#another excerpt i previously translated

[lalune9x]

[SCTIR NOVEL SPOILERS chapter 790]

the author giving Yoojin's canonical size kink a perfectly in-character lore reason is why I love this novel. (BEWARE SPOILERS)

[whumble-beeee]

Hermanitos

The (Un)Official Guide to Hero-Keeping | Cont'd from Part 16

Content: mentioned drugging, mentioned torture, mentioned murder, begging, guns, lady whump kinda?

* * * * * * * *

Excerpt from: The (Un)Official Guide to Hero-Keeping; a self-help guide for villains and bounty-hunters

[‘But what about the police?!’ you may ask in your extreme naïveté. Don’t you even worry your silly little head about those ineffective dweebs! The police may be a problem for small-time criminals and villains who fail to think past tomorrow, but luckily you have the advantage of this book on your side! Simply make sure to set aside part of your budget to pay off the police, and they’ll gladly unsee any shady dealings they may have previously seen. They’re very good at it.

What do you do if you don’t have such funds? Worry not! While this does often muddy the waters and it is advised to simply pay off prospective arrestors if possible, it is not the only way! Overall, it’s very simple and easy to have the police on your side, and an invaluable resource when you find yourself in a tough spot; You may kidnap a loved one or otherwise blackmail a person in a position of power, seduce them, or any of the other very effective tactics! (Refer to Chapter XX: Blackmailing and Manipulation for more information!)]

* * * * * * * *

For this chapter, dialogue translated from Spanish to English will be bracketed and italicized [like this] for ease of understanding.

Also, I made Officer Kalis Brooks and Officer Frida Galleta girlfriends now, instead of Kalis having a one-sided crush like I hinted in the previous chapter :D I might go back and change the previous chapter to reflect that. Eventually. Probably.

* * * * * * * *

“DECLAN CANSANO, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!”

The bounty hunter groaned next to Kalis, cowboy hat flown off somewhere into the aether. “Aughhh, fuck me… Fri–Frida?... What're you–...?”

Shouting, spotlight, police sirens, sounds and colors and oppressive darkness all melding into one. 

Was Kalis dead? 

That car must have hit her. Yes. Because otherwise that meant that the bounty hunter had saved her WHILE trying to kill her.

And that didn't make any damn sense.

She couldn’t keep track of what was going on around her anymore, the world spinning much too fast for her to comprehend, blackness crushing her in on all sides, threatening to swallow her whole as it crashed over her in tumultuous waves. 

She laid her head down on the pavement with a small groan.

She'd just… sleep for a moment. 

Frida was here. 

Everything would be okay now…

Officer Galleta slid over the hood of the car with practiced ease, shouting and swearing like a sailor as she landed on top of the bounty hunter, literally straddling his legs while still pointing her gun at his head. He dazedly tried to shove back from her.

“I cannot believe you!” she bellowed. “Out of all the selfish, horrible, ungrateful things you've done, that has got to be one of the worst! Killing my girlfriend?! You absolutely dense motherfucker, you bitch, you–”

“Is… is that… Frida?...”

“Si Cabrón, obviously! Who else would it be?!”

“Frita-hermanitaaa~” he giggled in a daze. “Since when do you have a girlfriend?”

“Don’t you ‘Frita-hermanita’ me, you fuck! Take that stupid fucking bandana off, you look like you’re wearing a Halloween costume!” Her voice shook with barely kept-rage, teeth bared and eyes fiery red as she plopped down on the stomach of the bounty hunter and ripped the bandana off his face with venomous fervor. He let out an ‘oomph’ as her knee dug into the soft flesh of his stomach, along with a whiny ‘go away, leave me alone.’ Although the hunter didn’t seem particularly disturbed by it. More… pissy.

“Stop wavin’ that thing around, you’re gonna shoot someone,” the mercenary groaned. He made a half-assed attempt to grab at the gun just as the muzzle shoved into the vulnerable underside of his chin, another hand pinning him to the ground by the lapel of his shirt. He grew still.

“I should be so lucky,” Officer Galleta growled.

God, she’s so hot, Kalis oggled. Pretty pretty.

“I should shoot you right now for what you almost did,” she hissed.

“Oh calm down, you and I both know I wasn’t gonna actually kill her, ya baby. Your fuckass car definitely would have though. I saved her ass. You’re welcome.”

“Right! And now I get the honorable privilege of shoving my gun down your throat instead of watching you slit hers. So yes, thank you Declan, for your extreme altruism.”

“That’s how I roll. I’m sure your girlfriend is grateful too! You should take her out to a lovely candle-lit dinner while I finish my job and take a 20-hour nap. Now let me up.”

Officer Galleta let out a sharp laugh into the chilly night air, bouncing off the trees around them, crystal clear and all-encompassing. “You want me to just let you go? After all that?!”

He opened his mouth, only to stop short, eyes flashing briefly over to Officer Brooks’ half-conscious form. He propped himself up, wholly disregarding the gun shoving into his trachea as he leaned in closer to Frida’s rage-etched features, voice dropping to a gravelly fast mumble.

He whispered, “[Frida, what’re you even doing here? You know what will happen if my boss finds out we talked to each other.]”

“Oh that's rich–”

“[No, Frida!]” he urged. “[Look, I know you’re angry and I’m sorry I made you come all the way out here, but you know what Lana’ll do if she finds out! You’ve seen what will happen, you’ve felt–]” he reached up and gently grasped her shoulder, where Frida immediately slapped his hand away and gripped at the site defensively. “[–what will happen! And look I’m sorry for scaring you and your girlfriend, but whatever you decide to do tonight, I’m leaving with my hostage, because I’d rather not see anyone maimed again, or KILLED, by some cutesy pastel psychopath–]”

Frida shoved her gun further into his neck. “[Shut UP, Declan, I know! I’m gonna let you go, I was just… ]” She took a deep breath, barely restraining her anger. Then she didn’t. She slammed her fist down on his chest, hard. 

“[GOD, FUCK YOU and your terrible life choices!]” 

Declan barely flinched. His hand fell to the melted and twisting flesh that shined off his cheek, his jaw, his neck, his arm in the spotlighting headlights of the police cruiser. Eyes vacant. He sighed, letting himself look past the Frida and stare dead-eyed upward at the cloudless sky. 

The stars look so pretty tonight.

So far removed from the torment of humanity…

“... Can’t say I disagree.”

Frida’s gaze softened slightly. 

He shoulders untensed

She sighed. 

“[Deccy, we… you can’t keep doing this.]”

His gaze flicked downward. He sighed. “[Can you get off of me?]”

“[What would it take? How do I get that woman off your ass?”]

[“Frida, there is no ‘getting her off my ass.’ She knows everything about me, she knows all my secrets, she knows who you are, she knows who I am, what I am... She’ll tell everyone.”]

An unbearable pause.

[“Would that really be so bad?”] Frida finally pleaded. She had no other solution. Declan shot her a look.

Yeah…

“[I’d have to shoot her dead to get rid of her,”] Declan resigned. [“And her bitchy little boyfriend, and whatever fail-safes they have in place. You know that the police won’t help me–]”

“[But I can help you!]

“[–and YOU’RE certainly not allowed to help, because before you say anything, I’m not letting you risk your life for me like that. Period.”] 

Frida went to argue with him, but she just barely caught that stupid little sparkle returning to his stupid red eyes. God dammit. “[Your girlfriend, on the other hand… I mean if you were willing to hit her with your car, maybe she–]”

And Officer Galleta’s spirited anger returned tenfold, voice soaring high above the trees. “You really don't know when to quit, do you?!”

He laughed. “Nahhhh.”

“I’m just trying to help you!”

“Don’t need it, thanks. Let me up.”

“What if I shot you right here and now?”

“Fuckin’ do it! Finish the job your girlfriend couldn’t! Shoot me. Be her knight in shining armor, you won’t!”

Officer Brooks’ eyes shot open. What was all the shouting about?

“All this talk about saving our lives, and you don't even want to save yourself!!”

“Wait, wait, so… huh?” Kalis tried to interject. God, her body hurt so much. Were they… Were they whispering at each other just now?  “What is happening, I don’t– Why were you speaking Spanish?” Kalis groaned, forcing her head to leave behind the cotton balls and clouds. “What did you say?”

“Look, either shoot me or let me up, Frida,” the man deadpanned. “Kill me. I know you want to.”

Frida growled, every muscle in her body tensed, on fire, shaking as she shoved the muzzle of the gun even further into his chin, forcing his head back to grind further into the asphalt. She kept it there for a long while. 

So long. Too long. Holy shit was she actually gonna–

Officer Galleta suddenly yelled out, an enraged howl, and bounded off the bounty hunter, kicking a couple of rocks into the ditch sidelining the road. “Augh, this is just like you! Every single time I try to talk to you, you deflect and refuse to talk even though you’re– AUGH!! I just want to help you Declan! And you pull me into your illegal, unethical bullshit–...” She charged back over to him, holding out her hand for him to grab. “Get up. Now.”

He grabbed her hand back and popped right up to standing, dusting himself off as Officer Brooks stared at them, mouth literally agape. She hadn’t– She just– 

“You look like shit, by the way,” Officer Galleta commented. 

“I feel like shit," Declan chuckled. "Haven’t slept in like three days–” 

“And you’re fuckin’ high, too.” 

“Ehhhhhh, you caught me.” 

“Frida?... What’s going on?” Kalis tried to interject again. Her voice felt so small. She could barely hold back her tears, her chest felt like it was splitting open. 

Frida was a dirty cop…?

“Can you at least pretend to care about your own life as much as I do?” Officer Galleta snarked.

He scoffed. “Yeah, care so much that you’d pull a gun on me and threaten to kill me?”

Her mouth fell open, speechless for a moment. 

”I– I–... You–”

“Wouldn’t have actually died? Just like your girlfriend wouldn’t have?”

“No! I-I wasn’t actually gonna shoot you!”

“Right,” the mercenary deadpanned. “You were just gonna hit us both with your car so I couldn’t even save her.”

“Well it worked, didn’t it?!” Galleta cried. “You saved her from getting hit! And no one had to die at all! This isn't just about your life, asshole! It’s about mine, it’s about my girlfriend’s, our family’s, the people that you kidnap and torture!”

“Oh fuck off, Frida. Having to deal with you is worse than having to torture people, truly.”

“Stop doing it and you won't have to deal with either!”

“Or,” Declan spat. “YOU could leave me alone. Like I keep asking you to!”

Frida’s jaw might as well have been on the floor. “I'm not leaving you alone just because you can't get away from some psycho bitch you fell for ten years ago!”

The bounty hunter’s eyes went wide. “Oh! Sorry for thinking I could actually love someone countless years ago! So sorry for my naivete! Maybe you should inform your secret girlfriend of the Cansano family curse before she gets tortured and murdered too!” 

“Oh no, you’re the one who let her get into your pants BEFORE you knew she was fucking insane and then find out about your stupid little secret–” 

“No, I’m the one trying to make sure you don’t get turned into a lab rat or brutally tortured and murdered because you don’t understand how fucking insane she can be–” 

“–and saw an opportunity to exploit your ‘oh I can’t actually KILL people, I’ll murder them with my stupid little cowboy gun–” 

“– even though you were literally there when she threw acid on us and I protected you–” 

“–then make them feel better’ BULLSHIT WHEN WE BOTH KNOW IT COULD BE USED FOR SO MUCH GOOD BUT INSTEAD–” 

“–because that’s what family DOES INSTEAD OF BECOMING A FUCKING TRAITOR–” 

“–YOU BENT TO HER WILL UNTIL I LITERALLY HAD TO CHANGE MY NAME–”

“–WHO SELLS OUT YOUR HER FAMILY JUST TO WORK FOR THE GOVERNMENT–”

“SHUT UP!!” Kalis screeched out, hands pressing into her ears to block out the dizzying noise. Both their attentions turned to her at once, their childish shouting match thankfully screeched to a grinding halt. A dirty cop and a bounty hunter, staring at her. Enemies. Villains.

“Frida!” Kalis cried. “I-I– I don't– what's going on with you?”

Frida’s face melted into a mask of terror as she took in Kalis’s prone form, still sprawled out where the bounty hunter had dove them both out of the way of her oncoming car. “Kalis! Oh my god, I’m so sorry, are you okay?”

Kalis skittered away from the cop. “What is happening?! Why– Why are you talking to him like that?! Why were you yelling?”

“I–” Galleta’s breath petered out. “Kalis, I know this looks bad–”

“You’re a dirty cop!”

“I’m not a dirty–”

The bounty hunter scoffed under his breath: “You kind of are though–” 

“Shut up!” The two cops yelled at him in unison. He flipped up his hands in surrender and turned to walk away.

“Hey, no, get back here!” Kalis yelled.

The hunter stopped in his tracks and sighed. “Can we please get on with this, I have places to–”

“No! You’re going to prison!” She turned to Officer Galleta. “Look, Frida, I don’t know what’s going on with you and him, but– but– He kidnapped and tortured a boy, Frida! You can’t tell me you’re on his side! I don’t care if he’s like, I don’t know, a love affair, or he’s blackmailing you, or whatever you’ve got going on, but you can’t just sit idly by–”

A barking laugh echoed up and down the highway, a sound that rang off the asphalt and successfully started fringing on Kalis’ absolute last nerve. “Love affair!” the mercenary snorted. “Fuckin’ love affair, holy shit, a love affair! She thinks I’m your boyfriend, Frida! God, no, that would be the day! Shit man, fuck that, fuck that…”

Kalis narrowed her eyes on the cackling man. “I don’t see what’s so funny.”

He shook his head. “She’s not my girlfriend, chica. She’s my sister.”

Another pause.

Oh.

Oh. 

Wait, no. 

What?

“I–...” she looked over to Officer Galleta. Frida. Her love. “Huh?” 

Frida took that small step toward Kalis. “I can explain. But I’d never hurt you, and I’m not on his side. I’m on yours. I promise.”

“I don’t–” She wanted so desperately to believe her. So, so bad. “Are you a part of a crime family?...”

“No, I’m–”

“Technically you are–”

“Declan!” Frida snapped. “I swear to god, shut the fuck up.” 

He rolled his eyes and turned his attention elsewhere, while his sister purposefully looked toward her baffled partner. “Look, please understand, I’m not letting him go because he’s my brother, there’s so much–”

Kalis’ eyes widened. “Who said anything about letting him go?”

The color drained from Frida’s face. 

“I– I mean… I’m not–...”  She took a deep, shaking breath, then started talking at about a million miles a second. 

“Look, just listen for a second, you have to understand, lives are at stake here, my life, your life, Declan’s, so many others, I need you to understand I’m trying to make sure no one gets hurt–”

Officer Galleta’s voice faded into the back of Kalis’ mind, static filling her head like thousands of angry bees, only directed by the thunderous pounding of her own heart. It was a strange case indeed, the case of the Traitorous Girlfriend and the Bounty Hunter. The facts and the lies were strewn up across the wall as one, connected haphazardly with spools of knotted red string. Too much, too fast, Kalis couldn’t handle it all, help help–

Stick to the facts, detective:

Frida had a secret villain brother. She was in a crime family? She was a dirty cop. She was a liar. She was just trying to help. Apparently. But what are the promises of a liar if not absolutely meaningless, that of a scoundrel, a fiend? She also wanted to send that boy to his death. She wanted to let a man who captures and kills and tortures set free. She wanted to let him go. She was a liar. She didn’t care that he tried to kill Kalis. She betrayed Kalis. She lied. She just wanted to keep her loved ones safe. She’s a liar. A dirty cop. A liar. A criminal. A liar, she lied, what else had she lied about, was she capable of more, was she capable of killing? Would she just stand by and let her brother kill her girlfriend? Would she help, would she help him torture, HAS she helped him torture, she would kill, liar, killer, betrayal–

Frenzy, frenzy, what was up or down, was was going in with the world–

Human life at stake?

Stan.

Stan was at stake.

Save Stan. That’s all that mattered. Who cared about her stupid life anyway?

She grabbed Frida roughly, desperately grasping at her shirt and yanking her toward the car that held the prisoner. “Frida! Please! He's a kidnapper!”

If she could just show her. 

If Frida could just see.

“He kidnapped a boy, he kidnapped a super, he tortured him, you should see the things that he’s done to that boy! You can’t let him go, you haven’t seen what he's done, he’s a monster!”

“Not a boy,” the bounty hunter lulled, popping back up from where he’d apparently disappeared behind the cruiser that almost hit them. With that stupid fuck-ass cowboy hat on again.

“Excuse me?” she asked incredulously.

“He’s not a boy,” he repeated, meandering back to them. “He’s 22. He’s an adult.”

No no no no no no no, Kalis, stay focused, he’s trying to throw you off your game.

She grabbed her love’s sleeve, pleading. “His name’s Stan, Frida! Stan! I met him, I talked to him, he’s scared, he’s hurt, he’s drugged, he doesn’t even understand what’s going on right now. You brother, that man right there, he tortured him, Frida! He’s bruised and bloody and he has broken bones, he’s collared so he can’t use his powers and your brother dragged him around by that collar he’s a monster Frida, please, we can save him!”

The bounty hunter’s face shifted in her periphery. Angry. Tense.

Focus on your love. You can save the boy, you can save them both.

Frida tried to reason with her, voice slow and pleading: “...Kalis… I know. I know what he does. What he's done–”

No no NO NONONONO!!

“What happens when I see that boy on the news one day?!” Kalis pleaded, literally grabbing Fridas hands and sinking to her knees. “That he was found dead, when I see the report of every gruesome torture he was put through before he was found, and I see him there and knew that I could’ve done something about it, but I let him go? What do I do then, Frida?”

No response. Not some smartass retort from the bounty hunter, not some vile, pleading words to understand from Frida. 

Nothing.

“I promised hi-im,” Kalis wept. “I promised him I’d save him. Please Fri-ida. I-I can’t do this without you, I can't, I need you.”

Frida stared at the ground. She shivered.

“I can’t–” Frida took a large gasp in, voice shaking almost as much as her body. “I can’t– Let–... You. Die.”

The wrathful bounty hunter himself piped up: “I’ll do my best to make sure he’s treated well, yeah?... That’s the best I can do. That’s all I can do.”

His voice was so gentle.

The voice of someone who cared.

The voice of someone placating.

The voice of someone trying to get their way.

Her jaw clenched, so hard she thought her teeth would shatter.

“You… are both… under arrest,” she whispered. 

She reached for her holster. Empty. Shit shit shit shit shit– she jerkily fumbled around her pocket and crashed up to her feet in a frenzy, barely managing to get a proper hold on the mercenary’s confiscated gun before brandishing it directly at the bounty hunter and the dirty cop, the traitor.

The mercenary’s eyes widened. Then narrowed. “That’s my gun.”

“You’re under arrest, you’re both–!” she pointed the gun at Officer Galleta, who took a few shocked steps back. “ –under arrest! For attempted murder of an officer, for aiding and abetting, for corruption, for betrayal, for lying, for everything! Both of you! On the ground! NOW!!”

Silence.

A look passed between the siblings, from the bounty hunter to his partner in crime.

A certain gleam in their eyes,

“Drop your weapons, and get on the ground. Now!” 

“[Frida, that gun doesn’t have any bullets in it,]” the bounty hunter muttered under his breath. 

Officer Galleta’s eyes went wide. She looked to her brother. He nodded. 

She knew that sparkle in his eyes.

God. Fucking. Dammit.

“[I better see you again. Fuck you.]”

“[Love you too. Thank you.]”

“Shut up!” Officer Brooks shouted. “No talking, put your hands–”

Officer Brooks screeched in surprise, in fear, in heart-pounding, blood-racing fear as Officer Galleta broke into a sprint and lunged at her. 

And she accidentally pulled the trigger of the deadly gun grasped in her hands.

At the one she loved.

No.

NO. 

NONONONONONO–

She screamed.

Click.

And she slammed into the ground, all breath knocked out of her violently, her girlfriend scrambling on top of her to pin her down, Kalis scrambling and screeching under that to get up, grappling and shrieking until the muzzle of a standard-issue police gun dug into her chest.

She froze.

Done.

It was over so quickly.

From so close, Kalis could see the tears in Officer Galleta’s eyes.

Her voice cracked.

“Frida… Please… Don’t–”

The bounty hunter swooped by, crouching down just enough as he sprinted to grab his gun and kept running toward his truck. He didn’t look back.

“NO!!” Kalis screamed into the inky black nothingness of the night, into the ghostly white and shadowed and tear-stained face of the person she had trusted most in this world, loud enough that it woke Stan up from his drug-induced haze for the shortest of moments and made him look around in confusion at the sorrowful screams that surrounded him, make him struggle as the driver side door slammed open and shut and Declan scrambled with almost unbelievable abandon to get the engine to turn over.

And Stan cowered away from him, insurmountable fear worming through his mind: He’s going to hurt me again.

“Frida!” Kalis gasped. “Frida, Frida, please, we have to save him, we have to save that boy, we still have time we can still save him let me up let me go please please PLEASE DON’T DO THIS I PROMISED!! I PROMISED HIM FRIDA! I PROMISED I WOULD SAVE HIM I PROMISED PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME A LIAR–”

Officer Galleta didn't say anything. She couldn't. She was frozen to the spot, paralyzed. Except for the minute shudder of her chest, except for the tears that started to fall.

And they stayed like that until the truck of Declan Cansano rumbled to life and screeched off into the night.

* * * * * * * *

Next (when posted)

AND if you'd like to know what's happening in the sludge that is Stan's mind during this scene, check out this drabble!: This Edible Ain't Shiiiiiii~~ (*enters warp space*)

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[script-a-world]

Submitted via Google Form:

I have a world in which a lot of words, majority being nouns are never actually translated and thus languages all have common and unaltered loan words. What I mean is like 'chocolate' is always 'chocolate', there's no 'chocolat' 'coklat' 'cokolada' etc... To make it easier, all languages do have a similar alphabet. If this continues on a vast scale, how do languages develop and how understandable are different languages?

Tex: What is your base language? Why is it not another language?

To illustrate a point, here is the etymology of the word chocolate (Wikipedia):

Cocoa, pronounced by the Olmecs as kakawa,[5] dates to 1000 BC or earlier.[5] The word "chocolate" entered the English language from Spanish in about 1600.[6] The word entered Spanish from the word chocolātl in Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. The origin of the Nahuatl word is uncertain, as it does not appear in any early Nahuatl source, where the word for chocolate drink is cacahuatl, "cocoa water". It is possible that the Spaniards coined the word (perhaps in order to avoid caca, a vulgar Spanish word for "faeces") by combining the Yucatec Mayan word chocol, "hot", with the Nahuatl word atl, "water".[7] A widely cited proposal is that the derives from unattested xocolatl meaning "bitter drink" is unsupported; the change from x- to ch- is unexplained, as is the -l-. Another proposed etymology derives it from the word chicolatl, meaning "beaten drink", which may derive from the word for the frothing stick, chicoli.[8] Other scholars reject all these proposals, considering the origin of first element of the name to be unknown.[9] The term "chocolatier", for a chocolate confection maker, is attested from 1888.[10]

To illustrate another point, here is an excerpt for the article on the history of the English language (Wikipedia):

English is a West Germanic language that originated from Ingvaeonic languages brought to Britain in the mid-5th to 7th centuries AD by Anglo-Saxon migrants from what is now northwest Germany, southern Denmark and the Netherlands. The Anglo-Saxons settled in the British Isles from the mid-5th century and came to dominate the bulk of southern Great Britain. Their language originated as a group of Ingvaeonic languages which were spoken by the settlers in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages, displacing the Celtic languages (and, possibly, British Latin) that had previously been dominant. Old English reflected the varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms established in different parts of Britain. The Late West Saxon dialect eventually became dominant. A significant subsequent influence on the shaping of Old English came from contact with the North Germanic languages spoken by the Scandinavian Vikings who conquered and colonized parts of Britain during the 8th and 9th centuries, which led to much lexical borrowing and grammatical simplification. The Anglian dialects had a greater influence on Middle English.

Linguistics is a large, old, and complex subject. It has a lot of overlap with other sciences, and there are always new things being found out about it. Below is a list of links to help introduce the depth and breadth of languages and their development:

Further Reading

Linguistics (Wikipedia)

Global language system (Wikipedia)

Integrational linguistics (Wikipedia)

Language geography (Wikipedia)

Dialect continuum (Wikipedia)

Sprachbund (Wikipedia)

Writing system (Wikipedia)

List of creators of writing systems (Wikipedia)

Ebonwing: If your world’s languages evolved and changed in a broadly similar way than ours did (independently all over the world, resulting in a great deal of linguistic diversity) this is unrealistic. Pronunciation naturally changes as languages evolve over time; English wasn’t always pronounced the way it is today, either. As a result, a word loaned from another language isn’t going to sound the same way a few hundred years later.

Plus, loan word pronunciation changes are also driven by languages having different phonology from the source language. Japanese loaned chokoretto from chocolate, but it’s really not pronounced the same way. Sometimes even the meanings change in the process; in German, a Handy (loaned from English) is actually a mobile phone.

Of course, if you’re not going for an Earth-like linguistic background, you have more leeway in doing things like this.

Utuabzu: Something you should consider when dealing with multiple languages is that every language has its own phonology - set of sounds - and phonotactics - rules about how sounds can be combined - and these can differ significantly. These differences become particularly clear with loan words, as speakers will alter the word to fit their language’s rules and available sounds, eg: Hawaiian alters Christmas to kalikimaka, because it doesn’t have the sounds ‘r’, ‘s’ or ‘t’ and doesn’t allow consonants to follow consonants or to end a syllable.

This doesn’t even account for the problems of trying to use a single script for all languages. Different languages have different rules about what sounds are distinct enough to differentiate words. For instance, English has a relatively limited number of vowels, but other Germanic languages have more, which they write using additional letters, eg. å, ä, æ, â, ø, ö, ü, etc. Some languages, like Icelandic, even have additional consonant letters - þ and ð - because it’s necessary to clearly distinguish those sounds. Then there are languages that aren’t generally written with roman script, like Hindi, which needs to clearly distinguish aspirated consonants, or Chinese languages, which need to account for lexical tone*. If you want a script that can depict all the many, many possible sounds of human language, you’re going to end up with something like the International Phonetic Alphabet, which is far too unwieldy to be used to write any single language, and even linguists don’t generally use unless they’re describing the sounds of a language. Especially because most languages will consider multiple sounds to be equivalent and interchangeable that IPA uses distinct characters for, because different languages will lump together different sets of sounds and usually omit many of them entirely. (Eg, Standard English dialects lack the voiced glottal fricative 

Much of the time, it’s just going to be easier to use a purpose-made script that can actually depict the language accurately, and even when that doesn’t happen, the borrowed script is likely to be altered and evolve over time to accommodate the needs of its users. Roman, Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic, Hebrew, Armenian, Georgian and the vast Brahmic family of scripts are all derived from a common ancestor, Proto-Canaanite, and have mutated and evolved over the course of 3500 years to suit the languages that use them.

This further complicates loan words, as they then need to be altered for the script, because not all scripts have equivalent characters, eg Japanese hiragana ら is most often realised as /ɾa/ or /la/ which to English speakers sounds like ‘ra’ or ‘la’, but to Japanese speakers are considered the same sound.

A further complication also comes from grammar, as many languages have rules that alter words based on their role in a sentence or the surrounding words. A common way to do this is with morphemes - units of language that have independent meaning but cannot appear on their own, eg. suffixes and prefixes (together with infixes, which get shoved inside the root, and circumfixes, which get split and tacked either side of the root, these are called affixes) like ‘-s’, ‘-ed’, ‘re-’, ‘pro-’, ‘anti-’, etc. - these are attached to the root, the base word, to convey additional information. 

Agglutinative languages (like Finnish or Inuktitut) add multiple affixes to indicate case and number of nominals,, while fusional languages (like German or Russian) use one affix to express both. Polysynthetic languages (like Algonquian languages) frequently and extensively alter both to convey a lot of information. Other languages, most famously Welsh, alter the sound of a word based on the words immediately around them (mutation).

All these factors are going to make what you want here really difficult to achieve. If you are determined to have this, you probably need all the languages in your world to have a relatively recent common ancestor that had a well established literary standard and standardised orthography. By recent I mean very recent. The Romance languages have been diverging for over 2000 years (Cicero was complaining about the Sardinian dialect of Vulgar Latin in the 1st Century BCE), while the entire Indo-European language family - containing languages from Icelandic to Sinhala and the first languages of approximately 46% of the global population - is estimated to have been diverging for about 6000-10,000 years, depending on the theory. Our species, Homo sapiens, is over 300,000 years old, so this isn’t very long in comparison.

*lexical tone is one of two main tone systems, the other being prosodic tone. Lexical tone means that individual words have a tone that impacts their semantic meaning, while prosodic tone is carried across multiple words and conveys pragmatic meaning. This difference is why native speakers of lexical tone languages (like Mandarin or Zapotecan languages) can often sound oddly flat when speaking prosodic tone languages (like English). The roman alphabet was not created to deal with lexical tone and Vietnamese gives an excellent example of how much it needs to be altered to depict tones.

Blue: Natural languages change for so many different reasons; some of the big contributing factors are technological and cultural changes. The farther apart they are geographically, the harder it is to maintain the homogeneity. One would think that the advance of modern technology, such as the internet, would smooth out the differences, but it does not appear to be the case (see Wikipedia’s article on ELF) 

Language has a socioeconomic, cultural, and religious (e.g.: sacred language) significance. It can be a status symbol: French was adopted at various courts across Europe and became the distinguishing feature of aristocracy. People are often very reluctant to part with their native language, because it means giving up a part of their identity. If it's an artificial language imposed on different communities, why would they accept it and refuse their own language? If this situation developed naturally, how did it happen?

Lingua franca – "common language". Some of the historical examples are Akkadian, Koine Greek, and Latin; more recent ones are English, French, and Arabic. The spread of linguae francae is often associated with the colonial efforts to establish the language of the colonizer as the primary language of communication, but it is not always so: Tupi (Brazil) and Classical Maori (New Zealand) were adopted by the colonizing population. A lot of linguae francae were adopted and stayed dominant to facilitate trade most and foremost. 

Due to the cultural and economic hegemony, English is arguably the lingua franca of the world. One of the reasons why English is the dominant language of international communication is the expansion of the British Empire. In Russia, lingua franca is (obviously) Russian, but there are many native languages across the country that are officially recognized and taught at schools in their respective regions; Russian also serves as a lingua franca in many post-Soviet countries. In the Americas, there are obviously native languages that are very far removed from English and Spanish. In all these examples, native languages are used alongside the common languages: the lexicon and grammar of the native languages perseveres.

There is also such a thing as an auxiliary language - the kind of language that's been artificially constructed to aid communication internationally (esperanto) or for a more limited group (Interslavic). Esperanto is the only one that is relatively well-known and widely used; none of auxiliary languages have ever become widely spread though. That might change one day, but then the question becomes: will they stay the same across the globe, or will they also see regional changes?

It's theoretically possible for a language to exist in a time capsule if it's used by a small isolated community that doesn't see much change; but even then, there's a possibility of phonetic shifts over the years. 

Let's for a second imagine that it did happen to a degree, but only with nouns.

Here we run into another issue that would hinder understanding: a lot of human languages view verbs rather than nouns as a central feature of a sentence. On a larger scale, verbs convey the relationships between nouns and actions you perform with an object: “I ate chocolate” and “I bought chocolate” are two very different things, and just knowing the word "chocolate" tells you nothing about the meaning of the sentence in general.

[mariacallous]

On October 17, the Russian State Duma approved the first reading of a bill that would make so-called “childfree propaganda” punishable by a fine of up to five million rubles. The initiative comes amid the Russian authorities’ ongoing push to increase the country’s birth rate by pressuring women to have more children, a campaign that includes stigmatizing and restricting access to abortion, introducing “family values” courses in schools, and encouraging childbirth in popular media. One example of this last effort is the reality show Mom at 16, previously called Pregnant at 16. Meduza has translated an excerpt of Mediazona’s reporting on how the series is being used to further the government’s pro-natalist aims.

“At first we used protection, but then we stopped — we decided, screw it,” says Anya, a 17-year-old from the Far Eastern city of Amursk. Anya’s story is the focus of an episode of Mom at 16, a reality show on the Russian TV channel Yu that profiles teenage girls navigating unplanned pregnancies with their boyfriends, who are generally older than them.

The show’s narrator explains in a voiceover that Anya lost both parents at a young age, after which she was raised by her older sister. Early in the episode, viewers meet Anya’s boyfriend Semyon, an 18-year-old welder-in-training with a buzz cut and a spider web tattoo. Anya recounts how their first date was in an apartment building entryway, while their first time sleeping together was “At Semyon’s grandmother’s place.”

Over the hour-long episode, Anya faces a host of challenges, including the discovery that Semyon is inclined to “disappear and party” — though she quickly forgives him and decides he’s just “learning to be a father.” By the end of the episode, the couple welcomes a daughter, Yesenia, and Anya encourages other young women in her situation to “keep the baby and not be afraid.”

Another episode profiles Kristina, a 17-year-old from the Siberian city of Tyumen, who gets pregnant from her 19-year-old boyfriend Sasha. “He’s a musician, he writes raps — and I think that’s so cool,” she says at the start of the show. By the end of the nearly 1.5-hour episode, however, we learn that Sasha left Kristina for his ex-girlfriend while Kristina was still pregnant with their daughter.

“A child brings happiness, no matter what,” Kristina says at the end of the episode. “They’ll never leave you; to them, you’re number one. All that talk of ‘you’ll be left alone with a child’ — that’s nonsense. You’re never alone with your child.”

Until this year, Mom at 16 was titled Pregnant at 16; in January, however, it was rebranded with no explanation. Each episode now starts with the girls saying “I’m expecting a child” rather than “I’m pregnant.”

“Yu is a reality show network about the most important things for a young woman: family, children, mothers-in-law, moms, friends, and, of course, love,” the channel’s website reads. The site defines the network’s target audience as women aged 14–44, and its other shows have titles such as Supermom, Maternity Ward Days, Call Me Mom, and Mom at 45.

Many Mom at 16 viewers note in the YouTube comments that in contrast to past seasons, the girls on the show now appear never to even consider getting an abortion. Fans have also begun complaining about the show’s repetitive, contrived storylines: in a typical episode, the young mother feels uncertainty and fear, but then she talks with her loved ones and sees their enthusiastic support. There’s almost always a happy ending.

“Before, Pregnant at 16 was like, ‘Think hard — pregnancy is a big responsibility.’ Now, Mom at 16 is like, ‘Have kids as soon as possible,’” one commenter wrote.

The change from Pregnant at 16 to Mom at 16 has come against the backdrop of the Russian authorities’ ongoing efforts to encourage childbirth by curtailing access to abortion, outlawing abortion “propaganda” in some regions, and advancing national legislation to ban the “childfree” movement.

According to experts who spoke to the outlet Holod, however, if Russian policymakers want to effectively address the country’s falling birth rate, they should focus on ending the war in Ukraine, promoting immigration, and reducing economic inequality.

[i-heart-hxh]

Is it true that togashi said that he has 3 or 4 stories after the caa ? (if he did please give me the source)

Hello anon!

So, this is a commonly cited bit of info in discussions about HxH. However, after doing some research into the interview it allegedly came from (an interview between Togashi and Oda, the creator of One Piece), I'm uncertain on the legitimacy of this interview.

The mostly commonly cited source for the interview is here, on the HxH Wiki, but it was deleted for some reason. Other Togashi interviews remain up on the HxH Wiki, and I imagine this one was deleted for a reason, possibly because it can't be corroborated.

Here's a poorly-translated version of the interview I found. It could be a result of the poor translation, but the interview itself seems a bit odd to me... Here's another version, slightly different wording but same issues. And here's the French version of it that the other two articles seem to be referencing, which says at the bottom (thanks Deepl): "edit GrM: excerpt from MH from October 2011, no source link to the itw, so until then, to be taken with a pinch of salt and thank you for not leaving in flood."

I'm having trouble finding any scans or photos of this interview in Japanese, which makes me even more skeptical and uncertain. @yyh4ever, do you happen to have any information on this interview and whether it exists or not?

Because Togashi and Oda are both massively popular, I feel like info on a joint interview between them shouldn't be difficult to find. I found this image of Togashi and Oda together, but this doesn't seem to be that interview from what I can make out and I can't find any full versions of that article either. By comparison, Togashi's interview with Kishimoto is all over the place, even on the Viz site (Link 1, Link 2).

If anyone finds a reliable source for this interview between Togashi and Oda, I'd love to hear about it, but for now I would consider this info unsubstantiated! I'm surprised because I previously thought that this was reliable information as well. It's possible it is real, but unless someone provides solid info of its legitimacy, I'm going to assume it's probably fake. It's weird and interesting how much fake information about Togashi exists out there, that's why I'm careful when researching anything people say about him.

Thank you for asking, this sent me on an unexpected research rabbit hole!

[dungeonbent]

( An excerpt from Learned Complacency: A Record of the Surreal and Zoologically Dubious in the Dungeon of Skaia, written by R. L. Theras. )

… Thus far, the primary conceit of these pages has been to illustrate the base layout of the dungeon and the verifiable history of Skaia. Now that you are briefed on the intricacies of the Prospit-Derse conflict (caused in part due to the differing dynamics between the short and long-lived races within the borders of each kingdom), their eventual ruin, and their ultimate collapse in on one another, I will indulge in something of a detour. Much like the paths of the dungeon in which we venture, my thoughts must make a similar change of course.

However, this is far from a flight of fancy. It would, in fact, be wholly irresponsible not to explore this new passageway being built. For while smaller-minded men may give into the urge to claim sole credit for their achievements, all those in the dungeon know that without a party, they are lost.

I am joined in my travels by three companions. For the sake of anonymity and to ward against all future successes we may find after our return to the surface, I will refer to them by their chosen aliases: Ecto, Turntech, and Gnostio.

Turntech has been somewhat of a companion to me throughout my 90 years, both in terms of age due to his being my pseudo-twin and in terms of study. His accumulated knowledge of anatomy has been as much a boon to my personal research as his expertise in ancient dwarven technology, having previously unearthed a strange set of disks dubbed ‘turntables’- a truly archaic device which appears to me something of ritual significance. He will be assisting us in translation, navigation, and proper time management.

Gnostio is a native to the island whom I met when my brother and I arrived on Skaia, as well as someone intimately familiar with magic of many strands. There is no one on the island more knowledgeable about the flora which will be encountered within the dungeon, nor is there anyone quite so skilled in spatial manipulation. She will be helping to carry out research and act as our scout with the superior lupine senses of her beastman form. She is also, I suspect, to be the primary source of our collective morale going forward. Cheer is truly a strangely infectious thing.

While Ecto has little research experience beyond her brief work with the gold-stripping crews scraping the kingdom formerly known as Prospit clean of its luster, she is an invaluable part of the team; she is remarkably cool under pressure, and her mastery of teleportation magic is second only to her apparent affinity for the spirits of the wind, who flock to her as pets to a beloved master. While all of us have been on expeditions before, none have been on quite the number that Ecto has; therefore, if there is a leader, she may as well be the closest to it.

I take the time to introduce these players because there is one truth which applies to all dungeons: your survival depends entirely upon those who enter the dungeon. For the next two months, these three individuals will not only be a party- they will act as my companions, my flock, and, inevitably, will act as the lifeline which I depend on to live. 

This is even more true considering the small size of the party. While three of us have experience in doling out resurrection magic, and one has teleportation magic which can feasibly take us to the surface if straits become truly dire, it only takes one overwhelming enemy. While the four of us are not green in any sense of the word when it comes to fighting, we are still faced with an unavoidable truth: if we don’t break the dungeon, the dungeon may well break us.

When we reach the bottom of the dungeon to perhaps find that fictional ‘Skaia’ which the island derives its name- that endless pool of creativity where every desire is brought to startling life, sated with the fill of wonder- then, perhaps, we may turn. Perhaps the story of Prospit and Derse is less history and more omen; the long ago echo of a warning.

Regardless of this, I put my full faith in my compatriots. I entrust them my life.

For all my grandstanding about the academic nature of this work, this is, in part, a story. It is my story, if only because I am regrettably unable to attain the full objectivity that would find me in a fully controlled laboratory setting. 

While I endeavor to write this book alone, do not be alarmed should their hands also touch the pen. They are merely telling their part of the story as well.

[andiatas]

Høiby has been charged with threats and reported for scooter theft

On Friday, it became known that the police have expanded the charges against Marius Borg Høiby. They also provided information about another previously unknown review.

The Crown Princess's son is thus charged with bodily harm, damage and threats.

The background for the extension [in charges] is the telephone conversations between Høiby and the woman on August 4, the day he was arrested.

[...]

Høiby's lawyer, Øyvind Bratlien, tells NRK that Høiby has not taken a stance on the extension.

- I can't say anything about it until he has. That will happen in an upcoming questioning [with the police].

Høiby is scheduled to go in for questioning by the police next week.

[...]

At half past one on Friday, the police issued a press release about the case. They then informed that Høiby had also been reported for having stolen a scooter.

- On 7 August 2024, Borg Høiby was reported for scooter theft. The case is being investigated as illegal possession of movable property.

According to NRK's ​​information, the scooter theft must have occurred some time ago.

There is a different victim in the scooter case than in the other cases, the police states.

They say there has been great interest in the Høiby case, and [the victim] has, therefore, chosen to report.

They will now take the time to continue the investigation and get clarity on what has happened.

- In the case, serious accusations have been made which the police must be given time and opportunity to investigate.

[...]

The lawyer for the woman, Mette Yvonne Larsen, was with her client in a three-hour interrogation on Thursday.

She is not surprised by the extension on Friday:

- It was as expected, she says to NRK.

Larsen says the victim explained the case in detail when they were questioned.

- The questioning was ended because it was getting late. She will return and continue the questioning on a later occasion.

Excerpts from an article by Ingrid Emilie Waaler, Sverre Holm-Nilsen, and Vilde Haugen for NRK, published on Aug. 23, 2034, at 11:39 and updated the same day at 13:44. The text has been translated and edited for clarity by me.

[threelivesthreeworlds]

@hyeyouuu asked : thank u for the translations for the excerpt from lotus step!!! do you have any expectations about Bodhi’s Fate in terms of storyline? of course, at this point we would all be happy if the novel could just see the light of the day but I think the characters of mo yuan and shao wan really open up a lot of room for a potentially very exciting story. also going with the current timeline and considering that the prehistoric era didn’t really have a separate mortal realm yet, I’m not very sure about having a long mortal arc with many reincarnations and stuff for the two of them… like has mo yuan not suffered enough during the 200000+ years that shao wan has been gone for 😅

You're welcome!

And no, we don't really have any solid guesses for what bodhi fate's plot is going to look like. Everything that's been uncovered in terms of when Mo Yuan and Shao Wan shared exposition/past page time in the pillowbook extra and lotus step seems to be building toward lotus step plot more than bodhi fate. What we do know is this: Shao Wan is very good at building arrays, and she's left them intact and behind in places where they still now activate in the present timeline. We also know that Mo Yuan has hidden away all of her information - including presumably her writings and also any arrays she might have been working on. Whether this was simply because he missed her or because something in those papers was important to the fate of the universe - that's yet to be known.

I think once Shao Wan comes back we can assume that it's likely the demon realm, currently in 7 pieces in present timeline, may come together again. Or she'll just advise all 7 as their ancestor. This may very well overturn some of the Realm's politics as we know it. Very likely we're going to reach a scale of powerful antagonist as of yet previously unseen because our main characters are a pair of ancient gods rather than the previous ancient god/not quite an ancient god combo. We'll very likely have to deal with Mo Yuan's grief and refusal to understand Shao Wan's choice to make sacrifices for the universe when he believed there to be another way, and probably Shao Wan's awkwardness in terms of being a person with personal feelings who already realizes (as seen in some passages of lotus step) that she's hurt Mo Yuan very deeply.

I think xianxia as a genre likes to play with the mortal realm. I don't know that bodhi fate will necessarily have one, however! Historically there have been cases in this series where the mortal realm arc doesn't take much prevalence - in pillowbook, for example, the mortal realm only took up half a chapter of page time through the point of view of Ye Qingti. So, I don't think bodhi fate will have a long mortal realm arc unless the themes or the plot dictate that it must be so - which was the case in lotus step. And, if I'm honest, personally prefer the mortal realm portion of lotus step currently - so you'll never know until you read the book if you'll like a mortal realm arc or not.

As for suffering - I gotta tell you, I don't think anyone doesn't suffer in these books. If the fave is a protagonist, a 40 meter angst knife is comin this way.

[buffporcupine]

[First Image ID: Text that reads “Meanwhile, Netanyahu has publicly rejected calls by the Biden administration for the future establishment of a Palestinian state; he called for Israel to be in control of the region from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.” Below is a quote from Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu that reads “Therefore, I clarify that in any arrangement in the foreseeable future, with an accord or without an accord, the state of Israel must have security control of the entire terrority west of the Jordan River. That’s a necessary condition. It clashes with the principle of sovereignty. What can you do?” /End ID.]

[Second image ID: A different translation of the same quote. It reads “I clarify that in any arrangement in the foreseeable future, with an accord or without an accord, Israel must have security control over the entire terrority west of the Jordan River. That’s a necessary condition. It clashes with the principle of sovereignty but what can you do,” there is more text reading “Benjamin Netanyahu said during a press conference in Tel Aviv.” /End ID.]

[Third image ID: An article’s description of what Netanyahu had said. The text reads “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a televised address that Israel needs to have control over all areas of occupied Palestine, which is in direct opposition to the Biden Administration’s calls for a Palestinian state. The prime minister said that in every area in which Israel has previously withdrawn from, including Gaza and the now occupied West Bank, has led to ‘terrible terror’ for Israel. ‘In the future, Israel has to control the entire area from the river to the sea,’ Netanyahu said.” /End ID.]

[Fourth image ID: Another excerpt from an article describing the press conference. The text reads “Whether Netanyahu used the exact words ‘from the river to the sea’ while describing what he wants Israel to control depends on a person’s source for translating his remarks. News outlets reported varied Hebrew-to-English translations. Specific phrasing aside, the meaning of Netanyahu’s statement was not under question. No matter the translation, he called for Israeli control of all Palestinian territories, from the West Bank on the Jordan River to Gaza along the Mediterranean Sea. That call goes against U. S. foreign policy pushing for a two-state solution — that is, both an Israeli and Palestinian state within the terrority. According to a video recorded by the Israeli news outlet i24NEWS, an English narrator translated his remarks to be ‘In the future, the state of Israel has to control the entire area from the river to the sea.’ i24NEWS’ video narration claimed he said ‘For 30 years, I am being very consistent and I am saying something very simple. This conflict is not on a lack of a state of Palestinians, but the existence of a state, the Jewish state. Every area that we evacuate we receive terrible terror against us. It happened in South Lebanon, in Gaza, and also in Judea and Samaria. . . Therefore, I clarify that in any other arrangement, in the future, the state of Israel has to control the area from the river to the sea.’ However, other news outlets published slightly different translations absent the pro-Palestine slogan, reporting he said Israel ‘must have security control over the entire terrority west of the Jordan River.’ The Guardian, the Associated Press, and Al Jazeera were among publications with that translation.” /End ID.]

There was a post from someone else with from a far-right news site tweet saying Netanyahu said "In the future, israel will control the land from the river to the sea" (or similar words). Many people in the notes pointed out this and I deleted my reblog after I noticed someone pointing it out and went to investigate:

Democracy Now translation:

The New Arab translation:

Middle East Eye translation:

And snopes even wrote about it!

So the idea still stands — Netanyahu rejects the idea of a Palestinian state completely and wants total control of Palestine.

[cartograffiti]

Thank you Claire from Schuler Books: some data for Queen's Thief fans

The tl;dr of this post is that QT is having an unprecedented surge of interest right now, and I used GoodReads to deliver some facts and figures to the Discord (The Geninsula), and now to Tumblr!

Under the cut: sources of the uptick, beautiful numbers, and a couple fun excerpts from recent reviews.

Part 1: selling out is good

We can actually track the start of the surge back to 2020's publication of Return of the Thief, because the series being complete got it a lot of positive press, but the activity of the past couple months (especially February-now, I'm writing on May 31 2022), has been another thing entirely.

RotT, and Disney+ optioning The Thief, has meant we're getting a lot of new international editions. The UK is getting a beautiful release of new editions in paperback and audiobook. The series is being translated into Spanish and Italian for the first time, and we know in The Geninsula of translations underway into Hebrew and Bangla. (Parts of the series have previously been released in at least 15 languages, but until now only Romanian had kept up with the whole set.) MWT is currently on a tour of Italy and the UK to promote these new editions, and a number of giveaways and influencer spotlights were arranged by publishers to get The Thief | Il ladro in readers' hands.

In March, the independent bookstore Schuler Books (not, as it has often been misreported, a library or Barnes & Noble) *posted a TikTok* of some of their staff showing off books they wish they could read for the first time, again. (It's adorable, click the link if you haven't seen it.) This TikTok went viral, now with 17.5 million views, and it opens with Claire talking about The Thief.

Only two weeks later, The Thief was sold out in US paperback. I'm talking gone. Even Amazon cannot get you a new copy of either the 2017 (Joel Tippie) or 2005 (Vince Natale) covers anymore, previously readily available, let alone older ones. They have to reprint it! In the meantime, the Steve West audiobook seems to be doing very well, and the hardcover unremarkably. Several Geninsula members who are members of large library systems have reported long waitlists typical of bestsellers. I wholly attribute this attention to Claire. Claire is the best, our hero!

Lots of recent reviews (see below) also said Laini Taylor suggested it, but if there's a specific recent source for that (she's a known fan of long standing), I can't find it. Let me know if you know!

Part 2: GoodReads is useful sometimes

So GoodReads *has this nice feature* where they rank the top 200 books from each publishing year, with #1 being the one their users have most interacted with, and refresh it monthly [Edit: this was a mistype, it’s weekly]--so you can see which books of the same age have remained or become popular as of this month [Edit: week]. This does not mean it only accounts for what was interacted with within that month [Edit: week], just that it's that up to date.

Right now, The Thief is number 14 out of all of 1996. The books that beat it are all truly famous things like Bridget Jones's Diary, Angela's Ashes, Fight Club, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. (The only book ranked above it that hasn't been adapted for film is Neverwhere, which has received a radio play with a high-profile cast. [Edit: ...And is itself a novelization of a TV series.] [Edit: Infinite Jest has been a play, but not filmed.] I am making direct eye contact with Mickey Mouse.) Some of the other series marketed as fantasy it beats out include entries from Tortall, Discworld, The Witcher, and Redwall.

The Queen of Attolia is the only other one that is currently on the top 200 list for its year, but it's 77, above more Tamora Pierce, a boxset of A Song of Ice and Fire, and buzzy authors like Julia Quinn and Junji Ito.

The fact that a second book is ranking this high tells us people are currently working their way through the series in honestly what has to be large numbers. I won't be surprised if later books start ranking in the coming months.

It also tells us people really are actively reading them, not just marking the first one as possibly interesting--lots of users don't mark sequels as to-read until they've read the first, or the preceding one, etc.

Now, with the books ranked this high, how much interaction does that represent? Well, The Thief has 77,921 ratings, and 236,000+ shelvings, and considering that finishing without rating is somewhat uncommon…that's about 150,000 users who are planning to read, or currently reading, this book. The same math for QoA is less dramatic--about 20k people have it on the agenda--but when 20k is 50% of its all-time ratings, that's...still an explosion.

This of course only represents the people who a) use GoodReads and b) keep up with their to-be-read list there, so this is only a fraction of readers in general who are likely to read it in the near future.

Part 3: The reviews are in

Giveaways of advance reader copies in the UK led to a burst of reviews in February, which were a bit puzzling to read through, as a number of them seemed to me to have come from people who did not know the genre or even the age market for the book when they entered for it, and hadn't actually been drawn to the story therefore.

A much more striking wave of reviews came later, as the UK, Spanish, and Italian readers began to interact with it organically, and a large burst of people who specifically said they'd picked it up because of Claire from Schuler Books. (Or, more often, "A TikTok with a cute librarian [sic].") These reviews have the usual range of reactions, but an overall level of enthusiasm I feel is high.

Laini Taylor was the second-most successful recommender. Many people compared The Thief favorably to Rick Riordan, Leigh Bardugo, GRR Martin, and Sarah J. Maas. (This was the first time I'd seen the series pitched to SJM's fans! I haven't read her work, but hadn't thought it was in a similar niche.) I was delighted to see several people calling it the best fantasy of travel and landscape they've read since JRR Tolkien!

The apparent age range of reviewers is quite wide, which reflects my experience of the fandom, where I've regularly chatted with people from 13 to their 60s, and likely older. There were some very cute reactions from reviewing tweens and teenagers who said that they were surprised such an OLD book from the nineties held up.

Some other book trend remarks I found interesting: lots of surprise there was no romance, including some people who, looking for a potential romance among the traveling party, proposed both Gen/Sophos (fine) and Gen/the magus (insane, thank you so much, I have questions.) A number of people who remarked that they were pleased to find a fantasy that wasn't "too fantastical," lots of positivity about feeling it had a "timeless" style, and one person who said they have found it difficult to find engaging recent YA books with boy protagonists.

Delightful excerpts from reviews of TT:

a novel that is a credit to the English language.

I loved the world MWT created, had it been an artwork it would perhaps have been more Claude Monet than Michelangelo

[Original review in Spanish, from Argentina] Gen is the best thing that has ever happened to me

The Thief also pairs very nicely with cheese and dried fruit.

The importance of narrators:

I'm giving this a 5 star rating because I listened to it as an audiobook and the narrator sounds like Henry Cavill and I have a crush on him. So, 5 stars.

And my favorite reaction to The Queen of Attolia:

This is shockingly...kinky???

Okay, thanks for reading! I'm really excited, since it looks like the fandom is in the process of...tripling? Something like that. If you have news about how the book is being promoted, or new translations/re-releases, I'd love to hear!

[thornescratch]

But Don't Give Yourself Away for the title meme? (Is that related to the sign stealing fic?)

It is! ...I also just wrote out my full answer to this ask, and then tumblr blipped on me and I lost it so I'm incredibly annoyed and don't really want to write it up again. Eat shit, tumblr.

So, yeah, much more briefly this time around: sequel to Whatever happened to all this season's losers of the year, and since the title is from lyrics from the same song, I figured it made sense. I talked about why it's named what it is a while ago here. I kinda wanted to go back to Burky's thirst for Holtby, and thought it would be funny if multiple teammates were thirsting for Holtby, and how Ovi and Nicky would handle that. Especially if Ovi and Nicky actually were in opposition to each other on how to handle it.

Anyway, yeah: Holtby is in the middle of some kind of bonkers love quadrangle and isn't aware of it; Ovi is far TOO aware of it and drags in Nicky and Brooks Orpik in accordingly out of self-preservation and also spite. Also more signs are stolen. You can read a previously posted excerpt from it here. And here's another bit from further in.

"Guess who's in love?" Alex says, as soon as he has Nicky alone, or as close to alone as they can get on the charter plane.

"Did he talk to you?" Nicky says, eyes narrowed. "I told him that was a bad idea. I told him you would just sabotage it."

Alex blinks. "I'm not gonna sabotage Burky. I'm gonna sit back and watch because it's hilarious."

Nicky's face does something unusual, in that it shows roughly two seconds worth of genuine surprise before it settles down. It's all fractional eyebrow bunching, and a very quick clench of the jaw, subtle and barely noticeable. On anyone else, it would be unremarkable; since it's Nicky and since Alex has been making a habit of watching him as closely as possible for the last decade, it's as good as klaxons blaring and red flags waving. Alex is immediately suspicious.

"You talk about Burky, right," he says to Nicky, watching him closely.

Nicky's face is back to its usual inscrutable setting. "Andre's always in love," he replies, which is a definite dodge.

"But you mean Burky when you say you tell him I'm gonna sabotage love or something?" Alex persists.

"I know you're helping him," Nicky says, and then wrinkles his nose and looks annoyed. "Trying to help him. Probably getting him into more trouble."

Mild insults and slightly more words than necessary, which means Nicky is absolutely hiding something. Alex plays back what Nicky had said, mentally prods it a few times for any hidden English translation meanings, and then applies his Nicky translation filter, and comes up with the answer.

"You don't mean Burky," he says. "You mean someone else on team's in love."

Nicky looks down at his iPad and grunts noncommittally. Alex gasps in delight.

"Who?" he asks.

"I can't say," Nicky says primly. "Anyway, it's not your business."

"I'm captain!" Alex protests. "All team romance and love and hookup is totally my business."

"I'm gonna nap," Nicky says. He puts his iPad down and folds his hands over his stomach, closing his eyes. "I can't talk right now."

"Backy," Alex whines. "Backy, no, Nicky, come on, tell me, come on. You my A, you supposed to share stuff like this."

Nicky glares at Alex without opening his eyes, a uniquely Nicky skill that he produces as effortlessly as he does saucer passes, and which Alex secretly envies more than a little. "I am asleep." 

"Backy, come on, if you won't say who in love, at least tell me who's in love with."

"It's nice to be asleep," Nicky says.

"It's me, of course," Alex says, and Nicky takes the bait; he opens his eyes just to narrow them at Alex. "Okay, yeah, not me, because I know you kill them because you love me. So it's not me. Not you, because if it's you, you don't say anything at all and you just pretend it's not there."

Nicky sighs and closes his eyes again.

"Not me, not you, you tell them not to talk to me, you say I sabotage, why I sabotage…" Alex thinks it over. "I only sabotage probably if they love you. Except." He pokes Nicky's arm several times in excitement, and Nicky swats him with unerring accuracy, still with his eyes closed. Alex doesn't even care. "It's Holts! Someone else loves Holts!"

"Everyone loves Holts," Nicky says, but he presses his lips together and wrinkles his nose. Alex is triumphant.

"Who is it?" Alex asks. "I'm not gonna sabotage. Probably I'm not gonna sabotage. Maybe. Unless it's you."

"You'd sabotage me?" Nicky asks, opening one eye. His face is already back to blank tranquility.

"Well, I'm gonna try," Alex says. "Like, if you love Holts, that's not good for me. Unless you let me watch. Or if you wanna watch me and Holts. In both case, cool, okay."

"Hmm," Nicky says, which Alex immediately files away as 'not a definite no' in case such an opportunity ever does come up. He's not made of stone, after all. Though then they'll have to deal with a heartbroken and/or sulking Burky for stealing the goalie sex god of his dreams.

"Anyway, is it Jojo? It's Jojo, isn't it," Alex asks. If someone is asking Nicky for advice on seduction, it's probably one of the younger players, and it's probably one of his countrymen, and Alex already knows about Burky. "Oh my God, Nicky, you playing favorites with the kids?"

He twists around in his seat to see where Marcus is, and Nicky shoots his hand out to yank him back down.

"It's not Mackan," Nicky says. "Christ, you're making a scene. The point is not to tell everyone."

"Ha, when I make scene, you gonna know it," Alex says, and twists his neck to test the strength of Nicky's grip on his shirt collar and the way it's cutting into his throat a bit. It's an interesting sensation. He'll have to remember to have Nicky do it again in a more private setting. "Hmm."

Nicky grimaces. "I'll tell you at the hotel," he says. "Just. Not now."

"Okay, okay. At the hotel," Alex says. He manages to wait thirty seconds. "Is it Vee?"

[traumbild]

Ad Astra Per...

premise: early spring, 1923. Edward has become listless, past losing faith in rocketry’s analogy for alchemy as a means for him to get home to the other side of the Gate. This feeling of disconnect has even begun to seep into his relationship with Alfons, which has naturally developed into something beyond friendship (but which neither of them dare to formally define). Sensing Edward’s lack of inspiration for flight, Alfons aims to enliven his spirits with a surprise: a hot air balloon ride.

written for the Equivalent Exchange Anthology and featured in digital extension project 2 (sfw ship pieces)! pre-orders end on October 3rd, 2021: order your copy here! (see below the cut for image descriptions and citations)

notes: for it wouldn't be me if there weren't any!

A. "ad astra per" is "to the stars through/by..." but I won't finish it here, for it's a spoiler, as it were.

B. yes, this is a ship 'fic (an AIRship 'fic, ha ha ha--) but it's rather PG. it is also terribly sentimental.

C. I learned SO much about ballooning for this.

image text - story excerpts:

1. “It’s not a kidnapping—you consented,” Alfons answers from behind the map that he’s unfolded and positioned mere centimeters in front of his nose. [...] The sky is only just beginning to lighten in the distance, outlining the very edges of the hills. Whether they’ll reach their mystery destination before the sun climbs over the precipice remains to be seen. It’s an unfair game, however: only one party in this race knows the coordinates of the finish line—well, two, if one counts both Alfons and the sun.

2. “If you’re taking me to see the sunrise,” Edward grumbles, ignoring a paradoxical, somewhat mortifying twinge of pleasure at that previously unanticipated possibility, “then I’m going to tell you there were easier ways to do this. Like—what’s that church off Marienplatz? Not the Frauenkirche; the tower. Old Peter. Might be a thousand goddamn steps, but I swear—”

“It’s not that,” Alfons chuckles, though he winces at the idea of climbing the stairs and reflexively presses a hand to his chest.

[...] Edward needs a moment to parse all of this visual information into something that makes sense—and all the while Alfons is nearly doubled over laughing, shaking with delight as though he’s lost his mind, and rushing to get his words out first:

“Do you see? It’s—”

“A balloon!”

3. [ Edward’s surprised ] at the peculiar feeling of going upward, as though in a lift, but feeling so exposed; at the ground getting smaller and smaller beneath them and the horizon growing wider, spreading out into the vast expanse of sky. At once he feels incredibly human and like some sort of god of his own, at the mercy of a spike of raw, unexpected fear teetering on the edge of wonder. Maybe this is what Alfons feels when he imagines space flight—terror and exhilaration.

4. They fall into silence, Edward and Alfons shoulder to shoulder as they watch the red orb of the sun give them chase and climb higher, its pinks spreading out into the blues and running into oranges. Now that they’ve stabilized, Edward finds it laughable that he was so frightened—what an idiot, letting an unfamiliar sensation get the best of his brain! He loosens his grip on the basket’s edge and even chances a glance downward. Fog swirls around the checkered land, decking the yellow fields, dirt patches waiting for sprouts, and verdant stretches of fledgling crops alike. Alfons nudges him to get his attention, and Edward follows his outstretched hand to the dramatic outline of the Alps in the farthest distance, towering over the humble hills and flatland leading up to them. Edward isn’t often given to such sentimentality, but somehow it strikes him as incredible now: the power of the earth that moves to form these mountains, and—though it’s not possible here—the amazing ingenuity of the brain that can draw from these elements and move nature itself with alchemy.

image description and sources - visuals:

1. A map of Augsburg and the western outskirts (source)

2. A serendipitous ad for the August Riedinger Balloon Factory in Augsburg, found by accident at the back of the English translation of the Pocket Book of Aeronautics (source)

3. Excerpt of the title page of "Eine Ballonfahrt" - 1896 sheet music. I learned that "aeronautical love songs" is an entire genre from the turn of the century. (source)

4. Another map of Augsburg and its southern outskirts (source)

5. Paul Klee, "the Balloon," 1927; during his Bauhaus years. (source)

[potteresque-ire]

More ask answer about Word of Honour (山河令, WoH) and the so-called “Dangai 101 phenomenon” under the cut ~ with all the M/M relationships shown on screen, does it mean improved acceptance / safety for the c-queer community?

Due to its length (sorry!), I’ve divided the answer into 3 parts: 1) Background 2) Excerpts from the op-eds 3) Thoughts This post is PART 3 💚. As usual, please consider the opinions expressed as your local friendly fandomer sharing what they’ve learned, and should, in no ways, be viewed as necessarily true. :)

(TW: homophobic, hateful speech quoted)

Here are the key points I’ve picked up from these op-eds:

* The state believes Danmei can turn young people queer. * The state also believes Dangai dramas can turn young men “feminine” to suit the taste of Dangai’s young, largely female audience. * The state views queerness in both sexes, and androgynous beauty in men as negative traits. * The state is wary of Danmei and Dangai’s popularity and wishes to contain them as subcultures. * The state is particularly annoyed by how the Dangai dramas have achieved their popularity with CP-focused promotions and marketing tactics, in which the actors are involved and blur the line between fictional and real-life suggestions of queerness.

What do I think of, concerning the acceptance and/or safety of … everything, with the above opinions given by the state media about Dangai?

* For c-queers, I don’t think things are different from before—these op-eds didn’t change the big picture for me. The op-eds taking traditional BL characterisation for Dangai / Danmei means the state’s intended focus of the genres is not its queerness; this is not unexpected, as the established review system is supposed to have removed the show’s queer elements, and to characterise those elements as queer would be a critique against the NRTA.

 While unpleasant, the veiled, antagonistic view towards non-traditional gender expressions and homosexuality isn’t new: the state has long believed popular culture can turn its young male audience “feminine”; the NRTA directive that bans homosexual content from visual media already makes clear its stance that homosexuality is, while not criminal, something that is Not Good in its eyes.

A (very) good thing that can be said, I think, is that none of the op-eds explicitly disapprove of the queer elements, the things that got away from being censored—of which there were, arguably, many in WoH. While Article O2a noted such “playing edge ball” (note the articles use this term to avoid mentioning “queer”), the comment right after was neutral / positive (“provide their audience with room for imagination”). Article O3, meanwhile, acknowledged that Dangai can be imitated by introducing suggestive atmosphere between male characters in their plot layout, thereby admitting that suggestive atmosphere between male characters in their plot layout is a defining trait of Dangai—and it didn’t say anything bad about it; the criticism was only for non-Dangai playacting Dangai.

This signals, to me at least, that Dangai can continue to be the cover for queer relationships to reach its audience for now — which is, perhaps, the best case scenario for continued queer representation on TV, given the current sociopolitical climate.

* For Danmei / Dangai, I’d also venture to say the genres are safe. Upcoming Dangais may need to undergo stricter / further reviews (if the rumours surrounding Immortality 皓衣行 are to be believed), and whether they can still achieve explosive popularity after such reviews remains a question; the genres themselves, however, will likely survive. 

Article O1 was a very positive, very enthusiastic review of WoH; its determined focus on the show’s aesthetics (as TU’s review) signals to me that the state approved of the genre’s take on aesthetics—which, again, also includes the aesthetics of a world cleansed of its real problems, which also aligns with the NRTA’s directive on TV / web dramas to focus on the positives of life in the country (Previously translated in this post: D12: … They [Pie note: the dramas] cannot place too strong an emphasis on social conflicts, must showcase the beautiful lives of the commoners.). Article O2b was very critical at places, but actually tried to sever Danmei  / Dangai from its major complaint, argued that the attention-grabbing gimmicks path was taken * instead of * aspiring to positively, proactively guide and display Danmei culture, therefore positioning Danmei on the “good side”.  While Danmei was named a (bad) influence for potentially turning youths queer (and predator, by the cartoon) in Article O2a, no mention was made of eliminating the genre both in the same Article or its editorial (Article O2b). The focus was placed, instead, on the subculture’s “containment”, and how it has been broken for “Rot Culture” to reach mainstream. The implied solution to Danmei’s “bad influence”, therefore, was to re-contain rather than eliminate.

[Logically, of course, this makes little sense. Blaming Danmei on turning youths queer is already confusing correlation and causation—youths may be drawn to Danmei because they are queer, rather than Danmei turning them queer. Re-containment, meanwhile, suggests that the state, which isn’t a fan of gays, is okay with Danmei turning kids gay… as long as there aren’t a lot of kids.

However, I’m hoping to tease out what the state may do, not whether the state is logically sound.]

Article O3 had the harshest wording on Danmei—“the canon and the Rot Culture behind it still hides large amounts of pornographic, violent content…”; “this vulgar custom of “playing edge ball” as a means to tempt, to lead the audience into indulging in fantasies [Pie note: sexual fantasies implied by the idiom 想入非非] have spread from visual media production…” . Still, no word on axing the genre, only containment.

* For CP culture, specifically, actor-character based CPs that are promoted with the dramas: while I don’t see it on the chopping board yet, these op-eds are, I believe, warnings for those in charge of the promotion and marketing of the upcoming Dangai dramas to tread carefully. I find the reach of these warnings difficult to predict still, because these warnings can be genuine—as in, the government truly believes the CP-focused promotion and marketing tactics are morally objectionable—or they can be more for show, in that the true reason behind the warnings is that CP-focused promotions, which also put a heavy focus on in-drama candies, make the NRTA / censorship board look like a joke and the government had to put up some objections to save face. 

In all cases, companies will likely need to talk to the government to nail down its stance. Whether to heed the warnings afterwards, tone down or eliminate the CP-focused promotions will require a thorough risk-benefit analysis. After all, CP culture appears to sits at the heart of the money-making machinery of Dangai dramas. The expenditure of fans is mainly to support their favourite actors and see their interactions, and money is, ultimately, what Dangai 101 is about.

Finally, for the sake of completion ~ how likely did these op-eds reflect the actual opinions of the state? Here are the sources of the articles:

Article O1: 上觀新聞, which is under Liberation Daily 解放日報,  the official daily newspaper of the Shanghai Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.

Article O2: 半月談 Banyue Tan, a state-controlled biweekly magazine published by the Xinhua News Agency, the official state-run press agency of China.

Article O3: 光明日報 Enlightenment Daily, a newspaper associated with Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (中共中央機關報).

None of them are of the calibre of People’s Daily (official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party). However, they’re all very well-respected state-sponsored sources. Banyue Tan does require an asterisk  ~ while affiliated with the Xinhua News Agency, the massive influence of which has earned it its nickname “the world's biggest propaganda agency”, Banyue Tan‘s authority on this particular issue of Danmei/Dangai has been somewhat undermined by a … strange (?) trivia to end this super long piece: the magazine has also been caught in the controversy surrounding 227. Due to its pro-TU, pro-Gg stance, antis have insisted there are Gg fans within its writer’s ranks, who have used the state-sponsored publication for their private, support-Gg purposes. To this day, the argument is ongoing—with the criticism of Danmei in Article O2 sparking another round of “discussion” due to its previous approval of TU—and the lead anti is a well-known international politics professor and CCP (Chinese Communist Party) mouthpiece named Shen Yi (沈逸), whose claim to fame was the US government cancelling his visa and denying him entry due to suspected espionage …

[Banyue Tan was not the only state-sponsored publication caught in 227′s cross-fire. This is one of the reasons why some political watchers have suspected 227 to have a political component, that some form of political power struggle was happening in the post-227 chaos and disguised as the fan war.

While the truth may never be revealed, one thing is for certain ~ fan wars are about the worst things fans can do for their favourite idols, by lending space for such veiled conflicts to happen, by lending the names of their idols / their idols’ fans to the actually warring parties who may not wish to reveal who they are.]

[Okay okay, I will shut up now :) ].

PART 1 PART 2 PART 3 <-- YOU ARE HERE

[dreamersleeps]

Feathers of Truth and Judgement

Ma’at and the Weighing of the Heart: Revisiting the Death of Jin Bubaigawara 

Before I begin, this may not make any sense if you are not familiar with some of what I’ve written about. This is an add on to my post about the interesting similarities between Hawks’ character and the Egyptian God Horus. 

Recap: Tokoyami, Hawks and Endeavor 

To recap what I’ve already written previously, there are most definitely Greek/Roman mythological influences in BNHA but there are also Egyptian ones as well most explicitly through Tokoyami Fumikage who basically looks like how Egyptian dieties were portrayed: the head of an animal and the body of a human. Additionally, he has a move named after an Egyptian symbol, the Ankh and his quirk, Dark Shadow is basically a version of the Egyptian concept of the shadow, called shut/swt. 

And so I began looking at where else there may be some interesting similarities between BNHA and Egyptian mythology, and eventually started making some connections between Hawks and Horus, and Endeavor and Ra, the Sun God that fit the narrative and symbolism of the two characters. Whether they are mere coincidences or unintentional, I still think that it is interesting to look at and consider. So here we are. 

The Egyptian Underworld

The image above is from the Book of the Dead of Ani. Osiris is depicted sitting with Isis and Nephthys behind him. 

In Egyptian mythology, Horus is the son of Osiris and Isis. One of the most famous stories tells of how Osiris’ brother Set takes his life, cuts his body in to several pieces and disperses them across Egypt. A spirit can only travel in to the underworld if they are properly embalmed and buried so Horus and Isis travel around and search for the parts of Osiris’ body. (Depending on the source you are looking at, some say that Isis traveled around with her sister Nephthys, and Horus was born after she resurrects Osiris). 

Osiris is resurrected and is able to travel to the underworld where he becomes the Egyptian Lord of the Underworld, and the Judge of the Dead. 

Why am I bringing up Osiris? Well his son, Horus is important in relating back to Hawks and Endeavor, but he also leads us to another important deity who I will introduce later. Back when I was gathering information to work with, I noticed that there was some interesting bits about the Afterlife and Judgement process I wanted to add in but to keep it simple, I cut that part out. However, I thought that this was too interesting to not post about. 

The Egyptian Afterlife and Judgement 

In order to illustrate and explain what the ancient Egyptians believed happened after an individual passed, I included a large excerpt below from the World History Encyclopedia: 

In the Egyptian Book of the Dead it is recorded that, after death, the soul would be met by the god Anubis who would lead it from its final resting place to the Hall of Truth. 

When it came one’s turn, Anubis would lead the soul to stand before Osiris and the scribe of the gods, Thoth in front of the golden scales. The goddess Ma’at, personification of harmony and balance, would also be present and surrounded by the Forty-Two Judges who would consult with these gods on one’s eternal fate. 

The soul would then recite the Negative Confessions in which one needed to be able to claim, honestly, that one had not committed certain sins. The negative declarations, always beginning with “I have not...” or “I did not...”, following the opening prayer went to assure Osiris of the soul’s purity. Each sin listed was thought to have disrupted one’s harmony and balance while one lived and separated the person from their purpose on earth as ordained by the gods.

Anubis or Qebhet, his daughter weighs a human’s soul against the weight of the feather of Ma’at while Osiris watches on, Isis and Nephthys behind him. 

The ‘heart’ of the soul was handed over to Osiris who placed it on a great golden scale balanced against the white feather of Ma’at, the feather of truth on the other side. If the soul’s heart was lighter than the feather then the gods conferred with the Forty-Two Judges and, if they agreed that the soul was justified the person could pass on toward the Field of Reeds, or paradise. 

If the heart proved heavier, it was thrown to the floor of the Hall of Truth where it was devoured by Amenti/Amut. Once the person’s heart is devoured, the individual soul ceased to exist (The ancient Egyptians had no concept that is equivalent to the Judeo-Christian hell).

I’m sure you’ve identified one of the key highlights from the excerpt above that connects directly to Hawks: Ma’at’s feather. Let’s take a closer look at the deity. 

The Goddess Ma’at, the Feather of Truth and Judgment

In ancient Egyptian mythology, Ma’at was the goddess of truth, justice, balance and morality. She is often depicted as a woman, with a feather on her head and/or with wings (as depicted above). She was the daughter of the sun god Ra, and the wife of Thoth, the god of wisdom and the moon. 

The feather she wears on her head symbolizes her being and presence. It was a representation of balance and order, and it eventually became a hieroglyph for  “truth.” 

Truth, truth, truth, what does it have to do with Hawks? Well, Hawks is a man who yearns for the truth. He seeks information out, collects it, and analyzes it. When he was first introduced he was shrouded in mystery, people wondered, was he someone to be trusted? 

While he could be very blunt with the truth, he was also very deceptive and good at lying. Truth and knowledge is very intertwined with his character design as we see in his name. 

Hawks’ true name, gets revealed to us through Dabi: Takami Keigo. According to the BNHA fandom website, Hawks’ surname translates as:

“hawk” (taka 鷹) + “see, visible, idea” (mi 見 )

While his first name translates as:

“disclose, open, say” (kei  啓) + “enlightenment, understanding” (go  悟).

What does Hawks do with all the information and “truths” he gathers? Well, what do we do when we hear or discover the truth? 

We make a judgement. 

In the court of law, truths and evidences are used to pass judgement. In ancient Egypt, Ma’at was associated with the law and justice. 

The ‘Spirit of Ma’at’ was embodied by the chief judge in charge of the Egyptian law courts. He had a dual role, serving as both a priest and working directly in the law courts and justice system. They wore the feather of Ma’at and all other court officials wore small golden images of the goddess as a sign of their judicial authority, also as a symbol that their judgement would be balanced and fair. 

Priests drew the Feather of Ma’at on their tongues with green dye, so that the words they spoke were the truth. They would rule on the earthly punishment according to the nature of the law that had been broken. 

Punishments included imposing fines, corporal punishment and in extreme cases capital punishment. It was considered a crime against Ma’at if a person engaged in jealousy, dishonesty, gluttony, laziness, injustice, and ungratefulness (ancient origins). 

Hawks’ Fierce Wings quirk gives him the ability to turn his feathers in to weapons as we see below which is quite ironic or absurd to think about.

How can a feather condemn someone to death? Well as we saw earlier, in ancient Egypt, one’s fate was determined by the sins they committed in the life they led, and ultimately the weight of their soul compared to that of the Feather of Ma’at. 

We are presented with Jin’s backstory that Hawks was most likely able to dig up through his sources which is how he got to his conclusion. 

Similar to the process that takes place in the Hall of Truth, Jin’s past and life is reviewed, gone through, and he see how he came to be the person he was. Hawks calls him unlucky. He believes that Jin is a good person, and can be helped.

The problem is, is that heroes are no supposed to act as the judge, jury or executioner. The main role of heroes is to save, and subdue those who are dangerous, passing them on to the police and courts of law: as Hawks was originally intending to do.

But as Jin continues to resist, Hawks changes his intentions. 

Their struggle concludes with the death of Jin Bubaigawara. 

The Heroes are not Gods 

The ancient Egyptians looked to Ma’at to maintain the balance and harmony between good and evil. She represented the truth and morality, and under her guidance those behind the law passed judgement.  

However Hawks is not Ma’at. He is not a god. Instead of acting as a servant of the law, Hawks takes it upon himself to embody and become the law. But on the basis of what exactly? It does not matter because he passes judgement himself. He takes his feather and executes Jin based on what he believes is the truth and justice. We are reminded of this objectiveness through the subtitle of Volume 27: One’s Justice. 

For the longest time, heroes basically were perceived as living gods. Even worshipped, to an extent. Quirks set heroes apart from civilians, placing them on top of the pyramid of power. People lived in a hero saturated society, similar as to how the ancient Egyptians lived with their deities being a part of a great majority of their day to day existences. Despite all the interesting connections and parallels that I can write about, especially with Endeavor and Hawks, it does not change the truth that they are still human: as human as the quirkless.  Perhaps their greatest fault was that they acted and lived like gods.

As always, thank you for putting in time to read through this post! I appreciate it. Manga panels throughout this post are from Chapters 264, 265, and 291

[rainbowplussome]

on dazai’s backstory

okay so!! one of the most prominent mysteries of bungou stray dogs is dazai's backstory prior to his and mori's assassination of the previous boss. i've seen tons of speculation on it, and i thought i'd chip in with my personal thoughts and deductions! please note that for this analysis i'll be using wattpad user darkestjay8686's interpretation of the fifteen light novel, as i do not speak japanese nor have access to the original fifteen light novel. any alterations done to this translation are for ease of understanding (for example, changing "the hand of chuuya" to "chuuya's hand"). any and all of these changes are purely the result of personal preference and are not at all meant to either change the meaning of the passage or insult darkestjay8686. seeing as, once again, i do not speak japanese, i am operating under the assumption that this translation conveys the original intent as well as can be expected. for verification of certain quotes, i cross-checked @looking-for-stray-dog's excerpts of the novel.

with all of those disclaimers out of the way, let's get down to it!

1. on mori and dazai

there has been a lot of discussion on mori and dazai's relationship, and most of what needs to be said has been said. maybe i’ll discuss some things that i feel are often overlooked in a separate post! still, put briefly in a disorganized list, because formatting on tumblr is difficult:

when dazai and mori met, dazai "was nothing more than an attempted suicide patient."

dazai was already suicidal when he came under mori's care.

whatever "broke" dazai happened before mori (assuming that dazai's detached behavior comes from a place of trauma in addition to possible mental/personality disorders).

dazai served as witness shortly after to mori's assassination of the former boss.

mori did not know dazai intimately before PB's demise.

mori remarks that he underestimated dazai's darkness and wisdom, implying that he hadn't known dazai well enough previously in order to gauge these things.

we also know that dazai "was not a subordinate of Mori, nor of the mafia…[nor was] he…an illegitimate child, an orphan mori had picked up, or a medical assistant." their meeting is described as a "fateful encounter."

another interesting thing is that it takes a year for dazai to drop the childish mask we see him keep up around mori, seeing as this scene is where mori realizes that he's made a "miscalculation."

2. on the previous boss and dazai

dazai likely knew the previous boss on a personal level.

A distorted, crimson haze emerged from the other side of the subspace, and a figure appeared.

"There... there is a nostalgic face. Hey, brat... are you in good health? Have you been bullied by the doctor?"

It was the old boss floating in the air, wearing a traditional, black robe.

"Hey, there." Dazai smiled stiffly. "It's been a while. How's your back pain? Your complexion is looking nice. Wasn't it a good thing you died? Boss—no, previous boss."

this implies that the previous boss (thus abbreviated as PB) knows dazai, despite being clearly insane and severely ill in the one moment where we know dazai was present.

see: "nostalgic face"—PB views dazai as someone he's known long enough to view as nostalgic.

see: "brat"—PB views dazai with disdain. as he was clearly not in his right mind during the one time he and dazai are undeniably in a room together, i doubt he even realized dazai was there, and definitely not well enough to actually remember his face.

see: "are you in good health?"—we know for a fact that dazai attempted suicide at age fourteen (though we do not know if this was his first attempt). may indicate that PB is aware of dazai's attempt. >>could also just be a generic greeting that i'm reading into. who knows?

see: "have you been bullied by the doctor?"—the term "the doctor" indicates a sense of familiarity; PB does not need to specify further. this means that PB knows that dazai is in mori's care, or at least in regular contact with him. >>please note that it is unclear how much knowledge PB has of the outside world in death. >>furthermore: while this is more of an interpretational piece of evidence, the phrasing here comes across as mocking. PB is bitter that dazai was complicit in his assassination. one would not be bitter in such a way unless they felt somehow betrayed.

see: "dazai smiled stiffly."—possibly invalid due to translational errors and liberty, but dazai is capable of keeping his cool even in the most dire of circumstances. to intentionally mention that his smile is stiff could indicate one of two things: one, that dazai is pretending to be uncomfortable on purpose, or two, that dazai is honestly uncomfortable and stressed and is attempting to disguise this. as the first does not make sense in this particular situation, the latter must be true. >>please note that dazai was already out of his comfort zone in this scene, as the previous events had clearly taken him by surprise. make of that what you will.

see: "how's your back pain? your complexion is looking nice."—all imply that dazai knew both a) the exact issues of PB's illness, and b) how PB looked before said illness severely affected him, or at least knew him in illness long enough to draw an accurate comparison. >>could also just be generic mocking, as dazai at least knew that PB was in poor health. not necessarily indicative of further knowledge.

see: "wasn't it a good thing that you died?"—this can be taken a multitude of ways, but the way i initially interpreted it is that dazai has a personal opinion on the way PB was running the port mafia. in this interpretation, "good thing" is being applied for the people. however, dazai is explicitly amoral. so what could this mean? dazai may be saying that it is a "good thing" in a purely business sense. maybe he was projecting his own suicidal tendencies onto PB. maybe he was saying that it's what PB would have wanted in his right mind. no particular conclusions to draw here, but i thought it was worth analyzing.

see: "boss—no, previous boss."—dazai instinctually refers to PB as "boss." if he had not frequently referred to him this way in the pass, he would not have made the freudian slip. the correction, too, gives his words a certain level of mocking. you were the boss, but you're not anymore. dazai must have known PB or known of PB long enough to both form an opinion on him and to view him as "the boss."

conclusion: it makes the most sense that dazai knew the boss on a personal level.

thus begs the question: if dazai referred to PB as "boss," why was he not already a part of the mafia? multiple theories:

dazai was a part of the mafia, but mori simply didn't know and dazai did not correct him. extremely unlikely, as dazai says that being in the mafia might be worth a try, which means he hadn't tried it previously, as well as hirotsu claiming that dazai is "unrelated to the mafia."

dazai performed some other duty for PB separate from mafia duties.

dazai was PB's son/ward, and "boss" was what PB insisted he be called.

however: dazai was asked to join the sheep when he was young ("a long time ago" when he was fifteen). as far as we know (or can ever expect to know), the sheep exclusively recruit "down-on-their-luck" youth or homeless kids. this means that dazai must have been defined as one of the two at some point. with our two remaining conclusions (the first having been crossed off an account of unlikelihood), we can justify this in two ways:

if dazai performed some other duty separate from the mafia under PB, it gives him ample time to have a life outside the mafia. we do not know enough to speculate on what that life may have been, just that he was likely homeless at some point when he was very young.

if dazai was PB's son/ward, he must have either run away at some point or simply been out and about enough for the sheep to mistake him as homeless or "down on his luck."

either conclusion is equally likely, and thus equally unlikely!

hence, undeniable conclusions (tl;dr):

knew PB prior to his death.

did not know mori very well, if at all.

traumatized before he and mori assassinated PB (assuming his behavior and outlook is a result of trauma in combination with a personality/mental disorder).

at some point was frequently on the streets.

even if you disagree with these conclusions, please be kind! feel free to add anything if you think there's something i overlooked/misinterpreted.

[icycream-catqueen]

Kindling (When You’re Burning Low)

Cinder would rather burn herself out than risk a low grade; fortunately, Neo knows how to make her relax.

Rating: T

Tone: Some angst, lots of supportiveness, and a fluffy ending

Word Count: ~5,000

Important Tags: College AU, Established Relationship

I was gonna post this before now but I had problems with writing it and I was nervous about participating in a ship week especially when I only have something written for one prompt, and also my cat was sleeping on me for five whole hours earlier tonight while I was trying to finish up and as everyone knows it is a crime to disturb a snoozing kitty cat. I hope it still counts. ^_^;

Considering it’s pretty long, I only have an excerpt (the first scene I wrote for this fic, actually) on this post; the whole thing is, of course, over on AO3!

On this fine Saturday afternoon, Cinder was taking advantage of the lounge in the dorm suite. The coffee table was half-claimed by various books and notes while Cinder herself was settled at the same end of the couch, her laptop perched on the arm of it and her right side pressed closely against the suede upholstery as she struggled with the perfect phrasing for her essay. Failure was never an option for her, and even the slightest error would lead to it when it came to this class. She was running on pure caffeine by now, from a supposedly unhealthy amount of coffee. This was her third or fourth solid day of being awake. After the first night, she’d moved her setup from her room to the lounge to help her stay more alert. Winter and Emerald had both tried to tell her what was best for her wellbeing, but she’d firmly shut down their arrogance; she knew her own limits, and she needed to get this stupid project done. Neo, thankfully, had been out of town from Thursday morning to last night, and when she’d come back to the suite, she’d trudged straight to her room and shut the door. Cinder had only seen a couple brief glimpses of her since. Just as well, considering Cinder couldn’t intimidate her into letting her be like she could to Emerald and Winter.

At the moment, Emerald and Winter were both out of the building. They’d each probably told her what they were doing, but she hadn’t bothered to remember it. Neo was apparently still asleep, which was a bit odd but not enough so to risk seeing the pitiful kicked-puppy expression that appeared when her sleep was disturbed. Still, if she wasn’t up and about in two hours, it would be worth it to check on her mental and physical health.

Speak of the devil, Cinder heard a door open behind her. She didn't bother to look, though, until she realized the shuffling footsteps were approaching the couch instead of the kitchen, bathroom, or shower. She took a brief glance, then did an immediate double take because Neo looked absolutely miserable. Her hair was unbrushed and her eyes were dull. The oversized black sweatshirt (which Cinder recognized by the fiery orange phoenix on the front as one of her own that had mysteriously vanished a few weeks ago) and the brown and pink plaid pajama pants were probably what she'd worn to bed the night before, and she hadn't even bothered to put on socks. It was worrying to see her in such a state.

"You certainly look worse for wear," Cinder commented. Neo pouted at her as she slowly made her way to the couch and sank to the cushions. Before Cinder could react, Neo flopped down, squirmed to lay her head in her lap, and rolled onto her back. "I'm busy," Cinder told her sternly.

Neo's response was a soft and pitiful keening sound. She fumbled to grab Cinder's left wrist, staring up at her with pleading doe eyes.

"Neo. I'm busy," Cinder repeated. Neo whined and tugged on her wrist, so Cinder rolled her eyes and stopped resisting, curious about what she wanted. She wasn't sure what she was expecting, but she was definitely taken by surprise when Neo gently guided her hand under the hem of her sweatshirt and pressed it against her lower stomach.

What is she trying to accomplish here? Cinder raised an eyebrow at the woman in her lap. Neo let go of her wrist to sign something at her. The odd angle made it hard to translate, so it took a few seconds for Cinder to understand what she was asking for and why.

"I suppose I can take a short break, if you're really in that much pain," she relented. "You're lucky you're cute," she added as she carefully activated her Semblance.

The reaction was instant. Neo sighed with relief at the warmth, eyes full of soft gratitude and affection. Cinder rubbed slow, small circles over her stomach, feeling the smaller woman go languid under her touch. After a few more seconds, Neo's eyes fluttered closed.

"Is this warm enough?" Cinder asked. Neo nodded, a content smile playing across her lips. "Just ten minutes."

Neo opened her eyes and pouted at her.

"There is a reason I've been awake for," Cinder checked the time on her laptop, "about eighty hours now." Neo looked positively outraged.

"You need to sleep," she signed—easily decipherable now that Cinder had gotten a little more time to adjust to her current perspective. Not that the message was very appreciated.

"No, what I need is to finish this ridiculous project so I can move on to my two remaining essays, do all the work for a 'group project' because the rest of my assigned group are immature and unmotivated idiots, and study for my three exams this week," Cinder retorted.

"When are your essays due?"

Cinder elected not to answer, since admitting the due dates were two and three weeks away respectively wouldn't help her against Neo's accusatory glare.

"Your group project?"

Okay, so maybe it hadn't technically been assigned yet and was scheduled to be due in a month and a half, but all the information was in the syllabus. Cinder's class was full of imbeciles, and somehow she always got stuck in a group with some idiot or another who didn't understand what a lesbian was, so she was getting it out of the way to avoid interacting with anyone.

"Are all three of your exams actually this week?"

Two of them, and one of those barely counted more towards the final grade in the class than a small quiz. Her continued silence was answer enough; Neo knew her too well.

"You're going to burn yourself out again." Neo's eyes were unbearably sad, so Cinder looked away.

"I'm fine," she dismissed the concern. A hand grabbed her chin and yanked her head down so her eyes met Neo's again.

"I watched you collapse in the middle of campus last year, and I almost got in trouble for pulling a knife on the paramedics to make them let me stay with you. I got a scared video call from Winter four months ago because you fainted in her fancy rich-person hot tub and nearly drowned," Neo reminded her. “Do I need to go on?”

"I can handle it this time," Cinder insisted, growing agitated. Neo took a calming breath before responding.

"No you can't. You always say it but you never can. You end up in an exhausted daze. You work yourself into a frenzy. You get into fits of rage...which honestly scare me."

"I would never lay a hand on—!" Cinder was cut off when Neo pressed a finger to her lips.

"Not for myself. I'm scared you'll lose control and take it out on yourself again," Neo corrected her. "You haven't in a while, but..." Neo trailed a hand down Cinder's left arm, tracing her scars.

"I just...I need to...I have to keep working. I can't let myself fall behind. I can't..." Cinder faltered. Neo sighed.

"I know," she acknowledged. She knew about the past, knew why Cinder relapsed into these desperate attempts to excel, to stay ahead. "But it's pointless if you destroy yourself trying."

"I've only ended up being sent to the hospital three times since I started college," Cinder argued. Neo was unimpressed.

"Congratulations! And you've managed to barely avoid hospitalization how many times now?"

"I—that isn't relevant!" Cinder hissed. Neo scowled.

"Really? It's not? How many times have you ended up so exhausted that you were bedridden for days? How many times have you gone into a mental decline because you were incapacitated? And how many more times are you going to make me watch you suffer like that?"

"If you want to leave me, just get it over with!" Cinder spat bitterly. Neo's eyes widened, hurt and shocked. Cinder flinched, realizing she'd crossed a very important line. "I didn't mean...I don't know why I said that."

"An abandonment complex, emotional instability, a mess of insecurities you mask with your ego, previous girlfriends who couldn't handle you or only wanted your body...and like I've been saying, you need sleep,” Neo replied, recovering. "Also, my cramps?"

"What?" Cinder realized she'd subconsciously deactivated her Semblance at some point and quickly remedied that. "Oh. Sorry."

"I'm going to make a deal with you," Neo informed her abruptly. Cinder raised an eyebrow, intrigued.

"What kind of deal?"

"The 'ridiculous project' you're trying to finish. Tell me about it, and I'll explain," Neo replied. Cinder clenched her teeth at the mere mention of it.

"It's an assigned experiment, a five to ten-page report on it, and an oral presentation. And the professor hates me. He goes out of his way to make every class, every test, and every assignment hell for me. I have to work harder than anyone so he can't get away with failing me out of spite. If I make even one mistake..." she growled.

"When is it due?"

"The day after tomorrow. It was assigned two weeks ago, but three days ago he realized he 'accidentally' gave me the wrong experiment. In other words, he's making me do a two-week project within five days—after I'd already finished the one he previously assigned me."

"Watts," Neo guessed. Cinder had come back from his class angry enough times that it wasn't even a question.

"Yeah," she confirmed anyway. Neo wrinkled her nose.

"I already hated that guy, and I hated him more and more every time you came back from his class in a bad mood, but this shit he's pulling now is the final straw, so I'm going to get him fired," she declared. Cinder let out an amused huff.

"And how will you do that?" she asked. She didn’t expect an actual answer but Neo didn't even hesitate.

"It may include breaking and entering, small and well-placed incidents, a flat tire, some bottles of the expensive alcohol he isn't supposed to have on campus, a sedative, and if we're lucky, a little inadvertent assistance from gravity and Ironwood."

"Just how long have you been planning this?" Cinder was taken aback at the immediate response. Neo considered.

"The time you locked me out of your dorm after his class because you were so furious you wanted to hit something, and you were worried you'd see so much red you might accidentally hit me in blackout rage. You've never told me what happens in his class to make you so angry, or even if it's actually him or just another student—though I was pretty sure it was him—so I planned for both situations."

"I'm impressed," Cinder commented. Neo smirked. “Now what was that ‘deal’ you mentioned?”

"You finish the report for your project, then eat something more substantial than coffee and whatever quick snacks you've been living off of for the past few days. And then we go to my dorm and you get some damn sleep."

"How did you know I'm working on the report right now?" Cinder was taken aback. "And how do you know I haven't been eating?"

"Because I can see it on your computer. And once again, you've done this before, so I know you don't take the time for more than the minimum amount of food to keep hunger from 'distracting' you," Neo pointed out, almost accusingly.

"I haven't even started working on the oral presentation. I'll do all that after I'm completely finished."

"Nope. You can start that part when you're well-rested. If you make me physically drag you to bed while I'm on my period, I'll make damn sure you regret it," Neo threatened with a scowl.

“Fine,” Cinder gave in reluctantly. Neo smiled brightly, and dammit, it was nigh impossible for Cinder to stay bitter in the face of such genuine fondness, joy, and relief. She wondered when she’d gotten so soft—even if only a select few people got to see that soft part of her—and realized she didn’t even mind anymore.