#it's SO horrible for a non-English speaker to write these

[snowmeow03]

I suddenly realized that as a pegasister, I have never formally drawn ponyplates (hoofplates??) in my way, so suddenly (literally 3am in my time zone) I wanna give it a shot.

I thought about Gaster's cutting, and in theory, since he's not a skeleton anymore, shearing his fur is obviously the best choice. But I feel that it doesn't capture the vibe of him “ripping apart his own body", so in the end, I chose to let him cut his horn. Hmm, maybe the body part full of magic is a must to create baby ponies.

Theoretically speaking, it's more reasonable for both of the brothers to be unicorns, but when I pictured Papyrus, I see him more as a pegasus. Well perhaps there're some pegasus in pony Gaster's family tree. But there's kind of a problem that Pegasus can already fly, how can I show the "special" of Papyrus? So, like, why not make Papyrus only have one wing! Perhaps another one was chopped off by Gaster to prevent him from escaping or something. Sans, I really can't imagine any way to disguise his blind eyes as well as showing his unique eye sockets, I mean, since he's not a skeleton anymore (again). In the end, I chose the latter between fidelity to the character and making sense, although this made them a bit less recognizable (sadly)

I hesitated for a long time about the cutie mark. Gaster’s was more straightforward, I needed to came up with something that is related to science but can also reflect the fate of "doing experiments", so I settled on this thing (funny enough, I still don’t know what it’s called, even though it’s probably common knowledge...?). In fact, I also want to express an abstract concept of "recording", including recording the timeline, "recording" the changes in Dreemurrs' and the underground world, and "recording" Radic's actions? Unfortunately, I really can't find a way to reflect the fate of falling into the core on it! The cutie marks of the brothers is much more difficult because they do not have a very specific hobby/lifestyle (like science for Gaster) to represent themselves, which is complicate - if I have to pick, I think their representative items are scarves and socks (...!) - although Papyrus loves puzzles, using puzzles as cutie mark cannot reflect his most important principles and personality, and Sans is even more difficult to handle. In short, their representatives are very abstract, and I find it so hard to summarize their very selves with a single mark on their flank! At last I tried to consider after combining the characteristic of "brothers", positive and negative. I always feel that Gaster's red scarf represents his kind heart, inherited by Papyrus along with the scarf itself, so it naturally occupies a place in his mark (unlike socks to Sans, lol). Sans' mark is more abstract, those things can actually be seen as dissipating dust or as a part of lost head, representing, uh, some obvious things...I guess? I actually even considered using the shapes of the souls Gaster gave them, representing Gaster himself who plays a huge part in their lives, but well it's a little bit tragic if you think about that, their lives should be less of him (in the sense of experiments), so I didn't do that in the end.

I also considered about the clothes. Well...Different from monsters, ponies normally don't wear clothes, in this situation it'll be weird if Gaster specially made lab clothes for the brothers to wear, so I l just let them go naked. Once again, the recognizability has unfortunately decreased...! (also about Sans' clothes, I don't think ponies actually "need" pockets...right?)

Yeah and about the plates, I literally cannot figure out where the plates should go, Gaster was trying to make sure the brothers suffer as he wanted to cut ties with them (at least that's what I thought), so they can't be anything like horseshoes. Tags on the ears are great, but still a little bit off, and I can't think of any "plates" fits both settings of pony and handplates... So I ended up going with brand marks (actually I set this for Dreemurrs in alterplates as well). As for the placement? I think they shall be the lower half and it'll be too screwed up if they were on the cutie marks, so hind legs it is. I don't think ponies wear pants, so I made the brothers wear leggings.

btw I think the brothers got the cutie marks right after Sans yeeted Gaster into the core (welp)

[sundayworshipper]

*~Orthodoxia

«Sunday x Gn! Reader»

🪦| SFW, Angst, Undefined relationship, can be read as romantic/platonic (bed sharing, cuddling)| WC: ~11K

⚰️| CW: Inspired by the song Orthodoxia by Guchiry, misplaced religious worship (fictional religion), Sunday is a priest and cult leader, Small town cult setting AU, Third person prose (reader is referred to as [Name]), Major character death, Minor character death, Murder, SH? (Sunday), Allusion to suicide, Graphic descriptions of violence, Non sexual grooming, A bird dies, Ena=God, Gopher sucks ASS, mostly Sunday angst with reader being there sometimes, English isn’t my first language, non chronological, first fic ever （╹◡╹）

Credit for the commandments to Guchiry

A/N: This is so long 💀.. There’s a few plot holes? and the writing is kinda repetitive but i spent too long on this not to post. Extra warnings, beta read but not proofread, reader char is intentionally bland, not canon compliant/OOC-ish ∩^ω^∩.

EDIT: Oh god this got much more attention than I was expecting. I am (slowly) working on rewriting it 🤍

1. God’s great grace is given to those who are completely faithful.

Sunday inhaled deeply while tugging at his pristine white glove in an attempt of straightening it. In his mind, he looked like a complete mess, completely unfit for a High Priest. His Master and founder of the One True Religion, Gopher Wood, had recently taken his last breath, finally succumbing to the horrible illness that had tormented him for years. As his adopted son, the gray-haired halovian was to take on his duties post-haste. The young man only took half a day to compose himself enough to make a public statement. He probably would have taken longer, had he actually cared to pretend to grieve.

Upon deciding he was satisfied with the state of his attire, Sunday stepped out of the sascrity, taking his place at the pulpit. The gazes of all of his Master’s- no, his own followers, locked onto him, confused and impatient to hear the reason for Mr. Wood’s absence at yesterday’s service.

The man smiled, hoping that the way it didn’t reach his eyes wasn’t very obvious. After a few moments, he just decided to close them.

The fear of rejection by his followers felt as if it was rapidly piercing holes trough his insides, however, he knew that THEY wouldn’t fail him when he needed THEM most. After all, the first ever thing taught to those interested in the religion, is that good things come to those who believe.

2. Only the high priest is permitted to take God's name in vain.

“Fuck! God fucking damn it!” An unfamiliar voice screamed from an alleyway, which Sunday was just about to pass while on his routine walk. His wings twitched, and the ones on his torso tensed. He contemplated if this even counted as a violation of the second commandment, as the use of the words ‘God’ and ‘Lord’ had less restrictions than the uttering of the true name of the one they were referring to. He also thought about the possibility that ‘God’ was the three-faced idol the next town over worshipped, that maybe one of them had snuck in. He ultimately decided that using any heavenly title accompanied by such words was disrespectful, and he’d try to steer the speaker onto the right path, be they a follower of Order, Harmony, or something else entirely.

Despite the amount of information he mulled over, he really didn’t spend long thinking before rushing into the alley.

“Are you alright?” He inquired to the person that had emitted such obscene words just moments ago. Their clothes didn’t reflect those of a citizen in this town, nor the neighboring one’s. They whipped around to face him, wearing a frightened expression.

“Ah..Huh?” The emotion of surprise seemed to overshadow that of fear. Sunday gave an amused smile at this.

“Do not be afraid. I am Sunday, messenger of Ena. I heard you…Cussing, earlier. Judging by your attire, you are a foreigner, which explains that. However, I feel as if I should inform you that such an act is quite worrisome here.” He could no longer suppress his giggle, which confused the stranger.

“What’s so funny?”

“Hmm..Do not worry. Mind telling me how to address you? And, if you’re comfortable, what brings you here?” Sunday stepped closer, and leaned in towards the person.

“I’m [Name].” They replied, taking a step back. After spending a moment deciding whether or not to reveal the circumstances that led up to them ending up where they did, they concluded that he was trustworthy.

Sunday listened, and considered their words carefully.

“I see. Since you have no home, would you like to live with me, for the time being? I’ll help you find a job. All I ask is that you attend church and clean up after yourself.” He offered his hand, wings relaxing.

[Name]’s breath hitched. It wasn’t like they had many choices… If they stayed on the streets, they’d most certainly die. If they went with Sunday, the outcome had a slightly lesser chance of being the same.

After thinking very carefully, they took Sunday’s hand wordlessly.

3. Those who do harm to God's messenger, the high priest, will be expelled.

As much as Sunday wished he could forget the worshippers of Xipe existed, trade between the two towns was beneficial for everyone. After the death of Gopher Wood- who refused any sort of contact and terminated the transaction of goods-, Sunday begrudgingly sent one of his trustworthy followers to request that the old commerce deal be reinstated. And so, it was.

To the average citizen, all seemed well. However, Sunday could notice the way everyone that interacted with Xipe’s Worshippers on a regular basis attended church less and less often. He tried to brush it off as them being busy with such an important new task. This was until, on the seventh day’s service, the holiest of all, one of the traders defied the rules and interrupted Sunday’s sermon by standing directly next to him. The halovian’s heart skipped a beat, but he simply smiled.

“Good sir, are you not feeling well? This is not an appropriate place for you.” He placed a gentle hand on the trader’s shoulder. His kind act was met with a harsh slap which resounded through the entire chamber. However, his smile did not falter.

[Name], who had been sitting in the front row of pews ever since Sunday ‘rescued’ them, stood up, as did the woman next to them. They wanted to separate the two, but the priest extended a hand towards them as a sign to stop.

The atmosphere was painfully tense and uncertain, until the merchant reached into his pocket to retrieve his dagger. He then pressed it to Sunday’s throat, finally causing his expression to shift.

“You bastard… You rotten, filthy, deceptive scoundrel! You lied! All you and your good-for-nothing father have ever done is lie! You will pay for this.” The trader hissed, preparing to slice the man’s flesh. Sunday’s eyes narrowed as he effortlessly ripped the knife from his hands by the blade, cutting deep into his own palm. He then tossed it to the side, and grabbed the traitor by the neck.

“Tsk..What a shame. You were quite valuable.” He shook his head disappointedly before dragging him outside.

No one dared to follow… Except for [Name]. Before anyone could tell them not to, they sprinted after Sunday, finding him kicking his attacker in the stomach repeatedly just outside church doors. [Name] gasped, but they were cut off by the disgusting feeling of bile rising up their throat. This caused Sunday to turn his head. His eyes were wide, however, a disturbingly sweet smile stretched across his features. He delivered one final kick- to the chest this time- and quickly closed most of the distance between him and [Name].

“You shouldn’t have followed me. But, I suppose it’s my fault for not teaching you what to do in such situations.. I’m sorry you had to see that.”

[Name]’s eyes darted between the priest and the corpse he had just created. They soon murmured the first thought they could muster:

“Your hand..”

“I will be fine. Go back inside, and stay put. Service will resume shortly.” He smiled before promptly walking out of sight.

[Name] considered running for their life as far away from this town as geography would allow. However, something was holding them back. After taking a minute to process, they re-entered the church, earning dirty looks from the other members. Only the woman that had stood up alongside them earlier spoke to them.

“Don’t do that. No one wants to see what happens to those who get ‘expelled’.”

4. It is the high priest who is the rightful successor to God’s will.

Despite it not feeling like such, Sunday was once a child. He had a family as well, more or less. Although thinking of Gopher Wood as his parent made him feel sick to his stomach now, a brief period of time where this wasn’t the case existed.

After the traumatic loss of their parents, Sunday and his dear sister, Robin, were sent to an orphanage much like any other unfortunate soul in the same situation. Robin thought they’d be adopted within the year, but Sunday was already planning the way in which he’d make a living for himself the moment he became an adult. He’d save up any and all money he didn’t use strictly on survival to be able to sustain his sister when she reached the age of eighteen as well, he thought.

In a surprising turn of events, a man from a small, far away town, visited the orphanage only three months after the siblings’ arrival. He smiled the instant his gaze landed on them. Originally, Sunday thought it was because of their shared, relatively uncommon species, but he’d later come to convince himself that Gopher Wood saw something in them that day.

In what had to be record time, he had legally adopted them. As they rode the horse carriage to their new home, Robin snuggled close to her brother, and whispered an optimistic ‘I told you so’. Sunday simply smiled, for the first time since the death of their mother.

The first day felt like the most fun a recently orphaned child could have. They were given various sweet treats by their new neighbors, and a tour of the town. Everyone seemed to dote on them, which almost made the young boy finally lower his guard fully. He thought he was safe at last, and could heal.

Big mistake.

That very night, Sunday was ripped from bed by his eerily silent ‘father’. Before he could even ask what he was doing, a hand had been slapped over his mouth. He, being docile and untrained at the time, allowed himself to be molded like clay.

In less than an hour, Sunday had been exposed to things that would shatter the mind of most children into pieces. At the end of his extensive explanation, Gopher took Sunday to the dark, empty church, where he forced him to kneel in front of the altar. Because he hadn’t succumbed to the information that he had to forcibly ingest, Gopher considered him a worthy heir, and introduced him to Ena as such.

And yet, that was not the point where he stopped seeing that man as family. In fact, he never saw anything wrong with that behavior. He always felt so proud to be chosen, entrusted with such an important position.. Gopher said he was special. Smart. Nearly perfect. He was everything he could’ve ever wanted in a son. The knowing glances they exchanged as Robin discovered the surface rules of the religion at the pace that everyone else except for him did made Sunday feel good.

For about a year, Sunday loved his life. He felt as if he finally had a purpose..

On the night of a seventh,going into first day of the week, in the latter half of November, Sunday found himself choking back tears on the bathroom floor, knees hugged tightly to his chest along with his discarded shirt. Gopher Wood, that monster, sat behind him, trimming away at the child’s lower wings. When he was done, he’d move on to permanently tainting them black, like his own.

‘The truest act of devotion’ he called it. To prove their loyalty to Ena, high priests had to discard something they held dear at a young age.. For halovians, their wings were naturally their pride and joy, so, the dark haired man picked those for him. Sunday asked to be allowed to choose something, anything else, but his request was declined.

Of course, this wasn’t any form of religious practice. Gopher had made it up to further mold his poor victim into what he needed him to be. Every time the boy dared to show any feelings regarding that action, he reminded him that as the high priest, all his actions were carried out trough God’s will.

Sunday never wore a base layer of clothing that didn’t almost perfectly match his new wing color after that. He felt hideous, and he’d rather have people think he lost his wings completely than show off the cruel defilement he’d endured.

Since then, Sunday could no longer see him as a father. Of course, he still respected and obeyed him, as not doing so would be disrespectful to THEM, too. After all, priests were naught but a mirror of their God’s desires.

5. God’s teachings are the divine providence of this world.

Sunday tossed in bed, wings wrapping around his face as he groaned quietly. He was tormented by thought, and couldn’t sleep.

Upon the passage of one hour, he rose from his spot, and slowly stepped out of his room. [Name] slumbered on his couch, as they had since the first time Sunday brought them home. He felt bad for not being able to provide them a proper bed, and made a mental note to work on that soon. After all, it wasn’t like it cost much, or… anything at all. He was just a very busy man.

The priest then stepped on the single creaky floorboard in the entire house, alerting his roommate.

“Sunday..?” They yawned, rubbing their eyes as they blinked them open.

“Ah. I’m sorry that I woke you.”

“It’s alright,, but what are you doing up so late? And why are you going out?”

“Mm. I need a walk, to clear my head. I’m finding it hard to rest well tonight.”

“Me too. I barely even fell asleep a few minutes ago, and it was so light.” [Name] stretched their back as they spoke.

“I see. Do you want to join me?” He offered, and the other person excitedly accepted, standing up and almost stumbling. Sunday caught them, helping them to stand better. They gave a grateful look in response.

The two then exited the house, the cold night breeze gently biting at their skin. They set a comfortable pace as Sunday directed them to the woods across the river that served as town border. [Name] hadn’t gotten the chance to go there yet, as it was ill-advised to venture too far from the town.

“Are you sure we should be doing this?”

“Don’t you trust me? Do you think I’m going to murder you for your sins?” Sunday smiled, turning his face away so [Name] couldn’t see.

“I do! It’s just that… Wait, have I sinned?”

“Of course you have. You are still new to our religion, you’re bound to make mistakes. Even devout believers sin sometimes, but God forgives all, therefore so do I.”

“Do you sin?”

“Me? No. Sinning would be disgraceful to our Lord. I mean, if even the high priest doesn’t carry himself as THEY intended, how would any normal person be inclined to either?”

“True.. Doesn’t it get exhausting having to be perfect all the time, though?”

“Not at all. Do you know the fifth commandment?”

“God’s teachings are the divine providence of this world?” [Name] cocked their head at him, almost tripping on a fallen branch in the process.

“Very good. As the high priest, I have to know these teachings better than any other mortal. The stronger one’s knowledge, the stronger they feel God’s love.”

“Oh. I never thought about it like that.”

“Well, now you have.” He halted, left arm occupying its spot behind his back as usual. [Name] stopped as well, confused.

“Why’d you stop? Aren’t walks supposed to be continuous?”

“Yes…Would you mind pausing here for a moment? If I’m not mistaken, this is the clearing I used to come to for respite when I was a child. I have no time for such things anymore, but it brings me a sense of nostalgia.”

[Name] nodded, and awkwardly walked closer to Sunday. There didn’t appear to be any sitting spots, so they just took a moment to appreciate nature’s beauty.

Not much time later, Sunday decided it had gotten far too late to be outside any longer. As they trekked back home, the priest noticed [Name] become slower by the second. He offered to carry them, and in a moment of exhausted weakness, they accepted. They’d soon fall unconscious in his arms.

The following morning, [Name]’d find themselves in Sunday’s bed, with him nowhere to be found.

Confused, they stepped into the living room. Sure enough, the man was curled up on the couch.

6. To disobey God is to deviate from Paradise.

[Name] was integrating nicely into the town already. While trying to decide what job they should try land, they picked up gardening as a short pastime. Sunday had graciously lent them a patch of his backyard to plant things in, so long as they managed to keep it free of weeds. They agreed, and were doing a great job so far. The first thing they tried was strawberries, as it was the optimal season for planting them.

[Name] decided to ask the neighbors to see if anyone had any runners they could borrow.

“Hello!” They waved at an older lady who was conveniently planting something in her own garden. She lifted her head, smiled, and waved back.

“…Ahem. I was wondering if you had any strawberry runners? I want to grow strawberries… I don’t have any money right now, but I’ll pay you for them someday!”

“Ah, such nonsense.. Since Mr. Wood saved us, money is obsolete.”

“Huh? Then why do people still have jobs?”

“So they don’t get bored, of course! If you’re worried about payment, pay with a favor. Give some to Mr. Sunday when they’re ripe. I’m sure he hasn’t had strawberries since Miss Robin… Ah, nevermind, I’ll fetch ‘em for you.” The lady hobbled into her house, leaving [Name] confused. They made a mental note to ask Sunday about this ‘Robin’ someday.

The woman soon returned, and handed the runners to [Name], eagerly.

“Here you go, dearie. Give some to me too, if I’m still around by then…” she chuckled, trailing off into a cough.

“Don’t say that.. But, I will! Thanks so much!” They waved again, and sped off to plant the strawberries.

About three months later, the fruits were ripe. [Name] was utterly delighted… They looked absolutely perfect, as if it was obvious from a glance that they had the perfect texture and amount of juice. They quickly collected them all in a basket, and ran inside, where Sunday was actually home, for once. [Name] was happy about this, and hurried to separate the basket’s contents into bowls. The priest tilted his head at them, curious.

“I see you’ve made good use of the land I gave to you.” He hummed observantly.

“Mhm! I couldn’t have done it without the grandma across the street, though. I have to give her a portion back, but.. She asked for something else as payment.”

“Oh?”

[Name] handed Sunday a full bowl, happily.

“She wanted me to give this to you! She said you probably haven’t eaten any since some Robin something something..”

Sunday froze, and his breathing paused abruptly.

“Who’s Robin anyway? It sounds like you know her…”

“Robin is a sinner who denied our Lord’s presence in her life. She is where she deserves to be right now.” His voice had a weird edge, almost as if it was breaking.

“She’s not someone you should concern yourself with again. Ahem; thank you for the gift. It was very thoughtful of you. Send my regards to the neighbor, too.” He left, strawberry bowl in hand.

[Name] frowned, dejectedly dragging themselves and one of the remaining strawberry bowls to the neighbor’s house. She was in the yard once again, so they just walked up to her.

“Ma’am! I picked the strawberries today!” They handed her the dish.

“Thank you, dear. You gave them to Mr. Sunday too, yes?”

“Of course. He said to give you his regards. But, something weird happened. When I asked him about Robin, he just said she was a sinner. That wasn’t much of an answer, so could you tell me more, please?”

“Really? Hm. I wouldn’t expect him to be that cold towards the memory of his own sister…”

“…What?”

“I’ve said too much. Please leave.”

[Name] frowned, but did as asked. It was taking them some time to accept the fact that there were certain topics everyone seemed to get tense around..

7. To harbor doubts about God is to suffer the disintegration of thought.

Gopher Wood always despised the neighboring town, in which he was born, raised, and first established his religion. He hated not having control over every single atom there, so, he left. However, he wasn’t always completely unwilling to maintain a cordial relationship with them.

When his daughter, Robin, reached the age of twelve, he assigned her the role of ‘peacekeeper’. She was to befriend politicians and people of note, engage in the culture there. and report any intel she could’ve gained back to Gopher, who would then try to usurp the town and convert its residents to worshippers of Ena, ergo himself, by commandment fourteen.

By her 13th birthday, Robin’s reports suspiciously all turned into ‘They didn’t tell me anything’. The high priest soon grew skeptical, and ordered Sunday to get an answer out of her by any means necessary.

And so, he did.

He approached her door, taking note of the unfamiliar tune she appeared to be loudly humming. Due to growing older, they now had separate rooms. This didn’t help their relationship whatsoever, as their paths in life were already pulling them apart.

“Sister?” He knocked.

“Come in!” She called out, ceasing her singing. Sunday did, avoiding her gaze.

“I need to talk to you about something.”

“Sure. Sit down.” She gestured to the empty spot on her bed, next to herself. Sunday shook his head, which felt like a dagger being pierced trough robin’s heart.

“Oh. Okay… What did you want to talk about?”

“Master ranted to me earlier about the lack of new information regarding the neighboring town lately. I found this weird, so I just wanted to ask you about it. Please be honest with me, are you hiding something?”

Robin’s eyes widened, before drifting downward. She dipped her head in a slight nod.

“Brother… I’m sorry, I meant to tell you earlier, but I feared your response. I..” she inhaled, then exhaled. “…I worship the Harmony.”

Sunday stared at her with the most disgust his face had ever held. He began to slowly shake his head.

Robin stood, paced over to him, and grabbed his hand, holding it close to her chest.

“Please, just listen to me. I discovered something that will change your view on-“ She trailed off as she met his gaze. It was evident that there was no possible way to reason with him. At that moment, it didn’t feel like she was even looking at her sibling; but rather, at the man that destroyed him.

Defeated, she let go of his hand, and sat back on her mattress. As she watched her beloved brother leave her room, she accepted that her days were now numbered.

8. To blaspheme God is to deny one's own existence.

Robin wore a gentle smile as she was walked down the path to a completely empty plain by her brother. The girl was dressed in pitch black robes, a symbol of her betrayal and a way to make her death far more painful. And yet, she didn’t seem all that bothered.

“Sunday..” she hummed.

“You’re not supposed to speak.”

“I’ll be dead soon either way. What’s one more sin?”

“…”

“I love you. Please don’t blame yourself, I forgive you.”

Sunday didn’t reply to this, and pushed her towards her final resting place.

“Press your back to the stake, please.”

Robin obliged, placing her hands behind the wooden pole as well, without even having to be told. Sunday, under the watchful gaze of Gopher Wood, tied them together, then her torso to the stake.

A citizen then dumped the wood Gopher had hand picked the day prior as the fire fuel to Robin’s feet, before backing up. As per the high priest’s request, Sunday was to light it.

The heir felt nothingness rip and tear away at his being. As his Master placed a flaming torch in his hand, Sunday thought about all the things he wanted to do right now. He wanted to cry, but that would be ‘disgraceful’. He wanted to grab his sister and run, far away from here, and start a new life together, but they were just children, with a horde of angry, violent adults behind them. He wanted to fall to his knees and scream in despair, but the raven-like man behind him would definitely punish him severely for that. As his legs trembled, threatening to give out, Sunday wondered what the worst consequence could even be. Upon remembering the ruined state his wings were in and that he had another pair in an incredibly visible location, he took several deep breaths to calm himself down.

“I’m sorry.” He mouthed, before pressing the torch’s tip to the firewood.

9. God sees, but THEY never save.

Sunday inhaled deeply, eyes shut. The winter air numbed his lungs, allowing the cold to overwhelm his body. He felt no pain, or any physical sensation at all. He simply felt like pure consciousness.

“Brother!” The worried voice of his sister called out to him. Alarmed, he exhaled, and ended his meditative state.

“What is it?” He questioned, tone unusually flat.

Robin held her hands out to him. They contained a baby dove. It was barely even covered in pin feathers, meaning it couldn’t have been more than seven days old.

“I was walking to Mr. Gary’s farm because I promised to help feed his animals, but i found this hatchling crying by a tree… I can’t find its nest, or parents, b-but it’ll freeze to death if we don’t do something!” She sobbed. Sunday examined the tiny avian closely.

“Yes…I do suppose the best course of action would be to raise it ourselves.” He crossed his arms.

“Why do you sound so hesitant..?”

Sunday was worried about what his Master would do upon discovering the animal. He wondered if its wings would be clipped, like his own were. The boy pressed a hand to his mouth in thought, eventually settling on the conclusion that there would be no reason to commit such act, as it was only done to himself so he could prove his worth to Ena.

“Fine. Give it to me.” He demanded, and the girl obliged.

The siblings rushed back home, where Robin filled a shallow bowl with warm water. Sunday placed the chick in it, but held on, just in case. It let out chirps of increasing volume, which the boy found endearing. He soon let go, stroking under the bird’s chin instead. Robin gasped, and leaned in closer to observe this. Her brother interacting with animals was a truly beautiful sight.

“How long will it take until it’s grown? I can’t wait to teach it how to fly!” She smiled widely, blinking up at Sunday.

“Huh? Why would we do that..?” He raised an eyebrow.

“So we can release it?” Robin now looked confused.

“What? You can’t be serious. What even is the point of saving it now if you just want to send it to die later?” He pulled the bowl closer to himself, protectively.

“It won’t die! It’d just be cruel to keep it inside for the rest of its life!” She argued, straightening her posture.

“It will.”

“No, it won’t!” The girl gripped the edge of the table. Sunday pinched the bridge of his nose, and turned his back to her.

“Fine. If you insist, you’re now responsible for its well-being until the end of the next week, when you must release it into the wild.”

“Fine.” Robin huffed, and pulled the bird and its makeshift bath back towards herself.

Seven more days passed, in which the dove grew out all the needed feathers for flight. Robin was absolutely ecstatic, and dragged Sunday outside.

“Okay..How do we do this?” She asked.

“What, you made a decision that could be the difference between life and death for another living being without any research?”

“Well, when you put it like that-“

“Do you admit defeat?”

“No! I know it’ll survive! Just tell me how to help it fly.”

Sunday simply shrugged, which upset Robin. After some contemplation, she placed the dove down on the ground, and held her breath waiting.

The bird soon spread its wings, and departed from the ground. The young girl squealed happily, and watched with wide eyes. She then turned, grinning triumphantly at her brother. It was then that she noticed the tall, dark figure looming right behind him.

“Master? What brings you here?”

Gopher Wood simply smiled eerily, and Sunday grimaced, eyes fixed on the now flying dove. A chill of deep dread struck Robin’s spine, making her turn again… Just in time to see the razor sharp talons of a raven dig into the body of the smaller bird. Right as its beak was about to rip flesh off, the girl ran into the house, sobbing loudly.

Sunday and Gopher kept watching. The scene was horrible, gory and disheartening, to say the least.

After a period of silence, the boy spoke up.

“That was a trained raven.”

“What a keen eye.”

“…Why? Robin didn’t have to see that. She’s just a child.”

“I disagree. It was her choice to free the dove, wasn’t it? She has to learn that her actions have consequences, and that defying the concept of order won’t get her anywhere.”

Sunday wordlessly nodded, before walking off.

On the way to the clearing he’d claimed as solely his- which he only turned to when he was having ‘sinful’ ideas that he felt too scared to even think about in the confines of the city- he wondered if Ena would really want one of THEIR creations to suffer, just to teach another a valuable lesson. He then considered that THEY might not truly even care about anyone and anything at all. If he could see and intervene in anything happening in the world, Sunday would try to save every being. But, in the end, he was not God, and THEY were.

10. God listens, but THEY never speak.

“Father..” a weak voice on the other side of the confessional threatened to break. Sunday straightened his posture, as he instinctively always did when spoken to, even if he couldn’t be seen.

“Speak your sorrows, child of the Order.”

“I can’t take it any longer. It feels… It feels like my prayers are falling on deaf ears. My life has only been spiraling into misery… Hell, even a sign would help loads!”

Sunday closed his eyes, thinking deeply.

“I understand how you must feel. However, you should know THEY don’t often give ‘signs’. You may share your troubles with me, and I promise to try my hardest to help you.”

“You’d really do that?”

“I would.” He nodded. He’d trained himself to be aware of his body language and what every single difference in stance could be interpreted as. So, he applied that even when alone, hidden, or in an otherwise casual situation.

“Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you… May I ask a question first?”

“Hm?”

“Do THEY give you signs? Speak to you? Anything at all?”

The halovian fell silent. He didn’t know. Ever since he’d taken over Gopher Wood’s duties, he felt like a failure for being ‘spiritually disconnected’ from the Lord.

“The answer is what you think.” Was what he settled on.

The person on the other side sighed. The next time they spoke, their voice sounded muffled.

“I’m a murderer. I don’t deserve to live. Do you think THEY would forgive me if I..”

“Don’t say that. You are stronger than you think. Why do you consider yourself a murderer?”

“I had an argument with my little sister. It was over something so stupid, I don’t even remember what it was. I was so angry that I pushed her. She hit her head on the kitchen counter, and… oh god. There was so much blood. I saw her brains, Father. I will never forget the sight. I see it every time I sleep, every time I close my eyes, every time I see things that remind me of her. Please, how do I make it stop?” They sobbed.

Sunday was silent, eyes unfocusing as the vivid memory of Robin’s body being charred alive by flames tore its way out of the corner of his brain he’d banished it to.

“Father?”

“…Apologies. That is a lot to process, I was thinking of the optimal way to help. How long ago did this accident happen?”

“I don’t know. It could be anywhere from a few days to several months. After I buried her, everything’s been a blur. She was everything I had left… i hate to think that if I treated her nicer, showed her how much I appreciate her; if I tried to understand her better and didn’t let my emotions get the better of me, she’d still be here.”

“Yes.. You said you buried her body?”

“I did.”

“Where?”

“…”

“I see. You don’t have to tell me. I can feel that you are genuinely remorseful. Fear not, the Lord will forgive you, and I’m sure your sister would too. As for the mental scarring, I can only hope that your confession has lifted some weight off your shoulders. You are not alone. If you ever feel as if you need to take drastic measures, I hereby permit you to seek me in my free time. Your life matters, and I’d rather a slight inconvenience to myself than lose another life. It gets easier, I promise. Hardship is the key to happiness.” Although he was saying all this, he barely even believed or understood himself. He’d never had anyone comfort him when he was in a similar situation, nevermind attempt to help him. When he tried to turn to Ena for solace, he was only met with silence… Which was to be expected. However, the toll it took on him was greater than he could’ve ever expected. In any case, he hoped he’d helped the member of his community, even slightly.

The sound of the fabric belonging to the other person’s clothes could be heard- presumably them standing up. It was then followed by footsteps. Sunday groaned loudly once he figured they’d have long exited the church, and placed his face in his hands. This was going to be a long day.

Upon returning home way past midnight, Sunday looked uncharacteristically horrible. His eyes were bloodshot, his wings drooped pathetically as he slouched, including his ‘deformed’ second pair, which usually stayed tucked into his coat.

“Sunday!” [Name] ran to the door as soon as it opened. As they bore witness to the state of the halovian, they fell into baffled silence. He blinked blearily, far too tired to be embarrassed.

“I’m sorry. Go to sleep.” He mumbled, trying to push past them and towards the couch, as the two had traded sleeping utilities after their late-night walk.

“No! Are you okay?”

“Excuse me?”

“You look horrendous. I’m worried.”

“Thanks.” He deadpanned.

“I obviously didn’t mean it that way. It’s just not like you to be so… improper. Woah, wait, you have four wings!?”

“I don’t want to talk about either of those things. Please move, I’d really like to sleep.”

[Name] frowned, and instead of letting Sunday go to sleep on the near back-breaking couch when he was clearly in no condition to, they intertwined their hand with his, pulling him towards the bedroom. Before Sunday had the chance to protest, they’d reached their destination.

“What are you doing?”

“What, you said you wanted to sleep.”

“Are you implying you want to… share a bed?”

“Yeah! That’s not sinful, right?”

“I suppose not.” Sunday gave up.

“Great. I’ll let you change, call me back in when you’re done.”

Sunday didn’t know what had happened to him by the beginning of the next hour. He found himself cuddling his housemate, face buried in their chest as their fingers carded through his hair. If he wasn’t so far gone, he would’ve felt shame to the depths of his bones.

As [Name]’s breathing and heart rate slowed steadily, so did their hand. Sunday smiled, slowly shifting their position until they’d fully swapped roles. While he appreciated being on the receiving end of affection for once, it was just his nature to want to return any kind act done for him.

He draped a wing around their body, figuring he’d finally found a use for the unsightly body part.

11. God knows, but THEY never teach.

Sunday’s hands balled into fists at his sides. He’d been staring at the glass casing containing the stone slate which the commandments had been first carved into for what must’ve been many hours now. He read them over, and over, and over, and over… Despite the fact that his mind was already similar to the slate, in the sense that the words had been permanently etched into both. Every day, he could feel himself growing more and more…Hateful. And so, he decided connecting with the Lord again would be the best course of action.

Unfortunately, he was wrong. As he obsessively examined and carefully thought over every word of the sacred obligations, he could only form more and more questions… More anger. More doubt. The contradictions between several entries now seemed painfully obvious. For example, it was specified that the high priest was the exception to commandment two, but no such thing exists for the numbers nine, ten and eleven… But, communication between God and the high priest was supposed to be the basis of the religion.

As the gears in Sunday’s brain turned, he began to laugh. How could he have been so foolish? These were all just lies. Lies made up by a selfish man who desired nothing more than to rule the whole world by himself. As his laughter grew, so did his fury.

Sunday dug his fingers into the side of the glass; fragile, as all things in this forsaken town. If everyone was under the permanent illusion of safety, why was there any need for precaution? It was so bad, that nobody locked their doors anymore. No one would want to break into your house and kill you, after all. The most likely murderer was the person you trusted enough to live with. As these realizations plagued his mind, Sunday’s hands only gripped the long since shattered shards of glass tighter, and tighter. It hurt so pleasantly right now. Although, soon enough, he dropped them in favor of grasping the stone tablet itself. As he turned around, his eyes darted through the church. He needed something to break it with.

After looking for a considerable amount of time, Sunday decided he’d just fling it at the wall.

As the glorified boulder was about to leave his hand, he hesitated. What if he was wrong? This definitely had to be a misunderstanding. Maybe he just wasn’t open minded enough to understand the deeper meaning of the commandments. After all, every older resident seemed so happy living the way they were. The younger generation- including himself- would grow into doing the same, surely… God is good, Sunday thought.

God is loving.

The priest lowered his hand slowly. He rotated back to his original position, regret filling him at the sight of the broken display and bloodied glass scattered across the floor. If he were to look into his hand, he’d notice the crimson seeping from his open wound was quickly transferring to the commandments.

Sunday closed his eyes, breathing deeply. He just had to clean this up, find a replacement case, and no one would ever know. His sin could stay between him and the Lord, forever.

As for understanding all the contradictions, he was now sure that he just had to try a little harder. After all, God doesn’t teach. For a start, this probably meant THEY wanted THEIR subjects to learn from their and others’ mistakes throughout their life.

Yes, this had to be the solution. This was nothing but another trial for Sunday to overcome; a test of faith.

12. The entire Word of God is passed down through THEIR oracle, the high priest.

In an extremely rare occurrence, Sunday had found himself with a few hours of free time on his hands. He decided to spend one of them browsing the local grocery store, deciding on what snack to purchase for [Name], as a token of appreciation. He hadn’t asked them about their tastes outright, so he was attempting to piece them together from the few, yet valuable conversations they’d had. This was proving to be a more challenging task than expected, but he wasn’t about to give up.

“I believe this is what you’re looking for.” A voice coming from Sunday’s right spoke sweetly. He turned his head, confused. Before him stood a person, with an appearance so strikingly out of place that he managed how they even managed to make it into the city. They had white hair, parted into short twin tails on either side of their head. They also had long curtain bangs, however, the upper part of their hairstyle didn’t even utilize as much as half of their locks. The expanse of white fell down to the floor, dragging along it whenever they moved. They wore simple, yet eye grabbing make up, which nicely complemented their tanned skin. Their eyes appeared to naturally stay shut for the entirety of Sunday’s examination of them, not displaying any of the twitching that the eyes of a normal person forcing them to stay closed would. What was really out of place, though, was their clothing. They wore a tight, black dress which was about as long as their hair. It was rather revealing, especially in the chest and leg area. Whilst the town Sunday lived in didn’t exactly enforce ‘purity culture’ anymore, it was still unusual to dress immodestly. Additionally, the sort of corset piece wrapped around their midriff and neck appeared to be real gold, solidifying their status as an outsider. The followers of Order weren’t exactly wealthy, as money had not been used since the founding of the religion, and Gopher Wood considered the concept to be inherently unfair. Of course, this didn’t stop him from continuing to hoard any currency he came across, to be able to afford imported garments and accessories of the finest quality for only himself and his children.

“Pardon?” He narrowed his eyes, inspecting the item. It was one of the choices he’d been considering for [Name]’s snack, although he was still second-guessing himself.

“This is their favorite.” The foreigner extended their hand further, as if urging him to take it.

“What are you talking about?” Sunday was becoming uncomfortable.

“[Name]? Your.. Friend. This is their favorite. You are looking for something to get them, no?”

“Hah..I see. You’re one of Xipe’s slaves.” He chuckled bitterly, and grabbed a duplicate of the item they were holding off the shelf.

“I’d strongly urge you to return to your home, if you know what’s best for you. Good day.” He turned to leave, but a hand as cold as death itself gripped his wrist with a hold that would be sure to cut off his circulation if it was kept too long.

“Is this all the thanks I get? You would’ve spent another hour deciding if it weren’t for me.” The person pouted in mock offense.

“Stop. Get out of my mind, please.” He tried to pull away, to no avail.

“And what if I don’t? Are you going to call upon Ena to save you? Oh wait..” They laughed.

“Tsk…Do not use THEIR sacred name with such mocking purpose.”

“I really don’t get what you see in THEM. I mean, THEY’RE such a deadbeat! The Great One would never let THEIR subjects suffer.”

“Says the one whose idol abandoned THEIR town without leaving as much as a divine messenger.”

“Hm? But I am the High Priest.”

“High Priest? My a-.. ahem… That does not sound very likely. Clearly, you’re blessed in some form, but knowing Penacony, they would hold a week-long festival in your honor if you gave substantial proof of this. Who are you, really?”

The person smiled, and let go of his now bruised wrist. They’d still not opened their eyes once.

“Oh, would you look at the time. Well, I should get going. Until we meet again~” they waved, and walked away, humming an awfully familiar tune.

Sunday would then stand in the middle of the aisle, snack in hand as he tried to make sense of what had happened. He wondered if the person was trying to convince him to turn to the Harmony, or just teasing him. What’s worse is that if it was the former, he believed he might’ve actually considered.

The halovian soon dragged himself home, deep in thought. As he opened the door to see [Name] sitting on the couch as they had been doing more often lately, Sunday smiled. He sat next to them, far closer than usual.

“…I got you something.” He handed them the snack. [Name] gasped quietly.

“Ohh.. Did you know this was my favorite? Thank you so much!” They hugged him.

“Really? Must’ve been a lucky guess. In any case, consider this payment for the strawberries.” Sunday shut his eyes. Perhaps the worshipper of Xipe wasn’t all that horrible.

13. God’s aims are the aims of the world

Lately, Sunday had been frequenting the church in the dead of night. Since the meeting with the strange worshipper of Harmony, he’d been questioning his faith more than ever before. A part of him struggled with the same urge to run that he’d felt in Robin’s final moments. However, instead of his fear of angry, violent adults holding him back now, it was the fear of repercussions for becoming one.

He considered himself weak minded. He knew very well what he was getting into before accepting the position of high priest. He knew he’d have to murder and hurt, and yet… He never truly could. A secret Sunday swore he’d take to the grave, was that he never truly punished traitors as God commanded. Even after the incident with the tradesman, the worst he could muster was kicking him into unconsciousness and dropping him off into Penacony’s territory. That very night, he prayed to the God he himself had just betrayed, that the man was taken to a hospital. In his heart, Sunday still believed that if he were to implore the Lord to forgive those who turned away from them, THEY would.

Sunday had what one might call a heart of gold. He wanted the best for everyone, even if it directly contradicted the teachings of his Master, and the undeniable holy rules given to the world by God. However, his constant desire to help came at the cost of his own sanity- fact which he was acutely aware of. He considered it a small price to pay for the joy of others.

In his mind, he was responsible for the actions of each and every one of The Order’s followers. If they sinned, it was purely his fault for not managing to stop them. He’d be the one spending eternity in the burning embers, while any who sinned under him and died before he did, would be forgiven and led to the peaceful afterlife they strived for all their lives. If he’d explain this to any sane person, they’d most likely immediately pick up on how specific, flawed, and barely comprehensible his logic was… Unfortunately, he never would.

“You look tired.” The sickly sweet voice of the strange worshipper called from behind Sunday, making him halt.

“I know for a fact that I locked the gates.” He crossed his arms, but didn’t give the person the pleasure of looking at them.

“What can I say, I have my ways… Anyway, I don’t think burying yourself in your delusions is very healthy. You should rest.”

“I must say, you’re very bold. You simply can’t hold yourself back from insulting the Lord in front of THEIR messenger, hm?”

“I am simply stating a fact. You’re starting to doubt THEIR very existence, and you know that. If you acknowledge your situation, why do you still choose to indulge?”

Sunday did not speak for a long period of time.

“If you truly were a High Priest, you’d understand. God is all I have. I’ve invested so much time into becoming what I am now, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself otherwise.”

“And you still don’t follow the very principle that supposedly founded your religion. Clearly, deep down, what you want is to help everyone. You’d be well suited for the Harmony…”

“No. The harmony dictates that everyone must live through trial and error. That’s such unnecessary suffering, that can simply be avoided by protecting everyone.”

“Learning through mistakes? Isn’t that what you ultimately decided Ena’s ideal was, when you noticed people making mistakes over and over again, even when the whole point of this religion is to establish ultimate control and peace to the point where people will actively seek out pain to break the monotony?”

“…Then, I was mistaken. I never saw the similarities to the Harmony before. I pray THEY can forgive me as I try to truly understand THEIR commandments once more. Thank you for telling me this. I shall… Become a better fit for my role, through any means necessary.”

“Really? Or will you do as you’ve always done, and continue to refuse to harm anyone as your God dictates?”

“…Even if I were to do that, which I will earnestly try not to, the spiritual consequences would fall onto me, solely. I’m the one not doing my job, I-“

“Sunday! When was the last time you’ve uttered or thought something that makes any sense, at all!? Look deeply within yourself, you’ll realize how absurd you’re being.”

The halovian simply smiled. Perhaps, long ago, that would’ve been true. However, that was no longer a possibility. Any time he’d come to the same realization, his being would instinctively suffocate itself with a half-hearted explanation that would seem plausible enough at first glance, until he’d begin to deconstruct it, at which point the process would repeat.

The stranger’s expression shifted into a sorrowful one. They’d really tried to help him, but he was truly too far gone.

“I see. I hope your soul will someday be able to find peace.” They left, giving Sunday the opportunity to continue destroying himself in peace.

14. God and the high priest shall be regarded as one and the same.

Gopher Wood’s amber eyes intently observed Mikhail. His head was informally resting on the table, wings fluttering in anticipation as he waited for his ally to finish reading the documents he’d presented him with.

“So? What do you think?” He finally spoke, having grown impatient.

“I’m not done yet..”

“Well, you’ve read most of it. What do you think so far, then?”

“I didn’t know you had such little patience, Mr. Wood.”

“Yes, yes..Well, now you know.”

“I don’t consider it appropriate to share my opinion on something that I don’t fully understand. I ask that you continue waiting.”

“Fine.” Gopher scoffed, and stood up.

“I’m going to get another drink. Want anything?”

“No, thank you.”

Mikhail sighed as he continued reading. Him and Gopher had met just over three amber eras ago, under inexplicable circumstances. At the time, it seemed they had similar ideals for the future of Penacony- a beautiful town, ravaged by an unfortunate dispute. The two quickly struck up a friendship, or at the very least, a cordial working relationship. At first, they agreed that their end goal was to join The Family, a union of towns and cities who worshipped a god known as Xipe and believed in the concept of Harmony. The men slowly gained the respect of most Penaconians that, too,wished for peace, who allowed them to become something akin to a two-person government.

After all that, they successfully completed their goal. Although, soon after, Gopher began acting unusually. He distanced himself from Mikhail, only talking to him to ask odd questions, such as ‘if he ever wished the entire town’s residents could be puppets’. The blue-haired man grew incredibly concerned for his partner’s wellbeing, but could never reach Gopher to speak to him about this topic.

A few days prior, he had invited him out to drinks to discuss ‘an exciting new discovery’. They now found themselves here, Gopher having handed Mikhail a folder full of papers, detailing the proof of the existence of another deity before Xipe. THEY were known by the name of Ena, and represented Order, which was awfully close to the concept of Harmony, besides the awfully concerning attitude towards those who desired to follow their own path in life.

Just as Mikhail finished reading, the halovian returned.

“Are you done yet?”

“Yes…?”

“Wonderful! So?”

“I’m… Not quite sure I understand. Do you want to leave The Family and pursue this religion? Do you even have any current proof this, ‘Ena’ even exists..?”

“Oh, THEY don’t!” He giggled, joyfully taking a sip of his wine. Just as Mikhail was preparing to open his mouth, he continued:

“Not anymore, at least. But if we can make people believe THEY do, we’ll have them wrapped around our fingers. They’ll just do anything we want under the guise of religion. Doesn’t that sound wonderful? There can truly be peace upon Penacony.”

“…How drunk are you?”

“Plenty.”

“You’re not thinking straight. That would never work, it’d just be defying human nature. Besides, if the ones who continue trying to end our lives for opposing them can’t even agree with Harmony, what makes you think they’d want to obey the words of an imaginary God?”

“Oh, them? They have no place in Penacony either way. If I were to execute my plan, I’d be doing a great favor to everyone.” He grinned.

“That’s enough. Get up. I’m taking you home, and you’re going to sleep off all that wine.” Mikhail stood, tossing the documents into the nearest trash.

“I know what I’m doing, my dear Misha. I’ve been fantasizing about this since before we even met… It’s my greatest wish, and what’s the best for Penacony- no, the world, even! Why must you be so cruel~?”

“…You’re not who I thought you were. Why.. Why would you even say that?”

“Mm.. Tell me one thing, then.” He rounded the table, until he was face to face with Mikhail. He then grabbed the collar of his shirt, and pulled him even closer, grinning. “How long do you think a society under the Order’s rule will last? Hell, even with the most haphazard basis I can throw together in one night?”

“Don’t-“

“Answer me.”

“…A decade, at most.”

“Very well.” Gopher hummed, and let go.

“I say… Triple that, before it spreads to Penacony. At least a century after that until the downfall.”

“What are you planning to do..?”

“You’ll see.”

“You’re,, a psychopath. This will never work! Even if it somehow lasted for your entire lifetime, you’d never find a successor gullible enough to extend your little cult’s existence for that long.”

Gopher’s smile widened sinisterly.

“Cult? I prefer the word social experiment. Anyway, I should get going now. I heard the next town over has little contact with outsiders, and I’d like to get there before that changes.” He turned, and began to walk.

“Until we meet again, Misha.”

15. God is absolute.

After his second encounter with what seemed to be Xipe’s chosen one, Sunday felt completely drained. He hadn’t fully felt like a living, breathing entity since he was maybe six years old, but the mental haze that affected him worsened with each significant event that happened to him. He stumbled home at the same time that the sun began to peek over the horizon.

Despite the fact that he returned to sleeping on the couch after the night him and [Name] cuddled, he didn’t feel like sleeping alone at this moment.

Following several minutes of hesitation, Sunday opened the bedroom door, cautiously stepping in. Of course, his friend was sleeping peacefully, and luckily for him, deeply. The man stalked over to the closet door, which had been divided into halves to accommodate both his and [Name]’s clothes. He quickly discarded his current outfit, changing into a simple t-shirt and sweatpants. The shirt rode up his stomach slightly, as he hadn’t ever found the time to poke wing holes into his casual garments; therefore, his wings were just hanging naturally.

He slowly sat down on the unoccupied side of the bed, pausing to see if the sleeping person would wake. When they didn’t, he made himself more comfortable, even pulling half of the blanket over himself.

That action caused [Name] to turn. Sunday was preparing an apology speech for waking them, but they were unbothered. They grabbed his arm, snuggling it. The halovian took a moment to process, upper wings tensing in surprise. He was still not used to being touched, but he’d feel too bad pushing them away. So, instead of getting any rest, he just awkwardly stared at them for hours, frozen in place.

Finally, [Name] yawned, attempting to stretch. They were stopped by the sensation of a warm, solid object being held between their arms. When their eyes shot open, they barely stopped themselves from screaming at the sight of Sunday, who looked at them with a tired frown.

“Sorry,, I didn’t mean to scare you. I was just feeling unwell, and I thought…” He didn’t finish his sentence.

“It���s alright. I’m just, a little surprised. You don’t really seem like the type of guy who’d enjoy this kind of stuff.”

“‘Stuff’…?”

“Yeah. You know, like, closeness.”

“Really? Hm.” He turned his head away, deep in thought.

“I guess you’re right.“ He nearly whispered, pulling his arm away.

The silence that followed was painfully awkward. So much so, that [Name] decided to speak the first thought that came to mind:

“Can I touch your wings?”

“Sorry?”

“I want to touch your wings. They look super fluffy.”

Sunday narrowed his eyes, wondering where they obtained such courage. A halovian’s wings were just about sacred, and most only allowed those closest to them to do as much as stare at them for extensive amount of time. And still…

“You may. But, please be careful. They’re very sensitive, and tear easily.”

“Wait, really? I wasn’t really expecting you to let me..” [Name] was dumbfounded.

“I suppose so. The idea doesn’t make me uncomfortable, as I… Truly appreciate you. It feels like you’re the only person that has seen me as human in an embarrassingly long time. This is the least I can do to express my gratitude.” He leaned in closer, extending the wings on the side closest to [Name]. They didn’t speak, only reaching out to pet the wing sticking out from under his shirt. Sunday was surprised, as he figured they’d first pick the carefully preened, pristine, and intact wing on his head.

“It’s so soft..” they gasped, brushing a finger along the trimmed edge of the appendage. They then moved on to his upper wing, scratching behind it like one would with a cat.

Sunday metaphorically melted, gently collapsing onto [Name]. His eyes closed contently as his roommate continued their exploration of his features.

Unfortunately, their happiness didn’t last long. The distinct sound of wood being axed through snapped both people out of their relaxed state. Sunday jumped out of bed, and out the bedroom door. The sound was coming from the front entrance- which was stupid, as it was unlocked, much like any other door in the town. He crossed his arms, glaring at the widening hole in his door.

Upon completely decimating the wooden structure, a furious mob of followers of the Order barged in, carrying pitchforks and unlit torches. Sunday blinked in disbelief, if only for a couple seconds.

“You liar… Murderous whoreson of a cunt! How could you… How? Do you even realize how many people have lost or wasted their lives on your fuckass cult!? You will pay for this!” A man near the front screamed, spit flying onto Sunday as he did so. He wiped it off his face, giving his subjects a tired smile.

“My children, please. This must all be one great misunderstanding. I urge you to lay your weapons down, and explain to me what crime exactly you think it is that I committed.” He clasped his hands together, eyes closing inoffensively. Once again, his communication attempt was met with a slap.

“Misunderstanding? Hah. Tell that to The Devil! Tie him!” The man ordered, in response to which, the follower of Harmony stepped forward, rope in hand. As they stood parallel to Sunday, they opened their eyes for the first time. The blue outer ring transforming into a deep purple one didn’t look the least bit human, and neither did the grey sclera. If anything, such colors more closely resembled the written description of Ena, if only reversed.

It was then that it clicked.

Sunday began to twitch, in what seemed like the unfortunate moment where the psyche of a tortured man finally shattered. Hell, maybe that was accurate. He soon began to laugh, louder than he ever had before.

As he found himself preoccupied with that, Xipe gave him one last pitiful glance.

“I’m sorry.” THEY mouthed, beginning to bind his arms and wings.

[Name] gripped the edge of the bedroom doorframe. They had been observing for the entirety of the conflict, frozen. Perhaps, if the sea of people didn’t extend well past the confines of the house, they would’ve tried to help Sunday.

“See? He’s gone far past mad- Wait, should we do something about [Name]?” A villager questioned another, causing Sunday to cease his laughter.

“Absolutely. Burn the entire house down, everything he’s touched is tainted.”

“Are you insane? They’re pretty new. What do you think are the chances that they knew?” A third chimed in.

“[Name] didn’t know. It… It was all on me. I’m the one who lied to you. I deceived each and every one of you in pursuit of control. I corrupted the pure intentions of Gopher Wood, and, I ended his life via poison. I am the only culprit.” Sunday tensed, frantically looking around to see how many people believed his faux confession. Of course, only the first sentence was even remotely true. However, if he were to die today, there was no reason to drag the dead and the innocent along with him.

The villagers fell silent, looking between each other in a silent discussion.

“I believe him.” Xipe said, tugging on Sunday’s binds as THEY lead him towards the door, clearing a path through the mob.

The crowd followed, much like a herd of sheep would. This left [Name] alone, and confused.

When the silence became deafening, they hurried to follow. They figured that even if they couldn’t physically be that close to him during whatever was going to happen, then being there at all might make Sunday feel less alone. Even if what he’d confessed was true; which they didn’t fully believe, he did save their life. This was the least they could do for him.

Tears rolled down Sunday’s face, shining golden from the bright sunlight seeping into them. He was awarded the courtesy of choosing when he’d be ended, and he picked sundown. He’d been nailed to a cross, through his hands, wings, and shoulders. The fallen priest was in utter agony, and yet, he was quite alright with this.

Xipe took the same role Sunday had all those years ago; the killer. The villagers were seething, and craved nothing but blood. So, they all collectively decided Sunday was going to be nailed, burnt, and finally shot in the neck. Xipe offered THEMSELVES as executioner. No mortal deserved to have to live with the fact they were the direct cause of another human being’s untimely demise…

As THEIR lit torch approached the kindling, Xipe gazed into Sunday’s eyes once more. They smiled. It was barely visible, yet earnest.

Sunday returned the gesture, inhaling the last breath of fresh air he’d ever take.

[Name] kneeled in front of the charred, bloodied, and decaying corpse of Sunday. They didn’t even think he saw them in his final moments, ergo, they exposed themselves to his disgustingly brutal end for nothing.

They dipped their head, placing the bouquet of wild flowers they’d picked from the clearing which Sunday introduced them to, at his feet.

“Do you want to bury him?”

“…What?” [Name] turned, recognizing the voice as Sunday’s executioner.

“You cared about him. I doubt you want him to publicly rot for..What, a decade?”

“Yeah.”

“Stand. And take the flowers. I’ll carry him.”

And so, they did. In the same clearing the flowers had been picked from, [Name] and Xipe had buried Sunday. They didn’t mark his grave, deciding to finally let him rest.

“So? What will happen now? To everyone in the town, I mean. I don’t know about anyone else, but I have nowhere to go, and a town without a leader is a town without laws. But they’re all so violent…”

“Hm..Penacony has a place for all. Even with their violent tendencies, they can learn and grow.”

“So, why couldn’t Sunday?”

“Despite not knowing what he even believed in, Sunday thought he was nothing without Order. No matter what anyone could ever try, he’d refuse to change. It’s unfortunate, but, he should be allowed to make his own choices.”

“…But that’s so unfair.”

“Being forced into obedience would be equally unfair, no? Sunday died on his own terms.”

“I guess. It’s just, sad.”

[Name] received no reply. They felt as if the other presence had suddenly vanished, but didn’t bother to confirm this.

They laid down next to Sunday’s resting place, closing their eyes. They still struggled to comprehend how their life had taken such a horrible turn so quickly.

It didn’t matter now. [Name] yawned, rolling over onto the side they were most comfortable on. Upon waking, they’d set off to Penacony, where they would find a job and make a living for themselves. But tonight, they just wanted a semblance of a proper farewell to the cozy lifestyle they had grown so accustomed to, and to the man that made it all possible.

[to-be-honest-i-dunno]

German Phrases for your König Fics

I have seen a lot of people writing stuff about König and using some german bits to dirty talk or just in general conversation. 

And while I love seeing my native language being included in stuff, google translate sucks ass for that type of things sadly, because german is a gendered language and words are written differently depending on if your partner is masc or fem. 

Under the cut there are a few phrases and things germans use 

“My love”:  Masc: “Mein Lieber” Fem: “Meine Liebe”

“Ah fuck” either “Ah Fuck” or “Scheiße” scheiße is a more vulgar word for “shit”

we do use “Bunny” Masc: “Hase”, Fem: “Häschen” but it isn’t that common”

“Treasure” so in german we use that as a form of enderament, it’s “Mein Schatz” this is one of the non gendered things.

“Angel”, “Engel” 

Ok so here is the thing right? if you use “mine” it depends on the presented gender of the partner, it’s either Masc :”Mein” and fem “Meine” 

Words which we just use the english terms for it:

“Fuck”, “Darling”, “Mommy”, “Daddy”, “Baby”, 

Nice German Phrases to spice up your fanfic:

“Halt deine Fresse”, “Shut your mouth”, it’s quite aggressive

“Quatsch” and “Quatsch mit Soße” so these saying are being used if someone is ridiculous and you are like “nahh nothings bad is going to happen” 

“Leck mich!” and “Leck mich am Arsch!”, these could be translated to “Fuck you”, but the more literally translation would be “Lick me” or “Lick my ass”

“Mist”, this means “shit” 

“Ach du lieber Himmel!”, “Oh dear Heaven.”

Something no german speaker would do, ever:

Dirty Talk in German. It sounds horrible to us and is just not really done here

Also we are not Austrian, so we have no clue what sayings are being used there, we know german sayings because I am german. @certainpeachsweets helped with the list.

[trashfangirlsworld]

I've been ia for a while because of how lowkey hostile this community has become lately, and I will probably continue to be so until there's a proper resolution, whatever it may be. However, I've seen some stuff that has been said by some of the ex qsmp admins in the midst of them recounting their experiences that I cannot help but be greatly bothered by, and, as a non english speaker, is important for me to say.

The way that they have been bashing quackity for making statements in spanish, his native language, and for streaming in the time zone he lives in, is not okay. I've said in another post about how disgusting I think these kind of comments are, and being an affected party in the admin situation does not make you an exception in my opinion.

The admins have every right to talk about what they went through, their feelings are valid and they absolutely deserve compensation for their work, because they were treated horribly, there's no doubt about that, but they are not immune to criticism, especially if it's about casual xenophobia. This does not stop at lèa's interview, as lumi also didn't have a spanish translation for her document, something that prior to the interview, I didn't think about too much, but now, I can't stop thinking about. Mind you, when it comes to xenophobia, there is absolutely no denying what the french and brazillian communties went through, but you do not fight xenophobia with xenophobia.

I completely understand that it's not easy to be the one to speak about any type of abuse they suffered, I said before that because of how shitty this situation is, that all sides would make mistakes and choices that people would not like, and for me this is one of them. As stressful as it must be for them, the ex admins have a lot of eyes on them right now, and saying these kind of things have consequences; I have seen way too much xenophobia towards the hispanic community and it's actively horrible to see because, unlike other times, the other communities are seemingly ignoring it. A twitter post saying that you do not condone harrasment does not erase what you publicly said previously.

I'm gonna be honest there's more that I did not like about that interview, the way that lèa talked about the admins that are still on the team, her response to the fact that she leaks stuff... I just... didn't like it, but I wanted to talk about the whole "quackity spoke spanish" thing because it's something that I feel really strongly about. It is NOT easy to make any statements in a language that you do not natevely speak, let alone very important ones, no matter how good you are at it, to write all of this it took me two hours and I probably still made mistakes or misspoke somewhere.

I do not how to end this post, I'm just frustrated that this fandom now goes at each other throats at littlest things without question or critical thinking and that xenophobia is now so normalized. I just... expected better I guess

[starleska]

a non-exhaustive guide to writing the Toymaker's fake German accent (or, how RTD broke the German language so effectively) 🔥

hello everyone!!! 🥰 after a tremendous response to my Toymaker x Reader fic 'Dollface', lots of you reached out for some advice on writing the Toymaker's dialogue: specifically his faux-German accent 👀 now i am by no means an authority, but i do love figuring out unusual character voices and the 'rules' they follow while speaking! so i've put together this non-exhaustive guide on my logic for writing the Toymaker's fake German, based on the snippet of script we have, Neil Patrick Harris' delivery in The Giggle, a never-used linguistics degree and a few years of German lessons 😂 do take these 'rules' with a grain of salt; there is no right or wrong way to write the Toymaker, or any character for that matter! however, my autistic self had a lot of fun writing this, and i hope it gives you some useful pointers if you're struggling with how to write that horrible entity's butchering of the German language 🙈 as the Toymaker would say: 'Zey are very, very, importanten, zese rules, don't you sink?' 😉

consonant sounds (part one) 🧡

as you can see above, Russell T Davies wrote the script of 'The Giggle' so Neil Patrick Harris would sound 'German' in a very specific way. one way he did this is by replacing consonants. consonants are the opposite of vowels (a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y), and are made by obstructing breath while speaking. by comparison, vowels are made by speaking without this vocal obstruction!

the way we pronounce words varies between accents. the Toymaker's faux-German accent is a stereotype of how speakers with German as their mother tongue may pronounce English. as such, having a general knowledge of German pronunciation makes writing the Toymaker's accent easier!

for the Toymaker, this means that consonant sounds like [w] (the 'w' in 'win') becomes [v] (the 'v' in 'violet'). this is common for German pronunciation ✨

in certain instances, the Toymaker will also flip pronunciation and change [d] (the 'd' in 'day') to [t] (the 't' in 'time'), which is why he calls Donna 'Tonna'.

likewise, sometimes the consonant digraph (two consonants forming a single sound) [ð] (the 'th' sound in 'the') becomes [ɗ] (the 'd' sound in 'dog'). this is how you end up with 'dee' instead of 'the'! however, sometimes [ð] becomes [z] (the 'z' sound in 'zebra'). this is how you end up with 'zey' instead of 'they', and 'zis' instead of 'this'! 🔥 (note: the Toymaker jumps around between these pronunciations, so you can use both!)

consonant sounds (part two) 💛

on occasion, the Toymaker will also substitute [ð] for an entirely different sound: [s] (the 's' sound is 'sun'). this transforms 'think' into 'sink'! likewise, the Toymaker will sometimes change [ŋ] (the 'ng' sound in 'sing') to [k] (the 'k' sound in 'kind'). combining the two, this makes the word 'everything' into 'everysink'!

putting all of this together, we can Toymakerify pronunciations! the sentence 'They were everything to me' becomes 'Zey vere everysink to me.'

now, the Toymaker's accent is inconsistent: in the above picture you can see a rule being broken by writing out 'everything' as 'everysing' rather than 'everysink'. don't be afraid to be loose with it - remember, this isn't the Toymaker's real accent, and he slips up too (especially when he forgets himself) 🤭

vowel sounds 💚

as i don't have access to the full script, i am unsure how often the vowel sounds are written out compared to the consonant sounds. however, we can see a few sounds being exaggerated in a stereotypically German fashion: the [ʌ] (the 'uh' in 'cup') becomes [uː] (the 'oo' in 'tool'), transforming 'beautiful' into 'beautifool'. likewise, the [ə] sound in 'the' becomes elongated into [i], transforming 'the' into 'thee' (or, with the consonant rules, 'dee').

verbs 💙

one of the silliest aspects of the Toymaker's accent is his tendency to add the '-ge' prefix to verbs (action/doing words). this means a word like 'learning' becomes 'ge-learning', and 'want' becomes 'ge-want' (or 'ge-vont' if we add in the consonant rules) 🙈

depending on your preference, sometimes the Toymaker adds an additional 's' to the end of these verbs! so 'learning' not only becomes 'ge-learning': it can become 'ge-learnings'!

sometimes the Toymaker also supplements his verbs with auxiliary verbs, specifically 'be'. you can see this in his construction: 'What is he being inventing now?' the 'being' doesn't need to be there!

however, the Toymaker isn't consistent with either of these rules. in particular with the '-ge' prefix, he will usually only use this once per sentence. try not to overload your sentences with too many of these rules: remember that he still needs to be understandable! ⚡

plurals 💜

some German plurals (multiples of a thing) are created using the '-en' suffix: for instance, 'die Frau' ('the woman') becomes 'die Frauen' ('the women'). this is why the Toymaker frequently changes the English plural suffix '-s' or -'es' (as in 'cats' and 'boxes') to '-en'!

this makes 'snakes' into 'snaken', 'hobbyhorses' into 'hobbyhorsen', and 'dolls' into 'dollen'. silly, yet effective 😂

adjectives 🤎

surprise!!! the Toymaker doesn't just add the -en suffix to plurals...he also adds '-en' indiscriminately to adjectives (describing words) 🙈 words like 'important' become 'importanten', and 'favourite' becomes 'favouriten'!

the key to this rule is that the original word must be intact after adding '-en'. for instance: 'balden' would work for 'bald', but 'clouden' wouldn't work for 'cloudy', because it replaces a vital sound! because we only have a couple of examples of him using this rule, this is the best way i've figured out how to use it without making his speech sound overburdened or clunky 💖

experiment with this rule however you like!!! here's some fun Toymakerisms i've just come up with: 'plumpen' for 'plump', 'squaren' for 'square', and 'coolen' for 'cool'. 😉

random usage of real German words (part one) 🖤

something which makes the Toymaker's fake German so effective is how liberally he sprinkles in real German words into his speech. the majority of these words are common ones which are recognisable to most English speakers, and include conjunctions and pronouns. here are a few German words that the Toymaker canonically uses:

mit - with | und - and | ja - yes | wunderbar - wonderful | nein - no | das - that | guten Tag - good day | ein - a (remember that in German it would be ein or eine for masculine vs feminine, but the Toymaker doesn't make this distinction!) | mein - my (same as ein - it would be mein or meine, but he seems to only use meine as an accented thing rather than referring to gendered nouns!).

random usage of real German words (part two) 💖

every now and again, the Toymaker will use a random German noun: for instance, 'Straße' for 'street', or 'Achtung!' for 'danger!'.

however, the Toymaker also uses real German words/phrases in the incorrect context. for instance, when the Toymaker screams, 'BACKEN SIE!', a non-German speaker might take this to mean 'GET BACK!', when it actually means 'BAKE THEM!' 😂 the golden rule is for the Toymaker's speech to sound German at all costs, not for it to be linguistically accurate!

RTD also writes out words like 'come' as 'komm', referencing the German word 'kommen'. adding in a little German spelling goes a long way to replicating his accent when written down!

when writing the Toymaker, i chose to expand on this pseudo-German by including additional words to 'Germanify' his speech: for instance, using 'ist' for 'is' and 'hast' for 'have'. i also add in other general phrases, such as 'Herzlichen Glückwunsch' for 'congratulations!'. if you have a general knowledge of German, you can play around with the Toymaker's speech this way 😉

onomatopoeia and reduplication ✨

part of the charm of the Toymaker's terrible German accent is how musical and inviting it seems. a really cute tendency of his is to use onomatopoeia (words which sound like what they are) and reduplication (the repetition of sounds in a set) together. examples of this are 'splishy-splashy' and 'clippety-clop'! 🥺

onomatopoeia adds a sensory dimension to the Toymaker's speech, and reduplication is most often associated with baby-talk and children. in this way, the Toymaker's speech is playful and childish, and lures you into his performance.

this is why in 'Dollface', i chose to have the Toymaker vocalise 'Choo-choo!' for the train, and to describe his dolls as 'ge-having ein chitter-chatter.' add a touch of this here and there, and it helps to demonstrate the Toymaker's playful nature 🥰

grammar 💀

thankfully for us, the Toymaker's grammatical constructions are largely unchanged from English! this is because the Toymaker's faux-German is supposed to evoke German while still being understandable. his language isn't a real representation of a German speaker speaking English: it's a pantomime version! 🔥

general ideas/tips 🧸

if you're struggling with writing the Toymaker's German accent, try writing it out in non-accented English first! it's a lot easier to think of how to 'Germanify' English which already exists then coming up with it on the fly (although that will get easier the more you do it 😉).

try not to overburden your sentences with too many of these rules!! it is easy to think that pouring as many Germanisms as possible into the Toymaker's speech will just make him sound like himself, but this might break the reader's immersion. trust that sometimes less is more - especially if you are going to be writing the Toymaker accent-switching.

have fun!! don't worry about these ideas too much - you're writing fic, not a dissertation 💖 the Toymaker's whole deal is being playful and engaging in games - he isn't even following his own bloody rules!! just enjoy the process - you can always add more to his speech later 🔥

that's all for now!!! use this silly little guide however you like 🥰💖 godspeed in writing your Toymaker fics - i do hope this helps a bit. and shout-out to all the lovely fluent German speakers who have reacted with both humour and horror to the Toymaker's faux-German (including in my own writing) 😂

[artistsfuneral]

I'm simply putting this here because I want your opinion on this... Thing that I just encountered. Tldr: Whoever decided to introduce Old High german to the author I just read needs to pay for their sins. Tell me who on gods green earth starts writing a sex scene in English, while the characters are speaking in one of the unsexiest dead languages to ever exist. No offense but reading "ô jâ, mîne gimpelgempel!" Might have taken 20 years off of my life span.

Thoughts on people using old high German for sex scenes?

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 Okkokk hold on, I actually have a lot to say about this!

1. German is the top unsexiest language ever. For someone who is into dirty talk, this is the worst thing ever. It's pure lemon-face, curling inwards cringe, don't ever come at me saying "Ooooh deine Schnecke ist so feucht, ich steck da jetzt meinen riesen Schwängel rein" I am disgusted by myself. Just no. Don't. Fucking hell, never do that. 💀💀💀

2. Resident Evil (video game) has an amazing fanbase and a character named Karl Heisenberg who's origin is German. Every damn smut scene, no matter how good it is, is absolutely ruined the moment he starts talking German. Because for some reason the fandom has decided that Liebling is the go to pet name. Do you what horrible sentences I have encountered????? Fuck no. Don't Liebling me.

3. I am. Also. Kind of. Guilty of randomly using German in a fic. BUTTTT. I use it for insults. Which is a perfect usage of my mother tongue :) Having Jaskier suddenly screaming "Halt dein dummes Maul du pimmliger Flachwichser" is a kind of really satisfying thing to write. German is really good to be annoyed/angry. English is good for sex.

4. Also, and this is a personal pet peeve, kind of hate it when non-German speakers only ever use "Ich liebe dich" for all sort of different I love you's and never "hab dich lieb" which I just find a lot more fitting in many situations.

5. I don't remember who it was, but someone wrote a German witcher fic where Geralt only spoke either sächsisch or schwäbisch and honestly that was fucking hilarious.

But no. German as a language should never ever ever be used in a sex scene. Never. 💀

[thefirstknife]

Since a lot of people have been talking about possible antisemitism and racism in Bungie's writing I wanted to add something that always bothered me.

I think that Saint-14 as a character is at least influenced by some pretty anti Slavic stereotypes. He's the only major character of Slavic origin (accent) and he just so happen to embody the stereotype of "Slavic brute". He's strong and kills hordes of enemies not showing almost any remorse. And the Season of the Splicer even managed make it worse! Even when he's portrayed as having some deeper thoughts and agency he's still constructed as being unable to be subtle with his words (despise speaking English)

I really like Saint as a character but it's unpleasant to see that he's clearly created as a stereotype

I respectfully disagree. I've seen this line of thinking around A LOT, especially during Splicer, and I don't understand where it comes from outside of people being unable to treat non-native English speakers right. Source: I am Slavic. Not American with Slavic heritage, I am a Slavic person living in a Slavic country and English is not my native language.

Saint is as far away from a brute as possible. Ever since he's settled down in the City, he is dedicated to protecting, not attacking. He feeds birds and sings songs with the children of the City. He dedicated his time to learn to bake cookies for the Eliksni and was considerate to find a recipe that is specifically for Eliksni. He fights when he has to, but has largely settled down and would rather plough fields and plug holes in the wall than fight. He is incredibly emotional and emotionally intelligent and understanding. He is aware of his own and other people's emotions and he's open about it unapologetically.

He is so non-aggressive to the point of many in the community, including big lore youtubers, wishing for Osiris to DIE, just so they can see Saint being angry and aggressive enough to go on another bloody rampage. Because Saint is too tame for them. Too passive, too peaceful. Where is he a brute right now?

Saint has been "brutish" before Season of Dawn, because we never saw him anywhere outside of a couple of lines. He essentially didn't exist as a character until Season of Dawn and the only thing we knew about him was that he was a legendary Titan who went on a crusade against the Eliksni and killed many of them. That's definitely brutish!

When we met him in Dawn, we met him in the middle of his crusade, at the time where he lost countless innocent people to Eliksni in the middle of the horrible conditions of the Dark Age. He is... rough, and angry. Reasonably. He just got to Mercury to save civilians and he lost them and he almost died. He thinks in black and white terms; Eliksni bad, humans good. He is harsh and lost.

But, that's when we find him in a bad position and when he's yelling on comms because he's under fire. He also speaks in broken English and with an accent. People are prejudiced when they hear it and immediately assume less subtlety and less eloquence. That's not on Bungie. That's on the prejudiced audience.

In written text, he speaks perfectly fine. Observe this and this. The issue arises when he speaks out loud (with an accent) or when he's talking to friends casually or when he's making jokes. I don't know why people expect him to speak like he's giving a speech at all times. He can speak perfectly fine, but for non-native speakers, that can be exhausting. He is allowed to drop the eloquence in a more relaxed situation.

Pointing out Splicer is incredibly strange to me because in Splicer he made the biggest possible turning point when he was confronted with how other people see him as a brute. The cutscene where Mithrax tells a story about how the Eliksni view him as a monster shook him to his core. He has been on a path of redemption ever since and dedicated his time to gently protecting Eliksni. He even started learning their language and culture.

I would understand saying that Saint started off as a brute, because he did. But Bungie pulled the biggest flip of a switch on us when they showed us that Saint is actually a huge softie, a gentle man who was pushed to war only to protect, someone who lives for peace and quiet. He is good-natured, trusting, perceptive, kind and empathic.

How is this man a brute (this is just a small selection of his idle lines):

Food reserves are dwindling. New land must be ploughed. I can do this! / Everyone is so accommodating, I- I will think of ways to give back to them. / Shaxx, ugh. Glory is for the selfish. We fight to end the fighting. / To hear the children laughing. This is the peace we fight for. / The city breathes, ships flow through its veins. There is life here, and it is thriving. / I walked the City walls, plugged holes. Every small act brings us closer to peace. / The Traveller teaches us in these quiet moments. We are not defined by our scars. / The Light does not make us heroes, friend. Power is only good when it is used for good. / I am glad to see birds still nest in these old walls. / This life can take its toll. Come to me if you need to talk. / Yesterday, a child came to me. He carried a painted shield of paper. I turned to him and he threw the shield at my head! A young Titan, I love it! [laughing]

Saint-14 is the gentlest man in the whole damn setting. Bungie said "fuck toxic masculinity in particular" when they decided to treat us to a Saint so kind that people in-universe are surprised to learn that's THE Saint-14, the one who fought at Six Fronts and led a crusade against Eliksni. Eva's assessment of this:

"That's right," he said, spreading a little more birdseed. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Eva."

We sat a little longer together, watching the pigeons and the clouds, before I finally had to excuse myself to go back to my work.

As I said, I'd heard the legend of Saint-14 before. Many legends of remarkable Guardians make them seem like mythical figures, so far removed from anything the civilians of the City will ever see or experience. The legendary Saint-14 does not seem that way to me at all.

In fact, I think he is a very nice young man.

Saint is deeply ashamed and regretful of his violent past. Because he DID have a violent past, much like pretty much every Lightbearer. Saint and Shaxx discuss this, as well as Shaxx and Mithrax. But as much as he fought and as powerful he is, Saint does NOT enjoy war or fighting. He endures it because he knows that sometimes you must take up arms to protect those who can't protect themselves, but if he had the option to be sure that the City will stay safe without his aid, he would hang up his armour forever.

I've talked a lot about how much I appreciate that Bungie took a big powerful manly man who went on rampaging crusade before and presented him to us as a gentle and kind person who loves children and birds, who prefers domestic tasks over war and who is deeply emotional and thrives on kindness. It's quite strange to see people saying that he's a "Slavic brute stereotype." He is literally the opposite of it.

If there are specific instances in lore that someone thinks are stereotypical and brutish, I would love to see them so I can address them in context. I'm also not sure what "subtle with his words" means exactly, but if there are examples of this that you'd like addressed, I'm happy to investigate. Bungie is obviously not perfect so there could be instances where they messed up, though I can't currently recall any in regards to Saint and the fact that he's Slavic.

[tetsunabouquet]

I cannot wait to see Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken no matter the mixed reviews and numerous spoilers. I'm thinking of going this weekend to the cinema. This, is for a very important reason:

Chelsea Van Der Zee, is the reason. When I initially saw pictures of her, I was hyped to see how DreamWorks is going to poke fun at the live-action remakes. Because come on, production of this movie started 2 years after the announcement of the live-action Little Mermaid. BUT, there is another layer to the parody of her character that will fly over most people's heads: She's a Dutch mermaid. Her faux-Dutch last name is a proper sounding Dutch surname, it doesn't falls into the pitfalls of writing it as Vanderzee, and whilst on the nose it's a well-constructed surname. Like, the people who created her last name were aware of HOW our surnames were constructed and didn't end up creating a non-realistic surname that simply sounds Dutch like Gossip Girl did. I remember trying to playback a moment in the trailer several times, when Chelsea confronted Ruby about being a kraken in the trailer, she says a word at the end that I couldn't place and no matter how many times I rewinded it I didn't understood what she said. Until I came across the scripted version of the quote yesterday; “I know your secret. You're a kraken, hiding as a human. And soon, everyone will know the truth. Kusjes!” Kusjes is horribly butchered, but it's Dutch for 'kisses' and we actually do use that and XOXO, just like English speakers do so the usage of Dutch that I have seen so far is correct. Now, I have actually seen people speculate she's Dutch because of That's So Raven, but as a Dutch person myself I see it from a different angle: There's a phenomenon I like to call the 'Dutch Default'. Historically, the English had difficulties recognizing which Germanic speaking culture was which. You can even see this reflected in our English name, 'Dutch', when that's how the Germans refer to themselves, as the Deutsch. We calls ourselves Nederlanders in our tongue. Pennsylvanian Dutch? I was told the area was mostly Swedish. I can continue with examples. Whilst I noticed the UK has became a little better educated about the topic, this is still perpetuated by Americans to this day. When The Little Mermaid live action was announced, there were various people who actually confused us for the Danish. Some were harmless comments like calling the novel Dutch instead of a Danish novel. Others were not. When there were Danish people speaking on social media about how disappointed they were with how Disney treats one of their national symbols, there were hate comments from people defending The Little Mermaid, but various were directed at the Dutch because Americans were too lazy to even Google which culture they are hurling insults too. This, was all taking place during the production of Ruby Gillman. Now, how likely is it that Chelsea is a Dutch mermaid because of That's So Raven, and how likely do you think DreamWorks noticed Twitter and decided to use the Dutch Default as another layer to the parody of Chelsea's character? Because it's not like the entirety of Hollywood seems to be unaware of this phenomenon. The Umbrella Academy S2, actually has this scene with the Swedish brothers being called Dutch even though the characters were already told they were Swedish, and Five corrects them like, "No, they're Swedish." Paired with how Luther shouts at innocent Olga through the phone, it gives a perfect portrayal of how clueless Americans are about foreign cultures. There are people in Hollywood who do notice how little Americans know about other cultures and will harass innocent people on false misconceptions. For DreamWorks to poke fun at Twitter wars for doing so, makes me love Chelsea Van Der Zee.

If I ever see one of those stupid Americans again because this whole drama isn't completely over yet, I will summon Chelsea to drown them to the bottom of the Ocean.

[ly0nstea]

I feel horrible speaking Irish. My family immigrated to America during the famine and quickly stopped speaking it by two generations here (my dad is third generation and I’m fourth generation) due to social stigma. My dad doesn’t speak it at all and I’m struggling to learn it, but I feel ashamed at how foreign it sounds in my accent and how bad my grammar is, it makes me want to give up, do you have any encouragement?

I don't know if it will make you feel better, but, everyone who learned Irish in school, from people who learned Irish in school (as opposed to a Gaelteacht where irish is spoken natively) has an 'unnatural' accent.

If you want tips, place your stress around fadas and destress non-fada'd syllables, start putting séimhiús in anywhere, séimhiús do have grammatical places they have to/not to appear, but as long as your not mixing up possessives, if saying tháim sounds more natural to you, say tháim.

If you want to do accent training, work on the individual sounds, (e.g. while 'é' sounds like 'ay' in English, its a little different to 'ay' and those little differences add up). Pick a dialect, find audio recordings, and practice.

Grammar honestly comes with time, read and write and you'll pick it up.

I guess lastly, I highly doubt you've ever been put off by someone speaking english with a German accent, or Chinese accent, or by the fact that they used the wrong tense or conjugation. I garuntee you any Irish speaker you meet is going to be way more excited than nitpicky that you can even say a few words.

(My secret grammar tip for people who read all the way down here though: verbal nouns. Once you start using verbal nouns casually you'll feel so cool)

Hope this helped you! Don't worry too much, speaking a new language is meant to be fun after all

[slaviclore]

Another letter from Fryderyk Chopin, folks.

He's still living in Poland at this point, and he is 20 years old. He's writing to someone he knows very well, but we don't know if this was a romantic relationship. Note that kisses may have been part of a common greeting between friends/family members -- it's up to you to decide if that's relevant here or not. Please vote before reading further context below, and if the context makes you change your mind, please let me know in the tags or reply :)

This passage is a bit (in?)famous in the Chopin world as it is regarded by some as the sexiest thing he'd ever written (that we have on record). He wrote it to his friend/maybe-boyfriend Tytus Woyciechowski on September 4 1830. Here's the full passage with my translation, the parts in bold are what's in the poll:

"Idę się umywać, nie całuj mię teraz, bom się jeszcze nie umył. – Ty? chociażbym się olejkami wysmarował bizantyjskimi, nie pocałowałbyś, gdybym ja Ciebie magnetycznym sposobem do tego nie przymusił. Jest jakaś siła w naturze. Dziś Ci się śnić będzie, że mnie całujesz. Muszę Ci oddać za szkaradny sen, jakiś mi dziś w nocy sprowadził."

I'm going to wash myself, don't kiss me right now because I haven't washed yet. -- You? even if I smeared myself with byzantine oils, you wouldn't kiss me, unless I used some magnetic means to force you. There is some power in nature. Today you will dream that you're kissing me. I have to pay you back for the terrible dream you sent me last night.

Right. So I'm trying to figure out what exactly about this seems erotic. Are the last 2 sentences (the ones I'm asking you to translate) about the kiss in the dream enough to call it sexy? Or is the perceived eroticism primarily in the references to bathing and oils, etc?

Poll responders will have to decide how the word "szkaradny" is used here. This adjective directly describes the dream, and it usually means something like awful/terrible. It can be used to describe both objects (like an ugly building) or actions/people (possibly immoral or in some way repulsive). Published translations of this passage translate "szkaradny sen" as things like: nightmare, horrible dream, or nasty dream. Contemporary interpretations sometimes convert it to "dirty dream".

Responders will therefore have to decide if there is irony in this passage. Did Chopin literally have a bad dream? Or is this an ironic way to describe what was actually a good dream, erotic or not? Or was it an "immoral" dream, and if so, does that mean sexual?

Have at it. I'm really giving you the good stuff today.

[coffehbeans]

You mentioned once that English wasn't your first language, right? How did you start and learn to write stories in English then? Are their any piece of writing that inspired you the most?

English is not my first language either and writing in English is such a long and arduous task. Writing like 1k words takes me an hour because I keep checking word definitions or using the reverse Thesaurus to find the right word. Because of how long it takes it demotivates me most of the time 😅

OH MY GOSH I feel you sooo much! Ahsuhsu reverse Thesaurus is my best friend, and the dictionary, and google translate, all of that together! Ashush it's super difficult, you're not alone! And I wish we non-native English speakers talked more about it, cause specially in a super small community like g/t, we kinda have to force ourselves to write in English so that our work can be seen.

Anyway you asked about how I started writing in English right? Before writing g/t stories, I had written fanfics in English. I was super into The Promised Neverland back then, so I've written two fics in English and published it on AO3. I used to be in a discord server for the fandom as well, so my main motivation to write those fics in English was so people from that server could read it.

There isn't any speciic piece that inspired me, though. I was in English-speaking places over the internet ever since I was 12. So I always read a lot of stuff in English, and watched a lot of stuff in English. I did an English course as well, so all of that helped me get used to the language.

Nowadays, I write so much in English that it's more difficult to write in my native tongue lol. Specially because I speak Portguese, and this language can be much more flowery and refined than English, imo. English is a direct and practical language, so even if your writing is simple, you can still convey an interesting story.

But anyway, I have some tips for you that helped me a lot. First thing is reading books in English, but start with simpler ones! Sure, reading fics can help, but I'm trying to read more books so I can pick up a bit of their prose and be inspired. So, I've read classic fairytales by Hans Christian Anderssen, for example, cause it's literature for kids so it flows well and it's super easy to read.

Another tip that I have so the proccess of writing isn't too difficult: write a HORRIBLE first draft. I'm serious ahushs if you don't know the meaning of a word in English as you write, write it in your native tongue and mark it to edit later. If you don't know how to word a phrase well, write it sloppily anyway. The main objective is getting your words on paper, so it's okay if your first draft sucks. My first drafts read like a wattpad fanfic written by a 12 year old ashaus and that's okay! At least you're putting everything on paper. After finishing your draft, you can go back on it and edit stuff as many times as you want.

Hope this helps!

[peachysunrize]

Hello.

I really like your blog and the way you always seem patient and enthusiastic when answering people's questions or writing about things you like.

If it isn't too intrusive, I would like to know where are you from and is English your first language. Also, what inspired you to start writing fics and do you have any advice for new fic writers, especially the ones who are not native English speakers? Thanks!

Hey beloved!!! Omg you’re so sweet and kind! Sending you lots of virtual hugs🫂🥹😭✨

Nooo it’s not intrusive at all!! I love when people feel comfortable enough to drop into my inbox and chat with me<333

I’m from Iran, I’ll be 19 in a month and I’m not a native speaker.

I started writing fanfiction 4 years ago when I was 15, and it all started in wattpad! I’ve attended English classes since forever!! My parents were adamant about me learning English and improving it, which I’m so so grateful for. As for inspiration, I can’t tell, I remember I read a book on wattpad and I thought to myself why shouldn’t I write something? It could be fun and here I am after years of writing and reading lol.

My fellow non native writers who have just started!! Listen up!! Write. Write whatever comes to your mind! It doesn’t matter how horrible it is, it doesn’t matter if you share it and get zero notes or reads. You’re at the start line of a very long path, and you will get progressively better and better!!!

I remember my first fic so vividly and let me tell you how bad I was at writing… the plot was supposed to be a love triangle, but I couldn’t even form one correct sentence! I wrote and wrote and wrote on practically everything; my notes app, docs, papers. I was very motivated to just write, it didn’t matter if it made sense or not. Drafts are there for you to make mistakes, to learn and edit and rewrite. Never lose your hope in writing because of this new social media “content creating” phrase everyone is going through.

You are a writer, bad, good, amazing— it doesn’t matter. You are a writer, so write, let your beta reader criticize you, give you ideas, help you.

Don’t ever let the lack of interaction takes your enthusiasm away from what you like to do!!!

[sabakos]

I know we all rightfully dunk on English orthography for being horrible but I feel like English grammar is kinda broken in the same way?

Maybe the concept of grammar itself is what's broken, but English grammar rules just seem very... underdetermined? As in, there are actually far fewer "correct" ways of phrasing something than the rules would imply, and making something flow correctly might potentially even require breaking those formal rules, even in "formal" English.

As a native English speaker, I don't consciously think of what these unwritten rules are, but I often find myself applying them when reading my own work or copyediting others. Something like adjective order or which preposition or conjunction will fit in any highly particular context just comes automatically to me, as it does (I think...) to almost any other native speaker, even if we have to knock things around a bit first to find the right arrangement of words. Sometimes there probably are formal grammar rules underlying these somewhat arbitrary seeming decisions, but if so, it seems odd that no one ever had to teach them to me in school, but that instead they taught me a much more simplistic set of rules that don't actually fully describe and even contradict what sounds "right" in regular speech.

It's appealling to think that this is because grammar education itself is somewhat of a farce, and that learning rules isn't as helpful as building intuition. But it could also be that the rules are useful approximations that give a baseline, and that that baseline allows the deeper complexities of sentence structure to more easily come from repeated exposure and use. This whole post could also just be the madness talking, and perhaps I've invented a whole set of arbitrary rules that no one else follows, and maybe even the admission that I'm a native English speaker is news to you all because you actually think my writing style is awkward and stilted, which made you assume that I wasn't. But I think even *that* would probably validate the point I'm aiming at because it would mean that there are unwritten rules that the rest of you all know, and that I'm just bad at them. I don't have words to describe this, or methods that would allow me to investigate it.

What makes me think that this isn't just madness is that I can often identify non-native speakers, even if their English is very good and they follow all of the grammar rules well, because they are consistently worse at the unwritten rules. And even they do follow *some* of these unwritten grammar rules, which is probably a mixture of the repeated exposure they've had to native speakers and that as second language speakers they probably had to learn a broader and more thorough set of rules than I did. Admittedly I do read and write and copyedit more than an average native speaker so it's possible I'm more attuned to the awkwardness, but I suspect this also means other Tumblr people are more likely to know what I'm talking about.

And this isn't mere dialect chauvinism here - Americans, Australians, and Canadians follow the same sets of these rules that British or Irish people do, across both formal and informal registers, with only minor vocab substitutions that don't seem *wrong* to me grammatically so much as unfamiliar. Whereas Euro English speakers and some Indian English speakers seem consistently worse at following these unwritten rules, which I'd attribute to English not being their native language and a resulting lack of exposure to how native speakers use the language.

But without getting too prescriptive, it seems like it should be possible to describe these rules, or possibly restructure grammar education differently, which might help clarify where non-native speakers are going astray if they care to. This is not a problem that needs to be solved for me though, I can understand what most non-native speakers are trying to communicate even if they aren't anywhere near fluent and often even if they break several of the "formal" grammar rules, just perhaps some of them might find it useful? Or possibly it would be maddening and less useful than further exposure, I do suspect that the arbitrary nature of orthography alone has already tried most second-language English learners' patience. So ultimately this is just for my own edification, navel gazing into what makes English composition flow better, I want to know why I think the things about the language that I do and how to speak meaningfully about it with others.

[partrin]

i'll be honest: i used to write a lot on asianfanfics and often got comments on my work, so when i first wrote a free! fic on ao3, i was really nervous because: a) a huge portion of the readers on ao3 are english speakers, which for some reason is daunting to me because oh my god, what if my english is absolute bollocks and people dislike my writing because of it?! b) asianfanfics had more asian readers, so i didn't feel as awkward writing about themes i wasn't sure non-asians would get, and c) readers on ao3 don't seem to comment as much as readers on aff do, so i'm often left feeling like i don't know if anybody enjoys my writing....... which oftentimes leads to me being a critical little shit towards my own work.

but then i reread all the comments left on all my works.. and i had this.. newfound appreciation for everyone that has commented on them, be it a short one-liner or an extremely long comment detailing exactly what they liked (or thought could be improved) about my story. like.. it makes writing so worthwhile, even if i may not get as many comments as some other authors do (i compare myself a lot—a horrible, self-detonating habit, really). i just really enjoy hearing from people that they enjoyed my work or it made their day or resonated with them in some way.

so like, thank you!!!!! to everyone who has commented on my work. it means the world to me.

[moonfishlagoon]

Venetian language & gender-neutrality

Vèneto! Known colloquially as “dialect,” (e.g., “speaking dialect”) Venetian is nevertheless a distinct language still spoken in the Venetan region of Italy. My current writing project takes me to the centro storico of Venice in CE 2080. The centro storico is the historic center - where you think of when you think of Venice. Tourists, canals, etc.; the mainland being terreferma.

At this point in my worldbuilding, a third neutral gender is widely accepted across large swaths of the world. So, how to reconcile this with the distinctly gendered grammar of Vèneto while still being respectful of a language that is not my own?

The first question: are there resources discussing this online? No, of course not! That would be too easy! (if you have these resources, please send them to me posthaste.) A series of Reddit posts in my new favorite subreddits, r/linguistics, r/Veneto, and r/Venezia, have clued me in to the fact that:

Venetian speakers are largely conceptualized as elderly and rural, thus:

Presumably aren’t thinking about gender neutrality, and moreover:

Aren’t posting about it online if they are

This is clearly a biased and seemingly-ignorant point of view. Yet if there are Venetian-speakers out there talking about this, I’m probably largely out of the loop because, most significantly of all factors, I don’t speak Vèneto. Crushing.

Investigation in this direction thus stymied, I turned instead to Italian, which has in recent times been investigating that curious beast known as neutering your language.

Surprising no one, most of the English-language writing on this topic is horribly bigoted! Much bemoaning of the dissolution of the integrity of the Italian language. Sound familiar?

I gleaned enough from these rantings to understand that Italians are playing with a lot of gender-neutral options. I’ll use the word “tutti” (“all”) as an example. If you’re familiar with gender neutral efforts in Spanish, these will likely strike you as familiar. Our options, among others, are:

Just using the masculine - tutti

An asterix - tutt*

Leaving off the ending - tutt

A ‘u’ - tuttu

An at sign - tutt@

A schwa - tuttə

For even more, see Italian linguist Vera Gheno’s breakdown on Facebook. (And wow, I just found a bibliography about the schwa on her FB page, time for another deep dive ...)

Only one of the above options seems useable to me in a narrative context, and that’s the schwa. It’s easy on the eyes, it looks basically like a letter, and it makes a comprehensible and distinct noise. Furthermore, gendering in Vèneto and Italian seems to work in similar ways, so I feel fairly confident that I can apply the schwa to Venetian endings as I would Italian ones and not be making a mockery of myself. (Fairly confident, I said!)

Authorial side-bar - using the schwa will also signal to readers that I am doing something different with language; likely even those unfamiliar with Venetian and Italian.

Next question: what about singular nouns??? All the examples I’ve found with the schwa are for plural nouns, and googling (or duck-duck-go-ing) is getting me nowhere. After about half an hour of wishing I could just go to Venice, I found a Reddit thread that linked to a marvelous article:

Linguaggio inclusivo in italiano: guida pratica per chi scrive per lavoro (e non) by Ruben Vitiello

With some help from Firefox’s Simple Translate extension, I dove into this lovely, thorough, and most importantly not bigoted guide on the schwa. Not only does it talk about the schwa, but it has fantastic background on choosing ungendered language, speaking about trans people, and the history of gender neutral endings in Italian. This article is a goldmine.

It also contained one parenthetical that made all the research worth it: “sua forma semplificata (un solo simbolo sia per singolare che plurale)”.

“Its simplified form (only one symbol for both singular and plural)”.

That’s all I needed to know! The schwa is used for singular and plural endings. Ruben Vitiello, I owe you my life.

With hours of research under my belt, I now feel fairly confident in my choice to use the schwa for a hypothetical future Venetian that exists in a world which recognizes a third neutral gender.

If anyone reading this wants to share their thoughts, please feel free! If you speak Venetian, I’m actually begging you to chime in!

And now, on to the next research hole ... Adìo!

Further resources:

Lingua Veneta (dictionary)

Glosbe (dictionary)

Non-binary in Italian: Queering the Italian Language (article)

Gender neutral language (nonbinary wiki page)

Schwa (ə) and Inclusive Language, a Conversation Among Colleagues (article)

[leiawritesstories]

Speak To My Heart

Rowaelin Month, Day 15: A bad day

Word count: 3422

Warnings: language, bit of depression, fighting. In short, there is angst in this fic. Hope the ending makes up for the rest.

Linguistics and foreign languages are two of my personal passions, so please bear with the bits of language talk that I couldn’t resist including. Brief word of clarification: a lot of expressions we use in English either translate into something extremely rude or don’t make sense in other languages. Translation companies have been trying for quite some time to make sure they don’t accidentally send a client a translated instruction manual that reads “fuck your mother” instead of “for questions, contact your local energy department.” All right I’ll get off my soapbox. :)

The phrases in foreign languages, marked with *, are translated into English at the end. Enjoy!

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

Rowan’s day had been shit. The second he walked through the door, he’d been bombarded with an endless slew of crash reports, malfunctioning equipment, faulty passwords, and best of all, having to rewrite half the security firewalls because one of the rash young idiots in his department couldn’t be bothered to check his work for errors before sending it to management. And management thought it was the department boss’s job to fix all of his employees’ fuckups.

He hated IT.

Even more so since being promoted to department chair. 

All he wanted to do was the fun stuff--program design and development, fixing the flaws in his own designs, and of course making those who tried to break into his company’s systems regret their pitiful existence. But Cadre Tech’s bitch of a CEO refused to let the best software engineer on her staff actually do his job. 

Most days, he could cope with the pile of useless shit she directed to his desk. Most days. Today was not one of those days. Probably because on top of all the meaningless tasks he’d had to field, he was also forced to sit through one of Maeve’s bullshit “department head strategy sessions,” where every department chair had to pretend they gave a single shit about any word coming from their CEO’s garishly red, pinched mouth. 

As if she knew anything her staff actually did. 

Thanks to the compulsory meeting, Rowan was stuck in his office at nearly ten o’clock, painstakingly combing through the final draft of the update to CT’s translation program. This program had shot the company to fame and fortune, or at least insane stock value. “A Google Translate that actually translates,” their marketing department called it, and by the gods, that stupid slogan worked. And made sense. Rowan knew the program was just as good as it claimed to be.

He’d put in the hours, alongside a team of linguists, software engineers, designers, and people fluent in at least one other language. Frequent were the sessions where the project whiteboard turned into a jumble of words in twenty or more languages, Spanish alongside Arabic next to a column of simplified Japanese characters spilling over into a row of Cyrillic lettering. Rowan himself spoke German and some Spanish, but even he was lost amid the cacophony of eighteen different people switching from language to language, trying to figure out how idiomatic expressions translated from one language to another and what words should never, ever be placed together. 

It took the team well over a year of bickering, or as they called it, friendly linguistic disagreements, to make it from loosely mapped concept to functioning program. By the time it hit the market three years ago, the software had been so well promoted that companies all over the world snapped up their chance to finally communicate properly with the client they’d offended years ago with a bad translation. 

At launch, of course, Maeve stood in front of a sea of shouting reporters brandishing microphones, smiling her serpentine smile, and proceeded to thank the creative team for all their “contributions” before taking all the credit herself. 

Said creative team went to the bar that had become their usual gathering spot that night to get drunk and shit-talk their horrible boss, not necessarily in that order. 

His favorite memory of that night was hearing the chief linguist, an outside contract with multiple advanced degrees who spoke eight separate languages besides English fluently, refer to Maeve as “quella puttana rugosa che non riusciva a convincere un cazzo a venire a dieci metri da lei se si vestiva da figa.*” The Italian speakers on the team were crying with laughter, and so was everyone else, once she translated it.

And then she downed another shot of vodka and hissed something that sounded like “sukya bliyad, no puedo mich betrinken con esta ordures.**” When everyone blinked in confusion, she sighed and relayed the sentiment in English. 

Nobody had laughed as hard as Rowan. Aelin Galathynius just had that effect on him.

She brightened his darkest days.

But she couldn’t ease the strain of today.

And it was all his fault.

~

Aelin glanced up at the clock on her wall and cursed in three different languages when she saw that it was nearly eleven. Without meaning to, she’d spent all afternoon and evening writing lesson notes on idiomatic expressions. She really couldn’t help herself once she got into the topic; it was her pet project.

And the subject of one of her dissertations. Yes, she had multiple. 

She’d worked her ass off for years to get through college, then through graduate and doctoral work while teaching at universities to offset costs, then earned a full-time teaching position at one of the top-ranked universities in the world. She got to teach linguistics, her lifetime love, and give guest lectures at other universities and at conferences, teaching people all over the world about the complexities and interrelatedness of language. Hell, she spoke ten; she’d be qualified to speak on linguistic relationships by virtue of that alone.

Gods, she was the chief linguist behind the most successful translation software ever produced. Even if the bitch who owned the rights to said software had literally threatened to sue over ownership rights if any of the people who’d poured their figurative blood and sweat and literal tears into building the program tried to claim a small piece of the credit each of them so richly deserved. 

That software and her role in its creation--even though Maeve Ond had claimed the public credit, the creative team spoke at interviews and made news features for their work in Cadre Tech’s massive success--had solidified her credentials as a professor of linguistics, had boosted her into her lecturer spot.

Last year, her university granted her tenure. 

She should have been overjoyed, and she was, but not as much as earning tenure deserved. 

Because there was nobody to share her joy.

Three years ago, in the wake of CT’s overnight jump to worldwide fame, Aelin fled a love she did not and never would deserve. 

She told herself she would never look back. But she did. Almost every day, she looked back at the life she’d shared with Rowan and tried to convince herself that she did the right thing.

Try as she might, she could never silence the whisper that echoed always in her mind. 

“You broke both of your hearts” 

Someday, she told herself, someday she would be back in Doranelle. Someday, she would have a chance to apologize. Someday, maybe she could fix the Rowan-shaped chasm that gaped wide in her heart. 

Yet here she was, sitting in a very nicely appointed hotel room in the university district of Doranelle, typing furiously away as if burying herself in notes and prep for tomorrow’s lecture could make the urge to contact Rowan disappear.

~

Three years earlier. Doranelle.

“Knock, knock.”

Rowan’s head jerked up from where it had most definitely not been slumped on his desk. “Wha--Oh. Hi, Aelin.”

“You’re falling asleep, buzzard, let’s go home.” He heard laughter in her soft voice. 

“As if you won’t just get home and start cross-checking every single one of the phrases on your ‘potential problem’ list.”

She chuckled, walking over to him. “Fine. We’re both perfectionist work whores. Doesn’t mean we don’t need sleep.”

“I know you too well to believe you’re actually going to sleep.”

“All right, you win. Come home now, I’ll make some food, and you can put me to bed.” She winked saucily at him, leaving very little doubt what putting her to bed would entail, and he was up out of his chair in seconds. 

“Hand over your computer, Fireheart,” he grinned as they walked into the small house they shared on the outskirts of the city. 

“What?”

“Your computer, love. I’m leaving both of our work bags on the shelf by the front door so we can actually catch some rest tonight.” He pressed a finger to her mouth to silence her protests. “Uh-uh, Ae, we have interviews tomorrow and I won’t let the genius behind this program’s flawless word-to-word be anything but well-rested.”

She sighed, but he saw the love in her eyes. “Here, then, my dear brilliant software engineer. Leave your notebook, too, because I know if it’s anywhere near you, you’ll be up at three in the morning scribbling blocks of gibberish and picking apart your faultless code until you go insane.”

Both of their work satisfactorily put aside, Aelin made good on her promise to cook Rowan dinner. 

And then he made very good on his promise to put her to bed. 

The next morning, they were both awake with the sunrise, content to lay curled in each other’s arms as the morning light spread across their room.

Rowan drifted back into sleep, waking for good when he caught a whiff of coffee from the kitchen’s direction. 

“Morning, you sleepy buzzard,” Aelin grinned, sipping from her mug.

Rowan dropped a kiss on her head as he reached for his mug. He took a long drink, sighing as the milky, sweetened caffeine hit his mouth. 

“I will never understand how you drink your coffee black, Fireheart.”

“Not all of us need to sweeten the hell out of coffee to drink it, Ro. Maybe if you can’t handle the real thing, you should go back to your pretty little cups of crappy cafe tea.”

“Mention my pretty little teacups again, Ae…”

She giggled. “You be quiet and drink your coffee-flavored milk, my love.  We both know you’re impossibly grumpy until you have caffeine in your veins.”

He grumbled something unintelligible as he drank his coffee.

They were nearly late to work that morning, even having planned an extra half hour to arrive, thanks to Aelin wearing what Rowan dubbed her “sexy professor suit.” She fixed the pins in her French twist in the car, making herself once again a portrait of professionalism, and slipped Rowan’s hand from her leg.

“Two hands on the wheel, Whitethorn.”

He pouted. “But I’m a safe driver and I want to hold your hand.”

“My hands are over here, love, not down by my skirt.”

When he pulled into his spot, Aelin closed her eyes and took a deep, slow breath. 

“You good, Fireheart?”

Gods, she loved hearing him call her that. “Yeah. I just…needed a moment to settle myself. To tell myself the cameras aren’t here to tear apart what I say.”

Rowan wrapped his hands around hers. “Dr. Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, the bland reporters are here to stand in awe of your expertise. Not a single word you say will come across as anything but brilliant and beautifully said.”

She squeezed his hands, her usual confidence returning. “I love you, buzzard.”

“I love you too, Fireheart. Let’s go talk about our amazing achievement.”

The day sped by in a blur of reporters, interviewers, teleprompters, practiced speeches, lights, cameras, and crew. When the last bleached-blonde anchor of the last interview of the day cut her crew’s cameras, Aelin flopped against her second-in-linguistic-command, Dr. Nehemia Ytger, the expert on ethnic African languages. 

“If I never see a news crew again, it’ll be too soon,” she sighed. “I’m beat.”

Nehemia snickered. “But we’re done talking about how proud we are that Maeve and her marvelous company have done such a grand service to the world.”

Aelin snorted softly. “Right. And now we servicepeople want to go home and take off our heels.”

“Amen to that.”

As the team filed out of the studio, Rowan made his way over to Aelin. “Holding up?”

“Not anymore,” she said, leaning casually into his side. “My heels are killing me, there’s a hairpin stabbing into my scalp, and I really, really need to pee.”

Rowan laughed, deep and husky. “Let’s get you home, then.”

“I’m stopping in the bathroom first.”

Just before she left the ladies’ room, Aelin heard voices in the break area. Familiar voices--Rowan’s, Maeve’s, and the snippy, borderline whiny tones of Remelle Frelau, who worked in the marketing department and had a hell of a boner for Rowan. 

“--looking at revenue over--” Maeve’s voice cut out, but from the gasps of the other two, the revenue was through the roof. 

“And it’s all thanks to this genius here,” drawled Remelle, who if Aelin had her guess was probably clinging onto Rowan like a platinum-blonde leech. 

“Ms. Frelau, this was the product of a team. No single person could possibly have made it happen alone.”

“Oh, call me Remelle, or even better Remy. And you’re the team leader, so you practically did create it by yourself.”

Aelin snickered to herself. Vapid bitch had no idea what she was saying. 

“That’s not how teams work, Ms. Frelau. We wouldn’t be here without Dr. Galathynius and Dr. Ytger’s language expertise, not to mention the creative genius of the engineers, graphic designers, linguists, and programmers.”

“Ms. Frelau, though her judgment is clearly biased, has a point, Mr. Whitethorn,” Mave said. “You demonstrated remarkable collaborative leadership qualities throughout this project, and I fully expect that you will continue to do so.” Maeve’s heels clicked away. Rowan’s voice followed her.

“Thank you, Ms. Ond, but I have to credit Dr. Galathynius--”

“Will you stop kissing that woman’s ass?” snorted Remelle. “Gods, she’s not worth your time or your praise; all she does is translate words into different languages and you idiots drool over that like it means anything.”

Aelin jerked like she’d been slapped. She knew Remelle was a self-centered, shallow, spiteful bitch, but she hadn’t known she would do this.

“--did more for this project than you and your useless whiteboard of catchphrases,” growled Rowan. 

“I don’t care what she ‘did for the project,’ Rowan, she’s never going to be good enough for you.”

“Thank you for caring about my welfare, Frelau, now please kindly fuck off.”

Aelin chose that moment to saunter out of the bathroom and head straight for Rowan, her face showing no hint of having heard that conversation. She did note with satisfaction Remelle’s vain attempt to march out of the room with some semblance of dignity. Too bad her heel caught on the seam of the hallway carpet and the break room’s tile flooring and she had to grab the doorframe to keep from collapsing. 

“You’re awfully quiet, Aelin.”

“Just thinking. Processing, really. It’s been a hell of a day.”

Rowan nodded. “I bet.”

“And hearing fucking Remelle rip into me for being useless…didn’t make it better.”

“Shit, you heard that?”

“Yeah. I heard that.” Her voice was hollow. 

Rowan pulled into their driveway and shut off the engine. Reaching across the console, he cupped Aelin’s face in his hands. “Aelin. You are brilliant. You are terrifyingly smart. You are a force of nature. Nothing, nothing you will ever do is useless. Don’t let that jealous bitch make you think you are less than the perfect woman.”

She smiled tentatively at him. “She…she told me before that last interview that I could never be enough for you. Because you--because of Lyria.”

Rowan raked a hand through his hair. “Ae, can we talk about this inside?”

That night, he told her about his former fiancé, Lyria. He told her about their whirlwind romance, their youthful dreams. He told her about the horrific crash that stole away Lyria’s life. A drunk trucker, a narrow pass in the mountains. He showed her the box in which he kept all the memories of that life. He cried. Aelin cried. He curled against her, let her comfort him.

“Sometimes, I wish she was still here. She’d understand everything. She always did.”

Aelin had no response. She let Rowan fall asleep, his weight shifting off her and into his bed, and looked through the box. Everything she saw served as another reminder that this was the first woman he loved, the woman who understood everything. 

She was worthy of him. 

But was Aelin?

The more she looked at Rowan and Lyria’s happiness, the more the answer solidified. 

No.

When Rowan woke up the next morning, Lyria’s box sat on Aelin’s side of the bed, a side that had not held Aelin.

He glanced out the window.

Her car was gone.

He got up and frantically paced through the house.

Everything she’d brought into his home was gone.

As was she.

~

Present day. 

Rowan opened his front door mechanically, pulled off his shoes, dropped his work backpack on its shelf, and was halfway to his bedroom before he realized he’d just opened his front door. His front door that was always locked. 

Someone was in his house.

Someone who either had a duplicate key or insanely good lockpicking skills.

Exactly one person owned a duplicate key to his house.

Aelin.

That’s impossible, she lives in Orynth, she can’t be here, he told the traitorous part of his brain that leapt with joy at seeing Aelin’s face again.

He turned around and made his way through the kitchen--nobody there--to the living room. He flicked on a lamp, casting a soft light around the room.

And nearly had a heart attack.

Aelin Galathynius sat on his couch. 

For a moment, he just gawked at her. She looked so…different. Older. Gone was the infectious smile that had captured his heart. Dark shadows smeared under her eyes, testament both to the long hours she devoted to her work and to recent sleepless nights. She was twisting a ring on her right hand, a familiar sign of her nerves. From his angle, Rowan could see a hint of dark script on her wrist. A tattoo. The Aelin he knew didn’t have tattoos.

“I’m not a ghost.” Her voice, weary and hollow, broke the tense silence.

Rowan crossed the room, propped an arm on the fireplace. “Why?”

“Why am I here? Why did I leave? Why did I cut you out of my life?”

“Everything.” He couldn’t keep the waver from his voice, but his eyes burned into hers.

She took a steadying breath. “I’m here to apologize, first of all. I’m here to face what I ruined and to try and start mending it. I’m here to come to terms with everything I broke when I left three years ago.”

Whatever he’d expected her to say, it certainly wasn’t that.

“I’m sorry, Rowan. I’m sorry I left like that. I was…I was scared.”

“You can’t just run away from your fears, Aelin!” He couldn’t keep the frustration from his tone. “You can’t just abandon someone when you have a bad day!”

“I’m sorry! I know I shouldn’t have left! I know I can’t run from my fears; I’ve spent the last three years trying and fucking failing to do that! But I don’t know what else to do.”

“Saying something about it would have been a good first step.” 

“I’m bad at emotions, Rowan. I tried. It wasn’t enough.”

“That’s not a good enough excuse.”

Aelin flicked a tear from her face. “I know.” Her shoulders slumped. “I’m so sorry, Rowan. I should never have left. I let some stupid comment root into my head and make me doubt myself. I made myself believe I would never be good enough for you. I left you. I loved you, and I still left you. I still love you, even though I’ve tried to suppress it. I can never make up for that. I…I just wanted to tell you how much I’ve regretted that horrible decision all these years. I want you to be happy, Rowan, I--”

“How am I supposed to be happy without a source?” He’d dropped onto the couch, close enough to touch her but still keeping his distance.

“What?”

“You didn’t just take yourself away, Aelin. You were my happiness. I’ve spent three fucking years trying to make myself believe I’m better without you in my life, and I can’t.”

She was unabashedly crying by that point. “What do you want me to do? How can I make up for abandoning you?”

“Stay.”

Her gaze locked onto his, both of their eyes pooling with tears.

“Stay with me, Fireheart.”

“But--”

“I never stopped loving you either.”

A choked sob ripped out of Aelin. Rowan couldn’t hold himself in check any longer; he reached out and tugged her gently into his arms. To his shock, she didn’t resist, burying her face into his chest as sobs shook her shoulders. When she calmed, he tilted her chin up.

“Will you stay, Aelin?”

“Yes. Even though I will never deserve your forgiveness, yes.”

~

Translations:

* = “that pinched old whore who couldn’t convince a dick to come within ten metres of her if she dressed up provocatively” (Italian)

** = loosely translated as “Fucking hell, I can’t get drunk off this garbage.” (in order, Russian (badly phonetically spelled out because Rowan POV), Spanish, German, Spanish again, French) (the Russian doesn’t directly translate, so it could mean several different variations of expletive)

~

Might there be a second part? Perhaps......