, loyal and inventive.

Crevan Espane aep Caomhan Macha, Lara Dorren aep Shiadhal, Saskia, Margarita Laux-Antille, Nenneke and Ida Emean aep Sivney.

Pisces: Kind-hearted, empathic, secretive and impressionable.

Shani, Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy, Auberon Muircetach (young), Tomira, Iris von Everec and Vivienne de Tabris.

Big disclaimer:

All of the pictures used are not drawn or created by myself, by no means do I mean to infringe on any copyright. All artwork is found on deviantart and created by amazing artists.

The list of credited authors is listed in this separate post.

If you want to ask, discuss or message me about this, feel free to send an ask in a friendly tone!

xx Vic

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mikumanogi-blog · 3 years ago

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2017-02-09 “There is no limit” Kubo Shiori Blog #5

Hello everyone.

Thank you for your hard work every day.

I’m Nogizaka 46’s 3rd gen Kubo Shiori. It is a pleasure to meet you.

(One of my favorite dresses. It is a different color than Hazuki’s <3)

To everyone taking entrance exams.

They are almost here, it pains me that the only thing I can do is cheer you on…

But it is often said that there is not much else you can say when you put it into words.

Therefore, I will pass! Repeat those words over and over. I’ll be saying it too help everyone pass.

Recently I been unable to resist wanting to drink hot drinks, Macha latte, Hot chocolate, soy milk, hot tea. I don’t care how many cups, I just want to drink hot drinks.

Like always, to start off today’s blog I am going to do a comments Q&A!!

· For a change of pace what do you do?

I sleep. I sing. Song’s are amazing aren’t they, they warm the soul.

· What’s your grip strength?

I think around 21kg? Around that weight!

In 5th grade 9kg was the most devastating number I could force out. Thanks to badminton I was able to raise my grip strength.

· Do you often go to Karaoke?

I doo~! I can do it for hours.

I can also eat cups and cups of soft serve. My longest karaoke session was 8 hours and 8 cups of soft serve.

Because there is no limit I probably could’ve had more.

· How are you feeling?

…how kind of you to ask…

I am 100% ok! Thank you for asking. Is everyone else feeling, ok?

It’s also dry out; everyone please take care of your health.

I am going to end the Q&A for here today. I will do more next time!

Moving on, we are currently in the middle of performing 「3 nin no purinshiparu」

To everyone that has come, will come and to those that are cheering on the 3rd gens, Thank you very much.

One comment read “I’m going on __ day”, and unfortunately that day I was not chosen.

I am sorry.

That person was looking forward to seeing me in the second act. I am terribly sorry.

“Tomorrow will be better! Tomorrow do your best!”

There are many people have wrote this in the comments. It makes me happy but, I keep imagining what the people who came to watch the performance would think of me on the day that I succumb to myself.

They will probably be disgusted with the being known as Kubo Shiori. I probably didn’t leave any impression whatsoever. It is frustrating. Absolutely frustrating.

In the 15 performances I do not want to waste a single one. Regardless of whether I am chosen or not that experience will help me grow. I want to show off my development. However, everyday I keep thinking to myself “I’m a lost cause aren’t I”. Despite this, it is thanks to everyone’s support that I can struggle against myself every day. It is really thanks to everyone. Everyone that earnestly comes to watch, who seriously thinks about who to vote for and who deeply supports us.

That is why I am going to repay everyone. The only way I believe I can do that is to be standing on that stage in the second act. To stand on the stage in the second act and show how much I have grown. Although I have everlasting worries, we 3rd generation member are slowly moving our way uphill. (TL note: the words she used are 坂を登る (climb a hill) which is similar to the Nogizaka slogan, and might imply that they feel as though they’re becoming closer to feeling like true members of the group)

Next in the 3rd act, pen lights, fans, boards, towels, I can see everyone all the way to the back. Thank you, thank you so much. I going to work so much harder so that I can be a person that is worthy of being supported.

Power, Gratitude, Smile.

These are the three values that are most important for this performance.

Right now a large obstacle has appeared before me, Principle, my objective is not only about overcoming this obstacle but the discoveries I make along the way. Just overcoming the obstacle is meaningless. I want to able to leverage the knowledge I gained by overcoming this hurdle in the future. As person I will grow a lot.

After it was decided that we were going to perform Girls Rule at the meet and greet I told my friend that I started practicing my wink and she laughed at me (‘._.`) “wow you’re so serious” my friend said.

Thank you so much BOMB san for publishing both me and Miichan (Yamashita Mizuki). The magazine is going on sale today.

It was so much fun!! Thank you Miichan (‘._.`)

Speaking of which, let’s look at the answer for the question I asked on the last blog.

That notebook was the notebook from the SHOWROOM stream!!

I’m so glad many people got it right (‘._.`)

Picture reads: Thank you so much for watching my stream. I will use all of my power so I can return your kindness.

(It was around the ‘u’ part of the stream, one line ball pen)

Even in Principle I am actively participating (‘._.`)

And now a behind the scenes picture. That’s right, I was able to take a picture in the same place as ‘that’「sonna baka na…」I’m glad.

Tomorrow is Maami (Tamami). Thanks Tamami. Speaking of Tamami, she’s right here next to me in the waiting roooom

Tonight, we will be doing another performance of Principle. I’ve heard that there are people that have been lining up early for goods and same day tickets. Thank you very much. (‘._.`).

Because it is cold out, make sure to take care of your health.

It’s raining (‘._.`)

Please be careful (‘._.`)

Don’t forget your umbrella (‘._.`)

Please try drinking some hot chocolate. It will warm up both your body and soul.

Well then

See you later

It’s not over yet

Today is the day I’m definitely going to beat my negative self

BYE!!!

I’ll write again.

Kubo Shiori

https://blog.nogizaka46.com/third/2017/02/036870.php

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a-vanishingnightstar · 7 years ago

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Ayeeeeeee. It is I, Celes! And It’s New Years Day. I’m not the best with words or preach, but hi again!!!!! Thank you friends and everybody for sticking with me to the end of 2017! By now I’m assuming a great majority of y’all know how slow I am in the RP world and how distracted I get, but once again thank you all for sticking with me until the end of 2017! You may now leave if you’d like lol jk. Unless you really want to for whatever reason o.o Even if we have yet to interact IC or OOC, I still admire all of you from afar, including the non-mutuals that that I wish to interact with someday, but if never, that’s okay too and I understand.

I will only be tagging mutuals. Also there’s so many of all of you, so I apologize if I don’t tag you. If you do not see yourself here, it does not mean I hate you! So please don’t take it to heart if you don’t see yourself on here.

Revo Sentai Derhorangers (only we will understand) -

@recklessmoon - IDK which is your main anymore, but I'm assuming Marz is still your main. But liebeling!!!!! I know we lack IC interactions due to our muses not clicking very well and stuff, but I still love you and I hope we can figure something out for our muses to do together someday lol. You’ll always be my Marz/Marchen to Elisabeth, and no one will ever replace you. To this day you’re always going to be my liebeling too, and no one shall ever take your place XD

@juniperblooded - So many things about you that I admire ;v; Not only your writing, but you’re cool too<3 Tell Trisha I said hi and she’s cool also lol. You’re welcome for your “orange son”! I know our muses lack IC interactions too, but aye. I’ll never forget you and I’ll always admire you from afar too lol. You’re always going to be my Elef to my Orion and we’ll always be bros. I’ll never replace you either and y’all have a special place in my heart.

@risky-boyfriend - Yes, Macha. We all know you love Ryunosuke Tsunashi XD But anyhoo, ayeeeeee. Man, I feel like everyone’s muses in our group don’t click well with my muse, cuz my muse is not that much of a nice person... XD It’s okay though. Maybe we’ll all figure something out, but if not, that’s okay. I’ll follow all of you until Thanatos decides to take my soul away lol. You’re a precious bean and I wish we could all be together IRL ;o; You too have a special place in my heart and I’d never forget you or replace you ;v;

Thank you Revo Sentais for sticking with me<3 ILY all #no homo

People I admire from afar

@piictograph - May Prompto and Stella never smash. You’re a precious bean and I will protect you no matter what owo I really love your writing style, and you’re fun to talk to!!!! I hope we get to talk some more OOC when we’re not feeling shy or anxious or when something in life does not happen lol<3 I really love your drawings too (I even have some of them saved ;D) and I hope I haven’t made you anxious when I reblogged them before ;o; I really love seeing you around and just being yourself. You’re so silly but in a good way<3 Please stay yourself and never become some kind of horrible toxic bean, and whoever tries to change you, feel free to tell me about it and I will beat them up for you.

@antimundi - NOTICE ME, SENPAI. I’M YOUR BIGGEST FAN!!!!!! XD I’m probably one of the worst RP partners you ever had, but other than that, I think you’re a sweet person, and I love seeing you around as well as your drawings <3 I hope I don’t make you anxious when I reblog them ;o; Have I ever mentioned I’m glad we met cuz... darkness and messed up shit!!!!!! >:))))))) I swear, everytime I look at our thread (that I still need to reply to), I just get feels from our muses and I love them together ;_; I can’t wait to see where our thread goes if we can keep up <3

@musae-ex-fantasy - Thank you lots for keeping me company and whatnot ;w; I’m sorry that I’m so slow, but I swear I’m not ignoring you!!!!! I love when we talk and do silly things to our muses lol. I just love seeing you happy as well as you just being you. I love when we share stuff too. I’m sorry I’m the most horrible person to ask advice for, but I still love you and I’ll try my best to be a good friend ;O; P.S.: STOP MAKING STELLA HORNY WITH NOCTIS OR PROMPTO! XDDDD

@ofstrifes - NOOSHI!!!!! NURSHHHHHHHIIII!!!! NASHI!!!!! NANASHIIII!!!! nurnurshi >:O I have so many silly nicknames for you now... lmao. IDK which blog you tend to be on anymore :| HOW MANY BLOGS DO YOU HAVE? But if you see this, hiiiii!!!!!! XD You’ve been like my BFF for ages as well as husbando that I keep divorcing and then remarrying and then the cycle just repeats lmao. Things are probably not the same as they were back then, but aye, we’re still good. Thank you for staying my BFF<3 I’ll always admire you from afar, and I hope we can VC again sometime, or RP together<3 Nurshi-koon is all grown up~ But he still don’t got the smooth moves~ >:)

@promptisia - I dunno which is your main blog anymore either since I see you flopping back and forth everywhere sometimes lol. But anyhoo... Becca!!!!!!<3 Come RP and talk to me~~~~! XD JK. You don’t have to all the time. I still admire you from afar and you’re very dear to me, and I’ll never forget that you’re the one who got me shipping PromStella, and look what happened now. I’m shipping them like hardcore and coming up with a bajillion headcanons for them lmao. They’re canon in my head. Eff SE for cutting her off and everything in FFXV. I love when we talk, and you’re never a bother to me, so feel free to come drop by anytime<3

@fxtalwinter - Ayeeeeeee you. You’re the one who got me into all of that dark and messed up stuff now! XD ...But they’re awesome OwO And you’re welcome too OwO When can I be as beautiful as you? I’ll never forget how we met, and when I look back I tend to think it’s a funny story now haha. I’m glad we met<3 That was like back in the myspace ages when Tales of Legendia was cool (and still is, I think), and we were both Chloe RPers lol. I’ve always admired you, even when we’ve hardly spoken in ages, but I still love seeing you around and talking about cool things with you<3 If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have discovered these cool things you spoke of before too like all the dark and messed up stuff, Resonance of Fate, Death Bell, etc.<3 We should watch Death Bell again ;D

@tenebrianflower - Moona!!!!!! I can’t wait to see you and Prom at Sacanime!!!!! >.< And let’s hope we can get Gladio’s autograph, cuz why not? I feel like I’m also probably one of the worst RP partners you’ve had, and I’m sorry that drop a lot of our threads ;o; Maybe I’ll pick them back up again when I’m feeling it or when Stella is feeling it. You’re fun to talk to and you’re so sweet<3 I love looking at all of your artworks and cosplays<3 You have inspired me to try to make some cosplays again. I’d love to, but you know my problem with living so far form everything... :’( I also love talking about our headcanons for our muses and their husbands and kids<3

@lightwithinthenightsky - How KNOTy of you ;) -shot for making bad jokes- Hey you. I admire your work and you’re very creative<3 I love when we talk too, and I’m sorry if I don’t always respond ASAP, but I swear I’m not ignoring you either ;w; You’ve put a lot of work in your muse as well as your artwork and everything, and I love it! 8D You’re a nice and fun person to talk to as well<3 I’m glad we can understand each other<3

More people I admire from afar

@leorugiet @frigustek @perfectknight @deliicatus @somxus @ringburdened @scionoflorelei @fata-et-fatorum @fieryknowledge @rosehairphantom @maledictusrex @stasisheld @trashkingizunia @izuniashield @zelldincht @lordcommanderaymeric @spiritfold @kidsofthekelvinhero @schxbetta @finalfantasymultimuse @nesrecne @infideliis @aetherilily @sukoshishokan @crystallineglacian @reiivusu @chocosnap @croweoftheglaive @luxintima @baewind @triggerxhappy @bespectacled-gentleman @onuscientia @oracleofthegods @faithfulheir @glaciousglaive @firxga @forsakenxprince @commodorexaranea @regisomniscaelum @aetherdconjurer @mutxremundi

THERE’S TOO MANY OF Y’ALL TO TAG, BUT ILY ALL, AND IF YOU DON’T SEE YOURSELF HERE, I’M SORRY ;A; I DON’T HATE ANY OF YOU GUYS, I SWEAR LJKDSGVHNSKDGSBUDFU

#ooc: shut up celes #follow forever

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parisbookreview · 5 years ago

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YA Coming-of-age

Published: June 2019

Anne Mason has a storybook childhood.

A wealthy father, loving mother, and a beautiful home in Richmond.

But behind the polished windows, Anne’s father brutally terrorizes her mother.

Sent to live with her aunt and uncle, Anne enrolls in boarding school. Though she thrives, the traumas of her past gnaw at her insides.

Will hope and inner strength prevail?

Excerpt

Picture this. A room with two cosy armchairs and a brown wooden table resting between them holding a small clock, tissues, and minuscule pieces of Celebrations chocolate. The temperature was not cold, and not hot, but that perfect warmth you get from adjusting both the window and radiator heating. In one of the armchairs sat a middle-aged man, bespectacled, foreign — German, perhaps — with a balding patch on his head and weight around his middle. A kind smile spread across his face, his head tilted, garnering the same curiosity as an inquisitive child. In the other chair sat a girl. Fourteen, black hair cane-rolled on top and pulled up into a tight bun. Black hands, black duffel coat, black shoes, black tights. All that shed a silver lining — or a blue one — were the sapphire-crystal earrings hanging from her ears.

The girl was me.

The foreign man peered at the clock. He and the girl had been sitting in the room for forty minutes, the slight utterance of monosyllabic dialogue passing between the two. The girl was staring at the floor, her face expressionless. With only twenty minutes left, the man took his cue to pick up the bowl holding the chocolate and offered one to her. She refused.

“I do like Celebrations,” said the man. “Always a succulent choice.” He was definitely German. “They really melt in the mouth. Maltesers are my personal favourite, though. They're the most popular, aren't they?”

I grunted in response. He sighed; not in exasperation, merely in concern. “I know this is only our second session, but it would be nice to hear a little bit from you.”

I uncrossed my legs. It was amazing how interesting your shoes became when you had nothing to say.

“I'm not trying to force you,” he said gently. “I know this has been difficult for you. You have had a lot to deal with recently, and in the past. But that is why I want you to know we are here for you. When somebody close to you dies, it’s the most horrible thing in the world. That’s why we want to help you get through this challenging time.”

I closed my eyes, raising my head to the ceiling.

“How are you feeling right now?” he asked.

I shrugged.

“Anne, you are more than welcome to take your time, but remember, in here, you are safe. No one can hurt you. What we say is confidential, and you can say whatever you like.”

He was right. And yet, the clenching in my stomach wouldn’t stop. It was a reminder that no matter how awful things became, you were still left with the scars.

I spent the remaining twenty minutes in silence. So much had happened in my fourteen years of existence, I was unsure of how to form the words.

That week, I mulled over my previous two sessions and decided I was tired of being a prisoner of my past. I no longer saw the point of keeping myself closed off. Help had been offered to me, so surely now was the time to take it. I could keep the ghosts chained to me, or I could let them be released, freeing myself in the process.

When I returned to Henry — he said I could call him by his first name — that following Tuesday, I was ready to begin telling him everything.

About the Author

Zarina Macha is an author, blogger and musician born and raised in London, UK. She studied Songwriting and Creative Artistry at The Academy of Contemporary Music in Guildford. She regularly writes a social comment blog titled 'The Zarina Macha Blog.' In her spare time she loves reading and fan-girling over "Game of Thrones".

In 2018 she began independently publishing her books through Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing platform. "Every Last Psycho" and "Anne" are her young-adult fiction novels that deal with mental illness, drug abuse, domestic violence and coming-of-age. "Art is a Waste of Time" and "Single Broke Female" are her two poetry books.

"Around Midnight" is her fifth self-published work. It is a young-adult drama about jazz, ambition, and a toxic relationship.

Contact Links

Website

Twitter

Facebook

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Purchase Links

Amazon

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Indiebound

#ya #youngadult #novel #fiction #bookblitz

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aetherschreiber · 7 years ago

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Fic: Hedge Knight (notes)

So there you are! Thanks for reading! I'm under no delusions that this is going to get a lot of attention, being as the fandom is tiny at this point. So please be aware that any feedback you can give is precious as gold and will be greatly treasured.

This was the result of a very old plot bunny of about twenty years of age. So, older than most acutal bunnies. Back in the day, it was not very clearly worked out, which is probably why it didn't get written until now. This actually bears very little resemblance to the original plot bunny, since 20 years ago I was a silly fifteen-year-old girl without a clue. My historical nerding and ability to do research is what finally really brought this thing to light. It just didn't have a chance, back in the day.

And, while working on this, it bred some other plot bunnies that I might try to nuture in the future. Not sure, yet. We'll see if they come together.

Now, excuse me while I nerd this out...

Because I'm a huge nerd, I went digging around in Irish mythology for some stuff. I've made a few assumptions on stuff that was never clearly established in the show itself, so I thought I would make a few notes here.

Regarding Emain Macha...

The show never gave a name for the village that was in the shadow of Kells Castle. I wanted to have one and the Ulster Cycle calls the town that Conchobar mac Nessa rules from Emain Macha. Plus, I liked the story of the way the town got its name. So I stole it and ran like Macha in the horse race. Nothing too ground-breaking here.

I went and got down and nerdy with the characters's names and some side-stories, too. It's always kind of bothered me that none of them had full, period style names (because, like I said, I'm a nerd). Deirdre and Conchobar would certainly have had something more than just a given name, as would Ivar. Rohan and Angus are somewhat more open to interpretation, so I put my own spin on it. Plus, I'm in the SCA, so I just couldn't help myself while digging through medieval Irish names.

Regarding the name Rohan Draganta Ban Ui Meith Macha...

The conceit of Rohan's clan name is that he is descended from the war goddess Macha. This distinction would have come from his father's side of the family, ostensibly a Kellsman. Draganta I threw in there as a sort of "middle name" because it would have been in there somewhere, but I'm just not sure how it would have been lenited, since as far as I can tell it's not actually an Irish name.

When you get right down to it, Rohan is basically CuChullain, who was not born with that name and only was called that after defeating a giant hound (see Tash Hound of Temra, and may other references throughout the show). As a young boy, since no one in the village knew anything about his epic destiny, he was called by the villagers of Emain Macha "Rohan Ban" meaning "Rohan the fair" because of his hair. The moniker stuck, even after he finds out his identity as the Warrior Draganta.

Regarding the name Deirdre inghean Conchobair Ui Rudhraighe...

There isn't a whole lot here that needs to be explained. This is a straight up lineage type of a name. It basically says that she's Conchobar's daughter, who is in turn a male descendant of a man named Rudraige. This clan name is derived from a high-king of Ireland, Rudraige, whose son was a king of Ulster (or in this context, Kells). I never actually got around to actually using the name in the fic, but it's here in the notes for completeness' sake.

In my head, Deirdre's mother was named Eithne. She was killed by Maeve when Deirdre was a little girl. Don't know why that's relevant. But there you are.

The show pretty much tossed out the actual Irish mythology of Deirdre and Conchobar. Trust me, this is a good thing. The Conchobar of myth was a real creeper and what he did to the Deirdre of myth was unsettling and I'm pretty sure illegal in modern life (and no, I don't just mean killing her husband; that's DEFINITELY illegal). So I pretty much tossed out anything of the names of the characters from myth and more or less treated them as new characters with their own backstories.

Regarding the name Angus Dubh o Cumhaill...

Angus effectively equates to Conall Cernach, the best friend of CuChullain.

In my fic, he is a descendant of Cailte mac Ronain, nephew of the last king of the Fianna, through his son Oisin. In actual Irsh myth, Conall and Cailte were not related (in fact, one is from the Ulster Cycle and the other from the Fenian Cycle and here I've even reversed their time periods), but a relating of the two characters is used for story purposes, because what the hell? The show didn't care about that stuff, either.

All of this was on his mother's side of the family. His mother's brother, Cet mac Magach, was told by a druid that the baby would one day kill his uncle. Cet was afraid of this and tried to kill Angus shortly after he was born. This is based on the story of Conall and Cet from Irish myth, but around there is where the similarities end and artistic licence takes over. When Cet did not succeed, he fled to Temra. Angus' mother and father then left him with an old lady named Brighde in Emain Macha to hide him from any further attempts on his life by Cet. This is why he was basically brought up as a street urchin along side Rohan.

The old lady gave him the moniker Dubh because of his dark hair. But Angus never really liked it, so he didn't perpetuate it after Brighde died. The fact that Cet refers to him as such is the result of a very old rumor finally making its way to Cet after many years.

The story Angus tells of besting the soldier Anluan is based on the Tale of Mac Da Tho's Pig. In that, Conall wins the debate by casually tossing Anluan's freshly-severed head to Cet. I uh... toned it down, just a smidge.

Conall kind of has a history of severing heads. I pretty much left that out. It didn't exactly say "Angus" to me...

Regarding the name Ivar ibn Idris Adar as-Salar...

No, you didn't miss this name, either. Again, never got around to using it in the fic. But it was a fun excersise.

The idea for Ivar is that he is a prince in pre-Muslim Syria. He is the son of Idris, a prince, of the clan Salar. In that culture, the title of Prince has a different connotation. Ivar's father is not necessarily a king and Ivar will not necessarily succeed him. In fact, given that it was his task to guard the silver chalice, and that he was sent to retrieve it, and that he was free to pledge help to Rohan and Kells, it seems likely that he is a younger son of a local prince, under a sultan, and not likely to inherit.

Random note, Ivar is NOT a Syrian name and is most likely a derivation of the Scandanavian name Ivor. Why the show didn't go ahead and find an actual name of the type of heritage that Ivar was clearly supposed to have, I really don't know and I was rather disappointed to learn. But Ivar isn't terribly glaring in its ethic displacement, so I ran with it and chose a name sort of like it for his father in order to help it fit in.

Finally, in reference to the title of the fic...

Yes, I am aware that the term "hedge knight" first showed up in the Song of Ice and Fire series. However, that wasn't what inspired the title of this fic. Rather it was a fantastic song I heard around a campfire in the SCA. I know the bard in question as Lady Cobflaith (she's a really awesome person with a lot of talent!). The song itself has very little to do with the plot of the fic at all, but it did introduce me to the idea of a penniless knight and the idea that someone who might not seem to others to be worthy can do great things, even if only in the eyes of the few or the one.

Oh, and one more note. Mace fighting is weird and hard to write. A sword girl like me, who depends on keeping covered and breaking tempos, can't wrap her head around a weapon that works with a rhythm and leaves parts of the wielder open to thrust attacks at regular intervals. So, those bits probably kind of sucked and I'm sorry.

Sláinte!

#fanfic #fanfiction #mystic knights of tir na nog #nerdy writer's notes

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seki-2019program · 5 years ago

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Update!

Before I write in detail of what happened the past four days, I would like to apologize (to anyone who’s reading the blog and also myself) for being not so consistent already... The reason for it was that I didn’t have the courage to ask my host family father the WiFi password a second time for connecting other devices such as tablet or laptop, which happen to be the only devices I could get access to Tumblr.

With that said, let’s jump into what I have experienced these 4 days:

🌆Day 1

First full day in Japan! Got up super early due to 時差ぼけ (jet lag), chatted with my temporary roommate for a while, and ate breakfast on the first floor of the hotel. That was when I first tried 納豆 (Japanese fermented beans) and quickly decided I probably would not eat it again in my life. I’m sorry Japan, I do like so many other things about you.

We then went to attend orientation and met all of our classmates while going through a ton of information about the program. After 2 and a half hours, we finally got to meet our host-family members and learn about how to go to school and home every day, which was so much fun! Three people of my host family came to welcome me home, mom, dad, and their grandson. They walked me to the airfare building and asked a ton of questions - especially the boy, he offered to hold my hand while crossing the road, which was the cutest thing ever - I and I tried my best to answer each of them. Their speech speed was definitely beyond my expectation and therefore I had to stop and ask them to kindly repeat many times before we finally got home. I personally commute by 電車 (train powered by electricity?) and enjoyed the view on the way really much. My host family lived in a suburban area of 白山市, so the more the train travels towards the final station, the more rice fields I could see.

After that we arrived home! My host family mom (will call her お母さん from now on) introduced me to everyone and took me to my room. The entire family, of course, doesn’t live together, but the younger members do come on a weekly basis (kids come almost every day). My room is on the second floor and according to お母さん, it used to be one of the daughters’ room, so it was very cute. Even the 天床 (ceiling) was covered by fluorescent stars... They cooked home style barbucue outside and stuffed me well. お父さん and お母さん also have a granddaughter who’s about the same age as the grandson, and they shared with me their little snacks and toys after lunch. For dinner we dined outside. We had eight people in total so we had to use two separate tables, but to my surprise, the boy chose to eat at my table instead of his parents’. According to them this is quite 珍しい and I hoped our relationship would be like this for the entire time I would be with them.

After dinner we watched TV and chatted for 2 hours. お母さん offered some 和菓子for dessert, and it had gold foil on it. 流石で金沢です。

Things that surprised me the most was the technology. Bathroom, toilet, kitchen, and many, many things that I’ve definitely used in China and America but found the Japanese version the most convenient (that’s kind of a part of common sense, though, “Japanese products being the most well designed”). I started worrying about my days back in America.

Will continue to write the experience of the following days when I have time.

🌆Day 2

Apparently I didn’t manage to squeeze out enough time to write everything in detail, so here is the bullet-point version:

First day of class! It was a bit tough to carry the textbook (the pages were not bounded).

Went to Kenrokuen! The garden was really elegant and quiet, and they had aircon in the 茶室！we ate 和菓子 and drunk macha while trying our best to sit with our knees bent.

Dinner was sashimi with a bunch of different types of fish - ate shrimp sashimi the first time.

🌆Day 3

Went to the 県庁 of Ishikawa - I answered a question and tried not to break my voice too much. We received 百万さん from them as gifts!

🌆Day 4

I forgot what I did this day and it is 10:22 right now, so... will pick it up tomorrow.

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blackthornroot · 7 years ago

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Haven’t Done One of These in About a Year Let’s See How it Goes...

So while I’ve been away in college I’ve been on a secret mission in an underground laboratory with the Metalborgs, known across the world as over-zealous, justice-obsessed maniacs who would always use their full force, even when, and I quote, “hunting small fry” and clearly valued power above all else.

But now I’ve found a way to reform the Metalborgs into the Kind Borgs. Robots that are considerate of people and the environment.

With these new Friends at my side, I set out for a large gathering of fellow nerds with one objective in mind, “convert everyone to the side of justice.” The side objective was to brutally murder anyone who was not in line with these ideals, but let’s not talk about that...

So anyway, the mission was simple enough: Win 5/7 Games of Cardfight Vanguard in order to make enough friends to be allowed to make it to Day #2, where I could make more friends and get to the Top 8/16/whatever. Sounds easy, right? Well let’s see how the Kind Borgs held up against the very mean-spirited forces that live in New Jersey:

But first, a word on Metalborgs (since not only is the deck old as fuck and nowhere near tier 1/1.5, but I’m not exactly running a standard strategy either):

Metalborgs rely on an outdated gimmick, “Guard Restrict.” Their bosses make it so the enemy can’t guard with G1 or higher cards from their hand when said bosses attack (so basically, no PGs, but guarding with triggers, intercepts, and special cases like guarding from soul/deck are still allowed). This sounds cool and possibly menacing when combined with Commander Laurel and a crit trigger or two, but keep in mind that these days the better G-Guards let players no-pass 30K columns for 1CB. G-Guards are also unaffected by the Guard Restrict (since they technically come out of the Extra Deck).

So what I’ve done is make a rush deck that can sit on G2 against the meta (every meta deck sans Blasters was GB reliant to a fault at the time of writing this), but also can reach the late game against less threatening opponents (Even though the opponent can G-Guard, they can only do it 4 times max in a game. So theoretically if I can punch through all 4 I can win pretty easily after that).

Anyway, I’ll post the decklist first with brief explanations of cards in case you care:

Starter: Metalborg, Locobattler (into soul -> +6K to VG if in legion, +3K otherwise).

Triggers: 5X Crit (4 of which have the same effect as the starter). 7X Draw 4X Heal

G1: 16: 4X Commander Laurel (if VG hits rest 4 RGs to restand VG) 4X Metalborg, X-Blaise (10K attacker) 4X Dimensional Robo, Daishield (Old PG (the kind that can guard RGs). Some of my RGs need protection and I don’t use CB that much.) 2X Metalborg, Death Blade (SB1 -> +5K to VG). 2X Cosmic Hero, Grand Police (Vanilla 8K).

G2: 13: 4X Metalborg, Ur Buster (Legion Mate to main boss, RG Skill: on-legion -> +4K to VG + “When VG attack hits a VG, kill 1 RG.” The effect stacks if I have multiple Ur Busters on the field.) 3X Metalborg, Diggerion (Vanilla 10K) 3X Metalborg, Lionetter (12K attacker) 3X Metalborg, Blacking Barrow (Is an 11K body permanently if my VG is in legion. CB1 + Move into Soul -> When Legion VG attacks, give +11K to VG). The G1+G2 lineup is the way it is for early aggression. Triggers are to maintain survive-ability and help draw into Laurel/PGs/the G3s.

G3: 4: 4X Metalborg, Sin Buster (Legion: If it’s power is >= 20K (after boost) and attack hits a VG, draw 1. It it’s in Legion and it’s power is >= 30K (after boost), opponent can’t guard with G1s or higher from hand. He’s the win condition/finishing blow, obviously. The G2 rush is to force the opponent to drop all their triggers to guard.)

Strides: 2X Hyper Metalborg, Guilt Digger (No I’m not making that name up. Effect = “Persona Flip -> search your deck for up to one card that legions with your heart and perform legion in your heart. Then draw 1.“ Saves me the trouble of wasting a turn legion-ing if I don’t want to).

4X Hyper Metalborg, Heavy Duke (CB2 -> On-Attack, pay the cost. Opponent can’t guard with G1s or higher from hand. If the attack hits, draw 1 (draw 2 if heart is in legion).).

2X Super Cosmic Hero, X-tiger (+4K for each face-up card in G-Zone. Gains a crit if power >= 45K).

G Guards: I run more than 4 G-Guards because Metalborgs have no good strides and the entire point of the deck is invalidating the opponent’s PGs so the regular D-Police strides aren’t worth running. 4X Enigman Patriot (+5K if opponent’s attack is >= 20K) 2X Super Cosmic Hero, X-carivou (+10K if opponent’s attack is >= 30K) 2X Dizmel

ROUND 1: Kind Borgs Vs. Fanservice Mermaids (Bermuda Triangle: Harmony):

Opponent was a kind/polite yet slightly disinterested girl (I chalked it up to either being dragged along by her SO or being tired from a potentially long car ride (some people drive like 5+ hours to come to these things on the day of the competition)). She had no idea about the overwhelming power of friendship and love that the Metalborgs had in store for her, so she guarded early.

Needless to say when I explained how Sin Buster worked she knew she was toast. GG.

WIN! Record: 1-0

ROUND 2: Kind Borgs Vs. Dino DNA (Tachikaze: Dogma):

Opponent was a jovial fat man. Very loudly proclaimed his moves for all to hear. I might sound like I was annoyed by this, but I found it hilarious. I rushed the shit out of him by giving him all of the justice he could handle, pushing him to 5 by turn 3. He responded by denouncing my kindness by striding and triple driving 3 Heal Triggers. Of course. My death was long and agonizing after that point. Dogma is strong when you’re actually able to live long enough to use it.

LOSE! Record: 1-1

ROUND 3: Kind Borgs Vs. Nova Grappler (Victor):

This opponent, along with the girl I played Round 1, were the only “normal” people I played all day. The guy decided to have a G2 duel with me. Little did he know I was slowly but surely sniping his G2s and taking the triggers out of his hand. I was eating a lot of pain too though, since he knew enough to dive on my RGs constantly. Eventually, I was backed into enough of a corner that I had to ride to G3 and Stride. I explained what Hyper Metalborg, Heavy Duke (read effect above) did to him at least 4 times, and he clearly read the card, but he didn’t understand that, on my second attack, he was allowed to guard with whatever he wanted (since I couldn’t pay CB2 a second time). So he ended up dead with 9 cards still in his hand. Serves the guy right for casually disregarding my deck I guess.

WIN! Record: 2-1

ROUND 4: Kind Borgs Vs. DINO DNA 2: Electric Boogaloo (Tachikaze: Dogma):

Opponent was 100% neckbeard. Probably left his fedora at home. The Kind Borgs began to become frustrated that they had yet to face a meta deck so far today (i.e. Blasters, Luard, Gears, Messiahs, etc.). So frustrated in fact, that they decided to be decidedly unkind, giving me a trigger-heavy hand and damage check two of my G3s in a row on turn 2.

My opponent was able to capitalize on my being grade stuck by throwing his whole hand down on turn 3 and murdering me. Ow...

LOSE! Record: 2-2

ROUND 5: Kind Borgs Vs. Murakumo (No clue what this deck was supposed to be, honestly):

Well shit, there were still 3 round to go and I couldn’t afford to lose a single one... Hopefully love and justice won’t die just yet...

Opponent was another jovial fat man who wouldn’t stop talking about Sailor Moon with the girls that were playing in the game next to ours. Slightly unsettling behavior but whatever, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was just getting his weeb on. I have no idea what his Murakumo deck was supposed to do, but the basic strategy revolved around effects that went off if I guarded his attacks.

How do I beat a deck that does things if I guard? Humm... Well, I no-guarded his attacks, got to 4 damage, and used Heavy Duke to murder his face (like my round 1 opponent, he early guarded, clearly not being acquainted with the power of justice). Justice Prevails.

Win! Record: 3-2

ROUND 6: Kind Borgs Vs. Luard:

2 rounds to go... Come on cards I blew money on a two-night hotel stay don’t let me down yet...

Opponent was a overly extroverted girl who piloted the deck as if it was borrowed. She was friendly though, if not uncomfortably so...

This is honestly the only game where I made an actual mistake/misplay all day (guess it was late). After getting pushed to 5 by nothing but enemy crit triggers (she called no RGs for the entire early game), I noticed that:

A: She was at 4, since my rush had been going pretty well. B: Out of the 6 cards in her hand, I knew 5 (Crit, Crit, Abyssal Owl, PG, Macha, Mystery Card). C: She’d damage checked a heal and a crit already, so there were only 3 heals and 9 crits not yet revealed. D: If I went all-in and G-Assisted out a Sin Buster, I had the resources to pump it to 37K, so the absolute best she’d be able to guard for would be 31K as long as the last mystery card wasn’t a heal trigger (if it was another crit it’d be a 41K guard, a 1-to-pass).

So, thinking the odds were decently in my favor (and since I couldn’t ride another G2 over my current Vanguard to prevent myself from being Sea-Breezed), I went all-in, betting basically the entire tournament on my opponent not having a heal/crit in hand.

Let me just say that this was a mistake not because of the gambling aspect. It’s because historically I personally have absolutely terrible luck in RNG scenarios like this. 85% chance to hit in Fire Emblem? Miss; 6 triggers in an 8 card deck? Twin Drive -> G3, G3; Etc.

So I went all-in but her mystery card was a conveniently placed G-Guard. At that moment I realized I was dead. Spectral Diablo was happy to introduce my face to the pavement.

LOSE! Record 3-3!

MISSION FAILURE! UNACCEPTABLE LOSS COUNT!

And so ends another episode in the saga of me playing card games. Reviewing my notes from previous years attendance was decently down this year:

Reference (I missed singles regionals in Fall 2016 because I was too busy with school):

2015 Singles: At least 498 Players (I was badge #498 and we got to the event pretty close to the end of registration) 2016 Teams: At least 210 Teams (I was on team #210. Again my team was basically the last one to sign up. We get to these things a bit last-minute...). 210 Teams X 3 Players/Team = 630 Players. A bit unreliable since people always drag along their SOs to fill slots of teams.

2017 Singles: We got there with 5 minutes before registration closed. I was player #451.

So a slight downturn in attendance from 2 years ago but nothing suggesting the game is dying. Luck and Logic, a dead game, had a whopping 16 players competing, for comparison.

@dragonstoneplus had a much better go of things than I, she made it to Round 7 before losing her 3rd game.

Some random kid from our shop who plays Novas (Victor) cleared Day 1. He’s probably wrapping up his performance as I write this. I wonder if he actually managed to top... (He’s pretty good, but can’t really put up a fight against my teammates and I when we’re actually trying)

#Cardfight Vanguard #Tournament Report #Sarcasm #tongue-in-cheek

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connachtking-blog · 7 years ago

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How would finnabair not committing suicide change the ending of the Tain?

I think it would change a lot, honestly.

For the emotional aspect of things, Maine Athramail and the rest of the Maines that survived the Tain would not hold a grudge towards Ailill and Medb. Regardless of the importance of the war, you’ve got to remember that they were just kids. Like yeah Maine Athramail is the oldest but he wouldn’t have been far from Cu Chulainn and Finnabair’s age range. Cu Chulainn was 17 during the beginning of the Tain the same way Finnabair and Deirdre were. Unlike Cu Chulainn, these kids didn’t have divine gifts or talents. They were basically shoved into the war in spite of them not being fully honed for it. That’s exactly why some of the Maines died way too early.

Finnabair being alive could’ve served as the proper distraction. Although Medb wouldn’t be able to find an actual champion that could defeat Cu Chulainn, Ailill in time would’ve infiltrated Conchobar’s fortress and that would dictate their victory. They didn’t really care about the fucking bulls. Their main point of going to Ulster is to kill Conchobar under the guise of stealing Donn Cuailnge but Medb was unable to reach Emain Macha because of Cu Chulainn’s interference, not knowing that he’s defending the wrong kind of King. Who can blame him? He’s Ulster’s shield. Regardless of what kind of wretched worm Conchobar is, he’s still the King and he’s still Cu Chulainn’s uncle.

The reason why Ailill and Fergus had to cease with their mission is because Finnabair died. Ailill was struck with grief for losing the person he cares so much about and Fergus was unable to continue on his own. Fergus already had Conchobar on his grip, but he let that chucklefuck go because Fergus said killing Conchobar would not bring back his sons and the same goes with Ailill. Killing Conchobar means nothing now because his precious daughter died. While it rendered the casualties into vain, there’s also no victory behind it now. Some of the Maines died while fighting bravely.

Finnabair chose to end her life.

#ooc.#ask.#tw: suicide #anonymous

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beyondthedreamline · 8 years ago

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Ladies of Legend: Morgan le Fay and Morgause

References: Women of Camelot: queens and enchantresses at the court of King Arthur (Orchard Australia, 2000) by Mary Hoffman, Le Morte d’Arthur in two volumes: volume one and volume two (J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd, 1978, originally published in 1485) by Sir Thomas Malory, Mythology: Myths, Legends, & Fantasies (Hodder, 2013) by Dr. Alice Mills, The Complete Book of Witches and Wizards (Carlton Books Ltd, 2007) by Tim Dedopulos

Trigger warning: references to rape

There is a tendency, in Arthurian legend, for Igraine’s daughters to be highly variable in number and almost entirely interchangeable in identity, their roles within different versions of the myth generally depending on which woman gives birth to which sons. The Vulgate Cycle, for instance, has a whole crowd of half-sisters, while other versions whittle it down to one or two. The Complete Book of Witches and Wizards credits Morgan le Fay with eight sorceress sisters – Cliton, Gliten, Glitonea, Mazoe, Modron, Moronoe, Thitis and Tyronoe – all living together on the island of Avalon and acting as good fairies at Arthur’s birth. Mythology: Myths, Legends and Fantasies speculates that Morgan le Fay may have originally been a Celtic sea goddess or even a goddess of death. She has associations with the Morrigana, an Irish triple goddess represented by the three warrior queen aspects of Badb, Macha and Morrigan, the latter of whom is also strongly associated with fertility.

In Le Morte d’Arthur, there are three sisters: Morgause (alternatively spelled Margawse) being the eldest, Elaine the middle child and Morgan as the youngest. They were the children of Duke Gorlois of Cornwall and Igraine. When Gorlois was defeated in battle by King Uther Pendragon, Igraine had little choice but the marry the victor. She gave birth to a son, Arthur, who was taken away to be raised with a foster family, his very existence a well-kept secret. Uther then used his newly acquired stepdaughters to secure political alliances, marrying Morgause off to King Lot of Orkney and Elaine to King Nentres of Garlot. At this point Elaine promptly vanishes from the narrative.

Morgan was perhaps too young for marriage at the time because she was sent to a convent for an unexpectedly arcane education, learning the arts of necromancy and sorcery. Other stories have her trained at court by Merlin himself. Eventually, however, she was given a royal marriage of her own and became queen to Uriens of Gore.

Morgause had four sons with Lot – Gawain, Agravaine, Gaheris and Gareth. The only one to inherit any magical tendencies was Gawain, whose strength increased as the sun approached its zenith. When Arthur emerged from obscurity and Uther’s former allies went to war against him, including Lot, Morgause calmly came as a messenger to the embattled young king (with all of her boys in tow, what’s more) and had a month-long fling with him that resulted in a fifth son, Mordred. The relationship appears to have been consensual and mutually misinformed.

When Merlin finally told Arthur the truth, it came with a side serve of apocalyptic prophecy and the two of them threw a full King Herod routine by having all the baby boys born on May Day sent to sea to be drowned. Mordred survived. What’s more, he appears to have been raised by Morgause, because he shows up later in the story as a knight in Arthur’s court, not quite popular but respected and running around with the other Orkney boys. How he got from one point to the other is one hell of a mystery that Malory never explains.

Nentres and Uriens were also aligned against Arthur, though that did not stop Igraine bringing Morgan along when she met Arthur for the first time. Which means that Morgan was present, listening, when Igraine told the court how Uther appropriated her husband’s face in order to rape her.

The fight for the throne was brutal. During the final battle, thirteen kings were killed; among them, Morgause’s husband Lot, brought down by Arthur’s ally Pellinore. This was the beginning of a labyrinthine tangle of messed-up relationships, as Gawain eventually killed Pellinore and the widowed Morgause later took Pellinore’s son Lamorak as her lover.

Arthur held a great funeral, attended by Morgause and her sons, Morgan and her husband Uriens, and their son Ewaine (also spelled Yvain). Eager to connect with his half-sisters on a non-sexual level that is also not a battlefield – this family is such a disaster in so many ways – Arthur entrusted his sword Excalibur into Morgan’s care. Apparently she had a trustworthy vibe or something. Arthur proved once again that he was a shocking judge of people because not only did Morgan plan to use that sword for a double regicide, she had learned enough about Arthur’s personality to arrange it that he took every step into the trap for himself.

Arthur went hunting with Uriens and a knight called Sir Accolon who, unbeknown to the others, was Morgan’s lover and accomplice. The kings and their companion spied a beautiful ship floating in nearby waters and were invited to stay the night aboard by the twelve beautiful women who were its only occupants. However, when Uriens awoke he was in bed with Morgan – and when Arthur awoke, he was in the dungeon of Sir Damas, a knight in the middle of a property dispute with his little brother and who had a habit of kidnapping promising fighters in the hope that one of them would consent to be his champion. Thus far, nobody had. Arthur grimly offered himself on the condition that the other prisoners would be released. He didn’t realise that the messenger girl he was talking to was a servant of Morgan le Fay, or that the sword he went to fight with was not Excalibur at all. Morgan sent Accolon to Sir Ontzlake, Damas’ brother, to volunteer as his champion in the upcoming fight, and he had the true sword.

It’s neatly done. It would have worked beautifully had the Lady Nimue not been among the spectators, because in Le Morte d’Arthur it is she who received the training from Merlin, not Morgan, and after she got rid of him for good, she took over the role of Arthur’s intermittent protector. She forced Accolon to drop Excalibur, so that Arthur could reclaim it. Accolon confessed to everything. Morgan’s plan was to kill Uriens as well, take Accolon as her consort and rule the land herself. I shouldn’t like that. But I sort of do.

Expecting Accolon to have already succeeded, Morgan had moved in for the next kill. She sent a handmaiden for Uriens’ sword so that she could kill her husband with his own weapon – nasty sense of irony that the lady’s got there – but the handmaiden had qualms and woke Uwaine, who was sadly prepared for exactly this kind of situation. “I may say an earthly devil bore me,” he said, catching the sword before his mother could strike. She might be willing to murder her brother and husband in cold blood, but Morgan loved her son and in exchange for his forgiveness, she swore that Uriens would be safe from her. She kept her word, too; as far as Malory tells it, she never made another attempt on her husband’s life.

Arthur was deeply hurt by Morgan’s betrayal. He settled matters between Damas and Ontzlake, and when Accolon died of his injuries, four days after the fight, Arthur sent the body to Morgan as a warning. She hid her grief, planning her vengeance. She went to see Guinevere before Arthur returned to court, acquiring royal permission to travel into the country. Travelling with a company of her own knights, she found the abbey where Arthur was staying overnight and tried to steal Excalibur from him, only to discover he’d taken to sleeping with it in his hand. She settled for snatching the scabbard, which protected its wearer from physical harm. Arthur soon woke and pursued her. Maliciously, she hurled the scabbard into a lake and enchanted herself to disappear into the landscape as a rock until Arthur gave up looking.

After that, Morgan rejoined her knights and travelled on. She encountered one of Arthur’s knights, blindfolded and pushed into a fountain by the man whose wife he was sleeping with. The imperilled knight was Sir Manassen, cousin to Accolon. Morgan turned the tables: it was the other knight who drowned and Manassen was sent back to court unharmed, as a message to Arthur: she saved one of his knights for love of Accolon and with all her magic, she did not fear Arthur. She then turned her attention to building up the defences and devotion of Gore.

Her next attempt to get at Arthur was presented as a truce. She sent a handmaiden with a beautiful cloak as a reconciliation gift, but Nimue was there once again to foil her; she suggested the handmaiden try the cloak on first and the court watched, horrified, as the girl burned alive. Though Arthur did not blame Uwaine for his mother’s actions, the young knight was no longer welcomed at court and when he left, his loyal cousin Gawain went with him. The children of Morgause and Morgan were fiercely clannish. Of course, Morgause decided to be on good terms with Arthur – as he had no children with Guinevere, Morgause’s children were his obvious successors, a good reason if ever there was one to take his side in this unusually bloody sibling squabble. But Morgause never seemed to be on bad terms with Morgan either.

Which is not to say Morgause didn’t have problems of her own. To begin with, her (favourite) son Gareth took it into his head to arrive at Arthur’s court incognito and prove himself as an unknown knight instead of claiming his royal birthright from the get go, so Morgause had to storm over there and tell off Arthur for not keeping a better eye on his nephews – and then she told off her other sons for not recognising their own goddamn brother when he was right under their noses. Upon hearing that the court bully Sir Kay nicknamed her son Beaumains (meaning ‘fair-hands’, this being a way of calling him a freeloader) she tersely retorted that Gareth was ‘fair-handed’ indeed, flipping the insult into a compliment to Gareth’s sense of justice. The adventure ended happily, with three of her sons all getting married at once.

Meanwhile, Morgan’s one woman war on Arthur continued undaunted. She started running with a girl gang of fellow queens, including the Queen of Northgalis, the queen of Eastland and the queen of the Out Isles. I swear, I am NOT making this up. They captured Sir Lancelot while he was out questing and tried to make him choose a lover from among them, but he held true to Guinevere and was rescued by another independently-minded handmaiden, the daughter of King Bagdemagus, who is not named by Malory but who Howard Pyle calls Elouise. Morgan preferred to work with women (she was later reputed to have a spy network of up to thirty women across the kingdom) but was prone to overestimating her influence on them.

One woman Morgan was completely disinterested in bonding with was Guinevere, who she appeared to view as nothing more than a weak spot in Arthur’s defences. She knew – well, everybody knew – that Guinevere and Lancelot were lovers, and came up with increasingly ingenious ways to try and drum home the message to Arthur. She sent a horn that could not be drunk from by an unfaithful lady, only for it to be waylaid and given to King Mark of Cornwall’s court instead; she depicted a king and queen on a shield with a knight above them both, imagining the symbolism to be obvious, only for Arthur to dismiss it entirely. He was too familiar with his sister’s traitorous habits to take her word for anything.

Morgan also captured Arthur’s knights whenever she could. One of her female spies tried to talk Sir Tristram and Gawain into an ambush. Though Gawain revealed her as one of his aunt’s servants, Tristram wanted the fight anyway, but (recognising a bull-headed hero when she saw one) Morgan refuses to send out her knights. She later managed to imprison Tristram and made him carry the suggestive shield in return for his freedom. That was not enough for her lover at the time, Sir Hemison, who chased after Tristram against Morgan’s advice and was killed in the ensuing fight.

Morgause, meanwhile, was thoroughly enjoying her widowhood with Lamorak. He was a contemporary of her sons, so presumably a couple of decades or so younger than herself, and who was the kind of fiery type who picked fights with anybody who implied Guinevere might be more beautiful than his own regal silver vixen of a girlfriend. He also beat a whole gang of Morgan’s knights to work off some steam. The sex was canonically excellent.

Unfortunately, Morgause’s sons were not on board with her having an active love life. Gawain resented Arthur’s fondness for Lamorak, seeing him only as the man whose father murdered his own, and taking Lamorak as a lover ‘shamed’ Morgause in Gawain’s eyes. All his brothers, apart from possibly Gareth, took the same view. Having intercepted a message that named the time and place for a rendevous, Gaheris stormed in on the lovers and cut off his own mother’s head. Covered in the blood of the woman he loved, Lamorak screamed that he would rather have died in her place, but he was unarmed and could not fight back. Gaheris’ twisted sense of honour would not allow him to kill a naked man and so he let Lamorak go, but the enmity between him and the Orkney brothers was bitter after that and Lamorak was eventually killed by Gawain, Agravaine, Gaheris and Mordred acting as a mob. The only one who refused to be involved was Gareth.

It was a terrible end for a remarkable woman.

Both Arthur and Lancelot were horrified at Morgause’s death and Gaheris was banished from court. The narrative being what it is, Morgan’s reaction is not recorded, but her enmity with Arthur seemed to taper off after that. She went into small-scale acts of evil sorcery with the Queen of Northgalis as her partner. For instance, she allowed King Mark to talk her into using her sorceress connections to find an enemy of his…only to turn around and heal the young knight in question, swearing him to her service. She kept him at the castle of La Beale Regard. The castle’s true heiress soon showed up, brought the knight over to her side, then had the castle razed to the ground, once again proving that Morgan needed to stop underestimating other women.

It was possibly with that in mind that Morgan and the Queen of Northgalis cursed Elaine of Corbin, called the fairest lady in the land, leaving her to boil alive without ever dying until the best knight in the world came to rescue her. It’s a brutal act of spite. Of course, this could also have been an indirect attack on Arthur, as Lancelot’s rape by Elaine ends up triggering great turmoil at court, but predicting all of that might be beyond even Morgan’s talent for scheming.

In any case, Arthur’s court crumbled on its own, first losing many knights to the hopeless quest for the Sangreal before being shaken apart at the foundations when Mordred revealed Lancelot and Guinevere’s affair beyond any chance at denial. It was Mordred who took over the kingdom; it was he who led the final battle against Arthur and struck the blow that would kill him, even as he himself lay dying.

Arthur sent Bedivere, the sole knight remaining at his side, to throw Excalibur into the nearby waters. To Bedivere’s amazement, a hand rose to catch the blade. By the time he carried Arthur down to the water, a barge had arrived at the bank. Nimue was aboard it, and three queens: the Queen of the Waste Lands, the Queen of Northgalis and the Queen of Gore. Arthur laid his head in the lap of his sister and Morgan asked, gently, “Ah dear brother, why have ye tarried so long from me?” They disappeared together, across the water to Avalon. Neither were ever seen again.

Morgause and Morgan were ruthless women, in their different ways – Morgause being the pragmatic one, willing to overlook the blood on the hands of the men in her life if she got what she wanted out of it, while Morgan pursued power with a single-minded force of will and fierce cunning. What is so glorious about Malory’s women is that they are, above all other things, people. Their motivations may be obscure, but they are their own selves, making decisions in their own interests. They are not shadowy seductresses stalking the edges of Arthur’s court; these women are queens, and the daughters of a queen. Their lives might be tragedies, but they lived them proudly – the political matriarch and the warrior witch. They are not interchangeable at all.

These stories vary wildly depending on time and teller – I work with the sources I have to hand but if you know an alternative version I would love to hear it!

Originally posted on Wordpress

#my writing #ladies of legend #morgan le fay #morgana #morgause #arthurian legends #mythology #mythology girls #witches #tw: rape

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