#pertained to among other things...

[mermaidsirennikita]

finishing up The First Omen (good, enjoyed it) and have to pause and say that there's a real quick shot of a 50-year-old Gregory Peck's polaroid towards the end and like.... the amount of sex appeal 1 second of Gregory Peck (who has been dead for over 20 years RIP) added to this film... is an indictment on the expectations we have of actors at the moment.....

[foxedthecards]

🖤- For something they secretly wish they could do with your muse

Jonas is a bit taken aback by this ask and you can practically see the wheels turning in his head as he sorts out all these myriad of thoughts pertaining to Artair.

" I don't know him super well yet, " he admits. " Although the more time I've spent with him getting to know him...I really like it. He's got a really soothing kind of personality. Being around him makes all this slurry of emotional mess and anxieties and shit in me feel quieter. He says I'm his friend. I...like that. "

He smiles self-consciously and averts his gaze, rubbing his hands together. " I mean...I'm probably kind of predictable in the sense that I think he's pretty fuckin' hot too. So of course you can guess where that trail of thought would lead so far as secretly wishing to do stuff. Eheh. " He's a little red around the face as he says this. " But that's not gonna happen! He seems like he's got himself really put together like...he seems like he's really confident and comfortable with who he is and what he wants to do. And someone like that wouldn't be interested in a hook-up with a mess like me! Fuck I still have a hard time believing he's friends with me, even thinking he'd want to stay friends with me! So yeah. "

He places his chin in his hand and closes his eyes, thinking for a minute. " But there's lots of other things I'd secretly want to do with him too. Maybe more attainable fun things like taking him around Vegas, taking him to museums or shows or if I was ever lucky enough to score a pass to the Manse Mysterique. But I gotta get to know him better and see what he likes. "

He smiles again. It's a little sad. " And I wish I could secretly do things FOR him too. Like if he ever got hurt again I could help him better or that I could have protected him from what hurt him to begin with. He's a nice guy and he deserves better than I think I can give him sometimes."

He frowns. " Come to think of it, if we're talking secretly wanting to do shit with someone and it would settle the fight over the goddamn bed, maybe...I'd be ok if he wanted to share the same bed with me. Not-not like in a sexy way either. But that'd probably weird him out...plus I have nightmares and when I actually sleep I'm like an octopus all over the other person and it'd probably be more of a pain in the ass than anything. So...that'll stay a secret I guess. "

[vague-humanoid]

At the California Institute of the Arts, it all started with a videoconference between the registrar’s office and a nonprofit.

One of the nonprofit’s representatives had enabled an AI note-taking tool from Read AI. At the end of the meeting, it emailed a summary to all attendees, said Allan Chen, the institute’s chief technology officer. They could have a copy of the notes, if they wanted — they just needed to create their own account.

Next thing Chen knew, Read AI’s bot had popped up inabout a dozen of his meetings over a one-week span. It was in one-on-one check-ins. Project meetings. “Everything.”

The spread “was very aggressive,” recalled Chen, who also serves as vice president for institute technology. And it “took us by surprise.”

The scenariounderscores a growing challenge for colleges: Tech adoption and experimentation among students, faculty, and staff — especially as it pertains to AI — are outpacing institutions’ governance of these technologies and may even violate their data-privacy and security policies.

That has been the case with note-taking tools from companies including Read AI, Otter.ai, and Fireflies.ai.They can integrate with platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teamsto provide live transcriptions, meeting summaries, audio and video recordings, and other services.

Higher-ed interest in these products isn’t surprising.For those bogged down with virtual rendezvouses, a tool that can ingest long, winding conversations and spit outkey takeaways and action items is alluring. These services can also aid people with disabilities, including those who are deaf.

But the tools can quickly propagate unchecked across a university. They can auto-join any virtual meetings on a user’s calendar — even if that person is not in attendance. And that’s a concern, administrators say, if it means third-party productsthat an institution hasn’t reviewedmay be capturing and analyzing personal information, proprietary material, or confidential communications.

“What keeps me up at night is the ability for individual users to do things that are very powerful, but they don’t realize what they’re doing,” Chen said. “You may not realize you’re opening a can of worms.“

The Chronicle documented both individual and universitywide instances of this trend. At Tidewater Community College, in Virginia, Heather Brown, an instructional designer, unwittingly gave Otter.ai’s tool access to her calendar, and it joined a Faculty Senate meeting she didn’t end up attending. “One of our [associate vice presidents] reached out to inform me,” she wrote in a message. “I was mortified!”

[imsobadatnicknames2]

Regarding your post(s) about investigation checks and the like, there's something that's bothering me, and it bothered me for a while. Not in regard to investigation, but charisma (and similar checks, diplomacy, negotiation, persuasion, whatever the game calls it).

In a TTRPG with skills, those skills are an abstraction meant to simulate a characters actual capabilities. If I want to make a character who can effortlessly jump from rooftop to rooftop, I'll give them high Athletics, Agility, Endurance, whatever. Maybe some feats, abilities, perks, advantages etc that pertain to jumping. Now, if I want my character to jump from rooftop to rooftop, I just roll the dice, and the skills, attributes, perks etc will make sure I have a high likelihood of success. I don't need to prove to the GM or the group that I myself could make that jump.

But now let's talk about Charisma checks. I've often heard stories of groups who say they don't make those checks, they just let the player make the argument, and if the GM is convinced, they "pass." But like... that means the character will always be as persuasive as the player. If the player isn't good at formulating an argument, the character won't be, either. Same with perception, investigation, etc. Sometimes, players just aren't good at picking up on hints and clues and/or they're not good at drawing conclusions from the clues they have. So that means that they can't play as a character who is?

Don't get me wrong, I get your point, I just find this is an issue worth thinking about. Why are things like athleticism, stealth, and combat prowess, or even things like lockpicking, hacking, or repairing stuff okay to abstract away as dice rolls, but deduction, perception, and maybe also persuasion and rhetoric aren't? Or, maybe the better, more constructive question: How would you propose handling a player playing a character whose skills exceed the player's?

I also think it's an issue worth thinking about, but I think "thinking about it" also has to involve asking the questions "why is this a problem?" and "is this ACTUALLY a problem?"

Like this discussion comes with the prepackaged assumption that allowing you to play a character whose abilities exceed yours as a player is both a) a universally desirable thing, and b) something that must be treated as a game design priority. And, with that assumption, it's logical to conclude that a TTRPG has an *obligation* to allow you to play a character whose abilities are not limited by yours as a player in any way, and not allowing you to do so constitutes a failure on the game's part.

But let's question that assumption a little bit. Because, the way I see it "allowing you to play a character who is good at X even if that's something that you, personally, are not good at" is not an inherently desirable design goal. It's a value-neutral feature, and it becomes a good or bad design goal to pursue depending on what X is and whether abstracting X so that the player doesn't have to engage with it benefits or detracts from the desired gameplay experience.

Let's for example, imagine a TTRPG with wargame elements, where, among other things to do, there are situations where your character can assume command of an army to engage in large-scale battles. It's pretty clear that, in such a game, you simply can't play as a character who is a better tactician than you, the player, are. If I'm not a good tactician, I don't get to play a character who's supposed to be the most brilliant tactician in all the land. That's simply not a character concept I get to play unless I am also skilled at tactical decision-making.

Is that inherently a problem to be solved? If we got rid of tactical decision-making as an activity that the players have to engage in, and instead gave the characters a "Tactics" skill and we used a Tactics skill check to determine whether they win or lose a battle, that would certainly allow a player who's bad at tactics the freedom to play a character who's the best tactician ever. But would this be an objectively good change? I'd say no, because it would skip past the entire point of the wargame elements, which is engaging as a player with the process of tactical decision-making, and that's not something that I'd consider worth sacrificing in pursuit of allowing the player to play a character whose skills exceed theirs in this particular aspect.

To name a more concrete example that someone else mentioned in the notes of that post: Mothership has no equivalent of a stealth skill, despite being a game where a lot of your playtime is spent hiding from some flavor of Scary Space Monster, because if the game abstracted stealth that way the resolution to any situation where you're trying to hide from a Scary Space Monster would be saying "I roll stealth" and hoping you roll high enough. Without a stealth skill, you're forced to participate in the narrative conversation of paying attention to the GM's description of the environment, ask clarifying questions if needed, and describe how you try to hide in the space presented to you.

This, once again, presents a situation where your character's skills are limited by your own. It's pretty clear that your character can only be as good at hiding as you are at thinking of places to hide and describing how they hide in them, and that if the game took the "i roll stealth" approach instead, it would solve the "problem" of your character's skills being limited by your own in this particular way. But is solving this "problem" worth sacrificing the tension that the game seeks to create by deliberately refusing to abstract stealth in this way?

So yeah... I think lacking skill checks for stuff such as perception or investigation makes a dungeon-crawling game better because it forces the players to narratively engage with the environment as a real place when they're looking for something, and it's also true that the lack of such mechanics kinda does mean that a player who just isn't good at picking up hints and clues from environmental details simply doesn't get to play a character who is supposed to be good at picking up hints and clues from environmental details. But I think that ensuring a player's ability to play such a character regardless of their real-life skill level is not a design goal that a game has any inherent obligation to pursue, especially not at the cost of skipping over the actions that, to me, are the meat and potatoes of a dungeon crawl.

My answer to "why is it okay to abstract certain skills as dice rolls and not others" is that games are allowed to make decisions about which actions they want to skip over with a dice roll and which actions they want the players to have to exercise direct narrative control and mastery of, and sometimes that's gonna interfere with their freedom to play a character whose skills exceed theirs, and that's okay because sometimes other game design goals are going to have priority over the goal of ensuring the character's skills aren't limited by the player's real-life skills in any conceivable way.

[harrypotterheretic]

God, I hope this is the last stupid take I have to see and respond to (it won't be) I want this to be a Harry Potter blog but...

"This is not a fund to ensure safety for abused women"

Correct - that would be Beira's Place, also run not as a charity but funded entirely through her own money.

"This is not a fund to assist women in providing essentials like clothing and food, this not a fund for women's education"

Correct - the Volant trust does a lot of work around women in poverty, single mothers and education, among other things. Along with Lumos and the Anne Rowling clinic, JKR has given away approximately £200 million of her own money to support such causes.

"This is a fund specifically to provide terfs with legal support in their endeavours to restrict the rights of trans women"

incorrect - this is a fund which allows women to mount challenges against businesses, places of work, councils etc where their legal right to a single sex space is not being met. Women need single sex spaces for a myriad of reasons but I will shorthand it as privacy, dignity and safety. Not giving women single sex spaces or services excludes women who - for whatever reason - cannot enter a mixed sex space or use a mixed sex provision. But they are entitled to those spaces in law and this fund makes sure women can fight so they are not unlawfully excluded and discriminated against.

It does not restrict the rights of trans women, because trans women do not have a legal right to be in female single sex spaces. They never did. They were just breaking the law and excluding women in the process.

If a trans identified male is legally entitled to enter a space, then this fun will not support women in restricting him.

This fund is about the correct application for the law as it pertains to women's rights to single sex spaces, provision and services.

STOP LYING

And stop encouraging trans identified men to break the law at the expense of women.

[mr-crocodile]

I think a lot of people legitimately don't know how voting works, as far as it pertains to Eurovision in general and Israel's second place specifically.

You can cast as many as 20 votes, and you can vote anyone as much as you want as long as they aren't your own country's representative. I for example cast 15 votos for one country and five for another. And there were 26 countries in this year's final.

And, obviously, a lot of the voting is political and not actually about the music. That's why Greece always wins the Cypriot jury vote. Or why Ukraine won in 2022.

So, looking specifically at what happened. Imagine you are pro-israel (or anti-anti-Israel, or an online troll, etc...), what are you going to do? You are going to give some or all of your votes to Israel.

Now imagine you are pro-Palestine (or anti-Israel, pro-hamas, or you actually only care about the songs, etc...) then... You can vote anyone in any possible combination of twenty votes spread across Israel and 25 other countries. Because there's no artist that represents the anti-Israel stance.

That means, in essence, that the percentage of voters who want Israel to win will have an outsized impact, because they are one of the few unified voting blocks. The same thing happens with Ukraine. If you support Ukraine, you can just vote for Ukraine. But if you don't, well you can't vote for Russia anymore, so you once again are free to pick from among 25 different options.

The ESC's system favours politically targeted voting from people willing to spend most or all their 20 votes in a single option.

If you want, you can argue that this system is unfairly advantageous to politically polarizing participants. And that's very true. But also pretty much impossible to fix.

What isn't true is the idea that Israel rigged this by hacking the votes (of which there is no proof). Or that Israel's publicity campaign was unfair, because all countries are allowed to do that.

[crazycatsiren]

One thing I can't help but wonder.

Artemis is not the only virgin goddess in the Hellenic pantheon. And yet it appears, among modern pagans, virginity is the first (often times only) thing to come to mind whenever Artemis is mentioned. So much is focused around her being a virgin, it's gotten to a point where who she actually is, how she was worshipped in ancient Greece, and her presence in the lives of the ancient Greeks are completely lost among misinformations and misconceptions stemming from only one aspect of her.

For Athena and Hestia, it's always their various roles and domains that people will immediately think about. But for Artemis, it's always her body and marital status, for some reason. It's utterly ridiculous.

Because to the ancient Greeks, Artemis was a perpetually unwed maiden goddess, yes, but she was not the goddess of virginity. According to Stephanie Budin and colleagues, Artemis was the goddess of the hunt and wilderness, and she was responsible for helping women in childbirth, turning children into adults, bringing light, freeing slaves, marking boundaries between territories and periods, bringing and curing plague. Her epithets emphasized her "wild" qualities, expressed her proclivity for the hunt, as well as described her as a "kourotrophos" (child nurturer and protector of the young) and a lunar deity.

It's like, why is it never a problem for everybody to accept that Athena and Hestia had worshippers of all ages, sexes, gender roles, and social statuses throughout ancient times, but it's so hard to wrap minds around this about Artemis.

Artemis, Athena, Hestia, all three goddesses preserve their virginity for important reasons pertaining to their roles in Greek ideology. Artemis's virginity established her position in the divine hierarchy. As the goddess of the wilds and wild animals, she herself could not be tamed (damazo) by sex, as other females in the Greek literature, and especially brides, were said to be (paraphrasing Stephanie Budin, Artemis, 2016).

In a nutshell, these goddesses are virgins and never married because of, as a result of, and due to their personas, functions, their parts in the pantheon and the areas they preside over. They chose the path of virginity because of who they are and what their "jobs" are. It doesn't mean they are rulers of maidenhood and virgins.

[fqntasies]

The First Kiss - Feyd Rautha x Reader

summary: You are visiting Giedi Prime once again. As you've grown older, the pull you feel around the na-baron is stronger, deeper, even if you've never spoken on it. Does he dream of you too? Will you be able to speak of them to him, or will such dreams remain as such forever? We he be able to resist you?

disclaimer: this is a kind of follow up fic to my last feyd x reader. However, this takes place before that time frame. Read the first one here to get a better understanding of how i'm approaching my feyd stories.

words: 1,111

This was the fifth time your family's entourage had visited Giedi Prime; your betrothed's home planet. Each stay got a little more familiar. Perhaps it was the smell of the air. The caress of the blinding black sun above; brilliant and strange; a blot in the heavens. You felt enraptured in it somehow. Like a feeling you could not shake, though in part you blamed the dreams.

You had yet to speak of them with him.

Had he dreamt too? Surely, the na-baron had. You thought often that he must, if not only for the way his eyes seemed to linger on you when you shared a space, no matter how many resided in it. You felt wholly consumed by it. There was a heaviness in his actions, weighted by their directness; when his gaze would meet yours, your pulse would quicken, breaths catch in your chest.

Sometimes, even in silence, in those spaces you shared among the others of your families, you found him lingering close. Felt the heat of him at your back. The hand at his side ever so close to caressing the edge of your hip. He was possessive. Protective.

You two had shared such few words, yet you knew this about him already. Nor could you deny the way it made you feel. A magnetism. Something at the edge that was just out of reach. For now.

"My lady." You startle at the closeness of his words, earrings brushing the curve of your neck as you whip swiftly to look up at Feyd.

You had been thinking of him; lost in your own thoughts. He seemed to read it in your gaze, dark eyes flitting between yours, shadows blanketing the angles of his face. There is a palpable silence as his gaze lowers to your lips. That heat you'd come to know with him. Your mouth waters at the ghost of his kisses in your mind. A seemingly distant future in visions of your marriage.

You vaguely catch the Baron's smug rasp to your father something about spice production, but they have trailed out of the room before you catch the full statement; leading a train of servants in their wake, and the hissing of levitation technology.

When you speak it is but a breathy sound.

"My lord na-baron."

"-Feyd." He quips. low and sudden.

You swallow thickly, a flush beneath your cheeks as you meet his eyes. His given name. You hadn't used it yet, save your own thoughts, and whispers to yourself at night in the safety of your room. It seemed a sacred thing. Something intimate. Something of your yet-to-be-husband's.

The na-baron watches you intently; his body imperceptibly closer, as though seeking to envelope you in his shadow. Predator and prey. You decide to broach the subject. The feeling between you...you must know if it is something of your own mind.

"Feyd Rautha". For some reason the use of his full name from your lips makes him smile. A bizarre sight, being so rare - and this grin looked almost amused. Like he had not been expecting the addendum, humorous. You are quick to try and follow up with your request, cheeks hot.

"I must ask something rather delicate, pertaining to our betrothal."

At that he seems to sober a bit, obviously unsure about whatever it was you were to follow with.

"Do you..." You wish you could know a thing beyond just your own feelings. The twisting of your stomach at the thought he could reject you tearing your insides.

"...Do you dream?"

For a moment, there is that heavy silence again, but then you see the slow curl of his lips, just at the edges. Oh, he seems to say. Followed by a soft and knowing hum.

"Is that what this is about?"

He is coming closer now, stalking you in a few calculated steps with that same smile. Your chest heaves with your breaths as you make way backwards, but then he has an arm about your waist, and mentally you are aware of the heat of him, and the strength. You feel like you've lost some game, or been suddenly caught cheating.

That's when you taste him. His mouth has tilted upon yours, slotted against you like you were meant to be there and you moan softly. Surprised that this moment has come at all - yet wanton for it too. How many nights had you dreamed of him holding you like this? Wondering what it might be like for him to lean in and kiss you?

Feyd swallows your sigh greedily. Readily. The arm he has around you pulls you into him further, and you are pleasantly surprised by how soft his lips are, and how good he tastes. His tongue swipes across your bottom lip.

You angle your head opening for him further, learning as you go. He was so quietly calculated, and yet he kissed you like a man starved, uncaring of who saw or who tried to stop him. Not that any being could. You would bet everything that the na-baron would slice any fool willing to try, to shreds. You'd seen his bloodlust, and his prowess in the arena. Such a feat might even excite him, with you as his prize.

He seemed eager to hold back his need for air - kissing as deeply as he could. Slow. Then fast. As though his control would slip and he has to taste more of you. More. More. His tongue sought yours in a dance, followed by teeth tugging at your lips. You mewled softly at that, eyes so heavy. You felt almost drugged, and after a moment too long, you both parted, breaths breaking the silence.

His hands are at your hips now, holding you steady, but your faces were still just a fraction apart. You felt proud of the way Feyd's eyes looked heavy lidded, or how his lips were tinged pink. It drew your eyes in a way that had him groaning.

"Careful, princess..." The nickname has your cheeks heating again, even after being kissed senseless, and he chuckles low in his chest. The smells of spice and some kind of foreign cologne fill your senses as he nears again, this time bringing his mouth towards your ear. You close your eyes, barely able to keep them open as you angle your head slightly to the side.

"-Or I might have to make more of my dreams a reality."

The admittance, and the low tone of his voice so close has you turning your face and opening for him once more, your breaths colliding as he is quick to seek your tongue with his own.

[mayaree-darling]

A Never Ending Journey (Prologue) // Honkai Star Rail Isekai AU

from Mayaree: a star rail isekai au i've been thinking about for a while now. might not make the fic yet because i'm busy with other things, but have the idea for now. consider it a prologue.

There is a secret lost in the Astral Express Archives: Akivili is merely a regular human. Akivili is not a name pertaining to a single being. It is a title passed down from one human - one being - to another, hidden under the guise that Akivili is merely an Aeon that has a penchant for shape shifting into a mortal form. It is a well-guarded secret among Trailblazers of past days.

Perhaps there really was an Akivili at one point, at the very beginning of it all. A journey is meant to start somewhere, right? But even at the very beginning, it was a mere human who built the train. Not all beginnings are loud, thunderous, and special - sometimes a journey begins from a small dream to see the great heavens and beyond. That one small dream from one small human passes the dream to another.

A guiding light for the other Nameless to believe in, to follow in their footsteps.

When outsiders ask why Akivili changes forms so frequently, the answer is simple - a journey does not end with one person, it does not end until the dream dies, and Akivili's constant change is a symbol of that. Or so they say. The trailblaze continues as long as someone carries the dream.

But at some point in history, in a forgotten Amber Era, the Akivili name is not handed over. There is no longer anyone to accept the title. The last Trailblazer - the last Acting Akivili, in a way - takes the name with them in their departure. Lost to the cosmos.

As Himeko restores the Astral Express and takes on the Path of the Trailblaze, the passing of the Akivili name is a forgotten art. Or maybe an unneeded one. As the Astral Express takes on more passengers, the Nameless know where they need to go - they have chart their own course.

However, the Name of Akivili is also a calling. A need for guidance in traversing the vast stars and tied fates. And at the addition of a Nameless carrying a stellaron in their core joins the trailblazing journey, Akivili is summoned once more.

This new Akivili carries the face of the original, of the very first. The face of the Player. After all, a game only truly begins when the Player starts their journey in this new world. And in that way, did you not build the Express with your own hands?

Once more, Akivili is a passenger of the Astral Express, meant to lead the Nameless.

Welcome home, Akivili.

Oh, how the Trailblaze has waited for you.

from Mayaree: I'll be calling this AkiviliPlayer!Reader AU for easier hashtag

✨ Masterlist ✨

Disclaimer: Characters are not mine and belong to their respective creators. Their portrayal is merely my own interpretation of them and may not be accurate to their intended characterization. I stake no claim to the original works, only to the ideas and plot of the fictitious stories I’ve written them int

[lagooneah]

I've rewritten this over seven times.

Inspired by a small maybe might be bigger fic that's gonna take forever for me to deem post worthy, so please take this contribution Dune community.

Paul Atreides Relationship Headcanons!

By me (Lagooneah)

SO, let's get this show on the road! Paul, as i believe, is TOTALLY an acts of service kinda guy. That and QUALITY TIME, my boy just wants to stare at you all day deadass.

(Just to be clear, this is after Leto Atreides assassination but BEFORE water of life!)

He's super, obnoxiously gentle.

Like, just barely brushing his fingertips over you kind of gentle.

Like, lowkey treats you like glass because you're all he has left gentle.

He tries to reassure you pretty often, even if he's the one who needs it, YOU come first, always.

I feel like he always needs to be touching you, reminding himself that you're actually there among his many visions and skewed realities.

He's the type to keep you in bed for HOURS more than you're supposed to. His excuse being that "He's a duke and you're his partner, you can totally be late"

He's ALSO the type to help you dress, no matter what it is. If you let him stay, he helps.

Your corset needs tying? He's there. Your vest needs a button-up? Let him. Your boots or heels need tying and/or clipping together? Please, let him.

Since he is extremely busy with "destiny" among other things, the little things he can do for you count. It's how he can quickly and quietly show how much he loves you.

He probably gives you little pet names in Chakobsa- usually pertaining to either small and cute animals or ethereal destinations. There is no in between.

He's very, VERY possessive.

He lets you go places, obviously, but he is more comfortable when you're in his line of sight. And he's his most comfortable when you're at his side.

After the death that's plagued his family name, he is more afraid to lose you than anything, so for his sanity, he NEEDS to know where you're going, where you'll be, etc.

Let's be real for a second- hes the type to kneel to YOU.

And this is true for every version of him.

He may make many others kneel to him, but to you? He is on his knees in seconds, ready for any and all you wish of him.

You are HIS Messiah. HIS paradise, and he treats you as such.

You're one of the few people who can tell him what to do without him shooting something back or defying it in his confident manner of "this'll work"

Fremen hes grown to know tease him with how he will bicker with Chani and her friends, hell, even his mother or stilgar, but with you- he takes your word and literally stops whatever hes doing to fulfill your order.

You'd think people would see YOU as the Maud'dib, the Lisan al Gaib with their devoted follower with how easy he follows- but you just have the leader to paradise wrapped around your finger.

His loyalty is off the CHARTS- he'll die a most gruesome death before he catches himself devoting himself to anyone else in the way he does for you.

And if someone dares to do ANYTHING, he deems out of line to you? They'll be lucky to keep their heads.

Advancing towards you romantically? Dungeon. Disregarding your statements? Dungeon. INTERRUPTING YOU???

Basically, they're cooked if they go against you in any way.

I feel like arguments between you two would be calmer- at least one his side. He's risen his voice to many, but you are not one of those people.

Does that mean you dodge any of his snark and overconfidence? Nope- but what's good is that unlike most, he's more willing to shift gears with you.

Even if it takes a day or two of silent treatment because he wasn't listening to you (he's insane for you, so that is like the greatest torture ever to him)

I feel like he'd like pressing his forehead to yours a lot- like maybe even more than kissing.

Genuine connection is so important to him- does he like intimacy? Yes, of course. But he'd give all of that up if he knew his mind could still call yours home- that he could still even just LOOK at you.

He's whipped. Terribly so.

He's the type to, after a particularly rough day, see you on your shared bed, reading, and just FALL on top of you.

Like he'll deadass just lay on you for hours, and you have to be like "youre crushing me" for him to stop.

Or, on the days when he thinks he's been neglecting you, he likes doing weird spontaneous things.

"Come on love- the desert air is cool." Inviting you to dance with him under the stars.

"What are you reading? What's it about? Tell me everything, my desert flower." He'd hum with his chin to your shoulder, hugging you from behind as you read.

I cannot stress enough how much the little things matter to him.

He loves being yours, and he loves that you're his.

He wants to rule with you and only you- and if you had kids? He'd still do the little things for you. If anything, he knows they matter the most now.

You may have had his heirs, but you will NOT be neglected as just the "mother of his heirs" best believe that shit.

He'd be so in tune with your emotions, even without any visions.

"What's wrong?" He asks after even just a tiny, TINY, shift in your behavior.

Nothing flies past him- hes annoyingly receptive.

Okay- that's it for now!!! I loved and hated writing this, and I hope yall Paul lovers like it! Im definitely working on some ideas for a longer length fic, so stay tuned for that!

[genericpuff]

Hey Puff,

I'm someone who has always struggled with how to do research "correctly," but have lurked around the community enough to know RS had a real tendency for… not doing enough. Do you have any recommendations, not necessarily specific to Greek mythos, on how to just do research? Is Wikipedia even a good jumping off point?

Thanks!

Biggest thing, at least for me, is being thorough! The reason a lot of folks tend to side-eye Wikipedia as a "source" isn't just because it's relatively easy for anyone to edit, but also because Wikipedia itself is a library of sources and not the source itself.

Wikipedia can be a perfectly acceptable jump off point, as long as you're actually jumping to the places it can lead to - and you can do that through References.

Let's use the Wikipedia entry for Persephone as an example.

Sourcing "improperly" through Wikipedia would be to simply source directly from one of the sentences listed here and calling it a day. No further digging on where the excerpt comes from, no cross-referencing with other material, just reading the part on Wikipedia that says she was a vegetation goddess, slapping it into an essay or adaption or whatever, and then not confirming it further or picking apart the why of her status as a vegetation goddess through extended research.

Sooo what do we do to find that info? Let's search the word 'vegetation' and see if anything else comes up.

There we go, that has a bit more detail. And from here, we can click the little '19' at the end of the paragraph, which will take us to the References section at the bottom of the page.

Aaaand boom! Now you've got an actual source that you can dig into further, if you so choose. There isn't a whole lot that I can access of this sourced book online, but I was able to find an excerpt where the author sourced Cicero, a Roman poet and philosopher (among other things) who lived during the rise of the Roman empire:

That said, sometimes these sources aren't quite so easy to track down. That's where cross-referencing can help - but that means leaving Wikipedia!

Where this concerns a Greek goddess, let's see what we can find on Theoi, another great resource specifically pertaining to Greek / Roman / etc. deities, stories, and customs.

Though it's not quite as clickable as Wikipedia, Theoi also does a good job at outlining sources in their descriptions. Though Bennett isn't mentioned here, Hesiod and Cicero are, and wouldn't you know it, they're sourced on Theoi as well.

So there you have it! Even though Bennett is from the early 2000's, he did his own work to outline and source poets and academics whose work he was now documenting himself. This means the odds of Bennett simply making shit up are low because he sourced from the preserved works of the era he's speaking on and those works are referenced again through other resource libraries such as Theoi.

What ALL that helps with at the very least - aside from the opinions one could have about the sources themselves (Ovid 😒) - is to legitimize the research. We know without a shadow of a doubt that Persephone was attributed to vegetation and the harvest because there are so many sources across different cultures and backgrounds and generations stating it as such. It thus makes the conclusions a lot more credible, even when they're coming from a more modern source, because that source was built on their own research and sources from the Greek/Roman/etc. documents that have been preserved (and there's still new stuff being found!!!)

Obviously there are always arguments to be made about the material itself, especially when it comes to the debates over translations and cultural contexts, but actually following up on initial searches with referencing and cross-referencing is a lot more reliable and credible than simply taking something from Wikipedia and saying "I read it on the Internet."

As much as the effectiveness of Google and Wikipedia as legitimate research sources is frowned upon, they are incredibly effective, you just need to know where to look and how to find it, and most importantly - how to verify it.

And that's just the online stuff! Libraries are still alive and well! Many universities contribute to search engines like WorldCat which are designed specifically for research papers, published articles, and textbooks! Point is, the world around us is full of knowledge and resources, so the key is to learn how to navigate it so you can get the most out of it!

This is ultimately why it's so important to not restrict yourself to the first Google result - I know it's "easier" due to the convenience of it all, but you're also robbing yourself of the opportunity to really expand your knowledge beyond the summary of a targeted first result, and it runs the risk of sourcing from illegitimate sources or sources that are controlled by Google's own self-interests (protip: have a very specific problem but Googling it just gets you a bunch of automated sponsor posts and completely useless results? add 'reddit' to the end of your search, you'll get human answers from real human beings and there's always at least ONE other person who's had the same problem and posted about it to reddit LMAO seriously this one's saved my skin so many times)

And when you learn to do research the way that works for your brain? It's really, really fun. A lot more fun than public school led many of us to believe. If you learn best from talking and engaging with people, then go talk to people! Participate in groups and forums that are dedicated to the topic you're researching! If you learn best from listening to audio material, then try out audiobooks, they can often be found online through various means (🏴‍☠️) BUT ebooks and audiobooks are stocked at libraries too!

But of course, that leads us to what makes for bad research, and I obviously can't use any other example in this context than Rachel herself, whose "research" is evidently often the first recommended result that pops up on Google. And yes, I can say evidently because we've proven this when she tried to source the term 'xenia' into LO as a definition. Not only was it copy pasted to the point of still containing typos, but it was sourced plainly from a Princeton study guide that is now severely outdated - not the work that that study guide was sourcing from in and of itself.

(notice how she just sourced it as "princeton.edu" and not the specific URL that it came from)

If she really wanted to sound well-researched with the cheeky insert of the definition of xenia linking to a smart-sounding location (we're gonna ignore that it ruins the flow of the comic) then she could have sourced it from literally any of these:

But instead she did the equivalent of an 8th grader copy pasting a sentence from Wikipedia and calling it "research". It's not research. It's a lazy shortcut and it doesn't facilitate any real learning.

This can be seen in other instances as well, such as Metis' design:

As well as Leto, who I kinda think Rachel mixed up with the Full Metal Alchemist character of the same name when googling her because I can think of no other explanation as to why she's a sun goddess in LO when she has zero affiliation with the sun in the myths aside from being Apollo's mother-

(I can't prove that this is what happened but it's hilarious to think about; I'm also low key suspicious that Rachel accidentally mixed in some sources of the Métis people because Metis' design is very... Indigenous-coded 🤨)

^^^ This. This is all bad research. It's not a bad thing if Rachel's interest in Greek myth started through works like Hercules or other creative adaptions, that's actually how it starts for many of us. Where she failed was by trying to sell herself as a "folklorist" and her work as a "retelling", without actually following through in her research. She would often only do just enough to make herself seem well educated on the subject to anyone whose knowledge was as basic - or less - than hers, but not enough that it could actually hold up in a real discussion about Greek myth with other people who are more read up on it than her. Rachel's self-proclaimed "folklorist" title is only validated by the lowest common denominator of readers, who 99% of Lore Olympus ended up being made for in the end, while those who actually understood the myths deeper than their Wikipedia summaries pulled their hair out in frustration every time Rachel tried to make some sly reference to a myth or attempted to speak about it in interviews.

Comparisons aside, the best part is that this research process doesn't have to be exclusive to studying historical stuff! Writing a story that features a disabled character, but you yourself are not disabled and are worried you're going to misrepresent? Search up articles and posts that pertain to the specific disability you're trying to write; I guarantee you that there are people living with that disability offering up that information completely for free because they want to see more representation for themselves in media. Trying to learn how to draw characters of different body types / skin colors / etc. from your own? Seek out the works and advice of those who do have those physical differences and learn from them.

It's about being thorough. It's about opening yourself up to things you may have been blind to before. It's about embracing the learning experience as a positive sign of growth, not a negative sign of failure. It's about taking the opportunity to learn every time it presents itself, even if those opportunities are small and passive. A person who doesn't know is just a person who hasn't learned yet (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و

[lure-of-writing]

Never been good enough

Authors note: I haven't written in forever so please forgive me if this isn't the best but I would love to hear what you think!

Summary: You would never be good enough for Ariel

Word Count: 2.3k Warnings: Arguing, curse words, mentions of death, Elain slander, Tamlin makes an appearance

Part two: Left in regret

Part three: Why can't We?

There was always something so enticing about Azriel that you could never put your finger on. To simply put it he was fascinating. Being a part of the inner circle for as long as you have meant that you put your feelings for him aside, did what you thought was best for the group. Not only that but Azriel never gave you any signs that he was interested in you and there was no way you would let him know about your feelings. What if you guys dated and it didn't work out? Or worse, what if you told him and he didn’t feel the same way? These types of thoughts made a home in your head and they made it a point to consistently remind you that Azriel would only ever be a friend. But hey, better a friend then nothing at all, Right?

That was until Rhysand met Feyre and in turn met Nesta and Elain. This is where your downfall began. You were truly happy for your high lord and new high lady but could have done without her sisters. Nesta was always ready to pick a fight and tear you down with her words as if she were some wild animal backed into a corner that would bite if you tried to pet it. The comparison wasn’t far off, she basically was a wild animal. Elain on the other hand was, well, contemptible at best. From what you knew Elain was basically loved by all in the inner circle but you. There was just something about her that irked you to your core. In a world that praised the strong and belittled the weak, her innocence bothered you. Why did Feyre have to do everything for her sisters, especially the middle one? As an older sister yourself you would have made any sacrifice necessary to protect your little sister. In fact you did. Maybe that's why you resented the middle sister. 

Before the new additions were made to your family life was perfect, before under the mountain of course, the group was a perfectly balanced number and each person had their person. Rys with Armen, Mor and Cassian, you and Azriel. The group would spend long days giving each other a run for their money with stupid bets and at night you would have an even longer night getting drunk at ritas, but ever since Ryhsand met Feyre things changed almost instantly. It was like the people you once knew completely changed over night. You still knew who they were to their core but you didn’t recognize who they had become. 

Cassian bowed to an unwavering, impolite, ungrateful human turned fae also known as Nesta, he was willing to die for someone who would never give the time of day to even acknowledge that he existed. Amren found company in her ruthlessness, found friendship and understanding in her unbothered face. 

Mor found sisterhood among the complexities of healing with Feyre, through the grief and joy and thousands of other emotions one feels when finding themselves after trauma.

Ryhsand found his mate, the one he never thought he would meet. The one he was willing to die for as long as that meant she was safe.  

Azriel saw the need to protect someone as delicate as Elain. So he did. 

And you, you found a changed group of people before your very own eyes. 

“Azriel can I please hold the fancy special dagger?” the Shadowsinger simply stares at you from the other side of the ring. Today had been training day for everyone excluding Amren, if you asked her she would say it didn’t pertain to her, and while the boys took turns sparring you were teaching Mor a new fighting technique you learned recently. “No” the short answer was no surprise to you at all. “Why not? I even said please and I never say please” the inner circle could not wait to witness this scene unfold for this wasn’t an uncommon occurrence but considering that you were Azriels favorite amongst the group even if he refused to say it, they thought that maybe one day you would wear him down enough to the point where he lets you hold the truth teller. “y/n I have never let anyone hold that dagger and you will not be the first. You are more than capable of handling yourself without my blade.” “Exactly I am more than capable of handling a dagger Azriel. One day I will get the truth teller in my hands just you wait.” he simply raised his shoulders in a shrugging manner as if to say “yeah I’m not concerned”

To say you were surprised that Azriel gave Elain the truth teller would be an understatement but honestly you should of seen it coming. Not even a few days before he was rushing into the hybern camp to save Elain without any second thought. There was never a time in the five hundred years where Azriel threw himself into a situation like that where he didn’t at least take some time to plan everything out. As a spy yourself you knew that at least having a fraction of a plan could save your life but it appeared Arizel was willing to die to save her. Feyre's sister be damned. So to watch from afar as he handed over his dagger to inexperienced hands was truly a gut wrenching experience. How could your closest friend of literally hundreds of years spend his potentially last moments with someone who was basically a stranger instead of a true friend? It was a revealing moment, it either showed how kind he was to try and help a defenseless person have a means to defend themselves if the time came where it was needed or he truly had changed and no longer cared for you. You would have your answer sooner than you had hoped. 

For as long as you have existed you were trained as a spy for the cover up of an  assassin. It made you as deadly as anyone else in the inner circle, maybe even deadlier since no one ever saw their death by your hands coming. So when the time came to go to war you were ready. The Battle was bloody and ugly and cruel. It was long and it felt never ending for every body you cut down it seemed there was ten more to replace it. When you watched as Cassin dove from the sky just as the cauldron unleashed its power amongst the world, the fight seemed hopeless. How were you supposed to win when hybern had that kind of power to be used whenever the king wished? But as a warrior in your own right you just wished that when you died upon this battle field that it wasn’t for nothing. That everyone in your family made it home by the end of this war, you may not recognize your family anymore but they meant the world to you and you just wanted them to be safe no matter the cost. 

Seeing help arrive re-established your hope that Hybern wouldn’t win and it pushed you to fight that much harder but the renewed sense of vigor made you lose focus and that was your downfall. A hybern soldier came charging at you with the anger of a thousand suns and sliced your stomach in one quick motion and before you knew it you were one the ground bleeding out. 

The inner circle was checking on Cassian when an unexpected figure came walking in with your limp body in their arms. “Oh gods, y/n!’’ Mor was the first to stand up and gawk at you in Tamlins arms before the healers directed him to a place where they could properly work on you. Nothing was said as the healers started working, as the inner circles' minds were racing and as Tamlin was leaving. “Thank you” Tamlin didn’t even stop to acknowledge Rhysands form of gratitude. Azriel was the first to speak “How did we forget about her?” no one had an answer.  

Once back in Velaris with your healing underway you could tell that something was off within the group besides the obvious effects of a battle like that and a gut feeling told what it was. You could feel this sense of guilt every time you stepped foot into a room and you knew it was that they forgot about you, they never said that they did but while you were unconscious you could hear everything, and what you heard broke your heart. You were becoming an outsider in your own family. 

You watched day by day as Amren bickered with Nesta, Ryhsand flirt with Feyre and cassian with Nesta, watched as Elain and Azriel danced the line of lovers and watched as you were slowly distanced from the group but it all came to a head after a heated argument with Elain. You were sick and tired of her acting like she was helpless when she wasn’t. She was cauldron made and she needed to start acting like it or else it would get someone killed or even herself. It happened on a training day. 

The sun was beating down on your tired body and the whisper of a breeze was doing little to help and listening to Elain ask Azriel for help was driving you up a wall. “Azriel can you help me? I don’t think I'm doing this right?”  all she was doing was stretching and she needed help with it? “For fucks sake Elain do you want him to spoon feed you and wipe your ass for you while hes at it?” Everyone stopped at your outburst and stared at you. Nesta looked like she was ready to rip off your face but Azriel beat her to it “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” you watched as she shifted her body to be behind his as if she knew he would fight her battles for her. “What it means Azriel” you stalked into his space until you were face to face and watched over his shoulder and Elain moved to seek comfort between her sister and the high lord and you couldn’t help but scoff at her theatrics 

 “Is that all this group ever seems to do is baby her! She is not a child, she can handle herself. She doesn’t need you to teach her how to touch her toes Azriel but heaven forbid poor sweet Elain has to do something on her own for once. I mean my gods what aren’t you willing to do for her Azriel? Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t you give her the truth teller?” Azriel was quick to interrupt “Is that what this is seriously about?” if looks could kill he would be dead because your glare is cutting him up into pieces “I wasn’t done. You gave her your dagger, you went into a hybern camp to save her, you answer her every single beck and call as if she's not fully capable of doing things for herself. You all enable this, every single one of you!” you point to every member of the inner circle “ And I have had enough of this bullshit! Its ridiculous! Elain loves to play sweet and innocent but really she just loves having people dote on her and not having to do anything herself.”  Everyone knew you were seething for they could see the redness creeping up your neck and into your face. And apparently you pissed off Elain

 “So what if Azriel did those things for me it has nothing to do with you so mind your own business.” you knew she wasn’t as nice as she seemed. “This has everything to do with me! I used to be his best friend, me! Not you! I watched everyone change when your family came along and it ruined mine! I have been in love with Azriel since the day I met him and yet I’ve had to watch him fall for you, who he hasn’t even known for two seconds! I heard him say that they forgot about me on the battlefield after hybern! So yes this is about me, I am an outsider in my own family!” The silence was deafening after watching you fight to speak through your tears and cracking voice. No one dared to move for fear of upsetting you even more or maybe it was the weight of your words keeping them in place. Azriel went to place a hand on top of your shoulder but you were quick to step out of his reach. “Y/n I had no idea you felt that way” again you couldn’t help but scoff “Of course not because you were too busy with sweet Elain to notice anything else.” he shook his head as if in a silent no “I am so sorry that we forgot about you there is no excuse it should of never happened. I-we never knew you felt this way, felt like you were being pushed away. But y/n why didn’t you ever tell me that you had feelings for me?” something broke in Azriels heart watching you cry, watched as your face scrunched in pain while you fought back sobs from taking over your body. Something pulled him to comfort you but he knew better than that. He couldn’t, not with Elain here.

“I have been telling you for five hundred years Azriel how much more do you want me to do? I may have never flat out said it but why do you think I stayed up waiting for you to come home after missions, or why I defended you against the teasing, or why I showed you my love in a thousand different ways but you never noticed even though you are the head spy master of the night court.” a sob racked your body forcing you to stop and Azriel wanted nothing more than to hold you until the tears stopped flowing and you felt whole again something in his soul was pulling him towards you but your next words stopped him in his tracks. “I never told you because to you it seems that I have never just been good enough. I have never been enough for you.”

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

One of your posts popped out on my feed, and I've spent a couple hours now scrolling through your page here and there, and I have some thoughts.

First of all, I can tell that you put so much effort into each post you write, and I commend you for that! It's so cool!

Secondly, this going to be super long, I started writing and the words kept flowing, sorry! Feel free to ignore if it's too much. English is not my first language (Japanese & Korean are), so I apologize for any mistakes!

Please, don't take the following as an attack on you, I just want to state my observations, you aren't obliged to reply, and I tried to be as respectful as possible.

I recall you mentioning in one post that you try to be as 'objective' as possible when you answer questions and write posts, but personally, when it comes to a certain character, you are anything but.

And that character is Malleus.

I'm not even a fan of him, I'm pretty neutral, I think he has so much potential to be an interesting character, but he has been consistently done dirty by the writers, especially in his own book, and this seems to be the general consensus among people who aren't hardcore fans of his, and you seem to be to one of them.

Each time you mention Malleus in one of your posts (posts that pertain to other characters, and have almost little/nothing to do with him) I could tell that something was 'off', from the very first moment, I could tell that you viewed him negatively. I can tell you try to word things as neutrally as you can, but your dislike of him just oozes through, I guess. Lmao.

And lo & behold! I saw a post where you mentioned that you DO dislike him, and I was 'Yeah, I could tell'. I have no problem with people disliking him, as I said, I'm neutral, and people are entitled to their opinions.

But then you mentioned that you try to be objective whenever you answer questions, and I was like 'What? So that was you being objective?!' And then you said Leona was one of your faves...and yeah, you don't say! (Leona is my top 4 favorite, BTW)

There's you very SEVERELY minimizing his popularity in Japan. From my observations, it seems Malleus is the most popular character overseas & the most well-liked in general. Here in Japan, he isn't the first, but he is definitely one of the most popular, the only ones I'd pit above him are: Octavinelle, Idia, Skully, Leona. He ranks fairly high in polls & is spoken about very fondly, and is rarely criticized. You bringing up the topic of popularity just seems like a way for you to 'justify' & 'validate' your dislike of him, when he's universally loved. People like you & me (people who are neutral on him or dislike him) are pretty rare, whether it's in Japan or overseas. No matter how much you try to spin it, the tastes of fans across the two servers are very close, for example: Jack, Ortho, Grim, Epel, and Crowley are unpopular amongst both fandoms, Vil & the Scarabia duo are decently popular amongst both fandoms. Malleus has been steadily growing in popularity with the releases of Book 7, and I expect him to really raise in the ranks.

It's very obvious you hate Malleus, and your takes on him are fuelled by that hate, especially some of your takes on the ending of Book 7. You don't give him any grace, you are ESPECIALLY hard on him compared to the other characters, and frankly, you demand too much from him, as a person and as a character.

Even when the writers themselves made sure to let it be known that no injuries were caused, no lasting damage (which I personally thought was pretty obvious, but figured the writers had to get that one out for people like you, who convinced themselves he was more dangerous than he was) you still insist on it being false.

Out of all the other overblotters, Malleus had the most severe consequences, both physically (as he's now handicapped) and mentally (just because Lilia is now alive doesn't change that Malleus KILLED HIM, which is pretty different than Idia's situation, and bound to leave some PTSD). Leona caused way more injuries and girth way more people, even tried to kill Ruggie, and he didn't even have the excuse of being in a state of overblot, he did all that fully conscious, fully aware. He intentionally hurt people, but he's instantly forgiven & immediately he's back to his normal everyday life, forgiven. In contrast, Malleus hurt no one (except Lilia), never intended to harm (and intent DOES matter), all of this makes paints him in more favorable light compared to Leona (and Vil, who also tried to murder someone intentionally before he overblotted) It just seems like you WANT the narrative to justify your hatred of Malleus, you intentionally try to interpret & look at him and his actions from the worst perspective possible, in the most contrived way.

Even when most of the supposed 'victims' themselves have made an entire club based on how happy the dream world made them (which was Malleus's intention all along), and how much they miss it (in a scene presented as a comedic moment, intended to hammer the fact that Malleus truly hurt no one) you twist the scene into it being 'cult-like'?

The narrative isn't bending over backwards to make the situation seem more lighthearted than it was, it isn't retconning anything, the narrative is simply confirming what has already been implied (and what I thought was plainly obvious) for the sake of making things clear for people who would insist that the situation was worse than it was.

Why the surprise over no one being injured? Malleus has simply put people into sleep! Why would they be injured? They aren't in distress, and are content in their dreamworld. The only danger has always been it eventually taking over the world, and the people atrophying without the sustenance.

Why the surprise that he was allowed back in school? Why would the others be given a second chance & not Malleus? Even Crowley points that blatant hypocrisy out. If everyone turned out healthy & sound after the ordeal, all the damage has been repaired, & sincere apologies & compensations were provided, & there no long-lasting damage, then why should Malleus keep suffering?

Why the surprise that the students immediately forgave him? Physically no-one was harmed. Emotionally he didn't intend to hurt them, and the vast majority of them were happy in the dreamworld. Silver explained to them why Malleus did what he did, and they were all smart enough to understand his motives & intent, and wanted to stop him. The main characters got their lickback & the anger out of their systems by fighting him & weakening him, so they don't have a reason to be angry anymore. A running theme has always been NRC students being extraordinary difficult, they're all aware of it, and if anything, thsy find it amusing.

Twisted Wonderland has always been about second chances, learning from one's mistakes, applying the lesson one learned, and doing better. All the other students were given a second chance and proved themselves, why do you so vehemently abhor that for Malleus?

Malleus was misguided, but his actions were not out of malice (like Leona, Vil, Azul, Riddle), they were out of love & genuine desire to help people, and since he's a child who's never been taught proper emotional regulation and social behavior, he went about it in the most childish & simple way possible.

It just seems like you WANT Malleus to be punished, you want him to suffer. Him being maimed & handicapped for centuries isn't enough, you want more punishment for him. Him living in isolation & loneliness for almost 200 years, and being feared & avoided by his peers isn't enough, you also want him to be hated by them & isolated even more severely than before, you want him to be labelled a monster. Him having to live with the fact he killed his father isn't enough, you also want his father to have stayed dead, and for Malleus to wallow in his grief, pain, self-hatred for eternity (which includes a forever broken & unrepairable relationship with the only other 2 people who loved him).

And don't even get me started with you implying he hasn't shown enough guilt, because when has Leona? When has Azul?

It seems you don't Malleus to get a second chance, you don't want him learning from his mistakes & given a chance to do better, you don't want fairness, you just want him punished, hurt, and suffering.

I probably wouldn't have had much of an issue had you not stated your goal of being 'objective'. It's obvious you want & expect the worst out of him.

ご質問ありがとうございます！ 最初は丁寧にご意見を述べてくださいましたが、途中で感情的になってしまったのでしょうか。 誤解を与えてしまったようで、この回���で説明いたします。

From my understanding, you seem to take issue with my usage of a particular word, "objective". I'm not sure which posts you happened to see (as there are admittedly a lot of them on this blog), but assuming that this was one of the #feedback for the writing raven posts, it's not a claim I make very often. It's typically something I hear from readers, such as in this post, this post, and this post, which are all examples from the last year. In the final example I linked, I do mention my goal in being objective, but I also state that 1) it's impossible to eliminate all bias and 2) there's a difference between minimizing my bias for the sake of analysis and allowing myself to freely criticize a character or writing based on my opinions. I will never be 100% free of bias, especially on posts where I am sharing my opinion. I don't claim to be perfectly objective in all instances, I just try to give every character a chance since they all have the potential to evolve, especially in a live service game like Twst. Some of the characters I love today are ones I loathed at launch (ie Leona), and some of the characters that are my most loathed today are the ones I loved at launch (ie Azul). By that logic, there's no reason why Malleus can't have a similar shift.

Again, I don't know what posts you looked at to form your view of how I see Malleus--but honestly, I guess I'm just confused as to how you reached the conclusion that you did. At this point, I don't think it's a secret that I dislike him (I sometimes bring it up to give context to what I'm about to say), but I also don't think I've ever expressed outright hatred. Hatred implies an unwillingness to see his positive traits and potential for growth, and I don't think that describes how I discuss him at all (a sentiment which I believe is shared by my readers). I do sound exasperated in some critique, yes, but it doesn't come from a place of malice. I don't think there's a purpose in getting needlessly mad about a fictional character. Malleus Draconia doesn't exist and doesn't impact my life outside of the moments when I engage with fandom.

My exasperation with him comes from a place of... I guess you'd call it disappointment??? Like, he has potential to be an interesting character, but the writing that's currently there (in my opinion) doesn't support him very well and keeps squandering that potential. I want him to be better and develop as a character (as I feel he has various flaws that aren't properly addressed), but I keep being let down time and time again. It leads to me sometimes sounding frustrated when I speak about him, because it feels like the narrative is holding his character hostage until maybe post-book 7. This is especially the case because Malleus's writing has this consistent issue where he is granted opportunities to learn and grow (and even social support from Lilia and other peers), but ultimately doesn't. This isn't true for other characters, who are given moments of character development in vignettes or event stories, even if in just small ways like Idia pushing himself to drum in public or Deuce doing his best to be an honors student.

I'm not sure where the claim that I "severely minimize" his popularity in Japan comes from?? If I mention popularity at all, it's usually to compare between EN and JP. In EN polls, Malleus consistently places #1, but doesn't reach those same heights in JP. The highest placement I've seen for Malleus in JP polls is around 7th place (which is still quite commendable!). This is also the case when you consider that Malleus x Yuu is the most popular self-insert category on AO3 (largely EN), but only has a fraction of the posts as the most popular yume'd character, Floyd, on Pixiv (largely JP). His spike in popularity is also more of a recent phenomenon, I believe coinciding with book 7 which fleshes out his character a lot more. Coincidentally, this also seems to have boosted his yumejoshi ranking in JP, as he appeared in the 2024 and 2023 lists (book 7 was actively releasing in these years). I even mentioned Malleus's bump in popularity in recent posts, such as here and here.

I'm by no means downplaying Malleus's popularity, and I never claimed that the tastes of JP and non-JP fans are vastly different 💦 I only comment on major differences I noticed, such as how Trey is much more popular to yume in the JP fandom than he is in the EN fandom. I make note of things like this because I find it interesting that we can all be fans of the same content, but also interpret that content in vastly different ways. I don't do it to "justify and validate" my own feelings about Malleus. (This also applies to the claim that I want canon to "justify and validate" me; I don't, I'm perfectly content with my own views and think it would be boring if canon always agreed with me.) I have expressed time and time again that I do not care how other people choose to engage with their media; that's their business, not mine, and to encroach on that or to disrupt the fun that someone else is having would be extremely invasive and rude. There's nothing to be gained in trying to get "justification and validation" from external sources, whether that's canon or what other fans think, because it's always going to be a fruitless effort if there's no internal satisfaction, but that's a whole separate can of worms.

Regarding the ending of book 7, I'm going to take a shot in the dark and guess that you may be sourcing many of my opinions of it from this summary post. As I mention in the opening disclaimer, everything contained in that post are my initial thoughts on the events that unfold. They in no way reflect all of my thoughts, just the very emotional and on-the-spot reactions I had directly after reading the last bits. I think you may be conflating my recent critique of book 7 with hating Malleus?? I have said that I think breaking his horn was extreme and that I sympathize with him for that; there were other ways to power cap him without having to do something that drastic. I never denied that Malleus might be harboring complicated feelings after killing Lilia (I actually acknowledge it as a possibility), but the writing of book 7 certainly fails to communicate this to us. (It's also something past OBs like Riddle, Leona, and Vil, fail to express, so this may just be a quirk of Twst writing.) As I said before, many other characters were let off with a slap on the wrist and not made to fully account for what they did, and I'm not necessarily satisfied with those either.

When I say "intent doesn't matter", it's only in relation to the results. Saying "I did not mean to harm you" does not negate any harm caused. You still have some degree of responsibility for it (albeit, in a court of law you might get a lighter sentence, but technicalities). If Kalim accidentally insults Riddle's lack of physical stamina, it... doesn't negate that Riddle feels insulted by it, even if Kalim didn't mean to. If we're going to say "intent does matter", then are we willing to apply it to all other situations, not just Malleus's? Mrs. Rosehearts did not mean to traumatize her child. The Briar Valley senators did not mean to isolate Malleus by blessing him with tons of magical power. Are we willing to extend them the same courtesy of "having good intentions", even if those "good intentions" led to harming others in the process? I don't think it's fair to say this of Malleus but then not do the same for other characters.

A large part of book 7 has been dedicated to those in S.T.Y.X. emphasizing the danger Malleus's magic poses to the rest of the world. The narrative has brought up the potential of the dreamers' physical bodies wasting away from lack of sustenance at least twice. Malleus's grandmother (a mage previously described to be even more powerful than her grandson) cannot pierce his barrier. They stress that his barrier will continue to grow, unburdened, and that he has an endless magic source to draw from. Malleus is trying to attack those who get in his way (including Ortho, Silver, and Sebek with killing intent). I don't think I would be incorrect to believe the characters when they say that this is a genuinely dangerous situation. It just feels tonally dissonant to me when a lot of book 7 was building up this danger, but then the ending doesn't really match what they were building up to.

And to be clear, the other OBs also get off easy. Like, it cannot be the case that all Scarabia students suddenly trust Jamil again after book 4, or that all NRC students feel comfortable dining at the Mostro Lounge again after book 3. However, the difference here, again, is scale. It's more believable when the numbers are small, like a few hundred students. It's less so when you pump it up to several thousand people and entire nations. The larger the number we're dealing with, the more likely there would be a non-zero chance that something would go haywire. This is why I also heavily criticize how Fellow Honest was treated at the end of his event; the crime ring he was associated with surely operated on a scale grander than just the NRC student kidnappings, yet we never touched upon this further.

The "cult" comment is something I made off-the-cuff, and was partially informed by the fact that a character (I believe Ace?) called the Fairy Dream Life Association members "Draconians". That's the same term that is used to refer to die-hard Malleus fans in Diasomnia--those same die-hard fans, who will ardently and blindly support Malleus in everything he says and does. I seem to recall one instance in the first Halloween event in which Sebek leads a group of Draconians to support Malleus in attacking Magicam Monsters; Silver and Lilia had to prevent that from happening. That reads to me like a cult of personality around Malleus. If you happen to disagree with me, that's fine--but there is no need to attack different interpretations.

I want to make it clear that I'm in disbelief at the lack of consequences not because it is Malleus causing them, but because the scale was so enormous. (The other OBs already faced such limited fallout for their own actions. Had they also reached the same scale as Malleus did, I'd still be shocked at how it was all hand-waved off.) It reads as unrealistic when the ending only focuses on the good or only vaguely covers the fallout. For example, other countries were put in danger. Why were we not told about their reactions to anything that happened or how they're reacting in the aftermath? Are we expected to believe that ALL countries in Twisted Wonderland accepted the apology and moved on? The 20,000 residents on Sage's island were put to sleep. Are we supposed to believe that not a SINGLE one of them had a negative experience or woke up confused or hurt from it? What about the parents and family members of those on Sage's Island? Not ONE of them was mad, not even Mrs. Rosehearts, who yelled at a kid for 5 hours for sneaking out with her child to eat a strawberry tart? To write it as though everyone reacted the exact same, convenient way cheapens the world + its people and makes it come off as paper thin. I think these are valid concerns and not convoluted nitpicks. There is natural variance in the world (it's nearly impossible to get 20,000 people to agree on anything irl, not even things you'd think are common sense), so it's very difficult for me to believe that there was NO variance at all when reacting to the aftermath of the OB incident.

I never said Malleus shouldn't be forgiven or that he shouldn't be allowed back in school (I've actually said the opposite). My issue is that there wasn't enough accountability for what he did. I don't want Malleus to be "punished more" or to "keep suffering", I want him to fully realize and own up to everything he did. The way the ending currently stands (I blame the time skips, honestly), there's not a lot that indicates to me that Malleus truly understands the full gravity of his actions. A lot of it is being assumed by the fandom, but not indicated in the story itself, which I think is a shame because it's quite limiting for his character. It feels like everything stops short, when really, it should go on for a little longer??? For example, Malleus does apologize to NRC--which is a good start! But he still didn't like... apologize to anyone else on Sage's Island that he affected with his magic?

I'm surprised that the students seemed to immediately forgive Malleus because NRC students are frequently portrayed as vindictive and petty. They get mad, pick fights, and hold grudges over the smallest things, so it's unbelievable to me that a peer would go and do something big like this and then no one in the entire population of 800 students holds even the slightest reservation about what happened?? Again, it feels like flattening the world and the people in it (by implying they'd all act the same way) for the sake of a convenient ending. On a related note, I'm not sure if I like the use of "smart enough to understand" in your wording; it's as if to imply anyone that feels differently (even though I feel there definitely would be some variance among the students) is somehow unintelligent for having their opinion 💦 By extension, it almost feels insulting to fans who also see the situation differently (although I'd like to believe that's not your intention).

I really do not like that Malleus keeps being compared to the other OB boys in these discussions. It's always framed as "Malleus is better than them!", which implies that the others are somehow "worse". It's actively putting down others' trauma in order to uplift another's. We can talk about Malleus's own background, experiences, etc. without having to minimize others' background, experiences, etc.--but I fear that's not what is happening here. Why is it okay for people to shame and dehumanize the other OBs for the extreme actions they took, but it's "too much" when the same behaviors are turned towards Malleus? None of them should be going through that to begin with, and the fact that this is happening at all seems hypocritical to me. I have always held this opinion and am equally disgusted by this being done for any OB boy, as someone inevitably comes out of it labelled "lesser" than the others. Trauma is always valid to the person that experienced it, and to compare it to other traumas can be so incredibly demoralizing and isolating. It sometimes feels like Malleus's background is being used to shield him against taking responsibility for his actions, when the same isn't applied by fans to the other OBs. Their backgrounds are meant to explain why they are the way they are and help us empathize with them, not to entirely excuse them. This was something mentioned all the way back in book 1 too; Ace accuses Riddle of always citing his mother or the rules to justify his beheadings rather than accept accountability for his own actions. Similarly, Trey us called out for pointing out Riddle's tough home life as a reason for his current leniency in suppressing his dorm leader's anger. Riddle's background explains why he acts out and is so stringent, but it doesn't mean he isn't still responsible for his own rage and his students living in fear of him. By this logic, all OB boys (Malleus included) shouldn't lean on a tragic backstory to excuse the extreme measures they took in their respective books. I'm of the belief that they should all be granted forgiveness and the chance to redeem themselves, but they should also be aware of what they previously did and accept that they were responsible for that before they can move on and improve themselves. Both statements can be true at the same time.

To be clear: I DON'T want Malleus to be "punished", "hurt", or to "suffer" more, as you claim I do. I have explicitly stated that I disagree with his horn being broken. (There are other, much more humane ways to limit his magic, and as I bring up in my book 7 rewrite, limiting his magic may actually free Malleus of his "curse" and make him more approachable to classmates.) I DON'T "want and expect the worst of [Malleus]." I have never stated I want him to be feared/avoided/hated or labelled a monster by the people of Twisted Wonderland. What I am asking for is for more explicit accountability for what he did and more realistic fallout for his actions (again, I find it very difficult to believe that not a single person in all of Twisted Wonderland holds even the slightest reservations in the aftermath of his OB). I want him to prove he has changed and have to EARN people's trust, not have it be handed to him so easily. The other OB boys all have to work hard (and are still working hard) to make amends for their wrongs, but Malleus seemingly has to do so much less despite the scale of his magic being so much grander. One example I mentioned earlier was him only apologizing to a fraction of the people he put under his spell when he actually disrupted many more lives than that.

I want to clarify that the reason I think Lilia should have died ISN'T because I "want Malleus to suffer". It's because I genuinely think this would better serve Malleus's character arc. He initially OBs because he wanted to prevent Lilia from leaving, yes? But then he... ends up getting the exact thing he lost his temper over, even though the solution was never quite this simple for the other OB boys. This feels as though Malleus and Malleus alone is getting special treatment. It's true that he killed Lilia, but Lilia remains dead for all of 5 seconds, so it doesn't feel as though that loss really sank in. Malleus is not challenged by, nor confronted with, mortality or coming to terms with drastic life changes. As I mention in my book 7 rewrite, Lilia didn't even necessarily need to stay dead in order for Malleus to have growth; all we would have needed was like... a coma or something? Some period of time that would force Malleus to sit and really self-reflect. The recurring issue with Malleus's writing is that he is always given chances to learn, but doesn't follow through on them. Even when it is advice being dispensed to him BY Lilia (a la Malleus's Dorm Uniform vignettes), Malleus doesn't take it to heart, either because something gets in the way or because he struggles to understand that advice, whatever. But in the aftermath of such a serious situation--something that unfolded by his hand, it's an opportunity for him to be introspective instead of brushing it off like in previous instances.

Again, I really think that the characters not openly demonstrating remorse for what they did is a consistent pattern with Twst's writing. It's not something unique to Malleus--but the thing is, when Malleus's motives are so often identified as "selfless" and "for everyone's happiness" and his magic isn't contained, he's impacting many more lives. Malleus is also in a position in which he represents a country and its future, and he himself has continuously expressed that he must maintain relations and decorum as future head of state. When he then goes and betrays his own morals, should he not demonstrate more recognition of that? (I think the only OB that stands out in this regard is Vil, who did apologize to the VDC/SDC team.) Of course, it's possible that this is covered more in book 8, but since book 7 ends in a time skip of several weeks and a party, I was expecting this to be more prominently displayed in the speech Malleus gives to the attendees.

I will say that I am tough on Malleus, but I think I'm allowed to be when he has so much power and status behind his name. It's that whole "with great power comes great responsibility" thing; the more you have, the more careful you should be with it. That's something Malleus is very aware of himself, so it tends to irk me when he misuses his magic. I disagree with other powerful mages' use of magic as well; you just don't see me harping on those because those instances are not as frequent. I don't like that Vil cursed the cake and pie Trey gifted the gang, and I don't like that Leona almost sanded Ruggie--but we rarely see other characters doing these things repeatedly. But then I see Malleus attacking Magicam Monsters and children (Lock, Shock, and Barrel), Malleus disregarding his fellow dorm leaders' autonomy (by using a spell normally cast on objects on them), stopping time and kidnapping people for a party without considering the consequences, etc. On one hand, you have Malleus aware of his position and the difference in power between him and his peers--but on the other hand, he's frequently using these powers on others with little regard for them, and isn't truly told off for it. This will feed into how some people perceive him--because if even his closest guardian figure, Lilia, isn't holding him accountable, then naturally some players will take up that mantle.

Malleus has been enabled his whole life, and this is even shown to us in his post-OB flashback and other materials. He's been told he doesn't have to apologize when he hurts people. He's never had to answer for the things he does--whether just simply rude or cataclysmic--because his power and status excuse him. I feel that fans protecting him and not truly holding him accountable for what he did is actually holding him back from bettering as a person, and that is endlessly frustrating to watch. He cannot be better if he's never allowed to identify that there is a problem to begin with. It feels like I'm watching someone I grew distant from spiral into a really bad habit, and he's ignoring all my warnings and pleas to take a look in the mirror; he fails to see that he's hurting himself because his other friends keep telling him that he's not doing anything wrong, so he keeps getting worse and worse when all I want is to see him improve. I don't think it's "demanding too much" for me to say that I don't think Malleus will improve if he's not first recognizing that he's made a mistake to begin with. If anything, I think it's unfair to give him treatment that isn't granted to any other OB. Frankly, I don't think I've seen anyone defending an OB boy to the same extent that Malleus has been, and to point out this discrepancy is my attempt at trying to provide "the other side", sans vitriol. If it seems to you like I'm not granting Malleus any grace, it's because those I'm discussing the topic with are typically already granting him maximum grace. When I point out what's missing or perhaps feels unsatisfactory about the ending, it's not a dig directed at Malleus; it's me trying to be pragmatic about writing in general. (I think the "not everyone thinks the exact same way" part is particularly salient, especially after seeing the variance in reaction to book 7's ending.)

TLDR

Many accusations about how I feel about Malleus were made in this ask. I do not believe that they accurately represent me. If you don't agree with that, that's fine--but then I guess my question becomes "Why send this in the first place?" It feels as though an opinion was formed based on making the worst possible assumptions of my character--and that's okay, that's a right everyone is allowed to have, and I certainly don't expect everyone to agree with me or to even like me/my takes. However, I just don't see what there is to gain in sending these thoughts to anyone?? I am genuinely very confused.

To clarify, I responded to this ask because I wanted to clarify my opinions on book 7's ending again, in case anyone missed them. I don't want my thoughts to be misconstrued as being blindly hateful.

[serpentface]

maybe the most difficult worldbuilding question of all, what are some popular jokes in your setting? what about ones based on the vocabulary you have established so far, but which just don't translate to english?

I only have one thing established that is purely a Joke that isn't translatable to english-

A lot of Wardi dick jokes revolve partially around this animal, the long-suffering hippegalga

The name 'hippegalga' means 'little horn'.

Hippe/hippi is a somewhat antiquated word for 'small/little', in contemporary dialect it's still recognizable as having connotations of 'small' but isn't commonly used in actual vocabulary (you'll find it more often in names). Galga was originally one of several words for 'horn', in this case broadly pertaining to the horns of antelope ('meti' is the most generalized word for animal horns, while specific animal groups (antelope, khait and cattle) have their own horn words.

Hippegalga horns are considered to be notably phallic among all animal horns (big male hippegalga tend to have horns approximately the size of an average human penis) and are ascribed beneficial qualities for male development and fertility (taken powdered as medicine and/or worn) while also serving the non-sexual functions of a general phallus when worn as an amulet.

The word 'galga' or its shortened 'gal' tends to be used on its own specifically for this animal's horn (ie: if you're describing a hippegalga's horn, you just say 'galga' instead of 'hippegalga galga', while if you were describing another antelope's horn you Would say '[antelopes name] galga'). Because of this, the word has greatly absorbed the animal's phallic connotations while still retaining the meaning 'horn'. As such, galga/gal has earned additional meaning as euphemistic slang for 'penis' in common dialect.

The name 'hippegalga', which once had absolutely no penis connotations, now sounds to most Wardi speakers like you're saying 'small penis'. It's like if in english there was a very common, well-known backyard bird called the 'little cock'. You'd know damn well that it's not Supposed to mean 'little penis', you'd know that the bird was probably named before 'cock' became more commonly used as penis slang than a word for 'male bird', but it sure is a funny name.

What's more, hippegalga are VERY common wild animals that adapt well to urban environments (they're basically as ubiquitous to urban areas as squirrels) and are very tameable and kept as pets. Their ubiquity and familiarity makes them very fertile ground for dick jokes and innuendo.

So you'll see 'hippegalga' used as a basic slang term for 'small penis' (ie: "I saw his hippegalga the other day"), or used in more complex ways in comedic plays/poetry/etc as a euphemism IE:

"he left to tend to his hippegalga" - innocently meaning "he left to feed his pet antelope" while strongly implying "he went off to crank his (notably small, which is funny) dick" "she was disappointed to find a herd of hippegalga waiting at her door" - innocently meaning "she was annoyed that a herd of little antelopes were blocking her doorway", and depending on the context could imply something like "she found a bunch of disappointing, impotent male suitors lurking around her doorway" or "she's having sex with several men and is disappointed to find their dicks are small"

(TANGENT: average sized penises are culturally considered ideal, with notably large penises implying an outsized libido and un-masculine lack of self control, and notably small penises implying sexual impotence and general weakness. It tends to be assumed that if a woman has an outsized libido she will be interested in men with larger penises)

Gal(ga) as euphemistic slang for penis plays into the name of gannegal soup, which is a dish that contains bull penis as one of its ingredients. 'Gannegal' is effectively a double entendre. You're not saying 'ox penis' soup (that would be 'ganne gemane'), the dead literal translation of gannegal IS 'ox horn'. But this is not the Naturalistic way you would say 'ox horn' either, because 'gal(ga)' is not used for the horns of cattle (you would say 'gannemitla' or just 'mitla'). So like to a Wardi listener the name 'gannegal' is politely saying 'ox horn' while heavily implying its contents of bull penis.

"Gal(ga)" as both a word for horn and slang term for penis has a lot of other applications in jokes/puns/euphemisms.

I don't have the words established for the full Wardi language version, but a phrase that translates to "a hawk carrying a bull by the horns" (using 'galga' instead of the naturalistic 'gannemitla') is used to describe a woman as sexually domineering, or to describe a couple being consisted of a conniving sexually controlling woman and a weak-willed libidinous man. The imagery is a small predatory bird controlling a physically superior, powerful animal, and implying via 'galga' that the control is sexual in nature. It's usage is Kind Of similar to 'henpecked husband' in implying a man as weak and overly controlled by his wife (with acutely misogynistic undertones that he's a failure in that he should clearly be the dominant party instead), just with an explicitly sexual layer.

There's also variants like "he's a bull led by his horns" as something you might say about a superficially powerful man that you're implying is mentally weak (the galga euphemism implies this mental weakness is specifically lack of sexual control, but this phrase is sometimes used in more generalized contexts).

---

This one's less of a joke per se, but "digging out the viper" "digging out the viper's tail" "digging out the tail" is a saying that describes something as a high effort and utterly futile exercise, a doomed vanity project, etc.

This refers to the Viper seaway, which is named for its fat snakelike shape. The 'tail' of the Viper dead-ends about 50 miles away from the actual ocean, which makes this sea ultimately unimportant in the larger sea trade system (you don't have to enter its waters at all to get to any major trade hubs). However, it would become EXTREMELY important to sea trade if someone managed to dig a canal between the Viper's 'tail' and the eastern sea.

This would be very difficult- a lot of the terrain is rocky and hilly (the actual canal might have to be closer to 70 miles long AT MINIMUM to work around the terrain). The people who actually live on this land (mostly Ubiyan pastoralists) are not heavily involved in the sea trade system, and most of their communities have never particularly wanted foreigners digging a huge fucking canal through their lands and building up a sea trade hub around it.

So, there have been at least two major historical attempts to dig the canal, both of which failed. One was through a strained alliance of Royal Dain kingdoms, and one was an attempt by Imperial Bur at its height (in which it controlled all the coasts on the south end of the Viper, among other places). Both failed spectacularly, due to a combination of logistical issues (the sheer scale of manpower needed, feeding this manpower, and sustaining the endeavor), internal political disagreement on the projects viability, and organized reprisals from the Ubiyan population. As it stands, the attempted canal exists as about 20 miles of shallow ditches, heavily eroded and washed out by rain.

The idea of digging out the canal now tends to be regarded as a spectacular and utterly futile act of hubris, to the point that variants of "digging out the Viper" as an expression of futility exist in Wardi, Burri, Dain, Finn, and Ubiyan languages.

The saying itself isn't quite a joke, but can very easily be Used in jokes and wordplay: IE in a play where the stock Arrogant Idiot character excitedly goes off to fight a group of bandits singlehandedly, you could see an exchange between other characters like "What did he say he was going to do?" "He said he has to go dig out a viper's tail" (which would not be regarded as uproariously funny but would probably elicit a chuckle from the audience).

This saying also lends itself to more sexual wordplay in that one partly antiquated word for tail (cunna) is now mostly used as slang for anus (though is still Recognizable as having meaning as an animals tail). (Kind of like in american english how most people Know the word 'ass' has meant 'donkey' for most of its history, but you don't often see it used as such).

The related word 'cunnari' stems from it (this is untranslatable, it dead literally means 'anus person') and is used to describe someone as passive in anal sex. This is Extremely insulting to use on a man (probably the closest approximation to 'faggot' in this language, though with different connotations) and degrading even when not.

A man (at least rhetorically) threatening to sexually penetrate another man is kind of like saying "I'll make you my bitch". So you might see variants on "digging out the viper's tail" which use the word 'cunna' for tail to mock an instance of this alpha male type declaration. IE: in the context of a play, this type of threat might be responded with a "ha, good luck digging out my tail" (your threats are laughably futile) or a more elaborate sort of "do I look like a viper to you? I can see why the likes of you is so interested in my tail" (you must be fucking stupid, you're the type to engage in hopeless endeavors of vanity). Etc.

On the other way around you might see 'cunnari' slipped into reversals of 'digging out the tail', ie: "he'll have no troubles digging out that cunnari", "If only the Viper was a cunnari, he'd have spread his tail wide open and saved Old Bur all its trouble". Etc

[edgeray]

*presses my face against your tank* HELLO RAY !!! :D I AM FINALLY HERE !! MY BRAINCELLS HAVE COLLIDED AND PRODUCED A THOUGHT !!

or, er, sort of? more like a vague vibe, but i digress. basically, consider: pining arle. how does she realize her feelings for you? how does she cope? how does her behaviour around you change? does it? what is she thinking the whole time? when would she consider making a move? essentially i would like to see you psychologically pick apart this woman. go as in depth into her brain or inner monologue as you want !!! the set dressing can be canon or an au, i’ll eat it up regardless :)) and as a professional angst writer i know you can write some absolutely monstrous (/pos) yearning and i’m frothing at the mouth thinking about it 🤤🤤🤤 lookin forward to your thoughts but also take your time with it !!! godspeed 🫡🫡🫡

An Unfit Role 

(Arlecchino x GN! Reader)

A/N - Oh sev… you spoil me too much. You truly do. Somehow this turned into very ‘Arlecchino is a person'-esque and I don't know how but oh well. I don't know if this answered your questions very well, but hopefully this is what you mean by psychologically picking apart her! Was this enough pining? Content warnings / info - uhh none I think. just a lil bit of angst, 1.4k words

Arlecchino is many things. The Fourth Fatui Harbinger, a Snezynayan diplomat, the head of the House of the Hearth, and simply ‘'Father.’ She takes on many roles, and enforces them with an iron fist, every facade meticulously practiced and rationalized. Perfected as if she were an actor on a stage, every action and step is calculated beforehand. And if external factors or unpredictable variables crop up in the midst of her play? Well, a good actor knows how to improvise. Arlecchino is well aware of her roles, has memorized the lines and drilled through every movement. The Knave has many feats from each character she plays. A flawless performer, in those aspects.

A lover is not a character she can play. Someone who loves. It is a role that she cannot hope to touch, one she cannot imagine assigning herself too. She is far too inexperienced in what it pertains to. Her perception would grossly mischaracterize it, painting a rather crude display of what she knows of but doesn't know. After all, how could one act without an adequate example? No actor would want to showcase a poor impression of an original source material, an actor presents only their most remarkable qualities. A good actor knows what they cannot act, and it is this where her talents reach their limit. It is what her role as a ‘Father’ stems from; this inability to express something far too fragile and flimsy for her to hold. 

Of the few showcases of others playing the role, Arlecchino is knowledgeable enough that they are simply inept showcases. The Tsaritsa, who has shown the capability to act, and yet chooses to conceal her abilities from her audience. Crucabena, an unqualified actor, whose words dripped with far too much venom for the soft-spoken voice that she used. Perhaps Clervie was the only accurate and genuine actor able to play the part, but one cannot appreciate the traits of an unfinished story. And the naive Peruere, who could hardly imitate her counterpart, was maimed by Arlecchino’s own hands. It is here that she learns that the role of a lover earns no applause, because it adds little to the plot, and so it lacks a function in her story.  

Despite this, she finds herself in this scene, where she plays a character unlike her usual, an entirely new character involuntarily thrusted into her by the cruel machinations of her mind. 

It is a subtle thing. First, she was just the Knave to you. But somehow, among your presence, her facade slips, and she dons another character. 

She becomes a character who knows of nothing but the way her sight is captured by a singular person, a character whose dead heart begins to beat, daring to flutter back to life after it was painfully wrenched out of her chest by her favorite story's ending. She becomes acutely aware of this role when her eyes linger on you a moment longer than need be, when she indulges your empty but no less engaging conversations, when she familarizes herself with the particular fauna scent you carry. When she closes her eyes, your smile flashes through her mind, she knows she's fallen. 

An actor knows when to quit, when they misfit the character they're performing. And yet her mind remains stubborn. Acting a role one does not fit will only damage the actor's reputation, and she intends on abandoning it. But it is difficult for her to dismiss how much she yearns for a warmth that the blood flames in her veins cannot bring. It is difficult to deny that she is not momentarily blinded and stunned by your beaming expression, even when you are not looking at her. It is increasingly more difficult to control the pulsing underneath her skin. This is a character she cannot control, instead, it often feels that the character controls her. 

It is an unseemly, disgusting appearance for her. If it were physically possible, she would plunge her very own cursed, clawed hands into her chest, to grasp onto this fickle, volatile organ and crush it just to exhaust the remaining embers of a futile hope. If only it were as simple as that. Love is far too much of a complicated role for her, and yet it is somehow inescapable. Some sort of torment placed onto her by the archons. 

She can long, she can reach, she can prance around you, but never can she touch. For love imprints its scorch marks deeper than any weapon or assault. One of the lessons her story has concluded to. 

So, instead, she reduces its role to a minor character. She lets her stares remain, but she observes you from a distance. She does not dawdle a second longer besides you if she needn't be. She dresses the role of a lover as an observer. Everything she touches with these wretched, blackened hands soon turns into nothing but embers and ashes, and so the only way that you will remain is away from her.

On her desk, sits a vase with a single flower. It is your favorite flower, the flower that you smell of. It does not move from its place, nothing is done to it besides being watered. Its stem is so brittle, and the petals are far too easy to wither away.

(It is a reminder, every time she sits at her desk. Oh, how'd she like to stroke the patels with as much tenderness as she could muster. How'd she like to cradle it in her hands, this source of life, despite being so delicate, is so beautiful. How'd she like to be able to wake up everyday, and view upon this blossoming flower. But she is not a gardener. She knows nothing of how to make a flower bloom.) 

Humans are the only viable actors for the role of a lover. A curse is not. 

(In her dreams, sometimes you are in place of Clervie. Yet, like Clervie, the only moment she is able to cradle you is when her sword impales you. She will not let another flower wilt, she will not burn another flower.)

It is why you baffle her. Why do you gaze upon her with that expression, as if her claws are not one one more inch from piercing your skin and ripping into your flesh? How do you take her hands in yours, somehow slotting them as if they were always meant to, when they’re soiled with vulgar blood? Her cutting words and sharp tongue, how do they not dissuade you? How do you see her blackened skin, and not be driven away by such a mark of impurity and depravity? 

How could you not tell that she is improper for the role that you seek?

She wonders if a flower is a poor description of you. She wonders if you are instead a Sundew ensnaring a spider, unwilling to let it escape. No, perhaps that is not fitting for you, because you are unaware how effortlessly she can char you–unaware of the imminent danger that comes with keeping such a venomous creature.

Arlecchino is many things. She is a coward, if only for you. She cannot abandon her role, but she cannot perform better, floating in the state of inadequacy that she so despises. Playing a lover makes her foolish, and it is a compromising role. 

She is foolish, but she is despicable. She is selfish. And though she is perfect actor, even performers must fail to succeed. One day, her mental will and patience crumbles. She requests you into her office, your doe-eyed expression widens when she gives you the flower that sits lone in a glass vase on her desk. She tells you that you plague her thoughts, every feeling and emotion is muddied when they concern you, a culmination of things not within her grasp, not within her control. 

It is your performance that finally teaches her what she lacked before: playing the role of a lover requires another. It is a role dependent on another character, otherwise it cannot succeed. It matters not how experienced one is with the other, as long as the characters are committed to it.

There is another lesson that she learned from you.

“I cannot act as a lover.”

“Why must you act to love me?”

Love is a fickle, unpredictable thing. There is no words to be practiced, no actions to be scripted. 

Arlecchino is many things. A lover may be one of them. 

[laurelwen]

Daddy Issues in Like Minds: Sally and Martin Edition

As a fandom, we have extensively discussed Alex and Nigel and their daddy issues from a number of different angles. The other day I was considering this central theme and the post I made about it here: The Sins of the Father.

It occurred to me that both Sally and Martin are also caught in the same trap, unable to escape the legacy of their own fathers.

Martin McKenzie:

By inheriting his profession from his father, he is in some ways simply a copy of his own dad, following the same path and attempting to follow his dad's moral and professional code. At the same time, he also inherits membership in the Order and the expectations that come with it. When Dr. Forbes presses him to release Alex, those expectations come into play. Dr. Forbes chides him for not following along with the script, as his father would have done. Martin asserts that his father would have done his job properly, abiding by the rule of law. In the end, it's not clear which of them has the correct assessment of Daddy McKenzie, and given what we know of the Order, I think either thing could be true--or both are.

While Martin chooses to adhere to his faith in his father's sense of duty to the law, either way he chooses, he's still caught up in Daddy McKenzie's legacy--and perhaps, his sins. Ian's confidence that Martin would help a fellow Brother indicates that this IS a standard practice among members of the Order. The way he phrases it even suggests that he personally knew Daddy McKenzie and perhaps had examples of Dad's past behavior as his basis for the assumption and the belief that Martin would behave similarly. Martin might have an idealized version of his father up on a pedestal when it is entirely plausible and even probable that the man was guilty of bending and breaking the law to aid the brotherhood.

Is Martin upholding or subverting his father's real legacy? Can Ian presume to know the son by the actions of the father? In the end, Martin renounces membership in the Order, but does he actually escape his father's sins? Isn't he just as willing to bend the law to suit his own purposes? He takes an immediate disliking to Alex, decides that Alex is guilty, and charges him with no solid evidence to avoid having to let him go. He calls Sally in and pressures her to "find him culpable". This is a gross undermining of the due process of law. He won't break the rules for the sake of the brotherhood, but he has already broken them extensively for his own purposes. He has deluded himself into a self-righteous belief in his own ethical rectitude, but he merely repeats his own father's sins in the service of a different cause. Perhaps that IS his father's true legacy...and sin.

Sally Rowe:

We're given much less material to work with pertaining to Sally and her father, but the key piece of info we do get feels very illuminating. When Sally is trying to go home and her car won't start, she opens the hood herself and tinkers with what seems to be the distributor cap*. From her lack of hesitation and confidence in pulling the cap off, we can guess she's had this problem before and fixed it herself. Dr. Forbes offers assistance and they have a brief exchange in which she explains that she inherited a passion for difficult cars from her dad.

Sally's dad imparted both a knowledge and a love of cars, including a particular fondness for types that are prone to frequent mechanical problems. She doesn't just have an interest in these cars, it's a "passion" for them. One can surmise this was a pastime they shared as a bonding activity, Sally shadowing her dad as he fixed the latest problem in his favorite car. One might be tempted to say that Daddy Rowe's legacy then was one of empowerment for his daughter, encouraging her to occupy traditional male spaces and giving her the skills to solve issues that most people need to pay a skilled professional to handle.

I think this trait gives us a window into Sally's psyche far beyond just an automobile hobby. Her passion for "difficult" cars--cars that break down frequently, cars that are tricky, unreliable, and temperamental, cars that can turn on you and leave you stranded a hundred miles from home--feels like a character trait that applies to more than just cars. It gives us a window into the inner forces that led her to choose a career in forensic psychology. Her job duties entail a careful examination of "difficult" people in order to diagnose problems and offer an assessment to law enforcement to determine legal next steps. Sally is effectively opening the hood and tinkering around with the complex human mind to determine the functional status of each patient.

A piece of advice from a practicing forensic psychologist to those who are considering the career:

You have to be able to convey your thinking into well-written, well integrated, and professional reports that will be read by judges, attorneys, clients, and other professionals involved in the case. You need to have a complex understanding of personality adjustment, psychological assessment, the law and the legal process, the relevant literature, and be attuned to one’s limitations in forming opinions.

I find the last portion particularly relevant here. While her instincts led her to choose this profession, they also present a type of limitation to her ability to objectively assess patients. She doesn't just want to fix a car when it breaks, she has a "passion" for the ones that break down often. Most people would want to get rid of a car that had frequent issues, deeming them more trouble than they are worth. But Sally is drawn to problematic cars--and people. There is a subjectivity inherent to her interest in the cars/people with frequent problems which drives her to remain attached when others would give them up as a lost cause.

This trait underlies her entire interaction with Alex, and I think it plays a major role in her downfall. In this post, I examine all the ways that Martin and Alex are very much alike. I would also suggest that their similarity is why Sally was/is drawn to both of them. We know Sally and Martin were previously in a relationship, though that has ended prior to the film's events. Regardless, Martin demonstrates that he at least still knows Sally well enough to push her buttons and enlist her help with his cause. Upon meeting her, Alex immediately starts to probe this woman in an attempt to find her weak spots so he can manipulate her for his own ends. Sally has a similar reaction to both of them, essentially conveying that she sees through their patently obvious attempts to influence her. Her ability to recognize their problematic behavior doesn't actually stop her from caving to their wishes--she cannot resist the "difficult" cars.

It seems likely that most others in her position would have given up on Alex after hearing even a part of his frankly preposterous claims, deeming him beyond the point of any repair. Sally is blind to her own limitations - the tenacious to a fault need to figure out the problem and fix it - and this impedes her ability to remain objective. Her satisfaction at solving the problem is on display as she presents her analysis to her peers--she basks in the pleasure of diagnosing this complex psychological dynamic and preens at the recognition she receives for it. And with poetically perfect timing, while she stands at the highest point in her professional career, Alex reveals that she has been deeply deceived. All her satisfaction at having solved the problem and "fixing the car" comes crashing down in the realization that she was so very wrong. The instincts instilled by her father, rippling outwards from this simple hobby into her personal and professional life, are what cause her downfall.

In Like Minds, there is no escaping your father's legacy.

[*Distributor cap source: I was raised in a family of mechanics including my own father, and I have pulled off a distributor cap to check the cap and the spark plugs when my car was having trouble starting. Feel free to look up pics of the distributor caps to verify my assertion (you won't).]

[Like Minds Masterpost - Main]