laqualassiel

[laqualassiel]

I don't know how strictly accurate this is, but one of the things I find shocking about watching historical dramas is how many people there are around all the time---according to Madame de... (1953) a well-off French household in the Belle Epoque maintains a workforce of at least 3, and the glittering opera has staff just to open doors. According to Shogun (2024) you can expect a deep bench just to mind your household, and again, people who exist to open doors.

Could people....not open doors in the past? Were doors tricky, before the standardization of hinges? Because otherwise, the wealthy used to pay a whole bunch of people to do it for them in multiple contexts, and I find myself baffled.

[laqualassiel]

Horses: Since There Seems To Be A Knowledge Gap

I'm going to go ahead and preface this with: I comment pretty regularly on clips and photos featuring horses and horseback riding, often answering questions or providing explanations for how or why certain things are done. I was a stable hand and barrel racer growing up, and during my 11 year tenure on tumblr, Professional Horse Commentary is a very niche, yet very necessary, subject that needs filling. Here are some of the literary and creative gaps I've noticed in well meaning (and very good!) creators trying to portray horses and riding realistically that... well, most of you don't seem to even be aware of, because you wouldn't know unless you worked with horses directly!

Some Of The Most Common Horse + Riding Mistakes I See:

-Anybody can ride any horse if you hold on tight enough/have ridden once before.

Nope. No, no, no, no, aaaaaaaand, no. Horseback riding has, historically, been treated as a life skill taught from surprisingly young ages. It wasn't unusual in the pre-vehicular eras to start teaching children as young as 4 to begin to ride, because horses don't come with airbags, and every horse is different. For most adults, it can take months or years of regular lessons to learn to ride well in the saddle, and that's just riding; not working or practicing a sport.

Furthermore, horses often reject riders they don't know. Unless a horse has been trained like a teaching horse, which is taught to tolerate riders of all skill and experience levels, it will take extreme issue with having some random person try to climb on their back. Royalty, nobility, and the knighted classes are commonly associated with the "having a favorite special horse" trope, because it's true! Just like you can have a particularly special bond with a pet or service animal that verges on parental, the same can apply with horses. Happy horses love their owners/riders, and will straight-up do their best to murder anyone that tries to ride them without permission.

-Horses are stupid/have no personality.

There isn't a more dangerous assumption to make than assuming a horse is stupid. Every horse has a unique personality, with traits that can be consistent between breeds (again, like cat and dog breeds often have distinct behavior traits associated with them), but those traits manifest differently from animal to animal.

My mother had an Arabian horse, Zipper, that hated being kicked as a signal to gallop. One day, her mom and stepdad had a particularly unpleasant visitor; an older gentleman that insisted on riding Zipper, but refused to listen to my mother's warnings never to kick him. "Kicking" constitutes hitting the horse's side(s) with your heels, whether you have spurs on or not. Most horses only need a gentle squeeze to know what you want them to do.

Anyway, Zipper made eye-contact with my mom, asking for permission. He understood what she meant when she nodded at him. He proceeded to give this asshole of a rider road rash on the side of the paddock fence and sent him to the emergency room. He wouldn't have done it if he didn't have the permission from the rider he respected, and was intelligent enough to ask, "mind if I teach this guy a lesson?" with his eyes, and understand, "Go for it, buddy," from my mom in return.

-Riding bareback is possible to do if you hold onto the horse's mane really tight.

Riding a horse bareback (with no saddle, stirrups, or traditional harness around the horse's head) is unbelievably difficult to learn, particularly have testicles and value keeping them. Even professional riders and equestrians find ourselves relying on tack (the stuff you put on a horse to ride it) to stay stable on our horses, even if we've been riding that particular horse for years and have a very positive, trusting relationship.

Horses sweat like people do. The more they run, the more their hair saturates with sweat and makes staying seated on them slippery. Hell, an overworked horse can sweat so heavily that the saddle slips off its back. It's also essential to brush and bathe a horse before it's ridden in order to keep it healthier, so their hair is often quite slick from either being very clean or very damp. In order to ride like that, you have to develop the ability to synchronize your entire body's rhythm's with the rhythm of the horse's body beneath you, and quite literally move as one. Without stirrups, most people can't do it, and some people can never master bareback riding no matter how many years they spend trying to learn.

-You can be distracted and make casual conversation while a horse is standing untethered in the middle of a barn or field.

At every barn I've ever worked at, it's been standard practice with every single horse, regardless of age or temperament, to secure their heads while they're being tacked up or tacked down. The secures for doing this are simple ropes with clips that are designed to attach to the horse's halter (the headwear for a horse that isn't being ridden; they have no bit that goes in the horse's mouth, and no reins for a rider to hold) on metal O rings on either side of the horse's head. This is not distressing to the horse, because we give them plenty of slack to turn their heads and look around comfortably.

The problem with trying to tack up an unrestrained horse while chatting with fellow stable hands or riders is that horses know when you're distracted! And they often try to get away with stuff when they know you're not looking! In a barn, a horse often knows where the food is stored, and will often try to tiptoe off to sneak into the feed room.

Horses that get into the feed room are often at a high risk of dying. While extremely intelligent, they don't have the ability to throw up, and they don't have the ability to tell that their stomach is full and should stop eating. Allowing a horse into a feed/grain room WILL allow it to eat itself to death.

Other common woes stable hands and riders deal with when trying to handle a horse with an unrestrained head is getting bitten! Horses express affection between members of their own herd, and those they consider friends and family, through nibbling and surprisingly rough biting. It's not called "horseplay" for nothing, because during my years working with horses out in the pasture, it wasn't uncommon at all for me to find individuals with bloody bite marks on their withers (that high part on the middle of the back of their shoulders most people instinctively reach for when they try to get up), and on their backsides. I've been love-bitten by horses before, and while flattering, they hurt like hell on fleshy human skin.

So, for the safety of the horse, and everybody else, always make a show of somehow controlling the animal's head when hands-on and on the ground with them.

-Big Horse = War Horse

Startlingly, the opposite is usually the case! Draft and carriage horses, like Percherons and Friesians, were never meant to be used in warfare. Draft horses are usually bred to be extremely even-tempered, hard to spook, and trustworthy around small children and animals. Historically, they're the tractors of the farm if you could afford to upgrade from oxen, and were never built to be fast or agile in a battlefield situation.

More importantly, just because a horse is imposing and huge doesn't make it a good candidate for carrying heavy weights. A real thing that I had to be part of enforcing when I worked at a teaching ranch was a weight limit. Yeah, it felt shitty to tell people they couldn't ride because we didn't have any horses strong enough to carry them due to their weight, but it's a matter of the animal's safety. A big/tall/chonky horse is more likely to be built to pull heavy loads, but not carry them flat on their spines. Horses' muscular power is predominantly in their ability to run and pull things, and too heavy a rider can literally break a horse's spine and force us to euthanize it.

Some of the best war horses out there are from the "hot blood" family. Hot blooded horses are often from dry, hot, arid climates, are very small and slight (such as Arabian horses), and are notoriously fickle and flighty. They're also a lot more likely to paw/bite/kick when spooked, and have even sometimes been historically trained to fight alongside their rider if their rider is dismounted in combat; kicking and rearing to keep other soldiers at a distance.

-Any horse can be ridden if it likes you enough.

Just like it can take a lifetime to learn to ride easily, it can take a lifetime of training for a horse to comfortably take to being ridden or taking part in a job, like pulling a carriage. Much like service animals, horses are typically trained from extremely young ages to be reared into the job that's given to them, and an adult horse with no experience carrying a rider is going to be just as scared as a rider who's never actually ridden a horse.

Just as well, the process of tacking up a horse isn't always the most comfortable experience for the horse. To keep the saddle centered on the horse's back when moving at rough or fast paces, it's essential to tighten the belly strap (cinch) of the saddle as tightly as possible around the horse's belly. For the horse, it's like wearing a tight corset, chafes, and even leaves indents in their skin afterward that they love having rinsed with water and scratched. Some horses will learn to inflate their bellies while you're tightening the cinch so you can't get it as tight as it needs to be, and then exhale when they think you're done tightening it.

When you're working with a horse wearing a bridle, especially one with a bit, it can be a shocking sensory experience to a horse that's never used a bit before. While they lack a set of teeth naturally, so the bit doesn't actually hurt them, imagine having a metal rod shoved in your mouth horizontally! Unless you understand why it's important for the person you care about not dying, you'd be pretty pissed about having to keep it in there!

-Horseback riding isn't exercise.

If you're not using every muscle in your body to ride with, you're not doing it right.

Riding requires every ounce of muscle control you have in your entire body - although this doesn't mean it wasn't realistic for people with fat bodies to stay their weight while also being avid riders; it doesn't mean the muscles aren't there. To stay on the horse, you need to learn how it feels when it moves at different gaits (walk, trot, canter, gallop), how to instruct it to switch leads (dominant legs; essential for precise turning and ease of communication between you and the horse), and not falling off. While good riders look like they're barely moving at all, that's only because they're good riders. They know how to move so seamlessly with the horse, feeling their movements like their own, that they can compensate with their legs and waists to not bounce out of the saddle altogether or slide off to one side. I guarantee if you ride a horse longer than 30 minutes for the first time, your legs alone will barely work and feel like rubber.

-Horses aren't affectionate.

Horses are extraordinarily affectionate toward the right people. As prey animals, they're usually wary of people they don't know, or have only recently met. They also - again, like service animals - have a "work mode" and a "casual mode" depending upon what they're doing at the time. Horses will give kisses like puppies, wiggle their upper lips on your hair/arms to groom you, lean into neck-hugs, and even cuddle in their pasture or stall if it's time to nap and you join them by leaning against their sides. If they see you coming up from afar and are excited to see you, they'll whinny and squeal while galloping to meet you at the gate. They'll deliberately swat you with their tails to tease you, and will often follow you around the pasture if they're allowed to regardless of what you're up to.

-Riding crops are cruel.

Only cruel people use riding crops to hurt their horses. Spurs? I personally object to, because any horse that knows you well doesn't need something sharp jabbing them in the side for emphasis when you're trying to tell them where you want them to go. Crops? Are genuinely harmless tools used for signalling a horse.

I mean, think about it. Why would crops be inherently cruel instruments if you need to trust a horse not to be afraid of you and throw you off when you're riding it?

Crops are best used just to lightly tap on the left or right flank of the horse, and aren't universally used with all forms of riding. You'll mainly see crops used with English riding, and they're just tools for communicating with the horse without needing to speak.

-There's only one way to ride a horse.

Not. At. All. At most teaching ranches, you'll get two options: Western, or English, because they tend to be the most popular for shows and also the most common to find equipment for. English riding uses a thinner, smaller saddle, narrower stirrups, and much thinner bridles. I, personally, didn't like English style riding because I never felt very stable in such a thin saddle with such small stirrups, and didn't start learning until my mid teens. English style riding tends to focus more on your posture and deportment in the saddle, and your ability to show off your stability and apparent immovability on the horse. It was generally just a bit too stiff and formal for me.

Western style riding utilizes heavier bridles, bigger saddles (with the iconic horn on the front), and broader stirrups. Like its name may suggest, Western riding is more about figuring out how to be steady in the saddle while going fast and being mobile with your upper body. Western style riding is generally the style preferred for working-type shows, such as horseback archery, gunning, barrel racing, and even rodeo riding.

-Wealthy horse owners have no relationship with their horses.

This is loosely untrue, but I've seen cases where it is. Basically, horses need to feel like they're working for someone that matters to them in order to behave well with a rider and not get impatient or bored. While it's common for people to board horses at off-property ranches (boarding ranches) for cost and space purposes, it's been historically the truth that having help is usually necessary with horses at some point. What matters is who spends the most time with the animal treating it like a living being, rather than a mode of transport or a tool. There's no harm in stable hands handling the daily upkeep; hay bales and water buckets are heavy, and we're there to profit off the labor you don't want or have the time to do. You get up early to go to work; we get up early to look after your horses. Good owners/boarders visit often and spend as much of their spare time as they can with spending quality work and playtime with their horses. Otherwise, the horses look to the stable hands for emotional support and care.

So, maybe you're writing a knight that doesn't really care much for looking after his horse, but his squire is really dedicated to keeping up with it? There's a better chance of the horse having a more affectionate relationship with the squire thanks to the time the squire spends on looking after it, while the horse is more likely to tolerate the knight that owns it as being a source of discipline if it misbehaves. That doesn't mean the knight is its favorite person. When it comes to horses, their love must be earned, and you can only earn it by spending time with them hands-on.

-Horses can graze anywhere without concern.

This is a mistake that results in a lot of premature deaths! A big part of the cost of owning a horse - even before you buy one - is having the property that will be its pasture assessed for poisonous plants, and having those plants removed from being within the animal's reach. This is an essential part of farm upkeep every year, because horses really can't tell what's toxic and what isn't. One of the reasons it's essential to secure a horse when you aren't riding it is to ensure it only has a very limited range to graze on, and it's your responsibility as the owner/rider to know how to identify dangerous plants and keep your horses away from them.

There's probably more. AMA in my askbox if you have any questions, but that's all for now. Happy writing.

[laqualassiel]

Sailor's superstition - North German version

Here are a few little things from the North German - Frisian region that I don't want to withhold from you.

Your ship must not have a name ending in A. This will ensure that your wooden lady will get mad and try to drown you.

On the way to the ship, avoid the sight of a woman in a white bonnet, especially if she is barefoot. This she-devil will only get you into trouble (and not just with her husband if he catches you).

But while we're on the subject of white, a flock of sheep on your path is a real blessing and will bring you luck on your journey. The same goes for the call of a cuckoo.

On board, besides women and clergymen, civilians, chickens and lawyers were also unwelcome, they bring bad luck, only trouble or serve as a basis for witches to curse you and your ship.

But to keep the devil at bay, all sailors had a nickname.

No good wind ? then hang a broom on the mast. And preferably in the direction from which the wind should come.

Many sailors in the navy couldn't swim, but ordinary fishermen or hallig sailors were able to. And in order to swim, you had to wade to a certain depth and then dive head first into the water to avoid drowning and scaring off the fish in the area, as they would mistake the sailor or fisherman for one of them.

[laqualassiel]

Big fan of sun motifs in characters not necessarily being about positivity and happiness and how they're so " bright and warm" but instead being about fucking brutal they are.

Radiant. A FORCE of nature that will turn you to ash. That warmth that burns so hot it feels like ice. Piercing yellow and red and white. A character being a Sun because you cannot challenge a Sun without burning alive or taking everything down with them if victorious.

[laqualassiel]

I’m noticing an increase in new fic writers on AO3 who…uh…mayy not know how to format their fics correctly..so here is a quick and VERY important tip

Using a random fic of mine as example..

The left example: ✅✅✅

The right example: ❌❌❌

Idk how many times I’ve read a good fic summary and been so excited to read before clicking on it and being met with an ugly wall of text. When I see a huge text brick with zero full line breaks my eyes blur and I just siiiigh bc either I click out immediately or I grin and bear it…it’s insufferable!

If a new character speaks, you need a line break. If you notice a paragraph is becoming too large, go ahead and make a line break and/or maybe reconfigure the paragraph to flow better. I’m not a pro writer or even a huge fic writer but…please…ty…

[laqualassiel]

Dialogue tips that actually work:

You are not writing a movie (ignore this if you are). The reader doesn't need to know every word the characters say for the duration of the story. Less is more.

Dialogue can happen within the prose. "And they awkwardky discussed the weather for five minutes" is way better than actually writing five pages of dialogue about the weather.

Balance your dialogues. Surprise yourself with a monosyllabic answe to a dialogue that's ten sentences long. Don't be afraid of letting your character use half a page for a reply or nothing at all!

Don't write accents phonetically, use slang and colloquialisms if needed.

Comma before "said" and no caps after "!?" unless it's an action tag. Study dialogue punctuation.

Learn the difference between action tags and dialogue tags. Then, use them interchangeably (or none at all).

Don't be afraid to use said. Use said if characters are just saying things, use another word if not. Simple. There's no need to use fancy synonyms unless absolutely necessary.

Not everyone talks the same way so it makes sense for your characters to use certain words more often than others. Think of someone who says "like" to start every sentence or someone who talks really slow. Be creative.

Use prose to slow down the pace during a conversation.

Skip prose to speed up the pace during a conversation.

[laqualassiel]

"corsets are a barbaric painful tool of the patriarchy" says the era with sitting down pants and waist trainers and push up bras and brazilian butt lifts and preventative botox and full coverage foundation and no makeup makeup and full body waxing and and and and

[laqualassiel]

Writeblr Resources: Writing Realistic Scientists

This rant is brought to you by the sasquatch program I was listening to on the way home from work and how glibly it insisted that scientists were suppressing the evidence. While the theories that the sasquatch advocate threw out there were interesting in terms of story potential, they reminded me how few writers have a science background. Personally, I have a BS in environmental science, i.e. being shuffled between the geography, biology, and chemistry departments for four years, and I’m currently employed as a microbiologist, so I do have that background. Have 10 (yes, 10) of my pet peeves.

1. The Omnidisciplinary Scientist, or as I like to call it, the comic book scientist. Scientists specialize heavily. You will get a grounding beyond the layperson’s high school coverage of fields related to yours if you go into a science, but it won’t be ALL fields of science. I have a less than high school level grasp of physics due to the fact that it was never required in my field. When you get really deep into technical stuff, however, two people in the same broad field might not know much about the other’s specialty. A particle physicist and an astrophysicist might only have a very basic grounding in each other’s experiments, though they’ve got a leg up on me in explaining them to each other. 

A physicist telling a neuroscientist that they’ve discovered consciousness doesn’t read as good science, nor should you cite a dentist as a “scientist” in your argument about global warming. 2. Instant Results. CSI and other police procedurals are the primary culprits here, but also scifi tends to give people instant confirmation of what something is. Whether that’s germ identification, a blood test, or a chemical reaction, all experiments require setup time, controlled conditions, correct equipment, and analysis. If the machine does all the work in a few minutes, you don’t need a scientist. For example: pregnancy tests used to take weeks, because urine samples from the potentially pregnant person had to be shipped to a lab, injected into frogs, and then the frogs had to be monitored to see if they released eggs. Now, you pee on a stick, because scientists spent years finding a quick chemical reaction (actually a change of reactions) that gave you a simple visible sign that specific hormones were present in your pee. 

The frogs, presumably, are very relieved. 3. The insanely well-funded science lab. All experiments take money. Whether it’s for materials, equipment, or to pay an undergrad to count fruit flies every six hours, it’s just not plausible for most scientists to have every single piece of equipment they could ever need - and not all of the tools are publicly purchasable to begin with. My brother works with a biologist who has had to design a program to do statistics on bone shapes from almost scratch - when it’s done and they’ve published a paper on it, it will be publicly available, but until that happens, anyone who has to do the same analysis has to put years into developing the protocol themselves. Also, as an example I’ve actually worked with, a Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometer (a relatively common, if fancy, instrument in chemistry that can identify most chemicals with the right person running it,) can cost a hundred thousand dollars used. Routine maitenance (replacing a consumable part like the coil,) can cost hundreds of dollars, and if you use the machine more frequently you have to do it more frequently. And god forbid something goes wrong with the mechanical parts or the programming - it’s hardwired to a computer as old as your undergrad, and the last time they manufactured any replacement parts for the thing was 1986. (If you want to hack one of these investment pieces of equipment by the way, forget about it - even something with a modern OS probably isn’t internet-enabled, as there is nothing that researchers hate more than waiting for an OS update before they can finish an experiment. Even relatively cheap instruments that run off a cheap modern laptop are pretty routinely debugged by having the wifi disabled, as nine times out of ten your program being messed up is because Windows updated. You have to physically go to the machine, put the files on a jump drive IF they are readable outside the program, and transfer them to something else. Or you can screenshot them and export the pics onto the jump file. Or copy them into excel and transfer the excel file.)

Addendum: hacking does not work like that. If you’ve seen it in a movie, it is either outdated in terms of computer science, or excessively dumbed down. 4. The Work dies with the scientist. If your work will be lost if you should meet with an unhappy fate, you are a supremely shitty scientist. First - very few fields that aren’t pure mathematics or computing can be undertaken solo. Academics have postdocs to do the analysis, grad students to do the specialized lab work, and undergrads to do the prep work. Businesses have PhD’s to do the final analysis, junior scientists to design and run experiments, and lab techs to clean up after them, and provide explanation for why the GCMS is disabled while windows updates. (Full disclosure: the reason I’m harping on this is because it happened to me with a spectrophotometer and I’m still not over whoever re-enabled the wifi.) Also, though a company or secret shady government agency will not release your work for peer review the way an academic institution will, they will need the documentation of your work to file patents, or replicate it with the rest of their researchers.

If the field has merit and enough funding that other people will actually spend time on the same experiment, no one lone genius is the only person who could ever make a discovery. In fact, discoveries are independently replicated all the time, because most of them are enabled by other discoveries or new technology. 

5. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Science is a delicate balance between admitting that something *could* be happening and pointing out that just because I haven’t proven you wrong yet doesn’t mean that you’re right.

A plausible use of the absence of evidence: “We haven’t found any Higgs Bosons yet, but that does not mean that they don’t exist.” (As of 2013 they found some.) It’s plausible because all evidence suggested that the HB was possible, its existence strengthened longstanding theories that hundreds of people had failed to disprove and dozens of people had discovered supporting evidence of, and because it was something they could test for with the available technology.

An implausible use “We haven’t found any conclusive evidence of Sasquatches, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.” It’s implausible because we don’t have any credible evidence that they do exist - there is no longstanding theory or model that claims that the pacific northwest can support a significant population of bear sized hominid omnivores, and no plausible physical evidence that such creatures ever existed. It contradicts a whole host of theories in a lot of scientific disciplines: Ecology would posit that we would know about the role of such a large omnivore since they’d have a similar impact on local resources to an equivalent amount of bears, the recent fossil record and paleoarchaeology have yet to find any evidence that homonids other than anatomically modern humans have lived in north america, statistics would argue that if the creature is common enough and lives close enough to humans for sightings to ever be reported it would leave some evidence more credible than eyewitness testimony behind. 

6. Contradiction is proof of being wrong. A single data point contradicting a theory is almost never an indication that the theory has been disproven. Science is done by humans, and mistakes are made. Similarly, a single success is not proof that you’re right. You need to do an experiment a lot to have enough data to be certain that what you think is happening is actually happening. For example, those of you who took a statistics class can attest that just because you flipped a coin ten times and it landed on heads seven times doesn’t mean that you’re twice as likely to come up heads. You need to flip it a hundred times or more to have enough data to really do anything with it.

[laqualassiel]

I've had this little idea in my head for a while now, so I decided to sit down and plot it out.

Disclaimer: This isn't meant to be some sort of One-Worksheet-Fits-All situation. This is meant to be a visual representation of some type of story planning you could be doing in order to develop a plot!

Lay down groundwork! (Backstory integral to the beginning of your story.) Build hinges. (Events that hinge on other events and fall down like dominoes) Suspend structures. (Withhold just enough information to make the reader curious, and keep them guessing.)

And hey, is this helps... maybe sit down and write a story! :)

[laqualassiel]

That Prince Prompto fanart might have possibly spawned another plunny. Wanna hear it?

*looks at enclosure full of bunnies marked “ffxv aus”*

You know what, fuck it, why not, they’re ready spawning more on their own, one more won’t hurt.

#ffxv #asks #crosspost

[laqualassiel]

Does Regis formally acknowledges Prompto as his daughter, with a royal title and everything? How would they explain that to people?

Or does she just move into the Citadel and they say it's for her protection?

Honestly, it’ll probably depend on what Prompto wants. I doubt she’d want to make a big deal of it, because the last thing she’d want is the scrutiny of being a royal bastard, especially given the short time between her and Noctis’s birthdates.

So if the assumed relationship between Prompto and Regis is officially recognized, they’d probably go the adoption route as a cover.

#ffxv #Spark!Ardyn au #Prompto Argentum #Regis Lucis Caelum #crosspost

[laqualassiel]

Tips for writing those gala scenes, from someone who goes to them occasionally:

Generally you unbutton and re-button a suit coat when you sit down and stand up.

You’re supposed to hold wine or champagne glasses by the stem to avoid warming up the liquid inside. A character out of their depth might hold the glass around the sides instead.

When rich/important people forget your name and they’re drunk, they usually just tell you that they don’t remember or completely skip over any opportunity to use your name so they don’t look silly.

A good way to indicate you don’t want to shake someone’s hand at an event is to hold a drink in your right hand (and if you’re a woman, a purse in the other so you definitely can’t shift the glass to another hand and then shake)

Americans who still kiss cheeks as a welcome generally don’t press lips to cheeks, it’s more of a touch of cheek to cheek or even a hover (these days, mostly to avoid smudging a woman’s makeup)

The distinctions between dress codes (black tie, cocktail, etc) are very intricate but obvious to those who know how to look. If you wear a short skirt to a black tie event for example, people would clock that instantly even if the dress itself was very formal. Same thing goes for certain articles of men’s clothing.

Open bars / cash bars at events usually carry limited options. They’re meant to serve lots of people very quickly, so nobody is getting a cosmo or a Manhattan etc.

Members of the press generally aren’t allowed to freely circulate at nicer galas/events without a very good reason. When they do, they need to identify themselves before talking with someone.

[laqualassiel]

You know, I always headcanoned that once Niflheim got their hands on some photos of the prince and his civilian friend, they absolutely knew that Prompto was an escaped clone. The resemblance to Besithia was obvious, after all. They just didn't bother to do anything with it, since it's not like they need that particular clone and it's not even like Prompto has a sleeper programming.

But in the Spark verse, well. Prompto is a child of an Oracle. And if Glauca is a thing, they might even know about her magic.

Either way, they really want to have her back.

I have been sitting on this ask for awhile, because I love it, but unfortunately the muses are not cooperating with me on it.

In most of my fics, Niflheim doesn’t really bother paying too much attention to Prompto - yeah, he’s the prince’s friend, but he’s civilian, and furthermore, not a member of his Retinue, so ergo, he can’t be that important to the prince. Not enough to be worth investing any resources into whatever aim they might want with Prompto anyway.

But in Spark au, Prompto is claimed as Noctis’ Heart far earlier than normal in an effort to protect her secret, and that makes Niflheim take a closer look at this civilian girl who’s gotten so close to the prince. And you’re right, the resemblance is uncanny if you know what to look for.

I feel like Titus wouldn’t know about Prompto’s magic. Noctis and the others are so very careful to keep her magic under wraps, and the cover of Prompto having Noctis’ magic so compelling, that Titus never realizes the truth.

Now, if they ever managed to get their hands on the Prince’s Heart long enough to somehow learn that carefully hidden truth… well.

That would change things, wouldn’t it?

#ffxv #Spark!Ardyn au #Prompto Argentum #Regis Lucis Caelum #Noctis Lucis Caelum #Cor Leonis #the great part here is that the misconception of Prompto's lineage is still going #and by the time that gets straightened out Regis is going to stare down whichever Fleurets are still alive #and *refuse* to give up custody of Prompto #Prompto's parents lose custody of Prompto when it comes to light just how often they left Prompto home alone #Prompto's parents probably don't face criminal charges on the condition that custody is turned over to Regis #because they did make sure Prompto always had a caretaker and saw to her schooling and medical needs etc #so they didn't actually do anything illegal #just barely #but it's close enough Regis could have pressed something #but they were loyal and dedicated servants of the Crown #for all that they turned out to be shitty parents #and Prompto still loves them #so a deal instead is made to turn custody over to Regis #and later when it comes out that surprise! Prompto's actually an Oracle baby! #Regis is going to be like 'you can pry my daughter out of my cold dead hands' #Sylva - if she's still alive because I still have no idea if the actual story portion of this will even get this far - #wisely only asks for visitation rights and for Prompto to visit Tenebrae for Oracle training #(as an aside - Raven I see that new blog description of yours and I fucking love it) #crosspost

[laqualassiel]

@secret-engima

Hey I don’t know if this is being talked about on Tumblr but thankfully the AO3 subreddit has a conversation going about this app that just went live.

TikTok user unravel.me.now has just launch an app (lore.fm) she is calling “Audible for AO3”. It’s an app that uses AI voices to read out fics.

🚨She is requiring any authors who do not want their fics to be on this app to OPT OUT by emailing [email protected] 🚨 🚨She has not given an actual template or how you’re supposed to prove you’re the author or said how her team will process this or how she will keep these requests secure🚨

I do not have this app. I haven’t seen anyone use it yet. According to Reddit users, unravel.me.now’s earlier TikToks stated she envisions the app being able to create libraries stored on that app and to have version of “Spotify wrapped”. That implies that eventually data collection must happen, if it’s not happening currently.

I don’t know the actual capabilities of this app. I don’t know the legalities. I do know that it personally feels like this app is trying to turn AO3 into a content generation source and I haven’t heard of the app allowing you to leave a comment or kudos or interact with the original work.

I’m just sad about this.

[laqualassiel]

love me a character who values hygiene and cleanliness but must, for plot reasons, inevitably become bloodsoaked

[laqualassiel]

You know, I always headcanoned that once Niflheim got their hands on some photos of the prince and his civilian friend, they absolutely knew that Prompto was an escaped clone. The resemblance to Besithia was obvious, after all. They just didn't bother to do anything with it, since it's not like they need that particular clone and it's not even like Prompto has a sleeper programming.

But in the Spark verse, well. Prompto is a child of an Oracle. And if Glauca is a thing, they might even know about her magic.

Either way, they really want to have her back.

I have been sitting on this ask for awhile, because I love it, but unfortunately the muses are not cooperating with me on it.

In most of my fics, Niflheim doesn’t really bother paying too much attention to Prompto - yeah, he’s the prince’s friend, but he’s civilian, and furthermore, not a member of his Retinue, so ergo, he can’t be that important to the prince. Not enough to be worth investing any resources into whatever aim they might want with Prompto anyway.

But in Spark au, Prompto is claimed as Noctis’ Heart far earlier than normal in an effort to protect her secret, and that makes Niflheim take a closer look at this civilian girl who’s gotten so close to the prince. And you’re right, the resemblance is uncanny if you know what to look for.

I feel like Titus wouldn’t know about Prompto’s magic. Noctis and the others are so very careful to keep her magic under wraps, and the cover of Prompto having Noctis’ magic so compelling, that Titus never realizes the truth.

Now, if they ever managed to get their hands on the Prince’s Heart long enough to somehow learn that carefully hidden truth… well.

That would change things, wouldn’t it?

#ffxv #Spark!Ardyn au #Prompto Argentum #stealing an LCs Retinue is a ballsy move #with potentially huge payoffs if everything goes well #though this could be a potential ‘reveal’ for Prompto supposedly being Regis’ daughter #Regis and Cor doing their hardest to find Noctis’ Heart and bring her home #and maybe one of them or Clarus walking in on Noctis and Ignis and Gladio arguing about whether or not to tell the adults about something #and Regis/Cor/Clarus being like ‘you wanna elaborate on that something?’ #the poor Chocobros mentally wondering how the hell they’re supposed to break it to the king that Prompto is his daughter #Noctis does not want to have that conversation #he’s still holding a grudge on Prompto’s behalf #I feel like Gladio would be the one to say it #blunt and to the point of ‘Prompto’s your daughter and she has magic we’ve been helping her hide because she didn’t want anyone to know’ #Regis is gonna have to sit down after that one #crosspost

[laqualassiel]

This tea cup with foxgloves and poison hemlock I found second hand 😭🤌

Yes it most definitely came home with me!