#also regarding the different name thing. my name was Alexander. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

historicallyaccuratecheese · 11 months ago

Text

Well, I guess I’m continuing to make these now! Here’s the next part of my thoughts on every Magnus Archives episode! Now, last time I said that I was planning to write about episodes 21-40 in the next post, but as it turns out, the hyperfixation has set in and my thoughts are a LOT longer (so buckle up if you want to read this), and I also reached the tag limit. So, I’m only going to be covering episodes 21-30 here, and then I’ll write about episodes 31-40, and this 10 episode trend will probably continue for the rest of the posts, but that just means I’ll be able to put them out faster.

Also, unlike my first post, where I wrote all of my thoughts after finishing episode 20, all of these ones were written right after I finished the specific episode I talked about, so my thoughts are a lot more clearly documented. Finally, there’s a link to my masterpost, which will contain all the post’s detailing my thoughts on every episode before and after these ones.

Once again, no spoilers for future episodes please, and for anyone who hasn’t watched up to episode 30, spoilers are under the cut, so I recommend turning away until you’ve caught up. :)

- Episode 21, Freefall 🪂

Statement of Moira Kelly, regarding the disappearance of her son Robert.

WHAT THE FUCK??!! MARTIN??!! DAMN, I guess the horrors did get to him! Well, it’s nice to finally meet him, even if his first line was dropping shit on the ground. Either way, I get the vibe I’m in for a wild ride for this second half. ….What was I talking about? Oh yeah, the actual statement. Anyways this one upset me. Not only did it bring out my fear of heights pretty well, but the portrayal of a grieving mother who can’t comprehend what happened to her son was really heartbreaking. The line “The sky ate him” was kind of comedic at first, especially with Jon’s following reaction (love this guy btw, he’s such a loser), but then it became really horrific when I realized how it was just Moira desperately trying to make sense of the impossible horrors she just witnessed. The plot thread set up with Simon and Harriet Fairchild is also very interesting, and the whole sky thing kind of reminded me of Dominic’s visions in Ep. 4. Overall another one of many fantastic episodes, but HOLY SHIT I’M SCARED.

- Episode 22, Colony 🔦

Statement of Martin Blackwood, archival assistant at the Magnus Institute, London, regarding a close encounter with something he believes to have once been Jane Prentiss. Statement taken direct from subject.

….aaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! Ok let’s start from the top. Firstly, I’m really happy we finally got to meet Martin in this episode, and he’s great! Honestly he comes off as more dorky than stupid, and just comes off as a real sweetheart, so Jon’s distaste for him (outside of very different personalities), gets more mysterious. Though all things considered, after what he experienced, I don’t think that the bullying is his biggest worry anymore… Alexander J. Newall does a fantastic delivery, as much as I love Jon’s readings, you can really feel how terrified Martin is here (also “Blackwood” is a sick as fuck last name, and I related to him trailing off about spiders…) Outside of Martin himself, we have Jane Prentiss (or what remains of her) and…well, let’s just say that I don’t find the sex worms nearly as funny anymore. Jane and the worms inside her are absolutely terrifying, and while I would say I’m excited to learn more about her, I wouldn’t be complaining if the institute staff never had to deal with her again. Also the text episode made me, if you’ll excuse my language…squirm. Honestly, this might just be my favorite episode so far. The way that the plot threads from previous episodes connected here was extremely satisfying, and needless to say, I’m very excited and horrified to see where the show goes from here.

- Episode 23, Schwartzwald 🇩🇪

Statement of Albrecht von Closen, regarding a discovered tomb near his estate in the Black Forest.

Worst episode ever because Jon didn’t do a German accent, smh. Ok but in all seriousness, I really liked this one! It wasn’t the strongest in terms of complex themes in my opinion, but it had a great vibe, and was still very interesting, entertaining, and decently creepy. Having a “statement” written before the archives was founded is a really cool idea that’s executed perfectly here, and while we didn’t learn that much about Jonah Magnus, I still found it cool to get a first glimpse of the archives’ history. (Also, given the eye imagery that appears both in here and in other episodes, I can’t help but feel like Albrecht’s wording of Jonah having “good eyes” or something like that is a little weird…) And…now that we have the instance of something that isn’t a statement, but is important being in the archives, I absolutely agree with the idea that Gertrude Robinson organized these poorly on purpose, so that Jon would get the knowledge he needed to have. Regardless, this whole episode had the vibes of a classic ghost story, which while not as weird and off-putting as some of the other horror here, was still a nice change of pace overall. The descriptions of The Schwartzwald were really well done and added to the atmosphere, and I just like the fact that we have another historical episode, that’s also set outside of The UK. Also, the way that they played with the time period at the end was amazing, I already had my suspicions due to the eye imagery, but the reveal of Mary Keay (and therefore Gerard Wa- I mean Keay) being a descendant of Albrecht was still really cool. I also do wonder if the Arabic book was eventually found by Jurgen Leitner in the future…eh, food for thought. Lastly, I loved Martin jumping in out of nowhere, it was both funny, and a grim reminder about how fucked the archives supposedly are, yippee!

Wow, these are a lot longer than my previous thoughts. This, my sweet children, is a phenomenon called “brain rot”.

- Episode 24, Strange Music 🪆

Statement of Leanne Denikin, regarding an antique calliope organ she possessed briefly in August 2004.

Jon, honey, are we not going to elaborate on the fact that one of ✨the horrors✨is literally inside the institute? Like, HELLO? That’s not terrifying at all! Anwyays, this episode continues the trend of making me scared of things I’m not initially scared of, yippee! It had great vibes as well, the weird shit in the attic was made to be as creepy as possible. Initially, I didn’t find this one to be too scary, and figured it was going to go in the direction of “music makes people feel kind of weird”. AND THEN JOSHUA GETS KILLED AND TURNED INTO A DOLL HELLO??!!! Like, I know he was kind of a toxic boyfriend, but DAMN, whatever was behind the calliope and the dolls did NOT have to go that far. (Also until the end I thought he might be Joshua Gillepsie, and like, I don’t care how toxic he is, but you do not dump a guy who bested an evil coffin with his freezer.) Outside of that, It was really cool to meet Sasha! I like her voice, and the introduction was quite funny. (Also, even as someone who has lived in England for over two years, and has a family that is 90% British, nothing hurt more that Jon’s “Americans”.) Lastly, I have a theory, which I like to call “Ringmaster? More like cult leader.” Because I’M SORRY, but you cannot convince me that a CIRCUS, called THE CIRCUS OF THE OTHER, which possessed a HAUNTED CALLIOPE ORGAN, is anything but a cult. (Watch me when I’m inevitably wrong lmao.)

I guess now is a better time than any to say that I’m kind of wondering if there’s an in-universe reason for the music in the background? I mean, considering that the whole framing device is Jon recording these statements, I have to wonder if there’s a reason for the noise we hear, especially with the worms in Ep. 22 and the music in Ep. 24.

- Episode 25, Growing Dark ⛪️

Statement of Mark Bilham, regarding events culminating in his visit to Hither Green Chapel.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! I LOVE BEING RIGHT!!! I saw the episode title and immediately assumed this would continue the lore of Episode 9, and I WAS SO RIGHT!!! (Also, I now just noticed that the PCOTDH’s symbol is a closed eye, while The Keay Family’s symbol is an open eye…my cult theory thickens…) Anyways, this was another very enjoyable episode! Firstly, even though it’s far from the first piece of media to do so, I though the way they portrayed a cult brainwashing someone when they’re most vulnerable was very well handled and pretty depressing. I also really enjoyed how the episode isn’t the most weird and paranormal on it’s own, but the knowledge of the connections to Ep. 9 makes us know that it DEFINITELY is, even when the characters in the story don’t. The episode was certainly very spooky, the description of the spinach and the dark church definitely got me. (Also my mom came into my room briefly and when she left she accidentally turned off the light and I nearly screamed.) There were also some really interesting plot threads set up here, like the chanting of the northern most human settlement in the world, the mention of “three hundred years waiting”, and I also wonder if “Mr. Pitch” is an alias for “Detective Rayner.” then…the ending. Holy shit. You know, maybe I DON’T need to know what happened to Gertrude….

Episode 26, A Distortion ☕️

Statement of Sasha James, assistant archivist at the Magnus Institute, London, regarding a series of paranormal sightings. Statement taken direct from subject.

I…what…I don’t even…we are so fucked. Ok, there’s a LOT going on here, but I’ll try my best to formulate my thoughts as clearly as possible. Firstly, this episode easily scared me the most so far, I agree with Jon when he says that the horrors being somewhat friendly is scarier than them being antagonistic, like HOLY SHIT this one was unnerving. But with that out of the way…uh…let’s talk about Sasha! She’s really cool, I like how her character gives us a lot more insight into what working in the archives is like for a fairly regular person (i say this because Jon is weird as fuck and Martin is too nice to be normal, and I mean that as kindly as possible). But…while I don’t necessarily doubt her status as the most level-headed person in the archives, I don’t think that’s saying much. Like, she saw a creepy guy with weird-ass hands who spoke in riddles and knew too much about her and her coworkers, and followed him into a dilapidated building, also she works at the council of ghost stories despite not liking horror. Like, no offense, I’m sure she’s overall an intelligent person, as are most people in the archives, but none of them are beating Joshua Gillepsie anytime soon (yes I’m still thinking about him.) But mentioning the guy with fucked up hands, WHO OR WHAT EVEN WAS THAT??!! I have very little ideas as to how this “Micheal” even connects to the greater picture. I know some people connected him to the mentions of the man with bones in his hands in Episode 8, but that honestly reminds me more of the Leitner in Episode 17. Outside of that, his name is quite interesting, I initially thought that he might be Micheal Crew, but given that Sasha doubts it being his real name, I have my suspicions (although it would give us a connection between this, the words in Episode 8, and The Boneturner’s Tale….hm….) However, I could absolutely see him being Micheal Keay, as he gives off enough ghost vibes to pass as him (and I’m assuming that if Gerard’s dead, Micheal is as well.) Also he is not described as having a Lichtenburg figure on him so…yeah. Lastly, we have the return of THE SEX WORMS. And as happy(?) as I am to see that The Magnus Archives, a podcast developed by RustyQuill.com, that is also licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, is continuing it’s message of staying abstinent, all things considered, that was absolutely terrifying. I just LOVE the knowledge that the worms are a hive-mind and that Jane might not be the source, I LOVE THAT SO MUCH. In conclusion, I am probably going to sleep with a fire extinguisher tonight, and I am very scared for what the next 14 episodes have in store for me.

Also I guess I’ll mention Tim (the archival assistant, not the dead guy) here because why not. So far I’m getting major bastard energy from people’s descriptions of him, which means I will either love or hate him. Also I found it very funny but also kind of sad that Jon said he only trusts Tim to not prank him in Episode 11, and then he pulled a prank shortly before this statement took place.

- Episode 27, A Sturdy Lock 🔑

Statement of Paul McKenzie, regarding repeated nocturnal intrusions into his home.

Ok, after everything that happened in the last episode, it was nice to get a short and sweet one here. Well, as sweet as an episode of a horror podcast can be. Overall, this one isn’t my favorite, I thought it was a little bit under the standards of creativity for the show as a whole, but that’s obviously not saying much, as it was still pretty damn good in its own right. I think it was definitely very effective with its storytelling, and credit where credit is due, it certainly brought out my fear of weird noises in the middle of the night. And even if I can’t personally resonate with this aspect of it, I do really appreciate how it tackled the idea of mental illness at old age, and while I’d be surprised if the statement wasn’t real, considering where the show seems to be going, it did a very good job at planting seeds of doubt in my mind. But still, it was genuinely pretty crushing how Paul had no proof throughout the entire thing, along with how the cops treated him. It really did make me thing about what would have happened if he hadn’t washed the blood off his hands. It still had a creepy atmosphere, and the reveals at the end were pretty interesting, I hope they show us Marcus’ statement soon enough. Also, the aspect of loneliness in this one did remind me a lot of what happened in Episode 13, so I wonder if there’s some connection there. (Also, I love how I’m 27 episodes in and Jon is STILL roasting Gertrude’s organizational skills.) So while this one isn’t the most interesting for me, I still enjoyed it, and it was nice to have a slightly lighter one after Episode 26. I hope Sasha had a good few days off, she deserves it.

- Episode 28, Skintight 📷

Statement of Melanie King, regarding events at the abandoned Cambridge Military Hospital during filming in January 2015. Statement taken direct from subject.

WHOA THAT WAS SO GOOD!!! Ok, I feel like I should start off with my thoughts on the basic premise, as while those episode is certainly…not the most humorous in its execution, the premise itself kind of is. I don’t know why, but I just thought the idea of there being an in-universe competitor was a really fun concept that was executed perfectly here. It kind of reminds me of something like Hatchetfield and Clivesdale (I don’t know how many people reading this will understand that, but there seems to be overlap between TMA fans and Hatchetfield fans, and also like, shut up, let me indulge in my hyperfixations.) The bickering between Melanie and Jon was great, as was Melanie herself, I’d love to see her again as I think she oddly brought a lot to the world of the series. Although I will say that, while it doesn’t make me like him any less, Jon’s reluctance to buy into statements is a lot more frustrating when there’s another person in the room. I also absolutely love the fact that there’s an in-universe spooky podcast mentioned by name, like, come one, that’s genuinely hilarious. But comedic value aside, this one was definitely pretty creepy. In a similar vain to what Episode 23 was doing, the whole “young people enter creepy abandoned building to film stuff and then get genuinely scared” concept felt evocative of other classic horror stories, and the way they spun it into the context of the show was great. The atmosphere was definitely very creepy as well, as I have mentioned, hospitals creep me the fuck out. And lastly…oh my god, THE CONNECTIONS. So, I’ll start off by saying that all of the skin shit reminded me of what happened in Episode 18 (which I hope is true because I think some connections to other things would make me like that episode more). But that pales in comparison to the fact that we have stuff on THE ANGLERFISH, HOLY FUCK THE ANGLERFISH. I’m SO glad that they didn’t throw it away just because it was in the pilot episode. In retrospect, I think that the story of Episode 1 isn’t quite my favorite. It doesn’t really have to be, as I think the main draw of the episode is getting a first look at the framing device and general vibe of the entire podcast, but the stories didn’t really grab me until Episode 2, which is still one of my favorites. But MAN, this episode really made me appreciate the setup at the beginning so much more, and the knowledge that the people who walked into the alley didn’t necessarily die, meaning that all of those names could potentially come back, is SO exciting to me. In fact, when you consider that Sarah was kind of going through what looked like a possession, I wonder if The Anglerfish is a figure of worship in a cult, if that theory is to be true. (Also I have relatives that live in the same area as Sarah so…maybe I should tell them to watch out for their neighbor lmao.) So yeah, this…this show is just really freaking good.

Note: I have discovered the Leitner rant, and therefore I have achieved true enlightenment.

- Episode 29, Cheating Death ♟️

Statement of Nathaniel Thorp, regarding his own mortality.

I should start off by saying that I love the episode title for this, like, it’s not even metaphorical, the guy literally cheated in a game against death. Well, anyways, the main thing that caught me about the episode was how it absolutely blindsided me. While I was right about the soldier being the same as the statement giver, which I think was supposed to be obvious, everything else in those last six or so minutes left me with a wide-open jaw. (Also, can I just say that I love how poetic this guy just…decided to be? Like, I just love it when the statements really show of personalities with the way they’re written, and it comes with a cool framing device.) Regardless, I initially assumed that it was going in a very traditional line. Nathaniel cheats death, becomes immortal, and regrets it in modern day because he’s lived longer that he really should have. That, combined with the fact that “Death” didn’t seem like the one of the more creative horror monsters in the show so far, had me so prepared to just write this one off as one of my least favorites (once again, not like that’s saying much.) And then the twist comes and HOLY SHIT I WAS WRONG. The idea of there basically being multiple grim reapers at the hands of some unknowable power, who have to gain successors to finally die themselves is absolutely terrifying and extremely clever. I tip my hat to you Rusty Quill, you did a great job at fooling me. Kind of funny considering how this is a story about being punished for your hubris (which seems to be a recurring theme???) I have a few other small thoughts as well. Firstly, I can’t help but shake the feeling that Nathaniel Thorp was an actual revolutionary war soldier, but I can’t find anything online other than the character from this episode. Also, the fact that his fate remains unknown makes me think he’ll show up again, as it seems weird to NOT end the story with confirmation of his death, given the themes. Secondly, a lot of the…less than pleasant imagery here definitely reminded me of Piecemeal and The Boneturner’s Tale. I don’t remember the story inside that Leitner very well, but I might check just in case there’s any parallels between it and this statement. (Update: Not really.) And finally, I was just a little bit intrigued by the fact that we learn no one who was working at the institute in 1972 works there anymore. It’s probably nothing, but given the mysteries surrounding Gertrude’s death, I’m just a little suspicious, both in general, and of Elias because he’s still around. Overall this episode went hard, I’m still kind of stunned by what it pulled off.

Jane Prentiss statement…save me…save me Jane Prentiss statement…

- Episode 30, Killing Floor 🍖

Statement of David Laylow, regarding his time working at an industrial abattoir near Dalton.

You know what, Jon is right, there’s a lot of meat in this show. Not that I’m complaining, I mean, it does fuel my obsession with connecting the dots between statements. Regardless, while this isn’t among my favorite episodes so far, I still had a good time with it. The reason it’s not one of my favorites is purely personal, as I don’t do too well with animal violence. Like, as much as I do really appreciate how viscerally Jonny Sims can describe the statements, I will admit that the opening minutes describing the slaughter house made me more uneasy than the actual horror, and not in a particularly fun way, but it was overall fine. Speaking of the actual horror, that was actually pretty good. The endless hallways lined with doors that lead to precarious situations also kind of tapped into a personal fear of mine, but in a more fun and digestible way. And while the idea of “imagine humans being slaughtered like animals” is something I’ve seen many a time before, it was still much more well executed than many other interpretations of the idea (*cough cough*, peta) and there were also plenty of other interesting themes and ideas, like how the episode touched on the inherent horror of working in a job as gruesome as the killing floor, being enslaved to said job, and the idea that maybe we’re all just walking sacks of meat in the end, and nothing more. As for some other thoughts, I was definitely creeped out by Tom Han, I’m not sure whether or not he’s someone who spreads ✨the horrors✨or someone affected by ✨the horrors✨, and his sudden disappearance was certainly…odd. On top of that, it’s admittedly haunting to know that there’s still creepy stuff going on at the slaughter house, and that this isn’t something that happened to David, and only David. Overall, a pretty good episode, I don’t have much to say about it, but it was a fun time overall.

Tim…save me…save me Tim…

Well, if you’ve made it this far, thank you so much for reading! Genuinely means the world to me when there are people willing to listen to me ramble about my horrible (affectionate) interests lmao. I should have my thoughts on the final episodes of Season 1 out in due time, and while I’m sure it’s obvious, I’m absolutely hooked on this podcast. It absolutely has the potential to become one of my favorite things ever if the overarching plot becomes more involved and this is coming from someone who up until now, wasn’t all that gripped by podcasts. While I’m a little sad that I’m as late to the party as I am, then I remembered “oh yeah, I was in elementary school when this horrifying series came out”, and I’m also hopeful that I’ll be able to be around for The Magnus Protocol while it’s airing (I know it premieres in like a week but still.) Anyways, thanks for reading and hopefully you’ll be around for my thoughts on the next batch :)

49 notes · View notes

jezebelgoldstone · 6 months ago

Text

i managed to hold out for like a whole day and a half but i am officially like halfway through the magnus protocol

and

okay so i KNEW that johnny sims and alexander j newal voiced people in this series but like. when """"g. g."""" (no it's not gigi are you kidding) and fucking jerry showed up i literally oh my gods. i didn't start crying but if i were the sort to cry that would've done it. really seriously truly. oh my gods. oh my GODS. i cannot. i am emotionally compromised.

also. as a sidenote. i've seen so many posts speculating about whether or not norris and.... gha i forget the other one's name. i keep wanting to call him chuck. CHESTER that's it fucking chester. anyway! i keep seeing all these joke posts about being trapped with the love of your life and the worst boss it's possible to have in a window's 95 computer, and speculation about whether this is on purpose or if it's just johnny sims doing his usual thing and being slightly claustrophobic when it comes to things like characters and his actual friends, but like, guys.

guys.

come on.

if i hadn't read a thing on magnus protocol before i started listening there would be absolutely no question in my mind that it's jon and martin and probably jonah. (not elias, mind, which is why his voice is different. JONAH.) it's so... anything i write about it is going to make it sound like i'm pushing too hard which is going to make it seem less likely, but. i literally don't understand how in the show this is supposed to be taken any other way.

like okay listen. a little while ago i started writing this fanfic where the love interest is in disguise, right? but like, not in disguise from the READER. i always try to have the main pairing on screen together in the very first scene of any fic; by the end of the first chapter at the absolute latest, and in this one the identity reveal isn't going to be until like at least halfway through the story. but i wanted people to keep reading, and i didn't want people to worry that i was going to end up pairing the mc with an oc, so i did nothing to hide the love interest's identity from the reader. like, EVERYTHING about him is exactly like in the movie. his looks, his speech patterns, his mannerisms. when the mc asks for his name (after they've been talking for a long while already) the love interest is clearly lying and gives a fake name. i tagged the fic with hidden identity and identity reveal and all this kind of thing. it was. it was not hidden at all. and yet! there are still a few comments where people are speculating about whether or not the love interest is actually the love interest. i mean it makes sense; it is possible that i could've fucked up writing so bad that i may have accidentally made it seem like this rando oc was the love interest when he isn't, so if that was the case no one wanted to either make me feel bad or look silly when the actual love interest showed up. so like i get it? but also. i was 100% NOT expecting there to be any question AT ALL regarding the identity of the love interest.

and i gotta say. i feel like if johnny sims has read any of the posts speculating about chester and norris's identity, he probably feels exactly the same way.

also it's not windows 95! it's the business-focused precursor to window's 95, and that's worse.

#tma #jmart #the magnus protocol #tmagp #spoilers #tma spoilers #tmagp spoilers #tmagp theory #windows 95 #op

20 notes · View notes

jeannereames · 9 months ago

Note

Dr. Reames, a simple question from someone interested in history but who is not part of the academic world: in order to study Alexander the Great and Ancient Greece in general, how much Ancient Greek does one have to learn? Would you need to learn Demotic Greek or the many other dialects, such as the one from Macedonia? As in, you’d need to learn one or more versions of Ancient Greek?

Thank you in advance! I always enjoy your responses!

How Much Greek Do I Need to Read about Alexander?

It depends on how far you want to go…what’s your end-goal?

If you’ve no desire to make it a profession, the good news is you need very little Greek.

Most ancient Greek and Latin texts are available in translation in the major languages of (European) Classical studies: English, French, German, Italian. Now, if you want them in Polish, or Japanese, or Bengali, you’ll have more of an issue. But the Loeb Classical Library (and LOEB ONLINE) has English translations of virtually all extant (still existing) Greek and Latin sources, and if you’ve got access to a (larger) college library, they probably have them, even if you have to ask them to get things out of storage. Latin is red (PA6156); Greek is green (PA3612). Budé is the French version of Loeb, btw.

Loeb texts also have Greek and Latin on the facing page, but I mention them because they’ve got translations of (almost) everything. One can find cheaper versions without the Greek/Latin from Penguin, Oxford, et al. But those don’t have, say, Aelian, or Athenaeus, or the obscure texts of Plutarch’s Moralia. Loeb does. That said, the Alexander histories (Arrian, Curtius, Plutarch, Diodoros, and Justin) are all available in relatively cheap translations. Much earlier, in answer to a different ask, I listed our main sources on Alexander, extant and lost. It’s a longer read, but perhaps of interest.

(See below for more online sources in translation.)

So, no, you don’t need Greek. But, if you’re at least moderately serious about reading beyond pop history, you will want to learn a few Greek words to better “get” Greek sensibilities. Say, timē (τιμή), which means honor/public standing/esteem, but has all these attendant connotations. If you start reading the Serious Stuff (articles and academic books), authors will throw these around so it’s useful to know them, as they tend to carry an entire freight of meaning we don’t want to explain every time we use them. These are words I make my students learn in my intro to Greek History class (2510), so there aren’t many. (Undergrads put up with only so much, ha.) For Alexander, it’s also useful to know the Greek names of some units, such as the Somatophylakes (the royal Bodyguard of 7), or the Hypaspists (the specialist hoplite phalanx, not the same as the Foot Companions), or even the name of the long pike (sarissa). But you can make do quite well with a vocab of maybe 30± Greek terms.

It's only if you want to pursue research at the advanced (graduate) level that you’d need Greek. Even then, it’s mostly Attic Greek. The only time you’d need dialects is for quite specific study and/or epigraphy (inscriptions). Epigraphers are language specialists. Most of us, even the “pros,” don’t work at that level. But yes, if you’re getting into extensive examinations of passages, it’s good to understand the language for yourself, not have to trust a translation. Translations are, by definition, interpretations.

I hope that encourages some folks to embark on reading the original (primary) sources. Of more import for these is to understand HISTORIOGRAPHY. Even those who can read the Greek, but lack historiographic training, tend to take stuff at face-value when they shouldn’t.

Go HERE for a discussion of historiography (with regard to Alexander). Again, it’s part of a specific ask, but I explain why we need to know something about the historians who are writing our texts, in order to understand those texts. It’s another longer read, but essential.

Almost forgot! If you prefer video, I've also talked about the sources on TikTok: Part I: Intro & Lost Alexander Sources and Part II: Extant Alexander Sources

Some Useful Online Sources to Bookmark:

Perseus (at Tufts.edu): clunky as hell because it’s old (in internet years), but indispensable. English/Greek/Latin/other texts in translation and original language, plus all sorts of other tools, including an image bank. Pitfall: these are translations outside copyright, so old and sometimes problematic. Still, it’s free, and so-so much stuff here. Every person dealing with the ancient Med world has this one on speed-dial. (You can find other online sources with various texts, but Perseus has, again, almost everything; it’s the online Loeb.)

Stoa Org Static: a version of the original where you don’t have to sign in. Takes you to various super-helpful pages, including the Online Suda (a Byzantine encyclopedia you can search: look up “Hephaistion” there. *grin*) Bunch of other helpful links.

Wiki Digital Classicist hypertext list of topics ranging from the Beasley Library (of pottery) to the Coptic Gnostic Library and various online journals. Just click around, see what’s there.

Topos Text: clickable map of places which includes all references to them in ancient sources. So if, say, you want to know where X places is, mentioned in Arrian, you can find it on the map.

PHI Searchable Greek Inscriptions: I have used the tar out of this. It’s much easier than Inscriptiones Graecae, and comes with English translations.

More Online Resources: more links. This is just one of various collections out there.

Again, ALL this stuff is free. Even when you may have to pay (like Loeb Online), the amount of material you can now lay hands on even without a uni library is fantastic.

JSTOR: requires a subscription, but, if you’re a college student or can get access via a uni library, you can look up material for free. Problem: JSTOR has different subscription packages, and only the really big Class-A Research schools have large holdings for Classics. I’m regularly foiled in things I need, as my library is smaller. I use ILL (Interlibrary Loan) a lot. If you can’t get what you want via your school JSTOR or ILL, sometimes you can purchase a solo copy of an article via JSTOR Google Scholar. But (hint) always check the journal’s website itself. It might be cheaper there! (The Ancient History Bulletin, for instance, is super-cheap; check their archives. Karanos [Macedonia only] is FREE.) Same thing sometimes with books. Certain publishers have rental options, Open Access, etc.

Also Academia.edu first: Your savior…if the author is a member, and has uploaded the paper you want. We frequently face restrictions on what we’re allowed to upload, and when. Yet we may list an article we can’t yet release publicly. That doesn’t mean we won’t send it to you privately via email if you message us and ask nicely. 😊 Especially if you’re not providing an entire wishlist, or asking for a book for free. It depends on the person, and whether they have a PDF.

#asks #greek language #alexander the great #studying the classics #Classics #source on Alexander the Great #How much Greek do I need?#ancient Greece #ancient Macedonia

30 notes · View notes

the-archivists-corner · 3 days ago

Note

Hello I would love to hear the penicillin story and the bacteria story!

Hello dear seige ilyvm!! Consider this ur birthday gift :3 /silly

Okay, so the penicillin story is a lot more well known but i digress. Back in 1927, a Scottish scientist by the name of Alexander Fleming had been working on culturing bacteria. While Fleming was an undoubtedly good researcher, he also was slightly sloppy when it came to keeping things sterile and hygenic around his work station.

He ended up accidentally leaving the petri plate he was growing the bacteria on in a corner somewhere and discovered it weeks later - and realised it was contaminated. Instead of discarding it, Fleming was curious when he looked at the plate. Because you see, he observed that wherever the contaminant (a fungal mold) had settled down, the growth of bacteria was inhibited in those zones - the fungus was somehow keeping the bacteria away.

Fleming observed it under his microscope, and this fungus would later be identified to be Penicillium notatum. A few years later, two scientists by the name of Howard Florey and Ernst Chain found out about Fleming's findings and ended up isolating the compound we know as a life saving drug, and the original true antibiotic - Penicillin. This had happened right around WW2 too, so it's been said that the discovery of Penicillin and it's antibacterial properties provided a huge advantage to the allied forces.

A world without Penicillin would look very different, I think. And to think it was because a man forgot his petri plate in a corner somewhere. Fleming, Florey and Chain all received the Nobel Prize for their contributions in the discovery of Penicillin in 1945.

Now! Our second story, the bacteria story I mentioned needs some context first: in the field of clinical microbiology, to prove that a certain organism is a cause for a disease, there are certain criteria it must fulfill to be accepted as such. These are known as the Koch Postulates, laid down by scientist Robert Koch in 1890 and are still held in high regard.

These postulates state that if an organism is to be classified as a cause for a disease, it must:

1. Be present in abundance in the diseased host and absent in an organism that doesn't show symptoms of the disease.

2. Be able to be isolated and cultured (in a lab) from the diseased organism.

3. If contested, the causal organism must present the same symptoms in a test animal.

4. The microorganism must be able to be re-isolated and grown in a pure culture.

Now, in comes doctor Barry James Marshall. He was a physician, and had been looking into the cause of peptic ulcers, also known as stomach ulcers in humans.

Normally, things like this wouldn't be an issue. However, Marshall found that no matter what test animal he used, the isolated bacteria that supposedly were causing stomach ulcers showed no symptoms in them. Unable to fulfill all four criteria for the postulates, in frustration, he did what any sane scientist does and got an endoscopy done to confirm that he was healthy, and took a sample containing the possible causal organism and drank it.

A few days later, he developed the symptoms associated with stomach ulcers. He got another endoscopy done, and was diagnosed with stomach ulcers. He claimed that this should be evidence enough that a test animal (in this case, himself) displayed symptoms of stomach ulcers, and since the bacteria causing it could be further isolated from there, his point had been proven.

This experiment was published in 1985 in the Medical Journal of Australia and has been cited many times since. He received many awards for this, and his other contributions to the field of medical and clinical microbiology. The organism causing the ulcers was identified to be Helicobacter pylori. Marshall did get better, and to my knowledge is still healthy and alive today.

Science, especially biology and microbial sciences is filled with people who couldn't care less and had done more harm than good to it and the world around them. To them, it is simply a job. But there are some people who will go to the ends of the earth to help people, and spend day and night trying to help humanity. People may call them crazy, and perhaps they're right, but just like life, sometimes mistakes can be life saving instead of deadly.

Don't leave bacteria out on your desk for two weeks to go on a holiday though, that's probably not good.

#asks #tysm for this seige i had sm fun writing this #pls lemme know if u have questions :3 #also these stories are summaries!! i wld implore u to go look for the full versions #toilet potato #anarcule tag

4 notes · View notes

cescalr · 1 year ago

Text

Appearances: Harry Potter Ensemble - Pt 1.

So. As someone who writes a lot of fanfic, I don't always decide to borrow directly from the source material for the appearances of the characters. I'll admit that my canon compliance for that can be tangential at best; mostly down to hair and eye colour, whilst everything else is different. This can lead to some confusion in my fics, because my worst sin in this regard that i'm inconsistent in how I portray them. I have multiple fcs and sims of characters, and I sort of just swap between them at whim. So this is a masterpost list of all the different appearances each portrayal of the HP ensemble cast I use. I'll also try and say which fics I pictured as which faces, because why not.

Let's get started, shall we?

Harry Potter. [+ James Potter, because they're meant to be almost identical.]

First, we'll go with documenting the protagonist.

For a canon-compliant Harry, I made this artbreeder a while ago;

Lord above that's ginormous. Anyway. I'm not, like, 100% happy with this, but here it is.

As may be a fairly obvious choice, my main fc for Harry is Darren Criss. He does a great job fitting the visual aspect of Harry, and an even better job of him being identical to his father; Darren Criss makes a perfect James Potter. All you need to do is watch AVP to know that one.

And, as a sidenote; Look at them <3 this is the golden trio, right here!! Sure, Ron's a bit off, not tall enough, nose not long enough, but he works really well for the role, so I don't care.

But he does a pretty good broody harry, too, so I tend to think Darren Criss when I think Harry James Potter.

Again; for a slightly more book compliant Harry (aka; a wholly white Harry) there's a young Peter Capaldi. In these pics specifically, lol.

James Potter by Michelle-Winer on DeviantArt <- there's also this depiction of James as the actor for Will Graham from Hannibal, which works pretty damn well for both James and Harry.

Unfortunately, people don't credit as often as they should on Pinterest; (1) Pinterest this is a very good James, and if anyone happens to know who drew it, that's really necessary to know. He looks just like my James sim, fr. Took the image right from my brain.

He looks a little less like his dad and more like his mum here, which is Incorrect, but I still like these sims.

Ron Weasley.

Next up on the list is Ron.

I made this artbreeder a while ago. I think this is basically perfect, and looks exactly like how I think of him, except the nose is too short.

The blog is gone, but this art by xia-hainex has always been my favourite Ron fanart.

I'm very picky about Ron's face. I don't have an actor fc for him.

But I do have a sim :). You can see the influence, lol.

Hermione Granger.

Hermione has the most fcs out of the Golden Trio. 5 in total. First, her more canon-compliant artbreeder;

Next; those five fcs.

First up; a duo of fcs - one for her younger years, and one for that version's older years. Ella Eyre + Stevvi Alexander.

Of course, as shown above, there's always Bonne Gruesen, who played her in AVP. Which, as you can see, was an image that held a lot of mix dominance in the artbreeder (which I did through combining various images of these five women, plus some general tweaks.)

Nathalie Emmanuel is a version where Hermione kept the buck teeth :D. Would mostly be used in muggle AUs.

But this ^ really does look like book 7 Hermione during the horcrux hunt, don't you think?

Grace Byers is a bit glamorous for Hermione, I'll admit. Sometimes I use her for her mother, instead.

Elarica Johnson is the final fc option for HG, very similar to Nathalie Emmanuel. If I were to give HG a sister, she'd probably end up with Elarica whilst Hermione keeps Nathalie. Also an option for her mother, I suppose.

Because I should mention this; I often use Hayley Law for Mrs. [heacanon name: Eudora] Granger. I haven't actually got an fc for her dad, but the one consistent thing about him is that he's Jewish, but he can be european or african or middle eastern or whatever, I don't care about that part. (Same, really, for Mrs. Granger. The one prerequisite I suppose is that they not match; my Hermione is biracial, and has the specific complication of passing as (depending on the person guessing) either ethnically White British or solely Ashkenazi Jewish, even if her father is not that. Most people miss the black half of her ancestry if they never meet her parents. And, to note, thanks to the schools she was sent to and the care her family took, Hermione has never experienced explicit racism towards herself, and her first personal exposure to prejudice is the whole Muggleborn mistreatment thing. It hits her pretty hard :(.)

[And, to note; I know that my Hermione's ancestry does not match the ancestry of the FCs, and that the situation regarding... all that doesn't really work with some of them, but I'm also not really happy with any one of these, particularly. Hermione's always been the one I find hardest to cast, because my thoughts are so specific but not... exactly refined.]

This is my sim of her, which of course matches what's in my head better than any fc ever realistically could. She's also pretty close to the artbreeder, just, you know, better. Because it's not ai generated. (I tend to use artbreeder as a visual aid when creating the base ideas for things, nothing more.)

Her mum and dad, for reference.

And that's the GT, so. Onto the next part! [For those wondering; I will keep hitting the image limit, doing this, so need to move on once I do.]

#hp #hpcharacters #hp fcs

7 notes · View notes

luckyshotwrites · 2 years ago

Note

Hey, I was wondering. This is not meant to be a bash on you or your stories at all, but Wendigo are actually a creature from native american folklore and are very important to their culture. While I know you probably don't mean any disrespect, is there any way Alexander's monster species could be changed or renamed in the future, since his species is quite different from the original creatures regardless? I know it would be difficult, but I think it would definitely make any indigenous readers of your stories feel a bit better about the situation.

Hey! Hey!

First off, yes, I did alter every species in Widfali from their traditional legends.

I know it is from native american folklore. Specifically, below are spoilers for the narrative/meaning with the name itself and why I chose it.

However, Alexander being a Wendigo is due to that folklore representation (at least what I read about in the past when trying to think of what to call him). He heavily deals with selfishness and greed. At this point in the story, he's solely focused on his "pleasure"/gluttony of eating humans, specifically Lynette. (I know their hunger isn't generally satiated, but he isn't either, as you see, once he lets her go, he wants her again not long after). And he's too absorbed in his own cravings, so he doesn't consider her as a living being. (His short temper is due to the violence factor as well. He's quick to react to things physically. Though for the story's purpose, the physical extent hasn't been horrendous, at least as far as what has been shown).

It's also why I have yet to go over his monster form or any other wendigos in the story. I don't want the readers to disregard his actions as easily as they would others because he's relatively "close" to being human like Lynette. (Not that any of them should get a pass).

(As it'll be mentioned in this next chapter, many other wendigos eat meat from what they consume, cannibalistic or not. This is also planned to be explained later, but Most Wendigo, when living on Yexodele, were cannibalistic, as when their cravings started, they devoured their species. However, Alexander's aversion to blood and stuff is more of a story element, not regarding that).

And that's the reason I decided to call him a Wendigo. I liked the meaning behind the name regarding the story. Either he'll overcome that selfishness and greed or be entirely consumed by it.

I will not change it because I think it fits too well. But if many people dislike it and ask me to change it, it'll be Yazfari, which is the name of their species in my not spin-off story.

Thank you for the ask, though! And I hope this helps, if it's too much for you, that's perfectly fine, and I'm sorry! I honestly didn't think much of it, as many people make their own versions of the Wendigoes, it's a very popular piece in media.

STILL, HAVE A SWELL REST OF YOUR DAY!

#widfali ask #in regards to the wendigo

7 notes · View notes

therewerenorelevanturlsavailable · 2 years ago

Text

Tl:Dr different sites have different needs and I’m tired of people dismissing the utility of short tone indicators out of hand.

I’m maybe risking getting a little annoying but all these posts about how useless tone indicators are getting annoying 2 me. On tumblr yes they are less useful than just putting ur meaning in brackets but they were implemented on Twitter and tiktok. This is because Twitter and tiktok (at least the comments sections) have a character limit.

So if ur tweeting some long stream of consciousness and get worried people might take u the wrong way you will run out of characters before you can finish the indicator of (not addressed to any of my followers) or (I’m being sarcastic) or (this is a good thing). So having 4 character indicators like /nbh [no body here] or /s [sarcastic] or /pos [I mean this in a positive way] is helpful. Yes expecting everyone to memorise a million indicators is foolish. No they’re not that hard to look up if you are confused.

That being said they are no help for tumblr because you can write whatever the hell you want on tumblr and there is no character limit and there is no staff to interrupt you and there is no god so you can write whatever the hell you want and you will never run out of time. Put a million tone clarifying brackets in your sentence who gives a fuck. Now to demonstrate my point about a lack of character limit I will ruin your dashboard. My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.

I give Pirrip as my father’s family name, on the authority of his tombstone and my sister,—Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith. As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them (for their days were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies regarding what they were like were unreasonably derived from their tombstones. The shape of the letters on my father’s, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair. From the character and turn of the inscription, “Also Georgiana Wife of the Above,” I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly. To five little stone lozenges, each about a foot and a half long, which were arranged in a neat row beside their grave, and were sacred to the memory of five little brothers of mine,—who gave up trying to get a living, exceedingly early in that universal struggle,—I am indebted for a belief I religiously entertained that they had all been born on their backs with their hands in their trousers-pockets, and had never taken them out in this state of existence.

Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river wound, twenty miles of the sea. My first most vivid and broad impression of the identity of things seems to me to have been gained on a memorable raw afternoon towards evening. At such a time I found out for certain that this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard; and that Philip Pirrip, late of this parish, and also Georgiana wife of the above, were dead and buried; and that Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias, and Roger, infant children of the aforesaid, were also dead and buried; and that the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dikes and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle feeding on it, was the marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond was the river; and that the distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing was the sea; and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry, was Pip.

“Hold your noise!” cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from among the graves at the side of the church porch. “Keep still, you little devil, or I’ll cut your throat!”

A fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who limped, and shivered, and glared, and growled; and whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin.

“Oh! Don’t cut my throat, sir,” I pleaded in terror. “Pray don’t do it, sir.”

“Tell us your name!” said the man. “Quick!”

“Pip, sir.”

“Once more,” said the man, staring at me. “Give it mouth!”

“Pip. Pip, sir.”

“Show us where you live,” said the man. “Pint out the place!”

I pointed to where our village lay, on the flat in-shore among the alder-trees and pollards, a mile or more from the church.

The man, after looking at me for a moment, turned me upside down, and emptied my pockets. There was nothing in them but a piece of bread. When the church came to itself,—for he was so sudden and strong that he made it go head over heels before me, and I saw the steeple under my feet,—when the church came to itself, I say, I was seated on a high tombstone, trembling while he ate the bread ravenously.

“You young dog,” said the man, licking his lips, “what fat cheeks you ha’ got.”

I believe they were fat, though I was at that time undersized for my years, and not strong.

“Darn me if I couldn’t eat ’em,” said the man, with a threatening shake of his head, “and if I han’t half a mind to’t!”

I earnestly expressed my hope that he wouldn’t, and held tighter to the tombstone on which he had put me; partly, to keep myself upon it; partly, to keep myself from crying.

“Now lookee here!” said the man. “Where’s your mother?”

“There, sir!” said I.

He started, made a short run, and stopped and looked over his shoulder.

“There, sir!” I timidly explained. “Also Georgiana. That’s my mother.”

“Oh!” said he, coming back. “And is that your father alonger your mother?”

“Yes, sir,” said I; ��him too; late of this parish.”

“Ha!” he muttered then, considering. “Who d’ye live with,—supposin’ you’re kindly let to live, which I han’t made up my mind about?”

“My sister, sir,—Mrs. Joe Gargery,—wife of Joe Gargery, the blacksmith, sir.”

“Blacksmith, eh?” said he. And looked down at his leg.

After darkly looking at his leg and me several times, he came closer to my tombstone, took me by both arms, and tilted me back as far as he could hold me; so that his eyes looked most powerfully down into mine, and mine looked most helplessly up into his.

“Now lookee here,” he said, “the question being whether you’re to be let to live. You know what a file is?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you know what wittles is?”

“Yes, sir.”

After each question he tilted me over a little more, so as to give me a greater sense of helplessness and danger.

“You get me a file.” He tilted me again. “And you get me wittles.” He tilted me again. “You bring ’em both to me.” He tilted me again. “Or I’ll have your heart and liver out.” He tilted me again.

I was dreadfully frightened, and so giddy that I clung to him with both hands, and said, “If you would kindly please to let me keep upright, sir, perhaps I shouldn’t be sick, and perhaps I could attend more.”

He gave me a most tremendous dip and roll, so that the church jumped over its own weathercock. Then, he held me by the arms, in an upright position on the top of the stone, and went on in these fearful terms:—

“You bring me, to-morrow morning early, that file and them wittles. You bring the lot to me, at that old Battery over yonder. You do it, and you never dare to say a word or dare to make a sign concerning your having seen such a person as me, or any person sumever, and you shall be let to live. You fail, or you go from my words in any partickler, no matter how small it is, and your heart and your liver shall be tore out, roasted, and ate. Now, I ain’t alone, as you may think I am. There’s a young man hid with me, in comparison with which young man I am a Angel. That young man hears the words I speak. That young man has a secret way pecooliar to himself, of getting at a boy, and at his heart, and at his liver. It is in wain for a boy to attempt to hide himself from that young man. A boy may lock his door, may be warm in bed, may tuck himself up, may draw the clothes over his head, may think himself comfortable and safe, but that young man will softly creep and creep his way to him and tear him open. I am a keeping that young man from harming of you at the present moment, with great difficulty. I find it wery hard to hold that young man off of your inside. Now, what do you say?”

I said that I would get him the file, and I would get him what broken bits of food I could, and I would come to him at the Battery, early in the morning.

“Say Lord strike you dead if you don’t!” said the man.

I said so, and he took me down.

“Now,” he pursued, “you remember what you’ve undertook, and you remember that young man, and you get home!”

“Goo-good night, sir,” I faltered.

“Much of that!” said he, glancing about him over the cold wet flat. “I wish I was a frog. Or a eel!”

At the same time, he hugged his shuddering body in both his arms,—clasping himself, as if to hold himself together,—and limped towards the low church wall. As I saw him go, picking his way among the nettles, and among the brambles that bound the green mounds, he looked in my young eyes as if he were eluding the hands of the dead people, stretching up cautiously out of their graves, to get a twist upon his ankle and pull him in.

When he came to the low church wall, he got over it, like a man whose legs were numbed and stiff, and then turned round to look for me. When I saw him turning, I set my face towards home, and made the best use of my legs. But presently I looked over my shoulder, and saw him going on again towards the river, still hugging himself in both arms, and picking his way with his sore feet among the great stones dropped into the marshes here and there, for stepping-places when the rains were heavy or the tide was in.

The marshes were just a long black horizontal line then, as I stopped to look after him; and the river was just another horizontal line, not nearly so broad nor yet so black; and the sky was just a row of long angry red lines and dense black lines intermixed. On the edge of the river I could faintly make out the only two black things in all the prospect that seemed to be standing upright; one of these was the beacon by which the sailors steered,—like an unhooped cask upon a pole,—an ugly thing when you were near it; the other, a gibbet, with some chains hanging to it which had once held a pirate. The man was limping on towards this latter, as if he were the pirate come to life, and come down, and going back to hook himself up again. It gave me a terrible turn when I thought so; and as I saw the cattle lifting their heads to gaze after him, I wondered whether they thought so too. I looked all round for the horrible young man, and could see no signs of him. But now I was frightened again, and ran home without stopping.

Chapter II.

My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older than I, and had established a great reputation with herself and the neighbours because she had brought me up “by hand.” Having at that time to find out for myself what the expression meant, and knowing her to have a hard and heavy hand, and to be much in the habit of laying it upon her husband as well as upon me, I supposed that Joe Gargery and I were both brought up by hand.

She was not a good-looking woman, my sister; and I had a general impression that she must have made Joe Gargery marry her by hand. Joe was a fair man, with curls of flaxen hair on each side of his smooth face, and with eyes of such a very undecided blue that they seemed to have somehow got mixed with their own whites. He was a mild, good-natured, sweet-tempered, easy-going, foolish, dear fellow,—a sort of Hercules in strength, and also in weakness.

My sister, Mrs. Joe, with black hair and eyes, had such a prevailing redness of skin that I sometimes used to wonder whether it was possible she washed herself with a nutmeg-grater instead of soap. She was tall and bony, and almost always wore a coarse apron, fastened over her figure behind with two loops, and having a square impregnable bib in front, that was stuck full of pins and needles. She made it a powerful merit in herself, and a strong reproach against Joe, that she wore this apron so much. Though I really see no reason why she should have worn it at all; or why, if she did wear it at all, she should not have taken it off, every day of her life.

Joe’s forge adjoined our house, which was a wooden house, as many of the dwellings in our country were,—most of them, at that time. When I ran home from the churchyard, the forge was shut up, and Joe was sitting alone in the kitchen. Joe and I being fellow-sufferers, and having confidences as such, Joe imparted a confidence to me, the moment I raised the latch of the door and peeped in at him opposite to it, sitting in the chimney corner.

“Mrs. Joe has been out a dozen times, looking for you, Pip. And she’s out now, making it a baker’s dozen.”

“Is she?”

“Yes, Pip,” said Joe; “and what’s worse, she’s got Tickler with her.”

At this dismal intelligence, I twisted the only button on my waistcoat round and round, and looked in great depression at the fire. Tickler was a wax-ended piece of cane, worn smooth by collision with my tickled frame.

“She sot down,” said Joe, “and she got up, and she made a grab at Tickler, and she Ram-paged out. That’s what she did,” said Joe, slowly clearing the fire between the lower bars with the poker, and looking at it; “she Ram-paged out, Pip.”

“Has she been gone long, Joe?” I always treated him as a larger species of child, and as no more than my equal.

“Well,” said Joe, glancing up at the Dutch clock, “she’s been on the Ram-page, this last spell, about five minutes, Pip. She’s a-coming! Get behind the door, old chap, and have the jack-towel betwixt you.”

I took the advice. My sister, Mrs. Joe, throwing the door wide open, and finding an obstruction behind it, immediately divined the cause, and applied Tickler to its further investigation. She concluded by throwing me—I often served as a connubial missile—at Joe, who, glad to get hold of me on any terms, passed me on into the chimney and quietly fenced me up there with his great leg.

“Where have you been, you young monkey?” said Mrs. Joe, stamping her foot. “Tell me directly what you’ve been doing to wear me away with fret and fright and worrit, or I’d have you out of that corner if you was fifty Pips, and he was five hundred Gargerys.”

“I have only been to the churchyard,” said I, from my stool, crying and rubbing myself.

“Churchyard!” repeated my sister. “If it warn’t for me you’d have been to the churchyard long ago, and stayed there. Who brought you up by hand?”

“You did,” said I.

“And why did I do it, I should like to know?” exclaimed my sister.

I whimpered, “I don’t know.”

“I don’t!” said my sister. “I’d never do it again! I know that. I may truly say I’ve never had this apron of mine off since born you were. It’s bad enough to be a blacksmith’s wife (and him a Gargery) without being your mother.”

My thoughts strayed from that question as I looked disconsolately at the fire. For the fugitive out on the marshes with the ironed leg, the mysterious young man, the file, the food, and the dreadful pledge I was under to commit a larceny on those sheltering premises, rose before me in the avenging coals.

“Hah!” said Mrs. Joe, restoring Tickler to his station. “Churchyard, indeed! You may well say churchyard, you two.” One of us, by the by, had not said it at all. “You’ll drive me to the churchyard betwixt you, one of these days, and O, a pr-r-recious pair you’d be without me!”

As she applied herself to set the tea-things, Joe peeped down at me over his leg, as if he were mentally casting me and himself up, and calculating what kind of pair we practically should make, under the grievous circumstances foreshadowed. After that, he sat feeling his right-side flaxen curls and whisker, and following Mrs. Joe about with his blue eyes, as his manner always was at squally times.

My sister had a trenchant way of cutting our bread and butter for us, that never varied. First, with her left hand she jammed the loaf hard and fast against her bib,—where it sometimes got a pin into it, and sometimes a needle, which we afterwards got into our mouths. Then she took some butter (not too much) on a knife and spread it on the loaf, in an apothecary kind of way, as if she were making a plaster,—using both sides of the knife with a slapping dexterity, and trimming and moulding the butter off round the crust. Then, she gave the knife a final smart wipe on the edge of the plaster, and then sawed a very thick round off the loaf: which she finally, before separating from the loaf, hewed into two halves, of which Joe got one, and I the other.

On the present occasion, though I was hungry, I dared not eat my slice. I felt that I must have something in reserve for my dreadful acquaintance, and his ally the still more dreadful young man. I knew Mrs. Joe’s housekeeping to be of the strictest kind, and that my larcenous researches might find nothing available in the safe. Therefore I resolved to put my hunk of bread and butter down the leg of my trousers.

The effort of resolution necessary to the achievement of this purpose I found to be quite awful. It was as if I had to make up my mind to leap from the top of a high house, or plunge into a great depth of water. And it was made the more difficult by the unconscious Joe. In our already-mentioned freemasonry as fellow-sufferers, and in his good-natured companionship with me, it was our evening habit to compare the way we bit through our slices, by silently holding them up to each other’s admiration now and then,—which stimulated us to new exertions. To-night, Joe several times invited me, by the display of his fast diminishing slice, to enter upon our usual friendly competition; but he found me, each time, with my yellow mug of tea on one knee, and my untouched bread and butter on the other. At last, I desperately considered that the thing I contemplated must be done, and that it had best be done in the least improbable manner consistent with the circumstances. I took advantage of a moment when Joe had just looked at me, and got my bread and butter down my leg.

Joe was evidently made uncomfortable by what he supposed to be my loss of appetite, and took a thoughtful bite out of his slice, which he didn’t seem to enjoy. He turned it about in his mouth much longer than usual, pondering over it a good deal, and after all gulped it down like a pill. He was about to take another bite, and had just got his head on one side for a good purchase on it, when his eye fell on me, and he saw that my bread and butter was gone.

The wonder and consternation with which Joe stopped on the threshold of his bite and stared at me, were too evident to escape my sister’s observation.

“What’s the matter now?” said she, smartly, as she put down her cup.

“I say, you know!” muttered Joe, shaking his head at me in very serious remonstrance. “Pip, old chap! You’ll do yourself a mischief. It’ll stick somewhere. You can’t have chawed it, Pip.”

“What’s the matter now?” repeated my sister, more sharply than before.

“If you can cough any trifle on it up, Pip, I’d recommend you to do it,” said Joe, all aghast. “Manners is manners, but still your elth’s your elth.”

By this time, my sister was quite desperate, so she pounced on Joe, and, taking him by the two whiskers, knocked his head for a little while against the wall behind him, while I sat in the corner, looking guiltily on.

“Now, perhaps you’ll mention what’s the matter,” said my sister, out of breath, “you staring great stuck pig.”

Joe looked at her in a helpless way, then took a helpless bite, and looked at me again.

“You know, Pip,” said Joe, solemnly, with his last bite in his cheek, and speaking in a confidential voice, as if we two were quite alone, “you and me is always friends, and I’d be the last to tell upon you, any time. But such a—” he moved his chair and looked about the floor between us, and then again at me—“such a most oncommon Bolt as that!”

“Been bolting his food, has he?” cried my sister.

“You know, old chap,” said Joe, looking at me, and not at Mrs. Joe, with his bite still in his cheek, “I Bolted, myself, when I was your age—frequent—and as a boy I’ve been among a many Bolters; but I never see your Bolting equal yet, Pip, and it’s a mercy you ain’t Bolted dead.”

My sister made a dive at me, and fished me up by the hair, saying nothing more than the awful words, “You come along and be dosed.”

Some medical beast had revived Tar-water in those days as a fine medicine, and Mrs. Joe always kept a supply of it in the cupboard; having a belief in its virtues correspondent to its nastiness. At the best of times, so much of this elixir was administered to me as a choice restorative, that I was conscious of going about, smelling like a new fence. On this particular evening the urgency of my case demanded a pint of this mixture, which was poured down my throat, for my greater comfort, while Mrs. Joe held my head under her arm, as a boot would be held in a bootjack. Joe got off with half a pint; but was made to swallow that (much to his disturbance, as he sat slowly munching and meditating before the fire), “because he had had a turn.” Judging from myself, I should say he certainly had a turn afterwards, if he had had none before.

Conscience is a dreadful thing when it accuses man or boy; but when, in the case of a boy, that secret burden co-operates with another secret burden down the leg of his trousers, it is (as I can testify) a great punishment. The guilty knowledge that I was going to rob Mrs. Joe—I never thought I was going to rob Joe, for I never thought of any of the housekeeping property as his—united to the necessity of always keeping one hand on my bread and butter as I sat, or when I was ordered about the kitchen on any small errand, almost drove me out of my mind. Then, as the marsh winds made the fire glow and flare, I thought I heard the voice outside, of the man with the iron on his leg who had sworn me to secrecy, declaring that he couldn’t and wouldn’t starve until to-morrow, but must be fed now. At other times, I thought, What if the young man who was with so much difficulty restrained from imbruing his hands in me should yield to a constitutional impatience, or should mistake the time, and should think himself accredited to my heart and liver to-night, instead of to-morrow! If ever anybody’s hair stood on end with terror, mine must have done so then. But, perhaps, nobody’s ever did?

It was Christmas Eve, and I had to stir the pudding for next day, with a copper-stick, from seven to eight by the Dutch clock. I tried it with the load upon my leg (and that made me think afresh of the man with the load on his leg), and found the tendency of exercise to bring the bread and butter out at my ankle, quite unmanageable. Happily I slipped away, and deposited that part of my conscience in my garret bedroom.

“Hark!” said I, when I had done my stirring, and was taking a final warm in the chimney corner before being sent up to bed; “was that great guns, Joe?”

“Ah!” said Joe. “There’s another conwict off.”

“What does that mean, Joe?” said I.

Mrs. Joe, who always took explanations upon herself, said, snappishly, “Escaped. Escaped.” Administering the definition like Tar-water.

While Mrs. Joe sat with her head bending over her needlework, I put my mouth into the forms of saying to Joe, “What’s a convict?” Joe put his mouth into the forms of returning such a highly elaborate answer, that I could make out nothing of it but the single word “Pip.”

“There was a conwict off last night,” said Joe, aloud, “after sunset-gun. And they fired warning of him. And now it appears they’re firing warning of another.”

“Who’s firing?” said I.

“Drat that boy,” interposed my sister, frowning at me over her work, “what a questioner he is. Ask no questions, and you’ll be told no lies.”

It was not very polite to herself, I thought, to imply that I should be told lies by her even if I did ask questions. But she never was polite unless there was company.

At this point Joe greatly augmented my curiosity by taking the utmost pains to open his mouth very wide, and to put it into the form of a word that looked to me like “sulks.” Therefore, I naturally pointed to Mrs. Joe, and put my mouth into the form of saying, “her?” But Joe wouldn’t hear of that, at all, and again opened his mouth very wide, and shook the form of a most emphatic word out of it. But I could make nothing of the word.

“Mrs. Joe,” said I, as a last resort, “I should like to know—if you wouldn’t much mind—where the firing comes from?”

“Lord bless the boy!” exclaimed my sister, as if she didn’t quite mean that but rather the contrary. “From the Hulks!”

“Oh-h!” said I, looking at Joe. “Hulks!”

Joe gave a reproachful cough, as much as to say, “Well, I told you so.”

“And please, what’s Hulks?” said I.

“That’s the way with this boy!” exclaimed my sister, pointing me out with her needle and thread, and shaking her head at me. “Answer him one question, and he’ll ask you a dozen directly. Hulks are prison-ships, right ’cross th’ meshes.” We always used that name for marshes, in our country.

“I wonder who’s put into prison-ships, and why they’re put there?” said I, in a general way, and with quiet desperation.

It was too much for Mrs. Joe, who immediately rose. “I tell you what, young fellow,” said she, “I didn’t bring you up by hand to badger people’s lives out. It would be blame to me and not praise, if I had. People are put in the Hulks because they murder, and because they rob, and forge, and do all sorts of bad; and they always begin by asking questions. Now, you get along to bed!”

I was never allowed a candle to light me to bed, and, as I went upstairs in the dark, with my head tingling,—from Mrs. Joe’s thimble having played the tambourine upon it, to accompany her last words,—I felt fearfully sensible of the great convenience that the hulks were handy for me. I was clearly on my way there. I had begun by asking questions, and I was going to rob Mrs. Joe.

Since that time, which is far enough away now, I have often thought that few people know what secrecy there is in the young under terror. No matter how unreasonable the terror, so that it be terror. I was in mortal terror of the young man who wanted my heart and liver; I was in mortal terror of my interlocutor with the iron leg; I was in mortal terror of myself, from whom an awful promise had been extracted; I had no hope of deliverance through my all-powerful sister, who repulsed me at every turn; I am afraid to think of what I might have done on requirement, in the secrecy of my terror.

If I slept at all that night, it was only to imagine myself drifting down the river on a strong spring-tide, to the Hulks; a ghostly pirate calling out to me through a speaking-trumpet, as I passed the gibbet-station, that I had better come ashore and be hanged there at once, and not put it off. I was afraid to sleep, even if I had been inclined, for I knew that at the first faint dawn of morning I must rob the pantry. There was no doing it in the night, for there was no getting a light by easy friction then; to have got one I must have struck it out of flint and steel, and have made a noise like the very pirate himself rattling his chains.

As soon as the great black velvet pall outside my little window was shot with grey, I got up and went downstairs; every board upon the way, and every crack in every board calling after me, “Stop thief!” and “Get up, Mrs. Joe!” In the pantry, which was far more abundantly supplied than usual, owing to the season, I was very much alarmed by a hare hanging up by the heels, whom I rather thought I caught, when my back was half turned, winking. I had no time for verification, no time for selection, no time for anything, for I had no time to spare. I stole some bread, some rind of cheese, about half a jar of mincemeat (which I tied up in my pocket-handkerchief with my last night’s slice), some brandy from a stone bottle (which I decanted into a glass bottle I had secretly used for making that intoxicating fluid, Spanish-liquorice-water, up in my room: diluting the stone bottle from a jug in the kitchen cupboard), a meat bone with very little on it, and a beautiful round compact pork pie. I was nearly going away without the pie, but I was tempted to mount upon a shelf, to look what it was that was put away so carefully in a covered earthenware dish in a corner, and I found it was the pie, and I took it in the hope that it was not intended for early use, and would not be missed for some time.

There was a door in the kitchen, communicating with the forge; I unlocked and unbolted that door, and got a file from among Joe’s tools. Then I put the fastenings as I had found them, opened the door at which I had entered when I ran home last night, shut it, and ran for the misty marshes.

Chapter III.

It was a rimy morning, and very damp. I had seen the damp lying on the outside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all night, and using the window for a pocket-handkerchief. Now, I saw the damp lying on the bare hedges and spare grass, like a coarser sort of spiders’ webs; hanging itself from twig to twig and blade to blade. On every rail and gate, wet lay clammy, and the marsh mist was so thick, that the wooden finger on the post directing people to our village—a direction which they never accepted, for they never came there—was invisible to me until I was quite close under it. Then, as I looked up at it, while it dripped, it seemed to my oppressed conscience like a phantom devoting me to the Hulks.

The mist was heavier yet when I got out upon the marshes, so that instead of my running at everything, everything seemed to run at me. This was very disagreeable to a guilty mind. The gates and dikes and banks came bursting at me through the mist, as if they cried as plainly as could be, “A boy with somebody else’s pork pie! Stop him!” The cattle came upon me with like suddenness, staring out of their eyes, and steaming out of their nostrils, “Halloa, young thief!” One black ox, with a white cravat on,—who even had to my awakened conscience something of a clerical air,—fixed me so obstinately with his eyes, and moved his blunt head round in such an accusatory manner as I moved round, that I blubbered out to him, “I couldn’t help it, sir! It wasn’t for myself I took it!” Upon which he put down his head, blew a cloud of smoke out of his nose, and vanished with a kick-up of his hind-legs and a flourish of his tail.

All this time, I was getting on towards the river; but however fast I went, I couldn’t warm my feet, to which the damp cold seemed riveted, as the iron was riveted to the leg of the man I was running to meet. I knew my way to the Battery, pretty straight, for I had been down there on a Sunday with Joe, and Joe, sitting on an old gun, had told me that when I was ’prentice to him, regularly bound, we would have such Larks there! However, in the confusion of the mist, I found myself at last too far to the right, and consequently had to try back along the river-side, on the bank of loose stones above the mud and the stakes that staked the tide out. Making my way along here with all despatch, I had just crossed a ditch which I knew to be very near the Battery, and had just scrambled up the mound beyond the ditch, when I saw the man sitting before me. His back was towards me, and he had his arms folded, and was nodding forward, heavy with sleep.

I thought he would be more glad if I came upon him with his breakfast, in that unexpected manner, so I went forward softly and touched him on the shoulder. He instantly jumped up, and it was not the same man, but another man!

And yet this man was dressed in coarse grey, too, and had a great iron on his leg, and was lame, and hoarse, and cold, and was everything that the other man was; except that he had not the same face, and had a flat broad-brimmed low-crowned felt hat on. All this I saw in a moment, for I had only a moment to see it in: he swore an oath at me, made a hit at me,—it was a round weak blow that missed me and almost knocked himself down, for it made him stumble,—and then he ran into the mist, stumbling twice as he went, and I lost him.

“It’s the young man!” I thought, feeling my heart shoot as I identified him. I dare say I should have felt a pain in my liver, too, if I had known where it was.

I was soon at the Battery after that, and there was the right man,—hugging himself and limping to and fro, as if he had never all night left off hugging and limping,—waiting for me. He was awfully cold, to be sure. I half expected to see him drop down before my face and die of deadly cold. His eyes looked so awfully hungry too, that when I handed him the file and he laid it down on the grass, it occurred to me he would have tried to eat it, if he had not seen my bundle. He did not turn me upside down this time to get at what I had, but left me right side upwards while I opened the bundle and emptied my pockets.

“What’s in the bottle, boy?” said he.

“Brandy,” said I.

He was already handing mincemeat down his throat in the most curious manner,—more like a man who was putting it away somewhere in a violent hurry, than a man who was eating it,—but he left off to take some of the liquor. He shivered all the while so violently, that it was quite as much as he could do to keep the neck of the bottle between his teeth, without biting it off.

“I think you have got the ague,” said I.

“I’m much of your opinion, boy,” said he.

“It’s bad about here,” I told him. “You’ve been lying out on the meshes, and they’re dreadful aguish. Rheumatic too.”

“I’ll eat my breakfast afore they’re the death of me,” said he. “I’d do that, if I was going to be strung up to that there gallows as there is over there, directly afterwards. I’ll beat the shivers so far, I’ll bet you.”

He was gobbling mincemeat, meatbone, bread, cheese, and pork pie, all at once: staring distrustfully while he did so at the mist all round us, and often stopping—even stopping his jaws—to listen. Some real or fancied sound, some clink upon the river or breathing of beast upon the marsh, now gave him a start, and he said, suddenly,—

“You’re not a deceiving imp? You brought no one with you?”

“No, sir! No!”

“Nor giv’ no one the office to follow you?”

“No!”

“Well,” said he, “I believe you. You’d be but a fierce young hound indeed, if at your time of life you could help to hunt a wretched warmint hunted as near death and dunghill as this poor wretched warmint is!”

Something clicked in his throat as if he had works in him like a clock, and was going to strike. And he smeared his ragged rough sleeve over his eyes.

Pitying his desolation, and watching him as he gradually settled down upon the pie, I made bold to say, “I am glad you enjoy it.”

“Did you speak?”

“I said I was glad you enjoyed it.”

“Thankee, my boy. I do.”

I had often watched a large dog of ours eating his food; and I now noticed a decided similarity between the dog’s way of eating, and the man’s. The man took strong sharp sudden bites, just like the dog. He swallowed, or rather snapped up, every mouthful, too soon and too fast; and he looked sideways here and there while he ate, as if he thought there was danger in every direction of somebody’s coming to take the pie away. He was altogether too unsettled in his mind over it, to appreciate it comfortably I thought, or to have anybody to dine with him, without making a chop with his jaws at the visitor. In all of which particulars he was very like the dog.

“I am afraid you won’t leave any of it for him,” said I, timidly; after a silence during which I had hesitated as to the politeness of making the remark. “There’s no more to be got where that came from.” It was the certainty of this fact that impelled me to offer the hint.

“Leave any for him? Who’s him?” said my friend, stopping in his crunching of pie-crust.

“The young man. That you spoke of. That was hid with you.”

“Oh ah!” he returned, with something like a gruff laugh. “Him? Yes, yes! He don’t want no wittles.”

“I thought he looked as if he did,” said I.

The man stopped eating, and regarded me with the keenest scrutiny and the greatest surprise.

“Looked? When?”

“Just now.”

“Where?”

“Yonder,” said I, pointing; “over there, where I found him nodding asleep, and thought it was you.”

He held me by the collar and stared at me so, that I began to think his first idea about cutting my throat had revived.

“Dressed like you, you know, only with a hat,” I explained, trembling; “and—and”—I was very anxious to put this delicately—“and with—the same reason for wanting to borrow a file. Didn’t you hear the cannon last night?”

“Then there was firing!” he said to himself.

“I wonder you shouldn’t have been sure of that,” I returned, “for we heard it up at home, and that’s farther away, and we were shut in besides.”

“Why, see now!” said he. “When a man’s alone on these flats, with a light head and a light stomach, perishing of cold and want, he hears nothin’ all night, but guns firing, and voices calling. Hears? He sees the soldiers, with their red coats lighted up by the torches carried afore, closing in round him. Hears his number called, hears himself challenged, hears the rattle of the muskets, hears the orders ‘Make ready! Present! Cover him steady, men!’ and is laid hands on—and there’s nothin’! Why, if I see one pursuing party last night—coming up in order, Damn ’em, with their tramp, tramp—I see a hundred. And as to firing! Why, I see the mist shake with the cannon, arter it was broad day,—But this man”; he had said all the rest, as if he had forgotten my being there; “did you notice anything in him?”

“He had a badly bruised face,” said I, recalling what I hardly knew I knew.

“Not here?” exclaimed the man, striking his left cheek mercilessly, with the flat of his hand.

“Yes, there!”

“Where is he?” He crammed what little food was left, into the breast of his grey jacket. “Show me the way he went. I’ll pull him down, like a bloodhound. Curse this iron on my sore leg! Give us hold of the file, boy.”

I indicated in what direction the mist had shrouded the other man, and he looked up at it for an instant. But he was down on the rank wet grass, filing at his iron like a madman, and not minding me or minding his own leg, which had an old chafe upon it and was bloody, but which he handled as roughly as if it had no more feeling in it than the file. I was very much afraid of him again, now that he had worked himself into this fierce hurry, and I was likewise very much afraid of keeping away from home any longer. I told him I must go, but he took no notice, so I thought the best thing I could do was to slip off. The last I saw of him, his head was bent over his knee and he was working hard at his fetter, muttering impatient imprecations at it and at his leg. The last I heard of him, I stopped in the mist to listen, and the file was still going.

#long post

2 notes · View notes

raven-writes-fanfic · 2 years ago

Text

Notes from The Tale of Prince Steven of Avalon

OKAY so I decided that instead of going back and editing this fic's notes and risking nobody seeing the relevant info that I desperately want to share, I'd stick it here! (I'm calling it the Ficcyclopedia™.) SO! If you have any interest at all in the inner workings of my brain in regards to this fic, it's all below the cut. 💜

In the first chapter, these are the relevant tidbits, neatly sorted because my OCD said to.

Places:

The original fairy tale takes place in Ireland, and I kept that the same, save for the name of the kingdom. Avalon is a play on the land Tír na nÓg, which is the mystical "otherworld" in Irish mythology. Avalon is just another name for "paradise" or afterlife, basically. I wanted something pronounceable, so this happened. It also is really fitting with Steve's character (both in this story and in MCU canon), in my opinion.

I basically decided to run with the whole "Bucky is probably Jewish" Fanon thing, and decided his mother was possibly (in my head most likely) from Poland. Thus, a lot of locations and names and things stemmed from Polish culture and mythology. So, bouncing off of the whole "Avalon-is-based-on-Irish-afterlife" thing, I named Bucky's homeland Verais (Vehr-eye) as the phonological equivalent of Wyraj, which is the afterlife in Polish mythology. And yes, it is spelled a little prettier than just phonetics, because I said so.

In conjunction with the Verais thing, I named the people there the Lechian people, which is for Lechia, an ancient name for Poland.

"The Land of Ice" is a pretty obvious (to me) way of saying Russia.

Gidra is Russian for Hydra. Do with that what you will. ;)

Names/Creatures:

The name Drew means "from druids" which is a play on the fact that in the original story of Conn-Eda, the prince's stepmother was the daughter of a druid. I wanted to include that little thing, even if it wasn't exactly the same.

His last name, Balcombe, means "person who casts an evil eye." It's also a surname that's common to the Isle of Man, which is the place I based Drew's homeland off of.

In the original fairy tale, the supernatural hound is called Samer. Samer means lots of different things in many languages, but my favorite was the Sanskrit for "air" or "wind." I turned it kind of Polish and gave the hound the name Zenon, which is derived from the Greek god Zeus. And Zeus, as we know, is the god of the skies or whatever. ;P This one is a bit more convoluted, but I think it still works.

Even though "Alkonost" seems like a made-up word, IT'S NOT!!! It's the English pronunciation of Алконост. The Alkonost is a woman-headed bird in Russian mythology. And the creature that Conn-Eda goes to see in the original fairy tale is a bird with the face of a human. This one took me ages to find, but I did it for you guys. :D (JK I really did it for me, but y'all benefit, so.) (Also, in chapter two, I made the Alkonost a man. I know it's not perfectly in line with the mythology, but it's really important to me that it be a guy, okay? You'll see why.)

Almaz is the English pronunciation of алмаз, which means "diamond." I wanted the stone Alexander gives Steve to be something precious, but also Russian, because reasons.

Movyatzekon is a semi-made-up word for talking horse, strung together from the words "talking" and "horse" in Polish.

In a related vein, the horse breed that I imagine Bucky is is called a Gypsy Vanner. I picked it because it has famously shaggy hair (and so does Bucky at certain points in Marvel canon!!). The very specific horse I envision for Bucky is in the moodboard above.

Misc. Stuff:

Mulct is an actual word!! It means "a fine, or compulsory payment." Basically, it's the punishment Steve gets for losing the challenge his stepfather gives him.

Variola is an ancient name for smallpox. I chose this as the disease Steve's dad dies from in the fairy tale because, canonically, he dies from mustard gas exposure. Mustard gas exposure can cause skin lesions that can mimic the look of smallpox.

And chapter two stuff, which is literally only places:

Steve and Bucky pass through a kingdom called Albion, which is a very ancient name for England (going back as far as 5th century B.C.E.). Guess where on the map I imagine it is? Yes, you're right. It's England. ;D

They also pass through a land called Veneti, which is named for an ancient west-Slavic tribe called Veneti. It's meant to be where Belarus is, roughly.

Chapter three stuff, which is one measly thing:

(in reference to the chapter title) Travail: painful or laborious effort

If you want to talk about where certain MCU characters come into play, you can always scream at me in whatever way you want! I am probably disproportionately excited about how I've managed to work in so many MCU characters in general, so it's a whole thing in my brain now.

And if you read all the way to the bottom of this long-ass post, thank you and I love you. I mean, I'll love y'all regardless of whether you read the post, but yeah. ✌🏻

#Raven rambles #The Tale of Prince Steven of Avalon #as seen on ao3 #you can click the moodboard to get to the story if you wanna #I feel like I am so fucking awkward for posting this ngl #but I'm doing it anyway #Stucky fic #my writing #fan fiction #I'll just go before I start rambling in the tags too

2 notes · View notes

wild-blue-sonder · 1 year ago

Text

I think my story contains trigger warnings regarding mental health, so I'll share it beneath the cut.

I started playing in April 2020 after many years of being harassed encouraged by my sister to get XIV, "because I think you'd really like it!" She started during Heavensward on PS3 and was hardcore raiding, like trying for world firsts with Alexander. I hadn't (and still haven't) played any Final Fantasy games prior to XIV. My sister notified me that Shadowbringers and the previous expansions were all on sale, so I finally caved and bought the bundle. I was living in Germany with my ex-husband at the time, sitting at home taking care of our dog, cooking, cleaning, and not much else. I was deeply depressed when I bought XIV and worried it'd be a waste of money since I'd lost interest in all my other hobbies (writing, reading, model kits, every other game I used to enjoy), but I felt it'd be even more wasteful not to take advantage of the 30 days of free play time before I had to pay a recurring subscription. So I created my female Wildwood Elezen, named and modeled her after the protagonist of Valkyrie Profile (an old Enix game), chose Conjurer as my starting job, and set out on my adventure through A Realm Reborn.

It probably sounds cliché to say that XIV saved my life, but it certainly affected it for the better. I was so depressed I hardly had motivation to get out of bed most days. I didn't really eat and I didn't want to socialize. But since my ex had, at that point, prioritized his career over me, I forced myself to get up each day to at least keep the dog alive. Then I started getting up, taking care of our shepherd, and sitting down to play XIV. I had finagled an NA service account instead of EU so I could play on Aether-Gilgamesh with my sister and join her free company, Roses of May, where the members were all great at not spoiling anything for me despite being endgame raiders. So I was just going around, doing the MSQ and my job quests to unlock new spells, exploring the three main cities, until I decided to pick up all the crafting and gathering jobs. At the time of April 2020, a certain global pandemic was rapidly unfolding, and Germany declared lockdown. Being affiliated with the US military, my ex still had to go to work on base each day, but now I had an excuse to stay home and not socialize.

Except my dread at having to get out of bed each morning was slowly turning into anticipation and excitement to jump back into the world of Eorzea, where I could keep people alive as a pretty good healer and fill in the maps of all the interesting overworld regions and their dungeons and check off everything in my gathering logs and craft all the things, because not being able to rely on anyone but myself irl definitely translated to how I played the game. I also decided I wanted to pick up and play every job, which I do currently with varying degrees of competency. It took me just under one year (April 16, 2020 to April 14, 2021) to complete Shadowbringers, and I finished Death Unto Dawn in October.

It feels strange to reminisce on the way my life was when I started XIV because literally everything is different now. I got divorced last May, I moved back to my home state, I started a business with my sister and get to spend a lot more quality time with her. I got a decent job in December; I was supposed to be a temp and be let go in April, but they kept me on. I like being able to pay my own subscription. Weirdly, or perhaps serendipitously, I was working on my penultimate anima relic at the end of May, right after the anniversary of my divorce, and the male Duskwight in our light farm party sent me a flirty tell after we finished. Then we started talking, and kept talking, and decided to try a long-distance relationship. And now he's coming to stay with me for half a month this Sunday.

So now I'm that person encouraging others to try XIV.

Question for the ffxiv fandom!

How did you all get into the game? I love hearing everyone's stories about how they found the game.

#ff14 #ffxiv #final fantasy 14 #personal

645 notes · View notes

mboylstonsvad-gd · 2 years ago

Text

March 30, 2023

I particularly enjoyed this week’s chapter from Robin Landa’s Strategic Creativity because she goes over Gestalt principles but in a way that applies each principle to the real world. It provides more context for me as a designer to read how these practices impact the audience as a viewer, rather than just digesting the definition of each principle. For a structures class, I’m looking at branding for an imagined brewery. Revisiting these basic design principles is going to help move me closer to a more effective design solution—I’m nearing the end of the sketching phase, so I’m excited to take another look at my current sketches with a fresh pair of eyes and a refreshed mind.

As these sketches progressed, I realized I was nearing the look of a neon sign which, in turn, became a huge point of inspiration for my concept. Keeping in mind figure & ground and rhythym will be important while I work out how to properly make this logo readable but also visually interesting. Those bottom two scribbles were super loose sketches just to keep my hand and pen flowing and to avoid getting stuck on one concept.

My favorite part of this chapter is the concluding interviews. I’m happy to say I now know who Gail Anderson and Alexander Isley are, but also slightly embarrassed to admit that I didn’t know before. I highlighted and bookmarked Anderson’s best advice given to a client because I know I’ll want to use this in my career, “Here’s this other thing I was playing around with—I know it’s a bit different than what we were talking about but let me know what you think” (Strategic Creativity, pg. 90). I also highlighted “don’t be defensive” because I think I can probably never hear that too many times. Regarding Alexander Isley, I’m wondering ‘how did I not know this person’s name until now?’ because his work is so captivating and editorial which is what I’m interested in. I now follow him on Instagram to incorporate his name and work into my memory and vocabulary as a designer.

Final thought: how is it almost April already? I’m equally excited and overwhelmed at the thought of the semester coming to a close.

1 note · View note

orions-quiver · 2 years ago

Text

Dating Headcanons for the Danny Bunch

Here I present some general headcanons for what dating some of our favorite boys would include. Our boys up for bat are Alex, Fredrick, Zemo, and Paul. Headcanons start under the cut! Want to see specific headcanons? Send an ask!

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Alexander Kerner

• Alex is definitely a soft boy through and through

• He's a very affectionate partner. He loves to cuddle and shower you in affection. Alex seems absolutely touch starved at times.

• Anything can rile him up. Alex is definitely always up for sex, he's kind of insatiable in that regard.

• He also cannot for the life of him keep his hands off of you. If you are in touching distance he will not hesitate to hold your hand or wrap an arm around your shoulder.

• Alex is very much a clingy bf but he's absolutely precious.

• "How was your day?"

• "Why don't you sit down, I'll get us something to drink."

• He fawns over you to the highest degree. This boy cannot shut up about you.

• This one has wife energy, y'all.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Fredrick Zoller

• Fredrick is extremely possessive. When out in public he makes it very obvious that you're with him and he avoids advances others make towards you at all costs like the plague.

• One of his favorite things to do is take you to the cinema to watch all of the latest films that catches your interest.

• At high profile events he keeps you within arm's length. He doesn't want to lose you in the sea of people.

• He's fairly reserved in his affection all things considered when in the public view, but when that door closes he's all over you.

• He's very sweet but has a definite and defined edge. As someone who needs to maintain control in the public eye he will notice immediately when you step out of line in your role. Behind closed doors can be a much different story depending on the dynamic of your relationship.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Helmut Zemo

• Now this one...this one is literal royalty and he treats you as such.

• Zemo will shower you in gifts. He loves to spoil you and make sure you neither want nor need because you have it all.

• Everytime he hears you refer to him by his first name he melts.

• "Helmut? Can you get this blanket in the linen closet for me?"

• Cue his low-key but well hidden scrambling to do what you asked because how could a man say no when an angel like you says his name in a voice like that?

• Zemo has a laundry list of pet names in both his native Sokovian and in German. He loves to fluster you by speaking in Sokovian when you're in public with him.

• Expect a lot of teasing from him. An ungodly amount of it that leaves you annoyed, frustrated, or flustered while this rat bastard just smirks with that satisfied little head tilt of his.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Paul Krantz

• Paul (being the nervous and bright blushing virgin he is) tends to be timid at times when wanting to be affectionate. It's truly endearing how he will brush his pinkie against yours when you're sitting together with a blush as you let him take your hand.

• Ultimately you initiate a lot of the affection that happens. It's not that he's opposed to it, this baby just doesn't really know what to do with himself.

• Paul being the epitome of a soft, shy poet he is will fill up papers with poems about you and for you. Expect finding scraps of paper or envelopes around your shared space filled with his writing.

• His kisses are always gentle and he tends to shake. It makes you smile when he initiates the kiss even if it's a bit clumsy from his anxious nature.

• Paul is very much still a protective bf when it comes down to it. He can and will throw hands if he needs to.

• "Would you like me to read to you?"

• "Who would you like me to read from my love?"

• Like Alex, Paul is grade A+ wife material. Wife this one up and never let him go.

#paul krantz #alex kerner #helmut zemo #baron zemo #daniel bruhl #fredrick zoller #the danny bunch #paul krantz x reader #alex kerner x reader #baron zemo x reader #helmut zemo x reader #fredrick zoller x reader #love in thoughts #good bye lenin #the falcon and the winter soldier #tfatws #inglorious basterds #captain america: civil war #ca:cw

223 notes · View notes

the-fae-folk · 3 years ago

Note

Hello! I am writing a story that involves the Fae Folk and I have a quick question in regards to sharing your name. So, I know that you should never tell a faerie your name as it gives them a certain amount of power over you. What my question is, do they obtain that power if it is just your first name, or do you have to give them your last name, too? Or, is it that they have a bit of power over you if they only have your first, but then a much stronger hold if they know your last? IDK, curious!

Okay. A fair question. A Prosoponym, also known as a full or personal name, is the name or set of names by which a person is known or called, and that when used as a word group it is with the understanding that they refer to a single specific person and no other. In many cultures, this is synonymous with the birth name or legal name of the person. Names come in a number of different types.

Titles such as Lord, Lady, Imperial Highness, Sir, Doctor, etc. All meant to convey what role and rank a person holds within society. Sometimes the nobility of Europe held names that referred to places which they ruled over. For example Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch Gilbert du Motier, known also as the Marquis de La Fayette, was the owner of the fief of La Fayette in the historical province of Auvergne in central France. As you can see, the name La Fayette refers to the place over which the House of La Fayette held power. But far too many people mistake it for being the name of the family, but it was not. In fact, the family name was Motier. A name passed down from long before their distant ancestor Pons Motier de La Fayette, a knight of the Seventh Crusade. Surnames such as Motier above are often referred to as Family Names. But their purpose is to indicate the group to which a person belongs; such as their family related by blood, their tribe, or even their community. Some have called them Last Names, but that is a very European idea and other naming conventions place the Surname in the first position instead of the last. In truth, Surnames do not have a simple and consistent history. The practices have varied around the world and even in Europe, the focus of our current interest, the hold of them began during the reign of the Roman Empire and died out again during the Early Middle Ages. The practice made appearances sporadically, such as in Ireland and Spain, but it did not take hold in England until the 12th Century, but was still very rare deep into the 13th. In fact, many places, such as Scotland and Wales, did not adopt the practice until the 17th century. Without Surnames, there were different ways by which people would be known. They each had a Given Name. A name by which they would be called by family, friends, and anybody who knew them. If you know a person's given name, you can call out to them to gain their attention, drop their name in casual conversation with someone else who might know them, and send them a message with that name on it so that they know it is addressed to them. But what happens when you have multiple people who have the same Given Name? You could have several Richards and more than one John in the same city. How to tell if you were referring to this particular Richard? Or that specific John? This led to the use of epithets known as By-Names. You've heard things like this before. For example the King Alexander III of Macedon was often known by the by-name of Alexander the Great. Was he great? Well certainly, his accomplishments changed the very course of history with his vast empire. But what's the point? Why not just call him Alexander? Well say you had a brother named Alexander, and perhaps you knew another boy in school by that name, and your father's business associate has Alexander as his middle name, and your grandmother likes to speak to you of her late husband, whose name was also Alexander. Now if in school your teacher was to ask you if you knew about the history and deeds of Alexander, you might ask "Which one?". Your teacher, possibly flummoxed and desperate to answer something, might say "The GREAT one. Alexander the GREAT." And you would know precisely which Alexander they meant, because as nice as all the Alexanders you know personally are, none of them has done anything particularly great or noteworthy, not compared to the Alexander who created an entire empire that stretched From Macedonia to Egypt to part of India. You could have a by-name that referred to all kinds of things. Such as qualities of your person like "the Great" or "the Bald" or "The Strong". But the problem was that people are very easily changeable and that it's likely old "Richard the Bald" wasn't always bald, and that "John the Strong" won't stay strong as he ages. You could refer to someone by the place in which they live, or perhaps the place they came from, such as the name "Richard of Coursey". But that too had the problem of people moving about and no longer knowing what to call themselves

because they no longer lived in the same places or had moved away a long time and wasn't sure they wanted to be known as the person who came from somewhere else. They might even take a name from their trade. John the Smith, or John the Butler. But by-names were not easily passed down. If you weren't a smith, but you'd taken the by-name of your father who WAS a smith, then you might cause confusion. Eventually when last names became more fashionable, by-names were still in use and quite popular. You could have John Smith the Short (his great grandfather had been a smith you see, but nobody else in his family had carried the profession since), or his cousin John Smith of the Mill, who works in a mill as his current profession. And the further you look into the history and use of names the more tangled it becomes. Married Names (called Maiden Names if used in some cultures where the wife is the one who assumes the surname of her spouse's family), Pseudonyms, Religious Names, names given only to people while they are children, names given to people when they become adults, names passed down from from the father's side of the family (Patronymic), names passed down from the mother's side of the family (Matronymic), Middle Names, Nicknames, titles given to people for great deeds, noble families who simply make up new names to be passed down for the sake of appearances. At this point you might be wondering what all of this has to do with your question. Well the answer lies in another question entirely. Do you understand WHY a Faerie gains power at all from learning your name? Names are like maps or signs or instructions. They tell us something about the person to whom they refer. Given names are often arbitrary. Chosen by parents based on a place they'd been or how nice they sound or a particular meaning they hold or passed down from late relatives. Some Given Names are less powerful than other ones, because the power of a name lies very much in it's ability to accurately describe the thing it names. Look at Sankt-Pieter-Burch, a city established by the Tsar of Russia, Peter the Great. He had named it after the patron saint who was the source of his own name. However due to the influence of his own ambitions to modernize Russia, his foreign advisors, and his own Dutch Mistress Anna Mons, he gave to the city a name styled after Dutch naming conventions but with subtle German influences as well. Later the name was standardized as Sankt-Peterburg under the German influences. But after the outbreak of World War 1, on 1 September 1914, the city was renamed Petrograd (Peter's City) in order to remove the German styled words of Sankt and Burg. Then on 26 January 1924, the city was renamed Leningrad after the recently deceased Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, the leader of the Soviet Union who went by his Alias of "Lenin", a name taken from the River Lena in Siberia, the place where he'd been sentenced to exile for three years earlier in his life. On 6 September 1991, the previous name, Sankt-Peterburg, was returned by citywide referendum. The change was widely and heavily debated, and though many Veterans of the Second World War and the Communist Party resisted and protested against it, the name it had held for two hundred years was restored by its citizens, many of whom had always quietly called it by the name Pieter anyway. It still stands with that name, Sankt-Peterburg, or Saint Petersburg as its called in English. Saint Peter's City. But it has other names too. It is the "Window to the West" and the "Venice of the North". It is even called "The City of the White Nights" due to natural phenomena caused by its close proximity to the Polar Region. So you see, if you know the name, Petersburg, you have a tiny glimpse into its history. A fragment of its identity as a city. But if you learn more of its names, the changes in language, the renaming, the nicknames, the fond epithets, the name of the captured Swedish Fortress that occupied the space it was founded upon (Nyenschantz)... You begin to know more of what it is, what it truly

is. That is the power of names. The nature of naming. Without even knowing it, people are creating stories of places and people. They draw from the world to grant names, and in doing so they bestow the stories of all those things to the thing which they have named, giving it a history which is then built upon by all that comes after. You may not see it when you think of your own name. You'll likely wonder how it has anything to do with you as a person. But its connections and roots go deeper than you know. Names influence people over countless generations, and a name can even influence who you become or were once. Some keep their names their whole lives, others might choose to take new names for reasons of their own. But taking on a new name doesn't make it less of a true name, just as restoring the name Saint Petersburg to an old city didn't make the name Leningrad any less real of a name than Petersburg. Both are names for the city, reflecting different histories and different ideals, but building upon one another. That old city is Petersburg, but that name now carries the very memory of Leningrad, of Petrograd, and even a distant reflection of the venerable Saint from which it draws its first name. Do you understand? If the Folk learn your given name, they have some power over you, yes. And perhaps if they learn your Surname they might gain even more power over you. But it's not the words, it's not the sounds or the order or the letters that give the names the power they hold. It's all the things that have led and contributed to those names from the very beginning of time to the current moment, it's all the things you have done and said and felt that have added power to those names. If you have loved a nickname greatly, it becomes powerful in that way, if you hate your given name because you do not like how it makes you seem other than what you feel you are inside, that too becomes part of its meaning and power. This is the reason we are warned to keep our names from the Folk. Any name, every name. Tell them to call you by a name that isn't yours. It is still a name you have chosen, and thus your name, but because it has not long had much to do with you, it holds very little power over you, not like names you have kept all your life, held close to your heart, hated, loved. With each name they catch, they can feel the power within, the kind of name it is matters not, but the power it holds and how much influence it has over you as a person whether you are aware of it or not, that is what is important. That is what we are afraid of the Fae taking advantage of. And with magic, you can do far more with a name of such power than any mortal ever could. Terrible things, frightening things. If the Folk learn your name, they could take it from you, or if they were truly truly angry with you, they could use its power to strip away everything that makes you yourself. Everything tied to whatever name they got hold of. Memories, scars, good deeds, ties with other people, other people's memories of you or the things you've done, anything and everything you had because of that name would be gone. You would still exist, of course, but missing a vital part of yourself and unable to restore it. They could also use your name to control you, or change you, or influence you without you knowing. Names are powerful, we have always known this, whispered this in the shadows. But to consider what that means is a truly frightening thing. (Please note that much of this is more related to a philosophic analysis of the power of names, rather than an analysis on why humans in Folklore would take different names when dealing with the Faeries. Based on my brief forays of research into Onomastics and the Philosophy of Language, I believe the central ideas I've presented concerning the inherant power of names are accurate. But you should be aware that the above answer contains much conjecture on the reasoning and purposes of the Fae when seeking out the names of humans. And that there are many different philisophic worldviews that have been

debated historically about the nature of names. Like any good subject, the more you delve into a thing, the more you find how tangled and complex it really is. Personal Names is one of those kinds of subjects, and Faerie Folklore is another. I do hope this answer is of help to you, since I have striven to offer an explanation of what could make a name powerful and why having one or the other would be more powerful than the other or why having both would give you even further power over a person. The truth is that Folklore's reasoning for hiding your name from Faeries is unknown. They never actually state why. And the answer is likely something mundane such as making it harder for them to find you if they don't know your real name or anything about where to look for you. Taking your name could be similar to how throughout history, for a variety of reasons, humans have been known to change the names of people they've enslaved. But the modern trend of fantasy literature is leaning more towards a magical explanation, an inherant power in names. Thus my answer aims to fulfill that expectation.)

#names #fae #faerie #otherfolk #surnames #given names #st petersburg #history #nicknames #ramblings about history #the power of names #onomastics #philosophy of language

234 notes · View notes

jeannereames · 11 months ago

Text

The Upcoming ATG Docudrama

I've been asked about this a couple times. I was required to sign an NDA, so there's not a lot I can say at the present time.

Edit: I realized I forgot to include a link to the trailer, so here it is.

Also, again, a reminder: please don't repost, here or by a link to it from elsewhere. I turned off reposting for a reason. Thanks!

To answer the most common query: yes, Hephaistion will be shown as ATG's lover. I wouldn't have agreed to be advisor otherwise. It will even be shown onscreen for the first time (if they don't back down). Hephaistion and Ptolemy are the two chief secondary characters on the Macedonian side. It's not my view of Hephaistion's personality but....

Their story, their vision. That's the first rule of being an advisor.

I had no hand in writing scripts, etc. I was hired to catch glaring historical errors, and offer suggestions. They then decided what of my suggestions to take. They did listen when it was very factually wrong. Details often had to be adjusted due to lack of funds (for sets, for actors, etc.), or the need to make the story clear for the average viewer. Also, they made their own choices regarding some controversial matters, following different scholarly opinion. Witness the "making of a god" subtitle. I don't think he ever actually believed that, or not in the way most viewers will take it; other scholars disagree with me. Clearly, they went with the other view.

Women get more screen time than you're probably used to in an Alexander documentary/docudrama. (The docudrama's chief producer is female.) They were very keen on the fact Persian women had political influence and power. You'll also see more female "talking heads,"* and several are actual ATG and Macedonian specialists, some suggested by me.

The Persians will not be shown as uncivilized barbarians. In fact, that's the chief reason I agreed to help. It's also why you keep seeing the actors for BOTH Alexander AND Darius given. This will be a rise-fall story, yes, but it will focus far more heavily on Persia (and Persia in a positive light) than what you're used to seeing. Darius matters. So does Statiera, his wife.

Despite the network, this was relatively small-budget,

There aren't as many named characters as I wanted to see, or fought for. Same thing with sets. They couldn't splurge on something to be used only once. It meant details of settings are changed in several cases. This will annoy viewers in-the-know, but the average viewer will have no idea.

I had no input once filming began. I also had no input on costuming, nor (for the most part) sets. I never saw any design boards, etc. And if they use those silly nicknames for Hephaistion and Ptolemy, I categorically refuse to accept responsibility. Ha. I warned them, multiple times, to drop them. I hope they listened.

--------

*No, I'm not among the interviewed experts, despite being the series historical advisor--nor is Beth Carney, who was also on their list, but is even older than me. I'll leave you to your own speculation. I'm not sure who all they ended up with (lots of secrecy), but we (the scholars) do talk to each other, so I know a few who were filmed, and a few who weren't. I'll be curious to see, myself, who ended up on screen.

#asks

43 notes · View notes

greensaplinggrace · 3 years ago

Note

do you have any darklina fic recs?

I certainly have a few! But first I want to clarify that I don’t really read fic when I’m writing it, and since I have so many fics in the works right now, I haven’t really been reading a lot of fanfiction. So this list probably won’t be as extensive as it could be.

Here are some other great fic recommendation posts, however:

DARKLINA FIC RECS by @vicioux

DARKLINA FIC RECS // part ii by @vicioux

Darklina Ruling the World Together Fic Recs by @clubofthestarlesssaint

Tumblr Ficlets

Aleksander’s First Memory by @kestrafagnor

Fivan Talk About Darklina by @jomiddlemarch

a little light in the great, big dark by @valkyrhys

Alina tells Mal she’s with Aleksander by @lorsanbitch

Darklina week day 5: intimacy & touch by @starlesscne

AO3 Fanfiction

if it ain’t me by larry_hystereks (Incomplete - 10/13 Chapters)

alina’s in her second year at Yale when she meets aleksander at one of his frat parties.

a hookup with the potential for more, only if alina wasn’t still struggling to piece herself together from last year’s breakup.

or: alina, zoya, their trust issues, and the men that fall for them

---

I’m only at about chapter 6 of this fic currently, but so far it’s one of my all time favorite Modern AUs. The characterization for Alina and Aleksander is incredibly well done, and the entire fic itself is so feminist and queer in such a refreshing way. Aleksander and Alina are bisexual as fuck, both with their own separate complex lives, and much of Alina’s own traumas and relationships are explored outside of Aleksander.

There’s some Zoyalina, with Nikolina friendship and endgame Zoyalai. There’s some mystery and some tension, but nothing too extreme, and a lot of the fic is merely an exploration in growth and overcoming one’s history and learning how to move on in healthy ways. I love it.

She Wears a Collar (With My Name) by Ceris_Malfoy (Complete)

She is immortal, and whatever lingering hints of humanity she may have once had have long been bleached from her heart.

I will grant you one wish, boy, if it is in my power to do so. What does a Shadow Smith most want?

"You," he answers.

Written for Darklina Week 2021 - Day 2: Role Reversal

---

This piece is just exquisite. This author’s writing style is one that I particularly enjoy. Their stuff is always so uniquely composed and crafted, and this one especially is a work of art. The way Darklina as a relationship is portrayed in particular is fascinating to me because it’s a role reversal but it’s still so complex. Aleksander’s character is nailed.

the bright sun was extinguish’d by athousandwinds (Complete)

Somewhere, deep in the dark forests of Ravka, a boy grows up on stories of Sankta Alina of the Wastes, the Sun-Scorched Saint.

---

This fic is just straight up magnificent. It’s so engaging and I love love love the way a role reversed Aleksander who joins the army is portrayed. He reminds me so much of Demon in the Woods Aleksander, as if he’s exactly what a grown version of that young boy would be. When I say I adore his characterization in this I’m not lying.

If I wanted any completed fic I’ve read to have a second chapter, it would be this one.

Winter in the Little Palace by redisxwing (Complete)

Written for Yuletide 2020.

Baghra and Alina's wildly different perspectives on the Darkling, and how things could have gone if nobody listened to Baghra.

Warning: Baghra is written as a harsh and arguably abusive parent, and this is darkfic about that relationship, with a side of shipping. Everything is terrible (except the parts that are pretty much okay).

Canon divergence pretty much as soon as Alina gets lessons in summoning.

This fic is likely not compatible with King of Scars (or any subsequent work).

---

As is said in the summary, this one makes Baghra a bit more extreme. If you’re a fan of Baghra, this fic probably isn’t for you. But since I’m not a fan of Baghra, I had no problems with it.

My biggest praise for this fic is in regards to the character interactions and the POVs. There’s a brilliant grasp of unique perspective and how to convey it, and that talent is carried over into the way character interactions are brought to life in the text. Also, there’s a scene where Alina gets kind of protective of the Darkling, which is one of my biggest weaknesses when it comes to Darklina.

Good Ideas by FelixRivers (Complete)

Alina Starkov had a very good idea. Aleksander Morozova would definitely agree. (or: Alina wants to go camping and Aleksander won't complain)

---

This fic is just straight up adorable and hilarious. They’re such a cute couple and Alina’s POV is great. It’s just pure fluff and humor 💕

I’m not a bad girl, but I do bad things with you by SanktaJenya - @sankta-arya (Complete)

Winter had been hard on Old Baghra and Ana Kuya was worried about her, so she decided that Alina should make the trip to her cottage on the other side of the woods to bring her some food and kvas. On her way there, Alina meets a stranger...

Darklina Red Riding Hood/Company of Wolves AU

Darklina Week, Day 4, Fairytales

---

This fic has a splendid grasp of tension and atmosphere. It’s very enchanting and dark and intriguing, and it nails those aspects with absolute precision. I love the style and the way the fairytale is incorporated into the narrative. It’s truly a masterpiece.

The Wretched by @aceofnowhere (Complete)

“We are strangers, but I want to help.” He growls at her, mocking and mistrustful. “I understand,” she said. “You think I am one of them. I certainly look like one of them. But I want to help you. Will you let me?” Prompt: fairytale. Alina saves a dragon.

---

Okay so I’ve mentioned this one before as one of my Top 5 fics of all time and I still stand by that. I can’t even describe why I love this fic so much except that the pacing is amazing and the prose is stunning and the story is beautiful. Aleksander is a dragon and Alina is a witch, and their relationship is just so...interesting and fascinating and lovely. I would literally kill for this fic. There’s such a softness to it as well. Such a tenderness. Idk, I just really love it.

Show Me Who You Are (I Want To Know) by Ceris_Malfoy (Incomplete - 12/?)

Alina takes her future in her own hands and makes her own decisions.

---

This is a great “what if Alina had stuck around after the reveal” rewrite. It doesn’t have Mal bashing and in fact still writes them as close friends, which is something I’m fond of in Darklina fics. Aleksander is allowed to be soft and Alina is allowed to be powerful, and I really enjoyed the take on their dynamics as a power couple wherein Alina is given a lot of control.

There’s something to be said for the way Aleksander is written in the scenes where he must be honest and earnest with Alina. I really enjoy the way they both come to equal ground, and I’m even more fond of the way Alina is allowed to grow darker without losing her light. She also engages a lot with quite a few other characters, developing tons of friendships and alliances on her own that help strengthen her as an individual character.

on this bridge between starshine and clay by @rhea-imagined (Complete)

"His breath narrows for a moment, his fist clenched tight before he forces himself to loosen it. She is his only opportunity for salvation, but vulnerability is not a cape he wears easily. “In those days, there was less prejudice against Shadow Summoners. But everyone fears the dark, in one way or another.” He does not look at her as he waits for the penny to drop, half-hoping it stays suspended in the air."

In which Alexander comes clean to Alina and tells her about his true identity in hopes that this will help convince her to take down the Fold.

A rewrite of the fountain scene in episode four, with a good!Darkling that is trying to make amends.

---

This is my all-time favorite good!Aleksander AU. He’s kept in character despite the major changes made to his motivations, and Alina is given a lot more agency in her own story. It’s the first fic in what might become a series, but it can stand alone beautifully.

I love how Aleksander and Alina’s relationship is allowed to grow tense without breaking, and how it’s a clear sign of change but not abandonment. I love how both characters are able to think for themselves and become self-aware and are given the chance to think critically. I love the character interaction so much because it’s honest and fresh and engaging. Everything from the smallest action to the most off-hand thought is in character and meaningful and incorporated with an amazing style of writing. It’s a very refreshing piece, and the writing only makes it that much better.

Bunnies of a Feather Stitch Together by Ill_Ratte (Complete)

"Just as Alina called to the light, gathering and twisting it into a ball in her hands, the door swung open.

Kirigan blacked out the door frame. His appearance enough would have surprised Alina, but there was something clutched in his arm, something dark and floppy. It almost looked like the stuffed toys that had been passed around to the younger Orphans." - Alina and The Darkling bond over a love of soft things

---

Soft stuffed animal shenanigans. Bits of trans!Aleksander, which I’m very fond of, as well as just a lot of fluff with a bit of something bittersweet and sad in a good way.

Half Lie by Ill_Ratte (Complete)

"Baghra always talked of the demon that had stolen her daughter." Or, Alina learns the hard way that the Darkling isn't the only one who deals in half-truths

---

This one is trans!Aleksander, and it handles it in a very interesting way. It’s quite sad, and deals a lot with Baghra & Aleksander’s relationship through Alina’s POV. I want to give a warning for transphobia, because it does center around that a lot as the premise, but it really is worth the read if that isn’t a trigger for you. This is one of my favorite trans!Aleksander fics, and the way it handles emotion and grief and pain is quite extraordinary.

The CEO and Helioseismologist by mrthology (Complete)

Aleksander Morozova doesn't get sick. He's the CEO of one of the most successful companies in the world, one that he had built from the ground up with blood, sweat, and tears. He exercised daily (usually), maintained a healthy diet, and kept himself fit.

He wasn’t sick.

Too bad no one believed him. And too bad Genya decided to call Ivan to take him home before also calling Alina to take care of him.

Maybe, just maybe, being sick wasn't so bad. Especially not when he has such a wonderful girlfriend.

---

Both of the fics in this series are great, but I love this one in particular because I’m an absolute sucker for hurt/comfort. Anyone who’s been on my blog for a while knows that it’s my all time favorite trope to read, and this fic fits the hurt/comfort trope to a T in the best of ways. It’s very tender and in character, and Aleksander and Alina are so soft with each other. It’s adorable and really makes you feel for Aleksander, and the caretaking is done perfectly.

All the different layers of dark (thousand little suns) by Anuna (Complete)

One month after the Winter Fete, Aleksander returns to the Little Palace, and Alina has been missing him.

Episode five canon divergence in which Alina had never left Os Alta.

---

This one is soft emotional hurt/comfort smut. They’re both so open and vulnerable with each other, and it’s so beautiful to read. I love the writing style and the emotion in this one. It makes my heart ache in the best way.

An Honourable Man by liviy695 (Complete)

A reimagining of the scene after the winter fete. Alina catches a glimpse of a caring Darkling after he returns from integrating the Conductor. Plus, no Baghra interference.

---

This one is what it says on the tin, in that Baghra doesn’t interfere and they’re allowed to talk after the Darkling interrogates the Conductor. But more than that, it’s a great imagining of how a scene where Aleksander reveals Marie’s death would have gone. There’s a sort of quiet to it that I appreciate, with grief and solemnity weighed against care and vulnerability.

I see the real you (even if you don’t, I do) by Anonymous (Incomplete - 8/?)

A series of questionable decisions lead Alina to meet the Black General a bit earlier. Butterfly effect ensues.

---

I’ve only read half so far (I hadn’t realized it had updated!! 👀👀) but I’m already in love with this fic. Alina’s dialogue and perspective is perfect, her relationship with Mal and the other cartographers is great, and I really enjoy how much personality she has. Aleksander is so smitten, but more than that, his characterization is soft but not weak. It feels almost as if he’s swept up by Alina, instead of the other way around, and I quite like that.

Of parenting by Anuna (Complete)

Alina finds out how her husband handled yet another parenting situation.

---

This is pure adorable Darklina parenting fluff and I live for it. Yet it doesn’t lack depth and in fact explored Alina and Aleksander’s relationship with parenting quite well.

i have a longing by LRCee - @ladylyannastark (Complete)

“So, Alina Starkov, risk-taker, how did you end up being editing’s newest wunderkind?”

Alina Starkov is rising in the publishing world. Singlehandedly responsible for editing (see: rewriting) the hottest book of the year, she lands a coveted spot at Morovoz Publishers. It's the position she's always wanted, at the biggest publishing house in the country. Life is perfect. That crush on her boss though, that's gotta go.

---

OKAY! I LOVE THIS ONE SO MUCH!! Let me tell you, as someone who is not too fond of Boss/Employee dynamics, I was very wary going into this fic. But boy did it deliver in a way that was perfect for me.

The relationship that develops between Aleksander and Alina is complex but healthy, and it never feels as if there’s too much of a power imbalance or anything that would make Alina feel forced or unhappy. The tension lies purely in how she fears others will perceive her, and not in how unhealthy her relationship with Aleksander is. For somebody who’s often attracted to unhealthy ships, I have to say that my favorite fics are usually ones that don’t have that type of dynamic between the characters. This fic delivers on that.

Also, Aleksander’s POV surrounding his struggle with his Russian heritage and his feelings for Alina is amazing, and has some of the best writing and characterization I’ve seen.

You receive: an evil demon; I receive: human souls by @aceofnowhere (Complete)

The next morning while she tried to tell herself it was a dream, that of course there wasn’t a fucking demon in her house, she found a note taped to her fridge.

“You might eat this shit,” it had written, “but I would like some fucking souls please.”

Darkling Week Prompt 7: free choice. Alina has a demon in her house.

This is absolute crack, and I have no idea what the fuck is wrong with me.

---

May I just say that this is the most fun I’ve ever had when reading a fic. It’s interesting with a bit of mystery, and Aleksander as a little shit of a demon is hilarious. Alina in this fic is great too. It’s such a unique take on her POV, especially when you reread it after knowing the ending. 10000/10, this fic is brilliant in every way and I love it.

I had been lost to you, Sunlight by BrytteMystere (Complete)

A Girl became a Woman, became a Sankta, became a Goddess.

Or: An Immortal Alina calls upon merzost to reunite with the Prince of Shadows she lost long ago. She may have lost herself in the process.

But then again, maybe time and endless wars did that instead.

---

You really just have to read this one to get it. It is utterly haunting and fascinating in the best of ways. The writing style is strange and novel and fits so well with the story being told. The composition of the fic as a whole is genius.

I Look Inside Myself (And See My Heart Is Black) by Ceris_Malfoy (Complete)

"When is a monster not a monster? Why, when you love it, of course."

Written for Darklina Week 2021 - Day 6: Favorite Quote • King & Queen • Monster

---

Once more, this author comes through with an absolutely breathtaking writing style and story. The imagery is elegant yet brutal, simultaneously horrifying and glorious. There’s a certain way these stories are written, like fairytales, where the beautiful becomes the macabre and becomes ever more stunning because of it. It’s very dark but in a good way - an almost bewitching way.

Afterlife by @aceofnowhere (Complete)

“You are asking me to leave?”

“Not asking, shadow,” she said. “Telling. Time to get unlost, loser.”

Day 3 Darklina Week prompt: Modern AU (I mean, barely)

Alina expels ghosts from purgatory.

---

@aceofnowhere once again bringing the best of the paranormal to the Grishaverse. Literally everything you write is amazing idk why I’m even pointing out individual fics when I could just rec your whole page. But anyways!! This is fun and interesting and Alina is a badass. Aleksander is, of course, compelling and dark and kind of a little shit, and it’s all incorporated seamlessly into an existential paranormal narrative.

Once Upon a Shooting Star by Ceris_Malfoy (Complete)

"But most of all, she was drawn to a vast darkness that reached out above all of them, a void so hungry for companionship that she knew she could fulfill."

---

Let. Alina. Be. Feral!! Anyways, I clearly have a type when it comes to storytelling, and it’s whatever the fuck this person has got going on. Feral!Star!Alina is literally the light of my life. Her interactions with not only other people but the world in general are so well done, but my favorite parts about this fic are the numerous ways her relationship with Aleksander is described and depicted.

I love the dark and light imagery, especially with how it’s portrayed as them filling in the gaps of each other’s lives and supporting each other instead of trying to block each other out. There’s such clear passion and joy and love and devotion between them. The central focus of this fic is on her and Aleksander’s relationship, the interplay between them and their powers and the way her light fills his loneliness, the passing of adoration and trust and reliance between them. It’s very beautiful and I love it.

A Blaze of Light by Keira_63 (Complete)

They discover the Sun Summoner in the burnt-out remains of the Shu laboratory in which she has spent the last seven years of her life.

Or, the Darkling finds himself with a Sun Summoner whose greatest wish is to burn Shu Han to the ground. He is happy to oblige her.

---

👀👀 Badass Alina and Badass Aleksander. The ultimate power couple, and Alina burning a path through Shu Han before they both burn a path through the world together. The darkness and rage in this one are handled very well, and the way that rage turns to coldness and then resolve is done so well. This fic is very cathartic and also very furious, and reading it is certainly a trip down emotion lane.

One more for the Road by Rist (Complete)

He returns to the war room shaken, and finds an Alina that cannot leave without at least having tried.

---

This one hurts so much but its soooo gooood!!! Very smutty but also very tender and very bittersweet. Sad and soft all at once. I just... love the way Alina and Aleksander are written so much, and Alina’s complicated feelings for him are explored in such detail and depth. This one is truly worth the read.

434 notes · View notes