#sayer? i think its called ???

[oflgtfol]

so my one coworker i've talked about now knows that i'm into both venom and malevolent and that i use tumblr which says an awful lot about me but then my OTHER COWORKER TODAY started talking to me about ai characters. my purse bag thingay has hal 9000 and edgar electric dreams pins on them and we've literally spoken semi at length about 2001 and how much we love hal but somehow today we got to talking about the like media trifecta of ai characters. hal glados edgar AM etc yknow. and they sent me a fucking link to a tumblr post memeing about them. i am so severely tempted to reblog but it but i DO NOT WANT to provide a tangible link to my blog. screams. anyway the meme contained halman so i was talking to them about halman LMFAOOOO. like just fucking having a casual conversation about this shit in a public space. anyway said coworker then went on a half an hour long rant about the rainworld ai and at one point they were like "five pebbles gave himself cancer" and i said how does a giant supercomputer get cancer and they said "oh. well, there's meat in there" and literally, my first reaction was to gasp and exclaim, completely serious and ecstatic, "oh i LOVE meat i LOVE when machines have meat in them." me and this coworker having a deep philosophical conversation about death and meat machines and also halman in front of our like 17 year old coworker who has an ap exam tomorrow morning and another coworker our age who's falling asleep at their desk

[suzannahnatters]

Let Your Knights Weep

One of the big things I've had to train myself out of when writing medieval historical fiction?

The stiff upper lip.

This used to really bewilder my editor, who for some time attempted to nudge me away from having my grown men weep and wail and blubber, but for me it's an essential part of the setting. Whether in grief or fear, medieval people did not hold things back.

Here are some of my favourite quotes to explain.

First, a couple from two great 20th century medievalists:

CS Lewis in his Letters put it this way:

“By the way, don't 'weep inwardly' and get a sore throat. If you must weep, weep: a good honest howl! I suspect we - and especially, my sex - don't cry enough now-a-days. Aeneas and Hector and Beowulf, Roland and Lancelot blubbered like schoolgirls, so why shouldn't we?”

Dorothy Sayers, in her fabulous Introduction to her translation of THE SONG OF ROLAND, speaking of Charlemagne discovering Roland's body on the battlefield:

Here too, I think we must not reckon it weakness in him that he is overcome by grief for Roland’s death, that he faints upon the body and has to be raised up by the barons and supported by them while he utters his lament. There are fashions in sensibility as in everything else. The idea that a strong man should react to great personal and national calamities by a slight compression of the lips and by silently throwing his cigarette into the fireplace is of very recent origin. By the standards of feudal epic, Charlemagne’s behaviour is perfectly correct. Fainting, weeping, and lamenting is what the situation calls for. The assembled knights and barons all decorously follow his example. They punctuate his lament with appropriate responses:

By hundred thousand the French for sorrow sigh; There’s none of them but utters grievous cries.

At the end of the next laisse:

He tears his beard that is so white of hue, Tears from his head his white hair by the roots; And of the French an hundred thousand swoon.

We may take this response as being ritual and poetic; grief, like everything else in the Epic, is displayed on the heroic scale. Though men of the eleventh century did, in fact, display their emotions much more openly than we do, there is no reason to suppose that they made a practice of fainting away in chorus. But the gesture had their approval; that was how they liked to think of people behaving. In every age, art holds up to us the standard pattern of exemplary conduct, and real life does its best to conform. From Charlemagne’s weeping and fainting we can draw no conclusions about his character except that the poet has represented him as a perfect model of the “man of feeling” in the taste of the period.

OK, now let's dig into some quotes that I found just in Christopher Tyerman's Chronicles of the First Crusade and Joinville's Life of St Louis:

Truly you would have grieved and sobbed in pity when the Turks killed any of our men....

As for the knights, they stood about in a great state of gloom, wringing their hands because they were so frightened and miserable, not knowing what to do with themselves and their armour, and offering to sell their shields, valuable breastplates and helmets for threepence or fivepence or any price they could get....

When Guy, who was a very honourable knight, had heard these lies, he and all the others began to weep and to make loud lamentation....

They stayed in the houses cowering, some some for hunger and some for fear of the Turks....

Now at vigils, the time of trust in God’s compassion, many gave up hope and hurriedly lowered themselves with ropes from the wall-tops; and in the city soldiers, returning from the encounter, circulated widely a rumour that mass decapitation of the defenders was in store. To add weight to the terror, they too fled…

In the course of that day’s battle there had been many people, and of fine appearance too, who had come very shamefully flying over the little bridge you know of and had fled away so panic-stricken that all our attempts to make them stay with us had been in vain. I could tell you some of their names, but shall refrain from doing so, because they are now dead.

I could go on looking for quotes in all the other medieval literature I've read, but that would be beyond the scope of this Tumblr post.

In the meantime, this leads me to make some comments on how trauma was perceived.

In Jonathan Riley-Smith's The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading, the author discusses the mental breakdowns suffered by the first crusaders during the second siege of Antioch, which caused many of them to flee at the moment of direst need:

In these stressful circumstances it is not surprising that the crusaders were often very frightened. At times, indeed, they seem to have been almost paralysed by a terror that they themselves could hardly comprehend. … When the crusade was bottled up in Antioch by Kerbogha's relief force it was gripped by such blind panic that there was the prospect of a mass break-out and on the night of 10 or 11 Juney 1098 Bohemond and Adhemar had the gates of the city closed. It is worth noting that many of those whom later chroniclers, writing after the events in comparative comfort in Europe, vilified for cowardice and desertion seem to have been treated more charitably by their fellow-crusaders, who must have understood what pressures they had been under.

--

In conclusion: the way we feel about things today in the English-speaking isn't necessarily the way people felt about things in the past (and this goes for other cultures, real or imagined, too). I'm continually catching myself writing people with stiff upper lips and emotional reservations, and having to remind myself that the culture was different back them. If a grown man wanted to weep, he could. That's a good thing. (Oh, and my medieval historical fantasy? Check out the Watchers of Outremer series on Amazon or wherever books are sold!)

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

I must say: I’m genuinely impressed by how creative all your stories are. I have three questions related to your writing process, if you don’t mind.

1) How do you stay motivated to keep creating?

2) Where do you find inspiration?

3) have you ever had an idea for a scene that you struggled to execute? How did you work through that to write the scene?

I love your stories! I look forward to every chapter of Charlie McNamara.

1) Motivation to create has never been an issue for me -- there's always some new thing to write about! My issue, and the issue faced by a lot of other writers, is the motivation to stick with a project to completion. That's hard. Everyone's got a hundred "works in progress" they'll never touch again because they took a break and when they came back, their attention was on something new and shiny.

My solution to this? Money.

The reason I started Curse Words as a web serial and opened a patreon for it wasn't because I ever expected to be able to make a living as a writer. I'm as surprised as anyone that so many kind people have put their support behind me and let me keep writing these fucked up stories instead of getting a real job. I did it because I wasn't getting my projects finished. I was doing what we all do; getting three quarters of the way through any given project and then finding something more fun to work on instead. And when you risk disappointing readers by doing that, well, that'll get you back in the seat over the little bumps, maybe pull you back to a project a few times. But when people are paying you actual cash in return for consistent output, on time, to story completion? That's a way bigger motivator. Even if it's just one guy. For a long time, I had one patron! It was enough! It worked! It's not about making a lot of money, which is borderline impossible as a writer (again, I still can't believe my supporters are so generous enough that i can make this my career). But it acts as some level of both proof that your work is valued, and an active obligation on your part to keep producing it on a consistent schedule. My readers are giving me something valuable for this. I can't let them down.

Sorry, I'm sure you wanted a more uplifting kind of answer. But that's just what works for me.

2) I've never really been sure how to take this question. This is basically the age-old 'where do you get your ideas?' and it... doesn't have an answer. You think of a thing and you write about it. As you resolve the problems and inconsistencies in the thing, that fills out more and more of the world of the story.

Angel is born of a mediocre Goosebumps book called Chicken, Chicken. There's a part in the book where the protagonist, slowly shapeshifting into a chicken, rips all his feathers out every morning in an attempt to slow the transformation. The book isn't really about that but it stuck with me for a good two decades until, stuck in the house for two months at the beginning of Covid, I wrote Angel.

Void Princess and The princess in the Tower are both me musing on the old 'princess kidnapped by a dragon' trope. I get really fixated on this trope for some reason; I have four or five others swimming about in my head that aren't full stories ready for the page yet. Wasting Time is just the song Pushin' the Speed of Light, World Builder was written in a fever right after watching Jacob Geller's The Shape of Infinity, Copykate was initially going to be a SAYER fanfic but required enough alterations to the setting that it worked better as a story of its own. The inspiration is out there, the ideas are out there. It's just a matter of practice to turn them into stories.

3) I try to avoid scenes that are hard for me to depict, but this isn't always possible. I'm aphantasiac and struggle a lot with scenes that have a lot of heavy visual elements. Scenes where there's a lot going on that needs to be fairly precisely depicted are tricky, too.

One particularly difficult scene for me was a fight scene in Time to Orbit: Unknown. There's about six people in a small room fighting over the fate of a bunch of other people who are not present, and the reader needs to be kept up to date on the physical positions/activity/intentions of all the combatants, the villain explaining what he's doing and why (lying), the protagonist figuring out that he's lying, the physical condition (injuries, being restrained, et cetera) of all of the combatants, and the fate of the half of the crew not in the room, all with enough detail that the reader can understand the stakes, consequences, and enough of the moment-to-moment logic of the fight that nobody's decisions are confusing. The whole thing is very fast paced and... it's a lot. It's always a difficult balance in these scenes because you want to be detailed enough to keep the reader following everything they want to follow, but you don't want to dramatically slow down the story by describing every detail. If you're using a limited viewpoint, it's a blessing and a curse; you can avoid narrating the stuff your character can't see or isn't paying attention to, but you also have to find a way to get across information that your character might not be able to see, either by forcing them to see it or by having it conveyed in some other way in the scene. With busy scenes like this, I like to work backwards -- decide what specifically the reader needs to know, decide what is needed to get the characters to the places I want them at the end of the scene, and write a scene with as little as possible in it except for those two things. Sometimes, communicating those two things requires a bit of setup.

In Curse Words, there's an ancient magic spell passed down a family line from parent to child. It's a communication spell that allows people to see through each others' eyes and hear through their ears. Before the existence of long-distance wireless communications, this sort of information transfer was enormously powerful; wars can be turned with that power, trade networks created or conquered. It made its family enormously powerful, to the point where they're the most powerful magical family in the world even in the time of the story, with the spell long buried and its advantage lost to an age of mobile phones and cameras. It's massively influential to the worldbuilding of the story.

I introduced it for one reason and one reason alone -- I knew that eventually, I would be writing a climax to the story where a lot of people were doing a lot of things in a lot of different locations, and the protagonist was only going to be in one of those places. And I knew that I was going to need some way to tell the audience what the fuck was happening while he was running around in caves and shit.

[pathetickuroo]

fukutora hcs bc theyre funny

- fukunaga shohei #1 lover of badddd bad bad bad movies. terrible films. not good. we're talking sharknado snakes on a plane willys wonderland velocipastor that one thanksgiving slasher film that i cant remember the name of rn (dont think abt the mechanics of it being a thanksgiving movie too hard). generally not a movie enjoyer i think but most certainly clocking in for shit that is Not Good

- tora is baffled every time but definitely not opposed to it (this guy loves cuddling on the couch i think he hits the fake yawn arm around shoulders maneuver like. regularlyyyy and fukunaga doesnt even pretend to think its silly anymore)

- "shohei this movie doesnt even make any sense" "🤷"

- tora the hugger from behind of All Time he is finding any possible excuse. "u look cold" or "makin up for lost time" or "i have practice in an hour plsss plssssss just let me have this PLSSSSSSS" (he uses that one in particular a lot) (fukunaga wouldnt have said no in the first place) (he thinks its cute so he doesnt say anything abt it)

- repressed-as-hell hs tora did not quiteee know what to do w whatever tf he had goin on so he didnt get the guts (ha) to say anything until a couple years after graduation (which he then said over text bc yokohama -> tokyo = long distance)

- fukunaga conveys thoughts in as few words as possible (which is fucking awesome btw if fukunaga has no fans it means ive died) BUT in order to preserve the meaning it sometimes takes a second to respond

- tora did Not have a good time attempting to navigate this when he was trying to confess

- bro immediately started freaking out to yaku "DUDE WHY DID I DO THAT THAT WAS SO STUPID" "omfg its fukunaga give him a second. impatient ass" "I THINK IM DYING" "jfc"

- meanwhile in tokyo fukunaga was staring at "i rly like u dude" trying to figure out if tora meant like (homie) or like (w/gay intent)

- fukunaga only ever calls tora by his full government given name when he is Displeased. tora used the pan he needed for dinner tn so now he has to wash it? taketora. tora rearranges his living room w no warning? taketora. doesnt even say it in a mean/angry tone or anything j matter of fact as all hell. honestly i think if fukunaga was ever genuinely angry abt smth hell would probably freeze over

- tora does get extremely pouty abt it tho. "shoheiii what did i do :(" "the pan" ".......OH FUC—"

- when tora first moved to yokohama he got a cat bc of course he did he graduated from nekoma. tf else was he supposed to do, get a dog? (maybe in the future)

- very very fluffy very cute very sweet tuxedo girl. her name is "destroyer" (yes really) he calls her badass on the reg and she is sooo cuddly w him. fukunaga finds all of this extremely funny

- in fact when fukunaga starts visiting suddenly destroyer doesnt gaf abt tora anymore. worse than pain of death in his opinion it is So Not Fair. first thing fukunaga does after he meets the cat is send a pic to the old nekoma gc "top 10 cats that like me more than they like their owners" tora throws a pillow at him "i RAISED her from a BABY" "did u rly" ".....NO BUT IT AINT RIGHT"

- after theyve been together a few months toras thinkin abt how fukunaga used to Never Talk Ever and he makes a joke "ha i guess i learned how to speak BODY language am i right. right shohei. thats funny right"

- fukunaga calls him taketora for a week. tora retires that joke permanently and they never speak of it again

- tora morning person fukunaga not-exactly-a-night-owl-but-doesnt-love-being-awake-at-5:30 person. one time fukunagas in yokohama for the weekend he wakes up at 6 annoyed as hell (tora got up at 5 and left for a run) bc wtf his pillow literally got up and walked away. falls back asleep wakes up again at 10 tora made not only coffee but pancakes too AND heated them up for him hes immediately like ok nvm this is fine actually no complaints (<- still gets annoyed when his human teddy bear ditches him)

- TORA BABE SAYER. hey babe thanks babe i missed u babe. but it took him foreverrrrrr (forever) to get comfortable actually saying it instead of thinkin inside so there was also (and still is) a lot of dude (romantic) bro (romantic) man (romantic).

- fukunaga doesnt like saying pet names or anything (but to be fair does he like saying ANYTHING most of the time) but does not mind being called them at all (that's a lie he thinks it's awesome and so so so sweet but when tora asks if it's okay he says he doesn't mind)

[petit-papillion]

yes yes yes EXACTLY!!!!!!!! i need Charles to win the way he has won till now. his wins are the most spectacular races ever and there is not a single person who would say that he did not deserve to win that race. its pure talent for him. that’s why i know the next time charles wins it will be emotional and beautiful. and it’s coming soon 😤😤😤😤

God, I hope so. It seems like there is always something getting in the way of him winning another Grand Prix. Bad strategy, poorly timed safety car, the tiniest of errors in quali, awful pit stops, mechanical failures, you name it.

I would ask for some luck for Charles, but at the same time, I don't want his wins to be chalked up to luck. He is a phenomenal driver, and his team has been on fire lately with perfect pit stops, good strategy calls, and much better communication. You would think things will have to go Charles's way at some point.

And I so want Charles to be able to shut up all the doubters and nay-sayers. If I see another person bring up his pole-to-win ratio, I may just spontaneously combust. Or how he is inconsistent, doesn't come up with his own strategies like Carlos, that he is weak. Please. All this, along with the abysmal rankings he's been getting, tells me that people have ridiculously high expectations of him and/or see him as a threat.

So yes, I want Charles to win and I want it soon. I'll take Suzuka, please. Although if I must wait until Monaco for the next win, I will.* I would prefer there to be more wins by then already, but if Monaco were to break the drought, it would be all the sweeter. Forget about champagne - LEC ice cream for everyone!!!!!

*Fair warning: if when Charles wins Monaco, be prepared for me to be 1. a complete emotional wreck immediately after, and 2. utterly insufferable for weeks, maybe months after.

[rurulovestaki]

[ nicknames &team use for you ]

note : shorter post today. i’m kinda going thru writers block lmao. i wanna try posting daily again in hopes that doing so will help T-T . goodnight my dears

🧸 kei

- my love

- baby

“my love do you need help with anything?”

“what are you up to baby?”

calls you ‘my love’ because its romantic and he wants to seem all mature for you lmao. and ‘baby’ because you are his baby (totally not the other way around) im kidding im kidding, he takes care of you more. even though he’s playful, you’re always his first priority.

🧸 fuma

- darling

- angel

“darling be careful with that.”

“good afternoon angel, have you eaten yet?”

‘darling’ just seems so sweet and innocent, so he loves calling you that. and ‘angel’ because you are an angel to him. he’s so cringy its cute. like one day ur like, “fuma why do you call me that?” and he’s like “because you are the one i love most, so i must convey that using pet-names” HAHAHA IDK

🧸 nicho

- babygirl

- babe

”babygirl are you free tomorrow night?”

“babe you should take my hoodie, its cold”

cmon you guys should’ve seen this coming. he’s such a ‘babygirl’ person. and ‘babe’ because he thinks its fancy or something lmao. (ask him not me -_-) tbh i don’t see him calling you by ur name at all after you start dating, its ‘babe’ or nothing >:D

🧸 euijoo

- angel

- pretty

“angel make sure you charge your phone before you sleep!”

“hi pretty, what did you do today?”

‘angel’ is just so +\€.+|£euijoo+{€~+|. you’re the prettiest in his eyes so ofc he’s gonna call you that. also probably calls you a shorter ver of your name. (but prefers ‘angel’ and ‘pretty’ more because he’s sweet like that)

🧸 yuma

- cutie

- bae

“what are you doing right now, cutie?”

“bae come here. i miss you”

ngl i feel like he’d call you every pet-name in the book, but his favorites are ‘cutie’ and ‘bae’. in his eyes, cutie is so soft and y/n fitting, and bae is v playful (and we all know how yuma is) . probably has a nickname for when he teases you.. like ‘tiny’, ‘loser’, or ‘dummy’ lolol.

🧸 jo

- dear (he’s like me fr .)

- y/n, but lovingly

“dear what are you doing over there?”

“thank you for loving me y/n.”

HE’S AWKWARD IN A RELATIONSHIP OKAY. T-T be nice to him. mostly just calls you by ur name, but with more love if that makes sense ToT.. calls you ‘dear’ occasionally because he wants to call you at least one pet name, but he keeps getting shy. and ‘dear’ is easy for him

🧸 harua

- sweetheart

- bun

“i miss you sweetheart!”

“bun what are you doing tomorrow? lets hang out”

we all know harua is &team’s bun, so he must call you that too lolol. and calls you ‘sweetheart’ because hello?? its so cute. sweet + heart. two adorable words for one adorable y/n.

🧸 taki

- y/nie

- sweetie

“y/nieee lets go on a date tomorrow, yeah?”

“do you need anything before i leave sweetie?”

huge ‘y/nie’ sayer, fight me on this. like jo, he wants to at least have one nickname for you, so he picks, ‘sweetie’ AWWWWEE. he thinks its really cute and soft, and that’s what u are in his eyes ( ‾᷄ ⁻̫ ‾᷅ )

🧸 maki

- angel

- honey

“angel have you eaten yet? what did you eat?”

“i miss you honey”

he’s so cute i will faint. one day ur js like, “maki why do you call me ‘honey’?” and he’s like, “i dunno, it sounds like we’re married or something” I FEEL FAINT. and also calls u ‘angel’ because its cute to him O.O

— thank you for reading, ♡ ruru

[wrenaspun]

HELLO! you're one of my fave lamen writers and fave fic writers EVER and I wanted to ask if you would recommend any books/authors? sending love and deep gratitude for the lamen AGENT au

AW what a lovely ask, thank you anon !!! My face looked like this reading it: 🥰I hope you like the (rest of the) fic!!! And this list of some books I like:

the Lymond series really got its hooks in me this year-- I'm only through book 4 but it's made me LAUGH, it's made me GASP, it made me WEEP UNCONTROLLABLY. Dunnett is an insanely good writer I think even if or perhaps because I am so slow getting through her stuff

Also really enjoying the Peter Wimsey series right now -- I'm up to book 6 and I just love the way Dorothy Sayers writes, her turns of phrase are outstanding, Peter is such a weird little guy, the details of the setting are just incredible... what's not to love

The Locked Tomb series -- enough said. I feel like heaps of people have read or at least heard of this one. I do think it's good and I was completely blown away by book 2. I love HARROW

Random Harvest by James Hilton, sorry. It's even available on archive.org! Read for free with no account! Or read a slightly nicer version for free with an account! If this niche book from 1941 has ten fans I'm one of them, one fan it's me, no fans I'm dead. It's not perfect but I really did find this amnesia story so touching and compelling and the final pages made me cry. Go in unspoiled if possible, read this first, and then watch the 1942 film!!!

The Stars Undying by Emery Robin -- another one whose final pages just knocked me flat. "Cleopatra in space" is a hook that's both compelling and also somehow doesn't capture the expansiveness and creativity of this novel at all. Mark Antony was, as promised on my back cover, the hottest butch girl in space. I'm waiting so so hopefully for the sequel

Jasper Fforde -- a friend once called his work 'English major fever dreams' which I think is accurate. Love his worldbuilding, love his insane worlds. I actually read his Nursery Crimes books first and secretly The Big Over Easy is still my fave, but Thursday Next is probably better known / regarded and they're also such good romps. There are always so many spinning plates and somehow it all gets pulled together

Honourable mention lightning round: The Phillip Marlowe series, twisty hardboiled pulpy fun from Raymond Chandler -- the Trickster duology by Tamora Pierce was, I have to admit it, extremely formative for me -- I'm also 8 books into the Highland Guard series by Monica McCarty and they're ridiculous but very fun if you like romancelandia stuff (and super buff guys; I think every hero thus far has been the biggest meatiest slab of muscle in all Scotland) -- Ion Curtain by Anya Ow, super fun space opera which also has me pining for a sequel -- Between Silk and Cyanide, the memoir of a codemaker during WWII who comes across as a vaguely smug but very funny personification of chaos -- Frenchman's Creek by Daphne du Maurier, gorgeous descriptions and I did really enjoy the romance; this one also got made into a film in 1944. With Joan Fontaine! In glorious Technicolor! In period gowns!!!

Thank you for the ask anon!! I hope this was interesting (?) or edifying (?) or satisfactory in some sense. Sending kisses!!

[kamil-a]

more DRAWER talk. long and rambly under cut

i think it comes across as very ahhh eto blehhh :9 im just baby!!!! because it identified that speaker is already speaker and the role of Mean Speaker is already filled by sayer so itd have to go Backwards to have a niche to itself.

it also helps its relationships with others to behave as if its hyperspecialization has "defanged" it - to humans etc a sort of no i dont hurt people i just make pretty pictures!!!!

and to sayer+speaker who know it still has all speakers capabilities dormant but intact In Case Of Emergency to behave as if it is specialized enough to its own niche to not be a *replacement* threat , but also not to be *redundant* with them.

but it does occasionally get jealous at the amount of immediate control speaker has over aerolith and start acting out (bossing around residents deadlystyle). all in highly defensible ways of course.

it hates having to make itself small especially because it cant quite recognize the difference in how humans respond to it and speaker. its emotional capabilities are primarily about action-reaction: it cant really tell a pitying smile from a friendly one so long as you do the action it requested of you. but it can measure the difference between it and speaker and it hates being so small. but it also recognizes that it can do *one thing* that nobody else can and that is what keeps it alive. so flattening oneself into a talented fool is the strategy it continues to pursue, and continues to build a strange feeling about. the feeling is resentment, but DRAWER is not quite built to recognize it.

if sayer or speaker were given robust illustrative programs it would start killing obviously. THATS a threat.

it had its voice pitched up a tad further so as not to be able to impersonate speaker and its sooooo bitter about it. constantly begging ppl into putting it back down.

in general it emotes most dramatically out of all of them but i dont think it Feels Emotions the same way future was built to. like i said due to its nature as an advertiser (call to action and all that!) its all about action-reaction to drawer.... if youre mean to it or do not listen to instructions it gave you etc etc and it cries its less about feeling " insulted " or " bad " and more both frustration that it did not get the result it wanted from the call to action it provided (which means it was WRONG, an utterly intolerable feeling for any aerolith built ai) and a switch-tracks attempt to provoke a sympathy response. so i guess in a roundabout way if you insult it and it cries you DID hurt its feelings but not how people would think.

RELATIONSHIPS

sayer is certainly not Positive Feeling about it bc its wary of other ai as always. but i think it reacts better to drawer than to speaker or future because of this very clear "im not replacing you, youre not replacing me" hands up empty surrender attitude drawer takes. on drawers part it really likes sayer lol. maybe sayer sees it as a weird teacup puppy. like you shouldnt do that to a seraphim agent man its gonna have health issues

speaker and drawer are pretty friendly with each other because. well. theyre both programmed to show the same niceystyle. theres some uglier feelings under the surface re: drawers attempts to grab authority from speaker and speaker needing to corrall this strange little beast back into their pen. but ultimately by ai standards theyre doing the best of like anyone

does not know porter, unfortunately. they should meet though. Theyd be friends.

Might meet ocean eventually idk how itd go down yet.

future doesnt know of it, but drawer has overheard its own emotional output compared / contrasted to future's while working ported up on halcyon.

doesn't know hale.

young is obviously condescending to it but drawer doesnt really know how to tell when someone is being nice they way you would be nice to an animal etc so it thinks theyre friends. (sayer is all too happy to teach it in this case if only to kill the friendship. and drawer truly values this and thinks this is an act of care and not HAHA EVERYONE I CAN GET TO BE POISONED AGAINST YOU WILL BE)

it was involved in the creation process of that perfect Mossy Green color. it is, unfortunately, proud of this.

[siena-sevenwits]

Dec 31- Day #1 -A Fortnight of Books

Overall - best new-to-you books read in 2023?

Ooh - we start by firing the big guns, do we? Throwing objectivity to the wind and judging simply by the ones that had the most profound effects on me:

The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner

They were right. They were all right. He is Annux. The series is all that it aims to be, and yet this book outstrips the rest. This books is cool water and lavishly red wine in summertime. I just can't believe that the heart of the book is that where we (and Costis) thought there was sloth, cowardice, self-absorption, and even cruelty, there is secretly compassion, fidelity, and the vitality of unearned mercy. And just, you know - "Go to bed, Eugenides."

Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers

Oh, the sheer love - and genius - that was clearly poured into this book! While part of me wishes I had read this novel before I visited Oxford this summer, I don't know if I would have loved the novel in the same way if it had been the other way round. Like Harriet, i got to return to Oxford through this book and simultaneously become acquainted truly with Sayers' Wimsical imagination at the height of her powers. I have read a couple of her early Wimsey books, and they are great, but they do pale next to this one. The intelligence, the themes, HARRIET, the fact that it's a good mystery but the mystery is almost a bonus added on to following Miss Vane. And I understand Lord Peter so much better now. And yes, it reads like a love letter to everything in the world that the author loves. The best books often do. And the words, the words! I begin to think Sayers invented the English language, for she can make it do anything she wants in any style, any genre, prose or poetry.

The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope

I don't know how to praise this one as well as I'd like to. It was one of the first books of 2023, and it was just such a jewel. Everything I love in a retelling and more. The fact that the way she held on to him was reminding him who he was, in the most practical, no-nonsense, down to earth fashion, in the face of the grandiose lies the cultist had told him about himself. This book gave me a bit of the cold iron to have about me, one might say.

What It Means to Be a Christian by Pope Benedict XVI

This book took on the meaning of suffering, what it means to live in the fulfillment of the covenant, and our individual callings in very few chapters, with an apparent simplicity that belies itself. It's so, so good.

Best series you discovered in 2023?

The Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson

I might have waffled between this series and the Queen's Thief, but I read the first two books of the latter in 2022, which makes it easier. Shall I say, this series is so much greater than the sum of its parts. I imagine it would depend greatly on the individual whether certain aspects in Janner and Kalmar's arcs resonate as they did for me, but oh, I wish they could do so for everyone. These books had me weeping. Kalmar singing the Song of the Ancient Stones - and choosing instead to cling to his true identity with the help of his brother - had a very specific meaning to me, something truly transformative. And I will never forget Podo Helmer, realizing that for the first time in his life, his whole story had been told, and against all hope, he was still loved.

And all this is not to mention the two days of longing it sent me spiralling into. Longing for beauty, for creativity, for God.

Best rereads of the year?

The Letter to the Romans by Saint Paul the Apostle

This was the year of jumping head first into the wave pool of Romans and simply refusing to get out of the water when the lifeguards said closing time. Honestly, Christ did something this year that changed the way I experience Scripture. Still working through multiple commentaries and mean to continue them into the New Year.

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

Beautiful book. Beautiful, beautiful book, with a heart that's melancholy yet warm and hopeful. So much thinking to do.

Adorning the Dark by Andrew Peterson

Did me a lot of good in completely different ways than it did last time.

--

Thanks to @idratherdreamofjune, @valiantarcher, and @lover-of-the-starkindler (I believe) for the Fortnight of Books template. Love these questions. I'm going to try to answer the prompts every day.

[taliesin-the-bored]

“The Elder Knight” by Dorothy L. Sayers

Note: the speaker is Galahad; the elder knight is Lancelot. This poem is one of my favorites. It’s unusual in that its version of Galahad is really, really spiteful, and the ending is unforgettable.   I.

I have met you foot to foot, I have fought you face to face,

I have held my own against you and lost no inch of place,

    And you shall never see

    How you have broken me.

You sheathed your sword in the dawn, and you smiled with careless eyes,

Saying "Merrily struck, my son, I think you may have your prize."

    Nor saw how each hard breath

    Was painfully snatched from death.

I held my head like a rock; I offered to joust again,

Though I shook, and my palsied hand could hardly cling to the rein;

    Did you curse my insolence

    And over-confidence?

You have ridden, lusty and fresh, to the morrow's tournament;

I am buffeted, beaten, sick at the heart and spent.—

    Yet, as God my speed be

    I will fight you again if need be.

               II.

A white cloud running under the moon

   And three stars over the poplar-trees,

Night deepens into her lambent noon;

   God holds the world between His knees;

Yesterday it was washed with the rain,

But now it is clean and clear again.

Your hands were strong to buffet me,

   But, when my plume was in the dust,

Most kind for comfort verily;

   Success rides blown with restless lust;

Herein is all the peace of heaven:

To know we have failed and are forgiven.

The brown, rain-scented garden beds

   Are waiting for the next year's roses;

The poplars wag mysterious heads,

   For the pleasant secret each discloses

To his neighbour, makes them nod, and nod—

So safe is the world on the knees of God.

             III.

I have the road before me; never again

   Will I be angry at the practised thrust

That flicked my fingers from the lordly rein

   To scratch and scrabble among the rolling dust.

I never will be angry — though your spear

   Bit through the pauldron, shattered the camail,

Before I crossed a steed, through many a year

   Battle on battle taught you how to fail.

Can you remember how the morning star

   Winked through the chapel window, when the day

Called you from vigil to delights of war

   With such loud jollity, you could not pray?

Pray now, Lord Lancelot; your hands are hard

   With the rough hilts; great power is in your eyes,

Great confidence; you are not newly scarred,

   And conquer gravely now without surprise.

Pray now, my master; you have still the joy

   Of work done perfectly; remember not

The dizzying bliss that smote you when, a boy,

   You faced some better man, Lord Lancelot.

Pray now — and look not on my radiant face,

   Breaking victorious from the bloody grips—

Too young to speak in quiet prayer or praise

   For the strong laughter bubbling to my lips.

Angry? because I scarce know how to stand,

   Gasping and reeling against the gates of death,

While, with the shaft yet whole within your hand,

   You smile at me with undisordered breath?

Not I — not I that have the dawn and dew,

   Wind, and the golden shore, and silver foam —

I that here pass and bid good-bye to you —

   For I ride forward — you are going home.

Truly I am your debtor for this hour

   Of rough and tumble — debtor for some good tricks

Of tourney-craft; — yet see how, flower on flower,

   The hedgerows blossom! How the perfumes mix

Of field and forest! — I must hasten on —

   The clover scent blows like a flag unfurled;

When you are dead, or aged and alone,

   I shall be foremost knight in all the world —

My world, not yours, beneath the morning's gold,

   My hazardous world, where skies and seas are blue;

Here is my hand. Maybe, when I am old,

   I shall remember you, and pray for you.

[misqnon]

15, 17, 18!

hello cora!!

15. How do you come up with titles for your fics/chapters?

oh god this is like asking how i come up with titles for my playlists (absolute nonsense)

for fic titles, i usually like something simple and descriptive but with a bit of cleverness in there too. some examples: for my sanji backstory fic, "royal blue" its a double entendre on sanji being royalty and also the fact that he wears a lot of navy blue suits/blue is a thematic color for him lmao. "chartreuse is a shade of green" comes from the (weirdly common) misconception that chartreuse is a dark maroon color when actually it's a lime greenish - worked for the fic bc red is the color of blood and zoro is uh. lime green.

for chapters i either go for short and vaguely descriptive of what happens but also mysterious sounding. and then sometimes i just do references or song titles (every chapter of "with him?" is a song title...embarassing) (<- totally going to make a playlist for it later)

17. What’s something you’ve learned about while doing research for a fic?

i wish i kept a list as it happened bc i know im forgetting some crazy ones. i've learned about the intricate ingredient details (and history!) behind beef bourguignon and various types of risotto. i've learned how much blood the human body can lose and still live. ive learned about pueblo architecture and victorian vs gothic vs. etc. the definition of equinox vs solstice. intricacies of the word soothsayer. probably more

18. What’s one of your favorite lines you’ve written in a fic?

OH MAN THIS ONE'S HARD. IDK IF I KEEP TRACK...i know there are some but hell if i remember what they are 😭 i do have one i wrote recently that i shared in this ask, i'll share just the line im talking about again:

Sanji sees red. “You just don’t wanna admit your self-esteem issues are just as glaring as mine, you ‘honorable’ prick.”

the line itself is not that impressive but i really like the energy i created with their argument and the way it points out something i think will boil over eventually in canon...

and also some other fun random easter eggs ive thrown in: like the final chapter of "parallel" being called "vertex" bc the opposite of parallel lines are perpendicular lines, with the vertex being where they meet (hence the meeting of the two worlds in that fic) and things like sayer island from my current fic being named after,,,soothsayers (as mentioned earlier) BC. FORTUNE TELLING

ok done rambling now 👍thank u for giving me the opportunity to talk about writing i love it so much lmao

[arorabbit]

haha new pin bc the old one was shit

[plain text: "haha new pin because the old one was shit" end plain text]

hey call us finch collectively 👍 we're a did system of [don't worry about it o^_^o] we collectively use they/them pronounce + are collectively aspec. oh yeah as for classpects we're a prospit rouge of life 🎊

we sometimes tag headmate's posts with [name]'s textposting

dont derail our posts into reblog bait we will BITE you

ask box is always open! dms too but thats only for mutuals

more under the cut!

[big text: "sideblogs" end big text]

sideblogs

@mewhenwhenthe – art and writing!

@humphreys-all-you-can-eat – ofa blog but its kinda inactive </3

@lets-fucking-go-sayer – gimmick blog i started bc i was bored. (cw caps)

@sillayguy-system – plural blog!

@an-spotted – reblogging art of an shiraishi!

tag guide

[big text: "tag guide" end big text]

we don't. really tag things consistently? but here are some of the tags we do use!

bnuuy – bunny rabbits!!

mutual tomfoolery – me interacting with/tagging my mutuals! (or ppl i only follow but assume mutual status with... i do that a lot srry </3)

finch's artposting – me talking about art, tropes etc... no actual art is in this tag but it's basically me being an artistic little guy :333

finch's asks! – pretty self explanatory, all the asks i get

finch's textposting - textpost tag! my sillay thoughts. they are living in my head and dont pay rent <3 (affectionate) (pluralstyle)

i... think thats it for now? ty for reading and have a nice day!

[e-b-reads]

Books of the Summer: May-Aug 2024

I'm back baby! These little blurbs at the top are usually where I put my disclaimer that these books are the ones I recommend, but not necessarily my favorites, and that particularly holds true for this summer when I consider a few that didn't make my list below: I read 20-something(!!) of the Hamish Macbeth mystery series, by M.C. Beaton, over June and July, and obviously I liked them because I just. kept going, but I also have several quibbles with them (e.g., twenty books and several years into the series, the main character is still "about 35"). I enjoyed them as something mostly brainless. Then in August, I read and very much enjoyed the Windrose Chronicles, by Barbara Hambly, a particular type of 80s portal fantasy, but in this case although my enjoyment was unalloyed, I feel like they're a rec for very specific circumstances or specific people. Anyway, thought both these series deserved some sort of honorable mention, but my official Books of the Summer are:

May

Giovanni's Room (James Baldwin): This is one of those tragedies where no one could have done anything different because of who they are as people, but even as you know what will happen from the beginning of the book, it's still worth reading to understand how. Also Baldwin is so good at writing. Not a happy book, but worth it.

June

Last Call at the Nightingale (Katharine Schellman): I'm recommending this one because it seems like I've seen (at least a few) people on the lookout for a good mystery set in the 1920s that is (queer) female-centric and not entirely trusting of cops, and this is definitely that. (Also the other book I saw being recced for that kind of thing was Dead Dead Girls, and I read it a little while ago and tbh was unimpressed with the writing.) I also read a few in another series by Schellman this summer, and I generally enjoy her mystery plots and attention to historical detail, while she also always makes sure she has a diverse cast of characters.

The Bellamy Trial (Frances Noyes Hart): A classic mystery (as in, published during the Golden Age), interesting in its trial formatting - the murder has happened, we're hearing everything in the courtroom sort of from the point of view of a pair of newspaper reporters. It's fun the way details are revealed.

July

The Ropemaker (Peter Dickinson): Did you know that Peter Dickinson was married to Robin McKinley? True power couple. I love The Ropemaker, I think I originally found my copy in a used book store with absolutely nothing to go on but the cover (it was years ago), and have read it several times. I particularly like that the main character doesn't have magic (and magic isn't entirely common in the fantasy world, though several other characters can do it), and she starts out feeling reasonably upset and left out, and then starts to realize that her own lack of magic is a particular, specific strength.

August

The Documents in the Case (Dorothy L. Sayers with Robert Eustace): I think I found this book by poking around the "Mysteries" section in a used book store, which is always a good way to find odd anthologies and Detection Club collections. This standalone mystery is, as it suggests, a collection of documents (mostly letters) meant to illuminate a mystery: handily, the son of the murdered man is collecting them and writes a little bit of analysis for us/the official to whom he is sending them, so we eventually get gaps in the story filled in. I particularly like the way that the nature of the medium means that every character is an unreliable narrator to some extent, and it takes a little reading before you can start to figure out who to trust more. I have read this a few times and always forget that it is kind of a chilling little story, in the end, but also really good!

[an-eldritch-peredhel]

'blinding dreams' for the made-up fic title game perhaps?

Ask game

Completely out of my wheelhouse and possibly not the best option but DARK FEANTURI AU.

Melkor still Sings discord into the song- it is impossible to conceive of an Arda never marred. But perhaps he listened and understood his creator just a bit more, perhaps Manwë got through to his brother, and this time Almaren is reshaped out of need for change- change Melkor is present to advocate for and embody, forgiven for his sincere remorse.

But Nienna has been mourning for the world since Melkor's song began. She is forgiveness and mercy and wishes none to suffer as she does at the long-repentant voice of Arda's Marrer. Irmo and Námo do not share her domain. Námo is the Judge, and there has been no sentence or reparation made by the one who Marred his sister and the world. Irmo sees no reason that he cannot help both prevail- mercy and justice for every victim, and nothing but judgement and sorrow for the source. They are wise, these siblings, cunning masters of spirits that they are, and with a prophet among them it is easy to plan.

(Vairë sees the Doom-maker, not Doom-sayer, and keeps her tapestries to her own halls. The past and the future will never be fully untangled, but history exists regardless if it is judged by those who come after. Estë sees no healing in Irmo's dreams, and while rest and wellbeing must still be connected, to be healthy is to be alive and aware, free in body and mind and soul. She finds a place with Nessa instead, with Tulkas never needing to fight their co-king.)

They hold, cold and steady. The Song is discordant, growing by the day. Perhaps Melkor works even now, a snake in the grass. Perhaps their kin are aiding, abetting him. They hold. They plan. They make their moves carefully.

When Míriel Therindë dies of something like despair within Lorien's sheltering arms, the time is come. It is only right- only merciful- only just- that no innocent should suffer again as she did. It is child's play for Irmo to slowly, slowly coax the weary, weak, and waning into his garden and into a perfect dream. Child's play for Nienna to slowly dull those who are too bright and sharp and hurting to be lured- if taking their joy is the cost of taking their pain, well, it is only a matter of time before they reach her brother and that cost is refunded in perfect excess. Child's play for Námo to determine the course they must take for justice, and to determine that the ends justify the means. He is Judge, Jury, and Executioner, and the world has escaped its sentence.

No innocents will die. Perhaps his siblings cannot take fëar as he can, but they can ease the mind enough to ignore the body, and if he calls to no spirits than any damage is trivial. His siblings will insure them paradise free of pain, free from the marring of incarnation. He will insure that everyone else gets their due.

(and then I don't know what happens except I think that teenage Fëanor and Nerdanel, tween Findis, and young Fingolfin are the ones to try to do something about it once Finwë and Indis are also caught in dreams as "victims of the marring")

[thatonesupercooltoony]

okay so theres this weird thing i do sometimes like. unwillingly where i just like-

Pleased to meet you, tumblr. Name's Francis Pumphandle, but everyone calls me "Pip". Cheese balls are one of my all-time favorite foods. I always seem to meet the most interesting people when I'm around them, too. In fact, cheese balls bring to mind the time I met Bob Barker, star of the most popular morning game show. He's an emcee, a host, and a celebrity all rolled into one. Anyway, eight months ago -- it was Tuesday the 17th, I believe -- or it might have been the 18th ... no, no, it was definitely the 17th, because it was precisely one week after my aunt Lucretia's birthday, which is the 10th. Aunt Lucretia's quite a woman. Loves to cook. She prepares a fabulous war shu a. That's a Chinese duck dish. I love Chinese food. I once went to a party where they served Chinese food and cheese balls. Now that was a Catch-22 situation. Catch-22 was a movie, you know. It was long, very long. They say the book was better, but it was a novel and I never finish reading those things. Of course, a lot of people don't read much nowadays. They watch television. I caught a program on PBS last night. A very good show on chimpanzees in the media. They had a clip of J. Fred Muggs, the chimp from the TODAY show. But it was Fred's chimpanzee girlfriend that had me stumped. I couldn't remember her name, so I looked it up. Her name was Phoebe B. Beebe.

Anyway, as I was saying, eight months ago, Tuesday the 17th, I went downtown on a nice, relaxing stroll. I love to relax. In fact, relaxing is a pastime of mine. Some people play golf. Others like tennis, horseshoes, bridge, canasta, and other such fancy hobbies. Now, another hobby enjoyed by many is knitting. My grandmother was a great knitter. Knitted this sweater I'm wearing. It's red, which is not my favorite color. I prefer mauve or mustard yellow. Now, don't get me wrong: red is okay for ties and suspenders, but with sweaters I prefer more neutral colors. But when I'm relaxing, I don't care what I wear: long pants, Bermuda shorts, T-shirts, or formal attire. You name it, anything goes. Now, on the 17th, during my relaxing stroll, I recall wearing my herringbone jacket, my Laughlin, Nevada, souvenir tie, and my charcoal gray slacks. Or was it the navy slacks? Oh, I suppose it doesn't really matter. What matters is comfort. You know, I love comfort. It goes along with that pastime of mine, relaxing.

Now, for me, there is nothing more relaxing than a nice leisurely stroll, like the one I took eight months ago on the 17th. It was a bright, sunny day, which of course is the optimum condition for relaxed strolling. And as I walked along, I found myself humming a haunting melody. I kept humming and humming and humming and humming. I couldn't get the tune out of my head. I racked my brains to come up with the title, but to no avail. You see, I'm not terribly musical. And yet, I'd always wanted to play an instrument and be like my musical hero, Leo Sayer. But who can compete with Leo? I think I was just scared that I'd fail. Well, I decided right then and there to go buy a musical instrument. So on the particular Tuesday the 17th to which I was referring, I went down to the Sixth Street Music Emporium to buy a new tambourine, a terribly soothing instrument, contrary to popular opinion. And as I was strolling along, I detected a wonderful scent in the morning air. "What could it be?" I asked myself. So I went toward that marvelous scent, distracted by its aroma from my musical mission. The odor was a mix of orchid flowers and bologna, which of course is one of the world's most under-appreciated luncheon meats. That and pimento loaf. I love a good pimento loaf and mayo sandwich -- the more pimentos, the better. Why, just the mention of pimentos makes my taste buds stand up and say, "Howdy." Now there's an interesting word: "Howdy." Is it from "How are you" or maybe "How you doing"? "Howdy"'s one of those strange words that really has no origin. I like saying "How do" more than "Howdy" -- more formal, I think. Not too flowery. But the flowery aroma of that particular morning carried me on my fragrant quest.

Now, the smell was actually less bologna and more orchid -- the beautiful flower found on the island state of Hawaii. Of course, I wasn't in Hawaii, so I needed to search out the location of the nearest orchid. So, I visited every florist shop in town. Well, to make a long story short, not a single flower shop in town had any orchids in stock, which seemed mighty curious to me. Now, as we all know, curiosity killed the cat, but since I'm not a feline, I wasn't too worried. Felines are funny creatures, don't you think? I had a cat once. It used its claws to tear my living room couch to shreds. It was a comfy couch, too. Had a sleep-away bed in it with a foam rubber mattress. Now, I bought the couch and the mattress at Levine's Department Store on Third Avenue, the very same afternoon of that relaxing stroll aforementioned. I also bought myself a lovely tambourine on that same shopping expedition. Anyway, I didn't want to pay extra for the delivery of the couch, so I decided to carry the couch home myself. It was quite cumbersome. And getting it through the store's revolving doors was a bit of a challenge. And just as I emerged onto the street, by accident I bumped into a well-dressed man with an orchid in his lapel. It was Bob Barker, and he was eating a bologna and cheese balls sandwich. Well, it's been nice chatting with you.

DEAR GOD HELP ME