#for that two english speaking ones who might read this post until this point

[tonhalszendvics]

I follow some ppl who went nuts for She Who Became the Sun, and since it's the best kind of advertisement for me, I obviously read it, and was baffled. So good. Can recommend.

I tend to read actual published books mostly in my native language since, y'know, I'm pretty sure the translator speaks the og language better than me. Turns out this book is a duology and everyone and their mother already read book 2 and I'm here with book 1, which was released in 2023.

However. Someone thought that they should just use the Hungarian transcript for the names, which is kinda okay for me, since I don't speak Chinese at all and had to beg for a pronunciation chart for MDZS (but in my mind I still said those names as they were written. Let's not talk about it.) My Chinese speaking friend almost cried blood when she saw the names.

Long story short, it took me a while to decipher that people are talking about those books in detail, bc Ouyang is the only one who I was able to recognise from those posts. Esen? Who's that? Oh, you mean Jeszün, aaaaa

Here I am, avoiding spoilers like bullets in the Matrix with the power of language barrier

[ohoh-inmortal]

A Good man

💀Summary: A mission in Mexico doesn't go according to plan and you end up saving two children's lives. Ghost lets the vulnerability he had hidden so much slip a bit.

💀Pairing: Ghost x F!Reader

💀Warnings: canon typical violence, angst, fluff, established relationship situationship, children!, Ghost being an emotional wreck, passionate lovemaking (blink and you'll miss it)

A/N: so this was originally half a chapter of a fanfic that I'm gathering the concentration to finish but I wanted to post something so here you go lol. If more people like it I might follow it up from here or just make a part 2.

Also this is no beta read and English is not my first language so if you see some grammar mistakes no you didn't.

Fucking with cartels had never been easy, but now you had fucked up. Your mission was to infiltrate a neighborhood in a town near Las Almas and the rest of the team would follow up to take down one of their bases and get closer to capture their leader.

The first part went smoothly, until you noticed the civilians practically fleed the neighborhood in an instant and lots of cars full of armed men coming.

You had managed to make it past the Neighborhood into the rural area. Your legs burned from running so fast and for so long, there was a pressure in your chest from agitation and your lungs were full of the familiar smoke of dirt, gunpowder, and blood. The noise of war around you made it hard to concentrate on where you were going.

Ghost was some feet away from you, into an abandoned construction and directed you to stop and cover. Your body was grateful for the break.

"We need to get outta 'ere as fast as we can. These bastards won't give up" he had to speak on the radio, as you were hiding in different places of the construction.

"Roger that"

"Let's move" he ordered.

But as you grabbed your weapon closer to you, prepared to run again, you heard a shuffle between the pieces of wood that you were sure had been a closet before.

Warily, you got closer as your hand rested on the gun on your thigh; ready to shoot if someone jumped. As you tore open the door, you were found with runny noses and two little bodies hugged tightly. The oldest on was maybe about 7 years old, and the youngest could have been older than 3 years old.

"Ghost, you copy? There are children in here" You spoke on the radio again, shocked.

"Children?!"

"There's two, they were hidden. I need help to take them to safety!" You said desperately.

"Negative. They're shooting at us, hunting us. It's too dangerous, both for them and for us"

Just as he ended that sentence, you started hearing explosions and guns again. They were near and you felt your heart sink. How were you going to leave those two poor kids scared and alone to die?

"I need you to come with me, I'm gonna make sure you are safe, okay?" You said to them as softly as you could in spanish.

The older one just nodded and you caged them in your arms, running outside. There you met Ghost, who as soon as he saw you with both children shook his head in disapproval but grabbed one in his arms nonetheless.

Soon you reached the extraction point, where an agitated Alejandro and Rudy were waiting outside the SUV and you could see the confusion on their faces.

"What the hell?" Alejandro whispered "We checked the area, and there were no civilians"

"They were hidden in an abandoned house" you explained "I couldn't let them there" you shook your head.

Alejandro just nodded and opened the door for you. On the other side, Ghost also sat in the backseat and Rudy got into the driver's seat.

The children's little bodies began to shake and tears left a clear path on their dirty cheeks, so you embraced one in each arm and rubbed their backs and arms encouragingly.

Ghost stared intensely at you, though you couldn’t figure out if he did it with admiration like Alejandro and Rudy or disapproval. Maybe none, maybe a mix of both. But the fact that he had such intense eyes plus his mask didn't help to calm the children.

He sensed it, so he moved closer to the door and away from you and the children, promising himself he would stop. He was used for people to fear him, the feeling should be nothing new yet something inside of him died when the fear in someone else's eyes reflected on his own.

He hadn't always been like this.

You noticed the kids staring at him warily.

"You must not fear him, he's a good man," you said to the kids in Spanish as you gazed at him "He protected you, he carried you here, remember?"

They nodded and their gaze softened on the soldier.

A knot formed on his throat and he had to tear his eyes from you and look away to the window. How, after all he has done, could he be a good man? Hadn't he killed thousands, a lot of them innocents and foreign to war like these children? How could you even dare to think he was good? You must be either blind or insane, he thought.

As soon as the truck stopped at the base he got out straight as a bullet to his room. He couldn't bear to see you now, he couldn't bear for you to see him like this; he was scared that accidentally he could let a bit of his tarnished soul slip and see the light of you.

In the meantime, you were in charge of the children so the team could do research to know who their parents were and what they would do with them.

You cleaned and fed them, and kept them distracted from the horrors they had lived just a few hours ago. Playing, drawing and reading tales with both until the sun went down and their tired round faces started to yawn. The older kid quickly fell asleep on the couch, but the youngest one extended his arms for you to grab them up.

His head was still a mess of fresh emotions and deeply set wounds, but he knew he couldn't just stay there for eternity. What he didn't expect was to see you pacing in the hallway quietly humming a lullaby, holding a small body against your own and caressing the messy-haired head on your chest.

You placed the youngest kid next to the other and when you noticed him, your gaze softened into almost a smile.

"Are you alright? We haven't seen you since we arrived here" you asked concerned.

"How are they?" He changed the subject away from him, and he sounded concerned too.

"They are fine, we played all afternoon so they got tired. Alejandro is looking for their parents or relatives" you explained, gazing at them.

He just nodded and silence flooded the room. You reached for your pocket and pulled out a folded paper, which you extended to him.

"They made this in the afternoon, they wanted to give it to you but we didn't find you"

He delicately grabbed the paper and his breath hitched when he saw it; It was a doodle of him in his mask smiling, and you, each kid grabbing one of your hands. In one of the corners, the phrase "I'm not scared of ghosts anymore" was written in wobbly letters and grammatical errors.

He traced his hand over the drawing, like if it was going to vanish any time, like he couldn't believe it was real.

You stepped closer to him and searched for his eyes, which were full of emotion. You knew he didn't like much physical contact but you couldn't find another way to show him how grateful you were without scaring him for good, so you softly placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Thank you," you said in a small voice "Truly…for helping me to rescue them. I know I should've followed your orders but…"

"You don't need to apologize," he assured in a deep voice. I'm glad you didn't follow them, he almost added.

"I wasn't going to" you smirked.

You hated how unpredictable he was, how he looked at those he hated and those he didn't in the same intense way. When you saw his eyes linger too much on your lips you knew you were part of the second group.

With a small tug on your arm he pulled you closer to him as he kissed your lips over his balaclava.

You stumbled until you reached his room and as soon as both were inside he pulled the balaclava up until his lips were uncovered.

His kisses were hungry, not in a lustful way but in an emotional way. Like he needed something to ground himself and that something was your lips. Your hands found his face, caressing it so tenderly it made him hug you closer to his body.

You parted from his lips a bit, catching your breath. Still, you gazed at him for a moment.

"You are so good, Simon" you whispered sincerely, your hands still gently on his face.

His hand traveled from your waist to the back of your neck, and he pushed to kiss you again this time deeper. Soon his hands started to wander and you ended up naked with his towering body hovering yours.

It was the most sensual and passionate you both have ever been. Slow, yet powerful and deep. The way he grabbed and hugged you hard but also caressed you so softly. His head buried in the crook of your neck and his hips between your legs, which were caging his waist as tightly as your hands did with his back and shoulders.

That, until he remembered how you make him feel. The confusion and frustration you brought along into his life, the vulnerability he had deprived himself for so long. His thrusts became rougher, but he couldn't bring himself to be cold or distant with you. Not after today, not after you were so gentle even when he didn't deserve it.

His hips stutter and by the way you moaned into his ear he knew you were close too. Your foreheads met as he buried himself deeply within you and you gasped when you felt waves of pleasure through you.

He hovered over you, his eyes intensely didn't miss a second of your face.

"What?" You asked.

Of course, he didn't respond, instead laying beside you. You sat on the bed, ready to get your clothes and leave in silence.

"Stay"

"Hmm?" you asked, not sure of what he said.

"You can stay if you want" he ran a hand through his messy hair, trying to hide his face.

"Don't you mind they might see me coming out of your room in the morning?"

"No," he simply answered.

You gave him a little smile and lay down again.

[emzii-hi]

MY OPINION ON THE FOREVER SITUATION

I would like to start to say this hurts me as a fan of forever and that I would honestly want to stay neutral and keep out of this whole thing until its be clarified but will keep tabs on whats going on. I do not speak on behalf of forever this Soley my thoughts and opinions. I do not know the culture of Brazil and i speak only from experience when i make connections. And the whole reason I am righting this is that I want to just get it off my chest. THIS IS A VERY VERY LONG POST!!

First of all i have seen the tweets and have watched the whole stream that forever streamed talking about this. I would also like to say that I speak and can read portugués so I feel like I can confidently form a well informed opinion based on what is being put out there. And i will talk about each part separately and then give my final opinion

THE TWEETS

The tweets are in no other words gross and very concerning and that's honestly all you can say about them. He was very obviously over what we know is the legal age and was talking about/towards minors fan or not is gross. Concerning about every other ableist and sexist tweets again are gross and shows a lack of maturity that he had at that age.

IMFORMATION/PEOPLE ONLINE

The way people especially English speaker from what I can see is actually crazy that people and assume information then spread THEIR opinion as fact towards other people. Whether the information is correct your opinion is not fact. sharing and putting your opinion of the information is okay but don't go around spreading your information as fact because it can be more hurtful then helpful to both parties.

Also this is another language AND culture. I feel like people speaking online about his voice sounding this or the way he phrase this are mainly English/Spanish speaking and even if Spanish is similar we do not know all their tones and cultural cues

Also a big thank you to everyone who is translating the information about everything that is happening you are all doing gods work and me and everyone in the community appreciate you

STREAM

On stream today forever both talked about the drama and the way he is handling it.

LAWYER/LEGAL ISSUES

I see a lot of people complaining and saying he must be guilt if he is lawyering up. Now this has two faces. ONE is that yea okay of he is so innocent why does he have to lawyer up it makes no sense. And to an extent i can agree with as like if you have nothing to hide. Especial if maybe the same victim is not able to get a lawyer.

But on the second side think about this logically. If you were accused of a crime petty or not your first thought is clearing your name. He is lawyering up in a way that is able to clear his name is a legal sense. Why can't and wouldn't he be able to defend himself is he MIGHT of truly not done something.

Another people were hoping that he would at least say sorry about what he did to the victim. But i would like to put it out there that if he is taking the legal route and he is getting a lawyer and defense to help him, if he were to say anything at the moment that made him seem guilty like admitting to the allegations would be used against him. Obviously this is in thoughts that the victim/s are taking any action towards Forever other that just stating it on the internet.

HIS OLD TWEETS

First things that i want to say is that one we do not unless you are Brazil know the culture. I am part Mexican and I can say that you will find a lot of men (more like boys) that joke like this. I can say from experience like that one of my ex and his friends that would joke like this a lot and people in Valorant joke like this ALL OF THE TIME. Is it wrong yes, did it make me feel super uncomfy yes. Point is that people usually joke like this and it was way more common back in the earlier 2010s, even fucking racist jokes where consider super funny until like super crack woke era came. He in the stream was like did I say this yes and I was wrong and I am not the person I was back then. For me I am like okay that's valid. PEOPLE CAN CHANGE. People can grow and mature. A school bully can become a better person. The fanfics we read where the mean person becomes nicer is change. Character development, character growth, maturing, call it what you will it does happen and honestly I am shock that people will point at someone that wasn't always they way they are now go 'OMG YOUR THE DEVIL NOW WHY DID YOU DECIEVE MY EXPECTATIONS'. Again this is not me defending Forever for his past tweets but more of me saying that you cant judge a person sometimes because of their past. This man probably met people that slapped sense and knowledge into him that he was like wtf I was a shit person.

Him deleting his old post is him starting a new and trying to show the person he is now and not the person he was and no longer agrees with. I would do the same if I posted something and just not longer agreed with it cause people do change and learn and grow new opinion whether for better or worse.

HIS POPULARITY

He also talked about how its kind of ironic that this claim/s has come to light right after his popularity has hit an all time high especially after the QSMP. And how every claim/s has first started on Twitter when theirs not actual legal action be taken into consideration by the victims. (from what i can tell) THIS DEOS NOT MEAN FOREVER IS INNOCENT. This just means keep an open mind. If people are able to send raid officers, break into streamers house, dox them online I would not put it past people faking a very gross and traumatic experience that effects actual peoples lives and hurts ACTUAL VICTIMS.

THE PERSON THAT PASSED AWAY

There was this person named Choquel (trigger warning) committed suicide due to a gossip blog spreading around false information. This person was who had a life and family that are now in shambles just because people wanted to spread rumors. I hope that they rest in peace and are enjoying their after life. And I send prayers to their family and hope for the best for them. I honestly don't feel comfortable taking 100% on this mainly cause idk a lot and this is just what ik about this situation but full am sadden that the world lost a person that could of made a change in someone's life but ended up taking their own because of others and their words.

OTHER STREAMER UNFOLLOWING/BANNING FOREVER

I do not know much on this aspect put from what I can see and do know is that a lot of people are unfollowing forever and even people from close circles like: PHIL, & BIRIUM.

I think this has two sides one is the very obvious opinion. They unfollowed because they believe the claims/have actual information that has not been released. And if they do and that's is why they unfollowed him then GOOD FOR THEM. I am glad they are standing in solidarity with the victim.

BUT on the other hand, is just in my opinion is that they just don't want to drag into drama that might effect them as streamer/person just for following the person being accused even if they don't support that person. Then again I do not have the information to be able to fully understand this.

MY FINAL CONCLUSION

I am going to remove myself from the forever community but will keep my eye out for any update. This can go either way, and if the victim is an actual victim and not someone that is just hateful, then I hope you get your Justice and forever gets the punishment and karma that he deserves. If forever truly is innocent then I wish him Goodluck on clearing is name.

I am really sad that this has happened to us as a community especially right now in the new year. I am sorry and give my condolences to any victim in this situation which includes, his wife, the victims that brought this to light, any past victims in the past from his tweets, and his friends.

Overall this situation is a bad situation and if its like what the community believes to be which is true then keep boycotting forever, keep spreading information/translations, and supporting the victims. But please do not send hate to fans in the community who choose to continue to support and enjoy Forever. They are fans and entitled to their opinion and do not deserve any hate towards them.

Again this whole thing is my opinion and thoughts if you have questions or concerns or feel that I missed something please let me know. IF you had or are going through grooming/sa/domestic violence speak to someone please trust me you will find people in life that will treat you and support you in the way you need and want.

Stay safe and warm. Eat and drink water

-EMZII OUT-

[chaosfairy18]

Spelling lessons

A short (2k) fic with the idea that I posted recently of Dutchy not being able to understand English spelling (and being annoyed about it) and then accepting some help from Specs

It has some Decs (DutchyxSpecs) at the end because it was too cute not to (Also Dutchy's name is Zacharias and Specs' Victor, there is only a small scene that is relevant, but it can't hurt to say)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

English spelling might be Dutchy‘s nemesis actually.

It wasn’t like he couldn’t write, he’d learned back in elementary school in the Netherlands, he knew the alphabet, thank you very much, and he also knew how to speak German – they lived close to the border – and even read most of it because it just looked similar, he could at least guess the meaning if he had to and since he knew how to speak it, it wasn’t too difficult to grasp reading or writing, all in all.

French was harder, but since there had been some people speaking French in his little town, he’d also learned speaking that.

He might have been an annoying kid, always hanging on their lips and asking for more words, more things to learn, but it was just too interesting to him.

Now he couldn’t really write much in French, he’d learnt a bit back then, but it wasn’t enough, not really.

Then he’d gone on that ship to America with his aunt and uncle. The time they had took to get to America was more than enough to grasp the basics of English, especially due to its similarities to French, Dutch and German. The men and women Dutchy had spent every day learning the language from mostly hadn’t been able to read though, and it wasn’t like he had to learn that. He knew how to read, it couldn’t be that hard.

After being basically ditched by his aunt and uncle he’d quickly found the lodging house – after all he had learnt the language and could ask around where a boy with some money could find work or a place to stay – and Kloppman hadn’t believed he was only there for less than a day, though he was even more impressed when he correctly guessed his accent and started talking in German which was still easier than English though it wouldn’t take long until he didn’t care what he spoke.

Now all that was well and good if it weren’t for the fact that he had to sell newspapers that had headlines. See, these newspapers were sometimes available in Dutch or German, but of course most were in English and for some reason the Americans or the Brits had decided to make their spelling the most confusing thing in existence. If he heard one of the other newsies say the headline, he knew exactly what it meant, but combining that with the letters he saw on the board? It felt impossible, even now.

Maybe it was his pride in knowing languages that kept him from asking anyone for help, maybe it was that he avoided the language classes in the lodge and instead took the ones on math, but at this point he was almost dead set to not comply with this idiotic spelling in newspapers.

That didn’t mean he could read the headline any better.

“What’s it say?”, he asked Skittery, pretending he was just cleaning his glasses and therefore couldn’t see it right now.

Skittery, who had been reading a novel of some kind as he was standing in line scoffed and snapped his book shut, obviously annoyed. “It says ‘learn to read, idiot’.”

Dutchy froze as he was just about to put on his glasses again. What had he just called him? He could read, in two (and a half) languages even, he could even write and speak more languages than Skittery could probably name, and he dared call him an idiot-

“Says the guy that fell into the river last week.”, interrupted Specs, subtly pushing Dutchy away from Skittery before he really could let the situation escalate and call Skittery names in 4 different languages and whatever else he had picked up over the years.

“That don’t make me an idiot, clumsy maybe. And I got shoved.”

The tall boy quickly got engrossed in his novel again, only looking up if Tumbler was running around him, otherwise ignoring them.

“You aren’t an idiot.”, was the first thing Specs said to him, all quiet as if it was a secret.

“I know. It’s not my fault English is so-“

“You can’t keep not learnin’ because you don’t want to, Dutch.” Specs pushed his hands in his pant pockets. “I could help you, if you want.”

Dutchy’s first instinct was to bite back that he didn’t need help, but maybe he did. And Specs was his closest friend, it wasn’t like he was making fun of him. “If you’re offerin’.”

“You could read books if you learnt. Spoil the ends for Skitts.”

He snorted, hitting Specs with his elbow. “You’ve seen me read books.”

“Not in English.”

“Fine. I’ll let you help.”

They got their papes from Wiesel – every day Dutchy had to bite back a comment on it was actually Weasel because he knew how to read that word – and split up to sell, Specs saying he’d come by later to start their ‘lessons’.

Of course, Specs had to keep his word, one unsold pape and a book in hand, bowler hat and vest already discarded somewhere in the bunk room. He wouldn’t get out of it then.

Shame.

Dutchy let himself be dragged to the roof, the evening sun making the temperatures comfortably warm rather than sweltering. Specs dragged some crates to the middle of the roof, and they sat down around them, the newspaper and book placed on them.

“So, you can read the alphabet fine, right? That’s the same.”

“Again: You’ve seen me read a book and write my name.”

Specs rolled his eyes. “Yes, just wanted to make sure.” He opened up the first article of the World. “Maybe it’ll help if I read it to you. You know the words, then you’ll see the spelling as I say it.”

Shrugging, he moved a bit closer to Specs so he could properly see the line he had his finger under to indicate what he was reading. He didn’t want help like this, but since at a first glance he could only read the shorter words in the article he probably did need it.

Sadly.

“Man with parachute leaps from Brooklyn Bridge-“

“Wait that’s how you spell bridge? Where is the e coming from?” He could live with silent letters, at least if there was an explanation for them.

Specs pinched the bridge of his nose. “I dunno the rules, Zach. Just- read with me, okay?”

The rest of the article was interesting enough – the man had used a modified umbrella to jump of the bridge and had only barely survived – but Dutchy wasn’t sure how much he was learning yet. Some words he knew and recognized, others he was completely stunned as to where that spelling could come from and if he could remember them.

“I don’t think it’s working.”, he sighed after the third article.

“We just started today. Rome wasn’t built in a day and all’at.”

Dutchy bit back his retort and just kept listening to Specs read, trying to recognize words he’d heard today before.

Of course, the lessons didn’t stop after a day. Contrary to what Dutchy had hoped for, Specs was very good at remembering it every evening and dragging him to the rooftop, going through more articles or through a chapter of a book.

And even worse: He had to admit it was working.

Especially in papes there were headlines that came again and again, so he recognized almost everything on the chalkboard every morning now, there were just a few words that he had to quietly ask Specs about.

That also meant that he began to slack a bit in their lessons. It was working, but he didn’t like admitting to being wrong, so he still sat there – he was Specs’ friend after all and he was going through a lot of trouble to teach him – but he wasn’t listening to his every word anymore, instead looking up to see his dark eyes trace the words and his mouth open again and again.

At first it wasn’t that intense, just looking at his friend a bit before going back to the tiny black words, but the more he looked at him, the more he had to admit that he was fascinating to watch. His eyes were dark, even in the light, pupil and iris not much different in colour, almost as dark as the coffee they got from the nuns in the morning when they were lucky.

Specs didn’t seem to notice whenever he wasn’t paying attention, so it happened more and more over the days.

And not just in their lessons either. Dutchy’s gaze was drifting to Specs more and more frequently while selling, eating in the lodge, standing in line at the distribution centre and when they got ready for the day in the morning.

As already stated, Dutchy wasn’t an idiot, there weren’t a lot of reasons why he would be drawn to his friend so much. It was obvious, really, and the last few lessons he had spent his time half listening to Specs – he always looked so sad if Dutchy didn’t get any of the words they already went over – and half planning to show his affections to him.

Reading out loud a chapter of one of the few romance books they had down in the lodge didn’t work – Specs was only happy that he had gotten through it with almost no stumbling over words – and the extra touches while selling together didn’t seem to work either.

Maybe he’d just have to be direct about it.

The next evening they sat on the rooftop of the lodge again and Dutchy let Specs talk a bit, attempting to explain why a specific word was spelt how it was – because of course after Dutchy complained that he didn’t get the rules he had looked them up and asked Kloppman because he was invested into helping his friends like that – and only getting distracted by the way his lips moved and his eyes shone just a bit brighter than usual.

It seemed as good a time as any.

Dutchy made Specs trail off by tilting his friend’s chin up with his finger and leaning in close. “Maybe for today I can teach you something, Victor.”

The other’s eyes grew wide and taking his quickly reddening face as confirmation Dutchy kissed him for a short moment, smiling as Specs chased after his lips just a bit when he leaned back.

“So you’re okay with that?”

“Very.”, croaked out Specs, still not completely convinced this was actually happening.

Smiling wider, Dutchy pulled his glasses off – he’d felt them press into each other uncomfortably in the first brief kiss – and leaned in again, just trying out how Specs’ lips felt against his, how it felt like to hold his jaw as he did so, how he reacted when he moved his hair out of his face.

Everything was as good as he’d thought, Specs also getting more comfortable throughout the minutes, he almost wasn’t burning red anymore when they separated again, Dutchy leaning his forehead against Specs’.

“Hope you liked the lesson.”, he whispered, glad he’d begrudgingly accepted the offer for spelling lessons weeks ago.

Specs looked at him like he’d just taught him all the secrets of the universe. “Yeah. I’d love more. Only if you-“

He gave him a peck on the cheek. “Of course, darling.”

That made Specs burn up again, putting his head in his hands and groaning. “You can’t just say that!”

“I can call you whatever I want, darling.”

Specs curled even more in on himself, ears completely red. “Stooop.”

Laughing more about his friend’s state, Dutchy leaned in closer and put an arm around his waist, closing his eyes and enjoying the heat of the evening sun and his new partner next to him.

[onewomancitadel]

A scattering of TWC impressions, which I played because a mutual posted fanart featuring a guy with long hair and I wanted to see if he had long hair in the game. The character my protagonist romanced only had long hair in a flashback. I told you, they are trying to contain me

That being said, I'll try to be fair:

By Book Two I was calling that the mother is a traitor, and I presume the epilogue in Book Three confirms this. My favourite silly thing that authors do is something like:

"I'll never forgive anybody who ever does this."

[Character who is later never forgiven for something immediately speaks]

"I sure hope nobody betrays us."

[Traitor speaks]

or in the case of TWC, every time a Rogue leader was mentioned, Rebecca immediately began speaking. It's just a subtle way of linking information together that most people aren't going to pick up on, outside of actual hard clues (e.g. there's the bit where Rebecca gets the pure DMB, and somehow Murphy had pure DMB on hand, the repeated emphasis on doing anything for her child, caginess about leaving being a leader of the Chamber/the dad thing, etc.)

I cannot imagine how much work it was to twine together a CYOA game and try to structure the prose as part of that experience, so I tried to be really gentle on that aspect when I am at my most critical with such a thing.

Present tense works best with first person (there is one time that I've read third person present tense and it's transcended my issues with it, I think because there was a real deft employment of where it's good for - especially sex scenes) in my experience because it reflects that natural English conversational tone, though my preference would still be first person past tense, for the sake of CYOA I can see why it was chosen. That being said, I think it really did struggle at points trying to marry a past tense reflectional tone to the present, and there were times that the description of the environment was especially clunky. I wrote a post about dialogue tags that was implicitly about this series lol.

I did pay for all three books so I'm not knocking on something a fan put their heart into, hahaha. To its detriment I think the quality of the prose depreciated by Book Three - having gone back to do a second playthrough to do a male protagonist/Morgan playthrough, I don't think this is recency bias. In terms of actual structure, Book Three probably has the overall better dramatic moments but experiences a weakening of connective tissue - lots of 'and then'..., and fewer scenes where I can smash my dollies together.

This really brings me to my issue which is that I didn't go in knowing it was all about romance, and I really wish - ironically - it had leant more into being about romance.

The plot is there to carry the development (which I enjoy, unless you are able to write something truly literary) up until it fell more like it was beginning to overwhelm it by Book Three - then again I hated the fake dating in Book Two because it's a beloathed trope of mine, so maybe I'm just hard to please. I think this might be an issue of the will-they-won't-they Adam romance, which - whilst I love slow burn and most of all absolutely love slow burn which dicks around - really needed to torture Adam more and torture my protagonist more to get the message through, I think in part a consequence of the tone of this sort of story which is trying to feel grounded, but I would choose sensible character development in exchange for tonal compromise (especially as it would be constrained to one route). I'm willing to be seated for people who try to stay away from each other - yess please yummy yummy - but you need to feel comfortable in getting the emotional cattle prod out.

And I wouldn't be so upset about the realism of portraying a 900 year old vampire knight unless the setting leant hard into that 'supernatural-but-realism' modern style of cynical writing... like, you can't have characters laugh about believing in God (when God structured that period of Adam's early life and magic is real and a Gnostic-esque Echo World is also real...) and then get mad at me when I want you to portray a 900 year old vampire knight properly. He sounds like a traumatised soldier from 20-30 years ago; did he change with the times? Did he never fit in back then anyway? I guess I just wanted to go weirder! Also what's his attitude to sex. Lol

Also the fact that human bloodsucking didn't come up until the end of Book Three made me very disappointed. I wanted him to try sucking her like as early as Book One. I wanted to suggest it as a thing to help them fighttttt but it could also be so so sexy. 🥰 It felt a little like dramatic scenes kind of get postponed. No idea what Murphy is doing now

That being said, the most important thing to me were the nonviolent resolutions and being nice to the monsters. I think the real reason I kept playing is because it did keep offering outcomes that let me try to be peaceful and show compassion to the big sad mean monsters... whether that was in the romance itself, or towards the antagonists, that was actually great fun.

It's not even something you necessarily get to do in a Bioware game because combat is considered the lifeblood of video games (maybe in some older games you can talk down the antagonist, thinking of the original Fallout here - but notably its sequel eschewed this, almost like a joke) and the type of character I tend to construct for this setting is the gentlest I can think of, just because such gentle characters are so rare. So it's very very valuable to me to get to play that.

That actually brings me into what I liked about the romances, which is that I never had to consistently hit a 'flirt' option - something I hate about how RPG's construct romance now - because that's not even how people become attracted to each other! - and it asked me what route I was going to take. Notably on my second playthrough, it asked me why I had been avoiding Morgan - so it actually integrated how you met those hidden romance checks into the storytelling, even when I went through a romance with fewer checks seemingly hit. (I think this might've been because I let her wait outside? But why would I force my character on her? Lol).

And because Detective Majestic (okay I was thinking of Destroy All Humans because cops/supernatural/special agencies, I wanted something silly, and then they kept using her surname the whole goddamned playthrough...) is so gentle, she never pushed Adam not even once, and it let me keep playing that way without punishing that playstyle because it didn't ~meet the romance checks~, but it also had romantic scenarios where neither of them let themselves do anything hahaha, which was amazing. This is probably the rarest portrayal of romance I've ever seen in a CYOA/RPG, and pretty much redeemed my experience because it was so fun to actually play something unique which met me halfway. That in itself is very hard to do - the reason you'd structure something linearly with absolute checks is just because this method is very complex to write. Now you've got more than 'romance - no romance' to write a route for.

So the discovery element was really the strongest, and I enjoyed it for that reason above all else. It let me be nice, pacifistic, and play a romance with a unique approach - and though I am not always the kindest on some requisite romance tropes (part of the reason I liked playing a gentle character is that I like the subversion of pushy romance tropes lol) it was admittedly quite fun!

I'm glad I checked it out, so now I know who is the one with long hair and who isn't, and though I am rather curmudgeonly, I had a little bit of fun. I can definitely see how this would service a rich transformative fandom - especially because I don't know if you could reasonably write a sex scene in the main story proper. Blood sucking might have to supplement it... that's what the vampire can be a facsimile for, just with a much more negative portrayal, lol. Probably a separate thesis to be written on why the vampire has enjoyed a burgeoning positive reception in modern romance.

[boonsmoon]

Relationship With Crimson Would Include...

Request: L idée que j avais était comment crimson et reader ( féminin ici) aurait avouer leurs sentiments ( qui aurait fait le premier pas) et comment ils se seraient mis en couple ( voyant le personnage crimson il aurait fait un plan suis sur ^^) ( je m excuse de parler en français car mon anglais est très nulle....) @emy0206

Translation: The idea I had was how crimson and reader (female here) would have confessed their feelings (who would have made the first move) and how they would have become a couple (seeing the crimson character he would have made a plan am sure ^^) ( I apologize for speaking in French because my English is very poor....)

So I'm basically doing this but rebranded, and yes it will be part of the Traitors Love series I decided to make this a more in-depth post about your relationship rather than just general headcanons

Request Chungus Masterlist Ragna Crimson Masterlist Series ML Crimson x f!reader Genres: Headcanons|Fluff|Romantic

Now in canon lore, you confessed while Crimson was having a breakdown

Now outside of canon lore, you still would have had to confess, Crimson was never going to take the initiative

You both didn't start calling yourself a 'couple' until humans started pointing out that y'all kinda look like you love each other

Obviously you couldn't do much being in Sun Cult territory, but as a way to 'make up' for a poor confession you asked Crimson to go out for a walk and just enjoy each others company

You did this because there was the assumption that it would take his mind off of being the leader for once, to let him relax and just be Crimson

He appreciated this, it was actually a much needed break and did help Crimson clear his mind, even get back to work with more vigor

As a thank you, Crimson returned a confession by getting you a fight with one of the Dragon Scourges, other than Ragna or himself, of course (you won btw)

Love language wise, as I said before Crimson's are acts of service and words of affirmation, so very often are you helping him regulate Slime and Ragna or complimenting his genius

In return, he is praising your strength, your battle prowess, how you hold yourself after the pain of a fight

ALSO as I said before, you two might be together, but Crimson is still the leader and gives all the orders, so while it is fine most of the time, it becomes difficult when you Slime not to do something and he replies, "You aren't Crimson-sama!"

It is also what leads to fights, while he doesn't mean to do it and it's out of habit, sometimes Crimson uses this as a way to order you when he'd rather not confront something

And yes, as all couples you two have fights or get into disagreements

While most consist of debating a change of plan, on some occasions it can be that Crimson has been ignoring you or others, sometimes he gets too demanding when he can simply ask a favor, or maybe you put yourself at risk in battle, other times you're simply too stubborn to listen to logic

It's small things like that Crimson and you focus on when improving, and it has made your relationship a lot happier and healthier

we love a beefy post

hope you enjoy reading as much as i enjoyed writing <3

[aurorawest]

Reading update

White Trash Warlock by David R Slayton - 4.75/5 stars

Urban fantasy with a protagonist from a trailer park, who, for bonus points, got sectioned by his older brother as a teen. Daddy issues, mommy issues, and brother issues, what's not to like? I ordered everything else by this author I could find when I finished the book, including the other two books in this series.

The Fascinators by Andrew Eliopulos - DNF

Boring.

The Revolutionary and the Rogue by Blake Ferre - DNF

Boring, with the added crime of actual plot happening but still, somehow, nothing actually happening. I kept reading whole pages and realizing I had no idea what I'd just read.

The Red Scholar's Wake by Aliette de Bodard - DNF

OMFG CAN I CATCH A BREAK. This was such a disappointing DNF, too, because I'd really been looking forward to it. One of the characters is a spaceship and it bills itself as a space opera? Yes please. But after the initial marriage of convenience setup, it's just all a bunch of pointless, boring conversations. Nothing happens. I flipped ahead. Still nothing happening. Not a space opera but definitely cozy sci-fi, which I think I officially hate.

Honeytrap by Aster Glenn Gray - 5/5 stars

An FBI agent and a GRU agent get assigned to work a case together in 1959 and they fall in looooove. But oof, this book was so good. I'm not sure I've ever had a time skip hit me in the gut so hard. I really can't recommend this book enough, it fits squarely in my niche interest of mid-century America or Britain m/m romance. I think Natasha Pulley also awakened something in me with The Half Life of Valery K, because I seem to be a sucker for gay Soviet men. Speaking of, if you liked The Half Life of Valery K, I bet you'll like this too! Anyway, read this, but be prepared to be hurt by it.

Ordinary Monsters by JM Miro - 4/5 stars

X-men meets Strangers Things with a dash of English boarding school, set in Victorian Britain.

Human Enough by ES Yu - DNF

Promising until it devolved into boring, pointless conversations and tumblr posts on neurodivergence.

Olympic Enemies by Rebecca J Caffery - DNF

I put this down on page 12 and my wife grabbed it to flip through it, cackling at the amateurish prose.

Frost Bite by J Emery - 4.5/5 stars

Snowed-in cabin fic with an enemies to lovers romance between a vampire and a (former) vampire hunter. It was cute and a quick read.

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner - DNF

Very Not Like Other Girls. Also read a review that said pregnancy was a huge focus of the book, and that's a squick for me.

Reverie by Ryan La Sala - 3.75/5 stars

This book didn't quite live up to the promise of its beginning (missing memories, bizarre disruptions to time and space) and the writing was a little twee at times, but overall I enjoyed it. This was the author's debut, so I suspect subsequent books will probably be better. I did feel like the teenage main characters were weirdly inured to death, which also contributed to me knocking of a quarter of a star from what would otherwise have been a solid 4 star book.

All Souls Near & Nigh by Hailey Turner - 3/5 stars

If you like The Tarot Sequence by KD Edwards, this series might be worth picking up. I will say, though, that it's nowhere near as good. I think it's a combination of pacing and too many characters that detracts from my enjoyment of this series. This is the second book and I enjoyed it more than the first, probably because I sort of remembered the massive cast of characters from the first one. It's one of those things where I really don't think they're all necessary and some should be combined with others. The pacing is also...weird. It's pretty much nonstop action. At one point I think the main character drove back and forth between various crime scene locations and his office like 5 times in a day.

That said! Despite the issues, clearly I still picked up book 2, and I'll probably read book 3 at some point. I really like the two main characters.

[transuncletaylor]

Gather around, it's time for my Christmas/Holiday story or how I got very lost in Seoul cause I'm a dumbass. (I'm gonna use she/her when referring to myself cause I was identifying as a woman then)

Picture it, it's December 2009 in Seoul, South Korea. Ya girl Taylor has been in the city for about two weeks at this point and the first time I had been to Korea. My sister was an English teacher at a hagwon (after school program) and I largely spent the afternoon and evenings exploring the city while she was at work.

Now before we delve into the meat of the story, there are a few things we need to establish. One, I can read the Korean alphabet and speak a little, just enough to get around. Two, I did not have a smartphone because it's 2009 and they weren't really a thing yet. Three, my sister had written down in my notebook her address, her phone number, her work number, all sorts of important info and key phrases.

So skip to December 24th, it's Christmas Eve and it's cold as fuck and it snowed a little that day. I had lunch with my sister, I think we had gone to a sushi buffet place I think. One of things I had planned to do that day was go to this live taping at a radio station that a few members of Super Junior were going to be at. I told my sister where I was going and what time to expect me back that evening.

We part ways and I go about doing who knows what because the radio show wasn't until like 9pm. Before we continue, I think we'll need a map real quick. My sister lived in Mapo-gu, worked in I can't remember but towards the west, and the radio station was at KBS On at Yeouido Island. Note the Han River cuts the city in half.

My 20 year old self did not have a cellphone actually either, well I had one but I just couldn't use it in Korea. I go on my way and that evening I head over to KBS. I get there, got a little lost where the viewing area was and saw a kpop star, from Beast/Highlight in the wild. But I find the viewing area and I'm just living my best kpop girlie life. (In another post we'll talk about how I had dinner with Yesung from Super Junior's parents)

After a while it's getting late and I know I need to head back because the buses and subways were shutting down early. I head back to the main bus area on the island and find the bus number I needed and hop on, grateful for the warmth. The bus starts going and I just have my headphones on listening to my iPod nano.

So my sister lives on the other side of the river right? I have to cross the river which is wide as fuck and I notice after maybe 30 minutes that we haven't crossed the river yet. At first I thought I might have just zoned out and started paying attention more. But none of the stops sounded familiar to me and nothing was looking like Hongdae, which is where I was going to get off.

Dumbass moment number one was I waited about another 15 minutes before I realized I might have made a mistake. I go up to the bus driver and ask about my stop and he slaps his hands on the wheels and curses a bit. But other than that, I couldn't understand what he was saying. A kind older gentleman rider came up and translated for me and that's when I found out I had the correct bus number but instead of inbound, I went outbound.

Just stay on the bus right? It'll head in the other direction? No. That was the last bus of the night.

The kind gentleman took me to his stop and I followed like a lost duckling and luckily for me he brought me to a police station. So just imagine me, a dumb 20 year old white girl in South Korean police station, there's limited communication and I'm scared and feeling like a giant idiot for getting lost and now bothering these two police officers with my dumbassery.

Surely it can't get worse, Taylor. You have your sister's number, you can just call her and probably get a cab.

Yeah, you would think, but this is me we're talking about, my dumbassery is limitless. I was born a himbo before I even knew it. So you remember that notebook I had with all of that contact information and address? Yeah, I left that at the apartment. I didn't know what her number was much less her street address. I could point it out on a map though so that was close enough.

That's not all though, I didn't have any cash on me and there wasn't Venmo or cashapp these days and debt cards/credit cards didn't often work at a lot of places abroad. I had already spent the cash I had on me that day and so the police officer takes me next door to pull cash at the ATM in the 7-11. Except that ATM doesn't accept my card.

We go back to the police station and they call a taxi company to see if they would take me but without cash and an exact address or a phone number, they say no. They think I will just run out on the tab and the drive was going to be far.

At this point, I have no money, no prospects, and scared. Oh and no way to contact my sister to let her know where I was and that I was okay. What am I going to do now? Take a nap on the leather couch in the police station, of course. I am given a Krispy Kreme donut and a space heater and I just knock out a few hours until 6am when the buses start running again.

The police wave down the bus and explain to the bus driver about the dumb dumb foreigner who got lost and how she needs to get to Hongdae. Actually, I don't even think I had enough money on my bus card but uhhhh, yeah I think people were tired of my shit at this point. So I'm seated on the bus, nice and cozy and... I fall asleep.

I'm woken up later by someone nudging me and everyone on the bus staring at me because the bus driver is trying to get my attention over the intercom. We had made it to Hongdae and goddamn, I feel so bad for the people involved in this because I was such a fucking idiot. Thank you to everyone who had helped me that night and I hope each of them are doing well now.

I get off the bus and start walking back to my sister's apartment and it's about a 30 minute walk. I get back to her place, punch in the numbers into the keypad on her front door and walk in. And it goes like:

Leah, out of sight in her loft bed area: ...Taylor?

Me, at the front door: ...hiiiiiiiiiiiii sister

She comes running down and nearly squeezed me in half from the tightest hug I had ever received. There are tears going down both of our faces and yeah, like she's a 24 year old whose little sister was missing in a big city in a country far far from home. After making sure I was real and not hurt, I told her about my wild adventure and where I was and why I didn't call.

Now what was she up to while I was a toasty little cinnamon roll fast asleep on a couch in a police station? She had gotten home around 11pm from work and waited until midnight for me to return. When I wasn't back by then, she started to get nervous and around 1am she called our mother to say that she thinks I'm missing.

They both then go into action. My sister calls the police and through her tears explains that her little sister hasn't come home and she doesn't know where I am. She gives them my description and two of them show up at her apartment to get a photo of me. From what I was told, that was sent around to police stations and the hospitals were alerted to be on the look out for a white girl with my description.

So end of story right? I'm back home, the police and embassy are told about my return and cancelled the alert. Everything is fine and it's Christmas Day, so let's open presents and eat some tasty food and be merry. Taylor, what else could happen that day? Taylor... Taylor, why aren't you saying the end? Taylor, please. Please, how far does your dumbassery go?

My mother had called the US embassy and told them about my disappearance and so like, plenty of people are looking for my lost dumb ass. But Taylor, weren't you in a police station? Wouldn't they have gotten the alert and replied back that they had you? Good point, but you see, I was not in Seoul at this point. I had sat my ass on that bus long enough that I ended up in Anyang. I tried putting a second map to this post, but Tumblr keeps fucking up and not saving it, so please look at your map app for Anyang.

My mother also thinks I've been kidnapped and sent to North Korea and is just blasting all over Facebook about me missing.

Leah still has to go to work that day, so she gets a short nap in, we'll do presents when she gets home that evening. She's not having to work a whole day, so she'll be home early. I plan on staying at the apartment, though I do venture out to the store to get some groceries for Christmas dinner. An ajumma gave me a wrapped gift on the way back and it was a cute pair of socks and an info slip about the local neighborhood church. I think I still have those socks.

While she was at work, I started cooking which is never a good idea because I have made the fire alarm go off by boiling water. In my luggage, I brought a toaster oven that was my mother's Christmas gift to Leah and a plug converter. I plugged it in, but my dumbass did it wrong cause when I turned it on, I blew a fuse in her apartment. However, I made dinner and she came home and we opened gifts and watched movies.

The End.

[romaritimeharbor]

Hey so i hope you dont mind me adding some stuff to the request i sent you.

So i imagine the reader to be apart of Wildfire. Yes i did say they would stay low but after seeing how bad the Underworld is doing, they cant just stand by. They promise to look after Jarilo-VI until their mara struck them and that also include the underworlders. What kind of work they would be doing? Idk tbh but i imagine they work closely with Natasha and Oleg. I also think they might actually reveal their secret (their origin and work) to those two after a couple of years. Natasha is a doctor and she would obviously notice how the reader basically never aged at all after a few years. Although… i dont think they would reveal about the stellaron. I mean i could also possibly see them doing that as well but idk… maybe they will have to because im pretty sure those two are smart enough to connect the dots that the reader, like i said in my last ask, could technically command Svarog to open the furnace which leads to the reader revealing why they wont do it until they have a plan to take down Cocolia and the Stellaron.

I also just realized how the reader’s pressence would actually make the nameless’s job much easier. They can be the one explaining the history of the Eternal Freeze and what’s going on with Cocolia to the group, convincing Svarog to finally open the furnace bc they finally have a plan to defeat Cocolia and the Stellaron and Bronya would probably believe everything much better than she did in the game (bc she trusts the reader and seeing them in the Underworld would make her quickly realize her mother had been lying to her on what truly happened to the reader and to an extent, lying about everything)

Speaking of the Astral Express, i feel like Himeko might possibly offer the reader to go back home to the Luofu since they were stuck in Jarilo-VI for centuries but the reader would decline the offer. While they would like to go back to their homeland at some point, Jarilo-VI has been their home for a long time and they are not just going to abandon it on a fly, especially during the major changes that’s going on.

Although this made me think of when would the reader go back to Luofu? When they think Belobog can do well without them and their mara starts to act up. Xianzhou Natives have an average lifespan of about 800 years and the reader has been in Jarilo-VI for 700 years. So the reader has more or less 100 years to live before they become mara struck. I feel like the reader know that they have more or less a century to live before going mara struck, so later on in Bronya’s reign as Supreme Guardian, they would secretly prepare someone else to be The Advisor or let it die with them and tell Bronya about their upcoming ‘death’ and departure. Ofc Bronya will be distraught but she will accept it sadly and quickly prepare a “Going Away” party with everyone the reader know in attendance. It was a sad affair and the reader almost had doubts on leaving but in the end they did leave and went to the Luofu where they will spend those last decades in peace, knowing how they had raised a whole planet and was proud of everything they had done.

And like i promised in my last post, this will possibly spoil the whole request and you can choose not to reply to this ask first if you still want to post the context but

The reason I had this idea in the first place is bc of two stuff. A movie I watched called "Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms" and the song "Shelter" by Porter Robinson and Madeon. So the movie is about a girl who comes from a race of long lived species and after an attack destroyed her village, she was ready to end it all until she found a baby boy and decides to raise him even with the knowledge that her son will die before her. (Can you see where I got inspired?) The movie is honestly underrated and beautiful and I really suggest you and anyone who's reading this to watch it. There's a full movie of it in YouTube that is English dubbed (and dw it's not those sus videos, it's the real deal and I suggest you watch before it gets taken down). Then there's the music video called "Shelter", it's a really good song that really tugs your heart. The song in my opinion fits the vibe the whole brainrot have. I'm pretty sure the song is quite popular and you already know about it but I suggest you check it out if you haven't!

- 🐱 Anon

i was hoarding this ask for a while but i decided to reply to it! i definitely agree with all of this.

i can DEFINITELY see them being a member of wildfire, for multiple reasons. one, because they know that they have a unique way with svarog that others do not (they spent a really long time with him around, after all). two, because you're right--the belobogians are their responsibility. underworld or overworld, these people are theirs, and they should do everything they can to protect them. i also do think they would confide in nat and oleg, specifically nat though! she would totally notice how little they've aged. she knows they're quite a bit older than her but then why do they look her age? she would notice.

YEAH LMAO the nameless' job would be so much easier with them around. the mission would go far more smoothly imo. bronya, poor thing...... she would understand so much more easily but i do still think she'd be super upset about it.

yes! initially, i do see them refusing. BUTTTTTT their return would probably be the wiser choice, and i think they would understand and accept that. ESPECIALLY once they start noticing their mara flaring up worse and worse and worse.

at this point, reader would be in their 700s, so they're approaching the "end" of their unnatural lifespan. and i think they would want to go back to the luofu, if for no other reason than to protect their dearest people from the harsh reality of their life. the belobogians probably wouldn't know wtf to do with a mara-struck. but the xianzhou alliance? it's basically routine to handle them. i think [name] has been alive long enough to be wise. and it would be wise to be honest with bronya. they'd sit her down and quietly inform her of their upcoming "death" of sorts, and that they cannot remain here because they could not bare putting the burden of slaying them on her shoulders, especially when she's never even encountered a mara-struck before. it would be horrifying for her to see their slow decline into madness and their transformation into something unrecognizable. it would be unthinkable to put that on her shoulders.

though they would have loved to pass away peacefully on jarilo-vi, their death... won't be peaceful. because it isn't peaceful being long-lived in this way. and though it's sad to leave, they leave proud of what belobog and their children have become <3

i'll definitely have to look into it, then!!!!

[planeoftheeclectic]

Oh, do tell more about "Columbo: Turnabout's Fair Play".

oh geez ok I don't know how much I can say because I have been trying so hard not to spoil the mystery but let's go.

There are a few people who know how it will end/what the twist is, most of whom don't care much about Ace Attorney and were unlikely to ever read it in the first place and one of whom cares negatively about spoilers. This is because I was very anxious that the twist leading to the break in the case was too contrived and I wanted an outside opinion.

This was because I began writing TFP before I finished playing Bridge to the Turnabout. All subsequent worries about "realism" and "physics" and "the laws of science" have since been summarily dismissed.

I am currently working on some things that are very close to what will go in the epilogue and I really can't say more than that or I'm worried you'll figure it out immediately. Suffice to say: I like mirroring.

In the past 24 hours I have discovered two musical themes from AA4 that I will absolutely be using as writing ambiance because they are exactly what I've been looking for. One is Phoenix's theme, one is ostensibly the Gramarye's theme but honestly might as well work for Phoenix, both are embedded below for your convenience.

Honestly, the name of that second one is perfect for Phoenix. Man I can't wait until we get there.

Hmmm...I think the only reason I can get away with writing this fic is because I am very good at mimicking other people's vocal patterns - to the point where I have come home from Shakespeare plays speaking in iambic pentameter. (In fairness, that's less hard than it sounds - English is made for that kind of thing.) But Peter Falk is so integral to the concept of Columbo that if you can't nail his patter, your work is just going to be missing something, imo.

Hmm, what else...I think you in particular will be delighted by the ending, which is why I had to stop talking about it with you the moment I realized what it was going to be lol. Which is infuriating because I love our talks and value your contributions so much but I can't and it's driving me insane ahhhhhhhh!! That said! I relish the look on your face when you finally get there, and that expression (multiplied by the other people who read it, which is way more than I expected when I first posted it tbh) is what keeps me going. It's going to be so good. I can't wait. Why isn't it done yet. What do you mean I have to write it first.

I'm still desperately tempted to write the alternative setup I initially proposed, aka "Maya Fey hires her friend the retired detective to get those idiots together it's been like 20 years guys, geez." I probably will write it as totally separate from TFP but man can you imagine.

If I ever write the jokingly hypothetical Klapollo sequel it will be after we've finished at least aa4 and possibly the whole sequel trilogy. Which is probably for the best, given I have palutena trap to work on. That said, I've grown exceptionally fond of Klavier. Possibly because I keep murdering his brother and making horrible things happen to him. ...Sorry about that, buddy.

I somewhat doubt that Phoenix has an official breakdown sprite (excluding the head-on-desk and nervous sweating varieties) but I need to start picturing it, because that scene is coming up sooner than I can imagine. And also farther away. But at least there's only one more Edgeworth chapter forecast. That should help contain their combined loquacious verbosity to a manageable length.

I may have said this before, but I am trying very hard to write everything from the narrative point of view of the TV camera. That's defining chapter breaks, POV's. information delivered, and general tone. It's very fun, and an excellent writing exercise. I get whiplash whenever I go back to palutena trap, which has a much more standard 3rd person limited view (the character's). I would definitely recommend this sort of thing if you want to experiment with your writing style!

Hmm, now for a fun fact to end it on...well, this isn't TFP specific, but I'd like to imagine that Gumshoe is on vacation at a beach somewhere and brought one of his metal detectors and finds a buried treasure chest that is for once not connected to a murder and so he strikes it rich and can finally retire to live a life of luxury eating slightly fancier instant ramen and that's why we never see him after the 7-year gap.

[around-your-throat]

oh wow i looked it up wow that's fun.

tl;dr: they were my friend that i met through bandom and we had a falling out because IMO our personalities didn't fit. turned out they had a lot more grievances than i realized

i met that person when i was 17 going on 18. not to split hairs on something so minute but if most of the argument is "i was a whole ass adult and should know better" then i was also not an adult.

i was so excited when we met because they were the only one into bandom in my city (1 of the 2 that i knew in the entire country). i've never found a fandom person irl so i might have been too enthusiastic about the friendship and wanted to hang out and talk about fob and bandom all the time. i treated them like how i would my normal friends eg. making a lot of sex jokes and talking about all that stuff because that's just teens stuff and it's what i did when i was 15 too. i DO realize now that that was def inappropriate and i should've been more careful when hanging out with someone younger. that is entirely my fault

but a lot of the things was like. i read a public nsfw fic they posted to their public ao3 account. it was definitely public because that's where i found them (on ao3) and i didn't have a problem because obviously every kid wrote smut fanfics, that was a normal thing to me. i did read it out loud as an asshole not realizing they're taking a joke too far so they got mad at me and after that we went back to talking normally. at that point i still thought we were joking around and they were just embarrassed but it turned out that it was a really big deal. that WAS my bad and i did feel bad about it even until now but like 100% no one else heard it, i was speaking at a normal volume in a coffee shop where people don't even speak english

the point is they definitely did not set as clear boundaries as they're making it out to be because everything was just jokey sarcastic ughh i hate you and then keep talking like normal after. i guess i'm always weird and fucking stupid and run jokes into the ground because i remember i was also like waterparks sucks awsten knight sucks (which was supposed to be ironic because i listened to ALL of their music) to jab at them for being a big parxie but turned out they were genuinely hurt by it. fucking things like that

every point i make in this makes me want to pull my hair out in a "what am i fucking doing" as a staunchly anti-personal-drama-being-spread-on-the-internet-as-if-anyone-needs-to-know person BUT i just. did not tell them to write nsfw fanfics. they told ME to write them a nsfw peterick fanfic as an apology for reading theirs. to be VERY CLEAR i don't have a problem with it and i'm not gonna be like see they were the weird one!!! because that shit is not a big deal

this is like personal and tea spilling but that person had a very obvious crush on me that i never acknowledged because i Did Not want to deal with it, and also not my problem. i remember a mutual friend saying once that i should ask them out and i got kinda weirded out and a bit later i thought that those two must've been talking about me or something because i'm paranoid and shit so i was hypervigilant in making sure everything i said was obvious i was completely disinterested. you cannot fucking imagine how devastating it is to finally make a friend who is on the same wavelength as you and realizing that they're into you. i was acting dense as a fucking brick trying to say the most platonic friends thing in every conversation

obviously i did it wrong / wasn't as vigilant as i thought / was still too affectionate because the things they said when we fell out, made me think they probably thought some things i did were romantic or had hidden intentions behind it. which is why they thought i was touching them weird when i was probably being touchy or had antsy hands. one thing they called me out on was how i implied we should "make out under the bleachers" when i remember very vividly that was me telling them about a common trope in american pop culture. or when i showed them cold weather by glass beach because "I think it's so gay that we really both feel the same way" is a funny lyric but they used it in a post about me, i didn't think about the implications because i'm fucking stupid i guess but that's just one of my favorite songs.

also i don't know if they have problems with that mutual friend but that friend is my age and we all definitely talked about the same fucking stuff. i was looking back at our chatlogs and saw that they said they were writing smut fanfics with that friend, for example.

if we're not pulling any punches here then honestly, if you had a falling out with someone and you said they were lowkey a groomer and posting a dozen callout posts and stories about everything weird and awful they did then maybe you ARE a little chronically online. the only thing i said in response to those was that i didn't want to fight and we should stop being friends and that is ALL i will say because i respect internet privacy than proving someone wrong 🧘

apparently you groomed someone on twitter?

?????

[shadowmaat]

the other Tiffany Problem

I reblogged a post earlier about the OTW elections (AO3 is under their umbrella) that was warning folks about one of the candidates, Tiffany.

A lot of good points were made and I went and read the transcripts myself to get a better idea of the problem and then came back and read some of the comments being made on the post to get a feel for the situation on this side of things.

Most people are, IMO, understandably concerned about Tiffany and her viewpoint that “stricter guidelines” are needed on certain content. Some, however, are using her ESL status as an excuse and others are accusing the suspicious folks of racism because Tiffany is Chinese.

Personally speaking, I don’t care where Tiffany is from and I think she’s better in English than some native speakers I’ve encountered. What I DO care about is that she continuously refers to AO3 as hosting pedophilic content and cites it as the reason it was banned in China. Even after the moderator corrected her and said that there’s no pedophilia on AO3, she continued to hammer that point. She’s factually wrong and THAT is a problem.

Having a difference of opinion? Sure, that’s to be expected and getting multiple perspectives is almost always a good idea. Misrepresenting facts, however, is a different animal, and it’s a dangerous one. From the skimming I’ve done, AO3 wasn’t banned in China for hosting pedophilia (which, again, it DOES NOT DO), it’s a far more nebulous “sexual innuendo and explicit content.” Fictional underage sex might be included in that, but it isn’t the sole reason, and the general vibe I get is that it’s far more about queer content than anything else.

Tiffany’s stance seems to revolve almost entirely around this “pedophilia” accusation (again, WRONG) and her wanting to try and improve the Archive’s “public image.” As far as I’ve seen, the only issue AO3′s “public image” has is among the Purity Cult who are obsessed with anything they perceive as sexually immoral and use “pedophilia” as a rallying cry to try and arm folks with torches and pitchforks.

The thing is that AO3 already has policies in place forbidding shit like that. The TOS are publicly available and in plain speech, but the A.ntis don’t care because their definition of “pedophilia” isn’t the US legal definition, it’s an amorphous category that includes fictional depictions of sex/romance between two or more characters who have an age difference of 5+ years even when all of them are legal adults. Hells, even when there isn’t any sex it gets labeled as pedophilia because it’s such a triggery, meaning-laden word.

Or at least it used to be a meaningful word. The A.ntis have done their level best to make it meaningless by applying it to anything they don’t like in fanfiction/art. Which is a whole additional essay, TBH.

What it boils down to is that Tiffany is wrong. Not just “has a different opinion,” but WRONG. Fundamentally. And it isn’t a case of her not “understanding” English, because she has a damn good grasp on that.

Adding more language and clarification to the TOS would be fine, but it isn’t going to change how the Purity Cult views AO3 because they don’t care. Updating the TOS would require people to READ the TOS and those folks aren’t doing it. As for the tagging system, those tags already exist. Nothing additional is required. While some people don’t tag things properly, most do, especially for triggering content like that. And yes, even “Author chose not to use warnings” counts as a warning in itself.

I’d say the problem is less “people are being exposed to content they didn’t expect to see” and more “certain people with ulterior motives are specifically seeking out ‘dead dove: do not eat’ content and feigning shock when they find it.”

Hopefully once Tiffany’s been around longer her worldview will open up and she’ll realize how wrong she was to classify certain content on AO3 as pedophilia. Until then I don’t think she should hold any position on the OTW board.

It’s too late to join and vote in this year’s election, but those of you who are current members should pay close attention. Those who missed the deadline should consider joining (or rejoining) so we can add to the numbers keeping an eye on this situation.

[sylvielauffeydottir]

Hello, it is I, your friendly neighborhood historian. I am ready to lose followers for this post, but I have two masters degrees in history and one of my focuses has been middle eastern area studies. Furthermore, I’ve been tired of watching the world be reduced to pithy little infographics, and I believe there is no point to my education if I don’t put it to good use. Finally, I am ethnically Asheknazi Jewish. This does not color my opinion in this post — I am in support of either a one or two state solution for Israel and Palestine, depending on the factors determined by the Palestinian Authority, and the Israeli Government does not speak for me. I hate Netanyahu. A lot. With that said, my family was slaughtered at Auschwitz-Birkenau. I have stood in front of that memorial wall at the Holocaust memorial in DC for my great uncle Simon and my great uncle Louis and cried as I lit a candle. Louis was a rabbi, and he preached mitzvot and tolerance. He died anyway. 

There’s a great many things I want to say about what is happening in the Middle East right now, but let’s start with some facts. 

In early May, there were talks of a coalition government that might have put together (among other parties, the Knesset is absolutely gigantic and usually has about 11-13 political parties at once) the Yesh Atid, a center-left party, and the United Arab List, a Palestinian party. For the first time, Palestinians would have been members of the Israeli government in their own right. And what happened, all of the sudden? A war broke out. A war that, amazingly, seemed to shield Benjamin Netanyahu from criminal prosecution, despite the fact that he has been under investigation for corruption for some time now and the only thing that is stopping a real investigation is the fact that he is Prime Minister.

Funny how that happened. 

There’s a second thing people ought to know, and it is about Hamas. I’ve found it really disturbing to see people defending Hamas on a world stage because, whether or not people want to believe it, Hamas is a terrorist organization. I’m sorry, but it is. Those are the facts. I’m not being a right wing extremist or even a Republican or whatever else or want to lob at me here. I’m a liberal historian with some facts. They are a terrorist organization, and they don’t care if their people die. 

Here’s what you need to know: 

There are two governments for the occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza. In April 2021, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas postponed planned elections. He said it was because of a dispute amid Israeli-annexed East Jerusalum. He is 85 years old, and his Fatah Party is losing power to Hamas. Everyone knows that. Palestinians know that. 

Here’s the thing about Hamas: they might be terrorists, but aren’t idiots. They understand that they have a frustrated population filled with people who have been brutalized by their neighbors. And they also understand that Israel has something called the iron dome defense system, which means that if you throw a rocket at it, it probably won’t kill anyone (though there have been people in Israel who died, including Holocaust survivors). Israel will, however, retaliate, and when they do, they will kill Palestinian civilians. On a world stage, this looks horrible. The death toll, because Palestinians don’t have the same defense system, is always skewed. Should the Israeli government do that? No. It’s morally repugnant. It’s wrong. It’s unfair. It’s hurting people without the capability to defend themselves. But is Hamas counting on them to for the propaganda? Yeah. Absolutely. They’re literally willing to kill their other people for it.

You know why this works for Hamas? They know that Israel will respond anyway, despite the moral concerns. And if you’re curious why, you can read some books on the matter (Six Days of War by Michael Oren; The Yom Kippur War by Abraham Rabinovich; Rise and Kill First by Ronen Bergmen; Antisemitism by Deborah Lipstadt; and Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn by Daniel Gordis). The TL;DR, if you aren’t interested in homework, is that Israel believes they have no choice but to defend themselves against what they consider ‘hostile powers.’ And it’s almost entirely to do with the Holocaust. It’s a little David v Goliath. It is, dare I say, complicated.

I’m barely scratching the surface here. 

(We won’t get into this in this post, though if you want to DM me for details, it might be worth knowing that Iran funds Hamas and basically supplies them with all of their weapons, and part of the reason the United States has been so reluctant to engage with this conflict is that Iran is currently in Vienna trying to restore its nuclear deal with western powers. The USA cannot afford to piss off Iran right now, and therefore cannot afford to aggravative Hamas and also needs to rely on Israel to destroy Irani nuclear facilities if the deal goes south. So, you know, there is that).

There are some people who will tell you that criticism of the Israel government is antisemitic. They are almost entirely members of the right wing, evangelical community, and they don’t speak for the Jewish community. The majority of Jewish people and Jewish Americans in particular are criticizing the Israeli government right now. The majority of Jewish people in the diaspora and in Israel support Palestinian rights and are speaking out about it. And actually, when they talk about it, they are putting themselves in great danger to do so. Because it really isn’t safe to be visibly Jewish right now. People may not want to listen to Jews when they speak about antisemitism or may want to believe that antisemitism ‘isn’t real’ because ‘the Holocaust is over’ but that is absolutely untrue. In 2019, antisemitic hate crimes in the United States reached a high we have never seen before. I remember that, because I was living in London, and I was super scared for my family at the time. Since then, that number has increased by nearly 400% in the last ten days. If you don’t believe me, have some articles about it (one, two, three, four, and five, to name a few). 

I live in New York City, where a man was beaten in Time Square while attending a Free Palestine rally and wearing a kippah. I’m sorry, but being visibly Jewish near a pro-Palestine rally? That was enough to have a bunch of people just start beating on him? I made a previous post detailing how there are Jews being attacked all over the world, and there is a very good timeline of recent hate crimes against Jews that you can find right here. These are Jews, by the way, who have nothing to do with Israel or Palestine. They are Americans or Europeans or Canadians who are living their lives. In some cases, they are at pro-Palestine rallies and they are trying to help, but they just look visibly Jewish.  God Forbid we are the wrong ethnicity for your rally, even if we agree.

This is really serious. There are people calling for the death of all Jews. There are people calling for another Holocaust. 

There are 14 million Jews in the world. 14 million. Of 7.6 billion. And you think it isn’t a problem the way people treat us?

Anyway (aside from, you know, compassion), why does this matter? This matters because stuff like this deters Jews who want to be part of the pro-Palestine movement because they are literally scared for their safety. I said this before, and I will say it again: Zionism was, historically speaking, a very unpopular opinion. It was only widespread antisemitic violence (you know, the Holocaust) that made Jews believe there was a necessity for a Jewish state. Honestly, it wasn’t until the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting that I supported it the abstract idea too.

I grew up in New York City, I am a liberal Jew, and I believe in the rights of marginalized and oppressed people to self-determine worldwide. Growing up, I also fit the profile of what many scholars describe as the self hating Jew, because I believed that, in order to justify myself in American liberal society, I had to hate Israel, and I had to be anti-Zionist by default, even if I didn’t always understand what ‘Zionism’ meant in abstract. Well, I am 27 years old now with two masters degrees in history, and here is what Zionism means to me: I hate the Israeli government. They do not speak for me. But I am not anti-Zionist. I believe in the necessity for a Jewish state — a state where all Jews are welcome, regardless of their background, regardless of their nationality. 

There needs to be a place where Jews, an ethnic minority who are unwelcome in nearly every state in the world, have a place where they are free from persecution — a place where they feel protected. And I don’t think there is anything wrong with that place being the place where Jews are ethnically indigenous to. Because believe it or not, whether it is inconvenient, Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel. I’ve addressed this in this post.

With that said, that doesn’t mean you can kick the Palestinian people out. They are also indigenous to that land, which is addressed in the same post, if you don’t trust me. 

What is incredible to me is that Zionism is defined, by the Oxford English Dixtionary, as “A movement [that called originally for] the reestablishment of a Jewish nationhood in Palestine, and [since 1948] the development of the State of Israel.” Whether we agree with this or not, there were early disagreements about the location of a ‘Jewish state,’ and some, like Maurice de Hirsch, believed it ought to be located in South America, for example. Others believed it should be located in Africa. The point is that the original plans for the Jewish state were about safety. The plan changed because Jews wanted to return to their homeland, the largest project of decolonization and indigenous reclamation ever to be undertaken by an indigenous group. Whether you want to hear that or not, it is true. Read a book or two. Then you might know what I mean.

When people say this is a complicated issue, they aren’t being facetious. They aren’t trying to obfuscate the point. They often aren’t even trying to defend the Israeli government, because I certainly am not — I think they are abhorrent. But there is no future in the Middle East if the Israelis and Palestinians don’t form a state that has an equal right of return and recognizes both of their indigenousness, and that will never happen if people can’t stop throwing vitriolic rhetoric around.  Is the Israeli Government bad? Yes. Are Israeli citizens bad? Largely, no. They want to defend their families, and they want to defend their people. This is basically the same as the fact that Palestinian people aren’t bad, though Hamas often is. And for the love of god, stop defending terrorist organizations. Just stop. They kill their own people for their own power and for their own benefit. 

And yes, one more time, the Israeli government is so, so, so wrong. But god, think about your words, and think about how you are enabling Nazis. The rhetoric the left is using is hurting Jews. I am afraid to leave my house. I’m afraid to identify as Jewish on tumblr. I’m afraid for my family, afraid for my friends. People I know are afraid for me. 

It’s 2021. I am not my great uncle. I cried for him, but I shouldn’t have to die like him. 

Words have consequences. Language has consequences. And genuinely, I do not think everyone is a bad person, so think about what you are putting into the world, because you’d be surprised how often you are doing a Nazi a favor or two. 

Is that really what you want? To do a Nazi a favor or two? I don’t think that you do. I hope you don’t, at least.

That’s all. You know, five thousand words later. But uh, think a little. Please. 

[vendetta-if]

Hi! So, I haven't seen a question about this, but soory if this was already asked. For now I only played with "I'm happy for them" option for our uncle and Jackal, but I feel like an option like "I'm really happy for them, but if something happens to Luca he's dead", you know? Worrying a little bit cause anything can happen in this life (Mc's mom said she loved Viktor but still abandoned us, in general there are a lot of.people out to get.us and etc), so I think some MC would try to give Jackal "the talk". Like, "look I'm happy for you two and you do look happy together, but I will hurt you if you hurt my uncle. Mark my words, I'll use everything at my disposal to hunt you down if you betray him." And etc. So the question is - how would Jackal react to this? How would Luca react to this is he overhears this/is told about this?

Also, a.little question. Maybe I'm just bad at reading and missed this in.the.text, but how does Ash feel about Luca and Jackal? I mean, they also were raised by.him and consider him family.

Sorry, another question. Can you.tell us more about Jackal? He knows at least a little bit of Russian, his name is Artyom and Luka calls him Tyoma, does this mean he got at.least some.roots in Russia or a post USSR country? What's his nationality/what nationalities is he "a mix" of? (Sorry, not sure if this is the correct term, English's not my first language). I would love to hear some.bits of information about him (how he met Luca and how did they hit this off, where's he from, how did he came into his profession and etc. I'd love to hear even about his favorite ice cream flavor, he is an absolute delight of a character).

Sorry for this lengthy ask!

Aww ☺️ I’m really glad that you’re loving Jackal! ❤️

For your first question, I wouldn’t be able to answer that because you’ll be able to give Jackal the shovel talk pretty soon in the story 😉 So, you’ll be able to see for yourself how he would react to that!

As for your second question, Ash is just mostly confused and also a little worried. They have heard the rumours spreading around about Luka seeing someone, but they thought they were merely that, rumours. But seeing that Luka is actually in a relationship makes them happy, but also worried, especially considering Jackal is a professional hitman. Ash really loves and cares for Luka; Luka has been a part of their life for a long time and he took them in and raised them and MC after both Viktor and Cara died. So, Ash also felt indebted and is very loyal to him and the family.

And you’re correct; Jackal/Artyom Zhang is half-Russian and half-Chinese (his mother was Russian and his father was Chinese), but he was born in China and grew up there for a while, so his nationality was Chinese. He’s pretty fluent in Russian, Chinese, and English.

He was the one who first sought out Luka not long after he stepped foot in Elysium City. He had been running away from home and moving from one place to the next trying to evade and shake off his pursuers for years and years, to no avail.

He was about to solemnly accept that running away and not staying in one place for long might be his sealed fate until he died, either from a job gone wrong or his pursuers finally catching up to him for real and execute him.

That was until a sympathetic fixer decided to tell him about the top of the food chain in Elysium City, the Morozov Family and suggested that he met with the head here, Luka, to ask or negotiate some kind of protection deal. The fixer also told him to speak in Russian when first introducing himself to Luka to gain as many points with Luka as possible 😂

The idea sounded crazy, but Jackal was desperate enough that he’d be willing to give it a shot. The only problem was how to even ask an audience with Luka? He was infamous for having little patience in listening other people’s—many of which are more influential than Jackal—petitions and was known to not be a pretty sociable man, only selectively choosing people to meet face-to-face with in a specific amount of time.

As to how Jackal actually pulled off meeting Luka in the first place, it’ll be a tale for another time 😄 But he actually did and they did strike a deal: Jackal is under the Morozov’s protection and in return, whenever Luka needs his hitman skills, he won’t be able to refuse taking the jobs.

Eventually, they actually got closer and got into a friends-with-benefits arrangement with Luka. As it went on, the both of them ended up with real romantic feelings for each other.

Luka fell really hard though 😆 Artyom also fell hard, but tried to play it off, deny it, or fight it off for the longest time until he finally can’t lie to himself anymore and caves in. Their date in Chapter 3 was really supposed to be their very first proper date as boyfriends 🥺

So, yeah, Luka and Jackal have known each other for quite a while, even though they just pretty recently gotten into a serious and steady relationship with one another.

Jackal becomes a professional hitman because killing people with his power has been what was trained and ingrained in him ever since he was young. It’s what he’s good at. And he basically needed to do something to get some money and survive while also running away from his pursuers not long after his mother’s death.

That’s all I can answer about Jackal’s backstory. You’ll be able to ask a little bit more stuff about him later on in his conversation. Although, he might not be 100% fully open to MC considering he has just met them. Although MC got special treatment for being Luka’s nephew/niece/nibling 😁 I also currently plan for one ‘hangout’ session with him and Luka that might reveal more about his backstory 😉

[necromancatrix]

Some Owl House/Hartford witch trial thoughts

This is something I meant to post much earlier but this is the last day before I (probably) turn out to be wrong, so I’m going to share some thoughts based on my going down a rabbit hole of reading about the Connecticut witch trials.

I thought it was interesting that I’d never heard much about the Hartford trials specifically, so I was curious if anything seemed potentially relevant in terms of connection to the TOH plot. 

What stood out was that they were the first witch trials in the American Colonies, but it was also the first place to end/outlaw them--and, apparently, less on the basis that magic was fake and more on the basis that magic was actually fine sometimes. I found this book on John Winthrop Jr, the first CT governor and, apparently, the person mostly responsible for the said ending of witch trials.

Long story short, I sort of wonder if any of this relates to Caleb Wittebane. 

I’m going to start with the timeline strangeness that lot of people have already pointed out.

In the portraits, we see the brothers meeting a witch as kids, but we know there are records of them in Gravesfield as adults, including with a Cardinal. So the idea that they were witch-hunters, went to the boiling isles the first time they were 'lured' by an actual witch, and never came back doesn't seem to scan. Either they met her significantly before going to the Isles at all, or there was travel back and forth, at least on Caleb's part. One way or another, if that is Flapjack, Caleb had learned enough magic to have (make?) a palismen before being permanently gone from the human realm. In which case, I have to wonder if he tried to speak out against witch-hunting in Gravesfield. So to circle back - I'm putting some super interesting quotes from that book on John Winthrop Jr. under the cut at the end, but tl;dr He was the son of the founding governor of Massachusetts and he went abroad to study alchemy, folk magic, and occult medicine before getting involved in the witch trials--initially getting accused 'witches' acquitted and, in the long run, both becoming CT governor and stopping the practice of witch trials there. Which makes me wonder if there might be some intentional parallels in Caleb, implied to be from some sort of important family, learning magic in the Isles and coming back to make the case that magic is fine, actually. And if he did sway the town against witch-hunting (at least until the trip that the brothers didn't come back from), how that played into the ultimate rivalry with Philip. I'm sure it's not to the point of being based directly on a historical figure, but I think as a general idea it might relate. Anyway - quotes below the cut, and whether or not this is actually anything I highly recommend the book as a really interesting bit of history.

Governor of Connecticut and son of the founding governor of Massachusetts, Winthrop was one of the most important men in colonial English America. Born in 1606, he was a political leader from his arrival in New England in 1631 until his death in 1676. He was also a leading undertaker of three new towns and the promoter of New England’s first ironworks. Winthrop was a cosmopolitan intellectual and world traveler who journeyed through Europe and to the Middle East searching for knowledge of scientific mysteries. (p13)

In his early twenties he began to study alchemy, the branch of natural philosophy many believed was the key to all understanding. (p14)

Although Connecticut was initially New England’s most aggressive prosecutor of witches, it subsequently dramatically reversed its attitudes toward witchcraft prosecution. From the end of the Hartford witch-hunt forward, Connecticut set the standard for moderation in witchcraft proceedings, eliminating executions permanently and witch trials themselves for more than two decades.

Puritan magistrates’ growing reluctance to prosecute and convict witches has frequently been attributed to two factors: ministerial insistence on obtaining proof that a suspected witch had made a compact with the devil, and increasing skepticism about witchcraft itself engendered by the scientific revolution. In Connecticut, the transformation was too sudden and dramatic—and took place much too early—to be explained by such factors. Before 1663, Connecticut ministers were aggressive witch-hunters, often instrumental in securing the evidence of the diabolical complicity they required for conviction. Furthermore, Connecticut’s change in attitudes occurred decades before Enlightenment skepticism began to exert meaningful influence on New England culture. Rather ironically, cessation of witchcraft prosecutions in Connecticut occurred through the agency of occult practitioners who assumed leadership at the highest levels of colonial society. (p373) Analyzing how Connecticut was transformed so rapidly from the colony most likely to execute witches to a colony without witchcraft trials highlights the prominence in colonial society of a group of occult philosophers, Puritan ministers and magistrates, who pursued knowledge of the unseen forces at work in the natural world through the study of alchemy, alchemical medicine, and natural magic. Led by Connecticut Governor John Winthrop, Jr., and the alchemist-minister Gershom Bulkeley, these magi-among-the-elect possessed both specialized knowledge of magic and the political authority to play a decisive role in reversing elite attitudes toward witchcraft prosecution. Their leniency toward witchcraft suspects was based, not on skepticism regarding magic’s efficacy, but, rather, on their intellectual understanding of the magical arts witches were accused of practicing. It is to Winthrop and his understanding of the role of occult forces in the operations of nature, not to the arrival of modern scientific thinking, that Connecticut’s sudden and sustained reluctance to prosecute witches must be attributed. (p374)

Winthrop believed magic was such a complex and powerful array of forces that the use of diabolical magic by ordinary people was both overstated and overfeared, and his opinions carried extraordinary weight. As a consultant on witchcraft cases in New Haven prior to becoming Connecticut’s governor and then as chief magistrate in Connecticut witchcraft trials, Winthrop consistently refused to endorse witchcraft charges, resisting both popular and ministerial pressure to convict witch suspects. He not only orchestrated acquittals in witchcraft cases; on at least two occasions he flatly refused to enforce convictions, ultimately overturning the guilty verdicts. [...] The conflict came to a head in the popular revolt surrounding the 1669 witchcraft case of Katherine Harrison, in which Winthrop, in careful coordination with the alchemist and minister Gershom Bulkeley, simultaneously undermined the legal foundations for convicting witches in Connecticut and removed intellectual study of the occult from ministerial suspicion and official scrutiny. Their ac- tions set precedents that influenced witch prosecution in New England for more than two decades. When historians examine the changing attitudes of the elite to- ward witchcraft prosecution in New England during the second half of the seventeenth century, they must include the actions of these students of the occult who themselves were members of the Puritan elite. (p376)

[hellofeanor]

Fëanorian Quenya

Hey friends! Do you like elves? Do you like the Silmarillion? Do you like Fëanor and co? And most of all, do you like spending hours thinking about minor details pertaining to made-up languages??? If so, boy do I have a treat for you! Let’s delve into the weird world of Fëanorian Quenya and explore some history and mechanics of why they talk Like That.

I’ve seen a lot of posts joking about the Fëanorian lisp, which is about as funny as a joke about a speech impediment can be. 👍 It’s important to understand, though, that this IS a joke. No, they didn’t really speak with a lisp. Yes, they did pronounce some S sounds as TH. That’s the critical disclaimer here: SOME. It’s not a blanket pronunciation. There’s a lot of background research that goes into determining which words would be pronounced with S and which would be TH, and that’s what we’re going to look at.

So if this is something you’ve come across in fandom and you’re not totally sure on the details, or if you ARE sure and just want some more in-depth info, read on.

The stuff probably everybody knows already

For anyone who’s been hanging around the Fëanorian corner of the Silm fandom for more than three minutes, there’s about a 100% chance you’ve heard of Fëanor’s penchant for retaining an archaic TH pronunciation after the majority of the Noldor went ahead and started pronouncing this sound as S instead. You may also know that this sound is represented by the letter thorn (Þ) in HoME, but since thorn doesn’t exist in modern English orthography and it’s a pain to keep typing the ALT code, I’m sticking to TH here. Anyway, all this was due to the fact that Fëanor was a huge mama’s boy, and his mom Míriel Therindë (later called Serindë, which made Fëanor want to punch walls and possibly also fellow elves) was an outlier who retained the TH after it fell out of use. Her son Fëanor, in turn, kept this up to honor her. Now, whether or not he would have bothered if this sound hadn’t literally been a critical part of her name is debatable, but that debate is outside the scope of this essay.

Fëanor continued to use the TH pronunciation until his death, and required his sons to use it as well. Finwë, however, switched over to S after the death of Míriel and before his marriage to Indis. Fëanor, reasonable and level-headed as he was, took this as a personal insult and decided that anybody who rejected TH likewise rejected him. So presumably, his loyal followers would have obeyed his totally reasonable demands not to give in to the seductive S-shift.

Why tho

Why did the Noldor decide to alter their pronunciation from TH to S? Great question. Nobody really knows. For the hell of it? IDK. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But the important thing to understand is that elves, and especially Noldor, were really committed to making sure their language sounds cool. This is why it changed so much and so comparatively quickly for an immortal population: they were actively invested in changing it. They liked inventing new words and exploring new sounds and messing around with grammar.

So at some point some influential Noldo might have been like, hey y’all, let’s stop saying TH and say S instead! And everyone (except Míriel I guess, who was known for her elegant manner of speech and didn’t want to muck that up by changing pronunciation of a whole letter) was like, whoa, capital idea my good egg. And they went with it. Previous ideas along these lines included ‘hey y’all, let’s stop saying KH and say H instead’ and ‘hey y’all, let’s stop saying Z and say R instead’, and those went over swimmingly. Nobody could have foreseen the problem this TH to S business would cause.

Now here’s a fun fact. There was another change to Noldorin pronunciation that happened AFTER Fëanor’s birth, that he himself was involved in. This one was all about bilabial to labiodental F. And those sure are some words, so if you don’t know what I’m talking about (I don’t blame you), BILABIAL is a more whispery sound that happens when you say F using only air passing through your pursed lips, and LABIODENTAL is when you say F with your top teeth touching your bottom lip. Going forward I’m going to use PH to represent the bilabial sound, and F for the labiodental.

So F got on the radar of the Noldor via the Teleri, who used this sound in their language. And ol’ Fëanor figured it would be awesome to incorporate it into Quenya because he thought the PH sounded too close to HW, and the two were getting confused by lazy speakers. Why did he care? Because of his dad’s name and his own, of course. If people started to get lazy in their pronunciation, we’d end up with Hwinwë and Hwëanáro, which would be terrible and stupid and unacceptable. He accused the Vanyar of leaning down that road, and he wanted to stop that kind of shift before it happened to the Noldor. How to do that? Why, by instigating a different shift from traditional Noldorin PH to Telerin F!

“Hey y’all, let’s stop saying PH and say F instead!”

“Whoa, capital idea my good egg.”

Moral of the story: Fëanor is only concerned with Quenya pronunciation insofar as it affects his own name and the names of family members he likes. He does not care whether it’s staying the same or moving to a new sound so long as it personally makes him feel good and his name sound cool. Therefore the true way to piss him off would be to call him Curuhwinwë Hwëanáro, son of Serindë.

Okay so here’s how it works

Now that history is out of the way, let’s get back to how TH was used by the Fëanorians. As I mentioned earlier, TH wasn’t a blanket pronunciation. It all depended on the original form of the word, and whether the root had a TH or an S. And some very similar-sounding words come from different roots, so this can get tricky. A great resource that’ll give you this information is Eldamo: Quenya words where the S was originally TH are marked out with the Þ (thorn) symbol in the wordlist.

Some examples:

Súlë (spirit, breath) comes from the root THŪ, which means it would be pronounced with a TH. Silma (white crystal) comes from the root SIL, so it and related words like Silmaril would be pronounced with an S. No Fëanorian would say Thilmaril. Isil (moon), however, is a similar-sounding word that comes from a different root: THIL. Olos (mass of flowers) comes from the word LOTH, but: Olos (dream) comes from the root LOS. Fëanorian pronunciation would immediately differentiate between these two words.

While Fëanorians may have retained the distinct pronunciation of TH vs S, other Noldor can still differentiate between original S and S-that-used-to-be-TH in their writing. There are specific tengwar to use depending on the word’s original form. Silmë (the one that looks like a 6) is used for original S, while súlë (or thúlë, the one that looks like an h) is used for original TH.

Which other elves used this sound in their speech?

Fandom has really latched on to this TH as a Fëanorian thing, but it wasn’t that exclusively. The TH sound was actually ubiquitous in other elven languages, and in Valinor, only the Noldor dropped it. It was still used in Telerin and in Vanyarin Quendya. The Vanyar retained the TH not because of anything to do with Míriel, but just because they were a little more conservative and their language didn’t pick up on all the changes that the Noldor made. They also noped out of the Z to R shift the Noldor initiated, opting to keep the Z around.

When Indis married Finwë, she stopped using the normal Vanyarin TH and switched over to S as a gesture of loyalty to him and his people. Finarfin, however, out of love for the Vanyar and Teleri, switched BACK to TH. I like to think about how much it would have annoyed Fëanor that his snot-nosed kid brother was speaking correctly, but for the wrong reason. Go down one more generation, and Galadriel very specifically did not use TH. But this time it was absolutely a choice made as a glaring middle finger to Fëanor.

What this means for your fanfic or whatever

The big takeaway here: you can’t just have Fëanorians replace every S with TH and call it a day.

If you’re inventing names for your Fëanorian OCs or coming up with phrases for them to say, it’s important to look into the history of all Quenya S-words you end up using to determine if they should be S or TH. If Fëanor got mad about somebody saying Serindë instead of Therindë, he’d get equally mad about somebody saying Thilmaril instead of Silmaril and assume they were mocking him. Remember: this is a dude with no chill. (On the other hand, if you WANT somebody to be mocking Fëanor, Galadriel would 100% do this because she has an equally negligible amount of chill.)

It’s also important to note that the TH isn’t a true shibboleth, since pretty much all elves EXCEPT the non-Fëanorian Noldor use it. And even the S-preferring Noldor would still be able to pronounce the TH. Those who went into exile would go on to use it commonly in Sindarin, and those who remained in Valinor would still encounter it among the Vanyar and Teleri. So if you’re writing a scene where somebody has to pronounce a TH word to prove their loyalty… yeah, everyone can pass this test. And in the opposite direction, you can’t use TH to prove somebody’s an evil Fëanorian, either. They might just be Vanyarin or something. Or, like. Really Old.

Would the sons (and followers) of Fëanor keep using TH after his death? Oh hell yeah. This is an entire family unfamiliar with the concept of not dying on hills. They will keep using it unto the ending of the world. Actually, with Sindarin becoming the common language of Middle-earth from the First Age, probably not a lot of change happened in exilic Quenya. It became a lore language: a piece of living history. It would have been preserved as it was when the original speakers left Valinor.

(And then, thousands of years later, Galadriel finally returns home to Tirion like, Long have mine eyes awaited this most blissful of sights, and ne’er hath my sprit soared with such grace, for I am returned! And all the Amanyar Noldor stare at her like, whatchu bangin on bout, eh? Because they had nothing better to do in the peace of Valinor than push Quenya to brave and frankly questionable new horizons.)

Anyway, there you go: a somewhat brief history of Fëanorian Quenya. I hope you found this informative and useful, or at the very least not boring. Obvs this is super condensed and, uh, not particularly scholarly, but I promise I know what I’m talking about. I have a university degree! (Not in anything even remotely related to what’s written above, but I hardly see how that’s relevant. It’s still a DEGREE.)

Questions? Need clarification or want more info? My asks are always open!