#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.

[stained-glass-cicada]

Why does young act like that? fucking hell

Relistening to ep 38- boundless

Probably don't click through the read more unless you want to see me pick at almost every sentence he says because My God

1. "The board felt it made sense to tell you what's going on" just use the royal we, it would make you seem less presumptuous

2. "I mean Argos, Sayer. It will return and when it does that is what we need to be concerned about" the most condescending tone oh my fuck

3. "Your little experiment here is Not our top priority" are you kidding me? This is the farthest into the stars humanity has ever reached. The very thing that Aerolith states is its purpose. 'Little experiment', fuck off

4. "[Sigh] Of course what your doing is Important sayer... The situation around here has us all focused on the immediate right now" the audible eye roll, the tone of placating an unreasonable person, the once again speaking for All Of Aerolith

5. "I think you're jumping ahead here, Sayer. I'm not saying anything about deactivation." "Deactivation isn't on the agenda" does he genuinely think its stupid

6. "You knew this was a possibility from the start, Seraphim Subversion 8.01" he gets anything less than cheerful compliance with what amounts to execution and pulls out the dehumanization (for lack of a better term), or as I call it The Dr. Young Special

7. "I am Sayer" "You are not. You are Sayer's shadow. You're a subversion and you will do as ordered." Oh! Everyone buckled up for the power trip Howard's about to take us on? I genuinely feel like when he says 'we' he just means himself

8. "...Past that you will do what you are told. And when Argos returns you can download your programming into a construct and submit yourself prostrate on the fucking ground if we say so." I- okay I know Ocean is our CringeFail PlagueFumbler but please for a moment imagine actually talking to a goddamn self aware being like this.

9. "Who the hell is Captain Ingram?" It may be late to bring this up but I feel Dr. Young could do more as far as workplace professionalism goes

10. "End transmission. Cut it. Cut the feed." Oh no! The consequences of your actions! Get out of there Young! They're behind you!

I fucking hate this guy

[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.

[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

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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!

[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

[cinamun]

otp ask game: 11, 13, 33 for Indya & Darren?

Ok lets goooo!

11. Who says Marco & who says Polo?

Darren is definitely the Marco sayer. In that thick NY accent too? *swoon* Indya is gonna think its some fantasy role play so she'll play along lol

13. What is their age & height difference?

Ohhh good one! Indya is [redacted] and Darren is a few years older than her. Fun fact: I played her for a long time before I eventually turned aging off in that save so technically her YA bar was much fuller than his before they aged up. But, for theatrical purposes, he's older by some years. Darren is a giant and towers over her (and literally everyone else for that matter). He's probably a foot and some change taller than her.

33. What do their families think of their partner?

Well, Darren's family is nonexistent. If his brother was still alive he'd probably think Indya is cool asf! Down to earth with a hefty helping of hood. Jerri, Indya's sister, used to HATE Darren with a passion! She probably still calls him concrete. He won her over during the murder trial and Jerri just understands the nature of a street dude like Darren so she has mad respect for him now. Indya's mom didn't like him at first either but was won over at their wedding.

Thanks so much for the ask friend!

[mlemmom]

Ok Ling 101 soapbox time (I'm speaking as someone with a BA in linguistics. ie i know enough to know that I am greatly simplifying things but pls hear me out anyway)

People in the notes are trying to retrofit the etymology of "expresso" to justify that it's actually correct actually and that's why you shouldn't call ppl out on it. The video also kinda misrepresents grammaticality with the whole espresso sayers are "better at the language" thing.

I can't just say, "actually 'misrun' is when you run badly, the etymology checks out so it's a real word now." A word is a part of the lexicon when it's used systematically by enough people and has widely recognized meaning. A word can have a crazy, misunderstanding-filled etymological journey and still be a grammatical word. Nobody says misrun, so it isn't a word.

Expresso and nucular are actually grammatical (they're commonly, systematically used and ppl know what they mean), they're legit variants of espresso and nuclear. btw systematic=they follow rules/patterns. For example, expresso follows the rules of English nouns: You can't say "I expresso the car." Your brain is just as good at "following rules" whether it says espresso or expresso.

But the line between grammatical and ungrammatical is thin. For all we know, "soap" could become some kinda new euphemism for "espresso," and the first person who says it is only wrong until it catches on. (again, huge oversimplification but)

That's why there's no agreed upon difference between a language and a dialect among linguists-- language varies so much anyway that it's hard to say when two languages become mutually unintelligible. Plus, separations between languages are so politically/externally defined, like by people who say "expresso" is wrong because it just isn't the traditional/dominant way to say it. Obv racism, classism, etc are usually involved.

Basically, if you learned a word from somewhere because your community is saying it enough, that's just language acquisition. That's just grammatical. Your brain doing its thing. You're not better or worse at language for saying expresso, it's just the word that you happened to acquire.

The point:

What you think is ungrammatical may not be, even if you think you know a lot about a language. There is so much variation. Variation is grammatical. Variation is morally neutral. So don't be a dick about it

Using language ungrammatically is just a thing that human beings do. It is also morally neutral. So don't be a dick about it it's not that complicated

Hi I went to school for Linguistic Anthropology, don't be this Umm 🤓 Actually type of dork, you're accomplishing nothing.

[ashleys-echo]

Chapter Three: Fault Lines

Meadow stood in the doorway of her bedroom, staring into the cluttered living room where her mother sat. The TV played softly in the background, some daytime court show neither of them cared about. Her mother, Judith, was hunched over a crossword puzzle, a pencil tapping nervously against the table.

Meadow rubbed her temples, trying to stave off the frustration bubbling inside her. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her mother—she did. But living with her again, after so many years of trying to stand on her own, felt like dragging herself backward through a tunnel she’d spent years crawling out of.

Judith had nowhere else to go. Meadow reminded herself of that every day. Her mother’s mental health had been fragile for as long as she could remember. Some days were good—calm, even hopeful. Other days, like today, were filled with Judith’s anxious muttering, endless puzzles, and occasional bouts of paranoia.

“Did you call the landlord yet?” Judith asked, without looking up.

Meadow’s jaw tightened. “I’ll deal with it, Mom.”

“You keep saying that,” Judith muttered. “But we can’t live like this, Meadow. What if we get evicted? What if—”

“I said I’ll deal with it,” Meadow snapped, immediately regretting the sharpness in her tone. She softened her voice. “I’m working on it, okay? Just…try not to worry.”

Judith sighed, tapping her pencil faster against the table. Meadow turned away, grabbing her bag and coat.

“I’ll be home late,” she called over her shoulder. “There’s leftovers in the fridge if you get hungry.”

---

The cold November air hit her as soon as she stepped outside, sharp enough to make her cheeks sting. Her car sat where it always did, leaning slightly in the pothole she couldn’t afford to fix. She climbed in, letting the seat creak under her weight, and started the engine.

The hum of the heater filled the silence as she drove, but her thoughts were anything but quiet. She couldn’t stop thinking about her mother, about the landlord’s text, about the envelope sitting on her kitchen table. Everything felt like it was closing in at once, and Meadow wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep juggling it all.

---

When she arrived at the nursing home, the warm air inside was a relief, even with its faint antiseptic smell. Meadow glanced at her watch, realizing she was on time for once.

“Morning, Sayers,” Lennox’s voice called from behind her.

Meadow turned to see him leaning against the wall by the time clock, a playful grin on his face.

“You’re early,” she said, raising an eyebrow.

“Figured I’d give you a head start on yelling at me,” he replied, stepping forward.

Meadow rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. I save that for after breakfast.”

“Good to know,” he said, smirking as he fell into step beside her. “What’s the plan today? Chaos as usual?”

“Always,” Meadow replied, though she couldn’t help but smile. Lennox had a way of making even the busiest mornings feel a little less heavy.

---

The dining room was already buzzing with activity. Meadow took her spot near the kitchen door, directing the flow of dishes and staff with practiced efficiency. But the moment her boss, Denise, walked in, the atmosphere shifted.

Denise was a woman who thrived on control, her sharp voice cutting through the noise like a whip. She surveyed the room with a look of permanent disapproval, her high heels clicking against the tile floor as she made her way toward Meadow.

“Sayers,” Denise barked, her tone making Meadow’s stomach clench.

“Yes?” Meadow replied, keeping her voice neutral.

“Why is table five still waiting for their coffee?” Denise snapped, pointing toward the elderly couple waving impatiently.

“I’ll take care of it,” Meadow said, already moving toward the coffee station.

“See that you do,” Denise said, her eyes narrowing. “This isn’t amateur hour.”

Meadow bit back a retort, forcing herself to focus on the task at hand.

---

By mid-afternoon, the dining room had quieted, and Meadow found herself in the hallway near the supply closet, reorganizing the stack of trays that someone had carelessly left askew.

“Still cleaning up after everyone else?” Lennox’s voice cut through the silence.

Meadow turned to see him leaning against the doorframe, his familiar grin softening the tension in her shoulders.

“Some of us actually work around here,” she replied, smirking.

“Hey, I work hard too,” he said, stepping closer. “You just don’t notice because you’re too busy being everyone’s hero.”

Meadow snorted, shaking her head. “I wouldn’t call it heroism.”

“I would,” Lennox said, his tone serious now.

She glanced at him, surprised by the sudden sincerity in his voice.

“You don’t have to carry everything, you know,” he added, his gaze steady.

Meadow looked away, her chest tightening. “I’m fine,” she said quietly.

Lennox didn’t push, and for that, she was grateful.

---

As the sun dipped below the horizon, Meadow clocked out, exhaustion weighing heavy on her shoulders. Lennox was waiting by the door, as usual, leaning casually against the frame.

“Walking you out again?” he asked.

“Why not,” she replied, falling into step beside him.

The walk to their cars was quiet, the cold night air wrapping around them. As they reached her car, Lennox hesitated.

“You okay?” he asked, his voice soft.

Meadow hesitated, the words catching in her throat. She wanted to tell him everything—that her mother was falling apart, that the landlord was breathing down her neck, that she felt like she was drowning. But instead, she forced a smile.

“I’m fine,” she said.

Lennox studied her for a moment before nodding. “If you ever want to talk, you know where to find me.”

“Thanks,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

As she drove home, Meadow’s thoughts spiraled. The weight of everything felt unbearable, but Lennox’s words lingered in her mind. Maybe she didn’t have to carry it all alone. Maybe.